Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 598 | Phil Is Shocked to Learn What Has Happened in Afghanistan & the Root of Scandal

Episode Date: December 14, 2022

Phil and Jase can't believe the stories that Chad Robichaux has to share. Chad is a former Force Recon Marine and defense contractor with eight deployments to Afghanistan as part of a Joint Special Operations Command Task Force. He has saved many lives and now fights for souls through the Mighty Oaks Foundation. Phil and Al talk about the power of a praying woman and the white boots that mark a person with the fisherman bloodline in Louisiana. And Jase discusses the root of scandal and what it has to do with taking offense. The Blind hits theaters in 2023. Get updates, trailers, behind-the-scenes moments, and special opportunities here: https://theblindmovie.com - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? So welcome back to Unashamed podcasts. We got Zach this time. Hopefully, Zach, we've got you for the whole podcast. We'll see. You're like a mist. You just fade in and fade out.

We never know. We had a little error on the last one. I had a little piece of hardware. So I can show it here. You can kind of see it. But it's plugged in. Phil may know what that is. So it was $68 is what it cost.

That's called $68? $68. So it wasn't working. I did all the troubleshooting, did everything, couldn't log in. It was one little piece of equipment. Went to Best Buy. I said, I need one of these. I didn't know what it was called.

I need one of these. And the guy took me back to the counter and he said, we have one that's like it, but it's the one we have is $119. when you have a $60 something once. I bought the other, I had to have one. So I got it, drove back, plugged it in,

and I was just going to log in to kind of watch you guys at the rest of the podcast in overtime. And as soon as the thing pops up, it's like, I'm like the just of my equipment. Oh, look who showed up finally. Well,

I don't like being creeped upon. I mean, if you're going to come in and look over my shoulder, I'm going to call you out on it, you know? I don't like people sneaking up behind me and just observing. Declare yourself, man.

Just try what I've been doing for about the last 30 years. Just don't fool with any of that. Phil, you've been trying that for 70. How old are you? 76. I'm computer free. Computer free zone. But you got people there.

He does have people, but, you know, hey, it's fine. Well, look. I don't have a cell phone. I wouldn't have one, but I'm glad other people do. they wouldn't be hearing what we're saying right now. Yeah, you've come a long way, Phil. So we appreciate that. Well, this is, speaking of dinosaur activity,

I've had this Bible for seven or eight years, and it's falling apart. There's been several listeners try to attempt to find this exact print. Because if you hadn't figured this out, but how many episodes have we done now? Almost 600 episodes, my brain functions a little different, than the average human.

That could be good or bad. But I don't, I can't keep up with numbers, but I know where everything is on the page. That's right. You said you're kind of like that. Like if you say John 11, I immediately get an image of the page. If you give me another Bible,

I couldn't be near as quick because with the verses, I want them at the same place. I'm the same way. So, and there's been several attempts, but somewhere. I just got this, they pulled it off. This is a brand new.

Everything's on the same. That was mighty nice of them. I actually put a real nice leather cover. They did this for a pitcher. That'd give you a few more years on it, Jay. I'm sure that'll show up somewhere on the internet saying, hey, check this out. But I thought it was a good track.

You gave them a picture of you with the Bible in exchange for the Bible. I did. So the ramifications of that. I don't know, but I'm real happy right now. Whoever did that? We thank him. Yeah, I think you. Man, you did it.

I mean, they went the second mile with the leather cover. So I'm going to retire this. Oh, we're watching this in real time. This is the retirement. This is kind of a moment here because like most of the New Testament is no longer connected. And I knew I had a problem the last event I gave because I couldn't find Colossians. And it was, I had stuck it in the back. back here and I'm up there and I'm like, you know, trust me, it's in here.

But, you know, when someone says, trust me, it's in here somewhere, that's usually a bad sign. That's true. But Jason, it kind of defeats your theory of knowing where it is on the page when you can't find the page. You need the page, I need the page and I need the same print. And so I'm really happy. This is the best Christmas present I've gotten this year. It's the first one because we're getting pretty close to Christmas out here. Well, and I'll just go ahead and say it because we get asked this.

I don't know how many times, Zach, we've been asked. It's a we use, it's a 1984 NIV because they had different years where they came in and they, you know, add to it or whatever, do it in a little bit different ways. We all kind of grew up, or at least dad, Jason, we kind of went through our Bible. study and training with the NIV, 1984, and it was a Thompson Chain reference. And it's a great study Bible. I mean, we love, but there's a lot of good study Bibles out there. But people are always asked us what we use.

So that's it. Now, Zach, what do you use? Use something different. Yeah, I use the NASB and ESV. There was a lot of letters. That was way too many letters for a new American standard Bible version. and then the English standard version. Oh, so you use two different ones.

Yeah, I like to use two. But I did grow up on the same Bible you guys did. So sometimes when I'm preaching, I'll start quoting scripture. I tend to go back to that NIV 84 in my mind. What I'll do, especially if something's controversial, I will look and you can do this on a computer fail, which is kind of crazy. You can bring up all the translations of all the Bibles on one list in five seconds.

And then you can always go to the Greek. And that was one thing I did learn with Al 30 years ago when we went through school. I just learned how to take the tools and look at the original Greek language to English, which is, you know, it's not that hard really once you have the right tools to do. Helpful. Yeah, and that's, by the way, you guys out there studying, because I know you're following along with this, like Jay said, it's pretty easy if you get the right app or the right website to just, you can just single out a word and you can find out what it meant in the original Greek. I will say this, because we get asked a lot about translations. And the King James, of course, is a really old translation.

And I still think most people in the world probably use the King James. But a lot of people say, well, I want to use it because it was closer to the original. but really not because a lot of the newer translations went further back because there have been a lot of discoveries of text. So you can't always just assume because the King James came along in 1600 that it's closer to the original than one would today because they're finding more and more, you know, copies of things that go all the way back. So just, you know, a lot of people kind of get weirded out about translations, but you just got to remember something. God in his infinite wisdom guide us what we needed to have. And so ultimately,

you can't get all bent out of shape. What about this? Or what about the apocrypha? All of them say Jesus died was buried and raised from the dead. That's where I was headed with this. It was written to reveal a person. This is,

we have a relationship with the creator of the universe, and he sent Jesus so we could relate. And he paid for our mistakes, and he showed us that we can be raised again. Okay. And you have a historical, you know, we talked about the last podcast. You follow along with history and what this represents from a historical viewpoint, and it's only going to cement your faith.

So contrary to, you know, what non-believers may say. But I'll give you an example of this. I don't know why this popped in my brain. So like in Mark 6, because I remember the last time, time I looked up the Greek, and I don't know why I looked up this word. But when they, when Jesus, you know, came to his hometown, and you remember, he said, you know, a prophet doesn't have honor in his hometown, because they were asking where he got these things and they were impressed. How does he even do miracles? And then all of a sudden they said, well, wait a minute. Isn't this,

isn't he a carpenter? Wasn't that Mary's son? And it says they took offense at him. So I looked up that word offense. Well, it's actually where we. We get the word, I can't pronounce the word, but it's where we get the word scandal. It was like you could see the word scandal in that Greek word, you know. And so they were looking at him as like scandalous because he had no pedigree. And he was just an ordinary, they were really offended that such an ordinary fellow that they knew was claiming these just crazy. things that you're God and you can do miracles and so they viewed him as scandalous yeah the first thing God had to say was in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth simple enough not rocket

science the last thing he says is amen come Lord Jesus the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people amen that's the first thing the Bible says and the last thing in between that you don't It doesn't take rocket signs to figure it out. It's actually written at about a fifth grade level. When are we going to get to the deeper truths of the Bible? I said, we're already there. You're digging enough. You believe Jesus died for your sins.

I was buried and raised from the dead. They said, yeah, I said, as deep as you need to dig. Yeah, I like it. Well, since Jesus said, I am the truth, if you had a relationship with him, wouldn't you be at the deeper truth of the Bible? Okay. If I know Jesus, I know enough.

But you're right, Jay. Sometimes in a recent thing we talked about, we were talking about whenever Mary was, Jesus said, don't touch me. Some of the versions, a lot of versions say don't touch me because I haven't returned to the Father. But when you look up that Greek word,

it actually says, don't hold on to me because I had men of the Father. And it's just, you know, a little bit of understanding sometimes you don't get into some crazy, you know, doctrines and stuff like that that people do. So look, we got a, we're going to take a break, but on the other side, we've got a very special guest today,

and we're super excited to hear from him. So I'll introduce him on the other side of this break. We've got a very special guest, Chad Robeshow. Welcome to the Unashamed podcast. Thanks so much for having me on. Yeah. So we love to have Louisiana folks that do well.

to come into the unashamed lair. I'm excited about this. I'm staying with John Howard, and I was telling, I just emailed Corey this morning, and it said, I feel like I'm at home. She was like home to me. I just want to go fishing or hunting or something.

Five seconds into the introduction, I thought, this is going to go well. This is a kind of guy. You're from Louisiana. From Louisiana. I grew up in Raceland, in Tibado. So down in South Louisiana, Lafouche Parish,

country. Yeah. You know, sometimes as winter you ought to, you get a hold of Al Air or Jays or whoever and make a hunt with us. Oh, that'd be a dream come true. So I'd love that. Yeah, we were comparing cat fishing stories. And you commercial fish for a year. So my family, my whole family were commercial cat fishermen. My grandfather started when he was a, you know, probably like 10 years old started fishing and selling fish for money and all his brothers and they, until the day they died, they commercial fished. And all of the, of my their kids

of my grandmother and my aunts and uncles all skin fish and fish for a living and I was the oldest grandkids so I was the last where it stopped I grew up

from when I could walk in fishing boats running trout lines and hoop nets and then skinning cat fish in the fish market and we were we did the same thing

that is a good bloodline that is so now you see why this you got this chasm in between my brother and Zach because They're kind of the city boys of the family here.

And so they're all somewhere. Al's on a beat somewhere. And where you're on a mountain, huh, Zach? I'm on a mountain. Yeah. Yep. So, but, you know, it takes all kinds. I sure, I've had a lot of experience in my life,

but one of the things I'm most thankful for is growing up that way. Growing up, watching my family work hard and working hard from a kid and just those character traits. Like, I feel like I stuck with me my whole life. Oh, I'll say. the same thing. But I didn't really realize it was work at the time. No, no. It was just, it was just eat because we'd eat almost every night.

You guys might have probably ate a lot of duck growing up to like catfish. Every night it was fried catfish and white beans and rice for me. Oh, yeah. We've eaten many of catfish and a duck. Well, I think it made us good hunters and fishermen because however many you called and what kind was dependent on how well you were going to eat. That's right. You were talking about eating a mud cat.

Now, I kind of drew the line. That was more just a survival fish. We stayed with the flatheads, which they look similar, but there's a big difference in touch. There's a big difference. You know, Sacala, you couldn't legally sell those. So we're like. I think the statute of limitations might have run out by that time. Those were a hard time.

Be careful, Bill. I remember Phil saying, oh, okay, so we're supposed to throw this. Sokale back Because he swam in this net Well it's hard to do that when your stomach is grumbling And they're good 30, 40 years ago, you know Now one thing that we eat

So you probably like thinking that we're weird For eating mud cats But we eat pool do too Oh yeah Yeah You've better enough cage and seasoning on anything Y'all have proven That you literally can eat anything

Yeah That's great When you eat pool do And in raccoons and possums You gotta Yeah Well, the Cajuns found out that garlic was the key to everything, right? Oh, yeah.

Garlic can make anything. Anything work. And a roo. Yeah. You know, if you start off with a roo, you can put anything in it. A cornmeal, too. If you deep fry something, you can throw in a pole boy, and it's good. Yeah.

So, Chad, did you have, have you ever worn a pair of white boots? I did. I did. I was kind of my... White boots. White boots is what I grew up with, you know? I remember, I remember actually as a kid, like, I know most kids would be mortified of their parents made him wear white boots, but I want to wear white boots because my grandfather

was like who I looked up to, and he always had white boots on, but his pants tucked inside. That's right. So for those in our audience that don't know, the white boots, that's kind of a sign of people that crawfish or commercial fish or really just any in a boat, those guys who are always got the white boots on. It's just, if you're from Louisiana, you know that. But it's funny because you get up. Cowboy boots.

There you go. But if you were not from that culture and you tried to come down and be an imposter by wearing the white boots without having the skill set to function, usually didn't end well for you. Yeah, that's right. You can tell if you're blowing it or not. You can tell if you're blowing in them or not. You can tell a bit of stains on them. Oh, yeah.

Exactly. So you said Lafouche Parish, Chad, spell LaFouche for our audience, because they would never be able to spell it. L-A-F-O-U-C-H-E. Did I get it right? Lafouche. There you go. You got it.

That's exactly right. I thought there's a lot in there somewhere. No, that's no R in Lafouge. Oh, I think I've been pronouncing it with an R for you. So, Chad, when did you go into the military? How old? I was 17 years old and left Louisiana to venture off into California. And I come from a long generation of military from 84 years of service all out of

Raysland, Louisiana. My, I had a grandfather, I had a great grandfather, did World War II, uncles that did Korea. My dad did Vietnam. My dad was a Marine in Vietnam as infantrymen. I did eight diplomas to Afghanistan as a Fort Reacon Marine, and both my sons served in Marines as well. So all the way up until our service just ended,

and we could probably go on a tangent here, service just ended with my youngest son being put out of Marine Corps because of the vaccine. And so that's how, that's how our 84. 84 year legacy of service our country, and every war ended with that over that vaccine. Good. And it was, they denied his religious exemption. That's so insane. I mean, you think about that, and you described it perfectly, Chad.

I mean, you're talking about almost 100 years of service to our country, and something like that becomes a reason given to people not to serve. It just, it blows me away. Yeah, he really struggled with it. call me and he's like dad you know I really believe this isn't the right thing to do one one as a christian he didn't believe it was the right thing to do and and felt he's being forced against his religious beliefs and two he was really he was legitimately scared he's like I know a kid that was completely healthy and just died over this heart issue like I'm scared to do it and he's like worried that our family's name would be tornished and I said you know I'm totally behind you which

you choose I'm going to I'm going to back you up so what whatever you believe in your heart's right and I'm going to stand behind you and we just got the right console and advice from active duty generals that were still in the Marine Corps helping behind the scenes who believe the same thing and some lawyers and we made sure he did everything correctly that way he did his best to stay in didn't just bail and that went through the whole process and he appealed to the common out of the Marine Corps to the all the way from his command to the Commonwealth of Marine Corps and then to the Secretary of Navy and ultimately they gave a they gave other than honorable discharge with the commission of a serious offense

for refusing the vaccine. And so he lost his, loses any college benefits or anything like that. But we're prayerful and believe that God's going to redeem that. And in all of these thousands, because he's one of thousands, they were denied 100% of the religious exemptions that will be overturned through Congress at some point. And yeah, so we believe in that he'll get his honorable discharge. Well, and look, people that stand up for what they believe in is why you serve to begin with. So, I mean, I tip my hat to him for standing by his convictions, even though obviously in the short run is going to cost him something.

Well, on behalf of all of us, an unashamed nation, we thank you and your family for your service to our country. I hate that it ended that way. So, Chad, tell us about Afghanistan. I mean, some of your experiences there. It's led into what we're going to be talking about because you've written a book, which is amazing. It's called saving Aziz. And before we get into all that, just tell a little bit about what it was like to serve there and kind of what you did while you were there. Yeah.

So I did about 10 years of service before 9-11. So I was already in about 10 years before 9-11. And I went into, you know, my childhood dream was to be a forced recan Marine. My brother and I decided when we were 13 and 14 years old, that's the route we want to go. And about a year in preparing for that together, my brother was killed, he was shot and killed. and he was shot by a 20-gauge shotgun off the gun rack in his house by his stepbrother. And so it was devastating to me. But all through those years of continuing to keep that dream moving forward when I joined the Marine Corps.

It was almost like a promise to finish that. And so when I was 18 years old, I went in at 17 to 18 years old. It became a RECON Marine, which is special operations in Marine Corps for those who don't know. And eventually made it to Force Recon, which is like the next level up. And then after 9-11, I remember when those planes flew into World Trade Center buildings, I was a team leader at Third Force Recon Company. I was a sergeant there, and I knew, like, my life's about to be different. Like, we were going to go and make this right.

And we wanted to do. No one was like, oh, my gosh, we're going to war. Everyone was like, let's go do this. Let's go set this right. And I tried out for what's called the J-Soc Task Force. Joint Special Operations Command Task Force is like the premier place to go where, you know, Cil Team 6 and Delta Force and all those. I tried out for a task force there and was accepted on.

And so I did all eight of my deployments to Afghanistan in that capacity. And I had a very unique job. My job was called an AFO Advanced Force operator, which means you work by yourself or with one other teammate and you embed with the locals. You don't live on base. You live with the locals. And you go forward of your unit to really build all the clandestinextine infrastructure to put our teams, our assaulters on target to capture kill the worst bad guys out there.

They're like a scout. It's kind of like being an undercover cop because you go on in. You're setting up a reason to be there and you're building all the, you know, safe houses and warehouses and cars and vehicles and finding where the bad guys are and putting your team on target. Did you have like an interpreter or something with you? So I had an interpreter with me and that's Aziz, the title of the book, Save me. And so Aziz was in that job, he can't just be interpreter, he has to be a teammate. So he has very trained, very vetted. I see.

And so Aziz and I pretty much worked independently together for all eight of my deployments. It wasn't like I went away on a deployment, came home and did a whole different job when I went back. that all eight hours of deployments over those years was the same mission. Oh, really? So Aziz and I was together all the times. So how in the world did they not figure out you weren't from around there? Well, they know you're not from around there, but, you know, you're out there spending a lot of money and doing, you build a reason to be there or some legitimate business. And even the Taliban wants you there because they're making a lot of money off of you.

And, you know, whether they think you're doing something nefarious or not, they wouldn't have suspected I was with the United States military. And, you know, Aziz, the business. Were you nervous? I mean, were you nervous about that? Oh, well, at the time it seemed like it made a lot of sense. Being 47 now looking back, it seems pretty crazy. I mean, I know TV that probably doesn't depict how it is, but you're just like, it just seems like, you know, when you're in a foreign country and they're terrorists and you're, I mean, it's just hard. It's like I feel like trying to hide who we really are would be very difficult. I was telling John this on the way there.

And ironically enough, you know, Mr. Phil. just said this Genesis 1-1, first 10 words of the Bible, kind of spells it all out for me. In the beginning, God created heaven and is in earth. To me, that's the most powerful verse in all the Bible. It's the first verse, 10 words of the Bible. And the reason I think it's the most powerful is because if you believe that, if you believe God created everything, then God's in control of everything. If God's in control of everything, he's sovereign.

And he holds our fears, our insecurities, our safety, whether we're on the couch, sitting in this podcast from where in Afghanistan, by herself in the middle of the mountains. You've always got that resurrection from the day. in your line of work, I would say, make sure you got Jesus on the straight. You have to. I understand that now, and I think I always believe that God was in control, but at the time I didn't have God in my life, and ultimately it almost cost me everything,

but not having got in my life and doing that hard. I've been there myself. Yes, sir. We all have. We all have, yeah. So hang on, let's take a quick break. So, Chad, tell us, you tell us about Aziz, kind of what you can tell.

I'm sure there's things you can't still probably talk about, But what are some of the things, how did you get closed? What are some of the things you guys did together? Because I think it sets up so much of what the book goes into in terms of, you know, getting them out of there. Well, I mean, you know, the book and his story isn't a story of just rescuing Aziz and these 17,000 people. It's a, it's a story of friendship from two people that came from totally different. He's a country boy, just like me, grew up in Afghanistan. But we come to two totally different worlds and backgrounds.

But we found ourselves together and doing this important mission. And, you know, me fighting to retaliate for what happened at 9-11 and keeping our country safe and him wanting to have a country where his daughters could go to school and be free of that oppression and have freedom for his country. And that's how we found ourselves together. And but we spent 24 hours a day together for, you know, months at a time out in these mountains of Afghanistan or across the border into Pakistan and, you know, hunting these bad guys. And in those times, there's been moments where he, three moments specifically in combat,

he saved my life. and he probably saved my life every day. Like, don't walk there, don't eat that, don't talk to that person. If you speak right now, they're going to kill us. Like, he saved my life every day. And, you know, he's one of the bravest and most amazing men I know. And when we were not operating in Afghanistan, I didn't go back to base and he went home. I went to his home.

And I lived in his home, his wife, Hatra, you know, it could make me meals. And I'd play soccer with his nieces and nephews. I was there when his oldest son, Mashoud was born. And my shoot, I was daughter. I was there when she was born. And so we were very close and we, like, love each other. we're willing to die for each other. And so we just had this amazing bond.

I could share one story of one time he literally like saved my life just because of his kind of street smarts, his wit. I was going to go buy these guns from the Taliban, not because we were trying to buy from the Taliban, just because they had them. And we were putting these guns in safe houses for our contingency plans. And as I was going to buy these guns, he's like, hey, I don't think you should go by yourself, like me and just me and you, because I, I believe they're going to rob us. Like he thought they were going to set us up and try to rob us and kill us more like a criminal act, not a terrorist act. But just his street smarts. And he's like, I'm going to go with you, but we need to bring two other guys.

So I brought this other guy, Dan and Bank with us. And we went and he was right. You know, they had set us up. We were in this wood, mud compound. I'm in the back with Dan. We're buying these guns. And they had like AK-47s, a P-KM, like heavy machine gun and an RPG rocket program launcher. We're buying these guns and he's looking over the wall outside the compound with this guy, Bank.

And they just start yelling. And as they're yelling, the guy that we're with that was selling us guns says, hey, those are my friends don't hurt them. And we're like, how do you know who's out there? They had set us up and they were going to take the money and kill us. And so Aziz and Bank had these guys a gunpoint. I ran out there. There was four Taliban guys in a car where they had all AK-47s,

but they couldn't get out the car because Aziz and them had to kind of end up. and go on top of them. And we took him out of the car, zip tied them and ended up abducting the guy that tried to rob us and turn them back over the tribal leader for doing that. And we never seen that guy again. But, you know, it's just like those kind of things all the time. He was just like always like, hey, this could be really dangerous, but I'm going to put myself out there for you because I love you and care about you.

And we just built this amazing friendship over the years. You left. Were you there? I mean, did you come out like when everybody came out of Afghanistan or were you already out of the country? I mean, were you on deployment? whenever just two years ago, and they basically said all military out.

No, no, I've been out for a long time. So 2007 was when I did my last deployment to Afghanistan. During those last deployments, I had a very bad, my last deployment had, we lost 12 of our teammates were captured and killed. Ten of them were Afghans, but they were like Aziz, so they were like family. So it may not sound like a big deal, some people listening, but these Afghan guys, like, I lived with them. They're my friends, them were brothers.

And so they were captured and killed two Americans, so 12 total. And then they drove a vehicle bomb into my house trying to kill me and my team. And then they tried to abduct disease. I ended up getting abducted by a foreign intelligence agency because all this happened. And so when I left my last deployment, I left in a pretty bad shape. I was diagnosed with severe PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I dealt with about three years of debilitating panic attacks, anger, depression, and almost lost my family. Separated from my family.

It was married 27 years and I was separated from my family. I was in relationships with other women, totally in a toxic place. And I made an attempt to take my life in 2010. And I attempted to shoot myself. I had a pistol and a Glock 22 pistol. And one of those moments, I was, I'll go. back while we were, while me and my wife were separated, I had like really went in this isolation. I was a professional fighter as well. I kind of had that also background. So I was like really busy

with that and trying to stay occupied with that. And my wife had went to this church and she started praying for me. And she would pray, you know, God, let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me love Chad, the way you love Chad. Let me forgive Chad. Let me forgive Chad. While I'm totally betraying her, like infidelity, just a total butthole to her. And I'm just being as a terrible person. And I'm just being that's a terrible person. And then she came to check on me. And when she came to check on me, I was in that closet with my pistol on my hand. And looking at my family pictures on the floor.

And I heard a knock on the door. I wasn't going to answer it. But when I heard my wife's voice announce herself, I panicked. And I hid that pistol because I was probably ashamed. And I went to the door and I started yelling at her, which sounds crazy. But I was so mad that she interrupted me about to kill myself. I started yelling at her. And she asked me a question that saved my life and definitely changed my life.

She asked me how I could do everything I did in the Marine Corps. You know, she saw me, we were 17 to 18 we met. She showed me to make it through special operations training and going to Afghanistan and being successful in these professional fights as athlete. And all the discipline in my life, she's like, how could you do all of that? When it comes to your family, you'll quit. And that question for me, like, you know, no more soul-cutting word to me to the buck called the quitter.

Yeah. And she was right. I had been successful professional things, but became the most important things. Like being a husband, being a father, including my own will to live. I quitting those things. I made a pretty radical decision that led me into a lot of healing, but nothing more profound than a man who stepped into my life and mentor me and disciple me and led me to a relationship of Christ.

And that brought me into a point of restoration and ultimately lit a fire and purpose unto me to walk away from everything in my life and share that solution with others and that when we started the Mighty Oaks Foundation, which was 12 years ago. And since then I've been able to, we served over 450,000 of our warriors

through Mighty Oaks Foundation doing that. And so that had been a long time since Afghanistan to the withdrawal. I got you. What's amazing to me is when you share that, though, I mean, because you started off saying the Lord's in control. I mean, the fact that you can go back through all that darkness and realize that the Lord had a plan is truly amazing. It's hard for us to wrap our head around it. Yeah. I don't believe God did those things to me, but he could have intervened any time.

But he allowed me to go down that dark path on my own and then used it. You know, I probably wouldn't have the ministry I have today to, like I said, we've been. administered over 450,000 active duty troops and through a ministry. And we do like $5 million a year in programming for free to our camp style warriors. And would I have that platform to do that if I hadn't been through those dark places that these guys are going through? I don't believe it would. And they listen to me not because I just had the good news, but because I've been in that dark

valley myself. Yeah. Yeah. So God allowed that. Let's take another break. Most of us, Chad, I mean, can speak to different experiences when God, has delivered us from something, it gives us a heart, you know, for those people. And, and certainly it sounds like that's your case, especially with what you guys are doing, Mighty Oaks,

which I encourage people to check out your foundation. It's a great organization. So tell me, back to Aziz, tell me a little bit about then when you figured, when you knew you had to get him out of Afghanistan, because obviously this is a lot of people have similar stories about people. They love their brothers, as you called it, that that they realized they were in danger. So tell us about that process and how that led to a lot of other people that you've helped get out of there. Well, when we had tried for six years to get Aziz out of the special immigrant visa process to become to come to America, him and his wife and six kids. And I mean, Aziz did so much for our country and that process is only supposed to take

nine months. It's a contract that the United States government gives to them. If they fulfill their contract, it's a nine month process to get a special immigrant visa because they proved themselves. They served alongside of us for most of them for 20 years now. They've been vetted. We know who they are. They've showed their loyalty to America. And that's a contractual promise that we gave to them. And so in six years, that didn't happen. And even with people I know in Congress, so when the President Biden announced the withdrawal of Afghanistan, one, I knew it was a mistake. It was going to be catastrophic. And two, I was worried about my friend. And I couldn't consciously leave him there to be killed because of what he did for me. And so I made a decision.

to go back and go back and get my friend and Aziz and his wife and his six kids. I couldn't use the military because the military wasn't allowed to go into this administration. And so I got together 12 of the most qualified people I knew of in the special operations community. Forest Marines, Delta Force guys, Green Berets, a few seals and some guys from the CIA's ground branch, a paramilitary unit and put together his team about 12 people to go get Aziz. And as we're putting the plan together, we realized we got this incredible team who all have the willingness to go. One of our, we end up calling the task force 6-8, which from Isaiah 6-8, you know, and they heard the voice from the Lord saying, who will go. And I said, here, my, send me. We just all felt that same calling that God was burdened our heart to go get a z-es.

And then I think God expanded their burdened our heart. And one of the team members said, hey, there's this group of 3,500 orphans. They were orphans of former Afghan National Army soldiers that were killed. and they're going to be left behind. The people who are watching them fled and they were going to be left. Let's go get them too. And so we said,

we kind of paused for a moment and said, man, we got all this, we had this willingness, all this experience, this ability. Let's not just get as easy and his family

or these 3500 kids. Let's get as many Americans, interpreters, their families, women and children and Christians that we persecuted. Let's get as many people as we can. And so we made a decision

in that moment to go and get as many people as we can and do as much as we could. And I really believe in that moment God just put this heavy heavy burden on our heart to take our experiences that he's allowed us to have, uh, and expect the special operations community and,

and our willingness to do as much as we could. And, uh, from that moment on, I've been given a lot of accolades for this, by the way, uh, Glenn Beck and them awarding me with called the Bonhoffer, Angel Award. Congress just recognized me and on a congressional floor. And, uh, it's very hard for me to get that because I was just part of the team. And I could tell you right here. And I, and I'm important to tell you, like, I'm not that smart or, capable or brave enough to pull this off. Like from that moment that we said, yes, we were going to go,

disobedience to God's burning our heart. The only way I know I described it was a sheer miracle. In the next three days from that decision, God did the impossible. The Joint Chiefs allowed us, as the only civilians, they allowed us to land on the H. Kai Airport, which was controlled by DOD, to leave as civilians at airport and go out and rescue civilians. They shouldn't, they should have never allowed us to do that, but I believe that was the impossible door.

It got opened for us. We called the United Arab Emirates. the Royal Family because we had a connection there. We told them our plan. And the Royal Family came back with about an hour long call. They came back and said, because we were like, if we get people out, like, we're going to bring them. They don't have visas. So we need a humanitarian center. And they said, you could use our humanitarian center. We'll give you doctors. We'll feed them. We'll take care of them. We'll provide a place for the State Department to start vetting them. They get them visas. So they opened the red carpet for us. And then they said, we'll give you

two C-17 planes, which is large military planes and pilots to help you guys. The next day, Glenn Beck, the radio host, Gilm Beck called me and said, I went on the radio because the only thing I knew how to do was get behind this microphone. And I thought it was going to raise like maybe $1,000, but I raised $21 million. And I don't have anything to do with it. And I'm like, well, you can buy planes. And so God just like did this miraculous thing in days. And we went into Abu Dhabi. We left that airport and started sending the ground teams out. We had a lady named Sarah Varardo from the Independence Fund and handing all the intake of request. And Tim Kennedy, I think you guys know, Tim Kennedy.

He's one of good friends of mine. He was on a team. We just had this amazing team, and we were leaving. Our teams were going outside the wire and getting people. We got a Z's wife and six kids, about 180 people. The next thing got about 800 people. The next day, like 1,000. It was all a blur because if you stopped for like five minutes to sleep, you were like,

somebody's dying. I mean, my friend, one of our friends, C-spray is his nickname. he lost 37 pounds in 10 days just because we didn't stop. And after that 10th day, the Abbey Gate was blown up, which was where we lost 13 of our service members. And the military was welded in the gate shut and the evacuation was over. We didn't know how many people we got out of that time, but we had ended up getting out at that time about 12,000 people.

And then the United States military left. And we were like, we kind of got together and we like, we can't leave. Like we couldn't leave. Chad, it kind of sounds like you're a hit. history, the one who wrote most of the New Testament, he said, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer, you mentioned that, a persecutor, you mentioned that, and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbiased.

belief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly along with the faith and love that are in of Christ Jesus. I think I found my new life verse. Yeah. And this is the one who wrote most of the New Testament and was having God's people stone to death. And he turned and it reminded me, His story reminded me of yours, my man. First Corinthians, First Timothy. Yeah, First Timothy. Let's take her last break. I was thinking, you know, you got 150 Psalms, and there are a lot of prayers, and there's a lot of things going around different circumstances.

But they usually end in hope, but there's a couple of Psalms that are dark, and they seem to be, they get darker as it goes on, and they end it with almost little hope. And I was thinking when you thought that on just your journey here. And one of them is in Psalms 88. And it seems depressing when you read it. But his first verse of that was, Oh, Lord, the God who saves me day and night, I cry out before you. And, you know, sometimes when you're in that darkness,

there's something there inside you that you know, like what you said as far as God was it created in heaven and earth, even as dark as it was. Because then he goes on to say, You know, my soul is full of trouble. My life draws near the grave. I'm counted amongst those who go down to the pit. I'm like a man without strength.

I'm set apart with the dead. Like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You put me in the lowest pit in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily upon me. You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them. I'm confined and it cannot escape.

My eyes are dim with grief. And it just, it goes on like that. But, you know, when I see you now and I realize that, because you're like, well,

why have got to, you know, allow all this to happen? To me, it always thinks back, because when you start talking about your family, you know, when I was a kid and when I had,

when I had little kids, trying to explain to them that we're going on a trip somewhere and this is going to be better for us. Well, they, no understanding of that. They don't look at the big picture of the things, which ultimately, I think God puts that seed in our family, those relationships, to realize that he's the architect of this, you know? And as dark as it seems we were, and even in this prayer, which was from the

sons of Cora, they were acknowledging right off the bat, if there's a way to be saved, it's going to be through this Lord God, because I am. You share the two greatest commands in the I was love God and love your neighbor. You proved loving your neighbor, you prove that by your actions. That's, you'll be commended for that. I don't know what I can say, Chad. If I say something that I'm not supposed to just tell us and we'll cut it out. But one thing that was profound for me in meeting you was in the last phone call we had or Zoom meeting about a potential project we're going to be working on, which at some point will tell you guys about.

But you were telling us this story about Aziz, and then I remember you, like, looked at your watch and like, all right, I got to go. And he said, Aziz is getting baptized today. So I think that's cool. I don't know if we can say that here, but if we can, like, tell us about kind of how that ended with him, even like just recently. Can you say it? Well, yeah, you can say it. Well, I don't know all the, I don't know all that. Well, there was things with the DOD stuff.

I didn't know all what, you know, was going on there. But, well, I mean. I would think. Well, as he spent, you know, the operation didn't end there. We, I don't know how far you guys want me to go, but we stayed because we were like, we have to stay. There's like thousands of Americans here. The news said 100. The White House said 100.

But we were like, we knew there were thousands. It didn't matter if there was one. I'm glad you wrote a book about this because it seems like there's, you could write a book, literally. We ended up staying, got 5,000 more out. And then myself and Dennis. Price, who was a Marine at the Marine Corps, let off orders, let come on leave to come with me, went into Tajikistan. And we spent 10 days on the Tajikistan border. And every day we, the Russian military was there, the Chinese military were there. Tijik, of course,

and Taliban was on the Taliban side. And we did about 90 miles of border reconnaissance. And every night we swam across that river in Afghanistan, it built routes out for the people stuck in the Pansier Valley. Man. And that, you know, the Pansier Valley is, Pansier River is like category five that is the ultimate love your neighbor yeah you know a lot of people and this i'll get to answer your question jack but a lot of people have asked us because i've done some media behind this like why why did we go do that like we don't know these people i mean i i know aziz of course but we don't know these people um i think the simple answer is because the right thing to do my wife was driving me at an airport and she's like you're 46 years old i'm 47 now why like

can't somebody else do this? And I'm like, a military should, but they're not allowed to. We're the next in line because we're the veterans. And we can, so we have to. And she's having a hard time understanding because she's scared. And I said, what if it was our daughter? What if this was our family and our kid? Wouldn't me be praying that someone would come help us?

And so why are we did it? It was because it's the right thing to do. And we've been asked that a lot, and I've said that a lot. It's been the right thing to do. Recently, one of my buddies, Sea Spray was being interviewed. And we were together being interviewed. And the lady asked the same thing. Why are you guys doing this?

You don't know these people. And he said it's because the right thing to do. And she asked a question, I think, is pretty important? She said, is it worth it? And he said, it doesn't have to be. And I don't think it has to be worth it to do the right thing. I think sometimes we say, what do we get out of it? Is it worth the sacrifice?

Like, it was the ROI on it. And it doesn't always have to be worth it to do the right thing. And nine months as he spent that a humanitarian center waiting to come home. Because I believe this is his home. His wife and six kids came here. I came back from Ukraine. I was in Ukraine. They were waiting for me in a driveway.

And his little kids ran up to me, and they called me Uncle Chad, which makes me cry every time. And his wife, Hatra, who had always met me from a distance. He did the cultural Afghan thing because women aren't allowed. She ran up to me and gave me a hug and said, thank you, brother. Aziz and I put our arms around to each other and gave each other a big hug. And he comes to church with us every day. He got baptized. And it's just, I don't know, you know, you know,

The right thing to do, but, man, if you ask me if it was worth it, heck yeah, it was worth it. Those 17,000 people we got out for that one family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's worth it. Yeah, I am. Man, that's powerful. What a mission, you know, and I was thinking of the term warrior, which we throw around probably way too loosely. But that's what you guys are, Chad.

I mean, you're our warriors. And the fact you're also a man who understands God. God's grace and him leading and guiding you into that makes you incredible. And so, again, we're blessed because of that. In our remaining minutes here of the regular podcast, I want you to tell folks a little bit about what you guys do at Mighty Oaks and then also tell them where they can find the book, too. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of veterans organizations out there to do great things for veterans. What we do at Mighty Oaks that's different is we're unapologetically shared Jesus with them.

I mean, because I believe that PTSD combat trauma, the traumas of life is a spiritual wound, and a spiritual wound requires a spiritual solution. And you can go to doctors for clinical care and physical care, and I think those are important and necessary. But the only thing that's going to heal someone truly and holistically is a personal relationship with Christ. So we've been pretty unapologetic about that since the beginning because that's what healed me. and a lot of people said through the years that we would never have access to the active duty military because of that

and I'm here to say another side of that as a testimony to God doing the miraculous is that we all four branches of the United States military send people to us on orders we've had thousands of people over the last 12 years sent to us on military orders to our five different ranches around the country

we do a resiliency program where I go to bases around the world and I speak and share my story and what God did in my life even a non-religious events just because it's what God did in my life. The military talks about four pillars of resiliency, mind, body, spirit, and social. And so maybe talk about the spiritual peace, that spiritual pillar and how important it is

to live a warrior's life and be combat ready and bail to walk away unscathed or bounce back at least. And we've been able to do 450,000 troops through that. I've written several books through John Howard, my agent who's here. He's helped me get books out and I've given away about 300,000 copies to the troops. and then our recovery program, we have five different ranches around the country that we send people to

for active duty veterans, active duty military veterans, first responders and spouses, we pay for everything, including travel. So if anybody is listening and needs help, mighty oaks programs that are totally free to come to the program.

And then because of that success we've had, President Trump had appointed me to be the chairman of the White House's Faithplace Coalition. And we were able to get legislation and an executive order signed to bring faith-based programs back in the DOD and VO, VA, which in 2009, that was written out, and it went to all clinical.

And so we're able to have a lot of success in Washington, D.C. on policy. And then the fourth thing we do is we have an international program to share with our share God's love with our ally partners around the world. And I've been to Ukraine 10 times since February, since an invasion in February. And we've done a lot of rescues there. Rescue the Fox News reporter, Benjamin Hall, and recovered the body of Pierre. I personally recovered Pierre's body out of Ukraine. And then we've been on the front line as far as like two hours.

passed the front line in the Russian occupied territory, sharing the gospel with the Ukrainian troops and helping equip them to defend their homes and families. So that's kind of what Mighty Oaks. Mighty Oaks Foundation, if they just Google that, they can find out more about it. Yes, sir. Mighty Oaks Foundation, Mighty Oaks Programs.org is the website. And pretty easy to find. And then tell us about where can folks find the book. The book has called Saving Aziz, how the mission to help one became a calling to rescue thousands from the Taliban. Where can folks find that. We go to savingaziz.org.

That's the publisher's website for it. And it has all different ways to buy it. The easiest way right now is a pre-sale at Amazon on Amazon. And, you know, pre-sale orders definitely help. Anybody knows anything about books. Pre-sale orders always help. And it'll be released on January 17th. And we're doing the release party at the Museum of the Bible.

I'm good friends with the Green family. They're amazing. So we thought there was no better place than to do at the Museum of the Bible, the release party in January 25th. And so, and you guys are definitely invited. And if you ever been in the Museum of the Bible, it's absolutely incredible. And I want to share one story that's in the book that I think you guys are appreciated. It was a beautiful story.

As we're getting these planes of people out of Afghanistan, there was a, everyone in the world came together. Like, I had probably never been more, I'm a pretty patriotic guy, obviously. I've never been more ashamed of our, I never, never been more ashamed of our government than during that time. I actually had to apologize to the Emir's family. for our government not helping Americans when they helped me rescue Americans but I've never been more proud of

America, Americans because there's Americans who stepped up and did the right thing when now government wouldn't and that's the same thing happening in Ukraine right now but other people from around the world did too and there was this Jewish organization from Israel that stepped up and said hey we want to donate money

to pay for two planes and the planes one plane was 800,000 other was 700,000 so a big donation $1.5 million dollars and they called me and they wanted to make this donation and we set it all up and then they go to make the donation and they said we have a problem

we can't make the donation. I said the routing number get wrong or what happened and they said no you're a Christian organization and we're a Jewish organization like a Jewish organization can't give $1.5 million to a Christian organization I said okay I get it

but do you realize we rescue a Muslims right and we all kind of laughed and he said well let's do it and we made the donation and it was just a beautiful moment where like different people came together from different cultures do the right thing for their fellow human. And it really showed God's love to our neighbor and to people who aren't like us and don't

believe the same of us. But when you show God's love to other people and not just people that believe the same as we do, there's no better testimony of Jesus than that. I couldn't agree more. So, Chad, it has been a huge blessing. I know to Unashamed Nation to have you on. I want to encourage people to get the book. It's fascinating.

I'm definitely going to get it and read it. And then also check out what you guys are doing at Mighty Oaks. We appreciate you being on here. I do have a few questions. We have an overtime segment. I hope you can stay over for it. I've got a few questions kind of about the macro situation about Afghanistan. And no one I would think would be more qualified than you to answer that.

So if you want to follow us over to overtime, it's blazedtv.com slash unashamed to hear a little bit more from our friend Chad Robleshow. Thanks, Chad, for being on the podcast.