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: socrep dot com on time on Target. Jack Worth is
Speaker 1: back here because the last show is just me and
Speaker 1: Curt Frowder, which is interesting, and you talked about the
Speaker 1: gun control stuff. Really, but I know that the big
Speaker 1: thing right now for you is the Tiger Swan piece
Speaker 1: that you wrote, and you've been able to like take
Speaker 1: time with more of these investigative pieces lately. WI Great, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been working on that story for you know, four
Speaker 1: or five weeks. Um. It's one of those stories that
Speaker 1: I would not have believed myself, you know, if somebody
Speaker 1: came to me, if if you know, and this is
Speaker 1: my own, um, you know, initial bias, you know, if
Speaker 1: a protester had come to me, or they prefer to
Speaker 1: be called water protectors, but whatever the case, maybe if
Speaker 1: one of them had come to me and said, you know, look,
Speaker 1: you know there's private security contractors coming into our camps
Speaker 1: and stirring things up and calling for violence and doing
Speaker 1: these sort of provocative actions, I wouldn't have believed. M
Speaker 1: I'd be like, now, that's that's nonsense. That didn't happen. Um,
Speaker 1: But it did happen. And UM the gist of the
Speaker 1: articles and it's actually an incredibly complicated story, and you
Speaker 1: could write a book about it easily because there's just
Speaker 1: so much to it. But what happened was you had, UM,
Speaker 1: the protests kicking off at some point, and you had
Speaker 1: like ten tho people in the in the camps out
Speaker 1: at Standing Rock. UM. They were protesting the construction of
Speaker 1: the Dakota Access Pipeline, which runs through North Dakota, South Dakota,
Speaker 1: um Iowa, and in Illinois. And in North Dakota it
Speaker 1: runs through or past the northern tip of the Standing
Speaker 1: Rock Indian Reservation. And there's My article is about the
Speaker 1: private security contractors. So I'm not going to get too
Speaker 1: much into the environmentalism or the Native American land rights.
Speaker 1: All those things are important conversations, but it's not the
Speaker 1: focus of what I wrote. UM. It's such a big issue,
Speaker 1: you have to focus figure out where you're gonna put
Speaker 1: your focus on, right. So UM. As as time went on,
Speaker 1: the company Energy Transfer Partners hired numerous different security contracting
Speaker 1: companies to run security for them. There was Layton, there
Speaker 1: was r g T, there was s RC, there was
Speaker 1: ten Code. Um, there's about a half dozen different security companies,
Speaker 1: and they were all kind of hired to do different
Speaker 1: things or the same thing, but they were all doing
Speaker 1: their own thing at the same time. So there is
Speaker 1: no command and control element. There's no one really guiding things.
Speaker 1: The director of security for E. T. P UM, I believe,
Speaker 1: was really in over his head and that's why they
Speaker 1: reached out to these different companies. At a certain point.
Speaker 1: What happened was, and this is very funny, another company
Speaker 1: called Silverton was out there also, And what happened was
Speaker 1: that the security contractors we're having off the record conversations
Speaker 1: with the FBI, and they said, well, look, there's a
Speaker 1: bunch of Native Americans coming into this area. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be a a sort of festival, a pow wow going on. Um,
Speaker 1: there's no point to start in construction when all of
Speaker 1: these Indians are going to be here. I mean that
Speaker 1: it's like the worst time to start. So and it's
Speaker 1: quite frankly, the plan was, you know, we're gonna wait
Speaker 1: until they leave. Um, it's gonna start getting colder, winner's
Speaker 1: gonna set in a lot of protesters are gonna leave,
Speaker 1: and then when everyone has turned their backs, we're gonna
Speaker 1: basically shove the pipeline down their throat and start construction.
Speaker 1: Right from from their point of view, that was a
Speaker 1: sensible plan. The FBI agreed to it and agreed with
Speaker 1: this assessment, and they started nudging E t P. The
Speaker 1: oil company in this direction. They're like, hey, wait a
Speaker 1: little bit, um, and they told them, look, the FBI
Speaker 1: doesn't have the assets, we don't have the ability to
Speaker 1: keep things under you know, to protect you at this point,
Speaker 1: just wait, waited out a little bit. Um. ETP agreed
Speaker 1: to this, and then for some reason on September two,
Speaker 1: they agreed UM and then changed their mind and late
Speaker 1: at night they said the next morning, you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna be out there because we're gonna start construction. And
Speaker 1: this resulted in UM was kind of there. There were
Speaker 1: some sort of iconic moments I think out of Standing Rock,
Speaker 1: and one of them was what unfolded that next day
Speaker 1: around noon. Well, when they got um all the dog
Speaker 1: handlers out there, who were not even supposed to be
Speaker 1: out there yet because they were unlicensed. UM, they went
Speaker 1: out there, the protesters broke down the fence. They started
Speaker 1: charging the dogs and the contractors and then it gets
Speaker 1: into this big tussle. Uh. You know, there's a wrestling
Speaker 1: match between a contractor and one of the protesters. The dogs.
Speaker 1: You know, the protesters taunted the dogs, the dogs bit
Speaker 1: some people, some of the dogs got hurt. It was
Speaker 1: a big mess, and all of this came out in
Speaker 1: the international media and the we can look at, you know,
Speaker 1: in a very pragmatic way, it was bad, but in um,
Speaker 1: in regards to the optics, the the pr aspect of
Speaker 1: it was really bad. I mean, this was this was
Speaker 1: a strategic blunder by the oil company. And at that
Speaker 1: point they said, okay, we need additional help out here. Um,
Speaker 1: we need more security if we're going to go through
Speaker 1: with construction. And that was when Tiger Swan came on
Speaker 1: the scene. They reached out to Tiger Swan brought them
Speaker 1: on in a very rapid fashion. It all came together
Speaker 1: in like five working days, um, which is I don't
Speaker 1: want to say unprecedented, but that's very fast for a
Speaker 1: new contractor to be on boarded. And they had actual
Speaker 1: people hitting the ground in North Dakota. You know, within
Speaker 1: the week Um. So, ostensibly Tiger Swan was brought on
Speaker 1: just to run command and control to kind of harmonize
Speaker 1: the six or so other security agency, security contractor groups
Speaker 1: that were out there. Um. But it became a lot
Speaker 1: more than that. And Tiger Swan maintains to this day.
Speaker 1: And I had some back and forth with them just yesterday,
Speaker 1: Uh that they only ran command and control, that they
Speaker 1: were acting essentially as consultants on the ground in North Dakota.
Speaker 1: This is the biggest lie that they tell. I would say,
Speaker 1: this is the most blatant lie that they tell, and
Speaker 1: it's demonstrably false. Uh. They were not simply consultants. They
Speaker 1: were not simply um running command and control putting together
Speaker 1: power point slides. They were active participants in what was
Speaker 1: happening out there. That you have physical, hard evidence I do.
Speaker 1: I have. I have documents, I have the names, I've
Speaker 1: intered photographs, photographs, I've interviewed the people involved. Um, there is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's just not true. I mean,
Speaker 1: they did send people into these camps to infiltrate the camps,
Speaker 1: to run human uh what you would call human intelligence. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now there's a difference between what may have been
Speaker 1: in the contract, what they were hired to do and
Speaker 1: what they actually did. And so I believe that there
Speaker 1: was a lot of things that happened that the oil
Speaker 1: company et P was unaware of. And I think even UM,
Speaker 1: I would I have some leeway for the CEO of
Speaker 1: Tiger Swan, James Reese UM, who's a retired Delta Force officer.
Speaker 1: I think that he was not aware of everything that
Speaker 1: happened out there, and at a certain point he was
Speaker 1: made aware that, hey, there are illegal activities being done,
Speaker 1: you know, in our name by our employees, and he
Speaker 1: didn't take action. Um. Namely, what happened was another retired
Speaker 1: Delta Force sergeant major was a program manager for Tiger
Speaker 1: Swan out in North Dakota, and his name was John Porter.
Speaker 1: He was the CEO of Tiger Swan James Reese. It
Speaker 1: was his sergeant major. So it's an n CEO officer relationship.
Speaker 1: Reese was the commander of first Troop A Squadron UH
Speaker 1: and his sergeant major was John Porter. So Reese needed
Speaker 1: to turn to somebody he could trust to run this
Speaker 1: big oil contract. I mean, this was a big deal
Speaker 1: for the company. We're making a lot of money at
Speaker 1: one point, I was told they were making a million
Speaker 1: dollars a month in pure profit. Um, so there's a
Speaker 1: lot of money in this thing. And uh and John
Speaker 1: Porter was the go to guy. UM. I left the
Speaker 1: you know, I called John Porter yesterday morning. I left
Speaker 1: a voicemail for him, and I haven't heard back from him.
Speaker 1: So if you'd like to reach out and uh and
Speaker 1: tell his side of the story, he can definitely, UM,
Speaker 1: feel welcome to do that. There are six sides to
Speaker 1: this story. There are actually more than six sides, so
Speaker 1: I recognize that. But John Porter did some things that
Speaker 1: he really shouldn't have been doing out there. Um. And
Speaker 1: he blatantly blew off the law. Many times. He was
Speaker 1: giving guys illegal orders, telling them, you know, to break
Speaker 1: the legs of protesters. Uh. He would get on the radio,
Speaker 1: pretending to be a protester, saying, come down to the bridge,
Speaker 1: this is the North Bridge, come down fight us, you know,
Speaker 1: come fight the cops. They're shooting at us. Get down here,
Speaker 1: you know, all this kind of stuff. Um. He was
Speaker 1: sending uh Tiger Swan employees to do so called penetration test,
Speaker 1: striving the pickups right right into the camps just to
Speaker 1: antagonize the protesters. And for Porter, this was all job security.
Speaker 1: It was to artificially extend the contracts so that they
Speaker 1: could cash in for longer. And this is the this
Speaker 1: is the main point of the article. There are some
Speaker 1: other creepy stuff that happened out there. Um, I'll tell
Speaker 1: you for instance, Uh, there was a certain point, just
Speaker 1: as Tiger Swan came on the scene, a bunch of protesters,
Speaker 1: new protesters quote unquote protesters started showing up inside the camps.
Speaker 1: They were calling for violence. They would say, let's let's
Speaker 1: bring guns into the camps. Let's go shoot out the
Speaker 1: lights in the construction camps, or I'm sorry, the construction site,
Speaker 1: let's let's do this. They're calling for violent action. They're
Speaker 1: calling for fighting the police. Now, the FBI, the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Land Management, and the JTTF, we're all ready inside
Speaker 1: the camps. They had their own infiltraders in there who
Speaker 1: were just sitting there watching. They're just keeping they're just
Speaker 1: doing their job, keeping an eye out in case things
Speaker 1: turned ugly in the camps. They had some situational awareness. Um.
Speaker 1: And when these new people, these new protesters showed up
Speaker 1: calling for violence, they were like Okay, we need to
Speaker 1: run this down to who are these people? So they
Speaker 1: ran their names, they started running pictures, and they found
Speaker 1: that these people have no digital fingerprints whatsoever. They're not
Speaker 1: real people in as since they're operating under some some
Speaker 1: sort of a cover. Um, this was dis concerning. So
Speaker 1: now we know they're not And because of the deconfliction
Speaker 1: process of the FBI and agencies like the d A, A,
Speaker 1: t F and so on they use, they know these
Speaker 1: aren't federal agents. But they're also not protesters. So who
Speaker 1: are they? Where did they come from? Who put them
Speaker 1: in the camp? When asked, John Porter stated that these
Speaker 1: people were part of a special mission unit quote unquote
Speaker 1: that John Reece Jim Reese had hired some sort of
Speaker 1: special security, additional security that was runterally and it was
Speaker 1: not being run by the Tiger Swan employees who were
Speaker 1: sent out to Dapple sent out to North Dakota. It
Speaker 1: was something else, was a like a separate, parallel endeavor
Speaker 1: that was being run in a car departmentalized fashion. What
Speaker 1: I obtained was the pictures of two of these nameless individuals,
Speaker 1: and it's published in the story. Um, I have a
Speaker 1: feeling I know who they are. Um, But the FBI
Speaker 1: was never able to identify them or other UM nameless
Speaker 1: so called protesters who showed up in the camps trying
Speaker 1: to stir things up. Um. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: creepy stuff that went down out there. And now Tiger
Speaker 1: Swan's official position as they deny everything I'm saying, of
Speaker 1: course they say this is absolutely false. Um, these statements
Speaker 1: are made up. They must be so pissed that you
Speaker 1: for writing this, well, because you're the only one writing
Speaker 1: about it. Well, there is a sort of additional addendum
Speaker 1: that I didn't um write in the article. UM, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into it too much, but
Speaker 1: the Intercept wrote a long piece about what happened at
Speaker 1: Standing Rock, and a lot of it is about Tiger Swan. UM.
Speaker 1: And they had a lot of documents leaked to them.
Speaker 1: This was before I was, way before I was ever
Speaker 1: working on the story. And UM, you know, the Intercept,
Speaker 1: I think they didn't I guess you could say, I
Speaker 1: think they did an admirable enough job with the documents
Speaker 1: that had been leaked to them, but they clearly didn't
Speaker 1: have any sources and um, and so their story is
Speaker 1: kind of limited. In that sense. But there's a big
Speaker 1: fallout because of that story. Um, Tiger Swan is expecting
Speaker 1: to get oil security contracts in Louisiana, and because the
Speaker 1: intercept blasted all that stuff out, Um, they lost that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well now I'm guessing if you google Tiger Swan, your
Speaker 1: article will probably be one of the first things to
Speaker 1: pop up. I mean people, I I think the and
Speaker 1: I wrote the article partially as a warning, and I
Speaker 1: would say I wrote it as a warning to my
Speaker 1: peer group, and you know, even guys who are a
Speaker 1: little younger than I am. Um, some of the young
Speaker 1: rangers out there, young green berets who come out of
Speaker 1: the services and they are going to go, Um, they
Speaker 1: want to become private security contractors. And that's fine, but
Speaker 1: there are things they should be aware of, and they
Speaker 1: should be um aware of, you know, the legalities. They
Speaker 1: need to be very um weary of security contracting. Um.
Speaker 1: They need to have their contracts, you know, perhaps looked
Speaker 1: over by an attorney. They need to take steps to
Speaker 1: protect themselves. I think what happened with Tiger Swan was
Speaker 1: that because you had John Porter and Jim Reece, who
Speaker 1: were retired Delta Forest guys that you had these young
Speaker 1: rangers come out of the service and they still psychologically
Speaker 1: they're still in this military hierarchy. And you know, these
Speaker 1: guys are there Jay Sock heroes. And when someone like
Speaker 1: John Porter comes to you he was a Delta sergeant
Speaker 1: major and you were a sergeant or a corporal in
Speaker 1: range of battalion and John Porter tells you to do something,
Speaker 1: you assume that this decision has been vetted, that the
Speaker 1: person who's telling you this is legit, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're still mentally inside that military hierarchy, and guys need
Speaker 1: to understand no, actually, they're not in the military anymore.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had one conversation with a source
Speaker 1: and he was like, you know, when these corporations hire
Speaker 1: us to do things, they hire former Special Operations guys
Speaker 1: because they think, you know, we're the dudes who will
Speaker 1: do anything to get the job done. But then the
Speaker 1: corporations expects you to do things that are totally illegal.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, we could do that when we were
Speaker 1: in uniform, um because we had the legal Title ten
Speaker 1: authorities to do that. But now you're a civilian. So
Speaker 1: some of the things that they might expect you to do,
Speaker 1: are you know, kidnapping, false imprisonment, I mean, all sorts
Speaker 1: of stuff that you you absolutely can't do as a
Speaker 1: private citizen. So um and I so I wrote this
Speaker 1: article and there's some commentary on this also as a
Speaker 1: warning to the other guys out there, and especially when
Speaker 1: they're doing these security contracts, um you know, here in
Speaker 1: the United States. It was a very scary situation out
Speaker 1: at Standing Rock because we came very close to a
Speaker 1: situation that could have ended up like the Boston massacre,
Speaker 1: where you had a bunch of um, you know, former
Speaker 1: Special Operations guys shooting at protesters, and we came close
Speaker 1: to having that happen on a numerous occasions. And uh,
Speaker 1: that would have it would have been, as I wrote
Speaker 1: an article, would have been brother against brother in more
Speaker 1: ways than one. Because there was a ton of US
Speaker 1: military veterans in the protest camps. There were a ton
Speaker 1: of US military veterans working as private security contractors, and
Speaker 1: they were all Americans. And that thought just horrifies me,
Speaker 1: and it should horrify anybody you know. And and you know,
Speaker 1: part of the reason why I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people were willing to talk to me about this article
Speaker 1: is for that reason is that they saw what happened
Speaker 1: out at Standing Rock and it scared them. You know
Speaker 1: what people like John Porter were doing and tagging eyes
Speaker 1: of the protesters. That was done with zero concern for
Speaker 1: what would have occurred if a protester shot and killed
Speaker 1: a police officer. You know what if a protester took
Speaker 1: that ship seriously and then you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: like they escalate, you escalate. There's that kind of escalation
Speaker 1: matrix that happens. What happens when when you know, Tiger
Speaker 1: Swan goes and they go and stir things up, and
Speaker 1: they piss everyone off, and and all it takes is
Speaker 1: one jackass protester to go and you know, build a
Speaker 1: bomb or take a shot at somebody. You can't you
Speaker 1: can't reverse those decisions. And these things were done with
Speaker 1: zero regard for, you know, the the ultimate fallout that
Speaker 1: could have occurred from that. So the article once again
Speaker 1: is Tiger Swan former Delta operators sought to incite violence
Speaker 1: at the Dakota Access Pipeline. It's up on soft rep
Speaker 1: dot com. As most of you know by now, everything
Speaker 1: on soft rep is now access to everybody, So check
Speaker 1: it out, um spread it around because we want to
Speaker 1: get the word out. I have other things I want
Speaker 1: to talk about. What we can talk about it after
Speaker 1: the interview, because right now we have Dwayne Evans standing by,
Speaker 1: so let's get right to them. So before we get
Speaker 1: to Dwayne Evans, author of Foxtrot and Kandahar, a memoir
Speaker 1: of a CIA officer in Afghanistan at the exception of
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Speaker 1: smarter pain blocking technology. And with that, let's get over
Speaker 1: to Dwyane Evans. So, for the first time on Software
Speaker 1: Radio is Dwayne Evans, a former CIA operations officer and
Speaker 1: Army Special Forces. I mean, Duyne's biography is pretty intense.
Speaker 1: There's way more for me to less than just that.
Speaker 1: But his latest book is Foxtrot and Kandahar, a memoir
Speaker 1: of a CIA officer in Afghanistan and the inception of
Speaker 1: America's Longest ward. It's available now. And the thing that
Speaker 1: I noticed that's really unique about this book is that
Speaker 1: most of the subject matter written about Afghanistan deals with
Speaker 1: the North, and this book is particularly about southern Afghanistan. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: pleasure to have you on. Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you guys.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, I mean, this is a really unique opportunity
Speaker 1: and I'm really glad that we could have you on.
Speaker 1: You know, we had um just recently, we had Jack
Speaker 1: Divine on, and you know, he told us that, you know,
Speaker 1: he thinks most people, most Americans, they understand that the
Speaker 1: CIA spies, and you know, they understand the concept of
Speaker 1: you know, meeting in a cafe with somebody and getting
Speaker 1: some information, but the paramilitary aspect is really misunderstood. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly what your book is about. UM. So this
Speaker 1: is a really you know, unique opportunity to talk to
Speaker 1: somebody who's directly involved. And since the CIA cleared this
Speaker 1: book for publication, we can have that conversation. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I actually listened to your interview with Jack Divine and
Speaker 1: he's of course of a legend in the agency, so
Speaker 1: it was really interesting to hear him talk. And uh,
Speaker 1: I will I will like to make I would like
Speaker 1: to make clear that although you absolutely I was right
Speaker 1: involved in in the PARA what was essentially a paramilitary operation,
Speaker 1: I technically am not a paramilitary officer. I'm actually I was,
Speaker 1: I should say, informer UH case officer or operations officer.
Speaker 1: Although most of the people that were there with me,
Speaker 1: were in fact, at least on the agency side, were
Speaker 1: in fact paramilitary officers. So although I didn't go into
Speaker 1: the I didn't leave Special Forces and go into the
Speaker 1: agency as a as a paramilitary officer. I went as
Speaker 1: a operations officer. But this opportunity in Afghanistan, this experience
Speaker 1: I had there was basically para paramilitary and nature. I
Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting. And I'm sorry I haven't
Speaker 1: finished reading your book yet. I'm really looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: But you were talking about how, um, you know, it
Speaker 1: sounds like you were a pretty senior guy when you
Speaker 1: were selected for this for this mission. I mean you
Speaker 1: talk about how you were the chief of Station in
Speaker 1: South America, which is you know, fairly you know, high
Speaker 1: ranking position within the Central Intelligence Agency. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was, uh, if you want to look at it
Speaker 1: in the military terms, I was probably uh what equivalent
Speaker 1: to what would be a lieutenant colonel like a battalion commandity.
Speaker 1: I was forty five years old when I when I
Speaker 1: went to U Afghanistan. And you know in the book
Speaker 1: you talk about that, um, you know, I guess you
Speaker 1: you probably can't talk about a lot of the things
Speaker 1: did in the agency prior to this what's in the book.
Speaker 1: But um, you talk about you know, nine eleven happening
Speaker 1: just as you're coming off that assignment in South America,
Speaker 1: and you know a lot of those experiences that so
Speaker 1: many of us to live through. I was a senior
Speaker 1: in high school when nine eleven happened, So some of
Speaker 1: the things we were talking about going to pick your
Speaker 1: your son up at school and all those things, and
Speaker 1: the early assumptions we had that you know, maybe it
Speaker 1: was just a little small private plane that flew into
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center. I mean, those things were really
Speaker 1: um resonated with me. I guess you could say, but
Speaker 1: I guess, um, you know, if we could take it
Speaker 1: from there, if you want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how all of this comes to get there, I mean,
Speaker 1: from a policy side, the White House decided, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: we're going to Afghanistan. Could you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about how this paramilitary operation came together and how you
Speaker 1: were brought into it? Yeah, sure, absolutely, uh yeah, And
Speaker 1: I also for the qualified, but it was it was
Speaker 1: the overall it was a counter terrorist operation, but it
Speaker 1: was pretty much carried out by paramilitary means. I guess
Speaker 1: that was the best way to phrase it. I mean
Speaker 1: the goal was when nine eleven happened, Uh, it was
Speaker 1: pretty quickly apparent to everyone that it was al Qaeda
Speaker 1: who was behind this. I mean we've been getting warnings
Speaker 1: for for months, uh, during two thousand one that something
Speaker 1: big was coming, uh, that we knew that was going
Speaker 1: to happen. I think there's a lot of books that
Speaker 1: have mentioned this. I didn't. I didn't dwell on that
Speaker 1: in my book because I started with nine eleven. But
Speaker 1: prior to nine eleven, we've been had a lot of
Speaker 1: warning signals that things were something was building, something was
Speaker 1: going to happen, we just didn't know exactly what. So
Speaker 1: and we knew it was al Qaeda that was find
Speaker 1: those that that that intelligence we were reporting. Uh. So
Speaker 1: when the you know, nine eleven attacks happened, it was
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. I mean I think most people, at least
Speaker 1: of the agency, I think, assumed it was probably was
Speaker 1: al Qaida behind then all of the attacts. But uh,
Speaker 1: they still had due diligence and uh and take a
Speaker 1: hard look at it before we conclusively drew that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, made that conclusion. But you know, once once uh,
Speaker 1: I mean for me, I knew instantly when I was
Speaker 1: actually I think, as I described the book, I happened
Speaker 1: to be at the FBI headquarters, not c I A
Speaker 1: was that b I headquarters in the Ops center when
Speaker 1: the nine eleven tacks went down, and when I saw
Speaker 1: that second plane hit, like I think most people, I
Speaker 1: knew immediately, well, this was obviously we were under attack
Speaker 1: at that point, and I knew also that it was
Speaker 1: it was al Qaeda behind it. There was no doubt
Speaker 1: in my mind that's who who our enemy was, um,
Speaker 1: and who had perpetrated that attack, and so um, you know,
Speaker 1: I started from that point on, from that moment and
Speaker 1: on with the with the assumption it was al Qaeda.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so my goal was to I mean, the
Speaker 1: attack was such a horrendous event to me. I mean
Speaker 1: it was just the fact that, you know, three thousand
Speaker 1: Americans died at the hands of al Qaeda, and I
Speaker 1: was I was lucky. I feelmed. I did this day
Speaker 1: feel myself to be highly privileged that I was in
Speaker 1: a position that I could actually do something about it.
Speaker 1: I know, millions of Americans wanted to do something about it,
Speaker 1: and you know everything, and they did. They went on
Speaker 1: gay blood and all this. But I was in a
Speaker 1: particularly unique position because I just come from another assignment overseas.
Speaker 1: I was technically still assigned to the counter Terrorist Center.
Speaker 1: My my next assignment wasn't coming up until November of
Speaker 1: two thousand one. I was gonna go actually was going
Speaker 1: to go to the FBI to be a liaison officer
Speaker 1: from CIA to liaison with a BI, So I didn't
Speaker 1: really didn't have a job. I was on leave when
Speaker 1: eleven happened, So I was in a perfect position and
Speaker 1: to get involved in whatever the response was going to be,
Speaker 1: and that was that was my goal from the moment
Speaker 1: I saw the tower's fall, I had to I had
Speaker 1: to be part of of our response. And it really
Speaker 1: wasn't I say this in the book and I'll say
Speaker 1: it now. It was not had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: wanting to advance my career, had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: anything like that. I just wanted to do something to
Speaker 1: avenge what had happened to our country. So I immediately
Speaker 1: went over to the agency, you know, volunteered went in.
Speaker 1: There was no one there at the time, they had
Speaker 1: evacuated the building, so it took me a while to
Speaker 1: find anybody there. Um and because I drove right over
Speaker 1: from the FBI headquarters to the agency that morning and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, said, Hey, I want to leave, but I
Speaker 1: want to come back and leave. I want to be
Speaker 1: part of whatever it is we're doing. The big question
Speaker 1: at that point within the agency was, uh, who was
Speaker 1: going to actually take the lead on it within the agency?
Speaker 1: Wasn't going to be the Near East South Asian Division,
Speaker 1: which had the territorial responsibility for Afghanistan for the intelligence
Speaker 1: operations in Afghanistan and the CIA or or US and
Speaker 1: TELLS operations in Afghanistan. Or was it going to be
Speaker 1: the Counter Terrorists Center but which had the issue, uh
Speaker 1: mission of counting terrorists And so there were there. We
Speaker 1: didn't know initially which way it was going to go,
Speaker 1: but it oppenately what it did, it fell to the
Speaker 1: Counter Terrorist Center, which I had happened to be technically
Speaker 1: on rotational assignment to my home division was in fact
Speaker 1: Near East Division, but I was at that moment, I
Speaker 1: was on rotation to Counter Terrrist Center. So that worked
Speaker 1: out perfectly for me. Uh. The only thing that didn't
Speaker 1: work out for me was I tried to get on
Speaker 1: the first team that was going out as a team
Speaker 1: headed up Gary shron h really great officer who actually
Speaker 1: was in the retirement program when Night eleven happened, and
Speaker 1: they asked him to come back and lead that first
Speaker 1: team in the team we called the uh Noll Team
Speaker 1: in Northern Alliance leagues on team, and he did. He
Speaker 1: came back and he formed that team up very quickly,
Speaker 1: and I just met him the day before they left,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't get on the team that was
Speaker 1: there and gone before I really was able to hook
Speaker 1: up with him. So for me, I then I just
Speaker 1: was assigned to what what was the Counter Terrorists Center
Speaker 1: Special Operations Unit, that was a brand unit. They stood
Speaker 1: up specifically to UH conduct the Afghanistan counter terrorist operation
Speaker 1: going into UH just hopefully destroy al Quaeda. So I
Speaker 1: was there with the Special Operations Unit at headquarters trying
Speaker 1: to get on any future teams that were formed up.
Speaker 1: And the problem for me was I wasn't a paramilitary officer.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned earlier, most of the people going
Speaker 1: into Afghanistan in those early days were in fact paramilitary officers.
Speaker 1: There were a few others. There were some of course,
Speaker 1: we had some medical type people going in from our
Speaker 1: office medical services that we're going in. But most of
Speaker 1: the people of paramilitary officers were a couple of just
Speaker 1: a small number of people basically by large from the
Speaker 1: Near East Division who either had language skills or some
Speaker 1: kind of special area expertise who were going in. So
Speaker 1: I was kind of just trying to wait my time
Speaker 1: out and get on whatever team I could, and and
Speaker 1: then and it flowed from there, and ultimately I was
Speaker 1: I was dispatched along with a colleague of mine by
Speaker 1: named Jimmy I talked by in the book, a retired
Speaker 1: Delta Force sergeant major who was then now an agency officer.
Speaker 1: He and I were sent out to a long bond
Speaker 1: to work with the station out there on getting something
Speaker 1: going in southern Afghanistan. Because this by this time we're
Speaker 1: into October now late October, and things have been going
Speaker 1: very well in the north. Uh. You know that we
Speaker 1: hooked up with the Northern Alliance. There were Special Forces
Speaker 1: of CIA teams working with the Northern Alliance commanders, and
Speaker 1: they were having great success on the battlefield. They were
Speaker 1: coming down. In fact, Autimaly would would capture Cobble, the
Speaker 1: Captain Cobble, a few days before our our first team
Speaker 1: in into the south, but nothing was going on in
Speaker 1: the south. Al Qaida was still there, Taliban still pretty
Speaker 1: much ran things down there. So and that was as
Speaker 1: you know, the southern Afghanistan, particularly Candahar was ground zero
Speaker 1: for the Taliban Talban movement. So we had to get
Speaker 1: something going down there if we're going to be successful.
Speaker 1: And we couldn't use the Northern Alliance to go down
Speaker 1: into that part of the country simply because they were
Speaker 1: basically major made up primarily Tajiks, and we didn't want
Speaker 1: a civil war to be created by the quoted but
Speaker 1: essentially Poshtun land. And and so that's where um we
Speaker 1: got into the south was the idea, we need to
Speaker 1: work with Poshtuns against the Taliban and al Qaeda. And
Speaker 1: I'll stop here in case you yeah, Um, well, I
Speaker 1: guess from here what I'd like to ask if if
Speaker 1: you could take us through, um the infiltration phase for
Speaker 1: Foxtrot and you know how your team came together, who
Speaker 1: these people were, and then you know how you infiltrated
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. Absolutely, uh there were there were essentially seven
Speaker 1: teams that would go into Afghanistan uh c I combined
Speaker 1: c I, s F teams, Special Forces teams, and UH.
Speaker 1: Five of those were up in the North with the
Speaker 1: North Alliance UH and again they were having great success
Speaker 1: up there. They just did a movie about one of
Speaker 1: those teams. UH twelve Strong is about the team that
Speaker 1: was with Dos dost Um uh so. But in the
Speaker 1: South nothing's going on. So initially, the first team that
Speaker 1: was formed up was the Echo Team. Echo Team set
Speaker 1: up by a guy named Greg who was a senior
Speaker 1: U c c I, a paramilitary officer, and it was
Speaker 1: worked to work with the Hamada Karsai and we actually
Speaker 1: I was on that team initially before deployed into Afghanistan
Speaker 1: from Pakistan. We and we actually had to go out
Speaker 1: and get Hammond cars I am still in as tribal
Speaker 1: elders who were about ready to get overrun by the Taliban.
Speaker 1: And and Greg and Jimmy the guy went out with
Speaker 1: that mentioned earlier in a in a a Seal team
Speaker 1: element flew in and got cars I and his UH,
Speaker 1: his tribal elders brought him to Jacobabat where we were
Speaker 1: based at a pack beer base there and began planning
Speaker 1: going back into Afghanistan to way Ja military campaign UH
Speaker 1: starting in the tarn Coute area which is where our cars.
Speaker 1: I was was from and had had a lot of support. Well, uh,
Speaker 1: it turns out I got bumped from that team. I
Speaker 1: was the only non paramilitary officer there. In the morning
Speaker 1: that we were supposed to deploy, the overloaded the helicopter
Speaker 1: didn't have enough lift capability for the people we had
Speaker 1: and the equipment we had, and so we had to
Speaker 1: leave three people behind to SF guys were left behind
Speaker 1: as and I was. I was to stay behind guy
Speaker 1: for Echo team. Made sense. I was not paramilitary officer, right,
Speaker 1: I understood it. I hated the fact that wasn't behind,
Speaker 1: but I understood Gregg's decision. Um. So once they took off,
Speaker 1: the plan was we would join them in a few
Speaker 1: days when the resupply fly. Well, it turn us out.
Speaker 1: The next day I was called back to his long body.
Speaker 1: Decision was made that we would form a team to
Speaker 1: go into the South. This one would be designated Foxtrot
Speaker 1: Team against my book titled Foxtrot and Kandahar, and our
Speaker 1: goal was to go was to link up with a
Speaker 1: pushtume leader, the former governor of Canadahar guy named Goola
Speaker 1: Shares I, and link up with him and some of
Speaker 1: his fighters who were already in Canadahar Province and in
Speaker 1: wage of campaign to get into Kandahar City. So the
Speaker 1: only problem was I didn't have I did not have
Speaker 1: a paramilitary team with me. Usually a paramilental team showed.
Speaker 1: Paramilitary team shows up with the equipment to include obviously
Speaker 1: the weapons, but also commo gear, all the things you
Speaker 1: need to go into a tactical environment like this. I
Speaker 1: didn't have any of that, uh, And so initially it
Speaker 1: was just me and another officer there from Songa Bud
Speaker 1: the name of Mark. And then we managed to find
Speaker 1: a couple of special operation a military special operations guy's
Speaker 1: Army guys who were happy to be in Alama body
Speaker 1: on special Task Force, and they had some of the
Speaker 1: commo gear we needed and I was able to to
Speaker 1: um protest them and they asked them for one of
Speaker 1: their gear and they said, well, you can have our gear,
Speaker 1: but we have to come with it, which I totally
Speaker 1: understood that, and so immediately we began trying to get
Speaker 1: their necessary coordinations done through d O D to get
Speaker 1: them on the team and deployed with us, and it
Speaker 1: came through just in the nick of time. We only
Speaker 1: had five days to pull all this together to get
Speaker 1: together to deploy. So it turns out it was myself,
Speaker 1: Mark and these two Special Operations guys UH, Gary and
Speaker 1: Mike outstanding guys, top of the line and UH we
Speaker 1: deployed into with with with an s F team, got
Speaker 1: an s F team from fifth Group UH five eight
Speaker 1: three that came down and joined us. And one of
Speaker 1: my old boss was on that O d A seriously,
Speaker 1: kal k okay, don't remember him. He would have he
Speaker 1: wouldn't He would not have been a team sergeant. He
Speaker 1: would have been one of the younger guys on the
Speaker 1: team back at that Okay, Okay, Yeah, I didn't get
Speaker 1: to know them all really really well. I knew you
Speaker 1: got to know a couple of them, uh, but most
Speaker 1: of them I didn't get to know that. Well. This
Speaker 1: was a pretty fast moving thing, by the way, and
Speaker 1: so we got it together and we infiltrated. What we
Speaker 1: did is we were with it. That air base in
Speaker 1: Pakistan was the Air Force's Special offs Wing and they
Speaker 1: had MH fifty three's and they that's how we infiltrated. Now,
Speaker 1: initially when we went in, it was just three of
Speaker 1: the SF guys and the four of us and the
Speaker 1: reason now for that was the Fifth Group policy, and
Speaker 1: maybe it was a complete SF policy, but as it
Speaker 1: was explained to me, Fifth Groups policy was that until
Speaker 1: they could establish there were at least five hundred fighters
Speaker 1: on the ground, they didn't want to commit an a
Speaker 1: team there until they knew that, you know, they had
Speaker 1: enough people there that could you know, slug it out
Speaker 1: if they needed to. UH. So an advanced element of
Speaker 1: the SF team went in with myself and Mark and
Speaker 1: the two two other special officer guys that were detailed
Speaker 1: to Foxtrot and we infiltrated dark a night. It was
Speaker 1: on the nineteen of November that we did this, and
Speaker 1: we went into the Shnay Valley, which is just across
Speaker 1: the border, only a few kilometers across the border from
Speaker 1: from Pakistan, and that's where the base camp for sure,
Speaker 1: as I was, so, we infiltrated into that, linked up
Speaker 1: with him and his fighters UH that night, and we're
Speaker 1: in his base camp for a couple of days making
Speaker 1: a plan as to how we're going to move forward
Speaker 1: from there. Uh And then ultimately what we did was
Speaker 1: we moved out of the Shinnurey Valley and did across
Speaker 1: country movement to toward towards Kandahara, and we had to
Speaker 1: capture village along the way that was Satistride Highway for
Speaker 1: which was the main highway between r and Pakistan, and
Speaker 1: it was being used by al Qaeda to go back
Speaker 1: and forth. So we knew if we could cut that highway,
Speaker 1: we could we could stop that movement going back and forth.
Speaker 1: And so our our initial goal was to capture that village.
Speaker 1: Had a small Taliban garrison there, but we of course
Speaker 1: had with the s F team, they're bringing in air
Speaker 1: support and stuff. It wasn't close air support, it wasn't
Speaker 1: very uh very hard to get them to decide to leave,
Speaker 1: and we didn't. Uh. We moved into that, into that village,
Speaker 1: and we in that those the first couple of days,
Speaker 1: we actually did capture or kill a number of al
Speaker 1: Kinda personnel, to include the we captured the personal driver
Speaker 1: and bodyguards. Have been lauden that we didn't know that's
Speaker 1: who we had at the time. That's how that happened.
Speaker 1: They're starting to fill in some of the pieces, okay
Speaker 1: um and then from there is moving down to Candahar.
Speaker 1: And I have to ask you this question because I
Speaker 1: heard let's say I heard a rumor that there were
Speaker 1: two agency paramilitary guys that got into a fist fight
Speaker 1: outside Candahar over who got to be the team that
Speaker 1: went in first. I don't know anything about that. I've
Speaker 1: never heard that there were two teams. There were two
Speaker 1: teams that were my team, Foxtra team, which was coming
Speaker 1: up basically from the southeast towards Kandahar on along basically
Speaker 1: long highway before we had. Our big obstacle, by the way,
Speaker 1: was the airport there in Kandahar, because that was being
Speaker 1: held by al Qaeda and uh In Taliban, and it
Speaker 1: took about ten days to reduce sat down so that
Speaker 1: we could get past it. And after we did that,
Speaker 1: we moved in and at the same time Echo Team
Speaker 1: with with their odier which was five seven four, who
Speaker 1: I've gotten to know pretty well um when we were
Speaker 1: in Pakistan because they were I was with Echo Team initially.
Speaker 1: Uh They were coming down from the south unfortunately, I
Speaker 1: mean from the north down to from katon Coote area
Speaker 1: to Kandahar, very unfortunately. A few days earlier before we
Speaker 1: moved into Kandahar, that team, the oder was was hit
Speaker 1: by an errand US air strike and killed I think
Speaker 1: three Americans seriously wounded a number of others, to include
Speaker 1: every member of the of that O d A. And uh,
Speaker 1: none of our none of our agency guys were hit.
Speaker 1: They were just down the hill from that in their
Speaker 1: little area, and so they weren't up there at the
Speaker 1: observation post where that air strike happened. It was a
Speaker 1: complete Uh it was. It was a technical error, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't their fault. Wasn't the O d A's fault,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't the Air Force's fault. It was a
Speaker 1: commanding control especial forces commanding control element that had come
Speaker 1: in the day before and they had replaced I was
Speaker 1: I wasn't there, but I've talked to people who were there,
Speaker 1: and I've read books about it, and so this is
Speaker 1: this something set in him. But basically it was a
Speaker 1: technical error made by one of the members of that
Speaker 1: commanding control element who was at the at the direction
Speaker 1: of his commander, a major, was calling an air strike
Speaker 1: in on some caves they weren't under attack or anything
Speaker 1: like that, and somehow in the in the technical process
Speaker 1: recalibration of the instrument he was using to call those
Speaker 1: air strikes in, he made a technical error and end
Speaker 1: up calling air strike in directly on their position, so
Speaker 1: that they had been hit, that team had been hit
Speaker 1: UM and and so obviously that created all kinds of issues.
Speaker 1: I go into the book again, I because I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to spend a lot of time about it.
Speaker 1: But I didn't want to mention it because it was
Speaker 1: very significant and very tragic. But so they were coming
Speaker 1: down from the south, they've got they got another team
Speaker 1: in to join them, another ODI A joined them, and
Speaker 1: they came down. The Echo team came down as we
Speaker 1: were moving up from the southeast. There was never any
Speaker 1: fight about who was going to get there. The only
Speaker 1: reason I I say this in the book, I felt
Speaker 1: that my headquarters would have preferred if Echo team had
Speaker 1: come in first, because the Echo team with Homed cars
Speaker 1: I and cars I was the big dog. But when
Speaker 1: they got hit by the by the air strike UM
Speaker 1: about the same time like the day before, uh, they
Speaker 1: were hit. And then about the next day we decided
Speaker 1: we thought we could get past the airfield. And sure,
Speaker 1: as I have the guy I was working with, the
Speaker 1: commander of the Afghan commander I was working and he
Speaker 1: was ready to roll. It says you know, we sent
Speaker 1: a recon element actually into Candahar, and it looked like
Speaker 1: that they had abandoned it. So we felt like the
Speaker 1: sooner we get in there, the better, and we my judgment,
Speaker 1: his judgment, and the Odaco Manner's judgment was, you know,
Speaker 1: the sooner we're in there, sooner Americans are in there
Speaker 1: and we're in position show that we're there, the better.
Speaker 1: And so we just rolled in at that point. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't really a debate or a question to anyone
Speaker 1: night should we go in, should or should Echo team
Speaker 1: come in. We just made the decision informed UH and
Speaker 1: formed our headquarters. Hey we're tomorrow morning, we're rolling in,
Speaker 1: and we went in just just simply to be there
Speaker 1: as soon as we could get there. You guys, you
Speaker 1: guys rolled in the Candar airfield to right. You guys
Speaker 1: also took Candahar airfield. Yeah, absolutely, we we did that.
Speaker 1: That was actually was a big obstacle for us, and
Speaker 1: and it UH required like say, we spent about ten
Speaker 1: days uh in that little village. The Odier went out
Speaker 1: and step an op that could look on look on
Speaker 1: the air airfield airport and called in for ten days
Speaker 1: basically called in air strikes on that and then there
Speaker 1: were probes being mounted by seris Ise guys. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: there's some firefights that went on that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And finally through the bombing some of the guys, you know,
Speaker 1: there were people killed obviously in the bombings, but some
Speaker 1: of them, I think just this space is kind of
Speaker 1: evaporated and pulled out and went away and kind of
Speaker 1: disappeared into the populace, if you will. But it took
Speaker 1: about ten days to get that to happen. And then
Speaker 1: we then we rolled past the airfield and we left
Speaker 1: some of Serisise guys occupied the airport at that point,
Speaker 1: and we uh we moved on into town and occupied
Speaker 1: we took over the Governor's palace there in downtown Kanadahar.
Speaker 1: And when Echo Team got in there, initially they occupied
Speaker 1: Omar's Omar's place, which is on the kind of western
Speaker 1: perimeter of the city and and that so Echo Team
Speaker 1: with the Odier that was with them, occupied that. But
Speaker 1: very quickly that odier and joined us that was with
Speaker 1: Echo Team joined us, and uh as did two other
Speaker 1: odiers come down and join us. So now we had
Speaker 1: about four odier's counting one that was always with us
Speaker 1: in the Governor's palace, and then that command and control
Speaker 1: element that had gone in and joined Car's ice group,
Speaker 1: the Echo team, they showed up at the palace as well.
Speaker 1: So at that point it became uh, that was finally
Speaker 1: we got quite a number of Americans uh together at
Speaker 1: one point. Wow. So that's how Kandahar was taken, and
Speaker 1: that became like the next I would think the airfield
Speaker 1: became the next next beachhead in the war. In a sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we needed and we needed that, you know, we needed
Speaker 1: that air force to bring in heavy aircraft and things
Speaker 1: like that. And so there there had been a there
Speaker 1: was a marine expeditionary unit that was set up down
Speaker 1: in Helmand Province and they were they were kept on
Speaker 1: a really tight leash because as as they make the
Speaker 1: point in the book, uh, this whole thing, like a
Speaker 1: lot of people referred to this as the US invasion
Speaker 1: of invasion of Afghanistan, and I make the point the
Speaker 1: book there really was no invasion. We sent a few
Speaker 1: a few teams five our seven team, who are just
Speaker 1: a handful of people relatively speaking, to work with the
Speaker 1: Afghans who were actually the ground force on the ground.
Speaker 1: I mean they were they were the They were the
Speaker 1: surrogate force that we used, and that was that was
Speaker 1: really by design. It also went along with what President
Speaker 1: Bush wanted. He didn't want uh conventional force going into
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and uh, but we did. They did put in
Speaker 1: this marine expeditionary unit that sat down there in the
Speaker 1: desert and it was kind of forming a blocking had
Speaker 1: a blocking position, and but they didn't let them go
Speaker 1: on really offensive operations other than I think there was some.
Speaker 1: I had a friend of mine, an agency guy who
Speaker 1: was assigned with him, who um, who was with them
Speaker 1: at the time, and so they you know, obviously they
Speaker 1: did operations defensively to checked themselves, but they weren't. They
Speaker 1: wanted to keep the U. S. Soldiers in uniform off
Speaker 1: the streets, if you will, in greater Afghanistan. So once
Speaker 1: we took that airfield, uh, and what we did, I
Speaker 1: say we meaning everyone there, the Marines and the SF guys. UH.
Speaker 1: That airfield was turned over to the Marines, and the
Speaker 1: Marines came. We actually arranged to bring them around the
Speaker 1: darker night, again trying to keep the US profile low
Speaker 1: in the darker night when everyone on the Afghans would
Speaker 1: be asleep. Led them around the guided them around. The
Speaker 1: Afghans went out with us and guided them around the
Speaker 1: perimeter of the city of Canadaha to get them to
Speaker 1: the airfield, so that the populace wasn't aware that there
Speaker 1: was now basically a conventional force of U. S. Soldiers
Speaker 1: in in in Afghanistan. And then so they took over,
Speaker 1: they took over the duties for that responsibilities for that
Speaker 1: airport at that time, the Marines did. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you could elaborate a little bit for us, because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there who I think
Speaker 1: don't necessarily under stand the distinctions. If you could talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about um, the c I A paramilitary
Speaker 1: aspect and special forces. I mean for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I think they see these as like a duplication of
Speaker 1: the same capabilities. If you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the differences between the two and perhaps the relationship
Speaker 1: together as well. Yeah, sure will, Well, there two cervice
Speaker 1: and there isn't duplication there, and that the guys that
Speaker 1: come into the agency as paramilitary officers. I've only heard
Speaker 1: one person who became a paramilitary officer at least this
Speaker 1: was a few years ago, maybe that's changed who wasn't
Speaker 1: who did not come out of the military. Often, although
Speaker 1: not always, they come out of special operationcy units where
Speaker 1: there's the Seals, Delta, Special Forces, Rangers, Force reinforcerycon or whatever,
Speaker 1: but not always. Sometimes they're just you know, straight blag
Speaker 1: infantry out of you know, the army or whatever that
Speaker 1: come in. And also some Air Force guys come in
Speaker 1: uh as well, so they have a what comes into
Speaker 1: the paramilitary element of the agency are a lot of
Speaker 1: guys who have you know, very highly you know, very
Speaker 1: highly skilled in these special operations uh, you know, capabilities,
Speaker 1: and so they there and they know a lot of
Speaker 1: the people that are still back in the active military,
Speaker 1: of course, because they've been with them through most of
Speaker 1: their career. They don't always have they won't always have
Speaker 1: completed a full career. I would say probably most of
Speaker 1: them haven't completed a full career, but a number of
Speaker 1: them have in the military before joining the agency. But
Speaker 1: some of them may only have you know, five years
Speaker 1: and with the with the military, So you have the
Speaker 1: duplication in terms of their skill sets is there that
Speaker 1: it's it's a mission that gets a little different um
Speaker 1: and and that gets into authorities of the different agencies.
Speaker 1: You know what doot dood authorities are, what agency authorities are. UM.
Speaker 1: Often I mean the paramilitary guys can do a lot
Speaker 1: of the same things that special Forces uh ODA could do,
Speaker 1: or what members of the Seal team could or whatever,
Speaker 1: but they're the mission is a little different. UM. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the military can't be used in certain certain missions because
Speaker 1: UM it's not a mission that is going to be
Speaker 1: acknowledged by the by the U. S. Government and so
Speaker 1: those you know that falls more into a covert action
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And when that happens, they can't use
Speaker 1: They can't use military is basically prohibited. UH. With some exceptions,
Speaker 1: they can't be authorized and only get that at own.
Speaker 1: But but generally speaking the agency is responsible for for
Speaker 1: covert action. And so because the military is really kind
Speaker 1: of prescribed from some of this, we need a capability
Speaker 1: that has the same kind of skill set as the
Speaker 1: military does, but that can go in and do these
Speaker 1: these missions dead are really determined by that are really
Speaker 1: determined by, um, the the what authorities is the this
Speaker 1: mission being carried out under? Is it as in a
Speaker 1: covert action authority or is it an overt uh it
Speaker 1: would be a title ten, which is you know, standard
Speaker 1: US military, where this title fifty uh is more for
Speaker 1: covert action type capabilities. But I mean the Afghanistan campaign
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly I mean it was on CNN every day,
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily covert. Why why why this blend, why
Speaker 1: this combination of paramilitary and U S Special Forces? Well
Speaker 1: it gets into one of the agency had already had
Speaker 1: a relationship with with a lot of the Afghan commanders
Speaker 1: that we were going to be working with, and we
Speaker 1: already had the relationship with them, and so we put
Speaker 1: especially the first team that went it was initially all
Speaker 1: agency the military surprisingly UH then d O D they
Speaker 1: had some difficulty um getting the first s F team deployed,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't know all the ins and
Speaker 1: outs of that. It was some sort of bureaucratic process
Speaker 1: I guess that caused them delays. But initially that first
Speaker 1: element that went in was all all agency, and again
Speaker 1: it went in under it went under the title. It
Speaker 1: went in their title fifty uh and not titled ten.
Speaker 1: And that's that's why. Now now it's similar like you know,
Speaker 1: the mission to uh do the rate on bin laden
Speaker 1: that was done by of course by by the Navy Seals,
Speaker 1: but the overall authority for it was UM was actually
Speaker 1: done under CIA's auspices, and that gets back into these
Speaker 1: authorities and stuff like that, so there is duplication. But
Speaker 1: the agency guys, like paramilitary guys, in addition to their
Speaker 1: military heart skills, they also have they're also are trained
Speaker 1: up as as agency officers, which means that they understand intelligence.
Speaker 1: They know how to rewrite an intelligence report, they know
Speaker 1: how to handle intelligence asset, you know, they know how
Speaker 1: to recruit intelligence asset um, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: it's a it's kind of a cross fertilization, if you will,
Speaker 1: uh that they take that hard, hard military skills and
Speaker 1: then the skills of a kind of the bread and
Speaker 1: butter skills of a of a what like I was
Speaker 1: a case officer. You blend those two together and that's
Speaker 1: really the perfect type of person to put into uh
Speaker 1: environment like Afghanistan. And I would just add that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's some doctrine military doctrine to back some of this
Speaker 1: up as well, because you know, when you go through
Speaker 1: Special Forces training and you go through the Robin Sage exercise,
Speaker 1: it's kind of understood or um taught that there would
Speaker 1: be some CI A case officer on the ground in
Speaker 1: the country that you're infiltrating, and they will be able
Speaker 1: to link you up with the guerrilla movement, or at
Speaker 1: least there'll be some pre existing relationship, which is really
Speaker 1: exactly what you're talking about in Afghanistan. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: And it's just because just like in Afghanistan, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was really the agency's responsibility to maintain relationships with
Speaker 1: the players, if you will. In Afghanistan. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we got involved with them back in the day of
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you know you you probably talked to
Speaker 1: a few people about this and Jack if I may
Speaker 1: even talked about it a bit, Uh, the the whole
Speaker 1: earlier effort in Afghanistan when we were supporting the Mujadine
Speaker 1: trying to get the Russians out of the country, and
Speaker 1: so we had maintained basically going back that far relationships
Speaker 1: with people there, um and that was an agency responsibility.
Speaker 1: The military wasn't wasn't task to do that. That wasn't
Speaker 1: their job, but it was our job, and so we
Speaker 1: were kind of we kind of own I don't wanted
Speaker 1: to make it sound like a Turk issue. But but
Speaker 1: to put it, you know, it was like a kind
Speaker 1: of own those relationships just because that was what our
Speaker 1: job was. And so we definitely had to I had
Speaker 1: to be there, We had to you know, to make
Speaker 1: those kind of introductions. We had to present ourselves. Of
Speaker 1: course when we dealt with these um afghaniers, just like
Speaker 1: I did with with sure as I you know Odier,
Speaker 1: that was with our team. You know, we had to
Speaker 1: be a united front. He had to see us as
Speaker 1: one one team and that and it's and it was,
Speaker 1: I mean something that couldn't be you know, he couldn't
Speaker 1: play me off against the O d A team leader.
Speaker 1: That kind of thing we had to come across as
Speaker 1: we were all one and we're there to help him,
Speaker 1: but we were all one and uh and I will
Speaker 1: say that was kind of the kind of the greatest
Speaker 1: thing about that experience I had in Afghanistan, at least
Speaker 1: in that part in that time frame, and that was
Speaker 1: how well everyone got along. I mean, there was there
Speaker 1: was just no there was no light between us, between
Speaker 1: the O d A s and the and the and
Speaker 1: the agency teams. We all understood why we were there.
Speaker 1: We all worked to the same goal. Uh, for the
Speaker 1: most part, there was really no personality. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: hurdles that couldn't be overcome and uh, it was just
Speaker 1: it was just a beautiful thing. Now if um you
Speaker 1: know correct me if my timeline is off, But you
Speaker 1: were in Canada, Hortor and when this around the same
Speaker 1: time that the Jaysack element was kicking off. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: the operation Anaconda and all that against um to go
Speaker 1: after been lauden that I was getting confused with that
Speaker 1: one happened in January or it would happen in December.
Speaker 1: I can't be when an operation happened. Um, it was
Speaker 1: there were two operations having around that time. And I
Speaker 1: have lost the timeline on honestly, but it was it
Speaker 1: was near that time frame. It may have happened after
Speaker 1: I left. If it happened in January, I would have
Speaker 1: have not been there. It was. There was something that
Speaker 1: happened in December, and I can't remember Anaconda or something else. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I would have been I would have been in
Speaker 1: Canada at that point, yeah, because I remember someone was
Speaker 1: telling me about how when Jaysack came down from bag
Speaker 1: From there was a guy. Um it may have been
Speaker 1: one of your guys who is the liaison from Delta
Speaker 1: UM to O g A and he went met up
Speaker 1: with the Delta element that rolled in, escorted them into
Speaker 1: the safe house in Kandahar, and then they rolled out
Speaker 1: to what was it Tora Bora. I think the next
Speaker 1: night that could have been um because we because I
Speaker 1: know one of our officers did you know go actually
Speaker 1: went from from Kandahar and went to support that effort,
Speaker 1: So that could have been what you're referring to. And uh,
Speaker 1: I just it wasn't on my team. It was came
Speaker 1: off with Echo team. So um, I just can't remember
Speaker 1: if I was there for anaconda or if that happened
Speaker 1: after I left. I just can't remember the dates that
Speaker 1: went into condo where I'm sorry, Yeah, no, no, of course,
Speaker 1: I just curious. Uh And so do you want to
Speaker 1: pick up the story from there and tell us about
Speaker 1: you know, what happened with Foxtrot after Candahar and Candahar Airfield? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean really the main goal was to get into Candahar.
Speaker 1: That was what we wanted to do, to basically throw
Speaker 1: the Taliban out, smash al Qaida and get into Candahar
Speaker 1: because we felt that in addition to just that military
Speaker 1: goal in of itself, we would have a there's likely
Speaker 1: to be a lot of intelligence to be gleaned out
Speaker 1: of that too, that we could find documentation and hopefully
Speaker 1: captures of Al Kainda members, that kind of thing where
Speaker 1: we would get a whole bunch of UH intel out
Speaker 1: of it. So our our first, our first goal really
Speaker 1: once we got in there, we already had a target
Speaker 1: list if you would, if you will, that was something
Speaker 1: that had been provided to us by our headquarters that said, hey,
Speaker 1: these locations, we are good intel. These are Al Kainda
Speaker 1: safe houses and UM. So we had to the mission
Speaker 1: was to go and raide those those safe houses. Now,
Speaker 1: by the time we got in there, we figured chances
Speaker 1: are the al Qaida presence is gone. They probably have
Speaker 1: beat feet out of there, because we knew they had
Speaker 1: been trying to get out of the city and we're
Speaker 1: having some success six sess at it even as we
Speaker 1: were trying to get into the city. So we immediately
Speaker 1: started rating these these safe houses and UH. And also
Speaker 1: we had some volunteers come in as well, and one
Speaker 1: of those volunteers brought in not al Quaedam by the way,
Speaker 1: but an Afghan came in and he gave us a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of documents of which probably the biggest, the
Speaker 1: biggest intelligence find we got out of that effort in
Speaker 1: Candahart was a plan to include the video case scenes, sketches, uh,
Speaker 1: you name it, of a planned attack on the U
Speaker 1: S S. Carl Vincon that was to take place in Singapore.
Speaker 1: And as you know that Karl Vincent is a nuclear
Speaker 1: powered aircraft carrier and they one the but fortunately also
Speaker 1: contained within that material for that attack were the cell
Speaker 1: phone numbers of the al Qaeda members who were going
Speaker 1: to carry out that at that verse six bad so
Speaker 1: that that got that of course we sent that out
Speaker 1: of media President's message and uh and it and it
Speaker 1: took a couple of months. But but the authorities there
Speaker 1: and whoever else was involved working with them, assuming that
Speaker 1: BI and and others, uh, they rounded up those guys
Speaker 1: and they neutralized that plan attack. So that was huge.
Speaker 1: That could have been a major disaster force for the
Speaker 1: US had that attack taken place. So that was probably
Speaker 1: the single most important intelligence fine we got out of there.
Speaker 1: There are some other less important but yet significant things.
Speaker 1: We also found the document the application form that Jose Padilla,
Speaker 1: the dirty bomber, had filled out to join al Qaeda
Speaker 1: and that and that was used in court against him. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, Mark, my teammate UH a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: would testify in disguise at his trial as to the
Speaker 1: chain of custody of that document that we had sees
Speaker 1: and so you know, he was he was convicted in
Speaker 1: part because of that that information. Wow. So that that
Speaker 1: was that was probably the biggest intel uh things we did. Uh,
Speaker 1: we gleaned out of capturing Canadahar. But the you know,
Speaker 1: of course, strategically, the big, big important thing was that
Speaker 1: Taliban was no longer in power there and al Qaeda
Speaker 1: was no longer effectively running operations from from there, and
Speaker 1: at that point that the mission shift from that to
Speaker 1: looking for Ben Laden. Yeah. That was always you know,
Speaker 1: of course, we were always looking for being Laden uh
Speaker 1: the get go and uh, and so yeah, it became
Speaker 1: more of a focused effort to uh do you know,
Speaker 1: there were still pockets of resistance throughout the country and
Speaker 1: to include some Alqaeda guys running around, but they weren't
Speaker 1: you know, an effective they weren't an effective organization anymore
Speaker 1: at that point, and so those those those things had
Speaker 1: to be pursued. But the UH and I, frankly I
Speaker 1: left UH my goal. My division had said, yeah, I
Speaker 1: could stay with the terror center for a few few
Speaker 1: more months, but then they wanted me back to come
Speaker 1: back to any division, and I was actually came taking
Speaker 1: out of there, told to come home a little bit
Speaker 1: earlier than I had expected to plan for, and so
Speaker 1: I left after after we had captured Kandahar within a
Speaker 1: within a couple of weeks, I was. I was back
Speaker 1: back in Washington. But the mission at that point, you know,
Speaker 1: became more into looking at more helping to stabilize the area.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, the plans were already in place
Speaker 1: to bring in a lot more US military and also
Speaker 1: within the Agency to increase our presence there quite a bit,
Speaker 1: so things kind of shifted gears. You know. The initial
Speaker 1: mission was to go in there and smash al Qaeda.
Speaker 1: And the reason we got involved with the Taliban was
Speaker 1: simply because they stood in our way. You know, they
Speaker 1: were protecting that the Alqaeda elements there, and had it
Speaker 1: not been for that, if they had stood aside, or
Speaker 1: if they had even helped us on it, they might
Speaker 1: be empower today. But seriously, but I mean we really
Speaker 1: we were just really concerned about al Qaeda. That's all
Speaker 1: we really wanted. But we had to deal with Todd
Speaker 1: Tomoman to deal with al Qaeda, So, you know, then
Speaker 1: it became more of a I think that's where things
Speaker 1: started to morph into what became more of a nation
Speaker 1: building exercise, which was something that President Bush explicitly said
Speaker 1: it wasn't coming to become, but it did. Well, what
Speaker 1: do you do you think that was the right decision
Speaker 1: to bring all the additional troops in the country and
Speaker 1: to stick around the way we did well. I think
Speaker 1: initially I think yes, initially bring some more troops in, Yes,
Speaker 1: to help stabilize things. I think that probably was had
Speaker 1: to be done. I think though that didn't I think
Speaker 1: what what happened was there just this momentum that came
Speaker 1: with that that you know, and people, you know, Americans
Speaker 1: and others are you know, good hearted people, and they
Speaker 1: want they wanted to see the best for Afghanistan. They
Speaker 1: knew Afghanistan and been in a bad way for a
Speaker 1: long time, and so I think there's a momentum there
Speaker 1: they just got going about, oh, we need to help them,
Speaker 1: and uh, and I even supported that frankly because I
Speaker 1: got you know, I like, for instance, I talked about
Speaker 1: my book. I got to even though it's only briefly,
Speaker 1: only for like ten days with the Echo team, I
Speaker 1: got to know cars I and I really respected the guy,
Speaker 1: and I really was impressed with him, and uh, he
Speaker 1: had high hopes for his country, and I really wanted
Speaker 1: those hopes to come true. So I did kind of
Speaker 1: support that myself, but not so much the longer term
Speaker 1: and effort in terms of what has become. I was
Speaker 1: hoping that Afghanist would be able to stand up on
Speaker 1: their own two feet a lot sooner than what has happened.
Speaker 1: And I think that's where we, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: make that decision on Okay, what point do we start
Speaker 1: drawing back? At what point did we start drawing back?
Speaker 1: That's where it gets tricky, and you know, we we
Speaker 1: we tended to push in the d action of okay,
Speaker 1: we're having problem with us, just put more troops in this,
Speaker 1: you know, throw more money into the aid, that kind
Speaker 1: of things. And I, without necessarily fully reflecting on on
Speaker 1: what kind of country Afghanistan is, it's a as you know,
Speaker 1: it's a very poor very ethnically divided society. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have a doesn't have a history of a central government,
Speaker 1: a strong effective central government. I think we were just
Speaker 1: a bit naive about what we could actually accomplish. And uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an incredible story, and I mean
Speaker 1: I really thank you for sharing it with us today. Um.
Speaker 1: And from that point for you, what what was it
Speaker 1: going back home? And uh, you know what were your
Speaker 1: next steps after the Canada Hart mission. Well, I went
Speaker 1: back and I thought at that point when I got back,
Speaker 1: I knew it wasn't to be with counter Riston or
Speaker 1: any longer. I knew it was going back to any division,
Speaker 1: but I didn't have to have the job line up.
Speaker 1: I thought I'd probably end up going back to going
Speaker 1: to the FBI, which is I was originally gonna go
Speaker 1: to the FBI under the auspices of any division near
Speaker 1: East Division. But h and I thought, well, I'll finally
Speaker 1: get to do that job that I was supposed to
Speaker 1: do back in earlier in the fall. But they when
Speaker 1: I got back there, they said, hey, we would like
Speaker 1: you to uh stand up a new a new branch
Speaker 1: if you have a new office. Um that we had
Speaker 1: had responsibilities within any any division for Afghanistan. It wasn't
Speaker 1: the c T mission. It was earlier. Up until that point.
Speaker 1: For years, we had not had any office supporting a
Speaker 1: station in in Afghanistan because we didn't have a station
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan for many years. And now with the tournament events,
Speaker 1: after Night eleven and the fall of the Taliban uh
Speaker 1: in a in a better environment, we were going to
Speaker 1: have a station in in Afghanistan. So, um, that office
Speaker 1: that I stood up was to support that station. That station,
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately would become the the biggest station the
Speaker 1: CIA had in the world until until until the Rock
Speaker 1: came along and then then that changed. But that's a
Speaker 1: different story anyway. So I I worked on, I worked
Speaker 1: on I continue to be involved in afghan things there
Speaker 1: for another couple of years. Um, after I came back
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan, it just from my headquarters environment. I mean
Speaker 1: we did go back. I didn't go back to Afghanistan
Speaker 1: once and went to Pakistan once, but huh, I pretty
Speaker 1: much was it at headquarters at that point. So the
Speaker 1: book once again is Foxtrot and Kandahar, a memoir of
Speaker 1: a CIA officer in Afghanistan at the inception of America's
Speaker 1: longest war. It's actually Dwayne's second book. Uh, you could
Speaker 1: visit Dwayne Evans dot com. Anything else you want to
Speaker 1: get out there before we wrap this up with you. No,
Speaker 1: not at all the books available and all the sellers
Speaker 1: is available in electronic format too, if he was interested
Speaker 1: in it. And uh, I do appreciate the opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Guys have been a real pleasure and
Speaker 1: really they support your program. Thank you. Yeah, we appreciate
Speaker 1: having you on. I mean, like I said, this is
Speaker 1: one of those rare looks into paramilitary operations. And I
Speaker 1: mean I think this is Books like this are great
Speaker 1: because they're an eye opener. I mean, not just for me,
Speaker 1: but for you know, John Q. Public. You know, I
Speaker 1: think it's important for people to understand, you know, where
Speaker 1: their tax money is going. And we hope that the
Speaker 1: public supports these capabilities. Yeah, absolutely, I hope. I was
Speaker 1: hoping my book would be read by not just a
Speaker 1: military apuneded audience, but also by kind of a larger
Speaker 1: general public audience. If if that would be possible, I
Speaker 1: thought that might be useful our our audience, I will say,
Speaker 1: I mean, and getting to know them over the past
Speaker 1: few years if a good split there. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: good mix of people. Great, great, well, thank thank you again.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, thank you, and I hope we talk
Speaker 1: again soon. All right, thank you. We'll talk to you
Speaker 1: later then, all right, take care, all right, bye bye.
Speaker 1: So we went pretty in depth there with with Dwayne
Speaker 1: in that was great once again. Pick up the book
Speaker 1: Foxtrot and kandahar Um. So I didn't get to talk
Speaker 1: to you about this during the intro, figured I would
Speaker 1: tell you I finally have checked out some of Tesla's
Speaker 1: death ray. Yeah, well you know what it was is.
Speaker 1: So I live in Port Washington. My parents Ernmond Hashett
Speaker 1: where I grew up, which is like literally right next door.
Speaker 1: It's two minutes drive for me. So I'll go over
Speaker 1: there sometimes do my laundry there, even though actually have
Speaker 1: a washing machine in my house, but they have like
Speaker 1: a bigger room where you get hand grushed up. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'll go over there and do some laundry. And I
Speaker 1: put on like Io on demand just while I'm showing there,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, they have Tesla's death ray
Speaker 1: on demand and I finally checked some of that at out.
Speaker 1: It is an extremely well done show. The thing that
Speaker 1: was interesting to me more than anything was that, like,
Speaker 1: for example, had you have not been able to go
Speaker 1: to that museum, meet with someone, get your hands on
Speaker 1: the actual documents, this would end up being a pretty
Speaker 1: lack luster show, and like there was no guarantee that
Speaker 1: you would get that opportunity. Well, the we also built,
Speaker 1: or I should say Aaron built that death ray up,
Speaker 1: which is the most remarkable thing, which that's the most impressive.
Speaker 1: Still I still haven't seen the last episode, but that
Speaker 1: was really cool. But other than that, yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: that documents and getting those never before seen documents out
Speaker 1: of the museum in Belgrade was really cool. But what
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like, what would Discovery have done if
Speaker 1: they flew you all the way out to Belgrade, you know,
Speaker 1: and you just could not get there, because it seems
Speaker 1: very likely that that you wouldn't And this isn't a
Speaker 1: prescripted show. So well, yes, and no, there's some television
Speaker 1: magic happening behind the scenes. I mean, the producers had
Speaker 1: been they scouted out Belgrade, and I believe they had
Speaker 1: done some things to help butter up the museum a
Speaker 1: little bit. So I mean, we had some idea that
Speaker 1: we were going to have some access when we went
Speaker 1: in there. Um, I love that the woman was like,
Speaker 1: don't touch that, she's getting upset with me. I was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to touch them, don't worry. She was
Speaker 1: very nice. Um, but yeah, having those documents was really
Speaker 1: cool and I was really exciting to see those. I
Speaker 1: mean like pictures that drawings that Tesla had did in
Speaker 1: his own hand, And I mean when you look at him,
Speaker 1: you know exactly what you're looking at the second you
Speaker 1: see him. Yeah, Yeah, this guy was amazing And I
Speaker 1: think that you did a great job, you know, basically
Speaker 1: doing something outside of your usual comfort zone. I guess
Speaker 1: you would say, yeah, mosting a program like this and
Speaker 1: I dug it. And for people wondering, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: have like Io or a lot of digital on demand
Speaker 1: cable services, you'll be able to check out all the episodes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I still have to see the Um, the last episode
Speaker 1: of it. There's my friend, actually my co star on
Speaker 1: the show, Cameron. Yeah. He posted a picture of the
Speaker 1: death ray UM blowing up when we blow up some
Speaker 1: drones and it's it's basically a giant Tesla coil. And
Speaker 1: my daughter sees a picture and She's like, Daddy, is
Speaker 1: that the death ray? Like it sure is a little girl.
Speaker 1: The guy putting it together is Aaron. Yeah. See, to me,
Speaker 1: what he does is the most markable thing in the show.
Speaker 1: Like it's funny that you and Cameron are the stars
Speaker 1: of the show because you know, look, I respect what
Speaker 1: you do as an investigative journalist and all that. But
Speaker 1: this guy, I'm like, holy sh it, to put this
Speaker 1: thing together, I wouldn't know the first thing of what
Speaker 1: to do. That's actually like his full time job. That's
Speaker 1: what he does is he builds Tesla coils um for museums. Um,
Speaker 1: he's done them for like rock concerts and stuff like
Speaker 1: that people want like special effects. So um, and I
Speaker 1: think that one he built it was twenty ft high,
Speaker 1: I think, and um, I think it worked even better
Speaker 1: than he thought it would. Like, I don't think he
Speaker 1: was so sure it was gonna work the first time
Speaker 1: we fired it up, but um, and it did take
Speaker 1: a little bit of messing around with you know, um
Speaker 1: to calibrate it. And you just have to talk to
Speaker 1: Aaron to get all the technical details of it. But um,
Speaker 1: when we put the we remember we tested it and
Speaker 1: they started firing out. You know, BLTs of lightning essentially
Speaker 1: started electricity and like, okay, it's working. Uh got the
Speaker 1: drone up and I mean flew the drone right in
Speaker 1: front of it and boom, first time it went. So
Speaker 1: that's awesome. Yeah. I think we blew up two drones
Speaker 1: that night, and I mean they both went went up immediately,
Speaker 1: you know, So it was pretty cool. So yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're like me and waited to check it out, go
Speaker 1: check out Tesla's death ray a murder to classified. Um.
Speaker 1: It's on demand for a lot of people. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to get to this email as well because it
Speaker 1: was an interesting one. So, uh, Kurt and I talked
Speaker 1: pretty in depth about the gun issue last week. I
Speaker 1: mean it was a shorter episode because I was in
Speaker 1: here with Jerick Robbins, the son of Tony Robbins, for
Speaker 1: like three hours, and I was ready to get out
Speaker 1: of here. Um. But anyway, so this is from Ryan. Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: enjoyed the show the other day. My buddy and I
Speaker 1: were kicking around an idea the other day that I
Speaker 1: thought i'd share with you guys. In this country, lately,
Speaker 1: we seem to have a deadlock on any meaningful gun reform. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the problems aren't being solved. We fear or if no
Speaker 1: progress or compromises can be made, school shootings will continue,
Speaker 1: which will push more and more people toward a band.
Speaker 1: And we don't believe that needs to be the solution.
Speaker 1: What we had. What if we had one federal standard
Speaker 1: for gun licenses. You would have to submit a criminal
Speaker 1: and mental health background check and take a safety course
Speaker 1: for proper and safe handling an operation of a firearm.
Speaker 1: This could be waived by military police or gun range
Speaker 1: professional training. Once you have the license, you can buy
Speaker 1: anything you want, automatic, suppressed, etcetera, and carry it open
Speaker 1: or concealed anywhere in the US. You would need to
Speaker 1: renew the license periodically, say every four years for example.
Speaker 1: I feel that this addresses concerns from the left about
Speaker 1: the ease of getting guns and how the process can
Speaker 1: differ from state to state. It would also respect gun
Speaker 1: owners on the right, UH on the right, who realize
Speaker 1: if you have no intention of murdering people, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what gun you own. If you guys think this
Speaker 1: idea could go somewhere, please bring it up on the
Speaker 1: next broadcast. I really do believe as Americans, we can
Speaker 1: come up with suitable compromise. It doesn't Nest certainly have
Speaker 1: to come from Washington. Love the show, Keep up the
Speaker 1: good work. That's from Ryan, sent once again to soft
Speaker 1: Rep dot Radio at softrep dot com. I check all
Speaker 1: the emails. Um, I absolutely appreciate you checking out the
Speaker 1: show personally, and I want to hear your take. I
Speaker 1: do not think this would be realistic. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's actually some constitutional issues involved for one to have
Speaker 1: a federal gun law like that. Yeah, with open carry.
Speaker 1: The whole idea of of you know, having a constitutional
Speaker 1: republic is that state to state you have very different laws.
Speaker 1: And this isn't a popular thing to say in this
Speaker 1: day and age right now. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: I'm fine with the gun laws the way that they are.
Speaker 1: I think we just need to enforce the actual laws. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, like I think if Chicago wants to
Speaker 1: pretty much have no Second Amendment rights for that city,
Speaker 1: that's their right to do. I think that, well, there's
Speaker 1: there's limitations on that too. You can't ban no second
Speaker 1: it's just about it's it's just about eradicated in Chicago
Speaker 1: as it is in New York City. For the most part,
Speaker 1: and that is the state's rights issue. Just like you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't like it, moved to Texas, moved Florida,
Speaker 1: and I entirely agree with that. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: understand the logic of it. Like somebody was telling me
Speaker 1: as at a at somebody's house visiting. They're like, you know, um,
Speaker 1: we should have a federal concealed carry permit, And I
Speaker 1: was like, and I was like, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: a bad idea, because like, you have a concealed carry
Speaker 1: permit and you know, one state, and then you travel
Speaker 1: in New York and suddenly you're getting arrested, you know,
Speaker 1: because you're not in compliance with state laws. And having
Speaker 1: a federal concealed carry permit, you know, you go and
Speaker 1: take some test and now your federal quote unquote federally
Speaker 1: qualified and carry concealed firearm wherever you want in the country.
Speaker 1: I understand the logic behind that. But if this guy
Speaker 1: thinks that the Left would be in any way satisfied
Speaker 1: by that or would say, oh, yeah, you could open
Speaker 1: carry a automatic weapon, there is absolutely no way that
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, this is a fair compromise. And
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to be demeaning to the email. It's
Speaker 1: just I don't see it being real estal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it depends what you mean when you say the left.
Speaker 1: I mean I think there are Democrats out there who
Speaker 1: are are willing to compromise, But there are also tons
Speaker 1: of people out there who, yeah, they do want a
Speaker 1: gun band and that's it, and that's why we hear
Speaker 1: all this talk about banning the A R fifteen, And
Speaker 1: I'm just like, if you know anything about firearms, you
Speaker 1: know that doesn't make sense. And banning a R fifteen, like,
Speaker 1: there are many other semi automatic weapons out there you
Speaker 1: could use um and most mass shootings are conducted with pistols.
Speaker 1: So you know, you ban the a R fifteen and
Speaker 1: then you know, the statistics clearly show most people aren't
Speaker 1: being killed with a R fifteen. So now you now
Speaker 1: you're now, what are we going to after this? So
Speaker 1: then we're going to have to ban all semi automatic weapons?
Speaker 1: Are we going back down that room? Well? I think
Speaker 1: that could be a lot of people on the anti
Speaker 1: gun left strategies. You know, you slowly chip away no
Speaker 1: R fifteen. Yeah, it's it's what a lot of people believe.
Speaker 1: And also another problem I had with the email. Um
Speaker 1: was when you said that with the mental health stuff,
Speaker 1: you would waive it for military. Uh, let me just
Speaker 1: go back to what you actually said. Uh, Ryan, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you would have you have to submit to a criminal
Speaker 1: and mental health background shack and take a safety course
Speaker 1: for proper and safe handling. Um, this could be waived
Speaker 1: by military police. All right. So my problem is, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just a fact that a lot of people who
Speaker 1: do have the mental health issues are former military, So
Speaker 1: why would they be waved from that? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's a thing when you get into this whole mental
Speaker 1: health issue. And I do believe we should do better
Speaker 1: with and we can do better with some sort of
Speaker 1: like mental health screening or something like that, but we
Speaker 1: do have to be thoughtful and deliberate about that because like,
Speaker 1: if you know, if a guy for just who decides
Speaker 1: who's meant? That's my biggest problem. So how's that going
Speaker 1: to work? Yeah? My, because I feel like if we're
Speaker 1: keeping it out of the hands of people who are
Speaker 1: really mentally ill. Absolutely agree with that, but then what
Speaker 1: if you know, what if let's say you Jack Murphy,
Speaker 1: who's a veteran, sees a therapist and you say something
Speaker 1: to the effective and this is not true. But you
Speaker 1: say I have anger issues sometimes, but I just I
Speaker 1: feel violent sometimes. And what if your therapist is someone
Speaker 1: who's on the anti gun left and wants to you know, well,
Speaker 1: it's something that wouldn't it wouldn't even be that, it
Speaker 1: would be there would be something that would federally mandate.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like if you go and you tell
Speaker 1: your therapist. I'm thinking of like shooting up at school,
Speaker 1: the therapist has a legal requirement to report. But then,
Speaker 1: once again, slippery slope. What about if if you're if
Speaker 1: the therapist patient just says I'm an angry person sometimes
Speaker 1: I sometimes want to do something violent. Is that a threat?
Speaker 1: I mean it could be, um, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people feel that way and then they don't act on it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. UM So yeah, I do think it's a
Speaker 1: difficult issue. I think we can do better with it,
Speaker 1: and I think we can take steps to work to
Speaker 1: UM say, look, this person is so mentally impaired, psychologically
Speaker 1: impaired that they should not be able to buy a firearm.
Speaker 1: I think there's got to be some way we can
Speaker 1: do it. In some way we can do better. But
Speaker 1: we do have to be careful about at the same
Speaker 1: time that we don't go around just labeling people mentally ill.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's very concerning, and I just I
Speaker 1: do think that there should be a different state to state.
Speaker 1: I think that's part of like that you move to
Speaker 1: a state because the laws are more in tune of
Speaker 1: what you want. There's there's a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are not informed that will say that, like if we
Speaker 1: have a Supreme Court justice who gets rid of roversus wade,
Speaker 1: that abortion will be completely illegal. That's not the case.
Speaker 1: It would actually be more like the gun laws in America,
Speaker 1: where if New York wants to have very easy access
Speaker 1: to abortions, then that would be their law. If Texas
Speaker 1: wants to make it harder to get an abortion, that
Speaker 1: would be their law. I actually do like the state's
Speaker 1: rights way of doing things. I am more of a
Speaker 1: state's rights kind of guy. Yeah. Um, I know, like
Speaker 1: people get all but heard about, especially the people on
Speaker 1: the far left tool who will say that you're then
Speaker 1: for slavery or something ridiculous. Man, I can't I can't
Speaker 1: even engage with so many people talk politics, whether they're
Speaker 1: left wing or right wing, because it's just like it's exhausting. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, and that's why I really don't except with
Speaker 1: you guys want to do this podcast and a few
Speaker 1: other reasonable people. Um what else did I want to
Speaker 1: mention here? Um? I guess that's really about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have some great guests coming up. I don't want
Speaker 1: to ruin some of them because, like one of them
Speaker 1: in particular, you know who I'm talking about, has been
Speaker 1: highly uh requested by the listeners. So you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of great guests coming up over the next month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and people from all different walks of life, I'll say. Um, So,
Speaker 1: wrapping things up here as a reminder for all of
Speaker 1: those who are listening. For a limited time, you can
Speaker 1: receive a fifty percent it discounted membership to soft rep TV,
Speaker 1: our channel that offers the most exclusive shows, documentaries, and
Speaker 1: interviews covering the most exciting military content today. Softwarep TV
Speaker 1: is premier show. Training Sell follows former Special Operations forces
Speaker 1: as they participate in the most advanced training in the country,
Speaker 1: everything from shooting schools, defensive driving, jungle and winter warfare, climbing,
Speaker 1: and much more. Again, you can watch this content by
Speaker 1: subscribing to Softwrep TV. It's a Softwrep TV dot us
Speaker 1: and take advantage of a limited time offer of fifty
Speaker 1: off your membership only for a month. And if you
Speaker 1: haven't gotten a chance to check out the soft Rep
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Speaker 1: and survival gear delivered to your door every month. Here's
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Speaker 1: former special ops guys, so you know you're getting quality
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Speaker 1: We've sent in the past of included gear like custom knives,
Speaker 1: multi tools, fire starters, E d C, med kits and
Speaker 1: other kick ass stuff. You don't just get great gear
Speaker 1: with your subscription, you're also supporting a veteran owned and
Speaker 1: run company. To subscribe and start getting your gear, there's
Speaker 1: a great Club dot us. We also gift options available.
Speaker 1: That's great Club dot Us. UM. Last things I wanted
Speaker 1: to mention before we get out of here. Yesterday was
Speaker 1: actually the twenty five anniversary of the attack on the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center. Oh yeah, yes, I posted something about that,
Speaker 1: which you know people did, unfortunately die in and you know,
Speaker 1: not to the level of nine eleven, of course, but
Speaker 1: there were attacks. There was a precursor to nine eleven.
Speaker 1: They were hoping that they were going to be able
Speaker 1: to collapse one tower into the other. Yeah. Um, so
Speaker 1: rest in peace to those who died and wanted to
Speaker 1: recognize that. And then the other thing. I took down
Speaker 1: a lot of the older episodes because prior I took
Speaker 1: them off SoundCloud and iTunes. Prior we were doing him
Speaker 1: that thing where it was for subscribers, and we had
Speaker 1: certain episodes that were like cut in half. I figured
Speaker 1: it was a lot easier just go to soft rep
Speaker 1: dot com slash radio and you could listen to all
Speaker 1: those episodes in their entirety. So if there's a back
Speaker 1: episode you don't see on iTunes, um or SoundCloud or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen, just go to soft rep dot com
Speaker 1: slash radio and every episode from one on is there.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of stuff. I mean, Marcus Latrell
Speaker 1: was on the podcast before I was ever even here. Um.
Speaker 1: We've had some really cool guests. Uh Montell Williams that
Speaker 1: was an interesting one. I'd like to get him on
Speaker 1: at some point. Again, but because he's uh, a military
Speaker 1: venue seems you know, he doesn't consider himself to the left,
Speaker 1: but a lot of people seem to label him that way.
Speaker 1: He certainly was not a Trump supporter and was very
Speaker 1: vocal about it. Oh yeah, yeah, he openly voted for
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton, was pretty vocal about it. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people on the right one one after him. But
Speaker 1: he's uh, he was an interesting guest. The thing of
Speaker 1: on him is he he gets very emotional during like
Speaker 1: every interview you're concluding the one we did with him. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can see it. It's always right beneath the surface. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and and I think it's genuine. I think
Speaker 1: he's very passionate about veterans issues. Yeah I think so too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All right, Um, anything else before we wrap this up? No,
Speaker 1: I think that's it for now. Um. Check out Tiger
Speaker 1: Swan if you haven't read it already. It's a very long,
Speaker 1: in depth article. You're holding a bunch of documents that
Speaker 1: you probably can't talk about. I know, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to talk about what's in them, but I have a
Speaker 1: bunch of documents in my hands, which will be a
Speaker 1: future story on a different topic. Are gonna be interesting
Speaker 1: to say the least, and Brandon will be back next
Speaker 1: episode for a special appearance with Rob O'Neill if everything
Speaker 1: goes accordingly, so he should be here. Uh alright, guys,
Speaker 1: as always leave a review on Apple Podcasts, follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram at Software Radio. You follow Jack at
Speaker 1: Jack Murphy r g R on Twitter, at Act mcmurph
Speaker 1: on Instagram, and if you go to Jack mcmurph on
Speaker 1: Instagram you find me on there. You get to see
Speaker 1: all my Dungeons and Dragons photos with they'll play with
Speaker 1: my daughter. Yeah, so you kind of keep it separate
Speaker 1: from all the sap stuff. I'm just like at that
Speaker 1: point in my life, like I don't feel the need
Speaker 1: to post like Jim Picks and like me wearing camouflage,
Speaker 1: Like I don't feel they need to show boat and
Speaker 1: like prove how tough I am all the time. You know,
Speaker 1: It's it's not that kind of special operations dude bro
Speaker 1: Instagram account that you probably normally find, like I just
Speaker 1: don't give a ship anymore dragon. Yeah, you're going it's
Speaker 1: like that. It's like stupid stuff I've done. You'll see
Speaker 1: like pictures of me on vacation. I mean, it's nothing
Speaker 1: that exciting. You've been listening to Self Rep Radio. New
Speaker 1: episodes up every Wednesday and Friday for all of the
Speaker 1: great content from our veteran journalists. Join us and become
Speaker 1: a Team Moon member today at solf rep dot com.
Speaker 1: Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at so rep Radio,
Speaker 1: and be sure to also check out the Power of
Speaker 1: Thought podcast, hosted by Hurricane Group CEO and Navy Seal
Speaker 1: Sniper instructor Brandon Webb, M