Speaker 1: Ah beat Force. If it doesn't work, you're just not
Speaker 1: using enough. You're listening to Software a Gradio Special Operations
Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the
Speaker 1: community softwarep Radio on Time on Target. I would say, uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, there's quite a lot going on in special
Speaker 1: operations related news right now, and I feel like most
Speaker 1: of this audience knows exactly what I'm talking never at
Speaker 1: dull moment. Yeah, if you've been following the News Rep,
Speaker 1: following our Instagram Twitter, uh, and involves some familiar names.
Speaker 1: So you wrote an article that went up yesterday. As
Speaker 1: we're recording this on the news Rep dot com, I guess,
Speaker 1: just for those not in the know, let's give the
Speaker 1: whole backstory of what's going on right now. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: this story started to break um with Haitian newspapers and
Speaker 1: you know, local Haitian journalists, and then it got picked
Speaker 1: up by the Miami Herald um ostensibly because they're so
Speaker 1: close to the Caribbean and they probably have tax down
Speaker 1: in Haiti, so they were kind of all over that story,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think they did a pretty good job
Speaker 1: with it. But the story that emerged was that a
Speaker 1: group of American and Serbian private security contractors were arrested
Speaker 1: down in uh Porto, Prince Haiti. This was just over
Speaker 1: the weekend and they when the police came up and
Speaker 1: questioned them, I think they became initially suspicious because it
Speaker 1: was a pickup truck and an suv about a block
Speaker 1: away from the Haitian Central Bank, and it had the
Speaker 1: license plates removed, so that's you know, an indicator. You're like, well,
Speaker 1: what's going on here? And then the police went and
Speaker 1: they started asking them. Then it was these you know,
Speaker 1: white foreign guys, and they said they were working for
Speaker 1: the government, but they couldn't identify themselves. And it turned
Speaker 1: out they had all kinds of weapons and everything inside
Speaker 1: the vehicles. You know. Um, you know, pictures that were
Speaker 1: taken by the police show all these M four rifles.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh they took So they took these guys
Speaker 1: into custody because they couldn't identify themselves. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't fault the police for that. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: reasonable that there's a bunch of arners with vehicles with
Speaker 1: the license plates missing, you know, in vehicles filled with guns.
Speaker 1: You know, the police are gonna take an interest in that.
Speaker 1: Um and and to be honest, they stand out as
Speaker 1: these white contracts and predominantly black, sure for sure. So
Speaker 1: uh it starts to hit the press. Um, the names
Speaker 1: start to start to come out. Um, some of the
Speaker 1: political people, the Prime Minister's off it starts talking about
Speaker 1: how these are white terrorists and mercenaries and things like this. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of the names that started coming out, Um, you
Speaker 1: know the one that jumps out to me, or jumped
Speaker 1: out to me when I was looking at uh it
Speaker 1: was like a blog I think. Actually down in Haiti
Speaker 1: was Christopher Osmond. And okay, Chris Osmond was a Navy seal.
Speaker 1: And then the Miami Herald picked up on another one
Speaker 1: of the names, h Chris McKinley, who was formerly Chris
Speaker 1: Heben also form or Navy seal. Uh. McKinley was Seal
Speaker 1: Team eight and Osman was Seal Team three, and you
Speaker 1: guys may remember changed his name after a you know what,
Speaker 1: you guys could do the research, but pretty much a
Speaker 1: concocted story about getting shot by these It was a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Um, Chris he been at that time,
Speaker 1: now McKinley, he claimed to that these three African Americans
Speaker 1: came by in a vehicle and started yelling, you know,
Speaker 1: like racial slurs at him and that it was because
Speaker 1: he um badmouthed Obama on CNN, and then shot him
Speaker 1: in the abdomen and then sped off in their car,
Speaker 1: and according to McKinley's account, he like tried to plug
Speaker 1: the bullet wound, got in his car and started chasing
Speaker 1: after them, and then realized, you know, oh shit, I'm shot.
Speaker 1: Actually this doesn't feel so hot, and drove himself to
Speaker 1: the hospital. Uh. And the police refuted that. They were like, well,
Speaker 1: this isn't shown in the security cameras from the nearby
Speaker 1: fire department. The self owned records from McKinley don't match
Speaker 1: up with where he said he was. And apparently I
Speaker 1: was reading a news story yesterday there was a police
Speaker 1: cruiser two policemen parked about sixty five ft away from
Speaker 1: where this alleged incident took place, and they were like,
Speaker 1: what what are you talking about? So they charged him
Speaker 1: with making false statements to the police and he was
Speaker 1: found not guilty in court. So you make of that
Speaker 1: what you will, um. And then there was a former
Speaker 1: marine Kent Croker, who works with Croker Partners. Although Croker Partners.
Speaker 1: Their website has this disclaimer up on it and it says,
Speaker 1: hold on, I'm looking at it now right here. Croker
Speaker 1: Partners LLC has no active engagements underway in Haiti and
Speaker 1: is not in a position offer comments on recent developments
Speaker 1: in the country. That said, despite the fact that their
Speaker 1: chief operations officer was just arrested down there. Um, this
Speaker 1: couple of Serbian guys, one of them is a naturalized
Speaker 1: American resident. So um, he worked for a company called
Speaker 1: Case seventeen that I was doing a little bit of
Speaker 1: research on. I think they're downs based down in the Washington,
Speaker 1: D C. Area. Um, But what company was actually contracting
Speaker 1: these guys? Um? There there was some sort of um
Speaker 1: front maybe front company sounds a little too nefarious, but
Speaker 1: there was some sort of contracting company that they had
Speaker 1: to have bid on the contract for in order to
Speaker 1: secure it. I mean, that'll all come out in the wash.
Speaker 1: So backtrack a little bit, um and speaking to my
Speaker 1: source on the subject, what actually happened here was that
Speaker 1: these guys, this group of guys, had been hired by
Speaker 1: the Haitian Central Bank. And if you pull down the article,
Speaker 1: you'll have to forgive my horrible French accent, but it
Speaker 1: is uh, stop right there, Uh the Bank Deulla Republic,
Speaker 1: the Haiti b R h uh, which is it's basically
Speaker 1: the Haitian Treasury Department. And from what I've been told,
Speaker 1: they hired these guys Osman McKinley, Croker and their their
Speaker 1: associates to go down there and do v i P.
Speaker 1: Security UM, to do like uh security consultations, UM like
Speaker 1: security like infrastructure type assessments, security assessments, and to do
Speaker 1: um armed security for city to city monetary transfers within Haiti.
Speaker 1: So in this sense, now this is where you get
Speaker 1: into some of the gray areas. I mean, these guys
Speaker 1: were not down there running like some sort of like
Speaker 1: fly by night mercenary operation or coup or or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Like they you have to look at it
Speaker 1: from their perspective. They look at it like I'm contracting
Speaker 1: with the Haitian federal government. It's not like they're working
Speaker 1: for some criminal element. So so in their minds everything
Speaker 1: is on the up and up. But here's the thing,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, of course, is that you're contracting
Speaker 1: with one faction of the Haitian federal government. It's not
Speaker 1: like you're contracting with the U. S. Government, where we
Speaker 1: have like a relatively uh normal federalized system where you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like if you go and work for the Republicans,
Speaker 1: the Democrats are going to come and arrest you, or
Speaker 1: if you work for you know, a local state government,
Speaker 1: the federal government won't be in the know or something
Speaker 1: like that, right right, It's like if you do a contracting,
Speaker 1: you know, armed guard work for you know, the state
Speaker 1: of New York, It's not like the FBI is going
Speaker 1: to come and arrest you for that over some sort
Speaker 1: of like intra political, intra political feud that they have
Speaker 1: going on between the state and federal government. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's like the sort of Banana Republic stuff that we
Speaker 1: don't have here in the United States thankfully. But Haiti,
Speaker 1: of course. I mean it's a third world country. They
Speaker 1: are destitute, it's impoverished, corruption is endemic. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: talked to people I've never been there myself. I've talked
Speaker 1: to people who have worked security down there, including Jim
Speaker 1: West worked a security detail down there back that was
Speaker 1: way back in the nineties. But I've talked to also
Speaker 1: a friend of mine who did a documentary down there,
Speaker 1: and um, it's just a deplorable situation. It's a really
Speaker 1: sad situation that the people who live down there have
Speaker 1: to live in. So that's just a little bit of
Speaker 1: context to that. Um. And so the problem was for
Speaker 1: these former seals and this marine when they went down there.
Speaker 1: From what I've been told, the central Bank didn't give
Speaker 1: them identification cards. The it's called the bank is br H.
Speaker 1: So Um, the central Bank didn't give them identification cards
Speaker 1: and did not inform the local police, didn't tell them
Speaker 1: that they were there. So again, from the perspective of
Speaker 1: the local police, you can't really fault them for for
Speaker 1: making this arrest. I mean, they were right to be suspicious. Um.
Speaker 1: And once they made the arrest. Now now these contractors
Speaker 1: are caught up and in this the middle of this
Speaker 1: political feud, because from what has come out through the
Speaker 1: Miami Herald, it looks as if the President's office hired
Speaker 1: these guys through the Central Bank to do this extra
Speaker 1: security work. The Prime Minister on the meantime, the Prime
Speaker 1: Minister and the President or arrivals and hate each other
Speaker 1: and down in Haiti, and so the Prime Minister's office
Speaker 1: the second he sees this arrest, he's using it for
Speaker 1: his political advantage, and he's saying these guys are foreign
Speaker 1: mercenaries and are here to assault the executive office, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And that just isn't true that that that's not what
Speaker 1: was happening there. Um. So they get arrested on what
Speaker 1: on Sunday I believe it was, And then yesterday they
Speaker 1: were all released and the the U. S. Embassy personnel
Speaker 1: escorted them to the airport and had them flown to Miami.
Speaker 1: So and and from what we saw because there's a
Speaker 1: video of it on your regular commercial flight, yeah correct. Um, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, thank goodness for that. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: I know Chris Osmond has this kind of weird obsession
Speaker 1: with with this company. Uh. And you know we can
Speaker 1: get into that just I'm just gonna touch a touch
Speaker 1: upon it and the interest of full disclosure, um that
Speaker 1: he has had this like long running, very public feud
Speaker 1: on social media with Brandon Webb, who is the CEO
Speaker 1: of Hurricane And and this audience knows Brandon because Brandon,
Speaker 1: you know early is on the party. He'll be back
Speaker 1: on a couple of weeks and and news rap and
Speaker 1: soft WAP Radio are properties of Hurricane. So you know,
Speaker 1: essentially Brandon Webb is my boss. He's he's the guy
Speaker 1: I answer to if anything comes up. And um, I
Speaker 1: mean we have editorial discretion I do. I pretty much
Speaker 1: do what I want. But as far as like business decisions,
Speaker 1: you know, Brandon is at the helm right, UM So
Speaker 1: I think it's important to disclose that. UM. Now, despite
Speaker 1: Chris Osman spreading these very like asinine conspiracy theories on
Speaker 1: social media about about this company and even even revealing
Speaker 1: details of my personal life on his Instagram, which I
Speaker 1: didn't appreciate, and you know, people would send me screenshots
Speaker 1: of it, like well, Chris Osmond's talking about your honeymoon
Speaker 1: and stuff. I'm like, this is weird, Like this guy
Speaker 1: needs to get a life or figure his own thing
Speaker 1: out whatever this is about. But I try to separate
Speaker 1: myself from that. And long story short, as distasteful of
Speaker 1: some of the things I think Osmond has done, UM,
Speaker 1: I would not wish Haitian prison on anyone. And when
Speaker 1: I came in here or when I was prepping to
Speaker 1: do this, um this podcast last night, I was like, well,
Speaker 1: as I was writing this article that that we published yesterday,
Speaker 1: I was like thinking, we're gonna have to come in
Speaker 1: here and talk about the human rights conditions and Haitian prisons,
Speaker 1: and you know that U. S citizens are down there
Speaker 1: being abused, and I would not wish that on on
Speaker 1: Osman or McKinley or anybody. I mean, that is just
Speaker 1: a fucking horrible thing. And again, looking at it from
Speaker 1: their perspective, they're like, hey, we were working for the
Speaker 1: Haitian government, Like what's the problem. We weren't working for
Speaker 1: like a drug carteller or something like leave us alone. Um,
Speaker 1: But I'm glad that they got released and that they're
Speaker 1: back in in the United States now. As we understand it,
Speaker 1: these guys were arrested when they landed in Miami. Uh
Speaker 1: it's not clear yet what the charges um were they
Speaker 1: arrested for, quote unquote you know, mercenary activities. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: also the question of the weapons. So they got arrested
Speaker 1: with all those those rifles. The question is how did
Speaker 1: they get there? Were those weapons um acquired locally in Haiti?
Speaker 1: Because employees of the central bank are allowed to be
Speaker 1: armed because obviously there's a high chance that that the
Speaker 1: bank could be rob obed or that there could be
Speaker 1: a transit heist, you know, as you're moving money around. UM.
Speaker 1: And there are quite a few guns in Haiti to
Speaker 1: say the least. So maybe they were locally acquired. Maybe
Speaker 1: they were you know, um, property of the Haitian government,
Speaker 1: which were that was, and they were issued to these
Speaker 1: guys when they arrived in Haiti. UM. But then there's
Speaker 1: a question were they brought from the United States? And
Speaker 1: then the question becomes were they brought legally? Um? Because
Speaker 1: if that stuff isn't all, you know, blessed off on,
Speaker 1: like you cross your teas and dot your eyes like
Speaker 1: that is serious federal time for weapons trafficking. UM. Just
Speaker 1: a little sidebar on on that story. And I mean, funcket.
Speaker 1: I'll just I'm just gonna tell this story without mentioning
Speaker 1: the person's name because people would recognize it. A friend
Speaker 1: of mine reached out to me, this was maybe five
Speaker 1: years ago, four years ago, and he was going to
Speaker 1: meet with a security company. Again fairly not not a
Speaker 1: company that's known for like um, providing armed guards or
Speaker 1: security contract but a company that's involved in security let's say,
Speaker 1: let's just say physical security here in the United States
Speaker 1: and elsewhere, and has pretty instant name brand recognition. He
Speaker 1: was contacted by the owner of this company who wanted
Speaker 1: to send this gentleman, I know, to Molly to conduct
Speaker 1: offensive operations like shooting people, killing people, UM, to take
Speaker 1: over some gold mine or some some mining facility. UM.
Speaker 1: And wanted my friend to take sniper rifles with him
Speaker 1: over there and go and kill people. That this fucking mind.
Speaker 1: And I told my buddy, I was like, listen, bro,
Speaker 1: this has FBI sting all over it, like just walk away.
Speaker 1: And and he did, thankfully. But it just goes to
Speaker 1: show it's like what we were talking about with a
Speaker 1: contracting job in um in uh Yemen with dale Comstock.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I stand by what I said in
Speaker 1: that case, like I have to in courage, you know,
Speaker 1: other veterans out there, don't get involved in this ship
Speaker 1: like please for your own se I remember you said
Speaker 1: that prior to the interview with delcom Stocks, so we
Speaker 1: didn't even know dal was involved at the time that.
Speaker 1: And I remember you went on kind of a a better
Speaker 1: rent just like you know, you may think this sounds cool,
Speaker 1: it sounds very romantic, but I mean, don't do it, man.
Speaker 1: And and I know that or I'm sure that Osman
Speaker 1: and McKinley felt like everything was on the up and
Speaker 1: up because they're contracting with the Haitian government, but they
Speaker 1: probably were not aware of the political situation and maybe
Speaker 1: not the social situation in Haiti. And you know that
Speaker 1: proved to be their undoing in some ways. Um. So
Speaker 1: even if their contracts domestically, like like we covered, um,
Speaker 1: the Tiger Swan deal out at the Dakota Access Pipeline. Like, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta be really really careful about this kind of stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's one thing if you're contracting for the US
Speaker 1: government working uh, you know at the g RS stuff,
Speaker 1: or if you're you're a Green Badge or a contractor
Speaker 1: even working for you know, Ground Branch or some other
Speaker 1: paramilitary aspect of the Central Intelligence Agency. That's one thing man.
Speaker 1: I mean you're protected by the US government, but you
Speaker 1: go overseas and you start working in these shady contracts
Speaker 1: and you have to understand that first off, whatever you do,
Speaker 1: you are no longer a uniformed American soldier. You are
Speaker 1: not working under Title ten of the US Code, which
Speaker 1: which authorizes US military action. Um, you are not protected
Speaker 1: by the Geneva Convention. You are not protected by American law.
Speaker 1: Because you are outside the United States, you have basically
Speaker 1: zero protection, what's none whatsoever. UM. So I would encourage
Speaker 1: you know, young guys, young rangers, young seals, whoever it is,
Speaker 1: when you're looking at these contracts um and taking them like,
Speaker 1: take them to an attorney, have it reviewed first. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have this a no. And that you
Speaker 1: know because this, uh, this contracting company is owned by
Speaker 1: a former seal or a former Delta Force screen beret,
Speaker 1: whoever it is, that that it's legit. The reality of
Speaker 1: the vast, vast majority of these companies is just a
Speaker 1: website that looks really professional and we do risk mitigation
Speaker 1: and maritime security and this and that, um when really
Speaker 1: it's just like one guy, maybe two guys UM. And
Speaker 1: what they do is they go out and just bid
Speaker 1: on every other every contract they can find. And what
Speaker 1: they're doing is trying to underbid the competition. So they
Speaker 1: will put in recklessly low bids on contracts to try
Speaker 1: to get to secure that that contract for themselves, and
Speaker 1: then they have to fill the contract with a miniscule
Speaker 1: budget because they underbid everyone else. UM. So, these companies
Speaker 1: will make it look as if they have a bunch
Speaker 1: of former you know, Delta operators, like hardcore stand up
Speaker 1: dudes on standby, ready to go fulfill the terms of
Speaker 1: the contract. But really it's just one guy working for
Speaker 1: this this company. And now they're going to be as
Speaker 1: surprise as anyone else when they actually get the contract
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh ship, and now they have to
Speaker 1: fill it out. They have to flesh it out with personnel.
Speaker 1: So you just start making phone calls to whoever is available,
Speaker 1: and you don't get necessarily the most professional people. Um.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that to take a cheap shot
Speaker 1: at the guys who are on this particular contract. And
Speaker 1: I was gonna say in this case when you say
Speaker 1: make phone calls. These guys both had a very big
Speaker 1: social media presence. I believe McKinley deleted his Instagram. We
Speaker 1: know Osman is big on Instagram, So if you're out there,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about your credentials, easy guy to find.
Speaker 1: Dell Comms Deck is pretty active on social media as well.
Speaker 1: That's actually an interesting point you're making their in because
Speaker 1: I was told the same thing about the Dappa contract. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that the Tiger swan not just Tiger Swan,
Speaker 1: but other companies out there UM doing the Dakota Access
Speaker 1: pipeline contract. They suddenly got this money thrown at them
Speaker 1: to do site security for the pipeline. And I was
Speaker 1: told by several people that that's what it turned into,
Speaker 1: that it was a rush to find personnel. And they
Speaker 1: were basically just like finding people on social media and
Speaker 1: like sending them makes sense, sending them d M s
Speaker 1: like hey, bro, you available and come out here and
Speaker 1: do this and and doing and and in doing that,
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily get the most professional, most qualified people,
Speaker 1: but you're able, you know what, Unlike um, you know,
Speaker 1: someone making a linked In profile or something you could
Speaker 1: see through Chris Osmond's profile and all that that he is,
Speaker 1: regardless of his UM reputation, is legit as an ABC. Right.
Speaker 1: It's the fast, easy way to do it, UM. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily give you the best results. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's a it's a weird situation. And that's why when
Speaker 1: you start talking about private security contracting companies, private intelligence firms,
Speaker 1: so many of them are just a cluster fuck. I
Speaker 1: mean they're really a joke. Um. When when you start
Speaker 1: like you see the fat man behind the curtain and
Speaker 1: it's like, this is not cool at all. It's really
Speaker 1: just a fly by night kind of operation, um that
Speaker 1: skirts the the the the line of the law very carefully. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, despite all of this, that's just a little background.
Speaker 1: You know that I hope, you know, some other veterans
Speaker 1: listening to this can put in their back pocket and
Speaker 1: take with them before they get involved in something like this,
Speaker 1: because I hate to see any of our guys end
Speaker 1: up in that kind of situation. Um. But again, I
Speaker 1: am glad that Osmond and McKinley and Croker and all
Speaker 1: these other guys have been released from Haiti because they
Speaker 1: they would have been held in really deplorable conditions and
Speaker 1: their human rights would not have been respected down there.
Speaker 1: And the court system down there is also completely corrupt.
Speaker 1: So a quick search could show you that they're they
Speaker 1: pack something like seventy six guys into like a tiny cell.
Speaker 1: When you're in the prison in Haiti. Yeah, they'll just
Speaker 1: put you into a cage like you're you're an animal
Speaker 1: or something. It's it's horrendous. There's YouTube videos out there,
Speaker 1: so we'll see, um what happens from here. That apparently
Speaker 1: these guys were arrested as they got off the plane
Speaker 1: or as the plane arrived in Miami. And again we
Speaker 1: don't know what the charges were. UM. I guess the
Speaker 1: FBI is going to do their own investigation on it,
Speaker 1: and we'll see where that goes. Yeah. So it's been
Speaker 1: an interesting couple of days. UM, and I'm glad that
Speaker 1: we went you went in depth really on this because
Speaker 1: I can tell you just posting about this on Instagram, uh,
Speaker 1: and looking at the comments on your article a news
Speaker 1: rep there's a lot of conspiracy out there, but one
Speaker 1: of which I saw was several people saying that it
Speaker 1: sounded like these guys were going to rob the National
Speaker 1: Bank of Haiti, you know, and that you know, No,
Speaker 1: it's nonsense, and you know you're not doing these guys
Speaker 1: any favors either by spreading conspiracy theories. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: you say that stuff enough times, and well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess we shouldn't underestimate the power of social media
Speaker 1: here in a You say that stuff over and over again,
Speaker 1: and some people take it to be the truth. UM.
Speaker 1: I even get a little nervous sometimes because people comment
Speaker 1: on on photos of me that are floating around they say, oh,
Speaker 1: he's in the CIA, CIA a paramilitary this and that,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, dude, I have never been in
Speaker 1: the CIA. And when you go around saying stuff like that,
Speaker 1: like if I get detained in a country five years
Speaker 1: from now and you google my name and the first
Speaker 1: thing that pops up is Jack Murphy, c I A.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's not good for me. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: so I mean saying, spreading those conspiracy theories about um
Speaker 1: Osman and McKinley and these guys, like, that's not good
Speaker 1: for them and um and and it's not right to
Speaker 1: do that to them either. UM. I know, people gossip,
Speaker 1: and Chris OsmAnd gossips too. You know, he is guilty
Speaker 1: of it. UM. But I don't know. I think we
Speaker 1: should try to endeavor to do a little bit better
Speaker 1: than that. So then a lot of the other comments
Speaker 1: that I got were from people saying, you know, sarcastically,
Speaker 1: I wonder why soft Prep Radio or news rep is
Speaker 1: covering this. Maybe it has a little something to do
Speaker 1: with Chris Osmond. And I mean I tried to explain
Speaker 1: to these people, we covered what was going on with
Speaker 1: Dale Comstock, which is somewhat similar situation, and we have
Speaker 1: a very friendly connection with Dale comstock. There's no hostility
Speaker 1: between us and Dale, but we covered it. We covered
Speaker 1: it objectively, and we covered the Dapple contract. Would be
Speaker 1: covering this whether it was Chris Osmond or not. Like
Speaker 1: it just so happens that Chris Osmond has honestly talked
Speaker 1: a lot of shit about our Skino and then in
Speaker 1: in turn really bad mouthed all of us at the company.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, put up stickers bashing the company,
Speaker 1: um and saying negative stuff about all of us, a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that was proven not to be true. Uh,
Speaker 1: if you listen to this podcast, you know, anytime brand
Speaker 1: that ever gets into that type of thing, I've never
Speaker 1: really gotten into it because I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: the guy, but I mean I do think it's just
Speaker 1: if you're gonna, you know, have an Instagram devoted to
Speaker 1: bad mouthing, someone better have pretty squeak and queen reputation
Speaker 1: because now when you google Chris Osmond, this will be
Speaker 1: the first thing that comes up. Or at least have
Speaker 1: your facts straight, I mean, if nothing else. Um, I
Speaker 1: mean personally, I've never addressed Osmond before, and I've never
Speaker 1: addressed any of this gossip because to me, it's about
Speaker 1: as interesting as watching a private to push ups. It's like,
Speaker 1: this is like this is thirteen year old ship, Like
Speaker 1: what what is this? Um? I never have either, I've
Speaker 1: I've been in the room, you know. You know, like
Speaker 1: if people listen to podcasts where Brandon has talked about it,
Speaker 1: but you really can't find clips of me ever addressing this. Uh,
Speaker 1: the only time Chris Osmond ever made contact with me
Speaker 1: is I remember on Twitter, you know, and if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this at some point when you could listen
Speaker 1: to it, but you know, and and asked me why
Speaker 1: I don't have him on the podcast, and I had
Speaker 1: to be like, you know, dude, I respect your service,
Speaker 1: but it's not not my podcast. This this podcast sole
Speaker 1: platform is owned by Brandon Webb. And if he's not
Speaker 1: interesting having you on, and then I'll put this out
Speaker 1: there right now. If Chris and or McKinley and or
Speaker 1: Croaker want to come on this podcast to discuss what
Speaker 1: happened in Haiti, I would be more than happy to
Speaker 1: extend the platform for that and then let them tell
Speaker 1: their side of the story. UM. I'm not interested in
Speaker 1: smearing any of these guys. UM, I just am interested
Speaker 1: in in telling the facts, and I report on special
Speaker 1: operations news. I report on you know, private military contractors
Speaker 1: quote unquote mercenaries all over the world all the time.
Speaker 1: I've been doing this for years, and this story I
Speaker 1: would be definitely reporting on, uh, you know, a bunch
Speaker 1: of white guys, white Americans or it could be black Americans.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, yeah, but what you're saying is true
Speaker 1: because they they stand out in this country. I mean,
Speaker 1: a bunch of a bunch of white cats from the
Speaker 1: United States mentioned like big tat it up dude, to
Speaker 1: fit the stereotype of what a US contractor looks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would be reporting on this story regardless. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't have any personal animosity towards Osman, I mean,
Speaker 1: or or McKinley. I wish, yeah, I wish Osman would
Speaker 1: kind of like be more factual in some of his accusations.
Speaker 1: And I'd appreciate it if he would not discuss my
Speaker 1: personal life, um, you know, publicly on social media like that.
Speaker 1: But if that's what he wants to do, he can
Speaker 1: do that. I mean, so be it. I guess, um
Speaker 1: life goes on, Um, but I'm not gonna go out
Speaker 1: there and make up stories about the guy. And that's
Speaker 1: why I did his best. I could, you know, report
Speaker 1: this in an unbiased way and make this disclosure that
Speaker 1: he has some some beef with Brandon and with this company. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is just something that needed to be addressed.
Speaker 1: And I've never addressed the guy when you know he's
Speaker 1: gone on other podcasts with people who are hostile towards
Speaker 1: us for other reasons that you know, I've chosen and
Speaker 1: you have to to not really get into There's been
Speaker 1: so many lives spread about the company, about the CEO,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of the stuff that's been that's
Speaker 1: been spread has been proven to be false. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was told like that this company wasn't going to exist,
Speaker 1: but by by by last month, we weren't going to exist.
Speaker 1: It's uh, I don't know, I really don't. It's like
Speaker 1: kind of like crazy ex girlfriends stuff. It's hard. It's
Speaker 1: hard for me to ye and I agree that stuff
Speaker 1: is insignificant, and that's why we don't get into it.
Speaker 1: This is very significant and it and it is a
Speaker 1: new story and I don't think any of you could
Speaker 1: read this story and deny that this is the type
Speaker 1: of thing that we cover, and that's in our real
Speaker 1: conspiracy that we're covering this just because it involves a
Speaker 1: guy who's been hostile towards it. That's true. And again,
Speaker 1: if those guys want to come on this podcast and
Speaker 1: talk about what really happened in hate and tell their
Speaker 1: side of it, I'd be happy to do that. I'm
Speaker 1: just not going to get into like the gossip and
Speaker 1: you know, funk this guy like come on man, like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a thirty five year old man. I don't
Speaker 1: have time for that. Yeah, it would probably make for
Speaker 1: an interesting show too, to be honest, because when we
Speaker 1: had Dale comstock on, it was good to at least
Speaker 1: go in depth. Yeah, yeah, it was. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: people could draw their own conclusions. I think there's people
Speaker 1: who listen to that podcast too who feels that Dale
Speaker 1: really do. They feel Dale really fucked up by doing
Speaker 1: what he did. There's probably other guys who took Dale's side,
Speaker 1: and and you know, Dale's basically saying, I had this
Speaker 1: one guy have not opened his mouth, you would have
Speaker 1: never even heard about that. And again, I mean it
Speaker 1: gets into the gray areas of contracting from from Dale's perspective,
Speaker 1: they were working for the Emirati military. It seems seems legit, right,
Speaker 1: But and as he said, he's like, we're taking out terrorists,
Speaker 1: we're taking out bad guys. We're doing the same thing
Speaker 1: the United States government does. But you're not a soldier anymore.
Speaker 1: You're not and you're not in the military. You're not
Speaker 1: you're not acting under titled end of the US Code. UM,
Speaker 1: you're not working under the auspices of the a U
Speaker 1: m F, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force
Speaker 1: that has passed after nine eleven. UM. You are now
Speaker 1: a private citizen, work in private security, and you don't
Speaker 1: have those legal protections. So I definitely encourage all the
Speaker 1: other vets out there to consider some of these nuances
Speaker 1: and some of these gray areas and the legalities. And
Speaker 1: just because the guy you're working for was a colonel
Speaker 1: and x y Z Special Operations Unit doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: what he's telling you to do is legitimate and legal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: unlike them as far as I know. By the way,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been probably good three or four months
Speaker 1: since this Dale comp Stock came out, probably three months
Speaker 1: and not I don't nothing has happened. He has been arrested,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, Dale is you know, living
Speaker 1: normal life and and hasn't had any consequences for this
Speaker 1: story that came out. Yeah so far. I mean, we'll
Speaker 1: see what happens with that. Um. I think they'll probably
Speaker 1: be some follow up stories to it eventually. But man,
Speaker 1: that was a hell of an interesting story. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I with you. I mean I could be wrong here.
Speaker 1: You might know. I would think it'd be a little
Speaker 1: bit late for them to, you know, do something at
Speaker 1: this point. They can, but I mean it's just i'd
Speaker 1: be surprised. I I don't know. I really don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, investigations can can take a long time, but
Speaker 1: I have no idea. All right, Well, with that, we
Speaker 1: do have a guest this episode, but we definitely had
Speaker 1: to address that. Uh, Mike Lampy, we're gonna get right
Speaker 1: into it. Back on the podcast, Air Force Chief Master
Speaker 1: Sergeant Mike Lampy. You guys last heard Mike on episode three. Uh,
Speaker 1: and we didn't get quite up to when Mike cross
Speaker 1: paths with a previous guest of the podcast and a
Speaker 1: legend in the community, Mike Vining, which was later on
Speaker 1: in his military career. Uh. As we were saying before
Speaker 1: we recorded, we really ended with some of your time
Speaker 1: in Wouse and uh, let's get back into that. I
Speaker 1: know that there's some unanswered questions and go from there,
Speaker 1: just to elaborate a little bit. Mike Lampy was you know,
Speaker 1: on the ground floor in a lot of ways for
Speaker 1: the birth of Air Force Special tactics and also got
Speaker 1: to see the birth of a really modern American special operations.
Speaker 1: So I mean we had Ah, I had a great
Speaker 1: time interviewing you last time, and we got up to
Speaker 1: the point where you were in laos and you said
Speaker 1: that just before the we started recording, you said that
Speaker 1: you had had some inquiries about laos Um and some
Speaker 1: other things you wanted to elaborate on that before before
Speaker 1: we move on to some other topics in your career. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's correct, and uh yeah, a couple of the inquiries
Speaker 1: I got, uh and I think somewhere in the interview,
Speaker 1: you know always uh thought about being a filet or flying.
Speaker 1: So one of the inquiries was did I ever you know,
Speaker 1: learn any flying skills or having an opportunity to fly?
Speaker 1: And the answers yes, And now, of course it wasn't
Speaker 1: my job, but the ravens Uh you know, Uh, basically
Speaker 1: we're kind of accommodating in the sense that when we
Speaker 1: weren't staying up country based on you know, the ambassador's guidance. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you would jump on any plane going back
Speaker 1: down to Benson to spend the night, and then you
Speaker 1: go back through the same event, uh, you know, getting
Speaker 1: back up there, and you know there wasn't necessary what
Speaker 1: I call passenger terminal or scheduled flights. You pretty much
Speaker 1: figured out which aircraft, uh going from Bention up to
Speaker 1: two alternate was going there being a uh you know,
Speaker 1: a twin otter, C one three, a porter. That's how
Speaker 1: you got to work. And then the same event, you know,
Speaker 1: or the same cycle would take place when you're heading
Speaker 1: back if you didn't spend the night, spend time up there.
Speaker 1: And so occasionally, uh we got to jump a ride
Speaker 1: with you know the Ravens, you know the back seater
Speaker 1: if they didn't have their back seater. Uh, we had
Speaker 1: a chance to fly back from launch in uh intervention,
Speaker 1: and of course during that flight, Uh, they basically myself
Speaker 1: and Charlie and a couple of the other folks that
Speaker 1: you know transit back and forth. Uh you know, they
Speaker 1: gave basic lessons on flying to no One, and of
Speaker 1: course I was fortunate enough. And and when I first
Speaker 1: got up there, uh and doing the flight falling, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of the ravensh went to Jerry Ryan and
Speaker 1: Charlie Day and said, hey, we'd like to take Mike
Speaker 1: up on a flight to kind of see, you know,
Speaker 1: what we're doing, which would help him and his flight
Speaker 1: falling skills because you know, and so I got to
Speaker 1: fly a couple of mission. Again, please understand, it wasn't
Speaker 1: some authorized, it wasn't something. Yeah, it just happened. So
Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough to fly a couple missions with
Speaker 1: the raven Facts. But it really helped me number one,
Speaker 1: and uh, some of the things I was doing referenced
Speaker 1: flight falling, coordinate with the A B Triple C reference fighters,
Speaker 1: and uh watching the twenty eight out of launching, and
Speaker 1: it definitely gave me a perspective of what the raven
Speaker 1: Fact was seeing and what she was doing, uh, which
Speaker 1: helped me, uh, you know later on in my career,
Speaker 1: especially when I came back to Thailand a Dent one
Speaker 1: fifty six sow and we were running training for the
Speaker 1: Cambodians and Ford air guide. So it gave me that perspective, uh,
Speaker 1: from from a raven fact looking you know, you know,
Speaker 1: from altitude. And then Jerry Ryan, the AOC commander, also
Speaker 1: took me out a couple of times. Again, I gotta understand,
Speaker 1: this is not authorized, what's supposed to be doing this.
Speaker 1: But he went out and flew a few you know,
Speaker 1: straightening runs and dropping bombs on targets. And so then
Speaker 1: you've got I got a perspective of what it feels
Speaker 1: like to be in the back of the t and uh,
Speaker 1: him rolling in scraping troops and contact or dropping bombs.
Speaker 1: So when I got into Thailand and with teaching Ford
Speaker 1: air guide procedures, uh, it was really enhanced my skill
Speaker 1: sets of what we were teaching then to the Cambodians
Speaker 1: of distance, direction, from whereas what and kicking out what
Speaker 1: a pilot could see from the the air easily and
Speaker 1: then basically talking the pilot down to another object or
Speaker 1: another train feature and eventually to where the chart was.
Speaker 1: So you were you were refining the the what became
Speaker 1: the combat controller mission. If I'm hearing this correct, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's basically enhanced my understanding of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: what's called the j back today, but Ford air guide
Speaker 1: back down for their guide being somebody working from the
Speaker 1: ground but having the opportunity to work from the ground
Speaker 1: but also be in the air. Again, not my mission,
Speaker 1: not was what I was there. It's just experience. And
Speaker 1: then of course getting the fly occasionally with the Ravens
Speaker 1: and basically you know, they pretty much say hey, you
Speaker 1: got it, like or Charlie or you know whoever, fly
Speaker 1: in the backseat and let us kind of fly the
Speaker 1: one back intervention and put it in the pattern, you know,
Speaker 1: report and downwhen and then turned the air craft over
Speaker 1: to them, so and then and then when we when
Speaker 1: I got into Thailand, the raven some of the Ravens
Speaker 1: were there as instructors to train the Cambodians as well
Speaker 1: as UH a lot of the pilots for training the Cambodians. Again,
Speaker 1: it really added to my my tool bag when you
Speaker 1: talk about UH being the guy in the ground supporting
Speaker 1: an s fo D or seal platoon or a unilateral
Speaker 1: mission where you're putting in air strikes or talking of
Speaker 1: fighters or gunships. Mike, forgive my forgive my memory. But
Speaker 1: the mission in um in Thailand was that called the
Speaker 1: FET mission. Yeah, I would call it a FIT mission. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it was I'm just trying to think the mission to
Speaker 1: train the Cambos. It was f ET. I may be
Speaker 1: wrong though, Yeah. Well the term I knew it from
Speaker 1: is like I think it was the SCOOT program. Yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: support Cambodia out of Thailand. Now I'm sure there was
Speaker 1: other names to that, but you know, get one fifty
Speaker 1: six out, you know, I think you know, I've got
Speaker 1: over to Thailand and seventy three and think by seventy
Speaker 1: four Debt In fifty six Sal became USA US Mactie
Speaker 1: Detachment to Oudin, and that's when they brought tiny adder Holt,
Speaker 1: Colonel adder Holt. But I think if I recall correctly,
Speaker 1: they promoted the one star, brought him back and put
Speaker 1: him in charge adjust mag with the sole purpose of
Speaker 1: training up to Cambodian forces on the air side. And
Speaker 1: I think I discussed that a little bit that we
Speaker 1: in Thailand. Combat Tool was responsible for training the Ford
Speaker 1: Air Guides, um, you know Cambodian air guides at the
Speaker 1: Ford Air Guide School that we had that had been
Speaker 1: put together, uh in the late sixties, early sixth at
Speaker 1: late sixties and seventies and U as well as you know,
Speaker 1: we were involved in training the air drop crews for
Speaker 1: thee Ease and you have to tight and they are
Speaker 1: once and the maintenance or the maintainer. So it was
Speaker 1: a gro Bus uh Field training detachment per se to
Speaker 1: train the Cambodian Air Force and had tremendous expertise and
Speaker 1: professionals from all all came os is or a F
Speaker 1: s C that you know worked at that detached and
Speaker 1: U and I guess to break off from that m
Speaker 1: unless you have any other questions on that. No. Actually, Mike,
Speaker 1: what I was hoping to UM discuss a little bit
Speaker 1: was the was how you got brought into brand X
Speaker 1: and UM just to set the stage a little bit
Speaker 1: for the listeners. In nine, the US Embassy in Iran
Speaker 1: was captured by quote unquote Iranian students who overran the
Speaker 1: premissis and took everyone hostage. And now this became a
Speaker 1: big debacle for our government as far as how we
Speaker 1: were going to rescue our people and get them out
Speaker 1: of there. And you know, we've talked about this incident
Speaker 1: at length, I think before with people like Mike Vining
Speaker 1: who were involved in the rescue effort UM. But you
Speaker 1: were you were part of UH. You were part of
Speaker 1: that endeavor, but definitely came at it from a different
Speaker 1: perspective than I think any of the previous interviews we've done. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: brand X was kind of a name that one of
Speaker 1: the guys that comeback Controllers came up with I think
Speaker 1: was Peter d Holt came up with that because you know,
Speaker 1: brand X started out I guess if I recall, is
Speaker 1: called Project Recognition out of Mass Headquarters and basically a
Speaker 1: gentleman's Major John's Parney or Captain John Carney the time,
Speaker 1: was working at twenty first Air Force and he was
Speaker 1: given the task to bring select combat trollers together from
Speaker 1: different teams state side to basically support UM. And I
Speaker 1: want to say and that, you know, UH was called
Speaker 1: Blue Light, which was a precursor I had to Delta
Speaker 1: and and you know a lot of interaction with the
Speaker 1: Range of Battalion, which at that time I think was
Speaker 1: second Range of Battality. The Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Downing was
Speaker 1: the commander at that time. And during this this process,
Speaker 1: I was still in the Philippines because I was transferred.
Speaker 1: You know, when everything, you know, when what the hell
Speaker 1: in a handbasket in Laos, Cambodian and Vietnam. Vietnam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: transferred to UM the Philippines. They shut down our detachment
Speaker 1: or our team probably within thirty days. I mean, so
Speaker 1: everything happened to April May time framem and I think
Speaker 1: I signed into the Philippines at the end of May
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy five. Well, during that tour duty. When
Speaker 1: I was there, UM this project recognition, but we'll call
Speaker 1: it Brand X UH Coach Carney UH wanted his people
Speaker 1: to be dual qualified Halo and scuba, and I just
Speaker 1: happened to be in charge of the scuba locker in
Speaker 1: the Philippines. Now, I basically came over state size to
Speaker 1: be an ant junk scuba instructor. Coach Carney and many
Speaker 1: of the other Brand X personnel and some which eventually
Speaker 1: showed up in Debt One, Makos half your Desert one
Speaker 1: were the students. And that's the first time I had
Speaker 1: met Ontarni or coach Party who was hit. And so
Speaker 1: when we graduation get together from Scuba school, he mentioned
Speaker 1: if I had an interest of you know, maybe coming
Speaker 1: part of this group, which he said, I really can't
Speaker 1: tell you much about And I kind of told him,
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, you know, sir, yeah it
Speaker 1: interests me, but I've got orders to the seventh STSTS
Speaker 1: in mind mind Germany, you know, consecutive overseas tour, and
Speaker 1: I'm leaving. So maybe when I'm done with that tour,
Speaker 1: i'd be happy to you know, entertain that. Well. Well
Speaker 1: and behold, you know, coach party uh was able to
Speaker 1: change my orders and so instead of going to Germany, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I was reassigned to Charleston Air Force Base.
Speaker 1: And understanding what brand X was, it was a pickup team.
Speaker 1: So every time went out on one of these degrees
Speaker 1: with whoever you be at the Blue Light Force or
Speaker 1: be at the Rangers, or a combination of both, he
Speaker 1: would select individuals from each of the different teams to
Speaker 1: be at the mccare team, Norton Team, Charleston Team, Little
Speaker 1: Rock Team, which is the way combat control was task
Speaker 1: organized that time, and they would have to bring their
Speaker 1: equipment and then they meet at a certain location be
Speaker 1: at Bragg or wherever, and they basically planned and interface
Speaker 1: with their army counterparts go execute the mission, and then
Speaker 1: they would go bring their take their equipment and go
Speaker 1: back home to their base. And so Coach Karney was
Speaker 1: able eventually to convince the powers to be at Headquarters
Speaker 1: mac Uh and other Air Force fans that he needed
Speaker 1: to have all the Brand X personnel that he wanted
Speaker 1: he wanted to select at one base. And so I
Speaker 1: ended up being one of those individuals, along with John Corne,
Speaker 1: Mitch Bryan, Dick West and others. And the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is is we all served in Southeast Asia to get
Speaker 1: you know, we were in Thailand together and Philippines together,
Speaker 1: and some of us had worked in and out allows
Speaker 1: to get so you know, we you know, we knew
Speaker 1: each other's moves on the on the chessboard for lack
Speaker 1: of term. And so when I got reassigned for the Philippines, uh,
Speaker 1: of course I did to make my wife happy because
Speaker 1: my wife's family primarily were was in France, and so
Speaker 1: when I told her we're not going to Germany, uh,
Speaker 1: that would over like the turn the punch bowl. But
Speaker 1: I showed up I think the last week of October
Speaker 1: um of seventy seventy nine. And if i'm you know,
Speaker 1: my memory served me correctly or just finishing up the
Speaker 1: validation the final validation exercise, I think at lauren Burn
Speaker 1: Maxim there in North Carolina with Delta certification, as the
Speaker 1: us IS counters, Yes, as I recall from Colonel Beckwith's book,
Speaker 1: he talks about how they finished the certification and you
Speaker 1: know he went to sleep just exhausted from the whole process.
Speaker 1: Is because the squadron they had trained up had to
Speaker 1: conduct a number of hostage simulated hostage rescue missions. And
Speaker 1: he goes to sleep exhausted. They wake him up in
Speaker 1: the morning because the incident in Iran had just happened,
Speaker 1: like the day after unit was validated. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I want to say the unit that final validation was
Speaker 1: like the third of November or second November or stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, it all was together and then yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, and the hosts are taking a four November
Speaker 1: and then you know, off to the races reference trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, um, you know, how how are you
Speaker 1: going to go about rescuing you know, fifty three Americans
Speaker 1: halfway around the world in the middle of the capital
Speaker 1: of Iran. Yeah, could you could you talk about that
Speaker 1: from from your perspective and you know what you saw,
Speaker 1: what you observed as far as the planning and training
Speaker 1: process um for all that began. I can speak to
Speaker 1: my portion now of course the time. You know, I
Speaker 1: think I was the six promotable East seven at the time,
Speaker 1: so you know, I was down at what I called
Speaker 1: the dirty boot level. Uh, and it's a good place
Speaker 1: to be. And you know my involvement, you know, of course,
Speaker 1: there was only ended up being six of us, seven
Speaker 1: of us that really engaged in the planning and rehearsal
Speaker 1: for for Iran and went into Iran on the first
Speaker 1: aircraft and the bulk of my time as well as
Speaker 1: my other fellow combat controllers. Uh. We were working with
Speaker 1: the Ranger Company, Charlie Company, which was commanded by Dave
Speaker 1: Grange at that time, and I think SRM. Wilford was
Speaker 1: the battalion commander, and of course we did a lot
Speaker 1: of work with them, primarily what I called the second
Speaker 1: Night rehearsal referenced the airfield that was gonna be secured
Speaker 1: to receive the one on Um to translode the Delta
Speaker 1: personnel and the hostages onto there after they were pulled
Speaker 1: out of the embassy and the other location. And so
Speaker 1: our involvement, my involvement primarily revolved around that. You know,
Speaker 1: we get some work on a couple of desert type
Speaker 1: strips out where was that out one of the lake
Speaker 1: beds by Edwards Air Force Base. Also we were involved
Speaker 1: in initially one of the scenarios was dropping blivets uh
Speaker 1: in to refuel. So we ended up going through those scenarios,
Speaker 1: you know, recovering the blivets and trying to set up
Speaker 1: revealing points and working with the c Stallion cruise, uh,
Speaker 1: the Navy cruise as well as uh. There was a
Speaker 1: couple other scenarios that we ended up jumping in with
Speaker 1: out there in uh uh it slips my mind, but
Speaker 1: it was out there in the desert, a human growing
Speaker 1: grounds with Delta, and we were rehearsing a what I
Speaker 1: call across country movement uh Delta with mules, motorcycles, those
Speaker 1: type of things. That again, that was just another snareup now,
Speaker 1: you know, to my knowledge, you know, Delta was you know,
Speaker 1: you know, focused pretty much strictly on taking down the
Speaker 1: two targets and and to my knowledge, basically at that
Speaker 1: down you know, to a science um and we're well
Speaker 1: prepared I think to execute that mission. Um if we
Speaker 1: could get them into the capital city, which I don't
Speaker 1: think the Iranians had anticipated any of us ever or
Speaker 1: the Americans trying to excuse me, try to do that.
Speaker 1: And then also we worked with the engineers, the whiz
Speaker 1: kids out from the Agency off at a place you
Speaker 1: know up in d C that actually built the remote
Speaker 1: control lights. You know, they were regularly what I call
Speaker 1: beam baged lights that we used in the early sixties
Speaker 1: seventies to mark l zs, but they turned them in
Speaker 1: to remote control lights with pop up antenna's and then
Speaker 1: they had a thing that fit into the one thirty
Speaker 1: up in the coppic you plug in that could activate
Speaker 1: the lights about I think was about ten miles out.
Speaker 1: So we ran a lot of different tests. This is
Speaker 1: to basically run a clandestine airfield, if I understand right,
Speaker 1: that's correct. Those those lights that were developed and we
Speaker 1: tested I think around down and Army Hunter Army Airfield
Speaker 1: eventually were the ones that John Carney UH took in
Speaker 1: UH to the desert. The desert one, I think it
Speaker 1: was about thirty plus stage prior to actually US launching,
Speaker 1: and the Agency flew him in on a twin orter
Speaker 1: with many bikes and he went in and took soil
Speaker 1: samples and planet the remote control lights um and what
Speaker 1: I you know, and again my direct and maybe off
Speaker 1: I called like the southern LZ. And initially when we
Speaker 1: were rehearsing, you know, uh, we we were kind of
Speaker 1: focused on one l Z in the desk, you know,
Speaker 1: the one that the coach had surveyed, you know, and
Speaker 1: done soil samples on. And as things evolved, and I
Speaker 1: think it was again I may be getting ahead of
Speaker 1: myself on this, but I think, you know, for me,
Speaker 1: and I think most of the other six comeback controllers,
Speaker 1: wasn't until we had moved from Charleston through my mind,
Speaker 1: and I think in the Wadi Kemi, which was our
Speaker 1: initial drop off point in uh Egypt, and then Olman
Speaker 1: if I remember, right, Yeah, well I was Egypt where
Speaker 1: we kind of found out that it well we're gonna
Speaker 1: have you, we're gonna do to dual runways in the
Speaker 1: desert and yeah, and and to to my knowledge at least,
Speaker 1: I was never on any rehearsal that we you know,
Speaker 1: prior to that that we had done dual runways on
Speaker 1: dirt or in the desert and done the refueling. But
Speaker 1: that's where we basically found out and myself and John
Speaker 1: Corne and I think Dick West and Bud Consalis, you know,
Speaker 1: all put our heads together because the three of us
Speaker 1: pretty much had the responsibility once we landed in the desert,
Speaker 1: one into the original LC, the remote control lights, and
Speaker 1: we had the responsibility of kind of going across this
Speaker 1: so called road that ran through the the lake, that
Speaker 1: and the stabolishing the second LZ and second box and
Speaker 1: one and that became quite challenging as the mission unfolded
Speaker 1: based on the timeline that was given us. You know,
Speaker 1: the original timeline was we had an hour from landing,
Speaker 1: you know, two you know, get everything set up, and
Speaker 1: that included the tack in the portable tack an uh,
Speaker 1: you know, established the inverted wife for to receive the helicopters.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, we're kind of focused on one
Speaker 1: LC now now we're basically transitioning to run parallel desert runways.
Speaker 1: I did hand know that. Yeah, yeah, that's yeah that
Speaker 1: you know, you know again, I speak for myself. I
Speaker 1: was never involved in any rehearsal where we were running
Speaker 1: dual runways at night in the desert. Not that we
Speaker 1: didn't do some on single type things, not that we
Speaker 1: didn't do practice refueling back of the one thirty, you know,
Speaker 1: all those things. But you know, people asked, well, did
Speaker 1: you ever do a full dress rehearsal? And my answer
Speaker 1: is no. Now, Delta had, no doubt, ran numerous full
Speaker 1: dress rehearsals on their takedown and and their movement from
Speaker 1: their high site if you know where I think it
Speaker 1: was Dick Meadows, Uh, went in and seat up and
Speaker 1: they were going to be translated by trucks into into
Speaker 1: the Capitol, et cetera. So I have no doubt that Delta,
Speaker 1: you know, from A to Z, you know, had that
Speaker 1: thing wired and down going. That asked you know, based
Speaker 1: on that, but from the air side, Uh, we never
Speaker 1: rehearsed agen Zy Uh. From my perspective, That's what Mike
Speaker 1: Vining said when I asked him, you know, I asked
Speaker 1: him the question. I was like, do you think the
Speaker 1: mission could have been successful? And his answer was, if
Speaker 1: we had gotten to the embassy, there's no question that
Speaker 1: we could have succeeded in our mission. And I agree
Speaker 1: with that percent. And you know, I think people have said,
Speaker 1: you know, people actually more knowledgeable and the complete planning
Speaker 1: processes the long pall and the ten or the weak
Speaker 1: link was always the helicopters. And of course, as you're
Speaker 1: probably aware of, you know, we went through to maybe
Speaker 1: three helicopter cruise. Uh. Eventually that was the cruise that
Speaker 1: you know flew the you know, the nine helicopters are launched,
Speaker 1: the nine helicopters to go into desert want and and
Speaker 1: so to digress a little bit, you know, so we
Speaker 1: you know, we did our planning a lot of team.
Speaker 1: We kind of practiced on the motorcycle that Delta had
Speaker 1: provided us. I think it was a Yamaha to fifty
Speaker 1: to help speed up things. And then we moved into
Speaker 1: Oman massura um and eventually, you know, we ended up
Speaker 1: watching now there as you well know. And when we
Speaker 1: went feet dry, uh. I think shortly after that is
Speaker 1: when the lead MC ran into the Haku and of
Speaker 1: course Coach Karney had flown in with the agency guys
Speaker 1: and they two had encountered a boot to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: but the guy flying the aircraft think was Jim Ryant.
Speaker 1: You know, set up no problem, you know, climb up,
Speaker 1: get up, I think around fifteen hundred feet you know,
Speaker 1: they e g L and you're above that desk cloud
Speaker 1: and so when won the one thirty, you know hit
Speaker 1: that baboo. Of course, you know, it's like some rubbing
Speaker 1: sandpaper on the side of the aircraft. And I think
Speaker 1: also at that time the HF antenna had broken loose,
Speaker 1: so the load masters had to open the ramp and
Speaker 1: figure out a way to rate and bring that antenna.
Speaker 1: And because it was beaten on the side of the
Speaker 1: UH one thirty, so as we so, Coach Farney was
Speaker 1: up to the cockpit with the active with the console
Speaker 1: to activate the boom, and he just kind of sent
Speaker 1: Brentsy was the pilot, said hey, you know, just climb up,
Speaker 1: you know, bub you know that fiftet are a little
Speaker 1: bit buff. And if I recall cor actually the aircrew,
Speaker 1: the one thirty aircrew had been briefed that radar cover
Speaker 1: each you know, didn't really start until two thousand feet,
Speaker 1: so anywhere between, you know, ground level enough. I guess
Speaker 1: the two thousand feet that you wouldn't be painted on radar.
Speaker 1: So that's what we did. And then my understanding is
Speaker 1: the radio operator on that aircraft radio backed secure comps
Speaker 1: back to the one thirties. Now, if I'm correct, the
Speaker 1: helicopter pilots you know, that launched off the carrier didn't
Speaker 1: get the same type of briefing, so when you kind
Speaker 1: of read the different narratives or the stories, they pretty
Speaker 1: much stayed in the hook booth. I think they were
Speaker 1: flying at five ft or or a thousand feet, which
Speaker 1: ended pacted obviously along the way where ended up losing.
Speaker 1: I think three of the helicopters of the original nine
Speaker 1: that launched off the carrier. And just to paint the
Speaker 1: picture for the listener, um A quick Mike, You guys,
Speaker 1: the operators who were going to execute the assault flew
Speaker 1: in on a C one thirty from Oman to Desert
Speaker 1: one inside Iran, but the helicopters that were to ferry
Speaker 1: them along the next leg were being flown in from
Speaker 1: off coast off a carrier, if I if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: And then and then on the way, the helicopters went
Speaker 1: through a very vicious sandstorm. So when they arrived at
Speaker 1: Desert one, where the operators were standing by those hell
Speaker 1: like a few of them, as Mike said, um, I
Speaker 1: think a couple of them had to turn around, and
Speaker 1: the others were in pretty beat up condition. And then
Speaker 1: as far as the plan was concerned. Now you have
Speaker 1: the operators and the helicopters co located that they would
Speaker 1: have translated onto the helicopters, flown to desert to a
Speaker 1: second staging site, loaded up on trucks, and uh the
Speaker 1: next day would have executed the actual embassy takedown. Um,
Speaker 1: if memory serves Mike, I just wanted to throw that
Speaker 1: out there. Some people listening, UM are tracking along with
Speaker 1: what you're saying. Yeah, and that's correct. I think the
Speaker 1: other point is those those helicopters were used, had been
Speaker 1: pre staged on that carrier, you know as we were
Speaker 1: running rehearsals, so that the helicopters that they were using
Speaker 1: during all the rehearsals up to that point, uh, when
Speaker 1: we got the execute order state and humor and so
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how the Navy maintained
Speaker 1: those I can't speak to that, but I do understand that,
Speaker 1: you know, all those helicopters that they had a very
Speaker 1: short amount of time to kind of worked out of
Speaker 1: the bugs and you know, take them for a few
Speaker 1: test flights. But it wasn't the birds that they had,
Speaker 1: you know, had tweaked and had flown during all the rehearsals.
Speaker 1: These are the priests stage telecopters that were sitting below Debt.
Speaker 1: So Mike, can you walk us through then you know
Speaker 1: from your point of view what happened when you got
Speaker 1: the desert one. Sure, Now, as we approached as one
Speaker 1: after we came out of the haboo the sandstorm, um
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the lights were activated and so as
Speaker 1: we're coming in on approach to the aircraft coming approached,
Speaker 1: there was a vehicle or vehicles that were spotted driving
Speaker 1: down through the l Z and so ended up executing
Speaker 1: a go ramp, which burned up about ten minutes of
Speaker 1: valuable time from from my perspective of trying to get
Speaker 1: the LZ established both LZ's in order to receive the
Speaker 1: remainder of the C one thirties, which also we're functioning
Speaker 1: as refuelers for the helicopters you know with Blivits on board,
Speaker 1: and so eventually you know, to go around. Didn't have
Speaker 1: any other incident. We landed that was a very firm
Speaker 1: landing to say the least. And and so as the
Speaker 1: opening up the ramp and we're basically offloading, uh, we're
Speaker 1: greeted by a bus you know that splashing the lights
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know if he's honking horns,
Speaker 1: but you know, obviously the some of the operators or
Speaker 1: the rangers that were offloading uh shot out a couple
Speaker 1: of tires and seized the bus. And if my memory
Speaker 1: surgeon incorrectly, now we have I think forty six or
Speaker 1: eight iraniums on a bus in the middle of the LZ.
Speaker 1: So that was the first challenge, you know, the first
Speaker 1: allan she obviously if we secured a bus with Iranians,
Speaker 1: and now we've got to forgot who's going to guard
Speaker 1: the Iranians and get the bus with the couple of
Speaker 1: the tires lat off the main l Z or that
Speaker 1: the southern el Z worked through that. Now the other
Speaker 1: thing you have to see the haboo. The sandstorm had
Speaker 1: went through the landing site. So instead of just being
Speaker 1: what I considered hard late bed sand, you actually now
Speaker 1: had what I call a few inches of suspended dust
Speaker 1: or almost like telcoum powder. And so you've got the
Speaker 1: one thirty with the engines running, that's kind of creating
Speaker 1: it's own you know, dust storm. For lack of term
Speaker 1: uh in there, you know, because they're not shutting anything
Speaker 1: down and so we move on over to the LZ.
Speaker 1: We're post established and the visible he was pretty much
Speaker 1: nailed or none because of some of the suspended dust
Speaker 1: or samp. So we had to go to some old
Speaker 1: techniques or you know, decide where we're going to put
Speaker 1: the first corner light of the box in one and
Speaker 1: then basically take the compass heading and walk off. And
Speaker 1: then once you couldn't see the guy any further or
Speaker 1: have a good beat on him, be hold in place
Speaker 1: and then you move up and you know, give him
Speaker 1: the cup of setting. And so that took a while,
Speaker 1: you know, even though it was just four lights. You know,
Speaker 1: we're trying to get everything precise, you know, for the
Speaker 1: aircraft aircraft. And so we eventually got that established. UH
Speaker 1: and the first month thirty had moved up to its
Speaker 1: parking parking spot at the other end. I called the
Speaker 1: southern LZ to get position. Yeah and wait, and then
Speaker 1: we ended up pretty much on time receiving U the
Speaker 1: second aircraft. But during this time frame, UH, one of
Speaker 1: the ranger blocking teams had deployed down we'll call the
Speaker 1: road up to put up a blocking to ensure no
Speaker 1: traffic or would interfere with the operations and about that
Speaker 1: time they had a fuel truck you know that pretty
Speaker 1: much ran ran their position, you know, didn't stop and
Speaker 1: went through. And then I don't recall they I think
Speaker 1: they used the law and they shot it up, shot
Speaker 1: it with a law which basically now you had a
Speaker 1: fuel foot without covering me and gallons of fuel had
Speaker 1: had exploding out there, you know, uh, semi on the
Speaker 1: approach path of the aircraft coming into the northern LC.
Speaker 1: So you know, so now we've got a bus with
Speaker 1: forty some of Iranians, we got a fuel truck on fire,
Speaker 1: and you know, and we continue to receive the one
Speaker 1: thirties and position them and the ones that pat livets
Speaker 1: on it. You know, basically those hoses you know, got
Speaker 1: pulled out and and and position and we put the
Speaker 1: inverted y in so we could taxi the try to
Speaker 1: taxi the fifty threes up to connect him to the
Speaker 1: livet refueling process. And again I'm sorry by saying and again,
Speaker 1: but you know, eventually we got all to see one
Speaker 1: thirties on the ground and properly position and uh everything
Speaker 1: set up for refueling the helicopters um and each of
Speaker 1: these in thirties were also bringing in camouflage nets and
Speaker 1: other things that the Delpha guys were offloading UH to
Speaker 1: a staging point to be uploaded on the helicopter. So
Speaker 1: everything there, you know, pretty much went as schedule, and
Speaker 1: then we waited and we waited and waited, and eventually
Speaker 1: the first helicopter UH showed up and landed in the
Speaker 1: y and the real challenges, you know, with fifty threes,
Speaker 1: they taxi kind of like an aircraft, and so if
Speaker 1: you can kind of imagine, now they're kind of pushing
Speaker 1: some of this suspended dust, so we're kind of hopping them,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense to the pilot's kind of hopping
Speaker 1: up to their refueling point as well as as you're aware,
Speaker 1: you know, fifty three, you know, especially when they try
Speaker 1: to lift off or move, you know, they got about
Speaker 1: ninety knocks down wash, So you have all these one
Speaker 1: thirties engine running and now the helicopters coming in with
Speaker 1: their down wash and so what little you know, suspended
Speaker 1: dust or sand is on the boom is all up
Speaker 1: in the air. So it was kind of a challenging
Speaker 1: time from visibility and be able to you know, see
Speaker 1: even with NVGs the n v gs in some cases,
Speaker 1: you know, the ones we had really were pretty much
Speaker 1: ineffective from our perspectives. We went just the dust goggles, um.
Speaker 1: And I think it was the six helicopter, the last
Speaker 1: helicopter that finally arrived and when it landed, uh, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much to my knowledge lost hydraulics. In other words,
Speaker 1: they with a hydraulic cleat. And there was a lot
Speaker 1: of scurry and going on and back and forth of
Speaker 1: the CP about this helicopter. And and of course, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're reading Colonel beckwist book and the guest Strike,
Speaker 1: the minimum helicopters they could basically go to the next site.
Speaker 1: The high site was six, so that's all we had
Speaker 1: on the ground and the sixth one was not up.
Speaker 1: And in this process then that's when the decision was
Speaker 1: is to you know, tack up you know, everything back
Speaker 1: on the C one thirties and launch and you know,
Speaker 1: I would assume come back another day. And in that process,
Speaker 1: one of the helicopters on the what I called the
Speaker 1: Northern LC received you know, a TC guidance to pick
Speaker 1: up and you know, I think execute, I want to say,
Speaker 1: execute a turn to go around and reconnect to another
Speaker 1: one thirty fuel because one he was connected to that
Speaker 1: one that UM Lewis was flying. UH could hand the more,
Speaker 1: AD asked the punk and so this guy needed more
Speaker 1: more fuel to make the trip back to the carrier.
Speaker 1: And you know when he lifted up UM and again,
Speaker 1: you know, there was a cloud of dust. From my perspective,
Speaker 1: I could barely see what was going on in my position.
Speaker 1: You know, eventually he ended up coming down and crashing
Speaker 1: into UH thats one and pretty much, you know, we
Speaker 1: had another huge fireball. UM. That aircraft also had been
Speaker 1: already loaded with Delta soldiers on board, and I think
Speaker 1: they had some fifty soldiers on there if I recall correctly.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just the professionalism and the training,
Speaker 1: uh the load masters in the back, but also the
Speaker 1: certain major that took charge in the back because there's
Speaker 1: only one door, I think they could excess because of
Speaker 1: the fire, and they were able to get all those
Speaker 1: UH soldiers off that burning aircraft. And I think one
Speaker 1: of them went back and pulled the radio operator who
Speaker 1: was severely burned because the heelicopter had come down on
Speaker 1: the front part of conject or the firewall. UH. You
Speaker 1: know where the radio operator sat. And and now now
Speaker 1: we're dealing with minus one Bernie, uh minus another second helicopter,
Speaker 1: and now we're trying to figure out and of course
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people engaged in this um trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how you upload all the built the
Speaker 1: soldiers who were brought in by all to see one thirties,
Speaker 1: and now the helicopter crews because the decision was made
Speaker 1: that to reposition the helicopters or just leave the helicopters
Speaker 1: in place and just get the personnel out. So it
Speaker 1: was it was an interesting time trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: you know I called daco procedures, trying to account for people.
Speaker 1: Once you got everybody in the midst of you still
Speaker 1: got the fuel truck burning, you still got the bus
Speaker 1: with the Irans, and now you've got a sea stallion
Speaker 1: and one thirty burning h and you're down uh one
Speaker 1: thirty actually to one thirties because one of the one
Speaker 1: thirties that came in and dropped off supplies and Delta soldiers.
Speaker 1: We launched back out early because it was going to
Speaker 1: be one of the lead aircraft or one of the
Speaker 1: main aircraft involved in night to going into that airfield
Speaker 1: where the one and the fifty threes would link up.
Speaker 1: And so we're down to see one thirties and we're
Speaker 1: down all the helicopters and of course obviously lost a
Speaker 1: you know, find you know, Americans, a adults in the
Speaker 1: sacrifice that night, but you know, trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how do we get these people because the plan was
Speaker 1: never to leave desert one fully loaded, you know, so
Speaker 1: so now you know, pretty much I think on each aircraft,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much taking everything off the aircraft that
Speaker 1: wasn't tied down. In fact, you know, we had uploaded
Speaker 1: the gun jeeps that the Rangers used, the motorcycle that
Speaker 1: that we used off and on you know, other things,
Speaker 1: and that pretty much was coming off to reduce the
Speaker 1: weight to take on the personnel and their equipment. So
Speaker 1: anything that for lack of term, wasn't missing a sentil
Speaker 1: was thrown into the desert, offloaded by the by the soldiers,
Speaker 1: by the aircrew, by cct UH and eventually, UH we
Speaker 1: were able to start the movement and do everything we
Speaker 1: could to account for the personnel on the ground through
Speaker 1: pretty much not enter team communications, but going from aircraft
Speaker 1: aircraft trying to look for the troops are major or
Speaker 1: the uh the troop commander, trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: we didn't leave anybody behind. Uh. Also, we launched down
Speaker 1: to pick up the agency lights as I call them
Speaker 1: them root control lights, because they definitely didn't want those
Speaker 1: left in So we got those and we replaced them
Speaker 1: with kim lights, you know. And then if you kind
Speaker 1: of read in the book The Guts to Try and
Speaker 1: maybe in other books that some of the aircraft released
Speaker 1: one of the aircraft mistaken h those lights that were
Speaker 1: put out there, Uh, they wind up on him or
Speaker 1: took a site and where which I think it was
Speaker 1: the aircraft. I came out on along with many of
Speaker 1: the Delta soldiers and a couple of my fellow conduct
Speaker 1: Owler stick West and Rex Walman, and we pretty much,
Speaker 1: you know, as take off, and you can imagine we're
Speaker 1: moving off damn slow, and that one thirty was franking
Speaker 1: at the engine as hard as you could, and then
Speaker 1: we kind of hit a burn burn, So we were
Speaker 1: up and then we came back down and and continued,
Speaker 1: you know, moving down the thing. But what happened is
Speaker 1: that pilot, if you can kind of vision parallel runways, Uh,
Speaker 1: they got sighted on a different set of lights and
Speaker 1: the box of lights, so it kind of took off
Speaker 1: at an angle, and that's why, you know, jumped off.
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously I have no doubt everybody in
Speaker 1: the aircraft were saying the prayers because I should and
Speaker 1: L was, and you know, as we're getting ready to
Speaker 1: take off and we get this word, hey, don't move.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't know if it was grenades or
Speaker 1: if those blasting caps or something explosive, you know, pet
Speaker 1: then yuh couldn't account for so they thought it was
Speaker 1: somewhere on there. The other thing is this is one
Speaker 1: of the aircraft that was a refueler. So we're sitting
Speaker 1: on I think it was a five thousand downs living
Speaker 1: that was partially you know, pretty much done, but you
Speaker 1: can imagine the funel. So you're watching slushing in there,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're basically just trying to you know,
Speaker 1: get a clean breath of air inside that aircraft. So
Speaker 1: we're we're moseying down and you know, again my hat's
Speaker 1: off to Obviously one thirty Cruise held an airmanship uh
Speaker 1: performance that night in the desert, and finally you could
Speaker 1: you could basically just feel the pilot and the co pile,
Speaker 1: no doubt, pulling back on the yolk, and the one
Speaker 1: thirty just kind of grown that, you know, you could
Speaker 1: almost you know, it's gonna get up? Is it gonna
Speaker 1: get up? And finally it lifted up, but by our
Speaker 1: climb out was slow because molasses in January. And eventually,
Speaker 1: you know, it got to you know, some altitude and
Speaker 1: then they popped the emergency hatches up above to try
Speaker 1: to get some air of circulating in there because of
Speaker 1: the fumes from that, and we got back to Massura. Eventually.
Speaker 1: Couldn't be happier camper, And I think that goes for everybody, um.
Speaker 1: And then really the accounting for all personnel started taking place,
Speaker 1: count heads figuring out you know, if anything was anybody
Speaker 1: was left behind other than the ones we couldn't recover
Speaker 1: from the accident. And when the one ones came in
Speaker 1: and woiced up the delta guys and they launched back
Speaker 1: the brag and then for me and the other combat
Speaker 1: goals another personnel, I think it was another day or
Speaker 1: another day, I think, you know, I mean, just you know,
Speaker 1: it's just all kinds of ones together. Now before you know,
Speaker 1: we end up getting an aircraft to go home. So
Speaker 1: so that's uh, that's kind of a short version of
Speaker 1: my experience. It sounds sounds hair raising. Mike, I was wondering,
Speaker 1: I know, we have to let you go in a
Speaker 1: few minutes. But um, were you then involved in the
Speaker 1: second endeavor? I mean I think it was called snowbird,
Speaker 1: um to potentially go back and take another shot at
Speaker 1: this operation. Yeah, you know, the code game I was
Speaker 1: was honey badger. Honey badger, right, honey badger. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: you know, shortly after we got back to you know, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, Charleston uh and Coach Karney got a call
Speaker 1: and he jumped on airplane and they went up to
Speaker 1: one of the agency's locations along with the Delta guys
Speaker 1: to meet President Carter Um. But as soon as he
Speaker 1: came back from that event, uh, we launched, you know,
Speaker 1: we started the planning for the second uh second attempt,
Speaker 1: and we pretty much went out the White Sands, New Mexico.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much where you know, I spent most of
Speaker 1: my time there with the Rangers Charlie Company again and
Speaker 1: obviously we're doing all kinds of different rehearsals and you know,
Speaker 1: you know, primarily revolved around you know, the airfield seizure
Speaker 1: position processes, you know, dropping jeeps, dropping bikes. Uh, you
Speaker 1: know all that. So yes, and then eventually, as you
Speaker 1: know in history says that they were released the hostages.
Speaker 1: And of course all this time that we're doing the
Speaker 1: train up for the second attempt, of course they're looking
Speaker 1: at you landing and see one thirty, you know, with
Speaker 1: rockets into the I think the soccer field or some area.
Speaker 1: There was one of the options, and many options. I'm
Speaker 1: not aware of that that was one of them. And
Speaker 1: I guess you know what, I can close out on
Speaker 1: desk one and you know we can continue on the
Speaker 1: Grenada and Panama at another time. Is fortunate enough? And
Speaker 1: I say this, you know, chat, I think we had
Speaker 1: the right leadership uh uh up at the Joint Staff,
Speaker 1: but you know in Congress uh and you go back
Speaker 1: to history. The Hallway Commission was formed to look at
Speaker 1: what took place, uh and why we failed to rescue
Speaker 1: the hospitals. And I would tell anybody that that was that.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a more difficult commissions you can
Speaker 1: hand um any military outset. And I think the the
Speaker 1: other thing you have to take an account. You know,
Speaker 1: we we again, you know, we hadn't sprained. We were
Speaker 1: a what do you call it, trying tune joint force
Speaker 1: at that time, you know, everybody came together and it
Speaker 1: was doing that part. But today, if you look at
Speaker 1: how they're integrated, how they train together, and how they execute,
Speaker 1: you know they're fine tune. They know each other inside.
Speaker 1: Now they know that units strengths and weaknesses. But the
Speaker 1: fact of my point in the Hallway Commission, obviously Hallway
Speaker 1: Commission brought about the formation of Jason which was a
Speaker 1: great move. And so yeah, I think you got to
Speaker 1: thank guys like Senator Cohen, Senator None Goldwater, Congressman Daniels
Speaker 1: um Teddor that happened the foresight, the vision that we
Speaker 1: really need to build a joint command and put these
Speaker 1: forces under one command and have them work and train,
Speaker 1: sleep with whatever you want to call it, together to
Speaker 1: fine tune that joint capability, because nobody's going to go
Speaker 1: to war by themselves. It's always a joint war. And
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of the thing that I think America
Speaker 1: does better than anyone else militarily is working in a
Speaker 1: joint environment. Uh yeah, we I can't speak for now,
Speaker 1: but what I saw prior to retirement, you know, we
Speaker 1: were basically mastering the art of jointness. And you know,
Speaker 1: early on in my career, you know you hear jointness,
Speaker 1: but all it was was, hey, you know, what do
Speaker 1: I call it? Just to say yeah, we're joining yeah
Speaker 1: now today and even back then, we really grew into
Speaker 1: a joint force and an empy to the forces the
Speaker 1: services around the different countries. And uh, you know again
Speaker 1: I had credit you know, uh our leaders and connors,
Speaker 1: but as well the military to have that force because
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, if we hadn't done that, if
Speaker 1: the force had just been disbanded, uh like uh Pisante
Speaker 1: raiders were, then you basically would go back and you know,
Speaker 1: relive history again somewhere down the road. Mike, this has
Speaker 1: been uh incredible. I thanks, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: giving us your perspective on this. Um you know again
Speaker 1: where we are gonna have to go for around three
Speaker 1: I think because um, you know, as maybe people listening
Speaker 1: don't know, but Mike also jumped into Granada and Panama
Speaker 1: and was involved in other counter terrorism operations throughout the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties and then when it became a advisor senior
Speaker 1: advisor for SOCOM. So, I mean there's still much to
Speaker 1: talk about, and um, we'll have to figure out you know,
Speaker 1: your schedule, Mike and uh and we'll find a good
Speaker 1: time for you. But we do appreciate you coming on
Speaker 1: and spending you know, another good hour with us to
Speaker 1: talk about Desert one. Well, it was my honor and
Speaker 1: my pleasure and uh, best to you and look forward
Speaker 1: to the next airview. Yeah, thank you, Mike. Thanks Mike.
Speaker 1: We'll stay we'll stay in touch and we'll coordinate for that. Okay,
Speaker 1: thanks guys. I think Mike Lampi is high in the
Speaker 1: running for you know, the most interesting guests we've interviewed. Yeah, people,
Speaker 1: people are definitely gonna enjoy this one most interesting man
Speaker 1: in the world. You got to do, you got to
Speaker 1: do kind of everything from you know, post Vietnam up
Speaker 1: until you know, the early nineties, really late nineties. And
Speaker 1: I always keep in mind there's new people listening every
Speaker 1: single episode, and um, people who just don't listen to
Speaker 1: every episode. So if you enjoyed that, go back to
Speaker 1: episode three nine one. Yeah, we talked about his early career, um,
Speaker 1: you know, joining the Air Force and some of his
Speaker 1: first assignments working in Laos and then we got into
Speaker 1: you know, of course Iran and Operation Eagle Claw. UH
Speaker 1: during this one and next time talk about Granada and
Speaker 1: Panama and he was also involved in um some of
Speaker 1: the aircraft hijacking operations to go and you know, free
Speaker 1: hostages elsewhere. UM. So we'll talk about all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Sounds good man, Maybe it'll be a good interview for
Speaker 1: march Um maybe April, but definitely in the near future.
Speaker 1: We'll get him back on UH. With that, be sure
Speaker 1: to check out Create Club. We have different tiers of
Speaker 1: membership depending on how prepared do you want to be,
Speaker 1: and gift options are available as well. Scott Whittner from
Speaker 1: the load at Room Army Ranger, Drew Wallace who've heard
Speaker 1: on the show, and all of those other guys from
Speaker 1: Hurricane involved with the Create Club are putting together great
Speaker 1: year custom made for us, everything from sunglass cases to
Speaker 1: E d C bags and other manly products. And of
Speaker 1: course now and again you'll find stuff that's not made
Speaker 1: by us in the premium tier, like that Vertex bag.
Speaker 1: It's a club four men by men. You can check
Speaker 1: that all out of Create Club dot us. Once again,
Speaker 1: that's create Club dot us. Also as a reminder for
Speaker 1: those listening, now is the time to sign up for
Speaker 1: the spec Ops Channel, our channel that offers the most
Speaker 1: exclusive shows, documentaries and interviews covering the most exciting military
Speaker 1: content today. To spec ops channel Premier show Training Cell
Speaker 1: follows former Special Operations Forces as they participate in the
Speaker 1: most advanced training in the country, everything from shooting schools,
Speaker 1: defensive driving, jungle and winter warfare, climbing and much more. Again,
Speaker 1: you can watch this content by subscribing to the spec
Speaker 1: Ops channel and that's a spec Ops channel dot com
Speaker 1: and take advantage of a membership for only four ninety
Speaker 1: nine a month. That's spec Ops Channel dot com. Sign
Speaker 1: up today. Also gonna let you guys know, of course
Speaker 1: about the News Rep Financial Report, exclusive information that you
Speaker 1: can act on today to secure a brighter future for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: The News Rep Financial Report can help you discover new
Speaker 1: investments strategies in the defense sector. Defense industry stocks can
Speaker 1: be a lucrative investment if you buy at the right time.
Speaker 1: Our team of foreign policy, security and military experts provide
Speaker 1: real time intelligence for stocks based on global trends that
Speaker 1: affect financial markets in the national defense industry. By subscribing now,
Speaker 1: you'll get exclusive access to our industry expertise, the news
Speaker 1: Rep Financial newsletter, advantage our team that offers unmatched defense
Speaker 1: industry familiarity and expertise, unbiased knowledge of geopolitical trends, and
Speaker 1: full access to news Reps foreign policy, security and financial
Speaker 1: intelligence platform, as well as access to our team of
Speaker 1: experts and analysts. Uh. If you're interested in that, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure many of you are, just go to the
Speaker 1: finn Rep tab. It's at the top of the news
Speaker 1: rep dot com to sign up. Now, that's fin Rep
Speaker 1: at the top of the news rep dot com. You
Speaker 1: guys are gonna love it. Um. And also one last thing,
Speaker 1: Big Mountain here is now available to stream and its
Speaker 1: entirety on YouTube. Just go to YouTube look up Big
Speaker 1: Mountain Heroes. As you'll see, it's a shorter documentary, but
Speaker 1: these guys got some great drone footage UM of skiing
Speaker 1: the Alps in Italy, France, uh, Swiss Alps. They did
Speaker 1: an amazing job. Guys who've heard on the show before,
Speaker 1: Isaiah Burkhardt, Nick Bett's, Nick Cahill, uh, Leo Jenkins, Brandon Webb,
Speaker 1: and Uh. If you haven't seen it, yet that's the
Speaker 1: place to see it, and we hope you still do
Speaker 1: become a spec ops channel member. So spec ops channel
Speaker 1: dot com. There's plenty of other great footage on there
Speaker 1: as well as um some future stuff that we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: Uh with that. If you haven't, please leave a review
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts. I don't say it enough, but it
Speaker 1: really helps us out, helps raise our visibility. And uh,
Speaker 1: I know that some of you guys listen on Spotify,
Speaker 1: you listen on Google Play, sound Cloud, but that's really
Speaker 1: the best place to do it. Go on Apple podcast
Speaker 1: right on the app. If you have an iPhone, you
Speaker 1: have a five star review. Uh, and it's greatly appreciated. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I read all of them, so you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: positive negative, I check it all out and take the
Speaker 1: you know, take the feedback to heart because sometimes there's
Speaker 1: some stuff that I realized I can improve on the
Speaker 1: show can improve on. Uh. And Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: we get plenty of guests suggestions sent to Softwrep dot Radio,
Speaker 1: softwrep dot com. It becomes a lot to keep up with.
Speaker 1: But I think this has been a pact show with
Speaker 1: between breaking news and great spotow An interview with Mike,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you again next episode. Absolutely, you've been
Speaker 1: listening to Self Rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday
Speaker 1: and Friday. Follow the show on Instagram and Twitter at
Speaker 1: self rep Radio.