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Speaker 1: Ah beaut Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not

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Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military

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Speaker 1: news and straight Talk with the guys and the community.

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Speaker 1: Soft Rep Radio on Time on Target. I'm here with

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Speaker 1: Jack Murphy. Very excited to bring Mark Giaconia on the show,

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Speaker 1: author of One Green Beret. I think it's going to

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Speaker 1: be a fascinating story. Uh. Before we get into anything,

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Speaker 1: I want to tell you all about Red War. Listen

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Speaker 1: to Vince Flynn's Red War, a Mitch Rap novel by

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Speaker 1: Kyle Mills. Red War follows CIA operative Mitch Rap as

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Speaker 1: he races to prevent Russia's gravely ill leader from starting

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Speaker 1: a full scale war with NATO. Appropriate subject matter right

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Speaker 1: with Trump speaking at the u N today. Red War

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Speaker 1: is an action packed thrill ride featuring pulse pounding suspense,

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Speaker 1: electrifying intrigue, and fascinating characters. The Red War audio book

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Speaker 1: is read by longtime series narrator George Giddell. Red War

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Speaker 1: is available now wherever audio books are sold. Listen to

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Speaker 1: it today, just came out this week. You're gonna love it.

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Speaker 1: Before we get to Mark, Jack, you wrote an article

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Speaker 1: for News Rep that's on the site right now the

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Speaker 1: News rep dot com about Maddie and US staying in Syria. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I think it's gonna go up tomorrow actually, so as

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Speaker 1: when as people are listening to this, it will be up.

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Speaker 1: But he made a comment at a press conference at

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Speaker 1: the Pentagon about how American soldiers can stay in Syria

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Speaker 1: to train the local forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces as

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Speaker 1: DF that we've been working with UM, and also to

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Speaker 1: help ensure stability. So I wrote an article about why

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Speaker 1: I think we want to park ourselves in northern Syria

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Speaker 1: with the Kurds for now UM, And I think it

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Speaker 1: comes down to serving as a strategic deterrence to keep

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Speaker 1: Turkey out of there, to keep the regime from flooding

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Speaker 1: in there, and hopefully present UM that would prevent a

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Speaker 1: massacre from happening. UM. But it's also strategic ambiguity. So,

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Speaker 1: in other words, were interjecting uncertainty as far as America's

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Speaker 1: foreign policy. We're keeping troops there, but we're not really

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Speaker 1: saying what our policy is in regards to Northern Syria,

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Speaker 1: which the Kords called Rejava. What what is our feelings

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Speaker 1: on it? Should it be reintegrated into the Syrian government,

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Speaker 1: Should it be its own independent country. We we haven't

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Speaker 1: weighed in on that at all. So it just keeps

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Speaker 1: an element of uncertainty to keep some of the players.

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Speaker 1: Um that some of the regional actors off balance. I

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Speaker 1: think that's part of it. But I also think part

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Speaker 1: of it is uh, from the Pentagon's perspective, in just

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Speaker 1: a very pragmatic way. Um, you know, if people will

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Speaker 1: recall the Obama administration pulled us out of Iraq, whether

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Speaker 1: that's a good decision or a bad decision, you can

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Speaker 1: hash that out over a beer some other time. Um,

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Speaker 1: but the act of the matter is he had us

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Speaker 1: pull all of our forces out, we uprooted all of

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Speaker 1: our intelligence infrastructure out of Iraq, and uh, we just

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Speaker 1: left and will and behold like what a year or

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Speaker 1: two laters isis sweeps through the region and we have

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Speaker 1: to bring everyone back and do it all over again.

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Speaker 1: So I think from the Pentagon's perspective, they probably are

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Speaker 1: hesitant to leave because they realized that reinserting into Syria

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Speaker 1: and starting over from scratch a few years later in

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Speaker 1: response to the next crisis is just going to be

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Speaker 1: that much more ask pain quite frankly, so they're probably

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Speaker 1: reluctant to do that as well. UM, which I can understand.

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Speaker 1: There's no easy answers in the region, and you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, there will be another crisis, the tensions will

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Speaker 1: flare up, It's gonna happen. So, UM, I can see

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Speaker 1: where they're coming from. And I mean, hopefully the answer

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Speaker 1: is not to leave you know, several thousand troops in

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Speaker 1: Syria like we have there right now. Hopefully it's just

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Speaker 1: like two or three twelve man special forces to games um,

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Speaker 1: which I'm sure we'll talk more about those guys and

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Speaker 1: how they work when we get to Mark in a

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Speaker 1: little bit. But hopefully it's a very small American footprint

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Speaker 1: rather than a large troop commitment. Yeah, I would hope. So.

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Speaker 1: By the way, whenever General Maddis is mentioned, I don't

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Speaker 1: think it people even though we're an HD could read

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Speaker 1: this mouse but have you looked at this. It's just

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Speaker 1: I just got an Amazon and it is the great

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Speaker 1: Maddis quote of be polite, be professional, but have a

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Speaker 1: plan to kill everybody you meet. General James. I think

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Speaker 1: they are prepping the battlefield, so to speak, to push

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Speaker 1: Maddis out a Secretary of Defense. I think Bolton and

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Speaker 1: his boys, and and perhaps President Trump as well. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if he's on board or not, but um,

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Speaker 1: they want to do a RAN and they're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to push Maddis out to make that happen. So I

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Speaker 1: think he's the next on the chopping block. But we'll see,

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Speaker 1: we'll see how that pans out. I saw Bill, you know,

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Speaker 1: who's written for the site before, wrote something similar to

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Speaker 1: that on Twitter. Yeah. Um, it's scary. Um. And you

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Speaker 1: can see things are ramping up. I mean, the rhetoric

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Speaker 1: is ramping up on Iran again. It's it's the whole

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Speaker 1: something's got to be done about Iran, all that kind

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Speaker 1: of nonsense. Um. And I think a lot of Trump

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Speaker 1: supporters are gonna be pretty shocked to see how fast

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Speaker 1: that ramps up. Yeah, I mean, as they should be,

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Speaker 1: because I think that the big departure from Trump and

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Speaker 1: Ted Cruz and Jeff Bush and all of them when

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Speaker 1: he ran is that people saw him as a change

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Speaker 1: from not just the liberal agenda that we had going

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Speaker 1: on with Barack Obama, but the more neo conservative George Bush,

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Speaker 1: Dick Cheney foreign policy that we're gonna put America first,

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Speaker 1: that we're not going to engage in these overseas adventures

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Speaker 1: toppling regimes and the pulling troops all over the world

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Speaker 1: and getting nothing for it. Um. But I think you know, asident,

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Speaker 1: Trump is also in one of those situations where he

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Speaker 1: wants to show some successes. Um. He might have North

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Speaker 1: Korea might not. We're still seeing how that pans out.

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Speaker 1: But he has experienced some success there, right, But I

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Speaker 1: think he's gonna need something. He's gonna want to have

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Speaker 1: something to show for himself, which is very dangerous for

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Speaker 1: a political leader, any political leader when they command the

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Speaker 1: world's most powerful military. I think Hillary would have been

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Speaker 1: in the same situation that she had so little credibility,

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Speaker 1: she would have had to flex some muscle in terms

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Speaker 1: of using the U. S. Military to build some credibility

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Speaker 1: for herself. That's what she did as Secretary of State

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Speaker 1: in Libya. Well, I want to get over to Mark Jaconia.

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Speaker 1: Before we do, I want to tell you all about

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Speaker 1: Vince Flynn's Red War. Listen to Vince Flynn's Red War,

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Speaker 1: a Mitch rap novel by Kyle Mills. Red War follows

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Speaker 1: CIA operative Mitch Rap as he races to prevent Russia's

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Speaker 1: gravely ill leader from starting a full scale war with NATO.

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Speaker 1: Red War is an action packed throw ride featuring pulse

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Speaker 1: pounding suspense, electrifying intrigue, and fascinating characters. The Red War

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Speaker 1: audio book is read by longtime series narrator George Guidel.

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Speaker 1: Red War is available now wherever audio books are sold.

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Speaker 1: If you're listening on Wednesday, just came out yesterday, so

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Speaker 1: brand new. Listen to it today. You guys are really

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Speaker 1: gonna enjoy it. Vince Flynn's Red War, a Mitch Wrap

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Speaker 1: novel by Kyle Mills and once again read by George Guidel.

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Speaker 1: Check it out with that, We're gonna get over to

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Speaker 1: Green Beret. Mark Jaconia joining us for the first time

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Speaker 1: on Software Radio. Mark Gaconia, author of One Green Beret,

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Speaker 1: which accounts a service from eleven. Although you have twenty

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Speaker 1: years of service, this is about these specific fifteen years

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Speaker 1: in Bosnia Kosovo, and I rock excited to have you on,

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Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, great to be here and and

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Speaker 1: just to give you some background to the audience. Mark

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Speaker 1: is now senior director of Radiant Solutions, also authored the

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Speaker 1: books Operation Viking Hammer and Quest for War Uh and

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Speaker 1: You hold two awards for Valor, and I'm excited to

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Speaker 1: get into this actual book, as you know, you may know,

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Speaker 1: Jack and I haven't gotten a chance to really get

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Speaker 1: into the whole thing, but just skimming through it, it

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Speaker 1: is truly action packed with these events. It's it almost

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Speaker 1: reads like a journals on some of them. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: I actually came across your book on Amazon by happenstance,

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Speaker 1: I think mark uh, and I'm glad I did. I

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Speaker 1: was just looking at the synopsis and I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this guy was on Viking Hammer. Are familiar with that operation,

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Speaker 1: and then also in Bosnia and kosa Os. I was like,

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Speaker 1: that's some stuff we haven't talked about, and we've talked

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Speaker 1: about quite a bit on the history of this podcast,

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Speaker 1: wrote like what three hundred ninety episodes or something that

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Speaker 1: we're getting close. Yeah, it's it's it's up there. So

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm always searching for uh, interesting people who

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Speaker 1: have done things that we haven't talked about a whole

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Speaker 1: lot previous. UM And I thought this was a great example.

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Speaker 1: But when I came into work today, I you know,

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Speaker 1: your book was here, so I haven't had time to

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Speaker 1: read it yet, So I apologize for that. UM And

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Speaker 1: I may lean on you a little bit, but it's

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Speaker 1: your story, so I figured you'll probably be pretty good

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Speaker 1: at telling us about it. Yep, we'll be all right.

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Speaker 1: So all right, so you want me to jump into

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Speaker 1: it or yeah, I mean go ahead, Mark, I mean,

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Speaker 1: why don't you tell us a little bit about, um,

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Speaker 1: why you sat down and decided to write this book

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Speaker 1: in the first place. We kind of like, uh, what

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Speaker 1: you guys just said. I looking back on my fifteen

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Speaker 1: years and as a Special Forces guy, like I thought

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Speaker 1: some of the things that did were actually kind of unique,

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Speaker 1: you know, and of course the guys who did it

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Speaker 1: with me also did it. But uh, one of my

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Speaker 1: goals was just to articulate, UM, some of these kind

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Speaker 1: of special missions. I was on. Viking Hammer was one

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Speaker 1: of them. UM. But there were other really bizarre, unexpected

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Speaker 1: missions that just happened to do. UM I was. I

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Speaker 1: was in Special Forces on an a team for a

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Speaker 1: pretty cool set of years that UM in tenth group.

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Speaker 1: That put me in a lot of totally different places.

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Speaker 1: So I spent some time in Bosnia and spent some

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Speaker 1: time in Kosovo. I went over to Kyrgyzstan as part

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Speaker 1: of UH Enduring Freedom and then the Big the Big

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Speaker 1: U w back on conventional warfare. So, um, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean my goals for the book were really to you know,

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Speaker 1: this is why I kind of started writing it is. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I wanted people to know what green Berets

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Speaker 1: really do. Uh. You see a lot of books the

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Speaker 1: people right where, you know, it's always the football players

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Speaker 1: and black helicopters type of stuff that makes the headline. Uh,

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Speaker 1: And green Berets don't generally do that stuff that much.

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Speaker 1: Some of them do, but I was on one of

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Speaker 1: the straight unconventional warfare teams, and I wanted people to

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Speaker 1: know about that kind of of Um. Yeah, that was

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Speaker 1: one of my goals. Now that the other goal was yeah,

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Speaker 1: I wrote it from a I guess a different type

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Speaker 1: of perspective to which some people have liked and some haven't.

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Speaker 1: But it was very singularly from my lens as an individual. Um,

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Speaker 1: So I really wanted to convey that individual experience. So

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Speaker 1: I'll stop talking now at you guys, big An a

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Speaker 1: little more on specifics. Well, I know, I'm I'm really

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Speaker 1: excited to have you on the show today because you know,

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Speaker 1: in the past, i've in regards to Viking Hammer I've

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Speaker 1: interviewed Sam Faddus, who was on the agency side, and

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Speaker 1: then I've interviewed Polot Talabani in uh in Solomonia, who

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Speaker 1: was one of the curds on the operations. But I've

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Speaker 1: never spoken to an American one of the SF guys

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Speaker 1: who was on the operation. So I'm actually excited to

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Speaker 1: hear your side of it. Um. But this is your

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Speaker 1: book and your story. I mean, where where do we

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Speaker 1: start with with your story and with this narrative. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean the book starts with Operation Viking Hammer, Um,

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Speaker 1: so it kicks off straight into the action of that operation.

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Speaker 1: You want to tell people, yes, maybe what that operation

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Speaker 1: is and how you came to be a part of it. Sure,

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Speaker 1: absolutely so. UM. In two thousand two, like my SF

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Speaker 1: teams called an O d A, UM was given like

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Speaker 1: kind of a special mission to go into Iraq before

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Speaker 1: the war started and do some of the preparatory stuff.

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Speaker 1: So I went there. I did a really interesting infiltration

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Speaker 1: in UM rental cars from Turkey, which I saw in

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Speaker 1: my book. Yeah. One of them was even like a

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Speaker 1: tinted window like lowrider truck, so that that was a plus. UM.

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Speaker 1: So we we get into Iraq link up with the Kurds,

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Speaker 1: link up with some CIA guys and stuff that we're

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Speaker 1: in there, they bring us all the way down into

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Speaker 1: a Sulamania area actually a little north of there. Um.

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Speaker 1: From there we start trying to figure out, you know,

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Speaker 1: like where are the Curds and the different groups and

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Speaker 1: how are they aligned against the iraqis UM. And at

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Speaker 1: that time there was like at least three different kind

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Speaker 1: of terrorist groups operating their uh on Star Islam, I

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Speaker 1: g K and I m K. So we had this

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Speaker 1: kind of dual purpose job of figure out where all

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Speaker 1: these bad guys are target them for. If you remember

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Speaker 1: the whole shock and a thing right prior to the

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Speaker 1: ground invasion, right, So a lot of what we did

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Speaker 1: there was register those targets um during that time before

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Speaker 1: the war um and then just get the curds um.

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Speaker 1: You know. I'd like to say we we organized the curves,

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Speaker 1: but they actually they didn't need to be organized. We

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Speaker 1: just needed to discover where they were and how they

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Speaker 1: were kind of aligned. Um. It was almost impossible to

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Speaker 1: organize them, to be honest. UM. So yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: tens hundreds of thousands of Curds with just a few

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Speaker 1: O D a s trying to figure it all out. Um.

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Speaker 1: So a long story short on that one. As we

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Speaker 1: figure out where all the Curds are, we figure out

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Speaker 1: where we're gonna put all of our SF teams once

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Speaker 1: they show up, um Um. And then that once they

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Speaker 1: landed on the ground, which was a pretty significant event

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Speaker 1: in itself, called the Ugly Baby, it's generally referred to.

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Speaker 1: It's when the ten Special Forces Group guys flew over

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Speaker 1: Iraq to get into northern Iraq um and they got

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Speaker 1: you know, they got shot up in the planes. And

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Speaker 1: I mean, I feel lucky that I was already there.

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Speaker 1: I didn't have to go through that flight. My team

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Speaker 1: was already there. But they landed in a Sulamania airstrip

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Speaker 1: which we had paid Kurdish construction workers to fix while

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Speaker 1: we were there so they could land um. And kind

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Speaker 1: of we we sent them on their way out to

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Speaker 1: the places we you know, we we'd set up for

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Speaker 1: him with these different Kurdish little militias and stuff that

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Speaker 1: were there. Um. And then at that point my team

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Speaker 1: went wholesale down to an area called Halopja, and that's

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Speaker 1: where we mounted the attack on a Star al Islam.

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Speaker 1: And that was called Operation Viking HAMMERPA is a nest

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Speaker 1: of bad guys, I mean to this day, really yeah, totally. Um,

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Speaker 1: it's I don't know if it always has been, but

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Speaker 1: it was in two thousand two on Star Islam I

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Speaker 1: g K, I m K, and then a little bit

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Speaker 1: further north was p kk UM. They they blatantly owned land,

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Speaker 1: like they literally had machine gun bunkers in the road

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Speaker 1: with the flag flying like, hey, this is our territory.

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Speaker 1: If it was that like over how they were set up,

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Speaker 1: it was really almost for the average American you probably

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Speaker 1: couldn't even imagine. Imagine suddenly you're going to the supermarket

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Speaker 1: and there's a machine gun bunker in the road saying

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Speaker 1: some faction is saying I can't go down this road

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Speaker 1: and they're going to chop my head off. This was

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Speaker 1: This was a star all Islam that you were dealing with. Yep. Well,

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Speaker 1: actually we dealt with an stars all Islam, primarily UM.

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Speaker 1: And then there was I g K, which is Islamic

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Speaker 1: Group of Kurdistan, and then there was I m K,

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Speaker 1: which I think is Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, which were

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Speaker 1: on the flanking sides of where On Star Islam was

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Speaker 1: and there was you know, there's some things about that

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Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't talk about because it didn't get approved

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Speaker 1: in my pre publication review. Uh so I'll just leave

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Speaker 1: it at that. That's how they were laid out there.

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Speaker 1: Um So on Operation Viking Hammer was when we really

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Speaker 1: decided to attack um on Star Islam. So the idea

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Speaker 1: was we can't go after the rackies and pushed them

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Speaker 1: south if if we're going to get um you know,

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Speaker 1: hit from behind from potentially thousands of different random terrorists cells.

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Speaker 1: So we took out on stars Alam with this operation

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Speaker 1: biking cameras. So what it was was roughly the numbers

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Speaker 1: vary by opinions, but there was anywhere from like seven

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Speaker 1: to ten thousand Kurdish fighters showed up for this thing. Umah,

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Speaker 1: it was massive in scale. Like I'm surprised it's not

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Speaker 1: better known operation. I mean when I see when I've

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Speaker 1: seen pictures from the operation, I mean, what would you say?

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Speaker 1: The breakdown was amongst the Kurds as far as like

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Speaker 1: Peshmerga versus p KK guerrillas. Well, and from what I saw,

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Speaker 1: they were all p k K. I'm sorry, they were

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Speaker 1: all PUK. So the Peshmerga that I worked with were

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Speaker 1: either PUK A or k DP. I'm not sure what

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Speaker 1: they what they're I think they're different. Now. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: p UK is the political and and KDP is the

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Speaker 1: political party in Northern Kurdistan. And then p KK is

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Speaker 1: the guerrilla organization that exists, you know, spread across Turkey

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Speaker 1: and what we consider northern Iraq. Yeah. Yeah, so these

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Speaker 1: were all PUK Kurds as far as I was. At

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Speaker 1: least that's what I thought I knew at the time.

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Speaker 1: And I should just point out for the listeners to

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Speaker 1: the the Peshmerga is not a m unnecessarily a harmonized,

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Speaker 1: homogeneous organization. I mean, they're they're split amongst p UK

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Speaker 1: Peshmerga and k DP Peshmerga, the two predominant political parties.

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Speaker 1: So it's almost as if imagine in America if the

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Speaker 1: Republican Party had its own army and the Democratic Party

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Speaker 1: had its own army. That's kind of what you're you're

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Speaker 1: starting to envision. Um, that's just another distinction. So what

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Speaker 1: Mark is saying is that he was working with the

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Speaker 1: p U K's Peshmerga, that political party's peshmerga, right yep.

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Speaker 1: And back then, if you roughly split northern Iraqi in half.

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Speaker 1: They were on the right side of northern Iraq. That's

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Speaker 1: kind of how it lays out. Um. Yeah, so it

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Speaker 1: was roughly, uh, you know, eight thousand inch kurds UM

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Speaker 1: and then there was six SF teams which we're actually

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Speaker 1: broken up into smaller team elements and just distributed across

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Speaker 1: these massive amount of Kurds. And yeah, so we were

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Speaker 1: exactly we were there to facilitate colms for the maneuvering

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Speaker 1: of all the different elements, but also for air support,

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Speaker 1: you know, calling an air straight which we didn't actually

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Speaker 1: have that much air support on it. But we organized

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Speaker 1: i think also into six prongs UM and the prong

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Speaker 1: I was on, and the one I wrote about on

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Speaker 1: my book is that was the yell Oh prong, which

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Speaker 1: was the you know, in military terminology it's called the

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Speaker 1: main effort of the attack, which means you're the one

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Speaker 1: who's going to seize the objective. And the objective was

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Speaker 1: to secure the Sargat chemical facility, which if you google

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Speaker 1: that you actually find some articles about what was what

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Speaker 1: was there, but basically on Sara Islam was doing some

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff with poisons and things like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: So we were we were to secure that in this

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Speaker 1: tiny village called sargat Um. And then the other prongs

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Speaker 1: were either supporting our advance, like the Green prong Um,

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Speaker 1: and then there were other prongs more to the south

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Speaker 1: from us. They were just seizing other objectives, some of

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Speaker 1: which were were significant as well, like like sargat was.

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Speaker 1: So it was um. Yeah. I described the beginnings of

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Speaker 1: the battle like like Braveheart, you know where you've got

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Speaker 1: just these two masses of forces. And by the way,

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Speaker 1: there was there was the numbers vary from like five

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Speaker 1: hundred to a thousand on stars Alam. Guys were dug

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Speaker 1: into the to the mountains there um and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people don't associate mountains with Iraq, but northern Iraq

359
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Speaker 1: looks kind of like Colorado. Uh, you know, it's no joke.

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Speaker 1: The terrain there was even snow on the peaks during

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Speaker 1: this time in Operation Viking Him, So we're talking about

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Speaker 1: a serious mountain terrain. So Um, when we started the battle,

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Speaker 1: we we basically all linked up at this um small

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Speaker 1: little village on the outskirts of a small village called Decon,

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Speaker 1: I think it was called and Uh, which is very

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Speaker 1: close to Halabja. And there's where literally thousands and thousands

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Speaker 1: of p uk Teshmerga showed up anyway you could possibly

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Speaker 1: get there, So like guys driving on tractors, you know,

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Speaker 1: taxi cabs, motorcycles with like five people on it. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's like clown cars and stuff showing up almost like

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Speaker 1: just people with any weapon they could find, anyway they

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Speaker 1: could get there. You know, they're they're ready to take

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Speaker 1: back all this land from from anstars loam and essentially

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Speaker 1: they bent out of war with these guys for years.

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Speaker 1: Um So I described it as brave Heart because the

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Speaker 1: Unstar guys were standing on the ridgeline just looking at

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Speaker 1: us too down uh probably, I don't know, two clicks

378
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Speaker 1: away to two kilometers and you could see them just

379
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Speaker 1: standing there. So it was like this huge face off.

380
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Speaker 1: I mean it was chilling, you know, like here here

381
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Speaker 1: we are amassing for this attack and the bad guys

382
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Speaker 1: are just standing there looking at us. Eventually, you know,

383
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Speaker 1: they kind of the signal for the charge was when

384
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Speaker 1: they touched off this double barreled anti aircraft gun and

385
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Speaker 1: just firing it into these into the mountains. You know,

386
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Speaker 1: as we all started to kind of ooze towards the

387
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Speaker 1: hills and just running like an assault towards towards the

388
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Speaker 1: hills Getty's bird charge. It's hard, Yeah, exactly, it was.

389
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Speaker 1: It was. It was so huge. It was actually struggled

390
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Speaker 1: as a writer to convey the the massiveness of it,

391
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Speaker 1: um because it was you know, it wasn't like your

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Speaker 1: typical little thing where you know, you got in the

393
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Speaker 1: firefight with a few people a few minutes later it

394
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:40,960
Speaker 1: was over. You know, this was thousands of people covering

395
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Speaker 1: thousands of square kilometers. I think it might have even

396
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Speaker 1: been you know, facing an enemy that's like entrenched for

397
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Speaker 1: a huge amount of terrain. So they had dump trucks

398
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Speaker 1: as armored personnel carriers, um, and they were loading people

399
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Speaker 1: up into the They had these flat, bad pickup trucks

400
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Speaker 1: with all kinds of different guns mounted to them. It

401
00:25:06,040 --> 00:25:11,120
Speaker 1: was just this makeshift rabble of warriors, you know, just

402
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Speaker 1: you know, headed for the enemy like head on. It was.

403
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: It was. It was I'm getting like emotional talking about it,

404
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:22,600
Speaker 1: like thinking about it again. H So, anyway, we we

405
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Speaker 1: basically fought all day from literally when the sun came

406
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Speaker 1: up until it went down. Uh. We fought our way

407
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Speaker 1: through a couple of villages. We had some aircraft come

408
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Speaker 1: in and a couple of strategic points. At one point

409
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Speaker 1: I was convinced we were all going to die right

410
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Speaker 1: on the outskirts of Sargot where there was I described

411
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Speaker 1: it as like horizontal rain of tracers just pouring out

412
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Speaker 1: of this village and there we were maneuvering across essentially

413
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Speaker 1: open ground. Uh. Luckily there was stone walls running kind

414
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Speaker 1: of you know, perpendicular to the line we were approaching from,

415
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 1: and we had some cover there. But it was a knockdown,

416
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Speaker 1: drag him out, um, you know, assault on this village

417
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Speaker 1: for all day. It was. It was it was insane.

418
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Speaker 1: You know. I shot like I was carrying an M

419
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Speaker 1: twenty one sniper rifle, which is like an M four

420
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Speaker 1: team semi auto weapon. I think I put twenty magazines

421
00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: of match grade AMMO through that thing. And we emptied

422
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Speaker 1: an entire pickup of like a fifty cow and a

423
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Speaker 1: Mark nineteen shine gun, you know, while you know, just

424
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Speaker 1: running alongside the Kurds trying to take this village up.

425
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Speaker 1: There's one there's one significant event of the whole attack

426
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Speaker 1: where you know, the point in which I described in

427
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Speaker 1: my book. Um, I've gotten a lot of good feedback

428
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,600
Speaker 1: about this part of the Book of disc Riving the

429
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 1: sense of um like impending doom that falls over you

430
00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 1: when you actually think you're going to die like any

431
00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 1: second for an extended amount of time. Um. And at

432
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: this one pinnacle that on Star guys started firing this

433
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: very high caliber like machine gun down into the valley

434
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 1: from one of the hills on the outskirts of Sargod

435
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: Sar God was kind of like a bowl um in

436
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: the in the foothills, and you know, me and two

437
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 1: other guys on my team were kind of charged with

438
00:27:34,359 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: we need to get on top of some high ground

439
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: with a fifty cowel and try to find where this

440
00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 1: thing is and take it out. So that was the

441
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 1: most epic event of operation Biking him or for me

442
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:51,719
Speaker 1: was dashing across a field of you know, tracers and

443
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 1: mortars and everything else that was dropping, trying to get

444
00:27:55,560 --> 00:27:57,760
Speaker 1: to one of our pickup trucks where the fifty cow

445
00:27:57,880 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 1: was just thrown in the back and then grabbing that thing.

446
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 1: One of my teammates, the Tom's guy, was a it's

447
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: a beast of a guy. I mean, we were all

448
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: kind of beasts of guys. But he threw the fifty

449
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,359
Speaker 1: cow on his shoulder, you know. Another guy grabbed the tripod,

450
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: me and a bunch of Kurds grabbed some AMMO and

451
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:21,239
Speaker 1: we just ran up this hill to get to the

452
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,400
Speaker 1: top of it and set up the fifty and took

453
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: out this machine gun. Ultimately, it's like the kind of

454
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:30,880
Speaker 1: fighting you'd associate with like Marines in the Pacific during

455
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: World War two or something. I mean, it's a hardcore.

456
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:37,160
Speaker 1: It was, you know, it was old school. I mean,

457
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: we had some air strikes, but most of it was

458
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:44,040
Speaker 1: just ground, uh combat, and you know, we we probably

459
00:28:44,080 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: maneuvered I don't know, I'm guessing, but of movement, you know,

460
00:28:52,440 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: it was I mean we were running all day, you know,

461
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: and just attacking deeper and deeper into the mountains. And

462
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I take it you guys got that fifty

463
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 1: callandar operation and took out the what was it a

464
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: Dishka up in the mountain. Yeah. Actually, I think what

465
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,000
Speaker 1: it was was a fourteen point five inch machine gun,

466
00:29:12,040 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 1: which is a little bigger than a dish Its got

467
00:29:14,280 --> 00:29:19,000
Speaker 1: fired a little bit like like a z s U. Yeah,

468
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a z s U, but with

469
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: only one like one barrel. Yeah, so yeah, we were

470
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: so we took out that thing, which was it was intense.

471
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,080
Speaker 1: You know, we were up there taking fire. You know,

472
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: we we unloaded like six hundred rounds of fifty cow

473
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,840
Speaker 1: I think from that location. Uh yeah, I mean it

474
00:29:40,920 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 1: was insane. And uh so that that kind of freed

475
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 1: up the Kurds broke into sar Got Basically at that

476
00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: point in my book, I described it like it's kind

477
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: of like an ant farm where if you, if you like,

478
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 1: released one little piece of dirt and they could get

479
00:29:59,120 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: into this other sec of the farm. That's kind of

480
00:30:01,320 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: what it would look like. He's just courage is stealing

481
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: into the village and and uh and taken taken out

482
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: anybody who was there. I saw a few Kurds get

483
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:14,800
Speaker 1: killed like great in front of me on the outskirts

484
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 1: um and then we thought through that, which then we

485
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of over. You know, we we

486
00:30:22,080 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: there's some sporadic fighting around the outskirts and we drove through. Uh.

487
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: Actually there was some really crazy thing happened. First is

488
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: a suddenly out of nowhere, the Kurds brought us lunch

489
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: on like a platter, like the Americans have to eat now,

490
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: So you know, in the middle of all that, suddenly

491
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: we have this platter of like chow and we take

492
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: a little break and eat. They like to feed you. Oh, definitely,

493
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: we were not hungry. Ever in Iraq, there was no

494
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: suffering uh on that front. So we lived with the

495
00:31:01,800 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: Kurds like like we were I don't know, you know,

496
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 1: we didn't have there was no base, you know, like

497
00:31:09,520 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: green Berets don't usually go to like a base. There's

498
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,560
Speaker 1: no concept of that. You're gonna live with the locals

499
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: wherever you go. So we lived in in the Kurdish

500
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,479
Speaker 1: buildings and sometimes even in people's houses for a day

501
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: or two, just as we've moved around constantly. So there

502
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: was no concept of a base at that point. So yeah,

503
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 1: we ate our lunch uh in in Sargat, right next

504
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,000
Speaker 1: to the chemical facility actually, which was actually blown like

505
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: two bits um from Tomahawk missiles that had had hit,

506
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: which is a whole another story, the tomahawks flying and

507
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: was intense beyond belief that happened before um. So we

508
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: then we pressed onward towards more towards the Iranian border,

509
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 1: until we were actually really close to the Anian border.

510
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: We could see like the Iranians border, like some border

511
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: position we could actually see. And then we got another

512
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: huge firefight there where you know, actually you mentioned one

513
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: of the Talibani, so I was actually this whole time,

514
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,160
Speaker 1: I was almost side by side with Boffel's Alibani Um

515
00:32:20,200 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: and Baffel was Jeal's son Gal you know, you know

516
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:31,040
Speaker 1: Jel Talibani is uh he was the president of all

517
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: the puk Kurds at that time. Uh. So he was

518
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: pinned down behind this truck with me for a while. Um.

519
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:43,200
Speaker 1: After after sur got up on this other hill um

520
00:32:43,200 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: and then at that point we we were getting hammered

521
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,280
Speaker 1: in this little village like by machine gun fired just

522
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:52,560
Speaker 1: chipping away at buildings that we were trying to get behind.

523
00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: We couldn't see anyone. It was really frustrating. The the

524
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: terrain um and then the enemy wearing a can it

525
00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:04,720
Speaker 1: was super hard to locate people. It's very frustrating actually,

526
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: so we called in an airstrike and this is where

527
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:13,400
Speaker 1: a significant like danger close airstrike kind of pulled us

528
00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,120
Speaker 1: out of that one, and we actually almost had a

529
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 1: friendly fire incident with the flanking Kurds on the green

530
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: prong on that but luckily that that didn't happen, but

531
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: so that pretty much at that point, it's almost getting dark.

532
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:31,680
Speaker 1: So we've been fighting all day from sun up sundown.

533
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: And then we went back down into the into Sar

534
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: God and you know, stayed the night uh there and

535
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:44,040
Speaker 1: back down in. Were you concerned Mark about you know,

536
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: potentially breathing in like chemical substances or something after the

537
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: tomahawks had hit the whatever chemical facility was there. Definitely.

538
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you, like I you know, it may

539
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: be controversial to say I think that we did. I mean,

540
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:06,840
Speaker 1: I had this weird and I wrote about this in

541
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 1: my book pretty extensively like that that night. Like later

542
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 1: on when we were up at the uh the next

543
00:34:13,960 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 1: village upwards where we were taking fire and caught an airstrike,

544
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,839
Speaker 1: I got this really bad like sickness came over me.

545
00:34:20,600 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 1: And I wasn't the only one. Um So I can't

546
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:27,880
Speaker 1: help but wonder if there's something about basically going through

547
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: that chemicals. Who knows what came out of that. So

548
00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:37,239
Speaker 1: the end of the first night, I was just saying,

549
00:34:37,280 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: it reminds me or sounds similar to like golf four syndrome,

550
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:42,759
Speaker 1: Like maybe the guys were exposed to you know, low

551
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:48,759
Speaker 1: levels of some kind of chemical substance or weapon. Yeah,

552
00:34:48,880 --> 00:34:51,239
Speaker 1: I mean that thought has been in my head for

553
00:34:51,280 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: a long time, because I'll tell you I have I've

554
00:34:53,600 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: had some you know, I felt horrendous that night, like

555
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,920
Speaker 1: in a weird way. And uh, I've actually had some

556
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: like recurring feelings like that afterwards too. And we were

557
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:12,520
Speaker 1: also like bizarrely like lethargic for several almost like a

558
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: week afterwards, which it might have been just because of

559
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,320
Speaker 1: the sheer exhaustion of what we just did. But I

560
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:20,680
Speaker 1: thought I wondered something to do with it. Have you

561
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: or any of the guys you served with got any

562
00:35:22,680 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 1: type of blood tests? You know, I would think that

563
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: that'd be something you'd want to do. Um. Yeah, I

564
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: actually did. Um. And there's there's dead. No one has

565
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:38,560
Speaker 1: ever found anything conclusive on that, So I guess it's

566
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: a it's a gut thing and I'll never know. Yeah,

567
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:46,120
Speaker 1: if you if you google it. Sorry, No, I was

568
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: just gonna say. I mean, the guys exposed to Agent

569
00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 1: Orange and Vietnam, I mean, they really didn't learn until

570
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: it was too late. It's not like they were able

571
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: to take a blood test to see that there was

572
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:57,439
Speaker 1: any type of chemical in their blood. But I would

573
00:35:57,440 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: just wonder, I mean, because that that is something that

574
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,919
Speaker 1: would think would stick with you if if all these

575
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:07,560
Speaker 1: guys you served with had a similar experience. Yeah, I

576
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 1: definitely don't rule it out. Let's put it that way.

577
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: I don't dwell on it, but it's definitely possible in

578
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,640
Speaker 1: my mind. I mean, they did find stuff in that facility,

579
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:22,839
Speaker 1: so that in what you can google it and see

580
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 1: about it. The end of the first night, then you

581
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: were back in Star got was that was at the

582
00:36:27,680 --> 00:36:29,640
Speaker 1: end of of you know, the as far as the

583
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:32,480
Speaker 1: kinetic aspector of Viking Hammer or did it go on

584
00:36:32,560 --> 00:36:36,959
Speaker 1: in the next day. It went on for at least

585
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: the next day. We did a little clean up stuff,

586
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:43,399
Speaker 1: but most of that was handled by the Kurds. There

587
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:46,879
Speaker 1: was only a couple of things where we directly, uh

588
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:50,399
Speaker 1: went with them. It was more them just doing clean

589
00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: up around the outskirts. The A lot of these on

590
00:36:55,040 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: stars Alum guys actually escaped into Iran. We could see

591
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: them actually like post holing through the snow up over

592
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:09,400
Speaker 1: going over the border. So you know, I think the

593
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 1: numbers vary, but we killed several hundred of them. Um

594
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: I've heard numbers up as high as three hundred, but

595
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't actually know what it was. Uh,

596
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 1: but you know, if there were seven, eight hundred or

597
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: thousand of them or whatever there was, I mean imagine

598
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:31,399
Speaker 1: how many escaped, which led me to, you know, think

599
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: about that. My book is very uh open minded and

600
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 1: how I recall these things, and and I talked about

601
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: questioning really the validity of the whole thing, like did

602
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 1: it really accomplish anything? I don't. I'm not really sure

603
00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 1: because I wonder sometimes if all we did was kind

604
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:53,880
Speaker 1: of disperse them, um, which which actually made it harder

605
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,839
Speaker 1: to keep track of them, and then they popped up

606
00:37:55,840 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: as different entities later on. So when I when I looked, yeah,

607
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 1: exactly like some of these guys that we pushed out

608
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: of this en clay the Northern Iraq, you know, they

609
00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: they were they were cell leaders and founders of other

610
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 1: of other things later Well it sounds similar to Um,

611
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: I can't help but draw the comparison Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan,

612
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:27,319
Speaker 1: where uh you know, Tom Greer, who's the Delta Force

613
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,879
Speaker 1: commander on the ground, wrote in his book, um what

614
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: was the book was called Killed Bin Laden actually, and

615
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 1: he expressed a lot of frustration in the book about

616
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,720
Speaker 1: how many people were able to escape, including bin Laden himself,

617
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 1: because they did not have the manpower to um envelope

618
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: that area and and you know, prevent you know, some

619
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 1: of the egress routes. Yeah, exactly, I mean that's exactly

620
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:57,600
Speaker 1: my frustration, you know, going back in time, like standing

621
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:01,520
Speaker 1: there in the foothills, looking up in to the the

622
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 1: snow capped peaks of the Iranian border and literally seeing

623
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 1: little specks those guys escaping, you know, and I'm like,

624
00:39:10,680 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: where are they going to go? You know, and what

625
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 1: what are they gonna They're not going to quit, you know.

626
00:39:16,440 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 1: The the ones who stay behind to die are the

627
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 1: insignificant ones, um and you know, the ones who are

628
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: leaving are going to perpetuate the whole you know, psychotic

629
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: stuff they got going on. So like, anyway, that was

630
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: a little disheartening. I kind of I can see where

631
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,080
Speaker 1: I had never read that book with that, I agree

632
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: totally with the sentiment of that, especially with us, we

633
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: couldn't envelope them because they were on the Iranian border,

634
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:47,040
Speaker 1: so it was we were just pushing them against it,

635
00:39:47,120 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 1: and they you know, I would guess hundreds of them escaped.

636
00:39:52,080 --> 00:39:54,200
Speaker 1: But I mean the point of the operation wasn't it

637
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:56,560
Speaker 1: too sort of a rear guard action, right, so that

638
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,480
Speaker 1: anstar couldn't stir up a bunch of ship for the

639
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: cold they and as they invaded from the south. And

640
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: I mean, you guys did accomplish that objective, I believe, Yeah, definitely,

641
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: I mean even just dispersion definitely solved for that for

642
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:15,400
Speaker 1: that need. Yeah, if if the mission would have been

643
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 1: to eradicate all on sar Islam, that it probably would

644
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: have been a failure. But since it was just to

645
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:23,799
Speaker 1: protect our back door, I guess I guess you're right

646
00:40:23,840 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 1: it it was a success in that regard. On the

647
00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:30,600
Speaker 1: second day, UM, I describe a part of my book

648
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: that I've actually got tons of feedback on that was

649
00:40:34,160 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: deemed pretty epic. Was when so they wanted to uh

650
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:44,479
Speaker 1: a sensitive site exploitation team came in to Sargot to

651
00:40:44,480 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: to look through this facility. Um, and these guys are

652
00:40:47,680 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: wearing like chemical suits. UM, and we're you know, of course,

653
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: our team guys were all after I'm like, how come

654
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:57,400
Speaker 1: we didn't get those things? You know, like you know,

655
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,840
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can do about it. But anyway, me

656
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 1: in my medic were basically tasked to collect hair samples

657
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: off of the dead astar guys. Um. Yeah, which was,

658
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:17,880
Speaker 1: you know, a disturbing, beyond belief experience. So um, I

659
00:41:17,920 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: wrote a very detailed depiction of of this hair cutting

660
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: that we did. Literally, what we did is walked around

661
00:41:26,600 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: with a digital camera and some plastic ziploc bags and

662
00:41:31,960 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: a pair of scissors, and we grabbed dead guy's hair

663
00:41:36,200 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: and cut it off and put it in bags and

664
00:41:38,040 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: took pictures of them. And I'll tell you, I will

665
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 1: never forget, you know, just wading through the carnage of

666
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 1: these dead people, you know, and I know that they

667
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: were like terrorists and stuff, but it's still at some

668
00:41:54,920 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 1: level a human being that is blown to bits, burnt

669
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:04,399
Speaker 1: to a chris uh, you know, just hard this part.

670
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: You just got to kind of read it. I've had

671
00:42:06,400 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 1: people actually claim that it made them throw up. Um,

672
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: it was that that intense. So that was a super

673
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:17,319
Speaker 1: was the point of collecting the hair to have it

674
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: tested for it to see if they had been exposed

675
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,959
Speaker 1: to chemicals or was there some other reason? Now that

676
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: that was as far as I know from what I

677
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 1: hear that's the best way to detect whether someone has

678
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:32,080
Speaker 1: had any exposure, because I guess your hair like preserves

679
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: it for a while, um, longer than anything else. So

680
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: So there we were, you know, you know, cutting hair

681
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:43,200
Speaker 1: off people's head, dead people. Yeah, it was you know,

682
00:42:43,200 --> 00:42:45,320
Speaker 1: it's one thing to look at dead people, but to

683
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 1: actually reach out and touch them, uh, you know, and

684
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:54,959
Speaker 1: and sometimes like there's flaky burnt skins is coming off

685
00:42:55,000 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: and stuff like. Yeah. It was kind of like sf

686
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:03,280
Speaker 1: prop doesn't necessarily cover all this man, you know. Yeah,

687
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: So I had a major I mean that really impacted

688
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: me significantly. Um. You know, I thought it was a

689
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:13,439
Speaker 1: tough guy. Um, and I was really surprised how much

690
00:43:13,520 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: that bothered me. Uh No, I think if you ask

691
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: anybody in tenth group that knew me that I was,

692
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:22,759
Speaker 1: I was probably considered one of the one of the

693
00:43:22,840 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: top performers. I would have ever thought that stuff like

694
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: that would bother me. I just didn't didn't see it coming.

695
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 1: Numbers of it from what you describe, you know, like, uh,

696
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,000
Speaker 1: it reminds me of of Jim West when he talks

697
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 1: about being at the Highway of Death in the Gulf

698
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:44,479
Speaker 1: War and just just the sure volume of dead bodies. Yeah, yeah,

699
00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: I describe it, and I kind of quantify it by like, um,

700
00:43:48,000 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 1: imagine like ten football fields with a dead body completely

701
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 1: mangled every like ten ft god, you know, and because

702
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: it was it was you know, I don't know, I'll

703
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:05,360
Speaker 1: just say a hundred or so at least dead people,

704
00:44:06,719 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: you know, every fifteen or twenty feet for all along

705
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:13,400
Speaker 1: this entire kind of outskirt of the of the village

706
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 1: and we were just walking. Some of them were blown

707
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: to bits because what they were doing is when we

708
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: were overrunning them, they were they were strapped with suicide

709
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,160
Speaker 1: vest some of them so they would detonate. So we

710
00:44:26,200 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: had detonated suicide bombers, you know, which are completely kind

711
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:35,720
Speaker 1: of fractured. Um. People who were shot, blown up, burned.

712
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: One particular group got hit with like a one for

713
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:44,319
Speaker 1: coiless rifle round. There was an incinerary round, so they

714
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: were burnt almost into like a pile, uh stuff like that.

715
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 1: So I won't do out on it anymore. But it's

716
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 1: a it's in the first chapter at the ends where

717
00:44:54,719 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: of my book. But it's brutal. So we we leave

718
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 1: Sarga uh Viking hammers over and now we go to

719
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: the green life. UM. And this is where chapter two

720
00:45:06,680 --> 00:45:09,120
Speaker 1: is the green Line, and that's where we you know,

721
00:45:09,160 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: we're going up against the Iraqis. So we went out

722
00:45:12,520 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: there linked up with about five thousand Kurds who are

723
00:45:15,520 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 1: randomly distributed near the village of Twos, which is south

724
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 1: west from kirk Cook on the map. So our job

725
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 1: was basically to bomb the living crap out of the

726
00:45:29,920 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: Iraqis and do harassing attacks on the outside of of

727
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: Twos and uh. And we did that very well. You know,

728
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:43,760
Speaker 1: we basically rotated out on O p S observation points

729
00:45:44,560 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: called in air strikes, did some light harassing attacks on them. Uh.

730
00:45:51,400 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: And that that was another thing where it was very

731
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 1: It was very brutal after multiple weeks of essentially just

732
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 1: incinerating hundreds of Iraqis over and over again, you know,

733
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 1: without them really doing much about it. UM. That that

734
00:46:08,800 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 1: also way kind of heavy on my mind, like how

735
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:16,759
Speaker 1: how combat ineffective the Iraqi forces were. Yeah, and you

736
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,520
Speaker 1: know they were they were exactly they were. They weren't

737
00:46:19,560 --> 00:46:22,239
Speaker 1: doing anything against us, and you know, here we are

738
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: just slaying them U with with their strikes and U

739
00:46:28,239 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: and there there was also reports of like that the

740
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 1: Iraqi officers would kill their own people if their own

741
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 1: people try to leave. So we're like, we're like bombing

742
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: these people or it just got to the point where

743
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,440
Speaker 1: it was almost sickening to me to watch like bombs

744
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:47,439
Speaker 1: drop anymore up and then you know, I won't dwell

745
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: on that either. Try to get through these a little

746
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: bit faster, but uh, we end up pulling out. Um,

747
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: everybody you know gets gets sent home. Um, And I'll

748
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:59,279
Speaker 1: tell you, like my head was just spinning with the

749
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: stuff that it was rough on on my on my brain. Um,

750
00:47:04,800 --> 00:47:08,160
Speaker 1: then you know, we got home. I described a little

751
00:47:08,200 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: bit of the difficulties of like coming home from that,

752
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,840
Speaker 1: you know, because we're literally in Iraq in combat and

753
00:47:14,880 --> 00:47:17,440
Speaker 1: then I'm sitting at home eating dinner with my wife,

754
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 1: like two days later my ears were still ringing adjust

755
00:47:23,320 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah, it's really it's it's really hard. I

756
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,200
Speaker 1: mean I'm not the only one obviously who has experienced it,

757
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:32,600
Speaker 1: and some guys have had it worse than me. But

758
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,239
Speaker 1: it's no joke to try to try to, you know,

759
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 1: get get back in the groove of being a civilian

760
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,200
Speaker 1: or being in the civilian world. So this is where

761
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:47,080
Speaker 1: the story takes like an interesting like inspirational term that

762
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:51,080
Speaker 1: I've gotten really great feedback on this part of the book,

763
00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: which is almost immediately when I came back from Iraq,

764
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: I was reassigned to go to uh Swick the Special

765
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 1: Warfare Center in school which is the s S Schoolhouse

766
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,719
Speaker 1: at four Brack, which is actually kind of bizarre like

767
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:09,960
Speaker 1: to be immediately reassigned. So then literally a couple of weeks,

768
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,720
Speaker 1: I'm I'm headed to four Bragg, Like the smoke hasn't

769
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 1: even cleared in my head. And I got to like

770
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: outprocess and moved my family back to Fort Bragg from

771
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: Fort Carson, Colorado. UM. And this is where like three

772
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:29,600
Speaker 1: things simultaneously happened that we're interesting. So I One I

773
00:48:29,680 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: was having major like psychological issues with what I just

774
00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:38,800
Speaker 1: went through. Two was I started getting an education because

775
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:42,879
Speaker 1: I had the time as an instructor. UM. And then I, uh,

776
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: I fell into the whole world of technology completely by mistake.

777
00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:55,360
Speaker 1: Were you in eighteen Echo? I was an eighteen Bravo,

778
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 1: which is the weapons guy. Yeah, I was was an

779
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: ECO or really yeah. Yeah, That's why I was asking

780
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,880
Speaker 1: how and what what course were you teaching? Were you

781
00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: going on the Bravo committee when you went back to Swick. No,

782
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: I actually went to this new thing that they were

783
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,880
Speaker 1: building called the eighteen Fox course. Sure you're familiar with.

784
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,319
Speaker 1: I think just totally by accident. Um. And because they

785
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:23,960
Speaker 1: needed people and I knew that. I knew the guy

786
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:27,520
Speaker 1: who was running the thing, the n CEO in charge. UM.

787
00:49:27,560 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: And I became an eighteen Fox instructor. UM. And this

788
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: is where the story takes a really interesting turn that Uh,

789
00:49:35,800 --> 00:49:38,840
Speaker 1: I start to learn technology, Like I was a total

790
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 1: eighteen Bravo knuckle driver, you know, like gun slinger. Uh,

791
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,560
Speaker 1: you know the deal. And I basically fell in love

792
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 1: with technology. UM. I became a programmer, like on my own,

793
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:57,280
Speaker 1: I could write code after like a year or two. UM.

794
00:49:57,280 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: I also got an education during that time, and English,

795
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: English and philosophy, so which made all that made me

796
00:50:04,400 --> 00:50:07,680
Speaker 1: really think about what I had been doing before that

797
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:14,279
Speaker 1: a little bit critically. So I become really introspective about

798
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:18,040
Speaker 1: everything that has ever happened really in my life. So

799
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 1: I get deeply philosophical in chapters three and four about

800
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:28,279
Speaker 1: things like war in general and like the philosophy of

801
00:50:28,320 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: it and all that kind of stuff. But it's it's

802
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 1: as I evolve from this knuckle drag or eight teen

803
00:50:35,280 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: Bravo into a educated technology guy is what ultimately happens.

804
00:50:43,800 --> 00:50:46,319
Speaker 1: So that's what happens at the eighteen Fox course. And

805
00:50:46,360 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: then I chapter four is when I go to so

806
00:50:49,200 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: Calm because I went to SOCOM to run kind of

807
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:57,040
Speaker 1: a technology and analytics shop down there, because I've kind

808
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 1: of gotten reputation now as a technology guy, but as

809
00:51:02,239 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 1: an eighteen series S S guy at the same time.

810
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 1: So long story short on that, you know, I end

811
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:16,879
Speaker 1: up becoming like a super hardcore programmer software engineering computer science. UM.

812
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:19,400
Speaker 1: I actually enroll on a master's program and I get

813
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:24,520
Speaker 1: software engineering master's degree. UM. And it's just a total

814
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: of you know, I would say it's you know, it's

815
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: almost inspirational how I overcome kind of the psychological stuff

816
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,719
Speaker 1: that I was having issues with. My daughter is a

817
00:51:37,719 --> 00:51:41,160
Speaker 1: little kid that you know, I'm really into. She helps

818
00:51:41,239 --> 00:51:46,560
Speaker 1: me along with figuring out what matters in life. And

819
00:51:46,600 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: you know, I just at the end of chapter four

820
00:51:49,640 --> 00:51:52,360
Speaker 1: as I basically retire from the Army and I become

821
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:57,920
Speaker 1: a civilian you know, technology leader, which subsequently I became

822
00:51:57,960 --> 00:52:01,880
Speaker 1: a CTO of a startup. UM, and now I'm a

823
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,320
Speaker 1: senior director at a three billion dollar satellite imaging company.

824
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:10,200
Speaker 1: But it you know, it's that progression that I described

825
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: in chapters three and four. But it's pretty interesting. That

826
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: is a pretty big transformation to go from an enlisted

827
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:23,279
Speaker 1: weapons sergeant UM to being a CTO of or a

828
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:29,400
Speaker 1: director of a tech firm. Yeah, exactly, that's the you know,

829
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,399
Speaker 1: it's I don't do it with you know, not trying

830
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:36,160
Speaker 1: to be like a um what you mean call it

831
00:52:36,200 --> 00:52:39,600
Speaker 1: like pretentious about it either. I'm the way I describe

832
00:52:39,640 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: it's very humble and a lot of people have really

833
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:48,360
Speaker 1: enjoyed that part of the technology people. I mean, I

834
00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:50,800
Speaker 1: would just point out, I mean, that is a transformation

835
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:55,040
Speaker 1: that most veterans SF or otherwise they're going to have

836
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,760
Speaker 1: to make unless you want to be you know, private

837
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:01,840
Speaker 1: security contractor for the rest of your life, UM, you know,

838
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:04,879
Speaker 1: guarding a fob somewhere. You know, you have to pick

839
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,920
Speaker 1: up new skills and and learn a new profession, go

840
00:53:08,000 --> 00:53:11,359
Speaker 1: to college, all that kind of stuff to transition into

841
00:53:11,440 --> 00:53:16,160
Speaker 1: some sort of civilian career. Yeah, totally, that was and

842
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 1: that's exactly why I UM I articulated that so much

843
00:53:22,239 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: in my book because I thought it would. I thought

844
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 1: it would be good for veterans reading it to see

845
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:31,680
Speaker 1: that kind of transition like that is actually possible. You

846
00:53:31,800 --> 00:53:33,759
Speaker 1: just got to kind of commit, commit to it, and

847
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 1: attack it like you do everything else as a as

848
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: a military guy. You know, absolutely, and that's that's what

849
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,479
Speaker 1: I did. So, so then what happens in the book

850
00:53:42,560 --> 00:53:46,279
Speaker 1: is it goes back in time. UM. So I kind

851
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:48,840
Speaker 1: of frontload all that in the beginning of the book,

852
00:53:49,520 --> 00:53:52,320
Speaker 1: and then I go back in time to way before

853
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:56,160
Speaker 1: any of that, UM and then walk people through when

854
00:53:56,160 --> 00:54:00,160
Speaker 1: I first arrived at Group UM as like a was

855
00:54:00,160 --> 00:54:04,760
Speaker 1: an infantryman for five years before I went to SS.

856
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:09,400
Speaker 1: So I start with like day one and tenth Group

857
00:54:10,400 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: UM and then going to Bosnia twice UH is the

858
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:19,200
Speaker 1: next two chapters. So Bosnia was interesting because it was

859
00:54:19,360 --> 00:54:22,359
Speaker 1: the total opposite of what I ever thought an SF

860
00:54:22,440 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 1: guy would ever do. UM and it was it was basically, UH,

861
00:54:27,840 --> 00:54:31,080
Speaker 1: hanging out with local people, talking to them so we

862
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 1: could see what's going on in Bosnia. So post war

863
00:54:34,600 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 1: Bosnia was an amazing place that was one of the

864
00:54:38,000 --> 00:54:42,080
Speaker 1: most horrific wars of all time. UM and I actually

865
00:54:42,200 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 1: had really fond memories of of Bosnia. UM. But our

866
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: mission there was called Joint Commission Observer UM, and our

867
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: whole job was to give NATO situational awareness of what

868
00:54:56,200 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 1: the locals UM think and are doing on the ground.

869
00:55:01,719 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: So what that amount of to in reality to an

870
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: s F dude was, you know, you you have a

871
00:55:07,000 --> 00:55:09,319
Speaker 1: bunch of people that you meet with every day. Some

872
00:55:09,400 --> 00:55:11,879
Speaker 1: are just regular people. You go to their house, maybe

873
00:55:11,960 --> 00:55:14,800
Speaker 1: go eat dinner with them, or you meet the mayor

874
00:55:14,880 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 1: of a village or the chief of police or whatever,

875
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:20,600
Speaker 1: and basically you get hammered with them. You know, at

876
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,000
Speaker 1: least once a day is what it amounts to. So

877
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:28,640
Speaker 1: I was drinking shliva bits also known as rokia. Yeah,

878
00:55:28,640 --> 00:55:34,080
Speaker 1: I have a from Serbia. Yeah, from Serbia. I got

879
00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: a bottle of rakia. There you go, that's good stuff.

880
00:55:38,719 --> 00:55:42,399
Speaker 1: So it's I was immune to that stuff after two

881
00:55:42,480 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 1: years of two tours in Bosnia. Basically my job was

882
00:55:47,880 --> 00:55:51,880
Speaker 1: to drink with people UM and then report what was

883
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,799
Speaker 1: going on. I could. Yeah, I would get drunk, like

884
00:55:55,880 --> 00:56:00,799
Speaker 1: in mid morning, eat lunch, get drunk again, baby, eat

885
00:56:00,840 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: dinner or something, and then meet with somebody else I

886
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: get drunk again. So it was amazing. But I so

887
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:11,400
Speaker 1: I describe all that. I also do a lot of

888
00:56:12,640 --> 00:56:16,279
Speaker 1: I do a lot of philosophical stuff about that war,

889
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 1: and there's some stuff in there about that. It's pretty interesting.

890
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:25,360
Speaker 1: So I walked readers through two tours in Bosnia of

891
00:56:25,440 --> 00:56:28,920
Speaker 1: doing that, um. And there's a bunch of interesting stuff

892
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: in there, like Operation Vodka Chaser, which is a funny

893
00:56:33,239 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 1: name for when the Russians rolled from Bosnia into Serbia.

894
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:43,200
Speaker 1: In uh the SF guys who were there, who were

895
00:56:43,239 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 1: doing j c O missions actually started to do reconnaissance

896
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:49,880
Speaker 1: on the Russians to see what they were doing, like

897
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 1: how many were moving in and all that. So it

898
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 1: was it was kind of a you know, a weird

899
00:56:55,239 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: case of you know, you've got Americans in Bosnia, you know,

900
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:04,080
Speaker 1: kind of keeping tabs on the Russians because the Russians

901
00:57:04,120 --> 00:57:07,319
Speaker 1: are going into Serbia because of the whole thing going

902
00:57:07,360 --> 00:57:10,000
Speaker 1: out with Kosovo. So that was all kind of mixed

903
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 1: up there. That was That was an interesting thing. Yeah,

904
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:16,160
Speaker 1: It's something I've never really heard about before. Yeah, a

905
00:57:16,160 --> 00:57:21,440
Speaker 1: little a little another little known SF operation. UM. Yeah,

906
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 1: so two tours in Bosnia. People really like the Bosnia

907
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: stories because of the there's a lot of human connection

908
00:57:31,040 --> 00:57:33,720
Speaker 1: stuff in that and and it's also just surprising the

909
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: people that green Berets do that kind of stuff. They

910
00:57:36,760 --> 00:57:39,439
Speaker 1: got the image of Bannet and your teeth crawling through

911
00:57:39,440 --> 00:57:43,200
Speaker 1: the mud, you know, backflip over barbed wire fences. Yeah,

912
00:57:43,240 --> 00:57:48,200
Speaker 1: you know, stuff like that. So then the next chapter, yeah,

913
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 1: the UM doing joint operations with Russian spet SNAs. I

914
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:54,720
Speaker 1: really wanted to hear about that because that's something else

915
00:57:54,800 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: that baffles me. I've never heard of any of this.

916
00:57:59,200 --> 00:58:05,600
Speaker 1: So yep, so that's Kosovo. UM. Kosovo was in nine

917
00:58:05,720 --> 00:58:09,400
Speaker 1: as in one was two thousand one. UM there was

918
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 1: a mission in Kosovo called the Russian Liaison Team UM

919
00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 1: and s F O d A S filled that role.

920
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 1: So I was on my team was a Russian liaison team,

921
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,640
Speaker 1: which basically meant we patrolled the border of the then

922
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,120
Speaker 1: the buffer zone like a d MZ around northern COASTVO

923
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: with the Russians UM and there was the Russian airborne

924
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:38,560
Speaker 1: and spets knots that we were out patrolling with every day. UM.

925
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:41,680
Speaker 1: So it was literally like driving around on top of

926
00:58:41,680 --> 00:58:45,840
Speaker 1: a Russian you know those six wheeled vehicles like drs

927
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:52,040
Speaker 1: and b MPs yep, driving around with them Um, yeah,

928
00:58:52,040 --> 00:58:55,160
Speaker 1: and we had one. So that was amazing in itself.

929
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:59,400
Speaker 1: Just here we are in Kosovo jointly working with the

930
00:58:59,480 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 1: Russians and we're basically doing patrols against the Albanians, which

931
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:09,320
Speaker 1: were the people that we supposedly bombed Serbia, you know,

932
00:59:09,680 --> 00:59:16,040
Speaker 1: to protect. So very paradoxical in terms of scenario. What

933
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,360
Speaker 1: was it like working with our Russian special forces? Dudes?

934
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 1: Say that again, what was it like working with the

935
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 1: spetsnots guys? Um? It was. It was amazing. So they

936
00:59:31,080 --> 00:59:33,520
Speaker 1: had so much in common with us. I thought it

937
00:59:33,560 --> 00:59:36,600
Speaker 1: was interesting. U. They were very similar to us, you know,

938
00:59:36,640 --> 00:59:41,400
Speaker 1: the kind of big macho guys UM with kind of

939
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:45,880
Speaker 1: a special status you know in their military. Um. There

940
00:59:45,920 --> 00:59:48,200
Speaker 1: was of course a language barrier other than from my

941
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 1: captain who was fluent in Russian. Um. But you know,

942
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,320
Speaker 1: we patrolled with those guys like almost like they were

943
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:59,640
Speaker 1: our teammates, you know, every day. So we would drink

944
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:02,760
Speaker 1: with um. Um. We even did like the Russian banya

945
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 1: with them. On enough you've ever done all of those.

946
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: But it's like a sauna. I would would call it

947
01:00:08,480 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 1: a special Russian sauna where it's so hot that it's

948
01:00:12,800 --> 01:00:17,840
Speaker 1: like dangerous like you could die, it's so hot. So anyway,

949
01:00:17,880 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 1: we did stuff like that with him every day, and

950
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,240
Speaker 1: you know, they were ultimately, they were a lot like us.

951
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,720
Speaker 1: You know, they were the elite of their military. They

952
01:00:27,480 --> 01:00:31,960
Speaker 1: you know, they were competent in tactics. Um, they were

953
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:33,920
Speaker 1: great to work with. I mean we even had some

954
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:39,400
Speaker 1: really interesting just conversations with them about stuff like you know,

955
01:00:39,520 --> 01:00:42,360
Speaker 1: did back in the eighties, Did you guys really think

956
01:00:42,400 --> 01:00:45,360
Speaker 1: we were gonna NUKEU? You know? And you know we

957
01:00:45,400 --> 01:00:47,560
Speaker 1: would we would talk about stuff like that every now

958
01:00:47,600 --> 01:00:51,040
Speaker 1: and then. So it was it was amazing. I walked

959
01:00:51,040 --> 01:00:55,120
Speaker 1: out of there with a another part of my brain

960
01:00:55,240 --> 01:00:58,520
Speaker 1: questioning the whole concept of war. To be honest, I'm like,

961
01:00:58,560 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 1: how could we be at war with people that are

962
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:04,120
Speaker 1: so similar to us, right, and they're fighting for the

963
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: country the same way we're fighting for ours as far

964
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:11,600
Speaker 1: as the Russians are concerned. Anyway, Yeah, totally. So in

965
01:01:11,680 --> 01:01:13,760
Speaker 1: my book, I talk a lot about stuff like that.

966
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:16,560
Speaker 1: By the way, it's so if people are interested in

967
01:01:16,640 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 1: that angle of really questioning warfare, questioning politics and stuff

968
01:01:22,920 --> 01:01:26,800
Speaker 1: like that, there's a lot of little all over my

969
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,760
Speaker 1: book because there's also an angle on like the Serbs

970
01:01:29,840 --> 01:01:35,080
Speaker 1: and why natobamba Serbs you know, and when I when

971
01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 1: I was there, genocide really happened. I was there last

972
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 1: year in Belgrade, and the Serbs to this day not

973
01:01:41,960 --> 01:01:44,960
Speaker 1: too pleased with us, not too pleased with the Clintons

974
01:01:45,880 --> 01:01:49,640
Speaker 1: because of all that. Yeah, and uh, they'll be pretty

975
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:52,760
Speaker 1: open and telling you that, um, the borders that Serbia

976
01:01:52,840 --> 01:01:55,920
Speaker 1: has today are not the correct borders. That's wrong. And

977
01:01:56,400 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: they got screwed. History screwed them out of it. It

978
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: was rightfully, there's from their perspectives. The one analogy I

979
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:06,720
Speaker 1: got while I was there. So when I was in Bosnia,

980
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:10,680
Speaker 1: we could hear bombs dropping in Serbia. So I'm hanging

981
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 1: out with Serbs in Bosnia. Well, in some cases their

982
01:02:14,200 --> 01:02:17,440
Speaker 1: families are getting like killed in in Serbia. So it

983
01:02:17,520 --> 01:02:20,760
Speaker 1: was it was supertense. But this one guy gave me

984
01:02:20,760 --> 01:02:24,680
Speaker 1: an analogy of He's like, well, what if like one

985
01:02:24,680 --> 01:02:27,480
Speaker 1: of these cartels decided they're going to take over like

986
01:02:27,680 --> 01:02:31,840
Speaker 1: part of Texas. You know, what would you guys do?

987
01:02:32,320 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: You know? His questions to me, and I'm like, well,

988
01:02:34,840 --> 01:02:36,640
Speaker 1: I would hope we'd roll in there and just whoop

989
01:02:36,680 --> 01:02:39,280
Speaker 1: their ass, you know. And he's like, well, yeah, that's

990
01:02:39,360 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: kind of what we tried to do in Kosovo. So basically,

991
01:02:42,840 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: in their minds, like Albanians illegally immigrated Kosovo to the

992
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:49,440
Speaker 1: point of where they pushed all the Serbs out and

993
01:02:49,440 --> 01:02:52,440
Speaker 1: then they started attacking them. And this is the Serb viewpoint.

994
01:02:52,520 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's accurate, it's what they think. Um.

995
01:02:57,520 --> 01:03:01,600
Speaker 1: So they pushed them out, and then the Albanians push

996
01:03:01,680 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: out the Serbs, I mean, because they don't really get along,

997
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: so they moved out. And then ultimately these Albanians declare

998
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 1: independence and they have an insurgent group and all that.

999
01:03:10,960 --> 01:03:12,920
Speaker 1: So what do the Serbs do, Well, they roll in

1000
01:03:12,960 --> 01:03:17,920
Speaker 1: and they do their thing. Um so you know. He

1001
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: his analogy to me was like some cartel takes over Texas. Okay,

1002
01:03:23,280 --> 01:03:27,480
Speaker 1: you guys roll in and do something about it. Oh

1003
01:03:27,520 --> 01:03:31,120
Speaker 1: but you know, let's say China are Britain in France

1004
01:03:31,840 --> 01:03:34,320
Speaker 1: don't like the tactics you use, so they bombed the

1005
01:03:34,360 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: living crap out of New York City in l a

1006
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:41,960
Speaker 1: like that. That was the analogy that people were using

1007
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:43,960
Speaker 1: against me when I was when I was hanging out

1008
01:03:43,960 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 1: in Bosnia while we were bombing Serbia. So anyway, it's

1009
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:51,160
Speaker 1: these these perspectives just kind of build up in the book,

1010
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: and I talked a lot about those, but I thought

1011
01:03:53,640 --> 01:03:55,880
Speaker 1: i'd throw that one out there. Yeah, no, it's interesting,

1012
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:58,320
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I mean the conflict is so

1013
01:03:58,360 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: incredibly complicated, and like who's in the right, who's in

1014
01:04:01,280 --> 01:04:04,280
Speaker 1: the wrong. I mean, those are all now I think

1015
01:04:04,520 --> 01:04:10,320
Speaker 1: it's quite a challenge to find any of those answers, Yeah, totally.

1016
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:12,640
Speaker 1: I mean they're they're basically are none. And then it

1017
01:04:12,680 --> 01:04:15,720
Speaker 1: becomes a question of who's who has the right to

1018
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:19,880
Speaker 1: define the answer. Yeah, you know, it becomes that becomes

1019
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:25,760
Speaker 1: the exercise. So anyway, I inferral all that stuff, um

1020
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: and more, you know, as I talked through this stuff.

1021
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:30,560
Speaker 1: So also in my book, I have a whole section

1022
01:04:30,600 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 1: in the back called Introspections, which is essentially footnotes throughout

1023
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:40,760
Speaker 1: all the narrative of the memoir, which kind of gives

1024
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: it like a hindsight analysis of everything, which I found

1025
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:48,640
Speaker 1: a lot of people thought that was because you know,

1026
01:04:48,880 --> 01:04:53,120
Speaker 1: when people write memoirs, a lot of times, even like

1027
01:04:53,120 --> 01:04:56,600
Speaker 1: World War two memoirs, there's a difference between what you

1028
01:04:56,720 --> 01:05:00,120
Speaker 1: knew when you were at Omaha Beach and what you know,

1029
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 1: fifty years later, after historians have poured across that entire war,

1030
01:05:05,400 --> 01:05:08,000
Speaker 1: and and also you've become older and you've had more

1031
01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:10,480
Speaker 1: time to reflect on what happened, and it's just that

1032
01:05:10,600 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 1: that huge difference between what was going through your mind

1033
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 1: then and what's going through it now. Absolutely, I'm glad

1034
01:05:18,920 --> 01:05:22,840
Speaker 1: you said that. That is a super important. It's almost

1035
01:05:22,920 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 1: like an artistic decision you need to make when you

1036
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:30,760
Speaker 1: write a memoir. And the decision I made was if

1037
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:33,680
Speaker 1: you mix those two together while you're telling the story,

1038
01:05:33,720 --> 01:05:37,320
Speaker 1: it really dilutes the story. So what I did was

1039
01:05:37,480 --> 01:05:41,400
Speaker 1: the narrative of the actual events is done from kind

1040
01:05:41,440 --> 01:05:46,120
Speaker 1: of the the them perspective, but then I footnote the

1041
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:49,800
Speaker 1: now in the back to reference it. So it keeps

1042
01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:53,080
Speaker 1: the narrative nice and smooth. Um, So it reads like

1043
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:56,440
Speaker 1: a nice story, but you still get the benefit of

1044
01:05:56,440 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 1: the analysis, which was one of my goals was to

1045
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: have this thing almost educational about about stuff. So I've

1046
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:09,120
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of good feedback about doing that. Apparently

1047
01:06:09,160 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 1: that was a decent artistic choice in terms of a writer. Um. Yeah,

1048
01:06:14,600 --> 01:06:18,400
Speaker 1: so I'll keep going. So Cosovo, we did do one

1049
01:06:18,480 --> 01:06:21,600
Speaker 1: significant operation in Coosovo where it was my team and

1050
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 1: the spot SNOTS team actually rated an Albanian base camp. Um,

1051
01:06:27,240 --> 01:06:30,480
Speaker 1: and we've gotten a big firefight and you know, people

1052
01:06:30,480 --> 01:06:34,880
Speaker 1: got wounded. It was a big deal. Uh um. I

1053
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,360
Speaker 1: think five or six people on my team actually got

1054
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:42,520
Speaker 1: awards for valor for it, which you would never No

1055
01:06:42,560 --> 01:06:44,720
Speaker 1: one knows that happened. I don't know. Yeah, I read

1056
01:06:44,760 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 1: my book. I have never heard any of this. That's awesome. Yeah,

1057
01:06:50,200 --> 01:06:53,080
Speaker 1: So I mean like we were. I was personally on

1058
01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:55,840
Speaker 1: top of an up armored Humby with a Mark nineteen

1059
01:06:55,920 --> 01:07:00,680
Speaker 1: machine gun mowing down the forest while these guys were

1060
01:07:00,720 --> 01:07:05,080
Speaker 1: basically like the flanking element of the of the attack.

1061
01:07:05,120 --> 01:07:08,800
Speaker 1: And this was a totally ad hoc attack on this

1062
01:07:09,200 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 1: on this little base camp. You know. Yeah, it was

1063
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: not playing like we We captured this guy by accident

1064
01:07:16,720 --> 01:07:19,960
Speaker 1: on the road, um and ended up he ended up

1065
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 1: stilling his guts to the Russians about where their base

1066
01:07:23,840 --> 01:07:27,680
Speaker 1: camp was, and we just immediately rolled on it without delay.

1067
01:07:27,880 --> 01:07:32,520
Speaker 1: As in in in counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare, you get intel,

1068
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:36,640
Speaker 1: you have to act on it instantly or it's gone,

1069
01:07:36,760 --> 01:07:40,320
Speaker 1: you know, the situation is gone. So that's what we did.

1070
01:07:40,760 --> 01:07:44,880
Speaker 1: So there's a pretty interesting account of that in there,

1071
01:07:44,960 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 1: like that whole battle that it was a small battle,

1072
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:49,880
Speaker 1: but it was I don't know. It might be the

1073
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: only joint Russian American attack on foreign soil there's there

1074
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,480
Speaker 1: has actually been. I don't know. It was interesting. I

1075
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:02,000
Speaker 1: want to want to write about it now. That'd be

1076
01:08:02,040 --> 01:08:07,320
Speaker 1: like a cool uh cool article to write about your book. Yeah,

1077
01:08:07,360 --> 01:08:09,840
Speaker 1: I mean that's I forget what chapter is, but just

1078
01:08:09,880 --> 01:08:11,720
Speaker 1: look at the coast Abo chapter. It will give you

1079
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:13,840
Speaker 1: if you want more infro I can I can talk

1080
01:08:13,880 --> 01:08:17,040
Speaker 1: about by the way, But by the way, my book

1081
01:08:17,080 --> 01:08:20,920
Speaker 1: did go through pre publication review in case people are

1082
01:08:20,920 --> 01:08:23,120
Speaker 1: freaking out, So if it did go through the actual

1083
01:08:24,200 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking, I haven't talked about anything here

1084
01:08:26,280 --> 01:08:29,599
Speaker 1: that's not in there, so well as men from that regard, Yeah,

1085
01:08:29,600 --> 01:08:33,280
Speaker 1: you mentioned previously there's stuff that you couldn't put in there,

1086
01:08:33,360 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 1: so yep, yeah, there is. Um most of it didn't

1087
01:08:38,320 --> 01:08:44,719
Speaker 1: affect the narrative anyway, and it's just technical stuff. But um, anyway,

1088
01:08:44,760 --> 01:08:47,720
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have put it in there, so I'm not

1089
01:08:47,720 --> 01:08:52,439
Speaker 1: going to do that. I'm not one of those. Um. Yeah,

1090
01:08:52,520 --> 01:08:57,840
Speaker 1: So Coastabo ends, um, and then I jump into a

1091
01:08:57,920 --> 01:09:00,360
Speaker 1: little bit of stuff that happened. I went to Kirk stand.

1092
01:09:00,439 --> 01:09:02,479
Speaker 1: I won't go well on that one. That one, it's

1093
01:09:02,479 --> 01:09:06,320
Speaker 1: not a terribly exciting chapter, but there are some interesting

1094
01:09:06,360 --> 01:09:10,960
Speaker 1: moments in it. Um. But then it goes into the

1095
01:09:10,960 --> 01:09:16,320
Speaker 1: the preparation for the infiltration into Iraq, and you know,

1096
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:19,080
Speaker 1: this is where it leads up to the beginning almost again,

1097
01:09:19,240 --> 01:09:22,560
Speaker 1: where this is where we fly into Turkey. You know,

1098
01:09:22,720 --> 01:09:26,439
Speaker 1: we saddle up and rental cars and civilian clothes, hiding

1099
01:09:26,439 --> 01:09:29,400
Speaker 1: our weapons in the back seats and stuff, and then

1100
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:33,280
Speaker 1: driving into Iraq um and linking up with the Kurds

1101
01:09:33,280 --> 01:09:38,240
Speaker 1: and the CIA and that that's a really exciting chapter.

1102
01:09:38,520 --> 01:09:43,760
Speaker 1: And the way I kind of describe that as I've

1103
01:09:43,800 --> 01:09:47,200
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of good positive feedback on how that

1104
01:09:47,200 --> 01:09:50,439
Speaker 1: that slowed. It was very surprising. So we we basically

1105
01:09:50,479 --> 01:09:54,120
Speaker 1: go into Iraq, link up with the Kurds, and on

1106
01:09:54,160 --> 01:09:57,400
Speaker 1: the first night driving down through there, we're actually in

1107
01:09:57,479 --> 01:10:01,439
Speaker 1: like white out snowstorm. You know, you wouldn't You don't

1108
01:10:01,439 --> 01:10:05,760
Speaker 1: expect snow storms in Iraq. Yeah, we're up in the

1109
01:10:05,760 --> 01:10:09,960
Speaker 1: mountains above like Irbil. I think somewhere, I don't even

1110
01:10:10,040 --> 01:10:13,160
Speaker 1: remember where it was. We were just following the Kurds

1111
01:10:14,360 --> 01:10:16,400
Speaker 1: because they wanted us to stay out of like rocket

1112
01:10:16,520 --> 01:10:19,920
Speaker 1: range from the green line. So we're kind of traversing

1113
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 1: up through the mountains up along the northern more northern

1114
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:28,800
Speaker 1: part of northern Iraq. Anyway, we're driving. We drove for

1115
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:33,040
Speaker 1: twenty seven hours straight to get to get in there.

1116
01:10:33,479 --> 01:10:38,200
Speaker 1: So there was a another interesting piece of the book

1117
01:10:38,240 --> 01:10:40,320
Speaker 1: because it's kind of unique. You know, not many people

1118
01:10:41,040 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 1: infiltrate like that. Um, even though you learn about that

1119
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 1: in SF training, you know, like it was like Robins

1120
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:52,400
Speaker 1: Sage for real, you know, Probate stage is the big

1121
01:10:52,520 --> 01:10:56,320
Speaker 1: SF training thing. Yeah, I'm wearing my pine Land shirt

1122
01:10:56,439 --> 01:11:00,360
Speaker 1: right now. Seriously, there you go, so so kind of

1123
01:11:00,360 --> 01:11:02,839
Speaker 1: like you know, when like when I was in Robin's Sage,

1124
01:11:02,960 --> 01:11:06,599
Speaker 1: our jump got canceled because it was insane like storm

1125
01:11:06,760 --> 01:11:10,120
Speaker 1: going on. And it's so similar to that infil And

1126
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:13,760
Speaker 1: it was almost scary, like you know, driving through the

1127
01:11:13,800 --> 01:11:17,040
Speaker 1: border and linking up with people you know, you do,

1128
01:11:17,040 --> 01:11:19,160
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure who they are, but they tell

1129
01:11:19,200 --> 01:11:22,000
Speaker 1: you to follow them and you do. You don't know

1130
01:11:22,080 --> 01:11:25,200
Speaker 1: really where you're going, you know, there was a lot

1131
01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:28,760
Speaker 1: of that. It was. It was amazing, I mean, it

1132
01:11:28,920 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 1: was every SF guy's dream. I had the I had

1133
01:11:33,280 --> 01:11:36,880
Speaker 1: the experience, not in uniform, but when I afterwards, after

1134
01:11:36,920 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 1: I got out of the military, working as a journalist

1135
01:11:39,680 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 1: and UM linking up with the p k K and

1136
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:49,400
Speaker 1: Kurdistan and I was and we were getting smuggled into Syria,

1137
01:11:49,560 --> 01:11:51,960
Speaker 1: UM to go report on with the war, with the

1138
01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:54,800
Speaker 1: war what was going on over there. But UM, before that,

1139
01:11:54,840 --> 01:11:57,799
Speaker 1: before we crossed the border, I remember, it's like you describe,

1140
01:11:57,840 --> 01:11:59,639
Speaker 1: I mean, and just like Robin's age. I mean, You're

1141
01:11:59,680 --> 01:12:02,320
Speaker 1: in a cup truck out in the mountains. You get out,

1142
01:12:02,400 --> 01:12:04,760
Speaker 1: you follow somebody, you don't know where you're going. It's dark,

1143
01:12:04,840 --> 01:12:07,519
Speaker 1: you're carrying your backpack, you're trodden through the mud. You

1144
01:12:07,560 --> 01:12:10,400
Speaker 1: finally get up into this little g base that's camouflaged

1145
01:12:10,400 --> 01:12:12,840
Speaker 1: in the side of the mountain. Go inside and they

1146
01:12:12,880 --> 01:12:15,639
Speaker 1: have like the flags of the different Grulla movements up

1147
01:12:15,640 --> 01:12:19,080
Speaker 1: inside you. Everyone winds up and you shake hands. I mean,

1148
01:12:19,080 --> 01:12:21,639
Speaker 1: it was exactly the way we were trained in Robin's sage.

1149
01:12:21,880 --> 01:12:26,240
Speaker 1: It was crazy, it is, yeah, totally, I mean that

1150
01:12:26,360 --> 01:12:30,840
Speaker 1: was uh, like the the value of Robin's Sage in

1151
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,479
Speaker 1: my mind is very high. Experiencing that. Yeah, same here

1152
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:37,640
Speaker 1: I think when I went through it, I thought it

1153
01:12:37,680 --> 01:12:40,760
Speaker 1: was ridiculous, a little bit like yeah, yeah, because it's like,

1154
01:12:42,200 --> 01:12:47,080
Speaker 1: you know, it was a bullet catcher basically eleven Bravo guy,

1155
01:12:47,360 --> 01:12:50,280
Speaker 1: and I thought it was kind of crazy. I'm like,

1156
01:12:50,280 --> 01:12:53,040
Speaker 1: how kind how could this ever be? There? It was?

1157
01:12:53,160 --> 01:12:56,400
Speaker 1: And then looking back, I'm like, Robin's sage, you need

1158
01:12:56,479 --> 01:13:00,360
Speaker 1: to preserve its goodness. Yeah, no, no, I und percent

1159
01:13:00,400 --> 01:13:03,679
Speaker 1: agree because I remember having the same experience. I remember

1160
01:13:03,760 --> 01:13:08,280
Speaker 1: having a conversation with my lead instructor master sergeant and

1161
01:13:08,400 --> 01:13:11,120
Speaker 1: Robin's sage, and I thought there were aspects of the

1162
01:13:11,160 --> 01:13:13,519
Speaker 1: course that we're kind of silly because it's like role

1163
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:16,519
Speaker 1: players and it's a fictional country, and so they come

1164
01:13:16,600 --> 01:13:20,519
Speaker 1: up with like little like fictional um mantras that the

1165
01:13:20,560 --> 01:13:23,439
Speaker 1: gorillas tell. It's like you're kind of like on the

1166
01:13:23,479 --> 01:13:25,200
Speaker 1: set of a movie or something like this is kind

1167
01:13:25,200 --> 01:13:28,080
Speaker 1: of goofy, but they're doing the best job they can

1168
01:13:28,200 --> 01:13:31,519
Speaker 1: to replicate, you know, being in a foreign country that

1169
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:35,559
Speaker 1: in a foreign culture and in such a weird environment

1170
01:13:35,560 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 1: that you're with a guerrilla group, and uh and I

1171
01:13:38,200 --> 01:13:40,880
Speaker 1: guess like you, I mean, I both over time and

1172
01:13:40,920 --> 01:13:44,880
Speaker 1: through experience, I've come to really value the training I

1173
01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:47,960
Speaker 1: got at Robin's Sage and uh and I also believe

1174
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:49,720
Speaker 1: that it's a good course that we need to keep

1175
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:56,880
Speaker 1: putting our guys through. Yeah, totally totally worth you. So,

1176
01:13:57,040 --> 01:14:00,919
Speaker 1: so the book basically ends once we end fill organized

1177
01:14:00,920 --> 01:14:05,560
Speaker 1: the Kurds, and then the boys fly in UM in

1178
01:14:05,680 --> 01:14:09,320
Speaker 1: wounded aircraft, and then we head down to Hlaja and

1179
01:14:09,400 --> 01:14:13,439
Speaker 1: then basically you've now gotten to the beginning UM and

1180
01:14:13,560 --> 01:14:17,160
Speaker 1: then there's a there's a whole lot of other dynamics

1181
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:20,479
Speaker 1: in the book. Was one of one of my other

1182
01:14:20,760 --> 01:14:23,880
Speaker 1: artistic choices with it was to be very singular in

1183
01:14:24,040 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 1: the perspective view. Uh so most like I wanted to

1184
01:14:28,080 --> 01:14:31,400
Speaker 1: be different than most war books in a bunch of

1185
01:14:31,439 --> 01:14:34,120
Speaker 1: different ways, but one of them is that I it's

1186
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:37,000
Speaker 1: it's good and bad. Is a lot of books, there's

1187
01:14:37,000 --> 01:14:39,880
Speaker 1: a lot of they used the word we, and they're

1188
01:14:39,880 --> 01:14:43,280
Speaker 1: always talking about the whole team and what we did

1189
01:14:43,400 --> 01:14:48,760
Speaker 1: and that. But I actually purposefully wrote it solely from

1190
01:14:48,840 --> 01:14:53,000
Speaker 1: my like one lens. So so actually I've gotten a

1191
01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:55,400
Speaker 1: little bit of criticism a couple of times where people

1192
01:14:55,439 --> 01:14:58,439
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of a selfish way to write it,

1193
01:14:58,560 --> 01:15:01,240
Speaker 1: where I don't I don't even talk about my teammates

1194
01:15:01,320 --> 01:15:05,840
Speaker 1: that much. It's purely but I did that artistically, not

1195
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:08,960
Speaker 1: because I'm just a jackass. It's one of those things

1196
01:15:09,200 --> 01:15:12,440
Speaker 1: where you know, you do you write it from your perspective.

1197
01:15:12,479 --> 01:15:14,280
Speaker 1: Are you writing a memoir or are you writing like

1198
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:16,799
Speaker 1: a documentary account where you're going to go and interview

1199
01:15:16,840 --> 01:15:20,280
Speaker 1: all of your teammates and create this like collective you know,

1200
01:15:20,439 --> 01:15:23,640
Speaker 1: well documented experience, or you're gonna draw or write it

1201
01:15:23,760 --> 01:15:26,160
Speaker 1: from you know, your point of view and what you saw,

1202
01:15:26,280 --> 01:15:29,880
Speaker 1: what you experienced exactly. So it was all my view,

1203
01:15:30,080 --> 01:15:35,800
Speaker 1: all my perceptions, um and it's totally only me, is

1204
01:15:35,880 --> 01:15:38,040
Speaker 1: how it's really. That's one of the reasons why the

1205
01:15:38,120 --> 01:15:42,599
Speaker 1: title is called one Green Beret, because it's about literally

1206
01:15:42,720 --> 01:15:47,559
Speaker 1: one and and I think my path was pretty unique. Um,

1207
01:15:48,240 --> 01:15:50,639
Speaker 1: So that was another reason for that title. I think

1208
01:15:50,720 --> 01:15:54,400
Speaker 1: sometimes that's done out of fear for the same criticism

1209
01:15:54,439 --> 01:15:56,800
Speaker 1: that you're saying. You know, I've had plenty of guys

1210
01:15:56,840 --> 01:15:59,960
Speaker 1: sit down in the studio, and I think it's almost

1211
01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:02,280
Speaker 1: like a defense mechanism of saying like, this isn't all

1212
01:16:02,280 --> 01:16:05,000
Speaker 1: about me, it's about the guys, It's about the team.

1213
01:16:05,439 --> 01:16:07,800
Speaker 1: But but sometimes it's okay to write something that's all

1214
01:16:07,840 --> 01:16:10,400
Speaker 1: about you, and you have to be willing to face

1215
01:16:10,479 --> 01:16:13,599
Speaker 1: that criticism of someone saying you're putting out a selfish book.

1216
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:16,080
Speaker 1: What does it matter, it's it's your story. If this

1217
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:18,479
Speaker 1: is what you want to tell, then it's okay. You

1218
01:16:18,520 --> 01:16:20,840
Speaker 1: don't have to tell the perspective of every guy that

1219
01:16:20,840 --> 01:16:22,800
Speaker 1: you served with. And and I think it goes to

1220
01:16:22,840 --> 01:16:24,720
Speaker 1: that saying that the guys that you starved with there

1221
01:16:24,800 --> 01:16:30,120
Speaker 1: are brave and all of their own stories. Yeah, totally yeah,

1222
01:16:30,760 --> 01:16:32,720
Speaker 1: that and you all right, that was the That was

1223
01:16:32,840 --> 01:16:38,280
Speaker 1: the conscious choice I made to do it like that. Well, Mark,

1224
01:16:38,600 --> 01:16:42,360
Speaker 1: like I said, I came across your book quite by happenstance,

1225
01:16:42,439 --> 01:16:44,439
Speaker 1: but I'm so glad I did, and I'm so glad

1226
01:16:44,520 --> 01:16:46,599
Speaker 1: that you know, we could get you on the podcast

1227
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:49,160
Speaker 1: today to tell a little bit about your story. This

1228
01:16:49,280 --> 01:16:52,439
Speaker 1: has actually been even more fascinating than I thought it

1229
01:16:52,439 --> 01:16:56,320
Speaker 1: would be pretty cool. Yeah, thanks for having me. It

1230
01:16:56,479 --> 01:16:59,599
Speaker 1: was great. Now, I really, I really mean it when

1231
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:01,479
Speaker 1: I say like this is one of the better interviews

1232
01:17:01,560 --> 01:17:04,680
Speaker 1: we've done in nearly four episodes. I mean, I think

1233
01:17:04,760 --> 01:17:07,720
Speaker 1: this is the stuff that people come to this podcast for.

1234
01:17:07,920 --> 01:17:10,080
Speaker 1: They love to hear these stories, and then when I

1235
01:17:10,240 --> 01:17:13,640
Speaker 1: hear you know, the introspective take and and the philosophical

1236
01:17:13,800 --> 01:17:16,040
Speaker 1: take of this book, I think people are going to

1237
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:18,439
Speaker 1: be dying to pick this. Yeah. So the book again,

1238
01:17:18,600 --> 01:17:22,200
Speaker 1: it's called One Green Beret. You can find it on Amazon.

1239
01:17:22,280 --> 01:17:26,080
Speaker 1: Where else can people find it? Mark? Um? It is

1240
01:17:26,120 --> 01:17:30,040
Speaker 1: almost completely on Amazon? Okay, okay, Yeah, I would just

1241
01:17:30,160 --> 01:17:32,720
Speaker 1: stick just stick with Amazon. Anywhere else is going to

1242
01:17:32,840 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 1: be rare. That's the way of the future. Man. Yeah,

1243
01:17:37,680 --> 01:17:41,120
Speaker 1: all right, Is there any any other concluding thoughts Mark

1244
01:17:41,200 --> 01:17:43,679
Speaker 1: before we wrap it up about the book or about

1245
01:17:44,000 --> 01:17:46,280
Speaker 1: life in general, or anything you want to throw at

1246
01:17:46,360 --> 01:17:51,800
Speaker 1: us before we go? Um? No, I don't think so.

1247
01:17:52,120 --> 01:17:53,640
Speaker 1: I mean, it was great to be on. This was

1248
01:17:53,680 --> 01:17:55,479
Speaker 1: the first time I've ever talked about it like this,

1249
01:17:55,640 --> 01:17:58,360
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate you guys for having me on.

1250
01:17:58,800 --> 01:18:01,080
Speaker 1: That's cool. I'm so so happy we could have you

1251
01:18:01,720 --> 01:18:06,040
Speaker 1: do your I guess your first interview for the book. Absolutely. Yeah,

1252
01:18:06,640 --> 01:18:08,720
Speaker 1: this has been excellent, And I think something that we

1253
01:18:08,920 --> 01:18:11,640
Speaker 1: really pride ourselves on is the fact that you can

1254
01:18:11,680 --> 01:18:14,080
Speaker 1: come on here and for over an hour ago really

1255
01:18:14,120 --> 01:18:15,600
Speaker 1: in depth on the book. I mean, a lot of

1256
01:18:15,680 --> 01:18:18,240
Speaker 1: media hits the people have to do they're trying to

1257
01:18:18,360 --> 01:18:21,759
Speaker 1: sum up a fifteen year story in like a thirty

1258
01:18:21,880 --> 01:18:25,000
Speaker 1: second two minutes hit at the most you know, on

1259
01:18:25,400 --> 01:18:28,320
Speaker 1: whatever news stations. So this has been an honor, uh,

1260
01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:31,200
Speaker 1: and we really learned about stuff that I've never heard about,

1261
01:18:31,439 --> 01:18:34,800
Speaker 1: Jack's never heard about, and most of our audience probably. Um.

1262
01:18:35,080 --> 01:18:37,160
Speaker 1: You can follow Mark on Twitter, which is where I

1263
01:18:37,280 --> 01:18:41,400
Speaker 1: found him at Giaconia Mark. So that's G I A

1264
01:18:41,840 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: C O N I A Mark on Twitter. That's where

1265
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:48,320
Speaker 1: we made contact and we're able to make this happen. Uh.

1266
01:18:48,439 --> 01:18:52,519
Speaker 1: Any any other place that people could find you. Um,

1267
01:18:52,600 --> 01:18:55,760
Speaker 1: a lot of people hit me on LinkedIn. If you

1268
01:18:55,880 --> 01:18:58,960
Speaker 1: just search my name on LinkedIn, you you can find me.

1269
01:19:00,360 --> 01:19:03,479
Speaker 1: All right, we'll talk soon yep later, guys, take care.

1270
01:19:05,160 --> 01:19:07,759
Speaker 1: That was excellent having Mark on. You know what's funny

1271
01:19:07,920 --> 01:19:12,479
Speaker 1: is the last episode with Mike Crosby. I jokingly said, like,

1272
01:19:13,080 --> 01:19:15,680
Speaker 1: this isn't the sexiest story. This isn't what people come

1273
01:19:15,720 --> 01:19:18,200
Speaker 1: to the podcast where necessarily, but they like to hear

1274
01:19:18,240 --> 01:19:21,680
Speaker 1: those door kicker stories and war stories. I think this

1275
01:19:21,920 --> 01:19:24,880
Speaker 1: episode is exactly when people come to this podcast. That's

1276
01:19:24,920 --> 01:19:28,000
Speaker 1: why I come to this podcast. No, I love to

1277
01:19:28,120 --> 01:19:30,720
Speaker 1: hear these like uh, I mean, I guess you could

1278
01:19:30,800 --> 01:19:34,560
Speaker 1: kind of call it like obscure history, or or I

1279
01:19:34,880 --> 01:19:37,160
Speaker 1: hesitate to call it like the lost history or something

1280
01:19:37,280 --> 01:19:39,880
Speaker 1: like that. But there's like all of this like living

1281
01:19:40,000 --> 01:19:43,599
Speaker 1: history that resides with people like Mark that you will

1282
01:19:43,760 --> 01:19:47,599
Speaker 1: never ever hear about unless you speak to Mark. Well,

1283
01:19:47,680 --> 01:19:50,479
Speaker 1: now you can read his book, thankfully, but otherwise it's

1284
01:19:50,520 --> 01:19:52,000
Speaker 1: like you have to actually go out and find these

1285
01:19:52,040 --> 01:19:56,120
Speaker 1: people because there's nowhere else you can find it. Um So,

1286
01:19:56,320 --> 01:19:58,639
Speaker 1: I mean I love finding those unique stories and those

1287
01:19:58,760 --> 01:20:01,840
Speaker 1: those unique individuals getting them on the podcast and um

1288
01:20:02,320 --> 01:20:05,200
Speaker 1: quite honestly, when when we booked Mark, I thought his

1289
01:20:05,320 --> 01:20:07,720
Speaker 1: stories about Viking Hammer, we're gonna be kind of more

1290
01:20:07,880 --> 01:20:10,800
Speaker 1: of the um you know, I was kicked back in

1291
01:20:10,880 --> 01:20:13,200
Speaker 1: the rear areas, you know, calling in air strikes for

1292
01:20:13,280 --> 01:20:16,920
Speaker 1: the Kurds. I wasn't quite aware of like how hardcore

1293
01:20:17,640 --> 01:20:20,280
Speaker 1: it was gonna be, um so, as he was involved

1294
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:24,880
Speaker 1: in some pretty serious fighting actually out there. Um So, yeah,

1295
01:20:24,960 --> 01:20:26,639
Speaker 1: you never know, like I said, you never know until

1296
01:20:26,680 --> 01:20:28,960
Speaker 1: you talk to the people involved. I'm glad to bring

1297
01:20:29,280 --> 01:20:31,320
Speaker 1: some awareness if you want to use that word, to

1298
01:20:31,360 --> 01:20:35,840
Speaker 1: the book, because it's a relatively unheard of book, you know,

1299
01:20:36,040 --> 01:20:38,519
Speaker 1: just available on Amazon. You won't see any bookstores with

1300
01:20:39,439 --> 01:20:41,880
Speaker 1: Let's be honest, the most bland cover I've ever seen

1301
01:20:42,360 --> 01:20:45,880
Speaker 1: of just the title one Green Beret on black. So it's,

1302
01:20:45,960 --> 01:20:48,360
Speaker 1: I'll be honest, not something that necessarily grabs your attention.

1303
01:20:48,439 --> 01:20:50,479
Speaker 1: It's it's some good copy on the cover. I like

1304
01:20:50,600 --> 01:20:54,360
Speaker 1: the title, but it is but him, you know, it's

1305
01:20:54,479 --> 01:20:56,439
Speaker 1: true story of don't judge a book by its cover,

1306
01:20:56,600 --> 01:21:00,439
Speaker 1: because him speaking about this for the past hour plus,

1307
01:21:00,880 --> 01:21:04,920
Speaker 1: it's an extremely exciting book, an extremely action packed book.

1308
01:21:05,040 --> 01:21:08,120
Speaker 1: So yeah, and you know he wrote this book himself. Um,

1309
01:21:08,360 --> 01:21:10,880
Speaker 1: I think he probably self published it. So I mean

1310
01:21:11,000 --> 01:21:12,680
Speaker 1: it's one of these things you can go and read it,

1311
01:21:12,720 --> 01:21:15,719
Speaker 1: support the author and uh and you're hearing it straight

1312
01:21:15,800 --> 01:21:20,000
Speaker 1: from the horse's mouth, you know, unadulterated. Well, as we

1313
01:21:20,080 --> 01:21:23,240
Speaker 1: wrap this up, another book that I suggest everybody check

1314
01:21:23,280 --> 01:21:26,240
Speaker 1: out the audio book as well, which is out today

1315
01:21:26,960 --> 01:21:29,600
Speaker 1: as we're recording this. So if you're listening to this

1316
01:21:29,880 --> 01:21:33,959
Speaker 1: on Wednesday, came out on Tuesday, listen to Vince Flynn's

1317
01:21:34,040 --> 01:21:37,880
Speaker 1: Red War, a Mitch Rap novel by Kyle Mills. Red

1318
01:21:37,960 --> 01:21:42,160
Speaker 1: War follows CIA operative Mitch Rap as he races to

1319
01:21:42,280 --> 01:21:46,280
Speaker 1: prevent Russia's gravely ill leader from starting a full scale

1320
01:21:46,320 --> 01:21:50,160
Speaker 1: war with NATO. Red War is an action packed thrill

1321
01:21:50,320 --> 01:21:56,880
Speaker 1: ride featuring pulse pounding suspense, electrifying intrigue, and fascinating characters.

1322
01:21:57,360 --> 01:22:00,320
Speaker 1: The Red War audio book is read by long time

1323
01:22:00,400 --> 01:22:05,839
Speaker 1: series narrator George Gwiddel. Red War is available now wherever

1324
01:22:06,000 --> 01:22:09,479
Speaker 1: audio books are sold. Listen to it today. Thanks guys

1325
01:22:09,520 --> 01:22:12,720
Speaker 1: for checking out this episode. As always, leave us a

1326
01:22:12,800 --> 01:22:17,720
Speaker 1: review on Apple Podcasts. Uh, if you have any questions

1327
01:22:17,800 --> 01:22:20,439
Speaker 1: or anything like that, it's soft rep dot Radio at

1328
01:22:20,520 --> 01:22:24,040
Speaker 1: soft rep dot com. Always appreciate the feedback coming in

1329
01:22:24,160 --> 01:22:27,600
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram at soft rep Radio. And I

1330
01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:29,880
Speaker 1: think this was a stellar episode. So if you enjoyed

1331
01:22:29,920 --> 01:22:32,479
Speaker 1: it as well, spread the word, get the word out

1332
01:22:32,560 --> 01:22:35,599
Speaker 1: there about the show, and uh, let's keep this going.

1333
01:22:36,000 --> 01:22:38,679
Speaker 1: We've been getting more listeners than ever before, which is great,

1334
01:22:38,840 --> 01:22:41,479
Speaker 1: and uh, we plan to keep this thing moving. Yeah,

1335
01:22:41,640 --> 01:22:45,040
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a awesome guest next week. Well, I

1336
01:22:45,080 --> 01:22:48,040
Speaker 1: guess we can keep it a surprise. But next well

1337
01:22:48,080 --> 01:22:50,960
Speaker 1: really next episode for so, yeah, that's what I mean.

1338
01:22:51,040 --> 01:22:56,040
Speaker 1: Next episode. Yeah, I'm excited for it. You've been listening

1339
01:22:56,160 --> 01:23:00,839
Speaker 1: to self Rep Radio New episodes up everywhere day and Friday.

1340
01:23:01,720 --> 01:23:05,120
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at self rep

1341
01:23:05,240 --> 01:23:05,559
Speaker 1: Radio