Ep. 12: How immigrants contribute to our national security

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome back to the Vetted Conversations Podcast,
where we delve deep into thefoundations, workings, and
current challenges to theAmerican way of self-governance.
In today's confusing world, it'smore important than ever to
understand how our governmentworks and how we, as citizens,
can actively participate in thediscussion to safeguard our
liberties and continue freedom.
Our mission is to ensure you,our listeners, have the

(00:21):
knowledge and insights needed tobecome more informed and engaged
citizens and active members ofyour communities.
So let's get into it.
A big part of our mission hereis to help increase
understanding of civics, namelyour rights and perhaps even more
importantly, ourresponsibilities to each other

(00:43):
as citizens.
Joining us today to answer ourCivics question of the week is
U.S.
Marine Corps veteran and deputychief of citizenship and
applicant information servicesat the U.S.
Citizenship and ImmigrationService, my dear friend Al
Eskalis.
So, Al, tell us, why doesAmerica need immigration?

SPEAKER_02 (01:01):
The United States, you know, is always and has and
has been a nation of immigrants.
I mean, that's who we are at ourfoundation.
That's who we are when we talkabout the fabric of our nation.
That's it.
It's we are a nation ofimmigrants, people that have
come from other parts of theworld and invested in this
experiment of ours and have uhhave formed the fabric of who we

(01:25):
are.
Uh it's who I am.
I think, you know, one of thethings I think about, uh, you
know, I was born and raised inEgypt, that I immigrated to this
country with my parents andfamily.
So in a very real sense, uh weneed immigration so I could be
here.
And right, so and in a sense,when you look at who makes up
our nation, uh, it is it is thatvery diverse, it is that that

(01:46):
very uh passionate group ofpeople that want to be a part of
something that's bigger thanthey are, which is this thing,
that nebulous thing, right, thatwe call the American dream.
Uh and and that's you know, thatthat's in a in a very idealistic
sense, uh, that is why we needimmigration to continue to feed
this experiment of ours, thisdemocracy of ours, uh, in a very

(02:07):
practical sense.
When you think about all theimmigrant-granting nations of
the world, um, we have andalways will be and and uh and
are the top of that list, uh,you know, along with other
democracies that that drawpeople in.
Uh and when you look at theworld through the lens of uh,
you know, a competitivebusiness, when you think about

(02:28):
who we're drawing in, right?
Who we're drawing into ournation and who is is gonna lift
up this nation of ours and andensure its success now and into
the future, uh, that very muchis a huge part of our
immigration goal and ourimmigration uh program.
And um and at the end of theday, you know, the sign on the
door for my agency is that uhyou know, we are here to support

(02:54):
and uphold a nation of welcomeand a nation of immigrants that
supports the American dream.
Uh and and so that uh in a senseis why America needs
immigration.

SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
Hello, friends.
Today we're here with a specialguest with an amazing story who
just published a book called TheUnit.
My life fighting terrorists asone of America's most secret
military operatives.
His work was so highlyclassified, we will call him by
a pseudonym Adam Gamal.
Adam's co-author and my dearfriend Kelly Kennedy is here as
well.
Kelly and my wife wrote a booktogether several years ago, like

(03:30):
Adam.
Kelly is a U.S.
Army veteran who later became aninvestigative journalist and
author.
So, why is this book important?
We've heard a lot over the yearsabout Delta Force and SEAL Team
6 since 9-11.
Maybe a little too much on theSEAL side.
Being a Marine, I'm a littlebiased.
But this is the first and onlybook ever to be written by a
member of America's most secretmilitary unit.

(03:50):
This is a unit whose members goin before the first Special
Forces Operation DetachmentDelta or Naval Special Warfare
Development Group, aka SEAL Team6, hit the target.
They're the people largelyresponsible for finding and
fixing the target so other Tier1 teams can finish them.
Rally trained in warfare,self-defense, infiltration, and
deep surveillance, the unit, asthe Department of Defense has

(04:11):
asked us to refer to it, hasbeen responsible for preventing
dozens of terrorist attacks inthe Western world.
Never before has a member ofthis unit shared their story
until now.
From Adam Gamal, one of the onlyMuslim Arab Americans to serve
inside the unit, comes anincisus firsthand account of our
nation's most secret militarygroup.
To protect his identity, Adamwill also be using a voice

(04:32):
scrambler for today's interview.
So please bear with us andunderstand this is for his and
his family's protection.
So on with the show.
Adam, Kelly, welcome to the uhVeteran Democracy Podcast.

SPEAKER_05 (04:42):
Thanks for having us.

unknown (04:44):
Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 (04:44):
Thank you, Joe.
Yeah, it's so uh, you know, I Itold um Kelly before you got on,
Adam, I burned through your bookin two days.
Like I sat down one night and Ifound myself halfway through and
needed to go to bed, and um gotup the next day and burned
through the rest of it.
I just couldn't put it down.
So well done on a great,important story, uh artfully
told.

SPEAKER_03 (05:06):
Well, Joe, thank you.
Uh it's uh it's a pleasure to bewith you, and I wanted to thank
Kelly Kennedy for actually uhbeing very patient dealing with
me, dealing with my uh Englishas a second language.
So uh uh thanks to you guys.

SPEAKER_00 (05:20):
Hey, you're yeah, you you speak it far better than
I speak any other language onthe planet.
Um I do a little Spanish and alittle Japanese, but hey man,
you know.
Hey, let's let's dive intothings.
Like I'm curious, like how forthe two of you to start off, how
hard was it to write a bookabout your experiences in a unit
that's so classified thePentagon wouldn't actually let
you use the real name of theunit?

SPEAKER_03 (05:42):
So I'll start if Kelly doesn't mind.
So first uh again, Joe, I wantedto thank you for uh the
opportunity to allow me to tellmy story on your podcast.
And then uh I just wanted tohighlight while it was not easy
to write the book to go throughthe process, uh, I wanted to
thank actually current unit, uhcurrent and former unit

(06:04):
leadership, the uh the SOCOM andthe JSON security personnel who
actually worked with us to getus through the process.
Uh the process took uh I want tosay maybe about 14 months.
Uh we ended up going back andforth, back and forth, and then
after they redacted a lot ofthings, they allowed me actually
to go and sit with them after werequested that uh through our

(06:26):
lawyer to go through theirredactions.
And then we went line by line.
Uh it took us about four hourssitting with uh unit security,
JSOC security, SOCOM security,CLTM6 security, delta security.
Uh and uh without the support wegot from them and without uh us

(06:47):
uh following the rules, I don'tthink we would have gotten that
far.
Uh and people blaming us forfollowing the rules because a
lot of people wanted more uhsecrets, I guess.
But uh I wanted to just uhremind everybody we respected
the system because of the systemand because we wanted to protect
the men and women who are stillin the fight.

SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
Yeah, who are still in the fight.
But then also um I'd imagine youknow a lot of your fellow
teammates and the people who hadgone before you in the unit are
you know out of uniform now.
They're living in America ascivilians and citizens, and uh,
there's a lot of nasty peoplearound the world who remember
who on their team they lost andprobably uh have a have a target

(07:29):
list of who they'd like to exactrevenge on.
So I mean I think those securityconcerns make a lot of sense to
me, and I think they will to ourlisteners as well.
Um, what what motivated you totell this story, though?
Like, you know, you woke up oneday and said, I've got a story
with me and I got a book towrite.
Um, how did that come to be?

SPEAKER_03 (07:47):
So it's uh this is interesting because I have three
reasons.
Uh and I tried to like summarizethe reasons to make sure that
people can understand.
Uh, but I want to say first,like, we're not Delta.
Uh you said it, but I wanted tomake sure people, because when
we talk to anybody and they sayyou called the book the unit to
fool people, we did not.

(08:08):
Uh we had a different name.
Uh DUD redacted the name andthey suggested uh the unit.
But the main reasons I wrote thebook is uh there is an
organization that uh doing greatwork.
Uh they're working in the shadowto protect Americans from drugs,
from terrorism, uh, as well ashelp in any hostage rescue
mission uh where Americans areinvolved.

(08:31):
So Americans that can actuallygo to sleep safe.
So I wanted to tell the story ofthose of those guys and girls
who uh who've been doing themission and working hard, uh,
especially after 9-11.
Uh I think we were deployingthree, four months on, three,
four months off.
Uh, and we went like that.
I went like that for uh 10, 11years.
Uh so during those 10, 11 years,uh I went to the unit when my

(08:55):
first daughter was born when Iwas in when I was in selection.
Uh sorry, when I was in thecourse actually after selection,
uh I was in the swimming pooland they came and they said,
Hey, you need to come out.
Uh your wife is giving birth.
So, and my second daughter wasborn there.
I was shot when I was there.
And so a lot of things happenedin those 10, 11 years, and
imagine deploying 14 times in uhin those 10 to 11 years.

(09:18):
So that's that's the number onereason, just to talk about an
organization that uh working inthe shadow and it's not very
well known.
Uh, and then the other reason uhfor uh everybody uh when we talk
about such an organization thatit's uh part of uh the tier one
units, the MJSOC, everybodyimagines, have a certain

(09:40):
imagination.
And I think we maybe Tom Hanksis not uh maybe uh Sylvester
Stallone is like the guy.
Like everybody have an image inhis mind.
So I wanted to tell people likeyou, the unit actually to be
successful.
I mean, we had just like thelike the army does, just like
America does.
We have whites, we haveHispanics, we have Orientals,
blacks, uh, in my case, Arabs.

(10:03):
So I wanted uh like the guys,for example, who went after
Pablo Escobar.
Uh they were most of them wereHispanics.
There were some whites there aswell, and I wanted to give
credit to those guys.
I don't want people to think uhwe all uh look the same and we
all look uh the typical JSOCguys or the SEAL team 6 guys who

(10:24):
wrote a book.
Uh last but not least, I wantedto talk to the immigrant
community, uh especially theones who look like me.
Uh I want them to embrace theirnew way, their new way of life,
take advantage of what uh allAmerica has to offer.
Uh don't be shy.
Uh America's giving youeducation, freedom, and uh the

(10:45):
opportunity to serve.
So why not?

SPEAKER_00 (10:47):
Yeah.
No, that makes so much sense tome.
And you know, I I uh I'm aneuroscience nerd, I've studied
theories of persuasion for along time, and I know about like
group dynamics, like in order tojoin a group, you've really got
to feel like there's some smallslice of you there, right?
Um, and you need to see thatfirst.
And so I think that is soimportant.
I mean, you you know, you hit onso many important things.

(11:09):
You know, people talk aboutdiversity that's becoming like
kind of a polarized issue in thepress today.
But like when we really talkabout like real capability, what
you're telling me, if Iunderstand you correctly, is we
need a lot of people from a lotof different cultural
backgrounds, and and this isn'tsurface characteristics, this is
deep skills, language, culture,understanding, the ability to

(11:30):
move and communicate uh and beeffective with them to be
successful to our nationalsecurity.
Is that do I have that right?
Absolutely.
You hit the name in the head.
Yeah.
No, you you you you made youmade that point beautifully in
your book.
And you know, within the book,that I mean, your journey is um,
I'm guessing, you know, probablya three, four decade uh uh time

(11:52):
period where you have your yourchildhood in Egypt, your
decision to come to the US andserve in the army, and then you
know, you you became an adminclerk, right?
And then all of a sudden youlike you had a calling to do
more and went to SOF and then tothe unit.
So like when when you think ofyour perspective America, like
I'm curious how that's changedfrom when you were standing as a
boy in Egypt, you know, lookingat this idea of America to

(12:15):
experience it to today.
Like, how has it changed fromfrom that first perspective?

SPEAKER_03 (12:20):
So let me start by saying I do firmly still believe
uh America is the best countryin the world.
Uh however, can we do better?
Of course we can.
The military kind of liketeaches us uh there is always
room for improvement.
They tell you that every year,they tell you you dig your
foxhole the first night and thenyou improve it every day.

(12:42):
So unfortunately, I'm afraidlately uh some people seem to
ignore that uh we are a countryof immigrants.
Uh from the we can go back tothe first historical immigration
wave, uh, when the Europeanssettled in the US, they were
immigrants.
Uh after that, subsequently, wehave uh Irish, Italians,

(13:04):
Chinese, Arabs, and Jews in thelast two centuries, a lot of
those are came to America.
So the if you look at uh thediversity and how the
demographic uh of America is uhbuilt the country the way how it
is, I feel in the last uh Idon't want to say like maybe a

(13:27):
couple of decades, we keeptalking about how uh immigrants,
some people say immigrants arenot welcome, not taking into
consideration either the peoplewho are saying that, either
their parents, theirgrandparents, their great
great-grandparents, they wereimmigrants as well.
Uh we seem to forget a lot aboutthe economic contribution of the

(13:48):
immigrant community.
They uh played an extremelycrucial uh uh role in the
economic development of America.
Uh they contributed intoinnovation, entrepreneurship,
agriculture.
Uh there are a lot of policies,immigration policies that we
keep going and going over andnot uh realizing those

(14:10):
immigration policies.
Uh those are not just policies,those are things that impact in
people's lives, uh givingsomebody the opportunity to be
uh retiring from the USmilitary, uh, joining, serving
in some of the best units,learning, uh educated.
Uh if we close those doors, weare uh I'm afraid we create in

(14:33):
uh desperate situations aroundthe world, and that subsequently
creates uh more extremistgroups, more radicals.
So I think we just need to uhrealize again the immigration
thing, it's not a uh it's notthere is no uh monopoly on it.

(14:54):
You cannot come in and close thedoor behind you.
Um because if the guy before youcame and closed the door, you
would have never been here.

SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, and a lot of us need toremember, you know, if your
family wasn't here in before 15,you know, 40 or 1580, you you're
an immigrant family, right?
Like even for the people whowere there before, you know,
they crossed the the BeringStrait like 14,000 years ago
when the sea levels were lower.
So like you know, we we all kindof came here, right?
And I think that's one of thethings that makes America a

(15:26):
special place, right?
We we bring, I mean, show meanother country where everyone
in the world wants to come to.
I mean, those places are rare,right?
Um and uh, you know, I've beenyou've been to more countries
than I have.
But I last tal I did I was I'vebeen fortunate to deploy and and
travel to more than 30.
And I'm grateful, I mean, I'mgrateful for the experience to

(15:46):
go out and see the world.
I'm also very grateful to comeback here, you know, at the end
of my travels.
Um I'm curious because likeEgypt's uh an interesting place,
and you ended up growing upthere, and you you detailed that
in your book.
I mean, I remember in gradschool, I was looking at the how
Al-Qaeda was persuading young uhmen to uh take up arms for them.

(16:08):
And I read pretty mucheverything attributable to Iman
al-Zawahiri and UBL, and I knowa lot of that was built on the
writings of Sayyid Khutub, Ithink is how you say his last
name, if I'm saying thatcorrectly, Saeed Kutub, uh, from
the Muslim Brotherhood.
And that that shows upprominently in in the early
chapters of the book, andespecially chapter three, a
world of walls.
You describe a deep focus on theimpact of the Muslim Brotherhood

(16:32):
on Egyptian society.
And I was curious, like, how didthat shape your early thinking
and what challenged thatworldview in those narratives?
Because clearly you didn'tsubscribe to it, but it it
having read a lot of that stuff,it is a subductive narrative and
a lot of the same techniquesthat we use to recruit people
under the Marine Corps.
So um, you know, like how didhow did you not fall prey to

(16:54):
that thinking?

SPEAKER_03 (16:55):
So I it's this is very interesting because if you
talk to uh 90% of the people inthe world, most likely they've
never heard of uh Sayyid Kutb.
So Khutb is I think how topronounce it.
But uh 90% of the people in theworld never heard of the guy.
Uh a lot of people don't knowactually uh Sayyid Khutbu

(17:15):
started as a secular guy.
So the the Muslim Brotherhoodstarted in 1928.
Uh that was the beginning of it.
And it started in Egypt, and itwas in our modern history the
first form of political Islam.
Uh before there was like uhsimilar to separation of church
and state, uh, with separationof religion and uh governing, uh

(17:36):
although uh the Arab world orthe Muslim world, their uh
religion is part of Islam ispart of their day-to-day life.
But uh so from 48 to 1950, SaidKud was a secular guy, went to
the US, actually traveled aroundto uh to pursue education and to
learn about education, and hecame back impressed by how the

(17:59):
US is uh uh technologicallyadvanced, innovative, uh doing
very well, even even in the 40sand the 50s.
Yeah, but one thing he said wasuh in one of his books was very
interesting.
He said, but the US is morallycorrupt.
So you you think about this, andthen he took those uh he took

(18:21):
those ideas.
Well, during that time too,there was like the 1952 military
coup in Egypt by the freeofficers.
Uh so there was like I think amarriage of convenience between
the military uh the freeofficers movement and the Muslim
Brotherhood.

SPEAKER_00 (18:37):
Okay.

SPEAKER_03 (18:38):
So the Muslim Brotherhood had a lot of
influence, they have a lot of uhfollowers, and the military
needed validation.
Uh so they they have thismarriage of convenience, and
then the military realized,well, guess what?
These Muslim Brotherhood guysare not uh helping us.
So they pushed them underground,and once they pushed them
underground, that opened thedoor for their uh underground

(19:01):
preaching.
So no check and balance, nobodytelling them what you're doing
is right, what you're doing iswrong.
Uh I was lucky.
I grew up in uh Alexandria,Egypt.
It's uh from the Mediterranean,as everybody knows, built by
Alexander the Great.
So it has a lot of Roman uhhistory.
So it's more of a Roman culturein Alexandria than uh Arab or

(19:23):
Middle Eastern.
I'm not saying this is good orbad, but uh because of the how
well Egypt was doing at thattime, uh in the 20s, 30s, 40s,
50s, a lot of uh large Europeancommunity was living there
Italians, French, Greeks.
And and we ended up living inthe same neighborhoods and we
were friends.

(19:44):
So, in addition to my dadwhipping my ass, if I uh go uh
to the wrong direction, uhhaving those friends around open
your eyes and kind of like yousee, you know what, the Muslim
Brotherhood saying these guysare bad, well they're not bad
because I'm I'm living withthem.
Uh and I know them and they arefriends.
If uh if we close the door andyou live with only your own

(20:07):
society, and people tell youthat people from the other side
are bad, what are you gonnathink they are bad unless you're
really interacting with them?
You're gonna believe it.
Yep.
That's right.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (20:18):
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I uh that was a reallyfascinating part of your story
to me, especially, you know,kind of with the stuff I've
read.
Um, but yeah, the wholeseductive narrative of like
knights under the prophet'sbanner, you know, revenge and
wrongs from the crusades, likeyou know, I mean, I could see
when I was reading that stuff, Iwas looking at like how we
recruit Marines, and it's likebe part of a group, have a

(20:40):
mission, you know, uh, you know,we will take care of you, you
know, you will you you'll youknow you you'll make history and
live on in um in the legend ofthe core forever, you know, like
those kind of things.
There were so many similaritiesbetween their approach and our
approach, but you know, it'skind of like all to uh what
purpose, right?
And so I think um could youdescribe for uh everyone

(21:04):
listening, like what was it likefor you to come to America?
You made a decision to comehere, and uh it's I mean, it's
kind of a a hair-raising storyof of where you ended up uh when
you first got off the plane andthen what went on from there.
So could you can you tell uslike what was it like?
Um what made you want to do it,like who helped you when you
arrived, you know, that thatinitial part of landing here in

(21:25):
the States?

SPEAKER_03 (21:26):
So yeah, I want to, yeah, it's it's very
interesting, but I want to tellyou like three uh three uh
anecdotes, I guess, or threeideas that stuck to my head.
And they didn't all happen whenI first arrived, it happened
like over the first two, threeyears.
Uh I was walking in New YorkCity uh and it started snowing,
and that was my the first timeseeing snow in my life.

(21:47):
And honestly, in the beginning,it was like these snowflakes
that you get in the beginning,and I was like, why is there
cotton falling off the sky?
And then you realize it's notcotton, it's snow, and then you
feel the snow is watching theair, and then you feel like you
know what, you can reallybreathe clean, fresh air.
So it gives you uh so those arethe things like stuck to my head

(22:10):
like I'm breathing better.
Uh first first thing that stuckto my head is like, you know, my
first day in New York City.
Again, I was 20, uh, but Ilooked like 14.
I totally looked like a kid.
And uh a friend of mine, neitherone of us spoke English, a
friend of mine and I, uh theyhave this when you are a

(22:30):
student, they give you aninternational uh student ID and
they give you a booklet when youget this uh student ID of uh
economic places to stay at whenyou travel.
So they gave me a list of allthe YMCS in uh in New York.
Uh so I was uh get get off theplane, take a bus to take you to

(22:52):
the subway.
This is JFK.
Uh my buddy is smoking acigarette on the train, on the
subway, and everybody's lookingat us like we are idiots.
And he's uh um he's telling melike why you think people are
looking at us?
I was like, maybe because you'resmoking.
And he's like, No, I don't thinkso.
And we keep going back and I waslike, dude, I really think
because you're smoking.
Before that, because I annoyedthe bus driver so many times

(23:14):
trying to ask him where to getoff the bus.
Uh he took the booklet from me,sat me down uh because I
couldn't understand what he wastelling me.
Uh finally, he we got to thestop, he took me off the bus, I
get in the subway, we take thesubway uh to where the YMCA is
at, and we could not find ourway out of the underground.

(23:37):
Uh asked the police officer afew times.
Uh he tells me where to go, it'sSunday.
Uh a lot of the turnstiles and alot of the doors are locked.
So I go up and down, up anddown.
Finally, the police officer waslike, you know what, let me just
take you.
So he held my hand literally andwalked me to the street.
So I'm like, well, he was a nicepolice officer.

(23:59):
Uh in Egypt, we don't havethose.
Uh we didn't have those.
Maybe now there are, but uh,back then the police was your
enemy, even if you were uh adecent citizen.
Uh then I had a phone numberfrom a friend of mine's mom uh
who was with me in the BoyScouts in Egypt.
And uh she gave me his phonenumber and she forgot to write
the number one.

(24:20):
Uh the area code before thenumber.
So I am in the YMCA.
I have$500 I borrowed from mysister.
I hid my$500 in uh my shoes andmy socks because I was terrified
because that's all I had.
Yeah.
Uh and then uh I'm trying tocall this guy in New Jersey or
in New York, and I'm trying tocall him to tell him this is

(24:40):
where I'm at.
And then it it takes me uh uhtakes me like back and forth,
back and forth.
I think it was like two or threeo'clock in the morning.
Yeah, uh it's a common bathroomthere where the phone is at,
some junkie standing there, uhliterally, and I think he got
tired of me seeing me, so hetook the phone number from my

(25:02):
hand, he dialed the phone forme, and my friend on the other
side finally uh I got a hold ofhim.
And uh I don't want to ruin thestory for the reader, so I'll
stop there for this one.
But the third thing stuck in myhead, uh, again, a lot of people
take this for granted.
Uh, a few years later, and Istill couldn't speak English, I
took some English as a secondlanguage.

(25:23):
I'm learning English in thestreet, but I see Bill Clinton
debating uh with uh George Bush.
Uh war-time Sidden president,and uh I'm understanding like
you know, two words here, fivewords there.
I'm like, holy crap, here is uha young Bill Clinton who looked
like he was in his 40s, and he'sdebating with this Sidden

(25:45):
president who's uh wartimepresident, uh former director of
CIA with like a big deal, and Iwas like, you know what?
This is the country that whereyou can uh uh uh freely breathe,
um feel the freedom, and uhserve.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (26:03):
Yeah, yeah, no, and uh I mean I just can imagine the
first time I stepped intoManhattan, I was overwhelmed,
and I just can't imagine liketrying to navigate that city,
not understanding English, a fewhundred bucks in your pocket, uh
you know, seven digits of anine-digit phone number, and at
the YMCA, which you know, in innot the greatest part of town,

(26:23):
um kind of set you up forselection, right?
Like in some ways.
Um, but like from there, likewhat made you want to join the
army?
I mean, you could have done alot of different things here.
Uh, you know, you had a youstudied law, I mean, clearly a
very bright person.
Um, what made you decide to jointhe army?

SPEAKER_03 (26:42):
You know, that's uh that's uh another great
question.
Uh so people asked me actually,and I'm gonna tell you the
answer I tell them, but I'mgonna give you the answer,
obviously.
But a lot of people ask me, whydid you join the army?
And I was like, why didn't you?
So uh to me, it was like a wayof uh becoming 100% American.
Uh again, while America is thegreatest country, it's a country

(27:04):
of immigrants.
A lot of people don't seeimmigrants as fully Americans.
So it's a way of like, you knowwhat, you get in your your
credits, you get in your streetcreds.
Uh and it was gonna pay for mycollege.
Uh I was gonna learn skill setsthat I would have never learned
anywhere else.
The army has uh the army's matunow is the army's matto is back

(27:26):
then, which it was like uh it isnow, all you can be all you can
be.
Yeah.
So I was like somebody tellingme I can be all I can be, why
not?

SPEAKER_00 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah.
I think a lot of people don'tunderstand that um about our
military is that it has been thespringboard uh for people from
all walks of life to social andeconomic advancement more than
any other institution in theUnited States.
You know, and I think for one,number two, um, your point about
like wanting to be fullyAmerican and kind of you know

(27:57):
earning your dues, boy, that isa theme I've also heard from uh
African Americans.
So like the Montfort PointMarines, who were the first
African Americans in the MarineCorps during World War II, um,
you know, I went to sit at theirconference and talk to, you
know, had dinner with them andtalked to them.
And I was like, I gotta tellyou, like, you are a way better
Marine than I would ever beenbecause like you know, joining

(28:18):
the Marine Corps under Jim Crowlaws with a commandant that
didn't even want you, you had tobuild your own boot camp.
Um, I was like, I don't think Iwould have done it.
And they were they said the samething you did.
They're like, we just wanted toprove that we could and that we
were every bit as American aseveryone else.
And I'm like, that hit me like asledgehammer.
I was just like, I'm so proud ofyou.
Like, you know, um that thatmakes a lot of sense to me.

(28:38):
And and then, you know, you justweren't content with with being
an admin clerk.
Like, you decided not only tolike come to America, make that
difficult journey, navigate yourway through New York City, which
is no small challenge, join thearmy and serve, right?
Which is commendable, but thenyou're like, hey, let me take on
the most dangerous, clandestine,high-risk work at great personal

(29:00):
risk to your life, at great costto your family.
Um, tell me about the decisionto do that.
I mean, that's above and beyondin my book.
Like, you know, you'redefinitely the extra credit uh
student in the class, right?
So tell me about that thatjourney.

SPEAKER_05 (29:13):
Can I can I add something in here?

SPEAKER_00 (29:15):
Yeah, please, please.

SPEAKER_05 (29:16):
So when I think about Adam with the guide on
running around formations, likeI can totally picture that guy
in the unit, you know.

SPEAKER_03 (29:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 (29:24):
The the really annoying guy.
Okay, go ahead, Adam.

SPEAKER_03 (29:28):
So, yes, the really annoying guy who also always
wanted to do something extra.
So initially, so let's go backto when I joined.
So initially, I was uh thinkingI came from a coastal city.
So I'm like, why not join theNavy?
So I go to the recruitingstation, I uh looking, I'm
looking for uh the Navyrecruiter, and uh an army
recruiter is there, and he'slike, Why do you want to join

(29:48):
the Navy?
I said, I like the Navy, theyhave boats, I like water, and
he's like, We have boats too.
And uh he's like, Do you know uhwho's this the second largest
air force in the world?
I said, No, he's like the USArmy.
He's like, So we have moreairplanes than anybody else, uh
other than the US Air Force.

(30:09):
We have uh boats, we haveeverything, so uh you should
join the army.
So I joined the army.
Uh again, because I did not haveuh I wasn't a US citizen yet.
I just had a green card at thattime, which by the way, it
wasn't green, it was pink.
I don't know why they called itgreen card.
But uh so I couldn't join, uh Icouldn't be in a lot of jobs.

(30:29):
So it was like uh a certainlimited limited uh amount of
jobs that you could join as a asa as a green card holder.
So uh fast forward, I as anadmin guy, I uh was a military
police unit, an infantry unit.
So they're like, okay, theseguys fit, like Kelly said, runs
around formations.

(30:50):
Uh so I would go out with theMPs, I would go out with the
infantry guys, uh, and then Iwanted to do more.
Uh so I I uh I was like, youknow, I have good uh language
skills, I will save the army uhmost likely hundreds of
thousands of dollars rather thansending me to learn uh uh
Arabic.

(31:11):
I speak Arabic already.
So I was like, well, let me bean interrogator.
Called the interrogator branch,and they were like, this 1999,
and he's like, we don't need anyArabic speakers.
I said, I'm a native Arabspeaker, I will save you a lot
of money.
Uh you can just send me to theinterrogator, the interrogator
course.
And he's like, no, no, I don'thave any need for uh for guys
who speak Arabic.
I said, okay, well, thank you.

(31:32):
Then uh the SIGIM branch, signalintelligence branch at that
time, they uh they sent me aletter and like, hey, you can be
a SIGIN guy.
So I was like, okay, great.
Uh and she's like, hey, well, sowe'll re-enlist, we'll give you
$20,000.
And I've never, at that time,I've never had$20,000 in my
life.
And I was like, this is a bigbonus.

(31:52):
So they uh she's like, hey,since you speak Arabic very
well, we'll send you to DLI,Defense Language Institute, to
be an MLI, military languageinstructor.
And I said, I said, no, I wantto go to Fort Bragg.
She's like, you got to be thedumbest guy in the army.
Uh I'm telling you, go toMonterey, California.
You want to go to Faithville,North Carolina.

(32:13):
So uh she's like, send me it,fax me.
That was no like, it wasn't easyto email and stuff.
So it's like, fax me your uhyour uh request.
She issued my orders faster thananything else, and I think she
did it before I changed my mind.
Yeah.
Then um, and everybody asked me,Why did you want to go to Fort
Bragg?
I'm like, you know, home of thespecial operation, uh, home of

(32:34):
the 82nd Airborne Division.
Uh, I spent time in the 82nd.
So uh doing that, jumping out ofairplanes and doing all those
things, and I'm like, well, youknow, I want to be uh special
guy.
So special guy go to specialoperations.
So I'm like, yeah, I'lldefinitely do that.
Then uh as I am in the 82nd,they um the unit comes and they

(32:57):
recruiting, and my firstsergeant sent me to attend uh
the recruiting brief, therecruiting brief.
And my wife at that time uh hadjust was recently like newlywed.
Uh my wife came from uh Egypt toFaithville, North Carolina,
which is a was a huge culturalshock for her.
But uh she she was getting hermaster's degree and we bought a

(33:20):
condo and we sat.
So when I first got the when Ifirst got the application and
the paperwork, I took it and Iput it in the trunk of my car
and I was like, I'm not notreally ready to move now, maybe
in a couple of years.
Uh four or five months after9-11 happened.
Uh that changed uh everything.
And if you were in the military,when 9-11 happened, if you were

(33:43):
not willing to, if you if youdidn't think you have an
obligation to serve more, youhad an issue.
And then I felt I had doubleobligations.
Uh I uh the guys who did uh thethe the 9-11, uh they were
so-called Muslims, they theypart of where I came from.
So I felt I had all of theseextra uh skill sets I can uh I

(34:08):
can offer.
Uh so that was no it was ano-brainer for me to to do that,
and uh I had no regrets uh evenafter I got shot.
I didn't have I didn't thinkabout leaving uh and doing
something else.

SPEAKER_00 (34:22):
Yeah, and and that's that's a credit to your
character.
I mean, we we had Marines kindof sneaking out of hospitals to
go back to their unit in Iraqand Afghanistan.
I mean, I I could see that samequality in you uh just reading
between the lines of of yourstory.
Um yeah, that the wholeexperience, I'm sure your your
wife probably felt like shelanded on a foreign planet in um

(34:44):
in North Carolina.
Uh but you know, the the otherthing that struck out in chapter
14, and Kelly, like I'd like toask you about your your thoughts
on this too, because it leadsback to another conversation
that you had with Kate and thebook, you know, when you were
arguing for like you know,expanding the pool of people for
infantry tanks, artillery, andgetting rid of the ground combat

(35:04):
exclusion to allow women intothose to compete for those jobs.
Not a guarantee, but to competefor them.
You know, a lot of the argument,um, especially remember at that
New York City Bar Associationdebate was like, well, women are
just too small, they can't doit, they're not as strong.
And in chapter 14, what'sinteresting is like um, you
know, uh Adam makes the case forlike a brains over brawn in the

(35:26):
in the unit, right?
And they're looking not for thedude that is like me or bigger,
the six foot three, you know,230-pound door kicker.
They're looking for a wholedifferent cat.
And you know, um Adam describedyou know, you're you're like
5'1, and uh I heard I thinkabout 120, 130 pounds is what
what I read in the book.

(35:47):
Um I looked up Auddy Murphy,who's the most decorated soldier
in World War II, and he was onlyfive foot five and a half uh and
112 pounds, and you know, wasthe most decorated combat
veteran in World War II.
So like I was just curious,like, how how did that come up
in your conversation?
How did you both decide to framethat?
I guess that's a question forboth of you.

(36:08):
I'll let Kelly go first.

SPEAKER_05 (36:11):
You know, I think what was interesting for us
working together on this thisbook was that we're very
different, but we're also we'vegot some some odd similarities
as far as our military service,that sense of other, while
knowing that there were thingsthat we could do because of the
other.
Um and yeah, I mean, Kate wasable to show that with proper

(36:35):
training, um most people can dosome some pretty great things,
or a lot of people could do somepretty great things.
Um but I think Adam beingdetermined from the time he was
tiny, you know, running thebeaches and trying to get over
asthma attacks and just beingkind of an unwell kid.

(36:58):
Um I mean, he would have beenover able to overcome anything.
And if you make a decision basedon his height and his weight and
his you know ethnicity or hisbackground, that's a no, then
that's kind of down, you know,so yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 (37:16):
And maybe to to Adam's point, like you know, you
I'm guessing that you'reprobably one of the one of the
smallest guys in your unit,right?
Physically, but the six isbetween your ears, like you
know, the the brain that youhave and and how you're able to
to be very clever and and uh andthoughtful uh and creative and
problem solving is really likeyour superpower there, right?

(37:39):
You know, so like how how didyou navigate that?
Because like, you know, marinescome in two sizes.
We got like dope runnerretrievers and pitbulls, and you
know it's uh you know, I'mcurious, like how did you
overcome, you know, maybe someof the the skepticism around not
fitting the stereotype of whatpeople expect typically of a
soft person, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 (38:00):
So I'll tell you a couple of funny stories on this,
and I think that will um explainto your listeners how I was
thinking, what I why I think theway I think, and what qualities
I think people should have.
So funny, funny enough is when Idid join the army, I was 112
pounds.
So I was the same weight as AudiMurphy.
Uh when I joined, when I went tothe 82nd and I went to the unit,

(38:21):
I was 128 pounds.
Uh so when I uh was going tolike military free fall school,
uh I'm the guy that gave him auh a weight belt so I can wear
it, so I can uh descend witheverybody else.
But uh I uh firmly believe it'sthe size of the heart, it's not
the size of your body.
So when you were saying like Iwas the smallest guy in the

(38:41):
unit, I think I was the smallestguy in the army.
Some uh some guy in Washington,DC decided to break into my car
to steal my class A uh uniformbecause it was in uh it was in a
in a suit, uh Garment bag.
So he thought it was a suit.
And I was like, man, I'm theonly guy in the entire army.
Most likely can fit thatuniform.
So I don't know who you're gonnasell it to.

(39:03):
But uh during during selection,uh and this is not just our
selection, this is selection forthe majority, if not all, of the
special operation community, butspecifically for the tier one
units uh that fall under JSON.
They look at grit.
Correct.
Correct.

(39:23):
So Delta SEAL Team Six has acouple of other units fall in
that category.
Uh so they look at crit.
They look at like, are you likethey're gonna put you through
physical pain that any humanbeing cannot take it?
What gets you going is yourmental so your mental toughness,
which is your grit.

(39:44):
Uh you can think on your own,you can make decisions when
you're on your own.
You uh you work well as anindividual because some stuff
they give you tasks you do 100%as an individual.
You work very well in a teambecause.
Because you do other tasks whenyou are in a team.
Sometimes you are the teamleader, sometimes you are the

(40:05):
guy who is led.
And you might be led by the mostjunior person.
When we go to selection, likeagain, like any other selection,
uniform or sanitized, so noname, no rank.
So I cannot, I have to earn therespect not based on my rank.
I have to earn the respect notbased on my uh anything.
I have to earn the respect ofthe team.

(40:32):
Your actions will get you there.
I wanted to highlight somethingbecause we talked about Kate, is
we uh we had females.
Uh females done as as we had uhthey've done as well as
everybody else.
They went through the same exactprocess.
And again, it's not whether youare a big guy or a small guy, a
male or a female, uh black,brown, green, white, whatever

(40:55):
you are, you're going throughthe same exact process.
So what gets you going is uhyour heart and your mind.

SPEAKER_00 (41:05):
Well said, yeah, it it your your sentiment about
it's not the size of the dog,but the the amount of fight in
the dog, right?
You know, is is really what whatmatters here.
And you know, the other thingtoo is is in your community in
the unit, what I'm hearing isthat like differences are
valued.
And because like if ifeveryone's the same, like the

(41:28):
the the danger is we run intogroupthink, one, but two, we
only have one cultural lens, onelens of the world.
But what I'm hearing is that theunit actually values a
multiplicity of different views,different cultures, different
language sets, different skillsets.
So it's not just surfacediversity of like color-coding
people in different so-calledrace categories, but it's like

(41:51):
actual cognitive, cultural,linguistic, I mean like
measurable stuff diversity thatthat they're using as as tools
and occasionally weapons orshields in our national defense.
Do you have that correct?

SPEAKER_03 (42:05):
Absolutely.
Uh and I wanted to tell you aquick story here that highlights
the value of uh diversity andand uh differences.
Uh in one of my missions, whichagain in the book, we
intentionally we we did notmention names of uh locations,
missions, capabilities, anyprecise things.

(42:27):
So what I'm gonna say here, it'snot it's not something it's uh
not something that was notcleared, it's it has been
cleared.
But in one of my missions, wewere in a Middle Eastern
country.
Uh it's and it's one of the mostuh CI hostile, like uh
counterintelligence hostilecountries in the Middle East.
Uh very Russian influence inthat country.

(42:47):
And uh we were going after likethis big smuggler, uh terrorist
wannabe, but he was the lead guywho's uh moving foreign fighters
coming from different parts ofthe world to that country, and
then uh uh changing theirpassports, giving them some
Iraqi training, and then movethem to Iraq.
So, but the guy is in thatcountry that we're in, and we

(43:09):
keep going after the guy, afterthe guy in uh in my team, it was
uh uh a female.
Uh I'll call her Loris, that'snot her real name.
But uh Loris was like one ofthose uh fit girls that she does
CrossFit every day, so she mightbe able to just kill you with
her bare hands.
But uh her and I going afterthat guy, uh, she and I going

(43:31):
after that guy, and we we keeptracking the guy, tracking the
guy.
And we drive in one day, we hadequipment uh in my backpack.
I'm driving, she's sitting nextto me, and she has the GPS, and
obviously, GPSs don't work verywell in those countries, and
they're not very updated.
The country's maps are not veryupdated.
So we go into a street where weknow the bad guy's house is

(43:54):
there, and it's it's it's likean alley, but we can drive
there, and it's like it'ssupposed to be like one way
takes us to the other side.
Well, it was a dead end.
Oh some guy standing on theother side, so basically across
the street from the bad guy, itis another guy standing there.
It's it's uh summer, it's uhlate at night, it's dark, and

(44:15):
that guy goes around and he'slike, uh, hey, the road is dead
end, where are you going?
I said, I didn't know it's adead end, and he's like, Well,
just go ahead and do your uter,and then I'll help you.
So we go to his driveway, likehalfway through his driveway, to
do a uh to make a uter.
And uh it just dawned on me.
I was like, hey, what uh whathappened to the Arab
hospitality?
And the guy's like, you knowwhat?

(44:37):
The guy's like, Come in, youyou're gonna have to come in and
have some tea.
So uh I look at Loris and I rollup the window because I want to
talk to I took a look at her andI said, Hey, you're gonna
pretend you are my Russian wife.
Amazing.
And we're not gonna do anything,we're gonna go in.
So we we end up going into theguy's house.

(44:57):
He took us to the garden.
We sat there, we sat there forabout two hours.
Yeah, and uh during the twohours, Loris was very smart, she
didn't say anything, the guydidn't know any English.
Uh, he brought his wife,obviously, because I have my
wife with me.
And uh we sat down and wetalked, and the equipment is in
my backpack, the equipment isdoing what equipment's supposed

(45:19):
to do without going in detailwhat the equipment does.
Yep.
Um exactly, and then uh afterdoing all of this, and the guy
is like tells us we have to goback, he invites us to go back.
Needless to say, we didn't goback.
So the reason I'm telling youthis story is two things.

(45:41):
Uh if Flores was not with me,there is no way in hell that guy
would have invited me.
He saw a female with me, I wasno threat.
Uh, I was no, I'm a guy who'sdriving with his wife around or
his sister.
Uh and so if she wasn't with me,I would have not been invited.

(46:01):
If I didn't understand theculture and was able to pick on
it really quick to think in myfeet and tell the guy that,
Loris would have never beeninside the house.
So both of us uh needed eachother, and that's the diversity
I'm talking about.
The understanding of theculture, having people can fit
in, having people can blend in,they don't raise flags.

(46:23):
But like I said, was Loriscapable of as a matter of fact,
she had a gun.
Was she capable of killingsomebody?
Absolutely.
But uh that's not how you'regonna win a war.

SPEAKER_00 (46:34):
Yeah, oh yeah, 100%.
I mean, in the the intrepidnessof that decision, like you're
across from the target's house,deep in you know, a high threat
area, and you know, trying tofigure out like most people
would be like, oh, we're in adead end, we're in a box, box
canyon, we need to ex-fill, likeget to safety.
This is a bad tactical position.

(46:57):
You are like, hey, no, let'sjust do some humid collection
and see if we can get invitedinto the neighbor's house for
tea and see what theneighborhood's like.
That's amazing.
Like, I love that story.
Uh, I read it in the book and Iwas I was laughing out loud at
that point.
I was like, my god, like that'sjust like the same spirit of as
remembering like Orbal and Woperflew an airplane without a
pilot's license.
It's just kind of like, hey, noguts, no air metal, let's just

(47:19):
go for it.
And uh wow.
Uh yeah, that was that was agreat, great uh uh narrative in
the book.
Um let's let's switch over tonow you're out, right?
So I mean uh I'll leave it up tothe the listeners uh to read
about your experiences um withthe unit, some of the missions
that you were on that you cansort of talk about um generally,
which it ends up like uh an armsczar in East Africa getting shot

(47:44):
in the guts and surviving um andnavigating your way through a
foreign hospital.
And I can imagine that wasHarrison, but like I'll leave
the the endings to those umvignettes within the book out so
people as curiosity remainspeaked and we don't steal any of
uh uh of your thunder, but likenow that you're out and you're a
veteran, right?
I mean it's a little bit of adifferent world.

(48:05):
Um I think it's one thing foryou know straight leg infantry
people or even just you know,your Mark I mod one everyday uh
soldier or airman or marine toget out of an organization with
240 plus years of history, uhrecognized rank and status
within the group, you know,where you are in the tribe, um,
to walk out into the civilianworld, and it's a very different

(48:26):
thing.
I gotta imagine it's like avery, very different thing uh
for members of the uh IC and andespecially Tier 1 teams to make
that transition.
So so now that you're out, umfirst, like how is your
transition from the military tothe civilian world?
And then what do you see as yourrole in society?
So, you know, I'll just ask youa two-part question, which

(48:47):
interviewers aren't supposed todo, but there it is.

SPEAKER_03 (48:49):
That's fine.
So uh I'm sure Kelly wentthrough the same thing when she
transitioned.
So transitioning from themilitary to the outside, it's
never easy.
Uh, transitioning from thespecial operation community to
the outside, it's even harder.
Because a lot of guys in inregular military units, they
spend two years here, two yearshere, two years here, three
years there.
They move on.

(49:10):
Where uh where we were at, we weuh deployed together, lived in
the same houses together, wentthrough sheholes together, went
through beautiful placestogether, uh bled together, and
we went for uh we had guys whowent for uh 20 plus years in the
same organization.
Uh I was there for uh 10 plus.
Uh so leaving that and going outto the outside world is not

(49:33):
easy.
Uh you you feel like you loseyour camaraderies, you lose your
friends.
I had a friend of mine who justcalled me like a couple of weeks
ago, and he's like, Hey man, Iretired for the second time.
So he uh was in the unit, uh,retired as a military guy, went
back to the unit as a governmentuh employee to train, then
retired for his secondretirement, and he's like, I

(49:54):
lost my friends and my job andthe same thing.
And I was like, Well, you didn'tlose your friends, there are
friends, you still cancommunicate.
So I see a lot of people who,when they leave the unit or they
leave the military, they feellike they left their family
behind.
Well, you didn't.
Uh reach out to people.
Uh to me, to make that processeasier for me, uh make sure you
tell a good story about themilitary.

(50:15):
Like tell people what youwithout breaking uh any uh
security rules, just tellpeople.
Uh be proud of what you've done.
Uh don't ever be ashamed of whatyou've done.
Uh, some political decisionsmaybe have been made uh you
might didn't agree with, but youdid as a good soldier, you did
what you're supposed to do.
Uh that's that's kind of likegetting people into the

(50:41):
transition.
And then I wanted to tell thegood story too about this uh
small shadow, the the smallgroup of uh shadow warriors that
people didn't know anythingabout.
Uh that people need to know.
Uh, there are people who doingall of this work uh to protect
them so they can sleep safely.
Uh I think veterans, they're notlooking for uh thank you for
your service, and uh just uh letme shake your hand and tell you

(51:04):
thank you for your service.
I think we we we wanted a lotmore.
Uh we wanted to have a more of asociety and more of uh uh
support groups.
Uh and I'm um right now I'mworking with some of the
veterans organizations.
We we have donated uh some ofthe books proceeds already to uh
a veteran organization.
And I'm uh planning and helpinguh some organizations that

(51:27):
support uh uh immigrants.
Uh you cannot forget where youcame from.

SPEAKER_00 (51:32):
Right on.
Yeah, that makes so much sense.
Um and and you're right.
It like you know, two things.
One, you know, I told transitionand veterans like it's not good
for you to sit back and say,people don't understand me, my
community doesn't understand me.
Uh, I'm missing that sense ofconnection.
I'm like, you know, you got totake the first step towards your
community, um, and you can buildit, you know, and and find

(51:56):
you're not gonna find the samesituations, the same level of
intense camaraderie because youcan't replicate that in the
civilian world.
Like, you know, Google is notgonna put you in extremis and
then you know have thingsexploding around over you and
and that bond that comes fromsurviving things like that.
Um, but you know, it is possibleand to stay connected to the
people that you served with issupremely important, like not to

(52:19):
be isolated, right?
Because we know bad thingshappen when people get isolated.
Um let me ask you about this.
So, like what do you see as yourrole as a veteran in today's
society?

SPEAKER_03 (52:33):
Uh so I wanted to again, this is related to the
point before.
I wanted to say this again.
Uh, don't wait, like you said,don't wait for people to reach
out to you, reach out to them.
Tell your story.
Uh so as a I think veterans havea lot of responsibility.
Like you said, they need toreach out to the community.
You need to they need to tellthe community what they've been
through.

(52:53):
Don't I I hear this a lot.
You know what?
I'm not gonna talk to youbecause you you'll never
understand where I'm comingfrom.
Well, help me understand.
Tell me that.
Yeah, uh uh I'm Kelly doing anawesome job, honestly, working
with veterans, uh, telling theirstory.
Uh, she was telling their storybefore, and I think she does
continue to tell their stories.
Uh, veterans need to be apositive part of society.

(53:18):
And uh, one thing I wanted totell my fellow veterans uh I
feel it.
America doesn't owe us anything.
Uh they paid us for what we'vedone.
Uh, and we should be proud ofwhat we've done, and we should
continue to serve and continueto do what we are good at, which
is uh helping others.

SPEAKER_00 (53:35):
That's the key.
It's not about what you can getas a veteran, it's not the 10%
discount at Applebee's or theparking space at Lowe's.
Um it's not getting on the planefirst or any of that other
nonsense, but it's likecontinuing to serve.
Like our oath to theConstitution, to support and
defend the Constitution, doesn'tstop uh when we take off the
uniform for the last time.

(53:56):
And you know, I I want to kindof transition a little bit
broader now.
Like, you know, when you look atum America Today, because this
show is all about civics,helping educate veterans on
civics, uh, their rights, and Ithink more importantly, their
responsibilities as a citizen,um, and also like promoting like
understanding how yourgovernment works so you know how
to positively and patrioticallyengage to you know bring about

(54:19):
the changes that you feel areimportant within America.
Um when you look at our countrytoday, what do you see as the
greatest threat to ourdemocracy?
I feel bad that Kelly's nottalking, but so I hope no, I'm
enjoying this.

SPEAKER_03 (54:35):
Okay, so honestly, um how divided we are as a
country, it's uh sickening.
Uh I'm not with this side orthat side, but when we have uh
the mindset of if you are notwith me or against me, we've we
all feel so uh again I candisagree with your views, I can

(54:57):
disagree with your opinion, Ican disagree with the color of
shirt you're wearing.
It doesn't mean that I have tobe your enemy.
We could coexist.
Uh and I disagree with eachparty now, is like hammering the
other side.
Well, I don't want you to tellme what the other side didn't do
for me.
I want you to tell me what youdid and you will do for me.

(55:18):
Uh what the other side did ordidn't do, that's not your
problem.
That's my problem to uh butdon't try to manipulate me and
tell me, let's look, the otherside didn't do this and didn't
do this and didn't do this.
Well, tell me what you did andtell me what you're gonna do.
So I think the biggest threat toour democracy now is how divided
as a country you are and how wewent.
We have people on both ends ofthe spectrum.

(55:39):
We didn't have enough people inthe middle of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 (55:42):
Yeah, yeah.
You know, that that's a greatpoint.
Uh, we we we have frequentconversations on the show about
that, like reminding our fellowAmericans, one, about the
military and how people from allover America, different
backgrounds, even outside thecountry, came together, put
their differences aside, andserved to protect the American
people and our way of life,right?
We did that, we know how to dothat.

(56:03):
And you know, politicians cantake a page out of our book to
see like what true leadership isand mission focus and things
like that.
But like, you know, remindingour fellow Americans, like you
may disagree on policy issues,but the person on the other side
of that issue is not your enemy.
You know, they are your fellowAmerican, and remember that
first and humanize that thatthing because if you want to
change their mind, you're notgonna do it by banging on what

(56:25):
you care about.
You've got to understand whatthey care about and then
persuade them, right?
You know, and I think that'ssomething that you know they I I
know for a fact, uh, withoutknowing, uh that that's
something that they taught youat the the unit, right?
Like hot psychology, persuasion,all that stuff.
Um, but but yeah, that's that'sa great point.
I I think uh, you know, and I'mnot gonna get on my soapbox here

(56:45):
because you know we'll be hereall day, but um let me let me
ask uh two final questions.
One, like, what was it likeworking with each other?
I like the answer.

SPEAKER_05 (56:58):
It was really fun.
I mean, um, we came togetherbecause uh Adam was gonna
self-publish the book, and thatshould never have been an
option.
I mean, he had an incrediblestory to tell, but also because
the publisher um wanted to sortof limit what he had to say.

(57:18):
And yeah, Adam and I in themeeting just I I felt like in
that first meeting we weconnected pretty hard.
Like I I understood what theimportant thing was he needed to
say about his story, and I thinkhe knew that I was not um taken

(57:39):
in what this this dude wasputting out as far as like you
know, fanboy stuff.
Um and then it's just it's beenfun.
I don't, you know, I'm sure onsome level I should be scared as
hell of what he's capable of,you know.
But it's it's it's always beenvery um fun working with them.

SPEAKER_03 (58:01):
Awesome.
Yeah.
So let me let me say a couple ofthings here.
So honestly, I would have neveruh been able to get uh that far
in the in the publication of thebook without Kelly.
So I I do want to thank her forthat.
But I want to give her uhanother uh big kudos that I'm
hearing from people.

(58:22):
So I have a lot of friends,obviously, unit current unit
members, former unit members, uhoutside friends who uh uh were
in the in the governmentservice, so they know me.
They know real me.
And each one of them, they said,as we read in the book or
listening to the book, we cansee you, we can hear your voice.

(58:42):
We feel it's you talking 100%.
So a lot of people scare peopleby saying, when you have a
co-author or a ghostwriter,they're gonna express their own
voice, not yours.
Uh well, that's definitely notthe case.
Kelly was uh she she made sureit's my voice.
Uh in addition to, she'sextremely patient, and I really

(59:03):
mean it.
I'm sure I annoyed the heck outof her sometimes.
But uh it's been it's been greatworking with her.
I uh uh I think we're gonna doanother book.

SPEAKER_00 (59:14):
Awesome.
No, I I can't wait to read it.
Um one final thought.
What do you wish all veteransknew from each of you?

SPEAKER_03 (59:23):
Uh that's uh that's a loaded question, so I'm gonna
try to make it as short aspossible.
Yeah, so uh I said it earlier,be proud of your service.
But veterans need to know is allthe skill sets you've run in the
military can be uh used in theoutside world.

(59:43):
Uh your uh your teamwork, youruh integrity, your uh dedication
to mission.
So don't change, you didn't haveto change.
So when I first left in themilitary and I started doing
business, and people were like,you know, in the business world,
it's different.
And I tried, honestly, for aboutseven, eight months to uh be the
business guy, to do itdifferently, and uh I failed.

(01:00:08):
And uh I had uh I had a lightpop come up and come up in my
head, and I was like, I spent 21years in the military.
I was successful because I wasme.
Uh so be yourself, be you.
Uh be uh again surround yourselfwith uh the people who
understand you, the people whoare good to you.
Uh so veterans need to know thatand things will be great.

(01:00:30):
Don't don't be scared of theoutside world and don't be
scared to go tell somebody yourstory.
Uh be out there and make surepeople know you are vulnerable
and and and be vulnerable.
And go tell people thosestories.
Don't uh don't take the other uhthe other route, please.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:47):
Yeah, that that takes courage too.
Uh Kelly, what what what what dowhat do you wish everyone knew?

SPEAKER_05 (01:00:52):
Yeah, it it relates to that.
I think uh you know, we write inthis book a lot about vacuums,
about the spaces that arecreated when you pull away.
And I feel like there are a lotof veterans who have forgotten
who we were as a group, youknow.
Um I I started writing aboutveterans because I wanted people

(01:01:13):
to know how different we are andhow different our viewpoints are
and how different ourbackgrounds are.
But if we're going out to thecivilian world and and
forgetting how great we were asa collective, we're creating
vacuums, the same vacuums wefought when we were in the in
the service.
So um, yeah, be yourself, butremember who your pals were too,

(01:01:35):
and uh you know, think about thevacuums you're creating when you
when you go extreme one side orcreate the other or put people
into a group of things that youdon't like or or think are
correct.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:48):
For sure.
Joe, sorry, can I can I add justone thing because I'm sorry, but
uh to Kelly's point, uh uh noneof us have done the mission in
the military alone.
Uh uh we succeeded because we'vedone things together.
Uh when you are a veteran,you're not gonna succeed alone.
You succeed when you do ittogether.
So rather than uh people uhtrying to, well, I'm gonna do

(01:02:12):
this on my own, I'm gonna dothis.
No, we we're gonna do ittogether.
We can do it together, and we'lldo it a lot better together.
So don't forget uh where youcame from, and don't forget that
you uh we supported one anotherthere, and we we should continue
to support one another.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:27):
Fantastic.
We could end on a better, morepositive note.
Uh, this is Adam Gamal, theauthor of the unit My Life
Fighting Terrorist, is one ofAmerica's Most Secret Military
Operatives, and his co-author,Kelly S.
Kennedy, U.S.
Army veteran, investigativejournalist, and author
extraordinaire as well.
So uh to the two of you, thankyou.

(01:02:47):
Thank you so much.
Um, this has been a fascinatingconversation.
I highly recommend the book.
Uh I'd be beating that drumeverywhere I go, telling
everyone I know to read it.
Uh, it's an important book withan important story uh about
bravery, uh, about uh leveragingyour strengths and about having
the courage to be yourself andand serve our country.

(01:03:09):
So thank you both so much.
This has been a greatconversation, and uh I hope
you've enjoyed it half as muchas I have.

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:17):
Absolutely.
Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:22):
As part of season two, we want to provide veterans
a way of getting more involvedin their communities, to
advocate for the issues thatthey care about.
To do this, we are featuringveteran organizations that we
think you might be interestedin.
Today's spotlight is on MinorityVeterans of America, and
representing MVA today isLindsay Church.
Lindsay is a U.S.
Navy veteran and founder ofMinority Veterans of America,
which is a nonprofit dedicatedto changing the narrative of the

(01:03:45):
American veteran and buildingcommunity around unrepresented
identities.
Lindsay has nearly a decade ofexperience rooted in veterans'
advocacy and grassrootsorganizing and has facilitated
agency-wide cultural competencytrainings and assessments to
ensure organizations andgovernment entities are able to
serve their minority and veteranconstituencies effectively and
efficiently.
So, Lindsay, um, welcome to theshow.

(01:04:07):
Where are you and how are you?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:09):
Thanks for having me.
Um I am sitting live in Chicago,Illinois.
Um is a beautiful day.
It is absolutely freezing outthere.
Somebody said it's spring, but Idon't believe them.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:20):
I don't think spring comes till August in Chicago,
but hopefully it's a good time.
Well, can you um uh tell uswhat's the mission of Minority
Veterans of America?

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:31):
Yeah, uh Minority Vets is a community-based
organization.
We uh are focused on buildingcommunity and advancing equity
for minority vets.
So we work on issues of race,gender, sexual orientation, and
religion, um, all creating anintersectional movement of
veterans coming together tochange the narrative, build
community, uh, and reallyaddress the equity gaps that our

(01:04:53):
community faces so that thefuture generation of veterans uh
inherits a better community.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:58):
Awesome.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So can you please tell us, like,you know, why having a community
is so important as youtransition out of the military
and into the civilian world, andhow does that lead to success
for veterans?

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:10):
Yeah, so minority vets really face a different set
of challenges when returningback from service.
Um, I'll give you a personalanecdote.
I served under Don't Ask, Don'tTell.
I'm a queer and trans veteran.
Um I did my time, I served forfour years.
Um I was medically discharged,and I spent all of all but three
months of my service livingunder Don't Ask, Don't Tell,
which meant that I had to hideevery aspect of myself, my

(01:05:34):
sexual orientation, my genderidentity, all of it was under
wraps because serving my countrywas more important to me than my
my personal identity.
When I got out of the military,I really struggled with uh
transitioning back.
I didn't feel like I belonged inthe civilian world, which is a
pretty common um experienceamong veterans, but I also
didn't feel like I belonged inthe veteran community because I

(01:05:54):
had hidden so much of myself.
I um talk a lot about like theschism or the fracture of your
identity and how when you getout of the military, you're so
used to having to choose yourfamily or your military life
that when you go back to thereal world, uh you have to
figure out who you are.
And so I really struggled as Iwent back to school right after,
which is what a lot of veteransdo.
And when I went to go back toschool, I had to choose between

(01:06:16):
going to the veteran center orthe Q center.
And I couldn't do both.
I couldn't be a queer veteran inthat space because the queer
community often ostracizedveterans because we, you know, a
lot of times we appear aspolice.
Um and when you look at theveteran community, I had to, I
was told I like kind of had tohide myself away and it was okay

(01:06:36):
that I was gay, but I didn'tneed to talk about my wife.
Um, so all of those experiencescontributed to this overall
ostracizing of our of our likefolks like myself.
Um, this happens acrosscommunities.
So it happens with racialminorities, gender minorities,
sexual minorities, religiousminorities.
Oftentimes there's a culturalreintegration that is very
challenging for minorityveterans that most people don't

(01:06:57):
talk about or know about.
And so for us, when we weregoing to build our community, we
said it's really important thatwe build an intersectional
community because all of theseidentities have organizations
that serve one of theseidentities.
And often people would say,that's not big enough.
There's not enough LGBTQ vetsfor us to really matter.
There's not enough women vetsfor it to really count, there's
not enough racial minorityveterans, or very specifically,

(01:07:20):
there's not enough blackveterans, there's not enough
Asian veterans, there's notenough uh um American Indian
veterans.
And so you look at these smallercommunities, and people kept
saying our needs don't matter.
And when we started ourorganization, it was uh myself
and my co-founder who is aKorean American woman veteran
who also went to the Universityof Washington, and we said, I
don't understand what it livefeels like to live as your as

(01:07:41):
your as your identities, and youdon't really understand what it
feels like to live in my body.
What we do understand is thatthe same systems that are
marginalizing you aremarginalizing me.
And if we come together andbuild a broader base of all of
these people, we have weactually represent more than
half of the community.
When you look at all of thesecommunities together, we
represent about 10 millionveterans of 18 million.

(01:08:02):
So when you say that we don't wedon't matter or that we don't um
we don't belong in the communityor our needs don't matter, when
we actually came together andbuilt this intersectional
movement and this community ofpeople, we became stronger and
became a national voice forequity.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:16):
Yeah.
No, and I can't imagine like howhard it must be and how
difficult it is to navigate whenwhen you have to leave like a
significant part of yourself onthe parking lot, you know, every
day before you go into work,right?
And and then, you know, like yousaid, transitioning out into the
civilian world um and andrediscovering because uh you
know, I you know, just guardingyourself that whole time,

(01:08:40):
there's got to be a cost thatcomes with that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:43):
I mean, uh on the Don't Ask Notel front and LGBTQ
front, you see that there'shigher rates of divorce among
our community because I know I'mpersonally divorced.
My first wife um I reallystruggled to connect with, I
really struggled to bring all ofthese pieces of myself together.
Um, and I couldn't reallyconnect with her because I was
broken inside.
I had so many pieces of myself Istill had to put together, both

(01:09:04):
from my military experience andfrom this like unjust policy
that never should have beenpolicy.
When you talk about don't ask,don't tell, nobody ever talked
about don't ask, don't tell,don't pursue.
Nobody I know has ever gotten introuble for asking.
I only know people who got introuble for getting caught.
The injustice of that particularpolicy that people were allowed

(01:09:27):
to pursue and create like witchhunt situations became the
trauma and the post-traumaticstress that we experience
outside of the military.
And so I often say that peopleare survivors of Don't Ass Don't
Child in the military trans ban,and not just that they served
under that policy.

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:46):
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I was in the Pentagonwhen that happened, working for
the Commandant of the MarineCorps, and was never happier to
see a policy get thrownoverboard.
Um, you know, we were advisinghim, like, you really want to be
on the wrong side history onthis.
And all the old generals andretired commandants were
advising him otherwise, andwe're like, you are making a big
mistake here, buddy.
And uh and yeah, he went up tothe hill um advocating to

(01:10:09):
maintain the status quo, and anduh uh that's something he's
gonna have to carry.
But you know, like you know, tohis credit, he said, hey, if the
law changes, we're gonna executeit better than anybody.
And so um, you know, we we endedup going around the Marine Corps
after that, visiting everysingle unit.
And uh we kept to tell them, butlike it's only a big deal to you
old guys, right?
Like the troops don't care, theydon't care, they just don't

(01:10:31):
care.
Like anyone my age and youngerdoesn't care.
And um, you know, they thinkit's ridiculous, they think it's
silly and and and damaging foryou know for a bajillion
reasons, but um actually I arguethe opposite.

SPEAKER_01 (01:10:44):
I think that don't ask, don't tell, that policy was
actually a detraction, adistraction from everything we
were trying to accomplish as amilitary.
When you spend that much timeand that many resources
discharging people before theycan continue to serve in your
military, if you continue tospend all your resources
investigating people, stoppingpeople's orders, like all of
that is far more distractingthan somebody finding a partner

(01:11:06):
to navigate this terriblemilitary experience together.
Like I actually disagree withthe idea that queer people are a
detraction.
We actually were we did ourjobs, we have historically done
our jobs, and the amount ofresources it took to to uh
enforce this policy that doesn'tmake any sense because if it was

(01:11:27):
if everything you know kind ofshook out the way that like this
is natural, like this isn't youdon't have shouldn't have to
work this hard to enforce apolicy that of like this, like
you spend too much time and youruin people's lives.
And we you know, you're right,somebody does have to live with
that.
So do we.
We have hundreds of thousands ofpeople who have these stars for
no reason, other than somebodywas hateful and didn't

(01:11:49):
understand us.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:51):
I think you know, here's the other thing too, like
from my perspective, is like howcan you save for freedom, but
then tell the other people theycan't live their lives like like
they want?
You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:00):
So especially in the military context, because truly,
like these folks are fightingfor, or at least believe that
we're fighting for this overallfreedom and this American way of
life, but when you get out ofthe service, or even when you're
in the service, you don't oftenget to experience as though
those rights.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:15):
Um, how do you see or what's on the front burner
for minority vets these days?
You you mentioned uh housing youmentioned.

SPEAKER_01 (01:12:23):
Yeah, we are in an interesting period of growth.
Um we have recently uh we'regetting ready to open the first
transitional housing unit forLGBTQ vets that we know of in
the country.
Um if I'm wrong and there isanother one, please tell me.
I'm always interested, but wedon't know of any others.
Uh so we are getting ready inKing County, Washington.
We just got$1.8 million to openthe very first transitional

(01:12:44):
housing unit out there.
Um, it should be operationallater this year.
Um we close on it in a couple ofweeks and we'll be retrofitting
it to serve uh what'll beindividual units for LGBTQ vets,
recognizing that oftentimes,especially for transgender
veterans, that shelters andtransitional housing units are
usually either not available oroftentimes are really uh either

(01:13:07):
discriminatory or unsafe.
And so we're building acommunity just for the folks
that are most likely to beharmed and hurt in transitional
housing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:17):
Awesome.
Um what other what other type ofprograms or services does
minority vets offer?

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:25):
Um we do a uh host of things.
So we have a program out inWashington State called People
to People, which is a communitybuild uh base building uh
mission that does a lot of uhsocial engagement, uh, you know,
volunteerism, stuff like that.
And we also have a casemanagement program out there
where if veterans are in need uhare in crisis, we can support
them and get them connected tothe resources that they need.

(01:13:46):
Uh, we also run an emergingleaders program.
Uh, we're about to open cohortfour in a couple of months.
The application will be open.
Um we do an annual leadership uhretreat and then a year or worth
of leadership development, anduh um we get them connected to
mentors and we work with fellowsand things like that.
Uh we're also traveling thecountry right now doing an

(01:14:08):
outdoor recreation listening setuh listening tour where we're
trying to better understand theunique uh disparities that
minority veterans face whentrying to access the outdoors.
Um we do a lot of work onoutdoor recreation that most
people don't know about.
Um, we sit on the outdoorrecreation task force for vet uh
for uh veterans, which is aninteragency council of VA, DOD,
Department of the Interior, allworking towards getting service

(01:14:29):
members, veterans, and theirfamilies outdoors.
Um we also do a ton of policywork that I think most people,
if you don't know about ourprograms work, you know about
our policy work.
Uh we do a lot of Hill Daysadvocacy.
We have been working on a numberof things, uh including IVF
access, which we uh just removesome of the discriminatory bars
between DOD and VA, but that ummade it so that same-sex

(01:14:51):
couples, single people, andpeople using donor gametes uh
can will soon be able to accessthose services through VA and
DOD.
Um we have worked on abortionpolicy, we've worked on military
sexual trauma, we're gettingready for sexual assault
awareness month next month.
Uh we're also working ongender-affirming surgery for
veterans.
Um so just a series of uh policyadvocacy that we do on a regular

(01:15:12):
basis, um, really trying tofight for that long-term equity
for our community.
Um while we have like what wesay is our community or our
programs and our policies matchbecause we have to meet the here
and now with our programs, andwe have to fight for a better
community for with through ourequity and policy work.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:28):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
We we we say on the show thatdemocracy is not a spectator
sport, so like how can veteransget involved in supporting your
work?

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:36):
Um, one, uh I think veterans getting directly
involved as poll workers has theability to really change the
trajectory of this election.
Uh, no matter who you are, whatyou believe in, we elections
have to happen and they have tobe fair and safe, or else our
country isn't what we foughtfor.
Um and so one is gettinginvolved in this movement.
I think it's important forespecially minority veterans to

(01:15:59):
jump in um and get in the fight.
Uh I also, if you're interestedin learning more about our work,
minoritybets.org, you can followus on uh social media.
We're everywhere but Twitter.
Um, although we I think we stillare on there, but we just don't
do much on there.
Um so you can follow us onsocial media, you can go to our
website, you can also join ourorganization.
Um we have about 3,300 membersaround the country and world.

(01:16:20):
If you are in the state ofVermont and want to join us,
please do, so that we can haveall 50 states covered.
Um and uh we have lots ofvolunteer opportunities,
different things that people cando to get involved, but
ultimately um my message is toget involved in a movement and
to get in the fight.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:36):
Definitely.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think you know, it's justkind of like one of those
things.
Um, our country has beendescribed as an experiment
democracy and one that needs tobe um fought for every
generation.
And it's certainly uh I've seenyou do that, Lindsay, for for
many years now, um, since I'vebeen aware of you and kind of
tracking your work.
So um thanks for coming on theshow today.

(01:16:57):
Really, yeah, we reallyappreciate it.
And um and uh you've heard itfrom the CEO and or the
executive director and andco-founder of Minority Veterans
of America, Lindsay Church andMinorityVets.org.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:10):
Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:12):
Thank you so much for listening.
If you found this podcastepisode interesting or useful,
please share it with people youknow.
This episode was co-hosted byJoe Plunsler and Ellie Guffison.
The audio and video were editedby Cameron King.
And this podcast is a productionof We the Veterans and Military
Families, 501c3, not-for-profit,nonpartisan, veteran led
organization, focused onpromoting positive and patriotic

(01:17:35):
civic engagement to strengthenAmerican freedom and liberty.
Find out more about us atweTheVeterans.us and follow us
on social media.

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Ep. 12: How immigrants contribute to our national security

Hey Jonas!