The Team House - Plank Holder of Delta Force | Wade Ishimoto | Ep. 317

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 special operations covert ops espionage the team house with your host jack murphy and david park hey everyone welcome to episode three hundred and 17 of the team house

Starting point is 00:01:09 I'm Jack here with Dave, and we're very pleased to have on the show tonight. Wade Ishimoto, he's the author of the Intaku Code. I just finished reading this last night. The headline here is Delta Force's intelligence officer doing good in secret. Wade served in Vietnam with special forces, went on to become one of the original members of Delta Force, was a part of Operation Eagle Claw, the Desert One incident, and has gone on to do many other amazing things during his career. And we're excited to have you on the show, Wade.

Starting point is 00:01:41 Thank you for joining us tonight. Well, I thank you for having me on. It's such an honor. Yeah, really. And so let's start off at the beginning, Wade. I want to hear about your upbringing and growing up in Hawaii and sort of what your childhood was like and how that began to sort of take you towards the military. Well, I was very fortunate to be born and raised in Hawaii.

Starting point is 00:02:08 in particular the kinds of neighborhoods I grew up in. Because the neighborhoods I grew up in were very diverse. We had people of many races. We all got along with each other. But what I learned was how to take care of others and how others took care of me. And that made a big impression on myself. As far as the military was concerned,

Starting point is 00:02:35 during the Korean War, a gentleman by the name of Francis Takimoto, who had fought in World War II with the 442nd regimental combat team, was a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard, and he commanded a battalion, and at the end of the valley I grew up in, there was a National Guard shooting range, and he would drop by and pick me up when his battalion went up there

Starting point is 00:03:04 for marsmanship training, And I got introduced into initially firing an M1 carbine and then graduating to be able to fire an M1 Garand rifle. So the military was really sort of imbued in me, even before that, being raised during World War II. But nonetheless, that really made a difference in terms of my wanting someday to be in the military. You mentioned, I think the term in your book, is it Hanai, extended family? Hanai, yes.

Starting point is 00:03:43 It was very interesting to read about that in your book and all of the people that were around you and your family. And it sounds like, you know, kind of an ideal childhood. It was. It was a great place to grow up. It was semi-rural when we moved into Kulio Valley, which is on the eastern side of Oahu and now it's all residential but initially there was a truck farm as you started proceeding up the valley on the main highway and then a dairy two chicken farms another dairy and a small pig farm so it was very rural and that set a different kind of tone in terms of growing up you learned

Starting point is 00:04:28 how to work you learned how to work around animals you learned how to make a living for yourself And how did you, how did the idea of joining the Army come to you as, you know, as you become a young man, 18, 19 years old? How does that come up on your radar? Well, when I was in high school, my intentions actually were to join the Air Force after I graduated, along with one of my buddies in high school. And my parents pled with me to go on to college. And I did so somewhat reluctant. but nonetheless I did. And make a long story short, after two years,

Starting point is 00:05:10 a professor of mine, Colin Kappa Johnson, confronted me one day and called me stupid. And I was about ready to knock his block off, but I said to myself, he's trying to tell me something. In short, what he was trying to tell me was that my grades were too old

Starting point is 00:05:29 to get me into graduate school, and that for me to succeed in international relations, I needed to have a master's degree or higher. So what that turned out to be was I was working 60 to 80 hours a week trying to put myself to school. It was a private school called Luzon Clark College in Portland, Oregon. And he said, you need to transfer. And I did. And then I got too smart for my own britches.

Starting point is 00:05:58 I try to invest my summer savings on the ponies at Hollywood Park in Englewood, California. lost it all, shrugged my shoulders because I had learned resilience as a young man and said, well, it's time to go in the military. I actually intended to go into the Marine Corps, but when I went to and found a Marine recruiting station, it was assigned out to lunch, and it was mid-afternoon, and I said, what the hell is this? So I said, okay, I'm going to go in the Air Force again. As I found the Air Force recruiter, they were co-located with the Army recruiter and on the second story of a building. As I walked up the stairs, I felt this stamp on the shoulder, and it was Army Master Sergeant.

Starting point is 00:06:46 And he said, well, the Air Force recruiter was busy. Come on in, sit down, relax. He sold me a bill of goods, and I was in the Army. And your first assignment, if I recall correctly, you were assigned to a military police company. And I guess this would have been in the 1960s. It sounded like a very wild time to be in the United States Army for you as a young man. It was sort of a crazy time because, you know, we're still getting over the Korean conflict, if you will. And other things were happening with the Soviet Union in those days, and in particular in Cuba. So there were all kinds of different kinds of interesting things

Starting point is 00:07:30 that were happening. But, you know, one of the most interesting things that happened to me with that military police company is we were guarding Joe Volachi, who was the first mafia figure that was made to- Like witness protection. Not made to. He actually volunteered to testify before Congress. So we were guarding him. That's, so he was like in the witness protection program on your base.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Yes, and we never knew it in the MP company for about three months. But then two of our MPs found out they went to one of the well-known publications at that time, the Saturday evening post, and spilled the beans. And the probo marshal on Fort Malmint went Sky order, and he ordered us to have built sandbag machine gun emplacements, have patrols and the emplacements of RON. the stockade where Volachi was being held and we went into a high degree of preparedness, if you will.

Starting point is 00:08:40 And, you know, I noticed from the book it seems like you always had some other ambitions for what you want to do with your Army career and the next stop for you is to become a counterintelligence agent. That's true. And it was a matter of my military police company commander, commander, initially, it was a gentleman by the name of Walt Jenkins. He had been a master sergeant during World War II in the Korean War and then somehow got commissioned. And he was one of my mentors and took care of me.

Starting point is 00:09:16 He wanted me to go to OCS. I refused to do so. So he came up with this idea along with another one of my mentors, Bill Fitzpatrick, that I should go to and become an Army criminal investigative agent. And they found out, they thought it was all Greece. They found out I was too young. But they also found out that I could get into Army Intelligence School. And so they arranged for me to do so and off I went without understanding what the hell I was getting.

Starting point is 00:09:49 Well, tell us what you were getting into because I think your first stop was Korea as a CI guy. Yes. And that was a great assignment. because I got assigned to the 191st military intelligence detachment, which was in support of the First Cavalry Division. And our commander was a major by the name of Tom Ondell, and Tom took a liking to me, but that also meant that he pushed me very hard.

Starting point is 00:10:20 And so he asked me to be the covering counterintelligence agent for the three battalions we had north of the Imgen River. and those basically were sacrificed battalions because had the North Koreans invaded, they would have been cut off and never been able to get back across the Amgen River. But they were at a high readiness stage in terms of future combat and patrol the demilitarized zone every day. And so it was a great place for me to be. And amongst all the other things, Ando made me the,

Starting point is 00:10:58 unit photographer. So I was doing counterintelligence and intelligence photography of different sorts. And so I was able to do every facet that a counterintelligence agent does to include recruiting recruiting sources. So it was just a phenomenal experience. I thought that was a really interesting part of your book that you mentioned during this period. The DMZ wasn't quite as built up as it became in later years. And so you guys were able to send agents north, but the north was also sending infiltrators south. Correct. Yes.

Starting point is 00:11:39 Normally what the North Koreans would do was they would come up with three-man teams. Y3 is one of the known facts in terms of common this organization and insurgency that you have an odd number because then you never have a split vote, if you will. you're going to have either unanimous or two against one. Okay. So in our case, what we were doing was basically sending individuals across. And I want to get into your service in Vietnam, but as we begin to talk about Vietnam and how you transition into special forces,

Starting point is 00:12:19 I also need to ask you, what is the Intaku code if you can tell people what that is? Okay, Intoku. The Intoku Code is something I picked up in my martial arts experience. And there was a little phrase written by a gentleman by his name of Koichi Tohei, who was one of the ranking Aikido masters in the world. And so he created this thing called Intoku, doing good in secret. And basically what it says is so evil, reap evil, so good. the harvest will be good. So whatever you say can never be done away with. But the whole intention

Starting point is 00:13:03 is to do good for other people. And that is something that I had lived with even before I began my study of Waikido. And that's something you took with you through your career, as it's really evident in the book. So talk to us about Vietnam. Yeah, well, initially when I went into Vietnam, I went in as a it was an interesting experience because I came out of Hawaii and I was a staff sergeant at that time and I had six young soldiers that had never seen combat or never been overseas other than Hawaii in their lives before. So I took care of them and when we landed at Tonsanut, there was nobody to greet us. and it was on a president's birthday in February of 1968 after the Tet offensive.

Starting point is 00:14:04 So the young men with me were quite nervous, so I gathered them around and I said, okay, you guys stay right here and they asked me, sorry, why right here? And I pointed to a hole in the ceiling and I said, that's probably where a 122 millimeter rocket has come through. And the chances of another rocket coming through that same damn hole, about 10 million to one.

Starting point is 00:14:28 So you guys came here, I'll find somebody to take care of us. And I went off, I finally found somebody, and they transported us to Longbin, which was the replacement depot for U.S. Army Vietnam. And I requested assignment to either the Fifth Special Forces Group

Starting point is 00:14:49 or the 25th Infantry Division. And instead, they were going to, to sign me to the U.S. Army Vietnam G2 section, a rear echelon organization right there at Longbin. And I protested, but they said, you have to go. So I had very good fortune because I walked in, and lo and behold, there was now a major

Starting point is 00:15:17 who I had known as a captain in Korea that was in charge of the operation that I was supposed to be working in. working in. And I pled with him and he looked at me and he said, okay, I'll let you go, provided you do one thing. I said, what's that, sir? He said, you spend the day with me talking about old times. I said, you've not. So he, he lived up to his word. He released me. Again, I went back to the replacement depot and I said, fifth, this is SF group or 25th infantry division. They put two and two together, and they sent me to the 525th in my brigade.

Starting point is 00:16:01 I ended up in what they called the counterintelligence team, the Trang, which covered a five province area doing offensive counterintelligence. So we were recruiting agents, and that was our stock in life and our mission. That was the B-57 program. No, this was Second Battalion. was the C-I-team the train. Okay, okay. Part of the 2nd Battalion 525th, and I made, I had an agreement with the operations officer

Starting point is 00:16:36 for the battalion that if I gave him six hard months, he would release me. And I had the privilege of working with a very great Warren officer by the name of Bill Miller. and Bill and I were outranked. He as a Warren officer was outranked by other officers, and I as a staff sergeant was outranked by a couple other NCOs. But we were the ones that had the experience at human intelligence. And so the ops officer looked at us to be able to turn that whole thing around because it was candidly not quite productive before Bill Miller came in.

Starting point is 00:17:19 in along with myself and took charge of it. So after six months, I went back to the battalion. The operations officer had changed and there was a, I don't want to swear, but a less than honorable person in charge. And he literally called me crazy. And he literally forced me to go and get a psychiatric evaluation, which I did. and of course got a clean bill of health with a psychiatrist asking me you need to tell that major to come in here and get counseled himself i said i can't do that sir you know so i went back i showed my clean bill of health and the son of a bitch still wouldn't release me and again you know sometimes your life runs in luck so i protested and filed a complaint they sent me to

Starting point is 00:18:21 the brigade headquarters in in Saigon and there I was met by Colonel Mankin the deputy commander and again he professed that he did not want to release me regardless of the gentleman's agreement that I had with the previous battalion operations officer and then he asked me one question which was very fortunate and he said so who are you going to work for in the fifth special forces group. And I said, well, I am not quite sure, but the one that arranged it was Chief Warren Officer Clarence Kawahigashi. And Colonel Mankan got very silent. And then he looked at me and he said, you know, Chief Kawahigashi taught me everything I knew when I was a young lieutenant during the Korean War. He said, it's only because of him that I'm going to

Starting point is 00:19:21 release you. And I said to myself, hallelujah, you know, lucked out again. So I went off to the Fifth Special Forces Group, signed in in August of 1968 and stayed there until March of 1970. And actually, we had intended to extend again or had extended again, but my cousin who was like a brother to me was killed with the 101st airborne division in Vietnam and my sergeant major made me come back on emergency permanent change of station orders so that in short was you know the little bit shy of three years that I spent in in Vietnam well before we move on I I got to ask you, if you can tell us about B-57, what you guys were doing there, and leading into the Green Beret case, which, you know, is pretty well known, I think, by a lot of people. Right.

Starting point is 00:20:31 So the B-57 was started circa 1965, 1966, and its whole mission in life was to gain intelligence on Cambodia. tactical intelligence, but the way we were going to do business was not to go in ourselves, but to recruit indigenous personnel, Cambodians, Montenjords, Vietnamese, whatever, that would cross into Cambodia and collect the intelligence for us. So initially there was another portion of B57 called Project Cherry, which recruited units of Cambodians to go into Cambodia. But that, for whatever reason, was disbanded, and we stuck with trying to recruit indigenous agents.

Starting point is 00:21:28 We operated out of 10 Special Forces camps strung out along the Cambodian border all away from Hottian and southern four corps up to Ducco in, or Duke Lop in three corps in Vietnam. So normally we operated with three to four people on the team. One would be a radio operator and one would be a special forces person trained in intelligence and the other probably would be a military intelligence person.

Starting point is 00:22:09 And if we had another one, it could be either special forces, or an intelligence person. So we use interpreter principal agents, which we recruited, and they became our way of finding indigenous sources and handling them. And it sounds like it was overall a really good program, but unfortunately it sounds like you also experienced where it started to come off the rails a little bit

Starting point is 00:22:39 with Alvin Smith. Yes. But in terms of success, what we were told later was that on any given day, B57 would collect 75% of the useful tactical intelligence on Cambodia. And on its worst day, no less than 25%. So we were quite a productive unit for being of such small size. So we had an operation co-located at Mokwa and Tontree in Four Corps. Smith was supposed to be a case officer at one of them in Mokwa. He, after six months, had been totally unsuccessful in terms of getting any agent operations started.

Starting point is 00:23:34 He had an interpreter presentable agent. So we brought him back to headquarters, and we found out, that this guy was lazy. He candidly was incompetent. And nonetheless, he was looking for a way to justify his failure at Mokwa. And one day, we had received a cassette of film, 35 millimeter film, out of our station in Lofden, which is far away from Mokwa. It's located in three-core. And And our photographer and myself developed the roll of film and started printing the pictures out. And Smith came by and started pointing at one and said, this is my man. This is my man.

Starting point is 00:24:28 And I said, what the hell are you talking about? And he pointed to an indigenous Vietnamese that was seated in and amongst a number of North Vietnamese. And I said, what the hell are you talking about? So I pulled out his interpreter principal agent's doziating, and I saw actually no likeness of the person in a picture and the picture of his interpreter principal agent. So Smith then went to the operations officer of V-57 and the commander and tried to to get them to act on it and they refused to. Why they refused to actually I don't not know because of the fact that they were gone within a month they were close to rotating back

Starting point is 00:25:24 to the states and did so. The new commander came in with a new operations officer and they fell hookline and sinker for for Smith's story and there's a protracted number of events that happened after that. Basically, they lure the interpreter principal agent into Saigon, luring him, telling him that they had a new job for him, and they started interrogating him. They drugged him. They brought him to Natrang, put him in a conox container

Starting point is 00:26:00 in the heat of July in Vietnam, and again started interrogating him. And twice they put him on a policy, telegraph machine and twice he showed deception in the case. Well, I contend who wouldn't under those kinds of circumstances. But nonetheless, the hierarchy in B57 decides that they're going to do away with him. Initially, they went to the CIA and tried to get the CIA to take twin off of our hands. And basically the CIA said, he's not our guy.

Starting point is 00:26:43 It's your problem. And then they were correct. And so ostensibly, our ops officer, Budge Williams, asked them, well, what would you do in our case? And ostensibly, again, the base agent in the Trang, at the Trang base base where the CIA said, well, we might consider doing away with him with extreme prejudice. But he never said they would. So that was in William's mind, and they concocted a way that they were going to get rid of chin, which basically was to take him out in the train bay,

Starting point is 00:27:31 shoot him in the head with a suppressed weapon, and then dump his body overboard, which, chains and to weight his body down in a mailbag and they did so. Smith was part of that. And then a month later, he started being anxious or having anxiety and thinking that he was next on the list to be assassinated, which was total malarkey. But nonetheless, he turned himself in to initially to the army and then to the CIA asking for asylum and that opened up the case. And the case went on for several months. And finally, courts martial charges were going to be placed against eight individuals

Starting point is 00:28:32 to include Colonel Bobrow, who commanded the fifth. Special Forces Group. In October, thanks to President Nixon and the intercession of the Army Secretary Stanley Reesor, General Abrams in Vietnam was told to drop the charges, and they were dropped. And the eight people were freed. They were also free to continue their military careers. The only one that didn't was Colonel Roel. Because ostensibly what they asked him, where do you want to be assigned?

Starting point is 00:29:14 He said the fifth special forces group. And the power to be said, Colonel, we can't do that. You know that. So he said, I retire. But everybody else did not have to leave the military. It sounded like there were also some overzealous prosecutors that made a lot of mistakes and overstepped and, you know, that they tried to coerce and intimidate you as well. Yeah, it wasn't so, well, what I was told by an individual in the Judge Advocate General's

Starting point is 00:29:53 office in Longbin was that beware of the chief defense attorney because he's working for the prosecution. Wow. Everything you tell him, he's going to tell the prosecution. I said, I got you. Okay. So I asked this young gentleman who was a specialist fourth class from New York. He was a lawyer, but decided to get drafted rather than serve as a lawyer in the military because he knew he would be assigned as a legal clerk and would not have a long term.

Starting point is 00:30:35 payback to the military. So after two years, you could get out. So I wrote a message to him, tell him how the two criminal investigation division, Bosels had botched the investigation by making threats, false promises, and tried to use coercion. And he got that to the defense attorneys. And so when I testified, they confronted

Starting point is 00:31:04 the presiding officer in the Article 15 investigation with that statement. And they also rate the CID guy over the cold and concerning his methodology, if you will. So, I mean, quite a adventure through Vietnam and your time there. and, you know, the next place you were at Special Action Force Asia over in Okinawa and bouncing around some other places in the region, I'd love to get you to tell us the story about how you met your wife in Korea. Well, we, out of the First Special Forces Group, we went up on an annual exercise called Pole Eagle. And my sergeant major was a good friend by the name of corned beef, Halia Mao. He had a colorful nickname.

Starting point is 00:32:05 So Julian Holleybaum knew that I had been in Korea before. And he asked me, he said, do you know anybody that can help us out in terms of some services that we need? And I said, yeah. And just by chance, a gentleman by the name of Kwan that I had known. all the way back in 1964 was the area exchange manager at the Oson Air Base. So I went to see Kwan and I said, okay, Juan, can you help us? And he said, what do you need? He said, well, my sergeant, Meijun wants a roci, Kochu, which is a rolling canteen, if you will,

Starting point is 00:32:48 that brings, you know, little goodies to eat as well as toilet trees to sell. So he wants that to come up at least once a day and he needs a laundry because we need to get our uniforms clean. He said, okay. And so I joke with Kwan and I said, whatever you do, send a good looking woman with you. So lo and behold, my wife shows up running the laundry collection point. and that's how we met. And what really made me take a liking to her is one evening I walked in to where she was working and there were a number of Korean Special Forces soldiers around her

Starting point is 00:33:38 giving her a hard time. And she had a cup of hot tea in her hand and she immediately threw it at them. And I said, that's my kind of gal. And you guys, you know, she joined this adventure you were on through the rest of your military career. Absolutely. And it's been my pillar for over 52 years of marriage. Wow. Amazing.

Starting point is 00:34:08 So the next place you were assigned to the Special Warfare Center, start to tell us a little bit about that. As I recall, you held both enlisted and officer ranks. the same time active in reserve. Tell us a little bit about that period of your life and meeting Charlie Beck with and how that came onto your radar. Okay, well, I came back out of Okinawa, not knowing if I could run or jump out of airplanes again. As I was in a cast for six months after severely breaking my leg on a parachute jump on Okinawa. So I was assigned to the Special Forces School. And the Sergeant Major was named Henry Zerniac.

Starting point is 00:34:56 And I went to Zerniak and I said, Sergeant Major, I don't know if I can jump. I don't know if I can run again. I am certainly going to give it everything I have. And he looked at me, he said, dumbass, I didn't hire you for your looks. I hired you for your brains. You assigned to the ops and intel committee.

Starting point is 00:35:15 Yes, Sergeant Major. So I struggled to get back into show. I was selected as the Special Forces School instructor of the year for 1974. And there's another long story, but I had been behind on promotions. And the reason why was the Army went to centralized records. And in my centralized records were four pieces of paper, with the most condemning one being my selection for, the first advanced non-commission officer educational system class and no completion certificate.

Starting point is 00:35:59 Well, I didn't even know I had been selected because I was on Okinawa. Well, anyway, that was quickly rectified. I was quickly picked up to make Master Sergeant. And then I found out that there were no slots available in Special Forces for a new Master Sergeant. Special forces had declined from a high of around 12,000 in Vietnam to less than 4,000 at that point in time in 1975. So there was no slots available. And two things happened. They told me you might as well count on retiring out of the assignment you're going to, which was a reserve officer training course assignment at the University of Santa Clara.

Starting point is 00:36:51 because the guy before you spent six years there. And I said, wow. So I went around Fort Bragg at the time to say goodbye to some of my old friends to include our major Arab Jackie. And Zachie had been and took a direct commission in Vietnam. At the same time, I had been offered a direct commission. And I had refused. He took it.

Starting point is 00:37:18 And so I went to say goodbye to Arab, and then I teased him. And I said, so why did you lower yourself to become an officer? And he looked at me and he said, 700. And I said, what the hell are you talking about? He said, dumbass, $700 a month. I said, you were sorry major, $700 a month. I said, well, some of a bitch, I guess I should have done him. He said, well, look here.

Starting point is 00:37:53 There's a reserve commission board meeting right now. If you get your paperwork together tonight, I will get you before the board in the morning, but you gotta get your paperwork together tonight, and I did. It took quite a lot of effort, but, you know, my typing and writing skills came to the fore. came to the forefront. So I was ready. Passed aboard with flying colors and received a reserve commission as a captain in infantry.

Starting point is 00:38:26 There was no special forces branch at that time. And so off I went on the ROTC assignment. And later in 1977, when Delta was about to be started, I was selected to go to the Army Sergeant Major Academy, which I was, I called it extortion for a whole bunch of reasons, and I did not want to go. But nonetheless, I was forced to go. The day I reported there, my old boss on the Ops and Intel Committee,

Starting point is 00:39:07 Fort Foreman, said, called Beckwith. And I said, why? He said, because I told you until. I said, okay, Forrest. I called Beckwith, in typical Beckwith fashion, and said, ask me, are you ready, boy? And I said, sure, I don't know what you're talking about. You goddamn know what I'm talking about. You to help you.

Starting point is 00:39:30 Long story short, when I had left the SF school on that ROTC assignment, I had prepared a three-page letter for Colonel Beckwith. pointing out some ways that the opt-in intel committee could improve. Without bad-mouthing anybody, but, you know, coming up with some plans and rationale in terms of changing things around. And he took that to heart. And so I became his first choice to be the intelligence art major for the Delta Forest. those early days, I mean, were very interesting. Both there were a lot of interesting people in the unit, but also interesting things happening as you're trying to develop this counterterrorism capability.

Starting point is 00:40:25 Do you want to tell us a little bit about like who were the people in this unit? How did your training begin? What it was like standing up a unit from scratch, essentially? Well, the good thing, the longest story is that, you know, Beckwith, when he relinquished command of the Special Forces School in late 1976, was given authorization by then Major General Bob Kingston, who commanded the JFK Center, and in fact was the only general officer in all of what they call special operations to date. But General Kingston authorized Beckwith to do a study

Starting point is 00:41:08 to create a small British special air service type organization within U.S. Special Forces. And so Beckwood was doing that. Then a couple of things happened. This was late 76 when when he was given that authorization. So he's working on this study. And then in March of of 1977, the so-called Hanafi Muslim incident happened in Washington, D.C., where the Hanafi Muslims, a splinter group with the nation of Islam, took over three buildings in downtown Washington, D.C. And the federal government was paralyzed, and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department had no capability to do surgical hostage rescue. So a call was made to General Kingston and asked if he could send his special forces up there to resolve the incident.

Starting point is 00:42:05 And Kingston very honestly answered only if you want the lives of all the hostages to be at risk. Because he knew special forces and the U.S. Army did not have a surgical hostage rescue capability. So, but at that point, Kingston then turned to Beckwith and said, change your focus. and started working on counterterrorism. And Beckwith did. He formed four others around him, Sergeant Major William Country Grimes, then Major Lewis Burris and,

Starting point is 00:42:50 darned, I'm there. Marion. Lieutenant Colonel Kurt Hurst and Chuck Odorezi, who was a captain of Major Major. at that time. And they formed a study group and they started putting together how they were gonna start Delta.

Starting point is 00:43:09 What kind of people they needed, how they're gonna do recruiting, how they were going to do operations, how they were going to do assessment and selection because that was something Charlie Beckwith adamantly insisted upon. So it was those five individuals that are most important

Starting point is 00:43:29 in the formation of the Delta, force. And what happened then is in October of 77, Beckwith happened to be in the Pentagon when Grinschut's Group and I, the German counterterrorism force, took back a hijacked airliner in Mogadishu, Somalia with the help of the British Special Air Service. And one of the questions that was floating around in the Pentagon and National Command Authority was, what is a flashbang? And the only guy in the building in the Pentagon that knew what a flashbag was,

Starting point is 00:44:12 was Charlie Beckwith. And that made a name not only for Charlie, but for the organization that he was working on funding. Founding. So orders were cut, and those orders were somewhere around 19 November, 1977 to actually create the unit. But that unit was going to be created even before that,

Starting point is 00:44:38 because it had the support of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for operations plans by the name of then Lieutenant General Edward Meyer that knew he was going to be the next Army Chief of Staff and did. And some of the interesting guys that I believe, Charlie's first deputy, Dick Potter. Yes, absolutely a superb person, officer, planner, and a patriot. I've spoken to him on the phone before.

Starting point is 00:45:16 He is a great guy. I did not know that he socked someone in the Cross Creek Mall in Fayetteville. Dick Potter played football. a college in Michigan that no longer has a football program, but he's a character and hard, as Woodpecker lips as they say, and one of my best friends in life. Potter went on to command 10th Special Forces Group, of course, and another interesting character, Herman Adler. Oh, Herman the German, yes, yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:59 Yeah, Herman unfortunately passed away a few years ago. But, you know, he immigrated from Germany. He had a Volkswagen Kubuwagon. And so, you know, we used to tease him about being a crowd and still wanting to be in the Nazi army. He was originally from Munich and still had family there. But Herman was really another, you know, Most of our people initially were very quiet, very humble, wanting to do a job,

Starting point is 00:46:36 not seeking to make a name for themselves, but to do something interesting for the country. And Herm, Dick Potter, I can name tons of others who are in the same boat. Another thing I'd like to ask you about, because you spend some time on this in your book, there was this question at the time, can Delta operate domestically in the United States? And there is some back and forth about this topic. I just wonder if you could tell us a little bit about that conversation and how that evolved over time. Yes, well, there were people, yeah. To be honest, I guess the people were split on whether we were.

Starting point is 00:47:28 should have a domestic mission or not. Okay. At the time, it was overseas terrorism that was charming up the wall. Okay. And you can't do everything. And in order to do things domestically, what you needed was to have the Posse Comitatis Act waived or the Insurgency Act implemented by the President of the United States. That was going to be very problematic. And, you know, we simply, well, we needed to concentrate

Starting point is 00:48:09 our efforts overseas. And eventually that planned off. We had worked very closely with the FBI from day one, even before day one, when Beckwith had the special forces school. Okay. So, But they could not get the worth all to start what is called today, the hostage rescue team and their critical incident response group. It took them some years to gain that authority. And there's another story about how that happened. But one of the two most influential ones were John Otto, who had been the Special Agent in charge, in Chicago and in a year encountered two acts of several Croatian terrorism in Chicago

Starting point is 00:49:06 and later became the executive assistant director of the FBI. And the other one was Jim McKenzie, who was the assistant director for Quanticle and the training side of the FBI. And he later would become a special agent in charge of a major few. office. So those two were very influential in terms of bringing the FBI around understanding that they needed a hostage rescue team and dedicated capability. I will just point out for our viewers out there. We've had Danny Colson on the show. Twice. Twice. That's right. If you guys want to go back and look at that. And also Mike Vining, who was one of the original Delta members as

Starting point is 00:49:58 well so you can find those previous episodes. Danny Colson was one of the guys responsible for standing up the hostage rescue team. The story is fantastic. Wade, you write about Danny doing an exchange with Delta at one point. Yes, yeah. Well, you know, Danny came in as an afterthought. I'm being blunt about it, okay? Because the movement within Division 6 and Jim McKenzie was led by something called Soar,

Starting point is 00:50:28 his special operations. It was a unit anyway, and I forget what it was. But they had guys like John Simioni who became the first deputy. But Jim was a, or John was a former St. Louis cop, rough and rugged guy and not, you know, suitable to candidly command. And Colson was. Colson was an up-and-comer in the FBI. And so he was picked particularly to leave the hostage rescue team.

Starting point is 00:51:04 Right. Part of that. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I interrupt you. Please go ahead. Initially, what the FBI wanted to do was to do sort of a walk before you run thing.

Starting point is 00:51:20 So they sent five guys down to Delta to spend a couple months with us. led by Danny Colson. Siam Eamione was another. Jamie Atherton, who was their major breacher for years, was another. Tom Nicoletti, and then, who never became part of the hostage rescue team,

Starting point is 00:51:44 but then Jeff McWeymeyer and Jeff had been the SWAT team leader for the Washington Field Office and had been the lead on a mutual exercise, I said we did, called Operation Masquerade that proved the capability of Delta and the need for the FBI to do something different other than their regional callouts.

Starting point is 00:52:14 And so those five people were to form the cadry, if you will, for the HRT. and did with the exception of Tom Nicoletti. So while all of this is going on, Delta is getting stood up and validated, and this was something interesting that I didn't know. The first mission that came across their desk was the kidnapping of Ambassador Dubbs in Afghanistan, and then like a day later, the embassy in Tehran gets seized. Tell us what that time frame was like.

Starting point is 00:52:49 Well, it wasn't quite that close, but... You know, we were alert alerted to the kidnapping of Ambassador Dobs in Afghanistan. And we started scrambling trying to get ourselves out of Fort Bragg. And before we could even get off the ground, Ambassador Dobs had been killed in Afghanistan. So that canceled that mission. Okay. in February of 1979, you know, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was taken over for the first time.

Starting point is 00:53:31 The Ayatollah interceded and had it immediately turned back to the U.S. government, with the only strictly wicked being they kept one Marine Security Guard, Kim Krause, for about a week. and they finally released them. But nonetheless, we knew there was just a forerunner to what was going to happen in Iran later. And we asked for permission to go in and do an extensive survey

Starting point is 00:54:01 of the embassy on its surrounding areas and to be able to respond accordingly. The State Department approved, giving us what they call country clearance. But believe it or not, the United States European command that had overview of Iran at that point in time denied us what is called theater clearance. So we were incapable of going in and doing a detailed survey of the embassy grounds and the embassy itself. And that cost us.

Starting point is 00:54:39 It cost us big time. So when Delta was formed, General Meyer had made us do an initial assessment process in July of 1978, whereas what Beckwith had asked for was two years in order to develop a so-called full operational capability, which would have been 1979. So in 1970, we passed that, by the way, in 1978. And a so-called Operation called Operation Blue Light was forced to close. So in 1979, General Meyer, now the chief of staff of the Army, comes up with a plan for us to do an international validation. because he understood what it would bring to the United States of America

Starting point is 00:55:48 if we had international personnel that vouch for the organization. So we did a exercise at South Carolina. And the international validators included Urik Wegener, the first command of the Grenchutrupa 9, the German CT force. Christian Proto, the leader of their gendarmer international counterterrorism team and Johnny Watts, Brigadier Johnny Watts, who had previously commanded the British 22nd Special Air Service and was ahead of their special forces at that time as a Brigadier general.

Starting point is 00:56:42 So those were our three key, international validators, but it also included senior people from a whole range of U.S. government organizations. So, and we passed. Ironically, we passed on the 4th of November, 1979, which was the day that our embassy was taken over again. Unreal. In Iran.

Starting point is 00:57:08 So you are a intelligence officer in Delta. You guys are doing this real world mission. I mean, this is, you know, and you guys are really breaking ground here doing something that no one's really done before. Can you tell us what it was like building the intelligence packet around this operation during the planning phase, how you went about, you know, putting all of this together? You mean initially or for the- Initially for when it was still rice bowl before Eagle Claw? Okay. So even before Eagle, well,

Starting point is 00:57:44 You know, you have to go back and look at when we started in 1977. The total number of dedicated terrorism analysts in the entire United States government was less than 21. 21, entire U.S. government, okay? When we created Delta, I brought in four analysts, so now the count became 25. So there was no extant terrorism database. Rand Corporation had sold a bill of goods to the United States Air Force and the Defense Intelligence Agency. And what they taught it as a database was in fact just a compilation of events. That's not a database.

Starting point is 00:58:37 So we worked with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on creating a true data. that could be searched and with analysis placed within those search fields. Okay. So that was one of the major things we did. We also began very unique relationships with a number of intergovernmental agencies to include the FBI, CIA, the Department of Energy, because of their nuclear emergency search program and the Federal Aviation Administration because they are hijacking. And they had principled responsibility in those days.

Starting point is 00:59:30 So we had to work hard at establishing all of these relations to include with the Department of State. And so fast-forwarding, when the embassy gets taken down, in November of 1979, very quickly we were told that we needed to break all our contact with the Department of State. And at that point in time, 1979, the best analysts of terrorism in the United States government were found in the State Department Diplomatic Security Watt Center. And there were about six analysts here that absolutely were doing a superb job.

Starting point is 01:00:16 They were led by Telford, a former regional security officer, former Marine, and he knew what the hell needed to be done. And his people did too. So when they would analyze a terrorist event, they would have drawings, schematics, listing of weapons, you know, looking at their methodologies, et cetera, so forth. So more than just a compilation of something that happened. So now we were told that we needed to break our relationship with them and not contact him.

Starting point is 01:00:56 The reason why was that Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of State, and his deputy, Warren Christopher, had declared that they were adamantly opposed to the use of any U.S. military force to deal with the situation in Iran. And so whether it was President Carter or whoever, but the hierarchy declared that we needed to break those relationships with State Department, and we did. And Warren Christopher also. Well, I was just going to say Warren Christopher went on to screw up in Bosnia, too, didn't they?

Starting point is 01:01:41 Yeah, thank you. But anyway, when the embassy went down, we needed to know a whole bunch of things because of the lack of preparation. We found that there were no good blueprints on the embassy. What happened was CIA and NSA got together. They called some of the, people that had served in that embassy before.

Starting point is 01:02:19 They got pictures, they got sketches, they got all kinds of things, and they put together a marvelous model, skill model, within a month of the event. And they also, even though we didn't have per se blueprints, we started having information on doors, the way doors open, locks and so on and so on and so forth. Not as good as we would have liked to have had, but far better than nothing. Okay. So then there was the issue of how many hostages are there? And that took almost two weeks to determine. And in and amongst that time, it was also found out that in addition to the 66 Americans that were taken hostage inside the embassy and at the Ministry of

Starting point is 01:03:15 foreign affairs on that day, that there were six others that the Canadians were hiding out. John. But then we needed to find out what are their medical conditions, and that took time. We needed to find out how can we get into Iran and out of Iran, and that took time and time and And so it was very tedious and it took a lot of hours to get our plans together. One fascinating detail that I, again, was unaware of when I was reading your book. Could you tell us about Bob Plan? Oh, a great American, yes. Bob during World War II was part of the Office of Strategic Services.

Starting point is 01:04:08 and served in Yugoslavia. He later became a, what they call, knock, non-official cover operative for the CIA and had gone into retirement. And he was retired in Trieste Italy, right on the border with the former Yugoslavia. And they literally brought him out of retirement. Now, I don't know why they brought Bob Plan in particular

Starting point is 01:04:38 of retirement, but they chose the right guy. He had the skills, he had the courage, and he went into Tehran several times with the first time being close to December of 1979. It took the agency that amount of time to find somebody suitable to send it to Tehran. And, you know, I can't go into all the details as to what Bob tried, but he tried to make contact with the hostages and had some success. He had a whole bunch of logistics things that he needed to do, like find a warehouse, find trucks, find fuel for the rescue attempt. He did that in a first-class manner. he did reconnaissance just

Starting point is 01:05:36 too much to expect from one person but he did what he could he was the embodiment of the Intoku code absolutely yeah very quiet I did I you know describing the book how I first met him

Starting point is 01:05:55 you know stupidly I say stupidly but we were allowed to vet any resource that the agency was going to put in direct support of us. And Bob Plan was one. So I came out of isolation and up to Washington, D.C. to have given the name of a motel that still exists and went there to meet Bob Plan. Knocked on the door and heard a gruff voice, say, come in.

Starting point is 01:06:29 And I went in there and sitting in a dark corner, his Boplan, looking at him and he's got a not old face and, you know, suntan. I went up, I introduced myself to him. He stood up and in his gravely voice, he started talking to me. And I asked him, I said, I understand you were in retirement. What were you in retirement? So rather than say Trieste, he said in the Mediterranean. And for whatever stupid reason, the movie, the Guns of Navarone flashed in front of my mind.

Starting point is 01:07:09 And I'm seeing Bob Plan looking like Anthony Quinn, you know, the partisan that went in and helped destroy these German emplacements in the movie Guns of Never Own. And I said to myself, this is going to work. is a good guy. Out of curiosity, since you were in the Intel shop, I'll ask you this. I know it's close hold, but were you aware of the efforts of Grill Flame

Starting point is 01:07:39 while you were of Grill Flame project? The operation plan called for one MC 130 combat talent. The operation plan called for one MC 130 combat talent to lift off an hour ahead of the other 130s that were going to leave Monsieur Island. And the reason why was that they would be able to go in and if we crash landed on the surface, then the mission would be upward.

Starting point is 01:08:12 But if we landed safely, then the remotely triggered landing lights would be checked out and roadblocks. They went around in an oval and lined up to land. again. And they did successfully. It was a rough landing, according to most. I did not think it was a rough landing. I was standing on the rear of the aircraft at the ramp. So I don't know if my adrenaline was flowing so fast or whatever, but I did not experience a rough landing. But everybody else later told me, yeah, it was a very bad landing.

Starting point is 01:08:56 So we started taxing the clamshell rear doors start opening. And I had asked the crew chief to signal me when they were about to stop. And so when I got the signal from him, I had worked out a plan with Staff Sergeant Little John, my ranking ranger, that we would then exit the aircraft. He would move forward and I would go to the rear. to establish initial security. And that was very fortunate because shortly afterwards, I'm in the rear or to the rear of the aircraft.

Starting point is 01:09:38 And I hear Bob Rubio, one of my rangers, come up on me on a motorcycle. And the next, I get on the back on the motorcycle, and the next thing we see are the lights of a Mercedes bus coming down to down the road. Little John Fireman. Little John fired a M203 40mm grenade wrong. It impacted in front of the bus.

Starting point is 01:10:02 The bus came to a stop. And I said to Rubio, I said, Ruth, let's go. We can't wait on our other two, who are Kurt Massey and Mike McGar. They were air-sick and a little slow getting off of the airplane. So we start taking off down this dirt track on a Yamaha motorcycle. he looks at back at me and he says sir and I said I see him through what we saw were the lights of a vehicle coming at us so I said go left go south lay a bike down grab one of your light anti-tank weapons that were strapped onto the handlebars of the motorcycle and come up on me which you

Starting point is 01:10:46 did I told them move forward to me to cover behind the berm the berm was where a road the greater had put up about a one foot berm on the side of the road and rubio did so i'm standing in the middle of the road sickening where the vehicle to stop i know it's a truck because of the height and spread of the lights i can't tell you honestly how fast that truck is coming i know i am illuminated by his headlights he's still coming i open fire with my m16 Knowing in my heart, I can't stop a damn truck with an M-16. And I had a flashback to Vietnam, which is another story that's not pertinent, but. And rules of engagement were minimal use of force.

Starting point is 01:11:37 So I'm firing at the radiator and the headlights, and I finally said, F this, and I raised my point of aim. He's still coming. Rube, sir. Cock your law. Ready, sir. Fire. Boom.

Starting point is 01:11:51 a geyser of flame is going up from the back of a 3,000 gallon fuel tank. The truck did not explode, mind you, okay? But what the hell else can go wrong? So I said, Rube, keep me covered. He's lying behind the berm. And I try to do,

Starting point is 01:12:18 move in on a circle to keep from being directly illuminated as I, instead of moving forward. And as I came in from the side, I saw another similar truck, gasoline tanker come up behind him. And I ran back and to get Rubeo, and I said, there's another truck behind there. He said, sir, somebody just jumped out of the cab on the first one. I said, okay, let's go. grab the motorcycle. It took a number of kicks before the damn thing kicked over.

Starting point is 01:12:57 Ed Rubio is fumbling with his night vision goggles. I said, what's the matter? He said, my NVGs aren't working, sir. And I went like this. And I said, son of bitch. I had given up my NVJs because we were short of equipment. And I'm cussing myself. and when I said, okay, we had infrared paper taped over the headlight.

Starting point is 01:13:27 So I said, Roo, just give it your best and take off. And if you go out 10 minutes or 10 miles and can't catch it, come on back, which he did. And he was not able to catch the second vehicle, had too much of a head start on us. But I'm saying what the hell else can go wrong. And in reality, the only other thing that, only two other things went wrong were the helicopters were late coming in. And then one in corner had hydraulic problems. And Ed Sefer, who was the ELO squadron commander,

Starting point is 01:14:17 declared that it was unfliable, that was imminent failure. And so we were down to five flyable, and the mission was aborted. Then the next thing that went wrong was when Jim Schaefer was attempting to fly his helicopter back to the Nimitz, he collided with an EC-130 with Delta Space Corps on board. and that led to the death of three Marines and five Air Force people. And it was a little bit dicey, as I recall, for you during the exfiltration as well. Yeah, I, you know, originally I was assigned three Rangers. But whatever reason they decided, I don't know who they were candidly,

Starting point is 01:15:13 but I was reinforced with seven other people. So now I had, including myself, a total of 11 and two motorcycles. So when the mission was reported, or even before it was aborted, I started shuttling my people back two at a time, one on the back of the two motorcycles I had. And so I was the odd guy out. I was walking backwards down the road to keep my eye out towards where vehicles might come from. So I was unaware of the crash of the helicopter into the 130.

Starting point is 01:15:59 There was a lot of noise out there, so more noise was meaningless to me in terms of a crash. And I certainly did not see the fire that ensued because I was, I'm walking backwards, game. I might not have made it out if it weren't for the good work of Carl Savery, who was our acting surgeon, who made a jerk by the name of Johnson come back on his sheet to look for me one more time. Otherwise, I'd have been left on my own. So you guys evacuated back.

Starting point is 01:16:48 began planning a second attempt Honey Badger, but by that time, the hostages had kind of been spread around, you suspected, and a hostage rescue effort would be not really possible. Correct, yeah. You know, because they were scattered through the seven wins. And, you know, it would have been very problematic to go after three to five of them and to see the others. undoubtedly be killed in the aftermath. There was one more army adventure I'd like to ask you about,

Starting point is 01:17:27 and that was, I guess, the next mission that the unit rolled into, which was potentially rescuing American POWs in Laos. Yeah. That was a sad concoction of lies. Yeah. Fueled by the retired Special Forces, Lieutenant Colonel, who, I had. I can only have despicable words to describe him.

Starting point is 01:18:00 But he lied. He continued with his lies even after the mission was called off because of the lack of true intelligence. And the fact that it was in fact known that he had lied about crossing into Laos. But he continued to pursue what he wanted to do and the rumor mill had it that he got over a million dollars each from Clint Eastwood and Bill Shatner on his lives to fund his supposed rescue effort yeah yeah and having supposedly seen live American P.O.Ws inside Lulles

Starting point is 01:18:49 you point out in the book that the intelligence was pretty shaky from the get I mean, there was an imagery analyst who thought that the shadows of the people in this area were tall enough that they were Caucasian. I mean, this is kind of flaky, right? Yeah, absolutely. And the other one was the supposed B-52 stamped in the grass around the compound. You know, first off, you had to strain yourself to believe that says B-52. And even if it did, what the hell's the meaning? It made no sense.

Starting point is 01:19:29 And I mean, I gather from your opinion, Wade, that you don't put any stock in this idea that there were American POWs left behind after the war. No. Yeah. Yeah. I tend to agree with you based. I was a little bit too young for that, but based on everything I've read and everyone I've talked to. You know, we had some defectors. I forget how many.

Starting point is 01:19:57 field. Yeah. But, you know, real POWs, you know, efforts ever since then have continued, continually deep on live POWs left in Vietnam after the Paris Accords and the return of our POWs. Talk to us then a little bit about retirement. How did you sort of end your career in the Army? Unfortunately, I retired very angry. I described as Bozo Johnson, who had become the Delta deputy commander without being either Delta qualified or special forces qualified.

Starting point is 01:20:48 And was a lousy officer. He allegedly won the Distinguished Service Cross in Vietnam. I don't know if he did or not. Well, all I know is he was a lousy officer. And so General Dozier was kidnapped in Italy. And normally I was one that would be selected to go on a so-called advanced party. So I walked into Johnson's office and I see this black kit bag with a black uniform, a black suppress MP5, a black helmet.

Starting point is 01:21:30 And I said, what the hell is this? And he looked at me, he said, well, you know, I said, no, I goddamn don't know. Well, we've got to be ready for, I said, go F yourself, you know. You're not goddamn qualified, you know. And besides that, you don't understand what the hell we're going there for. We're going there to support the U.S. Embassy and the Italian government. And if the Italian government, Italian government wants us, then we would consider a hostage. rescue but you're not qualified so why are you going with all this crap and i walked out

Starting point is 01:22:11 through my retirement papers and it was based on another thing that was happening where the joint special operations command j2 was accusing me of sabotaging a program that i had created i i was very angry and i you know the term PTSD did not exist in those days But I had it. And in my case, as I found out later, the manifestation that I have in terms of PTSD is called anger. And my anger was ready to literally knock the block off or kill this J2 or Johnson. And I said, I can't do that for my wife. It's time to go.

Starting point is 01:23:04 And I mean, I guess it's somewhat ironic after retirement. you found yourself working for Charlie Beckwith again. Yeah, it was, it was tough, very honestly. Charlie tried to pull the wool over my eyes on several things. I never told him, you know, go pound sand because I know what you're doing. But I did know what he was doing, like lowering my salary and so on and so forth. But, you know, the bottom line is I still wanted he to. succeed and the business to succeed. But it came down to the point that there was no way in hell

Starting point is 01:23:48 that it was going to succeed. Charlie just simply was not a good businessman, you know. And the kinds of things that we had intended to do were not doable. Unless we had a base upon which to lean on, to pay the light bills, the salaries, etc. And instead of seed money, what we literally had was a desktop loan, which when the First National Bank of Midland went under, the government investigators literally found that desktop loan in the president's desk

Starting point is 01:24:36 of the First National Bank of Midland. And they were gonna call, our company on that loan and have us be an attack. And we're not able to do so. So, sure I'll get my shoulders. It was on to something else. And you found some work with the Department of Energy and a number of other different contracting positions.

Starting point is 01:25:01 And I mean, one of the things that came out through your book and not all of these contractor jobs you had, but many of them, you sound very frustrated with petty bureaucrats, nepotism in the ranks, how people are being promoted. Yeah. As well as ethics and morality. Yes, yes. And that continues to bother me, you know.

Starting point is 01:25:25 Because I see people that get positions of authority without any decent qualifications. And it happens in every administration. So I'm not picking on republic. or Democrats. I'm not picking on Biden or Trump or anybody, but it happens. But it is frustrating, because there are ways where the system can work, where you do legitimate selection based on qualifications. But a lot of times that does not happen. And that's just the way the world goes around, I guess. We can get a little bit more into it, but you know, you did continue to do some good in secret. But one thing I wanted to point out and ask you about was after 9-11, you started

Starting point is 01:26:24 going on Fox News as a sort of military analyst. And I wanted to ask you what it was like to be this person that had lived your life sort of in the shadow as an intelligence professional and now being on television in front of a camera telling, talking about this stuff. Okay. Well, my motivation to go on Fox was because there were too many talking heads that absolutely had no concept of what they were talking

Starting point is 01:26:51 about. Yeah. And they were lying, they were embellishing things, they were trying to make themselves look good. My intent was to counter what they were doing without revealing classified information. And

Starting point is 01:27:08 you know, some people may disagree with me, I think I did that very well. Yeah, we saw, you know, like Wayne Simmons and others that gained national notoriety on these shows who were completely, had completely falsified backgrounds. Yeah, yeah. There was a guy named Custer, former Ranger, you know. Custer later, under his company, Custer Battles,

Starting point is 01:27:38 was brought under charges for contract fraud in Iraq for providing something like 200 vehicles without engines with his claim being that the contract did not specify working engines yeah I'm sorry

Starting point is 01:27:59 yeah I remember his security company in Iraq I heard that like guys had show up and they'd hand him like these old ratty beat up AKs with a couple of like rusted out magazines and like this is their security contract. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, there were other people that,

Starting point is 01:28:22 to include some high-ranking officers, Lieutenant General retired Air Force, Tom McInerney. Oh my gosh. That had been the director of the joint staff. You didn't have a clue in terms of what he was talking about. And so, yeah, you know, You know, like I say, my motivation was to counter these talking heads that had no basis, in fact, for what they were talking about. But without revealing classified information, I was pushed hard several times on Fox.

Starting point is 01:29:02 Well, tell us about this. Tell us about that. You know, I would just smile and say, sorry. But you did go on to do some, I mean, some frustrations, but also sounds like some good work at ASD Solick, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict for our listeners out there in office in the Pentagon. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, it was a mixed bag because, you know, the Assistant Secretary was someone that I had hired to replace me. in Delta. And I had nurtured him through all these years. And when he got the call asking him if he was prepared to be nominated, allegedly he called me and said, you're the first guy I've talked with, okay? Not allegedly. That's what he told me when he called me. He said, what do I do? I said,

Starting point is 01:30:03 you take the damn job. Well, are you going to come in and help me? I said, I will come in and help you. I'll come in and help you. provided you allow me to do one thing and that's to build you a strategic plan. Okay. Well, God bless Tom O'Connell. He reneged on that. And he reneged on a number of other things that I wanted to do.

Starting point is 01:30:30 But regardless, I still was able to do a lot in ASD solid. And so when I walked away from that organization, I held my head-eye. But there were things that still required fixing that I could have fixed, along with the help of others, all the way back in 2004, five, six, and seven. Why do you think there was this bureaucratic resistance to that effort, Wade? I'll describe a phenomena that I've seen so many bureaucrats come in, whether it's in the private sector or in government. If they get handed something that they don't know anything about,

Starting point is 01:31:31 instead of trying to learn, they try to hide their inabilities and their lack of college. And one of the ways they do that is to create different. ways of describing something where there's no need to change the terminology. So the best example I can give you is in the Pentagon, there was a retired Navy captain who only became the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy because his wife worked for Donald Rumsfeld and said she would have to terminate because her husband was being moved.

Starting point is 01:32:17 And Rumsfeld says, I can't have you leaving and made them hire this retired Navy captain who had never done policy in his life as a principle number two in defense policy. That's crazy. So he could not comprehend what unconventional warfare was. So he created a term called irregular warfare. and all his psychopaths ran around kissing his, you know what, saying, oh, irregular, I said, you know, describe for me what the hell irregular warfare is.

Starting point is 01:32:55 Well, you know, no, I don't know, you know. What is the difference between irregular and regular warfare? Well, and I get all this tap dancing. And for seven years, there was a one, paragraph definition in JCS publication 1, the DoD Dictionary. And now you got people trying to say whatever the warfare is. It was a waste of time as well what I call forcing others to learn. And you try not to show your stupidity by creating new terminology and causing people to run off and

Starting point is 01:33:42 try to deal with your terminology because you're in a position of authority and power. And that, as you can tell, greatly angers me. And it's one of the reasons that a government is not effective when they put the wrong people in charge. Yeah, you point out a few examples in the book where, like, people are getting hired because, like, this person's having an affair with this person, and so they're hiring. It's like, oh my god really yeah yeah and you know i i i tried not to name names for the most part because you know my my intent was to talk more about the good people yeah yeah i get it and i hope i did

Starting point is 01:34:31 that you did you know yeah um so we're i think we're going to have some questions from our viewers and listeners but my last question tonight wade for you is I'd like to ask what inspired you to write the Intoku code after, you know, again, spending your life in the shadows. What made you decide to come forward and tell your story? The long story was I made an agreement on March the 1st, 2007, over 17 years ago, okay? And it was with a friend by the name of Mizuhul-Bowbrowski. Missouri had been adopted by a Navy sailor, was of Japanese ethnicity, became a naturalized citizen, came into Special Forces and recharged for Special Forces, as a Sergeant First Class.

Starting point is 01:35:29 He had 10% disability from the Veterans Administration, which means he was not getting anything. His wife was fighting breast cancer and his daughter was enrolled in an expensive East Coast University. And he needed to make some more money. So what Mizuho was doing to make money was he was a photojournalist going back and forth to Japan. And so he had this idea. If I write the book, he'll get it translated, he'll get it published, and he wanted me to make the money, but I was more concerned with him getting the money

Starting point is 01:36:18 to take care of his family. And so we made that agreement on March 1st, 2007, clearly remember the day. He went home to Los Angeles. In early April, started having stomach pains, and by mid-late April, was dead. of rampant pancreatic and liver cancer that had moustacized throughout his body. So I lost the interest to write the book.

Starting point is 01:36:54 But over the years, I've had so many of the people I've mentored, people I've helped to say, write your book, because there are plenty of lessons to be learned. from your life. And so I finally said, okay, I need to get off my butt and get it done. And I did. And I, you know, throughout this interview, we really just covered the wave tips. There's much more in this book in the In Toku Code.

Starting point is 01:37:29 I hope you guys will go and pick it up. It's out now. What kind of questions do we have from our listeners? So what is the pass rate? for getting into Delta. And the question is more about like Green Beret and Delta. And then if they fail, is there like shame when they go back to their units? Okay.

Starting point is 01:37:53 From early on, you know, and I can't tell you exactly what the... Or Greenberry and Rangers. Yeah, Greenberry and Rangers. I'm sorry. I don't know if I said that. Go ahead. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:38:05 I can't tell you exactly what the pass rate is for Delta. In the early days, it was somewhere between 10 and 20 percent, with every class being different, okay, but seldom, if ever, over 20 percent. It's a grueling process. In terms of special forces, thanks to Dick Potter, when he was the deputy to Jim Guest at the Special Forces, that the Special Forces Command, he came up with the idea that SF needed an assessment and selection

Starting point is 01:38:47 course, which they came up with and stick to today. I understand their pass rate is significantly better, but I don't know again what the exact percentages are, but it is significantly better than the the Delta assessment and selection process. And then outside of just the initial selection, you would also, like OTC itself was very challenging. And so guys would wash out of that for marksmanship or whatever else, right? Yeah, absolutely. So the whole idea was, you know,

Starting point is 01:39:28 just because you passed assessment and selection, you were still not a full-fledged member of the unit until you successfully completed OTC. Sully, thank you. Would a better quality of soldier be produced by the Delta selection if they incorporated jungle training like the SAS into their selection? Well, that was a hard thing to contend with because You know, as we looked at the SAS selection, here are different phases to include a jungle phase and other phases. So we decided, Charlie Beckwith decided we did not need that in Delta. Because our mission was not to be as broad as the SAS mission is, okay?

Starting point is 01:40:31 even though we might have to operate in the jungle or whatever, but our basic mission was counterterrorism. Right. And the basic premise was that, for the most part, we're going to do that in urban areas. And even with what the events in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Syria, when they're doing their operations, for the most part, they're still conducting them in urban areas.

Starting point is 01:41:09 So why then did we need those jungle skills? Right. Not to question anything SAS was doing, but their purview is totally different. Right. M. Corbyn, thank you. What did discovering the Intaku code impress upon you? Well, when I came across it, it verified something that I had already believed in for years.

Starting point is 01:41:47 That is being humble, helping others, and understanding that once you open your mouth, those words never go away. So you better watch what the hell you say. you better stand behind what you say and you better mean what you say and so I've lived by that cold for a long period of time. Zachary McCoy, thank you very much. We really appreciate it.

Starting point is 01:42:14 Let's raise a glass to those who aren't here but paid the ultimate sack price so we could be. Thank you guys. Great episode and great show. USMC. So thanks, thanks, Zachary. Joe's got you. Is it true that Dick Meadows played a big part

Starting point is 01:42:30 and helping Beckwith train and shape the first Delta operators. With all due respect to Dick, who was a great friend, he did not, okay? He was brought in basically as a consultant into the ops section of Delta. The way he was used for the most part was because of the most part was because of the, of his charisma to do a lot of briefings to senior authors and to different organizations because he would walk into a room and because of his charisma and because of what had been written about him previously, everybody would just nod their head in agreement.

Starting point is 01:43:24 And I used to tease him, I said, you know, you're like Miss America walking into a room, you know. and giving a briefing. All the males are going like this, not because they agree with her, but they're scanning her up and down, you know. And he laughed and it was a standing joke. Was there, we've just recently heard, you know,

Starting point is 01:43:46 sort of about the tension between Beckwith and the blue light guys. Were you kind of involved? Were you around that when it happened? Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to be blunt and candid about it, what the blue light people were made to do was once they were told that they had to disband, they were forced to come to a briefing where Beckwith was going to try and recruit them for Delta.

Starting point is 01:44:24 So they came in with a chip on their shoulder because they had believed, that they had an opportunity to gain the CT mission. Frankly, that was not true. And I can give you all kinds of evidence to prove what I'm saying, but that's not the point. The point is they came in with a chip on their shoulder. The second point is that Beckwith blew the damn briefing. He could not answer their questions.

Starting point is 01:44:56 One of their basic questions was, why should we go through your assessment and selection? We're Vietnam veterans. We've done this. Some of us went into the Sontere raid. We've done that. And on and on. Beckwith just could not answer their questions in an understandable fashion.

Starting point is 01:45:21 So it's kind of a two-way issue. Absolutely. Absolutely, you know. And, you know, unfortunately, I lost a lifelong friends who were on blue-white that would never talk to me after that. That's terrible. Yeah, it's unfortunate. That, Adam, thank you very much. My first time seeing Wade was seeing him testify to Congress about the ATF's raid on Waco.

Starting point is 01:45:48 Can I ask how cooperative the ATF were with his work? Frankly, after we did the report, I'll tell a story and I'll name a name. Jerry Petrelli was one of the leaders of that operation. He was the resident agent in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the time the raid occurred. And because I lived in Albuquerque, I was able to meet Petralli later on. And, you know, when we met, he called me a whole bunch of names and he said, you son of a bitch, you know, I read your report with a microscope. And he said, you son of a bitch, you were right. And we became good friends after that.

Starting point is 01:46:45 The unfortunate thing with ATF was that the two leaders, Winovkiy are the two leaders, Winovkiy are, Houston and Saraband his ASAC out of Houston were not good leaders. Very inexperienced and then in the aftermath they should have been taken to court because they altered evidence for no good reason whatsoever. What they said was they altered the operations plan again for no good reason. But that operations plan was not going to make what they said or what they tried to do fail or do better, you know. But anyway, but everybody else on that ATF effort gave it their best. And I mean, there were some true heroes there, you know.

Starting point is 01:47:51 there's a video which shows a female agent with an arm in her hand. And the arm is raised and she's compressing a wound that were the other, the wounded agent would have bled to death. And she held it on him, couldn't find a tourniquet for almost an hour. Wow. Yeah, you know. And there was a former Marine, Kenny, who was a lieutenant in, who had fallen between the two buildings and lay there with broken bones and wounds for the number of hours it took to call a truce.

Starting point is 01:48:43 And I mean, Kenny King, I believe it was his name. But, you know, I had nothing but good thing to say about the ATF agents. It was their leadership that I had questions about. Yeah. And then the last one here. Green, thank you very much. Hey, Wade, just curious, despite Delta not having a jungle phase, does that mean they don't train for jungle SR patrol skills during or after,

Starting point is 01:49:18 during or after OTC? I don't, you know, candidly, I don't know what they're doing or not doing today. I don't have a need to know. All I know is that in preparation for that Laotian thing, we did do some jungle training. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like, and again, I don't know what they do either, but it seems like it'd be one of those more, you know, mission-based type training effort. You know, they're good at what they do, and, you know, you take what they do and apply it to different environments.

Starting point is 01:50:00 You know, it's the environmental challenges that they need to learn to overcome. Right. Dee, was there anything on Patreon? Okay. Okay. So, Wade, thank you so much for spending your evening with us and telling us your story and telling us about the Intoku Code. Well, I hope you'd enjoy it. and more so I hope your audience enjoyed it also.

Starting point is 01:50:28 It was terrific. Any final thoughts you want to leave us with before we get going? Anything that you wish I had asked that I didn't? No. Well, the only thing I hope is that the readers will walk away saying, we need to do better as individuals in terms of providing military, national or public service to our nation. This is a great nation. God bless America. We need to get with the program and not be about ourselves. I hope people will go and pick up

Starting point is 01:51:07 the Intoku codes out now. And we will be back on Friday with, I believe, Andrew Bragg, 82nd Airborne Veteran, who served overseas in Afghanistan. And that's it. That's it for it for tonight, Wade, thank you very much for joining us. Okay. Thank you, gentlemen. Have a great night. You too. Such a pleasure. Thank you. Okay, bye.

The Team House - Plank Holder of Delta Force | Wade Ishimoto | Ep. 317

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