The Team House - From MARSOC to the Mozart Group | Andrew Milburn | Ep. 174

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

Andrew Milburn returns from Ukraine Check out Andy and The Mozart Group here: https://www.themozartgroup.com/ To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -Ad FREE Video -Ad FREE Audio -Over 100 hours of Bonus segments with previous 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] #marsoc #ukraine #russiaukrainewarBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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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 hosts, Jack Murphy, and David Park. Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 174 of The Team House. A little off-kilter Tuesday episode. Of course, we'll be back on Friday, but tonight we're here with our guest, Andrew Milburn. He's here for, I believe, the third episode, your third appearance on the Team House.

We really appreciate it, man. You're kind of bouncing in between here and Europe. You've been really, since the last, I was remarking before we started. The last, your last appearance on the show, like six months ago or whatever it was, me and you were like joking like, oh, Russia would never invade Ukraine. That would never happen. Well, yeah, we were pretty wrong on that one. And you got directly involved, went over there and started the Mozart Group.

And, I mean, before, we'll get like pretty in-depth. But, I mean, do you want to just start right off the bat telling people what the Mozart group is and what they're doing there? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, by the way, very fond memories of that. Last episode, I've tried to have it removed from the internet. Turns out you cannot do that. No. No.

It's just firmly embedded. The internet is permanent. And I said maybe the last half an hour, but no. But there you go. Anyway, good. Thank you. We contacted the chief of the internet for you, and he said no. The internet police?

Yeah. But anyway, I've been eclipsed by then by other equally drunken behavior on your episode. That encourages drunken behavior. The press calling you a mercenary occasionally. Exactly, I know. Not just the press, but the Atlantic. No, I mean, serious, Jack, that's, that is pretty egregious. The establishment.

Well, it's not, American establishment. Yeah, it's not so much the establishment. It's the fact that the Atlantic, New York Times, you can say what you will about their politics or their slot, but they make a thing that's justified about checking and fact-checking. and double checking and they've been in the Washington Post by the way too have been pretty good about firing people when you know it turns out that there's been things that are unethical right or it's just negligent so it's disappointed

that the I know I'm you know answering your question but I'm disappointed that the Atlantic Graham Wood who is supposed to be a good renowned credible journalist wrote an article calling me a foreign fighter which was absolutely inaccurate you you and malcolm nance he lumped you guys together said you were mercenaries right yeah it was i wasn't malcolm nance yeah yeah well sorry you got yeah no i mean no no no i'm delighted to be lumped up with malcolm i wish i had i wish my head his following uh but i don't you know so yeah yeah essentially mercenaries which is mad dog so so it's you all and sorry getting that's your point So Jack, we convened here last time in January.

We became unutterably drunk. We lost you when you made a bathroom break. And unfortunately, the only thing people remember was when we were comparing tattoos at the end and I took up my shirt. I asked you to remove that. My lawyers contacted you. Unfortunately, you figured out that I can't afford lawyers.

That came out. Actually, we received very sizable donations to keep the episode up. Apparently, there are a number of people out there that enjoy the eye candy quite a bit. Release the Murphy cut. Yeah, the Murphy cut, yeah. Okay.

All right, so anyway, that's... But the one thing I love about show, it's modulated. So, you know, I mean, intellectually... We're not moderated. Not modulated. Modulated intellectually. It goes very rapidly up and down. So, and yeah, Jack, so soon after we had that episode, that sounds strange.

World War III pops off. So, yeah, sure enough, the Russians invade to Kiev, and I, like probably many others, thought it was foregone conclusion that Ukraine would fall, blah, blah, blah, boy, go out there. I'm writing, I write my four obligatory articles for task and purpose, and I want to issue an official apology to the editor, then editor Paul Sroda, to whom I was very rude because I got a form letter from Task and Purpose saying,

since you are now a mercenary. A mercenary. He used terms along those lines, yeah. Sold your own fortune. Yeah. Killer for hire. Yeah. We cannot ethically be associated with anyone.

And Paul, you know, I was upset with him because I felt I'm so naive and emotional, you know, hey, you shouldn't have written me a form letter. You should have called me. But Paul's a great human being, good journalists, and he brought me out there. Anyway, fast forward, right? So we're in Kiev, and if you remember at the time, this was early March, and the Russians, no kidding, are on three sides of Kiev. It's so hard to imagine now.

It seems surreal. But in Kiev itself, 20% of the population was left behind, and they, were everyone was preparing to defend the city and so you know you read about and it was true in the west media that Zelensky said everyone who wants an AK-47 come and draw one you know if you between the 18th age of 1865 the center handing out all these weapons to guys who never handled a weapon before right ammo grenades I'm not kidding you it was surreal and then um some of the uh the military guys there in Kiev,

middle ranking, most soft guys, there's three or four guys, said, okay, we've got to train, even if it's three or four days, because the Russians are approaching. They're on their time.

It was a very tight time schedule. But we've got to get them some training, right? And that's where they reached out to me. And I brought in, in the short order, like two or three other guys, former Marines, Marsau guys from the States.

We had a handful of guys in UK. crane foreigners volunteering to help we had very little time to kind of vet them we didn't really vet them to begin with we were lucky we got some very good quality guys you vet the guys who were doing the training yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a crapshoot is we had no time for lehi vetting of two sort of pounds and five directions so we broke them up into 120 man increments five days training we'd finished training and they would jump in their cars and they drive to the front. I'm not exaggerating. Urpin Abucha.

And then, you know, they would come back a few days later for a fresher training. We'd pull them into classes to talk about what they'd learned in that time. And you got incredible stories from these guys. And there was no bravado. These were guys who'd been mostly students and now they're

like... Shell shocked. Yeah. And they're like, holy shit. Yeah, you've got to get very close to the Russians. You know, remember the Vietnamese you say, you know, they like hold on get in hold close and then they can't classic classic gorilla yeah and so the ukrainians learn this too you got to get in once you get in close with their infantry they're shit but if you if you're in range with their mortars on their artillery they're really fucking good and it's devastating you've just got to you got to get in there um and there's

one kid um he's like yeah i i never worked out how to shoot the AK 47 is very confusing to me so my lieutenant goes here here here's a bag of green grenades just you work it like that you pull the pin and just throw the grenade he's like but stand over there we know he was and it was so awesome these things are easy i mean i swear to god these are real conversations and he's like i can be the grenade thrower forever and uh well dude you know hopefully the russians are always going to be that close right right right um so did you finally get him sorted on the AK yeah yeah he you know a lot of these guys have carried weapons, very few of them have fired them, and the weapons manipulation is horrific.

And so, you know, fast forward, that was Battle of Kiev. And I'm not saying we had an influence on the Battle of Kiev. We did our best, and we probably saved lives, Ukrainian lives, and hopefully contributed to Russian deaths. But it was, you know, it's a short-order process, and it was, you couldn't make this shut up. I mean, we would go to a range because you have to, I suppose it's kind of a Marine Corps ethos, right?

Because I know Army basic, they don't shoot their weapons. What? Come on, man, don't get defensive. You come all this way to talk shit? No, no, no, no. Anyway, I'm totally conflating things. Well, I'm talking about special operations components,

Marine Special Operatives. Marshock is the O&E component that during their selection, you have to, you rate it on. marksmanship. Okay, my, listen,

we can get the Marines one thing here, right, David, that is a religious observance of, of marksmanship,

right? There are many rifles. Yeah. This is my rifle. There's my rifle. Yeah, yeah. And every, like,

that's the Marine Corps. Every arena is a rifleman and you spend your entire boot camp snapping in. Yeah.

But what comes with that is a genuine feeling among the Kutz, bakers and Kals stick makers that they are riflemen because at least once here they're going you know I mean infantrymen can disparage that but bottom line is every marine knows how to shoot right right so that's

kind of the ethos because along with that comes confidence and everything else right so five days what do you do we they've got to be medically proficient in the sense they've got to know how to bring themselves back as best they can or end their buddy back from you know from from for the edge and stabilizes them long enough to get them to the CCP. They've got to know how to shoot, how to hit the target. If they don't have a weapon that's zeroed, they may as well not carry the fucking weapon. I mean, this is all stuff we know, but we're learning. So for...

They have to know how to move. But what's the biggest threat? 99% of their casualties come from Russian artillery. So we're teaching them how to provide overhead cover, how to dig a decent trench. Yes, this is perhaps passive stuff, but it keeps them alive. Right. That is her biggest threat. Right.

What did that training look like? So if they all, they all drew out AKs. Everybody got an AK. Did they get the ammunition to go for trauma training? Did they, do you have goat labs? They, no, no, no, no. They had some ammo, very little. What we required was 120 rounds to train with, and we got that,

always at least 120 rounds um for medical training no at that time they didn't they were short on everything they were buying buying their own equipment for ifax they had no what we call you know squad you know you're like a medic requirement or whatever the squad medic uh trauma kit okay yeah right um they still are short on those by the way uh but they were very short back then they had shitty the tonicets that they were issued were shitty. They were Chinese made and the, you know, the Wendell broke every time you, and they didn't have enough of them, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, no medical training.

I mean, it was a recipe for disaster is no other way of putting it. But they pulled it off and they pulled it off in fairness because they had just an indomitable, determination that the Russians were not going to, you know, capture the capital. They knew the terrain. They, you know, I mean, they had a lot of things on their side, right? And in fairness, the bar was pretty low on the Russian side, although not all Russian soldiers are shite.

You know, there's a lot of the Ukrainian soldiers we work with tell a lot of stories about Russian infantrymen who they come across who were very good. you know they make whether they call special forces or what that are very good snipers they're encountering guys who are have been captured but very good at resisting interrogation the russians the infantry is not that strong point russian army is is derelict yes but russian military capability is still pretty significant that's one thing that's a lot of the think tanks are losing in the mix. It's like it's binary, right?

Russians are awesome. They're really scary. Oh, shit, no. Now they're really fucking unscary. But it's somewhere in between. Right. They're infantry man to man. I mean, however you look at it.

How would these, so you get all these, you know, kids and civilians, you have three days. When they, five days, when they go to the front or, When they go to meet the Russians, do they filter in? Do they get regular army elements to lead them? Are they just making it up as they go along? How did that work?

Yeah, so that's a great question. It gets back to the debate in the Second World War, right, between how casualties should be fed back into, or casualty replacements fed back into the front line. And the Germans did it very well. Getting to a point here. So the Germans pulled back units and replenish those units with the cadre of the veterans

and they bring in, you know, new guys as a cohort. Yeah. But they would learn from the veterans and then they would go back as a unit. Whereas the Brits and the Americans, the Americans called the Rebel Depple, right? So they would feed one season, two Zs,

a platoon would lose two or three guys. And two or three days later, they'd get the two or three guy replacements, but they were FNGs, right? Right. There was no sense, unless those guys survived, beyond a certain point, there was no sense of loyalty towards them within the unit. Whereas if you do replacement, if you do unit replacement,

then you tell the cadre of guys, survivors, this is your responsibility. The unit depends, it depends or dies based on your actions, and they take it upon themselves. So that is what the Ukrainians are doing, and it is proving very effective. So you see units that are taking 70, 80%, sent casualties and that's no exaggeration being pulled back being replenished by new recruits we'll take them through training and then they go back to the front and they are they do remarkably well morale-wise and and the cohesion the way they look after each other don't get me wrong the Ukrainian military has a lot of problems there are officer cadre I mean their officer class

never really never really embraced Western way of doing things and you can we you know again think tank land loved loved this image of the Ukrainians

adopting mission tactics oh my God the green brace told them the shit the last 16 months there's women fighting oh yeah they're like the resistance honestly if you talk to 10th group guys

are like yeah that's all bullshit and I can tell you it's bullshit what is not bullshit is the courage and the stories of these groups of individuals who fought the Russians and were experimenting with anti-tank-guided missiles and turned out to be remarkably lucky and you know in the Russian columns were halted but the story the story is not about American mentorship and preparation it's the opposite of that that's an interesting point of view yeah It's about the fact that they were citizen army, and interestingly enough, the mainstream Ukrainian army, still shackled by its Soviet origins, kills Mission Command, kills Small Union Initiative.

But the fact that these guys hadn't been subjected to that yet. They were civilians, and they were, they've been brought up with a Western Europe approach, and Ukrainians are remarkably tech-savvy. and they have this, you know, every, every nationality has kind of general characteristics. Ukraine has had this at times. It's almost an annoying, what's the word, insubordination, right? It's like, no, I can do this better, blah, blah, blah, blah, fuck you. So it can work both ways. You get these, so you get Ukrainian civilians having to take on this role, knowing they're defending their families,

perform better than professional soldiers. perform better than, I mean, seriously, you know, courage and everything. I mean, I've heard U.S. and UK veterans say that time and again, it's just they don't fucking give up and they are prepared to die and they learn quickly, you know. Can you give us an example of how their leadership style or the officer cadre based on the Soviet might be different, the Soviet model might be different than Americans? Yeah, certainly. So the problem is there.

So we look at the Russians and the Russians have a very, very low bar when it comes to mission command. And we all understand that the supposed reforms of the Russian army post-Georgia never fucking occurred. And the dregs of Russian society went into the army because everyone could buy their kid a way out of having to go into the military, right? There was so many other parts that if you went in the military, you were really, really fucked up.

And I know from both of you, your experience in the background, you can relate to that particular statement. But subsequently, you know, as you came in, you met people who, you know, had better stature than you. Yeah. Couldn't figure out why they were there. I know, low bar. But, you know, I mean, the point is, I mean, the drugs when it went into society. So, all right, very low bar. On the Ukrainian side, and trust me, of course, my pro-Ukrainian credentials are, I mean, they're pristine, right, I would hope. But the Ukrainians have a problem with lack of mission command, with too much of the Soviet mentality within their military,

even within their special operations forces. They don't have a clear understanding of mission command. The Estonian and Polish guys who worked with the Ukrainians longer and more closely than U.S. will say that's their biggest concern. And remember that, you know, it's very interesting because the Poles have followed a similar evolution from, you know, since the Soviet Union. But Poles were pulled into NATO. So right away, they were getting this. Yeah, we don't execute Mission Command well.

But nevertheless, we understand what it is. And so the Poles were getting hammered with that. The Ukrainians were not. And they struggled with it. And a lot of the foreign soldiers who have come in, the volunteers, Zelensky's Legion, it was managed poorly. They were sent to Ukrainian units as casualty replacements to begin with. It was just a bad setup.

But my point is, too, they have legitimate complaints about leadership they fell under. You know, I heard some horror stories. Zaporizia, you know, was sitting in the lobby of the hotel. Jack, I may have already told you this story. Tell me a shout of it if I have. But, yeah, in Zaporah, yeah, in Zaporah, Bresia and all these foreign guys come in, non-Ukrainians, cringos, right? And they are, there's a few of them bandaged up, they look pretty beat up.

And we start talking to them, you know, all good guys, Americans, Brits, from the main group, there were some Finns, Scandinavians, and they had formed basically a company in the Azov, and they had been, over the previous four days, assigned the same mission, the same way attacking a village without fire support. And on the, you know, the very last time they found themselves out in the field under, in the field under Russian artillery fire. And they realized that their platoon commander just fucking doesn't have a clue. So they walk.

They're like, we're done. And they can do that. You know, the Ukrainians aren't going to go after that. But it was, talking to these guys. There was no chest beating bravado. There was no, like, there we were. They were all pro. very mature and they were disappointed and shocked about what had happened.

You know, you couldn't help feeling, sorry for them. They had one of their guys of Finn who was very seriously wounded to being evacuated. And they just felt kind of betrayed by the leadership. But we've heard that story from the Ukrainian soldiers too. So what I'm saying is that there is a lot of work to do now post-war in shaping the Ukrainian military to. to be a little more flexible. It was some of the press reports would make it sound like,

exactly as you described, like, this Western training and influence has, like, created a core of NCOs in Ukraine, and that's what's helping them win the war. You're saying that's pretty much nonsense. Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. Absolutely nonsense. You know, I called, I called Sokir, for instance, Sokure,

as I went back into Ukraine and said, hey, I'm reading about this great resistance organization that 10 group is set up. And he put me in contact with them. I've got the very straight answer, Andy, that's total bullshit. I wish that was the case. The Ukrainians did set up a resistance organization, but they didn't really have time to train them effectively. And, you know, kind of dissipated because their goals. their rationale dissipated as you know the russians started withdraw from around kiev the south

ukrainians are doing right behind russian lines in d and russia yeah um in Crimea um yeah and and in in Russia itself i would guess and I don't have any great insights but those I would say absolutely those are not U.S. supplied weapons systems. You know, those, anything in the U.S. supply, I mean, the ranges don't apply anyway, but the U.S. put very, very, NATO put stipulations and everything that provided, that they would not be used against Russian homeland, Russian homeland, not those areas necessarily that Putin has declared within Crimea, Russian, but the actual, yeah. But anyway, so deep strikes, very popular.

possible that there are genuine special operations guys operating within Russia. There's an SSO patch right next to you there. Yeah, I was looking at that. Also likely, not just likely, but we know, cyber attacks. Cyber, what the Ukrainians are doing in the cyber realm, U.S. Cyber Command will learn from, I am sure, and I'm sure it's very interested in doing. Yeah.

They're doing extraordinary things that border on the kinetic, that are kinetic. You mentioned post-war. Do you see being over there, do you get a sense that the war

may be winding down that Russia is on their last legs or? Oh, no. I don't. I get the sense that you've got,

yeah, this is going to be a very poor analogy, but you know, you've got this global stage, right? two, you've got two boxes who are both exhausted, but they're both putting up a very determined show, right? So from the Russian side, yes, they've gone to a high degree of mobilization.

It's going to prove quite ineffective, you know, as far as the announcement to fielding of actual guys on the ground who are, who are, you know, unison, a man, train, and equip. But the point is, it doesn't necessarily matter for the Russians, all right? So you think about this. We all, in Western think tank line, get very wrapped up in military tactics. And we say, oh, my God, why are they taking so? The Dombas is strategically unimportant of them.

No, it's all important politically, because Putin has said, that's all I need. That's when we started the war. And if you can keep Dombas, and if you can keep that southern strip, he can declare victory, and the Russians will believe in. And we're coming up to the G20 summit, right, sometime later this month, guarantee Putin's going to start looking at France and Germany saying,

oh, winter's approaching, you know, things are going to be getting tough. Hey, listen, I'm tired of the bloodshed. want to negotiate these fucking crazy Ukrainians, so insist they want to disembowl Crimea from, you know, all right, blah, blah, blah, blah, you get it. So I think it's very easy to dismiss Putin this being insane. He's certainly, you know, I mean, we can't mirror image him. He doesn't, you know, we can't profile on. Yeah. But on the other hand, there's a method to his madness. And strategically, He is not feeling as badly as we would like to think. Think about the countries of the world who are aligned or not aligned,

or at least haven't condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Over half. Yeah. Right? So, you know, we can stomp our feet and yell and scream, but it's almost as though Putin is very carefully excising the United States from the global, you know, global discussions, right? It's like you are no longer irrelevant.

Yeah. And that's my, and that's what you've heard me be critical of U.S. foreign policy. And that's why I'm critical. It's not because I'm an angry person, although Jack may disagree. It's because I would like to see this country have a coherent foreign policy. Right. You know, in the same way it did in the past. I mean, you think about how we tackled the whole problem of the Cold War.

The Marshall Plan combined with containment. I mean, there was a strategy of policy. We just don't see that. we don't see we don't do we I mean gravitas we don't see that gravitas of understanding even during the Cold War we still like he's not saying anything he's like fuck you me no but like even during the core we still had like Vietnam where

like we still we had maybe a guideline of a policy and a guideline of a plan and this is what we're going to do but even within that you know our our foreign policy and you know I think we've talked about this on the show before one of the challenges is that it changes so frequently not just with administrations, but sometimes within the same administration, that other countries don't know what to expect of us. Well, it's not clearly defined.

Yeah. With Israel policy in Ukraine, are we all in? If we're all in, why aren't we giving them attack them at the Yangang? Right. Why aren't giving them long-range precision guided drones, or at least enabling them to have them? Right. Well, and there are people who think that our whole strategy in Ukraine isn't to help Ukraine win.

It's just to bleed Russia. To bleed Russia. Yeah. And I have no problem with that. I would just say that probably the most effective way to do that and still retain credibility is to give the Ukrainians better weapons systems and you get it over quicker. And understanding that time does not benefit. Western democracies, the global norms, time benefits Russia. Right.

In this particular case, because of pull of energy, because of just being able to betray the fact that this is a war of attrition. Right. Do you feel as though Russia is getting, whether it's sympathy, I don't think it's sympathy, but there's enough utility with Russia and now we're seeing Iran and we're seeing, you know, we're seeing, you know, we're seeing, pipelines into the country with weapons, drones, things like that, do you think that there's going to start to be an escalation of arms as they get equipment equipped from outside also? Yeah, it's very interesting actually in what the, reaching out to Iran, it was a natural

partnership because the Shah had 136 is, it's made from civilian components, right? So, I mean, commercially available components. It's a very unsophisticated weapon, but remarkably effective because it's, used in you know in in groups um what i'm saying is i'm agreeing that there's something to be concerned about here that we can that russia russia is still an adaptive society it's an adaptive government and adaptive uh to to the extent that it knows how to survive um to to a level that we underestimate totally right i mean there's there's no way and Putin has aligned himself with that administration so I'm just saying it's

this is going to be a really tough problem we United States probably cannot influence it we can only because as soon as we touch anything it turns to shit in this regard we can only hope that the the Russian army is increasingly becoming so angry this is an FSB war the FSB fucked up everything about this war, but it's the army that's paying. So when, you know, one would hope that that that is a black swan a day. Some of it comes across as desperation, though, that they're, I mean, I understand like these Ukrainian drones are doing some real damage in, I'm sorry, Iranian drones are doing some real damage in Ukraine. Supposedly, they're also having to get shells from North Korea. There were reports early on in the war that they were recruiting Syrians to come and

fight for them. Or Afghans, yeah. And now Afghan. right afghan where they're recruiting afghan canada it seems like this attempt of the russian government to create like george bush's coalition of the willing yeah like the dave chapelskate we got the zulu nations and you know all these right people but it comes across kind of like yeah like like a lead balloon i'm not sure this is going to work for russia it's a petemkin coalition right um no i'm i'm with you and but there are a lot of bad indicated if you're a russian right now a lot of bad indicators, right? I mean, as near as you can get to public dissent now to the war among influential figures. Interesting that Putin poured in, God, I can't remember his name,

Shabokin, Shulkin, you know, the hardline general to head up the war. And you notice that kind of allayed criticism for a little bit. We'll see. My point is this, though, Jack, I agree with you 100%, but I think that Russia has a just a almost unfathomable ability to

absorb punishment. To suffer. Yeah. And it's like in their culture, their ethos, and right now Putin has the slide, it's a hermetically amazingly, in 21st century, more of the hermetically sealed society than it was

in the latter parts of the communist there right we were talking about that with uh was it was it was it when holden triplet was here or was it um one of our other guests we had recently where i was talking and i'm sure you've you've probably spoken to the people firsthand uh some of these civilians in areas that the ukrainians have liberated um then taken back their territory and the civilians talk about their interactions with russian soldiers and they're saying things like what why are you upset with us we're here to free you from nazis like like these soldiers i think yeah they they like whole ass believe the propaganda. And that's kind of, that is kind of shocking in 2022 that you can have a

society that has been so isolated and that totally believes the state propaganda. It is extraordinary. And it's even among some of the more educated members of Western society. So you can perhaps understand soldiers, being convinced to that. And the BBC does a really good job on their Ukraine cast of looking at kind of the ethos or feelings within Russia. Yeah. Especially families of soldiers, soldiers who are lost and this and that. It's very, it's very well done. But you're right. The bottom line is yes, they genuinely believe that they are fighting Nazis. They are they are liberating people ethnically like them or historically culturally like them from a Nazi and corrupt.

Some of these more recent speeches Putin has given where he's talking about, you know, we can't let the transsexuals and the gay pride parades win and we're fighting Satanism. It's like it's so. He's putting it on it. It's so, yeah, it's so over the top. It's like it's hard for me to believe even like a Russian grandma with nothing but a Russian television set in her home. Like, can believe this? Jack, can you think, I mean, yeah, it's so hard to imagine any U.S. politician making a similar type speeches. is, you know, stirring up the masses and this populist bullshit.

I mean, bringing back manufacturing jobs. The Satanist pedophile. Building a wall. We do have, you're right. I mean, we do have that vein in American politics today, which kind of, which freaks me out also. It's very similar, though, isn't it? That's a scary thing.

It's a similar emotion that's being tapped into, yeah. And it relies on emotion. And it relies too on a little bit of, you know, honestly, lack of education. But I paused there because I know very sensibly educated people who have brought into this kind of populist mentality. Right. Right. So maybe, you know, just the wrong sort of education. They haven't been through the Dave Park School of continuous, you know, asphabry. Nobody wants to go through that. I give scholarships out all the time and I can't get anybody to attend.

If you read, I interviewed him like a year ago, Eric Curley, Andrew, who wrote that book, Hitler's Monsters. Yeah, yeah. About the Third Reich and the paranormal. This guy's a historian did tons of research. But I mean, like, just... Weimar, Germany was like high society. These were highly educated people. And, you know, obviously they believe...

Very cult, you know... They believe the fascist propaganda. political propaganda but quite a few of them believed it came to have like some pretty gnarly bizarre beliefs in the paranormal as well yeah yeah actually it's really interesting you bring that up because i'm such a geek i uh i read a book called they use dark forces um uh written by a guy named denis we lee about who's in uh british intelligence during the wall but after the war wrote this book about what they've learned about the the nazi experience experimentations with the occult and everything.

Yeah. I've never heard of this. Yeah, it's insane. I've never heard of the book. It's like things like they would, it sounds insane, but they, the Abla, right? The military intelligence, German military intelligence, we're trying to figure out a way to tap into the dreams of merchant marine, British merchant marine captains, right? They were like, if we can meet them on the astral plane, and we can, I mean, they were, seriously, I mean, they were trying, they were. The operationalization of the, yeah.

But if you read through how they were researching this, it wasn't so insane. They were, you know, they were scientists involved in everything. To be fair, I would say that our own intelligence community has duplicated a lot of that research. Yeah, you know, in their own way. I mean, where do we get the men who stare at goats? and, you know, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the other projects that ran. That, I mean, yes, yes, that existed. Like, the remote viewing program existed, but I mean,

that was like a small program that they put, like, probably $10 million in because we thought, we found out that the KGB was interested in it. Like, it wasn't, like, something that was, like, mainstreamed into the military. No. I'm not saying it was, but it was still funded and, Yeah, yeah.

And carried out by parts of our government. Yeah. That's right. There was a book that came out about that. It was Jim Shannon, who passed away about a year ago. Yeah. But anyway, so, I mean, you can dismiss all of this. But on the other hand, there is, you know, there's a little bit of belief of truth in there, I think.

But it was, yeah, very, very interesting. The Germans looked at that. seriously too it's not surprising I mean it's there's you know there's something attractive about right

you have an entire culture like in India you know the mystics how many people believe in astrology you know you know what I mean

like there's I mean and then you go to a Boston Red Sox game and guys there haven't changed their underwear since the last time they won't you know

that's something Curleyander brought up with me when I interviewed him he's like yeah Jack I mean, you say they're crazy, but it's not exactly good social science, because if you go and talk to a mainstream Christian, they're going to tell you a story about this guy who died, and then he came back to life and he rose up into the house. It's quote unquote crazy, but it's a belief. It's a powerful belief that has led to massive geopolitical change. And every religion, right? Every religion has, you know, has a good for now.

has a certain, I'm probably going to have a piece of piece, but thanks, but has a certain amount of mythology around it. It's, the idea, especially like, you know, I mean, the idea, especially, like, now science and the world is so open, it's easier to, like, disbelieve things in general, but especially I imagine during the 40s, the 30s, the 40s, the 50s. Yeah, the, you know, the, you know, that, you know,

that there were mysteries. Yeah. I still are. You know, I know this is taking this to a level way beyond the team house is gone beyond. No, no, no, no. We're right. Look, we're going to break out the D&D,

the spellbook here, the player's handbook and break us in the spells pretty soon. Neuroscience cannot explain everything. So in other words, you cannot explain all human emotions. You can't break them all down into the physical aspects or I think we all cling on to that, right?

Because if you don't believe in that, there's no beyond, right? Jack's like, this is nothing to do. With you, right? So, no, I'll tell you what it is. My friend, who I introduced you to, Bill the Greek, he's watching this show right now live on his, he's watching Andrew Milburn on his show. But anyway, next time Bill heads over there,

you should use them for something. and he's a good guy. I would love to meet you, Bill. It's a very catchy moniker to build the Greek. You're all cousins, right? You go back far enough to Sparta. So what, this is going to be purely your opinion. And I know nobody knows, nobody knows what Putin's going to do.

Do you or is there a sense amongst Americans, Ukrainians, anybody, that there's a nuclear threat on the rise? Yeah, certainly I think the Ukrainians are particularly worried about that. Ukrainian public is worried about that. I would say that, I mean, you've read the intelligence analysis on that, that is not such a big threat. Yeah, so I don't, me personally, I don't worry about that. But I will, you know, I do, probably because like you, I'm institutionalized and I like to believe the comforting things like, hey, this is an anthrax injection. Right. It's for my own good. It's going to bleed for five days. It's going to help you in the long run. Right. Right. Have no effect on your miserable sex life.

Right. Right. Right. And your ability to unsustain an erection has, you cannot subsequently sue the U.S. government for. Right. Exactly. For me, like, I don't have, like, I wouldn't really give it much of a thought. That's right. But then, you know, when Biden comes out and says, we're on the verge of nuclear Armageddon and New York puts out, you know, public safety measures, then all of the sudden, are they, I'm wondering, are they reading something that I'm completely unaware? No, I think we're playing in Putin's hands.

You know, you're talking about a, uh, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying underestimate him. I'm not dismissing him. but I'm just saying that we cannot or walk on eggshells because we worry about this or that. We have to have some faith

in the fact that or no, no, let me avoid saying that. Let me say instead that if we keep tiptoeing around Putin's red lines we are in the end it's we're empowering him. We're empowering him.

We're causing him to be more crazy and we're we're just setting a shitty example to the world, right? So saying, hey fucker, whatever. Yeah, by the way, we are going to do a no-fly zone here and this and that, what are you going to do about it? And by the way, yes, you can go to whatever.

But, I mean, the Russian nuclear arsenal is a... It's obviously something to be worried about. But we all know that, given the ability to do first strike, preemptive strike on first syndications, we can. So we're not messaged out to Putin. Right. Hey, dude, you and I both know the rules of the game.

Right, right. So if you listen to, I can't remember the name of the guy. There's somebody on the National Security Council and he was doing an interview with like meet the press or something like that. And he was saying like the way he was making it sound was like, hey, he said, we're not going to get into a public like tit for tat with the Russians. Like if you do this, we'll do that. Yeah.

But he was like, yes, we clearly communicated to them if you take actions, if you escalates to, escalate to WMDs, this is what we're going to do. And I mean, they made it sound like, hey, if you drop on Kiev, we drop on St. Petersburg, that kind of thing. I don't know. That's speculation on my part just based on what I heard. Yeah. You know, the problem is, I don't think. I mean, Putin won't trump on Kiev. He will, if he is going to do something, he would do nuclear detonation above the black sea.

Yeah. you know, for a massive EMP. Which will still call fucking problems for the world. Right. But it is not as directly confrontational as something on a setting. Yeah.

Yeah, that would create massive problems for the world. So, you know, strategically Putin does, he still, I mean, I won't say he holds serenez, but he is in a he's in a more powerful

seat than he should be. Yeah. concerning how he's fucked up. On the operational tactical level, things don't look good for either side. And that's why I'd say it's going to take a Black Swan event to cause a conclusive end of this war in the next 30 months. You mean a decisive victory for somebody?

Somebody. Or, or, which would be a decisive victory, Putin overthrow, right? But even then, the Russians would then, the Russians would have to concede fucking everything. So who knows? I mean, whoever comes behind Putin unlikely to do that. The Ukrainians are determined that no part of the Ukrainian soil

should be still within Russian control, to include Crimea. That's what Zelensky said to that. Yeah. Which makes it very, it makes it problematic from a number of, you know, So even one of the reasons, honestly, why annexation of Crimea was not such a big deal. It was a huge deal. But, I mean, why it was not taking such a big deal is Crimea had been battered back and forth between Ukraine and Russia.

You know, what was Russia then, the Soviet Union, since the early 50s? And there was a lot of feeling, even among Ukrainians, that, hey, populations, mostly Russian-speaking. What the fuck? it doesn't really matter but of course strategically access to Black Sea was a huge deal but now but it doesn't matter

you know prior to prior to this last you know the kickoff in February Ukrainians were reconciled to having lost Crimea and and most of the Donbass now they are not

they want it all back and that's going to be problematic is there do you have a sense that obviously Ukraine is the aggrieved party here 100%. There was no justification for what Russia did. But do you have a sense at all that Ukraine

may potentially overplay their hand? You know, like... Yeah. No, I see what you're saying, Dave. I think... Well, let me backtrack for a moment. So I... This is really bad for a guest on a podcast to say, but I don't know how I feel about Ukrainian determination now to take back

Dombaz, Lahansk, I mean, all of Denezsk, and Crimea. I support it. I just don't know how practical it is. Right. You support the idea where it's coming from. Yeah. Right. And so the other part, because it's a great question, Dave,

is that the Ukrainians actually are undermining their own cause with their terrific propaganda. So their information operations campaign was very affected at the strategic level. It's not at tactical level, it's shitty. They could take so much more advantage of Russian morale by inducing surrenders. They don't do that. They don't do that. In fact, their mantra of hatred towards Russians is not helping them.

They should reach out the Russian soldiers say, you want Ukrainian citizenship, you get your own fucking computer and a, and an apartment in Odessa and, you know, whatever. A washing machine? A washing machine. Yeah, I know. Washington machine. Yeah, I'll take them up on that.

You can see the videos of them, washing machines being loaded in tanks, you know. Stealing like the kids' Disney sheets and shit like this, yeah. But, I mean, all of that said, I mean, the Ukrainians, inch by inch, are retaking territory. And, I mean, some pretty stunning success. over the last, you know, month and a half or so. Yeah.

I mean, I would be cautious, though, Jack, about calling them stunning successes. So they were unexpected from, always from me personally. No, 100%, 100%. So, but I'm agreeing with you. They were, I'm not, I'm not undermining the success that happened. I'm just saying that you have to look forward to what did they lead to. And that's my concern. So, so they, so let's look at the north, all right.

the car key breakthrough 6,000 square miles is what the Ukrainians claim could well be. It's significant. But, and it was well done. It was the, it was a, it was a result of initiative at brigade level. So three brigades broke through. They saw, you know, the Russians were on the ropes. They, Russians were even signaling that they raised a fucking white flag by Izzyam train station. So it didn't take intelligence analysts to say, okay, I think guys, we can see a gap, you know,

and they are bailing out along the roads and so the Ukrainians moved in. And there was a lot preceding that, you know, with high-mile strikes and all that. But the Ukrainians moved forward, but they instantly were out of gas. I mean, not out of gas, literally. They didn't have, they didn't have the resources to exploit that. three brigades moved forward and once they got through eczem they took lyman they dug in because they couldn't exploit any and that that i sadly is i think what we're going to see on the ukrainian side is you're going to see individual small unit actions seizing initiative taking

ground but it's going to be very small and there's no means to exploit it because the ukreans don't have that on the russian side um I, you know, I get it. There's been that good news, but the good news is kind of over, right? In Curzon, by the way, Carson, counteroffensive kicked off early September. It was October by the time the media started reporting, oh, they're making gains. 10, 20 kilometers, huge losses, both sides. This is not, these aren't stories of Guderian-type victories.

Right. that they are it's a hard grind and it's an indicator what lies ahead right um and so when i say black's one event russian side someone who throws boot in um i think from the u s side if all right bear in mind i'm i'm being unemotional here if the u.s government really seriously wants number one ukrainian victory number two uh serious depletion of of russia militarily, economically, and in public perception, then it behooves the United States to give, you could really embrace the prospect of Ukraine victory,

give them the intelligence they need, give them the advice, they don't have to put boots on the ground, give them the advising for a serious campaign plan, but give them the long-range platforms. I mean, you don't feel that they're getting targeting intelligence from the United States. Oh, certainly, yeah. Yeah, that they're not getting...

We have troops in Poland, Romania. I mean, that they're not getting advice. I think they are, Jack. I know they are, but not as far as campaign planning. This isn't the fault of the United States alone. It's Ukrainians, too, because Ukrainians are not being forward and saying, hey, here's what we plan to do.

We could really use help and intel here and what you suggest here. That dialogue is not taking place. So it's not, I'm not simply blaming USG. Yeah, I get it. It's a partnership. Yeah, it's got to be a partnership. But we on the U.S. side have to develop our partnership and understand that

hardening the lines of NATO does not encourage the Ukrainians because they know where they lie on that other side of NATO. So what, what hardware do you think we should be looking at giving to the Ukrainians? I mean, like I've, you know, tongue in cheek in the past, if they want F-16s and Abrams, M1A1, tanks we should give it to them people have brought up well there's a lot of maintenance and upkeep and a lot of training curve um like it's not just about the hardware it's also about the people and the joint arms and all it's about it's about it than i do Andrew but no you're right it's about the culture how they use stuff right so i've talked about this before artillery they used artillery in a very centralized fashion when they use it in a centralized manner combined

with her ability to collect intelligence, they do it quite effectively. But the problem with that is, that is one phase, and in an defensive operation, subsequently, you need to decentralize your use of artillery, right, as you're moving. So the opening phase is,

and it gets great Western media coverage, oh my God, look what they've done with high miles. Awesome, awesome, awesome. We see the kill camera, like every day. Yeah, awesome, awesome. But they can't follow that up by supporting units as they cross the line.

Right. Because they're not agile enough. There's no such thing as a Ford Observer. There's no such thing as close-fires for. So they're not nearly as good at maneuver warfare as we would expect from looking at the video footage. No, no, no. No. No.

To see the reports about, in the Western media, about, oh, my God, Dave Must had combined arms was absolutely horseshit. Again, what took Kharkiv and environments and all that, was reading the tea leaves. But there was no real combined arms. There was none. We were there. I mean, it's not like I'm not pretending to be an expert covering everything, but I happen to be an isium.

I happen to be on the... You're debriefing the guys as they came off the lines. Yeah, I mean, so, you know, we've got to be honest. It was Russians moving out, we're moving in. you know. Do you think that the sort of the positive spin on the Ukrainian war effort is due to like a lack of knowledge of actual military operations and overestimating? I think it's all good and well intentioned, Dave, you know. I but the problem this is and I've got tremendous respect for what the media is doing, all right, for their mission. Of course, we've all had, we've all had problems with individual

journalists, you know, I mean. Everybody has a problem with Jack. Yeah. I mean, look at Jack. What a pain in the ass here is, that's a journalist. But, Jay, no, I mean, I think Jack would applaud this. I'm so proud to hear that. No, I mean, no, I mean, I think Jack would applaud this statement is that, um, you've got to be a pin in the ass to be a journalist. You've got to really question, question, question. You should be pissing off military people. And I'm not getting the sense that. happen in Ukraine because journalists are not allowed near the front line so the Ukrainians control that and some of the problems i've seen in um where journalists are questioned people Ukrainians i think perhaps they're a little too they're not aggressive enough you know does that make sense yeah yeah there's

a lot of a lot of lightweight reporting i think and and so they're not getting personal perception on the front line, not their fault. They're accepting the Ukrainian government's version of what's happening on the front line and they're not being very challenging. It's weird because it's weird because it's such a total spin of how they cover the U.S. at war.

Yeah. Right? I mean, in terms of it doesn't matter if it's on the front line, they'll make up the story sometimes, but but they they're willing to be critical of U.S. efforts and what the U.S. is doing. But here it seems almost

as if it's taboo. Do you say anything negative about it? And I think, I think, yeah, and it's hurting. And it's about, they need to be more critical about Ukrainian control of information because Ukraine control of the information is undermining themselves. Yeah. You just have to look at their press reports now. They're almost Soviet.

Right. You know, it's like, hey, dudes, you have a good story to tell. Don't fucking overdo it. and don't bastardize it or dilute it with bullshit, all right? Don't justify violations and law of armed conflict. Right. There's a lot of bandwagoning. And, you know, when you see, like, the mainstream press reporting on, like, you know,

the social media phenomena, people making their avatars, the little dogs, and, you know, the FAFO people and stuff. Like, you're seeing these, like, stories like this. It's like, this isn't exactly hard-hitting reporting you guys are doing here. And I won't get into details, but I mean, I've encountered some of it myself in my writing that I get the sense that there are a lot of people who don't want to rock the boat. Even if it's a, even if it's a story that points to good things, successful things that certain entities might be involved in, that there, I feel like there's a reluctance to step outside a very narrow left and right limits of a certain type of reporting. Yeah, and it hurts us because it produces a very unimaginative approach. So even among, stringy enough, DOD, right, you know, so think about, and this isn't

me putting a plug-in from the Mozart group, but we are doing essentially two things. We're doing, we're training Ukrainian military units, right, near the front line. And we're looking all the time for what are the things that are. only we do, only we can do, that separates us from other volunteer organizations. And training Ukrainian units near the front line, giving them a very short course because we are constrained by time. But in that course, they will get the maximum benefit. So that's what I think is our niche as far as training. And by the way, we're doing this within artillery range of the Russians. So, you know, I mean, it's, I'm not overplayed.

playing the risk. I'm just saying there is a risk and, you know, we are, we're happy to accept it because we understand the payoff. You know, Andy, we want to talk about the Mozart group, but before we do that, we actually, I want to talk about you a little bit because. Oh, let me just talk very quickly. Yes, please. And I love where you're going with this. The second, so the second thing we do is humanitarian assistance. Okay. And I want everyone to understand that. So by that, I mean, we are, where our niche is, we cover the last few miles from the last covered and concealed position outside Russian artillery range. We go not just within Russian artillery range, but into direct fire range to take civilians out of areas under bombardment.

And I will say, honestly, we're the only non-government organization, only organization that is doing that right now. And that's not a criticism of anything else. We all understand the risk calculus. And these other organizations have been hugely supportive for us, but we all understand that we are, Mozart Group is the group that goes to, the movie that's going to come out, don't laugh,

the movie is going to be called the Mozart Mile, because it's about that last mile when you go, it's more than one mile, but the Mozart mile sounds better. It's better. I mean, you can't call it the Mozart several kilometers. Yeah, yeah. The Mozart, you know, 7500.

Yeah, over the Mozart. The Mozart over that hill there. Yeah. Anyway. How hard is it for you, okay, before we get into just how awesome you are, how hard is it for you guys? That's a good theme, though. I like that topic. How hard is it for you recruiting for the Mozart group then to screen out the guys who want to get some?

Yeah. Dave, again, thank you for that great question. And I want to add that Dave has no prior affiliation with me or the Mozart group and has no received any, has not received any funding before this. Which I'm, you know, I know. It's very different. Give your Venmo. For David, the funding is in shots.

It's very simple. Yeah, that's a really good question. So, bottom line is this, that from the start, we have paid very close attention to who we bring on board. And that has benefited, benefited. us. I've had two drinks. Benefited us. You've had more than two, Andy.

Oh, three. Come on. Let's be serious. My shirt's still on. More than we realize. It really has. So second hand, I heard from a friend of mine who spoke to Eric Prince and, you know, about

the growth of Blackwater. And you know, Eric Prince. And you know, Eric Prince, if you're listening to this and you didn't say this. My apologies, I'm exempt from you suing me. But apparently he said, hey, listen, one thing I wish I'd paid more attention to was recruiting. Because we were military guys in the business world. So we're thinking we've got to think about business models. We got to instead of what we knew best, which was people. And we lost track of that. And we brought in the wrong people.

and it had strategically adverse results on the organization. Is they grew so fast? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so we are, we have paid, rather than business models and everything else, we have paid huge attention who we bring in and are very quick to cut loose people who we feel are not right. And it's, you know, what is right?

I mean, it's, you know, both you guys know, because you've been through selection assessments, you can have the most incredibly selective system and still get people who come through who are who really aren't right for the job right right and we understand that so the people we bring in are either it's very unscientific we either know them or that's you know uh two degrees separation someone that we know right uh and that has worked that has worked a good the last time i talked to you i think you were also saying you're more looking for like gentlemen of your age that have gray in their hair you're not looking necessarily for a 22 year old you know looking to get some as Dave points out yeah yeah I mean I wouldn't go to

the extremes of you know my age but for the most part no I mean most part the guys we have you know so our demographic is probably Guinness mid 30s um typically special operations but not necessarily we've got you know some for instance brids to conventional guys. And you look a little bit deeper. They've often, you know, they've done well in the civilian world too. They're not here because they failed somewhere. It's interesting.

Yeah, very wide. Yeah. 11 different countries. But the demographic of the guy is quite similar. Yeah. I imagine. O retriever, but believer, he believes in something. He wants, he's perhaps a little.

disgruntled about his experiences in Afghanistan or Iraq, you know. I imagine also just coming out, having come out of a 20-year war, that it's beneficial to have guys that are already blooded, so they're not necessarily like looking for that because

yeah, that's an attractor if that... No, you're right, Dave, yeah. Yeah, 100%. So having guys, so generally speaking, the guys that we have are they're very cautious

but it's not overly it's simply to describe what I meant is they're not the reckless dudes we have to do things that are very high risk but what I meant by very cautious is they have a very good feel for what's going on

and we all respond to the instincts of anyone in the team so if anyone's like guys we need to fucking get out here and have a good feeling we get out and then we'll talk about it afterwards you know yeah um but i don't we don't nine times out of ten people's instincts have proven to be to be right because without getting too paranoid i mean you it's a very it's a different

you know we talked about yeah you need guys who've had combat experience but the combat experience we're experiencing is very different it's i mean you know i went through the battle of feluja uh so that was that was probably the most intense experience that Marines had, for instance, in Iraq. Because you are, once you're in that building, you're in equal terms with the dudes. Actually, you're at a disadvantage to the guys defending that building. It doesn't matter what country you come from, how many resources you have on the side. It is now man against men, and they outnumber you, and you're in the dark, and you don't

have MVGs. And, you know, so that was a very formative, scary experience for me. But I can tell you, too, the brief periods have been under Russian artillery fire where you can hear the whistling of the shells coming down. That was a formative experience. And these are not nice formative experiences. These are formative experiences I would rather avoid. But my point is that, so I had quite a high, I think I had a fairly high bar about combat. You know, there's a lot of, you know how it is. We've still at a certain time that people, I was in combat for 15 months. But I don't get involved in those conversations, but I would argue

that in Ukraine, the level of that intensity is like nothing that I've experienced. I mean, twice now, I've been buzzed. I say buzzed because I don't know if the guy was firing rockets or not. I think he was both times, but it'd been buzzed by an SU-25, like flying low, releasing shit, flyers and rockets. And that is gut churningly, that is a formative, life-changing experience. It's hard, I think, for an American, especially with combat experience, to imagine being on the other side of air power. Yeah, exactly.

Right. Yeah. Because it was always on our side. Yeah. It's very humbling. And it's not just the jets. It's drones all the time. You know, so we, as we go into these places, we want the sky.

We want it to be raining. Right. You know, and we never thought about that before. Normally, you're like, hey, we weren't good. And now we want it to be raining and we're always looking in the sky when it's clear for drones. So you find yourself waiting for the bad weather to move in and then you're like, okay, we go. Well, we don't have that luxury because we respond to requests. So every day we will have requests and we respond to them that day because often they're very time sensitive.

And if the weather suits, it suits, but most often it does not and it's very clear. And from the time They know you've been spotted by drones You know you've got two, three minutes before Artillery Round start landing They are So that's my point about Underestimating the Russians

You know They yeah their infantry is shying We can We can Ballyhoo all we want about that Although we didn't do anything about that But they are very good with artillery Yeah

It's particularly scary And I think You know The units We've spoken to two that are showing most signs probably of what we call battle fatigue. It's all artillery.

I mean, it's... What about the Russian EW capabilities? Are you finding an electronic warfare environment out there? Yeah, they're very good. I'm not an electronic warfare expert, but they, I can say this, that they barrage jam everything. And they do it very effectively. So, you know, I... Like encrypted comms?

Well, no one's using encrypted comms. And you're cranium signs, so it's hard to tell. Okay, so that doesn't matter. Yeah, no, but they are jamming fucking our, everything, our radios are... UHF and everything that's... Yeah. And so it is a very extensive branch jamming, and I've heard that they can switch very quickly to point jamming,

for instance, their drones to bring them down. So they're very, they've become effective at that. certainly how about um cell phone and sat phones they they have not exploited neither side has exploited signals intelligence to i think full of tactical capability i mean i could be wrong i know that at higher level within the ukrainian command they are targeting using signals intelligence obviously but that capability does not exist at the at the tactical level in the trenches yeah brigade battalion level which is a shame because yeah both sides are very very sloppy and they're right right um real quick uh for the people who have not had the privilege of meeting you before

and seeing your other shows and you should definitely go watch them um i'm by my book uh we're going to talk about your book uh because your book is absolutely phenomenal i it was it was honestly one of the best nonfiction books I've ever read. And I'll tell you why in a second. But you have a kind of a strange accent. Is that Tennessee? Very close, yeah. Can you...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, my... So I grew up in the UK. Okay. And I didn't come to the United States, so I went to a boot camp. Parasilin. I was 24 years old.

I'm swallowing up out of emotional, although that was a very emotional experience, nor because I've drunk too much, but simply because I, think you watered down your whiskey. Oh, go here. Sorry about that. No, no, no, Dave. I think there's a fight in words, right? No, I didn't.

That's like a duel at 20 yards or 20 paces. I'm not suggesting you water down your whiskey. Yeah, so I was actually, it's kind of interesting. Not because I was involved in it, but back then there were there were armed forces recruiters in London whose purview were all the high school kids around Europe or the US high school kids.

For American Armed Forces? No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, interesting. So the guy I ran into was a Brit who had joined the U.S. military, joined the Marines, because he knew a draft. So this is an extraordinary. His family moves to his kind of boring story. I'll make it very short.

Not that boring. Anyway, so his father works for Boeing, right? He's a Brit. They go to Washington State in the 60s. They register, you know, apply for green cards. He gets a draft notice when he turns 18 before he gets, you know, his green card. So he enlists in the Marine Corps because someone ill-advisedly told him, hey you should join them rant because it's cool and not be drafting into the army so he did and did three tours and then blah blah blah

you know reaches e9 master gunnery sergeant goes back to the UK on his twilight tour as a recruiter still doesn't have you a citizenship I'm like how did you fuck that one up so you're just going to pretend this whole affiliation of the United States didn't happen Now you're going to go back in the UK and just settle down.

It's like, oh, maybe I should. Anyway. So why did you pick the Marine Corps instead of like a British? Yeah. No, I selected the British Army. Yeah, they turned me down. I broke my leg playing rugby at college. And it was a bad break.

And the British Army basically said, you know, go away. You are medically, physically totally unqualified. And my leg only bends 90 degrees even now, which technically disqualifies me from the U.S. military too. It's really how you use it, right? That's what they say. Yeah. I've heard Jack talk about this in reference to a small penis. But the point is that...

If you don't use it, you lose it. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's how you adapt. Exactly. So you join the Marine Corps. Can you give us sort of a like a... brief career history in the Marine Corps because it's you got a fascinating career yeah okay so I'll

give you like 30 second version uh so it went in as a private um which is I don't regret actually reached the dizzy heights of corporal ooh you may laugh but corporal is the hardest rank no I do I know corporal is the hardest rank I ever held and I was hanging on by my finger and I got a commission after being the first battalion to land in Somalia, which is Big Dale back in the 90s, then went through the stations of the cross and the Marine Infantry Officer, Company Command, blah, blah, blah. Seventh Marines during the invasion of Iraq, battalion commander in Kama, which is a dreadful, dreadful place. And then when I became a colonel and Marine Corps promotion system,

down transition to for command I went to the Marine Special Abrations Command to take over the regiment which seemed like an extraordinary choice at the time but I think it was because in my past I'd done stuff overseas you know how the Marine Corps is it's like we don't trust anything that is different right so we'll put some of our weirdo guys right it's a punishment yeah yeah I know it works out. But I loved it. Yeah, I loved having a regiment. Then commanded the first Marine-led Special Operations Task Force.

That happened to be in the counter-ISIS fight in Iraq, 2016. And then retired out of Soxent three years later. It went from private to colonel in the Marine Corps, which is no easy feat. Yeah. I did. Yes, yes. Thank you. I didn't think about that. And then you wrote this book

When the Tempest Gathers. And can you tell us where the title comes from? Yeah. It's actually, I was struggling for a title. And then someone sent me that poem. Was that a Kipling poem? No, it's not. No, it's

Holland, right? He's going to call me on it now. No, I'm not going to call you on it because obviously, obviously like... And it's an American, actually. Yeah. But he wrote, basically wrote a poem saying, you know, that there is a, essentially it's about such, what a small percentage of the population, actually,

when things, when everything collapses are the dudes who are, you know, in the front line, basically. So the four stanzas you have, and it's Holland, like you said, is give us men. Thank you. Thank you for that. It's all you. Now, the first line says give us men. Yeah.

Which is a Navy phrase. But men who, when the tempest gathers, grasp the standards of their fathers in the thickest fight. And one of the things that I really loved about your book is because you were in a leadership position through a lot of this. And a lot of this was a lot of the book, wasn't just about your experiences, but about your internal landscape through those experiences, about your doubts, about leadership, about am I making the right calls? You know, even if you're

not a person who enjoys reading military history or autobiographies about military subjects, it's a very human journey because there were a lot of other things going on in life at the time and how those integrate. It's a very, very human journey that, um, I just thought was incredibly, like, insightful and vulnerable. Well, you know, no, thanks to that. When I sat down to write it, I had a discussion with a good friend of mine with Parker. He's a Marine. He's been on the show before.

Has he? Yeah. It's a super guy. Marine recon, a special abrasion sky. But a great writer and just a good all-rounder. And, you know, his point was, handy, do you want to be a great writer? was, hey, Andy, do you want to write a book that is touted by the main core associationist? This is a great compilation of lessons learned.

Right, right. Or do you want to write a book that dudes read that they can relate to because they've been through some shitty times? Right. You know, and he was right. And so that's why I came out in the book and wrote about a lot of struggles I'd had. I'm cautious about using term PTSD. you know my father was a second old veteran would laugh at that but certainly no one goes through no thinking generally sensitive human being goes through combat remains unchanged right right

so I'm with the right about that change in my case without being mordland or right you know but it's important to recognize that change yeah and and understand it and not lose not lose track so yeah so I tried to combine it It's a difficult task when you're writing about yourself. And you don't want to write just about what you see in front of you. You want to write a little bit about what you know is going on above you. And then integrating the part about the human piece, as you know, I mean, not just combat stress, but human, I mean, tragedies within my family and stuff like that.

And the same guidance from my editor when I was writing my book, and she kept coming back to me and saying like, okay, Jack, but like, what were you thinking? What were you feeling is this happened? Because I had also had this tendency to write, like, in a very sort of like clinical sort of way. Like, this is how the battle unfolded,

and this is what happened, and this guy did this and that guy did that, and the vehicles moved over there. And she kind of had to tease that part out. It's not easy, is it? No, no. You know, because it's a balance, because you don't want to inject too many of your own emotions.

Some things you just want to describe and let the reader inject their emotions, right? And you can't constantly be saying, my heart was beating. Right. Visiting against my chest, you know. I felt a surge of adrenaline as I watched the 45 caliber round tear through my opponent's leg. And, you know, and there are books like that, and they're great. You know, they're great. and, you know, they do the job of what I think the author wants to do, which is to convey that experience.

But I feel as though it is... What are you looking for, any? No, I'm just lost some of us here. Dave drank all my whiskeys. So I just want to make sure. That's yours. This is mine, yeah. Are you sure? It's not watered down.

Yeah. It's not water down. It's, you know, a book like that is great for the intent of the author and what they want to convey. but it's like both of you said because Jack in your book too like you express your doubts about things and how you felt and not only you being vulnerable

which doesn't I think come naturally to a lot of people but you're doing it permanently you're putting it in black and white is going out on the shelves it will be forever be out there right where you can't just go I was drunk last night.

Did I say something? What did I say? I don't even remember what I said. How long did it take you to write your book? Less than a year. No. Dave, why haven't you written a book? Oh, nobody wants to read about anything I did.

No, absolutely wrong. I think part of it also is you see some of the controversies with some of these other books. And if there was any flak to be caught, you know, I wanted it to be on me and not like on my teammates. So I was kind of hesitant also to like expound on some things that like maybe would make one of the other guys look bad or he'd feel ashamed of something when really he shouldn't at all. It's just, I don't know, that's a really like sort of, as you know, you've been in combat with other soldiers or other Marines. And it's a very difficult, very emotional experience for everyone involved. And it's not that I want to whitewash war or combat or anything. But I was a little careful about how I wrote about other people's experience.

Yeah, you have to be. Yeah. And that's why I tried to portray in the book that, hey, this is, you know, I talk about one experience in Pluja where I see two guys killed in front of me, the two Marines as they open the gate and they're killed. And I've met four or five guys since then who are on the same street at the same time, and our memories are all slightly different. Yeah.

Yeah. And the cool thing, though, when I wrote about the experience in the book, the guys who chimed in were like hey for the most part I remember that and you know I

but we every one of them none of them said hey no this is what happened everyone was like yeah oh wow hey yeah that was a really

I don't you know I accept that that I was so scared at the time that I probably got but this is what I remember yeah I remember those things like that coming out in hot washes you know and AAR

is, yeah, I moved this way and I shot the guy on the, you know, on the corner of the house. It's like, you weren't on that side of the house. It's like, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, adrenaline does funny things in the mind, right? It really does. I remember when I wrote the book and I, there were portions of it that were about some of my teammates and I showed it to them. Like, is this how you remember it? Like, what's your input? What do you think? And there were certain times where I had, not, not like huge discrepancies, but I, like, I remember my guy saying things that they have no memory of. Yeah.

They're like, I didn't say that. I don't think they're lying or anything like that. I think, like you said, the adrenaline's pumping really high. And you have to understand that you are capable to. Absolutely, yeah. You know, of that's possible. I got something off. That's why that was one of my struggles in the book.

There was another episode in there where I remember very clearly, you know, obviously, I don't know, driving up to Dialla River and watching the bridge across the Diyala River blow up in our faces. But the guy I am with, Jeff Eby, a good friend of mine, is like, no, man, that didn't happen. It happened the next morning or whatever, why we're asleep. And it's so strange. Yeah. And he said, and it wasn't someone blowing it up. I think it was, it was a cumulative effect of air strikes.

It just collapsed. Yeah. But my memory is so distinct. I'm like, Jeff, how can you? We were just fucking sitting side by, but then you factor in the fact we're both very tired, been up all night, we're both scared, you know, I mean, it's early days of OIF,

and so I understand. But I, so when I, how do you write about that? Yeah. I say, hey, this is what I remember, but I've got to remember, but, you know, I wanted to say, but just to show how different other people, you know, Yeah.

And no one, I've got to tell you, no one, I mean, I got people attack me for the book because of, you know, attacked you for the book? Yeah, yeah. But no one has challenged my version of events. And I think, I think it's because I was trying to be, in every case, from like, this is how I remember, but this is how other people saw it. And I'd say again, this is essentially what combat's like. No one fucking, if anyone has certainty afterwards about what happened. Yeah.

They don't understand what just happened. Yeah. That's a very honest way to write a book, though. Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, that's probably the reason why I would never write a biography is that my memory is so shot about, like, so many, like, just because of the TBIs and stuff like that. Like, I would have to ask the people, not just in combat. I mean, going all the way back to, like, the Navy, you know, and the Marine Corps, like, I would have to ask people, like,

What do you remember? Because I barely remember anything. Well, I wrote a lot of, you know, I wrote in the evenings. I wrote a journal that really helped me. And I can't understand why I started writing. I think I wrote it to clear my thoughts. You know. You wrote this book in like a month?

Three months. Yeah. Yeah. But I was writing, it was very cathartic. Yeah. You remember this, you know. Yeah. So you set yourself a goal, 2,000 words a day.

And then you find often that you exceed that. And then, but the real writing is editing afterwards, right, you go back. I try to follow, I try to follow the advice of just write. Don't think about. That's true. Yeah. But it's very difficult to do. Because it paralyzes people.

Yeah. So you just write, you pour your thoughts down. And then you go back and edit it. Just accept the fact that you suck first time around. When you left the Marine Corps, so you left the Marine Corps and now, you know, now you're doing this amazing thing in Ukraine, what were the intermittent years like for you? Generally, they suck, actually, except for the Team House podcast. When we were getting drunk in Washington, D.C., that was fun.

It was. it's not that it sucked Dave it was the fact that and don't get me wrong I left the military very happy to leave I'd love my time in the rank hall I did not embrace my rank

I didn't want to take my rank with me but honestly yeah just like for a lot of us the intervening years between getting out in Ukraine we're not easy I was a contractor and it's not that I don't like being the bottom of the pyramid

again I kind of relish that but the problem is too that you start getting frustrated about all the things you saw in the military that sucked and now you totally cannot fucking change them because you're a contractor right you know and you're all you're at the behest of people

who are basically bad officers you know and so that was frustrating for me I was like, fuck, man. I got away from the military because I found it frustrating, even as a colonel, to get shit done. Now I'm a contractor. I'm below some major who's an idiot. And now he's saying.

It was good money, but it was not. There was no real sense of purpose, right? I just felt I was sucked into the bureaucracy again. And then, you know, now with Ukraine, I, yeah, I feel 100% differently. I feel, again, sense of purpose, more so perhaps. Definitely than when I was in the military. And it's not just because I'm not, you know, I'm not, everyone says,

oh, you're learning Ukrainian. No. And part of it is because I'm abhorrently, you know, lazy when it comes to languages. I learn, I know French, I know Spanish, and that's, that's about my field. I'm not going to be able to learn Ukrainian. But also, I want people to understand this isn't about Ukraine for me. I'm not, it's cool. We can get all emotional about Ukraine, this and that.

Ukraine has a lot of fucking answers to Ukrainian, you know, government, bureaucracy, military. It's a corrupt, fucked up society. You know, so I'm not a big fan of Ukraine for itself. I care deeply about its people. Right. I care deeply about the Ukrainian soldiers because they're human beings and I have a history of being a human being. But nationality, the fucking government, no. Yeah.

But in fairness, this is about way more than Russia and Ukraine. So the people who come back to me and say, oh, you're getting too obsessed with this, blah, blah, blah. Like, no, I don't think you understand. And I know you can swallow this, you know, this mantra of, well, this is great. We're bleeding the Russians dry. And it's like, but there is, you've got to also.

I understand the other dynamics in this of U.S. appearance of U.S. passivity is not helping us. Right. I mean, it really is not. Not only that, but yes, we are bleeding Russia dry, but it's Ukrainian blood. Like it's, there are actually people who are bleeding. Yeah. So, yeah, exactly. So if you are weird enough to think that human life is equal regardless of nationality,

a very extraordinary point of view, you know. Right. Right. Never understood how anyone can oppose that point of view. But anyway, so if you are weird enough to think that human life is all we call, yeah, people are still fucking paying for this. And by the way, it's a, it may be an unsustainable cost, if you would, the Ukrainians are losing this number of guys. And so why not empower the Ukrainian military, flood them with attackings, you know? That's not enough.

I mean, wholehearted intelligence support, hoarded planning support. And the Ukrainians have to give up too. And in a way, it seems that it might be hurting us also, not just with the image of passivity, but also I don't know how much money we spent to Ukraine so far, but we could give them that same amount of money, higher tech weapons or more money, that if we just keep on, like, dragging this out,

how much will, how much are we willing to spend? Is there truly no, well, I don't, yeah, I mean, it's a great question. But the problem is this. We, we're throwing money at the problem. So what were the headlines? 37.4 billion dollar package to aid Ukraine. But what did they mean it meant excess defense articles it meant one i mean holy shit it meant dozens of 113 i mean we've just we've just watched a war in which in which t90s you know fairly high-tech military vehicles armored vehicles tanks are totally destroyed without a chance of having fire a shot and what do we do we provide we give the ukrainians one-thirty-threaties one-thirty teens total fucking death traps um we get them towed artillery right the obsolete right m triple

seven so oh my god that's fucking awesome yeah it is a great towed artillery piece but when you're towing artillery and the russians can bring counter artillery fire kind of battery fire down in four minutes right you're providing you're just giving them a fucking you're giving them a bait right no no no no US artillery battery can deploy, can displace in four minutes. You see what I'm saying. It's like we're providing this shit. Right. That makes more vulnerable.

We're loading stocks. We're unloading stocks. And we're like, oh, holy shit. Look what we're doing for them. Yeah. It's like we're either in or out. That's all I'm saying. So you're saying the US should either shit or get off the pot.

Yeah. Let's fucking say, all right, we're going to get the we're going to give you, we're going to flood you with attack him's, I mean with the high mass platforms with attackums, 300 kilometers. You will agree not to hit Russia with those. Nate already has an understanding. The Ukrainians aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them. But Crimea, yeah, go at it. Crimea is what they, that's why they want that range to really prep Crimea. So it's a game check. friendship then. So let's say that we gave Ukraine everything they needed and then seven days from now

they push Russia back. The war is over. In your opinion, what becomes of Ukraine and are they our friend? Are they our ally now? Well, we've got a lot of work of Ukraine. So first of all, we have to convince them that they're an ally right now they're in Babylon. They are 100% sure of UK support because they understand what the UK is giving them meets their requirements. You see what I'm saying

is we've got to take an intelligent approach that actually will save us money and less resources and convince the Ukrainians that we are truly an ally. But we have to, it's a minor risk.

The risk is, you know, what is the risk? Insighting Putin? Come on. But it means, some more circumspect focus approach. What do you need? Specifically, what do you need? What do you need to do to the Russians that we can help you with? Not simply, here's another 37.4 billion. It's the Norwegians providing the Naysams anti-ed defense system and the Germans with the RSK and the French with the Caesar self-repelled artillery.

They are at least, we can criticize them all, but they are at least saying to the Ukrainians, what do you need and answering that request? We, United States are not? You must need this. We've got all this shit here. I think you need this. Right, right, right.

And the Ukrainians know, really? And you know honestly though I may have got to be honest to you Crean's I'm like What are you going to use all this shit for the 113s And they're saying They're telling me Well you know right now we use our own personal vehicles

To take guys to the front line So in our least we have a better But why not you know Why not give them something that's really fucking worthwhile Yeah It's it's Fascinating and like we appreciate

Because for me like this is one of first, well, it's the second firsthand account that we've had on the show, I think, right? But it didn't go this much into depth. It's the best. What he means is it's the best first-hand account from a guy who's

approaches and more sophisticated and debonair. And cultured, yeah, exactly. I mean, checks out. Yeah. You're British, of course. I know. I want to ask you the way to the restroom, but I remember last time we did that with Jack, he was gone

for an hour. I can help you. I know. I don't want you to help you. I'm going to come over here. I'm going to get a little personal. I'm going to unplug your microphone for you. No, actually, I don't need to go net. Yeah, yeah, sit down. Yeah, yeah. It's, um, yeah. It's, um, yeah. It's okay. I'm not all spun up for nothing. I know, but they, he said he has a, uh, what are those bags called? The, uh, like the catheters, like a catheter bag? What do they call? You want a Gatorade bottle of piss into it? Yeah, it's fine. A Leffroy bottle? Yeah. So, um, why, why the Mozart group like you you sound like a string quartet i i did not like that i did not like the uh title actually we we were trying to think so so as this stuff was happening in kiev in march we realized that we

had a cadre of trainers full time and we realized that we had donor funding coming in so we wants to sustain our efforts as long as possible and that's how you know we realized we needed to be a thing and entity. So someone came out with the idea of the Mozart group, and it called on before I had a say, and that's fine. So are you all learning to play instruments now in case of performances requested? No, I mean, you know, honestly,

the reason why I wasn't happy with the term was because we are nothing like the Mozart group, right? You know, when I know in the end, I have to accept we're a private military company. But we're an ethical private military company. So, why Jack's laughing. So the Mozart group, there's a history of the name? No, not at all.

Okay. Yeah, so some dude came out with a name and it stuck and everyone started using it. And then, you know, branding's a big thing, right? Yeah. No, it really is. And I'm just, I'm just a joke. All of your listeners absolutely have to subscribe to our merch store. right the link is in the description uh but for people who are listening and not

watching where can they find that that your your website oh it is okay he's awesome damn he he he makes the show the show you think you can trim me up i've got d because you don't know your website um no he's like shut the fuck up david why you hit up some uh questions from yeah folks out there and i'm i'm just kidding about the string quartet thing. Like, it's a good name. It's like a nefarious name. If you guys grow and take over the world,

it'll be like the Mozart group. Yeah. I don't know. Do you think cannabis will be legalized in New York? It is. It is, man. Have you been out on the street lately? Really?

I'm a big fan, actually, now. Of cannabis? Yeah. Jack isn't too adverse to it either. Not as adverse as I used to. to be, especially on trips to Las Vegas. No, I think it's a very positive thing. Yeah, I do too.

It's not great for me. Like, I don't get a whole bunch out of it. I'm not opposed to it. There's, you know, I think that it's a great thing to be legal. So you're a pot-smoking hippie now after all those years in the Marines? Yeah, yeah, 100%. You need to grow your hair out and have a ponytail.

No, no. Hawaiian shirt. But I think TSC has posted of aspects. Oh, absolutely. I mean, really does. So, I mean, I don't... Microdosing is the term. It's very difficult to microdose now because you build up a tolerance very quickly.

So you've got to be circumspect about it. You know, you can't simply keep taking T.R. And you have to keep taking more and more. I mean, it's ultimately not going to have a good effect on your body. So what I'm told, and these are Masseh guys now who run AR, is called the Hellman Growing Company. So you take, you micro dose, right? You work out, Jack, so tomorrow you wake up, you take,

you've got your little bag of gummy bears that you went to gifted curators here in, you know, wherever in New York. That I got from Woodstock. Yeah. And you take, I mean, what do you take? Five grams, you know, five milligrams. Yeah, five is white more than enough for me. Yeah, with your coffee, right?

And it makes you feel good, focus. you're not scattered. You have energy. But learning how to sustain that, because you always give up something, right? You always lose something. Right. If you're getting something. Right.

So how do you sustain that? And then you have to, every third day, stop for 48 hours or whatever. Anyway, anyway, the point is, though, what does it get to you? it gets you unlike what we used to think from high school where because we're forgetting shit all the time because we over did it, it gets you super focused. It gets you energy, gets you a very positive outlook without all the downsides of alcohol, right? Yeah. I haven't had that experience with it. And I know other people do. And I know that it's a great treatment for post-medic stress. you have to go to a I don't know

pot administrator I don't know pot dispenser no I'm in serious no Dave because what you do is you roll up and you're like you bow got the pong and then you get the machees and you're like that sucked

and watch Game of Thrones what's wrong with that? I mean what is wrong with that but I yeah anyway I think there's a better experience in store for you I yeah I mean I hope so like I've There are other things that I've tried that have had given me,

that have given me a, you know, I don't want to say a euphoric feeling, that have sort of increased that barrier between, you know, the, I don't say post-dmac stress or whatever. Sure. But the tension, yeah. Like what? Like what? Honestly, MDMA.

Really? Yeah. Without, not like ecstasy, not with like amphetamies. And it just like MDMA, like, creates that level. T-HC actually, no matter what type I take it, generally makes me feel even more, like, it makes me feel heavy, but more alert. Yeah.

Yeah. Interesting. And not alert in a good way. Really? Yeah. MDMA. Yeah. MDMA is what, for the benefit of you all distance because of those.

I mean, it's commonly, called ecstasy. Well, I think it's ecstasy when it has the amphetamine in it and Somali when it's not. Dee, help me out here. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Oh, it's good. You guys. Well, thank you. You can tell. I'm part of the square community. And that's just, for me, that creates

a very relaxed sort of euphoric feeling that and you get this here in New York. Well, not now. Not with all the fentanyl that's getting mixed in with all the drugs. Yeah. I mean, they just had like three people in New York. Well, three people that were important enough to report on. Let me say Because people are dying all the time. But from like fentanyl and their cocaine, it's getting mixed in a lot of stuff.

Wow. It's not really safe to do anything here right now. Well, anything that you don't know where it's coming from. And then ketamine I had a really good effect with when I use that. And I know that they're using that and a lot of the post-traumatic programs. Yeah, I haven't used to any of that. Just T-HC. And generally positive because of the post-traumatic.

I don't, you know, I don't go overboard of that. Have, does it, do you find that it helps you, and I don't want to say relax, because that seems like such a casual term, but like decompress. Yeah, yeah, it really does.

But strangely enough, it, it helps me concentrate too. Interesting. But I take very small, you know, I'm not like after a buzz. I take relatively small doses, so I work out what affects me and I take smaller doses.

and that. And then I'll break for 48 hours. You say that now the next time we have you on, your fourth appearance on the show, you're going to have like a little sandwich baggie full of pills. That could be right. Well, yeah. Take a hit against kids.

But, you know, in the end, I think I'm probably going to pay a price. No, not for microdosing THC. No, no, no, no, Jack, I'm being serious, though. I'm probably, we all pay a price for what we've gone through, right? So you try and minimize the cost. And so I would say, yeah, any self-medication, probably not good, but on balance, THC. It's not bad. It's not bad.

And it's given me probably a better feeling than I don't like. I mean, it's a way better solution. I mean, it's great getting licked up with you guys. It's great. But you don't want to do that every day. Right. Yeah, I know I can walk home to my hotel. I'm not going to get an ass right by you guys.

despite days threats but it's you know threats what threats those are those are

those are problems those are I mean it's good as friends because I'm with France but don't correct me with a good time

yeah you don't want to you know you don't want to get licking up to too often same thing with anything

I mean THC included because it does you know too much altars I mean it makes me

sleep very well a lot of positive aspects but I recognize too why would I want to be in an altered state Right When we had Jim Morris on the show

Who was a captain in Special Forces captain in Vietnam He talked to us about his experiences Before any of the stuff we're talking about Was he even known He was messing around with LSD As a way to try to like Get out of that that box that he was in Yeah yeah

And he did He used it and had a mostly positive of experience with it, but I remember him telling us, it got to a certain point, I took everything I had and flushed it down the toilet. Like, it was starting to get to that point where it was taking over my life. Yeah. We've had a Samon, she, she went through a, like, the medical program for, um, with mushrooms. Yeah, yeah. I think, ayahuasca. Uh, we've had people on who have done the stella gangling blocks. Um, yeah. You know, I, there's just, it's very interesting because, before any of, well not before any of this was studied,

but after it was studied and then shelved by the government. And then, you know, you have the post-Vietnam era and you have all these veterans coming out, you know, turning to marijuana. You know, we talked to my buddy Mike. He was on the show and he went to India and like spent a winter in a cave doing opium with a sadu, with a guru, you know.

And, you know, They were all sort of looking for something. Yeah. And I don't necessarily think that it's to escape the world. I think it's just sort of to reconnect. Yeah. I think it's to make sense to the world. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a really good, and I think, frankly, I think that's so positive. I mean, you know, I'm an addictive, I know I have an addictive personality. Uh-huh.

And, uh, but I would frankly, you know, the experimentation I've done, who's with a THC or it leaves me feeling far better than anything with alcohol, you know, and

I I've come to learn, okay, too much is not good because you learn you lose sense of where you are in memory and all that. But how many I mean, you guys as former leaders,

you know, how many guys do you have to bail out of jail who caused fights because they were high from marijuana you know right can't think of any yeah yeah it's it's it's it doesn't yeah it's it's strange that it alcohol alcohol is behind so many yeah bad things that happen yeah marijuana yeah not so much refer madness yeah absolutely i know yeah you don't get that right no rea for rage um i actually have reefer madness um all right let's uh which is a movie from like the what 50s or 60s?

Yeah. All right. So let's see here. Danny, thank you very much. Did Andrew or any other Ukrainians he trained to encounter any members of Putin's private mercenaries known as the Wagner group? Yeah. So we've always missed the Wagner group, fortunately. They have been reported to break through, you know, Ukrainian lines in Donbass.

regularly and attack checkpoints or checkpoint attack groups trying to, you know, get through. But no, we haven't come into direct contact with him. What is that? This is Buffalo Trace. Okay. Ian, thank you very much. Question for the group. I've seen lots of Ukrainians, Ukrainian field interrogations of Russian soldiers.

No abuse of prisoners, but video online. okay under the Hague? Are there prescriptions against filming POWs? Yes, there are. And the Ukrainians are in violation of the Hague Convention. There is a

I forget the exact phraseology, but it is, we looked at this closely and it's, yeah, they should be no filming of, the terminology is bringing attention, blah, blah, blah, blah. to media.

And yes, the Ukrainians are violating that, you know. Absolutely. And there are, they're filming of a number of things that they're doing with, POWs is violating Laura of armed conflict. And it's not obvious. It's not like the Ukrainians are intentionally saying, hey fuck you we're going to but there was a

educational aspect of this and the United States probably needs to get involved saying hey guys this is we understand you you mean well but these things are not palatable you cannot do these things filming interrogations is one of them yeah

and filming interrogations and then posting them on you know any and say even if you have even if you have the permission of the guy being interrogated. Everyone knows is not. That's, we don't do that.

Is that a challenge with working with what we could call like partisan forces, right? Is it? I think it's a challenge, very clearly a challenge with the nature of this war, the bitterness. You know, you can say any war has bitterness, but this particular war has a tremendous amount of anger bitterness between the Russians and the Ukrainians. There is no, you know, you just have to look at the rhetoric.

Right. There's no common ground. There's just absolute hatred and anger. So my point here is a good friend of mine is a NATO lawyer. like the SES level lawyers and head of their review of law of arm conflict, blah, blah, blah. And he said, hey, NATO wants me to come into country. Can I embed with you guys? And I can teach classes of Ukrainians on law of armed conflict.

And me as an American, I'm like, yeah, that sounds really cool. And then. I was thinking about it's like, Bush, that is the worst fucking possible thing. Right. So we're not providing them with, with, A. Takums, we're not giving them this, that. But we're bringing a dude in. We can't bring anyone else to train

them on anything in the country. But bring a dude on telling them now, hey, we're going to teach you about the law of our conflict. Right, right. To go, fuck you. You know, if we've got Russians raping people and pillaging our villages and you, and this is your only support you want to provide us

as telling us be nice to them. Right. I'm not, I'm paraphrasing. Right. I mean, of course, I believe in the law of armed conflict. Of course, of course. But it's not like, it's not necessarily when you have five days to train. Yeah, when you have five days.

We are beyond that is what I'm saying is we are. We as U.S. trainers absolutely will distance ourselves. As soon as anyone shows us a video of killing Russians, prisoners were like, okay, that you have just fucking disqualified you and your whole unit for us being at touchpoint and we've been showing those videos plenty of time

so my point is it's a very very dirty war and Ukrainians are committing plenty of violations of law and armed conflict and we need to accept not accept what they're doing but call that out

but the way to do it isn't say hey guys we can't give you any other training right we have a i know jablin training but we're gonna tell you you can't guys right killing the russian prisoners right and it's interesting because in the past in you know you know you like latin america or whatever if u.s forces or employees were involved with any force that committed you know, your atrocities or whatever. You have to, yeah, you're done. Yeah.

But we're obviously not going to pull our support from Ukraine at this time. Well, I mean, I'm saying unit by unit you can do that. And for the most part, I've got to tell you, no, they don't commit atrocities. Yeah, I don't, yeah. I mean, the atrocities is a big word. The units that we are working with are very professional in how they, you know, interrogate Russian prisoners. But we are, I want people to understand that we, most of the units. group are very

there's no question of us going oh yeah well you know that's the way it is yeah it's like soon as we see a video of killing prisoners or anything like that we're like boots we're going to another unit yeah you know and

and I need to I need to retract that like I said atrocities and I was you know we're thinking about like the contours and San Annesas and stuff but you know you're just talking about the you know these violations atrocities no I mean And it still is. I mean, you shouldn't kill, you shouldn't kill dudes who, I mean, everyone knows who surrendered. I mean. And there was plenty of that. There was plenty of that. There's all kinds of atrocities to go around.

And I, I mean, I imagine for a lot of the soldiers, and this doesn't justify it. It just gives you sort of empathy or inciting the situation. I imagine for a lot of the soldiers and a lot of the civilians that it's a very personal. Like it's a very personal war. Oh, hugely, yeah. So, Dave, think about the risk calculus. So think about what you and me and Jack when we deployed our personal risk calculus, right? I don't know. I mean, I can't speak for you. And I never really sorted it out for myself.

But I knew I wanted generally to survive. But I didn't want to appear as a chicken, you know, as a coward. I didn't particularly want. I knew I was going to get a medal. I wasn't that level of, you know, insane bravery. But you want to do your job, right? You troll along. For the Ukrainians, though, it's a different...

Right. They've got their families behind them. Right. And so their risk calculus is, I would die. Right. Rather than... I would die when I'm going to take as many of these fuckers with me. And you can understand that, right?

You can mention literally your family. is behind you. Right. You would you no longer care about your survival, right? And you don't care

about some concept of the Hague somewhere. No. It's like, yeah. It's, I'm going to kill every motherfucker who wants to

touch my family. That's how personal it becomes. Right. And who can blame them? No. I mean, it's very difficult as an outsider

to, you, got it but we don't we're very careful not to foster that hatred not to build on it we're very careful to emphasize you're a professional soldier here's what you do you know you take prisoners blah blah blah we're very you know this we we we explain this is all part of the same package guys your professionals your soldiers you don't you don't do shit if you do you just like the russians right you know

um who knows how much of them we have on that regard right uh we're not blind to that

and uh we're very we're we're not Ukrainians you know I've I've done stuff to support the Israelis

and I've gone through the same stuff to my guys says read the name tape above your pocket I can't do that now with my guys

to be them necklace but you're not fucking Israelis you're not Ukrainians this is is about something higher than that. So let's not get too focused on our partners

and start forgiving them for stuff that they don't need to be forgivable. Right. You can still do your job without putting them on some sort of pedestal. Yeah. Pedestore. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we need to be cautious about that.

And that's what I tell all of us. This isn't about Ukraine and Russia. We're not getting overly sentimental. It's not like, you know, the Spanish, war, but maybe it is like the Spanish Civil War, because those guys who went to do, you know, fight the Republicans were essentially saying, hey, this is a threat that is going to encompass the whole world soon. Right.

And they were oppressing, you know. Yeah. So maybe it's not a bad analogy. But my point is, it's not about Ukraine. We're not like, I happen to have, you know, Ukraine flag tied to my bag, but I'm not, oh, my God, Ukraine's so awesome. because it's I understand that there are plenty fucked up people running Ukraine. It's not about that.

It's about global norms. Right, right. That's about Putin. It's allowing dudes in the 21st century like Putin to do what they want to do. It's a just fight. Yeah, yeah, it is. Tebar, thank you very much. How should policy balance responding to the Russian invasion with its focus?

on China, should the pivot to Asia pause to refocus on European defense? I don't think we need to pause to refocus. I think bolstering Nodo, the way you've done,

you know, you've heard me, I would like to see more. I would like to see a more wholehearted U.S. support as far as provision of weapons and all that, but in answer to you, you know, what what he says, no, I think by really emphasizing our role here, we're sending a very clear message

to the Chinese about Taiwan. And I was in Mar Four Pack. I was the plan's officer for Taiwan. So I'm very familiar with our plan. And there are clear correlations. And I think that's the best way US can say, hey China, look what's happened to Russia, they become a international briar. But again, it gets back to the fact that US needs support Ukraine more wholeheartedly with nervous platforms. And then they can send that message. And I think it's a great message, right? Right. Because China's always, always kind of edge forward of, yeah, you know, you know, so US doesn't care that much.

you're going to have to, by the time we invade, you're going to have to deploy forces forward to basically take the country back. So there's always been this backdrop. I think this is a great opportunity to the United States. Say no. Questions? Last question. Thank you, Artie.

What are you guys' thoughts on the prevalence of commercial drones on the battlefield? Both sides seem to make good use of them, and how does it affect the soldiers? Marine psychologically. I mean, I don't have experience with this, so... No, it's all important. So drones are

a game changer. The U.S. military does not currently recognize this, you know, as far as cultural acceptance at the squad level. They are a game changer in this sense that, you know, one of the,

this is not a Klauswitzian principle of warfare, but you're always trying to find standoff. right that's i mean from medieval times you want to be able to observe your enemy before he can see you and then you want you the ability to kill him before he sees you and so that is what drones give you there are the other things that uh you know for instance artillery gives you if you have these things the ukraine

do not have these things they do not have a as i explained a a task organization that involves forward observers, blah, blah, blah, blah. But they do understand drones. They understand how to use them. And so that's why I think those are game changes. And not the DJIs they have. They need to bring in more advanced European and US drones. They give them advanced strike and reconnaissance.

The DJI Chinese drones that our federal agencies use, those DJ? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're on, I understand there are packages to mitigate their vulnerabilities. I just, all I've heard is about their vulnerabilities. Let's see here. We got, let me, uh, oh, George Phillips' request for the show be conducted top. Sorry, George, we didn't see this prior. Otherwise, we would have.

Next time. Recorded what? Reconduct naked. Conducted tapless. Yeah. That's typically You guys ever see one of these? Do you So Isaac's other question is

Do you Do you think You and Mozart Might go to Taiwan next And Yes We want to go to Taiwan next Because there's a businessman

Who is offered billions of dollars To train Taiwanese defense forces. We can do this. So let's talk about your profit model, as it were, for your business. Right now, you guys are kind of, you're surviving on, like, charity or donations. Charity is a horrible term. Well, I mean donations. But on that note, I'm passing over my pizza.

Yeah, we are. So right now we are totally crowdsourced, you know, as far as resource. Crowdsourced, not charity. They got it. No, no, no, I mean, totally, no, you're right. Donor, donor supported organization. To a point. Yeah, we'd like to break out of that.

So we are working a number of other lines of effort that will include revenue. but for the most part we rely on donations and you know what there's no reason why we can't survive on that right if people care enough no absolutely in fact i'm sorry i was i'm posting the link i know it's down below but i'm also putting in the chat um if you guys go to the mozart group uh com right the mozart group dot com uh you can donate i like send five dollars for you know that you would buy a coffee with you know uh you know 15 20 20 20 uh If you're money bags and you fly a Ukrainian flag in your profile on social media, send them 100 or 200. Like get behind it and help these guys out.

Also, if you want to put Jack on the front line for a period of time. Russia can't handle that heat. I know. Like that's a 10 magazines and 2 MRI. That's a true escalation of force right there. No, the president knows, you know, you've got to be careful how you use me. Yeah. Once you let that guy loose.

The jack signal goes up. It's a second second sec. Yeah. But I think it's time. And you guys are also looking for EOD experts, right? Yeah. So if you or somebody you know is former EOD. Or just like any trainer, any trainer with emotional intelligence.

So, yeah, any trainer with emotional intelligence. So if you're a drill instructor, then maybe not. You're excluded. But reach out to these guys. And please, I mean, honestly, help them out. Throw them a few bucks. You know, it's not going to them. They're running the miracle mile.

The Mozart mile. Absolutely. And if you want to visit us, seriously, we can work out. Yeah, come and visit. Yeah, come and visit. I think Jack and I should make that plan. Yeah. I have actually resisted because I don't really want to be a war tourist over there.

But you're not a war tourist. You're a Mozart executive. I like the way you phrase that. No, I mean, war tourists, no. We do not do war tourist. I know you don't, but me going over there. No, it's fine. No, we're going to walk a lot.

No, it's going to be cool. It'll be fine. Ask Kenny. Kenny does, organizes all this stuff. I would have to find some... If there was an important story for me to report on there, I would do it. How can you say that? It's not an important story.

We're the important story. The Mozart group. Like, write an article... The Atlantic already covered it. No, but write an article countering the Atlantic. Yeah. The Atlantic called you guys mercenaries. Or Soldiers of Fortune or...

Yeah. Well, if anyone wants to buy that article... Men who paid the blood price. Whatever it is, I don't know. So I also want to remind people out there to check out our Patreon. The links down in the description. If you want to get access to these episodes, ad-free, actually both the video and the audio is going to be ad-free on the Patreon now.

So I hope you guys will check that out and support the stream. We appreciate it. And that's why we're here. We got a new studio way cooler. We got D. Things are way more professional than they were in some of Andy's previous appearances on this show. Yeah, my shirt's salon. Also, buy Andy's book.

You will love it. You will love it, I promise. And throw a few bucks to the Mozart group. Go to our Twitter page or it's Andy Milburn 8. Also on TikTok. No, seriously, we do good things. They do great things. So thanks for joining us tonight, guys.

And we'll be back on Friday with Daryl Blocker. He was the chief of Africa Division at CIA. Really excited to have him on the show. And we'll see you then. Andrew, thanks again for stopping by. We love you. No, it's awesome, man. And it was a great ending.

So you're not going to get any more complaints about me taking my shut off. It's on. Complaints, our revenues are going down after this. I will get complaints that. There's no male frontal nudity on this. so.