The Medal, the Memos, and the Mountain | Mitch Hall & Brian Bloom | Ep. 472
00:00Okay, got the red smoke.West of the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now.Come on winning, baby. Give it to me. I made it.You're clear it hot.We were discussing.You're going to start already, leaning back away from the mic?God.How many times? Is it a dozen yet?
00:28I think it's a dozen.It's over a dozen.We were discussing just how much we liked where that conversation where the Rangers went.Like there was a...I was asking.Brian, while you were taking a piss, whether or not he felt it went the way it wanted.I wanted you to have the opportunity to lead the conversation, but absent that, I justask questions that are interesting to me.
00:52I never know where it's going to lead.People always ask me, do you know everything you're going to ask people?And I always say, I only know one question, and that's the first one.And then from there it goes where it goes.Yeah, there was a level of humanity in that conversation that was unplanned.And we're really happy.It went that direction because I think that's,That's one of the elements missing from this entire story.
01:13I think it's a reflection of what those guys wanted when they agreed to sit down with us toobecause they were very serious about making sure we got it right.And obviously we all didn't know each other and still don't know each other well.But to make sure we weren't sensationalizing this,make sure we weren't ambulance chasing this story,and to make sure that we were going to do right by their brothers.they in my personal opinionundersold some of the absolute heroism
01:44and difficulty of that daythat's those guys I could see it in themin the way that they wanted to talkthey just didn't it seemed as ifthe only thing they didn't want to do was oversell itrightand I mean as I was listening to them talkjust looking up at that picture trying to imagine
02:00what that entire day was likeand I hopeI was thinking about thislast night. I hope that those guys and their willingness to talk about it rattles the cage a little bitabout what Josh was saying of people being very hesitant to tell their stories and allows them to at leastconsider it. Because again, I was telling Brian when you were in the bathroom, I would love tofacilitate those stories, but I can't tell them because I don't know the names. And they're justrattling off the names of all of those people. I'd never heard the name of the guy who was
02:31running across, you know, the predator footage and doing all these things. And, you know,Yeah, I don't know what it takes to earn more than a silver star,but if that guy didn't, I don't understand how the military award system works.Right.And like you said, there was more than just that one.Oh, yeah.So I'm really happy.We had the chance to sit down with him.
02:54Sam.Sam.Where would you guys like to start today?I think, you know, we've gone eight or nine hours now, something like that.and it's just worth saying like we're just scratching the surface.Like there's so much more that we are not discussing.I mean, this should be a two-day, 48-hour-long podcast to really get to the,I mean, we have five or six hundred hours of footage for this entire project,
03:24and we're just showing you the tip of the iceberg.What did you guys, what do you think the final runtime will be on the documentary?Four to five hours.Okay.that's I mean about four episodes so it's tough it's I was also thinking about this last night this is a veryit's a dense topic and I and I mean that in a positive nature it's just a very very layered and nuancedtopic and I think for some people they'll have no interest but for those that do I think that theywill definitely enjoy the deep dive on it but I mean how do you guys go from 500 hours of footage
03:57and all of the interviews you've done over six years and reduce that to five hours you take youreditor's hostageYou make tough choices.You make really tough choices because there's so much.Yeah.And we know the marketplace doesn't want a 12-hour documentary,so we have to make some, we have to make tough choices.And I think what's, you know, we live in a different world now.
04:18You're a part of that world.We were just talking about some of the ancillary products that are connected to the process, right?That goes for all kinds of products, games.Those five or six hundred hours, obviously talk about the, I think we'vebrought it up the other day, cutting room floor.But there's stuff that's so good.Cutting room floor devalues it.So we have a lot of plans to create and keep this conversation going.
04:48And it's not just about the plot.This story has teased out some really important aspects of human nature and the human condition.And war does that better than any kind of story, right?Characters in conflict, how they're resolving conflict.So, you know, we spoke to some incredible people and we had some long-form conversations,and this is all about a long-form conversation, and we don't want to let those go to waste.And I don't mean go to waste.Like, we don't want to exploit them.
05:14We want to share them.Yeah.And we, you know, on that note, we brought in other people.Like, you know, this story, at least for me personally, the most interesting thing about it is not who zigged or zagged, who went right or left,when they were supposed to do something else.For me,having been in this game,this,
05:37you know,in the military for a long time,what's more interesting about this storyis how this story took all its twists and turnsover the 25 years.We willdescribe how that happenedthrough the lens of the battle,
05:52of course,because I think people will be very interestedin, you know,the details of what happened there.But for me personally,over the last five and a half years,what's more interesting is why the story has turned out the way it did.And that's why I think you might have been alluding to this.
06:11You know, we brought in other people outside minds.We brought in Malcolm Gladwell and Carl Melantis.Sebastian Younger.Sebastian Younger.Let's talk about what heroism is.Like, you know, we asked every single person that sat in the chair.Yeah.What is a hero?
06:28and these heroes would just sit there and look at you and say,and they wouldn't really have an answer, although they define it.And so we decided to bring in all these other minds, journalists, intellectuals,and start saying, well, tell us, you know, how do you define heroism?What does it mean to you?And Sebastian has some amazing answers.Malcolm Gladwell had some amazing information on how journalists work, how, you know,What's the difference between the truth and fact?
07:01How does your memory work?How does memory play into bias?At what point, you know, and this is a part of this story as well,not necessarily from the testimony we got from across the board from our subjects.But when you ask people a question,sometimes they're stopping to make sure they're getting the answer right,but one of the files that they're going through,I'm sure you've seen this a hundred times here,
07:27is somebody's going, now wait a minute, did I hear that, learn that part after?Or am I remembering it from when it happened?Yeah, the role it.Is it first source or is this something that I've filled in for myself?It's not a matter of its accuracy.It's almost a matter of what's its origin of this memory.And that's an interesting part of it.And obviously, we didn't invent that conversation.
07:50Neither did Malcolm Gladwell, but he wrote a great book about it.And he helped us unpack that as well.And so we're going to share longer form conversations that aren't going to make it into the four and a half hours.We could absolutely spin off its own episode just on the philosophy and the underpinnings of this story.Well, you guys still have the content.And again, I don't know how it works when it comes to IP if you guys sell when you sell the documentary, how that works if they have everything.You could have a never-ending, you know, the story being the base of the tree, but never-ending branch system where you do.20 to 30 minutes of shorter form content on a YouTube and building it at all, you know what to me?
08:31But I don't know who ends up opening or owning the IP.What's your guy's answer to what heroism is after asking people that question for five andhalf years?I don't think there's one answer.I think part of the answer might be that there's big age heroism and little age heroism.I think heroism requires risk.It doesn't mean physical risk.It could mean, you know, a whistleblower could be a hero if they're going to do something that might risk their reputation, risk their job, risk their place in society.
09:08So there has to be risk.I personally went back and forth on if the outcome matters.I don't think I still have an answer.You know, so for instance, a person's walking by a pond, they see someone drowning.they decide to go for it, but somehow they don't make it.The person drowns.Are they a hero for trying?I would say yes.
09:34I don't think personally.So maybe that's little-age heroism,and big-age heroism is if they actually do it.You know, and trust me, I've thought about this for a long time.Superman, the idea of Superman, he's a superhero because he went and did things.He changed the outcome.Imagine Superman, if he knew.never succeeded. He just always tried, right? That would just be called man. Right.
10:00Flying man, but still man. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's a complex, it's a complex topic.You know, like how do you define truth? I mean, people have been arguing over what truth issince the beginning of time. And it might be its most complex, the most complex version of thequestion right now when we have my truth, your truth.narrative truth, objective truth.You can have your other truth. That doesn't mean it is the truth.Right, right.And what's the interplay between truth and fact?
10:33The flat earth society?So there's some complex topics that we tapped into these people that are smarter than usto help us explain, help the audience understand.We found it fascinating.Yeah, I think one thing that's apparent is the word has been abused and stressed.stretched out and wrapped around to fit some subjects, some people, some scenarios.It's been adopted, exploited, overused.Well, probably has never been precisely defined.
11:07And so if it's not precisely defined, it can be broadly used and then diminish what it actually means.You know, truth, the definitions of truth in fact, often, most times use the other word in theirdefinition.I'm not smart enough to understand exactly what that means, but it seems circular.Yeah.Well, that's it. You nailed it. It's circular.Yeah.No, but heroism, yeah, you know, that's a tough one.
11:29Where do you land on what it means now after five and a half years?I think my definition and maybe we spent too much time together because there's a lot we don't agree on.But I think I agree, which is a healthy part of what makes this project work, I think.But I think I agree with all of those things.I might say them a little differently.I think there's a degree of sacrifice.the question of whether or not there is so mortal sacrifice versus moral sacrifice,is there a level of moral sacrifice, you know, think whistleblower that rises to the
12:04occasion where you're essentially risking your reputation and therefore your well-being,your livelihood in order to stand up for something.But you see, I've just done something circular and I'm well aware of that, which is,I start asking a question within the answer.So it's worth discussing, and I think the best part of the conversation is there are people who define it different ways.It's nice to look at it.I also think it's nice to strip it away from the idea that that means you're wrapped in the flagor that there's some direct sort of patriotism connection here.
12:38It's not that there isn't, but I think some of these lanes and some of the places that the word has been marquied, potentially.for the right reasons sometimes, but I think there, again, it's not only stretched around placeswhere it doesn't belong. It might be overused in places where it certainly does belong.So I think that's an issue too.We had a very interesting conversation over time on whether, say, Michael Jordan or LeBron James are heroes.Because you often hear them, you know, you hear kids call it, that's my hero.And I think we asked Malcolm that question.But are they?
13:18You know, I'm from Chicago.Like, I grew up in that time.And I probably would have called him a hero back then.But I don't think hero is the proper word.We might call him idle.But idol's a weird word because it kind of tastes.To answer that, I would have to ask more questions because I would ask the person,what do you mean by that?
13:35Define what the role that they actually fill for you.Are you picking a word that you is commonly accepted and it fills that?Or is it imprecise and what it is.Are they inspirational for you?They're inspirational.Yeah.They're entertained.They are the absolute best.
13:48what they do, but are they risking something? Are they sacrificing something? If they, you know,the chances of, yeah, there's nothing really at stake. Maybe the reputation, but there's nothingreally at stake mortal. Right. One of the interesting things that came up, I think, with several of our,we call them big brains that we were talking to, was if you're being paid and there's nothingwrong with being paid to do great things.But if it's your job, how much is that a factor?In other words, the person who has volunteered in advance to go into the burning buildingif and when necessary, how different is that than the innocent bystander or neighbor who does it?
14:36Again, it's a rabbit hole.And I don't think what's beautiful about it is if you can make it binary, try.Yeah.Today's episode is brought to you by Ridge.How is it that we are nearly in 2027, but if you have a variety of electronic devices,you have to travel with essentially a satchel full of all their charging cables.I mean, we're essentially at the point where we have AI robots,but I have to travel with five different cables to charge the items that I have.
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15:43charge status indicator that displays battery and charge levels at a glance, and it has an integratedkickstand for effortless hands-free viewing while on your phone as it powers up. Only one thing to pack,but five ways to power. You can find Ridge's power bank at Best Buy, or listeners can get 10% offat Ridge.com by using the code cleared hot at checkout. Just head to Ridge.com and use the codecleared hot and you're all set. After you purchase, they're going to ask you where you heard about them.Please do me a favor and tell them that I sent you from the show.of the show, back to it. Okay. Now that we've started on a complete tangent, where would youlike to go from there? Let's go to Afghanistan. Okay. Um, like you physically did and didn't tell me
16:25about you, son of a bitch. Yeah. Yeah. Drop that bomb on me. Well, let's, uh, let's show you.Okay. Can we pull up that clip? Why did you want to go? I almost attempted to say,why do you think I wanted to go? But, well, yeah. I mean, obviously it would give you the ability totalk about it from a firsthand experience of your own eyes. But, but. I almost attempted to say, but. I mean, obviously, it would give you would give youyour own eyes, but also so many years have passed that it's not as if you're probably going to beon an evidentiary journey, even though you might be able to find some things that were still there.I'm not saying that's impossible.The blades are still in the hole to this day.
16:58No, I get that.But what I'm saying is there's a lot of passage of time.So the things that you find could lead to more questions than answers.Let me answer the first question.Right.And I don't want to speak to something in there if you'd be.Why we wanted to go.you know there was so much to this story so much mythology so much uncertainty around it so many
17:22books written about it and i think only in all the books Nate self obviously was thereas the ranger platoon leader and Sean Naylor was in the vicinityeveryone else that took stabs at this story had never even been to Afghanistanmuch less the actual mountain top yeahAnd we kind of looked at it like if you're going to solve a crime, you should probably go to the crime scene and understand what's possible, what's not possible.Walk the ground, look around, and you will just have a deeper understanding of what's true or not true.And at the time, we hadn't engaged with CST, Center for Spatial Technologies.So, you know, the practical way to get your 3D view of the mountain.
18:14Was to go do it yourself.Right, because when you're looking at that, and others have said this, but we haven't said it here.When you're looking at that drone footage, you're seeing a signature that gives you some, gives the average person, which is most people, a kind of false sense of what you're looking at.I don't mean the plot of what the people are doing in it.The geography, the lighting conditions, that reversed, you know, you're seeing white where snow.is. You're seeing black blobs. That presents more like how somebody might in black and white footage from far away. You're missing terrain features. The geo is flattening on you. The angle of depression, the look angle from the drone is being dictated by a flat image that's not giving you. You've lost a sense of what flat is there.you're not seeing sky.You need to deal with parallax.
19:16Right.So as a pilot, you know, this is, you know a lot more about this than I do, but I thinkyou're picking up what I'm putting down, which is that this is not a fair way to assess whatyou're looking at.Again, not only for the plot, you don't understand what's happening in terms of the terrain.You don't see a berm.You don't see if something separated by eight feet of close defilade.Yeah.
19:40And a lot of what people are, you know, when they look at this,this, they say, could this person see this person?What are these sight lines and other things?So it was an amazing opportunity for, you know, to wear, I don't know, how manyGoPro's were you wearing, Mitch, at once?Two.Oh, almost always too.Those are rookie numbers.
19:59When you ask that, I'm thinking double ankle, double wrist, chest.But we also, there was also a, you know, we'll talk more about this, but we had a, I didn'tgo and Mitch went so we is the project and I don't want to take any credit for,taking the... We went.It's a version of we, but let's be clear.We had a local crew.We can talk more about that to some degree, but as far as the cameras go, you know,drones all over the place and you'll see some of that footage here.
20:34But the point was to get out of the 2D world and to stop solving this from people's desksand make sure that we weren't guilty of doing the same thing.I think you would agree, Mitch.I mean, between the two of us, we probably have thousands of hours of professionally looking at ISR.It's a great tool.It's a great macro tool.And sometimes you can get micro details.But, man, even when you have been watching, like, let's say you're doing a pattern of life and watching ISR for 72 hours, you land there.
21:02You still have this moment of, oh, that looks a little bit closer or that is not a, yeah.So what you're saying is correct for sure.It's a great tool.But there is no tool that.It provides the complete and total picture.It's how we came up with the name of the project.You know, shortly before we left to go there,the idea was let's go get ground truth.
21:25Let's go put eyes on this thing for realand stop relying on secondhand, third hand,this 24-year game of telephone.At that point, it was 23 years of telephoneand just go see it with our own eyes and walk.See it?You're going to hear some voices.We'll talk about what voices you're hearing.
21:45there are some, you'll have questions.Okay.There'll also be answers.Can you get rid of that?That's correct.This is not just me and George going in there.We have two videographers that are Afghani.We have pursued our fixer.
22:38What else are you saying?I know.What else is there, George?No, plus, right?That's a minute there that you're five.I'm going to trust a lot.Can we find some of the pictures?We're seeing you tomorrow.
23:31You said that one of thepicture.There we're talking about it.And do some filming and understand the battle more.And then we'll see you tomorrow.See you tomorrow.Rocky outcropping.We just passed it and I'm going to cross one.
24:13That's where John died, that trait.The first trait.Bunker two is the second tree.Gotcha.get you a positionand right over the topyou see the other marker flagsyeah
24:23it's a hell of an OPEbefore I forgetGeorge will you download a copythat to the actual computerbecause I'm just going to insert thatas opposed to having the screen capturewe'll just put that into the actual show itselfgreat thank you
24:45so when we got thereactually let me back upwhen we got to Dubaiis like ourthe last stopin this tripwent to the consulatehad a funny experience there
25:02we were the only two gringoes in a line ofyou know you can imagine that lineof like 50 peopleandso we looked very much out of placeit took all day to get the visaweird phone calls happeningand when we got back to the hotel
25:19leaving the next morning at 4 a.m.for Kabulmy phone just started lighting upwith a bunch of government agencies you can imagine,including some old teammates that were in some weird position,saying, hey, what are you doing?Your name just popped up.And, you know, that's representative of that call.
25:39Obviously, it's a much longer, that's one of the calls.But it was a fascinating trip, fascinating experience.Oddly, it was good to be back.How at risk did you feel being there?Not at all.So I figured your answer would be, actually.Not at all.And I'm not saying that to sound,
25:57cool at all, but obviously we were warned.And when we went there, you know, my research before, you know,we started the real machinations to go back in like late December.So we had like two, three months to get ready.And I'm sitting here doing searches for, you know,who are the unlawful detainees that are right there right now?Am I walking into a, am I being foolish walking into a trap?And there was something.
26:24Should I tell them my old job, right?NSA is loving your Google search history.Right.And then I would look at the articles of these detainees.Okay, this Norwegian guy or whomever it was, like, okay, can I try to read the article and figure out what he did wrong?So that I don't fall into the same, you know, trap.You know, one journalist who was wrapped up there when we were there, not an American,they told him, okay, you can come in.
26:56do not go where Zawahiri was killed by a hellfire missile.And one of the first things he did was go right to the intersectionwhere Zahari was blown up.And they're like, let's go to jail.So I wanted to make sure we didn't do something like that.The very first meeting we had, we went straight from the airportto the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.I'd already had some email exchanges with them.
27:22You know, this is the Taliban government.and re-explained what we were doing.He said he appreciated itbecause he had read the Wikipedia pageon the Battle of Toccar Gar.And they also had problems with it.You know, they felt they won that one.By which metric?
27:42Shooting out three helicopters.And, you know, they felt,I mean, there's an argument to be madelike who won that thing, you know?Yeah.What does winning even really mean?But at the end of that conversation,I said, okay, I've explained to you again
27:56what our intentions are.I mean it.Now tell me what I can't do.And he didn't say anything,but I wanted to make sureI didn't fall into the same pitfalls.You'd be surprised, Andy,a lot of people have asked along the way,
28:11like, how did you, obviously,how did you do that?What are the risks and other things?And again, yeah, the answer,the cheat code of the answer is,wrote a letter to the Taliban,told them exactly what we wanted to doand why we were doing it and did decide to say
28:32what Mitch's old job was.And just told the truth in very few lines,worked to make sure as best we couldthat linguistically the translation we worked with somebodywould carry through in a way that made senseculturally on the other side.And their answer was wildly simple.Yes.
28:56Can we come?Yes.Have you guys seen the latest documentary about Black Hawk Down?Yes.Or they interview a substantial portion of the Somalis.I think a lot of times the other side is more than willing to talk and facilitate the exchange of information.Yeah.Because they sat down and talked with a lot of people who were on the other side of that battle.
29:16And it was kind of fascinating to hear their perspective.effective as well too. I mean, you saw it there. We did, we did as well. You know, we're sitting in thevillages below the mountain where Operation Anaconda was happening. Some of those people, you know, oldermen like us now, fought in that battle. And, you know, we're scrolling through pictures ofdead Taliban, dead Uzbekis, like, hey, and literally saying, do you, by some stroke of luckrecognize any of these people? They didn't. But, you know, they're willing.to sit here and, you know,someone like me coming back there,
29:52probing around asking questions.They're willing to look at, you know, and have a,they actually wanted to see, it's funny,they wanted to see, do you have, okay,now do you have pictures of the dead Americans?They wanted to, like, trade.Like, show us our dead,but then also show us your dead.
30:07It was a fascinating experienceto your original question,did I feel threatened?Oddly, no.Not one time.And you saw, like,there was a, there was a sceneright out of succumbed.
30:18Tario, where we were supposed to meet the former governor of Kabul, whose brother led the battle here.And we're on a four-hour, six-hour trip, and we were running behind because everyone wants to have tea.You know the deal.And all of a sudden, and you saw a quick clip of it, our two-vehicle convoy of just like, you know, land cruisers, gets enveloped by gun trucks.And now here's the governor and here's the security.and we're like, okay, keep going.You know, can you get the drone up and so we can get this?You know, but fascinating, valuable, changes your understanding of it.
31:01Again, even after we've explained how small this place is,that that helicopter's 50 feet, that rocky outcropping to the top of the mountainis something like 150 meters.Standing there is like, holy shit, this is small.All this happened right here.Yeah, so you'll see these guys, they test,specific sight linesthat are associated with the fight itself
31:23and another experiment that I thinkwe, I thinkit went fairly well. It's hard to do it perfectly.It was lighting conditions,sunrise, sunset, what's going on there?You know, we talkedthrough this conversation,we've mentioned that that's a factor
31:39who can see who went and where.That sunrise andis not justthe sun breaking up, coming upover a flat horizon.in line. There's mountains and other things that are including the light. And you'll see some of that.And to be honest, again, we talked before about some of these ancillary products. There's a,there's a documentary or a movie or a, there's a long form piece here as well. What kind of blew me
32:08away in looking at the trip from home and seeing the footage. And we were, you know, Mitch wasconstantly uploading footage in case there was any problem with getting the footage.out so we did our best to make sure we captured all this and didn't lose it.It looked to me, the thing that blew my mind was how many people were, and I hope our audiencedoesn't take this the wrong way, because it's just a fact.How many people wanted to help and be a part of it there?How many people, how much, there was too much bread, too much tea, too many donkeys,too many batteries, too many people trying to give what they had to facilitate the,
32:49the process. They all thought initially that we were Russian because they hadn't seen an Americanin, you know, three years at that point. Um, and so when they found out, they, you know, one guy,we stayed the night in a police station, not in jail, but at jail because it was the safestplace. And the second in command of that police station just wanted to show me as TikTok all night.Like, okay, we're done. I got to get some of us to. Do you have a good following?I don't recall.Okay.But it was just,
33:21it was comical.Like,they just wanted to be,you know,they wanted to be friendly.They were super interested,like, oh,American, holy cow.
33:26Was he doing dance videos?What kind of content?I can't remember.Un-fucking believable,dude.Yeah.I don't even think you're supposed to have it.Probably not.
33:36He was,yeah,he was smuggling some TikTok around.This is the world we live in.It's no longer currency.It's TikTok.But,you know,
33:44we had,again,we had the brotherof MansourI forget his first name now,who was killed in the battle.And his younger brother assumed commandof the Battle of Taka Gar from the Taliban perspective.
34:00And he was walking us around.And he took us to his brother's gravesiteand explained the storythat his brother was a heroand how they foundthey found his body partsscattered in some bushesand didn't know it was him
34:16until they kind of reassembled itand saw some certain scars and like, oh, shit, he's dead.I guess I'm next in line.You know, and again, just to hear their version of, you know, how they felt they won.I think the day we were there when we were going through doing the provincial checkpoints,we went into what would be considered the governor or the mayor's office,and I was looking at one of the papers.And there was some, I could read something like, it was something American.
34:46And I'm like, what is this?And he goes, oh, I think it was like two days ago.was like our victory over America Day, right?Not wrong, not right.It's a complex answer.But, um...Just for clarity, you saw something written in English.No, it was, I forget what...
35:06There is no language called American.Oh, you're right.You're right.Oh, American.I'm not saying it was written in Mexican.It was written in Mexican.Yeah.That's great.
35:21All right.Moving on.Yeah.Sorry.I want to say, there's one more thing that's, that I think is important here is they alsoaffirmed, confirmed, and of their own accord helped us understand a few things that we read about,but this was the horse's mouth just in terms of the factions that were on the mountainand what some of their roles might have been and just how separate some of these forces.
35:51and some of these fighters are, yes, one enemy.But we talked about Uzbek, Chechen, Tajik, and other things, Pashto, Arabic.How many people did they estimate were up there?The interesting thing was they weren't quite sure.They were disconnected to some extent.And that's part of that affirmation.And there were at least three, up to five nationalities on top of that mountain.It was Taliban-led, but when the people, the foreign fighters started to flood into Afghanistan for their
36:23common enemy, Americans. They're like, where do you need us? And they're like, oh, that's theinteresting thing. They're like, okay, if you want to help, go up there. Because they, take theheart. You saw that scene where we were just getting ready to depart and walk up. They couldn'tbelieve we were going up there. They're like, it's cold up there. What are you doing? And like,no, no, we have to go up there. We came to Afghanistan to go up there. And they're like,are you sure you want to go? And so it made it make more sense when they're like, hey, okay,foreign fighter, you want to get your jihad on, go up there. And so they sent two,you know, a skeleton crew of Taliban,
36:56augmented with whomever else wanted to, you know,wanted to fight and fight the Americans.And they marched up the mountain.And then we watched them,what was also revealing was how fastand how many different ways they could scurry up the mountain.Oh, for sure.Like, we went up one path,
37:13and we're looking over on another ridge lineand our donkeys are going up that path.And then later in the night,we're seeing someone come up from, you know, from the east.And, you know, they're running around,in slippers. Andby the way, they broughtenough, we said
37:29we were going up there for one day. We were going to spend aboutand they were there for 22 hours.And they brought enough shit on those donkeys. We could havelived up there for two weeks.And I was trying, at some point I just saidI told our fixer, I'm sued, I'm like,I'm leaving in five minutes.I don't care. I have my backpack. We're good.
37:48Break down the chai tent.Yeah. And they lived in anothercamp and you could imagine whatThis camp looked like, you know, we just did, like, don't pollute the top of talker guard,but they were off to another hillside over here with all the things you can imagine.Okay.Ready for a couple weeks.Well, leave me through it.
38:06Take you away.What do you think we should go next?Let's do red and red.Let's close that out.Really?Okay.Um, so going back to what actually happened, you know, um,Did John get back up?
38:31Did he fight for an hour?Did he save the helicopter, save his teammates?The answer is no.He was shot in those first few minutes and never moved again.And again, we challenge anyone, show us where he got back up.But to the question of then so then what did happen?You know, tell us, then explain the edited video and all the machinators.of that video, explain what's happening around 614, then who is that fighting?
39:05It is enemy fighters.The middle of that video that we showed you is not represented in anyone's story here,or the Air Force's story, is key to understanding enemy movement,what they were doing when they went from the rocky outcroppingand finally pushed over back to the bunkers.The project, you know, we're not going to go into a lot of detail here on this,because we are finishing up with CST and some other things,how to visually represent that.
39:36You'll have to watch the docu-series to get the final answer,but we're giving it to you,but we're going to show you in the dock.You want to just run through the basics?Yeah, and this is something that you can see in the full footage,and this is why the place where we started was what's missing from the footage,the place where we need to...When do you guys plan to put that full ISR?
39:59footage online.Not to be cagey, but we're not sure.There's what we need to finish for the actual series, which we're about eight weeksaway.And then when we build out this ground truth universe type thing where we put the fullfootage on a site and allow the public to spin the mountain around, see certain thingsthat they've never seen before, that's going to take another minute.I want to make sure that people have the context as well.
40:25And the delivery system for the context right now is the,is the documentary project, so they need to be aligned in some way.I don't think it's right to leave people.Of course, we need to give them room to interpret it and look at it closely,and that's the point of this whole thing,is not just to define and tell you exactly and only what you're seeing,but I think it needs some context.We talked about how looking at that footage is difficult.
40:48It's not fair to throw more gas on this fire without some direction.But when you...The loose answer is months.Not years, but like soon, but again, there's a lot of work.Our primary focus is wrapping up this series.Very close second is the things we're talking about now.Yeah.And when you do look, you know, we've talked a lot about CST.
41:13We've talked about 3D.We've talked about the trip.We're looking at incredible pictures like this.Let's get back to the 2D footage for a second.If you watch the footage, you will see two enemies come from the rocky outcropping.that way on the picture you got that over here you'll see them work their way toward the areanow known as the bunkers we've talked about whether the bunkers or not you will see them tryingto assess they've been out of the fight for some time it's dark the last known position of the
41:50americans was somewhere around these bunkers they're approaching the bunkers trying to assesswho's in them uh one of them takes fire from the airJust to be clear, unaware, no NightVision, unaware that the Mako team dumped over the side.Right.That's what, last known position of the Americans is there.They're doing, you know, their IMT to this, you know, they're approaching cautiously.It stands for individual movement technique.Yep.
42:18And one of them takes fire from bunker to a place that no one has ever suggested that John Chapman was ever in.kills one of them.It's very clear that they are notdeconflicted in the darkness and they do not have the sameinformation on who is whereand the other enemymoves into a positionrelatively close and eventually on top of where
42:43John Chapman was and he is thencontinuing into some kind of engagementback and forth with Bunker 2and they eventuallydeconflictwhen the QRF comes in and turn both of their guns toward that helicopter.And they could hear, as you can imagine, as you know, they could hear from the ways out.Again, the big bus in the sky.
43:08I want to clarify one thing.You said darkness.What I'll say is low light.And we took a time lapse when we were there, when we, you know, the morning of, I think it was March 8th.So that the light conditions would be nearly identical as they were 22 years ago,that point. We took a time lapse so we could at least understand what the lighting conditions were.We moved around, you know, played, did some role-playing, see what could be seen, what couldn'tbe seen. But it wasn't darkness. Right. And I didn't, I didn't mean to imply that those moments
43:42were darkness that. But it was the genesis of their movement and their genesis of their situationalawareness came from the conditions of darkness before they made this approach. But it was low light.And like we said earlier, the sun had to pop up over another set of mountains, you know, further, closer to Pakistan.Yeah.Before sunrise at 619.Effectively, the person that you're seeing is that second enemy I described.The actions that are bracketed in the small box are this enemy.And the person you're watching is an enemy.
44:17And they're telling you that it's John Chapman.So based on the conversation with the Rangers and the,the conversation we had before that, the Rangers did take fire from the bunker one area, correct?And established that they killed two enemy fighters there.Correct or incorrect?I believe correct.The question is when?Yeah.
44:48Well, earlier in the video, when John is making movement towards that, the narrator says that he killed two enemy fighters.but if I mean correct me if I'm wrong four bodies were not found that is correct that's rightokay and if as you just rightly pointed out for that story to be true there should be four deceasedKIA there's been a lot of attention on and rightfully so on who is moving where and when and who theyare as you can see a big part of this is who is not moving where and when and who they are and I thinkthere's been a lot of attention on the one piece and that's somehow obscured the other half of thestory. So what you've gotten to here is key to understanding this. Okay. Oddly, I think that's all wewant to say about red on red at this point. Okay. I'd like to add something to this. Go ahead.
45:53Let's see how we feel about it. The idea that red on red is impossible. Do you just mean enemyHe's shooting an enemy?Yeah.Okay.Why would anybody think that's impossible?That shit happens all the time.That claim's out there.That's the reason I wanted to bring it up is that claim is not in the, you know,
46:10dark web, shadowy corners of this conversation.It's out in the juicy center of it.These are some of the headlines.If you were to list, read articles, watch the podcasts.There are hours and hours and part that are dedicated to this, obviously this very subject.And part of it is...Are they based on the eight and a half minute videoor the nearly two-hour video?
46:35What do you think?Well, if you guys are saying that the nearly two-hour videohas never been seen,then they are drawing that conclusionbased off of a very...I'm going to say edited for time.But I'm not saying it's...Never been seen by the public
46:50who are now weighing in heavily on thisand have been weighing in heavily on thiswith no shortage of opinions and feelings about it.The darker...If you don't get to see the movie...that occurred in those hours, then yes, you could paint the picture that it would be impossible.But that's like painting a picture and only using half of the colors.Well, we've talked about, you know, so red on red is enemy on enemy, but let's, it means, it means.
47:17It's fratricide.People killing each other by accident who are on the same side.So when we look at it that way, this story has several of those from the western side of this conflict.in it within the first 24 hours of the battle and a few other almosts.And I think, again, you guys are much more qualified to talk about this.But I think it's fair to say if with all those sensors, if with all of that intelligence,if with all of those radios and all of those other pieces that are designed to prevent thatfrom happening among other things, to de-conflict and to give situational awareness,
47:56not only to fight the enemybut make sure that people aren't hurting each other.It's certainly possible that people with five languagesand no radios and no particular cohesive leadershipto be in the same situation.And scurring up the mountain from every sidebecause they're understanding that we've had success up here.Two helicopters have been shot down.
48:17So now everyone's coming in from different angles,different places with different awarenessof what's happening up here.So if blue-on-blue,can happen with all the tech that he just described, then it is absurd to say that red-on-redis impossible. Even in low light, and again, what we know will be said is, the sun was up,how could they possibly? Watch the documentary. We'll explain it. Again, as I've gotten older,I try to ask myself, how do other people see the world through their eyes? Some of those people
48:53who are vehemently arguing that it's impossible may need to take a moment and ask themselves whether orthey had the full picture with which they're abasing their opinion from.Agreed.And that's a tough one, especially the more bought in you are on that.And that, you know, I think we opened this whole thing many hours ago, you fuckers, talking about bias.We all have it.Yeah.That's a tough one.
49:13It's a tough one to look through or around.Yeah, if that hour is cut out and there was substantial maneuvering and people got to places that then that maneuvering was, again, I'm going to call that,eight and a half minute edited for time.I'm not going to claim that it was edited for content or for time.But if those things are removed and then smashed together,I'm not going to say that it's not a lie,but it may not be an accurate representation of what the totality of truly happened.And yeah, if you only saw that, you could say, yes, of course,
49:47based on what I'm seeing, this is not possible or likely.But if you're not seeing the whole picture.Well, go back to that judge, you know, show me the raw video,Show me the whole thing without any tricks, without any edits, without any arrows.Just let me see that first before we move on to anything else.And this is my new rule and how I consume news.The next sensational video I see on TV with a shooting, a crime, a questionable incident,and the news shows me the 22 seconds of it, my first question is, where's the rest of this?
50:22Show me context.Before I buy into whatever version of the story you were presenting,Is there more video?What's interesting is we're having a practical conversation about the validity of a piece of footageand whether it's been cut, compressed, sped up, other things.This is not an AI conversation.And let's make sure the audience that's new to this understands that there's a line of demarcation here,which is we're having a new school, old school conversation because there are old school things at play here.
50:54that we're not, no one is suggesting here.Just, again, this is for the uninitiated.This is not a question of people making up what's in a video using modern technology.So just to make sure what we're talking about to remind everybody or people who are late to this or just to reinforce it.We're talking about things that are cut up, manipulated, taken out of order.Omitter, shortened, sped up, omitted.We're not talking about creating content from an AI model at all.Right.
51:28Can we tell you about our conversation with the former secretary of the Air Force?Please.We, you know, she's part of this story.She's, you know, if you go back hours in our conversation, she's the one that, you know, by her own admission, you know, saw one of those articles, circled it, said, let's look into this, you know, lack of medal of honors for the Air Force.Her name is Deborah James.She agreed to interview.We danced around with schedules.where this was going to happen and finally just had to fly out to Florida where she was.
52:05And we had about a three-hour conversation with her.And the first hour and a half was very cordial, friendly.She kept saying some things.She kept referring to a third party that confirmed their understanding of the story.You know, as you can imagine when this package started,to go up to higher levels of government.They needed signatures, approvals, yeses.Medal of Honor package.
52:38A medal of honor package.Upgrade package.And so one of the things that they leaned on,she kept saying this third party validated our findings.And so we took a break.And you want to play the clip here?By the way, she wasn't, she wasn't ambushed.We took a break.
53:01I want to even understand that um was she still active duty at the time or returned no no she was uh ibelieve you know 15 16 maybe into 17 she was the secretary okay because there was such a differenceof opinion secretary mattis sent this video off to other forensic experts in the government not inthe department of defense so there could be no argument as to well the navy's just backing thispoint of view and the Air Force is just backing that point of view.The Secretary of Defense at the time, Mattis, reached out to the Department of Justice for thefirst time in history and requested that DOJ specifically the FBI view the footage and providea unbiased third-party analysis.
53:47And the FBI, as far as I was told, concluded the same thing of the Air Force did.They reviewed the material and provided their response in a lot of the Air Force standard.unclassified email.Based on review of all the evidence information, the FBI panel unanimously determined that,one, they were unable to conclude that the Air Force material finding two occurred,and two, they were unable to conclude that the Navy determination of events during thetrial finding number two time period occurred.Okay, so they're right in the middle.
54:22Yeah, they're not going to get in that.So that to me is like, we're not getting involved in this.Something, you know, some version of that.Yeah. Is that fair to see?Do you think there was, is there something else where they did include?I was led to believe that they had supported, well, maybe my interpretation was,Senator Nott has sent it forward.So, but I had understood that they had agreed.
54:51It's a tough spot to be in.So for context, two or three times in that first hour or a half or so, she referenced that third party.I asked her the third party, are you talking about the FBI?she said yes and that's what led to that exchange um had the interview end with her you said the first 90 minuteswas relatively cordial well this this was in the second hour and a half or so it wasn't that thisthat the second part wasn't cordial it just got more tense yeah but here's what's amazing and we'lltalk about how it ended because that that's important but it's this is part in barcel to itshe had every opportunity to do what you've seen a million times where somebody says look I don't know
55:32what's going on here this is not what I agreed to take off the mic get upleave. She's come to a house to sit down with the two of us and a crew of people she hasn't met.She has not asked to see the questions in advance. She did not do any of the things, any of thehallmarks of, I want a canned, controlled, contrived, constructed interview. She did the opposite.She came and sat with us. She knew what Mitch's former job was. And she sat through it. And she did her best.she,she,her level of diplomacy
56:06and professionalismremained as you could see.Sure,she was flustered,anybody would be.And it wasn't designedto fluster her.That's why I said
56:13it wasn't an ambush.The hope was thatthere was an answerto these questions.This was not,this was not planned gotchas,right?We weren't what they used to
56:21call doorstepping herinto like,have you seen this?We knew you hadn't.You know,ultimately,when it comes toanybody who's on the other side
56:30of this story,if they haven'tanswer and it's real and it works and it's got verifiable veracity to it, bring it. So she had ever,if she saw it or knew something different or had something else to say, she had every opportunityto do it. I think I asked you guys this yesterday, whether his Medal of Honor was based offmaterial finding two or one. And you essentially said it was based off of one. So does it matter thatthe FBI can't confirm that material finding number two didn't happen? Well, that's, we'reWhen they realized, there's a longer story here,
57:06but when they realized two wasn't working,I'm going to be very short with this,but there's a much longer story,they resorted to one.There was also a pushbecause there was an administration change.And so they realized they didn't have timeto continue this campaign, case, research,
57:22whatever you want to call it.And so they just shifted and focused on material finding one,which no one, even the Navy and the board,no one disagreed with that part.All the points of contentionand the fiction and the disagreementwas material finding two.Now, does the Navy and the board
57:42agree that there were two enemy fighters?The John...No. But I want to say something about,I want to double down on what Brian just said.Total credit for her,to her,for coming and having a conversation with us.You know, we're going to talk about
57:59here in a bit how...We'll talk about who hasn't agreed to come.But, you know, she met us.We had a real conversation.I don't think, I know not everyone agrees with me here,I don't think she, this was a calculated,diabolical effort on her part.I think the people underneath her gave her information.
58:32she probably didn't know exactly where to push in and ask the right questions.She trusted the people underneath her to give her good information.In the same way that, you know, we're not putting Madison on trial either.You know the deal like, by the time shit gets that high, like, this is good?You did the work? Yes?Okay.They're going to get an executive summary on it probably the best, yeah.And so it feels more official to the outsider who doesn't understand these systems
59:00or these establishment of these institutions,as it climbs the flagpole, it feels like,oh, it must be more real.The problem is the executive summary levelup the flagpole is really abbreviating the information,and there's a lot of trust and delegationto the people who delivered it up the flagpole.You know, case in point, there is a version of the story.
59:20We haven't confirmed this, but it's been repeated enough.And I think I trusted a version of this went down.That by the time Mattis was briefed,they said something like yeah the navy or someone's pushing back on this storyand it's just ridiculous that you know two enemy fighter would would would would fight each other inbroad daylight that makes sense on the surface unless you know all the other detailsbut that that comment like how would two people that know each other shoot each otherand he's like yeah that sounds ridiculous continue on okay so
01:00:00you know, trusting the people underneath you, that they're giving you good information.You know, leaders are undermined all the time by the people that work for them with them.In fact, we have another piece of footage, if you want to look at it.Yeah.Let's pull up the...Memo.The documents.Yeah.
01:00:21Again, same conditions, not designed to be anything other than if you have an answer, share it with us.Help us understand what we think we see.the documents, separated by a day.I was asked to provide independent subject matter assessment.Two main works there, subject matter assumes that this is the person who has expertise in this field,and independent says, I don't know if you're gonna get a game.When I was looking at all this, I was like, wait a second, what, they're signed by different people,but they look like they're the exact same...
01:00:57I was the same...I was the same...I thought that you just brought up the same memo.This is a different memo.It's almost verbatim, I think.Were these just prepared for them to sign?Because there's no way they came up with the exact same words.Again, I don't exactly know what this is.
01:01:17I'm the wrong person to ask about this.So I just want to be clear that I believe the experts that I listen to.So I absolutely stand by this decision.This is not an independent review.What are those memos? What are we looking at?Can you pull up the, I think we have the second page of them.These were, well, they were presented as independent witness statements with experts, you know, with people with expertise in how to evaluate these images.And they were both submitted?
01:01:53Yes.Yeah, in the Air Force's package to, you know, continue pushing this story.They're verifying the, you know, they're verifying the, you know, the,the, actually they are the, the kind of, they're signing off on the findings with pixel tracking and other aspects.As a building this package, they're trying to get evidence and get support and get statements from people.And so these are just a couple. We have a bunch. But you can see here, there's, there's some lines there about leaning on or hinging this on what we talked about.earlier pixel tracking.So again, just to make the point,
01:02:35in these early days, when they're formingthis case, they are leaning heavilyon pixel tracking.It says based on the in-depth ISR video analysisof my subject matter expertise, I affirm beyondreasonable doubt that the automated pixel trackingfunctionality mirrors the ISR analyst's conclusions.In conclusion, I state the following
01:02:56with full confidence and beyond a reasonable doubtthat the methodology represents,presents an industry standard.The software, we talked about that yesterday,utilizes, utilized for the Chapman Review meets this same benchmark, et cetera, et cetera.This is seven ways to say that the pixel tracking technology is accurate,and this person is verifying and signing off on it.But what's, there's two things in that we want to talk about,
01:03:23hey, Mike, can you, can we line out the phone number there?I already, I was going to make them at that.Yeah.Let's make a good time notation.Yeah.Okay, but what's actually more important...Put it down, we'll change it to Mitch's cell, but...That's fine.
01:03:38Yeah.But what's more important about it, is there a way to go back to the two documents,just a still of the two documents?These are...The key point here, these are supposed to be independent statements from two experts.But they're identical.The opening paragraph and the closing paragraph, you know,with the individual phone numbers and emails are...
01:04:00you know, unique.Everything else, the middle content.Somebody else wrote it for them.Sign here.That is not an independent review.In fact, it might not even be a review.I would say those are not independently derived documents.Hard to say what the review process was.
01:04:18All we're looking at is the actual paperwork certifying it, right?Which I would agree that the paperwork is essentially a carbon copy,which means that it was produced by somebody else and handed to these individuals.at least one of them to sign.Because the likelihood of, let's say, the person on the left did write this, the likelihood of the person on the right, having identical language.I'm going to put that as statistically impossible.Right.There's also, you know, as we pointed out, as we asked in the video, there's something about them being separated by a day that I think is of issue here.
01:04:47It seems like there's a process and everything does have a process.So again, we were asking the question and looking for an answer.there are some things that arelet's saydifficult to understandit's not our job to make the casefor why these would be the sameit's somebody else's job to explain to us
01:05:07why they're the samehow did it happenhow were they presented who wrote themare there you knowand is the information in therenow reliable if they're preparedis it a individual witness statement anymorebecause in order for someone to sign the statement
01:05:24it appears as if they're signing off on what the statement certifies.But inherent is that in that is that they're signing off on the way the statement has been prepared if they didn't write it.And there's no place where they're John Hancock on.You're certifying both of those things.You're saying that what I'm looking at and what I'm putting my name on, I agree to.I mean, we don't know the answer to this, but I suspect they don't even know that they signed the same statements.Could be, right?No idea.
01:05:52if they're separated by a day, you know, were they in the same room at the same time?You know, like, are you signing this? Are you signing this?Yeah.I should have to sign it.But my gut tells me that they probably don't even know they did this.Okay.This happened.Haven't seen enough military paperwork.
01:06:08I think we know exactly.Right.Why they are such carbon copies.Yeah.But again, yeah, these statements, I mean, that is, that's a tough one to explain.And what sucks is because those are so identical, it does bring into question whether or not there was a review.view or not because you can demonstrably say yeah that the likelihood of these things being generatedindependently incredibly low going beyond that is a little bit more difficult we start making assumptions
01:06:37at that point sure yeah sure you know there's one of the things we've talked about at length you knowthere's a difference between proving something true and proving if it is true you know having yourgoal already in focus as you build your case or let's just seewhere this goes and see what's true by it.One of the more interesting things at the very, very end.I want to say one more thing about those videos that I think is important.The other page that we showed focused highly on pixel tracking.But Mike Wendellkin told Mitch essentially that there was no such thing as pixel tracking.
01:07:25So what we have here is we're not just looking at these.siloed in their own, right?We're gathering, we're putting together a full picture of the information.So either there was automated pixel tracking software that these experts,so let's say the review process, let's go in the other direction that you're implying is possible,and I don't mean you're implying it like that's unusual.You're advocating for and reminding us that there may not be something nefarious going on with these memos.So we go there for a second.
01:07:56But we have a different problem.because the memo is telling you that there is automated software and pixel tracking technology that was used.They are verifying that that technology presented findings that were worthy of the Medal of Honor.And that's what they were signing off on.But Mike Wendellkin told us there was no such thing.So somewhere we have a problem and we have an issue and we have a question.Have you guys found a confirmed utilization of pixel tracking anywhere?And we will stand down if someone presents pixel tracking and can tell us it existed then, not just now, but then in 2016.
01:08:43Which is an important delineation.We'll stand down.Someone show us.Okay.I mean, it would be hard to say it's, I guess the system's capabilities can be classified,but you're referencing it in an unclassified document.So, okay.Yeah, I'm just curious.
01:08:59I mean, if it exists,it should be easy to show another use case in which it was utilized.Probably many.Could you imagine if this existed how many different places and cases it would be used in?Okay.Okay.So again, full credit to her for dealing with us.Yeah, nothing by respect for sitting down in the chair.
01:09:23Because, well, what she said at the end,And this will lead nicely.You asked the question, how did it end?You know, the first hour and a half were nice.The last hour and a half were more tense.Not unfriendly, but more tense.And as she's leaving, you know, we call her an Uber.The Uber is taking, for some reason, an unusual amount of time.
01:09:50And I think we were discussing, you know, how we got some of these documents.and her question to me was, I gave her the answer.And then we were talking about something else related to information.And her question to me was, you know, who broke ranks?She wanted to know who.And that's how she phrased it, who broke ranks.And that's just weird language to me.You know, it sounds wrong in my mind.
01:10:23UmMy initial assessment of you saying that with that languageis that this was not unknown to her.I'm going to give her more charity than that.But fair point.I think she was misled.It's an interesting way to phrase that question.Yeah.
01:10:45But if she was misled,the way that she phrased that would lead me to believethat she may have known that she was misled.Or maybe she knew.some facet of it, not the complete...Yeah, and again, this is my snapshot when you first said that I'm just thinking about the positionthat she was in.You know, not every form of communication comes out perfectly.
01:11:07Of course, that's an odd choice of words.Agreed.Yeah, it points to something.It's hard to say exactly what it is, but it points to either potentially protecting a narrativeof some kind or already knowing that there were issues and,hoping that it wouldn't get out there,or perhaps it's just a turn of phrasethat didn't work out right,
01:11:31or that we are now pixel-fucking that phrase,and it doesn't deserve to be pixel-fucked.Somewhere, the answer lies.I think what's interesting about this processover these six years,and I think we've said it a few times during this,we're not here to necessarily answer every single piece of that.The point is to share our findings,
01:11:52the information that we've gathered,And that's data as well.You know, it's interesting.It's so much data that you asked at the top, how did this interview end?Mm-hmm.So it's obviously a curious and important thing to look at.Yeah.Today's episode is brought to you by Spartan Forge.
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01:13:25whether that's sunrise, sunset, where are the shadows going to be, where are things going to beilluminated, property boundaries, national parks, everything you need for hunting.And like I said, I use this as part of my pre-flight process to take a look at where it is I'm going to fly the helicopter.It is the single most valuable tool that I have for off airport operations.Spartanforge.a.i.Go check it out and take your technology to the next level.Okay.So Deborah James came and sat with us.
01:13:59We had...Did she talk into the mic?She did.Better than me.Just check.She came and sat with us.You know, we had General Trubon and Air Force General at the time in charge of Task Force 11.We had the Predator pilots, or one of the Predator pilots, come speak with us.
01:14:17Did we have anyone else in the Air Force?No.I think that was it.but nobody else from the Air Force would participate in this.Who did you reach out to?Everyone.Not literally everyone, but so many people.And we reached out to Dan Schilling.
01:14:36We reached out to, we talked to a public affairs department in Hollywood that had, you know,the keys to the kingdom and could probably get us in anywhere.We talked to, I think we showed you Rob Harrison yesterday, who's making the podcast rounds.What did Dan Schilling say?We're going to show you.Let me just keep rattling off the list.We talked to Lori.I have text threads with her.
01:14:57Much for clarity is John Chapman's sister.Which is John Chapman's sister.Who else?It's pretty extensive.Through the public affairs officer, we requested talking to the gunship pilots,reached out to F-15 pilots.DJ Turner.You know, trying to get to DJ Turner and the crew.
01:15:19No shortage of effort over years.Not just one attempt.Oh, it's not one attempt.working over years, multiple emails, long email chains. Did you guys FOIA a bunch of stuff as well?Yes. Okay. It's figured. It hasn't been mentioned at this point, but I figured you did.And in the beginning, Rob Harrison, you know, this kind of guy, this vocal guy who's, you know,making the rounds was friendly, interested. And I, you know, my pitch was, we're going to talk toeveryone. I don't care what side of the story you're on. If you had a meaningful participation
01:15:57or you have a meaningful opinion on it that means something, let's talk. We don't have to agree.Is our audience clear on who he is? Rob Harrison was, we talked about him yesterday for a minute.He was the signals guy on the gunship. We're in the Mako 30 Charlie shirt. Yes. Yes. AndAnd well, can you pull up the picture of that exchange we had with him?The text exchange.The text exchange, yeah.Yeah.Okay.
01:16:31While that's coming up, I think it's safe to say you asked who.I don't think there's any name we've named here or any faction we've named here that we didn't reach out to multiple times.Okay.Yeah.Now, you know, we talked about our Afghanistan trip.We've described how many different people from different units, elements,chain, you know, in various parts of the chain of command.You know, we had so much participation on this project.
01:17:01And I think that's because they understood we were approaching it faithfully,truthfully, and we were going to go wherever this thing took us.And again, like we talked about, you know, I love the SEAL teams,but I'm not in love with the SEAL teams.If this turned out, if this story five years ago would have turned out that,oh, you know, we would have made that documentary.You know, but to have the Talibaninterview with us and not have the Air Force
01:17:28for various reasons, which we'll explain, is ridiculous to me.Again, we don't have to agree, but have a discussion.And I don't even, I'm not even saying debate, have a discussion.Okay.So this is, I mean, again, this started way back,this is from 2022.And after some days and days, weeks and weeks of exchanges,I think he started to feel threatened by the fact that I was in the Navy
01:17:58or maybe didn't like some of the things I'm saying.Again, I can't speak to exactly what was in his mind.Right.Because at that point, I don't think you were saying anything out loud.And we didn't know a lot.Yeah.We were just like, let's talk.Yeah.
01:18:09You have to put this back early in the investigation in 22.And we're year in.Look, today and yesterday are the first days that we've shared any of this.So anybody else's view here is coming more from tribalism than it is coming from any kind of fact in terms of if it becomes, if it seems like he knows what we think or what Mitch thinks, he may have turned out to be right.But going back in time to the prism of this moment, there's no reason for him to know because we didn't know yet.Okay.What's, what's, I think, important here is that he's attempting to shape how the conversation might, how the interview might happen.And he's starting to express the desire to have a public affairs officer involved.
01:18:53Is he still active?No.No.That's an interesting request.Right.Well, I think he, I know this.What he started to believe was that we might not support blindly the story or the story.the side he was on.
01:19:10I mean, as a rule, it's good not to blindly support anything.Right. Okay.That's a good point.Yeah.So you can see you there in the middle, would you be willing to enter a legal agreementthat this project won't go down any path arguing metals or justifications behind metals?So, and if you can, you know, you can continue to read there.What he's trying to do is shape the conversation ahead of time and have guardrails in it.
01:19:38And nobody else in our process had a public affairs officer present or was entering a legal agreement for an interview.And initially, you know, you can see my response down there, wrapped it for the rest of the day.I'm still trying to think about how to respond to this.Like, I don't want that interview.I don't want an interview where it's someone else is governing how it goes.I don't want to have that discussion.That's not a real discussion to me.And this is indicative of, I mean, I can show you.
01:20:08so many of these types of textswe're not going to go therebut this is just indicative ofthe rest of the processand we're going to show you some other emails that we hadthere's an accusation I think fromhim towards us that you know we didn'tliaison with the public affairs officer
01:20:24we did we're going to show you emailsmany many timesat lengthdescribing our position describing how wewould go about the processbutin the end well can youpull up, I don't know, there's a bunch of them, pull up,
01:20:41pull up the one with Derek and Sarah.And you identified something that as a, let's say here as a filmmaker,storyteller and someone who helped continue to design and direct the way we weregoing to do this process here and the way we approached it and what our ethos was,we weren't going to suddenly invitepublic affairs officersinto the conversationsbecause that would mean crafting or controlling a conversation
01:21:16but you'll see that we even acquiesced to that at some point.Yeah, they were asking for who did you,who have you spoken to so far?Which, you know, I didn't want to tell them that.I don't want this, I don't want someone controlling, you know,how we investigate this.this is a little bit out of orderwe're going to go back to another one
01:21:38but finally weyou know we relented and said okaywell here's the list of the admirals and generalswe've spoken to you so farand you know you can see the date herethis is 2024you know as we're still trying to puta pry bar in this and get someone to talk about the story
01:21:53two more years past the textwe're still trying to work the problembut again this is out of orderbut I'll just we'll go with thisI had a call with Sarah Francis from your officeafter presenting many of the same requests, she stated,it wouldn't matter funding, distribution, or interview listbecause if we were discussing John Chapman,
01:22:12the Air Force would not support.So what they initially did was put up a bunch of hurdles for us to get over.Do you have distribution? Do you have funding?Who have you spoken to so far?Right, disclose.And then eventually, on a phone call with her, you know,she just said basically,if you're going into the John Chapman story,
01:22:35we're not participating.Can you pull up the other one?Yeah.So what you're starting,the picture that's being painted hereand the way we've interpreted this over timeis they presented a moving targetthere was no way to hit it.
01:22:51It went from distribution.It went to what's the funding?It went from who's in it.It went to PAO's offices.And here's where we agreed to even that.This is part of that same threat.It's a very long thread of emails.You can see we blacked out the email addresses,
01:23:06but I believe there were nine people, 10 people,including Dan Schilling, Rob Harrison, some other people, all included.At this point, we're like, we're not going to have siloed conversations anymore.Everyone's going to hear everything.No more hiding.And so this is us relenting.Okay, fine.However, if a public affairs officer presence is deemed necessary to facilitate interviews with the Air Force,
01:23:29we'd be open to considering it at this late.stage. So that's us saying, all right, let's talk about it. And the next line. Additionally,our interactions with the Air Force liaison Hollywood office initially indicated reluctanceto participate in projects without distribution, later shifting to rationale to avoid anydiscussions related to John Chapman. And I'll finish it, although he is not the primaryfocus of this docuseries. That's a true statement. You know, a lot of the centers around whathappened with John, but a lot of this is aboutour big brains
01:24:05conversations, how Operation Antacondacame about, our interactions with theTaliban.Our and 20 minuteepisode dedicated entirelyto the Rangers piece of this battle.So, to thequestion of did we try to get Air Force
01:24:25participation,I hope we've demonstrated we did.And there areyou know, justI didn't tell you thisbut August 10thyou knowjust a few weeks ago
01:24:39I reached out to these guysto Lorito Rob to another gentlemannamed Matt Kublerand said hey I'm going to go on a pretty high profilepodcast here soondo you want me to askif we could have
01:24:55you know a discussion on the showandit gets the firstresponse from Lori was very politeand then it just evolved intono hell nogo ahead Mitch protect the branddo your thing
01:25:13which will betheir response to this podcastyou know they will do some characterassassination or attempt tobut they won't answer the questionsthey'll accuse meprobably even youyou're just whitewashing the brand
01:25:28that seems to be their mantraand a lot of their conversationsI hope we've...So for clarity,yeah.Open invite to Lori or anybody else.Well, it's just,and I don't even want to pitch this as on the other side of the table.
01:25:46Open invite to anybody who wants to sit down and have a similar conversationand work through the information just as you guys have.That's always the way that I operate.Because people ask me that all the time.Well, you had this guy on, when you have the other guy?Absolutely.I mean, I think that's...You've done it.
01:26:01That's what discourse is supposed to be about.out. So that invite is open. Take it if you want to.What's the quote, disagreement is the basis of all knowledge?I would say, I would add to that.What happens if I disagree with your quote?Well, that's how we get smarter.The person who made and not with Nick.Yeah. But I would just, you know, again, if they choose to go on the next podcast,
01:26:29your podcast, wherever they go to respond to this, because they almost certainlywill. They'll be in the comments sections. I know they'll be. I know they'll be there.Say whatever you want to say about us, our efforts. Just show usfacts. Demonstrate something that is compelling that mattersinstead of just, Mitch are just protecting the brand. And BrianGerolaki or whatever they're going to say about Brian here, who knows?How insulting. Or George's participation in our project or Pete Blabor'sparticipation. Pete Blabor was their friend for years in this project. Until recently
01:27:02he interviewed with usand went on a couple other podcastsand said something that they didn't likeyou know the counter narrativeand now Pete is I guesswe own Pete is there is their assertionthat's crazyI don't know what to say about that
01:27:20I can't fathomthe loss in a family like thatand again what I said a little whileago is I do my best to try to see the worldthrough other people's eyesI can't even fathom that oneYou know, and maybe the conviction in depth of belief is beyond even something that they want to consider.And having not lived through that or have that been in my life for 20 years, I can't even comment on that.
01:27:49But if they do want to talk, open invite.I hope they do.Yeah.I think the reason we went through this, again, is it, this could be interpreted or in my estimation misinterpreted as,pettyI hope notbut we have all watchedhundreds of hours of documentaries
01:28:15and other such thingsnews magazines and things as we were growing upthat doesn't exist as much anymoreand you'll often see a cardor hear somebody say you know we reached out to Xand they refusedI've always wondered what was behind thatand I always thought man that's a story
01:28:30unto itself isn't it because there's a lot ofmetrics around reached outto what it looks like.And it's not necessarily any of our businessand they do their projects their way.This is a disclosure and a transparency thing.That's what we're attempting to do.If you see other things in it, they may be there.
01:28:50They may be unintended consequencesof having this kind of conversationabout this kind of thing.Maybe not.But the point is you look at those few words on the screenor you hear somebody say,we ask them and they refuse to comment.That's not enough here.
01:29:04So that's why we wanted to share this.One more order of business here, I think, in this email world.Can you pull up some of the exchanges with Dan Schilling?I'm not sure which one you're going to come up with here first,but we can speak to any or all of them.I'd love to talk about also, you know,eventually Gold Star families and truth.I think it's important here.
01:29:38Okay.this email and again please mike you know desensitize it if we need i don't think his email address is therebut um if you guys feel it's uh you know treacherous it looks good so far but um you know this is fromfebruary of 2017 this is in you know we can assume dan's research phase of his book that's whatthe premise of the email is about if you're just joining us here dan schilling wrote the book made thevideos the movie that's coming out lonat dawn isbased on his book as far as we understand.Okay.
01:30:11A couple key points.I mean, there's a lot of stuff here,but the key points we want to highlight here are,you know,the Air Force is officially collaborating with the project.So, you know, they are, you know,aligned enough for him to make that statement.But then something that we think is interesting
01:30:28is the next line.In referencing John Chapman,he says, I know he had shortcomings.I also know you did your,your best to look after him in country and on ops. That is not represented at all in the bookalone at dawn. If you read that book, if you read the part about Robert's Ridge, and in this email,he's not wrong. Most of the book is about combat control and the history of combat controland how great they are. And I don't disagree, by the way. But nowhere in that book does it represent
01:31:10anything where John had an issue, a problem.In fact, it's quite the opposite.That in the book, John is better than everyone around him.He is leading the charge.He's more qualified than any of them to be there.He has more training than all of them.And again, I'm treading very, I hope I'm treading very lightly here.And I'll just repeat, we're not celebrating what happened here.
01:31:39we're not trying to trample John's grave at all.But the book just embellishes so much.And what shortcomings in?What are you referencing?What were the issues that you were not addressed?The question is, where is that part of the story?Yeah, we'd love to ask him that question.I think that's what's important here.
01:31:58And that was, this is an effort to have, uh, this leads to another email that we may or may notnot show, which basically says, hey, we're not, I'm not going to talk to you.So.there's some stuff in the dock that we aredeciding whether we're going toput in or not that addressesthis idea of shortcomingsbut it raises some questions
01:32:23like what? What are they?Like what are they? Do you have shortcomings?Of course I do. We all do. Same. Were you ever taken care ofin country by a leader? Sure. Same. I'm notI mean... But why state that? That's true for every single person.over there because he's humanizing him okay fair um fair i mean i guess you could look at it as ifhe skipped over those things in the book and the unlikely event that somebody writes a book about my lifei hope they skip over my shortcomings as well okay like some of them yeah you know like the shortest
01:33:10of shortcomings right i'm justTo me, as, I mean, I can see you viewing it from that lens.I can see him also just humanizing him.Okay.Is it necessary for him?Again, this is a question.You know, you see that, and it's not that I don't see that.Is it necessary for him to humanize him to, to slab?
01:33:32You think that, you know, they work together in the whole thing?Is this the first time Slav had ever been contacted by him?Unsure.I think we can assume it's one of the first when you read the entire email.My suspicion would be is he was probably just trying to connect with Slab on a personal level.At first glance, having looked at this for two minutes, that is how I would probably read that.Okay.But we'd love to talk to him about whatever he thinks he meant by that.
01:34:03Okay, here's another key point.He could also be talking about personal shortcomings as opposed to professional and tactical ones.You know what I mean?There's a lot left out there.Yeah. The email provides some context, but again, point taken. Let's move to the last one.Here he says, as he's trying to get Slab to interview with him, he says, I'm not interested in talking with the other sealist in the op, just you.Which, you know, this is from Dan Schilling to Slab directly in February of 2017.Can you pull up the other email we have,
01:34:43the other email we have from,from shilling to the group?Okay, this is part of that long thread.This was, you know, again, I think I mentionedthis email was to about nine or ten people.Dan was one of them.He responded, you can see the date there.I can relate, Mitchell.
01:35:11The only people who would not speak to meabout the events when I conducted my researchand wrote the book Alone at Dawnwere the seals involved from your unitand any of the other members from the same?Not one.So in one email, he's telling Slab,I don't want to talk to anyone else,
01:35:26I just want to talk to you.And in this email, he's saying that he,I mean, he's implying that he triedto get everyoneand they wouldn't speak to him.So there's a gap therein what's being communicated.I'm not sure which one is true.
01:35:43I don't think we have any,and the people we've spoken to,no one said that he reached out to them.But again, we'd love to talk to Danand find out what's true about this.It's interesting in the other email he referencedhe didn't want to talk to anybody else.That would be like me sitting here and saying,
01:36:01I only want to talk to you toobecause this is a story about your documentaryand nothing else.I don't consider myself to be a journalist, by the way,but if I was going to writeand the reason that there is an open offerfor anybody who wants,to talk about this is because I am interested in trying to find as many different
01:36:20POVs as possible.Why not gather those POVs?You can still tell the story of just the CCT.I think those different angles are very important.Having said that, again, I'm not a journalist.Dan can write his book however he wants to.I would have approached it differently.Yeah.
01:36:38And that's how we, I mean, again, I think we've proven it.We want to talk to everyone.I think this is part of that same.That's why I brought it up.I like to look at these things thematicallyso that somebody can put a hook into somethingother than the plot of this storyand the plot of the blowback and everything else.
01:36:52And if the idea is, again, to look at what it meanswhen you say we reached out to people,this is more transparency about the reaching outand there's some things here that I'd like to understanda little bit more.And it seems like the people we sat down withnever mentioned that they had contact with him.Perhaps they didn't see those contacts.
01:37:10Perhaps they didn't make it through to their email box.Like the spam, but no one we talked to.said that, you know, he reached out to them.Okay.So let's talk about this movie.Is it called Alone at Don?We don't know.So there is a feature film coming out, helmed by Ron Howard,
01:37:38backed by Amazon NGM.The film is shot.It's in post-production right now.There are articles out there.you know, describing the film, you know, with who's in the cast.We haven't seen the film.We haven't read the script.But I think it is safe to say it is based on the book alone at dawn.
01:38:05Dan will tell you, Lori will tell you that.And if it is, if that is true, it is based on the book alone at dawn, it is demonstrably false.based on the hours of conversation we've had over here.We can imagine, we don't know, but we can imagine, you know,similar to lone survivor at the top of that movie,there will be a card that says something like based on a true storyor inspired by true events.And, you know, what does that really mean?
01:38:41Maybe there's not one.Maybe they just take complete liberty and they're going to tell us they're going to take some liberties.but we do know it is connected to the book alone at dawn.I think we understand the budget to be something like,I think I heard $59 million.We'll see.Maybe we won't see.But that movie is supposed to come out,
01:39:02was announced that it might come out this fall.A more recent article implied, hinted that it might be pushed to next year.Who knows?But, you know, I think,now based on what we know about loan survivor, you know, if we could have a do-over,I think some people would probably go for that.I would tend to agree.But I think that, you know, the movies that we're mentioning are, you know, you had Ross on.
01:39:39Schneiderman, you talked about lone survivor.Again, you say you're obviously willing to talk to anybody about this topic now.This would not be an exception to the rule that films are entertainment products and they take a lot of poetic license.I think where the exception to the rule might be if it's based on a premise that is entirely untrue or events that didn't happen, that's something else.It's difficult, but at the same time understandable that the public learns a lot.of their true stories through movies and that that prism is probably not the best way um don't know themovie don't know exactly what's in it um look forward to seeing it uh in many cases we'd have beenthe first people uh in the front row to see that film for other reasons and and and we'll be there
01:40:44and look forward to seeing it i think um it's problematicto see what after what our findings are to see the mythology here presented as a as a as a true story now again that wouldn't be the first time that that's happened and there's a podcast to be had about you know there's four hours to be had about what based on a true story actual events etc etc means it feels like there's something again binary going on thereIt feels like it's a statement that has the power of truth in it, a foundation of something meaningful.I'm sure it does.The question is to what degree?I'm very curious.I don't think we have the bandwidth to dive into this, but the writer's guilt has some words to say about how, you know, how, based on a true story, what that actually means, what the right and left of that are.maybe at the end of this
01:41:50I'll dig into that but umwhat do you want the impact of your documentaryto be well first and foremostwe want the truthumyou know we'reconcisely what do you believethe truth to be
01:42:07that john chapman was shotand killed within aboutthree to four minutes of their second insertand never moved againdo you believe he deserved the Medal of HonornoOkay. No. And I don't say that lightly. Um, but, you know, I think, I think he made, I think it washeroic for them to return to that mountain because not everyone did. I think there were some errors made.
01:42:40Um, but I don't think the Medal of Honor was warranted. And I, I mean, I know the lightning rodthat I just made myself by saying that, but based on what we know and removing all the politicsand removing all the moat that's been formed around this storyand all the pitfalls objectively, no.Is it the goal of your documentaryto have as many people as possible also know that?Of course, yeah.Yeah, we wouldn't make this to not distribute it
01:43:18and get it out there, and, you know, of course,we want people to see it.But we want the lessons to be learned, right?So there will be more of these.stories. I just don't see there's any way that these conversations are going to be viewed asanything other than an attack on John himself. And the worst part about that is that he isn't hereto speak for himself and to defend himself. He did none of this. John did none of this. He had nohand in this and all the stuff that's happened in the in the last 25 years. It's everyone around
01:43:52him. So let me, this is something that might ring true. I know it'll ring true to you.You know, this is not the first time this has happened, as Brian just said.We have lone survivor, right?We have the Pat Tillman story.Now, what's what was good about the Pat Tillman story is it didn't take 25 years to figure out what happened.They did it in about six weeks.But you were on the Jessica Lynch shop.I'm going to read you something from her mouth.
01:44:24You know, after that operation.and maybe I should just let you speak to this,she was framed a certain way.Do you remember?I personally described it as like weaponized propaganda.She was described,I remember hearing people talk aboutthis will be the first female Medal of Honor recipient.
01:44:41She fought until her last round in her magazine,this heroic stand.And I sat and talked with herand she was knocked unconscious almost immediately.Okay.Let me read what she said in a statement from 2007.Okay.And there was a testimony before the House committee.
01:45:00And she goes,At my parents' home in Work County, West Virginia,it was under siege by media,all repeating the story of the little girl Rambofrom the hills of West Virginia who went down fighting.It was not true.I've repeatedly said when askedthat if the stories about me helped inspire our troops
01:45:20and rally a nation, then perhaps there was some good.However, I am still confused as to why they chose to lie.we should talk about who they isand try to make me a legendwhen all the real heroicsof my fellow soldiers that daywere in fact legendaryand she added
01:45:36the bottom lineis that the American peopleare capable of determining their own idealsof heroesand they don't need to be toldelaborate lies. The truth of war is not always easy to hearbut it is always more heroicthan the hype and the very last thing
01:45:52wasin reference to beinglabeled a hero. She goes, that wasn't me. I'm not about to take credit for something I didn't do.I'm just a survivor. Now she's still alive to say these things and correct the record.John is not. That one was interesting. It speaks to, and I don't know if the information about herfighting to the last round in any way came from the DOD or because there was so little informationabout what happened, there was a void, and it got filled by talking heads.They wanted to get people to tune in.
01:46:35But regardless, that is an example of how a void is filled with bullshit that becomes realbecause it's repeated over and over and over again.And I think one of the issues here for me, this, you know, again, the civilian side for me,because you guys are looking at this a little differently for a host of reasons that areestablished here, that we no longer.need, you know, first of all, we look at our heroes through the prism of Marvel movies,nothing against those movies. I enjoy some of them as well, and I don't mean to justuse Marvel. There's plenty of movies like it. Let's say superhero movies.
01:47:11We also get a lot of our sense of what a hero is. We talked about that earlier frommythology, 2000-year-old blind wanderers writing incredible poems like The Odyssey that becomeepic films that we all love and debate and talk about for damn good reason. I don't know if weneed to get our better angels all the time from myths. It seems to me that we've got enoughreal accomplishments around us to aspire to, to be inspired by, that are exemplary of our betterselves, our best selves, whether they're physical, spiritual, our effect on each other isnegatively and positively.And I think what she said there is important and it obviously we feel has some overlap with this situation.
01:48:05This is very difficult and we continue to take no joy in studying this closely.But at some point if we're immortalizing people so that others aspire to do what they did,what separates us from 2,000 years ago, 200 years ago, 20 years ago,should be that we have the power to look at the truth.If Lori was sitting in my seat,how would you explain to her what you're doingthrough the lens of it's not an attack on her brother or his legacy?When you answer, please answer into the microphone.
01:48:48Yeah, I'm trying to figure out how to answer that.That's a complex question.I actually don't know.I think I'd have to be in that situation and see her and just see what happens.But I do think the truth matters.I think we have to believe in our heroes.I think when that gets compromised, and again, this isn't the first time, it causes problems.I mean, there's a reason.
01:49:22There's a reason everyone's been arguing about this for 25 years.Something feels wrong about it.Otherwise, it would have been settled.and we'd just be celebrating itinstead of podcasts and podcastsand movies and books and things.There's something wrong with the story.There has been.
01:49:42How would you answer it, Brian?I feel that I would, again,it'd have to be in that situation.It's not something I want to scurto try to wiggle away from here.Is that, you know, there are five guyswho are aliveand that there's a big difference
01:50:01from, you know,being alive and not being alive.We can agree so far.It's a gigantic,it's a gigantic factor.Tell me more.But at some point,it's not a pure metric for our humanity.
01:50:19But it definitely has an effect on how we express ourselves.There are five guys who,in order for this to be true,means that they participated in leaving John behind.And I think there's some work to be done therein terms of looking at whether that happened or not accurately,and we're not here to take the albatross that they wearand their separate and personal lives away for them,
01:50:52but it's also not fair for the truth not to standor to be protected by our really important piece of our culturethat has to do with deifying the dead.And what is the list of stories that we would silo off in a vault because they can't be talked about?It shouldn't be a long list.I don't think that that works well for us.I don't think there should be a list.Well, so we agree there.
01:51:23And this one appears to be on it.And there is a list.Do you think that Lori wants it to be true?Not the valorous actions, but that members of the Navy.left her brother for dead.Well, what's the, what's the function?What's the utility of blame?And I, and it's a good question
01:51:51and it dovetails nicely into,I was just thinking about this topicjust a few days ago.Like, what is the functionary utility of blame?And I think, at least part of it isits deterrence, you know,when someone gets blamed for something,they're probably, hopefully,
01:52:09less likely to do that again.There's probably some shame associated with it.It's social engineering,but it's also a place in a wayto direct your energy of something.And so, again, we can imaginehow much it must hurt to not have a brother here.We can imagine the Rangers,
01:52:32looking at their empty cots,slab considering that Neal's not with us anymoreand how he might have playedinto that and factored into that. So blameit provides, it shouldbe a deterrencebut also allows you to directenergy. There's direct your emotion
01:52:57I told you I race motorcycles.The scariest crashes on your bike on your motorcycleare when you don't know what happened. Soand I just had a good bang up like two years agoand had some surgery andnever could fully understand the crash.Was it, did I get on the throttle too soon?Too much lean angle?
01:53:19Unsure.And that's when you don't know what to do next time, how to correct it.You want, you know, you want answers.I want to look at the data and say, this is what happened.Don't do that again.And so I can blame something.That's what I did.My mistake.
01:53:35And when you don't get that, you know, there's a lot of static electricity.there's a lot ofI get the ideaThere's a lot of potential energythat needs to find a releaseIt finds a place to goAnd you knowI just I just described
01:53:53A motorcycle crashNow imagine a family member's goneYeah I can'tYeahOkayAnd I think there's aI think there's an important thingWhich is the way you frame the question
01:54:03Is fineYou frame it over you wantWe answer or if we wantAnd that's fair gameI know that there would beSome kind ofI'm sure I would tell herthat I'm also sorry, but also sorry for them.
01:54:20Because if these things aren't true and they have been perpetrated,popularized, and become the record of note and they're not real,not sure that's fair either, because that's part of what this blowback is.It certainly wouldn't be fair if that is true.So if we're right, I think it's important to note that that's a factor in all of this,that the narrative is a two-way street, it does damage.Everybody who's touched this story is scarred by it, in some way, shape, or form, some more than others.Nobody's playing fast and loose or intending to with anybody's feelings.
01:55:08It's a painful process, and I can't imagine what Lori has been through.at one point we have to rememberand this is a whole separate conversationbut let's try to sum it upat some point this piece of the controversyalthough there were questionshad not reached this level of this temperaturethis barometric pressure around it
01:55:30do you know when it did achievethis relative temperaturewas it around the upgradesyeah I think that's fairsometime around18 18 18 yeahyeah so thatThat's a factor in this.
01:55:47And we are demonstrably adding to that,but that's not the intention.It's a symptom.It's a factor.That's not the point of doing this.When you ask what the point is,and you've asked it a number of times,and anybody who we talk to says,
01:56:06why are you doing this?Because the truth matters.And not having it does some kind of damage.I agree.There was a moment in time in the Pat Tillman story.And again, from manufactured lie to the truth in that story, I believe, is around six weeks.At some point in that six weeks...Do you mean the family being told the truth?
01:56:32I'm going to get to that.At some point in that six weeks, the media caught on that this former NFL star was killed.And not only was he killed, he was killed, he was killed by heroic fire.by enemy fireand he died heroically.At some point,we don't know the details of this.Although Pete did do a story
01:56:54in this,I don't know the answer to this specific question.He certainly added a lot of details to itand that may be in there.But at some point,someone said, wait a second,that's not what happened.We weren't in that room.
01:57:05We didn't have that conversation.And I can imagineat some point,someone also said,this is the Pat Tillman story, man.Like this, this is making national news.And, you know, a week two or three after this narrative's already hit the airwaves,like, do you really want to do this?
01:57:26Do you really want to do this to the family?Like, they already believe one thing.And what you're saying, if it's true, and, you know, maybe you were there, like, I don't know.And they had a decision to make.I find it hard to believe.In fact, I know this isn't true.But that the family didn't.want to know that bad news that in fact pat tillman wasn't killed by enemy fire and died heroically
01:57:51although i think he did die heroically he died tragically as well by friendly fire and i believe and i knowthe family would want to know that piece of information i look at that through the lens of my ownthree children and i can't think of a lie that would comfort me as much as the truth if something likethat were to happen to my own children. There's no lie in the long term that's going to provideat least the closure and comfort that the truth was, regardless of how hard it may be to chew anddigest. And, you know, there's, there's blowback up to now. There's blowback coming here. There'sblowback coming for us based on sitting here with you, having this conversation. I think it'simportant to look at, and you just started to touch on it, Mitch. At some point, there's a, well,
01:58:40maybe it's always there. There's a, there's a spectrum.between an actual lieand the place where there's hopeful optimismthat something feels like it would be great if it were true.And there's the kind of Dunning Kruger effect,the idea of the study that those guys did in 99,the metacognition study that said,hey, the low-information individual,
01:59:09a byproduct of that is not knowing you're a low-information individual.I'm not accusing anybody here in our audience or clarifying.The heuristics around what a low information individual isare not being applied to any particular person in this process.Again, this is a spectrum that applies to truth and lots of stories.But there's a place where a lie is manufactured and is knowingly told,but there's a place where people are complicit in it,but they're well outside of the cadre that might have created it.
01:59:40and in some paradoxical waythey're complicit in it because it's a beautiful thingbecause you want to believe it because it points to something amazingand then they want to protect it because it points to something amazingand that's difficult but that's humanand that's what we've looked at in this whole thingI mean, there's a section in the dock where Mitch is coming down the mountain, coming down to Kargar and he says, the story is about human nature.Now, that could just be a shitty platitude that somebody throws out about their project.
02:00:19You could say it about anything.But this is part of the human condition is looking at truth and painful truth.You know, one time we talked about, as we talk about this, and again, this is a little bit different, but we talk about at a eulogy, you may know that the person who's being eulogized is done.some shitty things in their life.That's probably not the place for it.But it doesn't mean that it should be walled off foreverand that the family shouldn't work outor adjudicate whatever that thing is
02:00:50and find healing.And there may be some painful truths and all of that.My family has them.Lots of families have them.If you don't, you're seriously lucky.I think we can say all families have them.Just may need to go back a little bit in the family tree.there's going to be another one of these you know after black hawk down after mogadishu i'm sure people said
02:01:18never again let's learn these lessons um there's going to be another moment in the military where atragedy happens is it's a disaster and there's going to be some uncomfortable truths out of thatstory and I hope that you know when people are figuring out how to protect their careers orfigure out what's true about the story or who's going to be hurt by it that it just happens fasterthat they they say you know what we're going to take this out front we're not going to createsome fiction we're not going to create a Tillman situation we're not going to create aRobert's Street situation and we're just going to say what's true out front out loud and be done withit and learn from it. And the issue is that may have happened in this story 20 years ago.
02:02:15And, you know, when we say things like this, we also notice that, well, that's what the otherside would say has actually been done. The truth has now come out. Right? The people who believe inthat version of the story or those events, they believe that too. So again, that points tothis human nature, human condition aspect of this.We talked before about, you know, my truth and the difficulty with truth in fact.And that's not a problem that this documentary or this project is going to solve.You know, we were warned to talk into the mic.To talk into the mic.
02:02:57But we were also warned.Multiple times.We were warned.We were warned not to do this project many, many, many times.Yeah, I bet.you know who one of those people one of those persons was probably slab you yeah definitely um againthis has been going on for years and years i don't expect you to remember i think you guys had a textexchange yeah i don't think you want you can describe it it's your conversation with the end
02:03:21i don't remember it perfectly but it was basically you know uh there's a tough thing to touchat whatever length pole and uh there's no way to touch it without it going off yeah but you alsosaid you weren't advocating for it not to be told.Right. Yeah. You said that something like, again, I'm paraphrasing, I hope I'm getting thisright, you said something like it's a shame that a story with this much heroism around it,and that's this tragic, is also associated with some of these other problems. Yeah. Uncertaintyand tribalism. I think that's something like what you said. And that's still count. That's stillcounts. But it's interesting that we're sitting here talking about it with you. And you've
02:04:10given us, you've platformed this much of the conversation. And I'm glad we got to that place.Sam, what else do you have? I think we're good. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Do you have anything?It's a lot. It's, to me, there's nothing more valuable than integrity.which is intrinsically tied to the truth.I think sunlight is the best antiseptic for anything,regardless of how difficult the conversation is.And I'm in your boat like I wasn't involved in the documentary process,but if we had been sitting here talking about how your findings found
02:05:10that Slab had left a man alive on that mountaintop,I'd still be willing to have that conversation.It wouldn't change how much time we've spent together, the depth of the research, the questions that I would ask, because the truth to me is more important.So I hope people can see that.It's just such a landmine.Right.And I just don't see how anybody can touch this topic without it going off.Well, we trust and hope that, you know, people haven't seen this stuff.
02:05:48They haven't seen our final product.Again, like we said at the top of this conversation, there's so much more.There's so much more.And we understand changing people's minds, you know, with a current narrative that's anchored after a quarter century is tough.But we trust that we've begun the process and that there will be some value in understanding what really went down there.Okay.Okay.Appreciate it.
02:06:24My pleasure.Thanks, Andy.
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