The Team House - The Team House 2024 Year in Review

Episode Date: January 4, 2025

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Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to and we really appreciate that so go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house special operations covert ops espionage the team house with your hopes jack murphy and david park hey folks this is going to be our year in review pre-recorded episode so you guys are seeing this a few weeks after we recorded it. And we just use it, we do one of these year and reviews every year and basically just to highlight all the different guests we had over the year and maybe bring some attention to some episodes you may have missed or folks who are just sort of finding the podcast this

year in 2025 can watch this and maybe get a little idea of what they might be interested in. But overall, I mean, I don't know what you guys thought, but I don't know what you guys thought, but I was not to pat ourselves on the back, but like I thought I was very happy with all the guests we had on this year. I thought it's a really, I mean, how many episodes was it? Like 68, 66. And a good. 67. And a good mix of foreign special ops guys, CIA, Special Forces, Rangers, Marsok, Delta, some other spooky characters.

you know, New Zealand SAS, and some federal law enforcement, D-E-A, FBI, ATF, all in there this year. So it was a pretty good variety, I thought. Yeah, for sure. And that's, you know, one of the things that we really enjoy doing is highlighting all the different people throughout the community. And some journalists, one or two, and historian. Yep. So, yeah, a lot of different types of folks in there and all kinds of different life experiences. So we'll jump into it going episode by episode.

Episode 252 is our first one for 2024, Mike Halterman, who served in Marsock. That was a great interview. He's with the Honor Foundation, which they run a transition program. And the last I knew it was for special ops veterans, but they're trying to start to get it going for conventional forces as well. and it sounds like they have a really good program like I wish it was around when I got out of the military and so it sounds like they're doing really good things there. 253, Travis Sanford, after months if not years of joking about it, we got a special ops weather guy on the show. And he was really cool.

Jack's dream come true. Yeah, Jack's dream realized. It's kind of the unicorn that we had to find. But he was really cool. I mean, the dude has a bronze star for valor in Afghanistan. I mean, he was in the thick of it with the Marshaq guys. Like, that was a really, like, interesting, illuminating episode. Fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah. And it really shows you the breadth of the types of things that you can get into that people don't normally think of. You know, they're all the military jokes about pogs, you know, people other than grunts. and whatnot, but it really shows you that there are a myriad of jobs for a myriad of interests, and a lot of them do very interesting things. Absolutely. 254 was Lewis Ruta, CIA officer. Actually, one of my favorite episodes. One of my favorites of the year. Super smart guy. Lots of experience. And he's an armchair historian also reading about the Roman Empire,

every day. Yeah, he was great. I mean, there's nothing like a salty CIA officer. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't give a fuck really anymore. And you get like good sound bites. Yeah.

Not even just sound bites. The quality of the entire interview is great. I would love to have him on again, actually, because he's just such a knowledgeable dude. 255 was cause. Who's the ATF undercover dude? Cause and Frank, yeah. Yeah.

Frank was back on that episode, too. And those were the guys that were infiltrating a neo-Nazi biker gang. And, I mean, there's a lot of wild stuff in that episode. But one of them is, you know, the motorcycle gang was putting them on polygraphs to try to figure out if they were cops or not. So they had to, like, undergo training to fool the box so that they could get into this, you know, crime gang. Go check that episode out, 255. that was a really cool one uh 256 lindsay bruce sas uh he was great i i'm just like struggling because i can't believe like a year's gone by since we did that episode um but really cool guy really

put together dude and um you know talking about like the lineage of like his father being in the military and then him going into the military and his career and his service um hope you guys will go and check that one out. We had a number of SAS interviews this year. I would say he probably had the best background. Lindsay, well, I like, I like, Lindsay is the one who has a normal sort of like military family background. No, I mean his background during the show. Oh, oh, his, uh, his, uh, his music studio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking about like the actual background of the guys. Like, I noticed with most of the SAS guys, the SAS NCOs, like super blue collar dudes. Yeah. They all come from like very humble beginnings.

You know, we talked to the one dude who was poaching pheasants to survive. Yeah, I can't see there being a ton of NCOs in the SAS that are like going to like eating with like Prince Harry and stuff. Yeah, the officers, but yeah, not the NCOs. I don't think so, man. But incredible guys. 257, Dan Runyon, he was the commander on ODA 555-5, triple nickel, going. into Afghanistan, one of the, either the first or the second ODA to go into Afghanistan, depending on what we're going to argue on a given day. But that was a great episode. He was also

in the invasion of Iraq. And then I also this year invited Dan to, well, I didn't invite him. I just facilitated, but the Special Forces Association wanted someone to speak at Ground Zero at the Horse Soldier Memorial for 9-11. And Dan very graciously volunteered to come in. And he and and deliver the speech, which was great because he's one of the original guys to go in Afghanistan. That worked out really well. It's pretty wild resume. 160th.

Sade, 160th. Yeah. Yeah. And now he's like an ultramarathon runner. Yeah. Yeah. 258 was Bill Flavin, special forces officer. He's actually, I interviewed him.

for We Defy about because he was part of the Greenlight program amongst the many other things that that guy did during his career that was interesting and and you know Bill has a mind like a steel trap like I don't I probably asked like one or two questions through that whole interview was just like Bill going plowing through it it was awesome it's awesome though when people are so adamant and excited to tell their story uh 259 was Eddie Chavez Ranger one of the again first or second J-TAC and Ranger Regiment, depending on how we're going to argue it. I don't think Eddie cares who is who, but he was really cool, really good story. And Eddie runs a podcast on himself.

I can't remember the name of it offhand, but Operator Debrief. And Eddie, I think he focuses mostly on interviewing Ranger Regiment guys. So I really recommend going and checking out his channel. I think he had Greg. He had Greg Coker on is one of his first episodes. Yeah, go check out Eddie Chavez's channel. Interesting guy. Doing good stuff having all these Rangers on there.

260. Jack Devine. Legend. Yeah, CIA legend. Heavy way. Been around the block a few times. Yeah. Fascinating.

And that was just part one, right? No, that was part of. I believe. No, that was part one. Part two was way later. Yeah. Yeah, so that was part one because we couldn't, I mean, a man with a career like that, like you can't even really get into the meat of it.

And, you know, for people like that, what's really fun for me is not just their own personal history, but their breadth of knowledge and their insight into, you know, what's right with the CIA, what's wrong with the CIA. Because Jack was involved in almost every counter-suit. emergency or paramilitary operation, covert action, I guess, that the CIA took part of. Yeah, we talked in that part one.

I think we talked about Chile, and I think we covered Iran-Contra, and I think we may have gotten in Afghanistan. That may be part two. It might have been part two where we got in Afghanistan. 261, Alejandro Villanueva, our Ranger officer, also former NFL player.

and now a farmer growing, I think, exotic fruits, as I recall. Super nice guy. Yeah, super humble. Yeah, I mean, he was West Point, played football in West Point, and then was a Ranger. And then... Yeah. And then... Had a pretty significant career in the NFL.

Yeah. Well, he did, no, he actually didn't, I think, because he got in when he was older. He got into the NFL and he was like 25. Right, right, right, right. And he's from Spain, too. Yeah, yeah. He said he didn't play football to like he was 20. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, because they don't have American football in Europe. Yeah, they have that other thing. Yeah, whatever it is. Yeah, super cool guy. 262, Jay Dorlius, third special forces group dude, former team sergeant. He's the Green Beret Chronicles, right? Jay also has a podcast, Green Beret Connals.

Go check his channel out. Spicy stuff. Lots of spicy content on Jay's channel. But he was a cool guy. I hope we can get him back in the studio again sometime. Yeah, Jay's awesome. Yeah, super cool. 263 was Eyes On versus the Team House.

So it was me, Dave, Andy Milburn, and Jason Lyons. And so eyes on for anyone who hasn't been paying attention is the associated podcast with the team house Where our friends Andy and Jason cover mostly like more current events geopolitical stuff things that are going on in the news that week We also have Mick Mulroy now who's like a regular guest Heavy hitter yeah Definitely all Marines I didn't do that on purpose But it's just thoughts and prayers The best thing is is like we don't even have to pay him

we just give them crayons. Yeah, yeah. They're low maintenance. Yeah. So go subscribe to the Aizon YouTube channel if you haven't already. And if you are listening, the Aizon, if you're an audio listener, the Aizond shows come on the Teamhouse feed still, so you don't have to do anything, just keep your eye out. So 264 is, this is the interview I think I laughed the most in, Phil Campion.

That guy is a funny dude. Yeah. Yeah, Big Phil. and I mean I kind of go a little ways back with Phil We used to work together And I met him in person In

Or Bill In like 2014 Feels like so long ago What did you do with him? What'd you do? He was doing a documentary For like Channel 4

Or something like that And I was over there reporting Um Now, Phil has a podcast too Yes he does forces. Shit, I don't know. I think it's called forces.

He interviews a lot of SAS guys and British paras and etc. I'm pretty sure it's like forces or forces radio. But I'm sure if you guys type in... Force radio. Force radio.

Yeah, you can find Phil on there. I definitely recommend checking him out. Phil has an awesome sense of humor, if nothing else. 265, Dale Bendler. senior CIA officer served in El Salvador, was here in New York when 9-11 happened, involved in all kinds of interesting stuff. That was definitely one of the more unique interviews.

I believe he finished his career as Chief of Station in Paris, or Chief of Station for France, which is very rare at that time for a guy to go from like, he was a forced recon guy, then ground branch and then traditional foreign intelligence yeah yeah um so go check that interview out that's a cool one 266 jim shorten macb sog yeah that's one of the smartest guys we've interviewed i think yeah he's uh i think he might be like a mensa member or something um just a fascinating guy fascinating background and interesting service you know yeah mac b sag and also as a PJ and he was also going back to layoffs looking for MIAs like maybe 10 years ago not that long ago

that was a really fun interview and I think... And a doctor, radiologist. Yeah, that's right. And he goes meteorite hunting. I mean, just like he's like one of those Renaissance men. And I think, I can't remember if he got recommended to me by John Mayer or Bud.

but both John Mayer and Bud are doing their podcasts too. They're out there. Bud does the recon cast with a lot of Vietnam vets. Definitely, if you're interested in that, definitely worth your time. Okay, 267, Herschel Davis. That was a pretty awesome one too. It was wild. Yeah, Herschel is larger than life.

So he was a Navy SEAL Master Chief Service in Vietnam. And then I don't think they forced, he was, they forced them to retire in like 94-ish. You know, that guy would still be a SEAL today if they would have let him. That was a really cool, really unique interview. So check him out. 268. This guy was great too. Melvin, Melvin Downs, S-A-S-S-Gy.

Another, like, fascinating background. I believe his father was from Jamaica and his mother from the UK. He goes in to where did he start off in the conventional forces? I don't remember now, yeah. And then he goes to SAS selection. And oh, I think he was infantry. Yeah, but I can't remember which unit. Yeah, no, neither can I.

Some funny stories about like, you know, being a black dude in Northern Ireland. And, yeah, I mean, he was a super cool guy, super interesting guy, sharing the history of his squadron and everything. It was really cool. And Melvin had, he might be on YouTube. I see him on Instagram a lot. Yeah. So you guys should go look for him there. 269, Jeff Mann.

Yeah, fantastic. Kind of outside our normal track. I had an opportunity to meet Jeff at I think it was Shmukon one of the one of the cybersecurity conventions but yeah NSA Red Team and very very interesting stuff yeah I was really happy to see like that episode got like a lot of views yeah which I mean he deserves it but yeah 126,000 because it's a little bit offbeat for us you always like one or like, are people going to care? Are they going to watch this?

A lot of people tuned in. And it was really cool, really interesting. 270, John A Mendez, who is the chief of disguise at CIA. Yeah, John was great. Fascinating interview. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She's super cool.

Yeah. Very interesting to hear about the process and the development of the disguise, you know, capabilities and how, you know, how they may have worked with Hollywood, and how long it took them to develop, to get it right. Fully articulated faces and things like that. I think her book is in true self that came out. So go check her out.

271, Ben McKelvey, he's the journalist that wrote a book about the Australian SAS. And that was an interesting episode. There was an interesting book to say the least. And a little bit of back story on that one. Afterwards, I got like a 10-page manifesto written by some Aussie S-A-S-A-S guy. Like, basically this guy was like outraged.

And I read through the whole thing, but he didn't address the war crimes at all. Yeah. It was everything else. Yeah. It was like, you know, this guy has poor dental hygiene. He has body odor issues, you know, all this other stuff. Like, you know, that's not really what we were talking about there.

but that was interesting. I definitely recommend you guys go and read his book. Yeah, and you know, those are like, obviously, from a personal standpoint, I have some disagreements with him

on some of his, like, ideas, and it's always interesting to, you know, like, what constitutes a war crime. And, and also, like, talking about the challenges of operating in those environments and what separate,

what separates it all. And it's always good. It's like when we had the gentleman who, you know, was the attorney for at Gitmo. Yeah. You know, it's always good to get the other side and their views on things. Yeah, no, I mean, for sure.

And I mean, that stuff is still working its way through the Australian court systems too. 272, Rick Kaiser, who's a seal, a dev group guy. Yeah. Another dude, he would probably be a SEAL forever if they would have let him. Super interesting guy. I think, does he have a book out on leadership, if I recall correctly?

Yeah, Frogman Stories, Leadership Lessons. So go check out that episode with Rick. It's very, like, if you want to hear about like the early days of SEAL Team 6 and stuff, and even the latter part, I mean, it's an interesting interview. Shout out to Rick for that episode. because his father passed away like literally like hours before. I think he still showed up. Yeah.

I think his dad was in the hospital. Yeah. And his father passed away like that night. Yeah. I felt bad about that. But yes, we do appreciate, you know, Rick going an extra mile there, man. I'm sorry to hear about your dad. 273.

Another episode that is like outside the norm, but fantastic. Brian Baker. he was a B-1B Wizzo I think it's a weapon systems officer So I met him at Where did I meet him? We met him in our Christmas party last year

Yeah He's over in the He belongs in the same American Legion I do I think And that was an interesting story He was flying Bomber missions against ISIS Doing bomber runs in Syria Like that was a yeah again

an interesting perspective I never would have heard before. Yeah. They were flying out of like the UAE or something? Yeah, the one thing that stood out with there was like when they thought like a couple migs or two 35s were after them. Yeah. Like Russian jets and, you know, sounded pretty crazy, pretty airy. Yeah, they had some close calls and they were dropping like beyond danger close because

it was like the Kurds were going to get like overrun and like they're going to be dead either way at this point, you know, so they were dropping so close. Yeah, for a totally different perspective. Yeah, 273 with Brian Baker. 274 was Eric Veles service in the FBI. He ran, I believe it was called the Directorate of Intelligence, which like coordinates the training and stuff like that for the FBI. But he also was a normal FBI special agent.

And I mean, yeah, I remember one of his stories. was about a little girl getting kidnapped, which was pretty horrible. Yeah. Another, but there are some entertaining stories where after the FBI, he became the chief of security for Disney. And that was a 24-7 job. Yeah. Literally because there's Disney's in like America, France, and there's one in Japan, I think.

I think so, yeah. Yeah. So just as one's closing down, the other one is opening. So yeah, go check out that one with Eric Veles. He was cool. 275. Dante Paradiso, who I swore to God, he was giving me a fake name. Yeah, me, I thought for sure.

Dante's Paradise, right. I'm like, dude, do I really have to call you this? Yeah. I mean, it's better than Dante's Inferno, but, you know. But, you know, yeah. But no, that's it. Apparently that's his legal name. So Dante was a Department of State Foreign Service officer.

Really good guy. He wrote the book we have up here, the embassy. and he was present for like some of the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in the late 1990s, almost got blown up there. I think he might have been around for one of the embassy evacuations, like Liberia. Yes. And then we talked a lot. He had to do with the- The Doha Accords.

Right. And, you know, this is an episode, honestly, that I am surprised does not have more views. because it is such a fascinating insider's view on the Doha Accords and really how, you know, it's not, it's really not what a lot of people think it is. And I really wish more people would, you know, watch that episode and see what was actually going on

inside those negotiations. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it definitely gives you, like, a perspective that you, you know, I think I told them at the time, I'm like, you're not going to get it from like the soldiers necessarily. Yeah, unless there were like jags or something that were assigned to that. 276 was our self-censored video with Adam Gamal. He's sitting right here and he has a big black box over the top half of his body.

That was a really cool interview, though. He was great. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely another colorful character, immigrant from me. Egypt and then served in, you know, Army Special Operations, doing all kinds of interesting stuff in the Middle East and in Africa. That was definitely one of our better episodes, I think, over the last year.

He's got a book to the unit. The unit. Yep, yeah. It's good, too. Go check it out. 277 was when we had Jack Devine back on for the second time. If we didn't talk about it in the first interview, we for sure in the second one talked about the covert action program in Afghanistan.

And I know we talked about Russia too. Yeah. So here's a little interesting Fubar moment for us. As I was going through all of this, I noticed that we have two episodes labeled 277. Are you kidding me? I'm totally serious. And it's my fault. The reason why that happened was because we have one episode that I did pre-recorded.

and we uploaded. And so it's a little bit out of the, out of the normal sequence of events. And that's why it got, it's Mike Adams. Yeah. So, yeah, talk about that for a moment. The other episode 277 with Sergeant Major Mike Adams,

please go take a look at that interview. He was a 10th group guy. I think he was also first group. He was on the green light teams. He was doing all kinds of spooky stuff. Over the summer, Mike passed away. You know, in that interview, you know, it's important to his family. Mike's also in We Defy.

So I'm going to miss the guy. I mean, he's a grumpy sergeant major, but had a big heart. And I'm sorry that we don't get to talk anymore. I'll miss him. He fought cancer for a long time. 278 was Matt Stevens. Hold on. So you're telling me that episode 300 wasn't actually episode 300 or it was?

Because Sergeant Major Adams's was after the 300th, I believe. It doesn't matter. It's just my own thing. Just leave it alone. Just leave it alone, Demetri. Just leave it alone. I will go in there and I'll relabel it like episode 277A and B, you know? 277.5.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So 278 was Matt Stevens. He was, he commanded Red Squamines. And then was the special boat team, is Gray Squadron? Yeah. Yeah. So he led both of those elements. Super cool guy, great stories.

And he is also with the Honor Foundation. Mike Halterman introduced us to Nat Stevens. And that's how that came about. He was cool. Oh, this guy was interesting, too. Dan McClinton, episode 279, was a Apache pilot. You found that dude, Dave. I mean, he had cool stories from all sorts of different time frames.

Yeah. Yeah, no, he, you know, I think, yeah, I mean, hearing about, like, the Apache pilots, and again, that's, you know, getting guys on here like that, and Greg and other people who are sort of doing these kind of cool jobs that you really don't hear about that often. And, man, they laid some scunnion, you know, they definitely, you know, all the assault helicopter guys and, you know, a lot of the, the pilots.

280. Robert Young Peltin, journalist. A guy that was influential in both Jacks and mine kind of coming up. Yeah. You know, the world's most dangerous places.

And yeah. And Peltin is working also on his own documentary podcast series, but which I believe still has not seen the light of day. but keep your eyes peeled for that. I'm sure he has interesting people coming. 281. Our spiciest episode of the year?

Yes, definitely the spiciest, most controversial episode of the year. Yeah. Yeah, Eric Deming, former Steel Team 6 guy. Or Seale or Second? Just use a convention. Convention. Sorry about that. Yeah, former conventional. And Hart had dogs.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and had, you know, had a few things to say about a few things. Yeah. I mean, I knew it was going to be spicy. I didn't know it was going to be that spicy. He dropped like a fucking nuclear bob that he hadn't told anybody else in the other

podcast about it. I was like, oh, my God. Jocko smoking a source once he got off a helicopter. So that was, yes, that was pretty shocking. Most shocking moment in Team House history. Yeah, no, it was good. I remember you got. your face, Jack, because we're on this side.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Side of the aquarium, so you were like, wait, so you're saying he got an awful helicopter and smoked his sources, he smoked the first brown guy he saw him and it was a source. Still no defamation lawsuit or anything.

Not that I've heard of. 282 was Pat O'Donnell, who wrote the book about basically special operations during the Civil War. Yeah. What was the book called? The End Vanquished.

Yeah. And I mean, the book, if you, I am not a huge history book reader outside the show, but the book reads like a novel. You know, it's a lot of firsthand accounts of, you know, a lot of the Rangers and Raiders and, you know, these kind of like small elite units. And it was just fantastic. The Lincoln assassination. And the link, oh, boy.

Yeah, I mean, there's some wild stuff in there, you know, that the Lincoln assassination was actually a plot that was attempting to decapitate the union by taking out Lincoln, like, the three heads of the union at the time. Yeah. So, yeah, fantastic. You know, Lincoln was killed another, I can't remember who the other one was, but like the assailant. got into the house and scab. Yeah, yeah. I think it was the secretary. Yeah, sewered.

Yeah. And then the third guy, I think, chickened out or something. But the Secret Service was able to, like, track down their safe house. Yeah. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. It didn't work, Confederate. Sorry.

We're still here. I met Pat at the OSS Society dinner this year. And he is working hard at work on very, very old. project. So we'll see Pat on the show. Oh, yeah. He's one of our favorite historians, for sure. 283. I really like this episode with Bill Haynes, Special Forces Sergeant Major. Some cool stories about being like a SIF guy

in the Balkans going after war criminals back in the day. But, I mean, I think the big takeaway from that interview was actually like some leadership lessons about coaching, teaching, mentoring soldiers. What lines you should not cross. Right. Yeah. But, I mean, seriously, I mean, that was a really good episode.

Enjoyed that conversation. 284 was another fairly off-the-wall episode with Dan Corbett. Navy SEAL turned mercenary doing Merk jobs over in the Middle East in Yemen. And then he went to Serbia and he got bawled up there and was in Serbian prison. And they were charging him with plotting to assassinate the Serbian president. Which actually gave him massive street cred in prison where everybody was giving him the fist bump, you know, like, hey. That his, you should read his book if you haven't. Like, it's pretty wild stuff.

Pretty heady stuff, guys. American mercy. Yeah. 285, this is a more subdued episode. Sidney Mulder and William Negley. Sydney is the widow of Bill Mulder, who is a SEAL Team 6 operator, and William is her half-brother. And William now runs and works with Sydney to sound off. Yeah.

Sound off is an app that, so one of the major considerations that people have is losing their clearance or take, you know, when it comes to, seeking counseling or, you know, reaching out for help is losing their clearance and losing the ability to do their job. So they started this app that partners all these charitable foundations from a number of different organizations with SoundOff. And Soundoff finds these therapists in different states. And so people are able to anonymously join SoundOff. Soundoff, just, you know, go to and use whatever organization, whatever, you know, charitable organization foundation, to fund, you know, anonymous therapy, essentially. Yeah, so go check out Sound Off or recommend it to people.

Keep it in mind. 286. Andy Milburn, I don't think I was here for that one. You guys were discussing Libya. Yeah. Andy's got a vignette in his book. when the tempest gathers about him being an absolute maniac and going to Libya to evacuated an American family.

Yeah. And posing as a British guy. When he was, when basically they told them no Americans can go in. And so Andy kind of sua spontes and jumps on a bird to go get them. Yeah, and there was like a big standoff kind of on the tarmac and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it was Italians. him out right yeah yeah yeah finally they've done something right uh 287 david fielding uh spooky inscom

guy uh special forces before that uh our most viewed episode this year um and it's a hell of a good story no doubt about that um so probably all of you guys have watched that one all of a good title too i could finally use the fucking words good uh yeah good um Yeah. I mean, once you put Task Force Orange into a fucking title, no matter what it is, it's like, all right, this is Katnett. We'll just start putting them in the hole. And just every fucking one, yeah. 288, Dave Nielsen, Delta Force operator and dog handler. Again, another guy who had a wild, wild story.

He was part of that generation of guys like they really got put through it. Yeah. Yeah. Constant, ops. Yeah, nonstop. And losing his dog. Yeah. That was terrible. Yeah. But it is a great interview, and I hope you guys will go and check it out.

It's meaningful. 289 was an old teammate, old guy I went through the Q-course with back in the day, Alan Shibaro. He was on the SIF in third group and is a huge jiu-jitsu guy, martial artist. Super interesting background. Actually, I learned a lot in that interview. He had like way more army experience than I knew at the time when we were serving together. He did a lot. So probably like half of the episode though we're talking about his trip to Palestine,

which got the hackles up on some people. Yeah, I had one person write in and say that the interview made him feel unsafe. I like, okay, man. You know, we pissed people off with that one. And then there's another one where we had a pro-Israel woman on Eyes On. and I got a nasty gram about her too. Patreon.com slash the team house. But somebody's like when people leave our Patreon

they give exit interviews, like why they left. For the most part, it's everybody saying like, you know, can't afford it anymore or whatever. There's like an option for that. And then one person's like about that eyes on one. I'm not paying for some Zionist to tell me what, like, oh my God, man. Relax, like we hear everybody's. Can't save them all, Hassel Hoff.

Yeah, we hear everybody's, you know. side like um 290 chuck simpson uh s f and cia contractor um it's seventh special forces group dude um awesome career he was all over the place tours in afghanistan um so go check it out if you haven't already 291 uh it was another a former teammate of mine he was i think we went through rip together and he was definitely in my company in Ranger Battalion, Mike Chavory. Mike went on to do awesome things after he left our company, became a sergeant major, went and worked at the J-Soc Joint Medical Augmentation Unit, I believe it's called. He was on, again, stuff I didn't know about him.

He got shot on a deployment in Afghanistan. I mean, he had a very interesting career. Yeah. And yeah, coming up in 2025, another medic that I served with in Ranger Battalion were going to have on the show. I'm excited to catch up with him. 292, Ed Bogan, senior CIA, a lot of work in Ukraine, a lot of work countering Russia. That was another one of the more informative, I guess, educational interviews that we did throughout the year. Yeah.

It was really good. Shout out to Mark Polymeropolis for Hoconado. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I ran into Ed at the OSS dinner also, and I was making fun of Mark Palmeropolis. Yeah, perfect. Whenever you're in down, you need an icebreaker, just make fun of Mark Polymopolis.

It's just Greeks in general. Uh, 293. Simon Leak, S-A-S interviewing him from the tracking. Is it their jungle warfare score? specifically their tracking school in Brunei. He was in there with all the memorabilia in the background. That was super cool. He has a great background.

He was, you know, the dude that was hunting pheasants. He was a poacher, I believe, in his youth. But just to eat. And then an awesome career in the SAS, and he continues to work with them. So go check out 293. 294. Okay, maybe this one. takes the cake for the most off the wall episode.

Mike West served in the Rhodesian White Infantry, the Rhodesian S-A-S, and then the South African Reckies. And, man, there's a guy who likes to fight. Yeah. Yeah. He's all about it. I mean, he's one of those, like, warriors that just doesn't... His book is right there. Mike West, Special Forces Super Soldier.

That's not hyperbole. Go check out that episode You'll see what we're talking about 2.95 Another real, real awesome guy. John Daly is Marsok NCO. Not related to Dan Daley.

As we clarify. Yeah, he was really cool. He has a book out that I read for the episode. It was, do we have the title on there? Okay. But you guys can go and find it on on Amazon is no oh tough rugged bastards is the book um and he did he served in Iraq um he was in some

pretty dicey places um in Iraq and um I hope you go check that interview out 296 was Joe Musia who himself is a former Marine but the conversation in that episode is about the invasion of Grenada in 1983 from a ranger's perspective, or the ranger perspective. He wrote a book called Cry Havoc, where he interviewed all of these rangers and put it all together and told a pretty complete story. Yeah. From the call, you know, that when they get alerted to the planning process, which sounds fairly abbreviated, and then suddenly they're jumping into Grenada.

And there's some wild combat. there's like an armor engagement where like they engaged armor with recoil his rifles crazy stuff I didn't even know of yeah um so I highly recommend that book um if you haven't picked it up yet uh and uh if you want to go watch the interview it's a pretty good preview i mean we talked about a lot in an hour and a half sorry guys my voice is starting to crack a little bit 297 was Eric O'Neill. He was with the FBI, FBI agent. He was one of, I think they, he used the term ghosts.

They're sort of like their version of Knox. They don't wear, you know, they don't go to like the academy. They're like unknown and they do like surveillance operations around. And but the bulk of that conversation was discussing the Robert Hanson case. And he was the guy, like if you saw the movie, he was the younger FBI agent who had to like steal the cell phone and have this stuff put on it and then bring it back and all of that. So that's a super illuminating episode. You guys will really get a kick out of that one.

298, Dome Brown, author of Black People Can't Swim, which is a little tongue in cheek. He's a former combat diver in special forces. Really good guy, really nice guy. Great book, too. Great book. I highly recommend this book. Because the book itself is, you know, it's his story of wanting to become a, you know, special forces and a combat diver. And not only his relationship with water is swimming, but a historical view on the black community and their relationship with water and swimming, you know, and why, you know, quote unquote, black people can't swim. Very, very fascinating interview and great guy. 299, this one was you, Dave, Uriah Pop. Yep.

So Uriah was, he was a medic and special missions unit in a special missions unit. I mean, he had an incredible career, both special operations-wise and conventional. And, you know, now he's into his own medical technology company and things like that. But he's one of those guys that, again, shows you that you can do really, really cool stuff, really amazing stuff. And that was five hours and 17 minutes. So this is what happens when Jack isn't here. D sits back there and suffers. Yeah, it was touching golf for a while for me.

And I just run off the rails, you know, because like the medical field. fascinates me. But no, I highly recommend your eye as episode to see like different sides of the military and different sides of special operations. And then comes our big episode 300. Well, it was big for us. I don't know if anyone else really cared. But episode 300, we had a few friends over and we played a Dungeons and Dragons game. And it was a lot of fun. And we'll probably when episode 400 rolls around, we'll do something else that's goofy like that. But I had a good time and it was only four hours or so less than the what was the other one like oh my god 15 hours and i think the only 12 hours of it is on youtube because it got cut off yeah the restart a stream

after 12 hours but this one is a little more manageable it's it's like you know three hours and 49 minutes uh 301 episode 301 Jamie penel served in the new zealand special air service he is one of the guys in that fairly famous picture of the New Zealand SAS guys in Afghanistan you should go check out that interview because it's a very unique perspective from you know we don't get to hear from too many of these guys so it's really cool to hear about his country's special ops service and he also we talked a lot about their timing Kabul and a pretty significant firefight. They got in when the, when the Taliban, it was a hotel. Yeah, when the Taliban came and took it over or tried to. And they got into a really hellacious firefight.

302, Pat Wendiger, senior CIA officer. This is one of my faves, too. One of my favorites also. You know, Pat is, you know, I used to talk to his dad on the phone once in a while, George Winniger, who I'm sorry we don't have a recorded interview on the team house with George. He was Special Forces Legend, lots of time. He served in Vietnam also served all over Latin America, even with other friends of mine. And then his son, Pat, served in the Army and then made the jump over to the CIA and did some really important work at the agency, some of which we were able to touch upon in the interview. Yeah. And he told a great story about extracting his source in Iraq.

Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic story. Very, I mean, like Hollywood, you know, film type stuff. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, yeah. Episode 303 was Chris Cappy.

He is a former infantryman. He had some awesome stories. And he is also the dude that does videos for the Task and Purpose YouTube channel. Yeah. He's a big YouTuber, big star. Yeah. He's a great guy, too. Yeah, cool dude.

And then 304 was Justin Juarez, who was fifth special forces group. And again, cool story, man, about, like, there's some leadership lessons in there. There's some good combat stories. And then there's just Justin's, like, completely eccentric hobbies. The guy wanted to learn how to build an airplane. So he bought a library, a little library, full of aeronautics and airframe and construction and everything else and learn how to build an airplane. It's like, oh, it's no big deal.

You can teach yourself to do this. And they're currently building an airplane right now for their aviation company, and they have a great company that sponsors our podcast. Yeah, KRG. KRG, KRG, Ketic, Ketic Research Group. Bingo, kineticresearch group.com. So they're great dudes. Yeah, go check out the interview with Justin.

He was a lot of fun. 305, David McCloskey, on the show for the second time, talking about his new novel, The Seventh-Four. David was a CIA analyst, and now he writes spy thrillers. And I read all three of them. I definitely suggest you guys go and check them out. I only read Moscow X, and it's fucking awesome. Yeah.

Moscow X probably is my favorite. Yeah. He's got a new podcast, too, called The Rest is Classified. That's like doing really great. It's like on audio. Check that out. Cool. Okay, last page.

This show. is the show that I think should have gotten more views and it didn't and I'm upset about that so you guys should go check it out. I agree. Chris Feistel who was a DEA agent and he was involved in breaking up the Kali cartel down in Columbia. That was a really, really interesting episode. And yeah, I don't know why it really didn't get the attention that it probably should have. But if you're hearing about it for the first time, go and check it out. Yeah, and he's actually depicted in the Netflix show Narcos is one of the DEA agents. 307, Jack Barski, who was KGB illegal, so to speak.

A sleeper agent, as the popular vernacular would say, which was a really fascinating story. How he got recruited. Yes. In what was in East Germany, right? East Germany, yeah. And then came over here and was, basically a low-level intelligence officer for the KGB.

With the intent to basically working his way up in society and through contacts. Sort of like, you know, do you remember like the Schindler's list? Like he starts out in the bars and hanging out with like the low-level guys and then starts working his way up. Almost in that way was sort of his, you know, a scientist. It's interesting. I believe there was a Czech, a Czech national who is also, had that kind of job in the United States. And, you know, a similar story, like these guys, the problem with having a long-term sleeper agent, the guys get married, their wife is American, their kids are American.

And they become more American than Russian, you know. Yeah. That's probably why they end up sticking around. I think the Chinese do it right, like where they attach their operatives to political campaigns early on and get that funding and things like that. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, there's a whole interesting thing there. I mean, the Chinese are, they do get ideological recruitment.

Yeah, exactly. We don't get very many of those. Yeah. And they go heavily after ethnically Chinese people. Yeah. And their government has this attitude of like anyone who is ethnically Chinese are people. Yeah, and if you have family back in China, you are at the mercy of the Chinese government.

Pretty much. 308 Qia he was a para in the UK military that was a really fun episode he does a podcast too interviewing UK military veterans

definitely check his interview out 309 was John Kiriaku another controversial episode perhaps for some controversial for some he was I got a lot of shit for that

I got a lot of shit when I just asked, hey, what do you think of this person? I got a lot of shit. A lot of guilt. Guilt. The CIA people like to guilt you. Former CIA people. You can't shame the shameless.

But no, I had no problem with his episode, and I thought it was a good conversation. John was a CIA officer who served in Greece. Some really interesting stories about, what is it, 17 November? and then as he got out of the agency he became a whistleblower of sorts and ended up having to do some prison time so go go check out that episode and you can hear it straight from John rather than really good yeah it's worth your time uh 310 Gene you on the show the most interesting man on earth for the second time yeah his second

episode on the team house and his episode the second shot or I'm sorry that his book is called the second shot um please go and take a look at that it's about uh when he was out of special forces and he was a civilian he helped repatriate a Taiwanese woman who had been kidnapped in the philippines yeah and have her brought home fantastic it's a wild story it's a great story and jean is just like an amazing dude yeah uh 311 this was you guys Jim Cisco. Yeah, so, yeah, Jim, you know, very, very interesting story with him and his expertise in Afghanistan, a lot of the opposite he was running there.

His sort of insight into, you know, a lot of what was going on. What did you think, Dee? Yeah, he had a really good perspective because he was, like, attached to he was a liaison to Karzai. Yeah. For a while. So he had a lot of that inside baseball. Yeah. Like he was very close to Karzai.

Yeah, Cars I liked him. Yeah. Yeah. 312, Craig Jorgensen, who was a Whirp in Vietnam. Awesome, awesome episode. Awesome guy. Great writer. Oh, Dave, actually, I brought that book in for you.

He sent his Civil War book. Oh, excellent. Fantastic, man. And so he also is writing a series. I think it's the first one is called Chasing Romeo, and it's a series about Lerps in Vietnam. Vietnam that I'm really enjoying. So go check out that interview.

You'll love it. Yeah, it was really good. And it didn't get demonetized. Because all of our other LERF episodes for some reason got demonetized. Because those salty Vietnam veterans have choice words, maybe. I don't know. 313, this was another episode that I wish got more attention. Yeah, me too.

It doesn't make any sense to me on it. Yeah. Kuchal Limbu, he served in the Gurkhas. A very unique, colorful. historical unit, the Nepali soldiers that serve for the British government. Please go check that episode out, man. And Kuchel had an interesting, I mean, a wild story. He lost both of his legs in Afghanistan during an IED blast.

And he got prosthetic legs and now he's involved in athletics. He's, you know, he participated in like the Paralympics, the Invictus games. And yeah, yeah, and he's a big goal. for now. So please go check that episode out. 314. All right, I admit I am partial to the Ranger interviews. David Waterhouse. Fantastic interview. That, that dude has a pretty wild story. Pretty credible, too. He served four years, a little bit more than four years. Had six deployments. Yeah, that's nuts. Again, it's that generation of guys that got put through it. And he did a documentary, too, that you guys can go check out.

It's on Amazon Prime called Ranger. Yeah. 315 was the We Defy episode. Yeah, so we interviewed kind of an unknown author. Cappy came in to help with that interview. Or Chris Cappy came in to help with that interview. And, you know, we had none other than Jack Murphy sitting in the hot seat to interview him about his book. Renowned author.

And how did you feel the interview, went you? Oh, really well. I thought it was the best one I've done for the book so far. So you would recommend the team house too? I would recommend the team house interview to the team house viewers. Yes, I would. Yeah. Yeah.

And I should say thank you guys, all of you who supported the book and went out and got it. I really appreciate it. The book's doing well and it's getting out there. And apparently it's generating some really positive conversations out there with folks. So I'm really proud to be able to put this out there for the guys. 316 was Frank and Dr. Reno. They are basically, I mean, Frank is a, is an Air Force officer, but they're both academics. Yeah.

And they both go around the world and they study America's different security partnerships that we have around the world saying which ones are going right, which ones are going wrong. Why? And why, yeah. It's a very, very good conversation. It has 5,000 views, which is just. So, yeah. If you want a really deep dive on like America's current security relationship with Ukraine and what's going on over there,

Dr. Reno literally like got off a plane the day prior from Ukraine. Yeah. And then is sitting here telling us what he saw. So if you're looking for more information about that topic, you should definitely check that episode out. I'm going to change the title to Deadliest TFO missions. Yeah, yeah. Oh, or just put not Task Force Orange. Yeah, right, right.

But it'll still come up in, or outside. side of Task Force Orange. And then our 317 Wade Ishimoto Legend. Delta Force intelligence officer, one of the original members of Delta Force. He's an interview that, I honestly, he's one of those guys. I would have told you

we'll never get that guy. Yeah. You'll never see him on the show. Yeah. You're welcome. Hey, through his publisher, right? To me. No, well, to me, because I made it happen. Yeah. Yes, you did. I just sent an email. Good work. Thank you.

Well, okay, so Wade published a memoir this year. It came out maybe like a month ago called the Intoku Code. I read through it for the show. I learned things. Actually, a lot of the stuff that is in We Defy, like green light, blue light, the origins of Delta Force, Wade was boots on the ground for a lot of that stuff. Like, he was the guy that was actually there. And if I had his book when I wrote mine, I would have referenced. referenced it in certain parts, you know. And if I ever do an update to this, I will. The craziest thing about Blue Light and Delta was like how those guys were like, who had served together at Vietnam, some of them were like, fuck you. Yeah, I'm not, we're not cool anymore. Yeah, it's sad, man.

It's sad, yeah. But Wade was amazing. We just kind of scratched the surface in that interview. Go pick up his book and you'll get the rest of it. then 318 is Andrew Bragg 82nd Airborne so we got a level with you guys the way you're seeing these episodes is not you know this is pre-recorded right after we finished recording this episode we are going to do the interview with Andrew Bragg so we haven't actually done done the interview yet was incredible it's going to be awesome yeah it's going to be

awesome folks I'll tell you he has a book out about his combat deployments So we're excited to do this interview with Andrew. And then 319 is another pre-recorded episode, but we've already recorded it so we can say we know what's in it. Jason Davis was a Ranger officer and then in the asymmetrical warfare group. Yeah, really, really interesting deep dive on AWG that a lot of people have a surface, myself included, have a surface level awareness of. but don't really know like the deep story, how it started and, you know, and, you know, it's sort of function. Do you guys want a little teaser of like what's coming in 2025? I do.

I will, I'll throw a few out there. Let me pull it up here on our schedule. All right. So we are currently, we're recording this in December, December 20th. and we are currently scheduled into March of 2025. So we're pretty far ahead of the game here. Okay. So starting in January, our first episode in the new year is going to be with a guy who was apparently like a bona fide member of Al-Qaeda and a CIA asset that was trying to infiltrate them.

and now he like drives cabs in Staten Island. There's a documentary about him I watched. It's wild. It's a wild, wild story. And we should have him in studio. That'll be very cool. Then we have a couple CIA officers. We have a military intelligence officer.

I'll just say a special operations officer. Tom Gaines, the author of Quantum Dagger. I brought that up a couple times on the show. Daryl Ute or Ute, I apologize if I'm mispronouncing your name. A 10th group guy will have him on the show. My medic buddy from 375, a CST, another dude who worked for the NSA, another SF guy, but he wrote a book and republished or maybe published for the first time a memoir from an OSS guy. So that'll be really interesting to talk to him.

then John Letcher, who wrote a book about the Wagner group, are going to have him. And then a S-A-S-M-I-5 guy is going to be on the show. So that's the gist of what we have coming up in 2025. Guys, let me just explain something. There is no podcast on earth that gets the guests we get. I need you to understand that. Forget Sean Ryan.

Forget, forget. God bless him, Andy Stumpf, and the rest of them. We are the only place to go for this type of podcast. Nobody, and I repeat, nobody gets these guests that we get. Thank you. There are definitely some very unique interviews that I'm really proud that we're able to help bring them to the forefront and get them out there. What else? Do we have announcements, Dee?

Do we want to tell them about? So we're going to be We're going to come out with a small like Channel update video probably in the new year at some point But we'll like We'll loosen it up. We'll lube you up before We're going to be switching a little bit of how we do things I mean you're still going to get the best goddamn podcast

In the history of the world maybe Top five at least We're we do the shows live We always do the shows live for the most part Besides these Christmas ones we're going to continue to do the shows live, but the only difference will be our Patreon members will be able to access to live episodes.

And we will be premiering the episodes a couple days later on the YouTube channel, free to everybody. So if you want to be part of the conversation and watch the shows live and comment and ask questions to the guests, you will have to be a Patreon member, and that's patreon.com slash the team house,

where you don't only just get the team house episodes ad free and live now. You also get eyes on episodes ad free. And you have been if you were already your Patreon members. So there's two podcasts for the price of one. I mean, I don't know a deal in the world that's like this. Thank you to all the Patreon subscribers out there. You guys keep this engine going.

And we really appreciate it. And we will not screw our Patreon subscribers. We're not going to take anything away from you guys. But we are going to deprioritize the, like, YouTube is kind of... Yeah, YouTube's not helping us at all, to be frank. The podcast edition of the show is doing great. But, yeah, YouTube is not the priority anymore. Yeah, so, I mean, if you want to get in on the convo during the live episodes,

and if you're a patron and you're watching the show's live, you don't have to put up a super chat anymore. Like, you could just ask a question in the chat and we'll ask it. Yep, yep. as long as it's like, you know, appropriate. Also, we are setting up a new website for merch and stuff like that because the merch people that we've been using are horrific. Excited to get, like, these next two weeks is what,

that's what I'm really going to be working on. We have patches coming out with our logo, stickers coming out with our logo. If you see between Jack and Dave right now on the cigar humidor, yeah, there's a sticker and there's a patch. These are the stickers. Yeah, so look out for that website. That's another way to help support the show.

We're flirting with the idea that if you do become a Patreon member, you will get sent to patch as a thank you. That's most likely going to happen to, and it's going to be me fulfilling them, baby. So I'm going to write you secret love letters when you join our Patreon. So, yeah. You're going to kiss it with a lipstick on it. You better believe it, baby. Yeah, put my perfume on it. Exco.

Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, it's still the same show. Shows will be on Fridays at 8 o'clock, but they'll be premiering, not live. Right. So if you want to join the conversation again, I know I'm shameless with my plugging, but the Patreon really is the lifeblood of this show, and we really appreciate everybody who supports the show. Yeah.

Patreon.com slash your team house. We got to go and run and interview Andrew Bragg in just a couple minutes here. So we're going to call it a year-in review right there. Thank you again, everyone who joined us and has been with us this year. And we're really looking forward to what comes in 2025. So we'll see you then.