The Team House - Exfiltration From Libya | Andy Milburn | Ep. 286

Episode Date: July 13, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseWe all know and love Andy Milburn. He has a story from his book about when he went into Libya to try and evacuate people during the collapse of the Gaddafi regime.https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations/dp/1526750554—————————————————————Today’s Sponsor:⬇️Better Help online therapyhttps://www.betterhelp.com/teamhouse—————————————————————-To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#marsoc #libyaBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House with your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, everybody. Welcome to episode 286 of the Team House. I'm Dave Park. Jack Murphy is on vacation right now, and we'd love to welcome our return guest, Andy Milburn, real quick before we get into it. I just want to thank our sponsor for tonight.

Tonight's show is sponsored by BetterHelp. That's Better Help, Better Help. And, you know, mental health is something we talk about quite a bit on this show, especially for veterans, but really for anybody. And if anybody's ever shopped for a therapist, you know it can be time-consuming, and be challenging to find somebody you had rapport with, you know, who lives in your area, all types of different challenges. But everybody deserves to talk to somebody at some point.

And if you've ever talked to anybody, if you ever talk to a therapist or a professional before, you know that it can be very helpful when you do find that right fit. So better help, if you're thinking about starting to be. therapy, give better help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get masked with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. And for me, that's a big deal. Because again, like having rapport with therapists is one of the biggest indicators of success. And so being able to sort of shop therapists and find one that's right for you,

it's a really big deal. So stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. That's B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Teamhouse today and get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Teamhouse. Andy, welcome back to the show. We love you, man.

We miss you. How are you doing? Yeah, you guys are a glutton. I glutton is for punishment. every week. And then I think it's the fifth time on this show. Well, I'm very glad to be back, Dave. And I want to find, I want to ask how you've been

and how you've been in the last year. But then Dee's going to sidetrack me and say back to whatever he has on the script today. But give us a quick shot of yourself, Dave. What's going on in your life? Oh, what's going on in my life? See, I'm interviewing Dave. Yeah, no, it's fine.

And, you know, like, you're a professional now. Your show eyes on on this channel is, you know, you guys are knocking it out of the park. No, this year's been a good year for me. You know, I did some tech advising on a Netflix show, which was a lot of fun, a lot more fun than I ever thought it could be. Yeah, no kidding. Like military tech? Yeah, military and, you know, all the things from showing Marines how to blouse their boots to showing how, you know, guys how to clear room with the pistol.

Yeah, so a little bit of surveillance here and there. And, you know, depending down and tying your shoe, isn't the right way to detect surveillance. But, no, it's a very fun industry to be in when you work with actors and writers who really want to get it right. And fortunately for the show, I was working on the actors and writers really wanted to get it right. And listen to you.

You know, and I think more and more that's, yeah. Because it's funny to wait. I mean, you know how veterans are. It's like just one small thing in a movie world, even though the rest of the movie may be good. You know, a Marine saluting inside without his cover. You know, a few good men, right? Yeah.

That sent everyone. So having that, having someone who pays attention to that, cool. Yeah. And it pays, I imagine. And you may have your foot in the door. Yeah, that's what I'm hoping is the foot's in the door. You know, the pay is good for sort of, you know, know, when it's my first time.

And, you know, and it's definitely, it's like working on a team. It's like being an enlisted guy on a small team with an officer because, you know, the director and the writers, they have their vision. When you say, when you say officer, it sounds like a swear word. I just want to say that. Only sometimes. No, no, it's, you know, there's the way to do it, right? And there's the way you're like, this, I would never do this.

I would never do this way. But if the director has a vision and their artistic vision and they want it to happen this way, it's like, okay, I wouldn't do it this way. But if I were going to do it this way, this is how I do it. And, you know, it's all about, especially when you're a tech advisor, it's all about compromising. You know, it's about really just contributing and supporting the show the way you can. And at the end of the day. Without getting arrogant and saying.

Absolutely. I mean, absolutely. You know, and at the end of the day, it's. if, you know, the director wants something different, that's their vision. It's their baby, you know. Yeah. So, yeah, it was, it's a lot of fun. So that's, that's been the primary thing.

And it's, it's another, it's another string to your bow. Yeah. What's the time, quiver to your, I mean. Another goose in my flock, or crow in my murder? Yeah. Many, many geese. And actually, you know, it was, it's a front of the show, Tripp who actually made the connection for me to get this.

Trip the color? I'm not going to call it his last name, but I, you've probably met him before. Sorry, it definitely wasn't that trip, but it was a front of the show trip who I think you've met before, who made the connection for me. Yeah, okay, cool. There is no trip McCullough. He does not exist, guys. And then the primary, the guy who brought me on, the primary tech advisor, Doug, Paterson,

former agency guy, very, very cool guy who just done this quite a bit. So, yeah. That's, yeah, it's mostly word of mouth,

good on you, Dave. Yeah. It feels like, I mean, it's been a, it's been a, it feels like a year,

but it's been around February since I last year. It's been a long, it's been a long year, but it's been, you know, from my perspective, it's, it's been very different than the year proceeding in,

and in Ukraine. but, you know, like we were talking about before I came on the show, it's a year that I really needed, I really needed to get my house in order. Yeah. Well, you guys, yeah, you guys have been doing, you know, you and Jason have been doing the eyes on, which is going great. And I know you have various guests. And I can't really come on to be, I guess, that, because you guys talk in depth about current events. And I'm not really qualified to talk about anything other than comic books. I'm bullshit.

Actually, you get, there are by name requests for Dave because there are, I mean, you know how it is. Whatever side we argue there's going to be people who oppose. So it seems as though you are the universal devil's advocate. So whatever side, Jason and I seem to be veering towards specifically on Israel or whatever. You know, I mean, we try not to take sides. But the comments are always, why, I mean, we need to bring Dave on to give another opinion. So I've been dying to do that. Well, I can come on and play like contrarian.

I'll have no idea if I'm accurate or not. But I have no problem forming an opinion and sticking by it. Regardless of any facts. As long as you say that beforehand, like preface it, you're okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, the, you know, the, one of the biggest things that kind of got me, um, moving again after Mozart Group was, you know, sadly, the, the incident on 7 October, and of course, the whole, the horde of events that have occurred since then.

So I got a commission to write a book about it. And initially it was going to be about 7 October. right but then when I start you know I going back and forth with the publisher I said if I'm going to write about 7 October I've got to really you know good write about why it happened and what led to it and and in fact you've got to go back to the late 70s really for that you know both within the IDF and and and within Israel but I mean certainly if you're going to focus on IDF failures on 7 October leading up to 7 October not just IDF but in town

intelligence failures, you have to go back to the lead 70s, you know. And then and then of course, when you're talking about Israel, Gaza, you've got to bring in his Bollah, bring in his Bala, you know, Iran, Iran, and then, you know, what the United States is doing. And then of course, the, you know, the drone strike occurred when I was actually out in Israel, which is ironic because I've, you know, I worked on a plan to defend Israel against threats such as that. And I guess this was the ultimate test for the guy who worked on the plan to sit in Tel Avidaring the attack. But you see what I'm saying, as events continued, and then you've got this extraordinary. And again, I mean, I absolutely, it's very important to avoid being partisan in any way in this book.

I just, you know, I'm trying, I'm digging up facts and talking about facts. facts, and that's very important in such a highly emotional charged topic. Something either happened or it didn't happen, right? I'm keeping opinions out of it. I'm going to let the reader make up their own opinions. And, of course, you know, in the end, of course, people say, well, you chose to mention those facts and not those. I mean, there's no chance that I'm going to emerge from this with a reputation of strict

objectivity, but I'm doing my best. Sure. And mixed feelings. It is a, it's a colossal topic. It's hard to escape from. You know, some days it's, I mean, it's such a, it's, it, I'm finding it difficult to describe. Perhaps maybe because of the legacy that you and I have from other conflicts. And perhaps we, when we try and cover, you know, or at least for me, when I, when I,

I try and write about a conflict, right? It's really difficult not to dwell on the reasons and the political failures that led to that because we are all victims of that, right? The soldiers. And if you're not writing about that, then what are you writing about? I'm not interested in the venture stories. You know, it's this tension nexus between the military

and the political leaders. But it's also how does an organization and again, I'm keeping this as objective as I can, but how does an organization as storied, as heralded, as the IDF go from, you know, having turned, having, now 73 was a failure, yes, undoubtedly it was a failure, but it's a political failure, right? The, you know, the IDF responded extraordinarily, you know,

after the first three days in the 73 war, I mean, the IDF really won that war back in a sense. You know, that was a commission after the war that looked at why the Egyptians and the Syrians had both been able to surprise Israel, tactical surprise. But the blame never devolved to the IDF. The IDF, you know, but it just, it was an extraordinary story when you think about it, the mobilization of 200. I mean, back then it was like 140,000 reservists within days. turning the tide both in the north and the south against Egypt and Syria. It was, in a sense,

the high point of the Israeli army, at the IDF. And there are those who argue from then onwards, it started to go, you know, it started to lose direction. And Lebanon, you know, the invasion of it, the, the, the, the problems with Lebanon, which began in the late 70s were kind of the, also the beginning of the unraveling of the IDF and the long occupation, which became anathema and occupation of Lebanon between 80, you know, 20 years, basically, from 81, 82 to 2001, had a debilitating effect on the IDF. You know, they became very focused on Canaan surgeons, but they also became surprisingly very, very risk-averse.

there are a number of things. I know I don't mean to bore you. You have to read the book and it comes out. But the cultural atrophy of the IDF, I'm writing about not, it's not just because this happened in the IDF. That, you know, that would be an interesting historical, you know, narrative.

But, but what happened in the IDF? But easily, if it's not already happening, it could also happen in other Western militaries. And indeed, there are accusations that it is happening, certainly in the British and U.S. militaries, focus on the wrong things, a step away from war fighting, a risk aversion, focused on careerism,

all of these things that just, you know, losing track of mission command, the IDF was supposed to embody mission command, and yet on 7 October, you get this awful situation outside the kibbutzis where commanders won't go in because they don't have orders and civilians are getting slaughtered. And this is, you know, the Israeli investigation on covering this outside Kibbutzbury, you know, which I visited. The, you know, the Hamas began killing people there at 7 a.m. and the first soldiers weren't in there until seven or eight hours later, you know, and Israel's a small country. So there were some serious failures and there were fundamental failures.

You know, at the same time, I think it's only fair to say that these failures weren't failures of human beings or failures of courage. they were failures of procedure, of process. And a lot of people showed, too many people almost showed just incredible courage on 7 October, soldiers taking matters into their own hands. And many, many, most of them were killed because no one had any idea of what the situation was like. It was a black hole. It's extraordinary. And the most technically competent, one of the most technical,

advanced countries in the world that this total breakdown of communications occurred in such a small area and a lot of it had to do with Hamas's planning yeah um you know they they israeli certainly underestimated their ability or to take out all the communications nodes um you know the the hang lighter dudes they you know they weren't kind of like stormtroopers from the sky wasn't they were command and control dudes they were up there the race directing the groups on the ground. And the groups, you know, they, and it was because of that, because they had guys up in the air that they were able to direct,

one, you know, one column, I suppose, onto the Nova Music Festival. Because although they knew it was taking place, it wasn't on that list of targets. But when they were locked, they thought, you know, it was a target of opportunity. And so they direct. So my point is that, that on this day,

most extraordinary thing happened, it seems like rolls were reversed. You've got the IDF who is just paralyzed, unable to make a decision. And then you've got Hamas making decisions on the fly, directing forces. You know, I'm not... And it was a real...

You know, I mean, there's so many ways why this was such a... a fundamental blow to Israel. You know, time and again, Israelis have said this country will never be the same. You know, and so the kind of things that I'm talking about, aside from the savagery of the attacks that were so close to them, has changed society there beyond. I mean, I've been going to Israel since I was a teenager, you know, in the early 80s.

And it is, the atmosphere there is very different. anything before. So all of this is it's incredibly interesting right about, but it weighs on you too. You know, it weighs on you, um, the, you know, the loss of life, um, period. Um, regardless of, nationality or background or ethnicity, the loss of life is horrific. You know, and, and just like in every wall, the vast majority of people killed or not combatants, you know, and that is, that's a tragedy. Yeah. That's, you know, period.

I mean, so, yes, as a military guy, I'm writing about that aspect of it, but I'm also writing about the cultural part. And without being too clumsy about it, the analogy is there implicitly that, yes, this happened to the Israelis. I'm not talking about, you know, 7 October, the events themselves happening elsewhere, although they easily could. but I'm talking about kind of the slow atrophy of culture within Western militaries. And no, I'm not, you know, some kind of like weird extreme right-wing freak

who's talking about, you know, the collapse of Western civilization. But I am saying that it is that it is something that is a little bit concerning. You've been tracking, Dave, you guys have been tracking the discussions within the military of the last decade, right, since. you got out, morale is not high. No. In the U.S. military, it's lower than it was during the wars when we were doing multiple appointments.

Yeah. So, you know, it's interesting because I feel as though you specifically, and on this show, we try to present, I don't say fair and balanced, but we try to deal with the realities of a situation. And that was used against you by, you know, Durban. like Max Blumenthal and whatnot when we talked about Ukraine because at no point did you condone what Russia was doing at no point did you were you ever simping for Russia or advocating or were you saying that Ukraine was this evil that needed to be eliminated

that you pointed out some specific issues and and it's interesting how sort of in this binary sort of black and white world, right, where if somebody wants to hear something, so, you know, people will probably take sound bites out of what you're saying or take sound bites out of what you're saying, and they like, and they like to attribute, it's like 9-11, right? It was 9-11 was a massive intelligence failure on the part of the United States. We knew who these people were. You know, we had clocked them, you know, our intelligence apparatus, our law enforcement,

apparatus. And yet we had failed to to stop what they were doing. And also one could say from the same type of oversight, you know, something so audacious, right? Something so audacious couldn't possibly happen. That's right. And so people want to take the idea that an intelligence law enforcement or military system can break down. And it can break down at one level. It can break down at a mid-level officer who refuses to believe reports given to him because they seem fantastical. And he doesn't want to be the idiot passing up ridiculous reports.

That's 100% what happened, Dave. Yeah. And people will take those facts. and either then develop a conspiracy from it, that it was, you know, that we let 9-11 happen, you know, Israel let October 7th happen, these types of things, or they will, you know, or they will say that...

Conspiracy rather than just simply incompetence. Right, right. It's like, remember up to 9-11, there was this conspiracy theory that it was, you know, the U.S. had actually staged, managed it and was doing all these other things, etc, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, yeah.

And I remember an agency guy going, if fucking only, we could do all that. Well, I mean, I remember one of the big conspiracies was that it was like a special forces team or a CIA, you know, paramilitary team that had gone in and planned explosives. And it's sort of like,

to anybody who thinks something like that, it's like, in order to pass a conspiracy that big, you know, for the president, right? Or Cheney or whomever, go to an A team and go, hey, you 12 guys, I want you to be responsible for the deaths of up to like 10,000 Americans. And for everybody to go, Roger that, right?

It's just, it's so ludicrous. But you know why conspiracy theories like that flourish? Because most Americans have no idea what the American military is about. Right. Most Americans don't even know anyone in the military. Right. When you think about the conversations you have on a plane,

Hey, what do you, you know, I'm in the Marine Corps. Oh, hey, yeah. Listen, my nephew was in the Air Force Reserves, you know, and you're like, okay. But that, you know, they're trying to find some common ground. Right. And it's often very distant. And I think so it's quite easy for them to imagine that. Yeah.

And it's the same thing we're seeing now with a lot of the, you know, the conspiracy theories that are coming out of, you know, October 7th. Like the Israeli government intentionally allowed, you know, this to happen or allowed it to continue. It's like it's military chains of command break down, especially when they have not been flexed, when they have not been exercised for a long period of time. It's like, it's sort of like when you go out on patrol, right?

When you're, when you go out on patrol in a non-permissive environment, after three nights or four nights of that, if you keep going out on patrol over and over and over again, when something goes down, you're not ready for it because you cannot stay on alert. And that is actually part of the, that was part of the plan.

You know, I mean, Hamas, Hamas did not think that they could keep this secret, you know, the plans for an attack. What they thought they could keep secret was the actual date and time when it was going to happen so that they could still achieve tactical surprise.

but I don't think they thought, believed that they could achieve strategic surprise the way that they did because there were so many reports and they must have known as reports were going in from what I call, the Israeli called the spotters. The spotters are generally women conscripts,

18, 19, 20 years old and their job throughout their enlistment is to monitor screens. You know, essentially the CSEC, TV within Gaza. And each one of them gets to know, you know, an area, a couple of blocks, two or three blocks. They know the people on that block and everything. It's an extraordinary system of technical surveillance. It's like nothing in the world. But it failed. And the reason why it failed was not because those soldiers failed. They were making the reports. I mean, this is all, you, you,

Israeli newspapers have dug this up in, you know, transcripts from reader reports, everything. They had reported the hang gliders, they reported rehearsals, full-scale rehearsals. And then the morning of in Nahal Oz, if you, you know, the record of the reports begin at 6.30. You know, they described that watching Hamas gather. outside the bounds of where they're supposed to be, just right below the security cameras, looking up at the security cameras as though they knew where they were. And the soldiers call, it's a battalion from the Golani Brigade.

And the battalion commander comes along, and he fires tear gas at these guys on the other side. and he says, that'll take care of him. And he goes back. And she's like, she gets on the phone and says, no, it hasn't taken care of them. They're still coming. And she was ignored, you know, because the battalion commander was like, yeah, she's just, you know. So.

Hysterical women. Yeah. Yeah. But honestly, it probably had nothing to do with her being a woman. It probably had to do with her being junior rank. Conscript, 18 years old. Junior rank. Yeah.

Yeah, 100%, 100%. But on the other hand, they'd been given a job and they were doing their job and they were doing well. Sadly, they were unarmed. And so when, well, they had one rifle between 20 women and so when Hamas broke in, they pretty much, you know, had free run. They could kill or kidnap as they wish. I mean, these are, you know, these, collectively, these are not individual errors. I mean, or rather all these individual mistakes collectively suggest that there was something culturally wrong within, you know, the IDF for this to have, to have happened. I mean, obviously there was something culturally wrong.

It happens all the time, right? Intelligence, you know this. Sure. It's, you can have the best surveillance equipment in the world and the best collectors. But if the guys on the receiving end are not, if their minds aren't open to that. possibilities you point out and it's all wasted and that's really you know they no one no one thought for everyone was so so loved by this narrative that Hamas lacked the sophistication or the intent to do harm you know beyond a few rockets right right so when can we expect your book uh well you know um

it's going to be two to three months before i i finished the manuscript The problem is that the news keeps going on, right? So where does it end? To be honest with you, I'm enjoying the writing. You know, writing is very cathartic for me. You know, I know you probably have, I know you do have activities that you rely on to kind of get your headspace back. And writing is what I do. Yes, PT and everything.

But you know how it is. When you p.T. Your mind still wonders. But writing a job. absorbs me. And it helps to write about a conflict that I'm not involved in directly. I started to write about Ukraine and I just found it too difficult. I couldn't, you know, maybe a year or two. I will be able to, but it does. I think this is helping writing. I don't know. It's difficult to explain. But it's not, the other thing is I think it's quite interesting. I don't, I don't hear of

anyone else doing this right now. I think it, so there may not be a lot of competition if I get a book out, you know, because everyone's kind of waiting for some kind of resolution, but who knows when that's going to occur? And who knows what the resolution is going to be? So, you know, my book's going to be point in time.

You don't think that, you don't think that Hamas will just return all the hostages and that'll be it? I don't know. I don't think that'll be it. No, Dave. And I don't, you know, sadly, I'm not optimistic that many hostages are left alive. Yeah. You know, if any, I, just like, you know, sadly right now in Middle East and just the same thing in Ukraine, it's hard to see a good outcome.

I mean, anytime, not just any time soon, but a good outcome. Yeah. Better than before the war, right? Right, right, better than starting. Yeah. You know, speaking of Ukraine, for people who have watched, you know, any of the episodes that you've been on prior, you know, one of the things we talked about was Mozart Group in the work you guys were doing over there. And then, you know, Mozart Group ran into some challenges. Yeah.

And some of those challenges came personally back to you. Do you want to talk about those at all? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, and at risk of, I hope, not boring the audience, just to, you know, kind of go back in times. So three, was it almost three years ago? Early 2022, what am I talking about? Two years ago.

It was over two years ago. Early 2022, it came on the team house in January, right, a month before the invasion. And we all opined that there's no way that, Russia would invade Ukraine, right? And then, of course, it happened. And I got a, I wangled a job as a freelance reporter, right, for a task and purpose. Freelance was so that they weren't responsible for me if I got lacked.

It was a term. In other words, freelance benefited them, but not me. You know, I wrote for them. But, no, don't get me wrong. Task and purpose was great to me. And down the line was even better. and better to me when they stood up and helped me defend this lawsuit. But anyway, so I ended up going out there, got into, got made it to Kiev, a very bad time.

This was early March of 2022. And the Russians were on three sides of Kiev. And within artillery range, I mean, they were pounding the suburbs. You heard it all the time. And there was a sense of, I mean, you remember, everyone thought Kiev was done. no one thought the city would hold out. And within Kiev itself was this extraordinary, the exodus had already taken place,

so about two thirds of the population had left. But for the third that were left, they were getting ready to fight. And Zelensky had given the word to hand out AK-47s on the street to any mail between 18 and like 45. And so that's what they were doing. You know, I mean, guys were just grabbing AKs and heading to the suburbs to fight the Russians.

And a senior, or is a colonel, a Special Operations Colonel, I knew from before the war, was one of the few regular Ukrainian officers who was tasked with preparing these guys to defend Kiev. And he asked, you know, he asked for my help. And I happened to be able to get out some guys. some Marines from the States, a couple, and then there were a couple in. Anyway, bottom line is, here we are in Kiev, in Marches, the Russians closing, and we've got a small group of Marines. Coincidentally, they tend to be Marines. One of them was a Kiev resident, a Andy Bain, and he became kind of the guy that we depended on quite a bit as we set up the Mozart group. The Mozart group,

by the way, just evolved as we started to train these people. And this is what it was like. I mean, it's insane. When I described this, people think I'm exaggerating. You know, we would get, we would have five days to train a cohort of guys, you know, and girls. And they were IT workers, students, lawyers, you know, anything but soldiers. And none of them had even handled a weapon. Five days to get them ready, no shit to go and fight the Russians.

And so what do you teach them in five days? know we did basic weapons handling that was key we had to take them to shoot and that was becoming hazardous because every time we started shooting um the russians had spotters everywhere and so every time we started shooting on the range artillery rounds would start coming in very very quickly so it was literally a two-way two-way range um a lot of uh you know unusual training restrictions um but the one thing that kept us going was just the just the indomitable spirit of the these people who were volunteering to fight for their city. Can you imagine, Dave, if, you know, I mean, just overnight, you know, New York, maybe New York's bad example, Chicago, and you

had the enemy at the gates, and you just think about it, all these people who have never, ever dreamed of joining the military, now that's what they, that's their goal, because they want to fight for their country, you know, for their homes. I mean, literally. You know, I came across a family, mother, father, and, you know, 19-year-old son all armed to the teeth ready to defend their house, you know, in northern Kiev. The only difference with Chicago of probably most American towns and cities is you probably don't need to worry about passing out so many AKs. Yeah, that's true. The benefit of the second amendment, right? But I got to tell you one, I got to tell you once throughout one of these guys.

He came back. He came back about two weeks. He was on our first cohort, and he'd been a student, and he could not handle a weapon. You know, he kept pointing at that people, he was flagging people. Well, he came back to, you know, to go through the weapons part again. but he'd already been in combat. And, you know, we're talking about him.

So how do you, what did you do if you, you know, if you don't like carrying a weapon? He said, well, so the officer gave me a bag of grenades to carry around. And they're pretty easy to use. You just, you know, throw it. He goes, he goes, so I, yeah, that was good. I mean, the Russians were all close. So it was easy. I didn't have to shoot him.

I just threw grenades. I'm like, I'm thinking. Here's saying, yeah, it was so convenient. it was you know they were they were right up close to us it was most people would go holy shit you know it was close combat the first time and we're up and he said but you know I guess the grenades are expensive so I got to come back and learn how to use a weapon you know and we were teaching them how to use we didn't have any javelins you know the news about the javelins the coverage

was far greater than their use you know a lot of anti handheld anti-tank weapons, but a lot of them were Eastern European manufacture. But it doesn't matter, the point is, that these guys were getting close enough to destroy Russian tanks, you know, in that halcyon, euphoric stage of the war. But it wasn't euphoric in Kiev,

it was pretty fucking scary. You know, it really was. And we were, every day kind of having a discussion, well, we were having a discussion about when to cut bait, You know what I mean? We didn't want to be trapped in the city.

That would have been bad. And at the same time, you guys aren't there as mercenaries or armed combatants. No. You are there as training as a training. 100%. Yeah. We are just training at this point.

And, but it became difficult to leave psychologically. I don't, you know, it came so that it was never a question of us leaving. And I think we just got, too caught up in it. You can't just walk out on something like that, you know. And, and then when the Russians were pushed back, we, actually, I was with one of the, the first units to clear through Boucher. So, you know, when they found the bodies, I mean, it's not like I found the bodies, but they were

there still just lying out there when we got up there. It was pretty, pretty horrific. And it was first kind of glimpse you know for me sadly you know I mean we've seen lots of bodies before the massacre I mean it was shocking but I

but the effect on the Ukrainian soldiers was it was fundamental I mean it was really you could tell it it changed them and the war was a the war from the start

I mean, it seems absurd to talk about any war as being vicious, but yes, you know, this is particularly a vicious one. And you have to look at some of the history there to understand how and why. And that is why, you know, and bear in mind, I mean, I was risking my life for Ukraine, but I came on the team house and did say, look, Ukraine has to adhere to the rules of war. because, I mean, for one, I don't want to be involved in helping the side. You know this. We can't do that, right? Yeah. And, you know, I said, which I didn't think was controversial.

Well, of course the Ukrainians, I mean, they happen in every war. You know, of course they're committing it. I mean, and I quoted, you know, I quoted a couple. I mean, they're putting prisoners on TV, you may think it's harmless, but it's a violation of the Geneva Convention. And the point is, you have to be squeaky clean. I mean, you don't have to be squeak clean, but you've got to be better than your adversary, right?

And if you're going to highlight what your enemy is doing, you've got to make sure that you adhere to the rules. Okay, that was number one. When you're taking somebody off the street and training them up in a matter of three to five weeks, days. Days, right, you know, days, sorry. Law of land warfare?

Yeah, like, everybody may know, hey, don't pull the fingernails out of, you know, your detainees or your POWs, but they may not know that, hey, you can't put them on TikTok. Yeah, and, you know, what I said, I mean, you remember this, Dave, what I said was uncontroversialized. in and yes i did say um of course you know there there are reports of um of atrocities that that was number one number two is um i i became very frustrated with the level of corruption and bad leadership um not not across the board but in in certain units certain commands and the guys who suffering were the soldiers on the front. You know, I mean, think about it. Some criminal things were happening.

Right. As far as, you know, I mean, where ammunition was going or cold weather clothes. And this was affecting the guys that we were working with day in, day out. Of course, I was angry about it. And I spoke about it. And of course, I spoke about it after drinking whiskey with you guys, as tended to happen. So the chorus, you know, the peanut chorus, you mentioned, what was his name? Max Blumenthal, right?

Yeah, you know, number one. So here's the weird thing. So Blumenthal is, you know, he's a left, he's left wing, et cetera, et cetera. But the weird thing is he supports Russia. You know, it's kind of the far left and the far right converge. chair and the support of Putin. Yes. And so, you know, and Blumenthal, I have heard, has connections with, you know, I mean,

has worked there. I don't know. It doesn't matter. I don't really care about Blumenthal. In fact, he did me a favor. But because I don't think, it wasn't him who started the attacks. It was a guy named Peter Maas, M-W-A-S. Now, Peter Maas is the editor of The Intercept, right?

And has a long history and kind of yellow journalism. Sure. And very, very anti-U.S. military, wrote escaping. I'm pretty sure The Intercept published at least one article by John Walker Lind. He did. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who I know is a personal hero of yours. I mean, you know Peter Maas. Decut. We're out.

So Peter Marst is, you know, I mean, he's one of these guys, um, uh, trendy, trendy left, but, uh, doesn't always write honestly about the military. It's always very, you know, looking for an angle to attack us. Sure. Um, and so sure enough, when, when the first American, one of the first Americans gets killed out there, he wasn't with the Mozart group. He was a, he was a volunteer and he's missing which is usual there you know I mean the number of missing people

I mean it's such a maelstrom and and the effect the way that both sides are using artillery but particularly the Russians means that you have a lot of people who are just blown into smithereens and never found so that could have happened to him we didn't know he or there were rumors he'd been captured by the Russians it turns out that he had been and we think well he's dead but he was probably killed after being

captured by the Russians fell into their hands wounded but in any case he was missing and his a friend had called me who was friends with his parents to say hey can you Andy can you find out anything about what it happened so we were trying to find out you know we were with the legion And we did a lot of, you know, I mean, we knew those guys who worked with them for him out. So we, you know, we were talking to people who'd been with him, but he, you know, they'd, they'd, they'd, they had a plan to hit a T-72. They were, they were rumbled before they could take a shot and they got split up. And this guy, the others made it back, but this guy didn't. Anyway, Peter Maas called me and said, hey,

Andy, can you just verify that, you know, this guy got in other than honorable discharge from the Marine Corps? And can you tell me what that could be for, drugs or something like this? So he was digging up dirt on this guy before we could even find his body, before we could, you know, even have a chance to tell his parents. And, you know, I basically told Master fuck off. And then this is where I think what really triggered him. I sent out a tweet going, hey, Master. you know he was still looking for this guy by the way peter mars just you know

came up with this shit so if you see him published this fucking just ignore it you know it was a tweet basically like this ignore this stupid shit um you know everything that we're hearing this guy died in you know in brave brave circumstances we can forget why he left the marine corps surely until we find his body um but mars was evidently not happy about that because that tweet surprisingly picked up like 50,000 views. So a lot of people knew about

the intercept and Peter Mars and we're not happy, but next thing I know. So a number of things started happening. You probably remember. One was the Wagner group, Progoshin got involved and started threatening, personally threatening,

me, threatening us. And, you know, we were told that they had, and they did have teams out there. They were killing people behind the lines, you know, whether they were targeting us or not. I don't know, but it doesn't. But they were definitely targeting us with missiles to the extent that no less than four hotels, either we were staying in or had just left were hit by missiles on the same day. So, you know, the kind of the bullseye was getting narrower and now. the Russians were getting more and more loitering munitions

aloft, which are just terrifying things. But the point is, too, that loitering munitions, as you've seen, I mean, these FPVs, when they decide to get you, they will get you. Right. And so, and at very little cost. So until that point, you know, I've been able to make this calculus that, we can continue doing what we're doing

driving, you know, into barmode through artillery barrages and soft skin vehicles to take people out and it's risky but it's acceptable because we are not being targeted personally. There's no way, you know, and as soon as we see a drone, we're out of there. You know, any sense that

that we're allowing the enemy to identify us and target us. or that we have we've met their target priority list right in their engagement criteria when it started to become evident that that was happening I got I was getting increasingly concerned

you know and it was because there was no safety net there was no the ORM was off the charts I mean medical attention evacuation, all of that would have been on us. You know, the Ukrainian military was barely able to hold ground at the time. Right. Andy, I'm sorry. What's ORM mean?

Operational risk management. Thank you. It's this ridiculous process that the U.S. military, well, it's not ridiculous. I mean, but it's become a ridiculous process. The concept is absolutely valuable, all right? You got it to an assessment of risk before you do a mission, right? Sure. But of course, we break it down PowerPoint style. you know, into traffic lights and make it a worthless exercise.

But, but the point is, you know, you couldn't, we did have an ORM process, but it was, you know, it was marginal. It was like, yeah, we're not going to go in during an active air strike, but then we, but then we broke that rule once when we, you know, when we got a call from a family in a desperate need of being pulled out. So I realized it was an extraordinary feeling of responsibility far more so than anything I'd had in the military because in the military you've got all that infrastructure behind you. Yes, you're a commander and you may get people killed because of your decisions, but everything to that point in your career has prepared you for that.

And the whole system is there to support you, you know, in your decision making. But here, no, we were, you know, we were out hanging. and being responsible for this, responsible for bringing in funds. I was working really hard to bring in funds at the time. That was one of the hardest things about it. And I started to think, shit, I am working my ass on to get money in

so that we can risk our lives in a country that is not us. You know, these thoughts were starting to swell around in my mind at the time. you know in meantime you know we get two vehicles are destroyed by artillery i mean mine's artillery we get one of our guys fragged lightly but enough and you know in the arm and so all the things um yeah if i and then we get attacked by an su 25 and and get caught in a grad strike um um on the same day. And my hands are shaking so much by then I can't get, I can't open my hotel room in the evenings. You know what I mean?

It's not, it's like nothing. It's worse than Fallujah. You know, I mean, Fallujah was, you know, I had a, you had a weapon. You had your buddies behind you. You had, you know, even though it's frightening going building off the building and knowing their bad guys waiting for you. There was a processor system, there was support. If you got fracking, you were out of there. And most of all, this was the hardest thing. You know, in Flujia, there was a, it was all an institutional system that put people under me. It was supposed to happen,

I guess. For me, the Mozart group was something that evolved. It was tremendous, but it wasn't worth losing anyone at all. And when do you make that decision to pull the plug? I don't know. I mean, I didn't have to because Bloom and Fall and Andy Bain and Peter Marst made it for me. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

And by the way, yeah. So Andy Bain was sadly a former Marine, is a four Marine, reservist. He, he, he, when I say resour, I mean, that got me off and I heard attention. But, you know, basically has been sitting in Kiev since he was a captain working at the embassy, you know, and made colonel that way. He was doing things, let me just say this, he was doing things that we started, started to make us feel suspicious. And we got increasingly suspicious and we were worried about the money.

He was less than open about that. and it eventually you know you probably don't know me day but I don't I don't suffer fools badly I mean I don't suffer I suffer fools badly and I

I don't I'm not good at hiding things and so eventually I blew up at this guy I mean not physical you know just like dude he just get the fuck you know get away from us

we want blah blah blah I forget what the discussion he was about um he wanted us to buy him out for $5 million. This is like a terrible man we couldn't. He, you know, basically he's threatening. It's an NGO. It's a non-profit.

I know. And he wants, so he has this fantasy that he's going to lead it. He'll edge me out and he's going to lead it. He's pissed because I've insulted him and he's going to show me. And so he brings this lawsuit against me. and this was kind of the final straw. So once he brought the lawsuit, then of course, donors are not going to contribute. And we had three guys who had volunteered to help us, former Marines,

and they got so spooked by the lawsuit. They were our board. They handled all our funds. They became paralyzed with fear over this lawsuit. So we lost all access to our funds. And we came to an end. And not only that, but while all this was going on, a former Marine, God, it really pains me that these bad actors are former Marines, you know,

but they're both reservists. Okay, so they're not, it's not like the Royal Marines. I'm going to criticize for that. No, I'm just, I'm kidding. But anyway, so after, you know, the invasion of the year, Ukraine, enter this other Marine. He's working for an NGO or he's volunteer, but basically he just wants to get in on the action. You know, he's, you know how it is. They've all the fucking questers come in to prove themselves or pretend they're doing something when they really

aren't. And Kiev became a petri dish of these, not so much Kiev as Leviv, because Leviv was really safe. So it became Petri DeShodette. So there are these, you know, all these guys who do everything to look hard, but be hard. You know, I mean, they're not, they want to appear tough guys covered in tattoos and, you know, special forces, T-shirts and everything. And every night they get drunk. And, you know, I'm not kidding you. I saw Westerners carry a sniper, you know, I saw one guy carry a sniper rifle into a bar.

I mean, why the fuck? Right. Why would you do that? You know, drop holsters, the whole works. I mean, but they don't go near combat. They're handing out Libid. So one of these dudes is partying while we're up in Kiev. You know, they're all drinking.

And he, a girl alleges that he rapes her, all right? And she does. She goes to the police, both Ukraine and Poland. She's held by a journalist. And he's beaten her. You know, I mean, it's, it's. She's quite a young girl. She's fragile.

She's had, you know, some mental problems in the past. So it was just her bad luck. You know, she was a genuine volunteer. Her bad luck to run into this guy, Michael Ryan Burke. She was an American or she was? Yeah, she's an American. Okay. But the FBI has no jurisdiction because it was on Ukrainian soil.

So he allegedly rapes her, beats her. She, you know, she is taken across the border by friends and they go to, you know, report at the embassy and doctors. I get a call in Kiev. I'm a little distracted, but I get a call. No, not a call. It was a Marine. One of our guys says, hey, Andy, there's a, you know, he told me a story. There's a girl alleging that a former Marine raped her, blah, blah, blah, blah.

and the Ukrainian police wanted us to get the word out. And it was a guy who headed up Task Force Yankee down in Tel Aviv, good guy, former Chicago cop, who then contacted me and said, yeah, man, we think he may be running for Kiev. Can you keep your eye out? And I said, yeah, I can do more than that. I can write about this. You know, I'm a true journalist.

So I wrote an article about it, very, you know, carefully researched. Nothing in there that was sclerless at all. Just saying, you know, the Ukrainian police are after him, true. And this guy made an allegation of rape. True. Anyway, he escapes across the border, he pays a cab driver to dodge. You know, it's not difficult to dodge the checkpoints to get across into Poland back then. And makes it back to the States and sues me for $30 million.

Sues me and task on purpose. for $30 million. So this hits me when I get back from Ukraine. And by the way, I'm not in a good state by then. I mean, I'm, I mean, Dave, you know, I've had some personal tragedies I was dealing with anyway. And, you know, like all of us, I'm a little scrambled by experiences of deployments

we went through. And then Ukraine was a ballbuster for me. And it, because on the evacuation missions, That was the part that became really dangerous, evacuating civilians from the bombed out areas. You know, I did feel as though I should be on those missions since it was the worst thing that we were doing. But it did take a toll on me too. You know, I took a toll on my nerves. I mean, it's not.

And I didn't realize it because it's like the frog in the water, right? You know, you're drinking a little bit more, you're shaking more. You know, but you're locked in. You know, you can't, what are you going to do? You can't just not, you can't stop doing it. So bottom line is, I was in a bad stay and I come back and I'm facing this lawsuit, $30 million. And no, and I've got 20 days.

They come and serve me to summons. By the way, this will make your laugh too. Maybe not. So I'm getting death threats around then too. I don't know if you remember that, but I'm getting death threats from Russians, from Ukrainians. By the way, no Ukrainians who are in Ukraine. Ukrainians who have fled elsewhere in Europe are threatening me, threatening my life because I criticize Ukraine.

I figure that one out. When you're there in Ukraine. So what was the name of this guy who levied this lawsuit against you if you want to say his name? Michael Ryan Burke. Yeah, Dee, you know, I'll show you a picture. I'll show you a picture. And it will kind of tell you everything about him. But $30 million.

So. And Michael Ryan Burke lives in the United States. correct? He does, yeah, he lives in Missouri. But the FBI had no authority to arrest. They had no jurisdiction. Jurisdiction. Because it wasn't on a military base. See, I didn't realize this.

But unless there's some kind of, I suppose, you know, there's an agreement, like a super agreement, or it occurs on an area where the FBI has jurisdiction, like the U.S. embassy, you know, or a U.S. base or a ship or an aircraft. But because it was in Leviv, yeah, they had no jurisdiction. So he knew that. So Michael, and Michael Ryan Burke sued you for $30 million, you in tax the purpose for write in an article about an alleged rape. Exactly.

And so this story gets better, right? I mean, it gets worse and it gets better. So they serve me the summons in the middle of a night, 3 o'clock in the morning. So you can imagine, I'm getting all these death threats. And my door bell starts ringing off, you know, off the, just beer at three in the morning. And so what do I do? What do you think I do? You grab your gun?

You grab your gun? Yep. And I go down the side of the hall, you know, don't turn on the lights. And I look through, you know, the window. And it's clearly, it's a woman, you know, fat glasses and she's got papers in her hands. So I open it. Yeah. It was a, you know, summons.

And it gave me 20 days to reply. But no lawyer would take my case, Dave, because they're like, oh, man, you're screwed. I swear. I, you know, and so the clock was ticking. And if I can't find a lawyer, it's going to be a default judgment against me. Right. You know what I mean? $30 million.

I was like, fuck. So I am really sweating. And the last minute, I do get a lawyer. And, of course, he wants a retainer. And, you know, I do that. I have no money left after the Mozart group, by the way, because I've been paying the dudes for the last month when they, you know, pressure money. So I take out, you know, I take out a second mortgage basically for fees. And then my luck starts changing.

Turns out task and purpose has decided to defend the lawsuit too, right? And I'm partly covered by insurance, but it's a pathetic amount. You know, it's like it's based on 90s legal rates. But still, it's a moral boost for me that task and purpose is saying, hey, we believe that he researched this story. We're not going to pay this dude off. Now, the editor of Task and Purpose had taken the article down. And that was, I think, a mistake because that emboldened him.

He thought, oh, yeah, they're not certain about this. So now I'm going to bring the lawsuit. But when they started to research it, somewhere at that initial assessment, someone thankfully said, hey, I think Melbourne, you know, I think we, I think he did his research and I think we should defend this. No one asked me, it was strange. But anyway, I'm very grateful that they did.

And they fought the lawsuit. And you know what? Thank God, because they had enough money to go back to Poland, Ukraine, uncover all these records, photographs of her bruised, you know, doctors' descriptions of what, you know, happened. The embassy, the fact that the, she reported at the embassy, the embassy had tried, had contacted him and said, hey, the FBI liaison here needs to see you. He had ignored that and headed back to state. So, you know, he had been a bad actor at every turn. And if he wasn't guilty of rape, he sure as hell acted as though he was guilty of rape. And someone beat that girl

up and put her in hospital, you know. And so all this started happening. I started feeling, thank God. But it still, you know, and it took a year, but it was dismissed. It took a year because the ambulance chasing lawyer had a stroke and collapsed and can only blink his eyes. So they brought in another ambulance chaser. But, you know, all that caused delay. And delay is expensive for me.

And delay is not good for your nerves when you're facing $30 million, $30 million. Right. That would have finished me. Of course. I declared bankruptcy. My kids, you know, a college fund, the house, everything gone, everything. I was facing ruin. And then at the same time, there was kind of a backlash of, you know, you remember that, the team house. It had the fact that I was, I was appear drunk. But I think, I think it's fair to say I wasn't drunk. I was absolutely jet lagged. I'd been at 30. six hours without sleep. You remember that? I turned out. You know, you guys. And in fact, that discussion was, you know, we, if you go back, we, we weren't downing the whiskeys at that point. No. I was, I was exhausted and I was angry. But unfortunately, it was given the moniker of, you know, drunken mercenary, you know, tells the truth about Ukraine and as though it was

right. Right. Right. And it was, it was very selective sound. bias. Like, yes, you are telling one truth. But again, it's not a binary world that Ukraine is doing, everybody, all the soldiers in Ukraine are doing all these things. And Russia,

and Russians are just being saints. It's like, you have two very contentious forces going against each other. It's very personal. People are fighting for their homes and do people sometimes step out of line and it need to be like put in

1% yes they do like even in the even in the US where we have a professionalized military and we are taught the laws of land warfare and you know and and whatnot we still run into these issues

yeah that's right so you can imagine guys off the streets fighting with their families behind them right can you imagine it literally your kids and families behind you your calculus your calculus for your own survival changes. And it is true, probably your, you know, your sympathy for the enemy. You lose

all of it because those guys, you were the only thing between those guys and your family. Right. We've never been in that position. And it was an existential threat, unlike, you know, say Hamas to Israel. I mean, Russia was invading Ukraine. So yeah, all of those things. But, But, yeah, so Michael, Michael Ryan Burke, turns out he's a reservist. He's staff sergeant or something. I think he even made Sergeant Major. I don't know. But he's, he kind of drifts around from, you know, job to job and makes a big deal, like a lot of these reservists.

I have, you know, I've done super secret stuff and I have this, Clarence and that. his testimony is their position was, you know, it's unusual, just like... Well, it's interesting, even if the FBI didn't have... Rambling. Even if the FBI didn't have jurisdiction, didn't, like, NIS or somebody have jurisdiction? No, no, because he's not... He's not even... I mean, he's not an active reservist.

He wasn't wearing uniform. He was, you know... I see. Yeah, no one absolutely... It is what it is. You know what I mean, in the end, at the end of the day, I don't waste time with anger. I really don't.

This dude is going to have, this dude isn't a far worse state than me. You know, this guy, this guy now, all of your audience, hopefully it'll be a larger audience, knows that Michael Ryan Burke was not only accused of rape, but accused of rape where it appears to be quite a bit of evidence to support that accusation. To the point where his lawsuit against you was dropped.

dismissed. It was dismissed. Yeah, on all counts. Yes. And so, you know, he's got to live with that. Right. Can you imagine? I mean, he's a rapist, alleged rapist.

Right. And everyone's going to hate that guy. So I don't want to be him for a moment. And I don't want to, you know, even think about him. I'm sorry. What was his name again? Michael, Michael Ryan Burke. And that's like B-U-R-K-E.

B-U-R-K-E. Yeah. I just want to make sure, you know. Yeah. He pretends to be religious, but, but if, you know, anyway, enough, enough. So, so. But the point is that a rapist and a, can do this, you know,

bring a lawsuit, cost me a fortune, and then walk away. And it doesn't cost him a buck because, you know, lawyers, these guys are doing it, pro bono. Dick Costa's lawyer, his health, you know, and I can't feel sorry about that. It was

my 30 million bucks. It was my whole future. I can't feel sorry that his lawyer collapsed with a stroke. And, you know, it's the explaining why I should be having it into the ground. Maybe it's a little bit of God's punishment, you know. But yeah, I don't waste.

I mean, I don't, like, Mars and Lumenthol, I mean, these people are you know, they're flotsam and jets, they're not, you know, they're not substantive people. Right. Right. Right. Moss isn't even a good writer. And that's his job.

Yeah. I'll write better than him. Well, and you had mentioned that this, this Burke guy had, um, he'd even claim that you had gone so far as to try to take out a hit on him and he had, yeah, yeah. So that was, so, so, so when the defamation,

suit started going south. His law, you know, when they, when they dug up the police reports, his lawyer took a new tactic and said, look, my, my client's called PTSD because Melbourne's, this is quote, Norman's reputation that, you know, he used his resources. I'd get what it was. Intelligence, special forces, blah, blah, blah.

He's proven to be ruthless. And no problem with killing people before. I said, what? Only when my country told me to do so. And, you know, right? Right. But anyway, so he started down this part And unbelievably, his lawyer, you know, threw that out as a serious claim that he was affected.

You know, they dug up his medical reports and, oh, my God, blah, blah, blah. So I was able to prove that at the time, I mean, I was able to show from a letter, you know, from the State Department that we never carried weapons, that we were not a mercenary group. and had been, in fact, classified as a whatever, 501C3, you know, which is a charity. So unlikely that a group of charitable volunteers were hunting this guy down to kill him. Right. But that was his claim. Anyway.

Right. But the point is, Dave, that this put, I mean, I would rather have faced death again almost than, I mean, then go through that fear of losing my family's livelihood. Right. You know, because in the end, that's kind of what we, when we leave, I mean, we want that to be our legacy, right? That our family is better off than we were, they're okay. And if we don't do that, it kind of makes our lives a failure.

Yeah. It's a bit harsh, but that's where I was feeling. And it was really, I was in free fall. And the other thing I've noticed is you really find out your, when you've got two lawsuits against you, because Baines was dismissed too, by the way. Bain, by the way, is very lucky we didn't bring a lawsuit against him. I mean, we have people lining up who want to bring a lawsuit against Bain to include, and not just for financial stuff, but weird sex stuff too.

But that's another, you know, I leave that all aside. I'm not interested in pursuing anything. anyone I want to get on with my life. And it has changed me. It's changed me. I think for the better, I'm going to make it for the better. Well, I mean, everything else. Yeah.

I mean, you know, we, we've been, I mean, you were on early on the team house. Like, you've been here for a long time. And we love seeing your journey. You know, we've talked, your book, uh, when the tempest gathers, your biography. I have spoken a great length of how much I truly loved your book. And if anybody has not read it, I think it is a phenomenal book about an officer during wartime and the questions one asked themselves about, am I a good leader, am I a bad leader,

am I making the right calls? Because I think those are things that anybody who has been in a leadership position in war time. You know, it's easy to tell the no shit there I was, number one man in the door stories. Because when it's just you, if you're alive to talk about it, then you made the right decision that day, right?

When you're an officer or a senior enlisted, and you are making those calls for other people, that you are deciding whether or not somebody goes home. And again, you can go from zero to hero or hero to zero in one decision. And sometimes those decisions seem obvious to people when they Monday morning quarterback. And sometimes it's a decision you make on the fly, go left, go right, go straight, but you got to go somewhere. and there's no way to know what the right decision is. And your book really,

along with your own biography in the book, the personal tragedies that you faced outside of the military, it is a very introspective, very in-depth, and very, like, human look into the military, and into leadership that it's very hard to find in modern war literature, I think. That's really, I mean,

it's tremendously kind of you to say that, Dave, and I appreciate it. Really, from the, you know, the first time I came on this podcast, which was five years ago, by the way, and I remember you guys were very supportive of the book. It was, by the way, it just won the,

it's called the Eugene Sledge. It's the Marine Corps Heritage Association Award for Best Biography in the last three years because they counted the paperback version which just came out. Yeah, I mean, you know, as a Marine, number one, there's kind of a mental obstacle

before you even think about writing about your experience. experiences, right? You know, I mean, there's, it's something about our ethos in the Marine Corps. It is very different. I'm not derogating other services. It's just, you know, it really does, the belief that you subsume yourself to the whole, the Marine Corps, right? And so remember when Marsok, when those first discussion about Maasok starting, or when Debt won, and, no, hold it, wasn't, yeah, it was Debt One. Because, Rumsfeld was, so do you remember Rumsfeld, I apparently had a discussion with

Commandant of the Marine Corps back then. I'm trying to remember who it was. Conway, I think, no, not going, you know, it wasn't Colway. It was, um, maybe Jones. It doesn't matter. But, but, um, but in, but in that discussion, um, you know, he was talking about, sorry, totally, totally lost my, shoot or four. Where will we, Dave? Well, you know, you were talking about, you're talking about the formation of debt one or Marsaq. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm sorry. Yeah, but so Rumsfeld told the commandant, or the commandant said, hey, we don't, we're Marines, we don't do, we don't do selection, right? You know, we're all Marines, so, I mean, we're all elite. And, and Rumsfeld said, no,

you need to do selection. But my point is, that's kind of the feeling that we have is, you know, hey, you're Marine, that's all you need, right? You don't even write a book. But as you commented, I've been through, you know, I'd lost my daughter. And I just come back from a particularly rough deployment. And the fact that that deployment was rough had nothing to do with the Islamic State. It had everything to do with the U.S. Army conventional chain of command. And I was, yeah, I was in a state of angst. I'd complementalized this tragedy during my deployment.

now I was confronted with it and writing was the one escape I could find and I sat down and wrote for two to three hours every morning and afterwards I always felt better. You know, even when I was going to work, I would get up early and write for an hour and then at the end of the day.

And just getting in that routine, I really think helped me. You know, you very wisely talked about counseling at the beginning of this. When I was on active duty, I never went to counseling. But that was my former counseling was writing. It was cathartic. But to your point, yeah, you know,

having made a decision to write about a book, you've got to be honest. And that is the hardest part. Right. You know, the first couple of drafts, you know, I showed it to friends and a good friend of mine, Worth Parker, said, hey, look, do you want this to be just kind of a, hey, really cool leadership, you know, narrative and story? Or do you want to, do you want people to know what it's really like, really like to lead in a shitty place like karma, you know, when your orders are not always very clear, then, you know, your brigade headquarters is, is like 80 miles away and you're

getting hit every day. And by the way, you're being told to turn over to the Iraqis in six months and you're out of there. You know, I mean, these are not, these are not lessons that you can answer from the book, right? And that is where you own your commission in places like that. And one of the things is even though you did grow up to join the Marine, the American Marine Corps, you grew up with, you know, as a Brit with what we would think of a classical education. so, you know, so yes, you eventually joined the crayon-eating brigade, but but there, but there's an eloquence and and a love of words behind your writing

that really expresses a lot of that. Well, you know, I think, so my parents, God bless them. I mean, my parents who were products of the Second World War, they met from the Second World. my father's British and it was met my mother while he was on Liberty in New York, you know, as a reversal to the many GIs who were coming over and married U.S. women. But, I mean, British women. But my point is they really, really wanted me to have a head start in British society. And so they sent me to a very, very exclusive school.

I was expelled from that school. spent a year in the Philippines but but then was accepted back to another school and was feeling bad enough by this time for having disappointed my parents

so I wanted to do well and so I you know I so my point is I had a tremendous education I went through the British schooling system university law school and then enlisted as a private

in the wrinkle you remember boot camp right how, how, just how, childish boot camp is, right? But it does, the Marine Corps... I mean, how old were you when you went through boot camp? I was 19. Okay, so you were pretty much a kid anyway.

Yeah, but it does an amazing, Marine Corps boot camp compared to any other, I can't speak to Air Force boot camp, but I can speak to Army and Navy. But Marine Corps boot camp does... They don't call it boot camp in the Air Force. It's just camp. No, it's same, I mean, it's basic training in the Army.

or yeah. But Marine Corps boot camp does something that the other services don't do as well, which is create Marines. Like it breaks you down to the point of when your drill instructor is walking you across the parade grounds to your graduation on that final day. And he says, you're going to go in there. And some officer that doesn't know you is going to be the, says that he's proud to be the first to call you.

United States Marines, you know, that's bullshit. He goes, I'm the one. And this is a guy who's been calling you, you know. Magid. Magid. Shithead. Dirtbag and all this. You know, the entire, like the Marine Corps does that in such, I think, an effective way

to create that, you know, sort of that camaraderie, that espried a corps. You know, they have that down to a science. And yeah, you know, I mean, I was young. I wasn't as young as, as, as. you know, I had a year out in the world, which isn't a lot, but, but it's hard to even remove yourself from that when, you know, when, when it's done so effectively. Yeah, it's, I mean, it is basically, um, a boot camp relies on same indoctrination techniques as the, you know, Chinese and the Korean War with prisoners. In fact, it was

comments by prisoners of the Chinese that, you know, their dream reminded them a little bit of boot camp. By that, I mean, you know, the constant chanting, the repetition. I mean, it's all indoctrination. Yeah. But if you are a little bit older, as I was 24, and you've had some experiences, then that part of it becomes quite tiresome, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, even worse than being dogged on the quarter deck because I had, you know, I had no problem with physical fitness. I had no problem with being away from home. But I found, you know, I found a constant just childish games mentally wearing. Yeah.

You know, it was such relief, isn't it, to get to the rifle range. Yeah, right. And now you've got something, it's you and the rifle. You know, and the way the Marine Corps does that is, is so beautifully designed. You know, they, as you point out, you're broken down in first phase. And when you get to the rifle range, you are in listen mode. And all the punks who thought they were great shots, you know, and I went hunting with daddy, turns out that they invariably are not the best at handling weapons.

And so a lot of these kids who, you know, maybe grew up. in inner cities or even you know women who never fight a weapon in their lives turn out to be expert shots and it's the first thing that they've achieved at boot camp well i mean that's you know yeah that's one thing you do at boot camp that you don't do anywhere else is is like how long was the snapping in was it a week or two weeks just just the dry it's a week yeah yeah just nothing but snapping in yeah but then that first shot down the range i mean first shot it was a four but at least i knew it was me that, you know, I was astounded. And, you know, at 200 meters.

Because even, you know, later 200 meters seems like not a great distance. But when you are first time shooting, that's a small roundall. And then when you go back to the 300. And D.S. what snapping in was. And so one of the things, you know. And that was without sights. I mean, we didn't remember. That was now, now they all, I don't know why.

Why did they qualify with sites? there was something about learning to shoot with an iron science back at 500 meters where you can barely see that front tip you know and you know just to lay it against the man-shaped target and when it does so it just covers up that black completely you know that that feeling that memory it saves with you for life and it teaches you you don't have to be taught about marksmanship again yeah right after going through that no no no no and so d asked what snapping in was and for people who

who hadn't been Marines because they don't do this. I don't remember them doing in the Army. I don't think they did. But you spend like a week of basically dry firing where you learn the sling, the sling positions for each, you know, how to create that tension with the sling in, what was it? The standing, the kneeling, the sitting, and the prone. Yeah.

And you spend a week doing nothing but dry firing. barrels, which, believe it or not, is a huge advantage when you actually go to start shooting. To put that in context, right? So you can imagine San Diego or Paras Island and you are outside six, seven hours, and all you're doing with your weapon and you've got it, you've got a tight loop sling, right, on your, on your upper arm. and you are just practicing by the numbers, dry firing your weapon. It is the most incredibly boring, painful thing. But, yeah, I mean, the Marine Corps knows how to teach how to shoot.

When you think about it, Dave, 20,000 recruits go through basic training every year. 98% qualification rate. Now, I don't know how they're doing this, but 60% expert. it? I mean, it's really, you know, of course, they're shooting with scopes. That's why I think is, you know, that kind of skews the statistics a little bit. You want, you, us purists want to go back to the basis because you can always teach someone to shoot with a scope. Sure. But you can't go back and teach someone to shoot with iron sights. Yeah. Or rather you have to, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true that, you know, learning side alignment, side picture, things like that

are an important part of that process. But maybe they think that, you know, you have a scope. You'll always have a scope, you know, an ACOG or a neotech or whatever it is you. Yeah. I don't know. But doesn't it bother you a little bit? It does, but I also try not to be like the grumpy old man. It's like, well, back in my day.

I know. You know what? Yeah, like the guy who gets all upset because the Sikhs are allowed to wear, you know, turbans. While in uniform. Or it's like, you know, when I was a diver, it's like, you know, it's like, well, if you didn't do a walk in a Mark 5, you know, you know, with the big rig, then you don't know how to dive.

It's like, well, nobody uses Mark 5 anymore. You know, it's just, it was a right of passage. Yeah, but people have to keep dragging it up with T10, right? I mean, I do, though, think that, again, I think that learning how to shoot with Iron Sites first is an important fundamental and foundation. again, I try not to get so caught up in the, well, they're not doing it right. I mean, it's the Marine Corps. They know how to teach them.

Listen, I think Bucan, I think Marine Corps does basic training much better now than when I went through. I mean, you know, I get it. I mean, this was back in the 80s. And so, you know, I mean, you went through Paras Island, right? I know. I went through Sandock, 89. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry.

But, you know, back in the, even back in the 80s, which isn't that long ago, Third Battalion was off the charts as far as, you know, just breaking the SOP. It was, it was standard. And I am not, you know, I'm not, et cetera. I was, you know, I was beaten hard enough that I threw up, you know, by, by a drill instructor who was on the rank called boxing team, so he knew how to hit. Sadly, you know, I have bear him no ill feeling.

He was a, I still remember it, and sadly he called himself just a few years ago. But my point is that that was kind of the norm. You know, I've got a scar here from having my head ground into, or just my forehead ground into the side of my rack for not doing. hospital corner correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Do these things make us better?

No, I doubt it. You know, that's the thing. I think that a lot more attention is spent now on actually teaching people things. Right. Infantry skills and things they need to know. Yeah. You know, we've talked about your time in the Marine Corps and after a lot.

One story that I think we touched upon one time but really didn't go into detail was Libya. and your ex-fill from Libya. Can you lay this out? Give us the before. Yeah, yeah. The before. Absolutely. Yeah.

So the year is 2011, right? It's the Arab Spring. And I'm at Soxent, special operations. No, I'm not. I'm at Sok, you are Special Operations Command Europe. I was at Soxent later. And I am. You know, I'm a lieutenant colonel.

action officer in the J3, but at Sox, Socua back then, as, you know, in a lot of T-Sox, special operations, commands, you have a team that is always on standby, right? In case something happens within the AOLR, they want to be able to say, hey, we've got a team down there and soft guys with communicators, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, typically it's a field grade officer, a communications guy and two or three other guys. And if they're kind of the nucleus, if the TSOC then needs to send in, you know, a headquarters or a GTF. Or they're expected just to represent the DECC by themselves. So anyway, Libya.

Libya is going to shit. It's getting bombed. Gaddafi is – Gaddafi's forces are hold up in Tripoli, and rebel forces are closing in on the capital. The capital is getting hit by artillery. 20,000 Sudanese workers are trying to get out through Tripoli Airport. It is chaos. Militia are beating them back. And the European Union mounts a neo, basically, European Union.

And what's a Neo? No, no, no, no, no. Let me get that straight. Actually, there's a British, the British really, really, headed it and they commanded it with a headquarters from PJHQ, they sent it out to Malta. And then it tend, and then European, it was kind of European Union nations that formed the nucleus around that. So it wasn't a new EU operation. It was a British operation with the kind of a loose affiliation of European nations supporting it.

And can you tell us what a Neo is, Andy? Yeah, it's a non, non-combatant evacuation operation. So within Tripoli itself, there were tens of thousands of foreigners who needed to get out. And the city was, you know, extremely dangerous. The U.S. Embassy had already left. They wasted no time. They got down to Malta and then realized that there were a lot of U.S. citizens left behind. I mean, like thousands, you know, a lot of living in Americans. And so a task force was set up in D.C., connecting these people.

who are still left in Tripoli with the State Department who were saying, hey, sorry, you know, but if you head to the airport, you'd be able to find your way out. Well, Sok Yur, headed by General Repess at the time, is buying with SOC AF, right? Remember, Special Operations Command, Africa had just started under a guy named General Haas. General Repass, General Haas, they're both Green Berets, but they hate each other. And so they, they, don't coordinate. You know, I mean, it's, you've seen this, Dave, right? It's just kind of unprofessional behavior, right? You know, I mean, crisis, and you've got two headquarters that are competing instead of collaborating. And you, you want the other

guy to drop the ball so that he looks like that's right. Yeah. So, you know, Libya is in Africa, right? But Malta, where the operation is, is in Europe. So you can see this clear. There's, there's a volume and repass was, hey, this is our ballgame. And you can't supported that. In Ucom, Deputy Commander, send me down there and, you know, with instructions, hey, this is, you know, this is Ucom's game pretty much. So at least we have, we obviously have stake in it. So, you know, keep us informed. Well, I get there and the Brits turned to us right away because we're Americans, right? We must come with all the resources, but it's just me and a radio operator because the other dude missed this flight.

But what we do have is we've got a long list of people that we want evacuated because we're in contact now with the State Department in D.C. And they're like, hey, can you get these people out? And so we've got all these European countries offering their aircraft or, you know, the military aircraft, fly into Tripoli. And we're trying to get Americans on those aircraft, right? So it's kind of a reversal of the roles. It's not the U.S. as backbone. We are, you know, we're kind of party crashes and we're trying to get, I mean, but, but, you know, everyone's supportive. Everyone wants to get all the foreigners out of that.

But every country's probably going to give their own citizens priority. And that becomes an issue because we, we, we, I'm on the phone. We get one other person out to help us who is from Sarkath, right? Female turns out to membrane. And she's very useful too. she's manning the phone with the State Department. And so they're giving us names and numbers. We're contacting those people in Tripoli

and giving them directions to the airport in Tripoli. And then we're working with the guys, you know, around us to make sure that, you know, the flights going in know that they're picking up these Americans, all right? It gets incredibly complicated because no foreigners can make it through to the tarmac because of all the, you know, Gaddafi's goons. So we need to start sending guys in diplomats to help escort people out to the planes. Otherwise, they're just not going to get out. And things are really turning to shit now.

You know, you're getting artillery land around the airport. Gaddafi's guys are getting increasingly belligerent and aggressive and desperation level among those, you know, people trapped in the building, and the airport building is also rising. And you've got these things. 20,000 Sudanese still surrounding the whole area, just ramping up the tension. And they're starting to, you know, get froggy and fight with the militia. Into this, into all of this comes an American family, right?

And I get a call. They've got, you know, two kids, blah, blah, blah. And I'm talking them in to the airport and at the same time trying to get them a flight. And there's, you know, there's a Bulgarian plane that is supposed to, you know, pick them up. But something happens. They're forced to leave. And so this family's stranded. Well, we've got an Italian flight coming in.

But the problem is now that there are no diplomats volunteering to help escrow people out because it is becoming really hazardous. So the Brits said, hey, we'll put some of our guys in, you know, we'll give them British embassy. vest, military guys, but we could use an American, right, because these are Americans. So I said, okay, I, you know, I'll go, but I'm not, I can't wear an American vest. I'm not coming out. So, you know, give me a British one. So I did. So I went in with the British embassy, you know, vest and everything. And it looked legit. By some, this is where it started to turn weird. So we landed. And it's exactly as, you know, it's exactly. expected, you know, it's like madknacks. I mean, there's these dudes tearing around the

tarmac and, in, uh, technicals. Yeah. With, uh, you know, flags yelling, um, weird shit. And, you know, obviously hostile towards us, but, but keeping, but aware that, you know, we are protected to some extent. Um, but then as we, you know, I, I, I started walking towards the tarmac, the, uh, I mean, towards the airport buildings, these two other Brits. And these Gaddafi militia guys intercept us. And they, they start talking to the other two. The other two have, they do have legitimate ID cards, right?

Obviously, I don't. So they get, so they let them go on. And they're like, wait do you have an idea. I said, look, I don't know. I'd left back there. So you're British, blah, blah, blah. And they started, one of them had lived in London. Of course, there's loads, you know, Libyans and London.

and no kidding. He started asking me where I had lived, blah, blah, blah. Unfortunately, I mean, I have lived in London, but clearly he knew it very well. And he knew really spookly, he knew kind of the area where I had been. But I seemed to pass that test because he was like, yeah, yeah, okay, good to go. He asked me what football team I support or whatever.

And we, you know, fist bumped. And I walked on to the building. and there's a Bulgarian diplomat there and I said, hey, do you know where the Americans are? There's an American family I'm looking for because I was really worried, but that was a big mistake because I said it out loud, obviously,

and it was overheard, I think, because I think that's why as we walked back, so the American family was there and we got them out, the Bulgarian led them out to the plane, and I was following, and the same, the same Gaddafi dudes come back, and they, they stop right in front of me, and they just said, get in the Jeep. You know, they've changed. Their Affleck has changed.

They'd get in the Jeep. I went, why? You know, I'm paid a smoker to go back with these guys, and, like, you're not. You're an American. And I went, no, no, no, we've already talked about this. And now I'm edging towards the plane, because my heart's just hammering. And one of them makes a grab at me, and I just, I run. And, you know, everything, I knew they wouldn't start, I didn't know.

I didn't think they were going to start shooting because the plane was there. And, you know, so I run up the tailgate. There's Italians, it's an Italian plane. The Bulgarian one had left yet. There's Italian plane. There's Italian soldiers on the tailgate. There's about four or five soft guys. And I just run past them.

And they've got weapons. but there's there's no way they're going to get you know hundreds of and I but I just say you know I say hey quickly they they're off to me I'm just going to hang out here for a bit well they you know I get on the plane they don't come on the plane and I figured because it's Italian and remember Libya has a strange relationship with the Italians it's kind of love hate but it's very close at this time and Gaddafi in particular is hoping to have an escape floor as well as well as we're with the Italians. So I think that's why they didn't storm the plane or, you know, drag me off. But we're waiting there and they surround the plane. You know, these other, they call in,

you know, other vehicles and it's getting dark and they put on their lights and they're just like yelling and come on out and some of it in English, we're going to get you, motherfucker. And I'm just sitting there, I'm feeling, first of all, I'm feeling like a coward a little bit because I'm among women and children, I've run onto a plane, but, but, you know, I've no regrets. I mean, that self-preservation, I had to do that. Otherwise, I would have disappeared forever, you know. And I knew that they might hold up the plane, but I knew they weren't going to execute, you know, or do anything to the people on the plane. But I knew, too, it was my only chance out of that, that if I left that plane, I was done for, you know, it wasn't like I would show up again somewhere,

right? Yeah, yeah. But it was getting, you know, I was thinking, what, going to happen are they going to let it take off you know it's just awful uh feeling and the pilot came back and uh and sat down i thought shit he's going to keep me off his plane but i'll just refuse and uh you know i explained what's going on he said um to my great relief he said well don't get off the plane you know this is italian this italian soil they're not going to come on we'll wait it out they they got to let us go sooner later i'm like i'm like Okay, I hope you're right. But they're ramping up and the noise outside.

It doesn't sound, you know, too good. And it sounds, frankly, as though they're going to storm the plane. And why wouldn't they? You know, I mean, there's no, there's no government left. I mean, there's no repercussions that they just come on and grab me. And I think they're starting to think through this because they're getting nearer. And then the pilot comes back and he says, hey, I've got authorization to, you know, I reported this, I had to report out my chain of command because I can't,

make it back to Malta now on time. I've got to go back to Rome. I've been told to pay, you know, to let us take off. He goes, I got to, you know, water cash here. He had a whole bag. Clearly, they anticipated some kind of issue. And he walked off, you know, he's escorted by the militia dudes into the office. And he goes off with one of the soldiers, one of the, you know, the Italian soldiers. And he's gone for an eternity. And he comes back eventually and he says, okay, we're in the clear. We let's get off.

Let's take off. And it goes to front and we, you know, we start to, he starts to wind up the engines and everything. We start to move. And then these bastards come out and block the plane again. And clearly they've decided whatever the fuck happened back there, it doesn't apply to then. Right.

And there was some other argument that going on up front with the pilot yelling out the window. And some reason the jeeps pulled aside and we took off. And someone, you know, one of the crew members next to me, the loadmaster, you know, because I was just like, oh, thank God. And the loadmaster said, hey, man, you know, Italian, he didn't say, man. He said, hey, there is still, there's an 88th threat. We've got word that we are. That shots were taken earlier.

And I forget what the system was. At, you know, the Bulgarian plane is it was taken up. So we're concerned about this. I'd think, fuck, I wish you hadn't told me that. But nevertheless, you know, I mean, when we get the word, we're outside Libyan airspace, I just, I've never felt relief like that. You know, I mean, I was, I thought my career was over, but I didn't care. Yeah.

Because, you know, I was under orders. All of us were under orders. No Americans would go into Libya. And I wouldn't have, except, you know, I mean, this was one of those situations. What are you going to do? What's anyone going to do? I mean, leave the family there. I mean, it's, you know, it wasn't a decision.

So that's my question is that there were a lot of Americans in Libya, both living Americans and, like, American nationals. you know, like straight up American national. Not that Libyan Americans aren't but you know what I mean. But, but... You know, they can't blend in. That's really... But we have the 173rd in Vicenza

that is, that is really, you know, they are supposed to be a... 100%. You know, a... I don't want to say a special operations unit, but they're, but they're supposed to be right there at the peak of that to be able to respond to those threats quickly.

You have Fifth Corps, I think, in Germany, you have 10th special forces, you have third special forces. Why, if there's a way to do this without being political, why in a non-combatant evacuation scenario like that, when the embassy has already D.D. Mowed, why is our government leaving all these Americans to- Yeah, it's an absurd, it seems like an absurd decision. Dave, you know, when you think about all the things that we've taken risk for in our lives, and most of those, most of those risks involved, I don't know, taking an objective, doing X, but tactical tasks, not saving American lives, right?

Right. Right. And so there is no, I find it extremely frustrating that then I'm in this situation where we really could have used dudes with weapons doing what we are trained to do, secure the area, you know, established the evacuation, uh, uh, assembly points and all of this, that, but we didn't. Um, and I think we looked, I, you know, I, I felt embarrassed at times being an American there because we were, we were begging of, uh, of others, you know, um, to, to carry our load, basically. Yeah, yeah. I'm not embarrassed to be an American, you know. I, I know, I know, I You know what you mean, though. That it's sort of like they're going into these situations.

How come we aren't? Yeah. We wanted something out of it. We needed something out of it, but we weren't prepared to roger up resources. Right. Except for me. And I'm sorry. And we're talking here specifically.

We're not talking about some, you know, random U.S. objective. We're talking about saving actual American lives of pulling them out of out of these perilous situations. Yeah, there's really, there can be very few less ambiguous missions than a Neo. Right. But you know, so it didn't end my career. I ended my career eventually,

but it could well have. And thanks to Repass and a few other people, Well, thanks to the ambassador, actually, because what happened, you know, the plane landed in Rome, right? I'm supposed to be back in Malta. I'm supposed to be reporting the defense attache every evening, giving her an update, but I'm not. I'm now in Rome and it's midnight. And worse than that, news has already got out. There was an American on the ground in Tripoli.

But something happened in my favor. that was almost inconsequential. And that was earlier in the day when a Bulgarian, I'm sorry, earlier, yeah, early in the day, as I was walking, when I first got off the aircraft, before the Bulgarian aircraft got off, there was an argument going on over there. And I walked over, and it was a group of five or six people

dressed in traditional African dress, trying to get on the plane. and the Bulgarians were saying, hey, no, you know, you're not blah, blah, blah, blah. But I spoke to the, you know, kind of one of these guys. And apparently it was the ambassador to Sierra Leone and his diplomatic party.

And the Bulgarians didn't speak very good English so they didn't understand. So I explained it anyway. This happened in, I don't know, 30, 45 seconds and they let them on the plane. And that's when I went on. Well, this guy, God bless him. You know, he gets back to Malta.

and the first thing he does, he calls the U.S. ambassador, who he knows, and he says, thank you so much for sending that guy out there to, you know, he was a lifesaver, he got us out of there. We probably wouldn't have got out there. So an American, are you sure? And so the ambassador calls in the defense attach and says, do we have, tell me we don't have an American on the ground in Tripoli. and the defense attach who's still a friend said sorry no we don't we don't Andy Mormon is at the at the Neo Center we don't have anyone in Malta

yeah but then she walked out and she thought hmm she thought about it that evening the next morning she drew out in the Neo Center and asked where I was at that moment I'm not lying. I walked in the other door. I just caught an early flight from Rome, landed in Malta. I looked like dog shit. You know, it was one shaven and filthy. And I walk in the other side of the door and she goes,

she's just silent and beckons. And she goes, okay, don't even tell me a story. Just tell me the truth. And she goes, were you in Tripoli? And I went, yeah. And she goes, are you out of your mind? You know, you're going to be lucky to get away with articles. whole 15, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, the whole. And she goes back to the embassy and goes

into the ambassador and says, I'm so sorry, sir, you know, I was wrong. We did have an American on the ground. To his credit, he doesn't lose his mind. He says, is he okay? And Jane goes, yeah, he's back here. And he goes, well, good. Thank him. That's all I need to know. And that was it. And then much later, I got a, I mean, about a week later, when I was on the way to the airport, I got a call from the embassy saying, hey, I'm just wondering if you have time available now because the ambassador would love to meet you. I'm like, how often does an ambassador do that? Oh, I've just got an empty time. I'm like, oh, yeah, I want to see that do something. I'm like, shit. I said, am I in trouble? And, you know, his, his, like, he said, no, no, no,

he just wants to thank you. And I want, you can thank him. You can thank him. And, you know, I would appreciate it. So that guy who's nameless is a hero to me. And General Repass is too, because, of course, he had heard about it when I got back. But it went no further. When, you know, Ucom, I believe the UConn deputy commander knew and repass knew. But it, yeah. So when you were deployed from Sokir, you were sent to Malta,

which is where you were supposed to park your ass. and coordinate and and receive any Americans but there was nobody on the ground in Tripoli 100% and that was the missing piece yeah so what we were doing

to begin with Dave is we were using the Irish and Swedes and the Brits so they had diplomats in the building and it but then the Swedes you know the Swedes said it was to dangerous for them and then we were counting on the Irish to help the you know the Americans on this one flight but

like two hours before they got the word that they they weren't allowed to go back into Tripoli either it was just becoming too too dangerous and and so you know it's two Brits and they had to deal with a ton of other civilians there wasn't anyone who would spend the time locating these Americans. You know, as it happened, I didn't really need to locate them. You know, as it happened, they probably would have been okay. I've got to be honest about this.

But I didn't know that. Sure. You know, I didn't know that. And I've been talking, I've been the one talking to them. I've been the one assuring them, you know. And so when that touch point of, hey, this Irish diplomat's going to meet you here, his name's here, when that guy disappears, you know, I'm in a lot of, Unless it's me, I don't have trust in the process that they're going to come out.

So many bad things are happening at that time. And why, I mean, why did the Europeans, I know you mentioned the relationship between Libya and particularly Gaddafi and Italy. But why did Bulgaria, why did these other European countries? Yeah, it's good question. I was going to ask if it was because, because for a while we led Gaddafi on, right? The United States, we're like, hey, if you get this stuff squared away, you're okay.

And Gaddafi went out of his way to get squared away and felt, I think he felt like the U.S. that he was in okay with the U.S. He had done, he had complied to everything that we had asked him to do. And then we basically said, okay, you know, good job. screw you, we're out. Yeah. And so was there, was there like a bit of contention then with, with United States military and diplomats?

None at all. Nothing but the most professional. And, you know, there's just a great group of guys, Dave. There's guys like you and me. I mean, that's what made this operation fun because it was all military dudes, different countries making shit happen without a plan, without a formal structure. It was literally, hey, I've got a plane coming in, you know, the Irish guy, this actually happened. Hey, we've got the prime minister's plane. He's given it to us for this evacuation mission.

We're flying it in just outside Tripoli and we'll pick up this French family, you know, who's driven out there in a car and fly back. And this is like in a Cessna, you know. I mean, people are using all kinds of aircraft to just to get civilians out. And the fact that no one was saying, well, we can't do that or blah, blah, it was, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what nationality building. What I meant, though, or what I was asking, Andy, was, you know, obviously Bulgaria, Ireland, these other countries could send their people in, even on people. But was there a reason that the U.S., like you as a, when they thought that you were a U.S.

soldier or diplomat. Was there a reason why the U.S. was singled out? Is it because Gaddafi felt like the U.S. had stabbed him in the back, where these other European countries were given a little bit more leeway? That's a really good question, you know. I hadn't thought about that.

But what you just said is right, of course. You know, I mean, we, I think the way we let things happen with Gaddafi was foolish. very foolish

and um after he had pretty much like yeah lined up to what we had asked him to do yeah um and uh and I think we lost a lot of us there yeah you know I mean it was kind of the 2011 we lost a lot of us there anyway

with the Syria red line stuff yeah um we were slow to react in Libya we reacted in the wrong way we weren't you know I mean it's yeah and so the the they're not it The Neo was, from the U.S. perspective, was, you know, the U.S. did nothing, except for us. I mean, but I don't, you know, all that just seems to have been washed away. No one really, right?

I mean, Libya is still a mess. Yeah. Libya, it's been causing problems since, well, since 2011. Yeah. I actually... Yeah, I'm still curious about sort of the turn and policy we made towards Gaddafi. You know, and the thing is, like, Gaddafi was no angel,

just like Saddam was no angel. But waiting for an angel to arise in some of those countries is, you know, you look for stability and you look for the people that... Yeah, yeah, that's... You know, we mirror image too much, and we think that everyone, all they need is just, to Sonia democracy and they'll be happy.

But, you know, in the hierarchy of needs is, you know, food and water and security. And, you know, we saw that in Iraq right after the invasion. And we thought everyone would be ecstatic that Saddam was gone. But actually, they missed the security. Well, they would rather. They were ecstatic at first. And then when there were no running water and no power and, you know, you know, people, you know, you don't blame countries for having sort of this.

short-term memory when they're when they're back to sort of living like peasants you know it's like yes saddam is a dictator but the chance that that is going to affect my life is minimal compared to you know everybody shares this common kind of yeah yeah that's right the the sense the the feeling of anarchy is is far more dislocating and the feeling of living within a tyranny. Sure. And esoteric political states conditions mean nothing when you are, when you're struggling with those basics.

But I think that's a really interesting point, Dave. Yeah. Hey, Dee, do we have any questions on Patreon? Okay, so first off, Jesse O'Day, thank you very much for subscribing to the channel. We really appreciate it. And Corbyn, thank you very much. how do you see the U.S. adapting to a more multipolar world? Well, I'd like to see us adapt at all.

You know, I think I'm pausing here, so I'm not just saying something vacuous. You know, we bemoan kind of the lack of U.S. leadership in the world. but the world still looks to the U.S. leadership. You know, I mean, after Gaza, after 7 October, you know, no one cared what Putin or China had to say. Everyone was rooted to, you know, what is the U.S. going to do? And I mention that because I think that's a clear reminder that whatever we may think, you know,

in this talk now of potentially more isolationist approach, but whatever we may think, the world does still look to us, leadership. And I, for one, think that's a good thing. And I for one think that we should provide that leadership. You know, we can bemoan that. We can say, oh, we're better off by ourselves. And we're not the world's policeman. Or we can say, hey, we're a superpower.

And this is kind of our responsibility. And we need to suck it up and do it. You know, because it's not as though we can just become a wallflower. You know, we are there. People have expectations. and if we don't meet those expectations, then we are worse off than before and we're losing our position.

I know that sounds like a very facile thing to say, but yes, certainly. But that understanding, that understanding that we are, the United States is still looked to as a leader. Whatever, whatever dross, you know, we may be hearing about the non-aligned countries and this and that,

yes, the world is not as aligned as it was during the Cold War. Yes, the U.S. is not in, you know, such a clear polar position of leadership as it was during the Cold War. Those times are gone. We need to adapt. But we are still expected to leave. It's interesting, too, because, you know, we talk about isolationism from sort of a political perspective or sort of a policy perspective, right in the sense of if a new president is elected will they become a more conservative president or whatever will they become more isolationist but we also look at isolationism from a perspective of i think during this administration we've lost 11 embassies uh in the last three and a half years which leads to its own type of isolationism right yeah i mean not not putting

not bolstering the State Department, right? I mean, the State Department is under-resourced, I think, as is. You know, I don't need to go down this road. But my point is that diplomacy is how we exert leadership, is how we demonstrate leadership. So we should be really, really cognizant of who we put in those positions, both political appointees and the guys that, you know, there kind of beefoffs within the State Department

who we put in charge of the State Department. It'll be interesting to see what... So I agree with you. It's not a political decision, oh, we're going to be isolationists, we're not. It's kind of where do you stack your talent? Where do you put your focus of attention, right? And if we are going to be isolationist,

or if we are going to cut ties, more with the world, then why do we have such a massive military, right? You know, I mean, these are, I don't get, like you, Dave, I don't get wound out by these questions. I don't let politics get me in a state of, you know, the same state of anxiety that I see many people in. But I do, yeah, I've obviously had concerns. I'm just a cynic, you know.

I mean, honestly, after watching Kabul fall the way it did, you know, I'm not focused on the mistakes in the last two years. I'm looking at just directionless foreign policy of the last two decades, basically, right. It's my concerns me. Right. And honestly, you know, the, you know, you talk about the, not the weakening of the IDF. per se or the weakening of the U.S. military per se, but the weakening of the politicians and the policies.

And we see that in the West or in America going back since Vietnam, this idea of the troops on the ground can do everything you ask them to. They can exceed in body count. They can exceed in objectives taken. But without a political plan, without an idea. of what victory looks like and without a political will, regardless of the administration and the politic, you know, the Republican or Democrat or whatever party you want to say, where does that, where does that leave soldiers in the United States military or the British military or the IDF in these sort of Western leaning countries, these liberal democracies, I would say. Yeah.

What is that legal? It's really You know This almost I mean it'll be a very boring book But it's it almost It invites the book to be written about it Because I do have feelings

That the US military And I probably only fair to say That this applies to other Western militaries Is carries a lot of dead weight Let me just put it that way And you know I'm not talking about Private Smoketele, you know, who can't do three bullets.

I'm just, I'm saying that, I mean, think about it, 28,000 people in the Pentagon, we should be solving, we should be, you know, cold fusion, world hunger. But I think,

I think those of us who've been in the military see how so much of that talent gets wasted in process. Right? I mean, I suppose what I'm saying is that the U.S. military has become a bureaucracy. It has to be a bureaucracy, but the problem is that a bureaucracy, I think, has sapped its war-fighting ability. And I can't show proof of that, but I can tell you anecdotally

that among officers, even combat arms officers, I encounter even in the Marine Corps, a very high concern for risk. You know, a very very, a focus on risk. So it almost became center stage, finding reasons not to do things rather than to do things. And, you know, this became, even among otherwise very competent, talented officers, this kind of became the norm.

It is rare to come across truly innovative thinking in the military, Dave. Wouldn't you agree? Yes. outside soft I mean it's not that it doesn't exist it's not that there are not NCOs and officers that are capable

of innovative thinking is that it's that somebody has to approve their plans and and whoever is approving their plans has a career that they're worried about and how they look and look I don't know what happened in the IDF with the officers

that ignored the intelligence but we know that in Afghanistan and Iraq, I don't think one officer over the rank of E-5 suffered from decisions made or lies told or... Yeah, I can't think of a single officer who was fired for tactical incompetence. Correct.

Now, officers were fired when people got killed for, you know, in fire support, negligence Right Yes Right But not for tactical But no general

Who went out there And basically made no headway During the war But said edway was being made None of them got fired Yeah You know Yeah it's very uh

It's very true I mean it's It's It The investigations Looked at processes, right? But they didn't look at culture. Right.

And I think I think culture had a lot to do with our failure in Afghanistan. I think, you know, it's lack of, it was lack of honesty. You know, we always pride ourselves on integrity, but we were dishonest with ourselves again and again and again. Commander to Commander to Commander. Every time, oh, hey, this place was shit when we came in, but, you know, we kind of turned it around in the year and, you know,

all these place names that we thought were no, milestones of our success, you know, you name it, Corrigal, Elman. They're meaningless, of course. You know, they were, they were, they were always in Taliban, Taliban hands. We were renting it. Yeah. And the thing is, we went to this, to this sort of metrics or measurable war where, you know, when you have people like Scott Mann and these other people out there who are conducting

these village stability operations that are showing they're showing progress but that type of progress doesn't brief as well as how many bodies you stacked that's right then their programs get shut down

the cornerstone of counter guerrilla operations get shut down where these direct action missions are it's where it's at I couldn't agree more you know it's same thing with the combined

action, civil, I'm sorry, the civil action program in Vietnam, right? With the Marine Division. Yep. Tremendously successful. Yeah. But it was, it got none of the publicity. Yeah. You know, none at all. And those guys didn't get any of the kind of the glory, right? I mean, do you see, do you see cap battle streamers on?

Yeah. We, we, we had one of the cap guys on. our show. Did you? Yeah. Wow. And it was an, it was an exceptionally successful program. But it's one of those things that, hey, look, stability, stabilizing an area.

It's boring. Yeah. It's mundane. It's hard work. And success means it's quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And when you read about, um, uh, the CAP program, um, you know, they, they were essentially

civil affairs guy. I mean, they were infantry. guys. They were all, they'd all been in hard combat. Yeah. And, um, and in fact, um, the guys coming out of K San were offered cap as kind of a, you know, is saying, hey, this is going to be a little easier, but it wasn't easy. Right. Right. Um, because it was during the time when, when the villages were coming on to continuous attack. Yeah. Um, and those cap, and the cap guys were taking heavy casualties. And they were, there's a lot of heroic actions, um, took place with, uh, you know, the

civil the cap platoons and the popular forces the rough puff village

protection guys but you're right I really and despite all the failures in Vietnam here was a

nugget of success just the same way in Afghanistan but we'll ignore those right we didn't learn right we did learn from CAP

but we tried to implement it again. We not just in Afghanistan, but the Marine Corps did in Iraq with some success, you know, but focused, focused not so much on the, on the agriculture, but embedding, you know, with the police, but also helping local economy, you know, the Marine Corps doesn't have our own civil affairs guys. So it was our, you know, it was basically our company commanders and so she were doing this. Yeah. Two more questions. quick. I am Corbett. Thank you very much. We still provide an opportunity to build a better future as opposed some places simply impose a future on you. Yeah. I mean, I'm in the United States for a reason.

Yeah. I'm an immigrant. I chose to be here. Yeah. And I choose to be here now. And it's, yeah, for all the reasons you guys are here. It's absolutely. You can, you can still craft your to the American dream that's really whoever you are right they you can't unless you join the military well I mean I think honestly honestly I I you know I ate at the buffet of the U.S. military and I had a great time everywhere I went I think it really depends on your attitude there is a certain amount of luck to what leadership you get wherever you're at like leadership can make a huge difference but I loved everything that I did I embrace waste everything that I did. There were plenty of learning opportunities that I pursued.

You know, you can go in the military and just do your time and be bitch you about it and get out and go to college or whatever. But, you know, there are opportunities. And then miss it the rest of your life. Sure, sure. And then poor people silly with stories about your four years in the Marine Corps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Common. No, I mean, I would, you never hear me. I mean, I've been critical of the Marine Corps. call, but you know, I feel the same way as you. I mean, I wouldn't have traded it for anything. But the critical isn't from a character assassination point like, you know, the Blumenthal's and these people like that. It's my family.

If you love something, you want it to be what it can be. And the critique comes from a place of love and it can be better than what it is or what it was. Yeah. 100%. Andrew Dunbar, thank you very much. What are your thoughts on the rumblings of North Korea troops in Ukraine? All I'd heard is rumblings.

Have you heard anything more than that? I haven't seen an article. Yeah, you know what? Nothing would surprise me at this stage. Have you seen what is true? What has been happening is the Russians have been press-ganging other nationalities into fighting in Ukraine? the Nepalese.

And then in one incredible case, Indians, a bachelor party. And this is kind of sad. But now, most of us would not choose to go to Moscow for a bachelor party. But evidently, the Russians have been advertising in India for various trips to include, you know, setting up bachelor party, to vie with the eastern capitals at a cut price rate well there's a reason why it's cut price as these gentlemen found out is they ended up in Ukraine

you know they got they they they showed at the bachelor party blah blah blah the course of the evening they all get arrested for something trumped up and then they they find themselves fighting in Ukraine and they they only get out of it when the Indian embassy is informed I mean it's you can't make this shit up who does that it's sort of like getting it's not just prisc gang in your

people. It's sort of like getting a modeling contract out of the UAE, right? It's like approach with caution. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So Andy, that's it for the questions. I mean, we really, we love you. We love having you on. We really appreciate it. Well, the feeling is mutual, and I hope I'm bored your audience. We always end up talking quite a while, don't me? Look at that. That's me, man. I'm like, without Jack here to keep me on in line. man I'll ramble all night no it it was a great great discussion and

kudos to team house and to your audience and eyes on love you and to ys on yeah please watch eyes on yeah please watch eyes on and to d who makes the magic happen on both shows god bless you that's right he is the lynch man

don't forget don't forget to check out eyes on don't forget to check out andy's book the link is in the description oh yeah please buy my book yes i i i highly highly recommend his book. It doesn't matter even if you are not somebody who

normally reads military literature or reads. I'm going out to all our marine friends out there. No, but even if you're not somebody who normally reads, this is a very human story. Think of the life of pie in fatigues.

I cannot top that. We need to end this now. That is the light, yeah. So Jack will be back next week. U.S. Miller's series version of Pye. Yeah. Jack will be back next week. So for those of you who have been bored because of my narration,

he'll be back to guide us. And thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Check out eyes on. Check out when the tempest gathers. Also the Patreon. The Patreon. Patreon.com slash the Teamhouse.

Yes. Next week. Add free episodes. Yep. I'm checking to see who we have for next week. Hold on one second. I'm sorry. We have David Fielding.

Jack read his book. I'm very excited. I don't know what he does or anything, but I'm sure it's military or intelligence-related, I hope. Outstanding introduction. Thank you, Andy. Yes. You have to write that one down.

All right, everyone. All right. Great evening as long as. Thank you, everybody. We really appreciate it. See you next week.