Ron Moeller Returns! Reflections from a CIA Para-Military Operations Officer, Ep. 32

hello everyone welcome to the team house the Ranma Lord returns episode Ron is our guest I'm Jack Murphy this is my co-host Dave Park Ron is joining us for the second episode he has turned out to be a fan favorite you're the VIP of the show I think our most watched episode thus far and I can understand why the first one we did was fascinating Ron served in the CIA as a paramilitary operations officer for many years spent a lot of time in air branch spent a lot of time deployed to Iraq to Afghanistan spent some time in the Philippines and we really only scratched the surface I felt like in the last episode so I asked Ron if he would come back again I think some of the viewers were also very keen to see him come back for a second episode so that's why we're here tonight and we're going to talk quite a bit actually about your time in Afghanistan in Iraq and a lot of I think I feel our pivotal moments in the worid that you were either present for or had a bird's-eye view for it I'm really excited to talk about all that so Ron welcome back to the show thanks for joining us well thank you it's great to be back the last episode was certainly educational my son-in-law used it for to help him write a paper at the SOCOM senior NCO Academy and he got a 100% which I wouldn't have expected anything less but so he he certainly appreciated it and and yeah it was a lot of fun Ron that makes me so happy and so proud to hear I mean I'm glad that he got a hundred on it on his paper but beyond that what one of my hopes for this livestream for this show for this podcast is that what we contribute and what our guests contribute that this show becomes important enough that there are journalists and students and academics out there who are like wow this is really important information this is an important primary source and that they're able to quote it and use the source citations and their work so that little story told just makes me so happy to hear that we're rolling on in our lifespan I feel like um with this showed we're still getting started but I hope it's always been my hope that were able to bring that sort of credibility to the table so thanks for telling me that you know you're welcome so Ron I was looking over and we were discussing a few bullet points a couple different moments in your career that we were not able to get to on the first show and I thought maybe we'd go chronologically and also this is interesting because you were involved in the hunt for pith wicks as they were called um in the Balkans back in the day uh what you read hash out what all of that was about but I just point out that this story will certainly intersect with our interview with HK Roy you know CIA ops officer and we interviewed a few episodes back and he was present in Bosnia he was the first station chief in Sarajevo so I think that again I hope that this show is interesting for viewers because you get to hear about these conflicts from different perspectives and different people and the different experiences they had so I'm really keen to hear your point of view Ron and what you were doing over in that region at the time well I came into the Balkans way late I mean you know HK Roy had already you know moved on and the eye for an s4 and whatever for was all pretty well-established but somebody back at JSOC got a wild hair and decided it was prime time to hunt for piff wicks so Ben piff weeks by the way is this tongue-twisting acronym that stands for persons indicted for war crimes so we were going after gosh Slobodan Milosevic and and the are Rana vich or whatever I can't remember we were going after all right yeah all the high hanging fruit so we it was in coordination with JSOC so we we brought over the same platform that we had used in the in the P I with Abu CIF and of course Tuzla is a lot different in Bosnia and the Balkans is a lot different a flying environment you know we had to stay so many kilometers away from the river that you know was the border of Serbia and Bosnia so it was exciting the mission tasking came from from the military and it was it was it was three months of eating good food and being pretty bored there at the at the I 4s for base and Tuzla at the airbase there we didn't really do much a couple times when we did do stuff it seemed like our erstwhile NATO allies had a you know done that a little hey dude you might want to move to the next safe house because they aren't the Americans are coming for you so we can never prove it but it was always always frustrating in that regard and that mission didn't really last very long but it was um it was an interesting introduction to a lot of the conventional military we had a lot of brigade and battalion commanders that I later later would run into in Iraq and Afghanistan and so I was able to you know at least establish some sort of baseline of credibility trust bona fides pick your adjectives with them so it was it was good so no no great you know there we were in the shootout with Bonnie and Clyde on the border you know the in the Serbs although you know a couple you know when we're in I had to go to Sarajevo you know every so often to check in with station and you know fill out the expense reports and you know you know everything lives on paperwork the so we had we went out for for lunch and in Syria Evo had sort of recovered but a lot of the the skyscraper the taller buildings were still very devastated from the Serb bombardment and things like that but as we're walking along on the sidewalk there are these um these giant red splotches that have faded a little bit with the weather but they're they're they're splotches and no it's not real blood but so we're sitting down to the sidewalk cafe and and the you know the where it's it's a it's summer in Sarajevo so and you know the Bosnian girls are you know they're you know one-eyed Jack Muslims and the type of things so they're they're a little bit freer in their dress and so we're having a good two-hour lunch watching the traffic go by and I asked the proprietor I say hey so what's with these I red splotches on the sidewalk she goes oh those are the serial roses I go well what are those and she says well that's where the Serbian snipers killed our fellow citizens and that's how we we memorialize where they fell so that was a little awkward weird but it was and then she added you know because you're kind of going you're kind of going gosh are you guys ever gonna get over this or is this gonna be one of those you know thousand years civil war genocide 'el you know ethnic conflicts it's just we will never forget and we will never forgive and I'm going alright you know I guess I I better find a good place to rent because my grandson's probably gonna show up here this was two thousand two two thousand two thousand three I can't recall exactly but it was it was in the early days of the war and for something that's why I'm saying somebody JSOC decided to dilute the the CTF Road in Afghanistan we hadn't gone to Iraq yet and to start hunting piff wicks and and so you know we get to the the airbase it's it's a NATO Air Base so it's it's real funny you know we're the Ogier guys we don't exist in this this airplane doesn't exist and this type of thing so we have to be really careful how we but luckily there's a bunch of contractors running around so we're we just blend right in with all the KBR Toad's and everybody else so the but up we're living in saber City which was the old soft compound plywood village if you will and we're we're sleeping one night after a long long night of mission it's like 3:00 in the morning and all of a sudden it's literally like you know every there's a massive commotion outside it seems like the the the SIF from Pattin barracks or concern up in Germany had showed up for a training exercise and they were bursting into my hitch and first thing into my pilots hooch and my mechanic suChin yeah it was probably not my most diplomatic with any 10th group people but uh we worked it out so yeah it was I mean you know the the JSOC guy that was at the headquarters hooch he was he was as shocked about it as we were so you know left hand meat right hand nobody really knows what was going on but uh that we worked it all out and we did a couple we showed him what we could do with our platforms so I think as I mentioned earlier that that helped us out later when I ran into tenth group guys in in Iraq and we were we were working in Samarra and up that away that they they hey I remember you you're the guy we woke up so what was the situation at that time light I mean was there a threat to you or was it was everything so stabilized at the point I'm at the Pitt book was pretty much what these guys were on the run in the wind yeah right they were yeah things are pretty stabilized although you know make sure you stay down The Hardball Road between Tuesday and Sarajevo because there was still you know mines everywhere and although I at the halfway point there was this great Mountain Inn where we would always stop for a refreshment and a potty break type of thing but it was I mean there was still hulks of vehicles off on the side that had you know either been shelled or you know had run off have been run off the road or whatever you know so it was it was there one of the interesting things was though I when I was listening to HK Roy's thing about the Iranians and and the meeting his Iranian LNO counterpart or however he put it yeah I remember talking to the JSOC I we were just sitting around chewing the fat and and he he'd been there off and on throughout the beginning when you know the Americans first arrived and he talked about the different different soft US soft forces going out into the woods in the were the a lot of the ratlines were for the the smuggling routes of weapons to in support lines for the Serbs and all the other bad people and they encountered a Iranian cuts force guys and things like that so you know I don't have any confirmation of it but I you know it was you know the Iranians were not limited to the Middle East so HK was right was spot on yeah to Europe at the time it's pretty incredible so I mean correct me if I'm wrong Iran but it was a situation that your agency was you said the platform was providing you know the sort of ISR intelligence and their operators from the military side standing by to action any targets you were able to find on the ground correct correct we also and we'd also give them overwatch as they were ingressing and egressing an area because the the Serbs like to set up interdicted roadblocks in route to the target or returning to a home base I am sorry honest reconnaissance that's what we say I started talking about a platform we're talking about a drunk yeah what it comes down to yeah this is before drugs were cool exactly Jerome Jones were still experimental and we're not experimental but we're still the new technology and you know nobody was quite sure it reminded me of my early days in the Air Force when desktop computers of course they were ginormous you know the size of a Volkswagen Beetle would show up and with those you know asphyxiating dust covers that they had to put over them and you know all the senior officers would get them and the things were just monuments to nothing because they were afraid to utilize them and the meantime the rest of us are sitting there pounding away on our Selectric typewriters trying to try to type stuff going damn it anybody got way more corrective tape so you know we so new technologies always you know it takes a while to get adapted to but boy it's now that it's it's it's addictive I mean as I mentioned the last broadcast we you know when the enduring anaconda when that when single pred would show up everything stopped in the talk to watch bread TV it it's it's extraordinarily addictive it's like watching the Kardashians but with more violence yeah I mean the thing that every commander covets so much I mean near real-time intelligence it's like what like a five-second delay or something but it is it is and it and it's and it's it's always getting better I mean in O six when I was chief of Basin in Bagram Afghanistan we had a single predator line that's what they called the you know we we had one line dedicated to ourselves when you know it was it was to the cjt f76 folks and but the the problem was and it was still it was a training thing an experiential thing was the operators back at Creech or wherever Creech Air Force Base outside Las Vegas they tended to because they're seeing the same thing we're seeing and they would tend to like ooh bright shiny object to the left and they would skew the camera we're like no dude we're really following that that vehicle or that person or that that motorcycle or whatever there on the right so you know and then of course you're trying to yell at him over the over the hot mic and tell him we're to skew the camera that they tried to ramp things up in Bosnia also I would be prioritised yeah you would think so but I mean Kosovo was still it was still going on so I think they were trying to put it to bed I mean while we were there the Army National Guard switched out and it was I think it was Idaho National Guard showed up with a few of their Apaches and so it was you know and it's still going on and we were still we're still deploying what a battalion plus or a brigade - worth of US troops out there on a continuous basis it's and also in k4 and Kosovo as well so it's it's freaking ridiculous [Music] we did we did not like I said a couple times we had a we had good indicators good humans SIGINT and we would get overhead and we would basically surveil the location for signs of life you know of the type of person we were looking for and yep there he is you know that one guy with with the pompadour hairdo was he was a dead giveaway we would you know we would launch the force and you know of course it was even though was an American operation we had to coordinate with all our NATO partners and that's why we always suspected that you know somebody you know got on the cell phone and called somebody and the next thing we knew that you know we're watching that guy skedaddle either across the border into Serbia or you know he disappears into the woods so yeah it was we always blame the French but they were easy to blame right yeah I was the first of three times I again I got there right after Baghdad had been occupied captured and we were flooding the zone with US troops it was it was interesting I mean we were again because I'm in air branch so I'm obviously gonna be at by up at Baghdad International Airport and we we docu pied a little niche corner of the of the airfield there that was isolated enough but had access to the taxiways and runways and etc so we were good it was interesting I mean it was we were living in on you know in a building that was I think built by the highest bidding Italian architect because I discovered that right angles are plus or minus five degrees and but the marble sure was expensive and we discovered one of the it's not so unique you know the the gold plated or solid gold ak-47 we found one of those and you know hey I think that's in the CIA museum to now so it was but it was um it was interesting primarily at that time we were just doing logistical support to our teams that were spread out everywhere and supporting either the JSOC guys or the or the conventional military because our big thing back then was we were still looking for web of mass destruction yeah I mean this is all that's a whole other can of worms right there go down well I don't know I David K who I think succeeded or anew scott ritter want one of your previous guests and he was also a UN inspector or something a real nice fella him and I talked a lot because he asked me to transport him and his his inspectors to X or Y or Z and and you know i I'd pick him up in a day or two and I said well he says nothing you know it was frustrating but he'd been charged directly by some some senior levels in the in the Bush administration to do this so it was it wasn't like we could you know you know send the Ambassador off somewhere else we had to we supported him and like I said he was a very nice fella there was this story that you had brought up to me that trying to steal you day Hussein's Porsche which would be a Porsche scott ritter talked about hauling ass doing Tokyo Drift right by him to be fair I don't think we can say that you tried to steal it it did not have an owner well I don't know I don't know well you know I we I owned a Porsche Boxster at the time and it was it was this was a gorgeous yellow one and I think it was a Boxster but it was like I knew it was a convertible because the the top was missing or had was had been tattered or ripped and shredded but we discovered it in the one of the parking lots there at the airport as we were surveying the the the primary terminal building which is where we were discovering that the duty-free shop needed to be secured so we we took it upon ourselves to secure as much of the liquor as we could so but we but in the parking lot we discovered this and there's a bunch of Iraqis milling around and I speak enough Arabic to get in trouble so I Isis so Wow a Porsche and they claimed it was it was days so and I don't know I don't know if Scott described the color or not I can't remember but it was it was a yellow but the you know everything all the instrumentation had been ripped out and somebody tried to do the the gangster start you know do the on the on the steering column the whole bit yeah I didn't yeah it tore it up to shreds so I say we tried to steal it I mean like it would have been great if we had some sort of like dirty and flatbed to tow it back and I could have my my mechanics hey when you're not busy keeping the airplanes fine here you go here's another project for you so we could have used that to tool around to the earth around the airfield to meet the different because the Army and the Air Force were on the other side of the airstrip so it was always a long drive and I've mozz well arrive in style well he had a lot of he had a very unceremonious end up north anyway so it was no big loss sure so so one day it's it's it's it's a normal Brown day and in Baghdad you know it's like yeah I mean you guys have been there it's like oh yeah they also another another day in the desert and that's it's brown and occasionally people are mortaring you and shooting at you and things like but all sudden some people are scrambling around everything's you know there's there's the buzz of excitement in the air and come to find out that that the tear guys the Task Force guys had had located and were in the process of schwack and the crap out of day and I think his brother too yeah so right so anyways so they so they were doing that and so but then there was a question because the bodies were so your retrieve ibly decimated I mean they literally look like hamburger meat ground chuck that uh they weren't sure that they got the right people they wanted to and the the the special representative that from the Bush administration the Bremmer you know he wanted to make sure that everything was like that so what they got was they got a bunch of tissue samples from the from the the different corpses and they put him in one of those medical transport boxes for like transplants and blood or whatever and brought it back down as that thing is coming down screaming on a Blackhawk David Kaye approaches me and explains the situation to me because he's the next senior administration guy in in country after after Bremer you know the guy with the blue sport jacket in the in the desert combat boots because it was too cool for school and he says hey we need to do this and and we're getting a plane an airforce plane in flying into him on and they can't they can't fly into here for whatever reason again the Air Force and so how can we do this I go well we'll fly it you know and of course so of course what my my crew had already flown a bunch of missions that day so you know there's always that thing about crew rest well I go explain it to the pilot and the copilot and they they have no problem with crew rest I mean they're they're not under Air Force orders or army orders or anything like that anymore so and we so we make the arrangements to fly to Amman I coordinated with them the folks in Amman hey we're gonna fly into the airport make sure we get landing clearances you know you guys can make it happen a lot quicker than then I can from here with my limited comms and they did and so we we flew off and we flew to him on and we turned it over had them sign a chain of custody things so if it ever went to a court of law you know I I couldn't be held responsible for for peeing on today's corpse or remains or whatever so sorry no graphic yeah you know contaminating the evidence and so I asked like I asked the guys there say hey you know it's pretty late we've been we've been up busy all day and I started really really early you know I don't think we I don't suppose we could stay overnight in the Sheraton here in Amman and then go back to act ahead in the morning nope nope nope but the chief wants you guys to to go you guys can't stay you don't you we don't you don't have that kind of diplomatic clearances the plane broke right yeah well that that wouldn't be part of the air Branch motto we our airplanes don't break we you know dammit I got scotch tape and baling wire around here somewhere you know well we'll make it go but anyway so we we at least get a squirt of fuel and fill up the weight and fill up the tanks and off we go flying back to Baghdad as we're about 3045 minutes out of landing at Baghdad International we're talking to the control tower there were Australians in running the control tower as part of the coalition forces and the Australians in there you know the Australians have such a great way of saying things they explained to us that we for our own safety and health we we needed to take an unconventional approach and you know come in and a lot lower altitude and spy a fly have very very lots of lots of hard right angle turns and things like all almost like we were following a highway or some streets and things like that and we're going okay and as we're getting very close to the airport and we're about five minutes from from landing and we can see Baghdad is you know this the city had intermittent electrical power at that time because of the the infrastructure damage but this place was lit up like like a 4th of July celebration or like London during the Blitz because it seemed like tracers were going up every which way so I guess I guess every every Mohamed and who day and you know in Mahmoud or whoever grabbed their ak-47 out of the out of the closet and was shooting off all all his ammo into the sky and which was also quite dangerous because you know what goes up must come down but it was a weather because because they increase they were killed is that why they were celebrating right they they had heard that they had heard the news even though it hadn't been confirmed oh yeah they were I mean so yeah there was there was no love loss for the Saddam regime but it was like really people can you like maybe just you know dance and clap and cheer but you have to shoot every gun off type of thing it was that was a little and was I think I was about that dangerous by my most dangerous time I ever had in an airplane with air branch Tory fire so yeah it was it was a was exciting you know I flying a you know to the from from the airport over to the u.s. compound over in downtown Baghdad there and I'm temporarily having a brain brain fade I can't remember what we used to call it the the zone the the Green Zone that's it and we're flying over we're just sort of tooling along flying over the stinky River and things like that and I'm looking out out of the side of the helicopter and and there is literally like right out of the old dia Factbook which used to have it was like the Sears catalog of Soviet weapon systems there is a gorgeous sa-2 sitting on a launcher missile with his fan song radar partner in the middle of a residential street and I'm going oh so not that I don't think it was plugged in and operating but I think that's where they they were trying to disperse some of their weapons before we rolled into Baghdad but it was just kind of like wow so that stuff really does look like that up close so it was it was a little funny it was surreal so it was yeah Baghdad was weird that time I mean we would so you know once by the time I got there about a month into my my three plus month first trip there the Washington VIP started arriving because you know war turista gets you like I don't wanna double passports Green Stamps or something like that I'm not sure and we had a Bundy Krong guard show up he was at the time the executive director of the agency it's a position that doesn't exist anymore he he'd convinced director Tennant that he he could be like the the the chief operating officer of the agency while while Tennant did his thing with at the White House and with the congressional leadership and things like that so so buzzy shows up and and he's a multi-millionaire Baltimore investment banker and things like that and he gets off the airplane and he's he's wearing a safari bush jacket and thing and he immediately wants me to issue him a weapon and go out on patrol somewhere because he wants to hunt Hajis and I'm ya know that's not gonna happen boss by the way let me introduce you to the chief of station and so on and so but it was he was really frustrated yeah he was afterwards he stopped me yeah he was probably buzzy always postured himself as a man's man and he always you know he would always you know thump his chest and try to you know like let's do push-up contest and I mean that that's sort of an attitude yeah I was because he he he felt then I don't know it was like his midlife crisis late in life or something like that but uh after one conversation we had in at the at the little bar we had there in the in the building is he's asking me how things are going and by this time we'd been up and down route Irish and tooling around and you know done the turista pictures under the under the cross swords and things like that and I said well you know the Iraqis aren't getting the people aren't getting the word they don't know what's going on so the only people telling them are the bad guys who were out in the in the suits in the marketplaces on the streets spreading rumors and bad news and it's you know we're losing that fight and he looked at me like I had a dick grown out of my forehead so I'm not quite sure what was what was the problem but you know by the time I came back the next time the the insurgency was just starting to really get going full-bore it was it was bad I mean Bremer had made some pretty terrible decisions disestablishing the bath party which was one and then and then you know telling the the Iraqi army who had all basically gone home when they'd taken their bat and ball and gone home but the US was still paying their salaries so I mean it's good work if you can get it I you know I can be in it I can be an Iraqi soldier and I don't have to do anything well Bremer cut off their paychecks so you know like gosh what am I gonna do now I know I'm gonna get mad at the people who cut off my paycheck and I have skills and there are people around here that could utilize my skills so we really really effed that up a whole lot I know already walking but thanks for joining us so Andrew Andrew Dunbar Jack and Dave are creating a repository of oral history meanwhile I am asking serious people dumb questions about giraffe prices only in America and right that's an important part of American history the giraffe stuff yeah that does the JT Patton episode yeah but he's Andrews criticizing himself for asking questions about dress but it's one of those questions I didn't know how much I wanted to know I bet a giraffe sold for until he asked it yeah then I yeah I think my mind wants wants to know if it's the girafft in the skittle commercial then I'm all for it Ron did you ever run into the perfumed Prince aka General Wesley Clark and were you there when the Pristina incident happened Wow well yes no I was I was not in Pristina try as I as I told you in the last episode prior to going to air branch I was in the office of military affairs and working in their exercise shop and one of the things one of the exercises I got to participate in was in Kaiserslautern Germany at the u.s. European commands warrior prep center which was a bill or a buildings set of buildings that have been reconfigured for simulation exercises command post exercises that sort of thing and General Clark had gotten into his his pea brain that he wanted to invade Montenegro so he you know he decided that we were gonna we were gonna work sand table this or war game it if you will at the at the warrior prep center at first and he gave us his commander's intent and guidance and you know he you know I'm thinking oh Lord everybody wants to be everybody wants to be Lord Nelson Napoleon Bonaparte times and I mean the way he was he was strutting and posturing and you know I was like really I mean MacArthur did it really well Gregory Peck did it even better in the movie but dude you're you just don't you can't carry the tune but anyway so we we were all putting it together as the exercise guy running for the agency AIA I went and got a guy from the from the Balkans shop to come in and he had a lot of experience and one of the things when we got together we were putting together the plan the he he's talked about how the the mantra Nagin's they were the super Serbs they make the Serbs look like [ __ ] I mean they're the ones that the Ottomans never could could really defeat and as we're putting the plan together it was um well I'm glad it was never executed because they were going to drop at least a battalion maybe two of in the 173rd guys into Pristina that's the capital of montenegro and it sits in a bowl and the mantra Negron's had triple-a sights on all sides of the of the upslope and the valley so the the c-130s would have basically been you know flying through crossfire and we would have lost a lot of good people and a lot of good airplanes and things like that in the meantime the Marines were going to do over the landing and then advance a lot in toward along a single-threaded line route or LOC line of communication route into Pristina this route was a on flanked on either sides by some bodies of water and so they were basically gonna be single filed and it was like you know even Ray Charles with an Old World War two cannon is gonna be able to knock you guys out and then you're gonna I mean it's like has anybody seen the movie a bridge too far you know it's like the single line of advance is not a good thing so we pointed all this out General Clark and his his Cinco Phatak staff were not too happy with that so yeah it was we like I said I I went back to the agency and I said we are not going to do this and and the and the officer I'd brought with from the from the Balkans area he he was even less diplomatic than I was to his bosses into the Chiefs of stationed there throughout the Balkans you know you never really never really came out I I mean for some reason them the mantra Negron's worked I don't know jumping into bed with us and it was they were sort of the outliers they they were allied with the Serbs but they were independent they were doing their own thing and you know there's so we we were gonna you know I don't know Clark thought he needed to show somebody a lesson then they were gonna be an object lesson he thought it was going to be an easy nut to crack and it turned out not to be so and thank goodness we we didn't do that and I believe now they're members of NATO so you know small favors yeah Crenn AAPIs my friend he just said yo t mouse or is it yo T Mouse gotta say you have to it's a with a Greek accent I go ahead yeah females [Laughter] called crack four generals Jack can we please please get some more Samara pankot swag I can work on it okay so run well it's a transition if we can over to Afghanistan because when we were talking a little bit earlier about some of your you know multiple deployments to Afghanistan there's some things I didn't realize that you had a pretty unique perspective on some pretty major events that happen over there one of them was when our base up I don't know if you guys can if you can say the the name of it but when fob Chapman got blown up in a cast that's a pretty significant event major event for the CIA lost how many people were lost in that attack seven I believe so yes and a lot of a lot of critically wounded as well and how did you intersect with that event well I fortunately I I was not in in country at the time however I had before I had recently attended the chief of station seminar which is a I think they put it on three or four times a year it's to train the outgoing Chiefs of base Chiefs of station everybody from chief of station Moscow to you know lowly chief of station Bagram or where else and and I had been slated to go to another chief of base assignment and one of my classmates was was Jen Matthews the the the now-deceased chief evasive of of cows to coast we always called it coast so anyways so uh and she was a brilliant brilliant smart person with as regard to the the al-qaida target set the Haqqani set and but she was um nervous is maybe too strong and and I want to say up front right before I get too much further that I have this is not to denigrate her and her sacrifice and the sacrifice of the others but it it just it goes to something that I'd been worried about starting at about that point in time and continue to my last trip out there in the thirteen was that the agency was looking around going hey you you've never gone you go and but these people beastie people weren't as well qualified as as they needed to be here should have been and now Jen on paper was was extraordinarily well qualified I mean she knew the target set but managing a base in a war zone especially coast at the forward edge of the battlefield I mean they were directly opposite the Haqqani xand in Mirim Shah and you know they were they were fighting a lot of Twilight battles I mean the the old Coast Protection Force which was probably the most awesomest Ogier paramilitary force that we had I mean they were going they were given the Haqqani as good as they got and fact that Connie's I think we're losing more than they were winning against the kpf guys but Jen sat next to me and because hey you've got a lot of afghan experience blah blah blah and you know she's I'm really nervous you know so I'm really worried about the ground branch geyser are they going to be a problem I go what do you a problem well they just gonna run off and do their own thing I go yeah no in fact the opposite these guys are I mean a lot of these guys especially the contractors they they seem to rotate you know like a like an old Navy submarine crew a blue blue gull they they they do you know three months in three months out and then they just you know it keeps going like that they have a lot of and I told her they these guys have a lot of area knowledge a lot of they know the different personalities not only the the local on the base but with the US military down the road there and gosh what was that the first salerno yes always always always forget it because it was always underwater whenever I would show up there I was that for instance so of the so yeah you know I tried to reassure about both the ground branch officers and the the GRS the the security folks the the global response staff which was our security force which is both staff officers and and contractors to do I you know we we had multiple conversations on this trying to you know get her comfortable with working with SOG people in GRS people I mean she came from a staff position in in CTC and she'd done a European pcs assignment there in Europe so you know that's a totally different leopard you know a different whole different bunch of spots there and from everything you know you learn after the fact the way she you know negated what her chief of security told her what the ground branch guys told her about bringing the bad guy you know directly into the post without any sort of searching and things like that which violated a bunch of tenets I mean you you try to drive on to the station in Kabul I don't care who you are here kind of go through you know lots of different checks and things like that so you know it just it just seemed like you know I I go I don't want to say I blame myself but I'd like I you know I got really mad because I told her I said you know you need to trust this but then follow you know going out a couple more years later I I was invited to sit in on a review of the after-action review or the incident report the investigation that the agency had done so a bunch of us people show up and it's hey I haven't seen you since you know 2001 2002 and so we all go into this room and we sit down and the but the lady the senior officer there she she said she stands up and says okay we're gonna we're gonna go over this but there will be no criticism of any agency officer or office in so of course being the stupid asked that I am I I go so if we haven't you know even if XYZ station made a made a major boo-boo made a mistake we can't acknowledge that or and the report doesn't even acknowledge that and she just looked at me says what part about not criticizing anything don't you understand oh my god you know this is this is going to be educational no it was it had already been done we were just there to receive it and and basically it just it came way as you know [ __ ] happened and there's nothing that none of us could have done it and foreseen it and every everybody you know everybody gets a gold star and and no and we more those we lost no accountability and and nobody nobody paid the price I mean it was a it was like oh wow it was almost like the perfect storm the the chief of station had just arrived in country maybe less than a week before so and thank goodness he had been there one this was his second tours chief of station so he he was able to you know rapidly fly out there and you know he was able to get the people you know squared away and and things lat because the previous at chiefess station who a lot a lot of this stuff go or had approved a lot of the planning he would have been absolutely the wrong person those people would have fallen apart and and then other stations through a you know in the region as well as elsewhere in the in the in the greater this neighborhood if you will Europe they you know everybody was I think everybody was so excited about this asset or what it what he represented that we fail to do our due diligence and ask the right questions everybody was like oh it's it's the Golden Goose we're going we're gonna you know we got it and right and I understand to but I you know I've always had a healthy dose of skepticism in as you say if it's too good to be true and plus you know like I said in the last broadcast I'm married to a counterintelligence officer so you know I've I've learned to be quite skeptical so you know our kids really had a hell of a time growing up because we never let him get away with anything but of the but you know there was this guy would file the the the potential asset the person that killed everybody he I mean he he failed so many operational tests and and he failed to adhere to some security checks and and protocols that for anybody else he would have he would have been dropped like a hot potato but because he he offered you know you know I can get you to the to the inner sanctum of the of the Haqqanis that everybody like wow he can't he can't give us that because that'll ruin his you know his security with economies and things is so I mean they played us and they played us really really well and we paid the price and the and the bad thing is is I'm not sure that we we truly really learned the lessons that we need because as you pointed out nobody pretty much right you know and and those seven you know Americans lost their lives and you know in the end all that could have been prevented and it was as terrible just terrible but from there some of your deployments to Bagram you you're telling us how you had kind of I don't know I mean I guess all of your time over there was unconventional so to speak but that it wasn't a traditional agency post and that you you were doing some fairly irregular things that maybe some of the other people and country weren't able to do right yep so so Bagram Base was a was a unique base in the in the Afghan theater of course the agency has its station and then they have other bases throughout southern in eastern Afghanistan and all these bases have have a counter-terrorist and an Intel collection mission Bagram base was was a little bit different it had started out as a as an OMA office of military affairs liaison post but as Bagram became the head shed for US forces in in Afghanistan the establishment of the of the BTech the the Bagram theater interment facility or btf and the the see just sort of guy's head quartering there as well and the task force guys it became more of a base and with some limited collection in the with the detainees in the in the beat if and so it gets advertised and I'm reading the advertisement I'm going yeah I can do all this so I apply and I get selected and off I go and luckily the the chief who happened to be the same chief that had just taken over during the coast when the Coast bombing happened I was there and of course I meet him because I'm the outgoing subordinate commander if you will and and you know I've got to get my commanders intent and you know like you know what do I do boss what are my left and right limits you know where's the touchdown zone what what do I need to do to get at least a survivable fit rep at the end of this tour and not that I was worried I mean you know but uh he looked at me and he you know the normal platitudes you know how's the wife house the kids blah blah blah he says I need you to make sure that there is ZERO daylight between what we're doing what the agency's efforts are doing with our our Counter Terrorist pursuit teams out there and our collection assets and them and the US military and he didn't further define the US military so I included both the conventional folks the the siege of soda the combined Joint Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan and the Task Force guys that the JSOC guys that were there so I had basically three accounts that I was had to had to manage massage and make nice-nice with my the person I was relieving came up to Kabul to meet me great great officer I owe a lot of my success that year that the year I served there in Bagram to him I always I told people he he poured the foundation and framed the house and alls I did was put up some drywall and made it look made it look pretty but he he did a lot of a lot of good work for me and and I always appreciated that and if he's listening see I told you I'd say that in public so yeah but anyway so I get there and the old army unit is still present and they haven't quite ripped out yet and while they're in the process of chain over it was see taffy old southern European airborne task force guys out of out of vicenza before they became the 173rd and everything like that and it was a general Kamiya and so he would come to the morning update when I observed this for at least two weeks and of course my predecessor and he told me he this was his entire year's experience Kamiya would get the update and then retreat not retired but retreat to his office and close the door and you wouldn't see him again until the evening update and yeah and getting access to him was extraordinarily difficult to you know talk about anything our primary point of contact in that time was a up-and-coming Army colonel by the name of Bill Mayville who later went on to command the 173rd that did the extraordinary combat jump there into Kurdistan anyway yeah sorry I love Bill he's he's like he's like good people and everything like that but you know I always got a rhythm on that but in and you know and I intersected with him at other points you know on other trips to Afghanistan when he was in the 82nd and then later at the Pentagon when he was on the Joint Staff but uh so and me if it was a it was a good guy and one of his and the deputy deputy know that the the j-3 was a guy who went on to command the 173rd also or or one of the battalions or in anyways and he he got he got wrapped up in a lot of bad stuff so he you didn't last long but anyways so uh in a commander's update brief for people listening you know you are where you sit so if the general the principal he sits at the head of the table and his immediate deputies sit on either side of him it's it's it's it's very it's very much like the royal court in fact about just sixteen-year-old girls in the cafeteria in high school yes yes and I wasn't one of the Mean Girls so I didn't I didn't belong so the so and then all the other you know staff codes the the the Intel the ops the plans whatever the they all sit around the table we were relegated to the the side side chairs along along the wall so basically we had to do the little prairie dog pop-up to get our attention get the generals attention when we wanted to input and of course my predecessor his input was whenever they would go once around the world nothing to add nothing to nothing to say and I go on well that's crazy fun you know why am I wasting two hours of my life here in the morning if I've got nothing to add because I I'm sure I do but that way was still his his base and I was just transitioning so two-week transition time goes through and he the chief a station comes up and gives me the once-over and says you know gives me the and says you're good to go yeah and he takes my predecessor with them on the airplane back to Kabul and and that's it so suddenly I'm going oh [ __ ] now what do I do so in the meantime the 10th mountain guys are ripping in and so that's it's a totally different dynamic they're they're energetic they're they spent over a year and a half at Fort Drum training for this assignment so they were extraordinarily well prepared the funny thing is so may villain and the end all the his his senior colonel staff all his s codes or J codes or whatever codes they were they they all got kicked out of the hooches by their 10th mountain replacements yeah nowhere to stay well Bagram Base we we had a pretty large facility and not very many people so I said you can stay with us so Mayville always appreciated that because he had his own room with his own shower and everything like that so it was it was good deal good deal for all of them and they were still close enough to the headquarters building or the hangar with the headquarters building built inside of it that they they weren't that far away anyways so the sold the CTF guys of eventually I'll leave and it's just the 10th mountain guys and I'm still not I'm all by myself and I'm sitting along the along the side and I meet the j2 for the first time and and him and I have become extraordinary good friends and and and it's a sad shame that the army didn't promote him to general when it was they had that opportunity because they'd rather promote Sigyn people than you know combat Intel officers but he was he was he jumped into Panama as a as a young lieutenant in the Ranger Ranger bat as the as the assistant s2 and I understand that the s2 got injured so he suddenly you know lieutenant you're the you're the battalion s2 don't [ __ ] it up and and he did great and he did great and if you're listening mo you know thank you so anyways the so I meet Moe and Moe it's been a lot of time with the Rangers in in Iraq and elsewhere so he had some inner interactions with the agency in the past which I discovered it shocked me is that not everybody loves us I was shocked and he he goes and he's he's very busy shuffling papers and and and I'm trying to block his way cuz I wanna like dude I'm your I'm your I'm your guy I'm your counterpart here you know help you know what come on let's let's work together on this easy you know I don't have a very good opinion of you guys oh god no no it's gonna be a heart it's gonna be a hard target recruitment I mean KGB guys would be easier it was up anyways we we ended up working it out and and he he pulled me aside says hey you know you you you got to get to the table you got to get a seat at the table and and the only way you're gonna do that is if you if you start sharing stuff so I started looking for stuff to bring to the morning meeting that I could reasonably share without violating sources and methods and things things that would contribute to to their mission not uh in impede ours or anything lab but to show I was willing to to give them something and I got to sit at the table who you know Mike he got to sit at the big table I don't remember but I know that the chief of staff he he had a lot of fun rearranging the seating assignments and and somehow my seat kept migrating closer and closer to the head of the table so he's like I must have been doing something right and in fact it towards you know after a couple months so after these normal briefs with the the entire staff and the in the peanut gallery filled with important or self-important people the briefing would conclude and everybody would be dismissed the general a lot of times would ask for his inner circle to stick around which would be the the deputy commanding general for operations and for support the two and the three the the Intel chief and the ops chief maybe the ops plants or food plans foo ops future operations future plans and me so boy yeah that was a fun little email to send to the chief of station saying you'll never guess where I'm at you know like so I'm trying to let him know that I'm doing a good job I'm adhering to his commander's intent now so it was pretty cool and because of my sharing and I would be sharing stuff like hey you know our guys that down in skin are reporting X Y Z and and the guys over it you know organy are reporting this dies down in Kandahar so on and so forth so they say hey you know I'm taking a battlefield circulation trip in that way you know once you come on and you can introduce me to your counterpart there at Asadabad or Jalalabad or or or you know coast and or wherever and and and you know so I said yeah great so I'm a little saying hey hey we're coming out I'm coming in in the generals blackhawk and he'd like to meet you and just kind of get a you know a five minute no data dump of what you can tell them and you know things like that here's what I've told him and you know already so you don't you don't bore him with repetition even though he is it generally probably needs some repetition but uh the sorry the so anyways yeah it worked out really well so I am I got to go to a lot of places that Ogier guys never got to see except read him read about it in books and things like that got to go up to cop Keating that was which was the the cop that got pretty much overrun by the enemy I think a year or two later we uh we flew another black Aachen and literally you you gotta fire from Asadabad you're you're following one River it's it's it's basically like like doing a slalom course in in a Blackhawk you're you're veering from canyon wall to the canyon wall it's it's you know thank God I didn't get airsick and then then you uh you're flying up kind of to the north-northeast and then you hang out hard left and you're going pretty much straight West to keating along another River Valley and again you're you know you're looking out and you're you're seeing the little villages you know basically hanging on by their fingernails along the mountains slides along the river there's a POS Road POS for those listening as a piece of [ __ ] Road and now well Dave always explains the acronyms I figure I need to is not a three-point turn you got a guy in the back that's hard chocolate when it backs up so that it doesn't go too far I've been in some of those life slot canyons where it's like like you said either somebody took a pickaxe and maybe like a hundred years ago they actually got a hold of dynamite yeah and blew it wide enough to drive Hilux through but I mean yeah and so yeah and in the springtime of course the floods would always wash out parts of the road too so it always you know as it was a never-ending battle to keep playing transportation going what like what area was that and what was the strategic importance of it what was the idea behind behind it well he was up and I was up in the middle of god-knows-where nura stand and it was of the strategic value was you know if I see ya at the time it sounded really great and everybody everybody was on board with it of course looking back on it now you kinda go we were were we really that stupid the strategic intent was to to constantly put these little ink spots or were places where the AAA and coalition forces could then extend their influence out and basically push push the bad guys out and so we were trying to get it right and this was in the middle of a heavily according to the intelligence that I'm heavily infested area of Taliban and al Qaeda and all sorts of bad people so of course at one site once I saw that I go you know what they can have this because there I know they're physically fit and they can they can hike like like nobody's mother but good lord it's gonna take at least a few days to get anywhere to do anything and so but yeah so we we flew into kiti and the Blackhawk had to land on it on a gravel bar in the river where when the water was low and we observed the base and I basically got a neck ache from looking up everywhere around me and they pointed out where where the overwatch Opie was and how do you get there we walk and I go Jesus you know I mean that the the the slope must have been I don't know 30 degrees it was uh you know and then of course you know US soldiers are carrying you know you know body armor and you know their basic kit oh geez you know it's like guys can't get a Blackhawk do an elevator lift for you ya think ya know cuz people shoot us so and then of course you know the rest is history I mean Jake Tapper's book the outpost is it's actually a pretty good you know overall view of what it would have happened and things like that the bravery that the US soldiers displayed that day and I mean yeah but yeah Keating was was internet and what I would do after these things is I would I would write a little report to the to the station and then I would send email copies to then not a formal report like a cable but just an email to to my boss at the at the station who was the chief of ops and he and enfold the chief of station and I'd send it to various offices in headquarters you know CTC and the and the people in the conventional ops division dealing with Afghanistan and the analysts people as well because to give them a sense you know I you know it wasn't a well scripted Intel report anything I was like hey I flew here this is what I observed these are my concerns these are these are some of the good things you know this is how maybe we can help support them things like that and in fact at one time they were thinking of opening up I think Dave you mentioned Falcon earlier Falcon base earlier or later earlier today anyways so Falcon base was another base that was a was created and at one time they thought they could establish Falcon base co-located there with keating and so I had to I brought the guys up there and we landed in a 47 and we had to unload everything and yeah it goes back to my earlier comment about selecting the right people for the job he made none of them none of them lasted very long and we had to reevaluate them after about a week and then they established Falcon where it was finally established afterward Leia after that which was much much closer to the target sets that they they determined they wanted to go after so Wow I mean it's just insane to hear or you know straight front you know how all this stuff kind of shook out I mean and then I want to ask in the aftermath of the attack on Keating I know what were the findings from that if you were present for you know the development of some of those aar bullets and whether or not it was a whitewash like Chapman was I don't think it was I and I wasn't I wasn't asked to participate in the aar or I wasn't interviewed or anything like that and and and I haven't read tappers book in a while so I'm I I don't remember what the what the a are reporting said or anything like that but I don't think anybody got severely punished I mean everybody tried to do a good job I mean the reasoning at the time I mean looking back in it now what 1012 years later the reasoning then was legitimate I and according to all we all felt it was legitimate but now looking back on we kind of go really you know I you know it's like the inventing you know the invasion in world war two of a couple of the islands we really didn't need to do it but we had the Marines floating around there we need to do something with him I guess so that's not that's not to denigrate the the sacrifice or than anything like that but it was it was a good effort the the problem was while we could sustain it as the US Army as the United States of America you know the A&A it was it was multiple bridges too far they they there was no way they were going to sustain that or even participate in it with any sense of active participation smack dab in the middle of it so maybe it's a good time to mention this I just wonder if you could talk about the relationship the liaisons because we were talking about how your job was to make sure there wasn't any daylight between the agency endeavor in the US military and on the US side you got a juggle you know the pre-madonna soft guys and mentioning guys and then also you know the agency has their agenda which is you know strategic intelligence the military likes to go out there and blow things up and do kinetic operations and the agency also had they have their ninjas on the ground too but right it's just wondering if you could speak to that a little bit about how you kind of like juggled all these balls and maintain those relationships in Andy conflicted because I think it's just very interesting that you have these two institutions that they're there their mission statements are just very different and from what you're telling me it kind of worked in this situation because of your personality in this guy moe you were able to form a friendship and it just speaks to the fact that literally the strategic success or failure hinges on the personalities and whatever not they they're able to mesh together Drive you guys hated each other's guts I mean there there really could have been in strategic implications from from those kinds of lack of coordination yeah exactly your after writing and one side established that relationship with moe you know then it was my cost he was it was the the three and Kurt van der Steen who was a who'd come over from the command and Staff College to work in the plants in the Intel plant section and a bunch of other great American officers who I could be here like the Academy Awards and I could thank everybody but they were happy but seriously they were all you know they were all good people and I really and as I told up visiting congressional delegations and staff delegations that in my guestimation the the 10th mountain team they they brought over third Brigade Spartan Brigade headed by then Colonel John Nicholson and then his head their headquarters they had really formed a they were like a ginormous Oda they they really went out and and we're trying to work it hard from from that sort of from a from a fydd internal defense unconventional warfare you know you know get the population off the fence and onto your side type of thing I was always I was always really impressed with that major-general frankly who retired as a three star out of a sessions command out of Fort Knox he was that he was the CG he did her tremendous job he he expressed a lot of confidence in his staff he showed that he he picked the right people one of the first things he did after he assumed responsibility not a command but assumed responsibility for the siege ATF was he hosted a luncheon for all the all the players and there in his little general officers dining room which was no better than the regular defect but it was cool we actually had linen so I was he wasn't but anyways so you know there was a there was a colonel a camera from the task force and so and then Edie reader from seventh group and so it was you know a bunch of people so it was an opportunity to meet them and and you know ed ed reader was you know I I loved it and he tremendous American you know great Special Forces officer yeah but uh we was we was behind his back we'd never say to his front because he'd rip he'd rip your face off is we always called him silverback because he was reminding us of that old far side cartoon where all the young gorillas are in the gym class and the one kids already a silverback you know type of things so he was he was that big of a guy and so he was but you know you asked how do you do it well I'd worked with the different ho das from all the different groups in Iraq prior to that and so you know one of the things I learned early on is is to talk to them is to them being your audience your military audience you got to speak their specific language so if I'm talking to a Special Forces guys you know I'm not gonna go in there and you know I can I can be all you know agency you know or type stuff but I'm gonna go brethren let us have a meeting today ya know I go in I say I'll go in and I'll fail you so who's the - okay so I'm kind of speaking militaries and I say so who are your where your 18 foxes hanging out and things like that so you know you start oh you know a little bit about the way we're structured and how we do things and you know stuff like that so you know it's it's you know I was asked several times at the agency later on - you know like I don't know bottle this recipe for success and pass it out and it's it's really hard to do if you you know because a lot of agency guys is like well you know we're title 50 guys you know we don't have to answer to anybody you know yeah the green door syndrome behind the green door you know and no Maryland chambers did not live back there so the but it was uh yeah I I approached it from the from the aspect that my uh my children were both in the in the in the military at the time my daughter was a corpsman who later ended up going to Kuwait in Iraq and my son at the time before he he saw the light and joined the army he he was he was a he was a sailor he was on a frigate and he was actually deployed so we would actually communicate via supernet which I thought was always kind of cool so he was somewhere in the Arabian Gulf and I was stuck in Afghanistan so but anyways it was so I was approaching from every one of those soldiers whether he was the grizzled sergeant major of the division or of the of the of the of the group or whatever so the the brand-new pv2 who just showed up on a out of a school and tech school or whatever and and you know still doesn't know how to put on his his brand-new ACU's type of thing you know each one of those is represented my one of my kids and I felt it was my job to make sure I could I could you know I could I could get up to the line where you know I couldn't reveal sources and methods and you know and and all that you know cool secret you know obi-wan Kenobi agency stuff and they kind of lean way way over is as before before my fat tummy you know pulled me over the line and made me maybe do bad things but it was um that was the way I always approached it and I you know I I think at reader and his staff and later Chris Haas when he brought third group over they picked up on that and I know general frankly and James Terry and and Tony Tata the the three general officers in tenth Mountain I think they picked up on it and plus I would never lie to them if I couldn't tell them or if I didn't know I said so and yeah sometimes I it was anybody listening I would uh I would say you know I can't talk about it and then I'd pull him aside later and says yeah wink week not not nudge-nudge you guys are you guys are you guys are barking up the right tree so let it go with that and I had to I had to keep that level of trust because as soon as you know I mean you lie too I mean these guys were my battle buddies and I I couldn't lie to them the the task force was a little harder nut to crack and I don't think I ever really cracked it which is fine because I'm not sure they the juice wasn't worth the squeeze with them they were a lot of respect for the Rangers and the seals that were that that constantly rotated through but they their agenda was very much different from everybody else's they they did not do a good job of cross coordinating with the conventional or the orthos oh yeah oh yeah yeah well well we we we did we did it we did a we did a capture kill on this one compound oops um we kill some bad we killed some good people some bad people things like that but it's not our job hey local battalion from 10th mountain or local oda guys you know you you guys get to you know clean up my mess and you know make it all better people on the conventional side get event taste in their mouth about the Special Operations dudes because we go in there we do the quote-unquote night raids as they call them in the New York Times and it makes it knowledge Italy I mean whether we do it right or we do it wrong we go in there we kill some people and then we leave we disappear on the black helicopters and that conventional unit that's stationed in that area or no da ends up feeling the brunt of those retaliatory IEDs and rocket attacks etc etc we're just or just the people shutting you out I mean yeah you were you were just starting to establish people because because you want to find out where the IIED networks are who's implanting the IEDs where they're being built where they're being assembled where they're being implanted you know the local population knows everything I mean you know you know that's why what's the old I remember in the early days we we wanted to put out some sensors and so we you know like you can go to like Costco or whatever you those those outdoor radio or speakers that look like boulders but don't really look like boulders or the things that you used to cover up those big green transformer boxes and suburbia type thing so the tech Wizards built built a few rocks to look like this and we put them in a rock field well good lord a couple weeks later some Afghan boy shows up at one of the fobs a mister I found this oh yeah take that no no no it's mine you pay me money like yeah okay god help us it wasn't something natural and it must it must be from from the western people and you know it was a chance to make a dollar or several hundred or a thousand whatever oh my gosh the relationship thing I just wanted to mention this quick anecdote I have a friend who was a Marine Corps officer and he was one of those Marines that got and go to you got to do it change with Delta and go over there and be an operator go through TC and then deploy with them all that good stuff and when he came back from that and came back to the Marine Corps you know all the guys are asking them you know what did you learn what were the big takeaways you know what's the greatest new you know gadget that you strapped to the side of your gun what's the new tactic that you used to enter in clear a room and he said you know the thing I really took away from my time at the unit was relationships and the importance of building those relationships with the adjacent units with the interagency process because of the dividends they play down the line and that's I just feel like it's kind of important to bring that up because you know they make the movies about the dudes going down the front door and going and entering clearing the room but sometimes it's those liaison operations that pay the most dividends for you at the end of the day it really doesn't and you know also liaison with the host nations I mean as a as a SF guy you understand about building those relationships and and that was the one thing I always admired about 10th Mountain they they really tried to mentor or train the the battalion and hire staff of the a a because the C snica guys the combined whatever Training Command for Afghanistan was was an abortion so it was you know I don't remember name tapes I remember faces and and and getting yelled at so yeah I got my face ripped off a few times for stuff that other other Ogier guys did no I don't think I had but I remember one time I I'm sitting in my little Ogier office there minding my own business and my phone rings and it said reader and why it had to use the phone I don't know because I think I could hear him yelling from a kilometer anyways he was pissed so I I dutifully uh you know you know made haste to his office where he had calmed down just a wee bit but God I'm you know I'm glad I just average some level of rapport and Trust with them before that because if not it would have it would have been irrevocably harmed but um yeah so uh there was a total miscommunication [ __ ] however you want to put it between an OG a location and and his Oda and involving uh local Afghans and things like that they'd they decided to the og a guys had decided to detain some some Afghans that the that the Oda guys were developing as as you know sources for their for their operations and despite the the ODA captain going to the og a base chief you know explaining the situation to him trying to be professional without getting you know because they they lived right there in the small little fob and and he wasn't having it so yeah I got my I got my face ripped off and so I had to get on the horn to the station who then called the base the base fine okay well if you're telling me to do this I'll let these guys go but I just know they're bad well if they are they'll be bad again next day and but let the ODA guys know yeah but it was you know it was it was hard because you know every every OD when I tried to meet the OTAs before they would when they would come in to Bagram before they would you know go out for word and or if they would rotate through or something like that and just say hey this is your nearest or your neighbor oh gee a guy you know here's his personality here's here's what buttons you don't want to push his here's his here's his good points there's as bad points here's how I think they can help you and if they don't well you know go through your chain of command but I'll try to do what I can for you you know probably probably not the smartest you know usurping my chain of command but again like I said I'm looking at all those all those Oda you know troopers as is one of my kids you know because my kids were wearing the uniform too and and I'd want somebody that could possibly make a difference make a difference so what does that a common issue in your experience that there was tension between either the military or the SF forces or those in the military schwack and agency assets or vice-versa I mean refusal to cooperate like was that a thing or was there not that the case I just brought was probably the rare rare instance I mean most III think reader had a pretty good handle on his his Oda his team his team captains and and team sergeants so they they were they they they tag-team the guys pretty well in fact in a lot of places like when we went to skin they were they were thick as thieves so that's always the best better solution than an antagonism um and with the conventional guys not so much again because I'd worked really hard with with the staff there at Bagram as well as the different battalion Chiefs you know out in organy and and up at j-bad and down in Kandahar the so it was the problem really was dave was the with the Task Force guys they they kind of wanted to do their own thing a lot of times despite having programs where they would operate under our authorities with our funding but they would they would refuse to adhere to some ground rules yeah I'm not sure not I've seen it written as Task Force so I'm just gonna say task force okay and hope that my jail cells comfortable pitch thank you everyone for joining us tonight and if you haven't subscribed to the channel yet please go ahead hit that subscription button down below so that you get notified you hit the bell icon so you get notified wherever we go live we're trying to be pretty consistent now about going 8 p.m. Eastern Standard Time everybody right yeah that's our Jam now that's it and if you look down in the description of this video there is a link to our first interview with Ron a few episodes back you can go check that out if you like this one so far if we're not boring you to tears and there's also a link to our patreon if you like what we're doing and you want to support the stream keep the lights on here go take a look at that and actually it's as little as just a dollar a month honestly one dollar month from everybody would like pay our rent and keep us in Laphroaig amend you get access to the bonus segments yes em which are like honestly they tend to be 30 to 60 minutes long each yeah and if you are a patreon subscriber and the live chat or down in the comments please if you enjoy the content on patreon please mention it to other people like let people know that it's it's good content yeah if you give this little video a thumbs up if you leave a comment down there all that stuff place and I like YouTube's algorithm it helps us spread the meme of the team house around the internet the virus the virus exactly the infection exactly okay so Ian's asking were any of the three of you in Iraq during the Fallujah ambush and oh four thoughts of the general atmosphere at the time I wasn't oh no I don't think I was I you know I may have been but the atmosphere was like I pointed out you know the population when we first took control of the country they were kind of like okay you know my daddy Saddam is no longer around so Uncle Sam's now my daddy you know what do i do how do i you know what's what's what's going on you know am I gonna have electricity every day am I gonna have fresh water supplied I mean the basic basic necessities and we I don't know I think we really we weren't ready for that and then of course Bremer and the the army three-star who came in who got fired pretty quickly after that both were pretty pretty weak in in doing that and so the population was sort of like aimless teenagers you know they're sort of wandering around going you know somebody give me some guidance tell me what to do and and there was a lot of bad influencers in the in the marketplaces and in the villages you know that were not so much Saddam loyalists but they were just they like to cause trouble and or they were to hottests and I mean we we know after a while I mean you know Iraq was like you know like the Burning Man for jihadist reunions everybody showed up and I know it's like it's terrible I mean you know we I mean I remember we were an alkine along the Syrian Iraqi border and we got we got wind of some Russian tourists had entered Iraq and were making their way to Ramadi and Fallujah and they were Chechens they were bad guys they were we you know mean they were they were hardcore you know killers of people and so we're chasing them down the highway to Fallujah and of course the US Army's got little checkpoints along the way to make sure that you know everything was basically harassing the population because nothing had really kicked off then at least you know in in that neck of the woods and so and we're radioing ahead and of course you're dealing with multiple different units and and you have to tell the same story and you you know try to establish rapport and Trust over the radio or over a telephone line with some you know major or some sergeant first class explaining this and you're saying just hold them at the checkpoint we'll take care of it all will be explained to you you know well but so I literally were we're catching up because I'm not driving I'm pulling security on the passenger side and but Mario Andretti here he's driving down the road and you know potholes be damned it's it's not my vehicle I don't give a [ __ ] about this mentioned and word and we're coming up to these check of course we came out to these checkpoints we got to slow down because the last thing I want to do is scare some poor private into thinking I'm I'm you know you know Mahmud the the the suicide bomber and we say hey did a couple of you know that a couple of white guys just come through here you know oh you mean the Russian tourists yeah tourists yeah yeah they showed us their passwords this is tourists in a war zone you suspicious did you check the trunk no okay how long ago oh just a few minutes ago yeah you know I'm talking to some corporal who like a few minutes ago could have been like really dude I got a I got a I got a can of Copenhagen here yeah tell me honestly I was like five minutes ago here you go oh and and eventually they they get caught they they get caught in Fallujah I mean but it was you know but we're chasing him down the road it was like it's just it's one of those little silly things you're like you should jump you know we go lke MS it's been a really long day and and the vehicles pretty well beat to [ __ ] by now because of all the potholes and things like that and you know Bradley's do wonderful things to uh to asphalt roads and so we were dog-ass tired and the the boss there at al Qaeda uses so how'd you spend your day yeah take the job she sent ahadees I was in Iraq so you know for like that I was nowhere near Felicia but Fallujah and all the face of Fallujah presented a problem throughout the rest of the country because I mean a lot of times like Iraqis didn't understand why we didn't project more force you know I remember I didn't have the iron fist yeah I remember and to them that was that was there was nothing wrong with that and that could have been part of the city she is split but I remember you know in Iraqi you know Sammy Amos you know stay uh you know you guys have nuclear weapons why don't you just drop a nuclear bomb on Fallujah when I said well you know the United States doesn't want to hurt you know some people in egos there are no words you know and so they it just things like that really in some ways it diminished our our image has this I remember at a conversation with a SWAT team leader that I was working with in 2009 over there and the conversation of the invasion came up and you know I made some sort of like very American comment like you know it's tragic how many you know Iraqi people died in the invasion and that this happened and you know here you know it's it's tragic that it happened like that and he just looked at me and shrug use like America is strong why wouldn't you invade us yeah and then that kind of mentality flies in the face of all the political theory that you know I was taught at Columbia University or about you know liberalism and cosmopolitanism and that people like you and respect you when you come up and shake their hand and are nice to them that's true in a lot of situations but in the context we're talking about and when you're going into these into these sorts of counterinsurgency environments a lot of people respect strength well you know we've talked about this on the on the show before a little bit about the sort of sort of the built-in fatalism in Islam you know the whole inshallah you know whatever God wills right in sha Allah you know and you know you wonder how somebody like Saddam could stay in power so long in a part of it was because we're he's in power you know you know that's sort of the way it is right but let's here we got we got a couple more questions oh and thanks Ian for the donation Alex thank you we pass ho alex is saying we passed 100 on the subreddit our team house can you talk about the coffee shop at HQ can they not look at customers say names or use cards as payments Oh Starbucks at Langley well we have a Starbucks and a Dunkin Donuts and we believe in competition yes and there there are there are two schools of thought in the in in the headquarters building you're either a Starbucks pert while there's three actually you're either a Starbucks guy or a Dunkin Donuts person or maybe the cafeteria coffee and then a fourth group which you know refuses to set foot in either one because it's undignified in the agency to sit in a Starbucks which is just like a real Gucci Starbucks down in Georgetown and and you know yeah the the employees are there they're cleared I mean they they have the yellow badges like the cleaning crew does and and I don't know I don't think nobody uses their credit card there so it's like if you do you buy one of those with cash those Starbucks rewards cards or whatever is and but it was you know I I will say I enjoyed going to the Starbucks it was it was nice all the Dunkin Donuts had the better Donuts obviously of course they are John Smith John Smith I'm like 10 10 guys come up to the counter yeah they're pretty good about it they they just just like in regular stores you know just you know Ron you know boom there's your there's your triple cappuccino mocha latte veinte whatever I don't remember you know so the Austin Powers where dr. evil has the Starbucks and his equal headquarters not comparing the CIA to the DUI courts but but just the fact it Starbucks is is so like everywhere you know why do we need we need to bring Starbucks tour at Starbucks and McDonald's ya hungry yet now cuz they have Seattle's best there it's actually not bad coffee sorry come on I went to green beans all the time too you know I mean I got a good or green beans and the worms worms oh yeah the the Cinnabon on on the base in a telephone my last deployment like we have a Cinnabon really yeah well no the worst the worst is the is the Quadrangle in in Kandahar oh oh I never been there Bagram had a well not as not as bad I mean they had a God they had like a Ruby Tuesday's there at Canada our forces were there right yeah I mean there was a lot there was a lot of NATO people there and it was I mean I I remember Kandahar way back in the early days right you know right after like fob rhino and things like that so but then I went down again and I never really had to go back and then I went back in 13 and I was amazed at the I mean it was it was like summer camp you know yeah oh there's a war on oh shoot you know I can't be bothered I have dinner reservations at Ruby Tuesday it was hilarious disbanding 1500 what Jack answer that when he wrote a nice article about that and that was actually well well reasoned and thought out Jack good job thank you as a blog on my personal website I figured that it's a good place for that what's the Jack Murphy rights calm and I have some writing and articles and stuff on there but I wrote kind of just I guess an opinion piece on all that so apparently the decision it's sitting with the Secretary of Defense right now and I believe what's happening is they are so when you started back one second the syph also known as the CRF the think Crisis Response Force before that is called the commanders and extremists force each Special Forces Group has one company God had the Counter Terrorist hostage rescue mission specialized in direct action all that good stuff they are apparently losing the in extremists portion at least of their missions so all these units all these companies were supposed to be at least on paper they were on standby for no-notice deployments anywhere in the world and could ostensibly respond faster being forward deployed to be some of them are forward deployed in Germany and Okinawa and back in the day somewhere the 7th group moments to point to Panama but they're stateside now that was the idea behind it that they could get there faster than save some of the JSOC elements from Fort Bragg or dam that so apparently the Secretary of Defense is looking at taking away that specific portion of their mission SF will probably still retain direct action companies but they'll be out of the hostage rescue business they will be out of the you know no notice rapid deployment business so that's what what I think is happening I would see the what was the justification behind that I think again I'm saying I think because I wrote this as an opinion piece I don't have all the facts I I think it has to do with a couple of things but one of them is they never really did that mission right I'm not really aware of them ever doing in extremists rates or operations I mean maybe they I mean I know they've gotten spun up of times in the past but I'm not really aware of them ever actually doing that portion of their mission so that may be the rationale they look at it and they think we have a duplication of capabilities because the JSOC guys can do this and have done it but there's probably a lot of other things that go into it I mean maybe SF is deciding they want to you know really reinvest in unconventional warfare and get away from the direct action side of things but I again I don't have all the facts so I think it remains to shake out and see you know it's an extremely expensive I mean if if you're not just doing it in name if you're actually doing it it's very expensive to maintain me because we're not just talking about CQB or close quarter battle we're talking about hostage rescue which requires a level of training and precision right that is very it's very hard to maintain and the other thing too with that with the in extremis portion of that mission was that the JSOC guys Ranger Regiment they have dedicated air assets so there are airplanes and pilots standing by in you know in JSOC case I'm sure the the real answer is classified but in case of the Ranger Regiment we all know they can be wheels up in 18 hours right having those air assets and those pilots I mean without them you're not doing anything right or not going anywhere right thus if never had dedicated air assets my space a it's a specific ear rating it's like President I think the prep the president has a 1 a and I think like the guys like the JSOC guys it's like to be 2 or be to be a camera the name of the heir rating offhand may be yeah oh no I'm not but I can tell you that you know it's interesting you talk about ods and direct action you know everybody wants to be a door kicker and it's you know it's it's a wonderful it's wonderful to do but it also you know never you know what's the first rule never be the first guy through the door right so I'm traveling around these general officers during my stint as CEO be Bagram and and we're it uh I can't remember is it's a it's some fob cop that open and closed so quickly but there was an Oda there and the general was talking to conventional guys and and the A&A people because he again they were always trying to mentor and include the a and a and try to professionalize them as best they could but the Oda captain sought me out and he was he was he was pissed he says we've we've been forbidden to go out on on unilateral you know direct-action missions and I'm looking I'm going well yeah I mean aren't you supposed to be taking the AAA guys out you know this is all before the commandos the AAA commandos really took off and and sort of like you're supposed to advise them and let them go do this get that experience he says yeah but but that's what we want to do that's all we want to do I go you're supposed to you know develop no I'm trying to go back to the you know the the whole FID uw mission thing and like I think you forget you're you're so caught up in the in the in the in the adrenaline rush of DEA missions that you're you're forgetting your core competency and and you know I think I tweeted out my brief opinion on your you know commenting on your your your blog post jack is that I really I really hope and pray that the regiment does yeah embrace the UW FID mission again because you know every time they stand up and tell the National Command authorities you know the president and the sect F why well yes we can go do this raid we you know they I mean there I'm sure yet they all can and they do it really well but it's not their core competency and and then they complain that they're exhausted and then you know they have all sorts of other problems with retention and and trying to expand into the fourth Battalion in the group the Jedburgh battalion sites you know that maybe this is this is that shot of medicine that they need to focus talking about sort of a swot house right you're talking about it a 12-man team cannot can do that mission in a permissive environment right in a permissive environment they can do a hostage rescue or whatever or you know a direct action and there were times where they were doing unilateral Special Forces company level operations really yeah that happened and that's not doctrinal that's not out and that's been that's the challenge is that when you start talking about you know the direct action in a non-permissive environment mm-hmm you know when you talk about JSOC elements they have you know they have support they have security they have QR ups you know they have all these all these pieces in place that enable them to do these things in a non permissive environments not just is not just a handful of guys out there on their own with no backup but I think that SF was putting themselves in these situations and they didn't didn't have those assets you know they were right because I'm not saying they can't do it they're capable obviously they're very capable dudes it's all the extra stuff that protects those guys that are going in and you know and whatnot right right you know there was there was an incident with an Oda they they were in central Afghanistan and the big thing was then everybody had to grow the the big deployment beard and you know the the the thicker the better the beard the the more the more you know the more you were to get accepted into your local Harley club when you got back to the states so they're they're out doing a patrol in there in there apart in their gun V's and they're they're driving and unfortunately one of the soldiers gets killed so does Chris Hoss is in command of third group he goes down with the group sergeant major and and a few of us accompany him and he's he's interviewing the the ODA and trying to figure out you know this this injury was avoidable the the fatal injury was avoidable he said why weren't you wearing your Kevlar why weren't you wearing your helmets and God bless the oda detachment commander for being honest he said well we keep our ball caps on because the the chin straps on the helmets ruins our beards and the sergeant major who liked to shave his head and his his every day because I think it made up for what little Harry he didn't have were what Harry didn't have anymore anyway so he he looked at he looked at Chris Goss and said well I guess we know what that we're gonna do now we're leaving in about an hour all your beards will be shaven taken off you will be clean-shaven from now on you will adhere to army grooming standards and you will wear your your protective headgear as per regulation and you know and that went out throughout see just so tough after that because that sort of thing just was I mean you know if you're gonna have a beard I got it great but don't sit there and go and be a fashionista and say I got to wear my cool guy ball cap and because I don't want to I don't want to you know ruin my beard so it was yeah it was all camps I find rather triggering wrong picture in your book there's there's I mean you you have protective gear I mean the task force guys in the early days in Iraq used to just wear protects the skater the skater the skater snowboarder helmets the rock climbing helmets you know had zero ballistic protection so they did a couple of raids and you know operators got got shot in the head and the protec did nothing to slow down there the ak-47 around so that's why they all wear Kevlar now yes again I just sometimes it's ego overrides judgment and that's right you know it's so I mean believe me I'm I'm all about wearing a ballcap because you know I we're gonna help a flight helmet a Kevlar you know a battle helmet you know especially with a battery pack and nods on it good lord you know I get a sore neck might get a headache and you know I'm one you know plus the you know your your all your kit and stuff like that that you have to wear it yeah you know which roles do you bend and knowing when to bend them experience to in the sense of you know TBI is you know in head trauma so like that was not it it wasn't an issue you know it wasn't something people we didn't really think of it worried about you know prior understanding we're still gaining understanding of what causes it and how to treat it and things like that but and you're in you're right I mean I remember the early early days in Kabul I mean it was I mean good lord it was a lot of fun I mean you know now we got it we got a couple hours between missions hey let's go down to chicken Street which is we're all they used to have chickens and but where all the carpet stores were and we we buy carpets I mean we'd walk around I mean we'd wear a Kevlar and carry our Glocks but uh you know we were just we were mixing with the population and we were you know it was it's pretty wild I mean fast forward to a year later I mean good lord I had to write a trip plan and have you know a three vehicle convoy uh you know just go to the airfield from from the station so it was uh there's a lot you know it's you know the early days are always the best okay one of the skills the 10th infantry learned is separated them from the rest we don't have one mountain too good question and we've been you know not in war for 20 years well yeah and of course they're stationed in the flatlands of upstate New York so it makes a lot of sense but now you can thank senator mm-hmm they do get the snow but which is sort of a mountain qualifier but you know that's okay you can thank Bob Dole for that when they when they brought back his his his his division that he served with in Italy and in World War two that's that was the compromise position they made to open up Fort Drum and put the 10th Mountain there what what is they had a they had over a year and a half to prepare for this deployment and they the I can speak more to the Intel people that that Colonel Morrison prepared he sent a lot of them to to push to and dari language schools he gave them a lot of cultural training and things like that the the different battalions including the the logistics units which general frankly operationalized he made them a you're not just going to sit around and be and do warehouse ops you guys are actually gonna run convoys and you know be in charge of fobs and run you know combat like missions out out and about so they got a lot of training and they and they learned the cultural stuff and they I don't and was an attitude they they have they had a positive attitude towards it you know and this again this was this was 2006 so they got lured in they know they got notified in sometime in the late Oh for I mean so we're talking the early early days I mean you know fast forward now it's like hey we're on the patch chart to go back to yay you know first and stuff right you know the you know learning all this stuff and had great leadership you know I mean CTF CTF suffer from from poor leadership and in poor preparation I think their combat unit was a brigade out of the 82nd and you know I love I love the 82nd Airborne Division my son's a platoon sergeant in it they but you know they're paratroopers and they constantly want to reenact Normandy and Market Garden and and and they want they wanted they wanted they want to attack things and maybe in the early days in Afghanistan that wasn't the right tactics or operational plan and of course the other thing is is that we have to keep in mind that you know if as we as we you know open up our sight aperture a lot is that uh you know Iraq had begun and a lot of people weren't quite sure okay now that I've I've got Afghanistan what do I do with it I had a conversation with general frankly once he was one of things is when uh divisions get ready to go do this over Division Headquarters they they go do a Washington DC they spent about a week in Washington DC meeting meeting with all the major interagency units CIA NSA dia State Department so on he said he mentioned that he had some meetings at the Pentagon said well did you mean anybody in like an OSD in policy or something like Isis he says I had I had like two minutes with Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld who wasn't didn't even remember that I was going to Afghanistan and didn't even realize that we still had a thing there so I was kind of you know he was yeah he was you know that's so they didn't have a lot of top-down guidance about you know what is what is the commander-in-chief's intent you know the four-stars intent from you know combined forces command Afghanistan and IAF to what what do you want what do you want us to do what are we running combat operations are we you know training mentoring you know working side-by-side with the AAA guys I mean what are what are we doing here you know talk to me so they got a lot of they suffered from and you know if any of them are listening and they want to you know yell at me later because I'm wrong that's good but from what I gather they they took minimal guidance they had and they did the best they could with what they had so but the previous unit like CTF like I told you it was they were they were weak they were their leadership was weak they they weren't really engaged in the mission I think they were they were more place holding yes and thanks for the donation and t-bar thank you for the mention ken Raj speak to the situation where it was difficult to decide if a problem set was best suited for the military or the agency good question Wow well it would it would depend on that on the type of problem if it's like in your face tactical problem I'm who's ever who's ever facing it would take care of it if it's a bigger issue I then we would we would generally sit down either you know the the local Ogier chief what's with the senior military officer in that fob or a battalion commander would flying or whatever and they would try to you know hash hash it through if it if it needed to get elevated obviously it did and so it you know it really depended on the problem and what the what the issue was it's I mean that's kind of hard to answer that hypothetical but I mean there were issues were in Jalalabad were we had problems with between the the the base which moved from one location to Jalalabad Airfield they moved from in the city to Jalalabad Airfield and Chris Cavalli and his battalion had already occupied part of the airfield and and the in the og a nice you know I tried to tell them they says hey you know these guys are already here so you know they're kind of the landlord's they can help you but you know but again the officer that was in charge of that he he walked this is I'm a title 50 guy I don't need to listen to you you title 10 dix and you're gonna do what I say so next thing I know I'm I'm standing in front of you know frankly and Terry and Teta and Chris Cavalli's on the phone he's a three-star general ice commander of US Army Europe great great officer and he is and caval he's normally even killed as they come I mean diplomatic to the to the core but Pahlavi's pissed I mean he did learn a few swear words and Ranger school and I got to hear them all and multiple times he was pissed and you know what could I do I'd sit there and go I'll look into it out that uh but it was eventually we reached the uncomfortable truce the agency guys did what the hell they wanted there and and the in the army guys just sort of had to suck it up and it it was one of one of my failures I always thought because I wasn't able to ameliorate that situation to make it make it better and that was it was always bad so left a bad taste in my mouth one of the things I follow up on to was you mentioned your second performance of Bagram where you were with Admiral bill McRaven and you were present when the what was that the Maersk was hijacked right the Maersk Alabama Maersk Alabama the container ship right yeah I was yeah I was there working with the Task Force on them on something else and make the JSOC Commander it back then you know McChrystal started it they would alternate between Iraq and Afghanistan where they would put there where they would have their flag but crystal of course spent ninety nine percent of his time in Iraq McRaven was more even-handed about that so he's there and and we're working this project which is never mind and yes see I can't talk about yeah I can't talk about so it was just one of those things you kind of roll your eyes going you know you say that's like the Mike Bloomberg math everybody gets a million dollars kind of approached somebody thought of it like that you know it's like oh my god so but we so the Maersk Alabama happens and so McRaven's got most of his staff there so there's a lot of V T C's back to back to Fort Bragg back to JSOC to the Pentagon to the to the White House and other other players and so McRaven's back for that a lot of times he'd have to kick us out of the out of the room because he would have to talk one-on-one with the national security adviser and sometimes even the president so and then afterwards he would he would give us a little what his guidance was excuse me so anyways so he finally gives the hoopla go and you gotta love you gotta love JSOC they seem to have this unlimited video budget I mean makes it would make Hollywood jealous because we get to watch the the freefall drop of the boat drivers of the Swick guys with the boats the Swick drivers and the seals and they're all fine and you know so we have we have a camera bird I'm going this is great this is like a Howard Hughes production you know if Hells Angels I'm watching all this you know is like you know it's yeah you can even talk with my hands now again this is bad couldn't be more scotch after this the so uh so anyway so and we watch them all fall into the ocean I mean you know plop plop plop and then the video cuts out and maybe I don't know 20 30 minutes later a video cuts in again and on one of the Navy vessels one of the ships that is the going to be the the command post for the for the seals that dropped in and so there's there's Scotty Moore who I've known on and off for years he's the captain of this and he's he's got that brown GI Talon he's drying his hair like he just came out of a gym workout he's gone on a nondescript no max flight Green flight suit and he's going sir we're we're ready to go execute right now I got my guys right we're gonna go right now and McRaven goes Scotty Scotty calm down let's let's make it slow let's think about this and you know I don't know Scotty was always very very aggressive and and so I mean but it was if I see so from there on we we were always like Big Brother looking over the show folders of the seals there on the scene about what was going on and we we were hooked into all the comms and things like that so it was um it was interesting and kind of you know weird at the same time because occasionally McRaven would you know click the talk button and and ask a question or or you know and thanks for your donation Tate and things like that you know go you know type but nom see but he would ask a question and here's the four here's a three star sort of interfering with with the tactical commanders control of his battle space it was just kinda Andrew but and then of course when you watch the Tom Hanks movie you see it from a different perspective and you go okay but it was it was just interesting just to watch McRaven's the way he commanded and leaders his uh through that crisis with not so much with his his subordinate units because you know that was all good but with you know negotiating with the with the White House because there were there were numerous plans being proposed from the beginning of the crisis till the one that was accepted and was executed so he would always come back with additional planning guidance or like the White House is worried about casualties or that you know it was it was the Obama administration they wanted you know ironclad guarantees on everything and they even you know did it did his best to assuage those those concerns so I thought he he you know the thing is what I learned there was that he not only had to manage the crisis and and lead his subordinate units and and and and people and coordinating their resources and come up with a plan but he had to manage the expectations of the civilian leadership in Washington and that may have been the more difficult challenge of them all and I was I always admired him for that was that because President Obama and the National Security Council of we had like this expectation that it was all going to be nice clean headshots on the bad guys and ticker-tape parade for the hostages coming home I mean that must have been very difficult for Admiral McRaven and for the you know the guys work at the ground game to make those kinds of promises I don't I don't know I think that's what it was the way McRaven would intimate the the gist of the conversations that he would have they they wanted those ironclad guarantees it it was either gonna be you know surgical clean and and there was no chance of any you know oopss or anything like that but he you know he like I said he had to he had to he had to guide them to the reality of where where he had to bring them so it was his probably his biggest leadership challenge I think at that time I mean from your perspective when you said I mean how did that operation actually shake out I mean the details at least we learned were pretty interesting as far as how they executed I mean a well executed operation without a doubt oh it was I mean you know the good thing was I mean he knew all the players all the senior players because it was you know the damn neck guys were coming out to do it so he knew all the personalities he knew their capabilities it it wasn't like he was you know tasking the Ranger Regiment to do something and and he'd have to look around for his Ranger expert too to let him know what was what was what but I think you know it was the plan of course always starts big with lots of lots of explosions and lots of lots of assets and lots of bullets flying and then it it it goes through all sorts of branches and sequels and twigs and and things like that and it finally distills down to what what they actually could get away with because they wanted to keep the footprint small and everything like I'm going really these these three four starving Somali pirates you know or you know I mean they took what three Navy ships and you know the c-17s had the fly you know to drop the boats and everything I mean it was pretty intense dammit to decide how to deal with three or four starving Somalian pirates that's really interesting right right yeah because I remember my son would tell me war stories between his time in the Navy and the army when he was on a Navy frigate doing anti-piracy patrols in the in the Gulf of Yemen and Arabian Gulf Arabian Sea area there and things like that and yeah talking about interdicting these house you know this is one oh no no we're fishermen you know these aren't ak-47s really you don't see anything so it was you know they had some fun but it was I yes you say it was amazing because because the vessel had returned to control of the crew so the vessel it was just the captain was the captain Phillips was the only one that was endangered or being held hostage but I mean it could almost goes back to your your discussion and your reasoning on on the abolishment of the of the of the SIF or the or the kripp is they had all the resources to achieve this multi-dimensional multi-domain maritime anti-piracy hostage rescue you know whatever type thing so it was you and I mean I feel as though since sort of Clinton's like zero failure or what was it like there's this idea that if you make a mistake in the military or something goes bad on your watch that was your a defect the whole 0d0 dealer yeah the you know you make a mistake in the military you're out you're done especially if you're an officer whatever I mean even during the Carter Administration you know they were freaking out that the Delta guys were going to kill Iranians when they went into the embassy and rescue her hostages yeah there were there stories that like he was suggesting you know shoot the terrorists in the shoulder and Charlie Beckwith was like oh yeah well I'm gonna be at the same problem with our police force and I have this theory about the long Ranger you know that I mean most people now haven't didn't grow up with that didn't see it but but it carries on with the idea that like the lone ranger never killed anybody right we grow up with this hero who all right who could shoot you shoot the gun out of people's hands like Batman can throw some bad Rams and that's what a good guy is capable of right a good guy is capable of taking down a bad guy through superior skill and not actually having harm the bad guy so now we have this sort of idea in our culture that you know if somebody's come rushing a police officer with a knife that they can either run if you're not shoot tonight out of his hand and shoot him in the leg they lie they shoot him in the leg about this range or a roundhouse kick yeah yeah because that's how that's how good guys win good guys don't have to kill people you know that's right because chuck norris will show me how yeah well you know it's it's interest because you know you one of the questions i had in one of my one of my leadership classes was we talked about this sort of thing and i said you know when george marshall was the chief staff of the army to FDR you know he was pretty open he says we're gonna you know he he didn't mince words he he I mean he just was straightforward he he told the president you're gonna expect casualties this is gonna happen this is the bad this is the good and I asked the question with that preface to my my leadership class I said do we have leaders now in the military or in the intelligence agencies that are willing to be that forthright to the decision-makers to say that and yeah I was I did graduate from the course but it was only by the hair on my it's like because I wasn't I was not supposed to ask the impolite questions and it was something I observed that you know I always you know you try to see I've seen way too many political generals and obviously politicians in you know in the agency and then elsewhere but it was but yeah I was my name was the three generals mentioned from from tenth Mountain as well as head reader and Chris Haas you know they they were pretty forthright and honest they I observed them when they talked to the co Dells or the or the congressional delegations or the visiting staff staffers who were even more terrifying than the congressmen and Senators because they really do have the power of telling the senator the congressman what he what you watch this is what you need to know type of thing they were pretty forthright and honest and so we we had some interesting discussions with them they they were like well that's not what we've heard elsewhere so I said well this is this is the truth as we see it from from our vantage point where we sit here and in in Afghanistan back in DC everything looks different yeah I really I mean we could talk again I really only had like one other big question to ask is there anything else no I just want to thank Graham Graham thank you for the donation he didn't ask a question Oh actually did a little bit further down you want to ask Ron if you knew Lau Lau X at all or if he has any thoughts on his book left of doom about counter IEDs Afghanistan I do not know that gentleman and I have not read that book I worked with some of the counter IEDs people in in in that were associated with 10th Mountain they they it was an interesting again it was a it was a nascent effort back then because the ID threat was just beginning to really come come to the forefront in Afghanistan of course then later in Iraq even more so yes and also with the explosive form penetrators in Iraq and then of course the I the whole you know joint ie D whatever jeido you know okay you know so yeah but the contractor money hole in in DC the they but the the thing was the ID guys the counter ID guys in in or in Afghanistan I know six we had the the the clue and the the couple of the other electron systems to try to predetonate and we we emphasize the the tactics techniques and procedures about when you come to culverts and bridges you stop and you do the probing and you know all the the stuff that so you move with the smith at the pace of snail going to your objective the but uh the some of the ID guys that that would go out and do the the ID exploitation to discover you know you know because like any like bomb makers leave fingerprints they leave you know everybody has a signature you know like you this oh this this guy does like a three twist on his wire type of thing or whatever and and but they tried to form themselves into an action arm so they were like an IE d QRF they would go out and and and do raids and so I think that lasted for about 3 seconds and and and the poor Colonel that was it was it was one of those wet dreams he had and it was it was kind of fun to see him get chopped down to size and in front of everybody because he would lord this over everybody and you know general frankly not knocked that out of them out of the park that was funny but because he was he was also interfering with other operations elsewhere so it was but you know he was he was the most important guy in country favorite memory of working with State Department DSS any plans to have Cody parent on the show and CIA most reporter on this end I'll hold a Bill Hickok hand but I do have a DSS vignette so Khalil Asaad the the current special ambassador that's negotiated this agreement with the Taliban during the first Bush administration he was like the senior special dude for Afghanistan for the Bush administration before he became an appointed ambassador there and everything like so he flies in on Iran on an aircraft not one of ours and there's his DSS team and and I've never met these guys before but you could tell right away they were these guys were they were they were good they knew what was going on and the DSS the the the team chief come up and and met me because we didn't have a whole lot this is my first tour when we were like pulling triple duties on everything and I gave him the 401 one and and he they had their little suburban they went and drove to the embassy a little while later he calls me up on my little cell phone that we know some remarking we had cell phones in those early days there in Afghanistan he says he's he lost Khalil Asaad this is what what do you mean he says well I need your help finding him he he just walked out of the embassy he says he's walking around town Isis he didn't tell you guys this or he didn't he doesn't have anybody with him no he just has his aide and I met his aide when they gotten off the plane his ad very reminded me of like Beeker from the Muppets very officious little guy and and he I'm sorry I don't know how but he comes up and says because they called him an ambassador so he says via the Ambassador needs to use these to use the facilities so can you can you point out where the where the where the where the business class lounge is now this is Kabul Airport I mean I've got eroding earth revetment surround me I've got acres and acres of destroyed Russian aircraft that have been pushed off into a minefield that are waiting to be rehab you know scrapped or pulled out and then the D mind and everything I mean it's I mean I'm talking the craters of the moon I mean you're lucky the tarmacs in one piece but we're surrounded by this this than berm and I look at I look at the PA and I go well there's the berm you knock yourself out you know P anywhere you want and he just looked at me like he was shocked and oh god you this is the ambassador Michael this is Afghanistan he ought to be used to this knock it off anyway so we ought we mobilized a bunch of some of our other guys and we went out with the DSS guys and we found him and he was he was mad because he was he was getting to know the man on the street stuff I'm going okay whatever I mean if something that happened to you you know I would have really looked bad but I love those DSS guys they were they they seemed to be very focused on their on their job and very professional so a lot of respects for them oh yeah I interviewed Cody once before um no plans right now but we're gonna rage that in the future yeah yeah what we're like scheduled like right now like six weeks out yeah yeah and we have our like list of potential people that I'd like to reach out to it's pretty long so no promises and promises about doing it you know in a timely manner but we'll get there yeah where I work yeah we're almost to two we we just got booked one for June so we're very forward playing right yeah well I mean like the next six weeks yeah yeah and then after that we'll start wanting some other people up and I got to talk to you off-air about some other interesting folks that will you know I think the interest is stay tuned ya know it actually that brings us to the next episode next Friday and that's what I wanted to ask run about so run next episode we're gonna have Michael Ames on he's gonna be here in studio he's the guy he wrote the book I know you know this but are our viewers he wrote the book American cipher about Bowe Bergdahl how he wandered off the base how he got captured his captivity I'm about halfway through reading the book and so I'm asking this question are you Ron not enough to start a food fight not to instigate anything but really I just want to have a to develop some interesting conversation points as we roll into the next episode next Friday what questions do you think I should ask Michael or what questions do you think Michael should be asking people like you well well uh when I heard the book was coming out and I am I am I got it and I read it hmm and I reached out to Michael and he never interviewed me and he he didn't seem to interview and Michael and I've had this discussion so here this is like round six of the food fight so don't worry it's okay I mean it's all done in a very you know mature manner I mean there's nothing no name-calling or anything like yeah but it's just it's just a disagreement about research methodologies and that sort of thing but the what uh you know it seemed like the people he interviewed were confirming the conclusions that he'd already made and when I spoke to him about what we just talked about in the in the last episode the last broadcast I was on about the wandering off the thing in the in his book he either ignored it or discounted it and and plus he got some he got some basic facts of of the of the agency wrong and yeah so it was oh come on Dave you can have a little more but so yeah it was you know I I I guess part of me was miffed insulted because he hadn't reached out to me to get an alternate theory to the crime he and a couple of the people that he'd he interviewed for sources they they attacked me on Twitter and everything I was like yeah okay I was whatever you know I was like Twitter's like the playground with with chains and knives it's not a big to-do you know whatever and you know I I don't block people I just mute him you know because he like you know talk to the hand I can't I mean but but Michael was Michael was he seemed to want to do better but the book was already out and everything like that I guess my primary objection to the thread throughout the whole book was he made Bowe Bergdahl's somehow the poster child for the entire failed Afghan adventure in to kind of paraphrase his words and I thought that was not a probably could have chose a better somebody better for to use that for an example I know I mean I talked to my son at the 82nd now I realized Bergdahl was at the the airborne unit up in the up at Fort Richardson Alaska but I mean the the you know none of them none of them thought he was a good soldier I mean there's some people that have moved into my son's unit from that unit and they you know they have nothing I mean Bergdahl is the kind of guy that if you had enough time you would have probably chaptered him out of your unit because he was just a poor performer and so it was you know again I just I think he he put too much emphasis on on Bose character and making him out to be some sort of misunderstood you know innocent child of you know of the evil military-industrial complex or something like that you know Michael I'm sure you're listening and you're probably you know getting ready to send me you know you know a bomb or something like but and I'll listen and I but I just I just found it interesting that he his research I thought was was flawed so bottom line play through the book I'll finish it before we have Michael here next week but I mean I think what really comes through at least in what I've read thus far is you know like you said Bowe Bergdahl's somebody who never should have been in the army to begin with and he is you know I I think you'll see when we talked to Michael also Dave he is Bowe Bergdahl's thank God like you knew him when you went through basic training I knew him when I went through basic training there's that one kid where it's like dude what are you doing here how did you even get this bar like you should not be here you're not mentally well yeah you're not in a good place I had to join up before I drafted hey well in his case he wanted to join he was it's an interesting personality it's like that over earnest like I'm gonna be like a samurai warrior kind of guy but has delusions of grandeur sure you know like his mind is like he's in a very alternate universe and when you understand his upbringing I think it begins to explain a little bit of that but it does it does yeah yeah you know and I and I you know I I would hate hate to have been his platoon sergeant or his his his team leader his squad leader because god I wanna you know the kid would have been in the wood line doing burpees from sunup to sundown just just because you know grab drills in the gravel until someone maybe stop these things against the law and I mean one of the challenges I don't know how it is now but for a while it was very difficult to to chapter people out they would be considered leadership challenges and instead of like okay look you're done and they would move them to her goal came in during the surge yeah they were just taking it yeah you know they would move them because like okay well he's a leadership challenge obviously his team leader and his squad leader and are failing him right you know so let's run somewhere else where he can flourish that's what happened him even that was the mentality but was not gonna flourish and in the middle yeah they're up there is there's a good job of the gym to hand out towels dude and go go there what what were people were there what were some of this specific or why were people attacking you so what makes you question the research methods or for other else well gee I'm trying to remember I mean it's like it's like one of those things you know I'm like you know I mean they they didn't they were sort of defending Michael because I was I I mind like I said I I said you know you didn't interview me you interviewed people that were really on the outside pretty you didn't the interview general Scaparrotti you didn't interview you know any of the any of the real players involved you you had a pre you know like it's like a bad investigator I know you're guilty Dave and now I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna find evidence that proves that and you know it's instead of follow the evidence where it leads instead of you know Michaels saying I wanna I want to know what this whole Bo Bergdahl thing he decided I think early on that Bo Bergdahl was innocent you know Miss Right this is you know he was he was he was going to be my my poster boy my symbology through this this tale I'm gonna weave this tail using Bo is my protagonist to you know how how how bad the entire Afghan you know program strategies you know adventure whatever phrase you want to use it I don't know I would agree with you that I don't think Bo it's the lens through which you can view the yeah and you know and so I I did not write a review in Amazon on Michael's book or anything like that I just I let it go I figure out just like whatever you know as long it about poisoning them offer next week like we I mean it's important I I want to get to the the truth of it so and that's why I asked different people and you know try to generate some of the right these different thoughts got it and see what fell out of that yeah well you know but yeah I mean you know I again I'm like I'm multi people removed because when I relate you know the NCIS agents debriefed us and what they discovered and what was in their report and I mean to find the truth you'd have to interview some of his platoon mates and things like I think they've been on enough media you know when when Burt law got released that you know their feelings are pretty well known and so is like it's it's a controversial subject and n-word and you know bows you know hopefully bows made piece of himself he's faded away into the woodwork somewhere so I mean the interesting thing is the I I wonder if his if him and his family and father and mother have actually reconciled I'm not sure they they have it's there's there's been some some debate on that he had he didn't go home or he didn't go back to them or something like that so it's well interesting question asked we gonna do a members-only talk about the corn gall okay okay that sounds like a plan to me yeah all right well nice thank you everyone for joining us watching the show asking questions and participating really appreciate it we've been here you know with Ron for about two and a half hours one two and a half hours please make sure you subscribe to the channel if you haven't already please hit that Bell icon so you get notified give this video a little thumbs up write some comments all that helps bump up the video you too algorithm and get some more eyeballs on it we'd really appreciate it and if you go down in the description you'll find a link to the first interview we did with Ron a few episodes back and some of the other people we mentioned tonight CIA ops officer HK Roy UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who were some of the other once we mentioned in it in this we mentioned die Andy Milburn so diff commander fighting Isis in the Sewell I mean whole bunch of cool interviews in there that kind of reference and factored into this interview we Manuel JG Patton we didn't really mention him but the price of giraffes the open market and all the good things that people have to understand it's like all these inner interviews and all these personalities are all intertwined with one another whether they know it or not right so it's very interesting to look at it you know as a gestalt that's my six million dollar worth nice Gestalt like Columbia education wasn't wasteful that's GI bill paying off right there [Laughter] description is a link to our patreon if you want to support the stream you know we really appreciate it go take a look at that and I don't know that's it Ron do you have anything else that you want to plug while we're here you mentioned you give leadership courses I mean how can people find me out there oh no no I I'm a student I don't I don't give anything gosh oh gosh no I don't I'm just I'm just quite I'm a quiet country retired gentleman now some people can find you on twitter oh it's um was it Ronald J molar you know my name my full name with my middle initial molar yeah so there's a picture of me kneeling in front of the peshwa airbase sign so it's me and Jack Murphy are gr on Twitter find me on Twitter and you'll find Dave through me yeah I mean that's the best we can do yeah also speaking of media we do have reddit reddit we have a subreddit our the team house also down in the description you'll find all sit down it's it's Alex right has done a really good job of setting that up it's not super active if if you guys get active on there we'll get active on there and the suns if there is questions or input or feedback Jack and I both check it out no so we don't want you to think that that we're never there or we don't look at it as we do and that's that's about it thank you very much ready we really appreciate it we appreciate you Ron thank you for joining us again yeah and we will very welcome we'll do the bonus segment now and that will be up on patreon later this week thanks guys can all right ciao

Channel: The Team House

Views: 13,792

Rating: 4.8978724 out of 5

Keywords: Special Operations, Iraq, Afghanistan, CIA, Para-Military

Id: L6dxmwSPYOE

Length: 158min 32sec (9512 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020