Modern Wisdom - #644 - Jack Carr - What Has Happened To The Love For America?

Episode Date: June 22, 2023

Jack Carr is a former United States Navy SEAL, outdoor adventurer and author of The Terminal List series. The lives of Navy SEALs have been romanticised on screen and in books for decades. But what is life behind-the-scenes actually like? Just accurate are the dramatisations? And why does no one love the military any more? Expect to learn the details of Jack's narrowest escape from death, what are the biggest myths and misconceptions surrounding military snipers, the parallels between warfare and the struggle against cancel culture, what Jack’s daily writing routine is, why it's dangerous for younng people to forget the sacrifices made by past generations, the credibility of potential future threats from China and much more... Sponsors: Get over 37% discount on all products site-wide from MyProtein at https://bit.ly/proteinwisdom (use code: MODERNWISDOM) Get £150 discount on Eight Sleep products at https://eightsleep.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Check out Jack's website - https://www.officialjackcarr.com/ Buy Only The Dead - https://amzn.to/3Cw37s4 Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Jack Carr. He's a former United States Navy Seal, an outdoor adventurer, and the author of the Terminalist series. The lives of Navy Seals have been romanticized on-screen and in books for decades. But what is life behind the scenes actually like? Just how accurate are the dramatizations? And why does no one love the military anymore? Expect to learn the details of Jack's narrowest escape from death. What are the dramatizations? And why does no one love the military anymore? Expect to learn the details of Jack's narrowest escape from death. What are the biggest myths and misconceptions surrounding military snipers? The parallels between warfare and the struggle against cancel culture?

What Jack's daily writing routine is like? Why it's dangerous for young people to forget the sacrifices made by past generations? The credibility of potential threats from China. And much more. Don't forget, if you are listening, you should have also got a copy of the Modern Wisdom Reading List. It is one hundred of the most interesting and life-changing books that I've ever read. I'm always getting asked for reading list suggestions.

And here it is. There's a hundred for you. Go to chriswolex.com slash box to download it for free, and that will add you to my three-minute Monday news letter list, which is where you see all of those cool carousels on my Instagram coming from. chriswalex.com slash box. In other news, this episode is brought to you by my protein.

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charge. Head to betterhelp.com-modern-wisdom to take that free quiz and get a 10% discount on your first month, that's better-h-e-l-p.com-modern-wisdom to take charge of your mental health alongside 2 million other people. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jack Car. You are somebody that is ex-military service, now an author. You have the opportunity to write out scenarios that may be inspired by stuff that you went through and stuff that's complete fantasy as well. How therapeutic do you find the process of being able to dispose of bad guys with as much inventiveness as you want and no restrictions at all? Right. Well, I joke that it keeps me out of prison. That's only half joking, I think, because it is

extremely therapeutic and our senior level military leaders and elected politicians give me a lot to work with. The world in general gives me a lot to work with these days, but at the outset, I didn't really realize that it was going to be something that was therapeutic or something that was intensely personal. I thought I'd get the sniper weapon stuff right, and if I didn't know who to talk to, or if I didn't know something about, it's some sort of a tank or a plane or something, at least knew who I could call to ask these questions. But as soon as I started writing, and not even in the coming up of the title, coming up with a theme the coming up with a title coming up with a theme coming up with a one page executive summary Getting the outline done. It wasn't until I wrote the first words that I realized. Oh, this is gonna be extremely

personal and not so much in the fact that I am recreating exact scenarios that happened in Iraq or Afghanistan But more so that if I have my character or gets in Iraq or Afghanistan, but more so that if I have my character or get ambushed in Los Angeles, California as part of a completely fictional narrative, I go back and remember what it was like to be ambushed in Baghdad 2006 and I take those feelings and emotions and apply them to a completely fictional storyline. So that was personal and then a lot of the other things that come in that are not so dramatic as that that just help the story move

forward. He to down to down to the type of car that my protagonist drives and his wife drives. Like that sort of a thing, just those little personal, the kind of music that his wife listens to and listened to in the first book. So all those little things really ended up making it very personal as did the more dramatic action sequences

where I go back and remember what it was like to be a sniper in Ramadi and then just take that and plop it into the fictional narrative. Take us through that ambush in 2006. Yeah, so that was an interesting one because a week prior, we had tracked somebody into a mosque and I was working with the CIA at the time. I was the only military guy attached to that, which was fantastic, because the, I guess the bureaucracy that's overhead was a lot less.

It seemed like over there, at least it was to me at my level for what I was doing. But so we tracked somebody that was on our target list into a mosque and we went in after them. And I should say it was with the Iraqis we were working with really went in after that time. It was a sovereign country, Iraq. And yet we still got in quite a bit of trouble for doing that. Even though our guys didn't even really go inside. And so it was about a week later, I think, that we're tracking somebody else using both technical and human

intelligence means at night in Baghdad and track him once again into a mosque. But now because of the big uproar over us getting in trouble just a week or two prior, so we park outside and our profile at the time wasn't a military type profile. This is after the golden mosque bombing, so it's essentially turned into Sunni Shia civil war out there. And the profile of our vehicles, I mean, it could have been mistaken for one or the other, but so we sat there

parked and waiting to get approval to go in to this mosque. And I think it had to go very high up the chain because we were waiting a long time. And as we were waiting, essentially the whole neighborhood came up and got into elevated positions around us because it was probably a good hour, I want to say. I mean, it's 2006, so let's say 45 minutes to an hour somewhere in there.

Maybe it was more than that. And so all of a sudden, they get in their positions and light us up. And so we had a nice little gun battle there. But we'd done a little thinking of our own. And we'd put some snipers up and light us up. And so we had a nice little gun battle there, but we'd done a little thinking of our own and we'd put some snipers up and some even higher positions.

The higher we could get and looking at the ISR, which is like it was from, it wasn't really, it was from a, those from an aircraft let's say. And you could look down the next day when we got that footage in or maybe it was even later that morning when we got back and you could see our snipers up there,

see them glowing on this kind of like iridescent ISR feed, and see them start just taking people out up in these positions, which was pretty cool. But yeah, it was a little dicey, a little western, as they say. But we managed to get out with, thank just two guys wounded. But if we had been able to go in,

or the Iraqis we were working with, we been able to go in or the Iraqis we've been we were working with were allowed to go in in their own country, then we would have gotten out there fairly quickly. But as it was, things got a little dicey, but we came out on top. Is that the closest model danger that you've been in? No, there's some other ones. There were some other strange ones. The strangest was in Najaf in 2004. My sniper team and I showed up in this city that was essentially a campaign. Two seven cab, a huge army unit for those watching and listening, is in charge of this operation to retake this city from the J. Shawlmie militia, which was run by Muttata Alessada

for those who remember that name from back in the day. So essentially they had taken control of this city, United States and our allies, wanted back. And so we go in there, and I think it was about two weeks of psychological operations ahead of time, really telling everybody in that city to leave because we're coming in. So, we telegraphed our intent, not just our intent, we telephied exactly what we were going

to do, I think up to the exact date, like you have to tell this date to leave because we're coming in and we're coming in heavy. So we showed up, I think about a day into it, maybe even for right at the beginning, but it's fairly close to the beginning. So we were there for about 11 days of what then turned into a two-week campaign to retake the city very kinetically. And so as it was day, it was night, it was the only time that I was really reminded of the World War Two movies I'd watch, grow up with my dad when they're just running through these cities in

Europe and it's daylight out and there's tanks and it's just things are blowing up and it's just crazy. And that's because we had Abrams tanks, not the same tanks in World War II obviously, but reminiscent of those movies that I saw in the rubble and all that, Bradley Fighting vehicles, day, night, no breaks whatsoever. He didn't go back to a to a fob or a little little base and then go out at night like we typically do in special operations, to take somebody off the board, build up a target package, go hit them in the middle of the night, come back to base. This was full on 11 days of pitched street fighting,

street battles. And at one point in this thing, and we were just there to support it, I just went into the, to the, because I was the head of the sniper unit at the time. And I just went into the battalion commander of 27 Cav and said, hey, we're here to support. What can we do? Here's what we bring to the head of the sniper unit at the time. And I just went into the battalion commander of 27Kav and said, hey, we're here to support. What can we do? Here's what we bring to the table with our sniper weapon

capabilities and our close air support being able to do pre-planed fires because we have these different qualifications that allow us to talk to aircraft and do all that stuff. So we were value add to it. And it was just an incredible experience. But at one point, I'm jumping over, and we'd leave our snipers up like up on higher,

higher ground, we'd go push forward with the other army units, go take the next set of buildings, push Jason, body militia back, another block, then our snipers would come down and we'd go up here, and it was August, so it was hot. And so now you have the army logistics train, bringing you food, bringing you water, bringing you ammunition, you kind of get saturated again and then you go forward again.

So it was 11 days of that. But at one point we jump over this wall and it was me and three other guys and we jump over this wall and we're in this little courtyard and they're both sides are sending mortars I think, at least the other side for sure, your memories is 2004. But we're in this little courtyard and we look at each other like, can you believe we're in the middle of this thing? Because up to that point, we just done middle of the night type ops and stacking the deck in our favor.

Now we're in this battle with these guys that are essentially, you know, similar weapons to us during the day. Anyway, at night, we have the night vision and a lasso or thing with the day, you know, they've got AKs and we've got M4s and, you know, anyway, so we jump in this courtyard and we're looking at each other like this is crazy. We talked about it for a second and we hop over this wall. When the last guy hits a mortar lands

exactly where we were standing, not 30 seconds earlier, like right in the middle. And it was kind of like, oh, this is fate. If something had happened at some point during that day, it just delay us by 30 seconds, we would have been standing in that place. So there are a couple of times over my time in uniform where I thought about fate because it allows you then

as a leader, especially to focus on the mission, focus on the task at hand, do your job, and realize, hey, there are these things that you just can't control like being in that courtyard with that motor landing right in between you guys if we were 30 seconds later that day. Crazy. What do you do if you've got a very intense high-velocity kinetic firefight going on for 11 days? Because you can't continue to operate for 11 days or also you're going to start to make

errors presumably that are so catastrophic that people start to get killed on your own side, et cetera, et cetera. So during 11 days, what do you do to find some time? You've got to grab 30 minutes at some point presumably. What happens? Yeah, you just fill it up your group and a couple guys maybe go back, maybe one, or grab 30 minutes of sleep and then come back. In these buildings, you just try to get as deep into the buildings you can where it's

a little less hot because these buildings have really thick walls, memory serves, and we go back in there and find kind of the place that was one safe ur, then closer to the outside walls or windows, and then grab a 30 minutes of sleep and then you're back at it. So it was like that. But nobody wanted to sleep. Everybody wanted to be fighting because this is what we signed up to do. You wanted to be there doing the job, figuring things out because the enemy is adapting to you. You're adapting to the enemy. You could see them removing parts of buildings, like small little holes where they were to take their shots and then put that stuff back

in place. And so we started doing that sort of thing too. A couple rooms deep though, so you could have a little more protection from the outside and it's a little harder to see in if you have a window up here at the front. Well, you don't want to be shooting from this room, maybe you move back into this other room and put a little loophole on the wall there. So you can still shoot out, but from somebody looking in, just the shadows make it look like it's unoccupied. So you're doing all these things to adapt to the enemy, the enemy's adapting to you. And that's typically what warfare is and whoever's going to do that faster than their opponent oftentimes ends up on top. From a storytelling perspective, it sounds maybe not romantic, but at least heroic and

sanitized and civilized in some regards, like even the most brutal, there was a mortar in Atlantic next to us and we could have been killed and legs blown off and all this sort of stuff. What's the reality of your emotions and the sense that you have inside when you're going through this. Because we get to observe a version in our own minds if we read your books or a version on a television screen, if we get to watch a movie or a series or something like the terminal list, but the actual felt sense of being somebody, even somebody that's been trained, even somebody that's gone through this, and this is what they want to do, and this is what they chose them to do, and this is what they're them to do and this is what they're trying to do.

What's that actually like when you're on the ground? Yeah, it's interesting because you can do all the right things. Like if we were in a room right now, air condition nice, had some water out and we're going through a scenario, maybe with a group, maybe not, but just what would you do in this type of a scenario thing. And you can make all the right decisions in this air-conditioned space with all the experience that you have, all the books that you've read. And you could do those things. And the instructor could say, yep, that looks great. Maybe you tweak this here,

maybe not, whatever. Okay, you could do perfect in that scenario. You do that exact same thing on the battlefield. And it could be catastrophic just because the enemy gets a vote and things change so quickly and there is that Murphy's Law, that luck, that fate, all of those other things involved that aren't involved, that aren't in play back in this air-conditioned space when you're learning or teaching or evolving. So back in a classroom, I mean, so it's different. So when you're out on the battlefield, all those point-on-world right things are still in play, but now there's some other things in play also that weren't in play

when you're in that air conditioned room and training. And for me, the sense of, as a leader, I remember this distinctly because I didn't expect it at a time. And it was a sense of relief. And I talked about in my first book and about a paragraph, maybe two in that first novel. And I've had a lot of people reach out and tell me that that paragraph in particular

meant so much to them because they hadn't really been able to conceptualize or articulate some of how they felt by doing the job down range. And by reading those paragraphs, it made it okay. Can you recall what the sense is that you go through in those paragraphs? So it's about the relief. It's about not knowing that, yeah, you think you can do the job and that's what your job is in the military is to prepare for war. If not necessarily to go to war, it's to go if you called, but your job every single day

for every single second you're in the military is to be prepared for war. And to prepare yourself even better than you were prepared the day before. Make yourself a better operator, better leader today than you were yesterday. So, but you still don't really know until you get out there and do it. Bullets are whizzing by and you have to prioritize things because there's so much going on. And so for me, it was a sense of relief. It was like I've been thinking about this my whole life. Essentially, I've been training for it my whole life both physically and mentally by pushing myself and

then intellectually by studying warfare. So for me, being in that scenario in particular in the Jaff in 2004, it was like, okay, this was like this was a test and it was a relief that I could do it. So anyway, yeah, that was like, okay, this was like, this was a test, and it was a relief that I could do it. So anyway, yeah, that was not one that I was expecting to feel, but it's one that I woven to the novel in that particular paragraph because it made sense. And that's what I talked about by, by being so personal was, was in that respect, because I wouldn't really talk about it with anybody, talked about that in particular with anybody, unless it made sense to flow into this storyline for my protagonist, James Reese. So, it's in that sense, it's therapeutic as well.

But yeah, that sense of relief of being tested and doing okay. I went on that side okay for your guys. I wrote a story in a newsletter recently that I think is very similar to what you're talking about but from a civilian perspective. So I'll read it to you now. I recently got to speak to a friend who I've been curious about for a long time. He went through a difficult period many years ago, even though he's beyond it now, he came very close to losing everything. Financial, reputationally, psychologically, I asked him how he dealt with the darkest time that he'd ever faced.

He told me that he'd had a concern in the back of his mind throughout his entire life. He was always worried that deep down he might be a coward. That secretly he might not be the strong, capable person he thought he was, that when the rubber met the road, he wouldn't be able to stand up and face whatever the world threw it in. See, many of the challenges that we face in life are largely under our control. We choose the jobs that we apply for, the house we try to afford, the partner we seduce, the weight we left. These things can still be hard. They can be tough, challenging, sometimes unbearably difficult. But it was us that chose the flavor of that difficulty. So what happens when absolutely everything comes crashing down?

These single worst possible scenario that you can imagine. Well, you get to see what you're made of, what you're genuinely made of. When all of your forces are marshaled to a single challenge, and he said that he'd had faith in himself, but he'd never been pushed hard enough to prove that his faith was justified. And this is the quote that still makes the hairs on the back of my next standup. He says, I could always hear my best self clearing his throat in the room next door.

He never knew if this self was able to come in when needed. And it turns out that he did. I love the quote and I love this story because I think many of us are uncertain about just how capable we are. Maybe a couple of times in your life, all hell will break loose and your best self will have to stop his coughing and come say hello. Interesting. No, I love it.

I love it. The only difference is that I felt, and I know a lot of the guys feel supremely, I guess confidence is the wrong word, but it's, I mean, you feel like you know you can do it, but you haven't done it yet. Type of a thing. And even the other operations that I've done up until that point, we stack the odds in our favor. So it's like, you're going in, you're with the A team, you're going into the Super Bowl with all this experience now of doing that particular type of an operation. You put yourself in the enemy shoes, figured out how they're going gonna adapt to you

after having seen you do this mission in X configuration, Y configuration, whatever it might be, how they would have adapted and you adapt accordingly. So to be thrown into that old World War II scenario, where it was just insanity for 11 days. So that was, I mean, it sounds weird to say cool, but it was. It was, that's what we had trained up to do that to be tested. And that was a, I mean, it was a test because

that's not exactly what we've been trained up to do because we've been trained up. Those kind of operations where you're stacking the deck in your favor. And now we're out there with the enemy and the raw daylight, street to street, and all that. So you still feel like you know you can pull it off, but if you haven't been in it, there's still that little, it's not like you doubt it. You're not doubting yourself at all, but if you haven't done it, it's not doubt. It's just like a, okay, fine.

Now I got to run that loop. You need to close that loop. Yeah, like I've done this right, run it all the time on my own on the track or something like that. And you're somebody's there with a stopwatch, bam, you know you're hitting it, you know you're hitting it. And then, but you haven't run it in the Olympics yet

against these other people at the same track, same track, same distance, weather conditions even, but you haven't run it then under those, like same thing boxing, we're on the mat, like some great guys, like just can't do it in the ring in the octagon, same thing boxing. It's a different deal in that ring when the crowd is yelling at you.

There's just something different about it. So you might be great to spar and doing all your normal things that your local boxing gym or club or whatever it is, but then you get in that ring and it's different when there's people there. That's sort of a thing. Like you know you can do it, but because you've done it, but you haven't done it in this scenario yet,

type of a thing. So anyway, it was a relief to, I guess, have been tested and for lack of a better phrase to not be found wanting, I guess. Then, right. What about the fact that you not only were a sniper, but then were leading a sniper team? I think it's probably right in saying that the sniper position is the most romanticized kind of highly mysterious. You're like the wizard of the battlefield in a way. What is it that people don't understand?

What do people get wrong when they think about the lifestyle, the role of a sniper, and what is some of the more sort of brutal realities of what you actually end up facing and doing during an operation? Yeah, that's a great question when I haven't been asked before and I don't know if I've really thought about it in those terms but I'll think about it right now. A lot of it it was based on leading up to September 11th like movies that we'd seen about Vietnam or about snipers from Vietnam, essentially alone, maybe with a spotter crawling through the jungle to get to this position, to wait for an NVA element to walk through and then find the officer. And the NVA?

North Vietnamese Army. And I come down the Ho Chi Minh Trail and then find that officer and find that radio man like that sort of a thing. Or is it an advanced element? Is it a man, like that sort of a thing. Or is it an advanced element? Is it a trap? That's sort of a thing. So I think the people thinking about how alone you are is probably the part that's misunderstood the most, especially today.

And this is my experience. Like there are probably other snipers that have completely other experience, you know, different experience than I do. But when we went out, it was as a team. He wasn't just the one guy, the two guys going in position, you brought a heavy weapon gunner with you, so somebody with a machine gun.

Or two, even better, in case you're compromised. And what a medic, yep, and a communicator. So you went out as a team, so that you could at least defend yourself for a little bit if you're compromised, what you call in QRF, so a quick reaction force that's ready to come get you. I think that's probably the most misunderstood part. People think of a sniper as a loan. You do our training alone a lot in the school.

You have a sniper buddy with you. You switch off being a spotter for meaning you you're looking through the blasts and calling the shots and then you switch off. But that's really based on the old Vietnam experience. And we really, we really just, that was the only experience that we had up until September 11th. And then we moved to Afghanistan, moved into Iraq a little bit later, and we really started to evolve these tactics, techniques, and procedures when it comes to sniping. A lot of time here in support of a ground element that's moving in, or somebody that's coming in ground and air, and you're just there in a supporting position for to contain what we call squarters. They're leaving the target. So there's a lot of different things that

you can do as a sniper. So I think that's probably the most misunderstood is that you just go off alone with your rifle, and that's not exactly how, how, that was exactly my experience. Anyway, you're in a window by yourself, maybe, but you have a spotter here or at another window, somebody's on another level, somebody's out the back door, you've got your heavy weapon gunner there, you've got support. So you are, you are a loner in a sense,

but no more alone than you are as an 18 year old Marine who's told to hold a corner with your, you know, M4 and just you're that person with that rifle making. You're the last decision maker. And that chain that starts with the President of the United States and comes all the way down, you're that last decision maker with your finger on the trigger right there on that street corner. So, in that respect, you're just as alone as that 18 year old kid. You're just maybe have a little more training. Does it feel like a lot of pressure to have an entire group of people who are all there to support one person's performance, so to speak?

Everybody's contributing to it and the heavy gunner is there. In case you get spotted, but the reason that you're risking being spotted is presumably because you have some special leverage. You are a very unique tool that isn't a very unique position that can give a type of assistance that is very difficult to get outside of that. Does that apply more and more pressure, especially when you're on the battlefield,

there's a mortal danger, et cetera? I mean, just in the sense that you're worried about letting your guys down, that you're worried about letting them down by making a mistake, maybe, but you're really so focused on that mission that that's not an overriding concern. And that, once again, this is just all personal. So it wasn't overriding in that respect. And to oftentimes you'll switch through, because so many guys are trained up as snipers,

so you'll switch through these positions, because you can't be there on the glass all day or whatever it is or even all night with whatever night vision type of a system that you're using. What was the longest time that you think that you set up watching? Probably one of the one of the nights when nothing happens. So probably a few hours. I can't remember right now. But I think we'd switch off every couple hours, especially with a team like that. Let's say four, five, six guys. I think we wouldn't be on for more than an hour or two at the most. How much truth is that in the sniper position being held, rolling over, taking a dump into a tupperware that the guy next to you has to clean up and all of that stuff. Like how much truth is in that? Because it seems like you're talking about a period of time that's well easy enough to hold a dump in for. Yeah, yeah, we wouldn't go out for too long. I mean, you'd oftentimes make plans to stay out longer and just like you walk into your own neighborhood, I mean, you can tell when something's off. There's like, hey, something's different today. I don't know what it is.

And you could sense when people would feel that in the daytime, typically, and people would be taking their kids, wherever they're taking them, and there's normal traffic, and then all of a sudden some shifts. And why does it shift? Because they noticed that something was different. Not sure what it is.

I mean, you can go back and think, and be like, I have no idea. Like, it's a might, it's just a sense. And then they take a second look at that house. And I'm like, oh, so and so, it didn't come out today. Usually at this time of the day, they're hanging up laundry. Whatever is something that you can't even figure out ahead of time, you wouldn't know ahead of time, but something that changed just enough, especially when you're in a place like Ramadi or Mizzoule or someplace like that. So do you, do you become, if you've been spotting for a good

amount of time, if you've been watching a particular neighborhood or a number of streets and a number of individuals that come and go, do you become intimately familiar with them? Do you become, if you've been spotting for a good amount of time, if you've been watching a particular neighborhood or a number of streets and a number of individuals that come and go, do you become intimately familiar with them? Do you name them? Do you imagine what their lives are like at all? Do you sort of identify them? Someone else might have a different experience, but I did not have that experience, because I don't think I saw the same people often. And it was like a city with all those things going on.

So there's a lot, lot going on. It's not like for me anyway. I'm sure other people have a different experience of being looking at a remote village for a long time and really getting to know people. I can see that, but my experience was really in the cities, which also meant that it was pretty dynamic. And people would notice that something was off on this house or this building, and especially after two days-ish or something like that, then you're coming out and before they get the upper hand. But it's a thinking man's game. That's what I've been in the blood.

I wanted to write a sniper-centric novel last time without that scene of two snipers on opposite hill sides or buildings that are looking for each other and then they're looking and then they find each other The last second the one guy shoots and it goes through the other guy's scope just before he can shoot or you know That's seen that we've seen in a bunch of movies and books up to this point So I thought how do you do a sniper-centric novel without that scene and that was the thinking man's part of it like how do you outthink this other sniper? And this one, that was the fun part for me of writing that book, but it's similar to what you're what we're talking about right here is outthinking the enemy. And you're doing that in the battlefield and that's what I'm doing on the page, are in the pages of these books.

You're a guy who's been through selection, who's been in Connecticut warfare, nearly been hit by mortars, being in cars that have been attacked by machine guns. How does that compare to being in the middle of a cancellation furore when the terminal list hits Amidant Prime? I can't like people that weren't too excited about it, like the Daily Beast. I guess it was to be expected, you know, you can't expect everyone's going to love it, especially certain segments that might already have it out for maybe your lead star or the subject matter in particular, or have read one of the books and already hate you

or have looked at your Instagram and already hate you. So that's just how it goes these days. And that's okay. You know, there is a large segment of the population who it does resonate with, thank goodness, and Amazon has all those numbers, though they'll never share them, and that's why we have a spin-off and a... Many sequels.

Yeah, the terminal list is an attempt to valorize the same toxic tenor of military culture, a culture that's long protected rather than prosecuted those who engage in immoral and illegal behavior. This valorization of vigilantism is a rising tide in pop culture. To me, vigilantism doesn't seem like a rising tide. I think back to movies like The Punisher that I think's been remade at least two or three times.

Now I think about John Wick, perhaps, which is kind of like, I mean, that's pure vigilantism, like don't fuck with his dog. But I don't think that that is the case. And I think that we have seen a resurgence of relatively uncomplicated, not simple, but uncomplicated storylines where the good guys are the good guys and the bad guys are the bad guys.

Top Gun Maverick last year, I think, one of the highest grossing movies, if not the highest grossing movie of the unbelievable to watch, even other things like the bullet train, which was complex, but also it wasn't subversive in trying to get across some strange kind of political commentary. So, yeah, man, me and my housemate absolutely loved it. He stayed up. He completely fucked me. We watched the first couple of episodes and then he stayed up all night and completed

the season, woke up the next day and was like, dude, you've got to, you need to stay up and watch it. And I thought, well, we would, this was a nuts thing. And now I feel betrayed because you've stayed up all night and watched it. But yeah, you know, I think you're right. For as long as the market has desire for this stuff, I'm sure people have got problems with succession. I'm sure that there's some tropes in succession and the reinforcement of white, cis-hatternormative, patriarchal capitalism or something. But the season and the series is absolutely fucking fantastic. And for as long as it's good, people are going to watch it and you're not going to be able to shame people out of watching something entertaining and you're also not going to be able to guilt people into watching something that shit.

That's it. And I mean, death wish in the 70s with Charles Bronson. I mean, these things have been around for a quite some time. And it's really about for us, it was all about telling a story. Like it is for me in the novels. I don't look at Amazon reviews and say, oh, look at this person didn't like this in the last book. I'm gonna have to change this.

Or I wonder if I'm gonna alienate an audience. And never. It is 100% only about the story. You have to honor that story. I never think about an audience. I never think about a critic. I never think about a comment. It's all about the story.

That's what I have to do because people are trusting me with this time. They're never getting back. So that's something I take extremely seriously. So every part of me, my heart and soul, has to go into every single word, but it has to be about the story. In every single meeting we had with Chris and Antoine Fuqua and the whole executive production team, Chris always would remind us that we're making this.

We're not making this for critics. We're making it for this person who went to a rack in Afghanistan over the last 20 years so that when they sit on that couch and crack a beer and turn this thing on, they at least know that we put in the effort to make something for them. There was rooted in the realities of modern warfare that explored the mindset of a modern day warrior with this skill set who now has nothing left to lose.

So we're making it for you. We're not making it for the daily beast. That's for sure. And some of those critics, like some of the ones that you read and the way you just described looking at succession or something like that, it's, gosh, that's a horrible way to go through life, it seems. There's plenty of other things you could read if this isn't yours, if this isn't the thing that's speaking to you. We live in a time where there's so much,

but let's just say it was just books and movies. There are plenty other ones out there. Why would you waste time just trying to ruin someone else's day or to apply a filter on a show that a lot of people are enjoying, but you wanna just speak for themselves. I think nasty it is and it just says something about you, I think, rather than, oh, it's subjective, guess what?

It's art, art is subjective. Move along, give them a much happier life, but that's just how it goes these days. What would have been an easier way for you to compromise the screen adaptation, for instance, what was some of the decisions that keeping it in were always going to cause problems? And there is, I'm sure there wasn't a discussion because you wanted to stay true and it seems like Chris was also on board with this also being super, super aligned.

But what was some of the things that you think this would have gotten rid of most of the criticism but also compromised the show? Oh, if we got rid of most of the criticism, it would be awful. So we never really thought about that. I can't really, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't disemboweling, maybe the disemboweling

with a Tomahawk axe. I don't think they were that upset with that, but Amazon was nervous about it. That's for sure. And it was one of those ones where we had the scripts go up to the top Amazon and they come back down with notes. And this is a very collaborative process, whereas the novels just me 100% creative control,

no guidance, no longer, or my agent, they never even hint at what I come with. Yeah, it's 100% me, which is great because if it doesn't work, I have only one person to blame. That is 100% yeah, exactly. Now, the other side of the house here was screenwriting. This is a very collaborative team oriented process.. Just like in anything where politics are involved and by politics, I mean interpersonal relationship, type politics when you're trying to create something special. But everybody wants that to be the end goal, but everybody's bringing their past experience to it. Everybody's bringing something different, which can be wonderful, but I can also see when

you hear these stories about writers' rooms devolving into chaos or things just going off the rails on set or whatever it might be. I can see how that can happen. We got very, very lucky here, but very collaborative. So once you get the outline for the scripts done and then you get the scripts done, then they go up to the top of Amazon and then they come back down with notes. And one of those notes was about the disemboweling scene. And there were some, I guess the best way to put some concerns that that might be a little, little much. And we lose the audience. So that was one we fought for. And to Amazon's credit, they went with us. They went with us on, I think everything that we wanted. Every time something came up, those little little contentious, they sided with us and kind of went,

all right, you know, we're in a trustya. And for a pound between, say, and right. Yeah, but luckily we had Chris, and we had Antoine, and we had the showrunner, and so all of us as a team would very thoughtfully discuss how we were gonna deal with this. And so we filmed it. I think Amazon thought that we were just gonna let them film it

and we're not gonna, we're never gonna let them put it in. And then it ends up being the shot that's on every billboard in LA when it launches. It's Chris Pratt holding that Tomahawk, right? Like that shot from the side. And yeah, so if we didn't have that in there, we probably would have lost a lot of the core audience that we're fans of the book. because enough has to change anyway where people that are going to get

upset about changes, they're going to get upset anyway. But if you lose a couple of these scenes, you're going to really lose the people that are even understanding of the fact that there are going to be changes. So a few of those things things like that had to really had to be in there. And we're important to keep in there. So that was one of them. There was an ending. I think we talked about on the podcast. We did a terminal list podcast. So I think we talked about it on there. But there was another ending that that Amazon was fond of. And it just wasn't going to work. We were going to lose everybody we'd taken along this ride. And sufficiently satisfying. Yeah. Yeah. And so once again, they went along with it. We did film two endings. Well, will that ever be released in a DVD thing? I don't think so. I don't think so.

The other one's not good. And I don't think we really put our heart and soul into that one. I think everybody involved new Chris turned up in half. It wasn't even. Yeah, it's not even. He's not even in it actually in that one scene. But yeah, I think we would have really lost everybody if. But once again, Amazon amazing went with us and we pulled it off even though it's different than the book. The whole though, what was really important to Chris and Antoine and me and the showrunner was to stay true to the spirit of the novel. Knowing we have eight hours to tell this, it's a team process, you have budgets, you have set pieces, you have travel restrictions. There's all these things that aren't in a novel. I can do anything I want in a novel, but all those other things are at play in a script.

a novel, but all those other things are at play in a script. A lot of rules for screenwriting, which if they exist for writing a thriller, I don't know them because I'm just doing what I love to do and telling a story. But in screenwriting, there are rules. So we ended up pulling it off and Amazon went with us on every single one of those contentious decisions and it paid and it, and it made off. Fuck yeah. What is a daily routine, a morning routine, a daily routine like for you when you are deep in the writing process?

Well, I just get more tired because I'm staying up later and later, but I still have to get up to get the kids to school and get everybody fed. And it's just like any other parent out there that's like trying to get their kids to school and saying, where's your backpack? Where's your violin, is it a violin day? Like all those things, can the car, we're late. So all those things are at play as well. So once that chaos has subsided, then dive into the work.

And for me, it's all about uninterrupted time, uninterrupted time. And I don't need a great view. I just need quiet, quiet uninterrupted time. And it has to, I don't need a great view, I just need quiet, quiet uninterrupted time. So each of the novels I've written in a different place, the first one was off our, in the office, off our bedroom, rental in Coronado, California during my last year in the SEAL teams between about 10 at night and 3 in the morning, because that's the only time that it was semi-quiet in our household with three kids, dog, wife, and all the rest. And this one before this, well, two before this,

I went to the local library and was using one of those little study rooms that they have there, but you can only stay in them for like two hours if someone else is waiting. So as soon as high school got out, I could bump out for kids working on history projects and that sort of thing. But that worked for a little bit.

And then I rented Airbnb's for the last one for in the blood. And that was fantastic. I'm a little cabin not too far away. And I thought I was going to do it for this last book for only the dead and then I got up there and it's about a mile from our house. I can actually see the house from this little cabin and I just didn't feel right. It didn't feel right. Now like I was realizing our kids are 17, 15 and 12 and I realized that I was going to miss the interruptions when they were gone. So I decided to embrace the interruptions, which probably pushed this writing process about two months, maybe two and a half months to the right.

But I realized that this is just how it's gonna be and I'm gonna miss these interruptions when they're gone. So it's just what life is like right now and that's okay. So I wrote it at the house and just tried to write it when the kids were at school. And then I pulled some really late nights and pulled a couple on-liters, which are getting harder to do the older I get. For Savage Sun, a few books back. No problem, no problem pulling on-liters. This one, oh yeah, failing it. Roodle, yeah, feeling it now. But eventually I will get a much more disciplined approach, but right now from the beginning, it's felt like an entrepreneurial type of adventure.

Meaning I have to, I'm the CEO, I'm the CFO, I'm the CMO, I'm the creative, I'm the social media manager. I'm all of those things, but and I have to also say yes to everything. Because people have to know that whatever this widget is if you're an entrepreneur, you have this you've created this thing, people have to know that it exists. So what do you have to do? What are the supporting efforts to this product that are gonna allow you to get this out in the world? And allow you to continue to do what you do, in my case, that's writing, that's what I love, that's my passion.

My mission is taking care of my family, writing is the passion, they come together and form my purpose going forward. But I didn't realize, I thought you could kind of just go to a cabin in the mountains, right? Send it to New York, maybe do an interview, and then start your next book. That was totally not it, especially today. You could have gotten away with that in 1985,

if you were one of the last names that we all know, like King, something, or Demille, or Morelle, or these last names, Clancy, from back in the day. But today, it's different. There are so many more platforms that you can take advantage of, and they're sure are outliers, of course. But if you're just gonna do the work and get in there and get dirty and figure this thing out, well, now you can take advantage of YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and a webpage and a podcast and do all these other things that support your main effort

of the book and still that product, that book has to be the best that it can possibly be, but then everything else also has to be on that same level. So that podcast has to be the best that it can possibly be, but then everything else also has to be on that same level. So that podcast has to be the best that it can possibly be. Any blog entry, any post on Instagram, because all those things, people are trusting you with that time that we talked about earlier, not just with the book, whether it's an audiobook or they're actually reading it, but just scrolling through and stopping on your Instagram post and reading a little history or whatever it might be on there. You have to add value to people's lives throughout the year and then there's this connection piece that wasn't available in

1975, 85, 95, even really 2005. Really after that, when things started to change and where it became important to know the person behind the product, in this case, a book that wasn't really as important 30 years prior because you couldn't, you didn't really know it was behind that book or that movie or whatever else. Well, now people want to know. And that authenticity piece is so important today to everyone, overuse term, but it's really there's not a better one. And so for me, that authenticity piece, it's as part of the novel, but it's also this,

it's us talking. And it'd be tough to not be you today. And I know people try, but their lives must be miserable. Because if you're not you and you're active on social channels, eventually it'll come out. Correct. And it's gotta be awful to try to do that. But if you don't and you're just open and honest,

people respect that and you have a product that is top tier and everything else you're doing is also top tier that supports that product. Anyway, that's how I looked at it. How do you avoid the main thing, not being the main thing anymore? There's lots of these other ways that you get pulled. You've got to do the podcast and the interviews and oh, there's a screenplay and I've got this meeting and there'll be a Zoom call and we've got to make sure there's emails and all the rest of it.

And yet, the highest point of leverage that you need to get done is to put words down onto paper. How do you avoid distraction from the main thing and what is your process for staying motivated and disciplined when it comes to writing? That's really what I'm working on right now. So I hadn't been working on it since the beginning, but really more so over the last year, it's become unsustainable to keep the pace up that I've been on since the beginning, but really more so over the last year, it's become unsustainable to keep the pace up that I've kept that I've been on since the beginning. And there are more projects out there with this origin story with the next book coming out with Chris Brad. So those two separate

series writing for those, I'll write the finale episodes on both those this time around. We're pencils down on it because of the brighter strike right now. But there's and there's some other projects out there in the works as well. Have a nonfiction book coming out on Beirut, the 1983 Beirut Barrett's bombing. If there's a podge, there's all those things. And so there really is, I mean, you are people in a lot of different directions. So I'm going to have to get at this stage, turned from the, like, started the computer company, Migourage, in 1976, 1977, into, like, a more into the, in the little, an office space outside the garage, type of a thing.

What does your, what does your team look like at the moment? It was me only from the beginning, but now, over the last few months, now I have not just one literary agent, but I think there's six different agents now. Each one has a different specialty, which is fantastic. Now there's an entertainment attorney that overlooks all of that, kind of the umbrella, overall, of those different agents. There's that. There's a manager to make sure business manager, but not the kind that goes out and looks for things, but makes sure that you're keeping out of trouble with the IRS. So that's who I could never, my brain does not work that way. So that is totally outsourced, because now you have

merchant 50 different states, 40 different countries, each one of those states changes their tax laws by the year. So yeah, so that's, so there's that. My publisher, Emily Bessler, amazing, has been incredible from the very beginning. It's Simon and Schuster, my publicist, David Brown. He's been with me from the beginning as well. My agent, Alexander Machinist,

literary side of the house, he's like the umbrella agent over all the other ones kind of. So the team's, I know an assistant now, who schedules everything because I was just spending, I mean, untold hours, just trying to keep these different interviews straight and different appointments straight and all that stuff. And that was taking away time that wasn't going into the book.

So, so this is the year to kind of figure all that out. But I think now that's, that's the team. That's the team and really there, and then Ironclad who does the podcast production and does my book trailer videos and deals with any business side of the house with merch or whatever else like It's outsourcing all those things trusting that maybe some of it might not be done exactly the way you want it And that's that's the price that you pay for being able to dive all into the book is something Something else something smaller not being exactly the way you would like it, but it's okay You're probably the only one that's going to notice.

So, but for me, it's like the Instagram thing is still me, Twitter is still me, all those because it's such an important connection that I have with this readership because, you know, leading up to the third novel. I was kind of hoping that Chris Pratt would tweet or put something on Instagram about the show. I was kind of hoping that Joe Rogan would invite me on. I would hope that I've known him for a while. I was hoping that Tucker would invite me on.

But it didn't happen. Now I'm so thankful that none of those guys asked me on and tell that third book hit the New York Times list. And then the first two bumped on after that, because now, even in my mind, one, one, yeah, you don't have to worry about people saying, oh, must be nice. The only reason you did this is because you got on Rogan or whatever else.

That's off. And also for me, saying, well, wow, could I've done this without going on Rogan? Could I've done this without going on Rogan? That's not even part of my calculus, not taking up any bandwidth in my head because it was all grassroots. And it was all people taking a risk on me as a new author and telling a friend at work or telling a buddy on social media or telling a family member who in turn told another family member. So that made it so grassroots and so powerful from a foundational standpoint.

So now I'm thankful that Chris didn't say anything until after that. That Rogan didn't ask me on till after that and that Tucker didn't have me on till after that because those were the three that in the lead up I was kind of like oh man be really nice if one of those three have two of them fall three happened but none of them did until after the New York Times. He's still made it work. Yeah, there's um I remember hearing about Eddie Hurn who is a boxing promoter from the UK and he manages a ton of huge huge fights and his father was very successful in boxing promotion too. And they were talking about the challenges that Eddie had been through as a byproduct of his father's success. And he'd grown up with wealth and stuff which is both positive and

negative. One of the things that Eddie said was he almost resented his father's success in a way because he would never be able to prove whether or not he could have done it without him. And that's a big mirror, I think, to the scenario that you're encountering. Another thing that I've been thinking about a lot over the last two weeks, Bill Perkins, guy who wrote, die with zero, the very short book about how to use money to enjoy life as opposed to saving indefinitely. It's fantastic. I highly highly recommend it.

Three hours long. No, no. Die with zero. He's also been on the show. So I'll send you a link to listen to that episode once it's up. Um, he, I spent a good bit time with him. He has a holiday home here in Austin and I've been wake surfing with him four times since he's been on the show in the last 10 days.

I've got really good at wake surfing, but I've also got to spend a good bit of time with him. And one of the things that I realized is, there's lots of content on the internet about how to become rich, and almost no content on the internet, about how to be rich. There's lots of content on the internet

about how to become successful, and almost no content about how to be successful. Most people are on the come up toward getting toward the size of a jack, oh, one millionth of the size of a jack car, right? Once you're there, all of the lessons, do I need an assistant? Do I need to? Do I need a personal? Do I need an executive? What about a manager? Do I need a chief of staff? Should I get an operations manager first, or do I need a chief of operations? What about the chief of staff?

How do they work with the agent? And it's a problem that the cohort who has this issue is so small that it's not surprising because the incentives for writing this sort of stuff and creating this content online is to appeal to a wider audience. How many people have the problem of trying to juggle multiple fiction and nonfiction bestsellers with an Amazon Prime deal, right? It's a pretty small cohort, but that doesn't make it any smaller of a problem. And you don't have anybody there to try and teach you. So spending a good bit of time with Bill, somebody who is incredibly wealthy, very successful and uses it as far as I can see

in a very smart way. And looking at his systems, how dialed in all of the things that he has in his life, he's got an EA, he's got a PA, he's got a person that does his diet and nutrition, his chef speaks to the nutritionist and then cooks his meals based on what that is. The assistant makes sure that his schedule is done and the driver makes sure he's there on time and the blah, blah, blah, blah, like everything like everything is dial in and he calls them neuron cycles and he protects his neuron cycles as much as possible. Says, for him, it's making money for you, it would be writing great words.

I make money with my mind, the more neuron cycles that I take up thinking, I haven't put petrol in the car or have we got milk for the coffee in the morning or all of those things, are taking away from my highest point of leverage. And yet, like having that conversation online opens you up to so much cynicism around people saying, you know, what a luxurious bourgeois, wanky, must be nice, yeah, exactly. But the bottom line is that there are people out there

who have these systems in place. And I've started to hang about with them and to see that is just really inspiring to see how high the ladder can go, just how good the efficiency can get, how much can be outsourced, how much can be delegated. And it's cool to see that you're beginning to turn pro in Stephen Pressfield of language, I suppose, to get to that level. Exactly. And it's, I'm just started down that path to figure out how to become more effective and efficient which means you have to let go and you have

to trust all those people also to make sure they got the right data on the calendar and the right time something as easy as that and to know that you don't have to double check or go back in your email it's just to confirm because you're like wait that didn't sound quite right that has to be all the way off you never have to have that thought and that thought has to go into whatever that profession is for me writing. So I mean, there are definitely some tweaks that need to happen, but I'm starting down that path.

And then eventually I'll have to add sleep nutrition. Nice back on my list, because those fell to the bottom of my priority list, because you're doing all those other things, and this is the time to do it. And this is what I love. I've always wanted to write since I was a little kid. So I know that right now is my time to do that. But also it's time to introduce some more of those efficiencies so that I can take that breath. Well, because right now it's just family and work. That's it.

And so I can need to introduce some more of that. and some of those efficiencies in there so that I can operate at optimal performance, I guess, get the right fuel in there. I've seen it. I've seen people now first-hand operating at unbelievably high levels, very effectively and efficiently and enjoying life because of how much they've been able to outsource it. Now, the bottom line is that much of this is a function of money that if you have the capital to be able to spend, then you can afford the bits that this gets put together. But also, it's a function of being able to relinquish control, being able to delegate, being prepared to do that, being able to put faith in other people, to allow them to learn through failure,

to pay the price, the existential, like, I miss that fucking meeting. Oh, it's because they put the meeting on for the wrong day, or they didn't check the email or whatever. Like those are just prices that you're going to have to pay. So one of the other things that I imagine is a big chunk of your time must be research for the storylines, for inspiration for the the book and presumably not everything can be inspired by personal experience. So what does the research process look like for this? Well, a lot of them, it shifted with COVID

because I couldn't go anywhere. My initial thought out of the gate was that I would at least go to one, I had one trip, maybe multiple countries, but one trip focused on research for a novel. So I'd for the first book, I'd been to Iraq, Bend, Afghanistan, I'd chose places in the United States that I'd already been, so I wouldn't have to travel to them to do that research, so that was the first one. Second one, now I'm out of the military, start that second one about a month after I'm

out of the military, and I fly to Mozambique, because I know that this is going to be a very important part of the storyline. I don't have any money to be flying to Mozambique or doing any of these things but I thought of that John Grisham story about he brought a time to kill first and he couldn't give that book away and then he writes the firm and we've had a John Grisham novel every year in some years to John Grisham novels every year since but I always thought of like what if he'd stopped what if he'd stopped and not written the firm then he'd probably just now be retiring from some law practice that he'd hated, and he'd always, it would have wasted some sort of bandwidth thinking

about what could have been, or maybe I should have written another book, but he did. And he, from all indications, he loves writing and loves the life that he has, he has built. So I always thought about that. So hence my reason for being on a plane to Mozambique without any means to do so. And so that was fantastic. But in boots on the ground, I learned so much over there talking to the professional hunters and the trackers

and talking to them about the politics in their country and Chinese influence, both legal and illegal mining operations. There's all these poaching, all these things that I incorporated into the storyline. So much so that I went back before that was published to South Africa, did you research for my third novel and a little bit for the one that I was just finishing up. I also went to Comchakup in Insula, Russia for that third novel for Savage Sun because once again that was going to be very important part of the storyline that I didn't want to just

get information by zooming in on Google Earth and looking up something on Wikipedia. I wanted to go there and really know the sights and the sounds and the smells. Yeah, and what are you looking for there? You're in this place. Are you taking down notes? Are you doing voice recordings? Are you taking videos and photos? And what are you looking out for? Videos, photos. I had a whole stack of questions in a notebook that I had written out for the Mozambique trip for that first one. And I had a lot of phrases that I wanted to get translated into different dialects.

So I had maybe nine, I think nine different dialects that I wanted things translated into. Just in case, I didn't know which ones I'd use, but just in the off chance that I would use some of them. And I didn't want to go back like, I should have gotten that other thing translated because now it makes more sense to have this other, you know, whatever involved. So there's a lot of that, there's a lot of questions, like some basic stuff that I was going to ask about, but then once I got over there and sort of talking to people,

then I wrote down and took so many notes on things that I never would have even thought to have asked for acting this air condition room, taking down notes, because one thing leads to another, you get to know people, you're having some drinks, you're having a cigar, you're having a shared experience together. You're learning about their background and you would never have thought to create a background

because this is someone real, and it was telling you a story about their childhood about how they got to this place in life or what their time was like in the military in Africa or whatever it might be. And you wouldn't have gotten that just by reading an article or typing in Mozambique on the search bar.

So when I went to the Khamshaka, I took a lot less. I had a couple of things I wanted to make sure I touched on or asked about, but a lot less because I'd learned so much that wasn't even in my notes. But then when I went to Russia, it was very different. I thought it was going to be, because I've been taking the time to think about it ahead of time, but I thought that everybody was going to be open just like they were. Most

of them being everyone wanted to talk to me about their country and the politics and their background got to Russia and I thought it was going to be the same and very quickly realized that no, everyone was very guarded. And I think that's because for most of Russian history of someone who's asking you the types of questions that I was for a thriller, political thriller, espionage throw it, that you weren't long for this world, off to the gulag with you type of a thing. So they were just inherently more guarded over there, which was interesting as well, and also made it into the storyline. So, so for the next one, COVID hit, and so everything was shut down for the fourth novel.

So I had most of my research was online. Luckily, it was a domestically based storyline, so a lot of interviews just on Zoom or on the phone or via email. And so that's the same thing with the next one. I couldn't get to Israel because you get to Israel in the middle of COVID. It was tough. Even if you were an Israeli citizen, it was tough to get in and out of there. Everything kept changing. So I had to do a lot of research for that one just on my computer and reading books. And then I sent those chapters, though, the whole middle part of that last novel in the blood is in Israel. And I sent it to a family in Israel who had three generations read it and someone in their 90s, someone in their 60s, someone in their 30s. And they all came back and said they couldn't believe that I hadn't been there.

So that was, that's what I was. But research, a lot of times you don't know ahead of time, even in the outline, where something's going to lead. And for this last, what a few points out a few rabbit holes. And I had people on the podcast who I wouldn't have normally read their book because there's so much else going on, but they're coming on the podcast. I had to read the book, had to come up with questions, and then had a great conversation. And because of that, they've made it in here, made it into this last. So that's Brian Moore.

That's a real content engine to have the podcast that I do to connect with the audience so that I can sell my book, facilitates conversations with people who end up becoming inspiration for storylines within the book, which I then sell to the audience that listen to the podcast that's actually spoke about it on. Want more cross over than I initially anticipated and for the podcast, which I then sell to the audience that listen to the podcasts. It's actually a book about it. A lot more across over than I initially anticipated and for the podcast, I thought podcasts was just going to be something I did to, I can see a lot of questions on social media that didn't really lend themselves to a one sentence answer. And so I thought, well, people are interested.

I'll just have a guest on and talk about this issue and it'll be a discussion and that will be great and provide something of value, but there really is a lot of overlap in the last two books between the podcast and things that have made it into these stories. And in this one in particular, it was able Archer in this event in 1983, where he almost had a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. And I knew a little bit about it, but not nearly as much as I did after I read those, that book which led me to two other books, and then multiple conversations with Brian Moore

about it. So good. What about national security issues when writing and getting clearance and stuff? Is that, do you ever encounter problems with that? It's like, what if you accidentally come up with a fictional strategy that the US is actually trying to use at the moment or something?

I guess you can always run into something like that, but for me, it was really the, out of the gate, I wanted to make sure I was just doing the right thing. So I submitted the first one for review to the Department of Defense, Office of Pre-Publication and Security Review. It's called, and I was just close to my time, wrote it during that last year that I was in the military, that protagonist is a seal, but people think that seals are special operations guys in general know a bunch of secret stuff. And that really wasn't my experience. My experience was that we're doing essentially what every major city SWAT team is going to do tonight.

They're going to go serve a warrant. They're going to knock on somebody's door or not go in, grab them, bring them back. And that's really what we did. But we did it in places like Kabul or Mizzoula or Baghdad or Ramadi or whatever it was. But very similar. I mean, you're going out with a group with a team. You have a target, you go in, you grab them, you come back and do a little interrogation

and go back out again. So there wasn't really much secret about that. But I want to be safe. So I submitted it. They took out nine sentences, I think it was. Not very many. And I thought it was pretty good. They said they'd get back in 30 days.

And they got back in 45. And I thought, well, for a huge bureaucracy, that's great. So I submitted the second one, True Believer. And they took out, they took, well, I had to push the publication date because it wasn't 30 days, it wasn't 60, it wasn't 90. It was creeping up on seven months when they got back. So I had to push my publication date,

which was not helpful. And they took out 54, I want to say, 54 either sentences or paragraphs or words. And this time though, now I have lawyers. And so I had them tie each one of those redactions to a publicly available government document. Not something that's on Wikipedia or somebody else's book or somebody's interview, but things that anyone anywhere on the planet can get on a government website and download or see.

So they tied every single one of those, all 54, to publicly available US government documents. So that defended you against having them removed? It's an appeal. So they removed, go to publication with them removed, but now you have a certain amount of time to appeal. So I appealed. And then I won on 37.

Even though they were all tied, they let me win on 37. So then when the paperback came out, I unredacted them. So now people can compare the hard cover to the paperback. Wow. Google. It was so worried about. And so next book, Savage, Son, I do the same thing. This one they get back, I think it was like six months, six and a half, five, many five months at least. So I almost had to push publication date, got it back. I think they took out, let's say, 30 or something like that in lines.

So I did that same thing. I was going to planning on doing the same thing. I was planning on having the paper back and unredacting what I won on, because we tied all of those things to publicly available government documents. But then they didn't let me appeal. This time they came back and they said, even though we were on time, it was all done properly.

They would not look at the appeal. So now I took that as them telling me, hey kid, couldn't bug us with this fiction stuff. We have important, government work to do here. So yes, now I don't submit, which I'm really glad I don't now because for the last few books, all my research, if it's been into national security space,

has touched on things that I had no experience with in the military. So for the devil's hand, that's bio-weapons research or what they call bio-defense research to get around certain conventions that were signed in the 70s. And then the one book right before this, into AI and quantum computing from the national intelligence,

kind of apparatus, how that's being used there. So now I'm really glad that I don't submit them because they would probably be taking out things that they shouldn't be taking out because I didn't learn it through my government service. How interesting. It's so cool that people can get the paper back in the hard back and do their own investigative private eye thing to work out what it was that maybe the government was a bit concerned about and now they've worked it back and forth. Yeah, that's so fascinating. Yeah, there's one location in particular that's, uh, and I chose the location because I've been there before my time in the military and I'll can tell you what it is now because I won on the

appeal, but I put a CIA black site in Morocco and I chose Morocco because I'd been there before my time in the military. I had such great memories of it. I loved it. Merrickash. I just remember the sights, the sounds, the smells. It worked out geographically for my character to get where he needed to go. So it just it just worked. So I created it out of whole cloth. I had never been to Morocco in uniform or through an intelligence service or anything like that. So they took out all the references to Morocco. I won these. This is why I'm talking about it on appeal. But they took out references. Not just what it said, Morocco. I won these. This is why I'm talking about it on appeal. But they took out references not just where it said Morocco, they took out Mourish architecture, they took out Alice Mountains, they took out anything that could give a hint said it. So what does that tell

us? It tells us that there is probably a CIA black site in Morocco. And if they, but if they hadn't even done that, I would, I would, I was thought, and the reader wrote a thought that I just made it up anyway. So I think they, or maybe, maybe this is them playing five dimensional chess. And it's that I'm pretty sure it's flagging a CIA black site in Morocco. Yeah, I don't think so. I think I experienced government service tells me that they don't think that far ahead. Yeah, yeah, that's a nice way to say it. Wow. Yeah, I find that. I find that far ahead. Yeah, that's a nice, just way to say it. Wow, yeah, I find that so interesting.

Something else that's been fascinating to me, and I noticed this, are you familiar with Sean Ryan? Have you been on his show? And then I show, I know who he is, but we don't know each other. Yeah, he's an absolutely fantastic guy. And he did, he moved through a number of different military services and stuff.

And I've noticed this, if I bring somebody that is a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret or a Marine or whatever on the show, there is one particular type of interpretation of that person's career, of what they do for a job, of their role, etc et cetera. And broadly, it's positive. If you bring somebody on that's X FBI or X CIA or X NSA, very different, very, very, very different, especially given the fact that many operatives phase out of their more kinetic first job into one of these three letter agencies to do something that, to be honest, as for all that I know as a British civilian doesn't sound that dissimilar like it's the same skills it's maybe slightly better kit or slightly cooler kit and it's a bit more clandestine and there's different security levels. But why is that the case? Why is the public's interpretation even in a broadly sort of pro-patriotic,

pro-military veteran audience? What is it do you think that's triggering those people to have a little bit of skepticism or distaste for the three letter agencies compared with people who could have gone on to three letter agencies but just happened to stop at Marine or Green Beret or whatever. I think we're naturally suspicious of authority, particularly when it comes to agencies in the federal government that operate under mandates that have a cloak of secrecy attached. I think there's generally, generally, a more positive outlook on the military because you're going to get mad at the 18, 19, 20-year-old, they just went over and did their job serve food in the chowline or whatever, and now they're back and whatever it might be. But then you get into some of

these government agencies and we can go back to not too distant in our nation's history and go back to the church hearings or the Pike Committee hearings of the 70s that unveiled a lot of overreach by different agencies in the federal government, in particular, the CIA, and kind of got the dirty laundry out there for all to see. And then, of course, there are changes made and things that were put in place

to supposedly keep some of those things from happening again. So I think there's that natural distrust of large government in general, and then you add to that, oh, this agency over here that's doing things in secret, oh, you know what else they did in the past? They did these experiments on US citizens, yeah, they may have been in a mental institution or a prison or a part of the military or college students, but they did them. And here's the documentation to prove it. Here's the testimony in front of Congress in the 70s. So I think there's this natural skepticism and distrust there that's not unfounded that isn't really there with the military.

With the military, it's more like an aptitude when we look at the withdrawal of Afghanistan. And I think really when people look at that, they can say, you guys had 20 years to prepare for this. And this is your best you could do. Like I don't have any experience in the military. I've never seen a military movie. I've never read a book on strategy or tactics. But I can look at a map and I can apply common sense to this problem.

And I can ask, wait, why are we giving up essentially the high ground here in Bogrum and putting our young men and women at a tactically disadvantageous position at this airfield? Why didn't we just leave out of this other one that seems much more easily defendable? And that's a valid question to ask. So I think when we look at the military, it's more, and I mean, we as a whole, it's more that an aptitude that stands out to us, not necessarily a cloaked dagger type of secret operations using citizens unbeknownst to them or surveillance against US citizens or anything like that. I think it's more an aptitude on one side when you're looking at the military and then government agencies as a distrust.

Yeah, like malice. Yeah, so it's like Hanlon's razor falls on either side depending on whether your military or intelligence service, like do not attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. The military is stupid and the intelligence services are malicious. Interesting. Yeah, I find that very, very fascinating to think about, you know, people who join, especially tons of people that join the CIA or the NSA or the FBI that I'm sure believe that they are serving their country in the best way possible. It's not easy necessarily to get into these

agencies, hardworking individuals. And yeah, there's a branding problem, man. They need to get somebody in to sort out the branding and the interpretation. I found this stat earlier on, only 29% of Americans aged 18 to 29 think that patriotism is very important compared to 62% of those aged 65 or older. And that is a very recent study. What do you think's happening with the state

of American patriotism at the moment? Well, when I hear those stats, I attribute that to, not attribute, but I think about it in terms of a younger generation who hasn't gone back into the pages of history to understand why we have the options and the opportunities and the freedoms that we have today, and what was sacrificed for us to have this amazing country. And then there's a lack of appreciation

and a lack of respect for people from the inception of this country up until today who sacrificed everything so that we could be here making these decisions that we're making today, really not for us, but for the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. And what's happening now, I think, and you're so easily manipulated today.

So at the same time, that we're not going back in the pages of history books and you might not have a touch point with, let's say, the World War II generation because they're dying off so fast now. There's not that many of them left. So you can't sit across the table and have a meal with somebody and hear that story from your grandfather

who was there going over the beach in the Wajima or Normandy. And you realize that wow, this person did that at age 18. And then what did they do? They came home and they got back to work. And he worked for all those years. We could provide for my father who in turn went to college who then allowed us to live in this house so that I could go to school. Like there's just that chain.

There's a break in the chain as far as that appreciation goes and that respect and just learning from the pages of history. So that when we talk about that, that's that the U.S. Red right there, those percentages anyway. So I think that's a part of it. There's just a disconnect. We're farther away from a generation

that really did save the world for all intents and purposes. And so there's that disconnect there. And then you add the social media to it and how easily reminipulated because of these things that we carry around right now in our pockets. So it helps to have a little bit of cynicism, I think, when you, when that thing buzzes and Twitter tells you something,

and influencer tells you something, a politician tells you something a news organization Tells you something what do they want to get out of that they want a response So you're being manipulated right there. So at least just to recognize that I think before immediately getting angry and retweeting something Well, hey take a breath. You owe it to that person who sacrificed everything in In the revolutionary war in the civil war the Civil War, in World War I, in World War II. So you could have these freedoms, well, take a breath for them and study the issue a little bit. Put in that requisite time, energy, and effort.

Ah, now I'll make that decision, not for you, but for your kid, grand kid, for those next generations. So I think a lot of that is lost in the generation that we have right now, not even the generation, in this fear that we're living in right now where we are, so dependent on technology for our very mood, for our thoughts and behaviors. And so I think recognizing it first,

and then taking action to correct it. If you want to, and then the sad part is, people might not want to correct that. They might be very happy being manipulated from essentially cradle to grave. And that's not the way I want to live, but it might be once again, different strokes who knows. Well, the incentive is also aligned to encourage people to be catastrophic or overblown or cynical in a negative light or cynical in a patriotic light or whatever,

about a number of issues because that's what resonates online. I'm really fascinated by this sort of pervasive culture of cynicism that we have, not skepticism, that's different cynicism. The world is bad, it's not going to get better, and the people that believe that it can get better are the ones that really the problem because they're giving everybody false hope, and you're a piece of shit and you shouldn't listen to you. I'm fascinated by it, particularly because it seems so self-defeating, it seems, electing to choose pessimism or cynicism, when optimism is a chance, to me, it just seems like a very odd road to go down. Yet, I understand why people do that because that's what's rewarded

on the internet. It's very easy to look naive on the internet. If you have hope, if you believe that things can get better, if you encourage people to have faith that things are going to improve, it's very easy for somebody to bring that up in a couple of months or years time and say, look, see, it was you that was really the problem all along. There's this almost like intellectual immaturity that can be thrown at you that you didn't really understand the truth about the world. It's much easier to get cynical and call it realism

because no one's ever going to accuse you of being naive. No, that's exactly right. And it's a tough way, gosh, it's a tough way to go. And I was talking to somebody about this not too long or maybe a week or two ago. And they said, hey, you have to remain optimistic because then you'll never be able to manifest that in the future.

And I thought, oh, that's an interesting way to put something thinking a lot about that. Because it's easy to think, oh, geez, how are we ever going to pull ourselves out of this we're destroying ourselves in the inside that's what my fourth book was about essentially uh it started being about what the enemies learned on us tactically on the battlefield in a racquet Afghanistan over the last 20 years at the time and uh and so that's what it started as and then I I started moving, then COVID hit. And I thought, oh, well, the enemy's learning something about our response to COVID. How are they going to incorporate that? How are they going to use that in their future battle plans?

And then a summer of civil unrest hit hard. And I thought, well, they're not just taking this in casually as they walk by the newsfeed. They're thinking about how they can exploit this, how can they exploit this division. Then we had a very contentious political season. And once again, they're figuring out how to how to widen those divides and those fissures and work those. So in doing all

that research and writing that book for about a year and a half from the enemy's perspective, my takeaway was that, geez, if I was the enemy, I might not be doing much right now except watching because we're doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves from the inside. Let me give you this. I've been thinking about this for so long. There's two potential explanations for what is occurring to Western anti-Westernism, right? One of them is that these are seeds of discord sewn by malign foreign actors. It's the internet research agency coming out of Russia, it's Chinese, misinformation agents and all the rest of it. That's the first one. Second one is that

Western anti-Westernism is coming endemically and intrinsically and endogenously from the West itself. Which one is more fucking terrifying? Like, is it more terrifying that you can be manipulated by a foreign actor that sets up 100,000 fake Twitter bots and then creates a cascade of anti-patriotism? Or is it even more terrifying that they're stood on the sidelines Ring each other going was this? Was this thing? Was this movement where all of these riots? Oh, they weren't

Oh Was this movement where all of these riots, oh, they won. Oh, they're doing it to themselves. Well, yeah, grab a coffee, let's go for a drink. And, yeah, those are the two options. And both of them are pretty terrifying to me. And I don't know which one it is. Yeah, though, if it's a ladder, then the enemy recognizes that. And by the enemy, I mean, Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, a super empowered individual or individuals,

terrorist organizations. What do they need to give a little nudge, just to help it along? It's a little poke in the back. Yeah. What do you think? You mentioned China a couple of times, though.

I know that you've had Pete Zayan on the show. He's been on my show too. Very impressive and terrifying individual. What is your read on the Chinese threat given the research that you've done over the last few years? Yeah, well, I like the way he articulates it because he still comes at all these scenarios from a position of hope and optimism, even where he's deep down into these numbers and he's looking at the China-1, China-1, China one, one child policy and the same thing in Russia, and what they're doing in their demographics

and it knows dive for ethnic Russians and all of this. But when it comes to those like Doomsday type scenarios, I really like how he is very logical about it. And when we hear once again, it's that manipulation side of the house when you're people throw that nuclear weapon in there We're talking about Russia Ukraine and he talks about it from the perspective of well You want to take over Ukraine. You don't want to turn it into a nuclear wasteland if you want it And you're gonna get to the negotiating table at some point

The question is when and that's that's the question And then what are you gonna negotiate out of it? What are they gonna get? What is Ukraine going to get? What is it we're carrying going to use? What is Russia going to lose? Everybody wins, everybody loses. But it's a negotiation. You're going to get there eventually, but you're not going

to be able to get anything that will if you use nuclear weapons of any sort in Ukraine. So I like the way he brings, he talks about that and brings a very sane perspective to it. The same thing, talking about microchips in China versus microchips in Taiwan. And if they were to take over Taiwan, they wouldn't know how to, talking about microchips in China versus microchips in Taiwan, and if they were to take over Taiwan, they wouldn't know how to continue to create microchips at the same level, because there's differences between the ones made in China and the ones

made in Taiwan. So I like that he brings things down into these kind of foundational elements that make sense logically, rather he takes the hysteria out of it in a way that only began. So he's's fascinating and the accidental superpower Was one that I read on the way to Mozambique back then in the summer fall of 2016 when I got out of the military and really informed my second novel True believer but I love his stuff and I love the way he presents it and he's just a fascinating individual so he is probably the most certain man that I've ever met in my entire life.

For the people that haven't listened to this guy, you can go back and listen to the episode of Monom wisdom search Peter Zion. It's about Zee I. H. A. N. or I think you've had him on your show too. He never speaks in caveats. He never speaks with, there's never any hedging, there's never any uncertainty. He is the most committed man ever. And there's a degree of comfort. I can kind of understand why he's got such a, it's almost rabid, his audience online.

Like they follow him around the internet. They really love Peter. And I think that in a world where everybody's quite uncertain and very few people are prepared to do the original research that obviously he has, or it seems like he has to have arrived at the conclusions that he has done, what he does is he provides a degree of safety, almost like a comfort blanket, because he gives in a world of chaos, he is able to create some order. He is able to say, this is what's happening. This is what will happen, this is why.

These are the stats that back up the reason why it's occurring. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it, no hedging, no, no nothing. No. But it is very, it's very odds to hear in a way to hear somebody that convicted about anything. It's like, yeah, because you know,

I can't counter him and I just want to learn through our conversations. He's been on twice. I think both of them are my most downloaded podcasts I think. But he's so so certain and very rarely can I come back and challenge him on anything because he has done that research. And put in he knows those numbers and not only does he know these numbers he knows the history behind them and where they're going and how they relate to these other factors. And it's, I don't know anybody else that can do it,

the way he does it. It's very unique. What is the message that you hope people take away from the book? I know that it's supposed to be thrilling and entertaining and all the rest of it, but deeper, philosophically, ethically, ethically, symbolically, what is it that you're hoping people take away from when they read your series?

Yeah, so there's each one you can read at a few different levels. And at its base level, I want these just to be time well spent for someone who's not getting that time back. So that's the main thing it has to be about, it has to be about that story every single time. But it can be a different story for a different person. If you grab this thing off the shelf and a Hudson News on the way to your flight and just read it, and it's action and adventure, political intrigue, espionage, awesome, and then you move on to the next one or get back to work when you're home. That's one way. The other way is to read it a little bit deeper and that first one especially,

but all of them to some extent are really about someone who becomes the opposite of what he was. So in this case he becomes the terrorist, he becomes the insurgent, he becomes that person that he has been training to kill and going out and to a rack in Afghanistan over these years and meeting on the battlefield. He becomes that person now on home soil. So they're about that. And then a little deeper than that, they're about somebody who brings the war from Iraq and Afghanistan back to the front doorstep so people who have been sending young men and women to their deaths for those 20 years that we were in Afghanistan. So there's a few different ways that you can read it. And then for me growing out reading all the masters, reading IJ Quinnell and JC Pollock and Mark Olden, Tom Clancy and Louis Lamore and David Morrell and Nelson DeMille and all these guys

in the 80s who had these amazing books, I would always find these sentences or maybe there's a paragraph and it would speak to me in some way like, oh, I should know more about that or I'd like to know more about that. But it's just thrown in there. I understand it because of the context that it's in. But obviously, author has done some more research. It's in there for a reason. And now that's leading me down another path.

It's a research this and lead a richer, fuller life because of it. So there's that side of it too, but there's not an underlying message of trying to sway someone. If there is anything like that, it's looking at the protagonist, looking at the thing through his eyes, and realizing that he's a student. And in this case, he's a student of warfare.

For me, I'm a student of warfare. I'm a student of this craft. I'm just gonna say, is there a lot of you? Do you find a lot of you in the protagonists? I mean, he's got a background similar to mine. He's a former Navy SEAL and listed sniper who became an officer, and then I was a sniper, and I I became an officer and the reader meets him at this stage in his life when he's probably not going to lead guys tactically on the battlefield anymore and that's what

it was like when I got back from my last Iraq deployment. I realized that was the last time I tactically maneuver guys on the battlefield and going forward. It's me and a staff job somewhere which I would hate and then coming back as a team commanding officer which sounds impressive but in today's military that you're really back in an tactical operation center you're allocating papers or you're a moral manager but it sounds impressive but somebody has to do those jobs. It just wasn't me. I came in to do that tactical level job right here and did that came home and that's when I picked my head up looked around and realized my family needed me.

We have a middle child with severe special needs. He needs 24, 7 full-time care forever. So I realized that that's my mission, making sure that he's taken care of. Turn him into an Ulta next. Turn him into an Ulta. Right. And then it was no choice. There it is.

There it is. And yeah, just gave me that. So my mission was essentially handed to me, but my passion was writing and I got to combine those two. But yeah, I would say there's definitely a lot of me in James Rees for sure, but he's faster than I am stronger than I am, better shot than I am, better boxing. He's better at all those things

than I could ever have hoped to have been. But he's a student and has a mind. So I think that if there's anything that one could take away from these other than the underlying underpinnings of the story, that is the importance of being a student, because that is the way we continue to build on whatever foundation that we have up to this point, is by always being a student, rather it's of an industry or of life in general. And that's just the way I look at things. Jack Ha, ladies and gentlemen, why should people go if they want to keep up to date with all of the stuff that you're doing at the moment?

Oh, man, you're awesome. It's officialjackcar.com. That is the website, and you can link there to Instagrams, Jack Car USA on Instagram and Twitter, which are still me. And I try to say thank you to everybody and hit that little heart button because it means so much to me that people really took a risk on me and allowed me to do what I love, which is the writing. So I look at it as a way to do that. So yeah, that's the website that

and then danger-close podcast of course and then the next novel is only the dead is out now. And as soon as this week is over, I dive back into number seven and start putting some more tweaks on the Bayer Bear Exbombing nonfiction work that comes out in about a year and a half. Time right, good luck mate. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Hey, thanks so much, Digger. you