The Team House - James LaPorta on Point: From Ukraine to PTSD | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseToday we are joined by investigative reporter Jim  LaPorta to talk all things from Ukraine, PTSD, and what it takes to be an investigative journalist.Find Jim here:https://x.com/JimLaPorta?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5EauthorFind Andy Milburn here:⬇️Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to and we really appreciate that so go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house hello everyone welcome to another episode of iZahn i'm andy milburn jason lyons d is on d is on but he is muted right now oh yeah he's got some maintenance guy in his home so he's uh microphone off well today everyone we have a very distinguished guest, Jim LaPorter. Okay, so because, you know, we, we are kind of a bootstrap, bootstrap, I wouldn't say organization, but, you know, not quite as smooth with our editing as the team house. I know in the team house, they, they managed to bleep things just

before, you know, they arrive, before they get in trouble, right, even when doing it live. But Jim, jump in and embarrass me if I get anything about your back. wrong. Okay. So, Jim, Jim is an American investigative reporter who works now. You're working. It says in your bio, Rolling Stone, but that's not the case right. You're with CBS. Correct. Yeah, that's, yeah, Wikipedia, which I don't know who creates Wikipedia pages, but yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, yeah. See, I thought you have made it in, and I thought that's it. But the fact that someone goes to the trouble of updating your Wikipedia page says a lot about you, Jim. So let's not be too modest. In any case, if you are updating Jim's page, he works for CBS now.

Yeah. I mean, I was a contributing writer to Rolling Stone for a couple months. Yeah. So they're not entirely wrong. And then now you are you're at CBS and you're doing, you're working for the kind of the, what's it called credibility? Is it a, yeah. So our team, explain what that is. Sure, it's called the confirmed team. It's actually a team. Oh, confirmed team, not credibility.

Yeah. But it's about credibility. But he's that, I mean, you're not wrong. I mean, that's basically what it is. The team started in March. We are a, we call, the team is kind of made up of, journalists who kind of come from all different walks of life. We have digital forensic journalists.

We have journalists who do data. We have journalists who do visual investigations. We have journalists who do, you know, they're really good with court records. They're really good with the Freedom of Information Act, things like that. And what we do is we try to, not only do we serve CBS News, we serve all of the CBS News affiliates around the country. So like I'm working on a story with like CBS News Philadelphia right now or I might work with the CBS News affiliate in California. But then I might also work with 60 minutes or 48 hours.

So we service all of CBS News in terms of like we do geospatial location. We do. Yeah. If it's like to Ukraine, if it's like Russia, Ukraine, I might jump in and try to identify ordinance and munitions, which would go into an investigative package. for like, say, 60 minutes. So we do a whole bunch of things. Now, Jim, were you a plank owner on this team? Or did you help start it?

Or was it already in place? So it's a brand new idea. I think I was like either the first or second hired on the team. In terms of the team, I'm kind of the old man on the team because I've been in journalism for probably 11 years now. But there's a good mix of, of journalists kind of like in the beginning of their career and kind of like, you know, they got five or six years in.

And then we have journalists who are, you know, 10 to 15 years into their career. So there's a good mix. There's a good like mentorship, you know, leadership, followership kind of dynamic going on. But I mean, some of the younger journalists, I learned from them, like especially like data journalists. Like I don't really do much data journalism in my day to day. And so they're whizzes because they can look at, it's amazing. They can look at like just a big data set of numbers and find stories within the numbers,

you know, and like trend lines and things like that, which is a skill set that I just don't naturally have. Nice. So. But yeah, it's it. I think, I think, you know, with, with a public kind of distrusting journalism, I think the more we can show our homework, the more we can show, be transparent. I think that builds credibility.

So the more, you know, instead of just like saying, hey, this is where we got this information, I'll show them the document of where the information comes from. So I always think more transparency is better, you know, in the world of disinformation. Jim, that particular, what you're talking about is particularly interesting now, isn't it? And in in recent, when I say in recent years, really in the last two years, there have been several high profile cases of news that has broken and then is subsequently challenged or found out not to be the case.

And then there's there's, you know, reverberations and repercussions for those involved in the news cycle. You were personally involved, I know, in an instance like that. And then, you know, most recently we've had, actually someone who I count as a friend, Jeffrey Gettelman at the New York Times, who wrote an article about the, you know, alleged rapes by Hamas and Israel. And the article caused a great deal of controversy about, you know, sourcing and whether it had been properly researched. So it's just kind of by way of context that that gives enormous weight to. to what you were doing now, although you're typically playing it down has been quite modest.

But it's going to be a huge learning experience too. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, the thing about journalism is and look, there's a lot of criticism to go around to journalism. And I think that's, you know, it's fair. You know, people should be asking questions

of how we do our work. But in general, journalism we put our name on our stuff you know anything i've ever written i put my name on it and the moment i make a mistake i have to own that mistake too you know so in journalism uh if you're doing journalism the way it's supposed to be done you own your mistakes you know you you issue the corrections you know um and we're also we're also we're humans so we're you know we're all just kind of trying our best you know um to you know i i you know i don't know well well Well, to, I think to take a step back, I think it's worth mentioning that I probably missed out the most important part of your biography.

And let's go back and emphasize it that you were an infantry squad leader in Echo Company, second battalion, eighth Marines, which I believe is another Marine Infantry Battalion. I seem to have heard of it. It's over there on the East Coast, and they do okay, I guess. And We're American's Battalion Yeah Along with another 26 right In any case

So was there But I think there's a battalion And third Marine regiment That's also American Army's battalion So I don't know which one of us Is actually the real When you talk about it That was my battalion

No it's three three three It's three three Yeah three three calls Oh three three that's right That's right But yeah But I can tell you When I was in it

When I was at Camp Geiger As an infantry an ITS student way back in 88, America's Battalion was whatever battalion had most recently deployed to, God, I can't remember the Med. It was an 8th Marine Battalion, I remember. I want to say it was 1-8, but all over Camer Lajun, I haven't seemed to think 1-8 was America's Battalion.

So you missed that by one. I mean, you're giving away a little bit more history. You're giving away some history because there are no infantry battalions on Camp Geiger anymore. Like, Camp Geiger, as you know, it's just a training committee. So you're really, you're really talking about

and it's, and it's no longer IPS. It's the School of Infantry and times change. But back to you, so you served in Afghanistan. You're actually in combat about 15 years ago, roughly, right? Around this time. Yeah, 2009 and then 2013.

But 2013, you know one patrol hit an IED so it wasn't as kinetic as 2009 was you know 2013 the Obama administration is really trying to end the war by 2014 and so it's a lot of you know

demil you know there's certain areas in Afghanistan you just don't go into anymore just because there's no strategic value in going into it because we're trying to hand everything off to the Afghans but also trying to retrograde out of there but obviously that didn't

happened but yeah 2013 was i was working mostly in intelligence um whereas 2009 i was i was a saw gunner in a fire team you know so it just vastly different experiences and as a brand new guy were you given the saw yeah that pisses me not so much that is still going on too that's the most that is the hardest the most important weapon in the infantry uh marine infantry rifle squad and we always give it for the new guy. I mean, I mean, I'm fucking heavy, right? I got it. It's 22 pounds fully loaded. I was in really good shape, probably like 300 pounds ago from what I am now.

But, I mean, I carried the saw on a one point sling. I loved in a firefight, like I loved, you know, it was a, you know, I loved it, you know, I loved it. You know, it only jammed once in a firefight. And it was probably my own fault because I didn't clean it. Wow. So I blame myself. Yeah, I had a hundred round contact belt and then had somewhere between four and six hundred rounds that I'd carry on my body. Yeah.

So those of you who are tuning in going, wait a second, I thought this was current affairs, not some, you know, more weapons point born from the team house. I do want to add that what James is talking about is kind of the lynch pen of the Marine Rifle Squad, the weapon that was a linchpin of the Marine Rifle Squad when we dumped the machine gun, as those of you who are fans of infantry combat and why shouldn't you be, we'll be familiar with this constant struggle about automatic fire down at the lowest possible level. So, okay, so you started off as saw gun, and. And how did you go on there?

Tell us about your impressions. You were obviously, I am guessing, perhaps a cut above intelligence-wise, the average marine instrument, but I'd like to hear otherwise. I'd like to hear say, no, actually. Look, I learned some big words that make me sound smarter than I actually am. And, you know, some good officer phrases, you know, and I might know a, you know, a Klauswitz quote. here or there that make me sound smarter than I am. But no, I went into the Marine Corps 10 days after I graduated high school.

You know, 9-11 was still on my mind, even going into 2005, 2006. You know, Felicia had already happened. Ramadi and Iraq had already happened. Went into the infantry. And then my first deployment was until 2009. So I was basically part of President Obama's kind of refocusing, you know, shifting from the focus being on Iraq to shifting back to Afghanistan. And so I was part of his initial surge of troops into, I was in Southern Hellman province. And so my first day in combat was July 2nd, 2009.

It was the largest helo insertion for the Marine Corps since the Vietnam War. so we're basically 4,000 U.S. Marines heloed into, we basically leapfrogged over the British and went into Southern Hellman and took over. And so that was kind of my first experiences. You know, it was a very interesting time. Like I didn't, you know, it was your first day of combat is kind of like, you know, because I volunteered. I was actually at Second Marine Regiment in, in,

my battalion had come over and asked for volunteers. And I hadn't been, I hadn't been yet. So I was like, well, yeah, I'll go. You know, and so, which was kind of nice because I didn't have to do any of the workup. You know, I skipped, I didn't do 29 palms. I didn't do any of that. They just like, go get your ears. Yeah. I skipped all the bad parts of getting ready for a deployment.

But a little scary too, that we did that, right? A little bit, but that was kind of the needs of, you know, the Marine Corps. we're always sort of short on personnel. So I've never, for the eight years that I was in, I've never been in a full T-Oed infantry squad, which is 13 Marines, you know, three fire teams in a squad later. I've never been in that.

You know, the squad that I joined, I think, had a max of like seven, you know? So that's just kind of the way it was. The Marine Corps was always kind of like, who wants to go kind of, you know? They were always kind of like Well, we were a little bit in danger of hollowing ourselves out

during that time because we needed the fourth structure, right, to keep rotating battalions. And we were determined to keep battalion deployments to the seven months. Those decisions were made way above you and I. But, you know, remember the regiments went for a year. But as you remember, whether it was Afghanistan, whether it was Helmand or Anbar,

the Marine Corps stance was, look, you know, this is with the environment it is, blah, blah, blah, blah. The, you know, seven months is about right. And I think they're right on that. I really do. But, you know, I, but anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead. As a concept, it wasn't bad. I mean, what they're, I think, what they're, I don't know if they ever did it, you.

But, yeah, the goal was seven months deployed, what a year off is, I think the kind of the back and forward for it takes. Yeah, the minimum, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and the only thing the Marine Corps didn't quite figure out, but I think this was a problem with all the services, was transitioning from the Marine Corps back into civilian life. Like, the goal was we would like to give a Marine a year to transition. I've never met a Marine that got that year, you know,

to kind of re-transitioned back into civilian life. You know, I think I had maybe a month or two to kind of like fully check out of the Marine Corps and figure out what I was going to do and get my resume ready and you know turning gear and you know as you know go around and get all these signatures from people that you've never met

you know but but yeah no so yeah 2009 Afghanistan rough deployment we lost 14 Marines as a battalion I think we're only there for about four months total because the first month we're

we were at mostly like Camp Leatherneck and Bastion. And then we did spend some time in Kyrgyzstan, you know, before we actually rotated back home. And then from there, I re-enlisted, went down to Paris Island. I used to teach recruits how to shoot on the rifle range down at Paras Island. And then I heard 2-8 was going back to Afghanistan. So I volunteered a second time to go back to Afghanistan. in and went back with my old company.

So I rejoined Echo Company, Second of Tiny Eighth Marines, and went back in 2013. But this time I was working in intelligence. And so it's still an infantryman, but working within the company intelligence cell, which I believe was a Marine, you know, kind of innovation around 2007 or so.

Yeah, it was actually a really good program. You know, we weren't, your intelligence cells at the company level are as good as you want to make it. You know, most are, you know, you can either have a really lazy one, which is just doing debriefs when guys come off of the trolls. We didn't do that. We were like, look, we're going to do some things, you know. And so, I mean, we really tried to turn it into like a regional targeting cell. we modeled our intelligence cell off of the regimental targeting cell up at Leatherneck. And so we were actually trying to like, we wanted a good like, you know,

intelligence preparation of the battlefield. So when the unit that was coming into replaces, we had a good turnover with them. But we weren't just going to sit there and take debriefs. We actually wanted to get things done. So that was a good experience. And I say all that because when I was getting out of 2014, I was kind of like left to like, well, what have been? going to do with the rest of my life. And I saw a lot of parallels between working in

intelligence and working in journalism. I didn't initially know that. I originally got into journalism mostly because it wasn't with an, the goal at first wasn't to like report the news. It was mostly like I had these war experiences that I wasn't ready to write about. And I wasn't really like ready to confront you know um and so my thought was well maybe if i write about you know the war experiences of other veterans through that it'll be therapeutic for me in some way so it was actually really a selfish reason you know i just i felt i wasn't ready to deal with my own stuff so uh so i'd write about other veterans um jim can you can you talk a little bit about Can you talk a little bit about that?

Because you have, you know, you've written a little bit about it too, the fact that, you know, as General Nellis says, no one goes through combat remains unchanged. And you've been very, you know, very honest about that. Yeah. It took me a while to get to a place to start writing about some of my combat experiences and how they really impacted me, you know, and changed me. You called them the monster, right? I mean, I just saw it's a good term. The monster in your life. Yeah.

Yeah, initially I was writing about other veterans and their experiences, and that kind of backfired because I initially, I started to take on a lot of their trauma. So the first article that I ever wrote for the Washington Post was about a friend of mine who had taken his own life. and that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to write and I actually didn't even know if I was going to be able to finish the article

because I had to keep stopping because I'd get overwhelmed by writing about my friend who is no longer here he overdosed on morphine and colonnepin and left a suicide note that's the first article I ever wrote for the Washington Post but through therapy and kind of getting better at translating my emotions onto, you know, the blank page, it got better.

So right around, right after, I think it was a month after the Afghan withdrawal in August of 2021, I wrote about a five-year-old kid who had stepped on an IED in 2020. 2013. What people don't know about that story is I started writing that four years prior. And I had to keep stopping. And mostly one of the hardest things I had with that article was I didn't know how to end it. And I didn't know how to end it until the Afghan war ended itself. And that's kind of how I felt with, you know, there's there's a line in that article that I write about how wars don't end with a with a with a with a with a peace treaty they don't end with a withdrawal or retrograde the wars ebb ebb and flow in the memories of the people who

were there right i wrote something to that effect and that's kind of how I felt I was like well because the afghanistan war is continuing on and on and on year after year after year I couldn't find an ending for how to write about this five-year-old who stepped on an IED you know So with the Afghan war ending, I was able to kind of put that memory, not that I've kind of forgotten about that memory, but I was able to finally deal with that, you know, this one memory from war, you know, that I couldn't shake. I was going to ask that question if, and you just answered it. If once you're done writing an article, do you find that cathars, however you say it, do you find that the release helps you to, put that aside for the next one, or do you hold on to a piece of everything you write?

I'm definitely a person who, like, holds on to a piece of everything I write. For example, I almost quit, I almost quit journalism for good in October of 2018. I was, I think it was, it's either October 2018 or 2019. I'm pretty sure it's 2018. So I was sitting on my couch. A source calls me from Afghanistan and they said, hey, we've had a green on blue shooting, which is for people who might not know, it's when an Afghan soldier who were training, they kind of turn their weapon on American forces. And it's a betrayal.

And so they'll kill an American service member. And so I covered several of these. And so I walk into my office. I start the pre-writing. whenever there's an American service member killed, I kind of have a personal policy on two things. One, it's the only story that I don't get ahead of the Defense Department. I will let, because I know next to kin is happening.

I know people are getting into uniforms and they're about to go break some family's heart permanently. So I know that's happening. So it's the one story, even though I know and I could publish, I don't want a family member reading about the death of a loved one, before the Defense Department has had a chance to come tell them. So I hold the story. The other policy that I have is I don't reach out to the family.

The last thing they need right now is some reporter saying, how do you feel when they've just had their life shattered? Now, if I do hear through other sources that they do want to talk about their family, I'll entertain that and, you know, I'll put that into a story. but I try to leave the immediate family alone. There's other ways you can tell the story without bothering the family who is probably overwhelmed at the moment.

So I go into my office, I start the pre-writing, and about 30 minutes into my writing, the source hits me back and says, oh, by the way, he's got seven kids. And the moment he said it, I lost it. I was, I mean, it's hard enough to you know, you're telling one kid that their, you know, their loved one is not coming home, but how do you tell seven?

You know, that, there's some reason that really bothered me. So it was this guy named Major Brent Taylor from Utah. He was the mayor of his hometown. So he technically didn't even need to be in Afghanistan. He could have easily said, well, I'm the mayor. So I can't go on this deployment. But he went anyway. He was on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan.

And his kids were all, I think his kids, were all under the age of 10 or 11. They're all very young. So now, you know, I knew two guys in uniform were about to come tell this wife with seven kids that their dad's not coming home. So I actually wrote a letter to Newsweek. I was working on Newsweek magazine at the time.

I wrote a letter. I was going to resign. I just didn't want to do it anymore. And I was already thinking about, like, well, which journalist can I offload stories that I'm working on? And they can kind of take up? the mantle. And so I was going to, I was going to quit. And it was actually, it was actually, it's kind of weird. It was actually the source who informed me about the green and blue shooting who gave me some advice. They were like, you know, if you don't tell their stories,

who's going to. And that's kind of the reason I'm still in journalism today. But I really wanted to quit at that time because, you know, journalism, it was no longer, um, fun is not the right word, but, but I was no longer getting anything out of it. It was, it was, it was, it was hurting more than it was, I, you know, you know, helping. But, but that's why I'm still in journalism today. Um, I don't know, that kind of, I didn't mean to turn this into a therapy. Yeah. Yeah. But are you saying, do still with me? Yeah, they do. Like, they really like, I can, I can, I can still get emotional about thinking about it. you know i just a couple of thoughts jim i didn't mean to hang you out there but um you know i think for a lot of us once once sometimes the the hardest part i know this sounds like a cliche but the hottest part is after combat for a number of reasons and one of which is as we get older and have kids it puts things in context when we see things that have happened you know at the time it was you know

but it's it's it's tragic it's horrible but you you know if you're barely a kid yourself, it's not as horrible as when you're a father looking back on things that we had seen, right? That's number one. Number two, you can sustain yourself when there's a feeling that you just have right on your side. As tried that domain sound, that counts for a huge amount. You know, I see in Ukraine, you know, my experience there, the scale of suffering is off the charts from anything we have seen or experienced in combat. And yet, their morale has remained really high. And why is that even though they face the prospect of, you know,

not certain death, but probable death. It's simply because they have absolute, absolute 100% belief in their cause. And their country does too. And we just didn't have that. And I think that, you know, we didn't have it. You know, people can say, hey, we support you. But the bottom line is we didn't have it because we had a war that dragged on for two decades to no end. Right. You know, so I think all of those things.

Well, that was what was very frustrating. I remember that was kind of what was very frustrating, you know, to jump back on the top of Afghanistan. You know, I remember when the Afghanistan papers came out in the Washington Post, right? And, you know, civilians were like, finally we know the truth that that the war in Afghanistan is not going well. And I remember talking to a lot of veterans I'm like, you could have talked to a Lance corporal or a young lieutenant or captain at any point in the Afghanistan war.

And they would have been very honest with you about, look, they might be saying we're turning a corner and making progress from the Pentagon podium. That's not what's happening down here. Like, there was just a disconnect between Washington and the infantry grunt on the ground. And here's a thing.

infantry grunts were not like holding this back like if you all you had to do was walk up and ask them and they weren't even bitter they weren't even bitter about it it was just it was part of a joke that's right it was part of this fake joke it was that's right it became the joke

that's right here we are again then so I got very frustrated you know with it when the Afghanistan papers came out I was like yeah this is and by the way the Afghanistan papers okay there's some echoes to the Pentagon paper in Vietnam. But all you had to do was go over to and read the reports at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. And they would have told you the same.

Like these weren't the problems in Afghanistan weren't this, you know, hidden behind classification. Like they were in view of the public for them to read at any point. You know, and so I just, I remember a lot of veterans being very frustrated when, when those Afghanistan papers came out. And people were like, well, finally we know. It's like, no, we've known for a while. The question is, was anyone paying attention? Yeah. That's where the real question is. You know, um, no, you know, talking about Ukraine, I have a, um, I have a buddy of mine who literally just called me yesterday. We served in, in Afghanistan together in 2009. He, he's a Marine sniper. And, you know, he's 39. He's going on 40. And, you know, he's talking to me about how,

you know, look, I'm in a dead-in job. I don't really have a purpose in life. I don't have a wife. I don't have a kid. But I really believe in Ukraine's cause. And I'm going to go over and fight. And he was asking me for my advice. And, you know, I told him, I was like, because I've reported on the Russian Ukraine War. So I was kind of telling them, here's the reality. It's like, you know, Ukraine, what Ukraine is going through is not what it's a fight I wouldn't want to be in like like what we what I had to go through in Afghanistan I didn't have to deal with drones I didn't have to deal with mechanized units I didn't have to trench warfare was not a thing in in in Helmand province you know so air attack yeah I mean and so I was telling what I was I told them I was like look I'm not I'm not

going to tell you what to do. It's your life. But I told him I was, I was worried for him. You know, and he says, you know, do you think the war is going to end? And I was like, I was like, it doesn't seem like it right now. And especially when we're going into a new administration where there's a possibility that, you know, military aid to Ukraine might get cut off. And what if that happens? What if the U.S. stops shipping high Mars and A. Tacoms and, you know, bullets and bombs and mortars to Ukraine, what happens then? I don't know. So I told him, I was like, you're joining the foreign legion

at a really interesting time in the Russia-Ukraine war. You know, I don't know. It's, I'm worried for it. You know, because I don't want to write his obituary. Yeah. You know, that's my fear is I don't want to have to write your obituary. I would say, I always tell people, no, don't do it. Don't do it. You know, I mean, the Ukrainians are struggling for manpower. They've had 600,000, 6 to 700,000 military-aged males leave the country, you know, to avoid service. And it just doesn't seem to make sense that people are filling this void with their own bodies to no end. You know, I think all of us who've known people who volunteered have seen the incredibly high attrition rate among them.

And I just, yeah, it's, you're right. It's beyond the scale of imagination, I think, for a lot of veterans. But I think there's another aspect of this gym, too, from the veterans I've spoken to, who have either served in Ukraine or on the way, want to. And that is a sense of what I just talked about, kind of the clarity of the cause, which they have missed. They wanted, but they have missed throughout their careers. you know and now they haven't right

and that's the sediment I got from him he's like he's like look I don't have a purpose right now and and and and and and that's kind of what he was that was kind of his his driving force and wanting to join was you know you know in terms of protecting Ukrainian sovereignty you know and and Russia's violation of that

but you know I was I didn't hold back on the realities of what warfare is like in Ukraine I mean it's it's I was told on I was like it's not Afghanistan you know the tactics you applied in Afghanistan I don't know if they translate to to a Ukraine I would imagine they would yeah so there's things that you have to consider that we the things you have to consider that we just didn't have to deal with like I never I never had to fight a tank yeah so Like, I laugh about it because crazy. Yeah, because I've never had to fight a tank, you know. But I remember when Crimea was annexed, a buddy of mine who was an Air Force Special Operations pilot, Nolan Pearson, who's covered Ukraine for a long time.

Yeah, I met him. I had dinner with him in Kiev, actually. He was one of my first editors when I first got into journalism. him. He's a phenomenal. He's a phenomenal. He's a phenomenal writer. Like his writing is just,

it's beautiful. I wish I could write like him because he can just throw out a thousand words like it's nobody's business. And it's, it all is beautiful. Whereas I like, I take my time. But he was there in Crimea

and I remember him sending me pictures after, you know, back from Ukraine in Mariupil. And it was like right after a tank battle. And I looked like it looked like I was looking at pictures from like World War II. It was just hard to imagine, you know, a modern day take battle, you know, in 2014. You know, I was like, what is this? World War II?

He's like, no, this was like two days ago. You know, it was just kind of crazy. So jump to, you know, the invasion, you know, and you have tank battles between Abrams tanks and, you know, and you know T-72s and you know Leopolds and stuff like that it's just it's just it's as an observer it's crazy to watch it's like nothing we expected to see Jim so you you went from um so you're saying it's kind of the end bit of a stretch perhaps but your time in the intelligence cell kind of got you interested or perhaps launched you on trajectory to be an investigative of

journalist. And so what, you know, what is some of the, I'm trying to, I'm trying to avoid being, you know, too specific, but if you just talk about some of the formative experiences that you've had about of the investigated of journalists, and I don't mean necessarily just the AP thing, but I hope I'm kind of leading you here, you know, whatever. I mean, your, your, your, your, your battles with the Marine Corps or, you know, you name it. It's not, it's not a, I mean, it's, it's It's kind of a, it's not an easy part, I guess, is it, within journalism, certainly. No. You know, not to sound like a bumper sticker, but I do believe in the old school basic

tenets of journalism, that journalism is there to be the fourth estate. We're there to be a check on power. You're supposed to hold people in power accountable. You're supposed to give voice to the voiceless. I still believe all that, the idealist in me. And holding the Marine Corps accountable is part of the job. And the Marine Corps sometimes wants blind loyalty. And, and, you know, I think they've gotten better at it, I will say, to give them credit.

but back in, you know, 2017, 2018, their approach was the problem isn't the problem. The problem is that you're pointing out the problem. Like that was there, you know, and it was one of those kind of, you know, approaches, and which is ridiculous, you know. And so early in my career, there was a period of where I think the Marine Corps viewed me as a bitter Marine. And I had long conversations with public affairs officers saying, I'm not bitter at all. I'm very proud of my service. I'm proudly in Marine. And I criticized the Marine Court out of a place of I wanted to be a better organization. Not that I'm trying to tear it down, you know. But that was kind of their stance. Like they, you know, they didn't want any sort of public scrutiny.

at all, you know. I will say they've gotten better in some respects, you know, but I'm also kind of out of the loop a little bit. I don't cover the Wing Corps on a day-to-day basis or even the military services on a day-day basis, even though I still do military stories. But, I mean, it was very frustrating. Yeah. Can you, because I remember specifically you were you were barred from coming on base, and it was kind of interesting, because you were still a reservist, right? But you were covering a sexual assault story

that was particularly sensitive to the command. Yeah, so the issue there was, there was a woman on base who was sexually, allegedly sexually assaulted, and she said, she had two things going. She said, one, I have a strong mistrust. of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

And she had a strong mistrust of Camp Leguine Public Affairs. I had base access. Sorry, when you mentioned both those two organizations, I mean, who could possibly distrust those two? Right. And so it was so that was the kind of situation. I had base access, but I was also invited on base. But I also knew, if I put public affairs, if I went through public affairs and said, I want to interview this woman, one, they would have said no.

And two, even if they had said yes, it would have, it would have tainted the interview process. It wouldn't have been as forthcoming, you know. And so I went around public affairs, and public affairs didn't like that. You know, public affairs was of the, you know, they said, well, the policy is you have to come through us. that's not a policy. There's nothing, there's no policy that says me as an independent journalist, I can't go and call up anyone I want to.

The policy is for the service members. They're supposed to say, I refer you to public affairs. But this idea that I have to go through public affairs is, that's just not true. Yeah, yeah. And so, but, you know, but yeah, I got,

I will say, though, that getting banned from Campo, June, I thought it was, there was even some Marine Corps public affairs officers who thought that was too heavy-handed by Campbell June. I agree. Like I was honorably discharged. I served there for six in my eight years. I never had a disciplinary issue. I've never been in JP'd, never been court-martialed. Like, you know, I think the letter says I was a security risk, which is ridiculous. And you were, You were following a legitimate line of inquiry. Correct.

That didn't impact on national security. Couldn't possibly impact on national security. Correct. Yeah. I conducted myself, even as a reporter, I conducted myself as a Marine. Yeah. I mean, it was just a very, it was a very cack-handed, very clumsy move by whichever commanding officer was involved in that decision.

You know, one expects public affairs people, often to get bad advice because they're junior and it's an MOS that you know the average you don't really join them rank or to be a public affairs guy unless you had planned subsequently to run for vice president but um no i'm i'm kidding as an officer though jason i think it's fair to say that we perhaps don't have our best people in public affairs right it doesn't and doesn't normally turn out should and it backfires on us as an organization again and again. You know, Jim has kind of an insider track when he writes about the Marine Corps, so he's got that part of him that feels a familial responsibility.

So he isn't a mock raker. But I can tell you there are others, you know, so that I've talked to correspondents, BBC, especially foreign correspondents, who think that we are abysmal when it comes to public relations, not just Marine Corps, to be fair. the U.S. military. There are some public affairs officers who generally want to do a good job. And they're really, you know, because I talked a lot of them off the record and on background.

And I asked, like, what are the struggles in your job? So I can try to understand, you know, as a journalist, I don't want this, I don't want an adversarial, you know, relationship, you know. and a lot of the public affairs officers tell me is one they're caught in the middle at one point so one they have to buy in they one they have to get buy in from the commanding officer and commanding officers are reluctant to talk to the press the other but the the real people that they have to deal with and why a lot of public affairs officers kind of get thrown under the bus is actually the lawyers it's the lawyers who are dictating like don't put this information out don't put that information out.

And unfortunately, the public affairs officers usually take the brunt of the criticism. But it's a lot of the times, like, they're having to navigate this world of, you know, what can we say legally? Yeah, without getting deepened up. Yeah. Which is why we should be putting really good guys in there. Absolutely. Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's a tough, it's a tough path. I was talking to a colleague over at military.com, who's also an army veteran. And so every year there's a conference called the Military Reporters and Editors Conference. And there is a Q&A session that I really love. So the heads of public affairs for every one of the services come. And there's a Q&A session between the journalists and the head of public affairs for every service. Every year at military reporters and editors. It's usually held in Washington, D.C. at the Navy Art.

And the question I'm going to bring up this year that I, that I want an answer to is if you type in the word loss of trust and confidence, if you type that phrase into Google, you're going to have hundreds of articles pop up about this commanding officer was leave for a loss of trust and confidence. This person was relieved for loss of trust and confidence. My issue with that is loss of trust and confidence

can be a whole bunch of things. Right? It can run from you, you slept with someone's wife, to you're a bad leader. And you haven't fostered a good command climate. And there has to be a way, a better balancing act where the American people are better in a form. Yeah.

Why the skipper of a submarine was relieved. Because loss of trust and confidence doesn't do it. Yeah. There has to be a balancing act where you're protecting someone's rights if there's an ongoing investigation. But you're also giving a little bit more to, American people that isn't just this big umbrella phrase that means nothing. Yeah, because I don't want to see an article lead that says loss of trust and confidence and submarine in the same line because now I'm thinking, did he sleep with someone's wife

or did he launch freaking nuclear weapons? You know, tell me. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, there's a British submarine commander who just crossed the line on both those things. He made a photo video on his submarine. No, but I don't mean to keep that. Hold on it. Let me check the dog real quick.

Go ahead. Tommy said hi. But yeah, no, I mean, no, but that's the exact point. Like, there has to be a middle ground to where, because usually what's happening is when there's a commanding officer is relieved, there is usually an ongoing investigation. So there has to be a way of like protecting that ongoing investigation in the commanding officer's rights, but also, you know, like, giving a little bit more to the American people, where we're not assuming the absolute worst. Absolutely.

Because the average American reader is just going to see those two things, you know, loss of trust and confidence, nuclear submarine, or, you know, if it happened in a combat zone, you know, did he massacre a village or did he just, you know, was he just an ass, you know, to his Marines? Give us something. Yeah, this has been a bugger booth for me for a long time because within the military, too, there's good reason to be less opaque.

If we're nurturing leaders and we're saying that, you know, everything we do is focused on teaching people to lead, then they need this information. If we're at the same time firing a whole bunch of people we've selected to lead, then what is going wrong? All right? And it's particularly troublesome. I mean, it's troublesome in all the services. I would say when you look at the number of firings a year and you look at the command selection process, we shouldn't be firing this many people, especially the Navy, especially in the Navy surface.

You know, if you look at the statistics there, I have not, but I suspect they're really high. Something is wrong. And so we do need to be less opaque. Certainly, you know, if nothing else, yes, for the whole freedom of information, intent, but secondly, to become better organizations. I mean, organizations defending democracy supposed to be transparent. How do we improve if every time someone does something? And there is a massive difference between, you know, there's like extreme,

there's negligent incompetence, all right? There's simple sustained incompetence, right? Both those things are enough to get you relieved. But negligent incompetence is kind of a one-off thing, whereas sustained incompetence is a pattern. But then there is egregious personal behavior which can run the gamut from, and I'm not playing down anything,

but from things that are not a crime in civilian life, like adultery, all the way through to things that we were talking about before the show, like, you know, petaphylia, it's not, we weren't talking about paedophilia. We're talking about officer misconduct, and paetophilia was something. We know the other thing on that topic.

So, commanding officers, and you'll know this is, so there's this concept of, they're called CCIRs, which are commander's critical intelligence requirements. Basically, these are, if something happens, I need to know this right away,

you know, and whatever they are. And I can't tell you how many units that I've come across where their top, a commander's top criteria. Number one is, will this garner media attention?

and that really bothers me because you would assume it should be the moment the service member dies in my unit the moment a service member dies in my unit why isn't that number one why is it if it will garner media attention you know like why is that

your number one concern why is your number one concern not the personnel in your military unit why is it that it might end up on Fox News or CBS News or something like Like, why is that your concern? That should be the least of your concerns.

Taking care of your people should. But time and time again, I've seen, I've gotten through the Freedom of Information Act, a commander's CCRs, and the top one is the media. And I'm like, why are you so concerned with the media? Yeah. Be concerned with what your unit's doing, or at least that, it seems like that should be,

what you should be concerned with. Finding out the truth. Yeah. I think, yeah. That's a really interesting comment. I think it honestly goes hand in hand with this cult of anti-intellectualism that exists within the military. It's kind of, you know, beneath the surface, but it's always been there. Officers bragging about having athletic scholarships and never studying, never having read a book.

You know, there's kind of this macho braggado that goes hand in hand with eschewing anything that deals with. The intellect. Now, as an extension of that, though, I think there's the hangover from Vietnam and there's this very reflexibly kind of feeling that the media is the enemy and the media there is to expose all your secrets. And it saddens me because we really don't do a good job of inculcating, certainly not when I was an officer, the fact that watchdog of democracy is more than just, you know, a banal title. It's exactly what we make of it. and it is the responsibility of everyone, not just those within journalism, to ensure that it remains the watchdog of democracy. And if you're not being honest with it, it cannot do so.

And by the way, we too represented democracy. So we should be all working for the same thing. I mean, you make a good point. I think Vietnam was a big lesson for the U.S. military, especially as they went into the Bosnian wars. You know, the U.S. military, journalists had really good, had unfeathered access. And so what they typically did was they'd go to what we're called the five o'clock follies in Saigon, and they would get basically the daily Pentagon briefing. And then they'd go out to the field where the grunts were and would learn that what was in the Pentagon briefing was not,

kind of like Afghanistan, what was being said in the Pentagon briefing was not what was happening on the ground. And so that became the report. Moving into the first Gulf War and then to the Bosnian Wars, media action. access was pulled. And so you didn't have journalists getting the same type of access that they had in Vietnam. And it was for that very reason that so that a news report wouldn't undercut the messaging of the Defense Department. And then they sort of kind of opened it back up for Iraq, you know, when you had journalists embedding with Iraqi units or excuse me with American units in Iraq. And then it got pulled, started to get pulled back again.

you know like so it's like it's really interesting to kind of you know to watch kind of the ebbs and flows of media access when it comes to the military like the one thing i was very kind of upset about was as we were moving into the afghan withdrawal things that journalists used to get all the time started to get classified and i for example we throughout the afghanistan war we used to commonly get contested area reports in terms of like what areas did the Afghan government control versus what areas the Taliban controlled. Those were now classified. And they were tied to, well, there's ongoing negotiations between the United States and the Taliban. So we no longer got contested area reports. We used to get reports about the troop strength for the Afghanian national

security forces and how many casualties they were taking. Those were now classified and tied to the ongoing negotiations. We used to get, you know, how many shorties were being flown, you know, how much, so all these things that were historically given to journalists to give us sort of an intelligence picture of what it was,

what was going on on in the ground in Afghanistan, we're now all classified. And I know of stories where Afghans have been killed like 30 a day, 40 a day. And those firefights never got into the news because they were now classified. This was all tied to. When did this start happening, Jim? When did they start getting classified, roughly?

So it was right around when we first started negotiating the Doha agreements. So 2017, 2019, so the Doha agreement is signed in 2020 on February 29th, 2020. So I don't want to say the Trump administration, but it is. So during the Trump administration, a lot of the things that we historically used to get so we could kind of gauge what was happening in Afghanistan were now all tied to the negotiations. And so the American people kind of lost what was happening on the ground. And therefore, you could argue lost interest. You know, because they were just sent it a time.

time when things took a steep, steep trajectory, we started to take a steep trajectory now. And it was, it was becoming very hard, it was becoming very hard to report on what was happening on the ground. And I'll give you an example. When, when I was at Newsweek, I started to heavily cover the green berets and what they were doing on the ground. And they were taking casualties left and right. Guys were losing arms and legs. And it was almost like it was like an earlier part of the war. But this is like, 28, And I'd go to the Pentagon and I'd ask him for the casualty reports and they would say, well, the Privacy Act. And I'm like, well, look, I'm not asking for names.

You know, I'm not trying to identify people. I understand that these guys are special forces. But like I also know you guys are taking casualties. And I just couldn't get anything out of the Pentagon. So the workaround was I started talking to the wives, started talking to girlfriends. and who wanted the information out there that my husband just lost his legs but they were taking heavy casualties

at that point because the goal was what the special forces were trying to do at that time was which was kind of reminiscent of Vietnam which was we need to rack up the body count so we can use it as like a bargaining chip in the Doha negotiations

and that's what we're trying to do. That's what they were trying to do. But the risk to that was you were sending special forces out on missions that you could argue they didn't need to be out on. And guys were losing arms and legs left and right. But it was in this sort of strategy of like, we need to rack up the body count to use it as a bargaining chip with the Taliban, which the Taliban were never going to, you know. It wouldn't it matter. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the problems have been concerned about their body count. We always assume it has a larger effect on the enemy. Yeah. Because it has an effect on us. You're right. But it was very reminiscent of McNamara. You know, Robert McNamara, who is Secretary of Defense during Vietnam, like he was very much a numbers guy.

And he had this false equivalency of like, well, if we've killed this many a day, then that equates to success, which is. battlefield confidence. Yeah, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, and the difference between what you went through and the McNamara error was they would put those numbers right on the news. That was like one of the first things they would report on was the. You're right. Magnumara, one of these big boards with all the numbers.

That's right, yeah. But you make a good point. He wanted them out there of like, well, see, we've killed this meeting today. And that equates to success. You're right. In this context, they just wanted. the Taliban in them. Yeah.

But again, the Taliban's never been concerned about taking casualties, especially when there's, you know, their belief is that, you know, you're invading our land. You know, so. Jim, as a journalist. This has been really, it's been a really good conversation. You know. Well, no, this is, this has been terrific. I, I, there's so much more to talk about.

Don't worry, listeners. We're not going to make this a two-hour episode and rival the team has. But I wanted to ask you, what are some of the things that you are most proud of as a journalist over the last few years? So the stories that I'm most proud of are not the stories that I'm kind of known for. Does that make sense? Like the biggest stories in my career have been like, I was the first reporter to break the news that, Special Forces had killed Al-Baghdadi. How did you do that, by the way? A source called me on my day off and said, stay by your phone.

And I was like, oh, okay. And he was like, hey, we've killed Baghdaddy, but, you know, that was another story that I held because he was a security concern. So I could have published way before I did my concern. there was is that the mission was still the operators were still on on the X they were still there yeah and I was waiting for them to leave before

I published anything wow it was that role yeah so it was until I got confirmation that they were gone I didn't I was like well we're not going to publish you know yeah but yeah that was a crazy just a crazy night

I was in but yeah I got a call stay by your keep your phone on kind of thing. But yeah, the stories that I mostly care about are not stories that have, that are the big stories. Like the story I care about, like, a recent story I care about is last year, I completed a five-year investigation into the USS Boxer, and they did a, in their 2016 deployment. basically what was happening is

I had gotten a tip five years earlier that there was a bunch of that there was a bunch of servicemeners who were on the boxer and somehow their water supply was contaminated with fuel on the boxer and so for weeks on end you had Marines and sailors drinking this water

bathing in it things like that oh my God yeah that's familiar and so And so what was happening was a lot of these service members were now veterans, and they were trying to get covered by the VA. But the problem was there was no documentation of it. And so the VA was kind of like, well, I'm sorry we can't cover you. There's literally no documentation that doesn't have been ever happened. And so I spent the next five years like, so I, you know, I submitted tons of Freedom of Information Act request looking for documents. I didn't find not one document through the Freedom of Information Act. Apparently the document. were deleted for whatever reason. I was looking for at least, you know, an email that said there's fuel in the water,

something like that. And I couldn't find anything. And then I stumbled upon sort of a key break in the story was I found the company. So you guys might remember, you know how like at the end of a deployment you might have like a yearbook, like a cruise book that comes out. So I found the company, I found the company that produced their 2016 yearbook and they just had extra copies. So I just bought one, which then I started like, oh, well, now I know who exactly was on

the ship for that deployment. So I started just interviewing key members of the ship, you know, someone who worked in the oil lab. And I basically found out how it all happened. What happened was they were off the coast of Japan. There was a chief petty officer who had. and by the way, I should say he denies that this happened. But four individuals that I talked to,

three individuals I talked to from the oil lab, including an officer, said that, you know, he ordered that for oil to be dumped off the starboard side. The problem was that the oil lab didn't coordinate with the bridge. And so when you're dumping fuel, which, by the way, you're not supposed to, unless it's in an emergency situation. But when you're dumping fuel, you have to keep the ship moving, right?

Well, the problem is the ship stopped. So as they're dumping fuel off the starboard side, the evaporators are sucking in fresh water on the port side. So they're basically sucking in their own fuel, which contaminated the water supply. The other issue there is you can't then just dump that water because water is used to literally like balance the ship. you know the tanks are used as as bad uh to keep the ship on an even keel so and the only way

you can do it to clean the tanks is the ship has to go into port and it all has to be hand carried out and then the tanks have to be scrubbed and by the way these tanks are like 20 feet down you're like I mean they're huge tanks yeah uh but they didn't do that till like two months later so for two months the water was basically contaminated yeah and um I finally found a recon corpsman. I found a Navy corpsman who was part of a recon baton. And when the email went out to tell the ship

that there was fuel in the water, he was like he had the foresight to print that email out and stick it into the medical jackets of each one of his Marines. He was being a really good corpsman. Wow. So that they could be covered. I interviewed him and he still,

he had a copy of it. And that's, and that is like the one document that I was, was looking for, that I had spent years looking for. He just happened to have it. But that only covered like 30, it only covered his guys.

The whole ship wasn't covered. And so I put out my story. Boxer veterans are now able to get coverage under the VA. You were exposed to that contaminated water. Because of that one document that, that showed that there was fuel in the water. God bless you, Jim. Can you imagine how many?

And that's one ship. That's one ship that they were fortunate. They were fortunate enough that, you know, that the universe hit Jim LaPorter on this one point because we've all tasted gasoline. I mean, I remember being on the Tripoli. And it was a joke. People stank of it coming out of the showers.

and you used to put dump Kool-Aid in your water. And, you know, but the Navy has probably made a tradition of that kind of fuck up. Countless generations of Marines. There's two points about that. There's two points about that.

One is, there's a Navy policy that says zero fuel can be in the water. And two, Navy ships, to this day, do not have a way. to test it through fuel in the water.

That was the other thing that our investigation found. And the Navy admitted that. They don't, so when there is fuel in the water, the only way to test it is they have to send that water out to a lab and then wait for the results. They don't have a way to test if there's fuel in the water on the ship. Like, which is crazy. Kind of crazy.

Like you think like, like, like, like what do you mean? They can't test for fuel in the water. it's a modern day navy no they don't have so that was kind of eye opening that they can stop incoming hypersonic missiles but they don't have but we can't test for people there's shit in the water gauge yeah so I'm so when you ask me about that's an amazing story that that that do that do some good that you know where people can find some sort of benefit from them and it's not just the it's not the you know the day-to-day of, you know, this person said this, which is crazy, and this person said this and that's crazy,

and that's the news article. You know, like, I do prefer articles that people can benefit from in some way. Awesome. Jim, this has been terrific. Yes. And we have to bring you on again. Your chain of command permitting. You did mention, though, that your bosses at CBS were very good.

very benevolent. I saw your face. You look very concerned there for a moment. So we should be able to get you back on. This has been terrific. Yeah, it's going to be other stuff to talk about. You would love to get your insights and some of the things we're discussing too, especially, you know. Yeah. I mean, if, so if I see you pop up on Twitter with some great insight, don't be surprised if I reach out and say, hey, Jim, do you mind jumping on? No, absolutely. I'd love to come back. So see if you can get a blanket agreement. I can do that.

I could do that. Like, that's not a bad idea. We're good. We're legit. Awesome. I mean, there's no shortage of military news today. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, that's, I'm sure a large number of our audience, a large percentage of our audience are military, former military, but everyone seems to have an interest in it.

Yeah. All right. D. Over to you. No, hey, Jim, it's been, it's been awesome. Yeah, Jim, that was great. Have you back? Don't forget to look up Jim on Twitter and everywhere he's at.

It's at James Leporta on Twitter. Jim Leporta. Jim Leporta on Twitter. Of course, Andy Milburn on Twitter and everywhere else. All the links will be in the description down below. Don't forget to like and subscribe and Patreon.com slash the team house. Help us out. you thanks everybody thanks everyone see you next week yeah thanks guys