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Speaker 1: up now. Now. I'm very excited for this episode actually
Speaker 1: because it's actually a topic that's fascinated me for many years,
Speaker 1: and I've watched documentaries about read books on and that's
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing. Because our writer Joseph LaFave did
Speaker 1: an excellent interview that I actually just got finished reading
Speaker 1: with a former d a d e. A Agent UM
Speaker 1: Special Agent Kevin Waters, who was there at Oklahoma City
Speaker 1: and recall stuff that basically he was kind of told
Speaker 1: that never happened or there was no real story there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he Joe spent quite a while on this story and
Speaker 1: went down to Oklahoma and he interviewed this former d
Speaker 1: e A agent. Um, he'll he'll explain it all in depth.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, the guy saw somebody that he
Speaker 1: thinks may have been involved in the bombing, and the prosecution, Uh,
Speaker 1: either they didn't follow up on it or they just
Speaker 1: didn't include it in the prosecution because, um, his account,
Speaker 1: this d A agent's account just didn't jive with all
Speaker 1: the other accounts. So it was a piece of evidence
Speaker 1: that they ostensibly said to the side. And as you said, um,
Speaker 1: we'll get into it during the interview. But this is
Speaker 1: not to be confused for those familiar with the topic,
Speaker 1: which I confused it for with John Doe number two,
Speaker 1: because he says he doesn't think this was John Doe
Speaker 1: number two. He thinks that was a separate A lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of people have written about John Doe
Speaker 1: number two. There's been conspiracy theories, there has been credible research.
Speaker 1: You were pointing some stuff out Ian about how it's
Speaker 1: probably somebody's faulty memory is responsible for John what what
Speaker 1: what we know is John Doe number two. Um, but
Speaker 1: this is this is something completely different. This is a
Speaker 1: new account that, at least to my knowledge, has not
Speaker 1: been previously published. Um of a mysterious person um nearby
Speaker 1: where the Oklahoma City bombing happened. Um So anyway, Yeahoe,
Speaker 1: Joe will tell us all about it in depth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited for it. And the John Doe number two thing.
Speaker 1: It's just really interesting because it's the first time I've
Speaker 1: looked at it in a while. And it's funny how
Speaker 1: the account of who this guy was goes from he's
Speaker 1: like a German born white supremacist, so he's Jose Padilla
Speaker 1: al Kada terrorists. Like the amount of conspiracy surrounding this guy.
Speaker 1: I remember way back in the day, like Alex Jones
Speaker 1: would talk about that, Uh, what's the guy's name, Nusson Bomb,
Speaker 1: nuss Burger. I'm not sure the guy that guy who
Speaker 1: said but people said was John don't know. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were just looking at him. You have the German guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And Alex Jones said, yeah, he's like some sort of
Speaker 1: like neo Nazi, but he's a Fed plant. The Fed
Speaker 1: sentiment and you know, of course our federal government bombed itself.
Speaker 1: It's a false fad. I remember that stuff from Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: like way back in the day. You'd find like those
Speaker 1: videos of him like ranting about it. Although, as I
Speaker 1: was saying to you, um, the FEDS posing as white
Speaker 1: supremacist to get an intel is not unheard of. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean one the guy that that helped um and
Speaker 1: this is all connected. But Ruby Ridge, the main guy, Bundy,
Speaker 1: Uh No, he was yeah, Randy, Yeah, the guy I
Speaker 1: mean the guy who met him and told him to
Speaker 1: solve shotguns and all that was a you know government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's the same with the j hottists. Uh. The FBI,
Speaker 1: you know, has been accused of grooming people like kids
Speaker 1: who are not really inclined. Young people are not inclined
Speaker 1: towards terrorism. And you know, some people have said the
Speaker 1: FBI what they do is they basically create terrorists so
Speaker 1: that they have someone to arrest and they'll like have
Speaker 1: their assets, groom some eight nineteen year old kid for
Speaker 1: a period of years and then you know, convinced them
Speaker 1: like yeah, go sit off a bomb, go do this,
Speaker 1: go do that, until they finally go and do it
Speaker 1: and then they sweep in and arrest them and like, well,
Speaker 1: look we arrested al KAA terrorists. It's like, well kinda
Speaker 1: kinda yeah. This is an interesting one though that you
Speaker 1: guys might want to look up. That I that I
Speaker 1: found fascinating was this, Uh I was telling you before
Speaker 1: white supremacist alleged white supremacist radio host out of New
Speaker 1: Jersey who apparently used to call Sean Hannity all the time,
Speaker 1: and then he kind of did his own internet radio show, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about blacks destroying the community and stuff.
Speaker 1: How Turner and it turned out how Turner was were
Speaker 1: in fact work with the government, which I think is
Speaker 1: something Alex Jones actually said and it turned out to
Speaker 1: be true. I mean, I've come across some interesting characters.
Speaker 1: Um once in a while. I remember actually, uh, Jim
Speaker 1: West did like a little martial arts seminar that I
Speaker 1: participated in. I was at. It was for a small,
Speaker 1: small private group and it was really good. I mean
Speaker 1: it's Jim, I mean incredible instructor. UM. So we did
Speaker 1: our our you know, day of training, and UM at
Speaker 1: the end, we took a group photo and there's this
Speaker 1: guy who had been talking to Jim, who claimed he
Speaker 1: had a military background and this and then he did
Speaker 1: this and that and like they knew somebody in common
Speaker 1: from way back in the day. But Jim got kind
Speaker 1: of a weird feeling about the guy, and honestly so
Speaker 1: did I. And Um, at the end of the training,
Speaker 1: we we took like a group photo and then that,
Speaker 1: and Jim emailed the photo to me like a couple
Speaker 1: of days later, and I opened it up and I
Speaker 1: look at the picture and I'm looking at it and
Speaker 1: something jumps out right at me. I'm like, holy sh it.
Speaker 1: So this guy, he Um, he was there with his
Speaker 1: son in the group photo. This guy had positioned himself
Speaker 1: so his face is directly behind his son's head, like
Speaker 1: completely intentional. And that is not an accident. That is tradecraft.
Speaker 1: That is like something that a person is taught to do. Like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you're ever um socially obligated to take a photograph,
Speaker 1: here are some things you can do to hide yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you can turn in the other direction, you
Speaker 1: can put yourself behind someone else's head. Like that's something
Speaker 1: you actually train an asset to do. And so when
Speaker 1: I saw that photograph, I was like, oh, fuck. I
Speaker 1: was like, yeah, this guy's a fed, Like I bet
Speaker 1: you he got popped um for either drugs or weapons
Speaker 1: and they flipped them and turn them and I can't
Speaker 1: prove it. I'm I'm speculating here. But when I saw that,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, fuck, the only when as you
Speaker 1: tell me the story, the thing, I'm wondering, what if
Speaker 1: would it be possible he was like a stolen valor
Speaker 1: guy and he didn't want to get caught in his
Speaker 1: bullshit after saying he did all this stuff. Um, it
Speaker 1: could be. It's possible. I mean maybe, but then when
Speaker 1: you put a photo online, people go go, oh, I
Speaker 1: know who this guy is. Sure, Um, it still seems
Speaker 1: it struck me as a little too convenient and to
Speaker 1: hide yourself like that behind your head. Well, his kid
Speaker 1: was like a teenager, so he was just kind of
Speaker 1: like squatting a little bit. Yeah, because I was thinking
Speaker 1: it was like a young kid and he's no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like a little baby like holding from himself. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean maybe I'm completely wrong, but when I saw
Speaker 1: that picture, I was like, oh, fuck, it's very suspicious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely suspicious. All right, Well, anyway, I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: getting there, but that's a crazy story, man um looking
Speaker 1: forward to getting over to Joe before we do. We
Speaker 1: got two emails here, two really good emails uh set
Speaker 1: to soft rep dot Radio at soft rep dot com.
Speaker 1: This first one is from Dave Ian and Jack. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to the podcast for about a year and
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you guys for the great interviews
Speaker 1: and thought provoking sidebars. I'm catching up some episodes after
Speaker 1: getting back from some training. I'm an Army reservist with
Speaker 1: an m I unit out of Queens. I just finished
Speaker 1: listening to episode four seven. I'm a New Yorker through
Speaker 1: and through, and I love hearing about New Yorkers who
Speaker 1: are in the soft community. It's something you really never
Speaker 1: hear about. I also appreciate hearing from minorities within the
Speaker 1: soft community, being Puerto Rican and from the Bronx. The
Speaker 1: military isn't something we're exposed to, and, to be quite frank,
Speaker 1: something many of us don't think we can do. Never
Speaker 1: ever would I uh never ever would I ever imagine
Speaker 1: being in the i C. My question for Jack is,
Speaker 1: in your opinion, how can the d O D do
Speaker 1: a better job of recruiting future soft intelligence professionals from
Speaker 1: New York and minorities. By the way, I'm a cop
Speaker 1: and White Plains And if you guys have I think
Speaker 1: you mean to say end you guys have some fans
Speaker 1: in the department. Uh. If you guys find yourself in
Speaker 1: the area, you know, first rounds on me, respectfully, Dan Cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for writing in, Dave. I uh was just thinking
Speaker 1: about White Plains because I you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: in the area, and I actually I saw this documentary
Speaker 1: on Voice of America talking about um, how shopping malls
Speaker 1: are dying all across America. I saw you post it,
Speaker 1: and it made me think about the Galleria Mall in
Speaker 1: White Plains, which I used to go to all the
Speaker 1: time when I was a kid with my parents or
Speaker 1: with my mom. It's funny, you know, it's funny for
Speaker 1: me to hear that just Sidebars is where I live.
Speaker 1: There's a mall that's like getting shut down and reconstructed.
Speaker 1: But then there's Roosevelt Field Mall, which I feel like
Speaker 1: we'll never die because it's just like one of the
Speaker 1: biggest malls. It's famous. I like, you go there in
Speaker 1: a weekend, it's packed still yeah, some I mean some
Speaker 1: of them will shut down and some of them will
Speaker 1: continue because like you said, like they're two, they're so big,
Speaker 1: and they're you know, it's like the only game in town.
Speaker 1: You know, We're like mall of America that will never
Speaker 1: go away. Um, Like in west Chester there's the Um
Speaker 1: and White Plains. They built a second mall and like
Speaker 1: I guess the late ninet nineties called the west Chester.
Speaker 1: How pretentious is that the west Chester? And you go
Speaker 1: in there and it's like a museum to Louis Vatan handbags.
Speaker 1: It's like a bunch of like high end hoity toity
Speaker 1: kind of like fashion stuff, like things that you should
Speaker 1: you can look at, but you can't touch. I grew
Speaker 1: up right by the Americana, which is the epitome of that. Really.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you ever listened to um It's still
Speaker 1: rock and Roll to me by Billy Joel where he
Speaker 1: says do you want to cruise the Miracle Mile? That's
Speaker 1: the Miracle Miles the Americana, which is literally walking distance
Speaker 1: from the house I grew up. Yeah. So uh um,
Speaker 1: good question, Uh, Dave, thanks for writing in. I mean,
Speaker 1: if I got to play like uh, you know, God
Speaker 1: for a day, or use a WRECT commander for a day. UM.
Speaker 1: Probably what I would think about doing is more community
Speaker 1: outreach UM like UM, for instance, the DARE program. So
Speaker 1: you know the DARE program. I think we can say
Speaker 1: that it's failed to stop drug use, but what it
Speaker 1: did do is it introduced children to their police department, UM,
Speaker 1: which was great. UM. I think that's a really positive
Speaker 1: aspect of that program. Is like you get to meet
Speaker 1: a police officer and you get to see who he is,
Speaker 1: and he can tell you some cops stories and you
Speaker 1: can come to realize that this guy is a part
Speaker 1: of your community. UM. So that's a very positive thing
Speaker 1: about the their program. And I think maybe the military,
Speaker 1: and I mean the you know, the liberals, they'll complain
Speaker 1: about this, they won't like it, but I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I I have to think there's a role for
Speaker 1: the military to be able to go into schools UM
Speaker 1: in a similar way, and not to indoctrinate kids or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but just to like inform them like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a military with almost you know,
Speaker 1: a million people in it. UM. There are all these
Speaker 1: different options and this is this is what the military does.
Speaker 1: This is what it doesn't do, you know, just just
Speaker 1: sort of an educational experience so that kids are aware of,
Speaker 1: you know, that we have soldiers and what they do,
Speaker 1: and and that can have all kinds of great impacts
Speaker 1: from UM, not just recruiting, but also that you have
Speaker 1: a better educated and informed electorate down the line that
Speaker 1: you know, has some a little bit more knowledge about
Speaker 1: their military. UM, because it's one of those things that's
Speaker 1: like out of sight, out of mind. And if you've
Speaker 1: never met a soldier, if you don't have, UM, someone
Speaker 1: who served in your family, which is becoming, you know,
Speaker 1: increasingly rare. It's like, what is the statistic like point
Speaker 1: zero five percent of Americans joined the military. I've always
Speaker 1: heard it's incredibly small today. UM. So, I mean informing
Speaker 1: Americans about these things is very important. But that's that
Speaker 1: would be my answer. I would look at setting up
Speaker 1: some kind of a program where not just like recruiters
Speaker 1: go into the school to do a recruiting drive, but
Speaker 1: when you take soldiers like you know, just it can
Speaker 1: it could be special opera rations guys, or it could
Speaker 1: be UM. Ideally, I think it's better to be like
Speaker 1: a mix. You know, you have like one guy from
Speaker 1: the infantry, one guy from soft one guy who's military intelligence,
Speaker 1: you know, one guy who is a is a mechanic,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing, and just go in
Speaker 1: and have like an educational experience with kids, where like
Speaker 1: the soldiers come in every once in a while, um,
Speaker 1: and talk to them. And I think through that you
Speaker 1: would do a much better job at recruiting period. Um.
Speaker 1: But to include minorities, um, you know women. You know,
Speaker 1: the military is still kind of seen as a masculine profession. Um,
Speaker 1: why not kind of just tell kids that these doors
Speaker 1: are open to them if they want to go through. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds like a smart idea to me. Um, all right,
Speaker 1: I don't see why not. Also, probably as you have
Speaker 1: more and more guys writing books that that aren't always
Speaker 1: white males, that it's a way of you know, Amber
Speaker 1: Smith writing a book, for example, the way of saying like, here,
Speaker 1: you don't have to be a man to do this,
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a white man to do this. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the perception. It's not the reality though. I Mean,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of minorities in the military, and
Speaker 1: even contrary to some of the criticisms that are made
Speaker 1: of special operations. I mean, I think we are still
Speaker 1: you know, overwhelmingly white, but there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: minorities and special operations and it kind of, honestly, it
Speaker 1: kind of pisces me off that people make it out
Speaker 1: like it's just white men and it just isn't It's
Speaker 1: just not true. I think this probably connects with the military.
Speaker 1: Remember reading about this In New York City in particular,
Speaker 1: they had a problem with um less minorities in the
Speaker 1: fire department. And the reason why, you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: necessarily because of like discrimination on testing and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of the time that you know,
Speaker 1: this guy's father had a position at the fire department
Speaker 1: and it was like, hey, it's a it's a legacy thing, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, hey i'll help you out with your son,
Speaker 1: you know, getting into the fire department favorite type of thing.
Speaker 1: And for example, when you hear of like Ruman Terius
Speaker 1: who's been on the show, whose father was a Navy
Speaker 1: seal's grandfather was a Navy seal, there aren't really black
Speaker 1: or Hispanic families like that, or Latino families like that.
Speaker 1: So I think probably as time goes on, you'll see
Speaker 1: more diversity. Yeah, I think so for sure. Um. And
Speaker 1: when I talk about diversity, I don't I'm not one
Speaker 1: of these people that likes to talk about it or
Speaker 1: or use it as a cheap buzzword, um, to make
Speaker 1: me feel good about myself, or to try to sell
Speaker 1: people something. I think diversity is good in the military
Speaker 1: in the sense that it brings in a diversity of
Speaker 1: thoughts and ideas. But also, as I've talked about in
Speaker 1: the past, there are things that a woman can do
Speaker 1: in a military context that I can't do. Um. There
Speaker 1: are things that you know, a five foot tall Mexican
Speaker 1: or a Mexican American can go places and do things
Speaker 1: that I can't do. I mean just thinking tunnels. I
Speaker 1: was not talking about sucking tunnels. There's probably spaces that
Speaker 1: that a six foot told Jack dude cannot get into.
Speaker 1: Well well, yeah, okay, I was thinking in a in
Speaker 1: a much larger context that, um, someone a person of
Speaker 1: color can blend in in many different cultures that I
Speaker 1: can't blend into unless you want to infiltrate the I
Speaker 1: r a I'm fucking worthless and or a white supremacist rally. Uh.
Speaker 1: But even then, if you sent me to like to Ireland.
Speaker 1: The second I opened my mouth, people are gonna know
Speaker 1: I'm full of ship so um. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things that a guy that looks like me UM
Speaker 1: can't do. I mean, I can't go places and collect
Speaker 1: intel um in an unassuming manner the way I think
Speaker 1: a woman could. UM. So, I think recruiting people from
Speaker 1: a diverse background brings a lot to a team UM,
Speaker 1: and I think it just helps our our capabilities, enhances
Speaker 1: our capabilities over the long haul. Yeah, alright, next one
Speaker 1: here is from Cynthia Um. And it's good because we've
Speaker 1: been talking so much about the sett of Gallagher stuff. So, guys,
Speaker 1: awesome conversation with Rob O'Neill. I share his concern about
Speaker 1: the confinement of a US elite warrior without due process.
Speaker 1: In the civilian world. There would be a holy ship
Speaker 1: storm if that happened. What is the recourse or procedure
Speaker 1: for any operator that is serious concerns about leadership? Did
Speaker 1: the teams? Did the team seals exhaust those avenues before
Speaker 1: they went public with allegations against Gallagher of war crimes?
Speaker 1: Thank you, Cynthia. Well, I mean people are gonna get
Speaker 1: upset and dispute things. But I mean, has he been
Speaker 1: deprived of due process? No? Yeah, I mean so I
Speaker 1: understand that his family is understandably upset that this guy
Speaker 1: has been confined for like what eight months or something
Speaker 1: like that. Like, I get it, Like, I understand why
Speaker 1: they're upset by that. Um, But he hasn't been deprived
Speaker 1: of his due process. It's just taken a long time
Speaker 1: to get to trial, probably because there's um allegedly there
Speaker 1: were attempts to cover up alleged crimes. That adds more
Speaker 1: time into you know, process um processing evidence and things
Speaker 1: like this. It takes a lot longer to go through everything. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that factors into it. And in the
Speaker 1: civilian world, if you get arrested, um of of an
Speaker 1: alleged violent crime, I mean, they're not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: bond you out. I mean, it depends on circumstances. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not necessarily the best
Speaker 1: person to answer that question. But I mean, we see
Speaker 1: people confined in prison until their court date. Well you
Speaker 1: know what that happens all the time. You're talking about
Speaker 1: violent violent crime or alleged violent crime. Um So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't really know that he's been deprived of his
Speaker 1: due process. And even just like different uh, different views
Speaker 1: in the court of public opinion isn't necessarily going to
Speaker 1: sway the way a frial goes. I mean, the one
Speaker 1: that sticks out to me was jesse v. Tour and
Speaker 1: Chris Kyle. And I think jesse Ventura rightfully said like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is this beloved Navy ceo. I'm looked at as
Speaker 1: this like nut job basically, And jesse Ventura won his case,
Speaker 1: even though in the court of public opinion, um, Chris
Speaker 1: Kyle's is a more loved American I guess yeah. And
Speaker 1: there's I mean, courts are about establishing facts. It's not
Speaker 1: about who's better. Like that's not like a high school
Speaker 1: popularity contest, or at least it shouldn't be if it
Speaker 1: if it becomes that, it's a it's a perversion of justice. Um.
Speaker 1: And And there's also when they do pick jurors and
Speaker 1: all that. I bet you there's I mean, I would
Speaker 1: assume it's a huge population who is no familiarity with
Speaker 1: this case whatsoever. So it's actually not like a high
Speaker 1: profile case where everybody already has their opinions way before
Speaker 1: they walk in the courtroom. And when I hear about
Speaker 1: when they found jurors for like the O. J. Simpson case,
Speaker 1: that did anybody really walk in there without any bias?
Speaker 1: And what actually happens? You know, I don't know about
Speaker 1: the juror selection. Um. I know they try to find
Speaker 1: people who haven't been you know, quote unquote contaminated. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. UM. Yeah, it's a it's a fucked
Speaker 1: up situation anyway you cut it. UM. I was reading
Speaker 1: in the Navy Times yesterday that the investigation into the
Speaker 1: Eddie Gallagher cases expanded to include members of Seal Team six. UM.
Speaker 1: Because what I took away from the article was that
Speaker 1: it was it was alleged that Gallagher was contacting members
Speaker 1: of dev Group UM to try to get them to
Speaker 1: help him retaliate against people who are making accusations against him. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, these are things that the prosecution has to investigate,
Speaker 1: the defense has to you know, make their their own investigations.
Speaker 1: The judge has to weigh in and see if the
Speaker 1: evidence is admissible. I mean, all this ship takes time, um,
Speaker 1: and it's unfortunate. And you know, like I said, I
Speaker 1: mean I understand why why his family is upset by this.
Speaker 1: I mean from their perspective, you know their dad is
Speaker 1: in prison. I mean it's fucking horrible. Yeah, all right, Um, well,
Speaker 1: thanks for sending those emails in soft Rep dot Radio
Speaker 1: at soft rep dot com, and I'm excited to bring
Speaker 1: Joseph on and get right into uh some interesting stuff
Speaker 1: and some stuff you've never heard before, unless, of course,
Speaker 1: you've read this article um about the Oklahoma City bombing.
Speaker 1: Joining us back on SOFTWAREP Radio Joseph LaFave at lafav
Speaker 1: Joseph on Twitter News Rep writer, and I actually just
Speaker 1: got done this morning reading your article, which is an
Speaker 1: exclusive a former d E A agents chilling firsthand account
Speaker 1: of the Oklahoma City bombing, which is an interview with
Speaker 1: special Agent Kevin Waters. I'm really excited to talk about this,
Speaker 1: as I kind of said to you, as Jack knows,
Speaker 1: this is a subject that's always fascinated me. I've read
Speaker 1: a lot about it, seeing some documentaries on it. So
Speaker 1: let's get right into the article itself. How did you
Speaker 1: meet Kevin and how did this all come about? Kevin
Speaker 1: was my domestic terrorism professor when I was a student
Speaker 1: at Florida State, so he was like a really he
Speaker 1: was a really cool professor and one I really got
Speaker 1: along with. And we had three units in the class.
Speaker 1: So the first unit was about eco terrorism and like
Speaker 1: the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. The second
Speaker 1: one was about um I think they're Christian fundamentalists or
Speaker 1: Christian separatists. They're kind of up in the northern part
Speaker 1: of the country, and they kind of are aligned with
Speaker 1: the Sovereign Citizen Movement I believe, kind of that whole
Speaker 1: anti government group. And the third was about specifically Timothy
Speaker 1: McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing because he had you know,
Speaker 1: he was assigned to the you know alphad people our
Speaker 1: building in Oklahoma City when the bombing happened. It just
Speaker 1: kind of by coincidence, he wasn't at the office yet.
Speaker 1: So yeah, he told us that story when I was
Speaker 1: in class, and it always had resid dated with me
Speaker 1: because it was, like, I mean, it was such an
Speaker 1: intense story, uh, you know, not only him digging through
Speaker 1: the wreckage and trying to help find his friends, but
Speaker 1: you know the years afterwards where he was riddled with
Speaker 1: guilt because he had seen McVeigh the night before and um,
Speaker 1: I actually hadn't talked to him in a long time,
Speaker 1: And when I came on staff and news Wrap, I
Speaker 1: reached out to him and I said, Hey, is this
Speaker 1: something you'd be willing to talk about? He said absolutely. Um,
Speaker 1: you know from his from his point of view, you know,
Speaker 1: he said that talking about it helps him heal, and
Speaker 1: I think that healing is an ongoing process for him.
Speaker 1: So that's how I met Kevin. Yeah, it's a really
Speaker 1: incredible story. Um. You know, I was even kind of
Speaker 1: skeptical when you first told me about it, because I
Speaker 1: know there had been rumors and conspiracies and so on
Speaker 1: about so called John Doe number two, and I thought
Speaker 1: that's what you were referencing at first, But this is
Speaker 1: actually a totally separate story from that. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: was confused as well. Actually, when I talked to him,
Speaker 1: you know, I said, oh, so you saw John Doe
Speaker 1: number two. He said, no, no, No, there's a is
Speaker 1: a John Doe number three that's never been identified or
Speaker 1: talked about, and that's the guy he saw with McVeigh
Speaker 1: the night before. So it's kind of go ahead, Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: go ahead and walk us through this whole story. I mean,
Speaker 1: where was this guy? What did he see? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: Kevin was a d a special agent assigned with the
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City Field Office out there and UM. You know,
Speaker 1: during the time, during that really nineties, each of the
Speaker 1: special agents assigned to the field loft pad their own specialty.
Speaker 1: You know, one officer or one agent worked you know,
Speaker 1: counter marijuana and UM went after the importers from Mexico,
Speaker 1: and one worked UM crack cocaine, and one worked methomphetamines,
Speaker 1: and one you know, they had agents there that also
Speaker 1: investigated prescription drugs. They're called diversion agents. Kevin's specialty or
Speaker 1: his assignment was crack cocaine. Got a partner and they
Speaker 1: had a task force made up of him and his partner, Jimmy,
Speaker 1: and some local officers from the Oklahoma City Police Department
Speaker 1: and the Sheriff's artman. So, on April night or the
Speaker 1: day before the bombing, so I think the bombing was
Speaker 1: the nineteen him and his partner made a giant crack
Speaker 1: co cane by from a major dealer in the city.
Speaker 1: Ended up arresting him. That was later, that was around
Speaker 1: in the late afternoon. They arrested him. They took him
Speaker 1: to the Oklahoma City Police Department jail. Then Kevin said Hey,
Speaker 1: I got to go to the office and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: get a few things. You know, you need needed to
Speaker 1: get a camera, and you needed to get a couple
Speaker 1: of forms, like for fingerprints and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: don't to the office. And he looked at the wall.
Speaker 1: He looked at the clock, and it was getting close
Speaker 1: to ten thirty. And his wife, who was a nurse
Speaker 1: of the time, work night shift. She left the house
Speaker 1: at ten thirty, so he was like, I gotta get
Speaker 1: home to see her off. So he was kind of
Speaker 1: in a hurry. So it leads his office, which is
Speaker 1: on the I think the top floor of the Mirror building,
Speaker 1: and he walks down to the parking garage, which is
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the building but street level, and
Speaker 1: it's actually still there today and still in use by
Speaker 1: the Federal courthouse across the street. But he goes to
Speaker 1: the parking garage and he was very specific on how
Speaker 1: the how the garage worked. He had to go up
Speaker 1: to it with this real thick almost like a credit
Speaker 1: card and stick it in the slot and it would
Speaker 1: open real slowly, and he was it was like nine
Speaker 1: thirty at night, there's no one around, and he's just
Speaker 1: kind of hanging out waiting for the door to open
Speaker 1: by his car, and as the door gets three quarters
Speaker 1: of the way up, he sees a vehicle out there,
Speaker 1: and or he's two vehicles out there, and he sees
Speaker 1: two guys sitting in one vehicle. But he said to me,
Speaker 1: it was very clear that the man in the passenger
Speaker 1: seat that was in mcveigh's car, that you know, like
Speaker 1: that real beatle car. When you say mcveigh's car, what
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I mean how he didn't know
Speaker 1: it was mcveigh's car at the time. Yeah, So at
Speaker 1: the time, he just thought he was two guys and um,
Speaker 1: he said to me that they were just eyeballing him.
Speaker 1: He said, I fucking there, I fuck And he you know,
Speaker 1: he stared back in. His first thought was, oh my god,
Speaker 1: these are hitman hired by the guy just arrested. They're
Speaker 1: coming to kill me. So he kind of stares him down,
Speaker 1: and you know, he doesn't reach for his gun or anything,
Speaker 1: but he kind of motions towards his gun and they
Speaker 1: kind of are locked in the staring contest and he,
Speaker 1: you know, he doesn't he's never seen these guys before, um,
Speaker 1: and they just stare at him. And he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: after a couple of seconds of just that real intense
Speaker 1: eye contact, he gets in his car and he drives
Speaker 1: past him real slow, and they kind of make, you know,
Speaker 1: eye contact like in the cop movies, you know, where
Speaker 1: the cops drive by real slow and give you the
Speaker 1: side eye. He kind of gave him the side eye,
Speaker 1: and he drove around the corner and he calls up
Speaker 1: his partner. He says, hey, you're never gonna believe this,
Speaker 1: and the partner says what. He goes, there's two fucking
Speaker 1: hitman out front of the Borough Building. And this partner says,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know
Speaker 1: what a hitman looks like. You know, you're probably paranoid
Speaker 1: or something. And he says, yeah, you're right, and he
Speaker 1: and he thinks about, you know, going over there and
Speaker 1: jamming him up and making a stop. He's got that
Speaker 1: that deadline to hey, he's got to be home, so
Speaker 1: he says, screw. He reports he got the license plate,
Speaker 1: and he reported it to the Oklahoma City Police Department,
Speaker 1: goes to the jail, takes a picture of the of
Speaker 1: their suspect, goes home and because he worked late that night. UM,
Speaker 1: in the morning, he kind of was like, I'm going
Speaker 1: to show up at the office a little bit in
Speaker 1: the morning, and he's taking a shower about twenty miles
Speaker 1: from Oklahoma City to the north west, you know, and
Speaker 1: he feels the explosion, but he doesn't know what it is, obviously,
Speaker 1: and this was before cell phones and things like that,
Speaker 1: and you know, he gets dressed, he heads into work
Speaker 1: and he's driving to work and his patrol car, his
Speaker 1: d A car, has a radio and that's when he
Speaker 1: gets to call him there's been an explosion of the
Speaker 1: Murror building. So he hits the lights and the halls
Speaker 1: ass into the city and by the time he got there,
Speaker 1: which was about twenty or thirty minutes after the initial
Speaker 1: after the explosion, UM, he tried to get of the building,
Speaker 1: but the Oklahoma City Police Department had it blocked off
Speaker 1: for evidence. And he says he got out of the car,
Speaker 1: parked his car and he goes charging through the you
Speaker 1: know that do not cross line and some guy says, hey,
Speaker 1: you can't go there, and he fires back. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm d e A. And the guy who fired back,
Speaker 1: I was actually the chief of Oklahoma City Police so
Speaker 1: they kind of knew each other, and he let him
Speaker 1: go and he goes to the Mirror building and he says,
Speaker 1: when he turned the corner to go up the street,
Speaker 1: he sees the back of the or the front of
Speaker 1: the back of the building, which is you know, if
Speaker 1: you've seen the picture, just completely gone. Yeah, it's the back.
Speaker 1: So what he was he on the side that the
Speaker 1: detonation had occurred or not. Yeah, So he walks up
Speaker 1: the street facing the side where the detonation. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: so he sees that half the building's missing. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: just oh my god, you know, he said it looked
Speaker 1: like beyrout. There was cars overturned, fires, burning bodies, and
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City Fire Department had kind of just gotten
Speaker 1: there and we're you know, starting search and rescue. And
Speaker 1: he looks up to where you know, he knows the offices,
Speaker 1: and it's all gone. I mean, he's just completely gone.
Speaker 1: And he thinks, all my all my friends are dead.
Speaker 1: So he runs runs down the street and he turns
Speaker 1: the corner to the front of the building and he uh,
Speaker 1: you know, tries to make his way into the building,
Speaker 1: which the front of the building is covered with rubbles,
Speaker 1: so he's kind of trying to dig his way through
Speaker 1: the rubble and then finally he realized he can't. That's
Speaker 1: not going to happen. So he turns around and he
Speaker 1: sees a guy he works with, one of the d
Speaker 1: A I think it was his partner, and his partners
Speaker 1: standing by this flagpole, which is still there today, walking
Speaker 1: in circles, kind of muttering to himself. Uh, and Kevin
Speaker 1: said he was obviously in shock. So Kevin goes over
Speaker 1: there and he tries to get him out of it, like,
Speaker 1: hey man, you gotta like, we gotta get it together.
Speaker 1: We've got a job to do. And just then one
Speaker 1: of the other d A. I don't think she was
Speaker 1: a special aged I think she was like man admin
Speaker 1: or something like that. She ran over she was at
Speaker 1: the courthouse. And the three of them kind of regrouped
Speaker 1: and said, all right, we know the three of us
Speaker 1: are alive. Let's try to find the rest of our people.
Speaker 1: And you know, this is just minutes from the blast.
Speaker 1: And he said when he turned that corner, before he
Speaker 1: even tried to make him in the building, and that
Speaker 1: sidewalk is still there today, there was about twenty bodies
Speaker 1: already laid out on the sidewalk, um side by side,
Speaker 1: and he says, the first body that he saw was
Speaker 1: a blonde woman and he thought, oh my god, that's Carol,
Speaker 1: which is a woman he worked with. So he leaned
Speaker 1: down and he you know, moved her, moved the body's
Speaker 1: face so he could see it. He goes, thank god,
Speaker 1: it's not her. You know. He keeps checking each body
Speaker 1: as he goes along for people he knew, and they had, um,
Speaker 1: you know, the bodies of the kids, which were obviously
Speaker 1: a lot smaller because I think, you know that we're
Speaker 1: McVeigh detonated the bomb. He was almost at right at
Speaker 1: where the daycare was, in the mirror building, so I
Speaker 1: think most if not all of the little kids that
Speaker 1: were at daycare that day and the marble and died. Um.
Speaker 1: So he regroups with two people and they ran into
Speaker 1: two more admin from the d E A one of
Speaker 1: them who was actually stuck in the elevator when the
Speaker 1: bomb happened. He was able to get out, but that's
Speaker 1: the only thing that saved him is that the he
Speaker 1: was still in the elevator when the bomb went off.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, right before the doors opened,
Speaker 1: is when it detonated and if he had, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds sooner, he would have been and
Speaker 1: the cable didn't get cut. Yeah, yeah, that would have
Speaker 1: been also horrible and a fear. So he that guy
Speaker 1: finally managed to climb down, and Kevin said, you know,
Speaker 1: we got to get up to the office. And uh,
Speaker 1: the guy said, Kevin, you know, you know the office
Speaker 1: is gone and um, Kevin said, you know, well to
Speaker 1: the guys who went, you know, did they go quick?
Speaker 1: And he said, but the families asked yes. But between
Speaker 1: me and you, I heard the explosion. I heard them
Speaker 1: screaming on the other side. And that's when I heard
Speaker 1: the collapse, and which is really intense. And and and
Speaker 1: while we're interviewing him, we're at the site, we're at
Speaker 1: the memorial. Um. So he's able to point, you know,
Speaker 1: the parking right is still there. She was able to
Speaker 1: point to the exact, you know, the exact location on
Speaker 1: the street where he saw those cars. And he's able
Speaker 1: to point to the exact location, you know, where he
Speaker 1: saw as his first friend who was in shock. And
Speaker 1: he's able to point to the exact location where the
Speaker 1: bodies were. It's a very time Joe that you've been
Speaker 1: to the Murray Building. Yeah, it's my first time, actually
Speaker 1: my first time in Oklahoma period. What was How did
Speaker 1: you feel being there? I mean, because like it's something
Speaker 1: we've read about our whole lives pretty much. Yes, I
Speaker 1: was five when the bombing happened, so I had, you know,
Speaker 1: I had known about it, and I had ever since
Speaker 1: I had taken uh Professor waters Is class, I'd be
Speaker 1: really interested in it. But this was my first time
Speaker 1: out to the Murror Building, and it was very somber.
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, it was January saw the
Speaker 1: Grass is Dead, and it was a Sunday. It was
Speaker 1: really really quiet. I mean, it's like, ye, really quiet,
Speaker 1: especially because it's in the middle of Oklahoma City. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, but there's just a few people walking around.
Speaker 1: And the memorial they were the building was they erected
Speaker 1: two large stone arches, and in between the arches is
Speaker 1: a real long reflection pool um and then on the
Speaker 1: side of the reflection pool they have little bronze chairs
Speaker 1: which I took a picture of him putting the article,
Speaker 1: and each chair statue represents one of the victims. And
Speaker 1: what's really spooky is the for the children who died.
Speaker 1: They made little smaller chairs you can visually see, you know,
Speaker 1: the portion of the total casualties that were children, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was a lot. And for those who don't know,
Speaker 1: people dead, nearly seven people injured. I think it's six
Speaker 1: eighties something. Um, you know, and it's the deadliest incident
Speaker 1: of domestic terrorism in US history still to this day, right,
Speaker 1: and yeah, and and and he was, you know, Kevin was.
Speaker 1: You could tell he was getting pretty emotional, especially when
Speaker 1: it got to the parts where, um, you know, he
Speaker 1: found his friends and where the bodies were and um.
Speaker 1: So after he grouped up these three people and then
Speaker 1: rendezvoused with two more d A employees who had survived,
Speaker 1: they moved around to the blast side of the building
Speaker 1: again and he said, this man came running up to
Speaker 1: him and the guy said, are you Kevin? And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm Kevin. What's up? And the guy said,
Speaker 1: I'm Rona's husband. And Rohna was I think she was
Speaker 1: a sheriff deputy who was on their crack cocaine task force.
Speaker 1: And um, Kevin said, well, you know, good to meet
Speaker 1: you man. And Rhona had been in the office during
Speaker 1: the attack. She was obviously dead, and her husband said
Speaker 1: to Kevin, give it to me straight. Is is my
Speaker 1: wife alive? And Kevin's no, I'm sorry, and the guy said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I appreciate the straight answer, and he was.
Speaker 1: Everyone was in shock, you know. So there wasn't a
Speaker 1: ton of crying and and oh my god, it was
Speaker 1: just a state of shock. And Kevin said, we're going
Speaker 1: to get out of here and regroup down the street
Speaker 1: at the police department. Why don't you come with us.
Speaker 1: So Kevin kind of leads this caravan of people to
Speaker 1: the police department, where they kind of spent the rest
Speaker 1: of the day trying to account for all the staff
Speaker 1: they had and they realized that they had lost five employees.
Speaker 1: That's just insane. Man. Yeah, it was heavy, like it
Speaker 1: was really just doing the interview with him was really heavy. Um,
Speaker 1: you know I was. I was glad to do it,
Speaker 1: and you know, like like I asked him towards the
Speaker 1: end of the towards the end of the interview, I said, man,
Speaker 1: are you like this is intense? Are you okay talking
Speaker 1: about this? And he said, yeah, it helps me and
Speaker 1: a lot of the guys he said that survived it,
Speaker 1: you know, never talked about it, and they had a
Speaker 1: lot of issues, and Kevin had a lot of issues
Speaker 1: as well, trying to deal and reconcile with the fact
Speaker 1: that he, in his mind, could have stopped it. And
Speaker 1: I'll get to that. I guess I'll get to that
Speaker 1: in a minute. Well, you know, I also want to
Speaker 1: point out that, you know, I'm I'm thankful to Kevin
Speaker 1: for talking to you about this, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: just it just brings to mind, you know, just yesterday
Speaker 1: I was having this conversation because Facebook made this big
Speaker 1: decision that like, hey, we're gonna ban any sort of
Speaker 1: like white nationalist content or you won't be able to
Speaker 1: search for it and this kind of thing. So I
Speaker 1: understand the rationale behind it, but from my point of view,
Speaker 1: I want people to know what some scumbag like Tim
Speaker 1: McVeigh did, Like I don't want to sugarcoat it. I
Speaker 1: don't want to hide it, like you should know that
Speaker 1: that motherfucker killed a bunch of kids, that he murdered
Speaker 1: a bunch of innocent people, And I don't want to
Speaker 1: whitewash any of it. You know what. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of Jack uh inglorious bastards when He asked him if
Speaker 1: I let you go, are you're gonna take this uniform off?
Speaker 1: And he says, I'll learn it. He goes, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what I was afraid of. So it's it's almost good
Speaker 1: you know that we're able to you know, if we
Speaker 1: allow these people to share you know, white nationalists stuff
Speaker 1: and swastik isn't ship at least we know, you know,
Speaker 1: at least we know who they are because like I think,
Speaker 1: like you pointed out, you're just gonna drive an underground Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you drive them off the platform, the next place
Speaker 1: they're gonna go is going to be encrypted more than likely.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're gonna get a little bit wiser to things,
Speaker 1: and uh it makes it harder and harder to track
Speaker 1: them and what they're doing. Because I mean it's great
Speaker 1: and all, like okay, yeah, we shut we you know,
Speaker 1: we d platform these idiots off of you know, Facebook
Speaker 1: or Twitter or whatever. But now it's like when you
Speaker 1: shut down back page and Craigslist. No, I mean, human
Speaker 1: trafficking in that case is not going away. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, Nazism is not going away. It's just gonna
Speaker 1: go somewhere else in we don't know where that somewhere
Speaker 1: else is that's the problem, and it's definitely definitely tougher
Speaker 1: to track things on the dark web that public place
Speaker 1: like face. So I mean, okay, you know, you made
Speaker 1: yourself feel good that you kicked them off Facebook. That's great.
Speaker 1: But you know what would make me feel even better
Speaker 1: is if we knew where they were at and there
Speaker 1: was an FBI agent looking over their shoulder every step
Speaker 1: of the way. Right. You know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: on Facebook part, on Facebook's part, it is just they're
Speaker 1: going for the pr value. Think it's really just Huberous said,
Speaker 1: they think, oh, if we d platforms people from Facebook,
Speaker 1: they will cease to exist. No, No, I think it's
Speaker 1: purely pr that that it's become such an issue that
Speaker 1: they had to make a little response and you know
Speaker 1: everyone will, you know, will clap their hands and say, oh,
Speaker 1: how progressive. That's great. Um, but I still think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and we'll get back into this because I do,
Speaker 1: you know, there's crazy things in this article, But um,
Speaker 1: I do think Mark Zuckerberg in particular feels some guilt
Speaker 1: over the election of Trump, and he feels like his
Speaker 1: platform in some way helped that. And Mark Zuckerberg is
Speaker 1: definitely not a guy who voted for Trump. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they it's like we have this conversation before with like
Speaker 1: d platforming people like Alex Jones. It's like they there's
Speaker 1: no consistency. It's just someone who gets big enough and
Speaker 1: comes into the public eye. Then they make a decision
Speaker 1: because it's reached that level. So I mean, it's purely
Speaker 1: a pr move. It's not a consistent like no conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorists on our platform. It's like that guy got too
Speaker 1: much attention, so we're taking him down. Um, and we
Speaker 1: do know as a fact that Russia bought ads for
Speaker 1: just not just things about the election of Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: they also were buying things in regards to Black Lives Matter,
Speaker 1: and think we know that just discord and that wouldn't
Speaker 1: have happened without the platform. So I do think there's
Speaker 1: some internal guilt in that there. Um. But any anyway,
Speaker 1: let's get let's get back to Kevin's story. We're getting
Speaker 1: a little off over sure, And actually from where you
Speaker 1: were going show was like in the article he talks
Speaker 1: of out on on some level, being suicidal for surviving
Speaker 1: what he did and feeling like he could have prevented
Speaker 1: what happened. Yeah, so the day goes so, you know,
Speaker 1: pick it back up at the police station. The day
Speaker 1: goes by. McVeigh gets arrested later that day in an
Speaker 1: unrelated traffic stop North araicle because he didn't have his
Speaker 1: license plate on, right, Yeah, I didn't have his license
Speaker 1: plate on, which is um. You know, that's kind of
Speaker 1: a key point in Kevin's story that I questioned because
Speaker 1: Kevin said that it was the same car that he
Speaker 1: was arrested in that he saw the night before. And
Speaker 1: when Kevin saw it, he had a license plate because
Speaker 1: he wrote down the license plate number. So at some
Speaker 1: point he must have taken the plate off. UM. But anyways, yeah,
Speaker 1: mcveighets arrested. Uh, you know, a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: they connect him to the bombing and his face is
Speaker 1: all over UM TV. But Kevin doesn't connected to you know,
Speaker 1: at this point, he's not thinking about the two thugs
Speaker 1: he saw them that before. He's thinking about the incident,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think, you know, for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, and you know my self, when I look
Speaker 1: at some of the different things and calls I've been
Speaker 1: to as an e M T, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: really remember, you know, exactly what I was doing right
Speaker 1: before the call, but I remember very vis really what
Speaker 1: I was doing, you know, when I got there, and
Speaker 1: then what happened afterwards. So you know, it makes sense
Speaker 1: that Kevin didn't connect the two at the time, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't until a month later. So when the FBI,
Speaker 1: when an FBI investigator finally made the rounds down to
Speaker 1: the d e A office which had now moved down
Speaker 1: the street past the mur building in the Social Security office, um,
Speaker 1: and the FBI agents interviewing all the survivors, and Kevin
Speaker 1: goes last, and it's you could tell. Kevin said that
Speaker 1: he could tell the FBI agent was just kind of
Speaker 1: going to the motions and they weren't expecting to find
Speaker 1: any new information. And one of the questions was had
Speaker 1: you ever seen McVeigh before, And he's got a picture
Speaker 1: of him, and Kevin goes no, and he kind of
Speaker 1: pauses and goes, oh, well wait, yeah, I saw that
Speaker 1: guy the night before, and he said, you could see
Speaker 1: the agent's eyes like light up, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: he calls Jimmy and he's like, hey, you remember when
Speaker 1: I said, you know about the hitman? And he goes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that phone call. He said that was McVeigh.
Speaker 1: And he goes, no way, and he goes, look, this
Speaker 1: is the guy I saw. And um. So the FBI
Speaker 1: agent starts, you know, vigorously taking notes and takes a statement.
Speaker 1: But it ended up what Kevin was told later on
Speaker 1: that that information that he provided would have hurt the
Speaker 1: government's case against McVeigh, and it ultimately Terry Nichols because
Speaker 1: it places the third co conspirator um or fourth depending
Speaker 1: how you look at it, but it places another co
Speaker 1: conspirator in the mix that isn't accounted for. So the
Speaker 1: government ultimately told Kevin, um, you know, we're not going
Speaker 1: to pursue this lead because it doesn't help our case.
Speaker 1: It doesn't I think, I think as words where it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit are the story we're trying to tell. So
Speaker 1: once Kevin connects the dots, you know, oh my god.
Speaker 1: You know, if I would have spent a little bit
Speaker 1: more time that night, or investigate a little bit further
Speaker 1: or not, you know, how to rush home, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I could have prevented it. And it's a big maybe
Speaker 1: and I don't, um, you know, from an outsider's perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think there's any way he could
Speaker 1: have known, um, but I'm sure and and he does.
Speaker 1: You know, he feels you know, he feels horrible, especially
Speaker 1: because all his friends died, and he kind of just spirals,
Speaker 1: spirals down. You know, he takes takes up alcoholism, and
Speaker 1: like he told me, you know, and I asked them,
Speaker 1: you know, what was it like? Afterwards? He said it
Speaker 1: was horrible. You know. He would come home from work
Speaker 1: every day and put the you know, like he said,
Speaker 1: he said, he put the gun to his head and
Speaker 1: to think about killing himself. But then he here his
Speaker 1: kids crying or talking in the next room, and he
Speaker 1: wouldn't want them to hear the shots and find his body,
Speaker 1: and that, um, well this is the only thing that
Speaker 1: prevented them. But he said he was, you know, definitely
Speaker 1: an alcoholic. But eventually he after a three or four
Speaker 1: years of just straight alcohol abut um, you know, he
Speaker 1: decided to leave the d e A. He got sober,
Speaker 1: and he took a position. He actually went back for
Speaker 1: his masters at Florida State University UM and then ultimately
Speaker 1: when he finished his programs there, he was brought on faculty.
Speaker 1: So that's where I met him Um probably six years
Speaker 1: after he had first left the d A and Um
Speaker 1: started teaching at Florida State. I am glad that there's
Speaker 1: like a positive, you know, somewhat positive end to this story. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you can never undo what's been done and his friends dying,
Speaker 1: but the fact that he continues to live and tell
Speaker 1: his story and find a new career is great. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing I wanted to get into though, is there's
Speaker 1: you know, I I do, of course believe that Kevin
Speaker 1: is telling what he accounts for the truth. But the
Speaker 1: interesting thing is that there's been so many crazy John
Speaker 1: Doe number two stories, as we all know. I was
Speaker 1: looking some of this up before we did the show,
Speaker 1: you know, connecting him with terrorist Jose Padilla. And then
Speaker 1: in the recent Flix documentary that just came out a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago called Oklahoma City, I just watched,
Speaker 1: you know, they found a guy who I believe was
Speaker 1: wearing a panther's hat that they connected with John Doe
Speaker 1: number two, and it turned out he went to the
Speaker 1: same tire store Tim McVeigh was at, maybe the day
Speaker 1: before the day after. Uh, so they believe it could
Speaker 1: have been foggy memory. And then I pulled up these
Speaker 1: quotes right here, which kind of cement at least you
Speaker 1: know how Tim McVeigh felt about those that connected another
Speaker 1: person to the crime. So at one point before he
Speaker 1: was executed, he said, you can't handle the truth because
Speaker 1: the truth is I blew up the mirror building, and
Speaker 1: isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak
Speaker 1: this kind of hell? And then on the morning of
Speaker 1: his execution, he said in a written in a written
Speaker 1: statement for those die hard conspiracy theorists who will refuse
Speaker 1: to believe this, I turned the tables and say, show
Speaker 1: me where I needed anyone else financing, logistics, specialized tech skills,
Speaker 1: brain power, strategy, show me where I needed arc mysterious
Speaker 1: Mr X. So he up until the day of his death,
Speaker 1: and he was when he was executed by the state.
Speaker 1: UM stood by that he acted alone. And you know,
Speaker 1: the Terry Nichols did very little. The you know, danger,
Speaker 1: of course, is that it's like nine eleven and these
Speaker 1: these conspiracy theories about a controlled demolition or the um,
Speaker 1: the conspiracy theories about the extortion seventeen crash, that there
Speaker 1: was something there. I mean, it's like we have this UM,
Speaker 1: this need for there to be something more behind it.
Speaker 1: That it can't be a seemingly random um event or
Speaker 1: or even if it was planned, it can't just be
Speaker 1: a bunch of uneducated Arabs hijacking airplane and flying it
Speaker 1: into a building. It can't be just some goat herder
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan with an RPG launcher that shoots down a
Speaker 1: helicopter filled with our most elite troops one in a
Speaker 1: million shot, right, right, Like those things can't happen, right
Speaker 1: because in these it's all this it's it's such a
Speaker 1: heroic narrative that you know, the hero goes down in
Speaker 1: the hill of gunfire. We'll look at World War One.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think Dan Carlin touched on a similar
Speaker 1: vein when you talked about, you know, Gabrielle Princepp. You know,
Speaker 1: take shooting the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. How that I mean,
Speaker 1: he's just a one guy and he kicked off, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the most horrific wars in human history. Right,
Speaker 1: So I think, and I think you guys are right
Speaker 1: that you know, I guess it brings us comfort. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm probably you know speak, I think I'm
Speaker 1: saying verbatim what Dan Carlin says. But I think it
Speaker 1: brings us comfort to think that one person can't influence
Speaker 1: world events like McVeigh did, or Bin Laden or a
Speaker 1: prince that did. You know. It makes us feel better
Speaker 1: if we think there's some uh, you know, cabal or
Speaker 1: you know, order that that a rather insignificant person like
Speaker 1: Timothy McVeigh can't just snap his fingers and snuff out
Speaker 1: the lives of you know what, what was it a
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty d D hundred sixty eight people. So
Speaker 1: even that number is debatable because one of the women
Speaker 1: in the building was pregnant at the time. You can
Speaker 1: just go on record to say T is a douche,
Speaker 1: like all this all that bullshit, We're like the mysterious mixture.
Speaker 1: Mr X, Like, gosh, God, what a douche. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I I wanted to bring it up though, just because
Speaker 1: he stood by, you know, and but just stood by
Speaker 1: the fact that it was him. He acted alone, and
Speaker 1: you know, for those who connect Terry Nichols, Terry Nichols
Speaker 1: kind of helped them construct some stuff and then he
Speaker 1: basically bailed at some point. And then there was another
Speaker 1: guy involved who I've done some research on you know,
Speaker 1: just after watching these documentaries. And the other guy involved
Speaker 1: is actually on witness protection program, so he's somewhere in
Speaker 1: the United States under a different alias. And how was
Speaker 1: he involved you know what, I'm gonna look this up
Speaker 1: as we're recording here. Um, so if he's in witness
Speaker 1: protection he app and testified during the trial, I think yeah,
Speaker 1: And there's been one of the one of the things
Speaker 1: about John Doe number two was that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was um who was the guy that I
Speaker 1: mentioned in the article, Uh, the German guy, Yes, strass Meyer,
Speaker 1: you know, whether strass Meyer or um, you know the
Speaker 1: guy that Ian mentioned. You know. The thing kind of
Speaker 1: about it is he was always they always said he
Speaker 1: was darker tan complexion, like all of skin. And Kevin
Speaker 1: told me that the guy he saw that night, he
Speaker 1: described him as as having uh, you know, dark complexion,
Speaker 1: And so that was kind of just to unpack that
Speaker 1: a little bit more. I mean, what in detail, what
Speaker 1: was it that Kevin described seeing, because you said in
Speaker 1: retrospect he identified that as Tim mcveigh's car, right right,
Speaker 1: So there was two vehicles parked on the side of
Speaker 1: the street, you know, like street parking, Uh, back to
Speaker 1: back or front to back, you know, right behind each other. Um,
Speaker 1: the first vehicle, I think it was a black um
Speaker 1: kind of more modern for car. And then the second
Speaker 1: car behind it, he described it as a piece of
Speaker 1: ship beater. By the way, just to go back to
Speaker 1: what I'm saying here, Um, just because I'm looking this
Speaker 1: up and I didn't have the name off hand, So
Speaker 1: it's Michael and Lorie Fortier. Michael and Laurie Fortier were
Speaker 1: considered accomplices for their fore knowledge of the planning of
Speaker 1: the bombing. In addition to Michael assisting McVeigh and scouting
Speaker 1: the Federal building, Laurie had helped McVeigh laminate a fake
Speaker 1: driver's license, which was later used to rent the Riders
Speaker 1: truck for forty A. Sorry agreed to testify against McVeigh
Speaker 1: and Nichols in exchange for reduced sentence and immunity for
Speaker 1: his wife. He was sentenced on May twelve years in
Speaker 1: prison and find seventy five thousand dollars for failing to
Speaker 1: warrant authorities about the attack. Well, if forty A was
Speaker 1: helping McVeigh scout the building, I mean, could he be
Speaker 1: John Doe Number three. Absolutely, so, I but I would think, uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry I'm saying waters Kevin. I would think Kevin, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, would know enough about, you know, the subject
Speaker 1: to know if it was you know, I'm sure he
Speaker 1: knows the name Michael forty a if we do, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. What what do you think, Joe? He
Speaker 1: knew forty A and he knew strass Meyer because I
Speaker 1: brought up strass Meyer to him when in the interview,
Speaker 1: and he said that he the man that he saw
Speaker 1: next to McVeigh the night before the bombing, he's never
Speaker 1: seen before. So what he's saying, it's not either of
Speaker 1: those guys that right. So that's why he calls him.
Speaker 1: That's why I say, oh, you were there with John
Speaker 1: Doe number two And he says, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 1: not John Done Done number two. It's someone that has
Speaker 1: yet to be identified because there's several theories about who
Speaker 1: John Doe number two is. Um, there are no theories
Speaker 1: about number three, you know, number three? Um? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: he you know, not only did he know witness and everything,
Speaker 1: he also taught it, um. You know, in the academic
Speaker 1: setting at Florida State and the chminology, so he is
Speaker 1: well versed in you know, all the players, um, you know,
Speaker 1: helping McVeigh, everything about Eli Him's Eli Him City. UM,
Speaker 1: kind of that whole white nationalist uh, you know organization
Speaker 1: that you know, I hesitate to call it an organization,
Speaker 1: but I guess that movement that McVeigh was part of.
Speaker 1: But you know, going back to you know, Facebook and
Speaker 1: the censoring. When I was taking Kevin's class, he was
Speaker 1: required reading for his class was the Turner Diaries, which
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the Turner if the listeners
Speaker 1: aren't familiar with Turner Diaries, it's a it's a novel,
Speaker 1: I quote unquote novel written by leader in the white
Speaker 1: supremacist movement. And in the book it talks about what
Speaker 1: William Luther Pierce is the guy about it, and he
Speaker 1: has I think he uses the pen name for that book.
Speaker 1: But you know, in the book, it starts out with, um,
Speaker 1: the government comes to confiscate everyone's guns, and these group
Speaker 1: of white nationalists or white supremacists. Um, they form this
Speaker 1: organization called the Order and they kind of fight the
Speaker 1: government and it's this big racial civil war where the
Speaker 1: army becomes segregated and fights itself and in the end,
Speaker 1: the main character is tasked with blowing up a federal
Speaker 1: building using a truck bomb, very similar to what they did.
Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of talk about this is
Speaker 1: you know, this book was the catalyst, but Amazon still
Speaker 1: carries in Turner Diaries. And I think from an academic
Speaker 1: and a criminologist point of view, and I'm not a criminal.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a degree in criminology, but I
Speaker 1: don't consider myself, you know, a quote unquote criminologist. But
Speaker 1: from my point of view, you know, being able to
Speaker 1: read that novel uncensored cover to cover was helpful for
Speaker 1: me to maybe understand, you know, the thought process of McVeigh.
Speaker 1: So it's good that Amazon still stocks and sells books
Speaker 1: like this because you know, it helps you know, not
Speaker 1: only does it not only can terrorists read it, but
Speaker 1: also people who studied terrorists can read it and understand
Speaker 1: their ideology a little bit more. Yeah, if I can
Speaker 1: tell you guys something interesting, I actually did buy the
Speaker 1: Turner Diaries off Amazon, and you know you could buy
Speaker 1: from third party sellers, because I've always, like I said,
Speaker 1: been interesting in this topic. So I bought it up
Speaker 1: some third party sur of the what raised nation pretty
Speaker 1: much because within the book, within the book was a
Speaker 1: pamphlet for this like white supremacist bookstore that I bought
Speaker 1: it from. And then I started thinking to myself, I'm like, funck,
Speaker 1: I'm probably on some government watch list right now, just
Speaker 1: because I've always wanted to read this book. And then
Speaker 1: I was I I felt like an asshole, because like
Speaker 1: I'm supporting these idiots, you know, just because I wanted
Speaker 1: to read this. Is that a Jewish name? The name
Speaker 1: is certainly not you. But I'm waiting for the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theorist to put number three no. But but for really
Speaker 1: it's uh So it is kind of crazy, though, yeah,
Speaker 1: with these third party sellers, because it does make you think,
Speaker 1: like I don't know my hands just because like I
Speaker 1: don't think anything is wrong. If you want to read,
Speaker 1: mind comp if you want to read. I have at
Speaker 1: this point consumed far more white nationalist media than, uh
Speaker 1: than it's healthy for a person. It starts to funk
Speaker 1: with your head after a while. Honestly, there's a book
Speaker 1: out there called a Siege Um it's actually a compilation
Speaker 1: uh written by a prominent neo Nazi that one's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting to understand that movement. Um Also in the
Speaker 1: in the same genre is the Turner Diaries. There's a
Speaker 1: couple of books written by a former Navy seal. His
Speaker 1: name is Matthew Bracken, and he wrote a bunch of
Speaker 1: books that are are very much the same theme, like
Speaker 1: the government orchestrates a false flag attack in order to
Speaker 1: justify gun confiscation, which the race which kicks. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: because I think the second book in the series. I
Speaker 1: found it. This is actually why I was in the
Speaker 1: Army and when I was on c Q or staff duty,
Speaker 1: I think it was staff duty up at Group headquarters actually,
Speaker 1: and there's a copy of it. I think the book
Speaker 1: is called Enemies Foreign and Domestic or something like that.
Speaker 1: And I read just like the pro prologue of the
Speaker 1: of the book, and it's people sitting around a campfire,
Speaker 1: a bunch of white people sitting around a campfire out
Speaker 1: in the wilderness in the aftermath of America's Second Civil War,
Speaker 1: and they're just talking at each other about all the
Speaker 1: things that transpired, and there's like roving bands of blacks
Speaker 1: patrolling America, raping women, and it's like I couldn't make
Speaker 1: a patch past, like page page seven. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is just like disgusting. Um, but yeah, that stuff
Speaker 1: does serve as a as an inspiration for for some
Speaker 1: of these people. But what I was living in New Orleans. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously it's very I guess non secrete. It
Speaker 1: is not the right word, but it's very Uh well,
Speaker 1: would you say it's like a melting pot? You know,
Speaker 1: New Orleans is definitely a true melting pot. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: I woke up one morning it was like a Saturday morning.
Speaker 1: I was a Friday mornings at Fridays off, and uh,
Speaker 1: there's a pamphlet on my door for some white nationalist thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't see who put it there, but
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, funk this. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want this in my neighborhood. It reminded me of
Speaker 1: the South Park thing where all the redneck guys get
Speaker 1: mad and they say, we don't take kindly to people
Speaker 1: who are in tolerant of there's cultural differences out there,
Speaker 1: and like that's you know, if if if we am
Speaker 1: I the guys who was putting it, you know, putting
Speaker 1: on everyone's doorstep, that would have been me. Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: it's it's just so crazy. You know what else I
Speaker 1: was gonna say. I mean, just back to something I
Speaker 1: was saying before with the Michael forty things, since I
Speaker 1: was reminded of it, isn't the witness Protection program kind
Speaker 1: of crazy? Like to think that that guy is still
Speaker 1: out there, like possibly going to a home depot and
Speaker 1: like he's the guy helping you out or something. I'm
Speaker 1: sure it's just like a normal guy work a regular
Speaker 1: job now and no one knows he had some sort
Speaker 1: of involvement in the Oklahoma city. But I've I've talked
Speaker 1: to I've come across the witness protection stuff a couple
Speaker 1: of times. And actually one guy who is out of
Speaker 1: it now, he believes that I talked to him a
Speaker 1: little bit. His UM. He believes his family was the first.
Speaker 1: They were the first African Americans put into the Witness
Speaker 1: Protection program. And it was because of UM, not not
Speaker 1: not so much UM. It was like them. It was
Speaker 1: a conflict between UM, the Um islam Nation and another
Speaker 1: black Islamist group, um Ship. The name escapes me right now,
Speaker 1: but it was fucking vicious man and and his family
Speaker 1: was not directly involved, but like it was like one
Speaker 1: group went and like murdered the entire family of the
Speaker 1: other group, including like seven kids like drowned and infant
Speaker 1: in the fucking sink, like funked up stuff. And he
Speaker 1: and I guess his dad had some periphery connection to
Speaker 1: UM some of the people involved in the crime. So
Speaker 1: he's and he served as like a witness or you
Speaker 1: offered some testimony or something. But anyway, I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: don't have all this information in front of me right now.
Speaker 1: We can go and revisit it. UM. I actually wrote
Speaker 1: about this in my blue Light article because what happened
Speaker 1: was in response to this murder, these these guys went
Speaker 1: and UM took hostage a couple of federal buildings and Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. In the nineteen seventies, and the United States
Speaker 1: government had no UM hostage rescue capability, had no idea
Speaker 1: how to deal with this problem. There were no such
Speaker 1: things like swat teams. So what did the government do.
Speaker 1: They called down the special Forces at Fort Bragg, like
Speaker 1: you put together a special team, I'm gonna deal with this.
Speaker 1: And so at Fort Bragg they started rehearsing UM to
Speaker 1: go and do a hostage rescue and Watchington d C
Speaker 1: UM and putting together the basics of a plan, and uh,
Speaker 1: it would have been messy if it ever got executed,
Speaker 1: but the negotiators did their thing and the juice were released. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the guy whose family was put into witness protection,
Speaker 1: he wrote a book and I kind of used that
Speaker 1: book to help me write this article about all this
Speaker 1: happened and in the US Special Forces involvement in it. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, witness protection is an interesting thing. And in
Speaker 1: that sense, I mean, there are people involved in like
Speaker 1: gnarly ship and they've just been replaced elsewhere. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: get like a backstory or something. I mean, or they
Speaker 1: just kind of drop you off. No, No, they gave
Speaker 1: you like a whole story, um about who you are
Speaker 1: and you know, different identity and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It is backstopped to some extent. I read
Speaker 1: a book about it. Was a guy he was a
Speaker 1: he turned he was like he was a drug dealer.
Speaker 1: I think it was California, and he was caught and
Speaker 1: he went undercover for the FEDS as a witness in
Speaker 1: a motorcycle gang. And then after they brought the gang
Speaker 1: down and they figured out it was him, he was
Speaker 1: putting witness protection and moved across the country. Oh, you're
Speaker 1: talking about the book under an Alane. No, No, that
Speaker 1: one's by Billy Queen. That was badass. This one's called Outlaws,
Speaker 1: Vogos and Hell's Angels or something. The guy was like
Speaker 1: on the History Channel. No, but this guy was not
Speaker 1: a federal agent. This guy was a criminal who just
Speaker 1: like made a deal with the a t F. Right.
Speaker 1: I think it was a t F for d A
Speaker 1: to go undercover does his assignment, you know, in return,
Speaker 1: he doesn't get charged with the drug dealing, his putt
Speaker 1: and witness protection gets moved over to Virginia, you know,
Speaker 1: from California. And while he's in Virginia, he is kind
Speaker 1: of like freelancing four different police departments and organization. Like
Speaker 1: he goes to the Canada and says, hey, I can
Speaker 1: try to infiltrate the Hell's Angels and the r CMP
Speaker 1: is like no, dude, like no, And it ends up
Speaker 1: coming back down to Virginia and like starting a chapter
Speaker 1: of a motorcycle gang and recruiting guys into the gang. Um.
Speaker 1: But he's still working as a as a witness for
Speaker 1: the for the feds, so he kind of made a
Speaker 1: living off of being and undercover not a law enforcement officer,
Speaker 1: but like an undercover source and these motorcycle gangs. Z. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was pretty heavy. That stuff is heavy, Like like
Speaker 1: I was reading under an a loan, I mean the
Speaker 1: stuff that I had to go through, and you could
Speaker 1: really sense in that book, you know, how he was
Speaker 1: kind of torn. You know. I think living the part
Speaker 1: eventually takes a toll on your psyche. And I think
Speaker 1: he said to that like it started to funk with
Speaker 1: his head too, and like all the racist bullshit and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, like it really impacted him. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then on the other hand, he also talks about like
Speaker 1: going to like you know, um like back to school
Speaker 1: night for his kids, and people are looking at him
Speaker 1: like he's a fucking scumbag biker meth dealer because that's
Speaker 1: what he looks like, right. Yeah, I had the long
Speaker 1: herrings tattoo. Yeah, he can't be like, hey man, like
Speaker 1: I'm really really a cop, Like I'm not on a
Speaker 1: piece of ship. Well, this has been fascinating, man. I
Speaker 1: know that you have some other stuff that you're working
Speaker 1: on that we could probably talk about another time. You've
Speaker 1: been following the cruise ship stuff, which includes the latest
Speaker 1: twenty injured and cruise ship disaster of the Norwegian coast. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then also covering Venezuela rebel groups sees control along
Speaker 1: the border in Venezuela. We could probably cover that another
Speaker 1: time because I feel like we've taken a lot here. Um.
Speaker 1: But I would say for people who are really interested
Speaker 1: in the subject, that would especially recommend reading the book
Speaker 1: American Terrorist, which is American Terrorist Tim Timothy McVeigh and
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma City bombing, because it goes into his roots
Speaker 1: in the army, you know, and and then to doing
Speaker 1: what he did, uh, basically speaking with guys in different
Speaker 1: white supremacist groups also being outraged by what happened at
Speaker 1: Ruby Ridge, what happened at Waco, and and basically what
Speaker 1: led Tim McBay to do what he did. Um. And
Speaker 1: then there's that Oklahoma City documentary on Netflix, which UM
Speaker 1: was like I said, it was Mark Potok was involved
Speaker 1: in the Southern Poverty Law Center. But I thought it
Speaker 1: was pretty uh down the line. They do talk about
Speaker 1: the John Doe number two stuff and kind of shoot
Speaker 1: it down, and I think they do a good job
Speaker 1: of it, to be honest. UM. And then there was
Speaker 1: I was looking this up on YouTube before we started recording,
Speaker 1: because I remember watching it. There's a documents there, like
Speaker 1: a low budget documentary called Oklahoma City What Really Happened?
Speaker 1: And if you google it you could find that YouTube
Speaker 1: has like the quality kind of sucks. The audio craps that.
Speaker 1: So if I can now, um, I'll link to it
Speaker 1: on the article on soft rerep dot com just if
Speaker 1: you want to see it. Uh. And that's all about
Speaker 1: the conspiracy of John Doe number two and people believe
Speaker 1: that there was a John Doe number two. So I
Speaker 1: think it's cool to watch all of that because you'll
Speaker 1: get a good um idea from different angles. You'll have
Speaker 1: one that's very conspiratorial and one that's a lot more
Speaker 1: um the official story, and you can believe what you
Speaker 1: want to believe. And uh, I mean it might be
Speaker 1: interesting actually to get Kevin Waters maybe on the show
Speaker 1: at some point. He seems like a great guy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a character. Just one of the things that I
Speaker 1: want to mention too. Since were we were on about McVeigh,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think we got into it last time,
Speaker 1: did we? About how McVeigh went to Special Forces selection
Speaker 1: and assessment After we right after he came back from
Speaker 1: the war. Yeah, uh and uh he washed out after
Speaker 1: a couple of days, so he I think he voluntarily
Speaker 1: withdrew from the course, so he probably couldn't hack it um.
Speaker 1: But then his whole motivation, I mean, I think you
Speaker 1: were talking about Ian. I don't know what you came across.
Speaker 1: Joe mcveigh's motivation for the the attack, why he became
Speaker 1: you know, anti government, was because of what he saw
Speaker 1: in the Gulf War. Yeah, he he said that when
Speaker 1: he was out there, I think he took They talked
Speaker 1: about this in the Oklahoma City documentary. There was one
Speaker 1: really long shot that he took, all right, and each
Speaker 1: took out someone while he was um deployed, and he
Speaker 1: did not feel good about it like that in particular,
Speaker 1: and he felt like these people were defenseless. And he
Speaker 1: and a younger McVeigh looked at America as like the
Speaker 1: good forces of the world, and he started to see
Speaker 1: America as the bullies. He's like, these people are defenseless.
Speaker 1: And it was a lot of people who were in
Speaker 1: that conflict to say that. It was like, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the term, like a chicken shooter, Yeah, a turkey
Speaker 1: shoot I mean, well even uh, you know when we
Speaker 1: had Mark g a Conia on and this was the
Speaker 1: Second Gulf, was the two thousand and three war, um,
Speaker 1: and he was talking about the air strikes and and
Speaker 1: you remember when we interviewed him, He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I just felt sick to my stomach at a certain
Speaker 1: point because we were just bombing the ship out of
Speaker 1: people who couldn't defend themselves at all. And I mean
Speaker 1: I'm not at all comparing Mark to fucking Tim McVeigh.
Speaker 1: Totally different people and reach different conclusions. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: Mark just talked about that how it was very much
Speaker 1: a one sided fight and he didn't and he didn't
Speaker 1: feel good about it either. It made him, UM, made him.
Speaker 1: He had he had some reservations. I think after the fact,
Speaker 1: I probably in a weird sick way. It's probably healthy
Speaker 1: to have that that reaction. Yeah, to war. I know
Speaker 1: for myself working E M S. You know, I had
Speaker 1: to and I'm working MS and going to war or not.
Speaker 1: I'm not even comparing the two. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: people ask me about E M. S all the time
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, you know, it's like war. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not you know, I get to go home every night. Um,
Speaker 1: but I remember right before I left the job, you know,
Speaker 1: you would see sick things and you just wouldn't have
Speaker 1: any reaction. And I kind of was to the point
Speaker 1: where like it kind of scared me that I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, like you just you just saw some guy
Speaker 1: die like right next to his wife at four o'clock
Speaker 1: in the morning, and now you're going home to play
Speaker 1: video games and eat breakfast, and that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: not right. I mean it's yeah, yeah, you're numb after
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, that's not like it's not a great feeling,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. I mean I understand where you guys
Speaker 1: are coming from, although I've never experienced anything similar. What
Speaker 1: I was gonna say is, I mean, it's not a
Speaker 1: popular topic to discuss, but like when you do talk
Speaker 1: look at timoc based background, it's a fair question of
Speaker 1: had Tim McBay never joined the military, would have become
Speaker 1: the person that he did and have done what he did.
Speaker 1: I mean, it it all kind of sparked from there
Speaker 1: about his distrust of American government and then he went
Speaker 1: down a really dark path. It's hard to say, man,
Speaker 1: And I mean there's choices involved, people make decisions. And also,
Speaker 1: I mean I've also seen people who go from being
Speaker 1: relatively normal people. I know you've seen it too. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know who go down that like conspiracy theory road
Speaker 1: and end up believing like all kinds of crazy shit.
Speaker 1: I mean, dude, I've known I knew a guy who
Speaker 1: was a He was a he's a minority himself, and
Speaker 1: he was a totally normal guy. And then the next thing,
Speaker 1: I see him popping up on my Facebook like posting
Speaker 1: all this pro waffin ss bullshit. I'm like, what the
Speaker 1: funk happened to you? Was he like Wlaitton Bigsby the
Speaker 1: blind white sympremacist? What is it you have or against
Speaker 1: black people? How much time have you got? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know with the they. I mean I think, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe going to war played a part, but I mean
Speaker 1: I just think he was had a an odd upbringing
Speaker 1: and he was just an odd dude, and he was
Speaker 1: really susceptible to being radical. It's a it's a number
Speaker 1: of things coming together, you know. I mean a lot
Speaker 1: of people shipped off to the Gulf War, you know,
Speaker 1: and you know, just like I brought up before, Mark
Speaker 1: Jackonia went to the war in Iraq, saw some of
Speaker 1: the same things at least, you know, as far as
Speaker 1: the the massive amounts of killing, but still went to
Speaker 1: a very different place in life. UM. So, I mean
Speaker 1: there's something about your personal psychology, um, and just your
Speaker 1: own manner of thinking that that plays into that so much.
Speaker 1: And that's hard to quantify, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: it's the way people cope. I mean, I right after
Speaker 1: I left the ambulance service, I mean, we lost a
Speaker 1: lot of medics, um for drugs. I mean it just
Speaker 1: it was like one actually the other keep getting arrested,
Speaker 1: you know, for doing drugs, and it was kind of like,
Speaker 1: it's horrible what you see in everything. That's not an excuse.
Speaker 1: And I mean everyone, like you said, Jack, everyone's got choices. Um,
Speaker 1: you know how they decide to cope with things. I mean,
Speaker 1: like Kevin said himself, I mean he turned to Suthing's
Speaker 1: abuse at first and was eventually able to to see
Speaker 1: the light. But um, you know, it's one thing I
Speaker 1: wanted to mention about the article before I go is UM.
Speaker 1: While Kevin was teaching at Florida State, he was recalled
Speaker 1: to Oklahoma City to testify UM in the Terry Nichols trial,
Speaker 1: which was a state was a state of Oklahoma trial,
Speaker 1: and he got up on the stand and he told
Speaker 1: the story about, um, you know, it hit the night
Speaker 1: before the bombing, and the federal government decided, you know,
Speaker 1: they did I don't, I don't, I don't know what
Speaker 1: it was, but they didn't use his testimony, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, he said it was. It was hard because
Speaker 1: they kind of blew him off. But one of the victims,
Speaker 1: one of the one of the the father of one
Speaker 1: of the children who died, came up to him and
Speaker 1: thanked him for telling a story, um, you know with
Speaker 1: with conspiracy. I mean, did they not use his testimony
Speaker 1: because there's some bigger plan or did it really just
Speaker 1: not fit into their narrative. I think it just fit
Speaker 1: the prosecution's case. So I don't think it's anything to faerious.
Speaker 1: And yet and the Feds, of course, like it's Tim McVeigh,
Speaker 1: he just killed a hundred and sixty eight people, like
Speaker 1: they want to slam dunk, right, and they want Nichols too,
Speaker 1: And they was that there was the Nichols case. They
Speaker 1: did that because it was a state trial. You know,
Speaker 1: it had different implications and I just think to them,
Speaker 1: losing was not an option. So I don't think it's
Speaker 1: like some nefarious and I think, you know, probably a
Speaker 1: lot of conspiracy theories are easily explained. Um, you know
Speaker 1: through that land. It's not some cabal. It's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we gotta get this done, and you know, we had
Speaker 1: to leave certain parts out to get what we need done.
Speaker 1: But um, anyway, after the trial, though, you know Kevin,
Speaker 1: you know, his redemption story was he wrote a letter
Speaker 1: to Terry Nichols, who was imprisoned. Um, he was found
Speaker 1: guilty and sent into life in prison, and he wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to Nichols saying who he was and whose
Speaker 1: friends were, and that he forgave him. And Nichols actually
Speaker 1: wrote him back and said that, you know, your letter
Speaker 1: to me helped me get right with God. And Kevin said,
Speaker 1: you know, I think in some ways corresponding with Nichols
Speaker 1: helped him get right as well. So well, good for him, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, yeah, it's a it's an incredible story.
Speaker 1: It's not you know, it's not my story. I'm just
Speaker 1: lucky to tell you it's Kevin's story. And like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm very fortunate that he was willing to
Speaker 1: touch me about it. Um. I think it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the best things I've ever written. But it's all
Speaker 1: Kevin's story, and without him being willing to open up
Speaker 1: about I mean, it's got to be the worst, most
Speaker 1: horrible time in his life, which extended for years. You know,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be possible. Well, I think both of you
Speaker 1: guys for taking part in that and doing that because, um,
Speaker 1: otherwise people, it would just be another you know, lost
Speaker 1: chapter of history. Really yeah, yeah, And uh, for those
Speaker 1: who don't know Nichols is still alive. Um, since we didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, mention that he's life in prison. It looks
Speaker 1: like the article is exclusive a former d A agents
Speaker 1: shilling firsthand account of the Oklahoma City bombing. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's up on the News rep dot com. If you're
Speaker 1: not already a member, become a member because you're gonna
Speaker 1: get great stuff like that on a regular basis. Thanks
Speaker 1: as always for coming on at Lafay Joseph on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Always appreciate it, Joe, and we'll have you back on because,
Speaker 1: like I said, I know you're writing stuff about Venezuela
Speaker 1: and the cruise ship stuff and Uh, we've gone pretty
Speaker 1: long here, so we'll talk about that at another point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you guys have me out. It's always a blast, um,
Speaker 1: you know, just shooting the ship with you guys. Yeah, anytime, Joe.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that discussion with Joe. As you heard
Speaker 1: me say, the Oklahoma City bombing has always been just
Speaker 1: a subject of interest to me. Um, you know how
Speaker 1: the psychology of what makes someone do that, the background
Speaker 1: of Tim McVeigh and uh, and it's also kind of
Speaker 1: crazy because he started off as a very regular guy
Speaker 1: with the libertarian minded military veteran and just went way
Speaker 1: off the reservation. Um. So it's it's great for me
Speaker 1: to learn new information. At first, when I saw that
Speaker 1: Joe put out this article, I figured it must be
Speaker 1: stuff that I've heard before, but I and I don't
Speaker 1: think many in general, other than it's probably personal friends
Speaker 1: have heard that story from Kevin Waters. Um with that,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier in this show, be sure to
Speaker 1: check out Create Club. It's a club for men by
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Speaker 1: full archive of shows and as always, keep up with
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Speaker 1: me here we have the first copies of Jack Murphy's
Speaker 1: Murphy's Law on hardcover, which is what you're gonna get
Speaker 1: if you pre ordered. And I was Santa Jackman like
Speaker 1: the spine of this book really stands out. I think
Speaker 1: it will stand out in the shelves. I've just started
Speaker 1: reading it. It's a great read. Jack's a great writer.
Speaker 1: You guys know that. Uh, and that's it. That's it
Speaker 1: for this week of shows. If you enjoyed it, please
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