Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
Speaker 1: And we continue now with part two of our conversation
Speaker 1: with mac McKinney, right after these brief messages from our
Speaker 1: generals sponsors. So a rock is where you got blowed up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we went in. So I was doing interrogations and
Speaker 2: I begged, I begged to go on a mission, go
Speaker 2: outside the wire. Please let me go.
Speaker 1: Oh, because you're stuck behind doing interrogations. If you want
Speaker 1: to be out in the field, I want to be
Speaker 1: on the field.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, this is great, man, but this
Speaker 2: is like, this is like punching a heavy bag. It's
Speaker 2: not gonna hit your bag, right, and it gets boring. Uh,
Speaker 2: And they finally let me go. They gave me a team.
Speaker 2: We worked up. We had intel there was going to
Speaker 2: be a an al Qaida lieutenant at such and such building.
Speaker 2: We're gonna hood over the head bring them in, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's a big operation.
Speaker 1: Just bring them in mean alive or dead? Or did
Speaker 1: you want them alive? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You want them alive?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So we got to the building. I mean,
Speaker 2: and this is a bigger this is this isn't just
Speaker 2: like five guys. This is like, you know, you have
Speaker 2: a security team that actually cordon's off like a two
Speaker 2: block radius. Then you have an extraction team which is
Speaker 2: also your delivery team, but your distraction team which is
Speaker 2: waiting on the street so you can you know, high
Speaker 2: tail it out, and then the assault team, which was
Speaker 2: us when we went into the building. We went into
Speaker 2: the building. Man, there was nobody there. They had a
Speaker 2: bunch of stuff that was laught. All we got we
Speaker 2: well it doesn't at her because we never brought it back,
Speaker 2: but there was a there was a lot of intel there.
Speaker 2: I went back up on the second floor as my
Speaker 2: team was gathering all the information on the front or
Speaker 2: on the first floor, and because we had this big
Speaker 2: hole blown that was blown through the wall that looked
Speaker 2: out onto the street. And it's so easy for me
Speaker 2: to talk about this because I have no memory of
Speaker 2: what happened after this To this day, I don't remember.
Speaker 2: I like to joke about it because of that, because
Speaker 2: I don't have any memory of it.
Speaker 1: No physical pain, No physical pain, well that moment's pain.
Speaker 2: No, No, it was like I don't even I can't
Speaker 2: even recall hearing a boom. I just remember looking out
Speaker 2: onto the street, and being up higher, I can look
Speaker 2: around and make sure everything. You know, we're not going
Speaker 2: to walk out into something, right, because we're safe in
Speaker 2: this building. We leave, we're not safe anymore. So I
Speaker 2: want to make sure that me and my team are
Speaker 2: good to go. That's the last thing I remember. I
Speaker 2: woke up several days later with a chaplain sitting next
Speaker 2: to my bed. I come to and I was like,
Speaker 2: what the hell you know I'm looking at I know
Speaker 2: him in a hospital, right, And then I got kind
Speaker 2: of mad because I'm like, I didn't die right by
Speaker 2: my whole destiny about coming back in the flag dray Coffin.
Speaker 1: I just I'm like, oh crap, man, suping legs are wondering.
Speaker 2: I did that once before in Desert's form. I got
Speaker 2: a piece of strapping on my head up here, but
Speaker 2: uh yeah, I did that once before.
Speaker 1: But but like am I am? I all intact?
Speaker 2: That didn't hit me at first. I'm I'm just kind
Speaker 2: of like, oh man, And and I hear a noise
Speaker 2: because the chaplain jumped up, and I look over and
Speaker 2: I you know, I see him, and I see his uniform.
Speaker 2: He's got crossed right here on his chest and it's
Speaker 2: so great. That's wonderful. Uh And and he looks at me,
Speaker 2: says certain, and he says, I got to tell you something.
Speaker 2: You are a one lucky individual. He says, you died.
Speaker 2: I said what they said. Yeah, when they brought you in,
Speaker 2: they were treating you and you flatlined and the doctor
Speaker 2: brought you back. It's like I'm trying to think, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, nope, I got no stories of bright lights
Speaker 2: or anything. So I was, as far as I know,
Speaker 2: I was just asleep. And he says, he says, you
Speaker 2: have somebody watching over you.
Speaker 1: Definitely do.
Speaker 2: And I says, sir, I gotta tell you no disrespect
Speaker 2: to your position in life. But he don't want me.
Speaker 2: I'm like highlander up in here. I can't die. I've tried,
Speaker 2: and that the Chaplain's just looking at me like, oh
Speaker 2: my gosh.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: And then people started coming in telling me that they're
Speaker 2: you know, I'm being processed for medical retirement. I already
Speaker 2: had over twenty years.
Speaker 1: What happened to you? What was wrong with your body?
Speaker 2: Oh? Just I mean just scarring. Uh. I got some
Speaker 2: shrapnel scars on my on my left half and uh,
Speaker 2: my back just was obliterated. My shoulder is this dislocated?
Speaker 2: It never really healed? Right?
Speaker 1: So what happened? Was there a bomb in there?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, no, I mean.
Speaker 2: There was an id underneath the building. Uh, and the
Speaker 2: dead and so it's almost like we were set up
Speaker 2: and it.
Speaker 1: Was someone else step on it. Oh no, they remotely
Speaker 1: activated it from a phone. Once you got to a phone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, probably a phone.
Speaker 1: So they were watching you somewhere. Yeah yeah, did you
Speaker 1: fly off the second floor.
Speaker 2: Well, so this this youngster came in. He came in
Speaker 2: to see a friend in the hospital there. It was
Speaker 2: like a mass hospital, right, He come in to see
Speaker 2: a friend. He saw me, and he's like, Sorge. He said,
Speaker 2: my god, man, he says, are you okay? I says,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Man, they're kicking me out, and he says, brother.
Speaker 2: He says, you don't even know. He says, man, the
Speaker 2: only thing missing from you was a cape because you
Speaker 2: flew straight across the street. That's what he told me.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I like to make a joke of
Speaker 2: it because it's I have no memory of it, and
Speaker 2: I'm very thankful. I'm very thankful I don't because I
Speaker 2: probably have nervous breakdown, but I have no memory of it,
Speaker 2: but it messed me up for a while. And they
Speaker 2: come in and they start telling me about the process
Speaker 2: seeing me for medical retirement, and I was like, we're
Speaker 2: not doing this. I'm going back to Rack.
Speaker 1: And he looked at me and they were.
Speaker 2: Like it was like they were military, but they were
Speaker 2: like the hospital social workers, right, And it says, hard
Speaker 2: and why do you want to go back to Rack?
Speaker 2: I looked dead in the eyes. So I'm not done
Speaker 2: killing Muslims yet. If I wasn't getting out before I
Speaker 2: said that, I was definitely getting out when I after
Speaker 2: I said that, because they just like looked at me
Speaker 2: and they're like oh, and then he walked out. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Next thing you know, I got a guy sitting across
Speaker 2: from me with his legs cross going. So how does
Speaker 2: that make you feel?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Sitting Yeah. Yeah. So now
Speaker 1: you're out and your home and you're back in Monthly, which.
Speaker 2: Was never really my home originally.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Okay, but you're in months yeah, Well, I because
Speaker 1: it was my home record, it was a mailing address
Speaker 1: for a lot of years.
Speaker 2: I had joined the Army from there when I was
Speaker 2: trying to work. You know, I had no job skills.
Speaker 1: President, there's really not much of a job in the
Speaker 1: United States for killing Muslims. Well, we the teams, we
Speaker 1: would always around like what you were good at? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we tell people, or we used to talk to
Speaker 2: my self as a man, I said, I don't know
Speaker 2: what I'm gonna do when we get out. I said,
Speaker 2: there's only three things I could really do anything. I'd
Speaker 2: be a hit man for the mob, a pimp, or
Speaker 2: a drug dealer. I don't really have any other skills.
Speaker 2: And I was like, that's so true, because I had
Speaker 2: no education. I had a GED. I got a ged
Speaker 2: was Marie or in the Marine Corps. They made me
Speaker 2: because I could have cared less. And I have no
Speaker 2: job skills. So what am I doing. I'm twenty five
Speaker 2: years old working as a labor work for a commercial
Speaker 2: roofing company. Hard work, right as a labor And I
Speaker 2: was on that roof and I'm like shoveling stuff over
Speaker 2: the side into the big, big trash bend they have,
Speaker 2: and I'm like listening to the foreman talk down to me,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, dude, you don't even know me. Because
Speaker 2: like two years before that. I mean, I was a
Speaker 2: bodyguard for President Bush when he came to small Year.
Speaker 2: He lost the election to Clinton, and he twenty five
Speaker 2: Marines got picked to be his basically bodyguards of The
Speaker 2: official title is bullet catcher as all was, you know,
Speaker 2: because he's in a war zone, right but still still
Speaker 2: and you're gonna talk down to me, man, redneck piece
Speaker 2: of tracks.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought.
Speaker 2: I walked right off the job site into the Army recruiter's.
Speaker 1: Office and that's when you join the army.
Speaker 2: And say, hey, man, when's the bustle league? Dude? Come
Speaker 2: out of here? And I went back when my duty.
Speaker 1: But now you're forty five ish and inn Muncie. You
Speaker 1: spent twenty five years developing a very unique skill set
Speaker 1: that doesn't translate back to the States. No, what are
Speaker 1: you doing so nothing? But you're hating Muslims.
Speaker 2: But I'm hating Muslims. And that's the first time I noticed.
Speaker 2: I mean, they had always been there, but I've never
Speaker 2: noticed them before. And here they are everywhere, at the Walmart,
Speaker 2: at the Walmart, oh, at Applebee's. My wife at the
Speaker 2: at the at the time, she would get so nervous
Speaker 2: going to going shopping.
Speaker 1: Your wife then's name was Dana.
Speaker 2: Tell us about Emily, Oh man, I was introduced to
Speaker 2: Emily when she was four years old.
Speaker 1: This is Dana's data's daughter. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Her dad's a foreign national. He's from Mexico, and uh,
Speaker 2: he got in a lot of trouble here. So he
Speaker 2: was deported with basically a sticker on his butt saying
Speaker 2: do not return. Right, So she didn't have a dad,
Speaker 2: and me and her just became like best buddies.
Speaker 1: To hear her talk about you is phenomenal. There's a
Speaker 1: short third minute documentary about what we're about to discuss
Speaker 1: and your life. We've caught it up to that point.
Speaker 1: The name of the documentary is Stranger at the Gates, right,
Speaker 1: Stranger at the Gate, and it's an Academy Award nominee.
Speaker 1: When I watched it and I listened to Emily speak
Speaker 1: about you, she revered you. You were her dad. Oh
Speaker 1: and she was just a pup at this time, right
Speaker 1: four or five, six, seven years old, and you're her.
Speaker 1: You take her riding, you take her driving, where you
Speaker 1: are she is, and you were you were her father. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you cherish this girl, oh my gosh, more than
Speaker 1: anything and given your unique skill set. Anybody hears a
Speaker 1: harm harms a hair on her head. I imagine you
Speaker 1: could have done more than waterboard.
Speaker 2: Gladly go back to jail. I mean, I've been to
Speaker 2: jail before, gladly returned, gladly returned for an extended stay.
Speaker 1: Have no problem with that. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you're carrying this hate for Muslims and frankly, this innate
Speaker 1: disgust that your destiny was stolen from you because now
Speaker 1: you're alive, walking around the United States and you didn't
Speaker 1: go out the way you thought you were.
Speaker 2: I had no purpose except for being this little girl's dad.
Speaker 2: Except for being a little girl's dad.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: So I had come up with a point. I found
Speaker 2: out that these Muslims, there's a lot of them here.
Speaker 2: Oh God, no, huh huh. So I had went and
Speaker 2: found out where their building was at that time. It
Speaker 2: was actually in a house that was in a neighborhood
Speaker 2: that was right off Ball State University. Is the is
Speaker 2: the university there in Muncie. It was right off campus,
Speaker 2: right and I looked at it, and this is their mosque.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know what you call it. Well yeah, yeah, mosque.
Speaker 1: But this was their house of worship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was their house of where it was basically
Speaker 2: just a house in a neighborhood, right, And I looked
Speaker 2: around and I was like, I can't do nothing here, man,
Speaker 2: this is not a a agreeable option because of all
Speaker 2: of the Americans around here.
Speaker 1: And that's the way I looked at it. Did you
Speaker 1: feel like they were a threat? Oh? Absolutely, you felt
Speaker 1: like the Muslims that were at Walmart, at Applebee's and
Speaker 1: hanging out this house at their place of worship and
Speaker 1: we're going to school with your daughter, yeah, or a
Speaker 1: risk mm hmm. You literally thought they were looking just
Speaker 1: for ways to covertly murder you and your family and
Speaker 1: Americans absolutely and destroy your country absolutely, which is the
Speaker 1: only thing that mattered to you in the world was
Speaker 1: your country and your daughter. Yep. And you look back
Speaker 1: on it now and that is the most perturbed thinking
Speaker 1: on the face of the planet. But that is where
Speaker 1: you were. Yeah. Yeah, so you come up with a plan.
Speaker 2: I had, you know, because all my experiences, I knew
Speaker 2: how to make an ID. It's really very simple, you know,
Speaker 2: a bomb. Yeah, and uh, I don't I don't speak
Speaker 2: of it. More than that usually because the FBI had
Speaker 2: me sign paperwork that I would not disclose what was
Speaker 2: involved in the bomb.
Speaker 1: We're not going to talk about how to make it.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's any I don't think that part
Speaker 1: of the story does anybody any good. But let's just
Speaker 1: say so, after twenty five years, you could make a bomb.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So, And I had started putting together over
Speaker 2: two years with the intent, with the intent that detonated
Speaker 2: somewhere with these Muslims. I couldn't do it here because
Speaker 2: of this house. It's in a neighborhood. Too many Americans around, right,
Speaker 2: so the risk to others was just too substantial.
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to do that.
Speaker 2: Then they moved and they got They took over an
Speaker 2: office building that was kind of out in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere, off the beaten path.
Speaker 1: Perfect became a target.
Speaker 2: I got it now. So when I actually went into
Speaker 2: the mosque that one day, the bomb was done. I
Speaker 2: just needed time, a time and date, which I'd already
Speaker 2: decided was going to be during Ramadan, which is the
Speaker 2: holy month. Because it's kind of like Catholics and Christmas Mass, right,
Speaker 2: everybody's there.
Speaker 1: So there were there was the biggest opportunity for the
Speaker 1: greatest about a carnage and damage on that day.
Speaker 2: Oh, it was going to be a Friday afternoon during
Speaker 2: the month of Ramadan, because I knew they would all
Speaker 2: be there and you were going to plant this thing
Speaker 2: at their place and blow them up. I already had
Speaker 2: a place for it everything. It was just a matter
Speaker 2: of just waiting.
Speaker 1: You realize that that would make you no different than
Speaker 1: the men who flew the planes into the World Trade Zone.
Speaker 1: I know that now, But you didn't see yourself as
Speaker 1: a terrorist. You saw yourself as a patriot. Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you find it at all ironic that one of
Speaker 1: your memories of your grandfather was wearing you out for
Speaker 1: hanging out with a quote and I'm quoting what your
Speaker 1: grandfather said, colored kid. And your greatest visceral reaction as
Speaker 1: an adult was when a Muslim person side across from
Speaker 1: your daughter. Do you find it interesting that from a
Speaker 1: very young age, that idea was somewhere in the deepest
Speaker 1: rests of your brain, probably baked into you.
Speaker 2: I didn't even I didn't even till I had already changed.
Speaker 2: Didn't even see the irony in it all, because it
Speaker 2: literally is the same thing literally is the same thing
Speaker 2: of what I felt as a little kid to what
Speaker 2: my daughter was feeling right now.
Speaker 1: And how do you how do you process that?
Speaker 2: When I finally figured that out, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2: I was kind of like I was ashamed. Well, I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I spend a lot of time in the
Speaker 2: shame arena anyway, just dealing with my past. But it
Speaker 2: was there was just so much shame.
Speaker 1: It was like, man, you.
Speaker 2: Are the dumbest individual. Walk upright, man, I mean, how
Speaker 2: could you not see this?
Speaker 1: So you walk into this newly opened house of worship
Speaker 1: for Muslims in Muncie, Indiana, and you are on part
Speaker 1: recon mission because if you're looking around, you're also seeing
Speaker 1: where the softest place is for this bomb to blow
Speaker 1: up and everything else I'm assuming.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean I had already had a spot picked
Speaker 2: out that was on the opposite side of the building
Speaker 2: because there were buildings over here, and I knew that
Speaker 2: they would be hit by some of the debris, but
Speaker 2: I was trying to make it as less as possible,
Speaker 2: so that would have been an acceptable collateral damage. In
Speaker 2: military planning, there was an acceptable and an unacceptable collateral
Speaker 2: damage that would have been acceptable.
Speaker 1: So I read that when you were going off on
Speaker 1: the Muslim community, your daughter looked at you like you
Speaker 1: were nuts, and she couldn't understand why you were so
Speaker 1: angry and had so much hatred toward Buslims, no differently
Speaker 1: than you didn't understand your grandfather exactly. And so part
Speaker 1: of the idea of showing up at this mosque was
Speaker 1: to find out the truth about these people so that
Speaker 1: she would understand why you blew them up.
Speaker 2: One day, I was looking for tangible proof I knew
Speaker 2: the way I felt was the right way.
Speaker 1: You knew they were murderers, Oh I knew, and you
Speaker 1: know they were head choppers, and you knew they were
Speaker 1: here to destroy America. That's all you knew that you
Speaker 1: wanted to prove to her.
Speaker 2: I needed something to show her. I needed, you know.
Speaker 2: So I went there, introduced myself as somebody just wanted
Speaker 2: to learn a little bit more about Islam, right, even
Speaker 2: though I come from the mindset that even today a
Speaker 2: lot of people say I learned all I needed to
Speaker 2: learn about Islam on nine to eleven. But that's the way.
Speaker 2: I just wanted that proof because I knew I was
Speaker 2: going to get caught. I'm not get away with this.
Speaker 2: Are you serious? You know? I mean you no, I didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't because I saw it as that patriot, patriot,
Speaker 2: another chance to die for my country. I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to get a flag, Dray Coffin. I would not even
Speaker 2: get a military funeral because of what I did. And
Speaker 2: none of that mattered. I actually believe that years down
Speaker 2: the road they were going to build statues to me.
Speaker 2: I actually believe that in my own mind.
Speaker 1: You know. So you go in this place to.
Speaker 2: So I went in, yeah, and I mean and I
Speaker 2: was met with kindness. And I remember walking in and uh,
Speaker 2: you know this one guy he actually played NBA. He
Speaker 2: was African American and he was sitting on a bench
Speaker 2: and he got got up in the shoe room because
Speaker 2: you take your shoes off before you go in there.
Speaker 2: And it took him like three minutes to stand up,
Speaker 2: that's how tall he was. African American gentleman. He recently
Speaker 2: passed and it was a very sad moment for the community.
Speaker 2: But he played NBA basketball in the seventies. He dealt
Speaker 2: with a lot of racism himself, right because of that.
Speaker 2: But you know, he looked at me, and he smiled,
Speaker 2: and he says, can I help you? Because he knew
Speaker 2: I was like, why am I here? You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can only imagine this twenty five years of
Speaker 1: being basically a rugged jar head walking into a place
Speaker 1: that he hates and he despises everybody in it. You
Speaker 1: couldn't have been walking in with a big, old charismatic
Speaker 1: smile on your face. It was rough. It was rough.
Speaker 2: In the film, people say that they could tell something
Speaker 2: was wrong, right, I'm not an actor. I tried, but
Speaker 2: it was hard to cover up a lot of things, right.
Speaker 2: I tried to smile. I tried to I shook hands,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: But it was rough.
Speaker 2: And then I got introduced to the Southern African American
Speaker 2: gentleman closer my own age. He's a little bit younger
Speaker 2: than me, and he's the one who actually handed me
Speaker 2: a koran. I know in the film it says Bbe
Speaker 2: handed me a koran, but it was actually him. He says,
Speaker 2: He says, hey, he says, you want to learn about Islam.
Speaker 2: I want you to take his home and I want
Speaker 2: you to read it. Come back and find me when
Speaker 2: you got questions. I tell Muslims out to day, I said,
Speaker 2: if you ever anybody comes up to you and they
Speaker 2: want to learn it, they want to know about Islam,
Speaker 2: hand him a Koran and tell them to come back
Speaker 2: and find you when they got questions, right, because that's
Speaker 2: the best advice in the world. And I was overjoyed
Speaker 2: at this point because now you got the doctor went
Speaker 2: to the bookstore and got a Koran. I never even
Speaker 2: thought of that, never even thought of that. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I got the Holy Grail to evil.
Speaker 1: They just handed it to it.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, they're going to explain it
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: It was like, that is hilarious. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is oh.
Speaker 2: I couldn't even imagine me and cruse of.
Speaker 1: My daughter that blowing these folks up and terrorize them
Speaker 1: and murdering them is the right thing to do.
Speaker 2: So I jumped into it, man, I jumped into I
Speaker 2: I I that was ended up becoming my passion. I'm
Speaker 2: going to read this book and I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 2: highlight underline all kinds of stuff. Man, you thought I
Speaker 2: was in a Bible study or something, right, And I'm
Speaker 2: just I'm going out. I'm going back to the mosque.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Ramadon. Yet I was there more often than
Speaker 2: some of the Muslims were, and I'm going back and
Speaker 2: hey man, what about this. This don't sound too cool.
Speaker 2: And then they explain it to me and it's like, well,
Speaker 2: I was contextualizing a lot, and they would explain, Okay,
Speaker 2: here's what happened before, and here's what happened after, and
Speaker 2: that's the reason this is right. Oh, that's not a
Speaker 2: lot different than the old Tustaman. Okay, I got you,
Speaker 2: I got you, okay, h And I go read some
Speaker 2: more and I come back and you know, and then finally,
Speaker 2: you know, with the other stuff that I had going
Speaker 2: on on my own subconscious or whatever, I know, it's
Speaker 2: a change was happening. And one of the biggest things
Speaker 2: on the surface was the fact that through reading this
Speaker 2: book and spending time with these people, you know, it's
Speaker 2: the same thing with all religions, Right, we have a
Speaker 2: text and we try to live our life as close
Speaker 2: to that text as we can. Right, it's impossible to
Speaker 2: be one hundred percent because we're human and we're.
Speaker 1: Not making the first twenty five years text for you
Speaker 1: was probably the Marine Handbook.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Absolutely, he's to be able to recite stuff by heart,
Speaker 2: not a problem. So I'm reading this and you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: there's some things in there that are questionable, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: well they got explained to me. And then I keep reading.
Speaker 2: It's like, there's not really any hate in this book,
Speaker 2: and there's not it's not here, you know, and I'm thinking, okay, well,
Speaker 2: what about these people over here, the people in my community, right,
Speaker 2: we're acting close to what it says in this so
Speaker 2: they're actually being what would be quote unquote good Muslims. Right,
Speaker 2: all of my understanding of what Islam was and how
Speaker 2: Muslims act were the ones that were shooting at me.
Speaker 2: And I could find things in the Quran that they
Speaker 2: were doing that was un Islamic to begin with. And
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, so I should not be getting
Speaker 2: references about what this faith is from them, but instead
Speaker 2: from them. So that started things changing. I'd never consider
Speaker 2: myself an intellectual person, but I started. I started going
Speaker 2: through this, I started thinking about it, and I kept reading.
Speaker 2: I kept reading, and you know, I come across passages
Speaker 2: of chapter five, thirty second verse where it says, to
Speaker 2: save one human life is as if you had saved
Speaker 2: all of humanity, and I'm like, wow, wow, But to
Speaker 2: kill or take one human life is as if you
Speaker 2: killed all of humanity, so that totally blew these people away.
Speaker 2: I had no nothing for them anymore.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back, all right. I'm a Christian. I
Speaker 1: also like to consider myself. I really like to understand
Speaker 1: different viewpoints. I also think faith regardless of your denomination,
Speaker 1: your Christian denomination, or whether you're you subscribe to Islam
Speaker 1: or Hindu or what, I think it's a very personal thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna tread lightly. Well, let me say it
Speaker 1: a different way. I don't do much lightly. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tread respectfully. I know that saying. I've heard it before.
Speaker 1: To take one life is to take all of humanity,
Speaker 1: and to save one life is save all of humanity,
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's close, right. I know I'm
Speaker 1: not quoting the Koran, but that's the Gist's what's the version,
Speaker 1: Chapter five two, verse five thirty two. The men who
Speaker 1: flew the planes into the world trades and in the
Speaker 1: Pentagon that Americans today who served there cleaning it up
Speaker 1: are still dying of cancers, some of which don't even
Speaker 1: have a name. So the three thousand odd people that
Speaker 1: died on that day are just a drop in the
Speaker 1: bucket of the people that are still dying from that event,
Speaker 1: and it is horrific. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: who are Muslim, who are American Muslims, who are affected
Speaker 1: no differently by that event than I am, exactly. But
Speaker 1: the fact is the people who flew those planes into
Speaker 1: those buildings were yelling Allah bar and subscribed to a
Speaker 1: faith that they called Islam. And what five point thirty
Speaker 1: two says and what they did don't agree, No, they don't.
Speaker 1: I want to give you an opportunity to a largely
Speaker 1: non Muslim audience to help me, as an American and
Speaker 1: a Christian, understand that.
Speaker 2: And that is the difficult And I appreciate you asking
Speaker 2: me that question.
Speaker 1: I really do.
Speaker 2: I I'm being very serious because that that that's the
Speaker 2: kind of questions that need to be asked, right and
Speaker 2: and and and and Unfortunately, there's not a lot of
Speaker 2: Muslims that are willing.
Speaker 1: To go there. No, there's not. And that's also a
Speaker 1: problem asking that's respectfully, they're their own worst enemy to
Speaker 1: their faith by not going there, just like a Christian
Speaker 1: is his own worst enemy to his faith. When the
Speaker 1: over someone who's on the fence about faith and Christianity
Speaker 1: and they hear the narrative, believe like me, or you're
Speaker 1: rotten in hell for the rest of your life. If
Speaker 1: that is what my faith is, we got a tough
Speaker 1: thing to sell, you know what I mean? And that
Speaker 1: is not Our faith is about love and grace and
Speaker 1: redemption and forgiveness and and and all of that. I
Speaker 1: do not believe that Muslims are gathered around a Kuran
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to kill the next three
Speaker 1: thousand Americans. And I hear what you're saying about five
Speaker 1: point thirty two, but it is hard for an American
Speaker 1: Christian to know who those people were and what they
Speaker 1: were subscribed to, as well as Osama bin Laden, as
Speaker 1: well as all that's going on across the country and
Speaker 1: in the Middle East right now. Help us, help us
Speaker 1: understand it.
Speaker 2: Sure, so, I'm not a geopolitical expert by no means
Speaker 2: need neither, But I do have an understanding Christianity, which
Speaker 2: I have the utmost respect for and love. Matter of fact,
Speaker 2: somebody asked me one time how hard it was for
Speaker 2: me to convert from Christianity to Islam. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I wasn't a Christian, and they said what I said, No,
Speaker 2: I was not a Christian, I said, I would never
Speaker 2: say it was a Christian, I said, and that's only
Speaker 2: because of my love and respect for that religion. The
Speaker 2: way I was acting, the way I was speaking, that's not.
Speaker 1: Christian you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so it's out of that respect for Christianity.
Speaker 2: But with the terrorists, because that's what they were, the terrorists,
Speaker 2: they are labeled as Muslims because that was the claim.
Speaker 2: Too many people came out afterwards claiming that yes they
Speaker 2: were Muslim, they were devout.
Speaker 1: No, they weren't.
Speaker 2: I my religion has a restriction to where I can't
Speaker 2: say somebody's not a Muslim. I can't say that.
Speaker 1: You're not allowed to judge it. Yeah, Christianity has the
Speaker 1: same same deal.
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to say that they weren't Muslims.
Speaker 2: I will say for the for the simple fact that
Speaker 2: they were not in any way, any way, shape or form,
Speaker 2: acting Islamically. They were driven, brainwashed, I don't know, agreed retribution, payback.
Speaker 2: One of the things that really got Osama bin Laden
Speaker 2: started was desert storm. He had told the Saudi government
Speaker 2: because where that's where he was from and where most
Speaker 2: of the hijackers were from.
Speaker 1: Right an American ally, Yeah, I know, I don't understand,
Speaker 1: which a lot of people did not forget.
Speaker 2: I do not want to get on that soapbox. But anyway,
Speaker 2: so he offered his Mujahideen holy warriors right from Afghanistan
Speaker 2: to come back to Saudi Arabia or to go to
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia where he was from, to defend against Iraq,
Speaker 2: because that was Saddam's plan, was he was gonna keep
Speaker 2: going south right.
Speaker 1: He ye, and then yep, and until you guys showed up.
Speaker 2: Well that that was what hurt, you know, as I
Speaker 2: you know, excuse my reference, but he was butt hurt.
Speaker 2: He got but hurt because because the Saudi government said,
Speaker 2: now we got the Americans coming, it's cool. You guys
Speaker 2: just stayed there and it's all right. That's what started
Speaker 2: the whole contemplation of how to get back at America.
Speaker 2: And the fact that we were in fidels, which is
Speaker 2: not even a proper term to be used in that
Speaker 2: in that statement, but and we were on the holy land,
Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia's you know, two holy sites in Saudi Arabia's
Speaker 2: three holy sites in Islam ones in Jerusalem and the
Speaker 2: other two are in Saudi Arabia, and so we kind
Speaker 2: of like dirty up to the land. In his eyes, right,
Speaker 2: he did have a lot of geopolitical interests. He was
Speaker 2: a man of means, money and he was going to
Speaker 2: do everything he could in his mind. Well, I don't
Speaker 2: even know what his understanding of Islam was. I have
Speaker 2: no idea, And to be honest with you, I'm not
Speaker 2: really interested because he's nobody.
Speaker 1: To me. He was.
Speaker 2: He was a bad person. I will say that he
Speaker 2: found a way because he was a very correct, charismatic person.
Speaker 2: I mean, look at what he did. You know, he
Speaker 2: was able to get people to follow along with his ideas,
Speaker 2: even as far as giving up their own life. That
Speaker 2: is brings back stories of John Jones.
Speaker 1: David Kriesh, I was just about to say to you
Speaker 1: and to our listeners as you're listening to this, what
Speaker 1: you're saying is men of power take uneducated folks and
Speaker 1: perturb a religion to make them extreme in order to
Speaker 1: carry out acts that have nothing to do with faith
Speaker 1: or religion but are more about geopolitical and social issues.
Speaker 1: And if you have your hard time to get your
Speaker 1: arms around that. As a Christian American, you need to
Speaker 1: try to remember that right next to often times strung
Speaker 1: up black Americans for the burning Christian cross yeah and
Speaker 1: bibles that is not Christianity. Is a perturbing of a faith. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you can't get your arms around that this
Speaker 1: has happened among many fays and many cultures, then you'll
Speaker 1: never understand that the people who subscribe to Islam that
Speaker 1: flew the planes into the buildings and the Pentagon are
Speaker 1: not with the vast majority of the people worshiping in
Speaker 1: mosques think or believe absolutely, you know and it but
Speaker 1: you hate Muslims. Well, I'm gonna let you get to
Speaker 1: the rest of it here in a minute. But is
Speaker 1: that a fair statement what I said? Absolutely, But you
Speaker 1: didn't know that when you showed up and you asked
Speaker 1: kron and you're going to prove to your daughter while
Speaker 1: blowing these folks up is a good thing. And then
Speaker 1: people started hugging you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know that was not to mention being a veteran,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean I hugged people anyway, you know,
Speaker 2: which has got me into some trouble because in Islam
Speaker 2: we're not to shake hands or to hug women, right
Speaker 2: that are not related to us. So I was speaking
Speaker 2: at a Holocaust museum in Chicago and Jesse Jackson's daughter
Speaker 2: came there to see me, and she came up to
Speaker 2: me and just reached out and give me a hug.
Speaker 2: There was pictures taken that became a total social media
Speaker 2: nightmare for me. Really, yes, because we call them the
Speaker 2: halal police. Right, Halal means permissible, Haram means impermissible. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what was happening was haram. We call them the
Speaker 2: halal police because they'll come out, Oh, you.
Speaker 1: Can't do that.
Speaker 2: You can't do that, brother, Oh what do you thinking?
Speaker 2: What are you thinking?
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, my gosh, man, the woman hugged me.
Speaker 2: The woman hugged me, and.
Speaker 1: By the way, and there's nothing behind us, so take
Speaker 1: a pill.
Speaker 2: Well I did feel that way, I really did. At first,
Speaker 2: I became very defensive and I lasked out as some
Speaker 2: of these people, and then one person calmly explained it
Speaker 2: to me. He says, yes, of course, there was nothing
Speaker 2: meant by what you were doing, nothing at all from
Speaker 2: either person involved in that. But you're a public figure now,
Speaker 2: people look up to you. Especially the young people. They
Speaker 2: see stuff like that. It confuses them. Yes, was there
Speaker 2: any harm done?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Not really. My wife knew about it. She didn't care.
Speaker 2: And that's the only one I'd care to be upset
Speaker 2: about it, right, because she knows. But it's how it perceived, right,
Speaker 2: And and so you know, that's a lot of times
Speaker 2: when a woman comes towards me, you know, and I
Speaker 2: know she's gonna ask to shake my hand, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's it. I just put my hand up to
Speaker 2: my chest. I think I did that out there, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right, you didn't. You did.
Speaker 3: It's done as a means of respect, not disrespect. So
Speaker 3: there's a matter of this bomb you made.
Speaker 1: So now you've found out these people in this mosque
Speaker 1: or loving decent people, and you're not going to explode
Speaker 1: them anymore. But le's they shows up at your apartment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if I can, let me go back a little bit, Yeah,
Speaker 2: to explain the whole concept of what you were thinking.
Speaker 2: Because of the ignorance, right, surrounded by not only Muslims
Speaker 2: with their own faith, but Christians also back in the
Speaker 2: Middle A, right, a large part of christiendom was ignorant
Speaker 2: they couldn't read and write, right, they were serfs and
Speaker 2: they worked, and that's all they did. They didn't They're
Speaker 2: the only people that could read and write were the priests,
Speaker 2: and they were all families. And the Bible at that
Speaker 2: time was in Latin anyway, So the priest told you
Speaker 2: what the Bible said. They were the interpreters of the
Speaker 2: Bible exactly, which is not any different than what a
Speaker 2: minister or preacher is now is an interpreter of of
Speaker 2: what it's saying, right to to give out to his
Speaker 2: to his people, to this congregation, right, and and and
Speaker 2: that's and that's good. It should be that that's what
Speaker 2: the moms do, right, right, the good of moms. So
Speaker 2: which I will get to. So we have crusades, we
Speaker 2: have the heresy of the knights. Templars, right, nice templars,
Speaker 2: didn't do anything wrong. French king and the pope at
Speaker 2: the time got together. France was broke. Templars are controlling
Speaker 2: all the land in the Middle East, in the area
Speaker 2: of Jerusalem and surrounding areas. So oh, let's make them heretics,
Speaker 2: and that way we just confiscate their property. So now
Speaker 2: we're not broke, right, that's a true story that actually
Speaker 2: happened Afghanistan. We had captured a or not we not me,
Speaker 2: but the American forces there had captured a would be
Speaker 2: suicide bomber. He was going to drive in a truck
Speaker 2: full of explosives into the gate at Camp leather Neet,
Speaker 2: which had been done anyway, eventually got done anyway, It's
Speaker 2: not by him. So I sat in on this interrogation.
Speaker 2: This guy, the guy who was doing it, was doing
Speaker 2: the interrogation, was actually a Muslim. It was a marine
Speaker 2: who had converted Islam, married a local girl, okay, and
Speaker 2: he was all into it. Man. I used to tease
Speaker 2: him all the time in a fun way, but really
Speaker 2: I could have just like cut his throat right there.
Speaker 2: That's the way I felt about him, right. But he
Speaker 2: would keep this little knapsack and he'd have a Koran
Speaker 2: in English and a Koran in Pashtun, which was what
Speaker 2: his wife spoke, right, So he was he was constantly
Speaker 2: looking at it, constantly looking through it and trying to learn.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And so we get this guy in there. He's leaning
Speaker 2: forward in a chair that's bolted to the ground with
Speaker 2: chains that are also on these like hooks. The I
Speaker 2: forget what they're calling.
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And they were in there his hands. Yeah, very very
Speaker 2: uncomfortable position. And we're talking to him, and he threw interpreters.
Speaker 2: He pipes up and he says, he says, if I
Speaker 2: kill the infidel, I'm guaranteed Heaven right now. You hear
Speaker 2: that statement a lot.
Speaker 1: What we think. I'm so glad you're doing this because
Speaker 1: I was going to ask about it.
Speaker 2: And and this is where this is where going back
Speaker 2: to nine at eleven, how this kind of ties in.
Speaker 2: The interrogator at that time picked out in me says, really,
Speaker 2: hold on a second, goes over to his knapsack, gets
Speaker 2: the Koran out and pashtune, slides it across the table,
Speaker 2: tells him through interpreters, if you can show me where
Speaker 2: it is in that book that it says that, I'll
Speaker 2: let you go. The dude sunk his head.
Speaker 1: And said, I can't read.
Speaker 2: I can't read. That's what the mom told us. So
Speaker 2: there's a tie in there, okay. And and and that's
Speaker 2: a huge part that still is is throughout Islam is
Speaker 2: a large portion of our population throughout the world is ignorant.
Speaker 2: They can't read. They can't write. And that's how you
Speaker 2: get these guys who have agendas to tie in that.
Speaker 1: Can indoctrinate the most needy and uneducated among them to
Speaker 1: do their bidding for things that have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with their religion.
Speaker 2: Right now, it's it's the duty of all Muslims to
Speaker 2: try to memorize the Koran, okay, even parts of it.
Speaker 2: So I know they have memorized parts of the Quran,
Speaker 2: but they don't have the educational background to even decipher
Speaker 2: what they're what they're reciting. So it's it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: it's I can read something, but if I don't know
Speaker 2: what this word means, or I don't know how this
Speaker 2: sentence structures. Yeah, you know, I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 2: But all this guy's explaining it to me. He's a
Speaker 2: respected person, you know. So there's so many similarities there,
Speaker 2: especially from the early Church to Islam too, and and
Speaker 2: and and I don't speak a lot about Judaism because
Speaker 2: I really don't know that much about Judaism, but but
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's a tie in there too.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. You went in looking to kill
Speaker 1: them all and ended up loving them all, and frankly
Speaker 1: them loving you, but you still made a freaking bomb.
Speaker 1: And we're playing around blowing these folks up. And at
Speaker 1: some point, I know the FBI catches wind of the
Speaker 1: pre mentality you.
Speaker 2: Well, so here's how that happened. It had already happened,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, this conversion, this change of heart,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to say. I had disposed of a bomb,
Speaker 2: disposed of all the parts properly, then just throw them
Speaker 2: in a dumpster. I got it, and it's went on
Speaker 2: about my life. I now, nobody at this point even
Speaker 2: knows what you're plans for. Anybody that knew me knew
Speaker 2: I hated Muslims.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no idea. They had no idea of your building.
Speaker 1: You kept that under your hat, just me. Nobody else
Speaker 1: got it until that. So, so I was.
Speaker 2: I was in college now because the VA, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm part of the system now in the VA says, hey,
Speaker 2: why why don't you go to cause I can't do
Speaker 2: labor work. I would have loved to have been to welder,
Speaker 2: but your back's shot, can't do it got blown up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I have to do a behind a desk job now,
Speaker 2: you know. So I have to go to college for
Speaker 2: that because I'm I'm dumber in the box of rocks. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I got to learn something, right. And so I'm
Speaker 2: in I'm in class, and I'm forty somedd years old,
Speaker 2: mid forties, and I'm so. I had a different relationship
Speaker 2: with my professors than the twenty something students. We were
Speaker 2: actually more friends.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was sitting in an office drinking coffee with one
Speaker 2: of my professors and I don't even know why. I
Speaker 2: don't know what started the whole conversation, but I told her.
Speaker 2: I told her the story.
Speaker 1: You're kidding me? No, you said, hey, you know what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I built a bomb and I was going to blow
Speaker 1: these fools up. Now I'm one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: How'd that go over?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. She was like, oh my gosh. And she
Speaker 2: knew me on the outside through charity organizations stuff that
Speaker 2: I had been a part of and start and done
Speaker 2: stuff for and everything like that, so she knew I
Speaker 2: was not just talking to be talking, right, And she goes,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, she goes, you have got to tell
Speaker 2: that story that could change people's lives. I'm like, really,
Speaker 2: I didn't think nothing of it, you know, it's something
Speaker 2: that happened it's over whatever, you know, And she says,
Speaker 2: what are you doing the rest of the days? Said, well,
Speaker 2: when I finish this coffee, I was can go home
Speaker 2: and go to sleep. I ain't got nothing else to do.
Speaker 2: She goes, no, you got my next class tell that story.
Speaker 1: So I did.
Speaker 2: Somebody in that class was shocked that here this guy
Speaker 2: is saying that he made a bomb.
Speaker 1: An unbalanced former marine in our midst.
Speaker 2: And now he's a Muslim.
Speaker 1: Yo.
Speaker 2: No, he's making phone calls saying you got check his
Speaker 2: dude out. And there there they come. And it was
Speaker 2: funny because you know, a lot of times I and
Speaker 2: I think this is a guy thing too, where we'll
Speaker 2: say stuff and is like, as soon as it leaves
Speaker 2: our mouth, we're trying to reach out and grab it back.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because they showed up, introduced themselves, and I was like,
Speaker 2: what took you so long? That's what I said to him.
Speaker 2: And as soon as I said that, I was like, dude,
Speaker 2: oh man, And and so we talked. It started out
Speaker 2: as a like a health and comfort kind of visit,
Speaker 2: right to make sure I was.
Speaker 1: Okay waterboarding, but they were investigating.
Speaker 2: So we talked about it and I told him I said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's going So they said, well, do you mind if
Speaker 2: we uh do an investigation for explosives here in the house.
Speaker 2: And I said, At half hour later, I'm handcuffed in
Speaker 2: the front lawn, bomb dogs going through my house and
Speaker 2: then my wife and my daughter pull up.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: They didn't know anything. Even after the fact, they didn't
Speaker 2: know about it. I didn't even tell them, and I
Speaker 2: already told her a professor at school.
Speaker 1: You know, I tell you.
Speaker 2: So I'm like most husbands. I don't tell my wife nothing.
Speaker 2: But but but it was, it was, you know, that
Speaker 2: was that was the beginning at the end of that marriage.
Speaker 2: Because there's people in FBI jackets, local police department, and
Speaker 2: I'm in a I live in an apartment complex. It's
Speaker 2: a big deal. Everybody's out.
Speaker 1: I read and they didn't find it, and they found
Speaker 1: you to no longer be a threat and all of that.
Speaker 1: What is astonishing to me is now you have to
Speaker 1: tell these people that you've now joined in your house
Speaker 1: of worship that yeah, I was gonna kill all y'all
Speaker 1: and they invited you to dinner.
Speaker 2: Well, hospitality is big in the Islamic world, especially in
Speaker 2: the postun culture, and Bib and her family are from
Speaker 2: that culture. They're from Afghanistan, so hospitality is big.
Speaker 1: Hey.
Speaker 2: I used to make the joke, I said, because people
Speaker 2: we would always when we were doing as you know,
Speaker 2: those where you go around and do the premieres and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and people would ask about the food, right,
Speaker 2: because Bbe is like, out of this world a cook.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's oh my gosh. And I tell people,
Speaker 2: I said, man, I used to wear one hundred and
Speaker 2: ninety pounds before I went to her house. I'm two
Speaker 2: fifty six, all right, And I said, yeah, don't even
Speaker 2: drive by her house because you will look in your
Speaker 2: every mirror and should be chasing you down with a plate.
Speaker 2: That's the way she is, right, Oh, man, I love
Speaker 2: her so much.
Speaker 1: But so.
Speaker 2: It was the fact that it was being talked about
Speaker 2: because things were being heard because of course I started
Speaker 2: talking about it, not telling them like I said. I
Speaker 2: still I told that class. I'm not, like I said,
Speaker 2: I'm still not that smart. I never graduated high school.
Speaker 2: I have two degrees now, but I never graduated high
Speaker 2: school and you would. And so it's proof that just
Speaker 2: having a degree does not make you smart.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: They had heard about it, and it made a lot
Speaker 2: of people uncomfortable, unbeknownst to me, and she she did.
Speaker 2: This was not the first time she invited me to
Speaker 2: her house, but now, yeah, she she had intentions.
Speaker 1: Now, well, no, I just wonder if in my church
Speaker 1: there was a former Muslim who fought for the Iranian
Speaker 1: Republican Guard who had formerly gone as far to build
Speaker 1: a bomb and had plans to put it under our
Speaker 1: sanctuary on Christmas Eve, who then converted and we found
Speaker 1: all this out, if our first reaction would be, hey,
Speaker 1: let's have him over to dinner to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know, Well that's what happened. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's exactly what happened.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we need to check ourselves just a
Speaker 1: little because to me, that is the ultimate in grace
Speaker 1: and courage, because I gotta believe there were people in
Speaker 1: her community going what Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people still get they still get a laugh out
Speaker 2: of that, regardless of whether they're in the community or not,
Speaker 2: they still get a laugh out of it, because yeah,
Speaker 2: it's like, are you serious? I wouldn't want that person
Speaker 2: in my house, right.
Speaker 1: And she invited you to her home with her family
Speaker 1: for dinner.
Speaker 2: And there was friends there too. There was other other
Speaker 2: people from the community they were there also, and you know,
Speaker 2: I was just talking to everybody, and you know, I
Speaker 2: I guess looking back, I noticed it was an uncomfortable
Speaker 2: feeling that was kind of in the air, I would assume,
Speaker 2: but I did. It didn't really hit me much, you know,
Speaker 2: because I mean, here, I'm I'm I'm one of you,
Speaker 2: now right. You know, I didn't even didn't even give
Speaker 2: it a much thought.
Speaker 1: I also read that one of your all right, in
Speaker 1: a church, it's a prishoner. What do you call a
Speaker 1: fellow islam worshiping person from your house of worship? What
Speaker 1: do you call that person? Is there for that?
Speaker 2: It's his brother?
Speaker 1: Okay, brother or sister or sister. He's an African American
Speaker 1: guy who's American, grew up in America, whose grandfather was
Speaker 1: castro and hung in Munthsy, Indiana, who hated white people.
Speaker 1: Who is now your brother? Oh yeah, How did he
Speaker 1: take the news of the bomb?
Speaker 2: Well, he was just like everybody, I guess when they
Speaker 2: did really, when they did find out, he.
Speaker 1: Was shocked, you know, even he for grieve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean see, And that's that's the similarities
Speaker 2: of what our faith stands for.
Speaker 1: We have to forgive.
Speaker 2: And there's even a psychological advantage to that, because nobody's
Speaker 2: asking you to forget anything. But when you forgive, you
Speaker 2: let everything go and and and that's the beauties of
Speaker 2: our religion. If there's punishment to be dealt, it's not
Speaker 2: by us, and it's not really even our concern mac.
Speaker 1: My faith teaches that not only do you have to
Speaker 1: give others, you have to give yourselves. How you doing
Speaker 1: with that?
Speaker 2: In large?
Speaker 1: I have?
Speaker 2: And the only reason I say that is because people
Speaker 2: have come up to me and they have told me
Speaker 2: that I have helped, I have answered questions, warned parts,
Speaker 2: give people hope. I don't think I'm a big deal.
Speaker 1: I do not.
Speaker 2: I'm just a guy with a story. I really. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's the way I look at myself, right, And and
Speaker 2: it is very humbling at times, you know, But but
Speaker 2: I always go back to one of one of my
Speaker 2: favorite comments that I had ever received on my message.
Speaker 2: And I won't tell you exactly what he said, because
Speaker 2: it was it was it's the way I used to talk, right,
Speaker 2: But but he was very he was very honest, and
Speaker 2: he said, if a tough guy like you can change
Speaker 2: the way he thinks about things. I guess I can too.
Speaker 2: That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the payoff, isn't it. That's it. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. I got a question. What do you feel
Speaker 1: like you have to forgive yourself for? Because in the film,
Speaker 1: the documentary, you talked about having a hard time at
Speaker 1: first forgiving yourself and I found that to be odd
Speaker 1: because you didn't blow the bomb up. So we're not
Speaker 1: talking about the bomb, I assumed, and correct me if
Speaker 1: I'm wrong. You're talking about the twenty five years in
Speaker 1: the military. Absolutely, but make you were serving under orders
Speaker 1: doing a really unsavory but unconvenient and uncomfortable truth that
Speaker 1: we have to have people defending us or we won't
Speaker 1: be able to have conversations like this because you can't
Speaker 1: have this conversation a lot of countries in this world,
Speaker 1: we have that liberty, and that liberty is precious and
Speaker 1: it requires guys like you who did the work that
Speaker 1: you did in the military to provide us with the
Speaker 1: freedoms to explore and understand and grow from one another
Speaker 1: like this. So what do you need to forgive yourself for?
Speaker 1: Is it the fact that you killed people that worship
Speaker 1: like you do. Now, it.
Speaker 2: Encompasses a lot of things. Really, it's the shame that
Speaker 2: I got enjoyment out of it. So now I you know,
Speaker 2: you had sayd something with which is really a very
Speaker 2: prominent misunderstanding. Okay, is that you mentioned we were under orders.
Speaker 2: That's part true because I rose up in rank, okay,
Speaker 2: and the higher I got it basically a lot of
Speaker 2: times became my call. We were given a task. You
Speaker 2: go from here, you go here, and you make it safe.
Speaker 2: That's the task.
Speaker 1: How is a different deal?
Speaker 2: How's a different deal?
Speaker 3: I do have.
Speaker 1: Issue with that and the fact that I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2: On the surface, I guess because I would come back
Speaker 2: from operations that I would set and cry for a
Speaker 2: while on my own, just go somewhere. I cry because
Speaker 2: it was hard, you know. And the hardest thing was
Speaker 2: even I mean, I understood the reason behind it, but
Speaker 2: even the dead children.
Speaker 1: Man, you can't some things you cannot see.
Speaker 2: You just can't, man.
Speaker 1: And it.
Speaker 2: It'll haunt me for the rest of my days, man,
Speaker 2: And I know God's forgiven me. You know, it's our thing.
Speaker 2: Like the Baptism and Christianity, right, sins are worst away.
Speaker 2: At that point you start over, right, we take shaht
Speaker 2: it's decoration of faith, right, and we do that publicly.
Speaker 2: Once we do that, sins are gone. At that point
Speaker 2: start again. So I do feel in my heart that
Speaker 2: God's forgiven me. And in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 2: does it really matter if I ever forgive myself or not? Not? Really,
Speaker 2: God forgive me, That's all that matters.
Speaker 1: Right, But.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's just uh man, it's a hard thing.
Speaker 1: It And there's men and women all of our country
Speaker 1: who served our country dutifully that are all still probably
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of that. And that is the
Speaker 1: price they pay for our ability to have this chat today.
Speaker 2: Very true, very true. You know one in five homeless
Speaker 2: people are veterans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, yeah, I read that not too long ago.
Speaker 1: That is shameful.
Speaker 2: That is shameful. And you know, as in on the
Speaker 2: government speed we can send billions of dollars in military
Speaker 2: aid to a country, but we come back here and
Speaker 2: we sit down and go, yeah, all economic problems because
Speaker 2: all the single moms on food stamps.
Speaker 1: What you are now married to a Christian woman, which
Speaker 1: is hilarious. You are you have been the president of
Speaker 1: your mosque twice, and you've taken the opportunity of your
Speaker 1: story and a documentary that's an OSCAR nominated documentary. It's
Speaker 1: only thirty minutes. You guys should watch it. That's had
Speaker 1: over a million views. And now you have a social
Speaker 1: work degree. Tell me what you're doing with your life now.
Speaker 2: Well. So I do have a degree in social work,
Speaker 2: which means I'm broke. I was working as a life coach,
Speaker 2: and when this film kicked off, and I was going
Speaker 2: here and there for all the premieres and everything, I
Speaker 2: decided to step down. I resigned from my position. And
Speaker 2: because I want to focus on this message. And it's
Speaker 2: not to say that this message is an end all,
Speaker 2: it's not. It's a step. I don't look at myself
Speaker 2: as somebody that's fascinating necessarily or I'm nobody special.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, my teachers just say that about me. But
Speaker 2: I'm nobody special, right, And I just want people to
Speaker 2: stop and think. So I travel and I meet with people,
Speaker 2: not all of them like me. I've had death threats,
Speaker 2: you know. I tell people, considering the first part of
Speaker 2: my life was people trying to kill me. If that
Speaker 2: all of a sudden stopped. I probably go through some
Speaker 2: kind of separation anxiety.
Speaker 1: Right, So it's I'm.
Speaker 2: Good, I'm good. Keep it up, guys. But but so
Speaker 2: I I just want people stop and think. You don't
Speaker 2: have to agree with me. Some people are not going
Speaker 2: to agree with me. Most people might not agree with me.
Speaker 2: That's fine, but stop and think there may be other options.
Speaker 2: I use the example of a hand.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You have you lay your hand out, spread your fingers,
Speaker 2: and this signifies differences in humanity, whether it's religion, race,
Speaker 2: you know, uh, social culture, whatever, it doesn't matter. Right,
Speaker 2: and it's a hand. It's a tool. You can do
Speaker 2: a lot with a hand. Right, But when it comes
Speaker 2: to having things that have to be done and it
Speaker 2: has to be done the right way and you have
Speaker 2: to stand firm, what do you do bring it all together?
Speaker 2: Because this, my friends, is unbreakable, and until we can
Speaker 2: get to this, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 1: Matt, your story is crazy. From a drug dealing and
Speaker 1: using high school drop out to a twenty five year
Speaker 1: veteran of our military who learned to hate Muslims, who
Speaker 1: got blown up, who decided he was going to blow
Speaker 1: up some Muslims and wanted to prove that that was
Speaker 1: a good thing to do to the one thing he
Speaker 1: loved on the face of the planet, which was his daughter,
Speaker 1: And through trying to prove that, found love and faith
Speaker 1: and forgiveness not only of himself but of everything, and
Speaker 1: converted Islam and is now trying to use all of
Speaker 1: that experience to get people to just listen to one another.
Speaker 1: That's your life, bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I usually end my talks with Years ago, very
Speaker 2: wise Man made a statement that will forever live in history.
Speaker 2: He said, I have a dream, I have a plan,
Speaker 2: and it starts with a smile and a conversation.
Speaker 1: I love that. Mac. If somebody wants to meet you here,
Speaker 1: you have them speak. How do they find Mac?
Speaker 2: I am all over social media?
Speaker 1: Give me some handle? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I did start an LLC called From Hate
Speaker 2: to Understanding. If you want to write an email, it's
Speaker 2: from hate from hate to Understanding all one word at
Speaker 2: gmail dot com that go straight to you, I go
Speaker 2: straight to me. Yeah, I'm not I'm not that big.
Speaker 2: I don't have people doing my paperwork stuff for me.
Speaker 2: I don't read my emails. I do TikTok. I'm an
Speaker 2: old guy, but it gets to the young people. And
Speaker 2: that's this Richard mack McKinney on TikTok and Facebook, I
Speaker 2: can't invite anybody to Facebook because I'm full.
Speaker 1: What does that mean?
Speaker 2: That's a limit? No more friends after five thousand?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Richard McKinney, everybody otherwise known as Mac brother, thanks
Speaker 1: for coming to Memphis spend some time with me and
Speaker 1: sharing your story and sharing it so openly. I have
Speaker 1: really enjoyed being able to discuss some of the things
Speaker 1: that I think people really wonder about. And I hope
Speaker 1: we've challenged some people to maybe think about things differently, because,
Speaker 1: as you know, I don't think the narratives coming out
Speaker 1: of DC or the national media do anything but serve
Speaker 1: to divide us. And I think when an army of
Speaker 1: normal folks, regardless of how you worship, what you look like,
Speaker 1: who you love, or what you believe, can come together
Speaker 1: and have open, civil, non threatening conversations about the stuff
Speaker 1: that we differ on, is how we can maybe close
Speaker 1: that hand. One day and you're at the tip of
Speaker 1: the sphere. You've been on a tip of the spear
Speaker 1: of your whole life, and you're the tip of the
Speaker 1: sphere of another fight. And I'll tell you I sleep
Speaker 1: well at night knowing there were men like you on
Speaker 1: the wall back when you were serving our country in
Speaker 1: the military. And I sleep well at night knowing there's
Speaker 1: men like you on the wall the tip of the
Speaker 1: spear trying to close the frist. And I appreciate you
Speaker 1: joining us fun, Thank you, thanks you being here, and
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us this week. If Richard McKinney
Speaker 1: or another guest has inspired you in general, or better yet,
Speaker 1: inspired you to take action by bringing Richard to speak
Speaker 1: to a group in your area or something else entirely,
Speaker 1: please let me know. I'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: You can write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us.
Speaker 1: I personally will respond. And if you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 1: share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast,
Speaker 1: rate and review it. Please consider becoming a premium member
Speaker 1: at normalfolks dot us. All these things that can help
Speaker 1: us grow an army of normal folks guys. The more folks,
Speaker 1: the more possibility we have to make an impact. For
Speaker 1: premium members, we'll have bonus content from this episode, with
Speaker 1: Mac telling the story of nominating his now friend BB,
Speaker 1: a woman to be the head of their mosque, which
Speaker 1: is revolutionary. If you don't want to miss it, become
Speaker 1: a Premium Member today. I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you
Speaker 1: next week.