Jocko Podcast 295 w/ General Don Bolduc. When Things Change, Don't Get Caught On Your Heels.

2021-08-21T06:30:33Z

Underground Premium Content: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @gendonbolduc @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:00 - General Don Bolduc 3:27:54 - How to stay on THE PATH. JOCKO UNDERGROUND Exclusive Episodes: https://www.jockounderground.com/subscribe Jocko Store Apparel: https://www.jockostore.com Jocko Fuel: https://jockofuel.com Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Echelon Front: https://www.echelonfront.com 3:53:32 - Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

They don't want to mean, uh, and so, but we would get into our spider holes and we would, you know, we would, you know, I mean, we would practice, um, uh, I remember given my baton commander briefing, you know, saying, hey, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna be in these holes, guys are gonna be in the holes for, uh, 72 hours, and then we're gonna, under the covered darkness rotate them out, get them back to the, um, to our, you know, mission support site, yet a debrief, and then we're gonna send them back to Phoenix to recover in a wholesale, right, clean all their kit, and we, we had this whole process, and we're gonna be, we, we made our spider holes and all our camouflage out of, uh, PVC pipes and all that stuff, right, and we break it all down, you putting your pack and then you'd set it all up and you dig your hole, and that's what you're gonna be in, right, and we, we even came up with, you know, different exercises and the spike, because it couldn't get out of spider holes, right, and so he goes, so what are you gonna do with the, uh, human waste? and I think that one of the biggest things that we saw in 2005 to 2007 was that this brought about I'm up approach has merit over a top down approach right although there are aspects of the top down approach that you still need to apply but really if you're talking about security and safeguarding population and making that area in area that the enemy can't operate in that's going to be the way that you need to go and from 2007 to five to seven we learned that but the other thing that we learned was during this time frame you know the US you know transitioned the mission to NATO and that's when it became a full fledged NATO operation and a very good friend of mine Dave Frazier who's written a book about Afghanistan at about his time they're during this time took over that's when they went from 06 as curdles and in some cases navy captains commanding the regional commands you know north southeast and west in Afghanistan to general officer level headquarters and Dave came in he was a Canadian special ops guy who I had had a relationship with really really good guy and when we got into Afghanistan he said hey I need to come over here I need to talk to you about you know what we're going to do and how we're going to do this because we got a problem and more than we came in here to do peacekeeping operations and although it's not popular thing to say my assessment is is that we're fighting an insurgency and a deadly one and he knew that that was our assessment as well our intel guys and everybody had the same assessment going in there from first to time third group and our group headquarters up north so anyways he called me in and we had it everyone's back the only person that didn't that got taken off was the sergeant major of our our uh sipping you know our direct action teams and that's because after we talked to him he took all 45 of his guys the next day over at launch tool ran him through the program and when he was getting his MRI to see if he had any traumatic rain injury they found a tumor about the size of an eraser on his brain he got met back to to Walter Reed they took the tumor off they said hey you know if this had gone another year you would have been figuring out an end of life plan and they replaced his left hip that he had been you know dealing with for years and he was a new man right and an advocate of this whole program and you know after he left the team he went off to our training and has been an advocate for this and you know promoting it ever since and this is what you get you get guys with a better understanding very bottom up but they got to have that top down cover President Trump I think had the right idea let's figure out how we can come out of afghanistan well nobody gave him a plan right when he asked for it two years into administration just didn't have plan to come out so you know hey the political situation you know overcomes everything right going into a presidential election year a big year for the congress you know and that starts driving decision making start driving decision making and really instead of the guys on the ground right exactly and so here we go and you know the president was response of the current president who's got to make a decision that's that's our tribe and there's several tribes there multiple tribes with they all agreed that that's what needed to happen so this idea of you know decentralized command but also this idea of hey the people that are on the ground that are from there they know who's good and who's bad and the local populist is going to support the neighborhood kids that are now neighborhood police and that's just it's it we were lucky enough to kind of watch that unfold I was lucky enough to watch that unfold and and see those the what they called the Suns of Iraq and it was interesting too because in Iraq there had been there had been out in al-Kaim the Marine Corps had pushed through al-Kaim and when they did it there was a bunch of locals going hey there's bad guys in that building over there there's bad and so the Marines said hey you know what let's organize these guys and they made this this thing called desert protector which was hey if you're a local and you want to help us out cool you can join this program called desert protector and they started to send it was working pretty well well when Maliki got elected all of a sudden he looks out an al-ambar province and they got all these desert protectors out there and he goes way to second now I got a bunch of random rogue security forces running around I can't have that I can't I can't have that and I said hey listen mistakes happen these things happen please you need you need to focus on keeping yourself I mean he was seriously and you need to focus on keeping self alive so you can get home to your family these things happen don't blame yourself now I know to this day because I've spoken to him quite a bit you know the burden that he carries but at the end of the day fog of war mistakes happen so leadership responsibility but it wasn't until then that I realized oh crap we got a we got a friendly fire incident here and so when the investigation team came down to investigate we were already in candle hall and we were already set up but we had already written our statements and you know I had a pretty good packet form knowing you know anticipating what was going on and I think you talked about that in your book as well you know and so I'm out now campaigning we're raising money we're getting our message out there it's being very well received in the last poll you know four months ago when they did a poll I was at 30 percent I'm now up at 45 percent right so moving in the right direction so if people want to help out where do they where do they find you where do they go to help you out so my website is www.donball dick.com and you know you can go there and you can either you know if you want to help the campaign out if you're in New Hampshire that's easy to do you just sign up you know everything is right there on the website my positions are there on the website so if you're interested in how I feel in the second amendment or whatever it's there and if you want to donate it's there you know I start pretty low and so I was right in the middle of that process because we were right in the middle of of doing all of that for the next five years and I got put in charge of the movement of seventh group from Fort Bragg to Destin Florida for their new headquarters and setting that up and what that would look like and although not perfect we really really did create an optimal special forces group headquarters with all the Rangers and all the things associated with so they could do all the levels of training right there and what you learn about working with communities and briefing communities because there's noise things and noise studies and this that you know housing issues and you know is there going to be enough housing you know houses all going I'm you just unbelievable and so I mean that's that's kind of difference between the Taliban and LK at the time they're on the ground and how they were just you know dealt with differently and we didn't really worry about the Afghans because they always switch sides but it was the it was the LK because they were from Oman they were from Saudi Arabia they were from Pakistan they were from some other place right and not well but no they were not welcome and you know one of the worst places to go when we first got there was the soccer field because that's where all the hangings the headings and the stoning of women took place I mean stoning women and and the killing of children for flying a kite we handed out thousands of kites when we got down there because they're huge kite flying folks they have competitions you know where they tack each other with the kites you know it's just like this huge thing anyways they loved it You know, okay, this guy, prior and listed Ranger School graduate, you know, Airborne School, you know, the whole nine yard, and so it just gave you more credibility, and as an enlisted guy served in the fourth ID in the second Airborne, so I had that in my background, and so it was all good, but, but, you know, yeah, chemical corps, you get put on the battalion staff, and you have to do the, you know, you get, you get all the, you know, nobody's really interested in doing nuclear biological and chemical. so I mean, God just kept opening up these little doors for me to like, you know, scoot through, and before I knew it, it was, you know, I was major on my way to command a general staff college, and halfway to retirement, you know, 20 years, and I had a few extra years because I've been with you the time, so I was like, you know, hey, if I make it to Lieutenant Colonel, I'm going to be doing pretty damn good, so I was pretty happy about that. and but I learned one thing at the work college it's not necessarily the war college and what you learn there it's winning the gym thorp sports event where all the war colleges come to the army war college and you compete right in a variety of different sporting events and the army is only lost at twice who do they lose in their history of they usually you lose it to the navy war college for the what are the events the national war college their teams are so small right because the school is so small they get their butts kicked all the time but the army war college and you know you got the army the air force the navy the coastguard academy you know you got all those guys that come down and it's a it's three days of feats of strength but I was very lucky that I was able to do that job because I got to see a lot and got to understand what was happening and understand how these high level decisions were made and see a little bit into the future what was it from from your experience what did you see that what did you learn that was important well all of what you just learned but more importantly I learned how all the you know how these decisions have made inside the the political level right from the top and all these things that are done so when I got back to the tactical level I could explain to the guys what's going on at the strategic level and although although they may not like it at least I had a familiarity and an understanding and be able to explain what's going on in the whole process and why we're sitting here you know waiting to be ordered to go do something or what would have you I I went to French five times right to talk to the highest levels of their government about you know what was going on there and you know so what was going on in Africa is is something that America's taking its eye off of and 1.4 billion people by 2050 it will be 2.4 billion people and incredible it's in resources there incredible amount of resources huge and what goes through South America into the United States you know South America is not very far from the African West coast and you got all those traditional lines of illicit trafficking that go through Europe the Iranians have multiple have been able to establish multiple places where they have infiltrated Africa all over Africa to move men weapons and resources at a drop of the hat if they need to would it would kick off like like a ditch of like napal fire would come up also like violent booby traps bombs the old ones with like you like the you know you know Vietnam era stuff where like you stick to sticks and they would they were spring loaded kind of things and they would come and they would just hit you in the thigh or the leg or what have you upper body those kind of things and I'll you know do whatever you need me to do I'll work on a staff I'll do whatever you know pick staples out of the rugs I don't care just you know just get in there early and get myself you know ready for you know the command but they'd have booby traps but they wouldn't be violent booby traps they just be like alarm tightly you know like I heard one where they had just like cases and cases of mouse traps so like if you step on any you nudged it it would have a like you know like a bunch of birds taking off whatever but louder it'd be something like that like that kind of stuff they had so that was another part you know like I told you before with the secretary of the army and then working at ASD and then the joint staff and all that all coming together really gave me tremendous insight on on how use of sock you know United States Army special operations command works and again a lot of guys that make very senior ranks don't have any idea how that works because they don't get the opportunity to go there and that was because I come out of the time command I get selected for the work college and it's like oh now what the hell we're going to do right and and we although I am an advocate of you know figuring out how to come out of there I'm more of an advocate of coming out of there the right way and there's a lot to lose there particularly I mean I'm signing a lot of letters today from 20 years of working with people there in Afghanistan and interpreters and workers barbers you know guys you know gardeners guys that really put their life on the line to support us and to help us them and their families and now they're left there and and so a special forces ODA which I was getting my point is we didn't always have the flexibility of replacing marines with marines and so on and so forth but SF ODA gets out there and that next Sunday I got a story board and they're eating the two turkeys they didn't have the same connection with those turkeys and the afghans the cooks they're all smiling you know they got there you know they're all happy but anyways then sir you were in that tour for 22 months you're over there in afghanistan and then what what what happens when you get no without so I get done with that and they say hey you're gonna go to the joint staff and you're gonna be the deputy deputy special operations guy in the joint staff and I'll be working for General Magata now the the the the VSO idea seemed to have faded and and lost some of its steam not so much from what was happening in the field but it seemed like we went in a different direction mm- I don't doubt it it's a good title that's Dakota one of my heroes and if you want to get some stuff to hang on your wall flipsidecampus.com got a bunch of books I've written a bunch of books but the one that's coming out next is called final spin we don't know if it's a novel we don't know if it's a poem we don't know if it's a manuscript we don't know what it is and they won't go sell because they want their kids to be able to draw they want their kids to be able to get right they want them to be able to you know so stop giving them converses sneakers you know it's they're not going to you know they're not going to wear and so we went back we did some planning we came back and briefed him and so what Charlie company first battalion got the mission and it was a instead of coming at them from you know uh can to heart province you know directly or helmet province where they expected it to come we went all the way down south into the red desert which is the red desert now when you fly in southern afghanistan and you're flying you know east of west or west to east there's the red desert that heads all the way down into Pakistan and it's nothing but desert and then there's a distinct line that goes into the built up areas in the green areas and so on and so forth and it's just so blat nobody goes down there only better ones go down there and so we tried to influence that the best we could with you know Rand studies and showing them that hey if we just keep this for a couple more years you know it's gonna be solid and the chance for resurgence will be way low and I mean look what we've done in terms of the dropping casualties you know lowering a casualties a record lows record highs and security the Taliban are pretty much slapping the table on defeat alkate is like hey we can't operate here anymore and that had a lot of due at the top down stuff going on too because you needed that I do I go back for Afghanistan again what proved to be 22 months and this is what 2010 2010 and I go back to Afghanistan as an advisor to the RC South Commander and at the time it was a Dutch commander by the name of major general de Croife and it was a Dutch guy and we were having some general McCristal was concerned about the problems with soft coordination so he said hey you're going to take command of siege sotofe so the siege sotofe that's the that's a combined joint special operations task force afghanistan this is the first thing that's going to be in charge of all special operations in Afghanistan that's correct and you get you get tasked with that outside of the tier one guys yeah tier one guys not included so anyways we uh I'm going to take command of that that's going to be my brigade level command opportunity and I couldn't have been more excited I have Admiral Olson and general kerni to thank for that they're the ones that pick me so I was had a great relationship with Admiral Olson and general kerni general kerni was then the deputy the deputy of socom but before that and during my time as a retired commander he was the sock special operations command central commander is a two star so that's how I built that relationship with him and general Olson or excuse me Admiral Olson develop a good relationship with him but when you start getting involved in a country's institutions and you start getting involved in their culture and their society and your outsider it's never going to be received well and you're probably going to you know trample of or something that you should just you know just stay away from but the good things will happen as they you know continue to move forward and another thing that a lot of people in the villages they didn't want to go from the seventh century to the 21st century I mean it you know it kind of is it's kind of is what it is and and our guys would see it because our guys would stay there and you know all the boots and the shoes and the jackets and you know they don't wear hooded sweatshirts you know give them blankets you know when when you talked earlier you mentioned that you know we were helping them we were right in the constitution we were setting up the government and there's a you know when I talk about leadership a lot which I do I talk about what happens when you try and impose your plan onto your subordinates onto your team you impose your plan onto them look you can kind of get away with it sometimes depending on the authority that you have depending on the amount of leadership capital that you have depending on how much oversight you're allowed to kind of sit there and if you're going to impose their plan the plan on them yeah we we just you know came together and did it and every single whether it was Marsauk whether it was you know their teams or the Navy seal teams or the special forces teams these platforms did really really well and just give us a quick brief on the idea of of the VSO of the of the village stability operations what was so if if I was an ODA team leader I was a seal platoon leader what was what was my mission what was it gonna look like so your mission is to go is to go into say it's you know can't do hard province

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 295 with echo Charles and me, Jockel Willink. Good evening, echo.
[00:00:07] Good evening. On November 14th, 2001, the troops of General Faheen Khan rolled into
[00:00:16] Kabul and liberated the city from five years of despotic rule by the Taliban. To win over
[00:00:24] the pastions in the south and begin operations against the Taliban, the coalition planned
[00:00:28] to insert two ODAs near the city of Kandahar. Major Donald Bulldog was a member of Special
[00:00:37] Operations Command and Control element 52, which had tacked control of the two ODAs. Bulldog
[00:00:45] explained the mission. Quote. Basically from November 2001 until complete, we were able to
[00:00:52] provide C2 and conduct unconventional warfare in order to advise and assist Hamid Kharsai
[00:00:59] and Google Sharsai in organizing anti-Taliban forces, which was what they were called at
[00:01:06] the time and to conduct combat operations against the Taliban and alkyte forces and quote.
[00:01:13] Bulldog further described the key tasks that the ODA had to accomplish with their Afghan
[00:01:20] partners quote. We were to secure Kandahar city, develop a plan to stabilize Kandahar city
[00:01:27] and operate from a secure base. And then concentrically improve that security from Kandahar
[00:01:33] city, which was considered the cultural and religious center of gravity out to other provinces
[00:01:39] in the south and then on order, extra trait the operational area. Coalition leaders also
[00:01:47] understood that they could not simply leave the area once Kandahar was out of the Taliban
[00:01:53] grip, but had to set conditions for the next phase of the campaign. Major Bulldog asserted
[00:02:01] that the end state for the ODAs was the creation of a quote, stable, safe and secure Kandahar
[00:02:09] city ready to transition to more formalized humanitarian assistance and nation building operations.
[00:02:21] And that right there is a excerpt from a document that was written by the combat studies institute
[00:02:29] press of the U.S. Army School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the document is called a different
[00:02:35] kind of war. The United States Army in operation and during freedom from October 2001 to September
[00:02:44] 2005. And when you think about that segment that I opened up with, that's 14 November, that's just
[00:02:57] over two months after September 11, 2001, 60 days. And in that minimal amount of time,
[00:03:07] America went from peace and relative tranquility to war and to chaos. And men in the military who had
[00:03:21] been planning another standard day at work or preparing for another training exercise or maybe
[00:03:30] planning to take a billet where they could go get some more time with their family. Suddenly,
[00:03:37] these men were at war. The opening piece I read mentioned major Don Bulldog.
[00:03:46] He was obviously one of those men that shipped off to Afghanistan to begin trying to sort
[00:03:56] that place out. And that first appointment in 2001 was just the beginning for him.
[00:04:01] Over the following years, he would deploy to Afghanistan over and over and over again and also
[00:04:08] to Iraq and other parts of the world that were under threat. And that major would finish out
[00:04:15] his career as a Brigadier General. And it's an honor to have him here tonight to share some of his
[00:04:22] experiences and lessons learned. General Bulldog. Thank you for joining us. Well, thank you for having
[00:04:29] me. It's an honor to be here. You know, as I was reading that and just saw that date of November
[00:04:35] 14th, 2001. And I was in the military at that time. But to think of the radical transformation that
[00:04:44] was about to take place and how quickly we went from this sort of peace time military to a war time
[00:04:51] military and all that that entailed. That's a that's a heavy situation. Let's do this. Let's
[00:05:00] rewind a little bit and learn a little bit about you where you came from, how you grew up and sort
[00:05:08] of how you ended up in the situation that you're in right now. Sure. So, so let's start at the beginning.
[00:05:16] So, the beginning. I was born in La Coney, a new Hampshire. I've been a resident of the state of
[00:05:20] New Hampshire for 59 years and I'm 59 years old. I learned my work ethic on our family farm and
[00:05:27] geofrid, new Hampshire. We had a dairy farm. We had a vegetable farm, maple syrup. The farm has been
[00:05:36] in existence since 1779. Our family is the second owner of that farm. My grandfather bought it in 18.
[00:05:45] My great grandfather bought it in 1899 coming down from Canada. And my grandfather had 13 children.
[00:05:58] And my dad was seven of the 13. And what us bald ex-did was we worked farm. That's how we learned.
[00:06:10] We planted gardens chopped wood. You know, back in the day we'd in the deep snow. My brother and I like
[00:06:20] we had our harnesses and we would pull the sleds and we would dump the maple syrup into the
[00:06:26] container. Now it's all done by gravity through plastic pipes right into the sappaus.
[00:06:36] Before it was done by good old fashioned grandchildren, right? You know? And so, I wouldn't trade
[00:06:47] that for anything. It got me tough in the winter, tough in the summer, tough in the fall.
[00:06:51] I built more stone walls than I needed to do. So, moving rocks from point A to point P was never
[00:06:55] a problem. I went to Catholic school and got my butt kicked by nuns on a regular basis.
[00:07:03] And so, when I went to basic training in 1981 after high school,
[00:07:09] putting a dude at me, wake me up early. Y'all at me? I don't know how many times my dad told me
[00:07:15] I was about as useful as a snowball in hell. You know what I mean? But he, you know, he loved me.
[00:07:20] Right? He was just trying to prepare me for the world. You know? It's not going to be easy out there.
[00:07:24] You got to use your head, right? What made you enlist in the army? My grandfather on the
[00:07:30] bald side had a policy that all baldic males will serve their country. He didn't care if it was
[00:07:35] a national guard, reserves, active duty of what service it was, but you will serve and if you don't
[00:07:39] serve, you're not welcome. And he never served because when he got here, he was too old.
[00:07:45] He was too old for World War I, but he nonetheless, I had uncles that served. World War II,
[00:07:59] Korea, Vietnam, every conflict in the bald exhibit, since World War II. Right? And we didn't get
[00:08:06] here until 1899. And so my grandfather had to establish some children and some grandchildren before
[00:08:14] he could start populating the US military. But when I went into the, I went into my recruiter in the
[00:08:24] 11th grade because I knew I had to do it. So I went in in 11th grade and at that time they had the
[00:08:29] delayed entry program where if you joined early, you got credit for that service. Plus,
[00:08:35] you went in as a mosquito wing private, you know, instead of just a slick sleeve private, right?
[00:08:41] Which was like, you know, $5 more a month. Right? And back then it was double your basic
[00:08:46] patch. That's right back then it was $200 a month. So I was pretty happy, right? So it was good. And
[00:08:54] you know, before that though in high school, I joined the police cadet program in
[00:09:01] Lekonia, New Hampshire. And that's a funny story how that started, right? I was in 10th grade
[00:09:10] and we were walking over from high school. After school, but before we had to leave for a football
[00:09:18] game. And it was an away game and I was walking over the group of the guys over to the, to the
[00:09:24] little store to pick up some, some child for the bus, right? And, and I, uh, there was this
[00:09:32] coat can set up perfectly right on the curb of the road. And I thought, man, I'm going to go kick
[00:09:40] that. So I started talking about, you know, uh, and five seconds left in the game. But, you know,
[00:09:47] I kicked that ball. I kicked that can. And it hit the side of a police cruiser,
[00:09:53] parked at the light. And so I know him now, starting being us, jumps out of that car and he is
[00:10:04] pissed off. And everybody get on the ground so we're all laying on the ground. And he's like, who did it?
[00:10:10] So my raise my hand, I go, I did it, sir. And he puts me in the back of the cruiser and
[00:10:15] he's yelling at the other kids and, you know, my friends and they ran off and I'm sitting in the
[00:10:23] cruiser and he goes, so, would you do that for? And I explained to him what I was doing and he said,
[00:10:29] all right, sounds like an accident to me. He goes, if you're heard of the police get up program,
[00:10:35] I go, no, sir. He goes, well, I think you'd be a good kid for that program, right? Because
[00:10:42] you had enough balls to own up to it, you know? And I said, all right, so I did it and I got selected
[00:10:49] and I started out and I really loved it. So in 1980, year before I graduated from my school, I
[00:11:00] had the opportunity to go through the part-time police academy program. And so I did it and
[00:11:08] I ended up getting qualified as a police officer. So when I went into my senior year,
[00:11:13] at 18 years old, I was a qualified police officer working for the Co. and a police department.
[00:11:18] And I did that for a year before I went into the army and went into the army for
[00:11:27] 181 to 84. And where are you active duty? I was active duty. Okay, it's basically a little bit like
[00:11:38] a break for you because you're not on the dairy farm. That's right, it's a huge break. Well,
[00:11:43] it's a huge break because it's not, you know, you can imagine being a police officer while you're
[00:11:48] in your senior year high school. Mr. Poppillar? That's right, Mr. Poppillar. Every party that got
[00:11:54] busted up was my fault. I obviously had inside information that I passed on to the police.
[00:12:00] And it'd done work that way. I mean, we don't care about parties, but your neighbors do,
[00:12:05] particularly when it gets too loud. Right, so they call. And I just couldn't get that point across.
[00:12:10] But nonetheless, after serving as a police officer and, you know, I mean,
[00:12:17] you know, my dad was a taskmaster, right? I mean, he was a strong good man who is no longer with us,
[00:12:25] but nonetheless served 35 years as a city councilman and mayor for our city school board,
[00:12:36] just a great pillar of the community in addition to being a, you know, a guy that would
[00:12:43] do anything for anybody. And so anyways, I had learned all that stuff, but working on the dairy farm,
[00:12:50] you know, hanging, hangs the worst thing you can do in the world, right? I mean, I hated hanging
[00:12:55] season. When July rolled around, I prayed for rain because we couldn't, we didn't, you couldn't,
[00:13:00] he can't hang in the rain. But it didn't happen, right? I had a guy who was a new guy
[00:13:06] came to work for me when I was at Seal team 7. And he was a hard work and kid up, ready to move
[00:13:15] sandbags, fill sandbags, move steel around, dump ammo, pick up ammo, whatever I need him to,
[00:13:21] find me after a couple weeks and I'm not too impressed. You have to be a really hard worker
[00:13:26] to impress me. And after a few weeks, I said to him, I said, hey, band, you're, because I, he had
[00:13:32] kind of just shown up in my platoon. He didn't go through our work up or anything. He was a new guy just
[00:13:35] showed up in Iraq, showed up in Iraq and he's working his ass off. And I look at him one day and I
[00:13:41] said, hey, you're, you're a hard worker, where are you from? And he said, I grew up in a dairy farm
[00:13:46] in Minnesota. And I said, well, I appreciate your hard work. He said, sir, I'll do whatever you want
[00:13:52] me to do as long as it doesn't have anything to do with cows. And he told me his schedule. He was
[00:13:59] up at 4 o'clock in the morning every day to milk cows get home in the afternoon after wrestling
[00:14:05] practice milk cows. And it was, I don't know what he had, but 300 or 400 cows he had to milk.
[00:14:10] So the dairy farm seems to breed some hard work. Yeah. Well, you know, after practice, whether
[00:14:16] it was baseball or football or whatever happened to be, my dad said, I'll see at the farm. And so I
[00:14:22] would jog from the high school up, up, moral street to the farm, you know, and, uh, and did
[00:14:30] whatever he asked me to do up on the farm. Right. And so when I got the basic training and
[00:14:35] met sword and mules, my, uh, my basic training, um, throw instructor. Um, no, he want me to make
[00:14:43] my bed. You want me to do this. You want me to do that? Yeah. You know, I was up before he threw
[00:14:48] the trash can down the aisle, right? Uh, because that's just the way it was. And, um, and he, you know,
[00:14:55] he would say to me, ball it, you don't sleep. I go and I'd say he was drill so hard and I, I do
[00:15:01] sleep, but I don't require much. Right. Um, and, uh, you know, so yeah, that kind of hard work did
[00:15:09] it. And then the discipline that the nuns instilled in me, I mean, come on. Right. It's just, it's
[00:15:13] just a loose seal. Right. I mean, she sounds scary. She is scary. She was a flaming red headed, uh,
[00:15:20] none that just scared that hell out of me. And, um, and she got her pound of flesh out of me, uh,
[00:15:27] but were you an athlete in high school? I was. Yeah. What sports did you go? I played, uh, football,
[00:15:32] baseball, and basketball. And I was told, uh, you're too small to play football, but,
[00:15:40] by myself, more years, I was, I was starting on the varsity team. Two short to play basketball,
[00:15:46] but I was a starting guard on the basketball team. Uh, I was, they told me I couldn't pitch.
[00:15:53] But I ended up being a pitcher because my arms were too short and, and I wasn't tall enough,
[00:15:57] and I couldn't get a good stretch off the mound, but, you know, so, uh, I think the farmer in me,
[00:16:05] uh, you know, don't tell me I can't do something kind of thing, right? Because, um,
[00:16:10] I'm going to try and prove you wrong. Yeah. So anyways, you know, when you enlisted in the army,
[00:16:15] did you do it? Did you plan on, was it a career? Was it reserves? Or was it active? No, it actually,
[00:16:22] uh, it was active duty. Okay. But my plan was to, um, you know, pursue the law enforcement.
[00:16:28] So when I was coming out of the army in 1984, I was a sergeant, and I was going to ROTC,
[00:16:36] green to gold program, uh, not to go on active duty, but it was through the national guard.
[00:16:41] And they were going to pay for my education, and I was going to get my commission through ROTC.
[00:16:47] In a beauty part about prior services, you don't have to do the first two years of ROTC,
[00:16:51] because you've got basic training in a.e. t.n. to your belt. So you start it, you're junior and senior years, right?
[00:16:58] And I didn't, uh, I didn't anticipate making it a career at all. Um, I wanted to be, uh,
[00:17:06] being law enforcement, but I got called down to my company commander's office, and my first
[00:17:12] serge was there, first sergeant Kingston, and in, uh, Captain Jeffrey L. A.s.
[00:17:18] was there, and he, I reported to him, position of attention, and he said,
[00:17:23] sergeant Bouldek, I know you're getting out, uh, but I want to talk to you about that,
[00:17:27] because I think you should stay in. I think you should reinlist, and I, you just came down on
[00:17:32] drill sergeant orders, and you should go be a drill sergeant, because what are your plans?
[00:17:36] And I, so I just explained, oh, what I explained to you, and he said, yeah, I, I just don't see you
[00:17:42] being successful as an officer. He said, you're enlisted material. You're, you're a sergeant major in the making,
[00:17:48] you know, so I think you should stay in, and you should fall that track, because you're going to have the most
[00:17:52] success with that. And again, this little light in the back of my head, did you just tell me I can't do something
[00:17:57] like kind of thing, and, uh, and my, you know, I took his advice, and I said, thank you,
[00:18:03] you're very much, but I followed the different path. Well, first sergeant Kingston calls me out
[00:18:09] in his office. He puts me in a front-lean and rest position, and he says, you count loud to 50.
[00:18:15] And he gets down real close to my ear, and he goes, hey, listen, he goes,
[00:18:18] you take, and you go to ROTC, and then when you get commissioned, you find wherever this captain is,
[00:18:30] in the United States of Army, and you take those bars, and you put it somewhere the sun doesn't
[00:18:35] show. That's what he says to me, and I go, yes, first sergeant, has I'm, you know,
[00:18:41] 22 for a sergeant, 23. And you know, he's, so he's like, he's like, get up, so I get up and he
[00:18:47] dismisses me. And I am a first lieutenant in special forces training at Fort Bragg North Carolina,
[00:18:54] and who's the command sergeant major of the 16th Military Police Brigade. Sergeant, command
[00:18:59] sergeant, Major Kingston. So here I am, a first lieutenant in S.F. training, and I called his office,
[00:19:07] and I told him who I was, and I asked if I could come over and have a meeting with him,
[00:19:11] so they did that, and I went over and I met with him, and he was so happy to see me, right?
[00:19:16] He goes, have you found Captain Ames? And I go, no, and he goes, you know, he's a lieutenant
[00:19:21] Colonel now, and I go, no, I didn't know it. I didn't, I haven't tracked his career, but anyway, see,
[00:19:29] he goes, I remember that day that was hilarious, and he goes, I'm glad you're doing well,
[00:19:33] you're in special forces training, because that's really great. And so we, you know,
[00:19:39] it's just, I didn't plan on going back on active duty, but I did well in ROTC, and I
[00:19:46] qualified for an active, you know, regular Army Commission, and I said, you know what?
[00:19:51] This is 1988, and it is not looking good for jobs out there, right? So I said,
[00:20:01] ah, I'll just go to Army, and we'll see how that goes. And I really didn't anticipate staying too long as an
[00:20:07] officer, you know, fulfill my requirement, you know, and, you know, perhaps get out, but
[00:20:12] it's time went on, and I went in special forces, and I'm not sure. So what was your job as an
[00:20:18] officer? Were you an infantry officer? I was, I got commissioned into the chemical corps,
[00:20:23] which was another thing I was like, what the heck, you know, I graduated number one from
[00:20:27] Northeastern University, Liberty Battalion. I was number one, and the explanation I got is,
[00:20:35] well, you know, the quality has got to be spread out across the Army, and it's based on needs of the
[00:20:40] Army. So I was like, okay, sounds like a good, so what was it chemical officer? Chemical officer,
[00:20:46] nuclear biological and chemical officer, but you know what? When I was looking to get out,
[00:20:51] after my requirement, wow, that's a good opportunity. Big bucks, great opportunities. I was like,
[00:20:59] wow, the good Lord was smiling on me, because, you know, and I went to Ranger School,
[00:21:06] and I did all those things that you're supposed to do, so when I showed up at the combat
[00:21:10] arms units, right, and I had that, you know, I wasn't just a support guy, right? You know, okay,
[00:21:16] this guy, prior and listed Ranger School graduate, you know, Airborne School, you know, the whole
[00:21:21] nine yard, and so it just gave you more credibility, and as an enlisted guy served in the fourth
[00:21:26] ID in the second Airborne, so I had that in my background, and so it was all good, but, but, you know,
[00:21:34] yeah, chemical corps, you get put on the battalion staff, and you have to do the, you know,
[00:21:39] you get, you get all the, you know, nobody's really interested in doing nuclear biological and
[00:21:44] chemical. So you get, you get all the, you know, the interesting assignments, and I did those
[00:21:52] with a smile on my face and the best my ability, and then, you know, I was the first chemical
[00:21:58] officer to make it through special forces selection and training. So did you, well, at what
[00:22:03] point did you learn about special forces? Well, I learned about special forces in 1968 when I
[00:22:09] watched the Green Brave movie with my grandfather, and, and so I was like, oh, wow, John Wayne,
[00:22:17] the Green Brave, you know, so it was always something in the back of my mind, and then I was in
[00:22:22] Korea, my first lieutenant assignment, and the Green Brave recruited showed up, and I went, and I said,
[00:22:29] I'm going to do that, right, and so that's what I did. Where were you in the first goal for
[00:22:34] what happened? I was in 10 special forces group, okay, and so we did that there, and then we rotated
[00:22:43] over to provide comfort, the humanitarian assistance thing up in Northern Iraq, which was great
[00:22:49] experience with the Kurds, and yeah, so I mean, God just kept opening up these little doors
[00:22:57] for me to like, you know, scoot through, and before I knew it, it was, you know, I was major on my
[00:23:07] way to command a general staff college, and halfway to retirement, you know, 20 years, and I had a few
[00:23:14] extra years because I've been with you the time, so I was like, you know, hey, if I make it to Lieutenant
[00:23:19] Colonel, I'm going to be doing pretty damn good, so I was pretty happy about that. So, so you went
[00:23:25] through special forces in what year, through, through the selection? I went through selection in
[00:23:31] 1992, February of 1992. How was that? Was it challenging for you? Did you enjoy it? Was it what you
[00:23:40] expected it to be? Yeah, I expected a smoke show, and that's what I got, right, and I really likes
[00:23:47] the special forces selection process because nobody said anything to you, right? All your
[00:23:55] instructions were written up on a board, and you had to be conscientious enough to check that
[00:24:00] board frequently because they would do things like change it, right? And then try and catch it,
[00:24:05] right, not paying attention. And it was athletic events, you know, that you had to do. It was like
[00:24:13] right up my alley, right? So it was like, yeah, good quality smoke show, nobody yelled at you.
[00:24:20] They sleep the pride and they gave you really good. I called it, I called it building Barney
[00:24:26] Rubble Machines, right, because it was like, oh, here's a trailer with only one tire, and
[00:24:32] here's some straps, and here's some poles, and you know, you got to move it 10 kilometers, and
[00:24:38] you know, they would set up these tabs, and you had to build like, so it was like on the farm.
[00:24:42] Like our farm was like a OSHA nightmare, you know, we really didn't believe in the OSHA
[00:24:48] safety hazard. So huge safety hazard, right? And so, you know, coming up with a fix for the
[00:24:54] tractor, for the hay bailer, when it went down, or something like that, was, you know,
[00:25:01] it was always right there, right? And you know, my dad's like, hey, we don't have, we don't have time,
[00:25:05] and we don't have the money to go pay for this machine. So what's, you know, use some nylon,
[00:25:11] and some straps, and figure this out, right? And so that's what SF training was about, you know,
[00:25:16] it was like, hey, you know, here's a bunch of pieces of equipment, figure out how to get it,
[00:25:22] 10 kilometers, and good luck, right? And work as a team and support each other. So, you know,
[00:25:29] that's what farming is all about. And not one person makes that farm run. It's a collective team.
[00:25:33] That's what my grandfather had 13 kids. That's why he has over, you know, 500 grandchildren
[00:25:40] to make it work. You bring everybody together, and you just make it work. So that's what I like
[00:25:45] about, you know, special forces training. And I like the idea, but not everybody could make it,
[00:25:52] right, that there was this huge attrition rate. And so I thought that was cool too, because
[00:26:00] it was this, it was a special thing, right? Not everybody can get through, and only
[00:26:07] only a certain type of person can get through it. Doesn't make you any better than anybody else,
[00:26:12] it just makes you different, right? And that's what America's about. Was there anything that was
[00:26:17] hard for you, or especially hard for you? Yeah, anything that required height. Because I'm sure
[00:26:25] at 5 foot 7. So, you know, these things that required height, and then keeping up with
[00:26:31] guys with long legs on the Ruck March, I would, it was a Ruck jog for me to keep up,
[00:26:36] because these guys had just this incredibly long stride, and it was like, God bless America.
[00:26:44] Yeah. You know, come on, cut that stride in half, you know, but, you know, they, they move
[00:26:50] at their pace, and they can't, they can't be slackened, because, you know, then the instructor
[00:26:55] sees their slackened. For me, I'll pick up a job, right? So that's the way we did it.
[00:27:01] And you're married when you were going through special forces training, right? Yes, yeah,
[00:27:05] yeah, I got married as a second lieutenant. I met my wife Sharon and college.
[00:27:12] We were both in the ROTC program together. She was studying nursing, and she was, she joined the
[00:27:18] Army at 17 years old, had to get her mom's mission. She went into the medical field, right,
[00:27:24] and down to Fort Sam Houston, did her training. And she's a, she's, she's as hard as woodpecker
[00:27:31] lips. And I always like, I always like to say, you know, so a surprise for me is that, you know,
[00:27:37] I married a woman that wore combat boots. So that was always, that was always a cool thing. But yeah,
[00:27:44] she, she was great and, you know, and she, and she, I understand the Army and understood what
[00:27:51] you were going through. And I always asked her, right? I said, hey, I want to do this, right?
[00:27:56] You know, can I get your support? You know, I mean, it's not going to be easy for the family.
[00:28:04] And that's why, you know, leading up to 2001, we had nine, 11, we were gone a lot,
[00:28:11] because during the Clinton years, we redound size the conventional forces, a lot of the
[00:28:17] engagement and stuff felt a special option. We had to go deploy on all kinds of different things out there.
[00:28:23] So we were gone a lot. And so when we were gone a lot after 2001, my wife just took it and
[00:28:30] strike, right? And so when she started hearing people say, wow, you know, they never home any more.
[00:28:36] And she, she would, she would be able to use her experience to explain, hey, you know, this is,
[00:28:41] this is what it's all about, right? And so she was very, very good inside the family readiness
[00:28:48] groups and, you know, very, very supportive, particularly during deployments. And, you know, when we
[00:28:55] had casualties and she, she had that frame of reference, you know, and she always there, we've been
[00:29:03] married for over 32 years now and I have never, she's never, ever, faltered. Even when I, even,
[00:29:10] you know, even when I wasn't a very good version of myself because of post-traumatic stress and
[00:29:14] traumatic brain injury and, you know, pain management issues and, you know, I mean, that
[00:29:22] negatively affected my personal professional life too, you know. When, before we get into that,
[00:29:30] when you are talking about the 90s or now you're, what's, what's special forces unit,
[00:29:34] just checking to you when you got done with special forces group? Fifth special forces group,
[00:29:38] Fort Campbell Kentucky. And then you were doing lots of J-sets, had no receipts, build these relationships,
[00:29:46] filling some of the gaps that were left by the downsizing conventional forces. And what was your,
[00:29:51] what was your, did you do, uh, platoon command? Did you do a team? Did you do a company command? Like,
[00:29:56] what was your bill it's there? So I was a detachment commander, ODA 582 and third battalion, fifth group.
[00:30:03] Um, and were you guys doing, like, regular deployments? Would you go on deployment? So,
[00:30:09] yeah, when in the 90s when I was in the SEAL teams, we would go on a six month deployment. Maybe
[00:30:15] we'd go to Asia, maybe we'd go to Southwest Asia, maybe we'd go on a ship, but you were doing
[00:30:20] a workup and you were going on a long deployment. Were you guys on the schedule like that? Exactly
[00:30:25] like that, exactly like that. But with fifth group, I went to one of two places. It was either
[00:30:31] Eastern Africa, normally Kenya, or it was in the Middle East, you know, and we had, um, you know,
[00:30:42] Kuwait, UAE, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, you know, those places. Yeah, yeah, we must across paths
[00:30:53] at some point along the way. We had to, we were at the drive exit. I did a bunch of shipboard deployments
[00:30:59] in the 90s and, and one where I wasn't on board a ship, but yeah, we were constantly pulling into
[00:31:04] all those places and doing whatever kind of exercises, um, just always, always over there.
[00:31:10] One of the, uh, one of the interesting deployments that we went on that I thought was, was really,
[00:31:18] really good to work on your trade craft was, um, JTF Bravo. The drug-interdiction missions that we did
[00:31:27] on the southern border, and we would, uh, we would deploy for 120 days to the southern border,
[00:31:34] and we worked from the Texas border to the New Mexico border, Arizona, and California, and we
[00:31:41] culminated in California and the Cleveland National Forest, searching for marijuana fields, and,
[00:31:47] and getting scared to death by booby tracks, right, because they, they were everywhere, uh, and,
[00:31:55] we would track somebody and then we'd find out they're actually tracking us, you know, so it was like,
[00:32:01] holy crap, right, in America. They don't want to mean, uh, and so, but we would get into our
[00:32:07] spider holes and we would, you know, we would, you know, I mean, we would practice, um, uh, I remember
[00:32:15] given my baton commander briefing, you know, saying, hey, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna be in these
[00:32:22] holes, guys are gonna be in the holes for, uh, 72 hours, and then we're gonna, under the covered
[00:32:27] darkness rotate them out, get them back to the, um, to our, you know, mission support site, yet a
[00:32:33] debrief, and then we're gonna send them back to Phoenix to recover in a wholesale, right,
[00:32:39] clean all their kit, and we, we had this whole process, and we're gonna be, we, we made our spider
[00:32:47] holes and all our camouflage out of, uh, PVC pipes and all that stuff, right, and we break it all
[00:32:53] down, you putting your pack and then you'd set it all up and you dig your hole, and that's what
[00:32:57] you're gonna be in, right, and we, we even came up with, you know, different exercises and the
[00:33:02] spike, because it couldn't get out of spider holes, right, and so he goes, so what are you gonna do with
[00:33:07] the, uh, human waste? Well, we're gonna carry it out with us, and he goes, oh, you're gonna
[00:33:13] carry it out, and I said, yeah, we're gonna carry it out with us, sorry, and he goes, I'd like to see that.
[00:33:21] So I delivered to him, a hefty bag full of extra meant pee, and I put it right on his desk,
[00:33:28] and I said, there it is, sir. I'll never forget to look around his face,
[00:33:35] the sergeant made your command, sir, made your pull me aside and he said, that was either
[00:33:39] the most brilliant thing that you ever did as a detachment commander or the dumbest thing,
[00:33:46] time will tell.
[00:33:49] Yeah, that's, oh, that's good. As soon as you said, I'd like to see that. I said, oh, he didn't, oh, yes, he did,
[00:33:56] he did, yeah. So, uh, yeah, those were interesting, I never did those missions, but I remember
[00:34:02] Platoon's getting sent out to do him, and it's basically doing reconnaissance of drug transport routes
[00:34:07] coming across the border, across this other border. We would, we would radio it into the police,
[00:34:11] and they would do the introduction, and it was just, it was just a great mission, because we knew
[00:34:18] we were doing something for our country, and then we knew we were also training the hell out of ourselves
[00:34:25] with these, you know, special reconnaissance techniques that, hey, if they see it, they compromise
[00:34:34] it, you're done. So, I mean, it was good. So, where were you when September 11th happened?
[00:34:42] I was the operations officer for 3rd Battalion or a 2nd Battalion, fit Special Forces group,
[00:34:49] and we were getting ready to go to Jordan for what was the largest
[00:34:58] sock, you know, Special Operations Command, Sent Com, Joint Chiefs of Staff missions.
[00:35:08] They basically took about 5 Joint Chiefs of Staff missions and combined them all.
[00:35:14] We were going to be headquartered in Jordan and it include Egypt, Oman, UAE, Kuwait,
[00:35:22] and it was all over that geographic area. We're going to be doing all kinds of decentralized
[00:35:26] missions and stuff in these countries, and airborne operations, and we had a, we had a Ranger company
[00:35:33] with us, and it was awesome, right? We put this all together. First time they were ever going to
[00:35:39] do something like that, and I really liked it because it was a regional approach to solving problems,
[00:35:44] right, instead of a country by country for the focus, so it was really great. And I'm a big,
[00:35:49] big believer in this, you know, regional thing. I think it works out better when people get together
[00:35:53] and try and help each other solve each other's problems as opposed to just focusing the
[00:35:57] one country at a time. Anyways, I don't want to digress. So we were getting ready to go over for
[00:36:04] that mission. I'm sitting in my office the day before we're getting ready to deploy in 9-11 hits,
[00:36:09] right, and I go down the hallway to my boss's office and I put on the television and I go
[00:36:14] search this out. By the time I turn it on, the second plane hit hit, you know, and I said,
[00:36:20] so I think we're under attack. And I said, it looks like they're going to hit every single one of
[00:36:26] our national elements of power. And you know, then Pentagon gets hit, you know, and then the plane
[00:36:33] goes down in Pennsylvania, obviously headed probably towards the Capitol or wherever that was
[00:36:39] heading. So they, you know, they hit the economic, they just hit the military, they're on their
[00:36:44] way to the political, you know, I mean, holy crap. President of the United States canceled every
[00:36:52] single exercise except for the Jordan exercise. Because it was so important to the King of Jordan
[00:37:01] to have this thing, to have this exercise because it was, he was the hub country, right? And so
[00:37:08] we deployed and we did it. And it was shortened from 45 days to 30 days. And that's, you know,
[00:37:16] we went directly from Jordan to Uzbekistan for mission planning and then into, uh, into
[00:37:25] Terran County, Afghanistan. So because so you complete this training operation in Jordan,
[00:37:31] which must have been strange doing this free-contraining operation when the, you know that the
[00:37:36] world is like a ticking time bomb. Right. It was. It was. We're watching the news all the time.
[00:37:40] And, you know, we're, I'm actually getting messages from higher headquarters, get ready, you're
[00:37:47] going to go, you're going to leave. So we got the log guys and ops guys and everybody planning to
[00:37:51] move us from Jordan to Uzbekistan. But at the same time, we have 560,000 moving parts for this
[00:38:01] 5 country operation and people doing airborne operations, live fires, you know, CQB, you know,
[00:38:10] I mean, just all kinds of high-adventure training, right? And, you know, we're doing
[00:38:17] joint and combined airborne operations. So you got, picture this. You got Americans,
[00:38:24] Jordanians, and Egyptians on the same plane, getting ready to jump out. Yihah, right?
[00:38:30] Because, you know, as far as I'm concerned, that's a, you know, I mean, we trained them, but they
[00:38:36] not necessarily follow on our training, you know? And the way some of them exit the aircraft was like,
[00:38:42] oh, we're crap. Are you kidding me? So it was like, you know, a lot of the sirens are looking at me
[00:38:49] going, you're killing me, sir, you know? Like, okay. Yeah, we're not. That's not the intent, right?
[00:38:56] But, I'm like, hey, we got to do this, right? I mean, that's what it is. And they would, they would make
[00:39:02] sure it was great. And it went off without a hitch, but. So then from there, you go to Uzbekistan?
[00:39:07] Uzbekistan. And now, are you guys getting, you guys got the tasking, okay, you're going to
[00:39:13] Afghanistan? Go to, as go to Uzbekistan to start planning. Right, because that's how many guys?
[00:39:18] It was, let me see, you know, 15 of us. And Colonel Fox had to pick him.
[00:39:25] So he picked him 15 of us went off. And then he turned over the battalion to the Exo.
[00:39:31] And the Exo stayed in place and enjoyed. And then slow but surely he would rotate the teams
[00:39:40] into Uzbekistan. Has space opened up. So what you get to Uzbekistan? I mean, what's the
[00:39:47] damn, what's the atmosphere with the team? How much do you guys know about Afghanistan prior to this? Nothing.
[00:39:55] Nothing. Absolutely. Did you learn a language as a special force officer? I did. I learned Egyptian
[00:40:01] Arabic. Okay. Now, I passed the language test. Uh-huh. But we're not going to school.
[00:40:08] Egyptian quiz show or anything. Yeah. With the lowest score of that you could get on the defense
[00:40:14] language aptitude, battery test. Apparently, God didn't give me the ability to learn foreign languages.
[00:40:23] And I did. I struggled through what Spanish and high school in college, but I struggled through it.
[00:40:28] I got through it anyways. But nonetheless, um, so the lowest score qualifies me for a romantic language,
[00:40:36] like French and Spanish and Italian. And what did they send me to? Fifth Special Forces group
[00:40:41] with a language as Egyptian Arabic category, four language. And I'm like, really? You want me to fail?
[00:40:47] Is that it? Uh, but, you know, like anything else, test scores, you know, they mean something,
[00:40:53] but they don't test. They don't test your will to do your best, right? So I ended up graduating with a
[00:41:02] two plus two plus and got language pay at $75 a month. Uh-huh. And um, and I was just, you know,
[00:41:11] I called two plus two plus just being dangerous enough to, uh, you know, use a foreign language.
[00:41:16] You know, it's, it's like, it's like being a first level black belt in martial arts, right?
[00:41:21] You're just danger enough to get yourself hurt. But it looks cool, right? Uh, but nonetheless,
[00:41:27] it is what it is. And I, um, uh, yeah, I, I, I did that, but the Egyptian Arabic does you absolutely
[00:41:37] know good in Afghanistan, with posh to and urdu and, you know, Tajik and Uzbek. And, you know,
[00:41:46] so your news about Uzbekistan, you're coming up with a plan and, and, and,
[00:41:52] who's given you direction at this point? What are you guys getting for a mission tasking? Are you
[00:41:55] getting clear directives or is it more, hey, go, go start to put something together?
[00:42:02] So to the credit of our seniors, everything was moving so fast and everything was coming out of the
[00:42:08] Pentagon and the National Command Authority so quickly, so rapidly, uh, that, you know, we weren't
[00:42:15] getting anything, right? And so, um, basically, we had two teams and then a command and control element,
[00:42:27] that had to be led by Lieutenant Colonel and that came directly from the Secretary of
[00:42:31] Defense. So, so it's not even the standard way that we would deploy into it theater of operations.
[00:42:38] So you got two teams with a battalion commander and a very small staff that were
[00:42:44] C2. Now, third battalion had the north, second battalion had the south and first battalion had,
[00:42:54] you know, the, um, the Kabul Bagram area. Um, and so when we got there, it was like, all right,
[00:43:03] you got the south, you got to go link up with the armored cars, you got these two teams,
[00:43:07] one's going to come from the south, one's going to come from the north, and figure it out.
[00:43:11] So we did. And I was happy to figure it out because it was good. How do you guys get in?
[00:43:15] So we went, uh, MH1, uh, excuse me, MC130s, uh, to Jakobabad, Pakistan. And this, this is really,
[00:43:27] it's really funny because we were told, okay, you're going to get there and you're going to
[00:43:31] go find the special ops Air Force unit. And they're the ones that are going to fly you in
[00:43:37] to Tarantown, Afghanistan, where you'll link up with a group of Afghans, and then they'll take
[00:43:45] you to harm it cars. I. So that's, so that was the plan. That was the plan. That was the plan.
[00:43:51] And where did I find the Air Force guys in the mess hall? Because I looked all around,
[00:43:56] Jakobabad, and I'd warm, right? And my boss is like, I go, sir, let's go to the mess hall.
[00:44:01] Good call. And so there they were, they were in the mess hall. And so, you know,
[00:44:06] and where they bring you up in? Like, pay blows or something? Yes. Yeah, that's exactly at MH53s.
[00:44:11] We went right in. We took fire going in. One of them was hit. They still brought us in.
[00:44:17] We did a, what I like to call a controlled crash landing. I mean, it was a hard landing. We all fell
[00:44:24] all over the place inside the damn thing. We jump out. The one advantage we had was nice night vision
[00:44:30] goggles. We didn't know where they were or who they were. But I had worked on. I had worked on
[00:44:37] one posh tune sentence. Please take us to harm it cars like. I worked on that over and over and over again.
[00:44:48] And we land, we hit the ground, dust everywhere, takes a few minutes for the dust to settle.
[00:44:56] We get into a V formation. And the plan that we had was, I go Colonel Fox, I go Sir,
[00:45:05] move forward. Once we see him, we'll set in security. I'll walk forward with my rehearsed sentence.
[00:45:12] And, you know, we'll go from there. You guys point your weapons. I'm not going to point my weapon
[00:45:18] at him, but I'm going to have it at the ready just in case I need it. And I can see him. They're all,
[00:45:23] all these have. There's about 10 Afghans there. And they're all point in their weapons at me. And I'm
[00:45:28] walking up and I look at him. And I got these AK47s right in my face. And all I could come out with was
[00:45:36] harm it cars. That's the only thing I could say. That lower her sentence gone gone. And they,
[00:45:46] you know, gave me the, you know, good, good to go. And, you know, I called up the guys. We came up.
[00:45:52] They put us in trucks. And 20 minutes later, we were meeting on the cars. I, in a mud hut.
[00:45:58] And then we started doing mud hut diplomacy. So what's mud hut diplomacy look like?
[00:46:03] It looks like a bunch of Afghans sitting on the ground with us in front of a map. And we're telling
[00:46:09] them, you know, what we're seeing from our aircraft and the sky. And are they bad guys? Are they
[00:46:15] good guys? And then we're coming up with intermediate places on the ground to go to. And our first
[00:46:21] convoy that we did this was a disaster. Little did we know that that they would all huddle around
[00:46:36] carsized vehicle because they didn't want anything to happen to them. And we had cars I in the
[00:46:40] wrong spot. So we had motorcycles and Toyota carolers and pickup trucks. We lost complete control of
[00:46:49] this convoy. And then we stopped to pray. Right in the middle of the operation, right?
[00:46:57] Is this really a safe place to stop and pray? But it didn't matter. It's time to pray. We're going to
[00:47:01] pray. So we did that. So what we did was we figured out on the next one that we would put
[00:47:08] our guys up front for security. And we put cars I back there. And nobody would pass carsized vehicle.
[00:47:16] So we made a control. Now if you turn around and looked at that gaggle back there, it was like,
[00:47:22] oh yeah, mad max. Yeah, really that's a great way to explain it. And but it worked. And so that's what
[00:47:29] we did. And as we move forward, we got more and more village elders and tribal elders into the
[00:47:36] meetings. And then of course, you know, people were talking about security concern. You know,
[00:47:40] what if someone comes in and just opens up and sprays the place. And I said, well, it's
[00:47:44] a chance we have to take. I mean, it's just part of the part of the operational environment.
[00:47:49] Yeah, you can't mitigate all risks. You can't do your best. But there's going to be some risks
[00:47:55] that you're going to have to take to achieve your mission. And they weren't in the mood for us to
[00:47:59] disarm them. They weren't in the mood for us to search them. They weren't in the mood for any of that.
[00:48:03] Right. We had to prove ourselves to them. And then they had to get comfortable with us. And we just
[00:48:09] had to trust, you know, cars eye. And trust me, the CIA guys that were there with cars eye were just as
[00:48:16] nervous as we were, just as concerned as we were. Because the last thing we wanted was cars eye to
[00:48:22] get hurt because he's on the phone with all of the news outlets. Right. In the middle of a briefing,
[00:48:32] we'd get a call. Hey, you know, you know, whatever his name is Dan Rather, or whoever wanted
[00:48:41] to talk to him. Right. And so he would take an interview right there. And then you had the bond
[00:48:46] committee that was meeting to figure out, you know, the government who's going to be the interim
[00:48:51] prime minister. And of course, cars eye at the top of the list, they want to talk to them. So in the
[00:48:55] middle of that, they call up. And they want to talk to them about stuff. And, you know, he just
[00:48:59] just sit there and listen to it. He was really good. He was really good in those days. He did a
[00:49:07] really, really good job. And I had a lot of hope, right. But, you know, things get politicized and things
[00:49:17] happen. And, you know, the longer things, you know, go on. He just, he just, you know, I really
[00:49:25] thought he did a great job, particularly at the beginning there. And, you know, the way he managed
[00:49:33] risk and the way he made decisions and the way he handled and the respect that he got, he was
[00:49:39] the right guy at the time, right. And so it was just a very, very interesting to see that.
[00:49:49] And, of course, in subsequent deployments, I had a personal relationship with cars eye. So I could
[00:49:56] leverage that pretty easily as a result of that very first rotation to explain something that
[00:50:05] had looked like in Kabul, had gone wrong. But there was a lot of things in between where it happened,
[00:50:13] and what was being told, and what was being put out by the Taliban that weren't true. And I was
[00:50:19] able to get communications to him to be able to say, hey, that's not the way it went down. Sir,
[00:50:26] please, please understand that my heart's in a right place. And he would.
[00:50:31] Now, speaking of things going wrong, once you involved in a, you know, a fractur side of incident
[00:50:39] where a bomb was dropped onto your location. Can you give me a brief of us on that one?
[00:50:46] Yeah, I, I blame myself for that one a day. So we were at Shawwallycott, 20 kilometers north of
[00:51:00] Candehara, which was our, our operational objective. We had to take Candehara from the Taliban.
[00:51:04] The religious center of gravity. It was more important to take Candehara than it really was
[00:51:11] to own Kabul or Harat or MES, you know, Majar Sharif, because of the significance of it.
[00:51:18] And we had one presidential mission. And that was to determine whether the cloak of Muhammad
[00:51:25] in the mosque in Candehara was still there because it was a huge concern in the, in the Muslim community.
[00:51:34] All, you know, all the way back to Mecca, right, with Saudi Arabia. I mean, this was a big deal.
[00:51:40] And so, you know, we, we were doing combat operations for three days north of here. I mean,
[00:51:49] we had to go through a pass in this pass at high ground, it was a bridge. It was a, it was a,
[00:51:54] it was a, tortured front and it was very well defended by the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And they
[00:52:01] weren't given this ground up very easily. And we were doing combat operations, leading patrols,
[00:52:08] trying to disrupt them. We were, we were engaging them with, you know,
[00:52:16] you know, F-15s and so on, so forth. And it was going pretty, you know, it was going real well.
[00:52:22] And we were getting people that were switching sides, you know, Afghans that were coming
[00:52:27] on the side and they were given us great intel on stuff, which is always shocking for Americans to
[00:52:32] hear about people switching sides. And it's very common, especially in the Arab culture.
[00:52:40] And I know that there's a, I want to say this is an Osama bin Laden quote that, you know,
[00:52:45] the, the people are going to bet on the winning horse. So basically, if you're strong and you're
[00:52:49] winning people were like, okay, that's who we're putting our money on. And so this was what you were
[00:52:53] seeing on the ground was as the coalition grew and as cars I got more people, people are looking
[00:53:00] around going, he's got more people. And they, it's almost like a mob mentality of joining, joining
[00:53:05] that team. Oh, absolutely, and absolutely. And, you know, required flexibility and adaptability
[00:53:11] on our part. And I know, I know Colonel Fox was just never real comfortable with it. All right,
[00:53:16] Don, where did all these people come from? And I said, well, sir, they came, they came from overnight.
[00:53:21] And they came from over there. And he goes, these guys were fighting us. And I go, oh, yeah,
[00:53:26] they were fighting us. And now they're with us. And we got the, you know, they're all vouched for
[00:53:31] because, you know, all this is my cousin. This is my brother. This is my, you know, and so hey,
[00:53:36] all right. And, you know, we got the Sard and Major telling us, you know, it's okay. And then we got,
[00:53:41] you know, Elvis going, thank you very much. Thank you very much, you know. So he, you know,
[00:53:47] and he goes, and we're going to arm him and give him bullets and everything. And I said, well,
[00:53:50] yes, there we are. And he goes, oh, Jesus. So he was never really quite comfortable with it.
[00:53:58] And he goes, he goes, you're, you're good with this. And I said, hey, sir, but I don't know if we have a choice
[00:54:04] number one. But yeah, I'm good with it. You know, I grew up in a small town in New Hampshire. And I can
[00:54:11] see the same thing happening there, you know, people sitting on the fence, you know, historically,
[00:54:17] we've seen that, you know, where the passive people start joining the people that are winning. And,
[00:54:23] you know, before that, they're passive and now they're active and, you know, vice versa. So,
[00:54:30] yeah, I think, I think we'll be okay, right. And, uh, it's all right. I'm coming for you, though,
[00:54:37] if you're wrong. I said, all right. That's fair. That's fair. So anyways, we, we're doing this,
[00:54:45] and it's about 830 in the morning, and we get some good intel, and, you know, we get with cars
[00:54:50] eye and we get a good decision from him, and we start, um, we start our operations up. Well,
[00:54:58] we had a very, very good process for clearing our fires. We had a great STS guy on the ground.
[00:55:07] And we have absolutely no errors. And we, we needed to build up our four structure going into
[00:55:14] F, going into Candahar. So, we took this point, we took this point time to bring in some
[00:55:23] additional, uh, augmenties, right. And it was about 24 hours before this had happened. So, what we did was,
[00:55:33] we, um, we did a good transition with everybody. We had a tack pee come in and he did
[00:55:41] good transition with the STS and learned all the SOPs and everything like that. And RSDS guy in the
[00:55:48] tack pee had, uh, changed over. So just so everyone knows these, these are the guys that
[00:55:55] call for fire from the air. That's where it talks about. And the tack pee in the STS, these are
[00:56:00] individuals that are trained. That's what they do. It's, I mean, obviously it's a really hard job.
[00:56:05] One mistake can be deadly, and that's what they're focused on, and it's great to have those guys,
[00:56:10] because that's what they do for a living. Right. And so you had a transition taking place where you're
[00:56:15] going from one guy that had been with you. Now your, your force is glowing. You got some extra guys
[00:56:20] that are going to be able to help out, but they're just showing up. So they're not quite up to,
[00:56:25] to up the speed yet. That's correct. That's correct. And, um, and so they did their transition.
[00:56:33] And we had got a mail in for the first time. So guys were, you know, guys that weren't directly
[00:56:41] involved in doing anything were opening up their mail. And, you know, I had done a walk around
[00:56:47] our defense of area, which was an old Soviet mortar pit right up in the high ground. And I had
[00:56:57] walked around and I had gone down the hill, just got to the bottom of the hill and this big explosion.
[00:57:07] I don't know where. And, um, I don't know how much time had passed to be honest with you,
[00:57:15] but I picked myself up off the ground. I had pieces of body parts, stuff all over me,
[00:57:23] blood all over me. I'm doing a quick assessment of myself. I got a real bad injury with my leg.
[00:57:32] And, um, you know, days looking around and it is utter mayhem.
[00:57:42] We got Afghans down, we got Americans down, we got rounds, cooking off, we got RPGs, cooking off,
[00:57:50] it's going all over the place. I start walking around, I start grabbing our guys. We go down to
[00:58:00] where Karzai was and we made sure he was okay and he was with his CIA guys and they had secured him.
[00:58:08] And the guys that were with him, securing him, I asked them if they would go out and reconnaissance
[00:58:15] and they placed the bringing helicopters because I knew we were going to have to cast a vac here.
[00:58:21] And, out 200 meters we had casualties, right? It was a mess. All 20 of the U.S. guys on the ground
[00:58:30] were injured some way or another, some more than others. And, we had designated a casualty control point
[00:58:44] and I got with my cons guys and we had to find some, we had to kind of like, take cons equipment from,
[00:58:55] you know, cannibalize it from other stuff to make the reestablished communications with higher
[00:59:00] headquarters. I found Colonel Fox and he was, he was dazed and confused just to the point where
[00:59:09] he was just not coherent about what was going on so made sure that he was taking care of.
[00:59:15] And, I went up on the hill and we started pulling bodies off, right? All these rounds
[00:59:22] cooking off and everything like getting guys off to top of the hill, getting him down.
[00:59:27] And we knew we had to get complete accountability of everybody.
[00:59:35] And, we did that and I was missing one, right? And, I went back up on the hill to where his position was
[00:59:44] and that was ground zero with the impact of the 2000 pound bomb from a B-52 of 35,000 feet.
[00:59:53] And, I searched everywhere and I found his hat and I took his hat and I started picking up
[01:00:09] bits and pieces and I put it inside the hat and I put the hat inside a bag and I marked it
[01:00:15] and that's how he was identified. But there was nothing to send home, absolutely nothing to send home.
[01:00:22] And, another one of our guys that was killed was completely torn in half. I found him under a vehicle.
[01:00:30] His chest was still heaving, his legs were over here, his chest, his body was separated from it.
[01:00:38] And, I started doing CPR on him and someone finally grabs me on the shoulders and goes, sir.
[01:00:45] No, it's not going to work. He's torn in half. So, anyways, we'd get him in a body bag and we
[01:00:56] get him off there and then we had one guy that was not going to make it, but was still alive and we kept
[01:01:04] him alive and we got him EVAC when we had coordinated EVAC and we got a B-Team special force
[01:01:15] this company and an ODA to come into back fill. That came in from higher headquarters. We got all the guys out
[01:01:23] and then we started doing the after action in regrouping because we still had this was five December.
[01:01:32] We still had to go and take Kandahar. So, me, my assistant S3, the batang commander and a comical guy
[01:01:46] despite our injuries we stayed on the ground in order to be able to coordinate the push to Kandahar.
[01:01:53] So, we did that. We regrouped. We got as many afghans out as we possibly could that were injured.
[01:01:58] That wasn't something that higher wanted to do but we talked them into doing it because it was
[01:02:05] the right thing to do. So, we got our afghans partners, we backed out. We helped with the casualties
[01:02:13] for them as well in the village and everybody came out and helped from the different areas around the village.
[01:02:19] We just said screw it. We're going to hit that bridge. We're going to hit that pass and
[01:02:34] we're going to knock them out of there and we went through. Nobody was there.
[01:02:41] This was eight December and we went right into Kandahar and we took Kandahar and
[01:02:47] the after action on that though. I blame myself to this day. Transition between the STS and the
[01:02:56] tech P was really good but the tech P had to change batteries and those old soft lamps that we used
[01:03:07] to target designate. When you do that the grid resets to your position. So, before you send
[01:03:14] anything or confirm anything with the aircraft you've got to make sure that you have your grid
[01:03:21] system squared away and that was the mistake that was made. As I go over this in my mind over
[01:03:30] an older and older and older, you get even to this day I think to myself. I should have been there
[01:03:34] to make sure that I should have got an in person briefing from the tech P that he knew all those
[01:03:48] procedures. I should have got that and I didn't get that and because I didn't get it,
[01:03:55] because of we're in combat and because of all the things that you talked about earlier.
[01:03:59] You know, the mistake was made and I was in charge of those operations on behalf of Colonel Fox.
[01:04:08] I was my job and I didn't do my job in my opinion to the best of my ability and we had that event
[01:04:14] occur and I learned a big lesson and I'm sure a lot of people were in a big lesson but at the end of the day,
[01:04:29] there's a, and I think you talk about it and you're booked there at extreme ownership
[01:04:35] the fog of war and and clause widths and his explanation of the fog of war and I mean it's all there
[01:04:41] right and you do what you can do in some cases you can only do so much there's a lot of things going on
[01:04:50] but in retrospect it becomes clearer and as you say you got to take extreme ownership
[01:04:57] not only on those things that go well but most importantly on those things that don't go well
[01:05:03] at what point did you realize it was a the friendly bomb?
[01:05:06] Well, it wasn't until I was talking to the tack P who was seriously injured and he was apologizing
[01:05:23] and he said I said I made a mistake I don't think that I I cleared that grid like I was supposed to do
[01:05:33] and I said hey listen mistakes happen these things happen please you need you need to
[01:05:44] focus on keeping yourself I mean he was seriously and you need to focus on keeping self alive
[01:05:50] so you can get home to your family these things happen don't blame yourself now I know to this
[01:05:57] day because I've spoken to him quite a bit you know the burden that he carries but at the end of the day
[01:06:11] fog of war mistakes happen so leadership responsibility but it wasn't until then that I realized
[01:06:19] oh crap we got a we got a friendly fire incident here and so when the investigation team came
[01:06:29] down to investigate we were already in candle hall and we were already set up but we had already written
[01:06:36] our statements and you know I had a pretty good packet form knowing you know anticipating what was
[01:06:40] going on and I think you talked about that in your book as well you know one one friendly fire
[01:06:45] incident okay let's we know a whole bunch of shit's gonna come rain and down on us so let's get ahead of the
[01:06:52] power curve and let's make sure that we find out what went on and we tell the truth and we get the
[01:06:59] accurate assessment of what went on and when we came down and and it was Brigadier General Burford
[01:07:06] he was the deputy commander for U.S. Special Operations Command he's won the came down and led the
[01:07:14] investigation and sat down with his team we said this is what we got we got him out to the spot so we
[01:07:20] could see it and you know we gave him we gave him a you know a good briefing on on that and what we
[01:07:26] were doing and how we were doing it and we had taken that soft lamb and we had isolated it
[01:07:32] it had been damaged but nonetheless wasn't being used anymore and so we had everything for him
[01:07:39] and an in a nice rack and and I go hey listen this is a combat environment you know we don't want to
[01:07:45] we don't want to have them come down here and have to expose themselves to danger here while they're
[01:07:50] doing their investigation but at the same time we want to make sure they get to where they need to go to
[01:07:53] do a thorough investigation and and the most important thing is lessons learned so this never
[01:08:00] ever happens again right and I tell you what nine more rotations never happen to me again
[01:08:08] never happen in the unit that I served in again because we made sure that you know those kind
[01:08:15] of lessons were applied and over and over and over again right yeah when I took over the training
[01:08:20] for the west coast seal teams like the tactical pre-to-planet training I would put those guys
[01:08:25] in positions all the time and they would every single group every single two every single
[01:08:29] troop every single task minute they'd get a blue on blue and I'd sit down and say I want this to happen
[01:08:36] here so you realize how it happens so it doesn't happen overseas like it did to me so that's
[01:08:41] the best thing you can do is take those lessons learned and and spread the word so it doesn't
[01:08:46] happen again I can tell you that there's still still guys on that ODA there's there's all three
[01:08:54] of the guys that we lost still blame us still blame the chained command from that
[01:09:00] right and that's okay I take that responsibility fully I accept it and I understand where they're
[01:09:11] coming from and that's just that's hopefully it has made me a better leader right as a result
[01:09:23] and what else am I going to do right except acknowledge it and you know move forward because my
[01:09:31] responsibilities in leading didn't end as a result of that yeah yeah and I mean even to those
[01:09:39] those guys that were lost and God rest their souls but at least they're the lessons that were
[01:09:46] learned from that horrible as they may be at least there's you know as you said no operation that
[01:09:53] you oversaw after that ever had another incident so their sacrifice saved lives and I know that
[01:10:00] horrible in one way but it's the truth it's also the truth it's also the truth and yeah I didn't
[01:10:06] never had another blue one blue incident and the as a tying commander as a siege so to fake commander and
[01:10:15] as a general officer level commander and Afghanistan and combat never ever had another one and
[01:10:22] you know we attribute that to of course the experience of the guys as we go through but most importantly
[01:10:28] you know leadership and learning they're indispensable right and so you got to you got to move forward
[01:10:37] and that's what we did so so you guys rolling to can to hard and it's pretty much no factor
[01:10:46] there's like what was the resistance level rolling to can't are the resistance level was minimal we got
[01:10:53] ambushed going in and you know we took care of that and we kept going we get to the Mula Omar's
[01:11:03] compound and it is there are vehicles everywhere covered with mud because that's what they did to
[01:11:20] try and hide from our aerial observations right they covered their vehicles with mud they saw predator
[01:11:27] right so we we said and that was a way for us to identify if they were if they were bad guys are good
[01:11:35] guys because the bad guys were covering their cars but here it is again I looked at you I looked at
[01:11:41] Colonel Fox and I said hey sir look we're parking lot full of bad guys and now they're on our
[01:11:48] side right and he goes I don't get this this is so and then we went to the jail and we brought John
[01:11:55] Mohamit that John Mohamit was a very very close friend of Karzai and he had been
[01:12:00] imprisoned by the Taliban and tortured for very very long time and he became the governor of
[01:12:07] Ervour's gone and he got up there and he met with Karzai and and this is a guy that I developed
[01:12:13] a very good friendship with over the years no matter what job I had going back into Afghanistan
[01:12:21] in his mind I was the commander of all special forces right I just what's not and I would tell
[01:12:29] him I don't hey listen I'm just a baton commander here I just got these guys he goes oh no no no
[01:12:34] you are the commander of all special forces and he would tell people that and it would get in the
[01:12:39] news right and and I'd get a phone call and I go I didn't tell him that right and so yeah I knew
[01:12:45] his guy and you know what he's like a commander of all special well he was he was a wild man always
[01:12:52] had been a wild man if there's one guy that you wanted him because or his gun province was you know
[01:12:57] I mean it was full of Taliban it was full of okay and we needed to guy like that to go up there
[01:13:01] and you know a clean house but the way he was cleaning house in the way that you know it was acceptable
[01:13:08] in the international community was two different things and so we had to keep it very close to
[01:13:14] I don't that but nonetheless he gets there and he goes all right I'm going to need some furniture
[01:13:24] so he starts going in the rooms and he starts going I want that I want that I want that and he goes
[01:13:30] into Moola Omar's office and I wasn't with him but one of the guys was in there and he comes
[01:13:38] running over to me and he goes sir you got to get over here he goes the guy that we just let out a
[01:13:43] jail he's going to the bathroom on top of Moola Omar's desk and I go what and I go in there and he left
[01:13:55] a mess on top of that desk and that was his just what he felt he needed to do and then he told
[01:14:06] Karzai I'm on my way to Orr's gun province when I get the Tarenk out of Lichko, Lichino and
[01:14:11] we'll start clearing that place out and you know Karzai put governors in Orr's gun province is a
[01:14:19] bull province for our province, Nimru's province, Helman province, Helman was the one that we got the
[01:14:27] largest number of Taliban al-Qaeda and operational Russian equipment out of and we had to negotiate
[01:14:35] that right we had to negotiate that with the Taliban leader there that you know he would you know he'd
[01:14:40] be free to go off and do whatever you wanted to do and you know Karzai said I don't care and
[01:14:46] Sharzai was the governor of Kandahar now the governor of Kandahar is the senior governor in the
[01:14:55] South that just how it works and we'll do a lot of power even though you have governors and all
[01:15:01] the other provinces so he pretty much laid down the law and you know organized things and slow
[01:15:08] but surely you know I started seeing security and Southern Afghanistan just you know shape up and then
[01:15:16] and how long did you stay in Afghanistan for for that first rotation from November to March and then
[01:15:28] the so you left in March of 2002 right had the governor's been put in position yet
[01:15:33] oh yeah they were all position in December yeah so at that point there's a pretty good
[01:15:39] it looks it's looking pretty good at this point it looks real good it looks real good they're doing at the
[01:15:43] Afghan way and and the airfield in Kandahar was something that we wanted to secure
[01:15:56] so that we could you know use it to bring in and bring out you know supplies and stuff like that so
[01:16:05] general Madness one star general at the time the Marines got that mission and so
[01:16:15] their operational area was was really confined to Kandahar airfield and then we had
[01:16:22] the Siege's sort of north up in Uzbekistan and then then Commodore Harwood came in to do
[01:16:33] Siege's sort of south Kandahar and he works side by side with with General Madness
[01:16:41] and we were in Kandahar and our soul advise in assistor responsibilities centered around
[01:16:54] Shurzae at this time because Karzai had gone up to take to be the interim prime minister
[01:16:59] up in Kabul and so everything that we did we did through with and by
[01:17:05] Karzai or Shurzae in coordination with Siege sort of north who was see-towing us and then
[01:17:14] Commodore Harwood who was see-towing a separate direct action unit out of Kandahar airfield
[01:17:24] and we got this taskless from from Siflek right the combined forces and it was it was a three-star
[01:17:34] headquarters right and so it was about 180 different places they wanted to go to
[01:17:42] and that was our task to to go do that we had to get that done so when you say go to what
[01:17:50] do you mean go to like they thought they thought it was places that had intel or had bad guys in it
[01:17:56] and all under 180 of them were dry old like towns villages are like actual target packages
[01:18:02] targets without the target packages it was just a little station and we think there's something there
[01:18:08] but the places that all 180 of more dry holes but the places that we got all the computers and all the
[01:18:16] stuff that that some of them loud was working on and we'll all my was working on we're given to us
[01:18:23] by the Afghans that were on the ground hey they worked out of that one they worked out of that
[01:18:28] they worked out of this and and we would get a calls and hey we got LK to there see that's where it
[01:18:34] became tricky because Taliban were Afghans so you get them and they either switch sides or they
[01:18:41] didn't switch sides right and if they didn't switch sides well you know the you know Afghans you know
[01:18:48] would would deal them through Afghan wall right and custom whatever LK to different story they were
[01:18:54] Arabs and oh we had to be very very careful because there was only one fake for them if they
[01:19:01] gotten the hands of the Afghans who had been family said been killed and tortured so on so forth
[01:19:10] and they didn't have any real love for them right so that was a whenever we got a report in
[01:19:16] sands and the Zalkate s expected LK to guy we would go boom and we would take we would take them
[01:19:27] into what I would call protective cops there right and then we would move them by our own means
[01:19:33] to be interrogated and by you know coalition side of the house right and so I mean that's that's
[01:19:43] kind of difference between the Taliban and LK at the time they're on the ground and how they were
[01:19:50] just you know dealt with differently and we didn't really worry about the Afghans because they
[01:19:56] always switch sides but it was the it was the LK because they were from Oman they were from Saudi Arabia
[01:20:03] they were from Pakistan they were from some other place right and not well but no they were not welcome
[01:20:11] and you know one of the worst places to go when we first got there was the soccer field because
[01:20:20] that's where all the hangings the headings and the stoning of women took place I mean stoning women
[01:20:27] and and the killing of children for flying a kite we handed out thousands of kites when we got
[01:20:34] down there because they're huge kite flying folks they have competitions you know where they
[01:20:39] tack each other with the kites you know it's just like this huge thing anyways they loved it right
[01:20:46] we got them their music we got them things to play with their music we established businesses one of the
[01:20:52] one of the first businesses that we established was a woman's laundry and then we used it to clean
[01:20:57] our own stuff because by the time we got the time we got the time we got the candahar we stumped right
[01:21:04] I mean it was pretty bad so anyways we did that but I'll never forget I was on it was
[01:21:10] four o'clock in the morning I was up on the candahar governor's mansion and I was doing my
[01:21:17] had my night vision goggles and I got my afghan partner with me and to keep them awake I
[01:21:22] had do was give them the goggles because it was like it was amazing to them right it was amazing
[01:21:27] to see that technology and they could see because they'd go and then you go back down right
[01:21:31] and I know you can't see me on the radio but I mean it you know it's just is what it is but
[01:21:37] I'm up there and I see the bakery that we had established you know and the guy goes in for work
[01:21:44] and he gets in there and he starts opening up and that's where we got our bread every morning and that
[01:21:48] man bread that football shaped bread it was warm it was delicious by that time we were getting peanut
[01:21:56] butter and jelly sent to us and my wife sent me a tub of marshmallow because I'm from New Hampshire
[01:22:01] and fluffing outers are really good right peanut butter and marshmallow sound so I was looking
[01:22:06] for it to it but I'm watching this guy and I go oh there he is you know doing his thing we
[01:22:13] he starts you know he gets the dough all done and he gets in the bowl with his feet
[01:22:21] and starts kneading it and I'm like no I did not just see that right you can't unsee that and I'm like
[01:22:32] and I know what his feet look like right and I'm thinking to myself it's gone I can't eat bread again
[01:22:42] and we go get the bread and I'm sitting down and the time commander sitting there and watching the
[01:22:48] guys and I go all right guys I gotta tell you I gotta tell you this is what I saw today
[01:22:55] I gotta share this with you I hope I don't ruin it for anybody more morally obliquid
[01:22:59] I gotta share it with you and I did and they looked at me and they go I don't give me
[01:23:07] I'm eating this bread and it goes the brick oven burned it all off and I go I can't get there
[01:23:13] I can't get there right so it kind of ruined it for me but anyways it's good
[01:23:21] so by the time you leave for the first time in March you know it it looked like things are going
[01:23:26] pretty as good as you could want them to go 2002 when do you get back there again
[01:23:33] so you know it was interesting I get selected to be the fifth special forces group S3 so I get bumped
[01:23:41] up from the batai and go up to the group level and we're now of course
[01:23:48] sustaining operations while it had gone to a different group so we didn't have to worry about
[01:23:54] Afghanistan anymore at fifth group because we didn't have really there because it was third group
[01:24:00] but then we got the warning order for Iraq so we start planning Iraq and then I get called into
[01:24:07] my group commanders office he says hey you just got by name requested to go do an interview
[01:24:15] to be the secretary of the army's aid
[01:24:20] oh joy I go sir I just got the job that I've always wanted
[01:24:25] group S3 I mean they didn't get any better than that in a special forces group right and in my mind anyways
[01:24:32] and I was like sir I don't I don't want to do that and he goes well you don't have a choice
[01:24:36] and he goes and you better not blow it because we need an SF guy at that level it's never happened
[01:24:43] before so we need you there right we need you there so you go there and you do the best you can
[01:24:48] if you don't get picked don't worry about it but don't sabotage it so I go there and Tom White
[01:24:56] is a secretary and I do my interview and I'm sitting at home and I get a call
[01:25:04] Tom White don't you're gonna be my aid we got two weeks together here
[01:25:13] and I go holy crap so I call my boss and I tell him he goes you know congratulations it's
[01:25:19] great it's gonna be great for the SF community blah blah it's funny because the entire time I was
[01:25:26] the aid there I never got a call from the SF community once but I did what I was told to do and I
[01:25:33] went there and I was the aid for Tom White and what a great experience that was what I wanted you
[01:25:38] to do it for what a great one year so you get right and then you move on and then so that's what
[01:25:46] year was that that you were the aid 2000 June a 2002 to June a 2003 got it right and then
[01:25:56] I went what did you before you jump in and where you went next what did you you said it was a great
[01:26:01] experience I was fortunate enough you know as fortunate as you can get would you become an
[01:26:07] aid I was fortunate enough to be the aid for for the seal Admiral Admiral Maguire and definitely
[01:26:13] was loved yeah he's a great guy great guy but I was very lucky that I was able to do that job
[01:26:19] because I got to see a lot and got to understand what was happening and understand how these high
[01:26:24] level decisions were made and see a little bit into the future what was it from from your experience
[01:26:28] what did you see that what did you learn that was important well all of what you just learned
[01:26:34] but more importantly I learned how all the you know how these decisions have made inside the
[01:26:42] the political level right from the top and all these things that are done so when I got back
[01:26:49] to the tactical level I could explain to the guys what's going on at the strategic level and although
[01:26:55] although they may not like it at least I had a familiarity and an understanding and be able to
[01:27:02] explain what's going on in the whole process and why we're sitting here you know waiting to be
[01:27:08] ordered to go do something or what would have you but I learned how the army worked
[01:27:13] sitting in the hello and a lot of us go through help there's a lot of guys that get promoted to
[01:27:19] general officer and they don't even know how the army works right because they've never been in a
[01:27:23] job that taught him how the army works it's just a matter so you know there I am you know I'm
[01:27:29] the you know battle buddy of the secretary of the army you know and he depends on me for everything right
[01:27:36] and and it was just a phenomenal opportunity to learn how the army works and how the army fits
[01:27:45] into the larger service and how the joint chiefs of staff works and you know how all these things
[01:27:51] go and and so you know I did not want to leave the group S3 job at all I just you know I
[01:28:01] didn't want to and when I got asked the question by secretary white you know do you want to be
[01:28:07] they you want this job and my answer was sir I'll be honored to serve as an aide but
[01:28:15] I'd rather be this special forces group S3 to heck and I was told later that's why I got the job
[01:28:23] because everybody else they interviewed wanted to be they and I didn't so they gave it to the guy
[01:28:29] that didn't want it and and I went there and I gave him 100 100 100% like I would do any job
[01:28:37] if they made me the floor sweeper would be the best man swept for an army right that's just the way
[01:28:43] it goes right you just go do whatever job they give you and do it best of your ability and then you
[01:28:47] know you know good things will happen and so I did that and then I went over to I got picked up
[01:28:56] for lieutenant colonel and I got picked up for tying command first battalion third group and I had to
[01:29:03] do some joint time so I went over and I worked for I was the executive officer for the assistant
[01:29:08] secretary of defense for special operations of the intensity conflict so then I got to see how the
[01:29:14] OSD worked and how all of that went and I always like to say how it works and doesn't work right
[01:29:21] because it's both sides of the coin right but it is good excellent experience and I met some really
[01:29:26] great people there that I have relationships with to this day but that was three June of 2003
[01:29:41] and then I went and took command of fifth special forces group first battalion third special
[01:29:48] forces group the desert equals and we did two back to back tours to Afghanistan there
[01:29:53] and that was that was awesome one of the only battalions that ever did back to back tours
[01:30:05] it's just the way it worked out so we went there for nine months came back for six went back
[01:30:10] for another nine months and then I went up to use the socket for the the amount of continuity you
[01:30:17] know it's one thing that when you compare let's say world war two with either the end of
[01:30:23] Korean war or the Vietnam war where you have guys coming on tour they're gonna do a year and then
[01:30:27] they're gonna leave and that's that's that's almost a continuity when you do nine months there
[01:30:35] six months home and then nine months back there you start to get some real continuity what what
[01:30:40] did you see in that deployment or those two deployments you get to see like a bigger arc of the story
[01:30:46] yes with with a better thread through it so we really saw the the reemergence and the
[01:30:54] resurgence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in 2005 when we got there may have 2005 is when we got there
[01:31:02] now now obviously 2003 I think I might have cut you off when you were about to say this before but
[01:31:08] 2003 things are looking about as good as we could hope in Afghanistan the war kicks off in Iraq
[01:31:15] that means people are you know American soldiers resources are now pouring into Iraq that
[01:31:22] sort of becomes the focus and and that allows over in Afghanistan where we had had a big presence
[01:31:29] now something that's drawn down now the sudden the you know al-Qaeda and the Taliban start to see
[01:31:35] opportunities yes and so when you roll back in it's now 2005 and now they've taken advantage of
[01:31:42] some of these opportunities they have taken advantage of the opportunity and I'll never forget
[01:31:49] September 11th 2005 I was on a hilltop with Charlie Company commander and in the
[01:32:02] Kandahar province and there were 1500 wave after wave of Taliban fighters coming at us it was unbelievable
[01:32:23] September 11th 2005 that was I had been you know I mean 2011 I mean September 11 2001 that long ago
[01:32:36] right and you're right I mean we had it looked good in 2002 2003 and four we didn't have the
[01:32:47] resources that we needed but we were still doing nation building we were still building an army
[01:32:52] we were still building the police we were putting together there justice system we were putting
[01:32:57] together there constitution so on so forth all that was working but there wasn't anybody to keep
[01:33:03] the pressure on them right and so they researched and so we saw the front of that and Kandahar province
[01:33:11] in 2005 September 11th Operation Ladusa and you know it was a big operation and it was just
[01:33:29] it was just unbelievable what was going on during that time frame in terms of you know enemy
[01:33:34] capability capacity strength numbers and it wasn't just southern Afghanistan which is where my
[01:33:42] batay it was it was in the north it was in the east you know predominantly at that time in the
[01:33:48] east we were on the border right wow that was just incredible right so we're going on all over the place
[01:33:55] right you know when when you talked earlier you mentioned that you know we were helping them
[01:34:00] we were right in the constitution we were setting up the government and there's a you know when
[01:34:05] I talk about leadership a lot which I do I talk about what happens when you try and impose your plan
[01:34:11] onto your subordinates onto your team you impose your plan onto them look you can kind of get away
[01:34:18] with it sometimes depending on the authority that you have depending on the amount of leadership
[01:34:22] capital that you have depending on how much oversight you're allowed to kind of sit there and
[01:34:27] if you're going to impose their plan the plan on them and then you have the tenacity and the
[01:34:33] ability to sort of continue to put the pressure on them then maybe maybe you can pull it off
[01:34:40] but it's much better from a leadership perspective to say hey Don you know here's this mission
[01:34:45] how do you want to do it and kind of let you come up with the plan it seems like America has a
[01:34:51] tendency to want to impose you know our way onto countries whether it's Vietnam or there's
[01:34:59] the Vietnam thing the way that unfolded and the way we tried to sort of impose what we wanted it to
[01:35:06] look like and the Vietnamese don't like that they they they've fought against that forever and they've
[01:35:15] never been beaten and so they weren't going to be beaten and and it wasn't that they didn't like
[01:35:20] what we were saying it's just that they wanted to say what they wanted to say so so you know here we
[01:35:26] are with the Afghans so doing a little but doing some imposition on them and and the way that
[01:35:33] turns out it's sort of like from a leadership perspective if you don't have the the constant pressure
[01:35:37] to say nope nope I this would exactly what I want you to do and I have the the tenacity
[01:35:42] and the leadership capital and the resource stuff kind of make you do it which again this is an ideal
[01:35:46] mm-hmm how do you think we find ourselves in a situation where we we seem to make that that seems to be
[01:35:53] our tendency to want to impose our our way our plan onto other under other people mm-hmm
[01:36:01] well to your point I mean it doesn't it doesn't work out well right and and the way we had set it up
[01:36:06] there was the US who's doing the military the Germans were doing the police the Italians were doing
[01:36:14] the justice system and then there was this collective body that was writing the constitution
[01:36:22] and we factored out one of the most important things that goes in a constitution or a
[01:36:29] or a document whatever they choose to call it that establishes their their government and how
[01:36:35] their government is going to govern in a Muslim country and that is they don't separate church
[01:36:40] and state right and that was one of the big mistakes of that document right and then we name the
[01:36:47] government for them as well which you know they didn't like either so once they got it turned over
[01:36:55] to them they made you know cars I went in they made they made the changes right and we were building
[01:37:00] a top-down western government police and military force which isn't culturally the way they do things
[01:37:08] it's very decentralized very decentralized and we're trying to centralize it was trying to
[01:37:13] centralize it from cool down and they don't do that either you know their political system
[01:37:19] is very democratic to begin with it's it's sure is in jurgers and it's local and it's consent
[01:37:25] among the tribal elders and the village elders which are which are different right because you
[01:37:30] have the tribal elders and they may not be the elected village elders right but they still work
[01:37:36] together and they understand and then they have a pecking order of the tribes and so when
[01:37:42] stuff goes when stuff is available the tribes get their fair share based off of where they sit
[01:37:49] in the pecking order and they're okay with this but we don't like that a lot of times right
[01:37:54] because we want the the minority want to get the stuff but they're okay with the stuff they get
[01:38:01] because it's good enough right so we went in and we mocked all that up right because we would just
[01:38:09] start familiar with the tribes and it's a lot of try to idealistic about the way we think things
[01:38:13] are going to be I remember a very similar example we had these young Iraqi soldiers and the officers
[01:38:20] were skimming their paychecks and you know my guys coming to me there they're you got their
[01:38:25] skimming the paychecks of these young and listed guys so I started talking to my interpreters
[01:38:30] and I go hey what's going on can you help us you know if I want to understand what's happening
[01:38:33] he's like of course they are he's that the soldiers know that that's that's that's that's
[01:38:38] their boss and he's going to take a little piece that's the way it works that's that's that's fine
[01:38:42] so us going in and trying to impose what we have this ideal of the way things should be
[01:38:48] doesn't always match up culturally in the turns into a problem yes and that's exactly what
[01:38:53] you know I mean the same thing happened in Afghanistan right and we were obligated to fix it
[01:38:58] which puts us in a position we don't have any real authority to fix right I'm going to
[01:39:05] listen to us there's still going to skim it there's still going to do the thing they'll just figure
[01:39:08] out a different way to do it and although we see that that is bad I'm not saying it's good I'm
[01:39:13] saying it's just the way it is right and over time these things will change like we saw
[01:39:20] in Afghanistan right now the ambassador to the United States and Afghanistan is a woman
[01:39:26] never would have been that way in 2001 or five or ten but in 20 it's a woman that's great that's
[01:39:35] progress they'll figure it out right they have a great university system that they figured out
[01:39:42] and it's one of the things we really didn't get involved in and it works right and I don't mean
[01:39:49] that that everything we did was terrible because obviously it wasn't but when you start getting
[01:39:55] involved in a country's institutions and you start getting involved in their culture and
[01:39:59] their society and your outsider it's never going to be received well and you're probably going
[01:40:04] to you know trample of or something that you should just you know just stay away from but
[01:40:10] the good things will happen as they you know continue to move forward and another thing
[01:40:17] that a lot of people in the villages they didn't want to go from the seventh century to the 21st
[01:40:24] century right they didn't want to they were very happy being in the seventh century you know
[01:40:30] one of the things that I would always tell folks that would would come to you know to do
[01:40:35] humanitarian work in Afghanistan I say don't give them coats don't give them shoes they don't want
[01:40:41] that all they're going to do they're going to smile at you they're going to say thank you so much
[01:40:46] they'll even have kids running around with this stuff on but as soon as you leave kids are taking
[01:40:51] it off putting on their sandals you know they wear sandals you know even in the winter time right
[01:40:57] they're not going to put on winter boots they're just not going to do it but they're going to take
[01:41:00] those winter boots and they're going to put them on trucks and they're going to go to pack a
[01:41:05] stand and they're going to sell them and then they're going to come back home because they don't have
[01:41:09] any use for what they have use for paper pencils and school products and things along those lines
[01:41:15] that they that they will use and they won't go sell because they want their kids to be able to draw
[01:41:21] they want their kids to be able to get right they want them to be able to you know so stop giving them
[01:41:27] converses sneakers you know it's they're not going to you know they're not going to wear
[01:41:33] I mean I'm not going to see basketball quitch break out you know they want soccer balls
[01:41:37] and they'll play soccer barefoot and they'll outrun us right and they're bare feet so let's just
[01:41:44] you know I think it's you know to your point right I mean it you know it kind of is it's kind of
[01:41:50] is what it is and and our guys would see it because our guys would stay there and you know
[01:41:57] all the boots and the shoes and the jackets and you know they don't wear hooded sweatshirts you know
[01:42:04] give them blankets right they're not going to sport a hooded jacket with a hood on it in the middle of
[01:42:10] the Afghan villages they stick out like a sore thumb it's not what they wear right so you know
[01:42:17] they like cooking equipment you give them cooking equipment they make a great stew you know
[01:42:25] you might pay for it for a few days if if you eat it on our stomach right and the other thing
[01:42:31] that we were doing was we were introducing medical supplies that were causing more harm than good
[01:42:37] because we needed the medical supplies because the way we grow up and live in America
[01:42:45] our immune system is much different than what they look and I used to tell stories I used to tell
[01:42:51] a doctor we'd get an Afghan in with a head injury right now bullet wounds through the head right
[01:42:57] and the guy he's expecting and I go oh no I wouldn't be so sure please don't call him expecting
[01:43:03] this is an Afghan they have incredible healing um did you just the way it is I get a call from the
[01:43:09] doctor the next day hey don't you know we're going to believe this the guy's sitting up
[01:43:14] spouting all kinds of things and you know post to and I go of course he is he's an Afghan
[01:43:19] yeah you know that might have put down an American soldier but not an Afghan that's just the way
[01:43:26] they are so please you know I used to go over when our when our Afghan partners would come in and I
[01:43:31] would make sure it's a please and I'd have my medics there and I'd say just watch this guy
[01:43:35] because they're going to say expect it and we know that he might not be sometimes yes most of the time
[01:43:42] no and you know they just have a different constitution because of the way they have to you know
[01:43:53] operate and if we bring in all of our amenities we weaken them and we make them more susceptible
[01:44:02] to getting sick and and dying yeah it's not their their way of life it's not their way life and
[01:44:08] and they don't want it right you know they do have their idea of of medical care so don't exceed it
[01:44:16] right just come up to it bring it back bring the doctor back back bring the nurse back bring
[01:44:22] those skills back that the Taliban had a trip down to nothing and that's what they need so those
[01:44:31] so those two deployments back to back that's 2000 was it was a 2006 2007 so it was 2005 to
[01:44:39] six and six to seven yeah and those so what type of operations or your guys doing because
[01:44:46] now you you were the batit first batit commander of third special for what what operations were you guys
[01:44:52] were you guys doing so we were doing we were assisting the Afghan National Army at the time with you
[01:45:00] know shaping and clearing operations right and then we'd want to put we'd want to hold that area
[01:45:10] in a way that we hadn't been holding it before so we introduced kind of the hold because it used to be
[01:45:14] shape it go clear it and then leave and then they'd come back in so let's hold it let's figure out
[01:45:19] away to hold it and that's where the first ideas about bottom up security came into play in 2005
[01:45:30] six and seven so you're you're setting up uh where was it Afghan police was it local police idea
[01:45:37] of Afghan local police right came in there and at that time we were just calling them in the
[01:45:42] Arbachai right and we had the support of the had Arbachai means like security local security
[01:45:49] yeah it means their local security so like back in the day when they were fighting
[01:45:55] Alexander the Great and Gangas Khan and the Brits and the Russians the Kabul the King of Afghanistan
[01:46:05] wouldn't send down national troops to deal with the problem he would organize local arbachai
[01:46:14] and the village elders and the tribal elders they go and they get their weapons out of their
[01:46:18] you know um out of their huts and they mud huts and they would come and they would report
[01:46:24] and they would defend Afghanistan and that's how they would do it yeah there's so many similarities
[01:46:30] you know from from my experience and I rack and and in 2006 and in the city of Ramadi the
[01:46:37] when the the army came in looked the army worked hard they when they I racky army came in
[01:46:44] they worked hard they they sacrificed greatly they fought hard they were a bunch of shea
[01:46:51] going into a Sunni city and that right there you're already starting off on the wrong foot I mean
[01:46:57] and that's not even put it that's putting it extremely mildly to say you're starting off in the
[01:47:01] wrong foot you you're deal with people that have a history of killing each other and so you got the
[01:47:07] strong shea army coming into the Sunni city and look the Sunnis inside Ramadi realize look
[01:47:15] the their after al Qaeda their after these insurgents their after these foreign fighters so we were able
[01:47:20] to to get through it but it wasn't until the the the the Suns of Iraq and the Iraqi police the
[01:47:30] local the local Sunni tribesmen tribal leaders the sheaq said you know what we want to defend
[01:47:36] our own city let us put our tribe let us put our tribesmen in the police force that's what we did
[01:47:41] and then it was a game changer because now you had the local tribal leader had his tribesmen
[01:47:47] with police uniforms on authorized by him saying yep we we don't want bad guys here and the
[01:47:54] local popping is going yep that's that's our tribe and there's several tribes there multiple tribes
[01:47:58] with they all agreed that that's what needed to happen so this idea of you know decentralized command
[01:48:04] but also this idea of hey the people that are on the ground that are from there they know who's
[01:48:10] good and who's bad and the local populist is going to support the neighborhood kids that are now
[01:48:15] neighborhood police and that's just it's it we were lucky enough to kind of watch that unfold
[01:48:22] I was lucky enough to watch that unfold and and see those the what they called the Suns of Iraq
[01:48:27] and it was interesting too because in Iraq there had been there had been out in al-Kaim the Marine
[01:48:34] Corps had pushed through al-Kaim and when they did it there was a bunch of locals going hey there's
[01:48:38] bad guys in that building over there there's bad and so the Marines said hey you know what let's
[01:48:42] organize these guys and they made this this thing called desert protector which was hey if you're
[01:48:49] a local and you want to help us out cool you can join this program called desert protector and they
[01:48:54] started to send it was working pretty well well when Maliki got elected all of a sudden he
[01:49:00] looks out an al-ambar province and they got all these desert protectors out there and he goes
[01:49:05] way to second now I got a bunch of random rogue security forces running around I can't have
[01:49:12] that I can't I can't have that so he shut it now which which was not a great move but you can see
[01:49:19] from his perspective he doesn't want a bunch of rogue paramilitary units run around but we were
[01:49:24] able to convince the the shakes in Ramadi because they were asking we wanted you to desert protector
[01:49:29] we want to do that we were able to say look at we we can't do desert protectors not around anymore
[01:49:33] but you can be Iraqi policemen you can be local and we'll help you train and that's what we did
[01:49:39] so what you're talking about it's very similar very similar yes yeah well you know I mean as you
[01:49:47] point it out the the cultures are you know very similar in the way they approach things and there's
[01:49:53] the principles that really work and apply from one place to the other the techniques
[01:49:59] and the tactics and the approach might require adjustment but nonetheless standard principles
[01:50:06] remain the same and that's what you're talking about and I think that one of the biggest
[01:50:14] things that we saw in 2005 to 2007 was that this brought about I'm up approach has merit over
[01:50:21] a top down approach right although there are aspects of the top down approach that you still need
[01:50:26] to apply but really if you're talking about security and safeguarding
[01:50:31] population and making that area in area that the enemy can't operate in that's going to be
[01:50:42] the way that you need to go and from 2007 to five to seven we learned that but the other thing
[01:50:47] that we learned was during this time frame you know the US you know transitioned the mission to
[01:50:56] NATO and that's when it became a full fledged NATO operation and a very good friend of mine
[01:51:02] Dave Frazier who's written a book about Afghanistan at about his time they're during this time
[01:51:06] took over that's when they went from 06 as curdles and in some cases navy captains commanding
[01:51:17] the regional commands you know north southeast and west in Afghanistan to general officer level
[01:51:24] headquarters and Dave came in he was a Canadian special ops guy who I had had a relationship with
[01:51:31] really really good guy and when we got into Afghanistan he said hey I need to come over here I
[01:51:41] need to talk to you about you know what we're going to do and how we're going to do this because we
[01:51:45] got a problem and more than we came in here to do peacekeeping operations and although it's
[01:51:54] not popular thing to say my assessment is is that we're fighting an insurgency and a deadly one
[01:52:01] and he knew that that was our assessment as well our intel guys and everybody had the same assessment
[01:52:06] going in there from first to time third group and our group headquarters up north so
[01:52:13] anyways he called me in and we said well I think we can come up with an operation using the afghan
[01:52:25] national security forces to come up into this district panjouay and take over this stronghold of
[01:52:33] insurgence right and so we went back we did some planning we came back and briefed him and so what
[01:52:42] Charlie company first battalion got the mission and it was a instead of coming at them from
[01:52:53] you know uh can to heart province you know directly or helmet province where they expected it
[01:52:59] to come we went all the way down south into the red desert which is the red desert now when you fly
[01:53:06] in southern afghanistan and you're flying you know east of west or west to east there's the
[01:53:15] red desert that heads all the way down into Pakistan and it's nothing but desert and then there's a
[01:53:21] distinct line that goes into the built up areas in the green areas and so on and so forth and it's just
[01:53:27] so blat nobody goes down there only better ones go down there so we did our infiltration and
[01:53:35] a panjouay district that way it took three days we did vehicle recovery operation I mean it was ugly
[01:53:42] right but we got there and completely surprised the Taliban in panjouay and it was a huge victory
[01:53:50] so we brought it them up and then my guys were up for over 96 hours straight me and my command
[01:54:02] started major went in once we took panjouay district and this is where I told you earlier we got
[01:54:09] up on top of the hill it saw all the Taliban coming it was unbelievable well anyways once we
[01:54:15] got control that situation our guys my those guys had in slept for 96 hours and I called my
[01:54:21] headquarters and I said how I'm going to stay son major and I'm going to stay here overnight so
[01:54:25] canceled the CH47 coming again us and so we did that and I knew if I had told my guys that
[01:54:34] the sardine major and I were going to pull the entire night shift so they could sleep I would have
[01:54:40] got a bunch of pushback right no sir you're not going to be pulling guard right now yeah I would
[01:54:45] so I just kept my mouth shut and I said hey I'll take first watch they go oh you don't have to do that
[01:54:50] and I go now I take first watch well these guys went down hard and the sardine major and I just stayed
[01:54:55] up all night well about two o'clock in the morning my company commander Jared Hill comes out he goes
[01:55:01] sorry what that's going on it's two o'clock in the morning I was supposed to have shift you know I
[01:55:06] slept through what I'm sorry I go no no no we got this go back to bed we're good and he didn't
[01:55:12] argue with me went back to bed and none of them had to pull shift it was just me and the sard
[01:55:23] major and we did radio watch and did the whole thing if we called in all the all the times right
[01:55:30] and then that was that and these guys got up not only did I have that but I also had the helicopter
[01:55:39] come in with hot chow right hot breakfast right and so I said you guys get your hot breakfast
[01:55:48] and the sardine major and I will hand it back over to you and you know you got it right and
[01:55:53] you know it was just amazing what these guys had done general Fraser and his book writes
[01:56:03] today about our guys and he says they saved the NATO mission because if we didn't have these
[01:56:12] special ops guys to do this we would have been routed by the Taliban and it would have been a
[01:56:20] huge political nightmare for NATO. First Battalion third group my guys got awarded for the first time
[01:56:32] the equivalent of the Canadian presidential unit citation the only foreign military in the history
[01:56:42] of the Canadian military to get that award and they got that award and it sits in the
[01:56:46] battalion headquarters at Fort Bragg proudly and you know they sent down their equivalent to their
[01:56:54] chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to Fort Bragg and all the guys got it penned on him it took him
[01:57:01] four years to get it approved but he didn't quit and he finally got it approved and I was I was just
[01:57:08] getting out of the work college at that time was 2009 when they when they did the award and I was just
[01:57:14] so proud to see these guys get the award and do they're thing but yeah it was I mean and that that's
[01:57:24] really what kind of got us thinking and you know who got thinking general crystal and when he came in
[01:57:34] in 2010 to take over he was all about bottom up all about it and then when general portrays came
[01:57:42] and it take over for him oh he loved village stability operations in Afghan local police and
[01:57:50] so when you before we get into that so you get done with your Battalion Commander tour
[01:57:55] 2007 something like that yeah July 2007 and he changed command and then you go to work college
[01:58:02] yeah I go up to use the sock headquarters from basically August to May of 2008 and I get selected
[01:58:13] for the work college and I go off to the work college but another great opportunity when I went to
[01:58:22] our three star headquarters which is a place nobody wants to go but you know you go there I got put
[01:58:30] in the to be the deputy G8 and the deputy what the G8 does in that headquarters is they do
[01:58:38] they do all the combat developments and the resources and the budget and you know all that stuff
[01:58:45] and I so I learned that and then I learned how use the sock not only fits into so calm
[01:58:51] and how we compete for resources there but also how we compete for resources in the army
[01:58:56] and how our tier one guys how they get all their resources and how the Rangers get all their
[01:59:03] resources and everybody and so that was huge right and so I was right in the middle of that process
[01:59:09] because we were right in the middle of of doing all of that for the next five years
[01:59:16] and I got put in charge of the movement of seventh group from Fort Bragg
[01:59:25] to Destin Florida for their new headquarters and setting that up and what that would look like
[01:59:32] and although not perfect we really really did create an optimal special forces group headquarters
[01:59:44] with all the Rangers and all the things associated with so they could do all the levels of training
[01:59:50] right there and what you learn about working with communities and briefing communities because there's
[01:59:55] noise things and noise studies and this that you know housing issues and you know is there going to be
[02:00:02] enough housing you know houses all going I'm you just unbelievable right so that was another part you know
[02:00:08] like I told you before with the secretary of the army and then working at ASD and then the joint staff
[02:00:14] and all that all coming together really gave me tremendous insight on on how use of sock
[02:00:21] you know United States Army special operations command works and again a lot of guys
[02:00:27] that make very senior ranks don't have any idea how that works because they don't get the
[02:00:32] opportunity to go there and that was because I come out of the time command I get selected
[02:00:37] for the work college and it's like oh now what the hell we're going to do right and no place for me
[02:00:42] right and they said report to use the sock headquarters and they'll have a job and I originally
[02:00:49] was going to be in the J in the G3 but then I got stuck I got moved over to the G8 because an old
[02:00:55] boss in mind was the was the use of sock G8 Jeffrey puts and he goes oh no I want him right
[02:01:06] he's a fine boy he gonna work his ass off for me right and and he may not like it but he's going to do it
[02:01:12] and so boom so I went there and yeah I was great great really great experience
[02:01:17] and then would you study a war college so I went to the war college and I just studied that you
[02:01:23] know they're curriculum and you get a master's degree in strategic studies so I was like oh this
[02:01:28] is great right so I I've worked at the strategic level right and three different assignments
[02:01:35] and I've worked at the operational level and now I'm going to go and I'm going to get an education
[02:01:40] and the in strategic studies and so it really it it brought together the job experience and
[02:01:49] then an education and kind of mesh that together for me I got a business degree when I went to
[02:01:58] Commander General Staff College because I I'm like you know what when I take over a unit
[02:02:04] it it can't shoot move and communicate like nobody's business right but God do we suck at
[02:02:13] admin budget you know all that stuff that nobody likes to do and they're not comfortable doing it
[02:02:18] so I ended up you know I got a business degree because I thought that that's what officers do right
[02:02:24] and so learning how to run a business I said you know that's going to help me out and it did right
[02:02:31] and so I had the business thing going for me and then I had the you know got to the war college
[02:02:38] Carlisle and and that was just a great experience there as well and but I learned one thing
[02:02:48] at the work college it's not necessarily the war college and what you learn there it's winning
[02:02:53] the gym thorp sports event where all the war colleges come to the army war college and you compete
[02:03:03] right in a variety of different sporting events and the army is only lost at twice
[02:03:14] who do they lose in their history of they usually you lose it to the navy war college
[02:03:20] for the what are the events the national war college their teams are so small right
[02:03:28] because the school is so small they get their butts kicked all the time but the army war college
[02:03:34] and you know you got the army the air force the navy the coastguard academy you know you got
[02:03:40] all those guys that come down and it's a it's three days of feats of strength right
[02:03:46] you know I loved it and and you you play all these sports right during the war college
[02:03:54] only so that the coaches of the different teams in the gym thorp sports competition
[02:04:01] can draft their athletes and then you start training in January after the first of the year
[02:04:11] you get put on a team and then you train all the way up to uh may when they have the event
[02:04:21] what what what event did you do I I was in the uh 800 meter relay and the five mile run
[02:04:31] and we won both those events we had a ringer we had a
[02:04:37] uh some guy with a 357 mile or something we had a a guy on on our team he was a Marine on our
[02:04:47] relay team who was a you know division one relay national champion yeah on a team right and so
[02:04:58] about fair and and our coach was in the 1972 Olympics as an 800 meter relay and so the coach
[02:05:11] you know so he taught us you know how to run you know and and how to pace yourself and how to do it
[02:05:16] yeah it was a blowout it was pretty cool but I had the um
[02:05:23] leg that I had I had the first leg yeah that's right I had the first leg he even knew how to set
[02:05:29] up people for the what legs and you know and he stood right right at the place and he said turn it
[02:05:35] on so as I ran by he goes turn it on and it was you had so much left in you right even though I was
[02:05:42] last I picked everybody off right and that was the whole idea of it because people don't get trained
[02:05:47] and how to run it they just go you know and two laps around a track yeah you know you're gonna start feeling
[02:05:54] it you know no I the 800 which I never did but I was reading an article about it somewhere along the way
[02:06:01] and the 800 they say it's like the most painful event because you know you're running 100 yards it's over
[02:06:08] you run you run a mile or a 16 or even a marathon it's at a lower level of intensity
[02:06:16] he and this this article that I think I think it was an article I read but it pointed out the fact that
[02:06:21] there's zero recreational 800 meter runners they don't exist there's marathon there's people run
[02:06:27] marathon there's people do a little sprint triathlon there's no one that just guts through
[02:06:32] 800 meters like for fun it doesn't happen all right so we wrap with the gym form
[02:06:40] championship and it's time for you to go back to work and your next your next thing is you go back
[02:06:47] you go back to Afghanistan again I do I go back for Afghanistan again what proved to be 22 months
[02:06:54] and this is what 2010 2010 and I go back to Afghanistan as an advisor to the RC South Commander
[02:07:05] and at the time it was a Dutch commander by the name of major general de Croife and it was a Dutch guy
[02:07:15] and we were having some general McCristal was concerned about the problems with soft coordination
[02:07:23] so he said hey you're going to take command of siege sotofe so the siege sotofe that's the
[02:07:30] that's a combined joint special operations task force afghanistan this is the first thing that's
[02:07:34] going to be in charge of all special operations in Afghanistan that's correct and you get you get
[02:07:39] tasked with that outside of the tier one guys yeah tier one guys not included so
[02:07:49] anyways we uh I'm going to take command of that that's going to be my brigade level command
[02:07:55] opportunity and I couldn't have been more excited I have Admiral Olson
[02:08:00] and general kerni to thank for that they're the ones that pick me so I was
[02:08:10] had a great relationship with Admiral Olson and general kerni general kerni was then the deputy
[02:08:17] the deputy of socom but before that and during my time as a retired commander he was the sock
[02:08:26] special operations command central commander is a two star so that's how I built that relationship
[02:08:31] with him and general Olson or excuse me Admiral Olson develop a good relationship with him and so they
[02:08:39] picked me for that command but there was some time there so I went to uh I said hey I'll just go early
[02:08:47] right and I'll you know do whatever you need me to do I'll work on a staff I'll do whatever
[02:08:53] you know pick staples out of the rugs I don't care just you know just get in there early and
[02:08:58] get myself you know ready for you know the command and they said hey general McCristal wants
[02:09:08] to go down south and be the special operations liaison to general de kroyce who was not very happy
[02:09:20] about the coordination with his headquarters in RC south and the soft guys so I went down there
[02:09:28] and I got myself established and did that well the interesting thing is general de kroyce went to
[02:09:33] the army work college and there's twenty seminars in the army work college and you get assigned in
[02:09:41] seminar and there's a twenty first one and that's for all the guys deploying out of the war college
[02:09:51] whose family stay right so my wife was in seminar 21 when I left she stayed right there which was
[02:09:58] great continuity for her and the kids because they were there my kids wrestled so one of them
[02:10:05] wrestled for the high school so they were that was just good continuity and we thought it was only
[02:10:11] going to be for here but it ended up being for twenty two months so they ended up staying there
[02:10:17] almost three years which was really good for them but general de kroyce went to the war college
[02:10:22] and he was in seminar eight and I was in seminar eight and we called ourselves the eight balls
[02:10:28] and so when I went in to introduce myself and he said where you're coming from when I said
[02:10:31] the war army work college you go so I went to the army work college too and I go really that's
[02:10:36] great sir I mean I loved it and he goes oh I loved it too I was in seminar eight and I go well
[02:10:43] so was I and he goes no way and and we had the same instructors the same guys there so we were
[02:10:50] able to share that we were able to share stories about Piano and eight ball right and it was automatic
[02:10:55] you know relationship establishment were born everything and so all I did was go to his morning meetings
[02:11:05] be available for him whenever he needed whenever there was operations coming up I made it sure
[02:11:11] that they would de-conflict it and I ended up traveling with him everywhere he went and I've can't
[02:11:18] understand on his plane everywhere he went in the south that's what he wanted me to do and it was
[02:11:27] it was like simple and general my crystal was happy because he was not getting any more
[02:11:33] complaints from the RC South commander and you know and they were valid complaints I might say right
[02:11:41] I mean you know how that goes it's just so much going on right and everybody's trying to do the
[02:11:45] right thing and they're trying to get it done and you know things slip so they got 06 now you know
[02:11:52] a kernel there to make sure that doesn't happen and if it does happen he got 1 god of blame mate
[02:11:57] what else so it was good and you know we just tighten that up and you know it wasn't just soft you
[02:12:05] know it was conventional side it was all kinds of you know everything's going to the state
[02:12:09] department and what they're doing and then the you know other things going on so hey it just worked
[02:12:15] and how long did you do that for I did that for six months let's see from June to
[02:12:25] yeah June to December six months and then after that you took over the CG sort of yeah I went home for two
[02:12:31] weeks for a break in nice vacation yeah two weeks one home for two weeks came back
[02:12:36] took command and stating command of of the special operations there you know the CG sort of
[02:12:46] a until May of 2011 and this is when you started or at what point did the the VSO the
[02:12:57] village stability operations start at it was it at this time yes so because I remember I was
[02:13:03] getting ready to well I retired in 2010 and I was I was running training and as I was running training
[02:13:11] we were starting to have guys do training missions based on VSO based on going out and doing
[02:13:18] tribal engagement and key personnel engagement and going to meet people and villages and
[02:13:22] have on them how they're going to set security and all that stuff we started doing that in 2010
[02:13:26] so I don't know exactly when it came came to fruition but from when did it so it would have been
[02:13:35] about April of 2010 okay that it all started coming to fruition because I got there in 2009 I
[02:13:44] did that then I took command yeah June of 2009 and then I didn't leave until May of 2011 right
[02:13:52] so it was it was about that time frame and you know it was a it was a collection of people
[02:14:03] that were you know putting this together but I happened to be the commander that did the bulk of
[02:14:09] operationalizing it which is the hardest thing to do right the first guy in the breach right
[02:14:14] you know it's it's hard because you got people pushing back against it and you got people that are
[02:14:21] all for it and you know even though general crystal wants it to happen you know there's there's
[02:14:26] many people there with them that don't want it to happen and you got the international community
[02:14:31] and and even my own community right they were skeptical of it because they saw it as a special
[02:14:40] forces mission so bringing in Marsauk and bringing in the seals to do this kind of mission
[02:14:46] they were like hey that's not their mission and this is a bad precedent and this that
[02:14:49] you know thing and I'm like hey but you know okay so give me more ODAs right I mean you know
[02:14:56] I came up with a term and the joint staff because everyone was using the word fungible right
[02:15:02] and I happen to be given somebody a brief right and and it was about using special ops and you know
[02:15:09] we're better when we work together right because we have just we just aren't right so anyways
[02:15:14] I said and you know special ops puts the fun in fungible you know because that was the big
[02:15:23] strategic word at the time right and so the more you could show you were fungible the better
[02:15:29] off you were so we're fungible is hell right and and that's what that's what we do so
[02:15:34] so anyways we yeah we we just you know came together and did it and every single
[02:15:46] whether it was Marsauk whether it was you know their teams or the Navy seal teams or the
[02:15:53] special forces teams these platforms did really really well and just give us a quick brief on the idea
[02:16:00] of of the VSO of the of the village stability operations what was so if if I was an ODA team leader
[02:16:06] I was a seal platoon leader what was what was my mission what was it gonna look like so your mission is to go
[02:16:12] is to go into say it's you know can't do hard province and it's a district X and you're gonna go in there
[02:16:20] and you're gonna figure out what is the best village to start a village stability platform
[02:16:26] which consists of your team and additional augmentation of intel guys and you know there's
[02:16:32] things that you're gonna need in order to be able to operate there you're gonna go in you're
[02:16:36] gonna talk to the village elders and the tribal elders and you're gonna figure out where you need to
[02:16:41] be now they're gonna tell you where you need to be and you're gonna go with it and if it's the wrong
[02:16:47] place don't worry about it we can change it so just just go with the flow just go in there
[02:16:54] there in charge there the guys that are gonna tell us where to go and over time you'll figure out
[02:17:01] if it's the right place or not and then working with them if you got to change the place you
[02:17:05] don't want it because what's gonna happen is there are of this top-down mindset okay the US is coming in
[02:17:11] and they're gonna come in with a whole bunch of good stuff and we're gonna be able to take it
[02:17:16] advantage of it while they're gonna realize over time we're not coming in there with Jack
[02:17:20] right yeah just go talk to the audience and see if the dudes are out there in the middle of nowhere
[02:17:25] that's right and so some hasco barriers and if we can sack common attention have fun boys
[02:17:32] right and we're not coming in with a with a big bag of money and a whole bunch of things that they're
[02:17:36] gonna be able to you know take advantage of and then they're gonna realize wow hold the crap right
[02:17:41] and but what we are gonna do is we're gonna come in with the ability to be able to prove to them
[02:17:46] that they can secure themselves and we'll develop this Afghan local police program and they're in
[02:17:52] charge and nominating the people for this program so we we get their fingerprint their thumbprint
[02:17:58] on that guy and so if that guy does something it discredit the village elder and the tribal elder
[02:18:04] so you're not gonna really get back it now did we have some problems yes we did but the problems
[02:18:10] were my new and we started we started clearing these you know clearing and holding these areas
[02:18:19] and with the Afghan local police program and yeah and it's based more on relationships that you
[02:18:26] form with the locals more than it's based on imposing your will of the locals which you can only
[02:18:35] do that if you've got the strength and the consistency and to do that all the time right which is
[02:18:41] it's impossible it's impossible it's impossible and so some of the challenges that I was presented
[02:18:46] with was hey you're putting these guys in in harm's way they're gonna all get killed one night
[02:18:53] the Taliban is just gonna overrun them and I said well I don't think so our guys are smarter than
[02:18:59] that they're not gonna allow themselves to be overrun they're gonna keep their finger on the
[02:19:03] pulse on the intel we're gonna use the relationships that they have in the post-tune wall
[02:19:08] we code and people kind of laughed when I said post-tune wall it could be a post but it is strong
[02:19:12] you know and it consists of you know supporting strangers it consists of revenge right and
[02:19:22] that's what they basically operate off of and they accepted us in and we became their responsibility
[02:19:31] and as a result of becoming their responsibility anything happened to our guys
[02:19:41] now did we get guys injured and did guys get killed yeah but that was in combat operations
[02:19:45] and they died right along with us right the just combat operations and combat operations but
[02:19:54] did we ever get overrun no and this was in the middle of the time where you saw conventional
[02:19:58] outpost being overrun right and you know all over Afghanistan and this is conventional units
[02:20:05] that put themselves in valleys in in places that they shouldn't have put themselves because
[02:20:13] they were operating independently of the the Afghan cultures protection right and so
[02:20:22] ended up by 2011 when I left we had 90 locations and none of them ever got run over none of them
[02:20:35] ever got attacked the Afghans were all over I mean they knew they never lost a fight against
[02:20:41] the Taliban they were protecting their families and they took it seriously and when they saw
[02:20:47] the progress they were making and this big bad Taliban guy was defitable and they saw
[02:20:56] they were like whoa then they got the will to fight and they had the mission and they realized
[02:21:01] that their freedom and their destiny to live life the way they wanted to live was in their hands
[02:21:07] and that they didn't need the American military or international forces to secure their
[02:21:13] freedom for it they could do themselves but we need you help a little bit right we need you help a
[02:21:19] little bit but when we got it we got it and that's where the transition piece came in
[02:21:24] yeah it's interesting because you know I was saying that not only can we as Americans
[02:21:31] impose our will on every village in the country guess who else can't do that let's tell
[02:21:36] it about that right so so if you got it you got to make those connections it's decentralized
[02:21:41] command it's building relationships and had a pretty positive I mean a very positive impact
[02:21:46] on what was happening in Afghanistan 2000 was at 2010 2011 into 2012 and 13 things are moving
[02:21:55] in the right in the right direction right and you know like I said General McCristal put it in place
[02:22:01] he was replaced by General Petraeus and General Petraeus became a huge huge advocate of this
[02:22:09] and one of the things that General Petraeus did was he said don what do you need to expand this
[02:22:17] and I said well we're kind of limited sir with just our special operation forces
[02:22:23] but if we could get augmentation from the conventional forces
[02:22:29] then we could expand right and we could we could use the conventional forces to augment
[02:22:36] and not as guards for our bases because we don't need those we got the Afghans to do that
[02:22:41] but just as additional people and we can train them on how to do it but and then we can
[02:22:47] expand ourselves because we have we have a little bit more people but not too big because we can't get too
[02:22:51] big because then that that gets out of it so he went to the army and got us a battalion
[02:22:57] all right and we used that battalion to augment not every team but certain teams in certain areas
[02:23:10] and it allowed us to expand faster and one of the one of the areas that we needed to do this was
[02:23:16] Kona right and we brought in a guy by the name of Jim Gantt who had relationships with the tribal
[02:23:25] elders out there both in Pakistan and in and in Afghanistan and we gave him the village stability
[02:23:34] operation mission now Gantt worked for me when I was a battalion commander he wrote a paper that
[02:23:41] General Olson or Admoles and really loved in Soty Petrayus and Soty Dovers and they asked Scott Miller
[02:23:48] who was my boss one star then two star Major General Miller who was my boss during this whole time
[02:23:55] and who I worked through in order to get you know village stability operations in Afghan local police
[02:24:01] started and he was pretty brilliant and you know how he got that approved through Karzai and so on
[02:24:07] so forth because everybody was in the international community was very concerned about oh you're
[02:24:13] gonna arm all these guys and then they're gonna create all kinds of humanitarian violations
[02:24:18] are gonna kill people you know Karzai was worried that they would get too strong and take over the
[02:24:25] government you know when you go down there at that level they didn't have those they didn't have
[02:24:30] those aspirations they wanted to control their village they just wanted to live control their village
[02:24:35] have their family get their family educated bringing their crops to market and let
[02:24:43] them right and not have anybody bothered or they they had they had known this is how I need to take
[02:24:48] over Afghanistan because they saw a couple is as big a problem as anything else right so
[02:24:57] yeah but there's people that live in Montana and Wyoming that don't really care what's going
[02:25:04] in Washington DC and they certainly don't want to move there they don't want to move to New York
[02:25:08] they don't want to move to LA they they just want to live in Iraq's exactly and so same
[02:25:14] principle applies and so you know they you know we you know we we took advantage of that and it
[02:25:22] cost us one eighth the amount of money that it cost to make an Afghan police officer or military officer
[02:25:32] or Afghan police officer or army and you didn't need big garrisons right and they walked to work
[02:25:40] so there's no infrastructure right and the ultimate decentralized commander right it really is
[02:25:46] and and you know it was working and they could sustain it you see it wasn't anything they
[02:25:53] couldn't sustain in the long run so and every place was different you know if you saw one
[02:26:02] village stability operation and one Afghan local police in a village well you only saw one right
[02:26:10] because they're all different right and they're different because you know different people are
[02:26:18] making it work right and the tribes are different and the ideas are different you go up north
[02:26:24] and terrains different the way they're making a living is different yes everything's different so
[02:26:29] you've seen one you've seen one so there there there there isn't this there isn't this like
[02:26:35] you know magic formula where you you know you got one and you take that one and you impose it over
[02:26:42] here no all different right and what I really liked was we carved this up into Marsaucterator
[02:26:50] into naval special warfare territory into special forces territory and I would get the same
[02:26:55] guys back all the time right they would they would come in for the six months they would out rotate
[02:27:01] out in the six months and we got that kind of continuity right and we weren't reinventing the wheel
[02:27:08] where you know special forces are coming in it happened every once in a while and I remember
[02:27:15] when I took command a siege of Sotifei we were coming up let's see this was April I said hey listen
[02:27:22] I walk into this headquarters and I see all these liqueens and chewys and all this all these condiments
[02:27:28] and ice cream and all this other stuff and I go hey fuck guys on the ground can't have this
[02:27:34] one on having and that's just the way it is right and let's talk about Thanksgiving and let's
[02:27:40] talk about Thanksgiving right now let's April if they don't get turkey we don't get turkey right
[02:27:48] and we had the technology we had refrigeration units we could put out there not not tax anything
[02:27:56] we had stuff that would run off of with those panels what am I having so we're paying
[02:28:03] solar panels we had all kinds of stuff and we could you know there was all kinds of innovative ways
[02:28:10] that we could get turkey out to them now some guys get the frozen butterballs they put them in the
[02:28:15] freezers and they were good to go but what about those that we couldn't get that stuff out to
[02:28:20] well I had this I looked at Ron Reagan my my a log guy and I said hey you got to make this happen
[02:28:27] and he goes all right we'll get it happen so Julia Furman at the time at a young lieutenant
[02:28:34] log officer comes up with this plan and she goes sir we got it think we're going to be able to meet
[02:28:43] your intent for Thanksgiving and I go all right well let's let's get it operation turkey drop
[02:28:50] and our our guys figured out how to drop live turkeys in and I said okay is this going to be
[02:29:02] cost prohibitive or what and they go oh no it's it's great we we do it with the normal runs but we just
[02:29:08] you know we got our own shoots we pack our own stuff we've done several rehearsals we haven't had any
[02:29:16] misfires so I'm not going to get in trouble with pita by dropping in a turkey and the turkey you
[02:29:23] know the parachute doesn't you know I was just kidding of course and and so we did it we did
[02:29:29] operation turkey drop we got them out there in September all the turkeys because we had to drop
[02:29:33] grain and feed and you know we had tell them how to take care of the turkeys and so they did it
[02:29:39] and on Thanksgiving day I got all kinds of storyboards right of these guys eating their turkeys
[02:29:45] everyone's happy our guys are happy because they get turkey and all the fixings went out there with it right
[02:29:50] I mean boxes of stove top stuff and then you know all that good stuff right and so these guys are
[02:29:57] eating that stuff well come January I happen to roll out to our one of the marine attachments out there
[02:30:05] and at the time the young captain there was the son of the common don of the Marine Corps
[02:30:09] and I was going to go out to see him and I land on the ground and dust settles and the next thing
[02:30:16] I know I got these two humongous turkeys on each side of us and I go with the heck of these guys
[02:30:23] doing out here and he goes because all those are those are our turkeys you know I go these
[02:30:28] are the same turkeys that we've dropped to you and he goes yeah yeah and he wants to get off the
[02:30:35] subject as fast as he possibly can't but these turkeys are snuggling up right next to me and he told
[02:30:40] me what their names were you know they're true and yeah and I we continue to walk and we close
[02:30:46] to we get to the rains the turkeys break off and they go into this tent that's got and I walk over
[02:30:52] the and they go no no no sir it's this way and I go no I'm going to see what the turkeys are doing
[02:30:56] the farmer and me is now very interested so I go over to see these turkeys and they got this like
[02:31:01] they got they're hooked up they got hey and you know placed to eat drink and tables that they
[02:31:09] jump up on and all these things and I go what's going on he goes he goes oh sir and he's looking
[02:31:16] down at his feet he goes the guys they got the turkeys out here they named him the guys just fell in
[02:31:24] love them and they couldn't kill them and I go you steal the eyed marine special operator
[02:31:29] just couldn't take two turkeys down for Thanksgiving we couldn't do it and I go all right this is
[02:31:36] great and I said hey I don't blame you you know I I get it and but he goes you know the afghan
[02:31:46] are waiting for the day they're waiting for the day yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
[02:31:51] and so a special forces ODA which I was getting my point is we didn't always have the
[02:31:58] flexibility of replacing marines with marines and so on and so forth but SF ODA gets out there
[02:32:08] and that next Sunday I got a story board and they're eating the two turkeys they didn't have the
[02:32:14] same connection with those turkeys and the afghans the cooks they're all smiling you know they got
[02:32:23] there you know they're all happy but anyways then sir you were in that tour for 22 months you're
[02:32:32] over there in afghanistan and then what what what happens when you get no without so I get done
[02:32:37] with that and they say hey you're gonna go to the joint staff and you're gonna be the deputy
[02:32:42] deputy special operations guy in the joint staff and I'll be working for General Magata
[02:32:53] now the the the the VSO idea seemed to have faded and and lost some of its steam not so much
[02:33:04] from what was happening in the field but it seemed like we went in a different direction
[02:33:08] mm-hmm yeah what what caused that well when I got back so I went to the joint staff
[02:33:14] reported there in June of 2011 worked on the staff and there was emphasis taken off of
[02:33:23] village stability operations in afghan local police from 2011 to 12 but I got told hey you know
[02:33:34] General or Admiral McCraven was now the so-called commander and General Allen was the commander
[02:33:44] in afghanistan and they wanted more emphasis placed on VSO so I got told that I would be going
[02:33:51] back in June of 2012 to June of 2003 it's gonna be a year anyways and they said hey and
[02:34:00] Tony Thomas was gonna be the commander there to start commander and I was gonna be the one star
[02:34:05] sipsock a commander with the portfolio for VSO L.P and I'll think of his name as we go but
[02:34:16] Air Force one star I was still a Colonel I hadn't come out on the O.O. seven list yet
[02:34:23] but the one star was gonna work as a deputy for General Thomas and he was gonna do all the
[02:34:33] direct action stuff mm-hmm so two portfolios one commander bringing soft under one command
[02:34:40] and you know Tony Thomas got that and so we went in there under that construct and and I was
[02:34:50] told get this back online get it expanded yet so we did that and by the by June of 2013
[02:34:59] 90% of the 90% of the rural area was in the control of the afghan government
[02:35:13] and it was due to village stability operations afghan local police and
[02:35:18] we started doing transitions so we were transitioning to the afghans they had put a
[02:35:27] General Ahmed Zai became my battle buddy and he was in charge
[02:35:33] of the afghan local police for the minister of interior and and so he was my battle buddy and I
[02:35:44] worked with him to ensure that he could he understood and could implement this mission everything
[02:35:51] from you know making sure they got the training make sure they got the weapons make sure they
[02:35:55] got the oversight make sure they got you know they're doing everything they possibly can and it was
[02:36:00] integrated into the afghan government fully and 100% and we were out and we had this on a timeline
[02:36:07] that took us out about you know 2015 maybe 2016 and we would had completely transitioned it and by that
[02:36:13] time nearly 100% of afghan understand would have been fully another control of the of the afghan
[02:36:19] government the Taliban at the time were saying more done al-Qaeda out no they were completely
[02:36:29] ineffective again same thing I was talking about earlier they don't have the they don't have
[02:36:33] the resources to be in every single village and get down to some local village with 280 people
[02:36:40] in it and and put the resources against it to get control of it and it's always better will on it
[02:36:47] and meanwhile the locals obviously they live there not going anywhere and there's more of them
[02:36:52] than there are the Taliban capability built to do it so it was you know it was just
[02:36:58] who's heading in a good direction was heading in a very very very good direction and so
[02:37:04] you know by by the middle of by the middle of 2013 and everything was you know falling into
[02:37:13] place to where the afghans and none of the things that they said you know it wasn't a perfect
[02:37:20] perfect program but what program is perfect it was good enough right and it was working
[02:37:26] and a lot of the things that people really had a problem with just didn't happen right the
[02:37:34] humanitarian you know incidents didn't occur to the extent that people said they were going to
[02:37:41] occur and the you know cars I was not concerned the afghan local police were going to form
[02:37:49] you know a huge militia and assault Kabul it's just one gonna happen right all these things that they
[02:37:55] at the political level they were really nervous about just didn't happen and so I mean it was good right
[02:38:04] and then you know it's it's it's 2013 and people are wondering hey you know when we're going to
[02:38:09] get out of there and so you know the political stuff started you know filtering in afghanistan and
[02:38:15] and you know the ideas of pulling out and so on so forth by 2014 and transitioning
[02:38:21] to non-combat operations coming out of the villages and stuff like that and so we tried to influence
[02:38:31] that the best we could with you know Rand studies and showing them that hey if we just keep this for a
[02:38:38] couple more years you know it's gonna be solid and the chance for resurgence will be way low and I mean
[02:38:47] look what we've done in terms of the dropping casualties you know lowering a casualties a record
[02:38:54] lows record highs and security the Taliban are pretty much slapping the table on defeat alkate
[02:39:02] is like hey we can't operate here anymore and that had a lot of due at the top down stuff going
[02:39:07] on too because you needed that right so you know the tier one guys weren't involved in the village
[02:39:12] stability operations afghan local police but what they were doing to take out the senior
[02:39:17] guys was obviously complimentary right so this was good this was a good balance and it was
[02:39:24] soft was in a good place where we were all working together and we were doing a variety of
[02:39:31] different missions along our very broad mission continuum and it was way less expensive than
[02:39:39] sending over a division or a brigade to do it right you know did it keep soft busy yeah it kept soft
[02:39:46] busy but you know I mean in a productive way and the guys saw it right I mean not everybody
[02:39:54] you know even our guys weren't in love with the mission first you know I mean you talk about it in
[02:39:58] your book you know about having to explain the guys that it's gonna have to be an Iraqi solution
[02:40:05] of this right and we're gonna have you know and it was the same challenges I had right
[02:40:09] no guys we're not gonna be kicking indoors the afghan's gonna kick indoors probably but
[02:40:14] you're not gonna kick in any doors and if you do well that's an extreme right but you got to
[02:40:20] work through with and buy these guys they're the ones that have to own it the end of the day and so
[02:40:24] we went to the same thought process but the guys realized that this was still a combat mission
[02:40:30] that this was not a man-be-pambi kind of hand-ringing humanitarian thing it was a combat mission
[02:40:39] and and so you know they got I mean they they they really they really made it work without them
[02:40:49] no way wouldn't have happened and so yeah so you start hearing this and we're getting concerned
[02:40:59] and and the concern is about a drawdown coming drawdown coming right changing from a combat
[02:41:05] operations to non-combat operations coming out of the village villages too early handing this
[02:41:11] program lock stock and barrel over to the afghan's at the senior level too early and you know
[02:41:21] we gave him the warnings we said hey likely the security situation will reverse likely the
[02:41:29] they'll be a resurgence and al-Qaeda will come back right well nobody thought that ISIS would
[02:41:40] come back but by 2016 we had a complete reversal because we did they made the decision they
[02:41:47] slapped a table we came out of the villages we went strictly top down we put all our emphasis on
[02:41:53] the afghan national army impolice to fight and gain security we didn't support the afghan
[02:42:01] local police program anymore and fell you know fell apart and I think it could have been
[02:42:10] avoidable I think a lot of other people who have done assessments on it not it could have been
[02:42:14] avoidable but nonetheless you know our guys on the ground regardless of what mission you give them
[02:42:21] still do it was honor integrity and they get done what you want them to get done but
[02:42:30] at the end of the day we saw ISIS come back we saw Kada emerge we saw Merge we saw
[02:42:42] Taliban come back and full force the security situation was reversed and we had an all-time
[02:42:48] high in casualties in 2019 so here we are in 2021 and you know President Trump I think had
[02:43:03] the right idea let's figure out how we can come out of afghanistan well nobody gave him a plan
[02:43:09] right when he asked for it two years into administration just didn't have plan to come out so
[02:43:14] you know hey the political situation you know overcomes everything right going into a presidential
[02:43:23] election year a big year for the congress you know and that starts driving decision making
[02:43:30] start driving decision making and really instead of the guys on the ground right exactly and so
[02:43:36] here we go and you know the president was response of the current president who's got to make a
[02:43:47] decision right I mean it is what it is but he was also in charge of when he was vice president
[02:43:55] you know coming out of Iraq in 2011 and going to zero and you know he he just used I think
[02:44:02] what he learned there and the experience he had there and applied it to Afghanistan and boom
[02:44:07] you know we're out lock stock in barrel and we although I am an advocate of you know figuring
[02:44:16] out how to come out of there I'm more of an advocate of coming out of there the right way
[02:44:20] and there's a lot to lose there particularly I mean I'm signing a lot of letters today
[02:44:26] from 20 years of working with people there in Afghanistan and interpreters and workers
[02:44:32] barbers you know guys you know gardeners guys that really put their life on the line
[02:44:39] to support us and to help us them and their families and now they're left there and and so
[02:44:47] I think I got 45 letters signed right now and I send everything I do to congressman Krenshaw
[02:44:55] and Tom Cotton because they're you know they're putting together some sort of process to expedite
[02:45:01] getting these guys out of there but you know it's a everything's political right and you know
[02:45:13] we just we're you know we're at a point in time now where you know strategy and policy
[02:45:21] and security inside our country and outside our country is is you know I mean I think it's an
[02:45:27] issue I think a lot of Americans see this is an issue right and yeah well especially when we
[02:45:35] see the other you know nation states that are making moves big moves and playing long playing the
[02:45:40] long strategic game and we're looking to the next election that's our long strategic game sometimes
[02:45:45] yeah right now 2022 is our long strategic game right I mean how are we gonna change the house
[02:45:50] and how are we gonna change the Senate and how are we gonna get the majority there not so much
[02:45:54] and how we're gonna deal with China and and how we're gonna deal with the potential
[02:45:59] invasion of Taiwan and how we're gonna deal with Russia and their encroachment on the Crimea
[02:46:04] and Europe and and their pipeline issues and and Iran and and you know their proxy war
[02:46:13] and what they're gonna do against Israel and North Korea is gonna follow China everywhere it
[02:46:18] goes and now it's working more on its nuclear program that it ever has been and we got you know
[02:46:25] no visibility on that and and those are some existential threats that we really got to pay attention
[02:46:32] and the real and the real and we got Africa right 28 countries in Africa that are just getting
[02:46:38] eaten alive by China and Russia you get eaten alive by terrorist organizations that are taking
[02:46:44] advantage of the ungoverned spaces and that's dangerous for Europe you know the French and the
[02:46:50] British and the Dutch and the Germans and the Italians the front line for the for the war against
[02:46:57] violent extremist organizations is in Africa for them you know it's mully it's Libya it's Tunisia
[02:47:06] and it's Kenya and it's uh Somalia and it's Nigeria and it's Senegal and Martania
[02:47:13] and Morocco you know it's all these different places right and you know I mean I spent four years
[02:47:20] in in US Africa and two years 26 months and that was commanding special operations command in Africa
[02:47:27] and we had 28 countries over 2000 special ops troops on the ground advising assisting training
[02:47:35] and conducting operations through with and by our partners to get after al Shibab right
[02:47:41] some of ISIS Somalia right out in the East there Central Africa the Lord's Resistance Army and
[02:47:49] now ISIS is there and Nigeria would bokeh her arm in ISIS West Africa and and and Chad and Cameroon
[02:47:58] and Pekingafaso and Mauritania and Senegal and and all of the affiliates of al-Qaeda that are out
[02:48:06] there reap and havoc right the French have over 4,000 troops on the ground and you know from
[02:48:11] mully to Nigeria because it's their war it's their front line right and you have a huge coalition of
[02:48:18] you know of European partners there I mean I dealt more with our European partners
[02:48:24] than special operations command Europe did because they're fighting in Africa right and so I was
[02:48:31] always you know coordinate with Mark Schwartz a Mark I'm going to I'm going to Denmark I'm going
[02:48:37] here I'm going there you know I I went to French five times right to talk to the highest levels
[02:48:43] of their government about you know what was going on there and you know so what was going on in
[02:48:52] Africa is is something that America's taking its eye off of and 1.4 billion people by 2050 it
[02:49:01] will be 2.4 billion people and incredible it's in resources there incredible amount of resources
[02:49:07] huge and what goes through South America into the United States you know South America is
[02:49:15] not very far from the African West coast and you got all those traditional lines of illicit
[02:49:20] trafficking that go through Europe the Iranians have multiple have been able to establish
[02:49:26] multiple places where they have infiltrated Africa all over Africa to move men weapons and
[02:49:32] resources at a drop of the hat if they need to so I mean we got other problems out there you know
[02:49:41] we have to keep our eye on it and Afghanistan we shouldn't be tied to one country but we got tied
[02:49:48] to that country there was a good way to go out but moving to a regional perspective with everything
[02:49:54] going on in that region is a whole heck of a lot smarter and you know we just need to start considering
[02:50:01] that but we I still think we have some responsibilities to Afghanistan that we kind of overlooked in our
[02:50:08] in our exit there you know you know you you're looking at the global perspective and the global
[02:50:16] issues clearly that's that's all stuff we have to think about but I know that there's one more issue
[02:50:21] that you've dealt with personally and you've tried to help out our troops with it and that's
[02:50:28] what's going on and what happens to our troops and what's happened to our troops well I guess
[02:50:32] as long as we've been around but we've definitely noticed it for sure since these wars kicked off
[02:50:37] the war on terror kicked off and that's a post traumatic stress and then the traumatic brain injuries
[02:50:45] what was your how how how did you address that how did you experience that what was that
[02:50:52] like for you and I know we've been talking for a while but I wanted to cover this because I mean this
[02:50:56] is something that a lot of people are are dealing with yes well I think it's the number one
[02:51:01] health issue that we have in the United States military today and I believe it's the same
[02:51:06] when you look at our veterans and it's leading to the significant amount of suicides and both on
[02:51:13] active duty in the reserves national guard and and again and better in community right and I think
[02:51:25] it's all has to do a dismantle injury issue and physical injury and spiritual injury and
[02:51:31] it's that triad that I think is hugely important that we have to work on strengthening all the
[02:51:36] time in the military because you know as well as I do if you're physically hurting you need
[02:51:43] that taken care of and mental injuries right you need that taken care of and we know by studying
[02:51:51] all the way back to to Sparta right that the traumatic brain injury and post traumatic
[02:51:58] stress was something that they looked at they didn't call it that right but they knew that a
[02:52:02] concoct on the head created problems right and they and they manifested themselves and they
[02:52:07] inside their their their units their military units and they they realize that they had a
[02:52:14] an obligation right and an ancient Sparta there's only two people to get their name on a headstown
[02:52:20] a mother who get who dies in childbirth and a warrior that dies in a battlefield everybody else is
[02:52:26] buried in Sparta with no name, no nothing but the birth of a child and the sacrifice in the
[02:52:36] battlefield the ultimate sacrifice on a battlefield are recognized in that warrior culture so
[02:52:41] when we look back and we see everything that we've done and what we've called it throughout the years
[02:52:47] and and I was one that didn't have an appreciation for it either right I thought it was a
[02:52:53] sign of weakness right there's no way right I mean you know you think about pattern and you think
[02:52:59] about you know the way our society has shaped us and I thought it was weakness as well until
[02:53:09] it happened to me until I started happening others until I realized what's the problem and you know
[02:53:14] who educated me on this my wife she's a nurse she started studying it she started seeing it she
[02:53:21] started seeing how I changed every time I came back and when you get more comfortable
[02:53:26] being away from your family and deployed in a combat zone and you do it home with your family
[02:53:34] you got a problem and that was me and it was affecting my relationships with you know my family
[02:53:41] it was affecting relationships in the military I was always you know wired for sound
[02:53:50] go high and right really quick and who's my temper and not want to listen to people and it just
[02:53:55] negatively affected everything right and she started noticing around 2008 and she was talking to me
[02:54:00] about getting help well it was no getting going for help 2008 and the military that right now
[02:54:06] in 2010 you started seeing programs and they were starting to deal with traumatic brain injury
[02:54:12] but I'm telling you we have all these programs but what I learned was our approaches were on
[02:54:18] right our our our approaches punitive we're going to take you off your team
[02:54:22] we take you away from the people at the law the people that you want to be with every single day
[02:54:27] and we're going to put you over here and we're going to say okay you're not going to do your duty
[02:54:32] you're not going to do your job and and oh by the way we're going to take you clearance away
[02:54:39] or suspended whatever and if you don't get better in a year we're going to process you out of the
[02:54:46] army I mean that's a TOD policy right and I thought that was insane well by 2013
[02:54:56] I had just been promoted Brigadier General I just got to US Africa US Africa just started my job
[02:55:03] as the operations officer there and just what my wife came to me and she said we can't handle it anymore
[02:55:09] I can't handle it kids can't handle it your dog can't handle it you know contact our husky at the time
[02:55:17] she goes you got to do something I got a draw line here she goes
[02:55:24] and I said you're right you're right and she's talking about losing your temper not being around
[02:55:31] social the isolating myself staying at work till ungodly hours just avoiding avoiding social events
[02:55:38] you know the my biggest fear was having to go to a social event right and I would look for
[02:55:48] every single excuse under the sun yep I'm going I'm going I'm going until I call her I'm saying
[02:55:55] hey something came up at work I need to stay with right check and I would go home right after the event
[02:56:02] was done so and she's not dumb she knows exactly what I was doing right and but she knew it was delicate right
[02:56:13] and and you know I wasn't a screamer at home I would just not involve myself anything right
[02:56:22] just come home and mind my own damn business not getting involved and that was that and you know
[02:56:32] if something came up I would exit stage right and avoid dealing with you know and then I would look for
[02:56:41] every opportunity I could to go to play somewhere right well when I went to US African that ability to
[02:56:47] play went away because as the operations officer US African the only place I was deployed to was my
[02:56:53] office right that was it yeah so 2013 she got me to go but I had heard about this nurse Sarah McNary
[02:57:04] who had was up at launch to when she's really innovative and so I went up and I had a meeting
[02:57:11] with her and I said listen you know I got to do this under the radar right I mean this is not
[02:57:17] something it would be accepted by the chain of command if I'm going for PTSD of help so she understood and
[02:57:26] she put me on a program I went up and it was easy for me to get away right we had African units
[02:57:33] up at launch tool you know Ramstein near launch tool and I could I could always find a way to get
[02:57:43] up there if I needed to go for an appointment or what have you so it wasn't a big one of the big
[02:57:47] stretch and it didn't put a lot of light on what I was doing but I went up there in three days
[02:57:55] got a value of post-matic stress TBI sweep disorder pain management issues
[02:58:01] neuro toxicity and there was all positive right I mean all the malaria medications and the
[02:58:11] vaccines and all these things that we've done all our career all our life it was my kidneys my you know
[02:58:19] other organs the way your brain thinks it's on so forth all that positive PTSD positive
[02:58:27] more important I got put on therapy programs right and so I took advantage of this and I did it
[02:58:34] religiously from 2013 through 2015 I managed to go through this and then I looked at myself in the
[02:58:44] mirror what are the therapy programs consist of so is this like sitting down talking with someone is this
[02:58:50] yes so they give you a bunch of tests for PTSD right and they figure out exactly what's you know what's
[02:58:57] wrong with your you know with your brain and you know we're you're thinking and how
[02:59:06] social isolation is impacting you and you know and they put you with a therapist and they work on
[02:59:12] those those things you you talk about it you come up with strategies to overcome it you you
[02:59:22] my wife came with me that was hugely important because you know she's got there's a quote
[02:59:30] above my doctors on my doctors office there in launch tool because my wife was with me and he asked
[02:59:39] me a question and I told him to my answer and she goes that's a bunch of bullshit because she
[02:59:47] know so he goes oh yeah what's the real deal right and so I realized the utility in that because
[02:59:56] sometimes we're embarrassed by our actions right and we don't want to fully disclose them well
[03:00:00] if you don't fully disclose then people aren't going to really understand how to help you and
[03:00:04] and when I had to travel and I had an appointment I did it by Skype and so I's the TBI had
[03:00:13] serious balance issues my eyes were out of focus and there's a machine that they test that on and a
[03:00:19] machine that they fix it on so my eyes got back into balance and my balance got they put you on
[03:00:25] a balance machine and you know you feel like an idiot and and I did all my balance exercises my
[03:00:33] balance got good you know there was I'd go for a walk with my wife we'd hold hands and I would you know
[03:00:37] I'm here off to the right and she's like hey you're killing me right and she pushed me back over
[03:00:44] and so on and so forth and so they just have all these strategies to fix here now think about it
[03:00:49] you got traumatic brain injury as a special operator and your balance is on and your eye focus is on
[03:00:55] and you're going to do a you know high risk CH MH 47 infiltration into a village and and then
[03:01:05] and then you know fast rope onto a building and then use a ladder to cross from one building to the
[03:01:11] other and your balance sucks right these are things we need to fix but we're not going to be able to fix
[03:01:17] them if we're not aware of them and so I started thinking about what a freaking coward I am doing this
[03:01:24] under the radar and not leading the way and so on and so forth so I went back and I talked to my boss
[03:01:30] about it as the operations officer in Africa and I said hey this is what I've been doing and I am a
[03:01:38] different man my wife sees it my kids see it my dogs see I am different I'm not perfect but I'm
[03:01:45] a better version of myself and he goes yeah I've noticed you've been showing up to our
[03:01:51] our to our social events on Fridays here in Africa and I go oh yeah he goes before you
[03:01:57] wouldn't come near him and he goes he goes that's good all right because I get it nice that I'm
[03:02:05] going to open it up to guys in the in the in the J3 and I did and I got them all together and I
[03:02:10] talked to them and I laid it all out and I told them what I was doing and I said I'm a freaking coward
[03:02:15] but I tell you what I'll do right now is you won't take it taken out of your job you won't get
[03:02:20] taken you won't lose your clearance I will back you up 100% I don't care if it is DOD policy they
[03:02:27] I don't care it's not the right approach so I got your back we did it and I'm telling you a lot
[03:02:33] of guys you know I carried that over when I took command of special operations command in Africa
[03:02:38] on 24 April and I got with them unbelievable 26 months at that what I thought were
[03:02:48] in discipline issues without go home and drugs was self-medication was guys trying to figure out
[03:02:58] how they're going to be able to alleviate their pain deal with their issues and still be able to
[03:03:04] do their mission the best of their ability right and in in South Africa we put even the deploying
[03:03:14] troops that came over we put them to the program and it was huge Navy SEALs marine special
[03:03:22] operators SF Air Force guys we got testimonies from wise marriages that were saved we decentralized
[03:03:29] the program like I remember I was in New Share which we were up in our lit which is
[03:03:37] in the middle of nowhere it's not the end of the world but you can see it from there you know
[03:03:41] I mean and and I did my Skype you know meeting with my therapist right I mean I still see a therapist
[03:03:51] right it's just something that I decided to continue but I'm very high functioning person
[03:03:57] and that was my point these guys are still high functioning and they're even more high functioning
[03:04:01] if we give them the treatment they need it's just a mental injury 52 people we we diagnosed with
[03:04:08] a PTSD 471 with with traumatic brain injury 471 and there's only one guy and you
[03:04:21] and believe on many people with pain management issues right I mean and sleep issues
[03:04:26] we're the definition of a sleeping you know sleep problems yes we are and and so we got
[03:04:33] them the machines or the mouth thing whatever they wanted and it was unbelievable you know if you
[03:04:40] if you get less than five hours of sleep your brain operates like it's got 0.10% alcohol in it
[03:04:48] you know legal limit of driving under the influence so for I don't know 25 years or so I was
[03:04:56] shit faced at work without taking a drop of alcohol you know and and think about your decision
[03:05:02] making and stuff like that and so the New York Times came into the unit and said hey we're going
[03:05:09] to do an article on Africa and then she started talking to people they said that's not the story
[03:05:14] the story is how we're dealing with post traumatic stress and TBI and getting resilience and
[03:05:19] ready to back in the end that story you should get asking about that so she asked me about
[03:05:23] an eye to older and that became the story I wasn't a popular story with a chanic man not a
[03:05:30] popular story at all and I was told to stop talking about it the more you talk about it the more
[03:05:38] problems we have and I said wow I don't agree with that I think the more we talk about it
[03:05:43] I'm all we understand it and the least problems we have and we get guys in the therapy and we can do
[03:05:49] it without degrading the mission I did I had 96 96 missions and special operations command
[03:05:56] and 846 associated tasks and I had zero zero detriment in mission and guys got better I mean
[03:06:07] drug and alcohol abuse you know incidents went way down I went to zero in misappro- you know
[03:06:15] misbehavior in the in the workplace zero right they sent a team from DOD to investigate
[03:06:22] what we were doing right and I said hey it's just a matter of taking care of mental physical
[03:06:27] injuries and spiritual you know so com had a great program that they brought in with that integrated
[03:06:34] families and we had that and we located in our headquarters and that was something that I had nothing
[03:06:41] to do with because the rules are that nothing gets reported to the chanic command and I'm okay
[03:06:46] with that right I don't need to know right guys there with their families working out problems it was
[03:06:52] really unbelievable after 26 months of you know of this and yeah you know that with for me it was
[03:07:04] a whole process of leadership and learning and understanding and then being able to say
[03:07:12] you're strong not weak if you ask for help right and I had three suicides in my unit I
[03:07:23] I'll know if again starting first class in Kenya six month rotation in Kenya combat operations
[03:07:29] with the Kenyan special ops Rangers against elk against alchibob and ISIS Samaria just great work
[03:07:39] packed up all this gear cleaned his quarters ready for standing but I don't know
[03:07:50] day before he was redeploy went out to the range sat in the chair and shot himself and had
[03:07:59] it was more painful him for him to go home at that point in time in his life in his decision making
[03:08:04] process then so he took his life I tell you what man I took a knee on that one you know what
[03:08:14] me I mean a big knee right and so I said we can't we can't allow that to happen you know
[03:08:26] it's bad enough to lose somebody in your unit combat but suicide and of course we missed all kinds
[03:08:36] of warning signals everybody missed one example you know who knew the family knew but the family
[03:08:43] was afraid to talk because they were afraid that if they say anything then it's gonna hurt their
[03:08:50] husband's career and so we need to be better at making sure it doesn't hurt their career make
[03:08:57] sure they get to help because we can do it we get a lot of white space on the counter we guys come
[03:09:01] back and we can make it work and taking these health assessments and gonna work right you got to
[03:09:09] have take these programs and you at the top I'm telling you rich put gliszy who was my senior
[03:09:15] and listed advisor maybe seal great guy love rich I know rich rich and I had the same issues
[03:09:21] and we would get in front of the unit and we would talk and we would share our personal experiences
[03:09:27] and we had it everyone's back the only person that didn't that got taken off was the
[03:09:33] sergeant major of our our uh sipping you know our direct action teams and that's because
[03:09:41] after we talked to him he took all 45 of his guys the next day over at launch tool ran
[03:09:47] him through the program and when he was getting his MRI to see if he had any traumatic rain
[03:09:52] injury they found a tumor about the size of an eraser on his brain he got met
[03:09:59] back to to Walter Reed they took the tumor off they said hey you know if this had gone another year you
[03:10:09] would have been figuring out an end of life plan and they replaced his left hip that he had been
[03:10:18] you know dealing with for years and he was a new man right and an advocate of this whole program
[03:10:27] and you know after he left the team he went off to our training and has been an advocate for this
[03:10:35] and you know promoting it ever since and this is what you get you get guys with a better understanding
[03:10:40] very bottom up but they got to have that top down cover and I'm afraid it's still not there it needs
[03:10:48] to be there we got to put it there and you know I went through the you know what everyone else
[03:10:57] goes through oh I'm weak something wrong with me I'm less of a man and that's none of that's true right
[03:11:11] so that's that was your last tour was was that sock African right that was it you know it was funny
[03:11:19] I joined the army 29 June 1981 and I gave up command and had my retirement ceremony on 29 June
[03:11:29] 2017 I didn't retire officially until two August 2017 but you know I came home and went on
[03:11:40] in Terminal League and started helping veterans put together a business called Truth to Power
[03:11:50] which I was doing really well with I'd have about four speaking events a month which was good
[03:11:57] just bringing in the money that I needed then I got hired to be an associate professor at
[03:12:02] New England College and I just got laid off and I was trying to find a job I got laid off and
[03:12:07] made trying to find a job so I ended up applying to Hampton Police Department and I am now a
[03:12:14] at 59 years old a police recruit in the New Hampshire Police Academy I'm the platoon leader
[03:12:22] and my the youngest guy in the class is 19 years old and I'm like holy crap and so
[03:12:30] I'll graduate November November 19th and it was funny because in 1980 I was in class number four
[03:12:40] because remember I told you about me in a police officer and I am now in class 281
[03:12:48] and so yeah I'll start working working at Hampton Police Department which is the town right next to
[03:12:55] stratum where I live now in New Hampshire it's on the seacoast so it's right there on the beach
[03:13:01] and the majority of the work there is patrolling the Hampton Beach area which is which is going to be
[03:13:08] cool and you know it's going to be a high adventure you have to obey watch yeah it's right
[03:13:17] and I you know I mean I've always looked at where I can contribute and I gotta tell you at 59 years old
[03:13:25] when I in its quite a process too because I applied and I got my test date of 3 May and I went
[03:13:36] and took my test with 27 other young guys right and that was the standardized test right so
[03:13:47] I hadn't taken a standard I'd test no 40 years so I was nervous about that right and I took the
[03:13:52] test that I passed much to my dismay and surprised and I got set up for my oral interview
[03:13:59] and I had the lieutenant sergeant in a patrolman and they go all right we know who you are
[03:14:05] we all voted for you right in the last election we all we know who you are and we know what you've
[03:14:11] done for our country why and they held you want to do this and I said hey I just looking for a
[03:14:17] way to contribute and you know there's no more to it than that and he goes okay and the sergeant
[03:14:25] starts asking me questions and it gets to the patrolman he goes I don't have any experience to ask
[03:14:32] you any questions and I said yeah you do your police officers so bring it on but nonetheless you
[03:14:38] know you do the polygraph and you do the physical fitness test and you do the the psychological
[03:14:45] test and it was like going through special ops again you know all those things that lead up
[03:14:50] to you get in you got a qualify physically mentally you know you got to pass the the full physical
[03:14:57] test and I have two prosthetic hips and three prosthetic discs because of combat injuries
[03:15:06] and that was the thing that we're worried about the most right and I said listen I've jumped out
[03:15:12] of your planes for these things I can certainly handle patrol with these things they go okay that's
[03:15:17] okay I guess you can right and and so my wife thought I was nuts so that might seem like nuts and
[03:15:26] then what it seems like even more nuts to me is you entering the political arena yes what
[03:15:32] what brought that about I was asked I was asked by I got a lot of emails texts and
[03:15:42] letters phone calls from people in all 10 counties in New Hampshire all 50 states
[03:15:50] to include across the military asking me to run for office and I thought well if people think I can
[03:15:57] help them I don't have all the answers certainly not a politician and I think there are many
[03:16:06] people in the military would have tested to my my lack of political acumen because it's just not
[03:16:12] there two straight forward blah blah blah but nonetheless if you think I can help you I'm going to try
[03:16:18] and so that's my why for running and and so you know I I just want to help our country our economy
[03:16:34] help us become more physically responsible and help us be able to improve the safety and security
[03:16:40] of Americans so that we can all live the American dream that's all I want to do right
[03:16:44] the oath I took in a military is still valid I still believe in and the American dream and
[03:16:53] the greatness of this country and and I have a tremendous amount of of exposure to
[03:17:01] what other people and other places across the world think and feel about America and the promise
[03:17:06] of America and I think that regardless of your political beliefs or spectrum that you fall on you know
[03:17:15] God family community in country has got to appeal to everybody and that's my platform and that's
[03:17:23] what I'm doing and that's what you're doing right now so what is it you're running for right now to
[03:17:27] serve everybody knows United States Senate in New Hampshire we're where you've lived for 59 out of 59
[03:17:33] or where you've been arrested and about 59 out of 59 years that's right and I've been a Republican
[03:17:38] in that state for 42 years my 18 years old first president I voted for was Ron Reagan
[03:17:49] so what's the when's that election timeline so the primary in New Hampshire so if I get another
[03:17:58] Republican that run is gonna run against me which there isn't one yet the primary election is in
[03:18:07] September of 2022 and the the general election if I win the primary against Senator Maggie
[03:18:18] has an Democrat who's been our senator for one term now will be four November 2022 I don't have
[03:18:29] a political machine behind me I got to get my name recognition up fundraising is huge so I got
[03:18:39] to start earlier than those that have already established politicians right and so I'm out
[03:18:47] now campaigning we're raising money we're getting our message out there it's being very well received
[03:18:55] in the last poll you know four months ago when they did a poll I was at 30 percent
[03:19:02] I'm now up at 45 percent right so moving in the right direction so if people want to help out
[03:19:11] where do they where do they find you where do they go to help you out so my website is www.donball
[03:19:17] dick.com and you know you can go there and you can either you know if you want to help the campaign
[03:19:24] out if you're in New Hampshire that's easy to do you just sign up you know everything is right
[03:19:32] there on the website my positions are there on the website so if you're interested in how I
[03:19:36] feel in the second amendment or whatever it's there and if you want to donate it's there
[03:19:49] you know I start pretty low I ask folks to donate $20 and $22 and $22 to my campaign and if I
[03:20:00] get a lot of people to do that I get a lot of money and it's you know anything helps
[03:20:09] $5 $10 $20 and $22 since 2000 $22 that helps too but everything helps and
[03:20:22] and I'm just going to go there to serve this 1.3 million people in New Hampshire
[03:20:28] and I'm going there to serve every single one of them not just the Republican party but
[03:20:35] you got to serve everybody once you get in that office right you got to declare an office and
[03:20:41] you know my my political beliefs line up as a Republican but that doesn't mean that I don't
[03:20:47] I won't work for in work hard for everybody in New Hampshire regardless of whether they're an
[03:20:51] independent Democrat or libertarian right and I think that's what we've lost in this country
[03:20:57] with the political divisiveness we can't come together on three very important things our
[03:21:01] economy fiscal responsibility and the safety and security of Americans we used to be able to do that
[03:21:07] you know I'm a big fan of JFK you know I mean big fan of him you know and
[03:21:14] he would not even be recognizable today right has matter fact he'd be more of a Republican than
[03:21:20] a Democrat today so we got to come together and we need people that I think have had
[03:21:29] the experiences in life that realizes that we're stronger if we work together then we
[03:21:36] and we are apart and are we going to have our differences yes but
[03:21:40] today our differences are just too much
[03:21:43] too much around what's really important God family community
[03:21:51] also you got social media too right do yeah we're yes sir we're we're on social media
[03:21:56] everything I would be remiss though if I didn't didn't mention the fact that
[03:22:03] everybody that found out I was coming here to talk on your show was like out of their mind
[03:22:07] and it was across the political spectrum that way which is which is really neat and
[03:22:14] no no one more excited than my son Zachary who serves in the New Hampshire National Guide
[03:22:20] he was speechless I mean it was like the goh juggle oh yeah he just couldn't speak right
[03:22:26] and he goes why didn't you tell me and I go I don't know I mean I just you know
[03:22:31] but well we have I work with the with the National Guard extensively my
[03:22:37] deployment to Ramadi they were there when we first showed up and they were just complete
[03:22:42] warriors and professionals and it was an honor to serve with those guys so I
[03:22:48] nothing nothing but love for the National Guard that's for sure yeah he's coming up on his six
[03:22:53] years and he's going to become a veteran he's already made that decision but nonetheless I am proud
[03:22:59] that he served his country and my youngest boy Matt is a senior at Purdue and he just finished his
[03:23:07] his lieutenant training so so that I pulled in the tradition he'll be a second lieutenant on
[03:23:12] active duty look out another ball of scum and fell as so oh so that's probably a good place to
[03:23:20] stop echo you got anything oh yeah real quick going back to the marijuana fields oh
[03:23:25] the scum and deep yeah yeah yeah and you mentioned booby traps yes like what kind of booby
[03:23:30] traps in the the the marijuana growers back in the day would put booby traps around their
[03:23:36] marijuana fields so people who wouldn't sneak in and steal their grow like what kind of
[03:23:40] booby traps so you would get the booby trap where you came across it and it would be just a it
[03:23:45] would it would kick off like like a ditch of like napal fire would come up also like violent booby traps
[03:23:55] bombs the old ones with like you like the you know you know Vietnam era stuff where
[03:24:05] like you stick to sticks and they would they were spring loaded kind of things and they would
[03:24:10] come and they would just hit you in the thigh or the leg or what have you upper body those kind of
[03:24:16] things yeah yeah they were serious yeah yeah well because I'm quiet and this is back in the day
[03:24:23] two when when it was illegal but they'd have booby traps but they wouldn't be violent booby traps they
[03:24:29] just be like alarm tightly you know like I heard one where they had just like cases and cases of
[03:24:36] mouse traps so like if you step on any you nudged it it would have a like you know like a bunch
[03:24:42] of birds taking off whatever but louder it'd be something like that like that kind of stuff
[03:24:46] they had those two violence really early warning device yeah yeah they had that and but they also had
[03:24:52] the closer you got the worse off it was for you and that's why the the the the forest
[03:25:02] Rangers were always you know they were very appreciative of us going in there because we take it
[03:25:07] very slow and you know our guys were trained very trained very well and we had you know we had
[03:25:13] some technology to help us out as well so but yeah that was there it was ugly and we're lucky
[03:25:20] that we didn't set any of them off that were able to either go around them or you know neutralize
[03:25:28] them in a different way was you know old fashioned way was with the the rope and the
[03:25:36] grappling grappling that pull about watch what happens wow that was a good show
[03:25:45] glad we went around that right on yeah general any closing thoughts
[03:25:51] well I think the only closing thought that I would have and since this is you know you focus on
[03:25:57] leadership a lot is I just like to let everybody know that throughout all this I realized that
[03:26:06] I was imperfect leader and that as long as I remembered really three things and that is to
[03:26:13] remain humble thankful and grateful and that I never let my ego get in the way and I was always
[03:26:21] self aware of my weaknesses and worked on those and let my strengths be what they are you
[03:26:29] better off for me and everybody else around me and these type of shows and the things that you do
[03:26:35] and what this show does for anyone who listens to it is is hugely important for America because
[03:26:44] right now but we need more anything else is effective leadership it is it is a huge huge
[03:26:55] issue and and something that I think my experience is teaching in college and being around my own
[03:27:03] kids and being around others is they're thriving for you know leadership and these examples that we
[03:27:10] have seen in the past and and you represent that here with this show and I just want to thank you
[03:27:16] for this opportunity I'm humbled and grateful for it and so thank you for what you do and thanks for
[03:27:22] letting me tell my story well thanks for coming on thanks for joining us more important thank you for
[03:27:29] your leadership your service to our great nation your sacrifices overseas it's been a long
[03:27:35] war for America you were there for most of it and that's saying a lot and you are still continuing
[03:27:42] to fight for America we appreciate it thank you God bless you thank you very much and with that
[03:27:52] general done bulldog has left the building definitely seen a lot
[03:28:01] and always looking to improve I think that's something we can definitely take away
[03:28:10] maybe we can all look to improve maybe that's a good idea echo Charles yes sir
[03:28:17] any suggestions and where we can start to improve ourselves yes what you got well he did mention
[03:28:25] how he's he didn't say he was the oldest one cadet in the police I think it's safe to assume
[03:28:33] he's the one that to be a 99 yeah but he did imply that you know but the fact the point is he's
[03:28:39] out there staying capable talking about jumping out of planes with hips a certain way to the
[03:28:45] extent where they're like oh yeah you pass just you can do you can still do this kind of stuff you
[03:28:49] were this capable you're in meaning the hips past yeah exactly right they're good to go remember
[03:28:56] they're they're like oh you you know they're concerned about his hips whatever and he was okay
[03:29:00] I jump out of planes with these hips and they're like oh and then you can patrol all right
[03:29:06] point is very capable high levels of capability 59 29 19 years old whatever we're maintaining it
[03:29:14] that clock is ticking clock is ticking I heard that too yeah that one so only want to keep
[03:29:21] ourselves capable mentally physically of course through this path of capability chasing
[03:29:30] we're chasing capability of course through this path we're going to take some beatings 100% take
[03:29:34] of our meat yeah you do some duty to take beating sometimes sometimes sometimes yes and that
[03:29:42] gun against squeezed on that one so you know unlike I said hey I after I rolled with you that
[03:29:46] one day and I was like man I feel like I got hit by a truck and you're like oh yeah full body
[03:29:51] domes right yeah it's way more than full body domes so magical got some emotional
[03:29:58] domes as well yeah man and that's that's real you know these it that's just one of the
[03:30:04] many examples of the beatings you're going to take on this path no problem though
[03:30:07] sometimes you need some supplementation to help you through those beatings in fact you get through
[03:30:12] these beatings that's when the capability starts to emerge seem saying additional levels of
[03:30:18] capability anyway got some supplements for you can help you help us so first supplement I
[03:30:24] would talk about is a new era of energy drinks straight up like the the old new category new
[03:30:32] category new paradigm shift oh yeah two three yomiya discipline go yeah yeah yeah yeah so no sugar
[03:30:42] it's a healthy energy drink straight up that actually tastes good yeah it's also someone someone
[03:30:48] wrote hey I thought Jockel didn't drink energy drinks I heard him say he didn't drink them unless he
[03:30:53] really needed him well why is that that's true that's a fact is a fact before this came out
[03:30:59] because you weren't going to want to drink one of the other energy you were going to you don't
[03:31:05] want to drink those unless you had to yeah I've got a 19 hour drive I'm 14 hours into it I'm fading
[03:31:11] I need something to boost me up for the next three hours okay cool overdose with caffeine
[03:31:16] get your jitters on but you get there yeah so that's what I used to do for sure now the
[03:31:22] substance I oh I've got something that I can drink it's actually healthy for me and it gives me the benefits
[03:31:29] of energy right it's a no-brainer yeah so do do do I drink traditional old school poisonous
[03:31:41] energy drinks the answer is no I don't I used to occasionally if I needed to now don't
[03:31:48] do never need to do that again because we have an alternative that's functional and works
[03:31:54] so there you go and taste good did you drink kombucha no have you ever
[03:31:58] I've tasted it I've probably it might have almost touched my lips but I can just smell stuff
[03:32:04] and I don't like it right yeah oh come kombucha is no exception in that regard but it tastes junk
[03:32:10] taste bad I know people including people that I'm related to that are so down with kombucha
[03:32:15] I get I get more females like kombucha than males I don't have those numbers in my family that's
[03:32:21] what I'm going on my family females are drinking kombucha yeah kombucha what is it yeah
[03:32:26] kombucha kombucha they're drinking females males not drinking my father in last
[03:32:31] straight up makes it straight up it's like a process it's a thing and then I assume he drinks it
[03:32:36] yes sir he does but in my experience you are more females are into kombucha you can males but
[03:32:43] that's not the point the point is if you ever tasted it you're like cool kombucha so healthy you
[03:32:48] know it's detox and whatever they say about kombucha I don't know it's healthy we'll just say bro
[03:32:54] try taste it you're like all right you all endure that taste for the health benefits you seem
[03:32:58] same but there's no reason to do that no there's not that's the thing so this one especially
[03:33:03] the mango flavor you drink down and you're like wait a second taste good and healthy and gives me
[03:33:09] energy no no lose situation right there okay just so everybody knows that the the mango
[03:33:16] flavor there's no difference other than the flavor yes you can't put it over here on a pedestal
[03:33:21] of whatever it tastes the best so in your opinion yes yeah I think any of the consensus
[03:33:28] still getting being formulated because new which is another kind of novel thing new flavor so you
[03:33:35] know you want to look at that one I always go back to old faithful jockel ponder yeah I can't I
[03:33:40] can't argue with that right yeah it's legitimate yes sir JP to no point it out that jockel ponder
[03:33:45] tastes good whether it's like room temperature or whether it's cold yeah don't want to hear good
[03:33:50] you go orange is like that too so yeah get your oh it's called jockel discipline go if you didn't
[03:33:56] know already which you know most of us do know but we I do want to kind of reiterate these things about it
[03:34:01] yeah by the way it's available in wall wall right now and we're working on a bunch of other
[03:34:07] convenience stores you'll be seeing it but everyone that's been going out to wall wall and just
[03:34:12] clear and shelves thank you because that makes the other you're actually helping everyone in the
[03:34:17] in the nation you're helping everything is because other convenience stores look at wall on
[03:34:22] thing oh how's it going they go how's it doing they're whoa yeah you're selling a lot of that
[03:34:27] stuff so that means other convenience stores go all right we want it too and they're saying that
[03:34:31] so we appreciate East Coast troopers out there clearing shelves in wall wall yeah it does make sense right
[03:34:39] if you're a let's say convenience store owner yeah right okay it makes the decisions whatever
[03:34:44] and he's gonna be like wait the healthy energy drink he's gonna be thinking kombucha or something like this
[03:34:48] where it's like cool to know might not taste that good whatever but wall was over here demonstrating
[03:34:53] the aim rather it's gonna taste good too you know so they're like oh I get it now you know they kind
[03:34:57] of connect in the dots a little bit yeah so there's all this data so they go back and it's been great
[03:35:03] so again since you're appreciation everyone that's been rolling out to wall wall and just getting it
[03:35:09] appreciated that's awesome and you're helping America because now the rest of other convenience
[03:35:15] stores are getting on board and then other people will have access to this wonderful
[03:35:20] nutritious as Travis Mills said nutritious and delicious delicious and delicious oh yeah fully also other
[03:35:29] items that can that do help us on the path is we've got some joint stuff joint warfare super
[03:35:34] krill oil another good for your joints oh yeah and the thing is it's a big deal and this is like we
[03:35:42] always say this is one of those things where this really pays for itself in a way that's like invisible
[03:35:50] because you're not worried about your joints you all feel the difference when you don't have it
[03:35:54] what's interesting here's what's interesting we have massive amount of subscriptions to those too
[03:36:02] so people yes send it to me every month because they want to not miss out on that goodness
[03:36:08] yeah and then so I just worry they don't want to know about that and if you want to subscribe to it
[03:36:13] you get free shipping by the way which is cool we don't have to pay for shipping
[03:36:18] you can also not pay for shipping if you go to a vitamin shop you can get all the stuff
[03:36:22] a vitamin shop they've also been supportive and everyone has been supportive rolling and
[03:36:27] a vitamin shop buy and stuff so very cool we appreciate it we'll keep making milk we'll keep
[03:36:32] making things that taste good and are good for you that's what we're doing jockelfield.com
[03:36:37] you also or gen USA dot com this is where you can get American made denim shoe or boots
[03:36:47] some other all the cool new stuff that people think so working pants got some jutsu stuff on there
[03:36:52] as well so if you're joining jutsu you don't have a gui yet or maybe if you do have a gui
[03:36:58] origin and how are we coming out with some new keys yeah yeah I said that in kind of a but let's face it
[03:37:05] the guis at origin I got put up I have the first like one of the first rift guis I have I was
[03:37:11] worn it yesterday where were you yesterday? I was at you know somewhere okay while I was training
[03:37:17] on the massive justice I was wearing the first edition white rift guis things are freaking unbelievable
[03:37:25] it's like a whole new thing era yeah a paradigm shift yeah yeah yeah yeah they're the best
[03:37:34] the the only downside is that you will potentially be spoiled in that way throw away your
[03:37:39] other guis or at least marginalism I had I put on one to see oh yeah does it still fit and you
[03:37:45] know feel like it and you feel like I would never wear this I mean cool respect oh you put
[03:37:49] one of the old ones and it's it just simply went out of the rotation yeah and plus you know it
[03:37:55] has bad karma why because it was made by a slave labor yeah china yeah yeah what's cool
[03:38:03] too is and we can you can see this on the origin youtube channel it's like it's the opposite of slave
[03:38:09] labor it's like it's one thing to be like okay you have slave labor okay they don't want to be
[03:38:13] there they're kind of in a way like obligated or forced in one some way to be there and they
[03:38:17] got to make this stuff okay that's terrible obviously but then you have like maybe the quote
[03:38:21] unquote stand towards like hey that's the job they're gonna go and they're gonna do it but you
[03:38:24] get origin you go there brought those there but every single one you see them all man they go
[03:38:29] for the car they care about that stitch you see what they care about like the whole deal then they
[03:38:33] make that even you get to wear it that's the then you get positive karma this karma with that
[03:38:39] you all around good karma with those jeans the working pants supporting American economy as well
[03:38:47] it's a big part of the whole gig amazing yeah so we're going to win a cross aboard
[03:38:52] origin us a calm cool stuff on there very cool also speaking of cool stuff jocco is a store
[03:38:58] it's called jocco store so yes this one goes for you to make sure it's hats some uh
[03:39:06] rash cards on there uh hoodies on there shorts on there you want to shoot that's as good
[03:39:13] with or without jocco's face you got the option though you know some good stuff on there
[03:39:16] check that if you look at that stuff you like something get something we do have a subscription
[03:39:20] situation on there as well cut the shirt locker cool designs depending on your opinion
[03:39:26] to be sure but we think they're cool general consensus they're cool designs are fun you know
[03:39:30] a little bit different so I'll say creative I don't know I've heard the word creative throwing around
[03:39:35] okay unless you can check those that out as well it's all at jocco store
[03:39:40] subscribe to this podcast wherever you subscribe to podcast you can also subscribe to unravelling
[03:39:46] jocco unraveling with terrible Cooper we've been making some of those lately
[03:39:51] with the grounded podcast which we haven't made lately so need to be revived from the ashes
[03:39:58] uh warrior kid podcast is another one kind of I got a ladder from a little kid
[03:40:03] uh they had one question for Uncle Jake when's next warrior podcast kid podcast coming out
[03:40:09] because that one we made out why I think 37 of them or something like that yeah
[03:40:16] but they're there you've got a kid warrior kid podcast we also have jocco underground dot com
[03:40:20] we have a that's a little um little sovereign area of the interwebs that we built to make sure
[03:40:28] that we can remain free out here and because of these people doing all kind of weird stuff
[03:40:34] with these platforms that we're on so far everything's been cool it's cool we appreciate it
[03:40:39] but contingency wise you can't just you can't build your house on someone else's
[03:40:46] bland because they might come around and kick you off right so we may have an early land
[03:40:51] it's called jocco underground dot com if you want to help us support that land if you want to
[03:40:56] if you want maybe a little room on that land maybe you want a little plot we can get you one
[03:41:02] because they've got a little native sense of month hey if you look and if you if you need to
[03:41:06] come on to the land the sovereign land of the jocco underground and you can't afford it it's okay
[03:41:10] we want you there as long as you're in the game you can just email assistance at jocco underground dot com
[03:41:15] that's we appreciate it again for real if something goes sideways on these platforms we're going to be
[03:41:20] there and and as a as a appreciation we do another little podcast it's usually about an hour
[03:41:27] we talk about some other subjects we answer Q&A questions that have been sent directly to the underground
[03:41:34] then we cannot tell you what's up so that's that we also be YouTube channel and a lot of people
[03:41:39] correctly identified on the latest release of the mayhem movie that echo Charles made a lot of people
[03:41:48] recognize that there was some powerful assistant directing on all of the common strong ADP
[03:41:56] as new the ADP presence I'm the assistant director and and also you know kind of
[03:42:02] I had a supporting role in that yeah what do you think so actually you might have been the lead
[03:42:07] unknown I don't know if I had zero lines yeah which is they were powerful though that's the thing
[03:42:12] you're zero lines because your whole performance is powerful because big shocker echo made a movie and
[03:42:17] he's the star of it that's kind of the feeling that most people got
[03:42:23] retired main tie this sent me like it was a clip of us talking about it or whatever and
[03:42:31] how like you know the the time you're you're clicking on the can or whatever in the video or whatever
[03:42:35] it gets me I guess at the end of the day I was giving you props for that oh whatever and
[03:42:41] I feel like everyone including main tie is kind of just sort of recognizing you straight up
[03:42:47] you're the AD assistant director so all right let's find out what I still feel like I'm in the shadow of the star
[03:42:54] the person with all the lines yes and the most camera time yes you are no that's you dude
[03:43:02] you're in you yes are you to channel we do have a on top of jockelv in this assistant director we do
[03:43:10] other video version of all this stuff if you want to see what general don bull buck looks like you
[03:43:16] come on here yeah and you took a youtube channel youtube is you know one of those things now it's not
[03:43:20] just a video thing anymore it's like some people it's their preferred method to like watch TV
[03:43:26] listen to podcasts or whatever so I dig it and we got you that's what we got this whole thing
[03:43:30] I think I'm a little stable yeah I mean does anyone worth TV like actual TV like a show
[03:43:38] yeah is that happening yeah okay some DVR action okay I don't know if people still watch it live like live
[03:43:45] I don't think so that might be very low numbers and the all-sector the commercials and stuff
[03:43:51] the commercials are kind of a non-starter for me if it's junction in life yeah you know it's weird
[03:43:58] to my kids kind of the same way is like I like commercial not all of them but well fast forward
[03:44:05] through them but if I see one then I'm like oh let me see that commercial like it's kind of
[03:44:08] there's no commercial there's like a because some commercials there's this little story
[03:44:12] living in the commercial it's kind of good I feel that way right so yeah anyway yeah the point is
[03:44:18] we have a youtube channel bull subscribe to it subscribe to it if you want it's good one
[03:44:24] so yeah there you go also psychological warfare if you don't know what that is an album
[03:44:30] a jockel album with jockel tracks on there telling us how to get past our moments of weakness when we
[03:44:37] have them and I have them from time to time but you know gotta worry about that kind of stuff
[03:44:41] because jockel tell you why you should get over 100% uh success on the 100% if you want to hang
[03:44:47] something cool on your wall why not make it something from flipsidecampus.com that my brother
[03:44:53] Dakota Meyer made owns he is the owner make fun how do we make fun of him he's the creative
[03:45:01] artistic director of that thing there you go Dakota creative artistic director I think that's
[03:45:07] the title he's always wanted yeah I don't doubt it it's a good title that's Dakota one of my heroes
[03:45:13] and if you want to get some stuff to hang on your wall flipsidecampus.com got a bunch of books
[03:45:18] I've written a bunch of books but the one that's coming out next is called final spin
[03:45:22] we don't know if it's a novel we don't know if it's a poem we don't know if it's a manuscript we
[03:45:27] don't know what it is but it tells a story story with some lessons
[03:45:36] I let my oldest daughter read the book final spin and she got done reading it
[03:45:44] and she came out the kitchen and like I could see that she just got done reading it
[03:45:49] and I go oh you know what do you think and she started explaining to me what she liked and what she
[03:45:55] didn't like and she started crying well she was explaining it that's when I said to myself okay
[03:46:03] looks like I found it it's like we got it we got what we wanted yeah that's funny that we just have
[03:46:09] some kind of an impact right that's what we want yeah want that thing to leave a mark a little bit
[03:46:14] you ever think about that like why do we you're cried during the movie no come on bro
[03:46:19] zero you never cried during the movie no we're not you didn't say when I was young ever yeah
[03:46:25] you're not in your own yeah yeah well movie I'm pretty sure ET you know what sucks is I watch
[03:46:33] ET with my daughter who's she was 11 when I watched her whether just was just like this year
[03:46:38] have you seen ET lately no not lately Steven Spielberg no offense that movie did not stand
[03:46:43] a test of time hey I went to the theater when I was a kid it was all that movie and I was with
[03:46:49] a friend of mine and we were kind of you know little tough guys we were probably 10 something like
[03:46:55] that little tough guys you know and we were bawling and I watched the movie well apart that
[03:47:02] I can't remember the end of it or something I don't know he goes home I mean event right that's
[03:47:07] like what it's supposed to be the so I watch it with my daughter and I'm sort of bracing for her
[03:47:12] and I'm thinking all this going she she just it was bad it didn't stand the test of time
[03:47:18] now look jaws as you know I mean jaws one of my favorite movies Steven Spielberg good job credit
[03:47:24] that's the test of time and then some now could we go back maybe CGI some shark activity
[03:47:29] we probably good I guess I don't really want them to do you want them to no no you like it old school
[03:47:34] so keep it the way it is bro but you're not gonna beat Quinn and chief brody right it's not happening
[03:47:40] I mean who's gonna do better Quinn let's face it so Steven Spielberg jaws to the test of time
[03:47:46] good to go credit however ET bro wait why it cuz the story or just cuz the special thing the whole thing
[03:47:54] the whole thing it was like an okay movie but I don't like okay movies you know that doesn't do it
[03:48:01] for me they gotta blow you away yeah I want to get I want to get something to take an hour and a half
[03:48:06] to watch movie maybe two hours sometimes I'm not and this juncture my life if something's not
[03:48:11] good to go I'm done no time we're not watching it yeah I will leave a theater I will leave
[03:48:18] I'm not watching this stupid or you know what I'll actually do sleep thanks to you like
[03:48:23] get some rest oh yeah if I'm with my wife or my kids and there's a bad movie we want to
[03:48:28] saw okay have you ever heard of a horror movie that's called it yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so the
[03:48:36] first one came out my kids really like that horror movie my wife doesn't even watch one millisecond
[03:48:41] of a horror movie the first the first the first the new ones cuz it is old school that's old
[03:48:46] first the new ones he's doing with the clown face and that's all that's all that's all he's the
[03:48:51] story okay so I watched the the one of them okay anyways okay but then my kids were all
[03:48:57] amped and so we actually went to the theater to go see it the second version of whatever the
[03:49:02] tune to the two those those whatever we were all in there it is so bad I just was like I
[03:49:10] watched maybe seven to twelve minutes of it maybe maybe and I was out sleep cut up on some sleep
[03:49:18] they woke me up I saw the last the last seven minutes of it yeah it was so bad
[03:49:24] and we all walked out of there my kids thought it was bad too oh for a thing okay let me
[03:49:30] make sense you ever okay it's okay now we're kind of deviating but I don't care talk about it
[03:49:35] it's cool I've never seen the nuance I saw the old ones like they're super long too and cool I
[03:49:40] get what they're doing and they're good but it the new not chapter two like the the first one
[03:49:46] of the new ones so the thing I didn't see any of the butt they they have a trailer for that
[03:49:51] no man it's really good trailer they have a few of them but it's the one where it's like hey
[03:49:58] there's Georgie and the older brother I forget the older brother he's like hey you'll float
[03:50:05] to like hey if you come down here or everything floats down here is what the ghost kid says right
[03:50:10] everything floats down there I think that's what the clown said first I guess anyway so he's like
[03:50:14] if you come down here you'll float too and then like this beat this horror kind of beat like
[03:50:19] starts speaking out but he goes yo float too you know float it's really really well done
[03:50:24] trailer now one yep well must have been better than the movie I think so and remember when
[03:50:29] a long time ago when we were talking you were like oh why did you start video or whatever
[03:50:33] and the whole phenomenon that some some movies actually a lot of movies I mean I could name a lot
[03:50:38] of movies that the trailer is better than the movie like watching the trailer provides a better like
[03:50:43] experience than watching the movie yeah that's totally true so that phenomenon is kind of what made
[03:50:48] me like one of the videos or whatever you know it that's wonderful you have to say the tea
[03:50:53] distinctly for it just so final spin we don't really know what it is but it will withdraw some
[03:51:01] emotion some lessons learned some thought provoking material yeah final spin cool you can preorder
[03:51:09] it now that way you can get the first edition it's gonna be kind of rad to have the first edition
[03:51:14] that I think it's gonna be extra cool so check that out leadership strategy and tactics field manual
[03:51:21] the answer to all your questions is actually in that book leadership questions the answers are there
[03:51:28] the code the evaluation the protocols discipline the christ freedom field manual
[03:51:32] way the warrior kid one two three and four mickey in the dragons about faced by hackworth which I
[03:51:36] wrote the forward to extreme ownership and the dichotomy and leadership I got ashlam fun which is
[03:51:41] a leadership consultancy and what we do is solve problems through leadership go to ashlamfront.com
[03:51:46] for details this where you can find details for our live events we have the master we have field
[03:51:51] training exercise we have eF battlefield the next master is in Las Vegas october 28th and 29th
[03:51:57] the next FTX is in September September 28th and 21st and it's actually sold out so
[03:52:04] yeah we sell things out if you want to come then go to ashlamfront.com and click on events and you can
[03:52:09] find all this stuff we also have online training the extreme ownership academy go lead leadership is
[03:52:18] a skill that you need to practice it's a perishable skill you don't you don't take one
[03:52:24] you're just a class now you can kick people's asses you don't take one leadership book read it
[03:52:29] and now you're good to go no you actually have to train that's why we meet made extreme ownership
[03:52:34] academy online leadership courses it's a leadership gym for you to go through
[03:52:38] we have live sessions I'm on out there all the time answering questions go to extremoenership.com
[03:52:45] for that also if you want to help service members active and retired their families gold star
[03:52:51] families check out marklies mom momily she's got a charity organization go to america's
[03:53:00] mighty warriors dot org if you want donate you want to get involved and if you want more of my
[03:53:06] anti climactic anecdotes or you need more of echo's yattering yarns you can find us on the
[03:53:16] other webs on twitter on the gram and on that facebook he echoes at aquatrols i'm at jokkaw
[03:53:23] and again general don balldook can be found on facebook twitter and instagram at jenn gn don d o n balldook b o l d u c
[03:53:39] so if you want to check out what he's up to or you want to support his campaign you can also go to
[03:53:43] don balldook dot com d o n b o l d u c dot com and thanks once again to general balldook for joining us today
[03:53:54] and for being out there from the beginning holding the line to protect our way of life and the
[03:54:00] same goes to the rest of our service men and women out there right now also holding the line to protect
[03:54:05] our way of life and the same goes to the police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMT's dispatchers
[03:54:13] correction officers board of patrol secret service and all first responders thank you for holding the
[03:54:19] line here at home to keep us safe and everyone else out there on September 10th 2001 we were at peace
[03:54:28] in the next day the September 11th 2001 we were at war in one day everything changed
[03:54:40] and that's the way life can be too things change things happen people get sick people get hurt
[03:54:47] we lose our jobs we lose our loved ones anything and everything can change in one day and when it does
[03:54:54] don't get caught back on your heels instead go forward go on the attack and continue to fight
[03:55:07] until there's peace again and until next time Zeko and Joko out