Staying Faithful in the FBI | The Sovereignty of God - No Sanity Required

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
So, okay, let's just start right here.
Okay.
Back up.
You're 2013, the Navy Yardshooting.
You're not in the Navy now.
You're with the FBI.
Yeah, so I'd I'd been in the FBIum maybe um maybe what uh 11
years at that point.

SPEAKER_01 (00:18):
And so I'd been in the Washington field office for
about four or five uh yeah, fiveyears.
Um and uh we're we're downquantico training.
Actually, we had two groups.
One was training in uh Marylandat the day uh on that day, and
then the other group wastraining down at uh Quantico.
And so we get the call that uhthat the Navy Yard shooting has

(00:39):
happened, right?
And so this is 2013.
Um and we all jump.
It's obviously in our in ourarea of responsibility.
Uh and so we go screaming upI-95, right?
110 miles an hour.
I remember because my gut thegovernor on my uh on my suburban
was sat at 110, and I kepthitting it and backing off,

(01:00):
hitting it and backing off.
And uh so we're we're running upthere.
There's probably 10 suburbans inline, and we're just flying at
110.
And uh we get up there, come offthe interstate, and uh get down
into the Navy Yard, and they hadthe whole place locked down.
And so they they didn't want usdriving in, but they let us run

(01:22):
in with all of our gear andguns, which is kind of weird,
but whatever.
A lot of confusion.
There's always weird decisionsthat get made in in scenarios
like that, and people justtrying to do the best thing they
can, but you know, sometimes itjust doesn't make sense.
So we all throw on all of ourgear, everything we think we're
gonna need for this, you know,because we're not gonna have our
trucks near us.
Um, and uh breaching gear,rifles, like the snipers

(01:45):
bringing in their long guns andtheir, you know, and their CQB
weapons and all kinds ofdifferent stuff.
And so I don't remember how longwe ran.
It felt like forever with allthat gear.
Uh, but we ran in, got to thebuilding.
Um, as is always the case inthese scenarios, uh, there's
always reports of multipleshooters uh because different

(02:06):
people see certain things fromdifferent vantage points,
different perspectives.
Somebody describes the shooterone way, another describes it a
different way, and and you um,you know, you it sounds like
they're two different people inthe end, it's it's one.
Um and so at this point, by thetime we got there, there was all

(02:27):
kinds of confusion as to whoshould be responding, who, you
know, where where the peoplewere coming from.
No one at the time uh had reallytaken control and command of the
scene.
Uh, and so our senior teamleader at the time basically did
the you know, back of a trunk ofa car type of, you know,
command, setup command, began uhcommunication, uh establishing

(02:50):
comms, all that stuff.
And they had sent uh four guysfrom uh a couple of different
agencies, which is exactly whatyou're supposed to do in an
active shooter scenario, grab acouple of people and go.
And they had finally, they hadwalked in and they had killed
him.
Uh, and we were coming in, wewere coming in right on the tail
end of that.

(03:10):
But everybody thought there weremultiple shooters based on the
fact that he had shot people onat least three different floors.
Don't quote me on that.
It may have been more, but butit was at least that of the
building.
So, you know, people were wereuh thought that it couldn't just
be one guy.
Uh so we came in and there hadbeen some people who had already
come in to try to clear somestuff.

(03:31):
We brought everybody back out tojust clean the slate and then
methodically assigned uhclearing to to the build or
clearing of the building.
And so we went in, andunfortunately, one of the
security guards on the initialentrance, uh, the shooter had
come down and and killed himright there at the front door.

(03:53):
And they had eventually, somefriends of his had dragged him
out.
Uh, and so there was, of course,a you know a giant uh blood
trail and and everything else.
And so we're we're going throughall that.
We get up to the, I believe itwas the third floor where where
the initial shootings had takenplace, you know, and we're
literally having to step overbodies to get into the hallway

(04:13):
and and everything.
And uh we split our team to totake care of that floor.
We were signed this floor, andby by floor, I mean a massive
floor of a of an officebuilding.
And so this is the this is oneof the buildings where there are
any number of commands, Navycommands, military commands,
different things like that.
Um and so it's just office afteroffice after office, door after

(04:35):
door after door in this place,hundreds of doors.
Uh, and they're all virtuallyall closed, many of them locked.
And so because there was such astrong reporting of multiple
shooters, we couldn't leave anyspace uncleared.
And so uh I had brought in, youknow, a breaching shotgun with

(04:56):
all the all the as many roundsas I could carry.
We had rams, we had uh hydraulicbreaching equipment, we had all
kinds of different things.
We spread loaded across theteams or team members um uh and
and ran in with all that stuff.
And so we just beganmethodically working through
that floor.
Uh and um I have never breachedso much in my life.

(05:19):
Uh training days, I didn'tbreach that much.
I think I breached for fivestraight hours.
Oh my god.
Because we cleared not only thatfloor, we cleared multiple other
floors and all kinds ofdifferent things, but but we
were clearing for about fivestraight hours.
And I I ran out of I ran out ranout of shotgun shells because
these these doors were, youknow, inch and a half thick
solid wood doors.

(05:41):
And um our I want to say it wasour first, it might have been
our second door down thehallway.
Um we made entry into an officespace, and you can tell it you
can tell some it was somebody inPorton's office.
It was good size, you know, Idon't remember exactly who it
belonged to.
Um, and there was a door off tothe side.
So me and a buddy of mine set upon the door, pounded on the door

(06:04):
because we didn't want to use,you know, breaching shotguns and
everything else.
If there was a good guy inthere, uh, and pounded on the
door, repeatedly kind ofannounced ourselves, waited for
either somebody to shoot at usor say, Hey, we're in here, you
know, uh, and um didn't hear athing.
And so we decided I uh Ibreached the door.

(06:25):
My buddy sat up on the door, hebegan clearing the door or
clearing the space from outsidethe door.
And uh all of a sudden he startsgiving commands to someone and
it kind of spooked me.
Um and so I transitioned frombreaching shotgun to my regular
rifle and uh began calling thesepeople out, and it ended up
being, you know, some somemembers of the of the office

(06:46):
there that had taken that hiddenunder a desk and all that other
stuff, and of course was alittle freaked out and kind of
shocked that they were in therebecause I just breached this
this door.
Now, you do it in such a waythat you're not gonna frag the
whole room, you know, thateverything kind of goes down at
the floor right there at the atthe base of the door, which is
all fine, but still, you know,just I didn't like that.

(07:07):
Um but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 (07:09):
For clarity, when it when you're breaching, what
you're talking about is you'reusing explosive, you're
breaching that with explosive,with an explosive, or you're
shooting it with a shotgun.
Shooting, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (07:19):
That that particular case is shooting with a shotgun.
So the the shotgun round roundsare filled with uh a mix of
ceramic uh powder and everythingthat comes out as a kind of a
solid chunk, but as soon as ithits something, it's designed
not to go through walls anddoors and everything.
As soon as it hits something, itturns into powder.

(07:42):
But but because it comes out asa kind of a fused chunk, it
carries and dissipates thatenergy.
And so if you've breachedcorrectly, you hit, you know,
important components of thedoor, whether it's hinges or or
the latch bolt or whatever itis, and it blows that uh that
piece out of the door and out ofthe door frame so that you can

(08:02):
open the door.
But it's designed not to likethen continue on as a projectile
uh type of thing.
Uh and so, but if you're rightthere in front of the door,
obviously you're gonna have fragcoming through pieces of the
door, pieces of metal, whatever,all these different things.
So you you don't want peopleanywhere near it.
Um but anyway, so so you know,we we pull them out, get them

(08:26):
kind of funneled.
You you essentially create thesepeople weren't hostages,
obviously, but we're keepingkeeping the same kind of concept
where you you create a funnel ofprotection for these people and
they get they get moved all theway out the front door to
medical and you know peopleoutside resources.
And so we spent the rest of theday, multiple teams came in,

(08:48):
right?
Multiple uh other othercomponents of FBI came in, HRT
flew up, um, and so we wereworking with them on various
things and went through and andyou know, marshals were there,
ATF was there, everybody was onscene.
Uh, and so um finished clearingthat thing.
But as we're clearing, right, Imean you're literally stepping
over, you know, dead bodies, andand you felt horribly

(09:11):
disrespectful doing that, but itwas a job to do, right?
And and and the scene was notsecure.
Again, because we didn't knowthat there wasn't that second or
third or whatever, you know,other shooter.
Um but um but yeah, I mean, thethe the first person uh that he
shot, he he went to the to theuh bathroom.

(09:33):
We watched the video of himdoing all this after the fact,
but yeah, he went to thebathroom, pulled out his
shotgun, and and got himselfready, and then walked down the
hallway and literally turnedhooked to left, and the first
guy that he shot was just a guysitting at his computer, you
know, nine, whatever it was inthe morning, just doing his

(09:53):
thing, and get shot with a12-gauge shotgun from three feet
away, right in the face.

SPEAKER_03 (09:59):
So kind of backtracking, obviously active
shooter, but was this guy a partof the Navy?

SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, he was a contractor.
Uh so he was a contractedemployee um that worked for
worked for them.
I mean, he he badged in.
He didn't like shoot his way in.
Yeah.
He badged in, and the securityguard that he shot um was
actually later in his in hisshooting.
He actually came down and wentand shot him.
Um so it wasn't like he shot hisway in.

(10:25):
He was he came through, yeah,badged in and came on in.

SPEAKER_00 (10:29):
I remember, you know, most listeners will who
were adults at that time or, youknow, it was 2013, right?
So yeah, I those are that's oneof those news things.
I remember it happening.
I mean, it's like the wholenation is like there's a there
is an ongoing shooting at a at anaval base, like at a base of

(10:52):
operations for the United StatesNavy right now.
And so you're just kind of onpins and needles.
But you're running 110 in asuburban.

SPEAKER_01 (11:02):
Talk about pins and needles.
Yeah, I mean, and and there werethere were a number of there
were a number of things that we,you know, we kind of got out of
that that whole day.
Um a lot of lessons learned, youknow.
Uh we did, we did a number ofthings right, and we did some
things that we needed to improveon, you know, and it was it was

(11:26):
always something where you'reyou're you're having to, you
know, in that in that job,depending on what you're doing,
whether it's investigations ortactical work or whatever,
you're almost always having toset aside the ugliness of what's
in front of you for whatever themission calls for in that
moment, right?
Whether and when I say mission,it could be the investigation,
could be interviews andinterrogation.

(11:48):
Um, you know, uh a number ofpeople have had to do this some,
but others, you know, did thisfor their for their full-time
job, where you're interviewingand talking to somebody, you
know, who has been uh an abuserof children, right?
Whether physically or sexuallyor whatever else, uh, and and
they have just destroyedchildren, but you have to make

(12:10):
them think that they are yourfriend so that that you can
eventually get to, you know,them confessing and and and your
investigative responsibilitiesuh demand that you like you're
you're it.
Nobody else is gonna do it.
Like you're the one in front ofthis person interviewing them,
right?
And you know, I've got I've gotfriends who who would do these

(12:32):
types of interviews, and thethings that you say and to try
to get them to think that you'relike them, you get done, and
guys would literally walk out,they'd have to take a break in
the middle of the interview, andthey go outside and they'd throw
up in a trash can, right?
Because they just it's just, youknow, I don't want to be saying
these things, you know, becausethis is not me.

(12:54):
Yeah.
Um, but we're we're working toget to justice for these kids.
We're working to get this guy inprison so he doesn't do it to
other people, whatever the casemay be.
And in the same it's notdifferent scenario, uh, it may
be uglier on its face, but a lotof this stuff in the, you know,
in when you're experiencingthese types of things, uh, and
it's death and mayhem and chaos,you've still got to do the same

(13:18):
thing.
You've got to say, okay, that'shorrible.
I recognize that.
And those are people, and Iwould love to treat them with
respect, and I will, but rightnow we've got we've got other
things that are that are morepressing.
Um and so that's what a lot ofit's what a lot of people
struggle with in law enforcementmilitary is is how how do you

(13:41):
how do you how do you deal withboth sides of that, right?
I've got a job to do, I know thejob that I need to do, but
people are depending on me to doit well and to and to get to
some sort of resolution,whatever it is, whether it's a
tactical resolution or aninvestigative resolution or
whatever.
Um but at the same time, how doI how do I acknowledge the

(14:06):
awfulness of what's in front ofme without compromising what my
responsibilities are?
Right.
And so it's that it's that fineline of sort of uh walking the
middle of being able tocompartmentalize those things
without compartmentalizingcompartmentalizing them so much

(14:26):
that you lose your feelings, youlose your emotion, you lose your
care, you lose all you know, allthat kind of stuff.
And that's what a lot of a lotof people have trouble with.

SPEAKER_00 (14:36):
I made us I made a comment when we were having
breakfast this morning that Ithink that the only two people,
the only two types of peopleI've ever interacted with that
have coped well and moved on inlife from situations like the
one you just described, or someof the stuff we're gonna get

(14:56):
into, uh you know, combatdeployments, um, where they've
seen terrible the the worst sideof humanity are people who are
borderline sociopathic and sothey don't have a great capacity
to empathize, or people who arethe most empathetic of all
humans, which is people thathave a high view of the

(15:18):
sovereignty of God.
And and uh you know, that's whatI want to talk about in this
episode is how how critical andI want to walk back, let's go
back to to to your early FBIcareer and then the program that
you got involved in early inGWAT, early in the War on
Terror, the global war onterror.

(15:39):
But um, I want to talk about howcritical is it that your
theology is intact if you'regonna be working law enforcement
or or be in the military and howimportant that has been for you
and then what that what that hasequipped you to do so that
you're not, like you said,you're not compartmentalizing

(16:01):
something as if you're gonna putit in a compartment and suppress
it and ignore it.
You're putting it in a in a in acompartment that you you look
long and hard at often, right,and you consider it.
Right.
You know, like in Romans 8 18,Paul says, I consider the
sufferings of this present lifenot worth comparing to the glory
that's to be revealed.
That word consider means to gazeinto, to reckon, to contemplate,

(16:25):
to evaluate.

SPEAKER_01 (16:26):
So it's not for for someone And the follow-on of
that is it's an affirmativedecision coming out of that
consideration.
Right?
It's not just I think about it,but I I I rightly categorize it.

SPEAKER_00 (16:43):
And that affects the rest of my thinking.
You have a category to put it inthat is that is that category is
appropriated through yourunderstanding of scripture, your
view of the sovereignty of God.
God's still in control, theworld is broken and fallen,
there's this is not how thingsare going to end.
There's a story of redemption,there's a new creation, a new

(17:04):
kingdom where there won't bewar, there'll be one final war,
and then no more, like Yeah, Ithink I think that it's such a
stark contrast between theperson who is empathetic but
holds a high view of thesovereignty of God, and so they
put what they've seen, dead, youknow, the death and darkness of

(17:25):
the world, they put it into acompartment that they can look
at and and consider, but then oror those people that I mean, I
read one time, I was reading itmight have been in gr one of
Grossman's books, where it'slike people that cope well with
death and killing and combat andthat that seem to be unaffected

(17:46):
by it are just one percent awayfrom being in the same vein as a
sociopath that's a serialkiller.
But they but they don't they'renot there.
They've got the restraint of aconscience, an understanding of
right and wrong, uh an adherenceto a code of morality, you know,
but but the way they're sort ofhardwired is almost at a

(18:08):
sociopathic level, but it's notthere.
You know, it's interesting theway that he described that.
So let's go back.
All right, let's go back to umwhen when you first were in the
FBI, what you were doing and andhow you ended up deploying in
09.
So you get in the FBI, yourinitial job, you're you're doing

(18:30):
your job.
Well, you know, I think you'restationed in the Midwest or
Nebraska, Omaha.
And so what are you doing there?
And then how do you end up inthis program?
What is the program?
How do you end up in it thatthat gets you deployed?

SPEAKER_04 (18:41):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (18:42):
So um spent four years in Omaha and was working
counterterrorism uh for a year.
They stood up, this was rightafter uh post-Robert Hansen in
the FBI and his his discovery orthe discovery and his arrest and
you know all the chaos that sortof ensued from that.
Uh they formedcounterintelligence squads in

(19:02):
every single field office.
Bob Mueller decided that that,you know, that was the that was
the right answer.
You know what, you know whoRobert Hansen is.
You touch on that briefly.
Yeah.
So Robert Hansen was a uh was alongtime FBI agent, worked in
the in counterintelligence uhfield within the FBI, that uh at
one point along the way, um, fora whole host of reasons that

(19:26):
they've written books about, umdecided that he was going to spy
for the Russians.
And so Cold War.
Yeah.
So so he uh offered hisservices.
It was actually uh, if you everhear the phrase a walk-in, it
basically means that someonethat you didn't know about
previously contacts you andsays, I want to, you know, spy

(19:51):
for you, basically.
And so he was offering that tothe Russians.
Now, for the longest time, theydidn't know who he was.
So he was smart enough becausehe came out of this field to not
let them know who he was.
And there's a whole series,there's long conversation, but
there's a whole series of waysthat he did that and the ways
that they would communicatewhere he didn't really know

(20:13):
their identity, knew generallywho they were, obviously, but
they didn't know his identity atall, uh, or hardly at all.
Um, and so that lasted for along time, and honestly, that's
what sort of allowed him to doit for such a long time.
One of the reasons there wereother other things.
Um But anyway, so he he spiedfor the Russians over a long

(20:33):
period of time, and he gave upsome of the most sensitive
things because of the positionshe held within the FBI, he had a
lot of liaison with StateDepartment, with CIA, with
various other elements um wherehe had access to extraordinarily
sensitive information.

SPEAKER_03 (20:56):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (20:57):
Yeah, that's actually that's actually what
one of the things that got himwas that that level of
information, there's only somany people that have access to
that, right?
And so once it took the FBI andCIA and everybody years to
figure out that there was aproblem.
But then once they did figureout it was there was a problem,

(21:19):
they it was sort of a steadymarch kind of to to figure out
who the guy was.
Uh, but anyway, they arrest himuh as after he's completed a
dead drop, which is a dead dropis essentially like, you know, I
put uh you know, I don't know, athumb drive or something in this
coffee cup here, and I set it upunder uh, you know, the the

(21:40):
bridge there on Snowbird'sCreek.

SPEAKER_03 (21:42):
And then I come and pick it up.

SPEAKER_01 (21:43):
And then you come and pick it up later, and we've
communicated somehow that I haveuh you know filled the dead drop
and then you go and retrieve it,right?
And basically what that is is itnobody can take a picture or a
video of you and I together.
Yeah, right.
It's a so anyway, he had justdone that in a park in uh in uh

(22:03):
Virginia, and uh they they wereyou know FBI was surveilling him
the whole time and and theysnatched him afterwards.
That was sort of his just finalproof of of guilt.
Um, but anyway, post post thathappening, counterintelligence
squads uh implemented in all theall the field offices in the
FBI.
Uh I was in Omaha at at thetime, got pulled from

(22:24):
counterterrorism to work that uhfor a year, um, and then uh got
sent back um to to workterrorism uh more because there
were just some higher prioritythings.
And then eventually got kind ofwhere I wanted to get, which was
which was large-scale violentcrime, uh, which is which is
what I wanted to do.

(22:45):
Um and transferred to theWashington Field Office in 07
and began, got on their team.
I'd I'd made the SWAT team in uhin um in Omaha, and there's a
funny story about my first SWAThit.
We could hear that.
What's that?
Go ahead and tell it.
So a little context, uh, two ofthe guys, the the team leader

(23:08):
and the assistant team leaderwere former HRT guys, right?
Been on HRT for like a hostagerescue team.
Okay.
Um, um, you know, nine plusyears each.
Serious dudes, wellaccomplished, well known, the
whole thing.
Uh Nebraska was their home.
And so after they had completedtheir time there, uh they they
got a transfer benefit to gowhere they wanted to go.

(23:30):
They both decide to come backhome.
And so um, you know, go throughselection, make the team.
Um, we're going on our firstactual, you know, go through
training and we're going throughfor our first actual, you know,
live operation.
Zero six in the morning, likemost law enforcement stuff is
based on legal reasons.

(23:51):
Uh, and we jump out of thevehicle.
I'm the breacher, right?
And I've got my big metal ram.
Um I'm hutt-hutt hutting up thesidewalk, lose my balance, roll
forward.
This steel ram hits theconcrete, and I swear to you,
the Liberty Bell is quiet withinthis thing.

(24:13):
It clangs.
And of course, it's 0-6 in themiddle of the hood, it's quiet,
right?
There's no noise, and literallyI hit the ground, clang, clang,
clang, roll, get up, and I look,and these two dudes are just
staring at me like you are thebiggest idiot we for our

(24:33):
listeners, which we were wefilmed the first session, but
for listeners that don't know,Clay is 6'4, what, 230?

SPEAKER_00 (24:40):
At least.
At least.
I wish I was 230.
Okay, yeah, okay.
I was being not.
I'm 230, and you're healthilylarger than me.
Like he's a big boy.
He don't drop, he don't fall anddrop a a ram and not make a
scene.
Yeah, that's funny.

SPEAKER_01 (24:58):
Yeah, I've never that was your first that was the
first one.
Yeah, so it was it wasfantastic, right?
If there was any pride in me, itwas all gone.
Yeah, it was all gone rightafter that.
Um, so yeah.
Um, but anyway, you know, afterafter Omaha transferred to
Washington field office um in 07and um get on Washington field
office team.

(25:19):
So Washington field office teamis significantly larger uh and
and involved in, you know,because it's DC, just involved
in a lot of different things.
Um and one of the things that uhone of the guys that team
leaders at the time on our teamhad been in Kabul in 01.
Or I forget whether he was thereduring the 9-11 attack or sh or

(25:42):
shortly thereafter.
But anyway, whatever it was.
Uh guy's name was Rick.
And so Rick was there and was inKabul, and and over the course
of you know, the follow-onmonths and a year or so uh that
he was in and out of that place,he was working with various, uh,
we used to have something, Ithink they've changed the name

(26:03):
long ago, but uh it was militaryliaison unit, M O U, that the
FBI had, you know, that wastheir main job was to liaison
with the various elements of themilitary where the military and
FBI operations, you know,overlapped in some fashion.
FBI is investigating somebodywho's in Africa or whatever, and
they they fall under a military,you know, or Afghanistan or Iraq

(26:27):
or wherever they fall under somesort of military.

SPEAKER_00 (26:30):
And vice versa, if the military is on foreign soil
and they find out there's aconnection to a stateside cell,
then y'all would go.
Then that puts it into yourjurisdiction.

SPEAKER_01 (26:42):
Correct.
So whether we would physicallygo or maybe it's something
they've collected and they're,you know, they have certain
legal uh um legal limitations,right, as as to what they can do
with respect to U.S.
persons.
Uh so they they run up againstwhatever that limit is and they
say, okay, we now have to handthis to the FBI because you have
the legal authority to do, youknow, to do the follow-on

(27:02):
investigation on U.S.
persons.
So anyway, that there was awhole lot of you know back and
forth there because it wasn'tjust terrorists overseas, right?
They attacked on the U.S.
homeland.
So there was a criminal, inaddition to the war that had
kicked off, there was also acriminal investigation for the
murders uh of all the peoplethat died on 9-11.

(27:26):
So that's there was a strongoverlap there, right?
And so anyway, he was he was inKabul uh and began to began to
liaison with a lot of thespecial operations groups,
whether it was Green Brays orRangers or whoever else, uh, and
and they would go on Target andthey would, you know, grab

(27:46):
people or grab electronicdevices, notebooks, whatever the
case may be, all kinds ofdifferent things, put it in a
bag, bring it back to theirIntel group, dump it on the
table, and they they just didn'thave this was new for them as
well, right?
They they didn't have a realstrong intelligence cycle built

(28:12):
for how to handle all of thatstuff, attribute it to certain
persons, all that, and sothrough the relationships, they
started talking to Rick andothers and uh began to help
train them on how to do thatbetter.
Because that's what that's whatFBI and other law enforcement
agencies do.

(28:33):
We do search warrants, right?
And we are going in there tolook for evidence that then is
attributed to a person, right?
So that we can charge themcriminally and whatever else.
And and that and whatever we dohas to stand up in court.
Um so there's gotta be a afairly rigorous process to do
that.

(29:21):
Yeah, because it's not, youknow, it's not simply about uh
retribution and and you knowjustice in in a military
fashion, right?
And that certainly obviouslywas, you know, one massive
component of it.
But the other component of itwas all along the way for the
past, you know, 20 years orwhatever, uh, or more than that,

(29:43):
um, FBI and other and other lawenforcement entities uh NYPD for
a while on various differentthings, right?
Were were part and parcel of theoverall operation in order to
cover sort of all ends of thespectrum, right?
So you've got you've gotIntelligence organizations that
are gathering information andcreating reports and tracking

(30:05):
people down.
And then they have certain legalauthorities for action, you
know, kinetic action.
And then there are militaryorganizations, both regular
military and special operationsunder the special operations
umbrella, who are doing eithersame or similar, but with
slightly different authoritiesand capabilities, right?

(30:28):
And so if you're talking aboutuh in a declared war zone in
Afghanistan or in Iraq, right,now you have the military as as
as your uh lead organizationthat has that has primary uh
authority there, right?
They're there under certainlegal authorities under the

(30:50):
under the idea of war.
But if you're talking aboutanother nation that you don't
have a declared, it's not anarea where you have a declared
war.
Other elements of the governmenthave primacy, and it's generally
going to be a combination ofdepending on what it is you're
trying to do, State Department,maybe the CIA or whatever,
right?
And they're those legalauthorities and who has primacy

(31:13):
affect what gets done, how itgets done, when it gets done,
all these different things,right?

SPEAKER_00 (31:19):
So it's we so it's not just our military is now at
work, our federal lawenforcement agencies are at work
and the two are having to figureout how to do this together.

SPEAKER_01 (31:30):
Correct.
And so out of that comes kind offast-forward that component of
it, out of that comes an actualprogram where FBI agents are
deployed not only to be at uhthe bases and fobs and whatever
else to help with interrogationand interviewing uh or or uh

(31:51):
evidence processing.
Yep, absolutely.
Uh I I worked with a girl, uh,she was from the New Jersey
field or Newark field office,and she came to Kandahar where I
was deployed, and man, shewhipped that place right up.
It was, she was stellar atevidence gathering.
Like she wouldn't have been anygood out on target, right?

(32:12):
But that's not why she was anFBI.
That was not what she brought tothe fight, but she brought all
this other stuff, and she wasshe was a killer at it, man.
Uh and um, and so anyway, so outof that comes sort of not only
embedding at the bases forvarious purposes, intelligence

(32:32):
analysis, whatever it is, butactually embedding with the
units, so with SEAL units, SEALteam units or Rangers or um uh
Green Berets or or whoever elseand and and the tier one guys as
well.
Uh and so there's a wholeprogram of that that that takes
place over the probably uhroughly the following 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 (32:54):
Because that first the like when Rick was over
there the first like that firstyear after the um after the 9-11
attacks, we had we had specialoperations going in on targets.
And what you were describingearlier is they're bringing back
computers, cell phones, theythey killed everybody, grabbed

(33:17):
the stuff, brought, and we don'tknow whose computer is this, and
what target did this come from,and who is that person you
killed?
Do you know?
And so it's just you're notgetting the information you need
to do your job stateside or toprotect American people or to
prosecute the people responsiblefor murdering 3,000 people in a
tower, and sure, or or even oreven just to feed the military

(33:37):
intelligence cycle.
Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
So whether whether it came back for criminal
purposes or not, okay.
Even if it was an Afghan guy, anAfghan citizen who would never
see the inside of a U.S.
courtroom, there's a wholeintelligence cycle which
eventually turned into as theyas they stood the Afghan
government sort of back up uhafter the initial wave of of war

(34:01):
and destruction and everything,there was a whole prosecution uh
process inside Afghanistan.
Inside.
And y'all are teaching them howto do that.
And we're yeah, and so we'rewe're helping with all of that.
I mean, they're fast learners,right?
But but they're this is just notwhat they've done, right?
Yeah, okay.
Uh and so what ended uphappening was guys that were

(34:23):
deemed by by the program, theFBI program leaders, to be
investigatively and tacticallyuh proficient would then volunte
it was an all-volunteer thing,but you would you would sort of
make the cut, and then you wouldgo uh be deployed and and embed

(34:43):
with these military units uh andgo out on target with them.
And then as the you know, whenthey would hit a place, whatever
happened happened.
Sometimes it was, you know,shoot a lot of times it was you
know shooting and and what youwould consider warfare, and then
other times they would theywould we would be able to sneak
in quietly and kind of get theget the drop on people and just

(35:05):
roll them up.
Yeah, there wouldn't be itwouldn't be a shot fired.
Um so but what at some point inthat you would transition to
what at the time we called SSE,they've they've got different
names for it now, um, but it wassensitive side exploitation,
right?
And so uh but essentially whatit is, I think they call it um
chem now, captured enemymaterial or something like that.

(35:28):
And now what we would do is wewould essentially take our
search warrant processes andstrip out all of the
administrative stuff that, youknow, if you ever wonder why it
takes the FBI to do, you know,five hours to do a search
warrant on a house, it's becauseof all the legal requirements.

(35:49):
All you've got to dot all theI's cross you know, cross the
Ts.
Constitutional protection of Imean what uh most of it has to
do with if if this coffee cuphere is for whatever reason an
item of evidence that we takeand it and it's it's deemed to
be evidentiary in nature to youknow that that's relevant to

(36:12):
whatever it is we'reinvestigating.
I have to track the the thiscoffee cup through the entirety
of the FBI's possession of iteverywhere.
Every person I hand it off to,every room it's stored in, every

(36:32):
time it gets checked out to thengo to the lab and come back,
every time it gets checked outto go to court and come back,
and all these different things.
Because in court, if there is agap in any of that, then that is
an attack vector for the defenseto say, how do we know that this
was not manipulated in somefashion?

(36:54):
Right, whatever, and and myclients being unjustly uh uh
accused and they're trying toget the evidence kicked.
Okay, right?
Yeah.
And so so there's a that's justone like the chain of custody
piece of it's just one elementof the whole deal.
Um, but you know, to the pointof uh, you know, the processes
are take a picture of the cup inplace where you found it before

(37:17):
you ever move it, ever touch it,right?
And then document it along theway.
So anyway, all of these things,you didn't need to be that uh
tight when you're when you're inAfghanistan.
And you couldn't be, right?
You don't have four hours ontarget, right?
You're lucky if you've got 15minutes.

SPEAKER_00 (37:36):
So you hit a compound, you need to do in 15
minutes what you need to do.

SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
That's it.
That's it.
And so what what they did, whatthe guys that you know that were
before me uh did were createprocesses where we get all of
the elements, the collection andattribution elements of our
search warrant process, but getrid of all of the much longer US

(38:02):
legal system sort of pieces,parts of it.
Uh you still had your, you couldstill track, you know, who who
had it and where it went, if itever, if it ever made its way
over to U.S.
prosecution, that there wasstill that ability to do that.
But we stripped out a lot of theother stuff and got just down to
the absolutely most importantthings.
And so if I can attribute thiscoffee cup to you, and I need to

(38:27):
know what room you came out ofso that I can attribute the room
to you, I need to know where thecoffee cup was so I can
attribute the coffee cup to you,right?
And and obviously I'm using acoffee cup, but whatever it is.
Is it an AK?
Is it an explosive vest?
Is it uh, you know, is it is ita notebook that's got
intelligence in it?
Because on the back side of thisthing, we're gonna interrogate

(38:48):
you right there to see what wecan get.
But if, you know, whether we getsomething good or not, you're
eventually gonna be questioned,you're coming with us, and
you're gonna be questioned at alater date by somebody else.
And we want that component, wewant that whole process to go,
okay, we have found thisnotebook.
The notebook, by all you know,uh uh reasonable um, you know,

(39:14):
assumptions belongs to Brody,right?
And so when we sit down withBrody to conduct an interview or
interrogation, we're gonna havestudied this and then we're
gonna be able to question him onit, right?
Now, there's all kinds ofdifferent ways.
Like, how do you um how do Ikeep track of what room we found
you in?

(39:34):
I don't know your name.
I don't know, we're just hittinga compound, right?
I don't know your name, I don'tknow anything else.
And so we came up just verysimple.
When I say we, I'm talking aboutthis is dozens and dozens and
dozens of people kind ofcontributing to this process.
Um, and you know, came up withvarious different things, right?
Maybe you're writing on themwith Sharpie, maybe you got a
piece of 100 mile an hour tape,you slap on them, and you write

(39:56):
came out of room two bravo, youknow, or whatever, you know,
building six room two bravo,whatever, whatever.
We came up with variousdesignations to do this really,
really quickly.
Uh because you might own theblock, or you may have hit this
place with, you know, 15 people,and and you've got to get in and

(40:18):
get out.
And if you stay too long, thethe hordes coming across the
valley at you.
So uh, and you might be doing itwhile the firefight's going on.
I mean, I've did I did thatseveral times where where, hey,
the firefight's happening, we'rewe're engaged, um, but we got to
get this done.
Right.

SPEAKER_00 (40:37):
And so you've got to get off the gun and go do this
while the gunfight's stillhappening.

SPEAKER_01 (40:43):
Either I would make that decision sometimes uh and
and and just say, hey, if you'regood with it, I'm gonna start
this thing.
And they they usually they'd belike, yeah, let's get it done,
let's go.
Or they would say, Hey, we gotto get this done, Clay, you
know, jump off, go do this.
And so I would uh it started outwhere I would I would um kind of
coordinate it, and then it endedup uh so I was embedded with a

(41:06):
with an ODA or a Green Beretteam, and that was my primary
responsibility.
I got farmed out during mydeployment.
Uh we were based out ofKandahar, but I got farmed out
during my deployment uh to SEALteams and other other Green
Beret teams and variousdifferent things based on need.

SPEAKER_00 (41:22):
Um I did ask you when we were sitting around the
fire that night uh this pastsummer, I said, what was that
like how open at first were theyto having an FBI guy come with
and then how long did it takeyou to sort of earn their
respect?
What was did you just kind ofhey guys, I'll stay in the
shadows?

(41:42):
Um I think the way you describedit was, hey, I'm here, you just
tell me what you need me to do.
Yeah.
What what was that initialintroduction to that main team
you were assigned to?
What was that like?
And then what was the firsttarget that you went on with
them?

SPEAKER_01 (41:56):
Bunch of criminal hooligans is what it was.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm I'm joking.
I love those guys.
I still keep in touch with abunch of them.
Um yeah, so so you know, ifyou're in this world, when I say
this world, the specialoperations world, you know,
there there is a there is a timeand the place where they're
operating sort of in the darkand and doing what they do.

(42:18):
Um and then there is, then asthings shift, more spotlight,
you know, comes on things.
You've got Abu Ghraib, you'vegot all these different things
that that are now creating amuch greater um emphasis on uh
or shining a real spotlight,right?

(42:40):
And so the big question for alot of these guys is why is this
FBI agent here?
I mean, I get I get the reasonon paper, but is he here to
basically spy on us and reporton us?
And so people are just a littletaken aback.
I mean, all these guys are gooddudes.
Like I, the whole time I wasthere, I never saw anybody do
anything sideways.
They they were solid, solidguys.

(43:01):
Um, but they don't know, right?
And they don't, if they've neverworked with the FBI before, the
only thing they know, likeeverybody else, is TV or stories
from other people or whatever,um, which are almost always
wrong.
Um what?
Right, I know criminal minds.
Shocking.
Oh my gosh.
Um but yeah, I mean, initially,look, you can't go into a team

(43:24):
of guys or team of people,period.
Office space, you know,ministry, whatever.
You can't go in and go, allright, I'm here and I'm taking
over X part.
Good luck, right?
That doesn't work.
That's just a human thing.
It just doesn't work.
And so it certainly does notwork among a group of guys who
have lived together, eatentogether, their families know

(43:45):
each other, they've supportedeach other, and and they've
trained up for, you know,they've either been part of the
same team for multiple years orthey've trained up for this
deployment, and they are quiteliterally putting their life
their lives in the hands of oftheir teammates.
And so um you don't just walkinto that and you know, slap the

(44:06):
table and say, here, I'm here,you know.
So um, yeah, I I, you know, myinitial my initial thing was,
hey, I'm here to help with thiscomponent, you know.
The Bureau is good at uh thesetypes of things, and and I'm
here to help with this kind ofcomponent.
Uh, you know, if you guys wantme to do anything else that I am

(44:28):
legally allowed to do, I'm happyto help with it.
Uh, but if you want me to standin the rear with a gear until
you wave me forward to handlethis SSE component, it's your
show, right?
It's your mission, it's yourshow.
Uh I'm I'm sucking up youroxygen and eating your chow and
sleeping in, you know, in thesame uh bunkhouse as you guys

(44:48):
are.
So, you know, you let me know,right?
How much how involved you wantme to be.

SPEAKER_00 (44:55):
And did that immediately did that have an
immediately positive response,that posture and attitude that
you had?
Because I guess they'reexpecting what what would not go
well is if you go in there andtry to prove immediately that
you're an alpha operator, thatain't gonna work.
Yeah, you're probably not gonnalast too long at all, period.

SPEAKER_01 (45:16):
Right?
I mean you're you're coming andyeah, yeah.
You're you're coming into theirspace.
This is literally their space,they own it, you know, and um if
you come in with really anyother attitude, you're you're
you're an idiot.
Um and so Yeah, so I sat down,you know, with the uh with the
ODA team leader and the um teamsergeant, and um, you know, I

(45:40):
was older.
Uh I was I was older than theteam leader, and I was, I think,
a month younger than the teamsergeant.
Uh, and so I was an older guy,so I at that point, uh, and I
just kind of learned some harderlessons in life already and knew
how not, at least in some ways,not to be stupid right out of

(46:03):
the gate, right?
And so I sat down with them andand they asked me a number of
questions, and they're they'rebasically like, hey, what can
you do?
And uh look, you can you canapproach that question in one of
two ways, right?
You can approach it and and justgive them a laundry list of you
know your accomplishments andyou're you know, you're
basically doing an interview andtrying to tell them how awesome

(46:25):
you are.
Or you can say, Hey, here'swhere I think I can be of of of
help, uh, take some load off youguys' shoulders and and like
transition some of the work tome if if that's what you want,
uh and if you're good with that.
Uh, but you know, all the Hooyahstuff and the Johnny Rambo stuff

(46:47):
and all that other junk, youknow, you know, you'll you'll
either want me to participate inthat or you or you won't.
Right.
And that's fine.
And uh, you know, I think thatwas kind of a tiger trap they
were laying out there to seewhat kind of a guy I was.
Um, and um, you know, I answeredthem and just said, hey, I'm my
main job is to help you guyswith this SSE piece.

(47:10):
Uh, you you put me in the groupwherever you want me.
And if I can help you in otherways, great.
Right.
If I can just hold cover on a ona on a uh an empty alleyway or
or something, while and thatallows you to direct more of
your guys to to the fight.
If I'm helpful that way,awesome.

(47:31):
You know, but if you don't wantme to do that, okay.
You know, and I think theyappreciated that um uh because
on the very first mission, uh,you know, they assigned me to
the team sergeant to be withhim, and I got it.
I knew what it was gonna be,right?
That was him watching me.
Babysitting you.
Yeah, he was watching me, andthere was gonna be an
evaluation, right?
I'd I'd passed I'd passed, youknow, test number one.

(47:54):
Now let's see what it looks likeon target.
And um, and I got it.
I I knew I would do exactly thesame thing, right?
I felt that was no no insult, nonothing.
I'd do exactly the same thing.
They hadn't seen me, they didn'tknow.
Um, and so um, yeah, we uh weland in our first first one, and

(48:16):
uh we're hutt, hutt, hutting offof the off of the Chinook, you
know, off the ramp.
And I was coming off last, and Iwas supposed to be just kind of
the last U.S.
guy.
We had some Afghan guys with us.
I was supposed to be the lastU.S.
guy just to make sure the Afghandudes didn't get lost, and you
know, and uh and got it.
I'm I'm in the rear with thegear, I'm bringing up the rear.

(48:36):
Understood.
I understand my assignment.
And we're approaching, we'reapproaching the first compound,
and team sergeant looks at meand he's like, Clay, go take
some dudes and clear that place.
Take some dudes.
Take some dudes.
All right, trial by fire.
I got it, I got it.
And so anyway, you know, uh Iguess, I guess whatever I did

(48:59):
was okay.
And uh, and and from then on itwas it was it was game on for
the for the rest of thedeployment.
Um, and um, I'll tell you what,I mean, I I've told you this
before.
That that deployment was withoutquestion the best thing I ever
did.
I I was very fortunate to beinvolved in a lot of a lot of

(49:19):
interesting things in the FBI,most of it not my doing, just
just right place, right time,right squad, whatever.
Um but that was the best thingI'd ever gotten to do.
And not because of the Hooyahstuff, but because it was I was
half a country away from mynearest supervisor.

(49:42):
And it was just dudes sittingaround a table just like this
and having very directconversation.
What are we good at?
What are we not good at?
How do we need to be better?
Clay, what can you help with?
You know, and I was able to say,well, of the five things that we
listed, you know, uh one, I'mnot legally allowed to help
with.
Two, I I don't have anyexperience in that, so I'm I'm

(50:04):
not gonna be much help there.
But these other three, yeah, Ican help you with that.
Give me 24 hours, I'll come backwith a plan.
And I'd come back with a planand talk to the team sergeant
and the and the team warrant uhand the you know and the uh team
lead.
And you know, they'd makedecisions whether they liked
what the plan was or wasn't.
And and we just have very therewas no Mother May I.

(50:25):
It was it was big boy rules anduh loved it.
Absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_03 (50:29):
How long were you with that team, like deployed
with them?

SPEAKER_01 (50:32):
Four months uh with that one.
Um and um yeah, so I wasactually about to rotate back.
It was time to it was time to tostart doing kind of a workup to
go back when the FBI canceledthe program.
They got a guy, they got a guyhurt pretty badly, wasn't
killed, yeah.
I got hurt pretty badly, and Ithink they just got spooked.

(50:54):
Um and and there were a numberof other reasons.
Uh that's too simplistic, butbut uh they they canceled the
program as a whole program thatthe FBI still deploys with the
military, but they canceled sortof that version of the program
uh at the time.

SPEAKER_00 (51:11):
What uh how many ops did did it take before you saw
your first pretty intense uhlike activity?
Like that first one number two.
Okay, yeah.
And then for four months it'spretty steady.
I mean, you're in the Hornet'snest.

SPEAKER_01 (51:30):
Yeah, we were going out all the time, all the time.
So they were the the particularODA I was with was the was the
what they call the the the DAteam for for RC South, which was
direct action team.
Um and so the way the military,you know, there was a they'd
have a whole target deck, youknow, and you know, okay, this
this component of the targetdeck goes to this team and this

(51:52):
one to this team, da da da, youknow, it kind of gets all split
out um based on just what lineof of you know of the
organization any particulargroup is sort of targeting.
Um and over, you know, we justwent out over and over and over
again.
And um, you know, there it'sinteresting to kind of get back

(52:17):
to what you were talking aboutin the very beginning.
Um did did my did my tacticaltraining, you know, that that I
that I gained within the variousSWOT elements of the FBI that
I've been part of and thevarious people we had been
training with.
Um because we had we had somerelationships with some special
operations groups that we wouldgo train at their facilities and

(52:39):
different things.
Um they would not train us,right?
That's that's not permitted.
Um, but but you know, you sitaround and you just have
conversations.
Hey, how how would you guyshandle this?
You know, it's like, okay, youknow, 20 or 30 percent of that
we doesn't that doesn't fallwithout the story of the last
episode with Adam Brown.

SPEAKER_00 (53:00):
Exactly.
The frag grenades.

SPEAKER_01 (53:02):
I uh Adam, I can't chuck frag grenades, man.
That that's we don't we're notallowed to do that.
Uh and uh um but um you know,but maybe 70% of it is is our
concepts.
We may not do it exactly the waythey do it, right?
We don't we don't have the rightgear, we don't have the right
training time to do it maybe asfast or as uh certain ways as

(53:24):
they do, but there are pieces ofit, there's concepts of it that
we can take.
Um, because I I was sitting in ateam room of a of a um a dev
group guy one time.
And uh that's SEAL team six.
And so um we were having aconversation, just just talking.
Uh he and I grew up uh about Idon't know, 20 minutes from each

(53:46):
other in nowhere northernArkansas.
And uh so we were just talking.
He he was I don't think he wasprobably 10 years younger than
me at the time, but um heunfortunately died on the uh
extortion 17 uh helicoptercrash.
So um and um so we're talkingand uh and uh you know he said

(54:09):
he said something at one pointhe was like look he's like yes
there are all kinds ofdifferences between our
organizations and what we do,how we do it, and legal
authorities and what our endgame is, you know, for for being
involved at all.
And that's that's obviouslytrue.
Uh but at the end of the day,when the bullets start flying, a
gunfight's a gunfight.
Right?
And so you know it doesn'tmatter whether you're in

(54:31):
southeast DC or you're in you'rein you know Loitereth Bazaar and
in uh in Elman province uh ofAfghanistan.
Um so you know it's kind of it'skind of same some some of that
is same, same.
We don't have all the weapons ofwar and the legal authorities.
I can't drop bombs on houses,right?
I can't I can't shoot towmissiles or whatever else at it,

(54:54):
but uh Carl Gustav's andeverything else.
But um anyway, so the but what Igot out of that deployment uh
and brought back was operationalefficiencies that we could
inject in our team, right?
We nothing changed about the waywe performed our duties in the

(55:17):
FBI.
We stayed within the FBIpolicies, FBI rules, legality,
all of that.
Not none of that changed.
But how did we become moreoperationally efficient?
How were we better prepared?
How were we better trained?
Uh, down to op plans, right?
The structure of our op plans uhwas able to help with that
conversation.

(55:37):
There were a bunch of usdeploying at the time.
Uh so while I was deployed,there were two other teammates
of mine in country, differentplaces, but different uh in
country, and they were learning,you know, same and different
lessons than I was.
And so a lot of that was was alot of advancement for us in in
understanding how to just besharper, be better when we got

(55:58):
back.
Um, and um, but yeah, it was itwas it was an interesting thing,
you know, going back to what youwere talking about uh earlier
and and God's sovereignty in thewhole thing.
Um you know, you there are a lotof guys, a lot of questions, you
know, a lot of some of the guysthat I was there with came back,

(56:19):
broke up, right?
And had some had some prettydark times.
Um unfortunately none of themwere believers.
Uh one became one.
Uh, and I think I can'tremember, I think I told uh tell
that story last time.
Um anyway, you know, I'd beenwith these guys at this point
three months about a little bitmore.
Um and you know, we'd had anumber of gospel conversations

(56:44):
with various individuals.
You know, you sit around theteam room, you're doing
different things, conversationsjust happen.
And uh the team leader kind ofstarted referring to me as the
you know, as the the Christianon the team and whatever, you
know, or with the team.
I wasn't on the team, but withthe team.
Um, and um um we were in themiddle of uh kind of a it was a

(57:09):
four-day firefight.
There was a couple of five days,sorry, five days, uh, there.
We we took over a town that wasa hub of of activity where they
were making foreign fighterswere coming in as well as uh
Afghans were making um suicidevests.
Like I found a whole stack ofvests that were, you know, along
with a bunch of explosives theywere harvesting, they were

(57:31):
bringing in Iranian C4 and allkinds of different things,
right?
And I forget, it was like 2,000feet of Pakistani debt cord and
a bunch of caps and all kinds ofstuff that I was doing SSE on uh
for this documenting it,documenting all the details and
everything else.
And of course, we're not gonnatake that stuff and put it on a
hilo and fly it back for quoteunquote evidence, right?

(57:51):
That junk just be stupid to putthat stuff.
Uh, but you know, we blow thatin place.
But do you document it allbefore you do that, right?
And so uh I'm doing SSE everyday.
So the firefight generally wouldramp up mid-morning and lull
middle of the day because it wasabout 115 during the day, and

(58:15):
then would ramp back up lateafternoon, you know, early
evening.
And so in that middle, I would Iwould come off, you know,
coordinate it, but I would comeoff where I was covering down,
somebody would take thatresponsibility, and then I'll uh
went and did SSE type stuff.
And we had a bunch of DEA guyswith us as well.
Um, and so that was superhelpful because they they knew

(58:37):
exactly how to run, you know, uhuh a search warrant and and
didn't have to train anybody todo anything.
It was just, hey, we're doingthis, yep, got it.
Um and and they were very gooddudes.
That was because of the opiumproduction.
Yep, they had DEA had a had apretty significant uh um
presence in Afghanistan for agood while.
DEA drug enforcement agency.

(58:59):
Yep.
Or administration, I'm sorry,administration.
Um and um they uh and I'd workedwith DEA guys, you know, back
home for years.
Um so anyway, um for thatparticular one, uh Marja, you
can read the battle of or youcan look at the Battle of Marja

(59:19):
when the Marines went in in man,was it August or September of
09?
I can't remember the exact date.
Um and it was a it was a fight.
I mean it was a it was a heck ofa fight, and it's well
documented.
So Marja's M-A-R-J-E-H.
Um and um we went in about fourish, five-ish months before they

(59:46):
went in.
And so we brought uh uh I saywe, and obviously the guys, the
ODA that I was with were thewere the main guys planning it,
but there was an ODA, an ODB, orsorry, two ODAs, an ODB uh and a
SEAL task unit.
That had come in.
It was part of uh SEAL Team 7was there.
Um, and we all we we brought inwhole we created this giant task

(01:00:09):
force basically, but at theground level, right?
And um hit this place because itwas a huge logistics hub for
creating suicide vests, roadsidebombs, uh, all kinds of
different things.
And it was a money-making place.
This was a hub of opium uhactivity that then turned into

(01:00:29):
heroin and all these otherthings.
And so um we we went in there,you know, middle of the night,
and um funny story on that.
So we're we're moving in andwe've we've gotten a foothold
and we're starting to reallytake over certain places, and uh

(01:00:50):
we're gonna move down this longcorridor of it's hard to
describe because long corridorof like um storage, you know,
roll-up storage units.
And so we're clearing each oneas we go because they're not
locked and we don't we don'tknow what's in there.
We certainly don't want to drivea group through it, and there

(01:01:13):
might be an ID or whatever,because they had IDs all over
the place.
So anyway, we're justmethodically working our way
down this thing.
And a vehicle, a little oh,little van-looking thing, like a
little miniature van, comesdriving down the road straight
at us.
And so clearly that's a problem.

(01:01:33):
And um, so a couple of the guys,you know, put some rounds across
the road in front of it, try toget him to stop.
I mean, they didn't want to killa guy in case he was just didn't
know what was going on.
They do that a couple of times,he doesn't stop.
And so they're like, all right,fine, so we're gonna put a
couple of rounds through theradiator.

(01:01:54):
He doesn't stop.
And he's getting closer andcloser and closer.
And so finally, uh, you know,they they they had already told
one of the SEAL snipers to jumpup on a up on a building and uh
start getting ready.
And uh so he got you know, got abead on him, and they said, all
right, you know, he he's gottago because he won't stop.

(01:02:14):
And, you know, our obviously ourbig concern was it was
vehicle-borne IED, and he wasgonna drive right in the middle
of us.
We weren't gonna allow that.
Uh, and so he puts, I forgetwhat he was shooting, but he
puts, I want to say it was 308,but he puts three rounds in this
nice tight circle right throughthe windshield, uh, face high.

(01:02:37):
And uh the guy veers off, hitssomething, and and just kind of
crashes right there.
So, you know, we obviously kindof assumed what had happened.
And uh so we were making our wayup methodically, you know, guys
get up on rooftops to kind oflook down in the vehicle as much
as possible, keep as muchdistance as possible.

(01:02:59):
We didn't know what was in thevehicle.
And they're like, hey, I wedon't really see anything in the
back of this vehicle.
Can't tell for sure, but wedon't really see anything.
So me and a couple other guys,we began to move up.
And so I'm clearing the leftside of the vehicle, and I look,
and there's nobody in the so I'mexpecting to see a guy with his

(01:03:22):
you know head split apart.
I don't see anybody.
I see blood, but I don't seeanybody.
And I'm like, what happened?
And there's these nice threeholes right through the
windshield, and I look and it'swrong side drive.
Steering wheels on the oppositeside, but I still don't see a

(01:03:43):
guy.
So I finished clear, clearingthe area and I'm looking around.
I don't see anything.
I look in the back, there'snothing in the back, and I look
down and I'm like, ah, andthere's a guy that had rolled
out.
I guess when he hit something,we couldn't see that side.
He had rolled out, rolled downin the creek, and was just
laying there.
It was just some old dude.
Wow.
But because it was a wrong sidedrive, he lived.

(01:04:05):
It saved his life.
And the guy, the sniper couldn'tsee it because there was a glare
on the windshield, right?
He couldn't see into thevehicle.
Um, so he couldn't tell forsure.
Um, and uh, so anyway, wegrabbed the guy, gave him
medical treatment because he hada bunch of frag that did get him
in the leg.
And he didn't have a terriblewound, but it was it was enough

(01:04:25):
he needed some attention.
So anyway, yeah, we uh we uhthat's how it started.
And um we uh we got out and youknow, kind of pushed out as far
as we were gonna push, and itwas an it was a five-day fight
from there.
And uh them trying to take itback over and come back in.
And um we ended up with uh 20,if I remember the number right,

(01:04:50):
22,147 kilograms of opium, 201kilos of processed heroin, 90
kilograms of m of morphinepaste, which is kind of an
intermediary product on the wayto heroin, um hundreds of
thousands of pounds of of opiumseed that we eventually got rid

(01:05:14):
of uh because that was nextyear's crop, right?
Which would have been nextyear's money to fight to buy
weapons to fight against youknow defensive.
So yeah, I mean it was it was uhthat was by far the largest, you
know, drug thing that I was everinvolved in.
And we didn't we didn't know itwas gonna be that size.
We knew there was gonna be a agood amount.
We didn't know it was gonna bethat size.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:35):
Um, but and that five days did they put up a
pretty good fight becausethey're they know what's at
stake from their perspective, sothey're fighting for that.
Sure.
I mean, that's that'slivelihood.
It's they've got their they'veyou know, whatever their
religious zeal uh contributes,but then also just this is their

(01:05:59):
livelihood.
This is how they're gonna notonly fund the war but keep
people busy and occupied.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:04):
And so I had a conversation with a guy one
time, Afghan dude, through aninterpreter uh that we we met up
with in the valley.
I mean, he's just way out in themiddle of nowhere.
And uh, and and he he reallykind of helped me with my
thinking.
And he's like, look, he's like,this is a land that has always
been at war in some way oranother, right?

(01:06:25):
And everybody's been trying tooccupy and take over this place
forever, all the way back toAlexander the Great.
Like we, you could drive by oneof Alexander the Great's old set
of ruins in in Afghanistan.
And um, and he's like, you know,he's like, just in my life, he
said it was, you know, it wasvarious elements within
Afghanistan, then it was theRussians, right?

(01:06:47):
Then it was various otherelements in Afghanistan, now
it's Americans, and you guyswill eventually leave and it'll
be somebody else, you know, allthese different things.
He's like, at the end of theday, I don't care.
He said, see that, did you seethat ridge line right there?
He's like, I've never been pastit.
He's like, this is my valley,this is where I was born, this

(01:07:09):
is where I will die, and theonly thing I care about is
growing whatever makes me moneyto feed my family.
He's like, if it's wheat, ifthat if that's what makes me the
most money, fine.
He said, if it's poppy, fine.
And he's like, I don't care whathappens to it.
He's like, I'm just I'm feedingmy family.
And he was no terrorist, he wasno Talbon guy, he was no no

(01:07:32):
anything, he was just a guy in avalley, you know, and because we
asked him about the electionsand did he like Karzai or any of
the opponents or whatever.
And his basic answer was I don'tcare.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:43):
I don't care.
Is that the guy that wasclearing the road in front of
y'all?

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:48):
No, that dude.
So, so I got farmed out to adifferent ODA uh up uh in the
Aruzgan province, and we weregonna go on a uh, I think it was
two weeks, might have been a dayor two short of that.
But anyway, it was roughly twoweeks, uh, overland movement
down to a town called Kajaki.

(01:08:08):
And there was a they had takenit over, and they're they were
again, they were making, youknow, roadside bombs and suicide
vests and all kinds of differentthings.
And um, so we were gonna do anoverland down there, and I got,
or they were gonna do it, I gotcalled in to help them because
they didn't have an FBI guyassigned to them.
So anyway, I fly up, uh, youknow, meet them, work with them

(01:08:29):
for I don't know, it was threeor four days, five days,
something like that, before weactually went.
And we spent four days orsomething doing overland to get
there.
And as we're going, uh there wasa uh there was a drone operator
uh flying a little, I don'tremember whether it was a fixed
wing or it was a little uh youknow quadcopter or something

(01:08:51):
like that, but whatever it was.
He was flying it out in front ofus and he was just observing the
road as we're moving along,right?
Seeing if anybody's puttinganything in the ground, block
blockage to the road, whateverit was.
And so as we're moving along, hewould report back, hey, you
know, I see three guys, they'reputting something in the road,
uh, and then they would decidewhether they wanted to, you

(01:09:12):
know, request an airstrike on itor whatever.
Um, but as we're moving downthis road, referencing the guy
you you're talking about, therewere three Afghan dudes walking
in front of our convoy withmetal detectors.
And they were just like beepbeep beep beep beep beep beep
beep beep beep on the road.
And uh one of the guys told methat they hit those three guys

(01:09:35):
had been working together sincealmost the very beginning of the
war uh for the Americans.
And he said that they had founduh approximately 5,500 IEDs in
their time.
And this is 09.
Eight years, right?
So so roughly eight years,probably a little less.

(01:09:58):
And these guys, man, they had nofear.
They would just walk up, beep,beep, beep, beep, beep, beep,
raise a hand, hey, found one.
Thank goodness.
And then the the guys thatwould, you know, the demolition
guys on the team for the youknow, for for a um for an ODA is
an 18 Charlie, right?
He would come in and he wouldput a, you know, he'd do his
examination or whatever, andthen then usually they put some

(01:10:20):
C4 on top of it.
Back up, back up and cook itoff.
And uh, you know, and you you'resitting, you're sitting in a in
a Hum V.
I'm sitting in a Hum V and allof a sudden you see this IED go
off ahead of you, you know, andand you hear it on the radio,
it's been found, it's acontrolled thing, so I mean
there's no there's no fearinvolved or whatever, but

(01:10:41):
because you know somebody's justthey're taking care of it, um,
and you hear the countdown.
But um, but that happened anumber of times, you know.
But these guys, that guy, thatthere was one particular guy
that I mean uh if you uh Iforget the name of the movie,
but if you see the movie andit's about the ODA guys early in
the war um with some of theAfghan um Northern Alliance

(01:11:05):
leaders, uh, and something thehorsemen, the 12 horsemen.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:11):
I think it's called um Yeah, I read the book.

SPEAKER_01 (01:11:15):
It's like I I forget what the movie's called, but it
was that first group that thatuse horses in battle.
It was crazy.
Um but uh there's a line in themovie where one of the uh the
Northern Alliance guy looks ateverybody and and he's he's
essentially evaluating them asto whether they have kind of

(01:11:37):
gotten that steely-eyed attitudebecause they've been in combat.
And he was in at least in hismind, he's like, I can see it in
your eyes.
And uh so he's like, you know,that guy, yes, that guy, yes,
that guy no, whatever.
Well, this guy had it.
Man, he was just cold.
But he was on the side ofAmericans, and and nothing

(01:12:01):
phased this guy.
Uh, we were with him for a whileand nothing phased him at all.
He carried a machete, and Ididn't dare ask how much blood
was on that machete.
Um, but uh But him and the otherguys, they would just walk out
metal detectors for ears.
He's just walking along with themetal detector.
And I have no reason to thinkthat, you know, as long as
something bad didn't happen tohim, he didn't continue to do it

(01:12:22):
for years after.

SPEAKER_03 (01:12:24):
That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:25):
But um, you know, but he he he was on the side of
the Americans, whether it wasfor cause or money or a
combination of both, you know, Idon't know.
But uh but anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:37):
So there's a point.
Um I'd like I'd like to talkabout two things.
One, how did you prepareyourself?
How did you prepare think how tohow to ask this?
How did you prepare yourself?
You talked about the importanceof preparation on the front end,

(01:12:58):
and then how you didn't youdidn't struggle in the same ways
that a lot of people struggle,and you attributed that to the
way you prepared yourself beforeyou went.
And I think that's I thinkthat's very valuable to
Christians that are going to gointo law enforcement or the
military.
I talked to a lot of young dudesthat come through here that want
to talk about is it okay for meto do this?

(01:13:20):
And is this an acceptable careerpath for a believer?
And and I always encourage thatand and try to give them solid
biblical answers.
Um, but then there was a point,I don't I don't know if you
remember telling me the story,there was a point where you
realized there was an aha momentwhere the Lord really made it
clear you're gonna die when he'sready for you to die.

(01:13:41):
And where you had moved fromyour spot.
I think y'all are on Overwatchor you were you tell that story,
you got up and left, and whenyou came back.
That story, I've I've thought ofthat story, Clay.
You told me that last when wewere here, June.
I've thought of that story 50times if I've thought of it
once.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:02):
Yeah.
So I mean, more more broadly,um, you know, I I knew because
this this program had, you know,we were in 2009, right?
So the war had been going on forseven, eight years at that
point.
Um, and um I knew what we were,I'd known guys who had gone
over, so I knew that we were notwhat I was volunteering for was

(01:14:26):
not to go over and live on a fobfor, you know, four months and
do analysis or whatever else.
Yeah, Ford operating base.
And so I knew I was, I knew whatwe were, what I was signing up
for, right?
There was no there was no sortof allusions to it.
Um and so, you know, like wetalked about, I I'd read a

(01:14:48):
number of the number of thebooks by by Colonel Grossman um
and had really worked onpreparing my mind.
And and not only preparing mymind, but in a in a tactical way
or or whatever, but getting yourmind right before you go into an
operation.
Certainly that, but in a in ascriptural way, in a theological

(01:15:12):
way, right?
And so I I am, as we talkedabout last time, you know, I
wasn't an FBI agent, I didn'tget to do these things, I wasn't
in, you know, didn't drive subsin the Navy before because of
any great thing in me.
There's nothing great in me,right?
I I'm I'm uh along with everyoneelse who will talk about the

(01:15:32):
depravity of man, I am nodifferent than anyone else,
right?
Nor is anyone who does any ofthis stuff.
Um and God is not impressed inany way with our achievements as
as men.
Um and so I knew that what Iwanted to do coming out of this

(01:15:53):
deployment was know that goinginto it, during it, and after it
that I had honored the Lord inmy behavior, in my actions, my
decisions, all these differentthings, right?
So, you know, you can you canit's a fairly straightforward
conversation as to whether youum, you know, find some

(01:16:14):
deployment girlfriend or not,right?
Which lots of guys do.
That's an easy conversation,right?
No.
Straightforward.
So avoid all those things.
Got it.
Um and and that was kind ofalluding to what you mentioned
earlier about marriage throughall of this, right?
Um that that I was not ondeployment to be a, you know, to

(01:16:39):
be anything other than what Godhas called us to be, which is
obedient servants of his, right?
Or as Paul talks about slaves ofhis.
Um and so nothing changesbecause you go to war.
Nothing changes because you'rein law enforcement, nothing
changes because you're in themilitary.
Is it a different environment?
Yes, it is.
Do you, do you, are you requiredto do different things, make

(01:17:00):
different decisions?
Yes, you are.
At the end of the day, though,whether you're an accountant in
a business or or you're, youknow, some super, super uh
high-flying special ops guy, umwe will all stand before the
Lord and give an account, right?
It's one man wants to die andthen the judgment.
It doesn't say, and a specialjudgment for these types of

(01:17:23):
people, or it's it's one.
Um, and so I wanted to get mymind right scripturally on, I
had already done that from a lawenforcement perspective, but you
can law enforcement guys caneasily slip into the, you know,
I might have to use my weaponduring my career.

(01:17:46):
Maybe, right?
And the vast, vast majority,huge percentage, uh don't have
to.
They never fire shot in in, youknow, in aggression or or anger
or whatever phrase you want touse for that operationally, you
know, that's not on a in atraining scenario.
Um and you can slip into a placeof comfort and and and not

(01:18:12):
really have at the forefront ofyour mind why we're all here,
right?
I'm not wearing a plate carrierbecause I'm gonna go talk to a
guy, right?
Wearing a plate carrier becauseof what might happen, right?
And now when you go to a warzone and you're not just going
to a fob or a base or whatever,but you're actually gonna be on

(01:18:33):
target with guys that are at theabsolute front edge of this
whole thing, you're gonna getshot at.
Just like just absolute fact.
And maybe you need to returnfire, right?
Some guys I knew deployed onthese things and didn't and

(01:18:53):
didn't have to use theirweapons, right?
Just the scenario, the waythings happened, where they
were, when any firefightstarted, they weren't in a
position, whatever, whatever itwas.
Um, you know, that that wasn'tmy experience.
Um and so what, but before goingthere, I wanted to ensure that I

(01:19:15):
was on solid footingtheologically before I deployed.
And so I studied a lot about thelife of David.
Uh, I studied a lot in Romans13, right?
I studied a lot about thewarrior kings and what God said
about them.
I knew, I knew that, you know,the nation of Israel at the time

(01:19:35):
and you know, old covenant, newcovenant, you know, there's some
differences there, but the onething that doesn't change is
God.
The character of God.
The character of God.
Same, yeah.
And so what about the characterof God did I need to be
concerned about with respect tomaking decisions in these
environments?
And so, you know, I leanedheavily on, like I said, all

(01:19:59):
those different things, butcertainly one of the things that
that just you just can't getaround it if you read Romans 13,
right?
And and and there's there's aparticular line in it, I'm I'm
not gonna get exactly right, butwhere where he talks about um,
do you think that they bear thesword for no reason?
Talking about government, right?

(01:20:20):
And then he's mentioning thatthat the government authorities
have been placed in position byGod for his purposes, right?
Recognizing who is he writingto?
He's writing to the Romans.
So, so if there is a contextualtopic, it's the Roman government
that he's talking about, right?

(01:20:40):
And certainly it's it appliesmore broadly.
Um so the question then becomeshow do you work for a
non-Christian government, whichour government certainly is, yet
function within the boundariesGod has set up in such a way

(01:21:03):
that you are part of that Romans13, right?
Where it says that they theythey exact wrath for a reason,
right?
And so in my mind, I I workedthrough that process of okay, if

(01:21:23):
I am in a right place at theright time for the right
reasons, that falls within theunderstanding of Romans 13, but
also uh all of the you know,God's commandments all
throughout scripture.
It's not just that one thing.
We're not cherry-picking here,right?
You get all of the sum total ofscripture uh weighing in on

(01:21:45):
this.
And I am required to usewhatever it is, bodily weapons,
carried weapons, you know,firearms, explosives, whatever,
in such a way that it harms,injures, or takes a life, then
then biblically I'm supported inthat as long as I am doing it

(01:22:10):
for a reason that that God ispart and parcel of God's
character and what he has saidin scripture.
And so that put me in a mindsetof being where we were and all
the operations we did, right?
There was no sketchy operation.
Every single one we did, therewas a val of a super valid

(01:22:33):
reason for us to be there,right, and do what we were
doing.
And you know it walking throughthat ahead of time and being not
only on sort of getting my mindright humanly, but getting my

(01:22:53):
mind right scripturally andtheologically, I was able to
just function with freedom overthere.
Knowing the guardrails, knowingwhat scripture says about you
know what I should or shouldn'tbe doing, and function with
freedom.
But then come out of thatwithout something weighing on my

(01:23:16):
conscience, right?
Now, for all you know, foranybody who might be listening
to this that that that didn'tprepare that way, or maybe was
involved in something that youknow that that might have been a
little sideways, right?
The forgiveness of God is nodifferent in this arena than it
is in any other arena.
I'm glad you just said that.
Yeah, right?
That's important.
It's it's it's his grace, youknow, as as as we talk about in

(01:23:42):
the hymns, his grace is newevery morning.
And it doesn't say his grace isnew for the you know the grandma
who you know had a slightlyangry thought.
His grace is new all the way tothe end for the law enforcement
individual or the privateindividual or the military
member or whoever it is, anybodywho has something weighing heavy

(01:24:04):
on their conscience, right?
Um God's laws written on man'sheart, we know.
And that is what that is whatyou know, back to your earlier
point or your earlier, yeah,your earlier point of the
sovereignty of God and all thesedifferent things.
I've seen a number of these guyscome to Christ since then.
And it's rocky and it's messyand it's ugly.

(01:24:26):
You know, you're talking aboutguys that you disciple uh who
came out of that world.
Um but you know, me saying whatI said earlier about God not
being impressed with the factthat you're part of XYZ team,
super cool, you know, team theymake movies about.

(01:24:49):
The flip side of that is alsoreally true.
His grace is for you as well,right?
Just because you're part of thisunit that that did some really
crazy things that that some ofit's weighing heavy on you,
whether you did something thatthat your questioning was right

(01:25:09):
or wrong, or or it's just thenature, you did right things,
but it's the nature of it wasjust dark, right?
You took lives, you took lots oflives, you had to do it in a way
that was violent.
Healing of God, the grace ofGod, the the power of God.
God wasn't surprised by any ofthat either, right?
We we the humans have been atwar for pretty much the entire

(01:25:29):
time.
I mean, we didn't get onegeneration into the human race
before somebody got murdered.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
That of course speaks to thefact it's not your environment
that makes you a murderer.
It's it's you know the depravednature of man from the very
beginning.
And that's really when you weretalking about the the kind of
the sovereignty of God, man isdepraved.

(01:25:51):
And depraved men eventually leadto killing each other.
That that that's the story ofour history.
Some of it is utilized by God,right?
Romans 13.
Because that wrath that they'retalking about, like the Romans,
we weren't talking about, youknow, you got a knight in jail,

(01:26:12):
right?
Wrath was wrath.
There's a reason Paul uses thatword.
And understanding that what wasnecessary for someone to do as
part of the government ormilitary fell to you that day.

(01:26:37):
And you you need to come to apoint where you understand, if
you're a believer, youunderstand that you didn't
surprise God there.
And that there is there is thatis utilized by God for different
for different things.
It's part and parcel of how hehas set up government and

(01:26:57):
military and all these differentthings.
And if you are not a believer,then there's forgiveness at the
foot of the cross.
And it's not special for, youknow, we look at uh I use this
all the time when I was inAfghanistan.
I was talking to one guy, uh,we're in the middle of a
firefight, right?
And it's been going on for awhile, and we we've kind of kept

(01:27:19):
them back.
They're they're just they'retrying to run in and they're
just not making any progress,you know.
And he and I got pulled off thefront uh just to rotate people
in and out, you know, refreshammo, whatever, all this stuff.
And uh I'm sitting there talkingto him.
I've told you this before, butI'm sitting there talking to
him, and this dude is like, Imean, he's tatted up, right?

(01:27:40):
He is he is he's got the fullsleeves, he is yoked up.
I mean, the guy is a stud.
He is he is the absolute pictureof what you look at of an
operator, like like in on thevideo games and all that junk.
Big man beard, right?
And um we had had gospelconversations, sorry, leading up

(01:28:03):
to this, previous to this.
Sorry, just punched themicrophone.
Um and uh um I'm sitting thereand and and we're talking and uh
we're just getting hydrated.
Like I said, it was like 100 andsomething degrees and all that
kind of stuff.
We're just getting hydrated.
And I'm talking to him, and andI asked him, I said, hey man,
you know, people always askthis, but just like if if either

(01:28:27):
of us dies right now, how do youhow do you meet God?
And right about that time an RPGwent over.
And uh I was like, if that RPGright there lands right in
between us, and we both arekilled instantly, not so much,
not so much as a time for even athought.
We're both killed instantly.

(01:28:47):
How do you meet God?
Do you meet him as friend orenemy?
Do you meet him as a child ofthe kingdom or is or as his
enemy?
And um, you know, you're oftenheard the phrase, you know, no
atheists and foxholes.
There there are, you know, butum, but it was a it was a it was
a time where I really saw thesovereignty of God really on

(01:29:12):
display, right?
We believe in the sovereignty ofGod, we have a high view of the
sovereignty of God, high view ofhis word, high view of his role
in in salvation.
Um, but I but it but sometimesit's just on display right in
front of you, right?
And that opportunity for me waswas one of those.

(01:29:33):
And to your point, that'sliterally, I don't know, I can't
remember the amount of time,two, three hours before the
story you want me to tell.

SPEAKER_00 (01:29:42):
Oh, oh wow, and so I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:45):
And so, you know, I knew that I was on this
deployment for many reasons,right?
Many reasons only God knows I'llnever see some of them I get a
slight glimpse into.
Um, but I knew.
I knew at that moment I was atminimum on deployment for this
reason to talk to this guy inthis moment under these

(01:30:08):
circumstances.
And so we finished ourconversation, and the long and
the short of it is he eventuallybecomes a believer.
Um but um I I I think it was acouple hours later.
I details kind of a littlefuzzy, but um I'm sitting inside

(01:30:33):
of a of a you know in uhstructure and there's a window
in front of me.
And I've um punched out the toppart of the window so I can get
access and kind of they'retrying to push in from this
direction, so so we're makingefforts to prevent that.
And I get a call that some ofthe guys had found a whole huge

(01:30:59):
actually, they had found it wasthe SEALs, they had found uh
that explosives stash that Imentioned earlier with a stack
of suicide vests and rows androws of Iranian C4 and all kinds
of stuff.
And so they wanted somebody todo the SSE on it.
So they called over radio.
Uh, I responded, said, yep,okay, you know, we've got a

(01:31:19):
little bit of a lull in thefight right now, so you know,
got another guy to take care ofmy sort of direction.
Uh he was in a different spot,but anyway, so coordinated that,
went off, did my thing, cameback.
I don't know, it was probably,it was probably an hour later,
something like that, um, and andtook my position back up.

(01:31:41):
And I looked down at the glassthat's on the bottom part of the
window, and right chest highwhere I was, there is what looks
to be, I don't know for sure,but what looks to be a 762
round.
So whether it was an AK or ahole, I should say, that an AK,
either an AK or PKM round hadcome to, right?

(01:32:01):
762 round had come through.
It was a nice, pretty hole.
Glass was, I mean, glass was alittle cracked, but it wasn't,
it wasn't like shattered.
It was a bullet hole right.
The bullet hole right throughit.

SPEAKER_03 (01:32:10):
And you had been sitting there for a while.
Oh, yeah.
As soon as you walked away forthat short time.
Yep.
And that's when Brody mentionedyou realized the Lord will take
me when the Lord wants to takeme.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:22):
And that's really, that's really what where my head
was going into it.
And again, the reason to not notjust study like you and I were
talking about earlier.
Stop studying just devotionals.
Get your face into the depth ofscripture.
Ask the hard questions and gofind the answers.

(01:32:43):
They're there, not all of them,right?
We we run up against the wall onvarious things.
Brendan and I have been talkingabout um a lot of things lately,
especially with respect tospiritual warfare.
And there's just some questionsthat just aren't answered in
scripture.
And that's fine.
You got to be okay with that,right?
God has told us what He's toldus and no more.
And it is what it is, right?
Bow your knee and keep moving.

(01:33:04):
Um, but um I I understood it,but that became super real in
that moment.
That if you are living in themiddle of the will of God and
you're walking with, I don'tmean you've got the right job or
you got the right school or yougot the right whatever.

(01:33:26):
I mean you're walking with him,right?
And you're doing what you needto be doing minute by minute,
hour by hour, not perfectly.
We all stumble, we all fail andgot to go to the cross for
forgiveness.
You are virtually invincibleuntil he says otherwise.
Your life is his in the firstplace, and whether you admit it
or not, it's still his.

SPEAKER_03 (01:33:46):
Yeah, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:47):
It's it's like it's like saying, you know, I made
him the Lord of my life.
No, you didn't make himanything, right?
You fought in it, you submittedto it.
You just submitted to hislordship, right?
Um, and over the years, my viewof the the high the high view of
the sovereignty of God hasreally only grown higher.

(01:34:11):
Um the more I see in scripture,the more I see in life, the more
I see in all these differentthings, it's only grown higher.
And um, you know, that was justone moment.
You know, you could certainly,you know, for people who who who
um don't um, you know, are notdisciples of Christ or not

(01:34:33):
following the Lord, you know,they're gonna chalk that up to,
dude.
I I got a million stories ofluck just like that, right?
It went through my helmet, itwent through you hit my plate
carrier, whatever.
We got a million stories.
And that's fine.
That's fine.
But I know differently.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:49):
When you know what you know, and you know that you
know, right.
There's no there's no luck.

SPEAKER_01 (01:34:55):
Yeah, there's no such thing as luck.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:57):
The proverbs even speak to it.
The the lot is cast, yeah, butthe Lord determines how it
falls.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:03):
Exactly.
And I'll I'll you know, I loveMiss Marcy Sproul.
Um, and I loved when the way hedescribes it, that there is no,
there are no maverick moleculesin the universe.
Not one atom, molecule,subatomic particle, uh, physical

(01:35:24):
element, spiritual element,element of energy doing anything
outside of the solid sovereigntyof God, right?
Because God is either sovereignover all or he's not sovereign
at all, because that's the verydefinition of sovereignty.
Of sovereign.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35:41):
Colossians 1, in him, literally the phrase is all
things hold together.

SPEAKER_01 (01:35:46):
Without question.
And on that, complete rabbittrail, but I can't have I I
can't hear you quote that withnot saying this.
For those out there that youknow that might be saying, God
can't forgive me because uh, youknow, I've done X, Y, or Z,
whatever X, Y, or Z happens tobe.
See if I can get through thiswithout when he was arrested, he

(01:36:14):
held together the torches andthe bindings.
When he was beaten and flogged,Christ held together the whips.
When he was spat upon, he heldtogether the people and the spit
that was on him.
The purple cloak, the crown ofthorns, all held together

(01:36:36):
affirmatively by his power.
When he walked up the hill, thecross that he was bearing, the
cross that was carried for him,the nails, the hammer, the very
dirt he's laying on, all heldtogether by the word of his
power.
And finally the cross and thespear in his side, tomb he was
buried, on and on and on and on.

(01:36:57):
Christ did that in obedience tothe Father's will to accomplish
salvation for us.
All of that held together by theword of his power.

SPEAKER_03 (01:37:09):
Yeah, I've never thought about that.
That's rich.
That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 (01:37:13):
I mean, it gives new, it gives new, at least for
me, it gave new life to theunderstanding.
Yeah.
When Jesus said, No one takes mylife from me.
I lay it down of my own accord.
He meant all of that.
Yeah.
And so these understandings,these theological things that

(01:37:35):
are that are not new, right?
I didn't come up with any ofthis.
I'm just I'm just a doofus studyin the Bible like everybody
else.
Uh allowed me to walk out of alot of this stuff, whether it
was Navy Art or it was thedeployment or it was any number
of things, standing in thehallway of a of a pill dealer's

(01:37:57):
house and just kind of holdingsecurity on the house while
other guys that were doinginvestigation were doing their
thing and interviewing a guy.
And and and the little girlwho's five or six comes and is
is just talking to me andshowing me her her room and uh
you know, kind of showing me hertoys, and cutest little girl,

(01:38:18):
and and she's got her littleprincess dress on and she's
twirling around and she justwants compliments.
And you know, I'm talking toher, that's great, it's
beautiful, whatever.
And then I get the look from mybuddy in the living room after
the guy just confessed tomolesting this little girl for
years.
How do you process that?
How do you what do you do withthat?
Right?
My flesh says, go put a bulletin a dude's head.

(01:38:40):
Right?
Be done with it.
Immediate justice.
But I can't.
Right?
Legally can't, but but vengeanceis mine, says the Lord, right?
I will repay.
I will and one of the ways herepays is is that that

(01:39:00):
three-letter acronym that was onmy chest standing in that house
is FBI.
That I was there as anadminister of justice with our
system, that he was going to gethooked up and go away and and
face the justice system.
Now you can certainly have aconversation about whether our
justice system functionscorrectly, is broken, you know,

(01:39:21):
administers right punishmentsfor certain things, uh,
legitimate conversations.
But all of this is answered inscripture.

unknown (01:39:32):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:33):
And so that's that's that that knowledge and
understanding is what allowed meto rest, and maybe that's the
right word, to rest on thesovereignty of God.
I don't have to shoulder this.
I don't have to answer all thehard questions.

(01:39:53):
I rest on his sovereignty,knowing that I'm responsible to
be his slave, be his servant, dowhat, do whatever I'm supposed
to do, knowing that the greateranswers and the greater power is
his, not mine.
I don't have to perform in thatway.
I don't have to have all theright answers.

SPEAKER_00 (01:40:16):
Yeah, and I I think one thing that stands out, we
before we started recordingtoday, we were talking about JB
was saying, you know, there'sthere's the the veggie tales
theology, the veggie tails lensof looking at this the great

(01:40:36):
stories of God's sovereignty andIsraelite history.
And we do a series on herecalled Beyond the Flannel Graph.
And I've I've spoken a lot on onDavid here.
I think it might be fun for usto do a follow-up episode.
Uh, years ago, one of the earlyseasons, I did a thing on this.
But when David, when Davidbrings supplies to his brothers

(01:41:01):
in the battle, there's threebrothers in the battle, and
there's there's questions aboutwhy we're only three of them
there.
There was a conscription limitfor one family, or was there for
whatever reason, for whateverreason, three of his brothers
are there, nobody else is there.
David gets tasked with bringingcheese and resupplies and bread
to his brothers, and so he getsthe donkey ready early in the

(01:41:25):
morning, travels by foot, leaveshis donkey, shows up at the
battlefield.
There's this misconception inpeople's minds that David's this
little kid that shows up andit's just he's overwhelmed by
the moment, excited andbig-eyed, and whoa, there's the
army, and man, these guys areawesome.
My brothers are awesome.
And there's a battle in thatwhen he goes down there on the

(01:41:46):
battlefield, he's just a littleguy with big faith, and God
blesses it.
But people, I think somethingdawned on me about 10 years ago
studying this.
And it was in the moment whenDavid, you remember David goes
into Saul's tent.
So David shows up at the here'sthe chain of events.

(01:42:08):
David shows up and he's bringingsupplies, and he hears, he goes
down to talk to his brothers,and he hears Goliath come out
and chat make his challenge, andhe gets angry.
I mean, pissed.
He is wholly righteousindignation, and he's like, What
is this?
You see, the concept that hadalways been given to me was

(01:42:30):
David is like this little kid,but in that moment he is an
angry warrior because if youback up one chapter in the
Bible, that's in 1 Samuel 17.
If you back up one chapter,David is described prior to this
event.
David is described as a man ofvalor, a man of courage.
He's proven and accomplished inbattle.
And those battles would haveprobably been when he was

(01:42:52):
fighting lions and bears andpossibly marauding or raiding
tribes from the south that aretrying to take their sheep.
He's a seasoned guy.
He's 17, 18 years old, say 17years old, and he's like, I'm
gonna, I'm gonna go kill him.
David does not have to processwhat is my view of the
sovereignty of God.

(01:43:13):
In that moment, he just lets hisindignation go.
And he's like, I'm going to takeaction right now.
I'm gonna go kill this guy.
And so he ends up in Saul'stent, and Saul says, Okay,
you're gonna go kill this guy.
He said, I'm gonna go kill thisguy.
Saul lets him go.
Do you remember what happens ifDavid loses?
What does it mean for Saul?

(01:43:33):
The rule was if David had gonedown there and lost, Saul would
have to become a slave to thePhilistine king.
So when Saul sends David downthere, he's not just sending a
kid, he has, he's hanging thehope of Israel on this kid's
shoulders.
And he believes he's the best,uh he's the best option for
Israel to go fight this guy.

(01:43:54):
And the the moment I go into inmy mind right there is you can't
prepare for that moment in thatmoment.
David showed up that day havingwalked with God, written psalms
to God, worshiped Yahweh, prayedto Yahweh, lived by faith in
Yahweh's provision.

(01:44:14):
David already had developed ahigh view of the sovereignty of
God.
So when it came time to put abullet in Goliath's head, it was
there was no there was nohesitation.
And then the other thing is whenhe cut his head off, this is
gonna sound very gruesome, butyesterday I cut the head off of
a three and a half-year-old buckthat I shot with my bow.
Two evenings ago, I shot a buckwith my bow.

(01:44:35):
Yesterday I cut that deer up, Icut its head off right below the
jaws just to skin out the skull.
It'll go in my barn with the 100other ones.
It is not, that is not a cleanendeavor.
Taking that head, and that's athat's an animal, that's a
150-pound animal.
Not a that dude's head wasmassive.

(01:44:56):
That was a violent post-mortemact of him removing that guy's
head.
And I say all that to say uhDavid did not get in that moment
and then have to figure outwhat's my theology of the
sovereignty of God.
He acted on it.
And so the word to dudes thatare in the military or in law
enforcement, it is critical thatyou develop your theology before

(01:45:18):
you ever pull the trigger.
And I think that's one of thethings that stood out to me in
listening to you explain allthat is you knew who God was
before you got there.
Now, there's also a really cool,we've had Garboseman on here and
other veterans who their storyis they got home, they're a
wreck, they're turned to drugs,they're they're they've they're
they're they've committedadultery, their their life is

(01:45:38):
off the rails, and then Godsaves them.
That's a different testimony,different story.
But for the guy listening that'sconsidering this, this is what
you gotta think about.
And and uh so anyway, uh that'sI appreciate that a lot.
We're gonna take a break.

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