EverydaySpy Podcast - EX-BLACKWATER OPERATOR: The US Is LYING To You About The Middle East

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

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Working for the ambassador, protecting him in Iraq, you would be in various meetings. You would have various conversations with heads of state, presidents. Professionally, I won't divulge the conversations, obviously, but I became quite aware by listening to those conversations what priorities were to other people. And from being boots on the ground and seeing the devastation that war brings, I thought we were on a mission to make peace, to solve problems. And the objectives were completely different. Why do you think it is that our government lie to their people?

Is it a necessity? Trevor Fortner, super excited to have you back again. I have three questions. I can't wait to ask you. And I'm hoping they'll surprise you a little bit. The first one is, what is your oldest childhood memory? Ooh, from a young age, right? Like, what's the one that I'm?

your oldest memory from your childhood. And I asked this for a few different reasons. One, I want to know if you're plagued like I am with a horrible long-term memory. That's the first thing in that. Potentially. And then the second one is, I want to know what childhood things shaped the man that you became. It's such a fascinating concept because so much of who we are as adults started then. Yeah.

So my sister, Brandi, and I, we have this conversation all the time. She's just over a year older than I am. she'll say some things from our childhood. And I'm like, what? She's like, oh, yeah. And she goes into detail. And then I have to question her. Like, are you making this up?

Like, I don't remember a single thing. Just so you know, that's what it's like with my middle sister. Okay. Angela is the same way. She's got this vault of a memory. But for me, I'm like, thank God I forgot half the shit you remember. Right. Is it because I'm a male and they're female?

Like, I'm curious of this. So I have this reoccurring memory. of maybe four, four years old of one particular house that we lived in. And there's like three moments that I remember of this house. And I remember where it's located. The three instances were one, a ceiling fan came down, a metal ceiling fan came down while we had friends. My parents had friends over. We're all sitting on the floor.

and that thing landed next to my mom and I, like nearly metal blades chopping the kid up. And I remember my mom freaking out because my dad had installed the fan. She was not impressed. I remember her just being upset. I remember thinking one day that we had a ghost in the house. Like they had just finished the dishes after dinner. We were all in the living room and there was a massive crash in the kitchen. And we walked in.

Plates, utensils, everything is on the ground. and the back doors closed. And then there was one event where as like a little kid, I would hide under the desk or I'd go hide in a corner. And for no apparent reason, just as a kid, just hide. That maybe four years old. And then I don't really remember much until middle school, junior high. Like I don't remember.

My sister had her wedding a couple of weeks ago in Georgia. And a couple of my aunts and uncles. We're all there and we were all going through family pictures from like late 70s, which 75 I was born. So I'm only four or five years old. I'm looking at those pictures going, who's that kid? It's me and it's my sister and my uncle who's just a little bit older than us. And they're talking back and forth about these stories. He was like eight or nine.

So he remembers a lot. And I'm just going, I have no idea. Like it's just, it's not even a blur. It's just not present. And I wonder if there was an event in my life that has made me not recall those or I don't want to recall those. And it wasn't a bad childhood by any means. I just don't recall. So how old were you remember?

How old when the ceiling van fell? Probably four or five. And then there's like a gap from four or five all the way up to like 12 or 13. Easily. I'm the same way, man. I am the same way. Folks, if you can relate to this, please drop it in the comments. So Trevor and I know whether we're crazy.

or whether we're common because I also have these clear memories up to about five not many a few and then it's like dead space until 12 or 13

maybe there's one or two at like 10 or 11 but not many where did all that time go and I'll be I'll double down on that right because I went to a military college so I kind of remember foggy not like it's total dead space

from five till about 10 or 12. But from 12 to like 24, 25, it's foggy, but I kind of remember stuff. And then it starts clearing up from 24 on. But holy smokes, dude. That's, I will say that all of that, a caveat that with until I had my first child. From the time I had my first child to today,

it's like, thank God I can take digital photographs. Oh, yeah. That's what parenthood is like. Thank God for digital photographs. All right. So I had this experience when I was young, very similar to the swirling metal blades next to your head. I fell out of a tree, a tree I wasn't supposed to climb. You had been told.

Stay out of the tree. It was in an apartment complex that we were living in. My mom raised me. She was single for many years before my stepdad came into the picture. And I climbed up this tree next to the apartment buildings. And I slipped and I fell. And I remember falling. in this really narrow space

between the side of the building and the trees. And I remember feeling the branches kind of whipping me on the sides as I felt like straight down. And then I hit the ground. Wind gets knocked out of me. I'm looking up at the trees. I'm like, oh, that could have gone a lot worse.

And I turn my head to the left side, right, to like get ready to roll over. And sitting there is this like two inch exposed metal sewage pipe sticking out of the ground. And that's when I went from being like, Oh, that could have been worse to being like, holy shit. This is why I wasn't supposed to climb the tree.

You know what I'm saying? There was reason behind this. Yeah. So then if it sounds like childhood was good, not necessarily memorable, but fine. My next question is who is the person that jumps to mind for you when you think of the person who's had the greatest impact on your adult life? That's a, so I listen to some other people that will say, this person or that person in her life. And sometimes I kind of feel selfish that I wish I could just immediately say,

hey, it was this person, like profound impact. My father has been a great father in the last few years, particularly being a grandparent. And as a kid, he taught me very specific things, either directly or indirectly. And so I appreciate that. My mom's work ethic, completely appreciate what she went through to raise. two children by herself. But the one person, I don't think he knows this, the uncle that I referenced before is somebody that I saw him two weeks ago before that.

You met him. When we were at Ghost Tactics, my uncle Milton that came in at Ghost Tactics, we were in that Airbnb. Yes. Yeah, he stopped in to say hi. Absolutely. This is him. Wow. So he's not much older than me.

Yeah. But there's some sort of emotional bond that's a blur to me of. of going out to the farm property where he lived with his parents, that he was my big brother. Like he was my, it's my uncle, but he's like my big brother. Now when I joined the service,

he was there right before I left, and he's been in law enforcement for the last 30 years as well. I've always thought of him. He's every year he'll reach out and just say something like, hey, I'm just thinking about you or hey, I've got this going on, want you to be aware of. So it's not like we're brothers, in the sense that we talk every week,

because we definitely do not, there's just this unspoken bond and relationship that we respect one another. And he's the one that I've always judged that if I'm gonna make a decision, like what would my Uncle Milton think about this? And I've never told him that. That's pretty cool.

And you don't know why? You can't put a finger on where that emotional bond came from, huh? No. I mean, I know we spent a lot of time together on a grandparents farm, which we had the conversation. As a kid, man, we thought this property was huge. Like the river running next to it, Clydesdell horses, massive farmhouse. You drive out there as an adult and it's like three or four acres.

It's like it's really tiny. But as a kid, it was massive. So he and I both have that same memory. So there must have been, you know, multiple times a week. Every weekend my mom would have us over there with all the other kids. and just somebody that I naturally looked up to. And this was Indiana or this is somewhere else? Indiana, just east of Indianapolis.

So it has, you've traveled the world. What, how do you view growing up in Indiana through the lens of the Navy Special Warfare, EOD, traveled in East Asia, lived on a boat, served private contracting in Abu Dhabi. and in war zones, like, how do those two things pair up in your head? They do not pair up at all, man. Like, not even close. There's no real answer. Like, I've asked my mom and my dad that, like, they did little frequent trips, like, via card.

I didn't go in an aircraft until I think I was 18. Wow. Yeah. I mean, I drove to the beach in Florida for spring break, my senior year high school. That was the first time I saw the ocean. I didn't grow up with swimming pools. I fell in a body of water. I was going to say, how did you end up in a Navy, man? Yeah, so figure that one out. I remember I was supposed to go to the Air Force. Oh, that's true. Yeah, no, my uncle, he, a different uncle on my dad's side, he had been in the Navy before,

and I think he flew F4 Phantoms. Yep, yep. And not only met him a couple of times, he lived in Texas when we were growing up in Indiana. But I remember going, oh, wow, I'd see his Navy plaques and stuff on the wall. I was like, wow, that's really cool. And I think that's where I got interested in flying. And I had another uncle that was in the Air Force stationed in Indiana. He had got me on the president's plane. It had been landed at their facility, had all the troops out guarding it and stuff.

And he was able to take us over and give us. little tour and I just remember this was phenomenal. So I think my Air Force came from him, the pilot probably from another uncle, but nobody in my immediate family traveled out of state or got on planes, talked about other cultures. Like it just wasn't in our family life. I think when I joined, when I chose Japan, I was our class that graduated gunners mates. Sometimes, you know, the military, they come out and tell you where you're going. They walked in our classroom and said, I think it was like five minutes. They wrote up all the bullet assignments.

I think there was 15 of us graduating. So they wrote up 15 assignments. One was in Japan. One was in Italy and the rest were in the U.S. And they said, all right, roster, you know, class number one, the student number one, you get to choose out of the 15. And then the last guy, you get what's left. And I was like the second or third. And I saw Japan and went, wow, that sounds.

It sounds pretty cool. Japanese girls are cute. It's outside of the United States of America. And that's the only thought I had was, I don't want to go to Virginia Beach. I don't want to go to San Diego. They're both beautiful places, but I have an opportunity to go overseas.

That was my only thought process. And so I went to Japan. And then every, that was the catalyst. Like, wow, I'm in Japan. I didn't see my family for like two, two and a half years. We wrote via SNAV. Mel Mel. So by the time my Mel left the ship at sea, got to land, got to my mom, I would have called her by then from some port and already talked about what was in the letter. The time she

wrote a response, like a month or two later, we've already had a conversation about it. And I just realized, like, I don't want to go back to Indiana. Like there's, I want to see my family. I don't have, I had friends in high school, but we weren't like, oh, we're going to, you do things as adults together. I want to do travel. I want to see the world. I was very curious of different cultures. My high school,

1,200 people in the high school, there was two black kids, brother and sister, one Asian family and one Indian family. And I found that fascinating, particularly when I went to boot camp. And I went, oh, yeah.

People would ask you, hey, where are you from? Indiana. No, no, what's your culture? Indiana. Like, I'm white. Like, is that what you're asking? They're like, no, are you, you know, Spanish background, German, British?

I was like, I have no idea. Like, that was an epiphany. Like, I should figure out where my bloodline came from. And so I just wanted to keep traveling the world. How wild. So how has that impacted your relationship with your family, your relationship with your friends from high school? My friends from high school really don't exist. There's a couple of my friends that I was close with that are both law enforcement

officers. They've been that way since they graduated high school in that local community. I occasionally see them when I go back. If I pass them for sure, we'll catch up and start talking and hey, let's go grab a drink together. But we don't stay in communications with one another. My family, thank God for, you know, WhatsApp, social media, signal that anywhere in the world, I can pick up a phone and call them and video them. Like that's pretty phenomenal based off our experience of writing snail mills. My mom always wants me to come back close to her where she's at. And I get it because I want my daughter to be close to me.

But I realize the selfishness in that. So I put myself where she is located so that I can spend time with her. Your mom or your daughter? My daughter. Your daughter. So your mom wants, I mean, your mom's in Indiana. And I'm guessing there's not a big appetite for you to go back to Indiana. Zero.

I love Indiana. Indiana is a fun place. I mean, you have a ton of museums, outdoor areas. There's the Formula One race track. They've got their sports teams that are there. It's a lovely city to go out in. I just, it doesn't feel like home to me. Yeah.

Does any place feel like home to you? I hesitate to say Earth. My wife and I, Chrissy, we have this conversation all the time. Like, where are we going to settle down at? Well, we got to define settle down. because I'm not settling. We've contemplated purchasing a property or building a property somewhere specific

for the older years, and I'm talking like 70s, only to be around my sister, her husband, my mom, hopefully we'll still be around for another 20, 30 years, that we've checked all of our boxes that we can settle down as in staying in one place day by day.

You know, it's funny, we have the same challenge, Ghee and I, where do we think is home? Like, where do we belong? Yeah. Where is the place that's worth missing all the other places to stay? There's a cost ratio, right? It's an opportunity cost for sure. And we've oftentimes joke that we're always looking for that place.

We're always on the hunt for the forever home. And we don't know where it is. Where did your wanderlust come from if it sounds like so much of your family was content in Indiana. So much of your family was so content in Indiana, they didn't even really seem to value their own ethnic background. So where did your thirst for adventure come from? That's the golden question.

I want to kind of say, well, the Navy opened my eyes, but I really think it was all the cultural people, the differences of people that I've met. I worked with a young man that was 100% Irish. so much so on the ship, you know, the microphone, the broadcast around the ship, the CEO, oh my God, if he heard that kid speak, because nobody could understand him. But he's becoming a U.S. citizen. He's in the U.S. military, but he's full-blooded Irish, just a phenomenal young man. So I get to work with him. I get to work with people that were born and raised in Africa, South America. And I listen to their stories and how they were raised. Like one of my friends that is a little bit younger than me right now,

grew up in the Philippines and in order to shower or flush a toilet, you've plenty of places you've been in Asia and in the Middle East, you've seen this. There's a large bucket of water with a ladle and a scoop. That's how he, you know, went to the restroom. At the same age of me of growing up and I walk into a shower and pull the knob, right? Had a well out back or still has a well on the property that when that bucket's empty, they got to go get a pell and fill that bucket up. And that's just their way of life.

And so those conversations are really interesting to me. It makes me reflect on the nice things that I have, like be appreciative of the small things that I have. And there's a burning desire in me to want to explore new cultures and new places. There's obviously places I was telling Jihi, I want to go revisit Thailand a few times. But I also want to go to places I've never been for just to learn more about those cultures. Yeah, it's funny. I, I, I'm often thankful that I was such a fucking reject in high school. Because had I been cool, had I fit in, had I felt like I was a cool kid, I may have stayed in rural Pennsylvania after I graduated.

That is a very amazing observation. that because all I it was so uncomfortable right in so many ways brown kid white school and only mildly uncomfortable I was part of a white family so I viewed myself as white but like never like always struggling for prom always like being in all the things that interested me were things that everybody else made fun of chess club math club band you know track and field like it was it wasn't cool. Yeah. I didn't play football.

I wasn't the star wrestler. Like, those guys were cool. Mm-hmm. I was not. So it was easy for me to look forward to GTFO, Pennsylvania. Yeah. That's really... CIA believes that all people are born with a spy secret superpower.

For some people, that means they can win deals for others. They can spot liars. Some can even seduce lovers. I built a free three-minute test to help reveal to you exactly what your secret hidden superpower is. All you have to do is click on the link in the description below. Take the test and start using your spy superpower to stay ahead of 99% of people. I didn't realize we had that in common.

Like, I didn't play basketball or football. I think I played football once in like junior high. But I wouldn't consider myself nor would anybody else say, oh, you were the cool kid in school. Like, somewhere in the middle, like the little gray fella, like, oh, it's just that guy. He's a nice guy, but he's not part of the cool club. And I do remember when you say that, I remember feeling awkward and like out of place. I remember going on a field trip. And I've got like hand me down clothes that don't properly fit.

And I get on the school bus. I was a little bit late getting there. And the really cute, cool girls were sitting up front. And that was the only seat because we were in a hurry. The teacher said, just sit down next to them. I felt so awkward about it. but they were super nice and super polite. I think that probably has a little bit to do with it,

like the awkward out of place feeling. Like, this isn't, this isn't me. Interesting that you say that because a lot of those people in my high school, they still live in those areas. Yeah, I remember every time I go back to my hometown, I still run across the same names that I heard all the time in high school, all the names that were popular names. There's a few that made their way out.

You know, it's funny, you talk about, about the popular girls and there was, there was, I think three maybe like super power girls in our high school that were like cheerleader squad, but also straight A students, but also like star athletes, like superhero type girls, definitely girls that were out of my sphere of influence. And I fast forward to the end of my time at CIA,

I had put in my resignation at CIA. And I was in my final few weeks, still undercut cover, but transitioning out of CIA. And I went to a store in Reston, Virginia. And I'm in Reston, Virginia. I walk into like a Whole Foods or something like that. And one of the three superstar girls is inside the store. No way.

Like a million years older, just like I was. I think 18 we graduated. And I was probably 31 years old when I saw her this time. And I saw her and I recognized her. And she saw me and she recognized me. And we were both like, what are you doing here, right? I couldn't tell her what I was doing here. So I had to use my cover, like, here's my cover story

for why I'm here. And then she was like, oh, I'm a senior Intel analyst at Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm working with the NGA or NSA and all this other stuff. And I was like, wow, you made it into Intel as a contractor with a firm. I'm in Intel, but I can't tell you about it because I'm in like national security intel.

All of a sudden, I don't feel that far from you. Like I did in high school when you were cool and I wasn't cool. And you were a star athlete and I wasn't a star athlete. And you know, you were the talk of the town and I was the class joke. It was just such an interesting thing because I feel like what ends up happening is we carry our childhood with us. We carry our identity that we define for ourselves. Yes.

In like the first few years after puberty, we carry that decades into the future. And it doesn't really serve us. Not at all. Not at all. CIA has this concept that they teach us called the outsider advantage. And the whole idea behind the outsider advantage is when you are an outsider, you have specific benefits that insiders don't have. In-group bias doesn't affect you. Peer pressure doesn't affect you.

The need to belong doesn't affect you because you are an outsider. You identify as an outsider. You've always been an outsider and you'll always be an outsider. And there's an element of that that makes you try to find the place where you will belong. But then there's also an element of that. that makes it so that you just accept when you don't belong. So you can float from place to place to place, being forgettable and invisible in gray,

just like you talked about. And you're totally okay with it. Whereas people who are not part of the outsiders, they're not okay with that. They're trying to find their place and we've somehow have become comfortable with, I don't say being anywhere, but it's okay because I understand

this is your country and I am an outsider and I'm comfortable with that. And it goes beyond just national identity too, right? Oh, of course. Because I mean, if you think about the original nomads, what was a nomad? Even now, there's still nomads. What is a nomad?

A nomad is somebody who can go almost anywhere and make wherever they are the place they choose to be. Yes. They can live off the land. They're self-sufficient. They're creative and resilient. They're resourceful, right? Whereas the person who actually like lays roots

becomes dependent on the, where they are. Yes. Dependent on the infrastructure, dependent on the society, dependent on the network, right? Whereas the nomad is the opposite. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but what I am saying is had I understood at 15 that there were benefits to being the outcast, I would have been way more comfortable at 15 than they actually was.

Oh, and my years ahead now. So I had made the comment that when you said it doesn't serve you well and I said, no, not at all. I misspoke on that. It doesn't add value. to you when you're unaware, but to your point now, if you were to have become aware at 15, oh, now it adds value. Right. So it's really about becoming aware of yourself and that that you recognize I'm an outsider.

I don't have to try to fit in. And it's interesting because, you know, we travel so much as a family, people, outsiders of our immediate family looking on social media, be like, oh, you guys travel, so much, you're tourists all the time. And I'll talk to Christy about it and go, we're not tourists. It's more of the nomad. Like, I don't go on holiday. And you see these people.

You can see them up here at Breckenridge and Keystone. They're tourists. Yeah. Where if you and I go up there, we're going out there to have conversations, enjoy the environment, get some skill training in, but we're not tourists. Yeah. Same as if we go to Thailand to the beach or charter a cellboat. I'm not being a tourist in this country.

I'm maybe it's a no bat. I'm checking out your culture. I'm living my life for this one week, two weeks, one month, whatever it is, because I'm comfortable living here. I'm not here to be a tourist and do the tourist trap type stuff. Yeah, it's really funny because I feel now and my children are starting to adopt it as well. When you go somewhere and you live to use your term tourist style, you don't really experience the place at all. No. When you go to a Marriott hotel and you eat at the Marriott restaurant and you drink and you get the Marriott breakfast and that's what you do.

That's two thirds of your meals in one place. And then when you and then when lunch comes around, if you're not into the whole idea of trying to find something local, then you end up eating like the same fast food brands from somewhere else. And that's before we even get to how you choose to get around. Right. Where you choose to spend your time. Are you going to like the markets, the tourist trap? markets and the places in the guidebook or are you going somewhere else? I was just in Australia on business and I was so like driven to not do touristy stuff. I didn't look at a guidebook. I

didn't want to have any kind of input whatsoever. I had multiple clients I was meeting with and for all of them I was like just like take me to the places that you enjoy, not the places where we're going to run into tourists. I don't want to be the American tourist in Australia, right? I want to be the person who's here to actually see if Australia is a good fit for me. The reason I do that is because I'm kind of auditioning the location to see, like, do we have a natural synergy, me in the location where I'm at, right? That ended up with me one day going to some place called Byron Bay. Yes, I've been there.

Which is like this total, I'm guessing it's an unknown town. I don't know because I didn't read a guidebook. And I had a local who took me to this place. in Byron Bay, we parked on like a residential street that was in the fucking jungle. It was amazing that it was even jungle down there. And we went through this foresty footpath to a tea tree lake, a lake surrounded by tea trees. So the tea tree oil from the trees was seeping into the lake. It made the lake absolutely disgusting looking, right?

Everything was rotting because it was covered in oil. And the lake itself smelled like tea tree, which was awesome, but it was dark and murky. and it looked like iodine. Yeah. Right? And they were like, let's go swimming. There were a couple things that made it easy. First, apparently Australian women don't have any problem taking their clothes off

and changing into bikinis. Like, they have no problem with that. Gotta get dressed. Yeah, it's not like us where we try to like find a changing room. So all of a sudden, like half the crew is stripping down to nothing and then getting put on the rating season. And I was like, well, this is how we do it here, right? When in Rome.

So that made it easy to be there. But then the second thing that made it easy was, Holy fuck. I'm in like a tea tree lake. The ocean was only like 50 meters beyond the lake. And I'm like in this place that maybe 150 people visit a month, unbelievable, right? Like that's the kind of stuff that you only find when you audition a place. That is very true.

And I think that Bay in particular, they've probably done a pretty good job of keeping it off certain advertisement areas about. a year ago, a buddy of mine, Jeff, we went down to Nicaragua to take a surf lesson. And one of the reasons I love traveling with him, because he's like you, like we're not running a car. Yeah. We're going to fly in. We'll get to the airport and we'll sort it out. Like, it's, now I know sometimes we tell people to plan and prepare, like we do our research and due diligence, but hey, let's go out, see how this taxi situation works. Let's talk to some locals and let's see how, you know, how do we get from point A to point B? when we want to go from the market down to, hey, where's the local shopping center?

They'll be like, there it is right there, like the 7-Eleven. No, no, no, where do you shop? So they'll ride it down for you. Catch a bus for 50 cents or go stand on this intersection. A local person non-taxie, because there's only one thoroughfare from the beach area back out of that area. They'll just pull over and open up a door. Wow. And you tell them that you're getting off at one of these two places.

it'd be like $2, $3, $3. They're traveling that direction anyhow. Wow. They just want to make a little bit of extra money. So that's how we traveled around Nicaragua to get out. The worst thing was we went into a restaurant in the town that we were in. They came over and handed me a menu and it's all American stuff. Pizas, burgers, chicken fingers.

I said, excuse me, you have like local cuisine? He's like, oh, you want the other menu? You have another menu? Well, yeah, this is the tourist menu. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I'm a tourist. Can I have the local? So they told us about the food out of the back of the van. Because you are in a touristy surf camp area,

prices are tourist prices, as they should be. Now, if you walk down the side street, there'll be a local that shows up every morning, opens up the back of the van, and that's where the locals go to eat. For $2, you line up at the back of the van, get your little pocket of food, and you're out. That's awesome.

So that's the way we prefer. And that, I mean, that's the way I prefer it, too. It's been such an awesome experience kind of traveling the world and getting to see that. What's really been cool is building a business that's an international business. Now there's like business reasons to go all over the place. And then you're making business margin by having the same experience that you're having anyways. I mean, this year, business has taken me to Australia. It's taking me to Montenegro.

It's taking me to Thailand. It's just amazing that now I'm making money to go do exactly what I want to do anyways. Yeah, in really amazing places. I'll take it all day long, right? Yeah. Let me ask you this. I'm curious, I'm curious if there is a moment in your history where you were faced with such a significant challenge, whether you succeeded or failed in that moment, that challenge

kind of shaped how you view the world from that moment forward. How I viewed the world? or really the question is what was the moment what was the challenge where your worldview changed I'm guessing there must be one but what was it

there is a so there's always been a few profound moments you know throughout your life one of them and it's a little bit disheartening to say this working for the ambassador protecting him at close proximity in Iraq

in Iraq you would be in various meetings. You would have various conversations with heads of state, presidents. I won't, professionally, I won't divulge the conversations, obviously. But I became quite aware by listening to those conversations, what priorities were to other people. And from being boots on the ground and seeing the devastation that war brings, I thought we were on a mission to make peace, to solve problems.

And the objectives were completely different. Like, I mean, of course, at an operator level, as an individual human, you want to help and serve people and protect people. But when you start looking at it from a higher point of view, you start to realize, like, this is, I'm being lied to. I'm being manipulated. I'm a pawn. I'm being used. My teammates, buddy, I'll go to war. with you any day. But the person that's sending us to war, the policy that's sending us to war,

is because a couple of other people have a disagreement about something completely irrelevant, and this is their tool and their mechanism to reach their objective. That's not in alignment with ours. So I'm very thankful that I was in a lot of those meetings and opportunities to hear various conversations that I tell my daughter about being a patriot that it's not just about the American flag. We talked previously about the UAE and their patriotism. It's phenomenal patriotism. I still consider myself to be a patriot, but it's not the same definition as when I was 12

years old. At 12 years old, it was red, white, blue, America Pride. I'll sing the Star-Spangled banner. Like I still believe in all of that, but I had a faulty view of what patriotism was is that I needed to go serve my country in war to be a true patriot. And that shift happened in probably around 2004, 2005 in Iraq of witnessing that going, I'm still a patriot for any country, actually, but I'm not the patriot that I was when I was 12 years old. It's a different view. Why do you think it is that our governments, all governments, lie to their people? Is it a necessity?

Is there an element where society would be better if government didn't keep their secrets? Everybody will always ask that question, right? You and I have been in situations that we've had information that my wife, Christy, You think you want to know this answer? Don't ask a question because you can't unknow it once you know it, right? So there's definitely things that I do not need to know. There's definitely things that general population don't need to know. There are things that I think that they keep secret for malicious intent,

malicious against us as a population that serves their purpose of controlling. And one of the things I like about President Trump is that he's explained like we're, and you've talked about this before, about we're a cog in a great big machine. We need to continue this cog in a will to keep the overall society functioning. So at least that's recognized. But how do we improve the quality of life for people around Earth? And I think we should definitely move away from individual continents. Like, this is my land and this is what I'm going to do. We all live on the same globe, whether it's flat or rounds, a whole other conversation, but we're all here that all the resources are for everyone.

Like, we should be exploring space and looking outward as opposed to all these internal conflicts. So I'm always curious if they're lying to us about look over here, why we do this over here. I say that with confidence because, you know, Sun Tzu's Art of War tactics 101. It's exactly the tactics that I've used in operations. And so I would be naive to think that they're not using it against us. It's interesting to me because I somehow supports. I somehow forgive. I somehow accept.

I'm not sure what the right word is. But similar to what you're saying, the tools, operational tradecraft is so effective. it's effective at carrying out the objectives you're trying to achieve. Whether you're trying to extract secrets or whether you're trying to govern a body of diverse people, the outcome is what drives the method. Yes. So if you want to govern a group of people, that's the outcome. There might be a level of deception that needs to go into achieving that outcome.

Absolutely. And now all of a sudden if you start questioning the method, but you change the outcome, you have to start asking yourself, well, what's more important? The end result or the process, right? Are you a process-oriented person, or are you an outcomes-oriented person?

And then we come back to, in the United States, almost all of us will say, well, we're outcomes-related, right? We're focused on the result, not the process. Well, then in that case, you will continue to be lied to. You will continue to be distracted. you will continue to be systematically limited in your power opinion and input.

Yes. Because the outcome you want is clean potable water and safety in the streets and an economy that booms and if that's what you want, you got to be ready to put up with this. Have you ever heard, you ever read the book or seen the movie

Machine Gun Preacher? I don't think I have. I love the way it sounds. I'm not going to lie right. This should be a Family Night movie for you guys. A family night? Yeah, absolutely.

I would have never guessed that. Absolutely. Yeah. I think Gerard Butler plays the role. It is based off a real man that was kind of a rough, rowdy, motorcyclist kind of guy in, I think, Midwest America. Somehow he found himself over in Africa working with some local people at an orphanage. I don't want to spoil it for you. Yeah.

But eventually machine gun preachers, it's a name. He becomes a bit of a preacher and he carries a machine gun. He ends up repeatedly rescuing children, local children that have been abused and taken over there from warlords. There's a quote that he says that if you want me to go anywhere in the world and get your child, I will go and get them. But don't you dare judge me what I do and to make this happen? And that's really profound that the outcome is a mother says, I want my child back, go and get them. And then she finds out, dude, you slaughtered like 40 savages. Oh, please don't do that.

Yeah. But I want my cake too. Yeah. Right. And I'm to the point where I can accept that. I can look at you and go, yep, you're deceiving me, your line. That's cool. I get the game.

And I'm not upset by it. I don't have to enjoy it, but I don't get emotionally upset by it. there's a lot of people that think, well, I'm entitled to this information, and I don't think you are entitled to it. It's funny. I find that the more operators that I have these conversations with, Navy operators, Intel operators, FBI operators, cyber operators, we come to this level of pragmatism where we realize, hey, the things you have to do to get the outcome, you can't have both. You can't have both be successful. if you're focusing on subjective opinion and judgment, right? You can't believe that your intel is good if it factually isn't good. And you can't believe that your methods are worthy if they don't objectively yield results. So now all of a sudden you have to look at this thing very pragmatically and say,

hey, I got the outcome I needed and I did what I had to do to get the outcome I needed. And that's what everybody's doing. That's what every business is doing. That's what every set of parents is doing. Single mom, single dads are out there doing it. You know, divorce couples are out there doing it. Like everybody's doing what they have to do or what they believe they have to do

to get the outcome they need. That doesn't mean everybody's right. But what it does mean is there's a certain level of pragmatism where if you really want to connect with another person, try to think about how their decisions that they're making are practical to them. Right? Because for some people, backhanding your child

is practical to them. them doesn't mean that it's practical to me but it might be practical to them and you cannot possibly start a reasonable productive conversation if you judge them for what they do you have to try to understand their point of view first that's an interesting thing when you look at the history of iraq with saddam hussein and they say that he ruled with an iron fist we understand why he ruled with an iron fist and the old image of him with the pistol like they're terrified or back then they were terrified of pistols. You could point a rifle at them.

They're like, whatever. AK-47's dime a dozen around here. But you point a, pull a pistol out, that symbol meant something. And that, again, back to the early days of Iraq coming out of the Navy and the private contracting was probably one of the biggest transitions of mental awareness of how people are influenced and controlled because we went in there thinking, you'll just adopt what we're right. You'll see it our way. that's a whole different culture of generations

that have their own system we just want the violence to end well I mean Saddam Hussein is such a great example because we were we were teenagers when Desert Shield Desert Storm went down Oh yeah and we had a chance to unseat Saddam Hussein right then and there we knew everything we needed to know about the guy

We knew that he put people in acid baths and we knew that he put people in secret prisons and we knew that he was like, of course you know it, a horrible guy. Yeah. But then we went in to Iraq, pulled them out of Kuwait, and then we were like, okay, Saddam, you just, you can continue being president. We're going to leave.

Why? Because we were like, this crazy megalomaniac asshole is also a huge enemy of Iran. And we would love to let you keep being an asshole in Iraq, as long as you keep being an asshole to Iran. Because if we actually take you out or unseat you, the person who comes in might be more in favor of Iran than we like. Always looking for that mutual relationship.

Going back to your whole point about why do we do it all in the first place? Why does it shield, does a storm happen in the first place? The deaths that happen, why is it that we don't even remember the conflict from 91, 92, right? Nobody talks about that war. No. That skirmish. What do they call it? I don't know what the official term is for it. Oh, it was like, it was a, like, it.

They don't call it a war. Incident, no. It's not conflict. I mean, it is a conflict to us. It's like war conflict. Excess plans. They're not war plans. They're not war plans.

Words matter, right? Like, words do matter. But it was an operation. Yeah, that's right. Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm. Thank you very much. Yeah. All right.

So you know that I'm reading Moby Dick. So I just want to say, and this is a shout out to your young son. that by the time your wife finishes that painting, you may finish Moby Dick. That's true. That's in case he listens to this. My wife is working on a massive painting and my son is very aware that I'm working on a massive book.

All right. So I've got to share this quote because this is, I find this to be very poignant, very meaningful for me. And I just want to see if it stirs anything in you. Again, you're super smart, super accomplished. I would love to hear your thoughts. So this is from the 41st chapter of Moby Dick.

I'm just going to share it with you. It's the story of why Captain Ahab, the captain of the Pequod, the ship that sails around whale hunting in the book Mobby Dick. It's the story of why Captain Ahab hates the whale so much. Why does he hate Moby Dick, right? Everybody knows that the book is about a crazy-ass captain trying to kill a white whale, right? But why? And I never knew the reason why until I read this chapter. So here's the passage.

His three boats stove around him, him being Captain Ahab. And oars and men whirling in the eddies, one captain seizing the line knife from his broken prow had dashed at the whale as an Arkansas duelist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six-inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab. And then it was that suddenly sweeping his sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's leg as a mower, a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no hired Venetian or Malay could have smote him with more seeming malice.

Small reason was there to doubt then that ever since, that almost fatal encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale. All the more fell for what in his frantic morbidness he at last came, to identify him with. Not only all of his bodily woes, but all of his intellectual and spiritual exasperations also. The white whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation, the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies,

which some deep men feeling eating man. Let me try this section of the past again. This is why the book takes so long. For the edit team, we're going to go back to the white whale swam. The white whales swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies, which some deep men feel eating in them, so they are left living with half a heart and half a lung, that intangible malignity, which has been from the beginning, to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe one half of the worlds, which the ancient ophites of the east reverenced as

their statute devil. Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them, but delirious, transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale he pitted himself all mutilated against it all that most maddens and torments all that stirs up the less of things all truth with malice in it all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain all the subtle demonisms of life and thought all evil to crazy ahab were visibly personified and made practically assailable in moby dick he piled upon the white whale hump, the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down, and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot hearts shell upon it. There's so much in there that I find profound, right?

This idea of consolidating all of your pain. your anger, your fear, your hatred, and then consolidating the pain, anger, and hatred, and fear of generations before you and around you, all into one single topic. And then pitting yourself against that topic with this perceived sense of justice. Because it's not you who's obsessed. It's not you who's flawed. It's not you who's wrong. Just like Ahab doesn't see himself as doing anything wrong. He sees himself as the justified hero in attacking this thing that for all intents and purposes, he's defining as a demon, right?

A devil that has plagued the human race. That's what I take from the passage. What do you take from what you just heard? I think it's a pretty good analogy of mankind that I tell my kids all the time, you look for the negative in anything and you will find it without question. Like pick any topic, any person in the world, you'll find it. And most people, that's what they're ingrained to look for, is the negative. But try to find something positive in someone. the human race from the time that we've been educated about has been in conflict why why are we

prone to be savages to one another like you've seen some savagery things done why would people be driven to do that when yet we can look at our children with such amazing profound love that's a that's a question that I contemplate on a weekly basis And I spent, there was a couple of years in my life operationally that I was probably an angry person, maybe happily to be angry. Maybe it served me with purpose. But I relate to that as in I'm going to be the savior. I'm the one that's going to do this. Like it needs to be done.

Except the person that I'm looking at, it's just another human being. They're just doing their job. I mean, there are always savages somewhere. But for the most part Don't see themselves as savages No, they don't Yeah And you have to

In the conduct of your job You have to understand Am I dealing with a savage Or am I dealing with just A person like me That's on the other side of the table Doing their belief For their country

Yeah, it makes me want to go back And read Moby Dick now Have you ever Listen to what elderly people On deathbeds say? The answer is yes But I don't know where you're going with it. For me, I actually, my first ever paid job was technically a volunteer job, but all the nurses that I worked with paid me at the end of my volunteer time.

It was in an old folks home where people passed. And I was not expecting, I mean, I was expecting to deliver food and water. I was not expecting to be in the presence of people saying their final words. So that, first of all, thank you. That's an amazing experience to have, even though it might not seem like at the time. those comments that I've been aware of, it reminds me of that quote, that we carry so much anger and hatred and that we've got to solve somebody else's problems, that we overlook being present and what really matters. And unfortunately, if we're lucky enough, we don't realize

that until the moment that you realize you are going to pass away. And it's too late to go back and spend time with those that you love. So as we wrap up, you know, we've talked about Moby Dick before on camera and off camera. And I'm really enjoying being an adult reading this book that I lied to my dad and said I read when I was a kid. But as we do. But actually reading it now, it's sad to me because what I find is that I relate more to Ahab. And I think that possibly all of us out there who have not yet read the book may be partially avoiding the book because we know it's going to be heavy, it's going to be hard to read,

but also like, what if we're Ahab? What if we're the guy that everybody knows is the crazy, obsessed, angry captain? Like, what if that's us? What if we're not, you know, one of the characters on the boat? What if we're not Ishmael? what if we're not even the whale itself, Moby Dick, what if we're the fucking bad guy, right? And that's such a terrifying thought.

It's so easy to avoid it. And like you, I remember thinking that it, making myself believe that it would be cool to be the bad guy. It would be cool to be the savage. Oh, yeah. It would be cool to be like the killer. It would be cool to be the, you know,

the deadliest guy in the room. and now that I'm older and more grounded and more experienced, I don't want to be that fucking guy. No, no. And maybe we all don't want to really be that person and we're just afraid to look in the mirror and see that person. And that's what I find so powerful about my experience with Moby Dick. Yes, it's heavy and it's hard to read and it's written very artistically.

But I'll be damned if that fucking book doesn't shine a light right in your face. Oh. And so most people will put it down, turn away, and go be entertained by something else. They won't face and ask the difficult questions, right? And I love the fact that you always, you and Gus are always like, we have to have the difficult conversations. You've got to be open with yourself. One of the things, so Moby Dick and then The Odyssey, I think as children, you should read both of these books or at least portions of these books. and in old

I forget I don't think it's old English it's old education systems in early America is how they taught this you would read these books as children in certain passages because of your creative thought

and imagination a white well and they're hunting Zeus and Hercules your role playing imagination and then you go back and re-study them in middle school and high school and then later on as an adult. It's the same book. It's the same words, but your profound realization of the true story,

it's different. Same book, different stories. And so it's really interesting to hear you at 44 reading this book and reflecting because I know it's difficult because you're not reading it like you are seven. As an imagination, like this is amazing story. This is hitting home. There's some truth behind it. And I don't like what I see. Yeah. It's been a great journey and I can't wait to keep piling on more of these heavy classics and running them through my, my mind as an adult, a father, a professional, an experienced warfighter. Trevor, what an awesome conversation. Thank you so much for joining us again.

Where can folks find you if they want to learn more about you? Everydayspy.com forward slash Trevor. And folks, I will be putting Trevor's links in the description below. If you enjoy this conversation, like it. Leave us a comment. share this with a friend. We want anybody who would resonate or relate to this conversation to be folded in because it's really such an opportunity

to have a chance to chew the fat with a guy like you, Trevor. Thanks so much for coming. And folks, we'll see you next time on the other side.