The Team House - From Green Beret and Army Special Mission Unit to Secretary of Defense | Chris Miller | Ep. 205

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

If you know one thing about Chris Miller, it's that he was President Donald Trump's final Secretary of Defense, elevated to that position in the days after the 2020 election. If you know a second thing about Chris Miller, it's that he oversaw the U.S. Armed Forces during one of the most controversial and tumultuous periods the military has experienced in decades, culminating in the shocking events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Yet Chris Miller is no political partisan. On the contrary, Miller has spent his adult life in the crosshairs of America's most dangerous enemies--from Middle Eastern deserts to the bowels of U.S. intelligence agencies--and emerged as one of the leading national security minds of his generation. Needless to say, Chris Miller has stories to tell. In Soldier Secretary, he reveals for the first time everything he saw--in a book that is candid, thought-provoking, and like that of no Secretary of Defense before him. This book is not just the inside story of what happened during the Trump administration--it's the inside story of what happened to America, its military, and its institutions during the two decades after September 11, 2001. Part badass, part iconoclast, Miller is an irreverent, heterodox, and always-fascinating thinker whose personal journey through war and the White House has led him to some shocking conclusions about the state of American power in 2021. With a perspective that will surprise and interest both Republicans and Democrats, Miller argues for a radical rethinking of U.S. national security strategy unlike anything since the creation of the joint armed forces in the 1980s. He offers a roadmap for how the United States can win in the era of unrestricted warfare by shedding the bloated defense bureaucracy, bringing American forces home from endless conflicts, renewing our national unity, and beating China at its own game.   Miller is a true American warrior whose incredible journey from Iowa to Afghanistan to Iraq to the White House endeared him to the troops, prepared him for the unprecedented crisis of January 6, and left him deeply concerned about the future of our military and the future of our nation. Grab Chris’ book here: ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Soldier-Secretary-Warnings-Battlefield-Dangerous-ebook/dp/B09N3DL5Z9 Today's Sponsors: SLNT (Silent) ⬇️ https://SLNT.com/?rfsn=7107485.9bde8d SLNT® sleeves, bags, cases and wallets are all exquisitely designed to ensure your devices become invisible, untrackable and silent. Get 10% off your order by using this link or using the promo code "teamhouse" at checkout! https://SLNT.com/?rfsn=7107485.9bde8d Thank you for supporting the companies that support the show ! To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ 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/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️  https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [e-mail] #armysmu #greenberet #secretaryofdefenseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, folks, I just want to take a minute to ask you to go in rate this podcast, let the Team House know how you think we're doing, go and rate us on whatever platform you're listening to this on, whether it's iTunes or Spotify or whatever else. Those ratings really help us out, and we really appreciate the feedback to let us know what you like and what you don't like. And if you do like the Team House and you'd like to support us, go check out our Patreon page and you can actually support the stream and well as get access to our team house. bonus segments and bonus episodes. Yeah, if you're going to give us a great review, please do. And if you're going to give us a not-so-good review, why don't you just send us an email and we'll talk about it. Special Operations, Covert Ops, espionage, the Team House, with your hopes, Jack Murphy, David Park. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to episode 205 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. And our guest on tonight's show is the author of Soldier's Secretary, Christopher Miller.

Chris served in Special Forces, went on to serve in ASD Solick. People don't even know what that office says. Yeah, everybody's like, what the hell is that? But we'll get into the weeds on it. Me being one of them. I. What's correct? I or me.

Either is acceptable. And Chris, of course, went on to become acting secretary of defense. So, I mean, you had this, like, amazing career, you know, rise through. the bureaucracy in so many ways. It is a bureaucracy. That's a really good description. I would say hacked the bureaucracy. Especially when you get to the Pentagon level that you talk about in your book.

Did you think the book was equivalent of Grant's memoirs kind of on that scale? What do you think, Jack? I haven't read Grant's memoirs. They say the best memoirs ever written by a military officer. It's not. Don't worry. Don't worry. I was just trying to like, you're a historian, man.

I'm going to go out on a limer. I'm going to go out on a limer and say, did it. was better than Grants Matters. Man, that's why you guys had the most popular podcast in national security right there. It's what? It's an ass. It works.

No, I did enjoy the book. Did you get a laugh out of it? I got a laugh out of key moments in it. Yes, absolutely. Some of the very self-effacing stories of a young special forces officer. Trying to figure it out, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We were talking before the show about war story, Jim Morris's book. It's like the classic special forces. How old were you when you read it the first time? I was in fifth group when I read it for the first time. You did. Yeah. Yeah.

And I thought it was. I was too. I told Jim about it. I was like, Jim, you could take your book and just replace the word Vietnam with Iraq and the word, you know, communist with terrorist. And it's like pretty much the same thing. It's very similar. We learned no lessons, my friend. Yeah, yeah.

Did I say that out loud? Yeah. So, Chris, I want to get into the book. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Before we start, you're not going to give a shout out to Demetri. Who is literally, you're going to call me on that. Two years in, he's the power behind the throne, and he keeps this circus on time. If it wasn't for him, we'd still be BSing and talking trash.

And we'd still be in a super low-rent studio with like a white cloth behind us. I didn't want to go there. So, you know, can I give a shout out to my friends who made me drive from Washington, D.C.? up here because well there were a couple reasons why one was when I got your instructions for how to zoom call in I was like I don't know how to do half the things that you said like lighting there was like being a soundproof I'm like my office is my basement the dog's going to run in kids are going to be screaming and then the thing that got me was you need to have an hcmi cable to attach to your router an ethernet cable

In the internet, this is why I drove up, my friend, because I was like, well, I'm going to spend all day rigging my Zoom studio. I'll just drive up. And then I got some really good friends, Joe Tonin, Andrew Cote, and Joe Francesc, and were like, you're going on the team room. That's the best podcast. I was like, yeah, I've heard that. They're like, you have to go. You can't do this Zoom call. So I drove my ass up 95.

Delaware Memorial Bridge was a breeze. I didn't sit. And then the Jersey Turnpike. Oh, my gosh. For you, all right. You know, this is my last public appearance for pushing it. Hustling the book. Save the best for last.

There you go. You guys heard it here first. Now, final point, I got to talk to you. Is my wife's car safe out there? Maybe. A strong maybe. So, you know, I finally had enough money to buy a new car. a car for me because in the past my wife picked the car Honda minivans odysseys you know the

routine when you have kids so finally making a few few few shekels now bought a car you know what happened to the car two weeks ago yes I crashed it my new car I crashed so we got this we got this rental car this rental thing now and I said honey what car do you want me to take she said take my car She said, I have one request. Park it in a safe spot. You guys, if this goes bad, this whole house of cards crumbles. And you guys are just up in Brooklyn laughing while I'm standing out there. But I do like NYPDs right down the street, man.

She'll have you a dress down on the front lawn. You should be okay. You should be okay. I've left my car here over the weekend and no problem. Well, you got the Precinct 90, right? My car? No, NYP is right down. I thought about parking.

They don't care. Like, they don't care if cars get like. Up on cinder blocks. Yeah, you might be on your own. Yeah. All right. We'll check it out. If things go bad, we'll get you an Uber home tonight. Oh, okay.

To DC. Yeah. That'll be a, and I'm sure I'll get a talk. I would have offered an Amtrak ticket myself. Could you see I get a talkative Uber driver? like for four hours and 15 minutes we just talk it would be great and after this episode yeah yeah all right sorry man i took i took yostrid i took yawks right and it is d's like to make your anniversary so that d doesn't assassinate me uh please like and subscribe to the

channel we're trying to get to a hundred subscriptions on the channel 100 000 a hundred thousand thank you uh and there is a you only got 100 subscriptions and i drove my ass all the way up here for, no, I'm just kidding. We're open to break 150 tonight with you, so. And there's a link to our Patreon in the description if you want to get these episodes ad-free. Thank you. So, Soldier Secretary, you're a memoir of your life, the life in times of Chris Miller. No, it's not complete because they only paid for 70,000 words.

So how many words do you think we delivered? 70,000. So it's very truncated. So we can't wait for the director's cut. We can't wait. for the director's getting yeah exactly so start with your origin story Chris tell us about how you grew up and what was that path that took you towards did you see what I'm wearing Iowa wrestling right yeah kid from Iowa actually I was born in Platteville wisconsin does anybody care yeah

where's where's Wisconsin the mountaineers or the miners I think they're the miners grew up in the Midwest um and my old my dad uh Korean War veteran got drunk drafted, you know, farmer, got drafted. And then it's the quintessential. How many people have you had on this show that talk about my uncles were all World War II veterans? You know, I playing with GI Joe's in the backyard. The whole, so Gary Harrington you had on a while ago. I watched the episode in the drive.

No, I didn't watch. I listened. I was driving. I was not watching while I was driving. I just want to be clear about that. And you wrecked your car. I hope my wife's not watching so you know Gary it was really telling

he said this basically told the same story he's a little older than I am but same story you know raised by greatest generation it was hilarious with my dad was younger so he didn't go to World War II he got like the the second you know

Korea War you know the forgotten war which it really is so you would sit around at family reunions and what happened. Did this happen in your family where they start talking about the war? You guys are younger. My folks were not in the military, but grew up around older folks who were in World War II. And yeah, around like Christmas time, they start telling all of a sudden stories about D-Day come out.

And it's like getting your foot blown off by a Nazi tank. It's like, what? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's like crazy stuff. Yeah, same experience. And then I was born in 65, Vietnam War is going on. In those days, he had three TV channels. And when my dad came home from work, he was a cop.

He sat in the Barklelanger. And the old man, you know, I'm watching Hickory Hollow, whatever on PBS because there are no cartoons or anything. You get like the one VHF station out of Philadelphia or something. We were living in Delaware. And, you know, my dad came home. not like my kids who have watch whatever you want there are 4,000 channels and I just you know different parenting style so the old man sat down and guess what he turned on well I was the

channel change right CBS News Walter Cronkate I'm not making this up and guess what every night you know I didn't want to do homework so I'll sit here and watch the news so I kind of was weirded out by you're seeing the Vietnam War stream live and you're like wow man, that's how that stuff works. And my dad was a civil servant, a public servant, and he was always like, there's inherent dignity and service. And, you know, you roll your eyes, but you hear it enough. You can you see his example.

So I just figured, I guess this is the family business. We do public service and the military. All right. Like, you had the same thing. Like, I'm going to go give this thing a try. Yeah, yeah. I don't know why. just like you got to serve it was expected family thing we're not a military family

my dad like I said got drafted fled Germany in 1848 draft Dodgers family I come from a family of draft Dodgers and Shirkers which I think is ironic beyond belief right right what about you guys how was you why did you decide to suit up well I was telling you before the show I you know I was in my senior year of high school in 9-11 So and I was already thinking about the military. And so now it's like, you know, there's a war on, you know. Yeah. You did it was you had to serve.

I, that, like, youthful thirst for adventure, right? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely part of it. I mean, yeah, I mean, I like to blow myself up as I did this like noble thing after nine o'clock. You're looking for. But I was looking for adventure too. You know, that's a big, big part of it. Yeah. What misguided youth did we have?

It was the same thing. What about you, Dave? I mean, I like the military. I didn't really. think I'd be going into it. But, you know, I like the A-Team and, you know, all the popular shows that were on that time. I wasn't a MacGyver fan. I'm sorry.

Are we going to get bad press on that? I've watched McGiver at my grandpa's house after church every Sunday. Oh, really? That was my entry into McGiver, yeah. So Mr. T and the A-teen, that got you going, Dave? I'm joining up. Absolutely. Well, I mean, but, no, I was 19 when I joined.

Like, I was bored. You know, I was, like, working a job, and I was. board and I was like I need to do something like what am I to do and I thought oh you're down in Wichita no I was out in California actually I moved I moved out to California like three I had a vision of you in Wichita working at like the Cessna factory don't they have make plans in Wichita yeah yeah Cessna Boeing yeah I think because of the wind conditions and and whatnot they do a lot of like a lot of manufacturing out there it's a pretty pretty typical story right yeah small you know yeah let's give it a whirl in smaller city yeah yeah you know what you know what

give it a shot let's see what really appealed to me about the military didn't matter family background race color creed sexual orientation blah blah blah blah blah you know figure all that stuff didn't matter what kind of car you drove didn't matter how much money you had it was all like it was the ultimate meritocracy right and remember fellas come on it's not that hard in the army so either of you ever get article 15s yes sir you did yeah what uh late to a formation so you'd have these young kids come in and they're kids they're soldiers but they're kids and i'd say what are the what do you have to do to be successful in the army and it would be so cute you know they're all at detention in front of you they think about it just relax think about it the moment they're like be at the right place

at the right time in the right uniform. And I'm like, that's all it takes to be successful. And you can't, Jack, you couldn't even do that? I was a work in progress. I was a leadership challenge. What did you get? You got suspended pay, 14 days extra duty. I got 14 and 14.

14 restriction and extra duty. They didn't take pay. They suspended that, meaning if you got in trouble again, they're like, oh, you're fixing the pay as something. Well, if I got in trouble, I'm almost, again, I'm pretty positive. They would have kicked me out of the Ranger Regiment. But I was lucky to dodge that bullet.

So Company Commander gave you your Article 15. Why were you late to formation? Oh, that's a good question. Well, I mean, no, it's pretty stupid. I was a new private. I didn't have a cell phone or a page or anything like that. So I was just out bebopping around on a weekend. Oh, they did a recall.

Oh. That's kind of fucked up. Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of weak leadership. Like, hey, you didn't give me a page. Yeah. Those were the days with a pager, man. It was right on the cusp.

We're talking 2002. Right. So people were getting flip phones at that point. Yeah. Yeah. Or you can play snake on them. Oh, yeah. They all had snakes.

I just got rid of my flip phone. Like, I kept the flip phone way longer than needed. It was, I thought it was kind of cute. A lot of embarrassed family members dead. We got an iPhone now. Oh, we're not doing brand placement, are we? Not unless we get paid for it. Yeah, I'm not. I'm just saying.

Or it's Lefroy. We'll do LeFroy all day long. And interrupt whenever you have to do a shout-out to our sponsors. We will. We do have a sponsor somewhere in this thing that Dee will yell at me about. I think Dee is yelling now. Is he? Is that what that light is, D? No. No. He's not yelling. He'll get there. So you get into the military. What did you come into the military to do? I'm 17. I'm in Iowa City, Iowa. Iowa Hawkeyes, wrestling. Dan Gable, for your listeners.

Greatest American National. athlete ever well Jim Brown maybe Jim Brown was pretty good playing lacrosse not a bad football player actor so-so and I just had this like probably read too many books right you know still reading then right only three TV channels remember my dad was watching it when he was at home read a lot so I got this like fever dream that I just had to get out of that town that small town that small town I was holding that complete bullshit, right? But nonetheless, I created this. I'm like, I'm going to go join the Army.

Go down to the recruiter, and I'm ready to join the Army. Like, you're 17, you can't join. What? Went back, got my parents to sign off. I joined the Army Reserve, one weekend, a month, two weeks during your 19th group. Started out that way because I was already going to college. So between my senior year of high school, my first year of college, I went to basic training at Fort Benning. And, you know, got a little taste of got a little taste of the Army at that point.

And like I was saying, I just kind of came to this weird conclusion. Like I had a, like, my mom's like really, really tough. Like, like insanely tough. And I kind of learned I'm kind of really stupid and have an ability to. take a lot of pain and suffering and I was like that's kind of the army yeah yeah yeah so like I got your body for the cause yeah you know where everybody be complaining like my it's raining I was like who care yeah you know yeah and so did that and then and then ended up in DC I went to George Washington University because I had to

had to get out Iowa City University town Hawkeyes wow I'm getting covered with suit this is great and then yeah so applied for an ROTC scholarship. That's kind of a good gig, right? Yeah. Got one. And, you know, went to ROTC Reserve Officer Training Corps and got commissioned. I ended up transferring to the district of Columbia National Guard.

Military police. He was a cop. Family business. My dad was a cop. I'm like, I'm going into family business. It was the only thing they had in D.C. I was in college. I had no transportation, so I had to be able to walk to the armory, which was at, you guys know D.C.

It was Andrews, no, it was Anacostia Naval Air Station, Bowling Air Force Base. They were separate then. And I would, my, I'm in college. I would put on my, you know, oh, then it was BDUs, you know, they weren't ACUs. And I would get up at six, five, thirty, six in the morning. on Saturday morning and I would walk like, I don't know, four miles through southeast Washington, D.C. Over the bridge. Yeah, man.

It's like, yeah, got a motorcycle the next year. So that's kind of the creation story of going into the machine. So we got to give a shout out to our sponsor, Silent. Silent makes a bunch of Faraday bags that we have here in the studio somewhere, usually to show off. So they make different sizes, like for your cell phone, for your tablet, for your laptop. You're wearing this backpack, waterproof bags. And what they do is they stop signals from emitting from the bag if you wanted to go dark for you spooky characters out there. Or likewise, you want to stop people from stealing your data.

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You want to know what I like about them too? They don't spam you. like you will get every once in a while they get an email but it's not like some of those where you get like every 35 seconds you're getting you get spam they're they're totally legit and i'm not getting paid by them i'm just telling you i use their product that's awesome to hear yeah uh no that's really cool so go check them out i'll help support the show we appreciate it and so the next stop for you was you uh you land in korea and sounds like you had a pretty good time there uh but then the next next stop for you was you uh you land in korea and sounds like you had a pretty good time there uh but then the next next assignment was leads to a lot of like self-loathing and introspective moments when you're you're back in DC. So I wanted to go to Korea. Why? Because at that time there's no war going on. It sounds so insane, but you guys can appreciate a lot of our listeners can too. Like I want to go where the action is. Right. Don't know what happened to me. I don't know what kind of genetic disorder I have that created that desire. But you're like, okay, if we're going to do this, you want to go do your job.

And so I got, I took a Korean in college to learn that. I wasn't very good at it. And you know where I got assigned, Germany. That's right. You had to trade with a friend. And so my buddy, Rolf Glessner, I haven't talked to him in 30-something years. Rolf, if you're listening, thanks. He got his degree, he got his degree in German history.

And he was going to Korea. I'm like, hey, is that not the classic Army story? It's how it works, right? Is that the classic Army story? Needs of the Army, yeah. Yeah. And all, I mean, in those days, it was the first battalion 506 infantry, which was legendary, and that was the time Band of Brothers came out. So I'm going to that unit, and it's at the time, it was so, you know, so motivated.

The most forward-deployed infantry battalion in the free world. come on man like you gotta love that right right and we were right there in the DMZ at camp grieves and uh that's where i learned the business you know it's just oh fellas like unbelievable nCOs it was just like this the renaissance of the armies going on where there i think it was they would have the year of the nCO and then they had the year of army education and the army is rebuilding after vietnam and you know i don't really appreciate it time I do now but it was just such a vital time so like so much energy you guys you guys were doing like actual patrols on the DMZ too which well in in those days you guys

can laugh about it now but in those days you didn't carry live there's only one place in the world you carried light of ammunition and that was you three months you would be on the DMZ mission patrol you would do your patrols and all this stuff and they can't counted every single bullet. You got a basic load, right? You got seven magazines. And the executive officer for the company, you know, the two I see, responsible for logistics, he had to count every bullet each time.

Can you imagine? And think about where we were, like, then we go to war, you know, and it's like, here you go. I got a funny Gary Harrington story, too, about Afghanistan. Okay. Okay, I want to hear it. But yeah, so that was really the place where, You know, you could, you could learn your business.

And remember, it's seven days a week. We got, we got one, you would get off work Saturday afternoon and then you had to be back Sunday night. And then you, it was just game on. It was like insane stupidity beyond all human understanding, but you were working. You were just working, learning your craft, man. And it was, you know, it was a place to do it. Yeah. And so what happened when, after that,

when you got sent down to D.C. Well, I met this phenomenal woman in college, and I proposed to her at mid-tour leave. She came to the DMZ on Thanksgiving Day, and remember what we do in the Army, officers serve, get behind the line and serve chow, right? We're in our crappy dress blues, you know, the polyester ones. And that was the day I proposed.

to her and she goes so I was getting married. It's coming out. At the time, I talked about the Renaissance of the Army. There was this guy, General Thurman, Maxwell Thurman, who was in charge of professionalizing, reinvigorating training. And they changed the rules when I got there to Korea. Usually when you came out of Korea, you were able to get your assignment of choice. You could pick any place like, I'm going to go to the 82nd Airborne Division, you know, something like that. And of course, at that time, Thurman comes in,

realizes he needs talent, changes the rules, I'm in there, and they're like, oh, no, assignment of choice to any training, basic training company.

And I thought, so I was like, okay, I guess those are the rules. I was going to go to the Air Defense Artillery School. I think that's Fort Bliss.

Because I never had been to Mexico, so I was like, that'll be fun. I'll go there and then be able to go to Mexico, Wores, whatever. And then I was like, I probably need to do something else.

That's going to be a horrible. I did not join the Army to train new soldiers. So the Old Guard, which is the Army Ceremony Unit, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, buries people, ceremonies at the White House. My battalion commander, who I talk about in the book, Mitchell Zays, who comes from a legendary family. The Zay's family is military royalty, right? He's my battalion commander. His brother's taking over the Old Guard, the third United States.

States Infantry the old guard the oldest regiment in the army which is a ceremonial unit they have horses you know all that crap casons and um so you made a call you want to know why i got in there though six foot four that was a slender slender 210 they call that unit the postcard right right what's the is it six foot what's the minimum height to get in there well it depends on your rank The higher rank you go, the shorter you can be. Oh, really? Okay. Because we, one of our regimental commanders was Joe Hunt, legendary. He was the third battalion, third ranger battalion commander in Panama.

Oh, okay. You're a third ranger battalion guy, right? A little bit after that. Yeah, yeah, but after that. But no, I like legacy. Yeah. And Joe Hunt had served in Vietnam as an advisor and had like to, you know, the Vietnamese Airborn. and had made a name for himself as warrior par excellence, right?

And so he was much shorter, but he was allowed to because he wasn't public facing. He's the guy who's with the president. Like the other day when the president was on, who was here, the guy from South Korea, though. So yeah, man, I go to the old guard. You know what my job was? What? I had a platoon, and there's this ceremony. They still do it called twice.

Light tattoo. And it's a parade, I think it was like every Wednesday night, right by the White House on the ellipse. And it's for tourists to come visit. And then they bring out senators, Congress people, all that stuff, right? The platoon, I was a platoon leader of, they acted. And they would have period costumes. You can laugh.

I was poor. Try corners. I was horrified. Oh, I was in the Tri-Corner. So we would go from that to like, and then they'd had this really great music about the army and the nation. And my, I was evaluated on making sure that they were in the right uniforms and that they struck their pose at the exact moment. I was like, I'm, I feel like I'm on the Frank Capra World War II thing, right? It was hilarious, man.

So you go from Korea where you're carrying live ammunition, you know, doing the deal to being a postcard. I loved it. It was great. The old guard, though, like, especially for the, like, the enlisted, I think, I don't know, like, the officers, but, like, when you talk about being at the tomb of the unknown soldier, when you talk about, you know, the change, like,

it's a hard job. It's very hard. Like, D.C. does not have what we would call, you know, temperate weather throughout the year. And so they'll stand. out like at the tomb or whatever and just the the the tomb guys are very that's a whole other thing the tomb so yeah and i think dave thanks for bringing that up because i was kind of tongue and cheekish yeah the tomb guards that's a whole different level i mean they are they try out they have to go

through this huge selection process like you know ranger indoctrination program combined with all this other stuff so that that's no joke yeah and the tomb is guarded 24 hours a 24 hours a day and have you guys been? Yeah, I've been there but I've spoken to guys. You got to go down into where they they're built, not billets, but where they're green room or

right, right. It's just amazing and those kids are so, I mean get weepy, they're just incredibly professional dedicated and to get the Tune Guard badge, they get awarded after a certain amount of time. I can't remember.

what it is. It's like a year or something. It's a year. There are fewer Tomb Guard badges have been awarded than medals of honor. That's a big deal. Yeah. So to make it through that process. And do you know, like it's 21, 21, everything's 21. So you're like, man, that's a lot of counting. You will talk to them. They're like, it becomes internalized. You can sit there and count. Yeah. They're like, I don't count. They're

their minds, their bodies, and it gets really spiritual, it gets really spiritual in a good way. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. More than you wanted to know, man, but thanks for bringing that out. Yeah, no, it's, tongue and cheekish in the book, because, but yeah,

I remember writing a story a few years back about the first African-American tomb guard, and as the unit war goes, it was the president of Ghana, I believe, was visiting John F. Kennedy and said, like, how come there aren't any black soldiers out here? And they were like, oh my God, So they had to go and find them, and they found this African-American soldier became the first tomb guard.

What an accomplishment. It's no joke. Yeah. It's no joke. Yeah. Yeah, I did that. And then just was like, I mean, I am kind of like. It's not what you joined the Army.

Yeah, it wasn't. Right. You know, I was, but at the end of the day, I was honored to have, to be part of that. And the book I talk about, like, I ended up so up six foot four, you work. through the ranks, I started out wearing colonial uniforms, which was, you know, what? I'm going to wear a colonial uniform? Like, you got to be kidding me. And then ended up, there's one company called Echo Company, Honor Guard Company, which does the White House functions, the very high visibility. Now, this is the good one. Like, every, there's a platoon that's called the marching platoon that you'll

see on TV. Now that's the place where everybody six four or above and here's the reason like when they have foreign dignitary come in they want them to see like holy ground like that's the American army. We're not going to mess with them. It's kind of cool right. Yeah. It's almost the psychological yeah yeah yeah yeah but they're really really good and that so I ended up in that company and I was responsible for it. I was a cordon platoon which means it's a cordon and And like when you see White House ceremonies, there'll be a court on of Joint Serves, Army Navy Air Force Marines, Coast Guard, Space Force. Now, I don't know. I haven't been around there.

I would be the platoon leader of that. And my, this is what I, you want to know what I got evaluated on? What was that? So I went from patrolling the demilitarized zone, you know, fending off the North Koreans from infiltrating the South Korea. communist menace like cold war baby i'm like i got evaluated i had the saber and i'll give you the queen of england came and her con her car would come in to the white house grounds and i'd be right there by the gate and my the tip of my sword had to drop exactly when the front wheel of her car came even with me.

And if I failed to do that, yeah, I was not a good officer. Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's pretty stressful, right? Yeah. Not. So, yeah, it was, you know, it's kind of disconcerting to go from, you know,

combat readiness to being evaluated on your list. How did you eventually Shanghai yourself out of this unit? I mean, you were trying to find your way out, and it was a pretty funny story. Well, Desert Storm happens. 91. I'm like, oh, damn. I came join the army to go to war and I'm stuck here.

So I, 4187, you guys are familiar. It's a request for personnel action. Anyone can fill it out. I just started like sending those things in five times a day. And mass. Yeah.

I kept getting, using carbon paper at that point. I know. And remember, they were expecting like tens of thousands of U.S. casualties. And guess who's going to bury him? so they're like you're not going anywhere miller you're shut up in color and finally a lovely gentleman who is our deputy commander john shortle called me in said chris stops in 4187s i'm with you i want

out of here too i'll do everything i can to get us out of here you know and that's all you wanted to hear yeah that was good leadership yeah and then of course the war lasted all of 100 hours right No 10,000 casualties, thank God. And so I had, we talked books, Polack. I cannot remember his first name, wrote this book called Mission MIA about rescuing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's written some other stuff. I didn't realize it was fictionalized at the time.

Really good book. And it was some green berets, free falling. I was like, I got, I need me some of that stuff. I need me a piece of that. And I realized that my current trajectory and the infantry was not going to be long live. I missed two wars, Panama, and now Desert Storm. I'm like, I got to do something different. I'd also, well, I'll ask you, what drew you to special forces?

Well, you know, the Ranger regiment. as much as we all love it and we do we do but however as the name implies is very regimented and uh you know yeah at a certain point it's like yeah there's got to be more out there than you know seizing lost in airfield you know a dozen times um i was also ready for something different after after a while there do you guys remember like you would have to wait to get the word from the company first sergeant and remember how your platoon's sergeants would all go to the first sergeant's afternoon meeting and you would have to sit there like everything's done for the day like there you'd just be sitting there yes and i'd be like why can't we just go home you gotta wait for the word did you have this yes but it became increasingly ridiculous because it's like you realize we have these things called cell phones right so if you need us to come in at a different time like you can call us up and you were yeah you were thinking man you were thinking right you're like this is ridiculous.

I got to try something new. And special forces I'd learned a little bit about, you know, the Green Berets. It's like, I'll give that. I want to give that a try. So you went to selection. Yeah. What did you think of selection, man? It still holds up, doesn't any of my?

Yeah, I won't. I would never bullshit about it. It's challenging. It was a tough course. What were you the team, what team of that were you the team later of? It was one of the, oh, shit. it was like when we had to string together some sort of contraption with a telephone pole and put like wheels on one side of it and just like muscle it the rest of the way however nine

kilometers that was a tough one and that was always at the end of the day like that was the last event of that day and there would be people coming in like nine o'clock at night because they couldn't figure out the apparatus yes yeah yeah and i mean here's again like i'm no genius i just like but if somebody came to me and was like they had a better idea than I did. I was like, we're doing that. Well, yeah, because you always had somebody that was really good mechanically. Right, right. They knew how to lash. No better than I do. I'm like, okay. You know what, you know what event I got? Sandman. You want to tell me? Sandbags? Sand man. Remember there was that, that you, it was a casualty and it was a 500 pound

duffel bag full of sand. It was the most, I do, and you have to make a, you have to make a stretcher and carry it. Well, all our Metallica fans, of course. Like, I just remember they had those, the latrine facilities, and you would go in there and on the, like, instead of like call Ronda or something, it was like, remember the Sandman? We had the million dollar shitter by the time I got there. We did.

It was there too. It wasn't? Yeah. Oh, wow. And I just, it was just built up in your mind as like the most heinous event. And so they're like, okay, next team later for the team event for the Sandman. You know who they called. I was like,

and people quit on that thing. Like, I remember you're the team later and you're trying to motivate. It was the most crushing. You don't remember that one? I do remember making the stress. The sand babies was horrible, too.

And the one with the Jeep where that has two flat tires. That was hilarious. That was a funny one. That was hilarious. There's one, you make a can of lever and like some dude gets to sham out

and just chill to counterbalance the Jeep. Oh, yeah, but you rotate. And it was in that sand. It was on the sand road. by the railroad tracks, remember? And Amtrak would come down there, and you would be out there with a Jeep missing a wheel,

with all these dudes hanging off at pushing it. And I just remember looking at the Amtrak, and there'd be kids like, and you're like, what did I get myself in? Did you remember that? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, selection holds up, man.

That holds up as, you know, it was based on British SES model. Was that Dick Meadows, who? No. Backwith. Beckwith went over there. Yeah. And they all kind of brought those.

I know they did it for Delta, but a lot of that transferred over. A lot of OSS stuff got brought into that and how they ran it. And to this day, and I don't know, do you know David Walton? No. He's a, you know, SF guy. And he just wrote a book called like Ruck Up and Shut Up. He studied SFAAS academically. I think it was part of his PhD dissertation, actually.

He's an interesting guy. Doesn't that sum up special forces, though? Like, they have allowed PhDs to come in there and study their process. Well, he was an SF officer, I believe. Really? Who got his PhD. So he's a smart kid. Yeah.

But that's another one of the special forces. Different types of dudes that you find. Yeah. Like kind of not atypical. That selection held up, though. It sucked, bro. Yeah, it totally did. But, you know, that's one of those when you got done with that thing.

Like, yeah, that was an experience. And I think that's what a lot of us join the military. Yeah, yeah. That one held up. It still holds up. I'm going to go down there soon because I want to see how they're doing it now. It's very much the same from what David told me. And do you think the some people claim, because in our, maybe not in your era, my era, it was true.

Like if you don't quit, you'll be fine. And then there's this thing, you hear some people go, well, how does that really prepare you for, being a thinking warrior diplomat. Just because you don't quit and you can carry a lot of weight, you're too stupid to quit. It's more than that too because the difference between like RIP back in the day or now RASP and SFAS, they're also looking at how you interact with your teammates.

And they want to see if you're like, if you're the type of person that like flips out and yells at people and loses your cool, they're like, eh, it's not really the kind of dude we're looking for. I think that's one of the differences. But you said it best when you said, hey, I, I was a team leader and I asked for input. At that point, that's what you're looking for special forces as opposed, and that's interesting coming out.

Who has the best idea? And it's interesting coming out of Ranger Regiment, which is very regimented. I thought that was very funny how you said that. Where it's always very hierarchical, right, Dave. And like, you're more senior ranking, therefore you're smarter than everyone. Right. And in special forces, it's like, hey, anybody got a good idea? I don't know what I'm doing.

And, you know, there's that self-confidence that people can say that. And then somebody goes like, oh, yeah, in Afghanistan, we landed and all our trucks were blown up. Well, they weren't my trucks then, our trucks, whatever. And lo and behold, guess what? Oh, I used to be a mechanic before I joined. Oh, I worked heavy machinery. Started using their leathermen and putting trucks back together. It's crazy.

Took five and got two running, you know. But that's just some, that's like the quintessential to be. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Improvised. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So you get sent to fifth group.

Team leader position? Yeah, I was like, fifth group. What's that? Like, oh, they'd made their, of course, Vietnam. It was the only special forces group. Right. So legendary, right. But, and then was fifth group.

worked was in charge of the Middle East of course did Desert Storm so that was 91-ish I got there what are you talking here Miller 94-ish so I didn't I don't know about you man I don't want to go to fifth group I tried to get out of it well but but you guys know that there were a third group guys going man I really wish I get to fifth group yeah maybe third group maybe yeah I agree with you they didn't have a mission at the third third group is really getting some at that point in Afghanistan. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, I mean, my era. No, I mean before that. Oh, third group is like, remember we established third group to make sure we had force structure that we could get rid of

in the Army downsides. Like literally third group was the sacrificial lamb. Yeah. They combined all the other groups. And everybody knew that, right? And they're like, wow, I'm in a group that if they decide to cut the defense budget, we're going to go away. You're right, Dave. Yeah. Yeah. It's very much that. I mean, everybody wanted to. having the group or 10th group for, you know, right. Because Europe or first group. Or first group, right.

Or first group. Right. You go out to the Pacific. You hear these stories. Right. They're getting max per die and making $250 a day. Yeah. All staying in one hotel room. Well, first group had like, it was the old school guys in the 90s told me about how

there was like one battalion that was always doing Thailand. Well, then they had the Arctic battalion. And then there was one battalion that was always doing Korea. And so their trainups a lot of times are like in Alaska. So they're bouncing between like Alaska and Korea. And then there were these other guys that were doing like Okinawa, Thailand. Yeah. And the fifth group.

Oh, the Middle East. Yeah, Egypt. Yeah. Garden spot. Yeah, right. What was the bright star? Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, this is just great. Lucky us. But you got Kuwait, right? Yeah. Yeah, totally. Because that was remember a company would be in Kuwait. After Desert Storm, there was always a company there year round. And you'd rotate, I think, every three months.

And so that was kind of your. your big deployment where you would go out there and I was at we were at four Campbell and there wasn't a lot of money then remember it was like the peace dividend which meant you hit got oh you could here are your four bullets to fire this year yeah you know and then you go to Kuwait and unlimited resources so that's where you got all your training done all of your training done I thought the the story you told in your book about this crazy slash stupid idea to a team building exercise with your guys

was interesting that you fooled your team and made them think this was a live escape innovation that they had to do. It was brilliant and incredibly stupid at the same time. You know what I learned from that? Don't do things when you're pissed off. Those guys, like, special forces A team. They're just sitting around complaining. We're not doing anything.

I was like, oh, you want a little something? And did that cross-country, we did that movement, escape and evasion, which, yeah, it was, it seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a good idea. Well, tell us about it. Because for people who have not yet read the book but are going to, who are going to, please tell us about the idea. Well, remember fifth group during Desert Storm put out special reconnaissance teams, 12-man A teams deep behind enemy lines to look at key road networks, key facilities, or key roads that the enemy would be coming down to reinforce the front line. So these cats, and these are the guys that raised me, right, in fifth group, like some hardcore dudes.

Oh, man. And so this was before Desert Mobility vehicles. They flew in, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flew. them in, dropped them down in the middle of the desert with 150 pound rucksacks and they dug holes and they put they put up like nets above them and immediately got compromised because you're in the middle of the desert. And so all of these teams had these amazing fights. Like epic historic like Alamo stuff, right? You, I remember I'm reading about it. Yeah. Those cats were like the ones that were training me and I was, I was horrified.

Like it's like great stories, but I'm like, I don't want that to happen to me. And they many, so everybody talks about escape of evasion. Now in special forces, we take that seriously. We actually do. Where you plan for it? We were talking earlier about one of your teams that got blown out in Kazakhstan. Where was that? Oh, it was not, it was in my battalion.

It was a team in Kyrgyzstan. Like I got blown out of their safe house to someone called the cops on them and had the place raided. And a couple of the dudes had to E and E to the embassy. It's legit. Yeah. Like you, you know, special forces are in politically sensitive areas. It can turn on you really quick. Right. Right.

You need to have a plan. And it has happened. It has happened. So I was like, I got to take this seriously because I don't want to get jammed up. It's all about me. Right, right, right. And, yeah, so. We're out in the middle of the desert of Kuwait with a brigade.

Now, the Kuwaitis at the time, there's a part-time army. They would show up about 9 o'clock and about 11 o'clock. They're done for the day. So you had a lot of time. So I decided, I said, we're going to do escape and evasion planning. And everybody blew me off because they're like, who gives a crap about this? We got trucks. We're in Kuwait.

It's all good. So I, dude, every night I would, and this is like first generation. computers like it's word perfect and I'm right now so I come up with this complete like checklist and um so on the designated day no one knows what's going to happen I go for a run I have provided a checklist to my company headquarters company commander was red on and he makes a call or hit the commo people make a call to the A team that I'm the commander. of I'm out running and they give the word to go into escape and evasion. I get back from my run. I know exactly the timeline and everybody's like, hey, sir,

uh, like, like, we got the escape and evasion. It's bullshit. It's bullshit. Like, huh. KL43 Charlie, anybody remember it? The stupid thing with the phone that you would, you would have this, like, you would take this device and you put it to the phone. It was like first generation modem, essentially. We're supposed to get KL43 Charlie traffic in five minutes. I was like, well, get after it. It describes like there's unrest in the capital. It appears there's been a coup.

All U.S. personnel are to escape an evasion per their plan. Yeah, man. You got after that shit, dude. You got after it. And so the only time, I got scared twice. one was when the Charlie the demo guy pulls out C4 and says we're going to blow all our vehicles I hadn't like planned for that one I'm like oh that's going to be hard to explain to hire headquarters that I blew up four of our vehicles it's like Mark so I remembered Panama do you

remember Panama the radio station how about take the spark plugs out instead do you remember Panama the radio station when we took over the Navy Maybe it was Grenada. Navy SEALs plan was like to blow the thing, the smithereens, and the SF guy's like, we're just going to go take the circuit card, and then we'll come back and put it back in. So I remembered that. I was like, Mark, do we have any other options? Like, we might have to come back and use our vehicles.

And they did that. They pulled out some component and buried them in a box. So I was through that. And we started walking that night into the desert. And so you plan exactly. Remember, you plan exactly what you're going to carry. And I think we were all carrying about 110 pounds in the desert. And I knew we couldn't do it.

And we just, people collapsed. Yeah. It was a nightmare. And then the second time I got worried was the A team just completely, we just became physically unable to continue because it was just devastating. So we set up a Ron. remain overnight site security and the next morning I was on security I fell asleep I'll tell it be perfect I was smoked I fell asleep I wake up to Quady border security and these these are the

nicest Ford like F350's beautiful trucks are surrounding us and they have their weapons drawn and I'm like oh crap I made everybody load lock and load which was unheard of right In training. But you have to keep the illusion alive. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I said lock and load. People are like, what?

I was like, we're an E and E. So I'm like, oh crap, this could get really bad because we had been in a little international incident in the past. Not my team, but another team. So I walk up to the border patrol guys. I'm like, hi, you know, song and dance. Oh, we're on the training next. Trying to be quiet so they can't hear me. they're like okay you know call range control next time you know which it's kind of scary that

oh we were so easy to we were so easy to catch yeah yeah i turned around and walk back and everybody had you know yeah they're very gently moved their yeah and so they pull away and they're like sir we would have smoked because remember the whole the whole thing is if you're meeting you're making you're making link up with somebody if you've dropped you know everybody just opens up over the top of you and I'm like please don't trip please could you imagine that so like sure we would have I was like oh my god I'm an idiot I mean I really wasn't yeah and I how did your guys respond when they found it was just an exercise so they didn't know so we get picked up at the pick the pickup spot we get in the truck they drive us back to the base.

Ali Asaloon, no, is Doha. There was this warehouse complex that we own then. It's not, it's a warehouse complex again. And in special forces, is Jack's well aware, and you've done this too, is you go for your debriefing, right? As soon as you get back, you go to

get debriefed by the military intelligence people. Like, what was the enemy situation? What did you learn? So we do the military intelligence people come in and they do the debrief, right? Just like legit. And at that point, the company commander comes in. And everybody looks at him and he goes, this was an exercise. And everybody's like, who's dumb ass who came up?

I mean, it got really, really aggressive. Like, who came up with this dumbass idea? And the company commander, Al Knox, just looks at me. And, dude, it was like everybody just like, it was just shocked. Because I was the nicest guy in the world. I would never do anything so manipulative. I was like, it was me.

And they were so, they were so pissed, man. And they just storm out and go to the Chow Hall. So I go with my team of the Chow Hall. they all sit like they shunned me they shunned me so I'm sitting here they all walk

go sit down I was like I just destroyed the A team that I was responsible for and I felt really really really bad like this was the stupidest thing I've ever done

they avoided me all day we had evening chow and some during that time period some people had come up and had hurt about what we've done other green berets they're like oh my god that's amazing you guys are so lucky that you train so hard and so it flipped and by the time we left that night they became fifth

group of legends it was like they had it was the most amazing thing i didn't plan it that way right but i got shunned dude i got shunned it was like you know they talked you know leadership's lonely huh being the boss is lonely you're like yeah it's like and then you know at at the earlier chow where where I was being shunned. Everybody's laughing. Like, oh, there's Miller, that dumb ass. Yeah. You know, it was like, really.

But came out the other side and built off of that. But it was traumatic. So before moving on, I did, there are some pictures in your book, but I don't think you really talk about it in the book. Maybe this is later on. We don't need to jump ahead. But there are some J-Sets to Pakistan. Oh, yeah.

That was the first thing we did. Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm a new guy. Hey, we're going to Pakistan. Great. Love it. Went up because, you know, it was before Al-Qaeda.

We went in the Swat River Valley, and we trained with the Pakistani Special Services Group. Their special forces. Who had this wonderful relationship dating back to the establishment of the country with 10th Special Forces. You'd go in there, Ranger Handbook, they would have translated. It was amazing. And so we're up there in the Swat River Valley. training with them like that's like the isn't that the sf stuff isn't that like amazing yeah yeah and our company commander uh we were all alone it was just great he wasn't even there so it was like

that's s f mission right just amazing after you finished your time as a team leader uh you went to another unit i think you described as a army black ops unit in your book what can you tell us about that uh i finished as a team later uh which is the job, right? You're a captain, you're a green beret, you have a 12-person team. That's all you ever want to do, right? And then the battalion commander, the boss,

who oversaw at those 18A teams, decided after 18 months it was time for me to learn about, have a larger perspective about special forces. And at those times, you're going to laugh, the logistics officer, the supply officer, was a Green Beret and the personnel officer. Now they're SF branched guys.

Right. Now, of course, they have experts, which is long overdue. But at the time, you know, we were very short-handed and Army hated special forces. And they're like, we're not going to put any of our specialty people in there. You guys figured out. So I got the opportunity to be the supply officer. And I try to get out of it. Finally, it's like, you're not hearing me. Roger, I go over there.

first day I show up in my office in the headquarters and as I came in we were living crappy buildings they're all gone now was great there literally is a piece of a copy paper taped to the door that says unit recruiting isofac isolation facility which is still there which was the kind of nexus for it was the only place you had a lot of room. And I was like, like it was crayons or something. I was like, that doesn't look so good. First sergeant of the headquarters company who was a dear friend came in and said, hey, sir, come with me. We're going to go to the ISOFAC to this recruitment thing. I said, I don't even know what that is. He goes, just come with me. So we show up in the isolation

facility. There are probably like maybe 80 people there. This guy gets up in civilian clothes and goes, hey, we're looking for people for a specialty unit that we can't tell you about. What do I do? Get up and leave. I'm like, that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. The first sergeant grabs me, goes, sit down. So each person was taken back into the separate room where there were these people in civilian clothes that would be like, hey, you want to give this a try?

I'm like, what is it? They're like, oh, it'll be fun, special mission unit. I'm like, I don't even know what that is. I said, and then you filled out some paperwork. It was really interesting. And the application was like a series of 20 questions. And the questions were weird. Do you read?

Yes or no? What do you read? And then there was, if you have the choice between playing flag football or going for a run alone, what would you prefer? So they're looking for individuals. I mean and I just answered honestly and they kind of look at my stuff and they looked at my record and they're like okay thanks Talk to you later. You just leave and I don't I'm like okay go back to work and lo and behold I think you know it's like Delta selection where if you volunteer you're going

Instead I get these weird orders to report to a city in the west Western United States and they had all our names on it and there were only like six of us so 80 people go in and interviewed I'm like this is a different thing I don't know what I'm getting into

you show up and it's all individual skill stuff like you're not with the team thank God and I was like hmm and it's you you know we call it what do we call it now

AFO advanced force operations it's all about having capability to go in to an area that could have the military operation imminent or potentially, you know, what's a hotspot? In today's day and age, I imagine, I don't know if they were there or not, but, you know, you would go into Sudan, realizing this thing's picking up, you know, go in and get the lay of the land, make sure that the infrastructure for, you know, what's the airfield look like. hey, are there transportation assets available if we have to evacuate the embassy? So that's what this unit was all about.

I didn't know that at the time, right? And tried out another selection. And you want to know why I did it? Because my buddy said I couldn't. My buddy, Joe Bovi, I remember this. Goes, oh, you'll never make it. At that point, I was like, huh. So, yeah, went there as after,

fifth group uh to the special mission unit and um and um it's a year long training program and it was what you see you guys have had a different experiences an officer in special forces you're an inch deep a mile wide you're really not an expert and i joined special forces because i was like i want to be a commando right i want like i'm a knife like shooting you know blowing stuff up the training pipeline was all that You know, so every single skill, even if you were an officer, you learned it and mastered it. And it was brutal meritocracy. Like if you failed a test, see you.

And it was nerve-wracking, right? Because I'd, honey, I've got a great idea. We're going to move to Virginia. And at the time, here's a common theme in my life. At the time, if you got into that unit, you could stay there for the rest of your career. Do you think that lasted? So I show up. And I literally in process at this legendary facility in Virginia that's no longer there.

But World War II, just this epic place. And I'm there. And the senior sergeant, the sergeant major comes out, sits me down at a picnic table. goes, hey, there's been a change. I've had some counterintelligence issues here in the unit. From now on, you can only stay three years and you have to leave. And I'm like, my wife is going to kill me. And so with that in mind,

got through the training process, which came out the other end. Like I said, man, it was zero defect thing. It was really, but somehow got through it. I don't know how. And then went to one of the operational units and went overseas. One of the big missions, I think I talk about it. Bosnia.

Bosnia, right? And I've said this before. I don't know if I said it in the book. That was the first place where it was an interagency effort. CIA, Special Forces, Rangers. The whole kit and caboodle is out there looking for war criminals. and we're learning how to do surveillance. It wasn't a denied area.

It was literally like the perfect place to train, right? Because one person got killed during that operation in Bosnia. You guys don't remember this. It was an infantry platoon sergeant because the place was just seated with mines after the war in Bosnia. And he decided that he would go disarm a mine with his leatherman. That didn't work so well. because the mine went off and the leatherman went through his head and killed him. Tragic.

But the point is it was a very forgiving environment. And we were now, this is the first time in probably since the Vietnam War, where you had this coming together of all the different elements of our government. And so we got to know each other there. We made mistakes. And you get busted by like, you know, your comms. You get busted doing stakeouts, you know, doing surveillance. but that's where we learned man running it was first generation tracking cell phones was a new

skill I think I didn't know it at the time I think that was probably the first use of unmanned aerial vehicles I didn't know it at the time because that that shit was so top secret but I've heard now like oh yeah we had predator or whatever it was then so that we did that and fifth group guy remember we're fifth group guys we don't fit in in the Middle East that was the only place I've been able to fit in. And, you know, you were sitting up safe houses and you were looking for these war criminals from the war. And that same group, guess what?

September 11, 2001, well, not September 11, 2001. The weeks after that, we all showed up in Karshi Kahnabadi, who's back to stand, which was our forward staging base, to go into Afghanistan, and guess what? Bands back together. Yeah. It was just so weird because we were all at the same point in our careers. Right, right, right.

I was a major, you know, the CIA people were kind of GS-14s. We were the worker bees, right? We were the people that were not in headquarters yet. We're on the ground. And those are the cats. And it was like old home week. We were like, hey, we haven't seen you. And, of course, during the global war on terrorism, we hyper accelerated how we were doing things.

But isn't that interesting? I didn't that nucleus of it that was yeah isn't that weird yeah it's it says something about like institutional learning right and and how that that's kind of where a lot of you guys kind of you know cut your teeth yeah it was just weird you know and that was bosnia and that was i you know a national training center at fort irwin california is where all the conventional forces go and they do their big war exercise and it's that penultimate training exercise i think of bosnia very much same way and that was the place where we learned how to do this and we learned how to work together right yeah but you did you did it in a real world environment but it was not like the risk was low you weren't

going to get killed right right like you might get embarrassed and you tell your story about getting rolled up uh in syria right oh god by the by the peh the secret police secret police you know that was dangerous in bosnia okay you screw you up you get rolled up by the local police and they're not going to shoot you yeah they're not going to shoot you they're not going to pull your fingernails out do you ask them for an aAR like hey what do we what do what can we do what can we do better next time exactly yeah you know and just learn how to and learn how to operate independently yeah uh so is there that was like the ultimate training so that where were you at when 9-11 happened you always ask i you know i listen to gary harrington's podcast in the way up

because it's the big inflection point for so much people's careers. No joke. 10th September. I had made the decision with my wife to lead the army. I was like, I can't do this bullshit anymore. It was a

peacetime army. Zero defect. It was all the it was all the, you know, like, oh, what's your quarterly training brief slides? You should have 12 font. You've got 14 font. You're a failure. That's where we were. I can't do this anymore. I just, so

I tapped out. My wife and I said it's time to move on, become a civilian, get a real job. On 11th September, I was planning to go turning my resignation paperwork, Clarksville Base. Remember, I'm running, I went out for a run with,

I was a company commander, Alpha Company, Third Battalion, the Special Forces Group, best company ever, not because of me. This was a really, really great company. company had this unbelievable non-commission officer, Mel Bynum, was the company sergeant major,

the senior NCO. So I'm the company commander. He's the senior, I'm the senior officer. He's a senior NCO. We went for a run at Clarksville Base. And just the two of us, and we were just talking through things we wanted to do with the company. Got in the car to drive back to work, to group, and John Boy and Billy Show. If you ever listened to that? It's a southern. It was like kind of one of the first southern shock jock. Oh, I think so. Yeah. It was all the rage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's still on, but it was kind of really distinctive then. Yeah. Kind of, very humorous, busting on people. And I'm listening to that. And the announcer, the news person breaks in with complete, the tone changed from like jocular, like busting on each other and telling jokes. about bodily functions to completely serious and says, hey, we just got a report in that a plane has hit the World Trade Center. And like the whole tone changed.

And Gary Harrington talks about where then he pulled off. I got back to work. And remember they were talking in World War II, B24, something crashed into the Empire State building. And they're like, oh, maybe this is just an accident. And I walked into the military intelligence detachment, which was the only place that had had a TV then. Now, of course, every office has four TVs. I walked in there and a plane, I didn't know it at the time. It's the second plane hits.

And I'm like, was that a rewind? Was that a rewind? What am I trying to say? Replay. Replay of the first attack. They're like, no, that's a second plane. And dude, that's when you're like, you know how you have to go back? Yeah.

Like, that really happened to me because maybe I'm like, but that's exactly what happened. I saw the second plane go in and we're like, oh shit. Yeah. Like game on. Because all of the officers got called the battalion commander's office. We go in there and senior leadership is nothing to worry about. don't jump the conclusions. And all of us are like, oh, we're going to war, man.

I mean, this game on. Yeah. Like, we're like, this is Al-Qaeda. This is our A-O. We are going to get our game off. And I just remember senior leadership was like really trying to like, nothing to see here at the moment. So I walk across into the company.

And this is what I see. Everybody has all their, equipment out in the hallway doing their pre-combat putting new batteries in checking everything out loading tough we didn't have tough boxes then tough boxes are those plastic boxes we had these metal kickdown boxes which were horrible but that's what we had they're loading boxes and i wasn't i didn't i didn't say like oh there's nothing to see here i'm like we're going keep going yeah and that to me you know is like that's the genius of the american fighting man Like our leadership was nothing to see here, but the dudes were like, oh, we're going to get it on.

Yeah. Isn't it taking the initiative? Yeah. And it was like, okay, we're fixing to do it. Gary was wrong. He goes, we left two days after the attack. So Gary knew John Mulholland, Colonel Mulholland, who was the group commander. I had been an officer, commander for then-Lutinant Colonel Mulholland in Virginia, previous assignment that we were talking about.

about the Bosnia stuff. Mulholland and I, like, he, Mulholland, have you, have you met him? No. Man, in the day, he was like Vince Lombardi, you know, he's old school, like never, you can never do anything good enough. You're always ate up if you were an officer. Colonel Mulholland and I were, I did not think we were compatible at all. And he, so I don't go back.

the special mission unit like i did my three i did two years there and then i got selected to go for advanced education called command general staff college so i left and i was thinking well this would be great i'll get invited back to the special mission unit uh no i did for whatever reason i don't whatever so i decided i would go back to fifth group and i called i got back to fifth group guess who gets selected to be the group commander Colonel John Mulholland I'm like what have I done wrong with my life

who have I pissed off to have this guy is my commander again because like this isn't going to work he takes command in like July August and it was just the most interesting experience I stayed back like change of command you know everybody has to go on thing

congratulations congratulations congratulations I was like I don't really want to talk to this guy but I have to because it's a professional thing so I wait till the end and I go past I know his family and I'm talking to his family and he sees me and he gives me a hug and I'm like dude like cognitive dissonance right like he's hugging me and I'm just like what the hell is going on and I now realize if you did good work for him you're always in his tribe right you're always one he never told you if you did good work though that was the thing right but he would show it and so i was gobsmacked

and then when the attack happened uh we're all sitting in the battalion commander's office we had to go there like 50 times a day to get an update and moholland comes in and goes hey i need to talk to chris and of course battalion commander's like what is the group commander doing in my battalion he goes hey I need you to go to Tampa to Special Operations Command Central and get us into the war. And I was like, okay, that's some good guidance. And he goes, you're going with one other person. Gary Harrington. So Gary, Gary has the date wrong.

We left. The attack happened on the 11th. We went to Tampa on the 16th of September. Because I know you guys are, this is like an historical record. Yeah. And this is the kind of thing that historians will look at. It was the 16th of September. How do I know this? My anniversary. And normally, my wife would be, your job sucks. You're an idiot. You're never at home. We have children. And it was the first time she goes, you got work to do. What are you doing here?

Get the hell out of here. That was the 16th of September. Went and met Gary at the group headquarters. And Gary was a legendary figure, right? I was like, holy crap. Gary, I've never told anybody about leaving behind some documents. It all went well. It all well, but it was a test too. Because Gary was older experienced, and I was the young punk major. And the two of us knew Mulholland.

And clearly, I think you'd have to ask General Mulholland whether this is the case, but he could trust us. So he sent us down there to get us. He said get-ifth group in the war on the 16th of September. That's wild. Gary, yeah. It was so nice to hear him relay that. He was wrong about the date. It was the 16th of September.

So you guys go down there and you're like charged with planning this SF? Was it a hard sell? Yes. Really? Yeah. And at the time, Special Operations Command Central was in this World Cold War era bunker. How are we doing on time? Am I talking too much?

No, this is perfect. It's this Cold War bunker that they probably, I don't know, probably had nukes in or something, that he repurposed into this headquarters. And there was only, J-Soc is there. And they are the big show in town. They're the standing counterterrorism task force. Like all you little people get away.

We're like, we're green berets. We're going to do unconventional warfare. They're like, bye, bye, bye, bye, by. Of course, back to Bosnia. back to being in the special mission unit Gary and I knew all those people so we got behind the door you know somehow the secret door

and what they were planning for was the hit on rhino remember where the Rangers jumped in filmed it all and then counterterrorism task force hit Mula Omar's compound in Kandahar this is so that's the 16th, 17th, 17th, 18th, all of a sudden, they're gone.

Like, what happened? Well, they completed mission planning. I was working with the recovery shop. We'd been shunted off to the nobodies. Like, we weren't, we were unclean. We couldn't be part of the pores. Yeah. Right.

And there was a guy in there who does not get enough credit. Bob Kelly was a fifth group guy. who was a planner in an unconventional warfare planner. He was a major then. Special Operations Command's Central buddy in mine. Bob's like, we're going to do unconventional warfare. This is what the regiment was created for to go behind enemy lines, former resistance, and overthrow the government.

I said, so I just became a cheerleader. I'm like, go Bob, go, Bob. So Bob sells this plan, and we're sitting there. getting pretty frustrated because we're doing nothing except making PowerPoint slides. I think it's Harvard graphics. It's all font that right. Yeah, exactly. You go, Dave. You go Dave.

And somebody yells, hey, does anybody know anything about unconventional warfare? Somebody yells this in the operation center. And we stick our heads out.

We're like, hello! And all of a sudden, And we're the lead planners. And we helped, we plan the unconventional warfare operation to get people in. And then Gary leaves. Gary goes and jumps on the advance party that went into Uzbekistan set up the forward staging base. Like he talked in his show. I'm trying to daisy chain shows.

Nice. We're trying to help out, man. Nice. Yeah, it was just really funny to hear the rest of the story from Gary. So Gary's out there. and Uzbekistan helping set up the forward staging base, I'm still back doing the planning, and it all came down to airfields.

Like, it's logistics. Right. Oh, by the way, so the one thing I did when I was in that horrible logistics job waiting to go to Special Mission Unit Selection, I went to Air Mobility Planner class, which you're like, what's that? How to load stuff onto an airplane. And now it's all computerized.

you just like, we have 14, you know, these trucks, we have this many palaces. It like spits it out. In those days, you cut out these little icons and you would glue them onto a mockup of the plane. So it all came down to airfields. And of course, a lot of places wanted a lot of money for us to fly into it. And the only place that we could get into was Karshi Kanaba, which was this old Soviet-era base. in Uzbekistan, which we now know was basically a toxic waste dump. Yeah.

Which would be fun to talk about that because people are struggling with that. And it all came down. You could only get one plane in. Like if we're going to go to Andrew's Air Force Base, you can land like five C-5s, right? The airfield was so small. You could only land one C-7. No, they were, do we have, we had C-17s by that point. You know, C-141s were out of.

business. So it was the first big workout for the C-17. You could land one at a time. You could only have two on the ground. So it all came down to the math of that. So I ended up basically being a load planner figuring out. That's crazy. Isn't that weird? Yeah. You know, what's that stupid thing about logist? One of a nail, Napoleon. Yeah, right, right. Experts talk. For one of a nail, the horse wouldn't to fail for one of a horse the message would have been delivered yeah and what's that thing about like novices study tactics experts study logistics or something like that was kind of one of those I thought it was all bullshit yeah and they're like oh wow it really comes down to that so that's what I did and then went back I was like I got to get out of here because I'm going to miss the war

again right right I'm stuck it as a plan planner. I conned. As a good green beret, hire your replacement. Hey, what are you doing? You ought to come down here. Got replaced, went back to Fort Campbell.

Everybody's out now. There are five A teams left. And I'm there. The war's going on. And we're just sitting there. And finally get to call. like bring everybody over and like Miller you're the officer in charge bring the 5A teams over can I tell one quick story yeah gosh darn I feel like I'm talking to no no no it's good so

five A teams I'm now in charge of them only one of them is from the company I commanded the other four it's all the odds and ends that we're off doing a training exercise they all and I'm like I thought that Okay, well, I'm going to command these guys in combat, so I've got to figure this one out. And how do I accelerate my learning of these subordinate unit leaders? So remember the escape and evasion exercise? I decide what better way to find out quickly who's who in the zoo than to do a long-distance movement. So I tell them all to show up for work and we start walking. and I don't tell them how far

and it's hot as hell and I just keep moving moving moving and then finally at the halfway point I had an exercise like to do IDs and stuff like that and I got a talking to at that point

they're like sir you are destroying us we're going into combat my feet are hamburger my back's killing me and I'm like no problem at that point a bunch of pickup trucks pull up with water and I said I'm walking back you have to make your own decision whether you want to walk back or get in a truck

one guy walks with me and he's a legendary guy Glenn and I'm thinking this is a great idea but then I start feeling like I don't think I'm going to make it back in the barracks and Glenn's with me and Glenn's just this hard Midwestern kid and I'm like shit I think he's going to win

so I said Glenn what do you say we dump our rucks they were heavy and we'll just go ahead and walk back in and come back out we'll get my car and come back out and get our rucks

Glenn's like okay sir if you want to do that it's so fun we talk now about that And Glenn's like, oh my God, I was about to die. I wasn't going to quit. I wasn't going to let you show me.

So we pack everybody up. We go to, you know where we break down, right? We're flying C-17 from Fort Campbell, Campbell Army Airfield. The hub for C-17s is Rota. Uh-huh. So we land in Rota. And, of course, the plane breaks down. Of course.

The air crew wants to go out in space. Spain for the yeah it's no joke yeah right so a lead Dwayne Cox you remember Twain he was gone by the time you got there legendary guy he's a senior NCO sergeant on the thing he's like we're going out it's like okay man so we might all be dead next week right it's like oh this is going to be sporty is Mount Etna there's some mountain near there they all decide that they're going to go up this because they pull out the ladder. And remember, you've got the four-hour ladder,

the 12-hour ladder. They've got the ladder that means, like, they're going to change an engine and we're going to be here a while. I'm too paranoid to leave, right? Because I'm in charge. So I'm staying in my quarters. They all go out to, quote, unquote,

climb Mount Etna or something. No, they just go out and drink so much sangria. It's not even funny. And guess what happens now? Like, the two-day ladder? Yeah. Major Miller, we're ready to move. It's like, who's this?

They're like, this is the air crew. We're ready to go. It's like, okay. Everybody's out drunk. Yeah. Somehow, everybody comes staggering in and we load up in the plane and fly to Carson.

One of the best I ever heard was 10th group guys staging out of Romania to go into Iraq. And they got put, their house they were staying in during that layover, it was right next to a bordello. but the sergeant major would not let them leave because somebody screwed up. And so the NCO telling this story, you know, salty E7 is like,

let me just tell you boys something. A bunch of bed sheets tied together makes a hell of a good improvised ladder. Green berets, right? A bunch of kids that you can't control. Green berets. I know. I'm just like, and you know, I'm thinking like, I'm the adult here. I'm doing a really good job at this.

And off we go, and we landed Karsha Khantabad on Thanksgiving Day. And do you lose your mic? I'm just going to go take a game. I think, you know, it's funny because you mention it, but I think it's interesting for the viewers, if they don't know this, that whenever you're going someplace, if you pass through someplace really nice or fun, then the plane breaks down. There's always a breakdown period where the air crew is like,

Oh, plane won't fly. It's not us. Yeah, it's not us. It's the plane. But we'll get it back up and run. And that way the air crew can go out and, like, have a fun night or two out on the town. It's no joke, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. It's standard. Now, do you, you've had Air Force people on here before. They, I'm sure, would deny that. Oh, that would never happen. Oh, I think now they would say, oh, yeah, we did that all the time. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, like, past the point. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's beyond cliche, right? But it happens. Yeah. And, like, the ladders, I was like, The old time was like, that's a 12-hour ladder.

I'm like, what are you talking about? Then if they had the one with the wheels on it, they're like, we're going to be here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. What did you think when you got to K-Chanabod? Like, K2, like it was kind of run down. I mean, the Army built it up quickly, like the contractors did. But it was pretty run down in the very beginning.

What I remember is Red Horse, which is the Air Force Expeditionary Engineers that set up bases, right? I think it's Red Horse, isn't it? I don't recall. I think that was the name. It might be something now. It was a mud pit, right? So they brought in gravel, but it wasn't gravel. It was these like stones that were like this, as big as softballs.

And I just remember like, I'm going to break my damn leg on these things. And it was mud covered, but it was still very austere. Yeah. It was very austere. Yeah. The town was fun. I mean, did you get a chance to get up to Tashkent? I did later, man. Not that time.

I was just like, I was like, oh, man, what am I going to? So we got the 5A teams. Yeah. And I'll have a little taste of that, if you don't mind, or do I already have some? Do you want ice? Yeah, please, yes, sir. Dee, you're the man. And then finally getting the respect that he deserves and earned.

You've earned. Two years he's been putting up with you guys. Two years dealing with the hazing and harassment that we have dealt upon him. He's the power behind the throne. I figured that one out. King of the Castle. As soon as I came in. Boston us around all the time. I mean, and the selection he had to go through to get to get to the specialized outfit. When Mike Span was killed on that operation, that was like, thank you to me.

No, it was a, we, I don't think it was this. Yeah, one piece. Yeah, I think it was. that fight for Kuala Jang-E, the prison, you know, where Mike Span went in. Yeah. And we dropped, we accidentally dropped, like, a, I think, 2,000-pound J-DAM right near one of our positions and injured, didn't kill anybody, injured a whole bunch of people. And there was no quick reaction.

There was no reaction force. So the 10th Mountain Division was there doing base security. They got the call to put together a squad, maybe a platoon, and load up on MH47 and fly down as the reaction force. And they pulled our wounded out. I was there because I was literally like, I'm not doing anything here. this is embarrassing. So I was like, well, casualties coming in.

I guess I'll go help out, you know. Helicopter lands, help with casualties and all that stuff. And I had this epiphany, which is not an epiphany. It's a bold statement of the obvious. I was like, we got QRF, quick reaction for us by the 10th Mountain Division. Like, that's an abomination. Right. God bless the 10th Mountain Division.

That's not what I'm saying. Right. They're not an abomination. No, green berets are in a jam. Green berets. No offense, the Rangers, come get their own. Right. And I remembered from Vietnam, you know, you always had Mike forces.

You always had some quick reaction, hatchet forces. So I said, hey, fellas, we're going to be the quick reaction force. And nobody told us to do this. So we created a quick reaction for us. And we went out and trained, which shot, you know, got our stuff together. And I just told the headquarters. I said, like, hey, you've got a quick reaction for us now. It's AOB 570 with these A teams.

And then on December 5th, we in Kandahar, we dropped, we had a friendly fire incident where we dropped the J-DAM on our own position. Dan Pettatory, J.D. Davis, Cody Prosser killed, ODA 574, Ammarine, Jason Amorin's the team leader. he's with Karzai's forces pushing on Kandahar to the south. Bogram's already taken. Kind of cobbles, I think Cobbles's already taking. Jason is pushing with Karzai's forces into Kandahar.

Hank Smith's coming in with Shurzai from the south. We're doing this pincer movement on the Kandahar, and we had this devastating friendly fire incident. A team's destroyed. And I'm sitting there that morning. And I had been mission fishing. You know what that is? I was like, we've got to get into this thing.

I would write every day, I would go, and I would write a concept for the utilization of the B team and the A teams. And every day, the commander would be like, shut up, shut up, get lost, stop it, because I was really, really worried about missing the war. I mean, really worried. Like, here it goes again, Story of Miller's life. And it sounds selfish, I know, but I was looking out for the, we all were there to get the job done.

Right. No, I think that was very common for people who, you know, like you said, like the first desert storm was so fast. and then you had these other events you know you had Somalia if special forces soldiers didn't want to get into the war I'd be worried if you have a good point we had been

we had been sensitized like the war is going to be over very quick right right right nobody thought it was going to go 20 years yeah none of it right you thought it should be like that's another yeah subject

you'd be like it's going to be a you know a 10 day off or a three month off a six month off but the whole time you're sitting there worried that you're not going to get in it. That's it, Dave. I'm just like, we're going to miss it. Yeah. So you did get in there December 2001, responding to the friendly fire incident. The thing I wanted to ask you about, actually, because I remember. That's goodly. This is good. I remember seeing it on CNN when I was a

kid is the hospital mission. Oh, my Lord. And you were kind of in charge of that whole thing. I would love to hear it from the man himself. Absolutely debacle. I'm responsible. And CNN it looked really good, though. So there are three Al-Qaeda, I think there might have been four. I used to notice like the back of my hand. There's a hospital in Kandahar. On the 7th of December, we landed the December 5th. We made the move on Kandahar and quote unquote, I call it captured Kandahar in the 7th of December.

I think it was 7th or 8th. I could check my notes. we just drove into Kandahar because nobody was fighting at that point and we just went to Mula Omar's place. So you're driving in there and you're seeing where Delta had come in and you'd blown the place to shit. It was really, like it was kind of, you know, surrealistic, right? So we took Mula Omar's place and made that our headquarters. And then we moved downtown to the palace, which stayed that way as a base forever. It was the, I think it was like the provincial headquarters province right across in that blue mosque where they had like the shroud of Turin.

It wasn't the shrouded turrent. Like they had some like, oh, you know, the Prophet Muhammad, you know, slept here or something. You know, you're like, what? I don't think he came through here. I look at it. I know. Just go with it. Yeah.

Just go with it. Yeah. Okay. It was very, very sacred spot right across the street. So we get in there We set up shop You know first Americans in there Quote unquote

Wars over right And The night after I know I know this now At the time I didn't And Gary tells some great stories too But this is the one that got away

Where you're like man I screwed that up really badly I was so The Battalion commander I was a third battalion guy I'm going in with second battalion Dave Fox, who I, he was a battalion commander. And if there was one person I would, didn't like in group, it was Dave Fox.

And I'm like, oh shit, I'm going to work for Dave Fox. Dave Fox was this very tacit turn, quiet guy. Had this great, at this time, this great white beard, very handsome. He played, I think he played lineback or a defensive back for University of Nevada, Las Vegas. and then like legendary like tried out for the Dallas Cowboys but decided to become Green Brain instead or some shit. Dave Fox ended up being like one of my heroes, one of the best commanders leaders I've ever worked for,

which is the point being like, oh, first impressions. So I'm with Dave Fox. And Gary tells us, Gary Harrington tells a story in his podcast about when bin Laden scrammed, remember? And he said that he suspects that like the tout that, the anti-Taliban forces that we were working with had a kind of an agreement to let them slide out. Well, the same thing happened with the Taliban leadership in Kandahar. I didn't know it at the time.

I found out the next morning. When you play it back, you're like, those sons of bitches. So one of the A team says, we need to cut the road from Kandahar to spend. Is it Spend Bulldogs? What's the border crossing in Pakistan, Afghanistan? I'm not sure. Oh, it all doesn't make it. There's the long road.

and I was wrong. Hank Smith was right, said, cut the road because they're going to ex-fill tonight. All the remaining Taliban, al-Qaeda, people are going to haul ass to Pakistan tonight. So I was like, we were just like, I went to Shurzai, I went to Dave Fox.

Dave's like, Chris, we got to maintain rapport. We can't, there's a limit to how far we can push these people. right now. Gulaga Shurzai is the guy in control the lion of Kandahar, son of the lion or something. Amazing guy. Still alive. Survivor. And we go, hey, should we cut the road tonight? He goes, Mish Mish Kila, no problem. It's all good.

And that was the night they E&Eed out. And I think the Air Force reported, they had their the planes up that can look at TMI MTI moving target target indicator they're like 200 vehicles

just left Kandahar on their way to Pakistan there were three individuals that didn't get the word they were in the hospital in Kandahar and I guess they didn't get the email

like tonight's night to E&E so we're like whatever but eventually you got to deal with this problem. So the best one, the first plan was to use a ruse. And the A team went in and did a parley with them talking to him. And the Al-Qaeda guys are like, if you swear on the Koran that you will not kill us, we will surrender. I love, so I love messing with the lawyers, the judge advocate generals i was like hold on i call back to karshi khanabod i said i need a legal ruling can can we you know agree that if we swear on the koran and because i'm sure they woke the lawyer up in the

middle of the night this is like 2 30 in the morning i'm just laughing the whole time like this is great get a ruling back yeah you can do that so we the 18 does this The al-Qaeda guys are like, okay, we're done. And then they walk out and they see like all these Afghan, Afghan partner force. And they're like, oh, shit. Run back in, barricade themselves. I'm like, that great idea clearly isn't going to, didn't work. So we're going to dig him out.

We're going to go dig him out at this point. Now remember, this time, we didn't realize al-Qaeda that they were going to fight to the death. We actually thought there would be kind of this like, oh, you're going to see your surrounded and you'll give up. Right. So we have our partner force. We select like 12 of the best dudes. And the A team gives them special training. And true special forces A team.

They have that target cloth. I don't know where they got it. They make buildings and they teach them out to do close quarter battles, right? We're like, we're just teaching you for, you know, whatever comes up. You're the special people. And then the night before, it's like, oh, by the way, tomorrow we're going to go dig, these guys out of the hospital. Good lesson learned on this one, Green Beret.

Shouldn't have told them number one that night because of the 12, six of them, haul ass. Take all their kit, dude. Yeah. All their, like, wow, I guess we lost a couple of M4s on that one. They're gone. So now we have our assault force of six dudes in the morning.

And we go to the hospital. I was a trained demolitionist, right? There's a wall, brick wall. The wing had six rooms, three on each side, where these Al-Qaeda holdouts were barricaded in there. The plan was brilliant. I wrote the plan. It was brilliant.

I said, we're going to do this. We're going to be in and out in 10 minutes. I timed it like a counter-terrorism thing. And one of the team leaders, I said, your only job is we're going to come in the backside of the hospital. where they can't see us and then we'll just like blow to roll down go grab them be done we'll be out

guess who is new now guess who's in a guest house directly across the street you brought up CNN CNN had their guest house across the street from the hospital I knew this right I said we'll be done before this ever hit what I wanted to do what I wanted to do is to blow down the wall

right at morning prayers right because I knew they'd be in the hallway and like we'll blow that wall down and you know this will work fine the team so I tell the team later I'm like hey you good with the route sir I got this I said hey a tool a technique I used to use back in the day was I'd mark the route with infrared chem lights you know glow sticks put them on so I know where to turn so I don't get confused because in the middle of night I don't need that sir you know kind of looking down his nose I'm like I'm like you're cheater the fireworm goes out you know where this is going I see the turn that we don't take and we drive right in front

of the wing of the hospital they're in I literally see the lights flip on you see the al-cated dudes looking out the window I literally like just waving at him we'll see in a few minutes so we lost the element of surprise at that point.

Breach charge goes off. We talked to the engineer who had built the wall. I said, is there any rebar in here? No rebar. No, just bricks. Engineer, the demo guys, I was like, double the charge.

I was like, double the charge. I was like, double the charge. Okay, whatever. Stacks in. They're around the corner. Charge goes off. Kabam! there's a pain of glass,

like it's an old school hospital, right? You know, with the pains of glass, it says, you know, surgery, you know? Hadn't thought this one through. The explosion takes that pain of glass and drops it like a guillotine. Everybody's like, it's on YouTube somewhere because we weren't supposed to film,

but somebody filmed this. Charge goes off. There's rebar, of course, but it doesn't matter because we double the charge. Fellas go in. First room on the left, we're like, we're going to clear with grenades first. We didn't train them well enough. Like, throw the grenade in, wait for it to go off.

You know where this is going, don't you? Grenades go in, you know, that crack of a grenade, and then there's just quiet. And then I hear screaming. They followed them in. our assault our indigenous assault force followed their grenades in and the six assaulters done they evac them out like all right what do we do now this is clearly going to be longer than 10 minutes yeah at this point CNN you're seeing I'm watching I'm like right across the street from him I have my command post lights going on cameras coming out I was like a long day so yeah we get done with the operation for the day

it goes on it becomes like it becomes a comedy routine at a point right the afghans are all like uh you know they were crying i was like i had the doc look at them they're like they're fine you know they'd been injured and all but we weren't going to evack them right away um but that's neither here or there and ultimately we tried to burn them out that didn't work it just get it got sillier by the moment. Finally, because my orders were to make sure that the Afghans did the mission, not in the U.S. Finally, two warrant officers like, sure, we'll take care of it from here. And they led the assault. They threw in satchel charges, and we ended, we ended, it got, it got even crazier than that, but I could go on all day about that way. I just, I remember

seeing the report on CNN and it's sort of like discombobulated, special forces guy with like a beard on television. That was me. Which was probably you. It was me. And he's like, well, our, you know, host nation partner force has handled the situation extremely well. And, you know, they took it from top to bottom.

And I was looking at, and I mean, I was like 18 at the time. And I was like, sounds like bullshit. Special forces doing special forces stuff. So awesome. These guys are so awesome. That was me. Now I get to hear the real story behind it. We had our beards and we were wearing our ball caps.

And the thing gets done. I get a call from Dave Fox. Like, you got to go talk to the reporters. I'm like, we don't do that. Special forces, but, you know, salute and execute. I was that guy, and I was like, I had always avoided media training and all, I was like, I'm never going to talk to the press. I'd avoided it my whole life.

And now I'm on, like, camera. Right. You hit all the good bullet points, though. I mean, I made it up as I went. Like, this is a testament to the power of the Afghan security forces. Our coalition is undefeated. My daughters are, we had three kids at the time. They were young and they were sitting at the dinner table and yelled,

Mommy, it's Daddy. It was on, I think it was an ABC. The news was on and my wife's like, what are you talking about? She goes out and that's me doing the tap dance. And, yeah, that was my first big combat mission. Complete abomination. But you know what we learned on that one? You know, like, we had this idea that al-Qaeda was a, I don't want to say rational,

but that they were going to use Western standards of warfare, where, like, they're going to see it's all over. Yeah, put their hands in the air and come out with a white flag. That's where we were, though, cognitively at that point of the war. And, of course, after that event, I'm like, oh, why didn't we just kill them right up front? Right. Why don't we just drive up, hit that room with a dog on? not drag and what was the i i wonder if part of it too is that they are thinking from their point of view that all soldiers are like you know russians that you're you're just going to execute them

the second i'm sure they did but they're also i mean it's also a cue so they're jihadists like there's martyrdom yeah and and and heaven paradise at the end of it for them i didn't we didn't realize right at the time right right and of course by the time we got iraq right molland would had this great question he was like who's the enemy and I'd roll my eyes like it's like feteen or whatever but he had a key point because if it's al-cated they're going to fight to the death right we're going to take a different approach with them why why do anything right why do anything sophisticated just go in there and kill them right i mean like yeah don't don't over think and that's i mean that's kind of what the war became like in the later

years was you would go up you'd do a call out they would send they would say we're not coming out that sent out their wives and kids right so you'd know that they were like in it to win it. And then you just hopefully be able to back off and call in an airstrike because you know what it's going to come down to. So take us into Iraq. 2003, you plan into like a pretty big operation taking the boys out on kind of a long range desert patrol mission kind of. It sounded pretty interesting when I read about it in your book. Well, that, you know.

So we did unconventional warfare, very small footprint, very light, total special ops war. So I got to see that. We'd never done that. We had never done unconventional warfare in the history of the regiment.

So we got to do that. And then I left company command and became the operations officer for 3rd Battalion. And we get home. Gary says he was the last one home. I sure felt like the last one. I'm sure it was Gary.

But Gary got to take leave. I got home and the next day showed up and started planning the war in Iraq. And man, that was surrealistic, dude. But we went from small footprint to that was like big war. This is American way of war. Yeah. Tanks, M1s, combined arms.

Dude, it was like ridiculous. And now the fifth special forces group, remember a desert storm where Saddam Hussein was launching his missiles into Israel. They thought he'd do them again. They were called Scud. I don't know what Scud. Whatever. He was going to launch missiles into Israel again.

So his fifth special forces group this time was tasked with gaining control of the Western Desert where they launched them last time. So that was a strategic mission. Like that's like a good Green Beret mission. It was rat patrol. The whole Scud hunter thing, right? Yeah. And it was legit.

Yeah. So First Battalion gets that. they're the glory boys this is the big deal right and it was it was it was precisely what special forces was created for you know to handle that thing right second battalion was uh handling uh the south and raising uh insurgents or not raising but you know doing kind of behind enemy line stuff in the south doing some special reconnaissance and then third battalion we were the reserve we had no mission. I don't know about you. But I didn't join the army to be the

damn reserve. Right, right. I mean, I don't know. Right. I was like, reserve? That's bullshit. So I came up, I decided the mission would be, I changed the mission to we would be the main effort for the takedown in Baghdad. And we set up at Nodjif, the Nodja,

of Carbola Gap was the battle handover. The second battalion had it up to there, and then we would pick it up from there. And so we'd have these briefbacks, right, with Colonel Mulholland and leadership, and First Battalion, like, it'd be all day, be eight hours. First Battalion would take about six hours. Second Battalion, because they love to talk.

would take an hour and 45 minutes, hour of 50 minutes. I, 3rd Battalion, would get like all of 10 minutes to brief. And at this point, everybody's like, just make it end. Right. So I'm like, I don't have to prepare any slides. So they didn't want very successful operation in the Western Desert. Like strategically, it was the largest landmass ever controlled by special forces. It was huge.

Wow. Oh yeah, it was a really big deal. Yeah. But of course we get to Baghdad, right? And things cluged at that point. So we flew in at that point with Third Battalion and got there right. There was Thunder Run or you guys track and were third infantry division. Yeah.

Colonel Perkins, like one of the greatest warriors this country has ever produced. I mean, that guy dude, that brigade of the third infantry division. That whole division, rock of the more, man. I'm literally, man. I see those cats. I'm like, I just go up, I'm like, thank you so much. I'm like the old guy with the white hair. Just go up with these young kids.

I'm like, you're part of the best division in the history of the Army. And we got there for the second thunder run where they took the city. You know, they went downtown and stayed there. So we rolled in and became, we just started doing HVT hunting because we had no mission at this. point because we thought that there was going to be like this long Stalingrod thing right where we're going to like and the whole plan was we're going to lock down the city and then my genius idea which got roundly criticized I got like so much shit from leadership on this solder city Shia enclave and a Sunni dominated city I like we're going to go into Sadr city and we're going to turn that in

to an enclave and we'll fight out of it higher headquarters thought that was a stupid It's really stupid idea. And we didn't have to do it ultimately. So then we didn't have a mission. I was like, you know, it's board green berets. The deck of 52. Yeah. It's out there.

Board green berets. Deck a card. You called it. Yeah. So battalion commander, Tim Williams, he let me, you know, run ops. I said, here's your mission. Go grab these. Yeah.

I was the easiest op order I've ever written, gave him a deck of cards and said, and they're like, yeah. And hey, Jack, I learned like the power of the special forces regiment. Like, that's all they needed to know. They didn't need detailed instructions like, here. And they made magic happen. Commander, commander's intent and let it go. It was stupid.

Yep. It was stupid. I'm very proud of that in a very kind of weird way. The best operation order I ever wrote and issued was, here's a deck of cards, have a nice day, go bring as many of these people in, and we turned it into a competition, obviously. It's greener race.

Yeah. What? No, I mean, it's amazing. And, you know, you came back, you write, though, I mean, through all this incredible experience, though, about when you got home from the war and just having like these profound reservations about what you guys had done.

And you actually read the book, Jack. Yeah. That's your job. I know. That's how we roll. Dave, I know. That's how you guys roll. You know, I mean, I think you wrote about like actually like weeping when you got home.

Yeah, man. I had a break down. An unjust war, as you called it. Was this start of sort of a change in. Yeah. It had started before then because remember we'd always been trained to that our superiors knew what was going on. And they were smarter than we were. were and there was a grand plan and like get in line and there were just so many instances where you're

like damn i don't think they know what they're doing and yeah when you were high enough up there to see it yeah and it was kind of the scales falling from your eyes right right right right right right like like almost a wizard of eyes moment you know where you're like damn that's who's running this whole thing uh i was told uh i was i was i was absolutely I was smoked, dude. I had, I was just... You said you worked like 657 days. It was no joke, man.

Straight. I'm waiting for somebody to call me out on that. I'm waiting for some Twitter feed to call me out. Like, I work... I'll hit you up tomorrow. Yeah, I do, man. And I had been a battalion... I had been elevated from battalion,

six, 18A teams to the fifth special forces group operations officer. So three battalions, what is that? 54A. and we had this realization it wasn't me it was Kurt Sontag was like this war is going to last a long time and we need to get our shit together so Chris you need to go home now and start preparing the group for sustained long-term operations and I was like yeah whatever I just want to go home and so Kurt was the I think he was the executive office second and command of the group. Hector Beghan was our group commander. And I said, can I leave? He goes, leave.

And I went down to the airfield that night and said, what's the first thing smoking out of here? And they're like, tomorrow morning, C-17. It's like, I'll be here. Great Green Beret story. I won't bore you with it. Hilarious. Got on the plane.

Hook and crook. it had a MH40 a Chinook helicopter that was shot up and the crew was on with the helicopter and they were turning. I didn't know where they were going. So we have this huge plane.

I'm on it with the crew. That's all that's on it. Fly into Ramstein? No, it was the other place. It was the old one that's no longer there in Frankfurt. What was the name of that Air Force base? Was it?

They started with a no. No. Got a legendary place that no longer has been closed and landed. And I thought... No, that's a hospital. That's that hospital. Yeah. And got off the plane and went in to the, what do they call that,

space available terminal, the Air Force thing. It's like, you know, they have the flights up there, had one going to the C-17 place in Savannah is it St. Charleston. I was like, hey, can I get on that? And I see there's also one going

to Fort Campbell, but I don't, like, I'm not factoring it in. Here's this point of the story. Don't you love Afei snack bars? It was the old, you know, the orange, you know, where you could go and get a hot

dog. Yeah. Remember. Orange Julius, right? And they would have like, the corn dog? Crappy pizza and corn dogs that you can never get in the States. I was like, I'm a little hungry. I go up there.

There's a kid from the 100 first flying out. And he's trying to get money out of the ATM machine, and it's not working. And, dude, you always carry your ATM card. You never know. Like in combat. Might need your credit card, right? I was like, hey, man, how's it going?

I need some money. Put my shit in. Got 100 bucks out, gave him 50 bucks, man. I said, good luck, man. I just remember that, you know. And the kid, you know, just being able to pass it on, you know,

because I just experienced that. And I'm thinking, like, there was a thing up there about Fort Campbell. Same plane. I didn't realize. I got home to Fort Campbell, dude. You cannot get a charter flight quicker. I went from Iraq to Fort Campbell,

Kentucky in 12 hours or something. Yeah. Land. Yeah, and then won't bore you to tears, but got home and I was alone. My family had left for July 4th weekend, and I was alone. And yeah, man, I was like, what did we just do? Right. What did we just do, man?

Yeah. Like, we just invaded. It was a hoot. Like, let's be, I know the death and destruction is horrible, but as a professional soldier to be able to have an unconventional warfare thing and then to see the power. Dude, we landed planes on interstate highways. Yeah. Like what kind of, there's no other country in the world that can do this.

Yeah. Like they would set up forward, they would set up gas stations on the interstates and we just land. I mean, it was just amazing. Well, that was also, that was like, because I think it was Thunder Run, right? Where like the minister of information was like on the TV saying there are no Americans in Baghdad. Oh, they're tanks saying. Well, there were tanks like moving behind him, you know. It was epic.

Yeah. It was epic. How are you guys enjoying the Monte Cristo's? Those are nice, man. I'm still smoking. I really like it. Yeah. And it was.

It's not too harsh, right? I was worried because I figured I would be so hallucinating. Yeah, no, no, no. That I wouldn't be able to speak. That's the little rolled ones he has in there that have the little crystals on the outside. You like the ones that come from Japs? Yeah. The special ones.

Yeah. Where you get nicotine or whatever poison. And how about, you know, I just want to. to talk i know we're running kind of late but space a flights are honestly one of the biggest secrets of the military space available like where you just show up at an air terminal and say hey i want to go somewhere where you even in peacetime where are you going you hear those stories of people that are like i just go i end up in diego garcia in the indian ocean yeah just go wherever i did that i ended up in launch stool or not launch school but in romstein i think or wherever the airway

was and then took a little like $100 flight to Morocco from there. Oh, my gosh. So, Chris, yeah, this is the point of the interview where I have to ask you, do you want to go home or do you want us to finish the interview? It is 10.08. And I can, come on, man. I can pester you to come back another time. What do you want to do?

It's up to you. I'm fine. I mean, look, we've covered. I've been talking too much. No, you have. I'm sorry. You guys are evil. You do this to me.

We're interviewing you. Like, you should be talking most of it. You're evil. We still got Operation. Red Wings, ASD, Solick, NSC, and then your time is SACDF. Does anybody care about any of this? Yes. I read your damn book, and you were going to talk about it on this interview.

Yes, sir. You did give us a two-hour hard stop. We're happy to go. Okay. Let's go. All right. Okay. So, 2005.

Your listeners right now are like, no, they love this shit. No. They do. And you got great listeners, dude. We have the best audience. You're back in Afghanistan. And dare I say, you had this sort of weird commander position. Was this the CTPTs that you were with?

Okay. That was the best job I ever had. It sounded for the military. And you painted the picture in your book. We've talked to, like, Nicholas Moore and Tony Brooks and Alan Mack and all these guys who were involved in Operation Red Wings. What a great budget, dude. Your book kind of backfilled some of the gaps.

There's still a lot there for me. That story, I wish. you know, every time you, it's still a thing. There's a little bit more that comes out every time you talk about it. It's still a thing where you'll be, you'll be sitting at the bar, or you'll be at a meeting and you'll talk to somebody in their life, and you learn something new every time about Red Wings. Tell us about your experience. I don't think you guys can handle it. You're getting another cigarette.

Wait, hold on. Let's just do this and then we can handle it. There's a little bit more of that. You're there. I'm running CTPT, T, T, I'm running CTPT. which was a Afghan mercenary force for all practical purposes that we was very that we trained. It was an interagency function, as you know, CIA, Green Beret, Navy SEALs, a whole, whole kit and caboodle back to Bosnia, right? We just kind of took, they called them cross-functional teams. You know, it was all together.

So, yeah, there were three of us running 200-man, you know, mercenary force? Three SF guys? Or was like, I was the only SF guy. There were two agency guys. Cool. Cool.

Oh, it was really cool. And people would rotate out and half the time, a lot of the time, I'd be the only one there. So, yeah, you've got your, I mean, that's like the ultimate Green Beret mission. That's what I joined. I don't know about you, man.

What'd you join SF for? I joined SF to do that. Yeah, exactly. Like, have Indage mercenaries? Yeah. Yeah, throw back to, you know, MacB. Saug working with mountain yards and Chinese mercenaries. It was Mike Force. Yeah.

That's what it was. I was like, I get to do that. You know, and you're alone. And so you get, you do all the functions. You're the sergeant major. You're the commander. You're the personnel officer, intel officer, all that stuff. And we're running them.

And usually you go for 60 or 90 days and you'd rotate and we're in the Sadabad. and dude I'm on my way home which is beautiful all my kits packed up I'm sitting on the porch and the Sadabad of our of our house we have rocking chairs don't like you know Charlotte Airport you know the rocking chair we I don't know how we got the rocking chairs I'm sitting there in the rocking chair and I'm like this I'm going home this is great family had this huge vacation plan to go to France my mother had just gotten through a bout of cancer. We were going to have this beautiful family thing.

And I'm like, you know, I'm checked out, right, man? I'm done. Shit's loaded. Ready to go home. All I'm waiting to do is to get on the helicopter that night, fly back to where are we? We were in Afghanistan, so I'm flying back to Kabul, right? Yeah.

And then flying home. And I see there's a special forces A team across the street from us, that was running another force. I forgot what they called. Kandak. Yeah, one of those things. And I knew the team leader, and I just see this frantic activity going on.

This is probably like 4 o'clock. I'm trying to get 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And I go down there, and I talk to the team leader, Christian Sessam's like, what's going on? Of course I can't tell you. Southern guy, great guy. I was like, no problem if you need anything, let me know. Because something bad really happened.

It's like, we're here for you. Go back and sit down and I'm just watching. Finally, I can't stand it anymore. So I just walked over and went into their team room and realized that special reconnaissance team that the Navy SEALs put in had been compromised. The reaction force had been shot down. I think they lost one helicopter,

had crashed, and nobody knows what's going on. and I was like oh shit okay you know selfish voice is like I really want to go home that's one of this kind of that's kind of one of those weird ones

and I'm just a normal dude so don't like take this like egotistical but I had to do some thinking on that one because we talk about like should I go or should I not go? No one left behind right like we have an obligation if there's an American soldier

or American service member in need like you don't bail on it But I got to tell you, I might have thought about it. Right. Because I know how this ends. You know, in the movie, how's the movie end? The guy who's on his way home goes on one final mission. Right.

Yeah. You know how it ends. It's a recovery. It's not a rescue. Well, yeah, but the thing is, it's like the cop who is on his last day before he retired. Right, right. Who answers the call.

The soldier who just had a baby. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking. Because I have a hyperactive imagination, man. I'm like, this is like, this is, I know how this ends. And I walk back and I tell the head Afghan, that was my partner, I said, get everybody up, get everything out in the street, get all our trucks lined up, get ready, we're going to move out on an operation. I can't tell you what it is. You know, what they do, they're getting paid.

Kels. That's Mr. Chris. Yes, Mr. Chris. Fucking shit gets wired. Yeah. Man, what a great bunch of people, you know. There's trucks we had. We just so, oh, my God.

I went in and this was, I'm finally now older and mature and had a lot, a lot of lessons learned, a lot of scar tissue from doing things wrong. And that A team is doing the best they can, but I can just see that it's disjointed. and I said it's frantic. And so I just said, I didn't say anything. I pulled out a butcher block board. Because you know where I'm going with this.

Let's just do mission planning the way we've been trained. Right. So I just put that butcher block up and I said, let's do mission analysis. Step one is what's the enemy situation. And everybody just snapped in at that point. I was like, my job here is done, you know. I'm not, I'm being a little facetious. And then the biggest thing, we talked about escaping evasion earlier.

And the warrant officer is always in charge of escape and invasion planning. And I don't know about, Jack, you're better than I'm. You probably paid attention. I hated that shit. Like, Chief would be like, eh, you know, like, eh. We got to do this, this, this. You'd like, leave it alone. And they would always talk about command and control.

And I would just, like, Chief, leave it alone. We don't give it. We don't care. The problem was it was the Navy SEALs were in there. Seventh group was in charge of special forces, special operations. They were being ripped. They were being relief in place. By third group was coming in.

It was the worst. possible moment. Anything could ever happen. So who's in charge? Right. Who's in charge? And we finally get that worked out, and let's be on counterterrorism task force took over. J-Soc just said, we got this, but that took a long, long time.

And so we decide they put in a restricted, what's a RAS, restricted airspace where they shut down the airspace. Yeah. I forgot didn't it. Where you can't fly anything because they thought that. that the Taliban, they weren't Taliban, but the insurgents, the enemy had shot down the helicopter with surfaced airmen.

You've had some of those guys you've had on, there's a lot more coming out about this, so we couldn't fly in. Like the most powerful military in the world, all this extra high-end equipment, and you know what we're going to do? We're going to walk our ass up there. And you've been to Colorado Springs.

you look up at Pikes you look up at Pikes Peak yep yeah it was like that you're like holy shit we gotta get up there but this isn't Pikes Peak like very

there's trails and roads built into it yeah so we all move out that morning and we just like anybody that wants to show up be at the vehicle drop off point at the base of this mountain and dude you're just looking up there

and we're like we can see the crests but they're not there, they're behind it. And it's like, what I remember most was the sun came up really, really early. Like, I could swear it was like five o'clock sun's out. Dude, it's like, I'd like to look at the weather. It seemed like it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit at the time and just going up, no clouds. And have you ever seen those pictures of like World War II in going over the hump?

or you'd see people going where they're walking up these hills and you have these switchbacks like that. That's what we're doing. And it's a combined force. It's CTPTs, special forces. And you guys had an RRD team with you? RRD shows up. I didn't even know what RRD was, man. Those are the toughest dudes I have ever met in my life, the most professional soldiers.

I was sewing off. We had a Ranger platoon. So you got this, like, first lieutenant. He was great with his 40 Rangers. You guys can appreciate this. Got RRD. Then the Navy SEALs, like anybody that could get there, showed up.

We had two Special Forces A teams. We had a Special Forces B team, a company headquarters. And then I got 50. I didn't take all of our force. I just took 50 of our Counterterrorism Pursuit team, our mercenary force. It was like, here's the plan. Movement to contact, which we all know.

know is not all the technology. Why would you ever do a movement to contact? Movement to contact for those that don't know this is like you just walk until you run into the end. They start shooting at you. Yeah. You're like, we found them. Yeah, right.

I was like, oh man, this is going to suck. This is going to suck so bad. It's funny because I think it was I think it was Tony Brooks who said like they were the guys that roped in from the 47s, the Rangers. That night. And he was like, we ring. into an RRD team up in the mountain soon it was just like one of the the mystique around them was like how did how did you guys get up here want to know how that got there yeah so we walk our ass

up there people are falling out like green berets because they're wearing 140 pounds you know what i took an lCE basically load of ammunition yeah rangers were great you'll love this you two rangers i was leaving so i forgot to take money thank goodness there was a green beret that had and they rented like every donkey or new way they could find and the Carl Gustav gunner from the Rangers how much is that thing way it's a big fucking it's like uh that's my first job I think it's like 27 pounds yeah plus the rounds the rounds are yeah he's got that thing and I'm like hey I didn't call him son that would have been like you know I felt like son I said hey man why didn't you put your Carl Gustav on the donkey and he's like because his platoon

sorry. Squad leader. He was like, you will never be beyond one step. Right, right. And it was so cute, right?

I was like, oh, man, poor guy. By the time we got going, that thing was on the donkey. Here's what happens. It's so hot the donkeys quit. I didn't know they're allowed to quit.

Like when they're done, they're done. Yeah. And they're not. I was like, like, like there's a reason they say stubborn as a mule,

right? That, yeah. I didn't even know. I didn't even know. I didn't even know that happened, you know? So now we're just walking.

We walk up. We run out of water right away. It goes from bad to worse. We're just combat ineffective. And the decision is made to put together what's called a flying column of the Ranger RRD, because these guys are like, this isn't even, this is easier than PT. Yeah. And the indig who grew up there and don't, yeah, right?

RRD and a couple stellar Green Berets, Kent Solheim and some other people, decide pool all the water we're going to give all our water to like these 20 dudes and they're going to haul ass and can i talk about me a second oh yeah i'm doing indeed i was like i so want to be part of that like i'm i've been training for this moment all my life a desperate mission right you know where it is success cataclysmic success or cataclysmic failure and i was like i am the leader of the mercenary force I have to stay with them and do my job were they doing all right or were they in did just doing fine because we didn't carry body arm yeah yeah everybody else is wearing body armor I was like we're all dead yeah so they got the clash over

their shoulder by the barrel yeah um running shoes mm-hmm and uh basic load yeah and that's it and then um so we we they take off the flying column takes off I was like envious to tears. I was with them. We keep moving for the night. The indige, out of nowhere, there's a village, and they like,

blah, la, la. And we get all this food and shit comes up to us. And that's, at that night, is when the Rangers fast-ropped in. And the reason I know this is because we're on this, like,

Knife's Edge, you know, the classic Knife's Edge Ridge, ridgeline. I knew that we were quite expendable when the Green Beret major said, Chris, he didn't know I was a lieutenant colonel. He found out later, but I was just Chris at the time. And I was trying to be helpful.

Because his show, he's the officer in charge, he's the Ground Force commander. He goes, why don't you take the Afghans out and, you know, pull security closest to the enemy? I was like, oh, I know how this is going to work. We're just cannon fodder. I'm like, fine, whatever. Yeah. And that was, I made a mental decision that if the Rangers got in to the crash site successfully, we would, I would take the mercenary force out because I knew we were, like, we were beyond

fourth class citizens. Like, like, Rangers still were like, we got Afghans with us. We ought to kill them all. Not a, you know Rangers. That changed later in the war. but at this point it's still that way. And I just remember trying to sleep. And it was so humid, your clothes weren't dry.

But you know how it is at elevation. It plummeted the temperature. I'm just lying there, freezing. And I hear we needed water resupply. So when the MH-47s brought in the Rangers, they brought in a resupply bird and started kicking, five gallon cans and MRE boxes off the back because the good idea

of airdropping stuff didn't work. Long story won't bore you with that. What the fuck were they thinking about? And there's the surrealistic moment of the MH 47 hovering directly over me lying there

in the fetal position in some sort of like feverish dream and five gallon water cans and M.R. to start like landing around me. I'm like, this is ironic that I'm going to be killed. Yeah. By my own side with five gallon kids dropping on me.

Rangers got in that night, fast-roped in, patrolled in, got to the crash site. At this point, I'm like, the major comes up with this great idea that we're going to leap frog forces forward, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh, we're going to be the last move. Oh, yes, you are. I have an idea. We're going to reposition the reaction force, the mercenary force I was in charge of,

back to Assadabad, so we can more rapidly respond. You could just see him like, oh, thank God. But now I'm concerned because I'm abandoning Americans, right? Right. So I try to call back. I get on Satcom. It doesn't work.

I get on Aridium. to call back to base to my higher headquarters to get permission can't talk to anybody so that's another one of those moments where you're like okay here we go back to the indage they were absolutely smoked by the end of this yeah there's this legend like oh my god they can walk in the mountain forever no they can't they got done and they were absolutely gassed it was hilarious it was hilarious yeah yeah yeah so uh at that point rangers secured a crash site, start leaping forward. Marcus Littrell's on the run.

We don't know this. Now remember, this area was the most, all of our intelligence assets from satellites on down were focused on that piece of terrain. And it wasn't that big. And we had no idea where Marcus Littrell was. Anybody that says differently is fully shit. Yeah. And that was another eye opener, Jack, where I'm like, oh, gosh, we've been promised all

this stuff and this comes down to hard yeah hard trolling people physically fit that are willing to close with and engage the enemy and won't quit and that was like one of those eye-opening moments it's so it's so like no duh you know it's so obvious but we had been trained to think that we're going to have all these assets available like but it just came down to being really really tough that was my takeaway and then you know you know the rest of the story mark i was on the other end when they when marcus was recovered but we we don't want to bore everybody with that there's a there's a great story that hasn't been told about that okay well you can uh 20 of your ranger now you can you can you can slide into my inbox with that story okay uh and uh we'll work on that um so

fast forwarding a little bit from from red wings uh 2010 they're about John Mahalind asks you to take over ASD Solic. And it sounded in the book like you were even a little bit like, what the hell is my doing? What's this all about? Could you tell us what that was about? It was to be, it wasn't a takeover, Solic, was to be, I'd been promoted to colonel.

I'd gone to the farm during a fellowship. And I was planning to go do something else. but Colonel Malha, then General Malhaaln called and said, hey, I need you to go to Solick. I didn't even know what that was. I literally had no idea. Remembering the Q-course where they would train you about how they give you a class about how the Pentagon works?

I didn't pay any attention to that because I was like, I'm never going to Pentagon. I don't give a shit. So he goes, I need you to go be the colonel at ASD Solic, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Low Intensity Conflict, the civilian element that OECD. overseas all special operations forces, United States Special Operations Command. I literally, fortunately we had Google by then.

So I said, okay, hung up, and I had to Google. I was mowing my lawn. I was supposed to be at work. Don't tell Colonel Mahal and General Mahan that. I was completely shaman. And I thought I was going to be a secretary. Like an actual secretary. Yeah, like taking shorthand.

I thought I was going. Taking the minutes. Yeah, I thought I was going to be a secretary. And then I found out, okay, I learned more about that. So it went there as a colonel with the intention of then retiring. And so that was my first tour at the Pentagon, you know, learning how all that works. Yeah. And the big thing we did there was a regular warfare because, you know, the Department of Defense

does not really give a crap about counterinsurgery. They like tanks and planes and, you know, aircraft carriers and special operations. This regular warfare, you know, most powerful weapon systems between your ears. But ASD Solic, I mean, is it fair to say it represents special ops in the Pentagon? Yeah. But you guys write the policy or the write some of the policy. Budget, all that crap. All this stuff nobody wants to do.

I got to do that. It was great. So do you have to, do you have to, like, sell a lot? Do you have to, like, educate people as to what your mission capabilities are? how you're a force multiplier, which is so, yes, Dave, you just described it, man. That's exactly what you're doing. You're like, I thought everybody knew about us. They don't know.

Like, who hasn't seen John Wayne and Green Beret, right? A lot of people haven't, I guess. Yeah, it was just, like, weird. So that was my experience at the Pentagon, you know, seeing how, that's a different world, you know. Yeah. You know, you're a field guy, and now you're in there. Yeah. You're working with civilians, and you talk about bureaucracy.

It was like, damn. Yeah. You talked about how, like, the first year you were kind of lost, but then in the next couple of years, you kind of, like, became engrossed in it, almost more than you wanted to, right? Green Berets, you know, we always love to learn new environments. It was a different culture.

Yeah. You know, and it was a different culture. And, yeah, and then we figure things out. Yeah. You know, and then I figured it out by the end. But, as I said in the book, the problem is that can become counterproductive. because once you figure out how they play the game in Washington, D.C., you kind of start becoming corrupt.

Right. You start playing. You know, when I say corrupt, I don't mean like, oh, I'm getting money on the side. Right. It's just you start thinking like a bureaucrat as opposed, right. Does that make sense? Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah.

It absolutely. And I imagine, like, the budgets you guys were asking for was, like, nothing compared to, like, fielding a battalion of tanks or aircraft. like amen you know at the time i think it was like 12 to 13 billion b now bear in mind most militaries in the world have a smaller budget than so com does but yeah in terms of the united states at the time i think the department of defense budget was 600 billion dollars we're getting 13 billion and let's be like i get yelled at for this but we're fighting the war right like that's not take away from Marine Corps, the infantry, the army, all this stuff. But it's the lion's share of.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. So I'm learning how all that works, whether I like to or not. And then 2000, again, jumping forward a little bit, 2018, you took this NSC position being a counterterrorism advisor. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you went from ASD Solic to retired.

Number one, retired, made the decision to leave the serve. had this kind of fundamental crisis of do I accept the next promotion the next job right um and did you know what that was going to be at the time or did you just yeah yeah I you know the you want to be in command I was selected for a kernel level command and it kept switching it wasn't a special forces group I was supposed to go initially it was were changing things and I would have been one of the commanders in Afghanistan for special forces. And then it got switched to Pakistan because we were doing this really, really big push to increase support there. But you know, it's the it's the end all be all, you know, making

command. But here was the thing. I needed a year off because my kid was, I made a vow to myself that when my kid was a senior in high school, I would stay at home that year. And the kid didn't because they like have a life but I wanted to do that and that was the year I was supposed to take command so I begged I was like hey I'll go anywhere in the in the world the next year if you can just get me out of this right now and that that was not accepted as a course of action so they're like well you know no yeah so I decline command which when you decline command and the army is the kid like you end your career at that point. So I did that knowingly and I, you know, and realized it was time to transition out of the Army. I took one more job. There was an opportunity they were setting up

at Fort, well, you went to Fourth Battalion. That whole thing, they set up an office, the Office of Special Warfare, OSW, which was this very innovative thing that General Cleveland, General Mulholland had got going. I was going to go do that. Things went, went sideways, so I went back to the special mission unit. And I always make fun. There's one officer that I always make fun of in every unit, and it's called the deputy commanding officer. Like, that's the worst job because you just get all the crappy jobs. Guess who's the DCO? You're looking at them, which I thought was perfect symmetry to my military career to end up in the job that I always made fun of like I would go out of my way to make fun of the deputy commanding officer like so it's just

it was just so like perfect to go end my career as the deputy commanding officer the special shuffling shit yeah it was hilarious and then retired in 2014 and wife was absolutely like hey we're not moving you can go wherever you want your government town what do you do going to government. Yeah. So I went back in and worked at the Pentagon. And then I was working at the Pentagon and my buddy, Chris Cost, a legendary figure in the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force, all this stuff.

He's at the National Security Council, which is you advise the president on all things. He was in charge of counterterrorism at the National Security Council. he was leaving, he eventually called through his list, and I think I was the last one. And I said, sure, I'll interview. And got the job. And so I'm a government employee, Pentagon employee, loaned to the White House to do counterterrorism and transnational threats. That's how I ended up. To directly advise the president on all counterterrorism operations.

Yeah. And threats? Yeah. So how would that work for you? Were you taking, like, information given directly from, like, the DNI? Were they collating all the information and passing it to you? Great, great questions. So that was the first time in my career that, you know, you have access to the presidential

daily brief and all the counterterrorism intelligence is fed into you. So every morning you show up at work, and I was the first one at work. And 7 o'clock, this briefer shows up from the, in this case, from the DNI, the director of national intelligence. And they just start running through every single threat, all that stuff. And, you know, here's the one. I was like, hey, if there's an attack in the United States that's catastrophic, like, who's responsible for that? You would think it would be like director of the CIA, but they had established after September 11th.

You know, they had all, they created Homeland Security, they created the DNI, the National Counterterrorism Center, all these things, which I realized just diffused responsibility. And I asked like all these people that are like way higher ranking than I am, right? I'm like, hey, who gets fired if there's like a, if we fail? They're like you. I was like, oh, damn. So I got to ask that question, it's probably you.

You're right, man. And I'm just like, what that? Like, I'm the most junior guy here, and I'm the fall guy. Yeah, that's how it works. It's not a complaint, but it just shows how our bureaucracy works. Oh, all the people that should be responsible created entire architecture so they're not responsible. Right, right, yeah.

I was wondering if you could tell us about the day of the Baghdaddy raid and you said that in the book that you had to develop your own sources of information because bureaucrats try to hide things from one another it's like a turf battle CIA and uh the joint special operations command had compartmented that and decided that uh you know it's the right answer in terms of compartmentation and not having a lot of access but i'm the advisor to the president and they cut me out right and let me tell you what that kind of asked you up Oh, just a little bit. Yeah.

And they didn't know because, you know, we had our own network of friends, coworkers, buddies that we knew that were reporting out to us real time what's going on. So I wasn't quote unquote on the bigot list and read on to the operation, but I knew exactly what was going on. And so it's a Saturday afternoon. I'm at home. And my buddy calls, goes, hey, it's on. It's like, thanks, click.

Drive into the White House, go to the Situation Room. There's General Millie, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He's got two comms guys. Can you imagine? They're trying to get the predator feed, the ISR feeds. You know how that is. They're like, dang, that's like a real work.

So they're frantically like, oh my gosh, the feed's not working. It's really fun to watch them work. And I'm sitting, I just sat down at the head table, man. Invited yourself? I invited myself. And the National Security Advisor, Robert O'Brien, comes in. What are you doing here, Chris? It's like, boss, come on.

And was there for that operation, which was absolutely, like, you know, it was the most unbelievable special operations mission. And it bothers me because it went so flawlessly. But remember, you know what's funny? Like for the Bin Laden hit, they had a specialty trained task force. Think about Sante in Vietnam, where they had a specially trained task force. Think about Desert, the Iranian Hastage Rescue, where they had a specially trained unit. You know what they did this time?

Like, hey, we got commandos in theater. Just let them do it. I thought, didn't they bring in Delta Squadron for that? Did they? I believe. I thought they used... I thought they used in country forces. There were guys in country also involved, sure.

Well, that's a good question. But it was just like another day at the office for those cats. They knew what they were doing. Yeah. And it just went like flawlessly. How do you feel about, you know, you say that like Millie was, you know, he was the dude at the time. But obviously he wasn't on the ground for planning. And a lot of these generals have been the benefactors of success underneath because of the people conducting the operations.

But they do get the credit, right? They get the credit for whatever happens underneath them when it goes really right. Do you feel as though they're deserving? You're triggering me, Dave. What did I do wrong? You're right here with label off here. Oh, man, I'm sorry. I'm such a neophyte.

i'm not thank god i'm learning again for you're at the team house yeah you're triggering me because you know is a commander you're responsible for everything that does or doesn't happen right right when you're in charge yeah and so props to them if it goes well but then you know we have tragedies happen or failures happen and they're like not here so that's like that's the incongruity that that there's the purpose of my book that yeah yeah that's the purpose of my book that yeah yeah that That bothers me with especially Congress when they play the like, new phone, who this? Yeah. It's like, well, hold on a second, buddy.

You were ready to. But yeah, we talk about Afghanistan and not a single, like, general level officer has been held accountable for 20 years of war with no real role. We lost. And nobody's been held. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's wrong with somebody stepping forward and saying, and I own it, man.

Like, like a company commander will get relieved because of drunk driving. accident the one that private Joe Snuffy had over the weekend but once you get to that general level right like it's almost like you're immune to bugs that's poor person my book yeah accountability yeah that's the way we were raised yeah why does it change if you become a four-star general yeah and that's i think that's the inconsistency that you know what was that thing do as i say not as i do yeah you're at that's bullshit that's not the way we were raised right yeah so like Come on, man. Yeah, those are your boys.

You take responsibility for it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Where are you, Jack? You're going the middle route on this? On what? The war?

Accountability. No, no. Jack, Jack, Orel against, like, the officer class in general. Right. I don't know. I have multiple rants. Yeah. Prepared at any given moment.

But it really is. You're ready to go home. You just want to wrap this. No, I don't. I have, I just have you, man. I just have my bullet points to get through. Okay, yeah, go ahead, man. So the president,

into the situation room for the raid what what happens he was golfing and they were using that as like nothing to see here right so he just kept to his schedule and he rolled in the vice president was there at the start like like I think they went wheels up six six 30 p.m. Washington DC time was when the assault force went wheels up from the launch site in north whatever Syria. The vice president was there at the time. And I think I tell you in the book, you know, I didn't know the vice president from Adam.

And I'd read like Rolling Stone articles about him and all this. Like he's bad shit, you know, I mean, honestly. And he came in and it was really interesting. he has I think his son-in-law is in the service he knows about the service and he

asked if we could he could say a prayer and I got to tell you kind of rolled my eyes like oh man you know and he gave a blessing about you know the families

like pray for success it was just the most appropriate thing, you know? It was like perfect timing and so appropriate. And I really, you know, changed my mind a great deal about the vice president at that point. And he, so he was there. We go wheels up. We, I mean, I'm not doing anything. I'm sitting in a conference room for heaven's sakes. I mean, like, we, but isn't that cool, though, like, you know, America, you know. Yeah. That's why I say we. I had no skin in the game, right? And I can't remember how many aircraft went in the air at that point.

And remember in the desert, the enemy, the Syrians and the Russian radar, this is not rocket science to see that a major American effort is underway. And General Millie off the cuff says, like, well, this guy. be the start of World War III. And I was like, I was like, and then I kind of was like, you know, I'm kind of like a jocular guy. Try to keep it light. But that got, that was, I thought about it.

I was like, yeah. I mean, if they shoot down our aircraft, like, it's going to be bad. Yeah, yeah. And salt force is going towards the border. And we're just, I mean, you know, holding your breath, you know, you hear that. I don't know if I was holding my breath.

still breathing but it was really like really tense how does this go down yeah and then they see the Syrian and Russian radar they can you know they stopped tracking they stopped tracking and you can you know they're like and then there was a the Russians had uh I think a big 29 or something up doing combat air patrol and um over the flight path and that plane shot did you guys have at any point like on the red line with the russians i wasn't tracking anything i don't think we just lead roy jenkins in there and hoped for the best i do not think i do not think that anyone

contacted the russians prior and said or even during like hey no we're not during i know that yeah and so when then that mig 29 shot south going down on top uh the garrison in the south, freeing up the airspace. And it was like, it was like, okay, game on. Was that, I mean, was that plan? Was that part of a, like, known sort of, like, patrol scheduling? Or? I didn't, I didn't think so.

I'd be interesting to find somebody that was on the ground that was battle track and what they would say. I don't know. Yeah. So the boys go in there. I think it's been pretty well reported like the actions on the objective. Dave, they did a callout.

So the president now is there. In president, it's like, what's going on? And you know how when you're seeing the ISR feed, it's all grainy and crap. You know, it's not like Mission Impossible where it's, you know, it's color enhanced. And you're like, what's going on? You see puffs and they're like, hey, sir,

they're shooting at the aircraft. Oh, they are. president's asking good questions. I had never seen the president in his commander-in-chief role before. I'd been in meetings with him, but that's different than in the commander-in-chief role, right? And he's asking good questions, and he's, you know, he's a businessman, so he doesn't, things that are obvious to us, like, oh, yeah, ISR is looking at the village because there could be a quick reaction force coming out of there. He doesn't know that.

Like, why are they looking at that village? and Millie and his assistant had in special operations, Marcus Evans would inform the president. And they land and they put in that cord on and they did the call out. And just like you described, all the women and children come out like 20, 25 of them. And the guys in the ground are like, who's in there? They're like Baghdaddy's in there and he's got a suicide test on. And he's got three of his wives.

are in there and it's like okay here we go and they do the call out pull the children out and then they send in I think they send in the robot and they're like oh yeah his ass is in there he's barricaded in the back they're women then it's like back to the basics like somebody's got to go in there and salt force went through and killed them uh and there's this interesting anecdote you have in the story that the first lady comes into the situation or you tell us about her comments yeah so that was a little disconcerting obviously the first lady comes in and uh marcus evans who was running special operations at the pentagon i don't know where he is now he's like some senior general i don't know where he is uh marcus had done probably hundreds if not

a thousand raids in his career he's a ranger and had been in the business from the start And he had given overview briefings to the vice president, the president, insanely professional, right? Like insanely professional. First lady comes in there. And like General Evans, please and brief the first lady. And poor Marcus just got tongue tied. I don't know why. And he just could.

He was stumbling. And finally it was like, Thank you very much, General Evans. They just saved him. It was just hilarious, you know. And I go on and tell you, I had, that was the first time I, I'd probably seen her, but I'd never really seen her in action. People I get made fun of like, oh, my gosh, you're such a fan.

She asked really good questions, and she helped with how the rollout would go to the public announcement. very professional way. She had kind of a, I mean, I know it's also controversial, but I mean, she did have sort of an effective PR idea in her mind about using the working dog. Oh, yeah. To roll out this big raid saying, people love dogs. Well, let's get the dog. Hey, it was legit.

Made sense. I mean, it was effective. I can't, I can't argue against that. I mean, people went crazy about that dog for like several new. cycles. That dog was a bane of my existence, man. Why? Because as soon as they're like, the dog, the working dog went in.

After they blew up, you know, they fragged the thing. What's his face? Baghdaddy blows himself up. That's good. And so, you know, you've been in those buildings where all the electrical wires are hanging and there's water and everything and the dog got electrocuted oh really i don't know that no i didn't yeah so the casualty report comes in one assaulter had stepped on a nail uh and then the dog was had its bell wrong because it got electrocuted and they're like dog electrocuted and yeah they were like

this is a story the american people should hear and they're like get the dog back they turn to me I'm like, oh man, why me? Yeah. And the president was like, I want that dog's ass here now. And you know, so you send out like, hey, can you tell us about the dog? Dog does not want her. The dog has returned to duty. I forgot the name of the dog.

Conan. Conan has returned to duty and prefers to stay with his element. Yeah. And you're kind of like, I know, I know. Can you get the dog back? Conan would feel like he's AWOL

Yeah Finally you're like Get the dog back I remember hearing from the J-Soc guys at the time that they're a little pissed about all that I knew they were too Well that's that weird It's because the dog is socialized with the And the dog

Yeah and I was going to say like The the Belmonts or whatever They're not socialized They are working Like they're attack dogs Yeah they're not like pet they're they're not it's not like last see right that you can

parade out and say hey is timmy in the well and you know like like they're working dogs they want to be working and they're only comfortable with the people they know I totally felt like I was the guy that I used to make fun of from higher headquarters making the same ideas coming up

with stupid ideas I completely got the irony up yeah and then you're kind of you're trying to rationalize it remember World War II where they would bring people back for public relations efforts, you know. You're like, finally get the door back.

So I knew it was going to, I knew the guys in the field were just yeah. So 2020, Mark Esper's on his way out. Chris Miller's in. How did that transition happen? How do I answer that? It was a total twist on.

So Secretary Esper had lost, you know, it was the worst kept secret in Washington, D.C. that Esper was on the outs with the president, right? The election happens. The president's defeated. There was talk all through the summer that the president was going to clean house. And Esper was Target 1. You know, everybody knew it. There were only three of us, like, to take on a cabinet position like that constitutionally and legally, you have to be presidentially, you have to be in a position that's presidentially appointed Senate confirmed, meaning you have to go to the Senate and get wire brushed by them, and then you're selected for

a cabinet position. I had done that because I was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center that was the Senate confirmed position. So that's a very, it's a relatively low cap, it's not a cabinet position. It's a relatively lower position. It's like, I think, Protocol-wise, it's like an undersecretary of a cabinet. There were only three of us that had any military background that were eligible to be the Secretary of Defense, the acting Secretary of Defense. And I was one of them just because I was Senate confirmed.

I do not know how the decision process went, but when they decided, when the president decided to fire Mark Esper, I get a call. Well, real quick, I was at the National Counterterrorism Center. We were going after Al-Qaeda. I had this crazy idea of defeating Al-Qaeda. Has that bad yet? Has anyone ever thought of that in D.C. before?

Has anyone come up with this notion? It didn't seem like it because when I floated it, everybody's like, you, that's crazy. It's like, no, we're here to win. and I did my mission analysis and my net assessment and determined that based on talking to young analysts and some old analysts that had been following this a while said what's the status of Al-Qaeda?

They said, there's seven senior leaders left. So what happens if we kill all seven? They're like Al-Qaeda will be adrift and will be defeated. I was like, thank you. So I take that to the senior leadership and they're like, that's crazy, you're stupid. You can't defeat terrorism. I said, we're not going to defeat terrorism.

That's a verb. But this group will be defunct. We're going to defeat al-Qaeda now. Oh, I said defeat, been in the military. Can be a temporary state, but the enemy can no longer impose their will on you. Right. So that was the big idea. And so I'm at the National Counterterrorism Center thinking that I can get some work done on that.

When the phone rings, when COVID is set in, like nobody's at work, except me. and I get to work early and it was I was it was like I thought I'd be able to transition administrations because you never fire the head of the National Counterterrorism Center because if something bad happens you know I was like I can get a couple more months I can get a second retirement this is going to work great I decided that day that we were going to transition the national counterterrorism center into a more collegial modern environment because you got a lot of young people there I said we're going to go to business casual, which is a big deal in Washington, D.C. You don't have to wear a tie anymore. So I show up. I'm going to lead by example. I'm wearing khakis, open-collared shirt. Fortunately, I threw a blue blazer in my wife's car, which is sitting out here right now, probably on blocks.

Right. Maybe. Maybe. It's Brooklyn. Hopefully. And the phone rings that morning. I think it was, I forgot the day, January night. And the phone rings, because the election's over. They haven't fired S for. I'm like, great. Not going to be any major changes. The phone rings, and it rings and rings and rings.

Finally, I realized somebody answers. You know, the cleaning crew answers. They're like, Chris Miller. There's a call from the White House. Pick up the phone. I'm like, Chris Miller, like, get to the White House right now. I was like, no. They're like, yes.

It's happening. And I'm wearing khakis, an open-collared shirt. I don't have a tie. I borrow a tie. I'm wearing crappy shoes because I can't afford good clothes because I'm a government employee. I'm like, there's one thing I know about President Trump. He pays attention to how you're dressed. Go park.

Go into the office next to the Oval Office, and the head of presidential personnel is there and they obviously are going to ask you like you're not going to go see the president if you're going to turn the job down it's like hey you know president's going to ask you to be the replace esper you're going to do it how do you respond i guess so how were we raised rather yeah how were we raised like you serve this is the thing that kills me man if i could just go political for a minute i served in uniform i served as a government and employee for 34 years. I served whatever president.

Left, right, in between, don't give a shit. You know, it didn't matter because we're, you just served the president. So when the president asked you to do something, the way I was raised is you do it, right? Go in there, president comes in. I'm sitting there trying to hide my crappy shoes.

I'm wearing a borrowed tie. Uh, wearing, you know, tattered khakis. And the president goes, I'm going to, uh, getting red ass for your next man up and I said, Roger, that's right. He goes, okay, get to work.

Just like that. Yep. And my world change. My life changed. My family's life change and all that stuff. Right. And you're getting read into nuclear codes and all kinds of insane shit. Yeah.

Yeah. How long did the process of getting read into everything going on? How long did that take? The biggest mistake I made was not getting rid into UFOs, but I'll but I should like literally like we would have you back like tomorrow and I had you in right into UFOs I know what was I thinking

I had a lot going on so you literally wanted to be respectful to Secretary Esper my my guy that was helping me called in and said hey we have the acting secretary ready to show up

when should he show up I don't think they knew that he was that Esper was on his way out they're like we don't know what's going on can you show up in 90 minutes we're like absolutely so we pull in and normally into that parking area you know they shoot anybody that gets within like 20 feet pull in and they're like wave us in and I get out at that entrance to the Pentagon and start walking stumbled which was hilarious, which was caught on tape, which was very, you know, iconic. Well, at least it wasn't when you're doing your E&E.

I know. Dubai, though. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, having the... Better in front of the Pentagon. Having the Pentagon police shooting over my head.

That would have been one for the ages. You go in, take an elevator up, and you're in the secretary's outer office and you walk in there. I'd been in there once on a visit. you know my buddy was the military assistant he let us walk around one time but now you're like well it's my new office and immediately uh the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is there with a two or three star general and they're like come with us and i know what's happening you know like i've watched enough movies i mean i'm like oh i got this they take you back to the like secure

briefing room they've got stacks of books and stuff and And they're like, Mr. Secretary, at this time we're going to brief you on, you know, operation, you know, whatever. And nuclear code stuff. And I was like, yeah. Not to get any details. Yeah. But were you briefed on anything that just like blew your mind that was just so eye-opening? No.

No. No. There was one thing, a weapon system that I thought we had more further developed. and I asked about that and they're like oh no we stopped doing that like 10 years ago I was like I thought that was a deception plan you mean we don't have this shit ready to go that was like oh

damn yeah there's times where you realize we're a little bit further back than you thought we may have been yeah they're like yeah but nothing that was like that's why I should have got the UFO briefing yeah totally should you could have built a little cottage career off of that that's how it works I know

didn't do it man I don't know I had too much on my mind yeah I understand Yeah, there's a lot happening at that moment right there. Yeah, right. It's busy time. So now you are acting Secretary of Defense. You're in charge of the machine in some ways you've become the person that you never wanted to be. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but you were not groomed for that position. No, I wasn't. People like I'm not, people like me are never supposed to be in that position. Right, right, yeah. But you were there. And you were kind of a, I mean, from the outside looking in, of an unconventional secretary of defense yeah like actually say what's on your mind as you made statements like talk like this and not saying anything you made some statements to the press

that were pretty blunt and candid and you those are my favorite ones where they said the acting secretary of defense is all out of f blank blank c ux yeah i thought that was i thought that was my favorite interview yeah and what did i you know your wife had consternations about you in this in this position Right. Oh, unbelievably so, right. Yeah, my wife is like, the only thing we have is our reputation. And, you know, you're putting all that at risk. Yeah. And that's kind of like, that's kind of like, oh, damn. Because I was raised with father, public servant, we serve. That's what we do. That's what our family does. That's our family brand. And, yeah, that was the only time. So I, between, I leave the white, house and I know I have to put on a suit. So I scream home and I don't think I've ever been home during the duty day at my house ever. And I, you know, fling open the door and kind of like fall into

the house. I was like, I got to take a shower and put on a suit. And my wife's sitting there. And my daughter is working from home that day. And they just look at me and they're like, no. They're like, it's tell us. Because I'd give them a heads up. Like some things could happen here. I just got to reach on. And it was a moment in the house where it was getting out of control. It was like you feel like you're in over your head.

Your family's in over their head. I didn't feel like I was in over my head. No, I didn't. So what's going on with your family? What are they feeling? They know that their lives are going to change dramatically. I'm working for a very polarizing. Polarizing figure that they don't support, just to be perfectly clear.

And now, you know, our entire lives are about to change because I've accepted this job. And it was the only time where I'd like raised my voice because it was getting out of control. I felt like I was back in the team house. A little shout out. We got to do an ad? Oh, no. You know, we're good. We got a bad.

And then I just said, I said, stop. Raise my voice. I said, our family we serve. It doesn't matter who. Like, this is what we do. And I couldn't believe it because I thought I'd get heckled and have stuff thrown at me. And I cognitively disassociated them long enough for them to go, okay. And I brought that down.

But yeah, it was because your whole life. changes man like like got you're the microscope and also your your your your your clap that like security shows up and locks down your house yeah and you can't go anywhere anymore yeah all of a sudden I live in a middle class housing area yeah and they shut down the whole neighborhood the neighbors love it they're like this is the coolest thing that's happened in like ever since we've been in the development yeah but you know like you know it's not going to be a pretty 73 days ranger school yeah god this.

I got this. And the thing is like, I understand when your families come from from the point of, like, President Trump was so vilified by certain elements that anybody who worked for him. Yeah. Was essentially put on a list of this person is a traitor of the country where you, like you say, you still have to serve. Like the president of the United States is still the president. and you're serving the United States

regards what you know people of any political spectrum believe Dave Coveller me stupid that's the way I was raised I know and I understand how you got in that position but you are now a civilian political appointee of the entire defense department like it's not it's not an apolitical position that you're in right oh yeah totally good I'm with you Jack

I'm with you you're now in the political arena I got that. But, you know, I think you were kind of hinting at, I was like, I'm not just going to call this one in. Right. I would be in a... You wanted to do your 80 days at least there. Because I'd be a fraud otherwise. Right.

You got to do your job. Because I was now representing all the people that were without a voice that were always complaining about, like, how higher headquarters doesn't understand. I'm the guy now, right? Right. And so actually had a few things we wanted to get done. and I completely supported the president. I went back that night. He goes, come back tonight, and I'll give you your marching orders.

And I go in there thinking I'm going to get all these orders. He goes, you know, get us out of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. And I was completely in accordance with that. I was like, Roger, that's her. Pretty good guidance. Mulholland gives me, like, get us in the war. President says, get us out of these wars. And I'm like, and I talked to so many of our generation that had served,

and I was really, really concerned about families that had lost loved ones. Yeah. And I was really concerned about how that was going to go. But I'll tell you what, across the board of all the people I talk to, they're like time, time to wind it down. Right. So I was very comfortable. You know, it almost feels like, I mean, you probably,

I don't know if you guys ever seen the movie, Dave, but, you know, about it. But that's what it is, right? You weren't groomed. You didn't grow up through, like, the pipeline to lead you to that position. You weren't grooming for it. And so you're not playing to that tune that you're somebody coming in with real-world experience who is saying these are the real-world issues.

These are my marching orders. This is what the families you're going through. This is what the troops are going through. You're not removed from it. And I feel as though in those type of high-level positions, we need people like you. We need people like you. Been on the ground.

Who've been on the ground. And not just on the ground like sitting in a jock, like making the decisions, but on the ground and understanding what the troops are going through and what the reality of the situation is. I felt strongly the same way. When you walk down that hallway

and you see all the portraits of the previous secretary's defense, I'm not one of them because I'm acting, but Chuck Higgins. Hegel served in Vietnam as a combat infantryman. I think Esper has a combat infantry badge from Desert Storm, but I think he was in the headquarters assignment. So I really felt like I was representing our generation that had actually fought in the G-W.

Right. I took that seriously. I really did. So during your time in Secretary of Defense, I mean, those 80 days, I mean, a lot happened, a lot transpired. Can you tell us a little bit about, the Nigeria hostage rescue operation that SEAL Team 6 did

yeah I wasn't sec death then I was at the National Counterterrorism Center oh really yeah hey I know we got to move on that was the most frustrating if you're an American and you're jammed up

and you have a blue passport I don't know man I was raised that we're going to come get you and that was one of the most frustrating things for me was and we learned a lesson there was a guy named geoffrey woodke who fortunately was recovered recently he'd been held hostage by al-Qaeda in africa and molly for years and years and years and the lesson we learned on that one was you got to move fast because when he was taken hostage and he was being moved through the network once he once you're once you're in the heart of

darkness, like it's going to be a long, long time. So when the kid got taken hostage by what appeared to be a criminal element, and we had good intel on them because they hunker down, but the way this works is we knew that he was going to get sold to Al Qaeda. So, you know, we created this thing called J-Soc specifically for what, this hostage rescue, right? And, you know, you always have an element that's on call to go any place in the world. We're like, this is what we created J-Soc for. Let's go. And there was some political resistance to that operation.

But a gentleman, Cash Patel, pushed it to the president and bypassed a lot of the bureaucracy. And what did the president say? He's like, American, yeah, let's go get him if you can get him. That was a heck of an operation. Like that one, you know, we talked about Baghdadi, but that one, like, that is the most amazing display of American military capability where they flew by C-17s and then they landed and they got on CV-20, MV-22 Osprey and flew into the absolute edge of the universe for all practical purposes. Have you ever seen the videos? No, I haven't. The seals free falling in.

The seals free falled in. And retrolled in. Yeah. And yeah, it was amazing. And that's what I thought we spent all our money on that type of operation. Yeah, that's what we have them for, right? Not to derail the bullet points, but like, how do you feel as though like we're handling like the Sudan situation? Like, there are a lot of Americans left in Sudan right now, right?

You know what upsets me about that? This, like, well, you know. They're dual citizens. So they're not really American citizens. No, if you have a blue passport, if you're a U.S. persons legally, we have a, I think we have a, oops, sorry, we have a responsibility to go do that. And that's, I personally am, I see Afghanistan happening all over again. And I see this constant, like, triangulation.

Well, we're going to give ISR. Risk mitigation. And you know what? I don't know where the American public is, but, you know, I'm fine going in and locking that place down for 48 hours and doing a massive non-combatant evacuation operation. I'm good with that. So to get into the stuff that, you know, is probably the most controversial in your book is the 6th January stuff. Never heard of it. Which is about 10 pages in your book.

It's not the bulk of your career. But it's in there. And to start off that, I'd like to hear you lay out in your book what you feel is the appropriate use of the Department of Defense, Conis. You lay out a little bit and what's the appropriate use of the military. And you want to talk about like either legally or philosophically. And Conis is continental to the United States in the country. Legally or philosophically, your views on that. Part of the book was the realization that so much of the American public were so blessed that only 7% of our population are veterans, right?

That's a great problem to have. But with that goes a lack of familiarity with a lot of the American public about the correct use of their military. And my takeaway from the use of the United States military domestically in the continental United States for domestic law enforcement is the United States should only be used as a last resort. That means that civil order has completely broken down. That's what we have police in this country. We have emergency management. And here's the ish. Every time United States military, well, I shouldn't say every time.

But the vast majority of the time, the United States military, when used for domestic law enforcement, let's use Vietnam as example, where the U.S. military started to get involved in domestic intelligence. They started running because they were worried about riots and whatnot. They started to collect the first database, computer database, was created by the United States military at Fort Richie, Baltimore. And we do not know how many files of American citizens were in this database of potential threats. That is not the role of the military. That's not what people join the military for. It's a recipe for doggone wholesale violations of American civil liberties. So that's the point I was trying to make.

My going in position was we will provide National Guard, I'm a huge fan of, will provide any support requested by the governor. In this case, it's the mayor of Washington, D.C. That's exactly what we did. And people, there's this narrative that, you know, the military, the National Guard was slow to respond and all this stuff and I felt guilty

at first but as I've looked back on it I am so glad that we did not have American servicemen out there in the Capitol fighting their fellow citizens that's what the police are for

it's what the police are for there was a conversation call me out come on Jack no no I'm a I'm going to ask you about what you wrote about in your book, that you had a conversation with President Trump, like maybe a week or two prior to it. And you said the mayor of D.C. is requested like 240 people. We're going to give what's been requested. And the president looked back at you and said, you're going to need 10,000.

He did say that. Why do you think he said that? I don't know. I think it was based on his experience in June or July. with the Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrations, where the number that came up then was we need 10,000 military people in the city. And there were moves to do, though. The 82nd Airborne came down at Belvoir.

That was a dicey proposition as you talked about. So, you know, people ask me that all the time. Why did he say that? I don't know. You'd have to ask him. I, you know, had my right. red lines in place. And I was, if, I'll tell you what,

if Mayor Bowser had to ask for 10,000 troops, I would have fulfilled the National Guard. Yeah, National Guard, right? That's what, that's what we have in the National Guard for. Right, right. Gladly. But remember, you know, there was this whole thing about the federal law enforcement

and federal troops are really, really heavy-handed. Remember how the D.C. National Guard flew helicopters over the crowds. There was just a lawsuit about that that got settled. I was like, we're not doing that again. Right. There were, in fairness, there were a lot of questions about, I mean, I think you and I, we would have very real, like, legal and constitutional questions, but even in the press, there's a lot of questions about, quote, unquote, optics and how that

looks. I never thought about the optics, but I know that comes up often. Right, right. I wasn't worried about the optics I was worried about was to make sure the Constitution was abided by and that we weren't. in a position where we're going to violate people's civil liberties and the use of the military and domestic law enforcement as i said and i will say it to my dying breath and i hope people listen and understand this that's not the correct use of the military right we have police for right

now when civil society breaks down absolute right like that's what we have hurricane katrina as an example right that's not domestic law enforcement so much that's support to civil authorities. But yeah, they had law enforcement purposes there. But that's a great example. That's an example where New Orleans is completely bereft of all civil functions. That's the role of the military at that point. Wholeheartedly agree. Then people go, well, hey, don't you think civil society broke down on Capitol Hill that day? I'm like, yeah, but there were 10,000 cops on the street that day. 10,000, as you guys know, is a light infantry division. We used the light infantry division to overthrow Manuel Noriega in Panama. Like, that's a lot of combat power. The fact that

they weren't at the right place, now that's a different issue that needs to be resolved. I don't think it's been successfully, like, determined. Right. And so the day of, you talk about, you pack your overnight bag when you go to work. Like, you had some inkling in the back of your and not like this is going to be a long day yeah you know how we are we can sense the potential yeah I didn't I woke I was shocked when I saw that happen oh yeah yeah well I mean uh you could tell that the intel reports kept changing from domestic law enforcement they're going to be 3,000 they finally said they're going to be 32,000 38 I can't remember demonstrators and that that unknown like you know when the intel keeps changing you're like we don't really know what's happening

yeah so that kind of was like all right uh this could be a long day so talk us through what what did happen that day from your perspective uh at the end of the day no offense to the law enforcement but they got their ass handed to them that day and they weren't positioned correctly and they had a leadership failure and how to respond i don't you know uh And like the people that were out in the front lines, I'm not criticizing them, but it seems very clear to me that their leadership did not properly prepare for what could have happened that day. And, you know, we're the military, right? And we're involved in some of the coordination that's going on. And the police had pretty much kind of like we got this.

like, hey, military people, we're doing... So, units on your left and right in the military, you kind of have to trust that the units on the left and right are going to do their job. When we were in the military, you don't go to the unit on your left to say, I don't trust you. Right. There's an expectation.

I don't think you're, like, reading this, you know, intelligence. Yeah. And General Millie, on one of the calls, because we had templated all the demonstration locations, because you have to put in a request to get approval. And one of the demonstration sites was on Capitol Hill. And General Millie, to his credit, goes, are you sure, like, you really want protesters that close to the Capitol?

And we got this very kind of, like, brusque, like, you knuckle-draggers don't understand freedom of speech. And Millie just straight up goes, You should cancel that permit. We can't do that. And Bowser was ultimately in charge of those permits? No, I think the Interior Department is because it's federal property. Okay.

That's where it gets really weird, right? The D.C. police are responsible for, like, the streets. Anything else is, like, Interior Department. Capitol Hill Police has a certain perimeter. And then federal law enforcement controls federal buildings out to the sidewalk. I mean, it gets really. Yeah. And just something I would point out that, and I mean no disrespect to the Capitol Police, but after all of this, our politicians like lauded them as like our heroes and this and that. Prior to this, the Capitol Police were treated like rent-a-cops. I mean, they were treated like trash. They were underfunded. They were under-trained. They were not prepared for what we saw that day. And, you know, that's a failure, not necessarily on the police, but at least on the leadership side. The Capitol Police are just people trying to do their cops on this.

Yeah, they were just, you know, we were told, we were told about the, the, the, the barricades around. And, you know, here's where, like, I'm thinking, okay, barricades, that's a good idea. They've got the fence lines in. No, they were doggone bike racks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, oh, man. Yeah, yeah. So as things transpire, things really start to go sideways that day.

you talk about some of the phone calls that you start fielding from and actually I wanted to ask you about this because you're on the phone with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. I am. And how does that work? Because as Secretary of Defense, as I understand it, you work for the commander in chief.

Not Congress. Thank you for bringing that up, Jack. And that's something that matters. Obviously, I'm going to take any call from an elected official that's how it works. As a matter of diligence.

Yeah. And so what upsets me right now, and I think history will prove me right, the one six committee did their work, and they put together kind of this highlight reel. And they have Speaker Pelosi and Schumer and all those people, you know, making this call to someone at the Department of Federal. It's me. Right. I'm the one that's on the phone.

I listen to it. Yeah. And here's my point. And I start the book, you know, with provocative statement about the, on that video that they show, where you kind of see them, like, relaxed and all. Yes. I think that, I don't think that was the first call. I think they've cut and pasted in the second call.

I think when historians actually look at that newsreel or that whole thing, and timestamp it. And if I'm wrong, I will gladly say I was wrong and I misinterpreted. But the first call I got was it was a very impassioned, desperate phone call from that. You describe it as like they're going nuclear, like they're panicked. That is the way. Well, when I watched the video, it did not look panicked. That's why.

You're saying there's something we haven't seen that. There were three calls. And that's why, and I'm not a conspiracist or anything, but Nancy Pelosi. his daughter was filming that. We didn't know that at the time. I thought that was kind of weird that, you know, you can tape phone calls of other people. And they're like, yes, there's one party consent. I'm like, what?

Because we're just trying to do our job that day, right? And I didn't realize that everything, I wouldn't have changed anything, by the way. Like, this isn't like, oh, I wish I wouldn't have said that. Right. But that, to me, kind of bothered me in some ways that this was being videotaped and recorded when we're in like one of a really serious crisis right now and someone thought it was appropriate for what and maybe that's just how politicians work well i don't know because her daughter is a documentary maker and she just happened to be there filming that time like it it

again not to be a conspiracy theorist but it also is like why is this being filmed well i'm not surprised that it's filmed. I mean, considering what's happening that. What I would, but what I would like to see is the entire sequence. So that you, like that call, was that the first call or the second? So you're saying your, your assertion is that there's something we haven't seen yet. Yeah. That's my assertion.

And I might be wrong, but that's not the way I remembered. I remember that first phone call versus the one six highlight reel at the very end. where they show a call and I'm like I think the timestamps wrong on that. That was the second call where each call, rightfully so. And hey, I'm not, I want to be clear, man. I'm not disparaging them. They're going through the most difficult, traumatic event that many of them have ever. I would not fault people for being in a panicked state perhaps.

Same. But I do want to see all the footage. That's all I'm asking. I would want to see what else is out there, yes. That's all I'm asking, because the way it's portrayed in that video is this very heroic controlled thing. And that's not the way I remember the initial call at whatever time it was that I refer to at the start of the book. What was that initial call? They were asking you for more military support?

Was that the nature of it? No, it was more like what's going on help, help, help. And I'm all about helping. final point I'll be on I sound pedantic I know but here's something

that people have to understand you know from high school civics legislative branch Capitol Hill they own that executive branch Department of Defense

federal law enforcement you do not go onto property that is controlled by the legislative branch without being requested to do something different than that is called a military coup yeah and I say

this again and again if I would have sent troops up there that morning what what do you think would have without a formal request right what they would have said a coup starting right right right they would have arrested you yeah and rightfully so right and actually rightfully so yeah right right so then well this is this sounds really bureaucratic like you were slow rolling no you don't send federal troops from the executive branch to Capitol Hill, the legislative branch, without some sort of, you know, formal request. And I'm not saying like it has to be intreplicate,

you know, we need it signed by everybody, but this has to be a thoughtful thing. Right. And so all these frantic calls are coming in. Like, we need help, we need help. What do you need? What do you need? What do you need? We finally get that kind of, I forgot the time, about 230, 2.30, 245. Finally, there's a consensus on, okay, this is what we need. Legislative branch is asked. That request is processed through the joint staff, the uniform side, is brought to me at

3 o'clock, 1,500. So it took about 20 minutes to get everything, you know, the get everything packaged, package, but get everything formalized. The request is brought to me at 3 p.m. at 304, the order goes out from me to mobilize the National Guard additionally and have all D.C. National Guard moved to the Capitol to support local law enforcement.

So there's also that narrative like, oh, you slow-rolled this. Miller didn't know what he was doing. I don't care, you know, but the facts don't hold up. Why are you responsible for the National Guard, how come Bowser isn't responsible for the National Guard? Because in D.C., unlike

the state, because D.C. is not a state, the mayor, the person that's responsible for the District of Columbia National Guard is the President, because it's not a state. I see. The President delegates responsibility and authority to the

Secretary of Defense. That's why I'm in the chain. I further delegate down to the Secretary of the Army. The Secretary of Army is essentially, the approval authority, if you will, for National Guard utilization in the district. So Bowser can't just activate the National Guard then in D.C. Legally, she can't. Okay.

Do we have questions for Chris? And Chris, we'll put you up somewhere here tonight because it's too late. We've kept you way too late. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry, man. I've talked too much. Don't be sorry. I was the one that kept you here and wanted to go through all of this because I think it's super important.

And it's a very interesting book. So thanks. Thanks for having me. You guys are, it's history, man. It is. And it's fascinating stuff. Speaking of which, buy this book. If you don't buy this book, you're dead to us forever. Soldier's secretary by the eminent Christopher Miller. Let's see, super.

What do the folks have for Chris? Let's see. Give me all the angry ones. I love those. I love the angry ones. All right. Artemis, 2002 U.S., thank you very much. I like Secretary Miller's willingness to tell power what it needs to hear, not what it wants to hear.

Artemis, isn't that the way we were trained? Like, how can you change? Like, wouldn't that be the ultimate in, like, moral corruption if all of a sudden the way we were raised? you just change it because now you're like well man I mean if you tell the truth then you know your story doesn't you don't have to worry about getting your story straight it's always going to stay the same if it's true I haven't changed my story yeah but I'm willing to change if I've learned something new sure Nick T-Case thank you much oh my question is for Jack yeah yeah I noticed you were on frontline a few months ago

how was the experience and is there a place to watch the full interview it was good I I mean, it was on Frontline, so you can watch it on PBS. Is it really? It's a great show, man. I was happy with how it came out. I mean, it was about General Flynn. I don't know General Flynn. I don't know anything about him, but I was on there to speak about, you know,

the sort of Iraq experience and what came out of that. So I was happy with it. Don't you think Frontline, I think that's one of the most credible long form? They're very good. That's why podcasts are great, where I, is. as opposed to where you get your it's not sound bites right no i did this one like i do some of these things i don't do them anymore where you know they'll interview for four hours and then they use like 30 seconds yeah no this is back to one this is all going out one six i'm i'm like six eight hours

you know get in question and what do they use like 35 seconds yeah that's that's pretty easy the cherry pick all the stupid stuff i said yeah yeah um brad oreck thank you very much where do you see as stuff going doing in the situation with Chinese globally moving forward and the SMU you're a part of easy I just wish our special operations leadership would go to the policymakers and the joint staff and go let us handle all the periphery we'll handle Africa we're going to compete in Africa we're going to competing Latin America. You guys worry about like...

Tai Shinshang. You know what I'm saying? We'll do all that stuff. You guys just focus on the Taiwan Strait. You guys just focus on like aircraft carriers at 35s. You're good at that. Let us...

They don't want to do it. That was what we did in the Cold War. We competed everywhere else around the world. And that's what I was going to ask. Not asking you to be a prognisticator, prognostition, whatever it is. But do you see us entering a situation similar to the Cold War with China, where it's proxy competition on a global sort of scale?

I wish we would compete. Yeah, proxies to a point, but I think we can compete economically. And I think green berets and special operators need to have another couple weeks of the Q course, maybe some specialized training where they learn, a little bit more because you know the guys I talk to men and women in the field right now all go wow I'm in Africa and if I had 10,000 dollars to distribute in microloans I could completely clean house on this Chinese company that's setting up here right now and finally we got to go back to the office of strategic services let's go ahead and create a new organization that has that people can

come into, get direct commission or become an E6 or E7 right off the bat that have specialty skills in cyber, in economics, in information operations, and all those things, and let them kind of get after it that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. KGM, thank you very much. Tell us what Wild Experience story as SACDF do you absolutely cannot tell us, but hypothetically speaking, heard about this part will be edited it out, of course. And it probably won't be edited out. So is there a... Well,

when we, the space shuttle still exists, it has not been deactivated. So the greatest experience was getting to free fall in off the space shuttle into Miramar. No.

But it would be cool if that happened. So do you tell us that you haven't been read onto the aliens because you have been read on? Or of read onto UFOs because you haven't read onto UFOs and you just don't want to go public with it this sounds like a Joseph Heller chapter um I wish deep blue dude thank you much good show uh enjoyed it guys and DC photo thank you very much for the donation i don't think there was a question with that what do we have from patreon d Isaac we know you we have like everybody went to sleep man but we can only

like no we can only do like one for me brother Will you do the AI? Do you have it up? Warbot 1.0. You read that book yet? No. It's kind of almost a self-publish. You know how Fort Bragg they've got like a publisher down there?

That book describes how AI is going to be used in the first war. I forgot the guy's name. Warbot? Warbot 1.0, I think. Look it up. I look for it. It's a fiction kind of like a... Like you know Ghost Fleet from Singer?

Yeah. and they wrote another book called Burning. That's very good about robotics and AI. Yeah, we did. We interviewed them on the show. Yeah. Yeah. Say again?

Yeah. Mitchell Knight, thank you very much. Thanks for being a Patreon subscriber. How many times do we think people mixed up with Chris Moore and Austin Miller? Oh, how many times do people get? Never. Scotty Miller is so much better looking in a better shape. General Miller is.

Absolutely. You know, in the book, I'm really critical of our senior leadership because I feel like we've been failed by their failure to take responsible and accountability, except General Miller is absolutely, if you guys worked with him before. I don't know. Scotty Miller. I've heard people speak highly over there. He's the best of the best. And, you know, man, glad to know him. It's interesting, too, how your, I'll say, for.

me like personally how my perceptions as a general officer as a warfighter changed as they moved into the more political realm or when you realized that them as a warfighter wasn't necessarily what like what you thought they were as a warfighter yeah you know yeah their narratives get created yeah yeah for sure the ones about general miller are all legit man that guy is He's the real deal. You know, he, he, I admire the fact that, you know, they pulled him out of Afghanistan early. And Frank McKinsey, General McKinsey, took command and control of that thing. And General Miller has never gone public because he's like, he didn't like the plan.

He's the quintessential professional military officer. He's my idol. Um, Marcelo Falcon, thank you. A question for the show. What does the former secretary think about the claims that the U.S. military has become too woke? Hey, man. It's a representation of America. And people will say, you know, that I'm not like, um, I don't understand my privilege.

But at the end of the day, it's like just, I have not met a single person that joined the military for, like social responsibility issues they join because they want to serve they want some adventure go down every my dad said this great ones he goes as many people as there are in the army there's many reasons why they join the army but I don't think anybody joins because they want to you know want some sort of special treatment they join because it's the final I think well maybe not the final but it's like the ultimate meritocracy where if you work hard you do your job now there have been problems we all know that we've live those problems, right? I would argue

typically when those are identified, unfortunately, it usually has to happen by an outside agency if it's Congress. So I think we just need to get back to focus on war fight. Not where you guys are. That sounds probably like a cop-out.

No, but I think, I agree with you. Like, war fighting is the primary concern. Like, anything else beyond that, it's like, I can understand the issues, both size, but at the end of the day, they have to be prepared to fight, able to fight, willing to fight. That's it.

What's Isaac's AI question? You guys are a good team. I like watching you guys. Yeah, I ramble. He, like, keeps it on track. This is great. Yeah. What do you think AI should be used for in the military, in military defense and the intel world?

Is AI being used for anything? all in our national defense. Geez, I don't know. I think we're in inning one, maybe inning two. Let's quick anecdote quick, I know. Buddy contractor, butts and seats guy, contract for several hundred analysts. My buddy is really, really smart and wants to do the right thing. And he says, we can do everything they've asked in this contract proposal with 40 people.

utilizing machine learning artificial intelligence. And of course, his team goes, are you insane? They asked for several hundred people. We're going to give them several hundred people. So I think we are not even, we haven't even scratched the surface yet. I think we're still in discovery.

Now, I would be interested in what you guys had to say because I would, man, I think you can, I think it's pretty probably easy to mess up the models. Oh, we're going to get in this. Are you poisoning the data set? Yeah, we're going to get in this like, we're going to get in this reaction, counter reaction. Yeah. We're seeing that with some of the AI out there now is that it is already being poisoned, if you

will, to like a certain political, you know, sort of model where you ask it one question with one data set and then the same question with a different data set and it'll give you two completely different answers like i'm an ai i can't answer this question or yeah these are the facts about this like data set um i think it's interesting that a lot of people sort of on the cutting edge of technology have come forward and said we need to slow our role with AI that's weird that's not how we usually do dual technology right but but i but i feel as though these people not that's the thing is that they might be like chicken little,

like they might be like the sky is falling, but they might also have something that you're creating this thing that we don't know if we can keep it from breaking it shell. Right, right. But face, but social media was such a great success and freed people to make, you know, where I'm going.

Yeah. Hey, um, Ender's game, man. I think it would be cool. You're like, all right, we're fixing. No more movement to contact, right? You're like, okay, I need every historical parallel to this. And then I think that would be a very good decision support tool where you're like, oh, damn.

Right. That was a bad idea. And we're seeing that, like, when you get outside of like the philosophical, like political spectrum and you're just dealing with sort of like medicine or law or whatever, like, AI is being utilized extremely well with these hard, hard skill type things. But it's like you say, like, you know, the poisoning of AI when it comes to, and then it goes into like Asmob's I robot and things like this is like, well, can AI take control of the human race in order to protect it from itself? We have to brace ourselves for the reality where there's a left-wing AI and a right-wing AI, each controlled by a separate billionaire. and people are going to choose allegiances to them. Jack, I love you, man.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And it's like the church of the machine god at that point. It's going to be scary. Yeah. Maybe we'll figure it out. I hope.

But aren't we just going to go back at the end of the day? All the satellites are going to go down. What's that effect where they all start an EMP? No, that effect where you knock out a couple of them. Well, they've already, I think there was just something recently. Yeah, EMP's going to be part of it. Yeah, EMPs would change everything. So aren't we just going to be back to like,

but they can also have to read, did you remember this is called a compass? Yeah, right. Oh, damn. Yeah. Yeah. Don't you think we're going to get back. This is how you, this is how you kill a chicken so you can eat. So, right.

So I want to. Yeah. I want to ask, you know, last question, for real. Where's Chris Miller today? What, what has it been like post secretary of defense, getting back with your family, finding, is there another, a second career or a third career really in the works? What, what's going on? That's such a heavy question.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. You got to leave that one out there, man. Where I get weepy. No, I'm not going to get weepy. So really complained about the military industrial complex and how we've got the incentives wrong for the future. And we're almost the Soviet model of our defense establishment where it's very slow.

and very cumbersome and realized it's fun to talk shit. So I went into business and are trying. So I'm a businessman now. You can laugh. Uh-huh. Doing drones and counter UAS. And trying to do, trying to recognize that, you know, there's so much talent and there's so much energy and innovation that's getting,

is not incentivized to work in national security. So trying to do something about that. That sounds so lame. But I'm going to final shot up. At the end of the day, veterans issues, the Karshi Kahnabad poisoning stuff, those people that have been left behind. My friend's brother was a CIA officer at Karshikana Bad who died.

Prematurely, they think, because of what he's exposed to. So you can't forget that. So I'll, you know, I'm trying to. trying to like this is my last big public thing i told you that i'm going to go dark uh because but i'll co-public for a couple of things one is supporting afghan's left behind and here uh karshi kanabad poisoning uh a shame that really gratified that john stewart got legislation passed but also a shame that it took john stewart to shame congress into doing the right thing yeah um veteran suicide with a thing called Chekivet, which is a warrant officer.

Did you know Michael Carmichael from Second Battalion? That name rings a bell, but I didn't know. Chief is set up really bootstrap thing, helping him out to do suicide prevention, suicide awareness for veterans. And the other thing is, oh, I'm in, you're not in Special Operations Association of America. if you can, that is a really interesting. Is that separate from SOA? Yeah, okay.

It is. It's a new organization that got stood up to help special operations. How is this different than all these other groups? Lobby Capitol Hill. Get legislation passed. The biggest thing we were active on last year was the helping with alternative therapy,

for those suffering from TBI as well as PTSD. Farms, you know. Yeah. So that's been a great success. I'm like, yeah. It's crazy that the VA is the slowest moving organization out there for alternative therapy. Did you know it usually takes 20 years

from a therapy to be identified to being accepted by the VA? We're using, they have put forth legislation. It's going a lot faster. It could happen in a year or two. My idea is if it helps a veteran with stangular block. Yeah, the stellar gangling block. Yeah, I get it all right. So active in that.

The final thing is Havana syndrome, the people that were attacked by high-energy weapons by whoever, Russians, Chinese, you pick it. Making sure that they're not forgotten because the bureaucracy is desperate just to move beyond that. So that's what I'm doing. and you guys like thanks for giving a crap it's so fun to like be part of like no it's really cool to be able to talk what you guys are doing i think is laying down uh the first kind of first version of history which is really really important because you know in this day and age people don't write people don't you know everything's in powerpoint presentation so what you guys are doing by having dumbasses like me come in and like ramble for quite a while.

I really applaud you, man. It's, you know, if we could go back and, like, be able to interview people from, like, the OSS or, you know, or the Revolutionary War, like, it's important, right? Because it's important to capture history when we have the technology to do it. Well, just think about it. Yeah. And this is a different venue where you're hitting up we're at episode two, what, 505?

205. Like, probably how many memoirs were. done from Vietnam War, probably a couple hundred. Yeah. But you guys are hitting this great cross section. I think it's really, really important. Thanks, man. And you guys, hey, man, I told you, my buddies were like, oh, my gosh.

So thanks for having me. Well, you know, I also appreciate your patience and, like, going way late with us tonight in order to go through the entire book. We went an hour past. We have two more questions that came up. So Dan Deppin, thank you very much. What would happen if you told the truth about getting alien, The alien briefing, the UFO briefing.

I wouldn't make it home. MIBs would get them. Yeah, exactly. Hey, up here in Brooklyn, there's a lot of stuff going on. You know the MIBs are out here. It's late and it's a five-hour drive for you. So who knows what happened? Like, wow, this vehicle disappeared.

I saw him going over the Delaware Memorial Bridge. Yeah. Yeah. Ian Hutchinson, thanks, buddy. what does Chris think a giraffe sells for on the black market? That's an inside joke. A giraffe on the black market. If you were going to buy a giraffe.

Give me, I got to get on Chad, GBT. Where's my phone? The official word I got was $36,000. Was that what JP Patton's? Yeah. Was it 33? Oh, for real? Yeah.

Oh, I thought this was like some riddle. No, no, no. I suck at riddles, man. No, no, no. It was some fraud investigation. It was a fraud investigation. friend of mine got involved in they yeah they they like rolled up this dude i think texas who had like a private farm and then had to sell off his assets a private zoo and had to sell off his assets

and so a giraffe was like 36,000 or something like that wow thank you so much is this a secretary of defense coin i ordered i ordered a bunch to give away on my last day and uh you know you know when they got delivered four months later. Thank you, Chris. And I was like, what am I going to do with these now? I'm going to be the old guy like, oh, here's a coin, but I got to get rid of 300 of them. This is it. We got to get those like one of those.

A minute. One of those wooden pyramid things that you put all the coins in. The shadow box. What I tell everybody is if you can sell it for $3.50 on eBay, do it. Yeah, I would never do that. But you can see, hey, I got Bill Belichick in there in the arena. You know, that's not Bill Belichick. Teddy Roosevelt.

Yeah, but Bill Belichick, do your job. Thank you. Yeah, I know. It's lame, but no,

it's a little something for you guys. Sell them. Again, man, thank you for your patience with us and going through all this

for like, I hope I didn't let you down. No, it was awesome. It was like, Dee, did I let him down? It was like four hours.

We covered it all, man. I mean, really, we covered the wave tops of it, but we covered all of the wave tops. We could go,

we could talk for another four hours. Yeah. So, guys, next, what is it Monday, May 1st, Gary Nostner, FBI hostage negotiator, will be on the show. Man, that's going to be awesome. We got that coming up.

And that's it, man. Hey, final thing. So my family doesn't care about anything I do. And your graphic, when I said, hey, I got to go to New York City unexpectedly. And my wife's like, what? And I showed her the graphic. She's like, this is so cool. Is that you?

That's D. All right, man. And my wife's like, get out of here. Get up there and talk to the fellas. So really good work. Thanks for having me. Thanks for doing it, man. Yeah.

Thank you, Chris. Honestly, it's been amazing. And I feel like we could do a whole other four-hour show with you. Like, nobody can put up with me. Any time. Anytime. Yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. And if you have something new you want to plug, a new venture, let us know. We'll plug it for you. We're on. your side. I'm sober, man. We are just really lucky to live in this great country and I got, man, it gets, it gets dark at times, you know. Yeah, yeah. You're like, oh, man, and I'll tell you what, you know, you talk, you kind of like, why would you basically do such a stupid job? And that job

was horrendous. But when you got, but when you got out, dude, when you got out and you saw the people that are serving this country, man, it was just so motivating. You're like, this is why we take on these tough jobs because we are so fortunate still that we have people that are willing to volunteer and serve, man. And you guys did it. So I got a lot of hope in this next generation.

We got to clean out some dead wood, my friends. But I do too. So when I was in Ranger Pertagia, this pre-Gi, and I don't remember if I was at Ranger School or where, but we had some news group come out like talk to us and they're like do you think this generation Gen X right you think Gen X

the greatest you know compared to the greatest generation I'm like yeah I think Gen X can live up to like you just have to put it in front of them I feel the same way about Gen Z you know people talk shit about millennials all the time but millennials like carried the bulk of the GWAT yeah like there will always be people to answer that call

I think I'm with you true I'm with you thanks man sorry i just thank you chris it's like you guys motivated me i needed it you know because you do kind of like get sometimes you just watch the news and you just

watch see the social media and you're like man yeah you get a little down at times and then but man when you get out there and see those you see those people and you're like they don't give a crap about any of that woke stuff it's just so amazing and they're just they're like they want to do their

absolute there is so many good good folks out there and that's the thing is like social media and stuff. Like it amplifies the voice like the the the extremes, right? But it doesn't cover that like most Americans aren't on Twitter. They're not. They're not using it.

That's why I'm glad we can do this show where, you know, we interview all these people who did like amazing things. But like people get to see them as like a person. Yeah. It's an actual person behind all. I can't believe I'm on your show. And you're a person to an amazing thing. Shut up, man. Just doing my job, man.

You know, it's great. But that's what I. Everybody did. Everybody just did their. Whether they're MacB. Saug or, you know, or, you know, an analyst in, in, in, uh, Libya. Like, everybody just did their job. But that's where history happens is with people doing the job. Dee's giving us the hook. Yeah.

T's like, man, I got to work again tomorrow and you guys just keep it. No, you've been very generous with your time, Chris. So we'll wrap it up. Four hours, exactly. We'll wrap it up here. We'll call it a night. Thank you, everyone for watching the show. And we will.