May 15, 2025 • 60 mins
This week, Leslie talks to Robert D'Amico, a former Marine and FBI agent who has seen some crazy things. Like brains. And chickens eating them. Leslie tries to get Rob to tell her government secrets, but will she get him to take a compliment? Find out this week on Intentionally Disturbing.
Hosted by Leslie Dobson. Produced and edited by Liam Billingham. Mixed by Aaron Dalton. Executive producers are Paul Anderson and Scott McCarthy for Workhouse Media. The views expressed in this podcast episode are solely those of the guest speaker and do not reflect the views of the host or the production company.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Okay, you're here. Welcome back to Intentionally Disturbing. I'm doctor Leslie,
and today I had the honor of interviewing Rob Dimiico,
otherwise known as Fucking Dimico. Rob worked for the FBI.
Rob was in the military. Rob has seen decapitated people
and brains coming out and then chickens eat the brains.
(00:32):
I can't even tell you these stories. They're incredible, and
yet he remains humble and completely unable to take a
compliment from me. I look forward to you hearing this episode,
possibly seeing it if you're on YouTube, and just getting
the inside scoop on what our military guys are really doing,
what they're like, and how incredible a lot of them are,
(00:55):
especially fucking Dimico. All right, I was really excited to
have you on because of your work history, but also
your humor and just your view on life after all
(01:16):
of the work and shenanigans that you've been in. So
I want to start with a question. Oh go ahead,
Oh okay, Now you know I have tons of botox.
I want to challenge you to tell me something disturbing
you've experienced that would actually make my face move.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So I have to compete against botox. That could be
tough disturbing. There's so many. There's things that are disturbing
in general that most people find disturbing, and then there's
things that affect me differently, because, as you probably know,
(02:00):
when you start seeing a bunch of it, you have
an ability to deal with it, you know, if you
put it in a box or if you do like
I find dark Humor to be one of the more relevant,
you know, ones that helps me. I would say one
of the most disturbing was and we talked about it.
(02:22):
I talked about it on the Surviving and the Survivor
podcast about the pirate case where we intercepted some pirates,
nineteen of them out in the middle of the ocean.
I was with the seals trying to rescue four Americans
and it didn't work. They end up killing them, and
then the seals boarded the sailboat and then they shot
(02:44):
to the pirates, and then we actually had to let
that sailboat float in the ocean for about eight or
nine hours. The Americans were all metavacked off trying to
save them. The seals had left. I'd left two FBI
guys on that sailboat for eight hours in the in
the red in the ocean in the sun. And then
(03:08):
we finally after about eight hours, got permission from FBI
headquarters to process the scene, and the dead pirates were
still on board. So there's four dead pirates, two FBI guys,
and I brought another FBI guy with me on a
navy ship navy boat, and we had to process it
(03:28):
like it was a crime scene. So we had to
take pictures of the victims, you know, the the dead
pirates as a laid because some of them on weapons,
and this was going to go to court for the
ones that were alive. And during the assault, the seals
had had come on the back of the sailboat. In
(03:49):
the first the first seal a pirate that jumped on
his back and the seal behind him was coming up
like took out his pistol because he was so close,
and then realized like if I shoot him, even with
the pistol, it's probably going to go through the pirate
into my buddy, who's you know, he's on his back,
So he put his pistol away and I'm looking at
(04:12):
this from probably I was on the navy ship looking
down at about thirty forty feet watching this happen, and
the seal takes his knife out and kills him with
his knife. And so when we got to the sailboat neck. Yeah,
So when we got to the sailboat, like, we started
processing from the bottom and there was, of course the
(04:34):
fat there was one fat pirate. I didn't think pirates
were fat, but there was one fat one that was
at the bottom that was on you know, and as
we roll him over, we're taking pictures because he was
on top of weapons. And then we had to put
him in body bags and pitch him over to the
the smaller navy boat that was there to take him
(04:54):
to the morgue. But the last one, because I'm kind
of like, oh, I wonder which one was the you know,
the knife victim. So the last one's kind of on
the back of the sailboat. And as I grabbed him
by the hip and the hair to roll them over
so that my buddy could take pictures of what was
under him, Basically I grabbed the hip and as I
rolled him over, grabbing his hair, his head basically came off.
(05:19):
Now it was held on by maybe a two inch
strip of you know, skin, but that seal literally almost
cut his head off. And like we we kind of laughed.
It was one of those things now that the Navy
folks that were there weren't used to seeing this, but
(05:39):
the FBI guys I was with were pretty you know,
well versed in overseas operations and stuff, and we just
started laughing. I'm like, I guess, you know, we know
which one's a knife victim and stuff. And I think
the Navy guy started vomiting because it's you know, decapitation's
pretty pretty nasty.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
But like, but what what is decap what's nasty about it?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Well, it just I think anytime you see a human
head removed from a body, we'll talk about another thing.
It's one of those it's beyond being able to comprehend
if you looked at the ISIS videos where they're you know,
actually decapitating you know people, And as you know, I'm
part of the Folly Foundation, and unfortunately, you know, he
(06:30):
was decapitated on TV and his you know, his parents
have to live with that, so to speak. But it's
just not let's share.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
With people with and case they don't know Folly, let's
tell him.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, James Foley was a reporter that was kidnapped by Isis,
and then when Isis started doing the public executions of
the Americans, they cut them. They basically decapitated him with
a knife uh In on video and then sent it out.
So there were several of them. James was one of them.
(07:02):
And then Diane Foley started the Folly Foundation, which really
was a way to get the government more involved in
these kidnappings and in these hostage situations, especially overseas. She's
done amazing things and just a very strong woman. She
wrote a book about it because she met the person
who actually decapitated her son and she talks about that
(07:27):
and it's really one of those kind of amazing things.
And unfortunately in the FBI, like we'd have to watch
those videos because there's clues, there's all kinds of things
in there that you're looking for, and you get to
a point where you just you kind of you gloss
over what you're seeing, so to speak. But you know,
in real life, it's one of those things that, again,
(07:50):
the removal of a head from a body is something
that is just not natural and what most people see,
it's it's one of those things you've seen enough times, oh,
then you kind of know how to override it. But
one of the most I would say the most disturbing
things I've actually seen all are the ones that have
(08:16):
a relationship to me. So things that were more disturbing
to me always had a touch point in my life.
So one time we're in Iraq and before we go
into a building, you sneak up on a building in
the middle of the night and a bunch of guys
(08:36):
there's what we call breacher. He's one who puts explosives
on the door that's going to blow the door off
that you can make entry. While he's doing that, everyone
takes a position looking into the building through windows to
make sure that someone doesn't get up, like here's something.
Doesn't get up and starts to go to the door
where they're they're kind of exposed putting the charge on it,
(09:00):
and you're there to eliminate, you know, if there's a threat.
So I'm looking into the one room and it's it's
a bedroom. You can see people sleeping on the ground.
I'm on night vision goggle, so I can see very
clearly in there, and all of a sudden, someone hears
something and starts to get up, and then I realized
it's it's a probably a teenage girl because you can
(09:23):
see so I'm and and I can tell she's here something,
and she's kind of like looking to maybe walk, And
I know if she goes into the hallway outside that bedroom,
that that charge is on the door is going to
blow the door in. And that's a dangerous place to be.
And I'm like thinking to myself, don't don't go out,
don't go out the door. Don't go out the door.
(09:46):
And sure enough, she hears enough she walks out into
the hallway just as the explosive breach blows a door off,
and I can see her get knocked down. So then
once that happens, though, the Salt force goes into the building,
you go to secure all the rooms to make sure
that there's no you know, threats in there. And she's
(10:07):
laying on the on the floor and she's in you know,
medical distress. Now the corman comes in and the unbelievable
corman's this was a Navy seal corman comes in and
she basically has a sucking chest wound. And he starts
doing what he does best. I mean, he does great trauma.
And and when I look down, I had the By
(10:29):
then we had the lights on on our helmets and stuff,
and I looked down and she was my daughter's age.
She was probably, you know, twelve thirteen, fourteen years old.
And immediately I have four four kids, and I'm trying
to think. I think it was my oldest was probably
around that age. I was probably two thousand and six.
(10:51):
And that's where, like you're you know, that's the ones
that hit like closer to home because it has a
connection to you. You can't you can't disassociate with it
as much. And then sometimes the bombings that we saw,
like the UN building was bombed in uh two thousand
and four in Iraq, and you're just literally, you know,
(11:12):
it's it's human pieces and stuff like that, and you
can deal with that to to a point until you see,
you know, a young child that's just it's just like
a rag from an explosion that's on that you know,
blows an entire building block up and uh. And then
(11:33):
you always think back to, you know, how that relates
to you, And those are the ones that are tougher
than the other ones that you see out there. So
I always think that there's you know, when you have
a connection with it, it's one of those things that
that grips you harder, and it's harder to disassociate than
you can with with the other ones that you use
(11:54):
black humor and all kinds of things that cops and
you know, soldiers and special ops guys do to make
that go away.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So you so there were times where it hit home
and you had to really feel it. But you stayed
in the job for a long time. So how did
you Where do.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
You put I had a way of putting you separate yourself.
So it's odd. I did two years undercover against the mafia,
and I went against the guy they wrote Sopranos about.
And and if you look at the TV show The Sopranos,
what I what I always say that he got so
right was the duality of their lives. That in home
(12:39):
they have the same like family problems. You have their
kids doing well in school and all this other stuff
that comes up, and when they walk out that door,
they flip a switch and and they don't ever connect
the two because when they walk out the door, they're
they're dealing heroin. Uh, They're they're trafficking young girls, or
they're doing all those things that are horrible, And meanwhile
(13:00):
they have a family of the same type of people,
but they never connect the two. And it's the same
way in like special ops. Like I would be doing
homework on the SAT phone with my kids. They're asking
a math problem and I'd be trying to help them
solve it with it, and then like you hang up,
and then you put your kid on, and then you
(13:22):
fly in a helicopter to this place, and then you
do things that sometimes can be horrible, and you never
try to link the two together. You always kind of
separate the two. And I thought it's pretty good as
mature though I wasn't young when I was doing this.
I was in my thirties. I think some of the
(13:43):
PTSD that you see, like if you're eighteen and you're
not able to make those distinctions and stuff, it can
get really tough, especially when you see your friends die
and you can't do anything about it. But any time
that those two worlds connect is when you start I
think having issues. Now. I always say like I kind
of put it in this Pandora's box, and some day
(14:03):
that box may open. And I think you see that
with a lot of service members nowadays, where those boxes
get open or they never get shut to a point
or they didn't deal with it in the same same way.
Same thing with cops. You see a lot of you know,
first responders. I think some of the really tough ones
like highway patrol and the EMS, folks that see car
(14:26):
accidents with kids, god like you just those are the
ones that you know, really kind of take you, you know,
to a point where you you see your your own
family that way, so to speak. And those are really
tough to deal with.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I mean, that's what you're touching on is so important,
because that's why I left working for the government. I
left because I couldn't keep putting on the armor to
show up and work with these people and then taking
off the armor and to be home with my kids.
I couldn't. I was too exhausted by having to change
(15:05):
my clothing metaphorically. Yeah, and it just be like I
couldn't compartmentalize it anymore. It it became too taxing. So
I'm curious, like, you know, what what's it like for
you now? Now you get to be just kind of
the same person in all a setting like I do.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It's it's one of those things. And it's funny when
you talk about that, because when you looked at I
mean the horrors of like World War two and World
War One. I think we're a bit different. I've probably
the same, but a bit different. But you know, when
you when you have thirty days to sail home or
you know, takes time to get out of that war zone,
(15:49):
to come back to reality, so to speak. I remember
one time we were coming out of Iraq and we
had to get from our area in the Green Zone
over to the airport we were flying at that time,
we were flying a CIA flight out from from Baghdad
to Jordan, and then we're getting on commercial aircraft and
(16:11):
going away, and it was a rough day in Iraq.
It was I'm trying to think what year it was,
two thousand and four or five or six of the
one of the three as there a bunch and I
remember as we were going out of the Green zone,
the secure zone, there was a helicopter with a mini
gun just literally firing on you know, a bunch of
(16:34):
terrorists and the shelves were just falling on our vehicle
and we drove out into the streets and we got
over to the other side and got to the airport
and we jumped on this airplane. The next thing I
knew I was in the Ritz Carlton and Amman Jordan,
and we were at the bar and you know, I
don't know if I was drinking Bourbon a time or Scotch,
you know, but I probably had a McCallen, you know,
(16:56):
twenty five and two hours before there's literally like you know,
falling on your you know, your vehicle. And it was
one of those things like getting that that that quickness
of from this to that was always, uh, it was
always kind of odd. And then one time I flew
home is I was in Afghanistan, was oh four, been
(17:18):
gone about four months and I'm flying the FBI G
five home. We had a a FBI senior executive flyover
to to look how things were going, and I managed
it was at the end of my tour to get
on this G five, so I jumped at the chance
we fly, and I think we did a remain overnight
in UH in Iceland, and then I was flying into UH.
(17:44):
I was living up by Virginia by Dulles Airport, about
an hour from there, and uh, you know, I texted
my wife and I said, Hey, I'm probably gonna be
in at nine am, but don't tell the kids. Just
in case something gets delayed. And uh so I land
in Virginia, get my vehic, and I mean I had
a big mulla beard. It was like down to my
you know, middle chest, that probably. And I parked on
(18:08):
the street. It's Sunday morning, it's like nine am, and
I park on the street and I run up to
the door and I ring the doorbell, and you know,
my wife knew it was me. So she tells the kids.
They're all, you know, all four of them. I think
the youngest was probably eighteen months, oldest was maybe five,
and they're like. She tells them to go down and say, hey,
who's at the door. And we had a glass, you know,
(18:30):
front door, and the kids come running down and there
I am with the beard, and they look at me
and they all ran back upstairs screaming, you know, like
and then my youngest and the second youngest, h Jude,
they were they didn't talk to me for like two weeks,
and they were the one that was most affectionate towards
(18:53):
me at the time. Uh And they didn't talk to
me for like two weeks until finally, I mean, i'd
shaved the beard that day, and I don't know if
it was because I was gone, or if it was
that thing. But yeah, those adjustment periods get really tough,
and I'd done them so many times that I kind
of understood them, understood the stress back on my family
(19:14):
when I came home, especially my wife, because they were
in a routine and I would break it up. I
would come home and you know, they wanted to see
Dad and there was a routine that was going on.
It was really tough. And I started giving advice to
guys that I deployed with later that was like their
first or second deployments. I said, I would give them
advice like, hey, when you get home, your wife's been
(19:38):
with the kids all the time. Like you think you've
had it bad, but trust me, you know, three four kids,
you know, and you have no break is a lot
worse than a firefight. I always said, like I always
knew where the enemy was in firefight. Bad time with
four kids, you don't know that. And I tell them, like,
you know, spend the time with your kids, let your
wife be alone, let her do things, and you know,
(20:00):
get back into it. But those those were always rough periods,
and it took a number of deployments coming back and
forth to get used to it. And then I remember
another time I was out. A buddy of mine with
an Army Special Mission JUnit had been in town and
(20:20):
and Mike was his name, and him and his wife
came over and we had dinner, and then after dinner
we were on the you know, the deck, and we
were talking and me and Mike were joking about things
that we joke about, like having Once you're over there
with someone, you kind of have this you know, camaraderie understanding.
So we're we're laughing, and Gina was over there with
his wife talking, and I think at one point they
(20:45):
they left. Gina went up to put the kids down,
and I was on the computer and I had just
gotten back from a deployment and I had and I
was moving my pictures from the deployment over to my
hard drive and and Gina came down and I quickly
showed off the computer, and you know, like she said,
what are you looking at porn or something? I'm like, no, actually,
(21:05):
it's like deployment pictures. And she kind of she saw
me talking with Mike, and I think was, you know, like,
why don't you ever talk to me about Like why
don't like you never you know, show me the pictures.
Never I said, okay, you want to see them, and
I remember going through them and I came this one
picture and it was this green grass and there was
like these four or five chickens on it and I
(21:28):
and she kind of looking at me. I said, look,
that picture's really funny, and she's just like, well, what
do you say that? And I said, well, those chickens,
I said, they come out of nowhere. And she goes,
why is that funny? I said, well, it's like I said,
anytime we shot someone in the head and the brains
would go out, the chickens came out of nowhere to
(21:48):
eat the brains. And we just thought that was really funny.
And I said, do you want to see any more pictures?
And she said no, And I think at that point
she figured out that there's something that goes on that
you're just not going to understand, like it's like one
of those things that until you're there, because we thought
that was really funny because you want to see chickens forever,
(22:11):
and then you do that and chickens come out of nowhere.
And I think at that she never asked again to
talk about it, to look at it to to get
into that world, because I think that that alone just
proved like you're never going to understand what was going on.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
We're taking a quick break from Rob because I need
a drink. See you soon. So would you eat those
chickens if they had eaten rains?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Never thought of that?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Would probably those chickens? Like would they be then like
served and cooked up? No?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There, we was just chickens out. Like you know in
Iraq people have chickens around that lay eggs and like,
it's not like we took the chickens back to the
chow hal to cook.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Was just wondering what you ingested.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Well, I mean we never know what the chow hal had.
I did eat local food, you know at times too.
I probably would have thought twice to eat those chickens.
So frankly, I mean that you're the first one that's
asked that. So I'm like, if someone had cooked it up,
I probably would ate it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I mean that's the problem with me though, was somebody
asked if somebody told me that somebody had passed away,
and my immediate response was is it going to be
an open casket? And that's not a normal response. But again,
like the shit we've seen and done.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's like one of those things like
and everyone deals with death differently. It's one of those
Sometimes I feel guilty because I deal with it totally
differently than most folks. When I've had so many people
that I know and loved and was friends would die
in the wars, and all I can think of is
(24:06):
did they die doing what they love? Because I had
no problem if I had gotten killed, because I thought
I was out over there protecting you know, the homeland
United States that and I love being with those guys
and stuff like that. That if I died that way, like, well,
I died doing what I loved. And it's one of
those things that I think only folks over there doing
(24:28):
it really kind of understand that. Or dying and you know,
trying to save your you know, the brother next to
you or right of you, even if you liked them
or didn't like them, that had no bearing on it
at all. And that's what I think.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So I have a that's a really good question, is
why did you do this job? Why? Why would you
be willing to die for this job when so many
people would never enlist. So many people in America want
nothing to do with the fucking government. They feel no debt.
Why you.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I don't like. I don't know where it came from.
I do remember my mom. I'm trying to think what
year it was. She'd found something I wrote in second
grade what do you want to be? And it said
US marine and FBI agent. I don't like. I probably
saw a marine movie. I don't know where FBI came from.
And then even in the FBI, volunteering for SWAT and
(25:24):
then volunteering for the hostage Rescue team, and then every
time I feel some guilt because every time an op
came up that I could go overseas and do something,
I volunteered for it. And I don't know if I'm
sure my wife kind of knew that it wasn't that
I volunteered for. I always said, oh, I have to go,
like you know, it's my turn. But it was me
(25:46):
raising my hand saying I'll go. Why And I don't know.
I I what then?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Why I don't?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I don't know, like I just one. I want to
be in action. I want to be where it's going on.
You know, Uh, what is that thing? My oldest said,
the uh FuMO fomo if you're being yeah fomo, like
you know, I want to be like right where the
(26:15):
like And you ask any of these guys that are
on SWAT teams or HRT or the special ops, like,
they all want to be the number one guy in
the door, like they want to be in the stack.
They don't want to be left behind. They want to
be where it's going on. So that that's always where
I've been. And part of it selfish because when you
(26:35):
look at it and the love of your children that
you you really can't love anything uh more than your
your child, Like that's one of those things that you
just don't get until you have one. But every time
I left them to go do this was one of
those things. Now I always say I I justified it,
(26:59):
saying I protecting them by going over and doing this,
But I think deep down I just love to do this.
And and then once you get into that adrenaline, it
is like there's no laughter until you do.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
You identify as an adrenaline junkie.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, uh, Like I don't. I don't like bungee jumping,
Like I don't go bungee jumping because one, I don't
trust the dude who who hooks you up. I don't
trust that they inspected the bungee line. Now I have
skydived a bunch, but I checked my gear. You know,
if I go.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Into something bungee jump because of trust, but you sky.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Time well because I packed the shoot. I like, I
do all that myself. Like it's one of those things.
But also like like when you go into like a firefight,
like you trust your buddies that they're going to be
there for you, and you trust your own ability to
do things. I don't have a lot of uh So
(28:09):
I don't have a lot of risk in the hardest
thing for me right now is I end up leaving
the job I've gotten out of the FBI for it
was a horrible, toxic place.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
What's like, thinking back over your career, what's one of
the sweetest, kind of most epic moments that that you
remember that really just hit home for you and felt
like this is why I'm here?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Uh. I mean there's several And I think part of
it is maybe later in my career, I was dealing
with a lot of overseas kidnappings and hostage related things
and uh and and part of it was involved in
some of the negotiations for exchanges of them. I remember
I had lunch a couple of times and after in
(29:00):
prisons with the Connie warlords, and you know, it's one
of those to be able to sit down with, you know, uh,
an enemy that literally for decades that you've been with,
that are you know, pretty you know, some of them
are pretty pretty badass warlords that have done things and
you sit down with them and you and you come
to an agreement with them to release some of your
(29:22):
folks and they release some of yours. And to be
able to do that in a in a in an environment,
a mature environment, like you're not putting personal things, and
some of those things were very rewarding. I think part
of it is I met some of them after I
got out. I actually ended up meeting Jessica Buchanan was
was kidnapped by pirates and I was involved in finding
(29:46):
her and it was a crazy kind of story type
of thing and talking to her about what she went through.
And then a couple of the guys that I had
gotten released out of Afghanistan or help help get released
out of Afghanistan and talking to them and and hearing
them later on about their lives and some things like
that that was really rewarding and involved in certain ops
(30:08):
that you know, you catch some some really bad people
and those all mean things, you know, to a point,
but it's one of those I'm you know, as as
I get mistaken in some of these podcasts, I get
you know, uh, I get called the bully or arrogant
type of thing, and I'm not I'm confident I want
(30:31):
to do them. But you know, it's funny, is like,
you better be somewhat humble because the folks that I
hung out with, several of them are Medal of Honor winners.
The quietest guy in the room's probably killed the most people.
And they're never going to tell you their story. Someone
else is going to tell you their story. They're not
going to tell you what they did. Someone's gonna say, hey,
(30:53):
that guy over there, you know what he did, right,
And I'm like, yeah, no, what And they tell me
this unbelievable story of what they did and You're like wow,
and he's just quiet about it. So but you have
to you still have to be confident when you deal
with those folks because they're used to a certain level
of what you deal with and they're great people and
and you know when we get together, it's funny. We
(31:15):
talk and we all tell stories and no one's trying
to one up each other. It's one of those where
you meet a guy from this some of these units
and they've done incredible things and and and then you
tell them the story about when you went undercover against
a mob and they think that's incredible. I'm like, well
what you did was incredible. And it's just a true
appreciation of each other in that and and it's like
(31:39):
they're just great people to be around, and they're out
there and they're they're quiet. Like I always say, the
guy talking the most is probably not there's probably the
guy who's done the least, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
If you could commit a crime and get away with it,
what would that be?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Oh shit? Like I always say, like if if I
ever get diagnosed with like terminal cancer, there's going to
be there may be a lot of dead people out there.
Uh Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So we have hitlists that's kind of running through.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah. But and half of them though just me driving
to the gym in the morning in Miami. Uh that
I was like I always say, if I won the lot, well,
it's funny. Uh, director called me, was a friend of
mine and at one point, I mean, I love working
for the Bureau. And I told them one time, I said, yeah,
I said, if I went there was like a you know,
a five hundred million dollar lotto or something, I said, Look,
(32:34):
if I win that, I'm still going to be an FBI.
I'm just going to tell a lot more people to
fuck off when I'm in the FBI if I got
five hundred million. But it's like if I won the
billion dollar lotto, I'd probably have a truck down here
with like like railroad uh trust is as bumpers and
the people that tried to just cut me off. I
(32:56):
would have cameras on my car so that I could
film it and put it to my I g that
I just run these people. That's like right off the
road type of thing. And I'd have to be but
I probably would make enough on it to pay for it.
Little road rage, Yeah, roadage. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Tell me about tell me about the UN bombing.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That was early on. That was when we first got
the Tyraq in summer three just after like it was
probably June or July, I forget what month it was,
and it was just like you're you're sitting uh in
a building and and you you feel an explosion and
(33:43):
you know that it's significant, like it like and it
was I don't know how many miles away, and it's
still like knocks stuff off your shelf, like you know
it's going to be bad, and responding there and not
even understanding what happened or you know where to go
at that point, just to get there and start doing something,
(34:04):
and then you start coming across the carnage that that
is just multiple layers out and trying to figure out what, well,
what do I do? Like what? And and it was
just if you came across someone and they and they
you know, were alive that you just tried to do
some medical intervention to possibly say them or you know,
(34:26):
some of them that you knew weren't going to make it,
and trying to get to like that's you know, the
triage is tough, being able to like this person is
not going to make it. I got to get to
someone who who actually has a chance, so to speak,
and then trying to well what do we do, like
how how can we even affect anything? How can we
contribute to? Uh? What what is the success in that?
(34:50):
Like you know to point so there from the FBI
point of view, is trying to figure out who did it,
trying to save who you can along the way, but
trying to gather evidence to be able to put that
back on a group so that you know, something with
you know, American diplomacy or you know, military intervention, can
can you know, take retribution so to speak. But it's
(35:13):
it's overwhelming when you come across something like that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, I'm really curious about the triaging. You know, how
do you triage a setting, a situation like.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That, Well, you have to it's a I actually go
back to a civilian incident. So I was coming home
from Virginia Beach to the house in North Carolina. Is
probably a few days before Christmas. So it was like
my final like I was gone. I was coming home
and I come over the Inner coastal over this bridge
(35:45):
and as I'm coming down the bridge, I see a
van and I'm looking and it's on its the vans
upside down on its top in the middle of the road,
and there's only like one other car there. So I'm like,
I'm trying to figure out what happened. So I put
on I have my FBI, you know, Tahoe I put on.
(36:05):
I have red and blue flashing lights, so I throw
them on and I block. I blocked traffic so that
nothing can go into the van. And there's two guys
in there. It was one of the you know a
van that FedEx rents during the holidays that carry extra packages.
And there's two FedEx guys in there, and they're literally
strapped in there in the seat belts, and I do
(36:27):
a quick I was a medic on HRT, so I
do a quick assessment that they didn't have any spinal
cord injuries and stuff like that, so I basically pull out.
I always have plenty of my mcgaver tools. I pull
out my knife that cuts seat belts, so I cut
that and I lower the one down and I slide
him out, and then I do it to the passenger,
(36:49):
slide him out. And the one guy's got some some
serious medical issues. So I have we call sam splints,
the very flexible, but they can they can stabilize things
very quickly, So I put them around their necks just
for for ce spine and and I'm dealing with them,
(37:09):
and I'm trying to think where where's like the actual
medical attention, And I look down down the road. In
about four hundred yards down the road, I see fire truck,
I see ambulances, I see police, you know, flashers and stuff,
and I'm why isn't anyone coming down this way? So
I end up running down and I see a car
(37:33):
and it's it's basically flipped on its side in the trees,
and everyone in this group is is is dealing with
his car. And I go over to the car and
it's the It turns out it's the marine marine off
duty marine who caused this accident. He was drinking. His
girlfriend was with another guy. He was drinking. He's drunk,
(37:56):
he's going to go, you know, and he and he
tried to pass and he hit this van head on
and the van flipped there and then he careened into
these trees. And as I finally go over there, all
these firemen and empt folks are sitting there and he
has a wound that is like I'm seeing his brain.
(38:16):
He's not going to live, like this is a catastrophic injury.
And they're all caught up in this and I'm like, hey, guys,
like he is not going to make it. I have
two viable patients down the road that need medical intervention.
We probably need to get a life flight. Why are
you sitting here staring at someone who does not have
(38:37):
a chance. And I kind of yelled at him and said, hey,
fucking get on your game. Guys. There's so I brought
him all back down to there, like, hey, look, I
get it. Try to do something. But you know, you
got to take what you know is a non survivable
wound and go to the people. Like if no one
else is around, fine, but if you got people that
(39:00):
survive something, you need to do that. So it seems
harsh at the time, but it's one of those things
that you got to just, you know, again, take your
If it's the first time you're seeing something, sometimes you
get overwhelmed with it, but after you've seen it in
a number of times, you're like, all right, look, I
get it. It's horrible. This person probably gonna die, But
(39:23):
there's other things that we can be doing to save
other people that you need to get on.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I mean, that's why you were the go to FBI guy.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, like I said, it's just a matter of the
first time you see it. It's so different from when
you see it twenty times later. What you end up
doing just because you understand all the things that you
go through and be able to deal with to put
what really is a priority, deal with the priorities, and
(39:52):
let everything else just happened there after.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
But I have to say you're unique in your ability
to do it, because I've worked with so many people
who after twenty years they crumble and they don't get
better at it, they get worse. And I know you're
like the most humble person, but you you also need
to recognize that it's a gift that you could do that.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Well. But you say that, but I'm used to so
many I'm used to being around people that that's what
they do. Like, so again, it's it's where you come
from and and and when you're there's so many mentors
out there that that you look at like I was
the FBI leano to to Jaysock, the Joint Special Operations Command.
It's it's where all the special really special units are
(40:37):
all embedded in and they do as as General Thomas
used to say, he was a four star. He was
he went from Jaysock to SOCOM and he was a
Phillies guy, which I was. You know, he liked the
Philadelphia Eagles. I'm a New York Giants fan. But he
always said, hey, look, we get the wicked hard problems
because we can solve the wicked heart problems. And he
(40:59):
was right because like you would take this problem that
seems unsurmountable and then you break it down with guys
that are used to doing this stuff and they and
they put it into and it's it's funny the guys
that you deal with there they're now three and four
stars and you see him going up and you and
you remember when they were younger, but they still had
(41:22):
this unbelievable ability to do certain things and uh, they
they some of them are just amazing people Like I
remember trying to think if it was Adamiral mccraven, who
who Again, they all have the same traits. They could
they could get intel briefs for weeks and weeks and
(41:42):
they would say they would stop in the middle of
an intel brief and say, wait a second, didn't that
that guy you just talked about, didn't he call so
and so last month to talk about this on this
tear And you're like, at all the briefs you get,
you literally remember one phone call like and that was
like General Crystal, Admiral mccraven, General Thomas, General Votel, Chris Donnie,
(42:04):
who's who's a four star now just amazed, like they
would amaze me on what they could do. And then
they're interpersonal relationships and the ability to uh to deal
with people and you and your mentor from them. You
look at them and you see how they do things,
and then you're kind of like, okay, when you think
(42:25):
you're you know, uh, you know, up to your knees
and stuff, like you're kind of like, hey, what did
what did? What do you remember them doing? And they're
just that's where you know, the mentorship comes in.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
This conversation is making me hungry. I'll be right back.
I'm gonna grab a snack. See in a minute. If
you were going to die because you had to death penalty,
how would you want to go?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I'm not sure I can say that, like on the you.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Know, okay, if I was going to kill you, how
would you want it to happen?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Like I said, Like, I'm like, if I if I
had to go, like I mean, I think hookers and
cocaine may be in there, so to speak, because I've
never done that, so I'm like, well, you know, but
it's one of those like when you say that like
(43:20):
it's funny. I actually, when I was working the FBI's
counter drone program, we had to go out to Indiana
because they're doing they just started federal executions again and
they were worried about protesters flying drones over the the
area that they were going to execute these guys. And
(43:42):
I remember sitting there on the road and seeing the
guy that was going to go get executed in a
van drive by me at a very slow pace, Like
I mean, I looked at him in the eyes and
I'm like, holy shit, like this dude is going knowing
to get killed. But I would always say, well, and
(44:03):
I tease people like I'd have to still be fifteen
minutes early to my own execution because I can't stand
being laid to anything. I literally be like, hey, guys,
like we might hit traffic. We need to leave now,
like so to speak. But it's one of those things.
There's a couple of times I remember skydiving and I
(44:26):
was having issues getting my parachute out, and I always
remember sometimes though, like people that have like ten thousand
jumps end up they get so fixated on the problem
that they forget some of the things. So they think
that they can they can fix what's going on, and
(44:47):
they they fall right through their altitudes or when they
should just pull the reserves, they get to the point
where they're not situationally attuned to where they are. I remember, though,
I was having an issue and I took my like
left wrist that has all my altimeter on it, and
(45:07):
I stuck it literally right in my face. So if
I go through the three thousand foot mark, I'm going
to rip my reserve. So I was, I'm trying to
fix it. I'm looking at my you know, altimeter, and
and then it's kind of funny, like what goes through
your head, like like if you're not going to make it,
so to speak, and you know, I'm like, God, I
(45:29):
don't want to like I don't want to be like, oh,
he blew it. He should have done this that the
other thing. And then finally like I, you know, I
got it fixed, and you know, my shoot came out
and I said, my my wife always said like I
had like ten lives that I've gone through, so to speak. Uh,
And and you know it's some of it's lucky. I
(45:50):
think some of it as you make you luck. I
think some of it's you know, fate. It's a combination
all of them, uh so to speak. But I've I've
a couple of times I thought, well, this, this isn't
going to turn out so well, and I'm like, I'm
good with it. I live my life the way I
wanted to be sad on some things. But you know,
it's it's it's what happens.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
So you're skydiving and you're thinking, I'm not going to
make it, and then you think to yourself, cool.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
No, no, it was you know, I had confidence I
was going to fix it, you know, and I like,
like I said, I was very situation aware of my
altimeter that I was going, like, I was not going
to go trying to fix it all the way into
the ground. But as you're going through it, it's kind
of like the funny things that go through your mind
as you're you're trying to fix it, thinking about that
(46:41):
same thing. I had a couple of things when I
was doing some scuba diving, uh and got pinned under
a ship at one point. Like so it's one of
those those things that you kind of when you look
at your mortality and stuff like that, what kind of
goes through your mind. Is is actually kind of funny.
Maybe it's the black humor sense of thing, you know,
(47:02):
but you start kind of laughing to yourself about some
of the shit that you think about when you think
you might not make it.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Were there? So were you scared at times when you
almost lost your life? And then that fear changed?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
So I don't think I was scared at losing my life.
It's not that I haven't been scared. Like there's some
things like you're like shit, like I was scared that
I didn't have control over it, Like if I'm in
a helicopter that goes down, like you know, I'd rather
be the pilot trying to you know, be able to
(47:40):
fix whatever's happening. I just want control over it. So
I you know, I never minded. One time we were walking,
we're walking to an objective in Iraq, I was with
the Seals, and the league guy says, uh, gives the
not only the halt, but the like stop what the
fuck you're doing, like don't make another step, and you
(48:01):
figured out we're in a minefield. So at that point,
like we have to kind of back out, and uh,
And I didn't mind that because like okay, like this
is on me, like I can you know, figure this out,
like I didn't want to go and being a helicopter
that just got shot with the missile where you're you have,
you know, because you have no control, Like I liked
(48:23):
having control, even if it was you know something, you know,
like walking back out of a minefield as opposed to
being a helicopter gets shot down. You have no chance
to you know, engage enemy or do anything back to them.
So that's probably me being a control freak. But it's
it's the funny things that go again, that go through
(48:44):
your mind when you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
You're a very unique person.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
There's there's plenty of me out there. There's plenty of
guys that, like I said, there's there's tons of them
that I know. You know, there's there's a whole team
that was in that minefield with me.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
But you're still in that one percent of the capacity
to navigate and think and compartmentalize your emotions.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
But you know what's funny is when when we look at.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Oh my god, you just can't take it. You cannot
take a compliment. That's just where does it go? Is it?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Like?
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Does it land on one of those badges behind you
because it's not landing on you.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I was gonna say, though, when we look at like
these hostages that are taken and that they go through
captivity for two, three, four five years in Connie jails
and in other places, we trained soldiers to go through
the same thing, and we think that the training is
going to help, and then what we find out is
(49:45):
a person that was not trained at all. Their instinct
to survive is so great that they do the right
things when they when they need to. So it's one
of those things that a lot of people have haven't
done it because they've never been in the situation, but
they're very capable of it. They just don't know it.
You just don't know. Again, sometimes when we do like HRT,
(50:08):
the Hostage Rescue Team and the FBI, the selection that
we do is two weeks long and it is really
a very mature selections based on Delta's selection. You get
no feedback of how you're doing. Like you go on
a five mile run one you don't know how long
the run is going to be. You're just told to run,
so you run, and then you have a current operator
(50:32):
running with you and he's not saying anything to you.
Like in the Marine Corps, if like they never said
you were doing good, but you knew if you were
screwing up, they yell at you, so you had that feedback.
But hrt selection, you have no feedback. You don't know
how So I remember when I was going through selection.
I'm running and there's a guy running next to me
(50:53):
that's already on the team, and he's just looking at
me like he's he's literally looking at how much I'm
putting out? Like am I holding back? Am I? Am
I going one hundred percent so that I like collapse
in a mile? Or am I doing eighty ninety percent
or I'm at fifty percent. He's he's kind of understanding
where where I'm at, and but you get no input
(51:15):
from him. You get no feedback on how you're doing.
And we had guys that were unbelievable athletic people that
were tremendous athletes, and they would fail because in selection
we make them fail. Like even if we know the
whole process. So if we have a guy that runs
(51:38):
a five minute mile, you know, for forever, we stack
a guy like every mile to run that five minutes
you know mile with him but at one point we
put him in a situation where he has to fail.
Because someone who's never failed in life, when they first fail,
some of them just collapse and they're done. You want
(52:00):
the guy that fails, that basically fails hard, gets up,
brushes himself off, and starts going again, because that's who
you want in a situation. So it's one of those
things that that like, we don't want the five minute
mile runner that that it's never failed in life. We
(52:20):
want someone who runs it, you know, six or seven
minute mile that fails, fails again, fails again, and like
and just keeps going. Because that's that's the mindset that
you want in units like that. Like you know, and
you get guys, what's that I'm.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Gonna tell you something and you can't respond right away.
You just have to like breathe. I think you're incredible.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Well thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
You look so uncomfortable, but I really do. So what
is the emotion you experience when I said that?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Embarrassment to like, because I know so many people that
are out there that that just are the same or
better that. You know, there's a ton of people out
there that that that are like that.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
No, there's not you have been around them and experienced them.
The majority of people are quite ignorant and really really boring.
And that's like do I spend a lot of my
time with.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Well, you're a therapist, so like you know that is
that is part of your job.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Okay, I have one final question for you. Okay, tell
me a government secret.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I can't. If it's still secret, I can't. I can't
tell you. Let me tell you something if if someone says,
if someone ever comes up to you and says, well,
I'm secret and I can't tell you what I do,
that's the last thing they are. Because the people that
really live secret lives, they have an entire cover story
(54:14):
to tell you so that they don't stand out. So
if anyone says like I'd have to kill you, or
it's too secret or whatever, they're just bullshitting anyone who
says that. Like when I lived two years undercover, I
had an entire cover story that I talked about who
(54:34):
I was, what I did, and it never touched on
anything quote secret. I never got out of my character
and told anybody. So all the people that are in
covert or you know, classified things that they can't tell you,
there's an entire cover story that they're going to tell
you that you're never going to connect to it. So
it's the guy, like I said, the quietest guy in
(54:56):
the rooms killed the most people, and the guy who's
the loudest in the room probably hasn't done anything. And
it's the same thing with all that. So if people
come up and say, oh, you know, I'm a secret agent,
I'm you know, I'm Agent Orange, you know from uh whatever,
most likely they are just bullshitting And there's nothing like
when I was like most of the time when I
(55:16):
was an FBI tell people I was an FBI. Like
they're like, you know, unless you're in some type of
program that you're again you're covert, you're not going to
tell people. You can say I'm an FBI, and you
can say a lot of things that you did in
the FBI and it's not against the law. You're not
going to reveal cases, you're not gonna reveal you know,
classified things, but you can still say I'm an FBI
(55:36):
and I do this or whatever. So it's the ones
that that make up that whole you know, secret agent
thing and uh if you got what was that uh
uh Orange Schwarzenegger Uh, and uh true lies when the
guys like the car salesman goes out and you know,
bullshits everyone. That's that's what you're dealing with when you
(55:57):
get someone who's who's like that. So, uh, I can't
tell you any secrets because I'm still you know, bound
to that. But there's many things that you can talk about,
Like we talked about the pirate thing and all these
other things that we do. None of that stuff is classified.
I know where to draw the line of what you
can say and what you can't say. But you can
(56:17):
still tell a story that happened to you without giving
away classified information.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
It's fascinating. It is fascinating. You are amazing. And no,
this is not a common conversation.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Well, I'm kind of glad because I thought, you know,
thinking of this, I was thinking like, well, how many
I have tons of gory like kind of just gory stories,
you know, Like, how many gory stories am I going
to tell in this what's the name of this?
Speaker 1 (56:50):
It's uh, intentionally disturbing.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, So I have many disturbing things for me.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
The most one of the most disturbing parts of us
talking right now is that you don't see how incredible
you are, and how incredible your mission and your devotion
to your career in this country has been. Like we
talked about chickens eating brains and you possibly eating those chickens.
But the most disturbing thing to me really is how
(57:18):
you the government does not teach you also how special
you are in doing it.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
I didn't even know where to go.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
I'm sorry, do you do you have any final thoughts
or like where can people find you? You're going to
get You're starting your own podcast, which I think, God,
we could.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Work trying to negotiate that. I'm gonna call it Inside
the Line with Rob be it with with that other
podcast where I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do something
at one. I think I do a lot of new presentations,
a lot of news commentary on all the major networks
(58:05):
and stuff. And what I found though, is like when
I do like a live event like New Orleans or
some school shooting, and when you're doing the interaction, it's
either the anchors asking you questions or the production crews,
you know, giving them the questions to ask. The audience
is only getting one perspective of those questions. And when
I did, like Surviving the Survivor. We did a couple
(58:27):
like live events, like the CEO shooting and stuff. And
what I found is that where I was on like
three or four people on there, and when I wasn't speaking,
I would look at the comments and I'd see questions
people are asking, and then I would answer them. And
I think that's that's where news is going, because right
now media is dictating what you hear and how you
(58:50):
hear it from from the experts, and I think people
want to ask their own questions, and I think that's
where it's going. So I'm working with some folks there.
I'm working on writing at helping write a TV series.
We'll see if that sells. There's a potential movie on
the Pirate Thing. If you haven't seen The Pirate Thing.
Surviving the Survivor. I did a one hour podcast on
(59:14):
chasing these Pirates down. Even one hour wasn't enough in itself,
but it's a crazy story about a whole bunch of
like a team of people that really did unbelievable things
to do that. It definitely doesn't wasn't just about me.
It was a team of folks that did it. Just
through my eyes. You can listen that on Surviving the
(59:35):
Survivor and then Erra one Consultings one of my companies
that do security consulting and do you know technical advising
type of thing so to speak.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Awesome, and we'll link everything to this. So thank you
so much for doing this, for taking the time to
talk to me. Yeah, we will eventually meet in person
and drinkbourbon bourbon. Yes, thanks for watching this episode. I
hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you gained some
(01:00:08):
insight into what fucking Dimico does, what he did, and
what guys like him do and women and the incredible
people that are inside of our government and our military.
And also learn to take a compliment. If someone's offering
it to you, you really should let it hit home.
See you next time on another episode of Intentionally Disturbing
Okay, you're here. Welcome back to Intentionally Disturbing. I'm doctor Leslie,
and today I had the honor of interviewing Rob Dimiico,
otherwise known as Fucking Dimico. Rob worked for the FBI.
Rob was in the military. Rob has seen decapitated people
and brains coming out and then chickens eat the brains.
(00:32):
I can't even tell you these stories. They're incredible, and
yet he remains humble and completely unable to take a
compliment from me. I look forward to you hearing this episode,
possibly seeing it if you're on YouTube, and just getting
the inside scoop on what our military guys are really doing,
what they're like, and how incredible a lot of them are,
(00:55):
especially fucking Dimico. All right, I was really excited to
have you on because of your work history, but also
your humor and just your view on life after all
(01:16):
of the work and shenanigans that you've been in. So
I want to start with a question. Oh go ahead,
Oh okay, Now you know I have tons of botox.
I want to challenge you to tell me something disturbing
you've experienced that would actually make my face move.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
So I have to compete against botox. That could be
tough disturbing. There's so many. There's things that are disturbing
in general that most people find disturbing, and then there's
things that affect me differently, because, as you probably know,
(02:00):
when you start seeing a bunch of it, you have
an ability to deal with it, you know, if you
put it in a box or if you do like
I find dark Humor to be one of the more relevant,
you know, ones that helps me. I would say one
of the most disturbing was and we talked about it.
(02:22):
I talked about it on the Surviving and the Survivor
podcast about the pirate case where we intercepted some pirates,
nineteen of them out in the middle of the ocean.
I was with the seals trying to rescue four Americans
and it didn't work. They end up killing them, and
then the seals boarded the sailboat and then they shot
(02:44):
to the pirates, and then we actually had to let
that sailboat float in the ocean for about eight or
nine hours. The Americans were all metavacked off trying to
save them. The seals had left. I'd left two FBI
guys on that sailboat for eight hours in the in
the red in the ocean in the sun. And then
(03:08):
we finally after about eight hours, got permission from FBI
headquarters to process the scene, and the dead pirates were
still on board. So there's four dead pirates, two FBI guys,
and I brought another FBI guy with me on a
navy ship navy boat, and we had to process it
(03:28):
like it was a crime scene. So we had to
take pictures of the victims, you know, the the dead
pirates as a laid because some of them on weapons,
and this was going to go to court for the
ones that were alive. And during the assault, the seals
had had come on the back of the sailboat. In
(03:49):
the first the first seal a pirate that jumped on
his back and the seal behind him was coming up
like took out his pistol because he was so close,
and then realized like if I shoot him, even with
the pistol, it's probably going to go through the pirate
into my buddy, who's you know, he's on his back,
So he put his pistol away and I'm looking at
(04:12):
this from probably I was on the navy ship looking
down at about thirty forty feet watching this happen, and
the seal takes his knife out and kills him with
his knife. And so when we got to the sailboat neck. Yeah,
So when we got to the sailboat, like, we started
processing from the bottom and there was, of course the
(04:34):
fat there was one fat pirate. I didn't think pirates
were fat, but there was one fat one that was
at the bottom that was on you know, and as
we roll him over, we're taking pictures because he was
on top of weapons. And then we had to put
him in body bags and pitch him over to the
the smaller navy boat that was there to take him
(04:54):
to the morgue. But the last one, because I'm kind
of like, oh, I wonder which one was the you know,
the knife victim. So the last one's kind of on
the back of the sailboat. And as I grabbed him
by the hip and the hair to roll them over
so that my buddy could take pictures of what was
under him, Basically I grabbed the hip and as I
rolled him over, grabbing his hair, his head basically came off.
(05:19):
Now it was held on by maybe a two inch
strip of you know, skin, but that seal literally almost
cut his head off. And like we we kind of laughed.
It was one of those things now that the Navy
folks that were there weren't used to seeing this, but
(05:39):
the FBI guys I was with were pretty you know,
well versed in overseas operations and stuff, and we just
started laughing. I'm like, I guess, you know, we know
which one's a knife victim and stuff. And I think
the Navy guy started vomiting because it's you know, decapitation's
pretty pretty nasty.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
But like, but what what is decap what's nasty about it?
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Well, it just I think anytime you see a human
head removed from a body, we'll talk about another thing.
It's one of those it's beyond being able to comprehend
if you looked at the ISIS videos where they're you know,
actually decapitating you know people, And as you know, I'm
part of the Folly Foundation, and unfortunately, you know, he
(06:30):
was decapitated on TV and his you know, his parents
have to live with that, so to speak. But it's
just not let's share.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
With people with and case they don't know Folly, let's
tell him.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Yeah, James Foley was a reporter that was kidnapped by Isis,
and then when Isis started doing the public executions of
the Americans, they cut them. They basically decapitated him with
a knife uh In on video and then sent it out.
So there were several of them. James was one of them.
(07:02):
And then Diane Foley started the Folly Foundation, which really
was a way to get the government more involved in
these kidnappings and in these hostage situations, especially overseas. She's
done amazing things and just a very strong woman. She
wrote a book about it because she met the person
who actually decapitated her son and she talks about that
(07:27):
and it's really one of those kind of amazing things.
And unfortunately in the FBI, like we'd have to watch
those videos because there's clues, there's all kinds of things
in there that you're looking for, and you get to
a point where you just you kind of you gloss
over what you're seeing, so to speak. But you know,
in real life, it's one of those things that, again,
(07:50):
the removal of a head from a body is something
that is just not natural and what most people see,
it's it's one of those things you've seen enough times, oh,
then you kind of know how to override it. But
one of the most I would say the most disturbing
things I've actually seen all are the ones that have
(08:16):
a relationship to me. So things that were more disturbing
to me always had a touch point in my life.
So one time we're in Iraq and before we go
into a building, you sneak up on a building in
the middle of the night and a bunch of guys
(08:36):
there's what we call breacher. He's one who puts explosives
on the door that's going to blow the door off
that you can make entry. While he's doing that, everyone
takes a position looking into the building through windows to
make sure that someone doesn't get up, like here's something.
Doesn't get up and starts to go to the door
where they're they're kind of exposed putting the charge on it,
(09:00):
and you're there to eliminate, you know, if there's a threat.
So I'm looking into the one room and it's it's
a bedroom. You can see people sleeping on the ground.
I'm on night vision goggle, so I can see very
clearly in there, and all of a sudden, someone hears
something and starts to get up, and then I realized
it's it's a probably a teenage girl because you can
(09:23):
see so I'm and and I can tell she's here something,
and she's kind of like looking to maybe walk, And
I know if she goes into the hallway outside that bedroom,
that that charge is on the door is going to
blow the door in. And that's a dangerous place to be.
And I'm like thinking to myself, don't don't go out,
don't go out the door. Don't go out the door.
(09:46):
And sure enough, she hears enough she walks out into
the hallway just as the explosive breach blows a door off,
and I can see her get knocked down. So then
once that happens, though, the Salt force goes into the building,
you go to secure all the rooms to make sure
that there's no you know, threats in there. And she's
(10:07):
laying on the on the floor and she's in you know,
medical distress. Now the corman comes in and the unbelievable
corman's this was a Navy seal corman comes in and
she basically has a sucking chest wound. And he starts
doing what he does best. I mean, he does great trauma.
And and when I look down, I had the By
(10:29):
then we had the lights on on our helmets and stuff,
and I looked down and she was my daughter's age.
She was probably, you know, twelve thirteen, fourteen years old.
And immediately I have four four kids, and I'm trying
to think. I think it was my oldest was probably
around that age. I was probably two thousand and six.
(10:51):
And that's where, like you're you know, that's the ones
that hit like closer to home because it has a
connection to you. You can't you can't disassociate with it
as much. And then sometimes the bombings that we saw,
like the UN building was bombed in uh two thousand
and four in Iraq, and you're just literally, you know,
(11:12):
it's it's human pieces and stuff like that, and you
can deal with that to to a point until you see,
you know, a young child that's just it's just like
a rag from an explosion that's on that you know,
blows an entire building block up and uh. And then
(11:33):
you always think back to, you know, how that relates
to you, And those are the ones that are tougher
than the other ones that you see out there. So
I always think that there's you know, when you have
a connection with it, it's one of those things that
that grips you harder, and it's harder to disassociate than
you can with with the other ones that you use
(11:54):
black humor and all kinds of things that cops and
you know, soldiers and special ops guys do to make
that go away.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
So you so there were times where it hit home
and you had to really feel it. But you stayed
in the job for a long time. So how did
you Where do.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
You put I had a way of putting you separate yourself.
So it's odd. I did two years undercover against the mafia,
and I went against the guy they wrote Sopranos about.
And and if you look at the TV show The Sopranos,
what I what I always say that he got so
right was the duality of their lives. That in home
(12:39):
they have the same like family problems. You have their
kids doing well in school and all this other stuff
that comes up, and when they walk out that door,
they flip a switch and and they don't ever connect
the two because when they walk out the door, they're
they're dealing heroin. Uh, They're they're trafficking young girls, or
they're doing all those things that are horrible, And meanwhile
(13:00):
they have a family of the same type of people,
but they never connect the two. And it's the same
way in like special ops. Like I would be doing
homework on the SAT phone with my kids. They're asking
a math problem and I'd be trying to help them
solve it with it, and then like you hang up,
and then you put your kid on, and then you
(13:22):
fly in a helicopter to this place, and then you
do things that sometimes can be horrible, and you never
try to link the two together. You always kind of
separate the two. And I thought it's pretty good as
mature though I wasn't young when I was doing this.
I was in my thirties. I think some of the
(13:43):
PTSD that you see, like if you're eighteen and you're
not able to make those distinctions and stuff, it can
get really tough, especially when you see your friends die
and you can't do anything about it. But any time
that those two worlds connect is when you start I
think having issues. Now. I always say like I kind
of put it in this Pandora's box, and some day
(14:03):
that box may open. And I think you see that
with a lot of service members nowadays, where those boxes
get open or they never get shut to a point
or they didn't deal with it in the same same way.
Same thing with cops. You see a lot of you know,
first responders. I think some of the really tough ones
like highway patrol and the EMS, folks that see car
(14:26):
accidents with kids, god like you just those are the
ones that you know, really kind of take you, you know,
to a point where you you see your your own
family that way, so to speak. And those are really
tough to deal with.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I mean, that's what you're touching on is so important,
because that's why I left working for the government. I
left because I couldn't keep putting on the armor to
show up and work with these people and then taking
off the armor and to be home with my kids.
I couldn't. I was too exhausted by having to change
(15:05):
my clothing metaphorically. Yeah, and it just be like I
couldn't compartmentalize it anymore. It it became too taxing. So
I'm curious, like, you know, what what's it like for
you now? Now you get to be just kind of
the same person in all a setting like I do.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
It's it's one of those things. And it's funny when
you talk about that, because when you looked at I
mean the horrors of like World War two and World
War One. I think we're a bit different. I've probably
the same, but a bit different. But you know, when
you when you have thirty days to sail home or
you know, takes time to get out of that war zone,
(15:49):
to come back to reality, so to speak. I remember
one time we were coming out of Iraq and we
had to get from our area in the Green Zone
over to the airport we were flying at that time,
we were flying a CIA flight out from from Baghdad
to Jordan, and then we're getting on commercial aircraft and
(16:11):
going away, and it was a rough day in Iraq.
It was I'm trying to think what year it was,
two thousand and four or five or six of the
one of the three as there a bunch and I
remember as we were going out of the Green zone,
the secure zone, there was a helicopter with a mini
gun just literally firing on you know, a bunch of
(16:34):
terrorists and the shelves were just falling on our vehicle
and we drove out into the streets and we got
over to the other side and got to the airport
and we jumped on this airplane. The next thing I
knew I was in the Ritz Carlton and Amman Jordan,
and we were at the bar and you know, I
don't know if I was drinking Bourbon a time or Scotch,
you know, but I probably had a McCallen, you know,
(16:56):
twenty five and two hours before there's literally like you know,
falling on your you know, your vehicle. And it was
one of those things like getting that that that quickness
of from this to that was always, uh, it was
always kind of odd. And then one time I flew
home is I was in Afghanistan, was oh four, been
(17:18):
gone about four months and I'm flying the FBI G
five home. We had a a FBI senior executive flyover
to to look how things were going, and I managed
it was at the end of my tour to get
on this G five, so I jumped at the chance
we fly, and I think we did a remain overnight
in UH in Iceland, and then I was flying into UH.
(17:44):
I was living up by Virginia by Dulles Airport, about
an hour from there, and uh, you know, I texted
my wife and I said, Hey, I'm probably gonna be
in at nine am, but don't tell the kids. Just
in case something gets delayed. And uh so I land
in Virginia, get my vehic, and I mean I had
a big mulla beard. It was like down to my
you know, middle chest, that probably. And I parked on
(18:08):
the street. It's Sunday morning, it's like nine am, and
I park on the street and I run up to
the door and I ring the doorbell, and you know,
my wife knew it was me. So she tells the kids.
They're all, you know, all four of them. I think
the youngest was probably eighteen months, oldest was maybe five,
and they're like. She tells them to go down and say, hey,
who's at the door. And we had a glass, you know,
(18:30):
front door, and the kids come running down and there
I am with the beard, and they look at me
and they all ran back upstairs screaming, you know, like
and then my youngest and the second youngest, h Jude,
they were they didn't talk to me for like two weeks,
and they were the one that was most affectionate towards
(18:53):
me at the time. Uh And they didn't talk to
me for like two weeks until finally, I mean, i'd
shaved the beard that day, and I don't know if
it was because I was gone, or if it was
that thing. But yeah, those adjustment periods get really tough,
and I'd done them so many times that I kind
of understood them, understood the stress back on my family
(19:14):
when I came home, especially my wife, because they were
in a routine and I would break it up. I
would come home and you know, they wanted to see
Dad and there was a routine that was going on.
It was really tough. And I started giving advice to
guys that I deployed with later that was like their
first or second deployments. I said, I would give them
advice like, hey, when you get home, your wife's been
(19:38):
with the kids all the time. Like you think you've
had it bad, but trust me, you know, three four kids,
you know, and you have no break is a lot
worse than a firefight. I always said, like I always
knew where the enemy was in firefight. Bad time with
four kids, you don't know that. And I tell them, like,
you know, spend the time with your kids, let your
wife be alone, let her do things, and you know,
(20:00):
get back into it. But those those were always rough periods,
and it took a number of deployments coming back and
forth to get used to it. And then I remember
another time I was out. A buddy of mine with
an Army Special Mission JUnit had been in town and
(20:20):
and Mike was his name, and him and his wife
came over and we had dinner, and then after dinner
we were on the you know, the deck, and we
were talking and me and Mike were joking about things
that we joke about, like having Once you're over there
with someone, you kind of have this you know, camaraderie understanding.
So we're we're laughing, and Gina was over there with
his wife talking, and I think at one point they
(20:45):
they left. Gina went up to put the kids down,
and I was on the computer and I had just
gotten back from a deployment and I had and I
was moving my pictures from the deployment over to my
hard drive and and Gina came down and I quickly
showed off the computer, and you know, like she said,
what are you looking at porn or something? I'm like, no, actually,
(21:05):
it's like deployment pictures. And she kind of she saw
me talking with Mike, and I think was, you know, like,
why don't you ever talk to me about Like why
don't like you never you know, show me the pictures.
Never I said, okay, you want to see them, and
I remember going through them and I came this one
picture and it was this green grass and there was
like these four or five chickens on it and I
(21:28):
and she kind of looking at me. I said, look,
that picture's really funny, and she's just like, well, what
do you say that? And I said, well, those chickens,
I said, they come out of nowhere. And she goes,
why is that funny? I said, well, it's like I said,
anytime we shot someone in the head and the brains
would go out, the chickens came out of nowhere to
(21:48):
eat the brains. And we just thought that was really funny.
And I said, do you want to see any more pictures?
And she said no, And I think at that point
she figured out that there's something that goes on that
you're just not going to understand, like it's like one
of those things that until you're there, because we thought
that was really funny because you want to see chickens forever,
(22:11):
and then you do that and chickens come out of nowhere.
And I think at that she never asked again to
talk about it, to look at it to to get
into that world, because I think that that alone just
proved like you're never going to understand what was going on.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
We're taking a quick break from Rob because I need
a drink. See you soon. So would you eat those
chickens if they had eaten rains?
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Never thought of that?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Would probably those chickens? Like would they be then like
served and cooked up? No?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
There, we was just chickens out. Like you know in
Iraq people have chickens around that lay eggs and like,
it's not like we took the chickens back to the
chow hal to cook.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Was just wondering what you ingested.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Well, I mean we never know what the chow hal had.
I did eat local food, you know at times too.
I probably would have thought twice to eat those chickens.
So frankly, I mean that you're the first one that's
asked that. So I'm like, if someone had cooked it up,
I probably would ate it.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I mean that's the problem with me though, was somebody
asked if somebody told me that somebody had passed away,
and my immediate response was is it going to be
an open casket? And that's not a normal response. But again,
like the shit we've seen and done.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's like one of those things like
and everyone deals with death differently. It's one of those
Sometimes I feel guilty because I deal with it totally
differently than most folks. When I've had so many people
that I know and loved and was friends would die
in the wars, and all I can think of is
(24:06):
did they die doing what they love? Because I had
no problem if I had gotten killed, because I thought
I was out over there protecting you know, the homeland
United States that and I love being with those guys
and stuff like that. That if I died that way, like, well,
I died doing what I loved. And it's one of
those things that I think only folks over there doing
(24:28):
it really kind of understand that. Or dying and you know,
trying to save your you know, the brother next to
you or right of you, even if you liked them
or didn't like them, that had no bearing on it
at all. And that's what I think.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So I have a that's a really good question, is
why did you do this job? Why? Why would you
be willing to die for this job when so many
people would never enlist. So many people in America want
nothing to do with the fucking government. They feel no debt.
Why you.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
I don't like. I don't know where it came from.
I do remember my mom. I'm trying to think what
year it was. She'd found something I wrote in second
grade what do you want to be? And it said
US marine and FBI agent. I don't like. I probably
saw a marine movie. I don't know where FBI came from.
And then even in the FBI, volunteering for SWAT and
(25:24):
then volunteering for the hostage Rescue team, and then every
time I feel some guilt because every time an op
came up that I could go overseas and do something,
I volunteered for it. And I don't know if I'm
sure my wife kind of knew that it wasn't that
I volunteered for. I always said, oh, I have to go,
like you know, it's my turn. But it was me
(25:46):
raising my hand saying I'll go. Why And I don't know.
I I what then?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Why I don't?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I don't know, like I just one. I want to
be in action. I want to be where it's going on.
You know, Uh, what is that thing? My oldest said,
the uh FuMO fomo if you're being yeah fomo, like
you know, I want to be like right where the
(26:15):
like And you ask any of these guys that are
on SWAT teams or HRT or the special ops, like,
they all want to be the number one guy in
the door, like they want to be in the stack.
They don't want to be left behind. They want to
be where it's going on. So that that's always where
I've been. And part of it selfish because when you
(26:35):
look at it and the love of your children that
you you really can't love anything uh more than your
your child, Like that's one of those things that you
just don't get until you have one. But every time
I left them to go do this was one of
those things. Now I always say I I justified it,
(26:59):
saying I protecting them by going over and doing this,
But I think deep down I just love to do this.
And and then once you get into that adrenaline, it
is like there's no laughter until you do.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
You identify as an adrenaline junkie.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, uh, Like I don't. I don't like bungee jumping,
Like I don't go bungee jumping because one, I don't
trust the dude who who hooks you up. I don't
trust that they inspected the bungee line. Now I have
skydived a bunch, but I checked my gear. You know,
if I go.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
Into something bungee jump because of trust, but you sky.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Time well because I packed the shoot. I like, I
do all that myself. Like it's one of those things.
But also like like when you go into like a firefight,
like you trust your buddies that they're going to be
there for you, and you trust your own ability to
do things. I don't have a lot of uh So
(28:09):
I don't have a lot of risk in the hardest
thing for me right now is I end up leaving
the job I've gotten out of the FBI for it
was a horrible, toxic place.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
What's like, thinking back over your career, what's one of
the sweetest, kind of most epic moments that that you
remember that really just hit home for you and felt
like this is why I'm here?
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Uh. I mean there's several And I think part of
it is maybe later in my career, I was dealing
with a lot of overseas kidnappings and hostage related things
and uh and and part of it was involved in
some of the negotiations for exchanges of them. I remember
I had lunch a couple of times and after in
(29:00):
prisons with the Connie warlords, and you know, it's one
of those to be able to sit down with, you know, uh,
an enemy that literally for decades that you've been with,
that are you know, pretty you know, some of them
are pretty pretty badass warlords that have done things and
you sit down with them and you and you come
to an agreement with them to release some of your
(29:22):
folks and they release some of yours. And to be
able to do that in a in a in an environment,
a mature environment, like you're not putting personal things, and
some of those things were very rewarding. I think part
of it is I met some of them after I
got out. I actually ended up meeting Jessica Buchanan was
was kidnapped by pirates and I was involved in finding
(29:46):
her and it was a crazy kind of story type
of thing and talking to her about what she went through.
And then a couple of the guys that I had
gotten released out of Afghanistan or help help get released
out of Afghanistan and talking to them and and hearing
them later on about their lives and some things like
that that was really rewarding and involved in certain ops
(30:08):
that you know, you catch some some really bad people
and those all mean things, you know, to a point,
but it's one of those I'm you know, as as
I get mistaken in some of these podcasts, I get
you know, uh, I get called the bully or arrogant
type of thing, and I'm not I'm confident I want
(30:31):
to do them. But you know, it's funny, is like,
you better be somewhat humble because the folks that I
hung out with, several of them are Medal of Honor winners.
The quietest guy in the room's probably killed the most people.
And they're never going to tell you their story. Someone
else is going to tell you their story. They're not
going to tell you what they did. Someone's gonna say, hey,
(30:53):
that guy over there, you know what he did, right,
And I'm like, yeah, no, what And they tell me
this unbelievable story of what they did and You're like wow,
and he's just quiet about it. So but you have
to you still have to be confident when you deal
with those folks because they're used to a certain level
of what you deal with and they're great people and
and you know when we get together, it's funny. We
(31:15):
talk and we all tell stories and no one's trying
to one up each other. It's one of those where
you meet a guy from this some of these units
and they've done incredible things and and and then you
tell them the story about when you went undercover against
a mob and they think that's incredible. I'm like, well
what you did was incredible. And it's just a true
appreciation of each other in that and and it's like
(31:39):
they're just great people to be around, and they're out
there and they're they're quiet. Like I always say, the
guy talking the most is probably not there's probably the
guy who's done the least, so to speak.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
If you could commit a crime and get away with it,
what would that be?
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Oh shit? Like I always say, like if if I
ever get diagnosed with like terminal cancer, there's going to
be there may be a lot of dead people out there.
Uh Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
So we have hitlists that's kind of running through.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah. But and half of them though just me driving
to the gym in the morning in Miami. Uh that
I was like I always say, if I won the lot, well,
it's funny. Uh, director called me, was a friend of
mine and at one point, I mean, I love working
for the Bureau. And I told them one time, I said, yeah,
I said, if I went there was like a you know,
a five hundred million dollar lotto or something, I said, Look,
(32:34):
if I win that, I'm still going to be an FBI.
I'm just going to tell a lot more people to
fuck off when I'm in the FBI if I got
five hundred million. But it's like if I won the
billion dollar lotto, I'd probably have a truck down here
with like like railroad uh trust is as bumpers and
the people that tried to just cut me off. I
(32:56):
would have cameras on my car so that I could
film it and put it to my I g that
I just run these people. That's like right off the
road type of thing. And I'd have to be but
I probably would make enough on it to pay for it.
Little road rage, Yeah, roadage. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Tell me about tell me about the UN bombing.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
That was early on. That was when we first got
the Tyraq in summer three just after like it was
probably June or July, I forget what month it was,
and it was just like you're you're sitting uh in
a building and and you you feel an explosion and
(33:43):
you know that it's significant, like it like and it
was I don't know how many miles away, and it's
still like knocks stuff off your shelf, like you know
it's going to be bad, and responding there and not
even understanding what happened or you know where to go
at that point, just to get there and start doing something,
(34:04):
and then you start coming across the carnage that that
is just multiple layers out and trying to figure out what, well,
what do I do? Like what? And and it was
just if you came across someone and they and they
you know, were alive that you just tried to do
some medical intervention to possibly say them or you know,
(34:26):
some of them that you knew weren't going to make it,
and trying to get to like that's you know, the
triage is tough, being able to like this person is
not going to make it. I got to get to
someone who who actually has a chance, so to speak,
and then trying to well what do we do, like
how how can we even affect anything? How can we
contribute to? Uh? What what is the success in that?
(34:50):
Like you know to point so there from the FBI
point of view, is trying to figure out who did it,
trying to save who you can along the way, but
trying to gather evidence to be able to put that
back on a group so that you know, something with
you know, American diplomacy or you know, military intervention, can
can you know, take retribution so to speak. But it's
(35:13):
it's overwhelming when you come across something like that.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
Yeah, I'm really curious about the triaging. You know, how
do you triage a setting, a situation like.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
That, Well, you have to it's a I actually go
back to a civilian incident. So I was coming home
from Virginia Beach to the house in North Carolina. Is
probably a few days before Christmas. So it was like
my final like I was gone. I was coming home
and I come over the Inner coastal over this bridge
(35:45):
and as I'm coming down the bridge, I see a
van and I'm looking and it's on its the vans
upside down on its top in the middle of the road,
and there's only like one other car there. So I'm like,
I'm trying to figure out what happened. So I put
on I have my FBI, you know, Tahoe I put on.
(36:05):
I have red and blue flashing lights, so I throw
them on and I block. I blocked traffic so that
nothing can go into the van. And there's two guys
in there. It was one of the you know a
van that FedEx rents during the holidays that carry extra packages.
And there's two FedEx guys in there, and they're literally
strapped in there in the seat belts, and I do
(36:27):
a quick I was a medic on HRT, so I
do a quick assessment that they didn't have any spinal
cord injuries and stuff like that, so I basically pull out.
I always have plenty of my mcgaver tools. I pull
out my knife that cuts seat belts, so I cut
that and I lower the one down and I slide
him out, and then I do it to the passenger,
(36:49):
slide him out. And the one guy's got some some
serious medical issues. So I have we call sam splints,
the very flexible, but they can they can stabilize things
very quickly, So I put them around their necks just
for for ce spine and and I'm dealing with them,
(37:09):
and I'm trying to think where where's like the actual
medical attention, And I look down down the road. In
about four hundred yards down the road, I see fire truck,
I see ambulances, I see police, you know, flashers and stuff,
and I'm why isn't anyone coming down this way? So
I end up running down and I see a car
(37:33):
and it's it's basically flipped on its side in the trees,
and everyone in this group is is is dealing with
his car. And I go over to the car and
it's the It turns out it's the marine marine off
duty marine who caused this accident. He was drinking. His
girlfriend was with another guy. He was drinking. He's drunk,
(37:56):
he's going to go, you know, and he and he
tried to pass and he hit this van head on
and the van flipped there and then he careened into
these trees. And as I finally go over there, all
these firemen and empt folks are sitting there and he
has a wound that is like I'm seeing his brain.
(38:16):
He's not going to live, like this is a catastrophic injury.
And they're all caught up in this and I'm like, hey, guys,
like he is not going to make it. I have
two viable patients down the road that need medical intervention.
We probably need to get a life flight. Why are
you sitting here staring at someone who does not have
(38:37):
a chance. And I kind of yelled at him and said, hey,
fucking get on your game. Guys. There's so I brought
him all back down to there, like, hey, look, I
get it. Try to do something. But you know, you
got to take what you know is a non survivable
wound and go to the people. Like if no one
else is around, fine, but if you got people that
(39:00):
survive something, you need to do that. So it seems
harsh at the time, but it's one of those things
that you got to just, you know, again, take your
If it's the first time you're seeing something, sometimes you
get overwhelmed with it, but after you've seen it in
a number of times, you're like, all right, look, I
get it. It's horrible. This person probably gonna die, But
(39:23):
there's other things that we can be doing to save
other people that you need to get on.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I mean, that's why you were the go to FBI guy.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
Well, like I said, it's just a matter of the
first time you see it. It's so different from when
you see it twenty times later. What you end up
doing just because you understand all the things that you
go through and be able to deal with to put
what really is a priority, deal with the priorities, and
(39:52):
let everything else just happened there after.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
But I have to say you're unique in your ability
to do it, because I've worked with so many people
who after twenty years they crumble and they don't get
better at it, they get worse. And I know you're
like the most humble person, but you you also need
to recognize that it's a gift that you could do that.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Well. But you say that, but I'm used to so
many I'm used to being around people that that's what
they do. Like, so again, it's it's where you come
from and and and when you're there's so many mentors
out there that that you look at like I was
the FBI leano to to Jaysock, the Joint Special Operations Command.
It's it's where all the special really special units are
(40:37):
all embedded in and they do as as General Thomas
used to say, he was a four star. He was
he went from Jaysock to SOCOM and he was a
Phillies guy, which I was. You know, he liked the
Philadelphia Eagles. I'm a New York Giants fan. But he
always said, hey, look, we get the wicked hard problems
because we can solve the wicked heart problems. And he
(40:59):
was right because like you would take this problem that
seems unsurmountable and then you break it down with guys
that are used to doing this stuff and they and
they put it into and it's it's funny the guys
that you deal with there they're now three and four
stars and you see him going up and you and
you remember when they were younger, but they still had
(41:22):
this unbelievable ability to do certain things and uh, they
they some of them are just amazing people Like I
remember trying to think if it was Adamiral mccraven, who
who Again, they all have the same traits. They could
they could get intel briefs for weeks and weeks and
(41:42):
they would say they would stop in the middle of
an intel brief and say, wait a second, didn't that
that guy you just talked about, didn't he call so
and so last month to talk about this on this
tear And you're like, at all the briefs you get,
you literally remember one phone call like and that was
like General Crystal, Admiral mccraven, General Thomas, General Votel, Chris Donnie,
(42:04):
who's who's a four star now just amazed, like they
would amaze me on what they could do. And then
they're interpersonal relationships and the ability to uh to deal
with people and you and your mentor from them. You
look at them and you see how they do things,
and then you're kind of like, okay, when you think
(42:25):
you're you know, uh, you know, up to your knees
and stuff, like you're kind of like, hey, what did
what did? What do you remember them doing? And they're
just that's where you know, the mentorship comes in.
Speaker 1 (42:37):
This conversation is making me hungry. I'll be right back.
I'm gonna grab a snack. See in a minute. If
you were going to die because you had to death penalty,
how would you want to go?
Speaker 2 (42:51):
I'm not sure I can say that, like on the you.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Know, okay, if I was going to kill you, how
would you want it to happen?
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Like I said, Like, I'm like, if I if I
had to go, like I mean, I think hookers and
cocaine may be in there, so to speak, because I've
never done that, so I'm like, well, you know, but
it's one of those like when you say that like
(43:20):
it's funny. I actually, when I was working the FBI's
counter drone program, we had to go out to Indiana
because they're doing they just started federal executions again and
they were worried about protesters flying drones over the the
area that they were going to execute these guys. And
(43:42):
I remember sitting there on the road and seeing the
guy that was going to go get executed in a
van drive by me at a very slow pace, Like
I mean, I looked at him in the eyes and
I'm like, holy shit, like this dude is going knowing
to get killed. But I would always say, well, and
(44:03):
I tease people like I'd have to still be fifteen
minutes early to my own execution because I can't stand
being laid to anything. I literally be like, hey, guys,
like we might hit traffic. We need to leave now,
like so to speak. But it's one of those things.
There's a couple of times I remember skydiving and I
(44:26):
was having issues getting my parachute out, and I always
remember sometimes though, like people that have like ten thousand
jumps end up they get so fixated on the problem
that they forget some of the things. So they think
that they can they can fix what's going on, and
(44:47):
they they fall right through their altitudes or when they
should just pull the reserves, they get to the point
where they're not situationally attuned to where they are. I remember, though,
I was having an issue and I took my like
left wrist that has all my altimeter on it, and
(45:07):
I stuck it literally right in my face. So if
I go through the three thousand foot mark, I'm going
to rip my reserve. So I was, I'm trying to
fix it. I'm looking at my you know, altimeter, and
and then it's kind of funny, like what goes through
your head, like like if you're not going to make it,
so to speak, and you know, I'm like, God, I
(45:29):
don't want to like I don't want to be like, oh,
he blew it. He should have done this that the
other thing. And then finally like I, you know, I
got it fixed, and you know, my shoot came out
and I said, my my wife always said like I
had like ten lives that I've gone through, so to speak. Uh,
And and you know it's some of it's lucky. I
(45:50):
think some of it as you make you luck. I
think some of it's you know, fate. It's a combination
all of them, uh so to speak. But I've I've
a couple of times I thought, well, this, this isn't
going to turn out so well, and I'm like, I'm
good with it. I live my life the way I
wanted to be sad on some things. But you know,
it's it's it's what happens.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
So you're skydiving and you're thinking, I'm not going to
make it, and then you think to yourself, cool.
Speaker 2 (46:20):
No, no, it was you know, I had confidence I
was going to fix it, you know, and I like,
like I said, I was very situation aware of my
altimeter that I was going, like, I was not going
to go trying to fix it all the way into
the ground. But as you're going through it, it's kind
of like the funny things that go through your mind
as you're you're trying to fix it, thinking about that
(46:41):
same thing. I had a couple of things when I
was doing some scuba diving, uh and got pinned under
a ship at one point. Like so it's one of
those those things that you kind of when you look
at your mortality and stuff like that, what kind of
goes through your mind. Is is actually kind of funny.
Maybe it's the black humor sense of thing, you know,
(47:02):
but you start kind of laughing to yourself about some
of the shit that you think about when you think
you might not make it.
Speaker 1 (47:10):
Were there? So were you scared at times when you
almost lost your life? And then that fear changed?
Speaker 2 (47:17):
So I don't think I was scared at losing my life.
It's not that I haven't been scared. Like there's some
things like you're like shit, like I was scared that
I didn't have control over it, Like if I'm in
a helicopter that goes down, like you know, I'd rather
be the pilot trying to you know, be able to
(47:40):
fix whatever's happening. I just want control over it. So
I you know, I never minded. One time we were walking,
we're walking to an objective in Iraq, I was with
the Seals, and the league guy says, uh, gives the
not only the halt, but the like stop what the
fuck you're doing, like don't make another step, and you
(48:01):
figured out we're in a minefield. So at that point,
like we have to kind of back out, and uh,
And I didn't mind that because like okay, like this
is on me, like I can you know, figure this out,
like I didn't want to go and being a helicopter
that just got shot with the missile where you're you have,
you know, because you have no control, Like I liked
(48:23):
having control, even if it was you know something, you know,
like walking back out of a minefield as opposed to
being a helicopter gets shot down. You have no chance
to you know, engage enemy or do anything back to them.
So that's probably me being a control freak. But it's
it's the funny things that go again, that go through
(48:44):
your mind when you're doing it.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
You're a very unique person.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
There's there's plenty of me out there. There's plenty of
guys that, like I said, there's there's tons of them
that I know. You know, there's there's a whole team
that was in that minefield with me.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
But you're still in that one percent of the capacity
to navigate and think and compartmentalize your emotions.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
But you know what's funny is when when we look at.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Oh my god, you just can't take it. You cannot
take a compliment. That's just where does it go? Is it?
Speaker 2 (49:19):
Like?
Speaker 1 (49:19):
Does it land on one of those badges behind you
because it's not landing on you.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I was gonna say, though, when we look at like
these hostages that are taken and that they go through
captivity for two, three, four five years in Connie jails
and in other places, we trained soldiers to go through
the same thing, and we think that the training is
going to help, and then what we find out is
(49:45):
a person that was not trained at all. Their instinct
to survive is so great that they do the right
things when they when they need to. So it's one
of those things that a lot of people have haven't
done it because they've never been in the situation, but
they're very capable of it. They just don't know it.
You just don't know. Again, sometimes when we do like HRT,
(50:08):
the Hostage Rescue Team and the FBI, the selection that
we do is two weeks long and it is really
a very mature selections based on Delta's selection. You get
no feedback of how you're doing. Like you go on
a five mile run one you don't know how long
the run is going to be. You're just told to run,
so you run, and then you have a current operator
(50:32):
running with you and he's not saying anything to you.
Like in the Marine Corps, if like they never said
you were doing good, but you knew if you were
screwing up, they yell at you, so you had that feedback.
But hrt selection, you have no feedback. You don't know
how So I remember when I was going through selection.
I'm running and there's a guy running next to me
(50:53):
that's already on the team, and he's just looking at
me like he's he's literally looking at how much I'm
putting out? Like am I holding back? Am I? Am
I going one hundred percent so that I like collapse
in a mile? Or am I doing eighty ninety percent
or I'm at fifty percent. He's he's kind of understanding
where where I'm at, and but you get no input
(51:15):
from him. You get no feedback on how you're doing.
And we had guys that were unbelievable athletic people that
were tremendous athletes, and they would fail because in selection
we make them fail. Like even if we know the
whole process. So if we have a guy that runs
(51:38):
a five minute mile, you know, for forever, we stack
a guy like every mile to run that five minutes
you know mile with him but at one point we
put him in a situation where he has to fail.
Because someone who's never failed in life, when they first fail,
some of them just collapse and they're done. You want
(52:00):
the guy that fails, that basically fails hard, gets up,
brushes himself off, and starts going again, because that's who
you want in a situation. So it's one of those
things that that like, we don't want the five minute
mile runner that that it's never failed in life. We
(52:20):
want someone who runs it, you know, six or seven
minute mile that fails, fails again, fails again, and like
and just keeps going. Because that's that's the mindset that
you want in units like that. Like you know, and
you get guys, what's that I'm.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
Gonna tell you something and you can't respond right away.
You just have to like breathe. I think you're incredible.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Well thank you.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
You look so uncomfortable, but I really do. So what
is the emotion you experience when I said that?
Speaker 2 (53:02):
Embarrassment to like, because I know so many people that
are out there that that just are the same or
better that. You know, there's a ton of people out
there that that that are like that.
Speaker 1 (53:20):
No, there's not you have been around them and experienced them.
The majority of people are quite ignorant and really really boring.
And that's like do I spend a lot of my
time with.
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Well, you're a therapist, so like you know that is
that is part of your job.
Speaker 1 (53:39):
Okay, I have one final question for you. Okay, tell
me a government secret.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
I can't. If it's still secret, I can't. I can't
tell you. Let me tell you something if if someone says,
if someone ever comes up to you and says, well,
I'm secret and I can't tell you what I do,
that's the last thing they are. Because the people that
really live secret lives, they have an entire cover story
(54:14):
to tell you so that they don't stand out. So
if anyone says like I'd have to kill you, or
it's too secret or whatever, they're just bullshitting anyone who
says that. Like when I lived two years undercover, I
had an entire cover story that I talked about who
(54:34):
I was, what I did, and it never touched on
anything quote secret. I never got out of my character
and told anybody. So all the people that are in
covert or you know, classified things that they can't tell you,
there's an entire cover story that they're going to tell
you that you're never going to connect to it. So
it's the guy, like I said, the quietest guy in
(54:56):
the rooms killed the most people, and the guy who's
the loudest in the room probably hasn't done anything. And
it's the same thing with all that. So if people
come up and say, oh, you know, I'm a secret agent,
I'm you know, I'm Agent Orange, you know from uh whatever,
most likely they are just bullshitting And there's nothing like
when I was like most of the time when I
(55:16):
was an FBI tell people I was an FBI. Like
they're like, you know, unless you're in some type of
program that you're again you're covert, you're not going to
tell people. You can say I'm an FBI, and you
can say a lot of things that you did in
the FBI and it's not against the law. You're not
going to reveal cases, you're not gonna reveal you know,
classified things, but you can still say I'm an FBI
(55:36):
and I do this or whatever. So it's the ones
that that make up that whole you know, secret agent
thing and uh if you got what was that uh
uh Orange Schwarzenegger Uh, and uh true lies when the
guys like the car salesman goes out and you know,
bullshits everyone. That's that's what you're dealing with when you
(55:57):
get someone who's who's like that. So, uh, I can't
tell you any secrets because I'm still you know, bound
to that. But there's many things that you can talk about,
Like we talked about the pirate thing and all these
other things that we do. None of that stuff is classified.
I know where to draw the line of what you
can say and what you can't say. But you can
(56:17):
still tell a story that happened to you without giving
away classified information.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
It's fascinating. It is fascinating. You are amazing. And no,
this is not a common conversation.
Speaker 2 (56:35):
Well, I'm kind of glad because I thought, you know,
thinking of this, I was thinking like, well, how many
I have tons of gory like kind of just gory stories,
you know, Like, how many gory stories am I going
to tell in this what's the name of this?
Speaker 1 (56:50):
It's uh, intentionally disturbing.
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Yeah, So I have many disturbing things for me.
Speaker 1 (56:58):
The most one of the most disturbing parts of us
talking right now is that you don't see how incredible
you are, and how incredible your mission and your devotion
to your career in this country has been. Like we
talked about chickens eating brains and you possibly eating those chickens.
But the most disturbing thing to me really is how
(57:18):
you the government does not teach you also how special
you are in doing it.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
I didn't even know where to go.
Speaker 1 (57:29):
I'm sorry, do you do you have any final thoughts
or like where can people find you? You're going to
get You're starting your own podcast, which I think, God,
we could.
Speaker 2 (57:44):
Work trying to negotiate that. I'm gonna call it Inside
the Line with Rob be it with with that other
podcast where I'm gonna I'm gonna try to do something
at one. I think I do a lot of new presentations,
a lot of news commentary on all the major networks
(58:05):
and stuff. And what I found though, is like when
I do like a live event like New Orleans or
some school shooting, and when you're doing the interaction, it's
either the anchors asking you questions or the production crews,
you know, giving them the questions to ask. The audience
is only getting one perspective of those questions. And when
I did, like Surviving the Survivor. We did a couple
(58:27):
like live events, like the CEO shooting and stuff. And
what I found is that where I was on like
three or four people on there, and when I wasn't speaking,
I would look at the comments and I'd see questions
people are asking, and then I would answer them. And
I think that's that's where news is going, because right
now media is dictating what you hear and how you
(58:50):
hear it from from the experts, and I think people
want to ask their own questions, and I think that's
where it's going. So I'm working with some folks there.
I'm working on writing at helping write a TV series.
We'll see if that sells. There's a potential movie on
the Pirate Thing. If you haven't seen The Pirate Thing.
Surviving the Survivor. I did a one hour podcast on
(59:14):
chasing these Pirates down. Even one hour wasn't enough in itself,
but it's a crazy story about a whole bunch of
like a team of people that really did unbelievable things
to do that. It definitely doesn't wasn't just about me.
It was a team of folks that did it. Just
through my eyes. You can listen that on Surviving the
(59:35):
Survivor and then Erra one Consultings one of my companies
that do security consulting and do you know technical advising
type of thing so to speak.
Speaker 1 (59:48):
Awesome, and we'll link everything to this. So thank you
so much for doing this, for taking the time to
talk to me. Yeah, we will eventually meet in person
and drinkbourbon bourbon. Yes, thanks for watching this episode. I
hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you gained some
(01:00:08):
insight into what fucking Dimico does, what he did, and
what guys like him do and women and the incredible
people that are inside of our government and our military.
And also learn to take a compliment. If someone's offering
it to you, you really should let it hit home.
See you next time on another episode of Intentionally Disturbing
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