#45 Bob "Ninja" Poras - Inside CIA's Global Response Staff | Part 2

Ninja is back in the final installment of this two-part series. This episode spans his entire career working for the CIA, covering the differences between CIA staffers and GRS contractors, and how the enemy evolved their IED based warfare into a new kind of weapon: EFP. Bob gives us a behind the scenes look at the Khost bombing and the triple agent behind it. Learn about an event in Tripoli that saved 150+ lives and lasted a grueling 24 hours - the greatest evacuation you've never heard about. We'll wrap up with his transition into civilian life and a high-speed motorcycle crash that changed everything. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://mudwtr.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWNMUD" https://hvmn.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 0:40Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 0:43Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 0:46Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:00Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, everybody. This is part two of a two-part series with my friend Ninja, a former CIA and Delta Force operator. In this episode, you are going to hear the inside scoop of a lot of the things that went on inside CIA when Ninja and I were both there. It's a raw, honest discussion that is very rare. You're probably never going to get this much of an inside in that organization. Again, I hope you all enjoy it. Please like, comment, and subscribe to the channel. Check out the Clips channel if you haven't checked that out. Leave us a review on Spotify and iTunes.

• 1:44Shawn Ryan?

  We're kind of lacking on the Spotify reviews, so if you guys could help us out, I would really appreciate it, and so would my team. Sign up for the Vigilance Elite newsletter. Gummy bears are coming back. That's how you're going to find out where the link is to buy them. All right, love you all. Cheers. Enjoy this episode. Now, see you soon.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  Previously on The Sean Ryan Show.

• 2:07Shawn Ryan?

  You're down in Panama. Operation Just Cause. This is when we pulled Noriega out, correct?

• 2:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. Jump out of the bush, out of the jungle, put my gun at him. And I said, "Get on the ground with the..." We've decided to take you on as apprentice, which means you get to go to the operator training course. But you do a lot of shooting in a DC. I mean, you're...

• 2:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Dumping some rounds in OTC to get good with a pistol and a rifle.

• 2:33Shawn Ryan?

  Showing up at Delta, you guys took losses. Had you taken any losses?

• 2:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No, no, not, not, no. That was, that was the big one.

• 2:42Shawn Ryan?

  Though before we get into the contracting days in the early part of Iraq, let's, uh, let's take a quick break.

• 2:57Shawn Ryan?

  So we left off, you just started working for Triple Canopy. I think you said it was around oh, oh three?

• 3:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Late oh three is when I, they, I was at a unit function and that's when, uh, the founders and all that had, um, a great idea to put together. It was Triple Canopy, uh, security company and, uh...

• 3:18Shawn Ryan?

  Were those former UNIT guys?

• 3:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 3:20Shawn Ryan?

  That, uh, started that?

• 3:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 3:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And there were some guys from the counterparts in the Navy to help, you know, manage or staff the hierarchy of the company at the time. So, great group of guys. And, and, uh,

• 3:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I'd always said if I was gonna do this kind of thing, that, you know, there's a bunch of clowns out there, a bunch of companies that just run in a muck and I wasn't gonna do that.

• 3:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Heard this pitch and I was like, well, who, who's in it? Who, who's it gonna be? Is it just gonna be in namesake and have a couple of guys at the top to have the name or? And they said, no, it's gonna be, you know, former UNIT guys, uh, former tier one guys, um, not just the UNIT, um, our Navy counterparts, um,

• 4:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Saw Man was one of them. He was, he was on the crew. Um, so got to work with him again. Uh, yeah, there was, there's a bunch of good guys on the initial crew. Um, yeah, and then by oh four, so go to Chicago where we were at the time, headquarter, that's where it started. And then, um, all of oh four, or most of oh four, I was in Iraq, uh, spinning in, spinning that thing up, trying...

• 4:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Interesting in the so contract contracting at the time plus my previous experience was military experience. I'm a private contractor. Very eye opening, you know, not the coverage and the backstop you have when in the military. There's no helicopters and all that stuff coming. Depends on where you are, but you have to coordinate for it and you're civilians. So military comes first, right? So it's understanding all that, right? That was that was good to know. Interesting to find out all those kind of nuances about the whole contracting world. And I was just going to be a site manager, get a group of guys and run a protection detail and all those kinds of things. Ended up to be a little bit more

• 5:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  than that, but I was fine with it. Had a little army up north Iraq eventually.

• 5:25Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 5:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, trained them and static security, a guard force, plus a protective detail and all that kind of stuff. So, yep, so I felt, you know, I needed to do something for the global war on terror. I got out right before as that was happening. So jumped back on the bandwagon then. It's good pay. It's like, what's the worst can happen? I'm going to Iraq.

• 5:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, right.

• 6:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, and then found out, you know, as we're piecing things together in Chicago, and what do we need? Gear, equipment, spare parts, accessories for AKs and all those kinds of things. Whatever kind of weapon systems we're going to get, we're going to get in country and all those kinds of things.

• 6:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We ended up driving in from Jordan, um, down highway one from Jordan all the way to Baghdad. We actually hired taxis that came from Baghdad, came out to get us and were driving back.

• 6:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  With some folks that were there. Um, so they, they knew their area. They knew Baghdad and the streets and all that stuff. So they were already in Baghdad. They came out to get us. Drove in, long drive. The driver stopped at one point and said, we're not going any further. We happened to be right outside of, um, right in between, we're on highway one between Ramadi and Fallujah. And they pulled over and it was like, well, what do you guys, what are you, what are we doing? They all got out of the car, went across the street and sat down and were like, what do we got to sit in going on? What's going on? And, uh, you know, it was the whole thing about getting guns too. I mean, we weren't going to get guns till we got across the border in Iraq.

• 7:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We're going to meet some guy, you know, bona fides thing going on, a little black market stuff going on or whatever was going on. It was all planned to get guns when we got inside, cross the border, stop, get guns, get ammo and continue on to Baghdad. Stopping between Ramadi and Fallujah.

• 7:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It was commit, all, all we could do to convince them, they, they didn't want to go to Baghdad because it was too dangerous.

• 7:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And we're like, well, you probably should have told us to begin with, right? Cause we're not staying here on highway one between Ramadi and Fallujah.

• 8:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, no shit.

• 8:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  At that time, not a good place to hang out.

• 8:04Shawn Ryan?

  There wasn't a whole lot of good places to hang out in Iraq in oh four.

• 8:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. Um, so that was another.

• 8:12Shawn Ryan?

  Depending on what you're doing.

• 8:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Intro to contracting one oh one right there.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 8:50Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 8:56Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 9:03Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 9:08Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 9:12Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 9:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We eventually ended up convincing them it was the right thing to do for their country and everything else, you know? And, you know, fed them a bunch of crap, and they bought it and continued to drive in Baghdad for us. And the thing, and you can see,

• 9:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, off of Highway 1 where we were, you can see some of Fallujah on the horizon off in the distance in the desert. And one of the things was, you know, so there was a

• 9:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  there was a gal with me driving in my suburban, there were suburban white and orange taxis, the typical C in Baghdad,

• 10:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  or anywhere in that region.

• 10:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  She had to go to the bathroom, right? And it was a gas station, but, you know, it's like, you know, Iraq, it wasn't any normal, it wasn't gas, there was gas pumps. They hadn't been used in probably decades. But there were just, you know, cans of gas all over the place. So, it was a gas station. It was an Iraqi gas station. She had to go to the bathroom. And I told her before, I say, "Don't leave without me. And if you have to go to the bathroom, whatever it is, if I have to go to the bathroom, you're coming with me and I'm going with you. We're not separating." So, we stopped there. And I'm talking, trying to convince our driver, and a couple of the drivers, that, hey, we need to... You know, do this for your country and we're here for you and all this other stuff.

• 10:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I turn around and they started, okay, well, we'll do it, but we need more money. Yeah, it's like, all right, we'll get you more money when we get there. And I turn around, I was like, where's this girl? She was a contractor in at the Baghdad International Airport with one of the other companies. They, she was part of the, one of the companies that went in to try to like manage the infrastructure of the airport. Okay. Right, but that obviously didn't go yet. There wasn't time for that yet. Um, so Triple Canopy on the ground picked her up to work for us in, in whatever capacity to train, to handle women, Iraqis for the guard force stuff and all that other stuff.

• 11:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  She walked off and it was like one of those things like, I'm a contractor now. Should I leave her on her own because she should know better? Or should I, you know, go try to find out where she is and rescue her because I don't know where she's at? And so time and place where we're at, Ramadi and Fallujah, you know, she's going to be high dollar to somebody, right? Oh, yeah.

• 12:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So the only other place in the middle of this desert where the guy, the drivers are across the street, huddled up, talking about stuff and line of Suburbans packed with all of our gear in it. There's only that one gas station part of it. Uh, and I was thinking, and I see a couple of the Iraqis standing around. I see there's no way, no way she would have went over there. Cause it's safer here. There's Americans here, right? And she knows, well, I assume you come from around the building. Oh, my. And I was like, oh, here we go. I was like, well.

• 12:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, I have this brand new AK, but I don't know if it fires. I haven't shot it on a range. No, if it fires, it fires accurately. So I can't, I'm not comfortable taking a shot as you know, 150 or something like that away from me. And I was like, well,

• 12:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  this is all I got. So this, this is my intro to contracting in Iraq thing. And she keeps walking. I was like, all right, all right. She makes it to the truck and I scream at her and yell at her. I was like, don't ever do that again.

• 13:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And she got her butt hurt a little bit. And I was like, well, you realize where we're at, right? And she's like, yeah, we're on the road to Baghdad. And I was like, so off in the distance on the horizon. See that over there? That's Palooja. We just passed Ramadi back here. Those towns sound familiar to you? She's like, yeah. I was like, we're not going in there. I was like, yeah, exactly. But that's who's here. And so she got it. She said, I'm sorry. She apologized and all kinds of stuff. And all worked out. We got to the, the green zone.

• 13:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  To our, the house we were near gate 12, I think it was, was the one, the furthest down towards Route Irish. Like you passed that, the tank that was parked out there and then you were on Route Irish getting some. So that's where we were at. The unit guys were there, Task Force Brown, the Rangers were there. SASC was there.

• 14:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And that's where we, that's where we started base of operations, just starting to get contracts everywhere.

• 14:12Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 14:14Shawn Ryan?

  So what point?

• 14:17Shawn Ryan?

  Cause that was, that was State Department contracts, correct?

• 14:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, the CPA at the time, Coalition Provisional Authority. So State Department, but it was the CPA, all those contracts that they had everywhere. And they're starting to push out now to Sulaiman Iap North and all the other towns. From Baghdad, they're starting to branch out down south in Ramallah to Lil and all those other places. They're trying to get something stabilized. You know,

• 14:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  trying to get a presence there in those places, which didn't, didn't work out so well initially, but.

• 14:58Shawn Ryan?

  How, how long were you working with Triple Canopy? With Triple Canopy before they picked you up?

• 15:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep, stay with them for a year.

• 15:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Most of that was getting the bases and like as the contracts would come down, we were there waiting on, okay, let's get a team and go. Like I ended up going to Sule, but in the interim on Baghdad, I'm going to Ramadi, helping that team out to get spun up. Uh, went down to, uh, to Lil South to start, uh, help with that one, just to spin it up. I was never mind, I wasn't supposed to go to all these, I was just going because I'm there and to help out at that point. And then I'll come back to Baghdad and wait for another contract so I can take a team and go somewhere else.

• 15:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Ramadi, what? Is it, it was interesting in Ramadi, so the, the guard, National Guard, uh, Army National Guard was out there and they were doing the escorting for the, uh,

• 15:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  the CPA folks going into Ramadi to do their, you know, diplomatic stuff. And so our team was partnering up with those guys. So we'd run a limo follow and then we'd have Army vehicles in front, leaving out, and then a gun truck in the back. And when I was out there doing that, we'd go downtown to the, uh, the governor's mansion and we're doing surveys, site surveys, we're getting the lay of the land and figuring out what, what's where and stuff like that. Our national, I got a picture of this guy, he's funny, they're from New Jersey.

• 16:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I hear this, one block down, I hear this firefight going on. And I was looking at another side of the building and I'm on top of the rooftop of this three or four story government building. And, um,

• 16:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I turned around, I was like, I'm waiting for the, the guard guys to have some kind of movement, right? I turn around and they're not moving and, uh, the, it was E6, I think, staff sergeant.

• 16:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I yelled down the stairway, I was like, hey, get up here to the other Triple Canopy guys, I say, hey, get up here, there's a firefight down the street. Yeah, just to watch it, maybe participate in it, something, right?

• 17:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, who knows?

• 17:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  In case they start coming this way, then we're up there ready, right? They had the guard guys, they were improving their positions on the rooftop. They had sandbags and that's what they were doing while we were waiting for the meetings to go on. We're doing all the sites, the surveys, the mapping of the area and getting contact information.

• 17:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, range cards, the whole thing on the rooftop.

• 17:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I went down stairs to see how much time we had to for the meeting. And it was still a good forty-five minutes or an hour. So, and then right then, um, I hear the firefight pick up up tempo a little bit. So I go running back upstairs to the rooftop and, uh, I passed the staff sergeant and he says, he's going downstairs. And he, he looks at me, he's like, what are you doing? Where are you going? I was like, hey, there's a firefight going on. He's like, I know. He goes, that's why I'm going downstairs.

• 18:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And he told his guys to lay low. He like get below, there was like a knee wall on top of the rooftop. And then there, there's sandbags and everything, um, decent fighting positions. And, uh,

• 18:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  uh, the firefight, you know, picks up, uh, sound and, and, uh, amount of ammo that's being expended. And, and all we're doing, it's the next street over. So we're starting, you can only see the, the misses and the hits on the buildings, like a block up the street down. You know, we're looking down this one street. And occasionally we see somebody passing by and then somebody passing by the other way. It's like, what in the heck is going on? And, uh, one guy probably saw somebody on the rooftop that we were at and he rounded the corner and took a shot, right? And immediately this, this dude, the, so we're now in charge of the, the,

• 19:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  well, we're not in charge of them, we're saying, hey, man, you know, they got saws and all that stuff on the rooftop. It's like, hey, could you, could you just please point your gun in that direction? If somebody starts shooting this way, can you just help us out a little bit?

• 19:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And that one dude turned around the corner. It's all he was doing is like, it's, it's, it's an Iraqi, right? So he's running the corner, shooting his gun, and then he's gonna run across. He doesn't know, I'm guessing he didn't know who was where. He's just gonna shoot and then run. Cause that's what they do, right? Just around the corner, shoot, and then run across the street.

• 19:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And that's all I said. It's like, hey, get that guy. And he's like, really? Like, he was excited. This PFC. He's like, really? I was like, yeah, get that dude. Get him, get him, get him. He's like, as he's running across the street, he must have just, I don't know, emptied it, half of his drum. Cause it was, you know, it was a short window of time that we even saw this dude out in the open. And he was way, way behind, trying to catch up. And I was like, alright, good job, man. And he's like, did I get him? And I didn't want to tell him no. He's like, did I get, uh, I was, yeah, you got him. Good job. Yeah, I was, you know, that was interesting. The whole time of the contracting was interesting.

• 20:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, and then mostly it was dealing with, or, or eventually running into like army guys in our cars, right? So Beamers, you know, ID cars. We're driving around ID cars. Um, a B-bids. And that's what they, they're thinking we are when we're rolling up to them. It's like, oh my God, you know, back off. Um, was another thing. And, and when I finally got, um, and we were going to the bases,

• 20:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  one of the bases up north between Baghdad and Bakuba, we would go to that base, cause that's where all the caches were, they'd go raid places, the big army. And that was like the processing place for all the enemy. So we were getting guns and ammo from those guys. Stuff that they had captured on targets and stuff like that wasn't processed through the system yet. Um, and I finally get, uh,

• 21:16Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  There's Decret and there's Urbil, those contracts are coming down. Then I finally get one and it's in Sully. I was like, ah, Sully's cool. It's on north of the Green Line. That'd be a cool place to go. I'll go train the army up there. 10th Special Forces Group is up there. Uh, the S.A.R. Major at the time was a form of unit guy. And, um, that was a good deal. Um, on the way there, we have to pass through Bakuba, stop there because we have a team there to drop off some mail and some more money and stuff for them. And one of the, um, so there's a traffic circle near where they had the, I don't know, whatever you call it, the CPA compound. Um, and the big mill was moving. So you got these big old, you know, what do they call them? The MRAPs, right?

• 22:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They're rolling through and they, they're rolling through the circle and I already, you know, American flag, orange panel, all this stuff to the, the tail, the rear gunner on the rear vehicle. As he's looking, you know, straight six o'clock, he's got six for the convoy he's in. And American flag, hey, we're friendly. And he gave us the thumbs up. And we just were following him around the circle. And when they get around the circle, they were going, you know, out 12 o'clock. We're going to continue out nine to go to the compound, which is right quarter mile within this circle. I mean, we're almost there.

• 22:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I had a local driver with me from Baghdad, spoke pretty good English, but I was taking him up to be a linguist for me.

• 22:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But, you know, driving skills.

• 22:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's like, that's all we had. So the other American in the other vehicle had another, uh, local guy from Baghdad. He's driving and that there was just us two, two separate vehicles, trunk full of money to go hire local guards, you know, and, uh, vet them, train them, you know, all this other stuff and then pay them salaries and stuff like that. It's crazy. But, uh, we're dropping off money for the Bakuba team. And we go behind the, um, we're behind the convoy. We're, you know, pretty good distance. I mean, we're, we're enough to where he can keep seeing us, the, the rear gunner. And in the circle though. Half of their convoy gets through ID in the one of the bricks that make up the circle,

• 23:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  right? So the hu- huge blocks that they have that make those things. So apparently they embed something in one of those and blew it up, cranked it off of one of the MRAPs. And at the time, it was either, you know, initiation, that was either initiation and then a follow on, you know, ambush kind of thing. So me sitting there, what, you know, us sitting there in the back of this formation wasn't a good place to be because it was a thin skin, uh, whatever. We have a BMW 350 or something series car. It's a fast car, but you know, we don't need to be here. Yeah.

• 24:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. And so what I decided to do, um, we couldn't get over the, the curbs because they're 18 inch curbs, right? With this BMW. So I, I motioned to this guy and I told him, we rehearsed a couple of things before we left, you know, gas, gas, gas means step on the gas and go, keep going forward. And explosion goes off in front of us and it's like two or three MRAPs in front of us. And they're spread out pretty good distance. And I said, I have an idea what the army is going to do when they're hit, when they got hit, right? So my thing was to get out of the way, like as soon as

• 24:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  we can get out of the way. So in hindsight, what I probably should have did was say we're burst out, right?

• 24:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But I said, gas, gas, gas. And I took the steering wheel and I'm steering right beside the MRAP, all the way around the circle. So to the point where they, they couldn't depress their guns to shoot us if they thought we were bad in V-bids. So I'm steering right along the side of the MRAPs. And as soon as I get a break around the circle, out we go, right? And thank God they didn't, you know, think anything of us other than they had a lot of things to deal with at the time themselves. And, uh, And again, my decision to go gas, gas, gas, instead of reverse out, right? So we're hauling ass to the chute. And in order to make it into the chute to this compound, um, it's a hairpin turn.

• 25:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So we're hauling ass, I still got the steering wheel. The Iraqi, I kept telling him, stay on the gas and we're hauling ass down the road. And I said, we're going to turn in right there at the end of the, the T walls. We're going to turn left there. And I let go of the steering wheel and he turned in and we're screeching a little bit as we're making this hairpin turn across the street and then into the chute. And then we're saying, well, that little bit of noise, guess what we saw when we rounded the corner? All these Americans and locals rather are there, right? Our team that's there, they're all gunned up, waiting for something to come down the chute. And we're in, we're driving a V bed, right?

• 26:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And flags out, orange panels and I'm waving, hey, we're friendly, we're friendly. I'm on the radio, radio's not working to try to say, tell, talk to somebody in the compound that, hey, it's us. Um, and I told our driver, he was, he was scared. So we rounded the corner, first from all that activity, then we rounded the corner and now all these guns are facing at us. And, um, I get out with the American flag and I slowly got out. I started walking toward the front, so Iraqis first. I was like, yeah, friendly, showed them my badge and they said, uh, they were, they were all amped up. I'm getting ready to shoot something. And I was like, it's okay, calm down. And I walked, kept walking and I say, hey, where's the first American?

• 27:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I just yelled it down the chute and see a little hand come up and say, you know, get over here. And then I recognized him. I was like, hey, man, it's us. It's like, we're good. And he's like, what the fuck ninja? I was like, dude, did you hear that shit? He's like, yeah, that's why we're all jacked up right now. We heard the explosion in the circle and now you come screeching around the corner, man? You almost got shot up, man. I was like, well, we're here, man. It's like, I got a duff bag full of money for you and some mail and all that crap. He's like, get your ass in here.

• 27:43Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 27:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 27:45Shawn Ryan?

  Did you look at the Iraqi and say, well, what do you think of your first day?

• 27:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, yeah. He ended up quitting, actually.

• 27:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet.

• 27:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, good stuff.

• 27:55Shawn Ryan?

  So how did you get picked up from the CIA?

• 27:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, ended up, I left Triple Canopy, went to DynCorp for a year, went down south to Bosher with DynCorp. There was a Triple Canopy team down there. They were the first Americans that got hit by an EFP.

• 28:15Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:16Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  When all that crap started. They were targeting the Brits initially. They finally hit. And we thought maybe it was a mistaken identity. They thought it was a British Land Cruiser. It was us. Our Triple Canopy team is Americans.

• 28:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We QF for those guys. That was a bad experience. Really, it was a body recovery thing by the time, I mean, we were less than five minutes away. And it was one of those things, typical things where if you're on the street, you ask the other team, hey, if we get in trouble, can you come and help us? We'll do the same for you. Well, we're crossing, you know, similar paths, at least response times. And that was, that was the case. They got hit.

• 29:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  One, I think of the three guys in the car, one survived, I think.

• 29:06Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Do you know the names?

• 29:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I don't.

• 29:11Shawn Ryan?

  Brad Young ring a bell?

• 29:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No.

• 29:13Shawn Ryan?

  By chance? No?

• 29:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But, yeah, they, they were, they were in a bad way when we saw them. So some of the guys were alive when we first saw them. But some of the, the vehicles that were pinning them, they were pinned, like on the, one guy was pinned with the high side of the back of the seat, right? So that was actually keeping them alive, just keeping pressure in this, in his system.

• 29:36Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 29:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But, yeah, that was, that was, that was a scary moment. British that were down there. We responded, pulled the guys out of the vehicles, took them to the hospital. One guy, by the time we got to that point, and one guy was alive by the time I got to the British hospital. He eventually dies on the table there.

• 30:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, it was one of those things where the

• 30:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The thing to do was to go take pictures of this and put it, you know, exploit it. The cameras, uh, the camera footage, uh, on Al Jazeera and all that stuff, or wherever.

• 30:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So we get there and I have a, uh, I have a saw. I'm in a follow car, so I'm rocking a saw and all the ammo that comes with it. Um, the new guy with me on the other side, he is funny. Um, got the call. Hey, we're hit. Uh, we saw the limo flying past us back to the State Department, uh, compound. And we're like, well, that is like, I think that was the limo. So the package is safe.

• 30:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then we heard the guys that went to the, the crash site. So car gets hit on an up ramp, goes, continues up, goes over the embankment, rolls, tumbles. And, you know, uh, the guys in the front of that car were gone instantly, probably. Um, they're the ones that took the brim of the whole EFP thing. Um, and, uh,

• 31:07Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to explain what an EFP does?

• 31:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, explosive form projectile. Yeah. It's a hot metal. It's a copper plate. Um, and then that gets pushed with explosives behind it and it's packaged in a cylindrical, uh, tube or container. And so you have this conical shaped, uh, copper and explosives behind it. It's primed from the rear. And then when it shoots out, uh, it envelops on itself and then forms a hot metal, uh, copper, uh, projectile. And it rips through everything. There is nothing that can stop that stuff. Yeah. And, uh, any armor at the time, anybody was using, it wasn't stopped. It was going right through that stuff.

• 31:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And usually by the time it triggered on the front of the vehicle, uh, front of the vehicle, if it was, um, and they were trying that at the time, they were trying, uh, timers, uh, command detonated stuff and then trips on, uh, uh, passive infrared or red.

• 32:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You break a beam and it goes off. By the time that your bumper crosses that line and breaks the beam, the, the EFP explosive is, is right at the point where you're rolling, uh, right at the front of the vehicle, the front passenger compartment, right? The driver and whoever's up front and.

• 32:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Right through the front seat.

• 32:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Both people usually don't survive that. And backseat people, on the other hand, sometimes survive those things. Other than all the other things that happened as a result of the explosion, right? Or the the car crashing into things and wrecking and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, that was, there was at the time, no defending that. And then eventually they come up with this little glow stick out in the front of vehicles to detonate it in front of the vehicle. So you're not lined up with the the crew department, the crew compartment on the vehicles. So that was really the only defense at the time for those things.

• 33:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 33:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Eventually.

• 33:10Shawn Ryan?

  Then they figured that out and it went to a heat signature, correct?

• 33:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 33:14Shawn Ryan?

  So they would, it would sense the heat of the engine.

• 33:16Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 33:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. And then there was at the, then they started doing that at the front, too. They put the stick out there with the, like the radiator coil or a hot coil, right? And so that would hopefully trigger those, those initiating devices. Old school command detonated stuff and sometimes multiple people. So that was the thing, too. If, if something went wrong or if somebody decided not to do something or whatever it was, they had two people designated to detonate this thing. So it was usually some sort of

• 33:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  the person

• 33:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  tripping the device, whether it was a beam or whatever it was. Or it was command detonated, second, secondary initiating device. So that was tearing people up for a long time in Iraq.

• 34:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it was nothing you could do about it. The hot metal copper was just going through everything. But that's in Basra at the time in oh, five, that's when all that stuff started. And they were one of the first Americans to get hit by it.

• 34:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Horrible. And I was the, the

• 34:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  crowds were massing. I'm there with my two forty.

• 34:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, so I got a machine gun with a lot of bullets. There's a lot of people out here, but.

• 34:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, they're just massing. What do you do with the massing crowd? I mean, they're not aggressive. But in the crowd, there's some aggressive people. Yeah. And that's what they're capitalizing on, right? They're gonna keep getting closer with the crowd. So, uh, there's a helicopter, a British helicopter comes across and they're giving us a sit rep to the commander, the British commander on the ground. And, uh, we're trying to get him to land, to take the people to the injured. One guy that was still alive, um, had a heartbeat, um, we wanted to get him to hospital. Well, they didn't want to land because they said, uh, there's, it's too dangerous. There's too many people massing in your direction.

• 35:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Like, other than the people that are there, there's more people massing. And I was standing right by the, the, he was a lieutenant. I said, "Exactly. That's why we need to get down here and get, get our guy to the hospital." Like now, get down here. We got you. We got the, we got it covered. We got, I mean, to the extent that we could, you know, I got a machine gun, we're good. We gotta get this guy here. And they went land. And so we ended up packaging them up, putting them in the, our vehicles and then trying to get them to the hospital. And they all expired. Uh, yeah, they, that, that was, that was not a good time. They ended up bringing us back to Baghdad. They shut down operations down in Basra for a while.

• 36:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, we went up to Baghdad and did the same shit in Baghdad. Yeah. Wasn't any prettier in Baghdad. Damn. But yeah, that was the, the round out of that. When I was deploying for that is that's when I started getting other offers or every time I'd used to come home, um, check email, check voicemail, all this other stuff. And there's always job offers. Hey, we got something for you. I, and, and I was going to another department, a paramilitary side of, uh, the organization. And I couldn't ever sync up interview times with this guy because he's deploying too. And he says at one point, he said, "Hey man," he's like, "Hey brother," he's another form unit guy. He's like, "Hey,

• 36:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  put in your resume for any position and I'll, I'll have HR flag it that you've applied and they'll, they'll get it when, when it comes through." Um, so I did that. And that's how.

• 37:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  GRS eventually gets my resume and I get the call, I get a call. It's, it, it doesn't say anything. It's like many of the other voicemails that I hear when I come back to the States. It's like, hey, we have something that you might be interested in. You're well suited for it and all this other stuff. Uh, give us a call for an interview if you're interested. So I call them and a bunch of other folks and set up interviews. Um, they'll find out that it is GRS when I finally show up, that that's what it is. Cause it was like cool. So, so back to my unit days, right? Getting into that whole thing. I was like, so what do you guys do? Who are you guys?

• 37:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And they go through the whole thing about this is who we are. This is what we do. And they explain the whole hierarchy and the, you know, where they fit in the, in the whole, you know, structure of things. I was like, oh, I didn't know you guys did that. Um, cause I did some, a couple of trips for, um, another buddy of mine in a similar, uh, protective, uh, thing in Baghdad, um, and, and, uh, Afghanistan and Bagram. So it was like, I didn't know you guys did that. Yeah, sure. I'll try it, you know? And, uh, that's how 16 years later, I spent 16 years doing, you know, all the GRS stuff.

• 38:29Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 38:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And yeah, deploy. I stayed deployed most of that time.

• 38:32Shawn Ryan?

  What, when did you start in GRS?

• 38:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh, six.

• 38:36Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, six. When did GRS start?

• 38:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, I'm not sure. I'm going to say around, uh, beginning of Iraq.

• 38:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So it'd only been around for three years?

• 38:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. I think there was always, well, so officially it depends on who you talk to. So in its current state, it, that's the, probably the start time, but there was always some sort of, um,

• 39:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Like protective side of things coming from the more traditional office of security side of the house.

• 39:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Right, so there was always that. So if you talk to those people, they were the, they were the original GRS guys. But in its current state, about beginning of Iraq time is when that all kicked off.

• 39:25Shawn Ryan?

  So it all kind of changed when the war kicked off.

• 39:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 00

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• 40:03Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig. On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 40:14Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Ravennet.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 40:27Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not admitted without parent.

• 40:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Contractors, contract companies to, you know, that's, that's still, or was up until Iraq and Afghanistan went away, the majority of the workforce were, were contractors. And that's where all, that's where all the most experienced guys were that, that did that kind of work. So then staffers run the teams. Yeah, it's, it's, it's a, it's a whole new animal now, and I'm sure right now, I'm not sure about what their status is now, but since Afghanistan and Iraq has gone away for the most part, they've scaled it down quite a bit, I'm sure.

• 41:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'd imagine.

• 41:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. I don't know what kind of, you know, mission profiles are running anymore, because it was more of a traditional, you know, war zone. clandestine war zone, high threat environment that they were, you know, used to operating in. So I'm not, not quite sure how that looks nowadays, but.

• 41:30Shawn Ryan?

  Probably a lot different than when me and you were there.

• 41:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh, yeah. And it should. I mean, times are changing, so.

• 41:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that is true. What, what was the, did you go on as a staffer or did you come on as a contractor?

• 41:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, I went on as staffer initially.

• 41:49Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 41:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Never made it to the paramilitary side. I ran into my buddies over there all the time and they're like, what the fuck, dude? I was like, I don't know, I got a pretty good gig over here, man.

• 42:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, ninety, ninety days on, ninety days off. I'm into the whole rotation for sixteen years.

• 42:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, I didn't mind it. I liked the job. I liked the work.

• 42:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I was around a lot of good stuff, man. I, I, I, it, just the work itself, right? The, that particular mission and mission profile to get folks to do what they have to do, right? Get the clandestine teams to do what they do.

• 42:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, it was an interesting animal from a traditional diplomatic security standpoint to, you know, do more with less. Right? Now do all that with two people.

• 42:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So I don't think that uniqueness ever caught on, like, that concept, like, this is, the concept, yes, this is, this is how we train, but it's not like you roll with a lead car, a limo, a follow car, a cat car, and you have supporting overwatch from a helicopter and everything, and an army unit standing by for QRF.

• 43:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Sometimes your only, your, your team back at your base was your QRF.

• 43:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Unless you had other people there, the army or marines that were there that could do that kind of stuff. Then it becomes, you know.

• 43:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Element in contact or their element first, army first, if it was army cats. If we're not doing anything for our folks, then we'll come to you, right? And that's just, just how it is. I mean, there's, that's just policy. That's how everybody works and we do the same thing. When they're asking us to do the same thing, Q R F for them, it's like, sure. If we don't have anything going on, yeah, we'll come, we'll come help you out. And that's just the way of it for years.

• 43:56Shawn Ryan?

  What were your, what's the?

• 44:01Shawn Ryan?

  What did you think of the?

• 44:05Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know if we can say the acronyms. Can we say the training acronyms, the training pipeline? What did you think of the training pipeline to get in? What was your initial assessment?

• 44:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, so we had that discussion the other night. It was.

• 44:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  If you're starting with, with some, like a SEAL, Green Beret, Ranger. That, that particular thing that we were doing back then. It had nothing to do with operational, how we were operating in the field.

• 44:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And as much as they hated to hear that, it wasn't just me, but I'm sure others are saying the same thing. And, and since I hadn't made a deployment yet, I was like, there's no way. You're doing this in the field. Cause it just doesn't make sense to me.

• 44:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And they kept telling me, they're trying to reassure me that this is how our people are doing it in the field. So you have to learn this, so you'll be on the same sheet of music when you get there. I was like, all right, well, I'll do it. And so I went through the whole process, made it on board. Went to the field for the first time, I was like, I knew it wasn't happening in the field because it's stupid.

• 45:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And so from the, so the, the.

• 45:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The experienced contractor folks who have some sort of experience, they've been through a basic training or a boot camp, right? They've been tested in Marsoc, BUDS, SFAS, or RIP, rope, all these other things. They've gone through several layers of assessment and selection and they've been in, the further further we get into the worse, they've already been in the war zones, they've been in the combat zones, they've been on targets and they've been in that environment already, they know it. And they're good at it. And so you can, you can start with those folks at a certain point, further down the road, right? You don't have to send them through another basic training, boot camp thing. You can, you can do that, but that wasn't how the mindset was. It's like, you gotta

• 46:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  train to the lowest common denominator, which is a staffer, who sometimes didn't have any previous experience, like the, the contractor staff. So already, already it's, it's, it's not gonna work. If you're training to lowest common denominator, person who has no experience, or very little experience, maybe they were in the military, but it wasn't a combat arms. Combat arms is either some sort of infantryman, a SEAL, a Ranger, or somebody, right? That does that kind of work. Could have been a logistician in the Army or Air Force, right? Well, that doesn't, that doesn't equate. But they do have a college degree and they're in a staffer and they, they, they made it, you know, to that point.

• 46:57Shawn Ryan?

  I could never understand, I gotta be careful how I say this, but I could never understand why the, I'm hoping you can help me with this, because a lot of guys have this question. Why were the staffers qualifications lower than the contractors qualifications if they're going to be the fucking team lead? With that being said, I'm not saying that all staffers

• 47:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, because all the staffers.

• 47:24Shawn Ryan?

  Didn't have the experience.

• 47:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No, I'm just kidding.

• 47:26Shawn Ryan?

  You were one of the most respected guys in that element. But a lot of staffers, and you know this, were not respected at all. And nor should they have been, in my opinion. What, what was that? Why did they, why were the qualifications so high to become a contractor and so low to become a staffer?

• 47:50Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, it was a mindset where

• 47:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, for those of us coming out of the special operations community, right? There's a, there's a, we know, we know that style of leadership, right? And what it takes to do that. But coming from, you know, the staff side of the house and that management, they're not, they're not used to that. So their thing is, a manager is a manager. You can, a manager can manage any team, anywhere, anytime, right? As long as they have the education, the whereabouts, the smarts, and they go through the initial training, right? We're all the same.

• 48:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Okay. It's not true, but that's, that's the mentality.

• 48:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. And we've talked about it, and I've, I've heard that conversation over the last 16 years, a lot. I'll bet you have. You know, in any of our training too, on the staff side, there's no leadership training. So, and I was willing to do, and I did it through the organization, just to kind of figure out, you know, what, what's, what's the mindset? What's the take overall on, on your, what do you think in leadership is? And what are you expecting out of me, right? Kind of thing.

• 49:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it's mostly, it's mostly oriented, most of the leadership's stuff is, is kind of geared towards an office environment. So you really can't get the field type of leadership that we're used to seeing, you know, in the special operations community, infantry units, or anything like that. So that's, that's where, that's the missing link there on the unknowing, like the not knowing how to train too, like, like leadership training.

• 49:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Manager at a Marriott, went to school, was in the army for a little bit, doing administrative work or something like that. Well, if he did that, then he can lead a team of pipe cutters in a war zone. Yeah. Makes absolutely no sense, and it, for the most part, it didn't work.

• 49:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They survived it, right? So for those guys, I've been in the senior leadership positions out there, and

• 50:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And know that guys go out there and survive their 90 day, they live, they go in the the secure area, sit at their workstation, they never go on a run, go to the chat hall, they make friends with everybody in the, in the, uh, the operational side of the, the secure area, but that's it. Uh, they don't, they can't get along with the team because they don't know even how to talk to the team. They don't know how, they don't have the same things to talk about.

• 50:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, so it goes on and on down that rat hole of just, they just isolate themselves, hang out for 90 days and then they go somewhere else the next trip. So they don't have to go to the same place and deal with that again. Um, there are a few good ones out there, but uh, there are those a lot that uh, don't lead by example. That's a big one, right?

• 50:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:56Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, they, and they don't know how to do it. One, they don't know how to do the job and then they don't seek the extra, uh, training to do it themselves. Cause I'll, I'll hear about guys, even guys who've been in the business. I did the same thing myself. It's like, I'll come back from a trip, but, and put myself into a training course of some sort. Um, cause I went in, yes, I was in a war zone for 90 days, but I didn't pull the trigger once. So I'm going to go to a range in a school and learn how to shoot again, or pull the trigger, you know? Um, plenty of times that's happened where, yeah, I didn't do anything. There was no activity and then, you know, it was a good trip, right? It was, it, well, it was boring, but you know, nothing happened.

• 51:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, come back, while I'm gone, I'm looking at another school to go to, or just a training course, just to go to, just for shits and grins, just to stay up on the, whatever people are teaching, right?

• 51:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, and uh, what's being discussed and who's thrown up to these training courses? And then building a network, right? Maintaining that network of folks. I did it all the time. Um, but that's not the norm, uh, with, on the staff side, on the contract, I'd run into our contractors at some of these classes, right? Good for you, man. Um, cause otherwise you go, uh, re-qualify, you know, every two years and that's it. If you didn't do anything else on your own, that's the only training you're going to get. But, and I know some guys even on the contract side, that that's all they relied on. That's all they did too.

• 52:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But that was very rare on the staff side for to hear somebody like, hey, I'm going to, you know, shoot with, you know, Jerry Barnhart or anybody. I'm going to layer vicar's school or something like that, or I'm going to Viking Tactics, you know, carbine level three or whatever. You didn't hear a lot of that. It's like, I don't know why. Why wouldn't you? Try to be better yourself, right? Try to better yourself. Try to be the best person. If this is what you do for a living, then you should probably, you know, working to get better at it, right? And there's times where, you know, the longest time I've gone without pulling the trigger was when I was deployed for 90 days because nothing happened.

• 53:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's like, well, that's not, I couldn't get to a range because you couldn't go to the place where you can shoot guns or didn't have a range on your facility. And then other times that was, that was the training place to be.

• 53:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, because you had a range and you had unlimited supply of, you know, bullets available to you and it was the best training ever. It didn't happen, not a lot of operational stuff going on, but you were able to do, train, do some AOP drills, live fire stuff and those kinds of things. And then bring back, so when me or any of the guys that were doing that, when they're back home in the States, they go to a class, then they bring it right back to the field and say, hey, this is what I learned at whatever class they went to, whatever course they went to. Now we have the opportunity to have a 360 degree range and a better training environment to practice all these things. So we'd go out there and do it. Like the Mozels and Kirk cooks and stuff like that,

• 53:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  perfect areas. Most places in Afghanistan, you had a place to go shoot guns and do some good training, right? But a lot of guys didn't do that. So they weren't good at it either. When you're talking, when we're talking about the guys that didn't have the respect, they weren't good at it and they didn't work to get better at it.

• 54:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Shooting or otherwise. So they didn't even go to the range with their own teams because they were afraid of showing their ass like, I don't know how, I don't know what I'm doing.

• 54:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Instead of seeking the advice from those experts.

• 54:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Say, teach me how to shoot as good as you, right?

• 54:33Shawn Ryan?

  That. Or anything.

• 54:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 54:35Shawn Ryan?

  So it could be driving, communicators.

• 54:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 54:38Shawn Ryan?

  Anything, breaching, you know, I just, I.

• 54:44Shawn Ryan?

  I don't usually chime in on interviews, but I found, I found the agency in that particular environment to be

• 54:56Shawn Ryan?

  really, it was difficult to navigate. I worked with the best people I've ever worked with there and I've worked with the worst fucking people I've ever worked with there.

• 55:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 55:08Shawn Ryan?

  I feel like GRS is probably one of the most underrated units in the entire organization. I think the majority of people there, uh, it was a very fucking high caliber, um, group of individuals. And I don't,

• 55:29Shawn Ryan?

  me personally, my opinion is the agency never realized the full capability of what we had to offer. And is, is an entire organization. Now there were, I'd been to sites and I've been to different safe houses and whatever spots where, where the chief of base, the guy in charge, realized how capable we were and it was, hey, can you guys go snatch this guy? Yeah, we can do that. Can you call in Apaches? Yeah, we can do that. Can you guys breach? Yeah, we can do that.

• 56:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 56:03Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and it was, it was, the answer was never no. Whatever they brought, we could figure out how to fucking do it because it was all Delta, Team Six, SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, PJs, CCT guys.

• 56:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 56:19Shawn Ryan?

  And I honestly think it was probably the most capable

• 56:27Shawn Ryan?

  unit that I've ever fucking participated in.

• 56:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 56:31Shawn Ryan?

  Bud, what are your thoughts on that?

• 56:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No, I agree. The, the, uh, yeah. The most capable and the most. Under Under Misunderstood and underrated, right? And even from our own management side of the house, they don't even know what they have available to them. They don't even know the capabilities of the guys that are working for them, um, which is just always just amazed me. Um, and so if they were able to understand what it is exactly that's going on in the field and disregard all the pony shows that were going on, then when they show up on the site somewhere overseas, because that's all it is, dog and pony show. Well, then they're like, oh, well, things are good. You guys are good. Well, um, it's, it's all hiding things and

• 57:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  only showing them what they need to see, right? And dog and pony shows, um, and not being, not having a real conversation with them when they're there. It's like, this is what we're doing. Uh, this is how we're doing it. And it sure would be nice if we had training in a safe environment back in the States to do this. Um, because this is what we're actually doing. Uh, the cookie cutter training stuff, that's fine. We actually have a, a situation we would like to train on specifically for this area, because this is what we deal with every day. Um, I just never seen that way. It's not a, it's a training thing too. It's a training concepts that they're not familiar with too, that allow that to happen back. Like, oh yeah, that makes sense, right? Yeah. Because they don't know what they don't know. So you, you can tell them all day

• 58:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  long. And I used to get, get this, well, we're, you know, we're not at your old place anymore. We're not all going to be commandos. So, you know, stop trying to make us your own commandos. I was like, I'm not, but they're capable people out there that, that can use this training because that's what we're doing. This is how we're accomplishing the mission. Now, on the operational side, for the most part, they loved us on all the capabilities, with some exceptions where you have some animosity and some, you know.

• 58:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Stuff going on like that, that you know, they, they don't wanna, they don't like you. You're a knuckle dragger, just a meat eater, you know, I don't need you out here. We can do our own stuff. And I've actually heard that and I say, and I used to put it back on them like, well then, all right. Well, I could take my team somewhere else because we can be more effective if we even go to, I'll name a base somewhere else. If you don't need us, then just say you don't need us and I'll take the team and go somewhere else. And then they're like, well, wait a minute, what about?

• 59:02Shawn Ryan?

  But what if?

• 59:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 59:04Shawn Ryan?

  What if something bad happens?

• 59:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Right. And I was like, okay, you see what I mean? Um, we could do that and all these other things for you while we're here.

• 59:16Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, we can, you know, it, it's a very, it, it took, I mean, over 20 years, right? To finally get the point across that what are the actual capabilities? Cause there's also this thing going on that, yeah, we did this thing and it was great. And everybody loves us at this one base, but it's, it's not within our, it, it wasn't what we trained to. And it's not in any SOPs, it's not in any thing that we should be doing, right? We went, not out of the box, but you did exactly what needed to be done to get the job done, right? And it wasn't necessarily what was being taught in an academic environment, right? But that's, that's the reality of the situation that we were in, right?

• 1:00:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  This is the world we lived in. Um, and so they did, they didn't discuss or describe exactly what happened. So nobody ever knows about it. Um, so it's not captured in any, any documents, no official cable traffic, no emails, nothing. Because they're afraid of saying they did something that they weren't supposed to do and then get in trouble for it. Right? And I used to tell the guys all the time, don't be afraid of doing something for fear of losing your job. If it's the right thing to do, just do it. Um, and then worry about it later. I mean, there are times when you don't have time to float it across, you know, a discussion or a, a, you know, leadership forum to say, hey, is this okay to do? Sometimes in those environments, they're so dynamic, things happen and you gotta make decisions.

• 1:00:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And that's, that's where, you know, we used to make our money, making those kinds of decisions.

• 1:00:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But then articulate that, that's, that's, that was on me and all my other staff or, you know, colleagues to do, right? Articulate that back to our management to let them know exactly what we're doing, because it's great stuff. And I did that for, you know, 16 years, trying to get that embed into the training programs, which over time, most of it is, some of it's still there, but it's still kind of a sterile training environment, right? Which it can be a little bit more realistically in that regard, but it's kind of, it's come a long way since 15 years ago. Yeah, and it's not just me. It's a lot of folks that have come on board since then and be able

• 1:01:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  to have those discussions, truth to power kind of stuff. And they're not, you know, I was never one to be, just like I was saying, I did tell everybody else, and I lived it myself. Don't be afraid to make decisions for fear of losing your job. Make, make a decision based off of what you know. Do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do. And if all goes well to that point, you don't have to, you don't have to struggle to describe what you did. Success or fail. And one of, one of the, one of the things I told our deputy chief, great guy, we were trying to get a piece of the, so we evacuated AAA 2014, and we're going, now we're, they're asking for assistance

• 1:02:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  to go back. It's going to be a more traditional, like way back in the day, you know, OSS infill, just very few people. And I want to say expeditionary, but those that hear expeditionary, it means a lot of other things. A small team to go get us back into Libya at the time. And they asked for assessments. What would it take for you guys to support this? And everybody that was given a number is like, what we need. A two man team for this guy, we need a follow QRF team. You know, so that's three armored vehicles, six, eight guys.

• 1:03:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  All of them need carbines and pistols and then machine guns. It's like, okay, you missed the whole point. How about you give us two? Can you give us two guys to go? And help out other folks that are more than capable. So these are all experienced, uh, either on the paramilitary side, or they're experienced tactically, technically competent and proficient folks that are being hand selected to go do this.

• 1:03:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:03:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I said, no, we need, we need, we need to get a piece of that because we have guys that can do that. But we need to have the, uh, we need to have the adult conversation with people who get wind of this and that want to go, but aren't that person that we need to go represent us or support that team in this capacity. Um, because they just aren't capable to do that. And that's another thing we were, we were lacking too on the management side is having those frank discussions with people. And you can't, I personally was on a lot of situations as they wanted to come to a site that I was at. I was like, no, sorry, man. Um, they said, but you asked for whoever.

• 1:04:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I was like, yeah, because I need, I need him out here for whatever his, you know, competencies were. And, um, and no, uh, sorry, man. Love you like a brother, but I don't need you out here. You know, you're doing well where you're at, just stay right there. Um, you know, and having those kinds of discussions. It's like, I need somebody with a little less, you know, whatever it was. Usually it was an anger management thing or a very strict, um, because the places I like to go to, you had to be a little bit more out of the box thinking. Um, maybe do something or answer the mail on something and actually say no to certain things. Uh, but no one do that. That was the hardest part for me to convey to other, my other staff or colleagues to say,

• 1:04:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, it's not always yes. But you always try to get to yes. It's like, uh, yes, but not that way. How about this? And then have an answer, right? So have those smart discussions and that's what they want. They want to open up the and I've heard things and they something gets flown up float floated on the table. Say, could you guys do this? And it just sounds totally ridiculous. It's like, um, we could, but we probably shouldn't do it that way. And then have an answer for it, right? How about this? Right? Give them a solution. Um, those are all the discussions that you that they want to elicit from you. They'll just throw something on the table and if you say, no, no, that's not what we do. You know, we got a strict SOP to do it this way. It's like,

• 1:05:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  or not. I mean, I mean, do you have to stick? I mean, what what's telling you that you have to do these exact things this exact way? This is a different country. This is a different threat environment. This is everything's different about this place that your management team that you're working with. Uh, is different. Um, their authorities are different, you know, it's so many things that can be involved in this thing, but they don't think all that through. You know, and it's a lot of the guys who have the least amount of previous experience. So they were like the Lance Corporals or whatever in the Marine Corps, the the junior leaders, wherever they were. Uh, but they were never in a like a leadership position themselves before they left the military or

• 1:06:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  police departments, wherever they're coming from, right? They weren't in those positions to make those kinds of decisions to see that transition from, you know, the the team member to the team leader. So they never made that transition. And those are the guys who get stuck with, uh, SOPs and and policies and all that other stuff. Instead of looking at these things as, well, this is what the policy says, this is our SOP, but standard operating procedures are based off of what? Where did that come from?

• 1:06:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Right? That was another place, another time. Well, then let's let's see what we can do to make this work, right? Accomplish the mission, period.

• 1:06:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Let's and with that mindset.

• 1:07:00Shawn Ryan?

  Solve this problem.

• 1:07:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. Yep.

• 1:07:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And unfortunately, you know, our contractors are stuck because they're contractors, right? They

• 1:07:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That's why they're staffers, right? The staff makes the decisions, right? Especially when it comes to money and all these other things. But, so there's, there's staff, things that staffers do, and most of that is the authorities' side of the house. And the interaction with the chiefs and the senior folks that are there, wherever you're at,

• 1:07:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  have those discussions, be in those meetings, and convey your capabilities to their mission and how to accomplishment, right? Or how to accomplish anything that they're talking about at the table.

• 1:07:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I've been at the table, I don't know how many times where I hear them talking and they're saying, "Well, GRS can't, can't do that." Because the previous guy that was there in my spot had said they can't do it for some reason. And I was like, "Wait, wait a minute. No, that's well within our purview to do that. That's what we're here for. I mean, you guys are paying money for us to be here to do exactly that thing." Assume, assume the risk that, you know, a higher level of risk assumption that we're going to take for you to accomplish the mission, right? And that's what we're here for. It's like, so those discussions are lacking in some of our, because they were junior leaders and they never, they never felt empowered to make those decisions in their previous lives.

• 1:08:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then, nobody told them that was okay to do that in their current lives, right? And I used to say that all the time to the guys. "You gotta go to this meeting. You gotta go to this meeting. I know meetings suck, but you gotta go to this meeting and have those discussions with these people." At that point, because that's the initial phase of getting, getting things done. They're talking about things they want to do, and they need somebody in there to tell them, "Yes, I can support that." And, "Or, no, I can't support it, but how about you do this, you know, this way. How about we incorporate somebody else? Or ask for military support? Or, you know, "Wait, let me get more guys here for a surge or something like that." That, that's what they need to hear, that interaction that they needed to hear, which wasn't happening in a lot of places.

• 1:09:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's like, "I don't have enough guys here. I have three guys, and we need to do this thing." It's like, "Let me, let me ask for some more guys." And, "Yes, we could do it if I get three or four or five more other guys here." So, that's, that's huge. And it's, it's from what I can tell, up until the day I left.

• 1:09:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's still going on to some extent. The junior leaders don't know how to have those conversations. They're never told or taught those kinds of things either. So that's another thing on our part that we didn't do as an organization to help those junior leaders become senior leaders.

• 1:09:50Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting, yeah.

• 1:09:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Cause it's, it's, uh, it's also part, not part of your evaluations either. So the whole performance evaluation doesn't, just because you're there is good enough. Doesn't matter what your performance level was, because nobody's there to watch you, uh, except for the guys on the ground. And, um, they're not part of your, your, your rating scheme. So, you know, if you were to ask team members, your team, what they thought, if they were to ask them, what did they think of you as a leader? That, that would be a whole new, whole new, you know,

• 1:10:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  uh, avenue to take to find out what exactly you were like on the ground, right?

• 1:10:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Cause that says a lot, right? Or to even ask the senior, uh, organization guy that was there, the chiefs, um, hey, how did my guy do? That conversation wasn't happening here from manager to manager, headquarters to the field. How, how's my guy doing out there? Never that conversation. If and when it ever did, they'd always say, oh, he's doing fine, you know? I mean, he's doing everything you guys do and, you know, very washed down, very politically correct. They're not going to say bad things about anybody. So there's not that frank discussion either. A lot of times, sometimes yes, a lot of times no. Like, hey, this is what I'm, expectation brief, right? Hey, this is what I expect out of you during your time here.

• 1:11:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I used to give that to the team, uh, any team I went to, it's like, okay, this is why, this is what I'm going to do while I'm here. This is what I want to get done while I'm here. This is what I, what I expect of you to get that done. And then what, what do you guys have expectations of me, right? That's like the initial in brief, other than, you know, uh, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is my job in this whole. Station environment. Um, this is what I can do for you. Um, everything falls on me. I'm responsible for everything we all do or failed to do. So if anything goes wrong, it's all on me. I talk to the man about it. I'm the one going on the carpet, neither one

• 1:12:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  of you, unless it's an individual thing that you need to account for. Um, that's all I ask from the guys ever. Like be accountable for yourself, be responsible. If you screw up, own it. Um, yeah. And, uh, be, be responsible and accountable for your actions, good or bad. And that doesn't happen enough, though.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:12:39Speaker 03

  Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze, that's what.

• 1:12:49Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:12:52Speaker 04

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 1:12:54Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9 to middle without parent.

• 1:12:59Shawn Ryan?

  Let's get to some of the operational type stuff that happened. There was some major, major incidents that happened. One of them being Benghazi.

• 1:13:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:13:09Shawn Ryan?

  Where were you when that happened?

• 1:13:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I was in Baghdad when that happened.

• 1:13:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, that was, um, so 2012, I was in Baghdad closing down the old villa. We were closing down the villa, moving out of the villa, going over to the new embassy compound. Um,

• 1:13:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  yeah, that was, uh, that was an interesting, um, incident. Of course, administratively, that was another administration thing. I think that we were all under some, um,

• 1:13:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  lack of leadership or misled by leadership, you know, all the way up to the White House in that case. Um,

• 1:13:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, and I of the guys, Tyrone and Bob, I worked with Bob in Israel a few times. I didn't know Tyrone. Didn't know the Ambassador Stevens or anybody, the communicator that was out there, but yeah, I was a that was. There was a lot of things I wish we could like that, just like another incident that that story. That's a great story, but the way it came out in the movie, it wasn't. How would it like, it just sounded like our like guys complaining about what happened, right?

• 1:14:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  There's a lot of good things. I mean, I'm not saying anything out there was was not horrible because it was a horrible situation. But what our guys ended up doing in this horrible situation was amazing, right? So instead of having that kind of tone to the whole thing, it was, you know, didn't quite have that tone like they weren't. There was a lot of administrative stuff and backside stuff that they weren't aware about that couldn't make it in the movie probably, but affected the outcome of all this stuff.

• 1:15:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That that wasn't talked about or discussed in the movie or, you know, nobody knows about that stuff, but maybe in some of the books I haven't read. Can you elaborate on it now? Or no? Uh, no, probably not, or it wouldn't be a good thing. So there, there are some stories out there and I and from our guys that were out there and that are still alive telling the story. They did some amazing, amazing and heroic stuff that so making decisions on the fly. I wasn't taught this. I'm not supposed to do this. The reliability on the locals, right?

• 1:15:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Who ended up abandoning their posts. But then somehow relying on them from the station management to come back and help. And what I know of Libya and my interaction with all the militias out there. Their loyalties are always to their own countrymen, right? Even if they're in different militias.

• 1:16:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They won't fight another militia for you. And that's exactly what some of which which happened out there.

• 1:16:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Because they got to live with them, right? And they can't go to war with another militia. A neighborhood who who they have maybe family members in. And that's just the dynamics of militias and and a lot of places.

• 1:16:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And the lack of understanding of that, right? The actual.

• 1:16:50Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Like their actual intent. And we've done the same thing. You've asked them for help if if we got help. If we need help from them and yes, yes, yes, yes, all day long. Yes, we'll come help you because you're Americans, you're our friends.

• 1:17:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But then their neighboring militia, even if it's their.

• 1:17:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Their worst enemy in a normal day and the militia that they hate the most.

• 1:17:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They might go to fisticuffs for a little bit, but they're not, you know, when it comes push to shove, they're going to stop and say, okay, stop. Because we got to live with each other. Americans will go home, but we're still going to be here. So the they.

• 1:17:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, trying to. So try to imagine in that scenario, in that case, knowing that.

• 1:17:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  If I'm asking a militia, I'm relying on a militia to come help me. Because I'm being attacked by another militia or another anybody.

• 1:17:50Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Unless it's a common enemy outside of that country. Like the Al Qaida's and ISIS and all those folks. If it's from outside, if they're foreign fighters, that's a whole other animal. But for our folks that. Don't understand that. First of all, it's beyond me why they wouldn't understand that because that's just militia one on one. Um, and Libyans, when I used to talk to them all the time, militia to militia, they, they actually said, they say those things when you're asking for assistance. And, and I said exactly, hey, what if militia, this militia was attacking us, would you come help us?

• 1:18:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And they're like, well,

• 1:18:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  maybe if one of our people are involved, right? We might go to war with them, but that's, you're asking a lot of them.

• 1:18:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, and just that, that misunderstanding of how the dynamics work there. Um, and the, to think that you can rely on them to do those kinds of things. It's not an American, right? You can't, you never,

• 1:18:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you can't outdo the American fighting spirit regardless, whoever that is. I mean, it's, it's, that is a unique thing only to Americans. Um, but we often think that we train these people so they have adopted our mentality about helping others.

• 1:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good point.

• 1:19:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, and it's not the case. Yeah, it's not the case. Even if, especially if it's us, because we're the, we're the foreigners to either one of those folks, even though they're our friends, we're always the foreigners, we're always the, the guests.

• 1:19:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So if you think about it in those terms, um, yeah, they're not gonna, they're not gonna risk the rest of their livelihoods and their children's livelihoods and their generations past, because they go to war. When they go to war, they go to war for generations.

• 1:19:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Even if that's the case, and we saw it in Afghanistan, we've seen it in Libya, we see it in everywhere we've been uh, with the last 20 years plus, um, it, it, it never works out. If, if you're a, if you're a studier of war and militias and all those kinds of things, you see those are common threats. Um, right? And those are common stories after the fact. But we were relying on the militia to come save us because they said they would. And we've been training with them, we've been drinking with them, we've been eating with them every day for the last 10 years, right? And they're our friends, we smile together, we laugh together, we mourn together, we fight together.

• 1:20:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then when it comes, push the shelf though, if it's against one of their neighboring people.

• 1:20:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I can't think of a, a, a entity right now that would do that for us. And that's, that's kind of what happened. Some of which has happened in Libya altogether and all of my experiences in Libya, but um, in Benghazi as well. So our, our office there was relying on the locals to come do something.

• 1:20:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Damn. Yeah, they, they didn't, they wouldn't. That's, so they, they kind of portrayed that in a movie a little bit. Where the local guard uh, force has a cellphone and he's talking to one of the, the commander of the attacking force. And uh, I can't remember what character it was they had in the movie that was saying, who are you talking to? And he's talking to the, the commander of the attacking force. It's like, how do you have his phone number? It was because they lived together. So they live in the same, you know, they're, they're, they're locals. And um,

• 1:21:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  yeah, it's just, it, uh, you know, you can try to portray that all you want and it, it, and, and SF community, right? That's what you do in FID, right? You train locals to do local, to win their own battles. So the tendency in that environment too, and we do the same thing. Our guys that are working with locals, you fall in love with your own work, your own locals. I trained them, they're good, they're, they'll do anything I want them to do, they listen. And all day long, because you're feeding them, you're paying them, you're clothing them, you're giving them training. And of course, they're gonna, they're your friends, because they're your friends for now. But then when push comes to shove and you ask them specific questions about if this

• 1:22:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  militia or whatever you want to call them are attacking us, because we just got some threats that are coming out of this area of the city.

• 1:22:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Would you guys come help? And most often, it'll be uh, either uh, oh, they don't want to say no. Because they want to make you happy. And that's, uh, but they'll, you know, kind of walk around the conversation and say, uh, yes. Like just to make you happy.

• 1:22:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Guess what? Over and over and over again. Um, not just there, but in other places too. We're calling for help and somehow that phone never gets answered. It's like, oops.

• 1:23:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Let's, let's move to the coast bombing.

• 1:23:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh, nine.

• 1:23:16Shawn Ryan?

  December? Yep.

• 1:23:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. Another good book, The Triple Agent. Awesome read, uh, to know how, um, Blowie did what he did that day and he was good. He was, he was better than most, um,

• 1:23:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  clandestine agents anywhere training. He wasn't even trained.

• 1:23:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um.

• 1:23:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's talk about what happened.

• 1:23:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. So I got there probably three weeks, maybe before that happened, uh, beginning of December.

• 1:23:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, I was going to show up, be the country, uh, team lead guy. And I was going to go around the bases. I ended up staying in Kabul and working Kabul. Um, and I was getting feedback on things that are happening out there. Hey, we're spinning up for, uh, high threat meat and all this other stuff. Can you look up this person? Can you look up this stuff? See if you got any information on it. You couldn't get any information on it. So there's a lot of things there that was, that were close hold compartmented for a reason that they wanted to keep it close hold, right? Compartmented. So our guys weren't getting information. A lot of physical things about lack of information.

• 1:24:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The physical, uh, security, uh, building there was a, a facility that was an existing facility. They made it a, a SCIF, right? Limited access or limited, um, like computer space. There, there were people actually hot seating at the same computer station because there wasn't enough space.

• 1:24:50Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Do one or enough drops. So there's lack of communication, lack of information for those reasons. Compartmentalization and then physical access to a computer to ask questions. And then there was the withholding of information from the management team to, in order to put a plan together, in order to plan appropriately. And then there's a reluctance to listen to that, the guidance that our guys were giving out there. And there was two, two or three team leaders on the staff side that have gone through there and worked that problem set and were unable to convey to them, this is the best way to do this.

• 1:25:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Cause it ended up to be mostly focused towards, may have been the pressures from outside of that base to get something done, or whatever it was, which is also shouldn't be a consideration. Sure, okay, I feel pressured to get something done. But the fear of failing, right? That's, that's the whole thing. I gotta get something done or I'm going to be perceived as a failure. Well, or you can be alive to tell the story that you failed, right? Yeah. All these indicators, I mean, the triple agent paints a good picture. So you'll never, we'll never ever see the official report on it.

• 1:26:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They took a lot of internal, over year, over several years. Like what, what did happen? What did we think happened internally? What did, what did we do wrong? What could we do right? What could we have done better? Right? A lot of unwillingness initially to actually identify the leadership problems that were going on, the communication problems that were going on, the, the disclosure of information, right? Enough for our security teams that were out there to have a decent plan or to even be listened to.

• 1:26:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It was crazy during those times. So what I'm finding out, my first days underground, each base has different criteria for searching people. There's color codes, there's number codes. And you probably remember some of those. There's gold and yellow and green. Green means you do this to this person. Red means full on stripped down, give them new clothes. And different levels of searches. That was one of the things on my list of things to do. It's like, no, no, let's get this shit together and figure out a way to, not individual bases, but I thought that needed to be consistent throughout the theater. One, because we were the ones doing the searching.

• 1:27:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So I go to one base, I got this whole nother criteria for searching people. I go to another base and I got another search criteria. And they're all bad guys. So what's the level of bad guy, right? What is this guy? What's his deal? And then you get fed the information that they want you to know about this guy to get a minimal search criteria on this dude. He gets painted with, you know, a minimal search. And then, okay, that's all I know. I don't know any different. I don't have any information to go on. That all changed after that. So there's now somebody to reach out to to find out exactly the threat level and those kinds of things. But leading up to that, there was a reluctance to listen to the JRS guys on the ground

• 1:28:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  and how it needed to go down. There were some other folks and even, it might have been in Darren Lamonti, he's one of the guys that died in that one. He's coming from Jordan. It might have been in Triple Agent or some other book or article where he's actually expressing some reluctance to do this because it just seems like we're not in control of this guy. He's controlling the op tempo. He's making the meetings. He's canceling meetings, which is what happened that day too. He's coming up with excuses and somehow he magically has this access that we're just all salivating over.

• 1:29:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  How does that happen? Well, he has actually described some of the reluctance to do this based off of his. Spidey sense is going off on this guy. He's like, that's too much access too quickly for this guy. Why would that happen? How would that happen? And so he's one that says something in some documents like it's public knowledge. And I'm thinking it's probably triple A and a great book to read on how this whole thing goes down from a third party perspective. So there's no favoritism either way. It's what he did and how he was able to do it.

• 1:29:41Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about the actually what happened in coast? How it happened? Who died?

• 1:29:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, he goes, Southside is the, the team leader for GRS down there. He, I'm talking to him for a couple of days, a week or two before that and he's frustrated on, he wants to go meet this guy down in town or outside of town somewhere, search him off base. So they're the only ones exposed to a potential threat. That gets denied. And at one point, I, I, I'm on the phone with him and I say, well, you can deny our services if it's, if they don't want, if he's so safe that they don't need your services, you can, you can say, okay, we're out. We're, hey, take care of it, chief. Have a good one. You know, we'll be in the team room playing, you know, Xbox or something, whatever.

• 1:30:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I actually said that and he actually pulled out. He's like, well, if it's, if you don't need us and you're not taking my advice on anything, then all right, well, have a good, have a good meeting. We'll be over here if you need us.

• 1:30:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Almost last minute, I don't know, at one point he decided that he, he calls me and, and he's calling me because he can't get on the system. He's hot seating on a, on a workstation. He said, he was out and then he calls me, he's like, we're back in. He was like, we're, we're going to do what we can at the site. When he shows up because that's all we're giving. And he didn't feel good about just standing around, not doing anything. So he's like, we're going to set up outside the, so everybody wasn't supposed to be outside there. It was just supposed to be the GRS team to meet him. Darren and the Jordanian officer were supposed to be there. And that's it. Just to meet, greet. And then he meets everybody when he goes inside the, the room, the, the room that was set up for the meeting.

• 1:31:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That was a last minute thing there. Everybody comes out to form a greeting line. And unfortunately, that gets a lot of people killed that wouldn't have otherwise been dead today. Those are all decisions not made by GRS, but it was all made last minute by the station management. But Southside says, calls me and he says, "We're back in. We're gonna do what we can. We got something worked out in the front of the building to make this happen.

• 1:31:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And we'll do what we can.

• 1:32:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And we're gonna take, you know, we're gonna be the ones exposed, which is what we do, right? And if all went well, and it still went bad, there would be, you know, a few less dead people today. Subject to anybody else's assessment of what happened. That's what I know, and that's what I, I think would have happened otherwise. Our guys would have still been dead. Because that's, that's the job that they had to do, and he was gonna blow, he was gonna blow himself up. That's what he went there to do.

• 1:32:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then Darren and Jordine, intel officer, would have been dead as well.

• 1:32:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But there would have been at least, you know, three others still alive.

• 1:32:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  He says he's going back in. He's got a plan. They're gonna do what they can, because that's what they're there for. And the plan was for all the folks to wait on the inside and meet him when he came inside. The meeting greet was gonna happen with Darren Labonte and the Jordanian officer, intel officer. Three GRS guys out there to meet and greet, do the whole pat down and search, and then off to the meeting they go.

• 1:33:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, last minute, the, the...

• 1:33:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The local guard force, the concern was the rapport and the identification from the local guard force of Blowie coming in, right? So the local guard force was either told to look away, or they were taken off of the gates to come in. And only Americans were going to be there, but the Americans, they were going to be compliant. There was this little card they showed. The driver had either I'm under dress, or I'm okay, right? They flipped the card one way or the other. He's okay was shown. Either way, the gates were up and free access to come in base, no searches. That was another spot where the static guys wanted to at least do a search.

• 1:34:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I had described to Southside at the time too, I was like, well, if you're out at the perimeter of the fence where they're coming in at the gate, and you do the search, I've done it myself on other occasions too, but, so I wasn't telling them anything that I wouldn't do if I was there doing the thing myself. You know, take the ass chewing later, because they're going to complain about it later, right? If they go into the meeting, hey, you guys searched me, roughed me up, you said that wasn't going to happen, hey, put it on me, it's all on me, right? My bad, sorry. But they weren't allowed to do that.

• 1:34:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They were very strictly observed, controlled about how things were going to go down. And eventually, they decided to do what the best thing they have, you know, with this shit sandwich, you know? We'll meet him when he comes to the, in front of the facility, search him there, and then escort him inside, and then get on with the meeting. Unbeknownst to them, there's like, let's go out and form this meeting greet line.

• 1:35:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, unfortunately, she not here live to defend herself in that decision, but that was a decision made by station management to go do that. Ended up killing more people, including herself.

• 1:35:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Our guys died probably instantly because they were ground zero of the explosion, along with Darren Leboni and the Jordanian intel officer.

• 1:35:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  He went there with the intent to kill Americans. That was his whole intent.

• 1:35:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And to think that, you know, when you think in that mindset,

• 1:35:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  the premise of the whole thing to alleviate all the security measures for rapport, to maintain rapport, that's not a good reason to do that for security, right? Especially when we're talking Afghanistan.

• 1:36:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Talking Afghanistan 2009. And all the red flags are up all throughout this whole thing, including up to that meeting where he says he's injured. He provides his story along the way. He builds a story that he was in a moped accident or whatever. He's got a hurt leg, so he's going to be, he has a cane now. He's walking with a cane. He shows up and he works his whole cover story the whole way through. His whole intent, now that we know after the fact, right? Even, we know after the fact now that he had a video that that was his intent the whole time, right? But, you know, the stuff that we were doing over there,

• 1:36:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, you have to assume, you know, otherwise, you have to assume that that's their intent to begin with. And then, not from a paranoid, not from a fear standpoint, not from a overly protective standpoint, but it's the reality of the environment at the time. You know, how he's getting there, who he is, the actions that he has, even if it's, so even if he's, even if he's been forced to do it. You know, even if he's being forced to wear a body vest and to gain access. And somebody else is going to be around to initiate when he gets close to Americans. So those, these are all of the things that, all the guys that I know that were there planning that mission. Uh, the three staffers that were there, they were thinking all these things.

• 1:37:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, what if he's unwitting, or not unwitting, but what if he's uh, being coerced to do this? So he can wear a body vest so somebody else can clack it off on him, right? When he gets close to America, what if, you know, we don't know. How do, who knows this guy that well? But that was the, that was going across, that was going on across the board in Afghanistan at the time. And all of our bases were, there's different search criteria and it was just a mess of search criteria and what to do, how to do it. Um, this was a new one. This is another one, um, and I, for whatever reasons, uh, get rid of all the security measures. You know, when you think about it now, it's, for us in the business, it's like, to get rid of all security measures.

• 1:38:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Given the situation, the circumstances, time and place.

• 1:38:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  To maintain or build rapport for a person who's been manipulating you and canceling, not acting right. Come up with the excuse after excuse to not meet you, then I'm going to meet you, then cancel. And then all these other things, he'll send you a video, send a video for you to chomp on really quick, salivate over. And, um, you know, all these flags, all these red flags went off and disregarding all those things. Get rid of all the security measures, doesn't make sense to anybody. At the time or after the fact, before or after, before or during, it doesn't make any, any sense at all. Get out of the car, decides, alright, this is as close, he sees a whole bunch of people standing there.

• 1:39:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And perfect for him that this, for him, all the, everything aligns for him to do his job. And that's what he went there to do, get as many Americans as possible.

• 1:39:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Our guys, you know, see that there's something going on. Uh, pretty sure it was Scott yelling at the guy to get his hands out, you know, showing me his hands and all this other stuff.

• 1:39:32Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, Dan and Jeremy are with him pulling cover.

• 1:39:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh, shoot.

• 1:39:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Wyatt, the fourth guy, he's, he's standing by the, the, the, the welcoming party. He's back there by the, by the door of the building. So he survives the day because of his location. He wasn't, you know, he gets injured, but he doesn't, doesn't die. He's alive to tell the story because of where he was.

• 1:40:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But yeah, that, uh, man, it was just, yeah. And I, the things that I was hearing across the board, not just in coast, but across the board, how we were, how we were supporting operations. In my mind, I'm writing these down as a new guy. I gotta address these things with, with all the team leaders and all the teams in Afghanistan that we need to get this under control. And I'm conversing with headquarters that this is what I'm gonna do. Uh, this is what I see. This is what I wanna do. Just so you know, this is my, things I wanna take care of. That was one of them was the search criteria there.

• 1:40:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And Scott, it was a first time staff deployment, but he was a contractor before that. So this, the whole game wasn't new to him. He'd been a cop before that.

• 1:40:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So it, none of this was new to him. He knew exactly what to do, how it should go down, was not listened to, didn't have, you know, for some reason, uh, station management there just didn't want it.

• 1:41:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Listen and do what they needed to do. And unfortunately, they're not around to answer the mail for that anymore.

• 1:41:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, things go bad, sideways. Um, yeah, I was in Kabul and I heard the radio call. Um, so I'm talking to another former unit guy. He's working the FOB's office, the Fort Operating Base office. And that's where the radios and the, the monitors are and all that stuff for all their stations and, uh, predator feeds and all that stuff. And we're just having a conversation. I'm walking back to the security office and he comes down the hallway to get me, gets air ops, gets all these folks, uh, all the, the chiefs that were on the, uh, at the headquarters there. And he says, uh, there's been an explosion on coast.

• 1:42:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We're not sure who's injured, if there's any injuries or what the injuries are. Initial statements, right? They're never accurate. These are the names that we hear and he's rattling off a bunch of names. So how is everybody in my mind? How is everybody? How is that many people around an incident like that? This, I thought initially it was an accident of some sort. Cause how is everybody from the senior person there? All the way down to our guys? How are they all in the same place at the same time?

• 1:42:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So as I'm trying to digest what's happening, um, and as the medevac is happening out there and they're getting shipped to, uh, Salerno to the cache there. Um, they're starting to confirm KIA's and, uh, wounded in action and who's who. And I, so at that time, um, so Sax, um, I'm talking to Sax about, you know, hey, get, get three, three guys or four guys, however many I said, I need, I need four guys to fly with me to coast. Like now pack a bag, we gotta fly immediately. And that's what I was talking about my, my communication skills at the time. I don't think I told him why we needed to do that.

• 1:43:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I just needed four guys to fly with me to coast. Uh, cause something happened in coast. I don't remember exactly what I said. I don't think I gave him the story of what happened.

• 1:43:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But when I find out, you know, who's dead or dying out there, there's all four of our guys that are out there on this list, dead or dying. So then instead of a QRF, cause I don't know exactly where it's happening. I'm not familiar with the coast area yet and I didn't know it was on base. So anything they said, I'm, I'm thinking it happened out in town somewhere. Cause GRS has evolved, so we're out usually out of the wire, um, downtown somewhere.

• 1:43:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I hadn't been to coast yet and I had to get some guys that had been to coast and familiar with coast to get there and to go with me and, um,

• 1:44:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, then it then it just became a uh.

• 1:44:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  By the time I get there, that's the first time I find out who's dead and who's wounded.

• 1:44:16Shawn Ryan?

  How long after the incident? Did it take for you to get down there?

• 1:44:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It was probably four hours.

• 1:44:23Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 1:44:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. Um, a lot of things were going bad then at the time, uh, overall in the theater. Some hel- uh, aircraft fixed wing or rotary wing were socked into weather. Some were not working, they're waiting on injured parts and there wasn't, you know.

• 1:44:45Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:44:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Just a shitstorm of things that collided together in that one moment. Uh, to get a response team there. So it became, after I found out, you know, that the whole team had been wiped out. Um, and it wasn't a QRF thing anymore. It was a recovery thing. So, uh, EOD guys went out there to do their their part on the scene. Um, Army EOD was already on the site to work their, do the EOD stuff. Um, and by the time I got there, this is, the sun had dropped, it's dark. Um, everybody that had to be evacuated was evacuated. Um, some guys were about headed to Bagram at the time already, the living injured.

• 1:45:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, and then off to Lanchduel after that, but um, m- most of the folks were

• 1:45:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  either dead or confirmed dead, or they're on their way to get help, either in Bagram or Lanchduel. Um, and then it was literally just.

• 1:45:46Shawn Ryan?

  Cleaning up.

• 1:45:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Cleaning up the mess. Yeah, um, literally, uh. Well, so the three guys that flew out there with me, um, I apologized to them because I don't know what information I told them about flying down there with me, what we were doing and what had happened. I told them when we got to the airport, uh, waiting for the plane there that th- this is what happened and this is where we're going. And appreciate you guys stepping up to fly out last minute with me to this thing and all that kind of crap. Um.

• 1:46:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, we got there and then it was about, um, you know, accountability of the folks that were there, accountability for their stuff, making sure the, their, their stuff was taken care of, all their personal belongings and all that kind of stuff. Um, you know, sensitive items, all that stuff. Then it became a mission of going to grab the guy that facilitated the crossing. So the only guys that were left were the paramilitary guys to do anything like that. So, uh, between me and, and, uh, the other GRS guy that was there, we were helping them plan to go talk to this guy, find him, go talk to him, see what he knew, when he knew, and all that kind of stuff. Um, see if he was culpable on any of this

• 1:47:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  stuff, or he was just a facilitator, just like he did what he was told, that's all he did. So that was what that became. So, um, work with the, the, the locals that were out there, paramilitary guys with their locals to go get this guy, um, and then question him about what had happened, um, during that whole incident. Um, but yeah, that was, that was not something easily to handle at the time. I mean, that was, uh, the most horrific sight I've seen in my life to that point, and I think since then. Um, but, uh, again,

• 1:47:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I mean, our, our guys did exactly what they were supposed to do. So even if they did that at the gate, further away, or in town, our guys would have still been dead. Um, but that's, that's what we were there for, to minimize the damage to everybody else, to others. As a protective agent, you know, I'm taking the hit for you. And they weren't allowed to do that. Unfortunately, they were killed and then others were killed in the process or wounded. Um, so unfortunately, lessons learned were learned and taken forward with protocols that alleviated this or that incident from happening again, or at least

• 1:48:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  mitigated to a certain extent that, uh, it wouldn't happen to that extent. Um, more, more, um, I don't want to say control, but, um,

• 1:48:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, more listening, more confidence in your security element there, the GRS guys, to listen to what they have to say and actually more training on the GRS side to convey to them, maybe this is such a good idea. How about we do this, right? And give solutions. So it was a, it was a two-way street. I wasn't too happy with the initial story that came out.

• 1:49:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I finished that trip and went back right before the memorial and that they had headquarters. And I heard the story that was happening and they were saying it was all security's fault. I mean, it was horrible. And that's what they're telling the fan. I was, I was upset. Eventually, they actually have a honest assessment on what happened, how it happened, and how we can mitigate this from happening again. But initially, it wasn't, I wasn't, I was extremely upset about the story that was being told. And, and because I know what the extent of what three officers

• 1:49:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  were down there, three staffers were doing to try to accomplish that mission for, for that team.

• 1:49:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Frustration on their parts leading up to that point and

• 1:49:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  a lot of anger afterwards, after I heard the initial story. A lot of guys wanted to quit at that point. I, I didn't. I felt obligated to stay and try to correct, straighten the record on what happened and how this,

• 1:50:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  how our part can be better, right? How can we do better?

• 1:50:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Even if you meet that kind of resistance, or nobody's listening to you, how do you get them to listen to you? That kind of thing, right? Yeah, that was, that was, that was horrible. That was, my third week.

• 1:50:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And a year to come of that. Bad times in general, oh nine to 10, that was the high times of the, we, so on all the bases that were being hit out there, we had GRS guys assigned to them all. Coast was getting hit a lot. That's the other thing about this whole story at Coast. They were getting hit a lot, V bits at the gates. They were getting hit, it was like normal to hear that Coast, uh, V bit at the gate. Oh, really? Imagine that, you know, um, J bad is getting hit. Now all the bases are getting V bitted at the gates. And it's at the gates. Good. That's what the gates are out there for, right? They're built to withstand those kinds of things and we're going to lose some folks, locals, probably too. But that's the job of those folks doing the searches.

• 1:51:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Unfortunately, yeah. So to, so to put that in context, um, that wasn't the only thing happening on Coast. It was very normal to hear that they got V bitted again at another gate.

• 1:51:32Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So it wasn't, wasn't, that was the environment they were in. So, so to think that you're gonna alleviate all the security

• 1:51:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  for anything that was going on there at the time is craziness.

• 1:51:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And now I'm not just saying that now and after the fact that, you know, it happened and I know more about why it happened.

• 1:51:56Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But it, it, it's one of those things that never should have happened. And why did that happen? Communication, leadership, failure, failure of leadership at several levels.

• 1:52:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, one to put that kind of pressure on somebody that hasn't been familiar with that kind of environment, right?

• 1:52:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And one leadership at this, at that level out in the base to not listen to this, the professionals that are there to help you do your job. Um, it was seen as a hindrance. That was another thing that changed. So one of, one of the folks that was there. Was also, again, I, uh, the, one of the chiefs later on at another site I went to, had a totally different mindset on what he thought his GRS leadership was saying to him. He listened to every word that GRS said and it's like, and had those honest conversations. Let me, let me have a conversation with you about how, how you want to support this mission. Um, which is exactly what needed to happen.

• 1:53:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, but unfortunately it, it took that for a lot of people to wake up.

• 1:53:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And get things straight. And fortunately,

• 1:53:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  unfortunately, I was there, or unfortunately, I was there to, you know, help in that regard, which I feel pretty good about what had happened after the fact. And it wasn't, and I wasn't there to say,

• 1:53:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  cause I was saying it to our management back at headquarters. I was like, uh, this is what I see happening. This is how I want to correct it. And they said, well, what's wrong with the way it's happening? I said, well, that's how people get killed. And I became that guy, like the Chicken Little, right?

• 1:53:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I was like, well, do you know what's happening out here? This is the most active that our bases are getting hit. And since we've been here to this day, it's the highest organization. It was its highest, uh, in highest number of people in a war zone like that since the Vietnam War, right? And it was the most active for bases being hit. And we specifically had GRS in all the bases that were getting hit. So, you know, we need to do things differently. And, and they said, okay, well, over a year, yeah, there, you know, had like a, like a,

• 1:54:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  kind of a lackadaisical kind of, uh, you know, okay, if that's what you want to do, no, no, you know, do what you gotta do. And then unfortunately this happened. So was that, that was not the time for me to say, I told you so. But it wasn't I told you so moment, like, and it was happening on every base, the, the, the protocols, um, and the,

• 1:54:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The lack of communication between the security elements, us, our guys, and then the station management on exactly how to do things. So we had those guys, hey, we gotta do these things strictly this way. And then, so that doesn't sit well with somebody who wants to get shit done another way. And that conversation, communication, leadership, all the way across the board.

• 1:55:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, I have that in notes to this day. Those are the things that happen. Lack of leadership and communication. Leadership being as a leader, you know, listening to who you're leading. And then as a follower, listening to your leader and giving honest feedback and having that kind of dialogue. Because ultimately, you have the same goal, mission success, right? You're on the same mission, you're trying to do the same thing. And how do you get there? Have that discussion on how do you get there? In our case, how do you get there safely? In an environment that's not safe, right?

• 1:55:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  A lot of, some guys are used to that environment and some guys aren't. I mean, they can't articulate that kind of stuff as well. So it's our fault too for not putting, for putting guys in the wrong positions. And putting them in places where they can't, you know, they don't understand the environment to the extent that they can convey what security means in this environment. It's gonna be ugly regardless. It's a bad place, bad things happen. But guess what? We're here to do a job, you're here to do a job. We're here to facilitate you to, you know, talk to folks, get intel, human intel stuff. That's what we do, you know? That's what we facilitate, we make it happen. Get to the yes, you know? It's not gonna be pretty, it's not gonna be exactly how I was trained.

• 1:56:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It might be a little bit different. But let's do it so everybody's safe.

• 1:56:46Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into

• 1:56:50Shawn Ryan?

  the extraction and, or I guess not extraction, the, the, into Tripoli.

• 1:56:58Shawn Ryan?

  Can you talk about that?

• 1:56:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The evacuation?

• 1:57:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And, yeah, 2014.

• 1:57:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So.

• 1:57:09Shawn Ryan?

  Just two years after Benghazi.

• 1:57:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. And so that's a great contrast in a successful mission where everything works. Leadership is happening, leadership is listening.

• 1:57:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  There's no, so it was me having to have these conversations. They're listening to me about how we can do things to make things safe.

• 1:57:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But this is Tripoli in 2014. So I, I get there early in that year for my first trip to, to, into Libya. And post Benghazi, so there's still that looming over everybody's head and, and e- even up to the highest levels at the White House. That they're still, that's still fresh. That's still in the news media about why that happened and all this other stuff. And

• 1:58:03Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  things are going sideways in Tripoli again.

• 1:58:08Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The Mizrahi army and the militia from Mizrahi is coming across and they want to take Tripoli. And the militia that was there occupying Tripoli at the time,

• 1:58:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  they're gonna go clash with the Mizrahi's. Mizrahi's are an army. They have vehicles, they have armored vehicles, they have tanks and they're a legitimate army. The militias are the militias in Tripoli and there's a lot of them. The ones that were in our area specifically supposed to, you know, they were protecting the annex and they're at the embassy, stuff like that. Things are going sideways. And then now the assault starts from. The eastern side of Tripoli and it's coming west and they want to occupy Tripoli. So the attack's on, the fight's on. Things are getting hit.

• 1:59:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  All the major nodes, right? The hospital near the airport, Tripoli International, Tripoli International Airport.

• 1:59:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The oil fields and the, like, all the, the, the critical nodes, you know, to gain access to the control of the city. They got the roadways from the east.

• 1:59:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it's just going downhill, you know, really fast. And in January, when I show up,

• 1:59:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  the fighting hasn't started yet, but it, it kind of looks like it's kind of tending to that. So,

• 1:59:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  we got Haftar and his guys, he's doing the Libyan National Army thing. He's, he's out east still. He's doing good things in Benghazi to make Benghazi safe. So, so post Benghazi, he's the one that goes in with his army, the LNA, to, to kind of, you know, it's, it's, it's a political move too, that he's the one that's going to save Libya and Tripoli. He's the one that's going to be the guy who makes this place safe. So he actually does a good job out east and in Benghazi and that area to make everything safe. So he, his guys are going fisticuffs with all the militias that are out there.

• 2:00:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Meanwhile, and he's, he's doing this big strategic move around south and he's going to come in from the southwest of Tripoli to, to take Tripoli himself. That's his whole plan.

• 2:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  Sure.

• 2:00:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Mizraattans are coming straight across from east to west, straight into Tripoli, occupy the forest.

• 2:00:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Whoever's in our way is, is in our way and they're gone. We're killing everything in our way.

• 2:00:50Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So we had the Zintan militia with us and are part of Tripoli who are protecting us. Great dudes.

• 2:00:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Good structure, they were armed well, they were good fighters, all of them pretty much are. But they don't have tanks. They have gun trucks, you know, they have helixes with, you know, dishkas on the back and those kind of things. And the rockets and everything else that they, they're fighting with since the whole 2011 revolution, right? Overthrow of Gaddafi.

• 2:01:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They can't, they can't, they can't keep up a fight with them as rotting is coming across. So as rotten start coming across, they hit. The last, I can't remember when the last plane is that actually is able to land at the airport before they take the airport. But I think it was Luft Hansa, who was the last commercial airlift or airplane that land. And they were landing, they stopped landing at AAA International Airport and they were landing at, there was another airport there. It was a former air force base for Gaddafi. It's right on the coast. The name escapes me right now, but they landed there. Might have been Libyan air as well, who was making a couple of flights.

• 2:02:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But that was it. Everybody else had stopped air traffic into. So that was affecting us for getting our folks in and out, because that's how we were getting there, commercial air. The last flight out of the airfield in the north of AAA, State Department was able to get some of their folks on it from the embassy. And I want to say, you know, not essential, or folks were put on that, were put on that plane last minute. So this, this also is the airport that they're trafficking foreign fighters to and from Syria at the time. So we're intermixing State Department Americans with foreign fighters coming in and out of

• 2:02:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Syria at the time. So this is, this is an airport that's swarming with bad guys, but they're in transit, right? They're not, they're to fight, they're there in transit. We managed to get, or State Department manages to get some folks on that plane. And that was the last flight in or out of Libya at the time. So now whoever's in country is in country. You're stuck. We had a plan at the time. We started early on. The, the chief that was there allowed us, great guy. He, he asked me to come to a meeting with him at the embassy, because he, he didn't

• 2:03:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  think they were talking security the way that we, we needed them to be talking security. And that was exactly what happened. There was, you know.

• 2:03:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They're into the Neo thing, right? The Neo operations. Takes a long time for that to unfold and happen, right? Notifications have to go out. You have to be, it takes a while for that to happen. And we wouldn't, we weren't wanting to stick around for all that stuff. Because there are no need for us to stick around. So we came up with a plan initially to hunker down outside of the city at a farm. For some people. And then everybody else is going to go over to Tunisia and, and wait there. Wait for all the fighting to happen and then come back in. That was our initial plan.

• 2:04:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We had safe houses and stuff already set aside for minimal occupation to keep people there. For eventually to wait for the fighting to end and then get ourselves, work our way back into AAA. But over, so I'm there January, February. And March. And I'm able to go home. Get a flight out and I, and I get a flight back early. Because I go back and I was like, if I don't get back early, I might not get a flight because the flights are going to stop. There's no more flights in the country. So I'll be lucky to get a flight if I can get a flight, if somebody's right.

• 2:05:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it was Lufthans, I think, was the last ones into the AAA international. So I go back out there. I'm back long enough to say it's a bad situation to my deputy chief. I said, hey, I would like to get back out there sooner than later. Not my full 90 days back in the States because it might not be there when I get back. So I'd like to get back out there to do some work. That was evacuation corridors, like getting ready to leave. Evacuation corridors, burying cash sites on the coast. You know, so BLS is surveying those for possible recovery or egress for us.

• 2:05:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Bearing cash sites, establishing with with a few office folks that we had there, you know, getting the safe sites, safe houses established, equipping those with food and water and living, you know, food, water, blankets, you know, shelter, all that stuff. We had one in town, we had one out of town. And evacuation corridor, all that. So it was a lot of work to do. Emergency, like solar panels to charge rechargeable batteries for things. And we were doing all this stuff. Building out go bags for everybody, go bags, bug out bags, the whole thing.

• 2:06:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Establishing a, you know, policies and procedures. And it wasn't a hard thing to do at the time because everybody, there was something exploding multiple times a day.

• 2:06:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So it wasn't, it wasn't anything to convince anybody to do all these things. And then there was.

• 2:06:53Shawn Ryan?

  This shit was going on for a long time before this happened.

• 2:06:56Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, well, so the evacuation happens in July. So from January to July, it just downhill. And that, that, I mean, January, February, what is it? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and like you can't, we're having, we're not, we know why it's happening, but when I'm back in, in DC and headquarters, trying to get stuff done, it's like, how do I get a visa to Libya? How do we get people Libyan visas? Well, that whole part of the government had already shut down. There's people working in these buildings, but they're not being paid.

• 2:07:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They're just there because that's what they did for their living and they're just there. You know, there's no more government. So there's the GNA and the GNC that are competing to be the new government for Libya at the time. Then there's Haftar and Libyan National Army out east. He's getting ready to be the guy, the next.

• 2:07:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Whatever he wanted to call himself, uh, king or whatever of Libya, uh, take Gaddafi's spot. Um, then the GNC, GN, GNA, um, all the militias fighting for control of their TERFs. Um, that was a mess. And just to get across town, to get through militias, from one militia to another.

• 2:08:22Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:08:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, it was a nightmare. Um, yeah, a lot of, a lot of guns being pointed at people, a lot of fire, you know, warning shots, right? But they're, but you know, it doesn't matter if you get hit with a warning shot, it's gonna hurt just the same.

• 2:08:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, but, uh, yeah, it was a mess. Uh, funny thing happens always in bad times though. We're at a meeting, we take the chief to a meeting, it's at a restaurant downtown, it's at a cool place in downtown, very scenic. Um, the Marcus Aurelius Arc is a restaurant right near it. Very cool place to hang out.

• 2:09:05Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:09:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. Uh, so I go in, the chief, he goes to have his meeting, I go back out with my, the guy that I went with, the other GRS guy. We're having a conversation, I don't want to leave him out there by himself for too long. Um, cause he's monitoring outside activity and let me know inside, hey, people are forming. Cause there was a lot of that going on, a lot of just random fighting on the street. So he's monitoring that while I go inside, I come back outside and, uh, several things, funny things happen during this time where it's just Wild West, right?

• 2:09:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Everybody's got guns and they're shooting just randomly. Uh, so he's got, goes to this meeting and I come back out to talk with, uh, my guy out front and, um, Somebody behind me, about twenty feet, maybe, start shooting a gun. And it's a pistol, it's not AK or anything, it's some sort of pistol. And it's one of those drills that you have, right? The spinner, spin around and start going to town, right? So as my back was to the shooter, I spin around and I'm going for my gun. And I see that this guy is facing down the street and he's just shooting his pistol to clear the street. Cause he doesn't want these people near him on the street. So he's shooting his gun, like, he's yelling at him, get out of the way.

• 2:10:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So I was like, what the fuck? And the guy that's with me, he's doing, so we're, as he's, he has to get over to the side a little bit. So he's in line with the shooter and not me, offline with me. So he's doing the same thing, going over to the side, you know, he's getting ready to go shoot this, burn this guy down. And I'm spinning around like it's a, you know, that, that drill on the range.

• 2:10:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then it ends up to be this guy is just cranking off rounds to clear the streets. So I was like, alright, alright, whatever, okay, don't. And, you know, well, I'm looking around like nobody saw us going for our guns. Like, are we, you know, are we still kinda? Not blending in, but we, we didn't show our hand, right? And, um, too much. And, uh, it's like, I gotta tuck the gun back away and let's get back to business. Another one was a El Prez, you know, El Prez drill.

• 2:11:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We get to another spot and we get hemmed up at a checkpoint and they start calling. Hey, I, I, I can't make this decision, I can't make this decision, I gotta call my boss, the Libyan, the militia guy that's there. Alright, call him. He calls one way, I can't make the decision, I gotta call my boss. Alright, call your boss. Well, I get out of the car. I told everybody, hey, stay in, or the, the ops guy that we had, I stay in the car and the other GS guy, driver, I said, I'm gonna go to the trunk of the car, uh, the front of the car, put out a map, explain to him what we wanted to do, and I'm gonna face you, you face this way, you watch my back, I'll watch back behind the vehicle, and if you see something with your hand, just point in a direction,

• 2:12:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  right, two that way, three that way, whatever, so I know which direction they're starting to mass, because they're just curious, always, but just so I know where everybody's at, without me having to look around constantly, right? And I did the same thing for him. And there was a gun truck with a dish go sitting right there, so that was like the end all be all, but nobody was on it, uh, so it was gonna take them some time to get up there, so we had a little bit of time to, you know, to work with. Um, and at one point, I have a guy with a shotgun, this young kid, he's, he's, he's wired for sound, he's ready to just, he's ready, oh, who's this, you know, we gotta, we gotta get it on, right?

• 2:12:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So he was my, he was my most concerned, like, he was on my thoughts the most, it's like, damn, this guy's just gonna go half cock in a minute and start shooting. Um, so I was like, okay, so my hands are on the hood, and I'm thinking, uh, and I'm getting these signals like, like, two right behind you, right? So I, you know, look behind me, there's two guys there, and they're with their AKs, and they're posturing, you know, to intimidate us, and I was like, okay, so a guy with the shotgun, two guys with the AK behind me, I was like, I got this, this is like the L-press drill.

• 2:13:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I was like, and the, the guy, uh, the ops guy we had in the car, um, I get on the radio, and I was like, hey, this is gonna be, um, the, I don't know, the, the first live fire L-press drill. I was like,

• 2:13:40Shawn Ryan?

  That's what you said?

• 2:13:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, I was like, I got this, this is gonna be like, this is gonna be the coolest story ever.

• 2:13:46Shawn Ryan?

  They're gonna have to rename the drill.

• 2:13:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And, uh, you know, a couple of chuckles inside the vehicle, and, um, it, you know, and the end of the story, though, that it, it worked out, I didn't have to shoot anybody, um, but dude with the shotgun, that's, that was in my mind, if, if anybody raised a gun, you know, that was gonna be my thing, L-press is on, like beep,

• 2:14:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Hands off the drill, then start going to town, right? Um, and we joke about that even today, uh, about me almost getting an opportunity to do a live fire L-press drill. But things like that happen. But anyway.

• 2:14:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Things are going sideways. I tell my chief back at headquarters, hey, this is, it might not be there when I, when I get back, if I go on my schedule, I need to get back out there to help out. We need as many guys on the ground and I need more contractors to go with me.

• 2:14:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Because it was a small, it was a small staff, right?

• 2:14:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I do that and I stay, come back for a month, I get my orders and go back out. A couple of guys joining me out there on the last flights in Libya. Ends up to be 16 of us GRS guys, which was the most of the whole station. At the time, MAGTAF Marines had moved in, flown in to secure the embassy in the annex. So it already deteriorated to that point. We can't do any more work because either our, the folks we need to talk to can't make it to us because they're getting threatened.

• 2:15:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  If they go talk to the Americans, then you know, kind of you're with us or you're against us kind of threats. Or you go talk to the Americans, we're going after your family, all those things going on at the time. So we had a bunch of no shows, our local guard force wasn't showing up to work. Because they were getting threatened too. And they had sometimes crossed the fighting to get to us. And one guy did that.

• 2:15:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  One of the local guards there, he came to work one day and he said, I can't go home, I'm worried about my family, but if I go, there's fighting, I got to cross the fighting. And he stayed there for a couple of days and then eventually he left because he was concerned about his family. And then we never saw him again. So it was just us, whatever, we had a slice of the MAGTAF Marines that were there. And two of our static security guys. And that was it.

• 2:16:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The Zintani militia, who was always camp or parked, when I say camp, they were parked out front with in gun trucks to help secure the area. Well, they were in the fight already. So they weren't doing that anymore. A lot of fighting going on, sporadic fighting during the day and then the night, constant stuff going on. Missiles flying everywhere, the rockets and stuff that, what is that, the one, the Grad rocket or something that just flies off and just wherever it goes and lands, right? Some of them impact our camp, you know, and it's not like we were, we know the missile types that are flying around that area and

• 2:16:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  it's not something that anybody could have aimed and hit deliberately, but we're just in the, in the crossfire of all the stuff going on. So we're getting hit with dish grounds, we're getting hit with random rockets. And so we're, we're, we're planning an evacuation. We need to get out of the way. We're not here to do the tactical stuff, the tactical intel collection piece of it. Task Force Green was there with us. They're very helpful in a lot of the prep and the planning. So there was all the right people in the, in the right place in a bad time to make this happen. And, and the support and the leadership that

• 2:17:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  allowed us to do what we needed to do to get out of there or to plan an evacuation. What ended up happening, the day that we were going to tell the ambassador that we were leaving and the RSO that was there to let them know, hey, take our numbers off the books, we're good, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're not gonna be part of your numbers in this Neo thing. And don't, don't worry about us, we got it. We got ourselves, we'll take care of ourselves.

• 2:18:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, the ambassador was like, what? You guys are leaving? You guys are leaving? Uh, well, wait, where are you going? And so we had to devolve some of the plan that we had in the safe houses and stuff like that. But we just said, we're gonna go camp out. We're gonna hide outside of the city in a place that we have, uh, wait, you know, for us to, to live there for a couple of weeks or a month, however long we need to, food and water, all this stuff. And we have a clear route to Tunisia to supply that thing. Um, and some locals that would probably help facilitate us getting food and want more food. And then the rest of the folks are gonna go, uh, drive out of country and then wait it out.

• 2:18:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Either go home or next door in the neighboring country in, uh, uh, Tunisia to, to, if they could stay there, just stay there and wait or go back home, um, and help us from there.

• 2:19:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Or, um, what was the other? Malta was another place they could have went to go support us from Malta or Siganello or any other place to stay by somewhere and, and, and support us with stuff.

• 2:19:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, Task Force at the time was based out of Stuttgart. So, um, they could have facilitated anything from Stuttgart coming our way. Um, not as a response force, but, uh, for supplies and, and sustainability.

• 2:19:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So it was going, we, when we went to go tell her that, um,

• 2:19:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  there was, uh,

• 2:19:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  while we were there,

• 2:19:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  uh, a strange thing happened at the embassy. So it is a, a normal trip. It's only a mile down the road from us. We go through the neighborhoods to get there. And usually you hit the, the, the local guard force is on the street and there's cops, local cops, uh, living police that are there. And then you go through that. You meet another checkpoint. There's a chicane. You get to this barrier and that's the actual King Kong wall gate that was just built there with a nice little secure booth.

• 2:20:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Nobody was there.

• 2:20:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No shit. Yeah, and it was the weirdest feeling. It's like one of those times when this is so quiet, it's scary. Something's getting ready to happen. Yeah. Um, because when the locals aren't there, they're privy to something that's happening. Well, uh, next door to the embassy was a, uh, military barracks. Um, that was on the target list. Um, unbeknownst to us and anybody else, except for the locals, the Mizrotans had targeted. There was an oil field across the highway. So we're talking maybe a mile away. Um, and then the military barracks that were like right next to the embassy.

• 2:21:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So we're going there to deliver the message to the ambassador that, hey, we're out, we're all packed up. We're gonna leave in a couple of days and don't worry about us, right? We're locking the gates behind us and we'll be in Tunisia if you need us. And so I'm in the right front seat of this car, our Land Cruiser, as we round the corner. And I got the, our, our deputy chief and our task force team lead with us to go deliver the message to the ambassador that we're leaving. And we round the corner and it was like crickets. I was like, where is everybody? So, slow roll, slow roll. What is going on here? Right?

• 2:21:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I get out of the vehicle and I go knock, this is armored glass bunker that the, the control arm, the control gate is being operated in, and there's usually somebody in the booth. Couldn't tell if there's anybody in the booth. So I go to the booth, I get out of the vehicle, I go to the booth, and it is the most quiet.

• 2:22:05Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It was just eerie, like silence, no birds, no city noises, nothing. And I go up to the window and, and my pocket knife, so I took it out and wrapped it on the window. And I was like, hey, I see somebody. It's hunkered down right there, right? And I knocked on the window. This is armored glass. I don't even know if you could hear it, but eventually he picks up over the counter and I had my, my badge, my access badge, my MC badge. I say, hey, it's like, we need to get in. So he reaches up, pushes the button, gate's open. It's like, all right, let's go, let's get in. I get in the vehicle and. Usually there's some activity in the embassy compound. It's a small compound,

• 2:22:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  but usually there's something. There's people walking, something, nothing. And I was like, as soon as I said, this is so silent, this is the weirdest thing ever. That's when the attack starts from wherever they were at. They were starting to shoot at the barracks and the oil fields, right? Disharounds. And then it got, it was the, then it went from total silence to the loudest thing you ever heard in your life. And I can, as we're, you know, gas, gas, gas, get to the new, it was a brand new part of the embassy. They just built it out.

• 2:23:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And they hadn't occupied it yet. It was, it was hardened structures, right? The chancery and everything just, just finished building that stuff and they were getting ready to move in.

• 2:23:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Then it just became, even in our armored car, it was the loudest.

• 2:23:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I can, it just, it was the loudest thing I'd ever heard in my life. But

• 2:23:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  almost like a Tetris game. You can see it's a, it's a concrete block wall, right? This wall is disintegrating because it's taking rounds. It's not direct fire stuff. They're not shooting at the embassy. They're shooting at the barracks and the oil fields. But all those rounds, we're in a beaten zone, the disharounds, because they're just, yeah, rocking that thing and those rounds are just flying down range somewhere. The, the, the wall is disintegrating. That was, it was just the weirdest thing.

• 2:24:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Gas, gas, gas to the chancery and I'm yelling the, the new code to the front door. And we're going to drive as close as we can because there's a, there's a curb, some bushes, some steps before you get to the front door of the new chancery. And that's

• 2:24:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That's what they said they would be. They're in the new chancery, making comms with headquarters and talking back and forth, State Department stuff on what they're gonna do. So we're gas, gas, gas, we're racing towards the chancery. And I'm yelling out the new code because they're, you know, the guys in the back, so Deputy Chiefs there and the Task Force guy, they're already in scat mode. They're gonna, I said, open the right door and scat out the right door. I'll be right behind you. And because I'm grabbing all the stuff in the car, right? And as I'm grabbing all the stuff, putting it in my go bag, I was like, hey, get out the right side and go to the door. If you get there before me, it's whatever it is, one,

• 2:25:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  two, three, four, you know, I just kept saying the code to what it wasn't one, two, three, four, but it was whatever it was. And as soon as that door opened, like, gone, Deputy gets out, he's on the right side of the car, sitting behind me. He takes a minute, he ducks his head a little bit, puts his backpack on and then takes off running. Task Force guy, you know, he's in a little bit better shape, he passes him. And the floor's slippery, right? So it's the hard marble or whatever it is they put on those floors that when it's clean, it's slippery. Yeah. They're full head of steam towards the door. And I'm trying to call inside the chancery to the RSO that's there.

• 2:26:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And he's not answering, but he's now in the bunker and I don't know that he's there. Or he's like two rooms deep into this chancery. It's all hardened, structured. And you can hear the rounds hitting the building and all around us. And it was just the loudest thing ever. As soon as the Task Force, he's out, I'm out running, I told the other GS guy who's driving, I was like, come out my side, we're going this way, because that was where all the impact was happening. Come out my side, let's go in. I started running and I'm yelling the code for the guy, as I see him struggling at the door. So first thing, when this Task Force guy, he's running, he's full head of steam, maybe, I don't know, 20 feet.

• 2:26:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So he stops the, because he's getting ready to come to the door, slides into the door and smash. He smashes into the door and he's trying to punch the code in. Or the deputy chief, he's getting out, he's had a full head of steam, he slides, smashes into the task force guy. He's still trying to punch the code. I get out, I'm running towards the door and I see what's happening, this little, you know, clown show thing happening. And I'm yelling the code and he's punching it in and punching it in. And whoever was inside heard that somebody was hitting the buttons. And then it was one of the RSOs that opened the door and then, and then in we go. And then, um, as I'm running, I'm running to the chancery.

• 2:27:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I motioned to the, their follow car that was behind us, we had two GRS guys in the follow car. I'm, I'm grabbing my stuff. I grabbed the med kit and my go bag and I'm running and I wave them like, like come inside because our cars aren't going to take this kind of beating. Like, you know, what's going on out here? Yeah. Um, so I motioned them to come in. Um, my guy, the driver, he's in, uh, um, and I'm peeking outside the door, waiting for our other guys. I keep it, I'm keeping it open a little bit so they don't struggle to get in the door. And I'm peeking outside and they're like, what are they doing? What are they waiting on, right? And they thought they were safe in, in the car. So I mo- I motioned them to, to come inside and they're like, no, we're going to stay here. And I was like, no, no, come out here.

• 2:28:11Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And so I go run out there and I opened the door and I was like, hey, get your ass inside because there's more protection in there than there is in this car. And you could see this wall like a Tetris game, just, just disintegrating. And you can hear the impacts of the dish arounds hitting the building. It's loud as shit. Um, and even more so inside, you couldn't hear inside because of the impacts of the bill, on the building. You had to be face to face talking to, to somebody for them to hear you. And that's exactly when we all got into the, uh, chancery. And we're talking to the ambassador, like, hey, we got our way out. Don't worry about us. We're still heavily breathing because everybody's doing that 20, you know, just a 20 feet sprint, but we're all just winded.

• 2:28:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, we're leaning across this table, talking to her like, hey, we're, we're done. We're out. We got a plan. We're out. We're out of here. Um, she's like, wait a minute now, what, what are you guys doing? And it's like, well, don't worry about us, Mr. RSO. I mean, we're good. We're, we're going. We're leaving. Don't worry about us. Nobody's going to be at the embassy. You can have your MAGTAF remains back. You, we'll bring them over here first and then we'll, we'll scat, um, or you guys can go over there, whatever you guys want to do. It's, it's your facility too.

• 2:29:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But we're, we're gone. And she said, well, wait a minute, where are you going? You know? And we, it's got a total of the plan. And she's like, well, we're coming with you. Well, wait a minute, let me, and she's talking to Ambassador Kennedy, who was back in DC for State Department, answering the mail on this side. And she's telling them, hey, the, the, the guys at the annex, the annex has a way out of here. And we're going to go with them, you know, seeking approvals on all that kind of stuff. And, uh, they're like, okay, well, okay, if that's the plan, then that's the plan, you know? Take the flag down and go out with the, the annex.

• 2:30:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then that became another issue. They have local national, third country nationals that they had, the Bengalis, were at another camp that came and did all the servicing, the local, uh, maintenance, cleaning and all that stuff. They said, plus 86 Bengalis that Holy shit. At this other camp. And I, and I'm telling, I'm there with the, our chief. I said, we cannot take responsibility for them. If that's the case, we're on our, we gotta go on our own.

• 2:30:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And the task force guy is like, yeah, no, we're not taking those guys. They, they're either on their own or they're with you guys and we're out.

• 2:30:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And so she's conveying this message back to DC. And, um, the conclusion was, okay, they're going to do their own thing. They'll make their own way out. However, they, or stay, it's up to them and we'll, we'll go out with you. And we hadn't planned on, it was only.

• 2:31:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Twenty something of us and ended up to be one hundred and fifty four people total with embassy folks and for for me and the staffing for on the GRS side of the house, we had enough people for our people and that was it. So then it became uh trying to facilitate, you know, one hundred fifty, you know, the rest of the embassy folks and the ambassador and her dog.

• 2:31:28Shawn Ryan?

  And her dog.

• 2:31:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. Um, and she was supposed to come out with me and my chalk. I was taking the senior level folks from annex. Uh, they were going to be in my car and we're going to go out. So that made, you know, made sense for her to be in that car. She wanted to ultimately be in the last vehicle, uh, which is fine. I tried to say, well, we can go to the border and I can wait on the Libyan side. So you can be the official last person out of Libya, but we need to get you out of here. Um, she wasn't having that. She wanted to be in the last vehicle and she wasn't quite in the last vehicle. We had some maneuver vehicles with fighters in it in the last vehicle, but um, she was happy with where she ended up sitting. Um,

• 2:32:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  we decided, you know, we had a timeline figured out on our own for just us and it was uh, two days from the time we made the notification to be out of there at a certain time of the day on two days and two days with destruction plans of the everybody back at the annex was already doing that. Um, burning, crushing, you know, shredding things. They're already, they're getting the place ready. Um,

• 2:32:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  then we ended up having to wait on, you know, our state department colleagues. Um, they wanted to bring all their stuff, the big MRAP that was sitting in in their, you're gonna, you're gonna have to leave that here. We don't want, so our idea was as low profile as we can be. We don't want to look menacing. We don't want to look aggressive. We don't want to look like a fighting force to invite any uh,

• 2:33:05Shawn Ryan?

  unwanted attention.

• 2:33:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. So they're, we're, we're going to capitalize on a breaking or a lowland fire in their normal day, every day consistently. They started fighting and they stopped fighting at consistent times of the day. Um, the morning was the best for us to give us as much time to do all the shredding and burning and all that stuff, prepare to go. Um, so it was like six o'clock in the morning. Was the last window between they they they stopped fighting morning prayers and then from then to we had about a two hour window before the next sporadic fighting started. So they typically prayed, they ate, and then they refit the fight, right? They go back to their camps bases wherever they're from, they put more ammo in the vehicles,

• 2:33:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  get ready for the day's fight and get ready for the night's fight. Most of the fighting was happening at night. And um, uh, so the height of the fighting was easily from 11 o'clock in the morning to 5:00 in the morning. And Ambassador, the Ambassador wanted to leave at, for whatever reason, she said 1:00 in the morning, 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. And we were like, well, that's the worst time to go. Everybody's on the streets fighting each other at that point. It's just, no, we can't do that. Um, we're gonna leave at 6:00 if you're with us, then we're leaving at 6:00.

• 2:34:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We're gonna start marshaling and leaving at 6:00 in groups. Um, at the beginning of our two hour window, we're starting to leave in groups. It wasn't gonna take us two hours to do that, but eventually it did because we had, I don't even know, 30, how many vehicles that was to get 154 people out? Yeah, that's a lot of vehicles. Yeah, some 30 something vehicles, I think it was 34 vehicles. Um, Suburbans, Land Cruisers, Hiluxes. Um, and we were doing all the command and control for it. The annex was. Um, had almost a GRS in every vehicle in the front and back of each truck that went.

• 2:35:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, I was gonna take our VIPs, uh, in my vehicle, minus the Ambassador who wanted to ride in another vehicle for, for whatever her reasons were.

• 2:35:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, and then leave at six. We had just built a rear entrance to the annex at the time where it was a small place. You can only go with that many vehicles. We had planned it out to where we're staging down the center line of this villa and we can stage perfectly pointing straight out the gate. So we'll marshal all the vehicles again and point it straight out the gate and then in chalk order we'll leave in groups. And so we told the State Department, okay, this is what we gotta do. We task organize everybody, vehicles, everybody in the vehicles.

• 2:36:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And come in the back gate. So you can go in that one, you know, and behind the flow out the gate, right?

• 2:36:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Morning of departure, some one or two o'clock in the morning, they start showing up with their first vehicles and they're coming in the front gate. And

• 2:36:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I don't know who did it. We were the ones controlling the front gate. It was Americans there at the front gate. They opened the front gate so they can get in. You can hear the fighting going on in town. The city was already on fire. The city was literally burning. Triple A is on fire. Everywhere around us, everything's burning. And so that was the smell you smelled the whole time during this whole, just whatever toxic fumes there were. That's what we were smelling and breathing the whole time. But as they're coming in, it's almost like fog, because at that time of the night, that's the heaviest fighting. So there's just debris from explosions and stuff like that, right?

• 2:37:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And impacts and all those kinds of things. And it was like a fog, fog bank. But so whoever opened the gate, opened the gate, let the State Department folks in. And now we have, you know, vehicles crunching into each other and just all messed up everywhere. That was a shit show. We had to get, you know, under control. And so we took all the vehicles, all the keys to the vehicles and put them in order that we needed them in. And that was the shit show, just because of the space that we had. We didn't have any space.

• 2:37:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But that took most of the morning just to do that. Then at a About four something, four thirty, five o'clock, Ambassador's getting antsy. We finally got all the embassy folks with us on our side. And we're waiting for six o'clock. Six o'clock, the first truck is ready to go. And it's a communications, uh, Advon or Advance is kind of what we considered it. Had all, had satellite communications. It was, it was going to be one of the, so in that part of Libya, in that part of the world, the satellite that we had was at a 10 degree angle. So it's low on the horizon. So to get any kind of mobile communications, it ain't happening. So we were going to kick out, uh, you know, static communication sites.

• 2:38:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They're going to get static, point all the antennas at 10 degree angle at this azimuth, and then get comms with all the other elements in DOD that were, that were tracking our communications and our movement. And another vehicle that was going to leave later on, and they were going to leapfrog. So, so they would be static, have time to set up. And then they set up communication, then that one would, you know, leapfrog over. And then in between that, all of our vehicles were going to, you know, roll past them and use them as checkpoints, right?

• 2:38:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:56Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, communication checkpoints. And at four thirty, five o'clock, Ambassador was getting antsy. She's like, we need to leave now. Cause it was bad. I mean, you can hear the fighting, it was loud. But, I mean, we were used to that. It'd been going on for months at this point. We're like, yeah, no. You hear that's going, no. Well, I don't want to drive through.

• 2:39:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I don't want to drive. Why would you want to drive through that? No, we'll wait at six o'clock. Six o'clock, they'll stop shooting and then, then we'll go. And it took all of our, our deputy chief, that's what his sole job was, uh, to calm her down and hey, we know what we're doing, we're going to leave at the right time, calm her down. But up until the moment we left, she was. Complaining the whole time, uh, we need to get out of here. We need to go. And then began, then six o'clock, like magic, six o'clock went from the loudest thing you ever heard to dead silence. Yeah. Right. And then the sun's coming up.

• 2:40:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Kind of has a, the, the most cool temperature that it's going to be in Libya during the time of day. Um, which is another thing we were considering on, you know, heat exhaustion and those kinds of things.

• 2:40:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And at six o'clock, gates open, first truck leaves. Um, and then I think it was every 15 minute increments, another truck would leave. Um, and it was going like clockwork it, and it just, it worked and we, uh, so personally I was in the third chalk. Um, it's supposed to be the command and control, uh, or the command vehicle, not control vehicle, but all the C2 folks in that one.

• 2:40:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it was other than the ambassador who wanted to ride somewhere else.

• 2:40:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, it worked out. We, we ran into some, some dudes and Ms., uh, the Zintanis that were our, our friends and they were, and they knew who we were. Um, but we didn't also want to tip our hat to them either. We didn't tell them we were leaving either.

• 2:41:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And we saw them and by the time they probably saw me in my chalk and all the vehicles, cause I probably had six or seven with me.

• 2:41:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They probably knew at that point that we were leaving because they had already seen another chalk in front of me. Uh, five or six vehicles and then the communication add one was just three or four vehicles. Um, one was a big, big like delivery truck, bread truck. Um, with all the communication stuff on it. It was this had antennas, all the stuff with magnets on it, stuck to it. And it's the porcupine of antennas.

• 2:41:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. So, you know, we passed them and they were, they were doing exactly what we, we knew they were doing because we had been, you know, working with them this whole time. Refitting to fight, right? Uh, taking care of the wounded and injured and putting more ammo, cleaning out the brass so that they're pick up the, the Hiluxes and put more ammo in it and wiping down their guns, you know, the big, the dish kids and all that stuff. And they were doing all that stuff and that was like normal stuff and we'd see them and.

• 2:42:09Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Wave as we passed by, say, hey guys, um, you know, deuces.

• 2:42:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:42:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So it worked. I mean, it worked. And like I mentioned before,

• 2:42:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  a vehicle broke down. Uh, we had to end up towing that thing. It was kind of a funny looking thing coming across Libya, Tunisian border. Um, cause we, everybody thought it got hit and all this other stuff. And, um, but we said that every, every chalk is self-sufficient. So if you had to tow a vehicle, you guys that are towing each other, uh, gas, everybody had gas in their cars. We were hoarding gas up to that point. Cause all the gas stations, well, those are the things that that were also being occupied by the Mizrotans. Cause everybody needed gas for their vehicles and they continued to fight. Everybody was fighting for the gas. Um, the gas points. It wasn't necessarily a gas station, but it was where they had all the bottles and jugs of gas.

• 2:43:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, and we'd, up to that point, we'd been going to these places to get more gas for us. Um, so we had plenty of gas, uh, plenty of gas. Made a few people uncomfortable because now we have gas in the back of our Hiluxes and what if that gets hit and lights a fire? It's like, well, you probably have a fire. I mean, what can you do? What can you do? I mean, it is, we got what we have, right? Uh, you know.

• 2:43:36Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take? How long from six AM to?

• 2:43:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Oh my, 24 hours.

• 2:43:41Shawn Ryan?

  24 hours of evac, a 24 hour evacuation route?

• 2:43:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 2:43:47Shawn Ryan?

  With 150 people?

• 2:43:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That was brutal.

• 2:43:50Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet.

• 2:43:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And we'd been up for three days before that. So it was a continuous, uh, all the destruction plan. We were up. We were, it's not, every once in a while I'd say, hey man, if you guys need a break, go grab a couple of winks, right? Go get some sleep. Cause eventually you're gonna pass out if you don't get any sleep. Go get sleep. And they're like, no, no boss, I got this. And they're crushing things. And so over time, all of the mechanical stuff that we had, the shredders, the, the nail guns and everything else broke because it was overused. We didn't have it. There was, and we had multiples of everything, but everything broke down. So then it was a burn pit. Then there was literally crushing. Like sledgehammer exercise drills.

• 2:44:30Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:44:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Crushing radios and stuff. So, you know.

• 2:44:36Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So we had, and we're trying to crush things and then crush it and then burn it, throw it in a burn pit.

• 2:44:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Go bags, I tried to stress that point, hey, go bags only, you know, nothing else comes with you, whatever's in your go bag or you're wearing, that's it. Um, don't leave anything behind, no guns, ammo, bring all your, whatever you can fit in your go bag, uh, in your go bag, in your bug out bag. Uh, that's the, all this livable stuff, right? Um, go bag, ammo and water, that's all you put in that thing. Uh, maybe a snack or two, if you have a power bar or something like that, that's all that goes in that thing. That's gonna be on you the whole time. Uh, so they, they were pretty good about that. And so it only took us, it's only a three and a half. Um, wasn't long to get to the border.

• 2:45:25Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 2:45:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. So the first 30 minutes were probably the most, uh, probably contentious, right? Cause that's where all the fighting was happening. We were going through an active war zone to get past all this. Um, so whether it was a mistaken identity, uh, itchy trigger finger, all those things, we knew we weren't gonna get targeted. Um, cause we knew that the Ms. Rottens hadn't made it to this point where this road that we were taking, we can take it without only crossing our guys, the Zintan militia.

• 2:45:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, so first 30 minutes, everybody's queued up, heads up, eyes up, you know, head on a swivel of all those kind of things. Um, be ready to, you know, get in a fight and maneuver the vehicles for the, so the, so for the drivers in the vehicles, they were all GRS guys. So we're gonna maneuver, you know, uh, typical maneuvering, uh, you know, firearm maneuver kind of stuff if we have to.

• 2:46:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But gas, gas, gas, keep heading west, you know, worst case is keep heading west and we'll link up at all these different community checkpoints along the route.

• 2:46:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We got out without, you know, it's perfect. Quiet time of the day, nice friendly waves on the way out by our friend the Zintanis. And, uh, done. We do some other meetings along the way to facilitate our, uh, our, uh, evacuation to the border and it only takes, you know, three and a half, four hours, maybe I'm thinking to get to the border. Um, we had, but from that, so we go south of the city and followed the. The terrain, which is a huge, you know, seawall, uh, way inland and follow that all the way to Tunisian border. And so we were, we're way down south in Tunisia and when that, most of the time it took to get up north to Tunis

• 2:47:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  was the rest of the 24 hours that we had, like the, the 18 hours that we had left, right? Yeah. Um, we had to stop at an airfield as we had to drop off the state department packs out of airfield. So they can get on a plane and fly to wherever it is they flew. I think they flew to Saganella or something. Um, they had a plane waiting on us. So then the rest of the drive to Tunis was just, um, just our office, folks. Okay. So, and about five, six o'clock in the morning, the next day we pulled into the embassy in Tunis.

• 2:47:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Totally beat, falling asleep at the wheel, all those things. Hey, wake up. Let me take over for a minute, right? Yeah. Um, yeah, it was a long drive. Just, it was brutal. Um, but yeah, probably, and I was saying before, probably the most successful evacuation that you never heard about. Yeah, no kidding. Cause it worked. We had a hundred fifty-four people, um, from Tripoli at its worst to, uh, Tunis. Unscathed, uh, one vehicle that was, that, uh, broke down on us, um, and that was it. Nobody hurt, no shots fired, nothing. Um. That's incredible.

• 2:48:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, that was, that was pretty neat and it's probably half a dozen people that I can really attribute that to. Task force TL, the chief, the deputy chief, the two operations officers that were in there doing that. I'm going to miss somebody and, uh, just great people, all the right people to do that at the right time in a bad time in Libya, right? That's exactly what it took. Uh, support from the top down. Um. But somebody wrote a book on this, right? Uh, our analyst, uh, wrote a book like The Darkest Hour or something like that is the

• 2:49:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  name of it. I can't, I'll, I'll send you that one. It's, it's, it's a good read. Now it's from her perspective. She was actually, I identified her as a part of all the group. I ran out of GRS guys, I ran out of fighters, barrel chested freedom fighters, right? Ran out of them. It's like, so who's left that I could put in a seat that's gonna help me or help us get out? And, you know, help, help me help the group to get out. And I was like, well, uh, Rain, oh, I don't know if I should say her call sign because she, I think she changed it, uh, for the book purposes. So, anyway, uh, she was good. She was very motivated. She was good at her job as an analyst. But if we went to the range to shoot guns, she wanted to know, yes, I need to shoot my gun because I haven't shot in a

• 2:49:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  while. All right, right, come on, let's do, let's go do this, right? Um, she was, uh, very proactive in, in all this stuff. How are we getting out? Asking like good questions during the whole planning process. She wasn't like directly involved in it, but as an analyst, uh, we were using her a lot for her information on what she thought, you know, the routes, the, the Zintanis, you know, intent, what their possible, you know, actions were, the Mizrotans, what they were possibly gonna do and, uh, what's Hafthar gonna do with the LNA? Are they gonna s- this one out for a little bit and wait for everything to happen to come up? Or, you know, all this stuff. She's great at what she did. And so I asked her to sit, uh, shotgun with another GRS dudes in the back of my chalk. So she was

• 2:50:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  gonna manage the, the comps, right? So GRS driver can drive and he could talk on the radio too, but just so he doesn't have his hands full and all this stuff to worry about. I, it's gonna be, she's gonna talk through, or TC's gonna talk through, uh, our, our analyst, you know, he's gonna say what to say, um, hold the mic for him to talk into and all those kinds of things, right? And so don't, I told her not to worry about it. You know, I'm not gonna make you a GRS person overnight. Um, you're just gonna help, uh, you know, TC do what he does. Um, and make sure that if somebody takes a wrong turn and that everybody stays behind me. Keep an eye on where I am at and don't let

• 2:51:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  anybody take wrong turns. Don't let anybody get out of the vehicles. If you see somebody get out of the vehicles, then speak up about it on the radio. Or if you see something, everybody's got that responsibility. If you see something, say something so we can have eyes on it, you know, shots fired, whatever it is. Gun trucks or whatever it is they say, right? So she tells a pretty good story.

• 2:51:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Turns out I may have given her too much responsibility for some stuff. I don't know. I don't, I still honestly don't think so. She performed flawlessly through this whole thing. I had no issues with her at all before, during or after. I thought she did a great job. It just kind of messed her up in the head a little bit, unfortunately. Apologize to her, I wish I could, to her about that, but you know, it's what we had to work with. And I was left with task organizing with what I had on the ground and, and

• 2:52:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I, I guess even contrary to what she believed in herself, I believed that she can do it and she did it. That's awesome. Yeah. It's a good honor, you know, she did a great job. She did exactly what I would have wanted, did everything. And she was the linguist for our, our chalk too. So if I got out of the vehicle, and so I told her, if I get out of the vehicle, you get out of the vehicle and, and come see me and we'll go talk to this, this Libyan. And, and we had to do that several times along the egress route to, to help facilitate the next, the next leg. From militia to militia, we had to be handed off from one to the other. And then at the border, same thing. And she did great. She did flawlessly. She was a good shooter. She knew how to handle herself with a gun.

• 2:53:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Another good quality to have, right? Especially in that scenario. Yeah. And I had confidence in her to do what it is I was asking her to do, else I wouldn't have asked her to do it. And I said, I got her and TC together. I said, you know what? You're, don't worry about being so like feeling responsible. And she was that kind of a person. Which is great. Another great characteristic of hers that I capitalize on to use her to get, to help us get out. To help me manage the, the chaos. Very level headed.

• 2:53:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Took direction well, gave direction well. I mean,

• 2:53:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  She did flawlessly. And.

• 2:53:51Shawn Ryan?

  You're not in contact with her anymore?

• 2:53:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No.

• 2:53:54Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet she sees this. I'll bet she sees this.

• 2:53:57Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, well, if she does, she did a great job. And I told her that at the time, too, when we finally get to the border. And then when we finally get to Tunis at the embassy, I said, hey, you did a great job. And she seemed fine at the time.

• 2:54:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And even during, she's, and the book is a good read because she actually.

• 2:54:17Shawn Ryan?

  What is the name of the book?

• 2:54:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I think The Darkest Hour.

• 2:54:20Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:54:20Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Or In My Darkest Hour, something like that.

• 2:54:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. And that's normal, too. You know, for all of us that have been through this, to have, you know, some kind of issues with the afterthought, right? I mean, that's, that's like normal.

• 2:54:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And that's, that's, I hope that she gets that out of the whole ordeal, too. It's like, hey, she's no different than any of us that went through similar things, right?

• 2:54:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We all go through that. And we all have to have help sometimes afterwards, or maybe later on down the road. And her time was then. And yeah, I think part of the writing of the book was probably.

• 2:55:01Shawn Ryan?

  Therapeutic?

• 2:55:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep, for her to like, deal with the situation and somehow just get it out there and say it. I mean, it was probably helpful. I get that. It's a well-written book. I don't know.

• 2:55:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's interesting to me. It's interesting reading to me because I know

• 2:55:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  what was going on at the time when she describes things, and I know who the people she's talking to. Because she had to change the call signs.

• 2:55:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  For.

• 2:55:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, like.

• 2:55:30Shawn Ryan?

  Obvious reasons.

• 2:55:30Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  She was told to change the call signs, so she did. Great read. Great read. I would have never known that she was going through that at the time. Like, the way she describes her.

• 2:55:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I want to say her.

• 2:55:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I could question her confidence in herself to do what I asked her to do. Because I always asked her to do something. When I asked her to do something, I say, "You okay with that? If not, let me know. Because that's okay, but just let me know." And she's like, "No, I'm okay with that." And it wasn't just a like, "Do this" thing. It was like, "You want to do this and then get with who, me or somebody else and we'll, we'll coach you through exactly what we're asking you to do." Like manage a radio, turn a radio on, what the radio looks like, how to change the channels on a radio, right? Those kind of things. For, for the GRS guy that's with her, so he doesn't have his tan tied up and he's trying to drive a vehicle.

• 2:56:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Right? This is how you change the channel on a radio. This is how you talk on a radio. This is all how it functions.

• 2:56:37Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  These are the checkpoints along the way. These are the things you have to be aware of. So when we're through checkpoint, she's in the trail vehicle. So those are the things that, that she had to do in route.

• 2:56:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Trail vehicle up when they're, we're past a certain point, right?

• 2:56:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And she was right on the mark with all that stuff, the whole way through. Yeah.

• 2:56:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Great job. Told her that then, thanked her for it. She performed flawless. And I didn't see her after that. We kind of all kind of disbanded to the winds at that point. And then apparently, you know, she's having, she had, I don't know how she's doing now, but

• 2:57:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  perfectly normal. I mean, that's, that's

• 2:57:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  No. Yeah, nothing against her for that. It happens to all of us.

• 2:57:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But she did a great job.

• 2:57:27Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:57:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:28Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take, let's take a quick break and then we'll start to wrap it up.

• 2:57:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Sounds good.

• 2:57:34Shawn Ryan?

  All right.

• 2:57:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:37Shawn Ryan?

  I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one of a kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com/vigilanceelite and support The Sean Ryan Show today.

• 2:57:58Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to The Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave The Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 2:58:18Shawn Ryan?

  All right, we're back from the break. We just got done with the evacuation out of Tripoli.

• 2:58:25Shawn Ryan?

  Wrapping up your agency career, retired. Let's get into some of the stuff that was happening after you left. Or kind of...

• 2:58:37Shawn Ryan?

  When did the wreck happen?

• 2:58:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The, my motorcycle wreck?

• 2:58:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well,

• 2:58:44Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  that was a, um...

• 2:58:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That was a bad time. So, as, as all this stuff is happening in my careers and, uh, COVID hits and everything's shutting down, everybody's life is going to shit. I, it, I just had a hard time with that whole thing, right? The, the vaccination thing and all this other stuff and all the things that are starting to happen in our country that are just

• 2:59:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  frustrating me. And then, and then I'm in a, uh,

• 2:59:18Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  for the first time in 14 years of deploying and spending time in, in the, the war zones, excluding the contracted time and the previous military time, um, I'm in an office job. And I am not that person. And I was adapting to all these changes in my life at the time, which was horrible. Uh,

• 2:59:43Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  yeah, I was just, uh,

• 2:59:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  yeah, I, I hate, I hate those. And so you have, well, you have to do it in your career to do headquarters time, right? But I'm never, I was never a career guy, so I don't care, right? It's like, I just want to do the job and my job is out in the field. Or being a manager, right? But doing that from the field, easily done from the field. I never got the manage from a workstation back at headquarters thing, right? Sure, people do that, but I'm not that kind of person. I got to be on the ground with the troops and all that kind of stuff. So I'm adjusting to life back in, so it, it ends up ultimately being the best thing that ever could happen to me. It being back that long and just readjusting to life back in

• 3:00:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  regular communities without being in a war zone.

• 3:00:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But I'm having issues with that. I'm still Mr. Anger Man and I'm drinking a lot. And COVID hits. Now, what else is there to do, right? You can't go anywhere. Everything's shut down. I find ways to, you know, get outside and do some exercises and stuff like that, just to get fresh air. Zombie land, nobody's out on the streets.

• 3:01:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Can't go to work. Uh, work shut down. There's no information. I mean, all this stuff, I'm cooped up in an apartment and I'm, you know, there's somebody sharing the misery with me, but um, it was just tough. So the first opportunity to get out.

• 3:01:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I mean, took advantage of those moments. There was maybe two or three places in the Northern Virginia area at the time that were open. And um, because everything was forced shut down. No restaurants are open, no bars are open, no, Walmart's open. You can't go to churches. You can't go to work. You can't go to school for those that are in school. Everything's shut down, but you can somehow go to Walmart and everything's okay. Um, I had issues with all that was going on at the time. The, the, all the administration stuff that was starting to happen. I mean, all came to a head. We finally had an opportunity to go out to a, a,

• 3:02:07Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  um, a bar that was open. A couple of them that were open. They started opening up slowly, some of them. Um, outdoor seating only, that kind of stuff.

• 3:02:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Went out, uh, and I was already cooped up and what, what, what else is there to do? Go outside, work out and then drink.

• 3:02:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Why I felt the need to do that, I have no idea, but I was drinking a lot and before the accident, so this, this happens a couple of years ago, but before that I was hitting it hard. I didn't realize that.

• 3:02:43Shawn Ryan?

  So you think this was because of COVID?

• 3:02:45Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That is all culminating, all this stuff that's culminating, that's part of it.

• 3:02:49Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on. You just did, what, 20 plus years in the military? At tier one unit.

• 3:02:59Shawn Ryan?

  Then you did a couple of years of regular contracting in the heyday of Iraq's. That, you know, oh, Florida, whenever.

• 3:03:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 3:03:07Shawn Ryan?

  Then you did sixteen years at CIA. And you don't think any of that shit had anything to do with this?

• 3:03:14Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep, yep. All that is accumulating, accumulative effects to get to this point, right? And, and really that time is, it all comes together, right? It all comes together, uh.

• 3:03:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I didn't realize how much I was drinking at the time. Um.

• 3:03:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And those around me, I don't know that anybody ever said anything, because, you know.

• 3:03:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They like me, they love me, they have a family, they don't, they don't see those things and hey, you're drinking too much, are you okay? Nothing like that. Um, yeah, I, I was, I was drinking a lot. So my ex-wife at the time, later on, told me how much I was drinking in a day. And like bottles, I was like, and, and I don't, I didn't remember doing that. Like, I don't, I don't.

• 3:04:03Shawn Ryan?

  Most people don't.

• 3:04:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I wasn't drinking that much. I was like, come on. I was like, let's drink every now and then, but I was drinking a lot. Um, then, uh. Yeah, cooped up and, and, and all these things, I'm associated, I'm trying to get restructured into civilian life and a regular nine to five job. And all the years in the war zones, you know, my, uh, probably my, um.

• 3:04:34Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Uh, my, I guess my meaning, right? What, what, that's, that was what I was here to do and I'm not doing it anymore. All these things coming together at one point. Covid shuts down, we get an opportunity to go out and have a few drinks with some folks. I do that, I drink way too much. I get on my motorcycle and I, I, I don't remember this part, but, um.

• 3:04:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I get on a motorcycle and try to ride it somewhere and I rode and I was a good distance away from the bar that I was at. Um, I don't remember any of that ride and the first thing I remember was I'm on the side of the road trying to upright my bike because I just lay to town. Uh, dark street, dark corner on a street that I had no business being on. I've never been down this street before and had no reason to be down the street. It's an industrial park. Um, first time I'd ever been on this street in my life. There, I, I don't even know why I was on that street, but two o'clock in the morning, whatever time it is, as I'm going down the street, it's dark, it's not lit, sharp turn, ninety degree turn. I don't get it in time. I

• 3:05:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  laid that bike down, hit my head on the ground, apparently based off of just all the, the dirt I scooped up off the side of the road, but uh, the skid marks and all the stuff that was on the pavement. Um, I end up getting arrested for a DUI and when I finally realized what had happened, I was like, wow. And then it came to me the day after, because it's only, they hold you until you, um, you know, you're sober, blowing in the machine and you're sober and then they release you. Um, go back to the, with help from, um, a guy that we know. Uh, we go back to the scene and see the bike parts, see the skid. That's the first time I see the after effects

• 3:06:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  of the, where I went off the road and where the bike landed up, pick up a few parts from the bike. And I was like, wow, that's what I, it's like, I don't even remember this and you know, and I don't even remember drinking that much. Um, but apparently I did. So I didn't try to deny that I wasn't drinking that much or anything like that. And the, my thing was a huge turning point in all of this stuff that's going on in my life to this point. Um, it's like,

• 3:06:59Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I just almost killed myself. I've gone through all this stuff in the last, you know, lifetime to this point. And survived all of it. And then I get to the point and almost do this to myself. You know, I mean, it's not like I went out to try to do that, but I just almost killed myself. And I didn't want that to be like the lasting memory of me. Uh, of all the stuff that I've done, you know, and there's other people that have done just as much enough, not more, but um, like for my family or anybody that's, you know, thinking of me after the fact, that's not the way I would have liked to have their last memory of me. It's like, I drank too much and wrecked my bike.

• 3:07:42Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So that was a huge turning point for me. I was reaching out to uh, some psychologists that worked. They gave me an initial workup on TBI, PTS, so minor, minor things on all that stuff. There's people worse off than me, but I'm not discounting what my issues are. Cause I do have those issues, the, the tinnitus and the memory, short-term memory losses and uh, still can't remember names that well, you know? You know, all those things, uh, slurred speech every once in a while. All these things happen and it's getting better over time. And that's the thing that, that one of the first psychologists said to me, it's like, so I have to list everything in my life to this point, what had happened to me.

• 3:08:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And so she's assessing, you know, brain injury. And uh, or potential brain injury. This could be a part of the problem. And that's her thing. So I had two psychologists. One was a, whatever the, the other one was, and then there was a specialist in brain injury. And the brain injury uh, doc said, well, there's, you haven't given yourself in between every instance, so explosives in the military, uh, attacks, being on a base that's attacked, loud noises, mortars and rockets. Gunfire, all this stuff to this point, combatives, you know? Cause that's what we do, right? I mean, we get in the ring with each other and spar and

• 3:09:10Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  hit each other and, you know, and you fight each other. I mean, it's, it's just what we do. All that stuff. I had never taken a break from each one of these incidents. And then the bike crash. My head against the ground. Um, so that's how we end up with the imbalance issues.

• 3:09:28Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And I didn't, I wasn't aware of it then. Uh, I, and I told her about this one incident. I was walking and just going down a stairway in a restaurant and I rounded the corner to the stairway and I just took a, took a little stutter step. It's like, and I felt a little bit off balance for a second. I was like, at the time I was like, what was that all about? I wasn't drinking. I wasn't, I was just there. It was a meeting. It was a dinner meeting. And I didn't know what that was. And so I started thinking that happened, that kept happening, just little things like that. And then also, why can't I remember this particular thing, right? It was just frustrating me. And I said, I asked her then, I was like, why is this happening now? And she's like, well, it's probably been happening. You just weren't aware of it happening, or you

• 3:10:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  wrote it off as something else, right? And, but now you're noticing now because you wrecked your bike and almost killed yourself.

• 3:10:22Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So she said to get it, get it checked out. And I did.

• 3:10:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And so there are minor signs of, you know, uh, brain injury, TBI, um, minor symptoms and minor, so a minor case. I was like, okay, well, that makes sense. Um, so the sooner the better. One, you gotta change your environment, you know, and no more combatives where you're getting beaten in the head from somebody punching you in the head.

• 3:10:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I'm not, I have, so I've weaned myself off of being on a motorcycle so far, but I like motorcycle riding. So I'm going to get my bike fixed eventually. And I kept it unfixed. Just so I could remind myself what had just happened. That was kind of my way of reminding myself what I, the direction I need to keep going. So, um, but at this point, I think I'm okay, uh, to the point where I'm going to get my bike fixed or get a new one, whatever.

• 3:11:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I gotta get it checked out. Um, drinking a lot less. So I had one tonight, right? And I could do that now. I don't, I, I can be around it and not have to have it. Or I can have a day at work or a day at all. And I don't ever say to myself, I don't ever have have a thought in my head like, oh shit, I have, I need a drink, right? This has been a rough day, right? Never say that to myself. I don't even have that thought. And that's pretty common. So in the, in the environments that I've been in, it's a thing. It's, it's the culture, right? It's like what you do. And now you can't even go to a restaurant without it being in your face. I didn't notice that till I go to counseling. And I'm zero alcohol for a long time.

• 3:12:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, I got hooked on Diet Sprite actually during that time. Uh, and uh, I realized that then you can't go anywhere. It's on TV if you, and I don't watch uh, professional sports anymore because they've got sideways into the woke side of things that I'm not, I don't need that in my life.

• 3:12:26Shawn Ryan?

  You're not down with the woke?

• 3:12:27Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Nope. Um, so I used to think baseball, football, America, right? But not anymore. They totally trashed that in my mind. Um, having, you know, all that stuff going on in the professional sports. I don't watch it anymore. I don't have a favorite team anymore. Um, I don't need that in my life anymore. I don't need to have a drink in my, you know, I, it's never a thought in my head. And I'll go sometimes, uh,

• 3:12:56Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  and I, I say that to myself, like, uh, I'll grab a beer. It's like, why am I drinking this beer? I can have anything else. Why am I drinking this beer, right? It's like, well, I could have a beer, damn it. It's America, right? And freedom. But it's like, okay, I don't need it. If I, that's a social thing. Should I have a drink? But to excess anymore, I actually, I think I do and I'm, I'm, I probably sure have some people that can attest to it, but I have a very tight control of myself, more, more self-control over that, right? Uh, no other substance abuses. I've never had those issues and I don't like even taking over the counter medicines for pain.

• 3:13:38Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, so that was the other thing when, when I was talking about the, the psychedelic stuff was like, uh, you know, my whole aversion to anything medication, that's my, that's still in my head.

• 3:13:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:13:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Plus I couldn't, I don't know if you can do that when I was employed or anything else, but um, I really haven't checked into it. I've seen your shows on it and it works. Uh, you've proven that on your shows and other shows that are, that it's being publicized.

• 3:14:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But it's it's just not my thing. I'm not into other, any other pain, over the counter pain meds or anything, even if I get pain meds from a prescription. I try to do without it. I don't think I've ever had any pain that I couldn't just tolerate myself and then just ride it out.

• 3:14:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Even when I had my, hit my head on the ground after I wrecked my bike. But that was really a turning, turning point for me. Um, actually sought assistance, you know, and when I started talking to folks, uh, so, um,

• 3:14:46Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Tom Saturday, I keep forgetting that name.

• 3:14:49Shawn Ryan?

  All Secure.

• 3:14:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  All Secure Foundation. Um, I reached out to him, sent him an email and I said, uh, hey, man. I've heard what you were saying and I wasn't, so it wasn't time for me, I guess, to, to like, admitted I needed to seek assistance or talk to anybody about, because I am, I'm fine. It's like, it's normal. And it actually is normal with a lot of folks that we hang out with.

• 3:15:11Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:15:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  We know. So what's?

• 3:15:14Shawn Ryan?

  It seems normal.

• 3:15:15Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. So what's, what's, what am I crying and complaining about, right?

• 3:15:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:19Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, so time and place for everybody's different. And I, I asked him a few questions and he said, well, let me get you in touch with one of our, we can do this for you, uh, free of cost, some counseling, a couple of counseling sessions with the counselor. That was great. Loved it. Um, and mostly it boiled down to like, so not just when I crashed, wrecked my bike and I almost killed myself, but while I was drinking and times that I don't remember stuff. It's like,

• 3:15:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  if somebody needed me, so I'm, I'm that kind of guy too. So I want to be there for people, right? I want to be there in the moment for people. Well, there's times that I wasn't there for myself. I was, I didn't even know where I was. So how can I be there for anybody else if I'm not there for myself in those moments, right? So, um, you know, that was what sunk in with me.

• 3:16:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  For, for my family, for my friends, for whoever it is in my life that's important. Those times I'm, I wasn't there. And so, kind of disappointed in myself for those things. I was like, well, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was just thinking about myself at the time, right? So that's kind of how I, I guess, uh,

• 3:16:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Came to grips with it, right? I was like, well, so commitment to myself to be there to not get so shitfaced like that anymore to that I'm worthless to anybody, including myself. And bad things happen, right?

• 3:16:48Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And there seems to be a thing.

• 3:16:54Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, they described some of the physiological things that are happening with alcohol and even a minor case of TBI, right? That are happening when I, when I drink. Or, and all made sense to me. It was like, hey, whatever it is now. Roger that.

• 3:17:12Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah, I don't need to do that anymore. Sure, socialize and have a drink with somebody, but then I'm not just chugging stuff and slamming shots of anything and those kinds of things.

• 3:17:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Because I'm still in that, the culture.

• 3:17:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Go to dinner last night. I mean, it's everywhere. It's everywhere in your face. So it's not anything that ever like,

• 3:17:39Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  that I see it and have to have it. It's like, it's not like, oh, my God, I got the shakes because I need a drink, right? I could see it all day long, be around it all day long. There'll be, you know, beer in the fridge and a bottle of whiskey on the counter for however long it needs to be there, right? And I don't ever feel the need that it's there, I need to have it.

• 3:18:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The smell, the taste, all those other things they talk about in counseling doesn't do, doesn't, somebody's drinking beer, I gotta have one, right? Or, you know, things like that. It doesn't affect me that way, which, good for me, but

• 3:18:16Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  it's good for what I want to do with it and where I think, you know, I don't need those kinds of things in my life because I want to be there in a moment for whoever needs me in that moment, right? And I can't do that if I'm drinking too much.

• 3:18:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  So that was a turning point for me to just seek help, seek assistance.

• 3:18:41Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And Tom was pretty good about that, too. He's like, hey, man, everybody comes to this point in their lives where they, either something happened or it's just something that you come to grips with at one point.

• 3:18:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And it's it's normal. It's it's normal to have to seek some assistance or it's normal for the damage to have occurred like TBI, especially with all the things that we've done in our lives. All the loud noises, the PTS or something like that, depression, those kind of things, they happen. And I'm not like anybody else. I'm not above things happening to me either. So all the things that I did affected me the same way they affect everybody else eventually that they come to grips with, you know, you know, nobody wants to say that, like they're dealing with depression or, you know, suicidal thoughts, right? There's a lot

• 3:19:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  of guys that go in through that. It's like, so I get it. It's not like I ever thought about that, but I get why somebody would say that. Like, I've never been that to that level of desperation, but I understand it now. Just by talking to guys. So I've talked to guys too about what they were dealing with. And I was like, yeah, yeah, it happened to me too. I mean, you're not the only one. We're all in this thing. And eventually, we all realize that all the stuff that we did, as cool as it is, has affected us some way.

• 3:20:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And then different levels of stuff. But I get how, I guess, there's, and we know people who've done it, unfortunately, and the opportunity, right, for all the folks. I'm doing a Mission 22 fundraiser right now. I do that a lot. It's usually like this month in September, it was 48 miles in September. And it's just a fundraiser for Mission 22. There's always something that they're running that I'll do it. It's usually a physical activity. And then it's just really awareness for this is the thing. This is the thing that guys

• 3:21:01Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  are dealing with. 48 in September, I'm doing that. I think I'm pretty, I think I'm done with that. As a matter of fact, but it's all those things. Because I understand now that even talking to guys, the

• 3:21:17Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  The time from a decision to do something like that, to take your own life, or to even end it accidentally, that's a short window.

• 3:21:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:21:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You have a short window to come out of that, or it's, it's done, it's over. There has to be something there in that little window of time that turns the boat for the, the folks that are in that level of desperation and depression and everything else. Even though they have people in their lives, at that point, there's nobody, there's nobody there for them in, in their minds, right? And I totally get it. Uh, I understand it.

• 3:21:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But it, it, whether you have somebody literally in your life or, cause like when I wrecked my bike, it's like, wow, that, that wouldn't have been what I would have wanted, like my daughter, my son, or my grandkids to remember me by as the last thing. How did, how did he die, right? It's like, this, this guy's done everything in the world. How did he die? Oh, he drank too much, wrecked his bike. You know, it's like, yeah.

• 3:22:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  That was, that really still gets to me like, oh my God, I can't do that. I can't do that to everybody. It's like, that, that just, I can't do that. It's just too much.

• 3:22:34Shawn Ryan?

  It's fucking crazy. You know, I've, I've had incidents like that, several of them. And it's like, looking back, you're just like, man, all this shit that I've done. And that's, that's how it would have fucking ended.

• 3:22:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep.

• 3:22:49Shawn Ryan?

  Two o'clock in the morning, drunk on a fucking bike.

• 3:22:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know, like, damn, that's all that, that's how it ends. And, uh, yeah, that, that

• 3:23:03Shawn Ryan?

  woke me up too.

• 3:23:04Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yep. Yep. It's unfortunate for me and unfortunate that it happened. But fortunately for me, I was able to even get that message out of that whole thing, you know? Almost killed myself. I have another opportunity to, you know, get my shit together. And, uh,

• 3:23:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  in my mind, not let everybody down that way.

• 3:23:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  You know, um, cause there's some people who, you know,

• 3:23:29Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, life goes on. I get it. And, and everybody would be fine. But, uh, that's not what, it's not what I wanted to. Leave as a, you know, as a memory, a legacy, like, yeah, he did this, that, the other thing, this other thing, and yeah, he's done all this other cool stuff, and then

• 3:23:47Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  drink too much, kill himself.

• 3:23:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:49Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Dumbass.

• 3:23:51Shawn Ryan?

  Happens to a lot of us, you know, it does, it really does.

• 3:23:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah.

• 3:23:56Shawn Ryan?

  But, man, so what do you got coming up?

• 3:24:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  What do I got coming up? Well, hopefully, this, this deal with Glock, I signed a deal with Glock, and I'm gonna go to work for Glock as an instructor. Um, and so I'm all about right now, I have done some things, and I know some things, so I just wanna convey that to, you know, the general population, or the law enforcement, or the military, or anybody who needs to know that stuff, tactics, carrying guns, not carrying guns, uh, planning life things, uh, whatever it is, right? Um, there's more people I think that can

• 3:24:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  take away from some experiences, like, uh, Pete Blaber's book, he describes a military action, his decision and stuff, and then he talks about how that applies to corporate America, right, what other people can understand, you know, in that context.

• 3:24:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  I'm kind of in the same kind of mindset that just because it happened to me in a particular military, the agency, or as a contractor, there are some things there that can be translated into civilian life for other folks to learn from, um, given their own situation and their own environments.

• 3:25:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  How do they come to the conclusion of this, given my situation? Well, then, if this is your other situation,

• 3:25:23Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, adversity is different for everybody, uh, timelines, deadlines, people have at work.

• 3:25:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Okay, uh, not a big deal to me, because I've dealt with worse, but that's their adversity, that's what they're, that keeps them up at night.

• 3:25:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:25:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, so how do you deal with that? Um, how do you manage your time around that? How much effort do you put into that? Before you get consumed by it, you know, all those kind of things.

• 3:25:53Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But really, I like shooting, I like tactics, uh, I think I have some

• 3:26:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Fairly current, fresh, you know, skills to pass on to folks.

• 3:26:04Shawn Ryan?

  I would definitely say that.

• 3:26:06Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  And, uh, yeah, I enjoy teaching. I do teaching, coaching, mentoring, uh, training, all that kind of stuff. For anybody who wants to know it, um, I, I, I totally want to do open enrollment classes for stuff, for all the civilians out there who want to just know how to handle, be more comfortable with a gun. If they bought a gun, then be responsible and learn how to use it.

• 3:26:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:26:33Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Um, so just give them some tools to use to keep going to the reins themselves and to get better at being comfortable with their gun. Uh, there's a lot of people that aren't buy guns and aren't comfortable carrying them because they're still not comfortable carrying them. But, um, I've actually have some people that I've had, um, dealt with training firearms and they were not carrying them with them because they didn't feel comfortable with them. But now they're carrying them every day. They feel comfortable using it. They feel comfortable drawing it from wherever there is they're carrying it, on body, off body. Um, and that, that for me, that's huge. It's like, well, good. Yeah. Now you have

• 3:27:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  a gun for a reason and now you actually know how to use it. Um, I mean, there's so many things that tactics wise, I mean, tactics are tactics. I mean, it's not rocket surgery, right?

• 3:27:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:26Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But there are some ways to be more efficient at doing things. And that's all I would, you know, be interested to say or convey to others that are doing the same type of work, um, regardless what it is. Uh, military tactics, CQB stuff, shooting a gun, um, you know, all those kinds of things. Common sense approach to all these things. Like, don't make it difficult. You know, that's, that's a lot. I do see that a lot in some of the training that's going on.

• 3:27:58Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Is in trying to make it unique to themselves. They provide something unique that nobody else provides. They make it more difficult and they add too many steps or they make, just make it sound more difficult than what it is because it's coming from them, right?

• 3:28:13Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  But that's my whole opposite concept about training. You know, don't make it difficult. Don't make it any harder than what it is. It's pretty easy, right?

• 3:28:23Shawn Ryan?

  That's refreshing.

• 3:28:24Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Shooting a gun, right?

• 3:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:28:25Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Keep the sights on a target. Don't move the sights, press the trigger, right? And then keep the sights steady.

• 3:28:30Shawn Ryan?

  It can be fucking fun.

• 3:28:31Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It can be, and it is.

• 3:28:33Shawn Ryan?

  You are allowed to have fun.

• 3:28:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Yeah. And in the classes that I've taught so far,

• 3:28:40Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  that's the last thing I say, right, is have fun. Like, okay, there's, gotta be safe. Downrange is that way and keep your muzzle pointed that way, muzzle awareness and learn something today. Open yourself to learn something today and have fun doing it. And,

• 3:29:00Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  you know, it's, it's, you know, it's the mystique thing too. You're like, oh my God, you know, we're gonna have to do some crazy stuff. You know, this is super secret commando teaching me how to shoot a gun. We're gonna do some crazy stuff. Say, no, it's not difficult. I'll teach you how to shoot like a commando. Guess what? It's the same way everybody else shoots a gun.

• 3:29:21Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  They just do more of it, so they're good at it.

• 3:29:25Shawn Ryan?

  Well, man, I just, I just want to say again, it was a real honor to be able to interview you and, and I wish you the best of luck. And for anybody that's wanted to jump into your training, you are certainly a

• 3:29:40Shawn Ryan?

  wealth of knowledge for anybody looking to learn anything in that sector and, and, and I know you're just gonna do. Phenomenal.

• 3:29:51Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, yeah, thank you and thank you for having me. And I was describing how nervous I was gonna be doing this 'cause I'm not used to doing this kinda, you know.

• 3:30:00Shawn Ryan?

  Was it as bad as you thought it was gonna be?

• 3:30:02Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Well, and worse, yes. No, it was good. And but, you know, how many people have been in the seat? This is an incredible experience, literally. I've known you from working with you and all the other stuff. But honestly, this is, this is a great program you've put together. All the stuff that you, all the information that you have from infrastructure stuff to, you know, preparedness, to stories about, you know, common stories where guys can, you know, go to school from.

• 3:30:35Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  It's, it's a, it's a great program. And to see what you've done, you know, over the years with this, it's, it's great. And I'm just glad to be here.

• 3:30:45Shawn Ryan?

  Man, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate that. But let's go get some dinner.

• 3:30:52Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Let's do it.

• 3:30:53Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 3:30:55Bob "Ninja" Poras?

  Thanks, brother.