Camp Gagnon - Sniper on The Scariest Terrorist, Getting Smuggled Across Boarders, & His Longest Shot | Jack Murphy

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Jack Murphy is an author, journalist, & co-host of @TheTeamHousePodcast. Jack is also an eight-year Army Special Operations veteran who served as a sniper and team leader in 3rd Ranger Battalion and as a senior weapons sergeant on a military free fall team in 5th Special Forces Group.Thanks to zippexMorgan and Morgan Bluechew For supporting this hangout Produced and edited by @99ovrallTimestamps 00:00 Intro01:11 Blending in03:32 Growing up upstate NY04:44 army fascinat...

There are some total whack jobs that gravitate towards wars. I've got lots of crazy stories about crazy people. One of the more wild ones was a guy who, he was like some sort of psychopath over there fighting in Syria. When they'd find ISIS bodies that had been like torched from the bombing, he'd eat little pieces of them. What? And he was living as a vagabond in Europe. And the only possessions he had was like a bottle of whiskey and a copy of Mind Kampf. Like, it was a hair-raising experience.

War today is social media content. There is a war zone and there is what the people there are experiencing. But then there is us. People cheering on from the sidelines from the comfort of America, the destruction and death and the killing. It's like these people don't respect war. They don't respect the danger and the chaos and the madness of what those people are going through. By doing this service to your country, it's actually very selfish that you're ignoring your family. Some of them have to be reintroduced to their children and their wife because they were never around before.

You saw the Ranger that you fired at? When I came back home and shook his hand, yeah. And he forgave you. He never said the words he forgave me. Jack Murphy. What's up? What's up, brother? Ready to do this?

Yeah, dude. Thank you so much for coming through. I appreciate it. I'm in the neighborhood. Yeah, I know. This is so convenient. This is funny the way it works. You're going to come through every week now.

You're just going to be just like, just like, line me up. Just resident military analyst. Just going through shit every week. You're going to regret this, by the way. Once I get your number, it's just going to be. be nonstop. Dude, what's going on? It's a captive audience here in Brooklyn, but there's actually more of us kicking around than you think. Actually, I knew an SF guy that I went to Columbia with,

and he lived like maybe four blocks from where we're at right now. Oh, really? There's dudes out there. They're out there in the ether. But you blend in, and I hope that doesn't sound like an insult. Have I integrated with the community? I don't, I'm trying to think what you were when you were like Ranger, SWAT, sniper, Green Beret, energy. You know what I mean? Because like in my mind, You think of those guys and you're like, oh, yeah, these are, these are monsters. These are gorillas. And then you meet you. I was, I was never that guy, though.

I was never that guy. It was, like, huge and had, like, full sleeve tattoos. I was always kind of the nerd. Yeah. No, I was always that guy carrying books around with me and stuff. I've always been that person. Oh, that's fine. Which, that's maybe the greatest weapon.

Your mind. Knowing is half the battle. Now we're talking. Yeah. I think Sun Tzu said that. That's fire, dude. You obviously write about, you know, a military journalist, you're discussing all sorts of, you know, things pertaining to the current state of the world geopolitically. And I think me personally, I think a lot of people are probably kind of hearing the drums of war kind of beating.

And as a, from a casual perspective, it makes me a little nervous. You know what I mean? Obviously, you have conflict in the Middle East, Israel, Palestine, and then all the proxies related to that. China in Taiwan, there's constant tension as there has been for, you know, a couple decades. And then obviously Russia, Ukraine, in my opinion, has like been paused. I don't even know what is happening. It was the biggest thing dominating the airwaves for a couple months and then all of a sudden it goes away. So I would love to get your perspective on all these things.

And then even just like covert operations that are happening, you know, in the world now that people aren't really aware of. You know what I mean? There's so many conflicts geopolitically and so many challenges. moves happening all the time that you, I think, are keyed in on that not a lot of people really know about. So I'd love to expose those things as well. But first, I'm just really interested in you and your story. Obviously, you wrote a memoir, Murphy's Law, which I've heard is excellent. I haven't had the pleasure of reading it yet. You refuse to send me a copy.

You know what I mean? I wrote to your people and you said, no free copies, which very stingy. Okay, I will say, very stingy. No, I'm joking. But I would love to read it. But I would just love to know kind of your journey is very interesting and you've been with you know some of like the most intense demanding you know regiments in the military in general and uh yeah i would just love to learn about the story so where did you grow up i grew up in a town north of here uh called sleepy hollow new york uh oh really yeah you jump on the metro north and it's by about a half hour north of here yeah i've driven through there it's actually really nice i love upstate in general uh dude don't get me started, man. It is now this like rivertown community where people from Brooklyn, they get married

and they have kids and now they move up there. You're talking about me. I'm talking about you, man. You're going to retire and go to sleepy hollow. And when I go to visit my folks, I'll see you up there. Yeah, I'm pushing a stroller with a little dog. Driving the prices up. I'm sure your parents are going to be pissed about it. It's coming. Yeah, yeah. But no, I grew up there and then I went to high school in North Salem, New York and graduated high school in 2002. So I was a senior. when 9-11 happened. Yeah, where were you? I was in a computer class.

Yeah. And all of a sudden... The teacher came in and was like, I don't want to upset anyone, but a plane collided with the World Trade Center. And we're like, you know, like everyone else in America. Like, what?

Huh? And then you hear a second plane hit and it's like, oh, shit. Because like, like, again, many of us thought, oh, this is like, you know, when an aircraft accidentally flew into the Empire State Building, something like that,

happen. And then when the second one hits, it's like, oh, no. It's very clear that, you know, we're under attack right now. Yeah. But you're so close. I mean, Sleepy Hollow is not far from the city. I'm sure you had friends whose families or parents were working in the city. Like friends of friends, you know, no one directly that I knew. But, you know, yeah, next door neighbor in FDNY. So you're not totally removed from it. No. And did you have military personnel in your family? No. You know, my grandfather was drafted into the Navy in World War II, but he passed away before I was born. So I don't really come from a military family. And did you have military aspirations growing up? Yeah, it was something that I was

always interested in, if not obsessed with. Even as like a young kid, like middle school. Yeah, as a little kid playing with Green Army men and, you know, watching black and white World War II movies. Oh, really? I was always like just fascinated by the, by the Army. Interesting. Yeah. And what did your parents do for work? My dad was like carpenter, electric, plumber, did all of that kind of stuff. He passed away when I was a kid. My mom, waitress, then went to back to school, became an assistant teacher, got a master's degree, became a social worker, which she still does to this day. Oh, that's awesome.

My stepfather, business owner, and then works as a, does some general counselor. contracting. No, he's more or less, I guess, retired at this point. He doesn't do, he doesn't work so much. He had some health scares too, so. Sure. But yeah, that's my, my family in a nutshell. Yeah, yeah. And your stepdad and your mom kind of like brought you up. Yeah, yeah. I mean, in so many ways. I mean, yeah, I've known my stepfather since I was like 13 or something like that. And he's a solid dude. Yeah, he's a great guy. And I've been threatening to put him in a retirement home since I was like 14 or 15, which I still bring up every time to his chagrin. Yeah. But no, he's a great guy. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And so you are watching military,

you know, videos, documentaries, like growing up. And then at what- video games, movies, yeah. At what point are you like, okay, I'm going to enlist? I think it was just as I was getting older and getting into high school. And I mean, I had this continued interest since I was a little kid. Now it's like, okay, now it's time. Like this is for real. And I was also, you know, in the 1990s, late 1990s, we were also in a quote-unquote peacetime military. And I was actually thinking of going and joining the French Foreign Legion as like,

that might be a way to like actually see some action. Yeah, what is that, the French foreign legion? It's a unit in the French military. It's been around forever. And they take foreign nationals into the Legion. And it literally is a foreign legion, a Legion of foreigners. and you have to learn French. They're all led by French officers now.

And there is an opportunity to acquire French citizenship through military service. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's a storied historical unit. And they're still around to this day. But then after 9-11 happened, it became very clear, like, the United States military is the place to go. You want to deal yourself into the action. This is it right now.

Yeah. So 2002 I enlisted. Into the Army. Mm-hmm. And then what is the sort of process going from Army into the more specialized teams you were working on? So one of the unique things about the Army Special Operations Community is that you can go into the military on, I believe it's still called an Option 40 contract, which is giving you a shot at going from basic training to airborne school to what was the military. then called the Ranger Indoctrination Program. Today it's called RASP, the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program.

So in a very short period of time, we're talking about, you know, three months. You can go from being a guy on the street to becoming a member of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Wow. So maybe it's a little bit more than three months. But none of those, because let's see, infantry basic training is 11 weeks, airborne is three weeks. Rasp, when I went, it was three weeks. Now it's expanded and I think it might be like six weeks or something like that or seven weeks. But nonetheless, it's still a fairly short period of time that you can go right into a Army Special Operations unit.

Sure. But that's if you process through. If you pass. If you're selected. Yes. Like this is not like a certificate you sign up for. You know what I mean? Right.

They're just giving you a shot at it and it's on you to, you know, meet the standards. And you just saw airborne guys and you're like, yo, that looks awesome? Or were you specifically like, you all want to be a ranger? I mean, I was definitely interested in something in the special ops realm. I actually tried to, I wanted to enlist in the Marines. And the Marine recruiter was just somebody, he was just a hard head and gave me like a really hard time. He tried to hard sell me when I was already sold, which was very strange. Yeah.

Yeah. So I went down the hall to the Army and I was like, what do you got for me? And the, you know, the Army Ranger contract was right there. So, yeah, went right into it. And you wanted action. You wanted to be in the mix. Yeah. I mean, I feel like bad.

You probably talk to other people. And like the immediate thing they talk about is like patriotism and waving the flag and going to fight after 9-11, get some payback. And I mean, all of that's true. Like I am very patriotic and love America as much as anyone. I'd like to think. But my joining the military was very much a big part of it for me was that it was the ultimate adventure. And that's what I was looking. for and I wasn't disappointed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You got to see some of the world. But did you feel like growing up that you were lacking adventure, that you were lacking? Yes. Oh, yeah, big time. I mean, growing up in suburban New York and I hated school so much. Yeah. That, yeah, it was not doing it for me.

And I just did not see my future in this, you know, in one of these Hudson River communities. Sure. doing this and yeah it didn't resonate with me now my mindset when it comes to the military is like yeah it seems like there's a lot of upsides right you get to hang with the boys you get to go around the world you get to do cool shit guns are fun but then there's also this risk that you could get killed right so like early on were you ever like okay i'm a little worried about seeing action because i don't want to die no no and i mean that's that's not because i was like particularly brave i don't think it's just a a part of being young.

When I look back on it now, now I'm a 40-year-old man, and I look back at, you know, soldiers who died in their 20s or guys who, after the military, sadly, OD'd on drugs or took their own lives in their 30s, and I look back on that, and now in horror, and look back at it because as a 40-year-old, I can see these guys didn't have the opportunities that I have. They didn't have that opportunities to have a kid,

to watch their child growing up to pursue their own business. You know, they didn't have all of these things that I've gotten to do. And that hits me really hard that that got taken from them. Sure. But at the time, as a 21-year-old, a 22-year-old, you don't really think about that. Dumb and fired up. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't ignorant to the fact that I could die. I understood that. And maybe there is some hubris and a lot of naivity involved in all of it. But I talk to some people sometimes, and they talk about how scared they were the entire time they were overseas. And I didn't experience it like that. Like I was not scared most of the time, even when I should have been. Looking back on it, I can see some of that being a little irrational. Interesting.

Yeah, I should have been a little bit more afraid and a little bit more cautious than I was. But there's some survivor bias too, right? I survived, so everything's great. How bad could it be? And then the next situation you're in, that's a little sketchy. You're like, well, I survived the last one. Yeah. And that was worse than this.

Yeah. But I was definitely, I was not the most talented soldier around me. I was surrounded by people who were more qualified than I was. And they didn't make it. Right. So what is that saying? That's another thing your brain has to kind of wrap your mind around. Like your teammate, like you look at like, that guy was like Captain America.

Yeah. And he got killed. Like, why am I here? Yeah, it's just one of those things you have to wrap your mind around. You know, we're all, we're all human. We're all mortal. And again, I can say this as a 40-year-old. I don't know that I'd have that. I don't know that I'd have enough distance from it when I was 21 to be able to talk like this. Sure, yeah. It's hard to have perspective when you're so excited for the adventure. Absolutely. And you don't know the consequences necessarily or what the cost could be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And you can understand it, I guess, intellectually, but without actually experiencing the emotional burden of what that. looks like. It's hard to really internalize what that is. Right, right. And the flip side that you allude to there is also, I'm still to this day, not totally dismissive of it. Like that experience of being like a young soldier and being in the military and jumping out of planes and flying around in helicopters. And I mean, there's nothing else like it. And as I said earlier, I mean, it really

is the ultimate adventure. Yeah. And although you're young and dumb in a lot of ways and that's just part of the name of the game. But I mean, I wouldn't discount the experience either. It's not like, it's like I don't regret doing it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And so I've heard that like Army Basic is not insanely intense, but as you get more and more specialized, it gets more and more intense, and there's much more of like a weeding out process. So for you, at what point in the process were you like, oh, this is starting to get really difficult physically, the actual training and I guess, you know, like the process of getting through the different regiments. I think in Ranger Indocarnation was the first time where I was tested to the point where I was pushing up against my limits.

And, you know, the instructors are very good at finding your physical limits. And, you know, maybe that 10th time when you're jogging up cardiac hill carrying another soldier over your shoulders and you hit that wall. And it's like, okay, this is where my mind. limits are, right? For me, for me at least, that's the first time I remember being pushed to those physical limits. It's an important experience. Yeah, but it's already when you were into Ranger indoctrination. Do you know why you specifically were selected for Rangers?

I know there's like some, it's a little cloudy as to like why some people would be selected and why some people wouldn't. Was it very clear to you why you were selected? I think in Ranger indoctrination, it's pretty straightforward. The standards are pretty straightforward. It's not so, it's not really a mysterious process. I'll point out the first time I went, I failed the course. Oh, really? Yeah, I got pretty sick and had to go on antibiotics. That was a frustrating experience. Pumped up with antibiotics, enrolled into the next, you know, RIP class and passed at the second time. So, I mean, really, you just have to meet the standards that they set out. I don't think it's very mysterious. Okay. And then you get through. The most difficult days is just like running up the hill, working with, you know, carrying heavy loads.

Or were there specific things mentally that they would do in the training that was difficult? You know, the RIP has evolved. Like I said, it has evolved into Rasp and has changed significantly for the better. the guys who go to that selection and assessment now are getting a lot more training than I received. Back when I went, it was a little bit of training, but mostly it was a big smoke fest. They're just kind of trying to see what you're made of. Are you going to quit?

So back in those days, I mean, the hardest part was probably cold range where they take you out to this range out in the middle of the woods in Fort Benning for, I don't know, three or four days and get very little sleep and they test you to your limits out there. that look like. You'd be doing land nav, land navigation with a map and compass all day and all night. And whenever you're back in the little holding area, they're just smoking you and just doing push-ups and pull-ups and hold a rucksack over your head at three in the morning and all of that. But here's my favorite anecdote about Coal Range and about Rip is they're playing bad cop most of the time, right? They're smoking the hell out of you. Everyone's exhausted. And then at one,

point the instructor's like one high fives the other the new instructor comes in and this guy's playing good cop and again it's like two in the morning we're all exhausted we're all getting smoked and the good cop comes in and he's like okay men everyone lay face down on the ground just lay down face first on the ground stop talking stop moving just lay down and so we're laying there face first looking at dirt and this guy just starts talking and he's like listen men you can be a good american and quit right now. You can be a great American. You can do great things in the army if you just quit rip right now. Like you guys are tired. Everyone's exhausted. You're having a hard time pulling your weight. But look, you can be a great American. If you just quit right now, you go sit over by the

fire. No one's going to mess with you. Eat an MRE. He gave the whole good cop speech. And I could hear like the guys on either side of me getting up. It's like, oh, shit. It works. No way. Yeah, and that's like one of those interesting things to me that there's a certain type of, there's something inside us like you're doing these physical events and people hang in there. But then at the end of the day at night when things quiet down and you're in the barracks, they start thinking. And that's when they quit. I saw that many times. I saw that in Special Forces selection also. Really?

In what way? So the funniest one, funniest experience, this is many years later in Special Forces, a Selection. investment and selection. You typically do, I think, like two events a day, like a road march, a run, PT, whatever it is. Then they call us up. They write on the whiteboard. There's going to be an event that night. And again, it was like midnight, one in the morning, something like that. We get our rocks on. We're lined up on the gravel. Just like any other event. They're like, hey, follow these yellow cones for an undetermined time, for an undetermined distance. They don't tell you anything ever, right? It's like, just go. So we start doing this event. And this time, instead of ruck marching 10 miles or 12 miles or whatever it is, we just go around the compound, Camp McCall, out there. Walk all the way around. They stop us in front of this big auditorium they have there. And they have us take one item out of our rucksacks for the packing list, is our running sneakers, our tennis shoes, and hold them up.

Just to inspect them, make sure that we have them in our packing list. We did that. And right after that, I watched like five or six guys. quit. Like the mind games just like get to some people. And isn't it funny that, you know, you told that guy to run five miles or Ruck March 12 miles or do log PT and he did it. But then this little mind game like the uncertainty is what gets them. Interesting. Yeah, there's something really interesting that happens in people's minds. Do you apply that to other things in your life now? Like when it comes to quitting or bailing out? Like, do you feel like you've learned lessons from those

things where you're like being in worse situations mentally. Oh yeah, absolutely. I think it gives you the sort of resiliency and, you know, the ability to shrug things off when you need to shrug them off or not get upset about things that you can't really control. But when you go into civilian life, I learned some hard lessons about this. That never quit attitude is something that doesn't directly translate in the civilian life. Like, say you're in a toxic relationship. Say you're in a toxic work environment. Yeah. Right?

You need to embrace quitting and say, you know, walk away. Interesting. Yeah, that never quit mentality is something that needs to be abridged when you go into the civilian setting. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Bless you. Okay, now you're pushing it.

Excuse me. You get one bless you. After the second one, it's like, all right, what are we doing? You know what I mean? Trying to get free bless you by here? No, that's really, really interesting. I do think, yeah, there's a mentality that it's like never quit, never stop. And which, again, within a military context, makes a lot of sense.

And do or die in a wartime setting. The stakes are so hot. It makes sense, right? But there's a sunk cost in the civilian life that it's like, yeah, at a certain point, if your business is not working, you might need to pivot and you can bail on this one and start another one. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like, we have systems and bankruptcy and shit like that and, you know, relationship shit you can get out of that.

You know, in the military is like, yeah, we're got to push through this. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, you need to know when. when to apply that and when not to. And so, yeah, I had to learn some of those things the hard way. So when you're face down in the dirt and they're telling you like, hey, you can be a good American just quit, rip, did you ever consider quitting? Did it ever cross your mind?

Or was it just locked up? No, definitely not at that moment. There were times in my military career training where I was like, man, this sucks. But no, I thought those moments were more like amusing. And it's, and I hate to say it, but it's kind of funny. to watch people quit in those scenarios. And it also makes you feel good in the sense that the selection process is working. Like you're seeing the people who are either weak physically or weak mentally,

they're leaving. And that's okay. Maybe they are going and doing some great things elsewhere. But you know when you graduate the course, you're with guys who are solid. That's interesting. You know, and that's really important to have that kind of like confidence in your teammates. Yeah, if no one gets weeded out, then I get, you kind of start to wonder, like, did we get pushed hard enough? Like, is everyone just perfect?

Right. What is the, you know, it helps to have an us and them. You know what I mean? Like, the guys that stuck it out and the guys that didn't. Sure. And I mean, it can lead to some insular cultural traits in these units sometimes that are not healthy. But there does have to be a selection and a weeding out process. And sure, there is a some, there is a sort of coming of age sort of tradition there.

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Let's get back to the show. And so then you graduate Ranger School, and then at what point do you get deployed? I got deployed in the winner of 2004-D-A. Afghanistan. And at this point, the war is well underway. Well underway, and some would argue it was kind of over. Yeah. Interestingly enough, I mean, 2000, the invasion had happened. Two thousand and four things have died down. There were some targets we were hitting. Absolutely. We were definitely still going after the Taliban or al-Qaeda personalities if we could find them. But there was a lot of thought that the war was kind of over.

And I don't think anyone thought that we were going to be in Afghanistan for another 15, 16 years after that. Interesting. Did you think this while you were going over there? Or were you still excited, ready for the challenge? Definitely excited to deploy, ready for the challenge. But also a little bit dismayed when people would, I would hear some of my like superiors or some of the older guys talking about like, well, war's over.

like we did the big misch, it's over now. Why the fuck am I gone? Like was that in your mind at all? You know, still hoping that we're going to be able to, you know, capture some Taliban dudes or whatever. And we did. But, you know, during that three-month span, I think we probably did, I don't know, 25, 30 missions. By comparison, the next deployment I did to Iraq in 2005, I couldn't even tell you how many missions we did during that. three-month span. I bet it was over 150. Oh, wow. I mean, it was nuts. Yeah. Yeah, that's significant.

And are you working as a sniper at this point? In Afghanistan, I was working as a sniper, yeah. And how is that process? I understand, obviously, there's a lot of media around snipers and things like that. I don't know what it actually is like. Do you feel like, you know, the media representations, you know, American sniper, et cetera, is representative of what the experience is? Not, not really, no. there's also the sniper franchise, which I'm always cheerleading for. They're fun kind of like campy movies, but I enjoy them a lot. Yeah, yeah. The latest one, Sniper 10 just came out.

But no, I would not, they're fun movies, but I would not say that they're like a really inaccurate representation. To accurately represent what it's like to be a sniper, I mean, a lot of it is overwatch, and you're watching through, you know, your scope, through magnified glass observing, pulling security, they would say, watching for your teammates, seeing what's going on. Maybe once in a while you might get to take a shot if that happens. The actual mechanics of being a sniper, there's a lot of math involved, there's a lot of

technical know-how involved in that that does not necessarily translate well over to film. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The details can probably get a little boring. I mean, you can get into scope theory. We can get into external ballistics, internal ballistics, you know, the different equations that are used to calculate bullet drop, windage, all this sort of stuff, which is interesting, I think, but it doesn't necessarily make for a good movie. Yeah, that makes sense. Can you take me through maybe like the most interesting or captivating mission that you did as a sniper specifically?

You know, I did a couple. It depends where you want to go with this. I mean, one of the more like exciting missions I got to do was aerial platform support from a little bird helicopter. So me and my sniper partner were on the side of a little bird. It's a MH6 helicopter that's flown by 160th Special Operations pilots. Those are the little helicopters like you see in Black Hawk down. They come in laying guys on the rooftops. And flying around and doing that, that was a super cool mission.

But there's another operation I was on as a sniper that, you know, ended in a friendly fire incident that was just a terrible ordeal that I was at the center of. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. And what happened in that case? We were out, I was out as the sniper supporting a Ranger reconnaissance team. And we were on the Afghan-Pakistan border at a base filled with CIA paramilitaries. there were Afghans, a border control point. And we were actually out there scouting,

looking to do reconnaissance on the compound where supposedly the Taliban guy who planned the ambush that killed Pat Tillman lived. We're targeting the guy who, according to the U.S. Army, is at least partially responsible for the death of Pat Tillman. We went out there to do that mission, and I was at the what's called the MSS, the mission support site.

So this is sort of the forward support site for the reconnaissance team where the vehicles are cached. You have the radio guy with his antenna up, you know, communicating. I was there doing that. Also identifying some helicopter landing zones if this mission ever happened and they flew in the Ranger main force. When we got word from the reconnaissance team that there was about a 10-minute, enemy element out there moving towards our position. I made the decision at that point to shoot a little forward and set up an ambush on the road to catch these guys.

Long story short, what happened was that that enemy force never materialized. What did happen was that our own reconnaissance team walked into that ambush. I initiated it. I fired and I shot another ranger, a bullet that came right across his back and thank God and nobody died in that exchange. Wow. It was terrifying, a horrible experience. You know, that soldier was metavact and he was able to return to work.

Again, thank God nobody was seriously, you know, injured or killed during that engagement. But, I mean, it was a hair-raising experience. Yeah. Yeah. Did you feel guilty immediately after? Like, what is the emotion that you process? I felt fucking terrible. Nobody tells you how to feel in a situation.

like that and you're left quite alone in the aftermath. I can imagine. Yeah. You know, some people will treat you like you're fucking toxic. Oh, really? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Like, they'll be finger pointing like, yeah, you fucked up. There's some of that, but also like people are like, oh, this guy's damaged goods and

they'll try to like back away. No way. I will say, though, the recon team that I shot at was not like that. And I hung out with them a lot. And they were very nice guys. You saw the Ranger that you fired at? When I came back home and shook his hand, yeah. What was that experience like?

For me, it was okay. And I just wanted him to know I had no animosity. And I hope he didn't either. I definitely, I understand how that happened from my side. And I understand how it happened from their side. and a lot of that, it was, there's no malice involved in it. I made what I thought was the tactically best decision. There's a lot of, there's some poor communication that led up to that.

And I mean, I felt then, and I feel today that I made the best decision I could with information I had at that time. But the results were terrible. And yeah, I felt, I felt horrible about it. Wow. And he forgave you. He never said the words he forgave me. But, I mean, maybe he was trying to process it too.

And I don't know how he feels about it. That's his side of the story to tell if he wants to. Yeah, of course. I mean, that is just so difficult. I couldn't imagine. Like, I'm going to make a decision that I, to this day, believe was the right thing to do with the information I have at the time. And it just unfolds so tragically.

You can go from Hero to Zero really quick. I mean, if that Taliban force walked through there and I opened fire, they probably would have given me a silver star for that. But that's the way things went that day. And did you have like a top-down, you know, investigation into it? Like, was there like, did you have to talk to someone about this? This caused a lot of consternation in the unit to have a friendly fire incident like this, as the regiment was also reeling from the death of Pat Tillman,

who also died in a friendly fire incident. Right. There was an investigation done. It was an informal investigation, which means there's no sworn statements. You don't sign anything. It's kept off the books. I just, I don't think they definitely, this wasn't something they wanted to publicize at that moment. Yeah, of course.

And there was no punitive action taken against me. Hmm. Interesting. My immediate superiors especially, I will say, I'm forever grateful to because they gave me a second chance in a unit where they don't normally give people second chances. Right. But I was permitted to stay there. I served as a team leader until I left for special forces. So I'm very grateful to all of them for giving me a second chance.

So I'm sure they could see your perspective and the decision making that you made. And they were like, yeah, we get this wasn't negligence on your behalf. They did. they understood why I made the decisions I did. And I think some of them respected at least that I made a decision. And I was trying to take decisive action. Right. You know, some people freeze up in combat and they'll take no action.

Yeah, of course. Sometimes that's even worse. Was it difficult getting back into the job and into future missions after that experience? It, from my perspective, it was. was, I had a hard time initially, you know, trying to deal with it and try to process it, but ultimately came to the conclusion. Again, that don't quit attitude. You know, there's nothing in the Ranger Creed that says it's okay to quit.

Right. So I put myself back into it and just head down, come into work, do the job. And that's kind of what I focused on. Wow. Now, most of these sniper missions, like I'm trying to even fathom the actual, like, distance that you're dealing with. Like how far are these targets that you're trying to neutralize? So I think the sort of like gold standard Ranger sniper shot or for snipers at that time was probably a thousand meters. That would be like a standard that you would want to meet or you would

have to meet. 800 to a thousand. But to be more realistic, the type of sniper operations we were doing in Afghanistan, you were supporting direct action operations. So, So the Ranger Assulters are coming in and they're assaulting a target and you are the sniper supporting those guys. Got it. So you are on the perimeter and you're watching those guys as they come in and you're making sure that the enemy doesn't ambush them. They don't pop out of a window. They don't get up on the rooftop. They don't flank around friendly forces.

So you're there to protect them. So not only are you ready to shoot if necessary. You're also just like doing like lookout? Is that a fair turn? Yeah. Overwatch. Overwatch or security. You're making sure that those guys stay safe.

And I'll give you an example of that, a friend of mine. I probably shouldn't say his name here. But he's a great guy. This was in Iraq. As our assault force was coming into a target in Iraq, several insurgents were up on the rooftop of this structure. They got up there, and they were maneuvering and they were about to fire down on the assaulters

and kill the Rangers who were coming in to enter the compound. my buddy who was on sniper Overwatch across the street with his SR 25 shot two or three of those guys right in the head cleaned them out and kept the Rangers

on the ground safe and when they got up there to the rooftop these guys had like machine guns and hand grenades and everything pre-positioned on the roof yeah

so that's an example where a ranger sniper really came through and saved a lot of lives Wow to say it was your story dude take credit for that if I'm you

I'd be like dude this is me this is what I would have believed you bro I mean you're a good guy for giving your friend credit, but... We're podcasters now. We just go on a podcast and lie, right? Just lie, dude.

People don't lie on the internet. Come on. Now, that's very, very interesting. Yeah, in my mind, I guess like, you know, sniper work is like, all right, there's a bad guy, get in my scope, see him super far away, take him out. But it's a lot of, like, Overwatch. It's very patient work, I find. Yeah, yeah. And the nature of how snipers operate and how they're employed, it changes from conflict to conflict. Like, I've heard. from some of the guys who have been deployed to Syria.

They're doing like extreme long-range engagements. The types of rifles and the calibers of ammunition that the guys are using has changed. We went from 762 to 300 wind mag while I was there. Some of them are also, I believe they're using 3-3-8s and other larger caliber rounds that are able to get out over really long distances. So that engagement distance has gotten much further as well. What would be extreme long distance? So I don't know if there's a textbook definition, but I think like when we're talking about extreme long distances, we're talking about like two miles.

And some people are making shots out past two miles. There was the Canadian sniper, the JTF2 guy, Dallas Alexander, made that shot in Missoule, where I actually know exactly where that sniper hide was because I used to drive by there all the time way back when. but he made that shot and I can't remember the exact distance but it was out there I mean at that point are you like taking to account like the curvature of the earth um the curvature of the earth no um you wouldn't really because that would yeah I mean you're still flaunt you're from an elevated position firing down so the curvature that would only come into play if you were shooting so far out that you could only see like the top of the guy.

Kind of like you see a sailboat, you see the sail before you see the boat itself because of the curvature of the earth. So, no, snipers aren't really going to have to compensate for that, but you're having to deal with all sorts of other things. The wind, and the wind can be going from left to right at 500 meters and right to left at 1,500 meters. And, you know, cities create these like urban valleys where the winds are going nuts in different ways.

And just the optics, having optics that can, you can actually see what you're shooting at at these extreme long distances. The ranges involved that you're trying to compensate for are just insane. And it's well beyond my talent level. You know, these guys are doing things I could never do. Interesting. Did you want to graduate up through the sniper ranks? Or was your focus after that just to go more specialized?

I mean, I love that job. But I had the blessing or the curse to be a little bit more well-rounded in just in the field of weapons. I mean, I got to be a Carl Gustav anti-tank guy when I started off. What does that mean? It's a recoilish rifle. I was in the anti-tank section in Ranger Battalion. So I got to do that. Then sniper, then team leader and a machine gun team.

And then when I went to Special Forces, I was a weapon sergeant. So, I mean, you use all of those weapons systems plus mortars, all these foreign weapons. weapons. So I got to have a lot of like really interesting experiences in a short period of time. Interesting. And where were you a team leader? In Alpha Company, Third Ranger Battalion, first platoon. Okay. And what year was that roughly and where was that deployment? That was, so 2005 was that deployment to Missoule. Okay. Oh, and that's where you would drive past that sniper hideout.

Interesting. And where is Missou? Missoules, North Iraq. Okay. And so that, again, is doing, you know, operations specifically in Iraq with, you know, the Iraq military at that time. At that point, they were unilateral. It was just Rangers. Delta Force was up there. Well, we worked with them.

But, I mean, most of these targets, a vast majority of them were Ranger targets that we were going, our platoon was going out on. And our sister platoon was, we were kind of swapping, you know, 24 hours on, 24 hours off. And they kept us busy, yeah. Was this warfare urban? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the vast majority of it was urban warfare in Missouille, Tlaffer, the outskirts around that in the desert. But most of it was urban. We were hunting down high value targets. You know, that target deck from, you know, HVT1 to HVT number of 250. And as the war drags on, 250 becomes number 35 and, you know, so on.

You're hollowing it out. So, yeah, we were going out all day, all night, all the time. Now, what is the nature of urban warfare and why does that make such a difference as opposed to, I guess, more rural warfare? Well, part of it is the verticality of it. I mean, everywhere you go, you have potential threats coming out of windows, rooftops. You also have potential for underground tunnels and things like that, sewer systems. You're dealing with high-speed avenues of approaches, roads, streets. threats could come from really any different direction.

It's a very like three-dimensional environment where you could get hit from any direction at any time and just the population density. I mean, the cities are the center of gravity. There are so many people there. There's commerce going on there. And then there are these urban guerrilla movements there. So there's going to be leadership cells there.

There's going to be IED-making cells there. All these different aspects of an insurgent group are going to be found in the cities. as well. So it's just a very complex operating environment. And then, of course, we're Americans working in a foreign culture where, you know, we don't really speak the language, adds another level of complexity to it. Right. What were your missions as a team leader that you felt most proud of? I think, you know, just being able to help the team, help the platoon, and being able to enable, saying enable a lot, but to be able to enable them to complete these missions successfully.

I was the TC on a striker for a lot of these operations. What is it TC? The tactical commander. So the guy come popping out of the hatch, drive left, drive right, and looking at the Falcon View, which is a GPS map, and sometimes plotting out the routes from one target to the next and doing that sort of stuff. other times working, you know, we do helicopter assaults and be a dismounted machine gun team leader. I think the operations that I would be the most proud of, and I think a lot of the other guys would probably feel the same way, is we did a lot of operations that were executed so well and so professionally that our Rangers were able to get into the enemy compounds silently,

clear the inside of the compound silently under night vision and actually find the bad guys in bed sleeping. Wow. Drag them out of bed, flex cuff them, not a shot fired. I think those are the operations that I think most of us would be proud of. And where are you for those operations? Like physically? I mean, sometimes I would be coming inside the house.

A lot of times I'd be outside pulling security and the strikers while one of the assault teams went in. Wow. Or three, we had three assault teams. going in. And how many times does that happen where you're able to neutralize a target with no shots fired? I would say more often than not. I mean, we got into a decent amount of firefights on that deployment, but I'd say more often than not. Wow. I mean, that's really impressive. And what happens to these high-value targets after the neutralized? Well, that was not

our part of the job, really. But depending on how important they were, they might end up in an Iraqi prison if they were very important, they might end up in an American-run, quote-unquote, black site. And we had one right there on our compound, J-Soc detention facility that was staffed by contractors, that they would make us pull guard in sometimes. And they would be interrogated there. And then eventually, if they were not insurgents, they would be out-processed and sent back home. If they were, then they would get processed eventually into the... They would have been at that time, I believe the prisons were probably still run by Americans, but that was changing because of Abu Ghraib.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. That whole scandal kind of changed the way things were operating. Yeah, definitely. It changed detainee operations, interrogations, prisons, all that stuff. Interesting. which experience in that deployment specifically was the most scary for you personally. Did you feel like there were moments where your life was at stake to an uncomfortable level?

Some of it was cumulative that we were going out on so many operations all the time and we're getting into so many contacts. I remember, yeah, my nerves were kind of frayed by the end of it. Yeah. And, you know, these missions would keep coming and keep coming. And yeah, honestly, I remember before some of them, I feeling a little nervous because it was like, you almost know you're going to get shot at. There were a few operations where I remember pulling our vehicles up in front and taking fire. There was one where we had hand grenades dropped on top of us from an overpass.

That was pretty hairy. What happened in that situation? We were looking for a high value target. who was mobile. They were doing a lot of mobile meetings. So guys were insurgents were meeting in their vehicles and their cars. Stay on the move and make it harder for us to capture them. We were going to wait until this guy drove across a bridge.

There's a river that goes through Missouille. And there's like four or five bridges in the city. So I think it was like bridge four or bridge five. We were waiting for him to drive across. And we were positioning strikers three on one side and three on the other. So we could shut off the bridge when he was on it and then go in and again. capture him. That was the idea. So we pulled up underneath the bridge, which formed like an overpass before it went over the river. There were three vehicles. I was in the lead vehicle.

The middle one was the MEV, the medical evacuation vehicle, and then the trail one was another striker with assaulters inside. And we pulled under there for, man, not even five minutes, I feel like. And while we were sitting there, summer in Missouille, it's like a hundred 120 degrees, just covered in sweat. My dumb ass is sitting on top of the vehicle. I'm just like sitting there like a moron. I probably shouldn't have been doing that. And all of a sudden behind me is here, boom.

And there's just like sulfur smoke all around you. You can smell it. And we weren't sure if we got hit by an RPG or what exactly happened. We get security up. The mev, the two are two snipers at the time. One of them was that guy I told you about earlier. they were both friends of mine. The ramp drops, they get out, and they go out to help pull security, lock things down.

What had happened was that insurgents threw hand grenades, and they got down on the trail vehicle, the third vehicle. And one of them, one of the grenades went down through the air guard hatch and exploded. And it really messed up one of our squad leaders, our platoon leader. And really all the guys in that vehicle got like some shrapnel wounds from that. and it damaged the hydraulics on the rear hatch so they couldn't open the vehicles so guys were having to like climb out. It was shitty, man. But thankfully, that medical evacuation vehicle with the medics was right there. So they were able to immediately start treating those guys.

And unscathed. The mev was unscathed. Yeah. But so they started treating the injured. And then we were just like plowing through traffic to get back to the base to get those guys to the cash, I believe it was called at the time. It was just a field hospital. And all of those guys survived. Two of them ended up having amputations and coming back to work. Damn. Yeah.

That is insane. Also, like, it seems like an insanely unlikely shot, right? Like, getting a grenade into an air valve? It's insurgent warfare, right? I mean, they only have to get lucky once, you know. Yeah. There are so many other times where we got the drop on the enemy. This was one time they got the drop on us.

Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. And you're driving back from that experience being like, bro, that's too close. Yeah. Driving back, like, yeah, that was a close one. And worried that, you know, if you don't get back quickly, that your friends are going to die, you know, you're trying to get them back to the hospital.

Yeah. But thankfully, you know, no one died. We were very lucky on that. appointment all told. Yeah. You seem to have a very like calm demeanor in regards to these specific events. You know what I mean? Like something like that is like I've never experienced anything a tenth of as like intense and dire as that situation. And your whole, your demeanor is very calm in recalling it. Do you feel like your ability to handle stress in those types of situations is higher than the average person? Do you feel like that's conditioned in you? Is that something that you've always possessed?

It's probably a little bit of both. Yeah. I'm definitely, I mean, don't get me wrong, there were times where I was confused or anxious or, you know, scared in combat. I'm not, I don't want to portray myself like I was Captain America or anything. But, I mean, staying calm is, once you panic in combat, you're dead. You're going to die. That'll kill you just as quick as complacency. I mean, panic and fear. that'll kill you.

So yeah, I mean, and we are trained. I think Rangers are very well trained to be sort of inoculated to some of that stress. And I mean, these young soldiers can just do amazing things. It's incredible. And what is the anxiety like before the most anxious mission? I remember feeling it a few times. I remember right at the tail end of that deployment, we caught a mission like, we were like 24 hours from flying home, I think. And we caught a mission.

where was it? I think we flew down it to Crit. It was not even in our area of responsibility. And they gave us this mission to fly down it to Crit. And I remember it was just, it was the very end of the deployment. And you're always, you're thinking in the back of your mind, am I going to die on our last mission? Come on, man. Oh, gosh. And I remember feeling that like internal anxiety. But, hey, I got on the helicopters with everyone. You know, when you're a ranger, you're with the best guys, you're flying with the best pilots, you have the best equipment. So I mean, yes, it's a dangerous job. It's inherently dangerous. But you're also like surrounded by the best people and the best combat medics if something happens to you, you know? Right. And that definitely

gives you like an inner self-confidence as well. That makes sense. Yeah. Now at this point in the war, you're, this is like 2005-2006-ish by the time you're leaving Iraq. So we left in maybe it was like early October in 2005. And it was, yeah, the insurgency was cooking at that time. Yeah. It was dicey in Iraq. And I came home and that was around that time, that was when I went to Special Forces selection that winter of 2005.

I think it was the last selection class before Christmas. Got selected, came back to Ranger Battalion and stayed. as a team leader and helped get the squad trained up until they deployed to Afghanistan. They did another trip overseas, and I went to Fort Bragg to start special forces training at that point. Got you. Now, the last couple months that you're in Iraq doing this team leader, you know, these team leader missions with the Rangers, obviously you're a smart dude doing research. You know, I don't imagine that you're like obviously there's some dudes. I'm sure that you know they're not as keyed in and reading the news and, you know, aware of, you're a smart dude. everything that's going on. They're sort of just getting missions and executing them. At this point,

are you researching, are you reading different articles? Do you have opinions about the war as you're in it? And is that influencing how you feel about the missions? Yeah, that's a good question because there's what you knew then and what you know now. And they tend to be two totally different things. Of course. At that time, I did read a lot. But I don't think I was really reading like news about Iraq. so much. I think I was probably reading more like science fiction novels and things like that. I remember my squad leader telling me something like, I've never seen anyone, known anyone who reads as much as you do. But I feel like I was probably reading mostly fictional stuff at that time. I wasn't like some sort of like big anti-war guy or anti-war

activist. I was as gung-ho as anybody. Yeah. And you know, when you're, When I was in that environment, when I think back to it, the whole buildup to Iraq and the WMD stuff and all of that, when I look back on it now, it's horrifying. It's like, oh, my God, what did we do? It's the same. But at the time, it wasn't really on my mind. Like, I was in Ranger training. I was doing all this stuff. I was trying to be as best a Ranger as I could.

I wasn't really thinking about that stuff so much. I wasn't really thinking so much about the politics. And I don't know that I really cared either to tell you. truth. And the fog of war is still in full effect at that point still in 2005. You know, I don't know if American sentiment is even remotely settled on the issue. Yeah, all I really knew, I mean, I knew like, you know, fuck the Dixie Chicks and Rosie O'Donnell, those anti-war communists. But I didn't, yeah, I wasn't like deeply engrossed in the politics. As much as I should have been. Honestly, I should have been more aware of it, you know. Should you have been?

Do you think it's helpful for like soldiers, you know, at different levels, I guess, you know, Rangers, is it helpful to know too much, you know? Yeah, I mean, yeah, it depends how you, how you view soldiers and how soldiers view themselves. I do think that we should all be as educated as possible, including our soldiers today. I mean, I think we should we should have as smart and as an intellectual force as possible and that will enable them to make the best decisions possible. But there are, there is a such thing.

is like blue-collar soldiers that like the fight and don't give a shit about politics. Right. And I respect that. I get it. You know? Yeah. Do you need to be, you know, on Twitter all day?

Like, oh, well, what about this and that? Like, no, you're a soldier. You're doing your job who gets a shit with some idiot on the internet. Yeah, exactly. And like you have a mission to carry out. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like you really have a choice at this point.

You're on deployment. You get a mission. It's not like, well, actually, I was reading a Twitter threat. And I think maybe we need to withdraw. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. It's a little late at that point. You could be a soldier and like, you know, go to your squad leader and be like, hey, Sarge, I just wrote the, I just read this article in The Nation or Jacob Bin magazine.

And I'm anti-war now. Yeah. And your sergeant will be like, uh, yeah, that's cool, dude. Can you go wash the Humvee now? Thanks for your opinion, bro. That's what I'm saying. Like, it's tricky because you want people, like, I'm generally, I don't know. I don't want to say this necessarily.

But if there's a, you know, a war brewing, I'm just general on the side of like, hey, maybe, you know, not. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not like, I'm not like. I'm probably the same. I'm not one of these guys that's like, yo, we got to get out there and get our get back. Like, I'm generally like, all right, let's try to be diplomatic and try to solve this diplomatically first, which I hope most people are. I don't know. With that being said, though, if I'm in a war and I'm a soldier, I want the guy next to me to be down.

committed. Like, we're ready to ban. You know what I mean? Like, if we're back home or we're sitting in a coffee shop in Brooklyn, like we can sort of pontificate and wax about, you know, the ethics of war and is this a just war? Is this moral, et cetera? But if we're in the trenches, I don't, it's us versus them. What's this whole war mean, Sarge? You know what I mean? Yeah, you're right. You don't hear that kind of talk. Because it doesn't matter. Right.

Because you're trying to get the vehicles fueled up. That's what I'm saying. And I think people back home kind of forget that. Like, when people are out there, like, yeah, you get the comfort. of being able to, you know, like philosophize about war. Whereas like these, you know, kids that are out there driving in Humvees, it's like, I think so civilians also have these like questions of like, so how do you like reconcile this or like what's the thought about this presidency or that?

And they don't understand, I think, that like for soldiers, it's a job. Right. You come to work, you do some physical training, you put on a uniform, you try to serve your country honorably. but it's a job. And I've spoken to soldiers and special ops guys who have done completely insane jobs, have like, who have had these positions where it's like, hey, if the Soviet Union invades Germany, your job is to go undercover as a sleeper cell and start committing acts of sabotage

and blowing stuff up. I've talked to people who, you know, the contingency was if the Soviets invaded Europe, that they would jump behind enemy lines with a backpack atomic weapon and blow up dams and bridges and mountain passes. I'm totally serious. What year is that? This would have been 1961 to like 1986, 87. That program existed. Whoa.

But when you talk to these guys, it's a job. Right. Like, I come into work. I train on this device. I go through the inspections. I know how it works. We practice parachuting. And it really is.

It's like, this is my profession. And if I'm called upon to execute it, I will. Right. And but from the house. Outside, listen to them talk about it. You're like, oh, my God. Yeah, it's insane. Yeah. But I just think a lot of people that are not, that don't have proximity to. Yeah. It's a different frame of reference. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And just the stakes are so high. It's like, yeah, for if I'm called upon to do this at this point in the process, I'm already here. I'm trained to do it. Like, it's hard to be like, no, I'm not going to.

I mean, it would have to be something that's like really immoral or really unethical. Right. You know. You would hope that someone objects, but then it's like, you know, are you in a position to object? Have you heard of the story? I'm going to really butcher the details. I hope you can pull through on this. It is Cold War. There's basically a call basically to drop a nuke, and there's a guy that refused.

Are you familiar with this story? You're talking about the Russian radar operator. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He saw an ICBM launch. Yes, it was a submarine guy, right? I think it was on the ground. Okay. It's a famous case, though.

Yeah. Yeah. Could you relay the details for me? I don't remember all the details. I just recall it was a Russian and he saw or was being informed that there was an ICBM launch. Which is? An intercontinental ballistic missile that's carrying a nuclear weapon being launched at Russia. Yeah.

And he had to make the decision, do I fire in return, retaliate and fire my missile? or do I examine this further to see if there's a glitch in our system? And thank God the guy decided to question his equipment and make sure that it was right. Yeah. Crazy. You know what I'm saying? And this is like the whole stumbling into war theory that like could some mistakes happen that triggers World War III that we're not really equipped for?

Yeah. Yeah. And there are all sorts of different theories about that that, you know, we could, you know, send the wrong signals or we could do something. that's interpreted in the wrong way and that would, you know, trigger something with Russia or China to take an overly aggressive action. But there are also other theories that, you know, states go to war intentionally, not accidentally. You know, even if we did, I'm trying to think of an example off the top of my head. Let's take, I think it was 1999.

We had a surveillance bird, had a mid-air collision with the Chinese, and it made an emergency landing on China. Chinese soil. Like, if America and China wanted to, we could have blown that up into, it was an international incident, but we could have blown it up into something, but neither side wanted it to become that. Or you can look at all the things, a very dicey situation with Ukraine as far as the relationship between the United States and Russia. And you're having an American, America using the Ukrainians as proxies to directly kill the Russian military, I mean, there are a lot of potentialities for something to be misinterpreted or for something to cross over a line. Yeah.

And there are all these people who said like, this is a red line, that is a red line, blah, blah, blah. A lot of those lines got crossed. And Russia didn't do anything to us, to America because they don't want a nuclear war either. I mean, so states do make rational decisions. And even if, you know, an errant missile falls in a country somewhere. it seems that they defer back to making a sort of like rational decision rather than just a reactionary decision, which was, you know, the famous case is the cult of the offensive in World War I. Well, in World War I, the run up to World War I, there's this phenomena called the cult of the offensive and all the generals in Europe because everything at that time ran on rail. So there is this idea that the first force that mobilized would win the war because they would call in all their soldiers.

They would get all their equipment up on rail cars. They would mobilize to the front lines. And whoever could do that fastest would be able to win. So the second something looked bad like there was some sort of bushfire breaking out somewhere, the theory was that you had to mobilize immediately. And this is seen today as one of the causes for World War I that everyone mobilized immediately. Unnecessarily. Unnecessarily. That perhaps it could have been avoided.

Wow. And where was this intelligence that whoever mobilized first wins? Like where did that come from? Yeah, that's a good question. And I have a stack of books about World War I. I want to read this year. I'll have to come back. And I'll have to come back when I have some more knowledge.

But I think what it came about was the industrialization of Europe. and, you know, the modernity of Europe coming about. And, you know, the advent of rail in telegrams. And I think that must have been what reshaped the theories about warfare. Interesting. Yeah, this new technology is on the horizon. The first one to utilize this technology will win. It's like AI.

Like, whoever gets the best AI weapons first wins. And then maybe you have people agitating in a way that is not necessary. But there's such a, you know, anxiety about being late to the, to the, And people are already using these sorts of metaphors to compare AI to nuclear weapons and nuclear arms control. Or I have heard of like the cyber cult of the offensive where people who have like said, are we going into the same sort of mentality in cyberspace with cyber warfare? So no, you're absolutely putting your finger on something there. Interesting. Do you know who mobilized first in World War I?

Like did one side achieve the goal and did it actually help them win? I'm trying to think exactly... I'm really grilling you on a hundred-year-old history here. And I feel embarrassed that I don't have the answer on the tip of my tongue as far as who mobilized first. But I mean... I guess I'm more curious if it worked, if the bet was accurate or not. So it came down between France and Germany was really like the big flashpoint. And I think Germany mobilized first.

But don't quote me on this. Interesting. So I guess they were wrong. The intelligence they had might not have been a completely. accurate, a few moblasts first. Well, and they all got in over their heads too, right? Both in World War 1 and World War II, that they wanted, they wanted little pieces of France, they wanted Austria for sure, but then the overreach invading Russia and all this other nonsense. Yeah. What's up, guys? We're going to take a break really quick because I want you to feel more confident in the bedroom.

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And thank you so much to Bluchu for sponsoring this wonderful program. Let's get back to the show. And so special operations, where do you deploy for that and what kind of work are you doing in that time? In special forces? Or special forces, yeah.

Deployed actually back to the same area of Iraq, North Iraq, to Talafer, or Telfar. Mm-hmm. That was 2009. Okay, you went in 2009. And that was your last deployment? That was my last deployment, yeah. And I went back to Iraq a few times as a journalist.

I went to Syria a few times. But yeah, that was my last deployment with the Army. And what was that nature of that deployment that you were like, all right, maybe it's time to move on to the next phase? Yeah, I mean, it was totally different in the sense that, you know, special forces emphasizes working with the indigenous population. So we were working with an Iraqi SWAT team. you know, working by with and through the local forces.

In a lot of ways, a good experience, great experience to playing with the SF team. But at the same time, I mean, yeah, I was growing pretty disillusioned with the military. Not because, again, because I had some sort of anti-war political bent. It's more just frustration with the bureaucracy and the way the war was being run. the bureaucracy in special forces, but also the larger bureaucracy in how the war was being run in Iraq. And it just gets to that point.

It feels like we're wasting time here. It feels like the army isn't taking this war very seriously. I mean, that's how it looks like to me. Yeah. I mean, when the headquarters is calling down and they want me to take pictures of the Iraqis training every week and send that forward

so they can put it on a PowerPoint presentation, Okay. It's kind of like, what am I doing here? Yeah. And why do I need to be here doing this? I'm a PE teacher. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.

I'm trying to actually do shit and not just, you know, send you photos for your brochure. Yeah, exactly. And if these, you know, these commands and these officers we work for, if they're not taking this seriously, why should I take it seriously? Yeah. And I remember actually being back home. I was living in Clarksville, Tennessee at the time. And I remember laying in.

bed and realizing I could come into work today and give 100% or I could just lay here in bed and not come into work at all and it would have almost the exact same result. Yeah. Because all the bureaucracy is so soul crushing and nobody wants to actually do anything. And I think when you get to that place, it's kind of impossible to be a special forces soldier. Like how do you be an elite soldier or supposedly a high performer, but you feel you're operating in this environment. You're checked out.

Your work is futile. It's like, yeah. What I was turning into is like the like bitter cynical senior NCO, senior sergeant. You know, I was already out at the range with like a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette and the other. I get those targets up, you son of a bitch. You know, and I was turning into that guy. Yeah.

And I didn't want to be that old guy in the unit that's just like bitching and moaning about stuff all the time. Yeah, you're miserable and it hurts the unit. And yeah, it does. Yeah, absolutely. I'm also making the people around me miserable. Yeah, exactly. And, yeah, maybe I'm being counterproductive.

Mm-hmm. And so then you make the decision to leave. Is there any issue with exiting at that point? No. No, not at all. You know, some of the guys tried to get me to stay or re-enlist. But I was at that point. You know, I don't regret enlisting in the Army and I don't regret getting out.

I feel like I went in at the right time and I got out at the right time. Was there ever an option to do intelligence? Of sure. Sure, there's lots of opportunities, either in the military or at a civilian agency. I mean, that's another route that you could go if you wanted. But at this point, you were disengaged enough. You were like, I'm okay. Yeah, I mean, I also wanted to be a soldier.

I didn't have any interest in the intelligence field. Interesting. Yeah. The CIA came knocking. You'd be like, I'm okay. They weren't going to come knocking for me, I don't think. But if they did, yeah, I wasn't interested at that time. Yeah. So I got out of the military and went to college.

Was there any issue reintegrating back into society? Looking back on it? Hell yeah. There was. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But in the moment, you didn't feel like there was.

Yeah, at the moment, I'm fine. I'm not changed. I'm the same guy I ever was, you know. Interesting. Yeah, no, I didn't realize where my head was at and that I was just, yeah, I was not like everybody else. Were you dealing with PTSD? I don't think it was PTSD. I was never diagnosed with it.

I had the shrink at VA told me that I have some symptoms of it years ago. But I was never diagnosed. But I think more than PTSD, I think that it was like you said, integration issues. It was like transitioning. Yeah. You know, and I mean, I was kind of a maniac when I got out. I was a full-time student at Columbia. I was a new dad.

as a new husband. I was with a startup company, startup news company. I was writing novels. I was running around doing media. And you're like 30 years old at this point? 30, yeah, 30, 31, yeah. And doing all of these things

and what I realized way later was that what I was doing was I was trying to keep this high adrenaline rate going that I had from when I was in the Army. Like I had to operate. kind of like on that fringe, right? I didn't know how to, like, what is a normal person do? People would be like, dude, you just like work through the weekend?

I'm like, yeah, isn't that what you're supposed to do? Right. Isn't that what a high performer does? Yeah, the feeling that I think people have when they retire, where they're like, so I just do nothing now? You kind of had at 30 where it's like, okay, seven days a week, high intensity, adrenaline, cortisol going, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're with the boys, let's get after it.

And then people are like, hey, do you want to get drinks and chill? And you're like, what? Yeah. This is not in my mind said at all. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I was not in a good place and literally ran myself into the ground.

And I mean, that was a whole thing. And then also, you know, the traveling abroad as a journalist, even while I was still in school, you know, going back to Iraq, I was in the middle of firefights there a couple times, you know, sneaking into Syria, this kind of stuff that I was doing. And again, like going out there and keeping that adrenaline level going. And, you know, at a certain point it dawned on me like, like, I'm doing this because I feel like I have to do this. Like, I'm a badass. This is who I am. Right. I do these things.

But I remember distinctly waking up one morning. And I mean, I wish I could remember exactly when it was. It must have been like 2017 or so. And just realizing like, I don't have to. to prove anything to anybody anymore, especially myself. Like, I've done it. That's interesting. Yeah, it hit me like one morning, waking up out of bed. And I was like, yeah, I don't have to prove myself anymore. Interesting. And so you felt for like most of your life up until that point, maybe your mid-30s, a lot of your identity and masculinity was tied into your output.

Tied into my output, tied into doing these things that nobody else can do where very few people can do, challenging the odds, you know, doing those types of things that everyone says you can't do that. And I mean, that's somewhat typical maybe for like a man in their 20s. But I took it to extremes. Yeah, I mean, you were doing it on a level that's like pretty intense. Yeah, yeah, I was to a level that wasn't healthy. Where do you think that came from? Like that desire to prove people wrong and like to, you know, defy the odds and to be a badass.

Like what do you think you were overcoming internally? You know, part of it goes probably all the way back to some of that stuff we talked about, about how I grew up in the sort of like very like quiet, domestic suburban sort of life that I was determined I was not going to have. Like I was not going to. And I was running away from that as much as I could. That was part of it. Part of it is, yeah, there's there's some part of it of me that's just insubordinate and stubborn. and I don't like people telling me what to do.

You know, I think that plays part of it. Which is interesting for a soldier. Yeah. You know what I mean? To not want to get told what to do. But also okay with some people in specific cases. You submit yourself to the military, but by being there, you're also doing things that mainstream society has this aversion to.

Right. You know, whether it could be combat and killing is the most extreme part. But, I mean, you're also, you know, fast roping out of helicopter. and parachuting out of airplanes in the middle of the night, doing all these things that, you know, society's like, you're not supposed to do that, young man. Right. Yeah.

Interesting. And when you were growing up, did you feel like you weren't a badass? Like, did you feel like there was an air of like, oh, I need to, I need to, you know, prove these people wrong specifically? I felt like I was different in the sense that, you know, I never really felt like a kid. that was like a big thing especially by the time I was a teenager I felt like I'm not supposed to be here like I'm supposed to be in the adult world interesting like why am I here why am I why am I stuck in in high school like doing this so there's a real that was the real aversion the real thing I was running away from do you think any part of your dad passing away at that pivotal time made you grow up a little faster it probably did I mean it's hard to believe that didn't have some sort of effect right you know At 13 being like, all right, I'm the man of this house.

I'm an adult, you know. Or just the harsh reality of life hitting you at a very young age. I mean, it would be hard for me to believe that that doesn't have some kind of an impact. I mean, I have a daughter now who's 12. So she's already, she's already like four or five years older than I was when my dad died. Right. So, I mean, I can only imagine, like, if I got hit by a bus, what effect would that have on her? Yeah, of course.

Right. So, yeah, again, as a 40-year-old man, I can sit back and see some of these things with a little bit more clarity. Yeah, of course. When you're in it, you know, when you're in the forest, it's hard to, it's hard to see the big picture. Yeah, yeah. Once you're out of it, you can kind of be like, oh, that's, you know, that's where these trees are. That's what all this kind of stuff is. You're doing Overwatch in your own life. Yeah. That's absolutely what it is. Yeah. That's really interesting. Have you ever looked at Sebastian Younger's work? I do know who he is. I know he's done like some documentaries, but I've, I haven't. He didn't like read his books. No. He wrote a book. I had him on the show and he wrote this book called Tribe, which I just thought was excellent.

Just so, so good. And I mean, I'm kind of like, my bias, you know, people have different biases and things. I have friends with like tech bias. If something's technically on the forefront, they're like, that's the best thing. Yeah, yeah. I have like a tribal bias. I don't know why. But if you tell me like, yo, Native Americans did this shit, I'm like, that's what we need to be doing. I don't know why.

I just love it. So he writes this book called Tribe, which is basically like examining modern society. through the lens of, you know, how tribal people would perceive it, specifically intersecting with, you know, how military and, you know, vets reintegrate to society. And he had a couple of things in the book that I thought were so interesting that the military, a lot of guys will have PTSD and they have a difficult time recovering from it because it's difficult to parse being in a setting that is, you know, violent and traumatic, while also simultaneously being so tight-knit,

so much camaraderie, so much competence, so much community, and that because the events are not wholly bad, they have a harder time recovering. And so when they reintegrate back into society, he says that the effects of the PTSD can actually be exacerbated because they're leaving this world where they have community, they're with their boys all day. They're extremely competent in their role,

the position that they're in they are the best at, and they have a purpose. They're fighting for something, greater than themselves. And those three things, once they get back in a regular life, is completely taken away.

They move to a suburb or live in some apartment in some faceless city where they don't have people around. They're working some job that's like bullshit that they don't give a fuck about and they're not great at that job.

So they've now lost these three things that are the core sort of like endogenous factors of their happiness. And he outlines it in the book. I thought it was very interesting. Obviously,

I've never returned from more so I can't relate. But I'm curious if those things resonated for you and you came back. Yeah, no, I think that's, there's a lot of truth to that. And I think that, you know, a lot of guys struggled and continued to with the fact that when we were fighting the war, we fought it as a team and we were all together.

But then when the war ended, when the Afghanistan war just ended recently, as far as processing the end of the conflict and what all that means, you're not doing that as a team. You're doing that as an individual. That's interesting. And I think a lot of us are struggling to make sense of that. Yeah. But you can project that across, you know, the rest of it. I mean, when you get out of the military and you're thrust into an America that I believe, as a soldiers,

we never really got to know America as adults because we joined when we were teenagers. We were like 18. Now you spend, you know, these formative years in the military from, you know, let's, say 18 to 38, 40, maybe longer for some people. But you were in a institution where you wore a uniform. There's a rank system. There's a jargon. There's a culture. There was that team camaraderie. You also lived on military bases that have their own laundromats, movie theaters, grocery stores. You have free health care. You have free housing. You have a clothing allowance. Like being a soldier is hard. There are a lot of hard things about it. But,

But some of the social pressures that people out here in society have, you don't have. You don't really feel it the same way. And so when you retire or you get out of the military and you come into civilian life, you're suddenly thrust into this very like gray, amorphous, messy sort of world where people have a lot of different ideas and a lot of different thoughts. Yeah. No one's really telling you what to do or what to believe or this. This is what right looks like.

And all of that can be very, very confusing and conflicting for a young man or woman. I can imagine. And then you're dating. You're trying to figure out like your personal life, connecting back with your family. If you have family. Sure. There's just so many things that I can see being deployed would be avoiding that now all of a sudden you're confronted with. Yeah.

And I mean, that's like there's a there's an honor and nobility to military service. but the flip side to it, and we do have to think about this and be real with ourselves, is that by doing this service to your country, in one sense, it's actually very selfish that you're ignoring your family. You're away from your family. These other societal obligations you have, you're not really participating in. You're away. You're on this military base over in the Middle East somewhere. And many of us, especially special ops guys, you're doing that.

I'm not trying to take anything away from their service or their patriotism. But look, they want to do that. And they fought really hard to be in those units. Like this is their passion, you know, and they're living their dream. Right. So that's the flip side to it. And when you get out of the military, I do think that soldiers and veterans go through that process of like trying to process all of this, you know.

some of them have to like almost like be reintroduced to their their children and their wife because they were never around before. Right. You know, so that all of that, all that has to take place and none of it is easy. Interesting. Is war scarier as a journalist or as a soldier? It's different. That's for sure.

I'd say it's a hell of a lot more dangerous as a journalist because of those things I said before that when you're a ranger, you have the best combat medics, you have helicopters on standby to come get you, fly you out of there. There's AC130 gunships orbiting overhead that'll just like pound anything that threatens you. As a journalist, you're living by your wits. You got nothing. You're out there flapping.

You're out there flapping. I didn't even have a vest. You're just out there flapping. And there's a part of it, though, that like, you see, I get excited about it. Like, there's an aspect of it that, like, when you're a freelancer out there on your own, you are really living by your own. you are really living by your wits. And what you're able to do and how far you're able to get is based solely on your ability

and how you're able to network with people and communicate with people and maneuver yourself to this place or that place. And again, do things in combat zones that are not easy to do. Not everybody can do. Not everyone has the balls to do. And it's exhausting, but it's also very exciting and kind of in addicting. Interesting. I mean, combat journalists are not like normal people, you know. And as an insubordinate person, like you said, did you find that combat journalism was more freeing in that way?

Because you were fully on your own regard. Yep. Absolutely. There's nobody telling me what to do. Yeah. No one telling me what to do. That was awesome. But the same thrill, or if not more.

Huge thrill. Yeah, huge. And sometimes taking bigger risks than I should have. Yeah. What were the big risks that you feel like you took that in hindsight you're like, I would not have done that? Well, you know, it's difficult to parse out in the sense that, you know, if you're going to cover conflict, you're going to be a conflict journalist. You kind of have to go into harm's way. But it's like, where is that line?

Where is like, where does the risk outweigh the gain, right? You're trying to get that story. But there are journalists out there who take, in my opinion, reckless risks and put themselves. in too much harm's way. And I probably did it too at certain times. You know, I got smuggled into Syria early on in 2014. How did that happen? I made a connection with a Kurdish organization called the PKK, which as far as the U.S.

government is concerned, it's on the list of foreign terrorist organizations. and they smuggled me. They put me through the underground rat line in North Iraq, Kurdistan, and across the border into Syria in the middle of the night on a small inflatable boat. How do you broker that deal? You know, as a journalist, all you can really do is ask nicely. And so it depends on your rapport.

Can you convince people that you're worthwhile? And, yeah, I had to go through several hoops to make all of that happen. My interlocutor, while the organization itself was, they were very, they kept me safe. And they looked at, they look after you. They really do. It's basically a liaison that's working with. There was a liaison. There was a liaison.

on I worked with a few different times or met with a few different times. But I mean, it is a guerrilla organization. And so, you know, smuggled up to hiding out in these guerrilla camps in northern Iraq, up in the mountains, and then getting smuggled into the Kurdish regions over there. And, yeah, that was pretty dicey. And then getting out was even more dicey. Before you get to that, can you, this is great. Can you just explain, like, the 24 hours of getting smuggled across?

Yeah. Like, you wake up and, you know, kind of. I get smuggled into a Syria today. So wake up in a fairly cosmopolitan city from Soleimania. You meet up with somebody in a pickup truck who is an auxiliary of the organization. This is after there's been like some other meetings, right, in offices. It says, hey, throw your packs in the pickup truck. We drive north, drive up into the mountains through some checkpoints, drive.

driving around, driving around, driving around, driving around. Eventually about dusk, we get let off. A second person meets us at this like muddy trail, walk through the darkness on this muddy trail and suddenly come up to this guerrilla camp that is like camouflaged to the side of a hill. Go inside and it's all the, their flags from their different sub-organizations hanging up on the wall.

This is like the Robin Sage exercise that I went through in special forces, when you meet our guerrilla organization. Like verse for verse. This is exactly how it went down. Everyone's lined up. You shake all of their hands. How many guys?

There's probably 10 people in this tent at this time. Men and women. Two in the morning? Well, no, it probably wasn't quite that late. But it was nighttime by then. Maybe it's like 11 o'clock at night. Meet everyone. They make some chai tea.

Talk. Talk. Talk some more. You know, they have to process us. We were all given war names, aliases, like nom diggers, that we would use. What was your alias? Mine was the Kurdish word for rifle, which I can't remember the name off the top of my head, what the word was. But we all had these code names.

And from there, you're funneled into this underground rat line into their system. What does that mean a rat line? A rat line is like an underground railroad, a small. smuggling network. So literally a rail line through a tunnel. That they, no, no. I mean, I mean like a underground, you know, a clandestine network that they used to move war material and personnel through various theaters of operation. This is trucks with, you know. This is trucks. This is messengers, secret notes, coded notes that they pass along. I don't even know everything that they do because they're not going to share it with me. Sure. But I mean, over the years,

I definitely saw them passing coded notes to one another, like hand notes like passing off old school. Interesting. And so I was up in that camp for a couple days. What are you doing all day in a camp? Basically nothing. Basically nothing. You're just waiting.

Is there food? Yeah, yeah. They feed you. It's like rice? Like nanbread, some potatoes. If you get lucky, you might get some eggs. some chicken, maybe some rice. Are there other people getting smuggled with you?

Yes. There were a couple other people. And also there were fighters going over. What does that mean? Actual fighters. So we're going to go and fight ISIS in Syria. There were Kurdish fighters. So there were Kurds that were going to go.

Oh, yeah. And they have to get smuggled because there's no other way for them to get into Syria? Because the border is locked down. Interesting. So. Ah, interesting. So these smuggling operations. operations are typically for fighters and you were able to tag along.

Yes. Just because they had a spot type show. Basically, they agreed to do it. Interesting. So you're waiting around. You're with the boys. How many people are getting smuggled roughly? Like 10?

Man, it ended up being, so it's interesting. We took another vehicle out at night out to the river where the border is between Syria and Iraq. And I'm trying to think how many of us there were because there were some fighters. and so I just know my little part of it, but we get out there to the river. They have a little rubber boat, inflatable boat with an outboard motor. And before I went across,

they moved a bunch of machine gun barrels and ammunition and stuff like that across. And then they started coming back on the return trips with fighters coming out of Syria, who were coming out for like their R&R. So they'd been in the fight already for months. Wow. And how did these guys look when they're coming back?

It was nighttime. I remember... So when I got in the boat and I went across the river, got off on the other side, I remember bumping into one of these fighters and he started talking to me in English. And he's like, oh, who are you? Who are you? Who are you? I'm like, oh, I'm a journalist.

Like, where are you from? I'm from America. You're like, oh, you American ninja? And he starts showing me his ninja moves and stuff. He was just joking around watching Bruce Willis movies or whatever. So, I mean, it was a very brief encounter with them, but they seemed like they were in decent enough spirits. But, I mean, that was just a brief encounter. I mean, these guys, a lot of them were shell-shocked from what they had experienced. Sure.

It was a brutal war. So then you get on this boat. And there's a captain that's putting you around. There's some dude taking us across the river in the night, yeah. Now, I can't imagine this is not going to be a welcome party. You're on a boat with basically insurgents against ISIS. Yes. And if they catch you, I can't imagine they're going to be discriminated.

Yeah, if ISIS catches us or the Iraqi border guards catch us, or there's also Turkish airstrikes here and there. That mountain camp that I stayed in for a couple days, that got leveled by a Turkish air strike, like maybe six months later and killed everyone there. Damn. Yeah. So that was how I, you know, got off this little boat. So if they catch you, what happens? Depends who catches me. If it's ISIS, you're getting your head cut off. It's the border guards, which I did get caught and captured and interrogated by the secret police on the way back. You know, that's detention. And you're in a jail, you know, I was there for like a night. We'll get to that. Yeah. I mean. If the Turks find you? there's no telling how that's going to go.

Wow. Yeah. So you're laying on this boat. There were journalists who did get arrested by the Turks and spent like, you know, six months in prison. So you're either looking at like light detention. You could also get shot. You're doing an illegal border run. There were people who got shot doing this.

And you know this going into it. Yeah. And how do you feel the night that you're laying in a dingy with some dude putting you around? I was fucking stoked, man. Really? Yeah, it was exciting. You enjoyed it. Yeah, I did.

Yeah, I loved it. Crazy. Yeah. Truly crazy. So you're laying there. You're looking at the stars. You hear the water crashing against the side of this dingy. You're in the boat with how many people?

I don't know, six, seven. And they're all going for their different things. You got a couple fighters. You got a journalist guy. Everyone's kind of got their own little M.O. Right. And the plan is that you're going to get on this boat. A couple of them were other, there were foreign fighters.

You know, there's an American who's going to be a foreign fighter, ending up with the Kurds. Really? Yeah, he was an older guy too. He was like probably approaching 50. What is that? He was a Canadian now that I think about it. He was Canadian.

And did you guys connect it all? We talked to him a little bit. Yeah. Is it a little wild being like, what the fuck are we doing here? He was, yeah, I mean, he was there looking to get it on.

He kicked some ISIS ass. Yeah, and he did. You know, he went over there and did that. I mean, it's just so crazy to me that people are just like, you know, let's go kill some terrorists and like get on a, boat in the middle of the night, it's like, fired up. I met a lot of foreign fighters during my trips over there. This is so insane. Some of them I became friends with and even stayed at my

place in Brooklyn, you know, they were traveling in between. Some of these guys were traveling between they were doing Syria and then they were doing Ukraine after 2014. Yeah, I knew a lot of foreign fighters back in the day. Now, you don't have to necessarily, I don't want you to talk, you know, trash about people that maybe you like. But like, I've met a couple different like mercenary types. guys. And in general, I'm kind of like, this might be a psychopath that found an outlet. You know what I mean? Like, in my experience, again, I don't know. There are some people like that. It's like, you know, this is a guy as a serial killer that is finding a channel to put it through. You will totally meet people like that. Have you met anyone people like that?

Yeah, I've, yeah. Yes, I have. And just what is the energy when you meet them? Like, like there's something wrong with this dude. Um, yeah. And I met other people who I believe went over there. It's like people who choose death by cop. Like they're going over there to die. Like I remember meeting one guy. He was a former Marine, a Mexican American. And he kept telling me his life story.

And everyone he met, he kept telling them his life story. And eventually I realized like, oh, he came here to die. He wants people to remember him. Whoa. Yeah. Have you met because we're in Brooklyn, you know, there's like a fairly substantial or somewhat substantial anarchist movement of people who went from here even in New York and went over there and joined up with the Kurds.

Really? Yeah. Like Murray Bookchin and all of that. Yeah. So the Kurds have adopted different philosophies. You know, Abdullah Ojalon, of course, is the main one. But they've also adopted the writings of Murray Bookchin, who is an anarchist intellectual and philosopher. His daughter still lives here somewhere.

I've met her once or twice. Really? And so they've accepted some of his theories about anarchism and, you know, integrating that into, you know, how you, it sounds like a contradiction, but there is a sort of anarchist government sort of thing can exist, that sort of construct. And there were people, there were anarchists, American anarchists and European anarchists who went over and signed up with the Kurds and fought with them. I mean, these are actual anarchists, not like chicks with pink hair and like a vest. I was at a memorial service a few years back for, I don't say his name, I mean Bobby Gort. He was actually one of the activists at Occupy Wall Street, and he was big with that. He was, I did not meet him.

I never knew him personally, but I believe he was a committed idealist. He believed in what he was fighting for. And he went and he fought with the Kurds and unfortunately was killed over there. And yeah, there was a memorial service for him in Manhattan. That is crazy. Yeah, yeah. So this stuff exists. And different types of people went and joined the Kurds for different reasons.

We talked about a few of the head cases out there. That definitely happened. There were these people who had a political agenda that they were anarchists or leftists. And then there were also people who are like red-blooded George W. Bush Republicans who like love guns and God. And they went over there to fight ISIS and kick their. ass. And I met lots of those guys, too. They went over there and did that. Yeah, that's crazy. War junkies. Yeah. Yeah. Can you tag if someone is just like a serial killer that's getting their like rocks off? Like, is there a way that you can track like, oh, this is a crazy person?

I mean, I think you can see it in their eyes and their affect. I think it comes through very quickly. I think they exist out there and you can find them. But when it comes to operating, you know, in a military environment, like that type of person you're describing has a really hard time. Because it is that like tight-knit relationship between soldiers. How does a die-in-the-wolf psychopath integrate with that? That's why I found them to be mercenaries where they're kind of on just like... On the fringe. Some like lone wolf type shit.

Right, right. And like they kind of work within different groups and like, but it's not some type of organized military effort. Probably the craziest one I ever heard like that. Well, I've heard, I've got lots of crazy. stories about crazy people. But one of the more wild ones was a guy who he was like some sort of psychopath over there fighting in Syria. I don't think he was American. I think he was European. And he used to, when they'd find ISIS bodies that had been like torch from the bombing,

he'd eat little pieces of them. Yeah. What? And apparently one of the other guys who knew him in Syria met up with him. And he was living as a vagabond in Europe. All he had, he had a backpack. And the only possessions he had was like a bottle of whiskey and a copy of mine comf. Like, there are some total whack jobs that gravitate towards wars. Absolutely. Yeah. And who was he fighting for supporting? He was fighting alongside the Kurds fighting ISIS. But I mean, I'd have to get more of his backstory to tell you. I didn't know that dude personally. Thank God. That's crazy.

But I knew other people who were pretty whack. Yeah. I mean, that is insane. Eating bodies on a battlefield is out there. Real psycho shit. Yeah, yeah. That's crazy. And the Kurds, I guess, for where they're at in their military effort,

are kind of indiscriminate when it comes to being like, you're going to help us out? I mean, I don't know what that was like. He may have been just, like, way out there on a base somewhere where, like, nobody was paying attention for all I know. Oh, crazy. What other whack jobs have you met in that vein? there was so one of the guys who was like the interlocutor i guess that first introduced me to the

kurds i had met him in manhattan he had approached me um he was an american and i then he disappears and the next time he pops up on my radar he's emailing me or whatever and he's talking about how he's in syria fighting with the kurds and i'm like what and so he was the person that i got him to introduce me to some of the folks over there. And that was my initial in. And I mean, this gets back to me rolling the dice in some pretty big ways that I probably shouldn't have. But I saw a way to gain access and I used it, quite frankly. But this dude, as I got over there and started interacting with him, I mean, this dude was not right. Like he was, again, you can see it in his eyes. He'd be able to have these incredibly intelligent, lucid conversations

but then he'd just like break down crying, um, falling apart all the time. He was just a, this dude was a total train wreck. And he was a psychopath. His emotions were just all over the freaking place. Um,

and, uh, I mean, I don't even know where to start with this guy. But I mean, by the time I left, like I almost got into a fist fight with him. Um,

because he was, some of, there was a couple women who were with me, um, you know, female journalists. They were scared shitless of this guy by the end of it Because he was just such a wacko

He'd scare the other Kurds You know, they would start freaking out Because he's freaking out Yeah, it was just the dude was a mess And yeah, he's still out there somewhere Crazy What a wild I mean just what a wild like

Specifically once you're into like journalism And dealing with kind of like fringe characters There was a time when I was out there in Syria and I hear gunfire. Like somebody like target practice, right? It's like at intervals like bang, bang, bang. Like, well, let me go see what's going on. And I go out there and it was sort of right on the Syrian border. It was a big, it used to be a transit depot.

And there were like these luxury apartment buildings. They were at one point before the war where we were staying for a few days. So I went over to where this, it was like a transport depot for like, you know, semi-trucks back in better times. And there were some people out there with homemade 50-cow rifles, sniper rifles doing target practice, like shooting a spray-painted circle on the side of a warehouse. And I just walked up there like, hey, how's it going, guys? What's up? And it was like this English-speaking Kurdish guy with his hair slicked back. He had a mole on his cheek. And there's this group of like big, big bruns.

early guys were in camouflage and I went and shook their hands and they're all like, they just grunt. Like, uh, it was like totally clear. These dudes were like Scandinavian. They were like Swedish or Norwegian guys or something like that. It's just the way that war happened and there was, you know, the Kurds had a semi-organized militia. I mean, the Kurds were of the, as far as the actors out there in Syria, they were one of the

best organized because of the traditions they come out of. but it was a war and it was very disjointed and disorganized with all these different people doing different things and so you would have these like little groups of like Merks just out there doing their own thing and that's what I stumbled upon at that moment and the guy took me aside and he's like I'm going to have to ask you to leave now because this is a top secret mission. I'm like, get the fuck out of it man. Okay. Whatever. But I mean it's just it's just weird stuff like that you would encounter all the time. You're not intimidated walking up to a bunch of like fringe dudes with machine guns? Nah. Nah.

I mean. Why? Like, what leverage do you have? None, none whatsoever. If they're just like, hey, you're annoying me. I'll kill you. I mean, I would probably go away at that point because I don't want to get shot. But what if they, like, if they just killed you, like, what is the, what is, is there any effect to them?

Um, you know, the Kurds, yeah, if they were murdering journalists, uh, murdering civilians, the Kurds would eventually get wise to that and there would be repercussions. I mean, they're not going to put up with that. So there's some sanctions with these militias. It's not just free for all. Because it's a war zone, it's disjointed, and it's not like there's a law enforcement system the way we have. But like, there's only so much bullshit that they're going to put up with. And eventually they will catch up to it and kick you out or put you in prison or whatever.

But yeah, I mean, I think like nowadays, like in the war on terror, it got journalists. in my opinion too addicted to these embedded deployments where they would embed with American military units. And I've had journalists tell me like straight-faced, like, how do you go and report anymore because the army won't let you embed with them? And I'm like, what the fuck? There was a whole period of time before the War on Terror

where journalists very rarely embedded with American soldiers. Like I just read this terrific book. A journalist named Sam Dillon wrote a book called commandos about the war in Nicaragua during the 1980s. This dude didn't do any, he didn't do no embeds. He just went down there and he linked up with the guerrillas with the Contras and started interviewing them and wrote a book about it. And I think journalists today have, a lot of them at least, have lost sight of that.

And I mean, I've never done an embed, but I've gone right up to American soldiers in the Philippines, in Iraq. and elsewhere and just started talking to them. You know, I've been out partying with special forces guys in Manila. I've interacted with Navy SEALs on Philippine military bases. I got smuggled out of that base, too. That's another story. But, yeah, I just think, like, we've gotten, journalists have gotten too addicted

to this embedded, reported bullshit. And they need to stop asking, mother, may I, and just go out and do it. Because the embedded, the nature of, like, an embedded relationship is, okay, I'm going to apply to be within a regiment. I'm going to go basically slip in and operate as the soldiers do. Yeah, they're inviting you. They come and work or recover as a reporter alongside that unit. So you're going wherever the unit's going.

They're going to try to keep you safe. You know, they're going to give you a place to stay. They're going to feed you. And why is that bad? It's bad because it's not necessarily bad. There can be some good things that come out of that type of reporting, that you're right there with the Marines as they go. into Fallujah. Like, that can be meaningful. But if you get too attached to this idea that you

have to ask the U.S. government for Mother May I ask them for permission, that colors your reporting. I see. So I think that, yeah, too many people have gotten into this. And some reporters, like, they're just shocked that you can report on the U.S. military without embedding with them. It's like, dude, just go over there. Like my story, as stupid as I may have been at times, you know, I didn't ask anyone for permission to go over to Syria and meet with the people I met with. I just went and did it. Yeah. I mean, you don't need any type of certification to become a war journalist?

No. You need a vest, maybe? Yeah. I think the vest helps personally. If I was going to do it, I don't know. I mean, listen, if you're, yeah, if you're, you can go to different types of courses where they give journalists medical training and stuff like that. But, I mean, you can go to college for journalism, but I don't know of any accreditation. a credition process to become a war journalist.

I don't know if any such thing exists. And then you just buy like a Luftanzah flight to Kabul or something. Yeah, man. Literally just get off at the airport. And they're like, why are you here? And you're like, I was going to catch a vibe. I know, I interviewed a woman, Jessica. Oh my gosh.

I can't remember her last name offhand. She wrote a book, Eagle Down, I believe. and she's a Wall Street Journal reporter, terrific journalist, and she was in Afghanistan. She was like their Afghan-Afghanistan correspondent. She couldn't get embeds with the U.S. military. So she said, fuck it,

and asked the Afghan military if she could embed with them. So she embedded with the Afghans and went into war with them. So, I mean, you've got to, like, think outside the box and you can't get locked into, like, waiting for the Pentagon to give you permission and report on things. Yeah.

I mean that's Jessica Donati That's her name Wow I mean that is wild And she is naughty Dude she's fucking Yeah she's she's

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Can you explain how you got captured by border guards when you were smuggling out of Syria. Yeah. So the way out, I couldn't get out the way I got in. The boat was not running. That area, I think, was under too much observation from the border guards. So the next step was to go overland. There were further south, there were these big berms that Saddam had erected between Syria and Iraq. So big earthen berms, like 25 feet, 30 feet tall. And the Kurdish border guards helped us out in connecting us to a local Arab guy. I'm sorry, they were actually they were Syrian Christians, I believe. And this dude got us across the border in the middle of the night, climbed over that berm,

walked through the mud for like a mile to this small village. And it's like the shodiest thing ever. there's a PKK dude in a car on the other side. What is PKK? PKK is the Kurdish guerrilla group. Oh. So one of their like clandestine, you know, undercover guys, a member of them is over there. And he flashes his headlights.

And, you know, the Arab dude blesses us off, returns home. We get in the car, start heading through the checkpoints. And at first it all goes okay. but when we get to the big checkpoint coming out of there, they're like, okay. So you guys are coming through my checkpoint out of here right now, but I have no records of you coming through this checkpoint to get in. And so the big thing, they start interrogating us, like, were you in Syria? And I'm like, stick to the story.

No, was not in Syria. And then they drive us to DeHuk and were detained by the secret police, the Asayesh. and yeah, I got interrogated most of the night, you know, off and on and just admit nothing. I mean, this is, you know, the privilege of being an American like, okay, you have a blue passport. Like, they're not going to hold you forever. I mean, if you did something really bad, like they could hold you for quite a while if they wanted to. There's also, I don't know if it even matter, how much it matters in their system, but there's no proof that I was actually over there.

So, yeah, spent the night getting interrogated. And, you know, honestly, I think they just wanted to know what was going on. When I say interrogated, I mean, they're asking us questions. Like, it wasn't like I was tied to a chair or something. But are you nervous at this point? Yeah, I was nervous about being detained in a prison. Yeah. And also kind of having to lie.

Yeah. Like, I'm... To save my ass. I'm a bad liar. I don't enjoy that feeling. No, neither did I. But at this point, it's like, yeah, I'm trying to stay out. at a prison. So let go at like two in the morning or whatever, three in the morning. And the guy was

like, please don't disturb me again. And I was like, no problem, man, you'll never hear from me. Whoa. Yeah. And that was that was the Syria adventure. I mean, there's one more thing going to a refugee camp in North Iraq on that trip, as I recall. But that was it. That was that adventure. 2014, it was early on in the war. America hadn't gotten involved yet. There's no U.S. group presence there yet. It was before all that. And what are you covering in that time?

What are you actually documenting it? The Kurdish resistance, the Kurdish, specifically YPG and YPJ militias that were fighting ISIS in northeastern Syria. And can you explain briefly just like what geopolitically the Kurdish people are and how they interplay with the Turks and Syria? Not briefly. No. I don't know if there is a brief explanation, but for people that don't know what a Kurd is.

So the Kurdish people, the Kurds are an ethnic group, ethnic minority, and they're spread across southern Turkey coming down through northern Syria into northern Iraq and then downwards into western Iran. And that's basically the territory that the Kurdish people live in. And they have never had a Kurdish state. That's the thing. They are sort of a displaced people in that sense. They're an ethnic group without a home.

They have faced persecution in a lot of places. The Turks see the Kurds as basically animals and treat them as such. They're very repressive. In Syria, the Kurds were somewhat tolerated because the Syrian saw using the PKK as a way to fuck with the Turks, somewhat tolerated, but still the oppression that they would deal with in Syria. I mean, they could not legally have a job. They could not legally have a passport, all of these types of things. They could not, I don't think they could legally speak their language.

Then northern Iraq, the Kurds were gassed by Saddam Hussein. I mean, they're really bad stuff going on. So the Kurdish people, it's a history of conflict, a history of rebellion. And this insecurity that comes from never having a state, from never truly having a home. And what comes out of that is a whole series of resistance movements. The Peshmerga is one, which is sort of the, you would consider the army, the Kurdish army in Iraq. But even then it's more complicated because there are two parties. There's KDP and P.U.K.

And each party has their own Peshmerga. It's like, think if in America the Democrats had one army and then the Republicans also had their own army. Oh, wow. And they took orders from the party. Interesting. So even within the Kurdish resistance, there's faction. This is just surface level. It's way more complicated than even that.

Wow. Now within this, you have the PKK is, you know, the guerrilla militant arm of this resistance. and the reason why they are on the FTO, the foreign terrorist organization list that the State Department has, is largely because of our relationship with Turkey. And Turkey is a NATO ally. And they regard the Kurdish resistance as being a terrorist organization, as being terrorist in nature. So when Syria destabilizes, what, 2011, 2012, Syria destabilizes ISIS emerges, the Assad regime cracks down real hard, that the Kurds like they do anywhere when they see an opportunity,

hey, this is our moment, right? This is our moment to take our home, to create something for ourselves here. And the YPG and the YPJ were quite frankly specifically created to exist. outside the PKK so that we had an organization that so that they had an organization that was not on America's FTO. The YPG was the male, the men's militia and the YPJ is the women's militia. The Kurds have a, there's a strong part of their ideology. There's a strong feminist bent in it. But the way they regard gender relations is different than in America. I mean, they have a sort of like separate but equal mentality.

but they had a straight of FEMA militia. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And they were badass. Fighting and killing and dying on the battlefield. Eventually, as the war progressed, the YPJ and YPG sort of merged with Arab militias to form this organization, the SDF. The SDF is literally, that's the organization that America really got behind. Like, this is our baby, right, that we're supporting up here.

And the Kurds were a genuine, they were an R, the SDF and the YPG and YPJ were a genuine democratic movement fighting for freedom. And they made, so they made a very viable and effective partner force for the United States, which we don't always have. And I mean, just on the women's issue, one other thing I would bring up is Raj da Fulat was one of the Kurdish commanders, a woman. who commanded like a battalion or more of Arab fighters, male Arab fighters. And so there's all these ideas we have about the Middle East and what the Middle East is and their social structure and Islam. It was very fascinating to see in this part of Syria, this enclave, like when that's kind of washed away and the Moas don't have power and the primary lens through which we're viewing governance is not religion, it was not a problem. for this woman to lead Arab male soldiers. Interesting.

And she had their respect. It's very interesting to see all of that play out. It really was and is a sort of democratic experiment in northeastern Syria, one whose final chapter hasn't really been written yet. And the Kurds are generally Muslim? Are there any non-Muslim Kurds? Yeah, they are generally Sunni Muslims. They are more secular than other parts, other parts of Islam. There are also Christian Kurds, Christian Iraqis, if you will.

So, I mean, there's a lot of diversity even amongst the Kurds. And, yeah, I mean, my explanation of their politics is very much like surface level. Sure, yeah. I'm sure there's a tire. There's dozens and dozens of different parties and groups. and groups and yeah. Interesting. And how long did you spend with them?

Different. I mean, I was there, that first time in 2014, I was with them. And then I was back in Iraq a couple more times hanging out with the Kurds, in different Kurdish groups, you know, and other times I was with the Peshmerga down outside Kerkuk during a big battle. So different groups at different times. And then I went back to Syria, 2016, 2016. 17 around there.

And that was actually, I was invited into Damascus by the regime itself. Oh, really? By the Assad regime. And I actually got to interview him on that trip. So, yeah, I mean, this is the interesting thing about part of it is about being an American. And part of it is certainly being a journalist is that you have this ability to go and like meet with different people who are on opposite sides of some of these things in many different ways. Interesting. This is Assad that you met with?

On that trip, yes, on that particular trip. And what was that experience? You know, it was a time where the Syrian government was trying to court the Western press. And they were trying to flaunt that we were going to have this new sort of openness and that we were not closed off. And we're not a bunch of, you know, irredeemable war criminals. Because, I mean, the thing was, at the time, there was a big push in the West for regime change in Syria. So I think they wanted to invite the Western press in there and to try to have at least notionally this sort of like opening, this sort of like, you know, look, we're liberalizing. I mean, in so many words, that's what they were trying to accomplish there.

But there's the rhetoric and then you quickly also see what's really going on there. It was a very interesting experience. It was a high security when you met with them? No. Really? Why? I couldn't tell you why. But I tell you that, I mean, I'm sure, sure there was security around that compound and that, I mean, I was there because I was invited there.

But, I mean, I was never searched, never went through a metal detector. Yeah. It was actually rather informal the way that happened. And his title at that time was president. president. So you're meeting with a foreign president. And how long did you have audience with him? Half an hour, 45 minutes. Wow. And were you nervous before that? Maybe a little bit. Not really. I just, you know, I didn't even know I was meeting with him until that morning.

When I was suddenly told like, yeah, you're going to go and have a meeting with the president tonight. Like, okay. From whom? Who tells you your meeting with the president? This was a interlocutor with the Syrian government. Him and another gentleman had set up this sort of like press conference where like we're inviting the media in. And, you know, they meant well. And some of the, there's a bunch of speeches given and things like that in this lecture hall. And some of them were interesting. Some of them were propaganda. Some of them also revealed, I think, the really deep naeathe. of the Syrian elite, you know, that from their perspective, everything in Syria was great. There's nothing wrong.

And that all of the fighting was merely a foreign conspiracy against their country. I remember one woman saying, you know, it's ridiculous to say that, like, minorities are oppressed in this country because my name, my last name, it sounds Kurdish, even though I'm not. and this has never been a problem. I've never been discriminated against. It's like if I'm saying like my name is black, but I've never been treated like a black person because, you know, it's like that kind of level of like detachment from reality.

Interesting. There's another dude who stood up and he was carrying on about how meaningful it is that there's still like two or three Jews in Syria. Literally. Like two or three. Like that have stuck around. Said the number? Yeah.

I think there was about a dozen before the war started, and then there's like maybe two or three that's stuck around after the war started. And he's like, but that's very meaningful that they've shown this dedication to our country. Wow. I mean, this is them trying to like show how progressive and liberalized. And they say it sincerely. They mean it sincerely. But I think it was just an instance where you see how detached an elite class is from what's going on in this country. and there were areas of Syria that were like in terrible poverty that had been ignored by the government.

I mean, there's papers being written about this and things that have come out about. The entire insurgency is very complicated. But we can't say that it's entirely bullshit that there wasn't a foreign conspiracy against Syria as there were so many foreign actors getting involved in that, including America, by a certain. point. So it's not total nonsense. But I mean, look, insurgencies and what happened early on in 2011 with the Arab Spring leading into the protests and Dara, I mean, that friction, that tension, that comes from somewhere. Yeah, it's not a, it doesn't just, you know, manifest. Yeah, it wasn't some Israeli conspiracy against your country, right? It came from somewhere. Interesting. Were there any questions you wanted to ask him that you didn't or that you couldn't?

There were, you know, there are millions of questions that I would have. But, I mean, it was very limited short time. And, I mean, I think I got to ask like one question about the future of Syria. And that was kind of the extent of it. Was the takeaway interesting or was it just kind of like a milk toast diplomatic answer? Yeah, you have to take it for what it's worth. I mean, Assad is a savvy, educated guy. And he is the elected leader of Syria, but he's also the election.

elected spokesperson of that elite class that I that I described a bit. So he's kind of giving you and he is also their chosen interlocutor with the Western world. So how much of what he's telling you is, you know, or what he's saying is his truly deeply held belief and how much of it is just the rhetoric. You know, before all of this started, I mean, Assad was seen as sort of, he was seen as a more liberal figure that his His big thing before the war was trying to get the Golan Heights back for Syria. And that was his mission. And I think that he would have been open to negotiations with Israelis and making some sort of concessions.

Maybe. I mean, maybe I'm out over my skis here. But I think that was his big thing before the war. And, you know, he was not the chosen son. He was second in line after, I believe his brother died in a car crash. And he was a doctor, Western educated. And suddenly he's in the hot seat to take over for his father, Hafiz al-Assad. Did the war change him?

I mean, there are a lot of questions here that, like, I can't really answer. But before the conflict, he was seen one way. Then when the conflict started and the barrel bombings and then the Russians come in, obviously this stuff drives the West, particularly America up the walls. Right. You know, and then the gas attacks also is another thing. Interesting. Can you speak to the current conflict in the Middle East, obviously with Israel and Palestine and the war in Gaza? What would you be comfortable speaking on in terms of your perspective on the current conflict? Yeah, I mean, it's obviously a hugely sensitive issue and the problem. I actually try not to speak about it too much, not because I don't think it matters or it's not important, but I find that people can.

kind of pull into one extreme or the other. It's like you have to choose a side and just double down on it and not see any other perspective on it. So I tend to make people angry when I, whoever you are, I tend to upset people when I talk about it. But yeah, look, this is a long-running, unresolved conflict that we can trace at least back to 48, but really goes beyond that. It was on the back burner.

I mean, I guess the real thing is the core issue, the core issue is the issue of the issue of the Palestinian state or the state of Palestine or the Palestinian territories was not resolved. It was never resolved. And so it was this open wound. It was this hanging chad that hadn't been fixed. And, you know, the result. You know, you heard people into this, into an area that becomes overpopulated.

And if you treat people like animals long enough, they'll start acting like it. And, you know, what we saw happen recently or deplorable terrorist acts, murder, war crimes that Hamas committed against the Israeli people. And now Israel, understandably, wants to dismantle Hamas as an organization. And I think that's completely justified. I think they have to do that at this point. But you're also seeing wholesale destruction in Gaza, you know, the leveling of the city. And I don't see any ending. I don't see any resolution to the conflict for either side coming out of this recent bout of violence, unfortunately.

I'm one of those people, maybe the most naive of all. that I would like to believe in a two-state solution, but we are so far away from that. It almost doesn't seem possible. It's a time where you almost need the naive peace-knick hippies out there who believe that there's a chance for peace because I'm so cynical, I don't see it. But I hope that one day that opportunity does come about again.

it's just hard to see it right now. Do you think there's pressure from other countries in the region, like the Saudi Arabia's other nations that would have influence in the region that could potentially sway the conflict one way or another? Is there any proxy situation that's happening that you are able to identify? There are lots of proxies and there are lots of alignments that happen. I mean, there's some good news in that Israel has been slowly, not just Israel. the other Arab countries have a big say in this too, of course.

But you've seen one by one they've begun to start normalizing relations with the Arab world, little by little. It's a spot of good news. But, you know, the United States chose our partner, Israel. Iran has chosen their partner, the Palestinians, or the Palestinian Authority, more specifically, has Bola and Hamas. is really what I should say. A lot of people are putting their fingers on the scale, but there's no decisive winner, right? That's the real cynicism of it. It's a war without end.

It's a madness that just goes on and on. Does Russia have a vested interest in any way? Russia has a vested interest in thwarting the United States wherever it can, especially with what has been happening in Ukraine, that they're searching for opportunities that they can strike back. against us, striking back against one of our proxies or striking back against dual citizenship holders, American Israelis, would be one venue for that. So from the American point of view, from what the Biden administration is trying to accomplish, I really, my perception of it is that they're trying to urge Israel to wrap this thing up as quickly as they can. First, the Biden administration doesn't want to get saddled with accusations of war crimes,

accusations of Israeli war crimes and bulldozing a city. They don't want to have to wear that albatross. But the larger issue is that we don't want to get sucked into a regional conflagration. That we will be sucked in, that we being the American military, gets sucked into a regional war in the Middle East with Iran. And there is even some thought, there has been some thought as this thing has kicked off that the conflict in the Middle East could actually get big enough that it merges with the conflict in Ukraine.

And it just becomes this one giant proxy war between the United States and Russia. So that's why the Biden administration is pushing for, if it can't be decisive, can at least be quick. Interesting. So swift action ultimately. Yeah. And does China have a vested interest in this Middle Eastern conflict? Not a vested interest, no.

You know, despite their pretensions towards global leadership, they're awful hands-off, aren't they? That's what it seems like. Yeah, on some of these conflicts. Because I don't think they see a clear benefit for China. I mean, if America is in some way, you know, undermined or, you know, putting money into foreign proxy wars, does that benefit China? I think they could see it that way. But are they actually going to take action? You know, would they actually jump into bed with some of the actors over there and start funding, sending war material the way Iran does?

I haven't seen any evidence of that. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, that's very interesting. I'm always curious how these other nations are trying to leverage and jockey any time a conflict breaks out. Because I think there's a very obvious, you know, two sides in any war. but as things are much more global, there's many, many sides to every war

and everyone can somehow benefit. I'm actually curious if you can speak on this specifically in relation to this conflict, but in a broad sense, how does America profit from war? Are you able to explain, like, the finances behind how, you know, these multinational companies are actually, like, sort of incentivized to stoke war? I mean, it's a huge topic.

And I mean, no, it's not one that I can really speak to from a really informed point of view. But the United States has a tremendous arms industry. And that's not just Washington, D.C. insiders, which it is. But many of these weapons are made in Middle America, munitions, war material, tanks, vehicles, missiles, all this sorts of stuff. It is a part of our economy. a large part of our economy. It's a part of our defense exports. And there's different ways.

Some of these exports are for sale. They're commercial. People are, in other cases, it's something the United States government is giving to someone under a different, under one program or another. Because we're trying to prop up a certain government. The, I mean, look, I think over 10 years, we're giving like $30 billion to Israel, sponsored their defense. but we're also giving money to Egypt. I mean, I can't remember the exact amount of money, but I mean, we give tons of, we have an extensive military relationship with the country of Egypt.

We have, you know, a relationship with Saudi Arabia because of the oil and, you know, building an Iron Dome around their oil infrastructure. Yeah, man. I mean, that's like an encyclopedia could be written on this topic. And I don't know that I have any like specific insights about it. But it is an industry. And it's important to know that it is an industry and understand that people do make money off of it. You know, look, I made money off of it in a way.

You know, being a soldier, being a journalist that covers it. It's like, am I detached from the system or am I a part of the system? Interesting. Right. And I think we all have to think about that as Americans. Like we're all part of this system, right, in different ways, whether we acknowledge it or not. And all of these things have to be thought about. I mean, when we go to war. And, you know, just to speak about it briefly, I mean, I think there's an older generation right now that is kind of shocked to see all of these young people on college campuses. out here on the streets in New York City who are doing these pro-Palestine rallies. In some cases, they're pro-Palestine. In some cases, they veer off into some really vile, nasty stuff, anti-Semitism. Like, that's there.

It exists. And we shouldn't pretend otherwise. But as I've tried to explain to some people in the recent past, we're seeing a younger generation that does not get their news from mainstream media. sources. They're younger. Many of them are not white. They're they didn't, they come from foreign cultures or if they're not first generation immigrants, their family, their parents came from a foreign culture. And in a country that we may have been dropping bombs on for the last 20 years. I mean, we've been Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria.

where else am I missing? Yeah. I mean, there's a large, oh, Pakistan. I mean, there is a large swath of the world that we have conducted military operations in. And whether they're just or not, we have to consider that this has an impact on people and how they perceive the United States and how they perceive our support for certain governments. I mean, if you lived in a country that's fairly authoritarian and the United States government supported that government, supported that authoritarian regime. And now you see us supporting, from their perspective,

they see us supporting an authoritarian regime that's attacking an Islamic or, you know, a non-white Muslim population. These young people are having a reaction to it. And it's important to understand where that comes from. And I think what I've spoken to is part of where it comes from. It's not the totality of it, but it's part of it. That's interesting. Yeah, the children of these refugees that are, you know, leaving these nations that America has, you know, agitated war in are here.

They're going to have a different perspective on it than people like me who are a white American male. I grew up here in America. We learned about the Holocaust every year in school. Like, we were, I don't want to say indoctrinated, but we should use it, you know, educated about like the historical plight that the Jewish people have gone through. Yeah. And, you know, it's important to understand what they have been through, too, and to understand Israel is a country that lives with a Holocaust complex. And they live with that hanging over their head. And, you know, you can meet here in New York City. Jewish people who, they're not totally removed from it. Like, their grandparents narrowly escaped the camps. Yeah. Right. It's not, it's still in memory. Yeah. And that generational trauma stays with them. It's there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I think it's important for the, you know, people that might be on a ideological other side to look at that and recognize like, oh, no, that heritage is still very recent, you know, for that population. And I think that's a big part of why you get such a strong emotional reaction to this particular topic. Yeah. We don't have these

sorts of conversations about what's going on in Armenia right now, or Myanmar, or Syria. Like, this Israel-Palestine conflict has like a totally different tone to it. it totally different tone to it. Absolutely. As a journalist, a war journalist, what is your perspective on the way that, you know, war news and propaganda is disseminated now than, you know, it was even 10 years ago? It has changed. And, you know, the thing that, it freaks me out a little bit.

War today is social media content. You know, I've made these comments. And I want to be clear that I'm not attempting to be dismissive or insensitive towards people who are in war zones anywhere in the world. But there is a war zone and there is what the people there are experiencing and the very real horror in death. But then there is us that here in the safety of America or in the Western world and these wars are like social media content. And they become like Israel, Palestine is an interesting one because, you know, after Israel got attacked very quickly, we ceased talking about that attack. And instead we just argued over what opinions you're allowed to have about it. And we started having like this sort of like proxy arguments where in the West, for us, not for the people in Israel and Palestine, but for us in the West, the discussion turns to something very different.

And I am, whether it's people who posted up all these like pictures of ISIS committing war crimes all the time, or today you see it, depending on which side you choose, people cheering on from the sidelines, from the comfort of America, the destruction and death and the killing. Whether it's the killing of Israelis or Palestinians, and people cheering that on, it. just immediately, it hits me because it's like these people don't respect war. They don't understand it. They don't respect the danger and the chaos and the madness of what those people are going through. Yeah. And again, look, if Israel wants to put Hamas out of business, I'm not losing any sleep over that at all. Don't get me wrong.

But when you start dehumanizing people, leads to some really dark places. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is interesting seeing the Western response. And it's something I've talked with, you know, on, you know, with the guys over at Flagrant that we've talked a little bit about, like, people just wanting to be on like the morally righteous side. Who's your good guy? Exactly. And just having to like choose, which in war to me always seems a short-sighted, especially if you're not extremely familiar with the history of the conflict and extremely familiar with like the, the.

cultures that are involved in the conflict, just coming from a Western point of view being like, this seems like, you know, the best side to choose and this will get me the least flack on social media or amongst my community, whatever that may be, just always seemed a little strange to me just to be like, I pick this team. And it's always like, whoa, like these are people that are dying. These are, you know, soldiers that are going to be deployed and that are actually boots on the ground. Americans are going to be involved in this very quickly. And to just flip it sort of have an opinion just always seem short-sighted to me. Even when there is a bad guy, I mean, look, Saddam Hussein was a bad guy.

But, I mean, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was probably not a wise foreign policy decision for us to make as Americans. I mean, there are a lot of really bad things about the Assad regime, but I mean, understand that they're fighting for what they see as the continuity of their country. They're trying to hold their country together in a civil war. They're doing some terrible things in the process of that. But there are these different perspectives. And, you know, as Americans were kind of removed from it. And as a country, we're a strong, powerful country with a powerful military.

And we can throw our weight around and really put our thumb on the scale in one direction or another. And, I mean, it's naive to think we're not pissing a lot of people off in the process of doing that. Right. Yeah. You spoke or you wrote an article recently about Special Forces. being deployed into Gaza? Not into Gaza. Into staging in Cyprus.

Okay. My apologies. Yeah, yeah. No, I just want to be clear that there aren't American soldiers in Gaza. Yeah, I think that's a fair distinction. Yeah, yeah. Can you explain how, I guess, the conflict in the Middle East is creating that situation? Was that the nature of it?

Yeah, yeah. So when Hamas went into Israel and they kidnapped all of those people, it included something like 22 American citizens. So now American hostages are being held in Gaza. This immediately brings the U.S. military into the fold. The administration is going to want policy options. And as we've seen, one of those policy options is negotiations through the Qataris with the State Department and getting hostages released. If that doesn't work, if that hadn't worked, the other, there's got to be a military option if we need it. And so that's what they started to develop pretty quickly. And we deployed Steel Team 6 and Delta Force to Cyprus, the island off the coast, to stage for that and began

planning and going. I mean, this was a almost an unprecedented deployment in the number of soldiers, special ops guys and material. Going into Gaza was one of the most, probably one of the most complex missions that the command has ever faced ever since its inception in 1980 um they were bringing everything to it i mean if that operation had happened they were bringing like everything they had to the fight wow um yeah it would have been massive um it would have been like basically a small invasion essentially i mean you're you're invading a city that's in rubble you know where there's you know pretty much everyone is going to have a gun and be trying to kill you and that Hostages, as far as we know, they're being held in tunnels.

You're going to have to go into these underground facilities. Yeah, it would have been a mess. Yeah. So we didn't do that. What we did is we had a lot of intelligence that we were running, flying drones over Gaza and over Gaza City. We embedded a lot of operators with the Israelis, with the Israeli Defense Force, helping them out to get them to do precision air strikes, helping them out with intelligence. there were new technologies like classified military technologies intercept gear that we loaned to the Israelis for them to start doing intelligence collection.

So it was a pretty big, and it is, our assistance and advising to them is a pretty robust effort. Right. Yeah. And what is the current status with that operation as far as the hostages are concerned? You know, by the time we got, what, like a month in, I think it became pretty clear that the hostage rescue mission was not going to get greenlit, that that wasn't going to be the primary. I mean, if it would have at all. Because, again, that's such a complicated and dangerous mission. At some point, you have to do the math on it.

Like, okay, we think we can rescue 20 hostages. That's really important. But if the assessment is that we're going to have like two helicopters shot down in the process, 35 operators, you know, lost maybe. I mean, I don't know what exactly those numbers were. But I mean, there has to be some sort of a risk calculus. But the advising and assistance to the Israeli military continues. That's ongoing. And as I understand it, there's not any real pretensions about it in that this is going to be like a

long-haul thing. Like we're going to rotate people in and out of there for, you know, maybe another year, another year and a half. And what are the geopolitical implications if the U.S. were to deploy, you know, seal teams into Gaza to try to get these hostages? Like, is that now putting our, it's no longer our proxy? We are now just fully engaged in the conflict. And what would that mean for the war? It would be a limited engagement. I mean, you're absolutely right. There are political considerations and how would that inflame parts of the Arab world? Would it inflame? Would it adjust the calculations of the Iranians and how directly they want to get involved in this? I don't fully know exactly. I mean, what those assessments would look like, but I mean, those things

definitely have to be considered. I mean, but this would not be like, we're going to take territory and hold it. It would be like we're going to go in there one period of darkness in and out. It would certainly piss people off. But I think I would like to think I mean certainly the American public I think would understand this is a hostage rescue mission. We have to get our people out. And that's it.

And that's it. I think they would support that. As far as the rest of the world I mean, you'll probably get some mixed opinions. But yeah, I wonder what the real, if there really would be like any concerted blowback because I mean at the end of the day it's like they're American citizens, a hostile

armed force is holding them. We went in and killed those guys and got our hostages out. Like, who's going to say you can't do that? Yeah. I mean, they can, but. Yeah, on what grounds? Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense.

Now, in terms of all the global areas of disputed land, it seems like everything is inflamed currently. Obviously, you have the Middle East, you have Ukraine and Russia and just like a general Russian rolling occupation throughout all of, like, Eastern Europe, I guess. And it doesn't seem like that's going to be slowing down necessarily. and I guess the last kind of like major, you know, chess piece is China and Taiwan. Has there been any current movement that China would try to make a move in Taiwan? And if they did, what would that look like?

I don't think there's any indications right now that China, I don't think there's any imminent threat that China is going to invade Taiwan at this moment. there are again there are different theories different assessments of how that could possibly come about um you know one theory holds that uh you know the the chinese economy looks like it's turned a corner that it's on a downward trend that they peaked um there are thoughts that if the chinese economy crashes um that the the only real legitimacy that the chinese government has is producing wealth a GDP growth every year. That's slowing down. So there's some thought that if the economy crashes, that the Chinese military might invade Taiwan as a way to bolster the government, like, look,

here's our victory, our big patriotic moment, that we're reunifying Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. But then there are other case studies that show that the Chinese become more risk-adverse during times of economic hardship, that they might actually kind of circle the wagons a bit. I mean, nonetheless, I mean, it's something that we have to be prepared for. It's yet another flashpoint that we have to prepare for that this might cook off sometime in the future. But, you know, as you mentioned, there is also a robust American defense industry that's always looking for work. So, and I'm one of these people that I would have said, you know, 10 years ago, I was really frustrated because no one would talk about China. And you would mention China in terms of a threat or a global competitor.

and people would kind of laugh at you 10 years ago. And now is it possible we've gone a little bit too far, that we've gone a little bit too far seeing China as this unstoppable, unbeatable threat? You know, people have these ideas in their mind that China is going to, you know, it's going to be like this blade runner future where China becomes this dominant culture in the Western United States. But it's also important to keep in mind that like there was a time back in the 1980s when people said these things about Japan, that they were going to take over the world,

that the Japanese way of business was just so much better than everyone, that they could compete more than us, that the Japanese working man was just so dedicated to the company, that they worked 20 hours a day. You know, there were parents that would have their kids enrolled in Japanese lessons to learn the Japanese language because people saw this as the future, that Japan is the future. And then the bubble burst in the early 1990s and their economy cratered. And that was the end of that. So, I mean, I don't want to minimize, you know, the potential threat that China poses.

They have a separate ideology. And I think their vision, their global vision, the way they envision the future is very different than ours. And it's screwed up as I think America is in a lot of ways. I don't think the Chinese vision is better. I actually think it's profoundly worse. I mean, the way they view society is as a human ant-hill. It's a hive mind. And there's systems of carrots and sticks and punishing anybody, you know, their social credit system,

anybody who steps outside of the bounds is not something. I would not want to see that system come to dominate the future. But as far as an invasion of Taiwan, I mean, you mean like the mechanics of how that might take place? Yeah, and what the fallout of that would be. Like, obviously America would have to be activated and then would that just create a war with China? And then would that set off a chain reaction, hypothetically. Yeah, so hypothetically, that conflict would probably start off with, you know, there would be the cyber attacks. There would be ballistic missiles.

there would probably be some shaping operations to try to keep if there is an American presence in the South China Sea to keep them out of there. And sooner or later, I mean, there's going to have to be an amphibious landing in Taiwan. And this is another thing that I bring up to people when we talk about the Chinese threat is when was the last time China did expeditionary warfare? When was the last time China did an amphibious landing or an airborne operation or any sort of like complex military invasion or maneuver. I mean, they fought the, there's the Sino-Indian War. They fought a war with Vietnam briefly after us. But they don't have a like a global mandate with the way our military does.

They've never really done anything like this before. So we have to keep in mind that they may not be quite as competent as they want us to believe. But nonetheless, there would have to be. an amphibious landing of Taiwan. Now, if that's happening, if Taiwan is under attack, the United States is going to come in to try to backfill Taiwan and protect them. And people sometimes tell me, you know, Jack, we're never going to fight China over, you know, Taiwan or some rocks in the South China Sea that you can barely see it go tide.

We're not going to war over that. It's like, yeah, you're right. But if something pops off over there and we say. send aircraft carriers into the region to send a message, just a signal or whatever it is, or to directly support Taiwan, and the Chinese launch a bunch of ballistic missiles at it and sink our aircraft carrier? Dude, can you, it'll be like after 9-11, man. And you'll see on television all day, every day, it'll be the fluttering American flag

with the pictures one by one of every sailor that was killed on that aircraft carrier or naval ship. Americans would go bat shit crazy over that. And we absolutely would fight a war over that. Absolutely. So, I mean, I could see that potentially happening, you know. And I think, you know, China is not stupid. I mean, they understand these things and they have to mitigate that.

I mean, what the, what Taiwan would represent, if they did successfully do that in amphibious landing and invade Taiwan. I mean, in one sense, it definitely solidifies China as a regional power, if not a global power, reunifies Taiwan with the mainland. Whereas previously, Taiwan was an open wound for China. It shows that for a Chinese population, democracy, and capitalism can work. And that's a big part of why they want that shutdown. So that dream of democracy for China would finally die once and for all. And then we'd have to, we'd have problems with Japan and South Korea. And, I mean, China's going to try to dominate the Pacific Rim.

I mean, that's going to be their goal. But again, this is all very hypothetical. Like, none of this could come to pass. And it may not be China's ambition to challenge America directly in this manner. Yeah, you seem fairly confident that this would not happen, that China would not agitate directly. with some type of like, you know, amphibious landing in Taiwan. At this time, I don't think it's likely.

But let's say, you know, China did have some sort of coup. Like, I think Taiwan an invasion of Taiwan would be likely to happen because of some sort of internal frictions in China rather than anything we do. Like if she was displaced and like some like stone-faced general with metals from, you know, waist and neck takes over the Chinese government. It's like, God damn it, we need to invade Taiwan right now. Like, that's the way I could see that happening. I think right now, China is so plugged into the global economy that going after Taiwan, again, the return on investment, I don't think is there for them. That makes sense. Yeah. But it also seemed unlikely that Putin would go into Ukraine. That's completely true and fair. And I was one of those people who's like, he would never do this.

Like, no one, there's no way Russia is stupid enough to do this. And then it happened. So this is the thing with international norms is, I mean, their norms up until they're challenged. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. So at this point now in Russia, Ukraine, it's a year and a half into this conflict.

What is the current status and why does it seem like the American public doesn't care anymore? I don't know that they don't care. But, I mean, yeah, sure, the American patience does have limits and we have short attention spans. But, I mean, they did the offensive over the summer. It was somewhat useful in attritting the Russian military, but it was not as successful as we would have liked it to have been. I think Ukraine certainly hoped that they would have been able to take over more territory than they did. The Russians have defense in depth at this point. They've laid like minefields and pretty layered defenses in the areas that they've captured,

making it much more difficult for them to retain. some of those areas and achieve a breakthrough. So I would not say we're at a stalemate. The battlefield, the front lines do move a little bit here and there. It's not a frozen conflict at the moment because it's still moving. But you're seeing the conflict mature and solidify and crystallize in a way. And what happens is that these conflicts or wars in general are fought until one side reaches exhaustion and then they go into negotiations. I don't know how far away we are from that, six months, 12 months.

Oh, really? But I think, yeah, we're going to, I mean, it could become, you know, again, another frozen conflict where it's just like, you know, like North and South Korea. it just stops right down. Yeah. Technically you're still at war. Right. Yeah.

Create a DMZ and then that's it. That's a possible future. A lot of it, it depends, you know, on Ukraine and on Russia. Is Ukraine willing to give up that territory in some sort of negotiation? I mean, the most recent comments from Zelensky, I think his exact words were fuck no. I mean, I think he said that on like CBS. Wow. So, but I mean, is that the rhetoric, that's the rhetoric he's giving, which makes total sense when you're still at war. They may be closer to going into negotiations than maybe they want to let on. And I don't have any like insider information about that. I'm just saying a lot of people have died on both sides. And they may be reaching a point where they're willing to sit down and negotiate some sort of settlement in the next 12 months. Interesting. I mean, it seems like Ukraine's bank is probably a little deeper just with U.S. support.

But I don't know. I don't know the details, though. Yeah, I mean, we have given them a lot of military material and military support. So they're not hurting there. And the Europeans got online too. Yeah, tremendous support. But a lot of Ukrainians have died in this conflict. And so, I mean, how many young men are they? able to keep funneling into this thing, how much more of their population. I mean, I have to imagine they've mobilized everybody they can mobilize at this point. And same thing with the Russians, you know, want to put on a good face. We've hollowed, we with Ukraine, have hollowed out their military. Right. I mean, God damn. Yeah, it's bad. So I mean, they're defending what

they've taken, but can they actually do another offensive and take more of Ukraine? I mean, there's certain, I mean, I don't think there's any serious person that thinks Russia can achieve its goals, its original goals of, you know, conquering Ukraine and taking Kiev. I think, I don't think anyone imagines that as being a possibility anymore. They just don't have enough gas in the tank. Right. So if you had a guess, do you imagine Russia, you know, suffers from exhaustion quicker than Ukraine? Well, no. Even with all of the vehicles they're losing, all of the people, all of their soldiers and their men that they're losing.

And like the Russian government is trying to start up like, I mean, they've done this before, but they're like breeding program where they're like encouraging women to get married and have eight kids now. Oh, wow. Yeah, the war's not going so well for them. Oh, wow. I've heard stories about them like tearing microchips out of refrigerators and stuff for their missiles. Yeah. Yikes. Yeah, it's not going well.

But as others have found, Napoleon, Hitler, etc., Russia has a very deep magazine. You can underestimate them, but they have a large and deep population that when they mobilize people, I mean, they can get a lot of people up to the front. Stalin said that, you know, quantity has a quality of its own. That's a great quote. That's a great quote. That only someone like Stalin would say. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's so interesting.

interesting how the how everything will crystallize i'm curious about the the russian side i mean it just seems brutal having to just prolong this war especially thinking that it was going to be a you know a one-month thing and yeah using katerov's boys mobilizing these people from siberia and then you see the news this um this last week uh nepalese mercenaries emptying their prisons of convicts sending them up to the front with the vagner guys They're taking everybody. I mean, Wagner's pretty much wiped out now. I mean, I don't, I think they're done.

They're defunct more effectively defunct, right? Right. Yeah, I mean, they're using like Nepalese mercenaries and send them up there. It's like, yeah, man, this thing hasn't gone well for them. Have you heard rumors that Putin is sick? I've heard rumors. I mean, I've heard rumors for a long time. But, I mean, Secretary Burns and I'm sorry, Director Burns and Secretary Blinking.

have always tried to manage expectations with that. They're like, don't, you don't want to hold out hope that, you know, this guy's just going to, like, drop dead one day. Like, we can't plan for that. We have to assume that, you know, he's in this to win it. Yeah. Are there any other conflicts happening globally that you think people should keep an eye on or that people don't know about?

I mean, all the time, obviously, there's civil wars and things that are breaking out that at least in America we're just completely unaware of. Sudan is, you know, people are killing each other. Yeah. There's lots of out there that are interesting and that could potentially boil over. I mean, this week the big news was Venezuela trying to claim parts of Guyana as their own. And there are a number of countries. I mean, territory disputes all over the world.

Let's see. Some of the ones, the Balkans in eastern U.S. Europe, it was and remains a powder keg that could boil over at any point. And we've seen tensions in Serbia, Kosovo, etc. The odds of that boiling over at some point are probably close to 100%. I'm not saying it's imminent, but... In the decade. Yeah. Yeah. What else is going on? I mean, the Middle East, the mess we've created over there just opened that cauldron and the Sunni versus Shia conflict is not at the end. It's at the beginning. It's probably the beginning of a century-long, you know, renewed conflict. And right now, I mean, what we're seeing is, you know,

the larger recalibration of global water taking place. And it's very interesting to see how that pans out. But other conflicts, like potential conflicts that could break out. I mean, I think India and China is one. Could there be a second Sino-Indian war? That's a possibility. And is that over border disputes as well? Border disputes, yeah. And also maritime stuff in the Indian Ocean. Ships getting positioned. Yeah. And you're seeing potentially also, I mean, we've definitely seen a much more aggressive Chinese government. It appears we're seeing a much more aggressive Indian government too and the charges that they're trying to whack people even here. So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. India has followed a non-aligned status historically,

but in a potential conflict with China, okay, you do the math. Probably we're going to give them whatever they want. Interesting. But yeah, I think these are some of the big ones right now. You know, we've talked about them. Russia, China are issues with Iran that's not going away. Yeah, I mean, that's, I mean, that's a pretty good. It's a pretty good overview. Yeah, those are some of the big ones. I think, you know, we're seeing a few more countries joining NATO. There's talk that we may see in the future, Japan joined Five Eyes, which would be an interesting development.

It's Five Eyes. Five Eyes is our, it's essentially an intelligent sharing arrangement that we have with the UK, Australia, England. the UK, Australia, New Zealand, where we share information and we have listening stations on each other's territory. Interesting. And Japan is considering joining? I mean, we would have to invite them into it. But there's just some nascent talks about this happening. And all of that is basically you're seeing the alliances form for World War III, essentially.

If we did enter into a global war with China, this is what the alliances would look. like. How do you think the lines would break? Would it break? Yeah, like how would the lines break off? It would be United States, Japan, India, potentially, and then who would the Chinese sort of side with? Is it like the BRICS alliances? Like, is that kind of where their faction would break? Not really. I mean, the BRICS and the so-called global South, I mean, there's not really, there's no sort of like NATO security agreement between these countries. I mean, like BRICS doesn't have like a charter. They don't have any, like, I don't believe they have any commercial treaties with one another. They don't have a currency.

I mean, I just don't see that. I think China would definitely, they would ally with Russia in a potential war like that. That would be the big one. And then they could probably bully a lot of the Southeast Asian countries. I mean, that would become like we've been there before, battling for influence in Southeast Asia. Australia, of course, with us, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea with us. North Korea with China. But I mean, then you drill down into the particular elizums. It's going to be more complicated than that. But I think you can see some early signs of who would fall in where.

Absolutely. Yeah. And I wonder if a lot of those like East African nations that have kind of been co-opted into the Belt and Road initiative would be, you know, siding with China. Again, I don't know if that would matter as much. But so countries choose their strategic partners. know, based on what's going to benefit them the most. A lot of it will depend on who they see winning the conflict. Sure. Who they see, you know, how they can economically benefit from it. I mean, it's nothing personal and it's nothing like some people get angry about it.

Oh, this guy, they allied with this. It's like, well, you're a little country. You're not a particularly powerful country. Like, you have to choose a side. You're forced into that corner where you have to choose somebody for your own survival. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Last question I want to ask you, this is maybe a little bit outside of your purview.

Uh-oh. But I have been reading about David Grush, military whistleblower. Oh, yeah. Speaking before Congress, basically saying that we have non-human biologics in U.S. military possession. I'm curious, in your experience, you know, reading about whistleblowers, studying whistleblowers, things like that. Does his story seem credible to you? Have you been following it? Is it interesting to you? What are your thoughts?

It's not interesting to me. I mean, I think it's a group of grifters and frauds who are perpetrating this nonsense against the American people, frankly. And they have been for decades. I mean, in the quote-unquote UFO community, it's a lot of the same personalities over and over. And some of the same personalities who seem to have snuggled up and groomed this latest whistleblower. And some people form a career around this going around at UFO conferences and they write books and do the speaking circuit and everything. I think it's wholesale bullshit. I think every, I mean, I would say I don't think UFOs per se are bullshit. There are things up there that we don't really know. There may be natural phenomena.

But aliens, no. No, that's nonsense. And these stories about how we've, you know, recovered UFOs, recovered alien bodies. It's total bullshit. It's complete bullshit. I've spoken, I'll just say this last piece. I spoke to somebody a fairly high up official. I wish I could name them because now I'm back to using anonymous sources too.

But this guy was read on to every UAP program we have. And he's like, I never saw any evidence at all. of aliens. There are some things that are mistaken identity. There are some things where it's probably natural phenomena.

There are some things which honestly we don't know but I never saw any evidence of aliens this guy told me. And he was right on to all of those special access programs. The same ones

that Grosges claim to have access to. That he doesn't. He claims he talked to people who told him this. It's all secondhand.

Mm-hmm. And I mean, I have heard lots of secondhand stories, all kinds of insane stories over the years. But I mean, they're just that. They're rumors. They're things that sometimes there are lies that are intentionally spread. And some people turn it into a career. I could turn it into a career by repeating rumors I've heard of the most fantastical things that our government does. but, you know, if you're responsible, you have to, you have some sort of commitment to the truth and to reality.

And I don't say this just to be like a Debbie Downer, like shitting on people's, you know, dreams and hopes for alien life, which, yeah, I hope alien life is out there somewhere. But I feel like I need to tell people like, yeah, you're being lied to you, man. You're being taken for a ride, you know, even some good friends of mine who believe this stuff. and setting yourself up to be let down. Yeah. Now, I know obviously you don't know David Grush and you're not- No, I don't. You're not intimately involved in his personal dealings and things like that,

but could you speculate generally how something like this could happen, how you have a seemingly high-ranking member of the military, testifying before Congress, saying things that you deem as fallacious. Yeah, and he, you know, he may not, like you point out, I don't know him personally. I'm not saying he's like a bad person or a liar even. He may really believe what he's saying. But he may have met some people in the aerospace industry

who told him some tall tales and got him spun up. You know, it's like picture like someone like me if I'm out at a bar. And like you tell people they're like, hey, this guy Jack was in special forces. And then people in the bar are like, oh, tell us a story, tell us a story, tell us a story. He ate a guy's body that was charred on the ground. It's like, no, man, I don't want to talk about it. trying to have a drink here and they keep bugging me for like 15 minutes like okay i'll tell you a story there's this one time i had uh they sent me in a north korea by myself with 10 magazines and two

morees you know it could be something like that where we heard these stories secondhand somebody trying to like inflate themselves make themselves sound special or maybe just trying to impress some kid right and he takes these stories to heart and then links up at with wherever he did links up with these professional UFO community folks who make a living off of this. And the next thing you know, here they are in front of Congress. Wow. And if you want to talk about the UAP thing, I'd actually really recommend that you talk to my buddy. He's a journalist named Keith Khor.

And he's like the big-time UAP debunker guy, not me. This isn't really my beat. Sure. Yeah, that's really interesting. I guess it just seems wild to me. Like in my perception is like, okay, high-ranking military guy, he's in front of Congress for a reason. I don't really know how that works, but he's there because there's some credibility. And he's claiming that, yeah, 100% we have aliens in possession.

To me, I'm like, this is insane. It gets headlines, too. It makes for good copy, right? Right. Even the New York Times writes stories about this stuff. Right. And it gets congressmen on television. It gets them some air time.

And sometimes it even leads to, like, like budgetary stuff, right? Like they actually like get money, like tax money for these programs. Interesting. It's weird. So everyone can eat off of this little feeder that's generally harmless in your opinion. Some people. Some people eat off of it.

Absolutely. Right. So the whistleblowers can get their little, their thing from it. And maybe they're believing it. Maybe they're not. And the congressman and women can get airtime and, you know, appeal to their constituency in some way or raise their profile. And some of the media makes money on it. Some irresponsible journalism, yeah.

That's quite interesting. So from this one thing, there's no, no one really is hurt necessarily. And all these people are able to make money or aggrandize themselves in some way. For some people, it becomes like a UFO cult. And it really does kind of become sort of sad. And yeah, you start to feel kind of bad for people. But that's also like, you know, the nature of conspiracy I feel was like totally different when I was a kid to today.

Like when I was a kid, it was like the X-Files, you know? Yeah, it was just kind of cool. It's like this cool thing to like watch these television shows and like speculate. Like, oh, I wonder maybe there are UFOs. And then today, conspiracy is like, it takes on a different tone. It's like Q-A-N-on type stuff. And it's not just like a fun thing to think about or to talk about. They're eating babies and they're evil and they're pedophiles.

Yeah, exactly. And you're like, yeah, it takes on and it gets interwoven with our politics. and it takes on a totally different tone and you're like, oh boy. Yeah. This isn't good. Yeah, we're storming the capital now. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I just want to talk about aliens, but now I have to go put on a headdress.

Yeah, yeah. And I don't mean to conflate like UFO enthusiasts with, you know, 6th January insurrectionists. Sure, sure, sure, yeah. There are people who are just really into UFOs and they like to go out to Area 51 with their binoculars. And yeah, it's harmless. They're not hurting anybody, and that's okay if that's their hobby and they like to do that. Yeah. But no, I do get that feeling.

Seems like conspiracies that have taken a... Yeah. In some capacity, somewhat of a dangerous slant. I still enjoy, you know, the casual conspiracy. I was having a conversation with a friend yesterday who was like, dude, Stevie Wonder's not blind. And I was like, oh, this is perfect. Give me all of this. Like, just put me on.

I love this. But yeah, once it starts getting a little crazy, we were like, hey, you know, your mom is actually a demon. You're like, okay, I don't want to, this is now crossing a personal line. I don't want to do this. My daughter, when she was younger, she'd tell me about,

there's all these My Little Pony conspiracy theories. Oh, goodness. Oh, yeah. There's like the My Little Pony cinematic universe. Like within the universe? Yeah, I know more about my little pony than a grown man ought to. Well, there's some grown men that know more than you.

I know. Don't I know it? Yeah, yeah. Don't go to any of those conferences. Those conspiracies go deep. Oh, my God. took her to a comic book convention and we were going to sign up for a Dungeons and Dragons game. And so we're standing there like in this sort of like hall, like lobby area.

And I'm trying to sign us up for this game. And while we're there, all the furries come in for their group picture. And there's like 150 of them. All these people dressed up like wolves and stuff. I'm standing there with my daughter who's like nine at the time. And they get their picture taken. And then they all, oh. And I'm just standing there like, yeah, little girl, this is, yeah, this is a thing.

My deal is like, if it's not sexual, do whatever you want. But as soon as it starts getting weird, I'm like, come on. Well, they can do whatever they want even if it's sexual. I don't care. But that's their own, no, no, they're going to go home and do this. Yeah, I mean? Don't be around my kid. I think these were adults just doing their thing.

Yeah, doing their thing at the comic convention. We should go, you and I. We'll do a covert operation. Though I went with my friend Dave, we went to DefCon, what two years ago out in Vegas. What is that? It's like a hacker convention. Oh, cool. They have a fairly affluent, a little furry community going on there.

Yeah, a little vibe. There's a vibe, yeah. So we'll go. We'll dress up. I'll be a wolf. You can be some other thing. Yeah. Maybe we could do like a horse or like a zebra and I'll be the back, you'll be the front.

It'll be one horse. and we'll just kind of like catch, you know, see what's going on. We'll do an operation. Are you down for one more adventure? I'm down for it, yeah. Let's go do it. Thank you so much, brother. I really appreciate it.

I'm going to link Team House, all that shit, all in the description. Check out Murphy's Law. All the other things you've written, fiction, nonfiction across the board. The articles are wonderful. Thank you. And I really appreciate you taking the time to chop it up. Yeah, it's fun. I'm here in the neighborhood, you know, so anytime.

Let's do it again soon. Yeah. Can't wait. Cool. Appreciate you.