September 22, 2025 • 56 mins
Robert Bruce Adolph - a former Infantry Staff Sergeant - is a retired US Army Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel and UN Chief Security Advisor, as well as once a university lecturer on American History, US Government and World Politics. He is the author of the well-reviewed book “Surviving the United Nations: A true story of violence, corruption, betrayal, and redemption.” Robert holds graduate degrees in both International Affairs and National Security Studies and Strategy. His commentaries, articles and book reviews have appeared in over fifty newspapers, magazines, professional journals and academic publications for over four decades. He has additionally lived and worked in seventeen different countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Today he is an international speaker, commentator, and security consultant. Discover more at www.robertbruceadolph.com.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Route for us.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
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Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This is rad with another awesome episode of soft Rep
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that's all in my head. There's nothing here telling me
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This is how we roll. Now today's guest is so
renowned to me, I can respect everything on this individual's resume.
(01:45):
Robert Adolph, Welcome to the show of Soft Rep Radio.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Thank you so many.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Now, do you like to be just.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Referred to as a retired lieutenant colonel special Forces green beret?
Is that the case? What was your last military rank
when you got out?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Lieutenant?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I started out, Oh, you bucked your way up the
whole system.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
I made staff sergeant and oh, let me see nineteen
seventy five, and went to the CS in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And then Aaron me rad was being born in nineteen
seventy seven. Yeah, I love it, I love it. Did
you have a stint in Vietnam?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Then? Did you do any deployments to that?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
I actually was in Special Forces training in the fifth
Special Forces Group, closed up shop and came home from Vietnam.
I volunteered to go, but the Army and the definite wisdom,
as they always do, sevent to Fort Devons, Massachusetts, thirty
minute drive from my hometown.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Of course, of course just right next door, you know,
so you can go get that breakfast that you love
every morning from the diner down the street. They didn't
want you to lose a step in that process. Now, now, Robert,
just a little touch on your resume here. I'm going
to read it and I want my listener to follow along.
And this is part of the show, is to introduce
(03:10):
you and talk about your background. And you have quite
the resume. So please give me a few moments to
read through this, and my listener thanks for listening along.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And here we go.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, So Robert Bruce Adolf, he's an international speaker, author, commentator, consultant.
Let me take these glasses off to read this better.
Pizzazzl cardinal counsel. See here, Here we go, let's see here.
Retired US Army Special Forces Lieutenant colonel and UN Chief
Security Advisor, familiar with Europe, Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and
(03:42):
North Africa, as well as Sub Saharan Africa. Served in
both field and headquarters assignments, divided among the following specialties.
Peacekeeping serving on four such missions. Senior security and crisis
disaster management, threat vulnerability and risk assessment, investigations, civil military operations,
post conflict environments, conflict resolution, information collection, trend analysis, and
(04:05):
incident reporting and response. Successful in the most senior un
supervisory assignment at the installation country, subregional and regional levels.
Established Igo security forums in multiple countries. Qualified un trainer
of trainers, Experienced cross cultural communicator, well practiced at dealing
independently with host government police security forces. Former university lecturer
(04:29):
on American history and government. Lived and worked in seventeen
different countries. Spent fourteen years in the region of the
Middle East, visiting every Arab country. Authored over three hundred
published articles, commentaries, essays and book reviews. Most publications are
listed on his website at let me say that correctly
Robert Bruce Adolf dot com and we'll have that put
(04:50):
down in the breakdown of this website so people can
just click on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Let me continue to read here.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Though professional experience international speaker published the reviewed book entitled
Surviving the United Nations, A True Story of Violence, Corruption,
betrayal and Redemption, which is now in its second edition
currently and he's currently writing another book. Okay, So, he
gave the keynote address on artificial intelligence, humanity and unfenered
capitalism at a conference on the Future of Technology at
(05:17):
the London School of Economics and Political Science in twenty
twenty four. Also gave presentations on various topics at George
Washington University in DC, Netherlands, Atlantic Commissions at the Hague,
New York University of Course in Manhattan, World Affairs Conference
in Florida, and the European University Institute in Florence and more.
He's published dodgeons of newspapers and magazine commentaries in Europe
and the US. Served as advisor to the graduate program
(05:40):
in International Affairs and World Peace, World Politics. Excuse me
for the University of Pavia. Interviewed by BBC and Italian News,
National Public Radio, un Today and Soft Rep Right Now
Soft Rep Radio as We're interviewing Robert. He's also the
UNDP Security Consulate in Azerbaijan and twenty twenty three he's
(06:01):
the OSSEE Security Expert and team leader in Kiev, Ukraine.
In twenty twenty two, he conducted personal on site reconnaissance
assessing the residual dangers within the invasion corridor used by
the Russian Federation Armed Forces northwest of Kiev. Habitat for
Humanity International Security Consulate in Lebanon in twenty eighteen, where
he conducted and tailored security assessments accomplished training needs and assessments,
(06:24):
and provided device on the writing and formal security plan
and more. He's the UN Chief Security Advisor in Indonesia
between twenty twelve and twenty fourteen, where he led a
large security staff of internationals and nationals through three security
regions and eight local offices in support of twenty eight
UN agencies funds and programs in thirty nine project sites
throughout the country. He's the Chief Middle East and North
(06:46):
African Region UNHQ, New York for twenty ten twenty twelve.
He deployed on missions multiple times to hazardous zones of conflict,
including Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Under that title Head
of Safety and Security for the UNRWA, which is the
UNRAH I believe is how it said, Palestine, Aman Jordan.
From two thousand and eight to twenty ten, he wrote, presented,
(07:09):
and saw through to approval and complete reckoniz recognization of
the security standards of UNRAH, trained a security staff where
none previously existed in Gaza, West Bank, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon,
while also successfully justifying an expanded security budget, and he
volunteered and subsequently served in the Gaza Strip after Operation
(07:30):
cast Led.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Just that right there. I have so many questions, but
I'm going to continue with your resume. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
UN Security Advisor for Egypt in Cairo, two thousand and
four to two thousand and eight. Wow, that's really wow. Okay,
I'm just gonna say wow. Right, you built a country
security office from the ground up, hiring and training all
security staff. Conducted the UN investigations of the schrom alschik
Dab Khan al Khalili, and North Sinai suicide bombings. I
(07:57):
hope I said those names kind of correctly. Okay, you
created the Egypt International Security Forum. I'm going to continue
UN Security. You in Chief of Security for Iraq bad
Dad two thousand and three to two thousand and four.
That's some heavy times. Man led the first UN security
mission back into Iraq during the time of active combat.
Mosel alhaliel Basra Baghdad appointed officers in charge directly supervised
(08:22):
life saving activities. At the time of the suicide bombing
attack that killed twenty two and wounded more than one
hundred and fifty. I think that is the anniversary is
today of that bombing, correct.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Today's the universary?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Then that is and we're going to get into your book,
which kind of touches on that.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So just give me a few more moments. I'm going
to burn through your resume. Wow, dude.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Chief Field Security Officer for Yemen two thousand to two
thousand and three. He created the Ingo Security Forum. There,
consulted confidentially on several tribal kidnappings with no loss of life.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Aided Scotland Yard in the.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Wake of the UK Embassy bombing, and dealt successfully with
violence in Somalia at the refugee camp. You're the chief
security officer in Sierra leones UN Peacekeeping from ninety nine
to two thousand. Conducted a successful emergency rotary and fixed
wing evacuation of over two hundred staff when Freetown was
invaded by the brutal Revolutionary United Front the RUF Holy Cow,
(09:19):
and assisted in the recovery of over five hundred Zembion
Battalion prisoner detainees from the RUF. Consulted successfully on an
Igo double kidnapping man. Sir, your education you have a
Master's in National Security Studies and Strategy, US Army Command
of General Staff College and MAA Internal Affairs, Middle East Studies,
(09:40):
American University School of Internal Service at Washington, d C.
You have a Bachelors of Science and Sociology. New York University, Albany.
You have additional considerations such as adjunctant faculty teaching World politics,
US Government, American history, foreign affairs, and more at several
US colleges and universities. UNTAC Chief, UNICOM Chief of Current
(10:01):
Operations and the DMZ between Iraq and Kuwait. The UNTSO
Military Observer in Egypt, Policy Advisor in the Bosnian Ministry
of Defense for Sarajevo.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
US Army.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Former intelligence officer, counter intelligence special Agents, military strategists, psychological operations,
civil affairs, Foreign Area Officer, instructive certification, Light weapons specialist,
former infantry staff sergeant, Master parachutist, airborne assault climber, special operations,
combat diver, which my dad never.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Got to get.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
He always talked about that little badge that He's like, No,
they're something bigger on the block than me, Aaron, and
I was like, what do you mean. He's like, I
don't have my little scuba combat badge, and I was like,
but you probably could. And a Danish combat and Belgium commando.
I mean again, Robert, Lieutenant Colonel Sir, American Patriot. Welcome
(10:50):
to the softwarep Podcast with me. Thank you for taking
your time from Rome. Are you in Rome today? Yes,
voice everybody.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Yes, I just returned from Tangier and Morocco yesterday.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What was going on in Tangier, Morocco?
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, my wife's birthday.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Happy birthday to your wife. Oh that's great, Okay, perfect.
How long you guys have been married?
Speaker 5 (11:15):
We've been together for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh. I love that. I love that. My wife and
I hit twenty five this year.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
My wife and I actually met in Yemen.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
In Yemen, well, that's credible.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
I was the head of security for the United Nations
and Yemen, and she was a chief technical advisor on
a project for the United Nations FAO that bettered the
lives of women in rural villages.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So you're humanity, yes, that the humanitarian effort from you
and her and the things that you guys try to
focus on, and you know, putting yourself into these very
hostile environments and trying to make peace and sense of
it with a secure force. Really a security force or
a police force is there just to kind of like
set the peace, set the tone say someone's here if
you need help, Someone's here in your time of need
(12:09):
to try to keep the peace while you're moving back
and forth to get your water, to get your food.
You know, that's how I see law enforcement and my
local Utah Sandy City is they're here to protect and serve.
When I go eat breakfast and I see them coming
into the place, I'll tell the server, hey, I got them,
you know, just put it on my ticket. And they
always look around and I'm always like, you know, so
(12:30):
so having peace, being able to go out and eat,
being able to go get water is something that we
take for granted so much here, you know, versus other
countries where it is a hostile environment. You do have
rebel commandos trying to take kidnappings, and you know, prizes
of people for ransom, and you put yourself in the
(12:51):
thick of all of that.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
It was the nature's the job. The job of a
United Nations security adviser means putting your life pretty regularly
at some degree of risk, hopefully measured risk.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
If you do the job for a while, you learn
how to be measurment.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
When you were going through your initial military enlistment and
you got to staff Sergeant. I just want to ask
a segue here. What turns you to going into the
pipeline of a green beret? What was that that? What
did you originally enlist as versus then you became an
SF you know.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
But actually what happened was when I enlisted, I enlisted
specifically for Special Forces.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
I had an enlisted contract for it.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
So I went to basic, then Infantry, a T jump school,
and then was sent to Fort Rank to the Johnath
Kennedy Special Warfare Center in the school and enter this
this is before selection in the session, so to enter
Phase one training camp recall, so Phase one, Phase two, weapons,
(14:06):
phase three.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
To try and put it all together. And this is.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Before they had again select an assessment. So it was
a different time. But there was one thing that an
old friend of mine, a comrade of mine, a former
Special Forces warrant officer.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
I ran into Hiden years later.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
It turned out that we had gone through a Special
Forces training together.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
We both started at the same time.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
He pointed something out to me that I did not know,
and that was that one hundred and thirty four men
started Phase one training. Eighteen of that starting group completed
Phase three.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
So eighteen out of one hundred and thirty four.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
That from my perspective, was one of the major accomplishments
of my life.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, because you're talking about an eighty two percent drop
great from one hundred men and the song that Barry
Sadler sings. You know, one hundred men they'll test today
only three when the Green beret.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, there's truth to his song.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
It was a tough course. It was a very difficult
time for anybody there. But folks that completed it, in
my instin were the ones that wanted it the most.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
What's up, Dad, That's what I gotta say right there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know, I just think about that, And I took
that for granted with my father always walking around with
his green beret on, and just he was always so
calm and cool and collected around the house and never
really fronted about like anything.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
One time, one time.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
We were walking around Hill Air Force Base going to
the clinic before they shut it down, of course, and
I was just a younger rad and we were holding
his hand. I was holding his hand and he had
his beret on, he was in his camis he was
walking in and I said, and an Air Force person
was walking out and they had like a trucker hat on,
you know, and it said like TRD whatever on And
I was like, Dad, why don't they have a green
beret too? And he just said come along, and he's
(16:05):
pulled me by my hand. Now I know why. Now,
as an older man in life, you know, I understand
that it's not the easiest thing to go through. So
to be one of the eighteen you know, back in
what seventy five, you say, no, if.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
You've went through Special Forces of training started in nineteen
seventy two, completed in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Hum nineteen seventy two, nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So you guys are wearing all the same Vietnam olive
drab gear, all that OD slant pockets, everything like that.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
That was just at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
You were wearing just the od's. Yeah, have the camouflage stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
No, the olive drab OD, the green excellent, yes, yeah,
that's what you were Yeah, and your shiny boots.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah. I love it. No, I love it. You know.
I know.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's so cool man, You're so cool. I just want
you to know if I had a baseball part of you,
I'd want your rookie card.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Could you imagine your card stats? You know what I'm saying,
if you had a card, Holy cow, I can't.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Imagine anybody would want my card.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
But okay, yeah, no, it's true. You're great. So here
you are commissioning.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Now, you know, you go from a staff sergeant and
you're commissioning into a lieutenant colonel. Maybe that was around
nineteen seventy five, is that correct?
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Let me see, in nineteen seventy six was when I
graduated Officer Canada School.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I was branched in military intelligence.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
The reason why I was branching military intelligence was at
that time there was no such thing a Special Forces branch,
so I had to go somewhere. I was branching military
intelligence and then decided to go to ranger school. So
myself and my best friend we went to Ranger School
together and then to Military Intelligence training Fort two, Arizona,
(18:01):
and then reassigned to Fort Ragg in North Carolina to
eighteenth Airboarding Corps and the eighty second eighty second Airborne Division.
My friend Terry central.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So my dad was out of the nineteenth group here
at Camp Williams in the eighty eighty one eighty two
eighty three through the early nineties. Where were you? You
were Fort Brack pretty much the whole time. Fifth Group.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
After doing my stint military intelligence, I went to fifth
Special Forces Group, commanded a Special Forces Underwater Operations Detachments
court and Ben became the S two, the intelligence officer
for the third Battalion of fifth Special Forces Group. Under Ben,
Lieutenant Colonel Harley Davits, who just happened to be my
company commander at ten Special Forces Group at Fort Dins
(18:51):
in Massachusetts and later promoted me to major when he
was a major general.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
How cool is that? Huh?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
It was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Really, that is pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
So combat diver, So, like I said, there's always someone
on the block that you think that you think you're
the big guy.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You got your green beret.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But then there's someone who has a little button on
there on their uniform and it's got this scuba snorkel.
I don't know if you had that, the scuba mask
and the snorkels. Sure, yeah, see, and my dad always
wanted because he was a scuba diver.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
And if we saw I made my first dive. I
was trained by World War two UDT guy in nineteen
sixty eight in San Francisco, California. I made my first
dive in Monterey Bay. My father was in the alistic
man in the Navy. He was a chief bettyofs he
(19:44):
felt I saw. I thought he felt a little bit
betrayed when I joined the Army instead of the Navy.
But I could not get an enlisted contract to go
to seal training, which is the only kind of training
that I was interested in. So I ended up going
Special Forces, and I still had.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
The you get win, yes, yeah, come on, dad, look
at me now, right.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, and so you got your scuba underwater, which means
you're really how long can you hold your breath for
when you were in your prime back then? Oh?
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Probably and a half.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That's still good, that's great.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
It was a requirement of the job.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Yes, well, I mean I've gone to a hotel and
put my head under the pool and try to hold
my head for like what felt like forever, but it
was only like twenty seven seconds, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And when I was a little young me, my dad
would take us up to the base and he would
swim laps all day, you know, for that whole time
he would just swim laps, but he'd put blindfolds on
me and my older brother and then he would drop
weights in the twelve foot part.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Of the pool.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
He's like, hey, now watch them, Okay, now go get them,
and he would just sit there doing laugh while we
sat going down trying to get these weights off the
bottom of a pool is just like a twelve year
old I understand.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
The only difference this is the UDT guy from World
War Two trained me. We did it black down, meaning
that they put four on the inside of ours and
then you had to dive down to the bottom of
the pool, which is the deepest in was about twelve
feet and you had to feel around on the bottom
until you find the weight and then bring it back up.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
It could take a while.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I mean really, my older brother was really good at it.
He would be able to like just go right down,
like you know, right down at those weights and pull
them up. And I would always be like, how do
I get my buoy? And see how do I get
down to the bottom of the pool.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
It's not the.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Easiest thing to do, so I mean, just geez, thanks dad,
you want to go to the pool with your Daddy's
a green beret.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
That's what's going to happen?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Okay, And then you always make us jump off the
high dive. We'd always have to step off the high dives,
no problem.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
One of the things that struck me about your choice
of this particular day for this potcast was that today
is the anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed twenty
two of my friends, my colleagues, and visitors to the
(22:18):
UN headquarters in Baghdad in two thousand and three. It was,
by any account, the worst day of my life. In
one day, I waded through enough blood and gore. It's
something I don't think anyone could ever really fully recover from.
(22:44):
But I just thought it'd be worthwhile to mention because
so many died, and they died needlessly, They died needlessly.
The fact was that my office, I was the head
of security for the United Nations for all Iraq. My
(23:04):
office and all the senior security officers in Iraq, concurring
with me, warned the United Nations leadership in Baghdad and
in New York that we were under enormous risk, enormous hazard.
We anticipated the attack itself, and when it happened.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It was a whore to live through that event.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
And the fact is the first, if memory serves, this
is the first suicide bombing of a war in Iraq
that later killed so many Americans, and it was designed
to kill unarmed United Nations staff. By the way, in
(23:52):
the UN at that time in Baghdad, none of us
were carrying guns.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
We had no armed guard on a perimeter. We were
literally sitting ducks.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
For soft target, soft.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Target for the extremes.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
And they took advantage, and twenty two people died as
a consequence, and you and senior staff were warned and took.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Limited action, really no precautions to try to even put
up a barrier or anything around the United Nations building
compound to try to you know, like well.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Actually, actually I recommended building a perimeter wall, and they
approved that the wall was only partially built.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
At the time of the attack, so it was too late,
too late, too little.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Too late.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You had already seen the situation though, you were already
trying to put something in place to help put a
barrier there and get things approved.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yes, And I did so luckily in writing as well
as verbally, because later on after the attack, I m
the distinction of being the only senior security officer in
the history of the UN to be personally fired by
the UN Secretary.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
General was that Kofianen.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
That's the one.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
He fired me personally on the front pages of the
New York Times. I was at that time in Ethiopia
conducting a security risk assessment in a place called Gambella
near the Sudanese border. I was told I had been
relieved by the Secretary General and I was to return
immediately to New York to face action.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Whatever that note.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You mean what you had just walked through isn't enough
facing the action, your friends, your colleagues.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He's not. Okay, okay, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
The bottom line is they were looking for scapegoats.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
The people who were actually responsible were very senior UN
security officers are in fact advisors. We're not decision makers.
So we give advice to senior UN staff leadership and management,
and they either accept it or they don't. The fact
(26:12):
is they ended up playing politics with people's lives, and
twenty two people paid the price, and one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Were wounded, right to include my wife.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
My wife is wounded, medically evacuated and damn near lost deny.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I was going to say, you know, The people that
are working in the UN on the peace keeping side
of things are like your wife and like you know,
you and everybody's in there trying to like just make
sure everything's peaceful. You're not really wanting to have war
brought to you, but all of a sudden, here it is,
you know, you have.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
We end up.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
Working in uncertain environments.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
So the bottom line is is that we enter these
uncertain environments where conflict and violence and lawlessness are everywhere eminent. Essentially,
we operate in places where the United States Army and
large measure would not.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
There's utter lawlessness.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
Now if you don't know what lawlessness is, like, I
also worked in Cambodia during the untapped period, and in
that period there was no there were no judges, there
were no prisons, there were no police, there was nothing.
So literally you could urge somebody in the middle of
(27:33):
town square and nothing would happen to you because there
was no place, there was no one to arrest you.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Utter lawlessness, and.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
You have to operate or be able to operate successfully
in that kind of environment. That means being a good
boy scout. And now what I mean by that is
I mean being.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Prepared right and well prepared.
Speaker 6 (27:58):
For the eventualities that you are likely to face if
you are better prepared than the other guy. The bottom
line is is that fortune favors those.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
Who are well prepared.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Okay, let me just write that down right now.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Fortune favors that's not new. Well.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, And like a buddy of mine, Big Phil, he's
a former SAS guy, he'd be like rad, A'm all
what he's like.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Proper planning prevents piss poor performance? You know, seven piece bro?
So you know true story?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Okay, So, so your offices were in the same building
or were you?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Did you? How did how long? Okay? Two questions?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
What was the delivery mechanism for the the.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Bombing that happened? How far? How far did were you
from it to being on target? As soon as happened?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
A truck was used, a flatbed truck.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
The FBI estimated that onboard that truck was perhaps a
ton roughly two thousand pounds of.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Explosives materials was used.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
So the suicide bomber ran it straight into the building
and initiated, so a ton of explosives went off.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I was on the backside of the building. My offices
were on the.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
Back side of the building perhaps twenty five meters, but
it was a lot of concrete between me and the explosion,
but still took everything out of my office.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
My wife was working in my outer office.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
I had one of the few offices that had internet connectivity.
She was preparing for a job in Northern Iraq for
the World Food Program at that time, and unfortunately there
was a glass divider in my office and all that
flying glass.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
The overwhelming majority of the woundings in that event were.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
A consequence of flying glass, which is, yeah, the informing
majority of the people who died died as a consequence
of falling concrete and rebard as the building collected.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, so it was just such a boom and then
the whole place shook.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Everything blew out of it.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Everybody got hit by all of every debris and then
the building fell and uh and uh. And so your
book Surviving the United Nations, that's kind of what you're
talking about. Yes, you've been a lot of the United Nations,
but like you know, that is a moment that you
did survive through.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
It was a double end time for really. I had
to survive unity so I could keep on breathing, right too,
I had to save my career.
Speaker 6 (30:52):
I was unjustly accused of incompetence in the in the
in my duties and responsibilities in.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Mag Dad, I was not. I did my job.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
So what I ended up doing when I left Ethiopia
and returned to New York I ended up getting into
a fight, an administrative legal battle with the Secretary General
of the UN. I didn't expect to win. But the
fact is is that if there's going to be a fight,
I'll fight it.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I'll see you backing down.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
No, So there was no backing down now.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
So for seven months I fought, and surprisingly one I
won full read statement. I won exoneration for myself and
my office and those people who work.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
With me, complete exoneration.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
But it was obvious the overwhelming majority of the evidence
that was used by what was later called the Security
and Iraq Accountability Panel was from me, my finds, my recommendations. Luckily,
many of those recommendations had been placed on paper and
(32:09):
were a matter of record.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
So with so much evidence.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
In my favor, the firing was overturned and I was
able to go back to work. But it was say
to go through that event to be unjustly blamed for
the deaths of those twenty two people and one hundred
and over one hundred and fifty woundings.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
It was extraordinarily difficult.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I can only I can only I can only sympathize
and just say sorry for your loss, sorry for the
trials and tribulations that get to be put through. But
someone's gonna mess with your integrity. They're messing with the
wrong bowl because you, in my opinion, have that you know,
like I said, be prepared.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You have that mindset.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
You have that I want to go through UDT or
Special Forces training. You have this mindset of you know,
Dale pressoll Leeb, you know you have this mindset in
my opinion, of don't mess with your mindset.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And if someone's gonna come in and accuse you of something.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And again I'm not the fact guy here, I'm just
passionately speaking back to you saying I would not want
to offend you, because you did. You said, I'm not
going to back down. It took you seven months to
get exonerated. You're a captain of a team, if you will,
for like sports quote unquote for your team, and you're like,
I got this. You guys are going to be exonerated.
(33:30):
Watch me work. You put it through and you got
them exactly where. They believed in you the whole time,
your team, right, so as a as a coach, or
as a captain or leadership lieutenant colonel or you know, civilian,
as a un envoy leader, you're that captain. They believed
in you, they went to bat for you, they played
their positions for you, and you did the right thing
(33:52):
by exonerating that situation. I just want to say, good job,
thank you. Yes, yes, you're welcome, and I hope that
we can let this kind of put that out.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
There on the show.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You know that you know, don't mess with the man's
integrity or morals. I'm just going to tell you right, okay,
now listen. I know green Berets are really dialed in,
like you know, they can do a lot of different things,
and he's a trained combat diver as well. But at
the end of the day, you know, some of that
resume was humanitarian effort that you do.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I'm just saying, bro Actually interesting.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
My soldier career lasted almost twenty six years, and essentially
the key requirement of the soldier is the ability to
take someone else's life. Our job is about killing, and
there's no way to make it.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Printon.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
The job of the United Nations Security Advisor is the
mirror opposite. It's about the preservation of life. Of the two,
I have to say that I felt I felt good
about the job that I did because I know that
(35:04):
people are alive today because of the job I did
in Sierra Leone, in West Africa, in Yema exactly, in Baghdad,
in Iraq and some of the other jobs that I
did in Palestine. They're alive today because of the job
I did. And there's no feeling better that I can imagine.
(35:29):
No medals, no badges, no letters, accommodation or appreciation. Nothing
matters as much as the knowledge that I have been
responsible for saving lives.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
That's a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
That's a wonderful feeling. I want you to sign my
rookie card. I know I like to make a little
smile here there about stuff. It's just who I am.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
I think that I believe in that mission, you know,
like do unto others attitude.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Yeah, And it was a privilege, it really was.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
It was a privilege and it was an honor for
me to be able to serve in the United Nations
in that capacity. Despite the fact that I was used
badly by the leadership of the United Nations.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
The fact is this.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I feel very proud of my United Nations service.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
I worked in some tough neighborhoods and I survived and
others survived with me, and I'll take that with me
to my brave.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
One hundred percent. I'm You're awesome. You're I want to
be on your team.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I just want you to know that if you ever
need someone that's furry and bearded out of Utah six
foot five, Okay, you just let me know, all right,
thank you? Yes, And I prepare every day. I box
every day, I go to the gym every morning, so
you know, proper planning, right. Yeah, No, you're great, And
(37:03):
I just want to touch base on a piece of
your CV or your resume that I read over. It
says that you were in Palestine and Jordan and that
you helped set up you know, security details in Palestine
between two thousand and eight and twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
My hitting that right.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
What happened?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
So I was hired by UNRUN to be their ahead
of security and they made an offer that I could
hardly refuse.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
They said, well, you will have no staff and no budget.
That's the offer.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Okay, we want you to be responsible for institutional security
in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, and you
have no staff and no budget. And I said, that
sounds like a challenge. So I took the job. I
took the job. I hired staff, I trained staff, and
(37:59):
I was able to finally convinced the organization to create
a budget.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
For security related matters.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
Unfortunately, I was in a job for less than two
years before I was selected to be chief of the
Middle East and North Africa at you and Headquarters in
New York. I say, well, it became a tough time
because what happened subsequently was when now colloquially called the
Arab Spring, and the Arab Spring resulted in me and
(38:34):
my staff having to support sixteen offices in the field,
but we had to evacuate five different countries over a
period of six months due to violence in the streets
of Yemen, Egypt.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Bahrain, Syria.
Speaker 6 (38:55):
It got nasty after a while and we had to
get some of our staff out of there.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And it really rised up in Egypt. I really really
like kicked off.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Well, what happened was when I was again you and
headquarters in New York.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
The Security U and DSS didn't have at that time
a crisis coordination center, so we didn't have a center
for doing all that.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
So I ended up.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
Conducting a lot of business from my apartment in Manhattan.
My wife kicked me out of our bed because the
phone call started coming in about two o'clock in the
morning because of.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
The time difference, right.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
So I ended up sleeping on the couch for literary
weeks and sometimes I spent a.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Lot of time on the couch.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Yeah, okay, because I had to answer the phone.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
I was chief of the Middle Eastern North Africa. I
got sixteen regional offices. Things are going bad. They needed
to get in touch with me, and somebody had to
pick up the telephone. After two years in that job,
I was pretty much wrung out, and my boss, at
my request, made me chief Security Advisor for the country
(40:13):
of Indonesia.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Wow. Yeah, so your sleep schedule. Let me ask you something.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Did you really ever get a full night's sleep or
were you just always No, you didn't, so it can't
take its tall on you mentally. Yeah, I mean, you know,
two hours of sleep is at least some type of
rem sleep, even if you get two hours straight.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
I understand, And it.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Was just.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
The difference was when you're at headquarters in New York,
you're making decisions to impact people's lives, as opposed to
being downrange and having people point guns at you. Of
the two things, it was easier being down range. It
really was, because your decisions made in New York directly
(41:05):
impact a lot more people's lives, and you end up
second guessing yourself more than you can ever imagine. And
every decision, every decision can cost lives or it can
cost a hell of a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
In order for the Amended Nations.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
To evacuate a country, it can cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars and turn people's lives upside down.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
It is a very very difficult decision to make.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
You've had so many decisions to make, You've had so
many decisions to make, just so many. You went into
Palestine with no money, with no staff and said I
got this.
Speaker 6 (41:57):
Actually I just said it was a challenge.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, You're like, I like a challenge, you know, yeah,
obviously are you still like staying you know, physically fit
are you still doing PTE to yourself daily?
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Where are you at right now in that regiment you're
hit in seventy.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
I'm seventy three years old, and as you mentioned in
my resume, in the last few years, I've done consultancies
in Lebanon, Ukraine and as a vice over the negirl
carab So even in my seventies' managing to stay active
(42:36):
and I like that.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
I like that, I like the feeling of being useful.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
And at the same time, I've got physical issues like
every green beret my age.
Speaker 5 (42:47):
Okay, we've all got bad knees. Both of my shoulders
are titanium, both of.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Them service related.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yeah, so about both of my shoulders and me and
out of titanium.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
Every time I go through an airport magnetometer, O take,
I have to be strip SERTs because they're looking for
the metal of me and I'm trying to no, no,
it's a.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Titanium in my shoulders, Okay.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
And I busted my back in a parachuting accident in
the early nineties and that is giving me more and
more troubles as a age.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
However, I work out every single day.
Speaker 6 (43:25):
I'm in the gym, every single day, and when I'm
not in the gym, I'm in the pool doing exercises
in the pool, and I do a stretching regiment in
order to keep my back from taking me down. So
the bottom mind is I'm still able to walk, talk
and communicate.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I do have the opportunity to speak from time to time.
Speaker 6 (43:50):
I've written several articles for a soft rep magazine for
the Army Times, from Military Times sort of Marine Corps
Gazette for parameters, and I think I've been published in
just about every significant military publication in America. So I
actually took the time to count all the different places
(44:11):
where I published, and there's been over fifty individual publications
that have thought my writing worthy of consideration for print.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
That's another thing I feel very very good about.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
And that is a great segue to talk about again,
You're surviving the United Nations that you've written, which is available, right,
you can pick that.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
Up John Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 6 (44:38):
Okay, yeah, you can put my name in any browser
anywhere and all that.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Stuff comes up, plus it on my website. But the
bottom line is the book.
Speaker 6 (44:52):
If you're interested, you go to the website and click
on the reviews that I've gotten from some pretty senior people,
to include the former Administrator of IRAQ, Paul Bremer, investor
Paul Bremmer, the former Chief staff of the Army Pete
Schoomaker who's White Boss, and the Joint Special Operations Command
(45:15):
Bill Garrison, who's famous for the Blackhawk Down incident. He
was a commanding general for that when we were in Jasark.
I've gotten some pretty damn good reviews. It seems like
I achieved what I wanted to achieve and set the
record straight, but was able to do so without boring
(45:38):
any So I seem to get high marks for having
written a book that's not boring.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
And if that's the case, that's I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
You should be happy. You should be happy and.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Sad because the book does touch on some sensitive situations
like what happened you know what twenty two years ago? Today,
today's like the twenty second So today I don't usually
date my episodes. I like a timeless episode. However, it's
August nineteenth that you and I have gotten together today
to talk about this, and so when this goes on
(46:16):
it might be a week or two from now. However,
it doesn't negate the serious anniversary and respect that we
have for.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Not just them, but for all.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Of our veterans and service personnel that have gone over
there or gone anywhere and just paid that ultimate sacrifice.
And you know, yeah, I'm sorry about your colleagues specifically,
you know, and I didn't want you to be the scapegoat. I,
(46:50):
as an American taxpayer, was like nobody.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
That's higher up the chain. Bro, you should look in
the mirror. Whoever fired you to look in the mirror.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
He's already he's already passed on.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
He's already passed Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
But the fact is is that the softwarep again was
kind enough to publish one of my articles on the
on the what I call the over two decade United
Nations covering the Security Interact accountability report that was done
by a committee of well meaning individuals has never seen
(47:28):
the line of day.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
It was never released.
Speaker 6 (47:31):
It was considered un confidential by the then Secretary General
Coffee and none, and to this.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Day it has never been released. And in my opinion,
it must be released.
Speaker 6 (47:43):
The people who lost loved ones that day deserve to
know why their loved ones had to die.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
Amen, yeah, let it let it out, Get it out,
I mean, I feel like a Hollywood movie is needed,
like something to like just put a spotlight on the situation.
It's like, you know, I'm thinking in my head while
you're talking like storyboarding it, I'm like, Okay, I need
a building, I need a wide shot, I need a
flatbed truck.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I'm like thinking, how.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Do you how do you bring this, you know, to
let the masses understand the situation so that the spotlight
is on.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Just saying.
Speaker 7 (48:22):
Yes, anything anything that brings pressure on the United Nations right,
my articles, my podcast, this podcast, and anything that brings
the truth to people can potentially act or provide pressure
on the Secretary General of the United Nations, who with
(48:43):
with his pen signature can release the security your Act
and Accountability Panel report to public and should.
Speaker 6 (48:52):
Be the invented Nations is supposed to be transparent.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I was just going to say transparency. I thought we
all talk about it.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yeah, we're not and.
Speaker 6 (49:05):
Alls it takes as the segnature of the Sector General
the United Nations to reduce set or to make that
pub sure, I'd like to see.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
You and why why not? Why not just make it put?
What do we what? What?
Speaker 3 (49:18):
What is there to hide? I think there's hide if
there's something so tragic and we can say that, if
it is so tragic, then just let us read about
it and we'll see. Well, you know it'll be out there.
But if it's yeah, one hundred percent agreed, you know,
release release it, release the documents.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I believe.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Oh yeah, no, we have listeners at the We have
listeners all over the world that hit me up an
email from I.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Want to be on your show, RAB but I'm still working.
You know, things like that, and I just want to say,
keep going.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, they can't talk about things,
but they're listening. So you know, if a little seed
can be planted, and you know, you guys could take
a look at those fire and just signed that little signature.
Speaker 6 (50:01):
Interestingly, interestingly, when when I published, when you published the book,
every un staff, when you publish a book, you're supposed
to send it to.
Speaker 5 (50:12):
The Secretary General of the Imaginations for clearance.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I not.
Speaker 5 (50:17):
I did not.
Speaker 6 (50:18):
I published my book. And the reason why I didn't
send the Secretary General for clearance is because of course
there's no way in help the Secretary General would have
cleared the book. Now after the book was published, I
received a letter signed by a high un affection threatening
me with the possibility of legal action.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
My response was, please please please take me to court.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
I want to go to court because I have all
kinds of evidence in my possession, and if you walk
into a courtroom with me, you're going to have.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
To tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You're going to ask that's right, You're going to have
to come up.
Speaker 6 (51:03):
With something and explain your actions or the actions of
senior people or lap better at a time when it
was critically important. Now I never heard from them again,
and they never sent me do the threatening letter. And
the first book was published five years ago, so now
(51:25):
it's been out for about six years. I never heard
of back from it. And I suspect they do not
want to meet me in court.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
No, because you know, they'd have to be deposed.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
There'd have to be you know, evidence turned over in
like files and stuff. It's kind of funny how people
are willing to threaten lawsuits on people, but yet they're
not willing to follow through with it.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
They don't want to meet me in court. They do
know I've got all the evidence, and I would look,
I would love to bring it all the light.
Speaker 6 (51:57):
So if anybody out there is listening have a YouTube,
so please feel free to take me to corp.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
There you have it, Robert Adolph right there.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Okay, Yeah, you're welcome. You know.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
I can't believe we've been talking for an hour, you know.
And to my listener, my listener, thank you so much.
If you've listened to the whole show, and if you've
tuned in for your first time and you've just caught
us talking, welcome to Soft Rep Radio. Right, what a
great guest, Robert, You're a welcome edition. I'm so happy
that guy. You guys talk to you and guy at
(52:35):
soft reap our editor, he's like, yo, rad you got
to talk to Robert man. I think he's someone that
you guys will just go back and forth with. And
I was like, let's go right away, and we kicked off. Dude,
you were like, let's go. I was like this time
and day You're like, I'm in Rome. I was like, where, okay,
what time is that? Have Mountain Standard and I would
(52:56):
like to just extend, you know, the formal limitation. Come
back on the show and talk further about anything else
that's on your mind, you know, and if there's any
new book or you know you are working on another book,
et cetera. You're just welcome. You've got so many stories.
First of all, thank you for your service to this
country and to the nation. I really from me to
(53:20):
you appreciate.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
That, and I think I just want to say that,
thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (53:28):
Thank you for the invitation to appear in your show.
I'd love to come back almost any time. Yes, no,
this is enjoyable. I enjoyed the opportunity. I enjoyed the
opportunity to speak to you. And if you're interested, I
write about those things that interest me. And if you
(53:50):
look at the things that have appeared recently in software,
then I think now guy has been publishing something in
mind just about every week. If there's a topic there
that interests you or you think might interest your viewers,
give me send me a bush.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
Okay. I'm happy to talk about any of the.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Submage one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
It's that easy. We are now connected. I got your
email and we'll just it's just like family. Okay, it's
like olive garden. Huh, you're here. Okay, you're family. All right,
you're a soft rep.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
You're here. Okay, I think you're great.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
I just so I just want to let my guests
know something we just met today and I'm almost willing
to say I love you.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Okay, look, I won't mention that to my wife.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yes, no, And I just want to say happy anniversary
on your twenty five years okay together? And uh yeah,
you just keep being you and you just keep doing you,
and you just keep at it and uh and thanks
for being I always like to get better from my guests,
and you have just made me a better person.
Speaker 5 (54:58):
Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
So thank you so much. You're very welcome, and to
my listener, thank you for listening. If you have a comment,
go ahead and comment down below. If you want to
go check out I believe it's Robert Bruceadolf dot com.
Is that right, Robert Bruceadoff dot com.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Go check that out.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
He's got all of his information there. You can read
about Robert, get to know him a little more. Check
out his book, which is Surviving the United Nations. It's
out everywhere, and when you buy the book, when you
download it, get it on your kindle or wherever on Amazon,
leave a review.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
All right, the bouthors really do.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Yeah right, See he just went like, oh, yeah, Rad, Yes,
yes the review.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I'm supposed to say that, but you said it.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
For me, Bro, So leave a comment down below on
them Okay, and even on softwap if you read one
of his articles, just say hey, Bob, cool insight.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
Thanks a lot. It means a lot to hear that feedback.
So again it does. On behalf of Brandon Webb, who
runs softwap dot com. On behalf of my producer Callum,
who sits in the back and make sure that everything
gets put together and makes it all look great. Uh
and uh and Guy our editor uh in chief at
software dot com for recommending such a personable talent and
(56:11):
a and a green beret at that flattered honored The
sky is blue because your shirt is blue and that's why.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Okay, and and on behalf of rad saying peace.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
You've been listening to self red Radio
Route for us.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and straight
talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Hey, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (00:41):
This is rad with another awesome episode of soft Rep
Radio and you have tuned into a very special show today.
But first, before I introduce my next guest, I want
to tell you to go check out our merch store.
That's right, Callum put something on the bottom right here
so people could just click on it or read that
they can go to our softwarep slash merch and you
(01:02):
can go check out all of our soft reap dot
com branded shirts, mugs, all the cool stuff that you
guys are tagging us with. I love to see it.
Please continue to tag us with soft rep Mafia. Second,
we have a book club and it is curated by
the special operators behind the scenes here at soft rep
dot com for you who loves this content. So go
(01:22):
check out soft rep dot com Ford slash Book hyphen Club.
That's soft rep dot com Ford Slash Book hyphen Club. Yeah,
that's all in my head. There's nothing here telling me
to say that I have to remember all of this.
This is how we roll. Now today's guest is so
renowned to me, I can respect everything on this individual's resume.
(01:45):
Robert Adolph, Welcome to the show of Soft Rep Radio.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
Thank you so many.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Now, do you like to be just.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Referred to as a retired lieutenant colonel special Forces green beret?
Is that the case? What was your last military rank
when you got out?
Speaker 5 (02:03):
Lieutenant?
Speaker 3 (02:04):
I started out, Oh, you bucked your way up the
whole system.
Speaker 6 (02:08):
I made staff sergeant and oh, let me see nineteen
seventy five, and went to the CS in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
And then Aaron me rad was being born in nineteen
seventy seven. Yeah, I love it, I love it. Did
you have a stint in Vietnam?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Then? Did you do any deployments to that?
Speaker 6 (02:31):
I actually was in Special Forces training in the fifth
Special Forces Group, closed up shop and came home from Vietnam.
I volunteered to go, but the Army and the definite wisdom,
as they always do, sevent to Fort Devons, Massachusetts, thirty
minute drive from my hometown.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Of course, of course just right next door, you know,
so you can go get that breakfast that you love
every morning from the diner down the street. They didn't
want you to lose a step in that process. Now, now, Robert,
just a little touch on your resume here. I'm going
to read it and I want my listener to follow along.
And this is part of the show, is to introduce
(03:10):
you and talk about your background. And you have quite
the resume. So please give me a few moments to
read through this, and my listener thanks for listening along.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And here we go.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, So Robert Bruce Adolf, he's an international speaker, author, commentator, consultant.
Let me take these glasses off to read this better.
Pizzazzl cardinal counsel. See here, Here we go, let's see here.
Retired US Army Special Forces Lieutenant colonel and UN Chief
Security Advisor, familiar with Europe, Asia, Pacific, Middle East, and
(03:42):
North Africa, as well as Sub Saharan Africa. Served in
both field and headquarters assignments, divided among the following specialties.
Peacekeeping serving on four such missions. Senior security and crisis
disaster management, threat vulnerability and risk assessment, investigations, civil military operations,
post conflict environments, conflict resolution, information collection, trend analysis, and
(04:05):
incident reporting and response. Successful in the most senior un
supervisory assignment at the installation country, subregional and regional levels.
Established Igo security forums in multiple countries. Qualified un trainer
of trainers, Experienced cross cultural communicator, well practiced at dealing
independently with host government police security forces. Former university lecturer
(04:29):
on American history and government. Lived and worked in seventeen
different countries. Spent fourteen years in the region of the
Middle East, visiting every Arab country. Authored over three hundred
published articles, commentaries, essays and book reviews. Most publications are
listed on his website at let me say that correctly
Robert Bruce Adolf dot com and we'll have that put
(04:50):
down in the breakdown of this website so people can
just click on this podcast.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Let me continue to read here.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Though professional experience international speaker published the reviewed book entitled
Surviving the United Nations, A True Story of Violence, Corruption,
betrayal and Redemption, which is now in its second edition
currently and he's currently writing another book. Okay, So, he
gave the keynote address on artificial intelligence, humanity and unfenered
capitalism at a conference on the Future of Technology at
(05:17):
the London School of Economics and Political Science in twenty
twenty four. Also gave presentations on various topics at George
Washington University in DC, Netherlands, Atlantic Commissions at the Hague,
New York University of Course in Manhattan, World Affairs Conference
in Florida, and the European University Institute in Florence and more.
He's published dodgeons of newspapers and magazine commentaries in Europe
and the US. Served as advisor to the graduate program
(05:40):
in International Affairs and World Peace, World Politics. Excuse me
for the University of Pavia. Interviewed by BBC and Italian News,
National Public Radio, un Today and Soft Rep Right Now
Soft Rep Radio as We're interviewing Robert. He's also the
UNDP Security Consulate in Azerbaijan and twenty twenty three he's
(06:01):
the OSSEE Security Expert and team leader in Kiev, Ukraine.
In twenty twenty two, he conducted personal on site reconnaissance
assessing the residual dangers within the invasion corridor used by
the Russian Federation Armed Forces northwest of Kiev. Habitat for
Humanity International Security Consulate in Lebanon in twenty eighteen, where
he conducted and tailored security assessments accomplished training needs and assessments,
(06:24):
and provided device on the writing and formal security plan
and more. He's the UN Chief Security Advisor in Indonesia
between twenty twelve and twenty fourteen, where he led a
large security staff of internationals and nationals through three security
regions and eight local offices in support of twenty eight
UN agencies funds and programs in thirty nine project sites
throughout the country. He's the Chief Middle East and North
(06:46):
African Region UNHQ, New York for twenty ten twenty twelve.
He deployed on missions multiple times to hazardous zones of conflict,
including Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. Under that title Head
of Safety and Security for the UNRWA, which is the
UNRAH I believe is how it said, Palestine, Aman Jordan.
From two thousand and eight to twenty ten, he wrote, presented,
(07:09):
and saw through to approval and complete reckoniz recognization of
the security standards of UNRAH, trained a security staff where
none previously existed in Gaza, West Bank, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon,
while also successfully justifying an expanded security budget, and he
volunteered and subsequently served in the Gaza Strip after Operation
(07:30):
cast Led.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Just that right there. I have so many questions, but
I'm going to continue with your resume. Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
UN Security Advisor for Egypt in Cairo, two thousand and
four to two thousand and eight. Wow, that's really wow. Okay,
I'm just gonna say wow. Right, you built a country
security office from the ground up, hiring and training all
security staff. Conducted the UN investigations of the schrom alschik
Dab Khan al Khalili, and North Sinai suicide bombings. I
(07:57):
hope I said those names kind of correctly. Okay, you
created the Egypt International Security Forum. I'm going to continue
UN Security. You in Chief of Security for Iraq bad
Dad two thousand and three to two thousand and four.
That's some heavy times. Man led the first UN security
mission back into Iraq during the time of active combat.
Mosel alhaliel Basra Baghdad appointed officers in charge directly supervised
(08:22):
life saving activities. At the time of the suicide bombing
attack that killed twenty two and wounded more than one
hundred and fifty. I think that is the anniversary is
today of that bombing, correct.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
Today's the universary?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Then that is and we're going to get into your book,
which kind of touches on that.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
So just give me a few more moments. I'm going
to burn through your resume. Wow, dude.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Chief Field Security Officer for Yemen two thousand to two
thousand and three. He created the Ingo Security Forum. There,
consulted confidentially on several tribal kidnappings with no loss of life.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
Aided Scotland Yard in the.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Wake of the UK Embassy bombing, and dealt successfully with
violence in Somalia at the refugee camp. You're the chief
security officer in Sierra leones UN Peacekeeping from ninety nine
to two thousand. Conducted a successful emergency rotary and fixed
wing evacuation of over two hundred staff when Freetown was
invaded by the brutal Revolutionary United Front the RUF Holy Cow,
(09:19):
and assisted in the recovery of over five hundred Zembion
Battalion prisoner detainees from the RUF. Consulted successfully on an
Igo double kidnapping man. Sir, your education you have a
Master's in National Security Studies and Strategy, US Army Command
of General Staff College and MAA Internal Affairs, Middle East Studies,
(09:40):
American University School of Internal Service at Washington, d C.
You have a Bachelors of Science and Sociology. New York University, Albany.
You have additional considerations such as adjunctant faculty teaching World politics,
US Government, American history, foreign affairs, and more at several
US colleges and universities. UNTAC Chief, UNICOM Chief of Current
(10:01):
Operations and the DMZ between Iraq and Kuwait. The UNTSO
Military Observer in Egypt, Policy Advisor in the Bosnian Ministry
of Defense for Sarajevo.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
US Army.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Former intelligence officer, counter intelligence special Agents, military strategists, psychological operations,
civil affairs, Foreign Area Officer, instructive certification, Light weapons specialist,
former infantry staff sergeant, Master parachutist, airborne assault climber, special operations,
combat diver, which my dad never.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Got to get.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
He always talked about that little badge that He's like, No,
they're something bigger on the block than me, Aaron, and
I was like, what do you mean. He's like, I
don't have my little scuba combat badge, and I was like,
but you probably could. And a Danish combat and Belgium commando.
I mean again, Robert, Lieutenant Colonel Sir, American Patriot. Welcome
(10:50):
to the softwarep Podcast with me. Thank you for taking
your time from Rome. Are you in Rome today? Yes,
voice everybody.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Yes, I just returned from Tangier and Morocco yesterday.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What was going on in Tangier, Morocco?
Speaker 5 (11:07):
Yeah, my wife's birthday.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Happy birthday to your wife. Oh that's great, Okay, perfect.
How long you guys have been married?
Speaker 5 (11:15):
We've been together for twenty five years.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Oh. I love that. I love that. My wife and
I hit twenty five this year.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
My wife and I actually met in Yemen.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
In Yemen, well, that's credible.
Speaker 6 (11:28):
I was the head of security for the United Nations
and Yemen, and she was a chief technical advisor on
a project for the United Nations FAO that bettered the
lives of women in rural villages.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (11:46):
So you're humanity, yes, that the humanitarian effort from you
and her and the things that you guys try to
focus on, and you know, putting yourself into these very
hostile environments and trying to make peace and sense of
it with a secure force. Really a security force or
a police force is there just to kind of like
set the peace, set the tone say someone's here if
you need help, Someone's here in your time of need
(12:09):
to try to keep the peace while you're moving back
and forth to get your water, to get your food.
You know, that's how I see law enforcement and my
local Utah Sandy City is they're here to protect and serve.
When I go eat breakfast and I see them coming
into the place, I'll tell the server, hey, I got them,
you know, just put it on my ticket. And they
always look around and I'm always like, you know, so
(12:30):
so having peace, being able to go out and eat,
being able to go get water is something that we
take for granted so much here, you know, versus other
countries where it is a hostile environment. You do have
rebel commandos trying to take kidnappings, and you know, prizes
of people for ransom, and you put yourself in the
(12:51):
thick of all of that.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
It was the nature's the job. The job of a
United Nations security adviser means putting your life pretty regularly
at some degree of risk, hopefully measured risk.
Speaker 5 (13:08):
If you do the job for a while, you learn
how to be measurment.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
When you were going through your initial military enlistment and
you got to staff Sergeant. I just want to ask
a segue here. What turns you to going into the
pipeline of a green beret? What was that that? What
did you originally enlist as versus then you became an
SF you know.
Speaker 6 (13:35):
But actually what happened was when I enlisted, I enlisted
specifically for Special Forces.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
I had an enlisted contract for it.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
So I went to basic, then Infantry, a T jump school,
and then was sent to Fort Rank to the Johnath
Kennedy Special Warfare Center in the school and enter this
this is before selection in the session, so to enter
Phase one training camp recall, so Phase one, Phase two, weapons,
(14:06):
phase three.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
To try and put it all together. And this is.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Before they had again select an assessment. So it was
a different time. But there was one thing that an
old friend of mine, a comrade of mine, a former
Special Forces warrant officer.
Speaker 5 (14:23):
I ran into Hiden years later.
Speaker 6 (14:25):
It turned out that we had gone through a Special
Forces training together.
Speaker 5 (14:29):
We both started at the same time.
Speaker 6 (14:32):
He pointed something out to me that I did not know,
and that was that one hundred and thirty four men
started Phase one training. Eighteen of that starting group completed
Phase three.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
So eighteen out of one hundred and thirty four.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
That from my perspective, was one of the major accomplishments
of my life.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, because you're talking about an eighty two percent drop
great from one hundred men and the song that Barry
Sadler sings. You know, one hundred men they'll test today
only three when the Green beret.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, there's truth to his song.
Speaker 6 (15:13):
It was a tough course. It was a very difficult
time for anybody there. But folks that completed it, in
my instin were the ones that wanted it the most.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
What's up, Dad, That's what I gotta say right there.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know, I just think about that, And I took
that for granted with my father always walking around with
his green beret on, and just he was always so
calm and cool and collected around the house and never
really fronted about like anything.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
One time, one time.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
We were walking around Hill Air Force Base going to
the clinic before they shut it down, of course, and
I was just a younger rad and we were holding
his hand. I was holding his hand and he had
his beret on, he was in his camis he was
walking in and I said, and an Air Force person
was walking out and they had like a trucker hat on,
you know, and it said like TRD whatever on And
I was like, Dad, why don't they have a green
beret too? And he just said come along, and he's
(16:05):
pulled me by my hand. Now I know why. Now,
as an older man in life, you know, I understand
that it's not the easiest thing to go through. So
to be one of the eighteen you know, back in
what seventy five, you say, no, if.
Speaker 6 (16:20):
You've went through Special Forces of training started in nineteen
seventy two, completed in nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Hum nineteen seventy two, nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So you guys are wearing all the same Vietnam olive
drab gear, all that OD slant pockets, everything like that.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
That was just at that time.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
You were wearing just the od's. Yeah, have the camouflage stuff.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
No, the olive drab OD, the green excellent, yes, yeah,
that's what you were Yeah, and your shiny boots.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yeah. I love it. No, I love it. You know.
I know.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
It's so cool man, You're so cool. I just want
you to know if I had a baseball part of you,
I'd want your rookie card.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Could you imagine your card stats? You know what I'm saying,
if you had a card, Holy cow, I can't.
Speaker 5 (17:09):
Imagine anybody would want my card.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
But okay, yeah, no, it's true. You're great. So here
you are commissioning.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Now, you know, you go from a staff sergeant and
you're commissioning into a lieutenant colonel. Maybe that was around
nineteen seventy five, is that correct?
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Let me see, in nineteen seventy six was when I
graduated Officer Canada School.
Speaker 5 (17:33):
I was branched in military intelligence.
Speaker 6 (17:36):
The reason why I was branching military intelligence was at
that time there was no such thing a Special Forces branch,
so I had to go somewhere. I was branching military
intelligence and then decided to go to ranger school. So
myself and my best friend we went to Ranger School
together and then to Military Intelligence training Fort two, Arizona,
(18:01):
and then reassigned to Fort Ragg in North Carolina to
eighteenth Airboarding Corps and the eighty second eighty second Airborne Division.
My friend Terry central.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
So my dad was out of the nineteenth group here
at Camp Williams in the eighty eighty one eighty two
eighty three through the early nineties. Where were you? You
were Fort Brack pretty much the whole time. Fifth Group.
Speaker 6 (18:29):
After doing my stint military intelligence, I went to fifth
Special Forces Group, commanded a Special Forces Underwater Operations Detachments
court and Ben became the S two, the intelligence officer
for the third Battalion of fifth Special Forces Group. Under Ben,
Lieutenant Colonel Harley Davits, who just happened to be my
company commander at ten Special Forces Group at Fort Dins
(18:51):
in Massachusetts and later promoted me to major when he
was a major general.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
How cool is that? Huh?
Speaker 4 (19:00):
It was pretty good.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Really, that is pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
So combat diver, So, like I said, there's always someone
on the block that you think that you think you're
the big guy.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You got your green beret.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But then there's someone who has a little button on
there on their uniform and it's got this scuba snorkel.
I don't know if you had that, the scuba mask
and the snorkels. Sure, yeah, see, and my dad always
wanted because he was a scuba diver.
Speaker 6 (19:23):
And if we saw I made my first dive. I
was trained by World War two UDT guy in nineteen
sixty eight in San Francisco, California. I made my first
dive in Monterey Bay. My father was in the alistic
man in the Navy. He was a chief bettyofs he
(19:44):
felt I saw. I thought he felt a little bit
betrayed when I joined the Army instead of the Navy.
But I could not get an enlisted contract to go
to seal training, which is the only kind of training
that I was interested in. So I ended up going
Special Forces, and I still had.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
The you get win, yes, yeah, come on, dad, look
at me now, right.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah, and so you got your scuba underwater, which means
you're really how long can you hold your breath for
when you were in your prime back then? Oh?
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Probably and a half.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That's still good, that's great.
Speaker 5 (20:23):
It was a requirement of the job.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Yes, well, I mean I've gone to a hotel and
put my head under the pool and try to hold
my head for like what felt like forever, but it
was only like twenty seven seconds, okay.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
So yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
And when I was a little young me, my dad
would take us up to the base and he would
swim laps all day, you know, for that whole time
he would just swim laps, but he'd put blindfolds on
me and my older brother and then he would drop
weights in the twelve foot part.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Of the pool.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
He's like, hey, now watch them, Okay, now go get them,
and he would just sit there doing laugh while we
sat going down trying to get these weights off the
bottom of a pool is just like a twelve year
old I understand.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
The only difference this is the UDT guy from World
War Two trained me. We did it black down, meaning
that they put four on the inside of ours and
then you had to dive down to the bottom of
the pool, which is the deepest in was about twelve
feet and you had to feel around on the bottom
until you find the weight and then bring it back up.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
It could take a while.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I mean really, my older brother was really good at it.
He would be able to like just go right down,
like you know, right down at those weights and pull
them up. And I would always be like, how do
I get my buoy? And see how do I get
down to the bottom of the pool.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
It's not the.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Easiest thing to do, so I mean, just geez, thanks dad,
you want to go to the pool with your Daddy's
a green beret.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
That's what's going to happen?
Speaker 3 (21:50):
Okay, And then you always make us jump off the
high dive. We'd always have to step off the high dives,
no problem.
Speaker 6 (21:57):
One of the things that struck me about your choice
of this particular day for this potcast was that today
is the anniversary of the suicide bombing that killed twenty
two of my friends, my colleagues, and visitors to the
(22:18):
UN headquarters in Baghdad in two thousand and three. It was,
by any account, the worst day of my life. In
one day, I waded through enough blood and gore. It's
something I don't think anyone could ever really fully recover from.
(22:44):
But I just thought it'd be worthwhile to mention because
so many died, and they died needlessly, They died needlessly.
The fact was that my office, I was the head
of security for the United Nations for all Iraq. My
(23:04):
office and all the senior security officers in Iraq, concurring
with me, warned the United Nations leadership in Baghdad and
in New York that we were under enormous risk, enormous hazard.
We anticipated the attack itself, and when it happened.
Speaker 5 (23:27):
It was a whore to live through that event.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
And the fact is the first, if memory serves, this
is the first suicide bombing of a war in Iraq
that later killed so many Americans, and it was designed
to kill unarmed United Nations staff. By the way, in
(23:52):
the UN at that time in Baghdad, none of us
were carrying guns.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
We had no armed guard on a perimeter. We were
literally sitting ducks.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
For soft target, soft.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Target for the extremes.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
And they took advantage, and twenty two people died as
a consequence, and you and senior staff were warned and took.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Limited action, really no precautions to try to even put
up a barrier or anything around the United Nations building
compound to try to you know, like well.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Actually, actually I recommended building a perimeter wall, and they
approved that the wall was only partially built.
Speaker 5 (24:40):
At the time of the attack, so it was too late,
too late, too little.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Too late.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
You had already seen the situation though, you were already
trying to put something in place to help put a
barrier there and get things approved.
Speaker 6 (24:53):
Yes, And I did so luckily in writing as well
as verbally, because later on after the attack, I m
the distinction of being the only senior security officer in
the history of the UN to be personally fired by
the UN Secretary.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
General was that Kofianen.
Speaker 5 (25:16):
That's the one.
Speaker 6 (25:17):
He fired me personally on the front pages of the
New York Times. I was at that time in Ethiopia
conducting a security risk assessment in a place called Gambella
near the Sudanese border. I was told I had been
relieved by the Secretary General and I was to return
immediately to New York to face action.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Whatever that note.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
You mean what you had just walked through isn't enough
facing the action, your friends, your colleagues.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
He's not. Okay, okay, okay, go ahead.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
The bottom line is they were looking for scapegoats.
Speaker 6 (25:51):
The people who were actually responsible were very senior UN
security officers are in fact advisors. We're not decision makers.
So we give advice to senior UN staff leadership and management,
and they either accept it or they don't. The fact
(26:12):
is they ended up playing politics with people's lives, and
twenty two people paid the price, and one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 4 (26:21):
Were wounded, right to include my wife.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
My wife is wounded, medically evacuated and damn near lost deny.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I was going to say, you know, The people that
are working in the UN on the peace keeping side
of things are like your wife and like you know,
you and everybody's in there trying to like just make
sure everything's peaceful. You're not really wanting to have war
brought to you, but all of a sudden, here it is,
you know, you have.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
We end up.
Speaker 5 (26:48):
Working in uncertain environments.
Speaker 6 (26:51):
So the bottom line is is that we enter these
uncertain environments where conflict and violence and lawlessness are everywhere eminent. Essentially,
we operate in places where the United States Army and
large measure would not.
Speaker 5 (27:10):
There's utter lawlessness.
Speaker 6 (27:12):
Now if you don't know what lawlessness is, like, I
also worked in Cambodia during the untapped period, and in
that period there was no there were no judges, there
were no prisons, there were no police, there was nothing.
So literally you could urge somebody in the middle of
(27:33):
town square and nothing would happen to you because there
was no place, there was no one to arrest you.
Speaker 5 (27:40):
Utter lawlessness, and.
Speaker 6 (27:42):
You have to operate or be able to operate successfully
in that kind of environment. That means being a good
boy scout. And now what I mean by that is
I mean being.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Prepared right and well prepared.
Speaker 6 (27:58):
For the eventualities that you are likely to face if
you are better prepared than the other guy. The bottom
line is is that fortune favors those.
Speaker 5 (28:09):
Who are well prepared.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Okay, let me just write that down right now.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Fortune favors that's not new. Well.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, And like a buddy of mine, Big Phil, he's
a former SAS guy, he'd be like rad, A'm all
what he's like.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Proper planning prevents piss poor performance? You know, seven piece bro?
So you know true story?
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Okay, So, so your offices were in the same building
or were you?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Did you? How did how long? Okay? Two questions?
Speaker 3 (28:49):
What was the delivery mechanism for the the.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
Bombing that happened? How far? How far did were you
from it to being on target? As soon as happened?
Speaker 5 (29:02):
A truck was used, a flatbed truck.
Speaker 6 (29:05):
The FBI estimated that onboard that truck was perhaps a
ton roughly two thousand pounds of.
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Explosives materials was used.
Speaker 6 (29:14):
So the suicide bomber ran it straight into the building
and initiated, so a ton of explosives went off.
Speaker 5 (29:22):
I was on the backside of the building. My offices
were on the.
Speaker 6 (29:26):
Back side of the building perhaps twenty five meters, but
it was a lot of concrete between me and the explosion,
but still took everything out of my office.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
My wife was working in my outer office.
Speaker 6 (29:41):
I had one of the few offices that had internet connectivity.
She was preparing for a job in Northern Iraq for
the World Food Program at that time, and unfortunately there
was a glass divider in my office and all that
flying glass.
Speaker 5 (29:57):
The overwhelming majority of the woundings in that event were.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
A consequence of flying glass, which is, yeah, the informing
majority of the people who died died as a consequence
of falling concrete and rebard as the building collected.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah, so it was just such a boom and then
the whole place shook.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Everything blew out of it.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Everybody got hit by all of every debris and then
the building fell and uh and uh. And so your
book Surviving the United Nations, that's kind of what you're
talking about. Yes, you've been a lot of the United Nations,
but like you know, that is a moment that you
did survive through.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
It was a double end time for really. I had
to survive unity so I could keep on breathing, right too,
I had to save my career.
Speaker 6 (30:52):
I was unjustly accused of incompetence in the in the
in my duties and responsibilities in.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Mag Dad, I was not. I did my job.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
So what I ended up doing when I left Ethiopia
and returned to New York I ended up getting into
a fight, an administrative legal battle with the Secretary General
of the UN. I didn't expect to win. But the
fact is is that if there's going to be a fight,
I'll fight it.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I'll see you backing down.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
No, So there was no backing down now.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
So for seven months I fought, and surprisingly one I
won full read statement. I won exoneration for myself and
my office and those people who work.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
With me, complete exoneration.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
But it was obvious the overwhelming majority of the evidence
that was used by what was later called the Security
and Iraq Accountability Panel was from me, my finds, my recommendations. Luckily,
many of those recommendations had been placed on paper and
(32:09):
were a matter of record.
Speaker 5 (32:12):
So with so much evidence.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
In my favor, the firing was overturned and I was
able to go back to work. But it was say
to go through that event to be unjustly blamed for
the deaths of those twenty two people and one hundred
and over one hundred and fifty woundings.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
It was extraordinarily difficult.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
I can only I can only I can only sympathize
and just say sorry for your loss, sorry for the
trials and tribulations that get to be put through. But
someone's gonna mess with your integrity. They're messing with the
wrong bowl because you, in my opinion, have that you know,
like I said, be prepared.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
You have that mindset.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
You have that I want to go through UDT or
Special Forces training. You have this mindset of you know,
Dale pressoll Leeb, you know you have this mindset in
my opinion, of don't mess with your mindset.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
And if someone's gonna come in and accuse you of something.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
And again I'm not the fact guy here, I'm just
passionately speaking back to you saying I would not want
to offend you, because you did. You said, I'm not
going to back down. It took you seven months to
get exonerated. You're a captain of a team, if you will,
for like sports quote unquote for your team, and you're like,
I got this. You guys are going to be exonerated.
(33:30):
Watch me work. You put it through and you got
them exactly where. They believed in you the whole time,
your team, right, so as a as a coach, or
as a captain or leadership lieutenant colonel or you know, civilian,
as a un envoy leader, you're that captain. They believed
in you, they went to bat for you, they played
their positions for you, and you did the right thing
(33:52):
by exonerating that situation. I just want to say, good job,
thank you. Yes, yes, you're welcome, and I hope that
we can let this kind of put that out.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
There on the show.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
You know that you know, don't mess with the man's
integrity or morals. I'm just going to tell you right, okay,
now listen. I know green Berets are really dialed in,
like you know, they can do a lot of different things,
and he's a trained combat diver as well. But at
the end of the day, you know, some of that
resume was humanitarian effort that you do.
Speaker 4 (34:21):
I'm just saying, bro Actually interesting.
Speaker 6 (34:25):
My soldier career lasted almost twenty six years, and essentially
the key requirement of the soldier is the ability to
take someone else's life. Our job is about killing, and
there's no way to make it.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Printon.
Speaker 6 (34:44):
The job of the United Nations Security Advisor is the
mirror opposite. It's about the preservation of life. Of the two,
I have to say that I felt I felt good
about the job that I did because I know that
(35:04):
people are alive today because of the job I did
in Sierra Leone, in West Africa, in Yema exactly, in Baghdad,
in Iraq and some of the other jobs that I
did in Palestine. They're alive today because of the job
I did. And there's no feeling better that I can imagine.
(35:29):
No medals, no badges, no letters, accommodation or appreciation. Nothing
matters as much as the knowledge that I have been
responsible for saving lives.
Speaker 5 (35:44):
That's a great feeling.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
That's a wonderful feeling. I want you to sign my
rookie card. I know I like to make a little
smile here there about stuff. It's just who I am.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
I think that I believe in that mission, you know,
like do unto others attitude.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
Yeah, And it was a privilege, it really was.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
It was a privilege and it was an honor for
me to be able to serve in the United Nations
in that capacity. Despite the fact that I was used
badly by the leadership of the United Nations.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
The fact is this.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
I feel very proud of my United Nations service.
Speaker 6 (36:24):
I worked in some tough neighborhoods and I survived and
others survived with me, and I'll take that with me
to my brave.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
One hundred percent. I'm You're awesome. You're I want to
be on your team.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
I just want you to know that if you ever
need someone that's furry and bearded out of Utah six
foot five, Okay, you just let me know, all right,
thank you? Yes, And I prepare every day. I box
every day, I go to the gym every morning, so
you know, proper planning, right. Yeah, No, you're great, And
(37:03):
I just want to touch base on a piece of
your CV or your resume that I read over. It
says that you were in Palestine and Jordan and that
you helped set up you know, security details in Palestine
between two thousand and eight and twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
My hitting that right.
Speaker 5 (37:19):
What happened?
Speaker 6 (37:20):
So I was hired by UNRUN to be their ahead
of security and they made an offer that I could
hardly refuse.
Speaker 5 (37:28):
They said, well, you will have no staff and no budget.
That's the offer.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Okay, we want you to be responsible for institutional security
in Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, and you
have no staff and no budget. And I said, that
sounds like a challenge. So I took the job. I
took the job. I hired staff, I trained staff, and
(37:59):
I was able to finally convinced the organization to create
a budget.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
For security related matters.
Speaker 6 (38:09):
Unfortunately, I was in a job for less than two
years before I was selected to be chief of the
Middle East and North Africa at you and Headquarters in
New York. I say, well, it became a tough time
because what happened subsequently was when now colloquially called the
Arab Spring, and the Arab Spring resulted in me and
(38:34):
my staff having to support sixteen offices in the field,
but we had to evacuate five different countries over a
period of six months due to violence in the streets
of Yemen, Egypt.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
Bahrain, Syria.
Speaker 6 (38:55):
It got nasty after a while and we had to
get some of our staff out of there.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
It was a tough time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And it really rised up in Egypt. I really really
like kicked off.
Speaker 5 (39:09):
Well, what happened was when I was again you and
headquarters in New York.
Speaker 6 (39:16):
The Security U and DSS didn't have at that time
a crisis coordination center, so we didn't have a center
for doing all that.
Speaker 5 (39:25):
So I ended up.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
Conducting a lot of business from my apartment in Manhattan.
My wife kicked me out of our bed because the
phone call started coming in about two o'clock in the
morning because of.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
The time difference, right.
Speaker 6 (39:40):
So I ended up sleeping on the couch for literary
weeks and sometimes I spent a.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
Lot of time on the couch.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Yeah, okay, because I had to answer the phone.
Speaker 6 (39:52):
I was chief of the Middle Eastern North Africa. I
got sixteen regional offices. Things are going bad. They needed
to get in touch with me, and somebody had to
pick up the telephone. After two years in that job,
I was pretty much wrung out, and my boss, at
my request, made me chief Security Advisor for the country
(40:13):
of Indonesia.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
Wow. Yeah, so your sleep schedule. Let me ask you something.
Speaker 3 (40:20):
Did you really ever get a full night's sleep or
were you just always No, you didn't, so it can't
take its tall on you mentally. Yeah, I mean, you know,
two hours of sleep is at least some type of
rem sleep, even if you get two hours straight.
Speaker 5 (40:37):
I understand, And it.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Was just.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
The difference was when you're at headquarters in New York,
you're making decisions to impact people's lives, as opposed to
being downrange and having people point guns at you. Of
the two things, it was easier being down range. It
really was, because your decisions made in New York directly
(41:05):
impact a lot more people's lives, and you end up
second guessing yourself more than you can ever imagine. And
every decision, every decision can cost lives or it can
cost a hell of a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (41:23):
In order for the Amended Nations.
Speaker 6 (41:25):
To evacuate a country, it can cost hundreds of thousands
of dollars and turn people's lives upside down.
Speaker 5 (41:34):
It is a very very difficult decision to make.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
You've had so many decisions to make, You've had so
many decisions to make, just so many. You went into
Palestine with no money, with no staff and said I
got this.
Speaker 6 (41:57):
Actually I just said it was a challenge.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Yeah, You're like, I like a challenge, you know, yeah,
obviously are you still like staying you know, physically fit
are you still doing PTE to yourself daily?
Speaker 1 (42:11):
Where are you at right now in that regiment you're
hit in seventy.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
I'm seventy three years old, and as you mentioned in
my resume, in the last few years, I've done consultancies
in Lebanon, Ukraine and as a vice over the negirl
carab So even in my seventies' managing to stay active
(42:36):
and I like that.
Speaker 5 (42:37):
I like that, I like the feeling of being useful.
Speaker 6 (42:41):
And at the same time, I've got physical issues like
every green beret my age.
Speaker 5 (42:47):
Okay, we've all got bad knees. Both of my shoulders
are titanium, both of.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Them service related.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Yeah, so about both of my shoulders and me and
out of titanium.
Speaker 6 (42:58):
Every time I go through an airport magnetometer, O take,
I have to be strip SERTs because they're looking for
the metal of me and I'm trying to no, no,
it's a.
Speaker 5 (43:08):
Titanium in my shoulders, Okay.
Speaker 6 (43:12):
And I busted my back in a parachuting accident in
the early nineties and that is giving me more and
more troubles as a age.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
However, I work out every single day.
Speaker 6 (43:25):
I'm in the gym, every single day, and when I'm
not in the gym, I'm in the pool doing exercises
in the pool, and I do a stretching regiment in
order to keep my back from taking me down. So
the bottom mind is I'm still able to walk, talk
and communicate.
Speaker 5 (43:45):
I do have the opportunity to speak from time to time.
Speaker 6 (43:50):
I've written several articles for a soft rep magazine for
the Army Times, from Military Times sort of Marine Corps
Gazette for parameters, and I think I've been published in
just about every significant military publication in America. So I
actually took the time to count all the different places
(44:11):
where I published, and there's been over fifty individual publications
that have thought my writing worthy of consideration for print.
Speaker 5 (44:24):
That's another thing I feel very very good about.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
And that is a great segue to talk about again,
You're surviving the United Nations that you've written, which is available, right,
you can pick that.
Speaker 5 (44:35):
Up John Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 6 (44:38):
Okay, yeah, you can put my name in any browser
anywhere and all that.
Speaker 5 (44:44):
Stuff comes up, plus it on my website. But the
bottom line is the book.
Speaker 6 (44:52):
If you're interested, you go to the website and click
on the reviews that I've gotten from some pretty senior people,
to include the former Administrator of IRAQ, Paul Bremer, investor
Paul Bremmer, the former Chief staff of the Army Pete
Schoomaker who's White Boss, and the Joint Special Operations Command
(45:15):
Bill Garrison, who's famous for the Blackhawk Down incident. He
was a commanding general for that when we were in Jasark.
I've gotten some pretty damn good reviews. It seems like
I achieved what I wanted to achieve and set the
record straight, but was able to do so without boring
(45:38):
any So I seem to get high marks for having
written a book that's not boring.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
And if that's the case, that's I'm happy.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
You should be happy. You should be happy and.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Sad because the book does touch on some sensitive situations
like what happened you know what twenty two years ago? Today,
today's like the twenty second So today I don't usually
date my episodes. I like a timeless episode. However, it's
August nineteenth that you and I have gotten together today
to talk about this, and so when this goes on
(46:16):
it might be a week or two from now. However,
it doesn't negate the serious anniversary and respect that we
have for.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Not just them, but for all.
Speaker 3 (46:29):
Of our veterans and service personnel that have gone over
there or gone anywhere and just paid that ultimate sacrifice.
And you know, yeah, I'm sorry about your colleagues specifically,
you know, and I didn't want you to be the scapegoat. I,
(46:50):
as an American taxpayer, was like nobody.
Speaker 1 (46:55):
That's higher up the chain. Bro, you should look in
the mirror. Whoever fired you to look in the mirror.
Speaker 5 (47:03):
He's already he's already passed on.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
He's already passed Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 6 (47:08):
But the fact is is that the softwarep again was
kind enough to publish one of my articles on the
on the what I call the over two decade United
Nations covering the Security Interact accountability report that was done
by a committee of well meaning individuals has never seen
(47:28):
the line of day.
Speaker 5 (47:29):
It was never released.
Speaker 6 (47:31):
It was considered un confidential by the then Secretary General
Coffee and none, and to this.
Speaker 5 (47:37):
Day it has never been released. And in my opinion,
it must be released.
Speaker 6 (47:43):
The people who lost loved ones that day deserve to
know why their loved ones had to die.
Speaker 4 (47:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (47:54):
Amen, yeah, let it let it out, Get it out,
I mean, I feel like a Hollywood movie is needed,
like something to like just put a spotlight on the situation.
It's like, you know, I'm thinking in my head while
you're talking like storyboarding it, I'm like, Okay, I need
a building, I need a wide shot, I need a
flatbed truck.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
I'm like thinking, how.
Speaker 3 (48:13):
Do you how do you bring this, you know, to
let the masses understand the situation so that the spotlight
is on.
Speaker 1 (48:20):
Just saying.
Speaker 7 (48:22):
Yes, anything anything that brings pressure on the United Nations right,
my articles, my podcast, this podcast, and anything that brings
the truth to people can potentially act or provide pressure
on the Secretary General of the United Nations, who with
(48:43):
with his pen signature can release the security your Act
and Accountability Panel report to public and should.
Speaker 6 (48:52):
Be the invented Nations is supposed to be transparent.
Speaker 1 (48:56):
I was just going to say transparency. I thought we
all talk about it.
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yeah, we're not and.
Speaker 6 (49:05):
Alls it takes as the segnature of the Sector General
the United Nations to reduce set or to make that
pub sure, I'd like to see.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
You and why why not? Why not just make it put?
What do we what? What?
Speaker 3 (49:18):
What is there to hide? I think there's hide if
there's something so tragic and we can say that, if
it is so tragic, then just let us read about
it and we'll see. Well, you know it'll be out there.
But if it's yeah, one hundred percent agreed, you know,
release release it, release the documents.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I believe.
Speaker 3 (49:40):
Oh yeah, no, we have listeners at the We have
listeners all over the world that hit me up an
email from I.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
Want to be on your show, RAB but I'm still working.
You know, things like that, and I just want to say,
keep going.
Speaker 3 (49:51):
Keep doing what you're doing. Yeah, they can't talk about things,
but they're listening. So you know, if a little seed
can be planted, and you know, you guys could take
a look at those fire and just signed that little signature.
Speaker 6 (50:01):
Interestingly, interestingly, when when I published, when you published the book,
every un staff, when you publish a book, you're supposed
to send it to.
Speaker 5 (50:12):
The Secretary General of the Imaginations for clearance.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
I not.
Speaker 5 (50:17):
I did not.
Speaker 6 (50:18):
I published my book. And the reason why I didn't
send the Secretary General for clearance is because of course
there's no way in help the Secretary General would have
cleared the book. Now after the book was published, I
received a letter signed by a high un affection threatening
me with the possibility of legal action.
Speaker 5 (50:41):
My response was, please please please take me to court.
Speaker 6 (50:47):
I want to go to court because I have all
kinds of evidence in my possession, and if you walk
into a courtroom with me, you're going to have.
Speaker 5 (50:59):
To tell the truth.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You're going to ask that's right, You're going to have
to come up.
Speaker 6 (51:03):
With something and explain your actions or the actions of
senior people or lap better at a time when it
was critically important. Now I never heard from them again,
and they never sent me do the threatening letter. And
the first book was published five years ago, so now
(51:25):
it's been out for about six years. I never heard
of back from it. And I suspect they do not
want to meet me in court.
Speaker 1 (51:34):
No, because you know, they'd have to be deposed.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
There'd have to be you know, evidence turned over in
like files and stuff. It's kind of funny how people
are willing to threaten lawsuits on people, but yet they're
not willing to follow through with it.
Speaker 5 (51:47):
They don't want to meet me in court. They do
know I've got all the evidence, and I would look,
I would love to bring it all the light.
Speaker 6 (51:57):
So if anybody out there is listening have a YouTube,
so please feel free to take me to corp.
Speaker 3 (52:07):
There you have it, Robert Adolph right there.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Okay, Yeah, you're welcome. You know.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
I can't believe we've been talking for an hour, you know.
And to my listener, my listener, thank you so much.
If you've listened to the whole show, and if you've
tuned in for your first time and you've just caught
us talking, welcome to Soft Rep Radio. Right, what a
great guest, Robert, You're a welcome edition. I'm so happy
that guy. You guys talk to you and guy at
(52:35):
soft reap our editor, he's like, yo, rad you got
to talk to Robert man. I think he's someone that
you guys will just go back and forth with. And
I was like, let's go right away, and we kicked off. Dude,
you were like, let's go. I was like this time
and day You're like, I'm in Rome. I was like, where, okay,
what time is that? Have Mountain Standard and I would
(52:56):
like to just extend, you know, the formal limitation. Come
back on the show and talk further about anything else
that's on your mind, you know, and if there's any
new book or you know you are working on another book,
et cetera. You're just welcome. You've got so many stories.
First of all, thank you for your service to this
country and to the nation. I really from me to
(53:20):
you appreciate.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
That, and I think I just want to say that,
thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (53:28):
Thank you for the invitation to appear in your show.
I'd love to come back almost any time. Yes, no,
this is enjoyable. I enjoyed the opportunity. I enjoyed the
opportunity to speak to you. And if you're interested, I
write about those things that interest me. And if you
(53:50):
look at the things that have appeared recently in software,
then I think now guy has been publishing something in
mind just about every week. If there's a topic there
that interests you or you think might interest your viewers,
give me send me a bush.
Speaker 5 (54:08):
Okay. I'm happy to talk about any of the.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Submage one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (54:14):
It's that easy. We are now connected. I got your
email and we'll just it's just like family. Okay, it's
like olive garden. Huh, you're here. Okay, you're family. All right,
you're a soft rep.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
You're here. Okay, I think you're great.
Speaker 3 (54:31):
I just so I just want to let my guests
know something we just met today and I'm almost willing
to say I love you.
Speaker 5 (54:37):
Okay, look, I won't mention that to my wife.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
Yes, no, And I just want to say happy anniversary
on your twenty five years okay together? And uh yeah,
you just keep being you and you just keep doing you,
and you just keep at it and uh and thanks
for being I always like to get better from my guests,
and you have just made me a better person.
Speaker 5 (54:58):
Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3 (55:00):
So thank you so much. You're very welcome, and to
my listener, thank you for listening. If you have a comment,
go ahead and comment down below. If you want to
go check out I believe it's Robert Bruceadolf dot com.
Is that right, Robert Bruceadoff dot com.
Speaker 1 (55:15):
Go check that out.
Speaker 3 (55:16):
He's got all of his information there. You can read
about Robert, get to know him a little more. Check
out his book, which is Surviving the United Nations. It's
out everywhere, and when you buy the book, when you
download it, get it on your kindle or wherever on Amazon,
leave a review.
Speaker 1 (55:31):
All right, the bouthors really do.
Speaker 3 (55:33):
Yeah right, See he just went like, oh, yeah, Rad, Yes,
yes the review.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I'm supposed to say that, but you said it.
Speaker 3 (55:39):
For me, Bro, So leave a comment down below on
them Okay, and even on softwap if you read one
of his articles, just say hey, Bob, cool insight.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Bro.
Speaker 3 (55:48):
Thanks a lot. It means a lot to hear that feedback.
So again it does. On behalf of Brandon Webb, who
runs softwap dot com. On behalf of my producer Callum,
who sits in the back and make sure that everything
gets put together and makes it all look great. Uh
and uh and Guy our editor uh in chief at
software dot com for recommending such a personable talent and
(56:11):
a and a green beret at that flattered honored The
sky is blue because your shirt is blue and that's why.
Speaker 1 (56:21):
Okay, and and on behalf of rad saying peace.
Speaker 2 (56:41):
You've been listening to self red Radio
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