Speaker 1: H ah bout force. If it doesn't work, you're just
Speaker 1: not using enough. You're listening to Software Radio, special operations,
Speaker 1: military news and straight talk with the guys and the community.
Speaker 1: Do you want to take it away? Dennis? You're ready
Speaker 1: for this? You're ready? Do you think so? I think so? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, Software up Radio on Time one. That's NPR voice. Okay,
Speaker 1: you tell me what kind of voice you want. I'll
Speaker 1: and I don't know. You need to like assert yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, you need to get your man voice on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: I see, I don't want to do was just naturally
Speaker 1: like you just had it. So I wanted to try
Speaker 1: and do something different, but confident, confident Software up Radio
Speaker 1: on Time on target. Welcome everybody. That was pretty good. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Do we need to do a third take? No? No,
Speaker 1: I think that was good. Okay, I think that's good.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be interested when when this when this is
Speaker 1: how it begins. Welcome to episode four hundred and sixty two,
Speaker 1: my third or fourth I think third third solo? Dennis,
Speaker 1: do you drink? I'm not gonna say heavily, but yes
Speaker 1: on the upper end of social sure. Okay, very fair
Speaker 1: because when we hit like episode four hundred, I wanted to,
Speaker 1: uh just so like do the drunk episode and Ian
Speaker 1: doesn't drink. Yeah, so I was like, well, we're coming
Speaker 1: up on before too long. Now, I'm sure you have
Speaker 1: some connections within the military. What kind of um, what
Speaker 1: kind of party would you like? I don't want to
Speaker 1: call it a party, but a celebration for sure. As
Speaker 1: a celebration, how would you like to commemorate episode five
Speaker 1: because that's I mean that half a thousand, that's a
Speaker 1: big milestone. Yeah. Well, no, I'm not in the military anymore,
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to celebrate quite like that. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna drink Miller High Life, the Champagne of beers,
Speaker 1: the Champagna of beers. Uh yeah, we're not gonna drink
Speaker 1: Southern Comfort. We will. That was like the first thing
Speaker 1: is we will get in with uh with Ben Blum
Speaker 1: today about range of battalion culture. Like the first day
Speaker 1: I showed up and they got me drunk, drunk off
Speaker 1: my ass, your first Southern Comfort. Yeah, and I ended
Speaker 1: up in the shower at like two am puking all
Speaker 1: over myself. At least you were in the shower. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Well you got to think about these things ahead of time.
Speaker 1: You know, did you think about that or because I
Speaker 1: mean after that much Southern comfort, which is who got it?
Speaker 1: Is one of those things that like if I smell it,
Speaker 1: that's Yeager for me. Yeah, Yeagger. I ended up quitting
Speaker 1: Yeager later on. Now not for me. Yeah, one bad
Speaker 1: experience slept on a toilet literally just out a better
Speaker 1: man than me. I probably had a dozen bad experiences
Speaker 1: before I finally called it quits. I mean outside of
Speaker 1: ye I don't know if there's another one that I've
Speaker 1: I don't enjoy something. But it's like you said, you know,
Speaker 1: you're young, You're trying everything, and then you evolve, like
Speaker 1: so what is your what is your liquor of choice? Now?
Speaker 1: I think like a good Scotch Like, okay, I'm with you,
Speaker 1: McAllen um even Johnny Walker okay. Uh. My my ex girlfriend,
Speaker 1: her father was a big Scotch guy, and I started
Speaker 1: dating her in my early twenties, so I wasn't I
Speaker 1: didn't have the refined palette I do now, uh, which
Speaker 1: is a joke. Guys calmed down. Uh. So he he
Speaker 1: bought me, he would buy me Scotch books and he
Speaker 1: was big like open McAllen, Glenn Livilen, Finish like the
Speaker 1: whole nine. So I've learned to appreciate the culture and
Speaker 1: Scotch is one of the classier things you can drink.
Speaker 1: So for episode, I think Scotch is in order. That
Speaker 1: sounds like a plan. Okay, that sounds like a plan
Speaker 1: in May, and now we just do we have a
Speaker 1: Do we have a Scotch guy? Man? I mean I
Speaker 1: don't know that we have a guy? Maybe I need it?
Speaker 1: Do I need to locate a guy? No, not necessarily,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, um, you know, you get you
Speaker 1: get the one bottle of of something you enjoy, but
Speaker 1: then you almost kind of want like a like, what's
Speaker 1: the what's the bottle? Back here? The Oh it's Habeki.
Speaker 1: I think like I almost want to try something different
Speaker 1: in the Scotch realm where that you know, you get
Speaker 1: one that you know for sure is good, and then
Speaker 1: you get one that's like, all right, let's let's try
Speaker 1: something different. Yeah. I feel like you're you're way more
Speaker 1: culture than I am, so you definitely have that's that's debatable.
Speaker 1: But uh, oh well Froy is another one. Absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: we can we can put some feelers out there get
Speaker 1: some recommendations. I'm ali. I think Dave Richardson would have plenty.
Speaker 1: He was. That's yeah, that's a good call. He was
Speaker 1: a good Uh. I got a nice note from him
Speaker 1: in the mail the other day. He read my book
Speaker 1: and UH enjoyed it. He was great. He was very charismatic.
Speaker 1: And that's what you want the interview. Yeah, No, he
Speaker 1: sent me a very nice letter, and I need to, UM,
Speaker 1: I need to hit him up and say thank you
Speaker 1: for reading. UM. Otherwise, what do we got going on?
Speaker 1: We have the interview today. We have Ben Blum coming
Speaker 1: on the author of Ranger Games. He is the cousin
Speaker 1: of Alex Blum, who was one of the second Ranger
Speaker 1: Battalion Rangers who robbed a bank in Tacoma back in
Speaker 1: the day. And UM, Ben's book, I mean, we'll talk
Speaker 1: all about it with him, but to almost a family history. UM.
Speaker 1: It describes the bank robbery itself, but most of the
Speaker 1: book is about the why why did they do this?
Speaker 1: Why did it happen? UM, So we'll get into all
Speaker 1: of that with him, which I mean I was I
Speaker 1: was telling you before we started recording. This is I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed every interview I we've we've done in the in
Speaker 1: the two weeks before I departed, and in the three
Speaker 1: now three episodes that I've been here, I've enjoyed. Everyone
Speaker 1: brings something different to the table, with the overall theme
Speaker 1: being either you're in the military or you have some
Speaker 1: kind of military connection, and there's it's it's interesting because
Speaker 1: it's a melting pot, but the overall theme is, hey,
Speaker 1: like we're all under this umbrella together. This one really
Speaker 1: caught my eye because you talk about it often. How
Speaker 1: you know, you get people that that just support the
Speaker 1: troops and and blindly wave the flag and all this,
Speaker 1: but then you see something like this robbing a bank.
Speaker 1: Is it's so you know, like this was in the fifties,
Speaker 1: John Way would make a movie about this, and you
Speaker 1: know you'd get like, well, hello, pretty lady, and he's
Speaker 1: sitting there like with it with his with his gun
Speaker 1: on his hip, like what are you doing? And then
Speaker 1: you get like an army. Like I told you last week,
Speaker 1: If this doesn't get turned into a movie at some point,
Speaker 1: I would be shocked, like this has everything Hollywood is
Speaker 1: looking for in a film in my eyes, and I
Speaker 1: cannot wait for Ben to come on. I am excited
Speaker 1: to hear not just the story, but like you said,
Speaker 1: the why yeah, yeah, and my my problem the I
Speaker 1: guess the problem I have with the way the military
Speaker 1: is presented in all of our media, across all of
Speaker 1: our media, UM podcasts included oftentimes, is that it's like
Speaker 1: this black or white thing where like yeah, the flag waving,
Speaker 1: or it's like this pinko liberal comy, right, you know,
Speaker 1: damn imperialistic America. UM. And I was afraid that, um,
Speaker 1: that this book Ranger Games would kind of fall into
Speaker 1: that category, that it would be like just sort of
Speaker 1: like a bland anti warst statement, But really it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot more than that, and um and Ben will
Speaker 1: tell us all about it. But there are it does
Speaker 1: go into some of the negative aspects of our our
Speaker 1: culture and range of battalion and maybe some things we
Speaker 1: can do a little bit better on. And so I
Speaker 1: think there's a valid critique within the book. UM and
Speaker 1: I'd encourage people to read it. But we'll talk all
Speaker 1: about we'll talk about that in depth pretty soon here.
Speaker 1: I don't know, did anything major happen over the weekend
Speaker 1: news wise, I'm not, UM, I don't think anything that
Speaker 1: wasn't in tune. I had some I had some personal
Speaker 1: things I was dealing with. UM. I saw the one
Speaker 1: thing this isn't really um newsworthy, but I always check
Speaker 1: your Twitter just to see because you you're retweeting articles.
Speaker 1: You're you're pumping your own articles like you're the call
Speaker 1: of Duty one you just had out. UM one of
Speaker 1: the things that jumped out, and this is I don't know,
Speaker 1: this isn't like Newsworthy or anything like that, but you're
Speaker 1: going back and forth with somebody on Twitter, and it
Speaker 1: just your your response had me dying. And it's nothing
Speaker 1: like significant or anything that this one after Trump? What
Speaker 1: was Trump's original tweet? Hearing word that Russia Syria and
Speaker 1: to a lesser extent, I ran or bombing the hell
Speaker 1: out of the provinces in Syria and indiscriminately killing many
Speaker 1: innocent civilians. The world is watching this butchery. What is
Speaker 1: the purpose? What will you? What will it get? You? Stop?
Speaker 1: And you you quote tweet it talking about Trump, and
Speaker 1: then you know, obviously you get the hardcore Trumpers against you,
Speaker 1: and that's what his his lingo. Your answer was so
Speaker 1: perfect for his lingo. I don't understand military veteran types
Speaker 1: who quote don't understand Trump supporters quote when the potust
Speaker 1: clearly has an edge among vets, even millennial vets count
Speaker 1: me in as part of the Trump crowd. Any old
Speaker 1: day w t F were to support sport, Hillary, and
Speaker 1: your answer had me dying. I was kind of partial
Speaker 1: to Herman Kane old chap, which is straight out of
Speaker 1: Scott Fitzgerald. That is a Gatsby line through and through
Speaker 1: that back and forth was perfect, Dennis. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you picked up on that, like somebody actually realized there
Speaker 1: was a joke in there. Uh. And I looked at
Speaker 1: because I saw old Chap and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: in the in the short weeks that I've known you,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't think you're just gonna throw an old chap
Speaker 1: for just old English, say like, there's is probably a
Speaker 1: reason why. So I did, I you know, I looked
Speaker 1: up and sure ship he called you. What was the
Speaker 1: first one? It was it just sport? Now there was
Speaker 1: another one I got. I'm like reading it, No, what
Speaker 1: what were we to support sport? Like? Well, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: how could you possibly confus, you know, misunderstand Donald Trump
Speaker 1: or his supporters even though the guy contradicts himself all
Speaker 1: the time. Like, no, wonder why anyone would be confused.
Speaker 1: It's just odd to me. I mean, Donald Trump made
Speaker 1: these very bold statements about killing people in the Middle
Speaker 1: East and we need to kill these people and that
Speaker 1: people and blah blah blah throughout. You know, that's his
Speaker 1: his very common rhetoric that we've all heard. So for
Speaker 1: him to like take to Twitter to condemn um the
Speaker 1: Assad regime and Russia, um, you know, bombarding it lib
Speaker 1: is kind of weird. Um, just kind of surreal. And
Speaker 1: and that's why I comment that. I was like, isn't
Speaker 1: this what the MAGA crowd it is? To just turn
Speaker 1: the Middle East into a glass parking lot, set the
Speaker 1: dogs off the leash, Yeah, take our take our boys
Speaker 1: off their chains, you know, like I thought that was
Speaker 1: what you wanted. Um, So yeah, yes, you can consider
Speaker 1: me amongst the confused. I don't always understand what the
Speaker 1: narrative is that I'm supposed to believe. Like it's not
Speaker 1: that I don't believe the narrative, it's not I don't
Speaker 1: even know what the narrative is anymore. I don't even
Speaker 1: know if Trump does. No, I don't think so there
Speaker 1: isn't one. It's just whatever whatever I say when I
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning. You know, you're supposed to
Speaker 1: obey God, Emperor, King Trump and and just go along
Speaker 1: with it and throw your maga hat on like he
Speaker 1: throws on Fox. It was he sees what's going on
Speaker 1: and he just says the opposite. You know, they're they're
Speaker 1: bombing in the Middle East. Why are we doing that?
Speaker 1: And it was like, well, two months ago, like you said, X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z, why why are we Why why are they
Speaker 1: bombing it Lib where all these terrorists are while we're
Speaker 1: bombing the ship out of We bombed the ship out
Speaker 1: of missle, we bombed the ship out of places in Afghanistan.
Speaker 1: We've drone strike the ship out of families in Pakistan,
Speaker 1: like where our bombs are waylaying Yemen. I mean, like, well,
Speaker 1: what he'll forget that part. Yeah, So yes, I am confused.
Speaker 1: I'm a little confused about now. This gets me to thinking,
Speaker 1: obviously Trump is huge on Twitter. As you were talking,
Speaker 1: I literally thought in my head, if there was one
Speaker 1: other person political leader that you would for entertainment for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, that you would want to see tweet like
Speaker 1: Trump does. My first instinct was Kim Jong un, like,
Speaker 1: I would love to see what he comes up with.
Speaker 1: On Twitter. There is one it's called um d p
Speaker 1: r K DPRK News, and it's a parody account for
Speaker 1: the North Korean government and it is fucking hilarious. I
Speaker 1: actually haven't been on it in a long time, but
Speaker 1: it's uh, go ahead and take a look at that
Speaker 1: DPRK news service. Yeah, but I mean you look at
Speaker 1: you and it's I guess it's embarrassing that Trump is
Speaker 1: almost like for the first the first thing to come
Speaker 1: to your mind is a parody account when I asked you,
Speaker 1: who would you like to see tweet like Trump does
Speaker 1: and real real life is more like a parody every day. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I was watching I saw this headline that
Speaker 1: a couple of veterans had walked out on Acasto Cortez
Speaker 1: during a meeting, and I was like, Okay, that maybe
Speaker 1: that's something I should write about, you know, for our website.
Speaker 1: So I went and watched the news clip on Fox
Speaker 1: News and I was like, dude, this is like this
Speaker 1: is like an snl skit like is this real? And
Speaker 1: it has this little news segment with these two older
Speaker 1: veterans has like everything in it. It's like these uh,
Speaker 1: these two boomers complaining that Acasto Cortez said something about
Speaker 1: how we're dropping bombs on Yemen or our bombs are
Speaker 1: falling on Yemen as I described a minute ago, and
Speaker 1: they like walked out because they're like, oh, she's anti American,
Speaker 1: and they were like just kind of whining in the
Speaker 1: in the Fox News hosts or you know, you served
Speaker 1: our country, why why were you just you were so
Speaker 1: disgusted with her that you had to turn your back
Speaker 1: and walk out, And you know, it's just everything inside
Speaker 1: this one news segment. It's like this is this is
Speaker 1: literally a Saturday Night Live skit. Like you couldn't make
Speaker 1: this up. It was right wing bingo. Yeah, check it
Speaker 1: checked all that. You're just sitting there with your stamp
Speaker 1: and grandma next thank you for your service right there
Speaker 1: in the center block. Yeah, that's the free space. Make
Speaker 1: sure that the middle yeah. Um yeah. So it's it's
Speaker 1: just surreal. Um. But I wrote that. I did write that,
Speaker 1: uh that op ed about um call of duty, and
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm not going to spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time talking about it. You can go read it if
Speaker 1: you want, But the Call of Duty games just have
Speaker 1: this particular brand of nihilism to them that you know,
Speaker 1: we're just like a bunch of thugs deployed on the
Speaker 1: global war and terra no one really knows or cares
Speaker 1: what we're fighting for. And it's just very romanticized but
Speaker 1: also nihilistic vision of what we're doing around the world.
Speaker 1: And I wrote about that, and it was funny. Some
Speaker 1: of the feedback you get is is just a video game?
Speaker 1: Who cares? Well, if you read this this book here
Speaker 1: Ranger games, all this thing talks about well, and it's
Speaker 1: not all it talks about, but video games are prominent
Speaker 1: throughout this book, all these young guys playing video games
Speaker 1: and um, their favorite movies, war movies. And so I'm
Speaker 1: not saying that video games make people rob banks or
Speaker 1: anything like that. What I'm saying is that video games
Speaker 1: and movies have a influence on our culture. They contribute.
Speaker 1: It's not the it's not the driving factor. But sure,
Speaker 1: if you're you know, if you're playing Coal of Duty
Speaker 1: or any other you know, warfare game like that, and
Speaker 1: you're just playing, and you know, you get to almost desensitized,
Speaker 1: like just you know, you moaning people down who cares?
Speaker 1: And when the video game is saying you are the
Speaker 1: special Operator, you go and you you shoot civilians, like
Speaker 1: that's what you do, that's what you have to do.
Speaker 1: Like one of the games is actually like it encourages
Speaker 1: you to murder civilians. You're like undercover with the terrorists.
Speaker 1: And yeah, um, And I'm not saying I'm not before
Speaker 1: anyone uh starts going ape shit on me, I'm not
Speaker 1: calling for censorship. I'm not saying these games should be illegal.
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you that for me, I look at
Speaker 1: it and I say, I don't really want to participate
Speaker 1: in this, and I think it's kind of gross. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean with the with the coal of dude, I don't.
Speaker 1: I think it's cold duty that does them. They have
Speaker 1: the Nazi zombie um segment of the game and that
Speaker 1: like that you can get behind because it's like zombies,
Speaker 1: and I have no problem killing zombies. They're they're not real. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean in the video game there's certainly not really,
Speaker 1: I don't know how you feel about it in real life.
Speaker 1: But when you start, when the mission tells you to
Speaker 1: mow down innocent civilians, yeah, that's getting a little dice.
Speaker 1: My favorite games or one of my favorite games are
Speaker 1: the the Deis X series, and I really like it
Speaker 1: because it puts you you are, you know, the playing
Speaker 1: in the first person as the protagonist, and it puts
Speaker 1: you in these very ambiguous, morally gray areas and then
Speaker 1: it presents you with a series of decisions. There's multiple
Speaker 1: pathways to take in the games, so you have to
Speaker 1: decide which path you're gonna take, and none of them
Speaker 1: are clearly good or bad. The whole thing is great.
Speaker 1: It's very gray. Yeah, I mean there are some things
Speaker 1: you could do that are clearly like psychopathic, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess if you want to play a more evil
Speaker 1: type of character, or if you wanted to play like
Speaker 1: the morally virtuous, uh, the White Knight Sci fi Paladin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but most of most of it in the game is
Speaker 1: very gray and you really have to balance or try
Speaker 1: to figure out, you know, where would I stand on this,
Speaker 1: like what would I do? And I think those kind
Speaker 1: of games are cool because they make you think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, they make you contemplate. It's not just it's
Speaker 1: not black and white, like you know, if I do this,
Speaker 1: this is what's going to happen? And if I go
Speaker 1: this way then, like you said, you're thinking more about
Speaker 1: and you said in the in the call of Duty
Speaker 1: piece that when you first played it, you uh the
Speaker 1: call of Duty one, that is, you just started shooting
Speaker 1: the terrorists and then they just prompted like they just
Speaker 1: there was there was an automatic like look, we're killing
Speaker 1: you like this. Yeah, this isn't what you're supposed to.
Speaker 1: Follow up that wasn't call of duty too, So yeah,
Speaker 1: the game is telling you what you're supposed to be
Speaker 1: like and it's like, well, now I don't want to
Speaker 1: that's not as fun. I like. I like the games
Speaker 1: where it almost choose your own adventure. Yeah, for those
Speaker 1: of you who remember those books and I did, I mean,
Speaker 1: don't get I don't play that many video games. I
Speaker 1: just don't have the time and maybe I just don't
Speaker 1: have the inclination. I play a couple, maybe one or
Speaker 1: two a year. But I mean I like video games.
Speaker 1: I even like shooters, you know. Yeah, I mean see
Speaker 1: I was not a military man, but it's interesting because
Speaker 1: I would like to get I mean, like you said,
Speaker 1: you play shooters, and uh, my friend I have I
Speaker 1: have one friend that's a huge gamer, and one of
Speaker 1: his close friends was was in the army and he
Speaker 1: doesn't mind playing it either, But I'd like to get
Speaker 1: a perspective that, like, you know, you lived it, so
Speaker 1: when you play video games, it kind of just like this,
Speaker 1: like do you nitpick it? Like is this realistic? Like yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I don't really feel the need to nitpick it. I
Speaker 1: just think that. And you know that Call of Duty game.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this trailer and it shows these characters
Speaker 1: are doing Halo jumps, They're they're inserting on little birds
Speaker 1: and things, and it's like stuff I actually did in
Speaker 1: my military career that was kind of Okay, that's kind
Speaker 1: of cool, But then the way it gets kind of contextualized,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just something that I feel kind of
Speaker 1: uncomfortable with. I guess fair enough. Um, before we bring
Speaker 1: on Bend, do you want to discuss anything further any
Speaker 1: other articles? There's another another article I wrote that will
Speaker 1: be coming out um today, so it'll certainly be out
Speaker 1: by the time people listen to. This is about the
Speaker 1: United States trying to repair our relationship with the Indonesian
Speaker 1: special forces, who have a bunch of human rights accusations
Speaker 1: against them over the years. UM. So it looks like
Speaker 1: we're trying to repair that relationship, which I'm sure plays
Speaker 1: into um, China asserting itself in the South China Sea.
Speaker 1: We need some allies out there in the Pacific. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I wrote another article. Um, still touching it up.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to get into the subject matter yet,
Speaker 1: but it should be out by the time people hear this,
Speaker 1: I think, let's hope. So because you told me the
Speaker 1: topic and just from the topic, loan it'll be another
Speaker 1: quality piece. Well, I can tell I'm gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: be one of it's gonna be one of those pieces
Speaker 1: where I get death threats. It makes it makes it
Speaker 1: a good piece, though, No, it is. It is. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get it all over again. That's just part
Speaker 1: and parcel of the job though. Um. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to say what it's about,
Speaker 1: just in case it doesn't go out tomorrow. But um,
Speaker 1: pretty pretty controversial, uh subject matter that will come out
Speaker 1: hopefully tomorrow. That's a that's a tease in the biz,
Speaker 1: that's what they call that. Yeah, that was well done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we'll see it should be out by the time
Speaker 1: people hear this, all right, And then up Next, we
Speaker 1: have Ben Blump, author he wrote Ranger Games, a story
Speaker 1: of soldiers, families and an inexplicable crime. But before we
Speaker 1: get to Ben, this show is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Create Club, a club four men by men of Gear,
Speaker 1: hand picked by Special Operations military veterans. Visit create Club
Speaker 1: dot us for an exclusive promotion for our listeners of
Speaker 1: off your subscription. This is the biggest discount we've ever
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Speaker 1: Go to create Club dot us, use the coupon code
Speaker 1: soft rep and get off any subscription that's create Club
Speaker 1: dot Us coupon code soft rep s o f r EP.
Speaker 1: Off it up now, and here's Ben Blum with us.
Speaker 1: Now we have Ben Blum, author of Ranger Games, A
Speaker 1: story of soldiers, family and an inexplicable crime. Ben, you
Speaker 1: got your masters and fine arts from n y U,
Speaker 1: your PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley,
Speaker 1: and then when you found out your cousin UH committed
Speaker 1: this crime in two thousand and six, you left your
Speaker 1: job and you just began the research on like what
Speaker 1: take us through that process, like you just decided, all right,
Speaker 1: this is an interesting story we're gonna get right into.
Speaker 1: Like I want to. I want to write the best
Speaker 1: book possible. So in order to do that, I gotta
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to leave my job. Interesting kind of
Speaker 1: doesn't begin to cover it. It was. It was a
Speaker 1: giant family catastrophe when my cousin was arrested. He'd been
Speaker 1: he'd been the kind of goody two shoes, patriotic, all American, um,
Speaker 1: kid of the family. Uh. And it's cocked us all
Speaker 1: when when he was arrested for bank robbery. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just so completely out of the blue. UM.
Speaker 1: So I was working at the time at a biochemistry
Speaker 1: lab doing my PhD research, and um, about ten months
Speaker 1: into Alex's imprisonment, he um, he wrote an account of
Speaker 1: his training, both basic training and then the ranger In
Speaker 1: doctrination program. UM. And I read that and was kind
Speaker 1: of blown away. UM. I started to to just get
Speaker 1: more personally invested in this story and trying to understand
Speaker 1: how this kid that I knew growing up had come
Speaker 1: to the point of robbing a bank. So he and
Speaker 1: I started um communicating. I wrote him a couple of
Speaker 1: letters while he was in prison. He wrote back. Friendship
Speaker 1: developed and Um and over time that grew into a
Speaker 1: joint plan to write a book together about his story.
Speaker 1: It's pretty incredible because the book Ranger Games, it's a
Speaker 1: book about really a lot of things. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a fan the history, it's uh, it's about the process
Speaker 1: of you writing this book with Alex Um. And then
Speaker 1: it's also the main point of it. I think the
Speaker 1: main thrust of it really is the why why did
Speaker 1: this happen? Um? But before we get to that, I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask you the what because I think there
Speaker 1: are some people who are coming to this fresh and
Speaker 1: have probably no idea what we're talking about. If you
Speaker 1: could describe to us, UM the bank robbery itself and
Speaker 1: how that went down before we move forward. Sure so,
Speaker 1: Um Alex was a nineteen year old private UM at
Speaker 1: the time the second range of Battalion at UM Fort Lewis.
Speaker 1: Now it's joined based Lewis McCord um and Uh. The
Speaker 1: robbery was organized by his former team leader, specialist Luke
Speaker 1: Elliott summer Um. There were five guys involved in the robber,
Speaker 1: three Rangers and two Canadian associates of summers um and summer.
Speaker 1: When he first started concocting that this plan, pitched it
Speaker 1: to those around him and battalion as a kind of
Speaker 1: a thought experiment, like, let's think how we do a
Speaker 1: real bank robber using our skills, which is very common,
Speaker 1: I might add to the spit ball about that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So I hear, so I hear, I mean
Speaker 1: I as I understand. I'm not, of course, um a
Speaker 1: range of myself. I have no military experience whatsoever. Everything
Speaker 1: I know about this I know at second hand through
Speaker 1: having talked to a number of soldiers the course of
Speaker 1: the research for the book. But I've heard that from
Speaker 1: many sources that that's a common way to kind of
Speaker 1: blow off steam and also to um exercise you're growing
Speaker 1: tactical skills. Um, you run these thought experiments, uh, anytime
Speaker 1: you're out seeing a movie, you know, getting a drink
Speaker 1: at the bar, getting a sandwich like quiz nos um
Speaker 1: and uh, and just shoot the breeze with with fellow
Speaker 1: soldiers about it. So that's what someone was doing for
Speaker 1: a long time, and Alex started to get involved on
Speaker 1: that basis, and at a certain point it just started
Speaker 1: to get a little bit uncomfortably real um. And then
Speaker 1: so at a certain point, you know, it tipped over
Speaker 1: into full on reality and they really robbed this Bank
Speaker 1: of America branch in Tacoma. Five guys went in take
Speaker 1: over robbery. They had a K forty sevens and pistols um.
Speaker 1: They were inside for about two minutes, a very fast moving,
Speaker 1: well executed robbery from a tactual perspective, although from a
Speaker 1: criminal perspective, totally bone headed because they didn't so much
Speaker 1: just cover up the license plates on the gateway car.
Speaker 1: And then they got out of there with about fifty
Speaker 1: dollars and Alex was arrested three days later in Denver
Speaker 1: after they tracked the plates. And as I recall, I
Speaker 1: pulled the book off my shelf yesterday to and refresh
Speaker 1: my memory. This happened just as second Range of Battalion
Speaker 1: was put on leave, so these guys had a little
Speaker 1: bit of spare time. They went and executed this bank robbery,
Speaker 1: and then they went up. You know, Alex went on
Speaker 1: leave back home to Colorado, and Elliott Sohmer went to Canada.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, he grew up in British Columbia. He
Speaker 1: had dual citizenship. His father was an American. Um and
Speaker 1: uh so he his family still lived up there. He
Speaker 1: went back to his mother's house and then ended up
Speaker 1: um mounting a like year long extradition battle out there,
Speaker 1: claiming to have staged the bank robbery to gain a
Speaker 1: platform to protest war crimes that he witnessed in Afghanistan
Speaker 1: and Iraq. I mean, that's a whole crazy other story.
Speaker 1: You can get it too if you want to. And
Speaker 1: the FEDS caught up on you know, caught them very quickly.
Speaker 1: I mean they pieced it together pretty quickly. Yeah. The
Speaker 1: FBI agent in charge of the investigation took one look
Speaker 1: at the security camera videos and was like, these guys
Speaker 1: are soldiers, you know. It was Um, it was pretty
Speaker 1: apparent that the level of athleticism and just kind of
Speaker 1: tactical acuity on display and the robbery was way above
Speaker 1: and beyond anything that he had seen in his hundreds
Speaker 1: of past bank robbery cases. Um. Uh. In the beginning
Speaker 1: of the robbery, specialist Summer, Um just sprints in and
Speaker 1: vaults clear over this eight or nine foot high bandit barrier,
Speaker 1: the plexiglass barrier separating the tellers from the rest of
Speaker 1: the bank. Um, it's just a athletically pretty impressive move. UM,
Speaker 1: so he immediately suspected that they were military, and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, witness to the to the crime got the plates.
Speaker 1: He called Fort Lewis and had them check against their
Speaker 1: records and Alex was the first one that they arrested
Speaker 1: since it was his car. As I was reading the book,
Speaker 1: I I was going back through last night, I realized
Speaker 1: that all of the parts I bookmarked in the book,
Speaker 1: they're not so much about Ranger Battalion, and they're not
Speaker 1: so much about Um about the bank robbery itself. There
Speaker 1: are the parts about Um being a psychopath and specifically
Speaker 1: in regards to sohmrs and some of your conversations with
Speaker 1: him UM, and that was some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: really jumped right out at me. And I felt that
Speaker 1: it's so um telling because what because of the hierarchy
Speaker 1: you have in the military and who's in charge of you,
Speaker 1: whether you have a good experience in the army or
Speaker 1: a bad experience depends so much on the personalities and
Speaker 1: who you wind up with. I mean, is your team
Speaker 1: leader a good guy or a bad guy? And in
Speaker 1: this case, Alex ended up with a team leader who's
Speaker 1: a psychopath and so I was wondering if you could
Speaker 1: kind of take it from there about as far as
Speaker 1: like the why why did this crime happen? Why did
Speaker 1: Alex get involved in it? Why? Why why did all
Speaker 1: of this go down the way it did. I think
Speaker 1: that if there's any one deciding factor and Alex getting involved,
Speaker 1: that is it. Um. Elliott Summer is a truly unusual guy,
Speaker 1: and UM I ended up coming to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: that was the the best one word summary of of
Speaker 1: of what's going on with his brain. UM. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, certainly that's that's an opinion that I heard
Speaker 1: from a variety of sources. He Uh, he experienced some
Speaker 1: ugly stuff. I think on his first two deployments to
Speaker 1: Afghanistan Iraq, Um he became a little disillusioned about the military. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a political element of that, but also he
Speaker 1: confessed to me openly that morale he had always been
Speaker 1: kind of a mystery to him. Like other people did
Speaker 1: moral things out of what seemed to be an innate
Speaker 1: drive inside them, but for him it was like, UM,
Speaker 1: I guess I could do moral stuff because that seems
Speaker 1: to be what makes people most comfortable, But I don't
Speaker 1: really see any reason other than that, So he would
Speaker 1: kind of imitate moral behavior based on models around him. Um.
Speaker 1: And then that just meant that there were very few
Speaker 1: internal checks on him going kind of batshit crazy with
Speaker 1: this bank robbery scheme. What do you think it says
Speaker 1: about Ranger Battalion that a guy like Somers gets in
Speaker 1: that he goes through this The entire selection process that
Speaker 1: we're told that we're told is um so comprehensive and
Speaker 1: time tested that we get these elite soldiers UM, people
Speaker 1: who are our best and brightest, But you end up
Speaker 1: with a guy who's a psychopath. And he breathed right
Speaker 1: through whatever psychological value watitions they gave him. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, according to him and his UM family, he
Speaker 1: wasn't given psychological screening. Um. I don't know how standard
Speaker 1: that is now um he uh. And he did have
Speaker 1: some difficulty at battalion UM for the couple of years
Speaker 1: that he was there before Alex met him. His platoon
Speaker 1: sergeant recognized that he was emotionally immature and um uh.
Speaker 1: Summer's family when they tried to um convey their concerns
Speaker 1: about his mental health to the platoon, they were they
Speaker 1: were kind of rebuffed, but looking at it now, I
Speaker 1: think I think there was an emerging picture that Summer
Speaker 1: might have some issues. But you know, it jumped out
Speaker 1: at me finally after all the research I did. UM,
Speaker 1: I am an outsider all this, and I have to
Speaker 1: tell you, you know, it's a it's it's always a
Speaker 1: big honor for me to be able to speak to
Speaker 1: folks like you who have real experience in this world. UM.
Speaker 1: And I apologize in advance or anything that I get wrong.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole language to this world that I
Speaker 1: as I researched the book, but UM, it's just impossible
Speaker 1: to be truly deeply familiar with it unless you experience it.
Speaker 1: So but my impression that I got is that it's
Speaker 1: really quite unusual, UM in militaries around the world for
Speaker 1: an elite special Operations Force to be formed from raw recruits. UM.
Speaker 1: Usually UM guys will serve a little time in the
Speaker 1: regular army. The really truly experienced ones then go through
Speaker 1: the more rigorous training to UM and our special operations
Speaker 1: units and the rangers. It's just such a fast track
Speaker 1: to doing really highly sensitive self to admissions UM. And
Speaker 1: so I think I think it's you can you can
Speaker 1: work hard to weed out the really crazy guys, the
Speaker 1: guys who are not mature enough to handle this kind
Speaker 1: of responsibility to some extent. But to some extent, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that that only shows up over
Speaker 1: time through experience on the undeployment, through the different relationships
Speaker 1: that a soldier forms with different kinds of superiors and
Speaker 1: UM and teammates and even subordinates, if they're given a
Speaker 1: little bit of leadership responsibility, as Summer was. And uh,
Speaker 1: and I guess it seems that Summer was was given
Speaker 1: responsibility a little bit, a little bit too quickly. Um to.
Speaker 1: In my view, it's interesting that they say that he
Speaker 1: wasn't given psychological screening. And obviously I didn't go through
Speaker 1: um the ranger and doctrination program with him, but I
Speaker 1: mean I went through in two thousand three and we
Speaker 1: had it wasn't comprehensive, but we did have a questionnaire
Speaker 1: we had to fill out and then a short interview
Speaker 1: with a psychologist. UM. So it's interesting if they did
Speaker 1: away with that, what it would have been, you know,
Speaker 1: not long after I went through that he did. I
Speaker 1: would suppose, Oh, that is interesting. Although you know, psychopaths
Speaker 1: are kind of famously hard to diagnose because they're brilliant
Speaker 1: at creating a persona seamless pressworthy persona. And you did,
Speaker 1: uh you wouldn't like talk to his mother and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and turned up all of these like wild
Speaker 1: stories of how um, you know, a very very grandiose personality.
Speaker 1: And I think you even say at one point that
Speaker 1: people like him that people who have psychopathy issues they
Speaker 1: think they're much more competent than they actually are, which
Speaker 1: I think is a common running theme, including the bank
Speaker 1: robbery itself. I end up forming a surprisingly close relationship
Speaker 1: with his mother, who had this kind of unique combination
Speaker 1: of clear eyed view of um Elliott and his character
Speaker 1: and also that kind of unbreakable mother's love, like she
Speaker 1: wanted the best for him no matter what. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she told me that. All through his childhood he just
Speaker 1: had gigantic schemes. He was like calling people at NASA
Speaker 1: to talk about his ideas for space travel. He was
Speaker 1: like calling Bill Gates to try to get funding for
Speaker 1: his video game company at age thirteen. He um he
Speaker 1: was always a big dreamer, and it was never clear
Speaker 1: that he recognized the boundary between dream and reality. He
Speaker 1: kind of actually thought that he was living out these
Speaker 1: fantasy versions of himself. He's grandiest fantasy versions of himself
Speaker 1: that would then be very persuasive to friends and of
Speaker 1: people around him. I would be remissed too if I
Speaker 1: didn't ask you about your cousin Alex, and a little
Speaker 1: bit more about his upbringing, which was you know, in
Speaker 1: personality which is very different than than somers, and what
Speaker 1: their relationship was like in Ranger Battalion. Sure, Um, Alex
Speaker 1: had a pretty sheltered upbringing. He grew up in Greenwood Village, Colorado.
Speaker 1: It's a little suburban enclave. His dad was a pretty
Speaker 1: successful real estate developer. Um and uh he he had
Speaker 1: a lot of like um, a lot of drive to
Speaker 1: become a soldier. Our grandfather served in World War Two.
Speaker 1: We grew up with stories of his great military exploits,
Speaker 1: but I don't think he had much of a sense
Speaker 1: of the reality of military life. Um. He are are
Speaker 1: great uncle told him a little bit about his service
Speaker 1: back in the fifties. But Alex was the only one
Speaker 1: in our family who aspired to um to go military
Speaker 1: uh and who knew anything about it. Um. So he
Speaker 1: had kind of a storybook idea. I think of what
Speaker 1: it meant to be a soldier. And you know, he like,
Speaker 1: like all kids's age who love army stuff. He just
Speaker 1: drank up every movie black Hawk Down, Staving Private Ryan.
Speaker 1: He was obsessed. He played all the video games like
Speaker 1: Endless Hours on Call of Duty, UM, and he was
Speaker 1: very idealistic about it all. He really wanted to go,
Speaker 1: you know, defend freedom and save America. UM. So then
Speaker 1: he met Summer and they connected over hockey. Originally, Alex
Speaker 1: was kind of a high school hockey star and UM Summer,
Speaker 1: as it turned out, wasn't but kind of pretended he
Speaker 1: was to connect with Alex. He played enough to be
Speaker 1: able to speak convincingly about it, but it turned out
Speaker 1: he had not actually been on the team that he
Speaker 1: claimed to have been on, UM, which Alex had once
Speaker 1: traveled up to Canada to be against UH, and they
Speaker 1: just formed one of those kind of tight, jokey um
Speaker 1: fast friendships that the people form under immense stress. Alex
Speaker 1: just felt very honored that a tab was interested in him.
Speaker 1: You know, as I understand that there's a real social
Speaker 1: divide between privates, UM and and tabs at Battalion, and
Speaker 1: Summer was one of the feud across that boundary. Um.
Speaker 1: He took a special interest in certain privates and would
Speaker 1: bring them out around Tacoma UM for extra you know,
Speaker 1: quote unquote tactical exercises when they visit places and somewhat
Speaker 1: asked them how they robbed the place. And Alex just
Speaker 1: felt very honored to be given that attention. But I
Speaker 1: mean there's also a dark side to that relationship too,
Speaker 1: wasn't there. I mean there he was having him do
Speaker 1: things like the suicide check and stuff like that. It
Speaker 1: started to get a little culti. Um. So the suicide
Speaker 1: check was Summer would throw a pistol to one of
Speaker 1: the guys that he hung out with, one of these
Speaker 1: privates and his crew and called suicide check, and then
Speaker 1: the guy would have to hold it to his his
Speaker 1: head and pull the trigger, trusting that um, the gun
Speaker 1: wasn't loaded. Uh. And I think that, you know, looking
Speaker 1: back for Alex, it's very clear that there was a
Speaker 1: long grooming process by which Summer brought him under increasing
Speaker 1: control and that was part of it. And so what
Speaker 1: was going through Alex's head when his team leader tells him,
Speaker 1: you know, come with me and at a certain point,
Speaker 1: and I mean, that's one of the main questions I
Speaker 1: think you try to answer in your book is when
Speaker 1: did Alex know he was robbing a bank? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: is that is the key question. Um. So, when Alex
Speaker 1: first told me in the family the story of what
Speaker 1: had happened to him, he said that he had believed
Speaker 1: that this was a training exercise. You know, period, that
Speaker 1: was the story. I thought this was a training exercise.
Speaker 1: I would never have done something like this. I thought
Speaker 1: it was a training exercise. Um And when I first
Speaker 1: really pushed him on it, he went so far as
Speaker 1: to say that even in the moment of robbing the bank,
Speaker 1: like driving these guys, they're seeing them jump out of
Speaker 1: the car with a K forty seven's, He's still thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: this has to be an exercise. This has to be
Speaker 1: an exercise. Summer has somehow set up some off post
Speaker 1: final exercise before we deployed. They were on their final
Speaker 1: leave before Alex's first deployment, just like a little week
Speaker 1: long block leave. Uh. And then over time, as I
Speaker 1: researched the story more, as I kept pushing Alex on
Speaker 1: that point because it just seemed so impossible to me,
Speaker 1: um that story started to crumble a little bit. I
Speaker 1: started to see flashes of comprehension, and Alex that that
Speaker 1: that came a little earlier than that, and I think, um,
Speaker 1: you know, not to give away the whole arc of
Speaker 1: the book, but um, by the end, I Alex really
Speaker 1: came to grapple with his involvement at a deeper level,
Speaker 1: and to admit to himself and to me that UM,
Speaker 1: at least a part of them recognize, hey, this is
Speaker 1: a real bank robbery. And he was just too scared
Speaker 1: to back out at that point. Scared in a variety
Speaker 1: of ways. I mean in one sense that by then
Speaker 1: he was pretty criminally implicated in preparations and concrete preparations
Speaker 1: for it. In another sense, he was just scared of Summer.
Speaker 1: He thought, if I go and try to report this
Speaker 1: to um the platoon starge into some superior I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get laughed out of the room, like they're gonna say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, Summer, you've been planning a bank ropery. And
Speaker 1: someone was like this idiot, cherry private, like these are
Speaker 1: just the usual ranger thought exercises, and he's just you know,
Speaker 1: taking it well too seriously. UM. And then Alex was
Speaker 1: terrified of what would happen on deployment was summer after
Speaker 1: he tried to write him out, so he just I
Speaker 1: think he felt himself at a certain point. I think
Speaker 1: he did realize that it was real and just felt himself,
Speaker 1: uh trapped into moving forward with it, even though he
Speaker 1: didn't want to. Some of the stuff we're talking about here,
Speaker 1: I mean, and even to me, it like sounds so
Speaker 1: ridiculous that, Okay, you're a soldier in the army, got it,
Speaker 1: But how could you really believe that? Um? But I
Speaker 1: have to I've been out of the military for like
Speaker 1: nine years now, and I left Ranger of Battalion in
Speaker 1: two thousand six, so it's been a while. I really
Speaker 1: had as I was reading your book, I had to
Speaker 1: place myself back when I was in that position, when
Speaker 1: I was a Range of Battalion private and really think
Speaker 1: about those cult like aspects of the unit, which makes
Speaker 1: the unit very cohesive in combat, which is great, but
Speaker 1: there is that negative side to it, and I just
Speaker 1: thought about it, like, what if my team leader was
Speaker 1: a bad guy? What if my squad leader was a
Speaker 1: bad guy? And I was so fortunate I know now
Speaker 1: looking back on it, that I had ethical leaders who
Speaker 1: you know, would keep me pretty much on the right track.
Speaker 1: But what if that wasn't the case? And in that regard,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I'm that different than Alex,
Speaker 1: especially when we were privates and range of battalion. And
Speaker 1: I can see how this book you wrote represents going
Speaker 1: down a different road, going down a darker road. I
Speaker 1: think that's absolutely true. I mean, it's UM just as
Speaker 1: you say. It's really astonishing the difference it makes. What
Speaker 1: kind of a team leader you have when you are
Speaker 1: a fresh young private who doesn't doesn't know the new
Speaker 1: cultural norms of this this group that you're joining, who's
Speaker 1: looking to superiors for cues about what standard range of behavior,
Speaker 1: what's not, what's acceptable, what isn't? You know, you've suddenly
Speaker 1: been given license to shoot and kill p bowl, which
Speaker 1: used to be completely against any moral standard that everyone
Speaker 1: you know, UM lives by. So the rules are all
Speaker 1: suddenly in question, like your whole world has been turned
Speaker 1: upside down. You've just come out of rip or now
Speaker 1: you know the Range Assessment selection program and that's a
Speaker 1: pretty you know, upsetting experience, Like that's uh, There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of sleep deprivation and and exhaustion and pain,
Speaker 1: and you're just discombobulated and looking to someone, anyone to
Speaker 1: set your feet back on the ground and get you
Speaker 1: comfortable in this new world. And for Alex that was
Speaker 1: that was Elliott Summer. You wrote that when so Sommer
Speaker 1: and Uh and Alex both end up in jail, and
Speaker 1: you write that Alex was like doing push ups and
Speaker 1: doing pt because he really thought like this whole thing
Speaker 1: was going to be cleared up and he was going
Speaker 1: to go join his battalion on deployment. That is completely true.
Speaker 1: He really felt like, um, it all seemed so normal
Speaker 1: to him at every step along the way. One of
Speaker 1: the things Summer was really artful about doing is joking
Speaker 1: about these bank robber these bank robbery plans openly around battalion,
Speaker 1: with Alex and the other privates present, in a way
Speaker 1: that normalized it all. Like it really felt like everyone
Speaker 1: was just kind of in on this. This is just
Speaker 1: the kind of ship that rangers do. Um. And so
Speaker 1: Alex just, I mean, he was clearly it was a
Speaker 1: delusional mindset, but he was just waiting for some superior
Speaker 1: to swoop in and make this whole nightmare go away.
Speaker 1: It just it just did not compute to him, and
Speaker 1: it all felt so normal. He thought he'd just been
Speaker 1: Um kind of doing what this tab was requiring him
Speaker 1: to do. He it was almost like another one of
Speaker 1: these many hazing rituals that he had to go through
Speaker 1: to be accepted as a full member of Italian and
Speaker 1: he was just yeah, waiting for it to all be
Speaker 1: cleared up so we could go do what he'd been
Speaker 1: wanting to do for his whole life and deploy. But
Speaker 1: on Somer's end, he had yet another grandiose plan to
Speaker 1: portray his bank robbery as being about exposing war crimes,
Speaker 1: right right. So one of the big wake up calls
Speaker 1: to Alex actually was when one of his cell mates,
Speaker 1: Um at the Federal Detention Center called him over and said, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm listening to NPR. This kind of sounds like that
Speaker 1: guy Summer Um. And Alex listened, and there's Summer on
Speaker 1: NPR like claiming to have, you know, videotape or photographs
Speaker 1: of of atrocities committed in Afghanistan, and and and kind of,
Speaker 1: I mean, Summer is always acting out a different role
Speaker 1: from a movie that he loves, and he just shifted
Speaker 1: into v for Vendetta mode. He was like the kind
Speaker 1: of dark rebel he year speaking truth from underground in
Speaker 1: his command center and his his mother's basement. Um, and
Speaker 1: that was that was really a jolt to Alex, like
Speaker 1: he kind of expected Summer to be, um, still cool
Speaker 1: with everyone back at battalion and working things out with them,
Speaker 1: and it kind of became clear at that point that
Speaker 1: someone was following a very very different script. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so Summer kept that up for a long time. Um.
Speaker 1: He a whole steady stream of journalists um trooped up
Speaker 1: there to interview him in Canada, and then um, he
Speaker 1: was finally arrested in June of the next year, I think,
Speaker 1: and oh my god, it reminds me, wasn't there he
Speaker 1: told some story about a black helicopter like hovering over
Speaker 1: his mom's house. Yeah, yeah, Um, that's right. When I
Speaker 1: went up to visit, he claimed that, yeah, that there
Speaker 1: was this US helicopter that had violated a Canadian air
Speaker 1: space secretly to hover over their property, um, to try
Speaker 1: to extract him. And I mean he was just yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but the wild yeah, the wild thing is I mean
Speaker 1: his family even kind of believed this by then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so crazy the way that his fantasies would just kind
Speaker 1: of keep spilling out and unfolding those around him. That's
Speaker 1: the really disturbing thing about a psychopath. And I've encountered
Speaker 1: a couple in my lifetime, and actually one of them
Speaker 1: was a guy who was in Ranger Battalion, and it's
Speaker 1: it's unnerving for me personally. I don't know how you felt.
Speaker 1: I mean, you tell us about interviewing Elliott, but I
Speaker 1: mean for me, I work as a as a journalist
Speaker 1: and researcher. I'd like to think I know when people
Speaker 1: are lying to me. But those guys they get under
Speaker 1: my skin because they fool me initially, right, but then
Speaker 1: over time you can start to see the inconsistencies and
Speaker 1: it starts, it starts to play out and you're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: there's something really wrong with this guy. That's exactly how
Speaker 1: the feeling was with Elliott. Yeah. I just the first
Speaker 1: thing that struck me when I got him on the
Speaker 1: phone for the first time, I was scared. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was like our family's great boogeyman and I'm calling
Speaker 1: him in federal prison and there's this like scary warning
Speaker 1: recording that you listened to before you you hear the
Speaker 1: guy's voice, and and then he comes on he's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, there, I'm Elliott. You know, he's just
Speaker 1: this very friendly, normal guy. Um. And it took it
Speaker 1: took quite a while for that that kind of creepy
Speaker 1: Crawley sense to start coming in, like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this doesn't really add up. Like he was even like
Speaker 1: trying to pretend he knew about math equations and stuff
Speaker 1: like that because he knew you had a math background, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Except it's more than I mean, he he really was
Speaker 1: genuinely very interested in matth Um. Like the sad thing
Speaker 1: with Elliot, I ended up having um some real sympathy
Speaker 1: for him by the end, because he's in some way
Speaker 1: just as trapped by this part of his personality as
Speaker 1: everyone else's. It's not that he pretended to understand math.
Speaker 1: He genuinely thought he was a math genius. He like
Speaker 1: he he would come to me with these what he
Speaker 1: thought were like great new theorems that he had proved,
Speaker 1: and they would have this kind of specious surface level consistency,
Speaker 1: a lot like the surface little consistency of the web
Speaker 1: of lies that you start hearing from any psychopath. Um.
Speaker 1: But then you push on them, you know, like you
Speaker 1: blow on them with the like the like the slightest
Speaker 1: breath and they crumble. Um. And that wasn't And then
Speaker 1: that was kind of crushing for him because unlike bank
Speaker 1: robbery plans, math is kind of true or it ain't.
Speaker 1: And so it was this arena where his grandiosity came
Speaker 1: up against the trueheartard constraints of reality. Um. And uh
Speaker 1: so I would kind of see that unfold again and
Speaker 1: again with him when we would talk about math. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's just so in that sense, he's a he's a
Speaker 1: victim of a mental disorder himself. I really did come
Speaker 1: to see him that way. But I also I don't
Speaker 1: want to see him like I think. I think prison
Speaker 1: is a pretty pretty reasonable place for him to be. Um. Like,
Speaker 1: he's he may be a victim, but also he's just
Speaker 1: causes so much harm to people and doesn't seem able
Speaker 1: to help it or even really realize it while it's happening.
Speaker 1: Is he still in prison today? Yeah, Yeah, he's still
Speaker 1: in prison. And but Alex got he got out and
Speaker 1: he started his integration back into the world. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: got out after sixteen months, which is an extraordinarily short
Speaker 1: sentence for federal crime, federal crime with you know, automatic weapons. Um.
Speaker 1: He was the driver. I mean, there were a few
Speaker 1: factors that led to him receiving a shorter sentence. He
Speaker 1: was the driver. He was the least involved in the planning. UM.
Speaker 1: And there were also these kind of complex psychological factors
Speaker 1: that we've started to go into in this in this call, Um.
Speaker 1: And then yet he started trying to adjust to life
Speaker 1: and in America as a convicted felon, which, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, is just no picnic at all. How is
Speaker 1: um Alex doing today? Because I know you finish up
Speaker 1: in the book you talk about he's working through that struggle, UM,
Speaker 1: And I was just curious if if you could update
Speaker 1: us a little bit on how Alex is making out today.
Speaker 1: It took him a long time two turn the corner
Speaker 1: into um, really trying to pursue a new life and
Speaker 1: leave the robbery behind. I think for the first few
Speaker 1: years he was kind of caught up in efforts to
Speaker 1: live out some version of this this Ranger dream. Maybe
Speaker 1: he'd be an E. M T. Maybe be a fireman,
Speaker 1: maybe be a policeman, just any kind of hero job.
Speaker 1: But you can't do any of that as a felon,
Speaker 1: and he kept fantasizing about somehow getting back to the Rangers,
Speaker 1: somehow re enlisting UM and even getting like new Ranger
Speaker 1: tattoos over time, and then I think just in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years I saw him UM really more
Speaker 1: more in the loss of that dream in a in
Speaker 1: a real way and move on. I think he's doing
Speaker 1: better now than I've seen him since the robbery. He's
Speaker 1: got a really solid job. You know, he's got a
Speaker 1: pit bull named Pickles that he loves the death and
Speaker 1: takes care of um with a physical force that would
Speaker 1: kill a lesser dog. I mean, it's um, it's a
Speaker 1: he has a good life. I think he's really he's
Speaker 1: really moved on. But it's been a long and difficult
Speaker 1: journey for It's good to hear. And there's something else
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that I thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: is UM, there's that that family legends that you had
Speaker 1: amongst the blumbs, which was I guess your grandfather World
Speaker 1: War two veteran, and you keep your referenced throughout your
Speaker 1: book that you're trying to track down he wrote some
Speaker 1: sort of memoirs and you finally find them towards the
Speaker 1: towards the end of this journey that you and Alex
Speaker 1: I guess both took as you wrote this book, you
Speaker 1: found these documents and you were pretty shocked by what
Speaker 1: you read in them. Yeah, I was. UM, I think
Speaker 1: are kind of exceptionally accepted cultural stories about World War Two.
Speaker 1: UM are pretty i don't know, simplistic and tended by. Now.
Speaker 1: It's the it's the it's the good war. You know,
Speaker 1: it's the heroic battle against the Nazis. Um, there are
Speaker 1: you're good guys and bad guys. It's just great movie material,
Speaker 1: and so we forget that it was like any war,
Speaker 1: just an immensely morally complicated enterprise and really ugly um
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways for for everyone involved in it.
Speaker 1: And I think in my my grandfather's case, when I
Speaker 1: first read the memoir, I had a really visceral reaction
Speaker 1: to it because it wasn't heroic, it was it was
Speaker 1: ugly and petty. And he, I mean, he landed in
Speaker 1: Normandy a month after the invasion and was involved in
Speaker 1: you know, so called mopping up work, which is just
Speaker 1: an absolutely grotesque thing to be tasked with. He Um,
Speaker 1: he and his guys were just killing tons of pockets
Speaker 1: of remaining soldiers, some of them defenseless. UM. And at
Speaker 1: one point they are the first to arrive at a
Speaker 1: forced labor camp after the Germans have departed, and um,
Speaker 1: they have to kind of take charge of this forced
Speaker 1: labor camp in which there are all these starving prisoners
Speaker 1: and more of them die. It's just it's just an
Speaker 1: absolutely nightmarish setting. And my my grandfather, regrettably, I don't
Speaker 1: it does not take a particularly heroic attitude towards his work.
Speaker 1: He seems to have this kind of like, um, I
Speaker 1: don't know, outlaw Augusto, Like he and his his kind
Speaker 1: of band of merry men are out there adventuring through
Speaker 1: the horror and you know, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: encounters with women that I found troubling. It's just an
Speaker 1: uglier picture of war than the one that Alex and
Speaker 1: I grew up hearing, which was just gilded and in
Speaker 1: that glamorous heroism that World War two movies tend to
Speaker 1: be tend to be gilded in. It's speaking of which
Speaker 1: we started off the podcast Dennis and I talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about, um, you know something that I had
Speaker 1: written UM the last week about the video game series
Speaker 1: Call of Duty. And you know, as somebody who served
Speaker 1: in the military and did some at least some of
Speaker 1: the things that they show in these video games, I
Speaker 1: find these games to be like pretty nihilistic. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: you hear they repeat the mantra over and over the
Speaker 1: winners RTE the history books. You know, it's almost like
Speaker 1: this feeling that the only war crime is not winning,
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of attitude. And throughout your book
Speaker 1: Ranger Games, I mean you mentioned a lot of video
Speaker 1: games and a lot of movies and the influence that
Speaker 1: these media, um, fictional and nonfictional media has on soldiers.
Speaker 1: Nihilistic is that's one word for it, yeah, or you know,
Speaker 1: individualists might be another word for it. That's there's this
Speaker 1: kind of UM, deeply kind tradictory UM marketing strategy, the
Speaker 1: army of one that was in force when Alex was recruited, UM,
Speaker 1: in which the the ideals that military service is supposed
Speaker 1: to embody our our individualist ideals. You're out there for glory,
Speaker 1: You're out there to show your strength and your power
Speaker 1: and your capacity. And that's you know, the video games
Speaker 1: are fundamentally really individualist too. UM and I I think
Speaker 1: that is that is an American ideal. UM. There are
Speaker 1: some wonderful things about it, but if you take it
Speaker 1: to its extreme, and it does UM kind of cut
Speaker 1: out of the picture those higher moral causes that UM
Speaker 1: we that are supposed to unite us in the very
Speaker 1: serious manner of a military intervention. UM. And and I
Speaker 1: guess I saw a real absence of that kind of
Speaker 1: sense of righteous higher purpose in both the UM the
Speaker 1: movies and video games that I looked at that were
Speaker 1: so important to these soldiers, and also just in the
Speaker 1: ways that they spoke to each other and the ways
Speaker 1: that they that they interacted. Was that kind of your
Speaker 1: takeaway at the end of writing this book UM about
Speaker 1: the military and about the process that these young soldiers
Speaker 1: go through. I came into this process pretty staunchly anti
Speaker 1: military UM and came out of it actually much less. So.
Speaker 1: I gained a lot of respect for the difficulty of
Speaker 1: the job and also a lot of respect for the
Speaker 1: the moral seriousness and the intellectual seriousness of UM. So
Speaker 1: many service members, I mean, I interviewed a bunch of
Speaker 1: them for this book, and UM their their baseline level
Speaker 1: of UM like political astuteness and engagement and awareness of
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world is just so much
Speaker 1: higher than civilians just on average in my experience, they're
Speaker 1: just they tend to be very thoughtful. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're an actual agent of world history, you know
Speaker 1: you need to be invested, and they often are. But
Speaker 1: I guess, I just I just came away with a
Speaker 1: deep sense of how fragile um that military culture is,
Speaker 1: how vulnerable it is to m corruption by people who
Speaker 1: are in some way damaged or or out of control,
Speaker 1: and so um. You know, I think there have been
Speaker 1: some changes in range of battalion and range of training
Speaker 1: since the time of this book. U. The tabs are
Speaker 1: so you know, there's no more RIP. Now there's this
Speaker 1: longer process in which some of the skills that tabs
Speaker 1: to teach privates they learn um in a more formal
Speaker 1: training process, so that there's there's less of that problematic
Speaker 1: power of the tabs had over privates and alex is there.
Speaker 1: Um that's a positive step, you know, you just I
Speaker 1: just I guess I I'm much more sensitive to the
Speaker 1: to the possibility of abuse within military culture. Now. That's
Speaker 1: an awesome point, and I hope that people take that
Speaker 1: away from the book and from this conversation as well. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean I just from my two cents, I have
Speaker 1: a lot of mixed feelings as well. I mean, on
Speaker 1: one hand, I love Range of Battalion, and on the
Speaker 1: other I think your book makes some pretty valid critiques
Speaker 1: of the culture of Ranger Battalion and where it goes wrong. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's some things in there too, like Alex's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, his descriptions of going through rip and coal
Speaker 1: Range and all that. And I mean I went through
Speaker 1: the same experience, actually went through twice because I had
Speaker 1: the distinction of recycling the course. Um, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite the horror show that it was for him, like
Speaker 1: when I And maybe it's just a difference of our
Speaker 1: life experiences and the in the different paths we took.
Speaker 1: But like I look back at it and I kind
Speaker 1: of laugh and kind of reflect on it in a
Speaker 1: sort of funny way. It's just a it's it's a
Speaker 1: you know, um memorable, um, you know, coming of age story,
Speaker 1: I guess. But for Alex, who is really a horror show,
Speaker 1: you know, Well, I think there's this kind of dual
Speaker 1: consciousness there where on one level, I think Alex. Actually,
Speaker 1: if he had gone on to um have the ranger
Speaker 1: career that he wanted, I'm sure he would talk about
Speaker 1: it exactly the same way, like it would be a
Speaker 1: rite of passage that would he could bond with other
Speaker 1: rangers about they'd all gone through it, like they all
Speaker 1: looked back on it as something that seemed like, you know,
Speaker 1: existentially terrifying and painful at the time, but in retrospects,
Speaker 1: it's whatever Aready goes through. Yeah, So you know, I'm
Speaker 1: curious after obviously I haven't gone through it myself. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like, even at the time that you went
Speaker 1: through it, you had that kind of more mature removed
Speaker 1: from it or do you do you did you feel
Speaker 1: swept up in the process while it was happening. I
Speaker 1: didn't feel swept up in it to the point that, um, like,
Speaker 1: this is my whole reality now and there there's nothing
Speaker 1: beyond the borders of Coal Range. I mean, I I
Speaker 1: think I saw it as a selection process, and you know,
Speaker 1: the instructors are doing their job and they want to
Speaker 1: see what you're made of, So they're going to put
Speaker 1: you through some trials and tribulations out here, and you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: a few students may have been drop kicked and and
Speaker 1: you know, quite a few four letter words were hurled around.
Speaker 1: But I saw that kind of just as part of
Speaker 1: the process. But I mean that's also, as you said,
Speaker 1: that's right for abuse too, because you know, you're you're
Speaker 1: inserted into this process and it's normalized. UM. And there
Speaker 1: are some things that happened sometimes that are are not
Speaker 1: normal and are not okay. And I think that there's
Speaker 1: that line there that we in the military have to
Speaker 1: do a better job at identifying. Especially. I mean, I've
Speaker 1: seen it much more now as a journalist writing about
Speaker 1: when things go sideways than than I did when I
Speaker 1: was actually in the military. That's interesting to hear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, UM, maybe part of why Alex
Speaker 1: Um experienced it as intensely as he did just that
Speaker 1: he was so completely invested in this past um he
Speaker 1: had been. He just couldn't imagine his life going any
Speaker 1: other way. UM, so the UM and he hadn't grown
Speaker 1: up around any military people. So these these drill sergeants,
Speaker 1: these are these um the ranger Cadre were just they
Speaker 1: were like his heroes. These were these were his absolute
Speaker 1: role models, and their approval just meant everything to him. UM.
Speaker 1: So I think that that amplified a little bit. But
Speaker 1: who knows, you know, maybe there's just a little bit
Speaker 1: of a temperamental difference. UM. I guess I have you know,
Speaker 1: I guess I do a lot of research now on
Speaker 1: trauma and therapy and psychology, and I tend to believe
Speaker 1: that we all have, you know, on some level, some
Speaker 1: part of us. When we're in pain and when people
Speaker 1: are saying cruel things to us and forcing us to
Speaker 1: do things that we don't really want to do, there
Speaker 1: is some part of us. I think that that registers
Speaker 1: that and UM. And I think one way of looking
Speaker 1: at UM at military training is as as a kind
Speaker 1: of systematic education in UM in kind of devaluing that
Speaker 1: part of oneself in and pushing aside one sensitivity to
Speaker 1: that kind of discomfort. UM. And I think that Alex
Speaker 1: when he after it was he was arrested, when he'd
Speaker 1: been in prison for ten years, he just kind of
Speaker 1: broke down. And I think that that kind of inner sensitivity,
Speaker 1: like the little boy you know that he was before
Speaker 1: he went and did this UM, kind of came to
Speaker 1: the surface again in some way. He was just so
Speaker 1: cracked open, and I think he was really writing from
Speaker 1: that place when he was describing what he'd gone through. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's more than just that though. I Mean, the
Speaker 1: things you're describing can make you a very effective soldier,
Speaker 1: but it also explains why so many of us are
Speaker 1: just train wrecks when we got at it, when we
Speaker 1: get out of the military, like we just can't live
Speaker 1: in normal society that sort of tender part of yourself,
Speaker 1: the part that actually feels those those pains, the part
Speaker 1: that you were in a you know, just going to
Speaker 1: the post office and someone yelled the things that you
Speaker 1: that the joll sergeant yells every day in training, that
Speaker 1: would feel really wounded and shocked and taken aback, you know.
Speaker 1: That's Yeah, that's the that's the that the relational part
Speaker 1: that helps us connect and be intimate with people. And
Speaker 1: I think it's really hard for Yeah, it seems really
Speaker 1: hard for a lot of soldiers to get back in
Speaker 1: touch that it's hard for Alex to, even with as
Speaker 1: as little military experience as he ended up having. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know, that's definitely an important part of it, is
Speaker 1: like you do have to like reconnect with those emotions
Speaker 1: and if you don't Um, you know, your relationship with
Speaker 1: your wife, your kids, with everybody around you is just
Speaker 1: a total mess um takes. I think, well, especially as
Speaker 1: you served in a unit like Ranger Battalion. I mean
Speaker 1: there's some of the most regimented and most hierarchical UM
Speaker 1: organization in the military, as you found out in your research,
Speaker 1: and I mean it's a it's a huge shift. Um.
Speaker 1: But that also dovetails with some of your You did
Speaker 1: a bunch of research also into um, what was it
Speaker 1: the Stanley Milgram experiments, didn't you. Yeah, well, the Milgram
Speaker 1: experiments and then Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiments. Yeah, both of those. Uh,
Speaker 1: an expert on Milgram and Zimbardo himself both got an
Speaker 1: involved in Alex's legal case. Well, what were your finding
Speaker 1: those are? Those are some fascinating, fascinating and counter into
Speaker 1: the experiments. How much are you were you interested in
Speaker 1: talking about that? Briefly? I don't know as much as
Speaker 1: you want to. I mean I think it, Uh, it
Speaker 1: does dovetail quite well with um, with your book and
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about so far. You know, the
Speaker 1: one that's that ended up being most interest to me
Speaker 1: is the prison experiment. So for those who are not
Speaker 1: familiar with it. The experiments run in ninety one and
Speaker 1: the basement the Stanford Psychology Department. Simbardo created a mock
Speaker 1: prison and stocked it with experimental volunteers. Half of them
Speaker 1: were randomly assigned to be guards and half randomly assigned
Speaker 1: to be prisoners, and within a week, the guards were
Speaker 1: subjecting the prisoners to such extreme abuse that the experiment
Speaker 1: had to be shut down. I think in so I
Speaker 1: published an expose about this a month ago. As it
Speaker 1: turns out, the story that we've all learned about the
Speaker 1: experiment isn't is really true. The guards were explicitly instructed
Speaker 1: to create a painful environment for the prisoners, and they
Speaker 1: did so. Um. You know, maybe the part that's most
Speaker 1: Germane to this discussion is that I interviewed the guard
Speaker 1: who is most notorious as the ringleader of the worst
Speaker 1: of the abuse. He was nicknamed John Wayne. He um
Speaker 1: had a Southern accent and was just just sadisticum as
Speaker 1: a guard. It turns out, you know, he doesn't actually
Speaker 1: have a Southern accent. He was putting on an act
Speaker 1: um he it was inspired by cool hand Luke. He
Speaker 1: thought that his job was to further Zimbardo's scientific aims
Speaker 1: by creating a realistically statistic prison environment so that Simbardo
Speaker 1: could study prisoner psychology. And he went at it with Gusto.
Speaker 1: But Um he had also just undergone a really painful
Speaker 1: fraternity initiation a few months before in which they did
Speaker 1: even worse to him than he did to the prisoners,
Speaker 1: and so he kind of had this mindset of like, man,
Speaker 1: if the prisoners can't handle this, like like, come on,
Speaker 1: they haven't seen real suffering. I've seen real suffering. And
Speaker 1: that's the mindset that I think you see over and
Speaker 1: over in these hazing environments. It's how that cycle of
Speaker 1: violence gets perpetuated. You know, you go through something like
Speaker 1: rip and you think like you can't handle like a
Speaker 1: you know, a little getting getting choked out on the
Speaker 1: floor of you know, like the the squad room, like
Speaker 1: during a little fight over call of duty, Like like
Speaker 1: you haven't you haven't seen real suffering. You haven't been
Speaker 1: through what I've been through, UM, And it becomes this
Speaker 1: kind of rationalization for subjecting the next generation to the
Speaker 1: same stuff that that already happened to you. I remember
Speaker 1: having a conversation with UM. Here's an officer and retire
Speaker 1: Delta Force officer who was telling me about how he
Speaker 1: was going and observing the British Special Air Force uh
Speaker 1: Special Air Service selection corpse. And he said, the guy
Speaker 1: running the course was like taking these huge rocks and
Speaker 1: putting it inside the students um rucksacks. So they were
Speaker 1: already carrying like a hundred pounds or whatever, and he
Speaker 1: was like putting these rocks. He's like, you know, these
Speaker 1: these new guys, they're not as hard as we were
Speaker 1: back in the day. They're not tough enough. You know,
Speaker 1: we used to be able to carry a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty pounds. And the guy I was talking to, the
Speaker 1: American officer, was like, let's bullshit. If you read the
Speaker 1: S A S history, they were driving around in trucks
Speaker 1: in North Africa during World War Two. They weren't carrying
Speaker 1: no hundred and fifty pounds rucksacks anywhere. You know, these
Speaker 1: mythologies grow over time and then and then people kind of, yeah,
Speaker 1: become like enslaved to the mythology. Yeah, absolutely, And I
Speaker 1: mean you also build up the story in your own mind.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure what I whatever I experienced in
Speaker 1: Rip is probably worse in my mind now than it
Speaker 1: was when I went through it at the time, and
Speaker 1: they kind of become shaggy dogtails among um, like the
Speaker 1: soldiers who went through them together. There's all this ripped lore,
Speaker 1: you know. Alex told some of these to me, like,
Speaker 1: you know, well, ours was pretty bad, but you know,
Speaker 1: the guys before us, they actually had to bear crawl
Speaker 1: through this field of ed syringes that they used the
Speaker 1: practice and check out, you know. And he he totally
Speaker 1: believed all that stuff because it came from older um,
Speaker 1: from actual rangers whom he idolized. But looking at it now,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's probably a little embellishment that that
Speaker 1: story picked up on the third stage of the game
Speaker 1: of telephone, you know. So what's uh, what's next for you?
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about in the in the book,
Speaker 1: because it is kind of a family history and a
Speaker 1: personal history. How you kind of went through this experience
Speaker 1: with your background and you know, computer science and math
Speaker 1: and decided you want to go into creative writing. I mean,
Speaker 1: is there another book in you that you're working on?
Speaker 1: So I got very interested in in trauma over the
Speaker 1: course of researching Ranger games. I just wanted to understand
Speaker 1: what that did to the mind, the different ways that
Speaker 1: people respond to it. UM. So I've been working on
Speaker 1: a book about UM. It's about what we when we
Speaker 1: talked about before, about about the ways that people get
Speaker 1: in touch with that relational tender part of themselves. It's
Speaker 1: kind of about trauma and romantic relationships and how how
Speaker 1: to reconnect in a deep way once you've been through
Speaker 1: something terrible. So UM, that's that's the next project for me.
Speaker 1: I'm also working on some some articles about a really
Speaker 1: exciting new trauma therapy that I've been learning about called
Speaker 1: internal family systems therapy, in which you kind of explicitly
Speaker 1: name and get to know some of these um childhood
Speaker 1: parts of yourself that you had to disown through the
Speaker 1: process of masculine training, either toughening up on the play
Speaker 1: own or in or in basic a RIP or wherever else. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a pilot study out now, UM in which uh
Speaker 1: M d M AS assisted psychotherapy is getting a real
Speaker 1: clinical test. We had a New York Times journalist on
Speaker 1: this podcast to talk about at one time. Oh cool. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I find it tremendously exciting. I mean, they're seeing some
Speaker 1: really great results, seems like it really works for some people. UM,
Speaker 1: and the therapists who run that have been trained in
Speaker 1: this internal family systems model where you learn to kind
Speaker 1: of renegotiate these relationships with old parts yourself. So that's interesting.
Speaker 1: It's like the things you forget that you don't remember. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I saw a really moving video of an Iraq vet
Speaker 1: who went through this m d m A assisted psychotherapy
Speaker 1: a few days ago, and UM he described kind of
Speaker 1: this going on this internal journey where he met this
Speaker 1: really angry, destructive part of himself that he discovered existed
Speaker 1: when he was deployed to Iraq and which now terrified him.
Speaker 1: And he he just described seeing how he had this
Speaker 1: part of himself locked up in a cage inside UM
Speaker 1: because he was so afraid of what it would do
Speaker 1: to to his family, to himself, to his UM, to
Speaker 1: his his friends and peers, and UM he realized that
Speaker 1: what this part was most enraged about was being locked
Speaker 1: in a cage. You know, anyone would be angry if
Speaker 1: they were locked in a cage. And he kind of
Speaker 1: came to this brotherly relationship with this this warrior part
Speaker 1: of himself. It was very moving. It really seemed like
Speaker 1: it had helped him reconnect in some way to a
Speaker 1: part of himself that he had to shut up. Well,
Speaker 1: I'd love to have you back on when you write
Speaker 1: that book or when it's published, because you know, I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about it many times on on this
Speaker 1: podcast over the years, about PTSD and veterans transitions and
Speaker 1: all this stuff, and you know, as individuals we don't
Speaker 1: always do so well. And as a country, I feel
Speaker 1: like we really haven't figured out how to grapple with
Speaker 1: this stuff yet. Yeah, it's a huge trauma. I'd love
Speaker 1: to come back and chat about it. Yeah, that's great. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much Ben for coming on the show today.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, maybe next time around we can
Speaker 1: have you in studio. Be cool to see you guys,
Speaker 1: and um, yeah, we'll do it again. I love that. Yep,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me all right, Yeah, thanks Ben. That
Speaker 1: was Ben Blum, author of Ranger Game, A story of Soldiers,
Speaker 1: family and an Inexplicable crime. We will have the link
Speaker 1: to that book you can buy in the description of
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Speaker 1: can see our full archive of shows as always, keep
Speaker 1: up with us at suff Prep Radio as well. I
Speaker 1: thought Ben was very insightful. Um I would have the
Speaker 1: only thing I wanted. I was curious and I should
Speaker 1: have hopped in. I would have liked to have known
Speaker 1: what Alex has thought. I mean, I'm sure he didn't
Speaker 1: read the book because he lived it, but what his
Speaker 1: thoughts were like, especially being a cousin. Like families, families
Speaker 1: a tight dynamic to start with it, you gotta walk
Speaker 1: a tight rope. But Ben wrote this book about his cousin,
Speaker 1: about a story that actually happened, and it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: betray Alex in a great light. Like Ben said, you you,
Speaker 1: he comes off in denial and then throughout the course
Speaker 1: of it he kind of he was like, all right, well,
Speaker 1: like you kind of you caught me, like I wanted
Speaker 1: to hear Alex, like what he if if Alex even
Speaker 1: had a thought on how he came across after reading
Speaker 1: the book, Oh yeah, you should have asked. I should
Speaker 1: have so, Ben, if you're listening Semi an email reader
Speaker 1: on the podcast, Yeah, that was a missed opportunity on
Speaker 1: my part. I'm still new with this. I don't want
Speaker 1: to I don't want to step on your toes. You're
Speaker 1: the You're the main course. I'm just the the desserts.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what I am at that at
Speaker 1: this juncture, you're the mayonnaise in the sandwich. Kind of,
Speaker 1: it's a good see. If you said let us, I
Speaker 1: would have been like, all right, that makes sense, Like
Speaker 1: a good condiment helps, it's an enhancer. I guess you
Speaker 1: know what I'll take that you can be the you're
Speaker 1: the meat, and I'll be the kind of that'll be
Speaker 1: our dynamic moving I should have asked that. I'm already
Speaker 1: kicking myself in a range of battalion stories. Me and uh,
Speaker 1: the other private, the other new private in our squad,
Speaker 1: Um Burkhart, who people have heard me talk about before
Speaker 1: and he's in he's in my book and he's a
Speaker 1: firefighter now, really good guy. But me and him were
Speaker 1: like new privates on the same squad and our team
Speaker 1: lead are called us As and Gary, the ambiguously gay
Speaker 1: duo from Saturday Night Live. So yeah, we were Ason Gary.
Speaker 1: They would have, like Burkhardt do squats and I'd have
Speaker 1: to spot him. Oh see, now that's what That's what
Speaker 1: you guys were talking about. There is that that hierarchy
Speaker 1: where you know, they tell you to jump and you
Speaker 1: say how high? Like spotting squats early on in battalion.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound ideal, and especially when you're you're nicknamed
Speaker 1: the Ason Gary biggusly gay doo. That's I feel like
Speaker 1: I mean, And in the short time I've known you,
Speaker 1: I feel like you leaned into that though, like you
Speaker 1: just you gotta embrace it. You did. It's like getting
Speaker 1: a bad nickname. You just you gotta lean into it.
Speaker 1: It's again, I mean, it's about there. There are some lines,
Speaker 1: and we're like establishing where those lines are is, you know,
Speaker 1: largely on the personality and the professionalism of your immediate leadership,
Speaker 1: you know, and you know, some guys like, yeah, there
Speaker 1: are some things that were done to me that were
Speaker 1: you know, technically I guess hazing where I'd have to
Speaker 1: like low crawl around the bus and then they tell
Speaker 1: all the other privates good on the bus and like
Speaker 1: it would be like fifty pairs of jungle boot over
Speaker 1: my back because I'm right by the door. Did wait
Speaker 1: until I get by the door and then everyone off
Speaker 1: the bus and fifty more pairs of jungle boots over
Speaker 1: my back? And I mean, yeah, but I don't, like,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I was traumatized by that or anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just like fun in games to a
Speaker 1: certain extent. But again, there's a line there. You had
Speaker 1: said you had you had a positive squad leader, team leader,
Speaker 1: all positive. Yeah, but you know, again, if I was
Speaker 1: there if I had a squad leader or a team
Speaker 1: leader or both. Yeah, I mean, it would have been
Speaker 1: a very different experience than maybe I'd be in jail
Speaker 1: right now. I mean that's a good point. There's two
Speaker 1: sides to every coin. Yeah, um yeah. They it goes
Speaker 1: like I I played. I played sports all throughout growing up,
Speaker 1: and a lot like the gap of what's now called hazing,
Speaker 1: and it's almost team building or used to be considered
Speaker 1: team building. And you guys talked about it, how the
Speaker 1: like the mythology grows where it was, you know, like
Speaker 1: my father walked to school up hill both ways in
Speaker 1: the snow exactly, Uncle Ricon was exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: I could have taken state, but you know, you get
Speaker 1: things like that and you remember it. Like I look
Speaker 1: back to when I played high school and it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd have There wasn't regulations in for practice
Speaker 1: like they are now because concussions were at their infancy.
Speaker 1: They it wasn't anything what it is now. And we
Speaker 1: would practice three times a day. We were there eight
Speaker 1: in the morning till late at night. And you know,
Speaker 1: as it gets old, like I'll talk to you know,
Speaker 1: my cousins or whoever that that's younger that's going through
Speaker 1: it now. And I'm like, oh, you guys don't. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, like, how old am I? Like what? I
Speaker 1: remember talking to guys who did like wrestling in high
Speaker 1: school and then they'd be like cutting down for wait,
Speaker 1: which is like you guys don't have to do that
Speaker 1: for the military. No, no, because that is something like
Speaker 1: that is aggressive. I was telling me about how they
Speaker 1: were in the sauna and they'd take credit cards and
Speaker 1: like swipe away their sweat so that you because the
Speaker 1: sweat cools you down, and that's not the point. Like, yeah, crazy,
Speaker 1: he's like. And the guy was like, yeah, I probably
Speaker 1: fucked myself up pretty good, dude. Wrestlers are prop Wrestlers
Speaker 1: would make great military. Like we we've discussed off there,
Speaker 1: you needed, you need a couple of those guys that
Speaker 1: are a little unhinged just to keep things and check.
Speaker 1: Wrestlers are the perfect perfect subjects to jump into the military.
Speaker 1: They just to to cut with. I mean that could
Speaker 1: like a lot of them turn into UFC fighters and
Speaker 1: things like that, and to just have that you know,
Speaker 1: you weigh one seventy five and you're gonna cut down
Speaker 1: to one fifty in two days, and you're just throwing
Speaker 1: on garbage suits and you're just like my E had
Speaker 1: friends in high school there where you know, we get
Speaker 1: out of school and you know we're gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna dick around somebody's house or something. And my
Speaker 1: buddy would look at me and he's like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I gotta cut weight. We're like, all right, Like what
Speaker 1: do you want me to do? He's so we just
Speaker 1: load them up with sweatshirts and he's just running around
Speaker 1: our buddies house and we're just like, I mean, you
Speaker 1: got half hour left, like hop on the scale, like
Speaker 1: we'll help you out as best we can. But that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there are different breaks and range of battalion. It's
Speaker 1: very much like that in the sense that there is
Speaker 1: the ranger way and there is the wrong way, and
Speaker 1: you say, but sergeant, what about shut the funk up?
Speaker 1: You know, I had this. I was thinking about this
Speaker 1: the other day for some reason, Like I was. I
Speaker 1: was in sniper section at the time, so we had
Speaker 1: to go out. You have to recall on fast roping
Speaker 1: every so often. So it's like a thirt or four
Speaker 1: ft tower with a with a rope like like like
Speaker 1: in your gym at high school, right, like Ninja war
Speaker 1: kind of kind of like not whatever. So but instead
Speaker 1: of like a fast roping out of a helicopter, you
Speaker 1: just go down this tower to qualify, right, So, um,
Speaker 1: you know we were snipers. We went we went down
Speaker 1: the rope a couple of times with our equipment and
Speaker 1: our guns. Okay, we're done. The another platoon from from
Speaker 1: a different company, I can't I think maybe it was
Speaker 1: Charlie Company, I can't remember. But this guy, the platoon sergeant,
Speaker 1: gets all of these young guys lined up at the tower,
Speaker 1: gets them going up the stairs. Let's go, let's go,
Speaker 1: let's go, let's go, let's go. And then as you
Speaker 1: grip the rope with your gloves on, you have to
Speaker 1: rotate out so you don't hit the you don't hit
Speaker 1: the frame of their or the tower in this case.
Speaker 1: So this platoon sergeant is just standing there on the
Speaker 1: ground with his hands on his hips and his cap
Speaker 1: kicked back on his head. Rotate asked fuck? Rotate, asked fuck? Rotate,
Speaker 1: asked fuck? As every guy goes down and then just
Speaker 1: like gets them in a circuit going right back up
Speaker 1: again and he's just standing there, rotate, asked fuck, rotate
Speaker 1: all he's saying, that's all he's saying. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's range of battalion. Yeah, I mean, that's just
Speaker 1: how it is. But but like in the civilian world,
Speaker 1: people look at you, they're like like you're looking at
Speaker 1: being like, oh my god, like what's wrong with you people? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't I don't want to say brainwash
Speaker 1: because that's not no, no, that's probably the right word,
Speaker 1: probably the right but that's how they like the whole
Speaker 1: the whole adage of like we we break you down
Speaker 1: to build you up. It's like Tate, ask funck, you know,
Speaker 1: rotate as we talk, like we talked about it. If
Speaker 1: we go out here outside the studio right now in
Speaker 1: this office and we talked and we just go up
Speaker 1: to hey, hey we have we're in swivel chairs. If
Speaker 1: I went to somebody and was like, hey, rotate, ask fuck.
Speaker 1: Hr is getting a talking to hr in. But in
Speaker 1: the military, you know, that's just that guy's just just
Speaker 1: another day, just another day. Uh. And with that, I
Speaker 1: think rotate, ask funk is a great way to end
Speaker 1: the show. Ask fuck. We can't take Ben blown for
Speaker 1: coming on enough, be sure to grab the book Ranger Game.
Speaker 1: Obviously it'ssassinating. It's a really insightful book. Um. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say it's the typical Ranger battalion experience. Most
Speaker 1: people don't have a psychopathic team leader, you know, and
Speaker 1: end up robbing a bank. But within it, I think
Speaker 1: there is some important commentary about you know, military culture.
Speaker 1: Um and it's a hell of an interesting story regardless.
Speaker 1: And Ben really probe the depth of it, like he
Speaker 1: did a very thorough job interviewing and researching people. Um
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a really good book. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Also, I wanted to point out he made
Speaker 1: reference to John Wayne that that was too John Wayne
Speaker 1: references in one podcast what was the first I was saying,
Speaker 1: how the book um in the intro how we um
Speaker 1: I had like a Western field to it, and you
Speaker 1: can picture like John yeah yeah, and you know go
Speaker 1: figure to John Wayne references the Duke. Uh So shout
Speaker 1: out John Wayne, al I P we miss you. Uh Thursday,
Speaker 1: we have on Jeff Kirkham, Yes, our collashon CoV episode
Speaker 1: there there's gonna be heavy a K forty seven talk.
Speaker 1: So gun porn Um, I have to go for this one.
Speaker 1: I have to go to my bookshelf and because I'm
Speaker 1: a nerd and I have all the manuals and the
Speaker 1: books about the history of the a K seven, I
Speaker 1: have to pull that stuff down and get up to
Speaker 1: speed so I can wrap with about this. Would you
Speaker 1: say that's the most recognizable gun A Yeah, it's actually
Speaker 1: on the flags of one or two countries. I'm sure
Speaker 1: he'll know exactly which one is. Yeah, it's the it's
Speaker 1: the you know, the gun of the Revolution. Is how
Speaker 1: a lot of people see it. Yeah? Oh boy, all right,
Speaker 1: Well that that'll be Thursday Friday for you listeners. Um, so,
Speaker 1: thank you, Ben, and we're looking forward to speaking with
Speaker 1: Jeff on Thursday. And that was soft Rep Radio. Guys,
Speaker 1: be sure to tune in you've been listening to self
Speaker 1: rep Radio. New episodes up every Wednesday and Friday. Follow
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