The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Investigation Officer’s File by Dallas Clark

Episode Date: June 11, 2025

The Investigation Officer’s File by Dallas Clark Amazon.com When Ricardo Jackson reported for duty with the Third Marine Division in Vietnam, his biggest fear was being shipped home in a coffin. It never occurred to him that he would be transferred, in handcuffs and leg irons, from Vietnam to the federal prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas to serve 20 years for the convictions of charges relating to the murder of a marine officer. After Woody White earned his commission as a second lieutenant in the Marines, he completed his training and reported to the Third Marine Division in Vietnam, to serve as a legal defense attorney, even though he had never tried a case. Woody White was the only thing standing between Ricardo Jackson and twenty years at the federal prison at Fort Leavenworth, and time was running out....

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Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Voss Show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today's featured author comes to us from bookstolifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. Today we had an amazing man on the show. We're going to be talking about his book called the investigation

officers file out February 3rd, 2021 by Dallas Clark. He is a multi-book author and he's had an extensive career of pulling, of, of, uh, I'm sure life experience and, uh, that he pulls into his novels. Uh, he is, let's see, he's a BA at 65 and JD at 68 from Wake Forest University. I believe that's probably, uh, what is that? A college degree? Is that what that is there?

Uh, Dallas, you volunteer? A Bachelor of Art in Political Science. Yes. Bachelor of Art and. Probably, uh, what is that? A college degree? Is that what that is there? Uh, Dallas, you volunteer art and political science. Yes. Bachelor of art and bachelor of art. Okay. Uh, he volunteered for the Marines, earned a second lieutenant's commission in December of 1968. The year I was born completed infantry leadership school and Naval justice school, volunteer

to serve in Vietnam and got his wish. He was assigned military council duties with a third Marine division in Vietnam. Also served in the Philippines and Okinawa. He was selected chief trial council for the division in Okinawa. Had a bounty on his head while he was in Okinawa. That's gotta be fun. Uh, realized, or I'm sorry, released from active duty. Three years as assistant public defender began private practice in 1974. He became a specialist in family law, retired in 14, three daughters and six grandchildren.

That's a lot of work there. Uh, so welcome to show Dallas. How are you? Chris, I'm fine. So welcome to the show Dallas. How are you? Chris, I'm fine. I'm honored to be honored and appreciate you. Let me spend some time with it's an honor to have you as well. You lived a hell of a life. Can you hear me?

All right. I'm getting you. Are you getting me? Can you hear me? Yes, sir. I am. I think we might have a little bit delay, but we'll figure through it. So I guess you, I think there's a little delay.

Can you hear me? Okay. I can hear you. Okay. So give us your.com. So where do you want people to find out more about you on the website? Or do you want people to find out more about you on the website? I got a website, dallasclarkauthor.com. It's got something about each of my books.

It also has the reviews from Amazon for all three of them. And I was very pleased with those. The book we're going to talk about, Investigation Officer's File, is the first book I ever wrote. And I was very pleased, Chris, with the response that came on Amazon. I mean, I didn't know anything at all about Amazon

and grading books and all that sort of thing. But there's some nice things, I think there the 46 reviews on there, most of them are very nice and the rating is close to a five, so I'm pretty pleased. That is actually really good. That is really good actually. You know, we see a lot of books that don't have any ratings and it looks like it hit a nerve and people love it. So give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside this book. I'm sorry say again. Give us a 30 000 overview of what's in the book.

Okay when I reported to Vietnam I got a job as a defense counsel. I never tried a case before I got to Vietnam. And so they put me in the defense shop. And when they did that, I said, well, I don't understand why you did that because I haven't tried a case. And the man said, well, the government likes to win. And so we're going to pick on you a little bit. And so that's kind of what happened. And three to two prosecuting officers came

to me and said we convicted we prosecuted and the military panel convicted a man for accessory after the fact of the murder of a lieutenant who was sleeping they threw a fragment fragmentation grenade under him when he was sleeping killed him. Wow. But we now think he might be innocent. So we want you to investigate the trial, reinvestigate the trial of the crime. So when I had the epiphany of writing a novel, this particular thing came to came to mind. And so what I did, Chris, was dramatize some of the actual experiences we had in checking out the truth of that case. We had a polygraph. We had a true serum situation. I re-energized witnesses and I ended up with I think a real good It was a lot of fun to do and so has some fun publishing that book.

That's a good that's a good plug there. So tell us about the protagonist. Who's the main character? That's a great question Chris. I'm the main I'm the main character. My name is Woody White. It turns out there's a Woody White lawyer in North Carolina practicing about 120 miles from here. Anyway, I came up with that name because two of my fraternity brothers, the first name was Woody and my roommate's name was White. So I combined those two guys, kind of homage to them, and decided Woody would be the protagonist. It starts out with me going to Officer Candidate School. The first word in the novel is MAGA, N-A-G-E-G-O-T,

because that's what they called us at OCS, Officer Candidate School. We got a little taste of Officer Candidate School, get out of that and go to Naval Justice School, dramatize that. And then I went to sophomore in high school, my father died. And what I did to show the background of Woody

as he was growing up for the novel was to go back to the day, the very day that my dad died with a phone call and tried to dramatize as much as I could, leaving readers looking for something else. For example, both the rain sequence, I said I wonder what my dad would believe, would think of me as a lawyer going to Vietnam, but I would never know because of a 3 a.m. telephone call that I ended chapter. Now I'm hoping that the real read that wonder at 3 a.m. phone call was about which I lead into the next the next chapter.

So that's kind of a trick. I mean, a lot of authors do is certainly not new to me, but I've tried to do that and keep the people turning the pages and buying the books. Yeah, that's what he gets to Vietnam, tries a case, has a little of a captain, whom he gets the best of and goes out to the combat base where the lieutenant was killed. And I actually did that Vandegrift combat base, which is below the DMZ. And then I get on a ship, come back to Okinawa, where eventually I made the, and that's where a lot of the book takes place because we're doing investigations there. And so it was fun. It was fun to revisit

it and dramatize it. We've had a lot of great authors on the show who come from backgrounds of law or maybe police or military. And they utilize a lot of their stories they collected during that time to help paint better pictures and they can kind of pull from those stories and of course change the names a little bit and everything else. And so that's really cool that you have that thing. Now I notice you have three books.

Was this the first book you wrote or were the other two lead ups to this one? It was. And this is the first book and uh what made you want to write it? What was the motivator? Did you think you could write books? I mean this is your first book. What did what did you think the lead-up on was to it? That's such a great question because I never thought about writing a book until I bought a book, a softback book because I saw the name of the author and I read something he'd written that I liked. And I read four pages of that book, Chris, and said it was awful. It really was terrible.

I very arrogantly said, well, I can write better book than that. And lo and behold, about five years later, the thought crossed my mind. I said, well, I'm gonna start writing the book. So I did. And this subject about my, and Marine Corps Vietnam was a perfect subject for the book. That was inspiration.

That's pretty funny. We had a prolific novelist on the show and I think it was romance novels and she's written like dozens or maybe a hundred and she did it because she read a couple romance novels and she was like, these suck. I can do better. And so she did. So congratulations on that. Yeah.

It's pretty awesome. Tell us about your life in your words. What was it like growing up? Why did you want to join the military? Why did you want to serve in Vietnam? And some of the things that shaped you over your life that you think maybe influenced you on being a great author. Well, I think I had a wonderful, wonderful time growing up. Greenville's a great town. Greenville North Carolina is a great town. Have a great little baseball program. That day is terrific.

I played there, but then I fell in love with golf when I was too old to play a little league baseball. And that was my sport of choice. I also played football at high school. Went to Wake Forest, got the undergraduate degree in political science. While I was at Wake Forest, Chris, uh, some friends and two fraternity brothers and I went to Washington, DC on spring break and went to Senator Irvin's office. It turned out that his administrative assistant knew me and knew my family. When we were talking to him.

He asked us what we majored in. And when I said political science, he said, boy, you need to go to law school. That's the first time I thought about going to law school. So I knew I was in the Army ROTC. That would have conflicted with law school. They had a contract in the middle of law school. So, you know, I really, I really ought to serve.

I had a friend who'd been to OCS at Quantico in the Marines, and he told me how hard it was. And I just wanted a challenge. So at that time, Vietnam was on the fourth page of the newspaper. When I signed up, I didn't know a lot about it. I knew from political science, had a great education at Wake Forest that we shouldn't have been there. And I think time is proving that to be the case.

But I went to OCS and we had an opportunity. Marine Corps kind of fooled you and said, please tell us where you'd like to go to serve when you get out of OCS. Like they cared. Like they cared. You know, they were going to send us wherever they needed us. So I put Vietnam three times and it wasn't really stupid. It was hot. It was hot. Then Ted had occurred. There was a lot It was hot then Ted had occurred. It was a lot of people getting killed and a lot of controversy. This is 1968.

A lot of controversy about Vietnam had the March and all that. So I put it down there because I figured that I didn't want to go to Vietnam at the end of my tour, come back to California, get released at least from active duty and not came back. If I went and got badly wounded it wouldn't matter so much but if I went and made it, it would be perfect. So that's what I did. And it turned out that, uh, I had a Vietnam tour that only lasted two and a half months because president Nixon came up with a Vietnamization program and send our unit to Okinawa where I practice there. So

interesting times. Those were that's kind of kind of it. And so then you go into practicing long came back home and went to the Greensboro and was in the public defender's office and did criminal law for three years and

came back to Greenville practice with a firm for six years, left the firm and was on my own for 25 years, working as they say without a net. That was interesting. But I got around and did a lot of cases in Eastern North Carolina. North Carolina. And then in oh nine, I'm sorry, oh, four, I went 2014. And that was very interesting as a great firm at a good time and enjoyed the practice, mainly almost exclusively, marital law, and as you probably know, Chris, this's tough on everybody. Nobody seems to ever win a case. But, um, I enjoyed it. Felt like I did a good job. That's a good point.

There's no winners in divorce court. I think it's, you know, I mean, even if one person kind of gets more than the other person, I think the kids, you know, you create generational trauma with the children and, uh and that spills over and over. As becoming an author, and you've written three books, I guess, right? Correct? Three books?

Yes, sir. You did being an attorney, you know, writing and speaking and telling stories to the judge, telling stories through the dockets and forms that you present to the courts. Did that help you in writing the books? Chris, I think it did. When you have a case, when it first comes in, you interview the client, figure out what the facts are, what the other side's got,

and you really try to put together in the case you present in court, if it gets to court, your story, your version of what happened. And I've noticed, been more aware of it since I wrote the first book and the other two books, there are a lot of lawyers that write books. I'm not saying they're all really good. Of course, John Grisham is a prime example.

But I think it goes with the territory. I think it's a very interesting question and perceptive question that you pose because trial lawyers, I mean, you got lawyers that are transactional lawyers, you know, or state lawyers. They don't have the same kind of look out on the law that we do trial lawyers do. Every trial is a totally different story. You got different actors, different facts, different judges, different police officers, different husbands and wives. And you have to be ready and nimble on your feet to present the story that makes sense. In my novels, in the novel that we're talking about, there

are two or three court scenes. And when I was structuring those, I really put my trial hat on, so to speak, mentally, you know, you have to get in the right frame of mind to write a novel. And it was really easy to write the trial scenes that I had that had never happened before to me. So, I think trial lawyers have a real good knick and knack for writing novels and a lot of them, of course, are about the law. So it's been a lot of them of course are about the law so yeah yeah speaking indictment that was a term I was thinking of when like DA's or district attorneys or people with you know people prosecuting the federal

cases they call them sometimes speaking indictments and you know it's a story of right what happened and and what the complaint is and, and you have to lay all that out and illegally use and, and make it make sense. But you have to hone that story, right? Cause if you, if you suck at it, you're probably going to put the jury to sleep in your opening statement, right? The opening statement is very important. You're exactly right. And of course the government's indictment, I didn't do federal law. I did state law. It's the same thing, the district attorneys in the state drafted the indictments. And they wouldn't, generally, they wouldn't, they were pretty good

about making sure they had touched all the elements of the crime in the indictment. And it's my job as a defense lawyer, if I'm doing that, to first of all, find out how, whether they can prove their case or not. When you're in a marital case, like cases I had, or a military case, the same kind of thing, you just got to build your case and spend as much time getting your case ready as you do preparing to attack the other side. It's a lot of fun to cross examine Chris, it really is and to prepare to cross examine. I've gotten a lot of fun doing that over the years.

And I know a good trial lawyer who's a DA and he just, I mean, you could tell when he got in the zone and I've been on the other side of that. I mean, you have to have your A game to beat those people. I really don't. Oh yeah. Yeah. I've been on the side in civil court in suing and getting sued and shakedown lawsuits. I've dealt with some $1,200 an hour attorneys

that thought they were Perry Mason. But I figured out how to dodge them. How's that? You do what John Gotti did on the stand. You play dumb. I learned it from John Gotti's attorney. But the key is you make them repeat the question three to four times and you play dumb. Like you just can't understand it. So the first fastball

they shoot at you is their, is their, you know, their fastball, hardball. And you go, I don't understand the question. Can you explain it to me again? You make them break it down like three or four times until the judge finally implores you to answer the question. And, uh, and then you just keep doing that. And, uh, it throws them off their game. Like when you get successful, you get lots of shakedown lawsuits. You probably, I'm sure you do with money and you know, you're, you have employees steal from you. You have, uh, competitors who you, you know, is the lawsuits just calm the shakedown. And so, uh, I've been in a few of those, you know, the lawsuits just come, a shakedown. And so I've been in a few of those, you know, we had one of my employees on the stand who

quit our company and sued us for 100% of the sales that he'd invoiced, he'd written, right? Well, in our business of only 50% closed. So you know, it was a shakedown lawsuit just to get us to pay him off. And so I remember we put them on the stand. So why did you sue Chris Voss's company? Cause he's rich. It's like, you said that on the stand of the Q and a, wow, that is crazy, man. We won in the end, but, uh, you know, it's telling stories. And so folks, if you're an aspiring writer, uh, go be an attorney.

That's a long way to go. Let me tell you, three years in a law exam, I think are easy ways to become a writer. Do you ever think maybe you should have skipped to the end? Maybe at the start, maybe focused on writing first. I don't think so. I don't think I would have anywhere near the experiences to write about. And the other thing, you said something very interesting. Every novel that I've written, I didn't know how it was going to end. This particular book, the Investigation Officer's File, starts out at officers candidate school very briefly goes to Naval Justice School.

I didn't think about Naval Justice School when I started writing it. I thought about the Vietnam experience, but I did not have any idea, Chris, how the story would end. And I work and work and work. I remember trying to come up with all the open doors and closed doors and things that the reader would find, boy, I need to turn the page and figure out what happened. And I actually had to write out and diagram the end of the story because it was kind of tricky.

And it ended up being, I thought, a good ending. In fact, the main character, Woody White, the lawyer, doesn't even appear in the novel in the last few pages because that was the way it ended. And I had a friend of mine who read the book and liked the book. And she said that she was wondering what happened to Woody. And that was the first time I thought about writing a second book.

And then that ended up after a little while, so I want to challenge myself and write a third book about somebody who's got an issue in the mind. So it's been a lot of fun. I'm retired and so it's a good way to, and I've just started another novel now and doing it a different kind of way. So it's it's been neat Mm-hmm. There you go. So what's the future hold any more books in the future? Anything you're working on a cookie up I started a novel and Then I got had got waylaid and then I picked up a book Chris ordered a book

It was written in the first person, you know, I picked up a book, Chris ordered a book that was written in the first person, you know, I, the guys talking about, I did this, I saw that. So I said, well, I'm stuck on this book. Why don't I restart the book and write it in the first person? And I did, and I'm back having fun. Pete Slauson All right! Chris Smith So, you know, it keeps me out of trouble. Pete Slauson Something different perspective on different perspective on some fresh ideas and stuff. That's awesome.

That's awesome. Well, we'll look forward to seeing what comes to that and what comes out. As we go out, give people final pitch out to pick up your book and where they can find out more about you. I've got a website, that'll spark author.com and you can click on that and order directly from Amazon. That's probably the easiest way to do it. And I think when they go on the website, I would encourage them and folks do this anyway, to read the reviews of the book.

There are about 46 reviews of this book, which is, I think, interesting for a first novel. It's got a 4.9 or so rating with Amazon, which is you can't do a whole lot better than that. So I'm pleased with the results. I think if they go on there and look at the reviews, they'll be encouraged to buy it. I think they'll enjoy it. And I hope they'll write a review, good or bad. I hope they'll write a review. There you go. Well, please write a review, folks. Get in there, check it out and all that good stuff. Thank you very much for coming to the show, Dallas. We really appreciate it. Chris, thank you for the time. I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks so much for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress,

Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Voss,, Chris Voss won the TikTok, Ede, and all those crazy places, the internet. If you're watching this, be sure to watch the final version on the Chris Voss show, where we will put the two ends together. We always, you know, we should have had more sacrifices that week to the internet gods. We usually, you know, we usually take and, I don't know, we put some cockroaches, I think cockroach, can I kill cockroaches and no one's going to be offended. In a bowl and, oh, I can't kill. I can't win. I can't win.

We imagine sacrificing cockroaches to the gods. All right. Thanks dude. Again, everyone be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. I was going to say, we.