February 2, 2025 • 39 mins
“This Troubled Ground” by is part memoir/part fiction. Les served our nation for 28 years, beginning with four years in the active duty Air Force and the remainder in the National Guard. He retired at the rank of Lt. Colonel in 2013. Dover Air Force Base is often the first domestic stop for the remains of the fallen coming from overseas. During the height of the Afghanistan War, President Obama changed the policies to allow families to have media presence if they wished. This required a public affairs team to be present on the ramp for the dignified transfer. Les was one of the first public affairs officers to arrive following the policy change and estimates he oversaw over 100 dignified transfers. He also participated in the dignified transfer of the team of CIA officers. Les emphasizes that “the job is NOT for everyone. You are going to witness some of the hardest things in your life.” His publisher calls “This Troubled Ground” an autobiographical novel. Les says it was the product of a combination of his experiences at Dover and his deployments to Afghanistan. While deployed he was attached to the International Security Assistance Force, facilitating interactions between our foreign allies and the Afghan media. He says for the most part he was privileged to work with some amazing leaders. An overriding theme of “This Troubled Ground” is the question of whether “Afghanistan was worth it?” The book takes us from a family member asking that question on the ramp at Dover to the second time Les deployed to Afghanistan. Even though he swore he would never go back, Les DID volunteer for a second deployment and suggests it was because he might have been searching for the answer to that question. Though “This Troubled Ground” is a fictional story, one of the families he met on the ramp at Dover specifically asked him to use the real name of their fallen son so that he wouldn’t be forgotten.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to American Warrior Radio. This is Ben Bueler Garcia
American Warrier Radio, broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios. They're
the nation's largest suppressor dealer, and they're ready to make
your silencer buying journey as simple and painful as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Call them today at eight.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Six six six four zero three two seven zero to
get the process started, or visit Silencercentral dot com. Be
sure to check souncercentral dot com to confirm if owning
a slencer is legal in your state. Every Memorial Day,
I watched the Kevin Bacon movie Taking Chance. If you
haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It shows the
experiences of a volunteer Marine escort officer turns the remains
(01:00):
of a fallen marine to his hometown. It is based
upon real events. I harkened back to that film several
times while reading This Troubled Ground, a book written by
our guests today. Lieutenant Colonel Carroll served our nation for
twenty eight years four years in the active duty in
the Air Force and the remainder with the National Guard.
He retired in twenty thirteen. He is both an author
and a filmmaker. Let's welcome to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank you, Ben, pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And if folks want to learn more, you can visit
Lescarrol dot com. That's Carol spelled c r r l
L dot com. Now, unless I gotta tell you, I
was somewhat hesitant to have a former public affairs officer
on the program. I know how a depth you folks
are with your Jedi mind tricks. So be gentle, will you, Okay? So,
unless you joined in nineteen eighty five, as I mentioned,
(01:47):
four years active duty Air Force, then went to the
National Guard in eighty nine, and that was with the
if I'm not mistaken, one hundred and sixty ninth Fighter Wing.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, from one sixty night Fire Wing. The base is
actually a few miles from where I grew up, but
I never thought I'd ever be a part of it.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And that's in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, southside of Columbia, about about twelve miles east of Columbia, I.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Tell you, and I want to say, I really enjoyed
the book. You were kind enough to provide me with
an event's or copy that I could read. It's called
This Troubled Ground, and it's inspired by true events. You
also did a documentary. I mentioned you're a filmmaker as well,
and in the documentary, which is called Bringing the Fallen Home,
there's a quote that just absolutely haunts me, and I
(02:30):
think it speaks to the power of this book. And
I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, but the quote was,
the price of freedom is high, but freedom's most precious
expense cannot be calculated. Was that one of your motivating
factors for writing This Trouble Ground.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yes, the film Bringing the Fallen Home came out of
my Dover experience, my service there. We just got it
done a lot sooner than I'd got the book written,
but they're similar in subject matter. The book covers more
of my time in Afghanistan and then my time at
Dover at the Air Force Mortuary. But you mentioned Taking Chance,
(03:09):
and I had just watched that film right before I
went to Dover to the Air Force Mortuary Operations Center,
and we were actually told to watch the film that
had just come out. We were told watch this filmfore
you come, and so we did. And I had just
seen the film and there there was even like a
life sus sped out of Kevin Bacon as the lieutenant
(03:29):
Colonel Mike Strobel in the in the building when I
was there, because the movie was still so new. But
but yeah, that was an excellent movie. And the book
and the documentary This Trouble Ground are similar concepts.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So really you've described This Treble Grounds as part memoir
part novel. I mean it is. It is a novel, correct.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, And and I was and I was working on
a memoir, but I had a interesting fiction story that
I wanted to tell too, and so at first I thought, well,
I've just I've got two different books here, and then uh,
and then I was kind of thinking, well, then I'd
have two different you know, one hundred page books, which
probably wouldn't work that that great, And so I just
(04:14):
I just put it all into one story and made
it work, you know, made it work. The first the
first half is is biographical and the and the second
half is is more fictional. Basically, I tell you one
thing I took away from it, Wes, was I found
it interesting because your book. In your book, you're you're
on the front end of the sphere in Afghanistan, but
(04:36):
then you're also on the I don't know what the
technical term is, but the back of the spear, the
butt end of the spear as well.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
At Dover, you know, actually witnessing the well that high
cost of freedom, that that can't be calculated. Now, some
of the as I understand it, some of the family
members that you met actually asked when you checked in
with them, they actually asked you to who's the real
name in the book rather than fictionalize it. I found
(05:04):
that powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well. One of the one of the things about it
is when I went there, I signed a non disclosure
agreement saying, you know, we wouldn't use the real names
and materials. But it was it was years later and
I had already uh interviewed eleven gold Star families, and
there was just there was one that was that was
on the ground at Dover that ended up being in
(05:27):
the in the book, and so that was really the
only one where you know, I could I had to
be careful, I guess, because I was. I was there
part of his dignified transfer. But after I interviewed his
mother and she's in the in the documentary, and his
widows in the documentary. They have told me, you know, anytime,
please say his name, tell his story, you know, do
(05:47):
any you know, do anything you can to help people
remember our son and all the other you know, all
the other sons and daughters who have been lost, and
and so I've always done that. And I'm not really
worried about that non disclosure agreement to us because I
haven't really you know, I haven't really done anything to
violate it. And certainly people's stories are deserved to be cold.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Well, I tell you, I really appreciated that, because, you know,
as long as their names are repeated, they're they're not
really forgotten. Now, Dover Air Force Base Less, is that
the first domestic stop for the remains of the.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Fallen Yes, even mine. It's been fourteen years since I
was there. Fifteen years actually, so this is about fifteen
years ago. But it was at the you know, it
was at the height of Afghanistan in Iraq where we
were receiving you know, a lot of fallen service members.
I was there for four months and I did about
(06:44):
one hundred dignified transfers, so you know, we were receiving
quite a few, and we had a very good, you know,
very good system. I guess I hate to say it's
a good anything good about it, but you know it was.
It was a good system that we we had, others
had worked on, and then I went and tried to
help improve a little bit if I could. But it
(07:04):
was just right after President Obama had changed the policy
so that family members could allow media if they chose to,
and that necessitated having Air Force public affairs officers on
the ramp at Dover for the dignified transfers. And instead
of bringing, instead of trying to use the base public
(07:26):
affairs personnel that had their own day to day duties,
they brought in I think mostly Air National Guard and
Air Reserve Air Force Reserve public affairs officers to the
mortuary itself, and that was our only job was to
do public affairs for the dignified transfers. So I was
one of the first after the policy. I was there
(07:47):
about probably six months after the policy was changed, and
so we were still working on our processes. But that's
why I went there as a public affairs officer to
manage the media, the media aspect of the dignified.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Transfer, and what was your rank at the time list.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think I was a lieutenant colonel. I was fairly
late in my career and I was I was a
lieutenant colonel, and I mean I had a major that
was there that was with me, And then we had
a maybe maybe five or six enlisted members personnel or
public affairs, and then we had photographers and videographers as
(08:27):
well that that work, you know, worked under our direction.
So we had about I think about a five or
six person.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Staff and that and your your staff probably was all
just Air Force proper, correct. It wasn't like an inter
inter branch team.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes, we were all air Force because the Air Force
basically manages it. Okay, it's an Air Force uh command
or air Force entity that comes under the services the
Services Director of the Air Force. But there were there
were a lot lot of I mean, every service was represented.
(09:02):
It represented because every service obviously had people coming back,
so there were there were representatives from all the services.
There there were the people that put together the uniforms.
There was somebody from all the different services that did that.
So yeah, there were a lot of other all the
services were represented. But the command and I guess that
(09:26):
the administrative staff was primarily Air Force and Air Force
Reserve and Air National Guard.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well again the last congratulations, because I tell you what
I from the minute I cracked the cover of this book.
I mean that their experience earned over and that introduction,
particularly for civilian, really smacked me in the face. I
like to chat more about that when we come back Leasia. Gentlemen,
there's your host, be Angeler Garcia back with more with Les Carroll.
(10:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, there's
your host, ben Vila Garcia. We're speaking with Less Carroll.
Less retired as lieutenant colonel and the Air Force National Guard,
and he just has written a powerful, powerful book called
This Troubled Ground. It's it's a biographical novel. Maybe what's
what's the technical what does your publisher called this? Less?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That's actually what we do. Call it an autobiographical novel, damn,
because that's what I mean, you know, that's what it is.
But that's not a member r because there are some
fictional parts of it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
We're talking about how the book opens with your experience
or the actually the characters experience at Dover Air Force Base,
you know, handling the datified transfer of the remains. You
personally handled one hundred or so. I had a guest
on recently less who ended up in the Special Forces,
but one of his first assignments in the Army was
(11:01):
with the Old Guard. So he was part of that
group that actually was there and physically carried the caskets
off the plane. And I'll never forget him sharing with me,
says on this first assignment, his first time doing this.
He said, the first two caskets were heavy and the
third one was light, and that's when it really really
(11:23):
struck me about the sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, that's true, and I'm not going to go into
a lot of detail, but I know exactly what he's
saying that sometimes the remains are in different stages. Sure,
but you mentioned the Old Guard. That would be the
Old Guard provided the Army carry teams. There was a
soldier coming in and then the carry team from the
Old Guard from Washington, and I don't remember what base
(11:49):
we went to, but for the documentary Bringing the Follow Home,
we actually went to the base in Washington and interviewed
members of the Old Guard and did some got some
video of them, you know, training in it. And so
they were represented it in the documentary as well, and
when I was there, and I think that would continue today.
(12:09):
That the Old Guard, which is Army, handles the Army
fallen service members, so depending on the branch of the fallen,
and that the carry team, for lack of a better tournament,
represents the same branch. Yes, every branch. That carry team,
the Air Force carry team was there at the mortuary,
there was a civilian, which there was occasionally or maybe
(12:31):
you know, I don't know of a situation where we
couldn't get somebody from the service. The Air Force Carry
Team that was that was state stationed at the mortuary
would have taken care of it.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Unless you mentioned the book a situation where it was
a number of actually CIA officers that were part of
the dignified transfer. Is that also a true thing that
you experience?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes, Yes, if you've seen the movie Zero Dark thirty,
that that character that was meeting the that was meeting
the thought, you know, she thought it was going to
be a source that was going to help her find
Ben Lawton and he ended up being a suicide bomber.
But yeah, that that that is a very close to
(13:18):
real event has depicted in the movie and that just
I was there. That happened while I was at Dover,
and I was there when when those seven or eight
CIA officers came back to I mean, we had a
dignified transfer for them much in the same way, except
(13:39):
there were no local media allowed. But there are a
lot of family members and then they had their own
internal media, so we kind of did the same role.
We helped support their media, get them set up and everything,
but it was internal media, and then we just did
kine of the same things we always did. We got
the buses parked, we set up the family areas, and
and you know, got all did this stuff on the
(14:01):
ramp that that happens before the airplane gets there. We
did a lot of that, and we didn't I didn't.
I very rarely had interaction with families. That wasn't my role.
And we had, you know, we had trained and experienced
gaplains and funeral directors and all all those folks that
took care of the family. So I had very little
(14:23):
contact with the families, just a few, just a few instances.
And even the lady that was I later interviewed for
the book, I didn't I didn't have any contact with
her on the ramp. But I when I later met
her and saw her an interviewed her, I did remember
having seen her on the on the ramp the day
of her son's dignified transfer, and that was that day
(14:44):
I described very intimately in the book because it was
probably the most memorable of all the days.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean that's a thing that also struck me.
Less says, I mean you, yeah, she weren't interacting necessarily
directly with the families, but you were part of the team,
and oh, you're these families are you know, maybe the
worst day of their lives, and you've got to be
there and facilitate it and remain you know, retain your
composure and retain your bearing. I don't know if that
(15:15):
gets better with the fiftieth transfer of the ninety ninth transfer,
or if it never gets better. I mean, just this
job is not for everybody. I'm guessing.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Oh yeah, I've had I've had some. I've had done
a mond of the interviews where people ask about the
demeanor it takes, and you know, I wasn't sure I
had it either until I got there. But but yeah,
it takes a lot of patience, a lot of empathy,
a lot of compassion. But you've but you've also got
to be organized and you've got to you still got
(15:47):
a job to do, and some you know, sometimes you know, unfortunately,
you could occasionally forget that when you're when you're doing
your job, that you're also taking care of someone's son
or daughter if I was wife, et cetera. But we
tried not to ever forget that. But yeah, I mean,
(16:07):
it was, it got it got better. I mean I
kind of describe that because that day I was just
talking about was about my ninety fifth or ninety six
dignified transfer, and I had a new team that was
it out there and it might have been there first,
or second or third when they were very new and
there they struggled with it more than me, just because
(16:30):
they didn't have the experience of having been on the
ramp for four previous months whereas I did. But and
I described that in the in the book and the
way I described it as basically exactly the way it happened.
That the captain that was working for me at the time,
who was a big looked like an NFL linebacker at
tears streaming down his space when it was over, and
(16:54):
he was apologizing for he said, losing his bearing. But
he didn't lose his bearing. He kept was vurying an
old time. He just got emotional when it was over,
which and I said, if you don't, then there's something
wrong with you, because you know, you just witnessed some
you know, some of the hardest stuff here. What kind
of witness in your life? You know, maybe excluding something
(17:15):
happening into your own you know, your own family.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Wells Ben gets a dumb question every show, and here's
my I've never been to Dover. But you know in
the book you describe not the ideal weather sometimes for
these transfers, are is can this not be done in
a hangar? I mean, are the aircraft tool cards for that?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean it it did not be done
in a hangar. I mean we were talking, were talking
about C five's okay, uh, seven forty seven's see one
forty or not one forty one see seventeen's. I mean
large aircraft. Now, there might be it didn't happen while
I was there, but there might be a rare occasion
(17:56):
where they might would figure out how to get the
aircraft after in the hangar. Maybe if it's a smaller
aircraft or do it, but we did it out on
the ramp. And yeah, I just happened to be there
from the first November to the end of February, and
it was about the worst winter they've had in the Northeast,
so they had had and we just had one. It
(18:18):
snowed a couple of times. We had some really cold weather,
but we had a huge snowstorm, you know, two or
three feet of snow, okay, And we did kind of delay.
We it did. It did calls at three or four
day delay. We had it. We had about three or
four days off where we just sat around in our
rooms or played in the snow or you know, it's
(18:41):
the snowblowers to clean the roads and sidewalks and but yeah,
we were snowed in pretty good for just a few
days there.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
All right, Less, we have to take another break when
we come back and like to chat more about Afghanistan.
Stick around, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
(19:13):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Vieler Garcia.
We're coming to you from the Silencer Central Studios. Adding
a silencer will make shootings safer, more enjoyable, and improve
your accuracy. Begin the process by visiting silencercentral dot com
to see if owning a silencer is legal in your state.
They can then walk you through the permitting process and
ship right to your front door. Call silenceer Central today
at eight sixty six six four zero three two seven zero,
(19:37):
or visit silencercentral dot com. We're talking with retired Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel Les Carroll, who's got a powerful book
that he's written called This Troubled Ground but LESSI also
I got to see the first five minutes of your documentary.
Where can people find the rest of that?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well? Occasion the league gets pirated and ended up ends
up online right now, I don't think it is, but
we've been in contact with our local public television station
about about getting it up online all the you know,
where it's available all the time.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Now, let's say you did two deployments to Afghanistan. One
thing I never quite figured out was the why you
were ready to retire and then you asked for a
six month extension and asked to return to Afghanistan, something
you swore to yourself you would never do again.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah that that, Uh, when I can't when I finished
up the first time I said, I'm never doing this again.
It was hard, and I was homesick and I wasn't
like those those soldiers that were used to it, and
so then but I just, you know, we were we
were involved very heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's
(20:57):
how I ended up at Dover is I wanted to
do something else, but they didn't want to go back
to Afghanistan for six months, so that's I ended up
doing the too, were at Dover. And then after that
I was, you know, two or three years went by
and I was getting toward the end of my career
and Commander gave me the letter you know that said,
you know, this is your retirement date. And I don't
(21:19):
remember exactly why I went back, or because I had
no plans to, but for some reason, something happened or
I talked to somebody and for some reason got it
in my head that I needed to go back one
more time. And I actually had the choice of going
to Iraq or Afghanistan. I said, you know, I really
want to go back to Afghanistan and see how it's different,
(21:40):
or you know, if as we've made progress, And so
I went right back to the same place to at
headquarters ISA exactly four years almost from the day that
I arrived the first time. Yeah, and a lot of
people there, I mean the colonel that I worked for,
the army colonel, He said, like, what and the heck
were you thinking? Dude? You know you'd be about to retire.
(22:02):
Why in the world did you volunteer for deployment here?
And there were there were a number of reasons I
wanted to. I wanted to, even though when I got there,
I said the same thing, why did I do this?
But and I mean it was it was I hate
to say it, but it was a good financial move too,
because it gave me a chance to get more you know,
(22:23):
points for my my uh reserve retirement and you know,
elt financially too. But that wasn't the motivating factor, but
it helped. I just I don't know, I don't really
remember honestly exactly what happened right before I decided to
go back that prompted me to want to go back.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Well, let me let me go all doctor phil on
your here lesson and propose my theory. I I asked
the question because I wondered about that the underlying question
of the book. This trouble ground seeing struck me as
being was it worth it? And I often wondered if
if les Carol went back to Afghanistan to try and
(23:07):
find an answer to that question.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yes, it were. And I think maybe, you know, maybe
the the lady on the rent who did say to me,
you know, his daughter said I'm not getting back on
this bus until somebody tells me what he died for.
You know, maybe I did want to. Maybe I had
that question too, Maybe I wanted to know what I
(23:31):
had served for and if I'd made a difference. And honestly,
you know, I wrote the book before twenty twenty one
when we withdrew. The withdrawal was a was a tough
thing to swallow, the way it happened and everything and
it and it almost made me feel like I don't
even have a book anymore, because you're right, the overriding
(23:54):
theme of the book was, you know, did we make
a difference? And was my service worth it? And you
know we're all the losses of all these you know,
young men and women that we lost. Was that worth it?
And you know it almost the withdrawal almost made it
where you could say it wasn't worth it. But I
wanted to know if it was or feel like it was.
(24:14):
And I actually went back and talked to some of
the family members after the withdraw and I and some
of them were very angry, and you know, but some
of them also said to me, as long as people
don't forget my son, I'll be all right. So that's
kind of what several people told me. But a lot
of families were very upset the way ended, and it
(24:36):
did kind of it did kind of make them feel
like their loss wasn't worth what it might have been.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Unless I've got a good friend who is retired Air
Force public affairs as well, and she was in Afghanistan
attached to I think they're called provincial reconstruction teams where
they would actually go out into the villages and work
with the you know, the villagers and you know, women,
new kids and stuff. And three of her team members
were killed by an I D and well, you know,
(25:06):
you's amazing, you know again, once every day on them
oil that I check in with her and just say, hey,
you know, I read their names. They won't be forgotten
in our household.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
But yeah, a lot of you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Described sort of that adjustment from that your first time
in Afghanistan to then you know, once you returned, you're
you're the seasoned veteran, not as not as bad, but
still even well a different, different kind of way of living.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, it was. I mean I can't complain. I mean
for being in a combat zone, I've probably had it
about as good as you can have it, so I
never you know, the hard thing for me was just
being away from home. It wasn't it wasn't the conditions
for me. It was just it was just being away
(25:56):
from home. I mean, we were, you know, we were
in a little bit of danger. Everybody's in danger if
you're if you're there. But you know, I had a
nice you know, I had a room. I had, you know,
almost something like a little college dorm room kind of
thing in a dining hall, eating and a gym and so,
I you know, I can't really ever complain about being
in conditions. I did go out to the field a
(26:17):
few times or down range where I did sleep in
tents and listen to mortar shills, you know, hitting a
mile away, and I had three or four nights like that.
But but for the most part, I had it pretty good.
So I can't really, I can't compare what I did
to what you know, an army ranger or marine infantrymen
(26:39):
or infantrymen. I can't compare my experience with theirs. My
experience was just unique to me.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Last we got just about a couple of minutes. We
have to take another break. But one thing I found
fascion one of them. If this you know how how
much of this was was real as well? Was your
interaction with the leadership of our NATO partners and some
some pretty some pretty good praise you heaped upon them.
And I don't want people to overlook that this was this.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Was a group effort. Oh yeah, yeah. I served with
some really really outstanding officers and n c o s
and civilians from other countries, from NATO countries. My first deployment,
more so than the second, when my first employment, our
boss was a was a Royal Navy captain from the UK,
(27:29):
and I have since seen him since that time. He
retired as an admiral and I've seen him. He came
to my house when he was on vacation here in
the States, and I mean he was one of the
most fantastic people. And he wasn't a public fairs officer
by trade. He was a nuclear you know, nuclear submarine
physicist something. But he came there to be the public
(27:52):
affairs director for about six months and I was with
him my last three months and was a you know,
some of the you know, he was one of the
finest military leaders I was ever around. I just you know, yeah,
there wasn't always like that. There were some you know,
there were some other countries that puzzled me with their
(28:14):
policies and that kind of thing. But for the most part,
it was a very positive experience.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Well, my congratulations, sir, because I'm you know, hurting journalists
is like hurting cats. That's tough enough. But then you
throw a few flag officers in there, particularly folks from
other countries. I'm sure that, thank god, a little could
get a little sporty. Let's when we come back. I
want to continue talking about your book. In Afghanistan. Ladies
and gentlemen. If you're struggling or a nova veteran who's
dealing with thoughts of suicide, dial nine to eighty eight
(28:42):
and then press one that's available twenty four or seven
links to over five hundred VA suicide prevention s. First,
you can also visit veterans crisis Line dot net. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies
(29:13):
and gentlemen. This is your host, Bendla Garcia. We're talking
with Les Carroll about his book This Troubled Ground is
a very powerful autobiographical Now we started off in Dover
and your role handling the digfied transfer of over one
hundred remains, and then you also spent quite a bit
of time two tours of duty in Afghanistan, So really,
(29:35):
what was as a PA officer there less? What was
your mission? You talk about your your interaction with the
Afghan journalists and going out to Afghani these studios and
then taking your generals and admirals and whatever out there
to do these interviews. And the thing that really jumped
out at me about that was the observation that, hey,
(29:58):
I've got this female Afghan journalist, and when you address
the question was it worth it, she wouldn't have been
able to do that. Now we all know how it
turned out, and unfortunately it's gone backwards, but I have
to imagine that was a pretty He felt good about
doing that and witnessing at least those changes, however brief
(30:20):
they may have been.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, I want to go back to one point, and then
I'll tie it right into what you're just saying when
you're asking about NATO officers or NATO people that I
work with on my second tour, or the ISAFF spokesman
was a German brigadier general and he became my probably
my closest mentor or friend, whatever you want to call it,
(30:43):
in that second deployment. And it was interesting because I'd
go back to my room at night and I watched
movies like Band Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. You know,
we're trying to destroy the Germans. And then the next
morning I'd get up and go to work. In the
first first night i'd see sometimes was the German and
brigadier general that I referred to as my general. Just
(31:03):
was amazing to think about how things change. I mean,
you know how politics change, and your enemies can become
your friends, and sometimes your friends become your enemies. And
as I was going, as I was about to come
on my second time, he hosted me just he and
I had a little dinner together, pad a pizza and
drank some sodas and had had some really good times together.
(31:25):
But he is the one also that when we were
in the at the Afghan TV station. He's the one
that said to the female journalist, is the half empty
or half full? And he had beautiful English. He said
it in English and his English was very good. You know,
she said, right now it's half full because we're getting
(31:47):
to work and we've got freedom to work now. I
don't know how it would be, you know, how they
would feel now there are still women working as journalists
in probable whether they're doing it at the risk of
their lives.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
That really out of me, and especially you know, the
idea that well. I mean, it's inspiring and heartbreaking at
the same time for me, less because I you know,
you touched on the withdrawal and we're not a political show,
but obviously you can imagine I've got some strong feelings
about how that was handled, you do. I've had a
former Armor intelligence officer who's a regular guest on the show,
(32:19):
who resigned his commission over it. He said, I, in
good conscience, I can no longer wear the uniform of
the United States Army. And I think, again, coming back
to that underlying question, was it all worth it?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know if you're talking about a general Scott Miller,
but he was the commander before that, and when he
saw what we were going to do and how we
were going to do it, he retired. I mean, he
was a four star general and he was I think
the senior general in Afghanistan and he wasn't. He retired
because he didn't he didn't want to execute that withdraw
the way it was it was given to him or
(32:53):
told to him. I don't know if I get a
call from General Miller or some people that may be
in trouble, but well.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
So what I'm going to reach out to on the door,
try and get him on the show one of the
other again kind of the heartbreaking, but shows that the
reason there. And there was a quote or you describe
a situation in the book. I don't know if this
is actually happen or not, where there was you attended
or you had brought the journalists to cover an election
of local council members. And there's a line there where
(33:20):
we say one of the council members said, over the
four years since this council began, twenty seven council members
have been killed, with at least half of those attributal
to Taliban reprisals.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
How accurate was that, I don't know. I'm not sure
that was in my book, but it might have been. Okay, well,
but it was then I was probably quoting because there
were some I remember, some Washington Post journalists that were
really big by A journalists, and I might have been
quoting one of them as having said that.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
But I did good. I didn't. I don't. I don't
remember doing the elections. I did do the as surer
that what we called then, Yeah, yeah, I did that
where they had brought all the elders together and we're
just trying to convince them to support the government and
(34:15):
the and the Afghan Army and and reject the Taliban
as the Taliban. You know, we're basically trying to bribe
them into into supporting them and helping them. And I
do remember being in that meeting and it was all
in you know, it was all in dhari or pastor.
But and I wasn't sitting right by the by the interpreter,
(34:37):
so I didn't get a lot of it. But I
got enough to I got I understood enough or heard
enough of the of the translation to know that that's
what they were talking about, that that the Afghan you know,
army general was just leading to the locals to support
the support his troops and the rejected Taliban.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Last I were kind of running out of time here
and I want to give touch on something else because
of really, you know, your time at Dover really made
me think about this, and then combined with the the withdrawal,
the way we pulled out of Afghanistan, veterans suicide is
a scourge, and I'm very concerned now that because of
the way that ended up, that we're putting even more
(35:18):
veterans at risk. What what are your what's your take
on that?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I agree? I agree. I think the way we withdrew
from Afghanistan that's probably made a lot of people doubt
whether they there service meant anything. I don't know, I
don't know the numbers, and I can't say, you know,
I can't say, I'm not going to speculate other than that,
(35:46):
I just can't imagine that there weren't more suicide because
of that, and we were going to withdraw And it
wasn't that we withdrew, it's just the way we did it.
I remember, specifically before the withdrawal, when when President Trump
was still to President Lindsey Graham, who's from my home
(36:08):
date and is actually a personal friend of mine, Senter Graham.
I remember some kind of some story where he was
saying that the President Trump, You've got to leave some
troops at Bogram, We've got to We've got to protect Bogram.
And I think we would have done that under a
different administration rather than just completely I mean, we just
(36:29):
we just handed over Bogram and we just handed over
we we just totally abandoned our embassy. Yeah, And I
mean I know it would have been dangerous, probably, but
I feel like we should have put, you know, put
the security at our embassy and tried to keep you know,
tried to hold onto it. Maybe maybe I'm totally wrong
about that, but I think if we would have kept
(36:50):
some troops there, we could have we could have at
least kept the Afghan president in power and kept and
held on to Bogram and had been able to kind
of just a complete Taliban overrun of the country.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
And those female journalists wuldn't have to worry about their
lives and young women in Afghanistan could still go to school.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I watched the documentary The woman Wouldn't should go out
covering the story. But if the Taliban would show up
and she'd jump in her car and she'd have to
leave before the Taliban showed up here, I can't blame her. Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Last again, I really enjoyed the book. Well, you know,
I'm I enjoys it not a very good I appreciate
the book because there were some already hard hitting stuff
in there, ladies and Gentlemen's called this Troubled Ground. You
can find out more of it is a less Carol
dot com. Carol is spelled c A R R O
L L. Anything else you've got in the in the
works list our listeners.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Should know about. Yeah, I have finished my next novel
and it's at the publisher. It's it's gonna be the
main character is going to be a former combat marine,
but it's not really a military book. It's a it's
more of a Jilanni justice story. And then I'll be
(38:05):
out at sort of the end of this year, and
then I think the book that I'm going to publish
after that, The next one, I think is the one
that I'm going to tackle the thatter in suicide story
because I have a friend who was in the Marines
and he lost a lot of his buddies on the battlefield,
and then he lost a lot of his buddies when
he got home, and then he almost lost himself and
(38:26):
barely you know, just came through came through it eventually.
So I'm going to address that, and I think in
a subsequent book as well. Okay, very good.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Well, let's I tell you it's been a real pleasure
chatting with you here on American Warrior Radio today, and
I encourage folks to get this Troubled Ground. You can
find it at Lesscarrol dot com or I'm assuming Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, all those other kind of places.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Right Less, Yes, sure, And I think you're right. I
think I don't know that people will enjoy it. I
hope they'll appreciate it. That's a good point. Well, you
can also march into your local library and man that
they put it on the shelf too. That would have
the help. It's in quite a few libraries, but a
small percentage of the overall number in the country. But
I think if you go there and you're a Locatron
(39:10):
and they asked fordy'll they'll buy it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Excellent. Let's thank you so much for spending your time
with our listeners today.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you, Ben, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
There you go, Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget. You can
find over six hundred podcasts at American Warrior radio dot
com the most recent episodes on your favorite podcast platform.
Until next time. All policies and procedures are.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Remain in place. Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
If you've been listening to American Warrior Radio, archived episodes
may be found at americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite
podcast platform
We all owe them, but very few of us know them.
They are the men and women of our military and
first responder communities, and these are their stories.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
American Warrior Radio is on the air.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to American Warrior Radio. This is Ben Bueler Garcia
American Warrier Radio, broadcast from the Silencer Central Studios. They're
the nation's largest suppressor dealer, and they're ready to make
your silencer buying journey as simple and painful as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Call them today at eight.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Six six six four zero three two seven zero to
get the process started, or visit Silencercentral dot com. Be
sure to check souncercentral dot com to confirm if owning
a slencer is legal in your state. Every Memorial Day,
I watched the Kevin Bacon movie Taking Chance. If you
haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It shows the
experiences of a volunteer Marine escort officer turns the remains
(01:00):
of a fallen marine to his hometown. It is based
upon real events. I harkened back to that film several
times while reading This Troubled Ground, a book written by
our guests today. Lieutenant Colonel Carroll served our nation for
twenty eight years four years in the active duty in
the Air Force and the remainder with the National Guard.
He retired in twenty thirteen. He is both an author
and a filmmaker. Let's welcome to American Warrior Radio.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Thank you, Ben, pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
And if folks want to learn more, you can visit
Lescarrol dot com. That's Carol spelled c r r l
L dot com. Now, unless I gotta tell you, I
was somewhat hesitant to have a former public affairs officer
on the program. I know how a depth you folks
are with your Jedi mind tricks. So be gentle, will you, Okay? So,
unless you joined in nineteen eighty five, as I mentioned,
(01:47):
four years active duty Air Force, then went to the
National Guard in eighty nine, and that was with the
if I'm not mistaken, one hundred and sixty ninth Fighter Wing.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Yeah, from one sixty night Fire Wing. The base is
actually a few miles from where I grew up, but
I never thought I'd ever be a part of it.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
And that's in Columbia, South Carolina.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, southside of Columbia, about about twelve miles east of Columbia, I.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Tell you, and I want to say, I really enjoyed
the book. You were kind enough to provide me with
an event's or copy that I could read. It's called
This Troubled Ground, and it's inspired by true events. You
also did a documentary. I mentioned you're a filmmaker as well,
and in the documentary, which is called Bringing the Fallen Home,
there's a quote that just absolutely haunts me, and I
(02:30):
think it speaks to the power of this book. And
I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, but the quote was,
the price of freedom is high, but freedom's most precious
expense cannot be calculated. Was that one of your motivating
factors for writing This Trouble Ground.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yes, the film Bringing the Fallen Home came out of
my Dover experience, my service there. We just got it
done a lot sooner than I'd got the book written,
but they're similar in subject matter. The book covers more
of my time in Afghanistan and then my time at
Dover at the Air Force Mortuary. But you mentioned Taking Chance,
(03:09):
and I had just watched that film right before I
went to Dover to the Air Force Mortuary Operations Center,
and we were actually told to watch the film that
had just come out. We were told watch this filmfore
you come, and so we did. And I had just
seen the film and there there was even like a
life sus sped out of Kevin Bacon as the lieutenant
(03:29):
Colonel Mike Strobel in the in the building when I
was there, because the movie was still so new. But
but yeah, that was an excellent movie. And the book
and the documentary This Trouble Ground are similar concepts.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
So really you've described This Treble Grounds as part memoir
part novel. I mean it is. It is a novel, correct.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yes, And and I was and I was working on
a memoir, but I had a interesting fiction story that
I wanted to tell too, and so at first I thought, well,
I've just I've got two different books here, and then uh,
and then I was kind of thinking, well, then I'd
have two different you know, one hundred page books, which
probably wouldn't work that that great, And so I just
(04:14):
I just put it all into one story and made
it work, you know, made it work. The first the
first half is is biographical and the and the second
half is is more fictional. Basically, I tell you one
thing I took away from it, Wes, was I found
it interesting because your book. In your book, you're you're
on the front end of the sphere in Afghanistan, but
(04:36):
then you're also on the I don't know what the
technical term is, but the back of the spear, the
butt end of the spear as well.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
At Dover, you know, actually witnessing the well that high
cost of freedom, that that can't be calculated. Now, some
of the as I understand it, some of the family
members that you met actually asked when you checked in
with them, they actually asked you to who's the real
name in the book rather than fictionalize it. I found
(05:04):
that powerful.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Well. One of the one of the things about it
is when I went there, I signed a non disclosure
agreement saying, you know, we wouldn't use the real names
and materials. But it was it was years later and
I had already uh interviewed eleven gold Star families, and
there was just there was one that was that was
on the ground at Dover that ended up being in
(05:27):
the in the book, and so that was really the
only one where you know, I could I had to
be careful, I guess, because I was. I was there
part of his dignified transfer. But after I interviewed his
mother and she's in the in the documentary, and his
widows in the documentary. They have told me, you know, anytime,
please say his name, tell his story, you know, do
(05:47):
any you know, do anything you can to help people
remember our son and all the other you know, all
the other sons and daughters who have been lost, and
and so I've always done that. And I'm not really
worried about that non disclosure agreement to us because I
haven't really you know, I haven't really done anything to
violate it. And certainly people's stories are deserved to be cold.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Well, I tell you, I really appreciated that, because, you know,
as long as their names are repeated, they're they're not
really forgotten. Now, Dover Air Force Base Less, is that
the first domestic stop for the remains of the.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Fallen Yes, even mine. It's been fourteen years since I
was there. Fifteen years actually, so this is about fifteen
years ago. But it was at the you know, it
was at the height of Afghanistan in Iraq where we
were receiving you know, a lot of fallen service members.
I was there for four months and I did about
(06:44):
one hundred dignified transfers, so you know, we were receiving
quite a few, and we had a very good, you know,
very good system. I guess I hate to say it's
a good anything good about it, but you know it was.
It was a good system that we we had, others
had worked on, and then I went and tried to
help improve a little bit if I could. But it
(07:04):
was just right after President Obama had changed the policy
so that family members could allow media if they chose to,
and that necessitated having Air Force public affairs officers on
the ramp at Dover for the dignified transfers. And instead
of bringing, instead of trying to use the base public
(07:26):
affairs personnel that had their own day to day duties,
they brought in I think mostly Air National Guard and
Air Reserve Air Force Reserve public affairs officers to the
mortuary itself, and that was our only job was to
do public affairs for the dignified transfers. So I was
one of the first after the policy. I was there
(07:47):
about probably six months after the policy was changed, and
so we were still working on our processes. But that's
why I went there as a public affairs officer to
manage the media, the media aspect of the dignified.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
Transfer, and what was your rank at the time list.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
I think I was a lieutenant colonel. I was fairly
late in my career and I was I was a
lieutenant colonel, and I mean I had a major that
was there that was with me, And then we had
a maybe maybe five or six enlisted members personnel or
public affairs, and then we had photographers and videographers as
(08:27):
well that that work, you know, worked under our direction.
So we had about I think about a five or
six person.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Staff and that and your your staff probably was all
just Air Force proper, correct. It wasn't like an inter
inter branch team.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Yes, we were all air Force because the Air Force
basically manages it. Okay, it's an Air Force uh command
or air Force entity that comes under the services the
Services Director of the Air Force. But there were there
were a lot lot of I mean, every service was represented.
(09:02):
It represented because every service obviously had people coming back,
so there were there were representatives from all the services.
There there were the people that put together the uniforms.
There was somebody from all the different services that did that.
So yeah, there were a lot of other all the
services were represented. But the command and I guess that
(09:26):
the administrative staff was primarily Air Force and Air Force
Reserve and Air National Guard.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Well again the last congratulations, because I tell you what
I from the minute I cracked the cover of this book.
I mean that their experience earned over and that introduction,
particularly for civilian, really smacked me in the face. I
like to chat more about that when we come back Leasia. Gentlemen,
there's your host, be Angeler Garcia back with more with Les Carroll.
(10:11):
Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies and gentlemen, there's
your host, ben Vila Garcia. We're speaking with Less Carroll.
Less retired as lieutenant colonel and the Air Force National Guard,
and he just has written a powerful, powerful book called
This Troubled Ground. It's it's a biographical novel. Maybe what's
what's the technical what does your publisher called this? Less?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That's actually what we do. Call it an autobiographical novel, damn,
because that's what I mean, you know, that's what it is.
But that's not a member r because there are some
fictional parts of it.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
We're talking about how the book opens with your experience
or the actually the characters experience at Dover Air Force Base,
you know, handling the datified transfer of the remains. You
personally handled one hundred or so. I had a guest
on recently less who ended up in the Special Forces,
but one of his first assignments in the Army was
(11:01):
with the Old Guard. So he was part of that
group that actually was there and physically carried the caskets
off the plane. And I'll never forget him sharing with me,
says on this first assignment, his first time doing this.
He said, the first two caskets were heavy and the
third one was light, and that's when it really really
(11:23):
struck me about the sacrifice.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, that's true, and I'm not going to go into
a lot of detail, but I know exactly what he's
saying that sometimes the remains are in different stages. Sure,
but you mentioned the Old Guard. That would be the
Old Guard provided the Army carry teams. There was a
soldier coming in and then the carry team from the
Old Guard from Washington, and I don't remember what base
(11:49):
we went to, but for the documentary Bringing the Follow Home,
we actually went to the base in Washington and interviewed
members of the Old Guard and did some got some
video of them, you know, training in it. And so
they were represented it in the documentary as well, and
when I was there, and I think that would continue today.
(12:09):
That the Old Guard, which is Army, handles the Army
fallen service members, so depending on the branch of the fallen,
and that the carry team, for lack of a better tournament,
represents the same branch. Yes, every branch. That carry team,
the Air Force carry team was there at the mortuary,
there was a civilian, which there was occasionally or maybe
(12:31):
you know, I don't know of a situation where we
couldn't get somebody from the service. The Air Force Carry
Team that was that was state stationed at the mortuary
would have taken care of it.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Unless you mentioned the book a situation where it was
a number of actually CIA officers that were part of
the dignified transfer. Is that also a true thing that
you experience?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes, Yes, if you've seen the movie Zero Dark thirty,
that that character that was meeting the that was meeting
the thought, you know, she thought it was going to
be a source that was going to help her find
Ben Lawton and he ended up being a suicide bomber.
But yeah, that that that is a very close to
(13:18):
real event has depicted in the movie and that just
I was there. That happened while I was at Dover,
and I was there when when those seven or eight
CIA officers came back to I mean, we had a
dignified transfer for them much in the same way, except
(13:39):
there were no local media allowed. But there are a
lot of family members and then they had their own
internal media, so we kind of did the same role.
We helped support their media, get them set up and everything,
but it was internal media, and then we just did
kine of the same things we always did. We got
the buses parked, we set up the family areas, and
and you know, got all did this stuff on the
(14:01):
ramp that that happens before the airplane gets there. We
did a lot of that, and we didn't I didn't.
I very rarely had interaction with families. That wasn't my role.
And we had, you know, we had trained and experienced
gaplains and funeral directors and all all those folks that
took care of the family. So I had very little
(14:23):
contact with the families, just a few, just a few instances.
And even the lady that was I later interviewed for
the book, I didn't I didn't have any contact with
her on the ramp. But I when I later met
her and saw her an interviewed her, I did remember
having seen her on the on the ramp the day
of her son's dignified transfer, and that was that day
(14:44):
I described very intimately in the book because it was
probably the most memorable of all the days.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Yeah, I mean that's a thing that also struck me.
Less says, I mean you, yeah, she weren't interacting necessarily
directly with the families, but you were part of the team,
and oh, you're these families are you know, maybe the
worst day of their lives, and you've got to be
there and facilitate it and remain you know, retain your
composure and retain your bearing. I don't know if that
(15:15):
gets better with the fiftieth transfer of the ninety ninth transfer,
or if it never gets better. I mean, just this
job is not for everybody. I'm guessing.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Oh yeah, I've had I've had some. I've had done
a mond of the interviews where people ask about the
demeanor it takes, and you know, I wasn't sure I
had it either until I got there. But but yeah,
it takes a lot of patience, a lot of empathy,
a lot of compassion. But you've but you've also got
to be organized and you've got to you still got
(15:47):
a job to do, and some you know, sometimes you know, unfortunately,
you could occasionally forget that when you're when you're doing
your job, that you're also taking care of someone's son
or daughter if I was wife, et cetera. But we
tried not to ever forget that. But yeah, I mean,
(16:07):
it was, it got it got better. I mean I
kind of describe that because that day I was just
talking about was about my ninety fifth or ninety six
dignified transfer, and I had a new team that was
it out there and it might have been there first,
or second or third when they were very new and
there they struggled with it more than me, just because
(16:30):
they didn't have the experience of having been on the
ramp for four previous months whereas I did. But and
I described that in the in the book and the
way I described it as basically exactly the way it happened.
That the captain that was working for me at the time,
who was a big looked like an NFL linebacker at
tears streaming down his space when it was over, and
(16:54):
he was apologizing for he said, losing his bearing. But
he didn't lose his bearing. He kept was vurying an
old time. He just got emotional when it was over,
which and I said, if you don't, then there's something
wrong with you, because you know, you just witnessed some
you know, some of the hardest stuff here. What kind
of witness in your life? You know, maybe excluding something
(17:15):
happening into your own you know, your own family.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Wells Ben gets a dumb question every show, and here's
my I've never been to Dover. But you know in
the book you describe not the ideal weather sometimes for
these transfers, are is can this not be done in
a hangar? I mean, are the aircraft tool cards for that?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean it it did not be done
in a hangar. I mean we were talking, were talking
about C five's okay, uh, seven forty seven's see one
forty or not one forty one see seventeen's. I mean
large aircraft. Now, there might be it didn't happen while
I was there, but there might be a rare occasion
(17:56):
where they might would figure out how to get the
aircraft after in the hangar. Maybe if it's a smaller
aircraft or do it, but we did it out on
the ramp. And yeah, I just happened to be there
from the first November to the end of February, and
it was about the worst winter they've had in the Northeast,
so they had had and we just had one. It
(18:18):
snowed a couple of times. We had some really cold weather,
but we had a huge snowstorm, you know, two or
three feet of snow, okay, And we did kind of delay.
We it did. It did calls at three or four
day delay. We had it. We had about three or
four days off where we just sat around in our
rooms or played in the snow or you know, it's
(18:41):
the snowblowers to clean the roads and sidewalks and but yeah,
we were snowed in pretty good for just a few
days there.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
All right, Less, we have to take another break when
we come back and like to chat more about Afghanistan.
Stick around, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio.
(19:13):
Ladies and gentlemen, this is your host, Ben Vieler Garcia.
We're coming to you from the Silencer Central Studios. Adding
a silencer will make shootings safer, more enjoyable, and improve
your accuracy. Begin the process by visiting silencercentral dot com
to see if owning a silencer is legal in your state.
They can then walk you through the permitting process and
ship right to your front door. Call silenceer Central today
at eight sixty six six four zero three two seven zero,
(19:37):
or visit silencercentral dot com. We're talking with retired Air
Force Lieutenant Colonel Les Carroll, who's got a powerful book
that he's written called This Troubled Ground but LESSI also
I got to see the first five minutes of your documentary.
Where can people find the rest of that?
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Well? Occasion the league gets pirated and ended up ends
up online right now, I don't think it is, but
we've been in contact with our local public television station
about about getting it up online all the you know,
where it's available all the time.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Now, let's say you did two deployments to Afghanistan. One
thing I never quite figured out was the why you
were ready to retire and then you asked for a
six month extension and asked to return to Afghanistan, something
you swore to yourself you would never do again.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah that that, Uh, when I can't when I finished
up the first time I said, I'm never doing this again.
It was hard, and I was homesick and I wasn't
like those those soldiers that were used to it, and
so then but I just, you know, we were we
were involved very heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan. And that's
(20:57):
how I ended up at Dover is I wanted to
do something else, but they didn't want to go back
to Afghanistan for six months, so that's I ended up
doing the too, were at Dover. And then after that
I was, you know, two or three years went by
and I was getting toward the end of my career
and Commander gave me the letter you know that said,
you know, this is your retirement date. And I don't
(21:19):
remember exactly why I went back, or because I had
no plans to, but for some reason, something happened or
I talked to somebody and for some reason got it
in my head that I needed to go back one
more time. And I actually had the choice of going
to Iraq or Afghanistan. I said, you know, I really
want to go back to Afghanistan and see how it's different,
(21:40):
or you know, if as we've made progress, And so
I went right back to the same place to at
headquarters ISA exactly four years almost from the day that
I arrived the first time. Yeah, and a lot of
people there, I mean the colonel that I worked for,
the army colonel, He said, like, what and the heck
were you thinking? Dude? You know you'd be about to retire.
(22:02):
Why in the world did you volunteer for deployment here?
And there were there were a number of reasons I
wanted to. I wanted to, even though when I got there,
I said the same thing, why did I do this?
But and I mean it was it was I hate
to say it, but it was a good financial move too,
because it gave me a chance to get more you know,
(22:23):
points for my my uh reserve retirement and you know,
elt financially too. But that wasn't the motivating factor, but
it helped. I just I don't know, I don't really
remember honestly exactly what happened right before I decided to
go back that prompted me to want to go back.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Well, let me let me go all doctor phil on
your here lesson and propose my theory. I I asked
the question because I wondered about that the underlying question
of the book. This trouble ground seeing struck me as
being was it worth it? And I often wondered if
if les Carol went back to Afghanistan to try and
(23:07):
find an answer to that question.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yes, it were. And I think maybe, you know, maybe
the the lady on the rent who did say to me,
you know, his daughter said I'm not getting back on
this bus until somebody tells me what he died for.
You know, maybe I did want to. Maybe I had
that question too, Maybe I wanted to know what I
(23:31):
had served for and if I'd made a difference. And honestly,
you know, I wrote the book before twenty twenty one
when we withdrew. The withdrawal was a was a tough
thing to swallow, the way it happened and everything and
it and it almost made me feel like I don't
even have a book anymore, because you're right, the overriding
(23:54):
theme of the book was, you know, did we make
a difference? And was my service worth it? And you
know we're all the losses of all these you know,
young men and women that we lost. Was that worth it?
And you know it almost the withdrawal almost made it
where you could say it wasn't worth it. But I
wanted to know if it was or feel like it was.
(24:14):
And I actually went back and talked to some of
the family members after the withdraw and I and some
of them were very angry, and you know, but some
of them also said to me, as long as people
don't forget my son, I'll be all right. So that's
kind of what several people told me. But a lot
of families were very upset the way ended, and it
(24:36):
did kind of it did kind of make them feel
like their loss wasn't worth what it might have been.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
Unless I've got a good friend who is retired Air
Force public affairs as well, and she was in Afghanistan
attached to I think they're called provincial reconstruction teams where
they would actually go out into the villages and work
with the you know, the villagers and you know, women,
new kids and stuff. And three of her team members
were killed by an I D and well, you know,
(25:06):
you's amazing, you know again, once every day on them
oil that I check in with her and just say, hey,
you know, I read their names. They won't be forgotten
in our household.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
But yeah, a lot of you.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Described sort of that adjustment from that your first time
in Afghanistan to then you know, once you returned, you're
you're the seasoned veteran, not as not as bad, but
still even well a different, different kind of way of living.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, it was. I mean I can't complain. I mean
for being in a combat zone, I've probably had it
about as good as you can have it, so I
never you know, the hard thing for me was just
being away from home. It wasn't it wasn't the conditions
for me. It was just it was just being away
(25:56):
from home. I mean, we were, you know, we were
in a little bit of danger. Everybody's in danger if
you're if you're there. But you know, I had a
nice you know, I had a room. I had, you know,
almost something like a little college dorm room kind of
thing in a dining hall, eating and a gym and so,
I you know, I can't really ever complain about being
in conditions. I did go out to the field a
(26:17):
few times or down range where I did sleep in
tents and listen to mortar shills, you know, hitting a
mile away, and I had three or four nights like that.
But but for the most part, I had it pretty good.
So I can't really, I can't compare what I did
to what you know, an army ranger or marine infantrymen
(26:39):
or infantrymen. I can't compare my experience with theirs. My
experience was just unique to me.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Last we got just about a couple of minutes. We
have to take another break. But one thing I found
fascion one of them. If this you know how how
much of this was was real as well? Was your
interaction with the leadership of our NATO partners and some
some pretty some pretty good praise you heaped upon them.
And I don't want people to overlook that this was this.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Was a group effort. Oh yeah, yeah. I served with
some really really outstanding officers and n c o s
and civilians from other countries, from NATO countries. My first deployment,
more so than the second, when my first employment, our
boss was a was a Royal Navy captain from the UK,
(27:29):
and I have since seen him since that time. He
retired as an admiral and I've seen him. He came
to my house when he was on vacation here in
the States, and I mean he was one of the
most fantastic people. And he wasn't a public fairs officer
by trade. He was a nuclear you know, nuclear submarine
physicist something. But he came there to be the public
(27:52):
affairs director for about six months and I was with
him my last three months and was a you know,
some of the you know, he was one of the
finest military leaders I was ever around. I just you know, yeah,
there wasn't always like that. There were some you know,
there were some other countries that puzzled me with their
(28:14):
policies and that kind of thing. But for the most part,
it was a very positive experience.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Well, my congratulations, sir, because I'm you know, hurting journalists
is like hurting cats. That's tough enough. But then you
throw a few flag officers in there, particularly folks from
other countries. I'm sure that, thank god, a little could
get a little sporty. Let's when we come back. I
want to continue talking about your book. In Afghanistan. Ladies
and gentlemen. If you're struggling or a nova veteran who's
dealing with thoughts of suicide, dial nine to eighty eight
(28:42):
and then press one that's available twenty four or seven
links to over five hundred VA suicide prevention s. First,
you can also visit veterans crisis Line dot net. We'll
be right back. Welcome back to American Warrior Radio. Ladies
(29:13):
and gentlemen. This is your host, Bendla Garcia. We're talking
with Les Carroll about his book This Troubled Ground is
a very powerful autobiographical Now we started off in Dover
and your role handling the digfied transfer of over one
hundred remains, and then you also spent quite a bit
of time two tours of duty in Afghanistan, So really,
(29:35):
what was as a PA officer there less? What was
your mission? You talk about your your interaction with the
Afghan journalists and going out to Afghani these studios and
then taking your generals and admirals and whatever out there
to do these interviews. And the thing that really jumped
out at me about that was the observation that, hey,
(29:58):
I've got this female Afghan journalist, and when you address
the question was it worth it, she wouldn't have been
able to do that. Now we all know how it
turned out, and unfortunately it's gone backwards, but I have
to imagine that was a pretty He felt good about
doing that and witnessing at least those changes, however brief
(30:20):
they may have been.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, I want to go back to one point, and then
I'll tie it right into what you're just saying when
you're asking about NATO officers or NATO people that I
work with on my second tour, or the ISAFF spokesman
was a German brigadier general and he became my probably
my closest mentor or friend, whatever you want to call it,
(30:43):
in that second deployment. And it was interesting because I'd
go back to my room at night and I watched
movies like Band Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. You know,
we're trying to destroy the Germans. And then the next
morning I'd get up and go to work. In the
first first night i'd see sometimes was the German and
brigadier general that I referred to as my general. Just
(31:03):
was amazing to think about how things change. I mean,
you know how politics change, and your enemies can become
your friends, and sometimes your friends become your enemies. And
as I was going, as I was about to come
on my second time, he hosted me just he and
I had a little dinner together, pad a pizza and
drank some sodas and had had some really good times together.
(31:25):
But he is the one also that when we were
in the at the Afghan TV station. He's the one
that said to the female journalist, is the half empty
or half full? And he had beautiful English. He said
it in English and his English was very good. You know,
she said, right now it's half full because we're getting
(31:47):
to work and we've got freedom to work now. I
don't know how it would be, you know, how they
would feel now there are still women working as journalists
in probable whether they're doing it at the risk of
their lives.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
That really out of me, and especially you know, the
idea that well. I mean, it's inspiring and heartbreaking at
the same time for me, less because I you know,
you touched on the withdrawal and we're not a political show,
but obviously you can imagine I've got some strong feelings
about how that was handled, you do. I've had a
former Armor intelligence officer who's a regular guest on the show,
(32:19):
who resigned his commission over it. He said, I, in
good conscience, I can no longer wear the uniform of
the United States Army. And I think, again, coming back
to that underlying question, was it all worth it?
Speaker 2 (32:31):
I don't know if you're talking about a general Scott Miller,
but he was the commander before that, and when he
saw what we were going to do and how we
were going to do it, he retired. I mean, he
was a four star general and he was I think
the senior general in Afghanistan and he wasn't. He retired
because he didn't he didn't want to execute that withdraw
the way it was it was given to him or
(32:53):
told to him. I don't know if I get a
call from General Miller or some people that may be
in trouble, but well.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
So what I'm going to reach out to on the door,
try and get him on the show one of the
other again kind of the heartbreaking, but shows that the
reason there. And there was a quote or you describe
a situation in the book. I don't know if this
is actually happen or not, where there was you attended
or you had brought the journalists to cover an election
of local council members. And there's a line there where
(33:20):
we say one of the council members said, over the
four years since this council began, twenty seven council members
have been killed, with at least half of those attributal
to Taliban reprisals.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
How accurate was that, I don't know. I'm not sure
that was in my book, but it might have been. Okay, well,
but it was then I was probably quoting because there
were some I remember, some Washington Post journalists that were
really big by A journalists, and I might have been
quoting one of them as having said that.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
But I did good. I didn't. I don't. I don't
remember doing the elections. I did do the as surer
that what we called then, Yeah, yeah, I did that
where they had brought all the elders together and we're
just trying to convince them to support the government and
(34:15):
the and the Afghan Army and and reject the Taliban
as the Taliban. You know, we're basically trying to bribe
them into into supporting them and helping them. And I
do remember being in that meeting and it was all
in you know, it was all in dhari or pastor.
But and I wasn't sitting right by the by the interpreter,
(34:37):
so I didn't get a lot of it. But I
got enough to I got I understood enough or heard
enough of the of the translation to know that that's
what they were talking about, that that the Afghan you know,
army general was just leading to the locals to support
the support his troops and the rejected Taliban.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Last I were kind of running out of time here
and I want to give touch on something else because
of really, you know, your time at Dover really made
me think about this, and then combined with the the withdrawal,
the way we pulled out of Afghanistan, veterans suicide is
a scourge, and I'm very concerned now that because of
the way that ended up, that we're putting even more
(35:18):
veterans at risk. What what are your what's your take
on that?
Speaker 2 (35:22):
I agree? I agree. I think the way we withdrew
from Afghanistan that's probably made a lot of people doubt
whether they there service meant anything. I don't know, I
don't know the numbers, and I can't say, you know,
I can't say, I'm not going to speculate other than that,
(35:46):
I just can't imagine that there weren't more suicide because
of that, and we were going to withdraw And it
wasn't that we withdrew, it's just the way we did it.
I remember, specifically before the withdrawal, when when President Trump
was still to President Lindsey Graham, who's from my home
(36:08):
date and is actually a personal friend of mine, Senter Graham.
I remember some kind of some story where he was
saying that the President Trump, You've got to leave some
troops at Bogram, We've got to We've got to protect Bogram.
And I think we would have done that under a
different administration rather than just completely I mean, we just
(36:29):
we just handed over Bogram and we just handed over
we we just totally abandoned our embassy. Yeah, And I
mean I know it would have been dangerous, probably, but
I feel like we should have put, you know, put
the security at our embassy and tried to keep you know,
tried to hold onto it. Maybe maybe I'm totally wrong
about that, but I think if we would have kept
(36:50):
some troops there, we could have we could have at
least kept the Afghan president in power and kept and
held on to Bogram and had been able to kind
of just a complete Taliban overrun of the country.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
And those female journalists wuldn't have to worry about their
lives and young women in Afghanistan could still go to school.
Speaker 2 (37:10):
I watched the documentary The woman Wouldn't should go out
covering the story. But if the Taliban would show up
and she'd jump in her car and she'd have to
leave before the Taliban showed up here, I can't blame her. Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Last again, I really enjoyed the book. Well, you know,
I'm I enjoys it not a very good I appreciate
the book because there were some already hard hitting stuff
in there, ladies and Gentlemen's called this Troubled Ground. You
can find out more of it is a less Carol
dot com. Carol is spelled c A R R O
L L. Anything else you've got in the in the
works list our listeners.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Should know about. Yeah, I have finished my next novel
and it's at the publisher. It's it's gonna be the
main character is going to be a former combat marine,
but it's not really a military book. It's a it's
more of a Jilanni justice story. And then I'll be
(38:05):
out at sort of the end of this year, and
then I think the book that I'm going to publish
after that, The next one, I think is the one
that I'm going to tackle the thatter in suicide story
because I have a friend who was in the Marines
and he lost a lot of his buddies on the battlefield,
and then he lost a lot of his buddies when
he got home, and then he almost lost himself and
(38:26):
barely you know, just came through came through it eventually.
So I'm going to address that, and I think in
a subsequent book as well. Okay, very good.
Speaker 3 (38:35):
Well, let's I tell you it's been a real pleasure
chatting with you here on American Warrior Radio today, and
I encourage folks to get this Troubled Ground. You can
find it at Lesscarrol dot com or I'm assuming Amazon,
Barnes and Noble, all those other kind of places.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Right Less, Yes, sure, And I think you're right. I
think I don't know that people will enjoy it. I
hope they'll appreciate it. That's a good point. Well, you
can also march into your local library and man that
they put it on the shelf too. That would have
the help. It's in quite a few libraries, but a
small percentage of the overall number in the country. But
I think if you go there and you're a Locatron
(39:10):
and they asked fordy'll they'll buy it.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Excellent. Let's thank you so much for spending your time
with our listeners today.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you, Ben, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (39:18):
There you go, Ladies and gentlemen, don't forget. You can
find over six hundred podcasts at American Warrior radio dot
com the most recent episodes on your favorite podcast platform.
Until next time. All policies and procedures are.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Remain in place. Take care.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
If you've been listening to American Warrior Radio, archived episodes
may be found at americanwarriorradio dot com or your favorite
podcast platform
Popular Podcasts
Fudd Around And Find Out
UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.