The Team House - Special Forces CIF Team in Iraq | Alan Shebaro | Ep. 289

Episode Date: August 3, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseAlan was  member of the Special Forces CIF Team, and is a black belt in Brazilian jiujitsu—————————————————————-To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#specialforces #cifteamBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 289 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park. And our guest on tonight's show, really happy to see once again after like 15, 16 years is Alan Shabaro. Alan has a background in Jiu-Jitsu and also in U.S. Special Forces, starting off in the National Guard. And then he served in third Special Forces Group with B2-3, and then back to the National Guard. And then it's had a very interesting post-service career as well. We'll talk about all of that. Alan, thanks for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. So, you know, the question I kind of start off all of our guests on is asking about their origin story.

If you could tell us a little bit about, you know, what your upbringing was like. And, you know, I sense two of the big things in your life, Jiu-Jitsu and the military. How did those things start to enter in, you know, in your childhood or early adulthood? I really get my ass kicked all the time. But honestly, that actually had an effect of one of the reasons why I wanted to go into Special Forces, specifically just for the motto, Dale Persol-Lubert. When I was actually raised overseas, spent most of my time, I spent five years in Saudi Arabia, seven years in Italy, two years in Austria, and five years in Germany.

So what branch was your dad in? So my father was actually in the Air Force. But he only spent four years in the Air Force. And then it was a DoD Civilian. Cool. So he's a Middle Eastern European Naval Central Command Comptroller. that's why we actually spend a lot more time in certain places instead of the traditional three-year rotations. Cool. So, yeah, significant experience abroad from an early age. And then as you become a young adult,

where do you see yourself going, you know, by the time you're in high school? Man, I was the skinny skater and turned into, transitioned into snowboarding. I started skating, you know, probably when I was 12 years old. And then we ended up moving to Germany where there was either snow or rain on the ground like 67% of the time. So, but we're at the base of the Zooksvitz. So I was really fortunate to be able to live in Garmish, Pottenhirich. And right now, you have the AFRCECE, if you ever get a chance, man. It's one of the most beautiful places ever been.

And I was going snowboarding like every weekend. And so I had a real rare opportunity to be able to snowboard all the time. And I got into that big time and I kept doing that. So I went active duty in 95 after graduating in 94. So I went in active duty, 95. And got out a few years later, was going to school down at Southwest Texas State University now. And then I was in the reserves.

I was a drill sergeant. So I switched MOSs from lightweight vehicle mechanic to artillery, 13 Bravo. And I was a drill sergeant did my trail time up at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. And I was going to school at the University of Texas at Arlington because that was the closest school that I could find that was next to where I was training jujitsu. So there was only one black belt at the time, and that was Carlos Machado in Dallas.

So I started jihitsu when I was in Fort Hood, and just that became my addiction. My first tournament, I weighed in at 145 pounds. I got 147.5 to be exact. And so I went from the skinny, scrawny kid that always got his ass kicked, you know, to, well, it kind of went overboard. I went up like 250 something when I was, you know, an active duty.

That's the Allen I remember team. Yeah. But, you know, kind of settled back down recently, probably in the last 10, 11 years, I've been at a constant like between 215 to 225. Yeah. It's, you know, that's really cool. I didn't know that you had so much Army experience before you even started getting into special operations. I mean, you've got a drill sergeant, all this stuff going on all before 9-11.

Yeah. And it was actually, so. And that was a really big influence when I grew up in Italy, was during the early 80s and up until like 88. Then we moved to technically it was, well, we moved there when it was West Germany, actually. So before the wall came down and while there's still the Soviet Union. And so there was a lot of World War II, people that were alive during World War II that remember, you know, distinctly, you know, the American liberators, you know, how they liberated Italy and they liberated Germany. And so when you're, you know, you grow up in that, you know, you have this overwhelming sense of pride and service, you know, because, I mean, I grew up literally like right across the street.

I would watch, you know, the guys in the bumblebee PT uniforms, you know, doing people. PT and, you know, every morning and I thought it was like the coolest thing ever. And, um, and it was, uh, it was something that always influenced me. And they moved into Germany and hearing the same thing throughout all my teen years, you know, really stuck with me. And, um, so when 9-11 came around, Ben, that was, I was, uh, like my calling, I felt like that was, you know, I needed to, to kind of do what my, the people previously had done, you know, in World War II and serve my country and, you know, do whatever needed to be done to protect it. Whereabouts were you, you know, not just geographically, but where were you professionally at that time when 9-11 happened?

I was going to school at the University of Texas at Arlington. So I was actually a student that morning. I remember waking up and just turning on the TV and the news was on. I was like, I don't want to watch this. I clicked to another one. I clicked to another one. I clicked to every single train. channel had the exact same thing on. And I remember calling the girlfriend that I had at the time. I was like, hey, turn on TV. And she was like, what channel? I said, any.

And it was definitely a day I'll never forget. You know, but man, it was, it was, I remember that day I called up my, my reserve unit. and I thought we were going to be doing something like, you know, going down range and, you know, maybe training their soldiers somehow, you know, I didn't know. And they're like, no, we're going to, we're going to mobilize you to like Fort Sill, Oklahoma for a two-year rotation. And I was like, I'm not doing that shit. So I started like a, because I just didn't re-enlisted in the Drosarne unit. in July of 2001.

And so I was doing this admin battle to try to get out. And the easiest thing I could do was to transfer from the reserves to National Guard and Mississippi unit. That was second of the 20th. So I was doing like an eight hour drive one way just to get to the unit, do that four-day pre-SFAS that they had and eight-hour drive back. And I did that for like nine months. And they kept dragging it out.

And so finally I got a selection date and started doing all that and made it through selection, packed up everything and headed back out to Fort Bragg. Yes, so we were going through the Q-course, what, 2006, I believe? Let's see, selection jump. Yeah, yeah, because I started in September. October, or no, October 2005? No. Yeah, it was November 2005.

And then into 2006, yeah. And I remember that you were still very passionate about jujitsu at the time. I don't know if you remember this. You remember you took us up to Range 37 one day and that instructor, that huge dude, just like rocked us off the walls. It was awesome, though. Yeah. What was his name? Was it Ron?

I wish I could remember. I just remember it being like six foot five. Yeah. Damn, I can't remember now. I've been hitting head so many times. He was a nice guy, man. He went, you know, wearing the full, like, red man suit for people out there watching this. He went, like, man to man with everybody in the class, like, you know, probably 20 guys back to back. It was crazy. That was good times, man, good times. So what was your experience then like going, you know, going through the Q course and do you have some sort of idea? Because I sort of remember you being in the National Guard, but seriously considering going active duty. Well, while I was actually in the Q course, going to the gym, there was always some guys that laid out mats and they were training and do a jih Tjitsu there.

just kind of popped my head and I was like, oh, someone's training. So let me jump in on this. So I just, well, and I literally just got my black belt in 2004. So being able to kind of, and I mean, I still had that bug. I was still addicted to it and still wanted to like do it as much as I could. And so it was like a fix for me, you know, just being able to jump on the mats. And so I kept going back in the same group. And then I was like, you know, what's unique?

guys with and man it's embarrassing to say but they're like oh we're at the siff and I was like the central issue for syl? It's like man these guys are like pogues or what? Pretty jacked for a bunch of pogs and then

the next time I saw him I had to ask I was like you guys said you're SIF right and you're like yeah like but you guys are you guys support they're like and they started laughing like no SIF is commanders and extremist force I was like I didn't know, man.

But, you know, after, like, I'd meet up with them all the time. And eventually they were like, hey, man, why don't you, you know, we can get you a meeting with the SAR major and, you know, we need a combatives instructor. So that was actually the reason why I was able to get to B2,3 straight out of the Q-course. And I went back to my National Guard unit and I was like, hey, guys, you know, I'm popping smoke. And I'm like, what are you mean? I'm going active.

staying here. And they're like, oh, they're going to promise you all this and they're going to promise you schools and safarctic and deployments and everything. I was like, yeah, they did. I'm never going to give it to you. I'm like, okay, well, I'll take my chances. So I signed out of that unit and signed me out. I went, I went back and signed in a group. A couple days later, I signed a battalion. A few days after that, man, I was on a flight meeting my team downrange. And so it was a, it was a quick move. Do you want to tell folks out there who are watching what the SIF was, who maybe don't know either? So the commanders in extremist force was basically every group has one company

that's sole purpose, so mission is hostage rescue, direct action, counterterrorism, and counterinsurgency. So while the rest of the third group was going to Afghanistan, we're actually going, all my rotations were in Iraq and never got to go to Afghanistan. fifth group and third group stood up the iCTF and the commandos in iraq and we're pretty much doing the the fit mission there but then we started we trained it on so well and they had so much experience that we were doing missions alongside with them and but this is when when it was like really popping off and you know you know 2005 six and seven was was really really rough in 2008

it started kind of simmer down a lot in 2009. Yeah, there wasn't really much going on then. I mean, a lot of REs changed. So take us back to, you know, I'm just interested to ask, you know, what that experience was like as a new guy jumping right into B23 and, you know, drinking from a fire hose. I mean, what was that like for you? Man, it was crazy.

So the thing was is that I was, I was, my, technically my first team saw it was Johnny Crocker. and he but I got with or excuse me not John McClough, Jeff Mountain. My second was Johnny Crocker. And I got assigned to 5-6 on the Snipes. Walker Booth was actually my senior, so I really couldn't have gotten a better mentor.

And I volunteered for, for any position, anytime I could go out. I went in. I was a driver. I was a gunner. I carried special equipment, you know, ladders. It just, it was my first deployment, so I didn't, anything that I could get on, I volunteered for, you know,

whatever it was, just so I could get experience. It was a whirlwind, to be honest with you. because I got there, man, I remember getting there and I had met Justin Munchki. He was actually from Denton, like, you know, close area. So I met him there. We talked for a little bit and the reality, you know, of how rough it was getting, you know, set in when they pulled him off the chopper. And they brought him in after he was killed. It was a, I mean, really high highs and really low lows at the same time

at such a condensed time for him because there was a team going out every single night. You know, so I was getting a lot of experience really fast. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you jumped right into it as you said, the war was really pumping at that time. Yeah, Sauter City. So B23 and A15 are kind of switching on and off, rotating in, out. And so, I mean, if you can, could you go into like some more detail about what the experience was for you in Iraq? It actually, there was some times where I think some of the,

I mean, just because I was so new, I wasn't sure like what to expect and how to expect it, you know, when to be all riled up and, you know, when to be calm and, you know, come to realize it looked around, you know, after a few times. realized, you know, getting on Target Road. And there was sometimes actually, we're getting pinged on the vehicles and there's still guys asleep, you know, they're so used to it. And I was like, man, this is kind of crazy. But one distinct moment I remember was,

Talladega Nights was kind of like the big movie, you know, that on deployment. And I remember I was going in. And this was one of my first few times I was front security on the outside of the perimeter of the house that we were taken. And we had taken a couple of pot shots on Target Road. Didn't really hit anything distinct. I think maybe the tail end of the vehicle. But I remember stepping out of the vehicle and taking like two, three steps and like 10 inches from my foot, there was like a spark. You could hear that crack of the, you know, I mean, that close.

and then another one like right overhead. You can, I mean, that crack of the whip, you know, you could hear it. And man, I just, I just froze. It was just like what felt like an eternity. And a whole son of my mind's racing, you know, do I follow the team back in to return fire? Do I, you know, find out where that shot came from and neutralize it? Do I, I mean, so many thoughts in like a split second. And then I remember Walker running by,

he's shooting at one of the windows, and he's just like, I'm going to come at you like a spider moinky boy. And Todd Van Leggan comes right behind him. He's like, shake a bake, motherfucker, shake a bake. I was like, a whole sudden, like, for some reason, that particular moment broke the ice entirely for the rest of the time. Like any other comment situation,

I was in. And it was just one of those things where, you know, these guys are fucking cracking jokes, you know, in the middle of firefight and, I mean, snapped to it, you know, and everything just kind of like, it went from like slow motion back to, you know, speed and, you know, regular speed and just kept going and everything just made sense after that. So, I mean, I don't think that was like the, like second or third time I was out. And it was just, but it provided so much clarity and I'm really glad I had the experience like so early on. It sounds like from what you were describing that like you said it was you lived a lot of life on like a very condensed time frame as far as the like highs and lows. How many rotations did

you do over to Iraq? 2007, eight, nine. Okay. Okay. So yeah, one a year. And were there's like six month, six month rotations? No, no, no. My longest one was like just under five months. This SIFs only go out for about four, four and a half months at most. That first one was about two and a half months because I got there almost in mid-rotation. And then right after that, I did, and I wasn't even SIFT qualified. So, I mean, I literally just, I got done with the Q course and then jumped in with the SIF. And then as soon as I got back and, you know, got through Sephardic and then got assigned to a team. and was with 5-2, 3-2-2-2.

There was still, that was the transition of the three-digit to the four-digit that year. And then in 2009, after my third deployment, actually when I went to SOTIC after my third deployment. So, had two rotations, Sephard are qualified, but only not a rotations, so to qualify. That's pretty cool. And again, for like the public out there, confused by these acronyms. Could you tell them a little bit about Sephardic and SOTIC?

So, Sephardic is an eight-week assaultors course. Everything, like, specializing in urban like CQB, close quarters, close quarters battle. And it's basically like, uh, excuse me, SOTIC is a special operations target interdiction course, which is the tier one, uh, sniper, um, sniper course. And I think that was talking about that today. I think it was 2009. They changed it to Special Forces Sniper course. Yeah, yeah.

So the second deployment, your Sephardic qualified guy on a team, was that back to Baghdad? So a separation, we actually were into Crit, doing missions out of Crit and to Taji. And then there was a, insurgent rice in Missoule. So we literally packed up everything and did kind of like a mid-deployment deployment, you know, packed up all conics and everything and headed up to Missoules. So we finished out in Missoule. And then in 2009 was back in Baghdad.

Okay. I mean, I'd be interested to hear about the experience in Missoule. I was there in 2005 and then again in 2009. I'd just be interested to hear about what your experience was like in that in-between time. Um, so there was, um, and I remember coming back, you know, that, that entrance, a serpentine entrance, the, uh, to go back in, I know, they had it that early. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, in the very front of the, um, and there was actually a V bid when we actually came, came back. And so it was pretty, pretty active in attacks. But, um, we primarily did, uh, that's when we started switching out the call outs a lot. Um, and, uh, and, and if there was, um, um, any type of, like, for example, we had, we were doing one and it was a really rural area, but it was almost like a compound.

And one of our guys got hit with a grenade and everyone just said, you know what, we can't see shit. You know, with our, even with our nods on because there was like no ambient light. It was really that dark. And we just called in and, you know, just leveled the place with, you know, thermal barrack hellfires. there wasn't actually anyone else in there it was literally just a two that had to come out but uh you know it was i think that was probably one of the the the scariest moments just because you know the advantage that we have is with you know night vision you know so you know when that's stripped away and don't have any of that and you know we kind of like left in the dark literally

Yeah, most of them were callouts. There was a need for, you know, gathering intel rather than, you know, just smoking everybody. And that paid off in a long run because we got who we needed and, you know, able to, you know, separate the people that really, that could provide good intel and then let everyone else go. You know, so it wasn't a necessity to go in and just, you know, kill randomly or at all, period. So it was mainly probably about 90% callouts. Very few firefights on that one just because everything went so well. Speed surprise, violence, action. I think a lot of people don't understand that if you get in a firefight,

it's not a good thing. That usually means that something went really fucking wrong. The night's that went well is when we got who we needed a target and brought them back and gathered intel to build on to the next one. Yeah, when you shake them out of their bed fast asleep. Yeah, absolutely. So you're cruising right along in your special forces career, going to SOTIC, and then I take it you were on the sniper troop?

No, actually. So I got back in 09, and then I went to SOTIC. I had re-enlisted actually just before I deployed in 2009. And I got back. And so this was like the, remember when the bonuses were, I remember the 150,000, you know, but I had a five-year re-enlistment and was like a $37,000 bonus. And so while I'm in Soda, it's supposed to be hit my account sometime soon. And, man, I keep waiting the next week and the next week.

And so I was like, you know what? We just go back to real estate in my office and see what's going on. So I went back and I was like, what happened to my bonus? You know, I'd re-enlisted. he's like, I'm a poppy file. Oh, yeah. We needed to get a signature for you commander. It's like, it's literally walking distance.

Why couldn't you go get that? Like, oh, well, you can still rid unless, but you can't get the bonus now. Oh, my gosh. I was like, I was absolutely livid. And the way that the things were going, you know, to be honest with you, I wasn't, you know, especially like in 2009, I wasn't feeling like the things that we're doing were too right. I started questioning a lot of things. And, you know, with that happen, I guess I was like, you know what?

I'm done with this now. So we had a, I mean, there was a lot of things. There was, you know, a couple of things in particular that happened one in 2008. In 2009, when we weren't even, we were actually just following the ICTF in and then stopping at the, you know, know, and the outskirts of it. And, you know, support and advise, pretty much. That was our mission set. But, and if they needed support for, like, SSE, but, man, it was,

started really kind of thinking hard about what was going on there. And, you know, I didn't feel right, you know, going back in and especially deploying with the doubts that I had. When you say doubts, do you mean about, like, tactically, what you were personally doing or more like strategically the direction the war was going in? Yeah. Well, when I went there, man, that's the thing, man, is, you know, I'm not trying to sound arrogant, but I was really good at my job.

And I think that was one of the things that I've wrestled with the most is that, you know, I was really good at my job. But, you know, we shouldn't have been there. I struggle with that a lot. And I kept it to myself and kind of like, you know what, you know, don't say anything. And, you know, because growing up like I did in Europe and here and, you know, being the liberators and being, you know, the good guys, you know, just war. And, you know, we're standing for the right. And we're, you know, free and the oppressed.

I started thinking myself like, man, if somebody came into my country, who was doing the exact same thing, I'd be doing exactly what they were doing. but I was like now you know I kept it to myself and just kind of struggle you know internally until like later on we started uh you know maybe there's like a big surprise at the end you know Afghanistan same thing and man nothing came out of it and uh I mean I still I firmly believe that we shouldn't have been there yeah I mean I get it you tell yourself that you know there's going to be some sort of democracy established in this country, things are going to get better for the people that live there. And then, you know, in Iraq, especially we saw what actually happened there after we pulled out and ISIS came to town. It was like worst case scenario. And I'm sure the Afghanistan veterans feel exactly the same way about what they went through. I mean, the primary mission in Afghanistan was to take the Taliban out, right? And then they ended up being the official government. I mean, we had, you know, thousands of U.S. lives lost, you know, tens of thousands of Afghani civilians, you know, that were caught in there, you know, that lost their lives.

Billions of dollars, you know, wasted onto that. And the same thing in Iraq. I mean, I just, I ask every veteran that's been in either one of them, you know, what did we do? And, and I just, I just, I, I just, I. don't think we should have been there at all. I stand firm on that. You know, I'm not trying to, by only means, you know, I love my country and I did what I was asked to do. But I firmly believe we should not have been there. But was after that incident with the enlistment office, you did one more pump over there or was that? No. That was it. Okay. That was like toward, I literally was,

let's see, probably about nine months out from Terminal leave. Okay. And then got out. And in 2010, I opened up the school. I did two years in National Guard just because it was local. But man, that was. So I got to the National Guard unit. And so I was in the SIF, three rotations. And this is when they were working with Border Patrol and doing like, is it, like counter drug operations?

and I was like, yeah, I'll get involved with that. That's something I can do. And then they're like, yeah, we're going to have you take over the, or, you know, be on the ASAT team. I was like, I don't have broken axle. I never have any experience in that. And I'm like, okay, we'll find something for you. So a few months later, they come in, they're like,

okay, you're going to take over the dive team. I was like, bro. I'm like, you guys, guys have people. that are dive qualified like yeah i'm like dude i'm not dive qualified that means that you want me to take over a team and be a team sarin you know with guys already have experience have been through the school and i don't i mean i was in a sift put me on like you know an assaulters you know team or something and uh they're like well that's full that's full that was like for the cool guys i guess so man i just uh i had enough of that and i wasn't really too keen on the mentality that they had

there and um there was some good guys they don't get me wrong but uh a lot of the times the mission is what kind of attracted me there but I mean I told him I'd just open up a business that I can't leave for that long and I mean I already completed ANOX so that wasn't going to be an issue but to go to preschool

you know then and I would have been like two weeks and then go to dive school I mean I'd have to just open up a school I have to be there you know and this was literally like everything I'd saved from all my deployments you know and I put into the school, I couldn't leave that.

Tell us a little bit about that school. I mean, it was a school and a gym. I mean, what did you have going on? So initially opened it up. This is after being kind of silent for like seven years while I was gone. So people knew me from before I left. But after I left, I mean, I was living in North Carolina. So it was like a whole new generation from white belts to pretty much black belts.

I really didn't know who I was. So I called, I opened up my gym called Tier 1 training facility. And, man, I'll be honestly, it was, it was a massive struggle at first because I was new to doing business. I was literally reading books, you know, small business for dummies. And the break that I had, because I had like, man, I'm month to month. I was bringing in like three or four students because I had to open up in an industrial area. did I have that many people and I was like man

how I'm going to make this work you know I mean I'm a legit black belt and I had there was like an MMA forum and because I was checking the analytics like every day like you know

do I have any hits on my website I don't want to look and had like maybe three four hits a day it was horrible and then all of a sudden And, you know, someone says, hey, man, you know, there's, on an MMA forum, there's someone that's talking shit about you. And the title of the thread was, special forces, Navy SEAL, Ranger opens up, you know, self-proclaimed black belt. And there's like four pages, just people just talking shit just constantly.

And I was like, and I talked to them like, what is this? You know, who's saying all this stuff? because there's no names on there. It's just pseudonyms. And, man, I was about to jump on there and just start ripping them.

But I looked at my analytics, man. I had like 24,000 hits. I was like, whoa, back up. Back up. Don't do anything. Keep going.

Keep going. That was my big break, man. It's literally someone talking shit about me. And because at the end of like, it was like four. four pages worth and and someone had, you know, because the guy apparently trained at Carlos Machado school,

which is where I got my black belt. And they're like, hey, man, go into the changing room. There's this big old framed like green beret, you know, with a picture of him and Carlos Machado, you know, and he got his black belt from Carlos. You know, so he's absolutely legit. And the thread list ended. And I was like, oh, damn it.

You know, but it came to a, abrupt end and you know people started coming in i started you know getting some momentum and man it was uh he was really really nervous rough start i mean i was with you had a lot of anxiety man who who were the were they mostly like beginners you know brand new white belts that were coming in oh white belts man that uh so the thing was is that i still had my i mean i was you know getting into olympic weightlifting and crossfit you know before i left um um I started that when I was in Fayetteville. And so my athletic symbol was going up.

And so by the time I actually was back, I wanted to get back into competing. And I figured that that would be a good way to kind of make my name, you know, known around there. And so I bet all I had was white belts. And I had to figure out how to wait to kind of utilize the students that I had to actually train because I didn't have much free. free time. And so it was actually probably the most beneficial things for me personally was being able to change my tempo and be able to kind of ease off on pressure and, you know, so I could actually move fast around them, but them still moving. It's kind of like have, lack of better terms,

and I don't mean this in any way, bad way, but like a training dummy. but I mean I competed at the worlds in 2012 and took third and then Pan Amza took second and this is like the early days on so it didn't actually start picking up until like 2012 2013 at the school and I kept competing I mean until

you know 2022 or excuse me In 2021 was my last Jiu-Jitsu competition. And in 2022, I did, oh, I took that back. In 2002, I was competing in Jitsu still, but on pro-platform. And 2020 was the last competition I did, but it was in Judo Worlds in Poland. It's interesting to hear you talk about, like, the growing pains, which I think is, like, very common for veterans getting transitioning into the civilian world. And specifically when it comes to dojoes, I've had guys tell me in the past,

like dudes who were super badass fighters, but they didn't necessarily have the business acumen to run the gym. But, I mean, clearly you figured it out and started doing something right. And I'll be honest with you, you know, I had a lot of help. There was, I mean, I did a lot of reading,

but people that were like real computer savvy and understood like the whole, you know, what was it, Google ads and, you know, social media algorithms and things like that. Once I started kind of getting into that and learning that, excuse me, I really started, everything started picking up a lot more. 2014, I think in 2015 is when it really started going well. And I established a name for myself, you know, not just as being like a legitimate fighter.

But a good coach as well. well and it really panned out so I literally got to live my dream so it really worked out well out of curiosity you know when you you had you were a black belt before you got into powerlifting and and you know a lot of really heavy strength training I take it did did you find that it changed your approach to jihitsu did you did it change your style of how you hold it I don't think I could have had a better way of of coming up in jiu jitzy you being 145 pounds and then learning you know because I was a big guy that had a small man's game I literally had to have I remember training at Travis Luter's place when I was a purple belt

and he was so frustrated with me he yelled at me across the room while everyone's training he's like god damn it Alan you're a big guy you're 205 pounds start acting like one get on top because I was always playing a little man's game on the bottom. And I looked up, I was like, why is he yelling at me? But he was right, you know. And so I started playing a very topside game from the time I was like Purple Belt all the way up. But the thing was is that if I got swept or reversed, I was totally, that was like where I came up from. So I was completely fine on my back as well.

And then the Olympic waylifting is probably, what changed the entire dynamic because, I mean, I got so involved into Olympic lifting. I was still kind of involved in CrossFit, but I found a passion for Olympic lifting. And, I mean, I ended up having like a, you know, 370 clean, 275 snatch, and it all translated into Jiu-Jitsu because I was still in the same weight class. It was still in super heavy that was under 220 pounds. So I kept my size, you know, I toned my size down from where it was. But so I had the endurance from CrossFit.

I had the, and from, you know, of course, training, you know, multiple rounds of jihitsu and specialized in the training for competition. And then I also had the strength that went along with the Olympic weightlifting more than anyone else. And when you're training, it's entirely different. Because in competition, you have like a rule set, you have a weight class. And so there's a definitely a different dynamic than if you're just training. And, of course, there's a time limit. And, man, it was a great combination.

It really worked out well. It's the Olympic wakelifting, I mean, for people who might not be familiar with that compared to just regular weightlifting, it's a lot of explosive power, right? Absolutely. So you're basically like, it's a, you're basically like, it's a, it's a two event sport where you have the snatch, which is you're trying to bring the bar up overhead in one movement. And then you have the clean and jerk,

which is two movements to get it overhead. And so, you know, speed and precision are definitely more than anything else technique. And but people don't understand it. You're lifting the bar like a thousand times, get it right once. And 2013, so I got into it in 2011, like specifically in like Olympic weightlifting, 2012, I started competing.

2013, I took, I took first place at Texas State Nation, Texas State Championships and had two state records. So it panned out, but that was actually like what laid the foundation for my strength training into jujitsu in 14, 15, 16. Or I actually, I think at, you know, 2014, I was ranked fourth in the world. 2015, I was competing so much. 2016, it took second at Europeans, which is the largest tournament in the world. And they had like 3,000-something competitors.

Second at Pan Ams. And it was just, you. just did wonders for my competition, so it really did. It's incredible. And it's interesting, like, as we're having this conversation, and you had mentioned, I think, before we started the show, like we've been talking about sort of you're moving the chapters through your life, you know, your time of special forces, the gym.

And what was kind of the next chapter for you after the gym? And, you know, it sounds like, you know, winding down the competitions also. So I got into judo because in 2014, I believe, I lost to a guy. I usually, I used wrestling takedowns. But in a ghee, there was a guy that had beat me strictly because he was able to manipulate the ghee in a fashion where I couldn't use my wrestling. and I was like above and beyond frustrated with that and I was determined like that would never happen again

and so I started getting into judo strictly for jiu-jitsu as like cross-training for jiu-jitsu. And man I ended up fighting that guy again and took him down twice the next time I made a stupid mistake and kind of fell back into wrestling mode and they manipulated the ghee and chopi so I learned my lesson on that but the more I started training into judo for cross

train the more I kind of fell in love with that and then I started competing in judo and then I started getting really involved at it like 2017 18 um 2017 I got my black belt in judo and then I was competing mainly state um a couple of ones you know out of town um um um I won U.S. nationals in 2021, and my last competition was at Judo Worlds. I think I took like fifth, man, that was an ass open. I lost to a guy from Azerbaijan. I mean, it was an incredible competition, though. There's no regrets.

Yeah, I mean, you're still kicking ass competing in all these different forms, including weightlifting. And you're not getting any younger, either. I mean, I'm not trying to take jabs at you. I mean, it's impressive that you had that kind of longevity as an athlete. Yeah. I think it's the training that actually kind of keeps me in the shape that I'm in. I mean, I'm kind of fortunate.

I've only had to have complete reconstructive surgery on my right shoulder. I had to have surgery on my neck, have fractured my C-6, C-7. And, I mean, that was the only two surgeries ever had, though. And I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, I've torn some tens and broke those things like that. But nothing to really keep me out of it. I just bandage it up and keep going. So I was pretty fortunate.

That's the only things that I've had. And there's a, the next chapter in your life. I mean, can you tell us what came after and kind of like bringing us closer to today? Because I think it's pretty interesting what you're up to nowadays. So last year, I got a call from a good friend of mine. I've known for like 20 years, but we just haven't kept in contact, but I'm known him for a while. And he reaches out, and he's like, yeah, I'm the president for the National Cutting Horse Association. And I was like, I have no idea what that is.

He's like, oh, it's a rodeo event. But, you know, the reason I'm calling is because we have, a fundraiser for special operations, different charities that were raising money for. And I was like, absolutely man, I'm in. And I started Weedify Foundation with Joey Bozik back in 2015 using Jiu-Jitsu as former therapy for combat disabled veterans to reintegrate back into society.

And so we're trying to raise money for Weedify. And so he explained to me like what the sport was. And, you know, of course I'm in. I had to call him back like 10 minutes later. And it's like, hey, man, did you want me to actually get on a horse? He's like, yeah, of course. You want to be a part of it. And I was like, yeah, but I've never ridden a horse.

And he's like, oh, you'll be fine. You'll be right. So, man, I got on a horse for the first time. last year to actually ride around. And for cutting horses are like the Bugatti's of horses. They're like seriously the most athletic horses that you can find. They're so agile and fast. I mean, my whole goal last year was just not to fall off.

And again, it's just an exhibition show, but I managed to get third last year. and the coach that I had invited me out to keep riding at his ranch. And, man, I don't know, that was probably the worst idea because he hasn't been able to get rid of me since. I just fell in love with the sport. I just love horses now. And just the peace and tranquility, you know, he's been able to, you know, trust me to be

able to go, you know, out in the ranch and move cows. To me, I mean, honestly, it's uncomparable, honestly. Like, I haven't found something like this since I started jih Tjitsu. So Jay Wimbord, who was the president at NCAA, introduced me to it. And Bruce Maureen's been my coach. And I'm telling you that I owe so much to those two men because they literally changed my life. It really has. And it opened me up to, like, a whole new world.

That's incredible. Amazing. Yeah. what do you think it was that kind of like took you from you know this very martial arts driven background that you have to something totally different really and um learning something new it's not just learning something new but it's something so drastically new you know because you have to have this symbiotic type relationship with the horse um and they're like I said they're so athletic and so fast that you have to be, it's basically just trying to stay out of their way. Like, okay, I'm going to get you to hear and then you're going to take over.

And then if you need like a reminder, I'll tap you on where to go, you know, but you have like this relationship with no words. It's all physical. And they are absolutely, they're some of the most sensitive and creatures that are out there. I remember walking up to the horse for the first time and that horse started back. in a way because I was scared out of my mind, man. I never been that close to horse. You know what I'm not going to?

And they're like, no, you have to walk sideways. And then you have to, you know, have them smell your, you know, the brush you're going to put on them. And then when you walk around, I'm like, and this is a hell of a safety brief, man. Am I going to get kicked and they're going to trampleas? Because they're just huge. They're beautiful creatures, though.

And, man, once I started getting comfortable with them, I just, I couldn't get to stay away. There's a lot of organizations now that, that actually use equine therapy as, you know, for mental health and man, I wouldn't. One of the things that we do with in Weify is, we provide scholarships for veterans, combat disabled veterans to be able to go train

at a school that has been approved by Weify to make sure that like the school is able and willing to accept the combat disabled veteran that could have physical or mental disabilities. Unfortunately, 94% of the veterans that we have come through the program are with mental disabilities. A lot of them with TBI and PTSD and show all the signs and symptoms of CTE. So we provide a scholarship for them for a year. And man, a lot of them stay on after the scholarship to become like mentors or ambassadors.

And now we have like I think it's over 800 affiliates nationwide. different jutsa schools that have jumped on the program. We've put over, I think, 1,400 veterans to the program and 400 ambassadors in the best part of this. No one gets paid in the foundation. So we're still at that point now where it's all volunteer. No one makes money off of it. And we have, I think, is 84% of every dollar

goes back to the veteran. Where can people find the organization if they want to get involved? We defyFoundation.org. Okay. And one of the victories that we have, though, is if we have someone that quits and says, man, you know, I love this, but I found, you know, yoga or I found rock climbing, you know, to us, that's a win, you know.

So if people can find, you know, their peace of mind and, you know, find their solution through equine therapy, you know, that's absolutely a win for us as well because the goal is for the veteran to get better. And there isn't anything, you know, that's, we're not going to say, no, you can't do that. You have to stay with you jih Tzu. You know, but it's a win for us too. It's a win for them. It's a win for us. And, you know, we're glad that they were able to, you know, find the connections to a jiu-jitsu or, you know, because that's a lot of the big part of it is just networking. Yeah.

And I mean, that's exactly how I got into this, was Jay was actually doing Jiu-Jitsu. And he remembered me from doing that and asked me to be a part of the show. So, I mean, it's definitely a win. And I highly recommend if anyone gets a chance to get equine therapy to give it a shot. You know, it does wonders. Absolutely does. And you've also taken, become a bit of a world traveler in recent months.

Tell us a little bit about that, where you've been, what you've been up to. So I, so after October 7th, I was getting a lot of, I was doing a lot of research, reading a lot of books. And I kept getting conflicting information. I was getting really frustrated with it, especially when I was talking to people about it. And they're like, you don't know, you don't know, you don't know. and so I was like you know what I need to find out I need to find out of my own and I started getting like a bug for travel about last year because I really like I was going to different I was going to Germany I was you know visiting my friends there and my mother lives in Italy so I get an opportunity to You can go see her. I traveled out to Poland.

And I just love experiencing, you know, different cultures and different things. So I felt that the only thing that was kind of keeping me in place was the school. So I sold the school in April, jumped on a plane, and I was in England for a little bit. And then went to Germany and then Austria and then flew into Jordan, across the border. Well, I never got to fulfill this, but one of the guys that that was in 10th group was working for a company called GMR Global Medicine Responses, and they provide security to surgeons in different combat areas. And I jumped on a call with them and try to get a team leader position to provide security for surgeons going into Gaza because I thought that was. be the best way for me to find out what's going on. And so I got in touch for them and ended up in the West Bank and waiting for a call.

I was just staging out of the West Bank, you know, and I never got the call for that. But, you know, while I was in the West Bank, I first spent about 10 days in Bethlehem. And then a lot of the things that were going off, the hotspots were actually in Hebron. So I moved out to Hebron, got an apartment, and just kind of start experiencing things for myself and see what was going on specifically. I just wanted to experience it. And man, it was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Yeah, I mean, tell us about that. I mean, as you point out yourself, I mean, there's so much conflicting information coming out of the region.

And when people challenged you and said, well, you don't know, you were like, well, okay, I'm going to go find out. and actually went there. I mean, I'd be interested to hear what your experience was like. So one of the things is that you hear is, well, before I left, a lot of people, I told a few people about it. And they were like, were you going to be spending your time? And I was like, well, I'll be weighed in the West Bank. They're like, I'll be careful, be careful, you know. You can't trust those people.

And so I kept hearing that. You know, after a few times, I was like, wait a minute. who are you talking about you're talking about you know the Israelis or the Palestinians like the Palestinians they mean Hamas could take you hostage and I was like oh okay so we'll see how that goes so when I got to I was Bethlehem is very much like a touristy type place so the first thing I kind of noticed was there was there's different types of Sharia law but I mean I'm not sure if you've been to like Bahrain or anything like that or Dubai.

Dubai and Bahrain are both under Sharia law, but I mean, you can, I mean, Dubai is like Las Vegas for the Middle East. And they sold liquor there and beer you at the restaurants, everything. Bethlehem's kind of similar same, very similar, excuse me. And I wasn't expecting that. And then when I left Bethlehem and was going to Hebron, I got there early in the morning and I think around six and none of the business is open there until like eight or nine. And my SIM card wasn't working on my phone.

And so I had no GPS. I was supposed to have like a contact meet me and give me a ride. And I was taking the service, which is like a shared taxi. And so I get there. I don't speak the language. The Arabic that I learned at the Q course was like, not even, no good at all because they speak Levantine. And I hadn't spoken to Arabic like 15 years.

So I literally waved down the first person. I could see him like just pointing. The only thing it saved me had a screenshot of like where I was supposed to be. And so like literally like, can you help me out? like pointing at my phone and he just says you know just wait here so kind of like waiting

by the side of the street and the first person that walks or drives by he flags down and he speaks airbag to him I couldn't understand he's like okay get in fuddled fudder like go on go I was like oh shit this is how this shit starts you know

I'm getting rolled up real fast and and he took me like a couple miles up the road and it's a lot of hills so um i'm really glad i did but dropped me off exactly where i was supposed to go and he's like okay yeah that's it i was like so i was trying to give him money and it's like ah go go it's like you thank you i appreciate that and it's like no problem um miss mushmushka you know so i was like oh that's crazy um So I still had a lot of apprehension just because of the things that I'd heard.

And then, man, I honestly have never met more welcoming people in my entire life. The most, I've never heard the word welcome more in my entire life than I did the two months that I spent there. Everywhere I went, I had to add like 20, 30 minutes to my walk because random people, whether I be in front of a cafe or shop owner, I mean, I don't blend. at all. They want to talk. And so, and they're like, hey, come, come, come, welcome, come, welcome, welcome. Come, come, sit, coffee, sit.

And, man, I was wired for days. It's the little shots, you know, the super thick. Yeah, yeah. But, man, honestly, that was that was probably one of most greatest experiences. And so, you know, for like a month, I didn't really have, I didn't sign up with any organization or, you know, human rights organization or anything like that until about a month in.

And I met up with an organization called Human Defenders and then another one called CPT, Palestine. And then I met the chief photographer for Rotters. media and that was probably one of the best context that I got because he was actually able to take me on some of the stories he was working on and then kind of kept me updated with different things that were going on in the area because he had different journalists that were working to areas around the West Bank and like up-to-date things you know so that was kind of that was crazy contact it was phenomenal but Musa was uh he spoke really good English and you know was able to explain in a lot to me and you know took me around uh or hebron and um but uh as as as conservative as hebron was um and they said welcome first and then asked me where i was from you know so i think that that that says a lot though because um they welcomed me in and then wanted to know where i was from versus i mean i could have been just as well you know israeli mean because i mean because

that's the only people I other saw with tattoos, you know. And I honestly don't think they would have cared. They just, they saw someone that looked different. Definitely was a foreigner. And they welcomed me in. I had my neighbors in the apartment building that was at, brought me in for IFTAR doing to eat, during their family meals and welcomed me in.

Other neighbors, I remember someone knocking on my door and a little girl that was holding like a bowl of fruit and dates and things like that, you know, you know, for Iftar on Eid, Ed Mobadok. And it was, man, I love the people there, honestly. They're beautiful people. It's incredible some of these parts of the world where people take you into their homes like that. And it's just, you almost don't know what to say. Absolutely.

But, and then the other part of it was, you know, seeing how horrendously they were treated. I had a gun drawn to me nine times in two months by the Israeli occupation forces out there. I mean, literally, I was walking through the old city, and they have these, literally a settlement, like a, you know, signed a settlement there. And they have these, like, gates of something. the top and, you know, with these fencing because they throw things down at the, at the Palestinians. And, man, it was, I just probably like two o'clock in the afternoon. I'm walking by and I look up and there to see a guy in a guard tower and he kind of looks down and I'm just kind of like curious to why he's like agitated and then I see him on sling and then just points directly at me

and just kind of like, okay, that's going to be great. But at checkpoints, you know, them coming by the passenger side and drawn the weapons point directly at me and then, you know, demanding the passport. So like it happened like two, three times at a checkpoint, you know, a couple of times in the old city. Just randomly. Anytime I was kind of like it was a checkpoint,

It's kind of like a necessity to pull out the gun and kind of show, you know, that they're there, I guess, you know. Yeah. And I think one of the big things was seeing the apartheid wall in the West Bank was definitely one of those. I mean, it really had me thinking a lot because, you know, there's signs that say, you know, danger, Palestinian sides only, you know, Israelis not allowed. Israeli citizens not allowed. The only people that I saw that were, quote unquote, Jewish were the settlers and the occupation forces. And so the Palestinians, and they call themselves Jews, by the way, I mean, so, but they're the ones that are taking over Palestinian homes.

They're the ones that are doing the raids, you know, and busted into people's apartments and their homes and either just, you know, taking them in and thrashing the place or, you know, taking them in for questioning for whatever reason, harassing them at that checkpoints. And so if you have, they don't see anybody else, you know, so I think, in my opinion, I think there's a lot more of a psychological aspect to the apartheid wall. Can you explain a little bit what that wall is, Alan? It's a wall that's surrounding all of the West Bank, separating the Israelis, greater Israelis from the West Bank itself. And I actually got to see, you know, the artist Bagsey.

Yes. So he has a hotel there called it's a spin-off the Waldorf Hotel called the Waldorf Hotel called the Waldorf Hotel. And his art is actually all over the place in the West Bank. For I understand it's in Gaza, too, but he has his hotel there. And all the windows, the view is always from, you know, into the wall. So it got the theme there. And, I mean, it goes down as far as you can see. It's like this massive, like 25-foot wall, you know, concrete wall.

And I think it's, you know, to keep, you know, the Israelis from seeing, you know, how good these people really are. I think that if there was a lot more of type of human connection where people could actually talk to each other, there'd be, I think that whole myth would kind of fall apart, you know, because they're taught from a very young, Israelis are taught from very young age that these people are like, they hate them and they want to kill them. And it's just not the case at all.

Honestly, as different as I was, and there was no reason. And that's the other thing, too. It's not a religious thing whatsoever because, you know, when I was in Bethlehem, you know, there were Christians and Muslims living side by side and along just like anyone. There's women wearing hijabs or women who weren't wear hijabs.

So it's not like an Iranian state where you have to, you know, where they have like the moral police going around and, you know, or like Afghanistan where if you're not wearing it, you know, you'll get beaten or something. I think that's more of like a government. policy and anything else. But, yeah, there,

I mean, I never had, hid the fact that I was atheist, you know, and, you know, I was always, you know,

thinking that if you read, you know, the, you know, anywhere online that, you know, it's all the Muslim countries that it's a capital punishment

to be an atheist. But no one gave a shit. Everyone was fine with it. One of the guys, and one thing I can respect, about a lot of the Muslims actually memorize the Quran. They read it and memorize it.

And one of the guys I was talking to said, you asked me if I was Christian. I was like, no. I was like, you're Muslim? No. Are you Jewish? No. He's like, so he kind of looked at he's like, Hindu?

I was like, no. I was like, I'm atheist. He's like, huh? So you're a seeker. It's like, what do you mean? And he's like, so you're seeking knowledge. You're trying to. seek the knowledge to try to make a decision.

I was like, I can go with that, yeah. So even being atheist, no one cared, you know. Well, I mean, that kind of literally is why you were there, though, even if it wasn't a religious context. Yeah, absolutely. It was, you're absolutely right. It was to seek knowledge to experience things for myself. And I went to schools.

I looked at the books, you know, in different grades to make sure, you know, because one of the things I saw was mind, conf inside the books and bomb making, you know, how to make bombs and, you know, taught in their classes and didn't see any of that. And like, honestly, I just, you know, a lot of the things that I've been told is that they're just evil, vile people and, man, it couldn't be further away from the truth. Honestly, just some of the most welcoming, nicest people I've ever met my life. And how did you wind down that part of the trip? I remember weren't you trying to go to Israel for a while also?

No, the only place I was trying to go to was in Gaza. Gotcha. Honestly, by the time that trip's winding down, that's the last thing I didn't want to step foot in Israel. So now I get things like, well, you don't know the other side. Yeah. I know the other side. I've been saying for a long time that Israel is an apartheid state

that's been illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza. And, I mean, if the ICC just came out with that ruling as well, I mean, that just kind of like, you know, that backs up everything I've been saying. I'm not saying all Israelis are bad. And I'm not even saying that old IDF, let me rephrase that real quick. there are some people that refuse to go into the IDF,

so I know there's some good Israelis out there. And there's a lot of Israelis that are, you know, protesting against what they're doing. So it's not just a blind hatred for everybody. It's, you know, I get definitely against. But you got to understand, I mean, if you see the mentality of, you know, a mob that's literally attacking a detention center

because, you know, these IDF soldiers in charge of the, you know, that would raping Palestinians to death, and they're saying, well, they deserve it and they're hailed as heroes. That kind of gives you an understanding of the mentality. And this is something that has happened this last week. You know, so it's very hard to argue that, you know, they're very moral or the world's moral army

when they're literally celebrating the death of a Palestinian and a detention center by raping him to death. I mean, how is that being argued with? I mean, how can you argue that, honestly? They can do, you know, target. targeted specific bombs against, you know, Okada, or, I'm not Okada, but the Hamas leaders and Iranian leaders in Syria and Iran, like they just did a couple days ago. But they've dropped, what, 70,000 tons of ammunition on Gaza?

I mean, we have right now, it's not even an accurate count, you know, because I guarantee the number is a lot higher than 40,000 civilians, 15,000 children. No one's, I don't support Hamas by any means. I don't support the killing of civilians or taking the hostages in any way. But I'm also not in their position. And I don't know. I can definitely understand, you know, after, you know, they've been occupied for so long. The amount of frustration and anger, I mean, if 70% of Hamas are orphans, that's got to tell you a lot.

I mean, that means that they literally have nothing to lose. anymore. They've lost everything. And again, you don't have to agree, but you have to at least understand to at least know what the situation is. And this is literally just, this is a genocide. This is the definition of ethnic cleansing. I mean, I was in the West Bank and they've already taken 4,000 people, you know, I say hostages, not prisoners, because they haven't committed any crime. You know, Gaza was an open-air prison because they're not prisoners. Prisoners is is stating that they did something wrong and they weren't doing anything wrong.

The hostages that they took, you know, that Hamas took, again, I don't agree with that. But I don't agree with the 9,000 that Israelis taken as well and just because of the government doesn't mean that they're not a terrorist organization. Alan, I'm a little bit curious if you had any takeaways as far as why this particular conflict or this stage in the conflict has unfolded the way it has,

as opposed to the decapitation strikes we saw over the weekend where, you know, these real precision strikes against some really bad guys. Why we haven't seen more of that and less of, you know, flattening the city? You talk about the leader Hamas? Yeah, the Hamas leader in Tehran. And then there's an IRGC guy in Damascus, I believe. I'm not sure about the IRC guy. The leader Hamas, though, was trying to negotiate peace.

And it's hard to actually negotiate peace when he killed that guy. The hostage negotiator. Yeah. He was trying to negotiate a ceasefire. And one thing that Hans Rubinstein, the former, he quit about a month and a half ago, but he was the spokesperson for the hostages. People keep saying it's about the hostages, but Yahoo was actually keeping it from the Israelis, keeping it a secret. They could have had all the hostages back 9th, 10th of October in return for not invading Gaza.

But he didn't want to do that. So they could have had the hostages back. And he's been trying to actually negotiate that. It's been in their court. And the amount of lying that the, I mean, literally they're saying, no, this is an Israeli plan. They're going to accept it. It's Hamas they're waiting on. And then switching the channel and looking at the Knesset and saying, it doesn't matter what we're not, we're not stopping.

Doesn't matter if we get the hostages back. We're still going to keep going. And we're not accepting any deal other than that. And then John Kirby going out and spewing out the nonsense. is absolutely ridiculous. About the precision bombings, though, how can you say that, you know, you're specifically going after anybody

when you have that type of casualty? I mean, let's take the hostage rescue, right? They were saying it was such a, what was a stunning rescue? To say four hostages and 276 Palestinian civilians were killed. that's a catastrophic failure on every level. Yeah, you're not,

the whole thing about hostage rescue is not killing civilians and the hostages. They've already killed three hostages. They did that, I think, in December, where they were literally speaking Hebrew. Yeah, kind of surrender. And waving white flags.

And they got smoked. So I do want the hostages come back before the IOF kills any more of them. And Amos was saying that, you know, And if you look at the, look at the condition that all the hostages return from the Hamas side, right? They're in good health, they've been fed. There's a lot of them they keep from the TV because they're saying, no, they treated me well.

You know, then one lady came on there like, oh, they treated me so bad. They didn't knock before they came in and they made me clean versus being raped to death. And you see other people that are coming back in such a condition where they literally don't even look human anymore. They looked like they, I mean, there was one guy that came in. He was like limping on his way back, had lost like probably like 80, 90 pounds. Look at how they're treating the different, the other types. And again, I don't support taking hostages on either side. There was an arrest warrant put out not just for Netanyahu and what was his name,

the general, the one of his staff, but the Hamas leaders as well to go in front of the court. You see what I mean? And I thought that was absolutely fair because in my opinion there were war crimes that were committed on October 7th and they need to be held responsible but so does Netanyahu

and the rest of the Knesset that was involved in actually supporting everything that's been going on. Where did you where did you get the information that the hostages could have been recovered as early as October 9th or 10th?

From Hans Rubinstein on the Heretz and Times of Israel. The media they actually posted I mean, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, it's because by all accounts, I don't even think Hamas knew where all the hostages were because some of them were taken by civilians, right? So, so are they saying that the Hamas held hostages would have been returned? The hostages Hamas had could have been all returned the ninth and tenth if they would have not gone on to, um, proceed to attack the Gaza Strip. the there's two articles that that i got a lot of sourcing from was from harrets and times of

israeli just type up um and then hans rubinstein actually did a take that back hans rervisd did a formal um um piece on that as well where he actually spoke out against that what was going on um and he was the the spokesperson for the families that the hostage has been taken Alan, this is a bit of an unfair question to pose to you or any of us, but, you know, based on sort of what you saw over there, what you experienced, you know, what your takeaways are from that, where do you see this going? I mean, this conflict has been simmering on and off since 1948, at least, and this is maybe as bad as it's ever been. the one thing that I keep hearing is that there was a truce beforehand, but if you actually look in like what happened, I think it was September 23rd.

There was like an 11-day air strike mission, you know, against Gaza. There was 300, or excuse me, 247, you know, Palestinians killed in 20, between January 1st, 2023 and October 1st, 2023. 237 a year before that, 351 a year before that in 2021. You're absolutely right. You know, one of the biggest fallacies that I keep hearing is if Hamas put their, or whole things, if Palestinians put their arms down,

which they're not armed, there will be peace. If the Israelis put the arms down, there will be a genocide and a massacre. if the Israelis would stop with the illiteral sediments, which they actually just approved five more illegal sediments about three weeks ago, they also, Israelis also voted overwhelmingly that there will never be a two-state solution. There will never be a one-state solution

that the Palestinians will never receive any type of validation that they actually have their own statehood. So everything that the U.S. is saying that they're trying to achieve like a two-state solution, well, you have to have the Israelis to agree on that as well. So if they're saying that they will never have that, I mean, then the U.S. is literally just bullshitting everybody saying, yeah, we'll work on a two-state solution. It feels like it doesn't.

It doesn't. Yeah. The first thing that needs to stop is legal settlements. I mean, the settler violence that's going on has been the worst ever, ever, especially in the West Bank. While I was there, there was 2,000, excuse me, there was two dozen Palestinians that were killed in the outskirts of Hebron, where I was at. I even posted them on my page on Instagram, you know, there was, unless it got taken down, literally showing like the, you know,

the settlers coming in and really beat Palestinians. This is something that's been ongoing for very long time. Even in Hamas Charter in 2017, the 2017 Hamas Charter in articles, it's not the annihilation of Jews. You know, they don't want to kill the Jews. That's not the case at all. It literally specifies,

articulates it in a very good way that they only want to stop and the the Zionist movement from taking more land invicting more Palestinians so they can get taken over I mean another thing that was happening while I was there was so all the aquifers and the water actually comes from the West Bank there's no water shortage but while I was there they cut the water from 85% to 65% for no reason. And you can always tell the Palestinian homes from the settlers' homes because there's water tanks on all of the Palestinian homes because they have to pay for them. So they have to pay for their water and the settlers use five times more water, but yet they'll cut it off and then turn it back on, cut it off, turn it back on because they're in control of that.

If you wanted to buy a car like a Kia Sorrento, right, you paid like 10 grand for it, it's a $20,000 dollar car there because you have to pay an import tax 100%. This shit needs to stop. Now, my thing is, for example, we don't have any more slave rebellions, right? We don't have, you know, uprisings of slaves that go and kill people like the Nate Turner Rebellion. That was horrible event because we don't have any more slavery.

So the entire world is seeing this. The entire world agrees, the ICC, the high, the high, court in the world is saying that it is an apart state that's been illegal occupying Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 but the horrendous actions have been continuing since 1948 this I agree with the ICC on this fullheartedly it's a long read but it's well worth it don't be wrong how to use a dictionary this is about 2,000 pages but if you read like the the summary of it it um it actually outlines like exactly like what needs to

stop because what is illegal needs to stop the legal settlements and the um the settler violence um that to me every time they try to go to abrahamia mosque um do you know the history on you remember the abraham mosque massacre in uh february 25th 1994 i don't it's when so um there was an Israeli Zionist, Jewish Zionist, Baruch Goldstein that went into the Abrahamian mosque during Ramadan, and as the Muslims were praying, loaded his weapon and killed 29 and injured 70, I think. No, no, 150, injured 150 and killed 29. they'll eventually outnumbered him and beat him to death but he's hailed as a hero well that was horrible in itself but what happened after was even worse

the entire area and this is like a heavy market that's right there by abrahamian mosque was shut down for six months and the checkpoints were enlarged they had more checkpoints out there and 54% of the mosque was taken over by the Israelis. The rest of the mosque had a bunch of cameras installed all over it. So that's the justice that they received. They had this horrendous event that happened to the Muslims, to the Palestinians. And their justice was, we'll take half of your church and add more checkpoints. I mean, these are the things that need to end.

If you want to stop the resistance, you have to eliminate what the people are resisting against. When you say resistance, I mean, you're, so, so the West Bank and Gaza are two completely separate entities, right? And Hamas was the elected government of Gaza, but is not, is not quite so present in the West Bank. Is that correct? Yeah, they're not in control. So, so. So, we're, because the. from my understanding, you can correct me if I'm wrong,

but Israeli occupation or Israeli troops inside Gaza stopped, like, was it 2014, 2017, like there was... 2006. 2006, thank you very much. Yes. So, and, you know, we can talk about Gaza being an open-air prison,

but Egypt is also, like, on the side of, like, not allowing Ghazan's free. passage through Egypt either. So there's, so it's not just an Israeli issue. Like there are issues with the settlements, no doubt. And, you know, and I think that prior to October 7th, there was a lot of pushback, and maybe even now, I don't know, but I think there was a lot of pushback in Israel, like a lot of less conservative. I don't mean like American politics conservative, but But a lot of, like the kids at the Nova Festival, probably most of them would have been against settlements in, you know, the settlements and the West Bank. But I just, when you say resistance, I feel like there's two separate issues here, two separate things going on.

There's the West Bank and the settlements. And then there's a terrorist organization called Hamas, which conducted a horrific terrorist. attack. Is that, is that, I mean, you can tell me if I'm wrong. I think it's more of a perception. Nelson Mandela was actually considered a terrorist all the way up to 2008 for standing up to the apartheid in South Africa. In 2006, the Israelis actually removed all their settlements from Gaza and, but replaced it with the wall and autonomous weapons pointing inward. They control the war. water, air, land,

all the land, sea and air, everything that goes in and out. They control and subsidize the food. There's like the red line directive, which is allowing only so much food going in there. They want to allow light bulbs in for like chicken coops. Seed that, I mean, cilantro.

Into Gaza or into the West Bank? Into Gaza, Gaza. So how, then, because I'm not really familiar with a lot of that. Like, how were there resorts and car dealerships and malls and things like that in Gaza. And everything has to go through Israel to get inside, is what I'm saying. And everything, there's a lot of things that are actually like, they're not allowed in,

like, for example, fishing poles, different types, like potato chips, chocolates. I mean, different things like that are actually banned from that. The amount of things, like, for example, you can't even go out so far to fish. before they'll actually like shoot you up you know if you try to go fish outside um the taxation on there is is is crippling any because Israel does have control of of everything that goes in and out of Gaza um another thing that that adds you know makes the story even more complicated um but let me one point though first um Egypt has already I think a quarter million um refugees from Palestinian refugees. Jordan has two million. Lebanon has, I believe, 275. Syria has

a 57,000. It's just there's two things that are going on there. One, they know if they leave, then they'll be able to come back. And so a lot of people are just trying to stay there because they want to go back home. The second thing is there's, I mean, just kind of like the immigration problem, you know, in any country. Yeah, an influx of people and they're going to be stuck there. So the taxation on everything is one of the biggest problems to have because they're reliant on, you know, to get an Israeli pass that they have to go through these cattle-like gated gates, you know, in order to get like a work permit and know to be worked, to be able

to work in Israel. Mm-hmm. And so there's a lot of. of different parts of this that, you know, that's why their economy is like, is crumbling on there. They have entire blockades. Another part that makes this even more complicated about Hamas itself is there is, I mean, Netanyahu himself has said, you know, in front of the Lakut party in 20, I think it was 2018. And you can actually look this up on Jerusalem Post. I think it's from 2019 how Netanyahu's project is going to backfire in his face because he's been

funding him since like 1988 in order to prevent a two-state solution because as long as Hamasas is in control and the Gaza excuse me as long as the Palestinian authorities in control in the West Bank and the Hamas is in control in Gaza there will never be a two-state solution you have to have a unified government. Now, I remember actually seeing Ron Paul talk, you know, in a congressional hearing, you know, talking about this in 2009, how Netanyahu was funding, you know, Hamas. And this was back in 2009. So it's nothing where it's, you know, it's new information. Because, again, as long as Hamas is up and going, then there'll never be a two-state. state solution because it'll never be able to agree on things.

It is kind of surreal to think about and I mean, I wouldn't even entertain it if it wasn't so reported, but I mean, it's almost like imagine if George W. Bush was funding Al-Qaeda and then 9-11 happened. There's an argument to be made there. Or that we funded ISIS or the beginnings of ISIS in order to overthrow Syria. Like what would you say about that? I mean, it's, I think that the idea that Netanyahu supported Hamas in order to offset the PLO is both horrific and probably very realistic. You know, I don't feel as though Netanyahu, you know, he has been, you know, hardcore from the beginning.

and unfortunately where I feel as though he was falling out of favor and people were realizing what he was all about you know October 7th has put things firmly back in his in his court and I don't think I don't think that Netanyah I don't think that October 7th was some Israeli plot I think it was a terrorist attack created you know done by some very horrific people like if it were just about Israel, then we wouldn't have seen Thai people, a Thai man being beheaded with a garden home, right?

Like Hamas are terrorists. What Netanyahu has or hasn't done to contribute to that is another issue. And it's a big issue. I'm not saying it's not. You know, but I think that the people of Israel, you know the kids at the Nova Festival the people in these kibbutz is that what they're called the in these you know towns did not deserve what they did no more than the average American deserves something because of our invasion of Iraq right or the Palestinians of Gaza I you know it or the Palestinians of Gaza

you know it's but i actually agree with you i don't and i was saying earlier i don't support the killing of civilians or targeting of civilians whatsoever uh don't support you know i think it's a war crime in itself i i agree with you on that one by all means and i also agree with you that you know taking a hostage of civilians is is also a war crime but in reality you have you had 246 civilians and Israeli civilians taken hostage and 737 civilians that were killed on October 7th

not 1,200 because according to international law they actually have the right to armed resistance against an occupying nation. So yet there's still there's 737. So if you put it in the context of war

instead of the context of a terrorist attack, if you say that they have the right No, no, no, I don't know. Like I said, the killing of civilians was definitely a terrorist attack. It was a war crime, absolutely. So, but what I'm saying, though, is that if their attack on the military targets, and that's the thing, if Hamas were some opposition force, if they were some guerrilla force, and they had just struck military targets,

they might have room to to talk about this being a counter-occupation result. Are we talking about just an organization that does that? Say again? So let's just say ex-organization that kills civilians.

Well, except an organization that targets civilians. Okay, perfect. Even better. Because, you know, I mean, the United States government has killed tons of it. Like, look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We killed a lot of civilians, right? But in this conflict itself, would you say that if they target civilians, they're a terrorist organization then?

Well, that depends. Are they a legitimate government? Like, are they committed? Does it matter if they're a legitimate government? I mean, it does, right? It does because it because. If they're targeting civilians, does it matter? It matters in the context of what a power, what a state does in war.

We targeted civilians. Every country is targeted civilians in... Did we sodomize people to death? I mean, have we, have we, like, have we raped women from a... It's kind of a gross comparison, though, like, that's not what we're aspiring to as Americans. We're trying to be better than that. We're not trying to be, like, Hamas or a terrorist organization. So I don't think the what-aboutism of, like, it's okay because we did it, is.

I'm not saying it's okay because we did. What I'm saying is that what is the context that people are claiming? Are they claiming that it is a sovereign government that Hamas was an elected government that attacked another government, that attacked another country? Or are we saying they're a terrorist? Which is a war crime. And I don't disagree with you on that. You know, and I think they should be brought to court just like with the arrest warrants as war criminals.

I agree. And 100% if, like I haven't read about the person of sodomy, to death, 100%, all those people should be charged with, I don't even know if that's war crimes. They just be charged with crimes against humanity. They should be charged. Just like, and that's not correct. That's not right. Just as, just like everybody in Hamas and all of their leadership should be targeted.

Absolutely. You know, so I'm just, what I'm advocating for is the same standard. You see what I mean? Now, again, if it's, if it was just, now, what I agree with you on that doesn't mean I don't understand. Because again, if you look at the, the alas, you know, their military, you know, or militia, you know, 70% are orphans.

I mean, who am I to speak on what kind of atrocities? You know, I'd be willing to do at that point, you know, what I mean? I don't agree with it. I mean, would you be willing to write? Would you be willing to be had a time out? No, I don't know. So if you have like, for example, like the Nate Turner, you know, rebellion where they actually killed children and women and men in a nearby town, I mean, I never was a slave, so I would never understand the horrific amount of, you know, brutality had been inflicted upon them their entire life, you know, enslaved and being sold his property and then beaten and, you

an inch of their life and uses cattle, you know, I mean, I have no understanding of that. Do I justify and condone it? Absolutely not. No. And that's what I'm saying is if we're going to hold a standard, please. But you're just clarify, you're arguing this from the point that Gaza was an open-air prison and the people there have no freedom and therefore it is equivalent to Nate Turner Rebellions, that even though there wasn't slavery, there was, there was outright oppression of, of a sort, of some time? There was oppression, yes. Okay.

And there was an illegal occupation. And I don't like using the term, I mean, I don't like using the term open a prison because that was actually signified they did something wrong. I think it was more of a concentration camp because it wasn't, they weren't just left alone. They were also, there was, you know, their term was mowing the grass, you know, and so they would actually, every new once a while to let them know that they're in control, they would do some air strikes in there and just stuff bombing the hell out of it. And then if you look at the, look at it, I mean, the French resistance itself, you know,

we had the occupation and the German occupation in France and you had the French resistance that was fighting back. again, I don't agree, condone whatsoever, you know, the rape, you know, the targeting of civilians themselves. I don't agree or condone that on both sides. It doesn't matter what entity it is. You have one that's elected government. You have another that's elected government. And if one is condoning it and the other one is condoning it, they're both terrorist organizations in that sense. The only difference is that if it was just the military,

resistance if they actually targeted, just like you were saying earlier, they actually have the legal right to fight against that. And that's why I say there's only 737 civilians that were killed that day and not 1,200 because the other ones were police officers and IDF soldiers. Now the targeting civilians themselves, like for example, the Nova music festival, the location is 25 by 5, right? It's 25 miles the Gaza strip, 25 miles by five miles. It's one of the most secured areas in the world. Why did it take? I've heard everything from six to 12 hours.

Let's just take the average eight hours to respond. Why did it take that long to get people there? Where's the footage from the cameras where they have camp? That was one thing that also saw everywhere, especially like if you go by like any checkpoint, there are cameras stacked on top of cameras. Where's all the footage from the breakpoints? Where's all the footage from that?

Hold on. So what are you saying about where's the footage? I'm not quite sure. Well, we'd be able to understand a lot more what was happening during that time frame to the break-in and the risk of the breakout, you know, where they attacked and how they got in and out. But the response time is my biggest question, you know,

and the security cameras would show all of that. Why did it take, again, the average, if we take the lowest, let's just take the lowest. Why did it take six hours for them to respond? These really army to respond to that. We've had people on the show that have, like, speaking with sources of an Israel stuff, said that there was a big cluster fuck on the Israeli side.

There were, like, contradicting orders. For sure. There was confusion. There was denial on some parts. But regardless of Israel's failed response, that that doesn't mean that these kids at the Nova Festival were in any way, shape, or form any kind of enemy combatant to be to be shot, to be mutilated, be kidnapped, to be raped, to be tortured. I agree.

I mean, that is all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack to induce horror in order to change somebody's political opinion. Oh, I agree. Right. We agree on that. And like I said, if someone sodomizes someone to death, that's also a terrorist organization. That's the only point that I'm making is like the same standard across the board. It's an moral. It's definitely immoral.

Absolutely. I mean, they're both crimes against humanity and war crimes. Absolutely. What I'm saying is that there needs to be a standard across the board. You know, just because Israel's doing it, doesn't give them a pass just because they're Israeli. I mean, just because they have poor firepower and they have a full army. I guarantee you 100%. This is the reason why I speak out about this to most,

especially as American, and try to get other people informed on this, is that Israel would not be doing what it's doing if they didn't have our support. They would not be picking fights in Syria and Lebanon against His Bullah. They would be looking for a diplomatic way out. But the thing is, is that we support them and we're funding them with our tax dollars.

And we are in some way complicit with this. You know, we are, it's our tax money, it's going to that. And of course, you know, we don't have a choice of that, but. What do you see as a diplomatic way out for Israel? Remove all the settlements, the illegal settlements. They know they're illegal. Give the two-state solution, borders back into 96-7, allow the families that have been, you know, exiled to return.

This isn't like, it's basically just undoing the things that they're doing illegally. I honestly, it's a lot more articulated and better well put than I could probably, you know, vocalize as the way the ICC put it. Everything that they're doing illegal, make them stop. So was you guys are better history then? It was the 1967. Was that the Six-Day War? Yes. So should they return Palestine or Gaza?

Because Gaza had gone to Egypt at that time, correct? Or am I? I think it was under the Jordan. Jordan. So should they return? Gaza to Jordan and make it part of Jordan again? The difference when under Jordan rule is that they weren't establishing settlements. They weren't kicking people and exiling people and conducting ethnic cleansing.

And so you have to have an ethnic majority in order to have a Jewish sovereignty. Jordan wasn't doing that. Jordan must, you know, I'm not saying, and violent means I'm not saying the monarchy there is a good thing. But I'm also saying that they weren't doing these illegal things and conducting violence on a daily basis like they're doing in the West Bank and currently in Gaza. This makes sense. Sure.

And the same thing in Lebanon. You know, they're picking fights with Hezbollah. Hezbollah wouldn't exist, you know, if they didn't keep trying to push into Lebanon. I think one of the things that also, like, the history of Israel has to be kept in consideration, especially during 1948 during the Nakhba, when 750,000 people and they were like, oh, we gave them five separate peace deals. You know, and they rejected them all. I'm like, well, let's take something, for example, like Mexico saying, we're going to take Texas back. It used to belong to us.

I guarantee you that there's some people that still have like, hey, I remember this land being ours, you know, generations ago. And they kicked out everybody. And then anyone that stayed, they would lose their home. They would have to get, you know, somewhere else. They would actually, that's something to be argued, right? Well, they're doing the same thing. but they were the ethnic minority at the time. There's always been Jews there.

They've lived in relative harmony with the Muslims and Christians, you know, for centuries. And the Muslims aren't saying they want to eliminate them. They want to eliminate the Zionists. They don't want to eliminate the Jews. They can live in harmony and peace with the Jews. They did under the Oman Empire for centuries as well. It's just they don't want to be wiped off or, you know, risk losing their business or their home, you know, because they might decide this is the time.

time to do, you know, to eliminate them from this area. And we're going to put the settlements in this area. You know, I mean, the first terrorist attack actually happened July 22nd, 1946, where the King David Hotel was bombed. And that was by Zionist, Jewish Zionist, part of the Stern gang. And literally, they were dressed up as Arabs. They went into the King David Hotel, blew up the South Wing and killed like 96 people injured or 90 people in injuring 46. Then like you heard of a, I did a little piece on this. You heard of Oscar Schindler, Schindler's List, the movie. German industrial is phenomenal man.

He saved like 1,200 people from the Holocaust. And you hear them using the Holocaust constantly like, oh, never again. You know, the Holocaust happened to our people. Zionist is a different thing. We're not, people try to conflate, you know, anti-Semitism, or it's going to be anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism,

which is not the case at all. Zionism is a political ideology that was started by Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century. And it literally has nothing to do with the Zionist movement that was there, it's like a colonial project. Falka Bernadotte was a Swedish soldier and diplomat.

that negotiated with Himmler and was such a good negotiator. He was able to save 30,000 people from concentration camps in Poland and Germany. He was a phenomenal human being, and a third of those were Jews. In 1948, he got positioned as the UN as a mediator to try to bring some type of peace between what was going on, between the Arab lines that was there, because there was a lot of violence, you know, but if you imagine like all these people coming in saying, we're going to take your land,

I mean, what would you expect to happen? I mean, again, it was there like, oh, this used to belong to us, we're taking it back. It's like Mexico coming into Texas saying, we're taking this back. So he was assigned there, and he was actually assassinated by the Stern gang, and the leader of the Stern gang was actually Yitzhak Shamir.

He ended up being prime minister. those three organizations, the Laif, the Hargana and the Ergun terrorist groups got absorbed all into the IDF. So literally those three terrorist groups are the foundation for the IDF. These are the things that you mean kind of keep in perspective on that. I mean, I think a counterpoint that could be. Please. that you have a culture who had just been through a legitimate genocide

like a legitimate attempted genocide and that were very and let's be honest name one Middle Eastern country where the Jewish community has thrived even though at one point in time the diaspora was spread throughout the entire Middle East Like where, what country can you point to right now where the Jewish community has thrived in the Middle East?

Thrived in which manner, economically or? Grown. Believe it or not, there's actually a pretty large Jewish community in Tehran. Yeah, in Tehran. And, you know, and so, and I mean. Let's think about 5,000. Yeah, about seven synagogues.

5,000? 5,000 Jews. yeah? I mean, 5,000 is that Yes. I would I would argue that

5,000 is not necessarily thriving as a community. That's how I was trying to see, like, what do you mean by thriving, no? What I'm saying is that... Are you talking about the Middle East? I'm talking about in Europe, because the genocide didn't happen in the Middle East,

correct? Right, but Jews were very popular. So why are the Palestinians paying the price for it, though? Jews were very populous in the Middle East. No, they weren't. So, they're always been there, but they've been the minority. Okay, fair enough.

But the communities in those areas have not grown. The communities in the Middle East have not grown. So all I'm saying is that you have this group, and again, I am not justifying what the Stern Gang or any of the other organizations did. But you have this post-World War II group of people who had seen the litigate, you know, the legitimate like attempted decimation of their society. It was a genocide.

Oh, means. And they're given this small area that they have historically been, that they historically have roots to and have been part of since, I mean, the Old Testament, at least the Old Testament, however old

that is, right? And they are fighting for what they believe is an existential, you know, an existential dilemma, a place to exist. So. And they've, and again, I think we actually had the same agreement that they've been there for millennium. Sure.

We agree on that by all means. But they weren't the majority on that. And that is where the separation of our, I think where we kind of disagree is, if, why didn't Germany give up half of Germany to the Jews? Germany was the one that was responsible for the Holocaust. We agree on that, right? Sure. Not the Palestinians.

Sure. Palestinians had nothing to do with that. They welcomed them after 1948. Excuse me. Let me rephrase that one real quick. After 1945, excuse me. Sure. And that's the whole thing is that, you know,

there's an argument to be made that Mexicans have been there for millennia since the Aztecs. All right? They've been there for millennia, so why can't they go back? So that's just not something that's done and sort of use like a biblical reference I think is is you know, I'm sorry but it's kind of a ridiculous type point because they're like yeah, they're in the minority and if you look at the people are saying there's only like a I think they said like 200,000 Palestinians living in Palestine during 1948. Yeah, you're absolutely right because but if you look at the numbers from 1947 and 1946 there was like 1.3,000.

million. But we're talking about Palestinians right as a country as a people where Palestine hasn't existed for a long time. And we're talking about Jews a religious, both an ethnic and a religious group.

Right? So between Judaism, the Jews are religion and a people that we're calling Palestinians who are Muslim. which didn't start until 600 years after Christianity.

Like, what is the blend, what's the mix there, right? What are these people that we call Palestinians, in this place we call Palestine, which has not existed for a very long period of time, right? It's been there for like 4,000 years. Palestine? Yes. They've had their own currency.

They've had their own form of government. But the thing is, is that people are like, well, they were in a state. Well, there's a lot of countries that weren't a state until England started carving up, and France started coming up and saying, okay, these lines are going to be Iraq. These lines are going to be Lebanon. I mean, if you think about it, the Phoenicians were there before Lebanon was. Okay. You know what I mean?

And correct me if I'm wrong. Was Palestine or at least Gaza, was that part of the Ottoman Empire prior to? British colonialism. Oh, yeah. So the Alman Empire, so that was after World War II. Excuse me. Excuse me. We're afraid after World War I.

So that was one of the things between, so the Arab, the Arab tribes that were in the area, the, the, the Pico-Syx Agreement was them making a deal with the Arab tribes there that if they could help us defeat all mine empire, they would be able to get their own state.

And they got screwed out of that deal because they actually helped them defeat all my empire. I mean, the empire fell in like October 27th, 1917. And then Armistice Day was November 11th, 1917. So that was the key and pivotal moment in World War I enemy because they were losing, you know, tragically up in France and, you know, for trench warfare in France and Germany. They were getting their asses kicked.

And then after they won, well, they're like, well, hey, we're just going to take you over now. And that's when the British mandate came over and they actually started occupying them in that area. And so they were like, well, what the hell are you guys doing? I mean, we helped you win this. And then they reneged on the deal. And they just, you know, the British mandate. Do we have questions for Alan?

Oh, yeah. Sorry, Alan. There's the viewers. I'm going to see if they have any questions for you. I know we've been talking for a while. I appreciate, you know, providing your perspective and your experiences that you had over the. there. But if you want to finish your thought, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

No, no, not all. And so, I mean, that's one of the things that it has to kind of keep in mind is that, you know, you're absolutely right. It wasn't like an official Palestinian state. But that's to say it doesn't mean that the Palestinian people haven't lived there. Right. You know what I mean? Like I said, Lebanon was created after, you know, the French colonization. And the lines that were drawn were drawn by Western empires, you know, by predominantly the UK, the United Kingdom. So that's the thing is to be made, is that, you know, they did have, they didn't have presidents.

They had, um, um, um, um, Musfi, Musi. Mustis? Say again? Mufthis. Mofties, yes, sorry. They had Muftis. One of the arguments that I heard before is that the Muftees were like the Grand Mufti was the one that met with Aldo Hitler to suggest the final solution.

And I think that was in 1942, I believe. The problem with that argument is that they already started building. He met with them in November, 1940, and they already started building the concentration camps in the death ovens in Poland and June. But if you look up the Havara Agreement of 1933 between Therodor Herzl and Otto Hitler's actually a signed contract between the two, where he actually allowed the Zionists to actually leave, and start the colonization of Palestine between 1933 and 1939, I think it was like 60,000.

And there's actually a coin to commemorate that and has the star David on one side and the swastika on the other. It's a pretty interesting history. Yeah. Well, thanks, like, again, like I don't know a ton about the region, especially since you've been there to visit personally.

You know, appreciate your insight and your input on all that. Real quick, some questions. Joe's got you. Thank you very much. What did it happen exactly with the SIF slash CRF? Are they no longer a thing or did the concept evolve into something else? So no, they don't exist anymore. They actually, they got disbanded, I think, in 2019. I think is when they actually got disbanded. Probably a little bit. I'm not sure, be honest with you. Yeah, I can actually help out a little bit, Alan. Please. So I wrote actually about this. What happened was that for the first time, the Special Forces commander, the Yusat commander, and the Socom commander, none of them were SIF guys.

And that was their opportunity to do away with the SIF. And so they put a memo forward to Christopher Miller. And I can't remember if, I don't think he was SACDF at the time. I think he was at ASD Solick. And he signed off on it because this is what the commanders wanted. And so at that point, the SIF lost the J-SOC mission, and that doesn't exist anymore. And today they became what's called the C-TAC,

the critical threat advisory companies. And they still have a direct action mission, a counter-WMD mission. They still have an important mission, but no, they're not the SIF anymore. I just learned something new. I've been hearing different rumors here and there about it, so I've got to bring some clarity.

I appreciate that. Yeah. And who asked that question? That was, let me, that was, Joe's gotcha. Thank you very much. Thanks, goes, Jonathan. I appreciate that.

I learned something today. Ryan Parsons, thank you very much. Alan is awesome, and the We Defy Foundation is great. Yes, please. It's we defy.org? We defy foundation.org, yes. We defy, Foundation, and that's, for those who are listening, it's W-E-D-F-Y-F-Y Foundation.org.

Please check them out. M. Corbin, thank you very much. Have you encountered the term atherogenesis in fitness? It refers to arterial smooth muscle growth. And do you have any thoughts on training methods related to it? Wow. That's actually the first time I've heard that, to be honest with you. Honestly, the same training methods I use right now is like the off-season Olympic lifting programming that I used to do. Because you can't maintain an Olympic lifting regiment for all year round.

You can only do it like a couple months ahead of time before competition because it's very specialized. but the general programming for Olympic lifting on the off-season is actually what I still use. And so that's pretty much what I've been sticking to, and a little bit of adding a little bit more volume, a little more volume to it as for the endurance side. Actually, Corbyn, it was, he corrected it, arteriogenesis. genesis. So I guess like the creation of new arteries or at least like the branching of new vessels. No, I'll have to look into that. It sounds interesting. Fetoramaphethis. Thank you very much. Thanks for the show. Love you guys. Though I'm

molding in chat. What is molding, D? Like shedding? Like triggered kind of. Okay. Ask your guest to check out his historical timelines regarding Israel pullout of Gaza and Hamas takeover as well as most of the other ones. Okay. That is, do we have any questions on Patreon? And guys, appreciate you sticking around for this conversation tonight. Please give a shout out.

I'd like to give a shout out to our friends at Casa Carabello Cigars. A good friend of mine runs that company. He's also a Special Forces veteran. And check out our Patreon if you want to get access to these episodes ad-free. There's a link down in the description. There'll also be a link to the foundation not Alan works with. Alan, is there anything else you want to plug aside from We Defy? Anything else you're involved with that people can get involved in?

Coast to Coast Foundation to be one of them. Great organization, Special Forces Foundation. I know those two guys, the guys involved in directly, really legit organizations. Of course, Greenberry Foundation is another good one. Man, caught me off guard on that. That's okay. You think about it. We got one more question. We have a question from Patreon.

Yeah, we got one question from Sean Dudley. Do you happen to know the history of why U.S. Special Forces units are structured, the way they are. It seems like it must have been based on a very specific mission profile. What is asking there? I mean, I guess assuming it's the team's broken up that way. ODA is broken up to 12 so they can split them in two. So you have a warrant officer that can go and split into one

and you have two Brabos, two medics, two comma guys and split off that way. The difference is that I was actually never on a conventional team. I was always on the SIF where we were. We had cells and a troop. So my history, other than how it's broken down, like back in the Vietnam timeframe where they're kind of first emerged, is lacking. And I've been hitting the head a lot, so I used that as my excuse.

So he asked, Sean Dudley, is it the, first off, thanks for joining our channel. like thanks for subscribing to the channel and I think he says a question above for clarification troop level specialization as the size and composition teams companies the role of B teams etc

well yeah I mean of course of course he's correct I mean they're structured for specific tasks absolutely yeah so the team for support and drivers and gunners and then you have the guys on the teams

that are you know specific into the operators but the thing is is that the guys on the team like I was a Bravo, but at the same time, I was also doing TQ and I was leading out. So, I mean, people break up, you know, have specific jobs. We also cross-training it to everything. I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions is that Hollywood gives off that we're like every special forces guys

is like a computer hacker and knows how to fly a plane and can, like, no, there's so much because we specialize in that, like, for example, in the SIF. I mean, we spent at least one week a month on the range in the shoot house on the flat range when regular teams were spending, you know, maybe one week every three months on the range because they were like dive specialists or there were ruck teams or Halo teams. So they had, you know, a lot more other things to do than just shoot because, you know, their mission was different. So it's nothing, you know, better or worse. It's just what they specialized in. I just happened to see a comment that I feel like

might be somebody you know just because it was ground and pound 9, ground and pound 97. Ask him if seals are better than sif. Like, I feel like that somebody that's a spicy question. Oh, man. You don't have to answer that.

You know what? I'll ask Jocko when I see him next week. There you go. Alan, I mean, thank you so much for sharing your story with us and in your perspectives with us and everything going on. To wrap up, do you want to tell us what's next for Alan Shabaro? You've had an interesting journey so far. And honestly, like for myself, I am, life is short. I want to live it to the fullest. So I am actually going to be leaving.

I'm doing a five-week road trip. I'm going to be teaching at the origin camp in Maine in a couple weeks. And so I'm doing a road trip with a good friend of mine all the way up to Maine and back and stopping along the way to weedify affiliates and kind of teaching clinics and kind of meet the veterans that are involved. It has grown tremendously since they started it in 2015 along with Joey Bozick. And I want to meet the people that are involved. And we have so many people that I have no idea who else is involved in it.

I mean, we have thousands of people. Give me a chance to meet and thank a lot of the owners and the affiliates that are a part of this. And the mentors and ambassadors, we have so many of them. And I would love to get to meet them all. But unfortunately, we're stuck with the East Coast. When I get back, I'm literally, I sold everything that I own except for my defender. And I'm just going to travel. I'm going to start Southeast Asia.

no plan. I have no schedule. I might stay three or six months in Cambodia. I'm then move on to Laos and Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia. I've never been to Africa, so I'm going to head over there. But I actually want to experience, you know, the place and actually get a good feel for it. So I'm not going to spend like a week or two. I'm going to spend, you know, at least a couple months in each place. Yeah, dude, send us a postcard. Well, I was going to say, I really hope you start a travel blog. Like, we will definitely pump you. Like, you know, that would be something fascinating to see.

And he was saying he's going to take his ghee and do some jujitsu while he's traveling around. That would be an interesting entryway into that topic. I think that's the best way of kind of getting to know the locals and to know, like, because I found jiu-jitsu schools. I was just doing a random search and I actually found jihitsa schools in Laos and in Cambodia of all places. You know, there's like 3 or 4. I found in Malaysia, Indonesia. There's several in the Philippines.

And so that's going to be kind of like, like I said, I don't have a plan yet. I don't have a schedule. I think that's the beauty of this whole thing is that I just want to spend as much time, you know, maybe the next four or five years just traveling around. And I'm going to use, you know, my, my jiu-jitsu as like a kind of like my diplomatic card in a sense, you know, to, that's my international language. I might not speak the local language, but I can speak jiu-jitsu, and so can they. And I think that's going to be what the beauty of this all is going to be.

I'm not going to be living at the ritz by any means, you know. But that's my whole point there is just to experience and live life. That's fantastic. I for sure. No, Alan, please check in with us, man. And I'll be interested to talk to you in a couple years and see what the next adventure brings. And for people watching next week, we'll be back with Chuck Simpson. a seventh special forces group guy.

I'm sure he has lots of stories. And again, Alan, thank you for, you know, I know this was kind of like a last-minute thing that sort of all came together haphazardly, and I really appreciate you making the time for it. Thank you, guys. It's been a great conversation, and I appreciate all the questions

and actually learn some stuff as well today. So thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. I really hope you do start, like, a travel blog, like a channel. It would be great to see, like, all the different places you go. and, you know, like you say, like, Jizu is such a great way to integrate with whatever culture you were with. Absolutely.

Yeah. Best to you, brother. Sounds like a really good idea. All right. Thank you, everyone, and we'll see you next week. All right, thanks, guys.