Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
There comes a moment when you know you have to
do something new. Jack Carr went from Navy seal commander
to best selling author of The Terminalist. He shares how
to know when it's time to move on and embrace
a new mission. I'll get into it all on this
Arroyo Grande show. Come on, I'm Raimond Arroyo. Welcome to
(00:28):
a Royal Grande. Go subscribe to the show. Now turn
the notifications on. You want to know what's coming. We've
got a great series of interviews coming. And for twenty years,
Jack Carr served the country as a Navy seal. He
led special operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines. He poured
all that experience into action pack thrillers like The Terminalists
(00:49):
The Devil's Hand in his most recent book, Cry Havoc,
a prequel to The Terminalist. He is a New York
Times best selling author. Of course, it's a joy to
have Jack Carr on Arroyo Grande. Jack, thank you for
being here. You just got back from Morocco. What were
you doing there?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
I did do a little filming there for the next
season of the TV show. So for True Believer. In
my second book. So we're going to wrap that up
over the next month and a half or so, and
I don't know exactly when it will come out, but
I think next summer. Based on past events, I would
guess next summer, but nothing officially.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yeah, well, we're going to talk about Dark Wolf, the
new prequel to the Terminal List and which is really fascinating.
We'll get into that in a little bit. But you
first learned about the Navy Seals when you were seven
years old. How did that happen?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
That's right, Well, I'll tell you, but first I have
to I promise my wife that I would say, you
know that we enjoy watching you so much when you're
when you're on TV and when you're on Laurel, you
bring a uh, you bring a logic, humor, and most importantly,
I think a thoughtfulness to everything that you do.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
So Jack, well, thank your what your wife has very
good taste. Jack, I'll like share that.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yeah, I'll take that too.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Thank you so much, very kind to you.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But yeah, I found out about seals early on. I
think serving the military was just in my blood regardless.
But I also had some family military history. My grandfather
was killed off Oknawa in nineteen forty five. He was
a Marine Corse air pilot, which are those planes that
had the goal wings that fold up so they could
fit on aircraft carriers. And back in the late seventies
early eighties, there was a TV show on called Black
(02:22):
Sheep Squadron with Robert Conrad as Pappy Boynton. And Pappy
Boynton was a Marine Corsair pilot served in World War Two,
received the Medal of Honor and it was pow actually.
And so that was that generation, like my father's generation
and mine. That's connection to his father, who he never knew,
was through the medium of popular culture because there wasn't Facebook.
There weren't people you couldn't know who to write a
(02:42):
letter to. You just didn't didn't know. You couldn't connect
with that generation because they came home and just got
back to work. If you lost a father, there was
very hard to find someone who knew him could tell
you a little. We watched war movies and TV shows
and all those things. And I grew up with his wings,
his medals, the pictures of him and his squadron. Maps
they used to give aviators back then, because if you
(03:04):
had a paper map, it would just disintegrate when you
hit the water, so a silk map would just get wet,
but you could still use it. So I had all
those things. I still have them today. I think they
made an impact. Uh. And then I found out about
seals in second grade, so seven years old, found out
about seals once again through the medium of popular culture,
through an old movie called The Frogmen and my mom's librarian.
So I grew up surrounded by books and a love
(03:25):
of reading. As you can you can tell here.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Yeah, I can.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And we went to a local library and did some research.
And back then, if you remember, you could find the
end of the Internet by getting to the end of
that bookshelf. And I did all the search I could
possibly do on seals and special operations in general, and
I knew that was my.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Path on laz What did your dad, dude track?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
He was He was an attorney and retired a bit ago.
So I had that legal side from my dad and
the books from my from my mom, and they both
encouraged reading and read to me every day until I
could read myself. And then by the time I was
in fifth grade, that's about the time I switched from
kind of the adult fiction into the same kind of
books my parents were reading. Certainly by sixth grade, I
was reading those kind of books. And that was around
(04:05):
the time that Hunter for Red October came out. And
then I'm finding a lot of books actually through my mom,
but also through the novelizations that they used to do
in the nineties. So I found Rambo First Blood Part
two novelization written by David Morrell, who created the character
Rambo back in eighteen seventy two, with First Blood, a
book that's never been out of print. And so I
just started reading all those books with protagonists that had
(04:26):
backgrounds in real life that I wanted to have or
in the books that I wanted to have in real life.
One day, so reading all David Morrel and Neilson, to
mill Agy, Quinell, J. C. Pollock, Mark Olden, Louis the Moore,
Stephen Hunter, Tom Clancy, all these guys who became my
professors in the art of storytelling. And I just feel
fortunate that my parents made reading and books just as
natural is sitting down to eat.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Well, I love that your mother read aloud to you.
You know, I recently had Megan coxcurtin here, who's the
children's reviewer. She reviewed children's books for the Wall Street Journal.
She wrote a book called The Enchanted Hour, and it's
about reading aloud and the power of reading aloud. Give
me a sense of what that did, how that shaped
your sense of adventure. There's something also, there's an emotional
(05:09):
connection made I think when parents and family members read
to their children and vice versa.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Certainly I still have memories of that, of going over
to pick a book on our bookshelf, picking it out,
running over to the couch and sitting there with them.
They'd switch off nights of who's going to read to
us and sitting there and I can all the way
back to books like like like Make Way for Ducklings
or like Tony's Hard Work Day or The Giving Tree,
and on all those books. I have these amazing memories
(05:38):
of them reading those to me and then us as
I had my brother and sister growing up, and us
all being there together on the couch, no TV on,
nothing like that. But you're right, there's a connection that
comes through reading that doesn't really come any other way.
And it was certainly foundational to everything that I was
going to do later in life, both in the seal
teams and then now as an author.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
It's amazing. No, the imprint because you're also imprinting tone values,
you know, the the intangibles in between, the imaginative sharing
of that story. She's right, it's an enchanted hour. There's
something enchanted about it and deeply human. I mean, we're
wired to hear stories, I think. And I want to
(06:18):
talk about your six and a half years that you
specialized in communications and intelligence in the Seals. How did
that help you as a writer to shape the material
and prepare you know, right, Look, it's a it's a
daunting task. I've been there too. The start is the
hardest part.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
This is this is true, and then you get some
momentum going and then you're really what you're doing is
solving problems on the page. That's what I find myself
doing range in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was solving problems
aggressively and creatively on the battlefield, and they're doing the
same thing on the pages of a novel. But I
can come back and edit those the next day if
it's not great. So the stakes are a lot lower
obviously when I'm writing writing the books, but very similar.
(06:59):
You looking for gaps in the enemy's defenses. You're looking
to adapt to that enemy faster than they're adapting to
You're looking to capitalize un momentum, but really problem solve.
And so that's what I'm doing in the pages and
back in the seal team. So I was in for
twenty four years, but you're right, those six and a
half years that I was enlisted, I was in communications
guy in my platoon, the comms guy, and then the
intelligence representative for my seal platoon. And I don't know
(07:20):
if those specific things helped as far as when it
comes to running a novel, but overall the twenty year
experience certainly did, and not in the way that most
people would think, and not in the way that I
thought at first either. When I sat down to write
for the first time, I thought, Okay, I'm going to
get the sniper weapon systems right. I'm going to get
some of those types of things right. And if I
don't know something about a helicopter, an aircraft or a satellite,
(07:40):
I'll know someone who knows someone that can put me
in touch and I can figure the technical side out.
But what I didn't realize all the way through my
and my processes remained the same the whole time I
come up with a title and a theme and a
one page executive summary. I asked myself what that executive
summary is worth the next year, year and a half
of my life. If I say yes, I read it
again with trying to put it in some else's eye,
if they were to walk by a Hudson News and
(08:02):
pull it off the shelf there to read that on
the back of a book. Is this interesting enough for
them to spend time in these pages that they're never
going to get back. If the answer is yes, then
I move on to the outline. And so even through
that outline phase, I didn't realize until I sat down
to turn it into the narrative how much of my
personal experience would come in, meaning how the emotions and
(08:22):
feelings behind things I was involved with in Rock and
Afghanistan and other places would find themselves morphed into a
fictional narrative. So character gets ambushed in let's say Los Angeles,
California is part of a completely fictional narrative. I can
remember what it was like to be ambushed in Baghdad
in two thousand and six, and I can take those
feelings and emotions and apply them to a fictional narrative.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
And I think that did that surprise you? Jack? I mean,
you know, you've got all these emotions that Reese goes
through in that interminalist, for instance, behind the Scope as
you call it. Did it surprise you the depth of
those emotional memories and the wave of that while you
(09:04):
were writing the book?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It did?
Speaker 1 (09:06):
It did?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Like I said, I wasn't expecting it. And then but
as soon as I wrote those first couple of sentences,
then I thought, oh, this is going to be a
much more therapeutic writing experience than I initially anticipated at
the outset. So it wasn't something that I thought about
before that those I started typing those first words. But
now it's in every book. I get emotional in every
book as I'm writing, and I think that's a good thing.
(09:28):
Sometimes it's in those types of scenes, but usually it's
in conversations with people, and I get as I get
to know those characters feelings and emotions. Certainly was a
surprise to me as I started, and it's not a
surprise to me now, but it's a part of each
and every.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Book tell me about that transition from being a seal
for twenty years, you're enlisted, you retire in twenty sixteen.
What was the first thing you did? Did you always say,
when I'm finished this adventure, I'm going to turn to
writing books.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
Yep. My earliest days, actually in sixth grade, I told
myself that I would one day write a thriller that
paid tribute to the short story The Most Dangerous Game
by Richard Connell, written in the early nineteen twenties. Yeah,
and they still reach it some places today, i've found out.
But I told myself back then that I do that,
And I wanted the first book to be my third one,
which is called Savage Sun, because that's the book that
(10:19):
pays tribute to that short story and really explores the
dark side of man through the dynamic of hunter and hunted.
But I knew I couldn't start there. I knew I
had to develop these characters and get them to a
place where I could then explore that theme. But I
always knew that after my time in the military, I
would write. And I think if I was a lawyer,
i'd be writing legal thrillers. If I had been drawn
to medicine, I would be writing medical thrillers. If I
(10:40):
was a police officer. I'd be writing some sort of
a crime type thriller, but it happens that I was
in the military, and I write these political thrillers. And
now this next one is more of an espionage type theme.
But what really helped more than anything else was all
that reading that I did. I mean it helped me
in the seal teams. And I'd studied history, I'd studied warfare,
I was studying my enemy. That nonfiction study coupled with
(11:02):
all those guys that I read growing up who essentially
became my professors in the art of storytelling, and then
add into the personal experience and that emotion and that
heart from the things I was involved with down range.
That all came together at the right time and place.
And sent the manuscript to Simon and Schuster a few
months after I got out of the military, and they
wanted to wanted it, and so off we went to
the races.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
How close is Reese to you? How close is James
Reese to you? I mean, aside from your coffee habits
light roast with a little honey, half and half, I
mean homework. You done your homework, you bet I did.
I've read a lot and I mean Ian Fleming did
something similar. He did.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
He's right over here actually, and these there's Fleming collection
right over there, I see them. But everything else in
here is nonfiction. The other room over there is the
all the fiction. But yeah, he did do something similar there.
But my character is definitely faster, stronger, smarter, wittier than
I could ever hope to be. And as an author,
(11:58):
and you know, you know this, it's you know, when
you have it, you're talking to somebody. I don't know
if this happens to you on TV. I'd be curious
if when you get off TV and you go, ah,
it doesn't seem like what happened to you because you're
so good, But it would happen to me, and it
does happen to me. Whenever I do one of those
spots I get off, I'm like, why didn't I say this?
That would have been perfect? But as an author you
can do that. As an author, you can come back
to it, you can think it through, and you can
(12:19):
have the perfect response to something in the pages of
a novel that in real life you're getting yourself on
the side of the head for because you're like, oh,
how did I not think of that to say in
this argument or conversation or negotiation or whatever. Yeah, it's fun.
I absolutely love every part of it. But he's we
had a similar background, both enlisted seals, both snipers, both
(12:39):
transitioned into the officer ranks and became retired or got
out of the military at the same time. We meet
him at a time in the first book where he's
thinking about getting out when he comes back from Afghanistan,
because that'll be the last time that he tactically maneuvers
guys on the battlefield. And when I got back from
the last trip to Iraq, I knew that was the
last time that I'd be doing that, and then I'd
(13:00):
been more of a managerial leadership position going forward. That
wasn't my wasn't my strength. So it's important to know
your strengths and weaknesses. And it was time for me
to get out. So I decided that after that, say
it's time to move on.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Well, while we're while we're on Ian Fleming and you
pointed him out there. I know you went to his
house in Jamaica to GoldenEye. What was that like? I mean,
you sat at the desk where he created all you know,
a number of those novels anyway I did.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, I wrote all those novels down there. I think
it's some editing back in the UK, but it was incredible.
I wanted to go there my whole life, and then
my seventh book. I thought it was very fitting that
my seventh double seventh novel was a tribute to Ian Fleming.
So I thought, this is a great excuse to go
to Golden Eye with my wife, and so we went
down there and spent a week or so down there
where he brought these and it's an amazing place, so relaxing,
(13:50):
and got to see walk the same paths that he walked,
walked down to his little beach right there, stood in
the water, and just you have to think about him
being there in this place that this such creativity and
gave us, gave us bond.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Yeah. Look, there's something about touching those places, you know.
I took my boys many years ago we were in
London and went to Charles Dickens's house and when you
stand in front of that desk where he wrote you know,
Great Expectations and Alliver Twists. I mean, it is an
amazing thing to be, you know, at that place where
(14:24):
so much of this literature that reshaped our culture happened.
I mean, and I think for an author, it does
have its own power.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
It does, it does act. And in twenty in twenty twenty,
right before COVID hit, there was a manager who managed
managers the right word for it, because it was more
of a personal relationship type of thing with Hevyway. And
he passed away I think at age one hundred or so,
maybe even one hundred and one, and later of twenty nineteen,
(14:52):
and all of his memorabilia went up for auction, and
back then I still didn't couldn't afford much. But somebody,
it's behind the stack of books over there, got me
Hemingway's typewriter that he wrote a movable feast on. So
it's right over there in that corner, and it's just
here and I just I can feel it. So it's
(15:12):
so I don't know, it's it's specially humbling to have
that and that somebody would do that for me and
have a piece of history here as I'm writing my
own books now right at this very desk.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, there's something. Look, I wrote a book about a
young boy who his family collected relics, and it's something
I think we can all sympathize with you get there
is something about having those touchstones, and it's not that
they have any magical ability, but they remind you of
that person and the dedication on the work that goes
into what you do. I know, Jack Carr is a
(15:43):
non diploma. That last name is intentional, particularly the sea
in car. Why did you choose that name?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Well, first it was security, and then that kind of
got blown right out of the gate, and then it
went to something that Lee Child to me before I
got published, and he said he was at this party.
No one else was there. I think he was contractually
obligated to be there. And someone called me and said,
you got to run down here to this thing if
you want to meet Lee Child. And I hadn't published yet,
(16:12):
I hadn't even sent it to Simon and Schuster yet.
I had a couple months left to the military. And
he said, yeah, you want to be on the shelf
next to me, next to Tom Clancy, next to Clive Cussler,
next to Mary against Clark. I went to Cromwell and
all these Sea best selling authors, and I said, yes, sir,
And so that was that's how that came about.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh, that's where the car came from. Interesting when do
you write and where?
Speaker 2 (16:38):
So here now? But it's more because we've moved around
a little bit. The first book was really between ten
o'clock at night and three in the morning, because that's
the only time it was quiet in our house. Is
I was still in the in the military, three kids, dog, wife,
chaos constantly. So unfortunately it's kind of remained that way,
just because there are so many other things going on
(17:00):
some screenwriting. Now, I feel like it's more of an
entrepreneurial type venture these days when you step into publishing,
very different than how I expected it to be looking
at it as of a kid in nineteen eighty five
or nineteen ninety five or something like that, where I thought,
you write a book, you send it to New York,
maybe you do one interview and an in the next one,
(17:20):
and maybe you do able tour. But I thought that's it,
and that was appealing to me because I am very
introverted naturally. I think I had to teach myself to
be more extroverted in the seal teams just to be
heard much rather just be in a cabin in the
mountains by myself writing, send it to New York, do
my one interview, and go back to writing. But I
saw we're living at different times. As I crept up
on that first publication date, I realized, Okay, we're carrying
(17:42):
around these devices that are meant to keep us from reading,
essentially meant to keep us from doing much deep thought,
and they're in our pockets every single day. And we're
up against the biggest, most powerful companies in the history
of mankind that are essentially keeping people from reading, and
people are reading less and less. So I thought, Okay,
step into this, and I need to support I have
a middle child who is severe special needs and needs
(18:04):
twenty four cents full time care forever, and I really
want to make sure that he's taken care of. So
I thought, Okay, I'm gonna have to do other things
than right, meaning I'm gonna have to do this marketing
and some advertising, and I'm gonna have to do social media.
I'm gonna have to provide something of value to people
throughout the year on these different channels so that when
that time comes for them to purchase the book, they
feel like they're a part of this journey. But it's
also a way for me to express gratitude because in
(18:26):
the past you could only say thank you to someone
on book tour and shake their hands, look them in
the eye, and that's still so powerful, But then you
didn't have a kny interaction with those readers for the
rest of the year, and now you can. And so
I try to get on every night and if somebody says, hey,
I got the book and I read it and I
loved it, thank you, and I try to say thank
you so much, really appreciate that. Or someone says they
watch the show. So I really try to get back
(18:47):
to everybody because I really feel fortunate that I'm doing
exactly what I wanted to do from my earliest days,
and it's sincerely appreciated.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's a full time job, Jack, it really is. People
don't realize, you know it. The old days you could
do that. You could write your book once a year,
send it in and then you know, do a couple
of interviews and coast for the rest of the time.
That's no longer reality. You mentioned your middle son with
special needs. How has that changed you as a writer,
(19:15):
as a father? Has it changed your perspective? Has it
changed your work at all?
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I'm sure it has but I don't know exactly how
because I don't have anything to compare it to you
because it is my life experience. And he's in high
school now, but he's still in these twenty four seven
full time care So I think it's made us closer
as a family, and that's what's at the beginning. Essentially,
that's all I could really hope for, is that, or
more loving compassionate people, because it is so hard, especially
(19:43):
for my wife. I mean, I get to go off
on these trips and I go book tours and I
go to sets, and I'm filming things and doing interviews,
and she has to deal with that day in and
day out, and also raise two other kids so that
their memories of childhood aren't solely about us taking care
of their brother. So we try to keep that in
mind and certainly extremely tough. But I think it's made
(20:06):
us more loving, compassionate people, and I think some of
that maybe compassion has found its way into the pages
of the book. I have a character who has a
son that has the same thing, a mutation of the
two one gene, and that's Freddy Strain and the show
that we're filming right now, and actually came to cast
that part of the Sun and I said, you know,
I don't think I should be involved in the casting
(20:26):
of that. I'm just too close to it because I
can remove myself when I'm looking at other things, because
I know we're making a TV show and make the
best show we possibly can. Things are going to change
from the book once again, First Blood, the book nineteen
seventy two, very different than the movie First Flood starring
some usis alone in the early eighties, but both fantastic.
So I kind of went into it with that mindset
knowing things were going to change and that being okay,
and I'm approaching it from the perspective of a student
(20:48):
so that I can learn. Casting that particular part, I
thought that I was a little too close to it,
so I didn't participate in that.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
The writing and the overnight, I did that for many
years when I was writing, particularly fiction. I find you
know Bill Bladdie, who was a friend of Happy Memory,
he used to write in the overnight, and he said,
you know, he would start at like midnight and write
till four am. And Bill would say, it's the time
when you dream and that the world is quiet and
(21:19):
you can it's like your body is into the dream rhythm,
if you will, so you're dreaming with your eyes open
as you write. Do you ever get a sense of that.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
I think there's something to that, because even if I
block off time during the day, there's still a little
bit of my brain, a little bit of bandwidth that's
wondering if anyone's trying to get in touch with me,
wondering if the kids are texting, wondering all these different things.
And at night, I know where everyone is, everyone else
is sleeping, and I know that I'm the only one up,
and there's something different about that in my faces knowing.
(21:49):
And I used to have that in the seal teams too,
even on training trips. I wouldn't be able to go
to bed until I knew that all the guys were back.
If we had like a day of eave or something
like that, I just had to make sure I knew
that everybody was back safe before I could go to bed.
And I guess it's similar here. I just know that
everyone and I'm not. I know, I'm not expecting anything
from New York right California because being here in Park City, Utah,
(22:10):
you get California late and you get New York early
and so emails and then in the text coming from
both sides. So it might not be the most ideal
place if you're in this this sort of a business,
when you're dealing with both coasts. Once again, it feels
very fortunate.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
Yeah. No, at two am you get very few emails.
It's a perfect time to do your work.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I've going to change that. I've got to change it
and just block things off and start working at let's
say seven am, and go to noon and just then
start the day. But because the all ninders are getting
a little harder, as I can it's hard Gray and
the beard here, they're getting a little harder than this
time than previous novels.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Rough when you have to work during the day, I mean,
you know, it's it's it's hard to do the over school.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
You're still getting up and getting the kids to school
and doing all the stuff. So it's not like you
can sleep in if you pull it all nine ers.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
Yeah, going, well, I want to go back. Brad Thorpe,
the author gets your book and he does an introduction
to Simon and Schuster. Chris Pratt embraces it and turns
it into this wildly successful series. Has his performance changed
the way you approach the Race character now when you
(23:15):
go to write the ensuing sequels.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Yep, I think so, but not in the way that
one might think. And it would have started with the
four fifth book, because that's when we were filming. I
started writing that when we're filming the first season. But
I think more in terms of flashbacks and memories to
his father. I think that the first season, having those
(23:40):
conflations with his daughter and his wife and not knowing
what was real and what wasn't, being that unreliable narrator.
I think that. So it wasn't Chris Pratt specifically, because
I wanted Chris to play the role as soon as
I started writing it as a child in the eighties.
I wrote my first sentence and I thought, who should
play this character? And I thought, oh, you know what,
I want someone who hasn't done this before. And I
had no connection to Hollywood or publishing, but I thought,
(24:03):
you know, Chris Pratty. I just saw him. He was
in Parks and rec and so I'm a little little
old jolly fat, you know, kind of funny and all
that hilarious. But then I saw him in Zero Dark
thirty and that's right about the time I said the
first book, and I thought, I saw this change. I
saw him change physically, I saw a different performance, and
I thought, this is a guy who needs this for
his career. He needs this book for his career. And
(24:26):
of course after I started writing course, then we have
we have gardens, the galaxy and Jarassic and a list,
stardom and all the rest of it. So he took off.
But before he did, and I thought of Tom Hanks
in the eighties doing all comedies and then taking a
risk of Philadelphia in the early nineties and then really
being do whatever he wanted. And I thought, who's that
actor for this generation? I thought, that's Chris Pratt.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Wow. Yeah, because I guess Ian Fleming had the same
experience with Sean Connor in the Later Adventures of Bond.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
You didn't like him at first, and then he actually
ended up writing into the book a Scottish background. Future
books definitely his portrayal in the novels, but mine would
be more the flashbacks and the conflations and the memories
of his father and getting that wisdom and remembering it
and allowing that wisdom to now solve problems in present time,
and he is contempt So so that's how it's affected me,
(25:16):
I think more than anything else.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Okay, I want you to widen the aperture for a moment,
because you know, on this podcast I often look for
lessons that people can take away from your journey. What's
the best advice for a person who has devoted themselves
like you did, to a mission for a long time
and now they're feeling this this tug, maybe an internal
(25:40):
mandate to shift to another mission. How do you know
it's time to leave?
Speaker 2 (25:46):
You know, he's gott to listen to that voice. There's
a reason that we're all here today. It's because our
ancestors listened to that little voice inside them. Also, they
were good at the fighting and the hunting, and that
allowed us to be here today. But they listened to
that little voice inside. They listened to that sixth sense.
I listened to the calling to test myself in the
military and then we into publishing. That was a call
I listened to it. I think there's something different about
(26:08):
a profession versus a career. We call it the career
the profession of arms, not the career of arms. For
a reason, I look at writing profession as well, and
as I was getting to and people are going to
all have transitions in life, whether it's a job, a divorce,
the death of a loved one, whatever it might be.
And I knew mine was coming up in the military,
so I got to think about it a little bit
ahead of time. And I knew my passion was writing.
(26:30):
I knew my mission was taking care of my family,
specifically our middle child with the special needs. How do
I combine those two to give me purpose? So if
I can articulate my passion and my passion and my mission,
that can combine give me purpose moving forward. And that's
going to be different for everyone, also being able to
articulate what is important to you going forward. So even
(26:52):
though I knew I wanted to write, I had a
couple you know, I had to have a backup plan.
But I also knew it was important to me, which
was time, being able to control my time because someone
else had done that for the previous twenty years, and
then financial freedom and that ties into our son as well.
So someone offered me an amazing job with crazy some
sort of compensation package. But I didn't control my schedule instant, No,
I don't have to waste any more time thinking about that.
(27:13):
I don't have to sit down and talk to my
wife and say, oh, this thing is in this other city.
Should we go out there? Should we look at schools?
How's it? No, I don't have to do that at all.
It's an instant no. And so being able to articulate that,
I think saves time and efficiencies and allows you to
focus your ergy that they need to be And mine
was on the book. And then the other thing I
tell people is never miss an opportunity to make somebody's day.
(27:34):
And I tell that to my kids because the reason
that we're here today actually is that a friend was
getting out of the seal teams. And I didn't know
him very well back then. Now we're your friends. And
I said, he was getting out. He's a great operator,
and I asked him to come to my office. We
sat down, I talked to him about getting out of
the military, introduced him to some people in the private sector,
and then I followed up with him. And then five
(27:54):
years later, in the fall of twenty seventeen, he calls
and asks if I remember him, and of course I do,
and he said, I always wanted to thank you what
you did for me in the military. And I couldn't
even remember that, and he said, you're the only person
that did that for me. I sincerely appreciate it. Always
wanted to thank you. And I said, no problem. How's
it going, He says, going great? But I heard you
wrote a book and I said, yeah, I have a book.
It's coming out in a few months. Here, I have
a galley copy I can send you. I learned what
(28:16):
a galley was like five minutes before that, and I'd
liked that, but I'd like to give it to a
friend of mine. And I said who's that and he
said Chris Pratt And I said, oh, it's very convenient
for me, and so send it to my friend Jared Shaw,
who is now a producer, executive producer, writer, actor, and
technical advisor on the TV show he plays Boozer, and
(28:38):
gave it Chris, and Chris called the next week and
won adoption it, so off we went to the races.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
Incredible. Yeah, and you know that the military training, that
discipline of saying these are the non negotiables in my life.
This is the clearly articulated mission that we're on. Just
this that is something most people do don't frankly have
the discipline for in their life.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, I think it's because of that calling. You got
to listen because too many people are going to tell
you you can't do something. And it doesn't even have
to be them telling you on social media, telling you
to your face. It can be a look. It can
be a look from a parent when a kid says
they want to be an astronaut at age seven and
you get this look like you grow out of it
type of a thing. Those things can really impact a
kid along the way. But I just never paid attention
(29:24):
to any of that, and I used it as fuel.
So I know how hard it is to go to buds.
People told me time and time again how difficult it
is to make it through seal training. And then people
told me how hard it is to get published. Do
I know how hard it is to get published? And
I kind of shrugging, like somebody did it? And so
I have this thing where I say, I, you know,
never tell me the odds. Never rather, never pay attention
(29:44):
to the odds.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Somebody, you know, I came across something, Jack, when you
made that transition from military life to your writing life,
you chose a logo that which is on your hat
the across access there. What's the significance of that logo?
I saw it at the UFC fight the other day
on the Williams.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It was crazy to see that. We were out there
with Taylor Kitch and Lamonica Garrett, both amazing guys were
sitting there at the front row. To see the cross
Tomawks in the UFC ring was wild. But yeah, so
Tomahawks have a history in the Marshall culture. I guess
you could say to have a totem of sorts have
(30:25):
been once again being a child of the eighties and
having this connection to Stevester Stallone's character Rambo, which and
his knife, which became a big thing in the eighties.
Knife and the bow and the arrows and all that stuff.
But the knife was the thing in the eighties that
really stuck with that character. And it's not in the book,
It's not in Morell's novel. It was something that Stallone
brought in because he knew the importance of having some
(30:46):
sort of some totem, and so I thought, well, I
need something like that for my character. And I can't
just do another knife because that's been done time and
time again. And no one's done it as good as
well as Sevester Stallone did it with Rambo. And I thought, tomahawks.
I've always had a thing for tomahawk since I was
a kid, from throwing them, and I just love that,
you know, that First Nation type history stuff, and I
just I just had this connection. And guys did carry
(31:08):
them down range. Also there are are they were used
down range. And Daniel Winkler in Boone, North Carolina, he
did all the knives and the hatchets for Last of
the Mohicans the movie, and I got to know him
over the years. And so when I got out of
the military, when I had my retirement ceremony, I gave
my kids four gifts, and I gave them a Bible
(31:31):
and a not old nautical compass, an anti vintage nautical compass,
and I said, here these are things to These two
things are to guide you. Then I gave leather bound
edition of the Constitution of Bill of Rights and I said,
here's our natural rights. And then I gave them to
the tomahawk, and I said, and here's the means to
defend them. So I was in my office and I
had the kids because I couldn't want to leave them
(31:52):
in their rooms with them. They're so very young at
the time. So I had three tomahawks there, and I
was thinking about this logo and this totem for my character.
I want in my character to be a student of
history and of warfare, and so I wanted to give
him this tomahawk and has this connection to the seal teams.
A lot of guys carried Winkler hawks down range and
I was looking at them, and I put him on
the floor and I crossed them and then I took
a picture of it, and I sent it to Daniel Winkler,
(32:13):
and I said, do you mind if I use this
as my logo as I as I get out of
the military, And he said it would be an honor.
And we're dear friends to this day. And I think
I've sold a few for him. So that's that's fantastic,
and and so that's how the that's how the logo
came about.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
And really I want to point out here because I
just watched these episodes of Dark Wolf last night. James
Reese in the opening episode of this show, which is
a prequel, not in the novels, I want to talk
about that in a minute, he gifts the other guys
in the Brotherhood a nautical compass from Reese's father books.
(32:49):
I'm seeing the crossover here.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I have that. I think I have one of those
compasses right here. Oh yeah, right here, right right there.
So that's a welcome compass from from the Nam. We
usually wan on a Saiko watch. And I talk about
how Tom Reeves, the dad of James Rees in my
novel that comes out in October, set in nineteen sixty
eight Vietnam, how he I didn't say lose is, but
(33:13):
how he moves from the Seiko watch to the Rolex submariner,
which actually plays a role in future novels there. But yeah,
there's that scene around the campfire, and I think every
special operator, probably anybody that's ever sat around a campfire
telling stories, we'll be able to. And I use fire
very deliberately in my novels as well. Whether people know
it or not, it's in there because we have such
a connection to it, and there's such a connection to storytelling,
(33:35):
because of course we're told around the fire passing on
lessons from world warfare in the hunt really so that
those lessons would stay alive and the tribe could survive
and move forward. So sitting around a campfire and telling
those stories and James Rees gifting that and gifting one
of my favorite books, Once an Eagle by Anton Meyer,
which is on the shelf well somewhere all right over, Yes,
(33:56):
it's right over there.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
I know. That's a big inspiration. And was it the center?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
It is? There's a great in the lesson of that book. Really,
I mean, it's historical fiction and follows you guys from
before World War One up to Vietnam. It's fantastic if
anyone hasn't read it. But really the lesson of that
book is to see to your character and your reputation
will take care of itself. That's real, and it's such
a valuable lesson, especially today for kids with all these
outside influences coming in through the devices in their pockets.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Yeah, I know, it's really dangerous. The Terminalist Darkwolf just
premiered on Prime. As I mentioned, explain to people because
it's not based on a novel, it's about Ben Edwards background,
that's Taylor Kitch's character. How involved were you on this?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Yeah, very involved in all of it. And usually in
Hollywood they want the author out of there as soon
as they can say, you ruined my vision. But Chris
wanted to me involved. Chris Pratt wanted to be involved,
and Antoine Fuqua, the director, wanted me involved, and we've
all got to be dear friends over all these years.
So for this one, we got to the premiere of
The Terminal List back in the summer of twenty twenty,
(35:00):
and the numbers came in and they'll never tell us
the exact numbers. Amazon won't, but they were off the charts.
They wanted more immediately, but Chris Pratts booked out for
three years. I mean, he's a you know, an A
List star. So he called and said, hey, what do
you think And I was already thinking about spinoffs. I
had a different one than I was actually writing up
at the time. But he calls and says, what do
you think about doing a spinoff on the Ben Edwards
character and explore how he gets to do the thing,
(35:24):
gets to a place where he can do the things
that he does in The Terminal List. And I thought, Chris,
that's a brilliant idea. Let's do that one. And he
called Taylor and Taylor was on board, and so immediately
we got into putting the story together and then pitching
it to Amazon and they wanted it, so that was
in by the end of October of twenty twenty two,
and then we so pretty fast and then we'll move
(35:47):
in to the twenty twenty three and then we have
a little slow down with a writer's strike that lasted
about seven months and an access strike on top of that,
and then we could still do some other things as
long as we weren't writings. Lots of writers weren't involved,
and so we had it. We're all set to film
in the Middle East, and then Israel happens on October seventh,
and we have to scramble and find a new place
(36:07):
to film because there are some security concerns, and so
we put us behind by a good solid year, the
writer's strike, actor strike, and then the war in Israel.
So it's so so we find ourselves now with the
prequel that just just dropped last night, first two nights ago,
the first three episodes, and it's already doing amazing. Feedback
(36:27):
is incredible, and hopefully we'll get another season or two
out of it. I see a three season arc there,
but we'll see what. We'll have to wait for the
numbers to come in and maybe we won't get anything,
but of it, who knows. Try to remain hopeful, but
also you know that this might be the last swing.
You never you never know.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
I think you're going to get. I think you'll get
a few more seasons. It was really compelling. Look, I
had come back from a long trip and I started watching.
I said, oh, I'm just going to watch a half hour.
I ended up watching two of the episodes. So it's
it's really compelling.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Thank you, And I think they just get better as
they go along. Also, and it moves from this military
thriller into this espionage thriller up in Europe, so change
in tone from the first season, and it's and Taylor
does such a good job. All the supporting cast does
an amazing job. And we really got to be like
a family over the last few years. It's and I
hear from the other actors and from people on set
all the time how that doesn't usually happen. And it's
(37:16):
a really special thing to work together. And people come
up to me on set and from here and makeup
and say, I've been involved in hundreds of these things,
and I've I've never felt this way on a set before.
Speaker 1 (37:25):
I didn't even know Pratt was going to be in it.
I thought he was just, you know, gonna maybe make
a cameo and disappear. He's there through a chunk of it.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
He's that first few episodes you saw, and then he
might be back for another one and won't spoil it.
But people can keep it to keep their eye out
and then and they might see somebody that looks like
me in one of the episodes. If they they don't blink,
If they don't.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
Blink, okay, we'll keep an eagle eye out for that.
I'll get my scouts watching. The new book, Cry Havoc
is coming out in October. It's already getting ready for reviews. Now,
this is another prequel. This is the story of James
Reese's father in Vietnam. Ryan Stick wrote the other day
after reading the book. It's a scorching, immersive thriller that
(38:06):
proves yet again nobody writes with more intensity, authenticity, or
raw emotion than Jack Carr and firmly cements him as
not only the hottest author in the genre today, but
a worthy heir to Tom Clancy's thrown was that an aspiration?
Speaker 2 (38:23):
You know, I just wanted to well, yes, because I
didn't read anybody obviously wasn't published because they're not published
growing up. And so what I saw on the top
of all those books was number one New York Times bestseller.
Whether that was a John Grisham or a Tomcy or
whoever else, that's what I saw. So that's why I
thought one did. When you are ten years old, eleven
years old, twelve years old, you just think, Okay, I'm
gonna write these books, and that's what I'll do, and
(38:45):
then they'll get adapted to film or television, and I'll
write more and we'll adapt those. And so that's just
what I thought it would be. It's not like I
targeted specifically. It's certainly there are lessons that I took
from them, like branching off into the nonfiction, which Tom
Plants he did in the early nineties. Get a there
it is right there.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Look at that Oh my goodness, which I'm halfway through
this is this is about Beirut, the Beayroot bombing of
the barracks, which is you know, kind of terrifying, and
I mean it reads like a thriller, but it's nonfiction.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Yeah, So I saw Tom Flancy did that so in
my head even before in the nineties, I thought, well,
one day I'll do that. I will also when I'm
writing thrillers, and at some point it will be naturally
the natural time to branch off and explore nonfiction. I
explore so many different events from history in the pages
of my thrillers as it is, And so I did
take lessons from from Tom Flancy certainly, and and other
(39:39):
authors as well. But then I also thought, Okay, this
isn't the nineties, this is this is a new century,
a new dawn, and there's some other things I have
to do as well. But I can take some of
those lessons and then apply them to a century type
of a model.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
And Jack, you are a student of history, and I
want your thoughts on some contemporary events. Talk to me
about the Trump administration making the decision to bomb Iran
in the way they did with those tactical strikes. There
were some saying at the time this was going to spark,
you know, a world war, it would cause mayhem in
(40:13):
the region. Your perspective on what happened there, man doesn't seem.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
To have done that. And of course we'll I like
to look back on things after they've had a little
time to breathe. I don't jump on and comment on
things as they're happening or right after they happened. I
like to as you said, I like to think of
myself as a student and a student of history, so
I like to look back on them. They've had a
little time. But certainly we were never going to let
Iran get a nuclear weapon, and that doesn't matter who
(40:38):
was in office. Some way, they were not going to
be able to do that, whether it's an upstream type disruption,
which is actually something that the Dark Wolf explores, or
if it's something or more kinetic and immediate, like our
strikes were around over the summer. So, but any administration
I think would have taken some sort of action, and
(40:58):
we've done in the past, whether it's virus or an
upstream disruption, and now kinetically, these rallies have hit kinetically.
Obviously over the years, they've been doing a lot of
our work for us, taking out some of the scientists
and those involved in building up that program. So it's
really a part of our foreign policy.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah. Your thoughts on the administration labeling those cartels in
Mexico as terrorist organizations? What happens now. I mean, give
me your perspective as a former seal.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Yeah, I don't know, but it's something we thought a
lot about before September eleventh, because we were all we
all get into the seal teams and we get issued
our beepers, and all of a sudden they'd go off,
and we'd go off and do the Save the Princess
op and then come back and time for beers. And
that was kind of what we thought. And that was
not how it was in the nineties. It was not
at all. You were just training in your job as
a seal or your job in the military is to
(41:48):
be prepared for war, prepared to go to war. So
that's what we did. So we did think a lot
about some contingency type things, like, hey, why why don't
they use us to do that? To disrupt the flow
of narcotics in the United States, Okay, it just seems
to be fairly free flowing. The DEDA has a lot
on there, a lot on their plate there, Post Guard
has a lot on their plate. There. We could supplement somehow,
(42:10):
and then of course we never really could. But some
guys were involved in some little things here and there.
I think but I never was, and so we'll see.
I mean, it'll be very interesting to see how it
plays out. And of course, you never want to make
a situation worse, and you want to keep those tabs
on things, just like a doctor. You never want to
make it worse. And so we're going to keep those
tabs on it and see what happens. But I certainly
(42:31):
think that we could be quite effective in taking out
some of these cartels with the lessons, hopefully the lesson
We're not very good in this country, I guess, as
people in taking the lessons of the plat past and
applying them going forward as wisdom. And we had twenty
years in Afghanistan, we never even did it there, had
a little less time than that in Iraq and then
(42:52):
had to go back and all of that. But we're
not really taking those lessons and applying that. But we
can take some of those lessons, apply them to this
and hope change quickly if if the course needs to
be corrected.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah. Well, you've seen these stories of these Chinese cells
here in the United States at colleges. There was that
police station. How widespread do you think this is? Active
Chinese cells here in the United States, or even Islamic
cells from from the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, well, I think it would be fairly robust, meaning
we have essentially an open society, which those those societies don't,
but they can look at us, and what you want
would do is exploit weaknesses of your enemy. So weakness, Well,
maybe it's that we are such an open society, such
a giving society, such an understanding society, and and so
(43:43):
I would say that we are fairly infiltrated, particularly by
by the Chinese, at all sorts of different levels, public
and private. And there's a lot of overlap now these days,
of course when it comes to technology, there that there
is in front as well. I mean, I would be
shocked if we haven't been exploited and there weren't cells
in the United States, just because that's that's what I
(44:04):
would do.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Wow, what's the greatest threat you think we face as
a country? And and what do you make of this
church shooter situation in Minnesota?
Speaker 2 (44:13):
So heartbreaking just that that, I mean I can hardly
even just look at it, which is why I get
asked to come on in comment about those things, and
I always say just no because it's just so hurtful,
just personally, you know, it's just so heartbreaking. But sorry
was the other question?
Speaker 1 (44:31):
The other Quesse, Well, I'm with you, it's it's such
a depressing thing. I mean, we were talking for a
minute before we came on. When you get you know,
because of the nature of what I do, you get
dragged into this, and because it was a Catholic church,
you know, you know, it affects the other half of
my life. You know, the show I have at e
WTN and you look at this and you wonder what
(44:51):
what is motivating this? But more importantly the human tragedy
here for these families and these babies you know who
were who were taking, you know, their lives take and
it's such an early age. But the other question was
what's the greatest threat we face as a country in
your estimation?
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I think it comes from within.
And depending on who you asked that question, if they're
an expert in Iran, they're going to say I Ran.
If they're an expert on China, they're going to say
it's China. That's sort of. They're an expert in Russia,
they're going to say it's Rusia type of a thing.
So kind of the boogeyman in the closet is the
one that you're the expert in, that you're the matter
expert on. So but really I think it comes from
(45:27):
from within. It's it's us. We're our own worst enemy.
In many cases, Unfortunately, because we don't take those lessons
of the past, we are consuming so much media that's
shoved down our throats. Media is also controlling our thoughts
and actions. So a lot of people don't even realize
that this device in their pocket is doing that. It's
not just advertising, it's controlling your thoughts and actions. So
I think recognizing that is the is the first step,
(45:51):
and then making decisions based in that voting in particular,
but based on history and based on study and based
on deep thought rather than some sort of an influencer
or even worse, some tech company algorithm now even worse,
a tech company algorithm AI that is is now morphing
your thoughts and behaviors.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And I think that's prob Well, that's what's so scared.
You answered exactly what I thought you were going to say,
it was a foreign threat. You answered exactly what I
would have, which is, we are our own worst enemy.
We are our own greatest threat because of this thing
and that, you know, people say, well, I've been hearing this,
and i've been seeing that, and I've been seeing that,
and I want to tell them, how slow your role.
(46:34):
The algorithm's just spitting back more of what you're already consuming.
It's tailoring the thread to you. You don't realize it,
but that's what's happening. So you're right. The repetition of
these thoughts with no interruption is so dangerous, and it's
reading our thoughts in some ways.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Oh, it certainly is. It's listening right now. I'm sure
I'm going to get something out of this conversation is
going to pop up on this phone right after we're off,
But it's it's it's an interesting time to be alive.
If I could go back to nineteen eighty, I think,
and live it over nineteen eighty and nineteen ninety, I think.
I think I do it in a heartbeat it was,
and take your kids with you. Yeah, you know, just
(47:12):
let's just go live back there. That'd be fantastic. My
time machine now though, or the books that I read
back then, the movies that I watched back then. I
actually want to get a Dolore and park it in
some sort of a little theater thing that I build,
and then I can watch things on rca video disc
of VHS data and just watch it through the windshields,
sitting in the Delore. And that's my that's my.
Speaker 1 (47:31):
Back Your dream gives out. My son is a huge
Back to the Future fan, so I think he'd share
that dream with you. He wants to come over, and well.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
That's fantastic. There was a great novelization of it. I
read it in the summer of nineteen eighty five and
saw the movieization.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
It was fantastic, unbelievable. Okay, it's time for our Royal
Grande questionnaire. I asked all of my guests a series
of these questions. Okay, these are just quick, rapid response.
You don't have to think deeply about it, and you're
a deep thinker, so I don't want to drag you
into that. Okay, who's the person you most admire?
Speaker 2 (48:01):
Jack, Oh, my goodness, you know it's my parents. But
then also my grandfather, who I said I never knew
and knew his photographs, so he's kind of my idealized hero,
I guess you would say, because I never knew him,
and I never knew him to have any faults, and
I never knew him didn't have to grow old and
all those things. So he's the idealized version of a hero.
Speaker 1 (48:22):
To me, who's the person you're most despised?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Ooh geez, that is a great question, you know. It's
it's in general it is rude people. I think, ah, yeah,
more than that, mean rude people. And unfortunately these devices
once again in the comment section, they yeah, they don't
lend themselves to discourse.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
Civility stability is not high on me on the AI change.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
It's not the opposite, it's true. So yeah, rude people.
I would say, in.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
General, okay, Jack, what is your best feature and your worst?
Speaker 2 (48:57):
Oh geez, best feature? Or maybe it's they might be
the same. It might be just being so focused on
something when it comes to the books or a project
or whatever, that that becomes all consuming. I think because
I want my readers. I don't want to waste their time,
(49:19):
and I don't want to be like that device and
the doom scroll. I want someone if they're spending time
with me, if they're trusting me at that time, they're
never going to get back. Then I want to honor that,
and I take that very seriously. So I think that's
probably a good trait, but also a bad one at
the same time, because there's other things happening in life
and family and juggling all that and all the rest
of it, so that that drive might be both.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
Yeah, you're focus, You're so intensely focused. But it's necessary
to get these works out. It's part of the imaginative occupancy.
You know, your mind can only hold so much. I
totally get what do you fear? Jack?
Speaker 2 (49:55):
Ooh do I fear? This is? These are deeper questions
than I was anticipating.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Well, this is Royal Grande Way, this is how we roll.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
It's good. I love it. I love to talk to you.
It's fantastic, you know. I mean, I'm fearful. Fearful for
my kids. That's the first thing that pops to mind.
It's about them, and I just worry about them. Like
we just talked about the school shooting. Whether it's physical,
whether it's not physical, it's emotional, it's being controlled by
other people through those devices or having that impact them
(50:23):
or relationships or whatever it might be going forward. It's
just a different time and I'm glad I'm not growing
up in that time. Yeah, so most fearful for Yeah,
those my kids and then the future generation as well.
I try to remain hopeful, especially I sit down with
my wife at the end of the day and have
that glass of wine and talk about things in the future,
in the day and everything. We try to remain hopeful.
But yeah, it's very difficult.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
Well, you have to arm them for the reality around them,
and it is in many ways. There's a veneer I
think in some ways that we live in and there
are dark realities for them as well that you have
to prepare them for. And it's a lot darker than
when we were growing up. It just is. Uh, the
greatest virtue is what Jack.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
Carr, Oh, greatest virtue I know. I think it's that,
uh you know, knowing it's it's that character. It's I
don't know if that's an actual virtue or not, but
we talked about character earlier and really that's that's foundational
to everything else that you're that you're gonna do. So
a lot of things that are involved in that, but
(51:23):
but yeah, that that character and that's gonna that's gonna
see you through or it's gonna you know, lead you lead,
you astray, So yeah, to it, tend to it heart
and that soul.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
What is your greatest regret?
Speaker 2 (51:35):
Oh, that is also a good question, And I think
I thought through this before. I don't like tend to
dwell on regrets. Yeah, because you can go back and
I can pick out a nitpick a thousand different things.
Of course all could so I couldn't say, oh, I
have no regrets. Of course I'm gonna have a million
regrets of varying degrees. I can go back to that
first book and read a sentence and go, oh, I
could have made that so bad character.
Speaker 1 (51:54):
And that's not a greatest regret. This is the greatest
regret the.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Ones that I'm thinking of, because it's you know, the
the career path, trajectory, profession. So it is what I
think about, you know, I do know, I do know
what it is. And I would have spent more time
with my grandmother. I wish I could spend has spent
more time with her. I thought that she was going
to live forever, and she was so important to me
growing up. Both parents worked, and so I spent so
(52:19):
much time with her, got to see so many great
movies back in the eighties with her see Indiana Jones's
Lost Her. And I was way too too young seeing
those faces melt when I was like eight or something
and maybe seven, yeah, seven, sol six, I don't know.
I was too young, But going to all those movies
with her close Enclounters are the Third Kind and war
games and all that. So we used to plaid runner
(52:41):
we saw. So I have such wonderful memories being with
her watching the James Bond movies on HBO because she
had HBO we didn't. Uh, so we got to got
to do that. And I just thought, as a child
of the depression, uh and then go work, living through
a world war and then everything else afterward, that she
was just gonna live forever, and uh she she didn't.
So I wish I could spend one more dinner, one
(53:03):
more dinner with her. And I think I did it.
I mean I did it. I think I did a
pretty good job. But I just do look back on
that as a regret as I wish I could have.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
But what a gift, you know, grandparents, having great grandparents.
I grew up both my grandparents in my life, and
then my great grandmother lived with us so the impact
of that, all of that, you know, cultural wisdom that
they kind of in part without knowing it. You know,
she introduced me to that but in Costello and you know,
oh my gosh, Jack Benny Oh, I would have never
known those people if it weren't for my great grandmother
(53:32):
who loved them and kind of introduced me to it
and knew them, you know, knew them a little bit.
So it's kind of fascinating. What do you know that
other people don't know?
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Jack, Oh, I don't know. I look at myself as
a student, so I never thought of it in that way.
I've never even considered that much. What do I know
that most people don't. It's it's more than I just
try to treat people with respect and be kind and
be respectful, but also know when it's you have to
know when it's time to not the old Rick Swayzy
uh uh from Roadhouse, you know, be nice until it's
(54:02):
time to not be nice. You know, there's there's some
wisdom there. But yeah, for the for for the most part,
just you know, it's not something that I know that
most people don't, but it's just something that seems very
very simple. Just treat others kind lend that helping hand,
be a good citizen, be a good father, be a
good husband, like those basics. Like if we can do
(54:22):
the basics right, that really there's nothing you can't do.
Speaker 1 (54:25):
What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
Speaker 2 (54:28):
Mm hmm, Well the one that I that I that
I mentioned a minute ago. But it's my advice.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
So going back, that's not that's not allowed.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Never ye never missed opportunity to make somebody's day. When
it comes to to to U to writing, there's there's
a couple though that come to my food specifically, and
and one of them is the only difference between a
published author and an unpublished author is that the published
author never quit. And from somebody in the seventies. I
think it comes from a woman author, uh, in the
seventies sometime, but it's been repeated. It's been often repeated.
(54:59):
But that's a that's a good one. And also, since
we're on writing, to write it for yourself, people today
I think are they see the end result finished the
novel or whatever they're working on. So whether it's a
novel or just a project, it's making sure that project
that product. In this case it's a book, is the
best it can possibly be? Before any bandwidth is wasted
on how do I find an agent? How do I
(55:19):
find a publisher? Do I need a website? Do I
need a social media presence? Do I have to have
a podcast? Before you've done any of that, make the
book as good as you can possibly make it, and
then start thinking about those other things.
Speaker 1 (55:29):
What is your favorite book and the last one you read?
Speaker 2 (55:32):
Ah, well, the one on the shelf right here, Once
an Eagle, But I have five five favorites. Once an
Eagle by Anton Meyer, The Winds of War, Warned, Remembrance
by Herman Woke, and then The Fountain Head and Atlas
Shrugged by Iron Rand. Like those five right there would
be my top fives. And the last one I just read.
I'm working my way through Jean Lacay so in order
(55:55):
now because I missed you along the way. Obviously I
was too young for some of them, and so I've
read the kind of the standouts of each decade, but
I haven't met them in order from the beginning. So
I just finished The Spy that Came Here from the Cold,
and I just read I think it's in the other
room now, But The Widow, which is coming out by
John Grisham, comes out next month.
Speaker 1 (56:12):
I got a roll I am.
Speaker 2 (56:14):
I'm almost done with that so I about two or
three chapters which i'll finish tonight in that book, and
it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (56:20):
Wow. Okay, final question, what happens when this is.
Speaker 2 (56:24):
Over, when this podcast is over?
Speaker 1 (56:28):
I leave that up to you to interpret.
Speaker 2 (56:31):
Yeah, I mean so many levels of that one, right,
and I think we just don't know. That's that's what
faith is all about, is uh. I mean, because you
have to trust. We don't really know, but you do
know if you have faith. So I think that's the
I mean, there's that you know people around you will
well obviously your your friends and loved ones and family
will miss you, miss you, but they'll go, they'll they'll
(56:51):
they'll move on, hopefully better for having known you from
the lessons that you've But it's that that partially above faith.
Speaker 1 (56:59):
We will leave it there, Jack Carr, I can't thank
you enough for being here. And Jack's podcast Danger Close
is available everywhere and Cry Havoc is out in October. Jack,
thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Thank you so much, really appreciate all you do and
I'm sure I'll be seeing you on TV tonight or
very soon.
Speaker 1 (57:17):
You bet, Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 2 (57:19):
Take care.
Speaker 1 (57:20):
Okay, here's the hole. I love that Jack. Not only
is he obviously a disciplined writer and one who knows
how to spin a yarn and the books are incredible,
but I love that idea that in a moment of transition,
you have to clearly define not only your goal but
your mission, what your mission is and what's not negotiable
(57:42):
in that transition, and then you find your purpose. That
is such a great I think tactic when you're negotiating
a big transition, and those are those can be traumatic moments.
So Jack Carr, thanks for the advice, and we will
continue to watch for more stories. I hope you'll come
back to a Royal Grande soon. Why live a dry,
(58:02):
constricted life when if you fill it with good things,
it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. Marimat Arroyo.
Make sure you subscribe like this episode. Thank you for
diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo Grande
is produced in partnership with iHeart Podcasts, Divine Providence Studios,
and is available on the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you get
(58:25):
your podcasts,