Shawn Ryan Show - #45 Bob "Ninja" Poras - Inside CIA's Global Response Staff | Part 2

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

Ninja is back in the final installment of this two-part series. This episode spans his entire career working for the CIA, covering the differences between CIA staffers and GRS contractors, and how the enemy evolved their IED based warfare into a new kind of weapon: EFP. Bob gives us a behind the scenes look at the Khost bombing and the triple agent behind it. Learn about an event in Tripoli that saved 150+ lives and lasted a grueling 24 hours - the greatest evacuation you've never heard about. We'll wrap up with his transition into civilian life and a high-speed motorcycle crash that changed everything. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://mudwtr.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWNMUD" https://hvmn.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Taukaya Tree. Talking about mental health isn't always easy. Finding care should be. Meet Taukaya Tree. They offer virtual in-network psychiatry to treat the most common mental health conditions, like depression, anxiety, OCD, and trauma. Within a week, they can match you with a doctor who takes insurance and takes the time to listen.

Get started at TaukayaTree.com slash start. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com slash start. This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Bumble believes your mental well-being should be a top priority. It's why they're committed to providing in-app tools to support mental health while dating, like their safety and well-being center,

which has helpful resources to combat dating fatigue and anxiety. And with SmoothSmoad, you can take applause from dating while you focus on yourself. Bumble even released a new suite of self-care badges and prompts for your profile. It's a simple way to show your commitment to self-care. Take care of you! Then download Bumble today. Hey everybody, this is Part 2 of a two-part series with my friend Ninja, a former CIA and Delta Force operator. In this episode you are going to hear the inside scoop of a lot of the things that went on

inside CIA when Ninja and I were both there. It's a raw honest discussion that is very rare. You're probably never going to get this much of an inside and that organization. Again, I hope you all enjoy it. Please like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. Check out the Clips channel if you haven't checked that out. Leave us a review on Spotify and iTunes. We're kind of lacking on the Spotify reviews so if you guys could help us out, I would really appreciate it. So my team, sign up for the

vigilance elite newsletter. Gummy Bears are coming back. That's how you're going to find out where the link is to buy them. All right, love you all, cheers, enjoy this episode. Now see you soon. Previously on the Sean Ryan show. You're down in Panama, Operation Just Cause. This is when we pulled Noriega out, correct? Yeah. Jump out of the bush out of the jungle, put my guy in them. And it's a gun on the ground with a-

We've decided to take you on as a apprentice, which means you get to go to the operator training course. But you do a lot of shooting in OTC and you were dumping some rounds in OTC to get good with a pistol on a rifle. Shown up at Delta, you guys took losses. Did you take in any losses? No, no, no, no. That was the big one.

So before we get into the contracting days in the early part of Iraq, let's take a quick break. It's good. I think you said it was round O3. Lado3 is one of, I was at a unit function and that's when the founders and all that had a great idea to put together. It was triple canopy, security company. And were those former unit guys that started that? Yeah, okay. And there are some guys from the kind of parts in the Navy

to help manage or staff the hierarchy of the company at the time. So great group of guys. And I'd always said, if I was going to do this kind of thing, that there's a bunch of clowns out there, a bunch of companies that just run in a muck and I was going to do that. I heard this pitch and I was like, well, who's in it? Who's going to be? Is it just going to be in namesake and have a couple guys at the top to have the name? And they said, no, it's going to be, you know, former unit guys, former tier one guys,

not just the unit. Our Navy counterparts. Sawman was one of them. He was on the crew, so we got to work with him again. Yeah, there's a bunch of good guys on the initial crew. Yeah, and then by 04, so go to Chicago where we were at the time, headquartered, that's where it started.

And then all of 04, or most of 04, I was in Iraq, spinning that thing up, trying to interesting, so contracting at the time plus my previous experience was military experience. I'm a private contractor. Very eye-opening, you know, not the coverage in the backstop you had when you're in a military. There's no helicopters and all that stuff coming. Depends on where you are, but you have to coordinate for it and you're civilian. So military comes first, right? It's understanding all that, right?

That was, how's it going to now? Interesting to find out all those kind of nuances about the whole contracting world. And that was just going to be a site manager, get a group of guys and run a protection detail and all those kind of things. And it ended up to be a little bit more than that, but all it's fine with it. Had a little army up north, I recommend. Nice. Yeah, train them in static security, a guard force, plus a protective detail,

and all that kind of stuff. So, yep, so I felt, you know, I needed to do something for the global war on terror. I got out right before, as that was happening. So, back on the bandwagon then, it's good pay. It's like, what's the worst thing that happened? I'm going to Iraq.

Yeah, right. Yeah, and then found out, you know, as we're piecing things together in Chicago, and what do we need? Gear equipment, spare parts, accessories for AKs, and all those kinds of things. I have a kind of weapon system for going to get. We're going to get in a country and all those kind of things.

we're going to get in country and all those kind of things. We ended up driving in from Jordan down Highway 1 from Jordan all the way to Baghdad. We actually hired taxis that came from Baghdad, came out to get us and were driving back. With some folks that were there. So they knew their, they knew Baghdad and the streets and all that stuff. So they were already in Baghdad.

They came out to get us drove in. Long drive, the driver stopped at one point and said, we're not going in further. We happened to be right outside of riding between, we're on how we went between Ramadi and Fallujah. And they pulled over and it was like, what do you guys, what are we doing? They all got out of the car, went across the street and sat down and were like, what do we got to sit in going on? What's going on? And you know, it was the whole thing about getting guns too.

I mean, we weren't going to get guns until we got across the border in Iraq, where we're going to meet some guy, you know, Bonafidis thing going on, little black market stuff going on or whatever was going on. That was all planned to get guns when we got inside across the border, stop, get guns, get ammo and continue on a bag dad, stop in between Remoddy and Fallujah, it was all we could do to convince them, they didn't wanna go to Baghdad because it was too dangerous. And we're like, well, you probably should have told us

to begin with, right? Because we're not staying here on how we want between Remodeling and Fallujah. Yeah, no shit. At that time, not a good place to hang out. There wasn't a whole lot of good places to hang out around So that was another depending on what you're doing Intro to contracting 101 right there. The average on farm income in the United States was a loss of $1,100

60% of US port comes from one company, wholly owned by the Chinese. And farmers are more likely to commit suicide than veterans. Folks, we got a problem. I'm Lucinda, a generation from the heart of rural America. Come stand shoulder to shoulder with us by putting the family farm at the center of your supper table. What's in it for you? You mean besides saving the family farm and enjoying the highest quality meat on God's

green earth? Geez, won't we hang the moon for you too? I'd love to. Go to Monkbox.com slash yum right now and get a free gift in your first order. Get to getting why the getting is good. Go to MonkBox.com slash Yum right now and get a free gift in your first order. Get to get them while the Gidden is good. Go to MonkBox.com slash Yum. MonkBox.com slash Yum. I guarantee you're fixing to say, oink oink, I'm just so happy I got more.

This episode is brought to you by Taukaya Tree. Talking about mental health isn't always easy. Finding care should be. Meet Taukaya Tree. Talking about mental health isn't always easy. Finding care should be. Meet Taukaya Tree. They offer virtual in-network psychiatry to treat the most common mental health conditions, like depression, anxiety, OCD, and trauma. Within a week, they can match you with a doctor who takes insurance and takes the time to listen. Get started at taukaya tree.com slash start. That's T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y.com slash start. We eventually ended up convincing them it was the right thing to do for their country

and everything else here now. And you know, fed them a bunch of crap and they bought it and continued to drive in the back down for us. And the thing and you can see, you know, off a highway one, when we were, you can see some of Fallujah on the horizon, off in the distance, and one of the things was, you know, there was a gal with me driving in my suburban, there was suburban white Nornse, taxis, typical sea and no death, or anywhere in that region. She had the other bathroom, right? And it was a gas station, but you know, just like you know Iraq, it wasn't any normal gas, There was gas pump, they hadn't been used in probably decades, but they were just, you know, cans of gas all over the place.

So it was gas station. It was the Iraqi gas station. She had to go to the bathroom. And I told her before I say, don't leave without me. And if you have to go to the bathroom, whatever it is, if I have to go to the bathroom, you're coming with me and I'm going with you. There's we're not separating. So we stopped there.

And talking, trying to convince our driver, and a couple of the drivers, that hey, we need to do this for your country, and we're here for you and all this other stuff, and turn around. And they started, okay, we'll do it, but we need more money. Yeah, it's like, all right, we'll get you, but we need more money. Yeah, it's like,

all right, we'll get you more money when we get there. And I turn around, I said, what's this? She was a contractor at the Baghdad International Airport with one of the other companies. She was part of one of the companies that went in to try to like manage the infrastructure of the airport. Okay. Right. But that obviously didn't go yet. It wasn't time for that yet. So Triple Canopy on the ground picked her up

to work for us in whatever capacity to train to handle women Iraqis for the guard force stuff and a lot of other stuff. She walked off and it was like one of those things like I'm a contractor now. Should I leave her on her own? Because she should know better or should I you know go try to find out where she is and risk your because I don't know where she's at. find out where she is and risk your her, because I don't know where she's at. And so time and place were at Ramadi, in Flucia,

she's gonna be high dollar to somebody, right? No, yeah. So at the only other place in the middle of this desert where the drivers are across the street huddled up talking about stuff and a line of suburban packed with all of our gear in it. There's only that one gas station part of it, and I was thinking, and I skied

as a couple of the Iraqis standing around. I think there's no way. No way she would have went over there. Because it's safe for here. There's Americans here, right? And she knows us. Well, I've just come from around the building. Oh my God.

I was like, here we go. I was like, well, you know, I have this brand new AK, but I don't know. If it fires, I haven't shot it on a range. No, if it fires, it fires accurately. So I can't, I'm not comfortable taking a shot. You know, 150 or something like that away from me. And I was like, well, this is all I got. So this is my intro to contracting in our rock thing. And she keeps walking. I was like, all right,

she makes it to the truck and I scream at her and yell at her. I say, don't ever do that again. She got her butt hurt a little bit. And I was like, well, you realize what we're at, right? And she said, yeah, we're on the road to Baghdad. And I was like, so often the distance on the horizon, see that over there, that's Fluja. We just passed her Marty back here. Those towns self-familiar to you. She's like, yeah, she's like, we're not going in there.

I was like, yeah, exactly, but that's who's here. And so she got it. She said, I'm sorry, she apologized to all kinds of stuff. And I'll got it. She said, I'm sorry, she apologized to all kinds of stuff. And I'll work that. We got to the green zone to our, the house we were near gate 12, I think it was, was the one the furthest down towards Radirish. Like you passed that, the tank that was parked out there,

and then you were on Radirish getting some. So that's where you're at. The unit guys were there, test for Brown, the Rangers were there, SAC was there. And that's where we started base of operations, just starting to get contracts everywhere. Nice. So what point? Because that was that was

State Department contracts, correct? Well, the CPA at the time, okay, coalition, coalition and provisional authority. So State Department, but it was the CPA, all those contracts that they had everywhere. And they're starting to push out now to Suim and the north and all the other towns

from Baghdad, just starting to branch out down South in Ramallah to Lille and all those other places. They're trying to get something stabilized. Trying to get a presence there in those places, which didn't work out so well initially, but. How long were you working with Triple Canada with Triple Canada people for? There was an year.

Good job. Yeah, stay with them for a year. Most of that was getting in the bases and like as the contract should come down, we're there waiting on, okay, let's get a team and go. Like I ended up going to Sully, but in the interim on Baghdad, I'm going to Ramadi helping that team out

to get spun up, went down to Lil South to start help with that one, just to spin it up. I was never mind, I wasn't supposed to go to all this path, I was just going because I'm there and to help out at that point. And then I'll come back to Baghdad and wait for another contract, so I can take a team

and go somewhere else. Remot, what is it, it was interesting in a remoddy. So the guard, National Guard, Army National Guard was out there. And they were doing the escorting for the, the CPA folks going into remoddy to do their, you know, diplomatic stuff. And so our team was partnering up with those guys. So we'd run a limo follow and then we'd have army vehicles in front,

lead now and then a gun truck in the back. And when I was out there doing that, we go downtown to the the governor's mansion and we're doing survey, site surveys. We're getting the lay of the land and figuring out what's where and stuff like that. And that's, I got a picture of this guys from New Jersey. And I hear this, one block down,

and I hear this firefight going on. And I was looking at another side of the building. And on the top of the roof top of this three or four-story government building and I turn around and I say I'm waiting for the the guard guys to have some kind of movement right I turn around and they're not moving and the e6 I think, staffs are. I yelled down the stairways,

like, hey, get up here to the other triple canopy guys. I said, hey, get up here, there's a firefight down the street. Just to watch it, maybe participate in it, something. Right. Who knows? In case they start coming this way, then we're up there ready, right? They had the guard guys,

they were improving their positions on the rooftop, they had sandbags, and that's what they were doing while we were waiting for the meetings to go on. We're doing all the surveys, the mapping of the area and getting contact information, range cards, the whole thing on the rooftop. And I went down stairs to see how much time we had for the meeting. And it was still

a good 45 minutes or an hour. So, and then right then, I hear the firefight pick up, up tempo a little bit. So I go run it back upstairs to the rooftop. And I passed the staffs start and hence he's going downstairs. And he looks at me, he's like, what are you doing? Where are you going? I was like, hey, there's a firefight going on. He's like, I know. He's like, that's why I'm going downstairs. And he told his guys to lay low.

He like, get below, there's like a knee wall on top of the rooftop. And then there's sandbags and everything. These are in-fighting positions. And the fire if I, you know, picks up a sound and a mount of ammo that's being expended. And all we're doing is the next street over. So we're starting to, you can only see the misses and the hits on the buildings,

like a block up the street down, we're looking down this one street. And occasionally we see somebody passing by and then somebody passing by the other way. It's like, what in the heck is going on? And one guy probably saw somebody on the rooftop that we were at and he rounded the corner and took a shot, right?

Immediately. So we're now in charge of them. We're not in charge of them. We're saying, hey man, they got saws and all that stuff on the rooftop. It's like, hey, can you just please point your gun in that direction if somebody starts shooting this way? Can you just help us out a little bit? A little bit.

A little bit. And that one dude turned around the corner. It's all he was doing is like, it's on a racquet, right? So he's running to corner, she's in his gun, and then he's gonna run across. He doesn't know, I'm guessing you didn't know who was where. He's just gonna shoot and then run, because that's what they do, right?

Just around the corner shoot and then run across the street. And that's all I said. It's like, hey, get that guy. And he's like, really? Like he was excited, this PFC. He's like, really? I was like, yeah, get that dude, get him, get him, get him. He's like, he's running across the street.

The E-Massage is out of the, half of his drum. Cause it was, you know, it was a short window of time that we even saw this dude out in the open. And he was way behind, trying to catch up. And I was like, all right, good job, man. And he's like, did I give them? And I didn't want to tell them no. It's like, did I get, I was, yeah, you got him, good job.

Yeah, I was, you Yeah, that was interesting. The whole time of the contract didn't was interesting. And then mostly it was dealing with or eventually running into like army guys in our cars, right? So beimmers, you know, ID cars. We're driving around ID cars, a V-Bid, and that's what they're thinking we are when we're rolling up to them. It's like, oh my god, you know, back off. There's another thing, and when I finally got, and we were going to the bases, one of the bases at North between Baghdad and Bukhuba, we would go to that base because that's where all the caches were, they'd go raid places, the big army, and that was like the processing

place for all the amazes. So we were getting guns and ammo from those guys. Stuff that they had captured on targets and stuff like that was a process through the system yet. And I finally get, there's to create, and there's Urbio, those contracts are coming down, then I finally get one and it's in Sully. I'll say, ah, Sully's cool. It's on North of the Green Line. I'd be a cool place to go. I'll go train an army up there. 10 Special Forces Group is up there. This is our major at the time. it was for him a unit guy. And that was a good deal.

On the way there, we have to pass through Bacuba to stop there, because we have a team there to drop off some mail and some more money and stuff of them. And one of the, so there's a traffic circle near where they had the, you know, whatever you call it, the CPA compound. And the big male was moving. So you got these big old, you know, what they call them, the emirats, right?

They're rolling through and they're rolling through the circle. And I already, you know, American flag, orange panel, all the stuff to the, the rear gunner on the rear vehicle. As he's looking, you know, straight six o'clock, he's got six for the convoy he's in, and American flag, hey we're friendly, and he has the thumbs up,

and we just were following him around the circle, and when they get around the circle, they were going, you know, out 12 o'clock, and we're gonna continue out nine to go to the compound, which is right quarter mile within this circle. I mean, we're almost there. And I had a local driver with me from Baghdad. It's pretty good English, but I was taking him up to be a linguist for me. But driving skills, it's all we had.

So the other American in the other vehicle had another local guy from Baghdad. He's driving. And it was just us two separate vehicles, trying to pull a money to go, and he was like, in the other vehicle had another local guy from Baghdad. He's driving and that it was just us two two-separ vehicles trunk full of money to go hire local guards you know and vet them train them you know all this other stuff and then pay them salaries this looks like that it's crazy but

we're dropping off money for the Bakubi team and we go go behind the convoy, we're pretty good distance. I mean, we're enough to where he can keep seeing us, the rear gunner. And in the circle though, half of their convoy gets through. I.D. in one of the bricks that make up the circle, right? So the huge blocks that they have that make those things. So apparently they embed something in one of those and blew it up, cranked it off of one of the M-wraps. And at the time it was either initiation, that was either initiation and then the following, ambush kind of thing. So me sitting sitting there, what, you know, us sitting there, in the back of this four mention,

it wasn't a good place to be, because it was a thin skin, whatever we have, BMW 350 or something, series car. That's a fast car, but, you know, we don't even care. Yeah, yeah. And so, what I decided to do, we couldn't get over the curves because there are 18 inch curves with this BMW.

So I motioned into this guy and I would tell him we rehearsed a couple things before we left. Gas, gas, gas, means step on the gas and keep going forward. And explosion goes off in front of us. And it's like two or three M-wra off in front of us and it's like two or three M-Raps in front of us. And they're spread out pretty good distance. And I said, I have an idea what Army is going to do when they got hit, right? So my thing was to get out of the way, like as soon as we can get out of the way. So in hindsight, what I probably should have did was say we're a burst out, right? Yeah.

But I said gas, gas, gas. I took you steering wheel and I'm steering right beside the M-Rap all the way around the circle. So to the point where they couldn't depress their guns to shoot us if they thought we were bad and V-Bids. So I'm steering right along the side of the M-raps. I mean, as soon as I get a break around the circle, out we go, right?

And thank God they didn't think anything of us, other than they had a lot of things to deal with at the time themselves. And again, my decision to go gas, gas, gas, is set a reverse out, right? So we're hauling ass to the shoot. And if we were going to make it into the shoot to this compound, it's a hairpin turn. So we're hauling ass, and I still got the steering wheel. It's a rocky.

I kept telling them, stay on the gas, and we're hauling ass down the road. And I said, we're gonna turn in right there at the end of the T-walls. We're gonna turn left there. And I let go of the steering wheel and he turned in and we're screeching a little bit as we're making this hairpin turn across the street and then into the shoot and then we're safe.

Well, that little bit of a noise, guess what we saw when we were around the corner. All these Americans and locals, whether they're there, right, our team that's there, they're all gunned up waiting for something to come down the shoot. And we're driving a V-Bid, right? And flags out, orange panels,

and I'm waving at you, friendly, we're friendly. I'm on the radio, radio's not working to try to talk to somebody in the compound that, hey, it's us. And I told our driver he was scared. So we rounded the core. First from all that activity. Then we rounded the corner and now all these guns are facing at us. And I get out with the American flag and I slowly get out.

I started walking toward the front flag and I slowly get out. I started walking towards the front, so the racquies first. I was like, yeah, I'm friendly, you showed them a badge and they said, they were all amped up. I didn't ready to shoot something. And I was like, it's okay, calm down. And I walked, kept walking and I say,

hey, where's the first American? I just yelled it down the shoot. And I see a little hand come up, and say, you know, get over here. And then I recognized him. I was like, hey man yelled it down the shoot. And it's a little hand come up, say, you know, get over here. And then I recognize him. I was like, hey man, it's us. It's like we're good. And he's like, what the fuck, man, J.

I was like, dude, did you hear that shit? He's like, yeah, that's where we're all jacked up right now. We heard the explosion in the circle. And now you come screeching around the corner, man. You almost got shot up, man. I was like, well well we're here man I got a dump bag full of money for you and some mail and all that crap is that get your ass in here holy shit yeah did you look at their racket and say well

what do you think your first day yeah yeah you ended up quitting actually yeah yeah I'll bet yeah good stuff so how did you get picked up from the CIA? Well Ended up I left triple can to be went to Dyncor for a year went down South to Bosnia with Dyncor There's a triple can be teamed down there. They were the first Americans that got hit by an EFP. Oh yeah. When all that crap started, they were targeting the Brits

initially. They finally hit. And we thought maybe it was a mistake in identity. They thought it was a British land cruiser. It was us, our Triple Canopy team as Americans. We queue up for those guys. So it was a bad experience. Really it was a body recovery thing,

I mean, we were less than five minutes away. And it was one of those things, typical things were, if you're on the street, you ask the other team, hey, if we're getting trouble, can you come and hitch this test, what did they say for you? Well, we're crossing, you know, similar paths, at least response times, and that was the case. They got hit. One, I think of the three guys in the car once

revived. I think. Damn. Do you know the names? I don't. Brad Young ring a bell. No. My chance. No. But, yeah, they were, that was, they were in a bad way when we saw them. So some of the guys were alive when we first saw them. But some of the vehicles that were pinning them, they were pin, like on the one guy was pin with the high side of the back of the seat, right? So that was actually keeping them alive, just keeping pressure in this system.

Damn. But yeah, that was a scary moment. British that were down there. We responded, pulled the guys out of the vehicles, took them to the hospital, one guy. By the time we got to that point, one guy was alive by the time we got to the British hospital. He eventually dies on the table there. Yeah, it was one of those things where the thing to do was to go take pictures of this and put it, you know, exploit it, the cameras, the camera footage on LG Zero and all that stuff or wherever

So we get there and I have a I have a saw I'm in a follow car so I'm rocking a saw and all the end where that comes with it The new guy with me on the other side is funny Got the call hey, we're hit we saw the limo flying past us back to the State Department compound. And we're like, well, that is like, I think that was the limo. So the package is safe. And then we heard the guys that went to the crash site. So car gets hit on an up ramp, it goes, continues up, goes over the embankment rolls, tumbles, and you know, the guys in the front of that car were gone instantly probably. They're the ones who take the breath of the whole EFP thing.

And, do you want to explain what any FP does? Yeah, it's for the audience. It's a platform projectile, yeah, it's a hot metal, it's a copper plate. And then that gets pushed with the explosives behind it. And it's packaged in a cylindrical tube or container. And so you have this conical shaped copper and explosives behind it. It's primed from the rear. And then when it shoots out, it envelops on itself and then forms a hot metal copper projectile.

And it rips through everything. There's nothing that can stop that stuff. Any armor at the time, anybody was using, it wasn't stop is going right through that stuff. And usually by the time it triggered on the front of the vehicle, front front of the vehicle a bit was and they were trying that at the time. They were trying timers, command detonated stuff,

and then trips on passive infrared or red. You break a beam and it goes off. By the time that your bumper crosses that line and breaks the beam, the EFP explosive is right at the point where you're rolling right at the front of the vehicle, the front passenger department, right, the driver and whoever's up front, and right through the front seat, both people usually don't survive that. And backseat people, on the other hand, sometimes survive those things. Other than all the other things that happen as a result of the explosion, right?

Or the car crashing into things and wrecking and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, that was, there was, at the time, no defending that. And then eventually, they come up with this little glow stick out in the front of vehicles to detonate it in front of the vehicle. So you're not lined up with the crew compartment on the vehicles. So that was really the only defense at the time for those things. Yeah. Eventually, um, then they figured that out and it went to a heat signature correct.

Yeah. So they would, it would sense the heat of the engine. Yeah. Yeah. And then they started doing that at the front too. They put the stick out there with the radiator coil or hot coil, right? And so that would hopefully trigger those initiating devices. Old school command detonated stuff

and sometimes multiple people. So that was the thing too. If something went wrong or somebody decided not to do something or whatever it was, they had two people designated to detonate this thing. So it was usually some sort of the person the person tripping the device, whether it was a beam or whatever it was, or it was command detonated, secondary, initiating device. So that was tearing people up for a long time in Iraq. And it was nothing you could do about it. The hot metal copper was just going through everything. But that's in Bosnia at the time in05.

That's when all that stuff started. And they were one of the first Americans to get hit by it. Horrible. And I was the crowds were massing. I'm there with my H240. It's not gonna be shing out with a lot of bullets. There's a lot of people out here, but they're just massing.

What do you do with the massing crowd? I mean, they're not aggressive, but in the crowd, there's some aggressive people. And that's their capitalizing on, right? They're gonna keep getting closer with the crowd. So there's a helicopter, British helicopter comes across and they're giving us a sit rep to the commander, the British commander on the ground, and we're trying to get him to land to take the people to the injured one guy that was still alive had a heartbeat.

We went on again in the hospital. Well, they didn't want to land because they said there's, it's too dangerous. There's too many people massing in your direction. Like other than the people that are there, there's more people massing. And I'll stand right by the Usually tenant I said exactly that's what we need to get down here and get get our guy to the hospital Like now get down here. We got you. We got that we got it covered We got I mean to the extent that we could you know, I got a machine. Oh, no, we're good We got to get this guy here and they went land and so we ended up

Packaging them up put them in the our vehicles and then trying to get them to the hospital and they all expired Yeah, they that that was that was not a good time. They've ended up bringing us back to Baghdad the shutdown operations down in Bosnia for a while We went up to Baghdad and did the same shit in Baghdad. Yeah. Wasn't any prettier in Baghdad. Well, the roundout of that, what I was deploying for that is that's when I started getting other offers

or every time I used to come home, check email, check voicemail, all this other stuff. And there's always job offers. Hey, we got something for you. And I was going to another department, a parent and military side of the organization. And I couldn't ever sync up interview times with this guy because he's deploying to. And he says at one point, he's like, hey, man, he's like, hey, brother, he's another former unique guy,

he's a, hey, putting a resume for any position and I'll have HR flag it that you've applied and they'll get it when it comes through. So I did that and that's how GRS eventually gets my resume and I get the call, I get a call. It doesn't say anything. It's like many other voicemails

that are here on the come back to the States. It's like, hey, we have something that you might be interested in. You're well-seated for it and all this stuff. Give us a call for an interview if you're interested. So I call them in a bunch of other folks and set up interviews. They'll find out that it is your ass when I find a show up, that that's what it is,

because it was like, so back to my unit days, right, getting into that whole thing. I was like, so what do you guys do? Who are you guys? And they go through the whole thing about, this is who we are. This is what we do. And they explain the whole hierarchy and the, you know, where they fit in the In the whole, you know, structure of things. I was like, I didn't know you guys did that because I did some con a couple of trips for

another body of mine on a similar protective thing in Baghdad and Afghanistan in Bogrum and Baghdad and Afghanistan and Bogrum. So it was like, I didn't know you guys did that. Yeah, sure, I'll try it, you know? And that's how 16 years later, I spent 16 years doing all the GRS stuff.

Damn. And yeah, deployed, I stayed deployed most of that time. What, when did you start in GRS? Oh, six. Oh, six. When did you start in GRS? Oh, six. Oh, six. When did GRS start? Yeah. I'm not sure.

I'm going to say around beginning of Iraq. Yeah. So it only been around for three years? Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. I think there was always, well, so officially, it depends on who you talk to. So in its current state, it's probably the start time, but there was always some sort of,

like protective side of things coming from the more traditional offices security side of the house. So there was always that. So if you talk to those people, they were the original G-R-S guys, but in its current state About beginning to have a rack time is when that all kicked off so it all kind of Changed when the war had kicked off. Oh, yeah. Yeah This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Bumble believes your mental wellbeing should be a top priority.

It's why they're committed to providing in-app tools to support mental health while dating, like their safety and wellbeing center, which has helpful resources to combat dating fatigue and anxiety. And with Smooth Mode, you can take applause from dating while you focus on yourself. Bumble even released a new suite of self-care badges and prompts for your profile.

It's a simple way to show your commitment to self-care. Take care of you! Then download Bumble today. This episode is brought to you by Dr. Teals. A bath is a great way to relax and recharge. Just lean back and soak in Dr. Teals' pure epsom salt to help relax the body. While natural essential oils calm the mind. Soak in Dr. Teel's to recharge the body, mind and spirit so you can soak in life's important moments. Find it at a Walmart near you, now available with a fresh new look.

Contractors, contract companies to, you know, that's still, or it was up until Iraq and Afghanistan went away. The majority of the workforce were contractors. And that's where all, that's where all the most experienced guys were to, that did that kind of work. So then staffers run the teams. Yeah, it's a whole new animal now. And I'm sure right now I'm not sure about what their status is now, but since Afghanistan and Iraq has gone away for the most part, they've scaled it down quite a bit.

I'm sure. Yeah, I'd imagine. Yeah. I don't know what kind of mission profiles are running anymore, because it was more of a traditional war zone. Clint Destin war zone, high-thread environment that you stopped writing in. So I'm not going to cut you how that looks nowadays,

but probably a lot different than what me and you were there. Oh, yeah. And it should. I mean, times are changing so yeah, that is true what What was the Did you go on as a staffer or did you come on as a contractor? Yeah, I went on as staffer initially okay? Never made it to the paramilitary side or ran into my buddies over there all the time. They're like, what the fuck do you?

I was like, I got a pretty good gig over here. 90 days off. I'm into the whole rotation for 16 years. Yeah, I didn't mind it. I liked the job. I liked the work. I was around a lot of good stuff, man. I like the job, I like the work. I was around a lot of good stuff, man. I, I, it, just the work itself, right?

The, that particular mission and mission profile to get folks to do what they have to do, right? To get the clandestine teams to do what they have to do, right? Get the clandestine teams to do what they do. Yeah, it was interesting animal form traditional diplomatic security standpoint to you know, do more with less, right? Now do all that with two people. So I don't think that uniqueness ever caught on that concept. This is the concept, yes, this is how we train, but it's not like you roll with a lead car,

a lima, a follow car, or a cat car, and you have supporting Overwatch from a helicopter and an army unit was standing by for Q or F. Sometimes your team back at your base was your QF. Yeah. Unless you had other people there at the Army or Marines that were there that could do that kind of stuff. Then it becomes, you know, element in contact or their element first.

Army first of those army cats, if we're not doing anything for our folks, then we'll come to you, right? And that's just how it is. I mean, that's just policy. That's how everybody works. And we do the same thing. When they're asking us to do the same thing, QRF for them, so like, sure, if you don't have anything going on, yeah, we'll come help you out. And that's just the way of it. For years. What were your, what sort of, what did you think of the, I don't know if we can say the acronyms, can we say the training acronyms, the training pipeline? What did you think of the training pipeline to get in?

Initial. Yeah. So we had that discussion the other night. It was, if you're starting with some like a seal, green beret, a ranger, that particular thing that we were doing back then had nothing to do with operational, how we were operating in the field. And as much as they hated to hear that, I wasn't just me, but I'm sure others are saying the same thing. And since I hadn't made a deployment yet, I was like, there's no way you're doing this in the field. Because it just doesn't make sense to me. I was like, there's no way you're doing this in the field.

Cause it just doesn't make sense to me. And they kept telling me they're trying to reassure me that this is how our people are doing it in the field. So you have to learn this. So you'll be on the same sheet of music when you get there. I was like, all right, well, I'll do it. And so I went through the whole process, made it on board, went to the field for the first time. I was like, I knew it wasn't happening in the field,

because it's stupid. Yeah. And so from the, so the, the, the experience contractor folks who have some sort of experience, they've been through a basic training or a boot camp, right? They've been tested in a Marsox, Buds, SFAS, or RIP, Rope, all these other things. They've gone through several layers of assessment and selection, and they've been in the further or further we get into the words, they've already been in the war zones, they've been in the combat zones, they've been on targets, and they've been in that environment already. They know it, and they're good at it. So you can start with those folks at a certain point further down the

road. You don't have to send them through another basic training boot camp thing. You can do that, but that wasn't how the mindset was. So you got a train to the lowest common denominator, which is a staffer, who sometimes didn't have any previous experience, like the contractor staff. So already, it's not going to work. If you're training at the lowest common denominator, a person who has no experience, or very little experience, maybe they were in the military, but it wasn't a combat arms. Combat arms is either some sort of infantryman, a seal, a ranger, somebody, right? That does that kind of work. Could have been a logistician in the army or Air Force, right? Well, that doesn't

that doesn't equate. But they do have a college degree in their and a and a staffer and they made it to that point. I could never understand, I can be careful how I say this, but I could never understand why the, I'm hoping you can help me with this because a lot of guys have this question. Why were the staffers qualifications lower than the qualifications, if they're going to be the fucking team lead. With that being said, I'm not saying that all staffers didn't have the experience. You were one of the most respected guys in that element. But a lot of staffers, and you know this, were not respected at all. Nor should they have it, in my opinion. What was that?

Why were the qualifications so high to become a contractor and so low to become a staffer? Yeah, it was a mindset where, you know, for those of us coming out of the special operations community, right, there's a, we know what, we know that style of leadership, right, and what it takes to do that. But coming from, you know, the staff side of the house and that management, they're not, they're not used to that. So their thing is a manager is a manager, you can, a manager can manage any team anywhere, any time, right? As long as they have the education, the whereabouts of smarts, and they go through the initial training, right? We're all the same. Okay. It's not true, but that's, that's the mentality. Yeah, and we've talked about it, I've heard that conversation over the last 16 years.

I'll bet you that. In any of our training too on the staff side, there's no leadership training. And I was willing to do it. I did it through the organization just to kind of figure out, you know, what's what's the mindset? What's take overall on your what do you think in leadership is and what do you expect that on me, right kind of thing? And it's mostly it's mostly oriented and most of leadership's stuff is It's kind of geared towards an office environment. Okay, so can't get the field type leadership that we're used to seeing, you know, in special operations community,

infantry units, or anything like that. So that's where that's the missing link there on the, I'm knowing on, like, they're not knowing how to train too, like leadership training. Manager at a Marriott went to school, was in the army for a little bit, doing administrative work or something like that.

Well, if he did that, then he can lead a team of pipe cutters in a new place. In a new place. Yeah, it makes absolutely no sense. And for the most part, it didn't work. They survived it, right? So for those guys, I've been in the senior leadership positions out there and know that guys go out there and survive their 90 day.

They live, they go in the the the skier area, set the workstation, they never go on a run. Go to the chow hall, they make friends with everybody in the operational side of the the skier area, but that's it. They can't get along with the team because they don't know even how to talk to the team. They don't know how they don't have the same things

to talk about. So it goes on and on down that rat hole of just they just isolate themselves, hang out for 90 days and they do a somewhere else the next trip so they don't have to go to the same place and deal with that again. There are a few good ones out there but there are those a lot that don't lead by example, that's a big one, right? And they don't know how to do it. One, they don't know how to do the job, and then they don't seek the extra training

to do it themselves. Because I'll hear about guys, even guys who have been in a business, I did the same thing myself. It's like, I'll come back from a trip and put myself into the training course of some sort. Because I went in, yes, I was in a war zone for 90 days, but I didn't pull the trigger once.

So I'm gonna go to a range in a school and learn how to shoot again, or pull the trigger. Plenty of times that's happened, or yeah, I didn't do anything. There was no activity, and then it was a good trip, right? It was, well, it was boring, but nothing happened. Come back, while I'm gone, I'm looking at another school to go to, just a training course just to go to just for shits and grins, just to say up on the whatever people are teaching, right? Yeah. And what's being discussed and who's throwing up to these training courses and then

building in a network, right? Maintaining that network of folks. I do that all the time, and then building a network, right? Maintaining that network of folks. I do it all the time, but that's not the norm with on the staff side. On the contract, I'd run into our contractors that some of these classes, right? Good for you, man. Because otherwise you go re-qualify every two years.

And that's it. If you didn't do anything else on your own, that's the only training you're gonna get. But I I don't know some as even on the contract side that that's all they relied on, that's all I did too. But that was very rare on the staff side for it to hear somebody like, hey I'm going to shoot with Jerry Barnhard or anybody, I'm going to their Vickers school or something like that or I'm going to V, if I can tactics, you know, car being level three, or whatever. You didn't hear a lot of that. So I don't know why, why wouldn't you?

Like try to be better yourself, right? Try to better yourself, try to be the best person. If this is what you do for a living, then you should probably, you know, work in to get better at it, right? Try to better yourself, try to be the best person. If this is what you do for a living, then you should probably, you know, work in to get better at it, right? And there's times where, you know, the longest time I've gone without pulling a trigger was when I was deployed for 90 days, because nothing happened. It's like, well, that's not good. I couldn't get to a range because you couldn't go to the place where you can shoot guns that didn't have a range on your facility. And then other times, that was, that was the training place to be. Because you had a range and you had unlimited supply of bullets

available to you. And it was the best training ever. It didn't happen, not a lot of operational stuff going on. But you were able to do some AOP drills, life-fire stuff, and those kind of things. And then bring back. So when me or any of the guys that were doing that, when they were back home in the States, they go to a class, then they bring it right back to the field and say,

hey, this is what I learned at whatever class they went to, whatever course they went to. Now we have the opportunity to have a 360 degree range and a better training environment to practice all these things. So we'd go out there and do it. Like the Mosul's and Kirkuk's and stuff like that. Perfect areas. Most places in Afghanistan, you had a place to go shoot guns

and do some good training, right? But you've got a lot of guys didn't do that. So they weren't good at it either. When we're talking about the guys that didn't have the respect, they weren't good at it and they didn't work to get better at it.. When we're talking about the guys that didn't have the respect, they weren't good at it and they did work to get better at it, shooting her otherwise. So they didn't even go to the range with their own teams because they were afraid to show in the ass like, I don't know what I'm doing. Instead of seeking the advice from those experts, they teach me how to shoot as good as you, right? That's a good word. Or anything.

Yeah, that's a good word. To say you can be a driving communicator. Yeah. Anything. Breaching. You know, I just, I, you know, usually chime in on interviews, but I found, I found the agency in that particular environment to be really, it was difficult to navigate. I worked with the best people I've ever worked with there and I've worked with the worst

fucking people I've ever worked with there. I feel like GRS is probably one of the most underrated units in the entire organization. I think the majority of people there, it was a very fucking high caliber group of individuals. And I don't, me personally, my opinion, is the agency never realized the full capability Personally, my opinion is the agency never realized the full capability of what we had to offer. And it is a entire organization. Now there were, I had been to sites and I've been to different safe houses and whatever spots were where the chief of base, the guy in charge realized how capable we were and it was taking you guys to go snatch this guy.

Yeah, we can do that. Can you call in a patchies? Yeah, we can do that. Can you guys breach? Yeah, we can do that. Yeah. You know, and it was, it was, the answer was never no. Whatever they brought, we could figure out how to fucking do it because it was all Delta, Team Six, Seals, Rangers, Green Berets, PJs, CCT guys. And I honestly think it was probably the most capable unit that I've ever fucking participated in. But what are your thoughts on that? No, I agree. Yeah, the most capable and the most underrated, misunderstood and underrated, right? Even from our own management side of the house, they don't even know what they have available to them.

They don't even know the capabilities of the guys that are working for them, which is just always just amazed me. And so if they were able to understand what it is exactly that's going on in the field, and disregard all the pony shows that were going on, then when they show up on the site somewhere overseas, because that's all it is, dog and pony show. Well then they're like, oh well, things are good, you guys are good. Well, it's all hiding things and only showing them

what they need to see, right? And dog and pony shows. And not having a real conversation with them when they're there is like, this is what we're doing. This is how we're doing it. And it would be nice if we had training in a safe environment back in the States to do this. Because this is what we're actually doing.

The cookie cutter training stuff, that's fine. We actually have a situation we would like to train on specifically for this area because this is what we deal with every day. I mean, they just never seen that way. It's not a it's a training thing too. It's a training concepts that they're not familiar with too that allow that to happen back like, oh yeah, that makes sense, right? Yeah. Because they don't know what they don't know.

So you can tell them all day long, and I used to get this well. We're not at your old place anymore. We're not all going to be commandos. So you know, stop trying to make us your own commandos. I was like, I'm not, but they're capable people out there that can use this training because that's what we're doing.

This is how we're accomplishing the mission. Now on the operational side, for the most part, they loved us on all the capabilities. With some exceptions, where you have some animosity and some stuff going on like that, that they don't want it. They don't like you, you're a knuckle-dagger, you're just a meat eater, you know, I don't need you out here, we can do our own stuff. And I've actually heard that,

and I used to put it back on them like, well then, all right, well, I could take my team somewhere else because we can be more effective if we even go to, and I'll name a base somewhere else. If you don't need us then just say, you don't need us. And I'll take the team, we'll go somewhere else. And then they're like, well, wait a minute. What about, but what if, what if something bad happens?

Right. And I was like, okay, you see what I mean? We could do that. And all these other things for you, while we're here, you know, we can, you know, it's a very, it took, I mean, over 20 years, right? To finally get the point across that, what are the actual capabilities? Because there's also this thing going on that, yeah, we did this thing. It was great great and everybody loves

us at this one base but it's it's not within our it wasn't what we trained to and it's not in any SOPs it's not in any thing that we should be doing right we went not out of the box but you did exactly what needed to be done to get the job done right and it wasn't necessarily what was being taught in an academic environment, right? But that's the reality of the situation that we were in, right? This is the world we were lived in. And so they didn't discuss or describe exactly what happened, so nobody ever knows about it. So it's not captured in any documents. No official cable traffic, no emails, nothing. Because they're afraid of saying they did something that they weren't supposed to do

and then get in trouble for it. Right? And I used to tell the guys all the time, don't be afraid of doing something for fear, losing a job. If it's the right thing to do, just do it. And then worry about it later. I mean, there are times when you don't have time to float it across a discussion or You know leadership forum to say hey, is this okay to do sometimes in those environments?

They're so dynamic things happen and you got to make decisions and that's that's where you know We used to make our money making those kind of decisions But then articulate that that's's, that's, that's not me and all my other staff or, you know, colleagues to do, right? articulate that back to our management to let them know exactly what we're doing. Because it's great stuff. And I did that for, you know, 16 years, trying to get that embed into the training programs, which over time, most of it is, some of it's still there, but it's still kind of a sterile training environment,

right, which it can be a little bit more realistically in that regard, but it's got, it's come a long way since 15 years ago. Yeah, and it's not just me. It's a lot of folks that have come on board since then and is able to have those discussions Truth to power kind of stuff and they're not you know, I was never one to be Just like I was saying I tell everybody else and I lived it myself Don't be afraid to make decisions for fear of illusion your job Make make a decision based off of what you know do the the right thing, because it's the right thing to do. And it all goes well to that point. You don't have to struggle to describe what you did.

Success or fail? One of the things that a toll or deputy chief, great guy, we were trying to get a piece of the, so we evacuated Tripoli trip 2014 and we're going, now we're asking for assistance to go back. It's gonna be a more traditional, like way back in the day, you know, OSS infill. Just very few people,

and I wanna say expeditionary, but those that hear expeditionary, it means a lot of other things. A small team to go get us back into Libby at the time. And they asked for assessments. What would it take for you guys to support this? And everybody that was given their numbers, like, well, we need a two-man team for this guy. We need a follow, QRF team. So that's three armored vehicles, six, eight guys, all of them need carbines and pistols, and then machine guns.

It's like, okay, you missed the whole point. How about you give us two? Can you give us two guys to go and help out other folks that are more than capable? So these are all experienced either on the paramilitary side or they're experienced tactically, technically competent and proficient folks that are being hands-selected to go do this.

Good. And I said, now we need to get a piece of that because we have guys that can do that. But we need to have the adult conversation with people who get wind of this and that want to go, but aren't that person that we need to go represent us or support that team in this capacity because they just aren't capable to do that.

And that's another thing we're lacking too on the management side is having those frank discussions with people. And you can't I personally was on a lot of situations as they wanted to come to a site that I was at. I was like no sorry man. They said but yes for whoever. I was like yeah if I need a need a mat here for whatever his you know competencies were and And no, I started man Love you like a brother, but I don't need you out here. You know, you're doing well. Well, you're at just stay right there

You know and having those kind of discussions like I need somebody with a little less you know Whatever was usually it was an anger banishment thing or a very strict, because the places I like to go to, you had to be a little bit more out of the box thinking, maybe do something or answer the mail on something and actually say no to certain things, but no one do that. That was the hardest part for me to convey to other,

my other staff or colleagues to say, you know, it's not always yes. But you always try to get to yes. It's like, yes, but not that way. How about this? And then have an answer, right? So have those smart discussions and that's what they want.

They want to open up the children. And I've heard things and they, someone gets floated on the table. So could you guys do this? And it just sounds totally ridiculous. So we could, but we probably shouldn't do it that way and then have an answer for it, right? How about this, right?

Give them a solution. Those are all the discussions that they wanna elicit from you. Those are just those some on the table. And if you say no, that's not what we do, we gotta strict SOP to do it this way. It's like, or not. I don't know. I mean, do you have to stick, I mean, what's telling you that you have to do these exact things, this is the exact way. This is a different country. This is a different threat environment. This is everything's different about this

place. The your management team that you're working with is different. Their authorities are different. It's so many things that can be involved in this thing, but they don't think all that through. It's a lot of the guys who have the least amount of previous experience. They were like Lance Corporals or whatever in the Marine Corps, the junior leaders wherever they were, but they weren't ever in a leadership position themselves before they left the military or police departments, wherever they're coming from, right?

They weren't in those positions to make those kind of decisions. To see that transition from, you know, the team member to the team leader. So they never made that transition. Those are the guys who get stuck with SOPs and Policies and all that other stuff instead of looking at these things as well This is what the policy says. This is our SOP, but standard operating procedures are based off of what where did that come from?

Yeah, right. That was another place another time. Well, then let's let's see what we can do to make this work, right? accomplish the mission period. Yeah. Let's... And with that mindset... It's not just a problem. Yep. Yep. And unfortunately, you know, our contractors are stuck because they're contractors, right? That's why they're staffers, right? Their staff makes the decisions, right?

Especially when it comes to money and all these other things. But, so there's staff, things that staffers do. And most of that is the authorities side of the house. And the interaction with the chiefs, the senior folks that are there wherever you're at, have those discussions, be in those meetings, and convey your capabilities to their mission and how to accomplish it, right? Or how to accomplish anything that they're talking about at the table.

And I've been at the table, I don't know how many times were I hear I'm talking and they're saying, well, Geras can't do that. Because the previous guy that was there in my spot had said they can't do it for some reason. And I was like, well, no, amen. That's well within our purview to do that. That's what we're here for. I mean, you guys are paying money for us to be here

to do exactly that thing. Assume the risk that, you know, a higher level of risk assumption that we're going to take for you to accomplish the mission, right? That's what we're here for. So those discussions are lacking in some of our, because they were junior leaders, they never felt empowered to make those decisions in their previous lives. And then nobody told them that was okay to do that in their current lives, right? And I used to say it all the time with the guys. You got to go to this meeting. You got to go to this meeting. I know meeting suck, but you got to go this meeting and have

those discussions with these people at that point, because that's the initial phase of getting things done. They're talking about things they want to do. And they need somebody in there to tell them, yes, I can support that. And, or no, I can't support it, but how about you do this way? How about we incorporate somebody else? Ask for military support, or wait, let me get more guys here for a surge

or something like that. That's what they need to hear, the interaction that they needed to hear, which wasn't happening in a lot of places. So I don't have enough guys here, have three guys, and we need to do this thing. I'm going to ask for some more guys. Yes, we could do it if I get three or four or five more other guys here. So, that's huge. It's from what I can tell, up until the day I left. It's still going on to some extent.

The junior leaders don't know how to have those conversations. They're never told or taught those kind of things either. So that's another thing on our part that we didn't do as an organization to help those junior leaders become senior leaders. Mentor so. Because it's also part, not part of your evaluations either. So the whole performance evaluation doesn't just because you're there is good enough. Doesn't

matter what your performance level was because nobody's there to watch you except for the guys on the ground. And they're not part of your rating scheme. So if you were to ask team members, your team, if they were to ask them, what do they think of you as a leader, that would be a whole new avenue to take to find out what exactly you were like on the crown, right? Because that says a lot, right? Or to even ask the senior organization guy that was there at the chiefs, hey, how did my guy do? That conversation was happening here. For a manager to my manager, headquarters to the field. How

am I guy doing out there? Never. That conversation. If and when it ever did, they'd always say, oh, he's doing fine. You know, I mean, he's doing everything you guys do. And, you know, very washed down, very politically correct. They're not going to say bad things about anybody. So there's not that frank discussion either. A lot of times. Sometimes, yes, a lot of times no. Okay, this is what I, the expectation brief, right? Hey, this is what I expect out of you during your time here. I used to give that to the team,

any team I went to, it's like, okay, this is why, this is what I'm gonna do while I'm here, this is what I wanna get down while I'm here. This is what I, what I expect to view to get that done, and then what do you guys have expectations of me, right? That's like the initial in brief, other than, you know, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is my job in this whole station environment.

This is what I can do for you. Everything falls on me. I'm responsible for everything we all do or fail to do. So if anything goes wrong, it's all on me. I talk to the man about it. I'm the one going on the carpet, neither one of you unless it's an individual thing that you need to account for.

That's all I ask from the guys ever. Be accountable for yourself. Be responsible. If you for yourself, be responsible. If you screw up, own it. Yeah, and be responsible and accountable for your actions. Good or bad. And that doesn't happen enough though. Yeah.

This episode is brought to you by Soul the Genero. As Soul the Genero, touch isn't just for screens. Physical connection is so essential to how we communicate, it's infused in everything we offer. Since so irresistible, PDA is guaranteed. Textures are so luscious, skin is huggable. Get into a Sold the Genero state of mind. Receive 10% off on your first order on Sold the Genero.com.

Plus, free shipping with the code SoldaGenero10. Let's get to some of the operational type stuff that happened. There was some major, major incidents that happened. One of them being Benghazi. Where were you when that happened? I was in Baghdad when that happened. Yeah, that was, so 2012, I was in Baghdad closing down the old villa. We were

closing down the villa moving out of the villa going over to the new embassy compound. Yeah, that was an interesting incident. Of course, administratively, that was another administration thing. I think that we were all under some lack of leadership or misled by leadership, you know all the way up to the White House in that case Yeah, and I of the guys Tyrone and Bob, I worked with Bob in Israel a few times. I didn't know Tyrone, I didn't know the ambassador, Stevens or anybody, the communicator that was out there, but yeah, that was, that was, there was a lot of things I wish we could, like just like another incident. That story, that's a great story, but the way it came out in the movie, it just sounded like our guys complaining about what happened, right?

There's a lot of good things. I mean, I'm not saying anything out there was not horrible because it was a horrible situation. But what our guys ended up doing in this horrible situation was amazing, right? So instead of having that kind of tone to the whole thing, it was, you know, it didn't quite have that tone.

Like, there weren't, there was a lot of administrative stuff and backside stuff that they weren't aware about that couldn't make it into a movie probably, but affected the outcome of all this stuff. That wasn't talked about or discussed in a movie or nobody knows about that stuff, but maybe in some of the books I haven't read. Can you elaborate on it now? Or no. No, probably not.

I wouldn't be a good thing. So there are some stories out there, and from our guys that were out there and that are still a lifetime story, they did some amazing, amazing, and heroic stuff that, so making decisions on the fly. I wasn't taught this, I'm not supposed to do this, the reliancey on the locals, right, who ended up abandoning their posts, but then somehow relying on them from station management to come back and help. And what I know of Libya and my interaction with all the militias out there, their loyalties are always to their own countrymen, right, even if they're in different militias out there, their loyalties are always to their own countrymen, right? Even if they're in different militias. They won't

fight another militia for you. And that's exactly some of which which happen out there. Because they got to live with them, right? And they can't go to war with another militia, a neighborhood who they have maybe family members in. And that's just the dynamics of militias and in a lot of places. And the lack of understanding of that, right? The actual, like they're actual intent.

And we've done the same thing. You've asked them for help if we got help. If we need help from them. And yes, yes, yes, all day long. Yes, we'll come help you because you're American and you're our friends. But then they're neighboring militia. Even if it's their worst enemy on a normal day,

and then the militia that they hate the most, they might go out of physicals for a normal day, and then the militia that they hate the most, they might go to Fist of Cuffs for a little bit, but then when it comes to push the shove, they're going to stop and say, okay, stop, because we've got to live with each other. Americans will go home, but we're still going to be here. So they, you know, trying to try to imagine in that scenario, in that case, knowing that, if I'm asking a militia, I'm relying on a militia to come help me, because I'm being attacked by another militia or another anybody. Unless it's a common enemy outside of that country, like the al-Qaeda's and the ISIS and all those folks, if it's from

outside, if they're foreign fighters, that's a whole other animal. But for our folks that don't understand that, first of all, it's born me, why they wouldn't understand that, because that's just militia 101. And Libyans, when I used to talk to them all the time, militia to militia, they actually say those things when you're asking for assistance. And I said exactly, hey, what if this militia was attacking us, would you come help us? And they're like, well,

maybe if one of our people are involved, right? we might go to war with them, but that's that's going to a lot of them. And just that misunderstanding of how the dynamics work there, and the thing that you can rely on them to do those kind of things, it's not an American, right? You can't never, you can't outdo the American fighting spirit regardless, whoever that is. That is a unique thing only to Americans. But we often think that we train these people, so they have adopted our mentality about helping others.

That's a good point. Yeah, and it's not the case. Yeah, it's not the case. Yeah, it's not the case. Even if especially if it's us because we're the we're the foreigners To either one of those folks even though there are friends we're always the foreigners. We're always the guests So if you think about it in those terms Yeah, they're not gonna They're not gonna risk the rest of their livelihoods and their children's livelihoods and their generations passed because they go to war when they go to war they go to war for generations. Even if that's the case and we saw it in Afghanistan, we've seen it in Libya, we've seen it everywhere we've been over the last 20 years plus it never works out. If you're a studier of war in militias and all those kind of things,

you see those are common threats. And those are common stories after the fact. But we were relying on them. militia to come save us because they said they would. And we've been training with them. We've been drinking with them. We've been eating with them every day for been drinking with them, we've been eating with them every day for the last 10 years, right? And there are friends, we smile together, we laugh together,

we mourn together, we fight together, and then when it comes, push the shell, though. If it's against one of their neighboring people, I can't think of a entity right now that would do that for us. And that's kind of what happened. Some of which was happened in Libya altogether, in all of my experiences in Libya, but in being Nazi as well. So our office there was relying on the locals to come do something. And they didn't. They didn't. They wouldn't. So they kind of portrayed that in a movie a little bit, where the local guard force has a cell phone and he's talking to one of the commander of the attacking force.

And I can't remember what character it was they had in a movie that was saying, who are you talking to? And he's talking to the commander of the attacking force. It's like, how do you have his phone number? It was because they lived together. So they live in the same, you know, they're locals. And yeah, it's just, you know, you can try to portray that all you want. And SF community, right?

That's what you do in FID, right? You train locals to win their own battles. So the tendency in that environment too, and we do the same thing, our guys that are working on locals, do you fall in love with your own work, your own locals? I train them, they're good, they'll do anything I want them to do, they listen, and all day alone, because you're feeding them, you're paying them, you're clothing them, you're giving them training, and of course they're going to, they're your friends, because they're your

friends for now. But then when push comes a shove and you ask them specific questions about if this militia or what if you wanna call them are attacking us, cause we just got some threats that are coming out of this area of the city, would you guys come help? And most often it'll be a,

either, oh, they don't wanna say no, because they wanna make you happy. And that's, but they'll, you know, kind of walk around the conversation and say, yes. Just to make you happy. Yeah. Guess what? Over and over and over again.

Not just there, but in other places too, we call them for help and somehow, that phone never gets answered. It's like, oops. Yeah. Let's move to the coast bombing. Oh nine. Some more? Yep. Yeah, now the good book, the triple agent. Awesome read to know how

Blau, he did what he did that day and he was good. He was better than most He was better than most clandestine agents anywhere training. He wasn't even trained. Well, let's talk about what happened. Yeah. So I got there probably three weeks, maybe, before that happened, beginning of December. I was going to show up with the country team lead guy. And I was going to show up be the country team lead guy and I was going to go around the bases and it upstained and cobble and working cobble.

And I was getting feedback on things that are happening out there. Hey, we're spinning up for a hythread me and all that stuff. Can you look up this purse, can you look up this stuff? See if you got any information on it. You couldn't get any information on it. So there's a lot of things there that were close hold, compartmented for a reason that they wanted to keep it close hold, compartmented. So our guys wanted to get information.

A lot of physical things about lack of information, the physical security building there was a facility that was an existing facility that made it a Skeff right limited access or limited Like computer space, there were people actually hot seat and at the same computer station because there was an enough space Do or enough drops so there's lack of communication lack of information for those reasons, compartmentalization, and then physical access to a computer to ask questions.

And then there was the withholding of information from the management team in order to put a plan together, in order to plan properly. And then there was a reluctance to listen to that, the guidance that our guys were giving out there. And there was two or three team leaders on the staff side that had gone through there and worked that problem set, and were unable to convey to them. This is the best way to do this, because it ended up to be mostly focused towards maybe in the pressures from outside of that base to get something done or whatever it was which also shouldn't be a consideration sure okay I feel pressure to get something done but the fear failing right

that's that's the whole thing I got to get something done or I'm going to be perceived as a failure. Well, or you can be alive to tell the story that you failed, right? Yeah. All these indicators, I mean, the triple agent paints a good picture. So you'll never, we'll never ever see the official report

on it. They took a lot of internal over several years. What did we think happened internally? What did we do wrong? What could we do right? What could we have done better? A lot of unwillingness initially to actually identify the leadership problems that were going on, the communication problems that were going on, the disclosure of information, right, enough for our security teams that were out there to have a decent plan or to even be listened to. But it was crazy during those times.

So what I'm finding out, my first day is underground. Each base has different criteria for searching people. There's color codes, there's number codes. And you probably remember some of those. There's gold and yellow and green. And green means you do this to this person. Red means full on, stripped down, give them new clothes. And different levels of searches.

That was one of the things I might list the things to do. It's like, no, no, let's get this shit together and figure out a way to not individual bases, but I thought that needed to be consistent throughout the theater. One, because we were the ones doing the searching. So I go to one base, I got this whole another criteria for searching people, I got another base,

then I got another search criteria, and they're all bad guys. So what's the level of bad guy, right? What is this guy? What's his deal? And then you get fed the information that they want you to know about this guy to get a minimal search criteria on this dude.

He gets painted with, you know, a minimal search. And then, okay, that's all I know. I don't know any different. I don't have any information to go on. That'll change after that. So there's, that's somebody to reach out to to find out exactly the threat level and those kind of things. But leading up to that, there was a reluctance to listen to the gears guys on the ground and how it needed to go down.

There were some other folks and even it might have been in, Darren Lamonti is one of the guys that died in that one. He's just coming from Jordan. It might have been an interpolation or some other book or article where he's actually expressing some reluctancy to do this because it just seems like we're not in control of this guy. He's controlling the optumple. He's making the meetings. He's canceling meetings, which is what happened that day too. He's coming up with excuses and somehow he magically has this access that we're just all salivating over. How does that happen? Well, he has actually described some of the reluctancy to do this based off of his... Spidey sense is going off in this guy. He's like, that's too much access too

quickly for this guy. Why would that happen? How would that happen? And so he's wanted to say something and some documents like it's public knowledge. And I'm thinking it's probably tripled in. A great book to read on how this whole thing goes down from a third party perspective. So there's no favoritism either way. It's what he did and how he was able to do it. Do you want to talk about the actually what happened in coast, how it happened, who died? Well, he goes south side is the team leader

for G.R.S. down there. I'm talking to him for a couple days a week or two before that and he's frustrated on he wants to go meet this guy down in town or outside of town somewhere, search him off base, so they're the only ones exposed to a potential threat. That gets denied and at one point I Am on the phone with them and I say well you can deny our services if it's if they don't want if it's so safe that They don't need your services. You can you can say okay, we're out. We're hey take care of it chief Have a good one, you know, we'll be in the team room playing, you know Xbox or something whatever Actually said that and he actually pulled out. He's like well if it's if you don't need us and you're not taking my advice on anything then all right

Well, have a good have a good meeting. We'll be over here if you need us Almost last minute. I don't know at one point. He decided that he calls me and and he's calling me because he can't get on the system He's hot. He's on a workstation He said he was out and then he calls me. He's hot-seating on a workstation. He said, he was out and then he calls me. He's like, we're back in. He was like, we're gonna do what we can at the site when he shows up, because that's all we're given. And he didn't feel good about just standing around,

not doing anything. So he's like, we're gonna set up outside the, so everybody wasn't supposed to be outside there. It was just supposed to be the GST and the meet-em, Darren and the Jordanian officer were supposed to be outside there. It was just supposed to be the G.R. us team, the medium, Darren and the Jordanian officer were supposed to be there. And that's it. Just to meet great. And then he meets everybody when he goes inside the room.

The room that was set up for the meeting. That was a last minute thing there. Everybody comes out to form a greeting line. And unfortunately, that gets a lot of people killed that wouldn't have otherwise been dead today. Those are all decisions not made by GRS, but it was all made last minute by the station management. But South Side says, calls me and he says, we're back in, we're going to do it

weekend. We got something worked out in the front of the building to make this happen. And we'll do what we can. And we're going to take, you know, we're going to be the ones exposed, which is what we do, right? And if all went well and it still went bad, there would be, you know, a few less dead people today. Subject to anybody else's assessment of what happened.

That's what I know, and that's what I think would have happened. Otherwise, our guys would have still been dead, because that's the job that they had to do, and he was going to blow himself up. That's what he went there to do. And then Darren and Jordy and Intel Officer would have been dead as well. But there would have been at least three others still alive.

He says he's going back in, he's got a plan. They're going to do what they can because that's what they're there for. And the plan was for all the folks to wait on the inside and me and him when he came inside, the meeting greet was gonna happen with Darren LeBonte and the Jordanian officer, Intel officer, three G.S. guys out there to meet and greet, do the whole pat down the search, and then off to the meeting they go.

Well, last minute, the local guard force, the concern was the rapport and the identification from the local guard force of Blaui coming in, right? So the local guard force was either told the look away or they were taken off of the gates to come in. And only Americans were going to be there, but the Americans, they were going to be compliant. There was this little car they showed. The driver had either underdress or I'm okay, right? The foot of the car went away with the other.

He's okay with showing either way the gates were up and free access to come and base. No searches. That was another spot where the static guys wanted to at least do a search. And I had described to you, Southside at the time, too. I was like, well, if you're out at the perimeter of the fence where they're coming in at the gate and you do the search, I've done it myself on other occasions too, but so I wasn't telling them anything that I wouldn't do if I was there doing the thing myself. Take the ash chewing later, because they're going to complain about it later, right? If they go into the meeting,

hey, your guys searched me, roughed me up, you said that wasn't going to happen. And what's, hey, put it on me. It's all on me, right? My bad, sorry. But they weren't allowed to do that. They were very strictly observed, controlled, about how the things were going to go down. And eventually, they decided to do what the best thing they have, you know, with this shit sandwich, you know. We'll meet him when he comes to the, in front of the facility, search him there, and then escort him inside, and then get on with the meeting. Unbeknownst them, there's like, let's go out and form this meeting greet line. You know, unfortunately she not here, live to defend herself in that decision, but that

was a decision made by station management to go do that. Ended up killing more people, including herself. Our guys died probably instantly because they were ground zero with the explosion, along with Darryl Bonney and the Jordanian intel officer. He went there with the intent to kill Americans. That was his whole intent, in to think that when you think in that mindset, the premise of the whole thing, to alleviate all the security measures for rapport, to maintain rapport,

that's not a good reason to do that for security, right? Especially when we're talking Afghanistan. Yeah. We're talking Afghanistan 2009. And all the red flags are up all throughout this whole thing, including up to that meeting where he says he's injured. He he he provides his story along the way. He builds a story that he was in a mo pad accident or whatever. He's got a hurt leg. So he's going to be what he has a cane now. He's walk over the cane.

He shows up. And he works his whole cover story the whole way through His whole intent now that we know after the fact, right even we know after the fact now that he had a video that I was his intent the whole time, right? but You know the the stuff that we were doing over there, you know, you have to assume You know otherwise you have to assume that that's their intent to begin with. And then not from a paranoid, not from a fear standpoint, not from a overly protective standpoint, but it's the reality of the environment at the time. You know, how he's getting there, who he is, the access that he has, even if it's

so even if he's even if he's been forced to do it, you has, even if he's been forced to do it. Even if he's being forced to wear a body vest and to gain access. Somebody else is going to be around to initiate when he gets close to Americans. These are all the things that, all the guys that I know that were there planning that mission, the three staffers that were there, they were thinking all these things. Well, what if he's unwitting or not unwitting, but what if he's being coerced to do this so he can wear a body vest so somebody else would clack it off on him, right, when he gets closer to him? What if? You know, we don't know. Who knows this guy that well? But that was the, that was going across, that was going

on across the board and Afghanistan at the time, and all of our bases were, there's different search criteria, and it was just a mess of search criteria and what to do, how to do it. This is a new one. This is another one. And for whatever reasons, get rid of all the security measures.

And when you think about it now, it's for us and the business. It's like to get rid of all security measures. Given the situation, the circumstances, time and place to maintain or build rapport for a person who's been manipulating you and canceling, not acting right, come up with the excuse after excuse to not meet you, then I'm going to meet you, then cancel, and then all these other things. He'll send you a video, send his video for you to chomp on real quick, and you know, all these flags, all these red flags will often disregarding all those things, get rid of all the security measures, doesn't make sense

to anybody. At the time or after the fact before or after before don't and that make any any sense at all. You get out of the car decides all right this is as close he sees a whole bunch of people standing there and perfect for him that this for him all the everything aligns for him to do his job and that that's what he went there to do, get as many Americans as possible. Our guys see that there's something going on. Pretty sure it was Scott yelling at the guy to get his hands at, you know, showing me his hands and all this other stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, the in and Jeremy are with them pulling cover. Oh, shoot. Why it? The fourth guy. He's standing by the welcoming party. He's back there by the door of the building. So he survives the day because of his location. He wasn't, you know, he gets injured, but he doesn't die.

He's a live tell-a-story because of where he was. But yeah, that, man, it was just, yeah. And the things that I was hearing across the board, not just in coast, but across the board, how we were supporting operations. In my mind, I'm writing these towns as a new guy. I got to address these things with all the team leaders and all the teams in Afghanistan that we need to get this under control.

And I'm conversing with headquarters that this is what I'm going to do. This is what I see. This is what I want to do. Just so you know, this is my things I want to take care of. That was one of them was the search criteria there. It's got. It was a first time staff deployment, but he was a contractor before that.

So this whole game wasn't new to him. He'd been a cop before that. So none of this was new to him. He'd been a cop before that. So none of this was new to him. He knew exactly what to do. How it should go down was not listen to. Didn't have, you know, for some reason, station management there just didn't want to listen and do what they needed to do.

And unfortunately, they're not around to answer the mail for that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's go bad sideways. Yeah, I was in Kabul. When I heard the radio call, so I'm talking to another former unique guy, he's working the fob's office, the Fort Operating Base Office, and that's where the radios and the monitors are and all that stuff for all their stations and predator feeds and all that stuff. And we're just having a conversation. I'm walking back to the security office and he comes down the hallway to get me, get air ups, get all these folks, all the chiefs that were on the headquarters there.

And he says there's been an explosion on coast. We're not sure who's injured. If there's any injuries or what the injuries are, initial statements, right? They're never accurate. These are the names that we hear. And he rattled off a bunch of names. So how is everybody in my mind?

How is everybody, how is that many people around an incident like that? This, I thought initially it was an accident of some sort because how is everybody from the senior person there all the way down to our guys? How are they all in the same place at the same time? Yeah. So as I'm trying to digest what's happening

and as the Medevac is happening out there and they're getting shipped to Solano to the cash there, they're starting to confirm KIAs and wounded in action and who's who. And so at that time, so sex, two. And I'd so at that time, I'm so sacks, talking to sacks about, you know, hey, get three guys or four guys, however many I said, I need four guys to fly with me to coast. Like now, pack a bag, we got to fly immediately. And that's what I was talking about, my communication skills at the time. I don't think I told him why we needed to do that.

I just needed four guys to fly with me to the coast because it's something happened in coast. I don't remember exactly what I said. I don't think I gave him the story or what happened. But when I find out, who's dead or dying out there, there's all four of our guys that are out there know, who's dead or dying out there, there's all four of our guys that are out there on this list, dead or dying. So then instead of a QRF, because I don't know exactly where it's happening, I'm not familiar

with the coaster yet. And I didn't know it was on base. So anything they said, I'm thinking it happened out in town somewhere, because the GRS is involved so we're out, usually out of the wire, downtown somewhere. I hadn't been to coast yet, and I had to get some guys that had been to coast and familiar with coast to get there, and to go with me.

And yeah, then it just became a, by the time I get there, that's the first time I find out who's dead and who's wounded. How long after the incident did it take for you to get down there? It's probably four hours. That's it. Yep. A lot of things were going bad then at the time overall in the theater. Some aircraft fixed wing or rotary wing, were sucked into weather. Some were not working or waiting on engine parts. There was a shitstorm of things that collided together in that one moment to get a response team there. So I became after I found out, you know, that the whole team had been wiped out.

And it wasn't a QRF thing anymore. It was a recovery thing. So EOD guys went out there to do their part on the scene. Army EOD was already on the site to work do the EOD stuff. And by the time I got there, this is the sun had dropped, it's dark. Everybody that had to be evacuated was evacuated. Some guys were at a bulk headed to Bogram at the time I read it, the living injured. And then I'll have to lunch to a little after that. But most of the folks were either dead or confirmed dead or they're on their way to get help, either on Bogarm or Alenshel. And then it was literally just cleaning up the mess, yeah, literally. So the three guys that flew out there with me, I apologize to them because I don't know what information I told them about

flying down there with me, what we were doing, and what had happened. I told them when we got to the airport waiting for the plane there that this is what happened, and this is why we're going, and appreciate you guys stepping up to fly out last minute with me, did this thing, and all that kind of crap. Yeah, we got there, and then it was about, you know, accountability of the folks that were there, accountability for their stuff, making sure that their stuff was taken care of, all their personal belongings and all that kind of stuff, you know, sensitive items, all that stuff.

Then it became a mission of going to grab the guy that facilitated the crossing. So the only guys that were left were the paramilitary guys to do anything like that. So between me and the other G-REST guy that was there, we were helpful damn planned to go talk to this guy. Find him, go talk to him, see what he knew, when he knew, and all that kind of stuff. See if he was culpable on any of this stuff or he was just a facilitator, just like he did what he was told, that's all he did.

So that was what that became. So work with the locals that were out there with Paramount Sorry Guys with their locals to go get this guy and then question him about what had happened during that whole incident. But yeah, that was, that was not something easily to handle at the time. I mean, that was the most horrific sight I've seen in my life to that point, and I think since then. But again, I mean, our guys did exactly what they were supposed to do. So even if they did that at the gate, further away, or in town, our guys would have still been dead. But that's what we were there for,

to minimize the damage to everybody else, to others as a protective agent, I'm taking the hit for you. And they weren't allowed to do that. Unfortunately, they were killed, and then others were killed in the process, or wounded. So unfortunately, lessons learned, were learned, and taken forward with protocols that alleviated this or that incident from happening again or at least mitigated to the certain extent that

It wouldn't happen to that extent more more I don't want to say control, but You know more listening more confidence in your security element that they're the grs guys to listen to what they have to say and Actually more training on the grs. I'd to convey to them Maybe this is such a good idea. How about we do this right and give solutions So it was it was a two-way street. I wasn't too happy with the initial story that came out. I

finished that trip and went back right before the memorial that they had headquarters. And I heard the story that was happening and they were saying it was all securities fall. I mean, it was horrible. And that's what they're telling me. I was upset. Eventually, they actually have an honest assessment on what happened, how it happened, and how we can mitigate this from happening again. But initially, it wasn't. I was extremely upset about the story that was being told.

And because I know what the extent of what three officers were down there, three staffers were doing to try to accomplish that mission for that team. Frustration on their parts leading up to that point and a lot of anger afterwards after I had a initial story. A lot of guys wanted to quit at that point. I didn't, I felt obligated to stay and try to correct straight in the record on what happened and how this, how our part can be better, right? How can we do better? Even if you meet that kind of resistance or nobody's listening to you, how do you get them to listen to you, that kind of thing, right?

Yeah, that was horrible. That was my third week and a year to come of that. Bad times in general, oh nine to 10. That was the high times of the, so on all the bases that were being hit out there, we had Ures guys assigned to them all. Coast was getting hit a lot. That's the other thing about this whole story at Coast. They were getting hit a lot. V-bits at the gates. They were getting hit all it was like normal to hear that because VBIT at the gate. Oh, really. Imagine that. You know, J-Bout is getting hit. You know, all the bases were getting VBIT at the gates. And it's at the gates. That's what the gates are out there for, right? They're built to

withstand those kind of things. And we're going to lose some folks' locals, probably too, but that's the job of those folks doing the searches. Unfortunately, yeah. So to put that in context, that wasn't the only thing happening on coast. It was very normal to hear that they got v-bited again at another gate. So that was the environment they were in. So, to think that you're going to alleviate all the security for anything that was going on there at the time, is craziness. And now, I'm not just saying that now and after the fact that it happened and I know more

about why it happened. But it's one of those things that never should have happened. And why did that happen? Communication, leadership, failure of leadership at several levels. Wanted to put that kind of pressure on somebody that hasn't been familiar with that kind of environment, right? Yeah. And one leadership at that level out in the base to not listen to the professionals that are there to help you do your job.

It was seen as a hindrance. That was another thing that changed. So one of the folks that was there was also, again, I said, one of the chiefs later on at another site I went to had a totally different mindset what he thought his Gioresse leadership was saying to him, he listened to every word that Gioresse had and it's like, and we had those honest conversations. Let me have a conversation with you about how you wanted to support this mission, which is exactly what needs to happen. But unfortunately, it took that for a lot of people to wake up and get things straight. And fortunately, unfortunately,

how is there or unfortunately, I was there to help in that regard, which I feel pretty good about what had happened after the fact. And it wasn't there to say, because I was saying it to our management back at headquarters, I was like, this is what I see happening. This is how I want to correct it. And they said, well, what's wrong with what's happening? I said well, that's how people get killed and I became that guy like the Chicken little right. Yeah, I was like well, do you know what's happening here?

This is the most active that our bases are getting hit and since we've been here to this date, it's the highest organization. It was its highest, highest number of people in a war zone like that since the Vietnam War, right? And it was the most active for bases being hit. And we specifically had Geras and all the bases that were getting hit. So, you know, we need to do things differently.

And they said, okay, well over year here, yeah, they're, you know, having like a, like a, kind of a lack of days of cold, kind of, you know, okay, if that's what you want to do, no, no, you know, do what you got to do. And then, unfortunately, this happened. So, that was not the time for me to say I told you so But it wasn't I told you so moment like And it was happening on every base the the protocols and the The lack of communication between the security elements us our guys and then the station management on

Exactly how to do things so we had those guys., hey we got to do these things strictly this way. And then so that doesn't sit well with somebody who wants to get shit done another way and that conversation and communication leadership all the way across the board. Yeah I have that in notes to this day. Those are the things that happen. Like leadership and communication. Leadership being as a leader, listening to who you're leading, and then as a follower, listening to your leader,

and giving honest feedback and having that kind of dialogue. Because ultimately you have the same goal, mission success, right? You're on the same mission, you're ultimately you have the same goal, mission success, right? You're on the same mission, you're trying to do the same thing. And how do you get there? Have that discussion on how do you get there on our case? How do you get there safely? In an environment that's not safe, right?

A lot of some guys are used to that environment and some guys aren't. I mean, they can't articulate that kind of stuff as well. So it's our fault too for putting guys in the wrong positions. And put them in places where they can't, you know, they don't understand the environment to the extent that they can convey what security means in this environment. Because it's going to be ugly regardless. It's a bad place. Bad things happen. But guess what, we're here to do a job. You're going to be ugly regardless. It's a bad place. Bad things happen. But guess what,

we're here to do a job. You're here to do a job. We're here to facilitate you to, you know, talk to folks, get intel, human intel stuff. That's what we do. You know, that's what we facilitate and make it happen. Get to yes. You know, it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be exactly how I was trained. It might be a little bit different. But let's do it so everybody's safe. Let's move into the extraction and I guess not extraction the into triple E. Can you talk about that? The evacuation. Yeah. And yeah, 2014. So just two years after Benghazi. Yep. And so that's a great contrast in a successful mission where everything works.

Leadership is happening, leadership is listening. So it was me having to have these conversations. They're listening to me about how we can do things to make things safe. But this is triple N 2014. So I get there early in that year for my first trip to into Libya. And the husband, Gazi, so there's still that,

looming over everybody's head. And even up to the highest levels at the White House, that there's still fresh. That's still in the news media about why that happened and all that sort of stuff. And things are going sideways in AAA, again. The Mizratan Army and the militia from Mizratas coming across and they want to take AAA. from Miss Rada's coming across and they want to take triply. And the militia that was there occupied triply at the time. They're going to go clash with the Miss Rattons.

Miss Rattons are army. They have vehicles, they have armored vehicles, they have tanks, and they're a legitimate army. The militias are the militias in tri Tripoli and there's a lot of them. The ones that were in our area specifically supposed to, you know, they were protecting the annex and their embassy, stuff like that. Things are going sideways and then now the assault starts from

the eastern side of Tripoli and it's west, and they want to occupy Tripoli. So the attacks on, the fights on, things are getting hit. All the major nodes, right? The hospital near the airport, Tripoli International Airport. The oil fields and the critical nodes to gain access to the control of the city. They got the roadways from the east,

and it's just going downhill really fast. And in January when I show up, the fighting hasn't started yet, but it kinda looks like it's kind of attending to that. So, we got half-tar in his guys. He's doing the Libyan National Army thing. He's out east still. He's doing good things in Benghazi to make Benghazi safe. So, Post-Binghazi, he's the one that goes in with his army, the L&A, to kind of, you know, it's a political move too, that he's the one that's going to save Libya and Tripoli. He's the one that's going to be the guy who makes this place safe.

So, he actually does a good job out east and in Benghazi and that area to make everything safe. So his guys are going to fistocuffs with all the militias that are out there meanwhile. And he's doing this big strategic move around south and he's going to come in from the southwest of Tripoli to take Tripoli himself. That's his whole plan. Sure. Ms. Rotten's are coming straight across from East to West, straight into Tripoli, Occupy before us. Whoever's in our way is in our way and they're gone.

We're killing everything in our way. So we had the Zimtan militia with us and are part of Tripoli who are protecting us. Great dudes. Good structure, they were armed well, they were good fighters, all of them pretty much are, but they don't have tanks, they have gun trucks, they have high lexes with, you know, dishkas on the back, and those kind of things.

And the rockets and everything else that they're fighting with since the whole 2011 revolution right over throw of Kadoffi. They can't they can't they can't keep up the fight with them as rotten's coming across. So as rotten's start coming across they hit the last I can't remember when the last plane is that actually is able to land at the airport before they take the airport, but I think it was Lufthansa, who was the last commercial airlift,

or airplane that land, and they were landing, they stopped landing at Tripoli International Airport and they were landing at, there was another airport there. It was a former Air Force Base for Kadoffi. It's right on the coast. The name is Skateman right now, but they landed there. It might have been Libyan air as well, who was making a couple of flights, but that was it.

Everybody else had stopped air traffic into this. So that was affecting us, forgetting our folks in and out, because that's how we were getting their commercial air. The last flight out of the the airfield in the north of Tripoli, State Department was able to get some of their folks on it from the embassy. And I want to say, you know, not essential, or folks were put on that plane last minute. So this also is the airport that they're trafficking foreign fighters to and from Syria at the time. So we're intermixing State Department Americans with foreign fighters coming in and out

of Syria at the time. So this is an airport that's swarming with bad guys, but they're in transit, right? They're not, they're the fight, they're there in transit. We managed to get, or State Department manages to get some folks on that plane, and that was the last flight in or out of Libby at the time. So now whoever is in country is in country, you're stuck. We had a plan at the time we started early on, the chief that was there allowed us, great guy. He asked me to come to a meeting with him at the embassy

because he didn't think they were talking security the way that we needed them to be talking security. And that was exactly what happened. There were, you know, they're into the Neo thing, right? The Neo operations. Takes a long time for that to unfold and happen, right? Notifications have to go out. You have to be you it takes a while for that to happen and

We wouldn't we weren't wanting to stick around for all that stuff Because there's no need for us to stick around so we came up with a plan initially to hunker down outside of the city at a farm For some people and then everybody else is going to go over to Tunisia and and wait there. Wait for all the fighting to happen and then come back in. That was our initial plan. We had safe houses and stuff already set aside for minimal occupation to keep people there for eventually to wait

for the fighting to end and then get ourselves work our way back in the triply. But over, so I'm their January, February and March and I'm able to go home, get a flight out, and get a flight back early. Because I go back, and I was like, if I don't get back early, I might not get a flight, because the flights are going to stop. There's no more flights in the country. So I'll be lucky to get a flight if I can get a flight.

If somebody's right, and it was Louptons, I think, was the last ones into the Triple International. So I go back out there. I think was the last ones into the triple international. So I go back out there. I'm back long enough to say it's a bad situation to my deputy chief. I said, hey, I would like to get back out there sooner than later, not my full 90 days back in the States,

because it might not be there when I get back. So I'd like to get back out there to do some work. That was evacuation corridors getting ready to leave. Vacuation corridors, bearing cash sites on the coast. So BLS's surveying those for possible recovery or egress for us. or egress for us, bearing cash sites establishing with a few off folks that we had there, you know, getting the safe site, safe houses established, equipping those with food and water and living, you know, food, water, blankets, you know, shelter, all that stuff.

We had one in town, we had one out of town. And evacuation corridor, all that, so it was a lot of work to do. Emergency solar panels to recharge rechargeable batteries for things. And we were doing all this stuff. Building out go-bags for everybody, go-bags, bug out bags, the whole thing, establishing a, you know, policies and

procedures. And it wasn't a hard thing to do at the time because everybody, there was something exploding multiple times a day. So it wasn't anything to convince anybody to do all these things. And then there was... This ship was going on for a long time before this happened. Yeah. Well, so the evacuation happens in July. So from January to July, it just downhill. And that, that, I mean, January, February, what is it? the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and like, you can't, we're having, we're not, we know why it's happening, but when I'm back in DC and headquarters,

trying to get stuff done, and say, how do I get a visa to Libya? How do we get people, Libyan visas? Well, that whole part of the government had already shut down. There's people working in these buildings, but they're not being paid. They're just there because that's what they did

for their living and they're just there. There's no more government. So there's the GNA and the GNC, they're competing to be the new government for Libya at the time. Then there's Haftar and the Libyan National Army out east. He's getting ready to beat the guy. The next, whatever he wanted to call himself,

King or whatever, of Libya. Take it off, he spot. Then the GNC, GNA, all the militias fighting for control of their turf. That was a mess. And just to get across town, to get through militias, from one militia to another, it was a nightmare. Yeah, a lot of guns being pointed at people, a lot of fire, you know, warning shots, right? But, you know, it doesn't matter if you get hit

with a warning shot, it's gonna hurt just the same. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a mess. Funny thing happens, always in bad times though, we're at a meeting, we take the chief to a meeting, it's at a restaurant downtown. It's at a cool place in downtown. I've very seen it.

The Marcus Aurelius Arc is a restaurant right near it. Very cool place to hang out. Oh, shit. So I go in the chief because the meeting I go back out with the guy that I went with, the other G.S. guy. We're having a conversation. I don't want to leave him out there by himself for too long, because he's monitoring outside activity and let me know inside, hey, people are forming, because there was a lot of that going on. A lot of just random fighting on the street.

So, he's monitoring that while I go inside, I come back outside, and So he's monitoring that while I go inside, I come back outside and several things, funny things happen during this time where it's just wild west, right? Yeah. Everybody's got guns and they're shooting just randomly. So he goes to this meeting and I come back out to talk with my guy out front and somebody behind me about 20 feet, maybe start shooting a gun. And it's a pistol, it's not an AK or anything.

It's some sort of pistol. And it's one of those drills that you have, right? Spin around, start going to town, right? So as my back was to the shooter, I spin around, I'm going for my gun, and I see that this guy is facing down the street, and he's just shooting his pistol to clear the street, because he doesn't want these people near him on the street. So he's shooting this gun, like, he's yelling at him, get out of the way.

So I was like, what the fuck, man? And the guy that's with me, he's doing, so we're, as he's, he has to get over to the side a little bit, so he's in line with the shooter and not me, offline with me. So he's doing the same thing, going over to the side, you know, he's getting ready to go, she's just burned this guy down. And I'm spinning around like it's a, you know, that drill on the range. And then it ends up to be this guy's just cranking off rounds to clear the streets. So I was like, all right, whatever. Okay, don't. And I'm looking around like nobody saw us going

for our guns. Like, I wish, you know, we're still kind of not blending in, but we didn't show our hand, right? And too much. And it's like, I gotta get a gun back away and let's get back to business. Another one was a L-Pres, you know, L-Pres, you know. We get to another spot and we get him up at a checkpoint and they start calling, I can't make this decision. I can't make this decision, I gotta call my boss, the Libyan, the militia guy that's there.

All right, call him. He calls one of my, I can't make that decision. I gotta call my boss. All right, call your boss. Well, I get out of the car. I told everybody, hey, stay in, or the ops guy that we had, I stay in the car and the other Giosk guy, a driver.

I said, I'm gonna go to the trunk of the car, the front of the car, put out a map, explain to him what we wanted to do. And I'm gonna face you, you face this way, you watch my back, I'll watch back behind the vehicle. And if you see something with your hand, just point in a direction, right, to that way, three that way, whatever. So I know which direction they're starting to mask, because they're just curious, I'll always, but just so I know where everybody's at, without me having to look around constantly, right? I did the same thing for him.

And there was a gun truck with a dish sitting right there, so that was like the end all be out, but nobody was on it. So it was gonna take him some time to get up there. So we had a little bit of time to work with. And at one point, I have a guy with a shotgun, this young kid. He's wired for sound. He's ready to just, he's ready to, oh, who's this?

You know, we gotta get it home, right? So he was my most concerned, like he was on my thoughts the most. It's like, damn, this guy's just gonna go half cock in a minute and start shooting So it's like, okay, so my hands are on the hood. I'm thinking I'm getting these signals like like Two right behind you, right? So I you know But behind me there's two guys there and they're with their AKs and they're posturing, you know to intimidate us and I was like, okay, so, okay, with the shotgun,

two guys at the AK behind me, I was like, I got this, this is like the L-Presdrill. Yeah. I was like, and the guy, the Alps guy we had in the car, I get on the radio and I was like, Hey, this is gonna be, I don't know, the first lifefire L-Presdrill. I was like, hey, this is gonna be the, I don't know, the first life fire, L. Pres drill.

I was like, that's what she said. Yeah, I was like, I got this. This is gonna be like, this is gonna be the coolest story ever. They're gonna have to rename the drill. And, you know, a couple of chuckles inside the vehicle. And in the story though, it worked out, I didn't have to shoot anybody,

but dude with the shotgun, that was in my mind if anybody raised a gun, you know, that was gonna be my thing, I'll press a sign like beep, hands off the drill and then start going to town, right? And we joke about that even today about me, almost getting an opportunity to do a life-fire, I'll press the...

But things like that happen. But anyway, things are going sideways. I tell my chief back, it had quarters, a, this is, it might not be there when I get back, if I go on my schedule, I need to get back out there to help out. We need as many guys on the ground,

and I need more contractors to go with me, because it was a small staff, right? And I do that, and I come back for a month, I get my orders and go back out. A couple guys join me out there on the last flight in the Libya. It ends up to be 16 of us, to your guys, which was the most of the whole station. At the time, Magtap and Ring had moved in, flown in to secure the embassy and the annex. So it already deteriorated to that point. We can't do any more work because either the folks we need to talk to can't make it to

us because they're getting threatened. If they go talk to the Americans, then you know, you're with us or you're against those kind of threats. Or you go talk to the Americans, we're going after your family, all those things are going all the time. So, we had a bunch of no shows, our local guard force wasn't shown up to work because they were getting threatened too. And they had sometimes crossed the fighting to get to us. And one guy did that, one of the local guards there, he came to work one day and

he said, I can't go home, I'm worried about my family, but if I go, there's fight, I got to cross the fighting. And he stayed there for a couple of days. And then eventually he left because he was concerned across the fighting. And he stayed there for a couple of days. And then eventually, he left because he was concerned about his family. And then we never saw him again. So it was just us, whatever we had a slice of the Magtaf, Marines that were there, and two of our static security guys.

And that was it. The Zittany militia, who was always camped or parked when I say camp, they were parked out front in gun trucks to help secure the area. Well, they were in the fighter ready. So they weren't doing that anymore. A lot of fighting going on, sporadic fighting during the day and then a night constant stuff going on.

Missiles flying everywhere, the rockets and stuff, that what is that the one, the grad rocket or something that just flies off and just wherever it goes and lands, right? Some of them impact our camp, you know, and it's not like we were, we know the missile types that are flying around that area and it's not something that anybody could have aimed and hit deliberately But we're just in the in the crossfire. Yeah, all the stuff going on. So we're getting hit with disharounds. We're getting hit with random rockets

And so we're we're planning and evacuation. We need to get out of the way We're not here to do the tactical stuff, the tactical intel collection piece of it. Task force screen was there with us. They're very helpful in a lot of the prep and the planning. So there was all the right people in the right place in a bad time to make this happen. And the support and the leadership

that allowed us to do what we needed to do to get out of there or to plan in any back mission. What ended up happening, the day that we were going to tell the ambassador that we were leaving and the RSO that was there to let them know, hey, take our numbers off the books, we're good. We're gonna, we're not gonna be part of your numbers in this Neo thing.

And don't worry about us, we got it. We got ourselves, we'll take care of ourselves. The ambassador was like, what? You guys are leaving? You guys are leaving? What? Wait, where are you going? And so we had to devolve some of the plan that we had and the safe houses and stuff like that,

but we just said we're going to go camp out. We're going to hide outside the city and a place that we have, wait, you know, for us to live there for a couple of weeks or a month. Everyone, long we need to, food and water, all the stuff. And we have a clear route to Tunisia to supply that thing. And some locals that would probably help facilitate us getting food and more food.

And then the rest of the folks are going to go drive out of country and then wait it out, either go home or next door in the neighboring country and Tunisia to stay there, to stay there and wait, or go back home and help us from there. Or, suppose the other Malta was another place they could have went to go support us from Malta or Stigonella or any other place to stay by somewhere

and support us with stuff. The task force at the time was based out of Stuttgart, so they could have facilitated anything from Stuttgart coming our way, not as a response force, but for supplies and sustainability. So I was going, we went to go tell her that. There was, while we were there, strange thing happened at the embassy. So it was a normal trip. It's only a mile down the road from us. We go through the neighborhoods to get there.

And usually you hit the local guard force is on the street. And there's cops, local cops living in police that are there. And then you go through that. You meet another checkpoint. There's a chicane. You get to this barrier and that's the actual King Kong Walgate that it was just built there with a nice little secure booth. Nobody was there. No shit. Yeah and it was the weirdest feeling. It's like one of

those times this is so quiet it's scary. Something's getting ready to happen. Yeah. Because when the locals aren't there, they're probably just something that's happening. Well, next door to the embassy was a military barracks. That was on the target list. I'm gonna ask the us and anybody else except for the locals, the Miss Rottens had targeted. There was an oil field across the highway so we're talking maybe a mile away. And then the military barracks that were like right next to the embassy. So we're going there to deliver the message, the ambassador that, hey, we're out, we're all packed up,

we're gonna leave in a couple days. And don't worry about us, right? We're locking the gates behind us and we'll be in Tunisia if you need us. And so, I'm in the right front seat of this car, our land cruiser, as we round the corner. And I got our deputy chief and our task force team lead with us to go deliver the message to the ambassador that we're leaving. And we round the corner and it was like crickets.

Where is everybody? So slow roll, slow roll, what is going on here, right? And I get out of the vehicle and I go knock, this is armored glass bunker, that the control, the control gate is being operated in. And there's usually somebody in the booth. Couldn't tell if there's anybody in the booth. So I go to the booth, I get out of the vehicle, I go to the booth and it in, and there's usually somebody in the booth. Couldn't tell if there's anybody in the booth, so I go to the booth, I get out of the vehicle,

I go to the booth, and it is the most quiet, it was just very cool, like silence, no birds, no city noises, nothing. And I go up to the window, and my pocket knife, so I took it out and wrapped on the window. And I was like, hey, I see somebody. It's the hunker down right there, right? And I knocked on the window.

This is the armor glass. I don't even know if you could hear it. But eventually, it peeks up over the counter. And I had my bad, my excess badge, my M.C. badge. I said, hey, we need to get in. So he reaches up, pushes the button, gates open. So I say, all right, let's go, let's get in. Again, a vehicle.

And usually there's some activity in the embassy compound. There's a small compound, but usually there's something. There's people walking, something, nothing. And I was like, as soon as I said, this is so silent, this is the weirdest thing ever. That's when the attack starts from wherever they were at. They were starting to shoot at the barracks and the oil fields, right? The dish grounds. And then it got, it was the, then it went from total silence to the loudest thing you ever heard in your life. And I can, as we're, you know, gas, gas, gas,

get to the new, it was a brand new part of the embassy, they just built it out. And they hadn't occupied it yet. It was, it was hardened structures, right? The chance rate and everything, just finished building that stuff and they were getting ready to move in. Then it just became, even in our armored car. It was the loudest... It just it was the loudest thing I ever heard of my life. But

almost like a tetris game, you can see it's a concrete block wall, right? This wall is disintegrating because it's taken around. It's not direct fire stuff. They're not shooting at the embassy. They're shooting at the barracks and the oil fields, but all those rounds were in a beaten zone, the dish rounds because they're just like, yeah, rocking that thing and those rounds are just flying down, right? The wall is disintegrating. It was just the weirdest thing. Gas, gas, gas to the chancerine. I'm yelling the new code to the front door. And we're going to drive as close as we can

because there's a curb, some bushes, some steps before you get to the front door of the new chancerine. And that's what they said they would be. They're in the new chance ring making comms with headquarters and talking back and forth state departments on what they're gonna do. So we're gas, gas, gas, gas, we're racing towards the chance ring.

And I'm yelling out the new code because the guys in the back so the deputy chiefs there and the task force guy, they're already in the scap mo. They're gonna, I said, open the right door and scout out the right door, I'll be right behind you. And, because I'm grabbing all the stuff in the car, right? And as I'm grabbing all the stuff, putting it in my go bag,

I was like, hey, get out the right side and go to the door if you all the stuff, putting it in my go bag, I was like, hey, get out the right side and go to the door. If you get there before me, it's whatever it is. 1,2,3,4, you know, I just kept saying the code to what it was, it wasn't 1,2,3,4, but it was whatever it was. And as soon as that door opened, but gone, definitely gets out.

He's on the right side of the car, or sitting behind me. He takes him in it, he ducks his head a little bit, puts his backpack on and then takes off running. Task Force guy, you know, he's in a little bit better shape. He passes him. And the floor's slippery, right? So it's the hard marble or whatever it is they put on those floors

that when it's clean, it's slippery. Yeah. The full head of steam toward the door and I'm trying to call inside the chancery to the RSO that's there. And he's not answering, but he's now in the bunker and I don't know that he's there. Or he's like two rooms deep into this chancery. It's all hard and structured.

And you can hear the rounds hitting the building and all around us and it was just the loudest thing ever As soon as the test for he's out. I'm out running. I told the other jazz guy who's driving I was like come out my side. We're going this because that was where all the the Impact was happening come out my side. Let's go in. I started running and I'm yelling the code because I see him struggling at the door. So first thing when this task force guy, he's running full head of steam, maybe, I don't know, 20 feet.

So he stops because he's getting ready to come to the door, slides into the door, I can smash. He smashes into the door and he's trying to punch the code in. The deputy, he's getting out of here, he's got a full head of steam, he slides, smash. He's hitting the door first guy.

He's still trying to punch the code. I get out, I'm running towards the door and I see what's happening. This little, you know, clown show thing happening. And I'm yelling the code and he's punching it in and punching it in. And whoever was inside heard that somebody was hitting the buttons and then it was one of the ARS says they opened the door and then in we go.

And then as I'm running, I'm running to the chance story. I motion to the follow car that was behind us. I had two G.R.S. guys in the follow car. I'm grabbing my stuff. I grabbed the med kit and my go bag and I'm running and I wave them like, like come inside because our cars aren't gonna take this kind of beating, like, you know,

what's going on out here. So I've motioned them to come in. My guy, the driver, he's in, and I'm peeking outside the door, waiting for our other guys. I keep it, I'm keeping it open a little bit so they don't struggle to get in the door. And I'm peeking outside and I'm like, what do they do? What are they waiting on, right? And they thought they were safe in the car.

So I motioned them to come inside and they're like, no, we're going to stay here. And I was like, no, no, come out here. And I saw I go run out there and I opened the door. And I was like, hey, get your ass inside because there's more protection in there than there isn't this car. And you can see this wall, like a tetris game, just disintegrating. And you can hear the impacts of the disc around,

hitting the building, it's loud as shit. And even more so inside, you couldn't hear inside because the impacts of the building, on the building, you had to be face to face talking to somebody for them to hear you. And that's the one we all got into the chanceery. And we're talking to the ambassador like, hey, we got our way out. Don't worry about us.

We're still heavily breathing because everybody's doing that 20, you know, just a 20 feet sprint but we're all just winded. We're leaning across this table talking to her, like, hey, we're done, we're out, we got a plan, we're out here. She's like, wait a minute, no, what, what are you guys doing? And it's like, well, don't worry about us,

Mr. RSO, I mean, we're good, we're going, we're leaving. Don't worry about us, don't be at the embassy. You can have your Magtaf in Reigns back. We'll bring them over here first and then we'll scat, or you guys can go over there, whatever you guys want to do, it's your facility too. But we're gone. And she said, wait a minute, where are you going?

And we go to the toilet of the plan. And she's like, well, what are coming with you? Well, wait a minute. She's talking to Ambassador Kennedy who was back in DC for State Department answering the mail on this side. And she's telling them, hey, the guy is at the annex. The annex has a way out of here and we're going to go with them, seeking approval and all that kind of stuff.

And they're like, okay, well, okay, if that's a plan, then that's a plan, take the flag down and go out with the Vannex. And then that became another issue. Did they have local national, third country nationals that they had the Bengalis were at another camp that came and did all the servicing, the local maintenance, cleaning,

and all that stuff. They said plus 86 Bengalis that are holy. That's what they're saying. And I'm telling them, they're with our chief. I said, we cannot take responsibility for them. If that's the case, we're on our, we got to go on our own. And the task force guys, like, yeah, no, we're not taking those guys. They're either on their own or they're with you guys and we're out and so she's conveying this message back to DC and The conclusion was okay, they're gonna do their own thing. They'll make their own way out however they or stay It's up to them and we'll we'll go out with you. We hadn't planned on, it was only 20 something of us and ended up to be 154 people total with embassy folks.

For me and the staffing on the GRI, we had enough people for our people and that was it. So then it became trying to facilitate, you know, the rest of the embassy folks and the ambassador and her dog. And her dog. Yeah. And she was supposed to come out with me and my chock. I was taking the senior level folks from annex. They were going to be in my car and we're going to go out with me and my chalk. I was taking the senior level folks from Annex. They were gonna be in my car and we're gonna go out so that made sense for her to be in that car. She wanted to ultimately be in the last vehicle, which is fine, I tried to say,

well, we can go to the border and I can wait on the Libyan side so you can be the official last person out of Libya, but we need to get you out of here. She wouldn't have a match. She wanted to be in the last vehicle. And she wasn't quite in the last vehicle because we had some maneuver vehicles with fighters in it in the last vehicle.

But she was happy with where she ended up sitting. We decided we had a timeline figured out on our own for just us. And it was two days from the time we made the notification to be out of there at a certain time of the day on two days and two days with destruction plans. All of the everybody back at the annex was already doing that, burning, crushing, shredding things, they're getting the place ready. Then we ended up having to wait on our state department colleagues.

They wanted to bring all their stuff, the big emerald that was sitting in their, I can't know, you're gonna have to leave that here. We don't want, so our idea was, as low profile as we can be, we don't want to leave that here. We don't want, so our idea was, as low profile as we can be, we don't want to look, menacing, we don't want to look aggressive, we don't want to look like a fighting force to invite any, fighting.

I'm gonna want to do attention. Yeah, so we're gonna capitalize on a breaking, or a lowland fire in their normal day, every day consistently. They started fighting and they stopped fighting at consistent times of the day. The morning was the best for us, it gave us as much time to do all the shredding and burning and all that stuff, prepare to go. So it was like six o'clock in the morning, was the last window between they stopped fighting, morning prayers, and then from then to, we had about a two hour window

before the next sporadic fighting started. So they typically prayed, they ate, and then they refit the fight, right? They go back to their camps, bases wherever they're from, they put more ammo and the vehicles get ready for the days fight and get ready for the nights fight. Most of the fighting was happening at night. And so the height of the fighting was easily from 11 o'clock in the morning to 5 in the

morning. And the ambassador wanted to leave it for whatever reason, she said one o'clock in the morning, one or two o'clock in the morning. And we were like, well, that's the worst time to go. Everybody's on the streets fighting each other at that point. It's just, no, we can't do that. We're gonna leave it six. If you're with us, then we're leaving at six. We're gonna start marshalling and leaving at six in groups. At the beginning of our two-hour window,

we're starting to leave in groups. It wasn't gonna take us two hours to do that, but eventually it did because we had, I don't even know, how many vehicles that was to get 154 people out. That's a lot of vehicles. Yeah, something 30 something vehicles. I think it was 34 vehicles.

Suburban, land cruisers, high lexes. And we were doing all the commanding control for it. The annex was. Had almost a GRS in every vehicle in the front and back of each talk that went. in the front and back of each talk that went. I was gonna take our VIPs in my vehicle, minus the ambassador who wanted to ride in another vehicle for whatever her reasons were.

Yeah, and then leave it six. We had just built a rear entrance to the annex at the time where it was a small place. You can only go with that many vehicles. We had planted out to where we're staging down the center line of this villa and we can stage perfectly pointed straight out the gate. So we'll marshal a lot of vehicles, again, point it straight out the gate and then in chalk order we'll leave in groups.

And so we told State Department, okay, this is what we got to do. We task organize everybody vehicles, everybody in the vehicles, and come in the back gate so you can go in that one, you know, and behind the flow out the gate, right? Yeah. Morning to departure, some one or two o'clock in the morning, they start showing up with their first vehicles, and they're coming in the front gate. And I don't know who did it. We were the ones controlling the front gate.

It was Americans there at the front gate. They opened the front gate so they can get in. You can hear the fighting going on in town. The city was already on fire. The city was literally burned. Triple E is on fire. Everywhere around us, everything is burning. And so that was the smell you smelled the whole time during this whole

just whatever toxic fumes there were. That's what we were smelling and breathing the whole time. But as they're coming in, it's almost like fog because at that time of the night, that's the heaviest fighting. So there's debris from explosions and stuff like that, right? And impacts and all those kind of things. And it was like a fog, a fog bank. But so whoever opened the gate, opened the gate, let the state park and folks in.

And now we have vehicles crunching into each other and just all messed up everywhere. That was a shit show we had to get under control. And so we took all the vehicles, all the keys to the vehicles and put them in order that we needed a man. And that was a shit show just because of the space that we had. We didn't have any space. Yeah.

But that took most of the morning just to do that. Then at about four something, 4.35 o'clock ambassadors get antsy. We finally got all the embassy folks with us on our side. And we're waiting for six o'clock. Six o'clock, the first chalk is ready to go and it's a communications Ed von or advanced is kind of what we considered it had all had satellite communications It was it was gonna be one of the so in that part of Libya and that part of the world the satellite that we had was at a 10 degree angle

So it's low on the horizon So to get any kind of mobile communications, and it happened. So we were going to kick out static communication sites. They're going to get static point all the antennas at 10 degree angle at this azmith and then get comms with all the other elements in DOD that were tracking our communications in our movement

At another vehicle that was going to leave later on and they were going to leapfrog So so they would be static have time to set up and then they set up communication Then that one would you know leapfrog over and then in between that all of our vehicles were going to you know roll past them and Use them as checkpoints, right? Yeah Communication checkpoints, right? Yeah. Communication checkpoints. At 4.35 o'clock, Ambassador was getting antsy. She was like, we need to leave now. Because it was bad.

You can hear the fighting. It was loud. But we were used to that. It had been going on for months at this point. We're like, yeah, no. You hear that? It's going, no. Well, I don't want to drive. Yeah.

I don't want to drive. Why would you want to drive through that? No, we'll wait at six o'clock. Six o'clock. They'll stop shooting, and then we'll go. And it took all of our deputy chief. That's what his sole job was to calm her down. And hey, we know what his whole job was, to calm her down and hey,

we know what we're doing, we're gonna leave it the right time, calm her down. But up until the moment we left, she was complaining the whole time. We need to get out of here, we need to go. And then six o'clock, like magic, six o'clock, went from the loudest thing you ever heard to Dead Silence. Right? And then the sun's coming up.

Kind of has the most cool temperature that it's going to be in Libya during the time of day, which is another thing we were considering on, you know, heat exhaustion and those kind of things. And at six o'clock, gates open, first-chock leaves. And then I think it was every 15 minute increments, another truck would leave. And it was going like clockwork, and it just, it worked. And so personally, I was in the third-chock, it's supposed to be the command and control, or the command vehicle, not control vehicle,

but all the C2 folks in that one. And it was other than the ambassador who wanted to write somewhere else. Yeah, I worked out. We ran into some dudes and the Zintanis that were our friends and they were. And they knew who we were. But we didn't also want to tip our hat to them either we didn't tell them we were leaving either And we saw them and by the time they probably saw me in my chalk and all the vehicles because I probably had six or seven with me They probably knew at that point that we were leaving because they were obviously seeing

another truck in front of me, five or six vehicles, and then the communication ad one was just three or four vehicles. One was a big, like, delivery truck, bread truck with all the communication stuff on it. It was this that had antennas, all the stuff with magnets on it, stuck to it, and it's a porcupine had antennas, all the stuff with magnets on it stuck to it and it's the porcupine of antennas. Yeah, so you know we passed them and they were they were doing exactly what we knew they were doing because we had been you know working with them this whole time

refitting to fight right didn't care they wounded and injured and put more ammo, cleaning out the brass so that they would pick up the high luxes and put more ammo in it and wiping down their guns, the dish gazing on that stuff, and they would do all that stuff, and that was like normal stuff. And we'd see them and wave as we pass by, I'd say, hey guys, you know, deuces. Yeah. So it worked. I mean, it worked. And I got mentioned before, vehicle broke down.

We had to end up telling that thing. It was kind of a funny looking thing coming across Libya to nation border. Because everybody thought it got hit and all this other stuff. But we said that every every choc is self-sufficient. So if you had the tow vehicle, you guys that are towing each other gas, everybody had gas in their cars. We were hoarding gas up to that point because all the gas stations were those of the things that were also being occupied by the Miss Rotten's because everybody needed gas for their vehicles

and the continue the fight, everybody was fighting for the gas, the gas points, it wasn't necessarily gas station, but it was where they had all the bottles and jugs of gas. And we, up to that point, we'd been going to these places to get more gas for us. So we had plenty of gas. Plenty of gas. Made a few people uncomfortable because then we have gas

in the back of our high lexes and what if that gets hit and fights fire? It's like, well, you probably have a fire. I mean, what can you do? What can you do? I mean, we got what we have, right? How long did it take? How long from 6 a.m. to 24 hours?

24 hours of evacuation route. Yep. With 150 people. That was brutal. Oh, bet. And we'd been up for three days before that. So it was a continuous, all the destruction plan. We were up.

It's all, every once in a while, I'd say, hey, man, if you guys need a break, go grab a couple of wings, right? Go get some sleep. As eventually, you're gonna pass out, if you don't get sleep, go get sleep. And they're like, oh, in a boss, I got this and they're crushing things.

And so over time, all of the mechanical stuff that we had, the shredders, the nail guns, and everything else broke because it was overused. We didn't have it. And we had multiples of everything, but everything broke down. So then it was a burn pit. Then it was literally crushing,

like a sledgehammer exercise drill. So crushing radios and stuff. So, you know, it's what we had. And we're trying to crush things and then crush it and then burn it, throw it in a burn pit. Go bags, so try to stress that point, a go bags only, nothing else comes with you. Whatever's in your go bag or where you're wearing,

that's it. Don't leave anything behind, no guns, I am. I'm bringing all your, whatever you can fit in your go bag in your go bag, in your bug out bag. That's all this livable stuff, right? Go bag, ammo and water. That's all you put in that thing. Maybe a snack or two if you have a power bar or something

like that. That's all that goes in that thing. That's gonna be on you the whole time. So they were pretty good about that. And so it only took us, it's only a three and a half, wasn't long to get to the border. Oh, right. Yeah. So the first 30 minutes were probably the most, probably contentious, right? Because that's where all the fighting was happening. We were going through an active war zone to get past all this. So whether it was a mistaken identity, itchy trigger finger, all those things, we knew we weren't going to be targeted.

Because we knew that the Miss Rotten's had it made it to this point where this road that we were taking, we can take it without only crossing our guys, the Zintan militia. So for 30 minutes, everybody's queued up, heads up, eyes up, head on, we'll have all those kind of things. Be ready to get in a fight and maneuver the vehicles. So for the drivers and the vehicles, they're all georesc guys, so we're gonna maneuver, you know, typical maneuvering, fire maneuver kind of stuff that we have to, but gas gas gas, keep heading west. Worst case, just keep heading west and we'll link up at all these different

communication checkpoints along the route. We got out without, it's perfect. Quite time of the day, nice friendly waves on the way out by our friend Zintanis and done. We do some other meetings along the way to facilitate our evacuation to the border and it only takes you know three and a four hours, maybe I'm thinking, to get to the border. Well, we had, but from that, so we go south of the city and follow the terrain, which is a huge, you know, sea wall, way inland, and follow that all the way to Tunisian border. And so we were way down south in Tunisia, and most of the time it took to get up north to Tunis was the rest of the 24 hours that we had like the 18 hours that we had left, right? Yeah

We had to stop at an airfield as we had to drop off the state department packs out of airfield So they can get on a plane and fly to wherever it is they flew I think they flew to signal or something They had a plane waiting on us. So then the rest of the drive to Tunis was just just our office folks. Okay. So and about five, six o'clock in the morning the next day we pulled into the embassy in Tunis. Totally beat. Fall on the sleep with the wheel, all those things. Hey, wake up. Let me take over for a minute, right? Yeah. Yeah, I was all long drive. Just it was brutal. But yeah, and I was saying before, probably the most successful evacuation that you never heard

about. Yeah, no, because it worked. We had 154 people from Tripoli at its worst to Tunis unscathed. One vehicle that was that broke down on us and that was it. No re-hurt, no shots fired, nothing. That's incredible. Yeah, that was pretty neat. And it's probably half a dozen people that I can really attribute that to Task Force TL, the chief, the deputy chief, the two operations officers that were in there doing that. I'm gonna miss somebody and just great people, all the right people to do that at the right time and a bad time in Libya, right?

That's exactly what it took. Support from the top down. It's somebody wrote a book on this, right? It's our analyst. Wrote a book like the darkest hour or something like that is the name of it. I'll send you that one. It's a good read. And that's from her perspective. She was actually, I identified her as a part of all the group.

I ran out of cheer, that's guys, ran out of fighters, chill, barrel chested freedom fighters, right? I ran out of them. It's like, so who's left that I could put in a seat that's gonna help me, or help us get out. And you know help help me help the group to get out. I was like well, Rain, I don't know if I should say her call sign because she

I think she changed it for the book purposes. So anyway, she was good. She was very motivated. She was good at her job as an analyst, but if we went to the range to shoot guns, she wanted to know, yes, I need to shoot my gun because I haven't shot it in a while. All right, right, come on. Let's go do this, right? She was very proactive in all the stuff. How are we getting out asking, like, good questions during the whole planning process? She wasn't, like, directly involved in it, but as an analyst, we were using her a lot for her information on what she thought, you know, the routes, the zentanies, you know, intent, what their possible, you know, actions were the Ms. Rotten's, what they were possibly going to do and what's after are going to do with the L&A. Are they going to

this one out for a little bit and wait for everything to happen and come up with all the stuff? She's great at what she did. And so I asked her to sit a shotgun with another G.S. dudes in the back of my chalk. So she was going to manage the the comps, right? So G.S. driver can drive. And he could talk on the radio too, but just so he doesn't have his hands full and all the stuff that worry about, it's going to be she's going to talk through or T.C. is going to talk through our analyst. You know, he's going to be she's going to talk through or TC's going to talk through or analyst, you know, he's going to say what to say, hold the bike for him to talk into, I know all those kind of things, right? And so don't, I told her not to worry about it,

you know, I'm not going to make you a Geras person overnight, you're just going to help, you know, TC do what he does. And make sure that if somebody takes a wrong turn and that everybody stays behind me, keep an eye on where I am at and don't let anybody take wrong turn, so when anybody get out of the vehicles, if you see something get out of the vehicles, then speak up about it on the radio. Or if you see something, everybody's got that responsibility. If you see something, say something so we can have eyes on it, you know,

shots fire or whatever it is. Gun trucks or whatever it is they say, right? So she tells a pretty good story. Turns out I may have given her too much responsibility for some stuff. I don't know. I still honestly don't think so. She performed flawlessly through this whole thing. I had no issues with her at all before, during or after.

I thought she did a great job. It just kind of messed her up and had a little bit, unfortunately. I apologize to her. I wish I could to her about that. But, you know, it's what we had to work with. And I was left with task organizing with what I had on the ground and and I guess even contrary to what she believed in herself. I believed that she can do it and she did it That's awesome. Yeah, it's a good honor. You know, she did a great job. She did exactly what I

Would have wanted did everything and she was the linguist for our chalk too. So if I got out of the vehicle and so I told her, if I get out of the vehicle, you get out of the vehicle and come see me and we'll go talk to this Libyan. And we had to do that several times along the egress route to help facilitate the next leg. From militia to militia, we had to be handed off from one to the other.

And then at the border same thing. And she did great. She did flawlessly. She was a good shooter. She knew how to handle herself with a gun. Another good quality to have, right? And... Especially in that scenario. Yeah, and I had confidence in her to do what it is I was asking her to do else. I wouldn't have asked her to do it. And I said I got her and a T.C. together. I said, you know what? You're really don't worry about being so like feeling responsible and she was that kind of a person which is great another great a characteristic of hers that I capitalize on to use her to get help us get out To help me manage the chaos

very level headed Took direction well gave direction well. I mean She did flawlessly You're not in contact with her anymore. No, but she sees us. I'll bet she sees us. Yeah. Well, if she does, she did a great job. I told her that at the time too, when we finally get to the border, and then when we finally get to the embassy, I said, hey, you did a great job, and she seemed fine at the time.

And even during, the book is a good read because she actually... What is the name of the book? I think the darkest hour. Or in my darkest hour, something like that. Yeah, and that's normal too. For all of us that have been to this to have some kind of issues with it after the fact, right? I mean, that's like normal. And that's how I hope that she gets that out of the whole ordeal too. It's

like, yeah, she's no different than any of us that went through similar things, right? Yeah. We all go through that. And we all have to have help sometimes afterwards or maybe later on down the road. Her time was then. And I think part of the writing of the book was probably therapeutic. Yeah, for her to like deal with the situation and somehow just get it out there and say it. I mean, it was probably helpful, I get that.

It's a well-written book. I don't know. It's interesting to me. It's interesting to me because I know what was going on at the time when she describes things. I don't know who the people she's talking to because she had the chance to call signs for, you know, like obviously she was told the change to call signs. So she did a great read, great read. I would have never known that she was going through that at the time. Like the way she goes, it describes her, I want to say her,

I could question her confidence in herself to do what I asked her to do. Because I always asked her to do something. When I asked her to do something, I said, you're okay with that. If not, let me know. Because that's okay, but just let me know. And she's like, no, I'm okay with that. And I wasn't just like, do this thing. It was like, you want to do this and then get with who, me or somebody else and we'll coach you through exactly what we're asking you to do. Like, manage a radio, turn a radio on. What the radio looks like. How to change the channels in a radio, right? Those kind of things.

For the GRS guy that's with her, so he doesn't have his hands tied up and he's trying to drive a vehicle, right? This is how you change the channel in a radio. This is how you talk on a radio. This is all how it functions. These are the checkpoints along the way. These are the things you have to be aware of. So when we're through checkpoints, she's in the trail vehicle.

So those are the things that she had to do in-round. Yeah. Trail vehicle up when they were passed a certain point, right? And she was right on the mark with all that stuff. The whole way through. Yeah. Great job. Toller that then.

Thanked for it. She performed. False and I didn't see her after that. We kind of all kind of disbanded to the wins at that point. And then apparently, you know, she's having, she had. I don't know how she's doing now, but perfectly normal. I mean, that's, that's, no, yeah, nothing against her for that.

It happens to all of us. Yeah. But she did a great job. Nice. Yeah. Well, let's take, let's take a quick break and then, then we'll start to wrap it up. Sounds good.

All right, yeah. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patreon support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash Vigilance Elite, and support the Sean Ryan Show today. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you.

Let's get back to the show. All right, we're back from the break. We just got done with the evacuations out of Tripoli. Wrapping up your agency career, retired. Let's get into some of the stuff that was happening after you left. Or kind of... What did the BREC happen? stuff that was happening at pre-luffed or kind of, one of the brach happened.

The motorcycle wreck. Yeah, well, that was a, that was a bad time. So as all this stuff is happening in my careers, in COVID hits and everything shutting down, everybody's life is going to shit. I just had a hard time with that whole thing, like the vaccination thing and all this other stuff, and all the things that are starting to happen in our country that are just frustrating me. And then I'm in it for the first time in 14 years

of deploying and spending time in the war zones, excluding the contract or time in the previous military time, I'm in an office job. And I am not that person. And I was adapting to all these changes in my life at the time, which is horrible. Yeah, I was just, yeah, I hate those. And so you have, well, you have to do it

in your career to do headquarters time, right? But I was never a career guy. so I don't care, right? It's like I just want to do the job, and my job is out in the field. Or being a manager, right? But doing that from the field, easily done from the field. I never got the manage from a workstation back at headquarters thing, right?

Sure people do that, but I'm not that kind of person. I got to be on the ground with but I'm not that kind of person. I gotta be on the ground with the troops and all that kind of stuff. So I'm adjusting to life back in, so it ends up ultimately being the best thing that could happen to me. It'd be in back that long and just re-adjusting to life back in regular communities

without being in a war zone. But I'm having issues with that. I'm still mr. anger man, and I'm drinking a lot and COVID hits now. What else is there to do, right? You can't go anywhere Everything shut down. I find ways to you know get outside and do some exercises and stuff like that just to get fresh air or zombie land. Nobody's out on the streets. Can't go to work, work shut down. There's no information.

I mean, all this stuff, I'm cooped up in an apartment. And I'm, you know, there's somebody sharing the misery with me, but it was just tough. So the first opportunity to get out, I mean, it took advantage of those moments. There was maybe two or three places in the Northern Virginia area at the time that were open. And, because everything was forced shut down.

No restaurants are open, no bars are open, no wall marks open. And because everything was for shutdown. No restaurants are open, no bars are open, no wallmarks open. You can't go to churches, you can't go to work, you can't go to school, or those that are in school. Everything shut down, but you can somehow go to Walmart, everything's okay. I had issues with all that was going on at the time. All the administration stuff that was starting to happen. I mean, all came to a head. We finally had an opportunity to go out to a bar that was open. A couple of them that were open. They started opening up slowly, some of them, outdoor seating only, that kind of stuff. Went out and I was already cooped up and what else is there to do? I got out and then I worked out and then drank.

Why I felt the need to do that? I have no idea, but I was drinking a lot. Before the accident, so this happens a couple of years ago, but before that, I was hitting it hard. I didn't realize that. So you think this was cause of COVID? That is all culminating, all the stuff that's culminating, that's part of it. Hold on. You just did what, 20 plus years in the military, that's your one unit.

Then you did a couple years of regular contracting in the heyday of Iraq's, O4 to whatever. Yep. Then you did 16 years at CIA, and you don't think any of that shit had anything to do with this. Yep, yep.

Okay, all that is accumulative effects that get to this point, right? And really, that time is it all comes together, right? It all comes together. And I didn't realize how much I was drinking at the time. And those around me, I don't know that anybody ever said anything because you know, they like me, they love me, they're their family, they don't, you don't see those things and hey, you drink too much or you okay, nothing like that. Um, yeah, it always, it was, it was drinking a lot. So my ex-wife at the time later on told me how much I was drinking in a day

and like bottles. I was like, and I don't remember doing that. I was like, I don't know. Most people don't. I wasn't drinking that much. I was like, come on. I was like, let's drink every now and then. But I was drinking a lot. Then, yeah, cooped up and all these things, I'm trying to get restructured into civilian

life in a regular nine to five job. All the years and the war zones, you know, my, probably by, I guess my meaning, right? What I was here to do, and I'm not doing it anymore. All these things coming together at one point, COVID shuts down, we get an opportunity to go out and have a few drinks with some folks. I do that, I drink way too much. And I get on my motorcycle and I don't remember this part,

but I get on my motorcycle and try to ride it somewhere. And I rode and I was a good distance away from the bar that I was at. I don't remember any of that ride. And the first thing I remember was I'm on the side of the road trying to upright my bike because I just laid it down. Dark street, dark corner on a street that I had no business being on. I've never been down this street before.

I've had no reason to be down the street. It's an industrial park. First time I'd ever been on the street in my life, I don't even know why I was on that street. But to clock in the morning, whatever time it is, as I'm going down the street, it's dark, it's not lit, sharp turn, 90 degree turn, I don't get it in time, laid it bike down, hit my head on the ground apparently,

based off of just all the dirt I scooped up off the side of the road, but the skid marks and all this stuff that was on the pavement. And I've been arrested for a DUI. And when I finally realized what had happened, I was like, wow. And then it came to me the day after. Because it's only the whole day until you're sober, blowing

in the machine, and you're sober, and then they release you. Go back to the, with help from, we got it, we know, we go back to the scene and see the bike parts, see the skit, that's the first time I see the after effects of the where I went off the road and where the bike landed up, pick up a few parts from the bike, and I was like, wow, that's what I, is like,

I don't even remember this. And, you know, and I don't even remember drinking that much. But apparently I did. So I didn't try to deny that I wasn't drinking that much or anything like that. And the, my thing was, he huge turning point. And all this stuff that's going on in my life to this point. It's like, I just almost killed myself. I've gone through all the stuff

in the last, you know, lifetime to this point and survived all of it. And then I get to the point and almost do this to myself. You know, I mean, it's like I went out to try to do that but I just almost killed myself. And I didn't want that to be like the lasting memory of me, of all the stuff that I've done, you know, and there's other people that have done just as much enough, not more, but like for my family or anybody that's, you know, thinking of me after the fact,

that's not the way I would have liked to have their last memory of me. It's like I drank too much and I wrecked my bike. So that was a huge turning point for me. I was reaching out to some psychologists that worked. They gave me an initial workup on TBI, PTS. So minor things on all that stuff. There's people worse off to me,

but I'm not discounting what my issues are. Could I do have those issues? The tenitis and the short-term memory losses and still can't remember names that well, you know. You know, all those things. Slurred speech every once in a while. All these things happen and it's getting better over time and that's the thing that one of the first psychology said to me.

It's like, you need, so I have to list everything in my life to this point where it happened to me. And so she's assessing, you know, brain injury. And, or potential brain injury. This could be part of the problem. And that's her thing. So I had two psychologists. One was a whatever the other one was,

and then there was a specialist in brain injury. And the brain injury doc said, well, there's, you haven't given yourself in between every instance. So explosives in the military, attacks, being on a base that's attack, loud noises, mortars and rockets, gunfire, all this stuff to this point, combatives, you know, because that's what we do, right? I mean, we get in the ring with each other and spar and hit each other and, you know,

and you fight each other. I mean, it's, it's just what we do. All that stuff. I had never taken a break from each one of these incidents. And then the bike crash. My head against the ground. So that's how we end up with today. In balance issues. And I didn't, I wasn't aware of it then. And I told her about this one incident. I was walking and just going down a stairway in a restaurant. And I rounded it to corner to the I was walking and just going down a stairway in a restaurant

and I rounded it to the stairway and I just took a little stutter step. I felt a little bit off-balance for a second. I was like, at the time I was like, what was that all about? I was a drinkin' and it was just there, it was a meeting, it was a dinner meeting. I didn't know what that was. So I started thinking that kept happening, just little things like that. And then also, why can't I remember

this particular thing, right? It was just frustrating me. And I said, after then, I was like, why is this happening now? And she's like, well, it's probably been happening. You just weren't aware of it happening. Or you wrote it off as something else, right? And but now you're noticing now

because you've wrecked your bike and almost color yourself. So she said to get it, get it checked out. And I did. And so there are minor signs of brain injury, TBI, minor symptoms and minor, so a minor case. I was like, okay, well, that makes sense. So the sooner the better. One, you gotta change your environment.

No more combatants where you're getting beaten ahead from somebody punching in the head. So I've weaned myself off of being on a motorcycle so far, but I like motorcycle riding. So I won't get my bike fixed eventually. And I kept it unfixed. Just like I remind myself what had just happened. That was kind of my way of reminding myself what I, the direction I need to keep going.

So, but at this point, I think I'm okay. To the point where I'm gonna get my bike fixed or get a new one, whatever. I gotta get it checked out, drinking a lot less. So I had one tonight, right? And I can do that now. I can be around it and not have to have it. Or I can have a day at work or a day at all.

And I don't ever say to myself, I don't ever have a thought on my head that, oh shit, I need a drink, right? This has been a rough day, right? Never say that to myself, I don't even have that thought. And that's pretty common. So in the environment that I've been in, it's a thing, it's the culture, right?

It's like what you do. And now you can't even go to a restaurant without it being in your faith. I didn't notice that till I go to counseling and Zero alcohol for a long time I got hooked on diet sprite actually during that time and I Realized that then you can't go anywhere. It's on TV. And I don't watch professional sports anymore

because they've got sideways into the woke side of things that I'm not, I don't need that in my life. You're not down with the woke? Nope. So I used to think baseball, football, America, right? But not anymore. They've totally trashed that in my mind. Having all that stuff going on in the professional sports.

I don't watch it anymore. I don't have a favorite team anymore. I don't need that in my life anymore. I don't need to have a drink in my, you know, it's never a thought on my head. And I'll go sometimes, and I say that to myself. Like, well, grab beer.

It's like, why am I drinking this beer? What, what? I can have anything else, why am I drinking this beer, right? It's like, well, I can have a beer dammit. It's America, right? Freedom. But it's like, okay, I don't need it.

That's the social thing, should I have a drink to excess anymore? I actually, I think I do. And I'm probably sure have some people that can attest it, but I have a very tight control of myself, more self-control over that, right? No other substance abuses. I've never had those issues,

and I don't like even taking over the counter medicines for pain. So that was the other thing when I was talking about the psychedelic stuff. I was like, my whole aversion to anything medication, that's still in my head. Plus I can, I don't know if you can do that when I was employed or anything else, but I really

haven't checked into it. I've seen your shows on it and it works. You've proven that on your shows and other shows that are that it's being publicized. But it's just not my thing. I'm not into any other pain, over-to-counter pain meds or anything. Even if I get pain meds from a prescription, I try to do without it.

I don't think I've ever had any pain that I couldn't just tolerate myself and then just write it out. Even when I hit my head on the ground, after I wrecked my bike. But that was really a turning turning point for me Yeah I actually sought assistance you know and when I started talking to folks so Tom's at least I keep forgetting that name all secure foundation

I reach out to him sent him an email and I said I reach out to him, send him an email and I said, amen, I've heard what you were saying. And I wasn't, so it wasn't time for me, I guess, to like, admitted I needed to seek assistance or talk to anybody about, because I am, I'm fine. It's like, it's normal. And it actually is normal with a lot of folks that we hang out with, we know.

So what's, it seems normal. Yeah, so what's, what's, what, so what's what's what are my crime complain about right? Yeah. So time and place for everybody's different and I asked some few questions and he said, well, let me get you in touch with one of our we can do this for you. Free of cost, council and a couple of council in sessions with the counselor. That was great. Cat some counseling, a couple of counseling sessions with the counselor. That was great. I loved it.

And mostly it boiled down to like, so not just when I crashed wreck my bike and I almost killed myself, but while I was drinking, times that I don't remember stuff, it's like, if somebody needed me, so I'm that kind of guy too.

So I wanna be there for people, right? I want to be there in the moment for people. Well, there are times that I wasn't there for myself. I didn't even know where I was. So how can I be there for anybody else of them that they're for myself in those moments, right? So, you know, that was what sunk in with me. For my family, for my friends,

for whoever it is in my life that's important, those times, I wasn't there. And so kind of disappointed in myself for those things, I was like, well, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just thinking about myself at the time, right? So that's kind of how I, I guess, came to grips with it, right? I was like, well, so commitment to myself to be there, to not get so shit-faced like that anymore,

to that I'm worthless to anybody, including myself. And bad things happen, right? And there seems to be a thing. They describe some of the physiological things that are happening with alcohol and even a minor case of TBI, right, that are happening when I drink or and all made sense to me. It's like, hey, whatever it is now, Roger that. Yeah, I don't need to do that anymore.

Sure. Socialized to have a drink with somebody, but then I'm not just chugging stuff, slamming shots of anything and those kind of things. Because I'm still in that, the culture, go to dinner last night, I mean, it's everywhere. It's everywhere in your face. So it's not anything that ever like,

that I see it and have to have it. It's like, it's not like, oh my God, I got the shakes because I need a drink, right? I can see it all day long, be around it all day long. It'll be, you know, beer in the fridge and a bottle of whiskey on the counter for however long it needs to be there, right? I don't ever feel the need that it's there.

I need to have it. The smell, the taste, all those other things they talk about in counseling doesn't do. Doesn't, all right, somebody's drinking beer, I don't want, right? Yeah. Or, you know, things like that. That doesn't affect me that way, which good for me, but it's good for what I want to do with it and where I think, you know, I don't need those kind of things in my life because I want to be there in a moment for whoever needs me in that moment, right?

And I can't do that if I'm drinking too much. So that was a turning point for me to just seek help, seek assistance. And Tom was pretty good about that too. He's like, hey man, everybody comes to this point in their lives where they've either something happened or it's just something that you come to grips with at one point. And it's normal. It's normal to have to seek some assistance. Or it's normal

for the damage to have occurred, like TBI, especially with all the things that we've done in our lives. All the loud noises, the PTSD or something like that, depression, those kind of things, they happen. And I'm not like anybody else, I'm not above things happening to me either. So all the things that I did affected me the same way, they affect everybody else eventually that they come to grips with. Nobody wants to say that,

like they're dealing with depression or suicidal thoughts, right? There's a lot of guys that going through that. It's like, so I get it. It's not like I ever thought about that, but I get why somebody would say that. Like, I've never been that love to that level of like desperation, but I understand it now Just by talking to guys. So I've talked to guys too about what they were dealing with. And I was like, yeah, yeah, it happened to me too.

I mean, you're not the only one. I mean, we're all in this thing. And eventually, we all realized that all the stuff that we did as cool as it is has affected it some way. And then different levels of stuff. But I get how I guess there's, and we know people who've done it, unfortunately, and the opportunity for all the folks, I'm doing a Mission 22 fundraiser right now. I do that a lot.

It's usually this month in September, it was 48 miles in September, and it's just a fundraiser for Mission 22. There's always something that they're running, that I'll do it. It's usually a physical activity, and then it's just really awareness for this is the thing. These are the thing that guys are dealing with. 48 in September, I'm doing that.

I think I'm pretty, I think I'm done with that. And it's a matter of fact, but it's all those things because I understand now that even talking to the guys that the time from a decision to do something like that, that take your own life, or to even end it accidentally. That's a short window. Yeah. About a short window to come out of that, or it's done. It's over. There's something there in that little window of time that turns the boat for the folks that are in that level of desperation and depression and everything else. Even though they have people in their lives at that point, there's nobody there for them and their minds, right?

And I totally get it. I understand it. But whether you have somebody literally in your life or, like when I wreck my bike, say, wow, that wouldn't have been what I would have wanted like my daughter and my son and my grandkids to remember me by as the last thing. How did he die, right? It's like this guy's done everything in the world. How did he die?

I drank too much erectus bike. You know, it's like, yeah, that was, that really still gets to me like, oh my God, I can't do that. I can't do that to everybody. So, that just, I can't do that. It's just too much. It's fucking crazy.

You know, I've had incidents like that. Several of them, and it's like looking back, you're just like, man, all this shit that I've done, and that's how it would've fucking ended. Yeah. Two o'clock in the morning drunk on a fucking bike. You know, like, damn, that's all that, that's how it ends. And yeah, that woke me up too.

Yep, yep, and it's, and it's fortunate for me, and I'm fortunate that it happened, but fortunately for me, I was able to even get that message out of that whole thing. You know, almost killed myself, I have another opportunity to get my shit together. And in my mind, not let everybody down that way. Because there are some people who, you know, life goes on. I get it. And everybody would be fine. But that's not what I wanted to leave as a memory, a legacy.

Yeah, he did this thing, the other thing, and he has done all this other cool stuff, and then drank too much, kill himself. Yeah. Don't ask. It happens to a lot of us, you know, it does, it really does. Yeah. But, man. So what are you got coming up? What do I get coming up?

Well, hopefully this deal with the clock, it's I ended up dealing with the clock and I'm gonna go work for the clock as an instructor. And so I'm all about right now. I have done some things and I know some things so I just wanna convey that to to convey that to the general population or the law enforcement or the military or anybody who needs to know that stuff.

Tactics, carrying guns, not carrying guns, planning life things, whatever it is. There's more people I think that can take away from some experiences like Pete Vlavers book. He describes a military action, his decision and stuff, and then he talks about how that applies to corporate America, right? Which other people can understand, you know, in that context.

I'm kind of in the same kind of mindset that just because it happened to me in a particular military, the agency, or as a contractor, there are some things there that can be translated into civilian life for other folks to learn from, given their own situation and their own environments. How did they come to the conclusion of this, given my situation? Well, then if this is your other situation, you know, adversity is different for everybody. Timeline's deadlines, people have a work. Okay.

Not a big deal to me, because I've dealt with worse, but that's their adversity. That's what keeps them up at night. So how do you deal with that? How do you manage your time around that? How much effort do you put into that before you get consumed by it, you know, all those kind of things? But really, I like shooting, I like tactics. I think I have some fairly current But really, I like shooting, I like tactics.

I think I have some fairly current fresh skills to pass on to folks. I would definitely say that. And yeah, I enjoy teaching. I do, teaching, coaching, mentoring, training, all that kind of stuff for anybody who wants to know it. training, all that kind of stuff, for anybody who wants to know it. I totally want to do open enrollment classes for stuff, for all the civilians out there who want to just know how to handle, be more comfortable with a gun. If they bought a gun, then be responsible

and learn how to use it. So just give them some tools to use to keep going to the range themselves and to get better at being comfortable with their gun. There's a lot of people that one learn how to use it. So just give them some tools to use to keep going to the reins themselves and to get better at being comfortable with their gun. There's a lot of people that aren't by guns and aren't comfortable carrying them because they're still not comfortable carrying them. But I actually have some people that I've had dealt with training firearms

and they were not carrying them with them because they didn't feel comfortable with them but now they're carrying them every day. They feel comfortable using it. They feel comfortable drawing it from wherever there is the caronet, on-body, off-body. And that's for me that's huge. So I'm well good. Now you have a gun for a reason and now you actually know how to use it. There's so many things that tactics wise, I mean, tactics are tactics. I mean, it's not rocket surgery, right? But there are some ways to be more efficient at doing things.

That's all I would be interested to say or convey to others that are doing the same type of work Regardless what it is Military tactics CQB stuff shooting a gun You know all those kind of things common sense approach to all these things like don't make it difficult You know, that's that's a lot. I do see that a lot in some of the training that's going on Is in trying to make it unique to themselves. They provide something unique that nobody else provides They make it more difficult and they add too many steps or they make it just make it sound more difficult than what is because It's coming from them, right?

But that's my whole opposite concept about training. You know, don't make it difficult. Don't make it any harder than what it is. It's pretty easy, right? That's refreshing. Shooting a gun, right? Keep the sights on the target. Don't move the sights, press the trigger, right?

And then keep the sights steady. It can be fucking fun. It can be, and it is. You are allowed to have fun. Yeah. And the classes that I've taught so far That's the last thing I say right is have fun like okay, there's got to be safe

Downranges that way and keep your muzzle point of that way muzzle awareness and Learn something today open yourself to learn something today and open yourself, learn something today, and have fun doing it. And, you know, it's the mistake thing too. You know, oh my God, you know, we're gonna have to do some crazy stuff. You know, this is super secret commando teaching me how to shoot again. We're gonna do some crazy stuff.

Like, no, that's not difficult. I'll teach you how to shoot like a commando. Guess what, it's the same way everybody else shoots a gun. It's a good one. It's doing more of it, so they're good at it. Well, man, I just wanna say again, it was a real honor to be able to interview you and I wish you the best of luck.

And for anybody that's one to jump into your training, you are certainly a wealth of knowledge for anybody looking to learn anything in that sector. And I know you're just gonna do phenomenal. Well, yeah, thank you. And thank you for having me. And I was describing how nervous I was gonna be doing this because I'm not used to doing this kind of You know, was it as bad as your thought I was gonna be air all in worse. Yes. No

That was good and but you know how many people have been in the seat This is an incredible experience literally. I'm knowing you from working with you and in all the other stuff But honestly, this, this is a great program you've put together, all the information that you have from infrastructure stuff to preparedness, to stories about common stories where guys can go to school from. It's a great program. And to see what you've done over the years with this, it's great.

And I'm just glad to be here. Man, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. But let's go get some dinner. Let's do it. Cheers. Thanks, brother. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day job is sprinkled on our PTSD.

So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington and around the world. You document in a very compelling way. All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding.

Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast, wherever you listen. like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast. Wherever you listen.