RSWC #218 Jacek Waliszewski

Riding Shotgun With Charlie

#218

Jacek Waliszewki

Code Name: Spike, Author

 

Sometimes the planets all line up for me. I was in Knoxville, TN, for the Gun Owners of America’s G.O.A.L.S event. I was talking with Kirk Whatley from Samson Mfg. Kirk has been a friend for a long time. He was RSWC #005 back when I was learning how to edit video. Samson’s booth was across from Liberty Mfg’s booth. They have a pen gun. And at their booth was Jacek Waliszewski, author of Code Name: Spike. 

 

Jacek was born in Poland but he was raised in a revolution. His father co-founded the Solidarity Movement there and they kicked communism out of Poland. As an infant, his mother would put propaganda papers in his diapers that he would take to his father while he was locked up. It all had to be done before he soiled the diaper! He was muling documents for his father to read and sign. The family eventually came to the United States as political refugees during the Reagan years.

 

After moving around the country with his father’s job, Jacek joined the Army and went into Special Forces. He spent 20 years serving the country and he’s working on his second career and spending time with his own family. His second career finds him as a writer. He’s authored a book called Code Name: Spike. He was at the Liberty Mfg booth promoting his book because Liberty has a pen gun. And a story in his book involves the first real life use of a pen gun. 

 

Going from Special Forces medic to Special Forces warrant officer, he got to spend time in the Nation Archives. Near George Washington’s flag and maps from Normandy, still with sand in them, he finds a leather bound book. The book was written by two men in the Office of Strategic Services back in 1946. The CIA didn’t declassify the documents until the 1980’s. He wondered how this memoir existed and no one knew about it. When they tried to publish it in 1946, the CIA and the State Department refused to let them release these secrets into the public. 

 

Jacek spent five years researching and working on this book. He cross referenced their Morse code messages. It even took him to England, where he found their secret Morse code messages. After chasing the background around the world, the Department of Defense finally cleared everything for the publication of the book. 

 

One of the truly amazing things he did was reach out to the surviving family members of Steven Bizic & Joseph S. Kosky to let them know about the history of their fathers and grandfathers. That involved hundreds of calls and emails to find everyone. The family members didn’t know these stories because they were super secret.  And it was a time when men didn’t talk about what they did during war. He had a chance to bring their lives full circle with this book. 

 

It’s amazing that he discovered the things that formed Special Operations.The OSS was the foundation of many of the other groups like Spec Ops and CIA. The stories could also change the history of the communists. There’s stories about how they would confiscate firearms from people, who would hand them over, because they think they’re doing the right thing. Then they immediately found out that the partisans were the judge, jury, and executioner. The people who surrendered their guns would then be shot with their own firearms as punishment. In another chapter, he talks about how the OSS were able to derail a train which ended up taking the lives of 200 Nazis.

This book reads like a novel. But a true history book that will keep you riveted and reading. To top it off, his next book is going to be how the same group of OSS were plottin