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Speaker 1: Hi, this is new due to the virus. I'm recording

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Speaker 1: from home, so you may notice a difference in audio

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Speaker 1: quality on this episode of Newsworld. I've known Mike Flynn

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Speaker 1: for years, and I've watched the amazing work and the

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Speaker 1: amazing courage he shouted. He is a great American patriot,

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Speaker 1: devoted to his country, his family, and his wife of

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Speaker 1: thirty nine years. Born in Middletown, Rhode Island, in nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn served thirty three years

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Speaker 1: in ninety States Undy. In twenty seventeen, he was appointed

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Speaker 1: as National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, and he

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Speaker 1: was subsequently embroiled in Russia Gate until his partner by

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Speaker 1: President Trump on November twenty fifth, twenty twenty. He is

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Speaker 1: here to share his story with us in two episodes.

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Speaker 1: In his first episode, he'll talk about his military career.

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Speaker 1: Then on Wednesday, he'll talk about Russia Gate. I am

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Speaker 1: really pleased to welcome my guest, Lieutenant General Michael fun

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Speaker 1: to my listeners. The beginning of my interview, General Flynt

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Speaker 1: had a poor micro fune connection, which we corrected halfway

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Speaker 1: through the interview. When I considered asking Mike to share

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Speaker 1: his story with us. I realized that the depth of

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Speaker 1: his professionalism, the lifetime of patriotism, the degree to which

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Speaker 1: he had risen from genuine poverty as a child in

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Speaker 1: a large family, to serve his country, to risk his life,

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Speaker 1: to accept traveling back and forth to all parts of

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Speaker 1: the world, that you really to understand the Russia Gate

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Speaker 1: and how totally immoral and disgusting it is, you need

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Speaker 1: to understand the person that the Deep State decided to target.

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Speaker 1: And so I wanted to share both his personal story

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Speaker 1: up through his direct service to the country until he

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Speaker 1: became National Spirit Advisor, And that's what we're going to

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Speaker 1: do today. And then when you understand fully what an

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Speaker 1: extraordinary patriot this is, I think you'll better understand on Wednesday,

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Speaker 1: when he talks about Russia game, how really disgusting, immoral

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Speaker 1: and on patriotic the FBI in the Deep State was

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Speaker 1: in targeting him. And so this is I think a

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Speaker 1: very important lesson in the challenges of America or even

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Speaker 1: a lifetime of patriotism can be smeared by the left.

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Speaker 1: And in that context, I hope you find it really

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Speaker 1: useful both to get to know Mike Flynn, the General

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Speaker 1: and then to hear and talk in the next episode

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Speaker 1: about Mike Flynn fighting for his life against the entire

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Speaker 1: Deep State. So I'm really pleased to welcome my guest,

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Speaker 1: Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. I want to go back to

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Speaker 1: the beginning. My dad served twenty seven years in the Infantry,

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Speaker 1: So I have a deep affection for the US Army

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Speaker 1: and for people who make it their career. Now, thank

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Speaker 1: you very much for having me on and for allowing

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Speaker 1: me this opportunity. So if you would, General Flynn, let's

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Speaker 1: start with the thirty three years service you gave to

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Speaker 1: the United States and the US Army. How did that

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Speaker 1: all happen at the University of Rhode Island and the

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Speaker 1: rootwo see? But why did you do that and what

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Speaker 1: was your experience of that. I have a long long

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Speaker 1: history and my family of service in the Armed forces.

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Speaker 1: Both my grandfather served in World War One. I have

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Speaker 1: a grandfather that served in both World War One and

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Speaker 1: World War Two, and my father was a retired mass

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Speaker 1: starting from the Army and he served in World War

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Speaker 1: Two in Korea. So I have a long long history,

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Speaker 1: at least for the last one hundred and twenty years

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Speaker 1: from when my family came over from Ireland in the

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Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds. I have myself and two other brothers

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Speaker 1: served in the military. I still have a brother who

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Speaker 1: continues to serve in the military, and I have a

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Speaker 1: whole bunch of uncles and nephews and nieces who continue

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Speaker 1: to serve in the military. Did a review of everybody

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Speaker 1: in my immediate circle. We have long service in the

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Speaker 1: armed forces, and that's been something that particularly my father

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Speaker 1: and my grandfather's taught us to serve that service was

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Speaker 1: the first and foremost thing that you were willing to do.

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Speaker 1: I always felt like I wanted to go into the military.

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Speaker 1: I felt like that was the direction and that I

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Speaker 1: wanted to go. And you think at the University of Round,

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Speaker 1: if you know anything about Rhode Island, you think that

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Speaker 1: I would have gone into the Navy, but I did not.

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Speaker 1: In my freshman year in college, I actually considered enlistening

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Speaker 1: in the Marine Corps and I went through a process

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Speaker 1: to do that and got really, really lucky through a

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Speaker 1: variety of things with an Army major in the ROTC department,

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Speaker 1: which I was taking a class at the time. As

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Speaker 1: a freshman in college and thinking I was going to

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Speaker 1: go into the Marine Corps that summer in some sort

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Speaker 1: of delayed entry. He came to me during the middle

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Speaker 1: of the summer and said, hey, we've had some scholarships

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Speaker 1: turned back. We'd like to offer you one if you

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Speaker 1: would come back into school and focus on that. So

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Speaker 1: my father sat me down that night and he said,

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Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity. I really strongly recommend that

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Speaker 1: you do that. So I did it and took a

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Speaker 1: three year Army ROTC scholarship from the University of Rhode Island.

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Speaker 1: Like they say, the rest is history, but I will

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Speaker 1: tell you nuke that my very first assignment, after going

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Speaker 1: through ranger training and intelligence training, my first bevy into

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Speaker 1: the military was really in the world of electronic warfare,

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Speaker 1: which was relatively new at the time, and it was

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Speaker 1: emerging because of new ideas and technology. But my first

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Speaker 1: assignment was in the eighty second Airborne Division, and I

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Speaker 1: think that having had that privilege and that honor to

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Speaker 1: serve in the eighty second Airborne Division as a young officer,

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Speaker 1: it really gave me a foundational idea about the kind

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Speaker 1: of things that I wanted to do to continue to serve.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I had gone into another assignment

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Speaker 1: or another place that I would have stayed. I can't

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Speaker 1: sit here and say that I would, but having gone

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Speaker 1: into the eighty second early on, so that's at Fort Bragg,

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Speaker 1: North Carolina. I ended up serving at Fort Bragg, North

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Speaker 1: Carolina over half of my career. I served there almost

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Speaker 1: seventeen years at Fort Bragg. I actually served at Fort

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Speaker 1: Bragg as a second lieutenant all the way to brigadier general.

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Speaker 1: And you know, Fort Fort Bragg is the home of

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Speaker 1: the airborne and Special Operations forces. We always said, if

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Speaker 1: there was an emergency, when the President was going to

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Speaker 1: break class and dial nine one one, that phone would

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Speaker 1: ring at Fort Bragg, North Carolina because it's a home

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Speaker 1: of readiness and rapid deployment. And that was my initial

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Speaker 1: entry into the world of the army as a young officer,

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Speaker 1: and I met some of the finest soldiers, many of

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Speaker 1: whom I am still very very close friends with. My

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Speaker 1: squad leaders. In fact, I had one of my squad

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Speaker 1: leaders sent me a picture the other day of a

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Speaker 1: photograph that we took. He was a squad leader in

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Speaker 1: my platoon and we were down in Honduras in the

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Speaker 1: early eighties, nineteen eighty three in a operation called Awas Tara.

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Speaker 1: I tell you that because the relationships that I developed

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Speaker 1: there led me, particularly with the non commissioned officers, my

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Speaker 1: platoon sergeants Jerry Zamora, Ernie Sanchez, Raoul Cologne. I mean,

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Speaker 1: these are some really, really tough guys. Many of them

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Speaker 1: had served in Vietnam, but they were professionals. So that

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Speaker 1: was a foundation assignment. New It was a springboard for

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Speaker 1: me to understand what I wanted to do in the military.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to be around units, organizations, and people like

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Speaker 1: that that had the same desire to serve this country

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Speaker 1: and basically do what you believe the military should actually do.

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Speaker 1: So from there I had a series of assignments. I

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Speaker 1: went back and forth into training environments where I was

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Speaker 1: an instructor for a long time. For a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: I went out to the twenty fifth Infantry Division for

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Speaker 1: an assignment. The other thing that I was taught and

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Speaker 1: really by a battalion commander, Tom O'Connell, a terrific guy.

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Speaker 1: He was an original intelligence officer for the Delta Force

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Speaker 1: when they first stood up almost thirty years ago. Now,

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Speaker 1: he taught me two things really, and I think that

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Speaker 1: those two things came also in the values that I

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Speaker 1: learned as a child, you know, the ability to you know,

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Speaker 1: sort of treat others like you want to be treated,

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Speaker 1: and to continue to get your education. And that was

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Speaker 1: something that he taught me as a battalion commanders. He

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Speaker 1: saw something in me. He actually became my mentor. Throughout

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Speaker 1: my long career, I have always stayed in touch with him.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things he taught me was about

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Speaker 1: relationships with particularly with the noncommissioned officer corps, because that's

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Speaker 1: the heartbeat, that's the soul. And that's either our noncommission

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Speaker 1: officer corp in the Army, or our chiefs in the Navy,

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Speaker 1: our gunny sergeants in the Marine Corps, our tech sergeants

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Speaker 1: in the Air Force. That's what makes our military different.

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Speaker 1: I think that my father was a master sergeant and retired.

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Speaker 1: It was a tough guy who fought in World War

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Speaker 1: two end Korea. My father spent almost over two years

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Speaker 1: in Korea. I really learned that those relationships mattered more

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Speaker 1: than really other relationships that I needed to make. Although

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Speaker 1: you work with other great officers, I mean I could

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Speaker 1: name ten officers who I served as the senior intelligence

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Speaker 1: officer for in their own way. So for Bragg was

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Speaker 1: a really big, big opportunity for me, if I understand correctly.

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Speaker 1: Part of that initial experience with Bragg was being deployed

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Speaker 1: as a platoon leader to Grenada, absolutely a very early

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Speaker 1: in your career. I think it was Urgent Fury was

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Speaker 1: the name of the operation certain early days of the

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Speaker 1: Reagan era where Reagan basically was saying we're going to

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Speaker 1: defeat communism wherever beers it's ugly. As a platoon leader,

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Speaker 1: I deployed my platoon down to Grenada and served there

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Speaker 1: for you know a few months based on the operations

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Speaker 1: that were there, and had a great learning experience for

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Speaker 1: me to watch really the fledgling beginnings in the sort

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Speaker 1: of early days of microw of joint operations, combined operations,

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Speaker 1: working with other forces, working with other services. You know,

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Speaker 1: at the higher level people will say what it is,

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Speaker 1: but at the lower level, I think people really got

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Speaker 1: stuff done right. An operation Urgent Fury in Granada, and

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Speaker 1: I think that was in nineteen eighty three. And I

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Speaker 1: also served in like I mentioned, in Honduras for a

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Speaker 1: little bitness and the operation was called Awastara stands for

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Speaker 1: pine Tree, and that was in the early days of

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Speaker 1: targeting or going after the Nicaragua and the Santa Eastern

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Speaker 1: government again fighting communism as it was emerging in Central

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Speaker 1: and South America. So my early formation of how I

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Speaker 1: viewed things was really through that lens that strength and

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Speaker 1: got me really to be more thoughtful as I studied

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Speaker 1: what we were facing in this country. Why I ended

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Speaker 1: up going the direction that I went, and in various

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Speaker 1: educational experiences that the military afford you, I really focused

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Speaker 1: on combining my tactical operational experiences with becoming a strategic thinker,

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Speaker 1: and I really wanted to make sure that I wasn't

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Speaker 1: captured by the tactical in lieu of understanding the strategic

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Speaker 1: and the strategic is more than just military operations and

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Speaker 1: military strategy. It's actually how the military fits into a

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Speaker 1: wider geostrategic strategy. And I would say, in further operational

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Speaker 1: assignments over my full career, working in combat zones, working

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Speaker 1: in combatant commands, working in special operations commands, working in

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Speaker 1: corps and joint task forces, all the way up to

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Speaker 1: where I ended up, the pinnacle really was when I

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Speaker 1: was assigned as the senior military intelligence officer in the

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Speaker 1: Department of Defense, and then of course as the director

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Speaker 1: of the Defense Intelligence Agency, one of the largest intelligencies

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Speaker 1: in the world, certainly one of the big ones in

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Speaker 1: our country. So I really was trying to develop myself,

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Speaker 1: because that's what they teach you in the military, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's self development and leader development. I think that I

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Speaker 1: was really given the honor and the privilege to get

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Speaker 1: to that level because I was capable of being able

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Speaker 1: to combine the tactical of the operational and the strategic

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Speaker 1: and then the geostrategic. This is Giano Caldwell. This week

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Speaker 1: on Out Loud with Giano Caldwell, I interview someone who

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Speaker 1: has been in the headlines a ton recently. I'm talking

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Speaker 1: about Daniel Cameron, the Attorney General of Kentucky. He's the

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Speaker 1: man at the center of the Brianna Taylor case and

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Speaker 1: is now at the center of a legal fight to

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Speaker 1: allow kids to attend religious schools in person. We dig

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Speaker 1: into these issues and the tsunamia backlash that Cameron has received.

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Speaker 1: Listen to Out Loud with Giano Caldwell every Monday on

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Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get

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Speaker 1: your podcast. The particular moments or any should have been

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Speaker 1: at the personal stories. It was kind of illustrate what

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Speaker 1: you were going through and kind of when you had

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Speaker 1: an AHA moment. I came out of Fort eleven World

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Speaker 1: of Commander General Staff College, and I had been selected

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Speaker 1: to stay there a second year in the School of

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Speaker 1: Advanced Military Studies, which is essentially an additional year of

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Speaker 1: training because you get chosen. It's competitive. I was assigned

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Speaker 1: from there, and I believe that was the summer of

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four if I had that right back to

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Speaker 1: Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and I worked for Hugh Shelton,

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Speaker 1: who was the core Commander, and at the time, the

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Speaker 1: operations officer for the Corps was a guy named Dan McNeil.

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Speaker 1: Dan was a colonel at the time, and Dan retired

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Speaker 1: as a fourth star as well. And those are two

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Speaker 1: officers that really did have an in fact on me.

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Speaker 1: They were tough guys, they were terrific leaders, and I

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Speaker 1: went to work for them that summer. Most people take

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Speaker 1: thirty days before you go to your next assignment. I

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Speaker 1: was called up the day before graduation and told get

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Speaker 1: here as soon as you can. When I showed up

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Speaker 1: the eighteenth Airborne corep in eighty second Airborne Division was

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Speaker 1: deeply involved in a planning effort to invade Haiti at

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Speaker 1: the time for the operations that when we went into

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Speaker 1: Haiti in the fall in nineteen ninety four, and at

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Speaker 1: the same time the coast of Oboznia Herzegovina, all of

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Speaker 1: that was building up and forces were being placed over there.

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Speaker 1: So I was an operational planner and I was a

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Speaker 1: solid intelligence officer at the time. And so what Dan

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Speaker 1: McNeil did, instead of putting me over in the intelligence

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Speaker 1: section and working for the G two, Dan took me

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Speaker 1: the G three for the operational side. I stayed there

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Speaker 1: for a year and one developed some terrific relationships. But

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Speaker 1: also we get into immediately long term planning for not

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Speaker 1: only Haiti all through that summer, but also operations in

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Speaker 1: and around the Balkans. And then of course there was

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Speaker 1: the pre invasion work and then the invasion that was

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Speaker 1: planned for Haiti, and we were deeply involved in that.

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Speaker 1: When all that stopped and the forces were brought back

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Speaker 1: on aircraft to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, because of the

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Speaker 1: deal that was cut by Jimmy Carter. General Shelton at

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Speaker 1: the time said, Okay, we're going to move to Core

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Speaker 1: Headquarters as a joint task force down to Haiti. And

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Speaker 1: what we already discussed about Operation Urgent Fury and Grenada, Well,

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Speaker 1: Shelton and McNeil were in their own way involved in

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Speaker 1: that event. They really wanted to make sure that we

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Speaker 1: didn't make some of the same mistakes going down there.

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Speaker 1: I was sort of part of the inner circle there,

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Speaker 1: working directly for you Shelton and Dan McNeil and other

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Speaker 1: great leaders at the time. We were on the Mount

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Speaker 1: Whitney and we were parked in Porter Prince Harbor, and

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Speaker 1: we got down there the elements of the tenth Mountain Division.

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Speaker 1: We're on the ground, and that really, in terms of

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Speaker 1: a personal story that impacted my career. It was those

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Speaker 1: two officers who I watched and observed and took great

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Speaker 1: lessons from, but also how we operated in a complex,

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Speaker 1: difficult and in this case a difficult place too, because hey,

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Speaker 1: he's not an easy place to operate in and operating

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Speaker 1: with full coalition in a sense, but certainly a joint

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Speaker 1: task force operation that taught me a lot. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: curious what was your personal reaction to the realities of Haiti.

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Speaker 1: I mean, as you said, it's very difficulty complex place

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Speaker 1: with a very tragic history. When you first got there

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Speaker 1: and you're out there looking around, what's your reaction to that.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen fourteen, my grandfather was on the USS Baltimore

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Speaker 1: and he was deployed into Haiti nineteen fourteen. And I

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Speaker 1: kept this photo with me because I have a photo

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Speaker 1: of my grandfather sitting on the beach with a couple

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Speaker 1: of other sailors. He was a seaman at the time,

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Speaker 1: sitting on the beach in neighbors and there with Haitians

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Speaker 1: because they had just gone ashore. The other aspect of

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Speaker 1: my life and my family, the guy who married my

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Speaker 1: wife and I name is Philip Andrews. Well, Philip is

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Speaker 1: my cousin. Philip was actually a priest and he's a

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Speaker 1: priest working in the Dominican Republic. He spent twenty five

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Speaker 1: third years here at the time. This is years ago.

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Speaker 1: He was over there building houses and stuff. So I

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Speaker 1: had that personal relationship with somebody who I deeply knew,

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Speaker 1: who was on the other side of the island, if

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Speaker 1: you will. When I looked at Haiti, for the first

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Speaker 1: time with overhead satellite imagery. When we were studying it,

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Speaker 1: you could tell the stark difference between this beautiful, lush

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Speaker 1: Dominican Republic side and that has a history of why

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Speaker 1: they're like that, and then this stripped eroded half of

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Speaker 1: the island and very incredibly poor people that are on

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Speaker 1: that island that have nothing. And I would say that

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Speaker 1: even today they really have been devastated as a people.

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Speaker 1: But at the time I'm as a relatively young officer

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Speaker 1: as a major that when I saw that, and then

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Speaker 1: I physically went there and observed it and witnessed some

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Speaker 1: of the things that I saw, like these creeks that

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Speaker 1: people were bathing out of, washing their clothes in, and

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Speaker 1: animals were read And I had seen other things in

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Speaker 1: Central America my deployments there to Honduras into Panama. The

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Speaker 1: starkness of what Haiti was it shows you how far

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Speaker 1: humanity will go to survive. And so that experience as

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Speaker 1: a major taught me a lot. How do you compare,

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Speaker 1: because you serve both places, how do you compare the

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Speaker 1: bleakness and poverty of Haiti with the Afghanistan Well, two

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Speaker 1: obviously entirely different physical environments. I would say because of

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Speaker 1: where the Haitians are at geographically, they have access to

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Speaker 1: more things, but they're abused the Haitian government and Haitian people,

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Speaker 1: I think, are abused by the various societies that have

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Speaker 1: taken advantage of them for various reasons. Narcotics as an example,

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Speaker 1: narcotics flow. But saying that, jump into the geographical environment

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Speaker 1: and the people in the culture of Afghanistan, I would

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Speaker 1: say that there's a resiliency in the people of Afghanistan

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Speaker 1: that's even greater than the resiliency that I observed in

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Speaker 1: Haiti and actually elsewhere around the world. There's a resiliency

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Speaker 1: in the people of Afghanistan that I have observed. I

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Speaker 1: lived with for the better part of almost five years.

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Speaker 1: I can't say that I understand it. I observed it.

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Speaker 1: I try to be compassionate and understand the cultures that

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Speaker 1: I operate within. I got a chance to know many

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Speaker 1: many Afghans, and I walk around a lot of villages,

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Speaker 1: and they have a resilience that is just unimaginable. I think,

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Speaker 1: to people in this country, we just can't imagine how

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Speaker 1: they are able to live in s in some cases

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Speaker 1: in a very barren environment. In other cases, in an

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Speaker 1: environment that is filled with resources yet not developed. And

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Speaker 1: because they're so isolated geographically, there's no ocean that they

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Speaker 1: brought up against. That means everything has to come to

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Speaker 1: them or they have to go get stuff. But the

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Speaker 1: resiliency is vastly different than the resiliency that I saw

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Speaker 1: in the human spirit in Afghanistan. Then, Haiti, I mean,

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Speaker 1: you end up in almost every place that we have

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Speaker 1: a real conflict. You're in a rat with the Joint

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Speaker 1: Special Operations Command, and you really create the first big

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Speaker 1: integrated use of modern data to go after the opponents.

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Speaker 1: Can you talk just briefly about how you're integrating drones

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Speaker 1: and cell phones and computers and amazing array of information flow.

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Speaker 1: Right when I was tapped to go be the senior

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Speaker 1: intelligence officer for Joint Special Operations Command out of Fort Bragg,

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Speaker 1: it was in summer two thousand and four, I knew

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Speaker 1: I was going to be going there. In fact, I

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Speaker 1: did a sort of a recon for about ten days

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Speaker 1: with the command in April two thousand and four. You know,

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Speaker 1: the grave situation was unraveling, and you know, all kinds

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Speaker 1: of stuff going on. It was a mess knew it

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Speaker 1: was a mess. So when I returned after my recon

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Speaker 1: July of two thousand and four, I then did another

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Speaker 1: assessment in multiple locations that the command was in. And

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Speaker 1: one of the things that I learned, the coordination of

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Speaker 1: intelligence between camps, between our own internal tribes that were

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Speaker 1: joint that there was an Afghanistan, there was other nations involved,

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Speaker 1: was really lacking. And it wasn't a function of the

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Speaker 1: poor leadership or anything like that. It was just complex,

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Speaker 1: and we were talking about an enemy that wasn't just

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Speaker 1: in an Iraq. They were a very network, very virtual enemy.

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Speaker 1: And so I took some of my own sort of

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Speaker 1: background in training. But one of the other moments I

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Speaker 1: went into I walked into a detainee compound where bags

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Speaker 1: and bags of computers and paper and photos and passports

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Speaker 1: and thumb drives and all the kinds of things that

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Speaker 1: you can imagine. And I said to the young analyst

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Speaker 1: who was working there, I said, what's all that? And

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Speaker 1: she said, because there was another pile of it on

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Speaker 1: the ground. She said, well, all the operators when they

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Speaker 1: go do a raid, they bring all this stuff back

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Speaker 1: and they dump it here. I was like, okay, we

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Speaker 1: definitely got to fix this. When I witnessed that, and

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Speaker 1: I started to fix that problem. We were doing about

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Speaker 1: six raids a month to capture or kill high value targets,

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Speaker 1: right high value Al Qaida targets Alkaida and Iraq al

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Speaker 1: Kaida and Afghanistan. We were doing about six raids a

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Speaker 1: month in the next corresponding two years. By June of

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Speaker 1: two thousand and six, we were upwards of thirty raids

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Speaker 1: a night for anybody that understands warfare at that level

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Speaker 1: with special operations who need what I call bulletproof intelligence

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Speaker 1: and a machine to back that up to get them

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Speaker 1: on the target, so to speak. And I got the

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Speaker 1: right people around me, who I still say today are

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Speaker 1: still some of the best friends that I have, and

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Speaker 1: we're still helping the country in different ways. But we

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Speaker 1: created a system to move intelligence from the battlefield, literally

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Speaker 1: the tactical battlefield right there at the raid site, to

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Speaker 1: an operational level and back to Washington, DC and then

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Speaker 1: back onto the battlefield in real time. And I mean

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Speaker 1: like when people in Washington, DC or the intel community

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Speaker 1: in DC talk about real time intelligence, we're providing that. Well,

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Speaker 1: in those days, that wasn't true, and in my previous

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Speaker 1: experiences that wasn't true. So there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: machinery that had to be put in place and people

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Speaker 1: that needed to come to the battlefield. So we had

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Speaker 1: a direct connection back to the twenty four hour operational

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Speaker 1: systems that we have back in places like Tampa, you

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Speaker 1: know where Central Command is or Special Operations Command headquarters are,

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Speaker 1: or into Washington, DC or elsewhere into some other places.

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Speaker 1: We worked very closely, for example, with the New York

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Speaker 1: City Police Department, and a lot of people don't know

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Speaker 1: that because New York City has always been target number

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Speaker 1: one for the country, and we always saw intelligence where

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Speaker 1: there was always going to be targeting there. All these

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Speaker 1: pieces this very complex I call it sort of the

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Speaker 1: million piece puzzle. And I'm not sure we ever finished

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Speaker 1: that puzzle, but we put a lot of it together

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Speaker 1: in a very very short period of time, and I

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Speaker 1: would say in about a six month period of time.

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Speaker 1: I was a young colonel at the time. Maybe that's

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Speaker 1: when they started to go. All the funds are real

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Speaker 1: pain in the rear end, but I was putting demands

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Speaker 1: on it because we were being directed by the National

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Speaker 1: Command Authority, the President of United States, to win and

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Speaker 1: we were being directed by the National Command Authority to

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Speaker 1: go after certain individuals. And my god, there's so many

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Speaker 1: stories about miracles that happened on the battle field because

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Speaker 1: of the connections of dots, by young analysts, by young interrogators,

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Speaker 1: by young professionals who came in to help us in

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Speaker 1: the intelligence machinery that we developed and established. And it

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Speaker 1: was everything from forensics of computers to integrating unmanned aerial

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00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: vehicles and drones, and then networking. So what across multiple countries,

434
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: not just Iraq, not just Afghanistan, but I would say

435
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: probably twenty seven nations where we ended up and I

436
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,879
Speaker 1: think through a very very effective liaison network that was

437
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: developed in from our organization out we took the battlefield

438
00:25:43,359 --> 00:25:46,439
Speaker 1: and we brought it to Washington, DC, so to speak.

439
00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: And so we had liaison who were up twenty four

440
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: hours a day, and our leadership would say, you know,

441
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 1: we would do a request to do something because some

442
00:25:55,200 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: of the stuff we needed the Secretary of Defense's approval,

443
00:25:58,119 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: and we didn't want to wait because we had eyes

444
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:03,879
Speaker 1: on the target, so to speak. Right, So we would

445
00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: want to move the bureaucracy. I would want to know

446
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: whose inboxes it in right now, and so we essentially

447
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: planted our own people inside the Pentagon twenty four hours

448
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: a day to move documents out of inboxes. As you

449
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:19,840
Speaker 1: know new, the bureaucracy can kill us. It can kill

450
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,640
Speaker 1: a capability, it can kill time, and it can kill

451
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: opportunities that we need on the battlefield, which is moving

452
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:28,320
Speaker 1: at the speed of light. So bottom line, our ability

453
00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,320
Speaker 1: to go from six raids and these are very very

454
00:26:31,320 --> 00:26:35,679
Speaker 1: complex rates a month to approximately thirty a night, and

455
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: in many cases when we got to that level, we

456
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: were actually turning so we could do a raid at

457
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: twenty two hundred and from that raid site, we would

458
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: actually go in to get information. We wouldn't go in

459
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: necessarily just to capture somebody. We would go in to

460
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: get information because we knew that particular person was carrying

461
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:56,680
Speaker 1: a thumb drive or a laptop, and we would take

462
00:26:56,720 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: that information, immediately turn it, and we would be conducting

463
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,760
Speaker 1: raids from the information that we discovered at four o'clock

464
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: in the morning with another rating force or the same

465
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 1: rating force. Because the operators that we have they're the

466
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: best in the world, absolutely best in the world. I

467
00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 1: just hope that America appreciates what we have in our

468
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: capabilities because they're extraordinary. But those individuals, they were doing

469
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:21,320
Speaker 1: it because they believe in our country, they believed in

470
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:24,359
Speaker 1: the cause, they believed in trying to save lives of

471
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: other conventional forces that were on the ground who were

472
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 1: being targeted by ieed by improvised explosive devices, and by

473
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: other attacks by some of these people against our conventional forces.

474
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: So the integration of special operations and our conventional forces,

475
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:42,640
Speaker 1: that's pretty extraordinary. I would just say now that for me,

476
00:27:43,200 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 1: it was a massive team effort because we created a

477
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: bunch of true believers that were on the battlefield. And

478
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:52,600
Speaker 1: when you're on the battlefield, and that's where you live,

479
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: and that's where you breathe, and that's who you breathe with,

480
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: and that's who you know that there's sacrifices going on.

481
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: You're attending memorial services of guys that went on a

482
00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:02,760
Speaker 1: raid who were killed that night, or you're going to

483
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: a ramp ceremony in Bosrah or some other airfield where

484
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 1: we're putting a casket on the back of an airplane.

485
00:28:08,720 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 1: That is the starkness of reality that one can only

486
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: imagine in combat. And the type of person that I

487
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:20,480
Speaker 1: can't live with myself unless I leave it all out

488
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,959
Speaker 1: on the field and do everything humanly possible. And if

489
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: that means breaking down bureaucratic walls back in Washington, DC,

490
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: which we did, then that's what it takes. If I

491
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: ever felt like somebody was going to fire me, that's fine.

492
00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 1: I know that what I was trying to achieve was

493
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: the right thing morally, legally, ethically, and spiritually, so to speak.

494
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: Because one thing that my father taught me from his

495
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,640
Speaker 1: experiences and I learned is there's no atheist in a

496
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,760
Speaker 1: foxhole when you have a threat that wants to kill you.

497
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: I'm curious, what was the average age of your young analysts.

498
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: We had sort of top tier analysts that were mentors

499
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: for the junior analysts that showed up, and we would

500
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: do that. We would do that purposely, so our top

501
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:08,239
Speaker 1: tier people would be late thirties, some cases they were

502
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: early forties. We would have to bring them in particularly

503
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: initially to mentor and to teach, because the best analysts

504
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: are risk takers as well. They're not just bureaucrats who

505
00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:22,360
Speaker 1: look out a piece of information and they're afraid to

506
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: actually say what does it mean? They just say, well,

507
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,240
Speaker 1: here's what the information is. We have people in our

508
00:29:27,320 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: ranks that are like that, and I had to tap

509
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 1: into them. But the average age, i'd say was mid

510
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: to late twenties. And these are not just military but

511
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: civilian analysts that we brought in from the Defense Intelligence

512
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 1: Agency or from Army intelligence. Particularly Army intelligence helped me

513
00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: out quite a bit because of my relationships to people

514
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: in Washington, DC that were in you know, they were

515
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 1: senior army officers that helped me out. But DIA came

516
00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: on eventually and they helped us out quite a bit.

517
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: We also integrated analysts from the FBI and the CIA,

518
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:01,920
Speaker 1: and they were I would say the average age is

519
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: probably guessing a little bit, probably around twenty seven. It's amazing, Yeah,

520
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,280
Speaker 1: I think we really is. I think we sometimes forget

521
00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: how many dedicated young people are working at this. You

522
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: have thirty three years, much of it in very dangerous situations,

523
00:30:34,840 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: and towards the end of your military career you end

524
00:30:37,480 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: up back in Washington, which I would argue it turns

525
00:30:39,880 --> 00:30:44,000
Speaker 1: out to be a more dangerous battlefield in an Iraq.

526
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: In a caston talk a little bit about that transition

527
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,120
Speaker 1: back into the world of bureaucratic politics. So as an

528
00:30:51,200 --> 00:30:54,720
Speaker 1: intelligence officer to never have served in Washington DC until

529
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: I was a two star. I'm an unusual cat new

530
00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: all right. Normally the intelligent community that rises up to

531
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: the level that I rose to, you know, you have

532
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: to float in and out of Washington DC and go

533
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: kiss the ring of somebody somewhere. And I avoided that.

534
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:12,440
Speaker 1: I could have cared less. And that's why when I

535
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: mentioned my many years at Fort Bragg, I will tell

536
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 1: you Iraq is safe for Afghanistan, safer than Washington DC.

537
00:31:18,840 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: I did not go to Washington DC or get a

538
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: signed until I was a two star. And so how

539
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:26,640
Speaker 1: did that happen? Well, I had been operating for years,

540
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: at least three years, and then I was selected to

541
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: be the J two, or the senior intelligence officer at

542
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,440
Speaker 1: Central Command, and about three months into that, and there

543
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: was a lot of things going on at that time,

544
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:41,680
Speaker 1: historically and from a military perspective and certainly from a

545
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: geostrategic perspective. Well, my path then crossed with Mike Mullen,

546
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:48,840
Speaker 1: who you know. And I got a call one day

547
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 1: into the office of my boss, who was a four star,

548
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: and he said, how do you know Mike Mullen. I said,

549
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: I don't know him. I never met him, and I

550
00:31:57,480 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: knew he was a chairman and I was at once

551
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: Are at the time, and he said, well, he just

552
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: called me up and said he wants you to come

553
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: to Washington, DC. And I said, you mean took black

554
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: briefham and he goes, no, he wants you to be

555
00:32:07,720 --> 00:32:10,600
Speaker 1: a sign there. And I had been at Central Command

556
00:32:10,640 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: in Tampa for about three months at the time. That

557
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: was Fox Fallon. He was a great leader and a

558
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 1: great guy and another great person who I stayed in

559
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: a good relationship with him further on. But he was

560
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: another tough guy, so he ended up fighting Mike Mullen.

561
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: I think I did go up to visit ad Maman

562
00:32:27,120 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: at the time, and I had a great conversation with him,

563
00:32:30,240 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: And because everything going on in Central Command at the time,

564
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:35,880
Speaker 1: Adam Fallon was able to convince Adamir Mollan to keep

565
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: me at Central Command for at least he tried for

566
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: a whole year. I don't think I was quite there

567
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: a year, probably ten or eleven months if I remember right.

568
00:32:43,520 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: And so then I was assigned as the senior intelligence

569
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: officer for the Joint chiefs of Staff and working directly

570
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:52,880
Speaker 1: for Adam Mamullan. He was forming a team at the time.

571
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: So I was in Scentcom from two thousand and seven

572
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: to two thousand and eight. Two thousand and eight, I

573
00:32:57,400 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: go to the Pentagon, and now I'm a motable one star.

574
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 1: I was selected to two star, and now I'm into

575
00:33:04,680 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: the depths of what we now call the swamp of Washington,

576
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:12,000
Speaker 1: d C. I wasn't out of my league then because

577
00:33:12,040 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 1: I had been in and out of Washington, DC quite

578
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 1: a bit, and I had a really really strong network

579
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: of people, both in the intelligence community and in the

580
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: political realm. And I had a great relationship with Admiral Mullan.

581
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 1: I think he's a terrific guy and great leader, and

582
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: he was a great chief and I worked for him

583
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: for about a year. When you look at two thousand

584
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: and eight to two thousand and nine and Joe strategic

585
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,720
Speaker 1: dynamics around the world, and we went through an economic crisis,

586
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:42,200
Speaker 1: and in the presidential election, the Obama administration comes in

587
00:33:42,720 --> 00:33:45,800
Speaker 1: and they changed their strategy over an Afghanistan, and I

588
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 1: had already served in Afghanistan quite a bit in that theater,

589
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: over in Iraq, I'd spent quite a few years over there.

590
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,000
Speaker 1: So when they changed the strategy and they changed the horses,

591
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: as they do in politics and in the military at

592
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: senior levels, I was called into Mike Mullen's office again

593
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm going to send you over to Afghanistan.

594
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,400
Speaker 1: Was another one of these moments where like you mean

595
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:08,319
Speaker 1: to like go do a temporary duty, go over there

596
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: for a couple of days and do an assessment before

597
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: he goes no, you're going over there with stam a

598
00:34:11,600 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: Crystal And I said, okay, no problem, and literally I

599
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: went back home told my wife again, I'm deploying. She said, okay,

600
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: that's you know, such as life. And I went over

601
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: there for another year and a half. I deployed literally

602
00:34:26,880 --> 00:34:29,600
Speaker 1: a couple of days later, and I stayed in Afghanistan

603
00:34:29,640 --> 00:34:32,880
Speaker 1: for another year and a half until almost an early

604
00:34:32,920 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: winter of two thousand and ten time frames. So I

605
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,279
Speaker 1: was over there in Afghanistan in two thousand and nine

606
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: to the early winter of two thousand and ten, and

607
00:34:40,440 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: then returned back to Washington, DC again, because as a

608
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: senior at that level in terms of rank, either you

609
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: get out, you deploy, or you go back to Washington

610
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: DC into some job that they want you to serve,

611
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: and I wanted to continue to serve. I absolutely love

612
00:34:57,360 --> 00:35:00,680
Speaker 1: our men and women in uniform, and I loved Darvan.

613
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: I think you'll better understand on Wednesday when he talks

614
00:35:05,080 --> 00:35:11,279
Speaker 1: about Russia game, how really disgusting, immoral and on patriotic

615
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:16,000
Speaker 1: the FBI in the Deep State was in targeting him.

616
00:35:16,080 --> 00:35:19,920
Speaker 1: In the next episode, Mike Flynn fighting for his life

617
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 1: against the entire Deep State. Thank you to my guest,

618
00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:29,840
Speaker 1: Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. You can read more about his

619
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:32,680
Speaker 1: years of service in the military on our show page

620
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 1: at Newtsworld dot com. Newtsworld is produced by Gingwich three

621
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 1: sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Debbie Myers, our

622
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: producer is Garnsey Sloan, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson.

623
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,800
Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Pennelly.

624
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,920
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the team at Gingwich three sixty. Please

625
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: email me with your questions at Gingwich three dot com

626
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: slash questions. I'll answer a selection of questions in future episodes.

627
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 1: If you've been enjoying news World, I hope you'll go

628
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 1: to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars

629
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,600
Speaker 1: and give us a review so others can learn what

630
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: it's all about. I'm new Kangwage. This is news World,