1
00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:21,320
Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're

2
00:00:21,360 --> 00:00:26,239
Speaker 1: listening to Software up Radio, Special Operations, Military nails and

3
00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:41,040
Speaker 1: straight talk with the guys in the community. Hey, this

4
00:00:41,120 --> 00:00:43,640
Speaker 1: is rad with SOFTWAREP Radio. Thank you for being a

5
00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:45,800
Speaker 1: part of our show. I want to give a shout

6
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:48,479
Speaker 1: out to our sponsor who helps keep the lights on

7
00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:51,960
Speaker 1: here at SOFTWAREP Radio and that's Fox Nation. So we

8
00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:54,480
Speaker 1: invite you to take advantage of this offer that Fox

9
00:00:54,600 --> 00:00:57,160
Speaker 1: Nation has chosen Software to help them share with you

10
00:00:57,240 --> 00:01:00,480
Speaker 1: this week. Veterans and active duty service members, we'll get

11
00:01:00,560 --> 00:01:03,600
Speaker 1: Fox Nation free for a year. Let me say that again,

12
00:01:03,840 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 1: free for a year. You can sign up for the

13
00:01:06,520 --> 00:01:10,959
Speaker 1: offer here soft rep dot com forward slash fox dash Nation.

14
00:01:11,240 --> 00:01:15,000
Speaker 1: That's soft rep dot com forward slash fox dash Nation.

15
00:01:15,600 --> 00:01:17,920
Speaker 1: We hope you'll share this with any veterans or active

16
00:01:17,959 --> 00:01:20,840
Speaker 1: duty service members that you also know. Please spread the

17
00:01:20,880 --> 00:01:23,600
Speaker 1: word and thanks for being a part of SOFTWAREP Radio.

18
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:28,720
Speaker 1: Hello again, everyone, Welcome back to Software Radio, Software Radio

19
00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:32,120
Speaker 1: on time, on target. We have a very special guest

20
00:01:32,200 --> 00:01:36,679
Speaker 1: for our listeners in viewers today of our YouTube channel.

21
00:01:37,160 --> 00:01:41,720
Speaker 1: Toby Harnden has written a fantastic book and we encourage

22
00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:44,640
Speaker 1: all of our readers and listeners out there to check

23
00:01:44,680 --> 00:01:48,040
Speaker 1: this book out. It's called First Casualty. It's about the

24
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:52,200
Speaker 1: First c I, a paramilitary teams in Afghanistan when the

25
00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:56,440
Speaker 1: war started back in two thousand one. It's a fantastic book.

26
00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:58,880
Speaker 1: If you're looking for a Christmas gift to give some

27
00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:01,640
Speaker 1: loved one on or close, or you want to give

28
00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: a gift to yourself, definitely checked us out. So without

29
00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:07,800
Speaker 1: for any further ado, we're gonna welcome told me to

30
00:02:07,880 --> 00:02:10,880
Speaker 1: the podcast. Thanks for taking the time to join us today.

31
00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:14,200
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. Oh, thanks very much, Steve. Thanks

32
00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:17,320
Speaker 1: for having me our pleasure. And you know we were

33
00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:21,040
Speaker 1: talking offline. I know our listeners always love to hear

34
00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:24,880
Speaker 1: about somebody's military experience. You were in the Royal Navy.

35
00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:27,839
Speaker 1: So fill our listeners in a little bit about your

36
00:02:27,880 --> 00:02:31,480
Speaker 1: military career and how you get into writing. Yeah. Sure,

37
00:02:31,639 --> 00:02:35,639
Speaker 1: So you know, my military career was not very illustrious,

38
00:02:35,919 --> 00:02:38,240
Speaker 1: not nearly as illustrious as the people I tend to

39
00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:40,919
Speaker 1: write about these days, or your career or probably most

40
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:44,880
Speaker 1: of your listeners. I joined the Navy in so it

41
00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:47,960
Speaker 1: was just after the Falklands War. In fact, I was

42
00:02:47,960 --> 00:02:50,560
Speaker 1: was applying to the Navy aged sixteen. I joined when

43
00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:52,600
Speaker 1: I was eighteen, you know, joined the Falklands one and

44
00:02:52,880 --> 00:02:55,680
Speaker 1: picking up the newspaper and it was Coventry sunk h

45
00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:57,840
Speaker 1: mess Coventry and destroy it. So it was real. But

46
00:02:57,880 --> 00:03:01,160
Speaker 1: you know I got in just after that and I

47
00:03:01,240 --> 00:03:03,360
Speaker 1: was there for just about ten years. I left in

48
00:03:03,440 --> 00:03:07,799
Speaker 1: ninety four and in I tried very hard to get

49
00:03:07,840 --> 00:03:11,280
Speaker 1: involved in the Gulf War, but they managed to win

50
00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,440
Speaker 1: it without me, and I was sort of stuck back

51
00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:17,880
Speaker 1: in Scotland feeling very frustrated, and you know, I think

52
00:03:18,200 --> 00:03:20,920
Speaker 1: probably I mean I went to lots of places, you know,

53
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: I joined ships in Hong Kong twice. We went around

54
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:29,200
Speaker 1: Australia twice. You know, it's the Caribbean, the Northern Europe, Mediterranean,

55
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 1: you know, all over the place. But it seemed like

56
00:03:32,200 --> 00:03:35,000
Speaker 1: kind of not completely serious, and the Cold War was

57
00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:37,000
Speaker 1: over and I was kind of like, you know, what's

58
00:03:37,040 --> 00:03:40,000
Speaker 1: the point of this. But you know, I mean that's

59
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,560
Speaker 1: sort of first for adventure and service. That was just

60
00:03:43,360 --> 00:03:46,080
Speaker 1: part of my upbringing in fourth generation military. So my

61
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:49,080
Speaker 1: father was in the Navy. His father was in the

62
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:52,120
Speaker 1: Army all through World War Two. You know, he joined

63
00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:55,760
Speaker 1: in the nine twenties, as a boy and then retired

64
00:03:56,120 --> 00:03:58,920
Speaker 1: as a major. And the great grandfather army as well,

65
00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:01,600
Speaker 1: and a great grand father on the other side who

66
00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:05,080
Speaker 1: was army, who was captured in September nineteen fourteen in

67
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:08,560
Speaker 1: France and escape from a pow camp in Germany in

68
00:04:08,600 --> 00:04:12,080
Speaker 1: March nineteen sixteen and survived the wars and as a

69
00:04:12,160 --> 00:04:15,480
Speaker 1: career infantryman sergeant in nineteen so in a way he

70
00:04:15,520 --> 00:04:17,760
Speaker 1: had he had a pretty good war. So yeah, I

71
00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:21,520
Speaker 1: grew up, you know, listening to these stories, and you know,

72
00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:22,920
Speaker 1: we moved around a lot when I was a kid,

73
00:04:22,920 --> 00:04:25,440
Speaker 1: but it was mainly in Manchester, Northwest of England's kind

74
00:04:25,480 --> 00:04:28,359
Speaker 1: of like I don't know the equivalent of Detroit or somewhere,

75
00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:30,480
Speaker 1: and I just wanted to get out, you know, and

76
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:32,839
Speaker 1: see and see the world and never go back to Manchester.

77
00:04:33,279 --> 00:04:36,760
Speaker 1: And so so that's what I did, and you know

78
00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,560
Speaker 1: how I got into writing. I mean, I didn't see

79
00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:43,120
Speaker 1: that much of a difference in a way between the

80
00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:46,599
Speaker 1: Navy and journalism, you know, because it was you know,

81
00:04:47,400 --> 00:04:50,640
Speaker 1: job changes every year or two, having to deal with

82
00:04:50,680 --> 00:04:53,440
Speaker 1: people all levels from you know, like senior officers to

83
00:04:54,080 --> 00:04:56,840
Speaker 1: guys in the working in the engine room and being

84
00:04:56,880 --> 00:04:59,320
Speaker 1: able to get along with everybody. And that was kind

85
00:04:59,320 --> 00:05:02,720
Speaker 1: of how news journalism in a way worked for me.

86
00:05:02,880 --> 00:05:04,640
Speaker 1: And it was kind of a good It was a

87
00:05:04,640 --> 00:05:07,160
Speaker 1: good background, you know, and I was, you know, it

88
00:05:07,240 --> 00:05:10,200
Speaker 1: was naturally drawn to military stuff and ended up early

89
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,840
Speaker 1: on in my career again said to Northern Ireland, which

90
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:16,240
Speaker 1: was just a fantastic job because you know, it was

91
00:05:16,240 --> 00:05:18,240
Speaker 1: still a war, you know, it never you know, it

92
00:05:18,320 --> 00:05:20,040
Speaker 1: was called the Troubles, but you know, it was sort

93
00:05:20,080 --> 00:05:23,880
Speaker 1: of an undeclared war within the United Kingdom and insurgency

94
00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:26,719
Speaker 1: and at that time there was you know, peace talks

95
00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: going on, so you had that kind of interplay between

96
00:05:29,839 --> 00:05:33,400
Speaker 1: the violence and the politics, which made it biggest story

97
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:35,000
Speaker 1: in the world for a while. And it was a

98
00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:37,680
Speaker 1: very small sort of patch of ground, so I meant

99
00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:39,800
Speaker 1: that when ever anything went back, I was able to

100
00:05:39,880 --> 00:05:44,200
Speaker 1: go there and it was very kind of accessible and

101
00:05:44,200 --> 00:05:46,040
Speaker 1: and yes, so that that got me got me off

102
00:05:46,080 --> 00:05:49,679
Speaker 1: on the journalism career. Yeah, and you've written a couple

103
00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:54,279
Speaker 1: of books prior to this one. One exactly you know,

104
00:05:54,520 --> 00:05:59,320
Speaker 1: got you interested in this particular story in this particular book. Yeah,

105
00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:02,520
Speaker 1: So I mean it's funny you never plan it this way,

106
00:06:02,560 --> 00:06:05,080
Speaker 1: but I look at the the books, this kind of stepped.

107
00:06:05,080 --> 00:06:07,400
Speaker 1: So the first one was about Northern Ireland, Bandit country,

108
00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:11,240
Speaker 1: about the troubles, the IRA heartlands, border heartland, you know,

109
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:16,920
Speaker 1: rural insurgency, and you know it had you know, I

110
00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:20,320
Speaker 1: have six IRA families and IRA chief of Staff sort

111
00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:23,119
Speaker 1: of living on a on a farm straddling the border

112
00:06:23,160 --> 00:06:25,279
Speaker 1: literally one half in the Irish Republic, one half in

113
00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:28,360
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland and therefore the United Kingdom of the sniper

114
00:06:28,600 --> 00:06:31,560
Speaker 1: IRA sniper team. They were making all the bombs in England,

115
00:06:31,560 --> 00:06:34,880
Speaker 1: in South Ameran and shipping them over and you know

116
00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:39,520
Speaker 1: special Forces operations one that eventually took down the sniper team.

117
00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:42,000
Speaker 1: So you know I got into all that. And then

118
00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:44,640
Speaker 1: you know, sort of almost ten years later, the second

119
00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,960
Speaker 1: but with dead men risen and actually a central figure

120
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 1: which was about the Welsh Guards British Battalion in Helmand

121
00:06:52,279 --> 00:06:55,040
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine. And you know, one of

122
00:06:55,080 --> 00:06:57,359
Speaker 1: the key people in that book was by then a

123
00:06:57,360 --> 00:07:01,279
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Rupert Thornelow, who beat a captain in the

124
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:04,159
Speaker 1: Welsh Guards in South Ambar when I was then was

125
00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:07,080
Speaker 1: a kind of a source, I guess, and became a

126
00:07:07,120 --> 00:07:09,960
Speaker 1: close friend. Um and he was a battalion commander, was

127
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:12,440
Speaker 1: killed in action on the first two thousand and nine,

128
00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:14,840
Speaker 1: and so that got me into that they've lost a

129
00:07:14,920 --> 00:07:17,560
Speaker 1: company commander and a platoon commander in the same battalion,

130
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,840
Speaker 1: which was the first time those three levels of leaders

131
00:07:21,840 --> 00:07:24,280
Speaker 1: are being killed in the same battalion since the Korean War.

132
00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:29,200
Speaker 1: And then you know, first casualty. It's sort of very

133
00:07:29,280 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: much you know about Afghanistan again obviously, but very much

134
00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,320
Speaker 1: a kind of a nine eleven book. And I was

135
00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:38,000
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. On nine eleven, you know, walking

136
00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:41,920
Speaker 1: into the kind of newspaper office just as the first plane,

137
00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:45,560
Speaker 1: you know, hit the World Trade Center. And then I watched,

138
00:07:45,600 --> 00:07:48,160
Speaker 1: like so many others watched an airline of flying to

139
00:07:48,240 --> 00:07:50,280
Speaker 1: the second one. I was like, Holy sh it, this

140
00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:52,880
Speaker 1: this is it, you know, and you know, I was

141
00:07:52,920 --> 00:07:55,400
Speaker 1: frustrated once again, this is a bit of a patterner,

142
00:07:55,440 --> 00:07:57,360
Speaker 1: I guess once again, you know, I was like, I

143
00:07:57,360 --> 00:07:59,440
Speaker 1: want to go to Afghanistan, you know, send me, and

144
00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:01,880
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, you're covering the Bush administration. You

145
00:08:01,960 --> 00:08:03,800
Speaker 1: got your feet under the table. There's a good, big

146
00:08:03,800 --> 00:08:06,960
Speaker 1: story there. We've got plenty of people who could you know,

147
00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,160
Speaker 1: We've got the guy from China and the guy from Jerusalem,

148
00:08:10,160 --> 00:08:12,200
Speaker 1: and they can go to Afghanistan. So you know, once

149
00:08:12,240 --> 00:08:14,640
Speaker 1: again I was feeling left behind, but it was it

150
00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: was a great story, and it was a country at war,

151
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:21,119
Speaker 1: and you know, I vividly remember Mike Span being killed

152
00:08:21,320 --> 00:08:25,000
Speaker 1: and his affiliation with the CIA immediately being sort of declared.

153
00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:28,640
Speaker 1: And I remember Shannon Spanned, his widow, who's also CI,

154
00:08:29,200 --> 00:08:33,880
Speaker 1: giving an incredibly moving eulogy at Arlington on deceven the

155
00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:35,680
Speaker 1: tenth for two thousand and one, and I wrote a

156
00:08:35,679 --> 00:08:38,480
Speaker 1: couple of like new you know, little news stories about

157
00:08:38,520 --> 00:08:41,200
Speaker 1: Mike Span. But then everything just moved on, you know,

158
00:08:41,280 --> 00:08:45,200
Speaker 1: and it was you know, war on terror and threats attacks,

159
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,199
Speaker 1: and moved straight into Iraq. And but that story of

160
00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:52,840
Speaker 1: Mike Span never quite sort of left me. And you know,

161
00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:56,320
Speaker 1: the horse soldiers and riding into battle on horseback, you know,

162
00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:00,559
Speaker 1: kind of qua incredible stuff. And then a couple of

163
00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:03,760
Speaker 1: years later, strangely enough, I was in Iraq, in Baghdad

164
00:09:03,960 --> 00:09:06,680
Speaker 1: and sort of hanging out at the Hamra Hotel, sort

165
00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:10,559
Speaker 1: of journalist hotel, and another reporter said to me, did

166
00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:12,760
Speaker 1: you ever see the footage of that CI officer in

167
00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:16,000
Speaker 1: the fort. You know who's with Mike Span And I

168
00:09:16,040 --> 00:09:18,240
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it, and I checked it out and it

169
00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:21,360
Speaker 1: was a guy called David Tyson who was with Mike

170
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,520
Speaker 1: that day, and so he just seen Mike being killed.

171
00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:28,800
Speaker 1: Joined this prison arpriting al Qaeda prison uprising. He'd shot

172
00:09:28,880 --> 00:09:31,719
Speaker 1: his way out, and there was just a little a

173
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:33,800
Speaker 1: couple of seconds of him of him running across the

174
00:09:33,800 --> 00:09:35,520
Speaker 1: court yard with a clash and cop in one handed,

175
00:09:35,520 --> 00:09:38,080
Speaker 1: pistol in the other, and then he burst into this

176
00:09:38,160 --> 00:09:41,960
Speaker 1: building sort of straight into a German TV crew who

177
00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:45,719
Speaker 1: just asked asking kind of goofy questions. And I just

178
00:09:45,760 --> 00:09:48,560
Speaker 1: remember looking at seeing his eyes and staring eyes, you know,

179
00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:52,760
Speaker 1: like thousand yards there, and I just I was just

180
00:09:53,000 --> 00:09:56,680
Speaker 1: fascinated by David and what he'd been through. And you know,

181
00:09:56,679 --> 00:09:59,080
Speaker 1: he could just tell he was just he killed all

182
00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:02,160
Speaker 1: these people, he'd seen his comrade killed. He didn't know

183
00:10:02,200 --> 00:10:03,680
Speaker 1: whether he was going to be killed in the next

184
00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:06,680
Speaker 1: few minutes, he didn't know what he was facing, and

185
00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:09,439
Speaker 1: he was, you know, he just he was. He could

186
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:12,040
Speaker 1: tell his brain was on complete sort of overload. And

187
00:10:12,120 --> 00:10:17,559
Speaker 1: so eventually years later tracked him down. I tracked him

188
00:10:17,559 --> 00:10:21,480
Speaker 1: down through he was a former, so he wasn't case

189
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:26,000
Speaker 1: officer based in Tashkent linking with Central Asian languages. Guy

190
00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:30,200
Speaker 1: he spoke fluent Uzbec. He had been an academic at

191
00:10:30,240 --> 00:10:33,880
Speaker 1: Indiana University before joining the agency. Kind of late I

192
00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:39,600
Speaker 1: think he joined in. And so, you know, I sent

193
00:10:39,720 --> 00:10:42,200
Speaker 1: an email to an academic who thanked him in some

194
00:10:42,480 --> 00:10:47,480
Speaker 1: book acknowledgements. And I remember being in New Jersey covering

195
00:10:48,360 --> 00:10:52,040
Speaker 1: Governor Chris Christie's re election campaign and think pretty piste

196
00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:56,240
Speaker 1: off with the whole thing, I mean, and he was

197
00:10:56,280 --> 00:10:59,280
Speaker 1: being a yeah, he was being a complete jerk, you know,

198
00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:05,319
Speaker 1: towards me. Imagine that Christie being a jerk, right, And

199
00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:06,880
Speaker 1: and then the phone rings and he's like, hey, it's

200
00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,560
Speaker 1: David Tyson and so I was like, okay, this is

201
00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:12,120
Speaker 1: this is a little bit more interesting. So you know,

202
00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:14,040
Speaker 1: he was. So we met. We met in a Panera

203
00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:16,880
Speaker 1: bread in the end of Virginia, like in the DC Sumer.

204
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:19,480
Speaker 1: It's very close to where I am now, and you know,

205
00:11:19,760 --> 00:11:24,000
Speaker 1: sort of bizarre, you know, just completely sort of mundane,

206
00:11:24,280 --> 00:11:26,520
Speaker 1: you know, surroundings and meeting this guy that you know

207
00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:29,520
Speaker 1: had killed all these people and been through all this stuff.

208
00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:31,439
Speaker 1: And he was friendly, but he couldn't you know he

209
00:11:31,559 --> 00:11:34,200
Speaker 1: was still serving, couldn't you know, could really engage much.

210
00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:36,199
Speaker 1: But I did my best to keep in contact with

211
00:11:36,280 --> 00:11:38,360
Speaker 1: him over the years, and sometimes I wouldn't hear from

212
00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:42,400
Speaker 1: him for a year or two. But I became very

213
00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:45,640
Speaker 1: interested in the whole Battle of Kalajangi because it had

214
00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:49,800
Speaker 1: c I a Green Berets from fifth Group. So Major

215
00:11:49,840 --> 00:11:53,360
Speaker 1: Mark Mitchell, you know, got the first Distinguished Service crossed

216
00:11:53,400 --> 00:11:56,800
Speaker 1: into Vietnam leading the sort of main rescue force. There

217
00:11:56,880 --> 00:11:59,599
Speaker 1: was a seal there, Steph Bass, who was awarded the

218
00:11:59,679 --> 00:12:03,000
Speaker 1: Navy Cross the same day as Mike Span was killed.

219
00:12:03,160 --> 00:12:06,319
Speaker 1: He crawled forward sort of under fire and located the body.

220
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,760
Speaker 1: You had the British Special Boat Service, you know, the

221
00:12:10,880 --> 00:12:15,120
Speaker 1: UK Seals were there. You had a C one thirties

222
00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:17,960
Speaker 1: coming in the first time they've been used in Afghanistan.

223
00:12:18,200 --> 00:12:20,400
Speaker 1: You had you had a big friendly fire incident. Two

224
00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:24,560
Speaker 1: thousand pound ja dam dropped on a friendly position, killing

225
00:12:24,559 --> 00:12:27,280
Speaker 1: a lot of Afghans and resulting in the first five

226
00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:31,079
Speaker 1: Purple Hearts of the Afghanistan War. You had this war

227
00:12:31,200 --> 00:12:34,320
Speaker 1: lord Abdul Rashid Dostum's right out of Central Casting. You know,

228
00:12:34,360 --> 00:12:38,880
Speaker 1: this kind of brutish, sort of murderous character, and John

229
00:12:38,920 --> 00:12:41,280
Speaker 1: Walker Lynn, you know, the so called American Taliban and

230
00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:43,600
Speaker 1: was actually al Quaeda, you know, in this sort of

231
00:12:43,960 --> 00:12:48,360
Speaker 1: weedy white guy from Marion County, California. So the story

232
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:53,000
Speaker 1: just seemed to have everything in one place, and so

233
00:12:53,160 --> 00:12:55,839
Speaker 1: I just thought that this, you know, this just would

234
00:12:55,840 --> 00:12:58,840
Speaker 1: make a great book. It was a great narrative to

235
00:12:58,880 --> 00:13:01,840
Speaker 1: talk to all these people. And so, you know, fast

236
00:13:01,920 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: forward to late night, and you know, I persuaded the

237
00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:08,440
Speaker 1: publisher to give me a deal on this book. Like

238
00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:11,480
Speaker 1: all book proposals in a way, or certainly all the

239
00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: ones I've done, it's really a leap of faith on

240
00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:17,040
Speaker 1: part of the publisher, you saying, like, this is my idea,

241
00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:19,079
Speaker 1: this is the concept. I've spoken to a few people,

242
00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:22,000
Speaker 1: and this is kind of what I'm thinking. But trust me,

243
00:13:22,520 --> 00:13:24,640
Speaker 1: it's gonna be ten times better. The finished protoct is

244
00:13:24,640 --> 00:13:26,680
Speaker 1: gonna be ten times better. I can't tell you exactly how,

245
00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:29,400
Speaker 1: because I don't know exactly who I'm going to talk

246
00:13:29,400 --> 00:13:31,520
Speaker 1: to or where where the path is going to leave me,

247
00:13:31,800 --> 00:13:35,040
Speaker 1: but please trust me, it's going to be better. And

248
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:38,079
Speaker 1: so that's kind of what happens. I mean, I thought

249
00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:39,800
Speaker 1: it was going to be a book mostly about the

250
00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:42,840
Speaker 1: six days of Karajange. But once I started talking to

251
00:13:43,000 --> 00:13:47,480
Speaker 1: David Tyson in depth, and then you know, then JR. Seger,

252
00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:50,800
Speaker 1: who was the chief, who was diary speaking case off

253
00:13:51,559 --> 00:13:55,000
Speaker 1: officer from nearest Division who had worked with the Muddin

254
00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:58,120
Speaker 1: in the eighties. And then Justin Sapp who was at

255
00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:03,400
Speaker 1: Greenberry captain who is seconded to the team twenty year

256
00:14:03,400 --> 00:14:05,520
Speaker 1: old guy, youngest guy on the teams, still serving as

257
00:14:05,480 --> 00:14:07,480
Speaker 1: a car spoke to him. And so once I suppose

258
00:14:07,520 --> 00:14:11,199
Speaker 1: to those guys, I actually began to sort of concentrating

259
00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:13,520
Speaker 1: my focus a little bit more on Team Alpha. So

260
00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:16,880
Speaker 1: this these were the eight guys who went in first

261
00:14:16,880 --> 00:14:19,360
Speaker 1: behind enemy lines. I went in on October seventeen, two

262
00:14:19,360 --> 00:14:22,760
Speaker 1: thousand one, and so I then kind of expanded the

263
00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:25,520
Speaker 1: scope out. You know, it was concentrated more on these

264
00:14:25,560 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: eight guys, you know, but certainly all the green Berets

265
00:14:28,280 --> 00:14:30,760
Speaker 1: and the sps and Steph Bass and all those people

266
00:14:30,800 --> 00:14:34,080
Speaker 1: as well. But it became more of the story of

267
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:36,680
Speaker 1: those eight guys at the center of those eight guys

268
00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:42,000
Speaker 1: from nine eleven to landing on October seventeen two capturing Massouri,

269
00:14:42,080 --> 00:14:46,040
Speaker 1: Shreef to Kalajangi and then of course you know, might

270
00:14:46,160 --> 00:14:48,920
Speaker 1: being killed and the sort of the repercussions of the

271
00:14:49,000 --> 00:14:53,040
Speaker 1: last twenty twenty years or so, So it was kind

272
00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:55,960
Speaker 1: of very much like a you know, a moving sort

273
00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:59,440
Speaker 1: of target, and you know, it just it just developed

274
00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:02,120
Speaker 1: in the way that it did. Yeah, you know, it's

275
00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:06,680
Speaker 1: it's amazing because you know, as we spoke offline, this

276
00:15:06,840 --> 00:15:11,400
Speaker 1: was like a classic OSS S O WE you know,

277
00:15:11,720 --> 00:15:16,200
Speaker 1: type of story that our forebearers in Special Forces and CIA,

278
00:15:17,160 --> 00:15:20,000
Speaker 1: you know that this was like the type of mission

279
00:15:20,080 --> 00:15:21,920
Speaker 1: that they would have done in World War Two and

280
00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:27,000
Speaker 1: going behind becoming the insurgents themselves and linking up with

281
00:15:27,360 --> 00:15:30,760
Speaker 1: a resistance force, and it was just it's a story

282
00:15:30,840 --> 00:15:33,400
Speaker 1: that needed to be told, and the amount of detail

283
00:15:33,480 --> 00:15:37,280
Speaker 1: that you got in into it, it's fantastic because you

284
00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:40,440
Speaker 1: started off with you know, nine eleven and how it

285
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:44,480
Speaker 1: all kind of transpired, and and the first thing I

286
00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:47,680
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you was did you have trouble getting

287
00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:50,520
Speaker 1: you know, guys from the CIA to be able to

288
00:15:50,600 --> 00:15:52,400
Speaker 1: talk to you? Did you have to go through the

289
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,200
Speaker 1: agency or were you able to contact some of these

290
00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:58,960
Speaker 1: guys directly. Yeah, So, you know, I just didn't know

291
00:15:59,120 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 1: how that was was going to work, and I was

292
00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:04,560
Speaker 1: kind of prepared for the possibility that none of them

293
00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:06,080
Speaker 1: wild speaking to me. I mean, I don't know how

294
00:16:06,160 --> 00:16:07,640
Speaker 1: it would have. I guess it would have become a

295
00:16:07,680 --> 00:16:10,200
Speaker 1: lot more about the Green Berets if if that had happened.

296
00:16:11,000 --> 00:16:13,400
Speaker 1: But so I just so David, you know, I had

297
00:16:13,400 --> 00:16:16,680
Speaker 1: already made this contact with and I for I, you know,

298
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:19,160
Speaker 1: I felt kind of quite strongly that he wanted to

299
00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:21,680
Speaker 1: tell a story, and I know that he spoken to

300
00:16:21,840 --> 00:16:24,360
Speaker 1: sort of internal audiences and in a way, part of

301
00:16:24,440 --> 00:16:27,440
Speaker 1: his sort of therapy was to talk about it. So

302
00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:29,760
Speaker 1: I had this sense that he would talk, but he

303
00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:32,800
Speaker 1: was It was kind of a weird like Chicken and

304
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:35,240
Speaker 1: the eggs sort of situation because he was like, I

305
00:16:35,360 --> 00:16:36,960
Speaker 1: do want to talk, but I don't want this to

306
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:38,840
Speaker 1: be about me. I wanted to be about the team,

307
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:42,480
Speaker 1: and I wanted to be about Mike, and you know, so,

308
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,000
Speaker 1: but he was the one who was there, and you know,

309
00:16:45,040 --> 00:16:46,720
Speaker 1: I wanted him to talk so I could talk to

310
00:16:46,760 --> 00:16:48,720
Speaker 1: the others, and so you know, I had to you know,

311
00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:51,680
Speaker 1: kind of navigate that. And of course these guys are

312
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,080
Speaker 1: you know, if anybody that's had any contact with CIA,

313
00:16:56,400 --> 00:16:59,120
Speaker 1: and you know, I think green Berets are similar, you know,

314
00:16:59,320 --> 00:17:01,840
Speaker 1: kind of speechie's. They make their own decisions, so they

315
00:17:01,880 --> 00:17:04,000
Speaker 1: can there can be a recommendation from somebody else on

316
00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:06,840
Speaker 1: the team, but you know, nobody's can be served up

317
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:09,240
Speaker 1: on a platitu. You you know, you that they they're

318
00:17:09,240 --> 00:17:11,920
Speaker 1: gonna make their own decisions, and so, you know, it

319
00:17:12,040 --> 00:17:14,840
Speaker 1: was nearly twenty years on. So there was six surviving.

320
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:18,600
Speaker 1: So Mark Rassenberger, the medic on the team, subsequently became

321
00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:23,200
Speaker 1: a paramilitary. He died in the Philippines on CIA duty.

322
00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:25,800
Speaker 1: So there were six still living and one was still serving,

323
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,119
Speaker 1: a guy called Andy, who's who's still serving in CIA,

324
00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,440
Speaker 1: so don't we don't use this first name. But the

325
00:17:31,480 --> 00:17:33,919
Speaker 1: other five well just and then there was Justin who

326
00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:37,160
Speaker 1: was still serving. But you know, he was military, which

327
00:17:37,240 --> 00:17:39,320
Speaker 1: is a different kind of creed from the CIA in

328
00:17:39,440 --> 00:17:42,280
Speaker 1: terms of openness. And Justin was pretty happy too. I

329
00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:44,240
Speaker 1: think he went through a PIO initially, but he you know,

330
00:17:44,359 --> 00:17:46,960
Speaker 1: he was pretty happy to engage. And then j R. C.

331
00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:50,159
Speaker 1: The chief was sort of quite long retired and was

332
00:17:50,240 --> 00:17:52,880
Speaker 1: writing thrillers and so he was sort of out there,

333
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,560
Speaker 1: and so I went to those three first, and you

334
00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:58,720
Speaker 1: know I was hearing about the other. Scott spell Meyer

335
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,920
Speaker 1: was came very senior in the agency. He was a

336
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:05,639
Speaker 1: former ranger wounded in action during the Battle of Muggert

337
00:18:05,680 --> 00:18:08,840
Speaker 1: issue In in ninety three, then had become a paramilitary

338
00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:12,440
Speaker 1: and then became very senior station chief in carbal and

339
00:18:12,560 --> 00:18:15,159
Speaker 1: the senior c I guy on the NSC during the

340
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:19,440
Speaker 1: Trump administration, the political appoint a non political appointee, I

341
00:18:19,480 --> 00:18:23,600
Speaker 1: should say, and he just retired. And Alex Hernandez, who

342
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:28,880
Speaker 1: was Sergeant major tenth Group Special Forces like storied career,

343
00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:31,680
Speaker 1: ending up in a special mission unit, then got gone

344
00:18:31,680 --> 00:18:34,920
Speaker 1: on to another kind of full career in ci A

345
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:39,240
Speaker 1: ground branch. And so you know, Andy, Scott and Alex

346
00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:41,280
Speaker 1: were the three that we're going to be more difficult.

347
00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 1: Like I was told, Alex is never going to speak

348
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:47,680
Speaker 1: to you quite professional, just it's just not gonna do it. Sorry.

349
00:18:48,119 --> 00:18:51,360
Speaker 1: So after the first three, I, you know, I knew

350
00:18:51,440 --> 00:18:54,880
Speaker 1: that the others knew about me, and I'd also spoke.

351
00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:57,840
Speaker 1: I'd also Shannon's band was kind of really reluctant, but

352
00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:01,720
Speaker 1: I you know, she he spoke to me. And then

353
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,240
Speaker 1: you know, hand Crumpton, who was head of counter terrorism

354
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:07,760
Speaker 1: centered special Operations, so he was running the war day

355
00:19:07,800 --> 00:19:10,800
Speaker 1: to day for CIA and then co for Black his boss,

356
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:14,480
Speaker 1: the director of the cant Terrorism Center. I've done interviews

357
00:19:14,560 --> 00:19:16,920
Speaker 1: with them, so I think I built up, you know,

358
00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:20,359
Speaker 1: a bit of credibility and trust that I just didn't

359
00:19:20,400 --> 00:19:22,400
Speaker 1: have an agenda and I wasn't an idiot. I kind

360
00:19:22,400 --> 00:19:24,720
Speaker 1: of had done my homework. I wasn't wasting people's time,

361
00:19:24,800 --> 00:19:26,720
Speaker 1: and I was kind of serious. And so at that

362
00:19:26,840 --> 00:19:28,480
Speaker 1: point I went to the agency and I had no

363
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,080
Speaker 1: connection with them. I had no sort of you know

364
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:34,000
Speaker 1: in I had to get a friend to dig out

365
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:38,640
Speaker 1: the press officers email for me, and to my surprise

366
00:19:38,720 --> 00:19:43,520
Speaker 1: and you know, gratitude, they were very positive and almost immediately,

367
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:47,600
Speaker 1: very very responsive, and they didn't open up the vaults

368
00:19:47,680 --> 00:19:50,080
Speaker 1: and give me all their secret cables or an all.

369
00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:53,359
Speaker 1: My freedom of information requests was still turned down, but

370
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 1: they did say to Scott an allis, for instance, like

371
00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:58,159
Speaker 1: you know, we think this is what're doing. I mean,

372
00:19:58,200 --> 00:20:00,440
Speaker 1: the agency is proud of the story and rightly so.

373
00:20:00,960 --> 00:20:02,880
Speaker 1: And that was another button that I was pushing all

374
00:20:02,880 --> 00:20:04,800
Speaker 1: the time, which like, listen, you know, I mean, this

375
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,800
Speaker 1: isn't you know, failing to connect the dots before nine eleven.

376
00:20:07,920 --> 00:20:10,240
Speaker 1: It's not you know, no w M D in Iraq,

377
00:20:10,320 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: it's not enhanced interrogation. You know, this is a pretty

378
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:16,720
Speaker 1: good story. You know, you were successful, incredibly successful. Yeah,

379
00:20:16,760 --> 00:20:20,000
Speaker 1: in just a few weeks. And so you know, they

380
00:20:20,080 --> 00:20:22,879
Speaker 1: gave the thumbs up to you know, Scott and Alex.

381
00:20:23,080 --> 00:20:24,879
Speaker 1: And you know, once I got to speak to Alex,

382
00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:27,000
Speaker 1: we spoke for five hours, you know, the first time,

383
00:20:27,080 --> 00:20:29,760
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I mean it wasn't a case

384
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:31,240
Speaker 1: of me trying to stop him. But even if I

385
00:20:31,320 --> 00:20:33,080
Speaker 1: wanted to stop him talking, I don't think I could

386
00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,879
Speaker 1: have done. And he's sort of still like that, like

387
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:38,600
Speaker 1: once he's now he's made his decision. You know, he's

388
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: sixty nine. Now he's it's you know, this is part

389
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 1: of history. He's happy to talk about it. And then Andy,

390
00:20:45,080 --> 00:20:48,520
Speaker 1: who was still serving, they facilitated that interview as well.

391
00:20:48,640 --> 00:20:51,440
Speaker 1: So so then I had all six which was and

392
00:20:51,520 --> 00:20:55,240
Speaker 1: I had, you know, had people's diary. David written a diary.

393
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:58,320
Speaker 1: There was video footage that had been shots. There was

394
00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,480
Speaker 1: you know, some documents came into my possession, you know,

395
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:05,840
Speaker 1: for you know, via you know, channels. I won't disclose,

396
00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:08,520
Speaker 1: but I was able to you know, it was it

397
00:21:08,640 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 1: was a fantastic experience too. And that's where the kind

398
00:21:11,600 --> 00:21:14,199
Speaker 1: of the detail I think came from, which I love.

399
00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:17,400
Speaker 1: I love being able to build up the granular detail

400
00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 1: and sort of complete the picture and at the same

401
00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,280
Speaker 1: time link it to the sort of the strategic context

402
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 1: and this sort of you know, big moments in in

403
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:29,240
Speaker 1: world history really and then once you have the six

404
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:31,600
Speaker 1: you know, six people like that who you know, they

405
00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 1: weren't always together the team, you know, just like the

406
00:21:33,840 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 1: genteral teams, you know, would be three three men off

407
00:21:36,119 --> 00:21:39,560
Speaker 1: and going off for days on end, but you know everybody,

408
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:43,320
Speaker 1: you know, some things they've done together, but everybody had

409
00:21:43,359 --> 00:21:47,200
Speaker 1: their own kind of you know, focus, which sometimes could

410
00:21:47,200 --> 00:21:50,240
Speaker 1: be a little bit blinkered. And so at a certain

411
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 1: point it was very sort of gratifying. I felt I

412
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,800
Speaker 1: was able to sort of give something back to members

413
00:21:56,840 --> 00:21:58,879
Speaker 1: of the team and say say, oh, I think this

414
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 1: is what happened, because you know, you know, Andy and

415
00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:04,440
Speaker 1: Alex and Mark were doing this. Oh really okay, and

416
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 1: so you know I think and that I mean, I've

417
00:22:08,080 --> 00:22:09,840
Speaker 1: been told by them that I was able to sort

418
00:22:09,880 --> 00:22:12,920
Speaker 1: of make sort of sense for them of something that

419
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,440
Speaker 1: they've been partial and so you know, that was it was.

420
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:19,520
Speaker 1: It was great to be able to speak to all

421
00:22:19,600 --> 00:22:21,880
Speaker 1: six of the men at the beginning. As I say,

422
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,159
Speaker 1: it wasn't even one of them that was guaranteed. So

423
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:26,800
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of funny how things work. I

424
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,959
Speaker 1: think COVID weirdly helped because people were a little bit

425
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 1: sort of you know, reflecting people at home, and none

426
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:39,399
Speaker 1: of these are busy we're into yeah, yeah, that's right,

427
00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:42,640
Speaker 1: I mean just yeah, and people. None of these guys

428
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:45,600
Speaker 1: were into wearing masks or you know, being isolated or

429
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: anything in either of my eyes. So it was like,

430
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: you know, great, yeah, come on, you know, let's sit

431
00:22:49,880 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: down and talk. So, yeah, it's funny how things work out. Yeah.

432
00:22:55,560 --> 00:22:57,680
Speaker 1: Right at the beginning of the book, when you're talking

433
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: about Coulport Black briefing the pressure and he's in the

434
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: situation room, and you know, the conversation that transpired. To me,

435
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: that was the right there. It was like, oh, this

436
00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:14,879
Speaker 1: is really good. Did you actually talk to him? Yeah? So,

437
00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 1: Kofa Black lives in Great Falls, you know, not too

438
00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 1: far from here, and he was kind of hard. You know.

439
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: He subsequently worked for black Water and become you know,

440
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,679
Speaker 1: somewhat controversial figure, so, you know, and he's a wily

441
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,280
Speaker 1: old spy you know who you know, was on the

442
00:23:31,320 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: trail of Carlos the Jackal and bin Laden had him

443
00:23:34,040 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: in his sights. Yeah, so he again, he's no pushover.

444
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: So I had to sort of have validators contact him

445
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,200
Speaker 1: and stuff, and and you know, he had to sort

446
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: of run the gauntlets of who the hell are you?

447
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:49,359
Speaker 1: You know, could you fill our listeners in on what

448
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:52,480
Speaker 1: he was telling the president because I love this in

449
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 1: the book, because I'm sure judging from the President's reaction,

450
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: he's not used to hearing people talk so straightforward. And yeah,

451
00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: so Covia Black, you know, yes, sort of a legendary

452
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:09,520
Speaker 1: Africa Division case officer who was heading the Can't Terrorism

453
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:12,919
Speaker 1: Center and within which is the Alex Station, which has

454
00:24:13,119 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: been a large unit. So they've been focused on al

455
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: Qaida for several years and they've been they've been saying

456
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,159
Speaker 1: like al Qaida is coming, They're coming here. You know,

457
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: we've been through the MC bombings in East Africa and

458
00:24:24,640 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: ninety the U S. S cole in October two thousand,

459
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,960
Speaker 1: the Millennium plot, and so it's kind of no surprise really,

460
00:24:31,040 --> 00:24:34,080
Speaker 1: to cover Black and many of his team, and they

461
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: had a plan that was called the Blue Sky Memo

462
00:24:36,840 --> 00:24:38,480
Speaker 1: or if not a plan of sort of concept of

463
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 1: operations of how to operate you know, like you said,

464
00:24:41,359 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: OSS s O E style within Afghanistan alongside the addigenous allies,

465
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: you know as the insurgents against the foreign invaders who

466
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: were Al Qaida and so on nine eleven. It's kind

467
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: of like Covia Black is suddenly the man of the hour,

468
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: you know, and Pentagon doesn't have a I thought they

469
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: had a plan for everything, including invading Canada, but apparently

470
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: not not for Afghanistan in two thousand and one. And

471
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 1: so so George Tennant, you know, brings it in hope

472
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: for Black into the into the situation room, and you know,

473
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 1: Kofa is. You know, he's a powerful big guy's powerful

474
00:25:17,280 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: presidents and he's got this He went to some boarding

475
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:22,639
Speaker 1: school in England for a while. His father was a

476
00:25:22,680 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: PanAm pilot. You know, he sat this unusual upbringing and

477
00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 1: he's got this sort of theatrical kind of manner and

478
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: this incredible sort of turn of phrase, and you know

479
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: he's a case officer, and so he was wanted to

480
00:25:35,560 --> 00:25:37,840
Speaker 1: he wanted to win over the president, and he worked

481
00:25:37,840 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: out what type of person the president was, and particularly

482
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: the president after nine eleven and we can all remember,

483
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: you know, with us or against us, dead or alive,

484
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,719
Speaker 1: you know, and go get him and all this kind

485
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:50,879
Speaker 1: of stuff. That's that's the type of president Bush was

486
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 1: and that fitted in very much with the moment, and

487
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: it fitted him with Cofa Black. But he he knew that,

488
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,280
Speaker 1: speaking sort of plainly, you know, he probably would try

489
00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: this has been President Obama, you know, but he was like,

490
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, Mr President, you know when we finished, they'll

491
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: be flies walking across the eyeballs, you know. And this

492
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 1: is a sub phrase he picked up in Africa, and

493
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: so bushes, you know, and he's basically like, you know,

494
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 1: and COVID is like, you know, there are people are

495
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:20,800
Speaker 1: going to be killed and bushes like sort of, so

496
00:26:20,960 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 1: be it. That's what he wanted, not some kind of

497
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: diplomatic kind of you know plan or you know, you know,

498
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a hundred thousand troops going in in

499
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: six months time and conventional units, you know. I mean

500
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: actually Colin Powell said, you know, the president wanted to

501
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,359
Speaker 1: kill someone, and that was the mood of the country

502
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: and that was the kind of the way Cofa Black

503
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: framed it, and so and Bush Bush went for it.

504
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:51,000
Speaker 1: And so the c I A is you know, leading

505
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:55,680
Speaker 1: the war, this tiny organization compared to D O D. Yeah,

506
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:58,880
Speaker 1: and you know, and then they put together the as

507
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:01,639
Speaker 1: you said, like team out for I mean, was the

508
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: thirty three or thirty six days after nine eleven. CIA

509
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:12,080
Speaker 1: has people on the ground in Afghanistan and yeah, well so, yeah,

510
00:27:12,119 --> 00:27:14,320
Speaker 1: I mean actually in Afghanistan. So the first team that

511
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: went in was Jawbreaker, which went in I think September

512
00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,480
Speaker 1: twenty six, so that would be fifteen days afterwards fifty

513
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: But they went into the Yeah, they went into the

514
00:27:23,000 --> 00:27:26,399
Speaker 1: Panchaia Valley, which was controlled by the Northern Alliance, so

515
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,639
Speaker 1: kind of a safe zone relatively speaking. At Machamisu had

516
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,199
Speaker 1: been assassinated by Alqaida on September the night, so they

517
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:35,119
Speaker 1: would kind of lead leaderless they had Fahim Khan was

518
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:38,919
Speaker 1: the new leader, who was kind of useless, and they

519
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: weren't fighting and they weren't moving, and so Team ALFA

520
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 1: came in. Yes, so seventeenth, which I guess will be

521
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: thirty five days after nine eleven, they were the first

522
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,119
Speaker 1: behind enemy lines, and they were with Dustin who wanted

523
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:54,160
Speaker 1: to fight and had the ability to fight and did fight.

524
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: But it was you know, all kind of cobbled together,

525
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: kind of on the back of an envelope. I mean,

526
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: all of it. It was this kind of time where

527
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: bureaucracy was just pushed to one side. Of course it

528
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: all returned Latron, but you know, for those few weeks,

529
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: I mean there was Team Out was the core of

530
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: it was a four man paramilitary team led by Alexandez.

531
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:17,920
Speaker 1: But then they added on David Tyson who was in

532
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: tash Kent, so he didn't even join the team in headquarters.

533
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: He was added to it right at the end and

534
00:28:21,920 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 1: swapped out for a former seal. And then they added

535
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:28,879
Speaker 1: a medic Mark Grassenberger added Justin Sap later on. So

536
00:28:28,960 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: they had these eight guys and they never operated together.

537
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,040
Speaker 1: I mean some of them had the four paramilitaries had,

538
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: but someone barely knew each other. And they had no

539
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: military kit because they you know, in case they were captured.

540
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: So they justin went with a government credit card to

541
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,680
Speaker 1: r E I you know, in northern Virginia and bought

542
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: a few thousand dollars worth of of kit and David

543
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: didn't have anything, and he just got what was in

544
00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: his closet. Basically had these sort of you know, sort

545
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: of almost leisure where like hiking boots that he would

546
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:05,000
Speaker 1: then wore for forty days. They took in Collashi coughs,

547
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:09,280
Speaker 1: so everyone was using seven six too. They had got

548
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: pistols or David got a high power browning pistol from

549
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: the embassy in in Tashkent, and yeah, so it was

550
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: very improvised and the plan was just to get in

551
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: there and work it out. And Astin had for the

552
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 1: Soviets against the Muddines have been on the so Jr Seeger,

553
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, had sort of you know, he was the

554
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 1: enemy in the eighties and Dawston was sort of noturious

555
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: for switching sides, and so, you know, nothing was guaranteed.

556
00:29:38,480 --> 00:29:39,880
Speaker 1: I mean, he could have opened fire on the team

557
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: when they arrived, and it's possible. And then there were

558
00:29:42,440 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: Tadjiks there who were nominally allies, like Atta Mohammed Nor

559
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 1: who was kind of the rival commander in the area.

560
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: You know, he was pissed because he hadn't got a

561
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 1: ce A team or an O d A and so

562
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:58,000
Speaker 1: he wasn't talking to Team Alpha when they arrived, and

563
00:29:58,080 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: so there was a lot to work out, and you know,

564
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,560
Speaker 1: there was a possibility that at A could have attacked

565
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: Austin and killed Americans sort of in the crossfire, and

566
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: to you know, JR. Had to work all that out,

567
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:11,880
Speaker 1: you know, managed the tribes again, classic sort of OSS

568
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: s O E stuff, And they took in three million

569
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:18,200
Speaker 1: dollars in nonsequential hundred dollar bills, which helped you know,

570
00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: Duston got a million that always that would help me,

571
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: all right, Greece's the wheels and so again, you know,

572
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: again going back to the OSS s OE analogy, which

573
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:32,320
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you picked up on because you know,

574
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: these were the forerunners of the Central Intelligence Agency but

575
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: also special Forces and here we are, it's like full circle.

576
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: Here we are in two thousand and one. Way you've

577
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: got CIA and special Forces because O d A five

578
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: nine five famous Horse soldiers came in three days after

579
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: Alpha Team to link up with Austin. They're operating together

580
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 1: and they're just going back to their going back to

581
00:30:54,760 --> 00:30:58,400
Speaker 1: their roots, and it was just incredible the delegation of power,

582
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: I mean, rumps that eventually got upset, that it looked

583
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: like we were going to win with captains on the ground,

584
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,120
Speaker 1: so he started selling it, sending in colonels, which didn't

585
00:31:07,160 --> 00:31:09,720
Speaker 1: really help. And then a two star April came in,

586
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: you know, once Mazar had fallen. But in these early weeks,

587
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: I mean Jr. Was you know, making all these decisions

588
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: on the ground, talking to hand Crompton every day, but

589
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: you know he was making sort of you know, on

590
00:31:23,640 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: the ground decisions with strategic consequences, and that was incredible.

591
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 1: And again, of course that changed, you know after the

592
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: victory at the end of two pousand and one, right,

593
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: you know, that's the amazing thing in the book. And

594
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: again our listeners out there, I encouraged them to check

595
00:31:40,840 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 1: this out because you have a handful you know, people think,

596
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: oh the c I am went in, there were ten

597
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: thousand guys. They didn't. They went and went the handful

598
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: paramilitary guys, a couple of case officers and you know,

599
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: a couple of special forces teams, and they took over

600
00:31:57,400 --> 00:32:01,239
Speaker 1: the country until the U. S. Military the Pentagon had

601
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: to get their feet wet because they had to hand

602
00:32:04,640 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: out you know, impact awards for guys who had no

603
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: idea what they were doing. And I think that your

604
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,720
Speaker 1: book describes all that, but I wanted to bounce back

605
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 1: to Dostrom. As you said at the beginning of the podcast,

606
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,720
Speaker 1: he was straight out of Central Casting and and I

607
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 1: thought you captured him incredibly well in the book, and

608
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: what a character I mean he is. He liked to

609
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: play up the fact that he was a bloodthirsty, you know,

610
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:37,560
Speaker 1: evil incarnate kind of guy with his men and his enemies.

611
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: And then he also tried to impress upon the Americans

612
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: that he was cultured and he had a couple of Cadillacs.

613
00:32:44,840 --> 00:32:48,400
Speaker 1: And but my favorite part of Dostrom, and I want

614
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 1: you to expand on this because obviously you know a

615
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: lot more from writing the book, but my favorite part

616
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:58,600
Speaker 1: of the book with him was when he kicked David

617
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: Tyson early one more wanting and and he said, listen

618
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: to this, and there was a woman's voice on the radio.

619
00:33:06,600 --> 00:33:08,760
Speaker 1: I'd like for you to tell the storage, but listen,

620
00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: because that just crashed me up. I thought that was

621
00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: and it just goes to show Afghan culture is very

622
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: different than ours. Yeah. Yeah, so you're right. So that's

623
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 1: exactly the way Dustin was. He tried to sort of

624
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: play it both ways, and and he had this fearsome reputation.

625
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 1: His men were terrified, terrified them. So he assigned bodyguards

626
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: to team out for guys and the members of the

627
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: O d A. And and so they'd have these little shadows.

628
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 1: They'd be going for like a ship, and this Afghan

629
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: will be following them and be like, just leave me alone,

630
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: but following me back. You don't understand if I, if I,

631
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: if I let you wander off and you step on

632
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: the mind and you're killed, Dustin will chop my head off.

633
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:53,520
Speaker 1: You know. That's so his own men. And of course

634
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: after this, you know, he was you know, the man

635
00:33:56,760 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: of the moment during this period, but afterwards, you know,

636
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: State Department wasn't too happy with deal with him, and

637
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: he was sort of a persona non grata sort of

638
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,920
Speaker 1: once again. But he was you know, he was kind

639
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: of a peasant. You know, he hadn't been educated, you know,

640
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:14,680
Speaker 1: beyond the age of twelve, and he's sort of you know,

641
00:34:15,000 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 1: he was grown up through the through the military. But

642
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: he was like many of these sorts of guys. He was.

643
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: He was very he had this sort of this this

644
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 1: sort of wit and this you know intelligence, and he

645
00:34:27,440 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: could he was a very quick study. So yeah, so

646
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: David's just been on this submission to sarab to link

647
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 1: up with Ata and bringing another O d A and

648
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: Team Brother Cia, Team Bravo, and he's, you know, he's

649
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 1: dog tired. He spent thirteen hours on the most excruciating

650
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: horse ride of his of his life, and so he's

651
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 1: sort of nodding off a bit where dostums on the radio.

652
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,880
Speaker 1: They're all on the same frequencies as the Taliban, and

653
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:54,400
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of always a lot of like

654
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:59,000
Speaker 1: sort of banter and sort of taunting and essentially kind

655
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: of SCIOs with Aliban, you know, like I've got the

656
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: Americans in here. They're going to kill you. You know,

657
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: you need to, you know, change sides and come with

658
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: me and all that. And so so Daston here's this

659
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 1: woman's voice. Well, at first he thinks it may be

660
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 1: like sort of hermaphrodite, you know, some kind of you know,

661
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: eunuch or something like, because he can't conceive of of

662
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 1: a woman being in an aircraft. So he was basically

663
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 1: was thinking it's it's a man with no balls, you know.

664
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: And and so once they got over that, and David's like, no, no, no,

665
00:35:31,440 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 1: it's a it's a woman. And so he immediately has

666
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,280
Speaker 1: this idea that he's going to use this against the Taliban,

667
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 1: because you know, the concept of being killed by a woman,

668
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,560
Speaker 1: you know, would just sort of you know, screw them, like,

669
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,359
Speaker 1: I don't know, just mess with their heads basically, um,

670
00:35:47,480 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 1: and that their whole concept of sort of you know, society,

671
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: particularly Taliban, and you know the position of women on

672
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,520
Speaker 1: all of it. And so he says to David, you know,

673
00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:57,920
Speaker 1: get us to sing a song. And so there's this

674
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: you know, F sixteen pilot or whatever it was, Jet

675
00:36:02,160 --> 00:36:04,080
Speaker 1: part Navy jet pilot. And She's like, I don't know

676
00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:08,080
Speaker 1: any fucking song, like you know, she's like flying a

677
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 1: jet and wanting to drop bombs, you know, you know,

678
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: and and Jostin's like, she doesn't ever be songs like,

679
00:36:13,680 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 1: you know, like like a poem, poem or anyway. So

680
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: it's the name. It's like the Navy fight song and

681
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:24,600
Speaker 1: the inches. Okay, So she's say, she sings this song

682
00:36:24,680 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 1: of like go Navy, you know, fight army and all.

683
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,799
Speaker 1: And Austin he gets the radio received, he gets one

684
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,200
Speaker 1: radio because the two radios together and he's I commanding

685
00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 1: math mood. You have the Taliban commander and listen to this,

686
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: you know. And then and there's this. It's a woman

687
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 1: singing this song pretty badly, I think. And they said,

688
00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: so commanded my mood. You know, this is an American woman,

689
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,960
Speaker 1: you know, who's flying the plane. And what she's saying

690
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: is she's singing, you know, I'm gonna fuck you up.

691
00:36:54,440 --> 00:36:58,080
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna screw you over, I'm

692
00:36:58,120 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: gonna you know, you're you have a small dick, and

693
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 1: you know I'm going to kill you. And so it's just,

694
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's sort of a joke, but it's

695
00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's site. It's classic sort of Scions

696
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:13,040
Speaker 1: about how to sort of you know, taunt the enemy

697
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 1: and sort of you know, make them feel degraded. And

698
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 1: so David thought that was incredible about just how quickly

699
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: doeston could you know, you know, something he couldn't really

700
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,960
Speaker 1: understand initially, but he grasped that this was an opportunity

701
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 1: that he could use to you know, use against the enemy,

702
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: and that's what he did. So, as you say, it

703
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: kind of it sometimes it was a great part of

704
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: the book because then she ends up dropping bombs on

705
00:37:41,160 --> 00:37:45,320
Speaker 1: the Taliban and and they realized that there's a woman

706
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:50,240
Speaker 1: singing up above them, and they could see the bombs

707
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: coming down and it's a woman dropping, which to them

708
00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: it's horrifying because the Taliman, you know, they're so anti

709
00:37:57,800 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: women being anything. But I just you know, and then

710
00:38:01,880 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: later on m go ahead, yeah he does. Um just

711
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 1: he loved this. So he became sort of like entranced

712
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,720
Speaker 1: by this idea of like women killers in the skies.

713
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: And so later on there's an a C one thirty

714
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: navigator called Alison Black who's still serving. I believe it's

715
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,239
Speaker 1: a colonel in the Air Force. She was nicknamed the

716
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:25,359
Speaker 1: Angel of Death, you know. And and so once again,

717
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: you know, it's the you know, even even the American

718
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: women are killing you. Now that's awesome. Now. I read

719
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 1: it at the back of the book that you actually

720
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: got to travel I think it was the end of

721
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: two thousand nine and you actually got to interview dosht Um. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

722
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: So actually it was the end of two thousand twenties.

723
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: So I was just coming back from Afga. Yeah, I

724
00:38:47,760 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: was just coming back from Afghanistan a year ago. And

725
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: strangely enough, the guy who was my translator. Then we

726
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:56,879
Speaker 1: just got him out of Afghanistan. He's not he's living

727
00:38:56,920 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: in my in my spare room at the moment. He

728
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: just got his work permit this morning. So it's been

729
00:39:02,600 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: kind of a crazy year for both of us. And

730
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: and actually David Tyson and Shannon Span and other members

731
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:10,920
Speaker 1: of Team at Justice app other members of Team Alpha

732
00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: and you know, the broader kind of you know, group

733
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: of people has been some instrumental in getting Rally's is

734
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: his name, getting him out. So that's been, that's been,

735
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: you know, great, and I think he's you know, he's

736
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 1: gonna end up being a great American. But yes, so

737
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 1: I interviewed Austin and it was pretty difficult interview to get.

738
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 1: I mean, if you know, if I thought kof for

739
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:36,360
Speaker 1: Black was hard to pin down. I mean Austin, you know,

740
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:40,120
Speaker 1: he's survived by eight assassination attempts or something, and he's

741
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: always been kicked at, you know, he's always in exile

742
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: in Turkey, and he uh, you know, and then he

743
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 1: had to fight. You know, obviously you can't just call

744
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:51,279
Speaker 1: him up. You have to find you know, who represents

745
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: him and and all that, and so eventually, you know,

746
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: there was a sort of agreement that he would talk

747
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 1: to me at least in principle, but no eight or place,

748
00:40:01,880 --> 00:40:05,200
Speaker 1: and so I went out in November two thousand one.

749
00:40:05,800 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: So I missed the US election, which was great. So

750
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: I watched the results of the election on Indian TV

751
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: and a hotel in Carbon, which was which was fine,

752
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: fine by me. I was sitting around in Carbon for

753
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:18,719
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, getting a bit concerned about like

754
00:40:18,840 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: is this going to happen, because Stosson was supposed to

755
00:40:20,880 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 1: be going to Carbon, but I really wanted to see

756
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: him in Massouri Sharif because that was his that was

757
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,719
Speaker 1: his place, or Chevagan actually more precisely Chevagan, which is,

758
00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: you know, his home, his home base. And so eventually

759
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,320
Speaker 1: I got Eventually I got up there, and it was

760
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:41,720
Speaker 1: really difficult because the Taliban was controlling you know, most

761
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:44,640
Speaker 1: of the country outside the cities at that point, and

762
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 1: it really brought it home to me that this thing

763
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,799
Speaker 1: was over, you know, it's just a matter of time,

764
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 1: and so I had to wait. I had to wait

765
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,600
Speaker 1: for you know, more than a week to get a

766
00:40:54,640 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 1: helicopter from Massouri shrieked could fly commercial er up to

767
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: Mazar from Mazara had to get a helicopter. U it

768
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: took more than a week because Taliban controlled the roads.

769
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: And then but then all of a sudden, you know,

770
00:41:06,960 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: I'm there and there's Dustum and its big Japan coats

771
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,719
Speaker 1: and and you know, you know, he's old, obviously he's

772
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: old these late sixties now, but just this like sort

773
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 1: of powerful, like emphatic presence, and he has, you know,

774
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: very fond memories. I mean, I think it's probably the

775
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: greatest period of his life, you know, working with the

776
00:41:31,760 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 1: Americans in two thousand and one, and you know, and

777
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,759
Speaker 1: then almost like a little boy, you know, it's very

778
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: upset and it's a bit perplexed about why the Americans

779
00:41:40,360 --> 00:41:42,800
Speaker 1: have not wanted anything to do with him ever since.

780
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:47,360
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, interviewing the war orders is definitely

781
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: an experience, and I was really glad to be able

782
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,759
Speaker 1: to you know, the bloodthirsty part of him is pretty real.

783
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:55,640
Speaker 1: I know that you mentioned that one of the bodyguards

784
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 1: who said, hell, you say anything happens to you, He'll

785
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: chop my head up. He was like a kind of

786
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:07,200
Speaker 1: a so I mean, and then of course it's you know,

787
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,080
Speaker 1: Darstum's wife. I guess it's not every day that women

788
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:14,840
Speaker 1: get shot by an a K twice while playing in

789
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,399
Speaker 1: the kitchen, And it was supposedly I read that book.

790
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: I'm los all the time. Yeah, I always keep an

791
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:26,440
Speaker 1: a K behind the refrigerator, and who knows it will

792
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: shoot twice on its own, right, right? Yeah, So yeah,

793
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's that's certainly how his first wife

794
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,280
Speaker 1: met her end. And there's also a sort of you know, famous,

795
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: sort of notorious incident of prisoners being killed and containers,

796
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 1: and I think it's been hugely exaggerated over the years,

797
00:42:45,360 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: and you know, like everything with Afghanistan, the numbers, you know,

798
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: got up from a hundred and soon a thousand, and

799
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 1: then it's five thousand and ten thousand, and you know,

800
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,080
Speaker 1: and then of course propagandists will bring in Americans were

801
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:01,040
Speaker 1: slaughtering people, but of the world people, I was And

802
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 1: I did ask him about this because it is the

803
00:43:03,320 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: reason why he was completely cut off by the State

804
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,919
Speaker 1: Department and effectively the US government, although those who fought

805
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: with him in two thousand and one still sort of

806
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: revere him, and you know, I'm surprised I expect him

807
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: just completely deny everything. And he was said well, you know,

808
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:23,560
Speaker 1: one of my commanders, you know, to his brother has

809
00:43:23,600 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: been killed by the Taliban. He was, you know, young

810
00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:30,239
Speaker 1: and emotional, emotional, and yeah, she shot up one of

811
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: the containers, killed a few of them. But it wasn't

812
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: nearly as many as I didn't know anything about it,

813
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:36,560
Speaker 1: and it wasn't nearly as many as everybody say. But

814
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 1: you know, how do you become an ethnic sort of

815
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 1: leader in Afghanistan, which is essentially in medieval society. I mean,

816
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: none of these guys have got clean hands, and you

817
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,719
Speaker 1: know that's just kind of the way the way it is. Yeah,

818
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 1: and you know, when you're talking about the Afghan culture,

819
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: and there's another part of the book that was you know,

820
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: it almost turned into a bad thing, but you know

821
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:03,680
Speaker 1: they I think it was David Tyson again, he was

822
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,920
Speaker 1: getting another duffel bag full of money and he has

823
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: for some vodka. And if you explain that that a

824
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: little bit to our listeners, I thought this was another

825
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: part of the book that you know, it shows how

826
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 1: different there culture and society is. Two hours yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

827
00:44:24,239 --> 00:44:27,320
Speaker 1: Well also I won't tell them the story, but the

828
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: Dawson gets drunk on vodka at one point in the

829
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 1: book at a crucial moment, but I'll leave that for

830
00:44:32,640 --> 00:44:37,239
Speaker 1: just that was interesting as well, but the whole kind

831
00:44:37,280 --> 00:44:42,680
Speaker 1: of thing, yeah, itex right. So, and this is in

832
00:44:42,719 --> 00:44:47,280
Speaker 1: the mountains before Masury. She reefs captured and David because

833
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: he speaks fluid respect so he has kind of the

834
00:44:49,520 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: closest relationship with Dawson's guys. So one of his commanders

835
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: comes to him. It says, you know, his hands shaking,

836
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 1: he needs medicine, and it's a bit of sort of

837
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,640
Speaker 1: back and forth, and this guy says he wants Devil's water,

838
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:05,800
Speaker 1: which is vodka. So so the aspects are often not

839
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 1: particularly religious that you know, drink and do other stuff

840
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: that Muslims shouldn't and certainly the fighters mostly and in fact,

841
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 1: there was one guy who was praying all the time

842
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: and they used to mock him and tease him as

843
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: as being in the Taliban because he was praying. So

844
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,879
Speaker 1: they're not, you know, not particularly religious, and but at

845
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:25,800
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, you don't want to be

846
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: seen to be, you know, asking the infidels for you know, liquor.

847
00:45:31,480 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: And so anyway, David gets some some vodka center and

848
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: he asked the station chief in Tashkent to put it

849
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 1: in the next air drop, and at the same time,

850
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: there's another three million dollars needed because the original freeze

851
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: sort of run out. And then Alexander's is there and

852
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, you know, case and vodka and you know,

853
00:45:51,080 --> 00:45:53,760
Speaker 1: three million dollars, that sounds like a pretty good party.

854
00:45:54,239 --> 00:45:56,200
Speaker 1: You know, why don't we throw some condoms in there?

855
00:45:56,760 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: And you know, he was just joking around. I think

856
00:45:58,760 --> 00:46:00,640
Speaker 1: David knew it was a joke, but you know, he's

857
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: on their own. He's scare, okay, Charlie's the chief station.

858
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,920
Speaker 1: You know, we want some condoms as well. And so

859
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 1: so the next air drop it's you know this vodka.

860
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,960
Speaker 1: You know, respect vodka, respect condoms and the three million

861
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,800
Speaker 1: dollars and so these things arriving and so and the

862
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: respect to like, you know, what are these And so

863
00:46:23,200 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 1: there's a lot of banter between David in particular and

864
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 1: respects about you know, different you know, cultural differences and

865
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,120
Speaker 1: you know, why don't we stand up when we pissed

866
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,359
Speaker 1: and they squapped down and you know, and there's part

867
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 1: of his sort of rapport building and also he's just like,

868
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 1: in a sort of anthropological way, that just fascinated by people.

869
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 1: And so they're like one of these one of these things,

870
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,600
Speaker 1: these rubber things, and and he says, what they're for,

871
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,920
Speaker 1: you know, put them on your penis too, so you

872
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:57,320
Speaker 1: don't have more more children than than you need. And

873
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: and these guys are like, what it just couldn't I'm

874
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: gonna say, I was gonna say they couldn't conceive, but

875
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 1: that would not be the right word. They couldn't believe.

876
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: But anybody, why would anybody want to do such a thing.

877
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: So again, it's like huge sort of cultural gulf between

878
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:16,839
Speaker 1: you know, Afghans and Americans, and they're just the sort

879
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 1: of like uproar and basically there's a war that needs

880
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: to be fighted for. But these Afghans are like, you know,

881
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:26,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of making them a bit crazy, like one

882
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: of these things for and they're like trying them on

883
00:47:28,719 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: to make it sense in their boo blowing up balloons

884
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:33,680
Speaker 1: and they're flicking them each other and they're all like

885
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: joke about it. And so in the end, David's this

886
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:38,880
Speaker 1: is what you know, I need to you know, I

887
00:47:38,960 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: need to calm this thing down because we need to

888
00:47:41,320 --> 00:47:44,240
Speaker 1: you know, we need to get on horseback and go fighting.

889
00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: So so he sort of calls a meeting and says, listen,

890
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,319
Speaker 1: I was just I'm sorry, but it was just a joke.

891
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:52,879
Speaker 1: You don't put these things on your dicks. You put

892
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: them on the on your rifle barrels to keep out

893
00:47:55,880 --> 00:47:59,319
Speaker 1: water and dust, so they don't they don't contaminate the weapon.

894
00:47:59,320 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I was just you know, junking around. That

895
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: didn't quite explain the pictures that the sexy it was

896
00:48:04,800 --> 00:48:07,960
Speaker 1: back ladies on the on the packets. But anyway, they

897
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 1: bought it in the end, and so that was the

898
00:48:10,560 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: condom story. Yeah, but you know, the story takes a

899
00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: serious turn because everything's going along swimmingly, you know, and

900
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: the fly in the ointment in in the book and

901
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: the way it played out on the ground was Donald

902
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:32,960
Speaker 1: Rumsfeld because first he wanted, you know, he was he

903
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:35,120
Speaker 1: was waving a paper in front of the president. I

904
00:48:35,200 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: remember reading it in the board that they weren't doing anything.

905
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: And and then I think it was Cobra Black that

906
00:48:41,560 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: said we'll have Mazzaro Sharif and you know, forty eight hours.

907
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: And then of course he was very upset because you know,

908
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: handful of c I paramilitary guys and green berets with

909
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: you know, one or two officers and a handful of

910
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: and listening guys are taking over the country. So then

911
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 1: he wants to get you know, high level officers in there.

912
00:49:06,320 --> 00:49:09,919
Speaker 1: And that's when basically read at Mazara shref Is where

913
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: Doston gets pushed into the background. And to me that

914
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:17,400
Speaker 1: was like that was the beginning of when everything started

915
00:49:17,440 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 1: to go sour in the country there. Yeah, I think

916
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: that's I'm really glad you picked up on that. I

917
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: think that's exactly right. Yes, so, yes, so mas Masoi

918
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:29,920
Speaker 1: shrief Is is captured, and yeah, Rumsfeld has been you know,

919
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: pushing this d I a paper that's saying it's you know,

920
00:49:33,239 --> 00:49:36,520
Speaker 1: we're gonna be bogged down until the spring. But as

921
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:39,400
Speaker 1: as soon as Masoi Sharif has fallen, the kind of

922
00:49:39,440 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 1: atmosphere changes, so conventional army starts coming in. There's a

923
00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,439
Speaker 1: two star seal, so you've had it. Basically, the link

924
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: man with Dostin was the O d A, Captain Captain

925
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:53,320
Speaker 1: Martin Nouch. He was sort of displaced by Lieutenant Colonel

926
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:55,839
Speaker 1: Max Bows who's the battalion commander that so they sent

927
00:49:56,120 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 1: an od C in and then you know, within within

928
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 1: a week, you know, Admiral Burke Allen's two Star Seal

929
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:05,719
Speaker 1: is taking over from Bowers. You can see the sort

930
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,680
Speaker 1: of escalation and then also the sort of the comrades

931
00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: ship you had between the O d A and Team Alpha.

932
00:50:11,800 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 1: That kind of starts to change because the O d

933
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:19,719
Speaker 1: A is actually they're initially made to do the you know,

934
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:23,640
Speaker 1: personal protection for for the for the Seal admirals. They're

935
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: not very happy about that. They're the whole soldiers and

936
00:50:26,000 --> 00:50:28,880
Speaker 1: all of a sudden they're just you know, personal security detail.

937
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:33,000
Speaker 1: And then the Green Beret mission and the CIA mission

938
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:36,600
Speaker 1: sort of starts to diverge. So the directive and scent

939
00:50:36,719 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 1: calm and task for Stagger is that it's no longer

940
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:44,120
Speaker 1: sort of Dostum, but it's Dostum Ata and Moakek, who's

941
00:50:44,120 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: the Hazara. They should be sort of treated as as equals.

942
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 1: C I still doesn't see it that way since c

943
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:54,320
Speaker 1: I A s you know, collecting intelligence. But there's this

944
00:50:54,400 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 1: sort of sense, certainly from parts of the military that

945
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:00,720
Speaker 1: the war's over and we can start bringing in part elements.

946
00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 1: And so novemby Admiral Callen is actually visiting a hospital,

947
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:08,560
Speaker 1: you know, in Massouri shrief and he's got four sps

948
00:51:09,000 --> 00:51:12,359
Speaker 1: who are protecting him. Because Odier five managed to get

949
00:51:12,400 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: off that detail. They've gone to Kundus, where the main

950
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:19,880
Speaker 1: fight is expected. But you know, this kind of bond

951
00:51:20,000 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 1: and this rapport between five nine five and Team Alpha

952
00:51:23,560 --> 00:51:27,160
Speaker 1: has has just been sort of diluted, and five N

953
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,839
Speaker 1: five are not with them anymore. And I think that's

954
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,680
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why on the morning of November one,

955
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:35,840
Speaker 1: David Tyson and Mike Span end up going to the

956
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: fort on their own, and infact has been a directive

957
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:41,080
Speaker 1: from Task Force Dagger that Green Bay should not go

958
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: into the fort that day because there was a suicide

959
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: grenade attack that killed two of Dostin's commanders the night before,

960
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:50,359
Speaker 1: and so there's a sort of a different perception of risk,

961
00:51:50,520 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 1: not on the ground, but you know further up the hierarchy,

962
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 1: where the military is like, you know, that's not safe,

963
00:51:57,440 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 1: and the CIA is like, we're going to take the

964
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 1: risk because we need to go to to al Quaeda,

965
00:52:01,560 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: and you're right, that's one of the things. You know,

966
00:52:04,560 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 1: that kind of shift was you know, a big contributing

967
00:52:07,760 --> 00:52:10,480
Speaker 1: factor in you know, Mike Span being killed and the

968
00:52:10,560 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: uprising taking place. Yeah, could, because you know you could again,

969
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:18,560
Speaker 1: I mean I wasn't there, but reading the book and

970
00:52:18,719 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: you talked to all these people, you could sense everything

971
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: which you had been so tight and so, you know,

972
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:29,960
Speaker 1: working so well, all of a sudden, now everything's pushing

973
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 1: apart and everyone wants their own piece of the pie.

974
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:37,920
Speaker 1: And you know the State Department didn't, you know, to them,

975
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:43,480
Speaker 1: Austrian was unpalatable, so they bring it atta who you know,

976
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: just judging from the way you wrote the book, I

977
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:49,160
Speaker 1: don't have a very high opinion of this guy. But

978
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:52,279
Speaker 1: you know, I just thought that you could sense that

979
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:56,160
Speaker 1: at that at that point you could see where everything

980
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,520
Speaker 1: was going, and it wasn't going in a good direction.

981
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: And you know, I I was wondering in my own

982
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: mind reading the book, if they hadn't sent the RDA off,

983
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:11,040
Speaker 1: would those guys have either accompanied Mike span or would

984
00:53:11,080 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 1: they have said, hey, you know they have talked to

985
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: him and said, it's probably not a good idea. We

986
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 1: can maybe get some of dash guys to bring these

987
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 1: guys out for you to talk to them. That's a

988
00:53:21,320 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 1: great question. And I have definitely thought about that, and

989
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:28,399
Speaker 1: initially I know that that's the view of guys, most

990
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: of the guys in the O d A five nine five,

991
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: and certainly Captain Martinus. And initially I was a little

992
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:38,279
Speaker 1: bit skeptical about that, but I now think, having you know,

993
00:53:38,400 --> 00:53:41,320
Speaker 1: thought about this a lot and talked to just about

994
00:53:41,360 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: it everybody, I don't think it was anybody's fault. No,

995
00:53:46,239 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 1: but I think that dinect and yeah, I'm certainly not

996
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,440
Speaker 1: going to sit here in Northern Virginia twenty yearslation and say, oh,

997
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 1: if only they've done this all or they didn't follow

998
00:53:53,400 --> 00:53:55,560
Speaker 1: procedures or no, I mean that they needed to go

999
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,360
Speaker 1: in there and question al Qaeda. They've been relying on

1000
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:02,399
Speaker 1: Afghan ally is all the way through. They've been taking

1001
00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:08,840
Speaker 1: risk every day and that's find out. Yeah, and he

1002
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: was the personification and he he was the personification of

1003
00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:14,960
Speaker 1: like send me, I'm going, you know, I want to

1004
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,000
Speaker 1: get to our kind of want to stop the next attack,

1005
00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:19,839
Speaker 1: and so so they were always gonna they always were

1006
00:54:19,840 --> 00:54:22,359
Speaker 1: always going to go in there. But I do think

1007
00:54:22,480 --> 00:54:26,319
Speaker 1: that if five nine five, these those twelve guys from

1008
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:30,480
Speaker 1: that O d A have been in Masuri Sharif, I

1009
00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,279
Speaker 1: think they would have said, we're going to send a

1010
00:54:32,280 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: couple of guys with you. Now, David and Mike. Now,

1011
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: first of all, there should have been three that day,

1012
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,200
Speaker 1: but Justin was pulled off. He had to go deliver

1013
00:54:39,280 --> 00:54:42,520
Speaker 1: a vehicle. So again it's just when bad things happen,

1014
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,040
Speaker 1: it's just this combination of fact. As if they've been

1015
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 1: three of them that went in Justin was you know,

1016
00:54:47,760 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: green Beret, it would have been a different day. But

1017
00:54:51,000 --> 00:54:52,919
Speaker 1: you know, there could could have been other days where

1018
00:54:53,360 --> 00:54:55,320
Speaker 1: one thing had changed that would have been you know,

1019
00:54:55,760 --> 00:54:58,320
Speaker 1: a terrible day as well. But you know that's just

1020
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 1: the nature of life and the imperfect circumstances. So David

1021
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: and Mike were content with being protected by the Afghanist.

1022
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:07,800
Speaker 1: They didn't know that Dawsum had left not even his

1023
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:09,920
Speaker 1: B team but really kind of a C team behind.

1024
00:55:10,520 --> 00:55:13,439
Speaker 1: They didn't know that the Afgha, well they had a sense,

1025
00:55:13,480 --> 00:55:16,800
Speaker 1: but they didn't know the extent to which the al Qaeda,

1026
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 1: the four hundred al Qaeda prisoners, and they were archaid

1027
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:21,759
Speaker 1: and not Taliban. There were no Afghans amongst them, the

1028
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 1: extent to which they hadn't been searched. And so if

1029
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: you know, if they had had all that knowledge, then

1030
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,200
Speaker 1: they probably would have made a different decision, but they

1031
00:55:28,239 --> 00:55:30,520
Speaker 1: added on the best information they had. But they were

1032
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:33,440
Speaker 1: okay with going in without Greenberry. They weren't saying we

1033
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:36,800
Speaker 1: need security, and that wasn't the way the agency and

1034
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:39,719
Speaker 1: the Green Berrets operated. I mean, the green Berrets were

1035
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: not there as security for the CIA. But I do

1036
00:55:43,680 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 1: think that if five five have been there, you know,

1037
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:50,959
Speaker 1: Mark Neutral, you know, Bob Pennington, the warrant on the team,

1038
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 1: or one of them would have said, yeah, yeah, well

1039
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 1: I know you you say you don't want anybody, we'll

1040
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:58,200
Speaker 1: give us send a couple of guys there would been okay, Yeah,

1041
00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:00,600
Speaker 1: it just would have been that different times. So that's

1042
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:04,680
Speaker 1: a really perceptive question because I think it gets to

1043
00:56:04,760 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: the sort of heart of sort of what happened, and

1044
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:13,160
Speaker 1: you know why sometimes bad things happen, you know, and

1045
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:15,239
Speaker 1: then and it's only after us when we look back

1046
00:56:15,239 --> 00:56:18,720
Speaker 1: and we can yeah, they planned on having out an uprising,

1047
00:56:18,840 --> 00:56:22,480
Speaker 1: they weren't. They're just surrender. That was the you know,

1048
00:56:22,840 --> 00:56:26,359
Speaker 1: what came out in the end. But another interesting part

1049
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 1: was the fact that you know, some of the people

1050
00:56:29,120 --> 00:56:33,160
Speaker 1: even in the agency, started to question David Tyson later

1051
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:37,000
Speaker 1: on and Billy Waugh who's a legend in both CIA

1052
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:42,320
Speaker 1: and Green Bay's. He was like, Nope, they didn't do

1053
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:45,959
Speaker 1: anything wrong. And I think that would be if Billy

1054
00:56:46,040 --> 00:56:49,360
Speaker 1: Wah says it's okay, then it's okay, right, So exactly

1055
00:56:49,400 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 1: so Billy war So he went in on at age

1056
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 1: seventy two on Team Romeo. So he I think he

1057
00:56:55,719 --> 00:56:58,880
Speaker 1: celebrated his ninety second birthday a few days ago. So,

1058
00:56:59,719 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: but he was in tash Kent on November twenty five

1059
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 1: when the uprising was happened, was happening, and I mean

1060
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 1: he called it, he sort of he said, you know,

1061
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,840
Speaker 1: David Tyson, you know who was subsequently awarded the Distinguished

1062
00:57:11,880 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 1: Intelligence Cross, So you know, the c I a sort

1063
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 1: of quilment of the Medal of Honor, the highest award,

1064
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:19,200
Speaker 1: and I think only maybe about three dozen of those

1065
00:57:19,240 --> 00:57:22,560
Speaker 1: have been awarded in the agency's history. He said, you know,

1066
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 1: a guy did everything anyone could have done. And I mean,

1067
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:30,240
Speaker 1: I mean he was when Mike Span you know, killed

1068
00:57:30,280 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: a few of the of the prisoners and was sort

1069
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:35,640
Speaker 1: of overwhelmed and was able to shout Dave, Dave, Dave,

1070
00:57:35,840 --> 00:57:38,400
Speaker 1: and David Tyson ran towards him and killed the guys

1071
00:57:38,440 --> 00:57:40,320
Speaker 1: on top of him, and so you know, he could

1072
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 1: have run in the opposite direction or he could have frozen.

1073
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:46,200
Speaker 1: So I mean, he was extremely heroic. But Billy War

1074
00:57:46,320 --> 00:57:48,479
Speaker 1: also said you need to look after this guy because

1075
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: people are gonna question it. And certainly, I mean, you know,

1076
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 1: justin SAP you know, told me about you know, sitting

1077
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 1: in this CIA cafeteria, you know, before Mike's even buried.

1078
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:01,880
Speaker 1: You know, people they're like, what what what those two

1079
00:58:01,920 --> 00:58:05,040
Speaker 1: guys thinking just you know, walking into that that situation.

1080
00:58:05,800 --> 00:58:09,600
Speaker 1: And you know, actually, Brian, it didn't I didn't put

1081
00:58:09,600 --> 00:58:11,480
Speaker 1: it in the book. But Brian, who was a marine

1082
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:14,960
Speaker 1: who's still serving very senior and c A now was

1083
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:18,600
Speaker 1: a marine with Mike Span was on Mike Spans course

1084
00:58:18,640 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: at the farm along with Shannon, who subsequently married Mike.

1085
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: He said that, you know, in the Iraqan, you know,

1086
00:58:25,960 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, there's some marine officer you know,

1087
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:32,280
Speaker 1: trying to sort of man explaining, you know, why they've

1088
00:58:32,320 --> 00:58:34,960
Speaker 1: made all these mistakes in in Kala Janki in two

1089
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,280
Speaker 1: thousand and one, and Brian's like, and in a minute,

1090
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,000
Speaker 1: you know, I know what happened there. And so that's

1091
00:58:40,040 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 1: just you know the nature of things. Isn't it that

1092
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: you'll get people who weren't who weren't there, and you

1093
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:47,200
Speaker 1: know sometimes other people like journalists and you know, commentators

1094
00:58:48,040 --> 00:58:50,200
Speaker 1: years afterwards, I really really try not to do this.

1095
00:58:50,680 --> 00:58:54,520
Speaker 1: Who just you know, without knowing any of the context,

1096
00:58:54,720 --> 00:58:58,160
Speaker 1: you know, with hindsight, will start saying, oh, yeah, well

1097
00:58:58,400 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 1: this is the way it should this is the way

1098
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 1: it to be. And so David's yeah, he's had to

1099
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:04,440
Speaker 1: face a little bit about over the years. It's not

1100
00:59:04,640 --> 00:59:07,040
Speaker 1: usually to his face, and he's a very sort of

1101
00:59:07,600 --> 00:59:10,640
Speaker 1: disarming person like, so he will sort of engage and

1102
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,920
Speaker 1: he'll just he doesn't portray himself. I mean, I think

1103
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:16,480
Speaker 1: he is. He doesn't portray himself as a hero. And

1104
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:19,560
Speaker 1: he you know, he talks about the fear he experienced

1105
00:59:19,680 --> 00:59:21,920
Speaker 1: and how you know, a couple of days later, he

1106
00:59:22,040 --> 00:59:25,560
Speaker 1: was his hand was shaking so much that his rifle

1107
00:59:25,680 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 1: was knocking against a tank and he was wondering what

1108
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: that knocking sound was. But you know, that's I guess

1109
00:59:32,200 --> 00:59:34,520
Speaker 1: that comes with the territory and you know, but you know,

1110
00:59:34,600 --> 00:59:36,800
Speaker 1: but it makes things tough when you put that alongside

1111
00:59:37,360 --> 00:59:42,640
Speaker 1: survivor's guilt and and you know, losing a friend and comrade.

1112
00:59:42,720 --> 00:59:45,160
Speaker 1: It is just sort of you know, it gets part

1113
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: of what you have to deal with. Yeah, it was

1114
00:59:47,240 --> 00:59:51,280
Speaker 1: interesting because, you know, like everyone else at the time,

1115
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,280
Speaker 1: I heard about Mike spending at the time it happened,

1116
00:59:54,600 --> 00:59:57,760
Speaker 1: and then later on I did see that video of

1117
00:59:57,920 --> 01:00:01,920
Speaker 1: David Tyson in the in the camp on and you know,

1118
01:00:02,000 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 1: at the time, I thought this was a really small compound.

1119
01:00:06,800 --> 01:00:09,360
Speaker 1: But you know, after reading your book, I looked at

1120
01:00:09,520 --> 01:00:12,280
Speaker 1: because coach google maps, you can find pictures of everything.

1121
01:00:12,640 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: That was really a large place. Because at the time,

1122
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: you know, as I'm reading the book, I was like

1123
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:21,400
Speaker 1: I had in my mind it was really tiny, and

1124
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:24,120
Speaker 1: I was like, they dropped a two thousand pound jay.

1125
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:26,880
Speaker 1: Damn if it was that it's as small as I

1126
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 1: had it in my head, it wouldn't have been anybody

1127
01:00:29,200 --> 01:00:32,360
Speaker 1: alive inside there. That it was actually a lot larger.

1128
01:00:32,520 --> 01:00:35,919
Speaker 1: And they the guys who went in, and you talked

1129
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 1: about that in the book. That was so well written

1130
01:00:40,320 --> 01:00:44,480
Speaker 1: in the the detail and it was fantastic because you

1131
01:00:44,960 --> 01:00:48,000
Speaker 1: had the feeling you're transported right there with the guys

1132
01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 1: like Mark Mitchell and the SPS guys that went in

1133
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:56,160
Speaker 1: to try to retrieve Mike's body. Yeah, yeah, thank you.

1134
01:00:56,280 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, so it's you know, I was there

1135
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:00,720
Speaker 1: a year ago. It's amazing to be able to get there,

1136
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:03,520
Speaker 1: and it just helped me just I mean, I always

1137
01:01:03,560 --> 01:01:07,320
Speaker 1: believe in, you know, going to the place and putting

1138
01:01:07,360 --> 01:01:10,120
Speaker 1: the sort of boots on the ground, because it's very

1139
01:01:10,200 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 1: hard to understand an incident without sort of being there

1140
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:17,000
Speaker 1: and seeing, you know, how high the walls were and

1141
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,320
Speaker 1: as you say that, the distances and you know what

1142
01:01:19,480 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 1: you could see from which angle. But yeah, it's a

1143
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:25,760
Speaker 1: big places ninet century four, you know, built out of mud,

1144
01:01:25,880 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 1: you know, sort of feet sort of twelve feet thick

1145
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:32,480
Speaker 1: walls and these towers, you know, so basically you know,

1146
01:01:32,560 --> 01:01:35,560
Speaker 1: you have towers north southeast and west and then on

1147
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: like three of the you know, like northwest, northeast as well,

1148
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:44,680
Speaker 1: and so and of course the you know, it's it's

1149
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:47,400
Speaker 1: like a like a medieval for you know, you're you're

1150
01:01:47,440 --> 01:01:49,720
Speaker 1: exposed on the paraples between the towers. So when they

1151
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:52,440
Speaker 1: got there, the fifteen man rest of the team split

1152
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:54,840
Speaker 1: up and five of them had to sort of go

1153
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:58,440
Speaker 1: around counterclockwise from the from the east side to the

1154
01:01:58,520 --> 01:02:01,680
Speaker 1: northwest tower. And there were mind or minds there so

1155
01:02:01,760 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: they had to basically cross the mind field um, and

1156
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:07,960
Speaker 1: there was kind of ordinance because sort of shipping containers

1157
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:10,080
Speaker 1: full of weapons that were kept in Kala Jangi, Wish

1158
01:02:10,680 --> 01:02:13,360
Speaker 1: al Qaeda obviously got their hands on immediately. So there's

1159
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:16,560
Speaker 1: like RPGs and mortars and all sorts of stuff, like

1160
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:20,040
Speaker 1: sailing over the walls, you know, landing sort of pretty

1161
01:02:20,160 --> 01:02:23,120
Speaker 1: pretty close to them. And then to get into the fort,

1162
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:29,880
Speaker 1: one of the aspects m took his turban off and

1163
01:02:30,360 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: just sort of tossed it over the side, so that

1164
01:02:33,800 --> 01:02:37,479
Speaker 1: like rapunzel. So they so they used the turban to climb,

1165
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:41,080
Speaker 1: and they had all these weapons and heavy backpacks and stuff.

1166
01:02:41,080 --> 01:02:46,000
Speaker 1: So they're like swinging around and injured his finger doing

1167
01:02:46,080 --> 01:02:49,400
Speaker 1: that and that's sort of having to climb up this turban.

1168
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it was it was, you know,

1169
01:02:53,920 --> 01:02:57,880
Speaker 1: incredible too. It's just you know, I'm a great believer

1170
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:00,280
Speaker 1: in that the best stories in life at trough and

1171
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 1: I kept them here in these of these details of

1172
01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 1: what they've been through that you know, you couldn't what

1173
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:11,640
Speaker 1: you make up. You know, that action at uh Yange

1174
01:03:12,480 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 1: it was the beginning of what would later transpire the

1175
01:03:16,600 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: Great Cooperation I mean you have c I A guys,

1176
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 1: Green Berets, SPS guys, Navy seal you know, probably at

1177
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,040
Speaker 1: that time frame, they weren't used to all working together.

1178
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:32,360
Speaker 1: This is like the first time. Now, of course what

1179
01:03:32,640 --> 01:03:36,800
Speaker 1: later transpired and Afghanistan, these guys would all work together

1180
01:03:37,320 --> 01:03:41,440
Speaker 1: much closer, but that was the first probably you know,

1181
01:03:41,520 --> 01:03:45,479
Speaker 1: an example of that happening, which I found interesting because

1182
01:03:45,720 --> 01:03:48,280
Speaker 1: you know, when I first heard about what happened there,

1183
01:03:48,320 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: I didn't realize there was SPS guys there, and they

1184
01:03:52,680 --> 01:03:55,840
Speaker 1: really put some thunder down with the machine guns on

1185
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:59,400
Speaker 1: the Taliban, not the Taliban, the al Qaeda guys in

1186
01:03:59,480 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 1: the company. Oh yes, So, I mean, the funny thing

1187
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 1: about the SPS is it's Tony Blair was trying to

1188
01:04:04,480 --> 01:04:06,320
Speaker 1: have his cake and eat it really because he wanted

1189
01:04:06,360 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: to you know, shoulders shoulder, and he wanted the troops in,

1190
01:04:09,240 --> 01:04:11,000
Speaker 1: but he was he didn't want them being involved in

1191
01:04:11,040 --> 01:04:13,160
Speaker 1: a blood bath in Kundus, which is what is sort

1192
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 1: of generals for telling him, and so he put it

1193
01:04:15,440 --> 01:04:18,160
Speaker 1: on this national caveat that they couldn't take part in

1194
01:04:18,360 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 1: offensive actions, so they had to basically wait to be

1195
01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: fired on. And so the SPS We're not particularly happy

1196
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:26,440
Speaker 1: about that because that meant they couldn't be involved in

1197
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 1: you know, what looked like it was gonna be the

1198
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:31,720
Speaker 1: big fight in Kundus. And they were even made to

1199
01:04:32,280 --> 01:04:35,160
Speaker 1: paint their landrovers white so they looked like sort of

1200
01:04:35,440 --> 01:04:40,600
Speaker 1: humanitarian sort of vehicles. But they did have gpmgs, and

1201
01:04:40,800 --> 01:04:44,840
Speaker 1: so you know, once the uprising happened, you know, the sps,

1202
01:04:45,560 --> 01:04:47,040
Speaker 1: fuck that, mate, you know, we're going to the fort.

1203
01:04:47,080 --> 01:04:49,960
Speaker 1: And they ran towards the sound of gunfight with their

1204
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:53,640
Speaker 1: gpmgs hauled him up this So I went up the

1205
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:56,200
Speaker 1: stairs as this little tower on this sort of this

1206
01:04:56,400 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 1: little gateway and little court yard and then eastern tower,

1207
01:05:01,120 --> 01:05:04,200
Speaker 1: all these like winding steps and so they just like

1208
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:06,560
Speaker 1: hauled up their gpm You took him off the land,

1209
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:09,960
Speaker 1: always hauled him up the stairs and set them up

1210
01:05:10,000 --> 01:05:13,000
Speaker 1: on the eastern tower, which looks down over the southern compound.

1211
01:05:13,080 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: And this the Pink House, which is the main building

1212
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:17,320
Speaker 1: where the prisoners have been kept in the in the

1213
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:21,480
Speaker 1: cellar and brought out that morning, and it was seller

1214
01:05:21,600 --> 01:05:23,880
Speaker 1: was thought it was like a fortified bunker because it's

1215
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:26,520
Speaker 1: been armaments kept in there, which was problem because you

1216
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:29,200
Speaker 1: couldn't destroy it, and they you know, they took refuge

1217
01:05:29,240 --> 01:05:30,880
Speaker 1: in there and used that as a sort of base.

1218
01:05:31,440 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 1: But the SBS got in there and killed I don't know,

1219
01:05:34,400 --> 01:05:37,600
Speaker 1: scores and scores of them with their gpmg's and there's

1220
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:39,480
Speaker 1: a little bit of footage that you can find on

1221
01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:43,240
Speaker 1: YouTube that some Afghan took of them sort of you know,

1222
01:05:43,920 --> 01:05:48,880
Speaker 1: just blasting away with their GPMG. Yeah, I saw that.

1223
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:54,680
Speaker 1: I looked that up, and they were bringing some thunder

1224
01:05:54,800 --> 01:05:58,040
Speaker 1: down on those old kind of guys. And yeah, I

1225
01:05:58,120 --> 01:06:00,520
Speaker 1: have a good friend of mine who was SyES guy.

1226
01:06:00,760 --> 01:06:06,000
Speaker 1: We worked private security together, so those guys have always

1227
01:06:06,040 --> 01:06:09,000
Speaker 1: said my respect. And it was funny because you mentioned

1228
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:13,040
Speaker 1: at the time they were considered like the weak sister

1229
01:06:13,320 --> 01:06:17,320
Speaker 1: to the s A S. I don't think anyone thinks

1230
01:06:17,400 --> 01:06:21,120
Speaker 1: about them as that anymore. No, absolutely, no, I mean

1231
01:06:21,160 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 1: there was, yeah, the the s a S in Hereford

1232
01:06:23,480 --> 01:06:26,720
Speaker 1: and the SPS which seen as like, you know, redheaded

1233
01:06:27,440 --> 01:06:31,000
Speaker 1: step children or whatever the phrases. But this this sort

1234
01:06:31,040 --> 01:06:32,920
Speaker 1: of put them on the map. And so they know

1235
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:36,400
Speaker 1: it's ironic because if it hadn't been for this national

1236
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:40,320
Speaker 1: caveat and the restricted r O S, they would have

1237
01:06:40,360 --> 01:06:42,840
Speaker 1: been incundas and say they wouldn't have been there, and

1238
01:06:43,000 --> 01:06:46,080
Speaker 1: so god knows what would have happened in terms of

1239
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:48,600
Speaker 1: the uprising. I mean, David Tyson might have been killed,

1240
01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:50,360
Speaker 1: you know, the whole you know, they could have taken

1241
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:53,040
Speaker 1: over Massouri Shrief, which was the plan, which is like

1242
01:06:53,160 --> 01:06:56,000
Speaker 1: the Trojan Horse plan. But now they were in the

1243
01:06:56,120 --> 01:06:59,000
Speaker 1: right place the right time, and they just you know,

1244
01:07:00,040 --> 01:07:02,440
Speaker 1: they just they just stepped up and you're right. I mean,

1245
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:07,840
Speaker 1: it's an incredible moment really of you know, for the

1246
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:10,960
Speaker 1: first time just a cooperation with fween all these elements now,

1247
01:07:11,040 --> 01:07:13,160
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was it was kind of

1248
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:16,320
Speaker 1: messy at times. I mean, you know that dropping a

1249
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,880
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds jade um, you know, was a pretty

1250
01:07:19,920 --> 01:07:23,920
Speaker 1: big mistake, which was a pilot air actually who pilots

1251
01:07:23,920 --> 01:07:26,240
Speaker 1: switched around the coordinates, but then of course procedures for

1252
01:07:26,360 --> 01:07:29,479
Speaker 1: streamlines so that you didn't pass up friendly coordinates because

1253
01:07:30,240 --> 01:07:33,120
Speaker 1: similar thing happened on December the fifth in tarren Coke

1254
01:07:33,160 --> 01:07:36,240
Speaker 1: where three three Green Berets were killed. So there were

1255
01:07:36,280 --> 01:07:39,080
Speaker 1: certainly cakes to be worked out, but it did just

1256
01:07:39,240 --> 01:07:42,240
Speaker 1: show that, you know, really at the end of the day,

1257
01:07:42,600 --> 01:07:45,600
Speaker 1: certainly with the Brits and the Americans and also the

1258
01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:49,760
Speaker 1: different elements of you know, you know, Green Berets, Seal,

1259
01:07:50,560 --> 01:07:54,160
Speaker 1: US Air Force, U S Marines in the in the air.

1260
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:58,000
Speaker 1: You know, it's all of all of you know, all

1261
01:07:58,080 --> 01:08:01,600
Speaker 1: of one company, really all one breed. End of the day. Yeah,

1262
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:05,160
Speaker 1: so I have to ask you. You're a now naturalized

1263
01:08:05,160 --> 01:08:09,360
Speaker 1: American citizen. Is your wife American? So I've divorced my

1264
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:16,280
Speaker 1: ex wife is American and my girlfriend is American. But

1265
01:08:16,400 --> 01:08:18,759
Speaker 1: I got a great So. I know you had two daughters.

1266
01:08:19,640 --> 01:08:22,200
Speaker 1: I have a son and a daughter. Oh, you have

1267
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:24,360
Speaker 1: a son and a daughter. Did they speak with an

1268
01:08:24,520 --> 01:08:28,280
Speaker 1: English action, No, they don't. They say words like trousers

1269
01:08:28,360 --> 01:08:31,559
Speaker 1: and stuff sometimes, but they're basically American, and in fact

1270
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:34,679
Speaker 1: I need so. I've been American since two thousand nine,

1271
01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:37,080
Speaker 1: and I think, you know, nine eleven was one of

1272
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:39,400
Speaker 1: the reasons why I became American. I mean just I

1273
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 1: think being here on that day had a big effect

1274
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:45,400
Speaker 1: on me, like it did did many people. But they're

1275
01:08:45,479 --> 01:08:49,360
Speaker 1: eligible for kids are eligible for ukses and ship but

1276
01:08:49,439 --> 01:08:50,880
Speaker 1: I haven't done it. Yeah, I must do it, because

1277
01:08:50,920 --> 01:08:53,040
Speaker 1: you can't have too many passports in life. It's good

1278
01:08:53,080 --> 01:08:56,360
Speaker 1: to you know. The reason I asked that is um.

1279
01:08:57,120 --> 01:09:00,519
Speaker 1: After my military days were over, I worked private security.

1280
01:09:00,520 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: I worked on a couple of Hollywood films as the

1281
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:09,000
Speaker 1: security advisor for the overall you know, production, and and

1282
01:09:09,200 --> 01:09:11,879
Speaker 1: on one of them there was only like three Americans

1283
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,240
Speaker 1: on the crew of me being one of them, and

1284
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:17,040
Speaker 1: all the bridge picked up on my Boston accent because

1285
01:09:17,080 --> 01:09:18,840
Speaker 1: they were like, I, we could tell where you're from,

1286
01:09:19,160 --> 01:09:23,799
Speaker 1: and they could imitate my Boston accent very very easily.

1287
01:09:23,920 --> 01:09:26,800
Speaker 1: They could fall right into it. And then I would

1288
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:30,000
Speaker 1: try my best to do an English accent and they

1289
01:09:30,040 --> 01:09:33,800
Speaker 1: were like, not everyone's Cockney. So like all you Americans,

1290
01:09:33,800 --> 01:09:37,439
Speaker 1: all you do is Cockney accents, And I thought that

1291
01:09:37,560 --> 01:09:40,519
Speaker 1: was pretty funny. But well, I'm pretty useless to American accents.

1292
01:09:40,600 --> 01:09:42,920
Speaker 1: I can't do them. And obviously I've kept pretty much

1293
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:46,640
Speaker 1: came by British accent well, but in Britain there's so

1294
01:09:46,760 --> 01:09:49,600
Speaker 1: many and in fact, on this SPS team, you know,

1295
01:09:50,439 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 1: it's a small island, but the regional variations in accent

1296
01:09:54,600 --> 01:09:57,160
Speaker 1: and dialect are sort of incredible. And uh, you know

1297
01:09:57,320 --> 01:10:00,719
Speaker 1: on that team that was you know George, of somebody

1298
01:10:00,760 --> 01:10:04,040
Speaker 1: from the West Country, of somebody from from Yorkshire, and

1299
01:10:04,240 --> 01:10:07,439
Speaker 1: so actually some of the some of the green Berets

1300
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:09,839
Speaker 1: were kind of like, you know, what's that guy speaking?

1301
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:13,519
Speaker 1: But yeah, I can understand all the British accents, but

1302
01:10:13,600 --> 01:10:17,120
Speaker 1: the American ones. You know, I can tell when somebody's

1303
01:10:17,120 --> 01:10:22,640
Speaker 1: from Mistisoast. But one of my British friends, uh ex military,

1304
01:10:23,040 --> 01:10:26,200
Speaker 1: I visited him in England. We traveled all over and

1305
01:10:26,400 --> 01:10:29,719
Speaker 1: it was funny because, like you say, it's you don't

1306
01:10:29,760 --> 01:10:33,240
Speaker 1: traveling that far, but the accents would change. And then

1307
01:10:33,600 --> 01:10:37,320
Speaker 1: we went up almost in Scotland. When we first got there,

1308
01:10:37,360 --> 01:10:40,360
Speaker 1: I was like I said to my friend, hey, guy,

1309
01:10:41,960 --> 01:10:45,320
Speaker 1: these guys speaking English because I can't understand anything they say.

1310
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:49,680
Speaker 1: That accent was really strong. But yeah, I mean I

1311
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:54,479
Speaker 1: was stationed in ross I in Fife, and some of

1312
01:10:54,560 --> 01:10:56,559
Speaker 1: the locals there, I mean it was like you needed

1313
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:59,600
Speaker 1: subtitles for for an Englishman. It was pretty. It was

1314
01:10:59,640 --> 01:11:05,560
Speaker 1: pretty to understand that. Yeah. Yeah, but I loved it

1315
01:11:05,640 --> 01:11:08,160
Speaker 1: over there. I guess I still have some good friends

1316
01:11:08,240 --> 01:11:12,120
Speaker 1: from there, so that's great. But again, Toby, thank you

1317
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:16,400
Speaker 1: for taking the time today. I know, uh, our listeners

1318
01:11:16,479 --> 01:11:19,559
Speaker 1: out there are readers from software dot com, they will

1319
01:11:19,960 --> 01:11:23,519
Speaker 1: really enjoy this book. It's a great book. I think

1320
01:11:23,600 --> 01:11:26,040
Speaker 1: it's a story that needed to be told. And uh,

1321
01:11:26,320 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 1: you know the detail that's in this about how a

1322
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 1: handful of c I A paramilitary guys green berets with

1323
01:11:34,520 --> 01:11:39,280
Speaker 1: some air power behind them basically took Afghanistan. And then,

1324
01:11:39,640 --> 01:11:42,719
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I spoke with the deputy director

1325
01:11:42,800 --> 01:11:46,519
Speaker 1: of the CIA that ran the Afghanistan operation against the

1326
01:11:47,040 --> 01:11:50,479
Speaker 1: Russians with the Mujahadeen. You know, he told me he

1327
01:11:50,600 --> 01:11:54,040
Speaker 1: was like, we ran it perfectly right up until the end.

1328
01:11:54,680 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: And then he said, and then we fucked it all up.

1329
01:11:59,760 --> 01:12:02,640
Speaker 1: That's what happened here. And but I encourage all our

1330
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:07,120
Speaker 1: readers out there and listeners, first casualty c I A

1331
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:12,519
Speaker 1: you know secret you know, our first paramilitary guys on

1332
01:12:12,560 --> 01:12:16,000
Speaker 1: the ground in Afghanistan. Please check it out. Toby, thank

1333
01:12:16,080 --> 01:12:18,840
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us. Thanks for taking the

1334
01:12:18,920 --> 01:12:22,439
Speaker 1: time today. We really appreciate it, and thank you for

1335
01:12:22,680 --> 01:12:25,639
Speaker 1: sharing your book with me. Thanks so much. People happy

1336
01:12:25,680 --> 01:12:27,519
Speaker 1: to be on the show, and yeah, thanks for having

1337
01:12:27,600 --> 01:12:45,560
Speaker 1: Me've been listening to self Recreation