May 16, 2025 • 43 mins
Few people have witnessed global security challenges from as many perspectives as Chris Brewer. In this riveting conversation, the veteran Ranger Battalion NCO and Special Forces Officer pulls back the curtain on covert operations and international security work spanning decades and continents.
Brewer's extraordinary career trajectory took him from the elite Ranger Battalion formed in 1974 to the Department of State's Office of Security Assistance, then into the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan, the UAE, and Nigeria. With remarkable candor, he shares experiences that shaped modern security practices while revealing the human side of high-stakes operations.
The heart of this episode lies in Brewer's previously classified stories, now cleared for public discussion through his books. His encounter with Pablo Escobar's forces while protecting a radar installation in Colombia reads like a thriller but happened in real life. Equally compelling is his account of Operation Promote Liberty in Panama, where his team served as a "tripwire" against Noriega loyalists planning a coup—a mission that never made headlines.
Brewer's perspective on the Afghanistan withdrawal provides powerful insights into the personal impact on veterans who worked closely with Afghan partners. His description of frantically helping colleagues escape Taliban forces reveals the ongoing commitment many veterans feel toward those left behind.
For anyone interested in military history, international affairs, or security operations, Brewer's books "Old Scroll Ranger" and "In the Shadows Between Wars" offer rare firsthand accounts of operations that shaped global security. These aren't just war stories—they're lessons in adaptability, quick thinking, and cross-cultural understanding from places few Americans will ever see.
Have you read accounts from operators who worked in the shadows between major conflicts? Share your thoughts on how these untold stories shape our understanding of global security challenges.
Want to be a guest on Living the Dream with Curveball? Send Curtis Jackson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/1628631536976x919760049303001600
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, if you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:24):
Today, I am joined by ChrisBrewer.
Chris is a veteran.
He's a former Ranger Battalion,nco and Special Forces Officer
specializing in internationalsecurity training.
He has worked in places likeAfghanistan, the UAE and Nigeria
(00:47):
.
He's worked for the Departmentof State and the Presidential
Guard and his career is amazing.
So we're going to be talking tohim about his career and all of
his training and stuff that hewas doing and everything that
he's up to now.
So, chris, thank you so muchfor joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I appreciate you letting me come on.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a
little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay, grew up in Army .
Brett Dad was in the service sowe moved about every year in
the middle of school.
So I was always the new kid inschool.
Came out of there, went intothe Army because that was pretty
much all I'd known.
Started with the RangerBattalion, which was a really
good start.
Worked with some great guysthere.
(01:38):
That taught me a whole lot,taught me a lot of things that
carried me through my whole life.
About halfway through my career24 years with the military wound
up as an instructor at theranger department at fort
benning.
But they told me that I wasgoing to be a drill sergeant for
five years and that just didn'tsit well with me.
(01:59):
I wouldn't mind being a drill,but not not for five years.
So I did the ultimate act ofbetrayal to the NCO Corps and I
went to OCS when I was asergeant first class, Came out
of there as a second lieutenant,went to the 82nd, went to
Special Forces later on.
Spent about nine years withthat.
(02:19):
Got out.
Couldn't break bad habits so Ikept doing security-related
things as a contractor, workingfor the military.
Spent about five years inAfghanistan when they were
building up the fire bases,helping do the recon fort
working with the security forcesto keep the contractors safe.
(02:40):
Four years in the UAE workingwith the presidential guard.
Four years in the UAE workingwith the presidential guard,
married a wonderful girl fromUzbekistan, went back to her
country and spent about twoyears in Uzbekistan and then
came back home to the States.
So now mainly I sit around thehouse and I write down the
stories written.
A couple of books got them out.
The latest one is In theShadows Between the Wars.
(03:04):
It's out on Amazon right now.
And also got Old Scroll Rangerabout when the Ranger Battalion
got reformed in 1974.
About some of the predicamentsand adventures we had down there
.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, well, we're definitely going to get into
your books, but let's talk abouthow you transitioned to working
with the Department of State.
You know how did your militarytraining and experience prepare
you to do that and, as much asyou can you know, tell us what
you did with the Department ofState.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, that's kind of a funny story.
I was working as a trainer outin Texas and I had a good friend
that I'd worked with for quitea while and he called me up and
said that there was this job atthe Department of State that I
was perfect for and I needed tocome in.
And I kind of doubted it.
I'd never worked for StateDepartment before, didn't think
(03:59):
of myself as a diplomat in anyregard, but went in for the
interview and looked for theregional strategic initiatives
coordinator in the office ofsecurity assistance,
anti-terrorism assistance.
Sat there next to a guy who'dbeen a deputy director at the
CIA and another guy who'd beenan ambassador, who were all
(04:22):
auditioning for the job, and tomy amazement they picked me
Still not entirely sure why, butstayed with them for about a
year they were apparentlygrooming me for something Went
on a couple of trips with them,learned a lot about State
Department, learned a lot aboutdiplomacy while I was there, but
(04:44):
it really wasn't my cup of tea.
Left there after about a yearand went back to Afghanistan and
worked again as a force ofprotection advisor to the deputy
commanding general for US Armyforces in Afghanistan and went
down to Rish Kabur and taught atthe commando school.
We were helping to set up theAfghan special forces.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Well, talk about Afghanistan, talk about how
challenging it was to do yourjob in such a volatile region.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
That covered a pretty wide spectrum of experience.
So I went in there about a yearafter the A-teams went in.
Bagram didn't even have a fencearound it.
There was one dirt road randown the middle of it.
Landmines were still everywhere, unexploded bombs, and KBR was
coming in to help build theplace up.
(05:43):
And KBR was coming in to helpbuild the place up.
So they hired me to be thesecurity coordinator to work
with the Army to help protectthe contractors while they were
doing their job.
And that, as you can imagine,was a pretty diverse crew.
We had oil rig roughneckscoming out of Texas, we had
(06:06):
construction guys coming out ofLouisiana, books, carpenters,
electricians, everything thatyou can think of that would be
needed to build up a base, andin the middle of an area that
just it's difficult even todescribe Afghanistan at that
(06:27):
point in time.
Bombs everywhere, landmineseverywhere.
Almost everyone you saw hadsome type of injury People
missing a leg here, an arm there, no fresh water, no electricity
in the whole valley out there.
Even half of Kabul, or reallyall of Kabul, didn't have any
(06:48):
electricity.
The only people who did werethe ones who had generators.
And we pretty much built itfrom the ground up clearing
landmines, building roads,building fences, went around to
all the new fire bases as theywere being built with the ODAs,
the A-teams, to get a look onthe ground, see what the
(07:08):
situation was.
We'd bring in the people, met alot of interesting people out
there, a lot of interestingAfghans, had quite a few
adventures.
A second tour that I went out, Iwas in Kabul when everything
was built up and the ParwanValley had been brought back to
life.
Most of the landmines were gone.
Tour that I went out, I was intopple when everything was built
up and the parowan valley hadbeen brought back to life.
Most of the land mines weregone, roads were running, people
(07:30):
were farming again, electricitywas turned on, everybody had
electrical power.
You could see lights at night.
But the second time the talibanhad started to come back in and
that was the problem.
The first time we didn't reallyhave a whole lot of issues with
Taliban or Al Qaeda.
They'd been run off out intoPakistan but they'd regrouped
(07:53):
and they'd started to come backby the time I came back the
second time and that was kind ofrough.
We got blown up a few times.
We got shot at a few times, sawsome good people get hurt, saw
some good people get hurt, sawsome good people get killed.
That kind of culminated for mewhen we pulled out, which for me
(08:14):
was a really agonizingexperience.
I knew the people that were leftbehind there.
I was on the phone with a lotof them who were begging for
help, trying to get out.
There were a lot of us thatwere doing that Keyboard
warriors really.
There were some guys thatactually were still in country
that were trying to help and wewere talking them around the
(08:34):
checkpoints, trying to get themto the airport, trying to get
them through, and these werepeople with special interest
visas that had already beenapproved.
The only thing they needed wasto sit down for an interview
with a consular officer, but theembassy they closed up and ran,
went to the airport.
So there were no interviews andthey wouldn't let the people
(08:56):
come in unless they had the visaphysically in their passport.
So a lot of agonizing nightstrying to help them stay one
step ahead of the Taliban whilethey're rounding them up
Eventually did get the familythat I was working without.
Got a lot of other people outthrough other means, working
(09:17):
with some other friends inPakistan and in Afghanistan.
But that was.
That was a terrible situation.
That was wrong way to handle it, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And when you talk about the pullout, you're
talking about the pullout thathappened a few years ago,
correct?
That is correct, gotcha.
Okay, well, let's talk aboutyour work in the UAE and Nigeria
.
You know, while you were doingyour jobs there, you know how
did the security protocolsdiffer?
You know from those regions,you know, kind of kind of talk
(09:53):
us through that.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I can't tell you a whole lot about the UAE because
I signed a lot of nondisclosureagreements, but I will tell you
that the UAE is a reallyfascinating place.
It's a totally differentculture from Afghanistan.
One thing that people don'tunderstand about the UAE is it
is a monarchy.
They do have a king and they dohave an elected parliament that
(10:20):
helps write the laws, but theone thing that keeps shining
through is that the royal familyis in charge.
You can never be in any doubtof that One of the safer places
that I've been to.
There are problems down there,but they've got a very
comprehensive security system inplace to try and keep things
(10:41):
under control and they've gotsome pretty strict rules.
As long as you understand whattheir rules are and you abide by
them, then you're in good shape.
But you definitely do not wantto walk in there and think that,
well, I'm an American and myculture takes precedence over
this, because it definitely doesnot in the UAE.
Wonderful people trying tochange their culture in many
(11:06):
regards for the modern world.
They've kind of got one stepback in the past and one foot
into the future and they'retrying to bridge that gap and,
by and large, doing a prettygood job of it, in my opinion.
Nigeria I went to Nigeria twice,twice, both times for the oil
(11:27):
companies.
One time they asked me to godown to river state to take a
look at a new site the chevronwas going to build for a large
lpg gas system, and that was aninteresting experience.
Came into lag airport.
We were riding from the airportdown into the city and came
(11:48):
across a car that was on fire onthe on the large multi-lane
highway and there were a largecrowd of people that were around
the car trying to pull thingsoff of it.
And there was one man out therewith an AK-4747, a t-shirt and
cut off camouflage fatigues thatwas threatening people with the
(12:11):
ak and then firing into thecrowd periodically, although he
didn't seem to hit anybody andwe had a security element.
Nigerian police with us weregoing along and I kind of
pointed to it and said isn'tthis a problem?
And the guy looks at it andexplains oh no, you must
understand.
In nigeria we have a law thatif three or more people are
(12:34):
assembled and police tell themto disperse and they do not do
so and it's permitted to shootthem.
I said, yeah, but look, look atguy.
He's not in a uniform.
He says, well, he must be apoliceman, because if he was not
a policeman that would be verybad.
I said, okay, a very differentculture in that part of Nigeria.
(13:03):
We got out into the countryside,had a Nigerian policeman who
took me out there.
He recommended that we goduring the monsoon, when the
rain was at the hardest, becausewe could get past the
roadblocks.
There would be both criminalsdoing roadblocks and there would
be police doing roadblocks thatwanted bribes but nobody would
come out when the rain was heavy.
Nobody would come out when therain was heavy.
We went out and we did therecon.
(13:24):
We stopped at some of thevillages, had lunch with some
really nice people, treated usvery warmly.
Second time I went down.
We went up the New Calabar Riverwith some engineers who were
looking at putting in a pipelineat the bottom of the river and
(13:44):
they couldn't figure out whatwas going on with all of the
problems in that particular area.
They had the pirates that areout there at the mouth of the
New Calabar and you probablyread about them in the news or
heard about those, and then theyhad more problems with the rigs
themselves up at the north endof the Calabar and then they had
(14:05):
more problems deeper into themangrove jungle.
So we went around in a littleboat looked just like the boat
that you'd see in the oldHumphrey Bogart movie the
African Queen a chug up and downthe river, got out and, after
doing a lot of interviews andtalking to folks and checking
(14:26):
the ground, found that therewere people that were coming out
that were cutting up thepipelines, coming off the rigs
and taking the valves and thepipes deeper into the jungle
where they were tapping into themain trunk line that was
running off to another riverwhere they would offload oil
into barges that were beingtaken out to Chinese ships that
(14:49):
were taking bootleg oil andcollecting that, and then the
pirates were basically sellingoil through that system.
So we found out what was goingon, we wrote the reports and
they were going to put the newtrunk line at the bottom of the
river to try and mitigate that.
But fascinating place, each oneof the places, wonderful people
(15:11):
, dangerous people, totallydifferent cultures enjoyed every
minute of it yeah, you got alot of interesting stories.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I could uh have you tell my listeners about that all
day.
Talk about your book.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Oh, go ahead.
That's kind of how the booksgot started.
As we get older you start toforget things.
So I decided I was going towrite these down.
I wrote the one on the RangerBattalion stories for a lot of
my friends.
In 1974, they reactivated theRanger Battalion and we had our
(15:54):
cadre.
All of the non-commissionedofficers were survivors out of
the Ranger Lerp companies inVietnam and Special Operations
Group and Special Forces.
I mean really hard,well-trained, experienced guys
and showed up there as a private.
Like I said, a great place tolearn.
And we had quite a fewadventures in those first three
(16:18):
years while we learned what theRanger Battalion was going to
look like Africa, the Arctic,alaska, up north of the Arctic
Circle, panama, down to thejungles and just wrote the
stories down from some of thestuff we did off-duty and the
hijinks we get into and some ofthe things that happened on-duty
(16:40):
.
Put it into a book of thethings that happened on duty.
Put it into a book for the 50thanniversary that came up here
this last year, passed it aroundto guys they love.
I love the book.
It's a good keepsake.
They enjoy it and put it up onamazon so they could get at.
It got kind of got in the habit, seemed to be good hobby.
(17:01):
So I continued on with the SFstories Picked up from where I
left the Ranger Battalion andtried a little bit different
approach on that, tried toselect stories that were how to
help people understand what yougo through and what motivates
you to want to go into SpecialForces some of the things that
(17:21):
help prepare me for it.
It's got a chapter on thequalification course.
When I went through thequalification course it was when
they started to make specialforces a separate branch and
then they started selection andassessment and we were the first
class that they experimented onwith selection and assessment.
A little bit about SierraSchool in there.
(17:42):
Some classified operations hadto go through the Department of
Defense pre-publication reviewto get permission to put them in
.
But we were in Columbia whenEscobar was active, actually had
an encounter with Escobar'sforces down in the valley
between Bogota and Medellin.
That's in the book.
(18:04):
While that was going on, ofcourse, operation Just Cause
happened where we invaded andPanama got rid of Noriega.
What a lot of people don't knowabout is what happened after
Just Cause.
That was a separate operationcalled Promote Liberty.
After Just Cause, that was aseparate operation called
Promote Liberty and basically wecame out of.
We missed Just Cause but wewent in for Promote Liberty two
(18:33):
weeks after we got back fromColombia, stayed there for six
months and that's when all theUS forces went back to the
states and told the PanamanianNational Guard okay, you're not
military anymore anymore, nowyou're going to be police.
And there was still a lot ofnoriega's uh through that were
interspersed in those elements.
They handled that verydifferently than they did in
(18:53):
iraq.
There was a conscious decisionmade to leave everybody there,
so they still had a job.
They arrested the ones thatthey knew were a problem, that
they had evidence that they'dcommitted criminal acts, but
there were a lot of people inthere that we suspected of being
involved.
In fact, the quartel that I wasassigned when I went in, the
(19:16):
commander of the quartel hadbeen Noriega's personal pilot.
So we knew we had trouble.
We knew as soon as the US forcesleft they were going to try to
pull a coup, take the countryback over, and our job was to go
out in groups of two and fourscattered over the whole country
and, quote, be a trip wire.
(19:38):
And our instructions were thatif they tried to start a coup,
the first thing they'll do isprobably kill you.
So keep an eye on them.
If it looks like it's gettingbad, let us know and then be
prepared to escape and evade.
And we had quite a fewexperiences that did culminate
(20:01):
with a coup attempt in PanamaCity.
We had some guys that wereinside the National Police
Headquarters when the coupattempt took place, a standoff
that lasted about eight or ninehours.
That never made the news.
So there are stories about that.
There are stories about firstto the first in Okinawa Charlie
(20:26):
Company.
I was assigned to CharlieCompany, which was at a hostage
rescue mission that not a lot ofpeople know about, hasn't been
talked about too widely, but wegot permission to discuss some
of that.
We were in the Philippinesafter all of US forces were
thrown out of the Philippinesand we were secretly brought
(20:47):
back in to help the Philippinesset up their own hostage rescue
elements Did some plainclotheswork that most people didn't
realize Special Forces did.
They don't do that specifictask anymore, but we operated in
civilian clothes and we were inthe Republic of Korea when they
thought the invasion was goingto happen and I was actually
(21:09):
working with the US Embassythere on some of their
non-combatant evacuation orderissues, and there's a pretty
good story about that as wellabout that as well.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Okay, so you know, I actually interviewed the guy.
I forget his name right now,but he's featured in a.
Netflix series Narco, and hewas talking about how he was,
you know, dealing with Escobarand how so I imagine you
(21:43):
probably worked with him.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
No, we didn't, but I did watch that series and I got
to compliment him.
That's a great series.
There's a couple of things inthere that I'm not saying that
he was wrong by any means.
The one where he was talkingabout Escobar putting the bomb
on the Avianca airliner would beone example.
We were told something that wasdifferent by the Colombians
(22:06):
when we were working.
But basically what happened.
A bit of a long story.
If you've got time for it I'llrun through it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, go ahead.
Let the listeners know.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I've been in Costa Rica and we were going down to
do a site survey for a job, togo down and set up a training
program for the Costa Ricanpolice the presidential
candidate for Columbia, galan,who was running on a platform of
(22:42):
fighting the narcos and gettingrid of all the narco drug
production that was going on,was assassinated on stage right
in front of the televisioncameras and I looked at that and
I thought, man, somebody'sgoing to get a phone call and
swear to God.
Telephone rang at thatparticular moment.
(23:02):
They told me to come in thenext day and we had a mission
and mission was to go intoBogota.
The Colombians were going tostart fighting the Narcos and
they're getting serious about it, but one of the and President
Bush the first President Bushhad said we'll provide
(23:23):
assistance but we will notprovide combat troops.
We won't get involved in that.
So one of the things theColombians wanted help with was
they wanted a medical school forcombat medics.
They didn't have any combatmedics and their guys didn't
like going out in the junglebecause if they got wounded they
tended to die because they hadno means to provide any kind of
(23:43):
medical care for them.
So combat medic was one of thejobs.
We had an office at that time,satmo Security Assistance
Training Management Office, thatprovided that type of training
and they'd send medicalpersonnel, logistics personnel
all of those type of supportfunctions all over the world to
(24:06):
help train other people'smilitary.
But Bogota had almost 100 bombsgoing off every night at that
time.
There were shootings happeningevery day.
There were probably 100 peoplethat were coming into the
hospitals either dead or injured, and Bogota is a big city and
(24:29):
it wasn't as bad as somethinglike you might think about Iraq.
These were small things.
Basically, what the narcos weredoing is they'd drive through
the city with paper bags withone or two sticks of dynamite in
it and a time fuse stuck in it.
They'd see a homeless person orsomebody on the street.
(24:50):
They'd hand them a $100 billand that little bag with the
dynamite stick and tell them goset it off someplace.
So every night 100 sticks ofdynamite would go off somewhere
and some people would get hurtand not that many, but it just
kept everybody on the edge oftheir seat like there's no place
safe.
So Satmo didn't want to senddown the usual compliment of
(25:12):
doctors and medics that theywould send to do this.
So it got handed over to SF.
The 3rd Battalion was down inPanama.
Normally they'd pick up a joblike that, but it called for six
medics and Special ForcesA-teams only got two medics on
it.
So that would have strippedaway the medics from three
(25:35):
A-teams and they didn't want todo that.
So it came to us up at FortBragg.
When I first came in the Army, Icame in 20th SF National Guard
as a medic, so I'd been a medic.
I had two medics on my A-team.
My intel sergeant used to be amedic and my team sergeant could
(25:56):
run the train-the-trainerprogram.
Then we had a combo guy whocould run basic first aid
classes under supervision and weall spoke spanish.
We'd all tested out at two plustwo plus or better.
So we got the job.
But since no combat troops couldgo, we were reassigned to satmo
(26:17):
security assistance trainingmanagement office and then we
flew down to Bogota and slay inclothes, had our uniforms and
our luggage and they gave ushandguns for self-defense when
we got there and then sent usdown into the hot part of Bogota
where all the shooting wasgoing on, where the training
would happen.
We did that for about threemonths and then we got a phone
(26:41):
call from the mill group thatEscobar had identified an Air
Force base a Colombian Air Forcebase, down in the valley
between Bogota and Medellinwhere an American unit had come
in and its Air Force unit hadcome in and set up a radar
(27:02):
system and they were picking upthe drug flights that were taken
off out in the valley and theywere tracking them and handing
them over to Colombian aircraftthat were intercepting and
shooting them down.
And this is the same valleythat was in the book, tom
Clancy's book, clear and PresentDanger.
They talked about an Americanunit going in secretly and
(27:24):
trying to interdict.
They wanted someone to.
Escobar knew about the radarand he called the base and told
them that if you don't shut thatradar off, I'm going to come in
and I'm going to kill all theAmericans.
There were only six Americansthere and it was top secret,
special compartment informationDon't let anybody, especially
(27:47):
back in the States, know.
But Escobar knew and, just tomake his point, he had come in
and taken one of the Colombianguards, fired him up and then
blown up one of the transportersat the end of the runway just
to demonstrate that he could getin and nobody could stop him.
And there was one securitypoliceman down there from the US
(28:08):
Air Force and he said hethought that the security force
on the base was compromised.
At least some of them wereworking with Escobar and they
were really concerned.
They wanted to bring down moresecurity police but the
Colombian government wouldn'tallow it because they already
had a full company of Air Forcesecurity personnel down there on
base itself.
But of course they werecompromised.
(28:31):
So Milgroup called us and askedif we could go out there and see
what you can do.
That was literally about allthe information that we got.
So me and my senior medic tooka couple of sets of our jungle
fatigues no patches, sterilethat we brought down in case we
(28:53):
had to try to escape and evade.
We could go to camouflage andthen try to fade out into the
jungle.
Until the thing settled down.
We had our load-bearingequipment.
All we had for weapons were theBeretta pistols and they put us
on a Colombian general'saircraft and flew us down there.
(29:13):
And we got out and we did ourchecks.
Checks.
We found where Escobar's guyshad cut the fence.
They had actually clipped awaythrough some of the really thick
jungle to make a little trailthat came right up to the
(29:36):
generator hitches and we couldsee what their plan was.
So, generator pitches and wecould see what their plan was.
So we first thing we did was weasked the Air Force guy you
have any extra guns?
Oh, we, ever bread is.
And they brought down enoughweapons to equip fire company
(29:57):
machine guns, rifles, play moreminds, you, you name it.
So we went through this,through that, we got loaded for
bear.
Uh, we went up on top of thehill.
We talked to some of theColombians, uh, security
personnel.
It wasn't hard to pick out whowas working with Escobar,
(30:19):
because they were definitely nothappy to see us and they were
not terribly friendly.
Those were some of the juniorsergeants that were out in the
jungle with the security guys.
But we got them to come up.
We cleared fields of firearound that hilltop for about
300 meters out, got all thejungle cleared out, had them
help us dig fighting positions.
We put Claymore mines in andthen the night that Escobar said
(30:43):
he was going to come up andkill the Americans, we told all
the Colombians and said do notcome up on this hill tonight.
We will kill anyone who triesto come up on this hill tonight,
escobar said he's coming.
We have no idea if it'll be youor his guys in your uniforms,
so don't come here, just stayaway.
(31:05):
And about three o'clock in themorning about, if I remember
correctly, there were abouteight guys came walking up the
road and the guys that we'd seenprior to then the Colombian
security guys that were doingpatrols you could tell they
weren't too happy about it.
Walking around, they had theircaps in their pocket or cocked
back on their head, rifles slung, walking together, talking,
(31:29):
they weren't paying a lot ofattention.
These guys broke cover, comingout of the jungle, evenly spaced
, weapons on the ready, thumb onthe safety finger alongside the
trigger guard, head on a swivellooking left and right,
alternating weapons left andright, perfectly spaced, brand
new uniforms, and it's prettyclear these were not the guys
(31:52):
that we've been seeing up untilthat time.
They got right up to the baseof the hill where they were
getting within range of theclaymores and I was rotating the
safety bail off on the clacker.
I'd already got my partnermoved on the other side watching
our escape route and we wereabout to light them up and we
(32:12):
saw one of the corporals that weknew or believed was working
with Escobar, pop up out of thebrush, stop him, talk to him,
point up the hill.
And then the next morning heand they turned around and left.
The next morning Escobar calledthe base and said go ahead and
run your damn radar, I don'tcare, and I don't care about
(32:32):
your Green Berets either, but weknew that we were there and
everybody was happy.
Congratulations, great job.
And you guys come on back toBogota.
That was about a good hour and ahalf two-hour drive on a
two-lane road to come out ofthat little Air Force base back
(32:54):
up into the mountains going toBogota Right through the area
that was controlled by Escobarand his guys.
So I told him, I said isn't theairplane going to come down and
pick us up and take us back?
And we got the.
Well, you guys are green berets.
You know the general.
He needs that airplane.
He's got other places he can go.
You can make your own way back,can't?
(33:14):
You Sat down with JR and wetalked it over and figured about
the only way that nobody onthat airbase was willing to
drive us out.
They weren't going out the gate,but there was this little town
that was just outside the gatethat had a bus that ran to
Bogota every three days and, asluck would have it, that day
(33:37):
that bus was going to go.
So we figured about the onlychance that we had.
We'd go down and get on thatbus.
And we're both six-foot,blonde-haired, blue-eyed, look
like the Marlboro man.
There's no way we're going toblend in out there, but jump on
the bus.
Just let the bus driver nowthat we would greatly appreciate
(33:58):
it If he did not stop until wegot Bogota and put on our blue
jeans and our black leather.
But our bread is back in theshoulder holster.
And last thing I did was Icalled Mill Group and said now
look, you know, at that timecell phones were not common.
Very few people had cell phones,so we didn't figure anybody on
that bus was going to have them.
(34:20):
But just in case, I had to tellthe Mill Group this, you know,
we may have to go ahead and justtake control of that bus and
hold a whole busload ofColombian citizens hostage until
we can get back up into Bogotawhere we can get to a safe area
and keep anyone from calling out.
Do you have any other optionsthat you can offer us?
(34:41):
There are no rental cars outhere and they finally relented
and they sent down an oldbeat-up station wagon with one
of the drivers out of theembassy, which was perfect.
It had a fender hanging looseand one headlight was out.
It looked like a piece of junkand nobody would pay attention
to it.
And the guy who was driving itvolunteered to come because his
(35:03):
mother lived in that village.
So he came down.
Mom gave him a chicken in asmall cage to take back to
Bogota with him.
So the two of us and thechicken got in the back of that
station wagon.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We rode all the way to Bogota right past Escobar's
men.
Wow, that is pretty crazy.
Tell us about any upcomingprojects that you're working on
that listeners need to be awareof.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Thinking about the contractor years now five years
in Afghanistan.
There are a lot of good storiesthat may help people understand
a little bit more about thatcountry.
It's a fascinating place.
The UAE I don't know if I canwrite about that.
I would have to talk to somepeople and see if they're
comfortable with that, and Idon't think they will be.
(35:58):
There are some things that arestill going on that just don't
need to be discussed.
Uzbekistan State Departmentthere were some good stories
that came out of that.
I was a red team analyst forArmy Material Command when 9-11
(36:18):
happened.
Basically, I'd go around to thebases and if I were a terrorist
and I was going to attack thisbase, this is how I would do it
sort of thing and wrote thereports and mostly people blew
me off, laughed and said well,you know, mr Brewer, you really
think that Middle Easternterrorists are ever going to
(36:38):
come to Boston.
And of course, when they did,then they flew out of Boston
Airport and hit the Pentagon.
I got invited to come back andgive that briefing again and we
started doing actual red teamexercises where we'd get teams
of guys kitted up and we wouldcome in and surveil the bases
(37:00):
and teach the security forces onthe base how to recognize
hostile surveillance, how tocounter it and how to reorganize
their efforts to go ahead anddefeat what the bad guys were
doing.
And we, actually we went up to alittle place in Lima, ohio,
where they make the armor forthe Abrams tank and all of the
(37:25):
high-speed armor they put on ourvehicles, and we were going out
to set up surveillance on thegate so guards would have
something to spot.
And lo and behold, there was alittle white rental car with a
middle-aged gentleman, dark hair, dark complexion, and a video
camera, sitting in that rentalcar doing exactly what we were
(37:48):
going out to do to replicate aterrorist surveilling the main
gate.
So we put eyes on him, got thetag number, and any time we did
this, we did it in conjunctionwith the FBI and the local
police so they would know thatit was us and be able to tell if
there was somebody else thatwas a bad guy.
We told them what we wereseeing.
(38:08):
We waited until they came out,scooped him up and it turned out
he was a suspected Al-Qaedaoperative that they had last
seen in somewhere around Chicagoand it disappeared and he was
down there in Lima, Ohio, witheyes on the gate, doing exactly
what we were getting ready to doto teach him what to look out
for.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Wow, well, throw out your contact info so listeners
can keep up with everything thatyou're up to.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, and the two books Old Throne Ranger is on
Amazon and the one that justcame out In the Shadows Between
the Wars.
That's got the special forcesstories, including the escobar
story in it, and the next onemay take me a while, but
there'll be more coming okay, soyour books are just on amazon?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
do you have an actual website?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't have my own website yet, but it's on amazon,
it's on Kindle.
I've got a narrated second oneon the SF Stories That'll be
coming out on audiobook as soonas they're done with the editing
.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Okay, we'll close this out with some final
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about
, that you would like to touchon, or any final thoughts you
have for the listeners justthink about the people that
aren't as fortunate as we arewhere we live, and there's a lot
(39:47):
of really good people out therewho want to be here and my
heart goes out to them, as wejust can't take them all in, and
I've had a bitter pill toswallow.
But I've come to understandthat I'm trying to get my Afghan
friends into the country andthink about the folks that go
(40:08):
out in our military to try anddo these things.
The uh.
When you vote, take that intoconsideration, because we can't
be everything to everyone.
It's just not possible.
But we sure can try.
And when we find the guys thatare bad, they need to be dealt
(40:32):
with, and when we find folksthat are good, they deserve a
helping hand.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, firstthing I want to do is thank Mr
Brewer for his service and allthat he's done throughout the
years.
I want to let the listenersknow to follow Rate Review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Check out Chris's books.
They're amazing.
He's got some amazing stories.
Keep up with everything thathe's up to.
(41:03):
Follow us on your favoritepodcast platform For more
information on the Living theDream with Curveball podcast.
Visit wwwcurveball337.com.
Thank you for listening andsupporting the show, chris.
Thank you for all that you do.
Thank you for your service onceagain, and thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
For more information on the Living the Dream with
Curveball podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with
Curveball, if you believe youcan achieve.
Welcome to the Living the Dreamwith Curveball Podcast, a show
where I interview guests thatteach, motivate and inspire.
(00:24):
Today, I am joined by ChrisBrewer.
Chris is a veteran.
He's a former Ranger Battalion,nco and Special Forces Officer
specializing in internationalsecurity training.
He has worked in places likeAfghanistan, the UAE and Nigeria
(00:47):
.
He's worked for the Departmentof State and the Presidential
Guard and his career is amazing.
So we're going to be talking tohim about his career and all of
his training and stuff that hewas doing and everything that
he's up to now.
So, chris, thank you so muchfor joining me.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, I appreciate you letting me come on.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Why don't you start off by telling everybody a
little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Okay, grew up in Army .
Brett Dad was in the service sowe moved about every year in
the middle of school.
So I was always the new kid inschool.
Came out of there, went intothe Army because that was pretty
much all I'd known.
Started with the RangerBattalion, which was a really
good start.
Worked with some great guysthere.
(01:38):
That taught me a whole lot,taught me a lot of things that
carried me through my whole life.
About halfway through my career24 years with the military wound
up as an instructor at theranger department at fort
benning.
But they told me that I wasgoing to be a drill sergeant for
five years and that just didn'tsit well with me.
(01:59):
I wouldn't mind being a drill,but not not for five years.
So I did the ultimate act ofbetrayal to the NCO Corps and I
went to OCS when I was asergeant first class, Came out
of there as a second lieutenant,went to the 82nd, went to
Special Forces later on.
Spent about nine years withthat.
(02:19):
Got out.
Couldn't break bad habits so Ikept doing security-related
things as a contractor, workingfor the military.
Spent about five years inAfghanistan when they were
building up the fire bases,helping do the recon fort
working with the security forcesto keep the contractors safe.
(02:40):
Four years in the UAE workingwith the presidential guard.
Four years in the UAE workingwith the presidential guard,
married a wonderful girl fromUzbekistan, went back to her
country and spent about twoyears in Uzbekistan and then
came back home to the States.
So now mainly I sit around thehouse and I write down the
stories written.
A couple of books got them out.
The latest one is In theShadows Between the Wars.
(03:04):
It's out on Amazon right now.
And also got Old Scroll Rangerabout when the Ranger Battalion
got reformed in 1974.
About some of the predicamentsand adventures we had down there
.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, well, we're definitely going to get into
your books, but let's talk abouthow you transitioned to working
with the Department of State.
You know how did your militarytraining and experience prepare
you to do that and, as much asyou can you know, tell us what
you did with the Department ofState.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, that's kind of a funny story.
I was working as a trainer outin Texas and I had a good friend
that I'd worked with for quitea while and he called me up and
said that there was this job atthe Department of State that I
was perfect for and I needed tocome in.
And I kind of doubted it.
I'd never worked for StateDepartment before, didn't think
(03:59):
of myself as a diplomat in anyregard, but went in for the
interview and looked for theregional strategic initiatives
coordinator in the office ofsecurity assistance,
anti-terrorism assistance.
Sat there next to a guy who'dbeen a deputy director at the
CIA and another guy who'd beenan ambassador, who were all
(04:22):
auditioning for the job, and tomy amazement they picked me
Still not entirely sure why, butstayed with them for about a
year they were apparentlygrooming me for something Went
on a couple of trips with them,learned a lot about State
Department, learned a lot aboutdiplomacy while I was there, but
(04:44):
it really wasn't my cup of tea.
Left there after about a yearand went back to Afghanistan and
worked again as a force ofprotection advisor to the deputy
commanding general for US Armyforces in Afghanistan and went
down to Rish Kabur and taught atthe commando school.
We were helping to set up theAfghan special forces.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Well, talk about Afghanistan, talk about how
challenging it was to do yourjob in such a volatile region.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
That covered a pretty wide spectrum of experience.
So I went in there about a yearafter the A-teams went in.
Bagram didn't even have a fencearound it.
There was one dirt road randown the middle of it.
Landmines were still everywhere, unexploded bombs, and KBR was
coming in to help build theplace up.
(05:43):
And KBR was coming in to helpbuild the place up.
So they hired me to be thesecurity coordinator to work
with the Army to help protectthe contractors while they were
doing their job.
And that, as you can imagine,was a pretty diverse crew.
We had oil rig roughneckscoming out of Texas, we had
(06:06):
construction guys coming out ofLouisiana, books, carpenters,
electricians, everything thatyou can think of that would be
needed to build up a base, andin the middle of an area that
just it's difficult even todescribe Afghanistan at that
(06:27):
point in time.
Bombs everywhere, landmineseverywhere.
Almost everyone you saw hadsome type of injury People
missing a leg here, an arm there, no fresh water, no electricity
in the whole valley out there.
Even half of Kabul, or reallyall of Kabul, didn't have any
(06:48):
electricity.
The only people who did werethe ones who had generators.
And we pretty much built itfrom the ground up clearing
landmines, building roads,building fences, went around to
all the new fire bases as theywere being built with the ODAs,
the A-teams, to get a look onthe ground, see what the
(07:08):
situation was.
We'd bring in the people, met alot of interesting people out
there, a lot of interestingAfghans, had quite a few
adventures.
A second tour that I went out, Iwas in Kabul when everything
was built up and the ParwanValley had been brought back to
life.
Most of the landmines were gone.
Tour that I went out, I was intopple when everything was built
up and the parowan valley hadbeen brought back to life.
Most of the land mines weregone, roads were running, people
(07:30):
were farming again, electricitywas turned on, everybody had
electrical power.
You could see lights at night.
But the second time the talibanhad started to come back in and
that was the problem.
The first time we didn't reallyhave a whole lot of issues with
Taliban or Al Qaeda.
They'd been run off out intoPakistan but they'd regrouped
(07:53):
and they'd started to come backby the time I came back the
second time and that was kind ofrough.
We got blown up a few times.
We got shot at a few times, sawsome good people get hurt, saw
some good people get hurt, sawsome good people get killed.
That kind of culminated for mewhen we pulled out, which for me
(08:14):
was a really agonizingexperience.
I knew the people that were leftbehind there.
I was on the phone with a lotof them who were begging for
help, trying to get out.
There were a lot of us thatwere doing that Keyboard
warriors really.
There were some guys thatactually were still in country
that were trying to help and wewere talking them around the
(08:34):
checkpoints, trying to get themto the airport, trying to get
them through, and these werepeople with special interest
visas that had already beenapproved.
The only thing they needed wasto sit down for an interview
with a consular officer, but theembassy they closed up and ran,
went to the airport.
So there were no interviews andthey wouldn't let the people
(08:56):
come in unless they had the visaphysically in their passport.
So a lot of agonizing nightstrying to help them stay one
step ahead of the Taliban whilethey're rounding them up
Eventually did get the familythat I was working without.
Got a lot of other people outthrough other means, working
(09:17):
with some other friends inPakistan and in Afghanistan.
But that was.
That was a terrible situation.
That was wrong way to handle it, in my opinion.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
And when you talk about the pullout, you're
talking about the pullout thathappened a few years ago,
correct?
That is correct, gotcha.
Okay, well, let's talk aboutyour work in the UAE and Nigeria
.
You know, while you were doingyour jobs there, you know how
did the security protocolsdiffer?
You know from those regions,you know, kind of kind of talk
(09:53):
us through that.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
I can't tell you a whole lot about the UAE because
I signed a lot of nondisclosureagreements, but I will tell you
that the UAE is a reallyfascinating place.
It's a totally differentculture from Afghanistan.
One thing that people don'tunderstand about the UAE is it
is a monarchy.
They do have a king and they dohave an elected parliament that
(10:20):
helps write the laws, but theone thing that keeps shining
through is that the royal familyis in charge.
You can never be in any doubtof that One of the safer places
that I've been to.
There are problems down there,but they've got a very
comprehensive security system inplace to try and keep things
(10:41):
under control and they've gotsome pretty strict rules.
As long as you understand whattheir rules are and you abide by
them, then you're in good shape.
But you definitely do not wantto walk in there and think that,
well, I'm an American and myculture takes precedence over
this, because it definitely doesnot in the UAE.
Wonderful people trying tochange their culture in many
(11:06):
regards for the modern world.
They've kind of got one stepback in the past and one foot
into the future and they'retrying to bridge that gap and,
by and large, doing a prettygood job of it, in my opinion.
Nigeria I went to Nigeria twice,twice, both times for the oil
(11:27):
companies.
One time they asked me to godown to river state to take a
look at a new site the chevronwas going to build for a large
lpg gas system, and that was aninteresting experience.
Came into lag airport.
We were riding from the airportdown into the city and came
(11:48):
across a car that was on fire onthe on the large multi-lane
highway and there were a largecrowd of people that were around
the car trying to pull thingsoff of it.
And there was one man out therewith an AK-4747, a t-shirt and
cut off camouflage fatigues thatwas threatening people with the
(12:11):
ak and then firing into thecrowd periodically, although he
didn't seem to hit anybody andwe had a security element.
Nigerian police with us weregoing along and I kind of
pointed to it and said isn'tthis a problem?
And the guy looks at it andexplains oh no, you must
understand.
In nigeria we have a law thatif three or more people are
(12:34):
assembled and police tell themto disperse and they do not do
so and it's permitted to shootthem.
I said, yeah, but look, look atguy.
He's not in a uniform.
He says, well, he must be apoliceman, because if he was not
a policeman that would be verybad.
I said, okay, a very differentculture in that part of Nigeria.
(13:03):
We got out into the countryside,had a Nigerian policeman who
took me out there.
He recommended that we goduring the monsoon, when the
rain was at the hardest, becausewe could get past the
roadblocks.
There would be both criminalsdoing roadblocks and there would
be police doing roadblocks thatwanted bribes but nobody would
come out when the rain was heavy.
Nobody would come out when therain was heavy.
We went out and we did therecon.
(13:24):
We stopped at some of thevillages, had lunch with some
really nice people, treated usvery warmly.
Second time I went down.
We went up the New Calabar Riverwith some engineers who were
looking at putting in a pipelineat the bottom of the river and
(13:44):
they couldn't figure out whatwas going on with all of the
problems in that particular area.
They had the pirates that areout there at the mouth of the
New Calabar and you probablyread about them in the news or
heard about those, and then theyhad more problems with the rigs
themselves up at the north endof the Calabar and then they had
(14:05):
more problems deeper into themangrove jungle.
So we went around in a littleboat looked just like the boat
that you'd see in the oldHumphrey Bogart movie the
African Queen a chug up and downthe river, got out and, after
doing a lot of interviews andtalking to folks and checking
(14:26):
the ground, found that therewere people that were coming out
that were cutting up thepipelines, coming off the rigs
and taking the valves and thepipes deeper into the jungle
where they were tapping into themain trunk line that was
running off to another riverwhere they would offload oil
into barges that were beingtaken out to Chinese ships that
(14:49):
were taking bootleg oil andcollecting that, and then the
pirates were basically sellingoil through that system.
So we found out what was goingon, we wrote the reports and
they were going to put the newtrunk line at the bottom of the
river to try and mitigate that.
But fascinating place, each oneof the places, wonderful people
(15:11):
, dangerous people, totallydifferent cultures enjoyed every
minute of it yeah, you got alot of interesting stories.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I could uh have you tell my listeners about that all
day.
Talk about your book.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Oh, go ahead.
That's kind of how the booksgot started.
As we get older you start toforget things.
So I decided I was going towrite these down.
I wrote the one on the RangerBattalion stories for a lot of
my friends.
In 1974, they reactivated theRanger Battalion and we had our
(15:54):
cadre.
All of the non-commissionedofficers were survivors out of
the Ranger Lerp companies inVietnam and Special Operations
Group and Special Forces.
I mean really hard,well-trained, experienced guys
and showed up there as a private.
Like I said, a great place tolearn.
And we had quite a fewadventures in those first three
(16:18):
years while we learned what theRanger Battalion was going to
look like Africa, the Arctic,alaska, up north of the Arctic
Circle, panama, down to thejungles and just wrote the
stories down from some of thestuff we did off-duty and the
hijinks we get into and some ofthe things that happened on-duty
(16:40):
.
Put it into a book of thethings that happened on duty.
Put it into a book for the 50thanniversary that came up here
this last year, passed it aroundto guys they love.
I love the book.
It's a good keepsake.
They enjoy it and put it up onamazon so they could get at.
It got kind of got in the habit, seemed to be good hobby.
(17:01):
So I continued on with the SFstories Picked up from where I
left the Ranger Battalion andtried a little bit different
approach on that, tried toselect stories that were how to
help people understand what yougo through and what motivates
you to want to go into SpecialForces some of the things that
(17:21):
help prepare me for it.
It's got a chapter on thequalification course.
When I went through thequalification course it was when
they started to make specialforces a separate branch and
then they started selection andassessment and we were the first
class that they experimented onwith selection and assessment.
A little bit about SierraSchool in there.
(17:42):
Some classified operations hadto go through the Department of
Defense pre-publication reviewto get permission to put them in
.
But we were in Columbia whenEscobar was active, actually had
an encounter with Escobar'sforces down in the valley
between Bogota and Medellin.
That's in the book.
(18:04):
While that was going on, ofcourse, operation Just Cause
happened where we invaded andPanama got rid of Noriega.
What a lot of people don't knowabout is what happened after
Just Cause.
That was a separate operationcalled Promote Liberty.
After Just Cause, that was aseparate operation called
Promote Liberty and basically wecame out of.
We missed Just Cause but wewent in for Promote Liberty two
(18:33):
weeks after we got back fromColombia, stayed there for six
months and that's when all theUS forces went back to the
states and told the PanamanianNational Guard okay, you're not
military anymore anymore, nowyou're going to be police.
And there was still a lot ofnoriega's uh through that were
interspersed in those elements.
They handled that verydifferently than they did in
(18:53):
iraq.
There was a conscious decisionmade to leave everybody there,
so they still had a job.
They arrested the ones thatthey knew were a problem, that
they had evidence that they'dcommitted criminal acts, but
there were a lot of people inthere that we suspected of being
involved.
In fact, the quartel that I wasassigned when I went in, the
(19:16):
commander of the quartel hadbeen Noriega's personal pilot.
So we knew we had trouble.
We knew as soon as the US forcesleft they were going to try to
pull a coup, take the countryback over, and our job was to go
out in groups of two and fourscattered over the whole country
and, quote, be a trip wire.
(19:38):
And our instructions were thatif they tried to start a coup,
the first thing they'll do isprobably kill you.
So keep an eye on them.
If it looks like it's gettingbad, let us know and then be
prepared to escape and evade.
And we had quite a fewexperiences that did culminate
(20:01):
with a coup attempt in PanamaCity.
We had some guys that wereinside the National Police
Headquarters when the coupattempt took place, a standoff
that lasted about eight or ninehours.
That never made the news.
So there are stories about that.
There are stories about firstto the first in Okinawa Charlie
(20:26):
Company.
I was assigned to CharlieCompany, which was at a hostage
rescue mission that not a lot ofpeople know about, hasn't been
talked about too widely, but wegot permission to discuss some
of that.
We were in the Philippinesafter all of US forces were
thrown out of the Philippinesand we were secretly brought
(20:47):
back in to help the Philippinesset up their own hostage rescue
elements Did some plainclotheswork that most people didn't
realize Special Forces did.
They don't do that specifictask anymore, but we operated in
civilian clothes and we were inthe Republic of Korea when they
thought the invasion was goingto happen and I was actually
(21:09):
working with the US Embassythere on some of their
non-combatant evacuation orderissues, and there's a pretty
good story about that as wellabout that as well.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Okay, so you know, I actually interviewed the guy.
I forget his name right now,but he's featured in a.
Netflix series Narco, and hewas talking about how he was,
you know, dealing with Escobarand how so I imagine you
(21:43):
probably worked with him.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
No, we didn't, but I did watch that series and I got
to compliment him.
That's a great series.
There's a couple of things inthere that I'm not saying that
he was wrong by any means.
The one where he was talkingabout Escobar putting the bomb
on the Avianca airliner would beone example.
We were told something that wasdifferent by the Colombians
(22:06):
when we were working.
But basically what happened.
A bit of a long story.
If you've got time for it I'llrun through it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Yeah, go ahead.
Let the listeners know.
Speaker 2 (22:19):
I've been in Costa Rica and we were going down to
do a site survey for a job, togo down and set up a training
program for the Costa Ricanpolice the presidential
candidate for Columbia, galan,who was running on a platform of
(22:42):
fighting the narcos and gettingrid of all the narco drug
production that was going on,was assassinated on stage right
in front of the televisioncameras and I looked at that and
I thought, man, somebody'sgoing to get a phone call and
swear to God.
Telephone rang at thatparticular moment.
(23:02):
They told me to come in thenext day and we had a mission
and mission was to go intoBogota.
The Colombians were going tostart fighting the Narcos and
they're getting serious about it, but one of the and President
Bush the first President Bushhad said we'll provide
(23:23):
assistance but we will notprovide combat troops.
We won't get involved in that.
So one of the things theColombians wanted help with was
they wanted a medical school forcombat medics.
They didn't have any combatmedics and their guys didn't
like going out in the junglebecause if they got wounded they
tended to die because they hadno means to provide any kind of
(23:43):
medical care for them.
So combat medic was one of thejobs.
We had an office at that time,satmo Security Assistance
Training Management Office, thatprovided that type of training
and they'd send medicalpersonnel, logistics personnel
all of those type of supportfunctions all over the world to
(24:06):
help train other people'smilitary.
But Bogota had almost 100 bombsgoing off every night at that
time.
There were shootings happeningevery day.
There were probably 100 peoplethat were coming into the
hospitals either dead or injured, and Bogota is a big city and
(24:29):
it wasn't as bad as somethinglike you might think about Iraq.
These were small things.
Basically, what the narcos weredoing is they'd drive through
the city with paper bags withone or two sticks of dynamite in
it and a time fuse stuck in it.
They'd see a homeless person orsomebody on the street.
(24:50):
They'd hand them a $100 billand that little bag with the
dynamite stick and tell them goset it off someplace.
So every night 100 sticks ofdynamite would go off somewhere
and some people would get hurtand not that many, but it just
kept everybody on the edge oftheir seat like there's no place
safe.
So Satmo didn't want to senddown the usual compliment of
(25:12):
doctors and medics that theywould send to do this.
So it got handed over to SF.
The 3rd Battalion was down inPanama.
Normally they'd pick up a joblike that, but it called for six
medics and Special ForcesA-teams only got two medics on
it.
So that would have strippedaway the medics from three
(25:35):
A-teams and they didn't want todo that.
So it came to us up at FortBragg.
When I first came in the Army, Icame in 20th SF National Guard
as a medic, so I'd been a medic.
I had two medics on my A-team.
My intel sergeant used to be amedic and my team sergeant could
(25:56):
run the train-the-trainerprogram.
Then we had a combo guy whocould run basic first aid
classes under supervision and weall spoke spanish.
We'd all tested out at two plustwo plus or better.
So we got the job.
But since no combat troops couldgo, we were reassigned to satmo
(26:17):
security assistance trainingmanagement office and then we
flew down to Bogota and slay inclothes, had our uniforms and
our luggage and they gave ushandguns for self-defense when
we got there and then sent usdown into the hot part of Bogota
where all the shooting wasgoing on, where the training
would happen.
We did that for about threemonths and then we got a phone
(26:41):
call from the mill group thatEscobar had identified an Air
Force base a Colombian Air Forcebase, down in the valley
between Bogota and Medellinwhere an American unit had come
in and its Air Force unit hadcome in and set up a radar
(27:02):
system and they were picking upthe drug flights that were taken
off out in the valley and theywere tracking them and handing
them over to Colombian aircraftthat were intercepting and
shooting them down.
And this is the same valleythat was in the book, tom
Clancy's book, clear and PresentDanger.
They talked about an Americanunit going in secretly and
(27:24):
trying to interdict.
They wanted someone to.
Escobar knew about the radarand he called the base and told
them that if you don't shut thatradar off, I'm going to come in
and I'm going to kill all theAmericans.
There were only six Americansthere and it was top secret,
special compartment informationDon't let anybody, especially
(27:47):
back in the States, know.
But Escobar knew and, just tomake his point, he had come in
and taken one of the Colombianguards, fired him up and then
blown up one of the transportersat the end of the runway just
to demonstrate that he could getin and nobody could stop him.
And there was one securitypoliceman down there from the US
(28:08):
Air Force and he said hethought that the security force
on the base was compromised.
At least some of them wereworking with Escobar and they
were really concerned.
They wanted to bring down moresecurity police but the
Colombian government wouldn'tallow it because they already
had a full company of Air Forcesecurity personnel down there on
base itself.
But of course they werecompromised.
(28:31):
So Milgroup called us and askedif we could go out there and see
what you can do.
That was literally about allthe information that we got.
So me and my senior medic tooka couple of sets of our jungle
fatigues no patches, sterilethat we brought down in case we
(28:53):
had to try to escape and evade.
We could go to camouflage andthen try to fade out into the
jungle.
Until the thing settled down.
We had our load-bearingequipment.
All we had for weapons were theBeretta pistols and they put us
on a Colombian general'saircraft and flew us down there.
(29:13):
And we got out and we did ourchecks.
Checks.
We found where Escobar's guyshad cut the fence.
They had actually clipped awaythrough some of the really thick
jungle to make a little trailthat came right up to the
(29:36):
generator hitches and we couldsee what their plan was.
So, generator pitches and wecould see what their plan was.
So we first thing we did was weasked the Air Force guy you
have any extra guns?
Oh, we, ever bread is.
And they brought down enoughweapons to equip fire company
(29:57):
machine guns, rifles, play moreminds, you, you name it.
So we went through this,through that, we got loaded for
bear.
Uh, we went up on top of thehill.
We talked to some of theColombians, uh, security
personnel.
It wasn't hard to pick out whowas working with Escobar,
(30:19):
because they were definitely nothappy to see us and they were
not terribly friendly.
Those were some of the juniorsergeants that were out in the
jungle with the security guys.
But we got them to come up.
We cleared fields of firearound that hilltop for about
300 meters out, got all thejungle cleared out, had them
help us dig fighting positions.
We put Claymore mines in andthen the night that Escobar said
(30:43):
he was going to come up andkill the Americans, we told all
the Colombians and said do notcome up on this hill tonight.
We will kill anyone who triesto come up on this hill tonight,
escobar said he's coming.
We have no idea if it'll be youor his guys in your uniforms,
so don't come here, just stayaway.
(31:05):
And about three o'clock in themorning about, if I remember
correctly, there were abouteight guys came walking up the
road and the guys that we'd seenprior to then the Colombian
security guys that were doingpatrols you could tell they
weren't too happy about it.
Walking around, they had theircaps in their pocket or cocked
back on their head, rifles slung, walking together, talking,
(31:29):
they weren't paying a lot ofattention.
These guys broke cover, comingout of the jungle, evenly spaced
, weapons on the ready, thumb onthe safety finger alongside the
trigger guard, head on a swivellooking left and right,
alternating weapons left andright, perfectly spaced, brand
new uniforms, and it's prettyclear these were not the guys
(31:52):
that we've been seeing up untilthat time.
They got right up to the baseof the hill where they were
getting within range of theclaymores and I was rotating the
safety bail off on the clacker.
I'd already got my partnermoved on the other side watching
our escape route and we wereabout to light them up and we
(32:12):
saw one of the corporals that weknew or believed was working
with Escobar, pop up out of thebrush, stop him, talk to him,
point up the hill.
And then the next morning heand they turned around and left.
The next morning Escobar calledthe base and said go ahead and
run your damn radar, I don'tcare, and I don't care about
(32:32):
your Green Berets either, but weknew that we were there and
everybody was happy.
Congratulations, great job.
And you guys come on back toBogota.
That was about a good hour and ahalf two-hour drive on a
two-lane road to come out ofthat little Air Force base back
(32:54):
up into the mountains going toBogota Right through the area
that was controlled by Escobarand his guys.
So I told him, I said isn't theairplane going to come down and
pick us up and take us back?
And we got the.
Well, you guys are green berets.
You know the general.
He needs that airplane.
He's got other places he can go.
You can make your own way back,can't?
(33:14):
You Sat down with JR and wetalked it over and figured about
the only way that nobody onthat airbase was willing to
drive us out.
They weren't going out the gate,but there was this little town
that was just outside the gatethat had a bus that ran to
Bogota every three days and, asluck would have it, that day
(33:37):
that bus was going to go.
So we figured about the onlychance that we had.
We'd go down and get on thatbus.
And we're both six-foot,blonde-haired, blue-eyed, look
like the Marlboro man.
There's no way we're going toblend in out there, but jump on
the bus.
Just let the bus driver nowthat we would greatly appreciate
(33:58):
it If he did not stop until wegot Bogota and put on our blue
jeans and our black leather.
But our bread is back in theshoulder holster.
And last thing I did was Icalled Mill Group and said now
look, you know, at that timecell phones were not common.
Very few people had cell phones,so we didn't figure anybody on
that bus was going to have them.
(34:20):
But just in case, I had to tellthe Mill Group this, you know,
we may have to go ahead and justtake control of that bus and
hold a whole busload ofColombian citizens hostage until
we can get back up into Bogotawhere we can get to a safe area
and keep anyone from calling out.
Do you have any other optionsthat you can offer us?
(34:41):
There are no rental cars outhere and they finally relented
and they sent down an oldbeat-up station wagon with one
of the drivers out of theembassy, which was perfect.
It had a fender hanging looseand one headlight was out.
It looked like a piece of junkand nobody would pay attention
to it.
And the guy who was driving itvolunteered to come because his
(35:03):
mother lived in that village.
So he came down.
Mom gave him a chicken in asmall cage to take back to
Bogota with him.
So the two of us and thechicken got in the back of that
station wagon.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
We rode all the way to Bogota right past Escobar's
men.
Wow, that is pretty crazy.
Tell us about any upcomingprojects that you're working on
that listeners need to be awareof.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Thinking about the contractor years now five years
in Afghanistan.
There are a lot of good storiesthat may help people understand
a little bit more about thatcountry.
It's a fascinating place.
The UAE I don't know if I canwrite about that.
I would have to talk to somepeople and see if they're
comfortable with that, and Idon't think they will be.
(35:58):
There are some things that arestill going on that just don't
need to be discussed.
Uzbekistan State Departmentthere were some good stories
that came out of that.
I was a red team analyst forArmy Material Command when 9-11
(36:18):
happened.
Basically, I'd go around to thebases and if I were a terrorist
and I was going to attack thisbase, this is how I would do it
sort of thing and wrote thereports and mostly people blew
me off, laughed and said well,you know, mr Brewer, you really
think that Middle Easternterrorists are ever going to
(36:38):
come to Boston.
And of course, when they did,then they flew out of Boston
Airport and hit the Pentagon.
I got invited to come back andgive that briefing again and we
started doing actual red teamexercises where we'd get teams
of guys kitted up and we wouldcome in and surveil the bases
(37:00):
and teach the security forces onthe base how to recognize
hostile surveillance, how tocounter it and how to reorganize
their efforts to go ahead anddefeat what the bad guys were
doing.
And we, actually we went up to alittle place in Lima, ohio,
where they make the armor forthe Abrams tank and all of the
(37:25):
high-speed armor they put on ourvehicles, and we were going out
to set up surveillance on thegate so guards would have
something to spot.
And lo and behold, there was alittle white rental car with a
middle-aged gentleman, dark hair, dark complexion, and a video
camera, sitting in that rentalcar doing exactly what we were
(37:48):
going out to do to replicate aterrorist surveilling the main
gate.
So we put eyes on him, got thetag number, and any time we did
this, we did it in conjunctionwith the FBI and the local
police so they would know thatit was us and be able to tell if
there was somebody else thatwas a bad guy.
We told them what we wereseeing.
(38:08):
We waited until they came out,scooped him up and it turned out
he was a suspected Al-Qaedaoperative that they had last
seen in somewhere around Chicagoand it disappeared and he was
down there in Lima, Ohio, witheyes on the gate, doing exactly
what we were getting ready to doto teach him what to look out
for.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Wow, well, throw out your contact info so listeners
can keep up with everything thatyou're up to.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, and the two books Old Throne Ranger is on
Amazon and the one that justcame out In the Shadows Between
the Wars.
That's got the special forcesstories, including the escobar
story in it, and the next onemay take me a while, but
there'll be more coming okay, soyour books are just on amazon?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
do you have an actual website?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
I don't have my own website yet, but it's on amazon,
it's on Kindle.
I've got a narrated second oneon the SF Stories That'll be
coming out on audiobook as soonas they're done with the editing
.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Okay, we'll close this out with some final
thoughts.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about
, that you would like to touchon, or any final thoughts you
have for the listeners justthink about the people that
aren't as fortunate as we arewhere we live, and there's a lot
(39:47):
of really good people out therewho want to be here and my
heart goes out to them, as wejust can't take them all in, and
I've had a bitter pill toswallow.
But I've come to understandthat I'm trying to get my Afghan
friends into the country andthink about the folks that go
(40:08):
out in our military to try anddo these things.
The uh.
When you vote, take that intoconsideration, because we can't
be everything to everyone.
It's just not possible.
But we sure can try.
And when we find the guys thatare bad, they need to be dealt
(40:32):
with, and when we find folksthat are good, they deserve a
helping hand.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, firstthing I want to do is thank Mr
Brewer for his service and allthat he's done throughout the
years.
I want to let the listenersknow to follow Rate Review.
Share this episode to as manypeople as possible.
Check out Chris's books.
They're amazing.
He's got some amazing stories.
Keep up with everything thathe's up to.
(41:03):
Follow us on your favoritepodcast platform For more
information on the Living theDream with Curveball podcast.
Visit wwwcurveball337.com.
Thank you for listening andsupporting the show, chris.
Thank you for all that you do.
Thank you for your service onceagain, and thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
And thank you so much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
For more information on the Living the Dream with
Curveball podcast, visitwwwcurveball337.com.
Until next time, keep livingthe dream.
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