Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's do something completely different.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I am so pleased to welcome back to the show
Elliott Ackerman. Oh, I've got to get my book. Hold on,
let me go over here, let me get my book.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
There's my book. Oh there it is. Okay, here's my book, Elliott.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I got the h I got the Advanced Reader's Edition,
which I love getting these things. Uh, okay, So, Elliot
Ackerman is a best selling author and a legit badass,
and a and a very interesting guy. His his career
has involved being a US Marine Corps raider, which is
a small organization that you don't hear too much about.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Maybe he'll tell us. Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
He was also apparently involved in ground branch. I'm kind
of surprised that I think we all know that, because
I might think I could tell you, but I'd have
to kill you, you know if if you know, special
activities and all this stuff. And just a really remarkably
interesting guy. He writes books of his own. He's also
co authored books with our mutual friend Admiral James Stavridis
(00:58):
and h.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Elliott is really good to have you back on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I finished the whole book. The Elliot's new book is
called Sheep Dogs. I read the whole thing. We're going
to talk about it in a couple of minutes. It's
a really fun read and quite different from most thrillers.
But before we get to that, I want to I've
been reading a lot about you, and you just seem
like a fascinating dude, and I want to ask you.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A couple of things.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, how about it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So first, let's start.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I actually spent much of my childhood living on and
near Camp Pendleton, even though my parents were Navy, so
I got a very soft place in my heart for
the Marine Corps. Tell us about what the who the
Raiders are.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
The Marine Raiders are the Marine Corps contributions to US
Special Operations commands. So you know, the Navy has its Seals,
the Army has its Rangers, and the Marines have the Raiders.
And we're actually the one of the oldest special operations
units in the United States founded after the during the
Second World War, but were stood down and then only
stood up and.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Big back again in two thousand and SI.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That that would explain why they're not The Raiders are
not as well known as green Berets, Rangers, Seals and
and so on.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But it sounds really badass.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
And yeah, it's realizen, it's a it's A it's a
it's a great unit.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It was, you know, it was really stood up out of.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
The Marine Force reconnaissance units, so kind of sure.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
How like if you know the.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
History of the seals, they were stood up out at
the UDTs, the underwater demolition teams. The raiders were stood
up out of the recon units from the Marine Corps.
And I was actually one of the very early raiders,
so I was. I was a reco marine before I
was a Marine raider.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I read a very interesting piece that described some of
the early interactions between you and I'm gonna get the
rank wrong, but maybe master sergeant kind of guy when
you were a fresh lieutenant just coming out of being
I guess, first in your class at Quantico. And it
was an interesting story about how at first he thought
(03:04):
he would kind of show the young lieutenant who's really
in charge, and how that developed into a tremendous working relationship,
and also just the way you approached him initially when
you found out he was undermining you. Can you talk
about that a little bit I'm really interested in from
sort of a military and management kind of perspective.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, it's a kind of a longer story, but basically,
you know this idea. He was actually a young sergeant.
I was a young lieutenant. So we were you know,
I think he was like twenty two and I was
twenty four. I'm a very competent guy, like probably one
of the best sergeants in our battalion of a thousand Marines.
But you know, he didn't like the young new guy,
and I asked him to do something and he didn't
do it, and I told him that, you know that
(03:50):
leadership is basically it's not only being loyal to your people,
it's also being loyal to you to your seniors. And
so we kind of were butting heads for a while.
Uh And at one point, about a month or two
into being in Iraq together, we got into a firefight.
We were ambushed and I was dealing with a wounded
marine who lost his leg and some other things, and
(04:11):
he asked me a question the firefight, and I kind
of I turned him, said, you know, go go fight
your squad, like you know, you're you're you're you're one
of the best.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Urn like just go fight your squad, like I trust you,
go do your thing.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And he let the Layer told me, he's like, you know,
that really turned a corner with me, that you would
just trust me, even though we'd had such a hard relationship.
And he and I became like great friends. We fought
in Fallujah together. I was in his wedding. We hang out,
We hang out. I think I saw him about I
don't know. I saw him last month and we went
and had burgers in New York City. So you know,
you get really deep lasting friendships here, and we still
(04:43):
we still laugh about that one.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're talking with Elliott Ackerman.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
His new book is called Sheep Dogs, and we're going
to talk more about the book in in in one second.
Uh you you you mentioned Fallujah. It seems like, based
on what I read about you, that you were invol
in some of the most intense fighting in all of
the Iraq War. And tell me if the story is right,
(05:10):
because kind of a remarkable story. But you guys were
the tip of the spear over and over and over again,
and an incredibly high rate given what you were doing
of members of your battalion or platoon or whoever you're
going out with getting injured.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
But nobody died, is that right.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
My platoon? No Americans. No Americans died in my life.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, we had over fifty casualty rate. But we
you know, we just got lucky. I mean, you know,
the one thing I think you learn, you learn pretty
quickly on the battlefield, is you know whether or not
people live or dies. Often it's just a matter of luck.
I mean, it's a matter of inches. So I attribute
that one too, dumb luck.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
All right, Well, I get what you're saying, but I'll
also say fortune favors the well prepared, so there's probably
a little of both there.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah, Like this isn't false modest I mean listened, Like,
incompetence can definitely get a lot of people killed, for sure,
But I also know some really competent guys who did
their missions really well, and sally some people then everybody going.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
To come home.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I saw you on television yesterday with our mutual friend Leland,
and you made a really interesting comment that I wanted
to ask you about today. And my memory is so
bad that I won't even remember exactly what Leland asked you,
but it was along the lines of Vladimir Putin is
willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of men to get
(06:41):
what he needs. So why should we think this war
is going to end up in any way other than
something that's more or less a Russian victory. And I
don't know if you remember your answer to when he said,
Vladimir Putin is willing to keep throwing men at this
Do you remember what you said yesterday?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
His name is like he's willing to, and the Russian
people are willing to until they aren't, and then everything collapses.
Uh And and that's very difficult. It's very difficult to know
when you're you know, you're playing uncle with somebody. So
everybody looks very strong until they suddenly don't. I mean,
listen in our experience, I mean, right, an example that
is Afghanistan. What happened a few years ago where we had,
you know, so many resources, the Afghan army had had
(07:22):
so much money thrown at it, you know, they had
hundreds of thousands of men on.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
The books, you know, and then just total collapse.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So that's sort of you know, we often forget that,
like warfare is fundamentally politics, and you know, we've all
seen stunning upsets in American political life recently, and someone
who's definitely going to lose and tell Boom they win.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And it's the same.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah that the Afghan Army was the was the Potempkin
Village of armies for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Uh and you know you you remind me a bit
of a By the way, I'm president of the Bad
Analogy Club.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm not sure if you knew that. But there's a
line I.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Like a lot from Herbstein, who used to be Richard
Nixon's the chief of his Council of Economic Advisors, and
he talked about something that really relates to economics, but
I think it ties into what you just said. He said,
if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. And
it seems trite, but nobody ever thinks of it. People
(08:20):
think that stuff's gonna go on forever. They extrapolaid everything
in a straight line. And I just loved that point
that you made with Leland yesterday. Russia can throw men
at it until they can't.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, and uh, you know, and we see that and
then and then after it happens in hindsight, everybody, you know,
everybody predicted it, but it's important, Like it feels like
in the moment where it's like, oh my god, you
know that this thing's a juggernaut. There's no way, there's
no way, you know that the underdog can ever win,
and then they do. I mean, so I'm not predicting
it because I think predicting these things is a fool's
Errand the only thing that I predict is that, like,
(08:53):
it'll probably be surprising, and you know, when the collapse
comes one way or another, it will probably be very fast.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Right Yeah, nothing dumber to try to predict than war.
Right yeah, there's literally nothing more chaotic in the human
experience than war. Let's talk about sheep Dogs. So again
for listeners, we're talking with Elliot Ackerman. His new thriller
novel is called Sheep Dogs, and I want to talk
about it carefully because I don't want to give away much.
(09:22):
But it's it's very very you know, I read a
lot of thrillers, you know, a lot of my friends are,
and is a real it's really different in style, in plot,
in everything. It's in a way it's more fun than
most of them. I think the style is lighter, more conversational.
And also to me, this was a big thing, the
(09:44):
nicknames and call signs of characters in this book are
so ridiculous, Like kept a smile on my face through
the entire book.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, well, yeah, I wanted to, like, I wanted to
tell a story that was very much rooted in the
fact that and I've written a lot of books, and
a lot of my.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Books are pretty serious.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
But the reality is, like Wars is too serious to
take it seriously all the time. And the truth is, like, guys,
who are I've been in a lot of very tense
situations and guys were constantly cutting jokes and cutting up
and it's really like a it's a way to off
gas tension, but there's also a way Todica like all right,
as bad as things are, like I'm in control, it's
I'm still in control because I can tell a joke
(10:23):
right now.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So I want to just kind of capture the.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Humor and that vibe and a thriller. I mean, the
books about these two guys. One's name Swirl. He's a
down on his luxier guy raider like me. The other's
named Cheese. He was like Afghanistan's Maverick, the greatest pilot
they ever produced, as Wall Sun was the big Cheese
disease and they become international repo men. And the book
opens in the repossessing a jet for a guy named
(10:46):
sheep Dog, and nobody knows who sheep Dog is, and
that's sort of one of the mysteries behind the book.
But I want it to be fun and I wanted
to kind of capture and be a portrait of this
world that I know, where, yes, the serious stuff we
often see, all the serious, intense stuff we don't see
of funny, A lot of these guys are. And it's
the truth, Like, you know, dudes in the special operations
community are pretty damn funny.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I'm at the risk of making this a little bit
more serious. A thread that runs through the plot of
the book is a military action that happens within the
book that seems to parallel something you dealt with when
you were in the military yourself. And I'm I'm curious,
(11:28):
you know, how much is that supposed to really be
like what you went through? How much of it is
just a vague little hook that let you build up
the kind of the thing that's in the book.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I mean, you know, listen, one of the things I saw,
you know, I mean, I was over for eight years
and so I was involved in and since where you know,
everything wasn't always what it was seemed. I was involved
in raids where everyone on the target wasn't necessarily you know,
enemy or Taliban, and you had to deal with that,
and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to hang
the story on some of those complexities which are very
(12:02):
real and don't always get talked about. You know, the
fact of the matter is like the wars in Iraq
in Afghanistan, if you want to do like a movie parallels,
I love those movie parallels. It's not really saving Private Ryan.
It's more like The Godfather or The Sopranos. And you,
as a service member entered into a world where there
it really isn't a very clear line between the good
guys and the bad guys. There's a lot of gray area,
(12:22):
and it's a real challenge to navigate that gray area.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
One of the things that fascinates me about Sheep Dogs,
and again I don't want to say too much, but
in retrospect looking at it, it's hard to say that
there's anybody in that book who is really a bad guy. Well,
you know, right, like and you read some of your
(12:47):
friends and mine, Jack Carr, Brad Taylor, these guys, there's
always someone in the book who is evil, and you
shoot them in the head yourself if you could. Right,
there's nobody like that in your book.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And even when.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Guys are doing something that seems kind of wrong, then
you finish the book and like, you know what, there's
really it really is remarkable how how nuanced these characters are.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Yeah, I think, and that's you know, that's how I
experience life. You know, I want to write something that's
action packed, that is fun, but it's true. And you know,
I walked through those worlds I didn't meet. I met
a lot of people who are very complicated, who've done
some really hard and brutal things, but they weren't mustache
twisting villains. You know, no one's evil in their own head.
(13:34):
You know, everyone's got their reasons. Everyone's the hero of
their own story. And so, you know, I want when
I write a character in a book, I want that
character when they're on the page and you're reading about them,
they're making their case to you the reader, like they're
making their case before God, and you might not agree
with them, or at least you get the world according
to them.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, folks, we're talking with Elliot Ackerman. His new thriller
novel is called Sheep Dogs, and I highly recommend it.
It's just a wonderful summer read with some really interesting characters,
including including a lady who works as something more or
less like a dominatrix, which is really quite a funny character.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Who's she based on.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Nobody, but you know, like Squirrel, the protagonist, he's a
former ground branch guy like me, who basically got fired.
He's down on his luck and he's had he's lived
this whole sort of double life, and he's lived on
the margins of society for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Nobody knows who he is or really what he does.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
And he and he meets Shaney, this dominatrix, uh, kind
of at a dark night he goes to see her,
and you know, and he realizes they.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Have a lot in common. They both live on the
margins of society.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
She basically tells him, I'm no different than the therapist.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You know, I both beat the shit out it.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
We both beat the shit out of people to help
the problems of sorry and and anyways, so you know,
it's about people who are kind of on the outs
of American life, finding common ground with each other.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And that's sort of where she said them.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Elie Ackerman's new book is called Sheep Dogs. Clear to
me at the at the end there will be another
one with these characters.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I sure hope. So, I sure hope. So it's just
a lot of fun. Folks. You want to get a
thriller novel that you can just.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Sit read, enjoy, sit at the beach or the pool,
and you know, and just just have a smile on
your face the whole time.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The Sheep Dogs will do that for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Elliot Ackerman, thanks for your time, thanks for another wonderful book,
and thank you most of all for your service to
our country.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Thanks Ruch, thanks for having me on
Let's do something completely different.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I am so pleased to welcome back to the show
Elliott Ackerman. Oh, I've got to get my book. Hold on,
let me go over here, let me get my book.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
There's my book. Oh there it is. Okay, here's my book, Elliott.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I got the h I got the Advanced Reader's Edition,
which I love getting these things. Uh, okay, So, Elliot
Ackerman is a best selling author and a legit badass,
and a and a very interesting guy. His his career
has involved being a US Marine Corps raider, which is
a small organization that you don't hear too much about.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Maybe he'll tell us. Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
He was also apparently involved in ground branch. I'm kind
of surprised that I think we all know that, because
I might think I could tell you, but I'd have
to kill you, you know if if you know, special
activities and all this stuff. And just a really remarkably
interesting guy. He writes books of his own. He's also
co authored books with our mutual friend Admiral James Stavridis
(00:58):
and h.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Elliott is really good to have you back on the show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Thank you, Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I finished the whole book. The Elliot's new book is
called Sheep Dogs. I read the whole thing. We're going
to talk about it in a couple of minutes. It's
a really fun read and quite different from most thrillers.
But before we get to that, I want to I've
been reading a lot about you, and you just seem
like a fascinating dude, and I want to ask you.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
A couple of things.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, how about it.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
So first, let's start.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I actually spent much of my childhood living on and
near Camp Pendleton, even though my parents were Navy, so
I got a very soft place in my heart for
the Marine Corps. Tell us about what the who the
Raiders are.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
The Marine Raiders are the Marine Corps contributions to US
Special Operations commands. So you know, the Navy has its Seals,
the Army has its Rangers, and the Marines have the Raiders.
And we're actually the one of the oldest special operations
units in the United States founded after the during the
Second World War, but were stood down and then only
stood up and.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Big back again in two thousand and SI.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
That okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That that would explain why they're not The Raiders are
not as well known as green Berets, Rangers, Seals and
and so on.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But it sounds really badass.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
And yeah, it's realizen, it's a it's A it's a
it's a great unit.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
It was, you know, it was really stood up out of.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
The Marine Force reconnaissance units, so kind of sure.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
How like if you know the.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
History of the seals, they were stood up out at
the UDTs, the underwater demolition teams. The raiders were stood
up out of the recon units from the Marine Corps.
And I was actually one of the very early raiders,
so I was. I was a reco marine before I
was a Marine raider.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
I read a very interesting piece that described some of
the early interactions between you and I'm gonna get the
rank wrong, but maybe master sergeant kind of guy when
you were a fresh lieutenant just coming out of being
I guess, first in your class at Quantico. And it
was an interesting story about how at first he thought
(03:04):
he would kind of show the young lieutenant who's really
in charge, and how that developed into a tremendous working relationship,
and also just the way you approached him initially when
you found out he was undermining you. Can you talk
about that a little bit I'm really interested in from
sort of a military and management kind of perspective.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yeah, it's a kind of a longer story, but basically,
you know this idea. He was actually a young sergeant.
I was a young lieutenant. So we were you know,
I think he was like twenty two and I was
twenty four. I'm a very competent guy, like probably one
of the best sergeants in our battalion of a thousand Marines.
But you know, he didn't like the young new guy,
and I asked him to do something and he didn't
do it, and I told him that, you know that
(03:50):
leadership is basically it's not only being loyal to your people,
it's also being loyal to you to your seniors. And
so we kind of were butting heads for a while.
Uh And at one point, about a month or two
into being in Iraq together, we got into a firefight.
We were ambushed and I was dealing with a wounded
marine who lost his leg and some other things, and
(04:11):
he asked me a question the firefight, and I kind
of I turned him, said, you know, go go fight
your squad, like you know, you're you're you're you're one
of the best.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
Urn like just go fight your squad, like I trust you,
go do your thing.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
And he let the Layer told me, he's like, you know,
that really turned a corner with me, that you would
just trust me, even though we'd had such a hard relationship.
And he and I became like great friends. We fought
in Fallujah together. I was in his wedding. We hang out,
We hang out. I think I saw him about I
don't know. I saw him last month and we went
and had burgers in New York City. So you know,
you get really deep lasting friendships here, and we still
(04:43):
we still laugh about that one.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
We're talking with Elliott Ackerman.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
His new book is called Sheep Dogs, and we're going
to talk more about the book in in in one second.
Uh you you you mentioned Fallujah. It seems like, based
on what I read about you, that you were invol
in some of the most intense fighting in all of
the Iraq War. And tell me if the story is right,
(05:10):
because kind of a remarkable story. But you guys were
the tip of the spear over and over and over again,
and an incredibly high rate given what you were doing
of members of your battalion or platoon or whoever you're
going out with getting injured.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
But nobody died, is that right.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
My platoon? No Americans. No Americans died in my life.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Yeah, yeah, we had over fifty casualty rate. But we
you know, we just got lucky. I mean, you know,
the one thing I think you learn, you learn pretty
quickly on the battlefield, is you know whether or not
people live or dies. Often it's just a matter of luck.
I mean, it's a matter of inches. So I attribute
that one too, dumb luck.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
All right, Well, I get what you're saying, but I'll
also say fortune favors the well prepared, so there's probably
a little of both there.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah, Like this isn't false modest I mean listened, Like,
incompetence can definitely get a lot of people killed, for sure,
But I also know some really competent guys who did
their missions really well, and sally some people then everybody going.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
To come home.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
I saw you on television yesterday with our mutual friend Leland,
and you made a really interesting comment that I wanted
to ask you about today. And my memory is so
bad that I won't even remember exactly what Leland asked you,
but it was along the lines of Vladimir Putin is
willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of men to get
(06:41):
what he needs. So why should we think this war
is going to end up in any way other than
something that's more or less a Russian victory. And I
don't know if you remember your answer to when he said,
Vladimir Putin is willing to keep throwing men at this
Do you remember what you said yesterday?
Speaker 4 (06:59):
His name is like he's willing to, and the Russian
people are willing to until they aren't, and then everything collapses.
Uh And and that's very difficult. It's very difficult to know
when you're you know, you're playing uncle with somebody. So
everybody looks very strong until they suddenly don't. I mean,
listen in our experience, I mean, right, an example that
is Afghanistan. What happened a few years ago where we had,
you know, so many resources, the Afghan army had had
(07:22):
so much money thrown at it, you know, they had
hundreds of thousands of men on.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
The books, you know, and then just total collapse.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
So that's sort of you know, we often forget that,
like warfare is fundamentally politics, and you know, we've all
seen stunning upsets in American political life recently, and someone
who's definitely going to lose and tell Boom they win.
Speaker 3 (07:42):
And it's the same.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah that the Afghan Army was the was the Potempkin
Village of armies for sure.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
Uh and you know you you remind me a bit
of a By the way, I'm president of the Bad
Analogy Club.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I'm not sure if you knew that. But there's a
line I.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Like a lot from Herbstein, who used to be Richard
Nixon's the chief of his Council of Economic Advisors, and
he talked about something that really relates to economics, but
I think it ties into what you just said. He said,
if something cannot go on forever, it will stop. And
it seems trite, but nobody ever thinks of it. People
(08:20):
think that stuff's gonna go on forever. They extrapolaid everything
in a straight line. And I just loved that point
that you made with Leland yesterday. Russia can throw men
at it until they can't.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
Yeah, and uh, you know, and we see that and
then and then after it happens in hindsight, everybody, you know,
everybody predicted it, but it's important, Like it feels like
in the moment where it's like, oh my god, you
know that this thing's a juggernaut. There's no way, there's
no way, you know that the underdog can ever win,
and then they do. I mean, so I'm not predicting
it because I think predicting these things is a fool's
Errand the only thing that I predict is that, like,
(08:53):
it'll probably be surprising, and you know, when the collapse
comes one way or another, it will probably be very fast.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Right Yeah, nothing dumber to try to predict than war.
Right yeah, there's literally nothing more chaotic in the human
experience than war. Let's talk about sheep Dogs. So again
for listeners, we're talking with Elliot Ackerman. His new thriller
novel is called Sheep Dogs, and I want to talk
about it carefully because I don't want to give away much.
(09:22):
But it's it's very very you know, I read a
lot of thrillers, you know, a lot of my friends are,
and is a real it's really different in style, in plot,
in everything. It's in a way it's more fun than
most of them. I think the style is lighter, more conversational.
And also to me, this was a big thing, the
(09:44):
nicknames and call signs of characters in this book are
so ridiculous, Like kept a smile on my face through
the entire book.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah, well, yeah, I wanted to, like, I wanted to
tell a story that was very much rooted in the
fact that and I've written a lot of books, and
a lot of my.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Books are pretty serious.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
But the reality is, like Wars is too serious to
take it seriously all the time. And the truth is, like, guys,
who are I've been in a lot of very tense
situations and guys were constantly cutting jokes and cutting up
and it's really like a it's a way to off
gas tension, but there's also a way Todica like all right,
as bad as things are, like I'm in control, it's
I'm still in control because I can tell a joke
(10:23):
right now.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
So I want to just kind of capture the.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
Humor and that vibe and a thriller. I mean, the
books about these two guys. One's name Swirl. He's a
down on his luxier guy raider like me. The other's
named Cheese. He was like Afghanistan's Maverick, the greatest pilot
they ever produced, as Wall Sun was the big Cheese
disease and they become international repo men. And the book
opens in the repossessing a jet for a guy named
(10:46):
sheep Dog, and nobody knows who sheep Dog is, and
that's sort of one of the mysteries behind the book.
But I want it to be fun and I wanted
to kind of capture and be a portrait of this
world that I know, where, yes, the serious stuff we
often see, all the serious, intense stuff we don't see
of funny, A lot of these guys are. And it's
the truth, Like, you know, dudes in the special operations
community are pretty damn funny.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
I'm at the risk of making this a little bit
more serious. A thread that runs through the plot of
the book is a military action that happens within the
book that seems to parallel something you dealt with when
you were in the military yourself. And I'm I'm curious,
(11:28):
you know, how much is that supposed to really be
like what you went through? How much of it is
just a vague little hook that let you build up
the kind of the thing that's in the book.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I mean, you know, listen, one of the things I saw,
you know, I mean, I was over for eight years
and so I was involved in and since where you know,
everything wasn't always what it was seemed. I was involved
in raids where everyone on the target wasn't necessarily you know,
enemy or Taliban, and you had to deal with that,
and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to hang
the story on some of those complexities which are very
(12:02):
real and don't always get talked about. You know, the
fact of the matter is like the wars in Iraq
in Afghanistan, if you want to do like a movie parallels,
I love those movie parallels. It's not really saving Private Ryan.
It's more like The Godfather or The Sopranos. And you,
as a service member entered into a world where there
it really isn't a very clear line between the good
guys and the bad guys. There's a lot of gray area,
(12:22):
and it's a real challenge to navigate that gray area.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
One of the things that fascinates me about Sheep Dogs,
and again I don't want to say too much, but
in retrospect looking at it, it's hard to say that
there's anybody in that book who is really a bad guy. Well,
you know, right, like and you read some of your
(12:47):
friends and mine, Jack Carr, Brad Taylor, these guys, there's
always someone in the book who is evil, and you
shoot them in the head yourself if you could. Right,
there's nobody like that in your book.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
And even when.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Guys are doing something that seems kind of wrong, then
you finish the book and like, you know what, there's
really it really is remarkable how how nuanced these characters are.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Yeah, I think, and that's you know, that's how I
experience life. You know, I want to write something that's
action packed, that is fun, but it's true. And you know,
I walked through those worlds I didn't meet. I met
a lot of people who are very complicated, who've done
some really hard and brutal things, but they weren't mustache
twisting villains. You know, no one's evil in their own head.
(13:34):
You know, everyone's got their reasons. Everyone's the hero of
their own story. And so, you know, I want when
I write a character in a book, I want that
character when they're on the page and you're reading about them,
they're making their case to you the reader, like they're
making their case before God, and you might not agree
with them, or at least you get the world according
to them.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, folks, we're talking with Elliot Ackerman. His new thriller
novel is called Sheep Dogs, and I highly recommend it.
It's just a wonderful summer read with some really interesting characters,
including including a lady who works as something more or
less like a dominatrix, which is really quite a funny character.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Who's she based on.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Nobody, but you know, like Squirrel, the protagonist, he's a
former ground branch guy like me, who basically got fired.
He's down on his luck and he's had he's lived
this whole sort of double life, and he's lived on
the margins of society for a long time.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Nobody knows who he is or really what he does.
Speaker 4 (14:26):
And he and he meets Shaney, this dominatrix, uh, kind
of at a dark night he goes to see her,
and you know, and he realizes they.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Have a lot in common. They both live on the
margins of society.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
She basically tells him, I'm no different than the therapist.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
You know, I both beat the shit out it.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
We both beat the shit out of people to help
the problems of sorry and and anyways, so you know,
it's about people who are kind of on the outs
of American life, finding common ground with each other.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
And that's sort of where she said them.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Elie Ackerman's new book is called Sheep Dogs. Clear to
me at the at the end there will be another
one with these characters.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I sure hope. So, I sure hope. So it's just
a lot of fun. Folks. You want to get a
thriller novel that you can just.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Sit read, enjoy, sit at the beach or the pool,
and you know, and just just have a smile on
your face the whole time.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
The Sheep Dogs will do that for you.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Elliot Ackerman, thanks for your time, thanks for another wonderful book,
and thank you most of all for your service to
our country.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Thanks Ruch, thanks for having me on
The Ross Kaminsky Show News
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!