Inside MARSOC Controversies: Toxic Leaders and Moral Lines | Ivan Ingraham | Ep. 376

Ivan Ingraham returns for his second appearance to dive deeper into the powerful themes of his novel, Once We Pledged Forever, which examines the intense psychological and moral challenges faced by Marine special operations officers. Ingraham shares his insights on the corrosive effects of toxic leadership and MARSOC controversies, contrasting the warrior ethos with the difficult reality of maintaining integrity under pressure. He emphasizes the veteran's long struggle for reconciliation—balancing pride in service with the duty to family and the need to heal from war's hidden toll. Today's Sponsors: StopBox USA⬇️ Get firearm security redesigned and save with BOGO the StopBox Pro AND 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code HOUSE at https://www.stopboxusa.com/HOUSE GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! PIA VPN ⬇️ https://piavpn.com/TeamHouse For 83% off plus 4 months free! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse 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 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 Start 01:18 Book's Genre and Tone 03:50 Writing Fiction vs. Memoir 10:50 Controversies and "Blowback" 17:48 Military Brotherhood and Leadership 29:26 Family Impact: Compartmentalization 49:25 Deployment: Anger and the Moral Line 53:50 Analysis of Toxic Leadership 1:05:30 Reconciling Service Pride vs. War's Reality 1:22:27 Core Theme: Healing and Reconciliation 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.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 0:13Speaker 01

  Zolir 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolir, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolir. Zolir may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolir should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolir is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolir.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolir. This is an advertisement for Zolir

• 0:58Speaker 01

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 1:00Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Kris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over 1,000 different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:30Speaker 04

  The Team House with your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:43Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. This is episode 376 of The Team House. I am Jack Murphy, here with tonight's guest, Ivan Ingram. He is the author of "Once We Pledged Forever", which we're going to talk to about tonight. We had him on the show back on episode 342, talking about his career in the Marine Corps, MARSOC, some other interesting assignments. Hope you guys will go and check it out. So Ivan, welcome back to the show. It is great to be back. Love it here. And we should point out, tonight we are smoking the 1964 anniversary edition of the Padrones. In my opinion, this is their best cigar. This is the Maduro. No complaints. Paired with Diplomatico.

• 2:29Jack Murphy?

  A little bit of Venezuelan rum.

• 2:32Speaker 06

  It goes well. Pairs well.

• 2:37Jack Murphy?

  So, I mean, I'm not sure exactly where to pick it up, but I read your book. I actually read, you know, obviously it's available in hardcover right now. I read it on that dang fangled Kindle. And it was really good on there. I mean, people should check it out. But the book is, how would you describe it? Like, you know, you told me a little bit earlier that it's kind of like defies the norms of any given genre. And it's also like very autobiographical in many ways, right?

• 3:08Speaker 06

  It is. And it does, or it does, and it is. The book, it is available on Kindle, both hard and soft cover. And then, of course, any platform in which you publish it, someone's going to want something more. Is it Audible? We haven't gotten it there yet.

• 3:24Jack Murphy?

  Yes, I know. Is it available in Polish?

• 3:26Speaker 06

  Yes. Is it a movie? No, but we're looking for one, uh, backers. So, please.

• 3:34Speaker 06

  When I went to start pitching it, I had a hard time conveying to potential agents just exactly what it would be. And they, because they very much want to have something they can say, okay, this is a military thriller. This is a military action book. It's a romance, or whatever it happens, the genre, they want to be able to bend that pretty directly, or exactly. So then when they go to talk to publishers, they don't have any problem.

• 4:07Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 4:09Speaker 06

  The book itself covers quite a bunch of different tones. It is indeed an action book, it's a military action book, but is also a book of redemption, reconciliation. And as I talked with my publisher, and he read it, he's like, you know, really, this book is a love story. It is about not only the love of the main character, Steve Keller, and his relationship to his family and his wife, but also that same relationship and fraternity that he has with his men. And sometimes how those two relationships are at odds, at very big odds. So.

• 4:51Speaker 06

  To your question about autobiography, that is indeed how the book started out.

• 4:58Speaker 06

  More as a record for my family, just as something for me to get down on paper and say, okay, over the course of my career, this is what I did.

• 5:11Jack Murphy?

  And is it a novel because you didn't want to put people's real names in it?

• 5:14Speaker 06

  Well, there are some people with real names in there, but for, for very specific reasons.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  Couple of reasons for that. As I talked to more agents, people said military memoirs do indeed sell, but really to a niche crowd.

• 5:29Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 5:30Speaker 06

  People who are into kind of what we like to read, what a probably a large number of the fans of this podcast and other military-based podcasts, they very much will enjoy the book.

• 5:43Speaker 06

  But those, one of the agents gave me a good piece of advice and said, unless you've got a lot of followers and people kind of know who you are, i.e. you're like McRaven or Charles Beckwith or something, you know, where people can immediately recognize your name and you're going to have a brand that comes along with it because of that recognition. It'll just be a book that gets published and it's yet another one that's kind of on the, on the shelves about someone's military experience. And that is not to diminish anybody who's published books in that, in that genre, in that vein. And there's some very good ones out there.

• 6:17Speaker 06

  But the other thing is that as I started talking with people, it's particularly my friend Scott Hughesing, who wrote Echo and Ramadi, and is actually is my agent now.

• 6:28Speaker 06

  He read the initial manuscript and said, if, if you look at this from the perspective of writing it as a fiction or a piece of fiction, you will have a lot more latitude to actually explore.

• 6:44Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 6:44Speaker 06

  The things, the themes that you want to look at in this book.

• 6:49Speaker 06

  And I hadn't thought of it that way at all. And of course, it's very much, I don't want to betray my own authenticity in these people. And he's like, no, no, it'll all be, you can still have all of that, but you'll have a lot more, the aperture is going to be very wide.

• 7:01Jack Murphy?

  To drive the point home.

• 7:02Speaker 06

  Exactly. And you'll be able to kind of weave things together. Because as I say in the book, they all happened in some capacity. Not all of them happened to me, exactly, and you know, as it's listed, but I could take those pieces and then create the story.

• 7:18Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 7:19Speaker 06

  And once I embraced that, he was right. Opened up a larger creative valve.

• 7:28Jack Murphy?

  The only piece of any kind of media that I would compare this book to as far as like what you were able to achieve with it, and I mean this as a compliment, have you ever seen the play Last Out, Scott Mann's play?

• 7:43Speaker 06

  I have seen it online. I've never seen it live.

• 7:46Jack Murphy?

  Okay, so you know what it's about.

• 7:47Speaker 06

  So Scott, yeah, Scott and I have been, we've been in communication with each other, not since I wrote the book. I like his work a lot, respect, respect a lot of the things that he's done. It's great.

• 7:58Jack Murphy?

  I think that, you know, your book kind of rose to that level that, you know, I really respected that play that they put together because it's the first time I had ever seen in any piece of media, book, movie, whatever, TV show, that really told like the story of a special forces soldier, kind of from the beginning, literally to the end. And all the like highs and lows and everything in between, some of the darker things that happened in the job, the difficult decisions, like your book is in that same vein, except you did that for a Marsoc Raider. And I really appreciated that about the book.

• 8:34Speaker 06

  Thank you. The tenor certainly is a heavy, heavy book in my, it's published by the Sager Group, Mike Sager is my publisher. And he's been around in the business for quite a while. He wrote for Esquire and Rolling Stone, actually hung out with Hunter S. Thompson. He's interesting in his own vein because of that, his own right. But he gave me a lot of good steering. One of the great things is he did not put any limitations on the creative process. In fact, he said he didn't want to change it. He really liked the story. He said what really made it unique was that it did indeed come from a different perspective. It's not so much a chest-thumping, ooh rah, book of just...

• 9:15Speaker 06

  Tales of Let's Go Boys Adventure. It's more that the protagonist, Steve Keller is, he wrestles with his decisions and he has a lot of doubt.

• 9:27Speaker 06

  Some of the reviews so far on Amazon, people say they really like it because the character has a lot, all the characters have depth.

• 9:35Speaker 06

  And they're not, they're not, not only not one dimensional, but they're flawed.

• 9:41Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 9:41Speaker 06

  And so people then are kind of like, well, do I like this guy? Do I, do I support what he's saying? And it is meant to make people think because there's a lot of ambiguity, obviously in combat. And the way I approached it also is that it's sort of a nonlinear narrative with a little bit of supernatural undertone. And that's what I'm saying. So the, the, the, uh, these established agents were just like, what am I going to do with this? Like, how am I going to sell this book?

• 10:09Jack Murphy?

  I mean, I, I have to say, we did interview someone on this podcast who, he was in such a bad way. He would talk about getting drunk in his living room and having full-blown conversations with one of his teammates that had been killed. So, which is the supernatural element in your book. I mean, it's, to me, it did not ring as, you know, supernatural. It's actually something that some people have experienced, you know, and when they're in a bad way.

• 10:39Speaker 06

  I, I think so. And I think those, the past has an interesting way of reaching out at times. And you don't always get to decide, at least for veterans, and this could be anyone from, with, doing with post-traumatic.

• 10:54Jack Murphy?

  When it hits you.

• 10:55Speaker 06

  Sure. You, you, you don't necessarily get to decide.

• 10:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 06

  When that happens. It's, in the book, it's, it's very clean, if you will, you know, well, the, the actual interactions between the ghost and Keller are, are, are clean when, when the conversations happen. But when Keller first encounters him, there's just.

• 11:13Jack Murphy?

  Freaked out.

• 11:14Speaker 06

  Like, holy, what, what, what am I seeing here? Even though he knows what, what's going on. And he's looking for that, that.

• 11:23Speaker 06

  Ability to converse and unload, and I think a lot of people are, I think they they want that, depending on what they've what they've gone through in their lives. In our line of work with what we're doing in the military, particularly high end kinetic combat, you've made decisions so quickly that when you come back around to really decide or look at those that decision process, you may second guess yourself for for quite a long time. And I think I wrestled with that myself in my own career and that comes through in the book.

• 11:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't necessarily want to like go through the entire plot of the book blow by blow because, well, partly because I think people should just read it to get that kind of information, but also because we kind of went through your own career blow by blow in the in the last episode. But I would like to at least zero in on a couple different themes and issues and things that come up in the book. Some of it pretty controversial, I think, and you you had mentioned you got some blowback already from this book, right?

• 12:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, I have. Some people have not necessarily liked the method in which it it conveys certain things. Some people have said that it it presents Marine Corps and Marsoc in a bad light. I don't I don't believe so. I think that that the narrative is a vehicle, that the backdrop is indeed the unit that I was in, but there are multiple units and things that that these types of things that happen in the book have occurred. And there are there are items within, you know, the the history of of both the Marine Corps and Marsoc in which the are are illustrated in there and people have not particularly

• 13:12Speaker 06

  if not that has not been met particularly positive. So, yeah, fraternally, there are some people who just went like I'm I don't like Ivan's work and I'm not endorsing it and I won't. So.

• 13:23Jack Murphy?

  Because it makes the brand look bad.

• 13:24Speaker 06

  Yeah. And that that's not something I sent out to do.

• 13:28Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 13:28Speaker 06

  Is, I mean, I'm very proud of my service. I'm obviously a plank owner in Marsoc and it's not I'm not out there banging a drum trying to ma- make that sound.

• 13:37Jack Murphy?

  But some of these things which I think maybe you may reference it in the book, but it's not talked about explicitly is, you know, Fred Galvin's experience in his book, you know, so like the, he was exonerated, to be clear, and his guys did, apparently did nothing wrong. But I mean, it's still, there's this controversy and this terrible journey that him and his guys went through, which is, you know, has some similarities to the protagonist of your book.

• 14:05Speaker 06

  There, there is, and Fred and I have, have not specifically spoken about his book. But we spoke, I certainly knew Fred at the time that that was going down and it, and it does factor into some of the, the difficult parts of, of trying to remain loyal to your people while there's a lot of things swirling around you, your own command to sort of turn their back on you.

• 14:27Speaker 06

  I tried to put myself kind of in Fred's position and say, okay, what, what might that have felt like? And it, it sort of, I wouldn't say naturally fed to that, but it was just a way, going back to what Scott had said, hey, if you write this as a piece of fiction, it didn't exactly happen to you, but you look at it from.

• 14:42Jack Murphy?

  It's a composite.

• 14:43Speaker 06

  Right. Amalgamation of experiences and

• 14:49Speaker 06

  truthfully, you know, in the book, I do mention that the special forces units that were attached or working with us in many ways were there to keep tabs on us as a result of what happened with Fred and his guys. Because they just so calm, writ large and used to sock in particular, did not trust Marsoc.

• 15:04Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 15:05Speaker 06

  And that was a tough thing to operate under at that point in time. And so, again, this is in no way to diminish anything of Fred and his guys and I knew many of them and still speak to some of them and think, think well of their service, but they were in a very difficult spot that we all sort of lived in the shadow of regardless of how

• 15:26Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 15:26Speaker 06

  It, it ended up being solved. As you said, adjudicated, but at that point in time, it was all happening.

• 15:35Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 15:36Speaker 06

  In parallel, in real time, as, as I was experiencing kind of what gets illustrated.

• 15:43Jack Murphy?

  And is there also sort of like a split in the command of like people who are in support of and others who are like throwing the dude under the bus?

• 15:50Speaker 06

  This seems to happen inevitably.

• 15:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 15:53Speaker 06

  That there'll be a split. And there's something to be said for everyone gets their due.

• 16:01Speaker 06

  Let the legal process take its course. Everyone's innocent until proven guilty. But there'll be a lot of, well, I think they're guilty.

• 16:09Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 16:11Speaker 06

  And you're either on board with this or not. And early in my career, I had just on a nominal level. We, I was an investigating officer for a, because a piece of equipment, satellite communications equipment got broken. And what happened is a bunch of guys who were offloading a truck just grabbed the ruck and just threw it off the back.

• 16:37Jack Murphy?

  As one does.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, just unloading at two o'clock in the morning, not knowing what was in it. And it's a very expensive piece of equipment. It broke. And as I was brought in and after I did, I was brought in after I did the investigation and I said, okay, this is what I found. Literally, it is no one's fault.

• 16:56Speaker 06

  It is something that just happened. Yes, the people who are responsible are these people, however.

• 17:01Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, they wouldn't have done that if they knew.

• 17:02Speaker 06

  Right. To say this person broke this or this person is, you know, directly responsible, you know, check their pay, that was just not possible. And the officer above me, who I was giving that to was like, someone will be blamed for this. Some, go find, I was like, I can't go do that. Okay, who shall I pick? You insubordinate, you know, you'll see a trend in there, you know, that I'm getting poked in the chest about that. So that, if something can happen on that kind of smaller level, when you get into laws of armed conflict and some serious decision making in, in, you know, split second decision making in difficult circumstances, that just takes it to another level.

• 17:38Jack Murphy?

  When you described that, it reminds me of, um, somebody who was on this show, but I won't, I won't say his name. I don't think he would want me to attach him to this story particularly, but in the special operations community. And he was a leader. Some of his guys were out training. One of them got killed. Totally an accident. It was, there weren't even firearms. The guy fell.

• 18:06Jack Murphy?

  And they wanted him to blame the subordinate that that soldier's team leader. You know, throw him under the bus, fry him and like, hey, we've looked at this whole thing like they didn't do anything wrong. And so the chain of command fired that dude and the guy who was the team leader. So he got fired because he wouldn't fire the team leader. I mean, it's like, what the hell?

• 18:33Speaker 06

  They can absolutely go scorched earth. And I, and I do remember with, with Fred and his guys, you know, there was this, it was kind of this pall hanging over when they came back.

• 18:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Like I said, I don't think you directly referenced it in the book, but like there's this pall hanging over the unit and I knew what you're talking about.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  And so as you see in the, in, you know, in the book, it's there's in microcosm, that's kind of what happens, people take up sides.

• 19:02Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, it's your pal Jack. I just want to take a moment to tell you about the sponsor for this show, which is StopBox. StopBox makes this very cool box to secure your items in, your valuables or weapons, could be a firearm, knife, things that you want to keep away from kids. Opens up like so, and the way it locks is very interesting. And you can change the combination, by the way. So you have these actuators on the side. And in this case, for demonstration purposes, the code is to hold down the index finger and pointer finger and then come over and there's a thumb.

• 19:45Jack Murphy?

  Hit that and it opens up. So that's the code. And this thing is proudly made in the US of A, so they keep the quality very high. It's also TSA compliant, so you can throw this in a bag and travel with it. And StopBox also offers a range of other innovative products, including their vehicle safe, chamber lock, and other essential gear designed to keep you prepared and protected wherever you are. For a limited time only, our listeners are getting a crazy deal. Not only do you get 10% off your entire order when you use the code HOUSE at StopBoxUSA.com, but they are also giving you a buy one, get one free for their StopBox Pro. That's 10% off and a free StopBox Pro when you use the code HOUSE at StopBoxUSA.com.

• 20:33Jack Murphy?

  Discover a better way to balance security and readiness with StopBox.

• 20:38Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 20:52Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 21:03Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 21:08Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 21:14Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 21:35Speaker 10

  You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on spinquest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite spots, live blackjack, live craps, with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. Play spinquest.com and you'll never be bored again.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 22:04Speaker 11

  You get another IRS letter and your stomach drops. Your tax debt keeps growing. You fear wage garnishments or your bank accounts being levied. Interest is growing daily. You've heard the tax relief commercials. But when your financial future is at stake, experience matters. Delta Tax Group's team of experts have helped over 25,000 people resolve their tax issues over the last 17 years. Their tax professionals will help you understand your options with a free case analysis and free consultation. Don't figure it out alone. If the IRS is threatening to garnish your paycheck, levy your bank account, or put a lien on your home, you need to call. Call Delta Tax Group now. They'll help you today with unfilled tax returns or tax debt.

• 22:47Speaker 11

  Don't wait for the IRS letter. Stop the nightmare and get your peace of mind back. Call Delta Tax Group now at 800-611-7199. That's 800-611-7199. 800-611-7199 or visit delta tax group.com.

• 23:05Jack Murphy?

  We were talking a little bit about earlier, um, how like these units form little cliques inside them. And this is like one of the big, um, I don't want to say like there isn't brotherhood in the military or in special operations or absolutely is, but like when you talk to civilians or like when you talk to your parents, they have this like, um, impression that it's like the band of brothers and everyone's like, I got your back, brother. And you know, all this sort of stuff and there's some of that. Sure. There's, there's support. Absolutely. But as these like splits happen that you talk about, they're like these little friend groups, peer groups, uh, form.

• 23:45Jack Murphy?

  And you know, what your future looks like in the military sometimes depends on which of those groups you're aligned with, uh, or friends with.

• 23:54Speaker 06

  I, I think that that lends itself to people also in a sense of self-preservation.

• 24:01Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 24:02Speaker 06

  If it's loyalty to a fault and that's up and down the chain of command, well, you're going down with whatever happens. And if you distance yourself from that to some degree, then you can be, you, you can have a, a bigger standoff. And by not getting involved, you're, you're, you're, you're better off not taking up sides. But those loyalties go deep. And as I write in the beginning of the book, you know, we once pledged forever to the other. And now we never talk.

• 24:30Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 24:30Speaker 06

  Like we, that, that's how a lot of this works. Um, and, and the book, certainly it centers around an officer, Steve Keller, who is by all means, my, my avatar, if you will, because as I said, it started out as a, as a biography.

• 24:51Speaker 06

  Although I developed Keller to be a little bit different than me. I mean, he's just got, he's more interesting than I am. A little more depth. Uh, but, um, the, the biggest thing is that the.

• 25:03Speaker 06

  The typical memoir, the typical story, particularly the officer, generally not told from his perspective. And two, the officer, Hollywood has done a huge disservice because the officer is either incompetent or a complete, you know, self righteous prick. And there are indeed some, you know, typecast guys in this book. But in the main, decision making is hard and combat decision making is hard and maintaining cohesion while you're having your guys being involved in high end kinetic combat and maintain their humanity such as you can in those environments is unlike anything out there.

• 25:45Jack Murphy?

  There's, um.

• 25:48Speaker 06

  Corporate can't envision that, no matter what they think on the layoff.

• 25:51Jack Murphy?

  There's also this portrayal, I think, there has been, and also the military, of course, itself advances this, this idea of like, you know, the zero body fat general that runs 10 miles every morning and is this like admired leader.

• 26:06Speaker 06

  We still want to think that.

• 26:07Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, we still, we still want to think that. But I think over the last 10 years, there have been enough high ranking officers showing their ass in public that like that kind of perception has started to wear off. And I think you can see that and how this, how the public relates to the military and everything going on right now.

• 26:25Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I think the book tries to, our attempt in the book to address the larger gap between the, the public and those of us who serve. Cause that's getting, that's widening yet more. And at one point we were all, you know, thank, thank you for your service. And we were serving in two fronts and people kind of understood or knew somebody that was going to war or was at war. And then as that started to wind down and diminish, you just, fewer and fewer people have that kind of exposure. And so because of that, um, those are areas that you're talking about where it becomes yet more sensational.

• 27:07Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 27:08Speaker 06

  I was like, oh gosh, has this been going on the whole time?

• 27:10Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 27:12Speaker 06

  Uh-uh. Maybe.

• 27:18Jack Murphy?

  Hey, some of us tried to warn you.

• 27:20Speaker 06

  Whoa.

• 27:22Speaker 06

  And this is not, this is not a confession or apology.

• 27:27Speaker 06

  I promise.

• 27:29Jack Murphy?

  Um, yeah, so there, there's a, a specific example in the book I want to get into, but before we go into that, we should probably back up a little bit, you know, you start off, you know, your protagonist in the book, Steve Keller, he goes through a Marsoc selection, gets to his unit and, um, like pretty quickly kind of falls under, uh, his, his superior, who kind of becomes his mentor, um, it was a Joyce in the book, right?

• 27:55Speaker 06

  Roland Joyce, that's right.

• 27:56Jack Murphy?

  And, um, I mean, was that like a, a, that, that's obviously like, as I'm reading this, I'm like, this is something that he actually experienced.

• 28:04Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 28:05Speaker 06

  And, uh, out of respect for the family of who that guy is based upon, I, I have to leave his, his real name out of that.

• 28:13Jack Murphy?

  Even though you loved him.

• 28:15Speaker 06

  Loved him.

• 28:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 06

  Yes. Uh, and he, he was unlike any person I've ever met. He's unlike any person, anyone, anyone probably has ever met. And, uh, you know, the basis for, for who he is. And honestly, some of the interactions that happened within that book have indeed, have indeed happened to me. So I, I have to, I have him to thank for me getting involved, um, in, in the way that I did, but I, that just rarely happens.

• 28:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 28:49Speaker 06

  That you get to have someone like that who's literally gonna take you under their wing and, and take you on their journey with them.

• 29:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. And I mean, I, I think Steve Keller in the book, uh, is like, kind of like beside himself, like, why does this guy even want anything to do with me?

• 29:09Speaker 06

  And, and I was. He was, he is.

• 29:13Jack Murphy?

  We, um, you know, and, and then, you know, the, the tragedy, I feel like as I'm reading the book, Steve Keller, uh, you know, things start to come unraveled for him. I feel like if you're gonna point to a certain thing is when Joyce dies, when Joyce is killed in combat. And, you know, do you want to talk a little bit about like, kind of what happened there?

• 29:33Speaker 06

  Well, you.

• 29:37Speaker 06

  You're friends with people.

• 29:41Speaker 06

  Close friends with somebody. And then they have a friendship set which you kind of get brought into, particularly if they've got a larger group of people with whom that they interact. And

• 29:54Speaker 06

  that may make you a periphery in some ways. Although he did not make me feel that I was a periphery. I was actively involved and I knew and he was. The thing that made him really, really great was that he was friends with all kinds of people. He didn't really care of your MOS or what you did. You didn't have to be a commando. And he just knew so many people and touched so many people that by his presence, you just felt good around him. And so I was involved in that. And then when, you know, in the book, when when he dies and Keller has to sort of come to terms with now he's very alone, or at least feels abandoned by Joyce's abandoned by Joyce because of his death.

• 30:41Speaker 06

  He then comes to find that he was not necessarily in the club.

• 30:46Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 30:47Speaker 06

  Or in that circle. And it wasn't that Joyce is lying to Keller. It's just like, this is just how he made people feel. And without that central figure to be the

• 30:58Jack Murphy?

  Bind it together.

• 30:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, to be the centrifugal pull. The centrifugal would be putting it out, but to be that central focal point, that magnet, then people kind of dissipate. And that was, that was a really hard thing for me to deal with personally when that happened, but also certainly it's conveyed in the book. That feeling of loneliness and alienation, that's another tone that's kind of captured in there.

• 31:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of heart wrenching to read and it's this very, like you can empathize, I could empathize with the protagonist in that there's this sense of like you're an insider, but you're still outside.

• 31:36Speaker 06

  Or you believed yourself to be an insider.

• 31:37Jack Murphy?

  Right. Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 06

  And then you're like, wait a second, the door's closing. I want to come. Wait, why is, why am I still sitting out here? And that kind of.

• 31:49Jack Murphy?

  And that was when at the, at the funeral and like Steve Keller is one of the pallbearers for his commander, but like these other guys are looking at him like, what, why are you

• 31:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, what are you doing here?

• 31:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 06

  Who, how, how do you, how do you rate being here?

• 32:02Jack Murphy?

  And you, you'd think being in combat with him when he died would be, you know, a

• 32:06Speaker 06

  You, you would, you would, you would hope.

• 32:08Jack Murphy?

  Kind of a thing, right?

• 32:09Speaker 06

  You would hope that that's how that all put together.

• 32:10Jack Murphy?

  That kind of matters.

• 32:11Speaker 06

  And to, to, to be fair, in the, in the, in the, in the actual, you know, world, he, um, the guy on whom Joyce is based, uh, was killed out, outside of me. He, he died elsewhere. So I, I kind of.

• 32:25Jack Murphy?

  Okay. Cause he, in the book, like you guys are on opposite sides of the objective or something.

• 32:29Speaker 06

  Right, right. And in this case, we're on opposite sides of the world.

• 32:31Jack Murphy?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 32:32Speaker 06

  In the real, in the real world, but this just made it, it, it's an imagined idea of kind of what.

• 32:37Jack Murphy?

  Gotcha.

• 32:38Speaker 06

  How, how I might've been when, you know, when I was there, if, if I'd been there when that happened. And that goes back to what we're talking about, where, you know, once you have the artistic space, the palette, you've got your palette and then you've got this big canvas in front of you, well, then you can.

• 32:53Jack Murphy?

  And you'd string it together to say something, yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 06

  Yeah. And it makes the point pretty well. And I'll also say this, um, the, the book is, it's meant to be a story that people can relate to, based upon, as I said, relationships. And my primary editor, uh, ahead of sending, you know, to really finish the manuscript is a woman named, uh, Kaidy Keating, and she, she gave two passes, developmental passes on, on my manuscript. She's not a military person, um, and she is not, not really familiar at all with military stuff. So once she helped me like, hey, I shouldn't need a glossary to read this book, like, you know, clean up some of this jargon that you've got.

• 33:38Speaker 06

  Um, but on the other part, like, she's like, you need to hone in on feelings and, and how people are reacting instead of being expository in the description. Like, people need to be able to read that in a different method. Again, this is helping me develop as a writer.

• 33:55Jack Murphy?

  I moved my selector from safe to fire.

• 33:58Speaker 06

  Exactly. And then if I product place the gun, then it becomes, you know, something else, right? Then it's a soldier of fortune advertisement. And I'm, I'm, I didn't want to do that either, but.

• 34:12Speaker 06

  Ultimately, eighty-five percent of the people who consume books and read them are are women. And I I wrote a book I hope will will

• 34:22Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 34:23Speaker 06

  be appealing to a wide range of people, of readers. Even though I will not, it's undeniable, it's there's a military flavored book. But I've had other people read it. I've had female readers, had female beta readers read it. And they were like, this is, this is, this is great. This is something very, very different.

• 34:40Jack Murphy?

  You, I mean,

• 34:42Speaker 06

  Going back to what we're talking about with the relationship with Keller.

• 34:44Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. And I mean, to to kind of go a little deeper into that. Um, one of the things your book talks about is the relationship with the family, with the children, with the wives. Um, and Keller's relationship with his wife, which like they love each other. But also there's this separation and like, the more you pursue your marine career, the further away she kind of becomes and she feels this jealousy of it and all of this. I mean, it was very like, um, yeah, that's the part they don't usually show you in the movies.

• 35:17Speaker 06

  But i- i- if so, it's done in sort of a sickly sweet

• 35:22Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 06

  kind of way. Um, I wanted to have gravitas. I wanted to capture that sort of like, it's not just the crossing of the arms, like, you love these guys more than me. It's more of like, you're slipping away from me because

• 35:39Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 35:40Speaker 06

  you're you're making this choice.

• 35:42Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 35:42Speaker 06

  And, uh, I'd be remiss in saying that that that did happen or or denying that that that didn't happen. It absolutely happened. And and I talk about compartmentalization in the book, particularly as it pertains to the military member going overseas and saying, okay, I have to be very focused on all of this. Um, but a friend of mine made a a pretty great observation.

• 36:10Speaker 06

  That all you're doing is pressing pause like on a DVD or VHS or something.

• 36:15Jack Murphy?

  Right. Yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 06

  That energy hasn't gone anywhere. That, that, the problem of that conflict, that friction is still there. You're just putting, putting it somewhere else for a moment. Now, how that comes to, to a head, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, God forbid, family abuse, divorce, all, all of these horrible things that can happen as a result, generally stems from, you don't understand me because dot, dot, dot. Well, you haven't allowed me in to understand.

• 36:47Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 36:47Speaker 06

  And that, and so that becomes, that family dynamic was something I didn't think had been captured particularly, particularly well.

• 36:54Jack Murphy?

  I've, I've had wives tell me over the years about how, you know, when their husband is repeatedly deployed for long periods of time. And when the husband is gone, the rest of the family, the wife and the kids get into this new routine of going to school and doing things. And the, the mother plays both the mother and the father role and all of these things, right? And then when the husband comes back from deployment and they'll, they'll say things like, yeah, after he's home for like three or four weeks, I'm like, can you just deploy again? Like, can you get out of here? Because you're ruining the routine.

• 37:25Speaker 06

  I, I was the fun dad. I admit like I.

• 37:32Jack Murphy?

  But I mean, it's, it's a, it's a real thing. It's a real dynamic that exists to try to like find this balance, which is, I mean, hats off to any couple that finds it.

• 37:41Speaker 06

  I'm not sure I, I would say that I ever achieved the balance. We found a way to balance it, but I don't think I ever found the, I couldn't say, here's the secret, guys. Like you just, just do this. Like, uh, you know, it's different for everybody. It takes.

• 37:54Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, what do you think if, if there's like a, a key point to put your finger on, to make it through all of that? What, what, what makes the difference?

• 38:04Speaker 06

  Well, I will say the compartmentalization for me did. And there's also an acknowledgement when you get back that you you have to re-enter the world that that is there, not the one you want it to be. And you can't reasonably expect them to come into your world again and understand it.

• 38:20Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 38:20Speaker 06

  And I will say, particularly in the special operations community, like the levels of divorce are absolutely astronomical. And, you know, maybe it takes a while for a husband and wife to, or a guy, as he's, this will sound bad, but making his way through wives, finding that person who's finally going to understand him. Or maybe it's just put up with your lame shit. I don't know. But ultimately, there has to be a meeting in the middle of that bridge. And you have to have to understand, you know, you can't go back, and you have to be able to progress forward together. And there has to be an acknowledgement, perhaps give yourself some grace, for God's sake, that you went through something terrible.

• 39:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. And you can't you can't come back with this attitude of like, you don't know what I've been through. This is not their fault. How could they?

• 39:09Speaker 06

  And are you really going to lay that out for them?

• 39:11Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Are you gonna tell them?

• 39:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. How could they know if you're not telling them?

• 39:16Speaker 06

  And I think a lot, a lot of ways, you know, the writing that I've done in my novels, or novellas, the smaller books that I've written, to up to this point, which were literally things that didn't fit in this book and kind of became their own stories, as well as my own writing, Substack, and some of the other nonfiction commentary pieces, all of that has to do with a little bit of cleansing catharsis. I'm not sure that you can call it closure, because you're never going to really close that out. But I think that you, for me, anyway, that allows me to unpack those compartments, and press play on those, those tapes, and, and get it out. And there's still plenty more maybe to write, but I feel like I'm in a good space at this point. I'm actually giving myself a little

• 40:01Speaker 06

  bit of creative pause, even though every day I'm like, I should be writing more. I need to be doing more. I need to be, you know, creating more. I wrote this whole ass novel, and it's taken me a long time to do it. And I'm really proud of it. And I love talking about it. I love talking about the writing process. So I'm really happy to be on the, on the show tonight to do that.

• 40:24Speaker 06

  But this is the first time I've actually allowed myself to sit back and go, you know what, man, you did something cool. Maybe it's time to just bask in that a little bit, you know?

• 40:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 40:36Speaker 06

  For, for whatever it is.

• 40:38Jack Murphy?

  Well, it goes back to finding the balance between like some of the bitterness or the decisions you wish you had made differently with, you know, I'm really proud of what I did.

• 40:46Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, I've got 17 reviews. I wish I'd had 1700. I'd love to be sitting here right now, you know, with any number of accolades. Who doesn't want to be thought of well, right? That you wrote something great or you wrote something that people think are great. Um, I'm not afraid of success. I just don't really know what it looks like at the moment. And, you know, you hope that that's going to somehow materialize. But on the other side, you know, I wrote it. People say, who's your audience for this? And I, I wrote it for me and I did write it for my family and I wrote it for people that I know. And I think I wrote it for other veterans who might be struggling. I wrote it for families and I wrote it, you know, there's all these things that kind of just blossomed as, as a result of this that I hadn't necessarily considered as, it wasn't like I was set out. Look, this is exactly how I'm going to put this together.

• 41:26Jack Murphy?

  And another aspect of it to, to, if we haven't ratcheted up the tension enough on this protagonist is that his wife has cancer, that she's having bouts of going into remission, it's coming back. And I mean, again, that's like, I had a teammate whose wife went exactly through that. I mean,

• 41:45Speaker 06

  And you're somehow got to stay focused on,

• 41:47Jack Murphy?

  On the mission.

• 41:48Speaker 06

  The mission. And especially as an officer. And, and this is the crazy thing is you, you want to do your job, or at least at that point in time, we did. I wanted to play. I want to get out there. I want to, I gotta lead my guys. This is what I joined to do. As Keller's told us, you were born to do this job. And I believed it. And now maybe I'm not doing that anymore. And I go, now what am I born to do? I guess it's be a writer or talk or shit. I don't know. But at that point in time, it was like, okay, I, I firmly grasped hold of this. And then you've got this whole other distractor on the other side. And I wouldn't call it distractor necessarily. That's not the right word, but you, you've got something that is, is pulling it at you.

• 42:35Speaker 06

  That divides your attention and divides.

• 42:39Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 42:39Speaker 06

  It really does divide your loyalty. And if you spend too much time thinking about it, no matter how important it is to you, it can get you killed. And you will, or as an officer, you can't make the right decisions. And that's a, that's a difficult place.

• 42:54Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 06

  To be in.

• 42:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I had, a, a, again, I won't mention the gentleman's name because I'm not trying to skyline somebody who doesn't want to be out there. But this officer that I had, you know, his wife had cancer and he didn't tell any of us about it. It's just private business. He doesn't have, owe us any of those explanations. But it got to the point where he was like, he finally, I, I guess you could say, put his foot down and made the call like, hey, I have to go home early now. Like, we're probably a little bit more than halfway through the deployment. I totally respect it. He's like, my wife is now at this point with this disease. I have to go home and deal with this because for, I, I think he made the right decision exactly for the reasons you lay out. Like your loyalties are being divided, you know, whether you like it or not.

• 43:41Speaker 06

  I had, I had a good friend of mine, as I was joining the Marine Corps, he told me, you know, whether you're in the Marine Corps for four years or you make a 40-year career of it, at one point it will end. And you will have great memories and great experiences that you can look back upon. But you need to ensure that your family is there at the end as well.

• 44:00Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 44:01Speaker 06

  And you, you have to figure out what that looks like for you and, and you, you may have to make some decisions, to your point, that, that are juxtaposed against your sense of duty.

• 44:17Jack Murphy?

  It's a, you know, kind of ironical, I guess, in one way that, you know, while you're a Marine or a soldier, whoever, you're out there pursuing this, this dream of yours. But like the family structure really is the support system, even as, as you leave them behind. And when you see that support structure start to collapse, divorce and families splitting up, that's like an indicator, right? That things are not going right.

• 44:43Speaker 06

  And, and I think people are quick to blame the veteran or blame perhaps even the spouse for not sticking around.

• 44:50Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 06

  And some, some could say, who could blame them? Especially if it's violent, especially if they're dealing with alcohol, substance abuse.

• 45:01Speaker 06

  They're wrestling with things psychologically and they, you know, I don't need any help. One of the best things we ever did was especially, especially in the special operations community was not only get more psychologists, but deploy them forward to actually start talking to people. So you have someone to talk to and the psychologist and quite frankly, you know, the padre, the priest, whoever, someone with whom you could just express these, these things with, because it's not natural. Warfare is, is, is a human endeavor and it's also very unnatural.

• 45:35Speaker 06

  And so as I allude to in the book, or I write about it in the book, you, you can't be good at war and also revel in it. I don't think. Perhaps there's sociopaths and people like that are just, just don't care, but I, I think if you're thinking, and we want thinking soldiers and we want thinking people who will make correct analysis, not enough to just thump your chest and say, it's warrior ethos, we're lethal, we're going to, fuck all that noise. You need to be able to have people who can make the right decisions. I mean, this is, for God's sake, we, we came up with the law of armed conflict after World War I because it was so freaking bad that there had to be some method Right.

• 46:11Speaker 06

  to, to harness, to like put limits on this shit.

• 46:17Speaker 06

  Now, it's a lot for a German soldier to say that using shotguns are inhumane when they were burning people with flamethrowers and using poison gas. It's somewhere in there, we have to be able to go, all right, he's got a point, you've got a point. And what do, how are we going to conduct ourselves? Because this is freaking terrible. And when you fight a war for 20 years and you do it with a volunteer force and you send people back for multiple deployments, and there were guys who had way more deployments than me in other units and saw much more protracted combat in very difficult situations. I know a guy who killed someone in hand-to-hand combat with his helmet. Now you don't, you don't just go down to Home Depot and get a job after that. Yeah, I mean, it's an ugly thing. Right, and so how do you deal with that?

• 47:02Speaker 06

  And how do you come to terms with that? Never mind the fact that you might have done something that, you know, in the heat of the moment was one thing, but then you had a premeditation. Right, right. Because you were so angry that someone else got killed, one of your buddies. I mean, there's a psychology there that just is hard to wrap your head around. It's one of the reasons my father spent so much time studying unit cohesion and how people, how soldiers in particular, deal with stuff like that. What was he trying to kind of grapple with his own experiences? Well, my dad was a Vietnam-era soldier, but he did not serve in Vietnam. But he did help with the organizational psychology and the study of the United States Army in the post-Vietnam era, in particular, Staff Anse Corps,

• 47:49Speaker 06

  in trying to get around why morale was so bad in the Army, not only in the Vietnam period, but then post-war, really, really bad. The military was bad all the way around, Marine Corps included. And that took a long time to rebuild. And so he spent a lot of time talking with people, guys in the brig, people who were in trouble for assaulting their officers, fragging their officers, people who were drug dealers, et cetera. And it's like, what? And it just really came down to, they felt, you know, these people felt that their, their leadership did not care about them.

• 48:24Speaker 06

  And that they were just commodities. And if we start, you know, in the modern military, you cannot look at the people that you've got as something that can be easily bought or traded or just done with. You have, they have to be looked at first as human beings and treated with dignity and respect. And I think that's what we really try and capture in the book, is that the people in there matter and what they're going through matters, even if they're bad.

• 48:46Jack Murphy?

  That's this

• 48:47Speaker 12

  Which is really hard.

• 48:48Jack Murphy?

  This interesting phenomena that I see now of dudes looking back at the eighties with rose tinted glasses. And you know, everything that came after that is political correctness and so on. Man, the 1980s army was in a bad, bad way. Like there was shit going on that the American public just doesn't understand, like fragging your squad leader. If he tells you to do something you don't want to do kind of stuff. Especially like over in Germany, the guys are stationed over there. I mean, I, I remember a, a general of that era telling me, he's like, if we had to go to war with the Soviets, it would have been ugly. Like he was saying, like we were unprepared and not ready with that military.

• 49:32Speaker 12

  If you're in the market for a new mattress, you've probably seen all the brands out there vying for your attention. Big names, splashy ads, all promising the same thing. But here's the only brand that does it right. It's Ghostbed. Ghostbed was created and is still run by manufacturing experts with more than 20 years of mattress making experience. They know the craft and they know how to build a bed that actually lasts. So how do you, they offer premium mattresses for up to 50% off less than the competition? It's not hype, it's smart logistics. As a family owned company, that means there's no board of investors to answer to. It's just folks working hard, selling mattresses. These are the true manufacturing pros and the result is an exceptional cooling and comfort at a price that won't keep you up at night.

• 50:14Speaker 12

  Every Ghostbed mattress includes proven cooling materials backed by a 20 to 25 year warranty. You also get a hundred and one night sleep trial with free returns if the mattress doesn't work for you. And fast free shipping, most orders arrive in two to five days. Right now, as a Team House listener, you can get 25% off site wide for a limited time. You could just go to ghostbed.com/ house and use the promo code HOUSE at checkout. That's ghostbed.com/ house promo code HOUSE. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest beds in the world. Some exclusions apply, see site for details. I want to thank Ghostbed so much for continuously supporting us. It's been going on a year almost. So I really appreciate that.

• 50:59Speaker 12

  I hope you guys, if you're in the, if you're in the market for mattresses or pillows or bedding, check out Ghostbed. You can go to ghostbed.com/ house and get 25% off right now. Love you and love Ghostbed. Thanks, guys.

• 51:12Jack Murphy?

  Hey, what's up, guys? I want to thank our sponsor, PIA VPN. That's Private Internet Access. Have you guys ever been at a coffee shop connected to their Wi-Fi and just wonder how secure it is and it turns out you're not secure at all? It's like sending a private text message to a group chat. Everyone can see all of your personal data, from your passwords to your browser history. It's all out in the open, and I do not need my browser history out in the open for people. That's a problem. But the solution is Private Internet Access, PIA. It's super easy to use, and the app protects all of your devices. It hides your IP addresses, and it creates an encrypted tunnel from your internet connection so no one can snoop on your data. And unlike a lot of services out there, PIA is completely transparent.

• 51:57Jack Murphy?

  They have a proven no logs policy, which means they never record or store your data. But really, the thing that I love the most about PIA is watching shows like "The Office" in the US, which is not normally available here. So I just punch it into PIA VPN, and I can watch it on Netflix like normally. You can change your virtual location to one of their servers in 91 countries and unlock new content, whatever you want to watch. You can check it out there, too. It's pretty cool, and you can protect your entire family with one subscription. So if you want to protect your digital life and get 83% off plus four months free, head to piavpn.com/teahouse and sign up today.

• 52:39Jack Murphy?

  They have a 30-day money-back guarantee, so there's no risk to you. That's piavpn.com/teahouse for 83% off plus four months free. That's actually just $2.03 a month, so it's totally worth it if you're looking to get into a VPN. PIA is the way to go, so just head over to piavpn.com/teahouse. We really appreciate PIA supporting the show, and we hope our fans will go and support our sponsor. Please check them out, and we really appreciate you, guys. Thank you.

• 53:12Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 53:26Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 53:37Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 53:43Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 53:48Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  It's big, spooky, and wicked. Spinquest.com. Grab a handful of Halloween treats like blackjack, bubble craps, and slots. All your freaking faves in one beautiful place. Spinquest.com. And right now, new monsters get $30 coin packs for 10. Visit Spinquest.com or download the app tonight.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.

• 54:39Speaker 06

  My father told me a story of, it's called Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany. And they had a giant parade deck, parade field, that was flanked on all sides by the barracks.

• 54:57Speaker 06

  And during the wintertime, inevitably, they would find blood in the snow and drag marks from people who'd been beat up. And so they started parking tanks on all four sides and putting these giant searchlights on to illuminate the parade deck.

• 55:15Speaker 06

  And then there were barracks in which the officer of the day, who was armed, would not go above the first floor. Because the rancor inside of the barracks was so bad that if they did, and this happened, one of the officers of the day went upstairs and tried to tell everybody, you know, hey, it's time to go to bed. They turned off the lights and put him in a stand-up wall walker and threw him out the window while he was in it. Jacked him up pretty bad. So

• 55:58Speaker 06

  my father told me about this captain. In Vietnam, he is Silver Star. And he was OD, I was officer of the day. And he turned to the staff sergeant that he was on duty with at the desk. And he said, "I'm going upstairs," because the boys were playing all this music, whatever all that was. Smoking reefer. Smoking that devil's lettuce and, oh yeah, it was probably just an absolute shit show. And he unfastened his pistol belt and he left. He said, "I'm gonna leave this here." And the staff sergeant was like, "You're out of your mind. One, going upstairs. Two, unarmed, you're again out of your mind." He goes, "I only got seven bullets in this thing. What am I gonna do?"

• 56:43Speaker 06

  So he went upstairs, and as he went upstairs, as my dad related this story, the lights went off and they hear this, "Hey, lifer, what are you doing up here?" And he said, my dad told me that the captain said, "Well, we got two choices. You can beat me up, which is probably what you're fixing to do. But really, I just came up here to see how you are. And I just want to know what's going on. So we can either fight in the dark, or you can turn the lights on and we can talk like men."

• 57:21Speaker 06

  And then the light came on. And a big tough guy comes wandering around. So you serious? The captain said, yeah. I'm not up here, I'm in. What am I gonna do? Kick a hole in your hi-fi? I can't fight you. And then sure enough, that's what happened. People just sat down and they just like, look, no one's listening to us like we were stuck here in Germany. Like we feel like nobody's treating us like men and that started a cycle where they started slowly writing the morale in that unit. And then the blood and the snow stopped and things started coming around. Now, it's not like he was like, I'm gonna leave a trash bag out and put all your reefer in here.

• 58:06Speaker 06

  We'll, we'll, you know.

• 58:11Jack Murphy?

  Amnesty box.

• 58:11Speaker 06

  Amnesty box. No, uh, no hard feelings like he, you know, obviously had a lot to work with, but that was the first time anybody had tried to, to have any sort of legitimate conversation with them. And so, you know, as I was coming up as a leader and talking with them, it was like, well, you gotta remember that you've got a lot of people who can think. And they may not seem like they're the most intelligent, but they absolutely know what's going on. And you ain't gonna fool them. Right? Well, like I said in my first. Well, Joe does know. And like I said in my first, you know, my first appearance here, what I, I asked for who, who, who are my criminals were? Who can hotwire cars and who can get me stuff?

• 58:54Speaker 06

  Cause I, when the shit hits the fan and I'm in a really bad place, I need guys who can get stuff done. And I'm not going to be too worried about your education, if you will, about doing so. And so those relationships, the human relationships, the relationships between staff, the NCOs and officers in particular, as it goes down to the lowest level. That is the ladder.

• 59:20Speaker 06

  That's the glue of, of, of any organization, I think. And if you really want a good example of where that hasn't been working, Russia right now with that Ukraine is, is fantastic.

• 59:31Jack Murphy?

  Perfect example.

• 59:32Speaker 06

  They just don't have any sort of professionalism inside of their staff and CEO and, and officer corps to be able to translate that to the people.

• 59:39Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, when you're having to push.

• 59:40Speaker 06

  Took a bit of a tangent there, but.

• 59:41Jack Murphy?

  You're having to push North Koreans up to the front. I've heard they, they're actually pushing a lot of, um, African soldiers up to the fronts now.

• 59:48Speaker 06

  I, yeah.

• 59:51Jack Murphy?

  Uh, anyway, so back to the, the book, uh, Joyce is killed, the funeral happens. Now Steve Keller is being deployed, but with a new commander. Um, and this is like, kind of, you know, the meat of the book is this. In some regards, it's like the dream deployment, right? It's, it's the epic Marsoc deployment where you guys get to go and stick it to the Taliban.

• 1:00:16Speaker 06

  Get to call it heaven and hell.

• 1:00:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. And, uh, but there's all this other stuff going on at the same time. Steve Keller is, is, we'll, we'll start with the first one here. Steve Keller is struggling with the anger he is carrying around over Joyce being killed. And it like leads him, there's this interesting scene in your book where it leads him to almost crossing the line and like one of his like sergeants, like kind of like, I think it was the medic maybe, like reels him in a little bit.

• 1:00:45Speaker 06

  Um, it's a platoon sergeant.

• 1:00:48Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:00:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Without spoiling it, but yeah, it's absolutely, he's like, hold on, what are you, what are you doing? Like you're, you're losing it, dude.

• 1:00:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:58Speaker 06

  No matter how righteous you may feel in all of this.

• 1:01:01Jack Murphy?

  At that moment.

• 1:01:02Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you would, I think you'd hope that you'd have a good enough relationship with your staff and CEOs.

• 1:01:10Jack Murphy?

  That they'd tell you.

• 1:01:11Speaker 06

  Totally. And that they wouldn't be formulated that they would be like, yeah, okay, we're gonna do this.

• 1:01:15Jack Murphy?

  Jesus.

• 1:01:16Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, but that's a worse. But, but we've seen plenty of examples of that in, in real, in real, real world situations. And I think that's kind of what, what lent, lent to that vignette.

• 1:01:29Speaker 06

  I did indeed find, you know, that that facility, but that's not what happened there. But I kind of looked at like, the psychology of like, how do you get to? There was a book, I think it's called Black Hearts, which is about a

• 1:01:46Speaker 06

  army unit in Iraq that commits a war crime. That's a real one. There's also the Marines at Haditha.

• 1:01:53Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 06

  Which cost a lot of people their their careers.

• 1:01:58Speaker 06

  You know, there's, there's many, I hate to say it. But I started just kind of looking at these.

• 1:02:04Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:02:05Speaker 06

  And that's why I say in the book, like, these things happen in some capacity. Not everything happened to me in the career I was able to amalgamate, compile. And then just sort of, in my mind, as a writer and as a

• 1:02:20Speaker 06

  chronicler, say, okay, what is, what would this look like if it was happening to him? To them, in a, in a small, small vignette? And, you know, how would that be handled? And I think, I think there's,

• 1:02:39Speaker 06

  that's really where it's effective, is you've got checks and balances. And they don't lose face, faith. Like, hey, everybody can make a mistake, but you didn't, you didn't cross that line.

• 1:02:47Jack Murphy?

  Right, right. Have you ever seen something like that, where a junior soldier kind of stands up and does the right thing like that? Like, it makes me think of like, the Eddie Gallagher trial, where it's all these young SEALs that were like, no, this isn't okay. And the chain of command was telling them like, are you sure? They were like, trying to paper it over. But it was like, it was the most junior soldiers in the unit that were like, hey, like, this isn't cool.

• 1:03:14Speaker 06

  But that's probably who your audience is, right? Like, and it's even worse if it's happening with a guy who's got a combat reputation. And is decorated and then, well shit, man, he's got to know what's going on here. It's got to be okay. Especially if you spin them up, you've taken some casualties, you're pissed off, and now it's like, okay, well, we're going to whack.

• 1:03:31Jack Murphy?

  And they admire, they admire their leader. They're like, this guy is the shit.

• 1:03:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a cult of personality. And goes back to what we're talking about, when you now you have these camps, we're in there, but.

• 1:03:41Speaker 06

  I think that that stuff generally does manifest itself from the from the junior level because they do, you have the conscience. You know, whether whether or not they've been exposed to everything that the person who's trying to do.

• 1:03:54Jack Murphy?

  They haven't been as institutionalized.

• 1:03:55Speaker 06

  Uh, and convinced that what they're doing is sacrosanct.

• 1:04:00Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:04:02Speaker 06

  Like, we'll be fine, don't worry about it. Um, no, we actually should be really concerned about this. And that and and there should be ethics courses. That's why ethics and combat training for ethics is very important, I believe. Talking with people about it, and I write about that in the book, you know, I think I think the line I write is, you know, I thought we all saw things the same way. But there comes a time when the fabric of an organization will be tested. And that's where your leadership will truly be designed or tested. The design of your leadership will be tested.

• 1:04:39Jack Murphy?

  And so Steve Keller's new commander in the book is quite the character.

• 1:04:45Speaker 06

  He's amazing.

• 1:04:46Jack Murphy?

  Uh, he's quite the colorful character.

• 1:04:47Speaker 06

  I had a good time writing him.

• 1:04:49Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, you, I mean, he's a pretty reprehensible person, but I thought it was interesting that you like kind of found a way even to humanize him and to try to like find an insight of like, okay, why is this guy like this? And it's coming out of from my interpretation of the book, it's coming out of a massive insecurity of somebody who grew up in poverty and, you know, the lack of self-confidence, you know, all of those things are kind of coming out in this in this way, to the point that he's even like, uh, making up stories about past lives he lived where he was a warrior in the Roman Empire.

• 1:05:24Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:05:25Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, can you talk a little bit about that?

• 1:05:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I I wanted to create, I wanted to create this. So it.

• 1:05:34Speaker 06

  If Keller is based upon me and you know, the traits of officers that I saw that I admired, and I also look at, you know, flaws within people that I knew and also myself as I captured that, Brian Garrity is his counterbalance. It's Keller's counterbalance, his platoon sergeant. And I made him like this, and Brian's not clean, as you know, but he's, I made him sort of the super SVA, the super senior enlisted advisor of these great guys that I served with. I based him off of one guy and then I grabbed these other traits. And I was like, all right, what if, what if I just stacked this and made this, this guy that just, he's

• 1:06:15Speaker 06

  just got, got laser focus and he, he knows what's going on and he's, and he's Steve's right-hand man and in many ways his conscience, or at least can, can help him think consciously. I wanted Ballantyne to be the complete opposite of that and while at the same time also in charge. And so you're, you're like, well shit, he does have the rank, he does have the position. Technically, he's not doing anything unethically. He's not, he, he may be evil, but he is not doing anything

• 1:06:50Jack Murphy?

  Illegal.

• 1:06:50Speaker 06

  Illegal. He may be shady, but he's not necessarily a bad dude, so to speak.

• 1:07:02Speaker 06

  And so he became really an interesting guy to, to become, to write. And as I wrote about him, and, and he is based upon several different people, I, I just made this mashup guy that I was like,

• 1:07:14Jack Murphy?

  The, uh,

• 1:07:15Speaker 06

  Wow.

• 1:07:15Jack Murphy?

  Archetypical toxic leader.

• 1:07:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. And unfortunately, they're not hard to find. Um, and they're, and they're out there. Maybe it's also cautionary tale, like, hey, maybe people will read, read this and be like, am I that way? I mean, should I, is, is it the mission at all costs? You know, where, where am I as, as a person? Some people are never going to have that epiphany. They're just, they're programmed that way. You can see that in, you can see that across whether it's military, corporate environments. It's the other thing about the book. I wanted people to be able to look at it, uh, from a leadership perspective in that.

• 1:07:50Speaker 06

  Toxicity and people making decisions that are just frustrating to their subordinates is not germane to the military. It exists everywhere. Whether you're working in a grocery store.

• 1:08:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:08:04Speaker 06

  Or.

• 1:08:05Jack Murphy?

  Big corporation.

• 1:08:06Speaker 06

  Big corporation, an intelligence, you know, organization, whatever. There's a human aspect to all of this. And you, you hope in our line of work and particularly in work, you have places that have screenings and polygraphs and all that other stuff that somehow you're going to weed out all of this stuff, but it's not a failsafe.

• 1:08:27Jack Murphy?

  Well, one of the facets of this commander is that he didn't go through selection. He kind of like found a way to get grandfathered in.

• 1:08:32Speaker 06

  And that's a huge chip on his shoulder.

• 1:08:33Jack Murphy?

  Right, right. Um.

• 1:08:35Speaker 06

  Talking to his insecurity.

• 1:08:37Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Did you ever come across a leader like that that makes decisions based on completely irrational bullshit?

• 1:08:45Speaker 06

  Yes. Did I say that too quick?

• 1:08:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Like, like this guy, this guy is like making tactical decisions based on like his gut feeling based on when he served in like the Legion, you know, back with the Roman Empire.

• 1:08:59Speaker 06

  Now, to be fair, I never actually saw that. I just thought it would be really fantastic to, to, to, to put that out there. But I think there are guys out there who really do believe like somehow they've got this, you know, sixth sense or they developed it, you know, and like as, I mean, sympathy for the devil. Great song by the Rolling Stones. And, you know, if you listen to the entire song, it's just a guy that it's the perspective, obviously, of the devil, but he's literally like, I've been in through all this stuff and I've seen it all. I rode a tank in the generals ranks, you know, I, I'm with a blitzkrieg rage. Like I've, I've been in the chaos and I helped manufacture it and there's nothing you guys can do about it.

• 1:09:41Speaker 06

  And wouldn't that be a terrifying thing is to have someone actually believe that?

• 1:09:45Jack Murphy?

  I mean, there is a pretty, this isn't totally irrational or as extreme as the, you know, the case in the book, but there is a direct connection with the way soldiers have related to and taken the symbols of Spartan warriors, Templar knights, Crusaders, these sorts of things. And I always saw it as like an attempt to fill the moral void that existed in the war that we were fighting, that like, we didn't understand what we were there for. And at a certain point, we all knew that we didn't know why we were there.

• 1:10:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it gives you some absolution.

• 1:10:17Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:10:17Speaker 06

  A feeling of righteousness in what you're doing. And I would be remiss, lying even, to say that I didn't feel that in some regards, particularly, you know, in the early stages of the war. And if you look at the book and the way it's structured, you've got three phases, you've got kind of the first phase of naivete, the second phase of, you know, you're sort of learning and getting mature. And the third one, you just kind of surrendered yourself to the defeat of it all. You could even look at it as three phases of Afghanistan, which I didn't deliberately write as that, but that's kind of how it's, it's, as I've gone to look at it has occurred. But going back to what you were asking about, you know, commanders or people just doing completely irrational stuff or coming up with things, you know, when I, when I saw some of the, some of the plans that we had enacted and

• 1:11:00Speaker 06

  they were saying, okay, this is what we're gonna go and execute. It was like, have we thought this through? Okay, so let's say we pull this off. Then what are we gonna do? Don't worry about that. Well, no, I am very concerned about that because.

• 1:11:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I've seen that with like units in other theaters, like, okay, we can get in there and do this objective. How the fuck are we gonna get out? Like, you know, those kinds of questions.

• 1:11:25Speaker 06

  Or what's the point after the fact?

• 1:11:27Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:11:27Speaker 06

  And, and, and, you know, I write about this in, in my book, The Patrol, where you, you know, it's, it's a day in the life of this unit. And as they get done with it, it's sort of like, okay, well, what did we really accomplish? And that's not laid out directly, you know, spoon feeding the reader, but I, I, that's really the lesson at the end is sort of like, well, you know, you came, you did this thing, it resulted in, in these, these things, this, this activity. And what was the plan after the fact? And I've also seen, uh, commanders, brief hire commanders, like, hey, this is a situation on the ground and it, and we're doing great.

• 1:12:00Jack Murphy?

  What?

• 1:12:01Speaker 06

  I'm not doing great. We can't get the IDs to stop on this part of the road. We've been in contact every day since we've been here.

• 1:12:09Speaker 06

  Oh, we've inflicted this many casualties on the enemy. Well, we think we've infected that many casualties on the enemy. I know the casualties that we've incurred. So is that, you know, the balance, is that the metric? And that goes back to Vietnam, where, you know, McKinsey and some of those analytical corporations came, Rand came and said, well, if we got this many bombs and it results in this much, and this is what, you know, victory looks like. Well, nobody told the Vietnamese that that's what it's supposed to be. And I think the Afghans, you know, kind of.

• 1:12:38Jack Murphy?

  Well, there's that that study I always bring up, and I probably brought it up in our last interview, Lenny Wong's study, lying to ourselves, dishonesty in the army profession, about how we basically groomed an entire generation of officers on this idea that it's okay to send up false reports. It's okay to lie.

• 1:12:58Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:12:59Jack Murphy?

  And so every one of these units, when they got into theater, the unit was amber. When they left, it was green. When the next unit came, it was amber again. And it went back to green by the end. And that repeated itself for 20 years.

• 1:13:12Speaker 06

  And I had, I said that in in another podcast that that interview that I did that I I don't believe there was any sort of plan for handoff as to like, okay, this is what it's going to look like. It's and then when you receive, not only here's what we've accomplished, but here's what we didn't get done. And here's what you need to get done to move this forward.

• 1:13:30Jack Murphy?

  There's never like a 10 year campaign plan of like, okay, you're here for six months, you're getting this part of the plan done, and it goes out this long, because we always, and we were telling the public too, it seemed like our government was, that we're six months away from victory.

• 1:13:44Speaker 06

  If you uncover that, send it to me, that 10 year plan.

• 1:13:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that doesn't exist, by the way.

• 1:13:48Speaker 06

  Okay, I just, you know.

• 1:13:49Jack Murphy?

  Just to be clear.

• 1:13:50Speaker 06

  I still have hope, you know, once in a while. But it's, but it's, but it is true. And this is what, this is where the real juxtaposition comes down is because like right about in the book and in my other, some of my other writings, and as of late, some of my frustrations in my, in my Substack.

• 1:14:10Speaker 06

  It's hard to be proud of your service. And balance that against the larger picture.

• 1:14:16Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:17Speaker 06

  And with my own children serving in the military and my, my oldest daughter being married to Marine V22 pilot, I'm extremely proud of their service. I'm proud of the military structure and I believe that it is valuable and service is valuable. But what I have found after all of this is that our country needs to be really damn sure of what it is we're doing when we employ our troops. And I don't believe that that has been clear since Vietnam.

• 1:14:51Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:52Speaker 06

  I don't, I don't believe that across the board. And it, you know, that's not to diminish the bravery of people fighting in Mogadishu in the nineties. That's not to diminish any of the, you know, small wars, quote unquote, you know, peace, peacetime conflicts that we were involved in in the nineties up to about 2001. It was certainly dangerous. People died, never mind Central America, et cetera. People serving on the sharp end are doing their jobs to the best of their ability. But in the political side of that, it has got to be better, better defined and it cannot be just tied to a military industrial drive to keep profits rolling. And that, you know, I'm not going to get too conspiratorial as

• 1:15:33Speaker 06

  we're sitting here, but, but it is absolutely inextricable. It may not be the driving force, but it's inextricable.

• 1:15:40Jack Murphy?

  That we're selling M16s.

• 1:15:41Speaker 06

  Well, we gotta be, you know, we, our, our major export in this country is, is warfare. And we, we're good at it to a degree. But without those plans, without the sexy strategies, without talking about exactly what victory is going to look like.

• 1:15:54Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:16:09Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:16:20Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 1:16:25Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:16:31Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:16:51Speaker 02

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Chris Mornings, pumpkin spice latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just 10 bucks. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com and download the app today.

• 1:17:15Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Like we just get hammed up in these things.

• 1:17:23Jack Murphy?

  I think it's great that you mentioned that, that, you know, that trying to juxtapose, you know, being proud of your service with the bigger picture, right? And I think we're at a point right now where a lot of, like, kind of our peer group, I guess you could say, are going through exactly that, trying to reconcile that. Because the war has ended, the guys that stayed in through the war on terror, they're retiring right about now. And they're all coming out on Civi Street and they're realizing, like, they used to be part of a team and they fought as a team, now they're by themselves. And they're having to think about this stuff. And, um, you know, back what we were saying a little bit earlier about, you know, the past and what we believed in the past. I mean, if you went and went

• 1:18:07Jack Murphy?

  to the FOB in 2004 and talked to me when I was 21, yeah, I bet I had some pretty crazy ideas rattling around my head at the time.

• 1:18:15Speaker 06

  Me as a captain in 0708, for sure.

• 1:18:18Jack Murphy?

  But I see people today, sometime, not everybody, I see some people today and it feels like they're still on the FOB in 2004. And that's some of that, like, warrior talk that we've been talking about, you know, Spartan warriors and warrior ethos and this kind of stuff. And it's like...

• 1:18:37Jack Murphy?

  As hard as it is, like, at some point, you, you have to take the L. Uh, as hard as it is, if for no other reason at all, so that you can move on with your own life and, and have a happy life.

• 1:18:48Speaker 06

  And that is

• 1:18:48Jack Murphy?

  There's no reason why you shouldn't.

• 1:18:49Speaker 06

  Absolutely one of the bigger tenets of the book is reconciliation and kind of goes back to what you're talking about with the Valentine characters that all, that war is all he knows. And that's the only thing that gives him purpose and, and value. And he has to look good doing it.

• 1:19:02Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:19:02Speaker 06

  It, it, it, he, his, his image, his, his entire reason for being is tied to this. And he cannot be seen as being inadequate, cowardly. Like, he has his own issues. And, and I, I think, I think that messes with Keller because he's like, maybe I'm a little like this guy.

• 1:19:26Speaker 06

  And I don't want to be.

• 1:19:30Jack Murphy?

  And

• 1:19:33Jack Murphy?

  so we start to get into this whole scenario with the unit going after high value, their, their high value target. Number one is the guy that they think killed Joyce. Uh,

• 1:19:47Jack Murphy?

  but at the same time, I mean, you, you know, you, you also, as they're, as they're kind of prosecuting those targets, and I, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this and you didn't, you know, get to talk about it a little bit. There is also this big section of the book where you're talking about, you know, Marines executing highly professional operations, tactically competent operations and kicking some ass out there. Um, and that's a part of the book also.

• 1:20:13Speaker 06

  And there's a futility to that as well. And you know, night after night or objective after objective and you're, you're, you're supposedly moving the, the war forward. And, and performing incredibly well as units and as individuals. I mean,

• 1:20:33Speaker 06

  the, the units I served in it.

• 1:20:36Speaker 06

  Huge litany of battlefield valor rewards. And the Marine Corps doesn't give out their rewards cheaply at all. And that's not to diminish anybody who's gotten something elsewhere, but there are stuff that Marines get Navy Commendation Medals with these that would get you Bronze Star, Silver Star somewhere else, depending on.

• 1:20:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, you mentioned it, like the Steve Keller character gets hurt at one point in a firefight and is just like, fuck it, whatever, like, I don't, I don't need a Purple Heart for that shit.

• 1:21:06Speaker 06

  Not when you got guys on ventilators, no.

• 1:21:08Jack Murphy?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 1:21:09Speaker 06

  Even though you rate it. I never had an earring in this year, by the way.

• 1:21:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe 20 years later, you need that Purple Heart license plate after all.

• 1:21:21Speaker 06

  If my DD 214 was rolling around on my car, then, or, you know, my truck, then perhaps, but there's plenty of people with vinyl stickers that take, pulled that slack up for me, I think, but, but yeah, I mean, the, the, again, it's, it is a, it's a paradox. You don't want to be thought of as a coward, you don't want to be thought of as not pulling your weight, you don't want to be, no one wants to be not part of the team, everyone wants to feel like they're contributing and doing something. And then it's sort of like, well, what is this all about? And as the casualties mount and you're still haven't gotten your guy and you, you just start to look around and go, what are we doing?

• 1:22:05Speaker 06

  And the, the, that, that actually is what drains the mind. The combat stress notwithstanding, but that is all compounding because during the moment, people will execute, you will go to your, your training, you will go to the people that you've been around and in the units that I served in where you're very aggressively trained or obviously do that automatically as Marines, but then after that with resourcing and equipment and being able to just train.

• 1:22:37Speaker 06

  Pretty, not only realistically, but in ways that other units just don't get that kind of exposure, don't get those opportunities to grab somebody from a, from an SMU and have them come teach you how to do some of the stuff that they do. And it just increases your ability, builds your confidence in being able to, to do stuff. It's, it's then when you're actually fighting and you apply that and it works. You're like, damn man, I'm actually good at this shit. And you feel good about it. Then you come back and you're like, but we lost two guys tonight and we still didn't get our guy and I got months of this to go.

• 1:23:21Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:23:22Speaker 06

  Or we're supposed to go home in two days and we just, we just had somebody die. That drain, that just takes, takes the wind right out of you. Demoralizing for a unit.

• 1:23:36Jack Murphy?

  I don't know like how deep I want to, or you want to get into with kind of the, the plot of the book, but there's a conspiracy that gets hatched between this commander and, is he a squad leader in the platoon?

• 1:23:51Speaker 06

  He's a team leader.

• 1:23:53Jack Murphy?

  Team leader?

• 1:23:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:23:54Jack Murphy?

  And it's essentially to go and commit a war crime, to go after HVT number one, or your HVT number one and, you know, commit an extrajudicial killing. And I say it's a conspiracy because at least in the, in the book, Steve Keller has kept, intentionally kept in the dark about this, this plot that they come up with. You want to, what would you like to say about that?

• 1:24:18Speaker 06

  Well, you know, for, for Ballantyne, it's, it's about the win. So he doesn't care how he gets it.

• 1:24:25Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:24:25Speaker 06

  And he knows what it will do, you know, for his career to get HVT number one off the battlefield. And he also has a bit of deniability because if it doesn't go the way that he thinks it should.

• 1:24:37Jack Murphy?

  And you blame a team leader.

• 1:24:38Speaker 06

  And then he can also blame Keller, who is also his arch nemesis.

• 1:24:41Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:24:42Speaker 06

  So we'll get too deep into, you know, what, what they do. Please read the book. But the big, the big thing is that,

• 1:24:53Speaker 06

  Yes, it is enough of a conspiracy, but there's also enough plausibility in denying it. And I think that's what really rubs people the wrong way is like, we don't do this. We don't come up with this kind of stuff. Well,

• 1:25:06Speaker 06

  necessarily, no. But we know that it occurs. As you said about Gallagher and others, you know, there's

• 1:25:18Speaker 06

  the vignettes are all out there.

• 1:25:21Speaker 06

  And so to compound all of that into, you know, and the one thing Keller wants more than anything is to get this guy.

• 1:25:28Jack Murphy?

  The guy that killed Joyce.

• 1:25:29Speaker 06

  Yeah. So because that

• 1:25:33Speaker 06

  is something that it just gets denied him. And the way that it happens. And then it's subsequent fallout. It's that becomes like its own. Now he's got to fight for something else. And what it is, is his reputation.

• 1:25:49Speaker 06

  Which again, juxtaposed against Ballantyne. That's all he's concerned about. And Sun Tzu wrote, beware of the man who worries about only his reputation because he worries about nothing else.

• 1:26:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that person's hell to work for.

• 1:26:08Speaker 06

  Argumentates life.

• 1:26:11Jack Murphy?

  So the so CID rolls in and there's an investigation. I mean, yeah, okay. In some sense, this guy survives the investigation, but like you said, his reputation is basically inextricably tarnished by these events that he ostensibly had no control over. But hey, you're the officer, you're

• 1:26:34Speaker 06

  You're the guy.

• 1:26:35Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, you're responsible. And you know, in the book, you talk a lot about or you describe a lot about like this character's feeling, feeling like ostracized from his own organization that like it's a brotherhood. But now not so much anymore. Everyone's kind of looking at you like, oh, you know, are you a sellout? Are you this or that?

• 1:26:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:26:55Jack Murphy?

  And I mean, it's kind of relatable for some of us at least that, you know, it may be not the typical military experience, but sometimes you try to do the right thing and it blows up in your face.

• 1:27:07Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, I think you could probably call it a Jerry Maguire moment, right? If you've seen the film or, you know. At the beginning, Tom Cruise is a sports agent and he finally decides like, I can't do this anymore. And he writes this big manifesto treaties about how everything that's wrong with the sports world and how absolutely exploitative it is. And his own group of people are like, and he publishes this far and wide. And his own group of people are like, yeah, Jerry, I stand behind you. I'm not with you, but I love what you said. And then he gets fired. And he has to like, pick himself up from the ashes of what he ostensibly was doing, you know, correctly. And he's sort of, he becomes this anti-hero in this

• 1:27:52Speaker 06

  cutthroat world in which he lives. So the Marine Corps could be looked at as a large corporation. You could look at what happens here is in a corporate sense as well, where there are people saying, you know, I don't agree with the way we're doing as far as personnel management or fiscal decisions, etc. And we talk a lot about, in preach it, you need to have integrity, you need to come forward when, you know, something wrong is happening. But there's a risk with that. And when you do that, there's a, that will automatically get people to be, whoa, shit, I don't know if I want to get dragged down with that. We go back to what we were talking about earlier with, you know, people

• 1:28:32Speaker 06

  speaking up, or people deciding, you know, he's my guy, no matter what, I'm standing behind him. And I think, I think Fred and his own guys ran into that as well. Feeling very distanced, you know, once the smoke cleared, if you will, it was like, oh, you're still, we're still friends.

• 1:28:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, but there's some words you can't take back, right?

• 1:28:54Speaker 06

  Or actions even.

• 1:28:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:57Speaker 06

  And I remember picking Fred up from the airport. He called me and said, hey, man, I don't have anyone else to get me. Can you come pick me up from Wilmington at two in the morning? I was like, all right, on my way. And it wasn't like, oh geez, Fred, saying a lot of bad shit about you.

• 1:29:24Jack Murphy?

  But some people are like that.

• 1:29:25Speaker 06

  Well.

• 1:29:26Jack Murphy?

  A lot of people are like that.

• 1:29:27Speaker 06

  Yeah. And so I, I went and grabbed him and I

• 1:29:32Speaker 06

  It was like we were driving along. I was like, so anything you want to talk about? Like, we were just like, you know, you didn't have to say anything. You already knew what was going on. And I had my, these are great.

• 1:29:45Jack Murphy?

  I'm glad you like it.

• 1:29:51Speaker 06

  He had enough going on. And I think at some point, you just want somebody to be like,

• 1:29:59Speaker 06

  you know what, man? Whatever happens, it's okay between you and me.

• 1:30:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:30:06Speaker 06

  And

• 1:30:13Speaker 06

  the difficulty inside of units that are really, uh, close.

• 1:30:19Jack Murphy?

  Insular.

• 1:30:20Speaker 06

  Well, I was, that's exactly where it's going with this is that they get very close. As long as everything's going well, everybody's really happy. But that, that, that insular nature will actually become insulation. Because people start to move to things that make them feel more comfortable. And for a leader, particularly an officer in that kind of situation, that's a very lonely place.

• 1:30:46Jack Murphy?

  And the most, the more extreme side of it is, you know, between this commander and this team leader, it's also an example of where a brotherhood starts to become more like a mafia. And it's like, everyone kind of has dirt on each other. You know, and they're kind of like now tied into one another, in this case through crime. Uh, and being elevated through the command structure, uh, in unison, right? As partners almost.

• 1:31:13Speaker 06

  And that becomes kind of confusing, doesn't it? Because you're just like, wait a second, how could anybody?

• 1:31:17Jack Murphy?

  How's that work?

• 1:31:18Speaker 06

  How's it, how do you back in this? Who, that's not how we're supposed to be. Well, he's a good guy.

• 1:31:26Speaker 06

  He's a good guy, but, good guy and.

• 1:31:30Speaker 06

  I would have him in a firefight. It's terrible if we take him out at, you know, to a bar. It's a great guy to have around. Well, how much character, you know,

• 1:31:39Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:31:39Speaker 06

  Do you weigh on that?

• 1:31:43Jack Murphy?

  I mean, I think the, the way I would describe some of these organizations is more like an organism in the sense that it like defends itself. If it detects a contagion, it starts deploying white blood cells. Like, we're gonna destroy that.

• 1:31:57Speaker 06

  A cut, yeah.

• 1:32:02Speaker 06

  Looking for the military acronym, but it's, you know, it's isolate.

• 1:32:05Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:06Speaker 06

  And bypass.

• 1:32:06Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:32:07Speaker 06

  Sort of like, all right, just let that thing die out there. And, and that's kind of what, what you feel like.

• 1:32:16Jack Murphy?

  So, yeah, I don't know how much we want to give away about the book because we do hope people go out and buy it and read it. And I hope they do. It's worth it. Link down in the description.

• 1:32:27Jack Murphy?

  Is there anything else you want to say about like Steve Keller's redemption and sort of like that sort of like journey coming back from some of these terrible experiences?

• 1:32:39Speaker 06

  Somewhere

• 1:32:42Speaker 06

  in everyone's journey. And I'll use the military side of it just because that's, that's my perspective. And I, I've served 24 years of all my adult life in military, particularly special operations, and I was enamored of it. I look around at your bookshelves, I mean, we've had these conversations before, you know, whether it was SOG or the early stage, I love your book, you know, about the early stages of pre-Delta, you know,

• 1:33:12Jack Murphy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:33:13Speaker 06

  Army, Army Special Operations.

• 1:33:16Speaker 06

  Somewhere in all of that, you make a decision to commit to this type of thing, or at least I did. And I think most of us involved in this for any period of time, you just say, okay, this is, this is my vocation. This is what I pursue. I'm going to read about it. I'm going to understand it. I'm going to apply it. I'm going to learn. To your point of your organization, your organization should be a learning organization and, you know, your debriefs lend towards getting better. And not repeating mistakes and You're looking for flawlessness in a lot of ways, which is also unattainable. And because of that impossibility, you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be that.

• 1:34:02Speaker 06

  And when that doesn't happen,

• 1:34:05Speaker 06

  the guilt that comes with it, particularly if you've lost people or you've destroyed relationships or you've just not performed as you'd hoped.

• 1:34:19Speaker 06

  There has to be a way to come to terms with that. And I keep saying that closure is not the right word because you're not going to close that out. You need to be able to

• 1:34:29Speaker 06

  address it.

• 1:34:31Speaker 06

  And

• 1:34:33Speaker 06

  that's really the message in this book is that

• 1:34:40Speaker 06

  your past is something you have to not only live with, but make peace with.

• 1:34:47Speaker 06

  For its blemishes, and it's good stuff. It'd be too easy to just be like, oh, I did it all great. And here's all the reasons why, i.e. Valentine, he's never going to have that idea of self comeuppance where he just finally has a breakdown. That's just not how he's programmed.

• 1:35:05Speaker 06

  But in Keller's case, he's very much bothered by everything that has occurred and has struggled with that for a really long time. And the whole reason that joy shows up into his life is to be like, look, man, it is time for you to come to terms with this. And you have to let go. And that doesn't mean released to the point of complete

• 1:35:31Speaker 06

  distance.

• 1:35:34Speaker 06

  But by doing so and really examining that, you can become whole again. And it is indeed a novel of healing. And I believe at the end, that's really the message. Because he is flawed. He's got a lot of things going on in there that, particularly the relationship with his family, his children in his later years and kind of how he looks back on them that.

• 1:36:05Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:36:20Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:36:31Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:36:36Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:36:42Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 1:37:03Speaker 13

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:37:33Speaker 06

  He was trying to be the best man that he could be and the best leader he could be. He's trying to be everything to everyone, and he has to forgive himself for all the stuff that he just wasn't able to meet. And I think that's really what it comes down to, is somewhere in there, you've got to be able to just take a moment for yourself and go, it's okay for me to feel this way.

• 1:37:52Speaker 06

  Maybe explore that.

• 1:37:55Jack Murphy?

  You know, you're saying this, it reminds me of someone else we had on the show. I think, Dee, correct me if I'm wrong, was Greg Daley, Marine Office or Marine NCO?

• 1:38:07Jack Murphy?

  Last name was Daley.

• 1:38:08Speaker 06

  John Daley.

• 1:38:09Jack Murphy?

  John Daley.

• 1:38:09Speaker 06

  Tough rock and batters. Oh, yeah. He wrote a great book. He's very good.

• 1:38:13Jack Murphy?

  He writes in his book about, you know, some of the friends that he lost and so on. And he's makes it very, it's, we don't often talk like this because it sounds selfish, but there's a truth to it, too. It's like, hey, there's some advantages to dying young. You know, they died heroes. You know, when you live, when you live and you grow into old age, you start to have these questions of like, was I an adequate father? Was I a good teammate? Was I a good husband? You know, all of these things sort of sit on your shoulders.

• 1:38:44Speaker 06

  And in a firefight, you know, you're not also going, is Jesus alive? Should I perhaps convert to something like, you're not having these moments like, you know, of self-reflection, you know, epiphany type stuff. And I, you know, I actually quoted Keith Richards in the book, you know, he says, nobody wants to get a hold, but who wants to die young?

• 1:39:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:04Speaker 06

  And Keith Richards taught Willie Nelson how to play the guitar. Tells you how old he is. Perhaps. But yeah, I think, I think there's just a lot of perhaps in universal

• 1:39:19Speaker 06

  tenets in there that people can get a hold of. And that's, that goes for anything. I think as people retire, as they get older, regardless of what they did, they didn't, you know, once you might have those moments around the golf course or what have you, and be like, man, maybe I wasn't the best guy at that point in time. And it's just weird when stuff pops in and there are people ask me like, how do you come up with these stream of consciousness moments where the guy's just thinking about something random? Because that's how people think.

• 1:39:45Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:39:46Speaker 06

  That's what happens. Ah, you know, I don't know if it's going to work in a novel like, well, that's, what does it make you uncomfortable? Because you're, you know, eating a piece of pizza one day and you're like, oh, man, why did I ever say that? Because that's when it comes up.

• 1:40:02Jack Murphy?

  Alana, you have any questions that you want to ask?

• 1:40:06Speaker 06

  Off camera. Are you sure?

• 1:40:09Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:40:10Speaker 06

  We're all here.

• 1:40:11Jack Murphy?

  I can give you the mic.

• 1:40:12Speaker 06

  Isaiah, we're all here. Give her the mic.

• 1:40:14Speaker 14

  No.

• 1:40:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, come on now.

• 1:40:17Jack Murphy?

  Here we go.

• 1:40:18Speaker 06

  We can top off.

• 1:40:20Speaker 14

  I loved, um, no, I thought, I loved what you said. I thought it was so raw and honest and...

• 1:40:29Jack Murphy?

  You're just talking.

• 1:40:30Speaker 14

  Um, no, I, you know, I was thinking, because I wrote a piece about how, so much of what you said resonated with me because I wrote a piece about how, for me, writing, um, it doesn't really, like, exorcise, you know, your demons, but it does help you make peace with it, I think. That was the exact term I used, too. You know, so.

• 1:40:55Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:40:55Speaker 14

  That resonated with me.

• 1:40:56Speaker 06

  I, I, I believe it is a, it's a great outlet for me.

• 1:41:03Speaker 06

  Organizing thoughts and trying to get that put...

• 1:41:09Speaker 06

  In kind of the Hemingway method,

• 1:41:13Speaker 06

  of being as crisp and clean in the way you present that as you can be with the fewest amount of words.

• 1:41:21Speaker 06

  But as someone who was trained as an expository writer, that doesn't always work really well because you want to write as much as you can to explain things. And I think it is the challenge is to capture that, um, in such a way that it has all the feeling and the emotion and it deals with or conveys the message without being over, overt and also allowing the reader to understand why you're being spare. And that's tough.

• 1:41:56Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 06

  There's a reason he was really good at that, right? You know, and the rest of us aren't. But...

• 1:42:02Speaker 14

  I have a question. You said you have two kids in the military?

• 1:42:04Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:06Speaker 14

  So what has their experience been and what sort of insights have you given them?

• 1:42:12Speaker 06

  Oh, they're on their own. I don't...

• 1:42:18Speaker 06

  So my daughter went to West Point, which is its own leadership laboratory. Um, and she had a very, I would say idealized view of kind of what being an army officer was going to be like, and then she got to her first unit. West Point will do that. Right, right. And then she was like, uh, so we have had many conversations about leadership and both, you know, above you, adjacent to you, um, leading staff and COs. So the best I can give her perspective is we start to talk to different, about different situations. And it's not to say like, this is what you should do. It's more like, okay, I've encountered that before.

• 1:42:59Speaker 06

  Here's some things you can think about as far as, you know, talking to them, uh, whoever it should be. But yeah, she's, you know, your second lieutenant, first lieutenant, you don't have any clout. You don't have any ability to, to, to affect much, except for the people beneath you. And I think that military leadership is, is really, should be about servant leadership. And the higher you get, the more difficult that becomes. You could think of that in a corporate sense, too. And I think there's people in corporations who just don't have any perspective on that at all. They don't really care. They're not really tied to that. It's just a different set of programming. Um, and certainly my son, he, he joined the Marine Corps.

• 1:43:39Speaker 06

  He wanted to be a Marine officer, uh, for different reasons than I, than I did. Um, and he has created his own path, but still has to deal with the same things and just the, I, I think there's an idea that you, you're told, you talk about installation inside of these officer training programs that this is how it's going to be. And then you get out there and like, wait a second, I didn't think I'd have to deal with a guy like this. Or how do you get somebody who just doesn't want to do this, you know, to at least do it enough till they get out, type of thing?

• 1:44:17Speaker 15

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:44:18Speaker 06

  And there's a great, great book by Mike Malone, Michael Dandridge Malone, called, uh, Common Sense Leadership.

• 1:44:27Speaker 06

  It's only about this big, absolutely fantastic. You should add it to the shelf.

• 1:44:32Speaker 06

  My dad used it. He gave it to me and both of my kids have used it. So we've got generations of Ingrams using this book. I recommend it. I learned a lot from that, just reading it and applying his lessons, Malone's lessons, he's a good friend of my father's, to small unit leadership, particularly at the platoon level. And then as you get up, you know, further up the chain, there's tenants that you can pull from that. But I think people sort of look at, particularly in the junior officer side of it, that that's just sort of their formulation period. And then once they're done with that platoon, a company time, they can just move on and they'll put that behind them. But that's actually where you formulate

• 1:45:11Speaker 06

  who you are as a leader. It formulates your core. And if you get away from that, then that, that's where you start to diverge from your values and tenants and things like that. I hope that answers that a little bit.

• 1:45:26Speaker 14

  Yeah. You mentioned Hemingway. Who are your other literary influences?

• 1:45:34Speaker 06

  I like Michael Herr, who wrote Dispatches. He also is the primary screenwriter for Full Metal Jacket.

• 1:45:41Speaker 14

  Okay.

• 1:45:42Speaker 06

  Very interesting guy. I like Joseph Conrad as a novelist. I like Ambrose Bierce, also a war novelist, actually rather pragmatic, kind of dark writer, but very interested. Like Jack London, I think he's really got some.

• 1:46:02Speaker 14

  I love Jack London.

• 1:46:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, he's just, Stephen Crane, I think he's, you know, another, another very interesting writer. I do like Edgar Allan Poe, very.

• 1:46:12Speaker 14

  I do too.

• 1:46:12Speaker 06

  Again, very dark, but his prose is tremendous.

• 1:46:19Speaker 14

  Have you read Tim O'Brien?

• 1:46:20Speaker 06

  I do like to, I love The Things They Carried. I like Karl Monlance's Matterhorn, also excellent Fields of Fire by James Webb. There's certainly plenty of modern authors, but some of the, the, the older literary people are awesome. Really enjoy them.

• 1:46:39Speaker 14

  Great.

• 1:46:40Jack Murphy?

  You gave me a couple recommendations for World War II novels that are still sitting on, I bought them, they're sitting on my bookshelf and hopefully I will get to them in 2026. What is it, Here to Eternity is one of them?

• 1:46:56Speaker 14

  From Here to Eternity, have you read that?

• 1:46:58Speaker 06

  Herman Woke?

• 1:46:59Speaker 14

  No.

• 1:47:00Speaker 06

  No, that's Winds of War, sorry.

• 1:47:01Speaker 14

  Um, James Jones.

• 1:47:04Speaker 06

  James Jones, he wrote Thin Red Line.

• 1:47:06Speaker 14

  Yes, he did.

• 1:47:06Speaker 06

  That's right, yep.

• 1:47:07Speaker 14

  From Here to Eternity, it's a trilogy and, I forget the name of the third, but it's a trilogy. Um, and the other one was The Naked and the Dead, which is Vietnam.

• 1:47:18Speaker 06

  Yep, yep, yep.

• 1:47:20Speaker 14

  By Norman Mailer.

• 1:47:21Speaker 06

  Yep, Steinbeck also huge, speaking of Vietnam, he did a lot of dispatches from Vietnam as a writer, correspondent, but I like John Steinbeck's stuff as well, his fiction is fantastic.

• 1:47:36Speaker 14

  And I love All Quiet on the Western Front.

• 1:47:39Speaker 06

  Can't beat it.

• 1:47:39Speaker 14

  Yeah.

• 1:47:40Jack Murphy?

  I have to admit, I've never read the book.

• 1:47:42Speaker 14

  You need to read it.

• 1:47:43Jack Murphy?

  But I love the movie.

• 1:47:44Speaker 14

  Well, I haven't seen the movie.

• 1:47:45Speaker 06

  I was gonna say, only, only watch the 1930's version.

• 1:47:48Jack Murphy?

  I watched the new one that came out and the nihilism of it resonates.

• 1:47:53Speaker 06

  It, it has good tenants, but it doesn't, I believe it doesn't capture what the 1930's version is.

• 1:47:58Jack Murphy?

  Okay, I'll look for it.

• 1:47:59Speaker 06

  In, in German is.

• 1:48:00Jack Murphy?

  I, I just got it on Blu-ray actually, since we're on this topic, bring it up. Uh, my, probably like my favorite war movie is actually this, um, it came out probably in the late 40's. You ever seen The Americanization of Emily?

• 1:48:14Speaker 14

  No.

• 1:48:16Jack Murphy?

  John, uh, John Gardner, James Gardner is in it and, uh, it's, it's an anti-war film that was made right after World War II. It's like, it's an incredible movie. Um, okay.

• 1:48:29Speaker 06

  My favorite anti-war movie is Grand Illusion. Fantastic French film.

• 1:48:33Jack Murphy?

  Well, I'll look for that one too. I, I, uh, I'm always fascinated by how many people we've interviewed on the show who were inspired to join the military by watching Full Metal Jacket, which is like a full-throated anti-war film.

• 1:48:46Speaker 06

  We, we, we all fell for it, man, oh man, we, we did, we, us starheads, we really did.

• 1:48:54Speaker 06

  Speaking of which, Eugene Sledge with The Old Breed, that's a fantastic memoir. Reen in World War II. Yeah, his, yeah, it's a really, really great book.

• 1:49:08Jack Murphy?

  So tell us about the next novel coming, Ivan. I, it sounds like you're kind of in the final stages of writing it.

• 1:49:15Speaker 06

  Yep. It's called The Bear and the Wolf. It is a thriller and this has, this has tenants of a thriller. But this, in this case, was absolutely written as a sort of a cop drama kind of thing.

• 1:49:33Jack Murphy?

  Adventure, murder mystery.

• 1:49:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely. It's got a very sinister tone to it. Little bit of a departure from where I've been, been writing, but actually that was a great next project after not only writing the other four novel novellas that I've, that I've written that have led to Once We Pledged Forever, but now this one is just something very different. I actually had to do a lot of research talking to police officers and, and former, some former military guys, and I said it in the 1980s, so it's not techno, technology heavy. Requires a little more.

• 1:50:10Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:11Speaker 06

  Detective work and, and development.

• 1:50:14Jack Murphy?

  The, the book, the novel I have coming out in June, like it's very much set in a remote part of Africa and there, when you strip all the technology away, it's interesting that it allows you to kind of really focus on the characters.

• 1:50:29Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:50:30Jack Murphy?

  And the characters have to be much more interesting because the political intrigue isn't there, the technology isn't there, you don't have these sort of gimmicks to rely on.

• 1:50:38Speaker 06

  Well, and because I said it in the 1980s, to you, exactly what you're talking about, we have this idealized notion of what the 1980s are. And I took kind of a dark undertone with that, but really what influenced it was just the soundtrack I had in my mind of like what this thing should look like.

• 1:50:53Jack Murphy?

  The Pesh Mode and.

• 1:50:54Speaker 06

  Pesh Mode, I did send you a link on that, The Police, you have Foreigner, you've got Van Halen, yeah, there's all kinds of great stuff from there, it's a little, little eclectic.

• 1:51:03Jack Murphy?

  Tell, tell folks a little bit about what the book's about because I'm really interested by like the premise of it. I think it's an untapped moment in history, if you will.

• 1:51:10Speaker 06

  So essentially it.

• 1:51:14Speaker 06

  Ties in with the serial killer scare, not to say they're not out there still, but certainly in the 1980s when we were growing up, you had a just a large number of very high profile cases of you know, people being serially murdered or having some really bad things happen to them. And I looked at it from a perspective of, well, what if there was somebody who was involved in human trafficking, was also a serial kidnapper, but he also had his own, his own things that he likes to do. And I said it in Alaska, it's very remote.

• 1:51:58Speaker 06

  So the way he does this is, I won't, uh, won't reveal that, but he's, he's kind of hidden in plain sight. And it's also tied to a fledgling group of the hostage rescue team out of the FBI, uh, who at that point in time were developing different skillsets to, uh, conduct hostage rescues. And I kind of looked at, well, what if they managed to track down a guy who was doing this, but his location was so difficult to get to that you had to very specialized people to do so. And because it's set in the United States, you can't just use military forces because of Posse Comitatus. And how would they go about doing this? So.

• 1:52:43Jack Murphy?

  If you haven't, I suggest reading or and even contacting Danny Colson, wrote No Heroes. He's the founder of HRT.

• 1:52:51Speaker 06

  Well, I actually wrote him into the book.

• 1:52:53Jack Murphy?

  Oh, really?

• 1:52:54Speaker 06

  As a, so I probably should.

• 1:52:56Jack Murphy?

  He's a, he's a cool guy.

• 1:52:57Speaker 06

  I, I, I wrote him, well, because at the point in time, it's really when it, when the unit's being founded.

• 1:53:02Jack Murphy?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:53:02Speaker 06

  And, uh, I talked to several members who were members of that unit, uh, not only presently, but at, at that point in time and. Yes, it's a work of fiction. I take a little bit of liberties with kind of like

• 1:53:14Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 1:53:14Speaker 06

  how they go about doing stuff. But yeah, it is action adventure, but there's also a huge detective part of this, which, as I mentioned in my earlier appearance on the podcast, and I originally planned on being a federal law enforcement agent. So I think I'm trying to scratch that itch that I might actually have gotten to do that. It'd be a little bit of a gumshoe. But I also very much influenced by the Netflix show Mindhunter, you know, as I was looking at just, oh, yeah, you know, all the stuff that they were doing with that. I was like, well, what if they just melded, you know, the investigation with this, you know, action arm of the FBI?

• 1:53:50Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:53:50Speaker 06

  And then were able to come up with how they were going to, you know, track this guy down and and the things that he's doing.

• 1:53:56Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:58Speaker 06

  It it it got to a point where, when I was in the head of the antagonist, the primary, you know, serial awful guy, I couldn't just, calling him a killer is is not, it doesn't do him justice. But I was just like, man, am I, am I really developing this guy like this? Like, is this, is there something, maybe I should take a break from this for a moment, as I, as I put him together.

• 1:54:20Jack Murphy?

  H R T is an interesting unit because they're a counterterrorism unit, but at the same time, they're also badged law enforcement, federal law enforcement officers that can investigate crimes, make arrests, testify in court, all that stuff.

• 1:54:33Speaker 06

  And and and they have to.

• 1:54:35Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:35Speaker 06

  You know, it's not just, it's not just like, with us, it's really clean. You just go in and shoot up the bad guys and I work, see you later. Where them, you know, you got a whole chain of custody that

• 1:54:45Jack Murphy?

  Yep.

• 1:54:46Speaker 06

  if they're involved in it, they still have to, you know, participate in that whole, whole piece.

• 1:54:50Jack Murphy?

  When do you think that book's coming?

• 1:54:52Speaker 06

  Well, I hope Mike Sager's watching this and we can start talking about it. But I need, I, I don't.

• 1:54:58Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Ushkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:55:13Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:55:24Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:55:29Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:55:35Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:55:55Speaker 04

  It's big, spooky and wicked. Spinquest.com. Grab a handful of Halloween treats like blackjack, bubble craps and slots. All your freaking faves in one beautiful place. Spinquest.com. And right now, new monsters get $30 coin packs for 10. Visit spinquest.com or download the app tonight.

• 1:56:19Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free to play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:56:25Speaker 06

  Yet, no, I really need to get it through, as Hemingway wrote, the first draft of anything is shit. I don't think it's shit, but it's definitely not great. It needs some work. Beta readers need to get their hands on it and need some feedback. And then I'll probably go back to Kite and get some developmental editing and go back through my process. But I would, I would love to see it come out in 2026, but that would, that's not a reach. It's just a matter of reason, some work. Yeah. So far, the book's doing well. I'd really like to get it higher, higher visibility and people to read it and just take advantage of what I do have out there. But yeah, always, always looking at the next project at the S. But right now, that's refining that. And I've got some screenplays that I've been poking away at some other projects as well.

• 1:57:10Jack Murphy?

  Cool. So the book, Once We Pledged Forever, it's out now. There'll be links down in the description for you guys watching the podcast or listening to it, where you can go and find it. It's Amazon, wherever else people go to buy books, you can find it.

• 1:57:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think Mike has got it on multiple platforms, but Sega Group is, sorry, the main, main publisher.

• 1:57:33Jack Murphy?

  Got it. Anything else that we haven't covered that, anything you want to say about the book or anything else before we get going tonight?

• 1:57:41Speaker 06

  No, I think we've covered it. Like I said, I'm really, really pleased with it. Love the way that it finally came out. That was, it's a journey, as Elena will absolutely attest, as you, as you well know as well. Publishing is a, it's a process, writing is a process, getting it published is a process, and just getting it, getting it out there is its own thing.

• 1:58:02Jack Murphy?

  A learning experience.

• 1:58:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, and if, so if anybody is, has done it, you know, congratulations, and if you're thinking about doing it, you know, just go try, I mean, there's, there's plenty, plenty of stuff out there.

• 1:58:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, we, we interviewed also just recently, I think he's a buddy of yours, Worth.

• 1:58:17Speaker 06

  Worth Parker, that's right, yeah.

• 1:58:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, he's a writer also.

• 1:58:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, he's better than me, he is, yeah, he's, he's helped me a lot with, with just my own, my own process, and I've, I've done some writing for Tom Bebkey and his guys, or his, his forum, Lethal Minds Journal, his Substack forum as well.

• 1:58:36Jack Murphy?

  Oh, that's right, and you have a Substack, plug that, tell people where to find it.

• 1:58:40Speaker 06

  I do, ivanfingram.substack.com, I publish every week, lately it's been commentary, I'd like to get more into the creative space, or at least more reflective space, it just kind of depends on my mood, but I try and publish every week. I do encourage people, obviously, to be paid subscribers, helps me out as a writer, but you, you need not subscribe as a paid member, there are some things that I publish exclusively for the, the paid side of it, but ultimately, it's, it's really meant to be, you know, for discussion, discourse, and for people to kind of just get a flavor of, of what I'm working with, and I, I kind of look at it as, writing is a lot like playing an instrument, you need

• 1:59:23Speaker 06

  to practice to get good at it, and Substack helps me do that, so some weeks it's, I think, nailing it, and other times it just doesn't quite sound right, but I appreciate anybody who reads it anyway, so, we know how that goes, yeah.

• 1:59:37Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, the only way you get better is by reading and writing, that's it.

• 1:59:40Speaker 06

  And, and having other writers read your stuff, and tell you you're probably not as good as you think you are, that's all right.

• 1:59:47Jack Murphy?

  So guys, go check out the novel. Like I said, I really enjoyed it. I read it on the Kindle. Hard copy is also available.

• 1:59:57Jack Murphy?

  Really, like, like I said, I felt like it kind of like tells the Marine Raiders story. Kind of from front to back. You know, from the beginning to the kind of like recovery process.

• 2:00:09Speaker 06

  Well, it is a psychological book for sure. Not just while you're in it, but it is meant to make people think and.

• 2:00:15Jack Murphy?

  And I don't think there's anything else out there quite like it as of now.

• 2:00:20Speaker 06

  I don't believe so. My, my, my publisher said the same thing. He's like, I've never actually read something like this. This is very different, very different kind of book.

• 2:00:30Speaker 06

  Maybe special even, but.

• 2:00:33Jack Murphy?

  So thank you everyone for joining us tonight and we will see you next week. Thanks for joining us.

• 2:00:39Speaker 06

  Thanks. It was awesome.

• 2:00:40Jack Murphy?

  Appreciate it Ivan. Hey guys, I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House Podcast, the Eyes On Podcast and the High Side News Outlet, which I run with Sean Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week. It's going to come into your inbox and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Eyes On and the Team House and whatever's topical or current on the high side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you as social media algorithms are pretty iffy and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once a week email. It'll slide into your inbox and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week.

• 2:01:23Speaker 06

  It's really good. I'm checking it out.

• 2:01:26Jack Murphy?

  The website for it is teamhospodcast.kit.com/join. Teamhospodcast.kit.com/join. Go there and you enter into your email list or you enter your email into the little thing on the website and you're good to go. And that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support and hope you'll consider signing up.

• 2:01:51Jack Murphy?

  The link will also be down in the description if you're looking for it there.

• 2:01:54Speaker 06

  And that's teamhospodcast.kit, K I T, Kilo India Tango, dot com backslash join.

• 2:02:06Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:02:20Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:02:31Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:02:36Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:02:42Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:03:03Speaker 10

  Forget whatever plans you have this weekend, because you're staying at home and playing on Spin Quest. And there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at spinquest.com, S-P-I-N-Q-U-E-S-T.com.

• 2:03:25Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:03:42Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:03:57Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:04:08Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:04:13Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:04:19Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:04:40Speaker 13

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 2:05:02Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:05:17Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:05:32Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:05:43Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:05:48Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:05:54Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:06:14Speaker 15

  Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck?

• 2:06:19Speaker 02

  Bresky, I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

• 2:06:32Speaker 15

  10 bucks for 30? I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now.

• 2:06:36Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:06:50Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:07:04Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:07:15Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:07:21Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:07:26Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:07:46Speaker 02

  Hey, guys. Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte. And it's the best time to cozy up and play Spinquest. They have over 1,000 different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just 10 bucks. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 2:08:11Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:08:26Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:08:41Speaker 08

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:08:52Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:08:57Speaker 09

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:09:03Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 2:09:23Speaker 10

  You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on spinquest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite spots, live blackjack, live craps, with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. Play spinquest.com and you'll never be bored again.

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:09:53Speaker 07

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 2:10:06Speaker 01

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergent ...treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolaire is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolaire.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolaire.

• 2:10:49Speaker 01

  This is an advertisement for Zolaire, paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 2:10:53Speaker 02

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Kris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players. A $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com and download the app today.

• 2:11:17Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:11:23Speaker 16

  Monday Night brings one more big matchup to settle into. And when every play matters, the last thing you want to do is step away to figure out dinner. That's where DiGiorno comes in. Get a DiGiorno pizza ready before kickoff, then enjoy restaurant-quality taste fresh from your own oven while you stay locked into every play. Stock up on DiGiorno over the weekend, so when Monday night rolls around, the only thing you sweat is the game. Shop now at the link in the episode description. It's not delivery, it's DiGiorno.