The First Green Beret in Afghanistan | Justin Sapp (throwback episode) - The Team House

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Special Operations, cobert O SPI and I the Team House
with your host Jack Murphy named David bark. Hey, everyone,

(00:22):
welcome to the Team House. This is episode one and
forty three. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park right
over there, our guests tonight in studio. We're very happy
to have Justin Sap here with us today. Drove in
to Brooklyn. I told him we're deep behind enemy lines
out here. That's a joke, by the way, But Justin
no stranger to any of that. He is the first

(00:45):
Special Forces soldier who was inserted into Afghanistan after the
nine to eleven attacks, detailed with a CIA paramilitary team.
Those events were detailed in Toby Arden's book First Casualty.
We had him here a few months back and interviewed
him about the book. But we're really glad to have
the man himself here in studio tonight. Thank you for

(01:05):
joining us justin my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Thank you, thank you for inviting me.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah. Man, you know, we'll start off where we always
start off, you know. I want to ask you a
little bit about how you grew up and your your
family background and upbringing and sort of the path that
took you into military service.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
Sure, So I grew up. My dad was a CIA
operations officer, a case officer ever since I well, prior
to me being born. So I was born into that
I guess lifestyle, so to speak, and that lifestyle is
very much like being a military brat. You know, you're
moving around, except you're moving around the world and you're

(01:43):
living in embassies and stuff like that, and not always embassies,
but but you know, in an international kind of environment.
And so I started out. I think the first trip
I might have been three or four, somewhere in that realm.
We went to Lebanon. My dad had a knack for
getting all the the good spots, and at the time
Lebanon was like the so called Paris in the lease.

(02:04):
And then that changed about six months into his tour
and it turned into the Lebanon that everybody knows. The
civil wars started after the Maronites and the clash with
the Palestinians. So so we evacuated from there, lost pretty
much everything, and then went to Greece for a while,
back to the state's reset, and then we went to

(02:27):
India Bombay or Mumbai. Did two years there. That was
pretty pretty straightforward. You know South Asian Tour, enjoyed it.
I was a little kid swimming, you know, kind of
subtropical environment. And then and I actually went to an
Indian school. There was the only American kid in the school.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Englisher, can I ask you've we've interviewed a whole bunch
of CIA officers on the show before who talk about
their kids and getting to the point where at a
certain point you have to tell your kids, this is
what I do for a living. As worn as a kid,
did you have any ink that, like, dad disappears late
at night with a bag under one arm and then
comes back. He keeps odd hours. Do you have any

(03:06):
inkling of what your father did.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I don't think I became really cognizant of that, the
sort of strangeness of what he did needs like compared
to other people until I was probably like, I think
twelve or something. And it was the people that would
come over, you know and hang out. He would hang
out with that That was, you know, not totally unusual

(03:30):
because you're, you know, we're in Cairo, for example, but
it seemed a bit odd. And then I remember my
dad had a firearm, he had like a pistol. He
had like a Rigger Speed six three fifty seven, which
I thought was really cool, and I'd go, you know,
ask him to show it to me and stuff, but
he never explained why he had it, and I just
sort of figured out that your average guy at the
MBSC is not going to be carrying one of those

(03:51):
unless he's RSO or something like that. And then he
eventually told me. I think I was like thirteen. He
pulled me aside and he said, hey, you know, you,
you know, you probably realized that I'm not your average
bear here. I have a different job and this is
kind of my mission. He didn't go into tons of detail,
but and you should, you know, be mindful of that
and safeguard and you know, I ended up in seventh grade,

(04:17):
I ended up moving to Virginia where he was an instructor,
and so that was obvious because then he was an
instructor and I'm with other kids that are dependents of
of you know, agency people. So you know, then it
started to come into into the resolution as to you know,
the kind of nature of the job and all that
kind of stuff. But honestly, I didn't I didn't have

(04:38):
tons of interest in that because I sort of saw
it like still, I still saw it as kind of
related to being a diplomat or kind of diplomatic international lifestyle,
and that's a different kind of community from the military.
And I always was had more affinity, honestly as a kid,
to the Marine detachment, because you know, we'd be at

(04:59):
the embassy and I'd hang out with the gunnies kid
or my friends. Tended to be the defense out of
Chase kid. Not always, but you know, frequently, and we
moved so much that I just kind of gravitated towards
that profession. I was more interested in that profession. And
I probably by the age of six or seven, I

(05:19):
had decided, Hey, I'm going to make a career in
the military, whatever that means. I didn't quite understand the
different jobs in the military. I just knew it was
about fighting, and the Cold War was you know, we
were still in the midst of the Cold War, so
it was it was a calling, you know, like like
not to be cliche, but I felt like that's what
I want to do. There was no question, and so

(05:40):
all these kids who were searching, you know, like high
school or college, like I'm gonna decide it. I don't
know what to do with my life. That was never
brought a reason, that was never a problem for me.
I always knew, Okay, I want to be in the military.
Now I got to figure out which branch and what
I want to do. And it was always either the Army,
Marine Corps and so forth.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, and so how did did you also go to
high school in the States or was that overseas?

Speaker 2 (06:05):
I did first two years of high school in New Delhi, India,
and then I finished up in Areaa, Georgia. It's kind
of my dad wanted to get close to his father
who he's estranged from, who lived in Georgia. So that's
how we ended up in Georgia and I finished up there,
and then I went to college at Virginia Military Institute,
and my family ended up moving up to the DC

(06:25):
area like a year later, and then they became Northern
Virginia Denizens for well pretty much the rest of my
dad's life. And and so I was like three hours
away viam I. So that wasn't that wasn't too bad, Yeah,
I mean, and and it was weird. I mean, I
left from India and I remember showing up the first
day in eleventh grade came in like a couple of

(06:46):
weeks late, and where'd you say? You're from Indiana. We're
in Indiana, do you come from I said, no, India.
I came from India, And so I don't know. I
was a bit of a weirdo, I guess. And you
know that's bad to move kids in middle high school, right.
I totally realized that now, and so I struggled a
bit just assimilating and then and then, you know, but

(07:07):
eventually I got it together.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
When you going to high school in India because you
had you mentioned that when you and I don't know
if that's when you said that you went to like
Mumbai and you went to and uh, you know, in
Indian school? Is that also in high school? Was that
the same?

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Good question? I'm sorry to comput. So I went to
like first grade in Bombay and that was and there
was no American school there. There's like German and French school,
but no American school. In New Delhi, there's the American
Embassy School, been there for years. So we just plugged
right into that school and I did ninth and tenth
grade there.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
So when you when you like actually got to high
school in the US, because you had been going, you know,
to schools all over the world basically, right, And was
it a bit of a culture shock to you or
was American culture.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Like, yeah, so I'd lived two years in the state,
seventh eighth grade in Virginia. That was helpful. But you know,
in American high school it's different. You go to an
international school, it's a mixture of people. There's no American football.
Sports are not don't define the social hierarchy as much

(08:16):
as they do in the States. You know, it's just
the way it is. And so I had sort of
these eclectic friends who were like a French guy who
was my friend, and a guy who ended up being
Bosnian Muslim was my friend. These were like my close friends.
And then I would you know, I had American acquaintances
come back to the States. You know, it's Georgia, so
it's all about American football. So I didn't and it
was good school, don't get me wrong, but I didn't
play football. I was a swimmer, so I said, Okay,

(08:38):
I'm gonna do swimming and that'll be my thing. And
that was sort of a that's not the same as
it's a team sport, but it's not it's a very
individual sports. So I was kind of that was my clique.
And then I did Jay Rozzi, you know, Navy Ja Rozzi,
and I had some friends there. But by the time
you show up in like the fall of eleventh grade,
you're already behind. All the cliques have been formed, and

(08:59):
so like, I gotta get through this and go to
college and then I'm gonna move on with my life. No,
no offense against you know, North Yordya the Great, you
know that northern suburbs of Atlanta, you know, but time
to move on.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, and then what what was it the cause? Had
you already decided on the army by the time you
went to VM, I like, where where did you make
that decision to go army? And did you make the
decision to go special forces at the same time because
you had been exposed to a lot.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Of marines at the embassies and yeah, So so I
didn't really I was aware of the term green Beret,
and I think I had seen the movie The Green
Breys on projector at one of the embassy parties, but
I didn't know what that meant. I knew there was
the army and that they they were like infantry and
that they did stuff like that and they had tanks

(09:49):
and artillery, and then I knew the Marine Corps was
the same. And I had family members who were both sides.
So my grandfather was a career star major in the Army,
fought the tail in the Battle of Bulge. I had
an uncle that was, you know, wounded in the Korean
War Marine, so it was a little bit of both. Honestly,
the marine recruiter in Marietta was really good and he

(10:11):
almost got me, uh into the reserves because he's like, hey,
you come do boot you know, basic training, boot camp
at Paras Isle, and then you'll go to a reserve
unit and and then you can go to college or
whatever you need to do. And I was like, oh,
this sounds pretty cool. And I got to say I
was influenced by those movies, like, I know, the Marine
Corps is full mental jacket, is not representative, but it

(10:32):
was great propaganda. And Drew I was like, Okay, that
sounds cool. I don't know, I you know, I h
I I wanted I love those kind of movies. I
love Platoon. I loved all of them. And so anyway,
I knew I wanted Dftry something like that or combat
arms and uh. One day I went to this uh
college fair, I think it was at Oglethorpe University and

(10:54):
I there was a birch Sherman VMI and sit it
out on other places like that, and I was like, Oh,
this looks this looks fine. You know, this looks pretty cool.
And then I went to some luncheon or dinner that
they hosted and there was actually it was a former
Green Beret I remember now chatting with me and I
know what it was. Then one day I was in
the library and I found an old Time Life magazine

(11:18):
and it was Roger Donlin on the cover from was
a sixty four to sixty five and he had the
Medal of Honor. And I was like, oh, what's this.
And I remember going there and there was those photos
of him with the mont Yards and he was smoking
the pipes and that whole indigenous unconventional warfare thing, and
I said, wow, that looks really cool. But he never
I wasn't that far along. I was just sort of

(11:38):
get into the military what I want to do. And
then I thought, well, if I go to VMI, you know,
I should apply for an artc scholarship. Well, I didn't
get a four year because those are very few and
far between I got. I ended up getting a three year.
But so I went to vm I on my own
dye the first year, and then I got a scholarship
and went from there. And it was just some point
at VMI, I want to say, like my tenth whatever

(11:59):
so more year, my third class year that I was
down in the bowels of the library again and I
was studying and there was some pamphlet. It was a
brochure or something, and uh, I don't remember exactly what
it was. It might have been the SF some sort
of journal, and it had the Green Berets in there,

(12:21):
and I remember flipping through it, leafing through it, and
then there was the balltlet of the Green Beret, uh,
you know, written out and I remember reading it and
I said, wow, I got to learn more about this,
and so I eventually did. And then we had some
people may have crossed paths with him. We had an
RTC star major, We had six pms who was I

(12:42):
think armored at the time, and then we had a
Army Star major SF guy named Billy Goodson from tenth Group,
first Battalion, tenth Group. He had been, he was scuba qualified,
he had all the you know, all the stuff. And
Matt he was a great role model. He could pt.
It was like forty and he could like peat. He
outpt most of the cadets and so he would do

(13:03):
morning PT like three days a week. So we'd go
out with him, and he was a real role model.
I want to I want to be like that guy.
And so that was probably the galvanizing moment. But then
you know, you find out, okay, so you can't just access,
you know, go to selection as an officer from you know,
from based you know your your basic course, right, you
have to you have to go serve three or four

(13:24):
years and then be selected later. And so I got
ended up getting armor. I wanted entry. I got armor,
all right, but it was good enough. It's like you know,
combat arms and interesting and kind of like patent. I
like patent. So I did that. I did Korea as
my first tour up near the DMZ. It was about
ten clicks from the DMZ Moonsan Camp Pellham. That was

(13:46):
that was a good tour and that was about as
close as you could get to combat, right, I mean,
I wanted to be deployed and kind of near the
danger zone. And that was about as good as it
got in nineteen ninety five. Yeah, So I was there
did a year and then I was fortunate enough to
come back, and this was luck and timing, and I
got an assignment to three seven three Armor in eighty second,

(14:06):
which was this one off battalion that's now disbanded sadly,
that had air droppable the five five one A one Sheridans.
And I was lucky I got that.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
Because it's right there at BRAG.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Yeah, it's right there at BRAG. And so I was
there for a couple of years. They inactivated the unit.
I turned in the company's worth the tanks. I was
like the exo of a Delta company. And then I
went over to the CAB for a while because it
was the only place to put twelve alpha armor guy
and I did I think about just under a year
there and then I went to selection and then the

(14:40):
pipeline went from there. So I spent a lot of
time at BRAG starting about ninety six to ninety six
to ninety eight, and then I graduated the Q course
in I started selection ninety eight and then I had
to go to you know, you have to go the
Captain's career course. Now came back and I graduated December

(15:03):
of ninety nine and then we went to sear school
and then so I got to group in early two thousand. Wow.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
So you probably figured like maybe there'd be a Bosnia
deployment in your future or something of that nature.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
It was all about that. It was all the you know,
the jarities. He rotations at the time of the late
nineties were you know, Bosnia I four esque, you know,
you had you know, the bad guys were sort of
these quasi insurgents and you were escorting convoys and stuff
of that nature. And the heroes were the Somalia Vets.

(15:40):
And in the eighty second it was it was all
about Panama, the Panama Raiders, Panama guys. And in our
unit was start Major trox Will ended up being the
joint staff start Major. He was our first start at
one point and he had jumped into Panama. So he
was he was like he was. We loved him right,
and little did I know, you know that in several
years we were get her own kind of as he

(16:01):
called the Baptism by fire. And yeah, so it was
all about that and when we got to group. The
mission at the time was called Desert Spring. It was
a legacy of the containment of Saddam, if you'll remember.
And they were ninety day rotations to Kuwait. So there'd
be a brigade armored mech brigade and then there would

(16:21):
be an SF slice and we were part of that.
So we do those rotations and those kind of sucked,
I mean quite frankly. I mean it was always like,
you know, really hot, and you were cooped up on
Doha which was north of Kwait City, and it was
like an old warehouse for shipping and it was like
all asphalt, so like in the middle of the summer,
it was just sort of like a you know, like

(16:44):
a radiator. But anyway, we went out. We did some
training with the Kuwaitis. I was on an ASSOT team.
I was on five two at the time.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
We were doing the three And what's an ASSOT team
for people?

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Oh? Sorry, Yeah, the acronym so advanced special operations techniques
are now they just called Advanced Special Operations, but we
were technically called an unconventional urban unconventional warfare team. So
that the Lexicon was a rough team, which was like
your standard SF team. Then you had the specialty teams HALO,
you had dive teams, and then you had the ASO teams.

(17:17):
And so I got pulled into an ASO team. I
got called by a guy a warrant named Steve Malar
out of the blue, which was really flattered. He called
me in the key course. He said, hey, somehow he
got you know, my my digits from from group because
they knew who was coming. He said, hey, do you
want to come to our team five two two and
we're an ASO team. I said, oh, wow, that's very cool. Honestly,

(17:40):
what I wanted to do is go to dive school
and be a dive dive team guy. But the fact
that some guy, some vet from group called me, I
was like, I can't turn this out. So I ended
up going. I did that. My team startant was SAR
major at the time. You know, it was Tony Pettangill.
He was a master and Pettangul, who came out of

(18:00):
UH kind of came into SF kind of late, I
believe is in the seven. He was a drill start
and all that kind of stuff. He was really good,
a very disciplined grade it you know, physically fit all
that kind of stuff. So he was a really a
good role model and UH anyway, and so that progressed.
Tony moved on. UH moved and was up with the

(18:20):
company for a while before he PCs, and then after
he PCs, I was still on the team. But what
happened was I was coming up at the end of
my two years. So this is like, yeah, like the
spring of one and uh, I I had just done
a PDSs pre deployment side survey to his Bekistan for

(18:41):
a joint Training Exchange, its so called j SET. We
did the j SET Newsbakistan, which was interesting and I'll
come back to it later a while. Yeah, but we
were in the Fragana Valley, so we were around Afghanistan.
We're in that neck of the woods. We trained with
the Spetsnaz Unit Uzbek spec NAS Unit, which is essentially
a legacy of the Soviet Specialize, right, So that was interesting.

(19:04):
Before I left, I had cobbled the deal with the
old battalion commander where I had told him, Hey, I
want to go dive school. He said, okay, fine, we'll
send you dive school. We got a gap when a
dive team in Alpha Company first Battalion, an Alpha company
was going to become the Cree, the SIF. It was
in the midst of this transformation. So the team, I
don't think it was a paid team, but it was like, hey,

(19:25):
you're going to get another team. So the third year,
which is not guarantee a.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Big deal for SF captain, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Because the Halo is like, hey, Halo team, take a
number because you got to someone's gonna nice you in
the back to that team, right right. So I but
but I really wanted to get a diver, honestly, and
h he said, okay, it was John Allen, Uh, Lieutenant
Colonel John all the time. And he's like, hey, justin
you go, you go to dive school, you make it.
I'll put you on an Alpha company and uh and

(19:54):
still but he changed command in over the summer while
we were deployed. I come back and pre Scooba is looming.
So I had about a month to get myself into
shape for Prescuba and and I knew what was involved.
So I was like worried and uh. And I was
a swimmer, but I was still, you know, I was worried.
And Colonel Haas Chris Hass was the battank commander new

(20:15):
battank commander, and he he pulled me and he said, hey, look,
I need someone really smart to take over his S four.
I understand you had some deal with Colonel Allen, but
Colonel Allen was gone and I got priorities, and you're
gonna be S four And then and I said, what
are you gonna say here? You're in the military rogers, sir.
And then he goes, but I'll tell you what I'm
I'm gonna let you go to dive school. And I said, well,

(20:37):
thank you, because this conversation occurred I think after I
finished Prescuba, but before I went to die so.

Speaker 3 (20:44):
You already did the hard I mean not so.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
Right. So that's like the gate to get in. And
he was like, I'll let you go to die school,
but when you come back, you know you're you're on
the staff. And I said, okay, fine, sir, that's that's
fair enough. So we went down to dive school. And
while I was down in to dive school nine eleven and
then everything changed from there.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
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(21:25):
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(22:21):
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Speaker 1 (23:46):
Right, justin back to our regularly scheduled program. While you're
down in Dodd School, nine to eleven happens. What are
you guys thinking and feeling as you're you're watching that
unfold on every single television channel on the country that day.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
So what's weird is we were actually underwater when the
event happened. So because you do at least he used
to morning dive and like afternoon dive and night dive,
so you had like three evolutions the day, and we
were on Dragger's the Lar five. So we're closed circuit.
We're like in the fourth week I think of the

(24:20):
POI some three and a half weeks in. It was
a five and a half POI five and a half
week POI at the time, and I remember we came
off to dive and so they got this little area
behind the schoolhouse where you freshwater rench your stuff. So
we're in there cleaning up, and there's these instructors walking
around the like, hey, you know, and I overheard them
talking about a terrorist attack, but no one had said anything,

(24:43):
no one had pulled aside. And I remember asking one
of the instructors. I said, hey, sorry, you know, what's
the deal with this terrorist attack? He was, oh, you
haven't heard. No, No, we haven't. He was, well, you'll
find out soon enough. And then at some point one
of them came to me and said, my fiance had
called the dives and I didn't give her the number
of the dive school. Why would I do that, right,
I'd give her my cell number whatever I had. I

(25:05):
guess we had had a cell phone of time, which
I thought was weird. And anyway, all of a sudden,
like everybody get their ass up into the classroom. So
we stowed our draggers. We went up to the classroom
and one of the instructors came in and he popped
in a VHS tape and it was a VHS taping
of the second plane and it kicked on with the

(25:26):
explosion all the fuel, and to me, my first reaction
was that kind of it didn't look real? What kind
of I don't know, like a Hollywood Hollywood explosion, right,
big food gas explosion. And then he said, gentlemen, our
nation's under attack or something to that effect. Training will
be suspended until further notice, and we're going to guard
Key Fleming Key. So in Key West it's like a

(25:49):
you know, there's a very long spit at the end
of Key West if you look at it from you know,
like looking south and north, the very end of it
is basically where the dive school is, and so we
had to patrol the area. I think a day or
two we did it, and some guys were in Boston Whalers,
so it was just sort of surreal. You're in udt shorts,
which are not the best shorts in the world, T

(26:11):
shirts with mag lights and tivas walking around looking for
scuba bin laden and then meanwhile the guys are motoring
in the Boston Well I was jealous. I want to
be out on the Boston Whalers. We were just walking around,
you know, the sand fleas are getting you in the
little fire ants or whatever. And then finally, I think
in the second day, they said, okay, we're going back
to training, but there was no hey, you're going your

(26:33):
group's going to do this. There was none of that.
It was all sort of news blackout one other thing.
I remember, this is kind of kind of funny. The
next morning, it was like September the twelfth. I was
the guy who had to run the detail to put
the flag up. Right, so it's like five point thirty mornings. Still,
it's like, you know, dawn, and we put the flag

(26:54):
up and I said, hey, let's put it up and
bring it a half mass.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
You know.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Sure enough, we did that, and then like three minutes later,
this uh, I don't remember his name, but he was
the baby XO. He was an avy ulcer. He came up.
He looked up and he said, why is it a
half mass or something like that. And I was like,
you know, I'm like, he's like, if you receive official notification,
put the flag at half mass. I said no, I

(27:19):
just kind of assumed that was the right thing to do.
And then he said, we'll put it back up until
we get you know, the notifications up fair enough. So anyway,
I just distinctly remember that and we all kind of
had this perplexed look at each other. But anyway, we
continued and finished the training and they had to compress
it because we had lost a day or two. And
then we graduated on the twentieth of September, and I

(27:40):
think the day before I called group. In the three
was Mark Schwartz at the time, Major Mark Schwartz at
the time. He picked up the phone and I said, Hey,
I'm down here, coming back home tomorrow graduating. What's going on?
And he said something like, you know, come it was
come in Saturday morning, So we get back Friday night.
Come in Saturday, monk when you see the Tian commander.

(28:01):
So we get back. One of my teammates picked me
up at Campbell or at the airport in Nashville. I
remember his dad was driving, like I never met his dad.
He's like, oh, guys, I wish I was young again.
I want you know. He was a Vietnam bed. He
was you know, everybody's speculating as to what was going
to happen, but no one knew anything. So I get
back to group or get back to Campbell. And I

(28:24):
was living in Oak Grove at the time actually and
paying five hundred bucks a month for my apartment. I
ended up going into see Colonel Haas in the morning.
Lieutenant COLONL. Haas and he said, hey, Bud, first thing,
he said, and that's how we speak, like, hey Bud,
first things. First, you're not going to be the US four.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
And just for people who don't know, like you thought
you were going to take a third year on a team,
which is a big deal for an officer a captain.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Right, yeah, it's like a great privilege on or whatever.
It's good. You know, you know you want to do that.

Speaker 3 (28:55):
And then he comes in and tells you that you're
going to be running logistics.

Speaker 2 (28:59):
Basically yes, lugs. So I know whether I'm getting that
job because I'm getting relegated, or I'm got that job
because I really am smart and her right, I don't know.
I think my company commander, I think the companies had
to cough swing up and they said, well, SAP would
be good at the job with numbers. I don't know.
I have no idea. So I ended up. So I

(29:21):
get into his office and he's like, you're not going
to be THUS four. He goes, I'm going to lose
you for a while, and he said, so you need
to go up and see the group commander later today,
but we will high five each other on top of
a t fifty five and cobble or something like that
is kind of you know, that was his thing. He's like,
all right, but and he's kind of like that, and

(29:41):
he sort of I think he hugged me or he
slapped me in the back or something like that. And anyway,
I left and then I went up to group I
think later in the morning, and Colonel Jamahan was the
group commander, and I was waiting the outside and they
called us in and all of a sudden, these other
guys should up. So it was me. There was another

(30:02):
captain who I knew from the Q course, good guy, uh,
and three warrant officers and we went and so there's
five of us. Mahalans like said them. We sat down
and he said I have to send said, I have
to pick three of you to go to the Inner Agency,
the CIA, to conduct an uncommiscial warfare assessment. Then xvill

(30:24):
out and brief the odias and then they were on piltrayed.
So you're doing the what we would call the pilot
team thing, which was the kind of team I was on,
but the way they were doing was different. They didn't
have a whole sf UW team or an ASOT team. Going.
It was we were going to augment an agency team.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Were these other five guys also from ASAT teams?

Speaker 2 (30:46):
I think they were, I don't, you know, that's a
good question. I know at least one was. And then
the other captain he was I think he had been
on an Urban UW team, but I don't he had
been of a SAT neither ad I at that point
I had been to Broken Axle little bit, but I
hadn't an ASAT. And I don't know about the other guys,

(31:06):
but the two other warrants were very senior. They were
like threes or fours. I thought that was very senior
at the time. They were older guys, and there was
a younger warrant, and there was two captains. So we're
like in our late twenties, and maybe they were like
in their late thirties and and anyway, so I assumed, well,
if I was Chromah, and I picked the season warrant
officers because they got all the experience, and you know,

(31:27):
they're trusted guys, trusted agents, so to speak. But anyway,
he said okay, and he went around the table and
he asked some questions that cursed your questions, Like does
anybody have any experience with, you know, the inner agency.
And I said, why you know I did. I was
an intern when I was in college. And he kind
of I'm not sure that was right. It was like okay,

(31:51):
and then uh and then and then everybody else was like, uh,
you know, I did this whatever. And then he said, okay,
come back, uh this afternoon. He goes, go back to yours.
We'll get back to you. And so it's very clear
like he had to make a decision out of the
five who the three were gonna be. So we left
and then we're called back. I think it was like
fifteen hundred that day, and I just remember, uh. He

(32:15):
was Major Bob mcdowe at the time. We called him
Angry Bob McDow. Good guy, but he was very like
he was a strong XO, right, and he was a
guard dog, right. So he would guard the colonel assiduously.
And we go up there and he's what are you
doing here? And we're like, we're told to come up here, sir.
He's like, all right, just sit over there. So anyway,
calls us in and it was only three of us
this time. The other two had not been called back.

(32:38):
And then he said, you guys are going you're going, uh,
I think so this was like Saturday evening. He goes,
you're going Monday, you're going to d C. You're gonna
get briefed up, you're gonna liaise, and then we're gonna
go from there. And I think we actually went to
Socks and all the way. So it was like a
two phase trip and that was it. So we got

(32:59):
our stuff together. Over the weekend, we flew up to
down to Tampa. We did some meetings in the J three. Uh.
I remember it was I think it was a lieutenant
Colonel Atenant, Colonel Colonel Schlump at the time. Uh, really
good guy, and he kind of they briefed us up,
and you know, it was what we knew about Afghanistan
was so very little, very little, right, So it's sort

(33:20):
of like okay, and then we went up to headquarters
and that's when things got interesting because you know, it
was they were also in the state of flux too.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Everybody was at Langley. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
Mean everybody was trying to figure out what we're going
to do. And we're outsiders, so we have to sort
of be assimilated and minded, and you know, we're we're
not we're not from that organization. So we were there
for a couple of days. We got, you know, treated
really well, and you know, but what are you gonna do?
You're not you know, you don't have a desk job there, right,

(33:56):
You're you're you're a green beret that's hanging out with
the the Starbucks coffee cup that's now a spit cup, right,
So had you know, I don't know. I think we
eventually decided that we just keep the coconhag in the car.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
So went back to.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Group a couple of days later and went to brief
Chroma Hall and he we explained to him what we knew. Uh.
It was very much like, hey, we're going to come
back to DC and then we're going to be put
in an OML in order of March for teams going in.

(34:31):
And that was it. But in the interim we were
to wait to be called on, and so they were
the order of March so to speak, had not been
decided yet, and so we're just don't call. And I
remember the guys in the three Shop. There was this
guy who worked at the three Shop who was detailed
or tasked to help us. He was phenomenal because we'll

(34:51):
say who But one of the three of us got
to Nashville Airport in the next trip and forgot our passport.
He went all way back to Campbell and got it
before the flight left. Was amazing. Yeah, I don't know
how fast you want me. You could play on hundred
miles an hour. But anyway, we we were called back
within two days, so it was like, hey, wait a

(35:12):
week or two, and then a week or two became
two days. So what I did was I packed everything
I had that was not discernible as military gear, and
then everything else would be procured later. And it was
weird because I saw my kit, you know, ls and
all that kind of stuff that I wanted to take,
and they said, don't bring that. So I left my

(35:33):
issue and that was a little weird, and in retrospect,
I wish I brought it, but at the time it
made sense. So we get to we get to headquarters,
we get to DC, and they said, okay, you need
to be outfitted. So we ended up going out to
RII one night and I think I spent like thousands
of dollars buying everything imaginable, and it ended up packing

(35:56):
it into one I don't know, like a ausprey kind
of three day pack or something, or hiking pack, which
is you know, you know, relatively small. And then I
had a more of an expedition pack, you know, that
was uh, that was filled out with different kit and
I we bought some silly stuff. I remember I bought
glacier glasses because I assumed we were going to be

(36:18):
in the midst of snow and you know, high altitude.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
All of it's all.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Yeah, it was totally carrying cognitio.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
You're outfitting like you're gonna go scale Everest.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
That's what that in our mind's eye, that that was,
you know, that was what it was going to be like.
And so we bought some weird stuff. But anyway, we
packed it all. But at the end of the day
it all fit into two bags. And we got there
and and it was so uh, it was such a
such a state of flux that that from one hour
to the next you didn't really know what you're going

(36:48):
to be told. And we were not in the decision cycle.
We were the help right that they brought in to
be liaisons and sort of military advisors for lack of
a better word. I remember we got a brief at
one point, you know, about bin Laden and all that
kind of stuff, and at the time we didn't know
where it was, and they had an idea, but they

(37:10):
were trying to keep us busy and they sort of
kept gave us some briefs and stuff like that, and
then one day the next day, I think we were
there about the third day that second time, so this
is one around the end of September, probably around the
early October, they said hey, you're leaving tomorrow and and
that was it. And so we had to rush out

(37:31):
and get some last minute things and then we boarded
a vehicle and took off from there and next you know,
we were in in Germany and then from Germany we
went to it was Beekistan.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
So had you been assigned to a paramilitary team at.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
This point, Yes, but I didn't quite so it's interesting.
I didn't quite understand like how they were structured, right.
All I knew is that, okay, there's team they had one.
Gary Schron's team was already in the Pantier Valley at
the very end of September sometime I forget the exactly,

(38:09):
maybe twenty six somewhere in there, twenty second September, last
weeks of September, they were already there. So they're like, hey,
we got guys into the North. But that had been
an area that they had iteratively gone to meet with
Massuit before he was killed, so that was somewhat of
an established relationship. Dosed them was like this shadowy figure

(38:30):
that they did you know, was out there and Ishmael
Khan and all these guys, and I remember seeing them
on a map like, here are the North Alliance guys,
and this is the sit temp enemy, you know, Northern Alliance,
very general, broad conceptual. So we get to So I
remember getting the vehicle the day, the evening that we

(38:51):
were going to fly out, and that's when I met
Mike Span some of the other guys I had seen around,
but there was a lot of time to frat and ize, right,
so I sort of met him. And I remember I
sat next to Mike riding in this van and that's
when I first spoke to him, and he's kind of
a quiet guy, and so I had to sort of,

(39:11):
you know, work out a little bit and then we
got to him. He was like, oh, you're you know, well,
he knew I was from Fifth Group. I didn't know
anything about him, and he told me, Hey, I was
a marine, you know, I was an Anglicoa guy. And
we started chatting and then we get and so we
flew together and I got to know him, and so
we kind of bonded. I mean everybody did, but I,
for whatever reason, Mike and I talked a lot. And

(39:32):
he was roughly my age. I wanted to say. He
was like three maybe four years old than me. So
he was like a ninety two guy graduated college. I
graduated ninety four, so he was two or three years
older than me. So we get to Uzbekistan and then
things got you know, I mean, it was all we're
putting it together. I met JR. Seeger, who ended up

(39:55):
being our team leader, and he was already there and
so he had the plan as best we knew. But
at the time, I didn't know that we were going
to meet with those of them that we were our
mission was to link up with those of them until
maybe around the second or third day we were there,
and maybe it was just I didn't ask, but I had.
I was really the gun guy. So we had these

(40:15):
a K M S's uh that were you know, mint
new Uh they were good guns, and we had some
pistols and radios and stuff, and so we set about
getting that organized. The commoath stuff was more work because
there's you know, that was the first time I had
seen satellite capable in better uh that the embitter was

(40:35):
still kind of new at the time, so I was like, oh,
what's that, you know, And and then we had to
put the evasion plan action together. And that's when I
worked with Mike quite a bit, uh and I got
to know them even better. We were sitting in this
uh this warehouse, and we didn't have enough maps. We
had some jog maps. We had some one hundred and

(40:59):
one over hund one over one hundred thousand DMA maps,
but they were incomplete. So I'm putting them together and
I'm like, hey, Mike, this is incomplete. So this is
not really good because what we want to do is
outfit every individual with at least a jog map of
the appropriate area. But you know, invariably it's like gonna
be on the scene, right, so you're gonna need two
maps or tape them together or something like that. So

(41:21):
Dave Tyson, who's in the book, of course, he was there,
and I told him oh, man, we don't have maps.
So he goes, I got some Russian maps. They're probably
pretty good. They're in the back, you know, in my office.
So he brought this scroll of these old Soviet maps,
and I remember they were like red inky map, red brownish.
They were really good. The relief, all the contour intervals,

(41:42):
all that kind of stuff was good. The problem with
those maps or they use a different middle system, so
I forget what it was. But the one sixtieth guys
and I talked about this. It's like, if you call
in Cord and it's off that map, you'll be five
miles off, is what they told me.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
It's not.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Absolutely, it's not so, but for terrain association purposes it
was okay, right, And so we pieced that together and
had a more complete map set.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
So when you went in and when you were doing
like the radios, were you guys on agency fills or
military fields, like who were you reaching back to?

Speaker 1 (42:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Well, we had our own internal like interagency sort of hierarchy. Right,
So I was told, hey, you are under our authority,
you are not under Colonel John Mahlland's authority. And then
by law that was correct, right, that's the way it
works title fifty versus title ten, and so so I'm
very much part of the team, and be honest, you know, honestly,

(42:40):
I was the low ranking guy on the team. So
I was just there to really do the needful and
help out where they need where they needed help. And
it became very clear that mahaland Colonel Mahonond originally expected
like this, this comprehensive unconventional warfare assessment like you were
taught to do in training.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Like a an area assessment sort of.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Thing, exactly, and in fact that's what I had. I
had the template for an area assessment that I don't
know I got from somewhere. I had it on a
I can't remember I had it, I had it printed out,
but that it became evident that the timeline, the two
week timeline in the nextville, that was not going to happen,
and that things were much more compressed and accelerated and expedited.

(43:23):
And so my task then became more to survey rapidly
survey l z's hlz's and drop zones to get the
guys in and get get the both humanitarian assistants and
basically what became our resupply in and so that's that
was that was my task.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
So you had reached back to the military with with.

Speaker 2 (43:46):
Okay, no, it was all you know, all inner agency
that they there was their hierarchy, their chain of command.
I was, you know, a minion in that, you know,
I was basically an outsider attached to that me while
Fifth Group is down in Uzbekistan and they are you know,
setting up shop there, right And so the fact that

(44:08):
we ended up co locating and we end up working together,
so a lot of that that distinction was was mollified
because we were there and everybody's part of one team
and it worked really well. But yeah, if it came
down to it, if if someone said, hey, Sap, you
need to do this for you know, I don't know
Max Bauers or Mitchell or Major Mitchell or something like that,

(44:29):
I could say, well, no, actually I don't work for you.
But they never never came about that was you know
theoretical Did you notice.

Speaker 3 (44:36):
A difference at this point in time because now you're
you're you know, in this you know agency team, and
you're also co located with with you know, Fifth Group,
which is still even though they're the special operations are
still part of the army, and the army is not
a fast moving organization. Did you notice a difference between
the flexibility and mobility of the two different outfits.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yes, so I I think it's true, and a lot
of people on the agency side of the house to
tell you, hey, we're going more much more nimble. I
agree with that wholeheartedly. But you know, part of that
is you're smaller, you're more flexible, you have a let's
just say, the way they develop people is very much
like more individually focused, so that makes sense, and they

(45:21):
can move on a dime. But it's like a lightweight
fighter versus a heavyweight. So you have a lot of
movement and you can do this and that, but if
you you know, if you want to pounce somebody, that's
that's who you call in the heavyweight. So group pretty
you know, relative to the conventional force, pretty pretty nimble
and maybe not as nimble as some units, but it's

(45:42):
pretty nimble. So yeah, it was definitely I saw that,
But the reality was at the end of the day
when we went it up ended up going in. We
went on one sixtieth aircraft, so that's when I realized that, well,
that's great, but there are certain case abilities that only
the military has, right, and it's amazing capability that came

(46:06):
out of the Ashes of Desert one and we're the
only country in the world and could do that stuff. Yeah,
and that that was really amazing because at first, just
quickly an anecdote when I first got there to d C,
they were speculating on infil ratline mechanisms. One was, hey,
we'll take you out of the carrier and then you'll
be brought in by HEILO in the southern Afghanistan and

(46:28):
then you'll wear burkas. That was at one point that
was kind of spitballed. At one point we were going
to go in a truck that was modified with hide
hiding a hidden compartment. Then we were going to go
on other aircraft, and then finally General Frank's you know,
the monsters were coughed up the aircraft to do it,

(46:49):
and they were once sixty aircraft, the direct action penetrators
once sixties.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
Could you tell us a little bit about the team
you were assigned to, you know, how many guys were
there or what were these guys like, I mean, who
were they? And you're you're experiencing sort of all of
this for the first time as a as an army dude,
as a green suitter hanging out in a black world,
I guess you could say, and and that sort of
run up to insertion.

Speaker 2 (47:15):
So they were all the first thing, they were all
prior service guys. They're all military guys, I mean, every
last one of them. So you know, Jr. Had been
an entry officer. You know, Dave had been in the military,
Alex had this story career as a start major, you
know Andy all they were all like, they were all

(47:36):
prior service, so that you know, that was a pre wreck, right.
So we had all these guys and then Jr. Was
kind of an outsider. They brought in from another area.
But they brought him in because he was known to
be a guy who worked well with the military, and
he had in fact been a guy I think he
had briefed schwartz Off in the desert storm, So he

(47:58):
was well known, and I think Hank Crumpton picked him,
hand picked him to do that job because he was
like a GS fifteen at the time. So yeah, it
was amazing that as quickly as they put the team
together and as quickly as they shuffle the order of March,
because we were not originally going to be the first
one of the first teams in. Of course Gary Schroon's
team was in, but it was sort of up in

(48:20):
the air. And then we were moved from the back
of the formation, so to speak, to the front. And
to this day I think Alex knows the reason. I
don't know why, but that's when things changed, and all
of a sudden, the next day it's like, hey, tomorrow
we're going to We're going to the airport and so so. Yeah,
but but they were all good guys, really good sharp guys,

(48:40):
and it took a while to get to know him,
but I realized that right off the bat that you
know that this was however the team was put together,
they'd done something right. And they always said, you know,
Jara would say, well, it's good to be the first
one of the first teams in because you know, there's
certain advantages to and everything's new and nothing's established.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
You have ability to shape things something.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Yeah, indeed, and and so that was cool. Yeah. So,
and Scott had been in mogan Isshue and I learned
later that he had gone to VMI like me, but
he was like four or five years old than me,
so he had graduated before I got there, so that
was a little bit of there was some affinity there.
But anyway, yeah, so they were good. They trusted me

(49:27):
to do my piece and they had their piece to do.
And jar knew more about Afghanistan than anybody had met.
And then Dave of course knew tons about Afghanistan, particularly
northern Afghanistan, and he had the language skills that were phenomenal.
Uh So that was indispensable. So we had those two guys.
We had Alex who was a star major who was like,

(49:49):
you know, looking after the team, and then you had
these younger guys who were all, you know, champion in
the bit to do something. They had me who was
the gun guy, and the HLZ pathfinder, really a pathfinder
kind of guy. And that was it. And we were
there with fifth Group, which had a very kind of
expeditionary presence of the GP mediums and so called piss

(50:12):
holes and all that kind of stuff had just been
established a little rough and we we isolated for I
think three days, so there's a delay. And then on
the you know, I think it was you know, it's
in the book, of course, the Night of the I
think of the fifteenth over sixteenth Pear to Darkness was
when we went in in October so and we went

(50:34):
on on one sixteenth birds and there's a whole story
in the book about how the DAPs were picked and
the forty sevens didn't go. At the time, I didn't
really think about it, but later on I met the
guys and I realized, yeah, that is somewhat you know, weird.
That weird? Right, It was good. It was uneventful, uneventful
flight down to thosback border. We left right after dusk.

(50:59):
I think it was like nine o'clock. We went wheels
up and I remember talking to Corol Mahall and he
was standing on the tarmac and this is you know,
you know, like right, you know, right at dusk, and
you know, I'd been pounding water because I get hydrated
if we get shot down. I want to be ready,
you know, all this kind of stuff that you're going
through your mind, all the Darius contingencies that can occur.

(51:19):
And then all of a sudden I had to go
to bathroom, like coarsely. I ran over there when the
bathroom came back, and he's just staring at me, and
you know, He's a pretty tall and he's just staring
at me, and it was really maybe a little uncomfortable.
And then I kind of took a step closer to him,
and he goes, don't get killed. I don't get killed,
just like that, and he shod these big hands like,

(51:41):
don't get killed, and so try not to let you down.
And and then he left, and then we got on
the aircraft. We rehearsed, you know, one load, offload, all
that kind of stuff, and they were you know, right
after dark. We were up and I want to say
it was two and a half hours, maybe ish three hours,
I can't remember, but I found out later that was

(52:02):
the first combat area refueling of an H sixty in
theater or ever combat wow, because I guess it qualified as.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
Combat at that point.

Speaker 2 (52:14):
Right. So, and I was sitting in the back and
I had PBS seven's. I mean, we went pretty light.
I mean we had akms's glocks, two backpacks, you know,
med bag and med kit, you know, the thigh thing
with the morphine and all that kind of the oshamans
and and that was it, you know, and not a

(52:34):
lot of food because we were going to be relying
on the Afghans, which actually worked out fine, and I'm
looking through the PBS sevens and I see this forty
seven chasing us in the back, which I didn't know
was there. I'm like, I just kind of wondered, why
is he following us? Because one sixty they didn't explain anything.
They were like, hey, we got the the infill. You
guys just sit back and ride, and Jared had the

(52:55):
headset on I did, so I don't know what was
being said. So We're just sitting there and I'm enjoying
the ride and smooth, and all of a sudden I
look out in the distance and the lights of what
was Uzbekistan Uzbekistan just end and then it's just black.
Beyond that. South of that, it was just dark, and
I'm like, I remember thinking that has to be Afghanistan.

(53:16):
And then there was a little shimmer off the Amudaria
River because there's a little bit of loom. That must
be the river. And then you know, like a minute later,
the crew chief was like, passed back, Hey, we're in Afghanistan.
And we looked down and that part of Afghanistan north
of Bazar, near the US Bic border, they have a
lot of sand dunes, and so I remember seeing that,
and then we hit the mountains, went in another maybe

(53:39):
thirty forty five minutes, and then we infilled. And it
was unique in the sense that normally, as well know,
you know, you kind of flare in like that, you
land right, it's more efficient. But all of a sudden,
it's like we stopped and then we just elevated straight down,
and I had never done that from that kind of altitude,
and I remember looking to either side of the air

(54:00):
and it was sheer like rock face. It was a gorge.
And what the clearance was the rotor dis base between
the rock and the rotor dis base, but it wasn't much.
And we went straight down and we landed, and then
we got out and we all had our little duties
and set up a perimeter, and then we talked to
the crew chief and thumbs up and there's two birds

(54:22):
and the off set like that, and then they left.
They're like bye, We unloaded our stuff and that was
it and they were gone. And then as soon as
you know that, you know, as soon as you go
in on air assault, there's you know, the tumult tumult
of the engines and all that and the prop rotor
wash and then they're gone in silence, yea silent, And
then you're sort of like, okay, this is when I'm

(54:42):
supposed to do sils. And then I remember looking through
my nods and there's these Afghans. There's like a wall
of them, and there's some horses and they're sort of
naehing and all that kind of stuff. And there's this
one big guy, because Dose is a little bigger than
everybody else. He's at least six foot I think, and
he comes out and then he goes towards Jr. And
Jarr meets up with him and they shake hands. They

(55:03):
start chatting a little bit, and I guess Darry And
from there we picked up everything and we were ushered
quickly into a meeting and that was a big meeting.
And then I remember JR. And Dave and I and
everybody was sort of arguing over whether we should take
our weapons in because you know, it's a little bit awkward,

(55:24):
but hey, we're in Afghanstan. We don't know these guys right. Oh,
by the way, Dostum's reputation wasn't the best, so it's like,
I don't know man, And so basically we decided to
take our weapons in and I remember sitting down and
you're doing the Indian you know, the sort of cross
legu of thing, and they were chatting. It was all
done in Dorry, and so Jr. Was really good about

(55:47):
explaining and justting what was going on. But I remember
sitting next to Mike and we were told to take notes,
and so I was trying to take notes and I
have to listen to what Jar was relaying to us.
And then and that went on for about an hour
h and then it was like, okay, let's get you
settled in. There was an old collaw down the you know,
a little ways down and uh, we'll get a couple

(56:09):
hours asleep when we'll get up in the morning and
get get busy. And it was like, you're gonna go
do the HLZ. You're gonna identify an HLZ survey. It
sent it up, got it. So next morning we woke
up and they they brought a vehicle. So I think
that there's a picture of the book. Maybe there isn't,
but it was a you know, jingly truck whatever you

(56:30):
want to call it. The pack with RPG rounds. They
were in these like burlap sacks. Or some sort of
sack that you put grain in or something like that.
Maybe it isn't in there, is it. It's that it's
that probably that truck, but it's a different photo. But
that probably one of those trucks something like that. And
and that was the truck we rode to what towards

(56:52):
the front line, which is the crow Flies. Probably wasn't
more than ten to fifteen clicks, maybe maybe maybe fifteen
fifteen miles, no more than that. But on the roads there,
the road was riverbed. Riverbed was the road they took forever.
But I distinctly remember Dave his Uzbek, because the guy

(57:12):
was Uzbek, if I remember, was so good. He was
just rapping with the guy talking to him, and then
he would joke and the guys they were laughing and
they're telling jokes and all that, and I'm trundling along
there my ak. And then we get to this day.
He was the town. We got out, We met with,
you know, the local subcommander who was one of Dostum's lieutenants.

(57:34):
We had a discussion about for Surrey and how many
troops he had and all this kind of stuff. And
then I went out with Dave and you know, I
surveyed the HLZ based on the the Swick GTA that
they gave you that foled out that trifold thing, and
I just used that and then we sent it up
later on in the day and that was the HLZ survey.

(57:55):
And then they came back and said, just mark the
hazards with an irostroke and we got there and then
we went up that. I think the next day was
when we first got on horses. So they had a
couple of vehicles, but not many to move, you know,
precious cargo phi I can better word, you know, RPGs
and rounds and whatever. But everybody else is either footbound

(58:17):
or they had like a couple of highlexies, but mainly
was horses. And so they showed up and they said
we're going to the front line and you're gonna meet
dosed them and again and we're going to talk through
some stuff. So we went up to the front line.
It seemed like about a three hour horse movement. I
was excited, you know, it was cool riding a horse.

(58:38):
I wasn't a great equestrian person. I had been on
horses before, but not much. And jarr knew a lot
about horses, so We went up there and dumb thing
I did. I wore my three day assault pack with
my AK so riding on a horse. The one thing
I remember, we're in a backpacks suboptimal because you're just
gonna stress a lot of muscles you don't normally stress.

(58:59):
And then the AK thing, any rifle, the magazine beats
against you when you move, and so there's a way
we configured it so it would rest under a thigh
and it was somewhat you know, accessible, but it didn't
beat your leg because if you had allowed it to
beat your leg, your leg would be bruised and raw.

(59:21):
So we got up to this kind of a giant
I guess it was a mountain maybe maybe like six
thousand feet somewhere in that altitude wasn't too high, but
there was this giant gorge, the Darysou Valley that separated.
It's like something out of a cowboy movie, like a
cliff or Indiana Jones where they go off the end

(59:41):
of the cliff. It was that kind of precipice and
on the other side with the talba, and you could
see them. They were little, you know, ant sized figures,
but you could see them through binos, and I remember
Dosed them had lazy W Soviet style defensive positions dug
in like trench line with latrines and everything coming off,
and then you had a command bunker with a stove
and everything. And we went in there and we met

(01:00:03):
with him and Jar and dosed them spoke at length
about the strategy and what they were going to do.
And he had this map that someone had drawn by hand.
It was like a special, like they'd taken a map
and then they had made their own special that was
like the size of a maybe this beige padding there,

(01:00:24):
and that was the special for the area. And then
we know. After that, we went back and then the
ODA came in I think the next night. So it
was an interval of like we're on the ground about
three days I think, and then ODA five night five
came in. They came in on forty sevens and that
was round one or two in the morning somewhere in there,

(01:00:45):
and it was straight up you know, iro bus all
or strobe whatever I had I think at a strobe
and they came in, they landed and got off, and
I uh, there was Andy Marshall, I kind of knew
from group was on the team and he's funny and
he's just a funny guy. And he came off and
I said, so, I'm like, welcome to Afghanistan. You know,

(01:01:07):
it's kind of a little bit like the Stone Age here, right,
you know, it's just not you know, you're it's gonna
be a little rough. And he had been in Somalia
and he said, oh no, don't worry, I've seen worse before.
You know, I was in I was in Somalia for
you know, ninety whatever, it was five or three year
we I think it was three. So I was like, okay,
so you know, anyway, so we set him into the claw,

(01:01:29):
which became known as the Alamo. I didn't call it that,
but someone named it that. And it was just a
couple of standard Afghan claw with a I guess you
call it an artesian well in the center that that
kind of it was a cistern type of thing where
we procured water from. That was the other thing. The
water situation that was that was a huge one factor.
So showed up. I had the reverse awesome rice RAI

(01:01:51):
pump that was not not like nowadays with like this
big and I'm like furiously like pumping the thing in
the morning. And then finally Mark Medic was like, Okay,
that's that's not gonna work. He goes, what we're gonna
do is the volume, thank you, the volume of water
we need. We're just gonna bleach it. And so we
did and then everybody the broom smelled like an indoor

(01:02:15):
pool because everybody's off gasing corn. But the water was
pure or purified. And but yeah, so that's where we stayed.
We put the ode in there and the next that
was late at night. The next morning dosed him showed up.
He said he'd be there at eight. He showed up
like seven fifteen or seven thirty. I think he did

(01:02:36):
that on purpose to offse you know, to sort of
keep let us know he was the boss, right right,
And the odeo wasn't ready, and so they were scrambling
to put their stuff together. I mean they're lsees. I
don't weighed sixty seventy pounds pdms, you know, M sixty
seven green age, you name it. They had to pursuit
determinitions and AMMO water and so we were scrambling to

(01:02:58):
help them. And then the Afghan had brought mules that
we had requested or donkeys actually and horses. And then
they took the heavy stuff, the rucks, you know, the medics,
rock stuff like that, and they put it, you know,
on either side, and they did that, lashed him down
however they did that, or we're watching him do it,
and then everybody pretty much rode with their lsee on

(01:03:19):
a horse that had been provided by the Afghanist but
Dosed them was so frustrated initially that day. I just
remember that morning that Dave was a little bit excited too.
He's like, hey, Dosum's getting pissed. Man, we need to
we need to move out. And uh, I said okay.
He goes go talk to the team man, I said, David,
they can only move so fast, right, Look at the rucks.
They're like one hundred pounds, you know. He goes, okay, man,

(01:03:40):
but he's getting pissed. And so sure enough, dosed them
barked out something and Uzbek and then he just rode
off with his little entourage, right and uh they left
and he's like, I told you, man, he's pissed. I said, well,
he's not going anywhere until we bring in the close
air supports. He can just be pissed, right, Good, you know,

(01:04:00):
sorry do them. So we eventually got up to the
front line and everything worked out. But I think there
were some hiccups earlier on, and I'm sure Marks could
talk about, but they were trying to call in if
I recall, they were trying to talk the guys on
the target, so they got air pretty quick. I mean,
the thing I remember about that era, from like nine

(01:04:23):
to eleven through probably December, it was like riding a
tsunami of anger and you were like this big wave
surf guy on the edge of it and all you
didn't want to wipe out because you just knew that
there was a thousand other people that would take your
job in a second. And I know that carriers the
plane started going back still with bombs on. That was

(01:04:46):
the wrong answer, And so there was a lot a
little bit of tension early on about that, but that
we were just the team was just getting their groove
on there, getting warmed up, and they eventually they augmented
them with an STS guy and UH and then things
things really started going well. But the UH the first

(01:05:06):
time I remember, because we were sitting up there and
dosed them had this carpet like a little afghank carpet,
and on top of it, he had his radio operator
I called him, I forget his name, and he had
stuff like something you'd buy at radio shack, like a
scanner and all that kind of stuff and powered by
back car batteries and they were scanning the freaks. Dave talked.
Dave was listening and he could understand and he would,

(01:05:29):
you know, the tobs would talk in the clear and
they and they pick up their freak. And then Dosedan
was sitting there listening and he's like picking his teeth listening.
He's like, give me the handset, and he was like hey,
and then you start cursing them out and they're like,
who the hell is this? And then they go back
and forth in this sort of sophomoric banter back.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
And forth, and they talked to RADI each.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Other, but then they were respectful to each other, like
he said, get through your commander on or something like that.
I remember Dave saying. And he was actually at one
point speaking to the TOALG commander and they were very
played like hey, sir, how are you You know this
unfortunate situation and you know, And but Dosum was a
little more agressive because he had the upper hand and
he was talking ship, but the other guy was very

(01:06:12):
like deferential.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
It's kind of weird, kind of Afghan way around, you know.
But anyway, that one for a while, but I was
quickly task organized with Mike and Mark the medic to
go to Bombyan and then another team under Scott an
element went over to link up with Mohammed A tah

(01:06:34):
to bring in another UH interagency team and in an
SF team which became five three four. So things were
quickly evolving, and so jar Jar was like, Okay, we're
going to break up into three teams. Alex and I
will stay here with Dosed them the you know, the principal,
and then Scott you're going here and you know, uh,

(01:06:55):
Mike span you're gonna be in charge of this team
and you're going to bomb in a Lincoln with mister
cre Khalili, who was, you know, the leader of the
Tizar people. And I didn't know much about Hazara and people,
and I didn't know certainly didn't know anything about Krea Khalili,
so we looked up and then his UH mister Saltani
was his sort of emissary slash driver slash into Locky Tour,

(01:07:20):
who I didn't know all the time. Years later I
helped get him back to the States, but that's another story,
but he it helped. He moved us from the Dariusu
Valley all the way to Yakulang Valley, which is west
of Bombyan. So the tops had bombyon at the time.
So we crossed from the Darius Sioux Valley all the

(01:07:40):
way up into this more or less the geographic center
of Afghanistan, and we passed by Bindi Emir that that
famous lake that people back in the seventies hippies would
go to and stuff like that. And then we ended
up linking up with mister Kream Khalili in Yakulang and
then that was Mike's kind of first trip alone away

(01:08:03):
from the main team, so it was a big deal
to him, right, and so I was there to support him.
Mark was there for medical coverage, and we were there
alone for a while, and that was weird because I remember,
I probably never do this again in Afghanistan. But we
were doing like eight hour shifts, right, eight three times
eight twenty four. But then we said, ah, we got

(01:08:24):
a little lazy, quite frankly, so, well, we're just you know,
shut down from whatever hour or whatever. Sleep everybody slept.
I looked back on that after that that was that
was trained not to do that, and you did it,
and fortunately nothing happened. We end up bringing in a
OGA team and then we brought in an Odah and

(01:08:46):
and then our mission there was over and we had
some comms issues and that we fixed. But man like
for Mike that was huge because if we couldn't make comms,
we were dead in the water, you know, for him
at least, And so we fixed that for fortunately.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
How how were how was it like interfacing with the
Huzzar because one of the main issues in Afghanistan is
all the different ethnicities and I know that traditionally, like
the Hizzar have been they've been really kicked around by
in Afghanistan itself. Right, So did they did they look

(01:09:21):
at it as a freeing Afghanistan or were they just
trying to protect their own area?

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:09:27):
I'll say my first impression of the Hazara were they're
very quiet, like as a you know, as a subculture
or a culture, very quiet people. Someone referred to them
as like laid back like the southern Californias of Afghanistan.
But they were very I don't know meek is the
right word, but they were very kind of chill people,

(01:09:50):
and so it's hard to get to know them. They're
kind of quiet, and they weren't the postumes. You can
tell they're just more aggressive culture because they're the dominant culture.
Right for them, it was like, hey, we've been down
trodden and beaten for hundreds of years literally, you know,
really starting badly in the late eighteen hundreds, and so
they just wanted to protect their sort of ancestral seat

(01:10:13):
there as best they could, of course, regain bomby On
and then regained some of the villages that went up
the Daria Siouf. So what I didn't know at the
time I learned later that Dostum's area was not the
Dharisiou valley. He was the whatever, the most effective combat leader.
But the area we were in when we infilled initially
in Dahe that was basically a Huzara area and then

(01:10:37):
further up and I glossed over this, but we had
an excursion to Talliban. The first Taliban prisoners we had
I think anyone had seen on the American side, and
It was through a village called Bazari Shute, which was
a Hsara village that had been raised, and I remember
it was burnt, I mean like something you see in

(01:10:58):
Ukraine now was just burnt, destroyed. And the Hizzar people
were like, hey, you know, the tabs came through, They
came all the way up as far as they could.
They burn everything and then they left and they did
other unspeakable things. But so those are were like, I
don't know, just they knew that they had they were
to disadvantage and that all it was all they could
do to align with someone strong, make an alliance with

(01:11:20):
the Uzbeks and the you know, Togics, and that was
their key to survival. And uh Klarene Klely was very
quiet guy, very kind of studious guy. He looked studious
het glasses and kind of like like professor professor type,
kind of very thoughtful guy, very quiet, you know, he

(01:11:41):
was very clear. We're like, we're here to help you.
How can we help you. We propose to bring in
these teams and they can bring an air power and
that will help you. And then we'll attack bomby on
and we'll we'll defeat the Taliban and you can take
Bomby on. What I wasn't sure of was their capability
on the ground, because I didn't get a sense like
I didn't see a lot of fighters like I did

(01:12:02):
with dosed them, you know, so I was kind of wondering,
where are those guys. I think they were up closer
to bombyan see, we didn't go to Bombyand so we
brought the teams in and the OGA and the ODA
and they were sort of linked up together, and then
we left and then we went all the way back
and by the time we got back to link up
with the ODA five ninety five and Jr. They were

(01:12:24):
already pushing through the final pass at the head of
the valley, which is in the in the movie twelve
Strong and sort of you know, the rockets flying, all
that kind of stuff. I missed all that, and so
when I got there, it was the the aftermath of
you know, there's some bodies here and there and some
destroyed kit and then of course there were the tanks

(01:12:44):
that were I guess hit with proximity fuses from air,
and I remember the Afghans were perplexed about how we
could strike so accurately because they would say, well, the
Russians would just come in and bomb it with dumb
bombs and they would hit everybody and kids and everything.
Obviously you guys don't do that. It's pretty impressive. And
I said, yeah, well, you know, it's spent a lot

(01:13:04):
of money or para cape developing this capability. But yeah.
So there were tanks that the Taubs had that were
knocked out and it was just sort of wreckage. As
we tried to catch up O. D five ninety five
and and Jr. And Alex actually, and so we linked
up with them south of Bazaar Shrief at the Klie
Jungie Fortress, which had just been evacuated by the tall

(01:13:28):
On And I remember because I called like we had
we had an iridium. So I called Alex the TMXO
and I said, hey, where were you all at. He's like,
we're at this fort It looks like something of a
foreign legion. You can't miss it. And sure enough you
couldn't because it's on the south side of the south
kind of west side of the bazaar and there was

(01:13:49):
you know, big parapets and all that kind of stuff.
So we went there and then dosed them had us
there with his guys for a while. I can't remember
how long, but I think it was twofold. You know,
you wanted to keep an eye on us too, and
was like milling around, and I always noticed that they
had miners like you know, dost them wanted to know
what we were up. It was just fine, I get it.

(01:14:10):
And so we were there for a while. And what
was interesting about that place, which became the focus of
the prisoner uprising, was it was a bifurcated compound massive
and on the southern side where all the stables were
in the granaries, there was also connexes. So I was
with I remember Star Major Mario V. Hill and I

(01:14:32):
he was the third Bittime fifth Group, So everybody closed
on this place. It was our team team ALFA ODA
five ninety five. It was. It was a third Battalion,
fifth Special Forces Group, Mark Mitchell's staff and started Major V.
Hill and start Major Bill and I kind of knew
each other. He said, let's go, let's go look around,
you know, so who were snooping around the fort and

(01:14:54):
it was just packed with mines, anti tank mines, any
personnel minds. And then they had these six or seven
conicses in the South courtyard, Southern courtyard, and they were
just packed with you name it, PPSh forty one's in
one granz. I mean everything you could ever imagine some
arms dealer would send. Were there ammunition out the yin

(01:15:18):
Yang dishkas and one of seven rockets and then they
had like a single shot and you're seeing them with
a tripod a single shot one of seven that I
guess they devote for spetsnaz But but anyway, they had
all that stuff and I remember going around and I
was cherry pickings and stuff. They had bayonets. They were
World War One bayonets. So we grabbed those as war trophies.
And then I never forget we in a one room

(01:15:42):
and to this day I regret not bringing this back.
It was a like paper mural for lack of a
better word. But some Tallu had taken colored pencils and
he had colored tallon flag. But he was a good artist,
and it was, you know, tacked to the wall. And
I remember Mary and I looked at each other and

(01:16:04):
I'm like, sir, made you want that? He goes we
want it, and I know he wanted it, and then
I was like, I'm gonna take it. So I took
it and I rolled it up and I kept that
and I ended up sticking it in an old Stinger
missile too that we found later and uh, and then
I never got it back because you're not going to
bring a Stinger missiles right right back to the States,
right so at least not on commercial air. So so

(01:16:25):
I don't like that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
Is yeah, you're right, maybe they wouldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
There was no grip stock, it was just but but yeah,
so we we found all this crap and and there
was minds glorre well that became the ammunition that was
used for the prison, reprising a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
So everyone kind of like ended up coalescing around this
this fortress and it ended up at what point did
it started getting to used as a prison.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
So yeah, I'll just lead up to the day. So
we moved from the Clyde Jungi fort to another place
on the east side of town, and we started separat
ourselves from dosed them and Dosum was doing his own thing,
and you know, whatever the politics bee him and Atawa

(01:17:16):
were getting kind of fraud. Mike and I ended up
getting told to go to the Southern part of Condu's.
There's a town called Pullcomery and Polycomrie. There was a
sub commander there that we were supposed to link up
with and convince him to essentially attack or at least

(01:17:39):
block the southern exodus from Condus. So the idea was
dosed them ODA five ninety five j R. All those guys,
the sort of task force would push from west to
east on Condu's, calling close air support, and then they
would isolate Condu's as an urban center. So we went

(01:18:01):
down there. This is a day day or two before
the prisoner uprising, and we met with this guy and
I remember we sat down, we had tea and whatever,
you know, pistachios, and he was having none of it.
He was not interested in moving because from his point
of view, they had that town and they had no

(01:18:21):
interest in moving anywhere. They were gonna sit on that town.
So everybody was starting to carve up the pie, right,
So Mike got really frustrated. I remember he was upset
with this guy. I was frustrated, but I wasn't really upset.
He was upset with the guy, and he pulled out
you and he's like kind of in my ear, like
cursing guy like, I can't believe this guy, you know.
I said, well, we're done, Like you can't force him
to do anything. So Mike's like, yeah, you're right, and

(01:18:42):
then we ended up linking up with Alex in a
bourgeois and Abra was really weird. I guess the Soviets
had built and they're over there talking. I'm running around
this place and it was like a time capsule. They
had these family photos in this house from like this
late seventies, like before the war and the revolution, people

(01:19:03):
in bell bottoms and no burkas. It was really surreal
walking around and I'm waiting on them to talk. They
ended up conferring and it was decided that the next morning,
Mike and I would go back to Missouri shrief. I
wasn't part of the conversation that was between Alex and Mike,
and I don't know at that time whether Alex had

(01:19:23):
heard or Mike had also heard that there were prisoners,
but we found that out on the way back and
it was weird. You know, the Afghans are always like
at a checkpoint, you'd arrive at the checkpoint chit chat
with the guy we had. I was driving, but we
had an Afghan with us, and they said, oh, there's
three hundred. It was always Chechens for someone. There were
three hundred Chechens up ahead and they're really bad news

(01:19:45):
people and you got to watch out this kind of thing.
And so we're like, okay, So we went forward and
it was funny because we asked these guys like, hey,
if you know where bin Laden is, you know, let
us know, we'll take care of you, the kind of thing,
and they were just like, yeah, we don't know where
he is. But anyway, well, we went up and we
ended up running into the vanguard of Dostum's group. And uh.

(01:20:08):
That was the evening before the uprising started, and it was,
you know, late afternoon. We were hoping to get up there.
I personally thought maybe we could get a position, we
could call for cast on these so called bad guy
Chechens and be done with them. And uh, I mean,
you know, you know, consistent with the law of ourn conflict.

(01:20:29):
But you know, basically that was that that made sense
to me, Right, we'll get in a position, we'll call castle.

Speaker 1 (01:20:35):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
But we got there and they were gone, and then
Jaren pulled Mike aside and I was near him but
not with an earshot, so I couldn't really hear what
was being said. And that was when we you know,
they were discussing the prisoners, that the prisoners that come
out of condos, that Dosam had made a decision to
take them to the Klaide Jengi Fortress, and that y'all

(01:20:55):
should go. Someone needs to go and interview these guys
because there's a treasure trail of information. These are the guys,
like Dave said, these are the guys we've been looking for,
because up to that point, all the prisoners who ran
into all the detainees or whatever you want to call them,
they had all men Afghans, and they weren't like necessarily paused.
They were they were they were like Turkmen guys who
have been pressed into service. So they were sort of

(01:21:16):
quite honestly, like pathetic. I kind of felt sorry for
some of them because they're like, hey, I got a
gunpoint I was told to go fight you guys. And
but they always said that the al Qada guys all
on servigade guys. You're a five five rigade guys, they're
just one terrain feature ahead. You just gotta you gotta
catch them. You're gonna catch them, but they're they're over
there and we never saw them, and so, uh when

(01:21:38):
we heard that, it was like, oh, this is this
is why we came here. These are the droids we're
looking for. Right, So we we went back to Mazarre
and then it was right at dusk we got to
the fort and I remember the guards and it's in
the book course. The guards were really cagey acting and
and Dave was talking to them and they were He said, man,

(01:22:00):
they're they're they're all amped, or something to that effect.
We go into the fort right to the point where
the prisoner uprising would start, and I parked. We had
a Toyota surf vehicle with all these Japanation stickers on
it from Hakkaido. I heard like got used car or something.
I don't know we got it, but but anyway, we
go into the fort and there's I remember seeing a

(01:22:21):
guy dead under tarp with a wispy beard, and his
beard was like kind of blowing in the wind. And
I was looking at him and I'm like, what happened here?
And Dave was talking to the guy, so I couldn't
figure it out. And then Dave came back. He is
we need to leave and come back tomorrow. This it's
not good. Now it's dark and the guards are sort
of unhappy, and and someone was killed, et cetera. And

(01:22:41):
so on the way back, I learned from Dave that, uh,
there had been a guy who had killed himself with
a great and uh and then he took some of
the Northern Liance guys. Unfortunately it died as well. And
that was when I realized, Okay, these guys they're armed,
or yeah, you know, there there's a problem here. But

(01:23:03):
I didn't. I didn't go Sadly, I didn't think about it,
you know, you know, I didn't go second third.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
There wasn't so much you could really do about it
at that moment either.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
It just seemed like that's Afghanistan, right, and you know,
and I was like, Okay, that's sad. Okay, we'll get back.
So we got back, but you're busy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:22):
We get back.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
Okay, we're going in tomorrow. But there's only three or
four of us there at the at the MSS we
were staying at, and so we had a radio, so
someone had to watch the radio. So we'd split up,
you know, like d a six kind of thing. We'd
split up our duties right two hours on and the
next guy's on. And the next morning about seven thirty,

(01:23:45):
I remember the Mr set rang and Mike was up
and he got it and I was up and he's
chatting and it's Alex. And Alex said, Hey, we had
this Waz truck or whatever, Waz jeep Russian jeep that
have been delivered and it was kind of a piece
of jump. You need to deliver that to Polycomery because
I have no wheels and I'm relying on the Afghans.

(01:24:05):
I need my own wheels. It's like fair enough. So
we were going to go in at eight. That was
the plan. And then Mike turned to me. I recall
and he said, hey, change the plans. You're going to
go with another guy, Greg, and you're going to go
deliver this vehicle to the to Alex. So it's a
three hour trip. And I said, okay, what about the

(01:24:26):
bad guys, what about the toalbs or we just called
them Toalbs that they were, you know, aler guys. He said, well,
we'll link up, you deliver vehicle, we come back. We'll
link up in the afternoon and there'll be plenty of
them to because you know, I was be honestly, I
was curious to see who the hell these guys were,
because when I got there the night before, they were
all packed in the pink house in the basement, so

(01:24:47):
I didn't see anyone. Anyway, we got down the road,
I never forget this would went back up. Mike and
Dave got in the toe of surf and the thing
had a problem when start, so you had to clutch started.
So David's like, how do I clutch started? So I said, oh,
I got to push it. So we pushed it. He
clutch started, it got going. I said, see you guys later,
and that's the last ike I saw that. Sadly, that's

(01:25:10):
the last time I saw Mike alive. And you know
I would see Dave later. But so we left and
I drove that waz about thirty forty five minutes outside
of a Miszar' stre eve and it broke down something
with the distributor cap. So fortunately I had a guy
from Fifth Group who's also this this awesome mechanic. He
was like a motorcycle guy, designed his own Harley's and

(01:25:32):
he got up there and you know, those engines aren't
that complex. He was like it's a distributor cap. We're
gonna to get a new one. And so we towed
that vehicle back to Bizarre. And this is where I
really feel bad is I came back to the MSS
and I'm like trying to problem solve. So I'm like,
where's Dave and Mike and said, well, we haven't heard
from yet. They're still busy, you know, they're they're working.

(01:25:53):
There's a lot of guys to go through. I said, okay.
I said, well, I need to get this vehicle fixed.
So they linked me up with this Afghan he was
like an Afghan grease monkey, and we went to the
bazaar to get his trivia cap. Because any task like
that fell on me, which is fine. I was, you know,
Sue is spontaneing, right, So I was like, okay, fine.
It was when I came back that I knew something

(01:26:16):
was up and at one point, and this is where
I didn't. You know, you get those cues, but you don't.
In retrospect they make sense, but the time they didn't
make sense. So Paul Cybersen, who was there and I
knew would be, was that you're ahead of me, and
he sadly passed away he was killed in Iraq in
two thousand and four. He came up to me from

(01:26:37):
you know, serb Itttalion and he he said, hey, have
you heard from the guys down to Clyde Jungie. Have
you heard anything from them? It's like I heard some rumors.
It was like some Shenanigans going on or something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
But it was couched in a.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Way that I mean, I don't know. In retrospect, I
don't I can't remember what he said, but it was
I wish I had.

Speaker 3 (01:26:56):
It seemed more casual than what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Yeah, I guess. I mean in retrospect what he was
talking about was uprising, but it wasn't relay to them.
It was ready to them through Afghans, kind of a
convoluted matter. I said, I'm sorry, I haven't heard anything,
and I went in. I remember talking to the guys
with my team and they were like, and we haven't
heard anything. And then I was like okay, and so

(01:27:19):
Paul was like okay, fine, and then he went back,
presumably to talk to Major Mitchell or Kurt Sontag or
one of those guys. I don't know. And then I
went to get that stuff. And when I came back
later in the afternoon. The comment was, I'm glad you're back.
I wish you had been been here. Greg said that
I think, and I said, what do you mean. He goes,

(01:27:41):
there's something going on at the fort. I had to
sing Glenn the medic, the other medical there was two
actually a PA or both pas to the fort and investigate,
and he went with the Brits and I kind of
glossed over some things. But the night before the SBS
detachment had arrived. I didn't even know where they were there,
and there was some shooting outside, and we went to

(01:28:01):
kind of battle stations one hundred percent security, and all
of a sudden I heard British accents chatted this guy.
I figured out he was a medic, you know, British
British military guy. So they had gone in with Mark Mitchell.
Glen had but you know, Greg had to stay because
we had to guard the equipment. And and then I

(01:28:21):
was out getting you know, a distributor cap for the vehicle.
So we were trying to take stock what was going on.
And then shortly thereafter Dave shoot up and it was
right at like gloaming, right at dusk, and Dave was.
You know, he was not and he was usually a
pretty jovial, carefree, kind of you know, happy go lucky guy,

(01:28:44):
and he was not. And he had dirt all over
him and he had this AK and I knew he
didn't have an ak, he didn't carry anything. He just
carried a pistol. He had a browning high power. So
I'm like, that must be Mike's AKA, I remember thinking.
And it was covered in dirt. I mean, he clearly
something happened. And I was like, Dave, what happened? And
he went on and started telling me the story, but

(01:29:04):
it was sort of the bits and pieces and it
was all about the Dagistani guy that bat or something
like that. You know, it was bits and pieces and
I'm trying to put it together, and of course I'm going, okay,
there's a fight going on, you know, where's Mike. And
and then he said, Mike got out the so and
so the Uzbek, my friend told me he got out.

(01:29:26):
I talked to him. He got out. I said, okay.
So I was hopeful, as we all were. And then,
you know, I don't know how much time elapsed, and
then the Brits came back with Mitchell. But we're in
a different floor. So the Brits came back. I didn't
see Major Mitchell or any of those guys. And they
came up and they said, hey, are you Dave and

(01:29:48):
he's like yeah, I said, you know, and they said okay, good,
oh all right mate, we got you Dave. Where's Mike?
He said, we don't know, and he said, oh wow.
And then they sat down and we were just sort
of relaxing it kind of collapsed down, lean up against
the wall. And then there was a step Bass was
there and he was American, and I started chatting with
him and Steph was like, hey, man, it was bad

(01:30:12):
in there, like he was telling me about it, and
I was sort of and he was very he's kind
of a non plus kind of guy, but he was
he was like, man, it was bad in there, you know,
and he's told me the whole thing. And then Glenn,
of course, was more animated, and he was like he
was going off with this guy and that guy because
the Afghans, because at one point they'd been introduced to

(01:30:32):
the fort right in the line of fire, and he
was livid about that, which I totally understand, and he
was he was just going off about that. But anyway,
heard about all the jade m's have been dropped, but
I wasn't there, you know, and I was like, God,
damn it, you know. So they decided to pull back

(01:30:52):
after that initial push in. They dropped the jade ams,
which turned out to be decisive, as I understand it,
in terms of shattering the potent shoal of the enemy
to take the whole compound. And the next morning I
saw that because there were just you know, corpses everywhere,
and the trees were decimated and our vehicle was like
a cheese grater and there was just it was. It

(01:31:12):
was a real fight. So that night I remember I said,
I'll watch the radio, you know, and we're going first
thing in the morning, but right now we're going to regroup.

Speaker 1 (01:31:26):
And so.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
The Mr Sat rings and uh, I pick it up.
It's like three in the morning. Someone in the States
and they're like, hey, how's it going. My name's Phil.
I said, Hey, how you doing, Phil? And he goes,
how's it going, buddy, and say it's uh, you know,
I don't know what I said, and but he was
trying to get information out of me to figure out

(01:31:51):
what the status was from Mike and Dave, and I said, well,
Dave's been returned, but we haven't found Mike yet. And
he kept kind of pushing me, like to extrapolate, and
I said, I don't know. And then finally I kind
of I was starting to go a little frustrated, and
I said something like, well, this is what Dave told me,

(01:32:11):
and it was it was very kind of cynical, like,
you know, you can infer from that that you know,
you know whatever. So and then he hung up, and
then that was it would say, hey, talk to you later.
Hanging there, I said, we're going in the morning. He said, okay,
I'll relay that. Well, what I realize now, I didn't
know at the time that information went to Guy X,

(01:32:32):
who ended up briefing eventually getting the director or eventually
brief in the president. So but they didn't tell me that.
I probably would have comported myself differently, right I'd asked
me that I would, but I was pretty frank. And
next morning we went in. There's a little bit of
a f up breaking contact between US and third Battalion headquarters,

(01:32:54):
and as a result, they got in there before us,
and we came in right behind him, and I didn't
know where they were, and so we ended up in
a different part of the fort, visa VID the command Element,
which was led by Major Mitchell h. And there was
a T fifty five tank you'd probably seen in some
of the photos that was firing into the southern courtyard,

(01:33:17):
but it was up on them. There was a ramp,
so it was up on the parapet firing into the
southern courtyard distance of maybe three hundred four meters maybe,
and uh so we're trying to figure out and get
our bearings. It's Greg and I and Greg said, well,
you know this was smart. He said, hey, first things
were set up the radio, get calms, make sure they

(01:33:38):
know we're here, and then we'll go from there. And
you know, there's like bodies. That was the first time
I'd gotten up close to guys that looked like they
were friendly that were killed, and there were some of
Sizari guys that were and I was like okay, And anyway,
so I got comms and with the with the base
and I say, hey, we're here, and this is what's

(01:34:00):
going on. And then we keep the mic like you know,
you can hear all the gunfire. There's this cacophony of gunfire,
and you didn't know where it was coming from. And
it's a very sort of asymmetric kind of structure, you know,
so every turn there was something you know, you didn't know,
so you didn't know where the gunfire was coming from.
And we wentn't be there that long, and I established calms,

(01:34:20):
and then all of a sudden, I told Greg, I
remember Sam, Greg, I said, I think ther bitang guys
are over there, so we probably need to link up
with them. And right about then, I think we're getting up.
We're just about to fold up the antenna and put
it in the side this backpack, and and all of

(01:34:41):
a sudden, I saw this shadow. It was a nice
days you know, maybe like below sixties. Shadow cast itself
across the wall to fort in front of me like
just like that, a flicker, and then other prefer my
right side, preferred vision, I saw what looked like a
giant black lawn dark just for a split second, and
I remember thinking, what the hell is that? And then

(01:35:01):
all of a sudden, this tremendous explosion that you see
and you can see the video. It was taken from
the outside of the fort, and we were people don't
believe this, but we were one hundred seventy meters away,
and there were guys a lot closer, some who were
wounded pretty pretty badly and some who Afghans who were
killed anyway, So we you know, got in the proposition,

(01:35:23):
and then there was all sorts of like second you know,
secondary missiles and the one thing I didn't know about
that because I remember training, like you know, Ernie Tobat.
I don't know if he was still there at the
Q course, but he would always talk about what's the
biggest danger secondary missiles. I remember thinking about him secondary missiles.
And I got down and all these things are landing

(01:35:44):
on me and they're hot. They were just like burning
into my back, and I thought for half a second
I'd been hit, but I wasn't. It was just like earth.
There's so much energy in that bomb, you know, and
it just rained on it. So we brushed that off,
kind of like the Blues Brothers. And then I've seen
also this is the part it really kind of I
felt like it was intimidating. I saw a big chunk

(01:36:06):
of something hit the wall in front of me. It
was like gray black smokes. That must have been a
giant chunk of shrapnel from that bomb, and I thought, God,
thank god it was you know, it's just blind luck
where you are in the structure, whether you're gonna eat
hit or not the way that thing fragments. But the
good news was that it hit at the base of
this this wall, so to an extent that served as

(01:36:28):
a sump in my view that kind of absorbed a
lot of the blast. But still it was a huge,
you know, net explosive weight. So the tank was flipped
as you probably know, the turret on those tanks that
we've seen in Ukraine, it comes off, and you know,
the whole tank crew was killed and everything was rubbled
and a bunch of equipment was lost, and there were

(01:36:49):
several wounded who had to be evact. So then the
next you know, several hours were spent evaking people, and yeah,
we were left actually accidentally, we were left behind in
the fort. Greg and I so Greg. Greg was pretty
upset about that, which is understandable, and he's like, they

(01:37:10):
left us, man, your guys left us. And I said, well,
they didn't do it on purpose, but we were gone
and literally were on the radio and the dust cloud
had just settled and then one of the Brits came
to me and he was running and he was covered
in dust. He looked like a cartoon character. Just his
eyes were and he had blood in his ears. And
he ran up to me and he was yelling, get

(01:37:31):
on that radio and call that bastard off. He just
dropped a bomb on us. He said. The initial impression
I had is that it had been a one oh
seven or something that had hit some of the mines
in one of the rooms, because a lot of those
rooms were packed with stuff, and that it had a
secondary and that blew up. And he said, no, no,
it was a bomb. And so I had to call
back to the Siege of Soda and relay to the

(01:37:53):
guy who answered to go to the Joint fires Element
get a hold of Kmart because I wasn't talking to
the a Wax, tell that pilot the cease fire to stop.
Drop you know that that that you had we had
friendly well, he said, first we have I think he said,
we have casualty. So I relayed that to them, and
so you know, later on I got the rest of

(01:38:15):
the story in the other end. But they relayed the message.
The pilot stopped what he was doing and and and
then we uh started to I guess, uh triage the
guys at least as best they could over there. But
you got to remember, I didn't know where they were,
so I didn't know that how many guys were killed
or how many guys were hurt. All I saw was

(01:38:36):
a giant plume of dust and it was big enough
structured you couldn't see that far. And that's how we
had left, because I remember I looked over my shoulders
on the radio and they were there. And then all
of a sudden, Greggs like they left us, and I
looked back and they were gone. And uh, so we
had to get to our vehicle. I remember. We go
to the vehicle we had this uh at that point

(01:38:56):
we got a new vehicle. It was a little Toyota
minivan that was parked on the bury of the gate,
and it was all bubbled up from the over pressure,
but the windows, strangely were not blown out. It was weird.
And all of a sudden, out of the dust comes
this giant brit named Johno. And he must have been
from like, I don't know, the Newcastle or something like.

(01:39:17):
He had this really thick accent and he was like
a bloody door on the sliding door of the troya
van wouldn't work, and I was just like, man handle it,
and he just ripped it off and just came off
like the whole door, and he just tossed it. He
was like looked at it and he just tossed it
to the side, and I say, oh, we got air
conditioning now. And then we got in the thing and

(01:39:40):
we had a couple of soldiers from Tenth Mountain. There
was a cure f element that had been called in
and a couple of them had been left. So it
was a bit of a goat rope out of there.
We got out, We assembled outside and then our Major
Mitchell was there, kind of got everybody together and then
decided that we had to take the casualty somewhere else,

(01:40:01):
that it was unsafe to land a metavat bird near
the fort, and so that was reset like and then
and then you know, the battalions. The group surgeon was
there fortunately, and he was able to help our casualty.
Oh wow, yeah, and he did a great job. Anyway,
they were evacked. The casualties were revacked. I believe that

(01:40:22):
night if I'm not mistaken, but things were happening, you know,
in parallel and simultaneously. Right. So then that night they
got e casts in the form of AC one thirty.
So it's in the book. They must have worked that
place for about three hours. So the next morning, I mean,
it was like showers of sparks, and Alex and Jarro
were a little closer, and Alex at one point the

(01:40:45):
one of the bad guys was adjusting fire with the
eighty two milimeters more and then I guess the forty
milimeter before has got him eventually, but it was sort
of like Alex related the story, you know, that's, hey,
they're adjusting fire on us, adjusting the bracketing said, they
were walking at whatever, then all of a sudden, nothing,

(01:41:05):
It's like, oh, you got him. The next morning it
was like a medieval battlefield because you look in the
southern courtyard and there's pictures of it in the book.
It was just like, you know, bodies every couple maybe
five six feet and they were just pretty evenly scattered
about and just clumps of like rags they look like.
And I remember at that point we were up on

(01:41:29):
the corner, which would have been like the south eastern corner,
and there was this little room almost like a like
a rook tower or something like that with a little loophole,
and there was a guy shooting through there, and uh
it was the radio operator guy from Dostum's guy. It
was the same guy, and I remember talking to him
and and uh there were a couple of dead all

(01:41:52):
serve you get guys just lying there and uh, you know,
so it's like okay, and then I don't know killed them,
but they were there, you know, one of many. And uh,
I remember sitting next to kneeling next to I think
of Major Mitchell. And these poor horses had been tied up.

(01:42:12):
I never forget this too, these stanchions or whatever right
next to their their troth right and they had weathered
the whole aco and thirty strike right up, and they
were like limping. One was limping on three legs. I mean,
you know, animalis and people will get really I mean,
it's it was terrible. They were just like limping around

(01:42:33):
and a couple of them were just absolutely eviscerated, like
I mean like this carcass, you know. And then others
were wounded, and then there's cat dead. Anything that had
a heat signature. Yeah, that was above ground was fair
game that night. Yeah, and I just remember someone saying
someone should put that horse out of its misery. I'm

(01:42:54):
sure someone did, but it was tight. It was still
tied up and it was like limping around on three legs,
like oh man and uh. Anyway, then the Afghans, if
I recall, and like I said, this is kind of
streaming consciousness, but they did an assault and the idea
was they were going to clear I believe from east
or west to east across the southern courtyard. And that's
when a couple of the bad guys came out because

(01:43:15):
they were still alive. Yeah, that was the part. This
truck me is that fort because it's you know, made
out of Adobe, essentially Afghan version of Adobe. It's kind
of a pretty resilient thing and like sandbags. So if
you were hunkered down in those those granaries or those stables,
you you probably I mean you probably can cuss, but
you if you didn't, if you hunkered down, you didn't

(01:43:36):
get didn't catch any of the frag you're still going
to be alive, right, And they were, and they were
pretty feisty. I mean they were still fighting because there's
a gunfire. And then the Afghans would run away and
they come back, and it was it was you know,
it was very un indecisive kind of fighting. And finally,
after this went on for a while, I think dosed

(01:43:57):
them had arrived in town and he brought some one
brought a T sixty two and one of the guys
I talked to him the other day, he's in New
Jersey now. He was like, yeah, I was the guy
who brought the tank. So they came in and they
started working that main gun on each each one of
those those granary kind of stable things and figure out

(01:44:20):
where there was always chechens, right, there are chechens in there. Okay, fine,
whoever they are, they're bad guys. So they were firing
one time the other and the guy we remember, he's
throwing the the brass out of the cupola, you know,
on to the ground, and uh, finally it was like crickets.
There was nobody, nobody left that we could tell, and
except three came out later that day and I remember

(01:44:43):
there was this pretty heavy explosion, like a poom like that,
What the hell is that was up the main gun.
It didn't sound the main gun. And then they brought
these guys out on a tarp who were sadly they
were killed nor Alliance guys and there was a faint
surrender and I don't know what they debt native whether
it was a grenade, it was bigger than a grenade.

(01:45:03):
I don't know if it was suicide Baltimore that common then,
so I don't know what it was. But the guy
clacked off, Well, they had all the ordinance, had all
those minds. Yeah, it could have been anything, yeah, yeah,
and he killed three uh three Nord Alliance guys took
he killed them and and then that was it. And
then later we found out that there were eighty six
guys in the bunker that were still alive, include John Workland.

(01:45:26):
But no one was really fixated on the bunker. And
I knew there was a basement to that that building,
but I just saw these corpses and I assumed, you
know that the al Qaeda guys all on service, guys
that kind of fought to the death, you know, And
that was the end of it. And and then you know,
then we we found Mike actually one of the r

(01:45:51):
Alliance guys that you know, was able to identify him,
and then Mario, Sir Major V Hill and I found
him and and then we treated him and then that
was the end of our piece of that. Now they
still went on because as I understand, the Afghans and

(01:46:12):
some ICRC guys, I think I went into the the
bunker basement. The Toby's got it all in there, he's
got he you know, he's got it in detail. But
and we're shot. And so then the Afghans were like, Okay,
we got to deal with these guys. And so they
tried to burn them out with diesel frags or something
like that and didn't work, and then they brought in

(01:46:33):
a water truck and then they flooded it and that's
when they they eventually I think got hype piped out
or and surrendered. Uh and and that was it. And
there was eighty six of them. And then that's when
John walker Lynd the next day or later that evening,
of course, was discovered. And then that created a whole
another avalanche, Yeah, of a chain of events.

Speaker 1 (01:46:57):
And John walker Lynd is now out of prison and
running op eds about the war crimes, horrible war crimes
that we committed.

Speaker 3 (01:47:04):
In the Standard actually didn't he praised isis and yeah,
but he writes under the name of like, yeah, yeah, Lynn, Now,
I mean he starts sixteen years and got out for
good behavior. Yeah. If you guys have not read it,
definitely check out Toby's book first. Casually it really goes
into detail because he interviewed everybody. I mean, he had

(01:47:27):
incredible access, uh, to the to the team involved. He
talked a lot today about the events of that day,
because you know, when Justin's talking about these this prisoner
uprighting uprising, it's not like a prison riot in the US.

(01:47:48):
These people were taken in mass uh and weren't really disarmed.
They were they weren't searched, they weren't disarmed, they were
just like sequestered. So a lot of them still had
all their you know, their weapons, and it was it
was a planned uprising. And that's part of the thing
about John Locker, Lynn, it's he was very aware of this,

(01:48:09):
if not a party to it. And I guess it's
I guess it's only worth sixteen years.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
What was the U What was the next step for
you after that? You said that that was kind of
your piece of it was done and you guys left
at that point after you repatriated Mike's spans remains.

Speaker 2 (01:48:26):
Yeah, Well he was taken back to the States. Alex
went back with it, and then there was the funeral Arlington.
In fact, I visited his his to his grave at
Arlington last week with my son, and then there was
a funeral. I actually went back for that. But what
happened was the team was sort of dissolved, right and

(01:48:50):
and everybody went off to do whatever their new mission was.
And then I was still I still had time on
my clock, so to speak. So I ended up going
on another trip and enjoining another team down in Kanahar
and Uh. And then I ended up in Orizgon Province,
and that was during the Anaconda phase of things, so

(01:49:10):
but it was a little slower there. Although there's some action,
it was mainly out east and Anaconda's you know, and
UH and that that whole thing. So so I was
there during Anacana, but not in the east, you know.
And then I redeployed and went back to group, and
then I became the HC fifth Group commander that summer,

(01:49:32):
and then we got ready for Rock probably about August,
so we I'm back by June or whatever may June,
I can't remember. And and then next you know, by August,
someone said, hey, that you know, Rumsfield's signed some dep
order or something that we're gonna go probably gonna go
after sit On, and then that started a whole chain

(01:49:54):
of events for the invasion, so very quickly became Afghanistan
was an rearview mirror and we're going to rock in
the span of you know, months, and then we were
on the ground, I mean, fifth Group infiltrated D minus two, So.

Speaker 1 (01:50:08):
You walk us through that. Where were you at during
that time?

Speaker 2 (01:50:10):
I was a battle captain actually, So what happened was
the headquarters absorbed. We grew from an h AC into
a sea desota, and so we absorbed a bunch of
reservist augmentees who were staff guys, so they were officers mainly,
but not exclusively, and we built out the headquarters so

(01:50:32):
they had a jam d you know, and we just
started filling the slots and then we did all the
manifesting and my first sergeant, Rod Glass, he and I
kind of that was stressful, man. I mean by the
time we got on the plane and I think it
was January oh three, I remember, we watched the Super
Bowl and then it wasn't along there long after that.

(01:50:53):
We were wheels up and I remember getting on the plane.
It was like really cold that that day and it
was just like a relief to get on the plane.
And then we staged out out of out of Jordan.
The Siegosota was in Jordan, and then we had a
two battalions in Quait, and then of course all the
commiscial forces were in Quait, you know, and then D

(01:51:14):
minus two there was infiltrations, D minus one there were infiltrations.
The Aaron addiction started right around the same time as
our infiltrations. It was mainly into Alumbar and into south
center Iraq. So my duty was to battle track the south,
southern and central part of Iraq. So second and third time,

(01:51:34):
fifth Group, first Battalion was in a loambar doing counter theater,
ballistic missile suppression, scut hunting uh and that went on
until man, I don't remember, maybe like April or something
like that, or may I think it was April, but yeah,
it was pretty heady times and then but that was
a conventional fight. We were the supporting effort, you know,

(01:51:56):
so it was very different. A Lombar was ours a
long way. The Brits and the Aussies, but Center and
South that was you know, Fifth Corps and one Meth
and then we had Segment Segmentalian had infiltrations into Center
Central Rock, so they were doing strategic reconnaissance. And I remember,

(01:52:18):
uh iran it, you know, I mean, it was just
you know, I was an operator. Then now I'm now
I'm a staff guy and I'm briefing, you know, Colonel
Mahall and every every day, twice a day. My boss
was Mark Schwartz, who was the S three of group,
and that was more of a staff grind, you know,

(01:52:39):
I too, I do remember this that like the day
we infilled the group in filled was D I guess
it was D minus too. The word came down from
Socks and it was you know, execute, execute, execute, kind
of like emphatically, and we're like sure we received the
execute order. Like Mark Schwartz, if I remember he talked

(01:52:59):
to colonla Holland, and uh, colonla Holland wanted to pick
up the sacom and talk to all three of his
Batank commanders at once and you know, say X, get X,
you get ex you And I remember the S six
had everything right, you know, comms are everything was right
and good to go, and then like ten minutes later
it failed and I remember he keyed the mic and

(01:53:21):
I could hear of the sackcom not working and uh,
and he he just was like he just like let
the the thing down. And he looked at the six
he was just like, all I want to do is
talk to my commanders. Is that too much to ask
or something like that, And then he turned to me,
he said, calm on the Mr sat or whatever the

(01:53:42):
bat phone was, and I called them, and you know,
that was it. And then we battle tracked the group,
you know, from from the headquarters. And then eventually they
moved the command element into what became the I believe
it was a rod Bunny a palace complex. So the
hill were near where Sadam sons that he had the tire,

(01:54:03):
the lions and stuff and the zoo and stuff like that,
and they set up there and then I redeployed back
to the States in the summer, and then I PCs
to Swick. So you know, all the assignments things, the
assignments side wouldn't change whether you're in combat or not.
It actually got me in trouble a little bit with
Branch because I wanted to stay longer, and I didn't

(01:54:27):
know how the game was played, and I, you know,
I was sort of try to pull some strings and
that was the wrong So yeah, anyway, they got me back. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:36):
Before moving on, I would like to ask a few
of your I guess, impressions of the difference between the
invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq and what
was some of your takeaways were and how those two
conflicts were prosecuted. I mean, very different countries, very different
geographies and approaches. As you said, Iraq was largely conventional.

Speaker 2 (01:54:57):
Yeah, so two things. It starts with the difference of
the countries and is most people who serve over there.
Afghanistan is much more rural than Iraq. I mean, there's
plenty of rural areas in Iraq, but the preponderance of
the population is urban or kind of semi urban based.
In Iraq and Afghanistan it's not. And so the centrality,

(01:55:22):
it's not customary in Afghanistan for the periphery to adhere
to the center of the kabble. That they don't like that,
which is the problem, right, that they don't want to
obey kobble in Iraq, they've been under Sadam since what
late sixties or whatever, and it's a much more wealthier
country with much more infrastructure and an urban, large urban

(01:55:47):
middle class, and so that's socially, the society there was different,
and I think that made the war different. The other
thing is we went in in the very beginning, and
it's in the book the whole you know, option between
Cover Black's light touch approach or General Franks's let's drop

(01:56:09):
the eighteenth Airborne Corps into into Afghanistan, which he probably
thought was a light approach that they had just unfolded
well and a lot of it was put together on
the fly in and it worked. Iraq was a much
more deliberate plan because I remember going to Fifth Court
headquarters in October, it was right around September, October, late September,

(01:56:33):
and for the planting conference, and man, that was you know,
this was like, Hey, this is how it's going to
be done. Orders, decisive maneuver, phasing, all this kind of
stuff you're taught, and it was all done the American
way of war. Man decisive maneuver, and actually it's kind
of impressive. You're like, this is what the machine can do.

(01:56:53):
And the machine did it and you see it unfold
because I saw it hour by hour unfold, you know,
and uh yeah, it was amazing. But it was a
conventional fight and we were in a rock very much
uh subordinate or supporting effort, and that kind of I
think pissed some of the guys off as a little bit. Yeah,
I remember a one five. I love them to death.

(01:57:15):
They got mad because they were supposed to hit this
target in a southern rock. It was a radio tower
or something like that, and they were all amped up
to do it, you know, and the Brits overran it
like it just wasn't a thing because it happened so
that it last. Yeah, and they were and they were
stood down and uh and they were champion at the
bit because they had done some good stuff in uh

(01:57:35):
In in Afghanistan. So anyway, they ended up getting plenty
of plenty of work late down the line. Yeah yeah,
but uh but at the time they were they were,
you know, they were pretty miffed. But anyway, you know,
the whole thing unfolded and then there was that big
tick up up near Carbala. So the whole focus was
sort of like in ninety one, to destroy the Republican Guards,

(01:57:57):
special Republican Guard. They're the center of gravity. I mean,
it was cog analysis, all that kind of classic you know,
schwere punked, you know, decisive maneuver kind of stuff that
you're taught in Commander and staff college with that, and
it culminated there and there was that operational pause and
then the the so you know, Fettiine and those guys

(01:58:20):
had sort of sort of gotten together and they attacked us,
you know, and attacked me. I was in the headquarters,
but they attacked you know, the vanguard, their third I
d and there was a bit of a fight there,
as you remember, and then they eventually ended up overrunning
by app There's a bit of a fight there. There
was some fight, you know, there's obviously some fighting up
in Baghdad. I remember that. And there was our first

(01:58:41):
casualty I remember was was a sergeant life say. I
remember that because we had to try to coordinate evacuation
and it was it was like on a line between
the Marines and the army, and that created some confusion.

Speaker 3 (01:58:55):
It was.

Speaker 2 (01:58:56):
It was bad and uh anyway, so other than that though,
it was you know, we quickly overran Bagdad. The original
plan had been to create these tactical assembly areas around Baghdad,
but events overtook itself. General Blount did the famous thunder run,
and you know Colonel Perkins at the time, and it

(01:59:17):
had become my big boss years later. He was a
brigade commander, armor guy. So they took bag Dad was taken.
And then it wasn't probably until later that summer that
the first kind of id started occurring, like very you know, unsophisticated.

Speaker 1 (01:59:36):
How did I'm interested, how did the odiers perform during
the invasion, because I feel like most of the accounts
we have of this are actually from the invasion during
Desert Storm, we've heard about some of those odas and
what they were up to. I feel like not so much.
Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's a book I missed, but
I feel like there hasn't been a whole lot out
there about this special forces role during the two thousand

(01:59:59):
and three and invasion.

Speaker 2 (02:00:01):
Yeah, well, I don't know why. That's a great question. Actually,
I think it might have been kind of subsumed.

Speaker 1 (02:00:06):
By how big the military effort was.

Speaker 2 (02:00:09):
Well, I think if the insurgency hadn't become what it became,
you know, for or really five. You might have heard
more about it, but there were so many other things
going on and continued to go on and transitioned from
you know, decisive maneuver to the counter surgency campaign. Yeah,
you heard about like was it five to five in

(02:00:31):
desert storm that was compromised and they had the big
tick with huge firefight, huge firefight and were able to
fortunately we were able to x fill. A lot of
it was similar. I mean, they had sr The difference
was they were infilled with vehicles. They were not infilled
by foot, so they had mobility and they were moving
around and the biggest risk you had, quite frankly was

(02:00:52):
friendly fire. I think that was more of a risk.
There was a couple of close calls that fortunately worked out.
But uh but you know, when you have a giant
force moving forward and you got Kyle Warriors screening forward
and they're looking for targets, you know, and you're in
a non tactical vehicle, even if it's marked with properly

(02:01:13):
with the S seventeen panels, you look like Sidamfettine, you know.
So uh So, anyway, there's some close calls I recall
about that, but but it's basically strategic reconnaissance looking over
key crossing points to the river where bridges were stuff
of that nature. Uh. Carbolic gap was a big one,

(02:01:35):
and then a lumbar and then Thurbitan came into Baghdad.
Uh during the whole reduction of Baghdad. If I recall,
I didn't follow that as closely. And then boom we
were set up. Hey, you guys are to ride when
the palace complex. You know that this whole the structure
that became a rock that we all knew was was
was coalescing right, And then it was quickly like new

(02:01:58):
rotations came in because when we were leaving and third
ID was coming or was it third No, it was
a thirty cr. But at the time as Chromic Maaster
was going into Al Kayem and all this stuff was
moving on, and there was a whole new OIF rotation
coming in.

Speaker 1 (02:02:12):
And I left and I went back.

Speaker 2 (02:02:14):
In the summer of O three, I went to Swick
and then and so you were the you were the
gig pit guy, as you told me, I became. I
became the commander of the eight and X ray program.
And I didn't know I was going to be that
because originally the plan was I was going to be
at Alpha instructor re least that would the assignments. Uh,
the guy told me. But anyway, I showed up late

(02:02:36):
because I I pulled some strings. I stayed longer in
uh with the group.

Speaker 3 (02:02:41):
So you were in the doghouse.

Speaker 2 (02:02:43):
I was, but I didn't even realize. So I got there.
But like you know, whatever deal was struck and whatever
sign you had, and then you get my buddy Pete
was leaving the X ray program. And it had been
around before as a National Guard program. And then in
two I believe, after nine to eleven, when they had

(02:03:05):
to ramp up the production of best guys. I think
it was seven point fifty was the aim at the
time they they expanded the program. So I inherited that
in the summer of three, and uh, actually it was
it was. It was. It was a good prep I
thought for selection. I mean, like I wish I had

(02:03:26):
gone to that physically did a really.

Speaker 1 (02:03:29):
Great job preparing you know, these young guys for selection.

Speaker 2 (02:03:32):
Yeah, it was. There were some risks there because it's
brag and we like we wouldn't run selection, we wouldn't
run the training, uh POI in August because and we
had to watch that he casualties, you know. Obviously that
was my biggest fear. And it was always, uh, it
was never the hottest day when you have a heat
casually and it was never not necessarily the least fit guy.

(02:03:56):
I remember this one soldier we had X ray candidate.
He he was a super fit, fast runner, and he
went down on the five mile run and I was
really worried about him. He ended up being fine, but
that was that was a nightmare. And then land navigation.
A lot of guys don't realize that, whether you do

(02:04:17):
it benning or that's a lot of work and that's
a lot of managing people and it's kind of a
thankless job. But we had a huge training area. They
had taken over an area that had been least It
was leased to the government by the Rockefeller family, I
can't remember. Some rich family owned the train. It was
a big piece of real estate. They called the North

(02:04:37):
the Northern Training Area, great for training land av and
we would run a nine hour land have examination mini
star we called it. And that was great. That was
great training. But the problem was you always had a
couple of guys you'd come up, you know, missing index.
So then i'd have to call a helicopter in sometimes

(02:04:57):
to find them. And then finally I got frustrat that
and I just told people, I said, if Cadre catches
you sleeping, your drop from the course because your safety hazard.
Because guys would come out of the woodline without a
beat a sweat on them at like nine fifteen index
was zer nine. Where you've been, oh, trying my best
to get here, Sergeant le Mmm, yeah, it's like July

(02:05:20):
and North Carolina with a rock on. You don't have
a beat a sweat when you've been sleeping. And so anyway,
I don't know, I'm that was the part that was
tough was coming up with rules and then you had
to stick by them because I was. That was a
very big thing to me is that if I'm going
to put out a rule, it has to play evenly
to everything. And where it became interesting was and so

(02:05:43):
I was pretty pretty ruthless. I remember ruthless. It was.
It was hard and fast. I remember there was this guy,
he was a really good student, but he was caught sleeping,
and the rules are the rules, and I remember the
Cadre on the on the mic were like, we caught
roster number are so and so cold busted sleeping and
and he didn't know I was listening and uh, I

(02:06:06):
was sleeping, hut. And then he came back and I say,
he's gone, like, well, you know he's really guys that
sorry rule you know, if I'm gonna apply it to all, yeah,
I can't. You like the guy, I got it, but
he broke the rules. He'll come back and he'll do fine. Right,
But yeah, that was tough. And then I'd say the

(02:06:27):
the other thing was, yeah, letting guys go that really
wanted to be there, but it broke the rules and
just had a bad hair, got hurt. That that was
that was that was tough because you could see it
and you know there you know, it was heart wrenching
for them and to an extent for me.

Speaker 1 (02:06:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:06:45):
You guys ever like think that, I mean, it was
our with when people go missing and it becomes like
a safety hazard. Was there a reason that you didn't
put like bfts on them or something like that where we.

Speaker 1 (02:06:57):
Didn't have them.

Speaker 2 (02:06:58):
So that's a good point that that that was coming about.
I forget the nomenclature on the thing, but we actually
had a guy from Suntoe a finished, guy come out
and meet with us, and they were pushing whatever their
their technology was. But we had we eventually had a device,
but that came about like as I was transitioning. I see, yeah,

(02:07:19):
so it was very much emerging, right, but you know,
maybe like six, maybe I five, I can't remember, but yeah,
that was a huge problem. And then we had ATVs
and we had to run the road. You had to
quickly mark all the points in a period of you know,
between the end index and the new start. And guys

(02:07:41):
got her own ATVs. That was a whole other issue.
So there was a lot. I mean, there's a lot
of movement.

Speaker 1 (02:07:45):
I can't let you go either without telling us about
the gig pit. Okay, so.

Speaker 2 (02:07:51):
The gig pit was a.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
Venue.

Speaker 2 (02:07:57):
It was set up before I go out there. And
it was simply like a kiddie pool about you know,
two feet deep if I remember, with sand bags and
you know, with water, right, and it was muddy because
it was you know whatever it was.

Speaker 1 (02:08:17):
There was a mud pit and and this is where
students were physically corrected.

Speaker 2 (02:08:23):
There were times when yes, and I gotta be honest
with you, I don't know, maybe you know, I I'd
get thrown in prison today for doing that. But at
the time we had issues with these were young guys.
They were out of basic training and honestly there was
kind of uneven, some disciplined discipline, right, and so some

(02:08:44):
philosophy the old set guys would say, well, you know,
it's all we need to treat them like big boys
and if they failed, then you kick them out. But
the problem was I couldn't just kick them out, so
and it was collective thing.

Speaker 3 (02:09:01):
So AR didn't kick them out because like there was
a mandate to get more people and ask.

Speaker 2 (02:09:05):
Yeah, I couldn't just arbitrarily or even on cause or
leave a guid unless it was on our violation, because
that was not my purpose. My purpose was to prepare
it for them selection and then selection did that. So
it was not selection. That was very clear. The group
commanders are clear about that. This is not MANI selection,
this is not filtration, this is preparation. And so fair enough, right,

(02:09:28):
But the problem was you have all these young guys.
At one point we'd have three hundred something students because
you have a waiting training guys med hold. I mean
it was a management issue, and and you go in
and they were living in the barracks that had been
kind of refurbished World War two barracks, and there was
you know, I mean, you know there's young guys. I mean,
they're just going to be doing stupid stuff and the

(02:09:51):
place would be a best and and you'd take them
out and do some push ups and when when correct.
So it was sort of an escalation of discipline kind
of thing. And the gig pit was the ultimate octagon
and whatever, the ultimate corrective action that that was at
our disposal short of kicking a guy out. But I

(02:10:13):
you know, like I said, there was there were certain
hard and fast rules that that applied. And you know,
I kicked guys out for honor violations. So guys were
cheating because you could cheat on land av but we
catch you and you'd be gone. Peers were good, I did.
Peers helped me identify some people who were problematic in

(02:10:34):
terms of their integrity and stuff of that nature that
you never would have caught otherwise.

Speaker 3 (02:10:39):
And then.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
Yeah, and then sometimes of the cadre, uh, you had
to watch that a little bit because guys, you know,
guys would guys that get a little carried away with
PT and stuff like that, and the other thing too,
is it's not all about PT. The problem is that
when you have young guys and you have them for

(02:11:02):
what's really just over three weeks, and you know, optimly
they it's a twenty one twenty two day peel. I
think it's twenty three day POI and then you got
a little downtime and they go to selection. So you
had to do a lot in a short amount of time.
And so most of it what can you imbue, you know, fitness,
land navigation, some discipline, but you're not going to imbue experience.

(02:11:26):
So the x Rays, from what I understand, got a
reputation for being very fit but cliquish within their own
little group because they had many of them come through
the pipeline together.

Speaker 1 (02:11:36):
It's because of the gig pit is the man maker
and maybe they had this bonding experience.

Speaker 2 (02:11:41):
Maybe that was maybe that was the galvanize that galvanized them.
I don't know, but but the criticism I got was
it's not fair to the in service guys because these
guys have a month to prepare that the inn service
guys don't. They have to do it on their own.
They come back from a deployment, you know, they're out

(02:12:02):
of shape whatever. They got to whip themselves into shape
and go and that's not fair, right, And that's one
way of looking at it. The other one was how
you capture your statistics, right, So if you look at
the statistics, they were very successful, but it's where you
start the measurement, right, if you started it from basic

(02:12:25):
and then we're culminates and graduating and qualification course a
little different. But the way they captured it, it was
a little narrowers from arrival at x ray at the
x ray program to uh graduation or from from our
completion of selection being selected.

Speaker 3 (02:12:41):
So that was that was you know we talked, was
it was it Ryan? Who were you talking to?

Speaker 1 (02:12:45):
Who said it?

Speaker 3 (02:12:46):
Because he was in Whoever we were speaking with, said
they were an x ray and when they went through
the x ray program they felt like selection was no problem.
After they had done the x ray program, like like
they were ready for it, they were fit.

Speaker 2 (02:12:56):
Yeah, there was there was a high The guys I
sent to selection had a high success rate. But you
know I had them for roughly a month in some
cases longer if they were like awaiting training or something,
and what are you going to do? I had guys
are in great shape. PT. Land at Land ab is
pt you know. And these guys were just fit, aerobically fit.

(02:13:17):
They were strong and they hopefully by then, you know,
they had a mental kind of toughness, psychological leadership challenges.
You had the gig pit, the gig pit, which and
we for a while we had the gong show, but
it was eventually done away with, which was we felt
that we didn't want people to quit without thinking it through.

(02:13:42):
So it was kind of an analog to ringing the bell,
the sense that if you're going to quit, you need
to do it. It needs to be the liberate decision,
and you need to explain to your peers why you're
doing it, rather than just disappearing. Like at Ranger School,
because I was a Arranger School ember, it's like close
your eyes, all right, no shame, anybody wants to quick
and quit now? And I looked through the fingers and
the right and yeah, that kind of thing we wanted

(02:14:05):
them to We didn't want them to quit right, so
we wanted to make sure that they had thought about it.
And that was the gong show. They would go up
and they would explain to their peers why they were
quitting and they would hit the thing and they would leave.
After I left, I don't know. All that stuff started
before me. I continued it, I was inherent, and then

(02:14:26):
after I left. I don't know. I think one thing
that got better, for sure was the understanding of kind
of training modalities and sports medicine, because they brought some
guys in later that had studied that. Right I was,
I was kind of brought up from the old school way.
Is this. You know, you're gonna go pete, and you know,

(02:14:48):
if you're you're sore or whatever, suck it up right,
you know. And and there's there's obviously a little more
science to it than that, And I think it got
better over time.

Speaker 3 (02:14:58):
But I don't know, you know, I think I think
a lot I don't know about the military in general,
but I think a lot of the special operations units
are seeing that.

Speaker 1 (02:15:06):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (02:15:07):
Where there are you know, the sports physicians, there are
you know the physiologists people like that.

Speaker 1 (02:15:14):
Let's hit up some questions, yeah, sure from the viewers. Cipher,
thank you, Rummy. Two questions. Why does the CIA make
up artificial political factions such as the Northern Alliance and
sell it to the public like it's organic. Let's just
start with that one.

Speaker 2 (02:15:32):
So the North Alliance was the name that was ascribed
to what was left of the resistance to the Taliban
is really what it was. And so from you know,
you know the Afghan history, at the end of the
Soviet War of Aggression, for lack of a better word,
Afghanistan descended into the sort of warlord chaos and then

(02:15:54):
Mulhamaharama and Omar came on the scene. He galvanizes what
became the Taliban, supported by Pakistan, and he pretty much
took over three quarters four fists of the country. What
was left was the Tajiks under Ahmed Shahmasud, the Huzbeks
under Abdu or She dosed them, Ishmael Khan who had

(02:16:16):
a Tajik folks in Harat, and mister Muhammad a Tad
who was also a Tajik, and some Hazari folks like
mister Khalili and mister Mokak. That was it, and so
they were collectively loosely affiliated. They were called the norm
Alliance and they kind of cooperated, but like in a

(02:16:37):
very diluted and loose way, so you had to call
him something. They were not the Taliban they were opposed
to the Taliban, and they became the norm Alliance.

Speaker 3 (02:16:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16:47):
I mean all political factions are ultimately artificial, cobbled together
by elites, right. I mean in Syria we put together
the Syrian Democratic Forces or Syrian Defense Forces, whatever it was.
I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do, right.

Speaker 2 (02:17:01):
Yeah, it may not be coherent, but you got to
give them a name to kind of define them and
distinguish them from you.

Speaker 3 (02:17:08):
Know, if you know, and even though they're all warlords
and they're all sort of grasping for their own power,
you still want to create some sense of unity amongst them,
like there's a common cause, you know, we want them
to operate at least jointly for a while. Yeah, who
knows what's going to happen. We know what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:17:30):
The second part of the question, Uh, should we have
killed bin Laden and left? I mean yes, I mean
ideally if we could have found him, but you know,
we know how that went. I mean, it wasn't that easy.
Now hindsight, being twenty twenty, we know where he was
and we sort of have reconstructed his exodus in a Pakistan.

(02:17:52):
But at the time we didn't know that. I mean
we I remember asking Afghans where he was in northern Afghanistan.
He wasn't anywhere near one of the Afghanistan as it
turned out, but we didn't know any better. And then
we got close to him and tore A Bora and
that kind of phase in December of one, but he
slipped into Pakistan and then he ended up you know,

(02:18:13):
eventually ended up in Abadabad, as we all know. So
it's not not easy, you know, it just isn't easy,
That's all there is to it.

Speaker 3 (02:18:21):
And there's even the discussion regardless of beIN Laden. Like
our our mission there really I don't think had much
to do with the Taliban was about AQ in the beginning.
It's like, yeah, once we wiped out Aq, did we
have any more business in Afghanistan? Yeah, you know, like
our invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan, even though they

(02:18:42):
were different. You know, you have the light touch and
then you have the full conventional military invasion. Both the
invasions were very successful. It was just sort of everything
after it was like okay, well now what do we
do and our decisions from that point forward?

Speaker 2 (02:18:59):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it's a good point. I think
it's all boils down to that old adage that was
really designed for corporate America, but culture eat strategy for breakfast.
I mean, you inherit. You're a victor, right, you're a
conqueror for lack of a better word. Your military success,
you're militarily successful. Now you've essentially deposed whoever the alpha

(02:19:24):
was that system. Now you're the alpha. Now you got
to control it, right, And I'm not. You know, some
was a horrible guy, for example, in a rock, but
he understood a rock better than we did, right, and
so he knew, you know, through brute force, and he
was an evil man, how to keep the lid on things.

(02:19:44):
And then we went in there. And I'll never forget
this because the first time I heard the Arab point
of view, it's always weird. I went to C GSC
and Kuwait weirdly, and the Kwadi's, who are our allies,
they pulled me aside and said, you know, we despised
it on he invader country, but you know, when you
remove him, then you make it ron strong, right, And

(02:20:07):
it's sort of that that whole logic that I had
never really thought because at the time we were so
confident we're gonna knock him off. He's evil. The whole
WMD thing, from my point of view, was how we
sold the war to the UN and to the world.
But you know, I heard Tony Blair say it the
other day in an interview a couple of days ago,

(02:20:28):
that we genuinely believed the Sonam was evil and he
needed to be deposed because he was an evil person
and he committed all these atrocities and that was righteous
right right when we talked about the invasion of Iraq
and O three, it wasn't you need to find I mean,
the WMD was part of the thing, but it was
this is an evil guy and we're going to take
him out right, and it's just and we're going to

(02:20:49):
do it. And that's how we viewed it. The WMD
thing was part of it, but it was you know,
it was how we Unfortunately we didn't get this Scurity
Council resolution that we wanted, and that was kind of
how we presented it as a means of justifying what
we already thought was justified, at least from the military

(02:21:10):
point of view. Anybody I had any dealings with it
was like, he's evil, commits atrocities. He needs to go right,
and it was long overdue.

Speaker 3 (02:21:18):
Yeah, I mean that, And it's challenging because he is
evil and Tito is evil. And we see what happened
to Yugoslavia, you know, right, like we see sort of
these artificial countries in Afghanistan is the same way where
there it's deeply divided within and it's a you know,
a dictator or somebody, you know, some strong force. It's

(02:21:40):
like holding this group of people that want nothing to
do with each other together and then you remove that
person and then what happens.

Speaker 2 (02:21:49):
Yeah, I mean from from the golf a point of view,
many my peers told me that he's simply a ballast,
as evil as he is, a ballast against iron, and
at the end of the day, as bad as he is,
he's not as bad as are on.

Speaker 3 (02:22:02):
Right, And even we thought that for a while, because
we supported the Rock against Iran for quite a while.

Speaker 2 (02:22:06):
True, true, true, you're right, you're right. I think at
the time, I'm just looking back and thinking of the zeitgeist.
You know, it was like it was like saw him
as evil and this is righteous. But I do remember
at one point in in three leading up to the invasion.
I remember talking about first starting. I didn't think it
was gonna happen, Yeah, because like the Brits were sort
of wavering, and even the SS guys were like, hey,

(02:22:31):
we're not sure we're going to be here. And I
remember I told her to turn to Rob and said,
you think we're gonna be I don't think it's gonna happen, Like, well,
I don't want to sit out in the desert for
three months waiting on you know, the UN Security Council
or whatever it was, I can't remember, I said. And
then sure enough, about a week later is execute execute extra.

Speaker 1 (02:22:49):
So, uh, KT has a question. I don't know if
this is some sort of a youth euphemism or something.
Uh when did you see the first music tent in Afghanis?

Speaker 3 (02:23:00):
And then that was Fords Stone that he had music tents.

Speaker 2 (02:23:04):
I didn't see any music tents, you mean, like I
So I didn't see any music period or hear any
music rather period until I got to after mazar Fell.
In fact, the first women without burkas one I saw
was the Women's Right movement, underground movement that dosed them,

(02:23:27):
that came to meet with dosed them. Yeah, that was
really weird because I hadn't seen any women over the
age of like twelve without a Burke one for like months.
And then all of a sudden, we're in in chevar
Gone and these women come in and this is a culture.
This is interesting like that they come in and Jer's

(02:23:47):
like watch this man. So they come in. There's probably
twenty thirty of them came in. They have the burkas on.
They're in the room. It does some gives a speech
like you're free and you know the Talbanna pressed you,
but I promise you that you will be allowed to
go to the good. You receive an education, no barriers
to advancement, all this kind of stuff. Jobs, work, you know,

(02:24:08):
all this kind of stuff. And they made said some
things and then it was there was like an older
lady who was kind of the alpha there and she
was like okay, and then they walked out and they
left and we were like an oddity because it's like
dosed them and these two like American dudes with ak's.
We're just standing there quietly watching and they leave and

(02:24:29):
then he goes watch this and I looked out and
they come out of the building. They got the burkes
back on.

Speaker 1 (02:24:34):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:24:34):
And the tab on along dawn. Yeah, and he goes,
you know why they do that? He goes, it's like
wearing a fedora in nineteen forty eight. That's just what
you do here. It's not it. Yeah, the tubs enforced it,
but half of them would do.

Speaker 1 (02:24:47):
It's a cultural norm now.

Speaker 2 (02:24:48):
Yeah, it's normative. Yeah exactly. That was.

Speaker 3 (02:24:50):
Yeah, it's you know, you talk about dost them and women,
and then you were earlier when you were talking how
they talked. When you're saying how they talked shit on
on the radio to each other because they're all in
the gear. It reminded that story in Toby's book about
when there was when dustin her that there was a
female pilot. There was yeah, yeah, and like like starts

(02:25:15):
rubbing that into their face that it's a woman that's
bombing you guys.

Speaker 2 (02:25:19):
Yeah, that was that was cool. I actually met I
think it was her. I met her at the Horse
Soldier event a couple of years ago. Anyway, Yes, the
Angel of Death or something. So apparently she was the
navigator or the I think she's a navigator of the
foco in the ace went thirty and she was on

(02:25:39):
the net and so Dosan could hear her, and he said, oh, man,
I gotta I gotta like use some you know whatever
sy ops here. So he he grabbed the According to
j R. I think it was jarr Or Scott told
me this, he grabbed the motorola and he put it
up next to him, bitter, and he just keyed it
and he goes, hey, Mollah whatever his name was, Hey

(02:26:01):
moll maybe it was mole fozle On. I know, He's like, hey,
I just want to let you know, you're curious to
know who's killing you listen here, and he was just
like and and supposedly they went on for a while
and then he's like, you know, I'm I'm not sure
you're gonna get into heaven you get killed, you know,
by the angel of death something like that, I don't know,

(02:26:23):
and you know, and their Muslim Afghan sensibilities. It it
really sunk home.

Speaker 1 (02:26:29):
Peter says, awesome, guest really looks forward to the interview.
Thanks for the quality time every week, Team House. Thanks man.
Let's see what else do we got in here? How
embitters worked in Afghanistan back then, And they worked pretty well,
didn't they.

Speaker 2 (02:26:45):
Yeah, they were new they worked sat FM yeah, they
were fine. I'm not a comma guy. But the problem
was I didn't realize this because I wasn't. We were
trained at the Q course at the time, mostly as
most of the comms training I received was was OGT

(02:27:07):
the Robin Sage. We had an officer phase, but you know,
quite honestly, it won't that great, and it was all
about HF comms at the time, the one thirty seven
stuff of that nature. The sackcom was like kind of
this niche thing, but we weren't. I don't remember using
it much. One O four we used, and then we

(02:27:27):
get to Afghanistan and oh one's it's the thing, and
it's all about sackcom So I fear and this is
I'm sure a lot of compcomma guys will argue the
same that, you know, the as satcom kind of just
sort of overshadowed HF, like, you know, the skills needed

(02:27:49):
to build antennas kind of stuff, wave propagation, all that
that stuff you were taught is just eventually kind of
kind of atropies.

Speaker 3 (02:27:56):
But it's sort of like Morse code, right, I mean,
it's such a Yeah, I remember I heard they got
rid of it.

Speaker 2 (02:28:01):
I was like what they got rid of Morse code
and one guy's like his first sign of the apocalypse. Man,
I don't know, I mean technology, you know, it's just
you know, it is what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:28:13):
Justin, I got a couple more questions here. Could I
ask you to stay a little bit after for the
bonus segment to talk about I want to hear about
asymmetrical warfare group. Sure, Connor asks could justin talk about
any partnership collaboration with third party nations like Iran Pakistan
during the two thousand and one Afghan invasion or was
that all dealt with at a higher level?

Speaker 2 (02:28:33):
So I don't know about higher level, I'm sure there
was some I don't know, diplomacy, international diplomacy, whatever you
want to call it. There was Coods forced guys on
the ground in order that the Afghanistan period, and they
were he had like a dosh had An Leno who
is from the Argies. He Coods force period and that

(02:28:57):
guy kept his distance from us. But it makes sense
like if you're Iran, you're gonna have your guys, you know,
yeah with the Nord Alliance, right, because you're not friends
with the talbahright. Remember in ninety eight, they almost went
to blows when eight diplomats were killed them as I
think it was Mazzaari Shreef. So yeah, but they're still
our enemy, right, so they're just going to keep their distance. Yeah.

(02:29:19):
I remember seeing the guy. They were there, but the
whole the shenanigans with Iran didn't emerge until later. Uh,
And I wasn't you know, that was out of my purview.

Speaker 3 (02:29:32):
Well, that was very much like you know, Iran fighting
ISIS and you know, certain people trying to say, oh,
look they're on our site. It's like, no, they're on
their side, like they're isis in them have very different
you know ideals.

Speaker 2 (02:29:49):
Yeah, No, absolutely, I mean they're they're they're gonna ebb
and flow. Maybe they're they're a common enemy. They're going
to collaborate for that purpose, but at the end of
the day, they're diametrically opposed in terms of the theological
kind of positions.

Speaker 1 (02:30:04):
Right. Yeah, last question here, do you believe there is
enough emphasis on language and cultural skills or aren't guys
who speak Dari, Persian, usedbec, Pashto, et cetera at a premium.
I don't know if he's talking about in regards to
the CIA or Special Forces.

Speaker 2 (02:30:18):
Oh, that's actually a great point, so that you know,
I glossed over that, or I just admitted that. So
in the beginning I said, hey, j R. Spoke dry
because he had been trained in Darry to be an
Afghan guy back in the late eighties, middle late eighties.
Dave was a essentially a PhD guy in Central Asian studies.

(02:30:42):
But the bulk of the military didn't train in those
target languages, nor did as I understand, the inner agency.
So when nine to eleven happened, we were we were
flat footed, right. It was in a priority. Afghanistan had
been relegated to the dustbin, you know it was it
was it was yesterday's news, and we were focused on
other things. So those language skills were critical. The problem

(02:31:05):
I have with SF just say Army SF. I don't
know about the he'll special warfare.

Speaker 3 (02:31:11):
But.

Speaker 2 (02:31:14):
If you're going to train someone into a CAT four language,
you need to spend more time doing it. We try
to do it. We got a pipeline we got to
get guys through. You do six months of Modern Standard
Arabic or six months of Russian, and then you're you're
out to group now I don't know about now. I'm
sure they've I knew they changed things over the years,
but at the end of the day, six months is

(02:31:36):
like the bare minimum. So I did Modern Santa Arabic
in two thousand into ninety nine, and I did Darry
years later, and I did the short expedited course which
was like four and a half months in rosin Virginia,
and I actually got to use my dory a little

(02:31:56):
bit in Afghanistan, and so that was helpful. But that
stuff atropies quickly unless you immerse. And so all the
guys I've seen that are really good are guys that
were able to kind of immerse. But the problem is
that they train you to do the DLPT, which is
sort of the King's English version of things. Read newspaper articles.

(02:32:20):
You're dealing with, you know, the upper middle class kind
of Arabs, right, right. But the guys in a rock
on the odas what they the way they approached it
was they would focus on vocab, unless on grammar, and
they would crash on vocabs. So when they're on the range,
the minimum they have the vocabulary. Because I always thought

(02:32:41):
that was the hardest part of Arabic was the vocabulary
versus the grammar, just remembering the words because there's very
few analogs, right, you know, and so you got to
remember the vocabulary or you're out of schlits. So I
just don't think we spend enough time. I don't know
if we could spend more time. But you look at
Defense out of Chase and all that they spend eighteen

(02:33:02):
months going to Arabic school. Maybe if we focused on
a couple of guys, these guys have the skills and
the because not everybody, you know, it varies. Guys with
the really high aptitude, you kind of earmark them and
send them a modern centered Arabic or these harder languages,
and they come and they embed on the teams, and
they almost invariably need to be warrants or NCOs because
officers aren't teams line enough, right, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:33:25):
I mean, And it's challenging because I mean, there are
like what like six thousand, seven thousand languages in the world.
There are almost two hundred countries.

Speaker 1 (02:33:35):
In a long time, the buildings, you know, and you
know what, you.

Speaker 3 (02:33:39):
Know, you train somebody in some language that you know,
we can't you know, predict the wars of the future.
And so you know, you train somebody in language and
they just sit around and do nothing in the military
to you know, have no benefit having this obscure language
that suddenly you know, becomes critic relevant, you know. Yeah,

(02:34:01):
and you know, you know, and that's where like a
lot of the civilians come in, and also a lot
of the English speaking indigenous people where you know, you
try to recruit those people as much as well.

Speaker 1 (02:34:12):
We'll talk about asw in a minute, but you had
a you had a stint there after Swich and then
you uh was telling where you were. We were talking
about a little bit earlier that you had a sort
of like oversight position on the intellig Army Intelligence community.

Speaker 2 (02:34:27):
Oh yeah, so I was. I was at the Pentagon,
so it was an Office of Secretary of Defense, and
I was in an intel oversight job where essentially I oversaw,
uh did some intel oversight for so COOM, and most
of that was focused on briefing the h Intel the
staff committees at the on the Hill, so mainly the

(02:34:48):
Congressional staff committees, but also the Senate center you know,
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. So I did that, but
it was a policy job, so I went you know,
that was after I was under commander and I went
to War College and then I did that job. So
that was interesting. It was, but you're the Pentagon. The

(02:35:10):
thing that people don't realize until you work there for
a while. If you're an OSD, there's fewer Green shooters
than our civilians. So as a green shuter, you're sort
of an OSD. At least, I felt like you're kind
of summer help. You're coming in for a year or
two and then you're gone. So regardless of whether these
guys are are are are former military or not, they're
sort of like the they're institutionalized and you're just coming

(02:35:34):
in for a year or two and then you're gone.
Whereas on the Joint staff it's different because that's predominantly
military guys. You're you're coming in, a boss is in
for a year or two and then they're gone and
then so it kind of creates a different dynamic. I
don't think it's pretty then, angel a lot of it.
I can't talk about it because it was, you know,
the sort of sort of spooky yeah yeah, but but

(02:35:56):
yeah it was. But it's policy, right, So you're you're
editing memos, getting your boss to endorse memos. You're coordinating
with other offices and arguing and fighting them over semantics
and who's going to be in charge of what? The

(02:36:16):
thing about the pentagon, it's interesting is to study in
internacing competition between offices. Right, So they're each vying for
a bigger piece of the pie. And he who in
my view, this is my opinion, this is my personal opinion.
I'm here in my personal capacity. It's he who can

(02:36:36):
sort of subsue more wins right right now?

Speaker 3 (02:36:41):
Yeah, Now, the flip side of that also because especially
since the officer as you move up, the officer of
course is very competitive. It's not just the most wins,
but it's the least amount of losses. Right So how
how I mean do people not necessarily when there is
an on going project, when a project, like when a

(02:37:01):
project looks like it might be iffy and people want
to keep a distance from it. Then if it's successful
and people want to take the credit, like you have
to fight off like the flocks. When when something actually
works that people didn't think, you know, they didn't want
their name on it.

Speaker 2 (02:37:16):
Oh, I see what you're saying, Like a defeat has
is an orphan, but success has a thousand fathers, right,
you mean it the policy lovel Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
guess so. But for me, it was uh yeah, probably
uh But for me it was more you're you're a

(02:37:39):
military guy doing oversight, essentially checking the homework of people
that used to work with. So you're like the high
school home monitor. I was going to ask you if
like a nerd. Yeah, and I mean quite frankly, I
mean it's it's uh, you got it. There's a good
reason we have. Oversight came out of a lot of

(02:38:01):
bad things that happened in Congress. You know, Congress does
a lot of good stuff a lot of people, the politicians,
but you know that there's various policies and well statutory
law that's in place now for good reason because bad
things happen. So that's where oversight is. But that was
always difficult for me because they're your people, right right,

(02:38:24):
And maybe that's why you know, I you know, it
was tough that that you're checking their homework and digging
into them and making them jump through hoops, and you
know there's there's gonna naturally be some national for you.
Remember you where'd you come from? Man? You know, this
kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (02:38:42):
It's funny because I was going to ask you if
it felt like being the vice principal, but you saying, Hallmunner,
it makes a lot more sense because they're your peers.

Speaker 2 (02:38:49):
There are people I'm speaking of myself right like, and
you got to remember too, you know, I'm not I
was brought in that job like kind of sight unseen.
I was. I was kind of a you know, outlier,
and all of a sudden, I'm like, you know, telling
these people that that are very accomplished, people like, hey,
you know this is not you need to do differently,

(02:39:11):
and you need to do this different or you need
to correct this thing and do that, and then they
kind of, you know, very understandable. You get upset with it,
but there, it's all there for a good reason. It's
part of it's kind of part of that whole checks
and balances system.

Speaker 3 (02:39:25):
How do you how do you maintain your objectivity as
a warfi to yourself as somebody who had been in conflict?

Speaker 1 (02:39:32):
You know, when.

Speaker 3 (02:39:34):
If like you get why they're doing something, even if
it's like out in the grave, but it's like it
does like it doesn't meet the standards, it doesn't meet
the laws, Like how do you mean, how do you
maintain Did you just kind of have to like set
yourself to go these are the laws, this is these
are the policies.

Speaker 2 (02:39:53):
I know. It's it's more, you know, in my view,
is just more interpersonal relations, you know, like tweaking things.

Speaker 3 (02:40:00):
Yeah, you know, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:40:03):
It was more a.

Speaker 2 (02:40:06):
Function of being able to get along with people without
about being overly officious like you Sometimes you had to
be you know, laying down the wall, I guess, I
mean stride in about things. But at the end of
the day it was sort of like, hey, I'm gonna
read ink your paper and then next week when you
return free some myth paper needs to have those corrections reflected.

(02:40:29):
You got it and got it, you know, right. But
if you didn't read ink it, they would have sent
up the freaking grammatically and correct version and got away
with it, right.

Speaker 1 (02:40:38):
And it's just it's just like that in a sense,
you're helping them out, really right, But sometimes I mean
something they don't see it that way.

Speaker 2 (02:40:44):
Well, yeah, some people right, right, and you're not. You know,
it was like I was I did a murder. I
did a fifteen six in parallel with the bellum By
murder and I had to come back to Camp Brown
as the guy had been there for a year. And
then like a week later, I'm back as the deputy

(02:41:07):
investigating officer.

Speaker 1 (02:41:09):
Checking.

Speaker 2 (02:41:10):
You know, now I'm that guy. And then especially in
soft it's like everybody was cool with me, the you
know a little dining facility, and then they said, what
are you back here for?

Speaker 1 (02:41:18):
Sir?

Speaker 2 (02:41:19):
You were here for a year? Were you back here?
I'm the IO for this? What was this murder? Do
you remember? In twenty twelve an American sergeant shot sixteen Afghans.

Speaker 1 (02:41:30):
And uh, oh Jesus, yeah yeah yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:41:33):
So I got I got well, I got picked to
be the deputy IO for that. The General Waddell, his
breeder Waldell at the time, later became deputy as security advisor.

Speaker 1 (02:41:44):
He was I knew that guy's pl Actually he did well.
I've spoken with him.

Speaker 2 (02:41:49):
Yeah, yeah, he's a he's a nice guy. Anyway, he
was a Rhodes scholar, all this kind of stuff. He uh,
he was the IO and I was the SF guy.
That was because it was it was an infantry guy
from Fort lu This who was attached to SF. And
it was a long story, but I got back to
the States after twelve months in Afghanistan, and then within
a week I got asked to come back, asked to

(02:42:10):
come back to do the thing, and I agreed, and
then boom. I went back went down to Canahearten and
did that investigation. And that was the thing where the dinings,
oh you were just here, what are you back for, sir?
Oh the I ow thing. They're like, I'm sitting by
myself at the table, right. Yeah, it's understandable, I guess,

(02:42:33):
but but yeah, that was that one was pretty bad.
I mean, that was that was a tough thing, and
you know, we had to depose all these people, and
I had a lot of respect for the not just
the lawyers, but the legal assistance because they had to
go in and transcribe every audio interview and transcribe it
into writing and that's just tedious work. And there was

(02:42:56):
like seventy something people we interviewed. I remember that anyway.
So I did that and that was that was you know,
that was tough, but kind of similar in the sense
that you're you're this guy, you know, questioning questioning authority,
questioning people, and but the way it's set up is
you aren't you don't answer to them, right, so they

(02:43:16):
I remember one time I went down to Tampa and man,
I got a ration from like old guys like General
Kearney I think went off of me. I mean, well
he wasn't going off with me. He was just going
awful like frust they're just frustra.

Speaker 1 (02:43:29):
Right like that.

Speaker 2 (02:43:30):
We were when are you doing our job? But in interview,
we were just nerds that were just being you know,
officious or what.

Speaker 1 (02:43:38):
Eventually you did get at a purrigatory made colonel can
you can you talk? I mean as far as you're
able to talk to us about you know, where you
are now, what your job entails.

Speaker 2 (02:43:48):
Yeah, I mean I'm really uh a military advisor to
the US Ambassador the u N which is very analogous
to be in a defense out of shay uh and
a CONUS based assignment. So I'm in New York City
at Mintown, Manhattan. So I work with the various member
states and they're every not all member states, but a

(02:44:09):
lot of them have military advisors. They're colonels or generals,
and they'll might have a small staff and they represent
their country's equities at the UN. So a lot of countries,
not the US, but a lot of countries are big contributors,
like Bangladesh and Nepal and Ethiopia or formerly Ethiopia, but

(02:44:30):
countries like that, and so you know, that's what they
do other than eternal to the country, they do peacekeeping.
And so they're out deployed. And you know, Mali or
Democratic of Congo is just in DRC Eastern Arc a
couple of months ago, and so you go out. I
go out and I inspect some of these things and

(02:44:51):
then we try to correct problems and advise the ambassador
on peacekeeping. But the UN is sort of understandably, the
Security Council is D tier one and then peacekeeping sort
is like doss run into the background. Its standard. Kind
of like we got eighty plus thousand people deployed. They're

(02:45:11):
in all these tough countries doing you know what they're
doing thankless job, and it's kind of a thankless job.
But honestly, in my view, for some of these countries
that are less let's just say, have less resources than
we do for them, it's also a way of funding

(02:45:32):
their military, right because the soldiers paid their soldiers, they
get reimbursed for stuff. So from their point of view,
it's a it's a it's a transaction, right, So they
go and they do this and they're able to fund
their military and it works for them, and it works
for the UN and the Western countries, to varying degrees,
do peacekeeping, as you probably know. The US we do

(02:45:54):
a little bit, but mostly we support, We do capacity building,
which is very important and uh and and so that's
our role. But you know, we're out doing a lot
of other things around the world, so we let other
countries do that and it seems to work out. It's
far from perfect, but you know, it's it's what I

(02:46:15):
do and and you know, and it's just it's it's
an interesting job. It's definitely different than anything I've ever
done before.

Speaker 1 (02:46:21):
Are things a little bit tense over there at the
U N with everything going on in the world right now?

Speaker 2 (02:46:27):
Yeah, well, I mean the the Ukraine thing is you know,
front and center, as you all know. And I don't
think that's gonna change anytime soon, and nor should it.
I mean, it's it's it is what it is. I'll say,
you know, it's Interesting's a lot of countries, Chicken in
Africa complain, They'll be like, well, you know, it's horrible
what's going on in Ukraine. But you know, there's equivalent

(02:46:47):
things going on all the time where we are, and
you guys don't seem to care of that, right, That's
like one of the constant refrains you hear.

Speaker 1 (02:46:56):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (02:46:56):
And I've been out to d r C and then
Eastern DA series rough. I mean, it's beautiful, like the
train and the environment. The weather is actually very nice
because it's high toue but tropical. But man, there's some
bad stuff going on there. And so I found I
find that piece fascinating. I like going out to those
kind of places. I've always liked the developing world. I

(02:47:18):
just find it interesting to go out and see that
kind of stuff and fly around it in my seventeens
and you know, into the jungle and all that kind
of stuff. You know. But you know, I'm an old
guy now and my days of being a team leader
are long and long gone, right, So this is the
closest thing I can get.

Speaker 1 (02:47:36):
You know, you you've had a you've had an amazing
career and now you're less than a year away from retirement. Uh,
do you have any any inkling, any plans of what
the future holds for you.

Speaker 2 (02:47:50):
Yeah, I mean for me, I'm pretty anchored to the
area here. My family's from the area. I but you know,
the gravitational poll for guys like us with military backgrounds
is sort of the belt Way, right, But I don't
want to do that, so I'll probably end up in,
you know, one of the financial institutions here.

Speaker 1 (02:48:11):
There's a bit of a come down here on the
team house and.

Speaker 3 (02:48:16):
Come on, you think that JP Morgan give you le Froyd.

Speaker 2 (02:48:21):
Well, I don't. I'm scared because I don't know anything
about that stuff. But there's a network of that's new work. Yeah,
it's not big, but it's it's strong, and so it's
it's something I'm going to leverage.

Speaker 3 (02:48:31):
Yeah, those organizations. A lot of those organizations have like
very strong veteran hiring programs.

Speaker 2 (02:48:38):
Yeah, Bank Americans, right, yes, sir. I mean I I
don't know yet. I'm looking at a couple options. I'm
a member of the American Legion over the New York
Athletic Club, which is great.

Speaker 1 (02:48:51):
So there's a Nayak. I didn't know there was an
American Legion chapter.

Speaker 2 (02:48:54):
Yeah, the Nayak sort of. Yeah, the American Legion is
under the Nayak, and there's there's.

Speaker 1 (02:49:00):
I'm a member of the one in Hoboken.

Speaker 2 (02:49:02):
Oh really okay, okay, I haven't been to that one.

Speaker 1 (02:49:05):
Is that it's very nice. They just redid it, really
nice place. The top four of it is like housing
for homeless veterans. Oh yeah, they do a lot of
good stuff.

Speaker 3 (02:49:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:49:15):
I think we were pretty relatively well. COVID really was tough, right, Yeah,
so the core group of people to come out. But
but it's great and they're pretty tight. And actually my
old group commander from AWG has brought me in. Oh cool,
So that's how I got pulled in. And he's from
Staten Island.

Speaker 3 (02:49:34):
So let's we're going to cover this in the bonus segment.
So for our patron subscribers, you'll lay this down the
discretion and if you're not, hey, join us, you know,
support our booze habit, pay our rent, you know, help
us out, help a brother out. You know, you can
get in cheap ground floor. But tell us a little
bit about Asymmetric Warfare Group because we'll talk about this

(02:49:55):
more in the bonus segment.

Speaker 2 (02:49:57):
So Asymmetric Warfare Group was inactivated in the past year.
Unfortunately it was a great experiment in kind of like
a unicorn sort of unit. I came in in two
thousand and thirteen. I was not a former unit member.

(02:50:20):
I was brought in as to be the three. So
Colonel Pat Mahaney, who the American Legion, he was a
group commander. He was looking for some fresh blood, so
to speak, so he brought me in from outside. I
became the three, and then I went over to one
of the squadron battalions. It was an exigent initially of

(02:50:41):
the Iraq in Afghan wars, mainly Rock and then Afghanistan.
When I showed up, it was had a strong presence
in both Iraq and Afghanistan. We had hubs and Baghdad. Well,
that one was actually reduced when I got there.

Speaker 1 (02:50:58):
I'm sorry, we'll hit this up in the bonus set
that it's.

Speaker 3 (02:51:02):
Just an overview.

Speaker 2 (02:51:03):
It was started pretty early, right, yeah, Well I go
four oh five. The first time I heard about it
was in Lado four. They started recruiting people. I didn't go.
I thought about it, but I didn't go. And a
couple of guys I knew went and and but they
were you know, the two man teams will go out
and they would they were operational advisory teams and they

(02:51:25):
would advise units on how to overcome asymmetric threats and
stuff like that. It was a product of the whole
evolution of ideas.

Speaker 3 (02:51:32):
There's a lot of guys from like Tier one. It
was from Tier one units.

Speaker 1 (02:51:37):
It was.

Speaker 3 (02:51:37):
It was a very interesting experiment, and we'll.

Speaker 1 (02:51:40):
Get into that in two seconds on the bonus segment,
you're give me your glass, I'll fill you up there.
Next week, next Friday, we're going to have a former
CIA Paramilitary Operations officer on kim Kipling is his pen name,
talking about another legendary paramilic Terrio officer, Dutch. So we'll

(02:52:03):
have him on the show next week and that's it
until next time. We'll see you guys. Then, thank you
for joining us tonight.

Speaker 3 (02:52:10):
Thanks everybody, We appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (02:52:11):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:52:12):
And hey, check out check out Toby's book.

Speaker 1 (02:52:16):
Yeah, definitely, the full Justin's full story is in there.
And I mean Toby obviously interviewed all the other OGA
guys who are out there, so it's a really well
done book. So we'll see you guys next time. Take care,

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The First Green Beret in Afghanistan | Justin Sapp (throwback episode)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The First Green Beret in Afghanistan | Justin Sapp (throwback episode)