From Marine Recon in Desert Storm to Naval Intel in Afghanistan | Jim Sisco | Ep. 311

Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse James R. Sisco is the Founder and CEO of ENODO Global. Jim draws upon an extensive military career in US Marine Corps special operations and Naval Intelligence to lead ENODO. He brings to ENODO a unique understanding of risk analysis and a wealth of knowledge and experience in leadership, management, intelligence analysis, strategy development, and counterinsurgency warfare, developed through military operations across the globe where he immersed himself in diverse cultures. Career highlights include serving as Military Liaison to the Afghan President, supporting the US Director of Intelligence as an authority on Afghanistan, and establishing the US Navy’s Irregular Warfare Office. Jim earned a BA in Political Science and Economics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and an MS in Strategic Intelligence from the National Intelligence University. Jim has been published in numerous professional journals and co-authored Left of Bang: The Value of Sociocultural Analysis in Today’s Environment. Find Jim here: https://enodoglobal.com/ ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnPodcast/featured —————————————————————- Today's Sponsors:⬇️ GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 50% OFF!!! ____________________________________ Pre-order Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" today! ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— To help support the show and for all bonus content including: https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [email protected] 0:00 start #navalintelligence Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:00Jack Murphy?

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• 1:42Speaker 03

  Special Operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 2:02Speaker 04

  Hey everybody, welcome to episode 311 of The Team House. I'm Dave Park, Jack Murphy is currently on a top secret mission. Our guest tonight, Jim Sisko. Jim, thank you so much for being with us. Happy to be here. Yeah, Jim is a former marine recon and naval intelligence. And before we get to Jim, I'm gonna shout out to our sponsors so we don't have to interrupt the show. If you sleep hot at night, you know just how disruptive it can be. Whether you're having trouble falling asleep, you're waking up sweating in the middle of the night, or all the above, that's where Ghostbed can come in. As the makers of the coolest beds in the world,

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• 4:14Speaker 05

  I feel privileged to be here, to be honest with you. I've listened to a couple of your podcasts, and Gus were credible. Hopefully, I'll be able to live up to their standards and yours.

• 4:28Speaker 04

  We appreciate it. We 100% live up to standards. So, we deeply appreciate you being... Excuse me, I got a little tickle. So, let's start with your origin story. How did you start out? Who were you? How did you grow up? And what led you to the military?

• 4:46Speaker 05

  So, I grew up in New Jersey and really wasn't academically, you know, inclined. I grew up middle-class, and my dad was a Union guy. And I remember he, you know, kind of was pushing me to go to the Union. And the other thing is, my family life wasn't that structured. My mother was married three times. My father was married three times. So, I was always in divorce and, you know, issues like that. So, it wasn't a good foundation for me. And I wound up living with my grandparents for a couple of years, which was probably the best thing for me.

• 5:26Speaker 05

  They really were able to instill like those old-school, traditional values and help me with that. But I really knew that I wasn't ready for college or, you know, further my education. And I really decided that I wanted to serve in the military and decided that I was going to join the Marine Corps.

• 5:45Speaker 04

  And was there a reason you chose the Marines?

• 5:50Speaker 05

  Honestly, I didn't know about the SEALs at the time. And I learned about the Marine Corps and Force Recon and Recon. So, that really drove my decision-making. You know, in retrospect, knowing about the Special Forces community, I most likely would have joined the Army to go to SF or the SEAL Teams.

• 6:08Speaker 04

  Yeah. So where did you enlist? What happened? And most importantly, were you San Diego or Paris Island?

• 6:19Speaker 05

  So this is pretty funny. I actually joined the Marine Corps on September 11th, 1986. You know, the significance of that day. Shipped out to Paris Island. So that answers your question. And I was the third battalion, I Company guy. And everybody knows about Paris Island, third battalion, all by themselves. And wound up being an undergrad out of boot camp. And it kind of set the tone for my career, which we'll talk about.

• 6:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, great. And so you are infantry, I assume?

• 6:53Speaker 05

  I had a contract for infantry, but I knew that I was going to take the recon in dock. And, you know, back then it was a lot different. 1986, recon in dock. You get in a bus at infantry training school and they ship you out in this cattle car. And all of the windows are blacked out. And you show up at Anzell Beach in North Carolina. And the minute you get out that cattle car, you have, I mean, people yelling at you and screaming, throwing water on you. And you go through the entire in dock. I believe we had 80 or around 80 something people going, trying out for the recon.

• 7:35Speaker 05

  And when it was all said and done, at the end of the day, I think there was four of us or five of us.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  Wow. And how long was that, was the in dock?

• 7:44Speaker 05

  The in dock is almost all day long. You start off with a ruck run where they have all of these Alice packs laying out there, ready for you. They have sandbags in them and they're wet. And you put the Alice pack on your back and they start you off at the battalion headquarters. You run out past the school locker, all the way to the end of the island and back. And that's the first evolution. And then it's obstacle course and push-ups and pull-ups and sit-ups. The one break you get is when you transit from recon to area five pool and you do the swim part of the indock. So you get a little break about, you know, twenty, thirty minute drive

• 8:26Speaker 05

  over there and then you have the swim portion. And, uh, and the funny thing that I remember is there were a lot of people who had made it, you know, and then once we got to the swim portion, people were just dropping left and right.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 05

  And, uh, and then, uh, then you get back into the bus or the cattle car and you go back out to Ansel Beach and you do some of the psych drills and training and things of that nature. But

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 05

  Uh, and, and then five of us were, were left.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  So, so the indock is like one day where they just like peel you, peel everybody apart? The people who already have it and the people who don't, basically?

• 9:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then when you get to actually, when you, when you check into recon battalion, you go through RIP, Recon Indoctrination Program, and that's thirty days long. And, you know, everybody talks about the SEAL teams and like, they talk about Hell Week and, you know, BUDs and most SEALs will tell you, when you get through Hell Week, then it's just like a nine to five job. You go through, you know, the different phases. But back then in recon, you went through RIP and it was just thirty days of being tortured.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 05

  It sucked.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. Was there any learning during that or was it just, was it pure selection?

• 9:39Speaker 05

  No, there was a lot of learning. I mean, there was land nav, there was, uh, you know, patrolling, there was, you know, we had the rappel tower there, you know, we did train, but it was, you know, you get done training, you go, the chow hall is there, uh, on the, you know, on the island. There, you just can't escape. And then the NCOs would come in at like three o'clock in the morning drunk and wake you up and, you know, take you on. And, and I, I talked about this in one of my, uh, one of my podcasts and, and I wrote it in, in one of my, uh, manuscript, uh, episodes.

• 10:17Speaker 05

  I remember there was a NCO who had a Toyota pickup truck and the NCOs were in the back of the pickup truck drinking beer and they tied a rope to the, to the, to the trailer hitch bumper and the rope was behind the vehicle and at the end of the rope were like eight nooses and they pulled us out and they put the nooses on our neck and they would drive the truck down the beach and we're running, you know, at night. Nooses around our neck and, uh, you know, I remember at one point like one of the guys up front tripped on something and everybody fell and they didn't stop the truck. They just kept driving. We're like holding on to the ropes and getting pulled and finally one of them was like, hey, stop the truck. And so that's the environment that we were

• 10:59Speaker 05

  exposed to for, you know, 30 days and there was no, you know.

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• 12:35Speaker 05

  Beasing or anything like that. We were out on the island by ourselves. They just did whatever they wanted. But there was also some fun things that happened. Like, one time, they pulled us out individually, and we went to the back of the NCO quarters, and they had this stump. And they're like, "We're gonna ask Qua you today." And we're like, "Okay, that's cool." And, "Take your cover off. The blindfold's you." All right, we put a quarter on the stump, and then you have this axe, and they're all cheering. "No, a little to the left, to the right." You missed it as you're like, hitting the axe on the stump. And they take the blindfold off, and your cover is just in pieces, you know?

• 13:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 05

  So there was like, fun, but it was also, it was kind of torture.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, the 80s were kind of wild, weren't they?

• 13:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, there was, uh, I mean, I remember, it was just drinking, smoking, you know, it was, I mean, one time, we were driving back to Anzlo Beach, and we were, uh, we had gone out to the Brown Bag or in the bayou on Ford Street. And, literally, we would pick the person who was the most drunk, and make them drive. And play with the lights, turn them off, and play with the windshield wipers, the radio, on the whole way back.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  And it was just a different, different time, that.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  You know, is how I can describe it.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. An unsafer time, in some way.

• 13:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, so, so when, once you get done with indoc, are you officially a recon marine?

• 14:00Speaker 05

  No. Um, so you finish rip, and then you're put into your order of when you're gonna go to class.

• 14:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  And that's amphibious reconnaissance school. And then, once you get done with amphibious reconnaissance school, that's, you know, basically the milestone, and then you are considered a recon marine.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  Okay. So how is it that, like, when you get out to, uh, your battalion for battalion recon, uh, you know, and you haven't been a line dog, right? You, you, you haven't, uh, spent any time on the line. Is there, do they respect you more or less? Wha- what's the impression of, like, the Marines in general to young recon Marines?

• 14:42Speaker 05

  I believe once you're graduated from amphibious reconnaissance school, you're accepted. And then you've gone through RIP and then you've gone through ARS and you're training with the, you know, probably the same guys for the, you know, a couple of months. And your, your ARS class is about forty guys or fifty guys, so similar to Bud's.

• 15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:01Speaker 05

  Except it's just a lot longer.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:04Speaker 05

  And so, yeah, you're just, you're accepted.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  How, how long is the ARS class or the amphibious reconnaissance?

• 15:12Speaker 05

  I, I believe when I went through, it was almost three months.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 15:16Speaker 05

  We also had, our amphibid phase was down in Key West because I went through in the winter, which sucked because we're in, in Virginia Beach at four story and we're jumping in the water all the time. And, you know, it was, it was, I still hate the cold.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 05

  I, I just despise the cold.

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:37Speaker 05

  It's my kryptonite. And, but then we went down to Key West for our amphibid phase. And so it was about three months.

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Okay. And then for the people who don't know, can you describe the difference between battalion reconnaissance and force reconnaissance?

• 15:55Speaker 05

  Basically, it was the mission, you know, for when I was in from nineteen eighty-six to ninety-one, the special forces community was still evolving. There was no Marsoc, JSOC and SOCOM were kind of like, you know, so it really was, we were supporting the division. And Second Marine Division, we would go out on cruises on, with them. And we would be the reconnaissance arm for the division. And where force recon really had, and that's when they started doing direct action, HRT. And so that's when they evolved and kind of took on that mission. For us, we was, me personally, I was always envious, you know, because they had built us a Halo school and they were doing all the cool stuff.

• 16:36Speaker 05

  And, you know, we were still like, you know, patrolling and doing, you know, the traditional reconnaissance mission.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:42Speaker 05

  Which I enjoyed. I, I truly did.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. You guys were doing a lot of the LURP, LURSH type of, yeah, reconnaissance for a, a unit that was using that reconnaissance for, you know, direct, for whatever maneuvers they were doing.

• 16:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, and we, I think the culmination is when we're on our ANFID cruise on the 22 View and that's when you got to really execute everything. Uh, and that was for me, you know, the, it was like a, that was the, the best part of my time in the Marines before Desert Storm. Going out on cruise and, you know, doing these operations in Sardinia and, you know, in different places and, and I really enjoyed it.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  So, uh, you've kind of fast forward then to 91 if we can, uh, unless there's anything you want to talk about, uh, Desert Storm, what, what happened then for you guys?

• 17:35Speaker 05

  So, funny story. I am at the end of my enlistment. You know, I have a four-year enlistment and I'm already checking out. I have my checkout sheet in my hand and my last, you know, person to meet with is the battalion commander and the sergeant major. So I go walking in and by that point, I had very established myself as one of the better operators. You know, I always strive to be technically proficient. So, you know, I, I had the respect of, you know, my, my peers and a lot of the, you know, the officers. And, uh, I remember walking in and I'm like, "Hey Sergeant Major, what's going on?" And he's like, "Hey Jim, come on in." And I'm like, "Okay." He's like, "Go, just go in and see the CO." And I'm like, "Roger that."

• 18:20Speaker 05

  And, uh, I walk in, I'm like, "Hey sir, how's it going?" You know, because I'm a short timer, I'm happy.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  And he's, he goes, "Hey Jim, uh, listen, I got some good news and bad news. Just go ahead and sit down." And I'm like, "Okay, what's going on, sir?" And he goes, "What do you want, the good news or the bad news?" And I'm like, "Just give me the bad news." And he goes, "Well, the Marine Corps in its wisdom has, uh, ended all, uh, EOAS, End of Active Service, you know, for the needs of the Marine Corps. Desert Storm is kicking off and you can't, you're not going to be able to get out." And I'm like... Okay, what's the good news? And he said, the good news is you can either go back to Charlie Company and you can probably try and get your team back, or you can go to headquarters, or we could try and like,

• 19:07Speaker 05

  you know, transfer you. And I'm like, oh, hell, that, I mean, I spent four years here training to go to combat. I want to go back to Charlie Company, and I did. And, but that had its own story, but I think four months later, in Saudi Arabia, Desert Storm.

• 19:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. And then what kind of mission set did you guys have during Desert Storm?

• 19:30Speaker 05

  So that was the weird part, because nobody really understood Desert Storm. Like, when I, when I, and I wrote a book and I, you know, I talk about it. It was nineteen ninety-one. The Iraq Army was, you know, the sixth largest army in the world. Everybody then, they had, you know, used mustard gas and biochem weapons against the Iranians. They had like hundreds of thousands of troops and artillery pieces and tanks. They were fighting Iran for decades. And everybody thought that, you know, we were gonna have this, you know, prolonged, protracted war and hundreds of thousands of deaths and casualties. And

• 20:10Speaker 05

  nobody really knew the mission. And we were in a unique position because we are now going to do mobile reconnaissance. And we're like, what's that? I mean, I've been training in jungles and cold weather, you know, regular terrain. And now here we are in the desert. We don't have any SOPs. We don't, we've never done it. We're just getting the first evolution of the pluggers, GPS. And I actually went to celestial navigation school for three weeks to learn how to navigate off the stars. So imagine what you're, you're coming into.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:49Speaker 04

  So, so when you guys got there, you, can you tell us like your experience there?

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, uh, so we, we, we get into Camp fifteen and it's a sprawling metropolis. Hesco barriers, you know, tent cities everywhere. It's just people crammed in there. Very uncomfortable for me, very uncomfortable for us because we wanna be out, we're operating. We don't wanna be stuck in a, you know, basically artillery position, you know? And, uh, our time was trying to learn how, learn the environment and learn our operations. And the first times we were doing, we were out there walking in the desert. I mean, how insane was that? And carrying the fifty cal and we're like, this is not gonna work.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 21:35Speaker 05

  And, you know, so then we started understanding the mission set a little more. And we started, you know, taking the fifty cows and mounting them into the Humvees, the Mark nineteen's. And trying to figure out how we're gonna do everything. And, uh, the best part was when we left Camp fifteen. And Camp fifteen was okay. You had some hot chow and you had some showers and things like that. But the minute we were, we moved like a hundred and ten miles north and we were about ten miles off the border. And for me, I was happy in a way because we were away from that.

• 22:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  But the other thing, it was so isolated and, you know, you didn't have all the creature comforts. We didn't have showers. We didn't have hot chow. We're eating MREs every day. I, at one point, I went forty-eight days without a shower, which was pretty cool and pretty disgusting. Because your body starts growing things that you never even know.

• 22:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then how long were you guys, uh, like out doing that?

• 22:38Speaker 05

  I mean, we, we, we were out there until the, the ground invasion.

• 22:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:43Speaker 05

  We were out there, uh, I mean, and the, the worst part was... The kind of the insanity of the Marine Corps, you know, they have a way of just doing the stupidest things and with no logic or justification. Like, we would move every couple of days and we'd move like ten clicks or five clicks and you're like, why? Well, they they might know our position or this or that. Um, a- and that was the off tempo with stand to and stand down and, you know, uh, no hot chow, no showers and just sleeping in sleeping bags. After a while, it was a grind and it just kind of weighed on you emotionally and physically and psychologically.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so then when the war kicked off or the invasion started, did you guys, did you guys cross the line?

• 23:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, I want to tell like a quick, uh, provide a quick vignette.

• 23:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, please.

• 23:37Speaker 05

  So I was, remember I told you I was still trying to figure out my place at Charlie Company? We had rearranged the teams, so I was in headquarters, but I was supposed to be a team leader. I was gonna be in ATL. And they were, the the teams, uh, in my platoon did their first mission. And they went out on mission and, uh, I was on, I volunteered to be on radio watch. And we had problems where one of the teams got compromised. I was part of the, uh, extract team. I went in and helped get them out. And and it was pretty cool doing that, but I was still felt jaded because I wasn't out with the teams.

• 24:14Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 24:15Speaker 05

  But we came in and we're sitting down and it was Mike Cook and myself and Woody, Doc and a couple other people. We're sitting around in a circle and and, uh, we're just, you know, reading letters, eating chow and just bullshitting. And, uh, Lance Corporal Strad says, hey Corporal Cisco, could you help me with the KY gear? You know, the KY gear for the radios. And, you know, typical Marine fashion, I'm like, fuck you, what are you, a retard? Do it yourself. And everybody just starts laughing, you know? And Mike looks over at me and he's like, bad dog. And I was like, yeah, that was kind of a dick move. So I got up and I walked over to Stroud and I started helping with the KY gear.

• 24:57Speaker 05

  And I was over there for about, I would say forty-five seconds to a minute and I heard this large explosion, boom. And it, this explosion was from where I was sitting and I went running back, first instinct, I go just running back. And I get back and Mike had been taking his seven eighty-two gear off. And we had our grenades, you know, and hooked on the little clips and we would always take the thumb clips off and kind of straighten out the pins a little so it'd make it easier for him to pull them. Don't know what happened, but I believe like one of the, the pin got caught on the seven eighty-two gear. The grenade fell between his legs and uh, exploded.

• 25:38Speaker 05

  Both arms were gone, uh, powder burn, you know, when, when people see the movies, they see all the blood guts, that's not the way it is at all. And uh, excuse me, um, you know, everything's black and you just basically like the camis were all shredded and I remember I just looked at him, I was the first person there, I looked at him and I'm like, you know, I can do trakes and I can do IVs, but I'm like, I can't do anything with this.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:04Speaker 05

  And his head just slumped down and the corpsman knocked me out of the way and they abstracted him. And uh, he's out in the CH forty-six like five minutes later. So that was like very traumatic, it's the first time I've ever seen, well, kind of seen something like that, that magnitude. But I knew that we're, you know, the, the invasion, the ground invasion was the next day. So, the other part of the story is this. I had a friendship with Mike and you know, and I would felt kind of guilty that I was sitting on some cell. When somebody dies or gets killed i- in combat, you have to go through and separate their gear, their personal facts and their,

• 26:44Speaker 05

  and their uh, you know, military gear and the personal get facts get sent back home and I'm like, hey, I'll, I'll do it, you know? And uh, I'm going through all his gear and separating thing and I have a notebook and I have to write down what's uh, you know, personal like, you know, his headphones and so many Walkman and things like that. And I get down to the bottom of his pack and I, uh, open up his wallet and I'm like, one Pennsylvania driver's license, you know, one credit card, one social security card and, and I go into the side of the billfold and I uh, pulled out a picture. And I turned it over and it was a picture of my girlfriend. And I look at the back of it and it says, love Ashley.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  At that moment in time, I did, I mean, just, I'm overcome by an emotion that I could never really explain to anybody.

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  Your friend dies, you know, an hour ago and now you find out that your girlfriend and him are hooking up.

• 27:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:47Speaker 05

  And uh, I remember I just took a seat for a second and the gunny sergeant said, hey, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, just give me a minute. And I walked out in the desert. And uh, it started sucking down a couple Marlboro Reds and

• 28:04Speaker 05

  came back in and was like, all right, I'm good. Let's get this done, you know? And uh, that night I went back to my hooch and I had Jack Daniels in my canteen. My dad would send it to me. And I just started drinking and smoking and grabbed my Beretta nine mil and I came out and I got a coon and I'm like, tell me, you're gonna tell me what's going on. And so, you know, a couple of people that was too new and uh, you know, they let, let me know what was going on. And uh, I just put it away. I compartmentalized it. I was like, okay, done. The next morning, we are.

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Moving towards the breach site. I am in the back of the Humvee, behind the fifty cal. We have Guns N' Roses, Welcome to the Jungle playing on our boombox. We have American flag on the whip antenna. I have a green cravat on my head, bandana, a pair of black Oakleys on. And we're just driving to the breach site. And everybody we're going by is just screaming, ooh rah, and you know, because they're all in MOP level two and MOP level four, all staged. We pull up to the breach site, probably fifteen, twenty minutes before we had to go through. The APCs come and they launch the Bangalore torpedoes. They blow up everything in the minefield.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Engineers put engineering tape up and they're like, go. And we just go right across. And we were the lead element for second division. And we were just mobile recon. And, uh, and that was kind of like how I dealt with everything. So I didn't have any time and I'm like, mission first.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  It's, um, you know, that, that is a very specific story that I, I don't think a lot of, you know, many people can relate to. But having issues back home when you're deployed like that and pre, pre, um, Skype, pre-internet and emails, like pre all of that. The, you just had to bury stuff, right? You just had to swallow it and like do your job.

• 30:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, think about this, we were still writing letters.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:20Speaker 05

  And getting care packages. I would have to wait online for about an hour and a half to two hours, back when I was at Camp fifteen, to get on a USO phone for five minutes.

• 30:32Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 30:34Speaker 05

  And sometimes you would call and you couldn't get through or didn't like have a list of phone numbers. It's not like you have your cellphone, you're like, dad, mom, you know, it's brothers. You know, it's, you have to like write down numbers. So it was really weird, uh, trying to manage that and compartmentalize it. And I'll tell you what, it wasn't until I wrote the book and I started processing all this and to understand how it had an impact. My entire life.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, even for even in the modern age with all with with all those means of communication. When there are issues back home, like it's it's it's it's it's one of those things that I don't think most people understand. Uh, that everybody has either had to deal with it or has like been around somebody who's had to deal with it. And manage emotions, manage feelings of helplessness, manage these things and still conduct operations.

• 31:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm gonna say this, I don't wanna, you know, have this podcast, you know, take a dark path and stay down that path. Um, I had some amazing experiences in Desert Storm and like things that I will remember forever. And, uh, one of those being that I was able to get intel. I had dated another corporal, female Marine prior to deploying. And, uh, before you started to date Ashley. And she was in Desert Storm and I wound up, you know, finding out, I was walking through Camp fifteen and I hear, hey, Cisco. And I'm like, and I'm like, Linda, oh, my God.

• 32:14Speaker 05

  And, uh, so she started giving me intel because she worked in the J two for division. And I would take the intel because our officers are were just kind of worthless, to be honest with you. And they weren't giving us everything we need for mission planning and for, you know, doing the recon submissions. And, uh, I got the intel and I would disseminate it and share it with all the other team leaders and everybody loved it. And, uh, one night, the gunner sergeant found my Jack Daniels, he found my intel. He reported me to the to the lieutenant, the lieutenant was like, oh, my God, you know. And so they're gonna bring it to the CO.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  And the CO, cause you know, Corporal Cisco, you're violating this and violating that. And how do you have this top secret information? And, uh, I'm like, I don't know. I'm not gonna spill the beans, well, where did you get it? I'm like, none of your business. And, uh, So they bring me into the CO and the CO, like I said earlier, he had a good rapport with me, knew me, technically proficient, one of the better operators. And he's like, they, they, and we found this and he's got Jack Daniels and where's he gonna get this, sir? And so the, the CO is looking through all the intel. He's not saying much and he's looking at me and, and he goes, "Hey, uh, hey Jim, where did you get this?" And I'm like, "I can't tell you, sir."

• 33:40Speaker 05

  And he goes, "That's okay." He goes, "Can you get more of this?" "I can go, I can go anytime I want. All I gotta do is drive back to Camp fifteen." And he's like, "Just keep getting that stuff and give it to me first before you descend it." And I was like, "Roger that, sir." And he looks at the lieutenant in the gun and he's like, "Are you still here?" And that was kind of, that vignette kind of explains my time in the Marine Corps, but also my time in the, as a naval intelligence officer, which we'll talk about later.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 05

  I, I was always pushing the envelope. I was always just doing things that were fun and always looking at the mission, but always just skirting the boundaries, if you wanna say that.

• 34:24Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, so you guys are the first across the breach. Um, and what, what were your specific mission sets at that time?

• 34:35Speaker 05

  We didn't have a mission set. Honestly, they were like, "Just drive. We're going to Kuwait City." I'm like, "Okay." And we're doing like thirty, thirty-five miles an hour in our Humvees and, you know, screaming through the desert. And we start seeing like Iraqis, like onesies, twosies, like surrendering and we're like, you know, what do we do? We can't stop the vehicle, get out, search them, see if they have weapons, you know, the typical five S's. We're like, "Just keep going." I mean, some boys were throwing MREs at them, you know, because they were so hungry. And then we started encountering like larger numbers, groups and, and bigger. And we still were like, "We just can't stop because they're on the radio. You just keep going. Don't worry about it."

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 05

  And, uh, didn't engage in any firefights or anything like that. And then we start seeing ahead of us Kuwait City on the horizon. So we know we're getting close. We're only a couple clicks out, maybe ten clicks, twelve clicks out. And I remember this vividly. We were, there's a high tension wires all over the place. Oil wells and high tension wires. And when we were in Kuwait, I mean, I could send you pictures. There's just oil wells fire burning everywhere. There's oil in the, in the, in the air. It would be like, it looked like it was seven o'clock at night in the middle of the day. And so we're driving along and, you know, haze with the smoke and the oil in the, in the air.

• 36:04Speaker 05

  And we're pulling up near these high tension wires out of nowhere. I mean, we just get lit up.

• 36:12Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 36:13Speaker 05

  And, you know, the Humvees stop and we get in position and I'm on the 50 cal. And I'm like, get some, I'm like loving it. You know, this is my first combat experience. So I'm just, I, this is what I trained for. And I'm on the 50 cal and we're descending, I'm like tracers flying down range. And bullets ricocheting like 10 feet, you know, above my head on the high tension wires. And for some reason I looked over and out of the Humvee and, and I see somebody just jump out of the other Humvee and.

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• 38:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, the M16, because we had the M16A1s and A2s back then. That's how old I am. M4s weren't even thought of. And he jumps behind the tire of the Humvee. And just my nature, I'm not having any of this. And I just jump out, I grab the A gunner. I'm like, get on the gun! And I jump out of the Humvee. I'm just running across. And I get over to this, you know, ball of humanity and just kick him as hard as I can right in the head.

• 38:43Speaker 05

  He looks up at me. And I looked down at him and I was in shock. It was the gunny, this gunny who had it out for me. And I go, get the fucking, get, get in the fight! And I run back. So the time I got back, I think this whole thing, 45 seconds maybe, 30, 45 seconds. And the, and the initial part of the firefight, everything together about a minute, minute and a half. And all of a sudden, seize fire, seize fire! Everybody's screaming, seize fire! And figured out that we were the lead element for 2nd Marine Division. We encountered the lead element from 1st Marine Division. And I wrote in my book, "The world's most elite fighting force encounters the world's most elite fighting force

• 39:29Speaker 05

  for two minutes of sustained combat." No MI, no WYAs, no KIAs.

• 39:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  We were lucky. We were really lucky.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. So from here, you guys roll into Kuwait City, is that, is that sort of your end state for the, for what was planned?

• 39:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, see the cloverleaf of death and the roads with just hundreds of thousands of vehicles and dead bodies and we're done. War is over.

• 39:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 05

  Uh, we, we do a couple more missions over the next couple of days, but basically war's over.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And then how did that sort of, so you guys kind of, how long did you spend there before you redeployed back to the States?

• 40:16Speaker 05

  That, that was the other issue, you know, war's over, we want to leave and we're stuck in the desert and are, you know, ten, five miles, 10 miles off the border bouncing around, doing stupid shit on watch and, uh, before we go back to Camp 15. And so it was a, it was a little while. And, you know, the first milestone was getting back to Camp 15.

• 40:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  You know, just get back there to humanity. Take showers, eat hot chow, use the phones and things like that. And that took about three to four weeks as I remember.

• 40:49Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 40:49Speaker 05

  And then, once we got back to Camp 15, then it was the arduous process of out process, pack up, you know, all that. So that was another three or four weeks. So it was just a time slump and it sucked.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. So two months roughly goes by, you get back to the States. Now you're, are you, are you now eligible to leave service, to leave active?

• 41:14Speaker 05

  So, yes, but hold on, before I leave the States, uh, before we get back to the States, I have this Belinda issue. I have the intel issue. I have the alcohol issue. And all of these things are happening and, and I'm concerned, what's going to happen to me?

• 41:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:33Speaker 05

  And the cowardness under fire with the gunny. So basically, everything is forgotten. And they're like, don't worry about that, don't worry about that. But I still had the Belinda issue. Cause we developed a relationship over there. And turns out, wind up having sex, hooking up. And I start having a relationship. Then out of nowhere, it's a couple of weeks before I'm getting ready to, to, you know, supposedly head back. She comes to me and says, I love you, I'll always love you, but I can never see you again. So the trauma that I had for the Mike dying and Ashley and then Belinda doing this and and she's like, the best thing you can do is just walk away.

• 42:16Speaker 05

  And I just turned around and walked away because at that point, I was just like, I'm done.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:20Speaker 05

  I checked out.

• 42:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Turns out thirty years later, we reconnect on Facebook. And she tells me that she had been sexually assaulted and raped by a couple of the senior enlisted that she worked with. Because they found out that she was giving me the intel. And she and they threatened her if they said anything that she she would they would tell.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Oh, my god.

• 42:47Speaker 05

  She was giving me intel. And so.

• 42:52Speaker 05

  I like I I don't know this is happening and I just leave and I get on a plane and a boat and and next thing you know, I'm in Camp Lejeune. I am in, well, we fly into Cherry Point and then I'm on a bus and I'm back at Camp Lejeune, I'm back at Ansel Beach. Imagine this, bands playing, you know, husbands, wives reuniting, families there crying girlfriends, you know, children they haven't seen. I'm all by myself. Not one person from my family showed up. I get on the bus to go to Ansel Beach, everything in my mind. I get to Ansel Beach and I just do what I know how to do. Hey, man, I'll be in charge of the D-bark party. I got it.

• 43:38Speaker 05

  And uh. I'm I've been working my ass off, you know, loading sea bags out of trucks, doing everything for like a couple hours and. I'll never forget, I turn around and uh, I see my buddy. This is a guy that we went to the same high schools together or similar to same town. We went through MEPS together. His, you know, we lived in the same town, basically, and he shows up in his brown Suzuki Samurai. And he's like, hey, man, what's up? And I was like, holy shit, Brian, what's going on? And he goes, let's go. I'm like, where? He says, go to Myrtle Beach. And I remember as a Marine in just coming back from Desert Storm, being in Myrtle Beach.

• 44:22Speaker 05

  And I walked into bars and Brian would go, he just got back from Desert Storm, he was in recon. And I drank and I mean, it was just a different time back then. There was so much patriotism. And you know, Desert Storm and yellow ribbons everywhere. And I wound up like hooking up every night I was down there. You know, girls were just throwing themselves. You were in Desert Storm? You know, come on, let's go. And I'm like, okay, let's go.

• 44:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 05

  And uh, and seven days later, I out-processed out of the Marine Corps. No, uh, nothing. Like now Marines, sailors, Army, everybody, they get out, they have like medical, dental, you know, PTSD, I mean, everything in the world. Uh, they have classes on transition, tap class, this, that. It was like, here's your DD two fourteen, you throw your boots over the high tension wires, drive over the bridge at Anceau Beach and you're done.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  Right, right. And so you drive over the bridge of Anceau Beach and where do you find yourself?

• 45:29Speaker 05

  I had made a plan, I'm going to college.

• 45:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 45:32Speaker 05

  And uh, I drive back to New Jersey, Brian's in New Jersey, he's out of the Marine Corps, I'm out of the Marine Corps. And we lifeguard all summer. But it's like the first week of lifeguarding together on the Jersey Shore. And we're in a bar called Frankie's Bar and Grill in New Jersey and we're, we're drinking and I, I've never liked drinking, but when I got back from Desert Storm, I drank a lot. Not, I mean, not like alcoholic, but I did drink. Not because I was trying to erase my, you know, memories or dealing with trauma. It's just, it was fun. I was twenty-two, you know, just out of combat and I drank, you know, to have fun.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  But we're sitting in the bar and uh, Brian says to me, what, what are we gonna do? You know, and we're like getting to this drunk philosophical discussion. And as typical, you know, ex-Marines and, you know, young guys, we decided we're gonna flip a coin. Heads, we go to college. Tails, we go to stunt man school. Literally, that was the the choice. And I was happy either way. Flip the coin, heads. We're going to college. So we start filling out paperwork and admissions and this and that. Brian wasn't as smart. I don't want to say as smart. Brian's an intelligent guy, but he didn't do well in school. I didn't do that well, but I was a little better than him.

• 46:50Speaker 05

  So we both wind up choosing, you know, we both had like five or six schools that we both got accepted to. It was like Slippery Rock, I U P, Rutgers, this and that. So being the good intel officer I am, I did my due diligence. I went to Playboy's top one hundred party schools, saw that I U P was ranked number nine or ten in the nation.

• 47:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:13Speaker 05

  And they had a woman to man ratio of six to one. No brainer. There we go. I U P.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  All right. So so I mean, yeah, absolutely. That's that's. You have it locked on. Target-rich environment.

• 47:29Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  So so what so you go to college. Are have you have you started thinking about going back in the military at this point?

• 47:38Speaker 05

  No, not at all. I have no desire to go back in the Marine Corps.

• 47:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 47:43Speaker 05

  Or or the military at all. Junior year, Brian comes up to me, hey, Jim, I got a great idea. I'm like, what? Let's go to Officer Candidate School. We're gonna be pilots. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah. I'm talking to the Officer Can- also the Officer Candidate School guy here. Let's go do it. I'm like, all right, fine, let's do it. I don't want to leave him. I you know, I want to do it with him. We go to college together. We're gonna go to O C S together. Go through all of the paperwork drill. I get accepted into program. He doesn't. I'm like, how did that happen? So a couple of weeks later, I'm off to Officer Candidate School for the Marine Corps.

• 48:27Speaker 05

  You know, here I am going to, and funny story before I go to Oscar hand school, I'm bartending at a bar in New Jersey, loving life, you know, life garden bartending, and now I have to go to Oscar hand school for the bulldog course, you know, the PLC junior bulldog course in the sun, you know, summer. So Brian, in his infinite wisdom again, he's like, hey Jim, you know, it was the night before I had to go to OCS. And he's like, hey Jim, you know, can you can help me out? I need some help with this. And I'm like, Brian, I gotta pack. I haven't packed yet. He's like, no, no, just come, come to Frankie's and just meet me here. I just gotta do a couple

• 49:09Speaker 05

  things. And I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. That's okay. I go there, they're having a go away party for me. And I do not get home until four or five in the morning. Some girl drops me off at the house. I don't know where my car is. I don't know where my keys are. I'm living with my grandparents. I haven't packed. My grandma's like, Jim, what are you doing? And I'm like, Grandma, just put a bag. So he picks me up with my car and we're driving to Newark Airport. So I can go to Officer Can School and fly down to Quantico, Virginia. Literally threw up on the side of the car. Get to the airport. I'm hungover. I get to OCS and I just am like, you know, I have

• 49:52Speaker 05

  been through Marine Corps Boot Camp. I've been in the Marines for almost five years. Right. I don't want any part of this, you know, drill instructors yelling at me and I'm like, oh my God, I'm just tired. And go grab your C bag, run over here, run over there, do this, do that. And probably the, one of the funniest things that ever happened to me in boot camp, and I've done some really fun stuff. We all get in our first, in our squad bay. And they're like, the drill instructor's all the way at the end of the squad bay, and he's just screwing with everybody. Grab your boots, come out to the air. And you have to run back and forth and put it in your wall locker. And I'm like, F this. I pull the foot locker over. I sit on it. I'm just hungover. And I just, I'm taking like, grab four skivvies. I'm just like holding them up and throwing them.

• 50:37Speaker 05

  And the guys next to me are like, what are you doing? Don't do that. Get up. And I'm like, shut up. I've been through this before. I was an honor grad at a boot camp. I didn't know, but the squad bay at the end, there was a door. And these drill instructors were going up and down the, the passageway, you know, the ladder well. And they looked in and they saw me and literally they told me after graduation. We watched you for about fifteen minutes. They were laughing their asses off like, who is this guy? They kicked the door in and they come screaming, you know, I have eight drill instructors screaming at me like, and I just lock him. Position attention and all yelling at me. I'm like, ah, hungover. That's day one of OCS.

• 51:22Speaker 05

  Now, fast forward, I wind up graduating and winning the Commandant's Trophy as a junior. Top national graduate out of Officer Can School for the Marine Corps. And had the highest grade point average ever. Had obstacle course timed record, you know, and just was, you know, I was based upon like my time. Prior service, you know, Desert Storm, you know, it was just easy, easy for me.

• 51:51Speaker 04

  Right, right. So when you, when you graduate this, are you, are you commissioned? As a Marine Corps officer, as a naval officer, like how, how does that work?

• 52:03Speaker 05

  So I was just juniors. You have to go back for seniors and when you graduate seniors, you take your commission and then you go to TBS.

• 52:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 52:11Speaker 05

  But funny story, I go back the next year for seniors. And this time I don't get drunk and hungover and I go down there and I'm gonna take it serious and because now I'm. You won the Commandant's Trophy and when I was on enlisted, I was on a poster for the Marine Corps, a recruiting poster. So I'm like, you know, hey Jim, take your career serious because. I won the trophy and at my university, they gave me a trophy and they presented the university. With a, they award two and a two-star general came down and it kinda like made me think. Hey, I'm going back in, I'm gonna be an officer, I'm gonna be a pilot, maybe I should not be a shithead anymore.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:50Speaker 05

  And so I go back for seniors and it's the first weekend we have liberty. And I go out to Q town and then I go out to, you know, Quantico and I'm drinking and having fun, smoking cigarettes. Being Jim, wound up hooking up with this girl. And she's like, hey, you know, come on with me. And I'm like, okay, so wound up hooking up in the back of her car. And she drives me next morning, or early, early in the morning, back to the base. And I get on the base and, you know, I'm like, see you later. Thanks. So I'm getting ready for inspection on Sunday and I can't find my ID card. And I'm like, yeah, I have to put it in my left breast pocket and I can't find it. I can't find my wallet. I'm like, oh shit.

• 53:32Speaker 05

  And I go through formation and all of a sudden I hear on the loudspeaker, Officer Kennedy Cisco, report to the drill instructors office immediately. And I'm like, oh no, what's going on? So I go run down there, bang, bang, bang, Officer Ken Cisco reporting his orders, sir. And they're like, get into here, pig. And I'm like locked up and they start asking me all these questions, like where were you this weekend? What'd you do? Da, da, da, da. And I'm like, whatever. And they're like, did you do anything? Did you meet with a girl? Did you do anything inappropriate? And I'm like, now I'm like starting to get back to myself, like, I don't know, what do you consider inappropriate? And they're like, lock it up. So finally, one of the like senior drill instructors goes,

• 54:17Speaker 05

  who's the eighth person in your chain of command? And I'm like,

• 54:23Speaker 05

  who knows what they're, it's like, how about General Cox? And I'm like, okay, great. He goes, do you know the girl's name you were with last night? And I'm like, I think it was Stephanie or something. He's like, how about Stephanie Cox? The general, opened the door for the grandmother to let her in the car to go to church and saw my wallet. Opened up my wallet, saw the Officer Ken sticker, on the ID card. Next morning at zero four thirty, he's standing in the chow hall line. I come out of the left base. He, there is this short little guy and goes, Officer Ken Cisco.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  I'd advise you to be a little more careful what you do on Liberty. Understand me? And he takes my wallet and throws it in the eggs. And I go, yes, sir! And turn and I'm out. Anyway, I didn't win the Commandant's Trophy again.

• 55:16Speaker 05

  I uh, got a uh, uh, like a a bad grade for leadership showing poor judgment. But now I'm off. I'm going to be an officer. I'm going to TBS. Er, put the brakes on. What? What's going on? Well, you need to get another eye exam. It's been two years since you got one and you need to get one. Oh, I'm like, okay. I go get an eye exam. It's not twenty twenty. Well, you can't be a pilot. It's not twenty twenty. And I'm like, what do you mean? So I go take another eye test. Comes out twenty twenty. Then they're saying, well, you might have got refractive surgery, so you gotta go to get this procedure done to make sure you get it.

• 55:58Speaker 05

  Now, I'm twenty six. I'm getting on the borderline of having to get a waiver.

• 56:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:04Speaker 05

  And they're like, oh, well, we're not gonna give you your flight contract, but you can go back and be a ground or whatever. And I'm like, no, this is not what I signed up for.

• 56:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:13Speaker 05

  Walking out of the officer, you know, the Marine Corps recruiting station uh, office. And Navy guy looks at me, he's like, hey,

• 56:23Speaker 05

  come on in. And I'm like, okay. Now, there you got it. I am now off to Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Florida, with Marine Corps drill instructors who find out that I am this former golden child, poster boy, honored grad out of boot camp, Commandant's Trophy winner. Now I'm in the Navy.

• 56:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:46Speaker 05

  Didn't go well.

• 56:51Speaker 04

  So, how does it go?

• 56:54Speaker 05

  So here's how it goes. I am in a room with a SEAL. A former SEAL, well, he's a SEAL, he was going to be an officer.

• 57:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:03Speaker 05

  A swimmer who went to Stanford University who missed the Olympics by like two tenths of a second. Me and a

• 57:14Speaker 05

  a a flight contract whose father was a three-star ATMO.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 57:20Speaker 05

  I am sitting there chewing tobacco, spitting in my dorget clamp, you know, dorget, that shiny stuff of brass. And the officer canes would come on into our room like, and they'd be like, attention on deck, and we'd be like, get out of here before we kill you. I remember we would go to McDonald's in my car through the drive-thru and bring McDonald's back into the barracks. Eating McDonald's. You know, the whole place would stink of McDonald's.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  And everybody's, you know, dying for food.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  I, one time, the SEAL and I, we went down to the drill instructors quarters.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  Hey, sir, we didn't get enough workout PT in, can you, can you let us go to the gym? They're like, oh, come here, pigs. You know, so OCS was fun for me. And the funniest thing I ever did, and I went during Christmas, so I got to drive home and go for Christmas, then come back. And I brought my Marine Corps uniform with me. And I had a plan.

• 58:19Speaker 05

  So one night I sneaked down into the drill instructors shack. And I take one of their smokies and I take one of their belts. I dress in my cannes. And then after lights out, I I change. And all of a sudden, I just turned on the lights and the barracks start kicking cans, screaming, get out! And I just torture everybody for about twenty-five to thirty minutes. I have mattresses out, I have people crying. They think I'm a drill instructor who came in in the middle of the night just to screw with them. I get two foot lockers and stack them up at the end of the squad bay. And I'm like, get out of here, get online, and they're like,

• 59:02Speaker 05

  this, I'm in the Marines, you know, I was in the Marines, I know how to do this stuff. And they're all standing in the position of attention. I have my head down like a drill instructor. And I go, Merry Christmas. And they're like, holy shit, it's Officer Cannon, Cisco. So that was like the funnest thing for me. I remember that. And then I get done with Officer Cannon School and now I'm on my way to being a intelligence officer. Excited about it. And

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• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Go to Danmek, Virginia, Little Creek, and I'm waiting to get picked up for my intel class. And they're so backed up at that point. I have eight months.

• 1:01:16Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:01:16Speaker 05

  And eight months. And I'm like, well, what are we gonna do? Just drink and hang out for eight months? You know? They're like, we got a bill for you. You're going with SEAL Team. I'm like, cool. I'm like, great, that is awesome. I'm gonna go, you know, get to do this shit that I know how to do and I had fun doing it.

• 1:01:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  So I'm Little Creek and I go over to the SEAL team and Commander Bozyschewski is waiting for me. This guy's like, got a great history. Well respected in the community and uh, he's like, hey, come on in Jim, sit down. And I'm like, hey, sir. He's like, uh, what's up with you? And I'm like, well, you know, at Dan Mac and I'm going through, you know, intel school, but we got backed out, so he sent me over here. I'm gonna, you know, be assigned here for the next eight months, seven months. He's like, great, what's your background? We start talking. He finds out. I was in the Marines, I was in Desert Storm, you know, did deployments, views, jump school, all this shit.

• 1:02:12Speaker 05

  So he's like, alright, just head down to intel shop, go to supply, check in, get your gear and, you know, have at it. Have fun. I'm like, okay. And I remember checking in and I was only down there the first week and I remember. And this kind of started my like disdain for SEALs. Very arrogant and very uh, just uh, just anyway, not all of them, but a majority. And I'm sitting down there in my PT gear, you know, as an Ensign. You know, guys would come down like, hey, who's the new guy? I was like, oh, that's the new Ensign, he's an intel guy. And they're like, oh, another booger eater, great. And I'd be like, okay, you know.

• 1:02:51Speaker 05

  So then they start like testing me. Hey, sir, uh, we're gonna go on a, a run tomorrow. You wanna come? And I'm like, oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, I guess that'd be cool. But I got a ten miler, you, you up for it? And I'd be like, yeah, I mean, I think I can do it. I, you know, I, I was in OCS and we ran five miles, you know? And they're like, so we get to the end of the ten mile run and I'm like, I came in like second or third and I'm like clapping them in. Yeah, good job, come on, push it that last hundred yards, you can do it. They're like, who the hell is this guy? So a week later, they're like, hey, sir, we're doing an open miles, uh, one mile open water swim tomorrow. You want, you in? And I'm like, I, I, I don't know, guys, I'm, I'm not a strong swimmer, you know, but, I mean, uh, I'll, I'll try.

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  You know, we get done with the swim and the same thing, I came in like third or, you know, and I'm clapping them in, hey, you can do it, you know? Like, this guy's weird, you know, what's going on? So the final one. They're like, hey, sir, we're going to the rifle range. I'm like, oh, cool. I I shot a nine mil in O O C S. I I really like it, you know? And they're like, okay. So they take me in the rifle range and they're like, this is the Sig Sauer, this is the MP five, this is the, you know, and I'm like, oh, this one looks cool. Can I try this one? They don't know that, you know, I I've done all this stuff and and was doing training for H R T and direct action, was in the hot house and brag.

• 1:04:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  And uh, and and I don't tell them anything. And they're like, well, sir, you know, this is your sight alignment and this is your sight picture and this is how you do trigger squeeze and you know, and I'm just sitting there, oh, well, that's really cool. So they come over, you know, they send me off and, you know, go shoot under them for a while. I'm like, okay. And they come over and like, hey, how you doing, sir? And I'm like, I had my target, uh, you know, on the on the bench and uh, I'm like, ah, I didn't do good jobs. I'm like, I'm sorry. And they're like, what? What's the matter? And I'm like, you know, I tried that stuff you were telling me about, like, this trigger squeeze and, you know, I had the sight picture and the sight alignment and I just, I don't know. I I mean, I just don't know what happened. They're like, well, let me see your target.

• 1:05:03Speaker 05

  And I had them like, all in the black except for like two outliers and like one, you know, screamer and and I'm like, yeah, I I'm sorry, guys. I I'm sorry to disappoint you. I I I didn't, you got them all in the black. And they're like looking at me like, are you insane?

• 1:05:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 05

  And so we have this, well, they have a SEAL Team tradition, you know, when they bring a new person on. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but at the all, uh, you know, the all hands meeting, they're like, yay, come on up and we're gonna welcome Ensign Cisco. Let's give Ensign Cisco a big SEAL Team welcome. And we have similar traditions in recon, so I know what's gonna happen. But the commander's like, hey, before I, before you guys give a big SEAL Team welcome to Ensign Cisco, let me give you a little background. And now he starts telling everybody. Ensign Cisco was in the Marine Corps, he was in recon, he was at Desert Storm, he deployed here, he did this.

• 1:06:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 05

  And I just watch him all looking at me like, are you kidding me? And and I know what's gonna happen. So he goes, hey, go ahead, Ensign Cisco, go ahead and tell us a little about yourself. And I know the minute you open your mouth, everybody starts screaming, shut up asshole, sit down, fuck you, you know. So I just preempted. He goes, go ahead and tell us a little about yourself. And I go, so I bend her over and I'm fucking her in the ass and I starts and everybody just gets quiet and they're like, oh, my God, and I go, if you want to talk about this offline, come see me later on. And everybody just starts laughing and cheering.

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:37Speaker 05

  So, you know, that kind of like was my introduction to the SEAL team. Which kind of the fun eight months, but towards the end, the commander came up to me and said, hey, Jim, you would be an incredible officer in SEAL. I want you to go to BUDS. And I said, sir, I am too old. I am too, uh, uh, not too old physically, I just was too old mature. I said, I won't do this. I would, I mean, I would love to just be a SEAL officer, but I don't want to go through BUDS.

• 1:07:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  Not because I can't go through it.

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:07:12Speaker 05

  I'm fifty six years old right now and I'll bet you a million dollars that I would pass BUDS.

• 1:07:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:18Speaker 05

  Because it's it's more mental than physical. But I said, I couldn't have some senior chief coming up to me going, hey, Ensign, your boat team's dead. What are you gonna do? And I would probably look at him and go, well, fuck it. It's time to go to the officer club. You want to join me? Oh, wait, you can't. So forget about it.

• 1:07:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:39Speaker 05

  It was all attitude.

• 1:07:40Speaker 04

  So, well, let me ask you that. When you were working in the two shop there, I I mean, that must have been a good learning experience for you, right?

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  Yes and no. And the reason I say this, and this is actually a mirror of my career as an intelligence officer. I was an intel guy, but I had the special operations stink on me.

• 1:08:04Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 1:08:04Speaker 05

  So believe it or not, even as an Ensign in the SEAL teams, I was an advisor on operational readiness exercises. I was going out on operations. I was like parachuting in with them and, you know, so, yes, I got some.

• 1:08:22Speaker 05

  Introduction to intel, but I was still being an operator in a way. So it was really weird.

• 1:08:29Speaker 04

  Right. So, so you go through that and then, then you get into the intel school.

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  And how long is that, that intel school for an able intel officer?

• 1:08:41Speaker 05

  It's months. I think, I forget, it was like five months, six months. I mean, it was grueling and it was terrible. We were still learning, like, this is a badger, this is the foxtrot, pictures, recce of planes and tanks. I mean, not sophisticated like today. And it was just, I mean, but that was, that was the error. It was totally different.

• 1:09:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  And it didn't prepare you for anything, to be honest with you.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:09:12Speaker 05

  You just went to your, either your squadron or your ship or wherever and you were just ate up like a soup sandwich and you just got buried.

• 1:09:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:23Speaker 05

  And that was just the way, that was the intel community back then.

• 1:09:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. So what was your first assignment out of the intel officer course then?

• 1:09:31Speaker 05

  For me, I was very fortunate because I was prior service and they sent me down to J WAC, Joint Warfare Analysis Center, Dahlgren, Virginia. And I was part of a high-speed organization that did infrastructure targeting and really some cool stuff, modeling and simulation. And I was there for three years. And I was able to get right into SAT programs and so my whole ensign tour was totally different. Like most ensigns are on a ship or in a squadron and they're just trying to live.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:10:03Speaker 05

  And I'm learning all this cool stuff and writing the programs and briefing the, the commanding officer of J WAC on the Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar Division in Iraq and how they're moving. And I'll never remember, I'll never forget this, I'm giving a presentation and I'm talking about all this complex maneuvering. And the, and the CO, Heater Heatley, who was in Top Gun as a cam, did a cameo in Top Gun. Arrogant, arrogant guy.

• 1:10:34Speaker 05

  And he's like looking at the brief and he's looking at the slides and and I'm like, man, he's digging it. He's like really into it, you know, I'm waiting for these great questions. And he goes, Ensign Cisco,

• 1:10:47Speaker 05

  is that the J WAC format for those slides? And I literally looked at him, I looked at the J two. I put down my little briefing thing and goes, and that concludes my portion of brief. Thank you very much. And I walked out and I still have six slides to go.

• 1:11:05Speaker 05

  People were like, who the fuck is this Ensign? Who the hell does he think he is? I went back to my people and I started working.

• 1:11:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Speaker 05

  J two's up my ass every screen. Where did you go? You don't just walk out the C O. You need to go see the C O immediately. I'm like, okay, I walk in the C O's office like, what was that about? I said, sir, if you're more interested in the font than what I'm saying, you're wasting my time. I don't want to waste yours. And he's like, okay.

• 1:11:33Speaker 05

  So, once again, you see this pattern of my behavior. And, and, and I just wasn't a typical mold for an intel guy.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:11:42Speaker 05

  You want that booger eater, sits in the cube, pounding away at the keyboard and people join naval intelligence because they think it's like Jack Ryan in The Hunk for Red October. And they have no idea that it's not like that at all.

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  Right, right. So, uh, so after your, so you, how long did you, you said you spent three years there?

• 1:12:04Speaker 05

  Three years and after that, I have to do the typical career progression. So they send me out to Fallon, Nevada. And that is when there's top, top guns out there and I'm going to be a target here. It's one of the best positions for a junior officer naval intelligence officer being a target here. Fast track, career promotion, every, all the cool people do it. And, uh, I go through targeting school at, uh, Fallon. I get assigned to carrier air wing seven and I think it's really cool mission and you know, uh, and, and I'm ready to do this. And, uh, everything in the intel community's personality driven, the C A D I's, the, you know, everybody. And nine eleven kicks off.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  We are in, uh, off Virginia Beach on the USS John F. Kennedy. I remember watching on the news, the airplanes crashed into the tower. I'm in charge of my strike bay and I don't really know what to do. I'm like, turn the TVs off, just turn them off. Let's get to work. We're gonna be doing something. I don't know what it is, but we can't be distracted. And a couple, I mean, like an hour later, we're cruising, we're doing, uh, air packs. F-18s, F-14s are launched with, uh, Stinger missiles, air-to-air missiles. And we're doing depth packs. Anything that flies in, unresponsive, we're shooting down.

• 1:13:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:13:34Speaker 05

  Uh, next thing you know, I am, uh, off, you know, I'm, I'm doing all the targeting stuff and, and we pull back in and I'm at Von and I'm leaving to go to CENTCOM Fifth Fleet as the targeting officer for the carrier 27, advanced party before the ship gets there.

• 1:13:56Speaker 04

  Okay. And so, uh, so where do you go to from there to AdVon to, to get out there?

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  They just flew me out there, but I have a really funny story. I gotta tell this one.

• 1:14:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:08Speaker 05

  I am with these two sailors who are in the strike bay with me and we're in Virginia Beach and we're flying out of Oceana on a MAC flight the next day. And they're like, hey, sir, what do you want to do? I'm like, come with me. They're like, what are we doing? I'm like, we're going to the O Club. They're like, sir, we can't go in the O Club. I'm like, just go with me, shut your mouth, you're with me, don't worry about it. And I was a lieutenant at the time, so now I'm a little more seasoned and, uh, we walk in the O Club and I'm sitting down at the bar and I know the bartender from my time at the SEAL Team and she knows me and, uh, she knew about, you know, how I was when I was at the Teams. I was a party guy, fun, getting fights, different world back then.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Speaker 05

  And, uh, When I was in Intel school, the first day at Intel school, uh, I get pulled out of class. And one of the instructors like, hey, we're gonna have to roll you. Remember, I was roll, uh, seven months at the teams and now I'm in the first day of class. I'm like, what? You didn't roll me? Like, there's a complaint for EEO against you, or somebody in the class made it. And I'm like, what? The night before, we went out and one of the females in the class were all drinking and she's like, Cisco, why are you always partying? And I'm like, shut up, Mary. You're just, you're just jealous because you're fat and I won't hook up with you. So she made this complaint. So the instructor comes out and he's like, hey, uh, you know, we're gonna have to roll you. I'm like, no, no, no.

• 1:15:36Speaker 05

  And he's like, well, you know, sorry. And I'm like, no, I'm walking down to CEO's office right now. I'm not, no, no way. And he's like, no, no, no, don't go down there. I'm like, well, what, what's going on? Is it Fat Mary? Was it Fat Mary? She said something, didn't she? He's like, stop it. And I'm like, bring her out here. Get Fat Mary out here. And so anyway, he cuts her out. And I'm like, Mary, did you say I was an asshole last night? Did you say this and that? And she goes, yeah, you are. And I go, I have a witness. I want to press EO charge for it. He's like, okay, that's it. Get, just get inside. And I'm like, haha. So here I am at the Oceano Club. I'm three or four Jack and Waters and about a half a pack of Marlboro Reds into my night. The two, uh, and those guys are on both sides of me.

• 1:16:22Speaker 05

  And, uh, I get this tap on the shoulder. Tap, tap, tap. And I turn my head and it's Mary Gwen. Iceberg was her nickname. Iceberg, or call sign because she had a big ass and nothing up top. And, uh, I remember looking over at her. I took a drag of my cigarette.

• 1:16:44Speaker 05

  I blew the smoke in her face and she goes, hey, Cisco. And I went, Mary Gwen? And she goes, are you still an Intel? I take a drink of my Jack. Take another drag of my cigarette. Look at her, blow smoke in her face and go, yep. She goes, I get a lat transfer. I'm an F14 Rio.

• 1:17:17Speaker 05

  You're still fat. I was like, and the two guys next to me are like, what the hell? She goes running away. And two minutes later, there's about fifteen pilots in their flight seats standing behind me. And I hear, is that the guy? And I just turn around and look. And he goes, did you call my wife fat? And I go, is Mary's wife your wife? And he goes, yeah. I go, yeah. And he goes, I'm gonna kick your ass. And so the bartender's like, yo, whoa, wait a minute. The listed guys are like, hell, yeah, game on, we're gonna fight officers. And the bartender's like, hey, guys. I hate to ruin your night.

• 1:18:02Speaker 05

  And she talks, she's talking to the pilots. He goes, you go outside with that guy. He's gonna destroy you. And he's like, we got eight of us. And he goes, she goes, I don't care if you have ten. I would recommend you leave. And then he kind of sort of wants to save faces, like, well, you need to apologize. And I go, get the fuck away from me. Next day, we fly out. So I get out to CENTCOM and I start integrating into the targeting thing. The ship comes out. And we start running twenty-four seven ops. And I'm doing all the targeting for Operation Anaconda. And I'm working with Task Force Dagger, Task Force Stiletto, doing all the targeting. We're trying to prosecute targets and kill Osama bin Laden.

• 1:18:48Speaker 05

  And we do this for, uh, I mean, like, four months straight.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  So can, can you tell us what the targeting process is? For you guys?

• 1:18:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. So here's what happens. Task Force Stiletto and Task Force Dagger are on the ground. That's the CIA and ODA teams. So they have eyes on, and they're trying to PID, uh, i- identify high-value targets. And once they get PID on these high-value targets, our planes launch from the aircraft carrier and they're up in the stack. They're just flying around in circles. And they're armed with either JDAMs or whatever the munitions are for the different, uh, missions. And once they get PID. Task Force Dagger and Stiletto will come back to me. I'm like, hey, we got this. And then I relay the message and everything gets, goes back to Fifth Fleet,

• 1:19:44Speaker 05

  to CENTCOM, to the National Director of Security to make a decision.

• 1:19:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:19:48Speaker 05

  So imagine being the targeting officer. You're at the tip of the spear. And you're like day in and day out, just getting your balls busted because they'll PID something on the ground. And by the time it goes all the way up to, you know, national security level, and then gets back down, target's gone.

• 1:20:09Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:20:10Speaker 05

  So, I mean, for me, that was probably the most frustrating time in my career.

• 1:20:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 05

  I used to be that guy on the ground and loved being the guy on the ground. And now here I am being the targeting guy to support them.

• 1:20:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:26Speaker 05

  And, and, and can't, can't, can't do it.

• 1:20:29Speaker 04

  Right. That's gotta be very frustrating. Um, so how long did, was that, was your first pop like that?

• 1:20:38Speaker 05

  That was a ten month deployment.

• 1:20:40Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:20:42Speaker 04

  And so you were doing targeting that time and then I, and we all, like, everybody expected it would be quick, but it, it turns out that it's not gonna be quick. Uh, what happens after that deployment for you?

• 1:20:55Speaker 05

  So after that deployment, you know, I leave the air wing, I leave the air wing and it wasn't like a good departure. Um, you know, because of what the crews and, I, I got put in for a Bronze Star as a lieutenant for the targeting stuff I was doing and the Army put me in for it. Imagine being a Navy guy, the Army puts me in for a Bronze Star and my leadership says, we're gonna demote it to an RCOM because you're just a lieutenant.

• 1:21:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:21:22Speaker 05

  And that was the first time of three in my career that they downgraded a Bronze Star.

• 1:21:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:27Speaker 05

  So I'm kinda pissed off at the command, you know, it didn't go well, didn't like leadership. My mom has cancer, terminal cancer, and I'm on the ship. And the, uh, CAGI, Lieutenant Commander comes up to me and he's like, hey Jim, uh, we got an AMCROSS and we just wanna let you know, your, your, your mom has terminal cancer and, you know, you can leave crews right now if you want to, we'll fly you off. And I'm like, yeah, no shit. I know she has terminal cancer. You think I'd talk to her?

• 1:21:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:00Speaker 05

  And and he's, you know, well, I just wanna let you know, if you wanna leave early, you can leave. But if you leave early, you're not gonna get tax free. And I'm like, what? You know, my mom's dying. He's worried about me getting tax free.

• 1:22:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:14Speaker 05

  So I was livid.

• 1:22:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  I wanted to kill him.

• 1:22:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:17Speaker 05

  I was literally looking for him on the ship. I was gonna throw him off the ship or kill him. Anyway, I didn't leave early. I stayed on the entire cruise, the rest of the cruise. I got home. Uh, went back to Fallon, Nevada, drove all the way to Pennsylvania. I was just drinking Mountain Dews, chewing tobacco, smoking cigarettes, drove straight through. Got home, spent twenty days with my mom. And everybody's like, she's gonna die any second. And and when she found out I was coming home. And when I saw her, everybody's like, she changed overnight. You know, she was like physically, she could walk, she was doing stuff. And I felt great. Spent twenty something days with her and drove home. Or back to Fallon, got home.

• 1:23:03Speaker 05

  And was playing golf on a Sunday. I was only home for two days. My sister calls me up, mommy's dead. I'm like, oh, thanks. And for me, it was another kind of like. Point in my life, I had to deal with tragedy or death or whatever. Trauma. I don't call it trauma. That's just life.

• 1:23:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:26Speaker 05

  But, uh, I was fortunate to have that time with my mom. And and I really enjoyed that, but. That was, uh, you know, that was, uh, for me, a difficult. Time in my life, um, you know, terrible deployment and a great deployment for what I was doing, terrible leadership. You know, and and then dealing with that and and but then it's time for a new start. I'm gonna go get smart. I'm going to, uh, become, uh, get my master's degree. So I go to Washington DC. I go to Joint Military Intelligence College and. I, uh, wind up getting my master's degree in science and strategic intelligence. And this for the first time in my life.

• 1:24:11Speaker 05

  I really understand that I am smart. I am intelligent. Remember I'm supposed to go in the, you know. Into the union and get a union book and work on the back of a garbage truck and join the Marines enlisted. I go to college and I do really well in college, but still like had that stigma like I'm not that smart. Right. Intelligent. Go get my master's degree and I am partying still. I'm going out, I'm dating a Redskins cheerleader, I'm going on vacations and just partying. And it's like about a month before graduation and one of my good friends, air force major comes up to me and he goes, I hate you. I'm like, what do you mean you hate me? He goes, have you looked at your grade point average? And I go, no, should I?

• 1:24:57Speaker 05

  And he goes, you are one tenth of a percentage point below me for class valid victory. I'm like, really? I wasn't even trying. And he goes, I know. You've been, I go to study sessions, I try, I do all this stuff and, and, and you're out partying. And it was at that point, I kind of looked at my career and said,

• 1:25:20Speaker 05

  wow, I'm kind of screwing up. You know, I, I, I'm having fun and I'm partying and I'm like doing all this stuff, but I didn't take my career seriously. Right. I think it was at that point I decided, hey, maybe I should start taking my career seriously. So,

• 1:25:39Speaker 05

  I have an opportunity. I have an opportunity to deploy to Afghanistan. And I'm going to take this opportunity. It's going to be a, you know, a change for me and my career. And best,

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  my best or second best tour of my life. I, uh, you know, I train up and I go to Afghanistan. Don't know what I'm doing, but I'm going to be a naval intelligence officer and I'm going to Afghanistan.

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• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  And I get there and it's all army and it's all, you know, it's all jacked up. And, you know, the Navy guy comes in with a different uniform, you know, brown uniform and, and they put me in the FRIC, the Force or the, oh, I forget the acronym. But anyway, it was the JAKE, the Joint Intel Analysis Center, some shit like that. So I'm in the JAKE and they don't really have a job for me. I have this army colonel, really great guy, then this lieutenant colonel, another great guy, great people there. And they're like, well, we don't really know what to do with you, but Colonel Chesney,

• 1:28:16Speaker 05

  he runs all of President Karzai's engagement tours. You have a background in, in, in the Marines and, and special forces. Go, go, go talk to him. I'm like, okay. So I go in and introduce myself. He's like, you're my man. I needed an assistant for a while. We didn't have a billet. You're now my, my deputy. I'm like, cool. Three weeks later, I am on a plane with President Karzai on the way to Kandahar. And I am working with the colonel and doing all of the logistics, all of the security, working with the Presidential Protective Service, working with National Director of Security, MDS, and just having the time of my life.

• 1:29:01Speaker 05

  I get split up from the group. I'm sitting at in the shura with about a five hundred Afghans. I'm the only American because I got split up from the group. Sitting at this huge table. I don't speak Dari. Nobody speaks English. And I'm just sitting there and they have Afghans all around me.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:29:22Speaker 05

  And they start bringing out plates of food and naan and oranges and uh. Uh, all of this Afghan food. And uh. All of a sudden, they put this goat's leg right in front of me, still got the hoof on it.

• 1:29:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:29:39Speaker 05

  I'm like, what the hell is this? And the guy next to me is like, uh, uh. And I'm like, he's like, eat. And I'm like, I don't know how. So he takes the piece of bread and he rips it off the naan and he, you know, takes the. The rice and they put it in their hand and they eat it and then just shoves his hand right in the goat's leg and rips out a piece of meat. Puts in the ready, so I'm like, oh, my God. So I just do the same thing he does. I'm over dramatic about it, ripping the bread and everybody's watching me and they're all laughing. You know, the rice is all over me and. And that was my first introduction to Afghan culture.

• 1:30:18Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:30:20Speaker 05

  And I will tell you, I did three, well, three tours in Afghanistan, so you know, nine one one, you know, the. That wasn't really targeting, but I spent almost two years in Afghanistan and I love the culture.

• 1:30:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  Love the people. Uh, uh, I mean, I just fell in love with Afghanistan. But here I was, a lieutenant. In the Navy as the deputy for Colonel, Army Colonel, and I'm running all of President Karzai's engagement tours. And I remember I'm in the JIC and Jake, whatever it was, and. There's a call to the Colonel had gotten emergency orders to go to ICAF. He just like two days later, he's gone. And all of a sudden, there's a call to the Jake and the Lieutenant Colonel picks up the phone and he's like, hey, man. President Karzai has got a trip to to Badshah. Where's the Colonel? And like, he went to ICAF, like, go over to the palace. I'm like, okay.

• 1:31:19Speaker 05

  So I know the Chief of Staff, I know the Chief of Protocol, you know, I've done a couple, you know, some, I know, you know, Engineer Naveel, who's the head of the uh, PPS. And uh, here I am, and they're like, okay, well, well, you gotta plan the mission, you gotta go do this. Now, I'm like, okay, so I just did it.

• 1:31:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:35Speaker 05

  It was easy.

• 1:31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:31:37Speaker 05

  The next thing I know, I'm in Badakshan, which is in the northern part of Afghanistan, in the winter. And I'm with the Advan team and the security team. And it's me, the Department of State guy, and about uh, a dozen Afghans, PPS. And when you go to Afghanistan, you go through the cultural training, don't look at women, don't touch this, don't do that, just, don't cross your legs, you know, typical bullshit. And uh, I remember we're going through the village and I'm, I hate the cold, remember I told you, hate the cold.

• 1:32:14Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:15Speaker 05

  I got my hat on, my scarf on, and my Gore-Tex up and blah. And I see this girl come out of one of the little huts. And she literally has on a wool dress. And no shoes, and she's running in the snow, and I'm like, whoa, I'm freezing. And she kinda stops and looks at me because it was funny because here's this white guy with all these Afghans, you know, she's probably never seen an American before. And uh, she stops. And I literally just walk up to her and pick her, pick her up. And kinda like, she's about like five or six years old, and I have her like, like this.

• 1:33:01Speaker 05

  And I take my hat off, and I put it on her head. And I take my scarf off, and I put it around her neck. And I just put her down.

• 1:33:10Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:33:10Speaker 05

  She goes running away, like, boom, tears out, turns around, like, ten, fifteen feet away, looks at me, smiles at me, waves, and I wave a smile back and, you know, I felt good at that moment.

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:26Speaker 05

  Felt, felt like I did something. You know, I was happy, I was content, it was peace in my life. And I turned around, and I have a half dozen, or you know, a dozen Afghans giving me the Afghan stink eye.

• 1:33:43Speaker 05

  And I'm like, fuck. And I had my M four across my shoulder. I just brought it down. And I looked at him and my finger out like I'm trigger well. I go, you got a problem with that? Anybody got a problem with that? And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, it's all good, it's good. I'm like, okay, good. What happened was I get back on the plane, Advan's done, and this story gets told, but it gets distorted. And it makes it all the way it's up to President Karzai. But some American grabbed an Afghan girl, touched her. You know, whatever touch means, you know, nothing perverted.

• 1:34:24Speaker 05

  And I get called into the Chief of Staff's office, Chief of Protocol wants to talk to me. Fortunately, Chief of Protocol is a good guy. He went to Rutgers University. I'm from New Jersey. We're we're tight. He said, what the hell happened out there? Anyway, finally makes it all the way up to President Karzai. I go meet with him. And I tell him what happened. I'm like, and I'm not your typical O six. I'm just an O three.

• 1:34:50Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:34:50Speaker 05

  I don't know how to interact with a president. I'm not like, Mr. President, sir, I didn't, I'm like, hey, hey, sir. This is what happened. That's total bullshit.

• 1:35:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:02Speaker 05

  I'm like, I would never. And so he loves me. He loves me because I'm genuine. I'm authentic.

• 1:35:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:35:08Speaker 05

  I I'm not a stuffy, you know, officer who's kissing ass and trying to worry about his career.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  I leave the palace and everything's cool. I come back the next day and everybody's looking at me when I'm walking around the palace. Like really weird. And then I go to the PPS and everybody's like looking at me weird. And my buddy, Azra, Ozra was, him and I were tight over there. He comes up to me and he gives me a kiss on the cheek and a kiss on the other cheek. And he says, my Zoi.

• 1:35:43Speaker 05

  From that time on,

• 1:35:46Speaker 05

  President Khorzai said to everybody that this is a brother of Afghanistan. He is my son. So I had like the respect of everybody. And I could do no wrong, which was a good thing, but was also a bad thing because it gave me way too much authority.

• 1:36:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:03Speaker 05

  So I never abused that authority, but I, I, it was really weird, you know, understanding the culture, but it just got thrown into it. I would walk around the palace and the PPS agents would hold my hand. Uh, they would kiss me. They would try to take me to Ki- Chicken Street where all the prostitutes were. They would want me to go out with them on Thursday night where, you know, they would, you know, they would have sex with each other.

• 1:36:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:25Speaker 05

  And they want, they, I was a brother. And I, I didn't do a lot of the things and they respected me because I chose not to do it. And I told them I wouldn't do it, but I let them do it. But I had their respect and I loved that tour until the end. I don't know if everybody knows, but General Eichenberg was the ISAF commander at the time. And I don't particularly care for General Eichenberg. And people will have comments. I'll, I'll refrain from giving you my opinion and but I'm walking out of the palace. Now I am the only American to ever be issued a palace badge. I can come and go as I please. And

• 1:37:08Speaker 05

  General Eichenberg is outside the palace with like his thirty man PTSD team and two up armored SUVs and uh Escalades and he sees me. And I'm in this brown uniform with my brown cover and my, my binder that I have from all my trips. And he goes, he sees me and he goes, who are you? And I, and I see him and I'm like, fuck, I can't get out of this one. And I just walk up to him and I go. Good morning, sir. I'm Lieutenant Cisco. Who are you? And I did it kind of sarcastically and I didn't really think that I said that when it came out and then I was like, oh, that came out.

• 1:37:53Speaker 05

  And he goes, I'm General Lichtenberg. And I go, well, nice to meet you, sir. And he like, he's still dumped out and he's like, he shakes my hand.

• 1:38:03Speaker 05

  And I'm like, it was very nice to meet you, sir. I gotta go. And I just turned around and start walking away. And he's like, stop. Where are you going? And I go, I have a meeting with the chief of protocol and chief of staff. I gotta go. I'm gonna be late, sir. Nice to meet you. And I just walk in the palace.

• 1:38:21Speaker 05

  I get back to the jig about three hours later.

• 1:38:26Speaker 05

  And they're like, what the fuck did you do? I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, there is an all points bulletin on Camp Edgar's looking for a Navy lieutenant in a brown, in his brown uniform, who was at the palace. You need to go see General Lichtenberg right now. I'm like, all right, whatever. I go in and I'm like, you know. Hey, sir, Lieutenant Cisco was like, what are you doing? You know, and I'm like, I'm telling. Sir, I've been running President Karzai's regional engagement tours for seven months. And he's like, how come I didn't know about that? I go, I don't know, sir. Every, after every trip, I write a after action report and send it to you. I guess you never read it. And he's like.

• 1:39:09Speaker 05

  The next day, I have an army colonel assigned to me. Assigned to the jig. He takes over for me. Biggest D-bag you ever met in your life. If he stops short. If President Karzai stops short, he'd be four feet up his ass. Every picture, every engagement, every time he's out in the spotlight. And I'm like, sir. This is not our job. This is the Afghans. We're behind the scenes.

• 1:39:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:39:37Speaker 05

  Don't be, don't try, and so we were like this. Anyway. I, I get done with that tour. President Karzai writes me a letter to be one of the next White House fellows.

• 1:39:55Speaker 05

  So, think about this. I applied to be a White House Fellow. My career trajectory is just off the charts. And, low and behold, the Navy has a certain way of screwing things up. I'm engaged, I have a fiance, she's a nut job, but she's smoking hot. And, trying to break up with her, she keys my Corvette. I had a sixty-two Corvette, a BMW. I mean, I'm living in Old Town Alexandria. She goes psycho, keys the car, I have to call the police. She calls my command and writes a letter. And I'm telling my command what's up with this.

• 1:40:34Speaker 05

  She winds up saying that I was physically abusive, that I had suffered from PTSD and war trauma. And she did all this just to sabotage the White House Fellowship, you know, bust my balls. Meanwhile, she's in court, has to pay me ten thousand dollars, has to fix my cars, you know, we'll give back the engagement ring, and I'm like, oh my god. So, career path takes a little hiccup. Right. And, uh, anyway, I, uh, decide that I'm gonna go back to Afghanistan. They have this program called the Afghan Hands Program.

• 1:41:13Speaker 05

  Sounds wonderful. I learn how to speak Dari, I go to language school, and, uh, and it's gonna be awesome, I'm gonna go back. But in the interim, I'm working at the Navy Irregular Warfare Office, and I'm writing doctorate, doctorate on coin, FID, you know, because of my time in Afghanistan. I've become the subject matter expert for the Navy in counterinsurgency and foreign internal defense, and wind up going to Ethiopia and signing a, uh, a directive for the ambassador with the National, uh, with the Ethiopian National Defense Force. As a lieutenant commander, I write it,

• 1:41:53Speaker 05

  uh, sign a treaty on that. The ambassador's like, yeah Jim, you can go, just go do it, you know, so I start, you know, getting back to the career, like, you know, I'm digging in, you know. And I start working more with JSOC and SOCOM on some special mission stuff, on the Super Takano, on some Scan Eagle stuff, some really cool stuff. Wind up going to Balad. And, this is the story that really changed my entire career.

• 1:42:23Speaker 05

  I'm in Balat and that's the headquarters for SOCOM. And I know the J2 Captain Heimberger and he's kind of a dick, but get along with him. Brent Heimberger, big guy, like, anyway. And I go over there with my Admiral, Admiral Kenny, we're talking about the special mission stuff and

• 1:42:43Speaker 05

  it's like three o'clock in the morning. They had just done a mission, they had rolled up some guy, they had killed two HVTs. And, uh, you know, they come back and McChrystal's there, Heimberger's there, a bunch of O5s, a bunch of O6s, my Admiral, me, Lieutenant Commander, and, uh, the J2 just started going, "Yes, sir, man, we kicked ass," you know, it's typical, like, kiss ass, yeah. And, you know, we rolled up Baghdadi and we did this and we got that, and you know, I'm like, swatching. And, uh, McChrystal's like, you know, taking it all in, he starts talking. And out of nowhere, I go, "So,

• 1:43:26Speaker 05

  how did this help?" And everybody kind of looks at me. And my Admiral, he knew me, the Coin FID guy, he's like, "No, Jim, don't do it." He kind of grabs my arm. And McChrystal looks over him and he goes, "What?" And I go, "And what did this accomplish, sir?" And he like looked at me and I, and I had reversed this. I said, "In the past six months, we've rolled up 287 guys, we've killed 314, we've done this, we've done 67 missions in here, we've done this." And I laid it all out for him. And I said, "What did we get, sir, besides high op tempo, a bunch of dead bodies and a bunch of people that are getting, you know, interrogated? I'll tell you what we got, sir. We've got a pissed off Sunni population, we've got Shiites that are in arrest,

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  we have all this stuff and the population is against us."

• 1:44:15Speaker 04

  Wait, it was, you said Balat, this is Iraq or Afghanistan?

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  This is Afghanistan, or Iraq, I'm in Iraq.

• 1:44:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay, yeah.

• 1:44:23Speaker 05

  And McChrystal just looks at me

• 1:44:27Speaker 05

  and he goes, "Have I ever told you about the arc of instability?"

• 1:44:33Speaker 05

  At six o'clock in the morning, three hours later, he was done explaining to me and he basically said, "You are my hand select to be the J2. I am going to Afghanistan and you're coming with me." Cause I told him I'd worked for President Carzai and all that stuff. He goes, "You go learn how to speak Dari." And that's when I went to language school.

• 1:44:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:44:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I get it, I'm a hand select to go to Afghanistan again for my third tour. I'm gonna be on the crystal staff. General Flynn's over there and Flynn wants me to be the liaison for NDS, which is their CIA. As a lieutenant commander. I am ruffling feathers everywhere. But, I'm a hand select. And I'm a crystal's boy. And I am finishing language school. And they're like, "Go, now." "We're gonna send you to immersion training. You are gonna go live with Afghans in, uh, one of the stands." So I'm in immersion training.

• 1:45:36Speaker 05

  And I'm like, living in a house, all they speak is Dari. I'm eating Afghan food. It's cool as shit.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:43Speaker 05

  Don't get me wrong, but I'm like, struggling to learn Dari, uh, and anyway. I'm fly to Camp Eggers, I think, or I forget where I was flying to. And I get there and that day, the Rolling Stone article comes out.

• 1:46:00Speaker 05

  Boom.

• 1:46:03Speaker 05

  My crystal's out of country. Couple of weeks later, Petraeus rolls in. I'm in limbo. I'm sitting around with my thumb up my ass. I don't know what to do. You know, can't go to Flynn, he's leaving, Porter's coming in, all this stuff's happening. So I'm just like, well, wait till Petraeus comes in, how bad could it be? Petraeus comes in and I schedule a in-call with him. "Hey, sir, Lieutenant Commander Cisco, I'm just here to, you know, introduce myself and find out where I'm gonna sit on your CAG staff, or I'm scheduled to be the liaison for NDS and really can't wait to get to work for you, sir. I've got some great experience and insights that could help you out."

• 1:46:43Speaker 05

  "Thank you very much, Lieutenant Commander."

• 1:46:46Speaker 05

  "All right, what do you mean, sir? I got this." I have a CAG staff. I don't need you. I'm like, sir, I don't think you understand. I worked for President Karzai. I speak Dari. I know this country like the back of my hand. I've traveled everywhere. I know Taliban. I know A and A, A and P. I know all the commanders.

• 1:47:07Speaker 05

  Thank you very much, Lieutenant Commander Sisco. We'll find a spot for you.

• 1:47:12Speaker 05

  I said, hey, sir, I just want to let you know something. Not only did I do all this stuff, but I've also studied Iraq. And let me just tell you one thing. Don't think that your troop surge plan is gonna work in Iraq. The way, uh, work in Afghanistan, the way it did in Iraq.

• 1:47:33Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:47:33Speaker 05

  It's not gonna. And oh, by the way, your troop surge isn't the reason why we won in Iraq. It was the Sunni awakening and the Sons of Liberty. So I just want to let you know that. And he's like, you're dismissed. Thank you. So

• 1:47:55Speaker 05

  didn't go well for me. I got put in the FRIC, which was the Forced Reintegration Cell. And I started doing my own thing. I started running reintegration missions. I started meeting with Taliban. I started calling Taliban in the Quedis Shura, in the Peshawar Shura, in, in Pakistan. I set up a contonment area in Jalalabad. I was gonna bring in about a hundred senior, well, ten senior level Taliban, a hundred mid-level, and five hundred regular soldiers Taliban. Had everything set up. I was working with the commanding officer of the FRIC, who was an, uh, Canadian Army two-star general.

• 1:48:40Speaker 05

  Loved what I was doing. He's like, just go do it.

• 1:48:46Speaker 05

  I'm going out on reintegration missions, talking to Taliban. I'd be like, Nama Shuma Chis, you know, what's your name? And they'd go, oh, Nama Ma, whatever. And I'd be like, she called me, what do you do? What's your job? And they'd be like, man, uh, this is the funniest one. This guy comes up to me and he goes, man, Taliban is still. He's, I'm a Taliban, I'm a Taliban. And I go, Shuma Taliban based, man Taliban is still. I'm like, you're not a Taliban, I am. We start laughing and I go, no, Rusty, what do you, she called me, what do you do? He goes, I'm a teacher. They pay me money to come here and say I'm Taliban. So I, I'm able to talk to these people and, you know, uh,

• 1:49:30Speaker 05

  understand what's really happening and get a different picture of the war than most people ever got.

• 1:49:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:37Speaker 05

  I'm talking to Taliban, I'm talking to ANA who are out putting bombs on roadsides in the, at night, but they're on the ANA in the daytime. Or they're paying their brother to do it and then they're telling me, Jim, don't go down that road tomorrow. I'm like, why? They're like, there's gonna be a bomb there. Like, why are you telling me? Because you're my brother, I don't want anything to happen to you. But I don't want anything to happen to my brother, so he gets paid. So why don't you just go tell the engineers that there's? So this is how screwed up it is.

• 1:50:07Speaker 05

  I literally meet with President Karzai's brother. Uh, the one who was assassinated, uh, Wa- Wali, uh, uh, I forget what his name was, I'm sorry. And he says, now he's running narcotics, he's doing prostitution, got more, more heroin than you want to know. He's being paid off by the CIA. He's being hoarded by DOD. And I sit down with him and we're in a room and, uh, I'm like, you're lucky I'm not charged. He goes, what do you mean? I go, I fly a helicopter in here, pick you up in your compound, fly you on the desert and put one right between your head, between your eyes. And he's like, ah, Jim.

• 1:50:53Speaker 05

  You don't understand this war. And I go, oh, I do. And I know how to end it. And I said, uh, he says to me, sometimes you have to do a little bad to have a little good. And I said it in Dari and didn't really understand it, the translation, but I knew and was had privy to so much information and insights and and it was so frustrating for me being in Afghanistan and watching the people. People lived in abject poverty. No running water, no electricity. I spent a week with in a village and at the end of my week out there,

• 1:51:36Speaker 05

  the village elder comes up to me, he's Jim John, you can pick a goat. And I'm like, no, I can't take a goat back to meet a base. And he's like laughing at me like you idiot. He's like, pick a goat. And I'm like, no, I am not allowed to take a goat back. And he's like, pick a goat. And I'm like, that one. He walks over, takes a night that slips his throat in front of me and says, tonight we feast for our brother.

• 1:51:59Speaker 05

  And this is the the the population, the people, the culture is amazing.

• 1:52:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:04Speaker 05

  And we come in and don't know how to interact with the culture at all.

• 1:52:09Speaker 04

  How was how was it for you? Because a lot of the Taliban, you know, were Pashtun and whatnot.

• 1:52:19Speaker 04

  Like you speak Dari, how like how's how are those interactions? Because you don't speak Pashtun, correct?

• 1:52:25Speaker 05

  No, and Pashtun, believe it or not, is like Klingon. You speak Dari and you listen to somebody speaking Pashtun and you're like, can't even understand it. So it wasn't bad because where I operated was mostly Dari. And when I would go down to Kandahar or Jalalabad, you know, everybody's speaking Pashtun.

• 1:52:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:43Speaker 05

  And and it made it really challenging. But I will tell you a funny story. I'm in the governor's complex.

• 1:52:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:48Speaker 05

  And I was sick. I had the Kabul crud and I mean, like hundred and five fever, chills. I'm like dying and I'm like laying on the couch in the governor's office and they forget that I'm in there because they all leave and you know, the sick American guy. And they come back in and there's Taliban, there's ANA, there's AMP, they're meeting with the governor, you got narcotics traffickers, they're all talking, they don't know I'm on the couch. And I let them talk for about forty-five minutes.

• 1:53:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:53:19Speaker 05

  Hilarious. They're talking about who's doing what and everything. And finally, I just popped my head up. And they're like, holy shit, we didn't know he was in here. And they start talking in Dari about like, me and, and I, and there's some guys talking in posthune and the governor's like, oh, Xinjiang, you know, whatever. And the one guy was saying something about me and I could hear him in Dari and something about like, you know, I forget what it was, somewhat threatening. Anyway, I walked up to them and they didn't know that I spoke Dari. And

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• 1:55:23Speaker 05

  Uh, I said, I said to the guy, I can, I understood everything you said. I speak Dari. And the whole place got silent. And I said, and he was like, said something to me like, wh- who are you or what do you do? And when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, they had these guys who were spies. And the, and the Afghans called them Jassus, which meant spy, but it meant killer. And when he looked at me, he said, what, what, what do you do? And I just deadpanned him and I went, Mon Jassus estime.

• 1:56:05Speaker 05

  And the whole place got silent.

• 1:56:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:07Speaker 05

  Because these are the guys who come in the middle of the night, kill all families and everything. And they were like, fuck it, God.

• 1:56:13Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:56:15Speaker 05

  So that's kind of a, just one of the interactions. I mean, so it was just an amazing time for me. You know, I'm out there reintegrating, talking to real Taliban, trying to set up this time. So here's the kicker. Patrice finds out that I am doing all this shit. Cause I brief him, I'm briefing the twos and the threes and the fives and I'm like, I said all this stuff. He puts the kibosh on it. I'm not going to allow this to happen. So at the same time that Patrice is putting the kibosh on this. I'm going with my Canadian two-star general and I'm playing rugby out in Kabul at the compound with all the ISAF guys.

• 1:57:00Speaker 05

  I start getting interviewed by Paula Broadwell. I don't know if people remember this, but Paula Broadwell was the writer for General Patrice's biography, All In. And he was all in, he was balls deep. And I knew it and I was telling everybody, he is banging her. No, not General Patrice. No, he's awesome. Mitzi McFay is a advisor on my board. And she would tell me how Patrice would hit on her all the time and he's a creeper. And I'm like, okay.

• 1:57:37Speaker 05

  So Petraeus puts the kibosh on this, I'm pissed off. I'm like, fuck you, you're not gonna ruin everything I worked for like almost a year for. So I take the mightiest sword I have, the pen, and I start writing. I start writing articles in uh Small Wars Journal. I start writing articles for other periodicals and I write a pen and article for Tom Ricks. Tom Ricks was the uh, he ran the Best Defense Journal for foreign policy. And I write an article called The Carzai I Knew Then, The Carzai I See Now. And it was talking about how effed up American operations were.

• 1:58:23Speaker 05

  How they were cycling in and out, how there was no coordination, there was no continuity. How every different uh ISAF country had their own agenda. How every PRT didn't align. And I basically laid it out saying that it wasn't Carzai's fault, that he was just trying to stay alive. He didn't want to wind up like Nezabula with his head on a stick outside of Kabul.

• 1:58:49Speaker 05

  And uh I'll never forget, I'm sitting in my little cubicle with my little headphones on, all fat, dumb and happy. And I hear on the Commander's, the Cub, the Commander's Update Brief. Who the fuck is Lieutenant Commander Sisco? I want him in my fucking office immediately. I'm gonna find the fastest horse, the shortest tree, or the tallest tree and the shortest rope to hang him by his balls. Ricks changed the title of the article to The Carzai I See Then. The Carzai's, or The Carzai I Knew Then, The Carzai I See It Now, but he has good reasons for weirding out.

• 1:59:29Speaker 05

  Went over like a turd in a punch bowl. And anyway, the US forces decide that that article uh was justification to kick me out of Afghanistan. So I got PNG'd out of Afghanistan by my own country. President Karzai loved the article. I called Ricks and said, hey, man, you gotta change the title. He's like, can't do it. It's already out in publication. He said, but I'll hook you up. So he said, I he put in an addendum and I understand Lieutenant Commander Sisco is taking some heat from his superior officers. I suggest you look at the content of the article, uh, the content of the article aside the title. I took that on my own to change it.

• 2:00:14Speaker 05

  But that ruined my career.

• 2:00:19Speaker 05

  It was over for me as an naval intelligence officer who was on the fast track. He was gonna be a White House fellow, who was, you know, hand select by General Crystal, who learned DARI. And at that moment, my career was just a fireball.

• 2:00:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:36Speaker 05

  And, you know, I I couldn't really recover from that one. And, uh, you know, I go back and I get assigned to DIA and I work for General Flynn. But this time I'm kind of just pissed because, you know, I was, I got passed over for commander. And at that point, I didn't care because I had twenty three years in, you know, with my enlistment time. So they couldn't fuck with my retirement. But I go to DIA and I go to ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

• 2:01:06Speaker 05

  What a fucked up organization.

• 2:01:09Speaker 05

  That is supposed to be the pinnacle of the intelligence community where they coalesce all of the different intelligence community, uh, organizations to work together. And it was a joke. And I worked for the NIM, the National Intelligence Manager, doing southwest Asia, southeast, well, southwest Asia. And I was the Afghan expert.

• 2:01:31Speaker 05

  And it was a joke. Because that organization. Yeah, and we talk about our time with Trump coming in and SecDef and, you know, making decisions. Get rid of ODNI. It didn't solve anything, made it worse. It's all about budgets. Geographic areas don't even line up to the COCOMs. It's a total joke. Eliminate that and you will eliminate half of the problems in the entire community.

• 2:01:56Speaker 04

  What, what?

• 2:01:57Speaker 05

  Make it better.

• 2:01:57Speaker 04

  When you were there, what was, what was the supposed job of the ODNI? Like, what, what were they doing, like, from an administrative function? Or what were they supposed to be doing?

• 2:02:11Speaker 05

  They were supposed to be

• 2:02:15Speaker 05

  coordinating all of the different activities within the different organizations in the intelligence community. ODNI would be the umbrella for CIA, DIA, NSA, NGIC, NGA. And what happened was every organization would bring a liaison officer. They would sit in the different directorates and NIMS. But it just created another bureaucratic layer. It didn't help operational capabilities or enhance them or optimize them at all. As a matter of fact, it lessened them. Because now you created another layer of bureaucracy. The, like I said, the geographic areas didn't line up and it turned into a food fight.

• 2:02:59Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 2:03:00Speaker 05

  There's so much redundancy within the intelligence community.

• 2:03:05Speaker 05

  You could eliminate,

• 2:03:08Speaker 05

  I would say, seventy percent of the intelligence community and not have any impact on operational capability. Let me give you an example. When I was still in Afghanistan, I'm sitting in the General Petraeus brief and they fly in an expert from the Defense Intelligence Agency. This expert is an Afghan regional expert and a subject matter expert on President Karzai.

• 2:03:39Speaker 05

  He gets up there and delivers a forty-five minute presentation on President Karzai.

• 2:03:47Speaker 05

  He talks about his childhood, his family, his brother, his father, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he gets done with his presentation. And he's like, gets his coin from General Petraeus and they're taking pictures and he's like all happy about himself. Look at me, I'm with General Petraeus talking about President Karzai.

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  Now, everybody's getting business cards from him and they're harumphing him and I wait and just watch and sit down. Wait till the end and, you know, the crowd's dying out. I walk up to him, I go. And I said this intentionally. I said, hey, I saw your brief. And I didn't say it was a good brief. I didn't say it was a bad brief. I just said, I saw your brief. And he goes, oh, yeah, it was really good, wasn't it? And I go, no. I think that brief sucked. I go, I didn't think you know shit about President Karzai. Now, this guy just got kicked in the junk. And he's like, what? And I'm like, you don't know shit about President Karzai.

• 2:04:54Speaker 05

  I go, you probably could do a Google search and you just regurgitate a bunch of crap. He said, well, how do you know? Do you know? What do you know about President Karzai? And I go, I've had dinner with President Karzai. I've met his family. I've traveled with President Karzai. I rode his horse, which is another story. And he's like, what? And I go, and if you were such a Karzai expert, you would know who I am because I was the military liaison for him for almost nine months. And you never sought me out? So that gives you an example of like the intelligence community. I want to be that Jack Ryan.

• 2:05:38Speaker 05

  I want to be briefing General Petraeus on President Karzad. I want to get that coin.

• 2:05:45Speaker 05

  And in a nutshell, that's kind of why when I got PNG'd and I got out of the Marine or out of the Navy and out of Naval Intelligence, I really wasn't that hurt.

• 2:05:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:58Speaker 05

  I really wasn't. I was like, it's not an organization I'm gonna miss.

• 2:06:02Speaker 04

  You you mentioned Balad, that you were in Balad, but you didn't really talk about an Iraq deployment. What what was that about?

• 2:06:09Speaker 05

  So I did a couple of other deployments and, you know, in between you just.

• 2:06:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:06:14Speaker 05

  You go, here, go to Ethiopia and go work for Ambassador Yamamado.

• 2:06:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:19Speaker 05

  And go teach.

• 2:06:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, twenty years is a long career, so, yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:23Speaker 05

  Go teach the Ethiopian National Defense Force how to fly tactical UAVs and then go deploy them to Somalia.

• 2:06:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Speaker 05

  You know, we don't talk about, like, a lot of the tours that I've been on and the things I did.

• 2:06:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:38Speaker 05

  And going to Balad and, you know, and and so for me, I just focused on the big stuff.

• 2:06:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:45Speaker 05

  You know, Afghanistan and.

• 2:06:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:47Speaker 05

  Don't really talk about like.

• 2:06:49Speaker 04

  Is Afghanistan kind of where your heart was during the GWOT?

• 2:06:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like I said, I mean, I got introduced to a culture that was amazing.

• 2:07:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:01Speaker 05

  The people were resilient and, I mean, I saw things and had like, I could see the train wreck happening and was telling people, the train wreck's happening, and they wouldn't listen.

• 2:07:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:07:15Speaker 05

  Like, I would watch the N A A and A soldiers, the A and P soldiers getting training. I would watch through night vision goggles, throwing their boots over the fence that they just got issued by the American forces so they could get blowjobs through the fence.

• 2:07:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07:30Speaker 05

  I'm like, this is not a fighting force. Even the the Special Operations Command where I was training with them, I was assigned to SIF SOC for a period of time. They were even trash.

• 2:07:44Speaker 05

  And I I could only scream at the top of my lungs as loud as I could, but here's my retribution.

• 2:07:51Speaker 05

  I'm married, I retired, I am uh at home. Uh doorbell rings, my wife answers the door. She comes scurrying to me, looks kinda weird, upset. Jim, I think you need to go out the front door, there's two guys in suits waiting for you. I go, okay. I walk out. Two guys in suits, I look at them, I go, you here for the Petraeus thing? They look at each other like they're in shock. And they go, what? I go, for the Petraeus thing, is this why you guys are here? And they go, yeah, how did you know? And I go, what took you so long?

• 2:08:34Speaker 05

  I got subpoenaed to testify in the grand jury investigation against General Petraeus.

• 2:08:42Speaker 05

  All of the information that I was giving Paula Broadwell, which was all top secret SCI, everything about the containment areas, my renegation missions, everything, she kept. And when they raided her house, had my name all over it. So, they come to me. Hey man, what do you know? I'm like, I don't know enough to bury this guy.

• 2:09:07Speaker 05

  Supremo- subpoena, you know, I I got issued, they never had the grand jury investigation. Went away. However, now I'm the president and founder of Enodo Global, my company, Risk Advisory Service. I'm in New York City for a conference and I'm on a panel with General Petraeus. Everybody's totally sucking his dick, asking him questions. You know, hey sir, what about this, what about the troop service, what about this? You know, and there's about four of us on the panel and we're just being ignored. And one of them is the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, who I'm friends with.

• 2:09:48Speaker 05

  So Petraeus, you know, gets asked another question and he tells us a little like long diatribe about Iraq. And uh he gets done. And once again, I lean in, you're wrong.

• 2:10:04Speaker 05

  Well, everybody looks at me, everybody in the audience, the panel. And the moderator's like, excuse me? And I go, he's wrong. And let me tell you why. And I just laid it out, bullet point, bullet point, bullet point, right down the line. And he sat there and listened. And the CEO of Cambridge Analytica goes, Mr. Cisco's analysis is spot on. I can confirm. Patrice gets up. He's like, oh, I'm sorry, I have to leave. Walks by me and as he walked by me, he goes, good seeing you, Jim. I go, take it even, take it easy, David.

• 2:10:47Speaker 05

  So who else was a private in the Marine Corps? You know, worked his way up, did all this stupid stuff, Desert Storm, all this stuff. Ensign in the, you know, Navy SEAL team, all these fun adventures. Uh, and half of the stories I haven't been told, you know, that are super cool.

• 2:11:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:10Speaker 05

  And then makes his way to the, you know, gonna be a White House fellow, you know, hand select and then in an instant.

• 2:11:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:11:22Speaker 05

  The good news is I have a great reputation within my community. And the Marines and recon and an outstanding reputation within my community as an naval intelligence officer. And at the end of the day, I don't care.

• 2:11:40Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:11:41Speaker 05

  The real thing I care about, I want my kids to watch this. I want my kids to know how an exciting life I had. I want my kids to take my footsteps. Question authority, ask why? Don't be average. Do the things that you wanna do. Live a life worth remembering. And you know, I, I appreciate the time being on here. And I don't self promote, I'm not a Jaco Willet or David Goggins.

• 2:12:18Speaker 05

  But I know my story is more powerful than theirs. And more powerful than a lot of people. But I just don't wanna tell it because.

• 2:12:28Speaker 05

  I'm just Jim.

• 2:12:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:29Speaker 05

  I'm a humble guy. And I've had an amazing career and have amazing life and I have amazing life ahead of me.

• 2:12:35Speaker 04

  Well, we deeply appreciate you coming on the show. Where can people find you, Jim?

• 2:12:40Speaker 05

  Well, I have my own podcast. It's called The War Journal. And it's on YouTube, but I'm not like that social media guy on Instagram and

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:12:51Speaker 05

  Facebook, you know, and the other thing you can do is, you know, I have, this is the book that I wrote. And this is the book that I wrote about my time in Desert Storm, but it's not a book.

• 2:13:02Speaker 06

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• 2:13:10Speaker 06

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• 2:13:52Speaker 06

  Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 2:14:02Speaker 00

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• 2:14:32Speaker 05

  There I was, killing bad guys. And this is a cool picture. This is me as a Lance Corporal getting my Bloodwings punched into my chest on LZ Osprey in Camp Lejeune. But. Let me tell you quickly about the book. It was a journal and it's right here.

• 2:14:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:14:50Speaker 05

  This journal I wrote in almost every day when I was in Desert Storm. And this journal was like, here you go. I mean, it's, it's got some, some years behind it.

• 2:15:03Speaker 04

  Wow, that's amazing. That's the one thing I wish I had done during my service and, and time after was, was journaled stuff.

• 2:15:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. So that journal I wrote in every day and then I went through a, a terrible situation in my life. I got through a, I went through a terrible divorce. And, and anybody out there watching divorce is the ugliest thing in the world. It brings out the mean evil in people. My ex-wife, I, I can't talk badly about her. But I saw a side of her that was worse than anything I've ever seen in any of my combat deployments. And I'm still in a custody battle for my kids. And I went through probably one of the darkest periods of my life. We talk about that time in Desert Storm where Mike gets blown up.

• 2:15:54Speaker 05

  I find out that Ashley's cheating on me with him. That pain that I felt is a microcosm of the pain that I felt for, I would say years, months, definitely, you know, months, years. I was in the darkest period of my life.

• 2:16:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:11Speaker 05

  I, I went to this journal and I opened it up and I read it.

• 2:16:17Speaker 05

  And when I got done reading it, I was, I was spent. I was done.

• 2:16:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:22Speaker 05

  I wish that I had read that journal throughout my life because it would have prevented me from making some of the mistakes that I made.

• 2:16:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:32Speaker 05

  And that's why I wrote the book is because I want other.

• 2:16:37Speaker 05

  People, and it's not just military, anybody. To not go through what I've gone through, if they can read about what I've gone through. And learn from it, I win.

• 2:16:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:51Speaker 05

  And I'm just gonna tell one last kind of story.

• 2:16:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:56Speaker 05

  I'm like, uh, really depressed, dark, dark depressed. And, uh, sitting at my house, late at night, my kids aren't in the house, all by myself, lonely. The book had come out and, uh. I get a call, like, and now when you see the cell phone, you don't remember and you're like, meh. Who the hell is it? And, uh.

• 2:17:21Speaker 05

  I just picked up the phone, I'm like, good evening, Jim Sisco. And there's a voice on the other end, he goes, hey, Jim, I watched your podcast, I was with the Mary Ann Petrie and Melanie. Davis, the publisher, they, we did a podcast. And they're like, hey, I got your contact information, I hope you don't mind me calling you, and I'm like. No, no, and you kind of, I brought my spirits, I'm like, yeah. He's like, hey, just to tell you, like, I was in the army and I was in special forces and I did. Three tours and I was in here and there, he, he, he was in, uh, Balad, in the worst part, I think. And, uh, and, uh. He started telling me like about his time over there, it's like really dark, and he's like, hey, I just wanna let you know something. And I'm like, yeah, what's up, man? He goes. I was, uh.

• 2:18:07Speaker 05

  Suicidal. I was, you know, I had suicide ideation, I didn't really know how to deal with all that stuff. And after I watched the podcast, I read your book. And he goes, brother. Thank you. I now have purpose, I have meaning. If you can go through the stuff that you went through. I can do what I'm dealing with. And. And that man right there was probably one of those life-changing events. And that's why I started doing the podcast. That's why I started talking more about myself and my career. If I can help anybody, one person, it's a win.

• 2:18:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:18:46Speaker 05

  It's a win for me. And I'm doing a lot of work on family advocacy, trying to reform the court system, trying to make sure that children are protected. Started a project for veterans suicide. So I'm all in and this is what I'm doing.

• 2:19:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:19:04Speaker 05

  And you guys have a couple hundred thousand viewers and they could hear my message and it's a win for me, it's a win for you. And if there's anything I can do to help you guys, let me know.

• 2:19:15Speaker 04

  Oh, same, man. Absolutely, same. We have one question. Do we have anything on Patreon? Uh, yeah, we have one. Oh, do you want to ask that?

• 2:19:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm sorry. I've been talking so much.

• 2:19:31Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 2:19:32Speaker 05

  Questions, let me know.

• 2:19:33Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. We have a couple of questions, so.

• 2:19:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, we have one from Luis Vasquez. What kind of open source tools do you use to find and help people with mental health struggles?

• 2:19:45Speaker 05

  Awesome question. There is a phrase in Dari, in Afghanistan, I learned, and it says, if you stand on the corner, the wind will blow and tell you. So we use, and what you mean by that, people love to talk. People want to talk. And they will tell you that they are hurting, or they're suicidal, or have suicidal ideations. But we don't listen as a society. And the VA is the worst tool in the world. Because all they do is they want to enroll you and medicate you and you're on a list. What open source tools do we use? Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, we're in Reddit. There's a Reddit group,

• 2:20:29Speaker 05

  you know, for Marines, for Navy, for Army, and it's the narratives that they're using that you just got to listen. When people say, he lost the battle, he brought the war home with him. You look at the perjudicity of their post, if they're increasing, if the tone and inflection is changing.

• 2:20:51Speaker 05

  The simple things and cues, the pictures, the memes, the emojis, how are they talking? We can identify people who are moving in that direction and interdict before they do commit suicide.

• 2:21:06Speaker 04

  Do you, do you wanna tell people what the name of your, uh, the veteran organization is, or eh, eh, the?

• 2:21:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is, this is my company, it's called Enodo Global, and Enodo is Latin. It means to solve or elucidate, and here's a terrible story. I was so driven to do this, and we used the methodology that I learned in Afghanistan and, and, and, uh, and the data analytics to come up with this, uh, project, program, pilot project. I briefed the head of the VA, I'm sitting with the head of the VA and looking across the table at her and saying, "We can reduce veteran suicides by thirty percent in twenty-four months,

• 2:21:54Speaker 05

  and it's only cost five hundred thousand dollars to start the pilot project."

• 2:22:01Speaker 05

  She was like, "Okay, this is great, thank you for your time, we really appreciate you. I'll put you in touch with, you know, our project manager." Six months later, I'm told by the project manager that they didn't have the funding and that we're gonna have to reapply the next fiscal year.

• 2:22:20Speaker 05

  I wrote the, eh, the, the head of the VA and I said, "In the seven months, I did all the calculations. We've lost over three hundred and eighteen soldiers, airmen, sailors, and this. We've lost this, we've done this, and we've done this, and your administration and your organization spent over seventy-five million dollars on X, Y, and Z day, and you can't have, you can tell me you don't have five hundred thousand dollars for a pilot project?"

• 2:22:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:22:48Speaker 05

  That's what gets me upset, but so we created this whole project where we look at and listen to the social media discussions. What's happening? And then we find high risk individuals. And then we interdict. But we don't just send them to VA because the VA is not gonna fix the problems.

• 2:23:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:23:08Speaker 05

  The VA is gonna medicate them, enroll them, get them therapy. What we do is we identify what the problem is of that individual. Is it financial? Is it marital? Is it divorce? Is it dependency? Is it PTSD? Is it TBI? And then direct them to the organization that can best serve them. With the resources that they have that are tailored. And I hate the whole veteran suicide bullshit. Where it's twenty-two a day, equine for veterans. Let's go talk about this. That's just mowing the lawn to kill the weeds.

• 2:23:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:23:48Speaker 05

  Doesn't kill the weeds.

• 2:23:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, what's the other one, Dee?

• 2:23:52Speaker 03

  Uh, the other question is for V. What are the best skills to practice and learn for a career in intelligence?

• 2:24:00Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 2:24:04Speaker 05

  Honestly, I have an intern at my company, David Isaacs, and he is a brilliant kid. And he wants to be in naval, he wants to be in the intelligence community. And he will be successful if he gets in. And the reason why, and here's why the skill sets are important. Analytical thinking, number one. Critical thinking.

• 2:24:27Speaker 05

  It's most important. That you are able to look at things analytically. The second thing is to be a critic.

• 2:24:39Speaker 05

  In other words, you'll get too many people in the intelligence community who've done ten years here, twenty years here. I know this, I know that. I was working in Latin America. Uh, another project thing and I'm working with a CIA case officer, Aaron E. Cocksucker. And he says to me, and I go down there and I'm like, just trying to get the lay of the land and, you know, comes in, he's like, "Let me tell you about this and let me tell you about that. I've been running, I've been running people, sources here for twenty years. I know these people like the back of my hand. What are you gonna do and come in here and what are you gonna tell me?" And I said,

• 2:25:23Speaker 05

  "You been here twenty years? You heard me. You been running sources? Yeah. You know the people like your back of your hand? Yeah. Well, why is it still fucked up?" And all the guys around him started laughing, like, "Oh, man." So the point is, don't become so full of yourself and don't rely upon anybody else's opinions and or ideas or beliefs like that DIA guy who didn't know shit about President Clarissa. Think critically, be analytical, be technically proficient, but always question why. If you ask why all the time, you're gonna uncover things that no one else does.

• 2:26:06Speaker 05

  People will tell you stuff, "Hey, you know what? Yeah, it's happened because of this." Just go, "Why?" It's probably my biggest piece of advice.

• 2:26:16Speaker 04

  Uh, and then one question from here. Corbin, I don't know where you're coming from, brother, but thank you very much. Could the most recent hearings on the UAP program be related to the latest Department of Defense fiscal audit? Thanks for great stories.

• 2:26:32Speaker 05

  I have no idea. I am so far removed from the, uh, the intelligence community and the administration. I'll tell you what, here's a contentious thing. The SecDef appointment. Everybody's like, "Oh, my God, why, how did he get appointed? What's he gonna do?"

• 2:26:53Speaker 05

  I think it's a good move.

• 2:26:56Speaker 05

  And, and here's why. You're bringing in someone from outside the culture.

• 2:27:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:27:05Speaker 05

  He can introduce fresh ideas, fresh perspectives. He can introduce and question why. I think the current SecDef, the old SecDef is a total piece of shit. I have no respect for a lot of the senior officers within the military right now. They're sellouts, they're politicians. And I would love to be in the administration. I would, I would love it. It would be, uh, it would be, you know, go back to ODNI.

• 2:27:37Speaker 05

  Lieutenant Commander Cisco retired as the...

• 2:27:40Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extentur, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extentur is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extentur is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

• 2:28:23Speaker 06

  Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extentur. Learn more at extentur.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

• 2:28:41Speaker 00

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• 2:29:11Speaker 05

  You know, is the director, the office director of National Intelligence. Tell you what, people would be shitting themselves because they know that... I know the inside skinny at the NSA, at the CIA, at DIA, at NGA. And they would be very scared. I would eliminate probably forty percent of the CIA's budget because it's just crap. I would eliminate the redundancy in DIA with NGIC and NSA. Ninety-nine percent of NSA's collection never gets analyzed. I mean, it's ridiculous. But anyway, sorry to digress.

• 2:29:52Speaker 04

  No, that's, that's, that's great. No, we appreciate it. Um, so, uh, check out, uh, enodoglobal.com. That's E-N-O-D-O global.com. Um, check out Jim's book, War Journal.

• 2:30:10Speaker 05

  It's the War Journal, A Young Marine's Discovery of Critical Life Lessons from Desert Storm. There's a couple War Journal books out there, but once, once again, the book is about life. The book is about lessons. The book is about, not about combat. You want to read about combat, go talk to Jaco or David Goggins or any of the other five thousand soft guys who are like, "Yeah, I had my M4 looking down the barrel."

• 2:30:38Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, Jim, thank you so much for your time. We deeply, deeply appreciate you sharing a Friday night with us.

• 2:30:46Speaker 05

  Hey, there was no place that I would rather be. Honestly, I was happy to wear my Navy shirt. Happy to be the first naval intelligence officer on your podcast and, and I hope, I hope your fans like it. I hope your audience like it and I hope you like it.

• 2:31:02Speaker 04

  We like it. We like it a lot. Um, Dee, do you know who we have on next week? Yep. Next Friday, we have, uh, Craig Jorgensen, former LERP Vietnam, so that should be good. Former Vietnam LERP, perfect. Uh, guys, don't forget to go to our Patreon, patreon.com.

• 2:31:18Speaker 03

  Slash the team has the best way to support, uh, or you could buy a bed if you want from Ghostbed.

• 2:31:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:31:23Speaker 03

  The link is in the description.

• 2:31:24Speaker 04

  Or even a pillow, their pillows are nice.

• 2:31:26Speaker 03

  Pillars are banging.

• 2:31:28Speaker 03

  Also, one more thing, Izon has its own YouTube channel, the link is in the description, check it out. We have Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, Mick Mulroy, every week. So, check it out, we talk more like topical geopolitical stuff, so. The link is in the description as long as a Patreon, all the links for Jim are in the Patreon, are in the link, are in the description.

• 2:31:51Speaker 04

  Uh, like and subscribe to the YouTube channel, please.

• 2:31:53Speaker 03

  Beautiful.

• 2:31:55Speaker 05

  I am liking and subscribing, I already have.

• 2:31:57Speaker 04

  And, and, and you also have a YouTube channel, The War Journal, correct?

• 2:32:03Speaker 05

  Yep, The War Journal, it's the only, uh, platform I'm on, and, uh, I just, I do it for my audience.

• 2:32:10Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAa. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

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• 2:33:38Speaker 05

  ...for people, and like I said, I don't want to be a content creator. I don't want to compete with you guys.

• 2:33:45Speaker 04

  There's no competition, there is plenty of space.

• 2:33:47Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting,

• 2:33:55Speaker 06

  it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection. Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, flu or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks

• 2:34:39Speaker 06

  and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

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• 2:35:17Speaker 04

  Peace in this world for everybody, so...

• 2:35:19Speaker 05

  Exactly, and I'll do everything I can to support you guys.

• 2:35:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, same here. Check out the War Journal podcast or YouTube.

• 2:35:26Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture, Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription-maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

• 2:36:09Speaker 06

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• 2:36:56Speaker 04

  The streaming channel, so. All right, everybody. Thank you very much. Have a great night. Thank you, Jim, for being with us. Thank you, man.

• 2:37:03Speaker 05

  All right.

• 2:37:04Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extensure. Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extensure is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extensure is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

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• 2:38:33Speaker 06

  Sponsored by GSK, the makers of Extenture. Depamocumab ULAA. If your asthma keeps interrupting, it may be time to try something else. Extenture is an ultra-long-acting prescription maintenance treatment for severe asthma, eosinophilic type, ages 12 and older. It isn't for sudden breathing problems. Extenture is the first and only add-on treatment that can help deliver protection from asthma attacks with two doses a year. Just one dose every six months. That's a lot of time for everything in between. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. Don't change or stop medicines, including steroids, unless told by your doctor. Report if you have a parasitic infection.

• 2:39:16Speaker 06

  Common cold, sinus infection, inflammation in the nose, blue or fluke-like symptoms, joint pain or sore throat may occur. Carry on with fewer attacks and ask your doctor about Extenture. Learn more at extenture.com or call 1-833-393-3678.

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  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. What would you like today? Can I get a number two? Anything else?

• 2:40:08Speaker 03

  Same shift. Different day. I need a smoke. What can I get you? Can I get a number four, number seven, number eight? Same shift. I need a smoke. Different day.

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