The Team House - Former Green Beret and SMU Operator | David Carmichael | Ep. 412

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

David Carmichael joins us to discuss his memoir Gray Man: A Life Lived Under the Radar, tracing his life from growing up in missionary communities across West Africa to surviving abusive boarding schools and eventually finding his way into the U.S. Army. He breaks down his path through 5th Special Forces Group, the old Q Course, Somalia, HUMINT work, Korea, and the mindset that shaped a career spent largely out of the spotlight.Grab David's book here:https://a.co/d/0aAJUNtFGhostBed ⬇️https://www.ghostbed.com/houseFOR 10% off! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouseTo help support the show and for all bonus content including:-live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video-early access to shows-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSupport the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse___________________________________________________PRE ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured__________________________________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/——————————————————————Or 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/wHFHYM6"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 — Start 00:51 — Growing up as a missionary kid in West Africa03:18 — Life near Timbuktu: mud huts, no electricity, and isolation04:17 — Sent to boarding school at six years old07:10 — Abuse, censorship, and surviving missionary boarding schools10:26 — Returning home, moving schools, and culture shock in America13:16 — Leaving strict religion behind and joining the Army15:01 — Chasing Special Forces and finding a path into 5th Group20:48 — The old Q Course, Camp Mackall, and earning the Green Beret24:09 — Somalia MTT: training local forces after the Soviets left28:29 — Selection, HUMINT training, and becoming a military “Grey Man”34:26 — Family life, Korea, Panmunjom, and dealing with North Koreans44:42 — DCI award, retirement, and choosing family over promotion48:27 — Building a scuba and military gear business after the Army52:03 — Reconnecting with family and lessons from his father54:31 — Writing Gray Man: A Life Lived Under the Radar58:15 — Business lessons, honesty, and closing thoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, folks. This is episode 412 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with our guest on the show, David Carmichael. He is the author of Gray Man, A Life Lived Under the Radar. You guys can go and find this book on Amazon right now. I read the Kindle version, but I also have a hard copy here. It is about David's life growing up. He had a very interesting upbringing growing up largely in Africa. And then it chronicles some of you. his journey through the Army as well. So Michael, thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I do too. So I guess to start at the beginning, David, I mean, tell us a little bit about, you know, your family background. My grandparents immigrated from Scotland, right, well, originally during the, just before the Depression. And then when the Depression hit, they headed back to England and came back just before the war started to the States. My father was born in England, and then he married my mother here in the States, and they decided to become missionaries. So they, my grandparents were already

missionaries in Ghana, which was at the time was the West Coast, uh, uh, Gold Coast in West Africa. That's where my father grew up. He came back to States, got married, and he went back. And I grew up in Mali mostly with trips to boarding schools throughout West Africa. And I was there from 1956 to, until I came to the States to go to college and, and joined the military. So my parents were out there for 27 years.

My brother grew up out there and he went back to Africa for mostly the rest of his life. So we have a long history, and particularly in West Africa. Back then, well, when we first got there, the countries were French West Africa. They were colonized by the French or in some cases the British. And it was a pretty good life. And along about 1960, 61, most of those countries got their independence and turned directly towards the eastern block, China, North Korea, East Germany, Russia, who came in the country. And it wasn't so great a living after that.

So I grew up in a little town near Timbuktu, which is the fabled city, up on the north side of the Niger River at the edge of the Sahara Desert. And we would travel from there down country to boarding schools in Guinea, and Ivory Coast and stuff. We lived for the first 12 years, we lived in a mud hut, no electricity, no running water, and yeah, about 12 years in, my father got a little old name generator, so we had a little bit of electricity at night to listen to the BBC and Voice of America. There was little to no communication.

The only communication was the government landline down at the government post office, And it worked if the camels didn't eat the lines. So it could take weeks, literally, to get information in and out back then. All the mail came in by the occasional airplane or up the river on the riverboats. So that was my life. I would go off to, I went off to boarding school as a six-year-old the first time. and spend eight months away from my parents in the mountains of Guinea. So, yeah, boarding schools weren't fun.

Yeah. As you can read in the book, we went, you know, there were hard times at boarding schools. And my book, if anything, is the story of resilience. It's of living that life, going to those boring schools and still, you know, having a successful military career and a successful business career. And so, you know, I hope that some other, some young person who's struggling will maybe read it and realize they don't have to live under the circumstances they were dealt. Yeah.

Well, yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. bit more. I mean, six years old is pretty young to be separated from your parents. And, I mean, but in their mind, I mean, I remember in the book, you mentioned that your father went to boarding school. So they felt that they were kind of giving you a proper education, even though you were out in the wilds of West Africa. Was that kind of the thought? I mean, that's part of it. But the reality was that the missions, pretty much all missions at the time felt that the missionaries could not could not win hearts and souls of the Africans if they were busy teaching their children school. And there was extreme pressure on the

missionaries at the time, not just our mission, but others, to send their kids off to boarding school. The option, you know, there was the option of doing homeschooling, but I said it was highly discouraged back in those days. It's only been in the, you know, in the last 30 years that all the abuses and problems of boring schools came out and it's gotten a lot of attention. And not only, well, all boarding schools, including Catholic schools and, you know, all that stuff. So nowadays, people wonder how, how heck did you ever do it, especially, you know, a mother sending. off or six-year-old, but it was kind of what was expected at the time. And so the first boarding school was Ghana.

You were six years old. I mean, you were very young, but you do relate some of those experiences. I mean, what do you remember about that first run at boarding school? Well, as I said, I was six years old. My parents couldn't take me to school that first year, so I rode with another missionary family. and you know you get into the the highlands of guinea it's beautiful beautiful area but you know in a boarding school and there was dorm parents and teachers that you know were rough on you it was a you know it's a rough life there was a lot of abuse females had a lot of sexual abuse males had a lot of sexual abuse males

I had a lot of mental, spiritual, and physical abuse. You were required to write a letter home each week, but that letter never went out unless the dorm parents approved it, and they highly censored it. They would make you change whatever. So parents, for the most part, didn't know what was going on. And they learned some when you came home. But, you know, I went that first year, the semesters were,

set up in four months semester with a two-week break in between. And if your parents could, they could come down and spend, take you to wherever for two weeks on a vacation. But at first year, my parents weren't able to come. So I spent eight months that first year, you know, away. It's kind of, you know, that's not what you want for a six-year-old, I guess. Yeah. Some of the things you describe like in, in the book, I mean, it goes beyond like, you know, hitting a kid's knuckles with the ruler or, you know, occasional paddle because somebody acts up. I mean, some of the things you described, it almost sounds like a kind of cult. Well, the problem in those cases was that the people that the missions chose to be dorm parents were often missionaries who didn't do well in other places.

and they were relegated to that job. And in some case, they didn't want to be there. And they were just mean and abusive. There's no other way to put it. So, yeah, everything that was described in that book, and I didn't even touch the surface because I gave a lot of references. And there's a video series on YouTube called All God's Children, All God's Children, the Documentary,

It's what it's to look it up. And it gets a highly detailed account of all that abuse that went on. And the people that made that video were my roommates. The Rich Dahr, one of the primaries in the video, was my roommate. His brother was a year older. So I was there. I was involved in everything you see in that video. So that's, if someone is further interested in abuse that went on at boring schools,

That's a great video to watch. But I listed a bunch of other references there as well. And after that was over and, you know, you went back to your parents after eight months, sort of how did your life pick up from there? You know, when you went home after eight months for a three-month break, it was, you know, started out with, you know, euphoria, you're back with your family, everybody's happy to see each other. You know, we spent a great three months. hunting and fishing in our time.

It was great, you know. And then all of a sudden you're a couple of weeks away from going back and everything gets somber again and you're off doing it all over again. So that went on, you know, that went on for three or four years for me in Guinea. And then the president of the country at the time, Sekuture, kicked all the Westerners out.

And so we went to another, another boarding school in the Ivory Coast called Ivory Coast Academy. And it was much, much better from a standpoint of use. It's a much better school. So I spent three or four years there. And then I came back to the States in time to finish high school. And shortly after that, joined the military. But coming back to the Western world or to the states after being in Africa, we typically

we'd stay in Africa four years of time, and then we'd come home for a year, and my parents would go around and, you know, talk to their churches and raise support and stuff. But we kids, our clothes were 10 years out of date. Our social norms were out of date. We were coming back to kids in high school who had grown up together, been on the pee-wee leagues together,

all knew each other, and we were, you know, we just didn't fit in, you know, And even if, you know, our parents, missionaries live on the, on what the churches give them and what the, you know, so they don't have a lot of money. So they weren't buying us the latest clothes. And, you know, the latest things that a teenager would want to have to fit in. So even coming back to the United States, it was, you know, that was quite a change. Culture shock. Yeah, yeah.

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So you come back to finish high school. And I guess before moving on, I mean, and maybe you didn't even know this at the time, but looking back on that, you clearly were raised with a strong Christian upbringing. Did some of those negative experiences in your early life kind of like carry over and did they affect either your faith or? or how you kind of proceeded through the rest of your early years? Yeah, you know, growing up, it was twice on Sunday and at least once during the week, and revivals were everybody, you know, if you didn't get on your knees at the altar, every time they made a call, you were, you were, you know, shamed.

That's what I grew up with, and then I briefly went to a Bible college in the States. And about the time I turned 20 years old, I divorced myself from all that. I joined the Army. And I have basically left all that behind me at that time. That's not to say I haven't gone to church, but I've gone to some churches, not often, frankly, but some churches that are more liberal than the Baptist, the Baptist, you know. The Baptist I grew up with was you didn't smoke, drink or chew. dance, go with girls that do. You didn't go to the movies. There was a time where we weren't

allowed to do anything strenuous on Sunday. It was that kind of a very conservative upbringing. So once I joined the military, you know, I kind of left it up and it was it was many years after that before I even really reconnected with my family. I wasn't it. I wasn't it. I odds with my family, but they were overseas. I was overseas. I was going in the military. We just didn't have much time to interact. And it wasn't until basically after I retire from the military that I and settled down a little bit that I reconnected with even my family. But so to answer your question, I guess I would consider myself spiritual, but not religious. No, I get it. And so it sounds like the army was kind of an escape in a lot of ways for you.

It was. You know, I had to, from my earliest days, I can remember wanting to be a soldier. I can remember playing Army. It's something I just always wanted to do. And, but yes, it wasn't escape. I initially, you know, and I always wanted to be an elite whatever. So in my mind, that was special forces, right? So I went in a delayed entry program with what they call the guarantee. in Teabak and their contract to be able to try out for special forces. And then I hurt my knee playing college soccer and they reneged on that. So I said, well, shit, I'm going in anyway. So I went in. They put me in as avionics mechanic. I spent three years doing that. Then I got out for a period of time.

And then I said to myself, you know, I've always had this goal. I'm going to go do it. So I signed back up, re-enlisted, and with a guarantee to go to airborne school. That's what happened. And you had to finagle your way into special forces after that. Yeah. Yeah, for better or worse.

When they sent me to Port Bragg, I went to 18th Airborne Corps Repo Depot, or I was supposed to, When I hit Bragg, I went over to Fifth Special Forces Group, and I asked to see the Stard Major. Pretty balzy, I suppose, for a spec four, but he saw me. And I said, look, I grew up in Africa. I speak these languages.

I said, you know, I'd be wasted somewhere else. You really, I'd really like you to put me on Special Forces, and he didn't. So that's how I got into Fifth. that grew. Now, once I was in there, I let it be known that I wanted to go to the Q course, but of course, only the, uh, only the, uh, hard core skills guys that were, you know, the type of people that aren't eight teams. That's what they were sending Q course.

But it turned out that the command had decided at the time that they wanted Intel and ops guys with the teams. And if they were going to deploy with the teams, they needed to have all the same training against the teams. So that's how I was able to get into the Q course. And about what year was this, that you got the fifth group? 78. 78.

Okay. So I went through, I went through Uori in the winter of 7980. So it was probably like Colonel Montel was the commander at the time? Yeah, that name rings a bill, yeah. I think Sergeant Maxim had just left. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. He wasn't the tack.

I think he might have left the class before I got there. And I think Mark Boyatt and Taffey Carlin were both, either lieutenants or captains at the time in fifth group. They've both passed on, unfortunately. but who is the uh the colonel that uh cut down all those uh with an axe with a shovel oh shit i don't um i do he was he's metal of honor recipient yeah i'm sorry i can't remember his name i think i feel like he was of course at my level i'm not exactly sure but i think he was the guy that was in charge of training yeah

And so when they brought you in a fifth group, you're, you know, a part of the unit. But as you point out yourself in the book, I mean, you're not a Green Beret just yet until you graduate the Q course. And what did they have you doing at the unit in the meantime? I was brought into the 801st MI Battalion. And so I was doing, you know, what young Intel guy is doing an MI Battalion while. But frankly, I wasn't there that long before. I went off to selection. And then not long after selection, I got picked up for OCS.

How did that happen? Did you, you applied for OCS at the same time you were applying for selection? Yeah, I had applied for OCS about the same time, well, when I got to the unit. And, I mean, not the unit, the 801st, in the fifth group. And, you know, I've basically forgotten about it. And it came through sometime after I finished the Q course, not too long after that. So obviously, normal SF guys going through the Q course,

their second phase, phase two is whatever their discipline is. In our case, they basically put us through an EIB course, basically, to train us to be in all the infantry skills. So that was the phase two that they put our group through. I don't know how many of the group. There was probably about 20, O&I guys, maybe 10, 20. I don't know how many made it through, no idea. What else do you recall about the Q-course at that time?

Those were still sort of the early days of special forces as it was getting more formalized. Yeah, one thing I know or I realized from seeing the way things are, you know, now is the unit itself put us through our pre-course training. And not only they did that whether you were going to scuba school or whatever, but for the you didn't have like right now I think they got like two or three different levels of pre-selection before you ever get to camp McCall anyway I went to camp McCall at that time they were the old wooden barracks you know there was no heat obviously there was no hot water and you know we did our time at camp McCall like everybody else did you know beaten and You know, doing the rucksack marches and hoping we weren't the last guy through the gate. I never did have to beat the gates. But, yeah, it was, you know, it was tough.

And then phase three, it was wintertime in North Carolina. So it was cold, a lot of ice and cold rain and stuff. Oddly enough, my hobby now is restoring old Landowners. So I take my old landover to the events up and down the east coast. And one of the events, in fact, I'm going to later this month is in the Uwari National Forest. So it's kind of interesting to go back there and be able to drive around the woods that we had to hike through. That's because you got exposed to land rovers when you were in Africa driving around between your parents. In Africa, yeah, yeah.

We had landovers growing up in Africa. And when I finally, when I retired and started a business and started, you know, making little money, had enough wherewithal, I started, I bought my first Land Rover and now I have more than I need. But that's what I do. But, you know, and I've actually met some guys up in Uwari that volunteer. as local guerrillas and stuff. They help the cadre and stuff. So it's kind of fun to come full circle on that. So you graduate the Q-course and then you go to OCS.

And now are you coming back to fifth group as an officer? Yeah, maybe. But what they did was they sent me off. They branched me, M.I., which was unfortunate, but I don't have a choice that I would have rather been branched infantry. So right away they send me off the basic course out of Port Wachuka. And then the advanced course comes along. I spent a couple years at Wachuka trying to figure out how to get out of there.

And then I was picked up for an MTT to Somalia, again based on my Africa background. And through that MTT, I met a couple of guys who later remembered me and pushed for me to be invited to go to selection for this other unit I was in. So I was able to, so I was still an intel officer. I was trained in all the, all the intel disciplines, but basically I spent most of my career doing human stuff. Before moving on, let's talk a little bit about that MTT to Somalia, because that must have been very interesting, especially I imagine you guys got there right after the Soviets pulled out. We did. In fact, the schools, buildings that we were teaching in had closets. It still had Soviet maps, Soviet compasses and other Soviet things in them. And we trained the security and Intel cadre, about 40 people. And being an Intel guy, I did a complete study of Somalia and all the people while I was there.

And I had pictures of every one of them. And I had whatever bio I could get on it. I mean, it wasn't something I was tasked to do on the MTT. I just did it. and came back to states and nobody was interested. And in 1983, it was that when Somalia came around in, was it 83, Somalia? Anyway, when we went back into Somalia, I contacted people and said,

hey, I have all this stuff. Some of the people you may be fighting now are people I trained, are you interested? And the answer was no, got nothing. which in my mind is typical the intel services if you are not with them at the time in the moment they don't they don't give you much credence I should point out too for our listeners and MTT is a mobile training team so that's sort of like the bread and butter of special forces really is going around the world and training around that time so you were in some

Somalia, 83. I think 1983, we sent the first MTT to Lebanon also. But ODAs, A teams at that time were all over Central, South America, I mean, all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. They were. That's the one I got chosen to do. And how do you, what was sort of your impression of the Somalian forces at that time and the people that you were training? I wasn't very impressed. And that the African forces that I was came across were not very impressive, not very well trained. The Somalis would rather sit around and chew cut and stay up all night than actually work.

You know, even trying to get them to do simple things like map reading, courses and anything that involved physical activity, you weren't getting much out of them. I wasn't impressed. It was about mine. But we had a job to do. We trained them in, you know, some Intel stuff and map reading and that kind of thing. And so you did a good enough job on this MTT, it sounds like, that it caught some people's attention and they started suggesting maybe there's another place that you could go?

Yes, yeah, there was a couple of, or at least one guy that was on the team, plus another guy that I had known in another unit. And, you know, I guess they remembered my Africa background or something. For some reason, they decided I was appropriate for evaluation. And what are you able to say about that evaluation, that selection course that you went through? And I mean, at that time, did you even really know what you were trying out for? No, no. And it was, it's been described in many podcasts and books and stuff.

But it's a typical selection that special minute mission units go through going back to SAS days, patterned after the SAS, designed to test your medal and see how far you're willing to go without knowing where you're supposed to go or how far you're supposed to go. Was that kind of a thing? Using land navigation and ruck marching as sort of like a stressor, right? Right, yeah. It wasn't a, I mean, I don't think it was about how physical you could be, although there was probably a component, but it's how you react to constantly changing unknowns.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And when the course ended, you know, did, what was that like for you? Did you get brought into a board or how did they tell you that, you know, they wanted you to come to the unit? Yeah, there was a board, selection board at the end of the, at the end of the selection process. And then after that, you go to the organization and get further training. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, you talk in your book, for instance, you mentioned that you got to go to the farm and get trained on human intelligence tradecraft. Like, was that like kind of a rare thing at that time for Army guys to be able to go and do that?

Not necessarily for Army guys, but it was kind of unique for me being Special Forces trained to also be a human intelligence officer. So there was a few of us around, but not too many at that time. You know, I also, I mean, that was an awesome opportunity for me because, yes, I went there for, and it was trained the way all Army case officers are trained. But I also, during my time in the command, you know, went to Halo School and scuba school. So it's kind of unique to have that opportunity and not only to get one as an officer, but to get two, you know, both disciplines as an officer. So I went through, I went through Key West in 84.

And I swore that was the hardest school I ever went to, and I swore I'd never forget it. But I ended up honor graduate, one of the honored graduates out of it. worked fine and I went on to be a diver for many years after that, a civilian and, you know, had all the patty disciplines. And in my business, we made, we had a sewing, we have a sewing factory and we made gear bags for the scuba industry. So as part of that, my son and I would enter all the, all the spear fishing tournaments, sponsored all of them in this area. And we did that for a lot of years. Yeah, I mean, it is pretty cool.

And the way you kind of talk about it in the book, it sounds like, you know, you guys and what you were doing, you were almost like the modern version of the OSS to be a humenter and also be this sort of like commando that's, you know, free fall trained and dive trained and everything else. You know, as I said in the book, armies all over the world have units that are trained to do what the average soldier is not trained to do. They all, you know, they all have special operations elements. They all need intelligence for their missions. So, yeah, I don't know how unique it was in the world of, you know, of that. But, yeah, I mean, I was a human, human guy.

And, you know, I mean, post-Iran 79, you know, they were looking, this was before Jay sock, But, you know, there were certain elements that were being stood up at the time to, to, you know, fill in the gaps that were realized after Desert 1. Yeah, there was kind of a feeling, right, that the CIA wasn't really able to support the intelligence needs of the military, right? And we had to kind of fill that gap. is my understanding that's the way the military felt. They wanted people who were their people who were trained the way they knew they were trained to collect the information that they specifically needed to do their specific jobs. And the CIA didn't necessarily provide that to them,

nor did the conventional intelligence services. And I feel like we should also take a moment here to mention, you know, this time frame, 83, 84, 85, you're getting married, you're having children. Tell us a little bit about how you meet your wife and how you start a family. I met my wife when I was still a spec 4 at Port Wachuka. Her father was a sergeant major there. I met her. I don't, you know, I'm eight years, six years older than her.

So I was 24. She was 18 when we got married. We, and then we had the kids after we went back to Fort Benning, back to Fort Bragg, back to Fort Benning, and then finally back to Fort Huachuca as an officer. That's when we had our kids. But I spent a lot of time away from home, as most guys do. But the unit we were in was, you know, I had a really supportive wives group and, and,

but my wife, Jackie, pretty much raised the boys on her own for many years. And it was only when it came time to retire that I decided my kids were just going into junior high and I said, you know, I got to be around. I got to be around for that. So that's when I chose to retire. I had put in my papers for retirement branch called and said, hey, you're, you're number one on the list within not, probably not for the old army, but whatever within my peer group.

And do you want to reconsider? And I said, no, no, I'm, I'm. to get out, start a business, and take care of my family. You guys did spend some time in Korea, right, before you retired? Yeah. Well, I spent two years that I was the liaison officer, the NNSC, which is Neutral Nations Security Commission, at Penwin-John. So I represented the Uncmac or the U.S. Armed Forces in Korea. to the neutral nations commissioned countries,

which were the Czechs, the Polish, the Swiss, and their jobs since Armist's day was to just monitor the peace. And they had compounds right up on the demarcation line. And that's where those blue quonset huts are that you see in newsreels, you know, when they have, repatriation of remains or when, you know, important people meet up there. Or occasionally a de facto runs across the border. Yeah, yeah, that happened.

So, yeah, I was, that was, my job was to support those people. But we also met weekly, if not daily, with North Koreans, the North Koreans, our North Korean counterparts. So, you know, I met with North Koreans probably more than the Joint Duty Officer did. But yeah, that's what I did for two years. It was an accompanied assignment. My family lived on the Basin Youngson and that's like a mini USA there. It was great living for them. Actually a good assignment for me too. I was I would drive up to Pan Moon Jam a couple hours up. every morning, come back in the evenings.

Sometimes I'd stay the night up there. But generally I was free on the weekends. So it was pretty good assignment. The NNSD that, so after the wall came down, attitudes, politics started changing. And the checks were the first to pull out. You know, they had increasingly poor relationship with their North Korean host.

checks pulled out and then right about the time I left or just after I left the Polish pulled out and that effectively ended the NNSC. I think the Swiss and the Swedish stayed on for a while, but I'm not sure there's anything going on there now. What was your impression of the North Koreans? I got to ask because we have a sort of view in America of these sort of stone-faced North Korean general. I was wondering what the reality was like, you know, for you and what you think thought. Everyone I saw was that way, but you got to understand that the people that are at Panmunjohn are probably hand-picked for the purpose, highly, highly trained, highly motivated, you know, supporters of the regime. Yeah, they were that way. And they, those guards up there would

be happy to shoot you if they, if they thought they had an opportunity. I explained in my book where I had to, you know, sometimes I'd screw around with them and there's some information in there, you know, where I just play with them. They, they were, those young North Korean guards and towers were tasked to watch my every step. And whereas most people might walk down the middle of the pathway, I would, I would sidle up next to the buildings, get in the shadows, get under the overhangs where they couldn't see me. And, you know, it just didn't mess with them. And, but, you know, there was people got shot running across, trying to cross that line. And I had my escape routes mapped out. So the thing happened.

I knew how to get away. You got there a little, a little bit after the famous hatchet incident, right? Well, quite a bit. That was in 76. Okay. And but prior to that, you could walk pretty, pretty freely between the buildings and, you know, around that, that area in Penloom and John there. But after that, they kind of stopped that and everybody stayed on their sides of the line. You know, I pushed the envelope on that.

So one of the other things I wanted to ask you about. And I know you can't really tell the story behind it. But you made Major as you kind of round out your career. And you got an award from the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the DCI Award. Can you tell us, I know, again, I know you can't tell really the backstory, but can you tell us about that award itself? No, to be honest, I can't. I mean, suffice it to say that the guy who endorsed my book is Rick Proud.

guy who wrote Black Ops. Yep. And he has some nice things to say about me. But I'd rather not say where or when because that might give away too much. Oh, no, I understand. I was sort of more asking, like, what is that award? Like, is it the equivalent of, like, a Silver Star? Well, my understanding is it's the highest award that the agency gives to a non-agency employee.

I may be wrong about that, but that's what I was always told. That's pretty cool. And, you know, it's something that the DCI gives, the director of Central Intelligence Agency gives to someone who's done a job they like, I guess. Well, start to talk to us. You mentioned it a little bit about, you know, when you decide to retire and you want to spend some more time with your family. Tell us a little bit about like winding down, getting to Tampa and starting to put your retirement papers in. When I finished the tour in Korea, the branch said since you've had this hardship tour, we'll let you have your choice of places to go.

I didn't think of it as a hardship tour, but they did. And I said, well, dang, I want to go to Florida then. Send me to Tampa. And so that's how I ended up in Tampa. And, you know, I worked there for two years, but there really wasn't much going on. Gave me time to go through the command general staff course by correspondence. And then I decided to retire. What would have happened was had I taken the promotion that they said was, you know,

right there around the corner form. me. I know I had ended back up in, I'd ended up in D.C. doing something and I would have ended up doing something that took a lot of time away from my kids. So I just decided to stay and retire in Florida. You know, I've at times regretted it because it wasn't too long after that that all my peers went off to the desert and most of my peers retired as 06 or better. And I have no doubt that if I had a taken that 05 rank that I'd have hit 06 by time. But I didn't. So there's no sense crying over it. But it would have been, you know, a person who spends their whole life preparing to go to war, whether they say so or not, probably wants to go to war and prove themselves. And so I kind of wish I had stayed in and gone there, but I didn't know that at the time.

You know, so it is what it is. I went on and started a business, and that was 30 years ago. And so your business was basically, if I remember right here, it was making waterproof bags for dive operations. Well, I was making scuba bags. When I first retired, I wanted to do an import-export business, but I never could get any traction. And then since I was a diver, I knew dive people. someone asked me if I could make scuba bags. I was already going to Asia, you know, sourcing and doing other stuff.

So I just learned everything I could about making scuba bags. And we made them when we started out designing them here in the States and making them in Asia. And then in 2007, with numerous requests for U.S. made stuff, I decided to form the U.S. operation. And so we built the factory, we opened a factory here in the States. You know, and now we make what's called Barry Amendment or, you know, military bags and stuff, along with other commercial bags. But we started out making scuba bags.

That's what we did. And we at one time, we were, you know, one of the leaders in the industry in making good, tough bags. So you have, I mean, tell us a little bit about. like this factory. It's like a sew shop essentially. Yeah, it's a 10,000 square foot facility where we have 40, 50 sewing machines. And, you know, we make, we make whatever, we're, what's called a job shop. So we make anything other than clothing and large tent structure is something that's too big for us. But we make cases, covers, bags, everything from little mesh bags for the medical industry to rolling luggage and big stuff. We make the fuel splash guards for the F-22 fighter squadrons. We make the wheel covers for those same F-22s. We make other gear bags for military. We make parachute recovery bags that are primarily, they're specifically designed to get wet

parachutes out of the water from Merops. So when you jump into the water, by the time you get back to shore, all the water is drained off. So those are purchased by special operations people, some foreign countries. NASA has bought some in the past. So, yeah, that's the type of thing we make. And you said there's a commercial side of it as well. Like if people wanted to go and see, you know, what the company offers,

is there a place they can find you online or elsewhere? Yeah, our website is Americansewing.net. And basically it's just a representation of the type of things we do so people can see what we do is not necessarily a website where you can buy stuff. Yeah. And in commercial side, if you have a company that's making a widget, you need a case to put that widget in. You call us and we make the cover case, whatever, for you. But like I say, we do little mesh bags for Medline, different medical industry things.

Basically anything, anything that's sewn together. And you also mentioned that after you retired, you kind of reconnected with your family. What was that like? Well, about the time I was retiring, they were also retiring from different things, except for my brother who was in Africa. And, you know, it gave us all the time to connect. And then we connected more. I hadn't really talked to my dad much in years. And it got a little tedious because he was.

He was a preacher and he proselytized and he always wanted to know if I was going to church or not, which, of course, I wasn't and that created some tension. So one year, one day on a Saturday evening, he called me up and did not mention any of that one time. All he wanted to do was talk about my day was going, how the business was going. We had a really great talk and connection. And every Saturday evening to the day he died after that, he would call. me and we'd have typical conversation. It was an awesome reconnection with them after so many years. Yeah. No, that's incredible. So, you know, the point is, is if you want to, if you want to connect with

parents or children, connect to them on their level. Yeah. Oh, good point. And otherwise, how has retirement been treating you? You're still down in the Tampa area? We do. We still live in Tampa. We still have the business. I'm 72 years old, so I'm ready to retire. A second time? Let's see what happened. I much rather spend my time building old Landrovers. And you enter those in like truck competitions and things like that where they come and join them?

Well, yeah. In the Land Rover world, kind of like the Jeep Road, you have events where you go riding through the woods. That's cool. forest, you know, up and down hills and through the deepest mud you can find and stuff. So, yeah, I mean, I have some hangar queens that I just take to car shows. And then I have one that, you know, is outfitted with snorples and things like that to go through deep mud and water. And I'll take that to those trail events. And then, you know, I also got to ask, I mean, what was the inspiration that led you to writing this book?

I mean, the book is even called The Grey Man, A Life Lived Under the Radar, and you are kind of that guy. So what inspired you to write the book? What kicked me in the butt to get me going was my son gave me a Christmas present, which was a subscription to a company that will send you a question each week. And you answer the question. And at the end of the year, they put together a book about your life. Well, right off the bat, I realize those questions are nonsense. So I did finish that up, but I ended up writing my own chapters soon.

When I got done with that, I said, you know, this is, I need to put this in a better format. And so I rewrote the book and rewrote it a couple of times and sent it off for approval a couple times before I finally got it all approved by the government and stuff. But the whole gray man thing, I mean, when you're going through boring, well, first of all, I grew up as a loner in Africa out hunting by myself and stuff. Then you go to boring school and you're keeping your head low to keep away from bullies and what have you. And then, you know, later on I was a human officer. I basically lived my whole life kind of trying to stay out of the limelight, which was a detriment in my business life because I was not nearly the salesman that I should have been. I just am not that outgoing.

But, yeah, I think gray man fits. And the book can be found on Amazon. I hope people will go and check it out. David, is there any other reflections that you have from your life experience or your experience writing the book? Anything else that you'd like to talk about? I don't know. Like I said, I hope people buy the book. I've had good comments.

I've been on a couple other podcasts that are more related to missionary kids and things like that. But, you know, maybe it'll help someone. And it's not really an education on anything military. It's just, like I said, it was done. I did it for a historical reference for my kids. And then people started saying, well, you need to get this out there more because other people would be interested. And that's why I started doing, you know, Rick Prado encouraged me to do the podcast

and get it out there more. So I'm glad he did. I'm enjoying the experience. And I should also point out. to people that your your book here this memoir is filled with pictures and i mean some of these pictures uh like your dad i think this was your father doing dentistry in west africa i mean it's just totally surreal um yeah my my father was a uh a dentist uh you know and um he contracted hepatitis uh from working in people's mouths that's before they knew what age was and stuff

And he lived many years after that, but eventually liver cancer killed him. So he literally gave his life for those people he served over there. That's amazing. And I think we have one question for you from a viewer. Yeah, David, you had a pretty long business career. What are some lessons learned from throughout owning your own business? And you did mention a little bit about, you know, you're not as outgoing and salesman. enough, but any other lessons learned from running a business?

You know, if I had any success, it was because I was always true to my word. I was always honest. And people noticed that. And throughout my business career, I had several different occasions where important, wealthy people asked me to help them or offered to help my business. So,

yeah, you've got to be reliable. You've got to be honest. And if you do that, successful follow. Definitely. And again, the book is Gray Man, A Life Lived Under the Radar by David Carmichael.

We'll have some links down the description of this podcast and on the video. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can click on it and get to the book that way. And your website was it American Sewers.net? American sewing. American, yeah, Americansewing.net. Okay. We'll have a link to that too.

David, thank you for doing this interview and spending some time with us today. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, I hope folks will go and check out the book. And thank you everyone who joined us tonight. And we will see you next time. Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Team House podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free.

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