MATT MURPHY GREEN BERET DISCUSSES HIS EXPERIENCES AND NOW HIS BATTLE AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stories of Special Forces Operators Podcast. Listen to
some of the bravest and toughest people on the planet
share their stories, Sit back and enjoy.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Welcome back everybody.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Today, we have a great guest, Matthew Murphy. You can
find them on Instagram at Matt Underscore Underscore, Matt Underscore
Murphy Underscore Officials. I can even say it, but we're
really going to want you to direct you to Operation
light Shine. We're going to be talking about that a
little bit more later on in the show, but check
out Operation light Shine on Instagram as well as Operation

(00:47):
Lightshine dot org. So who is Matt Murphy And this
is what you're asking me, But he's the founder of
CEO of Operational light Shine. But we'll be talking about that.
But he's also a believer, a father, a patriot, a
Green Beret sniper, and a whole lot more. So we're
gonna be discussing his career as Special Forces, and we're
gonna be talking about Operation Why China, which deals with
human trafficking, and a lot more.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Before we get started, folks, share, subscribe, hit.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
That I like button.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
You know we like it. It's not waste any more time.
Led to the show. Mister Matt Murphy.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Welcome sir, Thanks for having dog Carlos. It's great to
be here.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thank you so much for doing this.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
And again, I know I think I forgot before the show,
but thank you very much for your service as well.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Appreciate that. Thank you so, Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
I always love to find out what motivated individuals to
do this stuff. I know I've talked to other green
Rays and they say, well, it was Rambo.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Or if they're older, then it goes all the way
to John Wayne way back. When did you get motivated
by movies or now?

Speaker 4 (01:44):
Movies definitely play a department growing up as a kid,
you know, you had, yeah, the Rambo movies and you know,
obviously the John.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
Wayne green Bray movie, but then even like the cartoons
like the g I Joes and you know, all that
kind of stuff you know a kid, and then Ninja Turtles,
you know, like all pretty much everything I played with
as a kid.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
It was you know, like people that were you know,
or turtles that were going out there and you know,
saving others and you know, being superheroes. I guess you
could say so that, Yeah, it was always kind of
dream of mine to go out and fight and you know,
do do good stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
What was that guy's name with Jed Show? I think
it was Flint. Wasn't it the Green beret they had
on there.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
I'm trying to remember. I've been blown up so many
times my memory.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I know that because I remember they had one Green
bereat guy on there. I think it was.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Fascinating stuff. So okay, So that that motivated June. Now
was any family member's military and honor.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
So I think I have like a great grandfather that
did a few years kind of thing, but nobody really served.
I actually got the motivation. I was in college and
I was rushing for a fraternity at the University of Memphis.
Why I did that, I don't know. I don't even
like to admit that. But the so I had a

(03:02):
guy going through a rush with me, and he was
a former Navy seal. So he joined the military right
around you know, before nine to eleven, became a Navy seal,
did a couple of tours, got out four or five years,
and then he wanted the college experience. He's now an
orthopedic surgeons, so he's crushed life. But he was a

(03:22):
Navy seal everybody in campus was terrified of him, and
he would tell me. He would tell me stories all
the time, you know about you know, war stories and
Navy seal stuff, and that was really when the men.
I was just like, you know what, screw it. I'm
joining the military. But I hate water and I hate
like drowning. I guess it is my biggest fear. So
I was like, I'm gonna go be a green bray.

(03:44):
Little did I know that they have died of teams
and special forces too.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
But you know, did you overcome that? I guess I'm
assuming during that seier training. I'm not sure what that.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Was in Well, so it wasn't a seer training, but
they have specialty teams in each special Forces like a company,
and one of the teams is a dive team. And
I was on a dive team for about five years.
But I was not an exceptional person in the water
by any means.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
You know, I always wonder what favorite terrain you had.
I guess it's an interesting question for me. I guess
being non military, which I know sometimes this is off
the audience out there, and I apologize for that, but
what what was it? There was any terrains? You know,
some of the Navy seal guys have told me they
hated the jungle. They want not part of the jungle.
I've had mac Vie SAgs who love the jungle.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
Anything for you that you preferred, Well, I hate jungles
first of all, because it's just not them a bucks.
It's bugs, it's human, it's you know, it's no fun.
You know, it's cool to like walk through for a
minute and they're like, all right, I'm out here. But
I love the desert and I'm just a big fan
of the desert. It's it's beautiful at night, nice and cool,

(04:55):
crystal clear sky stars everywhere. I mean, yeah, during the
day gets a little hot, but I mean I was
in Special Forces Group, so the Middle East was you know,
our area of the world that we operated in. So
I spent you know, pretty much my entire career in
the desert. So yeah, I love it there.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
I was a guy that was going to trying to
get into frat, into a fraternity.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
How was the life of Special Forces.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
In the sense of doing the training or doing the
selection process, how was that for you?

Speaker 4 (05:23):
It was it was a little bit of a gut check.
But I went infantry first, because when I came in,
I you know, I had been in a little too
much trouble, I guess for the military, with the you know,
not like felonies, but like reckless driving, speeding tickets, you
know where it's like that higher level misdemeanor where you're
going like one hundred and eighty and I don't know whatever.
So I had to go away for to join the military.

(05:44):
So because of that, they wouldn't let me go right
into special Forces because of my speeding problem, which still
has not been corrected. But yeah, so I had to
go infantry. So I went infantry, and soon I went
through the invanturbation training and pretty shortly after I got
to my first duty station. I spent thirteen months in

(06:04):
I Raq. So I got. Yeah, so I got, you know,
a little taste of you know, war and then you
know the training, but you know, nothing prepares you for
you know, the special operations, selection and all that kind
of stuff. I mean, it's, uh, you know a little
the infantry training, it's it's I mean, it's it's not terrible,
but you know there's nothing like selection and you know

(06:26):
a lot of the stuff that you go through trying
to become a Green Beret. I don't think anybody can
really prepare for that. You know, you can be in
the best physical shape, you know, mentally tough, all that
kind of stuff, but you really don't find out who
you are until you're in a situation where you find
out who you are, you know what I mean. And
you know there's there's guys that were you know, college

(06:47):
athletes and studs and can run, you know, run a
mile in four minutes and all that kind of stuff
that quit after two days, you know, because at the
end of the day it's everybody breaks down. You know,
it doesn't matter who you are, they'll find a way
to break you down physically. And you find out the
most powerful thing that you have in your body is
your mind. And can your mind overcome the physical pain

(07:09):
and the stress, and can you as an individual keep going?
And that's what you don't find out until you get there.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
That's a great point. It's a lot more mental than
it is physical. It sounds like every time I talk to.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Anybody, I mean, you have to be in great physical
shape where you physically will not make it, but there
comes a point where your mind has to take over
to keep you going and.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Did doing kind of the same thing.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
I've talked to other Special Forces and individuals that are
blessed enough to talk to a lot. Usually they have
the similar story where you see somebody there when you
first go into selection process and you see somebody who
just looks like we used to say Adonnis, but I
guess Hercules or whatever, and you're thinking, this guy's going
to make it all the way through, and then all
of a sudden.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
They don't.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
Now, you know, you know, there is no rhyme or
reason to it. I mean when you get into the
Special Operations community guys, I mean there's a lot more
bigger guys. I guess we've got the long legs, can
walk and ruck forever. But I mean there's all shapes
and sizes. There's some guys that look like they love
Twinkies a lot. But you know, you get that guy
out there in a physical competition and he'll run circles

(08:15):
around Adonnis. You know, there's really no rule to it. Now,
that's not that's the exception, not the norm. But you know,
at the end of the day, you know the guys
that are you know, don't have a lot of body
fat that are just chiseled and you know, jacked and
maybe on some type of steroids that their their bodies
aren't made to last. You know, they might be good
in the fight for about two minutes, but you know

(08:35):
in a second, a lot of those guys are gonna
wither away.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
That's interesting. Well, that's a great point.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Sometimes people looks great but may not be as strong,
or that mental forty two is really that that kicker.

Speaker 4 (08:51):
That's that's the key right there.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
So let's do this. So you pass the selection process.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Do you remember your first deployment as a Special Force.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
I do well. After the selection process, you have almost
two years of school still to go, you know, but
that's not even easy. You know, you've got to learn
another language. You've got to learn, which for me was Arabic.
You know, I like to think, yeah, yeah, I like
to think I'm fluent when I hop int an uber
and the driver's name is Muhammad. But it's good, a

(09:22):
little rusty now. And then you learn a specialty skill
for me, those communications. I was a communications expert on
the team. And then everybody goes through a small unit
tactic school, and then everybody goes through seer school, and
then you know, you have a Robin Sage and then
which is like kind of like a culminage and exercise
for you to utilize all of your individual skills and
then apply them to a team with everybody else who

(09:44):
has bringing their skills to the table. And then you
have to make it through Robin Sage, accomplish the mission,
and then you get your green beret.

Speaker 2 (09:53):
Wow, now it was I can't remember if I get
the name right. I think it's Echo. Is that what
they call you guys?

Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yeah, I was an eighteen echo communications sergeant. Yeah. Fortunately,
you know that was not my first choice. Sometimes army
makes that choice for you, but fortunately for me, you know,
I didn't have to do the the echo stuff very
much after a couple of years, just because of the
nature of deployments and things that we did.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
So what did you want to do?

Speaker 4 (10:18):
Well, I wanted to be the weapon sergeant. I think
most people want to do what I always hear you,
you know, learn about all the weapons to do all
the stuff. But now I'm glad, you know, like when
you get older and wiser, right that I did do
the communications things because that's helped me out a lot
more in life with just random things because everybody learns
the weapons. Everybody learns all that stuff on the team,

(10:39):
and you know, it's uh so, I think it's a
lot better to do something else other than weapon sergeant.
That's just my opinion, though.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
I had a couple couple of buddies a green Berries too,
that Clay Martin, I'm sure if you've ever heard of him,
or Alan Schabarro.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
The Yeah, they weren't too excited about the echo.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
They wanted the arms as well, because we're like the
we're like the nerves on the team. You know. I
got like carried around a big old backpack with radios
and antennas sticking up, poking out everywhere. You know. Just yeah,
you're you're you're you're the dork on the team for
the you know, Special Forces world.

Speaker 3 (11:12):
You know, before we get ection to your first deployment
as a soft guy, tell me you went to Iraq?

Speaker 4 (11:20):
You said it in the infantry.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
What years were you there?

Speaker 4 (11:23):
So I was there for the surge on Solder City
and uh oh wait and nine yeah wow, right in
the middle of everything. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was
pretty well deployment. Yeah, Solder City was you know, we
we were in yeah, building the wall between the jayshaw
Mahdi Army and then so I guess there was so

(11:44):
much fighting. I don't remember, you know, I was just
a nug at this point, like I'm a little you know,
private Murphy. You know, I just I just did what
I was told, you know. But yeah, yeah, and uh,
you know, we were we were building a wall and
the Jayshalmady had their side of Sidern City and we
had ours. And you know, at once there were gunfights

(12:05):
and stuff like that a lot, I guess during the
building of the wall, but after the wall was built
they just tried to blow us up all the time.
You know, there was a very few you know, gunfights
after that point, but then they would just come out
of side and plany IDs and the fps. Gotta hate
still still hate those e fps. But yeah, it's uh,
it was definitely an interesting experience. And then the last

(12:27):
couple of months was I forget the agreement that came through,
but it really slowed the Iraq War down as far
as being like an offensive mission. So the last couple
of months we just sat in a big base and
worked out and you know, drank free coachs in the
cow hall.

Speaker 3 (12:45):
Yeah, I'll get back to that because I'm not sure
if your deployment how many years later did did you?

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Would you get first to play as a Green bereat then, so.

Speaker 4 (12:54):
I guess, uh, probably about two and a half right, yeah,
right around two and a half year. Yeah, so I.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
You get sent back to Iraq at that point.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
No, not back to Iraq. So it was kind of
funny Fifth Special Forces Group. You know, it was mainly
in Iraq, but they had certain rotations that where teams
would split off and do Afghanistan tours. So about two
weeks after I shut up Special Forces and I was
put on the one team that didn't want to be
on the dive.

Speaker 6 (13:23):
Team, you know, I had to go to uh to
Afghanistan and uh we did six months there. We took
a team, well a couple of teams of Jordanian Special
Forces over to Afghanistan with US.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
They did the deployment with US, and yeah, so that
was my that was my first trip. We were in
a place called Shari Safa, which was about a couple
of hours outside of Kandahar.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Oh way down south.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Yeah, we were down south and you know, not a
whole lot of action down there. Same thing just you know,
the the i DS and all that on one going
into Canahar and you know, we just did patrols and
tried to you know, stop people from smuggling weapons and
things like that through the mountains.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Kanadaheart What was what was that other area that was
pretty hot down there was Helman, wasn't it?

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Were you guys close to Helmet?

Speaker 4 (14:16):
Yeah, so that I wasn't in the Helmet province, that's no. Yeah,
I'm not even really sure where that is because I
did I did one Afghanistan trip in twenty twelve, so
you know, Afghanistan is definitely not my U you know,
area of expertise.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
By what I mean, what do they do with you
as a dive guy in Afghanistan or did you not
really die at all?

Speaker 4 (14:39):
So here's here's the thing about uh, you know die
teams Special Forces. You're not anywhere near water ever right now,
some of the teams and maybe other groups probably get
to dive a little bit. It's your kind of Yeah,
it's basically a capability that they keep. They've they've gone
back and forth multiple times about getting rid of it
and all that type of stuff. But I think it's

(14:59):
a important to have a team or have guys that
have that capability of you know, things get crazy, world
war or something. But you know, if it's Special Forces group,
you're not really going to be diving anywhere. It's more
just a you know, for guys to do it. It's
it's a heck of a feed to accomplish. I mean
dive school. Uh, you know that's a that's a halatious school.
I'd say, you know, just from talking to people. I

(15:22):
mean I haven't been to every school in Special Forces,
have been talking to people, Like everybody that's you know,
been to dive school says it's the hardest thing in NSF.
You know. So it's a gut check for those guys
for sure.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
Wow, So now tell us what which one? Let's see here,
So what was your first young ballots? You actually bumped
into it in soft that you.

Speaker 4 (15:41):
Have with so yeah, so the first one was let's see,
actually we well we had a couple of little minor
tics in Afghanistan. But I would say, like really the
first like you know, like no no crab, like you know,
getting after it was in places I can't talk about.

(16:03):
That's all right.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
If you ever get get shot.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
At her, oh for sure, I mean Moustily, I mean Iraq,
I mean a bunch Afghanistan. You know, random stuff, you know,
like pop shots. There's never really like a full on
kinetic thing. But most of the contacts you know that
that at least happened to me personally would be you know, Syria,
and then in other places.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
Now, I guess we'll go exporting psychologically. Now, when you
were shot at for the first time, if you remember
the very first time you got shot at, what were
you thinking? As I know, sometimes I hear things like
I wasn't thinking anything.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
I was at a fire back. One guy said, oh,
sh it's the first time I ever see that happen.

Speaker 4 (16:47):
Well, so the first time I got shot at, we
were in Solder City. I'd just gotten there. We've been there,
I don't know a week. And uh, I'm sitting on
the rooftop. We're pulling security for some some meeting. Something's
going on, like some important you know, uh military people
in generals or something. We're coming to meet some Iraqi guys.
You know. Again, I'm in private. I don't know what's

(17:08):
going on or do I care. I'm just there and uh,
you know, so I'm sitting on the roof and I'm
near some type of air conditioning unit and I started hearing,
you know, it's like just so He's like, it wasn't
like a pop or a crack or anything. And then
I'm looking around and then, you know, because it's just
we're just all private. This is all of our first appointment.

(17:29):
The only person on the roof that's deployed, you know,
or been shot at before is R E five, who's
you know, walking around making sure we're not falling asleep
and pulling security and then uh if somebody goes, what's
that noise? And then somebody's like, we're getting shot? Are
you fucking idiots, They're like, oh, yeah, that's that's that's
what that is. You know. Uh so that was that

(17:52):
was it. That's kind of funny. You know. I was like, oh,
they're shooting us. This is But that's when you're like,
you know, you know, I don't know. For me, I
think it's scared. And I was just like, well, all right,
here we go. You know, this is this, this is
this is the way it's going to be. But I
don't know, I mean, it's for me, I never really
got you don't ever get, like I never got scared,

(18:14):
I guess you could say, or was worried. You know,
you don't, you don't have time for that kind of crap.
You just you just react and do what you gotta do.
And you know, you know, screw the dude to shooting
at you. Let's find that guy. You find it.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
I've heard this a lot. Did you find it that?
Were you surprised your training as a Green Brave when
it kicks in? Did you find that out and you're like,
oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
This is amazing.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
Maybe after the gunfight or something, did you think, damn,
damn glad I did that training?

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Oh of course, I mean it's it's definitely one of
those things like you know, once you're adrenaline starts pumping.
I would say adrenaline your biggest enemy, right. You know,
it's just like any type of scenario or a fight.
If you let your adrenaline, you let you know the
take and.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
You don't remember your training, you're gonna get You're probably
gonna get beat up.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
You know, if you're not in control of your body.
So you've really got to go back to that muscle
memory stuff. You know. Okay, this is where I'm at,
this is what I'm doing, move behind cover, you know,
turn fire, you know, just all those little, very very
simple things that most people don't think about because everybody
thinks that like when you're a Green Beret or something,

(19:25):
that you're just some you know, super badass. You know,
I don't know that person, you know, And I like
to think we train our butts off and that you know,
we're very capable. But really it's just we just do
the easy things. Well, you know, some simple things like
first thing, don't get shot, you know, move behind cover,
you know, you know, return fire, you know, accurately return fire.

(19:49):
You know, the simple things like that, as long as
you keep your head kind of in the game and
stay stay where you're at, say, where you're supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (20:00):
Viewing hundreds of you guys, now, yeah, again, I'm really
blessed of interviewing so many of you.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
There's an incredible and cognitive flexibility that.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
You folks have.

Speaker 2 (20:08):
You what I mean by that is is the.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
Ability to when you're in a situation and things don't
go right, which I'm assuming they don't always go right. Yeah, yeah,
I keep hearing you guys have to think of how
to get it done.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
How do I overcome this. How do I do this?

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (20:27):
This piece of equipment broke? Now what do I can't?
What can I use instead of it?

Speaker 2 (20:31):
And that's a skill set that's really incredible for you guys.

Speaker 4 (20:35):
What's invaluable you know when you're in the big military.
Like I said, you know, when I was in imagery, Yeah,
I'm just a nug with a gun doing what it's told.
Walking down the street. You know, we're literally like on
foot looking for IDs. That's when I realized, you know,
my value to the US military. You know, like it's
not going to blow up. Kick it.

Speaker 7 (20:54):
I don't know, Yeah, you know, you're not supposed to
kick it. But you know, like you sometimes you're so bored,
you're like, God, I hope this blows up, you know,
but yeah, you know, it's it's very difficult, I would
say to.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
When you when you look at the whole process of
like being an infantry guy and then being an SF guy.
When you when you're in the infantry, there's a whole
machine behind you, right, you know, every there's people who
would do every single job and all these different shops.
So you really you're just there and you're doing the fight.
You know, when you're on an SF team, you've got
twelve dudes a lot of times not even twelve guys,

(21:35):
and within those twelve guys, you've got to be able
to accomplish everything that that entire you know, brigade of
support staff would do. You're doing your own comms, your
own medicine, your own weapons and maintenance. You're taking care
of your own building, building, your own building and home
sometimes from electrical to the plumbing to you know, all
the stuff that comes in. I mean, you know, and

(21:57):
you know, guys on the team, you know have all
these skills and are taught all these skills in the course,
but you know, you all end up working on all
of them together, and I mean you learned a lot. Man.
It's being a Green Beret was one hundred percent the
best time in my life. But probably the thing I
think that is most important for me, especially with his
transition to the civilian world, is you just learned to

(22:19):
adapt and provise and overcome, and you've learned just so
many different things that you don't really need help. I mean,
if I pick up my phone and you know, just
google something to make sure I don't wire something wrong,
I mean I pretty much figure out any.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
You know, it's funny.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
I don't think mcgiver was a Green Beret. I don't
know if he was portrayed that way or not. Was
he portrayed as a soft guy?

Speaker 4 (22:46):
Yeah, I don't know. I don't really remember. I loved
the show when I was a kid, but I was
young to really understand the you know, the backstory.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
I guess because they didn't portray Ramble that way.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah, I would say if if, if mcguiver was Green Beret,
is probably in eighteen Charlie definitely Arlie the engineer on
the team for sure.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
I know Rambo is also very handy with his hands
and building things. And I think there used to be
a show called cover Up.

Speaker 2 (23:13):
I don't know if you ever heard of that for
a few years. Yeah, probably an ideal job for you.

Speaker 4 (23:19):
I think. I don't know. It was a he was a.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Green Beret that went around as a executive protection from models.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
Nice.

Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, so he traveled the world with the models, and
for some reason these models always had trouble going on.
I don't know what the heck of what it was,
but there were always in trouble that he had to
use his Green Beret skills.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
Well, that sounds like a cool show. I might have
to give it a Google.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
See, it's a little lot down, it's a little old,
so you have to be kind to the technology back then,
for sure, let's do this. You know, this might be
a good segue as we started getting into your civilian
life and then operational light shine in the tragedy as well.
But before we do that, I've always really admired and
saw how I found how incredible it is. And I

(24:06):
guess the best way to describe as the band of
brothers that seems to develop in the soft world. I
can't tell you how many stories I've ever heard where
if I'm going through a tough time, I just pick
up the phone and I know one of the guys
on the twelve are going to pick up. Did you
develop the same type of friendships in your unit?

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Oh yeah, definitely. I mean it's you've become really close
friends with those guys. I guess the difference is is
that when you're in the big Army, you know, guys
are at do stations for three years now, you definitely
get close to those guys. You spend thirteen months in
the combat zone with somebody you've heard all their stories
ten times. You get signporem and love them and get
sickle woman love them again, you know, like it's you

(24:47):
definitely develop some relationships there. But when you're on a
ness up team, usually you spend a lot more time
on the team. I don't know what the average is,
but usually before guys I think gets sent to well
it's chang now, but before back, before guys we get
sent to go you know, be a trainer, instructor, stuff
like that. You could be on a team for you

(25:07):
know what six years, five six years just with the
same group of guys, mostly the same group of guys.
But I got fortunate. I never had to go do
a training thing until the very end. And you know,
we'll talk about why later. But they got about a
lot of solid eight years on the team.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
So you've made a lot of friendships as well, some
great guys they know we segue tell us a little
bit about the exit of the Green Berets. For you,
that's always seems to be a very powerful moment in
the life, because you go from one hundred and fifty
miles an hour to all of a sudden down to
twenty miles an hour in civilian life and tell us

(25:46):
little bit about that shift.

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Well, man, actually mine went from one hundred miles an
hour to two hundred miles an hour of this ship.
And I think that was just because the nature you know,
you know, my accent from the military happening is a
unique set of circumstances that kind of all you know
happened at once. But you know it started, you know,

(26:08):
with the with the loss of my sister. Uh you know, so,
uh do where we're going to that now? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (26:15):
A good time?

Speaker 4 (26:16):
Sure? Yeah. So, so, you know, November, I had just
gotten back from doing being the usasauce le and O
office or something in a training exercise for if Russia attacked. Weird,
rather do it right now, right, But so, and I
was over in Europe doing that. I had just gotten
home and I get a call from my mom that

(26:38):
my my sister had had disappeared. And you know, my
sister had all kinds of problems, drug problems, a lot
of other things, you know, she had she'd gone down
some really dark paths in life, and so it was
it wasn't unusual for her to disappear, but it was
unusual for her to not communicate with my mom like
we would. She would go places we ever know where

(27:00):
she would be, but she would always ask my mom
for money like every like, you know, on an hourly,
like hey, Mom, send me twenty bucks with us. You know,
it was bad, you know, the drugs really took hold
of her. But she had stopped communicating and that was
a really red flag for us because she never didn't
have her cell phone and she never not asked me,
would never not ask my mom for money. So this time,

(27:22):
you know, we were all a little worried. But this
was November fifth, twenty nineteen. She had gotten picked up
by a gentleman. I can't say his name or anything
because you know, I don't know where he falls in
this you know situation. But and then she her phone
never touched the tower again thirty minutes later and yeah,

(27:42):
she's never seen it live again by us. And then
she was missing for almost two months. You know, it
was the hell all the time for our family. You know,
I can't you know, we still don't know what happened
to her really or you know, what she went through.
It's some ideas, but again it's a lot of its speculations.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Still, do you have any other siblings besides.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Yeah, yeah, a big family. I've got an older sister,
two older brothers, and two younger brothers. Oh wow, this
is my Yeah, this is my youngest sister.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
Well she was the baby of the family.

Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah, she's the baby. She was twenty she was twenty
six at this time, and uh, she's gone. You know,
Rumors of human trafficking, rumors of you know, somebody killing
or or murdering or you know, all kinds of different stuff,
you know, just drove us insane, you know, and and
and saying sadly, like you know, anytime anyone goes missing

(28:41):
like that, you know, you know, something bad happened, you
just don't know why. And then the rumors started, and
then the police tell you, well we think this or
we think this, but November tw I'm sorry. December twenty fourth,
Christmas Eve, hunters in Mississippi found her body in a
you know, like a creek, small river or kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
By that point, we knew, you know, you know, at
that point someone's gone for two months that they're most
likely dead or if not, you know, in Venezuela being traffied,
you know, but we were all pretty sure at that point,
you know, she was dead. So at that point it
was it was more like closure. At least, you know,
at least we finally got her back, you know, at

(29:28):
least we at least we know something, you know, because
someone someone's missing and gone without a trace and nothing
but speculation. That's horrible for a family, you know, So
you crazy, Yeah, my parents got God bless them. My
you know, that was you know, it's still tough, you know,
but you know, you can't imagine I was going, No,

(29:50):
it's you know, I'm a green bray. You know, I've
got friends and all over the government and intel agencies
and everything else. We wanted to find somebody or make
somebody dead. I've been a lot of and you know,
we got them right, you know, we can find them.
And then and I was just helpless, you know, in
this situation. So that happened, you know, twenty nineteen. And

(30:12):
right before about a year before that, I had been
given I had gone and worked for another government agency
for a few years. And when I had gotten off
that that tasking, I was given a bunch of vaccines,
like all the vaccines I had missed and boosters I
had missed from the Army all in one day, one

(30:32):
sitting well, the next day I ended up in the hospital.
So this is this will all makes sense in a minute.
So this happened about a year before my sister disappeared.
They gave me all those vaccines. One sitting, the next
day I end up in Vanderbilt Hospital with a cute
pancreatic attack. Hospital. Yeah, yeah, weird, totally weird how that happened.
I wasn't the COVID vaccine. I have to say that

(30:52):
so this doesn't get deleted on Instagram, but but you
know I was. It was hell, but they ran every
time I saw the book on me, perfectly healthy. We
have no idea why this happened. I'm like, well, I
have an idea, and the doctor said to me, yeah,
of course this is why this happened. But they had
no way to medically, you know, connect the dots, right. Yeah.

(31:15):
So anyways, COVID hits four months about three four months
after my sister was found. Of course, because at this
point the Special Forces had pulled me out of off
the team and they made me an instructor. One of
the things I did on the team was I was
a sootach, a special Operations Jtack and so they had

(31:37):
pulled me off of the team and they made me
a jaytach instructor at this Special Forces group so I
could be home, not deploy, you know, be there for
my family as much as I possibly could during this time.
And you know, so once COVID hit, I literally had
nothing to do, nothing to do, you know, it wasn't

(32:00):
wasn't on our team anymore. We didn't come to the
office because we weren't allowed to train anybody. So I
was just sitting in my apartment in Nashville, Tennessee, basically
turning into an alcoholic going through depression, you know. And really,
for the first time in my adult life, I was
sitting still right and you know I was. I was struggling,

(32:23):
sure enough, get COVID, and the next I don't I
don't know it, but I started getting pains, you know,
in the same spot that I had when I had
my pancrea titus. So go to the hospital. They're like, sir,
you're having a cute pancreatic attack. Admitted me into the
hospital and they're like, oh, and you have COVID. You
got it early, Yeah, yeah, I got it early on

(32:45):
and ended up in the hospital for eight days with
a cute pancrea titus. Well, you know, to fast forward
six months later, get COVID again, don't know it, go
to the hospital, cute pancreatic attacks or you have COVID.
So what they found out is basically, all those vaccines
messed my pancreas up and gave my body some auto
immune thing. So now when I get a really bad virus,

(33:07):
I get an autoimmune attack and then up in the
hospital with pancreatitis. Really fun stuff. So anyways, they decide
to medically retire me or start the medical uh you know,
medical board process. It would eventually medical retire me right then.
And while that's happening, you know, or I'm still getting sick,
they hadn't decided medically retire me yet. You know, I'm depressed,

(33:30):
you know. So it's like a perfect storm of you know,
I'm messed up medically. You know. My sister had just
been you know, murdered. I'm pretty sure it's murdered, you know,
found in a river in another state, and sitting in
the house with COVID, you know, and and then having
to stay away from COVID because if I get around anybody,

(33:54):
you know, I'm gonna end up in the hospital. And uh,
it was a mess. I was just I was in
the lowest point of my life. And on top of it,
I'm not I don't have my boys anymore. I'm not deploying.
So you know, all that NonStop life, being a Green Beret, traveling,
deploying all over the world, NonStop schools, NonStop stuff, it
all just came to a screeching hot. Man. I was
in the worst spot in my life, man, drinking, drinking

(34:17):
my face off. All I really did was play Xbox. Oh.
I was bad. Man. You know, some days I wanted to,
you know, be a vigilante, I guess you could say,
and go find you know, my sister's killers and just
you know, take care of it myself. Some days I
just felt hopeless and depressed, and I like, you know,

(34:39):
it was a rough part of my life. Then I started,
you know, googling human trafficking and learning about what it
is and child exploitation, and I started to see what
that was. You know, a lot of people think they're
the same thing. They're totally different. We'll talk about that later.
But started to learn about all this stuff, and I
was like, you know what, I want to do something

(34:59):
about this. I want to you know, I don't want
it to do something. But then I found out that
charities could help. And I saw that charities were doing
stuff to help in human trafficking. So overseas are you know,
rescuing kids in states, are taking taking care of the
you know, men, women and children that become victims of trafficking.

(35:19):
I decided I want to do something about it, but
I want to mainly do something about it here in America.
So I get this crazy I did to start a charity.
I have no clue what I'm doing, mind you, So
I google how to start a charity. I'll order a book.
The book comes in and it's a like, you know,
how to start a charity for dummies pretty much, you know,

(35:42):
and read the book, you know, go through the whole process,
do it. And then and then I'm like, all right, now,
what are we gonna do? I'm gonna do something, you know.
So I started researching what other charities were doing, good,
the bad, the ugly, everything in between. But you know,
I really wanted to do something here in America. So

(36:03):
I add as you know, what some would say vigilante ideas.
At first, they were I dias mind. You you know,
I didn't do anything, you know, hunting the guys myself,
you know, getting computer hackers to find them, you know,
all kinds of crazy. WA was just bringing Intel boys in.
But there's here's one thing that I realized is I
did not know what I did not know, you know

(36:26):
when it comes to trying to do something about human trafficking,
you know, child exploitation. So I started beating on doors.
You know, this is towards the end of COVID. People
were still freaked out about COVID, but you know, not
too bad. At this point. I'm just being on doors
all over law enforcement anybody that would talk to me,
anybody would listen, Just trying to, you know, find ways

(36:49):
that I could help law enforcement here in the States,
or how a charity could. And by the grace of God,
the guy named Junkole, who's considered the foremost expert in
the world at fighting child exploitation, decides that he's going
to make Nashville his last homeland security. He's in Homeland

(37:11):
Security his last stop, I guess on the tour, and
then he's going to retire and live in Nashville, So
he's in my backyard. I finally meet with somebody in
Homeland Security and they're like, hey, if anyone can help
you or tell you what to do, it's Jim Cole.
But you've got to remember people like you or a
dime a dozen trying to talk to Jim Cole, you know,

(37:33):
I mean, just give it a shot. Right. Some months
go by, and finally Jim mcgreesa talk to me. Why
I don't know. So I go in there with my
now established charity and about seven ideas six seven ideas,
and my good buddy who's the vice president of the
charity at the time, in Johnson Codwell, former elite metro
ped in Dallas swat Guy Marshall task Force. You know,

(37:54):
I'm just rockstar on the on the law enforcement side.
We going there, sitt this table full of Homeland Security
agents and FBI people, and Jim's like, all right, Matt,
tell me, tell me what you're thinking. And I spit
an idea out. He's like, Nope, can't do that. Another
idea he's like, that's illegal. You know. Another idea is

(38:17):
that's vigilante. And he's like, you're gonna go to jail,
you know. So I get through my ideas and I'm like, well,
this did not go you know how I wanted and
h but you know, I'm not going to give up,
nor am I going to do anything wrong. And that's
the difference here, you know, it is I'm not going
to break laws and I'm not gonna do anything wrong.

(38:38):
I'm going to try to figure out a way to
make an impact the best way. So you know, I
just kind of sit back in my chair and I'm like, well,
I mean, you tell me. You know, you're the expert.
You tell me what I can do with a charity
to make a difference. And I guess Jim the way
Jim says it now, He's like, I saw something different
than you that I've never seen in anyone who's asked

(38:59):
me thirty years of law enforcement from every charity you
can think of, who are just like, you know what,
I'm gonna do it this way and screw you. I
was like, you tell me right. I didn't realize how
much of a monumental moment that was for him. But
he talked to me about a task force concept, and

(39:20):
it's a concept of bringing people together from federal law
enforcement state law enforcement and local law enforcement all together
on a task force for every state to fight human
trafficking and child exploitation. So that way, borders don't matter,
States don't matter, County lines don't matter, city lines don't matter,

(39:41):
Districts don't matter at that point, and they can all
share their expertise knowledge, right, you know, because this is
a really advanced technological fight that we're in with human
trafficking and especially child exploitation. And not only that, on
top of the that bringing them together, there's creating the

(40:05):
support that they need because a lot of these cops
all over the state Tennessee, in every state, it is saying,
I meet them with governors every week. Now, they're underfunded, understaffed,
they don't have the technology, they don't have the training.
A lot of times they you know, they don't have
really any of the equintment they need. Some of them don't
even have cars. These detectives. They're using their personal cars,

(40:28):
you know, and it's a mess. You know, the big
cities and stuff, and the federal agents have all the
all the cool stuff, but you know, when you get
out into the counties and other areas of the state,
they just don't have it. So they need all this need,
all these things. So we talk through this concept and
we put together something that's just absolutely magical. And I'll

(40:49):
talk about that in a little bit. So Jim gives
me this idea. So now I'm like, okay, it's time
to rock and roll. So I start going to work
trying to create this charity, build this concept out, you know,
just going through jumping through hula hoops here, you know,
working like a maniac. And right around the time that

(41:13):
we really had the idea finalized, we knew how we
were going to do it. Everything was dialed in. On
the charity side. The army comes through and they're like, hey,
we are medically kicking you out. So I literally went
from getting medically kicked out of the military to being

(41:34):
the CEO of a charity. So so it went from
one hundred miles an hour to training to a dead
stop worst period in my life, to now I'm like
a chicken with my head cut off trying to learn
a charity, build build, build a you know, a functional
charity model out, create something that's never happened before, you know,

(41:58):
in America with what we're doing. And then on top
of that, convinced people to allow it to happen, you know,
so I never really, I never got a break. Man.
My life just got crazier and I've loved every second
of it because we're making a difference, you know, so quick.

(42:19):
Something too.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Was the empetus when you said you were googling human
trafficking was the empetus her.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
Sister, you know, because a lot of the rumors around
her death were trafficking, that she was trafficked in Mississippi
and things like that. But what what we've come to
find out, you know, after all this, I guess my
parents might have had an idea. They just never really
told me because they don't want me to do anything crazy,
not that I would do something, but you know, you know,

(42:49):
she'd been trafficked before she had disappeared. You know, she
was bad on drugs, really bad on drugs. And you
know a lot of these girls, especially you know, yeah, women,
you know, they get taken advantage of and a lot
of times when they're broken, don't have a job, and
they're addicted to a substance, the only thing they have
to sell is themselves, you know, to get those drugs,

(43:10):
and then the guys will start to take advantage of
them and pimple them out or beat them, abuse them.
You know, a lot of bad stuff happened to my sister.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
I guess the reason I ask is because it's almost
like your sister from the heavens saved you from her
depressed state.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
It was interesting. Yeah, no, I did, you know, I
really believe and I found God again and all this.
You know, I know this isn't about religion or anything else,
but you know, it's my life, and I found God
in this man. I turned away from God. I had
to do some marble shit to people. You know, over

(43:48):
over my career. You know, all the name of America, right,
the name of good and you know, you you look
at well a lot of the things we do, and
you see the world and you see other religions. You
see death and suffering and the loss of innocence, and
there's a lot of things that can make you question religion,

(44:08):
you know, and start to question what you were taught,
especially when you're you know, a white boy from the
suburbs of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, who grew up you know,
having everything that he ever wanted, going to church on
the weekend. The worst thing that happened in your town
was you know, somebody stole a pack of skittles from

(44:28):
the gas station, you know, and you know, you're driving
a BMW and in college and you know, your parents
buy you a house to go to school. And I
had it pretty good. I had it pretty good, and
I said screwed and joined the military, left all that behind.
But you know, and then you see the world, You're like, well,
wait a second, this god guy, I don't know, you know,

(44:52):
I don't know how there's a big man upstairs. And
I had the questions. I doubt it for a long time,
but I ended up coming back back. And you know,
I started praying during all this, like, you know, telling
like I don't know what to do. I think this
is horrible. You know, I'm losing everything that I know.
I'm losing. I lost my sister, you know, I lost myself.

(45:15):
You know, this charity saved me, man, it really did.
You know. I'm not saying my sister died for this reason.
You know that was going to happen anyways. I can't
change the past, but who I became, the people that
I meet, the things that I know, and you know,
a lot of the things that I have taught have

(45:35):
allowed me to step up and do something that that
we're hoping is is going to you know, change the
world for little girls and boys around this world that
are suffering and trafficking and being exploited, and you know,
they're suffering in silence all over the world, thousands in
every state, you know, especially on the exploitation side.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
I'm sure it is very proud of you. She's looking
at you from the heavens. I'm sure we'rey proud of you.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Let me ask you this.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
I don't know if you're familiar with Fusion m hm.
I mean maybe if you, uh.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
Fusion is as a group, they're not that well known
because it's a bunch of intel individuals and all different
types of agencies of.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
Funnel terrorist information together. There's like ten Fusion.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
Centers in the US.

Speaker 2 (46:26):
But I don't know.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
As I'm listening to you describe Operation Live Shine and
the task force that Jim Cole had originally.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Thought of, we'll tell us a little bit about that.
Maybe instead of asking you that, how about we get
to the process then tell me a little bit about
Operation Lightshot.

Speaker 4 (46:42):
Well. Yeah, so so here's where we're changing and making
a difference is we are providing this task force concept
that's fully funded, equipped and the technology put behind it
to the states. Right, so we bring together federal, state
and local law enforce, you know, and provide a building
for them to be in some states we're talking to,

(47:04):
they're going to provide a space for us to move into,
which is magical saves us a lot of money on
that end. But you bring the officers together, they can
share their expertise, their knowledge, and they can work together
in a holistic unit to fight this problem. Because this
isn't accounting problem, it's not a city problem, it's not
a state problem, it's a world problem. You know, they
need to be together in the in these task forces

(47:27):
and permanently, not just the task force like in concept
and then they're all back, you know, and you know
there are different areas that need to be together, working together,
learning together, hunting these criminals together, and really to save
these victims. That's you know, the most important part. So
so the first part is you bring them together. The
next part is is you we have different ways that

(47:50):
we do that. You know, I'm not going to talk
about the all, but the big thing that we do
is then we bring the X the no knowledge, the training,
and the technology to them right to train them up
on how to do that and so other than the
task force concept where you bring law enforcement together, what

(48:13):
we've done is we've created a coalition of the best
people in the world to support the inter forces. So
we have that. We partnered with the Child Rescue Coalition,
an amazing group of individuals who have some amazing technology
that I can't even talk about on this podcast. And
when they go public with what they're they're doing and

(48:35):
we you know, and how it's being brought into the
intercept concept and what the police are going to be
given to come after these defendersmen, it's going to be
world changing. You have the National Child Protection Task Force
that we're partnered with now supporting these task forces. So
it's about fifty or sixty We just got them funded
to not be volunteers or the main core group, but

(48:56):
about fifty or sixty volunteers. Around them. There are some
of the best intel agents in the world, prosecutors, hackers,
cyber guys, investigators. I mean, these people are literally the Avengers, right,
they are amazing. The top targeer from the Department Defense
is part of it. We have the best individuals in
the world behind this fight now from every facet of

(49:23):
the fight right it is insane what's come together. We
also have partnered with a group that I'm not going
to say their name publicly, that is doing legislation right now.
They're still in the process of making the name into
a five to one seed three, but they're going to
be fighting for legislation so we can, you know, properly

(49:44):
go after these offenders, but most importanly so that we
can rescue these kids and once we get the offenders
that they can be put away to the length of
time that they deserve right for hurting an innocent child.
So that so that group we partnered with. We've also
I got a partnership with Lantern Rescue, who is the
only legitimate, in my mind organization in the world that

(50:06):
is overseas fighting human trafficking. It is insane what they
have done and accomplished, and it's all with the buy
with and through process. They're not vigilantes. They're not trying
to pound their own chest and go over there with
guns and shoot guys in the face. These guys are
going over there meeting with the government, getting permission to

(50:27):
be there, keyword, permission to be there, and permission to
build task forces vetting these guys and building a human
trafficking task force of their own people and training them
and leading them and guiding them so that they can
you know, it's like that whole concept teach a man
to fish feeding for a lifetime, you know, give a
man to fish feeding for a day. They're teaching a

(50:49):
man how to fish, but they're teaching them how to
investigate human trafficking, how to fight it, you know, how
to these get these offenders. But then also that they're
also teaching them way is to take care of the
girls and and building up after care and bringing in
other organizations and NGOs to help take care of these
girls that are being trafficked. These Landing guys are absolutely amazing.

(51:11):
Mark who's started Lantern, has become like my we're like
we're like brothers at this point, man, and amazing stuff
all over the world and man, uh so a lot
of the stuff that we're gonna go public with and
what we're doing with Lantern, and he's done it quietly,
you know, he's not out there beating his chest and saying,
look what I do and you know, do an Instagram
post and all that and all that nonsense. But we're

(51:33):
about to have to start doing that. You know, we
got to show the world what he's actually doing and
how it really is working and how it is making
a difference. You know. So so there's there's about to
be a lot of stuff that's going to be made public.
But before all these it's crucial to all of this, right,
you know, I'm a Green Beret. You know, I've had
a pretty cool career. I've done some stuff no head

(51:54):
knows so I am, you know, uh my name, my
name was Elam Majid on Facebook. You know up until
about you know, three years ago. You know, nobody knows
who Att Burkey is. Nobody cares who I am, you know, Right,
So I was like, I need somebody that the world respects,
who is actually a good person, who was out there
making a difference. And I was like, you know what,

(52:16):
TVO sounds like. It sounds like the guy. Right. So
I'm fortunate to have some pretty cool friends. And one
of one of my friends was like, yeah, man, I'll
uh sorry, she yeah, I'll I'll reach out to them
and see if I'll meet you. So This was during
when Tim was trying to be a tight end that
made national news because everybody was keep an eye on that,

(52:39):
you know. So he was he was trying to be
a tight end for the Jacksonville Jaguars at this time,
and he agreed to meet me. So I fly down
to Jacksonville and uh till had just walked out of practice.
And that is how how big of a heart and
how how motivated this guy is. He puts everyone else first,

(52:59):
you know, he he crushes life individually, but he has
built his life and his foundation around just helping others,
especially the unfortunate, the unwanted, the you know, the throwaway people.
Tim has made it his mission in life to do
everything he can for and I loved him more than
he knows. Man he is. He is legit, the best
dude I've ever met. You know. Well, hopefully one day

(53:20):
I can be as legit as him. I doubt it,
but you know, so anyways, so I go down to Jacksonville.
I am, I'm in a We meet in like the
back room with some restaurant, you know, just because you know,
people who asked him everywhere he goes, and we pitched
the intercept concept I did to him. We ended up talking.

(53:42):
He stayed with us for about five hours after practice hours, yeah,
knowing he had to get up the next day. They
love the ideas. They're like, look, we've always wanted to
do something about, you know, the problem here in America,
Like this is the first thing we've heard that will
actually work, you know. So it entered into a silent partnership,

(54:02):
you know NDA's and all that type of stuff, and
started working together, get to know each other, trust each other,
build this thing out how it's all going to work.
And the t Bow Foundation gave us the first seed
money we needed to launch the task force here in Nashville, Tennessee.
So so here in National Tennessee, we have a we
have a task force that's you know, mostly led by

(54:25):
Homeland Security on the federal side, digital forensic technicians, technology,
We've got a federal prosecutor that sits in the house
that can issue warrants for the police the second they
get something right there in the house ready to go.
We're we're about to move to a new location in
the next six months so we can start attaching you know,
after care entities and having space for other m g

(54:46):
os in there and also most importantly spaced for more officers,
and we're expanding it across. I'm in talks with eleven
governors right now and their staff on how to expand
this this concept to their state and what we have eighteen.

Speaker 8 (55:01):
More waiting, you know, and we will have made a
lot for you.

Speaker 4 (55:07):
And and yeah, you know, it's it's it's this has
been the biggest blessing in the world. But you know,
this is this is my mission now, you know, like
when I was Green Beret and just a little quick,
a little segue. You know, a lot of times you're
doing a lot of stuff you don't want to do,
or you don't even know why you're doing it. I mean,
and that's just the military, right you know, it's somebody
more important than you who is telling you to go
somewhere and do something. And you're you know, you feel

(55:29):
like you're doing it for your country, you find for
your country, But a lot of times you know you're
in some other country and you're like, why am I
even doing well? I am I here? You know, you're
and then and most importantly, all you cared about is
keeping your boys safe and going back home, you know,
and you know you're going to help who you can,
but sometimes you don't even know if you're even helping anybody. Right,
I'm just gonna be honest, you know, And this is

(55:52):
the first time in my life, like I have just
been ell bent to make a difference. Because the second
you see what these kids go through, the second you
see the evil that you have to become or that
is out there that excuse you, that the people become

(56:13):
that can hurt an innocent child, a helpless child, that
can rape a child, towards your child, murder a child. Man,
there is nothing, nothing in this world that will stop
me from fighting for these kids. Nothing. And it's just
it is just literally probably the most evil thing that's
out there. I can't think of anything that's more evil

(56:35):
than hurting an innocent child. So for the first time
in my life, I really have true passion, motivation, and
mission and a personal conviction in this too, you know.
So there's a fire behind me, and man, I'm telling
to the day I die, this is what I'm doing.
But I'll tell you this, man, it's unblo believable what

(57:01):
has happened and the things that have happened. We've been
super quiet about it like, we haven't gone on national
news about this yet, we haven't really told anybody about
it yet. But we're slowly moving into Florida. We start
building in Jacksonville in August. We're probably like one more
meeting away from getting started in Virginia and Arkansas within

(57:22):
the next couple of months. We're rocking and home and
we're moving this. We're going to go as fast as
we can to save these kids. And just to give
you an example of the talent that is coming to
support these task forces, because we're going to teach this
stuff that they're going to teach this stuff. Excuse me,
these experts are going to teach us stuff. You know.
I'm sitting at a table in a meeting. I got

(57:43):
to text some my phone from Steve B. Windo. He's
the CEO of the Tim Tebow Foundation. A pretty pretty
blond girl probably I think fifteen or sixteen years old,
and she had been adopted and missing in Dallas, Texas.
Dallas police can find our Homeldsecurity. I all them nothing
six days and he sends me the missing fire and

(58:04):
he goes, hey, Matt, this girl has been missing six
days and she's really close to someone in the Tim
Tebow Foundation family. He's like, do you think the Avengers
the National Child Protection Task Force, you know the guys
told you about, do you think they could do something? Man,
this is good Greek tears, my husband, this is just
how awesome this is. Twenty two minutes after I got

(58:29):
that text the NCPTF founder.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Twenty two minutes.

Speaker 4 (58:34):
Twenty two minutes, Holy Cow had a pin dropped on
her location and she had been missing for six days.
You know, that is the amazing They do so many
amazing things that I can't even talk about, Like this
morning they rescued some girls from an amber alert. You know,

(58:57):
this stuff is happening all over this country every day
at a rate that you would never believe. And we're
going to go public soon, the whole group, with the governors,
with everybody, and show the world how bad this problem
really is. You know, human trafficking is terrible, it's bad.
But for every one human trafficking case in the United

(59:21):
States right now, there are a thousand thousand child exploitation cases.
Tell us the difference between those two. You were going
to mention that earlier, for sure. So human trafficking is
usually almost always motivated by money. Right, it's somebody enslaving
another soul, either through drugs or actual physical you know,

(59:45):
you know, enslavement or you know, and keeping them as
a prisoner and then selling them selling their body for
sex or for labor or you know. There's all kinds
of different ways to traffic. The one people will hear
about the most, and that you know, you hear on
the news on social media is sex trafficking. But there's
lots of different types of trafficking. I would say labor
is the biggest one, if I'm not mistaken. Sex trafficking

(01:00:09):
is obviously a terrible one and a huge problem, but
that's there's money driven. So child exploitation a lot of
people call this trafficking is when a child is being
you know, raped, molested, tortured, and you know, obviously murderers murdered,
but well, the exploitation part is that's the part that
is most prevalent in this country, a thousand times worse

(01:00:32):
than trafficking. Do you ever hear about it? And the
problem is is that it's kept under the rug. It's
such a dirty, evil topic because you know, trafficking there's
a bad guy, you know, there's this false narrative of
human trafficking in America right now that you know, little
Susie's out riding her byke down the street and a

(01:00:53):
white van is going to pull up and toss Susie
in it, and little Susie's never seen again, and she's
going to be trafficked all over the world like you
know that leom Neeson movie. Yeah taken, Yeah, and grantly
that has happened, it probably happened again. But that is
the exception, not even close to the norm. Most of

(01:01:13):
the trafficking is people that they've gotten addicted to drugs,
you know, that have made really bad decisions in life,
or or girls that are brought in from other countries,
undocumented and unknown, and that are traffick That's I would say,
at least on the sex trafficking side. That's where most
of the trafficking is. On the child exploitation side though
there is there's no boogeyman in that's like a movie.

(01:01:36):
They're in a white van. The boogeyman is the dad.
The boogeyman is the uncle. The boogeyman is the family friend,
the youth pastor, you know, the respected policeman, the politician,
the boogeyman could be any one of us, because this
is a societal problem and that's why no one wants
to talk about it. You know, to tally, one percent

(01:02:01):
of men are attracted sexually to children. I don't know
who came up with that number, but some doctor did.
So if you take one percent of men right that
are attracted to children, you have three hundred and fifty million,
like a second math if I if I do it wrong,

(01:02:22):
help me out. You're the doctor here. Yeah, yeah, right,
that's a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
And now I'm not saying they all actually one point
would be one point five million because the guys and
girls are split.

Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
Yeah yeah, yeah, So and then you know, I'm not
saying they all act out on this attraction. Right, that's
a lot of people that apparently or you know, sexually
attracted in some way to children. So you take that
and then you're like all over this country. So you
have all kinds of ways that child exploitation has carried out.

(01:02:55):
One way is the sharing of the child sexual abuse material. Now,
the the official word for that is child pornography, and
I I hate that word because it makes it sound
like it's okay, because pornography is legal pornography is all right,
you know, like you know, I'm not saying agreeing with it,
but I'm saying, like it's legal, it's allowed, you know.

(01:03:16):
So you know, how can you call a child being
molested or rape porn of our pornography? You know, that's
crazy to me. It's child sexual abuse material or you know,
it's child rape, it's someone raping a kid. Let's be
honest here, it's not child pornography, you know. So you
have people all over this country and world that are

(01:03:39):
trading this material, millions and millions of videos and images
all over the world. Every state has and now this
is I can't I'm going to try to talk around
this where I'm not giving out like a classified thing,
but every state has somewhere between six hundred to five thousand,

(01:04:01):
six thousand on the high end, people in it that
are actively trading child sexual abuse material. And now I'm
not talking about I'm talking about like of a child
getting and this depends on the population, right, But and
this is on the open web, you know, just sharing
this material and on file sharing stuff like torrents, you know,

(01:04:25):
and this and these titles of these things. It's not like,
oh I accolutely downloaded. It's three year old takes it
in every hole. You know, it's seven year old enjoys
sucking daddy. You know, these are the names of these
files that are be openly shared all over this country.
Police don't have the time, the ability, or the numbers

(01:04:45):
to even start to even do anything about and we could.
You know, it's you can point out probably every house
in this country where someone's doing it. They just know
that they're not gonna get caught. But what we found
statistically is fifty to seventy percent of the people that
are sharing this material or are actively abusing a child.

(01:05:07):
You know it this is you know, people want to
say COVID is a pandemic, this is this is the
worst thing ever, and it's happening all over this country. Now,
you know, we've shown data and stuff to governors that
I can't talk about, you know, on this podcast for
a few reasons, and you can watch their heads explode.
They've never heard of this much less have they've seen it.

(01:05:29):
And no one talks about this. Everybody only wants to
talk about human trafficking. Trafficking is bad, It's terrible in
other countries, it's atrocious and trust me. We're fighting that
with Lantern and funding a lot of that stuff and
doing everything that we can. But here in America, trafficking
is bad. Child exploitation is out of control. It's out
of control, and since COVID has exploded. But we're bringing

(01:05:53):
the people and the technology to the fight to put
it behind the police to start to do something to
where they can be proactive about this and go out
there and apprehend these guys, save these kids that are
being tortured and didn't you know, abused, and you know this,
If this happens to a child, it destroys their life,

(01:06:15):
it destroys their future. A lot of trauma, there's a
ton of trauma. Yeah, they are not unless they have
adequate mental health care and you know a lot of
other things around them. They are not going to be productive,
successful members of society. They're not, you know, and it's
happening at an alarming race. We've got to do something

(01:06:37):
about it. We've got to we've got to bring the fight.
You've got to bring the awareness so we can actually
bring the fight and get the donors behind us, you know,
so they can help support this and make this change,
because the government can't do this alone. The government can't.
It's got to be NGO's, it's got to be the
private sector. It's got to be big tech that, you know,

(01:06:57):
get in here and say enough enough these kids. You know,
it's it's just disturbing. I hate talking about it, but
it's got to be talked about because if it's not
talked about and people aren't made aware of it, then
there's not going to be people that take action to
make a difference to save that child. Because a lot
of these kids are suffering all over this country in
silence because they're scared of telling their dad or their

(01:07:19):
uncle or their pastor or whatever there's and and they're scared.
They're core so a lot of them are manipulated and
groomed into it. Some of them don't even know what's wrong,
you know, and uh, at least yet until you get older,
you know, and it's it's it's a virus. It's a problem.
So we're going to do everything that we possibly can
to find it. So anyways, with the I know, I

(01:07:41):
went on a big tangent there, but you know, we're
going to go you know, public if you will, with
the truth. You know, in the coming months, and show
the world how bad this is in a lot of
different ways. And uh, but we're not just going to
show people how bad it is, because you know, the
day I started this charity, there's one thing I promises,

(01:08:03):
I wouldn't take a dime from anybody until I had
a solution. I'm not going to put a fucking billboard
up that says, you know, in trafficking. I'm not gonna
you know, throw an elaborate party and you know, hey,
let's do something. You know, like there's there's a lot
of you know, stuff out there that's just full of crap.
We have a solution. We have the talent, we have
the technology, we have the capabilities, and we're bringing in

(01:08:25):
more talented people and more tech and stuff every day
to get behind this fight. But really to make our
police and help our police be the best that they
can possibly be to save these kids. And that's what
we're here for. Operation Liveshine isn't out there on the streets.
We don't have a badge, we don't have authority. All
we are here for is to say, here's some training,

(01:08:47):
here's some technology, here's some funding what we can fund,
here's some equipment, here's some help. What do you need,
you know, and let's save these kids, because you know,
I don't have a badge. The day's me running around
with any type of authority in a gun or long gone.
You know, all I can do is be a cheerleader
for the boys in blue that are out there risking

(01:09:08):
their lives and doing everything they can. And I'm going
to do everything in my power to give them everything
that they need, everything that I can't, everything that's legal
that I can give them, and everything that is possible
that's out there that we can put behind them. That's
what Operation Light Shine is going to do. And we're
going to hopefully go from the police only being able
to be reactive staring at this, you know, thousands and

(01:09:30):
tens of thousands of kids and images being shared and
kids being hurt and all this kind of stuff, not
able to do anything about it. Hopefully we're going to
be able to make them proactive and able to do
something about it and get the public behind it and
start getting the public to care and realize how bad
of a problem this is.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Awesome stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:09:50):
Again, folks, to Operational Lightshiine, I can't thank you enough.
And it's interesting I know, I have a couple more
questions for you before you wrap up, but you've made
a lot of great points. One of them, of course,
I say sometimes on my podcast and I've told other
people in lectures the things there's certain crimes the law
enforcement sees, whether you're FBI, local law enforcement. There's no

(01:10:12):
way the general public can watch it on TV. That's
why they can't show it. I think I mentioned the
show Stalker. Stalker lasted less than a year because it
was way too close to home. It was way too
real and it was funny cause I remember watching the
first episode and this just ties into this. By watching
the first episode, I'm thinking, I told my wife, there's

(01:10:33):
no ways is going to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
There's no way. It is too real.

Speaker 3 (01:10:37):
A serial killer who goes around cooking things, that's so
rare and far out there. But this one a guy
staring through your window in the middle of the night,
that happens a lot. Yeah, so that's not going to happen.
There's no way that's going to make it. And when
you're talking about the situations now with child sex explitation,

(01:10:57):
because I remember that show How to Catch a Predator, right,
there wasn't a profile it didn't really matter. It could
have been a construction worker, it could have been a priest,
it could have been.

Speaker 2 (01:11:06):
Anything you wanted. They were coming through there. There was
no profile. It was almost impossible to try to peg it.
And that's way too close to home.

Speaker 4 (01:11:14):
It is. And I think that's why so many people,
even if they know, they don't do anything, you know,
because once you know, you have to make a conscious
decision to do something about it or look away, you know.
And we've got to as a society really start to
look at how bad this problem is and how bad
is it it is now, but think about how bad

(01:11:34):
this is going to start to get and affect our future.
You know, this generation of children that are being sexualized
and groomed and manipulated by these adults right now, and
raped and molested and tortured. You know, they what kind
of well quality life are they going to have? But
as a mass, as a whole, what's going to happen

(01:11:55):
to these this generational effect? You know? And that's really
what terrifies the most about this is, you know, we
cannot continue to look away. We can't continue to look
away from this. We have to address this problem, and
we have to give the police the resources they need
to fight it. And we got to save our kids
because as an adult, it is our responsibility to look

(01:12:19):
after our youth, our younger generations. It is our responsibility
to keep them safe and sheltered and educate them and
introduce them to things as they are mature enough to
handle them. And that's not an age thing. That's an
individual thing, you know, and you have you know, a
section of society right now. That's I mean, they're, for

(01:12:41):
lack of a better word, they're trying to promote the
sexualization of kids, you know, and thinking it's okay to
introduce kids these abstract sexualities and concepts and stuff ages
were there. It's like I didn't know what to do
with my penis when I was six or ten, you know,
a's and they're trying to have sex in kindergarten now,

(01:13:03):
you know, And and all these kind of things are
opening children up to this manipulation and abuse, and we're
just in a very dark and dangerous path as a
country and as a culture and as a society if
we don't do something to stop all this insanity. Right now,
that's so true.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
That's really sad because the level of trauma these individuals.
People don't understand a compromise their lives become how much
it affects their ability to enjoy in life, because it
affects their sexual life as they become adults, this becomes
very problematic, a topic most people don't ever talk about
again because it's very, very tough to discuss. But working

(01:13:42):
with individuals who've been victims of those, it's very difficult
for them. It's very difficult for them to have relationships.
It's very difficult to have sexual relationships, it's very difficult
to experience trust and love with people.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Doesn't mean they can't. There's a lot of factors that
play a role. But man, it's a really big, uphill battle.

Speaker 4 (01:14:01):
It's tough. Well you know, so that's the part, Like
I I understand the fight. You know, I'm I'm a soldier,
you know, I understand the fight. I understand the victim,
and I understand there's a bad guy and I want
to go out there and get it. And I am
not going to any way pretend that you know, I
know the first thing about aftercare or you know, trauma

(01:14:23):
or how to take care of somebody. But that is
why we have we were starting to work with the
organizations that do so. The TIBA Foundation is doing an
amazing job right now going around the country and finding
the legit you know, uh institutions and NGOs out there
that are helping victims doing it the right way, aren't

(01:14:44):
blowing money on you know, you know, you know, frivolous things,
and to really have their heart in the right place
and have the capability to take care of these people.
We're starting to identify these organizations and these aftercare systems
around the country, so as we move into these states
and a partner with them and bring them in and
really do everything we can to start making the after
care side better, because it doesn't stop at the rescue.

(01:15:07):
The rescue really is just the beginning, you know, the
rehabilitation and helping these children and even adults get back
to a functional, happy, healthy life to be a productive
citizen and you know, so that they can have children
and the next generation can prosper. That is the true battle,

(01:15:29):
you know, after the rescue. That is the tough one,
that's the expensive one, that's the long one, that's a
long haul. That's a long battle, and we've got to
bring a lot of awareness and support and help to
that side too, because you know, I'm not going to
say names ever on this, and I don't think these
people are bad people. But you know, I've heard cops
say in places that I've been in states, well, we

(01:15:50):
don't rescue them because where are they going to go?
You know, where are they going to go? You know,
if you don't have an adequate after care process or
facility or some system for them to go into there,
you know, what are you gonna do? Wrest them? You
can't do them in a jail cell and make them
a criminal because they've been groomed, cores, manipulated in traffic.

(01:16:14):
But you can't save them from that. Whether they can't
overnight get off the drugs, clean their life up, you
can get the mental health they need and go get
a job and the credit and everything they need to live,
you know, a successful life. That's that's not reasonable. So
there's got to be something there to take care of them.
And in most states it's just it's not just most states,

(01:16:36):
it's everywhere. That's that's a real issue.

Speaker 2 (01:16:39):
The complexity is, the complexity is amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
Is if talking to experts like yourself and others, that
the complexity is outrageous because you're right, they don't have
a lot of times they don't have the resources.

Speaker 2 (01:16:51):
They don't have.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
Sometimes this made shock some people. But I've seen stories
already the last six months where a lot of.

Speaker 2 (01:16:59):
Times it's the parents have sold them. So you can't
send them back to the parents, but they don't have
anywhere else to go. Like the officers saying, what do
you do?

Speaker 4 (01:17:07):
Because now you have no.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
Support system, which is usually the parents is supposed to
be the support system.

Speaker 2 (01:17:13):
Your situation was a little different. She has a home.

Speaker 3 (01:17:15):
If they would have found your sister alive, they don't have.
Some of these people don't. That's the worst place to
send them because that's where it started. You can't even
send them back there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Yeah, it's an.

Speaker 3 (01:17:26):
Incredible I guess My last question, and we're running out
of time again, folks, is Operational Lightshine.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
You can go catch it at Instagram Operationlightshine dot org.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
My last question is how how much of involvement or
organized crime individuals? I see gangs participating in this somewhat
drug cartels were doing their thing mostly for labor, I think, but.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
Are they a small price piece of the pie or.

Speaker 4 (01:17:49):
I mean, you know, I don't know how to say
this percentage wise, you know, or where they fall into
the piece of the pie. But I mean, yeah, it's
you got to remember that with the you know, cartel
organized crime, I mean, this is all over the world.
You know, they have the money and the networks and
just too capabilities. I mean, think about how many you know,

(01:18:10):
how much many drugs get brought into America every year?
I mean, no one even knows, you know, we can
tell you how many got seized, and that's insane. So
if that then he got seized, God knows how many
come in. I mean, I know, every party I've ever
been to, a drug is you know, next to me
or out or something. You know, it doesn't matter where
you go, people are smoking, bought and doing all kinds
of other crap. I mean, it's just it's our culture.

(01:18:31):
It's a way of life here. I mean, they're making
drugs okay in a lot.

Speaker 8 (01:18:35):
Of areas, you know, and so if they have that
ability to bring that met drugs in and now that
widespread throughout our communities, you know, God knows just how
capable they could be on the trafficking side.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
That's scary stuff again, folks. Operational Light Shine. Matt, we
could be here for hours talking about but really good
we have.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
We were extended. You're welcome already as it is for
those listening to the show. I know if you're listening
from the Soft Channels stories and Special Forces Operators, you
got a different take of what what you can do
if you've retired. There's a lot of things I know
a lot of the individuals after are doing. But hopefully
you enjoyed this a little bit of a turn of
events in this story as well. It's a big problem,

(01:19:20):
and I wanted to give Matt as big of a
platform as we could.

Speaker 4 (01:19:24):
For sure about doctor calls just real quick, you know,
because of you know, coming professional operations. My phone blows
up all day every day from guys I've worked with,
guys I've never met, from Navy Sales Delta for screen
Braves wanted to get involved in this mission. You know,
we only have so many spots, but we're trying to
do everything we can to get guys involved, whether it

(01:19:45):
be overseas or state side. We're about to launch an
intern program officially through the military, where guys are about
to retire can come intern for Operation Light Shine and
the places that we build up around the country maybe
even have some ability. We got to look into the
rules and the gap to maybe send some people certain
places overseas to help, you know, in an internship program.

(01:20:05):
But then after they get out, you know there's work.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Where did they contact you for that?

Speaker 4 (01:20:11):
Well, so we have a volunteer link of through Operation
light Shine and when they reach out to that, and
if we look through their credentials and stuff like that,
we can send them to the places that they they
really need a contact. But volunteer at Operation Lightshine dot org.
Is that email address?

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
All right, folks again Operation wide Shine dot or you
can get more information there if you know anybody in
this opp community, or anybody in the Intelligence Committee who's retiring,
anybody who you think has a story or a passion
for this as well. When I reach out to them
and share the podcast to them, Matt, thank you so
much for taking the time.

Speaker 4 (01:20:47):
Again. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me and
I could talk for days. I know I'll ramble a lot.
I've been blown up so much I can't stay on
topic to save my life.

Speaker 2 (01:20:55):
But I do love it was great information. I mean,
I think everything was great. Just to listen to it.
It's an easy thing for a.

Speaker 4 (01:21:04):
Host to just sit back and relax.

Speaker 2 (01:21:07):
So awesome stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
Thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you everyone for listening. Folks,
once again, you know what to do. Share, subscribe, hit
that I like button.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
This time, I really mean it to share if you
know anybody who doesn't know the story.

Speaker 3 (01:21:20):
This is pretty powerful stuff out there and I think
people need to hear about it.

Speaker 2 (01:21:23):
Operation Lightshine dot org is where you need to go.
Stay safe out there, everyone,