The Team House - FORCE RECON, MARSOC, JSOC | Ivan Ingraham | Ep. 342

Episode Date: April 26, 2025

Ivan F. Ingraham is a speaker, storyteller, and veteran. He served for 24 years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a special operations officer.Grab Ivan's books here:https://www.amazon.com/stores/Ivan-F.-Ingraham/author/B0BCL7NGS3?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true&ccs_id=e87a20e2-f74a-4c1c-b1de-162d7126e00dFind Ivan here:https://ivanfingraham.substack.com/ for his newsletter/blog https://ivanfingraham.com/ for my professional website where people can find out about me, my books and writing, and contact me about booking for consulting or speaking engagements.https://www.instagram.com/ifi_writer/----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------New merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured—————————————————————-Today's Sponsors:StopBox USA⬇️Get firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code HOUSE at https://www.stopboxusa.com/HOUSE The Perfect Jean ⬇️http://theperfectjean.nyc/HOUSE15for 15% off!!GhostBed⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 50% OFF!!!___________________________________Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/——————————————————————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/theteamhouseSocial 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/RemixSample"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"Want to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

So we mounted up, did a quick scan. We're like, all right, let's go. Came up with our assault plan. And my support-by-fire position that was being provided by the infantry, never underestimate the enemy. They pumped two mortar rounds onto that to knock them out as they saw us driving in.

So they had to displace. And now I had no support by fire. We had no air support at the time. There was thumb pulling in on the overhead. It was just like this confluence of stuff. So now we drive down at this compound and as soon as we get there, we are in the base. Murphy's loss says if your attack is going well, you're in an ambush.

Well, my attack went swimmingly because I was at the base of a U-shaped ambush, and they were hammering us inside of a hundred yards. RPG round bounced off the hood of my truck. I don't know what... It just, and it blew up behind us. My guys dismounted and started doing fire and maneuver bounds to these guys in trench lines. and they're throwing grenades.

Oh, my God. Well, I think it scared the shit out of the enemy because they're like, these guys are crazy. Yeah, yeah. Hey, guys, it's your pal Jack. I just want to take a moment to tell you about the sponsor for this show, which is Stopbox. Stopbox makes this very cool box to secure your items in

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The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, everyone. This is episode 342 of the team house. I'm Jack Murphy here with our guest in studio today. Ivan Ingram. Ivan had a career in the Marine Corps, served in recon, Force Recon, Marsok, and then some J-Soc assignments. There's a lot to talk about here.

You're also an author, written a series of books, The Patrol, Dream Job. What are some of the others? 22 and Athena. Okay, those are the ones that are out now. He has more in the works. Ivan, thanks for joining us coming in studio today. Pleasure. So, you know, the question I ask everyone about their origin story,

if you can tell us a little bit about, you know, how you grew up and how that took you towards the Marine Corps. Kind of by accident. I'm from Maryland. My father was a colonel in the Army. He was an Army psychologist. And he wrote a book called The Boys in the Barracks, which is a study of the Army's morale

and a lot of the leadership issues that the Army as an organization encountered after Vietnam. And while what he found was a bit frustrating for the Army to read writ large because of the racism, drug problems, lots of insubordination, many issues that were plaguing,

you know, a unit or a force, that had come out of protracted combat and just with really bad morale. He and his research team looked at special forces units, Army, Green Berets, to kind of understand why they didn't face the same issues. They might have had them in some areas, but not nearly across the force, the way that the Army did. And so they were looking at ways to harness that which high-functioning units with good morale and good leadership were working so that they could actually try and export that

to the larger United States Army. So as I was growing up, that was the world in which I was living and got to meet a lot of special forces veterans because those people he was interviewing or people who were helping with some of the projects he was working with or working on and the people he was working with. And then the other side of that, my mother was a professor of English expository writer, a spository writing teacher at Howard University. So I grew up in a house where writing that was something in both of my parents did. And I kind of eschewed the military lifestyle, even though I was very into military history. And I loved going to museums and things like that. I grew up in Europe for a time. I got to travel all around and go to different battlefields.

And as a young kid, that was just a great way to grow up. So then when I went to college, I played lacrosse in college. And when I was getting out, of or finished that and decided, okay, I'm going to go into the civilian workforce. I just kind of had this nagging desire to serve or do something more adventurous. And so I really wanted to be a law enforcement agent. So I looked at the marshals. I looked at diplomatic security. FBI can proudly say I was turned down by all of them.

And I kind of said, I asked like, why, what's going on? What do I need? And they just say, this is the 1990s. You need experience and you need a little more seasoning. So their recommendation, some of the law enforcement agents I was talking to, just join the military and get some experience, get your resume built, and then reapply. You're young enough that you can do that.

So I did join the Marine Corps. And what years is this? That was in 1997. Okay. And my father being an Army officer after I signed the paperwork, I don't know if you think I thought I was going to do it. Because I came to his house in December of 97. And my father was recovered alcoholic.

He hadn't had a drink of whiskey in years. He was a bourbon guy. We're drinking bourbon tonight. So that's only fitting. And he had this bottle of Jim Beam that he kept with the corks still in it from his last drink. And he kept that on his desk for like just a reminder. Like I don't do this. And so I showed up to his house and I said, Dad, you know, I did it.

I joined the Marine Corps. He had this ashen look on this. He was like, oh my gosh. Like you really, okay. He said you were going to do it, you did it. I guess this calls for a drink. And I said, Dad, you don't drink. He goes, it's not for me.

So I proudly had a drink from the last sip of the bottle that he had. I guess he passed on that legacy. But he wasn't lying when he said that. Passed on the torch. He did. He's like, you're going to need this. And so, yeah, I was lucky to have him as a resource for learning about leadership, about officership, about followership, about just the dynamics of what it is to be inside of a military

organization. Of course, you have to do it yourself. And a military psychologist at that. Well, that had its own challenges. But of course, yeah, I mean, I was, at that point, just as the Marine Corps said, he's working together with gung ho, I was, I was into it. I wanted to be part of this. I thought, this is going to be great. I'll do my four years. Inside of that four years, I'm going to try and do as much as I can or five years. So you came in as an officer? I did. I went to OCS.

I was probably a recruiter's, like, absolute dream because I didn't ask a whole lot of questions, and I was just like, all right, when do I get set up? And they said, oh, well, we don't get guns too quick. Just hang on, just hang on, buddy. Am I going to jump school soon? I'm like, easy guy. So I had a lot of things I had to learn about the process. But ultimately, I was, you know, motivated, motivation will bitch you through a lot.

lot as we know. So I hope that at least gives, you know, the beginning of the context. We can expand on that if you want to. Yeah, yeah. So you come in as an officer, go to OCS. I mean, what, in the Army they call it a branch. I don't know if they call it the same thing in the Marine Corps. What did you kind of branch into? What was your basic course? So Marine officers will generally be sourced from either ROTC slash what's called MESP Marine Enlisted Commissioning programs. so that sort of people can come up through ranks. Green and gold.

That kind of thing, exactly. But again, that's tied to some sort of established Rahtze, naval Rossi program, you know, with the university. Or OCS. And then, of course, the Naval Academy is its own provider. And everyone, once you're commissioned, regardless of your source, so I just did OCS 10 straight weeks over the winter with some very caring staff.

I mean, they were wonderful. They were very attentive, made sure that, I understood how to be a Marine right off the bat. You never forget your drill instructors, and if anyone says they were Marine and can't name their drill instructors right away, no matter how long ago it was, they weren't. They didn't do it.

So Gunny Town, Staff Sergeant Carpenter, and Sergeant Torres, wherever you are. Left an impression on your young mind? Yeah, I would say we're probably three of the most interesting men have ever met in my life. So, but yeah, so you go through OCS, and then after that you go what's called to the Basic School, which in the Army equivalent would be kind of like Bullock,

but you're not getting actual branch training. Okay. So in my case, everyone goes to the base of school for six months, whether you're an aviator or your... So they're teaching you like Marine Corps mission planning and that kind of thing? Just the basics of being in a rifle squad and carrying a machine gun. Gotcha. It's not easy training.

I mean, you're doing all kinds of live fire ranges, and they just teach you they say every Marine a rifleman, but they want every officer to be able to lead troops. and you may never touch this again if you go to supply or, you know, Comptroller or what have you, and not putting down anybody's MOS, but so when you talk about your rate,

you do, the military occupational specialty is what you get assigned. And when I joined, I sat and took the naval aviation, aviator test. And the results were such that they said I could fill one up with gas, but I wasn't going to fly one.

So I had to do something else. And they were like, well, there's a lot of loud hot jobs in the Marine Corps, Ivan, and maybe you'd be an infantryman because you're big and you can carry a lot of shit. So maybe that's for you. And I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds good. Carry guns and like run through the trees. And then when I was there, I met guys who had been in the MESEP program, who had been in force recon. And they started telling me, like, I really didn't know that much about that side of it. And they started telling me about Force Recon and their time in it. And all of a sudden, I was like, that's where I want to go. And you had to be an infantry officer at the time or

ground intelligence officer, scout sniper, plighting commander to really be considered for those jobs. That rubbed off on you fast. Oh, yeah. And these guys were also, they were fit. They carried themselves a little bit differently. They, like, there's a lot of bullshit in the military,

and they just seemed to be able to transcend it. Like, it just seemed like they had a better, you know, one of my very good friends that I, I served with, and he just retired, just a little behind me. Of course, he made it a colonel. I didn't quite catch him, but he, you know, he was the first guy that I really met. He was done that. And I was, I thought, okay, like this is, this is a culture.

This is a kind of a thing I'd like to be a part of. I really didn't know that much about it. But he first had to get to the fleet. He first had to be an infantry officer. So after I finished the basis school, I then went to 10 weeks of infantry officer course, which I haven't been to Ranger School, but it's very much like Ranger School, and that you're just doing lots of mission dynamic planning, and it's all officer-based.

You're leading your peers and learning how to do the infantry officer of course. It produces a very good light infantry leader. Now it's even, I think even better because they do a lot more call for fire. They talk about combined arms in ways that were evolved as a result of the GWAT and just the experiences they had. So it's as far as the Marine Corps writ large had in combat in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So they've improved that incrementally. But back then, it was still very tough, very dynamic training. And back in these days in the 90s, 1990s, the Marine Corps wasn't a part of special operations command. They didn't have a presence there.

And I mean, I'm going to, like, trigger some people when I say this. But, like, force recon and recon really kind of was, like, the special ops of the Marine Corps, even if it wasn't technically on paper. And those guys were, I mean, I think they were on par with Seals, Rangers, Green Berets. I mean, they were highly trained, motivated dudes. I agree. I mean, the pipeline once I went to, I was assigned to First Marine Division, First Marine Regiment, First Battalion, Fourth Marines in Camp Pend, California. By far one of the best assignments I've had, even still of all the pictures and stuff I have on the wall.

The one of my first infantry platoon, just, I had a great time across my career, and I got to be part of some really tremendous, stupendous units, but you never forget your first, and these guys were like, yeah. Take us into that, your first PL assignment with the infantry. Yeah, I was, well, you know my first day? I showed up. We didn't have even the Firewatch medal. We didn't even have the eggs and, I mean, the ketchup and mustard metal back then. Because there was no war.

There was no service. So I literally, the only thing I had going into, or going for me on my uniform was the fact I was a double expert. I had an expert rifle and expert pistol. And there was the only two badges hanging on my service alphas. And that's what you checked into the regiment in. And I went down to 1-4. And as I was coming in, a staff sergeant was coming out.

And he was like, whoa, whoa, so where are you going? I said, oh, I'm going in to check in. He goes, not like that, you're not. He reached up and he fixed my tie, which I guess had come, you know, askew while I was sitting in the car. So already I've got staff in COs helping me out. this really green lieutenant. So I walk up the stairs

and I go to see the executive officer and he's a major and he's his grim face like angry dude and he's sitting there looking like this. I don't know whether it's not going to hatch or whatever. So he looks up and he goes, who are you? I said, oh, my name's Lieutenant Ingram. And he goes, I get in here.

And he reaches out like this with his hand. So I walk over and shake his sake. He goes, I don't want to shake your fucking hand. Give me your OQR. It was off your qualification record with the jacket. I'm like, oh, yes, sir. I guess this is how, you know, welcome to the...

So I haven't even been in this building for 10 minutes. I already had that fixed, and now he's giving me the business. He goes, you haven't done shit, you don't know shit, you're going to Charlie Company, get downstairs. And that was it. So I was like,

where's Gunning Highway? Like, this is nuts. And so I walk back downstairs, and as I'm coming down the passageway, this is what we call it, you guys call the hallway. Coming down the passageway, I see the Charlie Company offices,

and out comes my first platoon sergeant, Pat Redick, and he's like, we heard you were coming, thank God you're here. And I said, why? This is great. What a welcome. I've had a rough morning already. He goes, well, we got five Marines right now who are under investigation for a congregant, and here's their defense packages. And by the way, we've got to go see the battalion commander tomorrow afternoon. So I was taking care of it, but now that you're here, you've got it.

So that was my first day in the infantry. I had five, you know, guys under charges and one dude who requested court-martial. And I was standing in for hazing. They had a whole bunch of thing going on. And I was like, wait a minute. The basic, well, they didn't talk about any of this stuff. We were talking about two up and one back infantry attacks and all this other stuff. I was like, hell of company, coughed a company, so I was like, we're going to go fast roping, we're going to do all this up. Sure, platoon had like some Jack Nicholson. You can't handle the truth.

Yeah, kind of like that. Yeah. They just got back from deployment and got a new shipment of boots from MC, from SOI School of Infantry. And the old guys decided they want to tell the young guys what's up. And so then there was a problem. So that's how I was introduced to the fleet Marine Force. And from that point forward, I was like, okay, I'm in a different world. So had your court-martial scale?

The one guy, I'll say not yours because I wasn't court-martial. It was there to observe. The one guy beat it and actually ended up going to First Force Recon Company. Now that I think about it. The other guys all requested, you know, they took their NJP and moved on. Yeah, we went through it. And I still talked to my battalion commander this day. John Holden was his name.

In fact, he had a great command climate, and it was a great unit to be a part of. I kind of regret that he didn't get to take that unit to war because he just the bad timing of everything. But he was a dynamic leader. He really cared for his people, and he was a good, good mentor. And he told me years later, he was like that was a tough way to come into the, you know, to join us. And so otherwise, I mean, how did, like, from a leadership perspective, how did you push your platoon past that? I mean, you walked in, big bag of shit, you get handed. Well, you have to, I've always said this regardless of you,

because believe me, I got in you, it's like, hey, you don't want this guy, he's a shit bag. Or, hey, you know, this guy's got problems. And I try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. And by nature, I am kind of a judgmental person. I am a judgmental person. There's someone right now, like, kind of. I can be.

and so I was like everybody gets a clean clean slate and whatever adjudication happened it was not mine to decide and it didn't happen while I was here even though I inherited it so yes you're responsible but on the other side now we can grow we're going to have to and some of these guys again actually found that they were pretty creative and some of these guys you know my father being a psychologist

I at one time asked him like hey dad you know how do I get to know my guys like what should I find a way to get some sort of personality test for them. And he's like, well, you don't know how to review any of that shit anyway. Like, this is all clinical. He's like, just get a keg of beer and lock the door. About two hours later, you're going to figure out what everybody is. And he was right.

So I went in and I was like, all right, because I had a bunch of, I had hoodlums. I had gangbangers. I had guys who were on work release. I mean, we were a tough group of guys. They're from all over the country. And I was like, all right, I'm not going to turn anybody in, but I need to know who knows how to boost a car. And these guys were all looking at her, like, I said, come on. Who knows how to hot wire stuff?

Who knows how to drive stuff? And it starts these hands going up. The reason I'm asking is because if we go to a really shitty place, I need people who can get things. And they're like, oh, wow, he's a bank robber. This is going to be great. Like, I haven't, you know. But, I mean, that was the mindset you had to have

because you didn't know where you're going to serve or anything. And I had to figure out ways to capitalize upon strengths and also build a little bit of trust. And it was the 1990s Marine Corps. You guys weren't getting funding. You weren't getting new kit. And a lot of people, we weren't getting a lot of action either. We had like three guys in the entire battalion who had a combat action room,

which is the CIBC, you know, combat action badge equivalent. Like the old sergeant majors and stuff. Well, the regimental sergeant major had been in Vietnam. He's one of the last serving Vietnam veterans at that point in time. But we're talking like guys from Bosnia. Gotcha. Our company Gunny had been in Somali. Our company commander actually had been in Somali in the later or the early stages of it

before, you know, the Marine Corps was there. before kind of Black Hawk down took over. So the initial push, so these guys, there were people who had some experience, but you did not have this large population, this baseline of people that you could rely upon. In fact, combat veterans, you know, seeing what Mike Platoon was doing with Hazing would just think that was a joke at this point. So you're right. There was nothing else to do. So I want to take a minute today to tell you guys about the perfect gene.

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That's 15% off for new customers at the perfect gene. com with promo code house 15. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. So fuck your khakis and get the perfect gene. Did you guys get, you know, not combat deployment probably at that point, but did you guys get deployed? They, like, go out with the fleet and all that? Yeah, we did. We were assigned to what's called a Marine Expeditionary Unit, which is about a regiment slash brigade-sized organization.

I say brigade because it's slightly bigger than a regiment. It's fully supporting aboard amphibious shipping with, I mean, at the time, it deployed with tanks. It has its own air support. It has its own artillery. It's an organic fighting organization. And so when a Mew, and I was on 15th Mew, you know, you could go ashore and do all kinds of stuff, anything from humanitarian ops to full-scale combat. And it's all launched from shipping. So it was on the 15th Mew, we did what's called a Westpac, Western Pacific.

And back then it was like, there were Liberty Cruces. Honestly, we were pulling into these great ports. Australia, Japan. Australia, yes, we went to Hong Kong. We went to Singapore. We did do some time during part of Operation Southern Watch as far as just border security in Kuwait, but you're not doing active combat ops. I did combat operations in East Timor.

No shit. Yeah, that had just started to simmer down, but we went aboard or went ashore there, helping to establish, really get the country back on its feet because it had been in a huge civil war at that point. I mean, I know the Aussies were all over that, but I have to admit I'm pretty naive about the United States military being over there.

Well, by the time we got there, the Aussies had really already, the Timoran Tigers, as they called him, they'd gone up on the border. In fact, I met Dave Kilcullen years later. That's where he had been, his, got his combat time. And obviously, Dave Colin stole my combat because he got there first as an Aussie. But it was still an active combat zone, and we were flying missions in there, but we're doing a lot of humanitarian aid, trying to get infrastructure back up and running. Case and point for the infantry. They come to me and they say, hey, Ivan, there's this road that hasn't been cleared to this village in this one part of the Highlands in East Timor. And we need your guys to go in there and pull security until we can get heavy equipment mechanics in there to fix the bulldozer.

And they're like, so you go in there and do that. And I was like, well, why would I do that? I've got squad leader. So I grabbed a squad leader and the staff sergeant and I said, hey, man, you're going to go in there. Now, this through shock waves through the me. They were like, oh my God, I was not leading these guys on the ground. I'm like, this is what we're supposed to do. Like, this is how this.

You have to delegate. But this is what it's meant to do. It's not that it's beneath me or I'm above it. It's that I have very quality staff and CEOs and the right people. So remember what I asked about, you know, guys learn how to boost shit. We task organized the squad to go in there for very specific purposes. Rupor, all this stuff. And they fly in and originally,

were going to come, have a CH-53 to a giant helicopter come and pick this bulldozer up that had stopped in clearing this road and then move it to a spot that the equipment mechanics could work on it because it was in this really kind of precipitous area. And meanwhile, the Marines were going to hold security so that these guys didn't get messed with.

But by perhaps if the Timorese's, you know, tigers came back, which they probably weren't going to do because the Aussies were all up in the highlands, taking care of them anyway. And so my guys go in and like day one, they're just tinkering with the bulldozer and they get it fired up and then they just clear the road all the way up. The mission's done. You can come get us?

And when we showed up, so I flew in to watch this and as we show up, they're playing soccer with the kids. And I'm like, this is exactly building rapport. We got the mission done. Got it all done. It's all. It's like you just let the Marines be creative and they'll figure it out. And huge lessons learned, huge leadership lesson learned. Those gibronies knew how to hot wire a bulldozer.

Yeah. That's awesome. Puente was a gangbanger from San Antonio, and he used to carry this picture in his pocket of him in a hernet. And he was literally out of central casting with his flannel shirt and a shotgun under his arm. I'm like, yeah. And now he's a Marine sergeant squad leader at the high end height. So, yeah, I mean, you don't forget guys like that.

Yeah. So we did do that. We did that. Deployment. It was six months. And then we came back after. And I say being an officer, Richard John. to identify the talent in your platoon and figure out how to use them, right?

And have faith. And I think that's a critical part. We'll probably get into a little later. It's just kind of, it's not so much risk aversion because, you know, commanders will risk you to do whatever they need to do, but it's about confidence in whether they, you'll get it done. And it's, in many ways, as we get deeper into the discussion, it's about branding. So what comes after Fleet?

What's the next step for you? You have recon already rattling around in the back of your mind somewhere. And my battalion commander, John Holden, had been a recon guy. And in fact, he had been the Marine Detachment OIC at Fort Benning. So any recon person who came through there who went to jump school, we didn't have a lot of exchange with Army Yusufi, the Army SF command, but with big army, i.e., the Rangers and the Ranger school, he would just basically help the Marines get to there and through there.

So he, the Ranger qualified, he'd been in recon, and I took the recon selection test before I went on deployment. Okay. So I could come back. Like tests, do you mean like a written exam or? It was a physical. Oh, okay. Physical test.

Like an actual selection. Yeah, an actual selection. Gotcha. Yeah, and a board interview. And they were like, yeah, okay, you're, you can come on, but you could get through your deployment. And then when I was on deployment, Holden came to me and just said, hey, we're doing the slate for officers and stuff. And you still want to go to recon, right?

That's what you want to do. I said, yeah, it goes, okay. And so when I got home, I had orders to first recon. And so, yeah, I kind of leaned into setting myself up. I wanted, at the time, I was like, I'd rather be in First Force, because First Force had the direct action mission. I deployed on ArmU was the mu that force recon platoon unfortunately had that tragic accident

on the USS Picos where the 47 that you may have seen this footage years ago of a 46 going over on its back and seven Marines and sailors were killed on that so that was a very tragic situation particularly you know small unit like Force Recon that hits

really hard they had to reconstitute that unit rebuild it I learned a lot watching that happen as well Coates was the leader who later became a debt CEO who John Day. Debt one CEO of John Daly good friend of mine work with I know you've interviewed him and then Eric Capitulik was the was a platoon commander and that was sort of a larger-than-life guy. So you know in that in that world on the Mew that's who I was gravitating towards but forced at the time only had five tunes and they didn't have any room. So I went to recon because I just wanted to get

behind the wire. I wanted to get in there any way you can. So it wasn't like an also-ran. I just was a different mission, different unit. So when I got home, I had orders. And recon, as people have described it to me, recon is the green side. They do the sort of like long range for Connoissance patrols. And the force and force recon, of course, is the DA mission that you alluded to, right? That's probably the biggest differentiator. Yeah. force also was able to lean further into deep penetration reconnaissance stuff so they did a lot more of military freefall there were guys who had been to free fall school and we were all airborne qualified or for the most part you know the 021 the badged you're going to see a trend here that I'm always kind of late to stuff

so but back to recon the training pipeline is largely the largely the large the same as you go to different places or different schools and different things throughout the pipeline, but it all starts at the basic reconnaissance course, which is 10 weeks long. That is your entry-level school, officers and enlisted go there together. It's not like airborne school, you're just an alpha or an echo or just a number, but you serve in a team as a team. You carry a radio as an officer. You're not, you don't have separate training, that kind of thing.

So you go to BRC. After that, you become, you then go into a school's pipeline, which is jump, dive, sear, ranger if you can get it. But it's about two years, you know, if you put it all together. But if you match up all that training and there will be seals who will just roll their eyes at this. If you went through the entire pipeline, you've gotten all the same training that the seals get in buds.

And that's what buds is much more efficient because it just pushes. Like everything except the underwater demolition. side, right? Yeah, you don't touch demo until later. And that's what I mean is that Bud's is very comprehensive in the way that they do. The training, the SKT is also very comprehensive. And that's the problem in the recon pipeline, at least at the time when I was in there, is that you kind of did this incrementally.

Like, hopefully you could have everything lined up and you would pass it all. But if there was a deployment, if you were going to go, if something happened, you know, anything could throw you off. So I leave 1-4. I check into first recon. Again, in my alphas. Now I have a couple more, a little more ribbons just from deployment.

They call it the Mewstack. It's just, you know, you got out there and you did. I was on a boat. Yeah, I was on a boat. We got the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal because we went to a combat zone. We were not, you know, so at that point I could join the veterans of foreign wars.

But, you know, we're not combat Marines. And so then you go into checking a recon and it's like, oh, shit. Like memorabilia on the wall. Like it's very tight. And, you know, again, what they called you, if you were, before you went there, they called you a roper because you would wear this static carmantle rope that you could use for repelling, but turning, you know, and that was, you wore that over your shoulder or sort of this mark of shame that you were not. That, like, thick nylon green rope. Or black.

Yeah. They didn't quibble. But I wasn't there long enough to become a roper because I got there just after my deployment and I walked in. and Mike Polovic, who was the, they called him Iron Mike Polovic, because fit as could be, served, he was at Royal Marines Exchange. He was just a badass. And he too is sitting over the desk like this. And I'm like, here we fucking go, man.

Knocking the hats. Who are you? Mike was not nearly as gruff as my ex-o in, you know, in 1-4. Who were you? Oh, so Tent Ingram reporting this order. Oh, yeah, yeah, Ingram. After this, you're going to go over and see the XO. But right now, we've got you slated for about a year's worth of schools.

And in the event that you should not pass, you don't have to be Honor, man, but if you shouldn't pass or you quit, your adverse fitness report will be waiting for you and then you'll be in the parking lot. Is there anything about what I've just told you you don't understand? Crystal Clear is where he goes, go to the XO. So go to the XO, checking with him. It's like your BRC class starts in like nine days. You can go down and join, you know, some of the swim stuff, but I hope you're ready.

And I was like, basic reconnaissance courses is going to be whatever. I'm fine. I just came off a boat. I'm lifting all day. I'm in shape. I was quickly disavowed of that day one of the entry test, which was just brutal. And then from that point forward, you have just 10 weeks of just thrashing and hazing in its five phases. You've got land navigation.

you've got patrolling, you have... You get the zodiacs out there. You're carrying stuff on your head. You're running the O course, and it's run out of Coronado. And yeah, you're training like literally side-by-side with Bud students, just port and starboard and stuff you're doing. You're doing surf checks, fins, all kinds of stuff. And, you know, so you've got a communications package

or you have to learn that and work all the radios. And, you know, then after that, you do full mission profiles. And it's all green side patrolling. You're doing sketching and taking pictures and reporting, and then you have to move to... extract LZs and they were like literally if you don't make it to extract by the time you're supposed to you're going to walk home and they're not lying like the fact that the instructors almost took like this sick you know pleasure if somebody jacked it up like well I guess we're

walking all night and they would and we would and did the Marine Corps run their own dive school or did you go down to Key West for they they do run their own dive school uh Marine combatant diver is run out of Panama City Florida that must have been a lot of fun I went there after BRC that was the next step that was my second stop And I was in phenomenal condition by the time I got done with BRC, and then I went through a scout swimmer course, and then I went to MCD. I felt like I got hazed for the entire first part.

By the time I got to airborne school was a break. Two and a half minutes of fun crammed into three weeks. So dive school, is that all on the rebreathers? You start off in scuba, the first phase of scuba. It's a lot like Safuo, and I actually later, went to Safuo to participate in diver qualification and dive supervisor course with them, which is a lot more gentlemanly than being a student.

So I've been to Key West as well in Fleming Key there. But yeah, dive school is you do first phase is scuba, and then after that you go into just the rebreather. And there's a lot of night navigation, a lot of underwater navigation. And so like they described for folks out there, who maybe aren't familiar. I mean, the concept here, as you guys being Marine Recon, you're going to go and be the scouts for the main marine element.

You're going to swim up to the shore and do the hydrographical surveys and all that other kind of stuff. Yep. You could do that by surface. If you wanted to, you know, it's one of the options could be to do it, subsurface clandestine, certainly the rebreather allows you to do that. Honestly, the seals have a pretty good with their SDVs and a lot of the profiles that they do,

They're very capable. They can do harbor recons and things in ways that the Marine Corps can't. But you can't be good everywhere, and the Marine Corps was very good in applying the recon forces against, or the recon units against their forces and force mission. So a good example would be if you were doing an assault, then it was going to be an amphibious assault, but you still needed to have depth. Force recon could jump in well behind and established observation posts. maybe you'd be calling in artillery or naval naval gunfire or air on an approaching force

while at the simultaneous to them being inserted you'd have amphibious um amphibious reconnaissance going in and setting up clearing the not so much clearing that makes it sound like you're using uh engineers or something like that but just doing the surveys and making sure that you know you can actually land and establish a bridgehead and um but you know that's a that's a very complex mission it's a war type mission and we We didn't do that. And certainly as we moved into the later, you know, the early part of the GWatt, and then as it progressed, I think we lost a lot of that reconnaissance capability.

Patrolling. Yeah. Yeah. That patrolling is, in my opinion, one of the baselines that, you know, if your unit can patrol well, then you can do anything because the principle applied. So when you're in your recomb platoon, this is now like late 1990s, I'm guessing? I got there in August of 2000. Okay, 2000.

And I went through the training and we did a deployment. That's why I love Mike Polovic. Because we're going to do a battalion deployment to Hawaii because you can learn and get more out of training in good conditions than you will in bad. Because we expect you'd be able to do it in bad conditions. Which is a complete difference from when I was training with the British, SAS, who were like, no, the weather needs worse. Can we get it worse than this? Like now we'll go do it. The SBS is the same way.

Oh, it's not snowing in the North Sea? Well, let's just wait for it to get really shitty. And then we can get out there. I'm like, why do you guys do this to yourself? I was like, because when else, like, this is when it's going to happen. And they were right. They were like, you know, I talked to a Falkland Islands veteran and parachute regiment who had been in the SAS.

And he said that his fighting in the Falklands while it was really, it was a light infantry war is really, really challenging. He's like, we trained so hard that when we got there, it was just sort of like, all right, well, we're just used to this. And there was something to be said for hard training. And so I say, I'm talking on two sides of my mouth because we went to Hawaii and we had a great time. But at the same time... There was a focus on developing individual skills, right?

Right. It was really more like, hey, let's be good divers. And then if you're good divers here, we can take you into the shitty weather instead of, let's just throw you into really bad conditions and then see what happens. Because there are units who overstepped that before and people would get hurt. Sure. So he had a good idea for incremental training. And that's, so that's March of 2001. and 9-11 is not even looming.

Like, we don't even know what's coming. And my platoon wasn't even earmarked yet to, like, be on another Mew. So I probably wasn't going to be able to take my platoon out on a deployment had 9-11 not occurred. I was going to just kind of do my time, my fleet time. And at that point in time, I was just like, well, I'm going to start looking, revisit the Marshals. The FBI. This has been my plan. This is what I'm going to do.

And so where were you and the guys at when 9-11 happened? I'd come up with this, I'd come up with this plan to take my platoon to Switzerland to participate in Swiss Raid Commando, which is the special operations competition around Burns, Switzerland. Yeah, yeah. And like I said, there's nothing going on. So we were like, we're going to jump into Lake Burn, water jump into Lake Burn, and then we're going to do this. We got invitations.

We had country clearances. I had transportation put together. And it is kind of rare for the Swiss to do that kind of cross training because of neutrality, you know, it does. It is a sensitive issue. Well, other Marines had done it. And so we were like, well, I was like, well, when's the last time we sent a team there? Like, oh, it's been a few years. I'm, well, let's do it.

So I went briefed a guy named James Conway, who was the first Marine Division commander, later became the commandant. And I said, hey, sir, this is what I'm going to do? And he said, okay, you're approved. I hope you represent and have a great time. That was September the 9th. So we're like literally lining up and getting everything going.

And then my wife woke me up and said, you need to come. You need to come see this. and getting a little emotional because I went to World Trade Center today to visit to visit a friend or to see a friend of mine but my my mother-in-law's cousin was killed on that. Oh, wow. Sorry. Well, and there are family members who were working there who got out. So we, you know, John Crow, his name is there. So I went and saw his name. I went, you know, just it was a huge. people forget how absolutely terrifying and confusing that time. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

And it's not just a big hole in the ground, right, when you go there. There's not, I mean, one World Trade Center still looks amazing as you walk by it, but the cost. Today, today going down there was like visiting a battlefield. I mean, it really is hallow ground, right? And so I come in and I'm watching this, like we all did unfold on TV. And that point in time, I was like, yeah, well, I'm not going to switch with it. Like, nobody knew what was going to have. Yeah. But then the phones were ringing like, hey, you need to come in. We're in DevConD. We're drawing weapons. We don't know what, you know, it was, it was a hairy time.

It's, you know, yeah, I hate to sound like an old man or something like that, but you're absolutely right that people, young people today, they don't understand what that was like. I was a senior in high school when it happened. And I mean, people were fucking afraid. There was like a palpable fear in the air. And this is the thing is that everyone looked to our nation's leadership and said, what are we going to do? And to our military. And that's who the next look was. It runged in the ladder, yeah. And, you know, Iraq wasn't actually on the docket at that point of time. It was all Afghanistan.

We had muse that were out. And the next thing we know, one of our reasons, Comptoons is on the ground in Afghanistan. There's raids happening. Like, there's all kinds of shit, and everybody's like... It is on. It is on. Yeah.

My buddy Nate Fick, who wrote one bullet away, I've known him, you know, 20-some-odd years. He was over there as an infantry guy. And just the stuff that he was involved in, just as an infantry platoon commander, you know, as these guys started, remember, but I said we didn't have any combat. He said in his book, and we became combat vets overnight. Now, all of a sudden, we had a lot of combat vets. and they just kept growing from there. But, yeah, sitting back in the States,

we didn't know what's going to happen, et cetera. And, I mean, speaking to the fear that, like, your units drawn weapons, and they're probably putting demo together and everything. Like, the units did that, as I understand, a lot of it was on their own volition. Yes. They didn't get ordered, they were, like, just preparing,

like, they knew something was going to come. The Intel shop all of a sudden had a lot of work, and we're, like, you know, having Sipper and, like, you know, high-side stuff, there weren't a lot of act, not like it is now, where you would get screened and you did, just sort of the way you work, never mind, top secret. So it was sort of like, hey, you guys need to get to work

and start mining things. Right. Like, what networks do we have. Like, we didn't have the relationships that we have now between agencies, particularly at the national level. All this stuff was brand new. We literally were just grabbing maps of Afghanistan and putting them up on the wall.

putting little tacks in them. Yeah, the bear went over the mountain. You know, Dave Grawl is his name. We had a few guys come in and give PMEs on their time, having worked in Afghanistan in the 80s. It was the only information we had. And so we just didn't know. And so then from there, we just went into this crazy training cycle.

We were out in the desert and honing our skills with vehicular patrolling, foot patrolling. How do you get teams in and out? You know, immediate action drills. The training then became very, very real. We're no longer doing this vacation. You're getting ready for a real world mission. Absolutely.

And so I was there for all of 2001 as we went in 2002. I was looking to try and stay. They don't have what's called stop loss, which would keep you in your unit. And I missed the push to Iraq because I got orders to go to the amphibious reconnaissance school to become the XO, which I did want to stay in recon,

I do want to be a part of it. It beat going on recruiting or something like that. But I was really frustrated. So I missed the Generation Kill deployment. I've known many of the guys who were in Generation Kill, Rudy Reyes. Nate Fick was a Patoon commander. The guy they called the Ice Man, all the Bride Colbert. All these guys were people I knew.

And, you know, I remember the Patoon commander coming in and took over my platoon. I was like, you. I told you it was late, Jack. Late to a lot. So they went, and they deployed. And I remember we were trying. training in Key West in March of 03. And we were out for a couple of beers, and all of a sudden CNN flashed on,

and we were in the invasion. And all of us were like, can we have like 20 beers, please? Yeah, yeah. We're a bunch of recon guys and we're not even in the... If you sleep hot at night, you know just how disruptive it can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night or all the above. That's where ghostbed can help.

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And it would be a while. Yeah, that's pressure. Yeah, that was amazingly. Because I was at ARS, which is the East Coast version of BRC on the West. West Coast. Now they consolidated it all out in the West Coast at SLO, which is better. I mean, they've got better access, better throughput. You did two schools at the time was meant to feed like small requirements on each coast. But did you have a fear like that, like a real fear that you were going to miss the war? Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, I now was no longer looking to become

a federal law enforcement officer. Like, I'm going to stay in. Yeah, yeah. This is an opportunity. You want to, you want to be able to do this. Kick some ass. But I was in this training command and we're training guys. And, you know, the irony is that we've got a cadre of dudes with have operational experience and maybe one or two had done some combat Sierra Leone or Bosnia. Doing like neos. Neo type stuff, protective stuff.

The guys in Bosnia did some actual reconnaissance missions and, you know, had real world kind of hairiness that they were doing. We're not talking direct action, but they were involved in some things. and I had taken over from a guy named Doug Zembeck. Yes. So he's his own legend. We can talk about that.

I was a very good friend of mine. He was a very good friend of mine. So I'd taken over from him and he was like, hey, man, you're entrusted with training these Marines. I know that because he was going to go to, he'd got orders to what's called the, now the expedition Warfare School. This time amphibious warfare school, which is a captain's level career course

for the Marine Corps, and then from there he was going to take an infantry company. He was like, look, I know that this is frustrating for you, but you're in charge of something very important, and you need to do that job the best that you can, which is a huge leadership. And he was right. But we're a cadre of guys who don't have a lot of experience, and then

we start getting dudes who were in infantry in Nazaria. We get guys who are part of, like, really legitimate ground combat operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq, enrichment and now they're coming in and we're teaching them how it's going to be yeah that doesn't go over yeah we have a lot credibility so eventually we started getting some cadre that actually did have combat experience a couple guys who'd been shot like so they started i started lending it the entire

military kind of had that problem around that time frame like oh three oh four you know ranger school whatever it was that you had instructors who nothing wrong or against them at all but they're suddenly having like ranger battalion privates with like three combat deploy showing up at their school. When I, I went to, I went to airborne school in December of 2002, and there were ranger privates walking around with mustard stains. Yes. Because they jumped into rhino.

Yep. With, with, with Cag. And so, you know, I haven't even got a jump yet. And these guys are, you know, get out of the way. I knew a couple guys that had two mustard stains. Yeah. Yeah, from Iraq and Afghanistan. It's wild.

Well, I remember asking, when I was joining the military, I went to MEPs and they put you through the, you know, the screening. And one of the medical screeners, there was an Army medic, and he had jumped in Panama, Ranger, Combat Ranger, Squirrel. And then he had, you know, Monster State on his, and I just affhandedly asked him, well, how many jumps do you have? And he goes, one that matters. Fair.

Holy shit. Yeah, so, you know, that, just being in that environment, because you're in this tough guy club, but you're not really a tough guy. And you want that. And it was a little bit of a self-consciousness, a little bit of stigma. And so, yeah, I did that from 03 to 05. And then I very much wanted to, I wanted to lead recon marines. I could have gone and become a company commander because that's what I was, an infantry officer.

Doug was doing that and very successful with that. They don't call him a lion of Fallujah for no reason. and I said, you know what, I'm going to ask to go to second force and become a platoon commander there. And so that would be your third platoon at that point, right? Is that normal or abnormal? No, that would be very abnormal. In fact, taking a platoon as a captain was to career suicide. And my monitor and my detailer even told me I had to sign a – he said, I'll cut you orders there if that you want to go.

I got plenty of people that need company command time. So if that's what you want to do and they've got a job for you, I drove down there and interviewed with the commander and got a stamp, and then I came back that day. I was like, all right. So you got to make your own luck, right? You got to chase it down. But if they didn't give it to me, I don't know what.

Like, that's the direction I want to go. That's what you want to do. Yeah, but that is, that, them allowing me to do that, and that decision is what set the rest of my career. Because I was told like your career's over. Well, they didn't know what things are going to look like. So you go to force as a captain, take a platoon.

And I've trained guys at ARS who have now been to combat and come back. And now they're like, oh, great, asshole, you know, welcome. Now we're into like 0-5-06. All right, so what's it like landing at force? It is like the best way I could equate it is if you saw a band of brothers, it would be like checking into the 101st

after they got back from Normandy. Salty deans. Oh, my God. Platoon sergeant, everybody. I couldn't, like, well, I had, you know, you still have to be a leader. or you still have to be either, but yeah, you got this. It's not even a chip on your shoulder.

You just have to try and figure out how to navigate. You have to earn the respect. You have to earn. And so go on all the way back to my first infantry unit. I kind of was like, well, I'm going to start just like that. They all get a fair shake. Hopefully they'll give me one too. I already had a reputation within the recon community for good or for ill.

And so I had to kind of almost had to humble myself. My friend, my friend Roger Sparks, who does some really good veterans work. he's out of Alaska. He was a recon guy and then went to PJs and a Silver Star recipient, a really, really great guy. When I was at first recon,

he's one of my team leaders and he's like, there's a time in everyone's career where you come legit where everybody's just like, okay, you've got what it takes. And never forget that. Like when you get to these units,

you've got to figure out. How did you go about that? How did you build rapport with these guys and kind of like get that? nod or handshake that like, yeah, okay, this guy will work. Well, I had a lot of talented NCOs. Obviously, their combat experience was quite significant by that point because they'd done Afghanistan, some of them have been Afghanistan and Iraq.

And they were seasoned, and so I just said, all right, I sat down with the platoon sergeant and the platoon commander and I said, all right, how are we going to make this unit work? I'm here to lead it. I mean You sought their guidance Yeah and I don't But I don't have to take my shoes off And say I'm in charge

Yeah yeah Yeah yeah People already know that But that's not what I'm here to do And then I also went to other platoon commanders Who had been involved in that for a while And said hey man I'm having this is a challenge

I'm having This is hard What do I do? You know these people What do I say And it's not so much looking for validation And you're not looking for I'm going to

tell you what to do. It's just sort of like, hey, give me some, I need some guidance to you. Yeah, yeah. And that's a hard thing to grab hold of. And it's hard to, like I said, to humble yourself. It's hard to kind of say, okay, this is what I don't know. And there was a lot of stuff I didn't know. And there was a lot of stuff that I could offer. And I said, all right, we'll go to figure out that blend. And so when I took him out on a patrolling exercise, they were like, what is he doing? But I did it for a very specific reason to watch and see how these guys work and what do they do? And how do they move at night? And what are they And then we got the kegabir and figured out the personality.

My dad's legacy was right on. I think it was going on. But no, that's interesting. I mean, you took them out on a training exercise, and it really was for you to observe them and to see how they operate so that you can kind of then mold yourself around that. Knowing they were also watching me.

Yeah. And so you can't be first in everything. You wish you could. You wish you were great across all areas. and you know. But these guys are hard chargers, yeah. Yeah, and you can't fool. You can't fool the audience.

You can't fool the audience. Like, you've got to give them credit, right? In the book and the movie or whatever. And so, yeah. And then after a while, we got to know each other and we were getting ready actually to deploy to Iraq as part of a Mew, because that's what it was at the time. And then Donald Rumsfeld came down and said,

we're standing up Marsok and Marine Corps figure it out. And I was in the right place at the first place at the first. right time to be a plank owner of Marsock when they... Wow. So tell us about how that came about, because one of the funnest stories about this that I heard, we had an enlisted guy, and I'm sorry, I can't remember his name. He's an enlisted Marine, and he said that they came, he was in recon or force, came back from a training exercise, and like the supply guy or something met them in the parking lot and was like, yeah, you guys aren't recon anymore. You're something called a mansock, I think it is.

That was Pete Perry? And everyone was just like, what? So like I said, I was supposed to go on this Mew in October, and I had already gone to meet with the Mew Commander, and I'd also met with the infantry battalion commander. Even though we were forced, we knew that we were going to do a lot of reconnaissance linked up with second recon, which is another, you know, you have the same second force,

just like first force, and then you had recon battalion. So we were trying to come up with, like, how do we consolidate all the reconnaissance forces? They've now done as part of the Marine Corps. Okay, so it's like under a Marine Corps space. warfare kind of umbrella. Yeah. And we can go into the back and forth

of who got disbanded when and then who got reactive it was, you know. The Marine Corps is a re-learning organization. We learn and then we learn a lot more. And then we, you know, no one ever accused us over 250 years. It's a 250 year anniversary unimpeded by progress. No one ever accuses of being particularly bright. But we, damn, we're

hard, right? So I was actually up at Quantico at the breacher's course. I got a slot as an officer, a very rare one, to go to the dynamic entry, you know, explosive breaching course. So I am a qualified breacher or was. Now their breaches are going, they fuck this guy.

But it's true. I was up there at the course and I got a call and they were like, hey man, you're not going to be on the Mew. We don't know what's going to happen, but Marsox just stood up and we're all now in Morsok. And so when you get back, just stand by. So we didn't know what it was going to look like. We know that we were now falling under Socom,

but they brought in auditors to our arms rooms, all our supply, and to your point of like, we didn't have any gear, we didn't have any, we're working on a shoestring budget. Socom came in and looked at our weapons and looked at all of our stuff. We're like, how have you guys been doing this? You're so poor. You actually don't know how poor you are. They were concerned about like interoperability and things like that.

commonality of gear. Like, we didn't have PBS 15s. You know, the two barrels. We were just still running around with single. Some guys had them as they were starting to come in. But I'm not saying we were using the car 15s, but, you know, we'd basic M4s, that kind of thing. And it was just like, okay, here's some money. Like, go get, go buy yourself some new boots, man.

Go down to Walmart or Cabela's. Yeah, go to 511 and hook yourself up. Like, whatever you want. Your cry precision was brand new. Like, get yourself 100 pairs of cavi's for all your guys. Like, what? And if you need more, it comes. Like it's no problem.

Like we got this crazy GWOP money. And then we're like, all right. So we start getting more gear. We start getting better equipment. We start, you know, really getting ourselves outfitted. And that's what we were able to do in those interim years. But when we weren't deploying was build our forces up. And the best part about that was the force recompiliting that I had inherited and now was part of.

We were together now for another two years after that. So we had incredible unic cohesion. A lot of time together. A lot of time together. My jump master's, like, Like, they knew exactly who was who. You know, we all knew what skills we had. We had levels of training that we'd been to that hadn't been done because we had this opportunity.

And that's kind of how I looked at it. I was like, well, we don't know what's going to happen, but we can be ready. So let's just, we're going to train and we're going to train really hard. So, yeah, talk to us through that a little bit, you know, after you guys went down and bought all of your Oakley's and Velcro and everything that you needed. Well, to be fair, a lot of guys were already leaning into that. They already cleaned out the places in town. That was legal. Now it was legal.

How did you begin, like, standing up? I assume, you know, you mentioned auditors and so forth. There must have been people coming down. And you had, like, some benchmarks who you had to meet to be, quote-unquote, qualified as a soft unit. Yeah, that all came out of SOCOM. In fact, the Army did a lot of evaluation on us, particularly. We were direct action focused at that point in time, particularly. So there were people from SIF.

There were people from CAG. And they were curious, like, what are these? these guys trained what do they do we invested in marksmanship training on a huge level we invested in our tactics we revitalized how we we did stuff because Delta had found that

five guys attacking the people the paper people army was not really effective and dudes were getting shot and it was so we had to relearn a bunch of things aggression helps in those fights but you also have to be a thinker and like the British you know the British say you know you take

your time but hurry you know be careful but get it done. Be deliberate. Yeah. And, you know, if you're in, you're in. But, like, just we, so we had to change things immensely in the way that we trained and the way that we approached stuff.

And that was a lot of learning as well. I mean, you guys had come back from Iraq with Humvees that they had gotten the CBs to weld armor plate on. And they're like, yeah, there's got to be a better way to fight than this. And so they designed the GMV. the ground mobility vehicle that we all started, you know, they went to Letter Kenny Arsenal and said,

okay, we want to design a vehicle that were. So from the ground up, it was tailor built for soft use. That's why they had the soft area of the GnV, the turret and all this thing. So we have to, not preface this, but at least explain to the viewers

to kind of like dovetail this. We had Fred Galvin on the show a few years back. We have his book, right? A few bad men right there. I know Fred very well. You know, you guys can and should go back and watch his interview, and that first Morsak deployment sounded pretty hellacious for those guys

and what they went through. And to be fair, I was not there. Right, yes, that's what I'm leading up to here. Same a generation kill, I was not there. So it makes for good TV in some ways, but I can just say who I know. You were the follow-on after Fox Trot. If you kind of take us through that a bit. Yep.

So I was the direct action platoon commander. We were paired up with an infantry platoon, they call a trailer platoon, which is really not a good name. They were meant to be an augmented security force for us doing a direct action mission. So if we were isolating an objective and we, the assault platoon were attacking or going into the assault, the infantry would be an external security. They'd also come in with heavier weapons, machine guns, that kind of thing, and be able to lay down some exterior higher firepower. and it also allowed us to put every assaulter on the objective and not have to have a driver. They could take care of all that for us.

But it's another thing we invested in was driver training. We went to BSR. We did day and night. We did off-road, you know. Old mobility. Yeah. It's a lot of fun to drive an old police Caprice classic, you know, with a big block V8 405 at 100 miles an hour on night vision goggles down a racetrack.

Crown Vic. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. And just roll, like, you get the cop suspension. You're just, ooh, fly. Yeah, it was great. So, we invested in that kind of stuff because we, one of the biggest casualty producers was vehicle rollovers and accidents.

And we're like, well, then shouldn't we learn how to drive? And you've got to drive in your body armor and your gear. And you've got to be able to feel the pedals in your boots. And so we tried to make its training as realistic as possible. And then so the Marshock company at that time was 120 people, and that had enablers, communicators. It had our company commander was a major, like Fred was the company commander for Fox Company.

I was in golf company at that point. And then we were to succeed Fred and his guys. And then they got into the encounter, the ambush that they were involved in. And you can read about that. You can go see different things. And that was a really difficult time because people are quick to judge.

Yeah. The facts weren't there. I told Fred at the time, I mean, we were hearing about it. I think I was in the special force this qualification course. And I was hearing weird stories at Fort Bragg about this stuff that, as I now know, are highly exaggerated.

You know, that's not how it went down. Everybody heard that. Yeah. And it sent a shockwave across, I mean, the Ring Corps has never liked Marsa. And at that point in time, it was like a... See? See? This is what...

Told you so. This is what you get. Which is totally unfair. Because he had... Man, if I had... If I had a good freaking group, he had a team of dudes in that unit. Inspector, his direct action. It sounds like they have been, it took a hell of a long time, but they have been vindicated.

It's been adjudicated, it has, and, and, and, but, but, but they. It lingers. Yes. We have some scars. It does. And, and it also went through so calm the same way. Because it was like, what's going on here? And so there was even more scrutiny on us.

As we were ramping up, you talk about certification. And they're like, well, let's take a look at, like, we really need to look at these guys carefully. And we're just like, wait a second. What I do. We're training as hard as anybody else. We've already demonstrated our capabilities to do what we need to do. And so coming in after them, you know, that was the environment. And we just had to kind of figure it out.

Another leadership challenge for you. Are we seen a trend here? Yes. We're only in 2007 right now. Well, how did you overcome this particular leadership challenge that, like, Marsok is under the microscope and in the eyes of many military leaders, like, you guys suck. You know, it's not fair, but there's a perception out there. You needed to be the best people we could be.

And I said, we know who we are. We know what we can do. And it's up to us. Now, this doesn't mean zero defect, but we don't have a lot of room for mistakes. In fact, we don't because we're playing with house money now. Right. So we cannot have a bad bet. And unfortunately, some people took that to mean really holding back.

And Fred, Fred did tell me, he's like, you're going to enter a world where people approach things from the point of view of, like, I don't have to do anything right so long as I don't do anything wrong. And they'll wait out. stuff like that. Right. And so... That's a little metaphor for the entire war. Fred was right.

I'm not giving... I'll give him... Fred and I get along. We always have. I haven't talked to him in a while. So Fred, if you're watching, man. Love your buddy. But he really...

He had to... He had to fight his own fight. For his unit's good name, for his men's good name, and he didn't give up. Like, he had his people's back. And that... I think that's what my own guys wanted to know as well.

Like, hey, if this goes down, if Ivan... Kind of support your boys. Stick with you. And, but the answer was yes. But, again, you have to figure... You had to figure this thing out. And so you're... You know, we deployed to Afghanistan in summer of 2007,

and we were there until the early part of 2008. and we saw a protracted amount of combat. Hell of a lot of... When I was in infantry officer, of course, a guy named Blackjack Matthews, lieutenant colonel, a battalion commander in Way in 1968, and he had given his Marines the order to fix bayonets. Fuck.

Fuck is right. And what he said about that is that it was the most difficult order that he'd given anyone because he knew someone on the other end of that rifle was going to die. And so while I never, I of course never gave the order for fixed bandits, I know people who have done it in combat. Really? Oh, yeah, infantry units.

There's infantry guys who seem way more combat than we have, Jack. I mean, seriously, let's call it what it is. And so, but I thought to myself, when they talked about the combat that he was in, and just day overnight type of leadership and things that he had to be involved, and I was like, I'm never going to see something like that. I'll never say never, because, man, oh man, I couldn't get deployed to Iraq. I couldn't get, you know, I kept going to these... You fought for this.

I was doing everything I could, and now I was finally able to go to the game. And I got all... What area were you guys deployed to? We were in the helmet. Okay. At that time was... Dicey. Really dangerous.

I mean, not that any place was great, but... That was... Oh, shit, this time frame is like during the surge, too, isn't it? No, it's just prior to that. Just prior. Okay. So we were kind of the only Marine unit in this area, kind of alone and unafraid, and then we were lashed up with, we were working with Special Forces units.

So I have earned my Special Forces Combat Patch, which is pretty cool. I actually take a lot of pride in that because I work with some phenomenal guys. And to be fair, we were new to the environment. There were guys who had been in Afghanistan, but earlier, there were guys who'd been in Iraq, but this was not Iraq. It was different. You had to learn, relearn things. And the enemy gets a huge vote.

And we were working with SF guys who'd been there a while. and they were like, hey, we're going to show you some stuff, like different ways of packing your gear, different ways of patrolling, you know, or navigating and avoiding IDs and all this other stuff. And they, you know, we probably, no, we definitely avoided more casualties than we took, even though we did take casualties because of their tutelage. And I would give them. But on the other side, it felt like we were being watched.

Like, hey, you know. Big brother. Yeah, well, hey, you know, nobody really trust these Marsox guys too much. So let's just put some SF guys with them because, you know, they're so trustworthy. Yeah, I was going to say. Like, well, it depends on how you look at it, right? Yeah. And so we just came to fun, like, after a while I was like, hey, you guys are like us.

Well, yeah. I mean, we were trying to tell you that. Like, you know, we get it. You know. But people did ask for, like, what's your training course? Like, did you get a beret? Do you get in? We didn't even have our badge.

You weren't raiders yet? Nope. And we were all forced recomb. But I tell you what? Like, as soon as you told them you were former forced dudes, you got this credibility. Yeah, like, okay. talking about. Like, okay, these guys are, these guys are all right. Any missions that, like, stand out in your mind? I mean, maybe, like, the first time you

were in combat or any that particularly, you know, stand out for you? So we were tasked, like we said, we were a direct action unit, but we did a lot of infantry-esque fighting, infantry fighting, but we're small. 120 guys is still not a lot of dudes, especially out in that bad guy country. And we often did a lot of patrols by platoon. So you're only, got five, six vehicles that you're out there by yourself. Whether it's reconnaissance or you're actually doing active combat ops where you're searching for the enemy or even a raid, which we did do a few of. We did a clearing operation, and it makes it sound like it's an old Vietnam search and destroy,

but that's not what it was. We're just kind of moving up this valley to kind of... Movement to contact. Movement to contact, we're really trying to figure out the enemy because the big, the big, The big push was going to be on a town city called Musa Calais, which is further to the north. And we were down south of Kajaki. So none of the 610 route hadn't been made yet. Any of that stuff, you know, those things, those improvement projects hadn't been completed.

And they were like, what's the enemy like up in this valley? We've got to go figure it out. So they sent us into this valley, you know, the Hellman River, to go and do that. And at first it was presence patrols. You know, you're going to meet with people, meet with village. and things like that, and then it just started getting incrementally more hairy the further north we went. And so we did a clearing operation as a company. We're in three different sections. And mine was actually in reserve. So it was not so much rear security, but we had to, like, move in a bubble.

You know, cigar-shaped patrolling formation, just with vehicles, basically. So you've got your flank security. We were in the back, and we got into, a pretty good contact over on our left flank. One of my vehicles was hit. Luke Milam was killed. He was a special forces medic. They called Sarks, a special amphibious reconnaissance corpsman, which is a Navy 18 Delta.

Special Forces Medic, he was... Luke was a great guy. I still speak with his family. He factors very heavily into my novel, which will be coming out this year. He held the Army, the Usasak Special Forces Medic of the Year Award, and the Marsoc Operator of the Year Award simultaneously. Jesus.

Okay. So he was an absolute warfighter. And when he was killed, we were like, oh, my God. Like, this is our... One of the best guys. Yeah, like, holy shit. And five other guys were wounded. And it was really...

That was just a huge eye-opener. And I think that day was when I really learned how to lead, because you had to somehow deal with the flood of emotions and your Marines are all busted up and then you've got guys who want revenge and you've got dudes being evacuated and it was just terrible. So the next day, as we're doing this assault,

at that time I had not fired my rifle in combat yet. I'd heard this whole thing on the radio. I'd seen this entire thing unfold, but it was distant. I was an observer, I wasn't in it. And I was like, I've now seen combat. I've been in combat, but I don't feel like I've been tested.

And then later that evening, the following day, my company commander came to me and said, we need to establish a foothold on this one part of this ridge line. So I want you to take your platoon down into this compound and take it over and fortify it. And the rest of us will swing up past you. because everyone else had been in a lot of contact, and we were fresh, fresh, relatively fresh, because we'd been in the back.

We mounted up, did a quick scan, we're like, all right, let's go, came up with our assault plan, and my support by fire position that was being provided by the infantry, never underestimate the enemy. They pumped two mortar rounds onto that to knock them out as they saw us driving in.

So they had to displace, and now I had no support by fire. and we had no air support at the time. There was some pulling in on the overhead. It was just like this confluence of stuff. So now we drive down at this compound, and as soon as we get there, we are in the base. Murphy's Law says, if your attack is going well,

you're in an ambush. Well, my attack went swimmingly, because I was at the base of a U-shaped ambush, and they were hammering us inside of 100 yards. RPG round bounced off the hood of my truck. I don't know. It just, and it blew up behind us. my guys

dismounted and started doing fire maneuver bounds through these guys in trench lines and they're throwing grenades and he just, oh my God. Well,

I think it scared the shit out of the enemy because they're like, these guys are crazy. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's a reputation Marines had with the Japanese during the war. I mean, this is who you guys are.

So, I realized after the RBG hit the hood and bounced off, I was like, Like, okay, this is, I don't want to be in this vehicle. I at least need to get out of it. And I need to control this fight because that's the officer's job is command and control.

But we also teach the fighter leader concept. And I get out of the vehicle and the bullets are flying and I start to run around the back. And my driver yells his name's coil. He goes, hey, sir, can you shut the door? I'm like, dumbass. So I run back and I shut the door. So he has some protection. And he's just sitting there.

My 50 caliber. My gunner up top is blasted the area of the 50 caliber. I run around the other side of the vehicle. I'm getting on my radio. And, I mean, it is just chaos. And calling in contact report. And then I get the word, hey, get out of there at this place. Like, there's no point in trying to fight this out.

So tell everybody, hey, we're withdrawing. you know get back to the vehicles and again like I've seen these guys now running forward I don't know if anybody's down in these trench lines now like I've lost sight it's dusk so you really can't see what there's a lot of dust and firepower power coming in going out and we are in a

is just a severe firefight and I I owe Eden Pearl that's our Dean Pearl who has passed away unfortunately due to his wounds from years back I owe him everything for teaching me this technique and he told me

if you run around a piece of cover you need to re-clear that piece of cover because you don't know what's now on the other side of it and I took up the stance just like we were trained and I leaned out around the edge of that truck and there was three dudes running with a PK

and I zapped them all and that was the first people I'd ever seen in my sights or killed and they all went right down and then I started running and Jack I can I can feel the bullets going by me I can hear him smack on the armor plate behind me my interpreter is laying on his back with his AK over the top of the armor plate just going like this just trying, like, he's terrified and just trying to contribute. That's a technique. It is, and I'm ducking underneath. He has no idea that I'm there, so I'm, like, ducking underneath

and I jump back in with coil, and I think, we need to turn around. He goes, rather that, sir. So now we've got to get everybody back in the vehicles, and we're trying to get accountability. I'm like, it's just chaos, and we're trying to turn these vehicles away. But the boys, meanwhile, executed, like, old school battle drills, like lob and frags into those trenches. It is.

They did it immediately. They went into an attack. like that and they basically did an Australian peel coming back. Fuck, man. I mean, we're talking about guys firing, you know, saws in their shoulder aiming while standing up. So they're just, just laying it down. And I just remember looking over the guys named Rodriguez, we call him Big Rod.

And he's just standing there, just leaning into a saw, just doing controlled eight to ten round bursts. Doing God's work. Yep. I was like, awesome. I mean, I was just like mesmerized at that point in time. So we start turning around. My J-TAC had the wherewithal, because he's smart, to go out the other side of the vehicle instead of running.

Because I told you, remember, I couldn't fly a plane. This guy was, he could. He jumped into this low-cover ditch and was now, like, calling in air support, and he's got 8-10s on the run. He's like, hey, we got 8-10s coming when you get out of here. And he has the wherewith-all to have a smoke grenade with him. So he's doing, like, everything. He's got all this stuff. By the book.

Yeah, he's got everything laid out in front of him. He's like, oh, yeah, Roger, grab a call. call sign, just a little combat. So you've got like Rod over here shooting like, like, you know, he's just having a field day and you've got fruit bat, just like, you know, hey, tens, that sounds good.

How many bombs you got? Okay, yeah, we can stack that up. And he's doing all the, you know, stuff in his head. So we get back in and as we're getting, we get everybody back in the vehicles, we get everybody rogered up. And this seems like it takes forever, but it's quick. And remember, we did all this driver training. We did all this stuff like stuff,

stuck vehicle training. And sure enough, as we're getting ready to pull out, we're this, oh my God, we're stuck. And the way we had pulled in, there was like this drop-off and one of those GMVs, and they weigh, like 10 tons. Yeah, up armored. It has now dropped into the side of this freaking thing

and is hanging by a wheel. So they've dropped the wheel into this thing. And I'm thinking, this is it. We're dead. They've got a stationary vehicle. They're going to get those RPGs. Now that we've shocked them, they're going to recover from that shock,

and they're going to blow that vehicle up, and we're going to have a real problem. I guess. You know, now I'm like, well, maybe we should just fight our way into the compound and, you know, just leave the vehicles and just do what we can. So I'm trying to make a least decision that I hear this. And I turn to coil, so you've got to stop. And he goes, what? Like, we've got to stop vehicle.

You've got to stop. And he's just like, but we're driving. Like, we got to get out of here. I'm like, I understand that. So now we're having this philosophical discussion about why we have to stop. And the hand of God, Jack or something reaches down and pulls this vehicle off of this freaking thing. Like that, because people are jumping out with toe straps trying to, like, now they're under fire doing this kind of. stuff. Right. I don't know how many

Valor Awards came out of this one action alone because of what people were doing. So they towed them out of it. Well, they hadn't even gotten hooked up yet. And somehow No shit. They backed out of it. The driver figured out whether he put it in four-wheel drive and toggling. Break throttle modulate. Yeah, he was doing whatever he could, but all of a sudden

he's like, boom, and he jumps out of this freaking thing. They're like, we're free, go, go. We just start barreling out of there. And then we got back to the covered and sealed. Then we all stopped. And watch the 8-10s come in? Yeah, we watched the 8-10s. come in and they pulverized them and then it got dark

and then you know the combat just ends after a while as you know and then you just it's just really quiet and I was I was not a smoker I love cigars but I was not a cigarette smoker but a lot of my guys were and I was like

you man does anyone have a cigarette like I really I need this the adrenaline is to like coursing through me 18 cents come in pulverize and we get now an AC130 over the head just to consolidate all of us and we run fire emissions off of that for a while. And I'm sitting in the covered and sealed.

We did a few more, there was a few more combat actions after that as well because we still had to fight our way out of this little part of the valley. I carried an M79 one of those old-school break-over. The blooper? Yep, I carried one in my vehicle. I grabbed the bandelier of M-79

and I just started like just lobbing them out to put rounds down to get, as people were coming back. So probably one of the last marines of fire in M-70s. And as I got done, I had that cigarette and Abdullah, my interpreters, listened to the ICOM and all the chatter. And he said, sir, sir, it's very bad for them.

We really, you know, we really gave him a good going over. It's like, is that right? He goes, yes, he, they said, you are worse than the Russians. And I said, that's probably the best compliment that had been paid in my life. So then the adrenaline wearer's office, I'm smoking the cigarette. And I sit down against the Humvee, or the GMV's wheel. I put the helmet down, and I started falling asleep,

and I woke up, and it had burned down to my fingers, and like, that's what woke me up. I probably would have slept there all night afterwards. So, I mean, you know, anybody's like, yeah, at that point, you're patented, like, chin strap swinging for, you know, I was exhausted.

Oh, my gosh, this is unbelievable. And then we got up and, you know, and that mission continued for another couple days before we finally, you know, we could only go so far. And we're just like, well, this is the enemy front line, basically. And so pushing up into there,

we still did more incursions to keep them on heels as the Ousacado thing was eventually going to unfold later that fall, later winter, or early winter. And it did. We were part of that on the outskirts, but the 82nd, actually, that entire mission with Afghan partners. So, wow, I didn't know if I was going to go deep into a war story. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was notable.

It was, well, yeah, it was memorable just because, you know, that was the first, like, real action I'd been in. And then after that, we just got into war and did. different stuff and there were always named commanders that we were trying to go after, you know, HVT types. I did some analysis one time with one of the SF intelligence sergeants. And if an American unit had taken as many casualties as we supposedly inflict on it on the Taliban and their leadership, like we would be combat ineffective for all the shadow governors and

all these other people. Yeah, yeah. You know, we were after him killing. So I think we underestimated just how. resilient in their resolve. Like, we did have them on the ropes at one point as, you know, probably more like a 9-10 timeframe, but at that point in time, they were absolutely ferocious. And beatable, we could, but we kind of, Afghanistan was a distractor from Iraq.

And we really stretched pretty thin. I don't want to get too big into the American political sphere at that point. But it was, so, yeah, that was 2000. when we finally finished it came back in 2008. How long were you guys over there? I got there in August, so five months. Okay, so relatively short,

but it probably felt like a hell of a long time. Yeah. Yeah, I aged. I think we all did at that point in time. So coming back from that deployment, I mean, you kind of got your wish in a sense. I mean, everything you were looking for. I sure did.

And I never looked, I've never wanted it again. Not like that. You got it out of your system? Well, I mean, I think we all become sort of adrenaline junkies in that, you know, you, and, and Fick talks about this in his book where you're, you become kind of addicted to it. Yeah. You want to hit. And then if you're going to be out deployed, then you're like, well, I hope we get in some action.

I want to do something. And then no matter how much action you've had, you're then like, well, that wasn't so bad. maybe we could do a little bit more. I've been in this big ambush thing. I want to CQB fight. I want to push it a little further. Yeah, I want to get in a room and actually get in a gunfight with the guy.

No, you don't. Like, there's a reason we change our tactics on this. Like, it's, you know. So you became a little bit more cautious in that sense. Well, I kind of like, be careful what you wish for sort of thing. I think more circumspect. Yeah. Definitely.

More, more calculating. Or at least evaluative. Right. What is really worth? weigh it out, you know. If I lose five guys on this mission, is it worth it? Well, and that played in later in my career, particularly when you're working at the national level where you were being called to do a job.

When the phone rings, you know, the National Command Authority is out of options. And you're going to go in there and you get into a world of risk mitigation. You can never, you're trying to buy down as much. You can't eliminate it. You're trying to buy it down as much as you can. And then are those risks worth it? Are the conditions right enough that we can go do this? And you want all those decisions made before you get in the helicopter

or you go do you open the ramp to jump someone out there. Right. That is what it comes down to. And I think that that's where people run into problems, particularly senior level leaders, is they may not have that kind of exposure, may not have that kind of experience. And this is not to say that the people who are leading or not

where they should be for the right reasons. It's just a matter of, I think, we lose sight of that. And whereas we had a big population of combat veterans that has dwindled, particularly in the last five to eight years. So we're going to go back into that peacetime footing and hope the lessons are. So coming back from that deployment, 2008-ish, what did you say in Force Recon? Or I'm sorry, you were at this point. So how much longer were you in Marsok for after that?

I then became an executive officer in one of the Barsock battalions. Okay. And that battalion's mission was primarily like J-Sets and FID in Africa. Cool. Yeah, so I got some exposure working a very different, you know, problems than just a red combat. And for the people who aren't familiar, in J-Sit, joint combined exercise for training. It's before deployed, you're going to countries,

I think SF used to say you're training tomorrow's adversary today. But we did that in the Philippines and parts of the Pacificity as well. So I was responsible for a whole bunch of teams and people deployed doing those types of missions. So it was also some of them in the Central Asian states as well. Cool. So I got a lot of exposure with that. And then from there I went to the Naval War College. I took a year sabbatical and got my master's degree in Rhode Island.

And then I came back to Marsalk after that and took on company command. after a stint in regimental training and regimental operations in 2011. And I also did an augment in between then with National Mission Force in 10 and 11. So. Whereas an operations officer for a strike war. To, before we move on too quickly. So working some of these like FID missions in Africa, Asia, Central Asia.

The last guest we had on the show, Frank Sobchak, wrote this whole book, Training to Win, Training for Victory. And he examined five different partnership relationships that we have around the world, El Salvador, Philippines, Colombia, Afghanistan, Iraq. It's pretty diverse. Yeah. And so anyway, I would just like to kind of like probe your experience a little bit on that. Like, what was your takeaway from some of the partnership relationships that Marsoc formed in those years? Well, many of them are enduring because now the Marsoc battalions

have regional focus. I mean, we very much like Marsock training, I think SF can kind of say the same thing, whereas it didn't have a formal selection course, they developed that, where there's, you know, it used to be sort of,

SF didn't have an MOS, they developed that. So you had, you know, longevity in your career path, languages, all that stuff. So Marsoc has embraced all of that stuff. Marsock had the valuable opportunity to be able to take all these different things that worked in different special operations units and create one that could didn't have to learn as quickly. And they don't mean that not learning, it didn't have to develop those things because other units were already doing it.

And they could say, okay, well, we're going to adopt that. It just took a while to get it moving. So there's longstanding partnerships that have been out there. And we've got, there's teams that work all over the place in Africa. they work all over the place in the Philippines and Central Asian states. Like I said, I ran into Morsot guys in the Philippines. There are people who run into them all the time. And they're like, what are these guys doing here?

So I think when you look at the global war on terror at that point in time and how we were trying to literally tamp everything down everywhere. And like I said, we kind of lost sight of what we were doing, I think, as a nation, when we kind of spread ourselves all over the place. We're going to defeat this ideology. And every ideology is bad. So then you swiftly find that the things, are important in Western Africa are not the same.

Like Africa is a continent and not a country. The priorities are a little different. In each place is different. So, you know, I think the French get a short shrift, but they do a lot of work in Western Africa and they take a lot of casualties, you know, or did for some of these really aggressive mission profiles that they ran. But you'd be surprised that Boko Haram is not the biggest problem

that some of these places are facing, even though it makes good headlines for us. I'm not saying that we're being overly exploitive. I'm just saying that are exploitative. but I'm saying that... They're also dealing with extreme poverty, corruption, all sorts of... Just running water. Right.

I mean, our level of poor is very different than the rest of the world. And at that point in time, with us trying to remap the Middle East in a method that we found the most acceptable, without necessarily asking the people who lived there, if that was the way that it should go, I mean, we had to keep a pulse on all of the things that were going on around the world. and our special operations were out there doing that.

And then there was partnership, of course, with national level organizations, State Department, agency, et cetera, to see if all of that jived. Because you were really leaning into trying to find out what that next flashpoint might be. Or if it was going to be there, again, it's containment.

It's not elimination. Right. And so those MARSOC-T teams were not necessarily involved in direct mission assistance and planning with units that were going out and doing them, or if they were, it was much more standoff. You know, we'll help you develop this plan.

Again, Marlwe. Yes, and the Philippines is another good example on that, although one of my teams, on their way to a training range with the Philippine Marine Corps, got into a big freaking action. So the next thing I know, I'm getting all kinds of simple reports of this firefight that they've been in, and they're being awarded the Vietnamese,

or the Philippine cross agontery. Holy shit. And now I'm going to the Marine Corps saying, hey, these guys read the combat action. Well, we don't have in the Philippines. They were yesterday. I'm not making this up. So, yeah, I mean, and their medics, you know,

were treating wounded and all kinds of stuff. And so you never, and that was one thing, though, that they had talked to their Philippine counterparts. you know, you've got to treat these things as a mission. Like the enemy is everywhere and you never know. Now, they're not going into take out Avisayef's, you know, planning and headquarters so they were not involved in the hostage rescue that happened over there as well. But there's a lot of special operations, things that are happening around that to enable those types of mission to happen.

So they were actively involved in. And so those units that are on the ground are your best collectors, they're your best pulse on what's, going on there. And I think, you know, one of the, in a historical area that we didn't learn from is that in Somalia in the 90s, there were special forces, American Special Forces units, U.S. Army Special Forces units in Somalia already on the ground who had a pretty good handle on Adid and like what this dynamic was really like in that place. And then when, you know, the National Command Authority, and I mean that like Washington got involved, then they were like, uh, we got the answer is like, I don't know, we're going to take care of ourselves. And so then you get into

a mission creep that this over extends. And I'm not, I'm not discounting anything that happened in Blackhawk Down or the bravery of the people involved. And, you know, there's a lot to be learned as a feat of arms in the Battle of Black Sea, for sure. But that kind of thing just snowballs if you're ignoring the people on the ground or at least discounting. When that mission focus changes, it's sort of a discounting. And I really don't think you can. I think there's a value and having those J sets out there, even if people see them as boring and kind of unimportant. Because training people to do marksmanship and do basic medical training. Yeah, we were talking about earlier, they're never going to make a movie out of it.

Unless something goes bad. Sometimes those like liaison relationships are where you're going to have the biggest impact on the battle space. It is, and it also helps your unit memory. Like, that's the problem with the Mew, the Marine Corps, Marine Expeditionary Program, is it rebuilds itself every 36 months or so for a six-month deployment. And because they're always reconstituting, that's what really makes, particularly our National Mission Force is very effective, is that they're standing. They have continuity. They have continuity, and they have a lot of lessons

learn that they pay attention to. And then when it's time to go into this next place, they're like, well, who do we know, like who's in our network, what is our experience there? And Marsak has done a pretty good job of that as well. So after that, you go to grad school. and you come back to the Marine Corps with a bunch of new vocabulary words to annoy your enlisted guys with. And annoyed they were. I actually, ironically,

we were talking about Fred Galvin, I took over a Fox Company. Okay. And that was my company command. Like I said, I did a tour with a strike force as an operations officer, which actually really did help me not only post graduate school or war college,

That was before your company command? Just before my company command. Okay, yeah, well, let's get into that a little bit. Okay. I had, there were Marines working specific unit, and they said, hey, we need some assistance with, one of our opsos fell through, and we need a guy, and I know it's short notice, but is it possible you could come fill this? And so Marsok's out as a great opportunity, and commanders knew each other, and calls were made, So I jumped on an airplane and went over there.

And that was in Eastern Act, Afghanistan, which is another part that I hadn't really served. And so I worked, I worked there for four months. Pretty high-end, high operational tempo environment. But I learned a lot not only through operational planning, but just watching how these units prepared and did things so that I took all of that information. And when I became a company commander, it was like, I really have a very thorough understanding about how to utilize ISR, how to, you know, augment and accelerate the intelligence process and apply that in real time and make changes and explain why those changes are necessary and develop a unit that sees it that way. And so you should constantly be learning and evolving and trying new things.

But if you don't have support, you're kind of hallucinating, so you can't just, like run forward and say this is what I'm going to do you get to kind of right it's a salesman it's a sales pitch so um you mentioned that a little bit earlier about the importance of branding uh-huh and that's uh going back to that confidence thing if at face value they can say oh gosh these guys know what they're doing we trust that they will be able to to do the things they say they can and so once that trust is established and that's that's really what happens in in in J-Soc world, it's taking at face value.

And you notice that with the special missions units that they're like, yeah, okay, these guys got it. They don't have to prove themselves again. They haven't say anything. Right. They really don't. On the other side, they have to maintain that. Right. There's very little room for fallibility.

Yeah. You have an operation where a bunch of birds get shot out of the sky and that changes things. It does. I mean, just having one go down. And I mean, those units have taken a lot of casualties. I'm not going to say unnecessarily, but, you know, they lean into the mission and say, this is what we're going to do. The risks are assessed and once they say go, it's time.

So you were in like a planning cell at that point? Mm-hmm. I was the operations officer for this entire organization. For that task force. Yep, for that organization. And so I literally was looking across. the table at the targeteers and the drone operators and the air mission planners. Just shout out to the 160th.

I mean, the first time I work with them, we set up this in training. But we were doing a direct action rate on this combat village. And we set up that we're going to land in this field and attack the building. and the warrant officer looks at it and goes, why do you want to land there? That's like 150 yards away from the building. We're like, yeah, well, I mean, you've got to be able to put the helicopter down.

He goes, my rear rotor arc is 30 meters. Okay, I was open for 25, but if that's how close you can get, it's fine. That's how he landed. The ramp went down, and the guy that the ramp gunner was like, that's the building. There's the door. There it is. And we're just like, wow.

curbside service you know so i mean it was just a difference in training that we weren't even used to right once you have capabilities that you can reach into and people that you can work with and you trust on that level then you can have a discussion about you know risk to air force risk to aircraft risk risk risk commission what's worth it at that point of time you know if you're going to do an offset fine we'll do an offset but now we're going to land in such a way that it protects everything it's you know audibly masked you know hopefully we find bad weather because most people aren't going to be outside. You know, you find out all this risk and still going to be able to land and do the It's cool to hear you talk about this stuff at the level you got to see the planning process because

there is a sense with a lot of people out there. Sometimes even, I hate to say it with former operators when you listen to them talk, like, I don't think they totally understand everything that goes in to putting one of these missions together. They don't. And running to the door and blowing it down and clearing some rooms is awesome, but there's all of these other pieces that have to come together. There is. And that's not to say that the operator, at the operator level, they're not taking the risk Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I worked with very talented people. And there were stuff like creatively talented people. So they just, they talk about how they were going to do something. And I'd be like, oh, I'm writing that one down. Like, damn, dude, that's good. I like, you know, just things you hadn't

really thought about. And then you get out there with their troop commanders and you start listening to how they run stuff and how they do command and control and actually manage their you know the chaos and I look back on that one firefight and how much better would I have been have had had an opportunity. All of that, yeah. To be able to handle the amount of stuff that he has, never mind the support network. So it incrementally made me better as I started looking at it. But, you know, because we were going back to Afghanistan and my company, I realized that I could

only take but so much back from them and say, okay, here's how I'd like to do. do things because you're not resource the same way. You're not equipped the same way. You don't have the same permissions. So you can't just say, why can't you be this? This is who we are. We've just said we've got to be. And we're going to work within those parameters. And we're also going to push them as hard as we can. What were some of those lessons that you were able to apply back in Marsoc as far as like how you organize your special teams or, I mean, how did that kind of come together and coalesce for you guys? Well, at that point in time, we were now running into what's called VSO, which is

the ability, stability operations. So I was going to be, the thing that I learned on that strike force rotation is they had multiple units out independently working. And at that point in time, I had not done that. Like, I was not experienced with that type of distributed operation, operational area, and distributed commanding control.

And it's two parts. You're in command, but you've got to control all of this stuff. But now you have to have a tremendous amount of trust in your subordinates, not just your officers, but especially your NCOs to get stuff done. because they're operating in other areas that you may not see them for weeks.

And they're entrusted with money, and they're entrusted with weapons. And there may be sensitive programs that they had to run that they're not looking for your permission on because you've already said, I trust you. So I had to be very direct about what my expectations were. I had to follow up on that, but I also had to give them room to work on it. And so as we're getting into the VSO piece, I looked at the way that these strike forces, you know, were managed. from a central point and what they were allowed to do

and I mirrored that and said as these guys are trained based upon where their operational areas when you help them to achieve the best you know outcomes speaking of the mobility stuff if I recall right wasn't this around the time that Marsox started using

like dirt bikes yep started using dirt bikes we used well that was one thing when I was out the strike forced, I mean, they were loading those side-by-side razors into the back of, I'd never seen that done in the back of helicopters and landing in the middle of nowhere and then, you know, getting the job motorbikes. The same thing. I was like, riding dirt bikes at night on night vision? I want to do that.

Like, that sounds great. So we invested a lot in, you know, mobility training. We sent guys to dirt bike courses. We sent guys to mule packing courses in case you were going to go into the mountains with animals. And by the way, mules are not as easy to work with as you think. that kind of stuff and we could be creative but we also made it very mission focused it wasn't just adventure training

for adventure training but then you kind of put the fast roping to the side because you know you're not going to be doing that much but you do focus on your jump stuff because you think there might be an application there but at the same time you really look at it all right

what are we going into are we good can these units fight and thrive and sustain themselves and can we sustain them And, you know, because they're in VSO, they have to be able to generate their own intelligence. So do they have the right amount of access to intelligence, the stuff that's reporting back? How are we packaging that? And, you know, my unit got really good because of the way we were distributed.

And I had special forces teams working with us as well in all these VSO sites of developing a really big battlefield picture of not only the Taliban network, but who the movers were. And from there, we would hand off the larger target packages to people who could go and execute, whether it was a special air, or it was, you know, our own people, our own SMUs. And people would show, people would look at our intelligence packages and, again, take it a face value. This came from this group. It's not gold. Like, we're not just running in there, but pretty credible. Let's follow up.

And they would send a two-man team. And they would come and talk. Or they would say, hey, hey, come up here and let's have a conversation. And so they would put people on, you know, hey, you're going to go on this raid. We want to get this guy. We're going to come with you. Less risk to us. We can still do a job we need to.

We have better permissions to roll a guy up and you don't have to worry about the tension problem. Like, dude, this is awesome. What area were you doing VSO in? In the West, Western Afghanistan. Okay. Farah, Shindan, Harat. The operating area was about the size of West Virginia. Down into Nimruz.

So it's kind of this arc around. And then you've got, of course, I ran as your main intruder. Was that something you guys had to account for or run up against? We did. I will say this. And all the time that was over there. I never saw some Chechninean fighter. We never got...

No IRGC guys. Yeah, the gold standard would have been to roll up a Quds Force guy. Like, yeah. No, we never... I mean, I'm sure they were there and kind of collecting. I mean, you know, the phones that they have over there are all Iranian made. You had to assume that you were being collected upon. It wasn't like we...

But it was also where... We're pretty overt. We're in the open of... You're living in these villages. You're now trying to, you know, expand some of the security into the... these areas, even if they didn't necessarily want it. So I had to change the mindset of how we approached the mission. We got Dave Tcholkullen to come in and give a three-day, very academic, but also

because he had been a warfighter with the Australian Army, and he had a long, you did the accidental guerrilla, if nobody knows that book. So we had him come in and talked about not only the book. I read his book, Blood Year. Very smart guy. And we're like, okay, well, if we need to understand, let's get people who have done this and can actually put some stuff against counterinsurgency, because that's what it was.

And it's hard to grab, you know, counterinsurgency is something that's baked into the Army Special Forces playbook. Marsac has now got it. But at that point in time, you know, coin, another mistake that was made my opinion is that we tried to make all of our armed forces able to do coin. and say, well, it's just this mission, it's just different. Anyone can do it, yeah. That's not true at all. We know that. You need specialists to do these specialists work. You wouldn't have somebody, you know, you too, how to rebuild a turbo in your car.

You would go to a specialist to do that. I hope anyway that that's how people will approach it. But because of that, you need specialists, we found that we had to become specialists and we had to admit that we didn't know certain things, and we had to learn. And so I found the most, the best people with the best expertise, as I could. Particularly when you're talking about counterinsurgency, asymmetric threats, which is something different,

but when you're in these environments where you've got this changing scale where you could be in full combat at any minute, and it did happen in some of these VSO sites. I also use the VSO sites as jumping off points for action if we do it because I had now a forward-deployed node that knew the area and could do stuff. And we talk to people, again, like we're talking about rolling someone up,

We've already got us force here, it's ready to go. You need to send a few people down and we can make it happen. So we got really good at having that kind of relationship. And because of the relationships I had on the Strike Force, these people were still working at Camp Alpha. And I could just call them and just say, hey, we got something going on. Was that at all difficult to manage? Like, sometimes where it's like, hey, J-Soc, you don't actually need to be here.

Like, we can handle this thing? You wish that you could invite people into your house sometimes? But it doesn't always work like that? Yeah, sometimes we're more interested. And like, maybe you guys could just take the night off. We got this. and so you kind of cross your arms and go, you get upset, but it generally was complimentary.

I didn't have anybody just out of the blue just fly into something. If they were going to do something, they were very circumspect about, you know, there was a good liaison there. And then there would also be like, hey, look, if something happens, we might need help.

So if you can put some guys on, have a QRF. Yeah, if you guys would put some guys on standby, that would be great. What kind of medical facilities do you have if we have to come here? you know, oh, you have special forces medics? Awesome. You've got people, you've got a surgery, you know, based upon this Army

MASH unit that's co-located with you, fantastic. So those are the kinds of things. They don't know everything and everybody. They need to kind of build their own network as well as far as support capability. And if you can do the job and you offer something of value, they're going to take it. They're not going to just say, oh, we'll do it ourselves. Yeah. They're better than that.

Yeah, team building. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that the, you know, The strength of ESO was that we really were trying. The difficulty was that we're trying to be good everywhere, and we just were running out of kind of patience, even as it was heading into 2011, 2012,

even though Afghanistan lasted another almost 10 years. We were throwing things just like trying to make this stuff work. And we all served, We all served to make the best of that situation, but it was not the direct action kind of combat that I'd been involved in five years earlier. So I think a lot of guys were kind of disappointed that we weren't doing that as frequently,

even though we did get into some action out there, for sure. What was sort of your takeaway from the VSO experience? Because we've interviewed, certainly, SF guys, at least one seal. Probably we have had some Marsok guys on, but it sounds like or Scott Mann we've had on the show who developed it.

Yeah, yeah, he's I mean, it sounds like... And he's a heck of a lot more versed on this than me. Yeah, yeah, and I'd love to hear your take on it, but I mean, it sounds like just as we were kind of like getting it up and running and starting to pay dividends, that they shut it down. Well, that's kind of what I was kind of alluding to,

but that's a great way to sum it up. And so, like Kilcullen said, you know, counterinsurgency and the warfare that you're involved in, And yes, it is evolved. You don't want to create more insurgents. You want to try and develop more friendly networks than bad ones. But honestly, you still, if you're not shooting people in the face, you're doing it wrong.

Like, you have to keep being aggressive. Keep the pressure on the bad guys while you're building up this sort of civilian infrastructure. So in 2009 and 10, under Obama, we'd not only increase the drone warfare permissions. like he really opened that up big time he also opened up special operations like being involved all over the place and we you know I don't want to say it was war on the cheap but it was really like let's just get you know we're just going to let the dogs loose and and try and put an end to this thing and it unfortunately national level pressure pulled us back like we had the Taliban on the ropes and we were pulling out of afghur out of iraq at that point in like 2010 11 yeah 9 10 11 we really had the Taliban on the ropes and they were pulling out of afghs and they were pulling out of afghans or out of iraq and they were ready to come to negotiating table and we kind of get it let up. And then we said, okay, let's do VSO.

And this is not saying that that was a bad idea because the U.S. Marine Corps had done that very effectively in Vietnam with the Hamlet program. Cap, or cap. Yeah, the combined action program. Thank you. And, you know, the Hamlet, so you're going in the Hamlet. So it was very successful, you know, in his thing. But this requires maintenance and it requires a long-term investment.

And the population in America is war-weary because of Iraq. people were kind of, well, what's going on in Afghanistan? Why are we there? What are we doing? Yeah. And so, yeah, in order for that to be effective, it was going to take a lot of time and it was going to take, you know, probably more investment. And we were just sort of looking at like, okay, well, when are the Afghans going to get hold of this thing and do it themselves? And quite frankly, they weren't going to do it.

And, I mean, the reality is like a VSO project. That's like a decades-long project. That's not an election cycle project. And we, because Americans want it quick, fast, and in a hurry, and cheap, they, you know, pick two, right? Can't we just use robots to do this? I love it. You know, but it just, well, I mean, it was very, you know, with the drone program, it was sort of like, well, we'll just do standoff and we'll just shoot these guys. Well, that's not balanced with, with on the ground, you know, work.

And the other problem, our challenge in VSO, is that you're kind of like with the J-set, you're turning over your teams every six to eight months and you're having to rebuild these rapportes. And there were guys who had gone back, you're like, hey, we're now back in the Zirico Valley. We're now back in Shindan, but we haven't been here for 18 months. Things have changed. Things have changed. But the way we are fighting this war have changed. You know, I was on a SIF and I was banging targets every night in Iraq. Well, dude, we don't do that here now.

you got a bad guy outside your gate probably go get him well let's just hang on we don't want to be too violent well that's what I mean is you gotta be able to you know have that throttle and I tried pretty hard to lean into being able to you know get into the pacification while also

you know building up the report another leadership challenge and grabbing them by the collar like oh hold on a second well that's when they started saying like we can't want this more than the Afghans do and I don't know if I met an Afghan who wanted to do more than us you know what I mean

Fuck, man. And so, you know, we finished that deployment in March of 2012, nine months. Quite a number of guys wounded. Nobody killed, thank God. And I came back from that, and, you know, one day you're in charge and you're leading and you're out there, and then next thing you know, you're sitting in a parking lot. 29 palms. wondering why the band broke up.

Like, like I didn't get sent the 29 palms. I actually ended up going to, it's called Special Operations Training Group and Marine Corps, which is training muse. And I spent a couple of years doing training muse, taking the stuff I'd learn in Marsok and helping Muse get better, both with their training, the way they train and they approach different things. And I also was involved quite a bit with their cult stability.

operations and also interagency operations because my time with Marsock I'd spent plenty of time working with people from different NGOs different parts of the United States government all the eight most of the agencies within it especially those who were you know in in Afghanistan um and those who were supporting those J sets because they're in the working all over the place working on country clearances trying to you know if you do that as a regular thing you assume everyone knows how to do that and then when the larger Marine Corps is like hey we need to get some people in this place

they don't even know where to start with doing a country who do we call who does your request do you all even have passports oh that's a good one maybe we should get those like you know what else have you got for us like it's kind of important maybe we'll just pump the brakes for a minute

on this invasion thing you guys want to do so was that like a rewarding experience to kind of take all these experiences you've had and now you're in a training position and sort of pass some of that along? Yeah. I actually, that was a part of my career I really enjoyed. I like training.

I like teaching or trying to impart. And ultimately, it's not just to help the unit get better, especially if you're getting into tactics and I'm not, I was not a, I did enjoy tactics. I did enjoy, you know, shooting and that kind of thing. I don't mind being out of the range and helping people with marksmanship or even talk about the ambush vignette or some others that things have been a part of to help them understand, you know, combat decision making and leadership. But on the other side, it's, you know, there's a lot more that you can you can bring and offer to people. And so I like, I really do like that. I think it's a very, it's a payoff.

and that's not to say like why I just love being on the podium and lecturing you know you want people to get something out of it but when you bring someone like Andrea Dew, who is a professor at the Naval War College who wrote terrorist insurgents and militias, which is a great academic study of why people are kind of the way they are. So before you ever go into some of these situations, you kind of look at Lashgari Taiba and these terrorist organizations, then you look at people who are not necessarily terrorists. And we've broad-brushed every organization that's bad out there as being terrorists. And in many ways, they may have things that are. There are traits that kind of align to terrorism, but if they're an insurgent or if they're just a militia in a lawless land, they're just trying to get something done.

Narco smugglers. Absolutely. Well, I mean, I made deals with the Taliban, or at least the guys I know who are associated with the Taliban, to stop IDing roads so we could get something done. And their only agreement was like, hey, you just keep people out of our valley. That was it? Yeah. Pretty much. I'm like, well, is that the problem?

Because that's easy. And oh, by the way, what do you grow over here? stuff so who do you sell to oh don't worry about it good guys dude you would like but don't like enough questions there exactly

do you want the IDs to stop or not like we've lost you're losing the plot here Ivan like where are we're at so I was just like all right well you know you're going to make a deal and that's just it and so if you're really if you're really looking at in a straight moral

ethical like I can't cross these boundaries line you have to be able to you're not subjugating your personal code you're looking at it from the perspective pragmatic perspective exactly how do I get this done and ultimately that's the result

yeah you weren't hashing out a piece deal you were just hashing out a little I just wanted peace here or at least reduction so I mean Afghanistan was fine when I left I don't know what happened it's somebody else is well no I mean And that is not to castigate anybody who served there or anything that, you know, has happened. It's just because of the rotations that you would have, you would just, you know,

you'd come back and see another guy and be like, hey, man, then I see you in 2010. You're like, what have you been up to since then? Oh, you know, Jay set did this, that, and the other thing. And, you know, we're back. Like, shouldn't we be done? Like, shouldn't this be, shouldn't we have progressed? So we, we, it's kind of like writing a book where you don't have the end in mind. Well, I know you've heard it before, you know, people.

People say we weren't in Afghanistan for 20 years. We were in Afghanistan for one year 20 times, right? But not the same year 20 times. That was the other problem. We were like, well, and my Iraq veterans used to say the same thing. Well, we've been in combat. It's no big deal. Like, at the sharp end of battle, it is, they are indeed correct.

Shooting is shooting tactics, how you employ, that, you know, how you fight is definitely, you know, something you can you can overlay. I don't want to use the word template. But then after that, the environment, you have to understand the evaporating environment you're in and the way that your enemy fights and the way that they approach things.

And people say turn the map around. It's not just terrain, it's mindset, it's how they look at stuff. And so in the VSO thing, we really wanted to get a little more deeper into the psychology, into the psyche of what we're doing. Not only are we having an effect at the VSO level,

but who are we fighting against them, what is important to them? And then, you know, my opinion, in Afghanistan, we probably should let them be a kingdom and have a king and fiefdoms and just rule it medievally. Because that's what they understand. Kind of what they wanted. Well, and we said, well, no, you need Jeffersonian democracy.

Yeah, you need a federal system. Cry not out loud. A lot of people got rich off of that, and it wasn't the people. You know what I mean? I remember talking with the provincial governor in Harat. Very real educated guy. impeccable English. And his bailout plan was go to Arkansas

where he'd already bought a house. Like, he wasn't going to stick around. I mean, he wanted to help his country. He really did. But he already knew what the... What was coming. What was coming. And then, you know, I was talking to provincial governor in Shindan. He's like, you all are lucky in America that you don't have people on two sides of you,

countries of two sides of you, i.e., the Pakistanis and the Iranians, meddling in your affairs at all time. Yeah, right. Never mind the international interest in our country. Like, we got all. Russia and... You. U U.S.

The Chinese, all these other We're dealing with a heck of a lot more on a geopolitical scale than people are understanding. And for me, I was like, okay, this is way more complex. Yeah. They're in a dangerous part of the world. And we were living in it. Yeah. So two years training the Mew

and then what was the next stop for you? Back to Mursok. where I went to the component level as the current operations officer. So I was managing with the ops team all of the Mar-Soc operation. Wow, okay. So I went from the regiment.

I went from battalion to a regiment and then up to that. So I did that for about, only about five months because then I got, earmark to be what's called a special operations liaison element team leader on the 22nd MU, which is a special operations cell that was attached to the MU to help them with soft. Like the MARSOCIC integration?

Well, more like MU, big Marine Corps integration with SOF, not just MARSOC. Okay, okay. You know, say National Mission Force needs to come in and land on the aircraft. the carrier, I would go in and help manage, you know, the LNO stuff between those two. Or if we were going to go ashore somewhere and do some training and there was a special operations unit there, I would get the Marines and the soft unit together and talk about what that training could look like. In our case, we got really lucky. I had a great new commander named Todd Simmons and he really gave me free rein. He made me member of his staff. And I took him all around.

the soft world, Tampa, Bragg. We went overseas to Sok Ur, Sok Af, Soxent, got him tied in with all of his 06 and above-level people so that he could have those direct conversations. And I made sure that I shared every piece of information and intelligence that I had with him, you know, on an equal standing. And so he and I would have fairly regular meetings. And when we got deployed, we were given,

the mission to support the liberation of CERT Libya, which is Operation Odyssey Lightning, which I managed and ran with the new for four months. So CERT, we didn't have a, the embassy, of course, was in Tripoli. What were you guys evacuating out of CERT? No, the ISIS had taken it over. Yeah. And the GNA, the militia group that we were backing in Tripoli as the officially recognized Half-Tar's guys?

Half-Tar's guys? No, no, Haftar was on the other side of Mungazi. This was, like, half-tar, we actually had to make a plea to him to, like, stay out of the fight. Even though he was, he was well ready to get into it. This was the other, the recognized government. But they had a group of militia guys that they wanted to get into CERT and take it back from ISIS. But they needed new air support and they needed a lot of different kinds of. to support and so I helped, got the opportunity to help manage an entire war plan by way of that.

So, what was that like? Yeah, I mean, because now you're, you know, creating a war plan or air campaign to support a indigenous ground force that you don't really have any control over. And they are being managed by soft elements from different countries. And yeah, so it was challenging. It was different, very challenging. And you're dealing with militias who do all of their operational planning on Twitter. And so that's a technique.

Hey man, want to get it on? I'm sure what time. Firefight hashtag let's go. You know, like, holy, you couldn't make this stuff up, you know. But it's not bullshit either. Like that kind of stuff really happened. No, it really didn't. And I will say that the Libyans themselves were very aggressive.

It took a while, but they fought ISIS. like literally to the last man. And the meu support to them is what made it happen. Yeah, I mean, Serta is a, or SERT is like a traditional hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism in Libya. Yeah. And it's right up on the med in the Bay of, you know, Bay of Benghazi there. A little area that Marines have some experience.

A little bit, a little bit. Shores of Tripoli, all that good stuff. You know, I guess it's going back to my roots, you know. Presidio Bannon probably running the first Marine special operation by crossing the desert to attack Libya with six other jarheads. So yeah, I mean, you know, like it just, now you're working at the operational strategic level and taking all the stuff that I'd done to that point,

not only working with news and understanding of the inner agency, and now I was applying that, you know, with a conventional Marine force that actually had really really creative people on it and Simmons was just like, go, get it done. And, uh, so the, I mean, I, your impressions of the air campaign, because I've had people tell me there's some very interesting kind of takeaways, at least from the drone war, if they were to look at like, Raqa, Missouille, Sert, they're all a little bit different. Mm-hmm.

Kind of like they found in Bosnia. Air campaigns cannot win a war. On their own? Well, the Air Force will absolutely tell you that I'm wrong on that. But it's, I mean, well, that's why they exist, is to drop bombs and help the U.S. Army. They absolutely can turn the tide. Absolutely augment.

They will augment, and if employed correctly, help the momentum and keep the tempo going on a ground effect. And that was the one thing that the Mew could do is the deck cycle was just all day, every day, 10 hours straight. Day, night, fixed wing, rotary wing, you name it. And the only thing we didn't put was boots on the ground. So, although God knows they were ready. Out of Tunisia or Malta, or where were they most? We were based on a boat.

Oh, no shit, okay. We were on the USS Was. We dropped more ordinance than has been dropped in like ages. I got a picture somewhere of all the. bombs that are painted on the superstructure of the boat. We used up everything in the magazine, and then we had to ask for more, from Yukom, and they were not prepared for as much as... They were like, how many did you drop?

We don't even have that many. We were just like, send what you got, fin kits, whatever. So then we were getting them from other theaters, and I was, you know, we're talking to our soft network to load stuff on the aircraft, to fly at the different places for us to send V-22s that then fly onto the aircraft. Yeah, the different combatant commands. Yeah. So we're moving, we're working across different combatant.

commands to enable this fight. And the other thing is, you know, it is precision bombing, but a, you know, 500 bomb is not necessarily precise. So if you look at the... And you don't have your J-TACs on the ground either. Well, there are J-TACs controlling. From other countries. From other countries. Yeah. So you'll find that the British enthusiasm is a little bit different from us. They're actually pretty aggressive. And, you know, they were just like, well, just bring what you got. We'll figure it out, you know and can you make it a too that sounds great like but bombing is obviously destructive and people are like no shit watching but to your point of of raka of holmes of parts of like a philuzia like your clearing operation and once you get done like cert was leveled like this used to be the

the gem on the med in where people would go to vacation in And I've been boots on the ground in Libya and I've looked out over the stuff and like, man, if these people can get their shit together, you'd have a great surf spot some days. Come on, guys. And so, what did you really gain by, I mean, yes, we beat ISIS. Hooray.

But there's nothing left. And there's a tremendous amount of casualties. The Libyans took a lot of casualties just because they were really untrained. We're not talking about professional soldiers. Yeah, yeah. So never confused enthusiasm with capability. And they got after it, but, you know, you want to talk about a CQB technique, they're using freaking T62 tanks, main guns, just to clear buildings.

It's a method. Yeah, yeah. Not a lot of HR possibility with that, but, you know, but ultimately they, you know, they were like, we're getting this thing done. And so you just, you look at what air support, can offer and you look at how it's employed and then you again you make those those risk calculations and we knew exactly we had the permissions to drop the bombs where we knew what the pieces would be and it was just sort of like a collateral damage i.e. civilians were making sure they're not there that was

that was huge in the ROE there was you know we we had to ensure that we were able to employ things the right way but we you know I proportionality and I was a JTAC as well back I was trained at by the Army, as a matter of fact, at SOTAC, years ago, and I have live controls in combat with aircraft. And just the geometries and stuff that goes into calling them in a bomb, you know, there's very tragic stories of people who've had bombs dropped on. I mean, Don Parnell talks about that, you know. Yeah. That was a, you talk about things that, you know, go through the command like, holy shit, this just happened. and you know

if it can happen we've got to figure out ways to mitigate that so the way those things are employed and how you do it has to be measured it has to be

well planned and like there's something called a type three engagement where literally everything forward of a line is a free fire zone and we were able to do that

in combat but you've got to have a hell of a lot of trust in your people because now you're saying anything in here is engageable and you can do it

and so when Cobra Paiol Let's hear that. They're like, oh, my God, this is great. This is why I joined the Marine Corps. I wanted to fly. Those are, like, words you don't tell a Cobra, a pilot like now. But we did, and they did.

Like anything in this box. Yep, anything in this building is go ahead. Yeah. Forward line of troops is right here, and they're like, okay. Holy shit. So they're running tow and hellfire missiles, or, I mean, not toes, because they're wireguided, but they've got hellfire missiles off of the pods. And the machine guns.

Yeah, and they're just putting them into windows. Holy shit. that night, being lazed by somebody else that you're not talking to. It's a brave new world, man. Woo! Yeah, it gets sporty, right? Yeah, foreign liaisons, soft international relationships. Yep, and you have to be able to maintain all of it.

Yeah. And if it goes bad, where's Ivan? So, I mean, yeah, it's just very, I want to leave a lot of permissions and respond, but there's a lot of responsibility comes with that. But it was all on Simmons. Like he owned the entire thing. Yeah, it was like get it done. Yep.

And when did that job kind of end or wind down for you? All of 2016, and then I came back in 2017. And then I was back at headquarters doing my ops job for another part that year. And then I screened to go to, um, I'm 17. Before we go there, because you were at sort of this high-level component level at this point with your eyes on a lot of things, as a plank owner of Marsok, you know, the regiment, the component, like that stuff didn't just come out of nowhere.

You must have seen all of it get built. I did, but remember that I was kind of toggling back and forth. So these things were happening concurrently. Right, right. There was a lot of stuff I wasn't. I was in the room for everything. No, no, I understand. But I mean, my question really is, like, how did Morsak evolve over the years?

Like, from where it began to where you were at that point, what were, like, the big changes and big evolutionary steps you saw the organization make? Well, getting their own compound and building was huge. So having a headquarters that was dedicated was, you know, and at the same time, they were really developing the selection and training process. and the operator course, what they call ITC. So it was great at being a force guy and being able to come into Marsock right out of the gate, but we got grandfathered in, that's what they call it. Right.

And we all actually asked, like, hey, shouldn't we go to selection, like everybody in Delta goes to selection? Like, we're like, shouldn't we all do this? And they were like, we get it, but you're proven as force guys, and you're in. So we were like, well, there's probably some dudes that shouldn't be here. And I probably could say that about myself, right?

Like, you're just like, that process needed to be developed and they've done a great job with that. And John Daly is involved with that quite significantly. You know, there's a lot of people who do that. But he definitely got the chops, not only from his time and the debt, but also, you know, in Barsarck proper. John Daly taught me how to do commanding.

I think he still works there actually. Yeah, he does. He does. And that's one of the reasons it works is because he's a continuity piece. He's a long, long standing member, right? So that that was a big one. Becoming regionally focused was a big one.

So, I mean, we weren't just all in on Afghanistan. I still think we should have pursued our direct action side of stuff. I believe that we should have made a big. Marsok got very involved in Somalia, too, didn't I? We did. Yeah. They did. I,

think we should have pushed a little harder to get into J-Soc with an operational arm that may be coming at some point, but it's been talked about in shelves many times. What do you think that would be? Would that be like an HR capability? Or what do you see? Well, I mean, you've already got two SMUs that run that, and it would just be more in the quiver. You know, it would be another, I mean... A third force. You need, if you're going to have rating forces, then you need to have flexibility to be in different places at the same time. And, I mean, not getting too deep.

into the TTPs, but there's a lot of horsepower that goes into spinning up that stuff. And it's taxing on the headquarters, it's taxing on the unit that goes and does it, and then you've got to have reserves to be able to continually maintain. And so, I mean, we all came from second force or force recon for the most part. We were all direct action guys. It's what we were trained to do. And then they were like, look, it would be fit guys. and it's sort of like that's a hard pivot.

Yeah, yeah. So Barsock got really good about doing that and diversifying the training and diversifying the way they did that. They also developed a specific kind of 18 Alpha officer, team leader training program. I think they should probably expand that a little bit more into the staffing area because I think that's what makes,

like Usasak, Warcom for that matter, J-Soc definitely, is people, as they complete commands, then they go into staff's professional development, development sort of. Exactly. And they can take kind of the thing that I was doing ad hoc as I went through my career. They should be looking at building officers who were doing that.

And that's not to say there are earmarked people that they're like, but we have yet to have in Mursok, even though it's been around for 20 years, a homegrown guy who went through selection and has now led the unit. That's going to take a while. Right, right. So in SF for the Ranger Regiment, that would be unheard of now. Yeah, yeah. You just wouldn't have someone.

Manning the Ranger Regiment. It was not starting as a Ranger. Yeah, there's no way. S.F. the same way. Yeah. So we've got some growing still to do, but the diversification was big. And then Marsock has really leaned into equipment. It really leaned into training. It's very adaptive. The training, they have a no-kitting G7, which is exercise and training,

not just selection and training over here at the schoolhouse. but also, like, no kidding how they train units to deploy. And it is iterative. And it's also something they evaluate and make changes to make better. So they've done a really tremendous job with that as well. And the intelligence section of Marsac is really quite good. And they've got special activities and they've got all kinds of imagery specialists. I would like to see that be less sort of, hey, you surf to you know, now you go somewhere else.

I'd like them to keep them there. but the Marine Corps is really more like, no, no, you can do some time here. Like they should have their own recie or AFO element. Exactly. Yeah. Standing and it just does its own, it does its own thing. And it's, and it's, so there's, but,

but Marsoc has, has, has really developed in that capacity. And the other thing I got really good at, was they invested in psychology. And having psychologists on hand for people coming back from war. And, you know, you talked about it with, with Nate from, Valhalla, you know, the stigma of mental, the burdens that you carry around, you know, we talked about it at dinner. There's only so much stuff you could put in the rucksack until you finally fall over.

You can carry it for a while. Most of them are pretty tough. But after a while, it's just going to get too much. And so they did a great, really good job of having that as an available thing. And there was no stigma. You just wander down and have a couch trip. Yeah, it's that, you know, the word that gets. It's used all the time as like resiliency.

The thing is like these guys are resilient. They did like 12 deployments. Like they're super resilient people. Like they need a different type of help. It's not just resiliency. Right. And they, they, the person carrying that, to bring someone home from a deployment and be like,

okay, we're sending you to the schoolhouse for a break. Being a selection and training is not a break, right? That's true. You're busy and so now you're not at home all the time and you're doing, you're running selection courses and you're an operator training course is nine months long. I mean, you're, you're a lot of the, a cadre's got to run that. A lot of the SF guys will tell you that they're away from their families more often when they're running those selection and training courses than when they're on an ODA.

That was how my, that was how it was from my family when I was at ARS as the AOC. We were, you know, we were, I was not in the fleet. Yeah, but you were busy. But I was training for reconnaissance courses a year. and they're 10 weeks long. And in between that, you've got to plan everything for each course to make sure that you got your air support and all your training areas and ammo and everything else.

So, I mean, it's, it was a big lift. Working on Sundays. And you're supposed to be away from the fleet. You know, you're not operation. Yeah, it's not a break. Right. So I hope that helped to answer that. But, I mean, you know, I think that the processes and, you know,

we maybe put a little too much marine stuff into it, but it works. Yeah. So then tell us about this position that you screened for. I was the deputy director of operations for Naval Special Warfare Development Group. And they, Marsok, the Marine Corps, and Navy Special Warfare writ large, wanting to have more inter-service cooperation. cooperation and work.

And so they're looking for an N-free, assistant Opso, to work with the unit. And they went on a Marine, and me and some guys went up there and screen, then they picked me. So I'm not sure. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Pretty cool opportunity to have. And I was there for almost five years. Wow.

That's a long run, too. It is. It was my last assignment. Corps. I did not get battalion command, so I pivoted as a lieutenant colonel to. So at this point, you're pretty like intimately involved in mission planning for the national mission force. Yeah. And you're on standby and you're there for, you know, not just working there, but also doing other projects within the, you know.

Once you're behind the wire, you're kind of. free help also to J-Sock. If they need somebody, they can call you and say, okay, we need this mission and someone to come help without with that or need somebody to go to this country and have a conversation. Right, right. So I had a lot of flexibility to, and I worked, one of my portfolios was working with a lot of foreign soft equivalence, British, Canadians, French, Australians. So that was also interesting, Germans. Was that to coordinate like training or operational stuff Both. Yeah.

Yeah. Depending on what we were doing. Because some of those countries have different permissions and different relationships with countries that we might want to go work in. But we don't necessarily possess the same, you know. Exactly. Relationship. Yeah, they have different access and sometimes radically different ROEs. Impressively so.

Yeah. Yeah. So from, I mean, you were there for quite a while. I guess first off, like, any, anything that jumps out at you, any, like, memorable experiences? Well, I mean, the whole, I equate it to working as an offensive coordinator for an NFL team. And so you're always practicing. You're always doing stuff. I can't get too deep into the actual.

details of operations for obvious reasons. Sure. Never mind the people who are there. But I will say the resourcing, the equipment, the access, permissions, second to none. Their ability to adapt and change not only their tactics, but the way they approach things is truly impressive. Just based upon who they are. I mean, Vice President Pence came and visited, so we got to see him. And there was always DVs and people that we were doing, they call them dog and ponies, but capabilities, demonstrations, things like that.

So that was kind of interesting. Operationally, yes, there were people deployed all over the place. I mean, certainly the withdrawal from Afghanistan, everyone was integrally involved in that. By that time, I was actually starting my glide slope out of the Marine Corps, although I was still there. I was still plugged in. But like Scott Mann's book, Pineapple Express, I was involved in some periphery as part of that as well as what I was doing while I was still on active duty.

So I had to straddle this line of kind of, you know, being able to see all of that unfold, you know, in real time was not only fascinating, but also just. tragic. It's not like we could see Abby Gate was going to happen, but you're just watching this chaos and just trying to, we're all sifting through tons of information trying to figure out, like, what this thing going to look like. And how, it just, it took, it took everyone by surprise, I'm not going to lie. I mean, it should be no surprise that kind of that Afghanistan was going to fall the way that they did. But the fact that we were just so on our heels, particularly from Washington down, that was, that was a difficult thing to work through.

And I was there under two presidential administrations. So I got to work with very different sides of the National Security Council as well. One of the things that I heard, and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts, was that, you know, the U.S. military, including like the J-S. elements, at least for a time, weren't really allowed to go outside the wire on these rescue missions. And it was really like the Germans and the Brits and others that were able to. Yeah, there was a little bit of hamstring. get after. Yeah, there was a little bit of hamstringing. And that, I think everyone was frustrated with that.

It makes me very frustrated right now to hear that Chris Donahue was the last man out of Afghanistan. He was, you know, storied career that he would even be smeared that somehow he didn't do enough or the right thing. You think he went above and beyond to get it done. Every experience I had with Chris Donahue working with him, especially when he was the DSO or the DO, the director of special operations in the Pentagon and the work that I did, you know, with some of these missions that we had to run. And the experiences I've had with him, you know, prior to that and watching what he was doing on the ground, he absolutely. He is the kind of leader.

Like, there's a reason they gave me an airborne. Like, people will jump out of airplanes for Christauny. Yeah, I mean, I think the military has to take its lump sometimes, but in this case, they really did get handed like a big bag of shit. Yeah, well, it was more like a It was a bag of shit with the bottom being a colander. So it was just like just everywhere. And the State Department was in charge of the whole damn thing, notionally if nothing else. That has never gone well.

It never was a neo. Wadey Shimoto said the same thing when he's talking about Eagle Claw. Yeah. Right. So it has never gone well. And I went to the high risk course at foggy bottom where the State Department sends their diplomats in case they're going into really difficult spots

and just their mindset is completely different. Are we not having the state dinner tonight? No, a fucking bomb just went off in the front yard. But I have so much wine. Different world, man. But the mindset is completely different. And we deliberately brought military people into that course so that they could get a flavor of like neo-planning and all that other stuff.

Yeah. And there was just moments like at night to go out with the rest of the, you know, J-Soc guys and other dudes, and we sit down at him. And we're like, where are we? Like, is this, this is how they do this? Well, as we were saying earlier, the priorities are drastically different. Yes. A fantastic book to read is the ugly American.

Yeah. And if, you know, that is true. It's a fictional account of basically the French and U.S. relationship and involvement in Vietnam in the 50s. And all the tenants in there are absolutely true, just as the guy. rights and I'll just leave it at that but you just read that and you're like okay I want to understand how we got here like what's this is it and it's

been in the mindset for every even their diplomatic security officers who I would go and do work with and we would train with different things in case we had to do an embassy reinforcement not only as Marines with the Mew but also bringing in small teams is just part of whatever the mission happened to be

they'd be like yeah well we kind of got to deal with the ambassador and we kind of got to you know Yeah, dude, the stuff those DSS guys deal with is off the wall sometimes. And some of them have been in some incredibly dangerous situations and performed wonderfully. Like, I'm not discounting anybody. They've, like, been in armed standoffs with the host nation in some cases. And that shit never makes the news.

Of course. And they've been in gunfights. I mean, they're the only law enforcement officer who has jurisdiction all over the world. Not any FBI. At any embassy, yeah. Yeah, and in an embassy, yeah, for sure. And it's, it's, that stuff. I mean, I was looking at DSS pretty heavy to get in it.

It was like a pretty cool job. It's out of my system now. They have like investigative authorities over the embassy and the personnel there. They do a lot of passport fraud control. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it's a pretty diverse portfolio. Those guys get worked, though. They do.

They get worked. You mentioned Pompeo. The DSS guys had to backfill his whole security detail after he was the VP. Or no, I'm not thinking of, not Pence, Pompeo. Yeah, but I, but I, I, I. I can only imagine I can only imagine being on Hillary Clinton's detail when she's like, I'm going to get out here

to hear a square and go up for a walk. Yeah. What? No. What did you say? And you got to let it happen. But maybe she's just going to get flowers on her sniper fire. That might happen, you know?

Hey, come on. We could deep dive. A little more bourbon. We can really deep dive this. But, you know. Yeah, but so. But I digress. Well, but, you know,

The other thing is that you're really tied into all these these high-level decisions. And you're, and you, you kind of do get to understand behind the scenes. And I did work with, you know, Scott Miller pretty, pretty closely on, on a mission. And, you get to meet these, these people. They say, no, don't meet your heroes, but I got to meet a lot of my heroes. Yeah.

And got to go visit, you know, the Chow Hall at Bragg, which is pretty good. And, you know, and experience. get that kind of experience and talk to people. And you just, you know, they put me through a completely different jump course, which I had a fantastic time doing. I mean, I got out of the military with more jumps than I ever thought I would have. I enjoyed that. I really had a great time.

Well, they have their own, they have their own course that run outside of Yuma or Kulaj, Arizona. They have their own course. You mean the advanced tactical infiltration course? No, that's A-Tech, and that's, that is actually. actually run by the Army. That is a part of the profile of training. But for me, because as a support guy, they were like, hey, if you're going to jump in with us, not that you're going on the X, but if you're going to jump in as part of a

support, you have to be able to jump our gear. You have to jump our profile. Oh, right. Gotcha. So they basically sent me back to jump school for a week. And I'm like, this is awesome. Like, you get to do, you know, stuff like that. So I enjoyed just the tempo. I enjoyed the amount of training I got to do and I enjoyed the missions.

that I was exposed to. I wanted to be involved in hostage rescue and I got to do hostage risky stuff. And that's something you don't get to see or do very often. Are you allowed to talk about that at all? You asked the question and we'll see. What was the mission?

So there's the problem. Like, we're not going to mention, I'm not going to mention a country. I'm not going to mention a name, but like overall mission profile, what had to get done here? So going back to State Department, getting country clearances for us. So if you go into a country with military force that has not been permission,

you're being given permissions called an invasion. Marine Corps is really good at that kind of shit. Army, too, for that matter. I mean, they got Iraq twice, so why not? So, or parts of Iraq. It came back to complete. So you've got to coordinate with the State Department to get country clearance to be able to insert. Dip clearance.

Yep, diplomatic clearance and permission to do what you want to do inside of that country. It's not like, hey, we're showing up and can you give us some local talent? We're like, everyone needs to be out of the way. We need to do this thing. We need certain amounts of support, but ultimately what we require most is to not be impeded. So whether it's helicopters or you're doing a jump profile or you're doing something that is going to give you the best chance of success, you it's not there's just jason bornshit doesn't well for some people it exists but not not at this level right like it's it's very you know um you're not telling your entire operation plan but you're just

saying look this is what we've got to do include the area yeah and you all you're the country's aware of what you're going in there to do so in case of the hostage rescue let's say you know the person is being held in a specific area and you've got the intelligence to go and get it and go and get them you have very short window to do that and things have to happen very fast and you have to get those permissions so that you can move because time is everything. But sometimes you're moving so fast that all the pieces aren't lining up here. Or you get moving with what you have in line and you hope the rest of it will catch up. And in our case, in one mission, the ramp was open and they were ready to go, the jumpers,

and they had not gotten the permission by way of the State Department. So, yeah, for like people listening, when they say the ramp is open, like, these guys are like minutes, if not seconds away from jumping. Jocked up, full oxygen, all their gear, ready to go. Yeah. One leaves, everyone's leaving. There's no like, oh, well, wait. Oh, hold up. So we didn't get, oh, shit.

So they're literally like, green light is on. So jump or go is just weird. We are just waiting. Holy fuck. And so I'm on the phone with a lot. lot of different people, as are other people. And it finally came from the front office, i.e., the White House. So were they, like, running racetracks up there?

And they're holding pattern. Holy shit, man. So, yeah, tension's really high. Yeah. You know, you've got, you've got Overwatch on the objective. You've got overwatch on the people because you've got to track the jumper. And they're already over sovereign airspace at this point. In another country from which they've launched.

Right. So now they're in the air. We're all waiting. You've got a bunch of stuff lined up. Never mind your QRF and everybody else who are on standby and you're just waiting for go. And then the White House finally gets involved. And I mean the White House. And then it's all of a sudden like, everything's set.

Go. Did it take the president picking up the phone? Yep. Yeah. Not to me. But to the host station. Oh, yeah, yeah. It literally was like, hey, what are you doing on Saturday?

Why don't you come golf with me and we'll make this worth your while. Exactly. Let's talk. Yeah. But so that's really what it came down to. And then, oh, the sky's clear. And we, you know, so jumpers go. They're able to land, offset.

And then they patrolled and basically had a movement to contact and did a hasty assault and rescued the guy. And then we've pre-planned, like, contingencies for Betavac for QRF and extract. And nobody recognizes when shit goes right. Yeah. And it went right. I remember when this happened. Again, not mentioning any names, but I remember when it happened. If it happened.

It was very, yeah, it was sort of like a blip on the radar, right? It was just sort of like, yeah, this thing happened. And it was acknowledged in some like wire, you know, reports on like associated press or whatever. It got on Fox News for a 30 seconds or something. Like you said, a blip. Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, that's interesting. Because it went down right.

Well, what do you want your margarita? Ultimately. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I did. The smoke checked a bunch of bad guys and got the hostage out of it. And that was probably one of the most intense things I've been involved in not because I was on the ground with them. Because I had been on another one.

I'd been on another HR that did not go well. And people were wounded. And we, we eventually, eventually these guys were recovered. but at that point of time, it got, you know, you want to talk about second-guessing things that happen on the ground in tactics. If you've done this, why didn't they push harder? You mean, as Winston Churchill says, you know, he said after Gallipoli. Am I comparing this to Gallipoli?

You know, now the terrible ifs will accumulate. Right, yeah, yeah. And so that's what it comes down to. You're like, well, how did this happen? And did he make the right decision to pull back? And in some cases, yeah, I think that it is. I think I know the one you're talking about. Right.

And so then you're like, well, is it mission failure? Or did we succeed enough? And if it ended eventually, and it did, with the guys being recovered, again, through a different means, but we still, we never lost hope, right, that was going to happen. You're like, well, will we get another swing at this? Right. Or did we let this guy down in their families? Because you're putting a lot of effort against one to two people. But anybody's like, oh, they don't have value American lives.

Listen, when I was there, there's a scene in that movie Proof of Life where they've got all the names and everything all lined up on the board of who's involved in K&R and they're trying to figure out. This is a private firm, you know, in the movie. It's obviously a movie. But we actively tracked everybody who was, you know, kidnapped or, you know, Sometimes it could be just a KFR, kidnap a ransom thing involved with an oil company,

but other times it could be a political thing. But we track everything. If something happens and someone goes missing. And there's constant evaluation like, okay, do we have proof of life? Can we go get this person? Can we, you know, we'll go talk to their families. The FBI will go and talk to them as well. We're trying to understand everything we can.

And time is of the essence. It's all about time and doing it quickly and also being careful. It reminds me if we had a SAS guy that we interviewed on here one time, and he pointed out, he was not a part of it, but he pointed out this sort of like a lesson learned, an AAR kind of comment. During the Gulf War, there was an SAS patrol that deployed. They were infilled into the desert for a reconnaissance mission. Probably true.

Before that. Before that. Right before that, they got out there and it was just flat desert out in every direction. And the patrol leader was like the terrain's totally different than what we anticipated, not what we saw on the map. It does not support the mission that we have planned, and he aborted and had the birds come in and take him out. And people, there's tremendous pressure to do operations early on in the Gulf War. But that happens everywhere, so you're right. Yeah. And then the next patrol that went in, you know, people are cursing this guy out. The next patrol that went in was Bravo 2-0, and, you know, we saw. And I've spent a lot of time

with the special air service. And I have friends who were still on active duty. I work with former members who were now out, but they were there at that time. They knew those guys. And they're also very good about the lessons learned that come after that. And so, yeah, there will always be that second-guessing. And so, you know, did the commander make the right decision

to abort the mission? Should they have continued pushing the fight to, you know, get the hostage who we later found was literally within like 50 yards, 50 meters of them? Oh, that's tough. If they'd push the fight. But now you've got two guys down, one who is literally shot pelvicly like he was,

like the Ranger in Black Hawk Down, Jamie, you know, who ended up dying, obviously, but I'm sorry, I can't remember that. That's terrible. Ultimately, you know, but what comes of that? We get quick clot. We get ways that we can now do battlefield, your battlefield survivability goes up. So then after that, we start a value.

Well, how did he get hit? Well, the guy fired through the doorway, and he was getting ready to make entry, and this is what happens when you're going to do. This is a very dynamic and dangerous business. And when I... So that guy went to the hospital, and he ended up making a recovery,

not full recovery, but he lived. He lived, and he was... We're talking about many... like, bordering on years of recovery. Yeah. For people who are listening to this, like, when you get shot in the pelvis, not that I know what the hell I'm talking about,

but there's a bunch of obviously bones and arteries that run through that area. So you get shot there, like, that's a very dangerous and quickly fatal wound. Absolutely. So the medics did a fantastic. So remember, there's this huge firefight going on. You're going in to rescue a hostage. You've got a guy down on the doorway, so you've got to pull him back. He's now a priority.

The mission has not ended, and you've got to get him evacuated. So now I'm juggling all this stuff back back on the rear, like making all this happen. So I'm on an airplane. I hadn't seen this guy in ages. And I'm on an airplane and I see him come on. And he's walking on a cane. And I said, holy shit, dude. How are you?

How are things? He's all, man, hanging in there, you know. I said, listen, I'm going to buy you a drink. I've owed you a drink. In fact, I'd probably owe you a brewery, right? but I have carried around a long time that you got shot and the reason why is I'm the guy that got the mission approved to put you in there and he goes I'd do it all over again yeah of course you're like what you're gonna do right so I was like how about 50 beers like you know you

would have done the same shit if it without a doubt yeah and so the juxtaposition of those two missions is one is like really successful and we were we were like jumping up and down and really excited. That's a really tough pill to swallow for the operators. Oh yeah. Well, so, you know, they did come back and there was some dejection and there was a lot of like, the finger pointing is not the right word because they don't do that. The professionals and they don't get into like, well, he did this and he, you know, nobody, we didn't. A bunch of like A type personality's mission failure does not go over. Nope. And, but, but it is part, I hate to say it, it is part of the risk assessment. Yeah. And it is, you know, the evaluation,

if you're going to commit those resources, and you're going to risk life, limb, eyesight, machine, and all these other things that are going to go in there, we're making that decision before we ever say go. And then when we go, we go. And you go as hard as you can. So I got to ask, how was that hostage ultimately pulled out of there? They negotiated it.

Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, they negotiated it. Adroitly, I'd say. That was actually, and it was, and it was likely because of the effort that was put against him that they knew it was coming again. Yeah, they were like shit, man, we don't want to deal with this anymore.

Yeah, yeah. They're not, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've outlived your value to us at this point. Yeah. Well, they had, they whack these guys on the freaking, you know, objective, but there were just more dudes there. And they were just like, okay, we can't, yeah, tighten this out. So. No, I, they made the right decision. It was tough.

Yeah, and when that, when that is unfolding in real time, in front of you're just like, you know, you have to react and know when you've got to be calm and you got to even though you're in the opposite center and you and you have to maintain the ability of of managing chaos and still keeping everything in line you still have to continue and and so I think that's that's one of the things you know the flexibility that is given there is is tremendous and so yeah I I was involved in three of them I did three uh causes rescues all of them all of them successful recoveries eventually. So yeah, I guess I could say, you know, I'm pretty...

What was number three? Separate. Separate guy in another place. Another place. Yeah. And how did that one turn out? That one was actually less dynamic. He actually, I wouldn't say he, like, walked in.

It was like, go pick this guy up. Yeah, they're kind of like, hey, you know, we found it. You still have to, you know, you put the infrastructure together. to go make it happen. But that's actually, you know, while it's exciting on one level as you're getting, you know, full Hollywood-type shit,

you know, for these other missions and the dynamics of being in combat, how much easier it is it to just be able to, like, get them? And that, you know, the results still the same. You just have, what was really good about that one is, you know, there was a leveraging of local infrastructure

to really kind of do that in a much more clandestine, I would call a cerebral way. And they'd be looking for that guy for a really long time. Or he'd been, he'd been in captivity for a really long time. And when they got him, I was like, I imagine, how do you reintegrate your family, right? How do you reintegrate in the world? You know, it's a very difficult, you know,

and I wasn't on the receiving end of that. I was never, I didn't do the post, you know, recovery interviews. Our psychologist did that, the FBI, you have all kinds of people. Yeah, there's a place down in Texas where they, do that, don't they? They do them. Like hostage reintegration? Well, they do it all over the place.

But it starts as soon as they grab them. As soon as they got them out, like, you know, they're giving them something to drink or whatever and talking to them. Okay, bro. Well, I mean, actually, yeah. Yeah. I mean, in the case where they walked in and stitched up the bad guys in a pretty good fight, the lead guy dove on the hostage.

Because there was a crazy-ass firefight going all around him. And when all the gunfire stopped, he apparently was like, was like, your mouth to ear with him was like, hey man, we're Americans, you okay? And the guy was like, I don't know. And he was like, could you get off me? Because we're talking to a dude about my size. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's wearing full body armor and everything.

And his adrenaline spiked because he just jumped out of an airplane and walked across the desert, you know, for two hours. I can't imagine what that feels like, you know, like the accounts of like the Kurt Mews rescue in Panama where like you're being held in a fucking jail cell in a foreign country and all of a sudden these commandos show up and they're like, we're American soldiers, we're here to bring you home. Absolutely. Like, holy shit. Well, I mean, there's a Marine Force Reconnaissance unit that did a, I think it was an oil tanker recapture. and the crew had barricaded themselves down inside of the ship's secondary steering, which is, you know, so if something happens in the... Was this before the GWAT or after?

This is during the GWAT. This is only a few years ago. Oh, really? Okay. I could look it up. I'm embarrassed that I don't have the full details, but they, the ship had been hijacked. the forced platoon assaulted the ship and then they they cleared it and as they got down into the lower part of the sorry to the aft steering they were banging on the door they're like hey come out they're like we we're not coming out

like you who are you and the guy pulled his american flag off of his gear and he slid it under the door holy shit and the guy was like blook and he opened it up and he's like thank god you guys are you know so You don't think that thing has any currency. Yeah, that's pretty impressive. That's awesome. So, I mean, I just realized I've been talking your ear off for like three hours here. I've been talking your ear off. I love it, though, and I'll keep you going all night.

No, I'm not going to. I got nothing else to do. This is great. So, you know, and so, like, you mentioned that you're sort of like winding down in your Marine. core career. Before we move on, like big takeaways from this J-Soc experience, five years mission planning. Well, I think it was the culmination of my, obviously, it's not just a culmination because it was my last assignment, but you know, you got to use all of your skills and experience and put it all together. Yeah, I think that's really what it comes down to is I got the opportunity

to put it all into practice. It's almost like studying a martial art for really, long time and then you're, I'm not saying you went out on the street to get in a fight or whatever, but somehow you just finally felt like you had pulled it, like you had learned and you, not that you couldn't keep learning and even the best martial artist will tell you that you're always learning and you should be, whether you're writing or what have you. But for me, I was like, you know, this is going to be the end of my career, probably. And just being able to be able to, being able to look at my career to that point and say, this is where I want to go and having achieved that was huge.

You went further than Marines were quote unquote supposed to go. I probably, there are a lot of Marines were going to see this and be like, yes, yes, he did. What I mean by that was that you guys were literally like not allowed to be a part of the special operations community for so long. That's how it was when you first started. And for you to stand up Marsok or be a part of that and then go up and have this J-Soc position is like you went further than people would have expected any Marine to go. It was not ever in the plan either. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it was, it was tremendous. And people asked like, yeah, if I joined the Marine Corps, should it? If you could map your career like I did, I'd tell you right now, go ahead. Do it, yeah. Yeah, but there's no guarantees, right? No.

So before we move on, I guess I'm kind of curious about, like, what it's like to sit in those opsends. watching the ISR feed, the thermal coming in, and you mentioned some pretty tense moments. But then the other imagery that comes into my mind is from, what was it, Patriot Games, where the guy's sitting there watching it, sipping on a coffee, like, that is a kill.

That is some straight Hollywood shit. I'll tell you, it, I mean, you've got to get sleep, especially if it starts to become a little more protracted. When you deploy, you don't know how long you're going to be gone for. even if you stand up in the op center, I would sleep in the office, sleep in the couch, because you never know someone had to wake you up. You couldn't drive. Even though I lived close by, you'd lose time driving, so you'd just sleep there and people

bring any food. You know, sometimes it'd be quite boring, but then it would ramp up. And I can tell you that, you know, when the tension is there, everyone is really legitimately focused. And then when it's happening and you're watching the whole thing unfold, aside from just people having short conversations with that is all mission oriented or picking up a phone it is quiet it is very quiet and everyone gets professional it is really professional um and i do remember like when when that guy got rescued and they were like hey positive recovery

nine tango's down everything you know we're doing sSE we we erupted in jean we we erupted in years. Like it was awesome. Because you guys had been on pins and needles for so long. Yeah, no, that was like a three-day, like day on, stay on, you know, that I was getting a couple hours here and there where I could. And, you know, everybody wants to be that guy. I'm not going to bed. I got to, you know, like, you just can't. The tension is. You have to figure out how to moderate it, yeah. Well, I mean, you did that in combat too, right? You mean, you can't, you can't go forever. And, and, you know, last side, for all the stuff and things I was supposed to and got to do,

I was never in a Fallujah. You know, I wasn't in a Marcia, protracted week-to-week campaigns where you're just living out of your gear. You know, a lot of it was commuter warfare. You're flying in, you're going out, you're having breakfast by, you know, before the sun comes up. I mean. Yeah, the zero-300 call up.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, I'm not going to say it's easy, but... It's different. You get used to a certain way of serving. And my hats off to the infantry, my hats off to those guys who gone and done that stuff. And like I said, I had put my first infantry between, I would have loved to have had that opportunity with them. So, I mean, yeah, it was a heck of a run. Talk to us about retirement. In retirement, I am a writer.

I also do a little bit of consulting on the side. I work with a company based out of Holland called AFG, Advanced Forces Group, which I do a lot. lot of advisement work with mostly retired guys. Some of them are our SOC guys. Some of them are special air service. Some of them are Dutch, special forces. And we train NATO soft. I call it board room mercenary. You do a lot of stuff especially with planning, working, helping their planning process get better and understanding special operations, employment and things like that. And we also do stuff with combat mindset and how you train your teams or train people as a team in organizational development. So I do that. And then I'm primarily a writer. I do all kinds of different writing.

I do expository stuff. I do evaluate or commentary pieces. I have a substack. Certainly I've got my four books, which you can find on Amazon. We can go into those as well. What's the substack? Where can people find that? It's Ivan F. Ingram. It looks like I-N-G. R-A-H-A-M dot substack.com. And what do you write about on there? That is actually, I actually look at it writing as a craft that much like playing an instrument you have to practice. And my substack is honestly a way to declutter my mind, whether it's current events or

reflection pieces or just something that's coming up in my brain. It helps keep everything level so that I can actually focus on my other writing. So it's a weekly I do some stuff for my paid subscribers exclusively for them but it's a weekly delivery of just stuff I talk about

so I've been doing it since January and I do about two articles a week damn okay you're moving yeah well I don't get lost up here I mean I got a lot of stuff bouncing around but I like it because it helps me to honestly off gas and it also helps me

write self-edit and develop the way that I can deliver. Present the information. Yeah, prose or what have you. And so I dabble in little poetry sometimes, or sometimes I do some fiction stuff. It just really depends on kind of what my mood is.

And then sometimes there's stuff that pops up with current events, and I'm like, oh, I'm going to comment on that. And, yeah. So that's a really good thing. And then I've been, I've got four books that I've self-published, then I just signed with the Sager group for my feature-length novel, which is called Troops in Contact, and that will be out this year. Awesome.

Just got the copy edit back, which means I got a lot more editing you do between, you know, but it's part of the process. So let's start off with these ones. Okay. The Patrol, Athena, 22, and Dream Job. I mean, what were these books, and these are all, like, kind of leading up to the novel you've been working on? So I started writing.

I was on deployment in 2016 as a way to just capture what I had done because I wanted my family to just have a record. Like, you know, what is he been doing? Which I highly recommend guys do because I get, like, Vietnam, families of Vietnam veterans reach out to me all the time, like, how can I find out what my dad did? And it's like, man, I'll hook you up. Oh, yep. Yeah, so I started that, and I don't know if I thought of it as a memoir or it was just a way of capturing things.

And then I just started writing, and I kept writing, and I kept in, and I would just fill in time. It was a way to kill time on deployments. It was a way to, as it talked about, to unpack a lot of stuff. And then I just said, you know what, maybe I could turn this into a book. And I thought about publishing a memoir once I got out, which I guess a lot of people do. And I talk to my friends. Who does that? Well, any of us at this point, and present company included.

But then I talked to my friend Scott Husing, who has also helped me with the negotiations for the novel. And he read part of the manuscript and said, you know, if you approach this from the fiction side, you might really be able to expand on this. And he wrote Echo and Romani, which is a very successful bestseller book about his experience as an infantry company commander in Ramadi,

which is a good, great book if people haven't read it. But he said, if you took this as a, it made it into a fictional story, you can do a lot more with it as far as the characters. Whoops. That's okay. As far as characters, luckily it's not lit. And also, I was very worried about authenticity and not being able to capture the things that I knew was true to me.

And he said, you can use all of that. You just weave it into the story, and I hadn't ever considered it. So I then started turning it into a novel that was really jam-packed with all kinds of stuff. And he was like, okay, but this isn't, you need some structure to this. At that point, I didn't even know about outlining. I didn't know any of that stuff. If there are two types of writers, I'm a pantser, for sure. I'm like right by the seat of my pants.

And I started trimming things away. I don't throw anything out. I just put it somewhere else. And so those books all became excerpts or things in that, the novel that didn't really fit. Okay. And then I said, okay, well, maybe I'll just start developing stories off of that. Because you need to develop as a storyteller.

And so each of those books, you know, The Patrol was the first one I wrote, made a lot of mistakes with it. They're probably still in there. But it's about a patrol that I did in Afghanistan in 2012 as part of one of the BSOs. And it's a pretty, I think, interesting account of... leadership and kind of things that you face, you know, in environments that change very quickly, you know, become very dynamic. What's the kind of like main thrust of the novel?

Is it like a auto, like fictionalized autobiography or where are you going with it? Well, it is a, it's heavily influenced, obviously, by my career and my experiences. But the tenor of the novel is not so much a war book, although it obviously is military-based. It is meant to be sort of a retrospective for reconciliation of a person's past. And the central characters named Steve Keller, he also runs in each of my books here. And he is haunted by the decisions he made on the battlefield. And he is visited by the ghost of his commanding officer who was killed in combat. and through a discussion with that ghost,

he goes into his past to make sense of what he went through and learn something on the other side. Yeah. So, yeah, it's meant to be a journey, not so much an Odyssey, but take the reader down into something and come back out. And, yeah, it's, I think it's pretty good. I'm looking forward to reading it. So, but I feel like I'd be remiss if I didn't ask.

And I mean, this is a part of all of these stories that, you know, we don't like do entire interviews about this particular subject, but it's like a part of everyone's individual journey. Like getting out of the military dealing with the post-traumatic stress, like what was sort of like your personal journey like with that? Well, I think a lot of that is captured in not only the book 22, which refers to obviously the 22 veterans a day, perhaps more, that take their lives. Statistically, there are things in there that are definitely vignettes from my own past, but I interviewed five people who had attempted or really seriously considered taking their own lives.

And I wrote it in hopes that someone would read it and be like, I don't need to do this. Right. So that was one way of coping. the other one as I was transitioning, particularly as an officer, there was a lot of pressure I felt to fit a certain role. Like, hey, you're getting out, you're an officer, this is the skills you have, you can go work for this company

and you'll make all this money and you'll be well- Go work for this defense contract or go get your MBA. Bank, whatever it happened to be. And I felt like this is not where I want to be. This doesn't feel right to me. And retiring and being, Being able to get out the way that I did allows me a great deal of flexibility, and I captured a lot of my transition challenges in the book Dream Job, and that is about a guy who's literally

a job interview and trying to figure out what he wants to do. And it is very much based upon an interview that I had when I was getting out, and that was the one that sort of said, okay, you know what, I don't have to go and do this. I can be. Oh, so it kind of like taught you what you didn't want to do. Yeah. I got a lot of exploration. In fact, my transition program was the Honor Foundation,

and they're very, very good. Oh, yeah, they're awesome. I had a great transition coach. But even he said, I don't know what to do with you. Because, well, he'd have been a corporate guy. He'd been an Army artillery officer, and he had a full career, and then he'd say, hey, you know, you can work for Barclays Bank.

You can do all this great stuff. And we were working on my resume, and I was sending out of cover letters and we were doing mock interviews. And I was like, I just don't, this is not me. It's not where I want to be. And he's like, well, what do you really want to do?

I was like, I really think I want to be a writer. I want to be a creative. And he was like, oh, my God. And he said, he actually knew somebody, not a military person. He's like, I actually have a writer friend and I'll put you in touch with her. That's cool. So he did the best that he could. Yeah, yeah.

And then from there, I started having more conversations. And then I got in with writing groups and different people and I had, you know, stuff like that. And then I got into, I started writing screenplays and doing some consulting work for Hollywood stuff. Some of it, some of it not. And I just, it's like, this is great. This is exactly the kind of stuff that I'd like to do. Yeah, I mean, I like try to like impart that too on when I meet, especially like younger military veterans, they often have that same mentality or idea that like, you know, they have to fit inside this box, whatever it is, whatever people think you should be in. But just because you were in your mind a big, dumb ranger, doesn't mean you can't go to college and get a PhD if that's what you want to do.

Absolutely. And, you know, I think we should really encourage veterans to go out there. and go as far as they possibly can. Well, I think there's a big disconnect between society and vets. I really do. And not just special ops guys, because, I mean, we're interesting, right? We're, you know, people love the books, et cetera. But I talk about the, like Scott's book about Romadi, I mean, his experience, when I was reading it,

like, I knew that he had been there, but I was like, holy, you didn't know that. I haven't been involved in that kind of stuff. Like, he really had some serious challenges. And he even talks about his own PTSD. I like to call it post-traumatic stress vice disorder. Because you don't have a disorder. Something happened to you. It's a pretty normal thing.

And you have to unpack this. And there's a whole bunch, there's a whole group of female Marines or veterans who have been overlooked in all of this. And this is why I wrote my book, Athena, which is, you know, really focusing on a group of CST, you know, cultural support team women that worked with me. I didn't base it on them particularly. But I have interviewed five women who were involved in FET teams. had been, you know, whether they were in special ops or otherwise. And I tried to get a handle on, like, what it was like for them to be. You know, I was like, you know, at least I could do is try and come up with something

and is at least a recognition to sacrifice. And so the vet population is, and I was growing up, Vietnam books were everywhere. And you always knew a Vietnam vet, and they always talked about, about it. In our capacity, things, like, things ended in August 2021 in Afghanistan, and it was just over. And when the State Department is just like, meh, and Joe Biden's like, I reject the study of Abbey Gate and what happened there. And then you've got Blinken saying, what do I care about, a bunch of vets, just some vets being pissed off about the anniversary? Like, what does that say to, like, we carried this, man. We carried this for 20 years alone. And we felt alone. And we felt alone. And we felt alone in our own

world and we were remember 9-11 what are we going to do the military is going to take care of this now all of those guys are really alone I mean when they were in theater they fought together as a team but now they're out there by themselves

like really having to think about this stuff and consider like what does it mean it's it's very it's it's difficult and people have a difficult time expressing that and they won you know when I was talking

about guys at 22 I did the the interview with Chris Meyer on his profiles in Havoc podcast. And he's like, he asked me, why do you think people are, why do they kill themselves? And I think it's shame. They're, they,

they have nothing to be ashamed of, but they feel so lost and they feel so unacknowledged. Yeah. They feel like they've become invisible. It's not their shame to carry, but they do, unfortunately. Well, right, but it becomes really hard for someone to understand that.

And when I, you know, in Dream Job, as part of that interview, you know, the questions that people asked me, it was finally like, are you serious? And then I realized, like, they have absolutely no clue. And I, and so then it just said, well, okay, it's up to me, or at least I'm going to take this on, and I'm going to try to bridge this gap a little bit. And I don't, I love, I don't mind doing corporate, I'm not, I'm not going to work in corporate environment. but I don't mind talking to corporations and people about how to be better leaders and be better in touch

and how to better understand and work with veterans. That's really important. So, and writing is a great, is my vehicle. You know, it's the thing that I like doing. Where can people go to find the books? Amazon.com. You can also go to my website, which is Ivan F. ingram.com, not very original, but it's got all my stuff there. All my contact information.

And we'll have some links down in the description for folks who are listening. in this podcast on YouTube or wherever they listen to podcasts. If they've made it this far. If they made it this far. No, it'll be down there regardless, actually. Anything else you want to tell folks about that you're working on right now? Well, I've got a companion screenplayed troops in contact, which I've been in negotiations with a couple of different entities to see about getting produced.

I don't have any bites, but I would really like to push that at some point. And then I've been working on this rather interesting project for the last couple of years called Torchlight. And it is about the Japanese-American experience in World War II and not just to focus on the 442nd and 100th Infantry Regiment, or 104-2nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team, but also the Japanese-American experience of incarceration, as was laid out by our United States government, as a war policy and then it goes from there into we're trying to plan it as an eight

story or eight episode arc that really examines not only things that happened in World War II but post war as they were eventually there was a lot of repatriations and you know this is one of the most highly decorated combat units ever I think they've got 18 medals of honor

many of which were post war awarded the last of which we're given by President Obama. So we're talking about a huge legacy story in the United States that has been overlooked. There's a lot of stuff in there that is germane to things that are happening in this country today. It seems like we should be better than that. But I've been working on that for a while. We've got a great pitch deck. The pilot is really tight. That's awesome. We're looking for producers, directors, and actors.

It's a diverse cast, not just for Japanese Americans, but also, you know, actors in general, but we're really looking for backing. We're looking for people to get involved in it because it's a heck of a story. And it's one of the things I'm, I wouldn't keep writing on something that I don't enjoy. And I want to see this thing get made and I want to see, I'm working with a great team of people with this thing. And it's just an important chapter of history. It's great. And it just needs to be told.

Yeah. I'm really, really happy on that. So, yeah, I write a lot, and I try and keep everything. I try and keep everything aligned, but every once in a while, I'm like, you know, that would be a neat project. I wrote a thriller as well that I'm in the process of trying to get cleaned up to move for publishing as well. But that's another thing.

Come to Thriller Fest in June, here in Manhattan, or not we're in Brooklyn, but it's in Manhattan. Really? Yes. Fantastic. Yeah. I'm going to be there. Well, yeah, this would be great. Yeah, so it's...

I would not... I would not do anything else. I really wouldn't. I mean, you know, the hours long and at least the pay sucks, so... But I did that. When people were like, you're in the military, you can do this.

You'll just get paid more. I was like, you know what? I work long hours for myself and have a lot more fun with that. Dude, I've worked in journalism. I've written novels. written articles, been a podcaster, bro, done all these different things. But, yeah, it doesn't pay worth of shit, but I would be bored as fuck working in corporate America.

Like, there's no way I could do that. I couldn't do it either. And that was, like I said, they were just like, well, this is an easy transition for you because you've already worked the long hours. We should just get rewarded for it appropriately. And I know guys who did that and they got out, they gained 50 pounds. They're losing their hair. Not that I'm just bringing chicken, but, I mean, just sitting there, you know, trying to look

at looking at what they do, it just, that isn't for me. Yeah. I get it. And I just, I love the flexibility and I, you know, I had to ask my boss for a day off today. And he said, go ahead. I, e. me. So I, and that's, that's great. That's great too. But the flexibility is, is, is, is, is unmatched and it's, it's, it's really a

wonderful way to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, I've got a lot of, I've got, I've got a lot of, I'm having a lot of fun with it. A lot of fun. Anything else you want to tell folks about before we get going? And do we have any questions, Steve? Oh, boy. A question. Okay.

From Corbin. How do you see the core retooling the soft toolkit in the near future, if they do it all? I guess it really depends on what we mean by soft toolkit. Because if we're talking about equipment, the Marsock is pretty a tough toolkit. adaptive. They're innovative and go out and look for stuff. I think probably, though, in a larger scale, the one thing that Marsoc has or the Marine Corps has done well that the other services have not with their special operations is kept Marrsoc close. And there's disadvantages to that for sure. But I believe that the Marine Corps has come around to the idea that Marsoc is

valuable and it's better to be interactive and interoperable than it is to have these two separate camps that don't really talk to each other. And that is something that needs to happen. In fact, that was down at the 26 MU in their command group last or two weeks ago talking about this very thing because the commander was actually the operations officer on the Odyssey Lightning mission back in 2016 and now he's running immune himself. And he has already seen the value. And he was like, okay, my people need to know this because they didn't get the exposure

and the ability to run a mission like that. And he sees what's happening next. So I think that's a big way that the Marine Corps and Marsok can meet together. And that doesn't always happen. But you get into the Army and use of socket to its own entity and you don't really see a lot of interoperability. Rangers just wouldn't.

go out and work with another organization. I mean, they barely work outside of J-Sock period. I mean, and that's by design. I mean, that's what he's there for. Cool. We got one more from Tomes. Great stuff, Ivan. What are some of the, some other stories you want to get told about the Marines or the military in general?

Wow. There's a lot of, I mean, never run out of material, right? I mean, you, as we've done the research, talking about torchlight. We first started out looking at just the 442nd because that had been seen before, you know, that had been seen before,

and it was in certain people's, it was in their, at least their wheelhouse as far as knowledge, because people had heard about the Japanese American combat unit. Daniel O'Neoy was a senator who's a medal on a recipient. In the popular culture, in the karate kid, Mr. Miyagi, is, they make full reference to him being in the 442nd.

There's a scene where he's drunk, you know, talking about his wife having passed away, and he's in his uniform, and, you know, he's got all of the letters laid out in his wife. And he, who, in the letter, they talk about him, her dying in the Manzanar camp. And then he passes out, and that's when Daniel, you know, finds the Medal of Honor. and he's like, oh my gosh, I didn't really know about this. And so what's powerful about that scene is that nothing has really said. It's just like they've discovered this hero. Which is how it goes down a lot of times.

But as we were doing the research, we found that there were Japanese Americans who had served with Merrill's Marauders, and there were guys in the OSS, and there were women who had roles, and there was just so much more to the story. so unpacking and uncovering that kind of stuff as we were writing it and have been coming up with the arc it's just been like we got to include this one or maybe we've got to add another episode on that

because so when you know the larger picture of the military stories I mean you you could open it up you know in any in any direction it blows my mind a movie hasn't been made about Eagle Claw a movie hasn't been made about Sante like those are both

gripping stories we still have not gotten like a Mac v. Sagan I mean, there's a trepidation, I think, to this day. Just a Stryker-Meyer movie would be enough. Dick Meadows' biopic. John's awesome. You know what I mean? Like, just that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I think there is a hesitation to this day about making a Vietnam war film that isn't explicitly anti-war. Like, we don't really know how to process that. Well, and that's what I think happens in Europe. I'm sorry, I could show up. No, go ahead. I think that's what, that is one of the challenges like first, as we have found in the, you know, as we've been pitching this and talking to people,

you get people who are interested in the story. They like the overall tone. They're like, okay. And then they're like, but historical stuff is hard to make. And it becomes a niche thing. And I'm just like, well, they didn't stop them from making Masters the Air or Greyhound or any of these other movies. Yeah, not really, man. I mean, like World War II movies have a pretty prominent place.

You don't want to see a movie about 18 Medal of Honor, like a unit that had 18 medals of honor and liberated Dockow? Like, this unit did all kinds of crazy stuff and actually a very short period of time. Yeah. But, I mean, you could do stuff on the Jedbergs. You could do stuff on Peter Ortiz, the Marine. He's a Marine.

You served, you know, two Navy crosses he served in the OSS. It blows my mind that here we are in 2025 and there is still new information about World War II coming to light. Like, I never would have thought, I'd think, like, the case is closed. We had a guy, JASIC here, a few months back, who, like, found an OSS memoir and, like, an archive somewhere that had, like, never been published. Like, all this crazy stuff. I think a lot of this stuff gets overshadowed, though, by things like Lioness. And I'm not cutting on, you know, the success of another writer, but there's sensationalism

there that people want to see. Yeah. And so, you know, the challenge we had, particularly with torchlight, is... that the history alone was interesting enough. You don't need to hype it up. Well, and then that's where people were like, well, do we have a central antagonist here? We're like, well, we actually, no, we... Yeah, we do.

It's the U.S. government. But there's Nazi Germany. There's the Japanese. There's all kinds of stuff. But what they wanted was some of this Darth Vader character. Like something that is hanging over them. And I'm like, that's not how this works. And we want to be true to the people and the families.

I mean, because these are, you know, we were basing this on really unreal people. Unlike where the troops in contact, yeah, parallels my book. But I was able to take full liberties in areas with that, with people who, you know, in locations that I don't have to make those real. What did you think of flags of our fathers and letters from New Jima? I actually thought they were excellent films. Yeah. I mean, letters from Yorujima is a really, really incredible film.

I mean, you're going to have very few directors who have the horsepower like Eastwood. The balls to do it. And some guys get away with it and some guys don't. And so, like, Kevin Costor tried with Horizon. He put his own money against it. He's got a fantastic production company. But he was like, hey, I'm going to do this because I want to do this as a picture. Because it's something that's interesting to me as far as the West,

because he does like making westerns. Whereas Eastwood has got such a diverse thing and just to be able to be like, you know what, I'm going to take on a Japanese perspective of World War II and Iwo Jima. When they're thinking, when everyone thinks of Iwo Jima, they're thinking John Wayne.

Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, Baselone in the Pacific, you know, the series of the Pacific. So, yeah, there's risk in everything. And there's risk in, in our military careers. There's risk in being a writer. And someone told me once, like, don't read the comments. Someone's like, you know, when you, Rick Rubin is a very famous producer.

He produced Run DMC and the Averick Brothers. You want to talk about two different, you know, very different musical. You know, he's just like, I hear stuff that I know is going to sell and I want to help you develop that. But he takes huge risk on that. And he wrote a great book, which just popped out of my mind. But, you know, he's like, once you release the, the, you know, he's like, once you release the, the book, the record, the movie, it's out there. It's a piece of art that you've created and how people receive it is not up to you.

Right. And you wish that they would all love it. But there are dudes who passed on the Beatles. There's dudes who passed on the Rolling Stones. There are people who don't like, you know, any number of paintings. There's people who don't like Georgia O'Keefe. Who doesn't like Georgia O'Keefe? But there are people who are just, you know, they're not into that kind of thing.

We don't understand Salvador Dali. they don't like, you know, Hemingway, which I think is an antithetical statement. But, I mean, those types of those types of risks need to be taken and those stories need to be told. Stop focus grouping the shit out of everything.

Take some risks. Well, it's what I told. Go back to Second Force. I pulled all the guys together one time. With my platoon starter. And I said, guys, I recognize that you've got a ton of experience and I'm here to learn. I'm also here to lead and I'm asking you to take a

chance, take a chance on me. And if you do that, I'll make it worth your while. So anybody who wants to take a chance on my projects and I hope they're out there, I'll absolutely make it worth your while. So yeah. Anything else before we roll out? What do they say at the end of the AAR? covered. Thank you, everyone who joined us. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you, Ivan, for joining us in studio. I really appreciate it.

Please go check out his books on Amazon. Check out his substack. Like I said, we'll have some links down in the description for those. It's been a fun episode. It has been my absolute pleasure. This has been great. Thank you so much. I hope we can do it again sometime.

Maybe June. We'll see all of you guys again next time. Hey, guys, it's Jack. want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show if you've been watching it enjoying it but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this you can check out our patreon it is patreon.com slash the team house and for five dollars a month you can get access to all of these episodes of the team house ad free the same goes with our affiliated podcast eyes on with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, McMulroy. That one, you will also get all of those episodes ad-free.

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