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Speaker 1: And so I go past the twenty second Street exit,

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Speaker 1: which is right there in Portland, and it just it

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Speaker 1: was one of those things where like it wasn't like

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Speaker 1: an audible voice, but it was like, we're moving to Portland,

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Speaker 1: like God saying like, you're moving to Portland. And I

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Speaker 1: was like, okay, I don't know what that looks like,

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Speaker 1: but all right now, Remember I'm not from Louisville. So

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Speaker 1: I go down to Sean and I say, hey, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think we're supposed to move to Portland and he

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Speaker 1: was like, you mean Oregon. I was like, no, no,

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Speaker 1: in Louisville and he was like, yeah, no.

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Speaker 2: No, you're talking about it. That ain't gonna be where

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Speaker 2: I'm moving to do because that's where you spy my

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Speaker 2: drugs in that neighbor I knew, like, this is not

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Speaker 2: the neighborhood for us to move too. And she was adamant.

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Speaker 2: She was like, now we're moving there.

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Speaker 3: And I was like, okay, welcome to an army of

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Speaker 3: normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm

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Speaker 3: a husband, a father, an entrepreneur, and I've been a

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Speaker 3: football coach in Inner City Memphis and at last part

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Speaker 3: somehow led to an oscar for the film about our team.

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Speaker 3: It's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems will

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Speaker 3: never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in

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Speaker 3: nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on

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Speaker 3: sinning in box, but rather by an army of normal folks. Y'all.

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Speaker 3: That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,

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Speaker 3: maybe I can help. That's what Sean and Inga Arvin,

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Speaker 3: the voices you just heard, have done. They felt called

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Speaker 3: to move to a challenging Louisville neighborhood called Portland, and

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Speaker 3: have since reinvigorated a community center and a fish fry,

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Speaker 3: opened a school and a thrift store. All of it

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Speaker 3: is part of their nonprofit call called Love City, And

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Speaker 3: to them, it's as simple as neighbors loving neighbors. I

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Speaker 3: cannot wait for you to meet the Arvins right after

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Speaker 3: these brief messages from our general sponsors, Inga and Sean Arvin,

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Speaker 3: Welcome to Memphis. We thank you, thank you, thanks for

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Speaker 3: driving down. You drove down last night. It was right

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Speaker 3: was a raining cats some not about.

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Speaker 2: And beautiful as as we got to about Jackson.

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Speaker 3: And you're from the booming metropolis I believe of Portland, Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, on the askirts of Louisville. I mean just uh,

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Speaker 2: they were about the same years when they were incorporated

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Speaker 2: and then Louisville took took them as a metro.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, and it's people in Portland, did they just

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Speaker 3: most of them just say I'm from the Louisville area.

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Speaker 3: Isn't that close?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: No, is that close?

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Speaker 3: But I say so Portland is It's distinct thing exactly.

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Speaker 2: It's no different than like here. We've learned just in

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Speaker 2: the last little bit that we've been here. You all

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Speaker 2: have all kinds of like name Germantown's it's called Lake

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Speaker 2: something or what. We were just at Starbucks and she

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Speaker 2: called it white Haven, white Haven white It's like that

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Speaker 2: in Louisville. Matter of fact, we were talking about this

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Speaker 2: last night. We were like, man, because we rode around

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Speaker 2: a little bit, just wanted to get the feel of

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Speaker 2: like where we're at. Uh, it feels a lot like Louisville, Kentucky.

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Speaker 2: I mean even uh, just to lay out in the.

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Speaker 3: Uh, Louisville and Memphis are similar cities.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I would say.

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Speaker 3: That for sure for sure. Well welcome, Thanks for coming

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Speaker 3: down for our listeners. You guys founded Love City, which

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Speaker 3: is a crazy story, and we're going to get to it, sure,

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Speaker 3: but first we got to kind of unpack you. And

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Speaker 3: we've got to give a shout out to Terry Holland,

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Speaker 3: which is how we know you. And it was a

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Speaker 3: quick message and it said, Hey, Bill, I would like

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Speaker 3: to share the story of two people, Sean and Inga

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Speaker 3: Arvin and their journey of establishing Love City in Portland, Kentucky.

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Speaker 3: You got to check them out, So shout out to Terry.

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Speaker 3: Who's Terry.

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Speaker 2: Terry's most definitely one of our good friends foremost. And

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Speaker 2: then she also does a ton of volunteering that Love

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Speaker 2: City and loves to work with the kids in reading.

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Speaker 2: One of the pphysits across America, not just in Portland, Kentucky,

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Speaker 2: is kids can't read, so we're trying to teach these

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Speaker 2: kids basic skills of reading to make them lifelong learners.

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Speaker 2: And she's a board member now and her and her

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Speaker 2: husband are highly involved in Love City. Uh, they're amazing

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Speaker 2: people and just ordinary people are trying to change the.

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Speaker 3: World in Memphis. You're a Memphian, if you're a Portlander,

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Speaker 3: what's a Portland.

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Speaker 2: They do call that. They say they use the word Portlander.

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Speaker 3: I guess, so, I guess Terry is a lifelong Portlanders.

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Speaker 3: She actually rides over.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, she crosses the boundary cross over mepact. I don't

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Speaker 2: know about here in Memphis, but in the segregation parts

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Speaker 2: of like how the layout of louis Is, the west

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Speaker 2: end of louis was predominantly the empire'steria. And uh, we

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Speaker 2: have a street that's called the Nice Street and it's

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Speaker 2: actually a big thing in Louisville, Kentucky. I grew up

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Speaker 2: there my whole life, and she grew up in Washington,

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Speaker 2: d C. And coast don't coastal Carolina, North Carolina. And uh,

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Speaker 2: but there is a divide and it's called the Nice

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Speaker 2: Street divide. And literally people who live on the east

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Speaker 2: side of the Ninth Street will tell people don't go

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Speaker 2: past that, the proverbial other side of the train, don't

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Speaker 2: go past nine Street. And you will literally, if you're

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Speaker 2: down in that area, you'll see people like slam on

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Speaker 2: their breaks. Yeah, freak out and freak out like I

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Speaker 2: can go down.

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Speaker 1: There, or they'll accidentally cross over and be like, how

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Speaker 1: do I turn around?

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Speaker 3: Because those poor people are going to kill you. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: that's ridiculous. Okay, So let's to get to Love City

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Speaker 3: and to really understand how this happened. We kind of

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Speaker 3: got to go back a little first to set it up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally would agree. So we might start that

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Speaker 2: story some for you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I want you to start your story and inga,

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Speaker 3: I want to hear your story and then how your

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Speaker 3: story's collided and you met, and then we'll go from there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 2: For me, it's a whole different story from the perspective

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Speaker 2: of I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, so I lived

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Speaker 2: there mostly my whole life. I have traveled around the

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Speaker 2: world and never a period of time I was in

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Speaker 2: the military, but mostly I've grew up in Louisville, Kentucky

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Speaker 2: my whole life. By the age of two years old,

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Speaker 2: I had already been mentally, physically and sexually abused. My

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Speaker 2: mother was a prostitute, I had no father, and it

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Speaker 2: was just just a free for all. Was in the seventies.

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Speaker 2: I was born in sixty seven, so the seventies was

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Speaker 2: just like wild and I grew up seeing a lot

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Speaker 2: of things I probably shouldn't have seen and grew up

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Speaker 2: way too fast. By the age of eight years old,

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Speaker 2: I was already an entrepreneur, hustling living in the projects,

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Speaker 2: and I would take out people's trash because nobody wanted

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Speaker 2: to walk all the way to the dumpster for a dime.

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Speaker 2: So I started a whole entrepreneurial like how to raise

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Speaker 2: a couple of bucks, you know, to go to the

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Speaker 2: corner market. And then throughout life I went to eighteen

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Speaker 2: different schools. I was man just probably when I graduated,

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Speaker 2: I still own a couple of grade points. And then

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Speaker 2: I joined the military, and then I was a hot

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Speaker 2: mess in the military, did that for about eight years,

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Speaker 2: traveled around the world, served in Desert Storm with the

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Speaker 2: hundred and first Airborne, and decided I was going to

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Speaker 2: get out of the military in ninety two. And at

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Speaker 2: that period of time, I had just got married, I

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Speaker 2: had just had a son, and it was man just

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out life. So you have all this

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Speaker 2: trauma from your childhood, then you have all this trauma

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Speaker 2: from the military, and then you try to mix. It's

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Speaker 2: like the worst storm, you know, and then a lot

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Speaker 2: of people don't realize, you know, you have all this trauma,

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Speaker 2: so you're trying to find false love. So you're running around.

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Speaker 2: And then I get out of the military, have a

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Speaker 2: new wife, a new son, and I'm working five six jobs,

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Speaker 2: trying to go to college. It was just a mess.

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Speaker 2: And then I got into drinking from the trauma, and

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Speaker 2: then got a divorce, and then I started man doing

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Speaker 2: some drugs and got into drugs and loved cocaine. It

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Speaker 2: was my like thing that like kept me partying so

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Speaker 2: I could stay up. And then on the weekends that

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Speaker 2: I didn't party, I had to be a dad. So

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Speaker 2: on the weekends I was a dad, I would be

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Speaker 2: Disneyland Dad. You know. It was never showing them like

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Speaker 2: what a father really was and what it's supposed to

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Speaker 2: look like. And then I got into just by hustling,

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Speaker 2: got into different streams of like employment and security job,

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Speaker 2: being a buyer for a pretty large company, and then

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Speaker 2: went up through the ranks and it pretty fast, and

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Speaker 2: people love a hustler, right, And we helped grow a

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Speaker 2: company from about seventy million dollars to about two point

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Speaker 2: two billion dollars, and I watched it get sold and

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Speaker 2: we were doing a lot of acquisations back in that

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Speaker 2: period of time where we were just man gobbling up companies.

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Speaker 2: It was just like it was wild. It was just fun,

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Speaker 2: Jet said, and man, it was just crazy and I

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Speaker 2: loved every minute of it. And two thousand and thirteen,

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Speaker 2: twenty thirteen, in January of twenty thirteen, we got sold

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Speaker 2: out our company and then lo and behold, man, they

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Speaker 2: came in and they let me go, and all my

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Speaker 2: identity that I had wrapped it in my whole life,

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Speaker 2: man just come crumbling down. And I was just in

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Speaker 2: a terrible, terrible dark spot and started contemplating suicide. And

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Speaker 2: I just thought, man, I don't want to do this anymore,

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Speaker 2: this thing called life. And man, all the things from

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Speaker 2: my past, my childhood, the military, all the things I

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Speaker 2: did after all that, and man, I just it was

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Speaker 2: really super hard. It was really a crazy part. And

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Speaker 2: when I say I was contemplating, I actually went into

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Speaker 2: detail of like how I was going to do it.

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Speaker 2: One of my friends who lived in Miami, Florida, his

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Speaker 2: name was Colin, and he knew that I just had

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Speaker 2: lost my job and I had just went to like

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Speaker 2: a coroinary school to become like a chef, and he

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Speaker 2: was one of my instructors, and he had moved to Miami,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, Sean, won't you just come down

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Speaker 2: here and hang out with me for a little bit.

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Speaker 2: I was like sure, So bought a cheap ticket, went

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Speaker 2: down to Miami and I hung out with him. And

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Speaker 2: I didn't have no clue what I was going to

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Speaker 2: get into. I have no clue of like what we

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Speaker 2: were going to do, just hang out. And I get

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Speaker 2: down there and he goes to work that morning. The

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Speaker 2: next day and I go hang out in this park

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Speaker 2: and I run into this dude named David who was homeless,

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Speaker 2: and he was from Dayton, Ohio, and David had left

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Speaker 2: his wife and had become addicted to crystal meth. And man,

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Speaker 2: we just spent a old day telling each other's life stories.

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Speaker 2: I mean details you don't even tell people, you know,

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Speaker 2: intimate details about like this happened to me, and this

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Speaker 2: happened to me, and it was so similarities. And it

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Speaker 2: was about six o'clock that night. I mean, this dude

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Speaker 2: even had like in his backpack of beer can and

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Speaker 2: we started a fire beside the ocean and cooked up, man,

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Speaker 2: some hardboiled eggs and ate. I mean, we just like

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Speaker 2: just hung out for the whole day and it was

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Speaker 2: about six o'clock at night, and I really wanted to

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Speaker 2: go with him, you know, because he was going back

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Speaker 2: to his homeless camp. And he was like, nah, Sean,

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Speaker 2: you can't go with me. Man, it's just gonna be

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Speaker 2: too crazy there for you. And we were separating ways

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Speaker 2: and I said, well, maybe i'll see you in the

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Speaker 2: park again. And he was walking away and I was

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Speaker 2: walking away, and he yelled out my name. He said, hey, Sean,

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Speaker 2: I got something to tell you. And man, when he

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Speaker 2: turned around, he said, man, I still remember this to

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Speaker 2: this day. He said, I just want you to know

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Speaker 2: that God loves you. And I was just like, this

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Speaker 2: is crazy. Who are you of man, Dude, do you

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Speaker 2: see your life? Do you see who you are? And

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Speaker 2: you just telling me God loves me? And it was

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Speaker 2: probably one of the most craziest times from the perspective

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Speaker 2: of I was so mad that he said it. But

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Speaker 2: it was the very first time in my life I

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Speaker 2: ever felt loved and I just thought, man, what is

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Speaker 2: that feeling. I've never experienced that in my life, and man,

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Speaker 2: it was just so overwhelming that I went back to

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Speaker 2: my friend's house and I stayed up about the whole

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Speaker 2: night just trying to figure out, like, what is that?

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Speaker 2: What was that I didn't grow up in this thing

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Speaker 2: called church. I didn't grow up in this thing called

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Speaker 2: where people man this thing that other people call it.

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Speaker 2: Or I didn't know about God. I didn't know about Jesus,

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Speaker 2: didn't know any of that. And fast forward over the

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Speaker 2: next two weeks, Man, I had so many encounters with

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Speaker 2: just people, one after another telling me about God. It

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Speaker 2: was just so overwhelming and amazing. And on my last

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Speaker 2: day there, I was in Coconut Grove and it's right

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Speaker 2: outside of Miami, and we were at a culinary show

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Speaker 2: and there was this big art fairy going on, and

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Speaker 2: I just felt so much anxiety and overwhelmed, and I

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Speaker 2: was just thinking about all the things I just had

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Speaker 2: been through, and I was just trying to figure out, like,

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Speaker 2: what is going on with me right now? And I

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Speaker 2: walked across this open field. I told my friend, calling

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Speaker 2: him Mahn, and dude, I'm gonna have to leave for

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Speaker 2: a little bit and walk across something field and there's

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Speaker 2: this tent and this dude selling art and he looked

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Speaker 2: like Jerry Garcia from The Grateful Dead. Yeah, And I

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Speaker 2: and I'm thinking to myself, you know, man, I don't

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Speaker 2: want to get approached. I don't want the sales pitch.

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Speaker 2: I just want to look at the art that you

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Speaker 2: have going on there. And he had all these big,

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Speaker 2: huge posters and it was about how to be happy

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Speaker 2: and it was that he had created. And I walk in.

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Speaker 2: I'm looking at him and I'm not paying attention, but

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Speaker 2: I'm zoned in on this one. And it's talking about man,

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Speaker 2: connect with your creator and man lay in the field

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Speaker 2: and absorbed the sun and eat a donut and laugh

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Speaker 2: and man, just the simple things about life. And I

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Speaker 2: was just like, man, is that really how life is?

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Speaker 2: I never experienced that. And before I knew it, I

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Speaker 2: looked over and he was staying the right beside me

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Speaker 2: and he was looking at this poster with me, and

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Speaker 2: I said, I'm not here to buy anything, and he

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Speaker 2: said I know. I said, wow, man, this is really

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Speaker 2: powerful what you wrote here. And he said, yeah, Hey,

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Speaker 2: you know those two sets of eyes you have and

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Speaker 2: I was like, no, I didn't. He said, you know,

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Speaker 2: there's one that looks outward and you'll never find what

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Speaker 2: you're looking for. But if you'll use the side of

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Speaker 2: eyes that look inward, man, you'll find everything. You're looking for.

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Speaker 2: That's when I started to cry, and I thanked him

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Speaker 2: for coming over and talking to me, and he said, oh,

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Speaker 2: I didn't come over here for me, but God sent

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Speaker 2: me over here to tell you that he loves you

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Speaker 2: and you could be sept free. And now it's just

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Speaker 2: like so overwhelmed. I just fell on my knees and

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Speaker 2: just started bawling. And I was just like a little

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Speaker 2: child to get you, the kid that I never got

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Speaker 2: the experience. And it was so overwhelmed me that I

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Speaker 2: couldn't hardly even get up. And he helped me up

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Speaker 2: and he said, man, I used to be you dude.

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Speaker 2: You could be set free. And I end up walking

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Speaker 2: across this field and there's this big stone right there

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Speaker 2: in Coconut grove, this wall, and I'm sitting on it

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Speaker 2: and I'm overlooking the ocean and I'm just like, wow, man,

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Speaker 2: what is going on in my life? I don't even

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Speaker 2: know what this is. And man, this woman comes and

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Speaker 2: she sits beside me about the next two or three

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Speaker 2: hours and we just have this crazy discussion about the

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Speaker 2: living Jesus and who he is, and like, not the

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Speaker 2: church going Jesus, but the Jesus that is alive here

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Speaker 2: today in this kingdom that he has, and he she

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Speaker 2: just kept talking to me and she ends up getting

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Speaker 2: up and leaving and I'm sitting there and Man, I

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Speaker 2: have this encounter, this epiphany where man, I have the

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Speaker 2: living Jesus actually appear in front of me, and he says, Sean,

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Speaker 2: if you'll let go of your past, I will set

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Speaker 2: you free. And man, ever since that day, that's what

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Speaker 2: I've been doing, is I've submitted, surrendered to Lord. Whatever

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Speaker 2: you want to do, wherever you want to go, whatever

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Speaker 2: you need, Man, I'm here for you. And you know,

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Speaker 2: some people could look at that story and say, man,

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Speaker 2: I was in a space in my head where I

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Speaker 2: needed something like that. But Man, there's been so many

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Speaker 2: encounters leading up to where we are sitting today where

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Speaker 2: there's no doubt that man, that dude is real and

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Speaker 2: he for real talks to me, and he for real

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Speaker 2: has a kingdom of heaven here on this earth. The

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Speaker 2: question is where we repent and walk into it with him.

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Speaker 2: That's a little bit of my story of like how

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Speaker 2: I fell in love with Jesus and how we got

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Speaker 2: to where we are today. Then I think it'd be

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Speaker 2: great maybe if you could tell some of her story

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Speaker 2: because she grew up in it, and then we can

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Speaker 2: tell how we connected.

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Speaker 3: I got some questions about you first, but before those questions,

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Speaker 3: a few messages from our general sponsors. The trauma of

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Speaker 3: growing up as a young boy with a mother as

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Speaker 3: a prostitute and then going straight to desert storm. And

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Speaker 3: if you were born in sixty seven, then you're fifty

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Speaker 3: seven years old, so that was the first.

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Speaker 2: Year in one month older than you.

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Speaker 3: How do you even know that?

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Speaker 2: That's guys on year August twenty.

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Speaker 3: Fourth, right? Good? Yeah, lord, clearly the trauma didn't your

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Speaker 3: memory well done? It feels to me like and I

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Speaker 3: get completely get not feeling like and I don't mean

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Speaker 3: this is a victim, but being robbed of a real

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Speaker 3: childhood a little bit sure, understand that. And then as

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Speaker 3: young man going straight to war and then coming back

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Speaker 3: and trying to do what you're supposed to do, quote

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Speaker 3: supposed to do, get married, have a kid, all that.

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Speaker 2: Back into the real world because they don't do that

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Speaker 2: for better right, I understand they don't do.

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Speaker 3: That, right, And then your identity becoming this this job

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Speaker 3: and this growth business, and then it being stripped away

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Speaker 3: from you. At must have been about forty four or

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Speaker 3: forty five years old. Forty five and you're talking about

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Speaker 3: having planned suicide and having not only suicidecies, but actually

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Speaker 3: having thought out how to do it. I got to

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Speaker 3: believe that that job was your world, was everything it

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Speaker 3: was because you really didn't have an identity other than

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Speaker 3: just chaos up to that. That was probably the only organized,

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Speaker 3: semi positive thing that you'd ever experienced your life. So

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Speaker 3: when you when the company got sold, and when companies

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Speaker 3: get sold oftentimes they look for economies of scale and synergies.

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Speaker 3: So if the company that bought you had that position

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Speaker 3: while replicated with you, we got to cut cost and

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Speaker 3: so you're gone. So not necessarily anything you did, but

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Speaker 3: I got to believe that your entire foundation of what

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Speaker 3: you were able to somehow hide all of this trauma

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Speaker 3: in your life behind because you had that one positive thing.

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Speaker 3: When it was ripped out from under you, you had to

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Speaker 3: have felt like you lost life.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like and then you don't even realize it, right,

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Speaker 2: because you've built this like facade of like I have

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Speaker 2: this five bedroom house, I have these three cars outside.

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Speaker 3: I have these You were making good money.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, decent money, I mean, life was what I thought

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Speaker 2: was like what it was supposed to be. You know,

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Speaker 2: one of the stories that the crazy parts act, and

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Speaker 2: we'll get to that. But right after I fell in

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Speaker 2: love with Jesus, I came back to Louisville. And there's

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Speaker 2: a bunch of stories you know before this, but how

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Speaker 2: I got there. Woke up one morning it was Derby Day, Kentucky,

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Speaker 2: in Kentucky Derby, and I had all these plans in

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Speaker 2: my head, you know, like I'm gonna go hang out

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Speaker 2: with all my friends. And the crazy part is I'm

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Speaker 2: The part that hasn't been told yet is like even

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Speaker 2: though I barely graduated from high school on time, very

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Speaker 2: first person from my family to ever graduate from high school.

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Speaker 2: And then you fast forward and then I go to

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Speaker 2: colinary school and I meet this dude named Colin, and

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Speaker 2: then in the process I'm like, well, man, maybe I

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Speaker 2: should just instead of getting as sociate's degree, get a

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Speaker 2: bachelor's degree. And then I decided I'm gonna go ahead

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Speaker 2: and get a bachelor's greet Not knowing how to read

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Speaker 2: at thirty eight, I taught myself how to read, you know,

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Speaker 2: for education, for knowledge, not for just.

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Speaker 3: You could read street science, but how to read and.

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Speaker 2: Comprehend that lawn, yeah, right, to actually absorb something. And

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Speaker 2: I taught myself how to read it like thirty eight

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Speaker 2: And then that's when I went to coldinary school. Then

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Speaker 2: then I get into my bachelor's I graduated top of

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Speaker 2: my class with like a three point nine seven and

394
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Speaker 2: bachelor's in nineteen ninety two. When I got out of

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Speaker 2: the military, I had a part time One of them

396
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Speaker 2: part time jobs was a security guard at a local

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Speaker 2: college called Bellarmine University, which is a very prestigious school.

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Speaker 2: It's a private school in Louisville, Kentucky. And when I

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Speaker 2: used to walk the hallways there it's a security guard.

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Speaker 2: I used to dream like, man, I'd love to go

401
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Speaker 2: to school here, and knowing that, man, I couldn't even read,

402
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: you know, but you can still dream, right, And then

403
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Speaker 2: so when I'm finishing up my bachelor's degree, I decide, Man,

404
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 2: if I like apply to Bellarmine and if I get accepted,

405
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Speaker 2: then I'll go get my master's mat NBA, and lo

406
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Speaker 2: and behold, I got accepted into Bellarmine. And going back

407
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Speaker 2: to what I was going to talk about before that was,

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Speaker 2: you know, I had no dream of like this is

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Speaker 2: how my life would be. You know, I had no dream.

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Speaker 2: I thought I was going to get an NBA so

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Speaker 2: I could advance in that corporate world. And I had

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Speaker 2: no idea that all that identity was just going to

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Speaker 2: be just like stripped away. And you know, really, if

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Speaker 2: you think about Scripture, there's a verse I Love and

415
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Speaker 2: John tantan and says, the enemy comes to kill, still

416
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Speaker 2: seek and destroy, but Jesus comes to give us life

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Speaker 2: of abundance. And I can tell you, Bill, I could

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Speaker 2: look back and I could dwell in that forty five

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Speaker 2: years of what I would call living in hell. Where

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Speaker 2: I lived in hell. Yeah, all that's part of my story.

421
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Speaker 2: But I believe that God used let me experience every

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Speaker 2: single bit of that so I could be where I

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Speaker 2: am today. It's not a story of woe is me.

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Speaker 2: But I needed all that, every single integral detail to

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Speaker 2: be able to relate and to be able to love people.

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Speaker 2: Where I'm at today.

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Speaker 3: Inga kind of beautiful, isn't it. Yeah, it's your story

428
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 3: over there, girl. You hadn't said a word yet.

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Speaker 1: Different. So I was born in Fairfax, Virginia, right outside

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Speaker 1: of Washington, d C.

431
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,720
Speaker 3: Really nice, very nice, actually very nice. But one of

432
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 3: two of my kids live in d C and work

433
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:42,280
Speaker 3: in d C. And one lives in d C. The

434
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 3: other lives in Virginia, just across which a lot of

435
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:46,840
Speaker 3: young professionals to.

436
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's I mean I love it. I

437
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: mean I love the DC area. I was born. So

438
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 1: I was born in nineteen seventy nine. And when I

439
00:27:56,480 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 1: was born, I appeared to be a healthy baby. But

440
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: then three weeks later, I was still nine pounds and

441
00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:07,320
Speaker 1: my mom took me to the doctor and I was

442
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 1: in open heart surgery within two hours.

443
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 3: You're kidding me.

444
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: So I was born with a it's called a VSD.

445
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: It's a hole. But you know, you got four chambers

446
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 1: of your heart, So I have a hole that's in

447
00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 1: the middle, like where all those chambers come together. So

448
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 1: the auction dated versus on action. All the blood was

449
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: going the wrong way and not the way it should

450
00:28:30,119 --> 00:28:33,879
Speaker 1: be and all that, and then my aorda was pinched shut.

451
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: So the reason I hadn't gained any weight is because

452
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: my heart had expanded to fill my almost entire chest

453
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: cavity because it was trying to pump blood to the

454
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 1: right places and couldn't keep up. So I had my

455
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: first open heart surgery at three weeks. That that was like,

456
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: let's just put a patch on it. Let's see if

457
00:28:56,760 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: we can't like stop the bleeding so to speak. Then

458
00:29:01,040 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: I had another one at three months, Then I had

459
00:29:03,400 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: another one at one year, and then my last a

460
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: order repair I was five. So I was born in

461
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 1: this like kind of bubble window and time where if

462
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:17,479
Speaker 1: I had been born a couple of years earlier and

463
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: had what I had, I wouldn't have survived because they

464
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: weren't doing open heart surgery then. But if I was

465
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: born five to six years later, they were catching it

466
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:31,800
Speaker 1: in the womb and like being able to fix it

467
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: and then not having to go through any surgery. So

468
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: I'm in this like little micro population of people.

469
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 3: Lucky. Unlucky, Yeah, lucky they could, unlucky that they didn't

470
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 3: have the advancement, right.

471
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 1: So now there's like this group of us that are

472
00:29:48,120 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: now adults that have congenital heart defects, and so it's

473
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: it's it's a very small specialist for cardiologist. So I

474
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: still go to children's hospitals, no kidding, to see my

475
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: cardiologists because they're just there's not that many adults that there.

476
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 3: Are the only ones that understand you.

477
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I still go to I go to Norton

478
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 1: Children's Level for my my my cardiologists and pediatric cardiologists.

479
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: I had my tea. Yeah, it's kind of like pretty cool.

480
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: He gets to have fun when we go. So when

481
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: you know, so my my mom, so, my my mom's

482
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: side of the family is all Catholic traditionally, and so

483
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: my mom when I was a baby just sort of

484
00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 1: hands me over to God and was like, there you go,

485
00:30:49,080 --> 00:30:53,480
Speaker 1: she's yours, whatever you want to do. And then I

486
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: don't think when she did that when I was a baby,

487
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: like she had any kind of idea of what that

488
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: actually ended up doing in my life, even for herself,

489
00:31:06,280 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: Like you know, I don't. I don't think she realized

490
00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: that he was going to be like no, no, really,

491
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: you need to let go, like you gave her to me,

492
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:20,520
Speaker 1: like stop. So, so I I had a relationship with

493
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:25,959
Speaker 1: Jesus Gosh. The first time I can actually remember talking

494
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: to him, I don't know, I was like five or

495
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:36,320
Speaker 1: six really and like having conversations, and you know, grew

496
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: up my grandmother. So we're they all are traditionally Catholic,

497
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: but now I like to say we're all Catholic refugees

498
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:48,320
Speaker 1: because like my grandparents were divorced and so you're out.

499
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: So my I grew up in the Episcopal Church, Catholic light.

500
00:31:54,320 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: And my my grandmother though, you know, she met Jesus

501
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: actually when I was born also, so she was like

502
00:32:05,600 --> 00:32:09,600
Speaker 1: in her fifties, and she went to a cursio, which

503
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: is a it's like a retreat, like a Catholic retreat

504
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:18,200
Speaker 1: where you know, people actually meet the Holy Spirit. And

505
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: so she came back from that, both her and my grandfather,

506
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: and she had remarried by the time I was born.

507
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 3: I think that's a lot like the Protestants walked to him.

508
00:32:27,280 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: Man, yes, very much. Same type yeah, same type thing.

509
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 3: Yeah.

510
00:32:30,920 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: So they came back from that and and like they

511
00:32:33,640 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: had both had encounters with Jesus, and you know, if

512
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 1: you talk to her about it, she would say, you know,

513
00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: all my health problems were happening like simultaneously that that

514
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: cursio was scheduled, and so it was all kind of

515
00:32:47,720 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: like a catalyst in a way for like a lot

516
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:53,920
Speaker 1: of people in my family to really meet Jesus and

517
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 1: get to know like who he really is and and

518
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: so then I grew up. You know, I my parents

519
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 1: divorced when I was five, and so we went to

520
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 1: go live in coastal North Carolina, closer to my grandparents,

521
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:11,120
Speaker 1: so I became extremely close with my grandmother. We spent

522
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: I mean I spent. Also, there was no camp like,

523
00:33:14,240 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: there was no like, there's no money to go to camp.

524
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: So I just hung out with my grandparents all summer,

525
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: every day, all day. So we became very very close.

526
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: And then my mom got a job with the government

527
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: in DC again to go back to that, so I

528
00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,719
Speaker 1: went back to that area for high school. So I

529
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: went to Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia. Which it's

530
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,600
Speaker 1: so funny, like I moved to Louisville when I was

531
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 1: twenty eight, and I didn't really understand a lot of

532
00:33:43,520 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: the Louisville culture. So when I first moved there, everyone

533
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: asked me where I went to school and in college,

534
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:52,160
Speaker 1: I went to William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, so

535
00:33:52,200 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: I would go I went to William and Mary and

536
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: they're like, no, where'd you go to high school? And

537
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: I was like, why do you care.

538
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 3: That's the way it is in the South. When you're

539
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 3: from in Memphis, people did the same thing. Where'd you

540
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 3: go to school? Ole miss No, no, no, where'd you

541
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 3: go to school?

542
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: Yeah?

543
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,800
Speaker 2: So it was and the more you know, dictates like where.

544
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: Yes, it's a social graphic.

545
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that's right, it's economic thing.

546
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 3: You evoked white Haven. Yeah, I mean people will say

547
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 3: white Haven, Carrierville, whatever, but I get it.

548
00:34:21,960 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 2: So it tells you, like how you grew up, like

549
00:34:25,040 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 2: it's the weirdest.

550
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 3: It does indicate a lot of where you come from.

551
00:34:29,440 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

552
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like later on in life when I

553
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: was in the corporate world and I had to do

554
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: training on like interview etiquette and what's an illegal question

555
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 1: to ask where you went to high school in Louisville.

556
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 1: Absolutely is an illegal question asked because that immediately gives

557
00:34:42,920 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: the other person an idea of like your financial status,

558
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:50,200
Speaker 1: your background, like education, your education, all of it. So

559
00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,560
Speaker 1: that was very like I mean because for me, I

560
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 1: went to Madison High School in Vienna, Virginia, which, like

561
00:34:56,680 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: all the public high schools in Fairfax County were in

562
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,640
Speaker 1: the top fifteen high schools in the country.

563
00:35:02,719 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 3: You know, so like well, and obviously you went to

564
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,720
Speaker 3: William and Mary, so you were well educated. Yes, William

565
00:35:07,760 --> 00:35:08,960
Speaker 3: and Mary is no slouch.

566
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I went to William and Mary.

567
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 3: Would you major?

568
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:17,200
Speaker 1: I majored in political science and Middle Eastern studies, of course,

569
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: why not? So? So I was born in seventy nine,

570
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,839
Speaker 1: so I was in college. Fall of my senior year,

571
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:31,440
Speaker 1: nine to eleven. Happened, wow in my course load that

572
00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: day because everybody always if you were if you were alive,

573
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:39,359
Speaker 1: and you know, not ten like you remember where you

574
00:35:39,560 --> 00:35:41,880
Speaker 1: were and what happened on the day of nine to eleven.

575
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 1: So on nine to eleven, my course load was. I

576
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: started out with the American government. Then I went to

577
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:50,479
Speaker 1: Arabic language class. No, no, Then I went to Middle

578
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 1: Eastern history class. Then I went to Arabic language class.

579
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,880
Speaker 1: Then I had Arabic language lab. And then I finished

580
00:35:55,920 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: the day with women in Islam. That was my course

581
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: load eleven.

582
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 3: Oh, aren't you an interesting person?

583
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 1: So and by then, like that was my senior year.

584
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: So by then I had had summer internships at Marine

585
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: Corps JAG at Camp La June.

586
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 3: Say, with your background, especially after that, your particular skill

587
00:36:21,880 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 3: set was probably how they sought after, was it not?

588
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: It was? And I did go there, so I.

589
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 3: Ended up that's really really interesting.

590
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 1: I ended up spending five years working for the CIA

591
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: out of college.

592
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 3: No kidding, we'll be right back.

593
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,560
Speaker 1: When I ended up leaving, I had to get my

594
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,960
Speaker 1: resume cleared. So there's things that I can talk about,

595
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: and then that are on my resume, and then there's.

596
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,919
Speaker 3: Everybody listening right now, says tell us one juicy thing

597
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:06,760
Speaker 3: you can talk about.

598
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: So the things that I can talk about is I

599
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:14,240
Speaker 1: ended up working for the terrorist watch list program. Really,

600
00:37:14,480 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: so what happened on nine to eleven is obviously the

601
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:20,920
Speaker 1: big issue was a lot of these agencies weren't talking

602
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,960
Speaker 1: to each other, right, So CIA knew who all the

603
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: hijackers were. State Department knew who all the hijackers were.

604
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: TSA had no idea, and Customs and Border Patrol had

605
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:30,439
Speaker 1: no idea.

606
00:37:30,480 --> 00:37:31,280
Speaker 3: What about the FBI?

607
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 1: FBI had no idea, And there was.

608
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 3: No Department of Homeland Security at that time. A lot

609
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 3: of people listening to us and need to understand, yeah,

610
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 3: there was, the Department of Homeland Security was born.

611
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:44,440
Speaker 2: You tell people like our age about your age that

612
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 2: because I'm sure you travel. But the craziest part about

613
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:54,399
Speaker 2: all that for me was there used to be no check.

614
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:56,080
Speaker 2: You can just like walk.

615
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, if your loved one was flying in and you

616
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:06,680
Speaker 3: go to the gate, right, did.

617
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 2: You walk into the plane?

618
00:38:08,920 --> 00:38:09,279
Speaker 3: That's it.

619
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, Which people that today, they're.

620
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 3: Like kids, My kids can't even imagine a life. You

621
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:20,440
Speaker 3: don't have to be cavity searched to get into the

622
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 3: air and all that was. Yeah, all right, So you

623
00:38:24,600 --> 00:38:28,879
Speaker 3: worked on the job of connecting all of these departments.

624
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 3: So I had been fascinating.

625
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:32,120
Speaker 2: What it was.

626
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:34,360
Speaker 1: I mean it was to a certain extent. So like

627
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: when I started, Well, so the interesting thing was, I

628
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 1: actually never was a government employee. So I worked for

629
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:46,160
Speaker 1: a private company because the intelligence community had been so

630
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 1: decimated under previous you know, multiple administrations and cost cutting

631
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: and all that that when nine to eleven happened, they

632
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 1: literally could not hire people fast enough. And my security

633
00:38:57,400 --> 00:38:59,960
Speaker 1: clearance took thirteen months.

634
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:05,799
Speaker 3: The old government independent contractor. So that's that's like a

635
00:39:05,960 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 3: that's like a dark web world. It is.

636
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: It is crazy. It's crazy how it works. I mean,

637
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: you know, like they were hiring contractors to do the

638
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:17,719
Speaker 1: work of government employees because they couldn't hire government employees

639
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,319
Speaker 1: fast enough. And so that's how I ended up there,

640
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:22,799
Speaker 1: I was doing the work of a government employee, but

641
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: being a contractor getting paid three times what a government

642
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: employee in that role makes it. I was twenty three.

643
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:38,880
Speaker 3: Wow. But yeah, the old political science and Middle Eastern

644
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,759
Speaker 3: studies thing had a pretty nice ring to it. So

645
00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,400
Speaker 3: after that, how does this end up in Louisville.

646
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,440
Speaker 2: I go back a little bit until about like, you

647
00:39:48,560 --> 00:39:51,399
Speaker 2: work when you were in high school? You worked at

648
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:53,080
Speaker 2: Camp David College.

649
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I so, like, and.

650
00:39:56,120 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 2: You were a member of parliament.

651
00:39:57,680 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.

652
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 3: Yeah.

653
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: So by the time I by the time nine to

654
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 1: eleven happened, right, like, I was a senior in college,

655
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: so I'd had three three summers to do internships. So

656
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 1: one summer I was with the JAG office at Legion

657
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 1: because it for a for a hot minute, I thought

658
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:18,480
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a lawyer, and then I was like,

659
00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,320
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to do that, and.

660
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 3: Then especially a type, Yeah.

661
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: It's a different yeah. And then the next summer I

662
00:40:28,160 --> 00:40:31,920
Speaker 1: worked for the State Department in their Rabian Peninsula Affairs office.

663
00:40:31,960 --> 00:40:36,320
Speaker 1: And that was in two thousand, which was Clinton's last

664
00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: attempt to do peace between Israeli and the Palestinians. So

665
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:46,399
Speaker 1: I worked the Camp David, like peace talks where we're

666
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:48,600
Speaker 1: being were there, Yeah, I mean I was like I was,

667
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,880
Speaker 1: I was a driver, like I was, you know, whatever

668
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: around it. So I was at Camp David, going back

669
00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: and forth every day, and then I my junior year

670
00:40:59,320 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: of college, I went I studied abroad in London and

671
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: worked for a Member of Parliament who was a crazy

672
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: Scottish dude who well.

673
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,840
Speaker 3: That's redundant Scottish and crazy.

674
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 2: Yeah.

675
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: His name was George Galloway. He was Yeah, it was.

676
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: It was one of those things where like, you know,

677
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 1: the internship program that I went with only had two

678
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: connections in Parliament, and you know, we're trying to figure

679
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: out where we want to go and all this stuff

680
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 1: and what we wanted, what job we want, and they

681
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: were like, well we have this this member of parliament,

682
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: this member of Parliament. So I researched them and they

683
00:41:34,960 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: are like biggest issues were like sheep grazing rights or

684
00:41:38,560 --> 00:41:42,319
Speaker 1: like and I'm like and then I picked up a

685
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,239
Speaker 1: newspaper and there was this huge article about this MP

686
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 1: from Glasgow had brought back to the UK this woman

687
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:54,120
Speaker 1: named Leisla Ahmed, who was part of the hijacker group

688
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,359
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three on in Heathrow and he brought

689
00:41:57,360 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: her back for a speaking tour and it was all

690
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: this controversy and all that, and I was like him,

691
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:04,040
Speaker 1: I want to work for him. And so I went

692
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: to the advisors and I was like, send my resume

693
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,520
Speaker 1: to him, and they were like, oh, we don't know him,

694
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 1: and we don't. I'm like, just just trust me, just

695
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: do it. So I said, just fax it over. So

696
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: they sent the resume and he called within five minutes.

697
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: Because I knew that on my resume was Arabian Peninsula

698
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,839
Speaker 1: Affairs Office, State Department Camp David Piece Accords JAG. I

699
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:30,520
Speaker 1: was like, just do it yea yeah, So so he

700
00:42:30,600 --> 00:42:34,920
Speaker 1: called me in. I might so he called me in

701
00:42:34,960 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: for an interview and he was like, you know, we

702
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 1: don't have this thing in the UK like Americans do,

703
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,880
Speaker 1: like internships, Like we don't do that, like you get

704
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: a job, right, we don't. You don't come work for free.

705
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I get that, but this is part

706
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: of a program. I get credit all that kind of stuff.

707
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: And he was like okay, well he said. He sat

708
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 1: down and looked at me and he said, well, you

709
00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:56,480
Speaker 1: have to look me in the eye and tell me

710
00:42:56,520 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: on you're on here that you're not a spy for

711
00:42:58,000 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: the US government. It was all I could do not

712
00:43:00,040 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: to bust out laughing because I was like, I'm not

713
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: a spy for the US government. He's like, okay, you

714
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: got the job. I was like all right, yeah, yeah.

715
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: Two years later that is where I was. So, so

716
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:13,080
Speaker 1: I had all of that, you know, on my resume.

717
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:18,680
Speaker 1: So I actually when I graduated college, I actually applied

718
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:21,799
Speaker 1: to be with like full on with the agency, and

719
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: I went halfway through their like interview process, and they

720
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,200
Speaker 1: do like a phone interview and then they do like

721
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: all kinds of you know, questions and surveys, and then

722
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: they bring you in for a briefing and you got

723
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 1: to sign this like confidentiality thing you're not going to

724
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 1: talk about what they say at the briefing. And so

725
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 1: I signed all that and they just tell you what

726
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: the jobs are at the briefing. That's all they do.

727
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: They're like, you know, I'm so and so, and I

728
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: do this, and I'm so and so when I do this,

729
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,799
Speaker 1: and so when I was in that briefing, first of all,

730
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: I was like okay, so I'm looking around everybody else there,

731
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:57,480
Speaker 1: and they're all like straight out of West Point Navy cap.

732
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,840
Speaker 1: I'm like, they all look like white military dutes, like

733
00:44:01,920 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: y'all know where, like the major problems are here right

734
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: like like we're not sending any of you all to

735
00:44:07,080 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: the Middle East, like you're not going to blend in

736
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 1: like at all. And so I'm just kind of like, well,

737
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 1: this is interesting. And then everybody that got up to

738
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,600
Speaker 1: say what their job was, they're like, I'm so and so,

739
00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: and I do this for the agency, and my spouse

740
00:44:21,080 --> 00:44:23,919
Speaker 1: does this for the agency. And I was like, that's

741
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,760
Speaker 1: a little weird. I get it, like, I get it right,

742
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:31,319
Speaker 1: but it just didn't sit right with me. And I

743
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: remember coming home and talking to my mom about it,

744
00:44:33,520 --> 00:44:35,759
Speaker 1: and I was just like, I don't I just don't

745
00:44:35,840 --> 00:44:39,280
Speaker 1: feel like this is what I should be doing, because

746
00:44:39,320 --> 00:44:41,839
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where like you sign

747
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:43,719
Speaker 1: up and you're in. It's like the military, like you

748
00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: there's no like like, oh, I'm just going to be

749
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: done in three months, you know. So I actually self

750
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: selected out of the operative interview process and then I

751
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 1: answered a classified ad in the paper for research analysts

752
00:44:56,960 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: with a private company, and I went to their office

753
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: and It was one of those things where it's like

754
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 1: there's nobody there. It's a two room office with a

755
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 1: guy sitting at a desk.

756
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm more dark. Well, I go to do some

757
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 3: spy work or sell waterless cook wear door or door two.

758
00:45:17,719 --> 00:45:20,360
Speaker 1: So I'm going I'm sitting there and he's like, well,

759
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:22,799
Speaker 1: you know, we we do all of our contracts with

760
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,880
Speaker 1: the agency. And I was like, oh, well, I just

761
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:29,279
Speaker 1: came from there interviewing, and so they hired me. It

762
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 1: took thirteen months to get my clearance. And then the

763
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 1: main contract that they had was going back fifteen years

764
00:45:37,400 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: worth of agency records and looking for names that we

765
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: may have missed wow, and then sending them to this

766
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: newly created thing called the National counter Terrorism Center, which

767
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: put all those watch lists together to get make sure

768
00:45:52,640 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: that we weren't missing people. And so we were going

769
00:45:55,200 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: back and reading you know, agency communications fifteen years and

770
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:03,879
Speaker 1: so you got to think, like fifteen years prior to that,

771
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: that was all Saddam Hussein and Iraq and all.

772
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:09,520
Speaker 3: That, even that Total Comite.

773
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, all of that for yep, all of that. So

774
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 1: you know, that was the project that I started on,

775
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,399
Speaker 1: and then from there I moved over to the other

776
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 1: side of where we were sending the information and it

777
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: was getting put onto the watch list. So what happened

778
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: when when nine eleven happened and they did the study

779
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:31,239
Speaker 1: and they were like, okay, this we screwed up big time.

780
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: Let's fix it. Is they created the counter terrorism watch list.

781
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:41,959
Speaker 1: The intelligence the information gatherers would send information to the

782
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:46,000
Speaker 1: watch list, it would get sort of declassified, and then

783
00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: the information consumers would get a feed from it, right,

784
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:55,200
Speaker 1: meaning meaning of the TSA FB like everybody right, So

785
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: the watch list. Now, if your name gets put on

786
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: the terrace watch list, there's a version of your name

787
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:03,560
Speaker 1: and information that goes all the way down to local PD.

788
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,280
Speaker 1: So if you're getting pulled over for a traffic ticket,

789
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 1: your local PD may not know that that's what's getting pined,

790
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 1: but the watch list is getting pinked. You get pulled

791
00:47:14,760 --> 00:47:18,800
Speaker 1: over for any traffic anything in the US, So Customs

792
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:21,720
Speaker 1: and Border Patrol gets a version. TSA gets a version.

793
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 3: We're way off the subject. I find this unbelievably fascinating

794
00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:30,680
Speaker 3: and candidly I could do an entire series of podcasts

795
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:34,759
Speaker 3: on this. I find it amazingly interesting and by the way,

796
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:39,760
Speaker 3: David Bellavia, who is the only living Medal of Honor

797
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 3: recipient from the Rock, has been a guest on the

798
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 3: show and he's a buddy. He went door to door

799
00:47:46,920 --> 00:47:53,400
Speaker 3: in Fallujah, Yeah, door to door and gotten hand to

800
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:58,720
Speaker 3: hand combat with some insurgents. He won the Medal of Honor.

801
00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 3: He's phenomenal guy anyway. He also worked at Camp David.

802
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 2: Win the Medal of Honor.

803
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 3: Recipient. Sorry, I know you don't win it. I say

804
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 3: it all the time. Wrong, I guess I did. In

805
00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,600
Speaker 3: trouble with Alex for it constantly. He's the recipient.

806
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, well I tell you that because he just

807
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 2: passed away a couple of years ago. But I'm great.

808
00:48:23,560 --> 00:48:28,760
Speaker 2: Was great friends with Woody Williams, who was the last

809
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 2: surviving War One UH medal World War two Medal of

810
00:48:33,400 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 2: Honor recipient.

811
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:36,080
Speaker 3: It's amazing see from LOUV.

812
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 2: Huntington, West Virginia. And he was a flamethrow operator.

813
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:43,400
Speaker 3: I know his story. Okay, Hold, we're going into many

814
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:44,520
Speaker 3: circles and people.

815
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:46,479
Speaker 2: So great.

816
00:48:47,480 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 3: So what I wanted to ask you? And this is

817
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 3: so far off the subject, but I don't care, and

818
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:55,799
Speaker 3: I think people listening will find this interesting. There have

819
00:48:55,920 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 3: been for those of us who read way too much

820
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:08,839
Speaker 3: much and who care about our history and our who

821
00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 3: care about our independence, our liberty, that little document that

822
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:23,400
Speaker 3: formed this wonderful republic we live in. How much work

823
00:49:23,560 --> 00:49:26,600
Speaker 3: was done when you guys were doing this work. I've

824
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 3: always wanted to know this answer. I cannot believe I

825
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 3: get to ask this completely off the subject, and we're

826
00:49:32,640 --> 00:49:37,399
Speaker 3: getting a Love City, guys. But maybe maybe we're getting there,

827
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 3: and it even makes Love City more fascinating, giving the

828
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 3: divergence of your backgrounds. But we'll get to that in

829
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:46,399
Speaker 3: a second. But I just want to know this. It's

830
00:49:46,440 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 3: a complete side note. I worry deeply about people's civil

831
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:56,960
Speaker 3: liberties with regard to be putting on Big Brothers list.

832
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:00,920
Speaker 3: George Orwell had a lot right when he wrote nineteen

833
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 3: eighty four. And I have seen we all now take

834
00:50:06,120 --> 00:50:10,719
Speaker 3: for granted in our lives, cameras, getting tickets in the

835
00:50:10,760 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 3: mail because you're being watched, and all of these lists.

836
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:19,839
Speaker 3: And I understand the balance of keeping our public safe

837
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:24,320
Speaker 3: versus how far do we go into people's backgrounds and lives.

838
00:50:25,000 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 3: But when you hear putting on a government list, I

839
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:33,320
Speaker 3: can't help but bristle a little how much attention was

840
00:50:33,360 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 3: given to that as you guys are doing this work.

841
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: It's a great question, and I can give you two

842
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:40,360
Speaker 1: stories to explain the answer.

843
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 3: So, and this has nothing to do with Left City,

844
00:50:43,000 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 3: and Alex is probably going crazy, like Bill, get on

845
00:50:45,680 --> 00:50:48,280
Speaker 3: with the story. But this is vastly interesting.

846
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:48,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

847
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,600
Speaker 1: So, and I can only speak to when I was there, right,

848
00:50:52,640 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 1: So we're talking two thousand and three at two thousand

849
00:50:56,160 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: and five generally. So when I started on that program,

850
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: we were coming through all of the records. I was

851
00:51:04,600 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: twenty three, and I was given a team of like

852
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,840
Speaker 1: twenty five to thirty people who that's what they did

853
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: all day was sit there and read stuff and look

854
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: for names. And we had a criteria list of like

855
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: what were the things you were looking for in order

856
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:22,839
Speaker 1: to qualify as a name to get on the list. Right,

857
00:51:23,520 --> 00:51:26,439
Speaker 1: And then we're going through the list and I'm looking

858
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:30,840
Speaker 1: at the criteria and there's this name that and I

859
00:51:31,040 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: was the glass quality control check before it went to

860
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,759
Speaker 1: the list the list, right, So I'm looking at my

861
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 1: quality control check and I see this name, yusuf Ismael

862
00:51:40,200 --> 00:51:45,320
Speaker 1: come across and I'm like, okay, yeah, funding, yeah, providing Okay, yep. Okay,

863
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:48,840
Speaker 1: check yep means the list. Send it over. Two weeks

864
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:53,440
Speaker 1: later on the news, Kat Stevens detained at the airport

865
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: for being on the terrorist watch list. He's also known

866
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:57,799
Speaker 1: as Yusuf.

867
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:57,960
Speaker 3: Is my l.

868
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:01,919
Speaker 2: Cat Stevens?

869
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 3: Does Cat Stevens know that this twenty three year old

870
00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:10,240
Speaker 3: kid got him picked up at the airport? Are you

871
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:15,359
Speaker 3: kidding that? God's honesty? Absolutely, that is absolutely hilarious. Are

872
00:52:15,360 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 3: you going to tell me the next story is about

873
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:17,720
Speaker 3: led Zeppelin?

874
00:52:17,840 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: No? No, those So I prevace that story because that

875
00:52:22,880 --> 00:52:25,640
Speaker 1: was the part where we were like at that.

876
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 3: Point, did that go to you? Wow, I gotta be

877
00:52:28,640 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 3: more careful or did that?

878
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 2: What did?

879
00:52:30,400 --> 00:52:31,479
Speaker 3: How did that affect you?

880
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,319
Speaker 1: So what happened was I looked at it and I

881
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:38,120
Speaker 1: was like is this real? And I did my due

882
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:40,399
Speaker 1: diligence and I checked all the evidence and I'm like, yeah,

883
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 1: according to our criteria, this is what means it. So

884
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 1: what the trigger of what that ended up doing is

885
00:52:46,920 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: made us because at that point it was like, man,

886
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:51,839
Speaker 1: we're looking for every possible name. I don't care if

887
00:52:51,840 --> 00:52:55,680
Speaker 1: you sneeze towards a tourist terrorist. Man, you're on the list, right,

888
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:59,000
Speaker 1: So when that happened, which is dangerous, which is dangerous.

889
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 3: Wrong. Yeah, when that's also the knee jerk reaction to

890
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 3: we just got in Yes, we just had more than

891
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 3: three thousand Americans get killed. Honestly, I believe there were

892
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,560
Speaker 3: some of this mentality is we'll deal with several liberties later.

893
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:16,880
Speaker 3: Let's deal with our with our safety first.

894
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,160
Speaker 1: Yes, and so, and I had twenty five people who

895
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 1: a majority of them were retired case officers from the

896
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: agency that had come back as contractors. Right, so they

897
00:53:26,120 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 1: had lived in this world of fighting the bad guys

898
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:32,439
Speaker 1: their entire careers, and so they were all like, man,

899
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: we got to put everything on the list. So when

900
00:53:34,680 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: kat Stevens got picked up at the airport, then all

901
00:53:38,080 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: the higher ups went, Okay, maybe we should refine this

902
00:53:41,120 --> 00:53:44,399
Speaker 1: criteria a little bit. Yeah, maybe, And because and that's

903
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:47,480
Speaker 1: how you got the differentiation between like no fly and

904
00:53:47,600 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: select D. So everybody was on no fly originally, and

905
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:53,719
Speaker 1: then we looked at it and we were like, okay,

906
00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 1: well that doesn't make sense. Let's do some select D.

907
00:53:56,360 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: Let's scream the crap out of them before they get

908
00:53:58,960 --> 00:54:00,799
Speaker 1: on the plane. But they could still get on plane, right,

909
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:03,920
Speaker 1: And so then it just got refined from there, and

910
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: then I had you know, there are another store is

911
00:54:07,360 --> 00:54:12,239
Speaker 1: that's the second store I have is Another Another communication

912
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:17,719
Speaker 1: came across my desk to check and it was for

913
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:25,560
Speaker 1: Somali college students in Richmond, Virginia, and they had like

914
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:28,399
Speaker 1: the right visa to come to school and they came

915
00:54:28,440 --> 00:54:33,160
Speaker 1: into the US and they over extended extended their visas

916
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,759
Speaker 1: and local law enforcement couldn't find them because they overextended

917
00:54:36,760 --> 00:54:42,319
Speaker 1: their visas initially. And so when it came to me,

918
00:54:42,800 --> 00:54:44,840
Speaker 1: it came to me as submit to put on the

919
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,400
Speaker 1: terrorists watch lists. And I looked at it and I said,

920
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:53,440
Speaker 1: there is nothing in here that says they had anything

921
00:54:53,480 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: to do with terrorism, that that any like, there's nothing

922
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:02,120
Speaker 1: o saying their visas and they happened to be from

923
00:55:02,160 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: a country like, there's nothing in here, like there was

924
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: even like communications going back to stations in Somalia going

925
00:55:10,000 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 1: any anything in foul. No, they're just kids, like you know,

926
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:15,359
Speaker 1: you know, they're fine, you know, And so I said no.

927
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:17,239
Speaker 1: So I said, no, We're not gonna put them on.

928
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 1: And I had a lot of backlash from the much

929
00:55:20,719 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: older people that were working for me at the time, going,

930
00:55:24,120 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: but you don't understand that. I said, but you but

931
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 1: you can't just say he's Somali and he's overstaying a visa.

932
00:55:31,760 --> 00:55:34,600
Speaker 1: They may just want to live in this country. Like

933
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,839
Speaker 1: we can't. We can't say that they're terrorists and then

934
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,680
Speaker 1: brand them for the rest of their lives as terrorists,

935
00:55:41,680 --> 00:55:43,880
Speaker 1: because once you get in that cycle, it is hard

936
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: to get out, Like, no, we can't do that. So

937
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:50,479
Speaker 1: there was a there was a constant sort of like yeah,

938
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 1: they did, they found him. They just were hiding out

939
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:57,200
Speaker 1: because they wanted to stay in the country. They weren't

940
00:55:57,200 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: doing anything you know, illegal, They were just trying to

941
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:01,359
Speaker 1: get a job.

942
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:06,680
Speaker 3: And you have I mean, you talk about getting I

943
00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 3: get off script sometimes, but you have taken me so

944
00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:11,800
Speaker 3: far off script. We're going to get to Love City.

945
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:15,200
Speaker 2: But I just want to take thank you so much.

946
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:19,720
Speaker 3: For that background look into what that that is really

947
00:56:19,880 --> 00:56:21,720
Speaker 3: really bad. I swear I could.

948
00:56:21,520 --> 00:56:22,759
Speaker 1: Sit here for four I mean, then there were a

949
00:56:22,800 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: lot of other stories, you know, like they're in overseas.

950
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:28,400
Speaker 1: What you'll find a lot is when you have business

951
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:31,960
Speaker 1: competitors and they're trying to compete for contracts with either

952
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:34,600
Speaker 1: US companies or the US government, they will walk into

953
00:56:34,640 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 1: an embassy and say that their competitor is a terrorist

954
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:38,719
Speaker 1: to put them on the watch list.

955
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:39,440
Speaker 2: Wow.

956
00:56:39,480 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: And so that's then that's how like the whole redress

957
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: system got started because we started seeing a lot of

958
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:48,319
Speaker 1: that happening. And then I would work redress cases and

959
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:48,759
Speaker 1: what a.

960
00:56:48,719 --> 00:56:52,279
Speaker 3: Bunch of jerks using a system to protect lives to

961
00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 3: try to earn business. I mean, it's just just unscreened.

962
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:57,400
Speaker 1: And that happened a lot like Latin America they do that.

963
00:56:57,480 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: Africa they do that, you know, And so I took

964
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: a lot of people off, and I'm like, this is

965
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:03,080
Speaker 1: clearly what this is.

966
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 3: Love it all right?

967
00:57:06,640 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 2: The same thing that you just said, what's up that?

968
00:57:09,840 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 2: What a bunch of jerks to use the system to

969
00:57:12,680 --> 00:57:17,240
Speaker 2: get people to do something different. That's how we see religion.

970
00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:20,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, explain that.

971
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:23,200
Speaker 2: I just rode just down the street down here. It's

972
00:57:23,200 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 2: the same thing in my neighborhood. There's with those buildings

973
00:57:25,760 --> 00:57:29,240
Speaker 2: they call churches on every corner. We have that many,

974
00:57:29,280 --> 00:57:37,600
Speaker 2: then why we have so many problems?

975
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:41,200
Speaker 3: And that concludes part one of my conversation with Sean

976
00:57:41,360 --> 00:57:44,439
Speaker 3: and INGA. Arvin, and you don't want to miss part two.

977
00:57:44,760 --> 00:57:47,760
Speaker 3: That's now able to listen to as we will mostly

978
00:57:47,840 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 3: talk now about Love City together. Guys, we can change

979
00:57:52,400 --> 00:57:55,480
Speaker 3: this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in

980
00:57:55,600 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 3: Part two.