Speaker 1: Ah, beaut force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, military
Speaker 1: news and straight talk with the guys and the community,
Speaker 1: soft rep dot com, on time on target and look
Speaker 1: who is back in front of a They can't book
Speaker 1: because we're not on here. Man, Well, listen to is
Speaker 1: across from the table. It's been as you were thinking,
Speaker 1: think four months from hearing yes, pretty much like the
Speaker 1: main voice on this podcast, and I feel like, excuse me. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to do this TV show that's supposed
Speaker 1: to take like six weeks to film it, and it
Speaker 1: ended up taking like four months. So I was away
Speaker 1: much longer than I had anticipated. And believe me, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be back here with you guys, but I
Speaker 1: was all over the place. This fall has been totally insane,
Speaker 1: just nuts, off the wall. I knew it was going
Speaker 1: to be off the wall the second I signed up
Speaker 1: to do that television show, because we're doing a TV
Speaker 1: show that it actually premiered, uh two day. It's called
Speaker 1: Tesla's Death Ray a murder Declassified on the Discovery Channel.
Speaker 1: I saw the first episode on on UM when it aired,
Speaker 1: and I mean it looks really good. That's had I
Speaker 1: guess most of this audience did too. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I hope. So, I mean it's worth going and checking out.
Speaker 1: It's on the Discovery Channel or you can use the
Speaker 1: Discovery Channel go app to view it also if you want. Um.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, I got married in mid October. Huge,
Speaker 1: of course, and you are in Yeah, I should say
Speaker 1: it was like for for a wedding that you planned,
Speaker 1: you know, you got engaged during the summer and then
Speaker 1: you had the wedding in early fall. Yeah, mid October,
Speaker 1: mid October. So I thought it was a really well
Speaker 1: done wedding for something that you planned pretty quickly. That
Speaker 1: was that was mostly Benny's doing. I was expecting it
Speaker 1: to be like a really small, low key wedding and
Speaker 1: it was not. Um. Yeah, we wanted it to be
Speaker 1: a small, low key wedding. UM. And we I mean,
Speaker 1: we didn't invite like everybody we knew, UM, try to
Speaker 1: kind of keep it like a close knit group of people. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, Benny's family from Italy wanted to come
Speaker 1: in of course, so she has a good sized family.
Speaker 1: Um my family was there not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: people on my side of the family, but you know,
Speaker 1: we're a small family. I guess you could say, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of ants, a couple of uncles, my sister, um, mom, stepdad,
Speaker 1: you know. So. But then for with friends, I mean
Speaker 1: ended up being what a hundred and fifty people? Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm not even be in the location everything. It was
Speaker 1: really nice at the water Club, Yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was super nice. Um. Jim West gave an epic speech
Speaker 1: that was what about like thirty minutes Smoky Man, Smokie
Speaker 1: was my best man. What did what did Benny do
Speaker 1: with that rock that he brought? Because he said something
Speaker 1: about this being a stepping stone and then he brought
Speaker 1: a literal stone to pause and reflect. Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: we I have that. It's in my apartment because I
Speaker 1: was like, what does he expect Benny to carry this
Speaker 1: around during her wedding? Well, you know, if we had
Speaker 1: a garden, we could put it in there, but we
Speaker 1: don't because we live in New York City. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, Smokey gave an awesome speech. I was super
Speaker 1: happy to have him there. Um. A couple of friends
Speaker 1: of mine, UM came in. Um, guys I knew from
Speaker 1: the army. Um, good buddies of mine. Um, it was
Speaker 1: just pretty wild. Absolutely well. I'm psyched to have the
Speaker 1: Odissean was there. Yeah, this is true. I'm psyched to
Speaker 1: have ed Derek coming on and am I saying his
Speaker 1: name right? I think rock but we could would ask
Speaker 1: him for sure. I did actually speak to him yesterday,
Speaker 1: but great photographer and author. Uh. One thing I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you about is like on the intro,
Speaker 1: we see we say special ops news and straight talk
Speaker 1: with the guys in the community. I feel I do
Speaker 1: a pretty good interview, but when it comes to the
Speaker 1: news and the special ops community, I will admit, when
Speaker 1: you're not here, the show is lacking a bit because
Speaker 1: there's no one else on the ground going to the
Speaker 1: d m Z and Korea, going to the Philippines and
Speaker 1: meeting with generals like I'm not able to bring that
Speaker 1: to the show. So I wanted to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: what is the biggest story that has been you know,
Speaker 1: has gone uncovered by the mainstream media. It might be
Speaker 1: on the site, but we probably haven't covered the show
Speaker 1: because I leave a lot of that to you and
Speaker 1: you haven't been here. I mean, there are there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of different stories UM within the Special Operations
Speaker 1: community that have gone down over the last few months. UM.
Speaker 1: One of the big ones was the Siege of Morrow
Speaker 1: We ended in the Philippines, UM which the American Special
Speaker 1: Forces and Special Operations guys played a UM ancillary role
Speaker 1: in supporting the Filipino troops. UM So that happened and
Speaker 1: UM I interviewed the Philippines SOCOM commander, General Pomona um
Speaker 1: via email. I met him in person when I was
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, UM, but I put a picture up
Speaker 1: with him, right, Yeah. I interviewed him again about MARROWI
Speaker 1: because what happened was General Pomonig was put in as
Speaker 1: the UM, first as an advisor to the campaign in
Speaker 1: marrow E. Then he became UM the UM officer in
Speaker 1: charge of the battle the battle space right there, and
Speaker 1: then from there he became they put him in charge
Speaker 1: of the entire Marrowe operation. So he's the one who
Speaker 1: actually brought the siege to an end, him and his men.
Speaker 1: Of course, UM so I interviewed him and I wrote
Speaker 1: an article I think it's called What Really Happened in
Speaker 1: marrow We that's on soft wrap, and it's a really
Speaker 1: good UM post mortem of how things went down, um
Speaker 1: and some really interesting comparisons to missul Aleppo. Isis all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Um, So that happened. The um
Speaker 1: ambush in Niger happened, of which we spoke about a
Speaker 1: little bit. The Special Forces O d A that got
Speaker 1: ambushed over there. I think that happened while you were
Speaker 1: still on the show. No, I was, because I was
Speaker 1: working on that story on the set of the television
Speaker 1: show on myself in between shoots, working on that story
Speaker 1: to talk into sources. We have talked about it, but
Speaker 1: I wonder what you and we um we did uh
Speaker 1: some I mean I too our own horn a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think we did really good coverage of what happened
Speaker 1: there and cut through the bullshit. Um there. The media
Speaker 1: just said some absolutely atrocious things speculating um about la
Speaker 1: David Johnson, one of the American soldiers, that he was
Speaker 1: captured alive, UM, that he was tortured, that he was mutilated,
Speaker 1: that you know, war crimes would committed, just like insane speculation.
Speaker 1: There's even a CNN guy like talking about like what
Speaker 1: was really in the coffin they buried, just absolutely discussed
Speaker 1: and comments that people were making based off of speculation. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think we kind of kept things down to earth. Um.
Speaker 1: The really unfortunate thing was, from what I remember, that
Speaker 1: story for weeks went relatively uncovered until someone asked the
Speaker 1: president about it, and then the story became has Obama
Speaker 1: spoken to the parents and then Trump spoken to the parents? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know what I said Obama. Wow, I'm forgetting
Speaker 1: who the president is. Mean, there's a huge difference, uh,
Speaker 1: stuff from stop pushing your liberal agenda? He has Trump
Speaker 1: spoken to the parents, and then when he did, you know,
Speaker 1: did he make appropriate comments? And I feel like the
Speaker 1: actual ambush was completely under report. The big story became
Speaker 1: Trump's phone call. Yeah, it becomes like a professional wrestling story,
Speaker 1: you know, like who talked to more families? Obama or Trump? Like, dude,
Speaker 1: is that really what you took away from this? Like
Speaker 1: we got men in Africa, um, who are trying to
Speaker 1: stop al Qaeda and other Islamist groups from spreading through
Speaker 1: Central Africa and then they would spread elsewhere. Um, it's
Speaker 1: a really critical facet of the war on terror. Like
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's phone call, I mean, I don't care. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean it's nice to call the families, of course,
Speaker 1: and the families should be taken care of, don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, And I feel for the families of the
Speaker 1: four soldiers who were killed over there, But I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, is that really worth days and
Speaker 1: days of endless coverage. I don't think so. Um, So
Speaker 1: there's that. And then another story was the um what
Speaker 1: was it called the s FAB This Security Forces Assistance Brigades.
Speaker 1: So these are the conventional units that are being stood
Speaker 1: up to conduct foreign internal defense around the world, to
Speaker 1: go and train, um, foreign militaries, which has always been
Speaker 1: a Special Forces task. So that's been a big thing
Speaker 1: that it blew up in the press, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of bad moves were made as they stood
Speaker 1: up these units, like they were giving him green berets.
Speaker 1: The acronym was SF. They had insignia that looked like
Speaker 1: Special Forces insignia. That. Yeah, we did mention that their
Speaker 1: their their nickname was the Legion, which was the Fifth Group. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we were always the Fifth Legion. The last
Speaker 1: time Derek was on, he actually spoke about this, So
Speaker 1: that was one big controversy that popped off. Then, of
Speaker 1: course we did mention a bunch of times the death
Speaker 1: of the Green beret and that's been an ongoing story
Speaker 1: at the hands of allegedly two Navy seals. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: melkar Um. Yeah, that story is still ongoing and we
Speaker 1: don't have the truth behind it yet. Um. I honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're ever going to get the whole story,
Speaker 1: um as far as what happened there. Um, But this
Speaker 1: the official story. The story that the seals told doesn't
Speaker 1: make sense. But then there was also the story that
Speaker 1: this guy's I believe fiance told your wife, the one
Speaker 1: that was covered by the Daily Beast about these seals
Speaker 1: being involved in something getting money illegally. He was being
Speaker 1: he was asked to be a part of it, he
Speaker 1: didn't want a part of it. And then when he
Speaker 1: was going to expose this, that was what I was
Speaker 1: told early on, that it had to do with illicit funds. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll see, I mean, we'll see, hopefully the truth comes out.
Speaker 1: I'm not holding my breath though. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Naval Special Warfare and especially that unit in particular, is
Speaker 1: very good at covering things up, and they've done it
Speaker 1: very well for you know, over a decade now, So
Speaker 1: I think they're going to bury this. Yeah. Well, I know,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen much on it in a few months,
Speaker 1: so for about a month and being in Seal Team six,
Speaker 1: it's like, you literally get away with murder. What can
Speaker 1: those guys do wrong? Nothing? I mean you literally do
Speaker 1: what they whatever they want. No one's stopping him. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be a controversial statement from you, I'm sure to
Speaker 1: some in the community. I mean you can say it's controversial,
Speaker 1: but I mean, is there any evidence to the contrary.
Speaker 1: I mean, what happened? I mean, all these stories keep
Speaker 1: coming out, and it keeps getting worse and worse and
Speaker 1: worse and worse, and what happens nothing. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: CBS starts up a new television show about Seal Team sex.
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's the only thing that happens. It's surreal.
Speaker 1: Uh any other stuff that that you've been working on
Speaker 1: because you've been away so it's like you haven't had
Speaker 1: time to write as much or or yeah, I've been
Speaker 1: working behind the scenes and writing a little bit um
Speaker 1: when I could. Um, I want to so for this
Speaker 1: television show, I was in Serbia, um and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: we're in Belgrade for you know, a week, and I
Speaker 1: made some pretty good contacts and I'd like to write
Speaker 1: kind of a retrospective on Serbia because you know, we
Speaker 1: were involved there during the Coast of Out campaign and
Speaker 1: all that back, and it's one of those places that
Speaker 1: we get involved in and then we quickly forget about,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of like Afghanistan. You know, we were
Speaker 1: there in the eighties and then we forgot all about it,
Speaker 1: and then by two thousand and one week we were back. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we wanted to withdraw from Iraq in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, forget all about it, and then we were
Speaker 1: back like what three years later, you know. So it's um,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying we're gonna go to war in Serbia.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that we should not just completely forget
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the rest of the world. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to write a little bit of a
Speaker 1: retrospective on that. And I'm working on another story about
Speaker 1: um ususak Um and some stuff going on there. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm going to start writing that story today or tomorrow,
Speaker 1: but I probably don't want to get into the details
Speaker 1: quite yet. All good. I mean, the big news story
Speaker 1: today and and all of the media is banning, uh
Speaker 1: criticizing Trump thing. Oh my god, did you see the
Speaker 1: um the headline of the Daily News. I was reading
Speaker 1: the New Yorker article about what do you think of
Speaker 1: this as a cover? Oh my god, that is awesome.
Speaker 1: But cock fight the weird thing for me. We've talked
Speaker 1: about this on the podcast what is with the popularization
Speaker 1: of this? What was like a pornographic term cock and
Speaker 1: And I sent that to our friend Mike Bin's, you know,
Speaker 1: producer willkal Majarty, and he was like, it doesn't even
Speaker 1: make sense because Bannon doesn't have a wife that Trump
Speaker 1: could fuck. So yeah, but that's I know what's changed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not That's not how the old right people use
Speaker 1: that term. I mean, you'd have to ask them what
Speaker 1: how they define it, of course, but I think the
Speaker 1: term for them is that, you know, you're like front
Speaker 1: running for somebody else, right, you know who. I think,
Speaker 1: I honestly think popularized the term. And I know you're
Speaker 1: not a fan of him, but I will give him
Speaker 1: credit for popularizing cock I think it's my loginopolis he
Speaker 1: was using it, you know, like he he was saying
Speaker 1: what was really an obscene term in the media for
Speaker 1: politics before it became this popular thing. Milo was somebody
Speaker 1: who I kind of I guess you could say I
Speaker 1: gave him the benefit of the doubt. I saw him
Speaker 1: as kind of like a provact, you know, provocateur or
Speaker 1: something like that. Um. But I mean, since all the
Speaker 1: other stuff that's come out about him, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't say this lightly. I think Milo actually is a
Speaker 1: Nazi even though he's gay. Who cares? And I think
Speaker 1: married to a black guy, right, And well that's the camouflage, right.
Speaker 1: It's it's like, you know, in the gay community, you'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, a gay guy who's in the closet, he
Speaker 1: has a wife. That's his beard. It's a camouflage, right.
Speaker 1: So it's a bit of an extreme to go through though.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not saying that it's insincere that he's
Speaker 1: not really homosexual. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying
Speaker 1: is that he uses these things as camouflage. Um. So
Speaker 1: that you say, oh, he can't be a racist, he
Speaker 1: can't be a homophobe, he can't be a Nazi. Of
Speaker 1: course he can. There were thousands of Jews in the
Speaker 1: Nazi military, in the Vermacht. There's you can be an
Speaker 1: anti Semitic Jew, you can be a self loathing black man.
Speaker 1: You can be you know, I can. I'm Irish American,
Speaker 1: I can hate Irish people. I mean it's these things
Speaker 1: are possible. So it serves as camouflage for for him.
Speaker 1: I do think he used the term first though, and
Speaker 1: I was saying, like, if he does media, I would
Speaker 1: love to have Steve Bannon on the podcast. Uh I
Speaker 1: I did know Steve Bannon or you know, Stephen K. Bannon,
Speaker 1: because that's always I refers to himself. Prior to the
Speaker 1: whole administration thing. I knew him as just a guy
Speaker 1: who occasionally filled in for Andrew will Cow and took
Speaker 1: over for Andrew bright Pard, who I did know, and
Speaker 1: uh that never did I think he would become this
Speaker 1: name that everybody knows. Yeah, this, Like I was just like,
Speaker 1: where did this guy come out of? So, I mean
Speaker 1: he still works at Serious. My friend Caroline mcgarrett's runs
Speaker 1: like the radio division at the White House, and she
Speaker 1: was Bannon's producer, so like we do have some connection there,
Speaker 1: and I think it'd be an interesting guy to get
Speaker 1: on and any former Navy I'm not opposed to getting
Speaker 1: people on that are extreme right, extreme left, if as
Speaker 1: long as they have something interesting to say and Bannon's
Speaker 1: are I think Bannon had a lot of influence on
Speaker 1: this current president UM early on early leads during the campaign,
Speaker 1: I think he did, and I think he gradually lost
Speaker 1: his influence. UM. I think he had a lot of
Speaker 1: influence in getting him elected, too, because he he saw
Speaker 1: like an opportunity for Breitbart to be this very pro
Speaker 1: Trump outlet, And whether you look at them as like
Speaker 1: a legitimate, legitimate news organization or not, their stuff is
Speaker 1: spread like wildfire throughout social media. Will again break my
Speaker 1: journalistic objectivity to say that I find Bannon fairly loathsome UM,
Speaker 1: but I think it's interesting in the sense that Trump
Speaker 1: is not an ideological person, but Bannon is Bannon Bennon
Speaker 1: is ideological, and I wonder how much that led to
Speaker 1: the split between the two of them. You know, as
Speaker 1: I was reading that, there's a bunch of um, you know,
Speaker 1: long articles that are out about this subject now, and
Speaker 1: I was just reading that one. I think it's in
Speaker 1: the New Yorker about Bannon and Trump and the early
Speaker 1: days of UM of the Trump presidency, and there's a
Speaker 1: big chism between the two of them, and I have
Speaker 1: to believe that that's part of it that Bannon feels
Speaker 1: like he's on this crusade. You know, he's fighting this
Speaker 1: holy war and Trump is just free associating from day
Speaker 1: to day. I think there's also a element of Bannon
Speaker 1: saying that Trump Junior meeting with a Russian lawyer at
Speaker 1: the White House was trees and it's you know, as
Speaker 1: just a media guy, I do think, like you, you
Speaker 1: make that snippet that could be a headline, and it
Speaker 1: sells books. You know, it's being covered everywhere. So he
Speaker 1: probably was purposely using very provocative language. Yeah. No, I
Speaker 1: think you're right. I think he's probably also trying to
Speaker 1: insulate himself from the FBI investigation. He doesn't want to
Speaker 1: get tied up in that. And um, um, what else
Speaker 1: was I gonna say about that? Um, you're right that
Speaker 1: he's probably selling books. But oh, I mean it also
Speaker 1: just goes back of the fact that he's been scorned
Speaker 1: by Trump, he got fired by the administration, and you know,
Speaker 1: so he clearly has an extra grind too, and he's
Speaker 1: on the offensive. What was your take on the nuclear
Speaker 1: button tweet? It's completely juvenile, childish bullshit. I mean, it's, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I was telling you earlier. I
Speaker 1: think Donald Trump is proof that you can be the
Speaker 1: president of the United States and the most powerful person
Speaker 1: in the world and still be a very small man
Speaker 1: um and just be a very petty person. I did
Speaker 1: see Alex how long Is, our writer did write a
Speaker 1: really cool article about that there is no you know,
Speaker 1: tangible nuclear button and the process that you would have
Speaker 1: to go through to set off a nuclear weapon. And
Speaker 1: I do think that's interesting because people wonder, like, what
Speaker 1: what would the process be if we were to step
Speaker 1: into a nuclear one and it all goes down very quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it has to, because once the nukes are in the air,
Speaker 1: you have like something like what I can't remember the time.
Speaker 1: There's different times for different things, but I think it's
Speaker 1: like six minutes or something like that. You have to
Speaker 1: make a decision. And I'm sure it's not just solely
Speaker 1: the president's decision, you know. I would think if General
Speaker 1: Maddis or any of these people out to take it
Speaker 1: resides with the president, that's kind of that's pretty scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the president is the nuclear authority, and if the president
Speaker 1: is killed, obviously there's a descending order from the vice
Speaker 1: president and eventually the Secretary of Defense would be somewhere
Speaker 1: in that chain of command, you know, if our government
Speaker 1: got wiped out in some sort of attack, and then
Speaker 1: the other big thing to get to before we get
Speaker 1: to ed. You are officially working on a memoir. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: can I say the title? Yeah, it's titled Murphy's Law,
Speaker 1: which is like I I do feel like it's the
Speaker 1: obvious title to go right in a good way. It
Speaker 1: wasn't my idea. I'm trying to remember who came up
Speaker 1: with it. Might have been Um, it might have been Vacillus.
Speaker 1: I think he's trying to claim credit for that. Um,
Speaker 1: it might have been my publisher. I can't remember who
Speaker 1: came up with the idea, but um, that Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the title of the book. I've got about twenty thousand
Speaker 1: words written. I wrote about joining the army, um going
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan, and I'm writing about going to Iraq right now.
Speaker 1: I'm actually in the portion when I was in Iraq
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five, and I had to stop
Speaker 1: writing yesterday and just like take some notes, like some
Speaker 1: bullet points, because that whole when I think back to
Speaker 1: that summer, is just like total insanity, and it's I
Speaker 1: just have this like total, um frenzied scattered memories of
Speaker 1: everything because things were happening so quickly. We probably did
Speaker 1: like a hundred and fifty missions that summer and three months. Um.
Speaker 1: It was just totally insane. So I'm trying to like
Speaker 1: take a step back, and I have to like recollect
Speaker 1: all of these experiences and try to put them together, um,
Speaker 1: because just like flashes of different firefights and explosions and
Speaker 1: weird stuff that happened in between, it's just wild. What's
Speaker 1: interesting to me about you putting out a memoir is
Speaker 1: you been writing for nearly like a decade now, I
Speaker 1: think right, uh eight years, okay, so yeah, nearly a decade,
Speaker 1: and you are a guy who writes very little about
Speaker 1: your combat experience. Yeah. I actually write about this in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the memoir, um, in the prologue or
Speaker 1: maybe the first chapter. And yeah, I've written hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of articles, but I've written only like about things
Speaker 1: that I've done personally, maybe three articles. I wrote one
Speaker 1: about a joint mission I did in Iraq with UM
Speaker 1: A Worse team in two thousand nine, and then I
Speaker 1: wrote another two thousand nine mission when me and my
Speaker 1: od A crashed a wedding. Um, so those are really
Speaker 1: the only two I think I've really written about. And Um,
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation with Jim West about it,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, that's your PTSD kicking in. He's like,
Speaker 1: because you're avoiding what you've done and what you what
Speaker 1: you actually participated in. It's a way of like avoiding
Speaker 1: all of it. And maybe he's right, Um, sitting down
Speaker 1: and actually thinking about this stuff, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that I just kind of put behind me and
Speaker 1: moved on, you know, and I'm kind of going back
Speaker 1: and trying to like, you know, like relive it. And it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's weird, and and it's going to be that way
Speaker 1: for a while because I assume when you put the
Speaker 1: book out, you're gonna be doing interviews all over and
Speaker 1: people are gonna be asking about these stories that you
Speaker 1: haven't opened up about until now. Yeah. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff in there. Um, and just a lot
Speaker 1: of you know, this book. And I warned my publisher
Speaker 1: and my agent about this when when um we first
Speaker 1: started talking about this book, I was like, look, man,
Speaker 1: this isn't gonna be like the typical flag waving patriotic book.
Speaker 1: I mean it's I'm pro military and I'm pro America,
Speaker 1: and I don't hide that, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: hide that in this book. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in there. It's not uh, it's not like Captain
Speaker 1: America running in the Save the Day and you know,
Speaker 1: band another thing, like another cliche like band of brothers.
Speaker 1: Like my experience in the military is not the band
Speaker 1: of brothers. I mean it was like we all fucking
Speaker 1: hated each other, but we kind of pulled together in
Speaker 1: the name of doing the mission. You know. Um, there's
Speaker 1: still that like no man gets left behind sense of brotherhood.
Speaker 1: But um, I would not describe us as a band
Speaker 1: of brothers. We were like a band of assholes that
Speaker 1: fucking hated each other, but we came together to do
Speaker 1: this job. That that was the common thread, the commonality.
Speaker 1: We were all soldiers, we all had a mission in
Speaker 1: front of us. It felt that way in both the
Speaker 1: Green Berets and the Army Rangers. Yeah, yeah, we're we're um,
Speaker 1: you know, I different experiences, different cultures, um, but there's
Speaker 1: still a lot of animosities between people. Um, And so
Speaker 1: I mean maybe that's kind of the beauty of it too,
Speaker 1: in a way that all these different people can come
Speaker 1: together and work together in combat. Um, but I'm not
Speaker 1: going to church that up either and make it seem
Speaker 1: like we're all like holding hands and kumbaya and all
Speaker 1: this kind of Yeah. That that like band of brothers
Speaker 1: people impression that people have. Like every once in a while,
Speaker 1: I read books and memoirs from other people, um, and
Speaker 1: I'm just like, holy sh it, what military were you?
Speaker 1: And like everyone's like friendly top of the morning to
Speaker 1: your gunny, you know, like what the fuck do you
Speaker 1: think that could be? Just to avoid controversy though, And
Speaker 1: I don't I think that. Um. You know, it's sort
Speaker 1: of like high school, Like a lot of people talk
Speaker 1: about like those were the best years of my life.
Speaker 1: You know a lot of people look back on their
Speaker 1: military service with um, you know, rose colored glasses as
Speaker 1: well that you know, those are the best years of
Speaker 1: my life. Everything was so great and this and that,
Speaker 1: and they were great years. They were good years, and
Speaker 1: a lot of great things happen, but also a lot
Speaker 1: of bad things, a lot of shitty things, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's life. Also. What will separate your book
Speaker 1: from many of the books out there is you're the
Speaker 1: sole writer of the book. Most books, you know, I've
Speaker 1: said it on the show before. This is no like
Speaker 1: big secret. It's the author's stories. But if you see
Speaker 1: a co writer on there, oftentimes it's the co writer's book. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I'm writing the I'm writing the book myself. Um, for
Speaker 1: better or worse, And uh, you're I mean, and they
Speaker 1: could trust you to do that. You've written three amazing
Speaker 1: fiction books. Four well Deckard Novels is a trilogy, these four,
Speaker 1: and I'm working on I've been working on five. After
Speaker 1: I finished the memoir, I'll finished books. So Gray Matter
Speaker 1: Spoder was the fourth book. And Um, the other thing
Speaker 1: that's gonna make this book a little bit different is
Speaker 1: it has my you know, three military deployments. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to keep it kind of focused on the action. And
Speaker 1: there's not gonna be a lot of stories in there
Speaker 1: about like when I went to ranger school, like because
Speaker 1: that's in a million other books. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: probably need to hear that from me. Um, But so
Speaker 1: the my time in you know, combat deployments and then
Speaker 1: my time as an investigative journalist and like my trips
Speaker 1: to Iraq, and Syria as a journalist, UM. So you know,
Speaker 1: the whole experience of like getting smuggled into Syria in UM,
Speaker 1: going into his war zone. I mean all these like
Speaker 1: very odd but interesting experiences I've had UM as a
Speaker 1: journal and I feel as a journalist, I've actually been
Speaker 1: able to do more in a lot of ways than
Speaker 1: I was in the military because I wasn't on anyone's leash.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could go and do literally whatever I
Speaker 1: wanted to do and it was all on me to
Speaker 1: make the contacts, make it happen and UM, and there's
Speaker 1: no one to tell me no. I was on my
Speaker 1: own decision making process, for better or worse. UM. So,
Speaker 1: I mean as a journalist, I've been able to do
Speaker 1: some incredible things that the US Army would never ever
Speaker 1: let me do. They'd go crazy. I mean, I've been
Speaker 1: able to get smuggled into Syria. I've been running right
Speaker 1: into UM combat with the pet schmurder in Iraq. UM.
Speaker 1: I've went into Damascus, UM got the interview President Assad.
Speaker 1: I've been into the Philippines UM, interviewing their special operations
Speaker 1: guys traveling around there. I went to Switzerland, I did
Speaker 1: a military training exercise in Switzerland. Um all this oldest
Speaker 1: one day. Yeah, I've been, I've been in South Korea.
Speaker 1: I've been done all kinds of different things that the
Speaker 1: Army would like lose their ship over. Of course, well,
Speaker 1: will SOFTWAREPP radio will get a mentioned in this book?
Speaker 1: No SOFTWAREPP radio will get to mention, and I mean
Speaker 1: soft REP will be mentioned, and that because it's gonna
Speaker 1: follow that whole progression of when I got out of
Speaker 1: the military. I was mentioned in the Total Focus book
Speaker 1: by Brandon Webb, although he erroneously says that I worked
Speaker 1: with Larry King. I never worked with Black. I worked
Speaker 1: with Senator Bill Bradley. I don't know if he was
Speaker 1: confusing too, but I was like, that's pretty cool. My
Speaker 1: name was mentioned in here. So I'm wondering. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: you mentioned doing soft rep ratio, because that would be
Speaker 1: I mean, it is a different venture. So yeah, it's
Speaker 1: gonna that's gonna be a part of the book. Is
Speaker 1: you know, getting out of the military going to college,
Speaker 1: that whole weird experience probably a chapter in there, and
Speaker 1: UM and then how we started software ap me and
Speaker 1: Brandon and UM and taking it from there, and how
Speaker 1: one thing leads to the next. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that'll be an interesting yeare? I mean? I I agree,
Speaker 1: and I know that there's maybe I don't from say.
Speaker 1: If I'm not, I'll cut it out. A software book
Speaker 1: in the works right about the story, I believe, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it at that, I guess. Um, And actually,
Speaker 1: before we get to ED, what like around when do
Speaker 1: you see this coming out? Um? I don't have a
Speaker 1: publication date, do you think though? I think so? Yeah? Cool,
Speaker 1: all right, I think I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: a fairly quick turnaround. Well, with that, we'll get over
Speaker 1: to ED. Ed. How are you doing? It's Ian and Jack? Great?
Speaker 1: How you guys doing? How am I sound? Him? You
Speaker 1: sound great? So? I you know, before I introduced you,
Speaker 1: I was wondering. I was while I was doing the
Speaker 1: intro with Jack, I was like, am I saying head's
Speaker 1: last name? Right? So? Is it Derek or Derek? Yeah?
Speaker 1: No one ever gave me the instructions, and my parents
Speaker 1: said Derek. So I've heard it direct. But I think
Speaker 1: Derek is the way that I I don't really care,
Speaker 1: but Derek is uh is the one that I used personally,
Speaker 1: So all right, So I think I had it right. Then, um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, joining us for the first time on SOFTWAREP
Speaker 1: Radio is Ed Derek, the author. One of the books
Speaker 1: you wrote actually was Victory Point, Operation Red Wings and Whalers,
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps Battle for Freedom in Afghanistan. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then I saw you've written a bunch of other books
Speaker 1: unrelated to the military, and also your photography work, which
Speaker 1: is just awesome. But the latest book that we'll get
Speaker 1: into is the Final Mission at Vick Stortion seventeen Special
Speaker 1: Ops Helicopter Support Seal Team six and the Deadliest Day
Speaker 1: of the U S War in Afghanistan. So I'm looking
Speaker 1: forward to getting into it and awesome to have you on. Hey, Ed,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on the show. It's Jack. Hey Jack,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking the time to come on, and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that. Um, you know this has been delayed
Speaker 1: so long. Um. I actually read your book on Extortion
Speaker 1: seventeen up at Lake George months ago. UM. I was
Speaker 1: up there for someone's a friend's wedding, and I love
Speaker 1: the book and I thought it was great and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be very well published now it's out. But in September. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, that book is very helpful for
Speaker 1: the American public because there's a lot of technical information
Speaker 1: in there about helicopters and military aviation and how all
Speaker 1: of that works. Um So, I mean I really think
Speaker 1: people should go and pick up that book. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that. I not just for self enrichment,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I tell people every American should
Speaker 1: read this book because I tried to really give a
Speaker 1: great full spectrum but also in depth, uh narration of
Speaker 1: what modern war is all about through this particular incidents
Speaker 1: from the people why they become more fighters. And you know,
Speaker 1: you said it's technical. There's a lot of technical stuff
Speaker 1: in there. I hope that doesn't scare people off. It
Speaker 1: actually was detechnicalized. I don't know if that's a word,
Speaker 1: but especially some of the stuff about technical intelligence gathering.
Speaker 1: I think that's important for people to understand. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of you know, not to get too crazy,
Speaker 1: but Sea four I S T I R S four Star.
Speaker 1: You know that that data, that data flow is the
Speaker 1: back backbone of modern particularly joint special operations command operations.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, I was thinking more about um, the
Speaker 1: details you get into, um with the helicopters and how
Speaker 1: helicopters work, and the maintenance and the investigations of accidents
Speaker 1: and all the different physical and environmental aspects that go
Speaker 1: into rotary wing aircraft. And UM, I learned a lot
Speaker 1: from that stuff myself. So I think, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: you're right that the average American can pick up this
Speaker 1: book and it tells them everything they need to know
Speaker 1: about Extortion seventeen. But it also tells a bigger story
Speaker 1: about you know, what our boys are doing over in Afghanistan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for saying that. And I, uh, that's that was
Speaker 1: one of the primary intense of the of the book
Speaker 1: from my standpoint. It was whittled way back from the
Speaker 1: initial manuscript that I turned in. And and like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, rotary wing aviation, you know, helicopters and six
Speaker 1: wing aircraft fly for the same reason ultimately, but it's
Speaker 1: so much more complicated. You've got, you know, thin with
Speaker 1: a concept called gyroscopic procession on a spinning you know
Speaker 1: rotary system that you know, I got into that, but
Speaker 1: they pulled that out and you know, the translational lift
Speaker 1: and and approprioceptic indicators and all this other kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that helicopter pilots even to know about. That tricks
Speaker 1: wind pilots have never even heard of. Uh So it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a great topic, and it was I
Speaker 1: got to the best part of it was I got
Speaker 1: to work with really great people, some rearly outstanding people
Speaker 1: from all services, so not just the Army. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was writing about the ben Laden raid and
Speaker 1: this was years ago, and talking to helicopter experts about
Speaker 1: why that helicopter probably or how we can speculate why
Speaker 1: it crashed on that operation, and it was because of
Speaker 1: what's they called the vortex ring state for are settling
Speaker 1: with power, which was one of those things I had
Speaker 1: never heard about. I don't know anything about this stuff.
Speaker 1: And basically, it's what happens when the um the aircraft
Speaker 1: goes back into its own rotor wash and now the
Speaker 1: rotor blades are trying to grip, for lack of a
Speaker 1: better term, dirty air, and they can't maintain their lift anymore.
Speaker 1: And I mean, it's just one of those things that
Speaker 1: that's your helicopter pilot, you've never heard of that. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm actually working on a project about that. That's if
Speaker 1: that seemed correct. Settling with power and vortex ring state
Speaker 1: are two completely different things. I've heard that rumor pushed around. Um,
Speaker 1: there's another reason, the most likely reason for that incident,
Speaker 1: and has nothing to do with either that those I'll
Speaker 1: go really actually has to do with one of them.
Speaker 1: I'll go over really quickly. Settling with it's actually settling
Speaker 1: with insufficient power. Uh. And what happens is there's a
Speaker 1: there's a train they teach this actually about hats a
Speaker 1: high Altitude Army National Guard aviation training site in Colorado here,
Speaker 1: um and for columns, it's just about four hours from here.
Speaker 1: But it's UM. They basically, you know, as you go
Speaker 1: higher and altitude, turbin engines don't operate as efficiently as
Speaker 1: you do at sea level. There's not enough air not
Speaker 1: to do rotor systems. Uh. And then when you load
Speaker 1: up a helicopter you can basically you have yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you've got to have you have power required and power available,
Speaker 1: and when the power required exceeds power available, you fall
Speaker 1: the sky. And that can happen in a number of ways.
Speaker 1: You know, if you come in too fast and you
Speaker 1: pull in the collective to collectively you curious the pitch
Speaker 1: and all the rotor blades. Uh, and there's just not
Speaker 1: the power there then you can crash. Now I'll go
Speaker 1: over real quick with vortex rings state. If you want
Speaker 1: to hear about this, not tell you, but so vortex
Speaker 1: rings state um is like you explained, it occurs uh
Speaker 1: in when of a helicopter or an osprey of the
Speaker 1: twenty two osprey and helicopter mode this very little Ford
Speaker 1: air speed and this the descent rate is really high,
Speaker 1: and just like you said, it starts, it gets into
Speaker 1: it's almost a donut. It's a vortex. It looks like
Speaker 1: a donut in a diagram, and it can't bite the rotors.
Speaker 1: Actually it's transverse lamb or float. You're getting it a
Speaker 1: little bit more complicated, uh concepts. But the bulk of
Speaker 1: the rotors system doesn't have it's it's in. It's not
Speaker 1: so much dirty air. It just can't get the air
Speaker 1: is decending as fast as the air is being pushed down.
Speaker 1: So this is actually only card one time in modern times.
Speaker 1: That happened in April two thousand that Morana, Arizona with
Speaker 1: two V twenty two ospre actually with one V twenty
Speaker 1: two Osprey Colonel Bianca, who helped with this book. It's
Speaker 1: on extortion one seven. He actually actually embedded with his
Speaker 1: his Osprey squadron in Afghanistan in two thousand. It was
Speaker 1: the first one to go to Afghanistan conventionally, where there
Speaker 1: may have been a cbtween two squadron over there before that.
Speaker 1: But we talked about this at length because he was
Speaker 1: Dash one when this happened. That the the the Austray
Speaker 1: behind him was the one that went down there. Right,
Speaker 1: they were in helicopter mode and they were descending a
Speaker 1: ridiculous rate like two or three thousand feet per minute,
Speaker 1: and the fourth air speed was less than ten knots,
Speaker 1: and so the right the cell tipped and they apply
Speaker 1: power and that just made it worse. All they had
Speaker 1: to do is it turns out was rocked in the
Speaker 1: cells forward and it would have got him out of that.
Speaker 1: But that's the only time it's ever happened. So there's
Speaker 1: no way that be in laden raid was a vortex
Speaker 1: ring state situation. So you're saying it was a combination
Speaker 1: of settling with power and having too many personnel on
Speaker 1: the aircraft for the high altitude. The most likely situation
Speaker 1: would have been laden ray was that they're in a
Speaker 1: bottle bad. I think the temperature was at that time,
Speaker 1: I think about seventy degrees the a four thousand feet
Speaker 1: msl um and they were they were loaded up. They
Speaker 1: were definitely loaded up. Uh. There's a couple other and
Speaker 1: the most likely situations. They just came in too fast
Speaker 1: and they tried to arrest their descent and they didn't
Speaker 1: have the power to do it, so they crashed. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure it's like there's a couple of
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say. I mean, also, um, I
Speaker 1: wonder what played into it. If the because this was
Speaker 1: a you know, secret helicopter that had special characteristics on it,
Speaker 1: if that played any aspect or roll in it, Well,
Speaker 1: that's unlikely because those rotor systems, that the rotor systems
Speaker 1: probably just a regular you know, uh sixty rotor system.
Speaker 1: I've heard I've heard a couple other theories bandied about
Speaker 1: re ingestion of of exhaust and also the interruption of
Speaker 1: air flow because of the wall, and those are two
Speaker 1: completely ridiculous. Those are two completely ridiculous hypotheses because if
Speaker 1: that was even remotely possible to think about all the
Speaker 1: health the news pelicopters that fly around cities all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean there'd be helicopters falling the sky all the time.
Speaker 1: Um if anything that wall, they're being close to the
Speaker 1: ground like that would have put it into a what's
Speaker 1: called an in ground effect hover situation where it, um
Speaker 1: it would have helped it, not hurt it. So UM,
Speaker 1: I went over this with some experts on this and
Speaker 1: because this was actually part of the book and they
Speaker 1: pulled it out, it was a pretty detailed and yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty detailed analysis of what happened, of
Speaker 1: what most I'm sorry, what most likely happened. And people
Speaker 1: who a lot of a lot of you know, even
Speaker 1: military helicopter piles, are unaware of these limitations that helicopters
Speaker 1: have because it's you and what fort rucker where army
Speaker 1: aviators or army helicopter aviators or trained I mean uh sixties,
Speaker 1: even when they're loaded up, usually have twenty or even
Speaker 1: thirty power markets, meaning that they've got that much more
Speaker 1: power available. But when you get into these situations where
Speaker 1: you're just cramming people in your high altitude and that's
Speaker 1: considered high altitude, and you come in fast like I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just basic Newtonian mechanics. I mean, if you try
Speaker 1: to stop a car going ninety miles an hour and thirty,
Speaker 1: you know it's gonna crash at the wall, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember one operation that was being planned it was
Speaker 1: never executed that um you know, my unit was going
Speaker 1: to participate in, was in the Tora Bora Mountains. This
Speaker 1: would have been two thousand four, and they were telling
Speaker 1: us at the time that there would only be two
Speaker 1: soldiers on each MH sixty because of the high altits.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well that state they do what's
Speaker 1: called their the Air Force called the spaghetti charts and
Speaker 1: the UH the the Army calls it tabular data charts.
Speaker 1: And for you know T seven hundred Tech seven or
Speaker 1: one Charlie engine. You know they've in which is what
Speaker 1: they are in UH sixties and I think the m
Speaker 1: X sixty MIC model has a one fifteen, which is
Speaker 1: a more powerful engine. But just like you said, they're
Speaker 1: gonna sit there and do their tabular data charts, and
Speaker 1: you know, if they're got to come into a hover
Speaker 1: or they got to slow down and hover and then land.
Speaker 1: I mean, they don't want to ball it up. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: They used to make us get all our kid on
Speaker 1: and each soldier will get into line and we'd stand
Speaker 1: on the scale and weigh each one of us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly, because I mean, if you're going in at
Speaker 1: eleven twelve thousand feet above sea level, um, that's it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a situation that happened on not Massive
Speaker 1: at two thousand nine up here in Colorado with an
Speaker 1: m H sixty mic model which is the latest um
Speaker 1: uh sixty you know, helicopter as cock pit and on
Speaker 1: up gunded engines and all that and all I think
Speaker 1: three or four I can't remember how many people on board,
Speaker 1: but they all died. They came in to try to
Speaker 1: land on the summ of the mountain Massive, which is
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand feet and maybe four fourteen three or something
Speaker 1: like that, and there's other there. It was officially pilot
Speaker 1: air but in the specific reports are classified. But there's
Speaker 1: a few different things going on, um most likely going on.
Speaker 1: And but that was just they were attempting a maneuver
Speaker 1: that the helicopter cann't do so and they just crashed.
Speaker 1: So it's uh, even with just four people on board.
Speaker 1: One of the problems when you hear some of the
Speaker 1: helicopter pots talk about this is that you know they'll
Speaker 1: put bigger engines in like an Apache or or an
Speaker 1: UG six year and MGE sixty, but then they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we can put more stuff on it. So it's sort
Speaker 1: of a draw care more stuff. And I'm sure that
Speaker 1: you will remember, you know, when the one sixty takes
Speaker 1: people up. And I'm not bad the one sixties at all,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times you'll see the fly with
Speaker 1: three m as opposed to its conventional UM raid will
Speaker 1: just have to and that's because they've got so much
Speaker 1: more stuff on them, refueling probe, terrain, following radar, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff that you know, more defensive weapons
Speaker 1: and that stuff is necessary, but it's too bad that
Speaker 1: it couldn't be easily pulled off because that refueling probe
Speaker 1: alone has got away a couple of thousand pounds. Really,
Speaker 1: this is uh, this is all like super cool stuff.
Speaker 1: I can talk about all day with you, but I
Speaker 1: do want to get into your your work, your book, UM,
Speaker 1: because you've written about two pretty controversial things. I mean,
Speaker 1: Operation Red Wings and the extortion seventeen crash. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: not really quite sure where to start. I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: um with extortion seventeen. I mean, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of controversies. UM. I think, you know, for the people
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast, and we published an article that
Speaker 1: you wrote today about the myths surround extortion seventeen. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's a good place to start, because I know
Speaker 1: Peter have heard these conspiracy theories before. UM, I've I've
Speaker 1: even had let's just say, family members try to get
Speaker 1: in touch with me who believe in conspiracies about extortion seventeen.
Speaker 1: And I just wondering if you could address some of
Speaker 1: those from a conceptual, fundamental standpoint. I think what what's
Speaker 1: going on is that, you know, there's a there's a
Speaker 1: I don't want to say a schism, but because it's
Speaker 1: by design, but the separation between the population, the non
Speaker 1: military population and people who are war fighters who work
Speaker 1: for the Department of Defense is huge. There's just there's
Speaker 1: such a lack of understanding, particularly of modern warfare and
Speaker 1: how these things work. And you get questions like, well,
Speaker 1: why wasn't the one sixty is supporting these guys their
Speaker 1: special operations and they're elite and they're this, and they're that.
Speaker 1: And the reality is that conventional forces today work with
Speaker 1: special operations forces all the time and support you know,
Speaker 1: some are supporting, some are supported. Uh. You know, it
Speaker 1: is particularly in these these recent wars and O I
Speaker 1: F and oh yea. It wasn't so much that at
Speaker 1: the beginning of oh yeah, but it's certainly evolved that way.
Speaker 1: And there are always so many helicopters to go around.
Speaker 1: I mean, that doesn't have an unlimited number of helicopters
Speaker 1: and pilots just floating around. Yeah, exactly, You're exactly right.
Speaker 1: And so but back to the point, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've experienced this frustration. It's you know, my friend Katie,
Speaker 1: she uh, she's her brother flies a tens and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he never talks about it. And I was like, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: that's not because he's seen horrible, terrible atrocities twenty thousand
Speaker 1: feet or five feet as it maybe within eighten. It's
Speaker 1: because he doesn't want to explain to you what a
Speaker 1: nine line brief is. He doesn't want to explain, you know,
Speaker 1: what hard points are and the difference what a targeting
Speaker 1: pot is and Buddy lazing and you know the difference
Speaker 1: between pointing and designating with a laser. Uh, It's just
Speaker 1: there's so much to it. And so with the Extortion
Speaker 1: one seven, it was very easy for the conspiracy pushers
Speaker 1: to sort of move in and tempt this stuff out.
Speaker 1: They said, well, it was you know, Seal Team six,
Speaker 1: and they should have been on two helicopters, and you
Speaker 1: know there was these mysterious as gands on board. Well,
Speaker 1: all these operations, it's sort of combined like the nine
Speaker 1: eleven Truthers. It's that there's an incredible amount of technical
Speaker 1: information you have to know in order to understand how
Speaker 1: all of that went down, and if you don't have
Speaker 1: that technical background, like you said, for the general population,
Speaker 1: the military is very mysterious and closed off, and people
Speaker 1: who have nefarious intentions can exploit their ignorance quite easily. Exactly.
Speaker 1: That's very well stated. And people have you know, they're
Speaker 1: pushing books, they're pushing they want to make movies about it,
Speaker 1: and it's just silly. It's um, it's insulting, and it's
Speaker 1: urpful actually to a lot of the family members, and
Speaker 1: particularly when they say, well, what were these reservists and
Speaker 1: National Guards been doing well. The National Guard is an
Speaker 1: incredible well of experience as you as you know, and
Speaker 1: and I mean these people who are in the National Guard,
Speaker 1: a lot of times they came there from you know,
Speaker 1: conventional units and then they go to the National Guard
Speaker 1: and they stayed there for years and they become great
Speaker 1: at what they do, like flying. So so what do
Speaker 1: you think are the um some of the bigger ones
Speaker 1: that you would want to debunk if you were to choose,
Speaker 1: like the top three, I mean one of them, you know,
Speaker 1: we we hear that, you know, Obama sent uh you know,
Speaker 1: the guys involved in big laden raid into you know,
Speaker 1: have them assassinated, you know, which I don't even I'm
Speaker 1: sorry to even have to ask this kind of stuff
Speaker 1: because I sense so stupid. But I know there are
Speaker 1: people listening to this who have these kind of questions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know, I I hear you when you say that,
Speaker 1: like it's embarrassing to bring it up because it's so absurd.
Speaker 1: But because you were in the military, and I never
Speaker 1: was in the military, but I spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time around in military, and I just know how crazy
Speaker 1: that is. And it's just there's first of all, logistically,
Speaker 1: it would be impossible, you know, for anybody to be
Speaker 1: able to give four warning. I mean, these guys who
Speaker 1: shot the helicopter down, which just happened to be at
Speaker 1: the right place at the wrong time and they got
Speaker 1: a really really lucky shot. There's no way. And you
Speaker 1: know with a ballistic weapons system, uh you know, and no, no,
Speaker 1: you know, an unguided ballistic weapons system. So there's no
Speaker 1: way logistically they could have informed them. And even if
Speaker 1: they did, why would they be using an unguided ballistic
Speaker 1: weapons system? Real quick? Here uh, the sign significant action
Speaker 1: reports the cigas on wiki leaks, I think they are
Speaker 1: there from what was it, oh six to o nine?
Speaker 1: When I do uh, When I did a search U
Speaker 1: Sapphire and RPG sapphire being small arms fire and RPG,
Speaker 1: I came up with something like eight hundred results, meaning
Speaker 1: there is helicopter pilots who reported a significant action of
Speaker 1: being shot at by an RPG some eight hundred times
Speaker 1: in that three year period and none of them. Nothing,
Speaker 1: nobody got shot down. You can count on one hand
Speaker 1: a number of helicopters have been shot down by RPGs
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan in the entire war, not just during that
Speaker 1: three year period. So it's just a remarkably lucky shot
Speaker 1: to address why all those guys were on one ship.
Speaker 1: It was a small l z they want, you know,
Speaker 1: jonas Kel saw the seal who was a command of
Speaker 1: the ground element, wanted to mass all the force in
Speaker 1: one spot at one time, and they didn't want to
Speaker 1: do a sequential insert that would have taken too much
Speaker 1: time and given potential ambushers that much time to get
Speaker 1: ready for the second ship to come in. UM, and
Speaker 1: let me see some of the other ones. The mysterious
Speaker 1: Afghans I think, you know, I addressed that on your
Speaker 1: on the article. You guys posted a thank you very
Speaker 1: much for putting that up. I really appreciate that. UM.
Speaker 1: I try to be as comprehensive as possible in that list. UM.
Speaker 1: I think I think the mysterious Afghans thing is just absurd.
Speaker 1: They you know, all these operations are combined, meaning that
Speaker 1: they use local forces because that's the whole point after
Speaker 1: the initial kinetic phase of O e F, was to
Speaker 1: stand up their military so they could deal with this themselves.
Speaker 1: And so you know, a lot even these JSACK raids
Speaker 1: had you know, Afghan personnel with them, and all the
Speaker 1: conventional operations did so um, and then I think just
Speaker 1: the biggest one is when people ask, well, why why
Speaker 1: were these National guardsmen and these reservists flying these elite
Speaker 1: forces and all these guys are all trained to the
Speaker 1: same highest standards, so in the one sixtieth, those guys
Speaker 1: are great. I think I think what people should understand
Speaker 1: is that maybe special operations should be called specialized operations
Speaker 1: because a lot of you know, particularly these helicopter pilots,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're doing very specialized things that they trained
Speaker 1: for that are not always needed. I mean, they don't
Speaker 1: need to do these pinnacle rooftop plannings in Afghanistan. I
Speaker 1: mean sometimes they do, but that's you know, like Iraq
Speaker 1: or something. So I've got a little specialized training that
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily relevant to what's going on in the Tangy Valley,
Speaker 1: where these guys who don't have the specialized training can
Speaker 1: perform the same tasks as the one sixtieth so just
Speaker 1: as well as they can, and they did, so maybe
Speaker 1: we can understand how a civilian without the technical background
Speaker 1: might kind of hear some of this stuff and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense. You know, but then what
Speaker 1: do we have? What do we think? I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess what do you think when we see someone like
Speaker 1: retired General Jerry Boykin getting on board with these sorts
Speaker 1: of things sinility? You know. I hate to be flippant,
Speaker 1: but I it might be, you know, and he was
Speaker 1: the commander of Delta Force and of Special Forces and
Speaker 1: its entire to how how Yeah. I mean I don't
Speaker 1: know specifically that name rings a bell because I you know,
Speaker 1: I looked into the conspiracy theories, but I didn't look
Speaker 1: into the personalities behind him. I looked at you wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't even know anything about this guy. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know there's some older guys who who are like
Speaker 1: an admiral or something who are who are claiming this
Speaker 1: that these it was probably Admiral Lyons. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: heard so many interviews with Boykin. I mean, he seems
Speaker 1: to be, you know, completely there, So I think that'd
Speaker 1: be crazy accusation, to be honest, But I would say,
Speaker 1: throwing in here just what I know about Boyken. Boykin
Speaker 1: works for a lot of right wing you know, thinking
Speaker 1: I think it probably benefits him in a way to
Speaker 1: throw out an Obama conspiracy theory just to push it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think so that's too bad. That's too
Speaker 1: bad because it's it's just, you know, I don't get
Speaker 1: political with anybody, but it's just it really doesn't do
Speaker 1: the conservative movement any You to be banning around these
Speaker 1: nonsensical conspiracy theories. The guy's not doing anybody any good.
Speaker 1: And like you said, you might be able to to
Speaker 1: wou favor uh with some people. And I get it.
Speaker 1: There's people out there who hate Donald Trump, and there's
Speaker 1: people who hate Barack Obama, and it's just they become
Speaker 1: um delirious with with their their anger towards these people
Speaker 1: and towards these political ideologies, and we'll say just about
Speaker 1: whatever they want. And you know, it's uh, temporary insanity,
Speaker 1: temporary senility. You know, it's just, you know, you lose
Speaker 1: your mind. I just mean, a retired general should know
Speaker 1: better than to cynically exploit the deaths of American soldiers
Speaker 1: for some cheap political you know, I agree with you,
Speaker 1: but maybe the guy really believes it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about this guy, but you know, I've
Speaker 1: met some dumb generals, haven't you, Yeah, most of them.
Speaker 1: I mean I mean it's it's it's you know, in
Speaker 1: the Marine Corp. They you know, it's not written down
Speaker 1: on doctrine or anything or really discussed that much. But
Speaker 1: I've had these guys say, look at just seventy the generals,
Speaker 1: that seventy percent of the O six as they get
Speaker 1: you know, promoted to GEO general officer status, are great
Speaker 1: of them are not? And you know, I met some dummies,
Speaker 1: so I you know, it's all types. You and I
Speaker 1: are on board with logic and careful detailed analysis, and
Speaker 1: some people just aren't. So it's unfortunate. It's unfortunate to
Speaker 1: hear that. And and it continues that same that same
Speaker 1: gimmick continues. I remember people, and these were actually Special
Speaker 1: Forces veterans asking me. They're passing around this conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: that with David Johnson, one of the soldier who has
Speaker 1: killed in Nisair recently, was like some sort of a
Speaker 1: trader and he was working with al Qaeda and he
Speaker 1: sold out the location of the men and got him ambush.
Speaker 1: And I was like, dude, stop, just stop. Yeah, here's yeah,
Speaker 1: here's what I tell people too, because again I've never
Speaker 1: been in the military, but I've been on you know,
Speaker 1: the first thing I did in Afghanistan, not the first,
Speaker 1: but I mean first combat operation I went on was
Speaker 1: on a Chinook sev D with a bunch of Marines,
Speaker 1: Navy attached Navy hospital Corman and local Afghan fighters and
Speaker 1: with their coats and chickens. And it was you know,
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what, I was scared. And every time,
Speaker 1: I mean I went to Afghanistan four times and I
Speaker 1: racked twice every time I called the month out. About
Speaker 1: one month out, you really start paying attention to I
Speaker 1: A D strike, sniper tacks and all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff in the AO because you're scared. You don't want
Speaker 1: to die, you don't want to lose your arms. You
Speaker 1: want to come home, you know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: get blown up and shacked and and screwed up. And
Speaker 1: you once you're there, you do anything and everything you
Speaker 1: can to preserve yourself and the people around. And that's
Speaker 1: just that's just human nature. And there's no way in
Speaker 1: hell any American Service personnel is gonna I've never heard
Speaker 1: this conspiracy theory you're saying, but I know where you're
Speaker 1: going with it. He's going to sell out his fellow
Speaker 1: war fighters. To al Qaeda for like what you know,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't even how can anybody even promote that? Well,
Speaker 1: they can promote it because they've never actually been in
Speaker 1: a combat theater and they've never actually experienced that fear.
Speaker 1: It's also that constellation of fake news websites out there
Speaker 1: that promote this kind of nonsense. Um, yeah, yeah, I agree,
Speaker 1: But I mean going back to you know, facts, Uh,
Speaker 1: what do you take away from the extortion seventeen crash
Speaker 1: and all? I mean, we had a tremendous loss of life?
Speaker 1: Um is there? What? What? What do you think are
Speaker 1: the lessons learned from that entire event? Well, it's hard
Speaker 1: to say that there's lessons learned about this specific event
Speaker 1: other than the chance is still part of the battlefield.
Speaker 1: That's the one thing that people need to realize chance
Speaker 1: is still there now conceptualizing because you know, people have
Speaker 1: asked me, said, hey, how could you stop this? Well,
Speaker 1: the only really, like we talked about before, intelligence, the
Speaker 1: only way that you could ever really know because you've
Speaker 1: got you know, this Blue Force Tracker and I guess
Speaker 1: your listeners are probably familiar with the fp IS and
Speaker 1: you know you're there in the Humby and you're looking
Speaker 1: at the bf T screen and you can see where
Speaker 1: this kiawa is and this forces and this is where
Speaker 1: this tick is. But we don't have the capability to say, well,
Speaker 1: there are these guys over here and they're near what
Speaker 1: we what are RPG launchers. Um. They You could technically,
Speaker 1: maybe one day in twenty years do that because you
Speaker 1: need a type of intelligence called measurement and signature intelligence gathering.
Speaker 1: That's how you are m C twelve Liberties and r
Speaker 1: C twelve guard Rails uh, and a few other aircraft.
Speaker 1: The r Q one seventy has this capability, which is
Speaker 1: to soak up um. You know, like a an example
Speaker 1: of Mason Massin is UH. You see the muscle flash
Speaker 1: of a gun, and that muscle flash has a signature
Speaker 1: and the that's so that's a signature, and then the
Speaker 1: measurement is the time between the firing of it and
Speaker 1: that signature, and the timing between it shows it's dishka Okay.
Speaker 1: So you know they've got a twelve point seven millimeter
Speaker 1: any aircraft weapon system firing that's masson. Now there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of masson's. There's there's RADIOISI topic that's what we
Speaker 1: used uh in Iran to detect what they're doing, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to enrich your ae UM. There's there's
Speaker 1: there's visual, there's there's UM, there's auditory, there's there's a
Speaker 1: there's quite a few of them. And but the ability
Speaker 1: to be able to scan an entire area and to
Speaker 1: metallurgically identify and chemically identify what weapons systems exist. I
Speaker 1: mean just in the square mile would take all the
Speaker 1: computing power to the NSA ever dream of UM. And
Speaker 1: that's the other thing about intelligence gathering is that we
Speaker 1: have these great capabilities, but you have to know where
Speaker 1: to look. You've got to focus on one area to
Speaker 1: determine it. You know, that's why they would request, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm C twelve Liberty, RC twelve guard Rail. Hey what's
Speaker 1: that house right there doing? You know, they loiter, They
Speaker 1: soak up all sorts of information passively, a little bit
Speaker 1: of a little bit of active centers, but mostly most
Speaker 1: mostly it's passive, and they can say, oh, it's an
Speaker 1: OpenU house, Oh it's an I D facility. That's you know,
Speaker 1: but you've got to know where to look. Nobody knew
Speaker 1: to scan anything, and there there's no RPG scanner. Anyway,
Speaker 1: there's nothing I know of that could determine if these
Speaker 1: RPGs were even sitting there um to look in this
Speaker 1: one little village. You know, there's just no way to
Speaker 1: know that. So maybe one day we'll have some swarm
Speaker 1: your own technology with massively powerful uh technical intelligence gathering
Speaker 1: capabilities and massively powerful computers to constantly analyze all this stuff,
Speaker 1: and then we can say, Okay, well, we know a
Speaker 1: potential threat lies right here and don't fly there. But
Speaker 1: we just don't have that. And that's why chances stole
Speaker 1: a part of a battlefield, and it always will be
Speaker 1: even when you have a capability like that, because you're's
Speaker 1: then there's counter intelligence where you can you can make
Speaker 1: make stuff up. They've been doing counterintelligence for you know,
Speaker 1: counter technical intelligence forever. You know, the fake tanks back
Speaker 1: in World War Two and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So so you're saying, you know, unless you have the
Speaker 1: power of God, that this is just this is just
Speaker 1: part of the battle space. Yeah, And that's the thing,
Speaker 1: and and and that's that's one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: you know, one of the problems with this disconnect, the
Speaker 1: schism between the American populace and the warfighter is that
Speaker 1: you know, you say thank you for your service, but
Speaker 1: it's sort of hollow and maybe say, why are you
Speaker 1: thinking me? What? What are you specifically thanking me about
Speaker 1: the risks I'm taking? You know, it's like you don't
Speaker 1: really know that there's there, it's a tremendous risk that
Speaker 1: it's really it's really effing dangerous to do this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, just getting in a helicopter in a war zone.
Speaker 1: I mean it's tremendously dangerous. So it's there's that risk
Speaker 1: is there, and it's it's probably always going to be there.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the nature of war. It's unknown. There's
Speaker 1: unknowns there, and they'll they'll never be able to be
Speaker 1: unspun that enigma of of potential unknowns. You know, like
Speaker 1: we I don't know personally, but I can guarantee you
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of really powerful assets, intelligence gathering
Speaker 1: assets aimed at North Korea right now, but we still
Speaker 1: don't know. So it seems like we know actually very
Speaker 1: very little going on over there. Well who well, again
Speaker 1: not being privating in that stuff, uh, And I have
Speaker 1: a lot of faith in the people who work the
Speaker 1: intel side of things. UM, but who knows, UM, somebody
Speaker 1: knows something. UM, but well, you know what, you and
Speaker 1: I aren't privy to that stuff. That's pretty highly compartment
Speaker 1: that I think at the t S level at this point,
Speaker 1: UM shifting gears a little bit to UM. Operation Red Wings.
Speaker 1: That's another thing that people are very emotional about. I find. UM.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, what what are your findings on
Speaker 1: Red Wings versus you know, say, the story that we've
Speaker 1: been told by the movies. Well, when I wrote the
Speaker 1: book Victory Point, I based it off after action reports
Speaker 1: in UM, interviews with people with Intel people. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean there was a video made in this video,
Speaker 1: there's two video videos made and you can see there's
Speaker 1: seven people total. Total seven Now, I said in my
Speaker 1: book eight to ten, because there possibly could have been
Speaker 1: like another fire team, you know, three or four of
Speaker 1: the guys off in another part. And you know, I people,
Speaker 1: I didn't get a lot of it, but I got
Speaker 1: some serious hate mail, death threats and stuff like how
Speaker 1: do you say this? Because Marcus Latrell was there and
Speaker 1: he said there was four hundred guys and all this
Speaker 1: in that Well, as it turns out, UM, it was seven.
Speaker 1: UM and it was the you know, all this comes from,
Speaker 1: you know, subsequent intelligence reports. I wasn't. You know, I
Speaker 1: have a interesting relationship with certain units that I've worked with,
Speaker 1: and so I get access to information and with the
Speaker 1: caveat of don't explain how this we got this. And
Speaker 1: this was ten years ago. I didn't. I just said
Speaker 1: signals intelligence. Um, well, since then, it's come out this
Speaker 1: thing called l l V I maybe you've heard of it,
Speaker 1: Low level voice intercept. They put it on the RC
Speaker 1: twelve guard rail. They put it on pods. They and
Speaker 1: these pods were around stall a star and the low
Speaker 1: level voice intercepts like cell phones. It's a point six
Speaker 1: WAT transmitter. Uh and also radio's two A radios and
Speaker 1: icons you you know what an icom is, and and
Speaker 1: SAT phones yeah, walkie talkies two ways pushed the talks
Speaker 1: ptt s and I mean all this stuff is recorded
Speaker 1: and like you can track people by their phone. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's all sorts of crazy capabilities. And that's what
Speaker 1: they were doing. And the number seven. And there's one
Speaker 1: other thing that I continue to work on, red Wings.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into too much detail, but
Speaker 1: I continue to work on that It's hard to believe
Speaker 1: because I have been involved with the Red Wings before
Speaker 1: it was even Red Wings. It was March of two
Speaker 1: thousand five that I met the battalion that actually was
Speaker 1: took it from their sister battalion in Afghanistan. They just
Speaker 1: the battalion at the time just didn't have the intel
Speaker 1: hits to proceed with it. And they was called Stars
Speaker 1: at that point, and so they took it and they
Speaker 1: renamed it Red Wings, and they you know, and then
Speaker 1: I showed up in Afghanistan a few months after that
Speaker 1: and ended up writing a book about it and articles
Speaker 1: and it just keeps it just it just has the
Speaker 1: life of its own. And in subsequent years us and
Speaker 1: pretty recently there's been a couple of other things that
Speaker 1: have come up that I can say with absolute certainty
Speaker 1: it was seven guys, because I know that's what you're
Speaker 1: getting at, because that's what people always get upset about.
Speaker 1: How dare you say these Navy seals were only up
Speaker 1: against seven guys? Well they were. And there's there's irrefutable
Speaker 1: stuff at this point to you know, not just you know,
Speaker 1: classified the after action reports and even the video made
Speaker 1: by those guys. There's other stuff out there that definitively
Speaker 1: answers that question. So, and I think people are realizing
Speaker 1: now that, yeah, you know, it's you know, I helped
Speaker 1: write that Newsweek article that it was May often it
Speaker 1: was May sixth, I think. And Pat Kinser who I
Speaker 1: was his I was embedded in his platoon in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: and they he's got a great quote in there. He's
Speaker 1: like this total bullshit that there's that many guys. There's
Speaker 1: there's not twenty or thirty, you know, or two hundred
Speaker 1: people in all the congle Valley. Sorry, well you were
Speaker 1: saying that we were told. I just gonna say, do
Speaker 1: you blame Marcus Latrelle for like what seems like an exaggeration?
Speaker 1: Do you think it could be the result of PTSD
Speaker 1: or just the heat of the moment that you know,
Speaker 1: you don't vividly remember every detail of a story you're
Speaker 1: a part of. Um. Well, uh boy, I don't want
Speaker 1: to use the term blame. Um. And I've been accused
Speaker 1: of going after Marcus Latrell and I've never done that.
Speaker 1: All I've ever gone after the truth. And there is
Speaker 1: there was there was stuff in command higher command that
Speaker 1: I think that I would blame this on. Um there's
Speaker 1: a guy I'm not going to put his name out there,
Speaker 1: but he was you know, was six and he Um,
Speaker 1: three of those four guys had never been in combat before.
Speaker 1: You know, Danny Beats was the only one of ever
Speaker 1: been in combat. And there also an STV team sent
Speaker 1: on a special reconnaissance mission in the mountains. Yea, And
Speaker 1: you know, you know a lot more about this than
Speaker 1: I do. This is your forte but uh, you know
Speaker 1: it's it's those guys have never trained together. And UM,
Speaker 1: you know, I have got my own personal theories and
Speaker 1: once we get a little bit more information, I'll be
Speaker 1: able to put it out there, and that's going to
Speaker 1: happen in the next few years. But I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: those personal thoughts to myself right now. But you know,
Speaker 1: it was just um what has been published, including in
Speaker 1: my book, and then um, some technical articles that I've
Speaker 1: written in one very important article that was written in
Speaker 1: the Marine CORPSI Isette by the battalion commander second time
Speaker 1: thurb Marines. Um. They it was just it was it
Speaker 1: was a command chain breakdown, uh, and so many different levels.
Speaker 1: It was just, um, they're so much. I mean, we
Speaker 1: we can talk for hours about this, from the aviation
Speaker 1: aspect of it, from the initial planning of it, from
Speaker 1: the egoist side of it. But there's there's really one
Speaker 1: particular guy that all this falls on the shoulders of.
Speaker 1: I won't say his name, but I'm sure there's some
Speaker 1: people out there who know. Yeah, I think I know
Speaker 1: who you're talking about to Ed, and I mean this,
Speaker 1: this person is involved in floating, um, heroic narratives and
Speaker 1: more than one incident yep, yep, Takagar Robert's rich yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And so so they take they take naval failures and
Speaker 1: spin them into these like heroic Hollywood scripts yep. And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to speak to anything well, I it's
Speaker 1: a little bit too sacralar I don't even go there.
Speaker 1: But it's, um, you know who I'm talking about, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, let's just leave it at this. And there's
Speaker 1: gonna be there's gonna be more on the Red Wings.
Speaker 1: There's gonna be more stuff on Red Wings. So I'm
Speaker 1: working one project right this second. Um, I'm no, I'm
Speaker 1: happy actually with the Ranger with an army Ranger, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the two seven five guys that were involved, Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, your friend and Leo Jenkins was
Speaker 1: one of them, and didn't he write a piece for futing.
Speaker 1: But Jenkins was three seven five, He was in my
Speaker 1: battalion and he was UM one of the guys that
Speaker 1: was spun up after it happened, and they quickly rushed
Speaker 1: them into Afghanistan, UM to help search for Latrelle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I remember him writing a piece for you know,
Speaker 1: about him refuting some of the stuff in the Lone
Speaker 1: Survivor movie. Yeah, I think. Yeah. The Rangers also came
Speaker 1: to the conclusion that there wasn't some massive firefight with
Speaker 1: hundreds of people fairly quickly. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm try to try to be as careful about this
Speaker 1: as possible, But there was no five five six brass found.
Speaker 1: And I you know that we've already we've already published
Speaker 1: that in UM in the Newsweek article. You're talking. What
Speaker 1: else in the Newsweek article was that Latrell had all
Speaker 1: eleven magazines with them and they all were filled with rounds.
Speaker 1: So I read that article. I remember that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so Ed, what do you think I mean? You talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about the schism between the American military
Speaker 1: you know, veteran or soldier in the U. S. Public.
Speaker 1: Why do you think these stories, these these like grand
Speaker 1: narratives we create. We keep creating them over and over again,
Speaker 1: and we found this very emotional attachment to them. I mean,
Speaker 1: what do you make of all of this? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: I guess civil military relationship that we have with these
Speaker 1: like G I. Joe type movies and things. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because I had it too when I just you sort
Speaker 1: of it was just ignorance. I mean, it just comes
Speaker 1: down to ignorance. And I think people really there's a
Speaker 1: it's I'm not a psychologist, but people do tend to
Speaker 1: want to be part of something that they feel is
Speaker 1: greater than themselves. Like you probably experienced. It's like everybody.
Speaker 1: So many people I meet, they they're saying, Oh, I
Speaker 1: have a friend and he knows somebody in the Navy Seals,
Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden, they're imbued with all
Speaker 1: this wisdom and knowledge about how the military works. Like
Speaker 1: I'll tell you about that spy satellite cause I got
Speaker 1: a friend of the Navy Seals. Maybe seals don't know
Speaker 1: anything about communications or SR satellites, you know, maybe some do,
Speaker 1: but you know, but somehow, or you see this too
Speaker 1: with these experts, these guys that go on these TV shows,
Speaker 1: and like one day they'll be asking about like a
Speaker 1: nuclear warhead and a in a a in a submarine,
Speaker 1: and then the next day they'll be talking about like
Speaker 1: a black Hawk helicopter, you know. And it's one of
Speaker 1: the things that when I go out and I I
Speaker 1: call him one shot sources because they know about one
Speaker 1: thing and that's it, and I can use them once,
Speaker 1: like you know, with Extortion one seven Buddy Buddy Lee,
Speaker 1: who was the extortion company commander, Like he's great and
Speaker 1: he helped tremendously with this book, but I will never
Speaker 1: need to use him as a source again because he
Speaker 1: only knows about that. He knows about a lot of things,
Speaker 1: but he's an absolute expert in that. And that's what
Speaker 1: you gotta go for. And a lot of times and
Speaker 1: what happens is the news media, we'll just go for
Speaker 1: these these professional quote unquote professional sources, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: you get like you get like the acronym CIA after
Speaker 1: your name, and suddenly you're, you know, you're an expert
Speaker 1: on everything, and like ourt news has you wanted to
Speaker 1: all sorts of zany stuff. It's more than just military too, though.
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of these like no one
Speaker 1: stays in their lane anymore if they're a contributor on
Speaker 1: Fox News or CNN. I've brought this up countless time,
Speaker 1: so I apologize to the audience, and I brought up recently,
Speaker 1: but it's just an example that sticks out of my head.
Speaker 1: I remember watching one of these Hannity panels, uh, and
Speaker 1: they were like lawyers and there were you know, just
Speaker 1: commentators were in their twenties. And then they had you know,
Speaker 1: like Nick Irving on this panel and Hannity is asking
Speaker 1: questions about ISIS and terrorism, and I noticed, like it's
Speaker 1: the lawyers opening their mouths every time, who probably have
Speaker 1: no expertise on the subject. And I'm watching it's like,
Speaker 1: go to Nick Irving. He's actually an army ranger, he
Speaker 1: actually has been in combat. And it just that's how
Speaker 1: the media is with these people who who think that
Speaker 1: they're an expert on every subject that you throw at them. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean with respect to Nick Irving, I mean he's
Speaker 1: a friend of mine. Nick has no experience with ices either. No,
Speaker 1: But my point being, would I rather hear from Nick
Speaker 1: Irving or or a Rod's attorney who is you know, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I understand, I understand. Um, Well, what's interesting about that
Speaker 1: also is that, um, we can watch somebody on the news.
Speaker 1: I can I can watch someone talking about counter terrorism
Speaker 1: and be like, wow, that person is totally full of shit.
Speaker 1: Or ED can be watching somebody talking about military aviation
Speaker 1: and be like, wow, that guy is full of ship.
Speaker 1: But think about all the other people who are on
Speaker 1: the news media talking about you know, the water poisoning
Speaker 1: and flint or um that we don't know anything about.
Speaker 1: But we don't and so then to make sure you
Speaker 1: get like what how is it? You know? And so
Speaker 1: we just have to we just have to nod our
Speaker 1: head and be like okay. It's also like you watch
Speaker 1: the BAX news and it's like, how is it that
Speaker 1: every female expert also looks like they could be a model?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Is this really the number?
Speaker 1: Or is it that viewers find this woman attractive? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: well they look they know how to sell advertising. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's um, but I think that it's just you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not advocating for compulsory military service, but I
Speaker 1: mean I think if everybody even did like six months
Speaker 1: of some sort of military service in this country. Then
Speaker 1: you know, you get a lot much more of a
Speaker 1: broad based education and an understanding. And it's just um,
Speaker 1: it's they're like you said, there is that schism. There
Speaker 1: is um and it's it's just and and it's mysterious too,
Speaker 1: like people don't really know and they're kind of wow,
Speaker 1: what's going on? And you see these you know the
Speaker 1: you know, there's these enemies, these elusive, crazy, the weird
Speaker 1: enemies like lurking in the shadows. You know al Kayed
Speaker 1: to Taliban, you don't really know anything about him, and um,
Speaker 1: and then you know these guys are going over and
Speaker 1: they're getting dropped off in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: And I mean, at least in earlier if those guys
Speaker 1: are just making it up as they went along, you know, um,
Speaker 1: there wasn't anything. I mean, they definitely had tactics all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, but it was It's just it's
Speaker 1: very mysterious and it's alluring in that mystery. Um, and
Speaker 1: people they just don't they I think they want to
Speaker 1: make something out of it that's more than it really is.
Speaker 1: You know, like you've been on tons of combat operations shack,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, I mean, I remember the
Speaker 1: first time I got I mean, I remember everything. I
Speaker 1: got in a firefight once in the Afghanistan and the
Speaker 1: team commander gave me the M six team, let me
Speaker 1: shoot the Taliban, and I was that foggle war. There's
Speaker 1: no foggle war. I remember every fucking second part of
Speaker 1: my language of what happened with that. I mean, and
Speaker 1: I loved it, you know, it was it was wild,
Speaker 1: you know, but it's just kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: I know what that experience is like now most people don't.
Speaker 1: You know, the first time you're gonna expire fight and
Speaker 1: you shoot back and it's just, uh, it's just totally
Speaker 1: it's an unknown. It's mysterious and it's a learning and
Speaker 1: people just kind of want to know about it. Oh,
Speaker 1: who are these Navy seal guys and you know this
Speaker 1: and that Army ranger guys. What are you really doing?
Speaker 1: And what do they really with a lot of what
Speaker 1: I get a lot of this, like, Hey, my son
Speaker 1: wants to go into the military and they're going to
Speaker 1: give them these pills, and I understand that these pills
Speaker 1: can have long term effects. I'm like, yeah, those pills
Speaker 1: are probably to keep them from getting malaria or you know,
Speaker 1: some other nasty pathogen, so they're you know, they're fine
Speaker 1: to say. You know, you've probably heard that, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. So I've seen all those like Facebook memes
Speaker 1: of like, you know, who do you trust on vaccines,
Speaker 1: like millions of doctors were not millions of doctors whatever,
Speaker 1: thousands of doctors or you know some yoga teacher who
Speaker 1: posts memes on Facebook. You know. Well, it's it's interesting too,
Speaker 1: because there's just like methos that we've built up about
Speaker 1: ourselves and like how badass we are. And that's why
Speaker 1: people can't believe that, you know, Navy seals got ambushed
Speaker 1: and killed by seven dudes, or that a helicopter got
Speaker 1: shot down in a random you know, a random chance.
Speaker 1: We thank you very much for bringing that point up.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's a great, very important point. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's so much the you guys you know,
Speaker 1: meaning members of Special Operations Command, but it's people who
Speaker 1: are on the book writing side and the movie making side.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody likes heroes, and you know a lot
Speaker 1: of people, you know, I I work for myself, and
Speaker 1: I kind of do what I want to do, and
Speaker 1: so I don't. I've never worked in an office and
Speaker 1: I've never done the day to day in grinding and
Speaker 1: grind out. And you know, it's sort of that people,
Speaker 1: I think one of vicariously experienced these heroics, you know,
Speaker 1: and and they get wrapped up in that. And there's
Speaker 1: there's people who write books and who make movies who
Speaker 1: will deliver that fantasy, and in that fantasy propagates and
Speaker 1: pretty soon what was once a fantasy is now considered
Speaker 1: you know. Like I've had people say to me, how
Speaker 1: how there you say that Navy Seals four Navy Seals
Speaker 1: can be taken out by seven Taliban And I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, because when you're in the Navy Seals, your
Speaker 1: body is no longer subject to the ballistic properties, supersonic
Speaker 1: weapons systems and explosions. You know, you've got a special
Speaker 1: force field, you know. I mean, it's this nonsense. Well,
Speaker 1: for a long time, it's I've I've selfishly said that
Speaker 1: I hope Hollywood keeps making these movies about seals because
Speaker 1: I don't want any movies made about rangers and special forces.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about the unit times and just keep
Speaker 1: making these seal movies have at it. But now we
Speaker 1: have this movie coming out where Thor plays a Special
Speaker 1: Forces captain in Afghanistan, so we're gonna have to suck
Speaker 1: it up through that. I guess. Yeah, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: I don't pay attention to the movie stuff. I've never
Speaker 1: seen any of these films. I've never seen the Loan
Speaker 1: Survivor move I've never seen I've never seen any of
Speaker 1: the people ask me about it all the time. What
Speaker 1: was that one about Benghazi? I didn't see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that. I don't want I don't watch
Speaker 1: I don't I can't watch those movies. I did watch
Speaker 1: Loan Survivor, and it actually is it's a good movie,
Speaker 1: and it's not as fictional. It's still very fictional. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's actually better than the book. I mean, the
Speaker 1: book is is laughable. You know. I used to not
Speaker 1: come out and publicly say that, but I remember when
Speaker 1: it came out. Matt Bartle's was the guy um who
Speaker 1: was the commander of Camp Blessing, which was very close
Speaker 1: to where all this happened, I mean was seven miles
Speaker 1: and Matt and his marines and Pat Kinser and his
Speaker 1: Marines who Pat was based there was Matt. Those guys
Speaker 1: did all this counter certainty outreach into the guys in
Speaker 1: in the Sherike Valley and they were personal friends with
Speaker 1: Galab And when this book Lone Survivor came out, I
Speaker 1: remember driving my car. I was heading actually down to
Speaker 1: Mcast Human Marine Corps Station hum But to do a project.
Speaker 1: It was like in May two thousand seven, and I
Speaker 1: was driving my land Wherever and I had my BlackBerry
Speaker 1: Pearl on speaker phone, and I was passing Wesley on
Speaker 1: Interstate fives Town there I strive Tomato trucks through there
Speaker 1: telling that reading passages from Lone Survivor, and we were
Speaker 1: howling with laughter about how absurd it was. Like we
Speaker 1: just couldn't even it was unbelievable, and just thinking, We're
Speaker 1: just like, how can they say this this absolute nonsense?
Speaker 1: Have you have you read the book? I've never read
Speaker 1: it cover to cover. No, I've read pett Do you
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I mean there's this
Speaker 1: one part in the book where like he like blames
Speaker 1: the liberal media for what happened that day, and I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, I mean, like you're gonna blame your
Speaker 1: country for the decisions you made in combat. Like I've
Speaker 1: made bad decisions in combat. I'll say that openly. And
Speaker 1: I'm writing a book about about some of that stuff.
Speaker 1: And I've made poor decisions, and I am solely responsible
Speaker 1: for all of those decisions. Like there is not America's fall,
Speaker 1: It's not even the Range of Regiment's fault. It's my phone. Um,
Speaker 1: that's it. To to be fair, he didn't write that book.
Speaker 1: I mean like three three five minute interviews and it
Speaker 1: was not written by Marcus Trell Robinson. And so that's
Speaker 1: you know, I mean. And the other thing too is
Speaker 1: Navy seals and Navy seals are not book authors. And
Speaker 1: it's you know, knowledge amongst all these units is you know,
Speaker 1: very compartmented. There's no reason that guy in seventy Ranger
Speaker 1: Regiment who is I don't know anything about the seventeenth
Speaker 1: Range of Regiment. But like most of you guys are
Speaker 1: loving Bravos and you know, and you know your inventory
Speaker 1: light invagry guys, and what how why should you know
Speaker 1: what a nine line is? That's for this combat control
Speaker 1: over here from Special Tactics Squad. Well mean a nine
Speaker 1: line METAVAC I mean every soldier knows that well, I
Speaker 1: mean like nine A nine line for a you know,
Speaker 1: for a close air support. Oh no, but I I
Speaker 1: get what you're saying. Though. You're right that these units,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, very compartmentalized. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many things that I've come to learn about
Speaker 1: what was going on right under my nose, and I
Speaker 1: can find out until years later. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's um. So, I mean that's that's you know,
Speaker 1: I walk up, you know a line. I used to
Speaker 1: just be very I never would say anything in public
Speaker 1: about it, you know, because you but my book came
Speaker 1: out to almost ten years ago. Now I was into
Speaker 1: oh nine, and you know it's it's um. To this day,
Speaker 1: no one's ever refuted anything in it, and I've never
Speaker 1: you know, Oh, I guess I'm bashing alone survivor now,
Speaker 1: but I don't even really care. It's it's it's just
Speaker 1: such a you know, you you you write a book
Speaker 1: and it's to be it's supposed to be nonfiction, and
Speaker 1: it's just so filled with nonsense. Um, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: do anybody any good, you know who It hurts in
Speaker 1: the long runs, Navy seals. You know in Special Operations Command.
Speaker 1: I mean, you want to write a book about this stuff,
Speaker 1: be accurate, you know, be accurate, take the time to
Speaker 1: talk to people who know it's on fortunate, a lot
Speaker 1: of these books are written with one or two sources only.
Speaker 1: It's dangerous and you can do that. Yeah, and it overall,
Speaker 1: it creates these misconceptions and poor perceptions of what's really
Speaker 1: going on out there. Yeah. But and then also when
Speaker 1: I asked people, when they asked and they said, hey,
Speaker 1: tell me about like, you know, accuracy and more reporting,
Speaker 1: and what do you need to have a military? You
Speaker 1: need too things. You need people and money, and you
Speaker 1: know Congress controls the money and the people who control
Speaker 1: like who wants to go into the military. You know
Speaker 1: a lot of the media and stuff like that and
Speaker 1: so different. You know, they used to bash the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps for being media whores, and maybe that was true
Speaker 1: a long time ago. But you know, you see a
Speaker 1: lot of people it's uh, I don't know who's respond
Speaker 1: who's responsible for it, if there's any particular military unit
Speaker 1: responsible for it. But once people who pay taxes which
Speaker 1: funds the military, and once people who have kids, and
Speaker 1: when I turn eighteen, seventeen, eighteen nineteen, and they want
Speaker 1: to do something with their lives. Starts being like, wow,
Speaker 1: we're getting lie to you know, what are these guys doing?
Speaker 1: You know, then all of a sudden, you know, the
Speaker 1: military is not such a popular thing anymore. And you
Speaker 1: know I'm saying hypothetically, but it's it's you know, there's
Speaker 1: something to be said for just telling the truth that
Speaker 1: the fact that seven dudes overwhelmed them in a fifteen
Speaker 1: second ambush. Uh. You know, because there's two guys standing
Speaker 1: out trying to get calms on out five radium. There
Speaker 1: was one guy access and there was a little bit
Speaker 1: to the north of them, and there's one guy Latrell,
Speaker 1: who was a little bit farther down the hill from them,
Speaker 1: and they hit those two guys first and there it
Speaker 1: was over, and you know, we'll I'll save the rest
Speaker 1: for later. But you know, that is you know, there's
Speaker 1: nothing there's no less bravery or anything else that comes
Speaker 1: from those that's from that versus a forty five minute firefight.
Speaker 1: You know, technically it was about that long as there
Speaker 1: was shots being fired, but the actual meat it was
Speaker 1: very short. But you know, there's nothing any less heroic
Speaker 1: about that. Then these guys like branding fighting, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: fought bravely and there's no need to church it up
Speaker 1: with all this other nonsense exactly, you know, And I
Speaker 1: know you you know, I've been on only in a
Speaker 1: handful of firefights some shape and in tont of them.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's just, um, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: scary stuff. And and once people once she that's the thing,
Speaker 1: like you know, once you get lied to you by people.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have friends that have led to you
Speaker 1: that they're still your friends, you're kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well all right, you just don't really trust them anymore,
Speaker 1: you know. And it's it's I'm probably gonna write about it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I know I will write about it
Speaker 1: in this book. But I was on one operation I
Speaker 1: used it. I use this um example too about to
Speaker 1: tell people about, you know, the whole notion of like
Speaker 1: what is true. So I was on this one mission
Speaker 1: where we went out on an h VT strike outside Missoul.
Speaker 1: We pulled up the guy that h VT was was
Speaker 1: trying to escape. He was trying to um run off
Speaker 1: the objective and disappear, and our r oe said, we
Speaker 1: can shoot guys who are They're not surrendering, They're just
Speaker 1: trying to make their get away to fight another day.
Speaker 1: So the entire task force opens up on this dude
Speaker 1: and shoots him and including my gun or on my
Speaker 1: my striker, And I saw the whole thing with my
Speaker 1: own eyes. The second we get back to the base.
Speaker 1: I get back there and there's guys telling me, oh,
Speaker 1: that guy his name was a Yad, like he was
Speaker 1: shooting a glock over his shoulder, like he was running
Speaker 1: away from us while shooting a glock pistol over his
Speaker 1: shoulder at us. And he's like, yeah, we saw the
Speaker 1: whole thing on I s R. And I'm like, dude,
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. And I think, you know, I think
Speaker 1: they were trying to cover their ass in case anyone
Speaker 1: asked questions, even though it was within the R and B.
Speaker 1: But I could see this narrative being, this fictional narrative
Speaker 1: being created just like literally minutes after the killing happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you brought up a really interesting point. You said something
Speaker 1: that's really that I would never be able to just
Speaker 1: you know, it's this truth is stranger than fiction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I s our feeds, predator feeds flear uh, Pad's pinba
Speaker 1: any type of feed that comes down you can well
Speaker 1: Tad's pinnas and an Apache that doesn't that's not trying.
Speaker 1: Maybe it is now and the new blocks. But I've
Speaker 1: had people tell me, yeah, I watched the Red Wings
Speaker 1: uh incident on on a predator. People swear up and
Speaker 1: down and they put that on the internet and the
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, people are citing that like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this guy said he saw it. There was no there
Speaker 1: was no predator on station. You know. There there's people
Speaker 1: I've heard this so many times before about extortion one seven.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I watched it happened. I was in Iraq
Speaker 1: at the time, and we had we were the uh
Speaker 1: we're in the Jaysak you know, talk and you know,
Speaker 1: we've got all these feeds everywhere, and it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so you saw what and you're saying you saw this
Speaker 1: and there was no there was no there was no
Speaker 1: sensor on like on station you know. I mean there
Speaker 1: was in a different part of the valley. But and
Speaker 1: I've heard that, not a lot, but enough that it's
Speaker 1: people i think just want to believe it and they
Speaker 1: make it up and they've seen enough. Editor fees and
Speaker 1: they kind of know what it looks like. They've got
Speaker 1: the cool symbology with the grids and the upper left
Speaker 1: and the X and all that kind of stuff, and
Speaker 1: they imagine that they saw it, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, I'm not I'm not saying I'm this
Speaker 1: insallible source, and but you know, I I'm at a
Speaker 1: point now where, you know, because I get this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, handed to me, and you know, I know
Speaker 1: what it looks like, and I study it very carefully.
Speaker 1: And it's even if you have it, it's there's stuff
Speaker 1: that you can miss, and there's stuff that just doesn't
Speaker 1: even exist that people think, whoa Joe over there, he
Speaker 1: was he's got a friend in the who's going to
Speaker 1: be a navy stealer? He said he saw he said
Speaker 1: he saw a predator imagery. He saw it on YouTube. Well,
Speaker 1: this is of this ambush. This is also like a
Speaker 1: little crash course for aspiring military journalists are like how
Speaker 1: difficult it is to really ascertain what happened in a firefight,
Speaker 1: like exactly, yep, yep, there's something, there's some details you
Speaker 1: might just never be able to really find out, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's just incredibly difficult. Yeah, and that's the thing
Speaker 1: with any of this stuff. And it really helps when
Speaker 1: you got gun tape, I'll tell you that much. Um,
Speaker 1: it really helps when you got gun tape, because gun
Speaker 1: tape doesn't lie. Uh. And I've even had people, um
Speaker 1: trying to be as vague about this as possible, but
Speaker 1: I've had people say to me, well, even if you
Speaker 1: have the gun tape, you know, there's another sensor from
Speaker 1: another aircraft that could have been pointed at another part
Speaker 1: of the valley, another part of this. And there's always
Speaker 1: a way that people try to like worm the way
Speaker 1: out of it. So so it could have happened. It
Speaker 1: could have been four Caliban fighters. They just weren't on
Speaker 1: the camera, you know, right. Sure. I had a friend
Speaker 1: or a an acquaintance really who is a seal officer,
Speaker 1: and he told me this great story about how, um,
Speaker 1: he got into a firefight in Afghanistan, him and his
Speaker 1: unit and when they got to their FOB and they
Speaker 1: were doing the A R M. Him and his teammate,
Speaker 1: who were right next to each other in this firefight,
Speaker 1: they both like completely disagreed with what had happened on
Speaker 1: the ground. Uh, And they could not resolve between each other. UM. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, to their credit, they were they were trying
Speaker 1: to be truthful, um and and tell things from their
Speaker 1: perspective rather than cook up a narrative. Um. But but
Speaker 1: from an A. R perspective, it didn't make sense, like
Speaker 1: this guy is saying this, this guy's saying that, and
Speaker 1: it didn't didn't make sense. So he said that we
Speaker 1: had to wait like two or three days for the
Speaker 1: I SR footage to come back. And when it finally
Speaker 1: did come back and they looked at it, it showed
Speaker 1: that we were both wrong. Let's say you say two
Speaker 1: plus two goals four and I say two plus two
Speaker 1: goals five. Does it mean that it's four point five?
Speaker 1: Do we like agree in the middle. No, I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: You're right, you know. And that's the problem with people
Speaker 1: making compromises and these things like, well, this guy thinks
Speaker 1: that it might have been this. Oh, that guy thinks that.
Speaker 1: In my business, No, here's what we got. Here's the
Speaker 1: pronerance of evidence points to they're being blankety blank at
Speaker 1: this location, at this time, this engagement occurred, this asset
Speaker 1: resolved p I D. They engage with this GBU and
Speaker 1: there was collateral damage Okay, here it is done. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It's like that's that's that's and
Speaker 1: you don't want to compromise with the truth. You know
Speaker 1: you can't, but something happens. It's as old as time.
Speaker 1: I mean, hence the term war story, right yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But I think the other thing is, um, it's why
Speaker 1: you really gotta be be careful. People really have to
Speaker 1: be careful to corroborate and to get as many sources
Speaker 1: as possible and to be able to corroborate those sources.
Speaker 1: I I was involved with someone and we had a
Speaker 1: book deal, and thank god he backed out of it
Speaker 1: because it turns out that he, he and the truth
Speaker 1: were um he from my perspective to say that, uh
Speaker 1: we're ahead, we're not quite in phase with one another.
Speaker 1: Um and uh boy dodged the bull there. So and
Speaker 1: it was he was it was going to be a
Speaker 1: single source book and I'll never do that again. Well,
Speaker 1: um so I was just gonna say, I mean, I
Speaker 1: give you credit for putting out both of these books
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, because I know you're opening yourself
Speaker 1: up to a ton of criticism, especially not being a
Speaker 1: part of the community. You know, the way that you're
Speaker 1: getting death threats and stuff. I fully believe it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, the older book that we're discussing is Victory Point,
Speaker 1: Operation Red Wings and Whalers. Uh. The newer one that
Speaker 1: came out early or I should say late last year
Speaker 1: since now is the final mission of Extortion seventeen Special
Speaker 1: Ops Helicopter Support Seal Team six and the Deadliest day
Speaker 1: of the U S War in Afghanistan. You also have
Speaker 1: a lot of other books more nature related. Um. And
Speaker 1: if checking edge website, you have some really awesome photography,
Speaker 1: some of it for sale and prints. Um, if you're
Speaker 1: into any nature related photography. So it's Derek dot com
Speaker 1: d A R a c K dot com and Derek
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. Uh yeah, anything else before we
Speaker 1: wrap this up. This has been a really great episode
Speaker 1: having you on and a lot of a lot of truth,
Speaker 1: a lot of hard truth that I think some people
Speaker 1: you know, will not want to hear. But I think
Speaker 1: that it's it's important to have people like you're writing
Speaker 1: these books. I you know, I think I think people
Speaker 1: as as time has gone on, I think people are
Speaker 1: ready for it, you know, I really do. And and
Speaker 1: a little bit of self criticism I I I've work
Speaker 1: in a lot of fields. I don't dabble in any
Speaker 1: of them. I'm very in depth with lots of them.
Speaker 1: But you know, I talked about you know, I've written
Speaker 1: about atmospheric refraction in the Green Flash, you know, and
Speaker 1: I've been on television talking about it, you know, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be on television in May talking about an
Speaker 1: operation Red Wings. So there's very fair, you know, criticism
Speaker 1: of me. You know, I know that I spend a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of time researching this and I'm basically just
Speaker 1: a co lader of information. I'm not an expert on
Speaker 1: Red Wings per se. I just I'm able to get
Speaker 1: people and data about it that is expert, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, and enough sources to be able to
Speaker 1: resolve with with a very high degree of clarity, and
Speaker 1: these other things too. So it's, um, it's just what
Speaker 1: you gotta do. It's just a way I think it's
Speaker 1: it's an epistemological approach to to uh, you know, from
Speaker 1: a very fundamental level, just really have to want the truth.
Speaker 1: So UM, thank you very much for having me on.
Speaker 1: I can continue to talk, you know, and thanks for
Speaker 1: mentioning the book. The extores you want Seven Stories amazing
Speaker 1: and I hope everybody buys that book in American reads it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming on and I really appreciate it. And UM, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope we can have you on again to talk
Speaker 1: about this stuff. I mean, if you're continuing your work,
Speaker 1: especially on these subjects, Um, we definitely have you on
Speaker 1: again and discuss that. Yeah. I got a great some
Speaker 1: great projects going right now. So all right, awesome having
Speaker 1: ed on a lot of information there, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: if you want to learn more about that, you could
Speaker 1: pick up both of those books. Um. You know what
Speaker 1: I realized that I didn't. Oh, I actually was going
Speaker 1: to mention this before I even mentioned the next thing.
Speaker 1: You were saying that you hope that there's no Army
Speaker 1: Ranger movies, But I mean, there is a Nick Irving
Speaker 1: movie coming out. I don't know if you realized that.
Speaker 1: I thought they were doing a TV show. Well, he
Speaker 1: talked about it on the last podcast he was on
Speaker 1: with us. You may remember. Attached to that TV show
Speaker 1: was a guy by the name of Harvey Weinstein. So
Speaker 1: if that's not gonna happen partially because of that, I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's the whole reason. But he did
Speaker 1: bring that up, so you know even better, it's now
Speaker 1: going to become a feature movie. That's it's funny you
Speaker 1: say that, because, um, they this TV show I just
Speaker 1: did on Tesla. I think they pushed it out because
Speaker 1: there's a movie coming out about Tesla, and like the
Speaker 1: movie is made. I think it was called Current Wars
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to be out now, but it
Speaker 1: was a Harvey Weinstein production, So now it's like on hiatus,
Speaker 1: like no one knows, like legally they have to figure
Speaker 1: out what's going to happen with that production company. And
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone knows. His name was attached to
Speaker 1: so much stuff. I mean, he was an extremely powerful
Speaker 1: guy in Hollywood, so yeah, not surprising. And then the
Speaker 1: other thing I was going to bring up, of course,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw our friend Mike Ritland
Speaker 1: got to ring the bell of the New York Stock
Speaker 1: Exchange yesterday for a Warrior Doug Foundation, which I thought
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. Yeah, um, that is pretty cool. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. Yep, I put the video off. If
Speaker 1: you go to our Instagram, uh softwarep Radio, I retweeted
Speaker 1: or re instagram that every want to say that stuff,
Speaker 1: so follow us on Instagram at softwarep Radio as we're
Speaker 1: wrapping things up. As a reminder for all of those
Speaker 1: who are listening, for a limited time you can receive
Speaker 1: a fifty percent discounted membership to softwarep TV, our channel
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Speaker 1: I got mine yesterday. Happy with it? Yeah, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of cool stuff in there. There's actually a
Speaker 1: really cool uh gun safe. And you know who I noticed,
Speaker 1: Scott Um. One of the crates was Liz Carmucci. We
Speaker 1: had owned recently because I said, Sin is a great
Speaker 1: you know, because she was great on the show and everything,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if you're familiar with her, but
Speaker 1: she was actually the first UM person to fight Ronda Rousy.
Speaker 1: The first female fight was Rousy versus Liz car Mooch
Speaker 1: and it was is also a former Marine combat veteran,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of the connection with the show, and
Speaker 1: had her on with Jim West of course. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean whenever we have like a mixed martial artists, just
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Speaker 1: It's been awesome having you back on here. Great interview
Speaker 1: that you wind up. Um yeah, man, and and I'll
Speaker 1: be seeing more of you every Tuesday and Thursday as
Speaker 1: we record these and put them up. Everyone's thank god
Speaker 1: I'm back. Yeah. I'm very happy to be back man,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to see that the response to your
Speaker 1: show has been good. So every Tuesday people can check
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, it'll be on every Tuesday. There's five episodes. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think they look really cool, but I
Speaker 1: mean I'm happy I did it, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I mean it's not really my thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm glad if he's back from my normal work.
Speaker 1: Cool man. So yes, Tessler's Death ray a murder declassified.
Speaker 1: Check that out on a discovery and we're out. You've
Speaker 1: been listening to self Rep Radio. New episodes up every
Speaker 1: Wednesday and Friday for all of the great content from
Speaker 1: our veteran journalists. Join us and become a team new
Speaker 1: member today at soft rep dot com. Follow the show
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at slt rep Radio, and be
Speaker 1: sure to also check out The Power of Fault podcast,
Speaker 1: hosted by Hurricane Group CEO and Navy Seal Sniper instructor
Speaker 1: Brandon Webb.