The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Forgotten War (A Matt Drake Novel) by Don Bentley

Episode Date: April 12, 2023

Forgotten War (A Matt Drake Novel) by Don Bentley "A fascinating, action-packed thriller from one of the genre's most talented authors. Don Bentley delivers a blistering adventure loaded with excitement and fabulous characters. You will not want it to end!"—Brad Thor, New York Times #1 bestselling author of Dead Fall A brotherhood born in battle is endangered by a deadly secret in the latest astonishing thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy Zero Hour and Hostile Intent. As a team, Matt Drake and his partner, Frodo, have watched each other's backs through some very dark days. But one thing they've never doubted was their commitment to each other...until now. Frodo has been accused of a war crime ten years after leaving Afghanistan. Matt is determined to prove his friend innocent, but what will he do when he finds that his closest friend has secrets he won't share?

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show. The Circus 10 in the sky of brainiums. I don't know what the hell that means.

Brainiums of really smart people and really smart authors and all sorts of intelligence that you'll be delivered, that will pour down upon you like manna from heaven. And of course, none of the intelligence comes from me. I'm just a damn host. But I'm Chris Voss. So as always, before we get to amazing uh guests that we have on the show today i i think you're going to be horribly entertained that's what verbs are you picking today chris i think you're gonna be wonderfully entertained at the guests that we have on the

show today and so i'll just build it up that way but in the meantime the plugs we must plug away because uh that's what keeps the advertisers going and the plate spinning and whatever is going on with this microphone electronics and the interwebs uh go to goodreads.com for chest chris voss go to youtube.com for chest chris voss and linkedin the big linkedin news that are all that crazy stuff we do on social media channels that make it so you go what the hell's going on over the chris voss show we should check in and see uh he is the author of an amazing set of books the tom clancy zero hour series uh his own books matt drink novels uh and he has his newest book coming out april 15th 2023 the book is called forgotten war and this is part of a mac

drake novel series don bentley is on the show with us today. He's going to be talking to us about his amazing new book and some of the history and things that went into it and everything else. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Tom Clancy's Zero Hour, Tom Clancy, Target Acquired, and the Matt Drake series, Without Sanction, The Outside Man, and Hostile Intent. In 2023, he was named as a new author for the Mitch Rapp series, begun by the late Vince Flynn.

Don is a former FBI special agent. I'll have to, I'll have to, I don't know why, I don't have a joke for that. He's a former FBI special agent. We had a couple on. We had, we had, we had Frank Fleguzzi on from the FBI and who else do we have? We had the gentleman Peter Strzok on the show. We also

tried to get the recent head of the FBI on the show, but his people said no. Have you seen him lately? It's the one gentleman who had the whole kerfuffle with donald trump um big six foot tall guy i forget his name but i would have loved to have

had him on the show for his book anyway uh he is a former fbi special agent a swat team member or former swat team member is that a swat team member or former swat team member former swat team member okay well you know you can probably still do it today i don't know is there lunch ready uh and an army apache helicopter pilot uh welcome to the show don how are you thanks so much for having me chris but after that lead in i keep looking around to see who the smart person is you're bringing into this interview because it's not me it's you my audience has been listening to my crap they're just like please give us something new to listen to then whatever your stick is so don uh give us your.com where people need to find you on the interwebs yeah absolutely it's really easy you can go to my

website at don bentley books.com it's b-e-n-t-l-e-y books.com and once you're over there you can sign up for my newsletter i post everything that i'm working on i don't always know exactly what i'm going to be working on next but i try and let my newsletter subscribers know as soon as i do so that's a great place to find me there you go so you've written a lot of different books let's let's talk about some of the different things you've written i'm going to let you plug away here give me give me the different variations of of what you've written with not only the Tom Clancy series, but also your books. Sure. Absolutely. So I am lucky enough to, I'm currently finishing the eighth book, which will be my fourth book in the Tom Clancy series. And I've had the same editor for all of

those. He's a guy named Tom Colgan. He's fantastic. He's edited everybody from Janet Ivanovich to Lee Child. And he also worked with Tom Clancy. I apologize. There are a lot of Toms in this story. And when Tom Clancy passed away, Tom Colgan was entrusted with the Clancy estate. And so sometimes I get folks on Facebook that say, how dare you profit off Tom Clancy's name? And I assure you, I'm not the one profiting off of Clancy's name. I like to explain it. It's a lot like how George Lucas created Star Wars and then invited other writers to come on and

build in his universe. I get to do that in Tom Clancy's universe. And so my first book was a book called Without Sanction. And my second book was The Outside Man. And when I finished The Outside Man, my editor, Tom Colgan, at the end of the editorial call, which is kind of like being in fourth grade and needing to face the teacher when you've forgotten your math homework at home. It's where your editor tells you all the things that he or she wants you to fix in the book. And so at the very end, in a very Columbo-esque moment, he said, how would you also like to write the Tom Clancy books? And I kind of looked at him for a minute and in my head, I was like, did he just say what I thought he said? And so I assured him I was very flattered and I needed to think about it. And so I went and told

my wife, I'm like, you never believe what just happened. And I told her and I was like, I'm going to tell him no. She said, you're going to what? And I'm like, look, I got a full-time job. It's not at the point. And she's like, family meeting, kids get in here. And so they all came down and we talked about it and we agreed as a family that I'd give it a try. And the reason why we had to agree that is to keep going with my series and the Tom Clancy series. I basically had to write a book every five months. And I've been on that plan for the last two years or so. And so the fourth book in my series, like you mentioned, is called Forgotten War.

And that comes out on April 25th. And then the fourth book. And then I have two more Clancy books coming out. So I'll actually have three books coming out this year. And so at some point I would like a chance to sleep. Hopefully that'll be here pretty soon. Yeah. I was, I was a little confused when I pulled up your Amazon page and I'm like, okay, so what's the book, you know, cause sometimes I'll just take the author and I'll be like, okay, pull up this book on Amazon. And I pulled it up and you've got your book that we're talking about today forgotten war tom clancy's zero hour uh book of the matt drake series this is uh four book four

of your series and uh and i'm like okay well that book's coming out and then it's also got you can also pre-order tom clancy flashpoint and tom clancy weapons great and flashpoint comes out in may the end of may which is a very short time from now and uh then you got weapons great in september i'm like wow yeah i mean your wife doesn't like seeing you much is that no no she just as long as i make her coffee in the morning she's happy so if the coffee's ready she can go without seeing me. That's kind of what the important part is. And then she's off shopping with all that cash. Exactly. So you launched, I think if I have this correctly, in 2020, the Matt Drake Thriller Series without sanction. And that kind of took you down this whole road. Is that my understanding correctly? Yeah, that's right. So I had the incredible fortune to debut in the middle of this little thing we called COVID.

And so I got about a week and a half into my book tour. I'd written three books before that and took 17 years to do it because after you write a book and it doesn't sell, there has to be an appropriate period of time where you just sulk and are mad at the world. And so 17 years, three books. If you don't count that, I'm pretty much an overnight success, but I'm finally at the point that all authors love. I'm going out to meet readers and show my book and the world shuts down. And so then I sit at my computer for the next two years trying to figure out why I wanted to be a writer in the first place. And so yes um that is me and i can also sell you lottery tickets if you want losing numbers after this i i'm a man all of those things well you

know i gotta tell you that the the covid crisis helped write so many books i wrote mine uh you know that i put off for 10 12 years uh there's so many there's so many great authors we have on the show that i'm like what what made you write this book they're like covid we're sitting around our house we're like well might as well write some crap uh and uh so you know they're but they wrote some amazing stuff and we've had them on the show talking about it so this is your the matt drake novels talk to us about who who this character is and and some of the pathway that he's gone to and how this plays into the newest book, Forgotten War. Yeah, absolutely. So my editor, the other Tom, Tom Colgan, he likes to say that when you are making your debut as a fiction writer,

you have to do something that's the same but different. And so Brad Taylor is a good friend of mine. He's a New York Times bestselling author, was a Delta Force commando. And he writes a great series of books in this same genre that feature a character called Pike Logan. And so I'm never going to be able to write a better Brad Taylor book than Brad does. But I have to write something close enough so that if a reader picks my book up, he or she understands why it's shelved in the same section as Brad's. And so after writing, you know, three books that didn't sell, I kind of sat down and said, okay, what am I trying

to do as a writer that can be the same, but different? And so I did, I made a couple of intentional choices. So the first part is my protagonist is a guy named Matt Drake, and I write him in a first person point of view. So that's insider writer talk, just meaning that Matt is the one that tells the story. And the reason that I do that is that Nelson DeMille has been a huge influence on my writing. And so he's a fantastic writer, but he has this series that has a New York City cop named John Corey, and he writes it first person. And he's so funny. And I remember reading my first John Corey book, which was Plum Island. And I told my wife afterwards, I'm like,

I would read about that guy going grocery shopping because he's so funny and that voice is so engaging. And if, while I'm not that funny in person, if you give me enough time and I can rewrite the joke five or six times, I can write in a similar manner. And that is something that's not usually seen in this genre. And I said, okay, that's the first thing I'm going to do. I'm going to write in a genre. I'm going to use that first person kind of witty, sarcastic voice. And that's what Matt Drake is. The second thing I did is when I looked across this genre, there are a lot of special forces guys, a lot of Navy SEALs, a lot of CIA operatives. But when I was in the FBI, I got to know a different organization called

the DIA, which is the Defense Intelligence Agency. So they have a very similar mission to the CIA, but it reports through the military chain of command. And most of the folks, or a lot of the folks who are in it are actually military members. And so when I started researching this organization, the DIA and CIA fight over turf and mission and money. And there was just a lot of interesting conflict there. And so I took Rat Drake and made him what's called a case officer, which is a fancy word for a spy. And so his job is to run and recruit what in the intelligence community we call assets. When I was in the FBI, I had a similar job where my job was to run and recruit what we call sources. And so I took that and said, hey, that's something different as well.

And then the third thing I did, you know, when I was doing publicity for Without Sanction, I had a radio interviewer. She thought she was going to pin me to the wall. And she said, are you Matt Drake? And I said, you know, I am absolutely not Matt Drake, but I've stood in the same room with men who could be. And so, you know, being in the FBI, I got to meet some very interesting people, but more than that in the year since before I wrote full-time, my job was to work for companies who made and marketed products specifically to customers in the special operation and intelligence communities. And so I got to know them and know how they saw their world and know, you know, what they thought of things. And so Matt Drake is a former army ranger because three of my best friends are former army rangers. And that's why

there are so many SEAL jokes in the book. I apologize ahead of time. If you're a Navy seal, you will be offended. And so, you know, I hadn't seen that done. And then the final thing is that a good friend of mine is a writer named Nick Petrie. And he said, you know, in good books and really good books, what the author is doing is wrestling with something of themselves in the pages of that book. And so in the three books I wrote that didn't sell, I was never really brave enough to get in and say, what makes me what keeps me up at night? What are the things that I'm wrestling in? And I was in Afghanistan. And in 2005, June 28th, 2005, I was the air mission commander for a quick reactionary force that was trying to rescue four SEALs, and we weren't successful. And the helicopter in front of me that I was trying to protect was shot down, and everybody on board was killed.

And so that entire sequence was part of something called Operation Red Wings, which Marcus Luttrell wrote about in the book Lone Survivor. And I had to wrestle with that and wrestle with – I'd spent my entire life training for that moment. It went sideways. I couldn't stop it. And how do I ever get that back? And so that I also gave to Matt Drake and made him wrestle with it in the form of in without sanction, he has an asset that is killed and his family's murdered and he thinks it's his fault. And so doing that kind of stuff, I think helps lend veracity to the book, even though it's fiction and it resonates with readers. And Forgotten War is the same way. Forgotten War takes place during our 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. And while the book is certainly fiction, many of the events depicted

in there were either real or were based on real events. And certainly the conversations between the characters and what they're feeling as they're watching their life's work, 20 years worth of blood, sweat, and tears crumble is accurately reflected in those conversations. And so I hope that book can resonate with folks in the same way my others have. There you go. And the book is billed as a book that will resonate with veterans. And then it seems like a lot of other people, according to my Facebook page, really love it as well that are civilians. And it sounds like a lot of your experience really is poured into the book and the characters that have built the book and designing of it.

It sounds like that's really important in how you've built out everything in the book. It is, absolutely. And it's not, and just to be clear, I wanted to take more, what I tell folks all the time is, my wife likes to say that I can't figure out what I want to do when I grow up, which is true.

But I like to say kind of what I said before is that the thing I bring to writing isn't that I was a Delta Force commando like my friend Brad, but I got to meet the people who were. And so one of my best friends who still serves as my subject matter expert for my books was a Delta Force commando. And during his first operation or his first deployment in Delta Force was as part of Gothic Serpent, which we all know by the movie Black Hawk Down. And so he told me a story as part of that, that when those helicopters were shot down and the assaulters, the Delta Force and Ranger assaulters were on the crash rescuing people, they knew that the guys inside were already dead. They knew that they were dead and they were still getting their bodies out as they were under fire from bad guys. And so when you look at that, when you and I look at that, you think, what sense does that make? Like, why would you risk the living for the dead?

But to them, it is a sacred oath that they will never leave a fallen comrade to fall into the hands of the enemy. And so they look at each other and swear, hey, I can't guarantee that you will come home alive, but by God, you will come home. And I saw that firsthand in Afghanistan when that operation went tragically wrong. The war, for all intents and purposes, stopped until we recovered every single one of our fallen comrades. And that's something that's unique to the U.S. military. I mean, we're still repatriating remains of folks from the Korean World War, World War II. And that's not something that people who haven't had the pleasure of serving in the military know about. And so I thought, you know, if I can provide a window into the men and in some cases,

women who could be real characters in the book book maybe that'll be another way to kind of set me apart from the lots of other amazing authors that do that and so you know I've been like I said I've been lucky enough to have many of those people for friends and customers and you just buy them a beer and sit and listen as they tell stories and so I try to honor a lot of them in my books a lot of the characters are either based on them or the names are slightly changed. Now, the one thing I do to kind of stick the knife in and turn it is if they're a Navy SEAL, I make them an Army Ranger. And if they're a Ranger, I make them a SEAL or a Green Beret. And so they get really angry at that.

I think it's pretty funny, but that's the price for talking to a writer. Oh, there you go. There you go. You know, I, I, when I was a, uh, when I was growing up in,

uh, as a boy scout, uh, our scout master was going through Navy SEAL or not Navy SEAL training. I've seen that with, uh, another friend of mine, but he was going through army Ranger training.

He would talk to us about what they would do to, you know, to, to, you know, get, get prepared. And then of course,

uh, to get tested out for it. It was just extraordinary. I was just like, Holy know, to, you know, get, get prepared. And then of course, uh, to get tested out for it, it was just extraordinary. I was just like, Holy crap. And, uh, the, the amount of danger and work and stuff that goes into it is just, and, and I think it's good for a lot of people to be, be aware of, of, uh, the work that goes into it. You know, we, the military, what we train with when it comes to leadership and, and, uh, and, and the soldiers we build are great. And you mentioned before, you know, the, uh, taking care of our wounded and our dead and making sure that they're honored correctly.

Uh, you know, you see that in the war with you, the Ukraine, with Russia, where, you know, they just left the people on the battlefield. And unfortunately, they don't have a press that's, you know, like our fourth estate where, you know, they can report on that stuff and go, hey, these guys aren't taking care of those folks. But that's the highest, one of the highest honors we can bestow is for their service and what they've done for this country and freedom. And I think that's what's great about your books is you have that experience of being a veteran. You have it from several different facets. It sounds like from the FBI experience and everything else where you can pour this into book. Why did you choose the title forgotten war? Yeah, because I think if you look at Afghanistan and you know, it was, it was a 20

year plus war. And I think what, what happened, um, certainly after nine 11, there was a 20-year-plus war. And I think what happened, certainly after 9-11, there was a need to go make sure that the people, specifically al-Qaeda, who planned that attack and executed it, weren't in the position to do it again, right? But I think what happened, unfortunately, after that initial mission set was by and large completed, is that when Iraq kicked off, it pulled the focus away from Afghanistan. And so you had a large period of times, in fact, I think it was Donald Rumsfeld, who at one point said, in Iraq, we do what we must. So in Afghanistan, we do what we can. And so what happened is that, you know, the majority of the resources or a large part of the resources went to Iraq and to tracking down people in Iraq. And so Afghanistan for a number of years became

just a steady state place where you had, you know, the generals in charge specifically, but even more importantly, the politicians, I don't think could articulate a accurate statement of why are we still there? What are we trying to accomplish? What is it here that is still worth risking America's sons and daughters for? My son was born shortly after September 11th, and he is now pursuing a commission in the Marine Corps. And as a father, I just found it abhorrent to think that my son, 20 plus years later, could potentially have to deploy to Afghanistan to do what. But at the same time, I think the way in which we withdrew from Afghanistan just crushed us. It crushed the

people who served there. It crushed the families who lost spouses and husbands and daughters and wives and stuff there. And to say, I think a lot of veterans would have been okay with us withdrawing or okay with it ending, but just not ending that way. And so the thing that I was getting from that as I was watching is all these texts from friends and stuff who were saying, you know, was it worth it? Was any of it worth it? And that is what went into writing Forgotten War. And the second part, you know, the amazing aspect, one of the amazing aspects of the withdrawal was how much was done by civilians, by people who were former military or sometimes not, who just got on planes, went to Afghanistan and said, by God, as Americans, we told these people, we told these interpreters,

we told these people who fought alongside us, if you stand up next to us, we'll take care of you. And our word still matters. And we're going to do that. And I think maybe not since Dunkirk in World War II, where the British people saved the British army from extermination, has there been such an effort that was led in large part by civilians, you know, the Pineapple Express, things like that. And so all of that went into Forgotten War, where I wanted to show what would my characters think? And not only that, and this book was the hardest one from the standpoint of I took a lot of actual events and then wove them into the narrative. And so I had to be really, really careful. And in some cases, I took some liberties to do that, but I wanted to show, not just tell a good story, but show the effect that that was having on the psyche of Americans, Americans warriors, because, you know, the crazy thing about this forgotten war for 20 years is that less than one quarter of 1% of the American population served in Afghanistan. And so for

20 years, an all volunteer force of a fraction of the population bore our nation's wartime burdens with not just willingly but most of them deployed either to afghanistan and iraq several times and it's just crazy like i can't i can't imagine another time in the history of human combat has that happened before and all of that went into writing forgotten war there you go it's it's it's interesting that you can pour all this in there and at least pay it on an homage, I suppose. Would you do, is that a, is that an accurate description that it's an homage? Maybe, maybe not to the, you know, how it ended, but, but to the men and women and the people who, who were there and fought and, and tried to make the best of it in spite of everything.

Absolutely. And you can see, you know, Forgotten War is a little bit different. The other thing my editor, Tom, says is that what separates a great writer from a good writer is that a great writer pushes the envelope with every single book. He or she tries something different. You know, Mark Graney is one of his writers as well. Mark Graney does the Gray Man series and just had the Gray Man movie come out. And Tom likes to say that Mark is at the point in his career where he could mail it in if he wanted to. his writers as well. Mark Grady does the Gray Man series and just had the Gray Man movie come out. And Tom likes to say that Mark is at the point in his career where he could mail it in if he wanted to. He could write, here's another episode of the Gray Man, but he refuses to do that because

he's such a great writer. And so when I sat down to write Forgotten War, there were a couple of things I wanted to do. Number one, I certainly wanted to have the homage that you talked to, like here are the men and women who serve on your behalf. Maybe you don't know one. And so let me show you a little bit of what they look like, what the men and women look like and how they think. The second thing I wanted to do is my book is based on a friendship between Matt Drake and a guy who goes by his call sign, Frodo. And so Frodo, Matt Drake is a white boy who grew up outside of Salt Lake City on a ranch. Frodo is an African American outside of Philly who never went to college and they're best friends. And that's emblematic of my time in the military is that the military, maybe better

than any other institution, serves as a melting pot where people from all backgrounds, all races, you know, genders, creeds and stuff come together and form those unbreakable relationships. And the readers have really loved Matt and Frodo together. And I thought, you know, wouldn't it be really neat to show one of their first operations together? And so part of Forgotten Wars shows something that happened 10 years earlier in an operation that went sideways with Matt and Frodo. And so part of Forgotten War shows something that happened 10 years earlier in an operation that went sideways with Matt and Frodo. And then part of it also shows like during the fall of Afghanistan, what was it like over there? What was it like as people were trying to go out and honor those blood oaths that they swore to their Afghan partners? And so that was part of

the complexity of the book, certainly. And then hopefully the enjoyment the reader gets when they dig into it. There you go. You mentioned, uh, you mentioned Mark on the show, Mark, uh, where to have it, Mark Greeny on the show. We had him actually on a few months ago for his recent book. And, uh, it was great to talk to him about his stuff. So we'll get a plug in there for him and the plug for the show we did. You know, the other thing you mentioned, we also had Elliot Ackerman on the show. He's been on twice.

He was on with the book with James Admiral Stavridis. I knew I was going to mess that up if I threw a swing at it. But Elliot's been on twice. And the second time he came on was for his book, The Fifth Act, America's End in Afghanistan. And at the time he came on, he was still actively making calls and trying to get people out of Afghanistan, the interpreters and different people. And he's going through, he's like, I'm still going through it today, making calls and taking calls and trying to get people out. And there's people that are, you know, they're, they're making private airplanes and flying in, trying to do stuff and just extraordinary work and the care and love of the people that were there. And people stood behind us and trying to honor that promise that we gave to those people. And, you know, I think even now we're still now we're still dealing with the fallout of it.

We also, I mentioned the green room we were talking before. We had grand delusion yesterday on the rise and fall of American ambition in the Middle East and talking about how each administration came in with this last 40 years with this whole, we're, you know, we have this mandate, you know, we've been elected, we're gods of the world, we'll fix everything. And then, you know, just continuing to have crisis after crisis in the Middle East. In the book, anything more you can tease out on, you know, one of the things about novels, we can't give away the endings

and much of the middle part. Anything you want to tease out more on the book that we should know? Yeah, so one of the things that makes, again, that makes Forgotten War a little bit unique in my series is that it is also a bit of a mystery. So from the standpoint of when the book kicks off, Matt and Frodo are in a bar and Frodo gets arrested by Army CID agents for murder. And it turns out the murder took place during that operation I referenced that occurred 10 years ago. And so as Matt starts to dig into that, what he realizes is that all of the men who were on that operation begin to die under mysterious circumstances. only person who knows actually what happened in the room where the murder, quote unquote,

murder took place was their Afghanistan or their Afghan interpreter. And so you get to see that as well. And then just like I said, a ton of, I've tried to incorporate as many different stories as I could at the same time. And then what drive my books, I think, or make my books different is the sense of heart that's there. And so my character, Matt, is married to a woman named Lila, who is half Afghan and half Pakistani. And so she has family that's in Kabul at the time that the Taliban is taking over. And so that's one of the things Matt's trying to do, too. And I think like those relationships, the sense of heart between Matt and his wife, Matt and his friends, the service member that served together. Again, that's something that I thought was most magical about my time in the military, that if you're not

part of that brother and sisterhood, you don't ever really experience, I think, anywhere else. You know, combat is a crucible that's unlike any other. And when you come out of that, you're changed. And the relationships with the people that you went inside are changed with. You know, after I had a mission that went south in Afghanistan, I remember flying the next day and trying to get a sense of who I was and whether I even still deserved to be flying and could do that job. And I was going down one way on a ring route. And my best friend who was the troop commander was coming the other way. And as we went,

he just clicked on the radio and called over to me. And just the sound of his voice reminded me that I wasn't here alone, that there was that if I got in trouble, there were people standing on that wall who would, by God, drop everything to come in and get me. And that, and a lot of people talk about that. You know, you talk about that in the civilian life and I got your back, man. I got, I got you. You get a beer or two and you got everybody's back. Right. But then when you see it actually played out in real life and those guys are, are people that are still on my speed dial now. And's funny one of my uh best friends that was the army ranger when when people come when guys come to date his teenage daughter he sits him down and says

i'm a nice guy but i've got on my rolodex a bunch of rough men who would come and do violence on my behalf but just keep that in mind oh and cheat but it also isn't from the standpoint because once you've been through that crucible together you're forever changed yeah there's a brotherhood to it i remember uh one of my uh friends was uh was a sniper in iraq and he was going back for his fourth tour of duty and i was like dude you've gone through three tours of duty and you want to go back you don't have to go back and he goes i want to go back. And he goes, I want to go back. He goes, I'm really lost here. Um, and we've had a few people on, on the show that have written books and talked about,

um, PTSD and, and, and, and some of the issues of, of, of, of, uh, you know, dealing with the damage from the war, but also the lack of brotherhood that you, you have when you leave and you're so used to that, you know, and any, my friend told me, he says, he says, Chris, when I'm there, I have, everyone has my back when I'm here, I'm alone. It was, it was kind of like Rambo without the Hollywood hype. Um, and you know, and, and he was like, when I go back there, I know people behind me. I have the brotherhood. I'm, I'm in family where

here i'm not even though i have a family i just it's not the same and uh the way he described it to me i just i just want wow i get it man but uh you know you're also putting your life on your line but i mean i i think it's maybe it's a very manly protector provider sort of thing where the you know the the honor the honor and the, and the, and the protecting his brothers and stuff. And yeah, you don't,

you don't have that now, you know, people like you say, we'll be like, I got your back, man. And then you call him and you're like, Hey,

will you help me move some furniture? And then like, uh, uh, wrong number. No, absolutely. And I think one of the things I talked to veterans a lot and say you know you

one of the things you don't realize when you're in the military is how much of who you are is tied up into what you do that your sense of purpose that who you are as an individual and then while you might have some trauma from ongoing operations from things that went wrong just from you you know, combat itself is corrosive, right? No matter what you do, everybody around you has the same thing and there's a community there. And so what you don't realize is when you separate from the military, often you go back home or you go back to do your job, you've now split yourself or divided yourself from the only people who really understand what you've been

through, what you're going through now, and you find yourself alone and trying to wrestle with it. And I think that's one of the reasons why the veteran suicide rate is so heartbreakingly high is because they go from this community of people where they're understood and you don't have to explain anything because everybody knows to a community of very well-meaning people who have no idea what you've been through or what you're going through. And so I think that's one of the, what I try and push folks to a lot is to stay connected, to stay connected to their fellow veterans, to not let those relationships atrophy. Because when I got out, I was dealing with some of the repercussions for what happened in afghanistan and it wasn't until a a good friend of mine now um nate self who was

an army ranger and he was um during the battle of anaconda um went in to go get um neil roberts and uh the chapman's first name escapes me but the two folks who had been left behind from a different Chinook and his helicopter was shot down and he lost a number of guys. And he wrote a book called Two Wars about it. And he listened to me. And at the end of it, he just looked at me and he said, it's not your fault. What happened isn't your fault. And there was nothing that was magic in those words. But the fact that they came from somebody who had been there and done that and was dealing with the same thing, they meant a whole lot more to me than the same words that maybe my wife had said to me or other friends that didn't. And so there's power in your experiences and power in what you've done. And you need to be willing to share that with other veterans for sure.

There you go. There you go. We had Jason Kander on the show. I don't know if you're familiar share that with other veterans for sure. There you go. There you go. We had Jason Kander on the show. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He ran for president a while back, but he talked about his crisis of PTSD, and he didn't think he had any because he didn't see any really what he thought in his mind, rough things.

But, you know, it's a big factor. We've had some other people on the show that have talked about different ways they're mentally trying to help veterans deal with PTSD. But the experience that you have and being able to pour them into a book and give veterans and other people an enlightenment and pay homage to their service, I think is astounding. Anything more you want to tease out on that book or any of the future books you have coming out since you're putting out at least three this year? Yeah. So forgotten war, April 25th. Um,

it is, like I said, it is, um, the most has the most heart in any of the books. I think you get to see Matt and Frodo in some amazing different ways. And then also a reflection of Afghanistan and what happened there and the way that the men and women who served there view it. And so we'd love for you to pick that up and we'd love to hear about it from you. And then after that, a month later, I've got Forgotten War that comes out, or excuse me, Flashpoint that comes out. And that's my next Tom Clancy book. And that one takes place in large part in the South China sea. And, um,

and then finally weapons grade comes out in September. I think I'm, I'm furiously finishing that now and have to turn it in, in a week and that'll be out as well. And so get three books from me. Um, you can choose one of the three. Hopefully you'll like at least one of them.

So I, I tell a kid with my friend all the time where if you can't write a good book, you write a lot of books. And so hopefully one of those books will be a good book to somebody. Well, you're being very modest. I think people love your work and enjoy it. And that's what keeps them coming back. So there you go.

We'll be looking for a whole mess of books out of you in the future. Are you going to keep doing three year or more year or or less year what's the point so what i know is that uh after i turn in this clancy book i'll start work on my first mitch rap book which comes out in 2024 and uh what i told my editor the long suffering other tom we've talked to is that i'll check back with him in december and so it might be that i get to write another clancy book it might might be that I write another Matt Drake book. It might be that I write a standalone, but I intend to write something, but not all three at the same time. So again, my website, donbentleybooks.com. I try and let my subscribers know first what I'm thinking and what to expect next for me. So follow me there. There you go. Well, Don, it's been wonderful having you on the show and

brilliant discussion and please come back for your future books. We'd love to have you and get plugs in for all that stuff and talk about what goes into them. I'm sure the audience will love it. No, thank you so much, Chris. It's been great. There you go. And thanks to my audience for tuning in that we couldn't do it without you. So refer to your family, friends, relatives, you know, the Chris Foss shows the family that loves you, but doesn't judge you at least on his heart, sees your mother-in-law. Anyway, go to goodreads.com for us, Chris Voss.

Goodreads. Wait, I did Goodreads. YouTube.com and LinkedIn. You know the drill. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you guys next time.