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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.

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Speaker 1: And we continue now with part two of our conversation

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Speaker 1: with Scott Mann right after these brief messages from our

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Speaker 1: general sponsors. And so that's what the work you were doing.

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Speaker 1: And to do that work, you had to build trust,

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Speaker 1: You had to make promises back to what I was saying,

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Speaker 1: and then I don't want to make it a political show, okay,

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Speaker 1: but then decisions were made that made men like you

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Speaker 1: have to break their promise.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to kind of give you

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Speaker 2: an example of the kind of guys that we worked with.

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Speaker 2: One of my best buddies over there was a guy

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Speaker 2: named Nazam Sarrant, first class in Nazami and he was

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Speaker 2: born into car Province during night Soviet occupation. He doesn't

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Speaker 2: know what day, but his father was a Mujahdine. He

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Speaker 2: was killed by the Soviets. Nazamb group.

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Speaker 1: Or the guy freedom fighters who fought against the Soviet pace,

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Speaker 1: that's right who By the way, the CIA trained worked

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Speaker 1: with and equipped with American with American UH military stuff

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Speaker 1: to be able to fight Soviets in Afghans.

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Speaker 2: And most of them ended up becoming al Qaeda.

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Speaker 1: Which that's the craziest part. We trained them, we gave

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Speaker 1: them their arms, and then they became al Qaeda once

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Speaker 1: a large Russian, a large group of them did became

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Speaker 1: and it was because rather than advise them directly and

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Speaker 1: give them the funds directly and the stingers directly.

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Speaker 2: We gave them to the Pakistani IO side and the

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Speaker 2: Pakistani is I created basically what you saw after nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven and what led up to nine eleven, that

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Speaker 2: was a that was a Pakistani intelligence fostered thing. Whole different.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's a little inconvenient history pet that many

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Speaker 1: people don't understand. But we cheered him on, fed them

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Speaker 1: with intelligence, fed them with money, and fed them with

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Speaker 1: arms because the enemy of our enemy is our friend,

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Speaker 1: and they were Russia. They were kicking Russia's Afghanistan, so yay,

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Speaker 1: we love them. And then it turns around.

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Speaker 2: And this is why I'm always really skeptical about things

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Speaker 2: like Ukraine. It's not that I don't believe that Ukraine

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Speaker 2: is a righteous endeavor, but if you're not there on

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Speaker 2: the ground responsibly monitoring and advising the disposition of funds

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Speaker 2: and weapons, you don't know what's happening, and then the

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Speaker 2: second and third order effects of that downstream can affect

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Speaker 2: our children and grandchildren in ways that we don't even understand,

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Speaker 2: which is Afghanistan. It's irresponsible. But bringing it back to Nazam,

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Speaker 2: this guy, he grew up and he was raised in

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Speaker 2: the barn with the animals. His stepfather wouldn't even let

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Speaker 2: him sleep inside. And when he was seventeen, the towers

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Speaker 2: were hit. NATO soldiers came to the country and he

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Speaker 2: just thought that was the coolest thing, kind of like

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Speaker 2: marking the soda shop, and he joined the.

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Speaker 1: I was just about to say, how ironic.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. He joined the Afghan Army as a as

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Speaker 2: a young man, and within a year he was a commando.

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Speaker 2: Within another year he was Special Forces Afghan Special Forces.

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Speaker 2: And I spoke at his key at his graduation. I

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Speaker 2: was the keynote speaker. And then he and I worked

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Speaker 2: together down in southern Afghanistan in Kandahar on this village

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Speaker 2: stability mission that I told you about, and he was amazing.

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Speaker 2: He was so good at engaging the locals and so

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Speaker 2: imagine like this Afghan SF operator alongside US SF operators

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Speaker 2: and the Afghan SF are leading the engagements, and I

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Speaker 2: just kept thinking to myself, this is it right here,

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Speaker 2: this is this is how you do it. And Nazam

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Speaker 2: was so good he was, And how many of these

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Speaker 2: what's that? I want to pronounce his name right? Nazam Nazam?

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Speaker 2: The thousands of thousands of these guys, I mean, we

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Speaker 2: stood up. We stood up at Special Forces and other

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Speaker 2: special option units and Afghan Special Operations Group uh in

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Speaker 2: our and and they were commandos. We were like our rangers,

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Speaker 2: Special Mission av and for years, these guys, from twenty

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Speaker 2: fourteen on, they did the bulk of the fighting. Nazamb

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Speaker 2: was so loyal. He was leading an operation of US

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Speaker 2: Green Berets and he came up on a Taliban ambush

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Speaker 2: and he knew he was host and so he brought

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Speaker 2: his weapon up to one the guys and he took

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Speaker 2: a round through the face and he dropped. But he

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Speaker 2: warned the guys in enough time to beat the ambush back.

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Speaker 2: So they pulled him back. They tried to, you know,

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Speaker 2: work on his face. The wound was so grievous they

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Speaker 2: had to call in a dust off helicopter and they

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Speaker 2: sent him off and they thought, you know, that was it.

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Speaker 2: And then five weeks later, he came back on our

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Speaker 2: resupply chopper with US dentures and started conducting operations again.

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Speaker 2: Holy smoke, and this guy this who this guy was?

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Speaker 2: And even after I got out in twenty thirteen, he

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Speaker 2: would call and check on my family how they were doing.

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Speaker 2: And then around twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, we started noticing

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Speaker 2: that he was demonstrating because when I went home and

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Speaker 2: we can maybe we can talk about that I had

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Speaker 2: a pretty dark transition. I had a really rough transition

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Speaker 2: mental health wise, and we could tell that Nazam was

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Speaker 2: going through the same thing in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 2: So we talked him in retiring and that's where he was.

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Speaker 2: He was out of the military wanting to come to

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Speaker 2: the United States on a special immigration visa when everything

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Speaker 2: started to fall apart in Afghanistan and none but nobody

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Speaker 2: from the government would pick up the phone. He was

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Speaker 2: hiding in his uncle's house, like Ann Frank, The Taliban

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Speaker 2: were texting his phone. They were closing in on him,

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Speaker 2: and that's had his phone number. They had his phone number,

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Speaker 2: and that's what they were A lot of the guys

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Speaker 2: like terrorizing him, like we're coming to get you. The

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Speaker 2: whole collapse of Afghanistan was a brilliantly executed syop by

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Speaker 2: the Taliban, who had the local phone numbers of all

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Speaker 2: the fight, of all the Afghan forces, and they just

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Speaker 2: started texting them and they send them pictures.

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Speaker 1: Of their kids. Okay, this may sound like a dumb question,

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Speaker 1: but I don't understand this. I don't understand. We had

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Speaker 1: all these guys that we equipped, We had all these

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Speaker 1: guys that we trained, they were already fighting, engaged in

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Speaker 1: the fight with our support. Yeah. Why, first of all,

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Speaker 1: we're about to get into the beginning of so much

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Speaker 1: of what you've done with this amazing background. But why

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Speaker 1: couldn't they fight off the Taliban? They had the munitions

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Speaker 1: and the people. Yeah, yeah, and and and I don't

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Speaker 1: mean that derogatory toward them, I really it's it's an honest,

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Speaker 1: curious question. Why didn't they just kick the Taliban's they

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Speaker 1: had even without us, They still had the money, the minitions,

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Speaker 1: of the training.

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Speaker 2: There was a lot of corruption, a lot of graft

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Speaker 2: in the Afghan government bad and I don't want to

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Speaker 2: make excuses for them. It was terrible desertions and and

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Speaker 2: morale in the Afghan National Army were terrible, were they?

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Speaker 2: The numbers of And understand too that the in the

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Speaker 2: in our army, right the to be a member of

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Speaker 2: the of the U S Army, the Marine Corps, it's

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Speaker 2: it's a it's a point of pride, not just for

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Speaker 2: the individual, but for the family, the community.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: It's not that way in Afghanistan. Remember, this is a

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Speaker 2: rural honor based society based on what the group, the community,

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Speaker 2: the tribe most The only way you live in a

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Speaker 2: city a lot of times is if you've been booted

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Speaker 2: out of the tribe, if you've been booted out of

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Speaker 2: the klan. Really, and so a lot of these folks

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Speaker 2: who are in the military have lost honor or have

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Speaker 2: had to move away from their community, and there's not

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Speaker 2: a ton of nationalist pride in a military. Now it

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Speaker 2: was growing, it was getting better, but again it takes time.

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Speaker 2: You're talking about twenty years after forty years of breaking

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Speaker 2: it if not longer. And so it was starting to happen.

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Speaker 2: And the Afghan Special Operations guys in particular, about thirty

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Speaker 2: k of them reward. They were amazing that they were

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Speaker 2: on billboards. These guys were specially selected. They were the

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Speaker 2: pride of Afghanistan, and they did ninety five percent of

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Speaker 2: the fighting. They took the war to the tech the

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Speaker 2: last five or six years. It was enormous and a

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Speaker 2: lot of people don't know this, but overall the Afghan

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Speaker 2: military lost one hundred thousand people in combat. Wow, and

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Speaker 2: people don't know that. And why people say they didn't fight.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, well, yeah they did. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 2: We built that military in our own image, square peg

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Speaker 2: in a round hole, top down. We built them heavily

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Speaker 2: reliant on sophisticated weaponry and equipment, which required a lot

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Speaker 2: of contractor support. And so when they they had to

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Speaker 2: dominate the battlefield using a three to one ratio like

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Speaker 2: we did. Everything that we built with them was built

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Speaker 2: in our image. And then all of a sudden, as

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Speaker 2: we start to pull back in June of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 2: the administration decides we're pulling contractor support out, and we

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Speaker 2: pulled contractor support out of the country. So General Samy

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Speaker 2: Saddott told me on my podcast. He said, we were

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Speaker 2: fighting in Helmand and my air commander walked in with

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Speaker 2: tears in his eyes and he said, Sir, we can't

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Speaker 2: fly today. The contractors are gone, and just like that,

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Speaker 2: the Taliban rolled.

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Speaker 1: Well why don't we just hang out on a support role.

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Speaker 2: Well that was there. You know. President Ghani came to

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Speaker 2: the United States and asked the administration please just you know,

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Speaker 2: give you keep your advisors. We need, this is what

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Speaker 2: we need, and he had. They called it a wish list,

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Speaker 2: and they refused it. They didn't they didn't honor it.

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Speaker 2: And then so then the only thing that was left

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Speaker 2: was a residual force of twenty five hundred to at

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Speaker 2: least keep like a counter terrorism force in the country.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of the generals felt like if that stayed,

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Speaker 2: that would work. But somehow this administration and like you,

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Speaker 2: I'm very a political on this, but look, you've got

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Speaker 2: to be accountable too, you know, you got to talk

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Speaker 2: about what happened. Trump's Doha deal was not a good thing.

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Speaker 2: It marginalized the Afghan government and dealt directly with the Taliban,

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Speaker 2: so it's set in motion a very bad deal. Biden

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Speaker 2: executed the deal, but then would not listen to senior

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Speaker 2: military leaders who were saying, at least leave twenty five

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Speaker 2: hundred dudes, you cannot just rely on diplomacy in this country,

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Speaker 2: it will fall. He didn't listen. Somebody advised him where

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Speaker 2: he took the advice and he said, nope, we're fully

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Speaker 2: out where everything's coming out. And that's when the House

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Speaker 2: of cards fell, you know, that's when the Taliban looked

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Speaker 2: at it and said, oh, we can just roll. But

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Speaker 2: rather than rolling guns blazing, and they were smart, they

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Speaker 2: just sent text. They just sent text to local commanders,

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Speaker 2: pictures of their families. We're coming for you. Stack your

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Speaker 2: arms over here, get out of your uniform. You'll be good.

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Speaker 2: Except the Special Operators. They said to them, oh, we

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Speaker 2: have a special special surprise waiting for you, which was

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Speaker 2: and they would even tell the local commanders turn them

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Speaker 2: in because they will not be forgiven.

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Speaker 1: So they really said to these guys, you put your

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Speaker 1: stuff on a pile and we'll forgive you and we'll

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Speaker 1: leave you alone. Expect except for the Special Office guys.

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Speaker 1: We're going to execute them and their families.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there was no quarter given to them, and there

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Speaker 2: was no quarter given to them. You know. Some of

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Speaker 2: them have now been co opted, unfortunately and put into

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Speaker 2: you know, roles in the military because those guys have

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Speaker 2: had to keep their families alive. But the wholesale abandonment

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Speaker 2: that we practiced on them, they really had no recourse.

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Speaker 2: There's nowhere to go. Afghanistan is surrounded by Iran, to Djikistan, Pakistan,

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Speaker 2: Where are you going to go? You know, Uzbekistan and

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Speaker 2: all of those countries said, uh, I don't even think

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Speaker 2: about coming here.

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Speaker 1: You know, which is interesting because of the people that

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Speaker 1: you were closest with were the Special Forces guys, interpreters

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Speaker 1: and all these guys. Yeah. Yeah, and so now they

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Speaker 1: have nowhere to go, nowhere to go. Meanwhile, you're in Florida.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And I had actually retired in twenty thirteen, you know,

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Speaker 2: I I didn't like where things were going, and so

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Speaker 2: I decided to hang it up. And you know, it

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Speaker 2: felt really good, man. I had like I was retiring

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Speaker 2: on my terms. Moni and I were, you know, still together,

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Speaker 2: the boys were still in the house, and I was

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Speaker 2: going to write a book on the village stability. I

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Speaker 2: had a job as a contractor. I mean, everything felt great,

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Speaker 2: you know. But I'll tell you Bill, after within like

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Speaker 2: seventy two hours and taking off those desert boots and

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Speaker 2: putting on the Tampa Bay flip flops, the snakes in

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Speaker 2: my head started squirming. One of my old Viet Nom

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Speaker 2: SF buddies, Dave, who's like a national treasure. This guy

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Speaker 2: was on the original Jawbreaker team that went into Afghanistan.

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Speaker 2: They brought him out of retirement.

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Speaker 1: Really, yeah, he's just a bad.

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Speaker 2: And Dave told me over I was bragging about all

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Speaker 2: my transition plans at at a dinner in DC, and

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Speaker 2: he just looked at me in tears in his eyes,

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Speaker 2: and he said, when the snakes in your head start.

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Speaker 1: To squirrem, I want you to call me.

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Speaker 2: You promise. And I'm like, it pissed me off. I'm like,

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Speaker 2: what are you talking about. I'm fine, I'm good, I'm good,

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Speaker 2: you know. And it made me mad because I'm like,

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Speaker 2: I wanted him to be proud of my plan, you know,

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Speaker 2: and what I was doing. I didn't want to hear

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Speaker 2: any of that, you know, veteran mental health crap. And

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Speaker 2: he said, the snakes in your the snakes in your head,

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Speaker 2: it is so accurate, it is so accurate.

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Speaker 1: Explain it well.

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Speaker 2: I found that when I got out there was it

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Speaker 2: literally felt like things were slithering in my head, Like

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Speaker 2: I looked around at a country I didn't recognize anymore.

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Speaker 2: I mean people, well, the division in the country, the

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Speaker 2: violence in the country. It's Sebastian younger Is said it

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Speaker 2: really well, and this is what I felt. He said,

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Speaker 2: most combat veterans are willing to die for their country,

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Speaker 2: but they have no idea how they're supposed to live

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Speaker 2: for it, because it's hard to know how to live

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Speaker 2: for a country that's tearing itself apart along every imaginable line,

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Speaker 2: from race to economics to politics. And that's what I saw.

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Speaker 2: I came back home and I'm looking. I'm like, this

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Speaker 2: is Afghanistan. This is exactly what we've been over there

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Speaker 2: fighting for all those years, and we're doing it here.

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Speaker 2: That's what all my buddy's done for.

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Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Do you find it interesting that Memphis,

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Speaker 1: this is my town and I know these demographics that

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you, but it also you can tag

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Speaker 1: about fifty other American cities with the same world But

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Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it to you. Memphis is

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Speaker 1: six hundred and fifty three police officers short. We are

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Speaker 1: a city that needs twenty six hundred police officers and

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Speaker 1: as of today, according to the United States Martial Service,

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Speaker 1: I spoke to yesterday, six hundred and fifty three officers short.

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Speaker 1: As a result, our current police department spends all of

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Speaker 1: its shift time going to take reports from yesterday's calls. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so call after call after call. So if I come

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Speaker 1: on shift today and I'm gonna work twelve hours, I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna catch the overtime because there's not enough of us.

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Speaker 1: All I'm doing is clearing all the calls from yesterday,

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Speaker 1: going report after report after report, just to keep the

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Speaker 1: reporting and the basic services in. I don't have time

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Speaker 1: to chase bad guys now. I don't have time to

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Speaker 1: do routine traffic stops. I don't have time. So what

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Speaker 1: happens now is little by little, your culture in your

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Speaker 1: sidety get pulled apart at the front, at the end

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Speaker 1: of the edges. All of that is because people don't

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Speaker 1: want to be police officers. It's very hard recruit people,

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Speaker 1: and the police officers now because of trust, deplete them. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: and it's all when you said that at the beginning,

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Speaker 1: I can't quit thinking about it. But the truth is

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Speaker 1: the community not trusting the police, the police not trusting

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Speaker 1: the community. A person saying I don't trust the job

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Speaker 1: of being an officer, I'm going to go do something else,

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Speaker 1: and now not having a big enough police force to

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Speaker 1: keep a civilized society and check which leads to more distrust.

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Speaker 2: Because when that happens is well, when you lose the

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Speaker 2: rule of law, you don't lose justice. What happens is

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Speaker 2: you revert back to primal justice. We're all primal, We're

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Speaker 2: all we all live at a at a baseline level,

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Speaker 2: more like folks live in Afghanistan than in the modern world.

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Speaker 2: That's where we all come from. That's what we originate from,

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Speaker 2: and it's what we go to when we're afraid. And

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Speaker 2: so this notion of rule of law and institutional care

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Speaker 2: and all of that, that's a construct. That's a social

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Speaker 2: construct that must be preserved by responsible stewards and leaders.

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Speaker 2: But as you've said, most of these leaders have abandoned

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Speaker 2: their responsibility. I call them divisionists because they foment division

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Speaker 2: in the pursuit of their own narrow agenda versus a

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Speaker 2: bridging approach, which is necessary to be a steward for

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Speaker 2: all of these systems. Like those leaders have bailed, right,

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Speaker 2: and if we don't quote trust, yeah, those leaders, we're

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Speaker 2: not going to bind to the construct right. And there's

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Speaker 2: an article in the Atlantic that says most social scientists

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Speaker 2: agree that for a civil society liberal democracy to flourish,

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Speaker 2: you need three things. Right. You need trust in your neighbors,

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Speaker 2: You need institutions you can trust, and you need stories

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Speaker 2: that you believe in as a collective. How are we doing?

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Speaker 1: So you come back from Afghanistan.

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Speaker 2: And none of those are there, like you know, and

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Speaker 2: it was I didn't have.

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Speaker 1: Some kind of career, and you're seeing destructive of it.

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Speaker 1: It's a different perspective, but you're fighting for what you

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Speaker 1: believe in and fighting against the breakdown or the lack

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Speaker 1: of ever building of that social construct, that trust. And

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Speaker 1: then you come home, yeah, yeah, and you see what

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Speaker 1: you're just love. I call it the churn. And it

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Speaker 1: just that churn that that I'd seen all those years

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Speaker 1: in Afghanistan was here and I just thought, man, what

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Speaker 1: what was this all for?

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Speaker 2: And and and at the time, you know, I had

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Speaker 2: I had lost my purpose, I had lost my passion,

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Speaker 2: I had left my identity in the team room. You

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Speaker 2: know that I didn't I didn't clock the idea that

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Speaker 2: the army doesn't get to keep those things that my

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Speaker 2: mom and dad instilled in me that those were the

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Speaker 2: things I had walked into the team room with, but

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Speaker 2: I left them there and so now I'm like, it's

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Speaker 2: like it was like I try to tell people when

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Speaker 2: you leave the military, especially the special ops world, it's

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Speaker 2: like you leave because it's a tribal society too. It's

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Speaker 2: an on based society where the team is everything. What

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Speaker 2: you want is an individual doesn't matter, it's the collective.

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Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden you come back to

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Speaker 2: this world where everything's about the individual, everything's about what

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Speaker 2: you do in a contract transactional society that's not about

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Speaker 2: the team. There is no team. It's you and the

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Speaker 2: team that you had is gone. They're back in Afghanistan,

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Speaker 2: you know. And so you're trying to figure out what

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Speaker 2: planet am I even on? And that was for me

347
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Speaker 2: was the hardest part was I didn't It was like

348
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Speaker 2: changing planets. I felt like I was moving four feet

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Speaker 2: off the earth, just untethered all the time. And so

350
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Speaker 2: I would put on a good face everything's fine, but

351
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Speaker 2: in reality I was really hurting. And that's when the

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Speaker 2: survivor's guilt, the PTS, all the stuff that I had

353
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Speaker 2: pushed down for years to stay in the fight. He

354
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Speaker 2: just came flooding in and that's the snakes. And those

355
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Speaker 2: were the snakes, and I didn't know what to do

356
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Speaker 2: with them. And I was so scared that I was

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Speaker 2: going to hurt somebody. And I was so scared that

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Speaker 2: I just couldn't do this. I can't do this. I

359
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Speaker 2: didn't and I would, I would fall apart in the

360
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Speaker 2: middle of the day. I would start crying. I would,

361
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Speaker 2: I would, I would lose my I would lose my focus,

362
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Speaker 2: and I thought, my god, I'm like, I was this

363
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Speaker 2: high performing dude. I was doing all these things and

364
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Speaker 2: now like I can't even focus on, you know, a

365
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Speaker 2: task without just falling apart, you know. And and the boys,

366
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Speaker 2: my three boys that all these years I couldn't wait

367
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Speaker 2: to be with them, would get up and walk out

368
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Speaker 2: of the room because they didn't know what version of

369
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Speaker 2: Dad they were going to get.

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Speaker 1: You know.

371
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Speaker 2: MANI and I didn't talk. It was just it was

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Speaker 2: it was awful and money.

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Speaker 1: Did you see it, Yeah, yeah, big time.

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Speaker 2: You could see it, you could feel it. And I

375
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Speaker 2: just feel helpless. I didn't know what to do because

376
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Speaker 2: it felt like everything was so perfect. We're falling together.

377
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Speaker 2: We don't have about these deployments anymore.

378
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's alive. Yeah, Well, I mean you had to

379
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Speaker 1: have fear that that, didn't You didn't You live in

380
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Speaker 1: fear of that Hall.

381
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Speaker 2: I mean you do, but you don't because you try to.

382
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Speaker 2: My job was to just be with the boys and

383
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Speaker 2: help them live as normal a life as they could,

384
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Speaker 2: you know, with Dad gone so much, and you try

385
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Speaker 2: not to focus on that.

386
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Speaker 1: Because there was just everybody listened to us needs to

387
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Speaker 1: understand the sacrifice, certainly of Scott and his brothers and

388
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Speaker 1: sisters and arms, but for God's sakes, we need to

389
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Speaker 1: understand the sacrifice of money and the three kids, and

390
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Speaker 1: every single man and women servant in our and combat

391
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Speaker 1: roles overseas, and the unbelievable sacrifice of their families. And

392
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Speaker 1: then you get home and everything's good, and then the

393
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Speaker 1: snakes appear.

394
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And it got so bad that there was one

395
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Speaker 2: day that I just she left and I just I'd

396
00:20:56,320 --> 00:20:58,480
Speaker 2: been thinking about it a long time, and I just

397
00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:04,679
Speaker 2: thought days to day, and I was calm. I just

398
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,920
Speaker 2: walked into my closet shut the door because I I'd

399
00:21:07,960 --> 00:21:09,679
Speaker 2: played it in my mind a million times, you know,

400
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 2: and I just all I could think of was I'm

401
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:20,199
Speaker 2: a burden, you know, like this is better. It's just

402
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:23,399
Speaker 2: better this way, you know. And I couldn't see, like

403
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:25,840
Speaker 2: I can't describe like the fog, but it was so

404
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:28,760
Speaker 2: heavy and it was just I just couldn't see any

405
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:31,320
Speaker 2: way out, you know. So I went in the closet,

406
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:34,840
Speaker 2: I got my forty five and was it was in

407
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:40,040
Speaker 2: my hand against my face, and I heard a sound

408
00:21:40,119 --> 00:21:42,119
Speaker 2: outside in the house and it was my son Cooper

409
00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 2: had come home. And it was like I stood there

410
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:50,640
Speaker 2: and I thought, and I can remember thinking, what kind

411
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Speaker 2: of dad kills himself and lets his kid find him,

412
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Speaker 2: you know. And so I put the gun up, and

413
00:21:56,720 --> 00:21:58,800
Speaker 2: my hands were shaken. That's when they started. They weren't

414
00:21:58,760 --> 00:22:01,200
Speaker 2: shaken up until that point. And I put the guy

415
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 2: cleared to put the gun up, locked it up, and

416
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Speaker 2: I just and I walked out of the closet like

417
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Speaker 2: nothing happened. And I was a wreck, get myself together,

418
00:22:09,119 --> 00:22:11,639
Speaker 2: and I walked out into the into the into the house,

419
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:16,879
Speaker 2: just so ashamed and so embarrassed by that scar, you know.

420
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:19,080
Speaker 2: By that, by that what I had almost done. And

421
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 2: I still felt helpless. I still felt like I don't

422
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:22,919
Speaker 2: know how I'm gonna live. And I went back in

423
00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 2: that closet again a couple of times, never to that

424
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Speaker 2: close point. But I just was in this purgatory. Man,

425
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Speaker 2: I don't know how to scrave. It was like a

426
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:34,400
Speaker 2: purgatory of being where you can't die and you can't live.

427
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Speaker 1: You know, do you think the snakes I've never asked

428
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Speaker 1: this question. I've interviewed five or six former you know,

429
00:22:42,320 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 1: combat military personnel and the snakes. No one ever said snakes,

430
00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:57,640
Speaker 1: but snakes? Do you think the snakes are hatched from

431
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:02,440
Speaker 1: the humanity that you had to suppress to be able

432
00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: to do your job effectively in Afghanistan? And then when

433
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: you no longer have to suppress that the humanity at

434
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:19,879
Speaker 1: odds with what your conscious recognizes was inhumane things you

435
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:21,440
Speaker 1: had to conduct yourself doing.

436
00:23:21,640 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 2: I mean, I think there was definitely some some version

437
00:23:23,880 --> 00:23:26,480
Speaker 2: of that. I mean I think there's yeah, yeah, there's

438
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 2: a conflict, but but not not as much as you

439
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:34,719
Speaker 2: would I mean, for me, honestly, that part doesn't didn't

440
00:23:34,720 --> 00:23:37,080
Speaker 2: bother me. And what I it was it was the

441
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 2: loss of friends.

442
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:43,119
Speaker 1: That that's what It's not normal at twenty thirty and

443
00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,200
Speaker 1: forty years old. It is not normal to watch your

444
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:46,920
Speaker 1: friends die.

445
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,320
Speaker 2: No, there's actually a thing out now called operator syndrome

446
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:55,000
Speaker 2: and operator operator syndrome, and it's because they're really trying

447
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 2: to take a crack. Is why are so many special

448
00:23:56,720 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 2: operators killing themselves and and why are they going through

449
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,560
Speaker 2: what they're going through? And you know, the preponderance of

450
00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 2: the war was fought by special operators. I mean that

451
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 2: was you know the war. A lot of conventional guys fought,

452
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 2: and God bless them, and I'm not taking anything away

453
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:13,400
Speaker 2: from them, but the Special operations Op tempo was ridiculous

454
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 2: and and and they're the toll that that has taken

455
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 2: with tbi's traumatic blast injuries, UH, sleep deprivation and like

456
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:24,800
Speaker 2: you're talking about the uh just the survivor's guilt and

457
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 2: all the stuff that goes with you know, PTS as well,

458
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,640
Speaker 2: all of that. All I know is I pushed all

459
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 2: of it down. I had not dealt with any of it,

460
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,440
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, it just it just came

461
00:24:36,520 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 2: screaming in. And that's what Dave was talking about, was

462
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:43,080
Speaker 2: those because it all became just one slithering lump or

463
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:45,960
Speaker 2: crap like I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't clear it,

464
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,960
Speaker 2: you know. And and I did end up talking to him,

465
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 2: I did end up talking to other folks, and the

466
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 2: thing that kept coming back to me and my dad

467
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 2: helped me with this too, and Mony was the one

468
00:24:56,960 --> 00:24:59,520
Speaker 2: that helped me more than anybody. But was I realized

469
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 2: I was. I just wanted to be relevant again. I

470
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 2: just wanted to be in the game again, you know.

471
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 2: And I didn't know how to do that. I looked

472
00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,120
Speaker 2: at what was happening in the country, at the lack

473
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:13,200
Speaker 2: of trust and the loss of just connection, and I thought, well,

474
00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 2: I know what that is.

475
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 1: Hmm, Now, isn't that interesting?

476
00:25:17,160 --> 00:25:19,199
Speaker 2: I know what that is, and I know how to

477
00:25:19,240 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 2: deal with that. And what they're trying to do to

478
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 2: deal with this is actually taken them the other way,

479
00:25:25,440 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 2: like this is novel, this is not something what God

480
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 2: ess here ain't going to get us there. But every

481
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 2: time I would try to talk about it, every time

482
00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 2: I would try to address it, I would lock up,

483
00:25:33,640 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 2: like in my throat. I would feel like an impostor.

484
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 2: I would go through all kinds of anxiety. I couldn't talk,

485
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 2: I couldn't speak.

486
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.

487
00:26:02,280 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 2: I knew I had something to say, and I wanted to.

488
00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 2: So poor Manti I told her, I told her, I

489
00:26:09,040 --> 00:26:10,280
Speaker 2: think I know what I want to do, but I've

490
00:26:10,320 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: got to figure out how to do it. So I

491
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:14,720
Speaker 2: just started going to like conferences around the country. I

492
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 2: would sit in these conferences, these speaker conferences, and I

493
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 2: would just sit there and I would listen to all

494
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 2: these people about how to be a speaker. And I'm

495
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 2: sitting there, No, I'm serious, and it's what you know,

496
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,720
Speaker 2: it's act, but you know it's those ones like out

497
00:26:27,760 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 2: in California where the speaker comes out and everybody's like

498
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 2: all that and it's and I hated it.

499
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm one.

500
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 2: And so I was at this one in California and

501
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 2: it was terrible, and I was getting ready to leave

502
00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:41,840
Speaker 2: and they said, next guy coming up is bo Eason

503
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 2: and bo Is. I looked at the thing. He's a

504
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 2: former NFL football player free safety voted the dirtiest free

505
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 2: safety in the NFL when he played for the Oilers,

506
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 2: and bo Is is now a They said he's a

507
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 2: former actor turned playwright turned storyteller.

508
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm going to be bo Eason.

509
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:08,239
Speaker 2: So I'm watching he comes out on the stage and

510
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 2: he's moving on that stage, and he's prow in that

511
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,520
Speaker 2: stage like an operator, you know, And I'm not kidding.

512
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,679
Speaker 2: It was like seeing Mark in the Zoda shop, no kidding.

513
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:19,639
Speaker 2: And nobody in the audience was moving. Everybody was breathing

514
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 2: in unison, and he was telling a story about being

515
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 2: a runt and becoming an NFL football player and how

516
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 2: he was an imposter.

517
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: And that is the greatest juxtaposition ever.

518
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:30,640
Speaker 2: I never see.

519
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,560
Speaker 1: You're doing really good job in storytelling right now, because

520
00:27:33,600 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: that's it. Yeah, that was your second yep, that was

521
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:41,680
Speaker 1: your that was your second introduction to how to conduct your.

522
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 2: Next stage of life. And so I'm watching him right, yes,

523
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:46,960
Speaker 2: that is it. Fourteen, you got your first one and

524
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: bo and it's hitting me. It's hitting my body as

525
00:27:50,000 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 2: I'm watching him, like having a visceral reaction to this

526
00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: because now I'm like it's becoming clear to me, and

527
00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 2: I'm watching him move on that stage and then he

528
00:27:59,280 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 2: says this, he blew his knee out for the seventh time,

529
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: and they're carrying him off the field and he knew

530
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:06,360
Speaker 2: that was it, right, And there's a picture of him

531
00:28:06,359 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 2: being carried off the field and you can see he's

532
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 2: not even focused on the end. He's not even worried

533
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:13,680
Speaker 2: about the fact that he's not playing in the NFL anymore.

534
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 2: He's moved on. And he said, what was running through

535
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 2: my mind was I'm going to go to prison if

536
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,240
Speaker 2: I don't learn how to take this T and T

537
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:23,639
Speaker 2: that is inside me and put an end of the

538
00:28:23,640 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 2: world for something good. I'm not gonna make it. And

539
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my God, like, that's that's me,

540
00:28:30,920 --> 00:28:32,720
Speaker 2: that's and I just went up to him afterwards, and

541
00:28:32,760 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 2: I elbowed my way through everybody, and I was like,

542
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 2: I got to work with you and I and I

543
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 2: told him. He looked at me like he was like,

544
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:40,600
Speaker 2: what the hell you know? And and but he listened

545
00:28:40,640 --> 00:28:45,000
Speaker 2: to me, and he said, I'm gonna help you. Here's

546
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:51,400
Speaker 2: my number. And the dude trained me for two years

547
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:56,520
Speaker 2: on storytelling. Wow, and it changed. It saved my life.

548
00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: Had to see greatest part of your story I've heard yet. Yeah, yeah,

549
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: it's it's redemption. Well and what I tell people about

550
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: and this guy the dirtiest safety in the world. Ultimately,

551
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: I'm not I don't want to overdo it, but if

552
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:14,640
Speaker 1: not saving your life directing it.

553
00:29:14,560 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 2: He saved my life he's the one that taught me

554
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:20,120
Speaker 2: into the play that I wrote all of it. He

555
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 2: saw in me, like when Mark looked at me at fourteen,

556
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 2: he saw what I was at twenty eight. And Bo

557
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 2: saw the same thing. And from that point on, and

558
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 2: I could tell he saw it, you know, And he

559
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 2: told me, said, if you work with me, you're gonna

560
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:37,720
Speaker 2: have it requires emotional access.

561
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:39,520
Speaker 1: It's boy.

562
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 2: Almost immediately, I mean at first there was resistance. Like

563
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:44,600
Speaker 2: he had me. One of the things he had me

564
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 2: to do was say the names of all my guys.

565
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 2: Oh boy, And I had not done that ever. He

566
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 2: made you do it, and he's like, if you're going

567
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 2: to tell the story, you have to say their names

568
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 2: and you have to let them be with you. And

569
00:29:58,120 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 2: I fell on the floor and I cried and kicked,

570
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 2: and he had a counselor right there as he's doing this,

571
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 2: and I'm screaming, and I finally I spit their names

572
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 2: out and I say that and I'm just like and

573
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 2: he looked at me and said, now we can get started.

574
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,600
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a question? Yeah, were any of

575
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 2: those guys afghans gouts at that time?

576
00:30:17,840 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: No?

577
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:21,520
Speaker 2: And there were there were playing Yeah, now yeah, I'm able.

578
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 2: In fact, I talk about Afghan brothers, you know, right

579
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 2: in there with.

580
00:30:26,360 --> 00:30:31,959
Speaker 1: Important for our listeners to hear. Absolutely we automatically assume

581
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: that you lost American brothers and sisters in arms. Yeah,

582
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 1: that led to the snakes. Yeah. What I have learned

583
00:30:44,120 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: from talking to just a handful of guys like you

584
00:30:46,480 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: is now, after more progress and more time, there's Afghan

585
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters and arms that oh deserve our respect.

586
00:30:58,200 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, just as much.

587
00:30:59,760 --> 00:31:03,320
Speaker 2: The last three years in particular has been you know,

588
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 2: so terrible because they've all been abandoned, They've all been left.

589
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: Behind, Which is a great deal, because I want to

590
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: get to the book and the playwright why you're a

591
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 1: member of the army of normal folks, and why I

592
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 1: think what you have to say and what we are

593
00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: trying to do are absolutely parallel with one another. But

594
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,719
Speaker 1: that's a good time for you to tell us. You

595
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: know you are now fully you are snake depleted, full

596
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: on Tampa flip flop, living in Florida. Yeah, the phone

597
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 1: starts blowing up.

598
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well, I once I started the storytelling, I

599
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 2: three Ted talks keynotes a lot like you, I started

600
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 2: really going on to because I felt like the storytelling

601
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 2: was cathartic for me and it was my bridging vehicle

602
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 2: to reach people. And that's what I was just beautiful. Yeah,

603
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 2: and even the play that i'd written. You know, I

604
00:31:56,800 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 2: saw in twenty seventeen that the country didn't even know

605
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 2: we were in Afghan Stand and Bo's like, do a play.

606
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,959
Speaker 2: They'll know, do a play and so so.

607
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 1: But we're we're telling a guy who has never written,

608
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: never anything like that. It's like, hey, quote, do a plus.

609
00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 2: So I just started writing it, and then Moni started

610
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 2: helping me because I would write things about it. Was

611
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: started out as a one person show but about it

612
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:23,160
Speaker 2: about a Green Beret sergeant that based on three sergeants

613
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 2: I lost in combat. So he became Master Sergeant Danny Patton,

614
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 2: a composite character, and I'm writing about him as a

615
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 2: one person show, and I'm talking about like what Danny's

616
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 2: wife did and said money. He's like that's not even

617
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:36,320
Speaker 2: close to right, Like what are you talking about? And

618
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 2: she would, you know, like oh wow. And so as

619
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 2: it as she started the wigh in what her life

620
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,000
Speaker 2: experience had been, it started to open up and I'm like, oh,

621
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 2: this is yeah, this is not a one person play.

622
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:49,160
Speaker 2: This is this is a full on ensemble. So it

623
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 2: ended up being a play about a Green Beret sergeant

624
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 2: that's killed in that he's mortally wounded in the middle

625
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 2: of the beginning of the play and he's trying to

626
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 2: ascend to the warrior resting place of Valhalla, but he's

627
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 2: he's stuck between his firebase and his living room and

628
00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: he can't ascend. So his best buddy comes down from

629
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 2: Valhalla who was killed in the Pentagon based on my

630
00:33:08,680 --> 00:33:11,840
Speaker 2: best Buddy with other operators, and they become the people

631
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 2: in Danny's life that made his heart pump the most blood.

632
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 2: They become his wife Lynn, they become his son Kayden.

633
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: They become his arch nemesis said Wally, and Colonel Smith,

634
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 2: and they take Danny through his life from the time

635
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 2: he joined the military special Forces nine to eleven, got married,

636
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 2: had a kid, all the deployments until he finally figures

637
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 2: out it's coming off the rails what he's holding on to,

638
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 2: and he lets go, and he does it in front

639
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 2: of the audience. It's his full cathartic ascension that happens.

640
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 2: And every member of the cast is either a combat

641
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 2: veteran or a military family member. And so it became

642
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 2: like this whole thing that traveled the country twenty eight

643
00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 2: thousand miles on the U haul van. We did it

644
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 2: as a nonprofit, all of our touring company.

645
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 1: You acted in it.

646
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,280
Speaker 2: Then I decided I'm going to play the lead character

647
00:33:58,320 --> 00:34:02,120
Speaker 2: because I thought and money was Money was like, you're what,

648
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 2: and so.

649
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: I I secretly actor.

650
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:06,440
Speaker 2: I secretly went to New York for a year and

651
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: studied under Larry Moss and Carl Bury because they were

652
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,400
Speaker 2: so they thought the novelty of this guy at fifty

653
00:34:12,440 --> 00:34:14,799
Speaker 2: talking about a midlife crisis, you know that wants to

654
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 2: do this, and so they trained me, and so I

655
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:18,560
Speaker 2: trained for a year and then we debuted it at

656
00:34:18,600 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 2: the Marriott because no theater in Tampa would rent to us.

657
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 2: And it ended up becoming a tour and eventually he

658
00:34:23,480 --> 00:34:26,600
Speaker 2: was picked up by Gary Sonise and produced as another tour.

659
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:29,879
Speaker 2: And that's what I was doing when Afghanistan.

660
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: Fe I met Gary a couple of times.

661
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 2: He's amazing. He so after so when Afghanistan fell and

662
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:39,839
Speaker 2: we stood up this group of veterans that we called

663
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 2: the Pineapple Express, Gary Sinise contacted me because he had

664
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,919
Speaker 2: been contacted by a guy named John Andrassick from Five

665
00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,800
Speaker 2: for Fighting, who was getting musicians out of the country,

666
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:52,840
Speaker 2: and I had met John.

667
00:34:53,040 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, I've never even heard that story.

668
00:34:55,600 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 2: He and I met each other and I told him

669
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 2: about the play, which we had turned into an Amazon

670
00:34:59,480 --> 00:35:03,160
Speaker 2: film during COVID and he watched it and he said,

671
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 2: Gary Snice need to see this. And I was like, dude,

672
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 2: I've been trying to get this run Gary for six years.

673
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:08,440
Speaker 2: Good luck and he's like, no, he's one of my

674
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 2: best buds. I'll I'll get him see it. Gary called

675
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 2: me the next day and he had watched the play

676
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:15,319
Speaker 2: and we talked in my driveway. I walked in my

677
00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:18,280
Speaker 2: driveway for two hours, just talking, and he said, Okay,

678
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 2: I did a play like this after Vietnam called Tracers

679
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:24,080
Speaker 2: to help Vietnam veterans. We're going to do this. This

680
00:35:24,239 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 2: needs to tour house soon. Can you get the cast together?

681
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,880
Speaker 2: And I was like, you don't want to do a

682
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 2: contractor and he's like, no, we're going. Be ready and

683
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 2: we went and we did it. We toured another non

684
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 2: cities for an entire year in twenty twenty three to

685
00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:41,840
Speaker 2: help heal after the Afghanistan collapse. So the play was

686
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:43,680
Speaker 2: very much it's been a big part of our life,

687
00:35:43,719 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 2: and it was all grassroots. Man. Almost everybody in the

688
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 2: play has not been a professional actor. We travel with

689
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 2: our own counselors. Two hundred and fifty pit pts, interventions

690
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: in the lobbies.

691
00:35:55,920 --> 00:36:00,960
Speaker 1: That's there that part say that again.

692
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what we found was we would get jammed

693
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 2: up in different scenes because they're so visceral. So we

694
00:36:08,600 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 2: started traveling with a counselor. Although it's a piece of fiction,

695
00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:17,080
Speaker 2: it is all based around people that you knew, and likewise.

696
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:20,439
Speaker 1: All the scenes are true, and likewise, all the scenes

697
00:36:20,480 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: are true, and likewise, many of your audience members as

698
00:36:25,280 --> 00:36:31,800
Speaker 1: they're watching this, they must be having this react. Yeah,

699
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:36,439
Speaker 1: I mean all of that is just real to them,

700
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: right it is.

701
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,440
Speaker 2: And what I wrote the play because I want to

702
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 2: do inform civilians like you've been doing on the cost

703
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,080
Speaker 2: of modern work, because they just didn't understand at all,

704
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 2: and I wanted to validate those who had lived it,

705
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 2: and I wanted it to happen at the same time

706
00:36:50,440 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 2: at a community level in a theater where they're all

707
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: sitting together, Democrats, Republicans, politicians, wounded guys, all that gold

708
00:36:59,120 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 2: Star family members all there, and so then we do

709
00:37:01,520 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 2: the play. Everybody goes on this ride with Danny and

710
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,320
Speaker 2: his family, and then at the end, when he ascends

711
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 2: and the play ends, we have a talkback. And sometimes

712
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,359
Speaker 2: the talkback will last as long as the play. We'll

713
00:37:14,400 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 2: come out and the actors sit on blocks and we're

714
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 2: all veterans and family members, so we lead the talk

715
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 2: back with the community. But the coolest thing is that's

716
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,839
Speaker 2: when the community stands up and a ghost our mom,

717
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 2: you know, says I saw my son tonight, you know,

718
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 2: And you're like, what do you even say to that?

719
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,400
Speaker 2: You know it? But she says it in front of

720
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:40,920
Speaker 2: her neighbors and they get to hear that, and they

721
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,479
Speaker 2: get to feel that more importantly, and everybody just leaves

722
00:37:44,520 --> 00:37:47,840
Speaker 2: there changed with a new fundamental understanding of what it

723
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 2: means to serve at that level.

724
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: And you also have people there to talk to, folks

725
00:37:52,680 --> 00:37:55,520
Speaker 1: who write snakes. So we have counselors. We position our

726
00:37:55,560 --> 00:37:58,680
Speaker 1: counselors near the doors, and then we have a couple

727
00:37:58,680 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: of spotters. And because what it will invariably happen is

728
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,280
Speaker 1: members will they're watching the show, they'll have a visceral

729
00:38:05,280 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: reaction that's emotional and they need to get away.

730
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,520
Speaker 2: And we're not doing it to rattle them. The plays

731
00:38:10,560 --> 00:38:13,160
Speaker 2: just realistic, but they have the reaction, and then we

732
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 2: will intervene in the lobby and help them bring themselves

733
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:20,240
Speaker 2: back down to a parasympathetic state. And they're most likely

734
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 2: not getting help. That's what we learned, is they're not

735
00:38:22,480 --> 00:38:25,759
Speaker 2: getting help, and so we make sure that we help

736
00:38:25,840 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 2: them immediately. Right then we stay with them most of

737
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 2: the time. They go back in the show, you know,

738
00:38:29,840 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 2: and they go for the rest of the ride, and

739
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 2: they participate in the talk back and they actually tell

740
00:38:33,680 --> 00:38:35,360
Speaker 2: us what an amazing experience it was. And then we

741
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 2: run a storytelling workshop for them the next day that

742
00:38:38,320 --> 00:38:40,480
Speaker 2: they can come and tell their story, and we have

743
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 2: counselors there, but we also connect them to local counselors

744
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 2: to make sure that they've got Because if you go

745
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:50,719
Speaker 2: see Saving Private Ryan or Hacksaw Ridge and you're a

746
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: medic or a combat veteran or a first responder and

747
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 2: you walk out, and I'm not blaming those films, but

748
00:38:56,719 --> 00:38:59,319
Speaker 2: what do you do who puts you back together? Right?

749
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:04,480
Speaker 2: Try to take a very very intentional effort to use

750
00:39:04,520 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 2: it as an opportunity to spot and assess those that

751
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:09,600
Speaker 2: are not getting help and intervene immediately. And we've done

752
00:39:09,640 --> 00:39:13,120
Speaker 2: over two hundred and fifty interventions on the road and

753
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 2: it's been wildly affected.

754
00:39:15,200 --> 00:39:17,720
Speaker 1: It is phenomenal. We call it our emotional breaching tool.

755
00:39:18,120 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: That a play can be therapeutic and even lead to

756
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:22,920
Speaker 1: deeper therapy.

757
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:24,920
Speaker 2: But you know what, civil society has been doing this

758
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 2: for thousands of years, Bill, If you think about returning warriors,

759
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,280
Speaker 2: they sat around a fire, they told stories. The warriors

760
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:36,160
Speaker 2: told stories, and the community listened, and that cathartic experience

761
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 2: is what storytelling is actually, as storytelling came around. You know, actually,

762
00:39:39,920 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 2: what we're doing is not new, it's just we've forgotten

763
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,360
Speaker 2: how to do it as a civil society. Most countries

764
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 2: do this when their warriors come home. We don't. We

765
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:49,799
Speaker 2: just throw them into the game and give them a

766
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 2: job and a ticket to a ballgame. You know, well intended,

767
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 2: well intended, and I'm not diminishing that, but that's not

768
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,800
Speaker 2: We need these guys and girls back in the game.

769
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:02,720
Speaker 2: We need them leading us here at home. The country

770
00:40:02,760 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 2: is so divided right now. I think personally, our global

771
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 2: War on Terror. Veterans, in my opinion, the one point

772
00:40:08,800 --> 00:40:10,960
Speaker 2: eight million of them, they're our last best hope for

773
00:40:11,000 --> 00:40:16,720
Speaker 2: this country in my opinion, because they represent a core

774
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:21,279
Speaker 2: fiber of character that, if put into play, could bring

775
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:24,200
Speaker 2: us back together. It's a long shot, but I think

776
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:26,719
Speaker 2: they could, and especially if they're working with leaders like

777
00:40:26,760 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 2: you at the civil society level, at the community level,

778
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 2: there's no ceiling to what can be done. You know,

779
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:33,879
Speaker 2: I look at Ben and jess Owen what they're doing

780
00:40:33,880 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 2: here in Memphis, in South Memphis. I look at Al

781
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:39,080
Speaker 2: who I met last night that's doing his outreach with veterans.

782
00:40:39,120 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 2: They're all veterans. And I'm not saying you have to

783
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 2: be in a veteran to do this. I'm saying, no,

784
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: it's not about giving them a blank. There's a community.

785
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,160
Speaker 2: It's about getting them in the game because they've gone

786
00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:50,799
Speaker 2: to places and led through situations that would make most

787
00:40:50,840 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 2: diplomats spit up a hairball, right, and they know how

788
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 2: to lead in ways that are so contributory. But instead

789
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 2: we're medicating them, We're sitting them in a corner, we're

790
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,600
Speaker 2: telling them they're victims. You know, we're not engaging them

791
00:41:05,640 --> 00:41:08,080
Speaker 2: and empowering them to lead us. And that's what the

792
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 2: play is about. Really, the play is about breaching those

793
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,359
Speaker 2: emotional walls so that we can have the hard conversations

794
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 2: that we've got to have.

795
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 1: So everybody's gonna know, where can I watch this? How

796
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,200
Speaker 1: could I see this? It's on Amazon Prime right now.

797
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: Shameless plug. We're gonna give it. Yeah, And that's and

798
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: the title last out.

799
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:33,760
Speaker 2: Elegy of a Green Beret and Elergy is a lament

800
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 2: for the dead, all right.

801
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: So there's the first plug of many coming. So the

802
00:41:40,239 --> 00:41:44,920
Speaker 1: phone start during all of this, which is honestly born

803
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:52,359
Speaker 1: out of your therapy. Really, it was right, money and

804
00:41:52,480 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: moneys and but that's what it is, and and and beautif.

805
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 1: We're on our way, right, But your phone starts ringing,

806
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: yeah with the collapse.

807
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:07,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had just put the film up on Amazon,

808
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:09,160
Speaker 2: like we were getting ready to debut it, and the

809
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 2: zomb started sending me signal messages, you know, the signal

810
00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 2: happ that is encrypted, and he's sending me these and

811
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 2: it was, hey, this this province has fallen, This district

812
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 2: has fallen, This district has fallen. I'm thinking this is

813
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:24,360
Speaker 2: this is the spring of twenty twenty one, and I'm thinking,

814
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:27,600
Speaker 2: that's really weird. There's you know, I've never seen this many.

815
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 1: Are you at this point when I read this about

816
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: your story? I'm sorry to interrupt you, but are you

817
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:39,919
Speaker 1: It's part of you? Like the snakes have gone, I'm

818
00:42:39,960 --> 00:42:43,080
Speaker 1: moving on. I'm trying to help this. Why are these

819
00:42:43,080 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: people in Afghanistan dragging me back to us?

820
00:42:46,440 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 2: Nailed it. That's exactly I would have been thinking enough,

821
00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 2: that is, have I not given enough?

822
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:53,800
Speaker 1: Leave me alone?

823
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 2: That's exactly what I felt, MANI was we were talking

824
00:42:56,560 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 2: about we're like braidon. Our youngest was getting ready to

825
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:00,360
Speaker 2: go move into his apartment. I was I'm only going

826
00:43:00,440 --> 00:43:01,960
Speaker 2: to be there for something for one of my kids.

827
00:43:02,080 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, and now you're calling me back to Afghanista.

828
00:43:03,920 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 2: And so I'm getting these signal messages from Nazam and

829
00:43:07,600 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 2: it started. He's just letting me know what's happening, because

830
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 2: we stayed in touch each other, and he was hiding

831
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:15,160
Speaker 2: in his uncle's house, but I could tell he was scared.

832
00:43:15,200 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 2: It was bad. He was waiting on his visa because

833
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: he was already out of the army. So I was like, okay,

834
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 2: all right, look, I'm gonna make some phone calls, and

835
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,360
Speaker 2: we're gonna see if we can't get your visa accelerated.

836
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:27,799
Speaker 2: I still know a few people in the in the

837
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 2: in the army. Let me see what I can do.

838
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 2: So I start calling people and meanwhile, though other buddies

839
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:38,560
Speaker 2: are calling me, going, hey man, I'm talking to my

840
00:43:38,600 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 2: interpreter and they said that Harat just fell, you know,

841
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 2: the province of Harad fell, And I'm like, yeah, I

842
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 2: heard the same thing. And we're because we've worked in

843
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:48,759
Speaker 2: that country a lot of years, and you don't you know,

844
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: every now and then a province or a district center

845
00:43:50,600 --> 00:43:52,560
Speaker 2: will fall and then it'll be reclaimed by the army.

846
00:43:52,560 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 2: Now they're falling like Domino's. No one on the news

847
00:43:54,719 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 2: is talking about it. The administration is not talking about it,

848
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 2: and we're all going, if these pros and just keep

849
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 2: falling like this, this thing's going to go and.

850
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: So and meanwhile, all these people we made all these

851
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: promises through the fault and blood alongside us, they're screwed, right.

852
00:44:09,080 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 2: So I'm calling like, guys, it for brag and I'm

853
00:44:12,400 --> 00:44:15,160
Speaker 2: and I'm telling them, hey, Nazam you know, is calling

854
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 2: me and I'm just checking on his visa because Nazam

855
00:44:18,040 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 2: is not only an Afghan commando and Afghan special Forces.

856
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 2: He went to our Green Beret qualification course. He is

857
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 2: a certified in the US eighteen Bravo US weapon sergeant. Right,

858
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 2: he is one of our regiment. And and and and I.

859
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 2: So I said to this this officer, and he said, yeah,

860
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:37,360
Speaker 2: we've got a special list for those guys we're working it.

861
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, work faster. Yeah, And so I

862
00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:43,879
Speaker 2: let a Zam know that. And it starts getting worse

863
00:44:43,920 --> 00:44:46,239
Speaker 2: and worse and worse. I called, but now they're not

864
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 2: taking my calls. And at some point I talked into

865
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 2: money and I said, nobody's coming. Nobody's coming. These guys

866
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,359
Speaker 2: are on their own. And and it wasn't And then

867
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 2: and then on August fifteenth, three years ago, I was

868
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 2: a Sunday. I get a text from one of my buddies.

869
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 2: He said, hey, it's a veteran. He said, are you

870
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 2: watching the news? And I said no, and he said

871
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:09,760
Speaker 2: turn it on. And so I turned on the news,

872
00:45:09,920 --> 00:45:12,719
Speaker 2: which I never watch. I cannot watch the news. I

873
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,839
Speaker 2: turned it on and I see Afghan Taliban rolling into

874
00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:21,000
Speaker 2: Kabul on our gun trucks in our uniforms, wearing our

875
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: kid carrying our car beans and terrorizing Afghans on international television,

876
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:28,920
Speaker 2: you know. And I'm standing there just trying to make

877
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 2: sense of it, and my phone it's blowing up, you know.

878
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:34,840
Speaker 2: And then it rings and it's an Azamba. And I

879
00:45:34,920 --> 00:45:36,760
Speaker 2: knew something was up because he was calling me voice

880
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 2: and he said, you know, sir, it's over. He said,

881
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:44,880
Speaker 2: the Taliban are here. They're texting my phone. They're circling

882
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:47,280
Speaker 2: the block. I'm hiding in my uncle's house, like Anne Frank.

883
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,959
Speaker 2: The president has left the country, the generals have taken

884
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 2: the money, the commandos have disbanded, you know. And then

885
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 2: he just got quiet. And I'm out in my backyard

886
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 2: because I didn't want money or you know, anybody to

887
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:01,480
Speaker 2: hear it. He's on speaker and he said, you know,

888
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 2: I never worried about dying. I just never. I never

889
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 2: thought I would dialog God, and I just thought that

890
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 2: had to just crush. Oh. It was the worst possible

891
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 2: thing that happened that day. And and I just said

892
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 2: the only thing I could think of us looks hard,

893
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 2: and you're not gonna dial a. You're not gonna die all.

894
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:24,600
Speaker 2: In fact, you're gonna get your your little across the city.

895
00:46:24,640 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 2: You're gonna get past the checkpoints. You're gonna go to

896
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 2: the airport. You're gonna get into the crowd. You're gonna

897
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:31,799
Speaker 2: go to East Gate. We're gonna get you out of here.

898
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 2: You're gonna You're gonna you get pulled in. You'll get

899
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,600
Speaker 2: to see seventeen. You're gonna fly to the United States,

900
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:38,839
Speaker 2: not just anywhere. You going to Riverview, Florida. You're gonna

901
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:40,480
Speaker 2: be my neighbor. And you're gonna work in my nonprofit.

902
00:46:40,520 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 2: Are we clear, Sergeant? And he has this little Arnold

903
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 2: Horsehack life. He does, like from Welcome Back Carter that

904
00:46:45,600 --> 00:46:48,160
Speaker 2: he does let when he doesn't believe anything. You're and

905
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 2: and and I knew.

906
00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: That you just devote Arnold Horseshack.

907
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 2: On my podcast called Narrative Competency.

908
00:46:56,719 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 1: Thank you, Yes, thank you.

909
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 2: But I could tell he'd kind of dialed back, and

910
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 2: I just said, charge your phone, pack a bag, and

911
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 2: be ready. And then I started calling buddies that had

912
00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 2: known him and loved him, and we started putting a

913
00:47:10,360 --> 00:47:15,400
Speaker 2: plan together using our cell phones, our relationships and the

914
00:47:15,440 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 2: knowledge of the country, and basically worked to just surreptitiously

915
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,000
Speaker 2: move him through the city, get him close to the airfield.

916
00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:23,880
Speaker 2: He did the rest. He got within five feet of

917
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 2: the of the of the guards. And then this was

918
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,759
Speaker 2: like ninety six hours of just not sleeping, being on

919
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:32,240
Speaker 2: our phones like this all the time and pouring. Hisamb

920
00:47:32,280 --> 00:47:34,120
Speaker 2: had been beaten and you know, it's been through it

921
00:47:34,200 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: and dehydrated in that hot sun crowd of thousands. And

922
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 2: then he texted me and he said, Sir, I'm sorry

923
00:47:39,840 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 2: to tell you this, but the Marines are getting ready

924
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 2: toss me my Uh, I don't have my paperwork and

925
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:48,040
Speaker 2: my and my phone's on ten percent power. And I thought, man,

926
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,000
Speaker 2: the Taliban had formed a ring of security around the airport,

927
00:47:52,280 --> 00:47:54,920
Speaker 2: so if he gets tossed, they're going to check him.

928
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 2: He's done. He's gonna be executed. And the only thing

929
00:47:57,440 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 2: we had was a phone number to a diplomat named JP.

930
00:48:01,320 --> 00:48:05,799
Speaker 2: We didn't know the guy's last name, and so one

931
00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:08,440
Speaker 2: of our guys called the guy and he's like, you

932
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:11,000
Speaker 2: could tell he was smoked, he was exhausted, and he's like,

933
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 2: I don't know you guys heard my phone's blowing up.

934
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:17,720
Speaker 2: What do you want? And I told the story about

935
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 2: in Azama and what he had been through, being shot

936
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:21,520
Speaker 2: through the face, being a US Green Beret, and JP

937
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 2: said something to the effective that I tell you, guys,

938
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 2: I was a Green Beret before I was a diplomat.

939
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,279
Speaker 2: And no, he said, all right, they're going to throw

940
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:31,359
Speaker 2: him out if you don't, if you don't get him

941
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,520
Speaker 2: to say the password, like, what's the password? Pineapple, tell

942
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:35,759
Speaker 2: him to say Pineapple is loud.

943
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:37,680
Speaker 1: That's where Pineapple expressed.

944
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,759
Speaker 2: God, say Pineapple. And so he ended up going up

945
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:43,000
Speaker 2: to this guy at the gate and he's like, excuse me, sir,

946
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 2: I'm the Pineapple and uh. And they led him through

947
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,919
Speaker 2: and that that became our first passenger through, and then

948
00:48:51,080 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 2: over the next six days, a group of veterans because

949
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 2: then what happened. I just fell on my knees in

950
00:48:56,480 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 2: the driveway and many thought something had happened to him,

951
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:03,440
Speaker 2: and I'm like, no, baby, he's out, We're done. And

952
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 2: then my phone just started blowing up.

953
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:09,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm I feel like just hearing the story,

954
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:11,799
Speaker 1: I just breathed heavy. Yeah, you had to have just

955
00:49:11,840 --> 00:49:13,720
Speaker 1: felt like the world came off.

956
00:49:13,600 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 2: Of oh Man. And when he was out and we

957
00:49:15,480 --> 00:49:17,719
Speaker 2: saw a selfie of him standing by the plane with

958
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:19,839
Speaker 2: his family. I just thought it's over. We did it.

959
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:20,720
Speaker 2: You know, it's done.

960
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: I can I can go back to writing plays or something.

961
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's I mean, I was you know, look

962
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:28,480
Speaker 2: at this point, I've been out of the army ten years.

963
00:49:28,480 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 2: I'm an actor, a playwright. I'm not your number one

964
00:49:30,719 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 2: draft pick for hostage rescue.

965
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:39,800
Speaker 1: Right, you know you've had your seventh Aco blowout.

966
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:43,640
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, you're out. Not the guy. I'm moving on.

967
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,399
Speaker 2: Not the guy. Uh and and But that was what

968
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,440
Speaker 2: was so ironic about it was then my phone started

969
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 2: blowing up and it was other veterans. This dude out

970
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:55,360
Speaker 2: about how you want to work. Yeah, I've got ten

971
00:49:55,400 --> 00:49:58,880
Speaker 2: interpreters plus families. I've got twenty five n MRG plus families.

972
00:49:58,880 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 2: I have five cost was the R or the National

973
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:04,399
Speaker 2: Mind Reduction Group. These were the guys that actually I've

974
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:07,960
Speaker 2: read about it. They're amazing. They took they sucked down

975
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 2: IDs for us, like they're the most trustworthy dudes.

976
00:50:11,200 --> 00:50:13,320
Speaker 1: Once again, for those of you who think the Afghans

977
00:50:13,320 --> 00:50:15,319
Speaker 1: weren't willing to fight, these are guys who went out

978
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: and cleared minefields before American soldiers went in. American Seals

979
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:24,000
Speaker 1: and Green Berets. You know, they saved American Yeah, and they.

980
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:26,720
Speaker 2: Were completely on the run, being hunted, and so we

981
00:50:26,719 --> 00:50:28,560
Speaker 2: we what we started to do was we formed a

982
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:31,359
Speaker 2: group of veterans then in a signal chat room and

983
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 2: we said we're we're now called Task Force Pineapple.

984
00:50:39,000 --> 00:50:39,959
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.

985
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:53,319
Speaker 2: One of the main guys in Pineapple was a Green

986
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 2: Beret turned Syracuse middle school teacher named Zach.

987
00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:01,200
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't he Well, an amazing dude who Row? Mike

988
00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 1: Row will tell you the most influential teacher that he

989
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:09,040
Speaker 1: had was a former military guy that taught music at

990
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: his high school.

991
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 2: It's funny you say that because Mike and I zoned

992
00:51:11,640 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 2: in on Zach and I think he told me the

993
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 2: same thing, and uh, Zach, because we were kind of

994
00:51:18,200 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 2: at a loss. We've gotten Azam out, We've gotten a

995
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 2: few others out, but we were it was flooding the gates.

996
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 2: Imagine these young troopers on the gates and you got

997
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 2: thousands of people holding their babies up little you know,

998
00:51:27,800 --> 00:51:30,719
Speaker 2: they're turning purple in the sun and certificates from when

999
00:51:30,760 --> 00:51:32,960
Speaker 2: they worked with the military. And you're a nineteen year

1000
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:34,959
Speaker 2: old marine. You're like, I don't know who's who. There's

1001
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:37,919
Speaker 2: no vetting criteria. So what we figured was the best

1002
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,360
Speaker 2: week of feel like crap yeah and hating it. And

1003
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:43,680
Speaker 2: so what we figured was we worked in this country

1004
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 2: multiple years. We know who the commandos are, we know

1005
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:48,399
Speaker 2: who the SF guys are, we know who the all

1006
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,640
Speaker 2: the special ops guys are, and the interpreters. They trust us,

1007
00:51:52,200 --> 00:51:57,800
Speaker 2: and they're tactically trained. We can we can move them remotely, responsibly,

1008
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:00,880
Speaker 2: and then they can present themselves in a pre coordinated

1009
00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:03,520
Speaker 2: fashion to the guys at the gate at the right time,

1010
00:52:03,600 --> 00:52:06,200
Speaker 2: right place, and it becomes an operation and they can

1011
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 2: pull them in and they know they're vetted. So that

1012
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,719
Speaker 2: became the what we were like, that's what we need

1013
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,520
Speaker 2: to be focused on. But we couldn't figure out. Zach

1014
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:16,880
Speaker 2: kept weighing in. He had come to us through LinkedIn,

1015
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:19,879
Speaker 2: much younger than us, and he's like, you know, we're

1016
00:52:19,920 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 2: studying Harriet Tubman right now, and we need we need

1017
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 2: we need somebody on the inside. You know, we we

1018
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,600
Speaker 2: need an underground railroad, but we can't do the underground

1019
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:36,239
Speaker 2: railroad unless we have somebody on the We need conductors.

1020
00:52:36,920 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: And so Congressman Mike Walts's staffer who had been helping us,

1021
00:52:41,080 --> 00:52:43,640
Speaker 2: that I might have somebody, and it turned out it

1022
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 2: was a company commander and a first sergeant from the

1023
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,279
Speaker 2: eighty second Airborne who were not on the line. They

1024
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:51,600
Speaker 2: were back from the line. Jesse and John and their

1025
00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:56,759
Speaker 2: company had helped Mike Waltz's interpreter get out because she

1026
00:52:56,880 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 2: was pregnant and she was inside the airfield and she

1027
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,400
Speaker 2: was going into premature labor, and they helped her, and

1028
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 2: they ended up talking to Kelsey and said, if you

1029
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:07,680
Speaker 2: need something, we might be able to help with some more.

1030
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 2: And Kelsey mentioned that to Zach and He's like, that's it,

1031
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 2: that's it, And so we got in touch with the

1032
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 2: company commander and the first sergeant. We laid out the plan,

1033
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 2: and basically the plan was at a designated time and

1034
00:53:19,840 --> 00:53:22,360
Speaker 2: designated place, each shepherd as we were called, who was

1035
00:53:22,480 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 2: working with their own interpreters, their own nozambs, they would

1036
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 2: work with them on their own signal channel, and then

1037
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,319
Speaker 2: in the main signal room, Zach would put out time

1038
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:33,400
Speaker 2: and place in coordination with Jesse and John for link up,

1039
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:35,600
Speaker 2: and then that would be given to each of the

1040
00:53:35,600 --> 00:53:38,440
Speaker 2: shepherds who would then compartmentalized passet to their people. They

1041
00:53:38,440 --> 00:53:41,800
Speaker 2: would move their families tactically to loiter areas like a

1042
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 2: Chicago airport, lining up for approach, and then at the

1043
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:48,440
Speaker 2: right time, right place, Jesse and john would get behind

1044
00:53:48,440 --> 00:53:51,799
Speaker 2: the barriers of the blast walls with a green kim

1045
00:53:51,920 --> 00:53:55,160
Speaker 2: light and then we would send baseball cards of each

1046
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:58,760
Speaker 2: family with the head of the family, a picture, their names,

1047
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:00,520
Speaker 2: and the number in the party, and that would go

1048
00:54:00,520 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 2: to Jesse and Johnson. They would have that standing behind

1049
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 2: the barrier. And then when Zach would open the express

1050
00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:07,799
Speaker 2: he would go up in the signal room and say

1051
00:54:07,800 --> 00:54:10,919
Speaker 2: it's open. Everyone would have order of movement. The first

1052
00:54:11,000 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 2: family would come up. They would drop into the sewage canal,

1053
00:54:14,200 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 2: which the Taliban would not get in because it was

1054
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 2: too nasty held it.

1055
00:54:17,800 --> 00:54:20,319
Speaker 1: We hadn't even brought up the zewache canal. Do not

1056
00:54:20,520 --> 00:54:24,840
Speaker 1: think some concrete culvert that your ankle deep in? We're talking.

1057
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 1: These people were dropping in litteral rivers sewage, Yeah.

1058
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:33,680
Speaker 2: And standing in it for hours with their children, who

1059
00:54:33,719 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 2: was up to their nose in it in the one

1060
00:54:36,120 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 2: hundred and five degree sun.

1061
00:54:38,719 --> 00:54:39,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead.

1062
00:54:41,040 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 2: But what we figured was if they dropped in the

1063
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:46,640
Speaker 2: sewage canal. That was a mobility corridor that the Taliban

1064
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:49,440
Speaker 2: wouldn't get in and they wouldn't get beaten, and so

1065
00:54:49,480 --> 00:54:51,719
Speaker 2: they could move through. You know, pick your poison right,

1066
00:54:51,760 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 2: so they could move through the canal. And then when

1067
00:54:53,120 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: they got to where Jesse they would see the green

1068
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:58,040
Speaker 2: kim light. Then they would hold up a pineapple on

1069
00:54:58,080 --> 00:55:01,920
Speaker 2: their phone. And then when Jesse or John saw the pineapple,

1070
00:55:02,239 --> 00:55:04,480
Speaker 2: they would It's called challenge and password. They would challenge

1071
00:55:04,520 --> 00:55:07,799
Speaker 2: them with name and number in your party. The head

1072
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:09,720
Speaker 2: of the househol would say his name, number in the party,

1073
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:11,160
Speaker 2: and then he say we're going to pull you. And

1074
00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 2: they would pull them out of the canal, and Jesse

1075
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:15,400
Speaker 2: and John and Doc Gundy and a couple of the

1076
00:55:15,440 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 2: guys from the company would pat him down, search them,

1077
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 2: make sure they were clean, and then move them to

1078
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:22,440
Speaker 2: a four foot hole in the fence and then onto

1079
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,520
Speaker 2: their high lux trucks to Aprin eight, where they had

1080
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:29,279
Speaker 2: discovered that the State Department quick exit on that side.

1081
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 2: When they had helped the female that was pregnant get out,

1082
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:33,960
Speaker 2: they had discovered that part of the you know how

1083
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 2: they could and made coordination and report. So it was

1084
00:55:36,360 --> 00:55:39,800
Speaker 2: a full Express, So we started moving hundreds of people

1085
00:55:39,840 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 2: out over two periods of darkness.

1086
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:44,760
Speaker 1: One of the people that were in this stoage ditch

1087
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:46,400
Speaker 1: was like one of the highest ranking women.

1088
00:55:46,480 --> 00:55:48,799
Speaker 2: She was the most wanted woman in Afghanistan. She was

1089
00:55:48,840 --> 00:55:53,319
Speaker 2: the Minister of Women's Affairs, Hassinasafi. And here's the part

1090
00:55:53,360 --> 00:55:54,120
Speaker 2: that was amazing.

1091
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: I mean that's not like that's if you compared that

1092
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: United States government, that would be like the Secretary of Interior.

1093
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:02,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, but we're.

1094
00:56:02,160 --> 00:56:05,560
Speaker 1: Talking about a high ranking woman. And think about these

1095
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:10,320
Speaker 1: in little rivers of crap to survive, and the audacity

1096
00:56:10,600 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan of a ministry of women's affairs.

1097
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:17,799
Speaker 2: How bad did the Taliban want to get a yes

1098
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:19,799
Speaker 2: and so and and the thing was none of the

1099
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 2: and I'm just going to say it, the US government

1100
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:26,600
Speaker 2: State Department. Nobody got her out. Nobody thought to get

1101
00:56:26,600 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 2: her out. And there were people trying to contact the

1102
00:56:29,800 --> 00:56:32,799
Speaker 2: State Department desperately to get her out, including a former

1103
00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:36,160
Speaker 2: ambassador who was trying to be her shepherd and get

1104
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 2: her out. Nobody from the government would respond. So she

1105
00:56:40,080 --> 00:56:42,440
Speaker 2: ended up getting moved into the Express And what was

1106
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:46,279
Speaker 2: cool about it, all of the shepherds who moved her.

1107
00:56:46,400 --> 00:56:48,640
Speaker 2: She was the matriarch of the family who moved her

1108
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:52,719
Speaker 2: family through. She was the matriarch, not the husband. All

1109
00:56:52,760 --> 00:56:56,359
Speaker 2: of the shepherds that guided her were women. No, yep,

1110
00:56:56,560 --> 00:57:01,040
Speaker 2: all women, former ambassadors, just these badass sparks American women

1111
00:57:01,520 --> 00:57:04,560
Speaker 2: that were on the phone guiding her. And she was

1112
00:57:04,680 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 2: terrified of soldiers. Her father had been beaten by Russian

1113
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:10,560
Speaker 2: soldiers back in the day, and so the thing that

1114
00:57:10,600 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 2: scared her the most was getting down in that ditch.

1115
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:14,440
Speaker 2: It wasn't the Taliban, they had already beaten her. It

1116
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 2: was the US soldiers. She was terrified about that. But

1117
00:57:18,520 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 2: she got down in the ditch when it was time

1118
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 2: to go, and she was panicked and she's like, I

1119
00:57:23,320 --> 00:57:26,920
Speaker 2: cannot in this big hulking guiding Jesse, the first sergeant

1120
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:29,960
Speaker 2: of the eighty second Airborne that was part of our operation.

1121
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:33,680
Speaker 2: He calls her name, and her name is like really shaking,

1122
00:57:33,720 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 2: and she says it, and he reaches his hand down

1123
00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 2: into the ditch and she grabs it. And this is

1124
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:42,480
Speaker 2: her perspective, and she said she looked up at him

1125
00:57:42,520 --> 00:57:46,240
Speaker 2: and he said, I'm Jesse. You're safe now, and he

1126
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:50,640
Speaker 2: pulled her up and she said that when she said,

1127
00:57:50,680 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 2: when I went in that ditch, I had five brothers,

1128
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 2: and when I came out, I had six. Wow. And

1129
00:57:56,400 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 2: to this day they're still in contact. He gave her

1130
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 2: the American flag off his shoulder. He waited with her

1131
00:58:01,560 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 2: at the aircraft for the plane to pick them up. Uh,

1132
00:58:05,680 --> 00:58:08,600
Speaker 2: and to this day still is in contact with her.

1133
00:58:08,960 --> 00:58:12,400
Speaker 2: And how many lives to pine Apple Express say? We

1134
00:58:12,520 --> 00:58:15,200
Speaker 2: estimate between seven hundred and fifty and one thousand. That's

1135
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 2: it's hard. I mean, it depends on like from a

1136
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 2: bunch of retired army, mostly retired guys.

1137
00:58:21,040 --> 00:58:25,240
Speaker 1: Off snakes and flip flops. Yeah, with cell phones. Yeah,

1138
00:58:25,360 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 1: you did what the United States government wouldn't or didn't.

1139
00:58:31,480 --> 00:58:33,440
Speaker 1: I don't know the right word.

1140
00:58:33,800 --> 00:58:35,880
Speaker 2: Money asked me, why are we doing this? Why are

1141
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:37,800
Speaker 2: we bringing all this up? He's like, I don't want

1142
00:58:37,840 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 2: to see you in that closet again. You know, what

1143
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:41,600
Speaker 2: are we what are we doing? And I just said,

1144
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 2: I said her, I said, our boys are watching us

1145
00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 2: right now. Our boys are watching us right now. They're

1146
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 2: looking to see what we do. You know. And I

1147
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:53,280
Speaker 2: can't do this. I can't. I cannot just sit here.

1148
00:58:55,320 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 1: No you cannot, sir, No, you cannot. We have so

1149
00:59:01,960 --> 00:59:06,800
Speaker 1: much division, so many problems in this country. And if

1150
00:59:06,840 --> 00:59:10,680
Speaker 1: we normal folks don't have the courage and the temerity

1151
00:59:11,360 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: to not only face our own demons, but face the

1152
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: demons that our culture and society are facing today, then

1153
00:59:17,440 --> 00:59:18,840
Speaker 1: we get what we deserve.

1154
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:22,000
Speaker 2: And we're not that far away from getting what we

1155
00:59:22,080 --> 00:59:25,720
Speaker 2: deserve if we don't move, like we're running out of time.

1156
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:31,080
Speaker 1: Somebody it wasn't confucious, but it was. I think it was.

1157
00:59:31,200 --> 00:59:36,480
Speaker 1: Plato said, the penalty for not engaging in politics as

1158
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:38,720
Speaker 1: you end up being governed by your infeerors.

1159
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:39,320
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1160
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:45,040
Speaker 1: But yeah, likewise, the penalty for not meeting each of

1161
00:59:45,080 --> 00:59:48,240
Speaker 1: our own demons and engaging in our culture today is

1162
00:59:50,040 --> 00:59:53,360
Speaker 1: we will end up living as our inferors.

1163
00:59:53,440 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you surrender your agency? Do you surrender your autonomy?

1164
00:59:57,160 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 2: And it's like that when you were in that interview

1165
00:59:59,320 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 2: talking about and by a neighborhood and looking in there

1166
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:03,600
Speaker 2: and going, you know, somebody ought to do something about that,

1167
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 2: and and and and that the real action is to

1168
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,320
Speaker 2: tilt that mirror up a couple of degrees and look

1169
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 2: at look at that, because that's the somebody you know,

1170
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:13,920
Speaker 2: And and and I firmly believe that. I mean, and

1171
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:15,760
Speaker 2: I only tell you that, Bill because I saw it

1172
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 2: in the in some of the most trust depleted, violent

1173
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 2: places on Earth, where when that mentality was put in play,

1174
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:23,720
Speaker 2: I can remember team sergeant saying to me or Senior

1175
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:26,120
Speaker 2: and CEO, serve nobody's coming. It's just us. We got

1176
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:28,000
Speaker 2: a good team. We're gonna be fine, you know. And

1177
01:00:28,040 --> 01:00:30,760
Speaker 2: then all of a sudden two months later, that team

1178
01:00:30,800 --> 01:00:33,960
Speaker 2: has totally changed the dynamic of that community, and that

1179
01:00:34,000 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 2: community standing up on their own, you know. And I

1180
01:00:36,000 --> 01:00:39,320
Speaker 2: saw it over and over and over again. And I

1181
01:00:39,360 --> 01:00:42,280
Speaker 2: saw it with the play, I saw it with last

1182
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 2: with with Pineapple, you know. And I honestly believe that

1183
01:00:46,880 --> 01:00:49,360
Speaker 2: we are on the cusp of what Robert Putnam described

1184
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:52,320
Speaker 2: as an upswing in his book Bowling Alone, that that

1185
01:00:52,480 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 2: we are in a down and swing period right now.

1186
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:56,960
Speaker 2: But the same way that in the early nineteen hundreds

1187
01:00:56,960 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 2: you saw alcoholics, anonymous and rotary club and junior league

1188
01:00:59,880 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 2: and all the things that we grew up with that

1189
01:01:01,720 --> 01:01:03,400
Speaker 2: our parents were part of, that was part of that

1190
01:01:03,440 --> 01:01:05,600
Speaker 2: bridging social capital that we started to lose in the

1191
01:01:05,640 --> 01:01:07,960
Speaker 2: early seventies. I think it's I think we're on the

1192
01:01:07,960 --> 01:01:10,160
Speaker 2: cusp of it right now, and I really believe that.

1193
01:01:10,240 --> 01:01:12,280
Speaker 2: I think that we are on the cusp of another

1194
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:16,720
Speaker 2: major upswing. And sometimes when it's darkest, that's when you're

1195
01:01:16,760 --> 01:01:18,720
Speaker 2: on that cusp of it. I hope you're right. I

1196
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:19,480
Speaker 2: feel like I am.

1197
01:01:20,000 --> 01:01:23,360
Speaker 1: So here's where we are. Scott is the New York

1198
01:01:23,400 --> 01:01:28,960
Speaker 1: Times bestselling author of Operation Pineapple Express, which you just

1199
01:01:29,000 --> 01:01:33,560
Speaker 1: heard about, and number one international best selling author of

1200
01:01:33,680 --> 01:01:39,200
Speaker 1: Game Changers, Going Local to Defeat Violent Extremists. You've heard

1201
01:01:39,240 --> 01:01:42,880
Speaker 1: about estat x Dogs. He's a playwright and ended up

1202
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:46,320
Speaker 1: being an actor, which is hilarious, but let's all be honest.

1203
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:48,280
Speaker 1: The playwright and actor was to get rid of the

1204
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 1: snakes and ended up just being really cool. Yeah, all

1205
01:01:57,280 --> 01:02:01,840
Speaker 1: of that. I just I want to say what I

1206
01:02:01,840 --> 01:02:03,760
Speaker 1: want to say, but I want to say it right.

1207
01:02:04,440 --> 01:02:10,240
Speaker 1: What a phenomenal life this scrawny, fourteen year old, bullied

1208
01:02:10,400 --> 01:02:13,080
Speaker 1: kid had as a result of meeting a Green Berey once,

1209
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:23,680
Speaker 1: and how so very literally, you have taken illustration of

1210
01:02:23,720 --> 01:02:27,000
Speaker 1: what a true modern Green Bray does, which is not

1211
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:29,960
Speaker 1: be John Rambow and blow up his town, but as

1212
01:02:30,040 --> 01:02:33,520
Speaker 1: to build consensus among those who need it. You're still

1213
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:38,520
Speaker 1: a Green Beret yeah. I mean even as a civilian.

1214
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:41,880
Speaker 1: You're a Green Beret and you are a renaissance guy,

1215
01:02:42,400 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 1: and you also do what I do. As you say,

1216
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:50,040
Speaker 1: your greatest accomplishment is your twenty eight year marriage now

1217
01:02:50,560 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 1: twenty on my thirty three. Congratulations, thank you for you

1218
01:02:54,800 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: as well. Work it. I mean, it's when I do speeches,

1219
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:08,040
Speaker 1: there's this long old bio and many times they want

1220
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: to cut some of the bio out because it's just

1221
01:03:10,000 --> 01:03:13,560
Speaker 1: too embarrassing along and I'm like, can cut anything except

1222
01:03:13,880 --> 01:03:18,040
Speaker 1: at least of my fore kits. And that's so okay.

1223
01:03:18,920 --> 01:03:22,880
Speaker 1: This leads us up to in October. You have your

1224
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:27,680
Speaker 1: next project about to hit the world, and it is

1225
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:31,480
Speaker 1: called something that you just said, Nobody is coming to

1226
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:36,120
Speaker 1: save you. A green braised guide to getting shipped done.

1227
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:42,360
Speaker 1: What big Oh I missed, big Goat, Nobody is coming

1228
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 1: to save you, A green brais guide to getting big done.

1229
01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:51,520
Speaker 1: So we've got a few minutes left.

1230
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:52,880
Speaker 2: Okay.

1231
01:03:54,200 --> 01:04:00,640
Speaker 1: When I've read that, you tell me define and qualify

1232
01:04:00,920 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: big sh.

1233
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:04,200
Speaker 2: It's the stuff that scares us at night. It's the

1234
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:06,479
Speaker 2: stuff that when we're lying in bed and everybody else

1235
01:04:06,520 --> 01:04:08,439
Speaker 2: is sleeping and we're staring at the ceiling, knowing there's

1236
01:04:08,440 --> 01:04:10,040
Speaker 2: a bigger game we should be playing, but we just

1237
01:04:10,080 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 2: don't know how to do it, and we're afraid, and

1238
01:04:11,800 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 2: we're afraid that nobody's gonna listen and nobody's gonna take

1239
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:16,200
Speaker 2: us seriously, and I'm not the right person to do it,

1240
01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:18,120
Speaker 2: and surely somebody else is going to do that.

1241
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:20,760
Speaker 1: God, I love that. Do you know how parallel we are?

1242
01:04:21,040 --> 01:04:27,920
Speaker 1: I do ultimately how parallel we are? That is my gosh, stern,

1243
01:04:28,280 --> 01:04:31,120
Speaker 1: that is what I keep saying. Yes, we do have

1244
01:04:31,200 --> 01:04:35,640
Speaker 1: to tilt the mirror, yeah, and look ourselves in the face.

1245
01:04:35,920 --> 01:04:40,000
Speaker 1: But the big is.

1246
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:44,920
Speaker 2: Is that is Yeah, it's the stuff that scares us,

1247
01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:47,320
Speaker 2: you know, because nobody, nobody's coming to do it. And

1248
01:04:47,360 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 2: if we think that somebody's gonna I mean, did anybody

1249
01:04:49,680 --> 01:04:51,720
Speaker 2: honestly wake up this morning and hit the floor and

1250
01:04:51,760 --> 01:04:53,760
Speaker 2: go WHOA Thank God for Washington, d C.

1251
01:04:54,040 --> 01:04:58,120
Speaker 1: Government name, yes man, Yeah, you know what, that dude

1252
01:04:58,160 --> 01:04:59,720
Speaker 1: on Fox is gonna save.

1253
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:02,560
Speaker 2: My ac so absolutely, and it's like, no, I mean,

1254
01:05:02,760 --> 01:05:06,320
Speaker 2: it's discussed. Yeah, But here's what the what I think

1255
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:09,320
Speaker 2: hopefully will help people with the book is I wrote this.

1256
01:05:09,360 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 2: It's taken me six years, and I asked myself. It's

1257
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,520
Speaker 2: been at a six year project. I don't even know

1258
01:05:14,560 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 2: how many rewrites, but I wanted it to be a

1259
01:05:18,360 --> 01:05:22,280
Speaker 2: guide for that practitioner who is willing to walk into

1260
01:05:22,360 --> 01:05:26,000
Speaker 2: that arena with their knees wobbling and facing an enemy

1261
01:05:26,040 --> 01:05:28,479
Speaker 2: they've never faced before. And the enemy. Here's the thing.

1262
01:05:29,000 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 2: It's easy to think, and you described this perfectly. It's

1263
01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:34,000
Speaker 2: easy to think that the enemy is the Democrat or

1264
01:05:34,000 --> 01:05:36,600
Speaker 2: the Republican across from you, the person that voted for

1265
01:05:36,600 --> 01:05:38,920
Speaker 2: Trump or Biden, the person that likes a mask or

1266
01:05:38,960 --> 01:05:42,600
Speaker 2: doesn't like a mask. But that is actually that is

1267
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 2: actually an engineered response that is created by a trance

1268
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:51,880
Speaker 2: like state that a lot of these divisionist leaders have

1269
01:05:51,920 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 2: put us into. We have there has been an engineered

1270
01:05:55,000 --> 01:05:57,920
Speaker 2: environment that we live in where we are conditioned to

1271
01:05:58,080 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 2: look at our neighbor, as Sebastian Junger says, with the

1272
01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:05,760
Speaker 2: contempt normally reserved for one's enemies. We have. We have

1273
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:07,440
Speaker 2: normalized contempt.

1274
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't we when are politicians running for the highest

1275
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:18,520
Speaker 1: selected office in the world describe people that they different

1276
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:23,920
Speaker 1: have different policy views as of the enemy. Exactly that

1277
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:27,960
Speaker 1: we are being conditioned by our quote leaders to think

1278
01:06:28,040 --> 01:06:28,720
Speaker 1: of one another.

1279
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:32,400
Speaker 2: And when you do that, you put when you fear

1280
01:06:32,480 --> 01:06:34,840
Speaker 2: kicks in and a primal response happens. And this is

1281
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:36,440
Speaker 2: what I write about in the book. And you go in,

1282
01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:38,400
Speaker 2: when you're in, when you're in that primal state of fear,

1283
01:06:38,440 --> 01:06:40,919
Speaker 2: you go into a trance, a sympathetic state, a fight,

1284
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:43,720
Speaker 2: flight or freeze. It's like a gunfight. You revert back

1285
01:06:43,720 --> 01:06:46,640
Speaker 2: to your training, you revert back to your basic instincts

1286
01:06:46,680 --> 01:06:49,400
Speaker 2: to survive or free fight, flight or freeze. That's a

1287
01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 2: sympathetic nervous system doing whatever.

1288
01:06:51,560 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 1: But but but but but that is where we are

1289
01:06:53,760 --> 01:07:00,000
Speaker 1: now as just people just in society, fight flight, freeze,

1290
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:02,760
Speaker 1: gonna fight. Am I gonna move to the suburbs or

1291
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,360
Speaker 1: to some ten acres out well, I don't have to

1292
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:07,560
Speaker 1: be around anybody, or I'm just gonna sit here and

1293
01:07:08,080 --> 01:07:09,040
Speaker 1: frozen in fear.

1294
01:07:09,080 --> 01:07:11,160
Speaker 2: And what happened, and what happens when you do that

1295
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:12,960
Speaker 2: is you form these groups. And this is where you

1296
01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:14,680
Speaker 2: talk about how you can only hang with the people

1297
01:07:14,680 --> 01:07:16,760
Speaker 2: that look like us, feel like us, believe like us.

1298
01:07:16,840 --> 01:07:20,680
Speaker 2: That that is group that's in, group outgroup behavior that

1299
01:07:20,720 --> 01:07:25,200
Speaker 2: comes from the primal fear. It's a natural response it's

1300
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:27,560
Speaker 2: not wrong in the sense that it's what we do

1301
01:07:27,600 --> 01:07:31,640
Speaker 2: when we're afraid. Leaders are supposed to step in and

1302
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:36,720
Speaker 2: hold space and bridge those in groups by giving us

1303
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 2: patterns to look at of a better civil society, a

1304
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:42,000
Speaker 2: better condition, a better way of doing things. They're not

1305
01:07:42,120 --> 01:07:45,640
Speaker 2: doing that. Nobody's coming. So what's happened is we've all

1306
01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:48,400
Speaker 2: reverted into our in groups and we've all got our

1307
01:07:48,440 --> 01:07:50,920
Speaker 2: backs against the wall and we're we're and that's how

1308
01:07:50,920 --> 01:07:53,920
Speaker 2: we're navigating the world. That's why when leaders come in

1309
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:56,840
Speaker 2: and their knees are wobbling and they are like, Okay,

1310
01:07:56,840 --> 01:07:59,560
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try this, they need the same kind of

1311
01:07:59,600 --> 01:08:02,680
Speaker 2: tools that I had as that young captain going into

1312
01:08:02,720 --> 01:08:04,840
Speaker 2: that village where that elder is tickling the trigger of

1313
01:08:04,880 --> 01:08:07,120
Speaker 2: his AK forty seven, trying to figure out if he's

1314
01:08:07,160 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 2: going to dispatch me or not, just because I look

1315
01:08:09,000 --> 01:08:11,280
Speaker 2: different than him and I don't have a beard yet. Right,

1316
01:08:11,720 --> 01:08:14,840
Speaker 2: That's how do you build rapport with that individual? How

1317
01:08:14,880 --> 01:08:17,760
Speaker 2: do you ask thoughtful, open ended questions that start with

1318
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:20,120
Speaker 2: how and want and let him tell you his story

1319
01:08:20,360 --> 01:08:22,760
Speaker 2: so that you start to locate yourself in history and

1320
01:08:22,800 --> 01:08:24,680
Speaker 2: he starts to get a sense of you and all

1321
01:08:24,680 --> 01:08:26,840
Speaker 2: of a sudden the armor falls away and you get

1322
01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:29,200
Speaker 2: a little bit of rapport and then you engage some

1323
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:32,040
Speaker 2: more like. That's what this book's about. It's about defining

1324
01:08:32,080 --> 01:08:35,080
Speaker 2: the enemy. The enemy is not the Democrat, the Republican.

1325
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:37,960
Speaker 2: The enemy is the churn. It is this set of

1326
01:08:38,040 --> 01:08:41,360
Speaker 2: social conditions that we're navigating right now, and that we've

1327
01:08:41,360 --> 01:08:42,880
Speaker 2: got to learn to see it for what it is,

1328
01:08:43,400 --> 01:08:45,839
Speaker 2: and that we're primal creatures and we're going to respond

1329
01:08:46,280 --> 01:08:50,599
Speaker 2: like a scared animal if we don't lead ourselves first,

1330
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:54,280
Speaker 2: get into a paras empathetic state of calm and connect,

1331
01:08:54,760 --> 01:08:57,800
Speaker 2: actually see what's going on, get our agency back, and

1332
01:08:57,840 --> 01:09:02,240
Speaker 2: then start to engage.

1333
01:09:03,760 --> 01:09:15,960
Speaker 1: We'll be right back to talk about the church.

1334
01:09:16,320 --> 01:09:18,479
Speaker 2: Well, the churn. It is this set of I say,

1335
01:09:18,560 --> 01:09:23,560
Speaker 2: I give the four d's distraction, disengagement, disconnection, and distrust

1336
01:09:23,880 --> 01:09:26,600
Speaker 2: all at unprecedented levels. Think about the distraction in this

1337
01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:28,679
Speaker 2: country right now. The average attention span of an adult

1338
01:09:28,760 --> 01:09:31,719
Speaker 2: human in the West is eight seconds, right, eight seconds

1339
01:09:31,720 --> 01:09:34,360
Speaker 2: that when you walk into a room, I'm just kidding, yeah,

1340
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:37,080
Speaker 2: pick a polone out and and and and these and

1341
01:09:37,120 --> 01:09:41,880
Speaker 2: these dopamine dispensers that we carry around up right I mean,

1342
01:09:41,960 --> 01:09:45,160
Speaker 2: these things, these things have really exacerbated it. So our

1343
01:09:45,200 --> 01:09:50,120
Speaker 2: distraction levels, uh in civil society day are terrible. So

1344
01:09:50,240 --> 01:09:53,760
Speaker 2: when leaders, like when you and I grew up, you

1345
01:09:53,840 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 2: walked into a room, it was a fairly common assumption

1346
01:09:56,200 --> 01:09:58,120
Speaker 2: that you held that attention of the room. Unless you

1347
01:09:58,160 --> 01:10:01,080
Speaker 2: were really bad. You could hold the attention for a while.

1348
01:10:01,360 --> 01:10:03,760
Speaker 2: Now you have about eight seconds before folks are on

1349
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,439
Speaker 2: their phone under the table, right, And so how you

1350
01:10:06,600 --> 01:10:10,160
Speaker 2: even command a room is different your physicality, how you prepare.

1351
01:10:10,560 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 2: You can't just walk. I see CEO's walking rooms all

1352
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:15,200
Speaker 2: the time, and they're the worst ones. Their people are

1353
01:10:15,200 --> 01:10:16,920
Speaker 2: not listening to a word they say, and they're given

1354
01:10:16,960 --> 01:10:20,160
Speaker 2: their vision statement, right because the people are so distracted

1355
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:22,559
Speaker 2: that they can't focus for even more than a few seconds.

1356
01:10:22,560 --> 01:10:25,800
Speaker 2: So we've got to get back to those old school

1357
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:31,400
Speaker 2: te Lawrence of Arabia interpersonal skills, I call them Lorentzian skills. Right.

1358
01:10:31,520 --> 01:10:35,200
Speaker 2: So what I try to do with this book is

1359
01:10:35,280 --> 01:10:37,559
Speaker 2: like what Ben and Jess are doing in South Memphis

1360
01:10:37,600 --> 01:10:39,719
Speaker 2: right now, Ben and Jess sellen going in there turning

1361
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:40,400
Speaker 2: dope houses.

1362
01:10:40,479 --> 01:10:43,160
Speaker 1: You can refer back to a previous podcast. I don't

1363
01:10:43,160 --> 01:10:46,000
Speaker 1: have time to go into the ben and story. I

1364
01:10:46,000 --> 01:10:48,120
Speaker 1: would love to, but we just don't have time. But

1365
01:10:48,840 --> 01:10:50,760
Speaker 1: just go back in the catalog.

1366
01:10:51,000 --> 01:10:54,160
Speaker 2: Former opium attics turning dope houses into hope houses. It's

1367
01:10:54,439 --> 01:10:57,240
Speaker 2: fun not it's unreal, but anyway, So what I try

1368
01:10:57,240 --> 01:11:01,160
Speaker 2: to do is give them the skill set for going

1369
01:11:01,240 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 2: into those low trust, high stake situations so that they

1370
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:07,880
Speaker 2: can employ not just the instinct of human connection, but

1371
01:11:07,920 --> 01:11:10,400
Speaker 2: the skill, the same skill that a Green Beret trains

1372
01:11:10,439 --> 01:11:13,559
Speaker 2: on that you understand the human operating system as I

1373
01:11:13,640 --> 01:11:16,599
Speaker 2: call it, and how this thing functions, and how it

1374
01:11:16,640 --> 01:11:19,760
Speaker 2: operates when it's scared, when it's angry, when there's reciprocity,

1375
01:11:19,800 --> 01:11:21,960
Speaker 2: when there's rapport, what happens with the brain when it

1376
01:11:22,000 --> 01:11:25,519
Speaker 2: actually hears a well told story, right, what active listening

1377
01:11:25,560 --> 01:11:28,479
Speaker 2: actually means in real time? And it that's what the

1378
01:11:28,520 --> 01:11:30,960
Speaker 2: book's about, is about how to take that skill set

1379
01:11:31,280 --> 01:11:33,240
Speaker 2: and integrate it into what you're building.

1380
01:11:33,840 --> 01:11:34,120
Speaker 1: Right.

1381
01:11:34,200 --> 01:11:38,160
Speaker 2: It's because the Churn is this novel set of conditions

1382
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:40,680
Speaker 2: where I'll give you another example. You said, tell me

1383
01:11:40,720 --> 01:11:44,080
Speaker 2: about the churn. We have forgotten our human nature. We've

1384
01:11:44,120 --> 01:11:46,680
Speaker 2: disconnected from our human nature. We don't even really know

1385
01:11:46,720 --> 01:11:47,759
Speaker 2: who we are as humans.

1386
01:11:47,760 --> 01:11:48,160
Speaker 1: Anymore.

1387
01:11:48,160 --> 01:11:51,000
Speaker 2: We are so down in this represented reality of a

1388
01:11:51,040 --> 01:11:54,840
Speaker 2: phone that we're not connected to the natural world anymore. Right,

1389
01:11:54,920 --> 01:11:57,520
Speaker 2: And when we lose our connection to the natural world,

1390
01:11:57,600 --> 01:12:00,400
Speaker 2: we lose our connection to the humans around us. People

1391
01:12:00,439 --> 01:12:03,280
Speaker 2: in a restaurant, they will a family will be sitting

1392
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:05,840
Speaker 2: at a table, or friends, and they'll all be on

1393
01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:08,160
Speaker 2: their phone in the presence of each other. How about

1394
01:12:08,320 --> 01:12:08,680
Speaker 2: that's the.

1395
01:12:08,840 --> 01:12:11,840
Speaker 1: About people that sit at a restaurant both on their

1396
01:12:11,880 --> 01:12:15,720
Speaker 1: phones across from each other and they will text one

1397
01:12:15,720 --> 01:12:16,320
Speaker 1: another text.

1398
01:12:16,600 --> 01:12:20,439
Speaker 2: That's the churn speaking. But that's the churn because in

1399
01:12:20,520 --> 01:12:23,320
Speaker 2: that environment, if you're living in that world most of

1400
01:12:23,360 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 2: the time, which you are, it has been engineered right

1401
01:12:26,960 --> 01:12:30,080
Speaker 2: in such a way that in group outgroup behavior happens

1402
01:12:30,120 --> 01:12:32,880
Speaker 2: in that environment. And we know in this attention based

1403
01:12:32,880 --> 01:12:36,000
Speaker 2: economy that the information they get shared and liked the

1404
01:12:36,040 --> 01:12:40,160
Speaker 2: most is negative, fear based information about an outgroup. Right.

1405
01:12:40,200 --> 01:12:44,240
Speaker 2: So that's why Fox News and CNN and social media platforms,

1406
01:12:44,280 --> 01:12:48,120
Speaker 2: that's why they actually do what they do. They focus

1407
01:12:48,160 --> 01:12:52,519
Speaker 2: on in group outgroup dynamics and sharing negative information. That's

1408
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:53,439
Speaker 2: what holds your attention.

1409
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:55,800
Speaker 1: I've said on a show fifty times, I've said on

1410
01:12:56,120 --> 01:12:59,280
Speaker 1: my shop talk. I've said in speeches, I say it

1411
01:12:59,320 --> 01:13:02,400
Speaker 1: everywhere I want to. There is an enormous amount of

1412
01:13:02,520 --> 01:13:10,080
Speaker 1: power and wealth being populated into a few people's hands. Yep,

1413
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:15,720
Speaker 1: largely largely accumulated by crafting narratives.

1414
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,920
Speaker 2: It's all storytelling. It's all story. And here's the thing,

1415
01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:21,280
Speaker 2: here's the other reason the book's so important. If you

1416
01:13:21,439 --> 01:13:25,000
Speaker 2: don't understand the human operating system and how narratives work

1417
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:28,559
Speaker 2: on the body, you will be a victim of the trance. Yes,

1418
01:13:28,720 --> 01:13:30,960
Speaker 2: you will go into a trance like state, and somebody

1419
01:13:31,400 --> 01:13:36,000
Speaker 2: else's narrative will will push you to foment instability around you.

1420
01:13:36,000 --> 01:13:37,400
Speaker 2: You will become an en group member.

1421
01:13:37,479 --> 01:13:39,960
Speaker 1: And if you don't believe the power of that, ask yourself.

1422
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:45,280
Speaker 1: While Russia and China spends billions of hours, man hours

1423
01:13:45,320 --> 01:13:52,280
Speaker 1: and money mining into the phone that you carry, to

1424
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:57,360
Speaker 1: craft narratives to confuse you about your democracy, about your neighbors,

1425
01:13:57,680 --> 01:14:00,679
Speaker 1: about your politics, it's about your elections, as they're doing

1426
01:14:00,720 --> 01:14:05,040
Speaker 1: it right now. You don't think storytelling is incredible, ask yourself,

1427
01:14:05,080 --> 01:14:06,880
Speaker 1: why is China and Russia doing it all the time?

1428
01:14:06,880 --> 01:14:10,120
Speaker 2: And that's why narrative competence or storytelling capability in real

1429
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:12,360
Speaker 2: time is so important, and that's when I push really

1430
01:14:12,400 --> 01:14:14,320
Speaker 2: hard for leaders who are going to do this kind

1431
01:14:14,360 --> 01:14:16,679
Speaker 2: of work, this army of normal folks. You have got

1432
01:14:16,680 --> 01:14:18,800
Speaker 2: to be the storyteller in chief. You have got to

1433
01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 2: be the best storyteller on the block. And if you

1434
01:14:21,000 --> 01:14:23,720
Speaker 2: don't train on it, somebody else will be and you

1435
01:14:23,800 --> 01:14:25,960
Speaker 2: better believe they're going to be nefarious in what they do.

1436
01:14:26,200 --> 01:14:29,559
Speaker 1: Our answer is tell the stories of average, normal people

1437
01:14:29,600 --> 01:14:32,840
Speaker 1: doing amazing things all of this country and take back

1438
01:14:33,200 --> 01:14:34,200
Speaker 1: the narratives.

1439
01:14:34,280 --> 01:14:36,760
Speaker 2: It's the only way. And I'm telling you that as

1440
01:14:36,800 --> 01:14:39,000
Speaker 2: a Green Beret and I've seen it, it's the only

1441
01:14:39,160 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 2: way it actually works. You can if every if the

1442
01:14:43,280 --> 01:14:45,479
Speaker 2: only tool in your kit bag is a hammer, then

1443
01:14:45,520 --> 01:14:47,280
Speaker 2: every problem you come across is going to look like

1444
01:14:47,280 --> 01:14:49,519
Speaker 2: a nail. And that's exactly what's got us where we are.

1445
01:14:51,240 --> 01:14:54,920
Speaker 1: That is a wow. That's great. And to hear this

1446
01:14:55,000 --> 01:14:59,639
Speaker 1: from a guy who's been doing this this whole life,

1447
01:15:00,280 --> 01:15:04,320
Speaker 1: who is not backed down from the requirement of a firefighter.

1448
01:15:05,400 --> 01:15:06,320
Speaker 1: In all of that.

1449
01:15:06,439 --> 01:15:09,080
Speaker 2: We had a full license for coercion. And this is

1450
01:15:09,120 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 2: what I tell skeptical leaders who are looking at me

1451
01:15:11,120 --> 01:15:15,160
Speaker 2: like storytelling, and I'm like, listen, we had full license

1452
01:15:15,560 --> 01:15:18,720
Speaker 2: for coercion as as as rugged as you want to

1453
01:15:18,720 --> 01:15:20,240
Speaker 2: get with it. And I've seen him.

1454
01:15:20,240 --> 01:15:22,439
Speaker 1: I said, how do you feel when you look down

1455
01:15:22,479 --> 01:15:28,280
Speaker 1: the nose at a politician who's never even and they

1456
01:15:28,320 --> 01:15:31,000
Speaker 1: look at you as if you're being soft on storytelling,

1457
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:35,919
Speaker 1: when you yourself have done things that most human beings.

1458
01:15:36,720 --> 01:15:39,000
Speaker 2: It's hard. It's easy to kind of get that feeling

1459
01:15:39,000 --> 01:15:39,920
Speaker 2: of contempt. Way.

1460
01:15:40,000 --> 01:15:41,880
Speaker 1: I get it for you, Yeah, I get it in

1461
01:15:41,920 --> 01:15:45,920
Speaker 1: your stead. I want to stand next to you and say, hey, dad,

1462
01:15:46,400 --> 01:15:51,679
Speaker 1: he's killed people for our country, don't That's how I feel.

1463
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:54,160
Speaker 1: What I usually come back I shouldn't feel that way,

1464
01:15:54,360 --> 01:15:55,240
Speaker 1: but it's.

1465
01:15:55,040 --> 01:15:56,800
Speaker 2: Hard not to. What I usually come back at him

1466
01:15:56,840 --> 01:15:58,840
Speaker 2: with is listen. I've been in places where you know,

1467
01:15:58,920 --> 01:16:01,839
Speaker 2: Green Berets were the high casualty rate of anybody around.

1468
01:16:02,640 --> 01:16:04,559
Speaker 2: But I will tell you the way that they turned

1469
01:16:04,600 --> 01:16:08,559
Speaker 2: things around throughout history is not the bullets that flew

1470
01:16:08,600 --> 01:16:11,040
Speaker 2: out of their weapons. It was the relationships they built

1471
01:16:11,439 --> 01:16:14,160
Speaker 2: when it was more tempting to reach for your gun,

1472
01:16:14,280 --> 01:16:16,679
Speaker 2: but instead you reach across with a handshake. Now that's

1473
01:16:16,680 --> 01:16:22,120
Speaker 2: not some Kumbai yaw theory. What I'm saying is Special

1474
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:24,759
Speaker 2: Forces has done the homework. Like we've looked at the science,

1475
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:28,040
Speaker 2: humans are social creatures. We're wired to be social. And

1476
01:16:28,080 --> 01:16:30,200
Speaker 2: if you look throughout history, the leaders that have had

1477
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:32,720
Speaker 2: the greatest impact, they were the ones with vision and

1478
01:16:32,760 --> 01:16:34,960
Speaker 2: they had a personal story that could convey that vision.

1479
01:16:35,400 --> 01:16:37,639
Speaker 2: That's who we feel safe with, that's who we follow.

1480
01:16:37,840 --> 01:16:41,280
Speaker 2: And whether those leaders were bad or good, right, that

1481
01:16:41,640 --> 01:16:44,200
Speaker 2: is for history to judge. But what was always the

1482
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:48,280
Speaker 2: common thread was storytelling. You look at any leader throughout history, Bill,

1483
01:16:48,600 --> 01:16:52,680
Speaker 2: and they are phenomenal storytellers. If they created movements, and

1484
01:16:52,840 --> 01:16:55,320
Speaker 2: if you don't have that skill set of storytelling and

1485
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:58,080
Speaker 2: human connection, then you're going to be the victim of

1486
01:16:58,080 --> 01:16:59,280
Speaker 2: someone else's storytelling.

1487
01:16:59,439 --> 01:17:02,080
Speaker 1: And I would add to it, the ones we revere

1488
01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:09,479
Speaker 1: the most added a little element of service in the

1489
01:17:09,520 --> 01:17:10,120
Speaker 1: work that they do.

1490
01:17:10,320 --> 01:17:12,760
Speaker 2: I call it the generosity of scars. It's one of

1491
01:17:12,760 --> 01:17:16,400
Speaker 2: my ted talks, and it's repurposing your struggles, your stories

1492
01:17:16,439 --> 01:17:19,280
Speaker 2: of struggle, in the service of others I've worked with

1493
01:17:19,360 --> 01:17:20,599
Speaker 2: gold Star family members.

1494
01:17:21,760 --> 01:17:25,720
Speaker 1: Say that again because once again it is just a

1495
01:17:25,800 --> 01:17:28,880
Speaker 1: parallel that you and I see so out on. But yeah,

1496
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:30,960
Speaker 1: it's the generosity of scars.

1497
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:32,120
Speaker 2: The generosity of scars.

1498
01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:33,920
Speaker 1: But it's it's right.

1499
01:17:33,960 --> 01:17:39,160
Speaker 2: It's the repurposing of struggle through narrative in the service

1500
01:17:39,200 --> 01:17:42,640
Speaker 2: of others. It is the most generous, relatable thing you

1501
01:17:42,680 --> 01:17:44,439
Speaker 2: can do as a leader. It's the thing that feels

1502
01:17:44,479 --> 01:17:45,280
Speaker 2: the most vulnerable.

1503
01:17:45,320 --> 01:17:47,800
Speaker 1: It is also the essence of what I think is

1504
01:17:47,920 --> 01:17:48,920
Speaker 1: quality leadership.

1505
01:17:49,080 --> 01:17:52,519
Speaker 2: It struggle is at the heart of every leader, because actually,

1506
01:17:53,080 --> 01:17:56,680
Speaker 2: struggle is the biggest universal singular that we have that

1507
01:17:56,720 --> 01:17:59,559
Speaker 2: connects us as humanity. Doesn't matter what your wealth levels are,

1508
01:17:59,640 --> 01:18:03,800
Speaker 2: your race, your religion. Everybody is either in struggle, has

1509
01:18:04,000 --> 01:18:05,600
Speaker 2: just come out of it, or is about to go

1510
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:06,120
Speaker 2: into it.

1511
01:18:06,240 --> 01:18:10,720
Speaker 1: So, according to the boundaries of that explanation, you can

1512
01:18:10,800 --> 01:18:19,320
Speaker 1: be a servant leader exacting an enormous measure of change

1513
01:18:19,520 --> 01:18:21,920
Speaker 1: without a five OHO one c three, without serving some

1514
01:18:21,960 --> 01:18:22,439
Speaker 1: big things.

1515
01:18:22,479 --> 01:18:24,080
Speaker 2: You don't you don't even need a title.

1516
01:18:24,200 --> 01:18:24,960
Speaker 1: You don't need anything.

1517
01:18:25,000 --> 01:18:25,799
Speaker 2: You don't need a titles.

1518
01:18:25,920 --> 01:18:29,040
Speaker 1: Need to see an area of need in your local

1519
01:18:29,120 --> 01:18:34,400
Speaker 1: community and fill it with your passion and abilities. Understanding

1520
01:18:34,479 --> 01:18:37,640
Speaker 1: that through your struggle and your willingness to serve, you

1521
01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:40,360
Speaker 1: can exact some measure of change. And if we had

1522
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:45,160
Speaker 1: a battalion and army of people doing that across our country,

1523
01:18:45,520 --> 01:18:48,920
Speaker 1: the thing that you saw when you came back from Afghanistan.

1524
01:18:49,000 --> 01:18:50,880
Speaker 2: We could fix because people are hungry for it, being

1525
01:18:50,920 --> 01:18:52,679
Speaker 2: willing to tilt that mirror up to where you see

1526
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:55,599
Speaker 2: your own eyes in it. People are starving for leaders

1527
01:18:55,640 --> 01:18:58,080
Speaker 2: who do that, even though you feel like your knees

1528
01:18:58,080 --> 01:19:01,719
Speaker 2: are knocking. It gives us courage. So hungry for leaders

1529
01:19:01,720 --> 01:19:04,519
Speaker 2: who are willing to repurpose their own scars in the

1530
01:19:04,560 --> 01:19:07,200
Speaker 2: service of other people that when that happens, we actually

1531
01:19:07,200 --> 01:19:09,880
Speaker 2: get a sense of ourselves. We locate ourselves in that

1532
01:19:09,920 --> 01:19:13,360
Speaker 2: story of struggle. My dad's battle with cancer becomes your

1533
01:19:13,400 --> 01:19:16,760
Speaker 2: sister's battle with cancer, and you listen autobiographically and you

1534
01:19:16,840 --> 01:19:19,640
Speaker 2: start to go, maybe that's possible from my life, And

1535
01:19:19,720 --> 01:19:22,040
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, that person that is telling that

1536
01:19:22,080 --> 01:19:25,000
Speaker 2: story becomes the most relatable person in the room, and

1537
01:19:25,080 --> 01:19:27,559
Speaker 2: we locate ourselves and we start to make sense out

1538
01:19:27,560 --> 01:19:29,920
Speaker 2: of our own lived experience in the safety of that

1539
01:19:30,000 --> 01:19:33,400
Speaker 2: person's struggle, scars and narrative, and we start to get

1540
01:19:33,400 --> 01:19:35,120
Speaker 2: a sense of ourselves, and we want to move the

1541
01:19:35,160 --> 01:19:38,240
Speaker 2: way Bo did. He talked about his struggle, Mark talked

1542
01:19:38,240 --> 01:19:40,800
Speaker 2: about his struggle. You talk about your struggle. That's what

1543
01:19:40,800 --> 01:19:43,920
Speaker 2: we're drawn to you talk about your absolutely and it

1544
01:19:44,000 --> 01:19:47,000
Speaker 2: feels clunky and awful, and I'm hoping that that's what

1545
01:19:47,000 --> 01:19:49,160
Speaker 2: the book will do, is knock that body armor off

1546
01:19:49,240 --> 01:19:52,800
Speaker 2: and let people get that emotional access. And the two

1547
01:19:52,840 --> 01:19:55,839
Speaker 2: best stories in the world I tell people of scar stories.

1548
01:19:56,080 --> 01:19:57,960
Speaker 2: The second best is the story that you don't want

1549
01:19:58,000 --> 01:19:59,960
Speaker 2: to tell others, and the very best is the one

1550
01:20:00,000 --> 01:20:01,040
Speaker 2: you don't want to tell yourself.

1551
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:07,680
Speaker 1: Amazing October, Nobody's Coming to Save You. A Green Berets

1552
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:12,880
Speaker 1: Guide to Getting Big Done, written by Lieutenant Colonel Scott Man,

1553
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:18,519
Speaker 1: who has been an author, a playwright, an actor. Put

1554
01:20:18,560 --> 01:20:22,439
Speaker 1: together Operation Pineapple Express would save seven hundred and fifty

1555
01:20:22,439 --> 01:20:28,920
Speaker 1: to one thousand Afghanis who supported our Americans in their

1556
01:20:29,000 --> 01:20:34,960
Speaker 1: country's He's an unbelievable guy and what he is is

1557
01:20:35,000 --> 01:20:39,680
Speaker 1: the product of a school teacher, a forester, and a

1558
01:20:39,760 --> 01:20:42,280
Speaker 1: happy chance meeting with a Green Beret when he's fourteen

1559
01:20:42,320 --> 01:20:48,639
Speaker 1: years old, and he has he has inspired me today.

1560
01:20:49,800 --> 01:20:50,200
Speaker 2: Same here.

1561
01:20:50,560 --> 01:20:54,360
Speaker 1: Thank you. I just I can't tell you how much

1562
01:20:54,439 --> 01:20:58,600
Speaker 1: I appreciate you coming to Smithson pom in Memphis and

1563
01:20:58,920 --> 01:21:02,800
Speaker 1: telling your story and sharing Manti with us for a

1564
01:21:02,840 --> 01:21:06,240
Speaker 1: couple hours as well. Thank you, sir, thanks for being

1565
01:21:06,240 --> 01:21:06,559
Speaker 1: to share.

1566
01:21:06,600 --> 01:21:08,080
Speaker 2: It means a lot. Thank you for what you do,

1567
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:10,479
Speaker 2: and it means a lot, and I keep going man.

1568
01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:19,439
Speaker 1: Yeah you too, sir, and thank you for joining us

1569
01:21:19,520 --> 01:21:23,240
Speaker 1: this week. If Scott or other guests have inspired you

1570
01:21:23,280 --> 01:21:27,760
Speaker 1: in general, or better yet, take action by contacting him

1571
01:21:27,840 --> 01:21:31,680
Speaker 1: about bringing Last out to your community, buying his new

1572
01:21:31,720 --> 01:21:35,719
Speaker 1: book Nobody Is Coming to Save You, or something else entirely.

1573
01:21:36,240 --> 01:21:38,920
Speaker 1: Please let me know I'd love to hear about it.

1574
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:43,200
Speaker 1: You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot

1575
01:21:43,280 --> 01:21:47,040
Speaker 1: us and I'm telling you I'll respond. If you enjoyed

1576
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:50,799
Speaker 1: this episode, please share it with friends that on social y'all,

1577
01:21:50,840 --> 01:21:56,080
Speaker 1: please subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it, Join

1578
01:21:56,160 --> 01:22:00,120
Speaker 1: the army at normalfolks dot us, think about becoming a

1579
01:22:00,120 --> 01:22:03,080
Speaker 1: premium member. There all of these things that can help

1580
01:22:03,200 --> 01:22:07,400
Speaker 1: us grow an army of normal folks thanks to our producer,

1581
01:22:07,479 --> 01:22:11,040
Speaker 1: Iron Light Labs. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.