Interrogator and counterintelligence agent Elana Duffy, Ep. 73

button here hopefully this all works if you have technical issues it happens okay inshallah we are live here this is episode 73 of the team house i'm jack murphy over here on the other side of the table co-host david park and live in studio alana duffy a former counterintelligence agent in the united states army you guys also serve as interrogators overseas we'll get into all that um but hey i just want to say first off alana thank you so much for coming in studio this is the first time we've had an in-studio guest since michael ames way back when it seems like forever ago um and that was right when like kovid was really starting to hit yeah that was before the subway incident oh yeah it was long before that yeah yeah so yeah it feels like it's been forever and it is just so nice to have somebody in studio the the premise behind the show is that like almost all the episodes were going to be in studio and then when kovit happened all of our guests uh like tracy walder and sam faddis and all they all had to not cancel but they had to go remote and we went remote um so it just threw a monkey wrench into everything so i'm just glad you're here we're like six feet we got we got a little close close i'm so um yeah so thanks for having me cheers yeah yeah gentlemen okay uh so yeah it's great to finally have somebody here in studio and um how are you doing i am doing just lovely it's it's it's been a weird year yeah for you know it's actually well it's been a weird couple of years but in particular a weird year so yeah weird couple years we can't wait to hear about that you know life is life is always throwing weird weird monkey wrenches duck dodge dive dodge yeah okay um so alana one of the things uh so jack and i are huge comic book geeks as you can probably tell um and every superhero has an origin story and we would like to hear your origin story tell us as much or as little as you want to sort about your childhood uh what when did you start thinking about the military what led you to it or the people in your family that all of it um i do have uh there is military history in my family but i am actually the first one to go to a combat zone okay um my father was uh for those who have seen good morning vietnam he was a stateside version of adrian cronauer during vietnam during the uh wartime era um but ma and my grandfathers were both world war ii era but just didn't get sent over so um yeah i was i was i was it they thought they had lucked out and then i was like no you know what i'm bored i'm gonna join the join the army um actually i grew up wanting to be an astronaut and um you know space force was nothing yet uh so you mean the guardians which the only thing that i can come up with is that it's because of the galaxy so it's guardians of the galaxy uh and that's the only reason that i can come up with that they're calling them the guardians but um i think it's actually guardians of the solar system they're they didn't they're not they don't have their sights set down they're like can we get to the moon not even sure about that yet but baby steps guys um right now they're like guardians of a place like under a mountain in the rockies but um the so i wanted to be an astronaut i looked into things like the military academies then realized that i didn't want to go to boot camp for four years it's smarter to just go for nine weeks and i pulled all my applications back went to college to be an engineer thought i was just going to do the civilian route and then became an engineer and realized that uh blueprints are really boring yeah and so i uh walked into my boss's office one day because he had a window and i didn't and i was like well i'm checking to see if it's gonna rain and if i need to bring an umbrella to lunch and p.s i'm calling a recruiter this afternoon and i'm just gonna go join the army and uh he laughed at me and that made me do it because uh me being bored or being like doubted in any way is a surefire way to get me to do something um so i joined in uh i signed my contract in 02 and i uh that's 2002 for those who want to make age jokes uh you're probably so this is this is fresh after 9 11 then yeah yeah so um uh the so yeah and i just said you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna do active duty and um quit my engineering job went active and decided to not do anything related to engineering did did the recruiters try to get you to go that direction did they not care because of their questions they just wanted yeah you wanted enlisted even though you had your degree oh i had a i had a master's degree in the engineering's um yeah my dad was thrilled yeah uh i believe actually somebody on uh somebody last week was like you know what what is a nice jewish girl in the in from new jersey doing in the army i was like yeah i got that i got that a lot um uh and then i was like well i'm not that nice but um the so i ended up uh going counterintelligence because at the time it was you first of all you could go straight into ci and then um we were more of the ground pounders than the uh the at the time it was the 97 echoes or now 35 mics interrogator human collector whatevers but we got cross trained so um so i was i actually helped both mos both job descriptions and uh did they send you the language training with that or was they they've actually stopped language training for even the interrogators at the time because they were um they were we were on such a heavy deployment rotation i showed up with my unit at uh fort braggistan and they were already they were like well we're leaving in like ah two-ish months so so did you know what counterintelligence was before like before you went into the recruiter i knew what the recruiter told me i wanted to be triggered wow it was such a cool job it's so cool uh there was actually one of the recruiters in the recruiting station had been a 97 bravo and he was like oh yeah like you get to do real cool investigations and stuff and i was like and um but he he really didn't talk too much about the job itself it's more that uh women couldn't unless you wanted to do like mp i want to slide like six inches this way there you go there you go thank you for not using left and right because i was already i already have my left and right and i'm already [ __ ] up anyway yeah okay no i'm sorry continue yeah um so uh yeah so the so women couldn't do uh anything except like mp or um that's kind of it really tactically yeah okay and that's what you wanted to do with something tactical yeah i need something tangible to to do um that's why i got bored with engineering i was sitting there looking at blueprints i wasn't actually building anything so um uh so i ended up going in and then deploying two months later and then when we came back we had like four months in between afghanistan and iraq and then heading back out there and then what what was your counterintelligence training like did you enjoy it was it challenging i thought it was hilarious um but uh i thought most of the army was hilarious uh much to the dismay of most of my commanders but um the uh it was i thought it was i thought it was great um i mean we the what they don't tell you is that i mean it's like 90 report writing but uh the 10 that isn't is a lot of fun and really cool and and stuff like that i mean um we were especially deployed were out were essentially attached to infantry or whoever's out on the road because we need to get places and we need to talk to people and do things and um i i i picked up parts of the arabic language that i mean i can tell you exactly what you know three men red toyota um average heights all with aks and ski masks so um i can tell you i would probably be able to still understand that in arabic yeah at this point because it's always the same um and i decided that if i ever found who in baghdad was selling ski masks i was gonna break this whole thing wide open we're going to just decimate the entire insurgency you could just stake out the ski mask yeah let's take a hot second here just to unpack for the the squares out there who don't know what is counter intelligence counterintelligence is supposed to be uh the uh well we are really one of the blue falcon mosses but we are uh we're looking for the high crime so uh espionage sedition subversion uh we are we do a lot of the investigate your own kind of like cid or um in the air force like some of the osi folks do it um ncis for maybe yeah navy marines whatever uh and we but we also do uh all other forms of human intelligence collection so anything that involves talking to a human turning them uh turning them into a source or uh some sort of informant and um figuring out how to get them to trust you enough it's the same concept of interrogation yelling at somebody never works you have to get them to trust you so it's a lot of motivation examining someone's motivation figuring out what makes them tick and then how to work that to your advantage so um it's uh it's like it's a lot of fun it's a very difficult uh job to do well and um some of the people who uh who do well at it you don't necessarily want to be friends with for too long because you guys are good at it yeah yeah what were some of the things you know we've had you know uh people from the intelligence community in here before they've sort of told us about like you know they're training a farm or whatever like what was some of the training that you went through were there any particular moments during your training that you just thought this was really cool or also either we we definitely caused a lot of i mean we so because i went through in early to mid 2003 uh this the system hadn't completely caught up yet to where we were so we were still doing a lot of um it's like they would take like a cold war scenario and then just kind of drop it into oh but this is actually happening in the desert and you're like and meanwhile we're like i mean you're in arizona you're in southern arizona but like you're still kind of in the mountains uh like you're you're it's like kind of high high desert so it's not quite the same right um but actually the the class after this and and when you do have uh i don't it might not have been his class but there was a class right after us who actually were wandering around with like dummy weapons on their little patrol during our because we do have a field exercise and um it's a major drug trafficking route that cuts right past the base up to tucson and they actually caught some drug runners with their little like dummy rifles some privates were just out there doing their fake patrol and uh awesome and came across and like got some like drug runners who like they probably thought they were part of the scenario until they found like the bales of mega the drug owners don't know they're not real weapons yeah they they like there they like chuck their like like pistols they chuck like a handgun and we're like oh and they were like oh i guess someone of us should go get a drill sergeant like yeah somebody who actually knows what to do we're probably going to go with this chico so um yeah uh that was but most of the time i mean it's it's a lot of like schoolhouse learning there's uh when i went back for some of the more advanced uh like um there's a debriefing course a a joint debriefing course there i went to back for a joint like interrogation certification course and some of the other advanced training some of that is is really cool um you get you end up getting advanced drivers training and surveillance training and all of this other stuff um because i ended up going into a one of our our elite units later on um that you have to assess into and they uh they they get to go to all the fun schools yeah but um tragically when i when i volunteered to deploy that's when they were like wait what are you still doing in the army you're supposed to be and i was like i don't know nobody told me to go home um so uh because i actually was hit by an ied in iraq and uh ended up getting brain surgery two years later when they figured it out uh yeah it was it was my army career was a mess of fun and excitement joy and hell yeah the adventure never ends oh yeah it's not just a job it's an adventure you can do more of these in the comments six a.m than most people do all day yeah yeah we can quote commercials all day long all day i was definitely being more than i could be which is uh i think when i went in it was still the tail end uh when i actually like was getting ready to sign my paperwork it's still the end of kind of the be all you can be before rolling the army of one ah foreign caleb used to say about me who's on the show also a few episodes back he said the harder the army squeeze their fists on you the easier it is for you to slip between the cracks and their fingers i was like that's right caleb that is some e4 mafia so speaking which because you had a masters did you go in as an e4 i did i was e4 mafia for like my until like they tried it they actually tried to they were like you know what you haven't been a private would you like to be one because you're on the way um yeah uh it turns out that some of my some of my commanders didn't necessarily appreciate when i would be like why are we doing i have a degree in like logic engineering like and i am in the most illogical place known to man because you're asking me to cut a lawn with scissors on a friday because the sergeant major is unhappy like this is not smart um so i would say things like why are we doing it this way and inevitably whoever made that decision was standing right behind me and all of my little blue falcon buddies would be staring at me being like we're behind you just real far behind you and very much anonymously yeah um you don't step forward we'll step back yeah yeah yeah it's like a bunch of meerkats you know when one of them's getting eaten by the alligator all the others are there yeah yeah yeah now that's mi right there yeah now ci though you're are you badged are you credential credentialed i actually have my retired b's and c's sitting like framed up on my wall at uh because you're an actual agent right so you have your you have a badge and again yeah we actually have to flash the badge and stuff like that we actually uh there i was just talking to a buddy of mine who stayed in who i went to um ait to advance training with but he and he said that they're actually going back now and they are making all the uh ci folks into um 1811 series which is like the the police series yeah so that they'll actually be able to carry on and like have it rest authority because if we needed to make an arrest we actually have to go with cid years oh really so you so you do we have a trust authority yeah we have a badge and we can ask anybody anything like you are still compelled to answer our questions but you uh if you tell us something we can get real mad uh we'll we'll write you a stern yeah um yeah i'm gonna put that in your file so if if for the people who did internal investigation sort of like the um not really internal affairs because it it's it's more about intelligence but for the people who did the internal like army investigations if if did they also need an np with him if they were going to arrest somebody who was in the army um i am i think their investigators uh i think their investigators come from like cid so i think that they do have arrest authority interesting but um i'm actually i'm i'm not positive and i think some of them are civilians so uh yeah but we are we in and that's actually what is different in the army from both air force and navy is uh because ncis and um uh osi there we go are both uh they both are dual they're 1811 series also so they do have that arrest authority they're investigating agents for all kinds of crimes we are only for these uh these specific crimes of espionage and so forth so does that as far as you know did that uh did i mean do they have to go through the full np course then if they have to learn all those they're gonna have to and they're gonna all have to go back to yeah they're gonna have to go uh all the existing ones i think are gonna end up having to go back uh and to either quantico or somewhere and get uh credentialed or to got help in fort leonard wood and uh and so then what is the uh difference if there is any of this job field between what you guys do stateside and when you get deployed so it depends on it really depends on the unit but uh so stateside in a tactical unit so when i was at fort bragg um we were it's a tactical unit we have no investigative authority you can't do anything on u.s soil we are only there to essentially train to deploy and we uh so we are on heavy rotation that's why we i was actually deployed more uh for more time when i was stationed at fort bragg and i was actually in fayetteville north carolina which worked to my advantage because yeah yeah uh vietnam is not not a lovely place um i was like yeah i think i'm safer in afghanistan yeah so uh it was um uh so we actually don't have uh we have no we have no authority there but in if we are stationed in korea or germany chances are you are assigned to a unit that does have investigative authority so like uh in germany i would mostly work with the pulitzer and the bundespolitz eye the state police and so forth to look into counter-terrorism or um look into uh and also because you have nato requirements that you know oh the you know the russians are just gonna drop by because they have authority under uh whatever statute to come and inspect our hangers with 24 hours notice and so we had to go and make sure that you know uh the apache systems that were secured were conveniently up in the air for basically the entire period and so and then when we are deployed we are just essentially ground pounders we are wandering around looking for bad guys with the bombs theoretically before the bombs go off um and uh and basically just and there are different assignments overseas too but so are you the primary human collectors then um yeah so we are the that's back then they were still they were still called tactical human intelligence teams or thts uh for the army and then the marines called started calling them hets human exploitation teams which doesn't sound good and then oh yeah and then the fets yeah really yeah i'm not making that yeah no that's real um and so most of the time like i would and i mean i would go with out with the infantry all the time and so therefore i am the only person who can talk to any of the women or any of the children so right about half of my time they were like oh we also have to run a checkpoint today so can you do that for six hours with us too um oh it's you're an attachment so yeah you're getting drug around on everything but what they loved is that because i was going with them i could put into uh to just you know be like oh do we have to swing by back or village because there's that guy who sells the good kebab sandwiches there and like ends so then like i would be like fine i will find something to do and we will you know change the mission plan swing over there so like one of the guys because i was with samoans mostly and they were just they would come back with like whole chickens like roast chickens and i was like i don't even know where you found those and he was and he was like this is the best day of my life so so you would basically generate intelligence requirements so that uh so he could come back with chickens hey you know what do what you gotta do to survive over there yeah you gotta pass the time somehow oh man so when you graduated from uh huachuca from the ci course uh what was the first unit you were assigned to and did you know anything about it were you excited about it did you not care um i was a writ i was supposed to i was a root i originally actually got orders to go straight to germany uh which would have changed everything but instead i went to um good old fort bragg because my uh now ex-husband at the time my boyfriend uh wrote me a letter from his uh he was at one station unit training for the infantry and said and on orders to he was um he had airborne and brag in his contract so he said oh my drill sergeant said if we don't get married then i'll never see you again and i was like is that a proposal and you know what the romance just never ended right right yeah no i started for all the right reasons whatever man the bah was fine um so uh so i uh we he ended up coming out to arizona uh after airborne school and in between airborne school and reporting to fort bragg and we got married and so my orders got changed uh to fort bragg uh at which point we really never saw each other anyway because we were on opposite deployments but um because i got to fort bragg in like december and we were gone by we were gone in february to afghanistan uh did a six month did six months in afghanistan uh came back and our in brief was uh don't unpack because the brigade's leaving for iraq in uh like three months and you guys are going to so so what what what was it like going to afghanistan and like when you first got there was it it was actually like uh we landed uh we we were one of the few like daytime landings and i remember the um the the tale of the it was a 17 it was a c17 comes down and it was that was the only time in my entire military career where it was like oh this is like a movie right because like it's like the hindu kush is over there yeah and you're like oh this is a this is exactly what i expected and then everything else went to [ __ ] but that like well if it was a daytime landing they probably went in pretty hot didn't they because they had to spiral down into the bowl uh did you join the problems or in uh we went we went we landed in bagram i i don't remember being that awful okay um but uh i mean most i mean i was actually one of the few people one of the few uh legs one of the few non-airborne because there wasn't enough time for me to go to airborne school uh in between so uh which turned out to be the theme of my career but um we so we yeah i mean we we came in uh they dropped us off they shot our pallets out the back with all of our gear and uh and then they uh they got out of there because the air force wanted kind of nothing to do with afghanistan proper they were gonna head back to uzbekistan where right where it was nice right um uh turns out also turns out it was also like depleted uranium but whatever but it was nicer like they had air-conditioned tents and stuff right but um yeah yeah it was actually pretty nice up there yeah um [Music] uh so we yeah it was that was it was like you're walking and you walk down and like you know you got two files coming down the sides of the ramp and just staring out at essentially just dust tarmac and then the mountains and you're like okay now this is this is this is like what i signed up for this is like the poster yeah and then um then they started doing things like yelling at you to get your bags and like chaos ensues started army now yeah she started making an army thing out of it now were you uh primarily based in bagram or did you i um we were on teams so we half of our company uh ran the uh main interrogation facility which at in 2004 was really that there was there was like nothing in the country really uh um like you know you'll you'll hear all about how somebody today told me that they're there by the time that he had gotten there there was a cinnabon in friggin bagram i was like yeah when we left they were pulling in like a burger king trailer and there was like a line right down and that was the day we left uh so none of us got any of that but thank you what time frame were you in afghanistan uh january february of 04 it was february of 04 uh to like july yeah that makes sense but when i when i got there the cinnabon was there the green bean was there the burger king there was a green beans that was the only thing there's always a green there's always agreement they don't know who that is whoever whoever it is they have the i don't know if they still did they got the con they had the content and it was a coffee shop yeah uh and so green bean was the was the coffee shop that you would find in all the pie or all the the bases the bases and we'd sit here and get all nostalgic remember the green bean and salsa and it was not very good yeah yeah no not it really it it was not but it was all we had no in afghanistan you always tried to get down to kandahar so that you could go to the tim hortons that the canadians brought in that was the deal i heard about that i only went again i went to kandahar for like two hours once and we were like you guys have like boardwalks there's like there's there's it's it's stuff like it's like it's a nice boardwalk all built up yeah people are like oh god i was in kandahar and i was like no i have been there you had it so nice so where did you get shipped off to one bedroom uh so we ended up out in herat um all the way out west and lovely city um what was what was left of it was a lovely city and and by what was left i don't mean that we did anything i mean that that has been in disrepair like the russians and so forth it all sacked it um but it's like the gateway to the silk road and it's got this lovely history um i learned to drive a manual shift on an old russian uh minefield um that had not been fully demined but nothing will make you actually like get that car moving up a hill from a dead stop ex with the knowledge like if i roll too far back i'm gonna roll into the actual minefield um so uh and at that point i mean this is before there was a a fob at uh an operating base at shindan it was before there was an operating base for raw it was so we were responsible for four provinces and we were a team of four people we had a special forces team with us um a civil affairs team was out there because they had to be at the provincial reconstruction teams the prts and um like half it was like maybe a couple platoons i think a field artillery were there to just provide base fob security um i remember um because the army has to do army things and at some point my uh team leader was like the uh company commander wants us to do a pt test here and it took uh it took some ridiculous number of laps around this tiny little like we had to do like little figure eights like laps right yeah and it was and to do like the two mile run and you're running like these little tiny like tight figure eights to try and get the spacing in um and uh but and then we would just go on convoys for like three days because it took hours and hours to get up to any other uh any any other town because it was just the ring road wasn't finished i don't even know if it ever really i mean is it ever really done when they keep blowing it up uh but the there was nothing it was just dirt roads all the way through these canyons all the way up to you know bad geese province and periodically dostum uh a warlord who ran um the masery sharif area the mez where and actually the british were running were the main people in charge of the mesut of mazari sharif at the time and uh our local warlord ishmael khan was um they him and dostum never really got along so periodically like we would just get a call on the radio from from the brits being like ah dostum's massing his guys on the border with your provinces again so i assume khan's going to move his own army up there because they all had their own little armies yeah and so we would be like uh fine we'll talk him down this time but like next time it's your turn um but because you know they all at that point it's still the factions still vying for all of the power and um the poor the poor guys in civil affairs were like uh we're really just here to dig wells so um or not even dig the wells but give these guys the money to theoretically dig a well um yeah so everything kind of just fell on us and on uh sometimes on the special forces team but how how long did it take you to learn because i mean like in america we don't have any concept of at all of tribalism and tribal politics and oh yeah well [Laughter] that's a loaded question yeah ready for civil war ii here we go uh here we go be boys the india or something um but the idea still waiting on my google i'm on my calendar invite for that by the way something for nobody if nobody if nobody puts it on my calendar it is not happening right right they need to send yeah they need to send out the gmail invite yeah like you need to put it on my you need to put it on my google calendar tell me are we doing shirts versus skins um so how long did it take you to like to kind of grasp the the politics the family politics the tribal politics the you know how how it all ran out there um well luckily for me um well my my uh my teammates actually i think of my teammates no one had gone on because we had actually been on such heavy rotations that some of the people in my company actually had already been through a rotation in afghanistan so uh we got the down and dirty and we were um uh because we had actually set it up that our like our company would replace uh the other uh human intelligence company from bragg and so we're like we were on this little rotation setup and uh so we had gotten kind of the back reef and i mean i um i'm a nerd if uh the engineering degree wanting to be an astronaut uh the fact that right now i'm wearing star trek socks like uh you heard it here first yeah yeah they i i am uh they also say uh track yourself before you wreck yourself and has spock throwing uh vulcan gang signs but you're here for these details folks that's that's what's happening right now um so uh the um but uh so i had like you know i had read up on it um i uh if anybody is like really likes the older history of that area like the uh the book the great game by peter hopkirk is like phenomenal and it's written really well it's like narrative style um but so i knew that there was a lot of tribal issues and a lot of that comes into play because it is no kidding all the time you know my that guy's grandfather stole my grandfather's goat and we have had a blood feud right for years and like so i will tell you anything you want to hear about that family right um and sometimes i mean like you quickly learn how to use that to your advantage but you have to just take everything with a grain of salt yeah so it gets hard because all the intelligence is sort of tarnished or or corrupted by by these by these grudges oh yeah you know yeah you shot the helicopter last night oh is them on the other side of the river yeah yeah i love that when you like you go and uh hit a house somewhere and the guy same story every time i'm not a bad guy yeah see one of the advantages to being a woman is you could talk to the wives and by wives i mean of the same guy because wife number one and wife number two they will they oh like my my husband who you seem to be after oh no he is fine he is wonderful he is lovely oh he happens to be in baghdad right now um he's always in baghdad it's really weird um but let me tell you about her cousin i will tell you where he lives all the bombs he's making where he's making them um like they will they will tell you everything about the other wives families yeah i think that a lot of people uh here in the states civilians don't realize uh how important it was to have female intelligence collectors out with medcaps you know a medical what does cat person yeah whatever it is but medcaps with with the different uh prts with things like that because when you roll into a village the guys they all have their story locked down um and no no uh american man can speak to an afghani woman right but yeah but the women a lot of them are are waiting for a chance to yeah you know i definitely like to hear some like some of those experiences you have because i mean this is not even the army is obviously jive to this but you know my perception of it going in was women don't have any power in the society at all like what what do they [ __ ] know why would you talk to them yeah what what was once they watch everything they hear because because they don't even like consider them so right now speak openly yeah yeah yeah and so uh and one thing that you just learn is even if you're after her husband even if he like if her husband could have been you know bin laden and i would have been like oh no i'm sure i'm sure it's all just a bad rap right i'm sure so why don't you tell me who he comes and talks to and she's like oh well let me tell you like because they just want someone to talk to um it's like going down the street to like the like if you've i i love doing this too it's because i guess it's i i've kind of fell naturally into this job of saying oh well you know like going into the store and like talking to the to the clerks or like the people that nobody ever wants to talk to yeah because they just sit there and they hear everything and they know everything those houses they're made of like mud and hope like nothing is stopping the sound right so uh and there's not a lot of hope holding that together at this point either so and i mean it's a small village like everybody is related somehow and everybody knows everybody's business you know yeah now did you have a female interpreter or a male interpreter i had a male interpreter um and uh in iraq in particular uh my interpreter was freeing he was hilarious he had grown up he was a syrian he was an assyrian or iraqi so and the assyrians uh suffered quite a bit under under saddam as uh as well as you know kind of everybody and so he had no love but he had so he had been born in baghdad born and raised his early childhood in baghdad and then he his family moved to the us and he had grown up in like chicago owned a liquor store on the north side of chicago for a long time the war breaks out he shudders his store his his liquor store and becomes an interpreter because he's like i can help both of my countries and so he was hilarious because he hates everyone and i was like oh me and you were gonna get along just great and um so he would sit there and he would like always do things like he would always position himself between like me and uh like the shake of a village because he's like no i don't trust him you can't sit next to him because i don't trust and i was like i'm supposed to sit next to him and he was like no he probably has ringworm i was like all right okay he was like you see him scratching his face like iraq is a little more uh egalitarian and and sectarian um how was it working with a male interpreter in afghanistan um afghanistan it like was very very because uh we didn't even the it's so segregated in afghanistan and it's so especially out west and in the smaller towns and smaller villages hurrah was fine herat was like because herat is the second largest city next to kabul and so it was just like um they they kind of adapted they ebb and flow and but once you left the city limits uh i would sit there and i'd be like where are the women like the what and even the the children once they were above about age like seven the girls were like sequestered yeah just home um and uh so we would have to go and seek them out to just check in on like in and we would uh working with the civil affairs guys which some civil affairs don't really like working with ci because they don't want it to seem like a good pro quo type of situation um but we would kind of help them out especially if they hadn't sent women with them uh either i or actually my team leader was also a woman and so we would always we would have to kind of go in because we couldn't go into the girls schools without a woman we couldn't go to talk to uh any of the and these are the schools that are being targeted but the women teachers really couldn't talk to another woman but um the interpreter that we had there he was very he he knew it he he he had been there for a minute he knew what he was getting into um and he he would always kind of stand behind uh he he would do he was the only interpreter who ever did what uh they taught you in the schoolhouse which was that the interpreter should be standing kind of behind you so that you're talking to the person and they're really talking to you and just kind of this voice is repeating right what you're saying um i didn't pick up uh we it was mostly farsi uh like uh well dari which is the dialect but uh like a persian farsi out west and uh so he um and he knew that and he also knew pashtun but uh i because of all of the different dialects i didn't pick that up nearly as quickly as i started picking up arabic but um these these women they were still they were just relieved to have a female face right um and because we were there and we were directing the conversation it was okay to have him in the room uh so he was basically kind of transparent they didn't they didn't even really consider him as yeah they were there yeah uh there's a good interpreter if they're able to do that yeah um yeah um yeah we we really lucked out i know that some of the teams had uh really struggled um with uh with with that because the interpreter would either get too close or control the interview yeah yeah now were you guys working with in-digi interpreters or did you have like cat one cat twos from youtube we had we had us interpreters uh because we need to have them to have clearance so um so we either work with a cat two or a cat three uh yeah the um uh tattoos uh can hold a secret clearance and cat threes can hold a top secret clearance so uh we we worked uh almost exclusively with them it was mostly the cat ones the not cleared or or locals would were mostly with uh mps and with the other patrols that would go out so we would only use them like like when uh when when the bomb hit like our convoy and like everybody needs something at once you know i'll grab whoever speaks arabic right but um or so i'm told because i so how different was the job in afghanistan to what you learned in the school was it like did anything that you learned the school applied since they had really kind of taken these cold war scenarios um i mean did you have to learn on the go oh man i'm i'm just i'm i'm starting to recall our ftx scenario and you know how amazing it was um uh oh oh ao red um because they come up with the best names the most creative names the uh it was the reports are about the same that's that's that's about it um i mean really from from the school from the schoolhouse and then getting dropped into afghanistan like two months later but i don't think that there was much that anyone could have done to really set that up or prepare that i'm sure it's way better now because people are teaching the courses who have actually been there right but um and i mean this the scenario and material humans are humans but being able to start factoring in things like oh you know they're allowed to have up to three wives and um like all of these like little cultural things that if you know them you can actually use them to your advantage we really didn't get any of that in the schoolhouse and then that's just stuff that you either have to pick up on the fly pick up from somebody else or if you have a good uh cat 2 or cat 3 interpreter they can they can be like oh i should tell you before we go in here like during the during the russian war like this happened and this happened and that's why these guys don't get along and you know so um but there was it it it would have been helpful yeah you know like the little cia books that they give you the little cia factbook really it didn't cover it didn't even really get the weather right like i mean yeah let's then uh segway into iraq and what was that different how was that different as an operational environment from what you would just been in in afghanistan um well afghanistan especially like i mean it was where we were was the wild west i mean it was uh there was like it was fewer than 100 americans for within a day's flight of like anything um we couldn't drive to the closest bases uh so we um so we were like we were out there i mean it took us at one point there was like a two month lag for us to like get mail or get like a food drop off or anything because thanks air force there was weather in the mountains right yeah it's sunny uh i know the game is on but could you do me a favor because we're hungry um but the uh and iraq um i mean it's more educated in well i mean afghanistan we were when we were in herat at that point the little fob our little like 18 lap or whatever fob was right in the middle of the city um at one point there was actually a fighting broke out between some of the factions uh within the city and they were shooting over our compound uh i was like it's not that big you can just go around uh but we're like they were shooting around like all us and like all these nato compounds and so we get a call from like the germans and they were like uh it's coming through the plaster like the ak rounds are coming through the plaster on the walls could you come get us um and we were like yeah we don't have any armored vehicles but like sure we'll just come and pick you up in these toyota hiluxes um so uh but in and in iraq like everything like the bases are built up because they're old i mean for i spent my first three months doing uh election election details and then uh because this is early 2005 now so it's elections the first iraqi election and then hostage rescue and uh that's where all my stories about the seals and some of our 18 series come in from uh-oh not only throwing shades on on naval infantry desire to know more intensified french guys dude um god what a dumb idea that was to adopt from everybody it doesn't even keep the sun out of your eyes um but it looks smart does it though i don't know a properly molded beret it's a properly molded beret it's part of our unite and unique and colorful history and high spree decor thank you for thank you for that blue book um yeah no the uh and and then you have the people who don't bother to shave it down first and so it ends up looking like a poofy chef's hat why you don't give it to everybody yeah yeah general shinseki shinseki made everybody elite yeah yeah everybody gets a black one i don't know so now you're in a rack yeah with all these uh supposedly high-speed dudes uh what was that all like fascinating yeah now was this were you part of the same unit still i was part of the same unit from fort bragg uh at this point um uh i in in baghdad we were uh like we were like attached to an attachment to an attachment like it was it was that was straight up army madness but um and i don't even remember how i got myself into trouble enough trouble to get myself moved but uh i'm i'm i'm sure it'll come to me uh how is the marriage going at this point i think that everybody wants to know oh yeah well bless his heart and he is doing very well for himself i'm sure by now i don't know i still talk to his brothers i don't really talk to him anymore but um uh that's because he married someone 13 years his junior who doesn't want him talking to his ex ever again i understand he has a little bit of an affair problem something something i don't know i was like he was in the 82nd like they have a reputation he just already had it by the time we got there um he just fit right in these unfounded accusations about the airborne infantry i can't believe so weird i have seen so many of them allegedly i have seen so many of them uh naked in my bathtub in the middle of my hallway like just his friends would just and i was like seriously like put pants on before you pass out like i don't even i don't i don't know what to do with this you go clean this up well you i think you keep permanent marker sharpies around your house and you draw dicks on there for him usually i was late to pt so i would just kick them but um i think what she's trying to say is that true love is blind yeah yeah i'd be like what what is jeff doing on the floor again you guys have to be a pt before i do because 15 minutes early to the 15 minutes early to the 15 minutes early you guys have another 15 minutes so yeah and i outrank all of you so oh so you were not e4 at this point in time i was still in e4 okay he just wasn't okay he wasn't a cornell grad because uh that's how i chose to waste my uh my college education um did the army at least pay for that uh some okay uh they pay back uh they they i did loan repayment but they only pay back uh federal loans they don't pay back any private loans and uh so they paid back s i had gone on a scholarship and then a partial like a half tuition scholarship and then the army paid back maybe like another half of the loans so cornell only a hundred grand a year with what you were left with yeah nice ish it's paid now because i'm 40. um you know um so uh yeah bless his heart i think i don't remember where he was at this point he might have been in afghanistan because you guys stole together at that point huh oh yeah yeah yeah uh when i say together i mean yeah married yeah yeah yeah we were married um uh yeah no there there used to be a uh a topless bar that i'm pretty sure was off limits uh within walking distance to the place where we lived uh the firehouse anybody who had ever been to the firehouse firehouse at vietnam in vietnam oh there's a firehouse at the columbus georgia well i'm sure there was and that was on the off limits list yeah yeah yeah i'm pretty sure it was at bragg too they they like to keep that pretty pretty well structured i was gonna say like i mean just from what i've heard from friends i feel like i would know the name of these gentlemen clubs around north carolina well this is not to be mistaken for secrets or any of the other places sharkies yeah sharkies sharkies was like across from secrets and like i think that the strippers would do battle i'm not positive pure titanium down the street right what was the one though that had the uh nine out of high girls and one ugly one oh i don't know they were everywhere too that was there yeah but they but here's the thing if if you're gonna open a strip club then open a chain of them and open them in army towns because yeah that's what army towns are strip clubs pawn shops use car dealerships yeah so shops and paid it oh so those shops are great so shops are kind of new though you just throw a patrol cap up into the air in one of those military towns and like a korean woman snatches it up for you let me tell you there was a guy right on my corner he would start this is back when we had like the bdu so he would starch him shine your boots 10 bucks and you go pick it up and it's like i can see myself in my boots yeah like i like make sounds when i walk like i'm wearing corduroys but no that's just all the starch it you know it's interesting because tim ferriss is known as the you know sort of the guru of life hacks but but army joe's were life hacking way before it's imperative yeah tim ferriss ever did like i didn't even know what a life hack was and i was just like no the dude on the corner right yeah drop it off on my way we just called it skating yeah getting over he called it the sham shield yeah the specialist sham sheen before we we got on to the uh the gentlemen's clubs in fayetteville uh that we all know and love i i got stories about secrets iraq yeah yes you get sucked up into working with um i thought we weren't talking about never mind with the with all these bros and you assured us you have stories about these uh operations yeah yeah so how did you get there you got to iraq so we get to we we get to iraq and in uh actually for my second deployment in a row uh they were like oh we want to send you to place x but we might send you to place y so why don't you just sit tight and we'll figure it out um because the the art that's kind of i think how the army actually makes decisions yeah uh not to give away trade secrets but uh there's a magic coin they flip but they have to flip it 100 times yeah um so um we we show up and they were like oh they need a i don't even remember where i'm supposed to go at this time i think i was supposed to go to like uh to like uh mosul to i don't i have no idea i don't remember now uh needless to say i never got there um no it must have been because i ended up going up north for like a week and then they were like oh no we're actually going to send you to baghdad because they need a female on the team down in the green zone screen zone best assignment yeah um civilian clothes assignment it was friggin great except that a uh when i had been at ait at fort huachuca uh the army decided to reshoot their uh 97 bravo join counter intelligence commercial while we were on our field exercise so they were like interviewing some people like you know what's it like to be a 97 bravo and i was like i don't know why don't you ask someone who is one because we're in our training exercise but uh and i am in that commercial apparently i've actually never seen it so if somebody can find it somewhere and it's not on the youtube it's not on the youtube it's not on the youtubes i have looked um uh this commercial started airing like january of 2005 when we showed up in to and like i'm showing up to this plane close assignment at the embassy at the stand-up u.s embassy in baghdad and you know i have to meet with like generals and all these people and all of a sudden liam the the ambassador uh is passing me in the hallway of the embassy and was like i just saw you on the afn commercial and i was like well glad to see that's airing finally good to see you too sir thanks so for those of you don't know afn is the armed forces network and it is what is piped into uh everything overseas everywhere everywhere overseas it's like being in some orwellian science fiction film that everywhere you go and you hear you hear the voice of your leader you know you know nine it was obama back then it was bush and like everywhere you go you just hear their voice it was just terrible commercials of uh and everything is don't kill yourself yeah please don't kill yourself everything is third-rate acting just it's just these amazingly bad interviews like it's um i'm sure your commercial was great though i can't imagine it was but i i have an imdb page for it we will we will definitely set that so they shoot you down the bag dad and because they needed a they needed they needed a lady face on on the teams down there and um uh i probably i don't know maybe i wasn't supposed to be there at all i was superfluous whatever they were like you you're going there um so i end up on this team that is doing uh strategic embassy relations and liaison work and then like also what's going on in the green zone who's plotting things against the green zone and uh the green zone being the huge international uh area where the different embassies were and it was supposed to be this secured area that um and so we were there for the first elections and um i mean everybody's pretty much just on patrols and we're sitting there telling all of our sources like uh don't line up by you know this entrance because like there's definitely gonna be snipers and you know like so it was um but what i ended up doing because i talked to everyone like i'm supposed to is i started falling in with like the hostage working groups that were down there or and primarily the one at the embassy that was uh this liaison point for all of in early 2005 especially there were a lot of kidnappings um a lot of uh i mean uh sergeant keith malpin had already been missing at that point for uh quite a while um and uh so we were still looking for to recover uh his remains we were like so it was anything that was and all related to hostages and they did not have a dedicated intelligence asset so uh having found this out i was like well what am i doing after like seven o'clock in the evening when like the gates close and like nobody can get in or out of the green zone or whatever and the uh fbi has closed their bar for unknown reasons because god knows they're probably still drinking anyway but um uh because fun fact they built their own bar uh at the base at the back of their compound um and they would get the their liquor from an assyrian who had opened a liquor store brilliantly inside the green zone limits god bless the entrepreneurs yeah ah he was so smart he made a killing off of like all the international all the civilians um and so uh officers yeah yeah um so uh so we so we end up um so i ended up basically moonlighting with the hostage working group and that's how i started falling into um all of the um squirrely forces folks that were that were floating around um actually one of the uh one of the seal commanders was super nice guy there's like one or two that are great people they didn't write a book uh but oh wait what no no yeah no it's it's it's come up before it's yeah no it's it's it's it may not be all of them but it's enough of them that it's a real thing yes yeah um so we uh and then one of uh one of the best experiences was uh the night that one of my sources called and said oh i happened at this point so it's still early and one of my sources calls uh my interpreter had would take control of the cell phone at night because i'm not great at arabic yet uh and calls and says um i know where amz is at zarqawi uh who at the time was number three i think on the high value target list something like that um he was up there he's definitely top five um and so he was like i know where he is i know he's going to be there for at least an hour probably two he's at a funeral and uh my uh so my it was 10 or 11 at night my interpreter comes banging on my little trailer door and was like i don't know what to do with this and i was like okay let's go find somebody who can actually respond to this because uh me and you were not super useful right now so um went and i actually found that particular uh i found um i went into the the one of the embassy areas and uh the seal commander happened to be working late and told him and he was like okay my guys are gone so we'll bring you over to the old 18 series compound so he calls them tells them that we are coming we go over there and there and you know they we roll in i get it it's late put your pants on like i don't need to see you in your silkies and your and your giant beards put a shirt on they're tiny whities and showing up at the gate seriously like like i get like you love your ranger panties that's wonderful sweetheart like rancher panties are amazing they are and they're super comfortable no problem i have some too you knew we were coming but put a shirt on i don't i don't need to see that boys to see if they knew you were coming that's probably why they did it they probably changed into it they probably did they're probably in like their onesies they're cozy they're snuggies yeah they're all all tucked in for their night yeah they got their snuggies they were like oh we're not on a mission tonight yeah you can get all snuggly um so we show up and uh shirtless bro one uh because god knows i never knew their names uh sits down at the head of their little conference room table and was like i hear ya uh you know where he's at and i was like he's at a funeral for one of his buddies yes my source is reliable do you want to check well we're not going to move until we have some cigant on this and i was like hold on let me make him make a phone call what what what do you want from me he's 20 minutes away do you want to take a ride um they uh they tried to get they had me drag my source out uh to like into the green zone onto their compound so that they could talk to him at which point he was like i will never talk to you guys again uh and then uh and then they still were like no humans too unreliable and i was like you're just comfy and i got one of them lady faces and you don't like lady faces because you don't trust us uh and that was pretty apparent it was it was very much a hey little lady i i hear you the next day uh turns out the funeral had been a real thing everyone who was anyone who had been there wow and uh the two people apologized to me directly and that was uh the uh seal who had brought me there in the first place he was like sorry about that actually probably though yeah and he was like in all honesty you probably would have gotten the same treatment for my guys um and uh actually their commander was like turns out that funeral was a real thing and i was like yeah yeah i know oh well y'all could have gotten a good bag there and how long was this before we ultimately smoked him up uh wow this was 05 it was it was a minute yeah yeah yeah yeah i mean i just want to go back to this idea that he was still teaching uh general mcchrystal all of his life lessons thanks man they had a hostage working group for how long before you got there um maybe maybe a year i don't know and they had no intelligence assets what what did they do they just sat around and watched real housewives on afm yeah i mean isn't hostage rescue supposed to be like j sox like whole purpose for existence originally well it wasn't jsoc though it was it was uh so it was like this weird uh like secret room on the fourth floor type of thing yeah it couldn't have been json well because it was like a hostage working group was probably state department it was yeah yeah it couldn't have been it wasn't jsoc though because they they would have taken you to one of the tier one units not q and sf team yep um yeah uh so yeah and i mean it wasn't they didn't like he didn't put out the word like nobody else knew about this he like kept it in-house and yeah well um i mean it was actually it was lucky that i had even run into him because like everybody had pretty much like knocked off for the night uh it's 0.5 like who's i don't know who's working at the embassy right um but uh because everything all at that point everything happens in like this one like area of the embassy where like all of the all the different um uh special forces type elements all have their own little area and office and i mean like i had knocked on like all of the offices down the road yeah until i got to the um office with us and he was like the seal guy he was like a comms officer or something um i actually don't know how they do their little designations i'm sure they're sure they're adorable but uh i mean because seals are so cute they do their claps and they balance the ball and nice um but the uh um and uh like everybody had pretty much like knocked off for the night or something and he said his team had been out somewhere else or they were otherwise occupied and that's why he had brought me over to the to the delta guys and they were just like i don't know just delta guys or the stuff guys oh they were they were delta they were they were they were on their squirrely own little compound okay the delta guys so it must have been json okay um well i was going to say like sf is supposedly a human-based organization yeah so them saying like oh we're waiting on sigint would be kind of surprising but for jay sock and yeah yeah as surprised yeah no they they were like no unless we have sagan and i was like oh but and probably also some of it probably wasn't that they didn't trust you that you would just walk through the door and like yes yeah and also i mean i am at this point 24. and like i i've like a little baby face and i was like oh guys i know where it's about how he is yeah um so uh and i was like yeah well at least i put pants on but um and the source that i had like he was very reliable and he did come in and he did and we did get him into their compound and then he was like i don't like bearded men yelling at me like this reminds me because he had been held prisoner by saddam yeah like in his in like a couple years prior and he was like you know what this reminds me of because they were regime yeah he was like he was like i don't like like strange bearded men shouting at me uh shouting questions at me and he was like this makes me really like i'm having fun and i was like i understand hey guys could you could you tone it down a little bit yeah you don't know what you're talking about girl you're already ten well let's stick it to a five yeah ten to five and they were like eleven yeah right well the like the wrecking guys would probably they're human guys to be able to handle that but it's all the like operators yeah they're yeah yeah always the best dude to handle that kind of you're gonna if you're gonna call yourself an operator you better act like one so um i speak five five six oh god so uh no i'm having flashbacks aside from that whole incident i mean there are any other interesting uh operations during uh oh there were time frames so many there's so many um i mean like the so and i loved working with like uh i mean that whole time in baghdad was actually uh pretty great i mean we uh had i did have a similar incident with actually being able to know where malpin's uh body was but i couldn't get corroborating evidence but turned out he was uh the body was buried there either way um so tell us a little bit about that you got information and you tried to pass it on and they wouldn't accept it because it when it was a single source so what's uh super fun about human is that it is notoriously unreliable especially in an area with a lot of tribal issues uh or or sectarian issues or anything like that so whenever uh and especially after abu ghraib uh nobody really wanted to us for a year or two after people were still kind of stepping themselves back from a lot of human and uh because they were like well we can't hold anybody for too late or we can't we can't we can't do anything uh actually we had been when we were in afghanistan is when abu ghraib broke uh the story broke and uh when we had landed in the winter uh kazabu grape broke in like april-ish so in the winter the i mean you went into the detention facility and it was quiet and everybody was on their own individual little mats they they had these large cages but like they had they all had sleeping mats they all like had their prayer mats they all had their own individual stuff but they weren't they the detainees weren't allowed to talk to each other they weren't allowed to do all these things um and the interrogators which had kind of like a catwalk up above it uh on this kind of two-level warehouse type of facility could could do things like they could play off of each other they could say like hey do you have like this person so that they could um try to throw like you know oh maybe i have corroborating evidence or something like that and um so after when uh we went when we were getting ready to leave and i went into the facility after this is now summer and so a couple months later they had changed all of the rules that you know like the um if the detainees asked for it they could get it if uh they were sitting on they were still like you know sitting on their mouth but they're like sitting there playing cards they're shouting at each other they're yelling through the gates there and if the uh interrogators they the interrogators were told for a while they couldn't even look over into like down into the cells um because they were told oh that's invading the privacy of the detainees and i was like they like they're in prison yeah yeah they just blew people up right can we like like can we can we can we all acknowledge this um but uh so it was like it was such a crazy and different world and that ultimately leads to you know the escape from bagram prison but uh that was not under our watch at least um but uh the so in by the time we get to iraq they've changed all of the rules of even when you're allowed to detain somebody we needed three independent pieces of corroborating evidence to be able to hold somebody longer than 24 hours uh you could bring them in but you couldn't you couldn't hold them uh longer than even a couple of hours unless you had multiple pieces of corroborating evidence and you had like all of these different things these different pieces had to line up before you could even hold them to transfer them to a main facility and um and it makes sense because again your grandfather stole my grandfather's goat so i'm gonna get you arrested we were able to filter out a lot of those by not being able to get corroborating evidence unless we talked to like your brother and that doesn't count um but uh but when sometimes when you have things like zarqawi's at a funeral or like you know a body is located here and it's somewhere that we haven't checked um would it kill anybody to really send a team out there to go and look and you know and those rules i mean it's one thing when you get a walk-in or or you encounter somebody who wants to report on something it's something completely different though when you have a trusted asset somebody who has reported accurately in the past yeah telling you this i i mean we fell into this hole both in iraq and afghanistan where where we were no longer fighting a war we were conducting like a police action with with evidentiary standards and chain of custody stuff yep and all this stuff which soldiers often can't do and you know they talk about human not being uh reliable but sigin often wasn't reliable either they would do these foam chains and and these link charts and go okay this you know this phone is connected to this guy who's connected this guy so we should hit this phone it was like 50 accuracy best you know and then but then you get in and they're nine guys in there and they've all like they all throw their phones the first thing so you don't know whose phone belongs to whom and it's like well we don't we don't know who the bad guy is yeah all we're going off is you know a phone number a sim card whatever yeah or you rate a place at 2am nobody's got their phone on them right so who is the bad guy right well i guess we're going to play that and i can assure you that any unit that you talk to the that turned down the zarkawi you know uh you know information based on oh it's only single source had done hundreds of raids on single source information yeah it's just somehow we fell into this trap where sigint was so much more and signet for those of you who don't know is signals intelligence is generally based off you know technology phones radios but it's generally cell phone intersections generally cell for the most part cell phone stuff and um and human just human intelligence when somebody actually tells you something and when we you know we kind of did the same thing that carter did right with the nsa like oh this is the future yeah and he gutted the cia and built up the nsa and all of a sudden we were behind the world in intelligence operations because we had our cia was nothing at that point and and we fell into the same sort of trap in iraq and afghanistan where we put we policed all our faith and technology and none in the human resources the human assets yeah oh it was uh it was uh and what's interesting is um uh and uh i can actually go into a bit more i think i think most of the trials are done at this point but um the uh juliana sagrina uh kidnapping when the italian reporter had been kidnapped and we we didn't necessarily know where she was but then the but the uh the italians were so intent on getting her back that uh they they were willing to talk to anybody they were willing to move on single source and they were willing to do anything it was the same when they were trying to get them out of isis land in syria yeah yeah uh and um but they um and they did pay or they definitely paid a ransom uh when they got sabrina back and then um but they didn't they were so uh it it ended up burning everybody because they didn't they didn't want to tell the americans that they had moved on single source and paid a ransom and so then they tried to blow an american checkpoint and that's how they got their vehicle shot up and killed one of her uh and killed one of her bodyguards and she and she got shot in the arms recovered but um and there was this whole huge trial and we were and they were like oh we told you and i was like i was there you definitely did you you could have called even like as you were picking her up yeah yeah like hey we're coming tell the checkpoint don't friggin don't shoot the first vehicle you can go go after anybody behind us yeah the way the italian intelligence functions from what i understand in these situations is they start off they have nothing right they know nobody so they go to the guy who sells kebabs on the streets they say who do you know they'll give them 500 bucks or whatever take you to the next level up they give that guy 500 bucks and then it escalates escalates and then if they hit a dead end well then they just backtrack start at the beginning start handing out bribes up up up up and try to make that connection to eventually paying that bribe to secure the release of their hostage yeah um obviously a small country like italy they do have a counter-terrorism unit obviously they don't have all the assets that jsoc has they can't bring all that to bear but that's clearly a case of you know um poor coordinations you know it was it was avoidable yeah yeah and the thing is though years into this the the the a lot of the bad guys had become savvy you know whether it was like a guy on a motorcycle who would turn his phone off have his phone off turn it on in front of a you know a target house the house he wanted hit make his calls turn it back off go and then you know after watching this pattern over and over and over again okay he's in that house yeah right um or i remember in afghanistan they had these charms on their phones that changed color that would flash they would flash they were like uh you know led charms or light charms or whatever that would flash whenever their phone was being pinged their stickers too so they would know that they would know their phone was compromised and and and so after a while the the signals intelligence just became every bit if not sometimes more unreliable it's very similar to um if you guys have ever seen the uh tv show the wire yes where it's like the the gangsters realize their comps are compromised so they start taking all these countermeasures and then we try to counteract that yeah it just goes on and on yeah it's it's actually like uh i was telling somebody the the best spy series to actually to watch is either a the wire or um or the americans oh i thought for sure you were going to tell me that like you were basically denzel in training day oh yeah well obviously but obviously look making your source take a hit of meth and then pulling a revolver in the car that was you were doing stuff like that every day right that's what it's like cruising around the green zone yeah so you fall you fell into this working group like that but what was your like your day-to-day so well my my day-to-day job in the green zone especially was uh i mean like we would we would take some some walk-ins actually that's um there was a uh one of the major kidnapping rings uh that was operating mostly out of sauder city um got reported to me just from a walk-in and she just and it was a woman and so they were like oh this this is why we got one of them ladies down here so uh get get carted on in and um she just dumped this whole thing uh it was a it was the 1920 revolutionary brigade uh and then they had been operating mostly out of sauder city at the time and uh they had been kidnapping uh internationals they've been kidnapping locals they've been doing anything they could and uh she just dumped like a ton like she had she had written like a dissertation about like who knows who and how they're linked and where they're kept and all their seats and i was like the crowd can i give you a hug yeah um and she and she was like the smartest person and she was just like i know you can't necessarily verify most of this stuff let me tell you like this is where i got all the information from um and she had wanted i think her uh like someone she someone she knew uh had been detained and she was like i just wanted like a visit or something and i was like what do you need uh because if any of this pans out like you're my you're my hero so um and so a lot of my day was basically like running down legit she was 1000 we broke up the entire operation off of her information was she like a lover scorned or like what was the backstory on that yeah one scorned yeah she was like she was like uh basically like my bitch-ass husband uh and she's paying the bills yeah yeah uh and like i think it was like her brother had like her husband had like gotten her brother incarcerated and for the stuff that he had been doing and she was like raider dropped on she was like oh hell no you aren't going to do that in my town let me go tell some people some stuff um yeah how did uh how did the whole because in the green zone and the green zone is this sequestered zone basically um how did a walk-in happen and you know there were there was you there was the dia there was other you know there were all these intelligence organizations how did they determine which person got which walk-in uh sort of luck of the draw but um also at the time bless their hearts uh like the agency uh the cia was on lockdown um because i think they had gotten uh shut up in the in the circle outside of uh outside of sauder city uh one too many times and i was like well maybe if you didn't have a three hundred thousand dollar up armored like no they were like g500s or whatever the mercedes yeah the upper armored benz yes yeah like what are you doing like oh this is this is our this is our screen visibility yeah these are just we're being super discreet no honey honey where i guess the dia was going out and unarmored like yeah totally indige yeah uh so a lot of the the dia uh dh folks they were um they were kind of rolling their own game uh but they actually they weren't taking any walk-ins uh because they were running their own operations the agency is not used to taking walk-ins and so it's kind of beneath them so they didn't really want to so they really wouldn't so they were just sitting on their thumbs the entire time um because they weren't allowed to go out because they kept getting shot up every time they did and um and then uh so really a lot of the and nobody really knows what the bureau was doing there in the first place just unloaded on this brigade and actually because i've been working with the uh the hostage working group uh somebody was like she says she knows something about like some hostages so could you go and talk to her and so that's how i ended up going to to speak to her um and because again like nobody had nobody had bothered to to give them a dedicated intel um that's actually what got me kicked out of baghdad is petitioning to get them a dedicated reset well here's a story that's what it was hold on a second guys it's uh it's uh our stupid internet and it's totally our fault oh bless the internet yeah technology's saying i'm still streaming it's going okay okay i think it's just you no no it's it's a buffering issue um it's already so anyway continue so here's the story about you getting booted out before we start this stream unfortunately we need to get can you touch him that's that's spectrum there's nothing i can do about that really except try to upgrade no i think a tech can come in and figure out what's going on because sometimes when there's a lot of um i think okay so i think we should be back and i apologize guys that the internet is going in and out so you want to get to some questions yeah let's save it it shows me that we're uh lagging again okay um so uh thank you gordon uh gordon says the australian uh the australian army intel had to serve in another core first do you think it would have been beneficial serving in another big army capacity prior to going to ci uh now they actually do uh but you can't go in as ci so and part of that reason is is for is for that experience and for kind of that maturity and uh uh wow yeah no i i know some people who definitely should not have gone directly into ci um uh yeah they i i definitely agree with that yeah um theory i think we're still it's dave when the video completes people will be able to watch it in full even if it's buffering as it's live streaming so let's just go through the questions okay great great yeah okay um another drink hammer nails thank you very much for the donation uh gordon again uh nolan's question uh did you work with any brit units and if you did what did you think of them uh i first of all love working with the brits and uh even just having worked uh peripherally uh with them while they were up in masuri sharif and we were in herat and we had to um afghan election security operations and these guys uh they because when you work for the un uh they were retired and so they were civilians they were not allowed to carry weapons uh because they're un and one of them had been senior enlisted uh with the uh british special forces and i was like so how's that working for you uh having to go to you know like farrah they were very sympathetic also to the plight of the americans that we like weren't allowed to drink they weren't under general order number one they were lovely to work with yeah um cheers to all of them um and then again thank you gordon uh fun question smoking any smoke any sheesh and best brag boulevard stories we'll get to bragg boulevard it's better than the merc though uh murchison is is most of the strip was off limits but um uh that's the uh hold on facing south uh that was the east the on the east side of bragg uh you most of it was off limits um uh bright boulevard kind of came right down right down the uh center other than that um no i didn't smoke the cheese my i do have a hookah that has never been used because i wanted to be an astronaut growing up uh i am one of the very few people who honestly could answer all of my polygraphs with uh no i have parts of the 82nd was doing along bragg boulevard um as in prostituting themselves oh you're talking about the gay porn ring yeah well no no so before the gay porn ring same god not same guys but uh same uh um regiment what what are they uh no division yeah at that point they were they were still brigades because then they like they switched into like some sort of weird form because it was the 50 504 505 uh and then it was like the three two five or three something yeah uh and those guys and then they're paying 24 apr to get that yeah yeah um to get that terrible terrible car deal um no uh also i would because most of because i lived off post because i was married and most of my friends lived in the barracks uh i would frequently get called to come and pick them up at the strip club if i hadn't gone with them because the i mean the humor was one early 2000s like all my seats were still upholstered so it's like it's like this felt material that's never coming out you could back i'd be still finding it now if i still had that car god um moving along so wait if you could still find it now that means that there were there was glitter in your car at one point in time i i will neither confirm nor deny the body glitter body glitter that ended up in my car uh because i i believe that particular person who i'm pretty sure was making his way through every stripper secrets um uh he was he knew all of them probably biblically by the real name yeah yeah yeah yeah uh maybe not their last name but probably their real name uh he um he is now i i happily married with children i may have been invited to his wedding and i was like oh i'm not going to say nothing it's a story as old as time but his his wife from secrets no surprisingly not sharkies uh no he uh he he he pcs okay so um so probably a strip club somewhere else one of the commenters says uh we call them essential workers now yes that is true they have not shut down the strip clubs in many places i yeah it's one of those i mean it's one of the it's like i mean they're still wearing a mask yeah it's like liquor it's one of those it's one of those businesses that will do well no matter what the economy is yeah um again uh thank you gordon uh so you got to play smack a rodent with iranians in two countries yes actually uh i've i've seen iran from both sides uh both borders actually yeah um god damn if cheney had his way you would have gotten to see it a third way yeah you know so close i know uh yeah no uh actually you feel cheated right i i think i have a i well i definitely have a photo of the uh of the of the mind dmz between afghanistan and and iran uh that um we definitely uh we definitely but don't try to prove it um uh wandered into enough that the sat phone would say that you are now in iran uh and then uh my team sergeant may or may not have uh uh taken a dump on iranian soil um so that's that's always the uh the hallmark of a soldier is that uh walking across the border and leaving leaving something behind leaving something behind uh yeah in the country that we're all right let's let's get more than these questions here because we got some other important stuff we have some very important stuff and uh jerry thank you very much uh did you enter ever interact with isi while in afghanistan [Music] i don't think so uh not not not much not in not an o4 yeah i i don't know that isi really ran open i mean obviously they were in afghanistan but i don't know if i ever ran openly um thank you joey uh joey wants to know was uh alana is saying secret squirrel um i was in a a i was in an off books unit but uh they are it it's there's several black helicopters what are we talking about here you know lizard people whatever did you have your chemtrails did you have your own ski mask distributor i you know what um uh tragically because of that uh uh because of that pesky board i never got to the ski mask level um but no we did we we did uh we did run clandestine operations so uh thank you adam uh adam just said rock on we love you guys we love you too adam and uh uh dj thank you very much uh favorite course uh besides uh csac and sierra vista what in the sorry v would you not love um do you could you want to tell us about csac and sierra vista i uh sierra vista um uh is like uh fayetteville in which is i mean so for people who have not had the pleasure of being to vietnam it is uh so it's it's north of the south carolina border by i believe from the south of the border signs that run all the way down route 95 all the way through from virginia all the way to south carolina um it's about 60 miles north of south carolina but it's also still about an hour south of raleigh there's nothing around fayetteville sierra vista is that times like a million because there is just nothing and sierra vista is where huachuca is basically yes okay it is arizona yeah sierra vista arizona is uh the town that happened to pop up because there's a military base there um and it's the the two closest like towns are bisbee which is weirdly like a very artsy hippie town um it's lovely i actually did get married there uh thank you um i did not get divorced there that happened in jersey the uh but um uh so uh and tombstone uh tombstone arizona which uh is exactly like the movie except they paved the streets and i love tombstone and we spent nearly every week while we were at the um while we were at the ait course at our advanced training uh nearly every weekend once we hit phase which is uh every every so often you would be able to face you would be able to like oh you can get a day pass to go out into town or you can get a day pass for x number of miles you get more privileges basically yeah uh and then you could get once you got overnight privileges so that you didn't have to have to get like inspected to make sure that you're in your like in your room by 10 or 11 or whatever it was at night um we would overnight in tombstone about once a week and we became regulars at the at the crystal palace saloon in tombstone uh where i learned to dance the arizona one step with a guy dressed in full barney fife uh outfit um every week without fail he was dressed like barney and i was like barney fife was definitely not in tombstone didn't matter to this guy but all the reenactors would come out after hours still in costume and hang out and like dance because crystal palace would always have like live fans and a hilarious place to hang out anyway uh aside from all of that that is also where i definitely did a boot and rally off of terrible bottom shelf whiskey which is one of the reasons why i drink rum now um oh it was like turpentine um old crow bourbon whiskey you can't even really find it anywhere it's so bad well next time you come in we will have some that is we'll see if we get another food and rally live on that was that was oh man i don't have a puke bucket there is a uh there is a photo of me uh because i was i i became i was convinced that my friend who i am still i was actually just texting with her the other day uh would come back for me because i we took a giant group photo uh because it was our last weekend and uh when we had walked into the crystal palace by that point we were such regulars the bartender knew our drinks by the time we got up to the bar he would have a shot of old crow and for me it was a rum and coke um waiting for us at the bar and uh we were like we're gonna do a shot every hour on the hour but i thought we had gotten there on the hour my friend thought that we had gotten there on the half hour and so he would walk over with another drink about every half and add another shot about every half an hour and meanwhile i'm also drinking ramen like rum and uh we also decided that we were going to do a shot with people who because people were coming in from our class in groups and uh it did not take very long for us to plow through uh a bottle or two of like he didn't even it wasn't bottom shelf it was like he had to like go he had to like right it was like seller yeah yeah he's like oh i gotta lift up the panels and the floorboards what do you have under your well yeah yeah um and uh so i we take this group photo and i turned to my friend vanessa and i was like i'm gonna go throw up now and she was like would you like me to come and hold your hair back and i was like please would you come along uh uh this is actually how we still talk she's a new york city local as well and uh she came in she was like you're good now and i was like i think so and she was like okay and she left and i thought she was coming back apparently i was sitting on the floor waiting for her for about half an hour no idea passage of time gone uh and then uh one of the re-class he had actually he was actually an infantry he was in um he was one of the group guys he was uh like he was fifth fifth group at the time uh he was reclassing into our jaw he was reclassifying because he had gotten injured and so he was reclassifying and he um and we weren't supposed to be hanging out in the first place but uh he comes knocking like all of a sudden you just hear like this tiny little tap on the ladies room door and he's like hey you bluffy you in here cause uh it was a mix of my maiden name and my married name and he was like you in here he was so scared to knock on the door bless him and i pull open the stall door and i'm just like sitting there like on the floor like hey and four people come around with cameras take photos so there's definitely a photo of me sitting next to the toilet on the floor of the crystal palace saloon memories bathroom i'm so glad that the girls have these quintessential army stories as well oh yeah oh yeah uh and he was like oh okay you're alive and i was like yeah vanessa coming he was like no she's been out here for like half an hour and i was like well i thought she was coming back come on let me get you a drink she's been arizona once stefan yes she's been dancing with barney yeah so uh john dorsch says upgrade your internet okay i will john i'll show you uh pam thank you so much ian uh i'm falling behind because of the buffering guys who asked early uh what does alana feel that a giraffe would sell for on the black market it's a standard question all the guests get this one on the black market you're going to get a markup so i mean i'd say at least three camels and a herd of sheep and like a barter economy yeah yeah oh that's sorry that's what about straight straight i'm just saying because that's where my brain goes to because that's what i got traded for on multiple occasions um yeah i've been traded for uh several camels which is actually quite nice because camels are very expensive yeah uh herds of sheep herds of goats uh three iraqi wives uh he offered all three of his wives if uh if he could take me home instead offer them to whom like to my um to like my partner uh so um he essentially figured that he he was authorized to trade me right um and uh and was your partner ever tempted by these he was actually he he was definitely and he was like three really can i get three and a half yeah he was like he was like all three he was like all three for this one and i was like and i was like i want to see how this plays out you go ahead you you bring three women home with you go ahead bud yeah yeah yeah he didn't think it all the way through no no it seemed it was one of those ideas like so many in the military that seemed really good yeah from the outside he was like one for the kitchen one of it you know one for the kitchen one first and then and then one for the bedroom and all it's like i was like and what are you going to do when uh when when they all get together and they're they're not in their assigned places right and in the us he doesn't you know that's three alimonies which will break a man no i i guess i got some stories [Music] multiple wives in west africa i'm gonna i'll have to save that uh brandon asked what advice would you give to someone looking to go into counterintelligence and counterterrorism field love the show hope you guys get better internet soon thank you brandon oh that was sweet he doesn't know the building's condemned right [Laughter] um uh sorry before we went out to the building what would you recommend somebody going into counterintelligence or counterterrorism like would you recommend the military would you recommend a civilian route college um i would recommend a yeah well first of all i would recommend getting out of your bubble before you go into it so um whether that means like going to going to college and getting it the best interrogators and the best ci and the best ct people that i know had did something for a minute um even a brief minute like i did before going into the field because you have to get out of that bubble you have to be out of you have to know that there's other people out there there's other situations out there there's other stuff because it just makes you more willing to put yourself you have to be able to put yourself completely into somebody else's shoes i've sat across the interrogation table from someone who the day before had tried to kill me i've sat across the table from someone who two days before had killed one of my friends like and you just have to understand and like not just fake but be able to actually understand there's a reason that you did what you did there's a like you didn't just wake up one morning and they're like i'ma put a bomb in the ground i'm gonna just go do that like there was a whole thing that led up to it that made sense to you right why and uh that's what's so actually fascinating to me about it and um because they could justify murder sure and uh and killing somebody because of uh and it's not all like you know like uh love of religion it's it's like you know um i've i've met people who are like i they offered me ten dollars to dig a hole and drop something in it like that's very come like in afghanistan yeah where people are i mean they're substance farming they're getting up at four in the morning farming dirt hoping to feed their family yeah and somebody offers them ten dollars yeah is like that'll feed them for a month yeah like uh and and i mean the the whole reasoning behind why people do things and if you have uh just stayed in the same place for uh your whole life and that's all you know right you know like i'll send you the google invite for the civil war because i know which side you're gonna be like that's it's it's it's amazing to be able to sit there and talk to these people and not like i felt no hatred towards them i was like as soon as i could process it i was like no i get you i know why you did what you did right i don't agree with it right clearly because you were trying to kill me but like i get it right and being able to process that i get it from that anger is something that you're not going to get unless you are experienced enough in life and you've dealt with enough people that are in crappy ass situations uh to be able to deal with and i don't know if it's being friends with all those drug dealers but um something was able to where i was just able to be like oh okay i see why you did that yeah it's understanding that somebody else's subjective reality is is every every bit as much to them just as justified as as ours is to us right exactly yeah and saying i i don't get it i don't understand it i don't agree with it yeah but i get that you do yeah i mean like watch friggin red dawn the original not the remake never watched the remake ever ever ever uh that i do not understand and i don't understand why they redid it but um but in terms of the arrangement it's a mystery um but uh you know like any in the uh when what would you do if someone came into your country and like you had nothing to do with this you had no reason to be like you're like i don't know i'm going to high school oh look the russians are here the cubans are here this is weird why are they yeah um and all of a sudden they're like you know arresting your family okay give me a shovel i'll dig a hole and i'll drop a bomb in it right um so it's that perception and that being able to understand um so i don't think that people should go directly out of college i don't like there's no real path but it's whatever is going to get you to that point of being able to see other people in that situation prior to having to talk to people and understand people uh that's gonna give you that perspective so uh thank you brad appreciate it and uh i think maybe we'll save the the baghdad story for the bonus segment um because i do we're like kind of like i know i'm taking up a lot of your time tonight um and i do want to talk about how you got injured in iraq and what led up to you know this whole deal coming back and recovering from all of that on the back you want to see my yeah yeah let's see let's do it yeah it's [ __ ] this this sweet piece of metal uh let's see if we can i might have to bring it more central too there you go there we go there we go this is what my pt like this is what i do at physical therapy she's like you know we need to keep your flexibility up yeah so what what is that what's the whole deal with uh rocking the uh rocking the rock and the fake uh rocking the fakie the falsies accessory over here um uh so and what's super cool is that it actually comes straight out of the straight out of the skin here yeah so that that's actually your leg there that's yeah a piece of plastic yeah and there's a metal shank coming out of it so is that is it like wrapped it into the bone it is yeah it actually well it's uh it's not great it's uh it goes straight through the middle okay um which is super cool uh they basically um bless them i got uh the i got the pictures from it the um where there's like the surgeon is actually just like hammering metal into the bone i was like that is awesome um but uh so about like two weeks before i got blowed up for real uh the i was in another area um because so after baghdad i ended up going up to uh blood to work with some tactical folks because you know i got i got in some trouble for you know going above my little specialist rank and um causing some problems and getting mouthy and women opening them up any ladyfolk um talking out their station we uh so i ended up um that's how i ended up working with the infantry and the um the giant samoan guys who would come back with chickens um we uh i was out on another mission actually shortly after um i had just gotten yelled at by my command for doing it again um but uh for being like this makes sense we should be doing something else um and we were on the road we had gotten actually just in uh in a car in a uh mva in a motor vehicle accident in uh up armored but not well uh humvee and uh my for those who have never ridden in as a passenger in the back of a humvee um there are these things called m16 holders nobody knows why they're there uh because nobody in their right mind would put an m16 in them but at the bottom of the pass of the driver's side and the passenger side seats which are metal uh steel at the bottom there are these little uh platforms that would hold the butt stock of an m16 and then there's a like a clip up at the top that would hold the barrel and uh so if you ever wanted to point your m16 at the ceiling uh for no good reason you could put it there um i've never seen anyone use it but they are welded to the back of these things and so when we hit a vehicle uh we thought it was actually a um vivid one of the vehicle-borne ids but uh luckily it wasn't but we hit it and because i am relatively small i bounce forward and my boot lace gets caught on the back of this metal i end up tearing several tendons as my foot wraps around this thing nobody knows at the time uh take some motrin drink some water you know take a knee if you have to um rub some dirt on it yeah yeah yeah you'll be fine um and so basically i and and i chipped a piece of the bone nobody knows where that went and so whatever uh but there was no because we should we show up at this like other tiny little fob after after we got towed there because our vehicle was completely like it was annihilated by this impact i mean people were people were killed during this it was not a small accident and uh we show up and they were like well we don't have we don't have imagery we don't have an x-ray we don't have anything so i'm sure it's just a sprain because you were wearing your boots how bad could it be um several months later after i had gotten back to fort bragg and they actually did like a bone scan they were like oh you done you don't mess yourself up there that's gonna hurt for a minute um but so uh two two weeks after that is when i was in the ied the id uh blew me backwards uh again it was in it this is i mean like we're not in an mrap we don't have right the protection anything that like it's it was the 1114 so it was actual like real armor but um i still there was a gap in the armor so i still get blown backwards uh we are close enough that i get blown backwards by the concussive blast and there's a metal plate right behind my head slam my head on the metal plate so end up having a brain hemorrhage affects all the nerves because everything's all connected there's a song about it that you learn when you're like five um about all the bones at least and then so the the nerves never heal properly so the bone never heals properly so nothing ever works right again and uh 14 years later after limping for you know over a decade and so forth uh and i would step off of a curb at you know madison square park and all of a sudden my languages crumple and i would have torn two more ligaments uh in my in my leg and so i was just constantly going back hurting yourself were they i mean were they looking at this were they doing the imagery on it they were they were they were like they were like oh you're done you done toward again um and uh i just thought it was weak and a recurring injury that the the only thing that they could propose uh so uh the year prior so last year i i had the amputation done but the year before i had my left foot uh because of limping for uh you know 12 13 years my whole left foot had collapsed right like all the structure was just done so they ended up basically rebuilding that so i've got metal and all all that stuff if the robot revolution happens soon like i am on team robot like transhumanism is yeah yeah yeah this is like straight up cyborg um but the uh so and then in my recovery from that i go on vacation and i go on a boat and as i am stepping over uh onto like a onto you know like one of the little drain holes or whatever i don't i i don't i'mma call it a drain hole because i was in the army not at the navy so um and the boat hits a swell and my foot just buckles like it does and i was like oh that's fine i hardly feel those anymore and uh and then it started swelling up like a like to the size of like i don't know maybe a casaba melon and i was like oh no i don't messed it up this time um 24 it would happen to be the last day of vacation the next day i roll in i i when we flew we flew home i get to the i roll into the va emergency room because uh my boyfriend at the time um [Music] uh it's okay he's a marine he can handle it um just give him some crayons um not if i want him back um but the uh he was like oh no that's that's like did you break something and i was like nah it's not broken it's fine um because that's the attitude that you get after a while uh i went in and i was like i don't know i'm told that i should come in and they were like how are you walking like there's like nothing connecting your foot anymore um the va just wanted to do the same thing that they had done on the left which is basically rebuild it out of metal and then shorten all of the tendons so maybe i didn't mess it up but they were like but the nerves are still screwed up uh you'll just do it again you'll end up re-tearing all those ligaments over time and uh and i went for a second opinion and they said the same thing and i went for a third opinion because i was like this just doesn't seem right like there's got to be something i can do right and he was like well there is but you're not gonna like it because it's basically cut it off and he was like so you know bless him he was like uh he was like well it's kind of like you know getting divorced like or something like i like you know if the marriage isn't you know good anymore and bringing you happiness and i was like oh no i've i've been through this we can just go on please you're speaking my language um i was like i'm not married to this foot anymore like we can we can do something about this um and uh and he happens to be one of the few people uh in the country who is doing this type of uh because actually if it had been a socket like a traditional i probably wouldn't have done it at all because um i know enough i have enough friends who are amputees who have struggled with the socket or had repeat surgeries after that right but this it's i mean um i get bio feedback like i can feel like when my foot's on the ground i can feel it um because the metal is in the bone right the pressure yeah right so so i can actually flex that freaking calf muscle which is super weird because i think i'm pointing my foot it's not moving but yeah yeah so when oh so a lot of this happened because of the brain injury and and it wasn't so it wasn't healing it wasn't some of the right signals and so what the damage was was degrading instead of healing when did they figure out the whole brain issue and the surgery for them and the surgery for that 2005 nobody was looking at traumatic brain injuries right yeah um they didn't understand they still don't really understand yeah you know uh and um and you know what like more power to them they uh they're catching up they are doing they are doing the best they can i do not fault the army i don't fault i don't fault the va um but uh by the time so in 2000 either late 2007 or early 2008 i think i went in uh i was actually my my first sergeant by this point i'm stationed in germany and my first sergeant at the time uh was like hey you're you're on the commander's uh red list like the non-deployable um uh go get your [ __ ] done list for um your post-deployment health reassessment he was like when's the last time you got one of those done and i was like uh never um and he was like well that means that you are two years overdue and so the commander said that you need to do that yesterday and it turned out that my uh the the pa who was my primary care person at the time had just within the last like week gotten an email from someone at launchdual who was studying concussive blast injuries and traumatic brain injuries and had sent like basically a list of symptoms like if they have this one or this one or this one or this one send them for an evaluation and he was like so you don't have or or or you have all of them and like just like i had been losing my vision i had like migraines that i had never had before balance issues all these things i just thought i was going bananas um uh and so did the army because they would continually send me to psych when i was like i don't know i'm seeing like shadows oh no that's just you losing your peripheral vision um and no problem yeah i'm sure you happens to everybody yeah you're just crazy yeah here's some here's some motrin i don't know take a nap when you can um uh so um so i go see a neurologist she finally diagnoses it so in so i gotten hit by the id october of 05 i had neurosurgery they sent me to walter reed for old walter reed where they stole the asbestos it was lovely um it smelled great um in june of 08 i finally had brain surgery because they realized that i had during that during the ied i had actually had a brain apoplexy which is like a hemorrhage i had had a brain hemorrhage at the time and uh you know i just been sitting there coagulating and forming this mass around my like carotid artery so the blood was still present oh yeah yeah this wow giant mass in the center of my brain it was it's uh they still have it in the cavernous sinus on the left because um the surgeon was like uh there's a lot of stuff going through that area like including your carotid artery that i don't feel comfortable and i was like if you're not comfortable right i'm good you leave whatever you need to leave um and they didn't even do like the the panel removal um which was somewhat disappointing uh because i was like of all the things that could make me a cyborg right like they went through the face they went right through my nose uh as my my friend vanessa same person uh who did who held my hair back and then disappeared um as she said at the time uh like the egyptians they just like basically take a look twirl around your brain yeah that's high tech though yeah pretty high [ __ ] it's amazing take a little hook and yeah pop that thing out what happened at the va here in new york no uh that was at uh old school walter reed oh that's right old school lottery yeah uh you know the asbestos uh adds character the the advantage i don't know the magic happens the advantage to both walter reed as a military [ __ ] and well walter reed has always been sort of cutting edge in a lot of ways because that's where all the combat traumas go initially um and they have great docs there and then also the v8 in new york barring all the all the issues with the with the administration aspect of the va which sucks the doctors in new york are amazing because all the hospitals or most the hospitals they're part of the bellevue system and nyu system so all these all these doctors all these surgeons rotate through the vm so you're getting world-class yeah there if you can get an appointment yeah yeah you know if you don't just get the chance if the doctors are phenomenal yeah which is not the case with every va because in a lot of other smaller areas yeah the doctors aren't quite as up to date but here they really are and i like and i was it like i've never had an issue with uh with va care like the the va has actually been very good to me i mean again like administrative issues they have like they have backlogs yes like nobody's frigging business 30 30 days to see a primary character like if it's an emergency you just don't call for an appointment just yeah yeah um but uh yeah so um so they did they did the surgery in oh wait and then uh again like i just kind of i hung around did did you know like did the surgery make like an immediate difference or did what did what did it help it uh it's it definitely stopped the progression like i still have issues with peripheral vision i solve issues with double vision um i've been through uh vision therapy cognitive therapy speech therapy like all like and then obviously physical therapy but um like all of the therapies and then you know mental health but um uh that actually came surprisingly much later but the uh so i i went through all of that stuff but it definitely stopped the progression i still get migraines because i still have all the stuff in the cavernous sinus and so when like the pressure drops there's nowhere for any of the pressure to go um so i i'll get a migraine if and i'm like i am the worst superhero in the world because i'm like it's gonna it's definitely gonna rain in the next 24 to 48 hours and i am more accurate than most of the weatherman so superman had a kryptonite i mean everybody that doesn't make you a bad superhero i i underst it's just kind of a lame superpower i'm like the pressure is going if the pressure is dropping it will break that's your superpower that you you know i know when it will rain in the next 24 to 48 hours uh he's saying he got shot through the ankle 16 years ago tomorrow and i'm looking at a fusion or an amputation he wants to know if you have any advice for someone looking at a possible amputation i never say that amputation is for everyone just like i will never say that either college nor the military is for everyone however having had actually both of them um uh one on the left one on the right uh i have less pain in my amputation side than i do on my on the fusion side uh my sister who is actually a neurophysical therapist would be very upset to hear that um that being said also because i have osseointegration which is the the whole metal into the bone thing it's a very different experience for me as it is for people who have the socket um so uh people who have the the socket have all kinds of other issues they like blistering issues and skin issues and and uh infection and and whatever else and um again like if i had not gotten if he had not been able to offer this particular type of surgery with the bone fusion um osteointegration then i would not have done it there are a lot of cases i mean even going back as far as like uh carl brashears the first uh black navy diver who you know had damaged like who had damage to his late like there are times when having the amputation gets you back into the game whereas right if you had fusion or something like that you'd still have your limb but it but it would not function to to any any high degree yeah yeah um one of the main reasons like if there's uh nerve damage if there's stuff like that stuff that's not going to be fixed i did not want repeat surgeries right i am yeah like i am a i am a one-and-done type i mean my my ex-husband he was like once your mind's made up uh and i was like yeah no so those papers um but is osteofusion pretty common now or is that just cutting edge it's still it's still new here uh the so the the breath it's actually uh the australians the swedes the um and uh the brits actually i heard about it from a uh british um blessing he had been uh part of their eod their their ordinance disposal units they're bomb guys and um uh it's funny because there were four or five of them in the group and all of them were missing at least one limb and they had all been and i was like so you weren't very good at it and they were like well the bomb did get defused but i love them um but uh one of them had uh both legs above the knee uh osseo integration for four so the um above the knee above the knee and so actually he would like sit down in a chair and then he would push like a little button and it would just like click down um which was which was fun but he was like he had gone he had had the sockets for a long time and he was like uh he was this he was like this was life-changing um and he was like i'm so happy that i did this particular type and uh so when i knew that either i was gonna get um like repeat surgeries which still would never get rid of all of the pain or uh or amputate and uh because i had met this guy i contacted a friend and i was like is anybody doing below the knee osseo integration because he happened to work in prosthetics somewhere else he did his homework and he was like there's actually somebody in new york city who does it um so uh he'd actually given me the the contact information for that particular surgeon at the hospital for special surgery so and because i have um and i have tricare so i can because i i'm medically retired so uh and he knows how to work the system so you went outside the va system for that then yeah but the va is doing all of my care after post surgery so uh because uh dealing with health insurance is a nightmare right so um i mean like i saw the bills for what this would have cost and it's a lot of money so um but the va is just not but the va is authorized to do they're studying osteointegration above the knee because the uh the femur is such a large bone that it's fda approved uh below the knee it's much harder to do so the va is not really doing below the knee osteointegration yet it's very interesting because uh you know i i like busted up my arm and uh they basically had to put it together but because i don't i because of how it's all put back together at some point they'll do a prosthetic and a shoulder replacement uh where they'll give me a new shoulder joint and then a new upper like half the upper arm so it sounds like they're starting they're they're doing the osteo uh integration yeah with this because they'll they'll attach like the metal or plastic or whatever it is inside the arm actually to the to what's left of the humerus that's super cool yeah uh and then and then it's just a reverse instead of uh like the ball and joint this actually becomes the ball and this becomes the joint but it's supposed to eliminate all the arthritis and everything like that that's super cool so um but it's interesting because because it sounds similar to what you had in a way that yeah oh they do it uh they do it uh and also uh va is uh i know looked at upper arm yeah uh but they they can't really do it yet because it's lower these are really small bones yeah okay i understand so it's really the size of the bone that that um yeah uh because it goes right through the center right and they just hammer the they just hammer it on up in there um and uh and then i just like screw on my little attachments down at the bottom i have like a little allen wrench that i usually carry with me what kind of attachments do you have now see this is the superhero stuff no uh so it's like a bat belt or utility i uh ps i do have a 3d printer so i am one thousand percent open to uh experimenting with this but the um you guys heard it here first i um it's an old and crappy 3d printer that i have had to remanufacture like 40 times you can't retract that statement oh no oh no i wha what i really want to do and tragically i didn't have it in time for this snowstorm uh i'm gonna like make a casing for my foot that's like in the shape of like a dinosaur claw and then i'm gonna go up to central park and walk around and walk around with like one dinosaur foot and one human foot and just with the taurus just one thousand percent you get a a snow shovel you can make some money walking up and down the streets like where people are trying to dig their cars out you like i mean if you're a good workout right like there's there's potential here um uh yeah i was i'll give you a cut it's fine nice um [Music] yeah so back to the original question i would recommend uh looking into the options further um because again like talking to friends who have regular socket especially below the knee like i mean my calf muscle has atrophied so much and and i've had the nerves reattached so that i can actually flex that muscle but like uh so many of my friends have had so many issues here and there and then whereas i don't have to worry about it because it's right it's like uh a friend of mine was we're we were sitting at a bar back when you could do that and uh he was like poking at this and he was like oh what is this like what is it what is this metal and i was and another friend of mine is like that's her bone like you're touching your butt like don't do that that's super weird and i was like stainless steel yeah yeah and oh titanium oh yeah because it because it's it's non-magnetic the only thing that's magnetic as i found out when i went in for another mri uh is this and so i actually have to detach so hold that up there in front of the camera uh so people can see all that hold on now i i can actually take the i can take the old boot off because i can't i can't wear i uh uh i can't get socks over it so um uh so my truck yourself before you wreck yourself socks it's it's only on the other side a pair of socks last you twice as long that's nice does doc martin know that you are uh actually uh vans has sent me stuff uh not doc martin but um uh all right so hold this bad boy yes i i paint my toes uh oh god people should be able to see that now uh so now i have questions for that it's gonna be so funny i have questions she's working on this specifically i have questions about the leg warmer now okay i was actually i had to explain this to somebody earlier so yes because of course i have leg warmers because it's 19 yeah i feel like it's 1988 right um 12 o'clock here uh and there you go there we go there we go uh so um so the leg warmer is because it is below freezing outside but um uh but the uh so i have actually cut most of my pants to be uh uh capris because the um at that point beachcombers uh as i believe my friend who who lived in new zealand for a while uh short pants um uh because actually when i'm uh when i am where i went to physical therapy this morning and i was wearing like full length pants um and when it hits like the the bottom like right where that uh like right where that piece is right where it intersects it's it just feels really weird and just like if you're walking just over and over just like feels really weird uh so i've cut most of my pants and then uh but the leg warmers are because i mean otherwise my little my little stumpy gets cold uh and the other side would get very cold because that's just a regular otherwise otherwise you see otherwise normal yeah oh yeah otherwise you see my my full spot your spot your eyes and his that's blower yeah right so you can [ __ ] splashing gang signs right there scots got [ __ ] gang signs live long and prosper yo right nice got it got to do it so just out of curiosity is it just the symmetry and why do you cut the leg off the other panel because of the yeah it's symmetry yeah yeah so i'm still in it yeah and i am still an engineer at heart and i'm like oh no my just kicking in like this is just weird this is so interesting you know as a science fiction you know cyberpunk geek myself is that you are the living embodiment of the fusion between human being and machine in a sense you know amputation you will be assimilated in the past i've been yeah you're a fixing something that's sculpted onto your nub there right this is something that's actually a part of your body i mean it's their it's their friend i i sleep with this bad boy on like uh as for my attachments i have a rock climbing foot i was rock climbing five months was that already on the market or did you create them uh no they actually uh so the company that makes my climbing shoes actually also happens to have a prosthetic foot that normally they would put on a regular prosthetic leg but um the va was able to adapt the foot itself to uh to my uh to like this build that's amazing um what about heels uh so there i have a foot that um has uh like a little like button on the side and you can turn like you can point it down and it will keep that shape and so that will stay on the heel uh similarly a swimming foot which or i use it for scuba diving which has like a little button flips all the way down it only has two positions that it'll lock in and so it points down you put the fin on it and then you can kick so oh i would have just made the fin i know but uh walking would be very difficult faster yeah so alana talk to me then about you know where you're at today in you know you're in the city what are you up to and i want to hear about the pathfinder this group that you founded so um uh i will talk to you as i was like as i put my shoe back on um uh because i've been known to walk back outside yeah yeah and then also i'm like why does everything sound weird oh oh i'm just walking outside with only one shoe on um so uh i when i got out of the service because i had been med boarded and i didn't want to be kind of as evidenced by the fact that it happened because i tried to deploy it was i was not pleased with my situation and so i didn't plan very well for it and when i came back to the area i basically ripped off the band-aid i uh i filed for divorce uh sold sold our house that uh we had bought when he got out of the service which had been several years before and um then i uh and i was like no i'm i'm going like into the city proper because he was not a city person so he was not city folk um and i was like i'm gonna go into new york city and so um [Music] basically lost my job lost my house lost my husband and was like screw all y'all i'm going i'm gonna go make a life for myself in the big city it's a country song yeah i know right it's an amazing country song yeah uh uh we we got somebody's who looks sleepy um but i have a question yes ma'am did you name your leg i did uh my leg's name is peggy uh it sounds like a piglet yeah it does it probably would make a good penguin name but uh peggy uh because it is essentially a peg um and i am big on puns but yes so um uh but we decided that we needed a name for it because when i was rock climbing um when you go rock climbing eight uh the person who is on belay on standing on the ground will sometimes tell you like oh put your hands here or put your feet here and she was yelling like put the little foot because the rock climbing foot is like half the size of a regular foot and she was like put the little one up there and so we decided we needed a name for it and um so we came up with peggy but so peggy goes to that foot and yeah yes um see if you were in studio you could ask questions directly too and wouldn't have to type them in so right you weren't upset you went outside the men nepotism in action yeah yeah so so you you so i got out and uh i didn't know what i wanted to quite do with myself uh i went through basically the same uh military military transition that everybody goes through where we're just like oh cool i just did this whole thing and i've been doing it for at that point uh a decade and i was all of a sudden out i had an engineering degree but nobody was using the same types of technology that i had learned 10 years before uh and that was a rude awakening and similar to an infantry soldier i imagine that ci qualifications really accounted for almost nothing they don't transfer well like i was like i can negotiate like and but uh apparently by the way business uh the business folk don't like it when you're like oh a negotiation's just like an interrogation and they're like uh no and i was like no no no no no it's it's not like on tv oh well uh i just lost that job yeah um but um so and i hopped uh that's that's a pun um uh from from from job to job um or like even opportunity opportunity like i had no idea what was going on uh and i went from organization to organization like who where is the right fit for me and how am i gonna figure this stuff out and um i started kind of working my way up through the ranks of some of the non-profits and just volunteering and trying to get myself out there and um the more i started coming into contact with other people the more i realized like oh some people don't try again in fact a lot of people don't try again like especially with something that's important to them especially like especially mental health yeah like you go in and you have a bad experience you're never going again yeah you're like nope that's it i guess mental health in general not good for me yeah um i'm not the right fit or whatever and uh that made me realize like there's first of all um we have this series of tubes called the internet this these days uh in some places apparently better than others how far they could run the tubes i think yeah that's true that's true they don't come as far out in brooklyn right the size of the tubes that's important apparently we have very small tubes here yeah mouse it's not the size of the tubes it's how you use them uh it's the amount of information that can go through them at that one time anyway we know how to use our tubes at the t now so um so uh it occurred to me that if we have this uh wonderful network that i hear al gore invented then you can you can uh ultimately put all of this information on there like all of the why is it so friggin hard to figure out like what is available why is it so hard to figure out like what's open to me or what's open to everybody or what's open to my spouse or what's open to whatever and it's an interesting idea it's interesting to use for for those for the internet aside from just cat videos i do like the cat videos though when i was looking at it and uh and when i think back to like my own experience getting out of the military also like there are so many like charities and their veterans affairs and there are all these services out there and a lot of them are very good and very like people who are very well meaning trying to help there's actually so many of them that you don't know where to [ __ ] start right yeah yeah and it's uh like there are over well sadly at this point after the old covid's probably fewer but um there's over 40 000 non-profits that have some attachment to military and veterans services and then there are all of your state federal and even like local municipal services and then there's the companies that have like a support network or whatever and like there's so much out there um and we we have like thousands listed but like across the country but like there's so many so on um so we decided to start not only localizing them and then figuring out like okay so if you were out of the military and you did this particular job and you were um you know you served in this service era so if you're a vietnam vet or if you're a post 9 11 veteran or if you never served in combat you qualify for totally different things if you have a honorable discharger or other than honorable or somewhere in between something completely different and so we started filtering that and then we started looking at um uh artificial intelligence because uh i'm a super nerd and again robot revolution on the side of the robots so uh the the whole artificial intelligence thing i have factors actually now that we mentioned there it is my deus ex yes uh here it is statue see you guys can feast your eyes on that of jensen and all his augmentations here um i would just like to point out that as soon as uh uh covet hit and they decided that new york was going into lockdown i didn't go that far but i did i did go into i changed my avatar on like half of my uh little profiles like my slack profiles my work profiles to snake pliskin of escape from new york um uh we have another question from the audience uh but my friend wants to know how do you take a shower with your fake leg okay good question uh because uh it is actually something that has not yet been perfected in the prosthetics industry uh i installed a a like a shower seat at the when i was getting the surgery and so i was able to so now i put my i just like put my foot up on it because i'm lazy uh most people most people that i know and what has been recommended to me by the prosthetics people is to actually take the foot off um because there is a uh like there's like a um a cloth like sock type of thing that's in there that gets super gross um and uh your friction yes that's yeah medical science is not a real science uh so it's like a tag on it nobody knows um so to answer that question i just keep it try to keep it out of the water mostly um but most people will take it off and then have something to balance on well that's kind of dangerous if you take it off because they just slip oh yeah no it's super dangerous uh there was a a period of time where i had a little stool that i um like one of those um like a little step stool and then i put silicone on top of it to make it non-slip because i was trying to think ahead and then i put um the metal piece on top of that uh the problem is that it was a folding stool and my the metal peg hence peggy slipped through the hole that was the handle at the time and so uh and then got stuck uh because when you put your weight on it slides through plastic and uh so i basically had a stool as a foot um it bled a lot uh but also i i i was i didn't know how to get it back off so i uh almost resigned myself to living out the rest of my life with a stool attached to the body the bottom of my leg like this thing like a fake leg but like on the bottom it's like those mats like for like the the back i have said this yeah i have said this exact same thing wait say what uh where you just i was gonna actually 3d print something but the materials that you can 3d print with are not quite appropriate for it um and they're apparently not like they're not weight-bearing whatever um hasn't stopped me yet uh are you gonna print a [Music] i know i just can't believe that uh yeah matt says jack's daughter and her friend are going to start their own podcast webcast great questions yeah we i've been getting trolled by my daughter and her friend in the comments section for like the last hour oh really oh yeah yeah they're all over so so that's the problem is that you're not asking their questions so she has to ask a lot from the live studio audience i feel like this is one of those things where like your parents say like i hope you have a kid that grows up and they're here the curse of everybody i'm like the internet guy yeah my daughter like just trolling the [ __ ] out of me in the comments section boy you need to answer the question or else you're not getting that much views she's got a point question no you need to answer more daddy uh she's talking about printing uh uh ian hutchinson thank you very much uh said can you all pass my contact info on to alana uh i have access uh to uh cnc machinery if she has models i can get made in whatever i i told you and he said this before we even brought this topic up excellent i i i i won't get you because i have this an eight-year-old email me okay sounds good oh cool because i have an eight-year-old crappy ass printer and old filament and so far i have printed out a go figure starship enterprise that i've converted into a menorah for the holidays um just want to put that out there like this is what i do on friday nights because right that's gotta have a market i mean maybe not a big market covid i like i don't i don't like i don't need to date [ __ ] i have a 3d printer like i don't i'm good and and the starship enterprise right so i'm good on friday yeah we so we bring this back home to you so you you have finders yeah so you started you started a an organization a website that so it started a a a company that not only lists the stuff on wow how did we get over there um so uh i did start a company that uh not only aggregates all of that stuff on uh on the internet but also we use artificial intelligence to essentially as people write uh comprehensive uh so um that's that's a direct target towards some people who are just right this organization is good as [ __ ] like that helps nobody um but uh like who actually tells somebody something useful about their experience and like what they can expect walking into the room and so forth we can break it down using various artificial intelligence techniques that keep your identity completely private but is able to look at certain personality dynamics that say someone who is just like you in terms of like their general level of assertiveness and their general level of melancholy or cheerfulness or whatever uh they're doing really well at this mental health organization versus this mental health organization you're going to want to look at these guys because they know how to handle people like you or they deal really well with people like you and um because the more people i was talking to they would walk in and if they had a really terrible experience they would be like you know like that's it i'm out and i'm not going back and those are the folks that um because they're not getting the treatment that they need but just so is is the majority of your business is it dealing with mental health or is it dealing with transitioning period moving into careers everything like all aspects like uh if like you know we're but we're trying to get some participation from some of these uh companies that have uh mentor groups within the company so some of them like some of the bigger because we're in new york you know some of the bigger financial institutions have like a specific thing like uh once you come on board we also have an internal veterans organization or even like you know like nbc has one like a lot of the production sales has an amazing one yeah and and free training for vets so yeah so like they have like all this stuff and then um and then the folks that have internal programs were able to say like hey uh vets you go there they're not going there and then leaving after six months right because they have this great support organization they have like really good support and they have really good help so um it's really useful to them to to know and so it's really useful to people who are looking at it i mean it's basically the same thing as like a yelp or even like google reviews or the facebook reviews you look at it and you're like oh now i get why like people who are like me people who were in the navy or who were in the army or whatever they see it and they're like i trust you i get it right and where can people go and find this go and find pathfinder and like dip their foot into it so uh so to speak um there it is you notice he said foot not feet so anytime there's an excuse for a pun i will take it um but um uh pathfinder dot vet uh that's v-e-t not net i don't even know where that goes um and uh or pathfinder pathfinderlabs.com um and we have yet another audience question i'm just giving you the the warning uh hold on finish your catch finish your pitch yes but um yes so pathfinder.vet or pathfinderlabs.com uh gets you straight to us and so you can search and you can let us know what you want to see on the website or if there's something that we're missing there's a lot that we're still missing um and we are constantly updating the site and anything that goes into the contact on our page pretty much goes straight to me because i'm really the only one that gets those emails anyway so if i go on this website and i'm like yo alana i'm all [ __ ] up i need i need some help here what's going to happen if you send if you go to our contact page and you send us an email i will chances are respond to you and spend way uh spend a lot of my time that i'm probably supposed to be doing some sort of stupid quarterly report that i don't want to do anyway responding to your message and trying to help you out in whatever area you are and helping you figure out what's what's what and if you are able to navigate through and find something that is useful in your area we have every we definitely have every va loc we have all the va's all the because the va is not the same as their other centers so uh if you and i believe that they're called the same things elsewhere but um if you go to a vet center somewhere there they're mostly mental health and they don't talk to va maine so you can actually go to a vet center and keep it out of your main medical record yeah the vet centers are are uh they're part of the va system but they're uh their records are kept independent of va main so anything that you say at a vet center does not automatically end up in your va record um and vet centers are everywhere uh all of the clinics all of the hospitals all of the vbas we even listed all the cemeteries just for fun because i really want to see if somebody's going to give a review of like well i got this plot um but so far nobody has done it um which i i think is a lack of creativity um but uh and then we have a lot of the organizations a lot of the big names some of like the mom and pop like we do like you know 12 service dogs a year um it's just as we hear about stuff we we get it listed so and and how are you guys funded uh we are actually a c corp moving over to a b corp which is the uh just because we're a social enterprise but we are not a non-profit you're not a non-profit we are a for-profit company and so we do analytics where we anonymize everything is anonymous anyway and then we um basically take all of the information we're able to actually tell the organizations or or the va or whatever whoever our clients are we're able to say hey overall you know you have like 40 people who are willing to contribute feedback we want to say you've got feedback for these 40 people overall your program would do better if you implemented some sort of reward type of system like give somebody a velcro patch because for some reason all the veterans seem to like velcro patches um and and squared with the velcro 550 cord bracelets yes paracord bracelets are baller yeah so uh high fashion yeah beard oil yes ball caps too yeah all right and look she's wearing my bro cap right now this is this is the last question all right little girl we have two questions oh all right it's a two-parter go okay first one we have from gordon bradbury our boy gordon see she's doing your job now she's better at it than i am o.j star trek or jj abraham star trek no jj i have comments about jj i don't know what it is is the air you're fine no i have issues with jj we can almost leave it at that like i understand what he's trying to do for the franchise great leave it at that it's a totally different thing and and not worth my how about the orwell i love it yeah it's it's i'm super excited because they just started filming the next season uh and then uh red shirts uh i actually uh i was just saying this to somebody that uh i actually do have a t-shirt that is a stormtrooper versus a red shirt uh where the stormtrooper misses and the red shirt is dead anyway uh but um yeah second question second question okay next one is from my best friend allison hello allison are you good at balancing on your leg when you walk not terribly no um it's amazing how much you rely on your ankle uh which i don't have so uh not very uh but that is why i'm still in physical therapy uh and probably will be for quite some time but uh that's actually fine with me because um they forced me to stay in shape even during covet okay everybody that is in for question nice see you next time thank you thank you this is the beauty of doing things live is that nothing is edited and all the hiccups and uh you know the beauty of live uh live streaming well you know what reading through gordon's questions too so everybody thank you for joining us live tonight we have like a 165 or so people watching this thing live and many more will over the week uh alana thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you for watching everybody please uh like share and subscribe the video or subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to this we're on itunes spotify yep uh soundcloud pretty much wherever you go for podcasts we're out there and on youtube please make sure you subscribe like the video give us a thumbs up or the thumbs down and leave some comments down there tell us if we suck or not and uh oh and there's also a link down in the patreon uh the link down in the description to our patreon page if you want to support the stream and get access to the bonus segments uh and if you join tonight it's only a dollar a dollar a month uh you get to hear alana's story about why she did why did she get kicked out of baghdad inquiring minds hold on hold on hold that thought hold that thought and alana if people want to find pathfinder where do they go again uh pathfinder.vet v-e-t or pathfinderlabs.com uh so if you're a veteran um definitely check out uh this resource uh and even if you're not please blast this out like let people know it's here because i think one of the biggest challenges with veterans is finding those resources is finding the resources and if you point them towards pathfinder dot vet victor echo tango or pathfinder labs dot com they'll have all the resources lists listed so they won't have to go out and find them all and if they are not let me know and i will get it listed uh in just a little psa so next episode is actually i believe christmas eve so we're not doing the show live but we're gonna have a pre-recorded episode we're gonna premiere that night so we're so dedicated to this show we will have something for you it's going to be a good one where you have a great corker coming on who is a little bird pilot and 160th and i believe it's monday we're doing we're recording the show and uh and then we'll set it we'll schedule it to premiere on on christmas oh it is monday whatever time what time is 21st what what time are we going to do that no no no normal time all right we'll figure it out do you want me to do the questions well what we're all done with questions we're like like on christmas eve oh for the one the show with greg yeah maybe maybe well we're not gonna have questions yeah no one's live yeah it'll be recorded no questions alice for that one maybe not i'm just gonna go in the chat and then i'm gonna answers everybody's questions yes yes these kids today like they're they're grown in a bat for this whole world i am i am on board with answering people's questions with random answers and it just freaks me it freaks me out when she was like five i took her on a little road trip and we're staying in a hotel and she tells and we're watching youtube videos in bed before she goes to sleep and she turns to me this is like a five-year-old kid and she's like daddy i want to have fans and subscribers i'm like what the [ __ ] i only have myself to blame for all this so anyway guys thank you uh for joining us tonight and thanks to everyone who's listening to this you know in the subsequent weeks and months and thank you alana for uh coming in studio yeah on the trek out here it was a great time bye and we will do it again so see you guys next time and uh okay that is it and

Channel: The Team House

Views: 23,817

Rating: 4.8351064 out of 5

Keywords: Elana Duffy, Counterintelligence, Intelligence, Interrogator, Iraq, Afgahnistan, Clandestine, JSOC, Delta Force

Id: bIYYSZKFRHY

Length: 198min 7sec (11887 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/fishboywill]

Awesome episode