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Speaker 1: H ah bout force. If it doesn't work, you're just

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Speaker 1: not using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, special operations,

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Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the community.

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Speaker 1: Do you want to take it away? Dennis? You're ready

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Speaker 1: for this? You're ready? Do you think so? I think so? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: All right, Software up Radio on Time one. That's NPR voice. Okay,

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Speaker 1: you tell me what kind of voice you want. I'll

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Speaker 1: and I don't know. You need to like assert yourself.

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Speaker 1: You know, you need to get your man voice on it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: I see, I don't want to do was just naturally

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Speaker 1: like you just had it. So I wanted to try

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Speaker 1: and do something different, but confident, confident Software up Radio

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Speaker 1: on Time on target. Welcome everybody. That was pretty good. Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Do we need to do a third take? No? No,

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Speaker 1: I think that was good. Okay, I think that's good.

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Speaker 1: They're gonna be interested when when this when this is

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Speaker 1: how it begins. Welcome to episode four hundred and sixty two,

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Speaker 1: my third or fourth I think third third solo? Dennis,

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Speaker 1: do you drink? I'm not gonna say heavily, but yes

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Speaker 1: on the upper end of social sure. Okay, very fair

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Speaker 1: because when we hit like episode four hundred, I wanted to,

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Speaker 1: uh just so like do the drunk episode and Ian

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Speaker 1: doesn't drink. Yeah, so I was like, well, we're coming

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Speaker 1: up on before too long. Now, I'm sure you have

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Speaker 1: some connections within the military. What kind of um, what

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Speaker 1: kind of party would you like? I don't want to

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Speaker 1: call it a party, but a celebration for sure. As

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Speaker 1: a celebration, how would you like to commemorate episode five

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Speaker 1: because that's I mean that half a thousand, that's a

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Speaker 1: big milestone. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not in the military anymore,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not going to celebrate quite like that. We're

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Speaker 1: not gonna drink Miller High Life, the Champagne of beers,

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Speaker 1: the Champagna of beers. Uh yeah, we're not gonna drink

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Speaker 1: Southern Comfort. We will. That was like the first thing

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Speaker 1: is we will get in with uh with Ben Blum

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Speaker 1: today about range of battalion culture. Like the first day

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Speaker 1: I showed up and they got me drunk, drunk off

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Speaker 1: my ass, your first Southern Comfort. Yeah, and I ended

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Speaker 1: up in the shower at like two am puking all

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Speaker 1: over myself. At least you were in the shower. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Well you got to think about these things ahead of time.

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Speaker 1: You know, did you think about that or because I

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Speaker 1: mean after that much Southern comfort, which is who got it?

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Speaker 1: Is one of those things that like if I smell it,

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Speaker 1: that's Yeager for me. Yeah, Yeagger. I ended up quitting

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Speaker 1: Yeager later on. Now not for me. Yeah, one bad

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Speaker 1: experience slept on a toilet literally just out a better

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Speaker 1: man than me. I probably had a dozen bad experiences

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Speaker 1: before I finally called it quits. I mean outside of

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Speaker 1: ye I don't know if there's another one that I've

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Speaker 1: I don't enjoy something. But it's like you said, you know,

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Speaker 1: you're young, You're trying everything, and then you evolve, like

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Speaker 1: so what is your what is your liquor of choice? Now?

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Speaker 1: I think like a good Scotch Like, okay, I'm with you,

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Speaker 1: McAllen um even Johnny Walker okay. Uh. My my ex girlfriend,

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Speaker 1: her father was a big Scotch guy, and I started

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Speaker 1: dating her in my early twenties, so I wasn't I

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Speaker 1: didn't have the refined palette I do now, uh, which

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Speaker 1: is a joke. Guys calmed down. Uh. So he he

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Speaker 1: bought me, he would buy me Scotch books and he

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Speaker 1: was big like open McAllen, Glenn Livilen, Finish like the

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Speaker 1: whole nine. So I've learned to appreciate the culture and

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Speaker 1: Scotch is one of the classier things you can drink.

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Speaker 1: So for episode, I think Scotch is in order. That

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Speaker 1: sounds like a plan. Okay, that sounds like a plan

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Speaker 1: in May, and now we just do we have a

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Speaker 1: Do we have a Scotch guy? Man? I mean I

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Speaker 1: don't know that we have a guy? Maybe I need it?

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Speaker 1: Do I need to locate a guy? No, not necessarily,

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Speaker 1: but I feel like, um, you know, you get you

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Speaker 1: get the one bottle of of something you enjoy, but

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Speaker 1: then you almost kind of want like a like, what's

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Speaker 1: the what's the bottle? Back here? The Oh it's Habeki.

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Speaker 1: I think like I almost want to try something different

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Speaker 1: in the Scotch realm where that you know, you get

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Speaker 1: one that you know for sure is good, and then

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Speaker 1: you get one that's like, all right, let's let's try

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Speaker 1: something different. Yeah. I feel like you're you're way more

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Speaker 1: culture than I am, so you definitely have that's that's debatable.

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Speaker 1: But uh, oh well Froy is another one. Absolutely, Um,

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Speaker 1: we can we can put some feelers out there get

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Speaker 1: some recommendations. I'm ali. I think Dave Richardson would have plenty.

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Speaker 1: He was. That's yeah, that's a good call. He was

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Speaker 1: a good Uh. I got a nice note from him

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Speaker 1: in the mail the other day. He read my book

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Speaker 1: and UH enjoyed it. He was great. He was very charismatic.

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Speaker 1: And that's what you want the interview. Yeah, No, he

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Speaker 1: sent me a very nice letter, and I need to, UM,

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Speaker 1: I need to hit him up and say thank you

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Speaker 1: for reading. UM. Otherwise, what do we got going on?

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Speaker 1: We have the interview today. We have Ben Blum coming

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Speaker 1: on the author of Ranger Games. He is the cousin

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Speaker 1: of Alex Blum, who was one of the second Ranger

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Speaker 1: Battalion Rangers who robbed a bank in Tacoma back in

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Speaker 1: the day. And UM, Ben's book, I mean, we'll talk

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Speaker 1: all about it with him, but to almost a family history. UM.

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Speaker 1: It describes the bank robbery itself, but most of the

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Speaker 1: book is about the why why did they do this?

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Speaker 1: Why did it happen? UM, So we'll get into all

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Speaker 1: of that with him, which I mean I was I

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Speaker 1: was telling you before we started recording. This is I've

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Speaker 1: enjoyed every interview I we've we've done in the in

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Speaker 1: the two weeks before I departed, and in the three

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Speaker 1: now three episodes that I've been here, I've enjoyed. Everyone

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Speaker 1: brings something different to the table, with the overall theme

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Speaker 1: being either you're in the military or you have some

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Speaker 1: kind of military connection, and there's it's it's interesting because

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Speaker 1: it's a melting pot, but the overall theme is, hey,

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Speaker 1: like we're all under this umbrella together. This one really

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Speaker 1: caught my eye because you talk about it often. How

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Speaker 1: you know, you get people that that just support the

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Speaker 1: troops and and blindly wave the flag and all this,

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Speaker 1: but then you see something like this robbing a bank.

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Speaker 1: Is it's so you know, like this was in the fifties,

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Speaker 1: John Way would make a movie about this, and you

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Speaker 1: know you'd get like, well, hello, pretty lady, and he's

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Speaker 1: sitting there like with it with his with his gun

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Speaker 1: on his hip, like what are you doing? And then

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Speaker 1: you get like an army. Like I told you last week,

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Speaker 1: If this doesn't get turned into a movie at some point,

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Speaker 1: I would be shocked, like this has everything Hollywood is

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Speaker 1: looking for in a film in my eyes, and I

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Speaker 1: cannot wait for Ben to come on. I am excited

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Speaker 1: to hear not just the story, but like you said,

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Speaker 1: the why yeah, yeah, and my my problem the I

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Speaker 1: guess the problem I have with the way the military

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Speaker 1: is presented in all of our media, across all of

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Speaker 1: our media, UM podcasts included oftentimes, is that it's like

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Speaker 1: this black or white thing where like yeah, the flag waving,

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Speaker 1: or it's like this pinko liberal comy, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: damn imperialistic America. UM. And I was afraid that, um,

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Speaker 1: that this book Ranger Games would kind of fall into

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Speaker 1: that category, that it would be like just sort of

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Speaker 1: like a bland anti warst statement, But really it's it's

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Speaker 1: a lot more than that, and um and Ben will

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Speaker 1: tell us all about it. But there are it does

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Speaker 1: go into some of the negative aspects of our our

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Speaker 1: culture and range of battalion and maybe some things we

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Speaker 1: can do a little bit better on. And so I

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Speaker 1: think there's a valid critique within the book. UM and

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Speaker 1: I'd encourage people to read it. But we'll talk all

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Speaker 1: about we'll talk about that in depth pretty soon here.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, did anything major happen over the weekend

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Speaker 1: news wise, I'm not, UM, I don't think anything that

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Speaker 1: wasn't in tune. I had some I had some personal

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Speaker 1: things I was dealing with. UM. I saw the one

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Speaker 1: thing this isn't really um newsworthy, but I always check

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Speaker 1: your Twitter just to see because you you're retweeting articles.

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Speaker 1: You're you're pumping your own articles like you're the call

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Speaker 1: of Duty one you just had out. UM one of

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Speaker 1: the things that jumped out, and this is I don't know,

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Speaker 1: this isn't like Newsworthy or anything like that, but you're

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Speaker 1: going back and forth with somebody on Twitter, and it

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Speaker 1: just your your response had me dying. And it's nothing

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Speaker 1: like significant or anything that this one after Trump? What

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Speaker 1: was Trump's original tweet? Hearing word that Russia Syria and

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Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, I ran or bombing the hell

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Speaker 1: out of the provinces in Syria and indiscriminately killing many

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Speaker 1: innocent civilians. The world is watching this butchery. What is

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Speaker 1: the purpose? What will you? What will it get? You? Stop?

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Speaker 1: And you you quote tweet it talking about Trump, and

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Speaker 1: then you know, obviously you get the hardcore Trumpers against you,

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Speaker 1: and that's what his his lingo. Your answer was so

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Speaker 1: perfect for his lingo. I don't understand military veteran types

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Speaker 1: who quote don't understand Trump supporters quote when the potust

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Speaker 1: clearly has an edge among vets, even millennial vets count

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Speaker 1: me in as part of the Trump crowd. Any old

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Speaker 1: day w t F were to support sport, Hillary, and

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Speaker 1: your answer had me dying. I was kind of partial

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Speaker 1: to Herman Kane old chap, which is straight out of

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Speaker 1: Scott Fitzgerald. That is a Gatsby line through and through

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Speaker 1: that back and forth was perfect, Dennis. I'm so glad

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Speaker 1: you picked up on that, like somebody actually realized there

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Speaker 1: was a joke in there. Uh. And I looked at

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Speaker 1: because I saw old Chap and I'm like, all right,

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Speaker 1: in the in the short weeks that I've known you,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't think you're just gonna throw an old chap

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Speaker 1: for just old English, say like, there's is probably a

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Speaker 1: reason why. So I did, I you know, I looked

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Speaker 1: up and sure ship he called you. What was the

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Speaker 1: first one? It was it just sport? Now there was

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Speaker 1: another one I got. I'm like reading it, No, what

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Speaker 1: what were we to support sport? Like? Well, I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 1: how could you possibly confus, you know, misunderstand Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: or his supporters even though the guy contradicts himself all

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Speaker 1: the time. Like, no, wonder why anyone would be confused.

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Speaker 1: It's just odd to me. I mean, Donald Trump made

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Speaker 1: these very bold statements about killing people in the Middle

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Speaker 1: East and we need to kill these people and that

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Speaker 1: people and blah blah blah throughout. You know, that's his

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Speaker 1: his very common rhetoric that we've all heard. So for

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Speaker 1: him to like take to Twitter to condemn um the

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Speaker 1: Assad regime and Russia, um, you know, bombarding it lib

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Speaker 1: is kind of weird. Um, just kind of surreal. And

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Speaker 1: and that's why I comment that. I was like, isn't

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Speaker 1: this what the MAGA crowd it is? To just turn

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Speaker 1: the Middle East into a glass parking lot, set the

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Speaker 1: dogs off the leash, Yeah, take our take our boys

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Speaker 1: off their chains, you know, like I thought that was

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Speaker 1: what you wanted. Um, So yeah, yes, you can consider

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Speaker 1: me amongst the confused. I don't always understand what the

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Speaker 1: narrative is that I'm supposed to believe. Like it's not

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Speaker 1: that I don't believe the narrative, it's not I don't

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Speaker 1: even know what the narrative is anymore. I don't even

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Speaker 1: know if Trump does. No, I don't think so there

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Speaker 1: isn't one. It's just whatever whatever I say when I

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Speaker 1: wake up in the morning. You know, you're supposed to

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Speaker 1: obey God, Emperor, King Trump and and just go along

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Speaker 1: with it and throw your maga hat on like he

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Speaker 1: throws on Fox. It was he sees what's going on

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Speaker 1: and he just says the opposite. You know, they're they're

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Speaker 1: bombing in the Middle East. Why are we doing that?

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Speaker 1: And it was like, well, two months ago, like you said, X, Y,

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Speaker 1: and Z, why why are we Why why are they

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Speaker 1: bombing it Lib where all these terrorists are while we're

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Speaker 1: bombing the ship out of We bombed the ship out

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Speaker 1: of missle, we bombed the ship out of places in Afghanistan.

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Speaker 1: We've drone strike the ship out of families in Pakistan,

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Speaker 1: like where our bombs are waylaying Yemen. I mean, like, well,

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Speaker 1: what he'll forget that part. Yeah, So yes, I am confused.

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Speaker 1: I'm a little confused about now. This gets me to thinking,

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Speaker 1: obviously Trump is huge on Twitter. As you were talking,

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Speaker 1: I literally thought in my head, if there was one

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Speaker 1: other person political leader that you would for entertainment for

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Speaker 1: whatever reason, that you would want to see tweet like

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Speaker 1: Trump does. My first instinct was Kim Jong un, like,

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Speaker 1: I would love to see what he comes up with.

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Speaker 1: On Twitter. There is one it's called um d p

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Speaker 1: r K DPRK News, and it's a parody account for

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Speaker 1: the North Korean government and it is fucking hilarious. I

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Speaker 1: actually haven't been on it in a long time, but

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Speaker 1: it's uh, go ahead and take a look at that

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Speaker 1: DPRK news service. Yeah, but I mean you look at

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Speaker 1: you and it's I guess it's embarrassing that Trump is

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Speaker 1: almost like for the first the first thing to come

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Speaker 1: to your mind is a parody account when I asked you,

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Speaker 1: who would you like to see tweet like Trump does

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Speaker 1: and real real life is more like a parody every day. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was watching I saw this headline that

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Speaker 1: a couple of veterans had walked out on Acasto Cortez

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Speaker 1: during a meeting, and I was like, Okay, that maybe

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Speaker 1: that's something I should write about, you know, for our website.

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Speaker 1: So I went and watched the news clip on Fox

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Speaker 1: News and I was like, dude, this is like this

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Speaker 1: is like an snl skit like is this real? And

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Speaker 1: it has this little news segment with these two older

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Speaker 1: veterans has like everything in it. It's like these uh,

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Speaker 1: these two boomers complaining that Acasto Cortez said something about

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Speaker 1: how we're dropping bombs on Yemen or our bombs are

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Speaker 1: falling on Yemen as I described a minute ago, and

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Speaker 1: they like walked out because they're like, oh, she's anti American,

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Speaker 1: and they were like just kind of whining in the

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Speaker 1: in the Fox News hosts or you know, you served

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Speaker 1: our country, why why were you just you were so

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Speaker 1: disgusted with her that you had to turn your back

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Speaker 1: and walk out, And you know, it's just everything inside

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Speaker 1: this one news segment. It's like this is this is

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Speaker 1: literally a Saturday Night Live skit. Like you couldn't make

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Speaker 1: this up. It was right wing bingo. Yeah, check it

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Speaker 1: checked all that. You're just sitting there with your stamp

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Speaker 1: and grandma next thank you for your service right there

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Speaker 1: in the center block. Yeah, that's the free space. Make

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Speaker 1: sure that the middle yeah. Um yeah. So it's it's

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Speaker 1: just surreal. Um. But I wrote that. I did write that,

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Speaker 1: uh that op ed about um call of duty, and

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to spend a lot of

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Speaker 1: time talking about it. You can go read it if

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Speaker 1: you want, But the Call of Duty games just have

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Speaker 1: this particular brand of nihilism to them that you know,

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Speaker 1: we're just like a bunch of thugs deployed on the

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Speaker 1: global war and terra no one really knows or cares

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Speaker 1: what we're fighting for. And it's just very romanticized but

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Speaker 1: also nihilistic vision of what we're doing around the world.

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Speaker 1: And I wrote about that, and it was funny. Some

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Speaker 1: of the feedback you get is is just a video game?

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Speaker 1: Who cares? Well, if you read this this book here

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Speaker 1: Ranger games, all this thing talks about well, and it's

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Speaker 1: not all it talks about, but video games are prominent

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Speaker 1: throughout this book, all these young guys playing video games

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Speaker 1: and um, their favorite movies, war movies. And so I'm

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Speaker 1: not saying that video games make people rob banks or

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Speaker 1: anything like that. What I'm saying is that video games

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Speaker 1: and movies have a influence on our culture. They contribute.

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Speaker 1: It's not the it's not the driving factor. But sure,

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Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you're playing Coal of Duty

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Speaker 1: or any other you know, warfare game like that, and

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Speaker 1: you're just playing, and you know, you get to almost desensitized,

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Speaker 1: like just you know, you moaning people down who cares?

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Speaker 1: And when the video game is saying you are the

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Speaker 1: special Operator, you go and you you shoot civilians, like

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Speaker 1: that's what you do, that's what you have to do.

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Speaker 1: Like one of the games is actually like it encourages

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Speaker 1: you to murder civilians. You're like undercover with the terrorists.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, um, And I'm not saying I'm not before

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Speaker 1: anyone uh starts going ape shit on me, I'm not

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Speaker 1: calling for censorship. I'm not saying these games should be illegal.

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Speaker 1: I'm just telling you that for me, I look at

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Speaker 1: it and I say, I don't really want to participate

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Speaker 1: in this, and I think it's kind of gross. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean with the with the coal of dude, I don't.

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Speaker 1: I think it's cold duty that does them. They have

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Speaker 1: the Nazi zombie um segment of the game and that

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Speaker 1: like that you can get behind because it's like zombies,

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Speaker 1: and I have no problem killing zombies. They're they're not real. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean in the video game there's certainly not really,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about it in real life.

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Speaker 1: But when you start, when the mission tells you to

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Speaker 1: mow down innocent civilians, yeah, that's getting a little dice.

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Speaker 1: My favorite games or one of my favorite games are

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Speaker 1: the the Deis X series, and I really like it

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Speaker 1: because it puts you you are, you know, the playing

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Speaker 1: in the first person as the protagonist, and it puts

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Speaker 1: you in these very ambiguous, morally gray areas and then

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Speaker 1: it presents you with a series of decisions. There's multiple

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Speaker 1: pathways to take in the games, so you have to

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Speaker 1: decide which path you're gonna take, and none of them

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Speaker 1: are clearly good or bad. The whole thing is great.

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Speaker 1: It's very gray. Yeah, I mean there are some things

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Speaker 1: you could do that are clearly like psychopathic, you know,

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Speaker 1: I guess if you want to play a more evil

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Speaker 1: type of character, or if you wanted to play like

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Speaker 1: the morally virtuous, uh, the White Knight Sci fi Paladin. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but most of most of it in the game is

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Speaker 1: very gray and you really have to balance or try

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Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, where would I stand on this,

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Speaker 1: like what would I do? And I think those kind

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Speaker 1: of games are cool because they make you think about it.

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Speaker 1: You know, they make you contemplate. It's not just it's

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Speaker 1: not black and white, like you know, if I do this,

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Speaker 1: this is what's going to happen? And if I go

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Speaker 1: this way then, like you said, you're thinking more about

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Speaker 1: and you said in the in the call of Duty

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Speaker 1: piece that when you first played it, you uh the

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Speaker 1: call of Duty one, that is, you just started shooting

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Speaker 1: the terrorists and then they just prompted like they just

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Speaker 1: there was there was an automatic like look, we're killing

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Speaker 1: you like this. Yeah, this isn't what you're supposed to.

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Speaker 1: Follow up that wasn't call of duty too, So yeah,

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Speaker 1: the game is telling you what you're supposed to be

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Speaker 1: like and it's like, well, now I don't want to

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Speaker 1: that's not as fun. I like. I like the games

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Speaker 1: where it almost choose your own adventure. Yeah, for those

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Speaker 1: of you who remember those books and I did, I mean,

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Speaker 1: don't get I don't play that many video games. I

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Speaker 1: just don't have the time and maybe I just don't

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Speaker 1: have the inclination. I play a couple, maybe one or

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Speaker 1: two a year. But I mean I like video games.

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Speaker 1: I even like shooters, you know. Yeah, I mean see

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Speaker 1: I was not a military man, but it's interesting because

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Speaker 1: I would like to get I mean, like you said,

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Speaker 1: you play shooters, and uh, my friend I have I

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Speaker 1: have one friend that's a huge gamer, and one of

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Speaker 1: his close friends was was in the army and he

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Speaker 1: doesn't mind playing it either, But I'd like to get

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Speaker 1: a perspective that, like, you know, you lived it, so

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Speaker 1: when you play video games, it kind of just like this,

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Speaker 1: like do you nitpick it? Like is this realistic? Like yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: I don't really feel the need to nitpick it. I

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Speaker 1: just think that. And you know that Call of Duty game.

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Speaker 1: I'm looking at this trailer and it shows these characters

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Speaker 1: are doing Halo jumps, They're they're inserting on little birds

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Speaker 1: and things, and it's like stuff I actually did in

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Speaker 1: my military career that was kind of Okay, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of cool, But then the way it gets kind of contextualized,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's just something that I feel kind of

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable with. I guess fair enough. Um, before we bring

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Speaker 1: on Bend, do you want to discuss anything further any

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Speaker 1: other articles? There's another another article I wrote that will

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Speaker 1: be coming out um today, so it'll certainly be out

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Speaker 1: by the time people listen to. This is about the

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Speaker 1: United States trying to repair our relationship with the Indonesian

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Speaker 1: special forces, who have a bunch of human rights accusations

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Speaker 1: against them over the years. UM. So it looks like

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Speaker 1: we're trying to repair that relationship, which I'm sure plays

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Speaker 1: into um, China asserting itself in the South China Sea.

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Speaker 1: We need some allies out there in the Pacific. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then I wrote another article. Um, still touching it up.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into the subject matter yet,

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Speaker 1: but it should be out by the time people hear this,

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Speaker 1: I think, let's hope. So because you told me the

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Speaker 1: topic and just from the topic, loan it'll be another

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Speaker 1: quality piece. Well, I can tell I'm gonna it's gonna

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Speaker 1: be one of it's gonna be one of those pieces

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Speaker 1: where I get death threats. It makes it makes it

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Speaker 1: a good piece, though, No, it is. It is. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to get it all over again. That's just part

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Speaker 1: and parcel of the job though. Um. But yeah, I

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Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to say what it's about,

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Speaker 1: just in case it doesn't go out tomorrow. But um,

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Speaker 1: pretty pretty controversial, uh subject matter that will come out

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Speaker 1: hopefully tomorrow. That's a that's a tease in the biz,

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Speaker 1: that's what they call that. Yeah, that was well done. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we'll see it should be out by the time

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Speaker 1: people hear this, all right, And then up Next, we

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Speaker 1: have Ben Blump, author he wrote Ranger Games, a story

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Speaker 1: of soldiers, families and an inexplicable crime. But before we

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Speaker 1: get to Ben, this show is brought to you by

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Speaker 1: Create Club, a club four men by men of Gear,

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Speaker 1: hand picked by Special Operations military veterans. Visit create Club

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00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: Off it up now, and here's Ben Blum with us.

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Speaker 1: Now we have Ben Blum, author of Ranger Games, A

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Speaker 1: story of soldiers, family and an inexplicable crime. Ben, you

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Speaker 1: got your masters and fine arts from n y U,

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Speaker 1: your PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley,

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Speaker 1: and then when you found out your cousin UH committed

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Speaker 1: this crime in two thousand and six, you left your

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Speaker 1: job and you just began the research on like what

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Speaker 1: take us through that process, like you just decided, all right,

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Speaker 1: this is an interesting story we're gonna get right into.

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Speaker 1: Like I want to. I want to write the best

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Speaker 1: book possible. So in order to do that, I gotta

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to leave my job. Interesting kind of

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Speaker 1: doesn't begin to cover it. It was. It was a

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Speaker 1: giant family catastrophe when my cousin was arrested. He'd been

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Speaker 1: he'd been the kind of goody two shoes, patriotic, all American, um,

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Speaker 1: kid of the family. Uh. And it's cocked us all

424
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 1: when when he was arrested for bank robbery. I mean,

425
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,280
Speaker 1: it was just so completely out of the blue. UM.

426
00:23:06,320 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: So I was working at the time at a biochemistry

427
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: lab doing my PhD research, and um, about ten months

428
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 1: into Alex's imprisonment, he um, he wrote an account of

429
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 1: his training, both basic training and then the ranger In

430
00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:28,120
Speaker 1: doctrination program. UM. And I read that and was kind

431
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:32,159
Speaker 1: of blown away. UM. I started to to just get

432
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 1: more personally invested in this story and trying to understand

433
00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:37,200
Speaker 1: how this kid that I knew growing up had come

434
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: to the point of robbing a bank. So he and

435
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: I started um communicating. I wrote him a couple of

436
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:45,560
Speaker 1: letters while he was in prison. He wrote back. Friendship

437
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:50,240
Speaker 1: developed and Um and over time that grew into a

438
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:53,280
Speaker 1: joint plan to write a book together about his story.

439
00:23:53,680 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible because the book Ranger Games, it's a

440
00:23:57,560 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: book about really a lot of things. I mean, it's

441
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: a fan the history, it's uh, it's about the process

442
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:06,400
Speaker 1: of you writing this book with Alex Um. And then

443
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: it's also the main point of it. I think the

444
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,240
Speaker 1: main thrust of it really is the why why did

445
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:14,199
Speaker 1: this happen? Um? But before we get to that, I

446
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you the what because I think there

447
00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:19,479
Speaker 1: are some people who are coming to this fresh and

448
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: have probably no idea what we're talking about. If you

449
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: could describe to us, UM the bank robbery itself and

450
00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: how that went down before we move forward. Sure so,

451
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:38,120
Speaker 1: Um Alex was a nineteen year old private UM at

452
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:43,399
Speaker 1: the time the second range of Battalion at UM Fort Lewis.

453
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: Now it's joined based Lewis McCord um and Uh. The

454
00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: robbery was organized by his former team leader, specialist Luke

455
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:59,960
Speaker 1: Elliott summer Um. There were five guys involved in the robber,

456
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: three Rangers and two Canadian associates of summers um and summer.

457
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: When he first started concocting that this plan, pitched it

458
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: to those around him and battalion as a kind of

459
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: a thought experiment, like, let's think how we do a

460
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 1: real bank robber using our skills, which is very common,

461
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 1: I might add to the spit ball about that kind

462
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: of thing. So I hear, so I hear, I mean

463
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:28,119
Speaker 1: I as I understand. I'm not, of course, um a

464
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: range of myself. I have no military experience whatsoever. Everything

465
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:33,520
Speaker 1: I know about this I know at second hand through

466
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: having talked to a number of soldiers the course of

467
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 1: the research for the book. But I've heard that from

468
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 1: many sources that that's a common way to kind of

469
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 1: blow off steam and also to um exercise you're growing

470
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:51,280
Speaker 1: tactical skills. Um, you run these thought experiments, uh, anytime

471
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:53,400
Speaker 1: you're out seeing a movie, you know, getting a drink

472
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: at the bar, getting a sandwich like quiz nos um

473
00:25:56,720 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: and uh, and just shoot the breeze with with fellow

474
00:25:59,480 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: soldiers about it. So that's what someone was doing for

475
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: a long time, and Alex started to get involved on

476
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:11,159
Speaker 1: that basis, and at a certain point it just started

477
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 1: to get a little bit uncomfortably real um. And then

478
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 1: so at a certain point, you know, it tipped over

479
00:26:19,400 --> 00:26:22,920
Speaker 1: into full on reality and they really robbed this Bank

480
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: of America branch in Tacoma. Five guys went in take

481
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,679
Speaker 1: over robbery. They had a K forty sevens and pistols um.

482
00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:36,200
Speaker 1: They were inside for about two minutes, a very fast moving,

483
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,760
Speaker 1: well executed robbery from a tactual perspective, although from a

484
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: criminal perspective, totally bone headed because they didn't so much

485
00:26:43,320 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: just cover up the license plates on the gateway car.

486
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: And then they got out of there with about fifty

487
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:53,680
Speaker 1: dollars and Alex was arrested three days later in Denver

488
00:26:53,760 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 1: after they tracked the plates. And as I recall, I

489
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 1: pulled the book off my shelf yesterday to and refresh

490
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,120
Speaker 1: my memory. This happened just as second Range of Battalion

491
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 1: was put on leave, so these guys had a little

492
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,680
Speaker 1: bit of spare time. They went and executed this bank robbery,

493
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:11,960
Speaker 1: and then they went up. You know, Alex went on

494
00:27:12,040 --> 00:27:17,200
Speaker 1: leave back home to Colorado, and Elliott Sohmer went to Canada.

495
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, he grew up in British Columbia. He

496
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: had dual citizenship. His father was an American. Um and

497
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:29,679
Speaker 1: uh so he his family still lived up there. He

498
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: went back to his mother's house and then ended up

499
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: um mounting a like year long extradition battle out there,

500
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:41,200
Speaker 1: claiming to have staged the bank robbery to gain a

501
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,439
Speaker 1: platform to protest war crimes that he witnessed in Afghanistan

502
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: and Iraq. I mean, that's a whole crazy other story.

503
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 1: You can get it too if you want to. And

504
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: the FEDS caught up on you know, caught them very quickly.

505
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: I mean they pieced it together pretty quickly. Yeah. The

506
00:27:57,040 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: FBI agent in charge of the investigation took one look

507
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 1: at the security camera videos and was like, these guys

508
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,920
Speaker 1: are soldiers, you know. It was Um, it was pretty

509
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: apparent that the level of athleticism and just kind of

510
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: tactical acuity on display and the robbery was way above

511
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,640
Speaker 1: and beyond anything that he had seen in his hundreds

512
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 1: of past bank robbery cases. Um. Uh. In the beginning

513
00:28:22,040 --> 00:28:26,360
Speaker 1: of the robbery, specialist Summer, Um just sprints in and

514
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:33,639
Speaker 1: vaults clear over this eight or nine foot high bandit barrier,

515
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: the plexiglass barrier separating the tellers from the rest of

516
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: the bank. Um, it's just a athletically pretty impressive move. UM,

517
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 1: so he immediately suspected that they were military, and as

518
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,640
Speaker 1: I mentioned, witness to the to the crime got the plates.

519
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: He called Fort Lewis and had them check against their

520
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: records and Alex was the first one that they arrested

521
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: since it was his car. As I was reading the book,

522
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: I I was going back through last night, I realized

523
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 1: that all of the parts I bookmarked in the book,

524
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: they're not so much about Ranger Battalion, and they're not

525
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:14,920
Speaker 1: so much about Um about the bank robbery itself. There

526
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: are the parts about Um being a psychopath and specifically

527
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: in regards to sohmrs and some of your conversations with

528
00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: him UM, and that was some of the stuff that

529
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: really jumped right out at me. And I felt that

530
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: it's so um telling because what because of the hierarchy

531
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: you have in the military and who's in charge of you,

532
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: whether you have a good experience in the army or

533
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 1: a bad experience depends so much on the personalities and

534
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: who you wind up with. I mean, is your team

535
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:51,760
Speaker 1: leader a good guy or a bad guy? And in

536
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: this case, Alex ended up with a team leader who's

537
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,680
Speaker 1: a psychopath and so I was wondering if you could

538
00:29:56,720 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 1: kind of take it from there about as far as

539
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: like the why why did this crime happen? Why did

540
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: Alex get involved in it? Why? Why why did all

541
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:06,880
Speaker 1: of this go down the way it did. I think

542
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: that if there's any one deciding factor and Alex getting involved,

543
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 1: that is it. Um. Elliott Summer is a truly unusual guy,

544
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:22,920
Speaker 1: and UM I ended up coming to the conclusion that

545
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:29,479
Speaker 1: that was the the best one word summary of of

546
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: of what's going on with his brain. UM. And I,

547
00:30:33,280 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: you know, certainly that's that's an opinion that I heard

548
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: from a variety of sources. He Uh, he experienced some

549
00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 1: ugly stuff. I think on his first two deployments to

550
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: Afghanistan Iraq, Um he became a little disillusioned about the military. Um.

551
00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: There was a political element of that, but also he

552
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: confessed to me openly that morale he had always been

553
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: kind of a mystery to him. Like other people did

554
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: moral things out of what seemed to be an innate

555
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: drive inside them, but for him it was like, UM,

556
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: I guess I could do moral stuff because that seems

557
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: to be what makes people most comfortable, But I don't

558
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:18,840
Speaker 1: really see any reason other than that, So he would

559
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 1: kind of imitate moral behavior based on models around him. Um.

560
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,000
Speaker 1: And then that just meant that there were very few

561
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: internal checks on him going kind of batshit crazy with

562
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 1: this bank robbery scheme. What do you think it says

563
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: about Ranger Battalion that a guy like Somers gets in

564
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 1: that he goes through this The entire selection process that

565
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:48,520
Speaker 1: we're told that we're told is um so comprehensive and

566
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: time tested that we get these elite soldiers UM, people

567
00:31:52,600 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: who are our best and brightest, But you end up

568
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: with a guy who's a psychopath. And he breathed right

569
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,640
Speaker 1: through whatever psychological value watitions they gave him. Yeah. Well,

570
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: I mean, according to him and his UM family, he

571
00:32:06,720 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: wasn't given psychological screening. Um. I don't know how standard

572
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: that is now um he uh. And he did have

573
00:32:17,720 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: some difficulty at battalion UM for the couple of years

574
00:32:23,040 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 1: that he was there before Alex met him. His platoon

575
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: sergeant recognized that he was emotionally immature and um uh.

576
00:32:34,280 --> 00:32:39,240
Speaker 1: Summer's family when they tried to um convey their concerns

577
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:42,959
Speaker 1: about his mental health to the platoon, they were they

578
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: were kind of rebuffed, but looking at it now, I

579
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 1: think I think there was an emerging picture that Summer

580
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 1: might have some issues. But you know, it jumped out

581
00:32:51,760 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: at me finally after all the research I did. UM,

582
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: I am an outsider all this, and I have to

583
00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: tell you, you know, it's a it's it's always a

584
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:00,720
Speaker 1: big honor for me to be able to speak to

585
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: folks like you who have real experience in this world. UM.

586
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: And I apologize in advance or anything that I get wrong.

587
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:11,080
Speaker 1: And there's a whole language to this world that I

588
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: as I researched the book, but UM, it's just impossible

589
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,239
Speaker 1: to be truly deeply familiar with it unless you experience it.

590
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: So but my impression that I got is that it's

591
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: really quite unusual, UM in militaries around the world for

592
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: an elite special Operations Force to be formed from raw recruits. UM.

593
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: Usually UM guys will serve a little time in the

594
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 1: regular army. The really truly experienced ones then go through

595
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: the more rigorous training to UM and our special operations

596
00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: units and the rangers. It's just such a fast track

597
00:33:56,040 --> 00:34:01,680
Speaker 1: to doing really highly sensitive self to admissions UM. And

598
00:34:01,800 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: so I think I think it's you can you can

599
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: work hard to weed out the really crazy guys, the

600
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: guys who are not mature enough to handle this kind

601
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:17,040
Speaker 1: of responsibility to some extent. But to some extent, that's

602
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,319
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that that only shows up over

603
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: time through experience on the undeployment, through the different relationships

604
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,600
Speaker 1: that a soldier forms with different kinds of superiors and

605
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: UM and teammates and even subordinates, if they're given a

606
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: little bit of leadership responsibility, as Summer was. And uh,

607
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 1: and I guess it seems that Summer was was given

608
00:34:43,719 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: responsibility a little bit, a little bit too quickly. Um to.

609
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,319
Speaker 1: In my view, it's interesting that they say that he

610
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,680
Speaker 1: wasn't given psychological screening. And obviously I didn't go through

611
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,120
Speaker 1: um the ranger and doctrination program with him, but I

612
00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:03,040
Speaker 1: mean I went through in two thousand three and we

613
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:06,480
Speaker 1: had it wasn't comprehensive, but we did have a questionnaire

614
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: we had to fill out and then a short interview

615
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 1: with a psychologist. UM. So it's interesting if they did

616
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:13,480
Speaker 1: away with that, what it would have been, you know,

617
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: not long after I went through that he did. I

618
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,759
Speaker 1: would suppose, Oh, that is interesting. Although you know, psychopaths

619
00:35:19,760 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: are kind of famously hard to diagnose because they're brilliant

620
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:31,040
Speaker 1: at creating a persona seamless pressworthy persona. And you did,

621
00:35:31,120 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: uh you wouldn't like talk to his mother and stuff

622
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:35,840
Speaker 1: like that, and turned up all of these like wild

623
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 1: stories of how um, you know, a very very grandiose personality.

624
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 1: And I think you even say at one point that

625
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:48,440
Speaker 1: people like him that people who have psychopathy issues they

626
00:35:48,760 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: think they're much more competent than they actually are, which

627
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:53,919
Speaker 1: I think is a common running theme, including the bank

628
00:35:54,040 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: robbery itself. I end up forming a surprisingly close relationship

629
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: with his mother, who had this kind of unique combination

630
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:11,240
Speaker 1: of clear eyed view of um Elliott and his character

631
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: and also that kind of unbreakable mother's love, like she

632
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 1: wanted the best for him no matter what. And uh, yeah,

633
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 1: she told me that. All through his childhood he just

634
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: had gigantic schemes. He was like calling people at NASA

635
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: to talk about his ideas for space travel. He was

636
00:36:31,239 --> 00:36:33,399
Speaker 1: like calling Bill Gates to try to get funding for

637
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: his video game company at age thirteen. He um he

638
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: was always a big dreamer, and it was never clear

639
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 1: that he recognized the boundary between dream and reality. He

640
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: kind of actually thought that he was living out these

641
00:36:53,080 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: fantasy versions of himself. He's grandiest fantasy versions of himself

642
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,040
Speaker 1: that would then be very persuasive to friends and of

643
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:02,600
Speaker 1: people around him. I would be remissed too if I

644
00:37:02,640 --> 00:37:05,439
Speaker 1: didn't ask you about your cousin Alex, and a little

645
00:37:05,480 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: bit more about his upbringing, which was you know, in

646
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: personality which is very different than than somers, and what

647
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: their relationship was like in Ranger Battalion. Sure, Um, Alex

648
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:23,400
Speaker 1: had a pretty sheltered upbringing. He grew up in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

649
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: It's a little suburban enclave. His dad was a pretty

650
00:37:27,200 --> 00:37:33,960
Speaker 1: successful real estate developer. Um and uh he he had

651
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: a lot of like um, a lot of drive to

652
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:40,120
Speaker 1: become a soldier. Our grandfather served in World War Two.

653
00:37:40,200 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: We grew up with stories of his great military exploits,

654
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 1: but I don't think he had much of a sense

655
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:51,719
Speaker 1: of the reality of military life. Um. He are are

656
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,280
Speaker 1: great uncle told him a little bit about his service

657
00:37:55,360 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: back in the fifties. But Alex was the only one

658
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: in our family who aspired to um to go military

659
00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:06,520
Speaker 1: uh and who knew anything about it. Um. So he

660
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:08,840
Speaker 1: had kind of a storybook idea. I think of what

661
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: it meant to be a soldier. And you know, he like,

662
00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 1: like all kids's age who love army stuff. He just

663
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:20,319
Speaker 1: drank up every movie black Hawk Down, Staving Private Ryan.

664
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: He was obsessed. He played all the video games like

665
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 1: Endless Hours on Call of Duty, UM, and he was

666
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: very idealistic about it all. He really wanted to go,

667
00:38:31,640 --> 00:38:34,879
Speaker 1: you know, defend freedom and save America. UM. So then

668
00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:40,840
Speaker 1: he met Summer and they connected over hockey. Originally, Alex

669
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 1: was kind of a high school hockey star and UM Summer,

670
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: as it turned out, wasn't but kind of pretended he

671
00:38:48,160 --> 00:38:51,719
Speaker 1: was to connect with Alex. He played enough to be

672
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: able to speak convincingly about it, but it turned out

673
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: he had not actually been on the team that he

674
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:58,640
Speaker 1: claimed to have been on, UM, which Alex had once

675
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,960
Speaker 1: traveled up to Canada to be against UH, and they

676
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: just formed one of those kind of tight, jokey um

677
00:39:07,160 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: fast friendships that the people form under immense stress. Alex

678
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: just felt very honored that a tab was interested in him.

679
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:17,960
Speaker 1: You know, as I understand that there's a real social

680
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:23,120
Speaker 1: divide between privates, UM and and tabs at Battalion, and

681
00:39:24,200 --> 00:39:28,359
Speaker 1: Summer was one of the feud across that boundary. Um.

682
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: He took a special interest in certain privates and would

683
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: bring them out around Tacoma UM for extra you know,

684
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:41,600
Speaker 1: quote unquote tactical exercises when they visit places and somewhat

685
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:44,160
Speaker 1: asked them how they robbed the place. And Alex just

686
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: felt very honored to be given that attention. But I

687
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,799
Speaker 1: mean there's also a dark side to that relationship too,

688
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 1: wasn't there. I mean there he was having him do

689
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 1: things like the suicide check and stuff like that. It

690
00:39:56,480 --> 00:40:00,000
Speaker 1: started to get a little culti. Um. So the suicide

691
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: check was Summer would throw a pistol to one of

692
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,399
Speaker 1: the guys that he hung out with, one of these

693
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 1: privates and his crew and called suicide check, and then

694
00:40:11,040 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: the guy would have to hold it to his his

695
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 1: head and pull the trigger, trusting that um, the gun

696
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: wasn't loaded. Uh. And I think that, you know, looking

697
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,439
Speaker 1: back for Alex, it's very clear that there was a

698
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:30,400
Speaker 1: long grooming process by which Summer brought him under increasing

699
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: control and that was part of it. And so what

700
00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:38,399
Speaker 1: was going through Alex's head when his team leader tells him,

701
00:40:38,400 --> 00:40:40,720
Speaker 1: you know, come with me and at a certain point,

702
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 1: and I mean, that's one of the main questions I

703
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: think you try to answer in your book is when

704
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:49,120
Speaker 1: did Alex know he was robbing a bank? Yeah, that

705
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: is that is the key question. Um. So, when Alex

706
00:40:54,320 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: first told me in the family the story of what

707
00:40:57,520 --> 00:41:02,920
Speaker 1: had happened to him, he said that he had believed

708
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: that this was a training exercise. You know, period, that

709
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: was the story. I thought this was a training exercise.

710
00:41:09,239 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: I would never have done something like this. I thought

711
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 1: it was a training exercise. Um And when I first

712
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: really pushed him on it, he went so far as

713
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: to say that even in the moment of robbing the bank,

714
00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 1: like driving these guys, they're seeing them jump out of

715
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,760
Speaker 1: the car with a K forty seven's, He's still thinking, Okay,

716
00:41:28,800 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: this has to be an exercise. This has to be

717
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: an exercise. Summer has somehow set up some off post

718
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: final exercise before we deployed. They were on their final

719
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:43,399
Speaker 1: leave before Alex's first deployment, just like a little week

720
00:41:43,440 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: long block leave. Uh. And then over time, as I

721
00:41:49,160 --> 00:41:53,239
Speaker 1: researched the story more, as I kept pushing Alex on

722
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:56,759
Speaker 1: that point because it just seemed so impossible to me,

723
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,719
Speaker 1: um that story started to crumble a little bit. I

724
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:04,480
Speaker 1: started to see flashes of comprehension, and Alex that that

725
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: that came a little earlier than that, and I think, um,

726
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 1: you know, not to give away the whole arc of

727
00:42:13,800 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: the book, but um, by the end, I Alex really

728
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,840
Speaker 1: came to grapple with his involvement at a deeper level,

729
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:26,320
Speaker 1: and to admit to himself and to me that UM,

730
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:28,520
Speaker 1: at least a part of them recognize, hey, this is

731
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,280
Speaker 1: a real bank robbery. And he was just too scared

732
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 1: to back out at that point. Scared in a variety

733
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:35,279
Speaker 1: of ways. I mean in one sense that by then

734
00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,360
Speaker 1: he was pretty criminally implicated in preparations and concrete preparations

735
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 1: for it. In another sense, he was just scared of Summer.

736
00:42:41,960 --> 00:42:44,279
Speaker 1: He thought, if I go and try to report this

737
00:42:44,920 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 1: to um the platoon starge into some superior I'm gonna

738
00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,360
Speaker 1: get laughed out of the room, like they're gonna say, hey,

739
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: you know, Summer, you've been planning a bank ropery. And

740
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:55,879
Speaker 1: someone was like this idiot, cherry private, like these are

741
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:59,359
Speaker 1: just the usual ranger thought exercises, and he's just you know,

742
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: taking it well too seriously. UM. And then Alex was

743
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,839
Speaker 1: terrified of what would happen on deployment was summer after

744
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: he tried to write him out, so he just I

745
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,359
Speaker 1: think he felt himself at a certain point. I think

746
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,680
Speaker 1: he did realize that it was real and just felt himself,

747
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 1: uh trapped into moving forward with it, even though he

748
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: didn't want to. Some of the stuff we're talking about here,

749
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,920
Speaker 1: I mean, and even to me, it like sounds so

750
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:30,560
Speaker 1: ridiculous that, Okay, you're a soldier in the army, got it,

751
00:43:30,600 --> 00:43:34,360
Speaker 1: But how could you really believe that? Um? But I

752
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: have to I've been out of the military for like

753
00:43:36,600 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: nine years now, and I left Ranger of Battalion in

754
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: two thousand six, so it's been a while. I really

755
00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 1: had as I was reading your book, I had to

756
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: place myself back when I was in that position, when

757
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:48,399
Speaker 1: I was a Range of Battalion private and really think

758
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 1: about those cult like aspects of the unit, which makes

759
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 1: the unit very cohesive in combat, which is great, but

760
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: there is that negative side to it, and I just

761
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 1: thought about it, like, what if my team leader was

762
00:43:59,600 --> 00:44:02,200
Speaker 1: a bad guy? What if my squad leader was a

763
00:44:02,239 --> 00:44:05,040
Speaker 1: bad guy? And I was so fortunate I know now

764
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 1: looking back on it, that I had ethical leaders who

765
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:11,880
Speaker 1: you know, would keep me pretty much on the right track.

766
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 1: But what if that wasn't the case? And in that regard,

767
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I'm that different than Alex,

768
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: especially when we were privates and range of battalion. And

769
00:44:22,160 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: I can see how this book you wrote represents going

770
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,960
Speaker 1: down a different road, going down a darker road. I

771
00:44:28,000 --> 00:44:32,799
Speaker 1: think that's absolutely true. I mean, it's UM just as

772
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 1: you say. It's really astonishing the difference it makes. What

773
00:44:37,560 --> 00:44:40,120
Speaker 1: kind of a team leader you have when you are

774
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:46,160
Speaker 1: a fresh young private who doesn't doesn't know the new

775
00:44:46,239 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 1: cultural norms of this this group that you're joining, who's

776
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: looking to superiors for cues about what standard range of behavior,

777
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:57,920
Speaker 1: what's not, what's acceptable, what isn't? You know, you've suddenly

778
00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: been given license to shoot and kill p bowl, which

779
00:45:00,640 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 1: used to be completely against any moral standard that everyone

780
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,560
Speaker 1: you know, UM lives by. So the rules are all

781
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: suddenly in question, like your whole world has been turned

782
00:45:12,320 --> 00:45:15,479
Speaker 1: upside down. You've just come out of rip or now

783
00:45:15,600 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: you know the Range Assessment selection program and that's a

784
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: pretty you know, upsetting experience, Like that's uh, There's been

785
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: a lot of sleep deprivation and and exhaustion and pain,

786
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:35,400
Speaker 1: and you're just discombobulated and looking to someone, anyone to

787
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: set your feet back on the ground and get you

788
00:45:39,040 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: comfortable in this new world. And for Alex that was

789
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,240
Speaker 1: that was Elliott Summer. You wrote that when so Sommer

790
00:45:46,400 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: and Uh and Alex both end up in jail, and

791
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: you write that Alex was like doing push ups and

792
00:45:52,400 --> 00:45:54,880
Speaker 1: doing pt because he really thought like this whole thing

793
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: was going to be cleared up and he was going

794
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:59,879
Speaker 1: to go join his battalion on deployment. That is completely true.

795
00:45:59,880 --> 00:46:05,120
Speaker 1: He really felt like, um, it all seemed so normal

796
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:07,560
Speaker 1: to him at every step along the way. One of

797
00:46:07,560 --> 00:46:11,000
Speaker 1: the things Summer was really artful about doing is joking

798
00:46:11,000 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: about these bank robber these bank robbery plans openly around battalion,

799
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 1: with Alex and the other privates present, in a way

800
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:23,800
Speaker 1: that normalized it all. Like it really felt like everyone

801
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:25,279
Speaker 1: was just kind of in on this. This is just

802
00:46:25,320 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: the kind of ship that rangers do. Um. And so

803
00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: Alex just, I mean, he was clearly it was a

804
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,759
Speaker 1: delusional mindset, but he was just waiting for some superior

805
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: to swoop in and make this whole nightmare go away.

806
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: It just it just did not compute to him, and

807
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,319
Speaker 1: it all felt so normal. He thought he'd just been

808
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:49,960
Speaker 1: Um kind of doing what this tab was requiring him

809
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: to do. He it was almost like another one of

810
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: these many hazing rituals that he had to go through

811
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 1: to be accepted as a full member of Italian and

812
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: he was just yeah, waiting for it to all be

813
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: cleared up so we could go do what he'd been

814
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: wanting to do for his whole life and deploy. But

815
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: on Somer's end, he had yet another grandiose plan to

816
00:47:10,840 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: portray his bank robbery as being about exposing war crimes,

817
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,919
Speaker 1: right right. So one of the big wake up calls

818
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: to Alex actually was when one of his cell mates,

819
00:47:23,360 --> 00:47:26,879
Speaker 1: Um at the Federal Detention Center called him over and said, Hey,

820
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: I'm listening to NPR. This kind of sounds like that

821
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: guy Summer Um. And Alex listened, and there's Summer on

822
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:41,919
Speaker 1: NPR like claiming to have, you know, videotape or photographs

823
00:47:41,960 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 1: of of atrocities committed in Afghanistan, and and and kind of,

824
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:51,799
Speaker 1: I mean, Summer is always acting out a different role

825
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:54,360
Speaker 1: from a movie that he loves, and he just shifted

826
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,759
Speaker 1: into v for Vendetta mode. He was like the kind

827
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: of dark rebel he year speaking truth from underground in

828
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:06,440
Speaker 1: his command center and his his mother's basement. Um, and

829
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 1: that was that was really a jolt to Alex, like

830
00:48:09,960 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 1: he kind of expected Summer to be, um, still cool

831
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:17,839
Speaker 1: with everyone back at battalion and working things out with them,

832
00:48:17,920 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: and it kind of became clear at that point that

833
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:25,359
Speaker 1: someone was following a very very different script. Um. So yeah,

834
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: so Summer kept that up for a long time. Um.

835
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 1: He a whole steady stream of journalists um trooped up

836
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: there to interview him in Canada, and then um, he

837
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:43,399
Speaker 1: was finally arrested in June of the next year, I think,

838
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: and oh my god, it reminds me, wasn't there he

839
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:50,080
Speaker 1: told some story about a black helicopter like hovering over

840
00:48:50,120 --> 00:48:54,440
Speaker 1: his mom's house. Yeah, yeah, Um, that's right. When I

841
00:48:54,480 --> 00:48:57,359
Speaker 1: went up to visit, he claimed that, yeah, that there

842
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:00,759
Speaker 1: was this US helicopter that had violated a Canadian air

843
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 1: space secretly to hover over their property, um, to try

844
00:49:05,440 --> 00:49:11,680
Speaker 1: to extract him. And I mean he was just yeah, yeah,

845
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: but the wild yeah, the wild thing is I mean

846
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:16,919
Speaker 1: his family even kind of believed this by then. Yeah,

847
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: so crazy the way that his fantasies would just kind

848
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:25,600
Speaker 1: of keep spilling out and unfolding those around him. That's

849
00:49:25,640 --> 00:49:29,400
Speaker 1: the really disturbing thing about a psychopath. And I've encountered

850
00:49:30,920 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: a couple in my lifetime, and actually one of them

851
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: was a guy who was in Ranger Battalion, and it's

852
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,200
Speaker 1: it's unnerving for me personally. I don't know how you felt.

853
00:49:40,239 --> 00:49:42,840
Speaker 1: I mean, you tell us about interviewing Elliott, but I

854
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 1: mean for me, I work as a as a journalist

855
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:47,719
Speaker 1: and researcher. I'd like to think I know when people

856
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:51,399
Speaker 1: are lying to me. But those guys they get under

857
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 1: my skin because they fool me initially, right, but then

858
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:58,080
Speaker 1: over time you can start to see the inconsistencies and

859
00:49:58,120 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 1: it starts, it starts to play out and you're like, whoa,

860
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:03,839
Speaker 1: there's something really wrong with this guy. That's exactly how

861
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:07,319
Speaker 1: the feeling was with Elliott. Yeah. I just the first

862
00:50:07,320 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: thing that struck me when I got him on the

863
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:11,839
Speaker 1: phone for the first time, I was scared. I mean,

864
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 1: this was like our family's great boogeyman and I'm calling

865
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:19,200
Speaker 1: him in federal prison and there's this like scary warning

866
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:22,040
Speaker 1: recording that you listened to before you you hear the

867
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 1: guy's voice, and and then he comes on he's just like,

868
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:26,399
Speaker 1: you know, hey, there, I'm Elliott. You know, he's just

869
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: this very friendly, normal guy. Um. And it took it

870
00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:36,240
Speaker 1: took quite a while for that that kind of creepy

871
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 1: Crawley sense to start coming in, like, wait a minute,

872
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 1: this doesn't really add up. Like he was even like

873
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,040
Speaker 1: trying to pretend he knew about math equations and stuff

874
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:49,080
Speaker 1: like that because he knew you had a math background, right, Yeah,

875
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:54,160
Speaker 1: Except it's more than I mean, he he really was

876
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: genuinely very interested in matth Um. Like the sad thing

877
00:50:57,600 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: with Elliot, I ended up having um some real sympathy

878
00:51:01,719 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: for him by the end, because he's in some way

879
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:07,839
Speaker 1: just as trapped by this part of his personality as

880
00:51:07,880 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 1: everyone else's. It's not that he pretended to understand math.

881
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:15,840
Speaker 1: He genuinely thought he was a math genius. He like

882
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:18,400
Speaker 1: he he would come to me with these what he

883
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: thought were like great new theorems that he had proved,

884
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: and they would have this kind of specious surface level consistency,

885
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: a lot like the surface little consistency of the web

886
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:34,040
Speaker 1: of lies that you start hearing from any psychopath. Um.

887
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: But then you push on them, you know, like you

888
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:41,400
Speaker 1: blow on them with the like the like the slightest

889
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:44,960
Speaker 1: breath and they crumble. Um. And that wasn't And then

890
00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:48,160
Speaker 1: that was kind of crushing for him because unlike bank

891
00:51:48,239 --> 00:51:51,479
Speaker 1: robbery plans, math is kind of true or it ain't.

892
00:51:52,640 --> 00:51:56,879
Speaker 1: And so it was this arena where his grandiosity came

893
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 1: up against the trueheartard constraints of reality. Um. And uh

894
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:04,080
Speaker 1: so I would kind of see that unfold again and

895
00:52:04,120 --> 00:52:08,160
Speaker 1: again with him when we would talk about math. Wow,

896
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:11,960
Speaker 1: it's just so in that sense, he's a he's a

897
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: victim of a mental disorder himself. I really did come

898
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:18,200
Speaker 1: to see him that way. But I also I don't

899
00:52:18,280 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: want to see him like I think. I think prison

900
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 1: is a pretty pretty reasonable place for him to be. Um. Like,

901
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: he's he may be a victim, but also he's just

902
00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:34,000
Speaker 1: causes so much harm to people and doesn't seem able

903
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: to help it or even really realize it while it's happening.

904
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 1: Is he still in prison today? Yeah, Yeah, he's still

905
00:52:40,080 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 1: in prison. And but Alex got he got out and

906
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:48,319
Speaker 1: he started his integration back into the world. Yeah, he

907
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: got out after sixteen months, which is an extraordinarily short

908
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: sentence for federal crime, federal crime with you know, automatic weapons. Um.

909
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:01,040
Speaker 1: He was the driver. I mean, there were a few

910
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 1: factors that led to him receiving a shorter sentence. He

911
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: was the driver. He was the least involved in the planning. UM.

912
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,560
Speaker 1: And there were also these kind of complex psychological factors

913
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:14,799
Speaker 1: that we've started to go into in this in this call, Um.

914
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:18,320
Speaker 1: And then yet he started trying to adjust to life

915
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 1: and in America as a convicted felon, which, as it

916
00:53:20,960 --> 00:53:25,560
Speaker 1: turns out, is just no picnic at all. How is

917
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,359
Speaker 1: um Alex doing today? Because I know you finish up

918
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: in the book you talk about he's working through that struggle, UM,

919
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: And I was just curious if if you could update

920
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 1: us a little bit on how Alex is making out today.

921
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:43,120
Speaker 1: It took him a long time two turn the corner

922
00:53:43,360 --> 00:53:47,560
Speaker 1: into um, really trying to pursue a new life and

923
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:50,359
Speaker 1: leave the robbery behind. I think for the first few

924
00:53:50,440 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: years he was kind of caught up in efforts to

925
00:53:56,880 --> 00:54:00,399
Speaker 1: live out some version of this this Ranger dream. Maybe

926
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:02,360
Speaker 1: he'd be an E. M T. Maybe be a fireman,

927
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:04,760
Speaker 1: maybe be a policeman, just any kind of hero job.

928
00:54:05,520 --> 00:54:07,120
Speaker 1: But you can't do any of that as a felon,

929
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:13,200
Speaker 1: and he kept fantasizing about somehow getting back to the Rangers,

930
00:54:13,239 --> 00:54:18,440
Speaker 1: somehow re enlisting UM and even getting like new Ranger

931
00:54:18,520 --> 00:54:23,120
Speaker 1: tattoos over time, and then I think just in the

932
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 1: last couple of years I saw him UM really more

933
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 1: more in the loss of that dream in a in

934
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:35,439
Speaker 1: a real way and move on. I think he's doing

935
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:39,000
Speaker 1: better now than I've seen him since the robbery. He's

936
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 1: got a really solid job. You know, he's got a

937
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 1: pit bull named Pickles that he loves the death and

938
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:52,600
Speaker 1: takes care of um with a physical force that would

939
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 1: kill a lesser dog. I mean, it's um, it's a

940
00:54:56,640 --> 00:54:59,239
Speaker 1: he has a good life. I think he's really he's

941
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:01,640
Speaker 1: really moved on. But it's been a long and difficult

942
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: journey for It's good to hear. And there's something else

943
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that I thought was interesting,

944
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,320
Speaker 1: is UM, there's that that family legends that you had

945
00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,520
Speaker 1: amongst the blumbs, which was I guess your grandfather World

946
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:18,080
Speaker 1: War two veteran, and you keep your referenced throughout your

947
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:21,120
Speaker 1: book that you're trying to track down he wrote some

948
00:55:21,160 --> 00:55:24,560
Speaker 1: sort of memoirs and you finally find them towards the

949
00:55:24,800 --> 00:55:27,240
Speaker 1: towards the end of this journey that you and Alex

950
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:29,520
Speaker 1: I guess both took as you wrote this book, you

951
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:32,880
Speaker 1: found these documents and you were pretty shocked by what

952
00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 1: you read in them. Yeah, I was. UM, I think

953
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 1: are kind of exceptionally accepted cultural stories about World War Two.

954
00:55:46,920 --> 00:55:52,839
Speaker 1: UM are pretty i don't know, simplistic and tended by. Now.

955
00:55:52,960 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: It's the it's the it's the good war. You know,

956
00:55:55,120 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: it's the heroic battle against the Nazis. Um, there are

957
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,200
Speaker 1: you're good guys and bad guys. It's just great movie material,

958
00:56:04,200 --> 00:56:07,960
Speaker 1: and so we forget that it was like any war,

959
00:56:08,160 --> 00:56:14,960
Speaker 1: just an immensely morally complicated enterprise and really ugly um

960
00:56:15,000 --> 00:56:18,040
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways for for everyone involved in it.

961
00:56:18,360 --> 00:56:22,200
Speaker 1: And I think in my my grandfather's case, when I

962
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:26,880
Speaker 1: first read the memoir, I had a really visceral reaction

963
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:30,719
Speaker 1: to it because it wasn't heroic, it was it was

964
00:56:30,840 --> 00:56:34,239
Speaker 1: ugly and petty. And he, I mean, he landed in

965
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:37,680
Speaker 1: Normandy a month after the invasion and was involved in

966
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:41,239
Speaker 1: you know, so called mopping up work, which is just

967
00:56:41,440 --> 00:56:46,160
Speaker 1: an absolutely grotesque thing to be tasked with. He Um,

968
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,320
Speaker 1: he and his guys were just killing tons of pockets

969
00:56:49,360 --> 00:56:54,920
Speaker 1: of remaining soldiers, some of them defenseless. UM. And at

970
00:56:55,000 --> 00:56:59,840
Speaker 1: one point they are the first to arrive at a

971
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:04,000
Speaker 1: forced labor camp after the Germans have departed, and um,

972
00:57:04,080 --> 00:57:06,960
Speaker 1: they have to kind of take charge of this forced

973
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: labor camp in which there are all these starving prisoners

974
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: and more of them die. It's just it's just an

975
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: absolutely nightmarish setting. And my my grandfather, regrettably, I don't

976
00:57:21,560 --> 00:57:27,000
Speaker 1: it does not take a particularly heroic attitude towards his work.

977
00:57:27,040 --> 00:57:30,800
Speaker 1: He seems to have this kind of like, um, I

978
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:35,480
Speaker 1: don't know, outlaw Augusto, Like he and his his kind

979
00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,640
Speaker 1: of band of merry men are out there adventuring through

980
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,040
Speaker 1: the horror and you know, and there's a lot of

981
00:57:42,080 --> 00:57:45,280
Speaker 1: encounters with women that I found troubling. It's just an

982
00:57:45,320 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: uglier picture of war than the one that Alex and

983
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,840
Speaker 1: I grew up hearing, which was just gilded and in

984
00:57:51,960 --> 00:57:57,440
Speaker 1: that glamorous heroism that World War two movies tend to

985
00:57:57,520 --> 00:58:00,680
Speaker 1: be tend to be gilded in. It's speaking of which

986
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,520
Speaker 1: we started off the podcast Dennis and I talking a

987
00:58:03,560 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: little bit about, um, you know something that I had

988
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:10,640
Speaker 1: written UM the last week about the video game series

989
00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:13,720
Speaker 1: Call of Duty. And you know, as somebody who served

990
00:58:13,720 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 1: in the military and did some at least some of

991
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 1: the things that they show in these video games, I

992
00:58:17,880 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: find these games to be like pretty nihilistic. Um. You know,

993
00:58:21,880 --> 00:58:24,640
Speaker 1: you hear they repeat the mantra over and over the

994
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 1: winners RTE the history books. You know, it's almost like

995
00:58:27,640 --> 00:58:30,560
Speaker 1: this feeling that the only war crime is not winning,

996
00:58:30,920 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of attitude. And throughout your book

997
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 1: Ranger Games, I mean you mentioned a lot of video

998
00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:39,960
Speaker 1: games and a lot of movies and the influence that

999
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: these media, um, fictional and nonfictional media has on soldiers.

1000
00:58:47,040 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 1: Nihilistic is that's one word for it, yeah, or you know,

1001
00:58:51,800 --> 00:58:56,120
Speaker 1: individualists might be another word for it. That's there's this

1002
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: kind of UM, deeply kind tradictory UM marketing strategy, the

1003
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 1: army of one that was in force when Alex was recruited, UM,

1004
00:59:10,160 --> 00:59:13,360
Speaker 1: in which the the ideals that military service is supposed

1005
00:59:13,360 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: to embody our our individualist ideals. You're out there for glory,

1006
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 1: You're out there to show your strength and your power

1007
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:24,560
Speaker 1: and your capacity. And that's you know, the video games

1008
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:28,600
Speaker 1: are fundamentally really individualist too. UM and I I think

1009
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:32,880
Speaker 1: that is that is an American ideal. UM. There are

1010
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 1: some wonderful things about it, but if you take it

1011
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: to its extreme, and it does UM kind of cut

1012
00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 1: out of the picture those higher moral causes that UM

1013
00:59:45,280 --> 00:59:48,600
Speaker 1: we that are supposed to unite us in the very

1014
00:59:48,640 --> 00:59:53,920
Speaker 1: serious manner of a military intervention. UM. And and I

1015
00:59:53,920 --> 00:59:58,320
Speaker 1: guess I saw a real absence of that kind of

1016
00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 1: sense of righteous higher purpose in both the UM the

1017
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: movies and video games that I looked at that were

1018
01:00:08,320 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 1: so important to these soldiers, and also just in the

1019
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 1: ways that they spoke to each other and the ways

1020
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:18,080
Speaker 1: that they that they interacted. Was that kind of your

1021
01:00:18,240 --> 01:00:21,680
Speaker 1: takeaway at the end of writing this book UM about

1022
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 1: the military and about the process that these young soldiers

1023
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 1: go through. I came into this process pretty staunchly anti

1024
01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:34,840
Speaker 1: military UM and came out of it actually much less. So.

1025
01:00:34,960 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 1: I gained a lot of respect for the difficulty of

1026
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:46,400
Speaker 1: the job and also a lot of respect for the

1027
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:51,160
Speaker 1: the moral seriousness and the intellectual seriousness of UM. So

1028
01:00:51,240 --> 01:00:53,920
Speaker 1: many service members, I mean, I interviewed a bunch of

1029
01:00:53,920 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: them for this book, and UM their their baseline level

1030
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 1: of UM like political astuteness and engagement and awareness of

1031
01:01:05,880 --> 01:01:07,640
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world is just so much

1032
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:11,959
Speaker 1: higher than civilians just on average in my experience, they're

1033
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:14,080
Speaker 1: just they tend to be very thoughtful. Um. You know,

1034
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:17,560
Speaker 1: when you're an actual agent of world history, you know

1035
01:01:17,720 --> 01:01:23,560
Speaker 1: you need to be invested, and they often are. But

1036
01:01:23,720 --> 01:01:26,600
Speaker 1: I guess, I just I just came away with a

1037
01:01:26,640 --> 01:01:33,400
Speaker 1: deep sense of how fragile um that military culture is,

1038
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:38,760
Speaker 1: how vulnerable it is to m corruption by people who

1039
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:42,760
Speaker 1: are in some way damaged or or out of control,

1040
01:01:43,040 --> 01:01:46,800
Speaker 1: and so um. You know, I think there have been

1041
01:01:46,840 --> 01:01:49,440
Speaker 1: some changes in range of battalion and range of training

1042
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:53,120
Speaker 1: since the time of this book. U. The tabs are

1043
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:56,040
Speaker 1: so you know, there's no more RIP. Now there's this

1044
01:01:56,640 --> 01:02:00,120
Speaker 1: longer process in which some of the skills that tabs

1045
01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,120
Speaker 1: to teach privates they learn um in a more formal

1046
01:02:03,400 --> 01:02:08,560
Speaker 1: training process, so that there's there's less of that problematic

1047
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:11,680
Speaker 1: power of the tabs had over privates and alex is there.

1048
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:15,000
Speaker 1: Um that's a positive step, you know, you just I

1049
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:17,360
Speaker 1: just I guess I I'm much more sensitive to the

1050
01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:23,360
Speaker 1: to the possibility of abuse within military culture. Now. That's

1051
01:02:23,400 --> 01:02:26,160
Speaker 1: an awesome point, and I hope that people take that

1052
01:02:26,200 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 1: away from the book and from this conversation as well. Um,

1053
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 1: I mean I just from my two cents, I have

1054
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:35,200
Speaker 1: a lot of mixed feelings as well. I mean, on

1055
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:37,200
Speaker 1: one hand, I love Range of Battalion, and on the

1056
01:02:37,240 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: other I think your book makes some pretty valid critiques

1057
01:02:40,360 --> 01:02:46,560
Speaker 1: of the culture of Ranger Battalion and where it goes wrong. Um.

1058
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 1: And then there's some things in there too, like Alex's uh,

1059
01:02:49,400 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 1: you know, his descriptions of going through rip and coal

1060
01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: Range and all that. And I mean I went through

1061
01:02:54,760 --> 01:02:57,480
Speaker 1: the same experience, actually went through twice because I had

1062
01:02:57,520 --> 01:03:03,160
Speaker 1: the distinction of recycling the course. Um, but it wasn't

1063
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:05,960
Speaker 1: quite the horror show that it was for him, like

1064
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:08,360
Speaker 1: when I And maybe it's just a difference of our

1065
01:03:08,400 --> 01:03:11,080
Speaker 1: life experiences and the in the different paths we took.

1066
01:03:11,120 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: But like I look back at it and I kind

1067
01:03:12,640 --> 01:03:14,680
Speaker 1: of laugh and kind of reflect on it in a

1068
01:03:14,720 --> 01:03:17,200
Speaker 1: sort of funny way. It's just a it's it's a

1069
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: you know, um memorable, um, you know, coming of age story,

1070
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:25,680
Speaker 1: I guess. But for Alex, who is really a horror show,

1071
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:28,960
Speaker 1: you know, Well, I think there's this kind of dual

1072
01:03:29,000 --> 01:03:33,240
Speaker 1: consciousness there where on one level, I think Alex. Actually,

1073
01:03:33,320 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 1: if he had gone on to um have the ranger

1074
01:03:38,000 --> 01:03:40,439
Speaker 1: career that he wanted, I'm sure he would talk about

1075
01:03:40,440 --> 01:03:43,200
Speaker 1: it exactly the same way, like it would be a

1076
01:03:43,320 --> 01:03:46,439
Speaker 1: rite of passage that would he could bond with other

1077
01:03:46,560 --> 01:03:49,680
Speaker 1: rangers about they'd all gone through it, like they all

1078
01:03:49,720 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 1: looked back on it as something that seemed like, you know,

1079
01:03:53,680 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: existentially terrifying and painful at the time, but in retrospects,

1080
01:03:59,440 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: it's whatever Aready goes through. Yeah, So you know, I'm

1081
01:04:03,120 --> 01:04:05,720
Speaker 1: curious after obviously I haven't gone through it myself. Do

1082
01:04:05,760 --> 01:04:08,120
Speaker 1: you feel like, even at the time that you went

1083
01:04:08,160 --> 01:04:12,000
Speaker 1: through it, you had that kind of more mature removed

1084
01:04:12,000 --> 01:04:14,160
Speaker 1: from it or do you do you did you feel

1085
01:04:14,480 --> 01:04:17,920
Speaker 1: swept up in the process while it was happening. I

1086
01:04:17,920 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: didn't feel swept up in it to the point that, um, like,

1087
01:04:22,320 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 1: this is my whole reality now and there there's nothing

1088
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:28,520
Speaker 1: beyond the borders of Coal Range. I mean, I I

1089
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:33,080
Speaker 1: think I saw it as a selection process, and you know,

1090
01:04:33,120 --> 01:04:35,680
Speaker 1: the instructors are doing their job and they want to

1091
01:04:35,720 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: see what you're made of, So they're going to put

1092
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:41,480
Speaker 1: you through some trials and tribulations out here, and you know, yeah,

1093
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:43,640
Speaker 1: a few students may have been drop kicked and and

1094
01:04:43,720 --> 01:04:46,320
Speaker 1: you know, quite a few four letter words were hurled around.

1095
01:04:46,360 --> 01:04:48,600
Speaker 1: But I saw that kind of just as part of

1096
01:04:48,600 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 1: the process. But I mean that's also, as you said,

1097
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:54,720
Speaker 1: that's right for abuse too, because you know, you're you're

1098
01:04:54,760 --> 01:04:59,200
Speaker 1: inserted into this process and it's normalized. UM. And there

1099
01:04:59,240 --> 01:05:01,280
Speaker 1: are some things that happened sometimes that are are not

1100
01:05:01,400 --> 01:05:04,439
Speaker 1: normal and are not okay. And I think that there's

1101
01:05:04,480 --> 01:05:07,840
Speaker 1: that line there that we in the military have to

1102
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:11,439
Speaker 1: do a better job at identifying. Especially. I mean, I've

1103
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:14,280
Speaker 1: seen it much more now as a journalist writing about

1104
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:16,440
Speaker 1: when things go sideways than than I did when I

1105
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:20,360
Speaker 1: was actually in the military. That's interesting to hear. Yeah,

1106
01:05:20,680 --> 01:05:24,760
Speaker 1: you know, I think, UM, maybe part of why Alex

1107
01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 1: Um experienced it as intensely as he did just that

1108
01:05:30,240 --> 01:05:36,720
Speaker 1: he was so completely invested in this past um he

1109
01:05:36,760 --> 01:05:40,080
Speaker 1: had been. He just couldn't imagine his life going any

1110
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:45,439
Speaker 1: other way. UM, so the UM and he hadn't grown

1111
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:49,400
Speaker 1: up around any military people. So these these drill sergeants,

1112
01:05:49,400 --> 01:05:52,600
Speaker 1: these are these um the ranger Cadre were just they

1113
01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:56,600
Speaker 1: were like his heroes. These were these were his absolute

1114
01:05:56,680 --> 01:06:00,160
Speaker 1: role models, and their approval just meant everything to him. UM.

1115
01:06:00,360 --> 01:06:03,520
Speaker 1: So I think that that amplified a little bit. But

1116
01:06:03,560 --> 01:06:05,280
Speaker 1: who knows, you know, maybe there's just a little bit

1117
01:06:05,280 --> 01:06:10,480
Speaker 1: of a temperamental difference. UM. I guess I have you know,

1118
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: I guess I do a lot of research now on

1119
01:06:14,320 --> 01:06:18,480
Speaker 1: trauma and therapy and psychology, and I tend to believe

1120
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 1: that we all have, you know, on some level, some

1121
01:06:23,040 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: part of us. When we're in pain and when people

1122
01:06:26,720 --> 01:06:31,240
Speaker 1: are saying cruel things to us and forcing us to

1123
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:34,040
Speaker 1: do things that we don't really want to do, there

1124
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:36,360
Speaker 1: is some part of us. I think that that registers

1125
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:39,360
Speaker 1: that and UM. And I think one way of looking

1126
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:43,320
Speaker 1: at UM at military training is as as a kind

1127
01:06:43,320 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: of systematic education in UM in kind of devaluing that

1128
01:06:49,080 --> 01:06:52,560
Speaker 1: part of oneself in and pushing aside one sensitivity to

1129
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:57,600
Speaker 1: that kind of discomfort. UM. And I think that Alex

1130
01:06:57,720 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 1: when he after it was he was arrested, when he'd

1131
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:03,280
Speaker 1: been in prison for ten years, he just kind of

1132
01:07:03,280 --> 01:07:06,640
Speaker 1: broke down. And I think that that kind of inner sensitivity,

1133
01:07:06,680 --> 01:07:08,960
Speaker 1: like the little boy you know that he was before

1134
01:07:08,960 --> 01:07:12,080
Speaker 1: he went and did this UM, kind of came to

1135
01:07:12,120 --> 01:07:14,200
Speaker 1: the surface again in some way. He was just so

1136
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:16,880
Speaker 1: cracked open, and I think he was really writing from

1137
01:07:16,960 --> 01:07:20,000
Speaker 1: that place when he was describing what he'd gone through. Um,

1138
01:07:20,080 --> 01:07:23,560
Speaker 1: And it's more than just that though. I Mean, the

1139
01:07:23,600 --> 01:07:26,640
Speaker 1: things you're describing can make you a very effective soldier,

1140
01:07:26,680 --> 01:07:30,440
Speaker 1: but it also explains why so many of us are

1141
01:07:30,480 --> 01:07:32,280
Speaker 1: just train wrecks when we got at it, when we

1142
01:07:32,280 --> 01:07:34,680
Speaker 1: get out of the military, like we just can't live

1143
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:39,400
Speaker 1: in normal society that sort of tender part of yourself,

1144
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,400
Speaker 1: the part that actually feels those those pains, the part

1145
01:07:42,480 --> 01:07:45,360
Speaker 1: that you were in a you know, just going to

1146
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,720
Speaker 1: the post office and someone yelled the things that you

1147
01:07:47,800 --> 01:07:50,080
Speaker 1: that the joll sergeant yells every day in training, that

1148
01:07:50,080 --> 01:07:53,440
Speaker 1: would feel really wounded and shocked and taken aback, you know.

1149
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:56,880
Speaker 1: That's Yeah, that's the that's the that the relational part

1150
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:59,520
Speaker 1: that helps us connect and be intimate with people. And

1151
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard for Yeah, it seems really

1152
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: hard for a lot of soldiers to get back in

1153
01:08:04,920 --> 01:08:07,360
Speaker 1: touch that it's hard for Alex to, even with as

1154
01:08:07,600 --> 01:08:11,400
Speaker 1: as little military experience as he ended up having. Yeah,

1155
01:08:11,400 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: I know, that's definitely an important part of it, is

1156
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:16,000
Speaker 1: like you do have to like reconnect with those emotions

1157
01:08:16,040 --> 01:08:19,840
Speaker 1: and if you don't Um, you know, your relationship with

1158
01:08:19,880 --> 01:08:22,080
Speaker 1: your wife, your kids, with everybody around you is just

1159
01:08:22,360 --> 01:08:26,240
Speaker 1: a total mess um takes. I think, well, especially as

1160
01:08:26,240 --> 01:08:28,360
Speaker 1: you served in a unit like Ranger Battalion. I mean

1161
01:08:29,040 --> 01:08:32,920
Speaker 1: there's some of the most regimented and most hierarchical UM

1162
01:08:33,160 --> 01:08:35,799
Speaker 1: organization in the military, as you found out in your research,

1163
01:08:35,840 --> 01:08:39,080
Speaker 1: and I mean it's a it's a huge shift. Um.

1164
01:08:39,160 --> 01:08:41,599
Speaker 1: But that also dovetails with some of your You did

1165
01:08:41,640 --> 01:08:44,040
Speaker 1: a bunch of research also into um, what was it

1166
01:08:44,040 --> 01:08:48,759
Speaker 1: the Stanley Milgram experiments, didn't you. Yeah, well, the Milgram

1167
01:08:48,800 --> 01:08:55,960
Speaker 1: experiments and then Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiments. Yeah, both of those. Uh,

1168
01:08:56,120 --> 01:09:00,000
Speaker 1: an expert on Milgram and Zimbardo himself both got an

1169
01:09:00,000 --> 01:09:05,320
Speaker 1: involved in Alex's legal case. Well, what were your finding

1170
01:09:05,320 --> 01:09:08,680
Speaker 1: those are? Those are some fascinating, fascinating and counter into

1171
01:09:08,840 --> 01:09:11,960
Speaker 1: the experiments. How much are you were you interested in

1172
01:09:12,720 --> 01:09:14,760
Speaker 1: talking about that? Briefly? I don't know as much as

1173
01:09:14,760 --> 01:09:17,160
Speaker 1: you want to. I mean I think it, Uh, it

1174
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:20,880
Speaker 1: does dovetail quite well with um, with your book and

1175
01:09:20,920 --> 01:09:24,519
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about so far. You know, the

1176
01:09:24,840 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 1: one that's that ended up being most interest to me

1177
01:09:27,880 --> 01:09:30,680
Speaker 1: is the prison experiment. So for those who are not

1178
01:09:30,720 --> 01:09:34,720
Speaker 1: familiar with it. The experiments run in ninety one and

1179
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:39,519
Speaker 1: the basement the Stanford Psychology Department. Simbardo created a mock

1180
01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:44,160
Speaker 1: prison and stocked it with experimental volunteers. Half of them

1181
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:46,599
Speaker 1: were randomly assigned to be guards and half randomly assigned

1182
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:51,920
Speaker 1: to be prisoners, and within a week, the guards were

1183
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:57,519
Speaker 1: subjecting the prisoners to such extreme abuse that the experiment

1184
01:09:57,560 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 1: had to be shut down. I think in so I

1185
01:10:01,400 --> 01:10:03,720
Speaker 1: published an expose about this a month ago. As it

1186
01:10:03,760 --> 01:10:05,560
Speaker 1: turns out, the story that we've all learned about the

1187
01:10:05,560 --> 01:10:09,200
Speaker 1: experiment isn't is really true. The guards were explicitly instructed

1188
01:10:09,240 --> 01:10:13,000
Speaker 1: to create a painful environment for the prisoners, and they

1189
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 1: did so. Um. You know, maybe the part that's most

1190
01:10:16,200 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: Germane to this discussion is that I interviewed the guard

1191
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:22,599
Speaker 1: who is most notorious as the ringleader of the worst

1192
01:10:22,600 --> 01:10:26,200
Speaker 1: of the abuse. He was nicknamed John Wayne. He um

1193
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:30,200
Speaker 1: had a Southern accent and was just just sadisticum as

1194
01:10:30,200 --> 01:10:33,000
Speaker 1: a guard. It turns out, you know, he doesn't actually

1195
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:34,960
Speaker 1: have a Southern accent. He was putting on an act

1196
01:10:35,240 --> 01:10:38,320
Speaker 1: um he it was inspired by cool hand Luke. He

1197
01:10:38,800 --> 01:10:44,080
Speaker 1: thought that his job was to further Zimbardo's scientific aims

1198
01:10:44,080 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 1: by creating a realistically statistic prison environment so that Simbardo

1199
01:10:48,200 --> 01:10:50,920
Speaker 1: could study prisoner psychology. And he went at it with Gusto.

1200
01:10:51,080 --> 01:10:54,919
Speaker 1: But Um he had also just undergone a really painful

1201
01:10:55,040 --> 01:11:00,639
Speaker 1: fraternity initiation a few months before in which they did

1202
01:11:01,400 --> 01:11:03,360
Speaker 1: even worse to him than he did to the prisoners,

1203
01:11:03,400 --> 01:11:06,760
Speaker 1: and so he kind of had this mindset of like, man,

1204
01:11:06,800 --> 01:11:10,160
Speaker 1: if the prisoners can't handle this, like like, come on,

1205
01:11:10,479 --> 01:11:14,599
Speaker 1: they haven't seen real suffering. I've seen real suffering. And

1206
01:11:15,160 --> 01:11:18,400
Speaker 1: that's the mindset that I think you see over and

1207
01:11:18,439 --> 01:11:22,040
Speaker 1: over in these hazing environments. It's how that cycle of

1208
01:11:22,120 --> 01:11:24,680
Speaker 1: violence gets perpetuated. You know, you go through something like

1209
01:11:24,800 --> 01:11:28,160
Speaker 1: rip and you think like you can't handle like a

1210
01:11:28,360 --> 01:11:31,519
Speaker 1: you know, a little getting getting choked out on the

1211
01:11:31,560 --> 01:11:36,840
Speaker 1: floor of you know, like the the squad room, like

1212
01:11:36,960 --> 01:11:40,280
Speaker 1: during a little fight over call of duty, Like like

1213
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:42,920
Speaker 1: you haven't you haven't seen real suffering. You haven't been

1214
01:11:42,960 --> 01:11:46,040
Speaker 1: through what I've been through, UM, And it becomes this

1215
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:51,640
Speaker 1: kind of rationalization for subjecting the next generation to the

1216
01:11:51,680 --> 01:11:55,920
Speaker 1: same stuff that that already happened to you. I remember

1217
01:11:55,960 --> 01:12:00,120
Speaker 1: having a conversation with UM. Here's an officer and retire

1218
01:12:00,600 --> 01:12:03,960
Speaker 1: Delta Force officer who was telling me about how he

1219
01:12:04,040 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: was going and observing the British Special Air Force uh

1220
01:12:07,640 --> 01:12:10,559
Speaker 1: Special Air Service selection corpse. And he said, the guy

1221
01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:13,479
Speaker 1: running the course was like taking these huge rocks and

1222
01:12:13,520 --> 01:12:17,439
Speaker 1: putting it inside the students um rucksacks. So they were

1223
01:12:17,479 --> 01:12:19,600
Speaker 1: already carrying like a hundred pounds or whatever, and he

1224
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:21,920
Speaker 1: was like putting these rocks. He's like, you know, these

1225
01:12:21,960 --> 01:12:24,120
Speaker 1: these new guys, they're not as hard as we were

1226
01:12:24,200 --> 01:12:26,600
Speaker 1: back in the day. They're not tough enough. You know,

1227
01:12:26,680 --> 01:12:28,280
Speaker 1: we used to be able to carry a hundred and

1228
01:12:28,280 --> 01:12:30,920
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. And the guy I was talking to, the

1229
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:34,240
Speaker 1: American officer, was like, let's bullshit. If you read the

1230
01:12:34,320 --> 01:12:36,400
Speaker 1: S A S history, they were driving around in trucks

1231
01:12:36,400 --> 01:12:38,920
Speaker 1: in North Africa during World War Two. They weren't carrying

1232
01:12:38,960 --> 01:12:42,720
Speaker 1: no hundred and fifty pounds rucksacks anywhere. You know, these

1233
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:46,719
Speaker 1: mythologies grow over time and then and then people kind of, yeah,

1234
01:12:46,960 --> 01:12:50,960
Speaker 1: become like enslaved to the mythology. Yeah, absolutely, And I

1235
01:12:51,000 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 1: mean you also build up the story in your own mind.

1236
01:12:53,320 --> 01:12:55,920
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure what I whatever I experienced in

1237
01:12:56,000 --> 01:12:58,040
Speaker 1: Rip is probably worse in my mind now than it

1238
01:12:58,360 --> 01:13:00,760
Speaker 1: was when I went through it at the time, and

1239
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:04,640
Speaker 1: they kind of become shaggy dogtails among um, like the

1240
01:13:04,720 --> 01:13:08,320
Speaker 1: soldiers who went through them together. There's all this ripped lore,

1241
01:13:08,720 --> 01:13:10,559
Speaker 1: you know. Alex told some of these to me, like,

1242
01:13:10,640 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 1: you know, well, ours was pretty bad, but you know,

1243
01:13:13,160 --> 01:13:16,400
Speaker 1: the guys before us, they actually had to bear crawl

1244
01:13:16,680 --> 01:13:20,400
Speaker 1: through this field of ed syringes that they used the

1245
01:13:20,600 --> 01:13:23,759
Speaker 1: practice and check out, you know. And he he totally

1246
01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:26,920
Speaker 1: believed all that stuff because it came from older um,

1247
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:30,200
Speaker 1: from actual rangers whom he idolized. But looking at it now,

1248
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:32,760
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's probably a little embellishment that that

1249
01:13:32,840 --> 01:13:35,479
Speaker 1: story picked up on the third stage of the game

1250
01:13:35,479 --> 01:13:40,920
Speaker 1: of telephone, you know. So what's uh, what's next for you?

1251
01:13:41,080 --> 01:13:43,320
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about in the in the book,

1252
01:13:43,360 --> 01:13:45,800
Speaker 1: because it is kind of a family history and a

1253
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:49,080
Speaker 1: personal history. How you kind of went through this experience

1254
01:13:49,240 --> 01:13:51,840
Speaker 1: with your background and you know, computer science and math

1255
01:13:51,920 --> 01:13:54,080
Speaker 1: and decided you want to go into creative writing. I mean,

1256
01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:56,120
Speaker 1: is there another book in you that you're working on?

1257
01:13:57,240 --> 01:14:02,479
Speaker 1: So I got very interested in in trauma over the

1258
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:07,040
Speaker 1: course of researching Ranger games. I just wanted to understand

1259
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:09,800
Speaker 1: what that did to the mind, the different ways that

1260
01:14:09,840 --> 01:14:12,880
Speaker 1: people respond to it. UM. So I've been working on

1261
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:16,080
Speaker 1: a book about UM. It's about what we when we

1262
01:14:16,080 --> 01:14:18,640
Speaker 1: talked about before, about about the ways that people get

1263
01:14:18,720 --> 01:14:22,040
Speaker 1: in touch with that relational tender part of themselves. It's

1264
01:14:22,080 --> 01:14:27,519
Speaker 1: kind of about trauma and romantic relationships and how how

1265
01:14:27,560 --> 01:14:30,920
Speaker 1: to reconnect in a deep way once you've been through

1266
01:14:30,960 --> 01:14:36,640
Speaker 1: something terrible. So UM, that's that's the next project for me.

1267
01:14:36,680 --> 01:14:42,519
Speaker 1: I'm also working on some some articles about a really

1268
01:14:42,560 --> 01:14:47,200
Speaker 1: exciting new trauma therapy that I've been learning about called

1269
01:14:47,240 --> 01:14:50,000
Speaker 1: internal family systems therapy, in which you kind of explicitly

1270
01:14:50,120 --> 01:14:53,480
Speaker 1: name and get to know some of these um childhood

1271
01:14:53,560 --> 01:14:56,400
Speaker 1: parts of yourself that you had to disown through the

1272
01:14:56,479 --> 01:14:59,800
Speaker 1: process of masculine training, either toughening up on the play

1273
01:15:00,000 --> 01:15:04,000
Speaker 1: own or in or in basic a RIP or wherever else. UM.

1274
01:15:04,040 --> 01:15:09,880
Speaker 1: There's a pilot study out now, UM in which uh

1275
01:15:10,760 --> 01:15:15,679
Speaker 1: M d M AS assisted psychotherapy is getting a real

1276
01:15:16,280 --> 01:15:20,599
Speaker 1: clinical test. We had a New York Times journalist on

1277
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:24,439
Speaker 1: this podcast to talk about at one time. Oh cool. Yeah,

1278
01:15:24,520 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 1: I find it tremendously exciting. I mean, they're seeing some

1279
01:15:27,439 --> 01:15:30,640
Speaker 1: really great results, seems like it really works for some people. UM,

1280
01:15:30,720 --> 01:15:35,040
Speaker 1: and the therapists who run that have been trained in

1281
01:15:35,080 --> 01:15:37,800
Speaker 1: this internal family systems model where you learn to kind

1282
01:15:37,800 --> 01:15:42,320
Speaker 1: of renegotiate these relationships with old parts yourself. So that's interesting.

1283
01:15:42,320 --> 01:15:47,559
Speaker 1: It's like the things you forget that you don't remember. Yeah. Yeah.

1284
01:15:47,600 --> 01:15:53,960
Speaker 1: I saw a really moving video of an Iraq vet

1285
01:15:54,000 --> 01:15:56,600
Speaker 1: who went through this m d m A assisted psychotherapy

1286
01:15:56,880 --> 01:15:59,599
Speaker 1: a few days ago, and UM he described kind of

1287
01:15:59,640 --> 01:16:02,840
Speaker 1: this going on this internal journey where he met this

1288
01:16:03,400 --> 01:16:08,120
Speaker 1: really angry, destructive part of himself that he discovered existed

1289
01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:12,120
Speaker 1: when he was deployed to Iraq and which now terrified him.

1290
01:16:12,160 --> 01:16:15,200
Speaker 1: And he he just described seeing how he had this

1291
01:16:15,280 --> 01:16:19,400
Speaker 1: part of himself locked up in a cage inside UM

1292
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:21,640
Speaker 1: because he was so afraid of what it would do

1293
01:16:21,800 --> 01:16:26,040
Speaker 1: to to his family, to himself, to his UM, to

1294
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:30,240
Speaker 1: his his friends and peers, and UM he realized that

1295
01:16:30,280 --> 01:16:33,759
Speaker 1: what this part was most enraged about was being locked

1296
01:16:33,760 --> 01:16:36,040
Speaker 1: in a cage. You know, anyone would be angry if

1297
01:16:36,040 --> 01:16:38,320
Speaker 1: they were locked in a cage. And he kind of

1298
01:16:38,360 --> 01:16:43,040
Speaker 1: came to this brotherly relationship with this this warrior part

1299
01:16:43,040 --> 01:16:46,800
Speaker 1: of himself. It was very moving. It really seemed like

1300
01:16:46,840 --> 01:16:50,280
Speaker 1: it had helped him reconnect in some way to a

1301
01:16:50,320 --> 01:16:53,120
Speaker 1: part of himself that he had to shut up. Well,

1302
01:16:53,160 --> 01:16:55,479
Speaker 1: I'd love to have you back on when you write

1303
01:16:55,520 --> 01:16:58,479
Speaker 1: that book or when it's published, because you know, I

1304
01:16:58,520 --> 01:17:00,599
Speaker 1: think we've talked about it many times on on this

1305
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:04,040
Speaker 1: podcast over the years, about PTSD and veterans transitions and

1306
01:17:04,040 --> 01:17:07,240
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and you know, as individuals we don't

1307
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:09,760
Speaker 1: always do so well. And as a country, I feel

1308
01:17:09,760 --> 01:17:11,880
Speaker 1: like we really haven't figured out how to grapple with

1309
01:17:11,880 --> 01:17:14,800
Speaker 1: this stuff yet. Yeah, it's a huge trauma. I'd love

1310
01:17:14,840 --> 01:17:18,000
Speaker 1: to come back and chat about it. Yeah, that's great. Well,

1311
01:17:18,040 --> 01:17:20,839
Speaker 1: thank you so much Ben for coming on the show today.

1312
01:17:21,080 --> 01:17:23,400
Speaker 1: And um, you know, maybe next time around we can

1313
01:17:23,479 --> 01:17:26,920
Speaker 1: have you in studio. Be cool to see you guys,

1314
01:17:27,000 --> 01:17:30,519
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, we'll do it again. I love that. Yep,

1315
01:17:31,040 --> 01:17:33,439
Speaker 1: thanks for having me all right, Yeah, thanks Ben. That

1316
01:17:33,600 --> 01:17:37,360
Speaker 1: was Ben Blum, author of Ranger Game, A story of Soldiers,

1317
01:17:37,560 --> 01:17:40,920
Speaker 1: family and an Inexplicable crime. We will have the link

1318
01:17:41,040 --> 01:17:44,479
Speaker 1: to that book you can buy in the description of

1319
01:17:44,520 --> 01:17:49,480
Speaker 1: the show, which you can find at software radio dot com.

1320
01:17:49,520 --> 01:17:53,840
Speaker 1: And as a reminder, be sure to check out Creep Club.

1321
01:17:53,960 --> 01:17:57,160
Speaker 1: It's a club for men by men of gear hand

1322
01:17:57,160 --> 01:18:00,960
Speaker 1: picked by Special Operations veterans, Ulti or crates are available

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01:18:01,000 --> 01:18:04,000
Speaker 1: at Create club dot us and right now we're running

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Speaker 1: an extremely limited promotion off for all SOFTWAREP radio listeners.

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Speaker 1: This is the biggest discount we've ever made available and

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Speaker 1: we're not sure how long the promotion will last, so

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Speaker 1: get on it right now. That's Create club dot us.

1328
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Speaker 1: Coupon code SOFTWAREP off your subscription for all CRATES sign

1329
01:18:22,800 --> 01:18:26,799
Speaker 1: up today. Also, as a reminder to you the listeners,

1330
01:18:27,320 --> 01:18:29,679
Speaker 1: now is the time to sign up for specups Channel,

1331
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:33,519
Speaker 1: our channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries and

1332
01:18:33,600 --> 01:18:37,559
Speaker 1: interviews covering the most exciting military content today. The spec

1333
01:18:37,560 --> 01:18:41,760
Speaker 1: ops channel premier show Training Cell follows former Special Operations

1334
01:18:41,800 --> 01:18:44,640
Speaker 1: Forces as they participate in the most advanced training in

1335
01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:49,640
Speaker 1: the country, everything from shooting schools, defensive driving, jungle and

1336
01:18:49,680 --> 01:18:55,000
Speaker 1: winter warfare, climbing and much more. Again, you can watch

1337
01:18:55,080 --> 01:18:57,760
Speaker 1: this content by subscribing to the spec Ops channel at

1338
01:18:57,760 --> 01:19:01,400
Speaker 1: specops channel dot com and take advantage of our membership

1339
01:19:01,520 --> 01:19:05,640
Speaker 1: for only four a month. That's spec ops channel dot com.

1340
01:19:05,680 --> 01:19:09,439
Speaker 1: Sign up today. Lastly, if you're not already signed up

1341
01:19:09,439 --> 01:19:11,599
Speaker 1: at the news rep, you've got to get on board.

1342
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:15,160
Speaker 1: There's expert reporting and actionable intelligence from your favorite writers

1343
01:19:15,160 --> 01:19:16,760
Speaker 1: you've heard on here, like The Man on My Left,

1344
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:21,400
Speaker 1: Jack Murphy, stav Ros, Alex and his his incredible job

1345
01:19:21,400 --> 01:19:23,400
Speaker 1: on the last podcast. You want to read his writing

1346
01:19:23,439 --> 01:19:26,479
Speaker 1: because if his his words translate as well as they

1347
01:19:26,520 --> 01:19:29,600
Speaker 1: do audibly. You get unlimited access to news Rap on

1348
01:19:29,600 --> 01:19:33,599
Speaker 1: any device, unlimited access to the app, join the war room, community,

1349
01:19:34,000 --> 01:19:36,920
Speaker 1: invitations to our exclusive events, and it's all add free

1350
01:19:36,920 --> 01:19:39,439
Speaker 1: for members. We have a trial offer up right now

1351
01:19:39,439 --> 01:19:42,639
Speaker 1: where you can get four weeks for only one sign

1352
01:19:42,680 --> 01:19:46,000
Speaker 1: up now at the news rep dot com. That's the

1353
01:19:46,080 --> 01:19:50,160
Speaker 1: news rep dot com. By the way, if you're not aware,

1354
01:19:50,840 --> 01:19:53,840
Speaker 1: there is our very own soft reap Radio app that

1355
01:19:53,880 --> 01:19:57,479
Speaker 1: you can download for free on iPhone or androids, and

1356
01:19:57,520 --> 01:20:01,040
Speaker 1: our homepage is softwap radio dot com um where you

1357
01:20:01,080 --> 01:20:04,280
Speaker 1: can see our full archive of shows as always, keep

1358
01:20:04,320 --> 01:20:08,519
Speaker 1: up with us at suff Prep Radio as well. I

1359
01:20:08,520 --> 01:20:13,920
Speaker 1: thought Ben was very insightful. Um I would have the

1360
01:20:13,960 --> 01:20:16,400
Speaker 1: only thing I wanted. I was curious and I should

1361
01:20:16,400 --> 01:20:18,599
Speaker 1: have hopped in. I would have liked to have known

1362
01:20:19,479 --> 01:20:21,280
Speaker 1: what Alex has thought. I mean, I'm sure he didn't

1363
01:20:21,280 --> 01:20:23,600
Speaker 1: read the book because he lived it, but what his

1364
01:20:23,720 --> 01:20:28,439
Speaker 1: thoughts were like, especially being a cousin. Like families, families

1365
01:20:28,479 --> 01:20:30,880
Speaker 1: a tight dynamic to start with it, you gotta walk

1366
01:20:30,880 --> 01:20:33,519
Speaker 1: a tight rope. But Ben wrote this book about his cousin,

1367
01:20:33,800 --> 01:20:39,160
Speaker 1: about a story that actually happened, and it doesn't necessarily

1368
01:20:39,200 --> 01:20:42,880
Speaker 1: betray Alex in a great light. Like Ben said, you you,

1369
01:20:43,960 --> 01:20:47,840
Speaker 1: he comes off in denial and then throughout the course

1370
01:20:47,840 --> 01:20:49,240
Speaker 1: of it he kind of he was like, all right, well,

1371
01:20:49,280 --> 01:20:51,960
Speaker 1: like you kind of you caught me, like I wanted

1372
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:54,400
Speaker 1: to hear Alex, like what he if if Alex even

1373
01:20:54,400 --> 01:20:58,240
Speaker 1: had a thought on how he came across after reading

1374
01:20:58,360 --> 01:21:01,439
Speaker 1: the book, Oh yeah, you should have asked. I should

1375
01:21:01,439 --> 01:21:06,719
Speaker 1: have so, Ben, if you're listening Semi an email reader

1376
01:21:06,880 --> 01:21:10,120
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Yeah, that was a missed opportunity on

1377
01:21:10,160 --> 01:21:12,000
Speaker 1: my part. I'm still new with this. I don't want

1378
01:21:12,000 --> 01:21:13,639
Speaker 1: to I don't want to step on your toes. You're

1379
01:21:13,680 --> 01:21:17,080
Speaker 1: the You're the main course. I'm just the the desserts.

1380
01:21:17,120 --> 01:21:18,599
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I am at that at

1381
01:21:18,600 --> 01:21:21,519
Speaker 1: this juncture, you're the mayonnaise in the sandwich. Kind of,

1382
01:21:21,520 --> 01:21:23,200
Speaker 1: it's a good see. If you said let us, I

1383
01:21:23,200 --> 01:21:24,599
Speaker 1: would have been like, all right, that makes sense, Like

1384
01:21:25,000 --> 01:21:27,960
Speaker 1: a good condiment helps, it's an enhancer. I guess you

1385
01:21:27,960 --> 01:21:29,479
Speaker 1: know what I'll take that you can be the you're

1386
01:21:29,520 --> 01:21:32,120
Speaker 1: the meat, and I'll be the kind of that'll be

1387
01:21:32,160 --> 01:21:35,120
Speaker 1: our dynamic moving I should have asked that. I'm already

1388
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:39,080
Speaker 1: kicking myself in a range of battalion stories. Me and uh,

1389
01:21:39,200 --> 01:21:41,960
Speaker 1: the other private, the other new private in our squad,

1390
01:21:42,479 --> 01:21:45,759
Speaker 1: Um Burkhart, who people have heard me talk about before

1391
01:21:45,800 --> 01:21:49,000
Speaker 1: and he's in he's in my book and he's a

1392
01:21:49,000 --> 01:21:52,080
Speaker 1: firefighter now, really good guy. But me and him were

1393
01:21:52,200 --> 01:21:54,479
Speaker 1: like new privates on the same squad and our team

1394
01:21:54,520 --> 01:21:57,400
Speaker 1: lead are called us As and Gary, the ambiguously gay

1395
01:21:57,479 --> 01:22:01,840
Speaker 1: duo from Saturday Night Live. So yeah, we were Ason Gary.

1396
01:22:02,000 --> 01:22:04,160
Speaker 1: They would have, like Burkhardt do squats and I'd have

1397
01:22:04,200 --> 01:22:08,160
Speaker 1: to spot him. Oh see, now that's what That's what

1398
01:22:08,200 --> 01:22:10,880
Speaker 1: you guys were talking about. There is that that hierarchy

1399
01:22:10,880 --> 01:22:12,600
Speaker 1: where you know, they tell you to jump and you

1400
01:22:12,680 --> 01:22:18,280
Speaker 1: say how high? Like spotting squats early on in battalion.

1401
01:22:18,320 --> 01:22:21,519
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound ideal, and especially when you're you're nicknamed

1402
01:22:21,520 --> 01:22:26,479
Speaker 1: the Ason Gary biggusly gay doo. That's I feel like

1403
01:22:26,479 --> 01:22:27,760
Speaker 1: I mean, And in the short time I've known you,

1404
01:22:27,760 --> 01:22:29,880
Speaker 1: I feel like you leaned into that though, like you

1405
01:22:29,960 --> 01:22:33,120
Speaker 1: just you gotta embrace it. You did. It's like getting

1406
01:22:33,120 --> 01:22:35,240
Speaker 1: a bad nickname. You just you gotta lean into it.

1407
01:22:35,240 --> 01:22:37,960
Speaker 1: It's again, I mean, it's about there. There are some lines,

1408
01:22:38,160 --> 01:22:41,720
Speaker 1: and we're like establishing where those lines are is, you know,

1409
01:22:41,840 --> 01:22:46,839
Speaker 1: largely on the personality and the professionalism of your immediate leadership,

1410
01:22:47,320 --> 01:22:49,840
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, some guys like, yeah, there

1411
01:22:49,840 --> 01:22:51,679
Speaker 1: are some things that were done to me that were

1412
01:22:51,800 --> 01:22:53,800
Speaker 1: you know, technically I guess hazing where I'd have to

1413
01:22:53,800 --> 01:22:56,240
Speaker 1: like low crawl around the bus and then they tell

1414
01:22:56,280 --> 01:22:58,240
Speaker 1: all the other privates good on the bus and like

1415
01:22:58,360 --> 01:23:00,280
Speaker 1: it would be like fifty pairs of jungle boot over

1416
01:23:00,360 --> 01:23:02,920
Speaker 1: my back because I'm right by the door. Did wait

1417
01:23:02,960 --> 01:23:05,280
Speaker 1: until I get by the door and then everyone off

1418
01:23:05,280 --> 01:23:07,920
Speaker 1: the bus and fifty more pairs of jungle boots over

1419
01:23:07,960 --> 01:23:10,000
Speaker 1: my back? And I mean, yeah, but I don't, like,

1420
01:23:10,200 --> 01:23:12,559
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I was traumatized by that or anything.

1421
01:23:12,600 --> 01:23:14,760
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like fun in games to a

1422
01:23:14,800 --> 01:23:18,360
Speaker 1: certain extent. But again, there's a line there. You had

1423
01:23:18,400 --> 01:23:21,760
Speaker 1: said you had you had a positive squad leader, team leader,

1424
01:23:22,160 --> 01:23:25,439
Speaker 1: all positive. Yeah, but you know, again, if I was

1425
01:23:25,520 --> 01:23:28,559
Speaker 1: there if I had a squad leader or a team

1426
01:23:28,640 --> 01:23:31,559
Speaker 1: leader or both. Yeah, I mean, it would have been

1427
01:23:31,560 --> 01:23:33,519
Speaker 1: a very different experience than maybe I'd be in jail

1428
01:23:33,640 --> 01:23:36,920
Speaker 1: right now. I mean that's a good point. There's two

1429
01:23:36,960 --> 01:23:42,720
Speaker 1: sides to every coin. Yeah, um yeah. They it goes

1430
01:23:42,800 --> 01:23:45,760
Speaker 1: like I I played. I played sports all throughout growing up,

1431
01:23:45,920 --> 01:23:52,120
Speaker 1: and a lot like the gap of what's now called hazing,

1432
01:23:52,280 --> 01:23:55,479
Speaker 1: and it's almost team building or used to be considered

1433
01:23:55,479 --> 01:23:58,360
Speaker 1: team building. And you guys talked about it, how the

1434
01:23:58,479 --> 01:24:00,559
Speaker 1: like the mythology grows where it was, you know, like

1435
01:24:01,280 --> 01:24:03,680
Speaker 1: my father walked to school up hill both ways in

1436
01:24:03,720 --> 01:24:08,479
Speaker 1: the snow exactly, Uncle Ricon was exactly what you're talking about.

1437
01:24:08,520 --> 01:24:10,599
Speaker 1: I could have taken state, but you know, you get

1438
01:24:10,600 --> 01:24:14,559
Speaker 1: things like that and you remember it. Like I look

1439
01:24:14,640 --> 01:24:17,160
Speaker 1: back to when I played high school and it was like,

1440
01:24:17,200 --> 01:24:21,679
Speaker 1: you know, we'd have There wasn't regulations in for practice

1441
01:24:21,960 --> 01:24:24,599
Speaker 1: like they are now because concussions were at their infancy.

1442
01:24:24,600 --> 01:24:27,439
Speaker 1: They it wasn't anything what it is now. And we

1443
01:24:27,479 --> 01:24:29,280
Speaker 1: would practice three times a day. We were there eight

1444
01:24:29,280 --> 01:24:31,800
Speaker 1: in the morning till late at night. And you know,

1445
01:24:31,840 --> 01:24:33,640
Speaker 1: as it gets old, like I'll talk to you know,

1446
01:24:33,720 --> 01:24:36,479
Speaker 1: my cousins or whoever that that's younger that's going through

1447
01:24:36,479 --> 01:24:38,000
Speaker 1: it now. And I'm like, oh, you guys don't. And

1448
01:24:38,040 --> 01:24:40,680
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, how old am I? Like what? I

1449
01:24:40,680 --> 01:24:42,880
Speaker 1: remember talking to guys who did like wrestling in high

1450
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:45,000
Speaker 1: school and then they'd be like cutting down for wait,

1451
01:24:45,160 --> 01:24:47,120
Speaker 1: which is like you guys don't have to do that

1452
01:24:47,120 --> 01:24:49,280
Speaker 1: for the military. No, no, because that is something like

1453
01:24:49,360 --> 01:24:52,640
Speaker 1: that is aggressive. I was telling me about how they

1454
01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:55,000
Speaker 1: were in the sauna and they'd take credit cards and

1455
01:24:55,080 --> 01:24:57,800
Speaker 1: like swipe away their sweat so that you because the

1456
01:24:57,840 --> 01:25:01,719
Speaker 1: sweat cools you down, and that's not the point. Like, yeah, crazy,

1457
01:25:01,720 --> 01:25:03,240
Speaker 1: he's like. And the guy was like, yeah, I probably

1458
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:06,960
Speaker 1: fucked myself up pretty good, dude. Wrestlers are prop Wrestlers

1459
01:25:07,000 --> 01:25:09,559
Speaker 1: would make great military. Like we we've discussed off there,

1460
01:25:09,600 --> 01:25:10,840
Speaker 1: you needed, you need a couple of those guys that

1461
01:25:10,880 --> 01:25:13,200
Speaker 1: are a little unhinged just to keep things and check.

1462
01:25:13,240 --> 01:25:18,240
Speaker 1: Wrestlers are the perfect perfect subjects to jump into the military.

1463
01:25:18,280 --> 01:25:21,280
Speaker 1: They just to to cut with. I mean that could

1464
01:25:21,280 --> 01:25:22,920
Speaker 1: like a lot of them turn into UFC fighters and

1465
01:25:22,920 --> 01:25:27,240
Speaker 1: things like that, and to just have that you know,

1466
01:25:27,320 --> 01:25:29,280
Speaker 1: you weigh one seventy five and you're gonna cut down

1467
01:25:29,280 --> 01:25:34,599
Speaker 1: to one fifty in two days, and you're just throwing

1468
01:25:34,640 --> 01:25:36,360
Speaker 1: on garbage suits and you're just like my E had

1469
01:25:36,400 --> 01:25:38,400
Speaker 1: friends in high school there where you know, we get

1470
01:25:38,400 --> 01:25:41,000
Speaker 1: out of school and you know we're gonna, you know,

1471
01:25:41,080 --> 01:25:43,120
Speaker 1: we're gonna dick around somebody's house or something. And my

1472
01:25:43,120 --> 01:25:44,599
Speaker 1: buddy would look at me and he's like, hey, man,

1473
01:25:44,680 --> 01:25:46,200
Speaker 1: I gotta cut weight. We're like, all right, Like what

1474
01:25:46,240 --> 01:25:47,680
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? He's so we just

1475
01:25:47,720 --> 01:25:49,800
Speaker 1: load them up with sweatshirts and he's just running around

1476
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:52,920
Speaker 1: our buddies house and we're just like, I mean, you

1477
01:25:53,040 --> 01:25:54,720
Speaker 1: got half hour left, like hop on the scale, like

1478
01:25:54,720 --> 01:25:57,160
Speaker 1: we'll help you out as best we can. But that, yeah,

1479
01:25:57,200 --> 01:25:59,880
Speaker 1: they're there are different breaks and range of battalion. It's

1480
01:26:00,080 --> 01:26:03,360
Speaker 1: very much like that in the sense that there is

1481
01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:07,840
Speaker 1: the ranger way and there is the wrong way, and

1482
01:26:07,880 --> 01:26:11,000
Speaker 1: you say, but sergeant, what about shut the funk up?

1483
01:26:11,280 --> 01:26:14,360
Speaker 1: You know, I had this. I was thinking about this

1484
01:26:14,439 --> 01:26:17,640
Speaker 1: the other day for some reason, Like I was. I

1485
01:26:17,680 --> 01:26:19,680
Speaker 1: was in sniper section at the time, so we had

1486
01:26:19,720 --> 01:26:22,240
Speaker 1: to go out. You have to recall on fast roping

1487
01:26:22,240 --> 01:26:23,960
Speaker 1: every so often. So it's like a thirt or four

1488
01:26:23,960 --> 01:26:26,400
Speaker 1: ft tower with a with a rope like like like

1489
01:26:26,439 --> 01:26:28,800
Speaker 1: in your gym at high school, right, like Ninja war

1490
01:26:30,720 --> 01:26:35,320
Speaker 1: kind of kind of like not whatever. So but instead

1491
01:26:35,320 --> 01:26:37,080
Speaker 1: of like a fast roping out of a helicopter, you

1492
01:26:37,160 --> 01:26:40,880
Speaker 1: just go down this tower to qualify, right, So, um,

1493
01:26:40,960 --> 01:26:42,760
Speaker 1: you know we were snipers. We went we went down

1494
01:26:42,800 --> 01:26:44,400
Speaker 1: the rope a couple of times with our equipment and

1495
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:48,320
Speaker 1: our guns. Okay, we're done. The another platoon from from

1496
01:26:48,360 --> 01:26:50,439
Speaker 1: a different company, I can't I think maybe it was

1497
01:26:50,520 --> 01:26:54,160
Speaker 1: Charlie Company, I can't remember. But this guy, the platoon sergeant,

1498
01:26:54,200 --> 01:26:58,639
Speaker 1: gets all of these young guys lined up at the tower,

1499
01:26:59,280 --> 01:27:01,479
Speaker 1: gets them going up the stairs. Let's go, let's go,

1500
01:27:01,560 --> 01:27:03,680
Speaker 1: let's go, let's go, let's go. And then as you

1501
01:27:04,120 --> 01:27:06,400
Speaker 1: grip the rope with your gloves on, you have to

1502
01:27:06,560 --> 01:27:09,360
Speaker 1: rotate out so you don't hit the you don't hit

1503
01:27:09,400 --> 01:27:11,679
Speaker 1: the frame of their or the tower in this case.

1504
01:27:12,240 --> 01:27:14,439
Speaker 1: So this platoon sergeant is just standing there on the

1505
01:27:14,479 --> 01:27:16,320
Speaker 1: ground with his hands on his hips and his cap

1506
01:27:16,439 --> 01:27:21,040
Speaker 1: kicked back on his head. Rotate asked fuck? Rotate, asked fuck? Rotate,

1507
01:27:21,120 --> 01:27:23,960
Speaker 1: asked fuck? As every guy goes down and then just

1508
01:27:24,040 --> 01:27:26,320
Speaker 1: like gets them in a circuit going right back up

1509
01:27:26,360 --> 01:27:29,559
Speaker 1: again and he's just standing there, rotate, asked fuck, rotate

1510
01:27:29,680 --> 01:27:34,160
Speaker 1: all he's saying, that's all he's saying. And I was like, yeah,

1511
01:27:34,160 --> 01:27:37,040
Speaker 1: that that's range of battalion. Yeah, I mean, that's just

1512
01:27:37,280 --> 01:27:41,479
Speaker 1: how it is. But but like in the civilian world,

1513
01:27:41,479 --> 01:27:43,519
Speaker 1: people look at you, they're like like you're looking at

1514
01:27:43,560 --> 01:27:47,519
Speaker 1: being like, oh my god, like what's wrong with you people? Yeah,

1515
01:27:47,560 --> 01:27:51,080
Speaker 1: I mean I don't I don't want to say brainwash

1516
01:27:51,120 --> 01:27:53,200
Speaker 1: because that's not no, no, that's probably the right word,

1517
01:27:53,800 --> 01:27:56,559
Speaker 1: probably the right but that's how they like the whole

1518
01:27:56,600 --> 01:27:58,599
Speaker 1: the whole adage of like we we break you down

1519
01:27:58,600 --> 01:28:01,000
Speaker 1: to build you up. It's like Tate, ask funck, you know,

1520
01:28:01,280 --> 01:28:04,439
Speaker 1: rotate as we talk, like we talked about it. If

1521
01:28:04,479 --> 01:28:06,439
Speaker 1: we go out here outside the studio right now in

1522
01:28:06,600 --> 01:28:08,200
Speaker 1: this office and we talked and we just go up

1523
01:28:08,200 --> 01:28:11,160
Speaker 1: to hey, hey we have we're in swivel chairs. If

1524
01:28:11,160 --> 01:28:13,200
Speaker 1: I went to somebody and was like, hey, rotate, ask fuck.

1525
01:28:13,840 --> 01:28:18,920
Speaker 1: Hr is getting a talking to hr in. But in

1526
01:28:18,960 --> 01:28:22,000
Speaker 1: the military, you know, that's just that guy's just just

1527
01:28:22,160 --> 01:28:27,000
Speaker 1: another day, just another day. Uh. And with that, I

1528
01:28:27,040 --> 01:28:29,599
Speaker 1: think rotate, ask funk is a great way to end

1529
01:28:29,600 --> 01:28:34,200
Speaker 1: the show. Ask fuck. We can't take Ben blown for

1530
01:28:34,240 --> 01:28:36,639
Speaker 1: coming on enough, be sure to grab the book Ranger Game.

1531
01:28:36,960 --> 01:28:41,920
Speaker 1: Obviously it'ssassinating. It's a really insightful book. Um. I mean,

1532
01:28:42,080 --> 01:28:45,439
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's the typical Ranger battalion experience. Most

1533
01:28:45,479 --> 01:28:48,720
Speaker 1: people don't have a psychopathic team leader, you know, and

1534
01:28:49,080 --> 01:28:51,840
Speaker 1: end up robbing a bank. But within it, I think

1535
01:28:51,880 --> 01:28:54,920
Speaker 1: there is some important commentary about you know, military culture.

1536
01:28:55,560 --> 01:28:58,640
Speaker 1: Um and it's a hell of an interesting story regardless.

1537
01:28:59,320 --> 01:29:01,960
Speaker 1: And Ben really probe the depth of it, like he

1538
01:29:01,960 --> 01:29:05,920
Speaker 1: did a very thorough job interviewing and researching people. Um

1539
01:29:06,000 --> 01:29:07,880
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a really good book. I really

1540
01:29:07,960 --> 01:29:11,080
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Also, I wanted to point out he made

1541
01:29:11,439 --> 01:29:13,880
Speaker 1: reference to John Wayne that that was too John Wayne

1542
01:29:13,880 --> 01:29:18,439
Speaker 1: references in one podcast what was the first I was saying,

1543
01:29:18,439 --> 01:29:22,480
Speaker 1: how the book um in the intro how we um

1544
01:29:22,600 --> 01:29:24,280
Speaker 1: I had like a Western field to it, and you

1545
01:29:24,280 --> 01:29:27,000
Speaker 1: can picture like John yeah yeah, and you know go

1546
01:29:27,120 --> 01:29:30,719
Speaker 1: figure to John Wayne references the Duke. Uh So shout

1547
01:29:30,720 --> 01:29:34,320
Speaker 1: out John Wayne, al I P we miss you. Uh Thursday,

1548
01:29:34,439 --> 01:29:38,320
Speaker 1: we have on Jeff Kirkham, Yes, our collashon CoV episode

1549
01:29:38,439 --> 01:29:41,040
Speaker 1: there there's gonna be heavy a K forty seven talk.

1550
01:29:41,200 --> 01:29:44,599
Speaker 1: So gun porn Um, I have to go for this one.

1551
01:29:44,600 --> 01:29:46,840
Speaker 1: I have to go to my bookshelf and because I'm

1552
01:29:46,840 --> 01:29:49,080
Speaker 1: a nerd and I have all the manuals and the

1553
01:29:49,080 --> 01:29:51,559
Speaker 1: books about the history of the a K seven, I

1554
01:29:51,600 --> 01:29:53,960
Speaker 1: have to pull that stuff down and get up to

1555
01:29:54,080 --> 01:29:57,960
Speaker 1: speed so I can wrap with about this. Would you

1556
01:29:57,960 --> 01:30:01,880
Speaker 1: say that's the most recognizable gun A Yeah, it's actually

1557
01:30:01,880 --> 01:30:05,679
Speaker 1: on the flags of one or two countries. I'm sure

1558
01:30:06,000 --> 01:30:08,240
Speaker 1: he'll know exactly which one is. Yeah, it's the it's

1559
01:30:08,280 --> 01:30:10,519
Speaker 1: the you know, the gun of the Revolution. Is how

1560
01:30:10,560 --> 01:30:13,880
Speaker 1: a lot of people see it. Yeah? Oh boy, all right,

1561
01:30:13,920 --> 01:30:17,280
Speaker 1: Well that that'll be Thursday Friday for you listeners. Um, so,

1562
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:19,560
Speaker 1: thank you, Ben, and we're looking forward to speaking with

1563
01:30:19,640 --> 01:30:23,320
Speaker 1: Jeff on Thursday. And that was soft Rep Radio. Guys,

1564
01:30:23,400 --> 01:30:26,280
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in you've been listening to self

1565
01:30:26,360 --> 01:30:31,519
Speaker 1: rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow

1566
01:30:31,560 --> 01:30:35,080
Speaker 1: the show on Instagram and Twitter at self rep Radio.