The Team House - The Team House 2022 Year in Review, and What's Next in 2023!
Episode Date: January 9, 2023Dave and Jack review everything that happened on the channel in 2022, discuss what's next in 2023, and answer your questions. Today's Sponsor: Battling Blades For 20% off your Battling Blades order, ...go to https://BATTLINGBLADES.com and enter code "TeamHouse" at check. Learn the way of the blade at https://BATTLINGBLADES.com and get 20% off with the promo code "TeamHouse" at checkout! Thank you for supporting the companies that support the show! To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ theteamhousepodcast@gmail.com #specialoperations #covertopsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.
Transcript
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Special Operations, Covert Ops, espionage, the Team House with your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.
Hey, fellas.
Welcome to our Team House New Year's Roundup.
kind of annual tradition we do around here.
And Philalows for our three female viewers out there.
Good verb conjugation.
Yeah, I looked at it.
We're almost at 4% female viewership.
We're going places, Dave.
Look, we're probably doing a calendar next year.
A tasteful calendar.
Tasteful calendar.
So, yeah, this is kind of a tradition for us.
We do a show at the end of the year, kind of wrap up everything that we've done over the year,
talk about each guest a little bit, in case you guys missed anything during the year.
And some comments, some commentary, bitches, gripes, complaints, and we'll try to take as many
questions as we can.
We have a bunch from Patreon and et cetera.
We'll also try to take as many questions from the chat as we can as well.
So I don't know what your thoughts are, Dave, Dee, but 2022, like, it was exciting for
me, I got a lot of, there were a lot of people we had on that I've been trying to get on for a
long time. So like, we've been doing this like a little over, what, three years. And there
were some people that I had been working on for like two years that I finally got on the show.
So I was excited about that. Looking back, the whole roster over the year, I mean, it's like
had ourselves on the back. You guys done good. Yeah, we're the best podcasts around. That's
it. That's all I have to say.
2022, we had 4.7 million viewers.
The top three vids was actually the number one was from last year bleeding over.
It was the Tony Brooks interview about the Rangers searching for Marcus Latrell.
The second largest, biggest viewed video was a clip D made of Dale Comstock's episode,
The Murky World of Mercantaries.
And then the third most viewed video was also a clip.
It was the different identities of SEAL Team 6 taken from the Matthew Cole interview.
So that's kind of the big picture how things went down.
We got to 60,000 subscribers.
We're at 61.7.
Like, we, like, were inching up to 60,000 just before the New Year, and then we blew by it.
The reason why we blew by it was because of the Andy Milburn controversy.
There may have been a Russian troll farm involved.
I don't know.
It wasn't our doing, though.
We'll get to that. But yeah, no, my goal was to hit 60,000 or 60,000 subscribers on YouTube. I wasn't sure if we'd get there. But with Andy's help, we did. So we'll get to that a bit.
You mean with Putin's help? With Putin's help. Yeah, with the GRU Cyber War Brigade. So this year started off with episode 127. I should say this last year, 2002 started with episode 127, which is Steve Stratton.
Steve's a former Special Forces dude, worked for the White House communication agency.
He's an author, novelist.
That was a cool interview to do.
Steve was great.
He was also instrumental in helping me get my first job just in a mentor capacity.
Oh, I don't know that.
Cool.
Yeah, nice guy.
And then episode 128 was Eric Ulrich, who is a SEAL Team 6 squadron commander.
He had some really cool stories, actually, the ones that he was
permitted to tell. And some of the others, he beat around the bush a little bit. But that was an
interesting interview, good perspective. Not so often, you get an interview with a squadron commander.
129, Mark Giaconia, 10th group guy who's there for the invasion of Iraq. He was up north with the
Kurds and the CIA guys in 2003. And his book is One Green Beret, very good memoir. I finally
sat down and read cover to cover before the interview.
And again, that was a very unique interview.
Mark has a unique perspective, you know, going from someone.
I don't want to say he's like an anti-war or anything, but he came, we started off like
a very gung-ho, you know, let's go kick some ass to like having a lot of like profound
reservations, you know, having seen, you know, the ugly reality of it up close.
Yeah.
episode 130 was the return of Andrew Milburn.
I think this was in our old, yeah, this was in our old studio.
So we'll have to talk a little bit about this, too.
Like one of the big changes in 2022 was we moved from our old studio on the other side of this neighborhood to this new studio, built out this new set.
We have the quote unquote old set is still over there.
We'll go back to using that once in a while, too, to change things up.
but the whole studio move that was a big thing in of itself yeah yeah now that i mean and
d did an amazing job on this i i'd like to take a little bit of credit um but there's really
no credit i can i do there's no credit to be to be had jack painted i got my arts and crafts
skills on yep uh put the shelves up got got our prints framed so our prints are from mark lee who
we interviewed him.
Mitch Garadz did the Batman print.
And we have one more I still got to get for him.
Yeah, for anybody looking for a really talented interior designer,
I think that Jack will be launching his...
The JFK Nuclear Bunker aesthetic is in our wheelhouse.
And then, of course, the Bar Globe.
I always wanted one that really ties the whole room together.
It really does.
That in the rug.
I mean, listen, for our patrons, too, specifically, like, we made it happen for us.
We made it happen.
It made it happen for us, and we did it on a pretty good, pretty shoe string budget, I'd say.
Like, you know, the whole, that whole living room set.
Came off Facebook market, yeah.
Yeah, you're talking, like, everything with paint, besides Jack getting fleeced by the framers.
Yeah, it was like a grand.
Yeah, you don't want to know how much it cost to have a print framed in the city.
Yeah, it's brutal.
But we got it all together probably for like a grand, everything you see.
Anybody who wants to do business with a team house, I recommend you go through Jack and not D or I.
Not myself, not D, but Jack.
This isn't strictly a humidor.
This guy right here is actually a cigar refrigerator, technically, and that was a recommendation from another, a guest we'll talk about in a minute.
T.O. recommended that, and he recommended the air filter to me as well.
And then the cigar recommendations came from Rick Brato.
And who's going to give you?
you better
cigar recommendations
than a Cuban
from the CIA.
No one.
Nobody.
So, Andy,
well, we interviewed him
on our old set.
I think we,
that interview went on
way too long
and we got way too
drunk, as expected.
The next one,
episode 131,
we had Sean Naylor
back on for a second episode.
I think,
as I recall,
we talked in that one
a lot about,
he was an in-bed reporter
for the invasion of Iraq.
And he was also,
I'm going to misspeak. Sorry, Sean, but he was also embedded in Afghanistan as well.
And I should also take a moment to just plug what Sean and I got going on, is that we're on
substack now at the high side. And it's going to be a national security focused news outlet,
you know, focused on the sorts of things mostly that he and I write about, the intelligence
community, special operations and so on. The website is up now. It's up and running. We have not
published our first story yet. I promise you, Sean and I are working on it every day.
I don't want to say too much. I just say, like, we have a whole list of stories that we
want to work on, and we're currently trying to develop, like, three of them at the same time.
So that is definitely in the works.
Episode 132 was Malcolm Braille, who was an Australian diplomat, did a lot of interesting things,
kind of became an international problem solver.
Then this was not a numbered episode.
It was just a bonus episode.
We had Mark Powell Moropoulos in the studio in our old studio.
Passing through New York.
And he came in, it was during a day.
It was like midday.
And yeah, so we talked about all kinds of things.
I think we got back on the Havana syndrome issue.
Somebody just wrote in the chat, which is funny.
Like, hey, do you guys hear any stories about the after the show that you can't broadcast?
it's like yeah those are when like the
best stories are told oh boy
yeah that yeah the after show
sometimes things yeah sometimes things get a little
spicy there I mean there have been times
when we've stayed in the studio up to like two hours
after the show getting really shitty
and and spill and
there may there may or may not have been an episode
where I had to escort a guest home to make sure he made it back
and I'll just leave it at that
episode 133 was john a member of the chilean special operations community i love i love interviewing
foreign soft guys like hearing a totally different perspective uh you know there's things that there's
like big things that are in common that all special ops guys have in common but a lot of the
national security concerns that different countries have shapes those units differently and shapes
their cultural and their wartime experiences differently and it's just always interesting that to
to them. Okay, episode
134. This was one of those interviews
that I've been trying to get for a long time.
I had read this dude's book
Recky a long time ago and really,
really wanted to get him
on the show. Cous
Stadler, who served in the South African
Special Forces, the Reckys.
I remember I was in Washington,
D.C. on a work trip down there
when we did that interview.
I love that interview.
It's definitely one of my favorites.
Yeah. And I mean, that video, it has
106,000 views, which, you know, for a, for a somebody who is not cut up in the global war on terror,
you know, it's not a modern day.
It's not a Navy seal.
Yeah.
That has that sort of like Hollywood recognition.
Yeah.
You know, that's a phenomenal view count.
So then Vladimir Putin went ahead and crashed the party and kind of ruined everyone's plans.
We had on for episode 135, Aaron Schwartzbaum, to kind of cover the war.
in Ukraine and what was going on.
And he is a geopolitical analyst and expert that really knows Russia and that part of the world inside out.
And like he was just phenomenal and kind of laying out sort of the big picture what was going on.
And I actually think I think he would be worth having on again in 2023.
I mean, the war in Ukraine is going to be a year old pretty soon.
Might be worth having him on again to talk about like where we stand today and how things have progressed.
Okay, episode 136, some spicy content.
This was the Matthew Cole episode who wrote Code Over Country about Seal Team 6.
And it got demonetized that fucking episode.
Did it really? Yeah, that episode's got a yellow on it.
That's why I clipped it so much.
And it's also like great content.
But yeah, it got demonetized.
Thanks, Seal Team 6.
Yeah, I mean, a ton of people tuned in and watched the episode live.
I recall there was like 950 people watching it live.
I think Matt and then a close second was Drew when we had Drew on later in the year.
But I think Matt had it.
There was like 950-ish, right it on their live.
And I will say, I mean, I was happy with how the interview turned out.
The Matt Cole episode, I thought we covered a lot of grounds on a very controversial issue.
And I hope we did it in like a mature fashion, you know, not not, not, not, not, not,
a lot of rants and finger pointing.
Just, this is what's happened.
And, you know, maybe we need an
asthma check, so to speak.
Yeah. And, you know, and that's one of the
interesting things is, because we do draw
these controversies on occasion, and we
try not to be controversial.
It's not like we go out of our way.
You know, like, there are a lot of channels out there
that, they're, you know,
their political channels, left, right, whatever,
their political channels or their...
Or they're just, like, saying stuff to get attention.
Right, right. And we definitely try not to do that, and we try, you know, not to go for the clickbait and, you know, whatnot.
But there are some things that, you know, we also got sort of, you know, some of the people coming out, oh, we're anti-military or we're anti-seal.
And it's like, well, we're not anti-military at all.
Like, I love my time.
I'm not anti-Seal or anti-special warfare.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just when these issues come up, you know, if you love.
love the military, then you also want your military to perform.
Yeah, to be the professional organization that it is.
And this isn't saying anything about seals because you and I both, you know, we've had seals on.
We both have seals that are near and dear to our heart, even though we give them a hard time.
But, you know, you just cannot avoid these topics if it would be like talking about Vietnam and the good job that our soldiers,
there and then skipping things like my lie.
Right, right.
You cannot, you can't skip these things over.
You can't ignore them or whitewash them just because you're a fan of the military.
Yeah, and I think like one of the, just judging some of the feedback and stuff, I think one of the things like people sometimes misinterpreted.
I'm just speaking for myself here is people think that I'm criticizing soldiers who have to make difficult decisions in combat.
Right.
You know, you do the best you can.
You make the best decision you can with information you have.
And then it turns out, holy shit, actually something horrible happened.
That's not at all what I'm talking about or what I have a problem with in the military.
We're talking about things that are like premeditated and intentional.
Right.
Deliberate.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, look, when you're in combat, you make tough calls all the time.
And, you know, it's sort of, there are a lot of hero to zero.
moments where you make the right call, you're a hero, you make the wrong call, you're a zero,
and nobody, and a lot of times those calls are just gut or instinctual. There's no way to know what
that right answer is. Yeah, I mean, I know several guys who have in combat, they accidentally
killed children doing door breaches, you know, with an explosive breach or a ballistic breach,
If you're kind of skulking around in the night to go hit a target, you're making some noise outside.
Who in the house is the first to hear that to wake up and run towards the door?
Unfortunately, it's like a seven-year-old kid.
And I know several people who have completely, they were doing their job, they were being professionals, and something horrible happened.
They absolutely did not intend.
And, you know, I don't pass judgment on them at all.
It's terrible what happened, and they struggle having to live with that.
Right.
It's really difficult.
but that is in my opinion that's a separate issue sure than what we were talking about yeah
so from there we had episode 137 was gregg smith who uh worked deep inside blackwater
for a time and that guy spilled major tea on that episode that was that was a pretty shocking
episode yeah it's pretty spicy that one too especially like other podcasts have like er you know
Eric Prince on to like, you know, defend his Chinese contracting and stuff like that.
So it's like a real interesting dichotomy there between us and some other pods.
I really enjoyed hearing Greg's story.
And episode 138 was Zach Dorfman, journalists that I've worked with in the past.
I had him on to talk about some of the covert programs that are going on in Ukraine in years prior.
and presumably today.
Episode 139, Sam Juan, who is a CST.
She was super cool.
Yeah.
Went out with, you know, J-Soc guys going on raids.
Yeah.
And she had pretty real story.
Yeah.
And she was also, and we've had this discussion a couple times or a few times on this show,
and I feel like they're very valuable.
She also went very deep on post-traumatic stress and treatments that, you know,
the routes she had taken to treat hers.
You know, when people are able, you know, are willing,
because that's a very vulnerable thing to share
in front of thousands and thousands of people
who you don't know.
And one of the things that I appreciate
about the people that we have on the show
with the courage to do that is that it starts to normalize it
and people start realizing
they're not the only one going through this.
and also potentially open up some areas of treatment for them.
It's part of their story, right?
It has that whole sort of like narrative arc that is very familiar in military fiction or nonfiction of like, you know, showing up the first day at boot camp and then going to war.
It's sort of like that story that's told in full metal jacket, right?
But a lot of those movies in the past left out that part about how difficult it is to come home.
Either that or either that or they overplayed it where, you know, some guys,
guy is in the office and all of a sudden Charlie's in the wire and you know and he's having these
massive flashbacks. But it's it it's generally not like that and generally the people who are
in the grips of post-traumatic stress don't even realize that they are. Oh yeah. You know and it's this
downward spiral and you know one of the things that I think that like the post-Vietnam era like the movies
the movie of the week and a lot of that Vietnam stuff did is it made it made civilians afraid
of post-traumatic stress, right?
That this person is going to go postal.
Open a bell tower.
They're just going to, yeah, they're going to go open a bell tower.
Like, we don't want to have them in the workspace.
And that stuff still exists today.
But I think that when people get out there and you see that, look, people who suffer
for post-traumatic stress are far more, like vastly more likely to harm themselves than anybody else.
And the real place is that it shows.
up is in the home. Like, not in the workplace. Like, they're performers, right? They're going to,
they're going to bury themselves in work generally. But it's when they're at home, whether with
their family or by themselves, where that demon really rears its head. That's absolutely true.
Yeah, no, you're right. I'm glad we really talk about it. You know, it's finding that balance,
too, right? About, you know, like we were talking about earlier, it's not to be like anti-military
or anti-government or something like that.
But it's kind of just tell the complete story
that this is a real thing.
You know, the good times and the bad times.
Right, right.
Yeah, and there's nothing anti-military or, I mean, look,
I'll be very anti-VAA at times, you know.
So I guess that's kind of anti-government.
But there's nothing anti-military about talking about the realities
of post-rotic stress.
And the thing is, is it, I feel like this is a message
that reaches across boundaries.
Because it's not just veterans.
who have post-traumatic stress.
Civilians get it for a number of reasons.
And it's funny because I remember a friend of mine once telling me
that she was embarrassed to tell me that she had post-traumatic stress.
I'm like, why are you embarrassed to tell me?
She goes, well, because, you know, you were in combat.
I'm like, post-traumatic stress isn't like,
it's not this thing that's related.
Right.
Like veterans and, you know, those in combat
don't have the sole claim on post-traumatic.
It comes from a myriad of sources.
So, yeah, it's one of those things
that I'm glad that we can talk about openly a lot of times.
Episode 140.
I really like this guy, Ryan Hendrickson.
Yeah.
He was really cool.
Special forces.
I lost one of his legs in Afghanistan, right?
I believe.
He lost his leg.
I think he had, he stopped on an IED and he had like 25 surgeries to keep his leg.
Oh, I'm sorry, Ryan.
But he got super hurt, got blown up.
And he was back at it like 18 months later.
And came back.
And he is right now.
I believe still right now, he is doing demining in Ukraine, policing up UXO and stuff like that.
So he's still out there doing humanitarian work.
Yeah.
I mean, some of the stories who's talking about going into these recently liberated neighborhoods
and giving people bags of rice, it's like, it makes it real.
Yeah.
It's like, holy shit, man.
I mean, as real as it can be for, like, people like us sitting in the comfort of a, you know, a Brooklyn studio.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah. Episode 141, Eric Miaris. Super cool guy. Really cool interview.
You know, Eric served in a special mission unit, had a really unique job. And, man, that was just a really unique, insightful interview, I thought.
And another one of those post-traumatic stress discussions. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we got to talk about it a little bit from the intelligence side and how, you know, there's some unique ways that it hits people.
Yeah.
Episode 142.
Ben Milligan.
I really like the Ben Milligan interview.
Ben is an amazing dude.
He's a good guy, man.
And his book is really good.
He wrote By Water Beneath the Walls.
It's, in short, it's a special operations history book.
The history, I would say, of the amphibious special operations capability.
Right.
It wasn't just about seals, but it's sort of how it culminated with the seals.
There's a lot.
There's a lot in there about the Rangers.
There's a lot in there about special forces.
His book was really, really good.
And, yeah, the Ben Milligan interview was fun.
And, yeah, I hope we'd have him back one day.
Episode 143 was super cool.
Justin Sapp.
He was the first Green Beret in Vietnam.
Jesus, Christ.
Justin, you were looking great at the holiday party, by the way.
For the first Green Beret in the Vietnam, man.
For like an 80-year-old.
He looks awesome, dude.
Yeah, 1962.
He was the first Green Beret in Afghanistan.
He was on one of the CIA paramilitary teams.
He was on J.R. Seeger's team.
And I believe they were Team Bravo.
And, yeah, I think that was, like, the first, like, real, like, public interview, maybe that Justin's done.
I don't know if it was the first one.
I mean, we had Toby Hardening in, you know, for his, you know.
Right, and he introduced us to Justin.
And if you haven't read Toby's book,
it's first casualty yeah first casually it's fantastic we interviewed him also you're
and then yeah and then justin you know was was that special forces officer on that on that team
and justin is obviously in toby's book you know as as part of that whole thing yeah yeah we saw
justin at our christmas party we did uh we talked about that too a little later we did our
first uh i'm told you're not supposed to say first annual christmas party you have to have a
christmas party right and then you have to have a second one so it's a second one
and then by the time you're doing your third, you're allowed to say it's annual.
Really? John Stryker-Mayer sent me a tersely worded email about this.
And I said, well, no one likes a smart-ass, John, all right?
But, you know, all of our guests were invited to the party,
and, you know, obviously we have people spread out all over the world.
If you couldn't make it this year, I hope we'll see you there next year.
Or at our third, our actual annual Christmas party.
I mean, he's not wrong, right?
That's the same.
No, he's not wrong.
That's the same reason why you can't call World War I, World War I, until you have World War II.
Right, right.
I'm not saying John's wrong.
I'm just saying he didn't have to put that in my face like that, man.
Just sorry to interrupt.
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So episode 144 Dutch Werenga, who was a CIA paramilitary.
You read that book, Dave.
Actually, I was out.
Did I have, I had COVID.
I was, I was, I was fucked up guys.
And Dave did that episode with the author of Dutch's biography, Kim Kipling.
Yes.
And Dave did a great job.
Our internet went out in the middle of the show.
I remember.
Yeah, for like 20 minutes.
And finally it came back and we kicked, you know, we kept it going.
It was pretty, it was a great episode.
Yeah.
And we've been getting updates on Dutch.
Yeah.
His health hasn't been great.
So keep him in your thoughts
Keep him in your thoughts
Also was there
While it's on my mind
There was somebody's GoFundMe that we wanted to promote right
It's over
It's over they raised a lot
It was a previous guest of the show
Jason Bailey
Who's a former operator
Super good guy
Yeah
And yeah there was a go fund me
It's over now
They raised a lot of money to help him out
He was using a car accident
And he's doing better
Thank God
Yeah I haven't reached
out to him. I don't think he needs to, I don't think it's real priority right now. But again, keep
him in your thoughts. Jason's a great, great dude. Yeah. And while we're talking about Dutch,
Kim Kipling's other book is right over there, Neptune's Asylum, which is a lot of fun.
Which I read it, and I wrote a review of it for connecting events. So if you've never been in the
Navy, I'm just going to say, the Navy has the best time of all the services. I'm forced to concur
after reading that book. The Navy has the best time of all the services. And, and sea stories are there for a reason. You know, in the Army, you know, in the Marine Corps we have no shit there I was, knee deep in hand grenades. You know, Navy stories tend to be more booze and bar girl related. So, and antics on ships and... It was a good book. Yeah. Yeah. And so you can find the review I wrote on ConnectingVets.com if you want to go check it out and...
You can pick the book up on Amazon.
Episode 145 was Rick Prado.
I read his book, Black Ops, that came out this year or came out last year now, 2022.
Really good book.
I really enjoyed the Rick Prado interview.
I thought it's great to talk to someone, no offense, Rick, an older gentleman who had a long career and has written and thought and sort of process his experiences and thought about it and refined.
reflected on it and to kind of get that sort of like perspective the life and career of somebody like
that is like really it's special yeah and and he has an amazing career like it's a you know it's a very
interesting it's a great book and you know rick's been just because of who he is not not because
of things he's actually done but just the myth that surrounds him you know that i want to bring
it up universities and what yeah and you know he i respected him for the way he he he
addressed that stuff in the book and the way he gave
in the interview like a complete
answer like they're not dodge that stuff right
um and again
Rick thank you for the cigar recommendations
he's such a stand-up dude
appreciate it man and um
episode 146 was
Peter Perry a Marsock guy
that uh actually I think he was commenting on one of our
interviews and Dee went and hit him off yeah I think he commented on
Andy's uh interview yeah and the
the Peter Perry interview was really good again really nice
guy. Really interesting experiences. I was thinking about it today and trying to remember
who told us some of those crazy stories about like cachet, like explosive, uh, cache sites in
Afghanistan going up in the middle of a firefight. That was Peter Perry, wasn't it?
Didn't he get blown off his feet at one point? I don't know. He had some gnarly stories
for sure. I don't remember that. It was also great, you know, getting his perspective on like
the transition from, you know, force recon to mom.
sock you know the whole raider
controversy the the clerk
came and told him like you guys are part of this thing called
a mansock he's like what
what's what's this
um
episode 147
a guy again this is a guy I wanted to have on for a long time
uh thank you Dave uh
Doug wise
uh so Doug wise was
senior CIA
deputy director at DIA
uh again
dude who had a long long
career did some really interesting stuff and it was really cool that he was able to come and share
some of it with us yeah yeah um episode 148 was fred galvin uh his book is right behind you
dave a few bad men um fred was also a marsock guy uh his element got ambushed uh in
afghanistan and you know like right away the recriminations began right the witch hunt began
these like really dire accusations of war crimes they were hit with that proved not to be substantiated at all.
But that didn't save them.
No, it didn't.
No, it didn't.
Like that, you know, and that, that's the thing.
That's kind of scary.
Like when you think about the military, like the overall, you know, the structure of the military,
when it comes to how they treat their soldiers, their Marines, their airmen, the sailors on the ground,
it's you see the bureaucracy and it's it's rarely good because they take the safe way out
right you know they will burn individuals or whole teams and you know before there's any
actual judicial process they'll do it you know due to public opinion due to due to the
Taliban's PR machine yeah I mean it was that was a sad story you know
And that whole thing haunted them for a long time.
But I'm glad that Fred wrote that book and that he was able to get his side of the story out.
And I mean, not just his side, but, you know, what the Marine Corps ultimately came to the concluded on their own, which was that they were legitimate, it was a legitimate firefight.
Yeah.
Just so, and I am sorry, ex-royal Canadian, Air Force Hotel stories, I'm sure they're amazing.
And I didn't mean to disparage or leave out the Air Force.
Speaking of agencies that have great stories, our next guest was Bill Gage, who was with the Secret Service.
Secret Service knows how to party, man.
Secret Service definitely knows how to party.
So Bill Gage came on for the second time.
That episode was a little ad hoc in the sense that we were talking about school safety.
I mean, it's an important issue, but it was a little off kilter for like what we normally talk about.
But it is okay.
Yeah.
And Bill's an interesting guy.
I'm glad we were able to have them on.
The thing with the Secret Service in their parties, though, they just need to learn to pay their bills.
Square yourself away.
Exactly.
Pay the help.
Be a professional.
Take care of them.
They take care of you.
Right.
Episode 150 was Jim Olson.
That was like a mind-blowing episode.
That's probably one of my favorite episodes this year.
Honestly, yeah.
Honestly, like all of our episodes are great, and you should watch or listen to every single.
Agreed.
But this is.
is a story if you enjoy spy stories spy stories like real spy stories and you want to get depressed
like and don't go listen to like Depeche mode or joy division or whoever i don't know who the down
who like the emo bands are now i was listening to alison chains this afternoon having a little
flashbacks the rooster yeah but if you want to get depressed
and a little nervous and also be entertained at the same time,
definitely watch his interview because he ran counterintelligence at the agency
and he had a career in it.
And now he teaches it in Texas.
And it's terrifying how, how, I don't want to say how inadequate we are at counterintelligence,
but how hard it is
how hard it is to do properly,
especially in a country where we value our freedoms
and privacy and things like that.
Some of his stories of like meeting
James Hesu Zangleton and going down
manholes in Moscow to tap cables.
So I don't think he talked about that in his interview.
That's in the main enemy?
It's in the main enemy.
Did he talk about it in our interview?
Bearden's book, but I remember specifically talking to Jim
about it during the show.
Yeah, yeah, during the show.
Okay.
Because he's, I'm not like...
Are you spilling tea right now?
No, no, it's in books.
Is he spilling tea?
No, he's not.
Okay.
It's literally in Milt's book.
He names Jim Olson, too.
Okay.
Well, we'll talk about Miltz.
We'll talk about Miltz in a bit, but, like, the first chapter of Milt's book has references to Jim
Olson and Marty Peterson.
I mean, it's like, yeah, bringing it all together.
Episode 151, long-awaited Dale Comstock interview.
we had wanted to have Dale on for a long time
and I'm glad we were finally able to get him
and Dale is such a character
one of the most colorful people I know
and we had to limit it really to just talking about
his security contractor mercenary days
because the guy's done so much and been all over the place
he's he's Casca you know
and for those of you don't know who Casca
he's like the eternal soldier like Dale
you know like for most of us
we fight until either we're tired
or the war runs out
And I think that was true in Vietnam, too, Jude's fight.
And then then you had those guys who is like, well, Vietnam's over.
What, what I'm going to do now?
Hmm, I'll go, I'll go to South Africa.
You know, I'll go over to Africa.
You know, and Dale is, is that, that same person.
As long as there is war somewhere.
Dale, Dale, is going to get involved some.
Yeah.
Dale will abide.
episode 152 again this was a guy i wanted to have on for a long long time and really the delay was
actually to coincide with his book coming out uh um the dreaming circus is the name of his book
jim morris who uh was a special forces officer in vietnam and then he was a writer for soldier
of fortune magazine uh i love jim has great great stories and so we're able to talk about his time
in vietnam to his his own way of recovering from from the war and everything
else and ultimately how we got into shamanism and this sort of movement. And I mean, it's a very
unique perspective. And I highly recommend his book. The Dreaming Circus was really good.
Episode 153, again, another guy I'd been trying to get on this show for like years. J.R. Seeger
finally got the elusive J.R. Seeger interview and it was definitely worth it. He was awesome.
JR and his, I think his team, I think they were the second team in Afghanistan with, with Justin, and I think they were the second team after Gary Shrohn's team.
So, yeah, JR was awesome, and I want to have him back because he's like, he's like a living, he has, he has like, he's like the unofficial historian of like paramilitary activities.
And he knows all this stuff off the top of his head so well that I would love.
In that interview, he was telling his story, I'd love to have him in to talk about history and some of his perspectives and things like that.
Yeah, that'd be fascinating.
I think it would be worthwhile.
Episode 154 was Alex Bertelli, MH47 pilot and 160th.
Yeah.
Yeah, like Alex, he's such, like, he's such a humble dude because he was like, yeah, so, you know, in this program, I did well enough.
you know in this program yeah they only took three people and i did well like he just he was so humble
and he really gave us a great insight into aspects of the one six that you know like we've had
a cocoa we've had you know people on like we're you know for the gunship guys for the gunship
and stuff like that and it was you know it's just such a great perspective and he is such
such a great dude yeah really great stories uh episode 150
We had Doug Wise back on for a second time.
Again, the guy has such a depth of experience.
Yeah.
We wanted to talk about Syria.
We wanted to talk about Ukraine with him.
So we had him back on a second time.
We love to do another, a third round with Doug because he's fun to talk to.
Doug's got to know where the bodies are buried, huh?
How long was his career, like 35 years?
He did this PBS documentary that I was also in about Michael Flynn.
Yeah.
Well, he was Flynn's deputy, right?
Yeah, yeah.
And then, now this wasn't a numbered episode.
This is a bonus episode, but we had Kate Rockline on the show.
She is the ex-wife of Michael Frody, who was a soldier working in, you know, compartmentalized intelligence programs who took his own life.
And I wrote a long article about Michael, spent a lot of time talking to Kate.
And it was great to have her here in the studio and then actually, like, hear her tell the story.
story.
Both his and, you know, she also sort of told it from the post-traumatic side.
Yeah, because she's a nurse.
And the moral injury.
She's a Ph.D.
That was actually the first time I've ever heard of moral injury was having, was when
she was on the show.
She did mention moral injury, right?
I'm sure she did.
Yeah.
Yeah, so she wrote one of her, her, like, post-doc research, I think, it may have been,
was on TBI, was on traumatic brain injury.
Yeah.
So, and then she, having experienced all this stuff, I mean, it's incredibly unique.
I mean, there's probably no one else in the world that has quite that insight to that level that she does.
So I'm really glad that we were able to have her here and have her tell her story.
Episode 156 was the Drew Mullen's episode.
Drew served as a seal, and then he was in an Army SMU.
He was over in Iraq with, you know, some other previous guests of the show.
Mick Mulroy and some of those guys.
And, yeah, the Drew episode was awesome.
That was, like, three hours long, and we could have gone another three hours.
And now it had a ton of live, too, like $8,500, just under Matt Coles.
Yeah.
Yeah, Drew is super cool.
I thought he has represented himself in his units very well.
And he's out there doing stuff now.
Actually, he is working with Mulroy and Eric Ulrich.
doing stuff with the Lobo Institute.
Yeah.
The Lobo Institute.
And I believe he's also getting his own podcast going.
That's great.
When he gets, it's like Combat Daddies or something like this.
He wants to talk to like fathers who are veterans or something.
Yeah.
I'll bring it up again when he gets it up and running.
We'll plug it.
I just have to say that I really enjoy just bullshitting with him.
That's, that's, that's, so this is one of those episodes where Jack really,
like shines in the sense that
in the sense that
Drew and I would have spent
two hours just bullshitting and
talking about the Navy
Navy boot camp and see stories
and bullshit stuff
you know
no and I
when I when I finally like
wrestle these guys onto the show
and they have like they were in these like unique
like these secret wars and battles
and secret ops and stuff it's like there's no way
you're getting out of here without me asking
about that there's no way
You're coming here to talk about boot camp for three hours.
We'll talk about that a little bit later, too, because I've actually, through the comments I've seen, like, it actually upsets people, viewers sometimes that I interrupt the guests.
Well, it's okay, because it bothers them that, like, I bullshit with them.
Yeah, exactly. You can't win them all, you know.
Well, I'll talk about that in a little bit, but episode 157 was another guy I had wanted to get on for a long, long time.
and I didn't know how to contact him
and I finally met an interlocutor
who could help with that.
That's a big word.
I went to college, okay, guys?
I'll get over yourself.
I'm a scholar.
I have scholarly pursuits.
But you still say cachet.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you can yell at,
who was it that was lecturing me about that?
It was, it was, he was on the show.
He's a spy talk guy.
Jeff Stein lectured me about it.
He was like, actually, what you need to understand, I'm like, Jeff, I know, I got it.
So Chris Cox served in the RLI, wrote the book Fire Force, which was, it's a fucking amazing memoir of his time in the Rhodesian Light Infantry.
And, yeah, I mean, Chris is another one of these guys who had these insane experiences and, you know, is able to kind of like reflect back on it.
with some perspective.
And I thought it was a great interview.
Really enjoyed talking to him.
Okay, so now episode 158 was the Milt Bearden episode.
He wrote The Main Enemy.
I read that book, and I'd say it's my favorite espionage book.
That book rules.
It's nonfiction.
What Milt wrote in that book is sort of like a lot of the other books written by former spies.
A lot of them are very good, but they're sort of episodic,
or they're very specific to that person's experience.
Milt's book is the first that I felt like it kind of brings it all together,
and it tells like a period of time in the 70s, 80s into the 90s
and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Like, what was going on in these spy games between the CIA and the KGB?
And I felt like he just blows the lid over off so much of it.
And you're like, holy shit.
Like this is what was happening.
Some of it is like horrifying.
Some of it is amazing.
But I mean, I promise you won't be disappointed if you read the book.
I loved it.
So, yeah, that was the interview.
You and I were in Vegas for DefCon when we did that interview.
Yep.
And, um, milk was terrific.
And, but I mean, so much information.
There is no way we could cover it all.
I just did the best I could with like an hour or an hour and a half.
episode 159 was
William Walter wrote a two volume set
the history of the AC130 gunship
that was a good one
that it was phenomenal
yeah it was phenomenal
um
first off anybody who's ever had their ass pulled out of the
out of the fire by
you know Spector
to read those books and then to
to get the idea that they were almost
scrapped post
Vietnam. The only reason they weren't
scrapped, I think, was because of the conflict.
I don't know if it was 9-11 or it was
something prior to that. I don't recall.
But the whole program
was almost scrapped, which is
absolutely
absolutely, absolutely
but it's absolutely ridiculous.
The whiskey's getting nice. I know.
I didn't eat my Scooby snacks.
We get deep into our cops on their show
sometimes. But yeah,
no, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal
episode.
So episode 160, actually a guy we met at DefCon jumped on the show, Ryan English, who was a Marine Corps scout sniper, and then he was an Army worst guy.
Yep.
And now he does cybersecurity stuff.
Yeah.
And he was super cool to interview.
He's a great dude.
Yeah.
He's a great interview.
You know, it's one of those cases where, you know, he was, you know, a Marine sniper, and then he got out, and then.
And then, you know, he was doing contracting work.
And then one of his buddies from the Marines joined the Army National Guard in a Lurse unit and says, hey, I'm going, you know, I'm going, you know, I can't remember if it's Afghanistan, Iraq, but I think it was Iraq.
I think it was Iraq.
Yeah.
But, you know, I'm going over, join the Guard and come with me.
And, you know, Ryan's like, Roger.
Roger will go.
That's the second time I've heard that kind of story.
There was another guy I met once who he's a cop.
He's an LAPD cop and he was in the Marines.
And then when the invasion of Iraq was kicking off,
one of his buddies convinced him like,
let's go join this like National Guard unit.
They're air assault.
Like we'll get to do something.
And so like he jumped on for the invasion.
So all kinds of crazy stuff.
Maybe I could, I might be able to hit him up again and see if I could get him on the show.
He's an interesting guy.
So episode 161 was Amy Forsyth.
She was a PAO for,
either Socom or J-Soc, maybe both, actually.
And she was, had a, covered the CST program as well.
And yeah, she was interesting to talk to as well.
Had it, has a new book out.
And Amy, I'm sorry, I can't remember the title of it all the top of my head.
Hey.
I can't remember it either.
Sorry, guys.
We'll pull it up.
Gail Helt, episode 162.
I've known Gail for a little.
little while now, interviewed her once for Stars and Stripes, but it's great to have her
on this podcast and really go into, like, her story and talk about her depth of knowledge.
She was a China analyst at CIA.
So I hope you guys will check that episode out.
She was really cool to talk to.
She has a ton of knowledge.
Episode 163 was Casey Campbell, A-10 pilot who got shot out of the sky, almost got shot
out of the sky.
Killer chick.
Almost got shot.
She successfully landed.
landed her bird after getting hit with a missile in Iraq.
She was hardcore, man.
That was a good one.
That, it's an amazing episode.
I recommend, I recommend you watch it.
Like, it's her.
Honest to God, like, had I been in her situation,
I would have, I would have, I would have jump.
I would have pop, just drop that plant.
I don't know.
Like, I don't know.
Killer chick.
No, she's, she's hardcore.
It's a great story.
she
won it was an air medal right
I'm sure
yeah I believe it was an air medal
but
but yeah it was
great story
and Bernie and again
this is like
sort of like the AC 130
anybody who's ever
had their ass pulled out of fire
by an 810
like definitely watch this
it was
fantastic
episode 164
this was one of my favorite
episodes of the year actually because again it's such a unique view it's a sort of insight that
we very very rarely get uh this was uh louis seon uh who was a french special ops guy who was in
the uh marine commando um so it's like he was a french navy seal and um had a lot of stuff about
doing ops in the sehull and doing in uh in africa um some of that stuff were just incredible
like firefights you never hear about that stuff anywhere else uh he was um one of the guys that
um the french helped uh with the effort after the niger ambush um you know helping to recover
those guys uh so louis just had an unreal experience and not just to hear that from the the french
perspective is like super yeah you just don't get that oh no i mean and and in the combat that they
were doing with the limited number of forces that they had it was like ranger school
like bounding overwatch firefights.
Yeah, but, and they have dudes peeling off,
and all of a sudden, like, it's like four dudes on a team,
three dudes on a team, two dudes on a team, you know, like,
yeah, it was crazy.
And Amy Forsy's book is Heroes Live Here.
That's right.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Then episode 1605 was Nick Moore, who was a Ranger,
actually served alongside Tony Brooks.
And Nick had a long career in the Ranger Regiment
going from private to platoon sergeant,
was involved in the Marcus Latrell search.
He was involved in the extortion 17 crash,
the recovery for that,
and all of these other firefights in between.
He got shot and pretty badly wounded at one point.
That was one of those interviews that stands out in my mind,
just the candor and some of the horror of war.
And, you know, one of the things that I'm most proud of,
being able to have on this show is to have people like Nick Moore on the show in a very adult way that they talk about combat and war and killing and death and these really horrible things.
And they talk about it in a matter of fact, but a very professional and mature way that I really admire from those guys.
Nick was one of those that, you know, some of that stuff, you know, some of the interviews we've done like,
Knicks, Javier Mackey.
There's really stand out. Those are some guys
who went through some really tough shit
and came out on the other side, which isn't easy.
No. No, it's not.
Episode
166 was
with former Marine and reporter
James Laporta.
That was a great episode, and I didn't realize
even that James was involved in that
whole Helmand province
offensive. That whole story
about them like air-assaulting in and basically
getting into firefights for three months straight.
Holy shit, dude.
And James, you know, he's been a reporter for a while.
He's covered some really great stories, done some great reporting.
But so I got an axta grind here with, not with LaPorta.
Uh-oh.
But LePorta got done dirty.
No.
He got done dirty.
I fucked over.
And we're going to, I'm going to unpack it.
I'm going to spill some tea here.
Let's do it.
It's already been spilled, but I'm going to, it hasn't been covered here on the show.
So.
You're going to spread it around a little.
I'm going to spread it around.
Somebody else spilled the tea.
but you're going to make sure it gets out there.
I'm going to make sure it gets out there.
You know, James wrote for the Associated Press,
and there was a new story,
the Associated Press put out.
You might remember that there was a missile
that landed in Poland.
And it was a big deal
because what the AP published was that this was a Russian missile.
Right.
And they published that as a fact.
They published it as a fact
that this missile did not come down, not in Ukraine,
but came down inside a NATO nation, inside Poland.
Now, when the Polish government was asked what happened,
the Polish government said, we're investigating,
we have to figure this out.
President Biden was asked in a press conference.
They said, can you elaborate on this?
And he gave it like Biden, like answer, like, no.
Ice cream?
Yeah.
There's like, no.
This angry, fucking doughty old guy.
But okay. He did the responsible thing and said, oh, I can't elaborate on that because people were still trying to figure out what happened.
So that AP story that was written under a different byline, but they blamed it all along LaPorta and fired him for it.
And what came out in subsequent days, not for me, but on some other website, was the receipts.
The chat logs from Slack came out.
and what happened was there were a bunch of editors in this slack and they were like oh what's going on what's going on and james pops in and says i have a source
who tells me that it was a russian missile that came down in poland and um they came back to him and they were like james can you like work on this some more can you like figure out more information about this and he was like i'm at a doctor's appointment right now i'm sorry i can't
the editors then made an editorial decision to take that information, single-sourced information, and publish it.
Rightly or wrongly, that was their decision to make.
Wrongly.
Wrongly.
They should have double-sourced or triple-sourced before they ran with something like that.
Yeah.
And allowed James, like, to, like, he was, like, giving them a heads up, but he hadn't had a chance to do any due diligence.
Right.
He was just saying, this is what I know, in a private chat log.
with editors. And meanwhile, he's going, ah.
Yeah. And, and, but then, of course, you know, as shit rolls downhill and you blame the
enlisted Marine of all the problems that you make, that you have. And yes, and James got canned
for that. And I thought that was bullshit. It is bullshit. They didn't take any ownership
of their mistake. Of course not. And, you know, say, yeah, we fucked up. Instead, they blamed it on
him. So yeah, they did James Dirty, and, you know, James, I hope that you found another job already.
And if not, you know, consider hiring Leporta. He's a good dude, can do some good work.
I think he's just getting started. He's got a good career ahead of him, you know, even though there's a little minor setback.
Yeah.
So episode 167 was the Tim Weiner episode. Tim Weiner wrote Legacy of Ashes right above Dave there.
Also amazing book.
An amazing book.
I mean, yeah, I read that in like a week.
It was amazing.
Yeah, we had Tim on, and, man, that interview was wild.
That was a good time.
And a little teaser, we're going to have Tim back on the show in 2023.
We haven't scheduled to come back.
We're going to talk more about contemporary stuff rather than historical.
It was a phenomenal book.
It was a, it was phenomenal insight into the CIA, and he is a phenomenal storyteller.
Yeah.
I mean, some like, again, like great insights.
And I'm glad that we're able to have, like, these former agency guys with an insider perspective.
And then people like Tim were journalists who have a sort of outsider perspective that kind of, you know, do this investigative work.
I hope that it leads to, like, a bigger conversation.
I think these are all healthy conversations
and I hope it adds up to, you know, contributing
to people's knowledge.
Episode 168 was Joan Barker.
She was super cool.
She was in the Peace Corps.
And then she was a contractor
working over in Afghanistan
doing the aviation feed, the ad-fid stuff,
helping to train Afghan pilots.
She's not a pilot herself,
but she was helping train them,
translating things like this.
Yeah, she was really cool
And she talked a lot about
the Afghan resettlement
You know, helping to get our allies out of there
And resettled them in the United States
So we haven't talked about that
Since it happened
The year prior
So I was glad that we were able to revisit that topic
Because it's still going on
I believe the last I heard
They're still trying to pass
The Afghan, is it the Afghan Readjustment Act?
Yeah, it didn't get passed last time
So this is an ongoing issue
And honestly, whatever you think about the Peace Corps, you need to watch this because her Peace Corps stories are phenomenal.
Like, her Peace Corps stories are like, they're like combat stories.
I know it's ridiculous stuff.
Happens out there.
Episode 169 was John Fox and Till Pash.
So these guys were both volunteers with the Kurdish YPG militia in Syria.
and we had John here
and Till
dialing in remotely
and that was a baller episode
It was a baller episode
And that was a one where the conversation
After the episode went on another like two hours
Talking about all kinds of insane shit
Yeah
I was like oh my God
But those two guys were great
And they wrote
I think the book is called the Kurdish War
Or it's right there
America's War in Syria
It's right there on the bookshelf
Is the name of their
book. So I hope you guys will go and check it out. They have like, again, like really
hardcore stories, you know, working as a medic, treating, you know, Syrian civilians,
but also working as guerrilla fighters going and trying to capture Dosh strongholds.
It is such an interesting, like, view into, well, Americans, but who are, well, not just
American. But it's into people who are fighting on the side of a guerrilla force, so they don't have,
even though there are people around them who have all the Gucci gear, they have all the
air support, they have all the night vision, all these other people do, but they don't.
They got a rusty, a clash of stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're out there flapping. And some of those
volunteers literally were out there flapping. Yeah. It was nuts. I'd love to have more of them on in the
future and I would like to um I would I would I would be very interested in getting actual
Kurds on the show um who served in the yepij or YPG or YPJ um you know it's always I mean it's
good to have like Americans on the show but it would be you'd get a different perspective
you'd get a more of a Kurdish perspective if you had you know English speaking maybe somebody
from the diaspora so if you have anyone in mind contact me you know I'm always happy to talk to
you guys um
Episode 170 was Tio.
Yeah.
Yeah, so that was, he was an undercover dude, worked with the DEA,
and he was like the first episode we did were like, he was sitting here where I'm sitting.
His face is all blacked out in the interview.
You can't see who he is.
And we, it's funny because we actually have a policy against that in the way that, you know,
Jack and I go to great lengths to vet everybody we have on the show,
to ensure that they're legit.
We reach through our network.
and make sure that somebody who comes on
is who they say they are,
did what they say they do.
And then we don't like to work
sort of in this anonymity kind of phase
because it's tough, right?
Like, we could just have anybody on
to make up stories.
But in this case, we knew this guy was legit.
We checked his bona fides.
We had the right people vouching for him.
And at the same time,
because he had been undercover,
with like MS-13 Mexican cartels.
Because he had been undercover.
We were like, okay, we'll give you this.
And the stories are great.
And here's the thing.
Imagine whoever you are right now watching this.
Imagine if you don't have any undercover training,
all you've seen are procedurals and, you know, the wire and whatever else.
And one of your first jobs is going undercover.
Yeah.
with like no real undercover training back in the day when they're like oh you're a brown guy you're
you're a mexican yeah yeah yeah i'm calling me yeah mexican calami whatever it's all the same
you hoblo esponial you hoblo right um and they just give him a stack of money and throw them in a
strip club with all these these Italians with all these Italians they're like make a connection
so he makes it rain makes his connection they're like what are you doing spending the
money that was show me money yeah yeah he was making it rain buying champagne and everything yeah he had he
he has amazing stories and i swear to god we only got through like a quarter of his stories i'm trying to
get him to come back on in 2023 um because i had like five pages and notes and we got through like one page
um 171 greg schaefer FBI HRT agent yeah uh that was a good one like i uh we had danny colson on
previously who was the founder of HRT and and and the base
of Agent Colson from the Marvel comic universe.
But this was the first time we had like a, you know,
kind of boots on the ground, FBI HART dude.
Yeah, since more, yeah, more current, you know,
who's overseas with a with a J-Soc task force and everything as well.
That was a good interview.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
That was a lot of interesting stuff.
Again, another interesting perspective you don't normally hear.
Yeah.
And shout out to Eric Miaris who's watching live.
Thank you, Eric. We hope to see you in studio one day, too, next time you're coming through the city.
Yeah, we love you, Eric, man.
Episode 171, or I'm sorry, we just talked about that. Episode 172 was Holden Triplett, another FBI dude who worked counterintelligence, did a liaison duties in China and Russia.
Again, talk about unique perspectives.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the fun things about, like, this job, about this, what we do.
do is we get to talk to these
people again you know like
the combat stories are great but you and I
have been there like we know what those stories are
um for us though
I think a lot of times the treat is like seeing this whole
different perspective yeah you're like holy shit really
yeah that happened like you guys are
badass yeah yeah
and Holden is definitely like
the one crazy part about Holden's
episode was when he worked out the NSC
and he gets read in on like you know
stuff that like only 30 people know
yeah and like he knows it's
like really going on and how he
fucking gets to sleep at night when he
knows like the shit show that's happening
right right
yeah
I mean the the counterintelligence
stuff is one of the more
I'll say this as a reporter like it's one
of the more difficult things to penetrate
because those
cases are kept so close hold
very few people know about them
and they never get declassified
like they're just like left open yeah
like closing a counterintelligence case like
It seems like that's or a counterintelligence program.
Like, is that even a thing?
Does it even happen?
Yeah.
It seems like they're just left classified forever.
Yeah.
Sometimes if there's an arrest made, then you'll start to hear some of it.
Right.
But even when arrests happen, like sometimes they're just arresting people to take them off the chessboard.
Right.
Like they're getting prosecuted for like 5% of what they did.
Right.
You know, and you're hearing there's this little piece of it.
Right.
So, yeah, we've got a number of counterintelligence people on.
And some of them were more like wartime in Iraq.
doing human rather than counterintelligence
Holden was doing
CI at like a pretty high level.
Yeah. I guess at the highest level if he was
up at the NSC. Yeah. So, yeah, that was
a super cool interview.
Episode 173,
Chad McCoy, 24th STS,
a pararescue guy. He was Sergeant Major of the unit.
It doesn't get any better than that, really.
I mean, he did some
amazing stuff, amazing stories. Again,
a guy who'd been in the ship,
really experienced some hardcore stuff and was able to talk about it and articulate it in a very adult manner.
And also one of those guys, like a few people we've had, who got fucked in the end.
Oh, yeah, he kind of did.
Right?
Like, who were doing the right thing.
Yeah.
And, you know, got screwed by the system because that's how big daddy got military.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
That was a fun night.
too. Like that night went on. Super fun. Yeah. The after stories were better. We were a little bit better than the actual show. We went out to the bar afterwards and had some drinks and some food. No, Chad was awesome, man. I'd love to have him on again sometime. Episode 174, Andrew Milburn came back again. I think he stepped right off a plane. Yeah. Yeah. It came from London. Yeah. He had some serious sleep deprivation. Comes in. We start drinking.
We had it, I mean, the episode was good, I thought.
We couldn't get him on clothes, though.
No.
Yeah, the last time we didn't take it to that level, unfortunately.
There's nipple the last.
Yeah, I was hoping for some nip.
So this, we did the interview.
We are rated A for adult.
But you can show male nipple.
I think that's okay.
What a sexist society, right?
So Andrews, I thought that was a good interview.
However, months later, that interview got clipped and
picked up by, I don't even want to say like the left or leftists.
Like these are like off the rail like pro Putin, like pro Russia leftists.
The, you know, the gray zone, all these kinds of people who are, you know, they're like,
I didn't know the gray zone was leftists.
I don't, I have never.
Yeah, like anti-American imperialist kind of.
Are they?
Yeah.
Colonialism, NATO.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
It's just like off the rails.
I wouldn't even call them leftists. I just say, yeah, they're like, they're weirdos on the fringe that like no one really takes seriously. But they, they clipped part of that interview where Andy was making like some candid comments about like Ukraine and like, yeah, they're fucked up too in some ways, right? Which is a nuanced adult view. You know, he's not bullshit. And Ukraine, I think before, I think the World Bank rated Ukraine is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Yeah.
And there's a lot that goes into it.
It's not to say simply, like, they're bad people.
Corruption becomes endemic in a country.
There's a book called, I think it's called Moneyland that I read about this,
had a chapter in it.
It was talking about how, like, when corruption becomes so systemic in the system
that when you get down to the level of, like, the police officers and the doctors
and things like that, and they ask you for a bribe, they're not doing that because they're bad.
That's how they make their money.
It's because their paychecks are being stolen by the people above them.
So it's like, yeah, when you get pulled over for the Bakshish, like in Morocco or wherever you might be,
that's because that's their money.
They're not, they're not buying a yacht or a diamond ring for their wife.
That's how they're feeding the kids.
So, um, my beef with it was like, it's a two hour interview.
He took two and a half minutes that he, that he edited himself.
Oh, you know, Matt, Blumenthal.
Max Blumenthal.
And then, you know, basically they got picked up by, like, Russian media saying, like, how this private military contract is saying how Ukrainians fucking, you know, eat the skulls of their enemies.
You know what I mean?
Like, you know, what, Andy was saying is that, like, yeah, Ukraine's a flawed country.
Yeah.
And they're at war.
What do you want?
Like, what's going to happen?
It's a war.
And we're supporting them.
Do you know what Ukraine didn't do, though, is they can invade Russia?
Yeah.
Bingo, yeah.
That's a little thing that people like to.
Didn't you know Russia had to invade?
NATO made them invade.
For all the faults that Ukraine has or any other country has.
Look, when we're in Latin America supporting a lot of those causes, a lot of those groups
and governments weren't great either, but a lot of the world is the lesser of two.
I don't want to say the lesser of two evils.
No, it is.
But when one country invade, look, when one country invades, when one country invades,
in other country, that's outright aggression. There's no other way to paint that. If you want to
talk about, you know, the issues in Ukraine, that's fine. We can talk about the issues in Ukraine.
And honestly, I feel as though I feel as though we should use the money we're giving Ukraine
to sort of leverage those issues. Oh, yeah, of course. You know what I mean? We're not really doing
that, but we could use that. But at the end of the day, Ukraine didn't
invade Russia. Yeah. You know, the thing is, I mean, in all of our partner forces that we choose
to work with around the world, few of them, none of them are perfect. None of them are
choir boys. You know, name the one, name the partner that is not in any sense problematic.
I mean, even the Kurds who are a very good partner force for us in Syria, there's problems there.
Sure. There's problems with they have had their issues. There are issues that are not just about
them, but it puts us in politically difficult situations.
They all have difficulties in different kinds of problems.
But if the bar is, we can not partner with anyone unless they're like angels, then we're
not partnering with anyone at all.
I mean, if you're going to say-
We can't even partner with ourselves.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, look, there are, there has come out in the press, and I know through, you know,
some of my sources, there is a neo-Nazi element within the German-Nazi element within the German
military. Right. Can we not partner with the Germans? Right. I mean, you're getting, I mean, we have
this in our military. Unfortunately, there are these people out there. I mean, it's like when you're
deciding, choosing to focus on a neo-Nazi element in Ukraine, I mean, every single, the Russians have
Nazis too, I'm afraid to say. I mean, I know some people don't want to hear that, but there are
neo-Nazis in Russia as well. I mean, it's, it gets into this point where you're like, you're not
seeing the forest through the trees by focusing on this one thing. But at the same time, I'm
I mean, look, I'm a reporter.
I'm critical.
Right.
And I point to things and say, hey, that's fucked up.
I point the things in the U.S. military all the time.
Say, hey, that's fucked up.
That's wrong.
Right.
But it doesn't mean that I'm, like, going over and I want to make friends with Vladimir Putin.
Right.
And hang out with authoritarian.
Right.
Because I hate my country so much.
Right.
I mean, at the end of the day, you know, for anybody who admires what Putin or what they think Putin is trying to do,
you have to remember that Putin also, like, like, he's been in office how long.
Like, he totally reorganized the government to keep him in office indefinitely.
That's just, that's not.
Yeah, is Russia your view of democracy really?
Like, is this what?
But, I mean, again, with these types of people, it's not that they're anti-war, it's
that they're anti-American.
Right.
And that's what it's really about.
And it's like, just come out.
Like the Max Blumenthal type.
Yeah, just come out and say what you are.
You know that I'm, I'm, like, blissfully ignorant about this kind of stuff.
So, fortunately.
episode 175.
Okay, this was a dude I'd been trying to get for like two years,
and I'm so glad he finally agreed after my pestering.
Daryl Blocker.
Daryl's a super good guy.
He was really cool to have on the show.
Daryl was another senior agency guy.
Ran, not Africa Station,
Africa section for the agency.
And Deputy Director of CTC.
It was a division at that time, right?
A division.
A good division.
Yeah.
Yeah, Daryl was really cool.
Episode 176 was Matt DeVoe,
cybersecurity guy, did cybersecurity stuff for DoD for the Pentagon.
That was, again, another interesting insight.
Matt, and I think that what is lost on some people
or what they may not understand is Matt is like one of the OG red teamers.
Like before Red Team.
Yeah.
And we're not talking about Marchinko's Red Cell, right?
We're talking about red teaming from a cybersecurity perspective.
Like he has been around, he, he is almost defined some of the, like, the, the, the, the industry.
And I don't mean, like, the industry, but also the way our country handles, like, cyber warfare.
Yeah, he was a fascinating, fascinating dude and great interview.
Again, another unique one.
177 was James Hawes, who was a
maritime, he was a seal officer and then
a maritime branch guy
in the Congo in the 1960s
going after
Che Guevara. Yeah. That was a super
cool interview. I hope you guys will go back and I don't
think too many people watched it because it came out around
Thanksgiving, but if you missed that one, go back
and check it out. Yeah, it was pre-recorded.
Yeah, it's pre-recorded and it's short. It's
only like an hour and 20 minutes. So it's
definitely
it's really interesting.
It's like a piece of history that a lot of people, I didn't know.
His book is over here somewhere.
It's, anyway, it's called Cold War Navy SEAL, if you guys want to go pick up his book.
Oh, it's right there above Dave. It's good.
Episode 178 had Milt Bearden back.
I think maybe you had COVID this time.
I did. I don't remember it was COVID or the flu. It was some crud.
whatever so i interviewed milt we talked about um uh how the agency helped the israelis
evacuate ethiopian jews out of sudan and then and then how milt um smuggled some compromised
massad agents out of sudan um that you know their covers got blown and he smuggled him out
in boxes with oxygen tanks so that was a super cool interview also the milt stuff with uh like how
he's like helped consult on like robert denieros movies and stuff
that was pretty dope yeah we need i i mean i wasn't kidding when i said i could talk to milt all night
we'll have to have mine back again uh episode 179 i love this one clayton jensen it was a side a guy
working in columbia working in afghanistan um really uh you know a part of you know
some of the unsung heroes of the special operations community doing doing the electronic warfare
stuff that a lot of people don't understand
and you know like I was saying at the show like a lot of people get that there's a shooting war going on
they don't understand that there's this whole electronic warfare piece going back and forth between these different terrorist organizations in DOD you know we're trying to find them they're trying to stay hidden they're trying to we're trying to crack their comms they're trying to stop us um so there's a whole interesting story in of in that and not only that but the stuff they didn't like those the stuff they did down south was amazing too and and integral
to so many of the operations,
the successful operations we are.
When he was talking about getting shot out of the sky
with SA7.
Yeah, I was just going to say, I was like,
yo, he's a singing guy, but he's done
some shooting too. I never even heard that story.
Crazy. Crazy. Crazy.
What? Yeah. Unreal.
Yeah, and Dee, we saw the video.
Yeah, he said us the video.
Dude. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah.
It's crazy.
Sorry, guys, you're not going to see that.
Sorry, you guys going to see it.
Episode 180, again, this is one of those ones
that, like, resonates and sticks with you,
was Les Sandusky, who was a Ranger Regiment, platoon sergeant in the upper section,
and his Afghanistan stories and his serious stories.
And that's some hardcore stuff.
First off, let's just say that Les was a monster before he even went to Ranger Regiment.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Like, he was a beast.
And, you know, Les is one of those guys.
When you talk about the guy on your left of the right, like, less is one of those guys you want.
on your right, you know, or the number one man in the door because he ain't going down.
Yeah, it was, and he's such, he's like, he's just so fun to talk.
Yeah, he is.
Yeah, he came, he came to our Christmas party, like just the day, I was at the day prior,
two days prior, and we were hanging out.
He was telling me all these, like, Rangers stories, like, just, like, just Joe stories.
Just Joe stories, guys getting into trouble in the barracks.
I don't think I had laughed that hard all year.
listening to him tell this stuff.
It's like, oh my God.
He also got fucked over, too.
Yeah, he did.
Definitely did.
No, Les was really cool, man.
I hope to talk to him again.
Episode 181 was Jeff Stein.
He was a Army Intel case officer in Vietnam.
And he is the editor of Spy Talk.
And I can't remember if we really got into it too much or not.
But you guys should look up some of the stuff he wrote for, like,
week.
Yeah.
Doing his job in Vietnam and then going back to Vietnam after the war and finding the
Vietnamese spy master that he was playing cat and mouse with was really interesting.
Episode 182, Scott Mann, Special Forces Officer, had a big part in the Village Stability
Operations Program.
He is the creator and the lead actor and Last Out, the play.
He's the author of Operation Pineapple, which is a big part of Operation Pineapple, which is a great guy.
up there. You know, he was a big part of the effort to evacuate Afghans out of Kabul when everything
went the hell over there. And Scott Mann is just a super interesting guy to talk to. If you saw that
interview, I mean, you all... Yeah, I mean, and, like, we love Scott. Like, we, you know,
before we even knew him, we went to his play, like, two and a half years ago, two years ago.
If you guys have the opportunity to go see his play last out, really, like, maybe, Dave,
you're more, you have a background in the acting world. I don't have anything.
I'm not a guy who knows anything about plays at all, but I went and saw it, and I was like, honestly, blown away.
No, it was really good. I told Jack, I told Scott, you know, I was concerned about saying it because so many things that veterans write tend to be so on the nose.
And it wasn't like that.
Right.
It was just a really, really well-written plate, and it's been revamped.
Gary Sinise is actually...
Yeah, I'm going to have to go see it again.
Yeah, we, yeah.
And also his book, Operation Pineapple.
But that's not the book right there.
Yeah, it's right there.
Operation Pineapple Express.
Operation Pineapple Express.
For anybody who wants some insight into what was going on in Afghanistan during the withdrawal for the Afghans there, I highly recommend you read that book.
It is, it's an easy read.
Every chapter, it's written like a journal that, you know, every day is a page to three pages.
And what people were going through, these people, you know, reaching out to Scott, reaching out to Operation Pineapple, it's like a thriller.
It's amazing.
And it's heart wrenching.
It's heart wrenching.
episode 183 was our Christmas episode with Shawnee Delaney.
She was a DIA Huminter.
That was a super cool episode.
Again, we never really had a DIA,
other than Doug who worked at a very high level.
Never had like a DIA person on here.
And Shawnee had some great experiences, some great stories.
Yeah, no, that was fantastic.
And, you know, and DIA is one of those,
they're another one sort of like, you know,
the Sades or the Siginners.
They're sort of one of those unsung heroes of what's going on.
Like they do they do the same job that the CIA does.
They tend to do focus more on the tactical level than the strategic,
even though they do have strategic missions.
But they're not operating with the same budget.
They're not operating with the same resources and assets and everything else like that,
but they're still out there doing the job.
It's an amazing organization.
She was a great representative of it.
And yeah, it's a great episode.
And that brings us up to right now our New Year's special.
And then episode 184 on Tuesday, we're going to have Pat McNamara on.
I don't even know.
I don't need to tell you guys who Pat McNamara is.
You guys know.
He's awesome.
He's a really fun guy.
I got to meet him once down in Southern Pines.
He's a super cool guy.
So we'll be talking to him on Tuesday.
So we'll get into questions and some show commentary.
And we can talk to you guys as much as you want.
As far as like, what's coming up in 2023?
for the most part
I think you guys chime in too
if you want
I think we've accomplished most of what we want to do
with the studio here
there's a few little things we need to do
some of you will see it
some things you probably won't
once you see Jack's Mafia
Don fish tank
with sharks with laser beams
that's in the works
that's coming
it's almost there
it's almost the completion
it's not actually
it's got a lot of work to go
but yeah the other side
so there's two sets on the studio this one
and then there's the one over there that you guys saw
previously with like the bookshelves and the lights and stuff
and there's a saltwater fish tank
so once the fish tank is sorted
we'll start doing more shows on this side
especially when we don't have guests yeah
yeah so we can switch it up
and then there's some other things we need to do
just organize stuff right here but you know
for the most part I think the studio is pretty locked in
pretty set looks pretty good
as far as like guests on the show i mean we're eric's commenting i just have to say we love you
all right man you're fucking such a solid man anyway love you eric we um you know we're gonna fly
some more guests in for in studio interviews this coming year i mean thanks to you guys out there
we're able to do things like that right it's because of you that we're here in this new
studio it's because we're able to fly dudes into the city at times um not all of them unfortunately
but in the past we weren't able to do this at all.
So it's huge.
Yeah, just so you guys know, like, this has been our plan from the very beginning
in the sense that we take very little out of what we are in with the team house
and pour everything almost like almost everything back into it,
whether that's, you know, trying to get, trying to pay for people's flights,
you know, a new studio.
You know, just, you know, just we, you know, we love what we do.
Yeah.
And we want it to be like as good as it can possibly be.
Yeah.
And we get a lot of comments on production quality.
And we know it's not always great.
But it's also sort of the challenge of doing it live under different circumstances all the time.
You know, going from somebody in studio with us to somebody on Zoom with us that every other show out there that you're watching that you're comparing us to is producing.
is produced. It's pre-recorded. It's run through all the production filters. The sound is balanced.
You know, everything. You have a ton of time in post-production to edit, to balance the sound out.
You took the words out of my mouth, Dave. You know, people are, and I'm not saying this is good or bad or
wrong or anything. People are used to the podcasts having a certain format, especially in this sort
of genre, right? They have a certain format. People are used to, I mean, I think the Joe Rogan format is the most,
like predominant out there and people are used to receiving information in that way. That's cool.
There's nothing wrong with that. The difference is that this show is live. So I, you see all the
hiccups, the little mistakes. You see, for instance, you see like the questions. You see the
interview process happening in real time where in those other shows like the questions and things
might be edited out. So you're just seeing the guest talk like people get upset with me in the chat sometimes.
like, why did you interrupt your guest?
That was so rude that you did that.
It's like, hey, hold on, man.
It's an interview.
There's a back and forth.
And I have to ask questions and like, hey, I don't want to just pass by that.
I want to spend some time talking about it.
I only get pissed when you interrupt me.
You know, when I'm on a tear.
Don't fuck with Dave when he's on the tear, you guys.
Here's the thing.
How dare you?
If I don't interrupt at times and ask questions, what will happen is we'll have a six-hour podcast.
Right.
And we won't get past boot camp.
Right. And like I think that if we're talking to somebody who spent it'll be a good six hours though.
I mean, it'll be fun. It'll be fun for us. I don't know about the viewers. But if we have a guy who spent 20 years in a special mission unit, presumably you're hoping we're going to ask some questions about that and that they took part in these like historic operations overseas.
Probably we should ask them about that and not spend, you know, the two hours or however much time we have with them just talking about like stories about getting drunk in the barrens.
Also, there's like another aspect to the live thing.
Like when you're zooming and a connection with a guest isn't great,
not that isn't great, it might be a little laggy.
It could seem and it looks like you're interrupting and like the timing's a little off.
Yeah.
Again, like if you pre-record.
Yeah, we're not getting real time.
Feedback a lot of times.
You can really like cut those like little moments out.
So yeah, we do it live.
Nobody else does.
That means we're the best podcast around.
So like and subscribe.
And these are best producer out there.
I'm, I'm mediocre at best, but it's fine.
Well, live production is not easy.
It's a whole other skill.
It's not, again, I mean, on a lot of these other podcasts,
I'm not saying anything they're doing is wrong or incorrect or anything.
I mean, in a way, it's better.
It produces a more polished product on the end.
But when we're doing it live, you're kind of seeing,
you're seeing, I don't know, it doesn't get any more authentic than what we're doing here because.
None of those other podcasts would ever do a live episode on the regular,
every week. None of them.
It's hard.
Dee, let's give you a shout-out.
Where can be flying Jimbo?
It's on YouTube.
You can get it there.
Just Jimbo movie.
Jimbo movie on YouTube.
That's a movie that Dee wrote and directed.
It's a bank heist movie.
Really good.
Yeah.
Shrew string budget.
Feature film, too.
However, if your law enforcement in New York,
just so you know, none of it was filmed in New York,
and the guns are totally fake.
Yes.
And they weren't in New York.
I'm glad to see that...
Statue limitations are over, so we're good.
I'm glad to see that our iconic intro is growing on you guys
because so many people thought it was cheesy bullshit.
People talk shit about that, too.
Mad shit about my intro.
And eventually it grew on him.
Now it's like a thing, like he comes on and you get all kinds of special ops.
It's espionage.
I like that.
That's Ian.
We love you.
Yeah.
That was a question someone had, actually.
Was that you doing that with a deep voice?
No, that was Ian Scott.
Ian, I worked with Ian for many years, and Ian does the Battleline podcast with Chris Parentho,
but I asked Ian if you do the voiceover for the intro.
Yeah, definitely, if you guys like this stuff and you haven't checked out Ian and Tonto,
check out Batteline.
They're a great show.
They have great guests.
They're great dudes.
Also, check out Ryan at Combat Story.
Another, like, one of our friends.
Yeah, yeah, Ryan's awesome.
doing great stuff over there.
And if we haven't mentioned, like, we, like, I don't think either Jack or I watch, like,
you know, like some of the other ones, like Jocker or some of those guys, if you, so we're not,
by leaving them out, we're not, like, criticize them.
We just don't, like, know those guys.
You know, we know Ryan and Ian and Tonto.
Yeah, yeah.
We're also the best podcast.
So, what's coming up next?
in 2023.
We got some 160th pilots.
First off, we're scheduled into April right now.
So, like, we're pretty packed.
Some double episodes a week.
Yeah.
So we got some 160th pilots.
We got a Whirp, Vietnam era warp coming on the show.
We have an actor, actually, who has played a special ops guy.
Jack's crush.
That's Jack's Man Crush.
What a vanity episode.
We have some foreign soft guys coming on, some seals, some Rangers.
agency people, some operators, even some more eclectic personalities, eclectic backgrounds.
I think you'll be surprised.
I'm not going to mention any names right now.
We've got a SEAL Team 6 guy coming on.
Yeah.
So we don't hate all SEAL SEALs.
So you want to get the questions?
Why don't you come out and say hi real quick?
I think a lot of our viewers have never met you.
I think they have.
I don't have a mic, though.
I have this mic that's connected here.
That's all right. You don't have to say anything.
Just come out and wave so people, like, if they see you in the street, they can shake your hand and give you...
Don't shake my hand. Don't say hello.
I'm bulking right now, guys.
This is Dee, our producer.
This is our producer, Dee.
You don't get to see him.
Can you...
I don't know which camera wrong because I'm not that good of a producer.
Hopefully, it's the...
Hopefully it's the wide.
We'll give a Team House mug to the first person who can identify where Dee is from.
What city, what state?
Yeah. Two guesses. You got two chances.
You got two chances.
First person.
So weird being on this end.
You got dead air.
Yeah.
It's because nobody's correctly guessing these cultural and ethnic ethnic background.
I'm actually from Albuquerque originally.
Let's see here.
We got lots of questions.
Okay.
So some questions that I harvested from the Discord.
Someone asked who...
Dutton.
Dutton got it?
Dutton got it.
From Boston.
Get the fuck out.
Hey, Dutton.
Send me, send us an email.
Yeah, we'll send you a mug right there.
Yeah, new merch too, by the way, guys.
Yeah.
We got some new merch to show off.
Team House mugs.
T-shirts.
It's all on spring.
Here, throw me those, D.
The link is in the description.
Oh, we're getting some specific stuff now.
Now we've got a Bronx.
So, okay.
Oh, I was going to give out more merch.
So yeah, this is new merch.
Link in the description.
Check it out.
So questions from viewers.
I harvested some from our Discord.
Someone asked who my favorite shit poster is on the Discord.
And I'm going to have to go with Pengu, who is like the meme lord.
Yeah, he's the one who takes Dave in my face and puts us over like Star Wars characters and stuff like that.
The Discord is interesting.
I don't, yeah, obviously I don't get on Discord or don't ever.
You should.
That's where the action is.
Yeah.
That's where the action is.
Yeah.
How do you go about choosing guests and making sure they're legit?
Also, how much work goes into publishing one of your stories.
So choosing our guests, sometimes a lot of work, sometimes very little.
Sometimes, like I said, I'll have to, like, pester somebody for like two years before I can get them on the show.
sometimes it happens like I'll cold call somebody
or like send someone a text or an email
like I'm Jack Murphy I host a podcast
would you consider coming on a
and they get back to me like right away like hell yeah
I'll do it yeah sometimes like Clayton Jensen I emailed him
he's like I love the team house yeah
I was like oh okay it was the same thing with Toby
when we reached out to him he was like oh my god he was like
I was thinking about reaching out to you guys
yeah you know so it's great that we have more viewers now
and that more people in the special operations
and intelligence community, like, know who we are.
So we sort of have those bona fides.
Also, I think that if we know somebody that we want,
we might ask somebody who's been on the show
to reach out to them because one thing
that a lot of people are concerned with in these communities
is that we're going to run like a gotcha.
You know, we're going to try and hit them with the hard questions.
You know, we're going to try and get,
you know, the truth out of them.
And we, we understand the need for classification.
We understand the need for secrecy.
We understand that people can't just come on and spill their guts.
And even by asking a person a question or, or hinting to it, we always ask guests, like,
prior to the show, are there any, are there any topics you want to avoid?
Are there anything you don't want to talk about?
Because we're very respectful of that.
We want to be a safe place for people in our community to come on.
And not that we want to ask hard questions about things that are publicly known,
but we aren't looking.
Yeah, it's not a trial.
We aren't looking to out anybody or if we have insider knowledge about things that they've done,
but they don't want those things public or they don't want to be.
attached to it, we understand that too. So one of the things that I think helps us get people on
is when we do have people that have been on and say, hey, they're not going to ask you about
this classified mission that you did unless you want to talk about it. And then if you do,
then they're only going to talk about in the broadest term, in the terms that you define.
Well, yeah, you guys may have picked up in the past that there are times where I'll be like,
hey, about that one thing you did that one time, why don't you share with us,
what you'd like to tell us.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, there are certain left and right limits
that some of the guys can have to stay within.
So, yeah, sometimes previous guests of the show
recommend people to us.
Sometimes I'll ask previous guests.
Is there anyone you think of we should talk to?
So, yeah, that's kind of the answer to.
As far as, like, how much work goes into publishing
one of your stories?
I mean, I guess you're talking about, like,
journalistic work that I do.
sometimes
I spend it
it depends on what I'm writing
sometimes I'm writing like news of the day
so it's usually like that day
sometimes
like investigative stuff
can be weeks
can be months
can be years
the longest I've ever worked on a story
probably a couple years
had stuff sitting on the backburn
like you're kind of like
waiting for a break in the story
story and there are there are times there are ones where i'm like man i'm never going to get to the
bottom of this and then you find the right people or the right person to talk to and suddenly it's
like oh shit okay so yeah that i hope that answers that um someone else want to ask why is the
audio quality so bad that's my fault it's not it's not your fault like i said live production
is just is just difficult um and uh it doesn't help when the church upstairs gets going yeah that's a
ass also like yeah we don't have mics in front of our face like the live mics a little bit better a little bit more
forgiving now um you know it is what it is i mean i could start mixing the sound a little bit live while
we're doing it it'll be a little tricky but yeah it's definitely better than what it used to yeah yeah for
sure for sure the laugh mics were a good choice um and and we have paid a lot of money for audio
specialist to come in like this isn't something we've just
just like left on the table no trust me i think about it often yeah and again it's not like a
normal podcast where you can do multiple takes if you need to it's yeah it's all just sort of happening um
so uh another question favorite guest of the year jim also and i liked a lot eric was great
um those are the top of my head jim also was awesome like i'm into the counterintelligent stuff
Jim was great,
Milt was great.
Milk was great.
Nick Moore was awesome.
Les was awesome.
Louis was really good.
Yeah, Les.
I mean,
yeah, when you say favorite,
like that's so hard because they're all,
it's,
they're all so different,
right?
I mean,
and they all bring so much and they're all,
you know,
we have some,
you know,
really just amazing human beings on.
Like some of the stories,
that I really enjoyed
that I thought were different
you know and yeah you know
like Jim was very different
like Drew Eric
Killer chick was very
Yeah yeah yeah right like
But there's no way
To pick a favorite because I
Honest to God I'm just so humbled
That people
with these experiences are willing
To come on the show and talk about them
With us and share their time with us
We do this live on Friday
night people can definitely find something better to do on a Friday night than hang out with us
you know I don't even like hanging out with me on a Friday yeah uh on that note most interesting
thing you learned from a guest I like the Andy part two the one early before the Ukraine
popped off when he was talking he kind of alluded to it he didn't really get into it when he
was like Marsa colonel he uh like the French dudes that were just going out but like the French
soft guys. Oh, the T. F. Hydra.
Yeah, and just like swacking dudes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, yes.
He kind of dropped a bomb there.
Greg Smith talking about Eric Prince's
secret armies and stuff like that. Yeah, that's wild
shit. Holy shit.
I mean, some of the stuff less had to say
about Syria ops was pretty mind-blowing.
Louis stuff that we were talking
about in the Sahel.
And it's interesting because, like,
we talk about the French. We have
jokes about the French because of like World War II or whatever, you know, them trying to preserve
their identity and their history, their cultural history and stuff. And like, you know, the surrender,
the Germans and whatnot. But so we have these jokes about the French, but those don't match up
with like the modern French in the sense of their special ops units. They get it on.
The French intelligence, like the DGSE is like very aggressive. Yeah. They get it on. And the French
government like gives them that yeah you know like they get it on um kind of a follow on to that
most surprising fact and or other guests tie in two sides of the same story like we're talking about
that a little bit before we started the show i think um a lot of the northern iraq stuff we
talked about 2003 is really interesting because we've interviewed sam phattis mcmulroy
drew mullins mark geoconia and i feel like there's just a sap no no no no not not not not
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah, Iraq. And there may be one more that I'm overlooking.
Yeah, it could have been two years ago. A bunch of guys who were over there with special forces in the agency in 2003.
And I feel like when you put all those interviews together, it kind of brings this, like, big picture together.
Totally. And I like it when that happens. Same thing, Afghanistan, those stories begin to merge at a certain point. So that was cool. Goals for 2023. I think we kind of talked about that. Dark
stories that come out of an interview.
I think we talked about some of this stuff.
So the goals for 2023.
Have we talked about it?
I mean, in the,
what kind of goals?
I mean, I'd like to hit 100,000 subscribers.
Yeah.
Definitely.
Yeah.
I'd like that too.
Yeah.
And I'd like to get, I mean, it doesn't matter.
I'd like to average 50,000 views and listens per show.
Mm-hmm.
And 100K subscribers.
I think it, I think it'd be fun to do a live, a live show for,
from DefCon from somebody from the NSA.
Somebody who is previously with the NSA.
I mean, we don't have to go to Vegas to do a live show.
Yeah, we do.
What, getting sauced up?
No, it's DefCon.
Like, they're going to be there.
Like, I think that's just, they're here on the East Coast.
No, no, no, no, no.
We need to go to DefCon.
We need to go to Vegas.
Yeah, I mean, I think that's kind of the goal for...
Don't step on my dreams, Jack.
It's a possibility.
I mean, it's...
And I would love to do...
a special episode
and most people out there
would have no interest in watching this
but I would love to do a special
role-playing episode
and not
kinky role-playing
not
that's on the Patreon
yeah that's on the Patreon
that's behind our paywall
but whether it's
D&D, I don't
we want to be boycotting D&D soon
or
Call of Kutulu
Yeah so we'll do that
that's going to happen
sometime around like the end of March I
think is our episode 200, which is just going to be goofing off for like 12 hours.
It's going to be like a long-ass stream and we're going to have like some video games.
We'll have like an RPG going.
We'll have some other antics and then eventually they'll just devolve into like us getting drunk.
And if you think we're afraid of going 12 hours, you don't know us.
Oh, no.
It's episode 100 was five hours.
Yeah.
That's pretty.
Yeah.
We will start at like one or two in the afternoon.
So you're thinking 12 hours?
And just let it roll, man.
Yeah, we'll pack it full of activities and hijinks.
For the role play, I'm going to be a Navy SEAL with a dart past.
I'm going to be a fake news reporter.
Who are the pipe dream guests you want to have on in 2023?
Man.
I think I would like to have on Bob Gates.
I would love to have Rob Joyce.
Tony Thomas
Greg Vogel
Greg Vogel
Yeah absolutely
Who else
I mean there are a couple people who are like
NSC level
Former directors
Former director
Former J-Soccassocom commanders
Like Bob Gates would be sick
Bob Gates
Yeah Bob Gates would be really good
Yeah
I think any of those guys would be really interesting
to have on the show
and kind of get that like high level perspective.
My, like, I'm, I kind of like fanboy out over the people who are more unknown, you know,
I tend to because I would, I would love to have somebody from the Arkansas National Guard
that was in Iraq in their, I don't know if it was, if it was, in their armored unit,
whatever, whatever those Bradley's or tanks or whatever,
hell they were. Those dudes
were getting it
on and nobody
knows about them.
I would love to have some more conventional dudes on
because those dudes were getting it on
some more like Marines that
weren't like force or Marsock.
I think
that we have a love
affair. Our country
has a love affair with special ops.
But there is
the conventional
forces were getting it on to a degree that people just don't get and I would love to have those guys on.
I would like to have Chris Miller on the show who was acting Secretary of Defense towards the end of the Trump administration.
He's an interesting guy.
So yeah, those are some of the like, those would be like the bigger names, I guess, that go after.
Like the SEAL Team 6 guy we're having on
He's not done an interview
He's a cool guy
He's an interesting guy
Yeah
And yeah
I tend to think
The ones that I really enjoy
Or the one when you can kind of like
Pull these people out of the ether
That no one's ever heard of
And the stories that no one's ever heard of
I really enjoy that
When are you guys going to have
On a 24th STSCCT guy on the show
Hmm
I wonder
So we're talking to a dude
Who's not a C
Not a C I have a C
I have a CCTV scheduled.
I don't think he was STS, but.
So we have a guy who wasn't a, he was a pair, you know, PJ,
and he was an 8-10 pilot two after, one of Chad's homies.
Oh, okay, that would be cool.
So we're trying to lock him down for probably summertime sometime.
That'd be great.
One of the guys asks that there can be a Discord Idiot Roundtable episode in 2023.
So I'll, I'll say this, that would fit in very well with the theme of episode two.
if we were to get all the
Discord idiot roundtable
going and we'll have to put a little bit
of thought into how to do that you guys
dialing in and
maybe we can bullshit
we can live stream some games or something like that
let's let's
let's conversate about that a little bit
in the Discord and figure that out let that ruminate
any way to get more
Air America pilots
possible I've spoken
when I got Neil that was
through the Air America
Association. Yeah. And I can
go to them and see if they have anyone else they can
drop on them. We can reach out maybe through like China Post 1
also. I mean, yeah,
it's challenging because Vietnam
era guys are getting older, not
too old, but older.
So, and again,
it's one of those things, well, obviously,
Air America Association, those guys will be vetted.
Yeah, yeah.
Where do you guys see the team house going
in the next five years? Any big
milestones you are focused on for future
growth? I mean, I think
we talked a little bit about it.
Definitely like hitting 100,000 subscribers is a big milestone.
There are certain milestones we'd like to hit like, I mean, just being real about it with like ad revenue on YouTube and like Patreon subscribers to like get it to a certain point where we could then financially devote more time to this.
I would, you know, I have like four or five jobs.
I would like to narrow it down.
I don't have any.
Dave.
I got laid off for the holidays.
I got some work for you.
Yeah.
Got some things for you.
Yeah, like if, you know, as we are able to grow the team house, I would like to do, I would like to do this.
And the high side, the website, the new site that I'm working with Sean, I'd like to do that, those two things like full time, have that be my full time job eventually.
So I guess that's sort of like my personal slag.
Team House like goal.
J.B. Ortega's been around for a minute because
he says, I remember
somebody said they'd wear
a Sailor Moon costume
on a dare a while back.
For a certain milestone? Yeah,
it was. It was like if we got a hundred thousand.
I'm pretty sure it was 50,000.
I'll get a Team House giraffe tattoo. You go back
and you go back and dig that up and
get back to me. I'll get a Team House
giraffe tattoo that you can see predominantly
on our merch available in the link
down below.
Or 100,000.
Well, actually, that's pretty funny because someone asked the question,
when are you guys going to start selling merch?
Because I would love to buy a shirt with a black market giraffe.
I can't believe you just said that.
Wow, what a coincidence.
That definitely wasn't me writing that.
But you can get it right here.
And the link is in the description below.
T-spring, right?
Are we still on T-spring?
Yeah, the link is right in the description.
How did the graphics come out?
Because the first time we did it.
These ones looked pretty good, man.
The first time we did it, like the graph, it came out kind of faded.
Yeah.
It was the orange and the logo was a little.
Yeah.
Yeah, it was a little off.
Someone asked the question.
I love and hate this question, guys.
When is the next Deckerd book?
And as I've said before, it's halfway written,
and I would love to dedicate the time to finish it.
I read some of it.
It's pretty good.
I will get it done one day, but it remains in the works for now.
Jack's too busy living the Deckard life.
Yeah, exactly.
Most tactical sweaters.
He's triple-off.
I have several now.
Ever thought about interviewing a former terrorist?
Yes.
I would be interested in interviewing
somebody who was, you know, in a terrorist organization,
like somebody who was in ISIS or something and came out of it.
It's a little dicey in more ways than one.
Some of those people who claim to be de-radicalized are not de-radicalized at all.
Yeah, they're just on the PR side of it.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
They're like, yeah, what I was doing was wrong, but the reasons were right.
Yeah, they're not really, yeah, exactly.
They're just kind of like going around doing speaking engagements.
Right, right.
It's like, hey, like, you know, like people, we have this like conversation in America now where like people say like, you know, you have to be anti-racist and you have to do the work and all this sort of stuff.
It's like, well, if you join a group like ISIS that's like keeping sex slaves and sawing people's heads off, like,
like you kind of have to do the work to get past all of that it's not like that's just something you leave behind like we're putting that into this little chest and closing little putting the lock on there yeah just this is a do-over we're pretending that never happened like no it doesn't work like that like to call and say i got duped like i was in a vulnerable position my life and i got duped and sold into a cult which is which it essentially is in a way that's one thing but to
say, well, you know, like America's not that great and I thought these guys were okay.
And I'm not 100% on board with what they're doing, but what like, but their message is good.
It's like, no, no, that's, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, short answer, yes, longer answer, all of that.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're not, we're not supporting the opposition here.
We're not, we're not giving a platform to somebody who's batshit crazy.
You know, he's good, an IRA guy.
And the women are more psycho.
than the mail. I'd like an IRA guy. Yeah, I, uh, yeah, so years ago, I, I explored the idea of going to
Ireland and trying to interview IRA guys. I thought you're going to join the IRA. No, I was not going to
go. Oh, okay. And, uh, I had an interesting conversation with an Irish guy in a Irish bar that I
will not name. Uh, and he, uh, he told me that Ireland is 32. He said, uh, he said,
it is possible if you want to do that. You can go over there.
There are possibilities, and he's like, the way that'll happen is, like, you'll be in a pub,
you'll be met by somebody, and they will literally, like, black hood over your head and stuff you
to a car and drive you, and you will interview people.
You will not know their names.
You'll just hear their voices, and you will be there with a hood over your head interviewing them.
I'd be okay with that, with exception of, like, the mouth.
Like, you got, I mean, you've probably never been, like, hooded.
But being hooded sucks.
Like, it sucks.
Like, I mean, I'm not a classified person.
can't be if you're a diver, but being hooded sucks.
So like, and you're building up all that carbon dioxide and everything else.
Like, so as long as they cut out your mouth hole, that'd be okay.
But to be hooded for hours of interviews, like, we've all been hooded and thrown in a car trunk at one point in time.
Sure, who has?
Just for fun.
Yeah.
It's how you get your kicks.
But, but you also realize that, like, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I would definitely be interested.
I mean, they can't just come on.
So a couple of people have said for the CCTV,
one's ready is an organization that we should reach out to.
Like three people have mentioned that.
Kyle Morgan would be cool as fuck.
Kyle Morgan is a Delta guy?
A.F.
Ed Calderon.
I mean, these guys, they're big names and they do good interviews.
It's just they've been on a ton of shows.
Kyle Morgan, not really because you just got to.
I have a Ditchell and Ryan show.
Calderon's been on a lot of pods, so it's like...
It is not that we...
I've had people ask me about like this guy, that guy, and even like, even like, I mean,
I don't mean to like besmir anybody, like, even like Pat McNamara has done a lot of
podcast interviews.
And so I'm not saying like any of those guys are not worthwhile to interview.
Or not welcome or anything else at that.
Right.
But if I have to choose, I'm going to choose the people you've never heard of before.
Like, that's an intentional.
choice on my part and even when we have pat on like we want to do an interview that he hasn't done right yeah yeah yeah
and and we you know um you know that that's the thing is that we want to bring new content to people so
when when we don't have on a lot of the very popular people it's it's not because can't me the mccallin
please um i can thank you it's not it's not it's not because we don't love these dudes yeah it's not it's
not like I don't like them or I think they're bad or something like that.
No, listen, I like the popular guys because it means numbers.
It means numbers for us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, that's why sexy up the thumbnails.
It's just that they've told their stories, you know, they've told their stories.
And we want to produce unique content.
And so, like, when we have them on, if, you know, if we have them on, we want to talk to
about things that they haven't had,
that they haven't had an opportunity to talk about before.
And I mean, it does happen.
Like, we'll have the same guess as, like,
combat story or...
Yeah, sometimes there's some overlap.
Yeah.
But we'd like to avoid it.
That's like the SEAL Team 6 guy that I've been busting Jax Bulls about for,
like, ever, right?
Like a year.
There's another one?
No, no, no.
But I'm just saying I wanted a SEAL Team 6 guy.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Like an enlisted SEAL Team 6 guy.
Yeah.
And so, like, Pat and Shrek and, you know,
and all the guys you think of that have been on a lot of other pods,
Like, we love those guys.
We value those guys immensely.
We just, for us, it's often about, like, showing a different side, even though it doesn't give us the numbers that some of those other shows you.
We just want, you know, we want people like Casey and Marty and Matt DeVoe and these people that you would never hear from.
Otherwise, you know, like we love the war stories and we love the dudes who did it 100%.
Yeah, it's like I've said it before with Jack and you.
Like the way we do things, it does hamper our growth a little bit, but it's by design.
Yeah.
I think it's better in the long run.
I completely agree.
So one of our Patreon members, Pyrite Hunter, asks, can a person add website,
addresses to a talk, i.e. follow-up info presented or maybe picks posting for clarification.
I say that as several of the folks interviewed brought up interesting stuff that I and maybe
others would dig researching. I also wanted to add clarified documents and details myself.
Great year. Love the show and keep them coming. So oftentimes there are links we put down in the
description of the YouTube videos. If you check that out, definitely look down there if you're
looking for more information. As far as like pictures, I could. I could.
be a little bit more diligent with that and
I should also
probably work with you D
making sure that you get those pictures, all of those
pictures and we can pull up
some maps and stuff like that too.
And then what we can do is load it into
the tricaster and you can like bring some
of that stuff up during the show.
That's like another thing that's a little bit
easier if you do it
post-production. Yeah and a lot of that stuff
does I think end up on our Patreon
at some point.
Yeah.
But in our Patreon, like, it's not a lot.
It's like five bucks, right?
Yeah.
Patreon.com slash the team house.
Go and subscribe.
It's five bucks.
And the biggest perk is you get ad-free episodes.
Yeah.
As free video and audio, wherever you like it.
Yeah.
And there's some bonus stuff in there.
And if you support the Patreon at the highest level, you get an invite to our Christmas party as well.
Right on.
Any agents come to the Christmas party?
I think so, yes.
Nice.
Our Christmas partner was baller, by the way.
Yeah, it was great.
We had some...
We had a lot of fun.
Yeah, it was awesome.
Adam showed up, Justin showed up.
Alana.
Josh Zach.
Les.
Yep.
And then the after party was here in the studio,
smoking cigars and drinking until, like, 2 a.m.
Cigars wasn't the only thing I think people were smoking.
Oh, yeah.
Really?
The Pac-O-W-W-E.
I don't know.
No, someone, a fan of the show may have given me one of these gummies that had narcotic substances in it.
I was duped.
I was duped. That's what happened.
But, no, it was a lot of fun, and I hope, you know, see everyone next year.
G. Higgs says, a longtime listener here.
Thanks for the great show.
I always wondered, did Jack do the voiceover for the intro in a deep voice.
So, yeah, again, no, that was Ian Scott.
So serious question.
Any interview tips tricks that you have found useful?
You guys have an uncanny ability to get interviewees to open up and make them feel comfortable
without making the interview feel scripted.
Thanks again.
So interview techniques, I mean, I think just listen to what people are saying.
And if there is, don't let them just blow by something that's interesting, you know, tease that out of them.
Say, oh, hold on, tell me more about that.
you know i i can't remember if i so much use it on this show or not but like a good technique is always
to get people to rehash like if they say something that sounds pretty interesting or amazing
you know stop them say hold on so what you're trying to tell me is such and such and such
and have them like rephrase it to make sure you understand what they said uh i would say that
works sometimes yeah i mean one another thing i think is one
No matter who we have on, if they have a book out, Jack and I have always, either Jack or I have always read their book.
And so, you know, understand that when somebody writes a book, even it's about their life, they've researched it.
They've, you know, talked to other people about it. They've done these things.
Then they write the book. It's on paper. And then they forget about it, right?
So one of the important things a lot of times is for us to take notes in, and honestly to remind people about their own story or to point out things because people have lived in, sorry, reminds me to, I think it was Groucho Marx who said, I'd never want to be a member of a club who would have me as a member, right?
it's the idea that people whatever you've lived that's normal to you right and and so these people who
have lived these extraordinary lives they don't understand sometimes how extraordinary it is
even the smallest details so it's like jack said is that when they a lot of times people will
tend to blow by things because it's just right they've told that story to their friends
or their family or in a bar or whatever.
And so they just blow by it because that was just that day.
And when you can stop them,
and this is one of the,
this is one of the reasons we interrupts people sometimes.
Because what they're going to,
what they're about to blow by is a much deeper
and a much richer story than,
not that they realize,
but that they remember.
And one of the greatest things about,
I think,
like doing these interviews on the show
is sometimes when Jack
or I interrupt somebody, or not even interrupt
them, but ask them a specific
question about something they just said
and they go, oh, that's a good
question. And then
they go into it deeper and we get
a much richer side
of that story.
We get a much more personal experience
because that's really what we're trying to do is
capture history on a personal level.
So it's really
you know, listening to what somebody's saying and then and then picking out like these things that
they might just be skipping over because even though it was an amazing thing or a phenomenal moment
and people in general, especially people in the military and the intelligence community, I think,
tend to be pretty humble people. And so if you ask them about an award or you ask them about
actions that led to an award, they're going to they're going to give it.
to you in the briefest, most humble form they can.
But if you dig down, you realize how much meat is there and what these people did,
that they would never tell you without prompting because they are servants, because they are
humble.
And anybody who's one in a word will say, you know, other people have done things.
Like who can look at like chat?
and say anything that they've done compares to that, right?
And I think that's what we tend to do is we compare ourselves to everybody else out there.
And yeah, you're not, nobody's going to like be able to compare themselves to that.
But what they did is amazing regardless.
Gunner Wright says,
Metatronic Technologies in Asheville, I got a solution to it.
and this death and overdose get back to me.
I have no idea what that means.
Yeah, I think that's a troll.
Tomes says, would be cool if you had a guest and do a rewatchable series every few months.
For example, have an expert in the field and comment on a show or movie you all watched pre-recording.
It would be fun to watch and also help put reality and true history behind dramatized stories.
In some cases...
Is that doing like a reaction?
Yeah, I don't really like reaction videos.
I feel like it's like low-hanging fruit,
but in some cases,
like if you had a guest in like
the movie is about something he was in,
I would say, yeah, that might be...
I do think it would be fun to do reaction movies
on action movies. Like,
an example, bullet train, right?
Done by the same guy who did John Wick.
Great movie, fun movie. It's on Netflix. Check it out,
Brad Pitt. Like tons of cameos. Fun movie.
But there were a few things with the gunplay
that I was like,
why?
Like, why is this magazine in there
and the weapon's not like,
like, why?
So reaction video sometimes would be fun.
Just saying,
you know, when a dude has a double,
when a dude has a double barrel shotgun
and he chambers around.
It's like, what?
That doesn't happen.
Anyway.
I mean, if we can shit on stuff
and make it funny, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tom says,
I've seen some reaction videos.
I'm not going to name who.
that they don't really shit on stuff
Like they just like this is
Oh no it'd be like mystery science theater
3,000 like I'd shit on it
It's not great it's shit
Yeah
Rick Lamb would love to
Rick Lamb would love to hear about
His firefight in Korea Plus Desert 1
Firefight in the DMZ in Korea
Okay
Tom says
Also consider bringing on OSS society
They do good stuff and are well connected
happy to link you with the president.
Jack is an OSS guy. Jack.
We have our OSS Society coin from the dinner this year right here.
And Jack has pictures in his tucks.
Yeah, yeah.
Very cute.
Carpenter 37, still waiting on Jack to publish,
drowned, a case for disbanding the Navy Seals.
Oh, my God.
There are, so there's one more Patreon question,
but a little sidebar on this.
I was thinking a little bit today about, like, my favorite, like, internet conspiracy theories about me.
And there are these people on, like, social media who, like, have...
First off, I don't understand why I live rent-free in their mind.
Like, it's very odd to me.
I'm kind of like a nobody.
But conspiracy theories include...
I was a operator who joined the S-A-S.
There is one that Navy SEALs have put a hit out on.
me i heard that one recently um i am a paid cia shill i am a paid jsox
shill those are both i can confirm those uh and then the other is that i'm also a paid
fsb shill oh no shit it's your work for everybody depending on your political you know where
you stand holy smoke i am anyone or all of those things i am like the ultimate manchurian candidate
jesus christ you're like in everyone's pocket yeah yeah um you know the thing about that is like
You know, when you sell out, you're supposed to get rich.
Yeah, where the fuck's the checks at?
Yeah, yeah.
Joe Delaney says, I am a couple of episodes behind, so I apologize if this has been covered,
but I'd love to hear about reactions and feedback on Jack's CIA Russia story.
Having followed you all since the beginning, I would have been more surprised at something
like that not been going on, but I wonder what you've learned from the response to thus far.
It was an awesome piece of work, and imagine you've heard from all sorts of fascinating
folks. I would say the response, I mean, tremendous public interest as far as, as far as like
official response, there is no official response other than a denial. Behind the scenes, I've heard
that some members of the intelligence community found it well, it was well received and it
definitely gave them a chuckle as it's a big, you know, yet another big fuck you to Russia.
Yeah, because it's a positive story for the scene.
But otherwise, the silence has been pretty definite.
The CIA's doing something right for once.
You know what I mean?
Like, they shouldn't, I mean, I get why they need to deny it.
I get why they need to deny it, but.
The game is the game.
So, do we have any?
We do.
Let me, uh, chat questions.
Yep.
KX, thank you.
Please get in touch with Jim Angleton's ghostwriter Edward,
Jay Epstein for a chat.
Pretty sure he's in New York City.
David Maynard, thank you very much.
His favorite episode was Ryan English.
Also, no tuxedos for the year in review.
Next year.
I had to buy a tux for that OSS dinner,
and it pushed me, I told Sean Naylor this at the dinner,
that it pushed me into this new level of adulthood
that I didn't want to be in.
I feel like I got to this like new level
I'm like I don't want to be here like what
the dinner was fun but I didn't want to be a tough
owner I feel like it does something to you as a person
that just makes you bond James Bond
Also thanks David
Check out Cyber Area with David and
Ryan English they do some podcasts on there
They do some great stuff about cyber
They have some great learning tools on there too
If you're interested in cybersecurity
That's Cyborary.com
Huh
Yeah
That's a free one, Dave, because we love you.
R.S.
Oh, he said Jersey Shore, New Jersey.
Oh, get the fuck.
Come on.
I used to vacation there as a kid.
I used to get drug on family vacation at the Jersey Shore.
That's beautiful.
I've been drunk at the Jersey Shore a few times.
I wasn't drunk.
I was a kid.
Oh, worse.
Yeah, I can't even drink.
So just some people who are chiming in,
Semper Phi EDC guy says you can pretty easily get
some ex-cartel guys if you wanted.
That would be fun.
In fact, this is what I think a cool React, like, show would be.
Remember, we've been talking about this for years,
where we do, like, the Hitman's Roundtable or whatever.
Put it together.
Put it together.
Where, like, we have, like, some mafia dudes, some military snipers,
like, all these different people.
And we do clips of, like, assassination-type videos.
And we talk about...
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
See, I thought that.
coming from like different angles.
Oh, okay.
See, I thought your idea was just to have the round table
and everyone just talk about like how they'd kill somebody.
I think it's easier to do that like if in the context of movies.
Definitely.
You know what I mean?
Yes, I am a connoisseur of being kidnapped.
KX, I prefer a micro fiber gag myself.
Hey, man, as long as you can get that safe word out.
Yeah, whatever works for you.
If you're a guide, you can't use your safe word.
So you got to have something in your hand to drop.
We all know the deal.
Michael Fink, seal, ground branch, and at ground zero as it happened.
That's a lot.
I haven't heard of Michael Fink.
I don't know if you guys have.
No.
What's the relationship?
Jackson said, or Mika Fink, seal, ground branch, and at ground zero as it happened.
Oh, no.
Sounds like a pretty incredible guy, but no, I don't know him.
Hook it up.
And Shrek never gets old, just saying, and we're not saying these guys get old.
We're not saying that at all.
We're not saying, oh, man, they've told this story a million times.
We just want to bring people something they can't find anyplace else.
That's it.
Yeah.
I mean, listen, we'll get Delta guys.
We get other SMUs.
I mean, I guess we have a couple, yeah.
Yeah.
Army Special Operations guys scheduled.
Yeah.
I would like to see an edit interview by guys who know military intel world.
I've mostly seen him with the more casual interview, Carol.
Ed.
Ed Calderon.
I mean, he's been on Sean Ryan.
Sean Ryan is a far as seal.
He's been on, he's been on like Joe Rogan and stuff multiple times.
Yeah.
It's been on free.
Conventional EOD would be good.
Yeah.
EOD, man.
Those folks had a very thankless job out in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yes.
I know, I know some EOD people that I could hit up.
What do you guys think about John McPhee?
Stutt.
I mean, what else?
Well, like, what can you say about?
Yeah, I don't know the guy.
I don't know the guy personally.
Yeah, I don't either.
But, like, everything that I've seen, like, stud.
Like, I mean, an American.
Hero.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, he's got a ton of episodes of Ryan, and Ryan's great.
Like, Ryan is almost as good as us.
I love Ryan.
Ryan. Ryan's a great guy.
Yeah.
We love Ryan and definitely watch his show.
Like, it's not great.
He doesn't take anything away from us to watch or listen to Ryan.
We, uh, we have.
We have an interview on the channel with Ryan.
Yeah, I actually watch that interview because Ryan is one of those people who doesn't get to, you know, he interviews everybody but doesn't get to tell his story that often.
Getting shot up in his Apache and Afghanistan is like some pretty gnarly stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
If you're going to watch his interview, watch it on our channel and not his.
But for everything else, check out his channel.
Yeah.
No, Ryan's awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah, we can't say enough good things about Ryan.
He's an amazing human being.
he has a great show
he's just a good guy like I email back and forth
him about stuff
yeah yeah
add stuff and all that so he's a good egg
if you can get Mike Logico of the PISF
and the organizer of the PISI side
joint USPI military maneuvers
that would be sweet
PI meaning Philippines
yeah yeah I'm sure that's what it means
but he's he that was J.P. Ortega
he's active duty though
so that might be tougher
yeah
yeah active duty guys is like almost
impossible and I have tried
to work with public affairs
I have a whole rant about
public affairs and it's not just the fault
of public affairs it's the command
it's ultimately the command that's saying
we don't support podcasting
well what it is is the commander feels like I'm supposed to get the
press not this E5
right why's this guy going on a show
so we have somebody who we're going to try and get for the
summer who is active duty
currently she is a
former Apache pilot and a 160th pilot and she's getting out.
Believe me, there are multiple people I'm waiting to retire.
There is one person who I'm waiting to retire who's at SF.
There's another person I'm waiting to retire who spent decades doing spooky stuff.
So there are numerous people on my list that I'm waiting for them to put in their retirement papers.
And when they do, I think some of them,
will come on the show.
You spoke about your crane article, right?
Somebody asked.
Somebody asked about it, yeah.
The backstory is even, it's almost as crazy
the actual story,
which I'm sorry, you guys probably don't get to hear.
Not yet anyway.
Dave, will you take Andy's advice
and consider writing your book?
Look, the simple fact is,
my memory isn't good enough to write a book.
I've had, I mean, these guys know that.
Like, my, I've had so many fucking TBIs
that sometimes I forget even what branches I served in.
And any, let's see here.
We'd love to hear some more about TF 626 and J.Sox who's getting out of hand in the early GW.
Yeah, more to follow.
I definitely, yeah.
Uh-oh.
One of Jack's admirable interview skills is helping out highlighting important angles.
or points for the guests that are really having a hard time
or not good at being interviewed.
Thank you, sir.
Hashtag battle buddy.
Thank you for the support.
Instead of most of you shit talkers in the comments.
Yeah, I mean, you can talk about that a little bit.
How did Jack and Dave meet?
Oh, we met through a Ranger meetup in New York City,
like probably close to 10 years ago.
So, yeah, it was like a Ranger get together,
met there and you know sort of stayed in touch and then yeah that led into years later trying to do some of the
start up like a a gaming company and that proved quite difficult and then spun into doing this so here we are
here we are like 10 years later 11 years later have you ever been able to get any debt A veterans
Where's the focus of their debt A time?
Yeah, we have.
Bob Charest was Dead A.
He's on the show.
And our guests coming on the show on Tuesday, Pat McNamara, those pictures of him in Berlin.
With that sweet mullet?
That's the unit that proceeded that came after Dead A.
So Dead A got compromised because of Desert 1 and all the press that came out.
So they had to fold the unit and they started up a new unit called PSSE or P.SSE or
Pishy, I think it's normally
said, pronounced.
And
that's what Pat Mac was there
in Berlin. So,
I hope we get him to talk a little bit about his
experiences there. Oh, circle. Yeah, yeah.
Jack, is this
substack, the primary place to read your work?
It will
be. Right? Yeah,
I mean, I say it will be.
Right now, I mean, I write
for Connectingvets.com like
multiple times every week.
my stuff
I produce podcasts for stars and stripes
that come out every other week
and the high side
you will see pieces by me
and or Sean
every month
and those will be like
in-depth like investigative pieces
I think the best place to find Jack
is probably Twitter
like that's where you up there
follow my shit posting
yeah I mean you post your
regular non-shutist
yeah my stuff ends up on
I sometimes retweet
Jack or D
Yeah, randomly
I see it
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Like, that's pretty much
What I do on Twitter
I'm horrible social media
I stay off it
I'd like to say something
About the comment
There's for the most part
Everyone's dope
Everyone's great
We love you guys
You're not gonna pull a Dave Park
And be like
I'm just humbled to be here
No, I'm not
He's gonna
I'm a pre-
I love being here
But like
When we have a lady on
Act like you've seen a woman
Before
Yeah
Yeah
stupid comments about like
I'd like to breed with her
was one I remember that was horrific
Did I ever get a did I ever get a
I want to breed with her? I don't think so no
Fuck you guys sorry so if you want to breathe
with somebody Dave's open for it. It's funny how that
works. There's never like a slew of women
that are like I want to steal Jack Murphy's
seed like I never you never hear that kind of
stuff like what do you think is going to happen they're going to read the
comments and be like oh my God that's the guy
That's him that's my forever person
Like I get it dude
Girls are sliding into the DMs.
You know what I mean?
They're nice to look at.
Just act.
They're aggressive.
Yeah, all that stuff.
Yeah.
Act like a fucking human being.
That's all.
I remember one person who asked the comment and he was like, oh, man, that female is beautiful.
And I was like, you know she has a name, right?
And he's like, oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't know what her name is.
And I was like, it's the first word in the title of the video is her name.
I didn't know her name.
Man.
Um, KJ.
He goes to be going like, because there's other comments and go fuck themselves too.
Yeah, yeah.
You bag on us all day long.
If you're doing war movie reviews, this K Jam, you got to do it by having James
reporter all that back.
He used to do it for Vanity Fair.
And it was hilarious because he so politely destroyed 98% of the movies.
Oh, I didn't know he did that.
That's pretty cool.
See, I got a lot of places to do it, though.
That's, I'm with it.
Yeah, that's the thing is there's so much of it out there.
It's easy to do, but it is enjoyable.
If it's done well, it could be good.
It could be fun.
You guys should do you and Alex Hollings, who's going to be on the show?
The Batman?
Yeah.
We've been talking about that for like years at this point.
When Alex comes on, we're definitely doing Maverick.
We are definitely doing.
He's coming on on?
I know.
We are definitely doing Top Gun Maverick because I want to hear his stuff on that.
Arno, are these those five jobs, Dave?
KX, he did say he has.
had five jobs. What job? I was talking about having five jobs. Jack has he's an Uber delivery guy.
He doesn't punish it. Oh, right, right, right. Right. His only fans. Yeah. It ain't much,
but it's honest word. Um, Scott Ritter took some shots at Jack Murphy's latest story. I mean,
people have opinions, right? Yeah, yeah. I did. Someone forwarded me the, uh, the video. Yeah.
Scott Ritter's the, who? He was, he was the UN. Yeah. He got on. Like, it was, uh,
Yeah, he was a UN weapons inspector who was in the Marines.
And, you know, I watched the video.
And, you know, I think that, you know, there's not too much to say about it, honestly.
I mean, what Scott had to say was essentially, if this is real, Jack Murphy wouldn't know about it.
So since Jack Murphy knows about it, it can't be real, which is circular logic.
That makes no sense whatsoever.
he's an RT guy right isn't he like and then and then he further went on to extrapolate that
but if it is real he shouldn't have written about it and like I really don't know how to respond
to that or it's it's a sort of like it's like I said it's a circular logic that you really there's
nothing to rebut um and um you know I I mean look Scott is totally entitled to his opinion
um you know my perception of it was that you know he had a lot of anger um not towards me personally
but more to the CIA generally.
Sure.
And, like, I can't, like, unpack that for him.
Like, that's, that's kind of his business.
Yeah, I mean, Scott Ritter is a rat.
We know that.
Well, he's...
Allegedly.
He's entitled to his opinion, but...
Not because of that.
I mean, he's just, like, he worked for RT.
He's been allegedly...
People got to earn a paycheck.
Like, we had Scott on the show.
He was a great guest.
Like,
He has opinion.
I mean,
look,
Jack and I don't agree on everything either.
So,
like,
it's,
you know,
you and I don't agree with,
I mean,
yeah.
You know,
people,
my opinion is Scott Redd as a rat.
Sorry,
Scott.
Um,
we cracked it.
Jack is infiltrating the chat to sell samurai swords to old fat guys.
You got it.
Battlingblades.
com team house for 20% of them.
And honestly,
guys,
like,
I've been,
I've probably been drinking too much to be playing with a samurai.
You really.
have. Like, that's a loaded
weapon and you've been drinking.
But... You want to see me take the cork off the top of that?
No, I really don't even... You sure? Yeah. Yeah. But check out
Battle of Lays. They have a lot of, like,
really cool stuff.
Honestly, you'll check it out. You'll love it.
And when you check out Battlinger Blades, you use the T-Mouse for 20%
off your order.
Oh, so Danny just asked to Jack have any
rebuttal to
Scott Ritter's stuff.
Yeah, I mean, that's kind of it.
Yeah.
There's not much to rebut in my, from my point of view.
Have you guys interviewed former Special Forces Fuerza's a special out?
No, we have not.
We have an anywhere from Mexico.
No, I'd be very interested in that.
Years ago, it was like one of those projects I got in touch with somebody
who was in Mexican soft and he was really being very helpful.
And it was just one of those, like, it was like a one of the, would have been one of those
big projects like deep dives like I've done
into like Kurdish counterterrorism group
or I did into like special forces
DET K or DETA
it was a big research project
and unfortunately it's just one of those
ones that didn't get off the ground for me
but we would I would love to have
Mexican soft on here
yeah um John Chico said
Mo Morris 375 FO and Cag
so as a guest
recommendation what's the name Mo Moore
Mo Morris M-O-R-R-R
Yeah, man. Have them. Send us an email.
Slide in the DMs. We'd be happy to talk.
Eric Miaris. Thank you for your very generous donation. He said, you are amazing.
Eric, you are amazing, man. You, you're an incredible human being.
Ryan is a very humble, quiet dude. Met him in an SOB tactical event, super low-key dude.
Yeah, Ryan, like, fucking amazing. Good egg. Yeah, I love Ryan.
Yeah.
What just happened here?
Okay.
Did you guys see what Andy Stumpf and Jack Carr said about Matthew Cole?
I did not.
No.
Yeah, right, yeah.
I mean, Jack Carr's like, you know, this guy's talking smack about the team guys.
I mean, Stump's a little bit more diplomatic.
Like, he had Cole on the show and stuff like that,
and they were real civil to each other.
They talked in circles.
I love Stumpf, too.
I'm not hating.
Our show's better.
but he had a little segment with Jack Carr and Jack Carr's like,
yeah, you got that guy on.
You can watch.
It's like a six, seven minute video.
I don't know.
I mean, it's, again, what is there to rebut?
Like, and I've had this conversation with other people as well.
Like, hey, man, that's not right or that's not accurate.
It's like, okay, stop.
Tell me point by point what's not accurate.
And like, because I like, whatever sort of journalism, whether it's, I,
something I wrote or something someone else wrote.
It's like, okay, well, no, that's important.
Tell me why it's not accurate.
What are the counterfactuals?
And when people just look at you with like dead eyes, like, then they can't answer.
They usually just say like, oh, he's trying to sell books.
Okay, but that doesn't mean it's not accurate.
That's what I'm saying.
Right?
That's the usual.
Where is the lie?
There's that thing, too, that, you know, you know, stump and car are both great dudes
and, you know, have, you know, great shows.
And personally for me, like, if somebody were to write something
that, like, painted Rangers in a bad light, I would be defensive.
Whether or not what was written were right or wrong,
I would be defensive about it.
They wrote about Navy divers being, like, not profiled.
I would be defensive, you know, if they wrote about, like,
like, we all tend to defend what's near and dearer,
our hearts.
And if they,
if there are factual inaccuracies
in Matt's book, which, you know, you were,
you know, we didn't find, but that doesn't mean that other people
might not see them, then they should bring those to light.
Yeah, that should have been the conversation.
Right.
I mean, yeah, I'd listen to a podcast that was like going through
Matt's book, whatever, picked the case, you know,
picked the chapter and was like, no, this is wrong because of it.
And, like, actually brought their own, their side.
And look, I understand that it's difficult to do that with Matthew Cole's book because so many of the sources were anonymous. And as, you know, a journalist, like one of the worst things you can have is a source that will say something, but not go on the record saying it. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be reported. But that also makes it hard to rebut, right? It makes it hard. It makes it hard to say, oh, okay, yeah, some people said something.
Well, I mean, this is true. Like maybe a SEAL Team 6 guy that was on.
a team that hurts, you know, Slavs say, didn't hear Slavs say give me their heads or give me some
scouts or whatever, you know what I mean?
Somebody who's actually there to be like, right.
No, this isn't true.
Actually, this happened.
Right.
I don't know.
Right.
No, it's tough.
It's tough.
It's tough.
Both ways.
And the one good thing about anonymous sources is like they're actually willing to talk.
But you're right.
It could get abused.
Right.
I get it.
Right.
That's up to the journalist.
Yeah.
Journalists to like, you know, vet their sources.
Right.
And I understand where they're coming from.
Like, I would be in the, I would, I would do the same
thing, you know.
You know, it, but it's sort of like, you know, Jack says, like, if there's something to
rebut, then rebut.
Do it.
Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you would do it if you had information, right, and
some of your teammates are being thrown under the bus.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I had...
You had the first one and, like, rebutted for real.
I had an instance years ago now where a kid that was, not in my platoon, but in the
sister. So, well, anyway, he would.
was on deployment with me in 2005.
And he was telling a journalist that we were committing all sorts of war crimes.
Oh, no, I'll have them in the Callan.
But thank you, Dave.
He was saying that us, that our Rangers were committing all sorts of war crimes,
like executions and just like crazy stuff.
This is almost like a direct quote.
He told this journalist, we killed the women because they bred them
and the kids because they became them, being terrorists.
He actually said that to them.
Now, this is absolute bullshit.
Right.
Like, this has no factual basis whatsoever.
I was on some of the ops this guy was describing.
Our chain and command would not have stood for that kind of shit.
It's not something that even entered into our heads that, like, oh, this is something that would have been okay and something that we should do.
It's just 100% a lie made up out of whole cloth.
And I told the journalist, I was like, listen, I was there.
Like, this didn't happen.
And this guy's like trying to blow smoke, trying to impress you.
I don't know what he's trying to do.
But stuff like that happens, man.
And yeah, I mean, it pisses me off because it pisses me off because it's not true.
If it was true and someone was blowing the whistle on it, then so be it.
Let the chips fall where they may.
So like Matt said he spoke like 30 or 40 seals for the book over time.
You know, if you're hearing that from a single source, you want it corroborated by other people.
other sources that are we there.
You know what I mean?
Like that's your obligation as a legit journalist, right?
That's the job.
I'm a huge part of the job.
You know, one, so it's, that's wild.
That's, you know, I don't know if they wrote about that.
Like, just off single source, like, oh, this one guy said we did it just because they were breeding
them and becoming them.
Right.
Like, that's insane to report on.
Yeah.
And, you know, that's when you really need to, you know, buckle down and do, like,
your diligence on those types of claims.
I mean, especially when it comes to like war crimes, murders, sexual assaults, things like,
these are some of the most heinous crimes out there.
You really have to do your homework.
Right.
And I think one of the big questions is people, you know, if they read that, then they go,
is this true?
And if this is true, what do we do about it?
And maybe, like, the average reader can't do that, but the leadership sure is hell should.
Well, I mean, in Matt Cole's book, he definitely goes after the leadership.
Yeah.
Yeah, he does.
I mean, that's primarily who he does go after.
David Maynard, thank you very much, my buddy.
Do you guys have any theories on what is really going on in the Nick Cage movie, Willys Wonderland?
Why?
Why didn't Nick Cage say a single word in the entire movie?
So I haven't seen that.
Isn't that the one that was sort of based on the five nights at Freddy's?
I have no idea what we're talking about.
Yeah, I haven't seen it.
So I might be in the wrong stream, bro.
Yeah, David Mayer never.
Oh, is David?
Okay.
We will watch it and we will get back to you.
I watched the Northmen last night.
That was awesome.
The Viking movie?
I got to watch that.
You got to watch Cleo.
I'm telling you.
I will check it out.
You guys have no idea how much time we sit around and talk about movies and TV shows.
It's like shitting on ones we don't like.
Be interesting to hear about the 20-year J. Lynch anniversary.
20-year reindeer anniversary.
Man, I have a buddy that I wish, that, that, that,
was in deep with the Jay Lynch.
I wish he'd come on,
but I don't think he will.
But,
um,
asked him.
I,
I've asked him numerous times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I'm not going to push a friend
who doesn't want to,
like,
talk about that stuff.
Yeah.
Um,
let's see here.
Any chance of NSA
Blue Badger on the pod?
I mean,
you know,
it's,
we'll do what we can do.
The challenge,
the challenge with getting
Sagan people on the show
and cyber people
on the show is so much of the stuff they do is so much like like they're part of saps generally
and and even where like a lot of human stuff uh human intel and stuff gets rolled back
a lot of the sap stuff just doesn't and a lot of those it's tough to get those guys on
it's really tough because they can't like there were stories
are, it's very hard for them to tell any stories without giving away, you know, means and methods.
We've had some SIGN guys on the show, though.
You read between the lines a little bit, too, guys.
Yeah.
That's the funniest, also funny commenting thing.
When people comment, like, trying to guess what units people are in.
Oh, yeah.
Like, no, it's definitely days, definitely not.
And then they get into fights with each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was going on with J-Sock on standby during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and why weren't they sent?
They were there.
There are complaints that they weren't able to do as much as, you know, maybe they thought they should have been permitted to, but, I mean, they were there.
Don't speak too soon, Dave.
They might start wanting your seed next.
Yeah, exactly, man.
And hey, guys, I mean, I've asked Stump to come on on the show.
We had some emails back and forth because I read some comments.
Are you going to deploy the minions to go around?
Yeah, I am.
So hit them up.
on Instagram and nicely.
Yeah, yeah, we would love to have stuff on.
Because it's the same thing with Ryan,
with Ryan coming on.
Like, these are guys who have shows.
But they've never really told their own story.
They don't get to tell their stories.
Yeah, I would love to have them on.
I've ever heard, like, Stump, like, go through his career.
Yeah.
Because he was an enlisted SEAL, SEAL Team 6,
then an officer in Vanilla Seals.
So he's got some cool perspective for sure.
Yeah, it seems like a smart guy.
Yeah.
We'd love to have him on.
So hit him up and say, yo.
Team House is the best podcast.
What can you expect the Team House only fans?
That's the Patreon.
You want flip picks?
Go on the page.
Stick with me.
Stay with me, fellas.
Calendar.
Just tasteful nudes.
That's it.
That's it.
We can pull that off.
Mods love to delete those comments with a shocking lack of due process.
Do we?
I mean, do we delete it a stupid comment.
Yeah, I'll do it.
I mean, that's want to blame me.
Do we lean left or right in the comments we delete?
delete if they're political?
I don't.
Yeah.
I'll leave some stuff.
I'll leave some.
Yeah, I don't know if we delete it.
Like, if a person is on insulting
the guest, like ragging on the guests,
like we'll delete that.
Yeah, that's definitely out.
Like, you can disagree with the guests.
And if you disagree and you disagree politely,
that's one thing.
But sometimes people just get on and they're dumb and they insult.
There's no due process, guys.
These are, these are extrajudicial
killings.
Yeah.
And we don't like what you're saying.
Go on.
Straight to jail.
And I try to keep it.
Like if it sometimes becomes political in the chat,
as long as you don't pop off too crazy.
Dude, it's the comments section, not at court of law.
Like, I don't know what to say.
And like another one, like going back to, I want to breed with her.
That's getting cut out, friend.
Why are you limiting their freedom of speech?
You're violating their First Amendment rights state.
I guess I'm a Republican, dude.
Don't you know how the Constitution works, bro?
I guess not.
A master of ninjitsu would be interesting on this guy.
We've got to have Stephen K.
Hayes on.
Demock, the touch of that.
That would be Frank Dukes.
That would be Frank Dukes.
Or you can just, you can touch the wall like this and kill the person on the other side.
Yeah.
Speaking of which, I don't know if it's still on, but the last dragon, Gary Bord.
Barry Gordy's right?
The last dragon was on Netflix not too long ago and that's a great movie.
But anyway.
I think there was a Patreon question I missed.
I think Isaac.
Isaac.
I know you told me to read the room that someone that was in ISA will never say they were,
but have you ever come close to meeting one of them?
An ISA guy?
Maybe.
By the way, thank you for the show.
What's I say?
I don't know.
There are times I don't feel like I'm allowed to ask my question because you guys have done incredible things,
but still live at home, but I'm really happy you take the time to ask and answer my questions.
we still live at home we we I live in my home
I live in my mom's basement I live here I live in the studio I had a period when I got out of my
when I got out of my army in 2010 I did have this period of like two to three months where I
literally lived in my mom's basement playing video games dude you told me when you got out of
the army and you went to go get a job at domino's yeah like you're not qualified yeah as a
delivery man like are you fucking kidding yeah and they said I wasn't qualified you have a pulse
and a driver's license yeah like come on in dude
Yep, yep.
That's wild.
Dude, I was like the whole, it was like the whole, like, John Rambo's speech in the movie,
I was in charge of millions of dollars of equipment.
No, I'm nothing.
What was that Self Defense Expo thing, Jack was on a while ago?
It was a segment for some channel.
Oh, I mean, years ago, I did a thing with Jim West, where he was beating me up and throwing me across the floor of this restaurant.
Jim West is like
legit the real deal
Yeah
Yeah he was he was he was beat me up for uh
You know but we did it for you guys
We did it for the viewers
You know I take the pain so you don't have to
Um
Kets of Codals thanks
If you had to pick a book from all of your guests this year
What are you picking? Oh my God
I would pick the main enemy for this year
That's probably the number one
But I mean I was actually looking through it
Through my, I kind of like, I guess it's self-indulgent, but I tally up all the books I read at the end of the year just out of my own curiosity.
And I read, I think, like, nine or ten books for the team house.
Yeah.
And, yeah, I think that there, I mean, so many really good ones.
And I'm glad that this show kind of like forces me to read them.
But the main enemy is the one that really stands out where it's like, holy shit.
So I would, this is I didn't read the main enemy.
I would say
just in terms of understanding
like we had a lot of great biographies
but I would say Operation Pineapple Express
just because it really covered a situation
a time in history like a time in history
that hasn't really that nobody's paid attention
to paid attention to in detail
is sort of like the fall of Saigon
you know
it's
yeah
for that reason
I think
and then let's see here
sorry guys
I'm gonna
we've been here for a bit
so I'm just gonna kind of
scroll through and see
Jack took one for the team house
oh this is a good question
and something we've actually
talked about on numerous occasions
would you guys get into
the real story about the men
who stare at goats
Yeah, Ron Johnson wrote the book, and I don't think I read the book, but I watched his documentary, and I thought it was a little silly.
There's a point in the documentary where he's like, it's all very, like, mysterious and sinister, right?
And he's points out to this, like, strange hexagonal-shaped tower on Fort Bragg, like, what's going on in there?
It's the Halo Wind Tower.
I'm like, Ron, like, come on, man, calm down.
So the, yeah, there are a bunch of people out there.
One of my bucket list interviews was actually Jim Shannon, who was the first Earth Battalion guy.
He sadly died a few years ago.
There are people who are in the remote viewing program that I could reach out to and potentially interview on the show.
I was, like, very, very interested in that program.
And, like, I read, like, every book.
every memoir I could find written by people who were in it.
And some of them were pretty good, pretty interesting.
Yeah.
There's also, for those of you who are interested in that kind of stuff, that and what the CIA,
like MK Ultra and was a Bluebird or Mockingbird.
Blue Book was the UFO stuff?
No, he's like Bluebird.
I think it was Bluebird.
But so most of that, the CIA destroyed most of that stuff.
like they destroyed it.
But there were
file boxes found like
years after
that were kind of stashed away
that then were preserved.
And so if you go to the CIA's
reading room, their FOIA reading room,
you can read a lot of that
stuff, a lot of
this stuff about
you know, about
you know, their
paranormal research,
their
brainwashing research,
You know, the MK Ultra, like a lot of that stuff is very interesting stuff.
I think what we need to ask Tim Weiner too is JFK stuff because I'm getting into that.
Yeah, because there's been like renewed interest and controversy around it.
And he does write about it in his book.
So yeah, we'll ask him about that when we have them on.
So he said blue light.
Now that was something else.
Yeah, blue light was a counterterrorism program.
So like Project Artichoke.
a project Bluebird yeah those are the things that you want to check out and uh yeah bluebird was a lot of
their mind control stuff but anyway like a lot of that is in the CIA's FOIA in their reading
room you just go there on their website um and use a VPN so yeah Williams asking um
about if we have any other like South African or Rhodesian guys scheduled and like I'd say I got
most of the interviews I wanted on that subject. One person I've interviewed in the past that I would
like to get on the show is Tim Bax, who was a Salus Scout. He would be worthwhile getting on.
There's another guy, actually a little, you know, memorial to Audis Ward, who was in 173rd
infantry, Vietnam, went on to serve as a medic with the Salus Scouts. Then he worked as a contractor
down in Honduras, I believe.
And then he went and was a career police officer in Memphis and retired out of there after,
I don't know, 25 years or something like that.
And COVID got him, unfortunately.
Really nice guy, terrific guy.
And, yeah, I'm sorry he's not here.
So that's, I mean, other than people want more Jack Murphy, Columbus stories, I think that that's...
Columbus stories.
Columbia?
Columbia.
No, you don't want those stories.
Put you to sleep.
Oh, Columbus, Georgia's stories.
Oh, my gosh.
Does this guy have like carnal knowledge or something like that?
I believe so.
I believe so.
I think he was in that room with you when you were trying to decide whether you're going to sleep with that girl or not.
There's not a room.
It's a road on Victory Drive.
And there's a thing called Running the Gauntlet where you visit every strip club on Victory
Drive.
And my team leader and I did that once upon a time.
Yeah.
Did you complete the gauntlet?
We completed the gauntlet, and I swear to it sounds like I'm making this shit up, but we were at another bar beforehand, and we probably did like somewhere between eight and ten shots, each one a different liquor.
Memory lane.
No, it wasn't menopause lanes.
Yeah, memory lanes.
There's some good, some good ranger stories there.
But yeah, we did like somewhere like eight to ten shots and then we went and ran the gauntlet and holy Christ.
Oh my God.
There's another, man, there's some stories that are too obsec.
Some of that stuff may not have been illegal.
You know, shooting guns out at the drop zone at 2 a.m.
That probably wasn't legal.
No, probably not.
Yeah, mischief night out on Fort Benning with.
my squad leader.
Yeah.
Oh, there was a, there's one night.
Yeah, one mischief night where it was me, a squad leader, I will not name,
several privates who also will not be named, and a regimental commander who will also
not be named.
And it can be, it could be alleged.
It could be any regimental commander?
It could, any, who knows.
You know, I heard a story.
Just pick one of the many during that year.
I heard a story about how this group of rowdy rangers went and stole the regimental DUI flag off his front deck and made off with it in the night.
How dare they?
Out in that little, you know when we were soldiers once and they show that Fort Benning like officer housing complex, he allegedly lived in that area somewhere.
Somewhere.
Yeah. Somewhere in the vicinity.
Yeah.
Jack just incriminated himself.
It's past the statute of limitations.
Big Army can't get me now.
So that's about it for our year in review.
Thank you very much for everybody.
I actually, you normally, these get like 3,000.
I think we might actually give up to 5 with this one in the next two weeks.
That's impressive when it's just like us bullshitting and that.
All will be revealed.
Yeah.
My man.
Oh, man.
Ancient mysteries.
Dark secrets.
All revealed for the first time.
So, yeah, I mean, guys, one more time.
I mean, thank you everyone who supports the show and watches the show and, you know, does, you know,
spreading the word about us.
Many of you, especially the people who subscribe to our Patreon.
And it does absolutely keep the show going and makes it.
like as good as it can possibly be.
I'm really proud of what these guys have done,
what's been done with the show.
And I mean, it's, I don't know,
it's kind of incredible. And it's a thing now,
like people know about us for better or worse.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I still remember, like, our first,
our first couple months, like,
getting so excited when we got over 10 people
who watched the show.
That's crazy. And then over 100 people,
like, when we got over 100 people watched show,
I was like, oh, my God, like 100 people.
Just watch this.
It was like, you know, us sitting there getting drunk and there's like a white sheet hanging.
The craziest thing when I was a fan of the team house watching those early shows where you have this like $10,000 piece of equipment, the tricaster.
And the walls are white.
You have the drop, you know, the sound blanket and like you have a legit $10,000 piece of equipment.
You could have done it for way less to begin with.
Yeah.
We could have.
I was.
One of the two of us may have brought that up at one point in time, but I can't remember which one of us.
It was a good thing that you did do it because then I mentioned to Jack.
I'm like, you really need somebody to switch.
I was like a one-man.
I was like a one-man band like playing the drums, born in the flute.
I got a kazoo up my ass.
You know, yeah.
I remember seeing Jack just like stressing that first five, ten minutes of the show, like getting up rearranging, like camera angles and stuff.
But that's literally how I got here.
was like,
yo,
you really need
somebody
to switch
those camera
angles,
dude.
Ruben Snyder,
in the T-Mouse
calendar,
will we be able
to find
whether the
carpet matches
the drapes
with Dave?
You mean
red or bald?
Because I can
give you an answer
of both of those.
Yeah,
Dave's,
my only thing.
Dave's hairless
from the chin down.
All right.
Is that it?
Yep,
that's it.
Okay.
Thanks,
like and subscribe.
shit this went on for three hours yeah and we'll see you guys Tuesday with Pat McNamara
and then I can't even remember who we have lined up Friday don't worry about it
one step at a time Tuesday's right around the corner
bye guys thank you yep we'll see all you next time again please make sure you subscribe
to the channel like it all that good stuff Patreon link is right down below if
you want to support it
