Angry Planet - Goodbye to Jason Fields and Thanks for All the Podcasts

Episode Date: January 10, 2019

Jason Fields is leaving War College and War College is entering a new era.Tune into to get some behind the scenes anecdotes and hear a special treat from Jason.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. There aren't necessarily any grown-ups in the room, and I'm not convinced that anybody, even experts of like the highest order, really know what the hell they're doing. I feel like they're kind of guessing along the rest of us. They just sound a lot more confident. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts, Matthew Galt and Jason Fields. Hello and welcome to War College. I'm Matthew Galt. And for the final time, I'm Jason Fields. So listeners have been asking Jason, why is this your final time?

What's going on? It's been a while since you've been on the show. Well, I took a job with something called the Thompson Reuters, Foundation covering human trafficking because my last job working at a Holocaust Museum wasn't really depressing enough. And they won't let me do the podcast. So it's just the fact of it. So I miss you, Matt. I miss doing the show, but it's just the way it is. So let me get that. You could come on as a guest, but they won't let you host. I wasn't really planning on making a big deal out of it.

Well, if we, if we figure out a way to get you back on as a guest, I want to do that, though. Sure. I think the, I think the listeners would enjoy that. I think if we were, you know, talking about anything that I'm going to be covering, and some of the other stuff includes, like, what's going on with climate change as well. So it's not all just human trafficking. So something I was thinking about, how long have we been doing this show? Because it's been you and me for, has it been three years?

Has it been three years now? It's almost three and a half. Is it almost three and a half? That's insane. I think we started in August. So here we are in January. I think you're right. We did start in August because that's when, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We had some housekeeping stuff we had to do about like a year or so ago in August. So what, so it was kind of, I feel like you and I, and was it Craig at Reuters? Yeah, Craig Heardt. created the show. And if I were, you know, just, just because we're here and we're navel-gazing, it'd be fun to talk about. Is it like, as I remember, I was working at Wars Boring and I wanted to do a podcast. And I know that you were at Reuters and wanted to do a podcast. How did we get, I don't, like, how did we get linked up?

It was actually, um, really happy chance. I had been talking with David Axe, who was a major contributor at Reuters, writing about the stuff that David Axe always writes about the military defense issues, hardware. And his pieces did incredibly well for us on our website. I was the opinion editor at Reuters. And I thought, well, what if we had a podcast that went along the lines of what our readers are already interested in? and so David and I actually tried a couple of episodes and they went not good and he actually brought you in Matt and you and I sort of hit it off pretty quickly and realized that the show was a hell of a lot better than it had been before so that's us. Wait, I don't you did episodes with David before. I don't remember that they air. No, no, they were so good. They never even aired. I didn't even, I didn't know that. I didn't know that you had Axe had tried to do, tried to do the show. What, what I, I kind of want to, what topics do you even remember? And like, what went wrong?

Yeah. Well, let's see. I mean, it was really just simply a chemistry issue. And not like, you know, deeply personal or something like that. It's just like, you know, we didn't sound great together. And we, one thing that we talked about. was Russia's plans to build a supercarrier. And, you know, it was actually a pretty interesting episode, but it just didn't come together. Craig Heedek, who was the producer at the time, really didn't like it. And so we were looking around about how to really make it work. And I don't know if we were even thinking necessarily about another co-host, but you were great. I really wanted to do it, and I think I remember that first episode, this is an embarrassing story. Didn't I lose the files for the first episode?

We did the F-35 and we had to re-record it. Sure. It was me and Joe. Yeah, no, of course. But, I mean, I did that subsequently. So, I mean. Oh, yeah, everyone's done it. Everyone's done it.

Everybody's tried to fuck the show in the nicest way possible. Oh, I can't. I can't, I didn't know that you, David, had done those episodes. I can't believe I've been doing this almost four years and didn't know that. That makes me happy somehow. That, that failed. Well, he also doesn't have your voice. So.

He's got a, he's got a higher, he's got a higher pitched voice. Yep. It's, uh, it's not, it's not a good radio voice. What's your favorite show that you think we've done or your favorite moment or? my favorite episode is still, and we've put it out a couple of times, but why nuclear war is inevitable. It was... With Tom Nichols?

No, it was actually with a guy named, I think Tim Zach. He was at the Washington Post. Oh, Danzac. Danzac. He wrote that book about the, that opens on the people breaking into the, the protesters breaking into one of the nuclear sites. I remember that. He was very good, but it wasn't just that. It was, he made such a scary good case that in some ways, and it wasn't top of mind for people then, not really. And I thought, wow, this is a war college episode. You know, we're really telling people something they're probably not thinking about.

And we're scaring people to death, which I hope has become a signature of the series. And, yeah, it just, I thought it really came together. I don't, yeah, I don't, it's funny you say the scaring people to, of death. I don't remember exactly when that happened where I felt like every episode had to end on a downbeat. But we certainly got here. Yeah, and it really wasn't on purpose in any way. It's just, it feels like if you delve deeply enough into these issues, there's not that much room for optimism. Well, no. And the other thing I feel like we do is we don't, you know, sometimes I think we've been accused of playing politics. But I don't, I feel like we don't have stances

other than what's going on, you know, like really kind of digging into these things. And I think that that kind of can lead to pessimism, you know, when you look at the world stage, especially today. Oh, you know, and I should say one other thing that's been terrific about the show is that doing it gives you an opportunity, but also gives you the balls to reach out to people you would love to talk to. Dan Carlin and you know Tom Nichols actually I mean who you know is

really I didn't realize how impressive he was at the time you know and it's just been people all along and you have a chance to reach out to them and build something very very cool yeah we've had some really some of the guests we've had on the show

of surprise me like Douglas Rushkoff and Dan Carlin Dan Carlin, who I should say we've actually had on twice, although only one of the episodes is aired. Yeah, the second one was a little weird, but I think that's an off-air story. Oh, okay. Well, we'll just, we'll tease, we'll tease the audience with that, that there's a, there's an off-air Dan Carlin story that they'll never get to hear. Exactly. What are you going to miss?

I'm going to get totally sentimental. I said I wasn't going to cry, and I'm not, actually. it turns out. But no, I mean, I'm totally going to miss working with you on a weekly basis. You know, I mean, really enjoyed it. I thought we made a really good team and had, you know, different strengths that complimented each other. And I'll enjoy the subjects, everything else.

But yeah, that's the biggest thing for me. I'm going to miss you, too. You brought, like, a knowledge of the past and a level-headedness. to this thing that is not going to be there going forward and I'm frightened without you. Please stay. Honestly, if I didn't need a paycheck, I would. I know. What's your favorite?

What's the most surprising or scariest thing you learned doing this? Oh, that's a really interesting question. I think it's more of a general thing rather than a particular episode. It's that there aren't necessarily any grownups in the room. And we have a bunch of people with a bunch of different ideas. We have some people who think we need new bombers, other people who think that new bombers are a terrible idea, and we need something else.

We have people who have clear ideas about what the Middle East should look like, and there are other people who completely disagree with those clear ideas, and it's very hard to tell who's right, and you have to talk to everybody. and I'm not convinced that anybody, even experts of like the highest order, really know what the hell they're doing. I feel like they're kind of guessing along the rest of us. They just sound a lot more confident. I think that's one of the great lessons of adulthood.

I really think that's one of the markers of like when you actually become an adult is when you realize that everyone's flying by the seat of pants. And then I remember like becoming a journal, like when I started becoming a journalist, and really getting into it and getting into the upper echelons, being really surprised that that was still prevalent even there. And then you start doing this job and you start talking it, like it's orders of magnitude more frightening. Yeah, and these are very, very smart people. And I don't mean to, you know, say any of them aren't experts.

They are experts. And do we need experts? I completely think we do. It's just that any one human's expertise, it can't, it's just not enough to guide everything going forward, you know. It's funny that you mentioned that because it was really a big part of, that was kind of a theme of the last full episode that I did.

Did you happen to listen to that one about the... No, I haven't gotten a chance yet. You need to, you should go and shame on you, first of all. And you should go and listen to that episode because it's really, it's about Russia and Ukraine and how it was all kind of random and that there are no adults in the room. Yeah. Well, I listen to it every week just because I didn't get around to it this week doesn't mean... Uh-huh. Right. I'm going to miss this.

Me too. Me too. All right. So as a special treat for the listeners, you've got something that you've prepared for them as a way to say goodbye. Yeah. And also, I appreciate Matt allowing me to be a bit self-indulgent. But history is my passion. It has been since I was a little kid. And a couple of years ago, I wrote a book. It's actually a novel. It's about the Holocaust and a murder mystery that takes place in a ghetto. So you can see, again, I gravitate towards really cheerful topics.

But the book does a couple of things, I think. One is it tries to show that the value of an individual life in a situation where death is the only constant. It also hopefully shows a bit about how people are still people, even within the confines of the worst situations imaginable. No, not everybody's a noble, self-effacing person. Not everybody's a black marketeer. There's a lot of room in the middle and a lot of people who just don't understand, even as the worst things in the world are happening to them, they don't realize that there's no hope. They keep on hoping. And I found that utterly fascinating. People hoped that life was going to continue to get better, even as the ghettos

were being liquidated. So anyway, on that cheerful note, I've got, I think, one of my favorite chapters out of the book that is read by Edna Friedberg, who was actually a Holocaust historian and a good friend of mine. And that's what's coming up next. And what's the title of the book and where can people... Oh, Matt, I'm so glad you asked that. The book is called Death in Twilight, and it's available from Amazon.

You can get print copies, you can get it for Kindle. You can get an audiobook if you pay me enough because I will come over to your house and read it out loud. It's Death in Twilight by Jason Fields. It's available on Amazon. and here is a chapter from it right now. Yes. And Jason,

goodbye. And thank you so much for being on the show. And thank you for building this thing with me. And I don't know how I'm going to do it without you. Yeah. I, God, saying goodbye is awful.

But, you know, I know that you're going to do a fantastic job going forward. You've done a fantastic job without me before. I think, you know, I've heard some of your, plans, and I think that the show's only going to get better.

Goodbye. Goodbye, Jason. It was not easy to wake up hung over in the Miyashto ghetto in early 1941. Alcohol, that miraculous liquid that can dissolve the fabric of reality, was one of the first resources to disappear after the district had been walled off. Still, for the enterprising, there are always ways to leave the world's troubles behind. The return journey, though, tends to be on the painful side. Aron Kaminsky felt like yelping when his eyes squinted open.

He stared into the all-too-bright murk of his small room, dreading a day that was unlikely to be better than the day before. Aron could feel a red-hot, electrified knitting needle, slowly piercing his right eye. The only distraction from it was the unproductive nausea it brought along, almost like a side dish at the devil's dinner table. A thin whiff of vomit rose from near his tender head. Ayon groaned.

He rolled onto his side, making sure to take the various scraps that made up his bedding with him. They were made up largely of the remnants of three military blankets he'd kept after being told he wasn't good enough to be a German prisoner of war. He had little else to show for his decade outside of the Jewish. community, except for the warm coat he'd been issued when called to duty and a pair of tough army boots. Aron shifted again, and a bottle fell off the bed and into the gloom, clanking, but not breaking. Aron suspected from the sound that its final resting place was under the bed. Deserter, he thought. Aron reached his hand out into the cold air, swept his fingers along the

floor and finally felt the rectangular shape of a pack of cigarettes. If booze was rare in the ghetto, or at least hard to find, cigarettes were almost as precious as food. A family of four could have eaten for a week on the number of cigarettes that remained in the pack. A little more fumbling, and Aron had a tube filled with tobacco clutched between his lips, waiting for the flame. More digging, he finally had to sit up, and he was able to find flimsy matches that required a number of frustrating strokes to catch fire. The light of the match hurt his eyes, but at last Aron was finally able to draw smoke deep into his lungs. And choke, and splutter, and hack.

These were not good cigarettes. Sorry. The paper was stiff enough to be cardboard, and the filling was excreable. Likely 80% sawdust our own thought with disgust. He took another deep drag. The smoke tasted of roofing tar and burning rubber. But whatever the taste or quality, Aron was grateful for his cigarettes. He'd worked hard enough for them.

Sometimes he wondered if his addiction alone had led him to become a smuggler. There was no other way he could have afforded them, or anything else for that matter. Thanks to his skills and contacts, many of them developed in his time as a police officer, he'd brought more than a ton of illicit merchandise through the main gate at King Boliswaz, I Chrobri, the Brave Street. More had come over, under, and through the weak points of the wall that surrounded the Jewish ghetto. Aron and the boys, girls, men and women who worked for and with him, knew the wall intimately. Well enough to know it wasn't a single wall at all, but a makeshift structure of boarded-up buildings,

concrete barricades topped with barbed wire, closed off streets, and the occasional machine gun nest. The holes in its boundaries were what allowed the ghetto to survive. Without links to illegal food and other supplies, the ghetto's privations would become even worse. So, really, I'm doing a public service, he told himself when he needed to. Aron ran a hand through greasy hair that mixed dirty blonde with sprays of gray. He kept it at a bristle length that would have done an angry drill sergeant proud in order to keep the ghetto's billion lice at bay.

There was a water tap in his small room. Aron carefully placed his cigarettes on the chipped rim of the grimy sink, turned a knob, and hoped for water. The pipes groaned, clanked, and finally emitted a thin stream of brown liquid. He took a drink, brought a wet hand to his face, rubbed, and tried telling himself that getting out of bed would be worth it. The water was cold, then just cool.

Morning seemed to finally become a possibility. A sharp rap on the door brought him to full wakefulness and sent him diving for a large knife that was tangled in his bedding. The knocking continued, became more insistent. Aron expected the door to crash open at any second, the Gestapo to pour in after. Instead he heard a small voice. Open the door, Aron.

Aron quietly crept toward the door and peered out through a narrow crack in the wood. It was his father, and he was alone. Shit, Aron thought. The elder Kaminsky raised his hand to knock again. He was unlikely to go away. Aron knew his father to be persistent, if nothing else. accepting the inevitable Aron removed the latch,

another latch, a chain, and a small bolt. Even then, it was hard to move the doorknob more than a few degrees without hurting his hand. If the only guest you're expecting is the secret police, there isn't much point in being hospitable, Aron figured. He stayed in the door's shadow in case he'd missed any armed men who'd accompanied his father. The possibility didn't seem out of the question.

It wouldn't even have been much of a surprise. For a few seconds, Aron's father stared into the darkness. His son read some conflict in his body language and saw the fear coupled with it. But it wasn't enough fear to keep the old man outside. Yitzhak Kaminsky's eyes needed time to adjust to the dark, even after standing in the dim hallway for several minutes. Slowly, he was able to make out the outline of his son's face. When Aron finally step forward into the twilight provided by the open doorway, his father couldn't help, but stepped back. In front of Yitzhak was a large man with a deeply scarred face, relatively clean shaven in a city hidden behind beards. The man's expression was hard and wary, and not like

anything he'd seen on his son's face before. Ten years apart, and his only child was nearly unrecognizable. What Aron saw was a small man who seemed to have gotten a little smaller. The light of humor he was used to seeing in the corner of his father's eye was extinguished. Despite the fact that it had been his choice to leave his family behind, Aron suddenly hoped it wasn't his actions that had put it out. I wasn't expecting you, Aron said with a weak smile. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting to come. Both men stood silently for a minute. Finally, it was the good manners that Yitzhak had taught his son that won. Would you like to come in?

Thank you, Yitzhak said a little stiffly. Have a seat if you'd like, Aron said pointing to the bed. There was no other surface available. I'm fine standing, Yitzhak said. Aron wasn't sure whether to be insulted or just realistic about how filthy his bed looked. A drink? Yitzhak shook his head. Aron, the reason I'm here isn't social. I'm shocked, Aron said.

Yitzhak ignored that. Mr. Zimmerman sent me to get you. You still work for Zimmerman? Aron asked, not sure if he should be surprised. Yitzchak had worked for Mordecai Zimmerman all of Aron's life. Still, he hadn't known that his father had followed the old man to his new job. Why would Zimmerman want me? Aron asked. Apparently he remembers why you left Miyashhto, Yitzchak said sourly.

Now he needs a gendarme. The older man's tone let Aron know that nothing had been forgotten. Let me go back. Why would Zimmerman want me, Aron asked. Apparently he remembers why you left Miyashto. Yitzchak said sourly, now he needs a gendarme. The older man's tone let Aron know that nothing had been forgiven. Aron's decision to join the world of the Gentiles was still beyond the pale.

He's got a whole police force of his own, Aron pointed out. Why in the world would he need me? Because they're incompetent, Yitzhak answered, or at least that's what Mr. Zimmerman seems to think. And this has just become a problem now? Someone murdered one of them. Now they need a real detective to find out, who did it. Aron took that last part as a compliment, intended or not.

What makes you think I'd want to be a part of this mess, Aron said. If we're talking about an officer in the Jewish police, there's a whole ghetto that would want him dead. I'm not exactly broken up by the news myself. Still, he paused. Saying the words brought back a vague vodka-drenched memory of stumbling into a corpse just before dawn. Aron's eyes wide, but he said nothing. Better to see how things played out, he thought. Aron began to fumble around, looking for the bottle that contained what was left of last night's booze. You've handled murder investigations before, yes? Yitzhak asked. Aron stopped fumbling for a moment and raised an eyebrow at his father. What would you know about the kind of cases I handled? You made the papers,

sometimes. The Jewish detective solves a case. Yitzchak said. They always seemed so surprised. Well, flattery aside, I still don't see why I'd want to get involved. Mr. Zimmerman and Captain Blaustein, the police chief, seemed convinced that the Germans would hurt people to find who killed the policeman. Sounds like standard procedure, Aron said. Mr. Zimmerman thinks it would be better if we solved the case ourselves, Yitzhak said, then shrugged. Aron thought for a minute.

Having the Germans rampaging through the ghetto would mean a lot of people would die, maybe even him. On the three occasions the Germans had flooded into the district in the last year, thousands had been rounded up and put on gray trucks. Many hundreds more had been shot out of hand. Sex or age had made no difference. And now, in particular, was not a good time to have the Germans on high alert, as far as Aron was concerned. There was important business he needed to finish.

over the next few days. Success! Aron found the bottle he'd been looking for. He walked over to a shelf above the sink that held a few dusty glasses and plates. He briskly wiped out two of the glasses and handed one to his father. Isn't it a little early? Yitzhak asked.

Is it ever early here? Even when the sun's up, it feels like midnight. His father nodded and held up his glass. Aron filled it. generously, watching the clear trickle pour nearly like syrup in the cold. He was more sparing with himself, afraid of what his stomach might have to say. After a large gulp, Yitzhak Kaminsky felt a burning he hadn't for a long time. He savored it. Whatever the liquor was, and he wouldn't venture a guess, it reminded him of rough Slivovitz, a Slavic favorite, or perhaps potato vodka,

a Polish staple, or both, or neither. It was terrible, wonderfully terrible. Aron hoped the hair of the dog would help his stubborn headache. After a few minutes, it did. Do you know the name of the officer who was killed this morning, Aron Protted? His name was Lev Berson, the elder Kaminsky said. He was young, I think, but I can't remember his face or even be sure I've seen him. I don't think I knew him, Aron said.

Why would you have known him? I know a lot of people. Let's leave it at that. The two men drank some more. Yitzhak contemplated the man his son had become. Aron tried to decide what he would do. Keeping away from the whole mess seemed the better bet. He dealt with the Jewish police every day and felt little sympathy for them.

They universally took his payoffs, but that hardly recommended them. And what was the point of investigating one murder in a place where everyone was slowly being murdered? Still, Aron decided it was worth a conversation. If he was careful, he would leave with more information than he gave away. He might even be able to find an angle that would lead to some kind of advantage.

At the least, it wouldn't hurt to have the people at the Udenratt thinking he was on their side. Our own gulped what was left of his drink. He was already in his coat. Okay, finish up. Let's go, he said to his father.