EverydaySpy Podcast - 2 Navy Sailors Spying For China | EverydaySpy Ep. 5

Episode Date: August 19, 2023

Every veteran in America right now is asking themself the same question: 'Should I encourage the younger generation to sign up for military service, or not?' And for any man or woman who has served in uniform, the question is a hard one to answer. With a military recruitment crisis in full swing and record-breaking foreign espionage infiltrating our US Military ranks, the heroes and soldiers of tomorrow are few and far between. If you want to know my answer to whether you should sign up or skip service, make sure you stay to the end of this conversation! Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you look at the cases that have come up just this year, right? You've got Chinese penetrations of the U.S. Navy. That's telling. A conflict over Taiwan is going to be carried out by both navies. By the U.S. Navy. We need people in the military, right? Just like we need people at CIA. Your answer is so full of hope.

You're like, I hope you don't have to be. Do not join the military. Don't do it. So I really love that our son, who's 10, has been into all things military and soldier since he was probably six. I mean, it started with Revolutionary War stuff. It went on to World War II stuff. It went backwards in time to like ancient Greek. Yeah.

And he's just been so naturally interested in all things military. Well, it's funny because there was a point there when I was like, because I'm a Buddhist. I was like, how did my child become so interested in war? And then I remembered when we were full-time RVing, we were driving up the East Coast and we were stopping at every single Civil War site and teaching him about the Civil War. And I thought, oh, this is, this is it. We planted the seed very firmly and it has grown. And he's learned so much. I mean, there have definitely been those times where it's gone in a direction I didn't really like, like Halo. Oh. Well, yeah.

The whole video game offshoot of like soldiers and war has been a bit of a challenge. And it turned into like, you know, these weird, what was it? Like he had these obsessive moments about the predator. Yeah. And then he had these obsessive moments about the Terminator and like these super soldiers. Yeah. And of course, it's totally played out in Marvel too. So, you know, as he's experimenting and learning what is a soldier versus what is

just conflict, it's been a very interesting experience, but it's one that has made me nostalgic. And I would certainly say nostalgic more than proud, because I'm very proud of my time serving in the military. But I do kind of worry about what my child's future will look like if he joins a military service unit. Yeah, I agree with you, especially with him in particular. I don't know how good of a fit that would be. And I'm trying to be. And I'm trying to, to understand constantly what it is that he's attracted to about it. So we've had conversations with him where I'm like, what exactly do you like about warfare? Because we even took a class where they just studied different battles and techniques. And, you know, one of the things

was that he liked that in theory, there's a winner and a loser. That's true. Somebody wins. Somebody loses. And I think one of the attractions of things like Halo or Predators is that they're not people you're fighting, right? So you're not taking another human life. You're taking some kind of weird alien bug life. I don't really know. I don't play Halo. Something like that.

You can distance yourself from the conflict. You can distance yourself from the violence. That's a fair point. And it's something that happens often in both the Marine Corps and in the Air Force, where they run simulations, specifically designed to distance the war fighter from the actual kind of tragedy that they're causing. Yeah. That's why airplanes shoot missiles.

for miles away. It's why the Marine Corps launches cruise missiles and they have artillery and they have entire battalions and strategies where they will soften a battlefield because it's destroying equipment and killing people and pushing back their defensive line.

So you hear many veterans come out talking about how they were desensitized to the acts of violence that they were executing when they were kids. Yeah. Right? Because essentially you're enlisting when you're 18.

Remember, we've talked many times about the puberty. The pubescent brain. The pubescent brain is there until you're 25. Yeah. So you don't even realize what you're doing for most of the first part of your military career. Right. And then you've got the rest of your life as your brain matures to process through that trauma. Yeah. It's like Ender's game, right? It's warfare from a distance.

Right. I mean, you don't even fully conceptualize what's happening on the other end until maybe much later. Yeah. I remember, you know, for all of the Civil War stuff and the Revolutionary stuff and you know we read we read kids books about those conflicts and all the World War II and Vietnam research I remember when he drew a big kind of what's it called when you have multiple pictures on one picture board oh he collage yeah it was like a timeline collage yes it was so it was so amazing yeah he drew a timeline collage of all the conflicts that the United States he's been in and it was this awesome thing so you know I've always loved him with the

academic approach and the academic kind of historical and appreciation-based review of American conflict. But then there was this time that we watched Master and Commander. This awesome movie, Russell Crow, British Battle on the High Seas, right? But we watched this movie and all of a sudden, like, it really caused a shift in him. Like, it made it so much more real. How so? Because-

I wasn't there to watch that movie with you. Because inside the three hours of that movie, yeah, like it really looks at the human impact of naval battle, especially naval battle back then, which was like cannons and raids, you know, ship to ship. Yeah, can balls blowing through your ship and, yeah. And kids being like young kids as apprentices being on ships and being the victim to violence on ships.

Yeah. Right. And then, you know, how they had to repair the ship under sail from conflict to conflict. And then you had diseases and you had doctors that had to carry out some crazy surgeries. Like frontal lobotomies, all sorts of crazy stuff on a ship. And I think that more than anything that we had read or looked at or studied before, then watching that movie really helped personify, like make it real how nasty conflict really is. Yeah.

And I think for him and probably for everybody, when he sees, a child, right? Because I think you said there was a child in that movie. He's able to relate better because he sees himself in that character. It's why we read the I Survive series because they're all from a child's perspective. And they can see themselves in that scenario and it makes it so much more real for them. And ever since, not just that movie, but kind of ever since that phase of his study, which was really about two years ago when he was about eight years old, ever since then,

he's made it very clear that he is interested in military and war and he is proud of being an American, but he does not want to be a soldier himself, right? And I think that that's really interesting because what we're seeing in our 10-year-old, I think, begets a larger question that all American veterans are asking themselves right now, right? There is no American veteran who's a parent right now who isn't asking themselves the question of what whether or not they want to encourage their child to go into uniformed service. Right. Because the veterans, more than anybody else, understand what it's like to actually

raise your hand and volunteer to serve your country and then not be used for what you think is the best interest of the country. Yeah. To go off and do something that's wasteful or silly. Like, think about the veterans who served in Afghanistan only to then watch Afghanistan fall. Yeah. Right? The veterans who served in Vietnam, who then saw the same thing happen in Vietnam.

And we've got veterans who have served now. now in Yemen and served in Syria and served in multiple conflict zones all over the world. Right? And they're watching now and they're wondering now, do I want to encourage this continued family legacy of service? Because it's not what it used to be. Yeah. And I know your stepdad was a Vietnam vet and he volunteered.

And he was very young from what I understand. He volunteered to go twice in and be a tunnel rat, right? A tunnel rat in Vietnam. Yeah. So did he? And then your mom. served in the Air Force as well. Every aunt, every uncle I had served in the military.

All served. And so what was the conversation like in your house as far as, you know, was there support? Like, did they talk about it? You know, like, did you grow up with the idea that, like, you know, it's great to serve, I'm going to serve too? It was a practical decision for us. Like my dad saw some of the nastiest stuff in Vietnam. Yeah.

But I also think he wasn't necessarily in the right mental place. He, just like you said, he was young. He was one of those kids. Yeah. Who went off to war and who knows what he thought he was going to see, but what he actually saw was not that. I still remember, like to this day, clearly, a Memorial Day event happening on TV when I was probably 13 years old and my dad was watching it on television and then walked to

the bathroom on the same level that we were in, locked himself in. I thought he was using the bathroom. And then I just heard him sobbing. Like the loud sort of adult sobbing that when you're a kid, it's like mind-boggling. And I realized on that day that he carries that with him all the time. Yeah. Right? And he's just one of tens of thousands of veterans who go through that experience.

And now when you are somebody who has lived through that and you have your children, and children of your own, you're asking yourself the question, like, do I want to encourage them to go down that road and do the same thing? My family didn't encourage me to be a soldier to serve our country. They encouraged me to be a soldier to find opportunity to get out of rural Pennsylvania because they were still too poor. They weren't going to be able to afford college for me. They weren't going to be able to do much of anything for me, right?

And my stepdad was one of those old school guys because he was like 13 years older than my mom, who was just like, a man's got to be a man. then you got to get out there and build your manhood, right? So that was very much his mentality. And the way to do that was either get a job and get the hell out of my house or join the military and get the hell out of my house. And a big part of why I joined the military was to try to win my dad's respect, which never really happened because that's not what he cared about.

He really just wanted me to get out and be a man. Yeah. He didn't necessarily care whether I worked or enlisted or something else. Yeah. So, but yeah. I'm curious. I wonder, I don't know that I've ever seen any studies, but I wonder what the general motivations are for service members who enlist or who go to the academies.

Like, what is the motivation that drives people to join the military? Because I feel like that motivation's important. Well, why didn't you join? Us, because my mom is Buddhist. So my my grandfather was in the army and everybody's so proud of his army service. So proud of his army service. He was an Army Corps engineer, but he was gone. And he served during the Korean War.

I believe he went to Korea twice. I think he enlisted when during, at the tail end of the Vietnam War. And, you know, it really impacted my mom is one of four, and it really impacted the family his absence. And they said that after he came back from Korea, he was no longer the same person. They never got their same father back. He was never the same again. And I only knew him as my grandfather. So, you know, I don't fully understand what that means.

He was always wonderful to me. But they said there was this fundamental shift. And, you know, my uncle. joined the army to try to, you know, gain favor with his, his father had been the army. But my mom was adamant that we would never join the military. None of her children would join because they're Buddhists and they're pacifists and war is wrong. And, you know, as I've always seen the importance of having a military and I completely respect the people who serve because they are giving up. they're all of their rights, their life,

they're dedicating it to protecting the nation. And just like you said, they don't have a say in where they're sent. Somebody says, this is important, this will protect our nation, and we need you to do it. And then they do it, I mean, which I think is just incredible. But I also think that it's really important to understand when you're recruiting the motivations of the service members going in, because they're in really important positions as well.

So I saw an ad yesterday. It's really interesting because we're going through a recruiting crisis right now. And I think that's that is a big part of what's so relevant about this conversation, right? Yeah. The Army has not met its recruitment minimums in over a year. The Navy is suffering the same way. The Air Force is suffering the same way. I was at the gym the other day yesterday.

I was at the gym. And an ad came on TV. And it was like, let's go girls. And it was then a series of like words, teamwork, strength, power, creativity, innovation, right? And it was all military. Yeah. So it was like, you know, girls on jets, girl pilots, girls climbing over obstacle course in like the assault course and like, you know, girls behind computers and girls doing cyber this and girls of all shapes and all colors and all sizes. in all ages, right? And it was very clearly female military, female military. And it was a long commercial. Because, I mean, it caught my attention. And then I kept watching it as I was like moving between machines.

Yeah. And then I like did a rep and I looked up and the same thing was still going. And I was like, what is this? Like a modern day Rosie the Riveter. And it was all, it was an Air Force commercial. So by the last like catchphrase, right? Like, you know, innovator, teacher, friend, family, airmen. U.S. Air Force, right? So very clearly, targeting females for enlistment into the Air Force.

But you can see everywhere. You can see how hard the military is working right now to recruit. You can see it in the Marsoc advertisements in the airports. You can see it in the Marine Corps advertisements, like on billboards. You can see it with Air Force and Army and everywhere. Because we are in this recruitment just tragedy right now. The Air Force, the military is not able to recruit enough volunteer professional soldiers for its own projections of what's needed in the future. And I think you're exactly right. It all boils down to motivation.

Right. And I think they're having an issue with attrition as well. Oh, yeah. People are leaving as fast as they can leave. But there's a, obviously, there's a disconnect here. And CIA teaches us this all the time. Like if you want someone to do something, you have to be able to connect it to something that motivates them. something that they care about.

We've talked before about, you know, the importance of motivation and getting people to do what you want them to do, but also getting them to do what's in their best interest. Right. Right. And the military is in many ways

in the best interest of military members because they take, like, it's a good job, it's steady health care, it's great education, there's all sorts of benefits that go along with it. But what people are seeing right now, I think what's happening is that their younger generation,

especially, they're wary of what are they actually selling to get these benefits? And you did join CIA. Right. And how did your mom react to that? I don't remember her commenting on it. My dad thought it was like the coolest thing ever. Which is hilarious because her dad's a foreign national.

Well, he was a citizen by then. I made to think it was the coolest. But I do wonder if there's been a, you know, we talk about there's different motivating factors and ideology is one of them. So like money is one, ideology is one. There's others. But in the vein of ideology, I wonder if the sense of patriotism has gone down. And what, you know, during like the world wars, patriotism was at an all time high.

We were like, we're like, let's do this for America. Let's be American, right? And that is a big driver for getting people to go and sacrifice themselves for their country. Right. If you don't have that, if you're the motivating fact that you're trying to hit on is, you know, be the best that you can be, have a steady job. Like, there's other ways to do that. There's other ways to do that without having to face the possibility that you're going to be sent into a war zone.

Yeah. You know, it's funny because I don't know that I agree that patriotism is on decline. I don't think people are any less proud to be American. Okay. I do think that you're hitting it on the head when people are realizing there's other ways to be patriotic besides wearing a uniform. Yeah. And there's absolutely this distrust that I think is unfortunately earned and well deserved that the military is not going to do what's in your best interest for you. And it's not going to do what you believe is in the best interest of the country.

It's going to do whatever the current administration believes is in the best interest of their party. Right. And there's such a strong political divide right now that if you're a conservative 18-year-old and you join the military, you have no idea whether or not two years from now, you're going to have some liberal president who steps in and chate uses you to achieve a bunch of, you know, progressive values that you didn't sign up for. or vice versa, right? You might be a liberal 18 or 20 year old signing up to like change the world and do things for the best and then a conservative president steps in and now the whole agenda is the opposite, right? And there's so much of that distrust, that uncertainty now that people don't really believe

that the people in charge of executing military operations are actually operating in the best interest of the country. So it's not that they're not proud to be American, they just don't want to put themselves and their career and their lives on the line to stand up and do something that they don't believe in. So you think that maybe there's a lack of faith in the mission? Because I remember at the CIA and in the military, you know, it's the needs of the mission that Trump, right?

Whatever the needs of the mission are, trump your personal needs. And there's some wiggle room in there where, you know, you're trying to be assigned with your spouse or you're trying to, you know, maybe you're a single parent and you're trying not to get deployed because you have, you know, your child. and no help or whatever.

But like, you know, the person, you know, who was working for the federal government in whatever capacity, they have to be okay. They have to believe enough that the needs of the mission are important enough to trump their own needs. Yeah, I don't think, I think you're right. People don't believe in the mission. I don't think people believe that the men and women setting the mission are capable are doing, are choosing the operation of the mission.

that's in the best interest of the American people. And this was a huge breaking point for me with CIA. I woke up one day, thanks to our operational history, and realized that my job was to execute operations in the best interest of the policymakers. Right. But the policymakers weren't acting in the best interest of the American people. They were acting in the best interest of their own policymaker circle.

Right. So if they were on the subcommittee on, economics or the subcommittee on trade or the subcommittee on intelligence, the subcommittee, right? They were the ones dictating to us what our requirements were that got funded by Congress to execute the operations in the field. Yeah. So, you know, men and women might be dying in Nigeria from terrorist violence and men and women might be getting kidnapped in Burma because of political violence, but there was no money to save those people. Human trafficking is the perfect example. human trafficking is a major problem.

Americans are being trafficked for sex and slave labor. And there is almost no funding to stop it. Because it doesn't affect a policymaker's promise to their constituency to get reelected. Right. Yeah. Human trafficking is actually what I wanted to work. And I wanted to be an FBI special agent working human trafficking. And then I found out that there are like two special agents that were human trafficking.

And I thought this is outrageous. But it doesn't, when you resolve that issue, nobody feels the effect except for the people being trafficked, right? Well, we don't know because no one's resolving it, right? That's fair. Like it's just such a dirty kind of grimy reality of what it is to work in government. And I feel like military members know that. So veterans or former military members have come to.

understand that one of our closest family friends is a is a Navy married couple right she retired medically from the Navy he is a very high-ranking naval officer they don't ever talk about encouraging their kids to go into military service they don't yeah right he's only really in the Navy to see out his final few years to get his you know his final opportunity to hopefully command you know a vessel of some kind she's in it because she needs the TRICARE connection because it was the Navy that created her medical issue. Right. So like they have this experience now where they're like, we've sacrificed our health and our lives serving our country.

Let's give our children opportunities that don't require that same thing. Right. And that's what I feel like my family didn't have the opportunity to give me that choice. Right. They didn't have the money or the wealth or the vision to give me an opportunity outside of the military. Yeah. So I joined the military. And now that I have those opportunities myself, I am very much in that position where I'm asking myself the question. If my son comes to me and is like, Daddy, I'm thinking about joining the army, am I going to say, that's awesome? Or am I going to say, why would you want to do that? Or am I going to say, I will pay for you to go to any college you want as long as you don't do that, right? Like, it's very much a question that I'm asking myself. And it's a question I think every veteran

parent is asking themselves. Yeah. So then- Are you asking yourself that question about your kids? Take off the filter. Tell us the truth. I think I would, you know, it's hard because I want them to have freedom of choice, but I would worry for them. I would definitely try to have them take a different path.

You know, I would try to get to like, what is it that you're going for, right? And see how else we can get there. So, yeah, it would be a difficult conversation, I think. And I think that's, thank you for being so honest. Because it's hard to admit to that, right? It's hard to be a proud patriot yourself and admit, I don't know if I want to encourage my kids to do that. Like it's a hard, hard thing to say.

It's a hard reality to kind of face. And, you know, it's when I read about the future of our armed forces. and the future of American supremacy, right? Yeah. I don't read the headlines looking just at, oh, we've got these cool new stealth fighters and we've got these cool new hypersonic missiles and we've got the world's best aircraft carriers.

I am very much looking at what's happening in the espionage world, right? And over the last two years, since 2021, for sure, since 2021, and it only seems to be increasing since 2022, the number of cases where U.S. service people are being recruited and caught and convicted for spying against the United States, specifically in this case for China. Yeah.

Right? You really start to see that foreign powers have tapped into our motivations and they understand how to take an American service member, an American patriot, and turn them into a traitor. selling out their own country, right? And the most recent example is, of course,

the two naval enlisted personnel who were just arrested just a week ago and who are currently on charges for espionage supporting the advancement of a foreign government, specifically reporting to the Ministry of State Security for China. Yeah, and we're only like halfway through the year

and they're like the third arrest of U.S. service personnel. Yeah, I think the other one were doctors in the Army. That's nuts. That doctors in the Army had been successfully recruited and used to give, you know, sensitive information to a foreign power. It's like somehow our military, it's not surprising that our military is a target of foreign intelligence, but the fact that they're, the fact that they are succeeding in recruiting American service member, the fact that they're successfully recruiting American service personnel isn't in and of its sense.

amazing. What's amazing is that we're catching them so often, which means there's more. There's so many more that we're not catching. There's so many more open investigations. There's so many more people that aren't being caught. We are that heavily penetrated. Yeah. And I think that the recent case is interesting because they're two different, they were two different types of recruitments, I guess. One wasn't even technically a recruitment by the Chinese. One was the, I don't know if it's, if it's, if it's common knowledge to most people, but the Chinese intelligence service has a method of posing as a researcher. I'm researching this subject, and they'll reach out to people who have access,

who have classified access on the topic. And they'll be like, you know, I found you on LinkedIn or I found you on whatever. I see that you're an expert in your field. And I will pay you to help me with my research paper to give me, you know, information. And then they will push for more and more classified information for in exchange for money. And I think, you know, so one of the gentleman who was arrested, that was his scenario. So the question is, did he even really know? Maybe he had it in the back of his mind. Then, this is kind of shady.

But I think he was paid like $15,000. Not much. I mean, a lot compared to what an listed person is making. Yes. So to him, it was probably a lot. He was like, oh, I have to do is, you know, tell him what I already know. Take a couple pictures. Yeah.

I mean, I think in that, in that specific case, he was like a. He was in the engineering core for an actual surface vessel with the Navy. And it was like, tell us about how this desalinizer works and tell us about how this engine works and take some pictures of the outside apparatus for what's attached to the middle part of the ship. And we're going to use it in our research on whatever else. And that's what he did. I think the reason that he's being held to espionage charges is because there was, there's more evidence there than I think what made the headlines.

Right. Right. In terms of being able to demonstrate what he did to knowingly advance a foreign power. Right. And I mean, are. Oh, yeah, because they were giving him very specific instructions to delete his history of communication and delete his any attachments that he sent after he sent them. Like they were teaching him how to clean up after himself to take away the trail of evidence.

Right. But arguably, if arguably he and people in his position could be trained better on counterintelligence and how to spot these things from the very beginning and then drilled home that you do not ever communicate these things. Like it's never, ever okay, right? The second one is much more classic. And I think that one is so fascinating because the second gentleman who was arrested recently

was actually he was a green card holder when he entered the military. He gained his citizenship while he was in the military. he was very clearly working with and being handled with an MSS officer. Groomed. He was groomed to be a seating operation. Yes, which I think those are the most interesting because it's not, it's a very, it's a very typical like Chinese and Russian M.O.

To seed, right? So being able to actually see it and the public being able to see this example, I think is really important because sometimes we get asked, you know, does the CIA spy in Americans? So data on there is a process for, as we all know, FISA, for information on American citizens to be collected. And this is why, right? We're not collecting willy-nilly on, like, I'm not trying to listen to your phone call with your mom, right? Like, this is why because people are seated in. And they become U.S. citizens.

And we can't ignore that. The Russian and Chinese intelligence apparatus have penetrated the U.S. military. And those very same people who have penetrated our military service have the opportunity to become American citizens. And then when they become American citizens, they get American privacy protection.

The reason we want FBI and NSA and DOJ to have the ability to go into our privacy holding records is so that they can find these foreign penetrations who are posing as American citizens. Not like, yes, they have the certificate that they're an American citizen, but they are not an American citizen in their heart.

They are penetrating our bureaucracy in order to collect our secrets and send them back to their home country. Yeah, they are the enemy. They are the enemy. They are the wolf and sheep's clothing. Yes, the sheep's clothing is the American citizenship, right? Like there's no interest in the FBI collecting

against an honest, hardworking American citizen. You're cheating on your wife, they don't care. You're cheating on your husband, they don't care. You're cheating on your taxes. They don't care. They're looking for the MSS handled assets working in a US commercial defense department established company. That's who they're looking for.

They're looking for the person who's going to create the next major cyber hack, the person who's gonna bring down the power grid, the person who's going to, you know, try to assassinate the president, that's who they're looking for. Yeah. And that's why I have no problem giving my privacy, like, to federal law enforcement. That's what they're looking for, right? They're not looking for me.

Right. So anything they find on me, they're not going to care about because what they're looking for is somebody who's a massive threat to national security. Exactly. And they're out there. They're here on our soil, right? So it's interesting because when I read the story, you know, I thought it made me think about the Japanese internment camps, which I think were horrendous. But I can understand now.

I suddenly like, you know, at this level of age and experience, I made the connection. And I was like, oh, I get it now. Right. Like Pearl Harbor was bombed. 2400 people died. Yeah. Right. The government didn't know who they could trust.

Right. They were worried about a penetration just like. like this and so then they were already in a time of war and so they rounded everybody up right not the right thing according to their ethnicity according to their ethnicity right so not the right thing but i i understand now i understand the fear yeah well and we haven't said it clearly right the multiple cases of chinese penetrations into the united states and we're talking about cia penetrations d o d penetrations uh penetrations into the marine corps into the in the navy into the army. What's not being said is that those same penetrations are majoratively

Chinese American citizens. Yeah. Right. Ethnically Chinese citizens who have American citizenship. And it's very well known, documented publicly, that this is China's intelligence MO. Yeah. They look for Chinese hybrid of all nationalities. If they want to penetrate the Brits, They look for Chinese British. If they want to penetrate the Australians, they look for Chinese Australians. Because the cultural tie for them is so strong. Yep. So the benefit that they have is that they're talking to a group of diaspora,

Chinese diaspora, and they already understand their cultural wiring, right? So they understand that they can twist those levers and those motivators stronger than we can defend against them. Yeah. But the flip side of that. is exactly what you're saying, how long, if ever, before we start to just see all Chinese in the United States as a potential threat, right? This is two years ago when COVID was kind of peaking, they started talking about this, what was it, like a racism against China or Chinese? Do you remember that? I forget, they had a word for it. Oh, I don't remember that. And I forget what it was.

But I do remember. There was an increase in attacks and yeah. Or at least they said there were. There were more hate crimes against Chinese ethnic people and people were biased against Chinese ethnic people. Like, no, we are nowhere near where the world was, where United States was in World War II. When they literally interred every Japanese American into camps in the United States. But the more that I read about Chinese Americans

being the backbone for Chinese espionage in the United States, the more it makes me worry. because it does seem like in the head of a policymaker, in the head of like somebody who's panicked and in charge of national security, you can see how they would land on, well, we need to prioritize investigations of Chinese Americans. Yeah.

And the Chinese are also using that same vulnerability against us. Why is the military accepting naturalized Chinese citizens into the military at all? Why are they getting in? Because we have a recruitment crisis. So they're skipping steps in their due diligence. They're skipping steps in their onboarding process, right? And that's how a seated intelligence operative can successfully enter the U.S. Navy steal secrets about like naval space operations and satellite technology and send it back to China.

And now like the fact that we are arresting and prosecuting that individual, that's all well and good. The secret has already been transferred. Yeah. Like bringing them to justice doesn't reverse the fact that the secret's already out there. Right. They were successful in their operations. Yeah, they were successful. Yeah. I just, I think it's so, we have to be so careful not to cross these lines into, you know, being like a police state. Yes.

You know, it's like our values are, like we have to hold strong to our values, our values of freedom, our values of respecting each other. Like, we have to understand that these people are here, but that we can't turn on each other either. Right. I think the path to solving this problem is training and awareness. Yes. That's all it is. But that costs money with no clear outcomes. And that's been the problem with the United States for so many.

Why is it that we continue to have school shootings? Because when it comes down to it, the people in charge of school districts are asking themselves the question, well, what's the probability that a mass shooter is going to come into mind? district and if it's a one and one thousand chance why would I spend ten thousand dollars educating everybody on how to react instead I can just give everybody a link to a YouTube video on on whatever they do run hide fight yeah right like that is the calculation that goes through the school district's head that's the calculation that goes through the military said what are we gonna do are we gonna train all 80,000 new personnel yeah in counterintelligence techniques to

make sure they identify if they're being spotted by the Chinese we're going to spend, you know, $8 million training all of them. And it still may not work. That's the kind of calculation they're making. And I get it. But it's so much better than risking more penetrations. Yeah. Advancing current operations, because that's what's happening is for every one person

who's been identified, there's another five that are in development, five that are giving secrets right now that nobody even knows about. Yeah. And the only way that you're going to get them to realize what's happening, to them is if you give them some kind of training, some kind of awareness. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I absolutely agree that there needs to be more training and just more insight into, you know, just periodically. Like you have to be on top of your personnel to remind them, right? It's easy to slack. It's easy to get that training when you first enter and then, you know, you sign your next

contract for your next four years and, you know, it's been a long time and you forgot and you're feeling important and somebody asked you for your, you know, your thoughts and your ideas and your expertise and they're going to pay you, right? And now you have three kids to support, right? It just, you have to be on top of it. And I think that, you know, no matter how much it costs, it's worth the investment because what we're guarding against is the future, our future, against the Chinese threat. If you look at the cases that have come up just this year, right, you've got Chinese penetrations of the U.S. Navy. That's telling. Because what is everybody concerned about geopolitically between the Chinese and the United States, a conflict over Taiwan.

Yeah. And a conflict over Taiwan is going to be carried out by both navies. By the U.S. Navy, right? That's so, of course, they're looking for radar signatures and radar equipment and the kind of equipment's going to determine or track aircraft and track incoming missiles and track ships and vessels. Of course they're interested in that. Of course they're interested in the inner workings of an engine and a desalinizer and something

that brings fresh water to the ship. Because if you can shut down a ship's ability to create fresh water, you shut down the ship. Yeah. Because nobody can drink on that ship. You can't drink the water around you. You don't even have to blow up the ship. So think about that.

You don't have to put a rocket. You don't have to put a cruise missile in the, a cruise missile in the middle of an aircraft carrier to shut it down. Yeah. You just have to make it so the aircraft carrier can't create fresh water. And now it's out of the fight.

Right. And now you haven't killed any Americans. but you've deterred and kept one aircraft carrier out of the fight. And that is a huge win. Yeah. People just don't realize how long term and how strategic the thinking process is for the Chinese. They've been planning to take Taiwan since 1949. Oh, yeah.

They've been saying it. We've been talking about how to defend it for five years, maybe. Yeah. So it's like, of course they're penetrating the Navy, right? Of course they're penetrating the U.S. Army Corps of Doctors, because who are those doctors supporting? The conflict in Ukraine, right? And they don't want America to gain a foothold.

They don't want Ukrainians to win. They want the Russians to continue creating pressure, and they want the Americans to continue pouring aid into this growing conflict because that keeps the Americans away from the South China Sea. Yep. So you can, it's not rocket science to see how the Chinese think. Yeah.

But that doesn't make it any less like, frustrating and just aggravating every time they have a win, right? Because their wins are coming from our inability to take action. Yeah. So, you know, we started this conversation talking about what it's like to be a veteran parent deciding whether or not to encourage your children. You don't even have to be a veteran parent. You can be a veteran uncle, a veteran sibling. Are you going to encourage the people you love to join the, you're not? You know, U.S. armed forces, especially in this time of such a recruitment crisis. Yeah.

Layered on top of that, you see that because Americans aren't volunteering, we're creating this vulnerability where foreign nationals who are gaining their U.S. citizenship are joining through a faster, you know, abbreviated program that actually brings in increased risk to our own military. It's a total catch-22. And that's such a rough place to be. Yeah. And I wish I had the solution.

If I had the solution, I would announce it for the world. Yeah. But I don't have the solution. And it's something that we're all going to have to kind of work our way through. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it's very possible a solution might just come, right? China takes Taiwan. We need people.

And then that's that. And that's that? You're called up. Oh, that's a scary solution. But it's happened in our history. I still anticipate. I've gone on the record for it before. China's going to take Taiwan.

It's going to be so fast and so administrative that there's no room for a war. It's going to be like Hong Kong. Nobody remembers that they took Hong Kong in 2019. And who wants to start that war? Who's going to fire the first shot? Right. China's not.

China doesn't want to. Yeah, China's not going to, not with us. Taiwan. Taiwan will shoot the first shot. But then it's going to be on us to be like, do we want to be the next one? because technically it's a civil conflict. Yeah.

If the Chinese are fighting the Taiwanese, according to American policy, civil affair, we don't have to take sides. So it's going to be sticky. It's going to be ugly. Yeah. So the question that we have for today, I think, is very much in line with what we've been talking about. We actually had somebody right in through LinkedIn and ask the question, what would we tell a young American considering military service to their country right now

if we also knew that that person was discouraged and disenchanted with American politics. That's really hard. That's hard, right? What would we say? This is one of those moments where it's really not cool to be former CIA because you know people will listen. You know that there are young people out there who will listen to what we say and give it a little extra credibility because we've been in. in the positions that we've been in. So maybe my answer won't be popular.

You know, I really, I think that if the person wants to join, if they're motivated to join, then they should, this sounds super cheesy, follow their heart because we need people in the military, right? Just like we need people at CIA. You and I talked about it when we decided to leave. We need people there, right? You and I decided to leave, but I am,

so happy that our friends stayed, right? They are protecting the nation. Same with all the military personnel, the active duty military personnel right now. So we need good people in those positions, right? So if that's, if you want to do that, you should do it because down the line and right now, right, like you can see on the horizon what's coming towards us. We need people. So it's difficult because I am also disillusioned with the government. With the current government, I just wish they would stop being so polarized. I don't really care about your polarized ideas.

Like you are overlooking the center, like the really important central issues to the nation. Just do your, I'm not going to curse. Do your job, right? So I'm hopeful. I'm praying that that resolves itself in the next 10 years or so, you know, and I know that that's, it's not, I'm sure it's not comforting to somebody who enters the military and then, you know, signs their life over

to service. But we do need the people, right? So if that's what you want to do, then do it. Not surprisingly, my answer is totally different than yours. I know. Because your answer is so full of hope. You're like, I hope you don't have to be. Right?

Like, do you know, the first people to die in a ground-based assault are all the people in the front of the line who are hoping they won't get shot in this first assault. Yeah. Right? Like, hope has a place, but it's not a very tactical place. Yeah. So I'm saying that in this very specific question, which is what I loved about this question, was so specific. If you are a young person and you are considering military service, that tells me you're already a patriot you want to serve our country. But you are also disillusioned and discouraged by current politics, do not join the military.

Don't do it. If you're already discouraged, if you're already disillusioned, all that's going to happen is that when you join, all of your freedoms are taken away. You now have no choice. You don't even have a choice to attend an event or a meeting of people who disagree with the government. You can't say anything publicly against the commander in chief. Right. Right? Like you are under a whole different code of law.

That's right. So if you are already discouraged and disenfranchised, do not join the military. But I want to encourage you to still find a way to serve our country. Because you're right. Our country absolutely needs good people. our military needs good obedient soldiers. And unfortunately, there will always be people like me who's really who's best alternative

is to join the military. Those people who, no matter how they cut it, they have to join because it's the best option of all their options. But if you have other options, find another way to serve. Go get a bachelor's degree, get a master's degree, Do studies in international relations, do studies and national security sciences, do studies in intelligence, right? Go into the intelligence side, which is a civil service job, not a uniformed service job.

Go be a consultant for a consultancy that does private intelligence for the U.S., right? Go work in humanitarian, go work in government accountability, go work anywhere, right, that helps drive our country forward. Go become the next congressperson. Go become the next senator. Right? Yeah. Go be the next American citizen who leaves the United States to gain some experience abroad, teaching English somewhere else, working in a foreign company.

Who knows what? Be a masseuse in a foreign country. My sister did that. Got incredible world experience that she then brought back and she uses as a foundation to inform and build up her community. There are so many ways that you can be a patriot that serves our country without having to put yourself in uniform and do what other people tell you to do. So that's my answer. Hope has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with if you go down that road, if you go down the road of

uniform service, you are subjecting yourself to a rubric of expectations that you already know you don't want to do. Yeah. So don't do it. That's fair. That's fair. I approve of your answer. That's really all I'm looking for because I want you to like me later. I do. It works. Folks, thank you so much for this conversation. This was one of those heavy, hard conversations, man. And we promised hard conversations. So we try not to hide from the hard conversations that need to be said.

If you are like me, if you are a veteran parent, a veteran spouse, a veteran parent, a veteran sibling, a veteran uncle, a veteran aunt. And you are having the same kind of consternation that my wife and I are having, what do you? do? Tell us your thoughts. What do you tell your family members and your loved ones about whether or not they're going to join the military in the future? Like how do you process that through your own head? Pour your heart out. Pour out your ideas. Drop them in the comments so that we can see what you're doing. Because we do have a solution moving forward. Ghi, like you said, there is a path forward for our country through this recruitment crisis and through what's happening with our military. We just don't know what it is yet. And the only way we're going to find a way is if we share our ideas. So I want to

hear your ideas. I want to know what you're thinking. I want to know how you're processing through it. And of course, if you want to hear more about how CIA trained us and how they taught us everything from counterintelligence to spotting, assessing, developing, which is the process that the Chinese are using right now to recruit our own internal service mem. Make sure you hit the links in our description. Open the description. Go in there. Check out our website. Take the spy quiz. learn more about how you're wired, and you'll understand how it is that foreign intelligence think about approaching people like you and me

and turning us from patriots into traitors. Thank you very much for joining us today. I really love having these conversations with you, and I can't wait to see you next time.