Leadership Under Fire: Command Sergeant Major Bart Womack Talks Survival, Command, and Resilience

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
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Speaker 1 (00:41):
Hey, what's going on? Welcome to another awesome episode of
soft Rep Radio. Welcome back if you are a repeat listener,
and if you're new to the show, Hey, I just
want to mention that we have a merch store and
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It keeps the fireplace gas flickering in the background. Okay,

(01:03):
that's a real fireplace, no green screen here. We got
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A lot of great books that have been chosen by

(01:24):
Brandon Webb and all the other Special Operations folks that
are behind the scenes helping keep the ship rowing it's
due course. And with that said, today I have a
very cool, very special guest today and I'm going to
read you his bio. First, let me welcome retired Command
Sergeant Major Bart Womack from the one hundred and first

(01:45):
Airborne and the United States Army. Welcome to the show.
It's nice to have you. Now. Now, Bar, as I mentioned,
I just want to go over your bio. I'm going
to read that and so if you'll just give me
a moment, I'm going to pull that up right here
and go for it.

Speaker 3 (01:59):
You ready, ready, all right?

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Bar E. Womack, Retired Command Sergeant Major bar E. Womack
is the recipient of two Bronze Stars, one for valor
serving in positions of great responsibility throughout the period of
eighteen February nineteen seventy seven through thirty June two thousand
and six. His career is distinguished by exceptional meritorious service.
His evaluations list him as the standard by which others
are measured. Retired commands are Major Bart Walmack distinguished himself

(02:25):
as a consummate trainer of soldiers by constantly demonstrating the
highest standards of military discipline, professionalism, and leadership, attaining one
of the highest honors in the Army. He served at
the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a sentinel and
relief commander. Later, he served as the Sergeant of the Guard,
interfacing with the President of the United States, the Honorable
George Bush and the Honorable Bill Clinton, as well as

(02:47):
former Soviet leader Michael Gorbachev and other leaders on the
world stage at numerous nationally televised wreath ceremonies during Operation
Iraqi Freedom and throughout the Global War on Terror. Commands
are Major Womack made signis to get contributions to the
Army and the NCO Corps by providing focus, leadership and
mentorship to all officers and enlisted soldiers who had the

(03:07):
privilege to serve with him, regardless of location, situation, or
enemy action. By virtue of his experience and knowledge of
contemporary operations of the one hundred and first Airborne Division,
Air Assault and Fort Campbell, CSM. Womack was selected to
serve as an interim Division Command Sergeant Major from January
through March two thousand and five. Like his exemplary performance before, CSM.

(03:27):
Womack was able to execute the duties of that office
while simultaneously balancing the duties of Commandant of the NCO Academy.
This exceptional non commissioned officer has served the United States
Army with distinction for nearly three decades. As a professional soldier,
he is not only a tactical and technical expert, but
also displays dedication and discipline associated with only the finest

(03:48):
America has to offer. His maturity, expertise, and personal dedication
to excellence have contributed immeasurably to the readiness of the
United States Army and the security of our great nation.
Since retiring commands are a major, Wi has worked in
the entertainment industry as an actor and military technical advisor
for feature films and television. Recently, he spent eighteen months
in Afghanistan training the Afghan National Army and its senior

(04:10):
l listed the leadership at the core level. He has
spent time in Nigeria as part of the Africa Contingency
Operation training that country's army. He volunteers his free time
by mentoring Army ROTC cadets. Additionally, he works with returning
veterans in the Saddles for Soldier's program, which, through the
use of horses is designed to help veterans and their
families better cope with the trauma and stressors that often

(04:30):
come with returning from combat, long term depression, re establishment
of life skills, and readjustment to civilian life. He proudly
adds the title of author to his resume and again,
welcome to the show.

Speaker 4 (04:44):
Thank you, hopefully you are. Is it still the way that?

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Oh right? What did you think? Did I do that? Okay?
Did I read that? Good?

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Oh? You nailed that. I was like, Wow, that's a lot.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
One take right there. That's you. That's just like a
that's like a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg
of you. I'm sure of it. You're such a you know,
just a just a you're just you. You're awesome airborne.
All right on a first, Yes, I just want to
give you math props for all you've done for our
nation and you know all if you've never been welcome

(05:15):
home from any of your deployments, walcome home.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Yes, So when you were doing all of these things,
are you a single guy? Are you a married guy?
You got kids? What I mean? Like, did you juggle this?
Like I got this? You know, you know my dad
was a Green Beret, and he said, you know, I
probably would have been a mercenary if I didn't have
a family.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
I like him already.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I like him already.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Yeah, so I would say it.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So seven years I was married. I think that's the math.
So long divorced nineteen ninety nine. So if I'm wrong
with the math, like who cares two sons? Yeah, yeah,
right if they're older now. But most of it was
just I was single.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Yeah, so you're really was able to dedicate that.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah. I was probably able to do most of that
stuff as a result of being single and having to
think about who was left behind in terms of what
when't accomplished at home and all those types of things.
Although I would say most military spouses allowed their serving
spouse the opportunity to pursue their career goals while they're

(06:22):
in and then they reaped the rewards on the back
end in terms of, Okay, now it's time to do
what I want to do.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Right, Like I sat here, I took care of everything
while you were gone, Mom and dad right there, the
whole same with my mom. My dad would be gone.
We never really moved around, right like military bratchet here like, oh,
I lived at this base, that base, this base. Some
parents move all around. It was more my dad just deployed.
He would go do a ninety day or six month
thing to Thailand, and Mom was always, you know, home,

(06:50):
taking care of us, making sure that we were taking,
you know, to school and eating, and she was dad
and mom and dad came home and I'd be like,
I got to like ease my way into this situation
or get out of the way. Yeah, yeah, right, you
know we've.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Got to make a choice. Yeah, you're leaving in a month,
and so don't mess it up. But you might be
leaving in two weeks. So I got everything in order,
and just go with.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
The flowest and play some catch because we know you
got a good arm.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yeah. So you all comes back to me and bums
all around and I can't never grab it. So yeah,
you don't do that now.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Now a little more about your bart you got Okay,
So I was born nineteen seventy seven, right, that's what
that's that's where I go from. And we read that
you enlisted in February of seventy seven. I was born
in September of seventy seven. So you're making choices at
a young age, your post Vietnam but still very Vietnam.

(07:49):
Is the uniform, the olive drab. Probably you're still wearing
all the od's right and jungle boots and all the
Gears issued gear from Vietnam. And so here you are.
How old are you when you list?

Speaker 4 (08:01):
I was eighteen?

Speaker 3 (08:02):
So just I just turned eighteen, I mean almost exactly
two months my birthday December seventeenth, and I went off
to basic training in February eighteenth.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
You just decided, you're like, I'm getting out of where?
Where were you at?

Speaker 3 (08:17):
Comisow? I help born and raised, you know, graduated seventeen
in June, and my plan was to go to college
after a year after graduating high school. So I worked,
and I've been working since age thirteen. So I was
used to having my own money and doing my own
thing and all that, and come from a single family,

(08:38):
single parent household, and so I like money, like the
opportunity to make my own money starting with a paper
out and all those types of things. So I always
was able to find a job and make my own money.
So I guess the miilitary was an extension of that.
But I was I was working at a place and

(09:00):
my next oldest brother wrecked the transportation, so I had
to catch the bus, and as a result, I was
coming home one night in between the transfers of the
bus and decided to walk instead of waiting for the
bus because it was cold, and I was stumbing upon
the recruiter station and went in there really to get warm,
because I knew about their spiel because they were coming

(09:23):
to the high schools and all that type of stuff.
So I kind of heard it all before, said I
was just going here. I listened for a little while.
I'll get warm and warm.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
I got to catch the bus. Right, that was the plan.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, he started saying some things because I never paid
attention when it came to the high school, right, I
didn't even stop at the tables, but sounded intriguing or whatever.
At least it passed the conversation and the time or whatever.
And more importantly, I couldn't make the decision on my
own because I was seventeen.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
My mother would have to say yes.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
So with that in mind, if I never told her,
then she was never going to know, and then you know,
decision would be made at least until I made That's
really what happened yeah, and that's why I ended up
being So I was in I remember being October and
then I didn't come in until February because I had
to wait till December seventeenth for me to make the decision.
My mother could have made it before that, but she

(10:14):
was traveling and so I didn't end up making it.
She let me make it after I turn eighteen.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
So you confided in her said hey, mom, I want
to do this. I'm thinking about joining the military.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
Thinking about it.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah yeah, and she's like, well.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
I never said that I want to do this. I
had said, well, I went there, you know, told me this,
I'm thinking about it. And then I didn't even think
about it for another month, and then I decided I
would do it.

Speaker 1 (10:41):
And so did you straight go infantry? Is that what
you were thinking? Or what did you enlist?

Speaker 3 (10:47):
I knew nothing about the military first and foremost. I
mean I knew nothing. Even though my oldest brother had
served in the Navy. You know, I was much younger.
He's nineteen years older than me, so I didn't really
get all those stories. So I didn't know anything. I
thought that airborne was, you know, jumping out of airplanes.

(11:07):
That was the craziest thing ever. I thought that I
didn't know anything about the Rangers. I just only arrange
I knew was smoking the bear right and those rangers
right anything in somebody's food. So I was clothless. I
just knew that, Okay, I'm going to go do this

(11:29):
thing and we'll figure it out from there.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Bro. And that took you to so many opportunities that
you've been able to, uh you know, be in uh
different parts of time of history of the world changing.
You know, we mentioned that you were serving with presidential
detail right where you have one president who serves under uh,

(11:53):
you know, a Republican uh you know crew, and then
you have another uh president that serves under a Democrat
at it crew, And so how do you stay just
because you mentioned they're both honorable? Nothing was like just this.
This president of that president said the honorable and the honorable.
You're very respectful to both sides of the fence. So
give us some wisdom on how we can still stay respectful.

(12:15):
You know our military personnel. May I kind of loosely
quote one of my generals that I've had on he
said rad it says, US Marines, US Navy, US Army.
Is there something to the US factor that you keep this,
I don't know, you gotta get image.

Speaker 3 (12:32):
This is a This is an absolutely great question and
topic for today's environment in military, and that general is right.
In the time that I serve and throughout the time
that I serve, it was all about us, and never

(12:58):
at the water cooler doing a run ever discussed political parties.
We served the country, and we took an oath to
defend the Constitution against all enemies born and domestic, as
well to listen to the commander in chief unequivocal. It

(13:23):
didn't say in that oath if it's a Republican commander
in chief, then we listened more. If it was a Democrat,
listen less, or vice versa. So those things weren't talked about.
No one was asked who you voted for after a
voting day. It wasn't even mentioned. I mean, we probably

(13:46):
were let off to make sure we voted in time
if there wasn't early voting in all those types of things,
but in terms of who, none of that scuff, none
of that stuff was ever discussed. Now, maybe when people
went home they fell in their own allegiance and ideology
and know all that type of stuff, but never ever
ever rad like, never ever ever ever, You're right, right,

(14:07):
because because you don't have a choice if the president
said that you're going here or going there, like, oh,
I don't want to go because that's not my party, right,
So why get involved in it in the first place.
And that's the way it was. So so as from
a leadership responsibility, if it ever came up, then you're
you're to squashed that. But you leave, you leave from
the top, you leave from the front. If you don't

(14:30):
do it, you're saying an example. If you never do
it and you don't allow it, then it should never happen.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
And that's the way it was throughout my entire time.

Speaker 3 (14:38):
So so what's happening today where I talked about if
the commander in chief makes a choice, it's almost as
if this is what I would expect today's military, that
some service member is trying to decide if I'm going
to listen to the commander in chief because I'm not
that political party. That's which you should expect to happen today.

(15:01):
And not only would they lean on that side, if
you will, they're going to carry it out and then
we're going to know about it. On the news, that's
the day's military, that's the days of I would tell
you that there's a problem with that, because how can
we how can we what's the word? I guess have

(15:24):
an expectation what our military is supposed to do outside
of what the normal thing is in an environment where
we think they may make a choice because we've given
them pro choice. We've given everybody that lever or push
that button up of a choice as if they have
a choice. They had one before. I feel today they

(15:45):
have a choice if they wouldn't make it.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Like what if somebody wanted to have a choice about
well commands, maybe says I f DoPT. I don't know
about that.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Yeah, time you don't, I would say that, then the
inner workings of that is gone. But you know, I
don't know. But in terms of the political climate, yeah,
it is out of control.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Right. Joining the military, you should understand there's a chain
of command and that you're a part of that and
your rank is at that level of where it's at,
and you're joining the it's a volunteer military, which what
makes us the greatest military in the world is it's volunteer, right,
people who are there whatever their denomination or their their
whatever creed, color, background, sex, or faith, whatever it is.

(16:32):
They've chosen to be there to fight with the US
in front of their name tape right, it's US, and
then their last name's over here somewhere, because if you're
reading left or right, your name is US right right.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
And I think if it went for the ability to
know a person's name and be able to see it
and you know, recognize their name and memorize their name,
then the name shouldn't be in balld just take it off.
What does that matter?

Speaker 1 (16:59):
Right?

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Rank matters, that's where have to follow that. And so
a leader, when I'm not following a story name out there, Jones,
I'm not following Jones because if Jones isn't that rank
and Jones isn't that brand, right, you know what I mean,
then I'm not I'm not following them. So if Jones
comes out of Jones's mouth versus the rank and the name,

(17:22):
I'm not following. I remember going and I would do
this and leadership talks at the end of my career,
and then when I was out, when I was talking
to a military unit about about leadership, and I'd bring
up some sort major whatever and I would say I
was standing there and not talking about some things, and

(17:43):
this is this is the time where the rank was
velcrowed on and I take it just this tail just
sling it now. Are you it is your name embodied
and command? Sorry? Major? Or is it the other way around?
If you're a leader, you should be able to go
out there without that rank and then go lead and

(18:05):
people follow. So they should be following you. That leadership
all that should be embodying you, not that rank.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
Nore.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
We know people don't respect the rank, but if they
don't expect that, if they don't respect you first, they're
not gonna they're not gonna respect that rank.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Right, you could have empty ranks. You could have a
rank that's empty inside. He just somehow got to that
level and it's like, you know, maybe he shows up
every now and then to get the job done, but
there's a an E five or like a sergeant who's
just always doing everything else and getting it all done,
and maybe he deserves a spot on the mission before.
You know, the guy with all the other rank because

(18:44):
he's putting in all this effort. This this other guy
that's just like going to town doing the same job
I guess that that rank would have I guess if
you have empty ranks, someone has to fill those, and
usually people are eager to get that spot.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
If you and I were doing the community activity and
we all up and he said, everyone come here to
do this thing or whatever, and there's no hierarchy, there's
no designated leadership or anything like that. But people in
the group, let's say just thirty of us, and someone
has to take charge and make something happen. Whoever steps
up and take charge and does all that stuff or whatever,
And you'd be like, if you or I did that,
it was like you guys must have been the military,

(19:18):
because you sound like it. You're like, the way you
have it all organized, although you've never done this state before,
that would stand out. That's the same thing of taking
the rank off. It's already in body, right or not.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
The person has it that the skill set, the skill
set is there or not or not exactly.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
Which means another story.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Maybe I could take it off and then there's nothing.
That's what I'm saying because I have to listen to
you because you gotta show me more than that. And
that's when everybody's from Missouri. You gotta show me.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Show.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
I take the rank off. Then because I don't respect you,
you put it back on. Okay, I guess I have
to do what you say, but you take it off
like no, you can do some other stuff, but this
ain't it.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
You know what my dad told me before I enlisted. He's,
first of all, he's all white the Air Force, and
I was like, well, they have a blue beret and
you had a green beret, so I thought that would
be easier to attain or something. That was the young me.
And then he's like, I was gonna remind you something.
He's like, no matter what, whether you like the rank
or you don't like the rank, you have to salute
the rank. He's like, you gotta salute. He's like, you

(20:23):
can say sir, yes, sir, okay, but you still got
to say sir, yes sir. They all know what you
mean when you say yes sir.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
You know.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
I'm just saying. He's like, you know you gotta do.
You still got to you know, follow that. You gotta
respect that, right, So I mean, I get that, but
at the end of the day, one time he's like,
he told me a story. There was a major giving
him a hard time in his team, and he's like, sir,
may I call you an asshole? Sir? And he's like,
you may not, Radel and he's like, well, then I

(20:57):
will not call you an asshole, sir. He literally, you know,
just drilled it home to the guy, right. And so
at the point, I mean, but there's also that teamhood
and you know that camaraderie on an SF team. These
guys are first named basis a lot of time. But yeah,
at that time, he's like, sir, oh Dad, where are

(21:19):
you at? Hopefully guarding his own planet according to his beliefs.
And that's because we're Mormon here in Utah and that's
where Dad's at. No one talks about that enough, bro,
No one talks about you know here. They're like, oh,
they've passed away. I'm like, yeah, but they didn't just
pass away. They went on to get their planet.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
That's all. That's all. Okay, a faith, it's true. Go
ahead and calm it down below. If you think I'm
saying something wrong, go ahead. I'd love to hear that
on your comments. Tell me about the church, go ahead,
only raised in it my whole life. Now. The embedded
enemy is the book that you draft that you've authored.

(21:59):
It's out there. People can find it, you know, based
just by googling Embedded Enemies? Am I saying that correctly?

Speaker 3 (22:06):
Correct?

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Right? And I'm just jumping here into you know, two
thousand and three. The timeframe is Operation Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom.
It's like first wave, second wave of soldiers going in,
probably first wave because we got hit what two thousand
and one first wave? Huh yeah, So you're part of
the first wave. And everybody's coiled up, everybody's all spun in,

(22:31):
positioned to get ready to go. And then he wrote
a book about what happened on this day where was
he a private or I don't know the rank of
this sergeant took some hand grenades and decided to just
try to stop the situation with his own command team,
and then also went after them with small arms fires?

(22:52):
Was he subdued and shot and killed? Do you want
to what happened? To tell us? Tell us about your book.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Books called Embedded Enemy The Inside of Threat, and there's
a caption we have met the enemy and it is
us which extends beyond the book and really in today's
world and and school shootings and all those types of things,
it's us, and frankly it's been us for quite a

(23:21):
long time. As much as the country is making efforts
now to keep potential future terrorists get rid of them,
which is the right thing to do, we still have
a very very bad internal problem of embedded enemy as well.

(23:42):
So March twenty second, two thousand and three, we have
been on this camp for about twenty days called Camp Pennsylvania,
that's in Kuwait. This is our enemy's stage in base.
We're putting the final touches on our orders at that
particular time. So this is a Saturday particular time we

(24:02):
are scheduled to across the border into our Raq. They're
coming Thursday's about five days away, and again, final touches
on the orders, get those things done, and really a big, uh,
you know, a big, big moment for us to have
finish completed all that and just ready to go after that.

(24:23):
So I'm not letting a guard down by any meetings,
but just to kind of relax a bit, like you.

Speaker 4 (24:30):
Know, that's kind of o X leveled it right.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
So we had a.

Speaker 4 (24:34):
Little small p X on on the post.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
I went there to get me some little goodies because
we had a television our command tent where med a
commander and executive officer state and there's a TV there.
So I'm planning to watch golf. I figured out how
to get American golf. I'd watched it a couple of
nights before. And it's a Saturday round and make a

(24:57):
move day in golf and Tigers leading the field. And
you know, I'm a big Tiger Woods fan. So I'm
buying some snacks and everything. I'm gonna sit down there
at midnight. You start watching some some golf all night home, right.
I watched it on Thursday night, you know, during the
first round, second round, I fell asleep in a chair
in front of the TV there. And the third round, Okay,
I'm gonna stay because I'm gonna eat myself away.

Speaker 4 (25:18):
And so.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
Later on that day, our ammunition arise right about you know,
about seventeen hundred hours or sold local time there and
in child time and all that. So our commander allows
the subording units, I say, get their animals, and you
guys make the decision about when you're going to distribute
that you can guard it all night and distribute during daylight,
or however you want to do it. You decide. So

(25:44):
my driver brings me some ammunition, some some nine millimeter
ammunition for my nine meal, and I have that on
my my table where I'm gonna be working from, and
my playing has my lowd ammo watch golf and do
some bill pay Simon, right, yeah, playing for the night.
So twenty two hundred hours, the commander comes in, Hey,

(26:06):
I'm hitting the sack. So this is the first time
in twenty days of being on this camp that he's
gone to bed that early, right, you know. So he
shuts it down, and I'm getting all prepared there to
watch golf, golf on it comes on. I'm watching that.
And so that the flat the ender our tent was
kind of was to my right. I was sitting at
a table. I'm right at the end of the table.

(26:28):
TV is about five feet in front of you or so,
and the ten flat kind of moved. I thought that
was a little well, it wasn't odd, I'm sorry, because
the wind would blow and that would happen. It would
just script up against the wind flour. Then it did
it a second time, and then I noticed this object
kind of to my right front at the floor, and

(26:50):
it's sparking. So I think that we're in the land
and not quite right, and that is a not quite
right grenade that's sparking before it explodes. And I've never
been that close to the grenade before it explodes, so
I wasn't waiting around to figure out what happens. I
can tell you a story later because my pieces would
be spread all over the place. So I jump up,

(27:13):
run to the back of the tent to wake up
the commander because if this grenade is gonna go off, obviously,
you know I want him back there sleep. Our executive
officers in attend as well. He was on the other
side of the table, so he saw what I saw,
So I knew he could take care of himself in
terms of you know, his next next move?

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, yeah, getting away like trying to find cover.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Right, But the command who's sleep that note?

Speaker 1 (27:35):
What's going on in your tent? This you saw this?
This is fragged into your tent, correct.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yeah. So I get him up and say, hey, there's
a grenade about to go off up front. We're gonna
run out here in the count Oh yeah. So that
gave enough time to get his boots on and then
that was it. So I counted three USD start running
down the middle of the aisle. So as we start
running down down the aisle is when a fragranade comes

(28:04):
in and the fragrnade blows him back into the area
of where he was sleeping. So the EXO by that
time had made it so so kind of vision. I
don't want to go to feet, but you kind of

(28:25):
have a front. I'm at the front. The exo is
actually in front of me already, but you can't see
like where I was operating from and low Nanmo and
all that. There's a huge flutescing light, plenty of light.
By the time I went to the back of the
tent to get him up, it's pitch black dark. I
can't see anything. So when I'm back there, I kind

(28:48):
of line myself in the middle aisle because I know
where that is, and to position the commander there because
he's just waking up, like come over here, run straight,
you know, right beside me, right, let's go.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, was in back, so he's back that way.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
I'm kind of forward the middle, and then the XO
is already in what's called the vestibule area of this tent.
So I get outside and I noticed the Commander's not
not there.

Speaker 4 (29:15):
I'm calling for him.

Speaker 3 (29:16):
Kind of hushed tones because the enemy's here, right, so
I don't want to power out out and you know,
spotlight myself. So it's kind of hushed tones. And then
I hear a gunshot and I know that it's the
XO being shot. I'm pretty sure of that, and I
pull pull out my pistol cock it the chamber around,

(29:39):
and it doesn't chamber around. Remember, all my AMMO is
on the table. I'm loading magazine, but I still had
my weapon and the hoster magazine in there, you know,
to keep the dust out. So I hadn't gotten in
that one yet. So when I cock it, instead of going,
it just.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Goes walks back.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
All right, So I'm I'm screwed. I've always told you
don't bring nothing to a gunfight. It's bad enough to
bring a knight to a gunfight, but nothing to a
gunfight is even worse. So the talk is behind me
about yeah, fifteen meters. I guess I run to the

(30:19):
talk to get a weapon and ammunition and nods because
you can't see. So I'm running in a hall for that.
People are scaring to get that. In that time, a
grenade is thrown into the another tent, and then a
grenada is thrown to another tent, and shortly after someone

(30:40):
else's shot, and just that quick amount of time, I
get that AMO and everything and come back out go
to my tent looking for the commander and executive alcor
and they're not there. And at the same time I'm
trying to I'm looking for insurgents.

Speaker 4 (30:57):
Right, get this, where are they?

Speaker 3 (30:59):
I'm armed?

Speaker 1 (30:59):
Now?

Speaker 3 (31:00):
Ready, Yeah, there's nothing. You don't hear nothing. It's pitch black.
There was a light set that was there, but the
light set had been turned off, so you can't see anything.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
I tell people this how dark it was.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
You take close your eyes, put one hundred miles now
tape around it about ten times, right, and that's how
dark it was. Even with the knives, like you need
a sliver of a star. I couldn't see anything. Yeah,
I mean I went out with those things and I
probably walked, you know, twenty five feet and like this
is no good.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
It is nobody, no nothing to give you any ambient
and right, so I'm looking.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
I'm looking for them, and I'm also searching for the enemy.
And then I go back to the talk and say, well,
I can't do both, So I'm gonna send someone to
look for those two. Why I just look for the enemy.
Then when I come out the second time, now there's
someone else out, at least one person, because they challenged me,
like who's there? And do that that trying to challeng

(32:00):
and stay, well, it's first, it's halt at anytime, you
know that's happened to someone's pointing the weapon.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
That's yes.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
So I recognized the voice. This guy in served within
the previous unit, and of course i'd say who I am,
and he says, well, so I'm maye what's going on?
I said, I don't know. I said, measure Romaine has
been shot. Then he says, Captain, Seeper's been shot. So
then starts our whole, our whole triage of casualties in
the second tent. Now keep in mind it was there

(32:28):
was a gunshot or grenade in the gunshot in the
first tent. So the second tin had heard that that
people in the second tent, so they started getting up.
So grenade explodes at a fifteen degree radius. So if
you're below the fifteen degrees, you might want to be fourteen.
Then you're good. Now if you measure that degrees that

(32:49):
it's pretty darn low.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
So you have to be flat, you have to be completed,
like even like lower. You have to be so low yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Yeah, And be honest with you, I think if you're
laying on the floor, still not low enough. Because one
guy got shrappened on the feet and he was laying
down at the time, so you got to be below
like the length of your feet and he I mean,
he didn't wear fifteen.

Speaker 5 (33:16):
So anyway, other guys that started started to get up
and they caught a lot of a lot of shrapnel
in the upper torso as a result, the grenade just
like landing like right, you know, five feet in front
of him, and because they were standing up, caught a
lot of it.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
Intent too, as well as other casuals in Tent three
and what he did in Tent two, what happened in
Tent two. The grenade was rolled in and said we're
under attack. Same thing with intent three. So there were
more severe casualties than ten three. So with two thousand
of casualties, were looking for the insurgeons at the same time,

(33:57):
but having no sign of insurgents at all, like nothing.
So I'd go to the talk and say something changed
in its camp. Something had to have changed. You've been
for twenty days. I'd gone out to the guard towers
to check on the guards. They were doing the right
thing either they fell asleep and insurgeons climbed over a

(34:18):
twelve foot slanted berm to get into the camp. That's
the only way it could have happened. And someone says, well,
interpreters came in last night. Damn, it has to be
themn go find them. So the search is only for
the interpreters. While we're still looking for the insurgents and

(34:39):
find the interpreters to interrogate them, just to learn that
they know nothing, have nothing to do with it. So
now we're back to looking for the insurgents. And I
say at that time, if they can come in here,
create all this devastation and leave no sign of them
being here, we're going to get annihilated when we cross

(35:00):
that board. We are totally underestimated. Uh, they're their fighting power,
fighting strength.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
And capabilities and like their and their tenacity like to
do something so like peace out, like that's us. Were
those guys.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
Nothing about their special operators and being specal right like
they are elite? Elite? Yeah here and do this right.
The commander was concussed from the grenade. He ended up
being wounded with uh two pieces of trapnel in his arm,
you know, but bled like a pig. That's what trapnel does.
I mean, it's just you know, razor blades flying around

(35:40):
on steroids is what tratine is at the end of
the day. So he says, we need to get accountability
of personnel. So you make a radio call that to
get accountability, and learn that a guy named Sergeant Hassan
ak bars missing, so are grenades ammunition. And that's when

(36:03):
he become he became a suspect.

Speaker 4 (36:06):
So we hear all that.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
In the talk. Now myself in the intelligence officer, Major Romain,
he had been going around all night checking bunkers, make
sure people are doing the right thing, walking around with
his pistol in his hand. So after we learned that,
you come out and talk to be able to tell
our leaders, look what we're looking for. Sacan to transfer

(36:27):
that message down to the borning leaders. And then he
notices this one bunker just kind of straight out of
the talk to the right that he had not gone to.
So he decides, let me go over here and check
this bunker out, just do the same thing he had
done all night, calm people down, et cetera. So he
walks over to that bunker and says, who we have
in this bunker. That's what they've done every night and

(36:48):
all night was try to identify who's in the bunker.
So we hear the person says, sar Knockbar. The dock
Bar didn't know we're looking for him, so he calmly
hosts this pistol so he doesn't appear to be a
threat to dog Bar, and then walks closer to the bunker,
just gets behind him and takes og Bar down because

(37:09):
dog Bar doesn't never're looking for him, right, So that's
how he becomes apprehended. He's flex cuffed. Someone asked if
he did it or whatever, and as he gets ready
to answer to tell me to shut up. So we
didn't get an astra out of him right then and there,

(37:31):
I get his weapon and smell it to see if
it has been recently fired, and it had. Now I'm
walking around, I have on like a fleece jacket and
the fleece hat. That's all I have.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
So once he's apprehended, I go back to get my.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Gear so I have my gear on now and ammo
this time, and I go back and get that weapon.
And when I went to get my gear, I noticed
that there was a piece of expended brass at our tent.
So by now the light set is on and I
saw that brass. So I took that weapon and put
it by the brass, because I knew if this weapon,

(38:13):
which smelt like it was fired and the round came
from this weapon, then this thing called a dodic, those
numbers would match. So when I took his weapon, all
I did was put it on safe. I didn't clear
it because I didn't I want that round when everything
stayed like it was termed, that round already being there

(38:34):
and the magazine is still in the weapon, because all
those numbers are going to match this shelcationess on the
ground if it was fired from this weapon and this
lot of AMMO. So I put a guard there, which
ended up being there for like two miles. He said,
said you.

Speaker 4 (38:51):
Only I can relieve you.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yes, you know, I picked a trustworthy person or whatever
and put him there and said only I can't relieve you.

Speaker 4 (38:59):
So again he's apprehended.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
Kind of move them off away from everybody else, I'll
tell you before that when I went to get my gear,
I could see this complete devastation in my tent, and
where I slept was all blown to pieces. So had

(39:23):
I not been watching Tiger Woods play golf, then I
wouldn't be talking to you right now. My whole air
was blown up, went to sleeping bags, a sleeping bag
cover called a Bavy sack, and that was full of
shrapnel holes. More important that he's strapping the holes at

(39:44):
the head and I would sleep with my skull kept
on push my hand up at the top to keep
it warm because I don't have any hair. All that
was full of strapnel and along the side as well.
My whole air was like caved in from the explosion
of the grenade. Of where I slept. There was a
walllocker that there was that I had that someone found

(40:05):
out in the middle of the desert someplace and brought
it back to me, and so I had that in
my space. That walllocker actually saved the executive officers from
being hit with shrapnel. Although he ended up getting shot,
he would have got plastered with shrapnel because he had
moved into an area of the tent adjacent to where
the walllocker was but the walllocker took the blast of

(40:28):
of the the blunt of the blow from the grenade,
and what didn't hit the walllocker went into the lower
area where.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
I slept, so we moved him off.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
He's moved off to the side, and then he's asked again,
you know, if he did this or why he did this,
and he says, to keep y'all from killing our women
and raping our children. And at the time, I'm thinking,
who the hell is our It didn't resonate. His name
is a sanakboy. All that stuff didn't resonate to me.

(41:04):
You're in the art, you know, like we're talking about before,
It says us Army. Right here, you took the same
old I took. So the whole hour was not resonating
with me. So immediately to take away from that immediately
was you know, we don't go home with people at
night number one. So I don't know what they're doing,

(41:25):
what they're planning, where the illeology falls. They put on
the uniform and come to work, it says army. So
we think that they're living those values through and through,
but yeah, not the case CID comes and they they
take them away, they do start their investigation and everything.

(41:49):
And then I learned because at the time I don't know.
I told you what happened at the time in the
tent when that first grenade comes in and sender grenadia
starts fires. That's why it was sparking before it emitted
the flame. But then the frag grenade came in. So

(42:11):
had it reversed those and through the fag first, there
would not have been any sparks and bart Womack would
have been splattered all over the.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Tent, right, But so he just didn't have the right
grenade tossed in. He just had the wrong bro Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
So yeah, so and that is this.

Speaker 4 (42:32):
He he.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Was on guard, remember that EMO just came in that
subordinate unity decided they would guard their ammunition and issue
it the next day during daylight.

Speaker 4 (42:46):
So he volunteered for guard at the end of his shift.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Near the end of his shift, thirty minutes or so,
he told the private that was on guard with him,
because he's a sergeant, Hey, you just go to go,
can go to sleep. I'll hold it down until the
next until we're relieved, So you just go to sleep.
That gave him his opportunity to start opening up the
AMMO to get five five six and get grenades. So

(43:14):
he took his protective mask out of protective mask carrier,
ditch that and put the grenades inside his protective mask.
So point to what you made is he grabbed he
had two incentary grenades and just grabbed a handful of fragranades.
So once we apprehended him, there were still two fragrannades
in the protective mask carrier as well as uh in

(43:38):
the centinary grenade. So he threw it in sentinary first
and realized all heck, I didn't mean to do that.
He didn't throw in his scendary the rest of the night, right,
But you thank God that he that he didn't throw
it first, because I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
No, Because you're sitting here watching your TV at five
feet away. The flap is right here next to you. You.
You're at your table, you're just like doing your normal
routine and in a fleece chilling, and you see this thing.
Just what you're like, that's not right, and then you
knew right away. That's when you were able to alert
is because that.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
Yeah, like I mean, I was you're talking about spring.
But now I saw those sparks and I was gone, yeah, yeah,
I mean I know you knew what it was. Yeah yeah, Well,
like I said, I knew it was some type of grenade.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
Correct, we were, We were in.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
The land of not quite right. That that was my determination,
And that's a not quite right grenade that for some
reason is sparking before this blow that wasn't gonna get
them and goes, oh, it says in sendinary, Oh, I'm good,
it's only going to start a fire over there. It's
not going it's not a torch. It is a torch
right where it is. But it didn't, you know, So yeah,

(44:50):
had it reversed them, I wouldn't be sitting here. I know.
I said that three times, but yeah, all the time.
For me, God had a different plan for me. Everyone
who I was the first one out of the tent.
Everyone else who came near to coming out of a
tent was shot. He just wasn't ready when I came out,

(45:11):
because I when I came out.

Speaker 4 (45:12):
I probably and I was.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
I was running, but I only ran past the tent exit,
maybe an additional forty feet or so, and turned around.
And that's when that that's when the gunshot happened and
when he shot the XO. So the EXO was kind
of it was in the vestibule, but he was his

(45:34):
arms were extending beyond it, and he was shot in
the hand, went through the other hand and went through
his leg. So likely had he not been extending beyond
the tents vestibule and maybe back here, then it wouldn't
have been visible to be shot.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
So that was that didn't take his life, though, that
shit just wounded him. Unfortunately. This is dude. He was.

Speaker 4 (46:06):
He was the key planner in terms of uh, he's
the key planner.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
And it's messed me for our movement of our ground
AsSalt convoy. He was very, very strategic to that as
well as the headquarters headquarters company, brigade commander, not the
brigade commander, but the HAC, the company, not the brigade.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
He was severely wounded in his tent.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
He was in the third tenth, so exposed the first ten,
suposed the second temp. By the third tenth. Not only
were they up, but they had been moving coming out
of the tent already. He would have been one of
the first ones out. Excuse me, but when he got
to the tent exit. He realized if he got his
m had to go back to get it, which was

(46:51):
all in the back of the tent.

Speaker 4 (46:52):
Once he got it and came started.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Coming out of the tent, the grenade had been rolled
in and it blew up. He was seventeen inches away
from the grenade. Yeah, command, yeah, man.

Speaker 1 (47:08):
Yeah. So once the other tents started hearing any kind
of commotion and just like anything, they're like they spring
into action, like you sprung into action. So now uh
Acbar has to like disappear into the bunker. So he's not,
you know, noticed, because you guys are like, where's the enemy.
It's pitch black. No one knows it's him. So he's

(47:31):
trying to like so he's caused all this commotion and
all this anguish and amongst his own friendly fired. Friendly
fire is not friendly.

Speaker 3 (47:42):
Right I I I swear to this day that you know,
as people began to come out of tents, we have there,
we have the uh you know, the triogic casualties going on.
Everything everything is working and everything, although we still have
no sign of the enemy still getting people that were

(48:04):
coming out of the chance in the position to defend
our area. Keep in mind as to defend our little area,
or they call them pads where the headquarters is about
one hundred and thirty people. As we defend our little
area and point our weapons out, they're pointing against the
other the rest of the five thousand person team. This

(48:26):
on this camp, right, which we think somewhere there is
going to be these insurgents. Right, We're just set up
a perimeter to defend our area. So as people coming out,
I'm moving into certain parts. Go over there and go there.
You know, there was a there were some barriers all
around and kind of had this natural circle. So I'm
putting them all along those barriers, and I swear that

(48:48):
he that he passed me. Because there's people were coming,
I'm telling them where to go. I swear he passed me.
You know, it's dark, so you can't really get a
good visual. And I went trying to look at faces
and say, jone's over here. You know Smith over there,
whims over here with just another person. But I swear
that that he that he he was one of the

(49:09):
people that passed me. And I told him where to go,
you know, on on the on the perimeter of which
he went. But then later you know, got in, got
into that bunker with with fellow soldiers, so you're just
blended in with everybody else. Yeah, let's say what you
have on that was our uniform? Then yeah, everybody was
the same thing, everybodys wing the same thing.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
And you're not thinking. You're just like, hey, get on
the sixty, Hey, go take care of this. Hey turn
your lights on, like hey, put your nods down. Hey,
you know. And then wait a second though, as you're
telling him and he's like, yeah, I got you, ce S,
I got you. You know, You're like, you didn't say nothing,
like no one said.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
It wasn't that time for anybody to say anything. It
was just like, go, you know, it's not it's not debatable.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Go yes, over there, over here, to your to your positions, right,
show must go on, Let's go. It's like I can
only uh, just hear what you're saying and just you know,
take it in, like you just see this, dude, and
because you've you've recollected everything in your mind.

Speaker 3 (50:11):
So think think about this as a as a an
attacker where he was guarding the AMMO for his unit
or one of my some born in units was a battalion.
They had eight hundred plus people. If you just wanted

(50:35):
to kill, you could have loaded up all that AMO,
several magazines and all those things, and twenty five feet
from him killed one hundred people easily in a fast tent.
That would over one hundred people walking there. It's one
o'clock in the morning. Put your weapon on blast, everybody's asleep,

(50:58):
and just have that and grenades as well. Oh yeah,
but he didn't do that. No, That location for that
unit was about three hundred meters from the headquarters. This
is a huge camp. Just think ten football fields of
how big it is. And that's probably not even it's

(51:20):
probably bigger than that. Five thousand people there. He walked
across the desert for three hundred meters to attack the headquarters. Yes, people,
he didn't even he knew the commander was and the
command star major was.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
That's probably about it in terms of names of people.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
That train of command like this is of command, right right,
That's what I was gonna ask you. Did you even
know this guy?

Speaker 3 (51:43):
Yeah? Not, No, I didn't. A few people did in
the headquarters, but I really didn't know. But his mindset
was take out the head and body will follow, and
and it worked. He took out the head. And then
the next day and the aftermath, well, I actually say

(52:03):
later that day and the aftermath, the c ID was
doing their investigation. They made us take all the items
out of the tents and everything. So you can imagine
soldiers having to go in there because the people who
lived in the tents, no, that was only one capable
in my tendon build to drag off stuff out. Because
two people were injured. It was even worse than beside me,

(52:24):
and even worse in the tent beside that. So now
those people can't justipate and help carrying anything out as
other people. Right, So think about those other people that
go in there and see all that blood. So we
clear everything out so they can do their investigation. And
then people were, you know, my soldiers were just sitting along.
They had these huge Texas bears and they had this

(52:46):
little kind of concrete bench attached to them. So people
were just sitting along there, and they were they were devastating,
you know, grieving and everything of which they're expected to do. Sure,
and I just said, everybody, get up, get up, get
the hell out of here. I know you're grieving and
all that. I know. It's bad but you're not gonna

(53:09):
be able to do that thing you're doing right now here.
Get out here, go do it someplace else, because, like
I said, take out the head, the body will follow.
It worked the body, which is all the soldiers. They
were devastated, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, the war
hadn't started yet, right that we can't fight This unit

(53:31):
is not capable of fighting the war right now. They're
a combat ineffector mentally and physically combat ineffective. So I
made him get the heck out of there, go work
on it, Go grieve over there, and get it over
with because we still got a war to fight, that's right.

(53:52):
So by this time, in the day of March twenty third,
in two thousand and three, as a as a Armed
Forces Coalition force, the ground attack had been gone. The
Jessica Lynch Convoy had been commandeer. Now we have prisoners

(54:13):
of war, we have ground troops in firefights while we're
trying to pick up the pieces from this. This is
already happening. So that's why you're just learning about this story.
You may have heard, well, this thing happened in two
thousand year. I remember hearing about that, but you didn't
know about it because it happened. CBS News was embedded
media with us, so it appeared on the Sunday Morning

(54:36):
Show in a two minute segment and then they went
on to other news about the war. And then you
had to follow stuff on internet blogs after that to
keep up with.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
This attack rather so much happening, and so it just
became war.

Speaker 4 (54:55):
This got became war, just got buried. This happened.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
Investigations and have a stay tuned later or whatever. So
if you didn't know that it happened, then you didn't
even know the follow the internet blogs to get updates
on anything, right, So and then you got you know,
you got you got the war happening. So it was buried.
So that was another reason to write the book, because
I wanted the world to know. I wanted the world
to know that this happened to these people number one.

(55:21):
Number two, that someone leveraged their ideology to infiltrate the
United States Army to commit it an attack. And and
here's why I say that, And and because that's exactly
what it was. So unbeknownst to us. It wasn't just

(55:41):
that this attack happened. You know, we learned during the
trial that he had planned for this hm. In his diary,
he had written, I'm going to pull this up and
give me a second, and they would like to mess
up a quote.

Speaker 1 (56:02):
It's incredible, I mean, just you.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Know, yeah, so quote I quote here.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
Nineteen ninety three, he wrote, I do not like the military.
They have too much control over people's lives. I suppose
I am just anti government, and Muslim should see himself
as a Muslim only his loyalty should be to Islam only.
Nineteen ninety six. Anyone who stands in front of me

(56:36):
shall be considered the enemy and dealt with accordingly. Nineteen
ninety six. Destroying America was my plan as a child,
and as a juvenile and in college. My life will
not be complete unless America is destroyed. Destroying America is
my greatest goal. He joins the army in nineteen ninety eight,

(57:01):
after nine years, I think at the University at cal
graduating with an engineering degree in nineteen ninety seven. In
February two thousand and three, so a month before this attack,
you guys are coming into our countries and you're going
to rape our women and kill our children. I am

(57:24):
not going to do anything as long as I stay here.
This is that for Campbell. But as soon as I
am in Iraq, I'm going to try to kill as
many of them as possible. So there you go again
unbeknownst to us, you know, premeditated for a long time

(57:45):
almost what so six one, seven years prior.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
Yeah, and so this dude was how old do you
think this person was? No, he was thirty two, thirty two,
so seven years prior, he was twenty five, Yeah, and
already what we would call, you know, just radicalized, you know,
and so man dude so like.

Speaker 3 (58:06):
But radicalized likely ten years well, ninety.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Three they had the Twin Towers were the bombed, right,
the Twin Towers got bombed, and then.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
The anti government comm is that twenty six is just
you know, his ideology wasn't.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
And there was also like another Towers attack in the
ninety six time.

Speaker 4 (58:26):
I think I think something did happen at the World Trade.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
Center, Yeah, and it just didn't do enough. Remember, like
there was a couple of bombings at the Trade Center
until the aircraft.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
Correct that was prior.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Yeah, and he just seems to be kind of chirping
off as soon as those types of things happened. He's like, oh,
this affects me, I agree, or this affects me I'm
going to now write this today, you know. Huh So,
now is he in Levenworth.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Eleven work on depth row, on death row. So his
his charges were two counts of premeditated murder and three
counts of attemptive premeditative murder. So they counted the attack
in my tent is attemptive premeditated.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Bruh, it was premeditated. Yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
I mean yeah, I mean definitely premeditated. But from a
from an overall national security standpoint and a counter terrorism standpoint,
he's a terrorist.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
Now the government has not sec that.

Speaker 3 (59:39):
No, no one has deemed this attack a terrorist attack.
I'm probably the only one that will lead with the
fact that it's a terrorist attack, because how is it
not a terrorist attack?

Speaker 1 (59:48):
How is it?

Speaker 3 (59:49):
Had Osama bin Laden even if he wasn't knowing who
he was, if he said, is might go destroy America?
Now it's a terrorist attack. So that's a deal the country.
Even though the war, the ground forces, all that stuff

(01:00:10):
happened that particular day, the government, the army, the armed forces,
was not ready to do anything about this anyway, to
the point where they still haven't done anything about it,
So there weren't They wouldn't. They weren't ready to say
anything good, bad, right, or wrong anyway. But him being

(01:00:31):
a terrorist was solidified by the comments in his diary.

Speaker 4 (01:00:36):
If anyone else.

Speaker 3 (01:00:37):
Says something like that, and they're aligned with the Foreign
Terist organization, then now it's legitimate. Now they're terrorists. You
don't have to be a part of a foreign terist organization.
But because he was so far ahead of his time
as a lone actor, yep, you don't have to be
You don't have to be a part of nothing. I
can go do whatever in the name of whatever and

(01:00:58):
never talk to them because I'm aligned with their ideology. Right.
But although ideology was in a dictionary, no one talked about.

Speaker 6 (01:01:08):
An alignment of ideology had to come from like a
boot camp.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Yeah, even the guys who phoned up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
Unless you were directly aligned with the Foreign Terist Organization
or any organization like that, then all of a sudden, okay,
it's that ideology, you believe in that and your racalize.
You barely heard the word racalize alone extremists, and you
definitely hear a lot about ideology. So He was a
lone actor so far ahead of his time that the

(01:01:36):
government didn't even understand. It couldn't fathom that someone would
join the military and didn't do this. It couldn't have
a career something like this could happened from inside of
the military.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Right and like and had a goal.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
Yeah it was planned, it was, Yeah it was, But
but it.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Was planned on the on the premise of.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
Is hatred for the United States of America more than
you say, hey, more importantly based on his ideology, be
radicalized in it in an extremist of his ideology. Correct,
religion doesn't pull the trigger. But if you are radicalized

(01:02:24):
by something and become an extremist about something, okay, that
makes you pull the trigger. But what you're what, what
you're radicalized about, doesn't pull the trigger.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Right now, I get you, and what what what a
I'm sure my listener and my viewer and us are
just thrown back in our chairs. I'm just listening to
what you're saying. It's just what it is. You're just
telling me your account, and I hear it from you firsthand,

(01:02:59):
and and I see the way that you're moving, and
I'm just like, you know, I'm so happy that you
were able to just kick in to your training and
evade the incendiary call to your guys, give some alert,
run out of the hut, you know, try to get

(01:03:20):
your bearings during being attacked from within. Literally, that was
a move. That is a radicalized move to do such
a thing. It was calculated. It's cold, it's you know,
friendly fire of the worst kind. You know, one hundred
percent it's not friendly. It was not friendly. Friendly fire

(01:03:41):
is not friendly. It's a joke that person shot you.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Yeah, but you mentioned friendly fire and I left this
out not intentionally, but I'll say it now. So doing
all a chaos on the ground of explosions and gunfire,
a neighboring camp, friendly camp. They had the picture battery
located there, so you know, with all these all these

(01:04:05):
explosion and everything, the picture batteries monitoring their screen and
they see a fast moving object coming across the screen.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
So they think, okay, it has to be a scug.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
With all this stuff happening on the ground, it has
to be a scug and they shoot it down. But
it ends up being a British Tornado Fighter jet returning
from a mission and they killed a crew. Oh so
that was friendly fly, but it's all calls by bar
and radicalize extremism.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
I know this account. I know of this because I'm
you know, this was it was so media embedded. Everything
was all involved in this war. Everyone had gone to
training with their reporters, to boot camps and they're all
wearing plate carriers and say press you know, and stuff,
and so you know, it was very much you know,

(01:04:55):
on our TV it was and I all that, You're right,
though it does get clouded in the fog of war.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
Yeah. So, I talked so much about his diary quotes
not to solidify.

Speaker 4 (01:05:16):
Him being.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
The extremist guilty. I talk about it because these victims
never received the Purple Heart mel Yeah so, but his
comments and the reason for doing this makes him an
enery of our country first. Yes, Now what type of

(01:05:40):
vantage you want to get on that line, I would
say terrorists, but enemy of our country first? Yes, yeah,
with the purple heart regulation attest to of being criteria.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
For their war, right, he still probably says it.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
And then we had those other parts. I'm telling you,
I'm going to kill him. I'm telling you I'm going
to kill him. Yes, unbeknownst to us, he's telling you
I'm telling you I'm going to kill him based on
his extremism.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
It's a manifesto.

Speaker 4 (01:06:18):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
But still to this day, twenty two years later, the
Army or the Air Force doesn't understand this. You would
probably think, are these real people up there? So here,
let me give you a timeline for this. I was
not sure if anyone had pursued the purple Heart metal
for these victims from two thousand and five trial happening

(01:06:44):
until two thousand and twenty one. I had heard something,
but I couldn't get anyone to confirm that so and
so did it, and it was denied. No one could
tell me that so and so did anything. So I said, okay,

(01:07:04):
I'm going to fix this. I'll do it myself. I'll
start to process myself. If it's been started, okay, I'm
starting over. So there was no battle handoff. No one
could tell me that someone had started, so I just started.
So I reached out to the ward section and talked
to them, you know what do I need? I already
knew the Improvement Authority was the Secretary of the Army, so

(01:07:26):
I started everything. I got all the victims on a
call and told them what I needed, told them what
I was doing. Some months passed and put all their
stuff together, put it in the packet, send it to
the Apartment Army.

Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
They went to the award section.

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
They put it all together and send it to the
Secretary Army's office for approval. By that time, I get
a congressman to come on board. Congressman Baking out of Nebraska,
who writes a letter. And if a congressman writes a letter,
then it's a congressional and the Army has to answer.
The military has an answer whatever BATCHA goes to. A letter,
went to the Army and the Air Force because we

(01:08:02):
have Army and Air Force victims, and they came back
with their respond saying that it couldn't be awarded because
an update to the regulation in twenty fifteen the states
that the attacker must have been in communication with a
foreign terist organization and that the attack was inspired and
motivated by the communication of that foreign terist organization. So

(01:08:25):
that's why I point out the whole loan actor thing,
because you don't have to be a loan actor. Why
do you have to I mean, I'm sorry, you don't
have to have been in communication with a foreign terist
organization to commit attack, right, you just have to be
in alignment with it. You don't have to talk to them.

(01:08:45):
You can follow that ideology without talking to them, and
you can be radicalized about what they're radicalized about and
extreme about what they are extremely about without being in
communication with them. Like humans don't understand it, what a
military understand? I mean, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
What are they afraid of? Giving benefits to the family,
What are they afraid of? What are they afraid of
up there at the top, what.

Speaker 4 (01:09:10):
Are you frad of?

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
The guy said he was going to kill Americans?

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
Yeah, exactly. You read his quote, You're like, let me
quote this because I want to be accurate. And when
I listened to you be accurate about his quote. It
sounds like he's the terrorist who is embedded himself into
our own cloak and dagger situation to do what he did.

Speaker 3 (01:09:31):
He said, I'm going to destroy is to destroy America,
and the military of this method of destroying America by
starting with American soldiers first.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
And at the end of it for them to say
he's not been a communication, well, I mean, how did
he get radicalized to, you know, want to have sympathy
for that cause there was something out there that was
said and that affected him. So we all see the media,
We all see Osama sitting with his ak against the
wall talking and like, you know, America, is this, that

(01:10:08):
and the other? I didn't feel that way, but he did. Yeah,
So how's that not communicating? Hello? I mean hello government
officials at the time who watched my show that have
been on my show? What's up with no purple hearts?
Really shot through the commander's hand into his leg? Really,

(01:10:29):
no purple heart? Like I'm now civilian rad frustrated with this.
As a taxpayer, I want my military to have the benefits,
all the benefits that are entitled to them. The reason
why they joined was because, Hey, if something happens to
you this, that or the other, you know, a purple
heart can help with, you know, just closing that chapter

(01:10:52):
and not being bitter and angry about it. You know,
because you think you get wounded in battle, you get
a purple heart.

Speaker 3 (01:11:02):
Two people, the two people that were killed, one shot
point blank in the back, was a father of a
four month old son.

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
The second one.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
Died two days later of eighty three eighty three eight
three grenade shrapnel holes in his body. He was the
father of eleven year old and seven year old son.
So you think about that, you had some math of
ad eleven year old is now thirty three and the

(01:11:37):
seven year old is twenty nine, and so college, I
want to say college is passed. He can't go any time.
Wars would have helped all that. The four month old
is I want to say he is a. Well I
was going to go because he's in college. I think

(01:11:58):
he's a he'll be finishing up a sophomore year. I
believe this. This you know too much from now so
But but purple didn't help with that because his dad
didn't get it right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
And if his dad got the purple heart, that would
go to the children to be able to help for
a whole bunch of the help alleviate the right what Okay, Okay,
I gotta keep real.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
I must understand and expect that from my position of
where I wasn't a military, I understand regulations and how
we abide by him. But I also understand common sense.

(01:12:46):
So get this that was put in there in twenty fifteen.
I'll tell you why, which means when I send my
packet up, they did not address from two thousand and
three to two thousand and fourteen before this update to
the regulation. Well, is this backing off the twenty fourteen
So you had eleven plus years to do something which

(01:13:11):
is retro right, you can retro this of that time.
But no, didn't do that. You talk about packets sent
to them. They even addressed that one. The twenty fifteen
update came because of this reason, because of the two

(01:13:32):
thousand and nine attacked by Nadale Hassan at Fort Hood,
which arguably was inspired and motivated by Ockbar because it's
a copycat world committed attack pulled it off for the
same reason, same ideology, radcalized extremists. So Nadale Hassan did

(01:13:52):
the same thing for the same reasons, advanced in terms
of two thousand and three two thousand and nine, that
period of the war in progress, maybe because he was
a major smarter, I don't know. But more importantly, the
Internet was more advanced, so could get on the Internet,

(01:14:14):
Google basis of whomever and communicate with a foreign terist organization.
Hey brother, I'm on your side, kind of do whatever
takes place. But if I send you a note like
I did to be a guest on this show and
you respond and I never reach out again, and you

(01:14:34):
never reach out again. Communication. Someone check your computer, check's mind.
We communicated. That's it. That's communication. That's it. So because
of that and that attack there, So that attack happened
in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
They didn't receive the proper art immediately either.

Speaker 3 (01:14:53):
They didn't get it until twenty sixteen, but they got
it based off of the update. It was putting there
in twenty fifteen because a delegation of politicians in Texas,
sixth of them got involved and said this is wrong. Army,
you got to fix this, and went to the Secretary
Army and he said, put something on my desk and
I'll get it fixed. So that became the update because

(01:15:18):
he was in communication with a foreignchants organization. But again
Internet advanced six years later all those things. No, he
didn't have a diary saying I'm going to destroy America
and nothing like that like Egball did. It's really it's
still no justifications, still no justification. But the army, that's

(01:15:38):
what that's their response today. Twenty fifteen, fifteen, twenty fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
No, no, no, like in a foreign country deployed for war,
attacked at your base. It should count.

Speaker 3 (01:15:53):
Tell me I'm wrong, No, you're right, but also think
that where it happened is there relevant?

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Okay, yeah, agreed, it just happened. Okay. What I'm getting
at is yes, Okay, I just yeah, it's a it
is irrelevant, You're exactly. It just happened, and it happened
how it happened. And his intent was to wound and
maim and kill the Allies.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
And he said, he said he was going to do it,
and he did it, and he did.

Speaker 1 (01:16:26):
And who does he need to communicate other than himself?

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
He doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
He's he he he he hotted himself. He chose to.
He was looking for others to join him. How about that?
How about he was the ringleader?

Speaker 4 (01:16:44):
Listen and he did?

Speaker 3 (01:16:46):
Now Dale Son two thousand and nine, for who that's right?
A Coastguard officer in twenty nineteen who had served an
army in the Marine Corps plotted to kill democratic politicians
since inspired motivating him.

Speaker 4 (01:17:03):
It's Concampt world.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
So there's the collections we.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
Could kill Americans and get away with it that are
serving our government, then so can I? Twenty twenty one,
POC bridges join the military station at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
He was plotting to blow up the nine one one Memorial.
Wasn't communication with isis to the point where he had

(01:17:27):
sent them some of our our war fighting documents to
be able to combat our troops in theater and to
help in any way he could to tell them exactly
where people were going to be. And then he wanted
to deploy to help ices kill fellow American soldiers. He

(01:17:49):
was in the military, right, so Ogbar started all this,
this bluagbar. But because the military didn't do anything about it,
didn't acknowledge it, didn't and still hasn't called it anything.
This just keeps happening. It's not done because it's too
easy to join and carry out your your motus operandi

(01:18:12):
for whatever reason. Who well, you're not getting better when
I get better. Uh, And keep in mind, you know,
we don't have a draft.

Speaker 4 (01:18:23):
So these people coming from society.

Speaker 3 (01:18:24):
But that what I've just described you is society. We
tell young people to you know, be strong willed, believe
in something. We push them to believe in something, and
they are going out and they're believing in stuff. So
it's almost like we can't even falter. It's one thing
to have a belief beliefs turn.

Speaker 4 (01:18:46):
It's kind of.

Speaker 3 (01:18:46):
Similar in ideology's cousin, right, brother, But then they make
the individual choice become radicalized about that belief or ideology,
and then extreme about it. So there's an escalation and
you have now I'm extreme, right, and then it's like
my side against your side. We're just gonna keep going,

(01:19:08):
keep going, keep going to you you push me to
the boying point and then boom.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
And just to put it out there, like you know,
my dad was Mormon and he had guys on his
team that were Muslim and uh Catholic and Protestant and
different faiths. You could say they all had one common
goal of being green Berets, but at the end of
the day, they weren't like radicalized about their faith per se.

(01:19:35):
And I'm not trying to say that the faith is
what pulled the trigger, Okay, it's well more.

Speaker 4 (01:19:40):
Important if faith does not pull the trigger.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
That's that's it, right. I'm just saying like you can
have you can have a contingitive guys that are all
from different walks of life, not at each other's throats.

Speaker 3 (01:19:51):
It works.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
There's no.

Speaker 3 (01:19:56):
No one has to prove that theirs is better or
bigger or whatever like this. That's that's why there's different
ones do yours. But when you try to prove yours
to be something else, you know, then then it becomes different.

Speaker 1 (01:20:10):
And you try and you take it so seriously, like
what he did and you know, or trying to find
a way to get through the web so that he
can do what he needs to do. That he was malicious,
and I would I don't know what voice I have
to say that this should be reconciled to be you know,
purple hearts given to everybody involved that has sustained injuries.

(01:20:32):
That was all documented, and I thought a purple heart
had to be you know, combat was happening and you
guys were being attacked, and you know it was witnessed
by a commander or somebody above could say, hey this
I attest to all this, all that seems to all
be in place.

Speaker 3 (01:20:47):
Oh yeah, yeah, yep. So I mean I went to military. Well,
first of all, I want the victim to be a
ward of purple heart. They have a choice here. They
can say anymy of our country, they can say a terrorist,
they can say I would say those twos tame. Here's
another maker saying, and you may or may not like this,

(01:21:09):
but I want the world to know this because this
the military works who operates heard a guy named Pat Tillman. Yes,
tis Pat Tillman has a purple heart, and there you go,
friendly fire and right, but it wasn't it wasn't the enemy.

Speaker 6 (01:21:31):
No, it wasn't proper heart. Yeah, it hasn't been rescinded.
And the army knows how he died. All up to
the top level. They went down a path of it's
it's the insurgents. It's insurgents, it's insurgents.

Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
It was all caused by the insurgents, which caused the
friendly fire to happen in the first place, so they
they rooted it. And I'm not trying to take any
away from Tilman or anything that happened there.

Speaker 3 (01:21:54):
Okay, we're not trying to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
But that's what should happen as well, to you know,
your exo, to everybody that was involved, to everybody that
to yourself.

Speaker 3 (01:22:05):
Uh yeah, well no, it won't be for me. It
ain't for me.

Speaker 1 (01:22:08):
Yeah, I get that.

Speaker 3 (01:22:09):
I get I'm doing the only thing I'm doing is
taking care of my soldiers. Yes, we're supposed to be
taught to do. That's something the military is not doing
to this day. Take care of crap, you know, saying
of them taking the podium and talking about how we
take care of soldiers and you're doing nothing with this.

Speaker 4 (01:22:26):
So explain something.

Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
So you want to call it in any of our country
terrors friendly fire, but choose something this whole. I'm never
going to say nothing about that. What it is.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
One of them will work.

Speaker 4 (01:22:39):
There's a lot of them work.

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
Because you've awarded the prom for friendly fire.

Speaker 1 (01:22:43):
And what's a problem with giving it? Well, I mean
again regulation wise.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
No, Well, I'm gonna always maintain that we have to
honor our our regulations. If we have to be led
by something, that we have to abide by that right.
But everything clearly says that he's an enemy. Everything clearly

(01:23:11):
says that he's a terrorist. So if that was not
the case, then I wouldn't be I wouldn't be down
the proper Hart path at all, because I don't have
a leg to stand on. It just be bad. It
would be bad, but not deserving of a purple heart.
But when someone says it is my goal to destroy America,

(01:23:32):
that's my greatest goal. And then they say, as soon
as I get to Iraq, although he couldn't wait, I'm
going to kill as many of them as I can,
and he did and did. Then then I don't know,
I'm clueless.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
I'd be like, arrest my case Matt Locke style, Perry
Mason or something.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
I'd be like, you know, I want a general of
any star to just be I'll be hum We're not
talking about humility here. This is not I feel sorry
for your story. This is here are the things that
aligned that says he's the end of our country?

Speaker 4 (01:24:14):
Wind up?

Speaker 3 (01:24:15):
Don't you see that?

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Like what's explain to us what we're missing because we're
not understanding what your algorithm is that this That's why
I'm asking, like what who? What? Who went? And where
is in charge of like saying, yes, you know it's it?
Is it? Congress? Is it? You know who issues the

(01:24:38):
purple Heart?

Speaker 3 (01:24:40):
The Secretary Army is improven authory m So just like
having them forward to it, Like I said, they didn't
get it at first either, But that delegation of politicians,
you know, just strength in numbers went to the Secretary Army,
you know, So I guess it's going to take that.
You know, bart woman, no one's missing to bart One,
you gotta apply for him. In the first place was
because of college wrote a letter and they have to

(01:25:01):
answer that. They don't have to answer Barroil woman. They
didn't send me the letters. I got the letter sent
from those offices after they sent the letter to Congressman Baker.
So what all the congressmen need to do? They need
to work together, because together then you know the certain

(01:25:24):
army is going to answer no. You know, change command now,
so a new administration and all that. The last one
just said no. And I even was with the former
Secretary Army and told her that this package was coming
before I sent it. I said, this is coming, in fact,
it was en route. She said I'll look forward to
seeing it. And she did nothing. She didn't even sign

(01:25:46):
the letters. You would think that a certain Turton Army
responding to a congressman, you would at least sign the
letter yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
It's like it's like there's some kind of admitting like
it happened, or like I don't understand what anybody that
we elect as our politicians who serve.

Speaker 3 (01:26:07):
Us, Yeah, serve us.

Speaker 1 (01:26:11):
Let's remember who they serve, us, the people. How they
have the ability the tenacity to just like not no
matter what, whether it was in the last administration, the
current administration, the administration before you know, Obama. Hello, I
mean come on, I mean, like, I'm just kind of

(01:26:33):
I'm confused. You know, it's disappointing. It's disappointing that they
don't get the benefits to the family. And here they
are today trying to like cut things and like chot things,
and you know, no, this is a valiant reason to
give purple hearts to these people and to go back

(01:26:54):
to the original date and pay them. Oh yeah, you
know from the time of of accident, VA and everybody there,
you know, from the time that it happened till now,
they should get back paid as well as their purple
heart so they could be proud and those that didn't

(01:27:14):
make it for their kids to have the benefits trick
care for life, whatever the case is. If they're one
hundred percent disabled veteran now because of the situation that occurred,
you know, you know, they should still get their purple heart.
It is the one award my dad said he never wanted,
you know that. I always said, hey, Dad, how come
you don't have a purple heart. He's like, I don't
want that. He's like, I don't I don't want the

(01:27:35):
enemy's marksmanship badge. That's what he said. And I just
want to point that out. Yeah, because it's the enemy.

Speaker 3 (01:27:44):
Yeah yeah, yeah, and you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
Hit on it. It's the enemy embedded within dude, and
so and he he he is and he's in for
Levenworth on death row for this because that's an enemy.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Okay, Bart, I want to know more about this as
you get progress on it, as things happen, if this
can change, if you can get success and the right
people hear it and they can approve this, I want
to hear from you. We want you back on the show.
I want to encourage everybody to go check out Embedded Enemy,

(01:28:20):
the book that you had written talking about what we
just talked about. Just go read a book and just
let your mind read the words and interpret the actions
in your head, and then tell yourself that they don't
deserve a purple heart. Everybody deserves to go to bed
at night and wake up the next day on the

(01:28:41):
same team. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, Yeah, if.

Speaker 3 (01:28:50):
You want to know why I'm doing this is because
they can't do it themselves right now, because they're not
physically cable, because you know, they have too much humility
to say give me a purple heart or I deserve
a purple heart. There never none of them are going
to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
No, this is you. This is you doing what you
do best, which is taking care of your Joe's who
look up to you, and you're just like, you know what.
I was there. I know exactly how this went down.
This was not some little daisy whoopsie do thing. This
was like premeditated frags, multiple hooches, I keep calling them
hooches and huts, and it was a.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
Yeah, I want to ask you, I want to ask
you to and we know that the the what's the wow?
How do I say this a slang slang for grenade
being thrown as frag But I want you to stop
saying that, okay, And here's why and that this is

(01:29:50):
where the Army has been with this for for a
long time because during the Vietnam era, when someone was fragged,
it meant that a fellow American soldier threw a grenade
to blow up fellow American soldiers because they didn't like them,

(01:30:12):
and they called that fragging, which just means I don't
like you. I don't like you, and it is my
goal to destroy America. That's my greatest going. I'm gonna
kill as many of them as possible as not the
same thing. So you gotta shed that one. Yeah, yeah, no,

(01:30:32):
because only because the army looks at it that way.
So that's what it was called in Vietnam. Now we know,
like I said, it's slang for someone throw a grenade, right,
but it's also it's slang for someone through a grenade.
But it also means that same thing of I didn't
like them, so I threw a grenade to try to

(01:30:53):
blow them up, because that happened in Vietnam, and they
called it a.

Speaker 1 (01:30:56):
Fragging, And that's a definition that they have that they
have that they hold on to for that type of
a situation.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
And more so because who did he whose tense did
he throw the grenades into?

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
The mean he specifically went across the compound to your guys' leadership, correct.

Speaker 3 (01:31:18):
Yeah, So if you go, if you google asan bar
and you look at one of the first is going
to say fragged. So they didn't help, no, So he's
trying to eradicate that. So anytime someone says that, I mean,
I smash it immediately.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
Because we need to stop calling duty that that's not helping.

Speaker 3 (01:31:42):
Killing it everything I've told you. It's a terrorist terrorist attack.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
It's a terrorist attack, yeah, because there was multiple means involved.
Besides just a grenade.

Speaker 3 (01:31:54):
There was, but yeah, a grenade is a means because
no one ever says, can what happened on nine to
one one airplane? I'm sorry? What kind of attack?

Speaker 1 (01:32:05):
Was nine one one terrorist attack?

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
I'm sorry? Why isn't it a plane attack?

Speaker 1 (01:32:10):
Yeah? You know, and you want to know something that
morning the.

Speaker 4 (01:32:13):
Plays, Yes, what you use?

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
No, it was the means.

Speaker 3 (01:32:18):
Across the desert with an M two forty machine gun. No,
I want to say it was a machine gun attack. No.

Speaker 4 (01:32:24):
Yeah, So we're discussing the means.

Speaker 1 (01:32:27):
We're discussing exactly who they were. Who did We watched
the second tower get hit. My dad came upstairs on
the first one and said, hey, turn the TV on.
He woke me and my wife up at the time
and he's like, turn the TV on. We saw the
first tower smoking, and then as soon as the second
one hit on TV, he looked at me and said,
we are under attack.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:32:49):
He had been retired for a few you know, and
I've been home now, but uh, he's like, we are
under attack. He immediately knew that it was a terrorist attack.
It was not just a one off.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
First one is that first one is that messed up pilot?

Speaker 1 (01:33:03):
Yeah. First one was like oh no someone, oh no pilot. No.
Second one is like Aaron, We're under attack, is what
he said meaningly, looked at me.

Speaker 3 (01:33:10):
That's when I turned a television on as well. That
made it was beforehand different. Xler said, so I'm ready
to come look at this. So he was looking when
the first one was smoking, I guess. And then as
soon as I walked in there boom to the point
where I said it was smarter than me. I said,

(01:33:30):
in disbelief, Oh this is a movie. It's like no, look,
don CNN. You can't believe it, Like there's no white right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:39):
Yeah, well you came into it at that point. But
we had already been watching the tower for like probably
four or five minutes smoking.

Speaker 3 (01:33:46):
Oh okay, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
So when the saw sudden like live you know, we're
watching the towers. This is happening in New York. The
second one, Oh my god, the second one. And I
was just like, he looked at me. It's an attack.
That's a terrorist attack. They've been working on that building
for years, trying to get that building down like that
ninety three, ninety six, ninety eight car bombs. They were pissed,

(01:34:11):
and so how can somebody I don't know. I hope
I pray to whatever faith that I believe in, that
you know, your packet gets seen and goes through for
your soldiers and you're airman that you're trying to fight for.
I just want to let you know that. I also
want to let you know that You've been one of
the best interviews I've ever had on my show and

(01:34:34):
one of the longest to have had on organically, just
with this conversation, and I just want to say that
I have a lot of love for your spirit, for
our military and our America and in general just for you,
just from our conversation. So I just want you to
know that anything you want to say, you have a
voice here on Soft Rep Radio, where well whoever listens

(01:34:55):
to us, which I know there's at least one person
who replies to me every now and then General, thank you.
That's who hit. That's who's out there, bro. And these
people should be also sitting back going like, if you've
listened to this whole thing or gotten to this point,
you should be appalled that our soldiers and airmen who
are involved in this conflict, this terrorist attack have not

(01:35:16):
gotten a purple heart out of it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:20):
That's right, Like I said, it's not not a pity party. No,
they don't. They don't need sympathy. Had he not written
those things and carried it out, then we will be
talking about we'll be talking about something else. Right, But
because he did, I mean he is an equal to
terrorists as any of the terrorists, as anyone who's been

(01:35:41):
annointed and.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
Well, especially with today's today's labeling of terrorists has just
gotten out of hand. Yeah, somebody goes and destroys a
car lot, they're a terrorist, a car lot with no nothing,
no value to human life. A car lot is a terrorist.
What about actually a terrorist killing military members as a terrorist.

Speaker 3 (01:36:04):
Yeah, you're right, everything's annoyed at terrorists. The guy, the
the Codst Guard officer, they called him a terroists.

Speaker 4 (01:36:12):
He hadn't even killed anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:36:13):
All he did and I get I'm not trying to
exonerate him. Had a hit list right to kill uh
you know, politicians, and enough armament in his house to
complete that and kill another fifty politicians. But he wasn't
able to terrorist. He didn't done anything yet.

Speaker 1 (01:36:35):
He may even complete the situation that list and he
had Amal.

Speaker 3 (01:36:40):
Yeah, but he's a terrorist, right.

Speaker 1 (01:36:44):
This guy went through secretly to get into the military,
to have an idea to be a terrorist. He knew
he was going to cost terror. His whole goal was
to cost terror. It wasn't to be like no, it
was to be a terrorist.

Speaker 3 (01:37:03):
In the in the PFC at Fort Stewart. It was communicator.
I said, all this thing and center the.

Speaker 4 (01:37:07):
Plans he was his his charge is hotting a terrorist attack.

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
But I Bar, who wants to destroy the entire America?
It's just nothing, no, nothing, No, he's a terrorist.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
No, I want you to squash that. You need to stop
saying that he's a terrorist. Okay, he's a terrorist.

Speaker 3 (01:37:37):
I called both of these other guys a terrorists. Those
are those guys are in my opinion, But and so
is Ibar. But I'm saying the government is saying terrorsts here.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
I know not bar.

Speaker 4 (01:37:50):
They don't say that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):
They don't say it at all. They don't even say
I know not No, they don't say it. Yeah, but
they see him three squares a day.

Speaker 3 (01:37:57):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (01:37:58):
It's the year of my country.

Speaker 3 (01:38:00):
They don't say friendly fired, they don't say tears. They'll
say nothing, just nothing, nothing. Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:38:11):
Okay, Well, I hopefully my listeners appalled. I'm appalled. I'm appalled, okay,
And I love my country first of all, and I
love my soldiers, all my airmen, everybody out the Marine Corps. Nah,
I'm just saying part Okay, So listen, let's have you

(01:38:32):
back with an update. Okay, a positive update, be like
rad positive update update. Let's just keep hammering at it.
If you need to use me, if we can become
annoying to them so that you have to actually look
at this one more time, use me, use us, use
soft rip, and we will happily help put it out there.
Your message, the message for these other soldiers who are

(01:38:53):
still alive. There's people alive. These guys aren't like just gone.
It's not a posthumous situation. Some of them may be,
but serious these people can use the Purple Heart. The
benefits that come with serving their country, which they're told about,
you know, because some of them pass away, they have
SLGI and that goes to their family. There's some money
the insurance can go to the family. But man, no

(01:39:15):
one ever talks about when you live with the disability
or you live with the anguish, you have to live
with it. You have to live with it, and you
need to be compensated for your life to live with that.
And giving them the Purple Heart would give them a
benefits package that's a little bit more expound than just
the normal VA benefits that are out there. For everybody
that didn't get a purple heart, it's it.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
Yeah, some of them, the feod is still in the
military and had to continue to serve under appremise dead.

Speaker 4 (01:39:48):
I love my country. That might even though they're turning
back on me.

Speaker 1 (01:39:51):
Yep, yep. So let's hope that that changes, Okay, And
I want I want to hear from you guys out there,
if you've watched this or listened to it or comment,
you know, let us know where you stand on supporting this.
And if you're someone out there who wants to call
a congressman and reach out and say hey, I would
like to see the purple hearts given to the terrorist

(01:40:13):
attack that happened on March two thousand and three. You
feel free to write your congressman or have your congressman
get involved to try to push the army. It seems
like it takes us to call or reach out somehow,
So call your local congressman and just politely tell them
to please do it because they serve us, so they

(01:40:36):
should take a call, right And I'd imagine if it
takes the Department of the Army to get involved, have
to approve these because there's so you know, there's so
much time laps, et cetera. It's gonna be a special case.
They're gonna have to look at it, which they already know.
They already know all.

Speaker 3 (01:40:51):
Those facts, all those diary things would send to them
in my packet exactly fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:40:57):
Okay, okay, I want to hear from I want to
hear from someone up the army. Now.

Speaker 3 (01:41:06):
I appreciate your your interest in this advocacy for it,
and I thank you very much for allowing me to
have this much time on your show to articulate it.
It's very very hard to kind of put it in
small little bites so I appreciate the opportunity to be

(01:41:29):
able to expand upon it so that you and your
audience understands what we are with.

Speaker 1 (01:41:34):
This our audience. Thank you so much. And you're so
eloquent when you speak, and you're thoughtful, and I love
how you contemplate the words. I can only take some
of that in my own daily life to think thoroughly
before I say something. Okay, let you know, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:41:58):
You're doing great today.

Speaker 1 (01:42:00):
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. And with
that said, on a positive smile, positive note, thank you
to retire Command Sergeant Major Airborne Bart Womack. You've been
awesome guest dude, and so I look forward to having
you back.

Speaker 3 (01:42:18):
Okay, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:20):
Thank you all right, and so thank you to everybody
that's listened and watched. And you know, if you're inclined
to do something, please feel free to do so by
reaching out to your local congressman and just saying, hey,
I heard that all of these soldiers and airmen didn't
get a purple heart because they were attacked by a
terrorist with terrorist actions against America. Why that's all you

(01:42:40):
gotta say, Okay, help him. It takes it does take
a village. It takes all of us. Let's help each
other to get these awarded to those who are just
sitting there humbly saying hey man, I'm not really trying
to stir the pop, but thank you. I think that's
how it goes. So on behalf of Soft Rep Radio. On,
behalf of Brandon Webb, my sir Callum out of London,

(01:43:01):
and myself Rad and Bart right here. I just want
to say thank you so much for being a part
of the show and

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
Peace you've been listening to self red Radio

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