#230 Keith Stansell - Operation Jacque & Surviving FARC Captivity

Keith Stansell is a former U. S. Marine and Northrop Grumman employee who was captured by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on February 13, 2003, after his surveillance plane crashed in the Colombian jungle during an anti-narcotics mission. Held hostage for 1,967 days alongside contractors Marc Gonsalves and Thomas Howes, Stansell endured harsh conditions in the jungle until their dramatic rescue by the Colombian military on July 2, 2008, during Operation Jaque. A recipient of the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom in 2009, he co-authored the bestselling memoir Out of Captivity: Surviving 1967 Days in the Colombian Jungle (2009) with Gonsalves and Howes, detailing their ordeal and resilience. Father to twin sons born during his captivity, he advocates for awareness of hostage situations and supports military and veteran communities, emphasizing survival, family, and the human spirit in overcoming adversity. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://americanfinancing.net/srsNMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781-8900, for details about credit costs and terms.https://betterhelp.com/srsThis episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self.https://bruntworkwear.com – USE CODE SRShttps://bunkr.life – USE CODE SRSGo to https://bunkr.life/SRS and use code “SRS” to get your 25% off your family planhttps://calderalab.com/srs – USE CODE SRS Use code SRS for 20% off your first order.https://shawnlikesgold.comhttps://helixsleep.com/srshttps://patriotmobile.com/srshttps://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRShttps://shopify.com/srshttps://simplisafe.com/srs Keith Stansell Links: Book (Out of Captivity) - https://www.amazon.com/OUT-CAPTIVITY-Surviving-Colombian-Jungle/dp/0061769525 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.

• 0:05Shawn Ryan?

  Keith Stansell, welcome to the show.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. I'm very humbled to be here.

• 0:10Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I've been looking forward to this. I've been really looking forward to this. So, thank you for coming. It's, it's an honor to be able to, to share your story on, on what happened down in Colombia in captivity. So, I appreciate you being there.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  I appreciate you and what you do for the community. And that's, that's why I'm here. Not to see my face on a show anywhere, or promote anything. It's what you do for the community. And I told you, some of my friends, and we brought you a couple little trinkets, right, that said, "Hey", and one of the text messages from a ranger to you, just say, "Thanks for what you do. Just don't stop." And so, you know, when I got the invite, any, any effort to support this, I'm all about it.

• 0:52Shawn Ryan?

  That means a lot.

• 0:53Speaker 01

  Well deserved, sir.

• 0:54Shawn Ryan?

  That means a hell of a lot. So, everybody starts off with an introduction here. You ready?

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 1:00Shawn Ryan?

  Keith Stansell, former United States Marine and Northrop Grumman contractor who flew anti-drug surveillance missions in Colombia is part of Plan Colombia to intercept FARC communications and support counter narcotic efforts. Survivor of one of the longest hostage ordeals in modern history, enduring 1,967 days of captivity in the Colombian jungle after your plane crashed in FARC-controlled territory. Co-author of the book, "Out of Captivity: Surviving 1,967 Days in the Colombian Jungle." Two-time air crash survivor received the Secretary of Defense Medal of Defense of Freedom in 2009. Dedicated husband to Rebecca,

• 1:44Shawn Ryan?

  father to your daughter Lauren, son Kyle, and twin sons Keith Jr. and Nick, who were born after your capture and whom you first held upon your return home. And most importantly, you're a Christian.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Thank you, sir.

• 1:58Shawn Ryan?

  So, couple of things to knock out here. Actually, real quick. So, you had twins?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you decide which ones kicked you?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  You know what? I didn't. Their mother named them while I was in captivity. They, they were born while I was in captivity. I didn't see them till they were five years old, when I got rescued. So, their mother being Latin, the joke was, I just thought, "What are they gonna be named?"

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Then when I saw Nicholas and Keith and it wasn't something, you know, some crazy juancho or something, you know, like it's a fun, you know, it's a funny deal. And when I was in captivity, we heard on the radio what their names were. A Colombian major, it was a buddy of mine that spent 10 years in captivity. Um, he goes, he got lucky. She named him Keith and Nick. Yeah. So, yeah.

• 2:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Well, we'll get into more of that. We'll definitely get into more of that. So a couple of things to knock out real quick. I've got a Patreon account. It's a, it's a community that we've built since the beginning. They're the reason that I get to be here with you today. And, um, so one of the things that I offer them is they get the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. This is a good one. It's from Jesse Martin. After years of freedom and time to heal emotionally and physically, if you could go back in time to any specific moment when you were in captivity to share a message with yourself, what moment would you go back to and what would your message be?

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a really good question.

• 3:32Shawn Ryan?

  It is a good question.

• 3:37Speaker 01

  What would my message to myself be?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  If I knew that I was getting the message from the future, this too will pass. That would have been it. Um, I learned one thing in captivity. We're bred, whether we like it or not, as human beings to survive. That's the way we were created. We don't have a choice. I think the survival instinct is stronger in some than others, but we don't have a choice. So one thing that the three of us always said to each other, my co-patriots there, Mark and Tom, that were captured with me was, we're going home one day. And I used to tell Mark, I'd rather die on a tarmac, you know, after a rescue in the United States

• 4:23Speaker 01

  than die here in this jungle. I just wanted to get back home one day. Obviously you want to see your family and that's what really gives you the strength to keep going. Those ties and all, but for me, I wasn't dying on foreign soil. That was my biggest fear.

• 4:37Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. It's a good answer. It's a damn good answer. And then to continue on, a lot lighter here. Everybody gets a gift?

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Uh-oh. Oh, wow.

• 4:51Shawn Ryan?

  Those are

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Oh, sweet.

• 4:52Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance League gummy bears, legal in all 50 states. It's just candy.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  Awesome.

• 4:58Shawn Ryan?

  It's candy. At least they're legal right now.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  So they're not from Colorado?

• 5:02Shawn Ryan?

  They're from Michigan.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Fantastic. No, thank you very much. Thank you.

• 5:07Shawn Ryan?

  But Keith, so I want to do, I want to do a life story on you. I mean, obviously, we're really going to focus in on Columbia and captivity and what you were doing down there, how you got captured, all that stuff. But I always like to start with, where did you grow up?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  I grew up in a place called Green Meadows, Florida, US 27 and Griffin Road in Broward County, right next to the Everglades. My father was a director of a vocational education center and my mother was a guidance counselor at school. And Green Meadows was

• 5:42Speaker 01

  one of those first developments where people had horses. So you had like an acre and a half or two and a half acres in a middle-class ranch home. And my father made a good living, my mom, but we were kind of upper-middle-class. We weren't well-to-do. But spent a lot of time, when I say traveling, we had a camper. So my parents would always take a couple of trips to camp somewhere, summer, excuse me, summertime, do those things. So really up until I was 14, it was Mayberry for me. I was a nerd, big buck teeth, wasn't very athletic, got picked on a lot, but had good friends. But liked to fish and camp out around my house all the time. And it was just a great place to live.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And I remember my mother had a dinner bell in front of the house. It was an old train station bell that my dad had put on a four-by-four post. Back then, obviously, nobody had, you know, social media and you weren't stuck inside. You know, there was three channels on the TV. You get home from school and you pop smoke and you're outside. So the rule was, we don't care where you're at, but you better be able to hear that bell. Because my mom would cook dinner and she'd go outside and ring the door, ring the bell, right? And ding ding, we'd get tuned in and we'd, you know, haul ass back to the house. So it was fantastic. And the only thing that sucked is my friends on the weekend, if we're out somewhere, they couldn't find me, they'd ring the damn bell.

• 7:07Speaker 01

  You know, and so I, yeah, I have really fond memories.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Everybody in their life has tragedies, right? So mine, the earliest on, was at fourteen. My mother came down with lung cancer and she was gone in six weeks. In six weeks? Six weeks, yeah, in six weeks. So that started a period of instability in my life. Really, I was very angry at the world. And I had just started school at a military academy in Melbourne, Florida called Florida Air Academy. I was gonna go into their flight school program there with Embry-Riddle. And my plan was to go into the military as a pilot. But after her passing, I ended up in five high schools in four years and it was a lot of, you know, being unstable. My father was an old-school, depression-era kid.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  He wasn't Mr. Lovey-Dovey, "Hey, I love you, yada, yada." Just a serious guy, good provider, but all of a sudden he had two sons, right? That wasn't really his group. You know, he was the provider and he taught us many things, but my mom was the caretaker of everything. So I moved around to a couple of different high schools with family members and, you know, it really hurt my feelings leaving Florida Air Academy because I already had this plan mapped out. And it changed everything, and for my father, too. I remember my father, he picks me up one day from school and my school principal had worked for my father, my dad, and this was a few months after my mom had died and my

• 8:43Speaker 01

  father was drunk. And my father was a normal cocktail in the afternoon, but I'd never seen him get in a car and drive drunk. And I remember we're listening to George Jones and he's in the seat and he's pointing at the radio and "She's gone, she's gone." I, I was so broken-hearted for my father. It's the first time I'd ever seen him cry, the first time I'd ever seen him weak, you know? And... You know, we just drove home and I remember just went in, sat down, was a clown and went to sleep. But I'd never seen any behavior, nor did I see it again. But it just, I was worried. I was worried. He'd had a few drinks and picked me up, which he would never do. And he, you could just see he was just, he was destroyed.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  You know, and um, it, it marked me for a long time. And we had our rough times too, you know, you're a teenage warrior, coming into puberty, you're gonna, I was never good with authority. The older I got, that didn't get any better. But uh, that's the first tragic time in my life is a memory that I think would shape me the way I look at things forever. And so I would say for then on until maybe, hell, in my twenties, even though I was a military, I was bitter from that inside. I didn't realize it until actually, really didn't realize how much it affected me until captivity. But uh, my mom was the stabilizer in the family, right? And uh, it put me on an unstable path. Now I wasn't robbing banks or, you know, in, in police cars or anything.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  I was just an angry kid. And uh, I remember my dad's upset with me because I had been taken out of school and put in a place called Nova University, an adult college. I academically was very gifted. But I said, I just don't want to go to class or do anything anymore. And I think my salvation, and I hope he's still alive. One day I'm a senior at school, American Senior High School in Miami, Florida. And Sergeant Armando Yearwood walks into our classroom as a recruiter. And uh, he started giving us some Marine Corps pitch. And I asked him, what are they gonna do for me? He said, we're not doing shit for you. What are you gonna do for me?

• 10:56Speaker 01

  You know, very straightforward guy. I was like, delayed enlistment right there. We gotta go talk to my dad. I was seventeen. I signed a year delayed enlistment until I graduated high school. And that was one of the best decisions I made in my life. And I by far was no star Marine. Imagine you go in the Marine Corps and you don't like authority. It's just like, you know, maybe not so well thought out. But the Marine Corps set me on a different path and. Like someone who works for you, who went in the Marine Corps at seventeen years old and then became an officer, enlisted guy first. I went in Paris Island at seventeen and my drill instructors gave me a really nice birthday gift at eighteen at Paris Island, which was about an hour workout on the quarter deck till I puked.

• 11:39Speaker 01

  But it, even though I was not some star Marine, I was good at my job in the Marine Corps. It turned me to a path that would really help me in the long run and guide me. And everything I have today, surviving captivity, where I ended up, maybe working outside of my pay grade, is because I went to Paris Island at seventeen years old. I got the Marine Corps thing for everything on that. What did you do in the Marine Corps? So, I was an avionics guy. Aircraft electrician, aircraft avionics. You're in the Marine Corps, when we went there, you do ICT infantry combat trading, no matter what you do, if you're

• 12:21Speaker 01

  in the wing or not. So, went through there, then I went to Millington, Tennessee, to my aviation basic course. And started off in Cherry Point, North Carolina, and I was working on aircraft there. Then I got sent into the OB-10 Bronco world and was out in Oceanside, California for a few months before I finally got stationed at Marine Corps Air Station New River. So, I was at VMO-1, Marine Observation Squadron One. And the OB-10, for the people that don't know, is just a twin-engine forward air control bird. The rear seater is usually a lieutenant out of the grunts, you know, an infantry officer in the front seat, not even a pilot, and the front seat is a naval aviator up front.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  And that mission went away, but that mission of working and the association with OB-10s what would lead me to the counter-drug operations in Columbia years later. So, I

• 13:18Speaker 01

  I got out after four years and a little bitter again because I was going to reenlist. And we had a thing called MESEP, Marine Commissioning Enlisted Program. Basically, you apply to MESEP if you can get, you know, approved, you'll get tuition, you go to school, you can get your commission, and then you, you know, will own six years of your life afterwards. But that was my plan. But then we had legislation that came down, Graham Rudman, there was no promotion, no bonus, no anything. And I was like, why am I staying here? Right? It wasn't the Marine Corps fault, it was, you know, DC legislation at the time. But one thing that marked me was, one day I was in the hangar, and I was

• 14:02Speaker 01

  just coming in from the flight line. Then there's this lieutenant standing there that had gone to Florida Air Academy with me. And he sees me, and his nickname, his call sign was Bones, but that was his nickname in school, tall and thin. He said, "You go stand still, what are you doing?" I said, "Hey, sir." He goes, "What's up with this sir shit?" I just have my T-shirt on. I go, "What are you doing?" He was, he was there, he was, I think, he was flying, he was flying Harriers. And he goes, "You flying Broncos?" I'm like, "No, Bones, I'm not. I'm a Lance Corporal. This is about getting busted to back to PFC if I don't get my shit scored away." But it really stung me that that time

• 14:45Speaker 01

  of instability after my mom's death, what I had not taken advantage of. Damn. Yeah. I wasn't embarrassed at all, nothing like that. So when I got out of the Marine Corps, I ended up going into the Georgia National Guard full-time for nine years. And that was an experience. The Guard is a, an adventure, to say the least. But learned a lot there about a lot of stuff, in the sense that, not necessarily military, but there's that transition in the Guard, it's all, you know, very nepotistic. The full-time Guard is an interesting, interesting deal.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  It is, you know, in the military, we get transferred out, right? Every two, three years, somewhere active duty, you're moving, you know, a different change of people, change of command. Well, at a guard facility there, it's, uh, nobody ever leaves. You know, you're, you're there full time.

• 15:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  So, um, and I was in a transition in the guard time when it went from no real mission to all of a sudden, active duty army started tasking you with missions. And so you got your, your, your summer camp every year, you bring in the part timers and go out in the field and do all that stuff. And I'll never forget, I'm in the guard just a few months. We go to Fort Stewart, get all the part-time people in there, you know, and we got two weeks out in the field and everything. And, um, my first sergeant said, hey, Stan, let me do you a favor. He said, take this Jeep here. And remember the old chiefs with little flat trailers, little small trailers?

• 16:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  He said, go to the PX and load this fucker with beer. I'm like, okay. So it was, uh, a bunch of rednecks flying CH-54 Sky Crane helicopters and doing a damn good job of it now, right? Moving stuff for the army, but they're at Fort Stewart. And then, uh, there's a big tent and we're watching movies and drinking beer. And all the movies were not exactly PG rated in the woods. So some of my buddies in the Marine Corps are like, what's the guard like? I said, uh, it's a little bit different. It's a little bit different. But that ended shortly because we ended up getting Chinooks, getting new aircraft. And then the standards, I would say, picked up. And there was a change from kind of the old guard to the new guard.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  A much higher level of professionalism and people coming off active duty, you know, joining that were, you know, kind of tier one folks.

• 17:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  So, uh, it, it was a totally different guard and I got to see the transition, but interesting, interesting.

• 17:18Shawn Ryan?

  Did you, did you, I mean, in your days of the military, did you ever, and being in captivity, did you ever, did you ever go to SER training by chance?

• 17:27Speaker 01

  So we had, the guard had this thing I call SER light. You know, the army would send trainers around and give you your training, but nothing like going to Brad and bragging, completing the course, you know? I'd get, I'd get a course later on and go, I'll be a bit, yeah. And it was, you know?

• 17:48Speaker 01

  It was interesting to me that when I started working downrange, all this time in uniform, training, all the stuff that we did, and I was an aviation guy, right? But I would never see any hard stuff or hear gunshots until I was a civilian on the dark side. I always laughed at that, you know? And what got me from the Guards at the State Department was when I was in the Rinkor, there was a program called Nimbus. And it was a drug interdiction mission run out of Homestead Air Force Base when it was still Homestead Air Force Base. And they used our OB-10s to support US Customs and DEA on takedowns. So I got sent down there.

• 18:33Speaker 01

  It was just a small debt to support stuff. And that's really where we, my counter narcotics connection started. And the Customs guys had a couple of jets down there, they had no FLIR operator. So, kind of undercover darkness, I'm flying, doing the FLIR with them, and then our OB-10s are down there, and, you know, we were doing some cool stuff. And that later would, later on, lead me to getting recruited by the State Department on an OB-10 spray program. You got recruited? Yeah, I had a friend of mine, the State Department, they were looking for OB-10 Bronco guys, there's just not many of us, right? And so they were out of Patrick Air Force Base, and they ran the spray program in Columbia. And then there was another interdiction program going on.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  And so he said, hey, you're an OB-10 guy, you want a rear seat for us? And I was brought on to be in a really small group of about 15 people to do interdiction. And, you know, just get in at night and chase guys, and, you know, it was going to be a blast. So I signed the paperwork and came on, but in the middle, that got shut down. And so my boss from the State Department calls me and it was DynCorp was that contract. And he said, hey Keith, how about you go to Columbia and rear seat OB10s in Columbia for me? And I was like, okay, you know, I'll do it. So then I wind up downrange in Columbia and we're spraying OB, I'm sorry, spraying coca

• 20:01Speaker 01

  with OB10s that were, you know, had spray booms on them and tanks inside. And I was running the SAR bird in the back, which was basically an OB10 that had no spray equipment on it, but still had the FLIR system. So with the spray package, I'd be behind and overhead with, with my pilot. Then you have a SAR package, there's a couple of Super Hueys and some ex-folks like you that were riding in case somebody went down, you had to, you know, take the penetrator down and get them out of the jungle. Then our spray package, it'd be anywhere from three to six birds. And we'd spray coca. Sprayed them with what? Roundup. You're just killing? Basically roundup. Cocaine? Yeah. And when I first started, it was as far as you could see. No shit? It was as far as you could see, yeah.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Once you got over the rocks, you know, down in the Andes down south, it was just coca everywhere. And what they did to counter that was they broke up the big coca fields into small coca fields. You know, the big fields, we'd just come across three, four, five, six birds and just make a long spray run. It was a lot easier. But, uh, that again, politics, you know, we'd be spraying and doing a good job and we knew our job that we were doing was too good. Shut down, shut the program down, something happened, we'd have to stop spraying because it was having too much effect. So. Too much effect on what? On the coca. You're stepping on toes there, man. I mean, that's the thing.

• 21:25Speaker 01

  You know, you think everybody up in the government there and La Casa de Nino, you know, that's the White House. You think that that's not influenced by the coca trade and the money that's there? And then the politics. So, one of the spray pilots that I knew, used to say, "Is it yucca in a coca field? Or is it coca in a yucca field?" So, they would always put on the news, "This poor Campesino, his yucca was sprayed." That's bullshit. The Campesino was paid by the gorilla to go plant some yucca plants in the coca field, and pretend like that was his food source, and it wasn't. Wow.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  And it wasn't. So, in every, every circle and turn, we, we were being stopped from being effective. But I flew with a great group of guys. Everybody from the maintenance people, the pilots, you know, were just fantastic. What was special about the OB-10? Um, it was a forward air controlled bird. So, it was heavily armored, reasonably heavily armored, super maneuverable, super maneuverable, and just a really capable aircraft. And, I think because it was free also, with the State Department being able to hand that off down there and run it, but it was very effective at the mission. I mean, you want

• 22:50Speaker 01

  to fly a single-engine prop duster with almost no armor, spraying something, or do you want a high-performance twin-engine turboprop that's got armor on it, right? What's the survivability? Yeah. That was the deal. And you know, we actually, um, we actually sprayed coke on MBGs. Didn't work very well because the OB-10 at the time was not MBG compatible. So, you're going across at night, across a coca field, you just see streaks of light, just attracted small arms fire. So, did you guys take a lot of fire? Yeah. But, when I say take a lot of fire, um, mostly small arms, AKA, stuff like that. You know, there's always a bullet hole here or there, whatever. You know, a couple

• 23:32Speaker 01

  aircraft we lost, but they weren't OB-10s. Um, you know, I see the Air Force now, with this air tractor, single-engine air tractor, they've got it armored up, and it's like going to be a close air support. I'm like, "Man, you're dead in that thing." I don't know who wanted to waste that money, but that thing in a... It better be total air superiority because anybody in a contested environment, that aircraft is not survivable. I don't believe it is. I've seen them down with an AK-47. Now, it didn't have all this armor, but it's slow and it's got one, you know, it's got one motor on it. And one of my Air Force buddies and I, retired, we're talking about that the other day. He's a retired F-15 pilot. And he's like, I can't, I wouldn't fly that thing

• 24:14Speaker 01

  in a contested environment anywhere. You know. But OVTAM was a great bird. I really enjoyed it. Lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to be able to rear seat that aircraft. And it was a really good experience. What was the op tempo like down there? Depend upon the spraying. If we were, it would go through cycles. And so if we were on kind of a hard new spray time, you know, just every day, you know, the rotation down there, two to three weeks on, 10 days off, you're spraying every single day. Every single day. And, but then politics would shut it down or speed it up. And, you know,

• 24:55Speaker 01

  we did other things too. I got a mission one time. It was kind of interesting to support some Colombians. It was a lot of fun. And we went out, basically, we're using our systems to locate, you know, targets for them, for them at a time, just to record, not to actually attack at that second. So you got to see some other stuff, right? But we had some aircraft down there that were just doing mapping. We'd map coca fields. Everything would be geo-located, then we'd come back, and that would help us direct the spray on them. Interesting. So interesting program. I think my experience with the drug enforcement down there, just take the gloves off. Take the gloves off, and if we're going to fight it,

• 25:37Speaker 01

  let's fight it. But you can't fight with one hand tied behind your back. Sounds like every war I've been involved in. Yeah. Every single one of them. Every one. And, you know, half of our pilots weren't military pilots. I remember I used to be MBG qualified to repair goggles and stuff, right? So I'm in the hangar at Patrick Air Force Base in the State Department, and my, my boss comes down, and he's like, hey, Keith. He goes, what, you're gonna, you want to train some pilots tonight? I figure I was just going to give an assimilation class, right? Just hands on. And so I knew they were crop dusters. They were, these guys were from Louisiana.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  So sun's going down. I go upstairs in the hangar. They're there. And I'm like, hey, would you fly in the military? Like, military? We've never been in military.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. So the three guys that were there were fantastic pilots. Now, I'm not knocking, but I thought I'd go upstairs and, you know, you flew an A-10, or, you know, I thought that was what was there and it wasn't. And, um, so we're out there pack, you know, outside of Patrick at night practicing. They were low level MBGs, kind of do it yourself thing. I was like, damn, this would never happen.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  But the guys were really good. But I used to mess with one of the lead pilots there. He'd say, what can a military pilot do at 100, 120 feet that I can't do?

• 27:05Speaker 01

  And I said, well, you're on a 90 knots. He's running 400. That's what he can do. You know, so there was always a friendly back and forth. And we, we brought in some, you know, some experienced ex-military guys, fixed wing guys. And, uh, it all worked out. It, it worked out. It was, it was a group of Americans down there that, you know, although they were contracting and you saw this in your life after, you know, you got out, they still want to do the job.

• 27:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Everybody there wanted to do the job. I didn't fly with a pilot or work with anybody there that didn't want to do the job.

• 27:37Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that sounds like such a cool mission. I thought. I did not realize this was State Department mission.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:43Shawn Ryan?

  I thought this was an agency mission.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  No. State Department. It was run out of Patrick.

• 27:48Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. Where were you guys staged out of?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Uh, LaRondia was one of our, San Jose and LaRondia were two of our bases that we were staged out of. And, you know, we had some air tractors there and OB-10s. And a mix of mechs from all different services and pilots and people that do a job and do a good job. You know, it was, it was, um, all patriots. Right? And, um, you know, Dying Corps used to get a bad rap about, yeah, you got a bunch of ex-enlisted beer drinking guys down there, partying all over Latin America and doing a counter drug mission. Well, yeah. That's what you attract.

• 28:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  You're not looking for choir boys because you're not getting them.

• 28:27Shawn Ryan?

  I've had this conversation so many times.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  But those same guys.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  We'll do a kick ass job and they did.

• 28:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Were you guys, was it specifically Colombia? Were you going into Peru?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  No, no, there was Colombia. When I was on that, that was all, we never left, we never left Colombia. That would not start until I got on with Salcon reconnaissance systems. Then it was a different mission. Then it was a different mission. But I mean, you know, even sometimes I know you must have been in places like, man, this sucks. But if you think about it now, there were some lessons there you were learning, didn't realize, you know? And I've got some great memories of some really good people there. I've got some really sad memories of one of our guys getting killed by accident with a minigun on his own, by his own best friend there on the base, which was really, really sad. You know, we had a, we had a,

• 29:25Speaker 01

  a, he, he wasn't an Indian. He was, I can't remember if he was from Ecuador. I think he was Ecuadorian. He was a Huey mechanics, great guy. And one of his buddies was retired Marine E7 and they were armors or the one E7 was an armor. And so at San Jose, we had a little pad and we had the aircraft there and, and, you know, that minigun, I don't care what it is. If you just turn those barrels, if there's something in there, it's going off, right? So his best, they were best buds. So the Ecuadorian was standing right in front of the minigun. And his buddy just turned, we all heard boom, ran outside and bullet went in under his right arm. As I remember, it came out here, just dropped dead like a stone, you know? And it was, uh,

• 30:11Speaker 01

  it was sad, really sad because it was an accident. And it would become a whole legal thing afterwards. And, uh, but two really close friends. And the American, it was a former Marine there, he, uh, he, he was stuck on base for months until they cleared it. It wasn't on purpose, right? You know? I felt so terrible for him, you know, because he was just crushed. I mean crushed. So, you know, it was a reminder, this isn't a joke, you know, these, these SAR birds and, you know, they'd get it on sometimes. There'd be somebody shooting at them and then just giving the guys in SAR aircraft a, a chance to get some rust off the miniguns.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, it was just, uh, it's just a sad, sad event.

• 30:57Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  You know? I mean, for base security, we had a, uh, Seen old yellow tugs on a flight line, you've seen them a million times, right? And we had to come up with a base security plan. So we got a portable power generator that we used to, used to start aircraft with, hooked it to the tug, then got a seat off of a bass boat and welded a minigun mount on it. So we had power for the minigun and put ammo racks on the side and when we passed the base security plan for that.

• 31:30Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys, was there a lot of engagements?

• 31:34Speaker 01

  No, not really.

• 31:35Shawn Ryan?

  No, any?

• 31:36Speaker 01

  When I say engagements, um, it would usually be the gunships, if there was reported fire on a pass, they would dive down to engage, but who could you see? One or two guerrillas in the side of a jungle in the cocoa field? So full on head to head combat? No, no. They didn't want that. Those guys in those helicopters were looking for that. You know, they took it very serious to protect the package.

• 32:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 01

  So you'd come back and even though you got hit sometimes, you know, there'd be one or two or three holes in the aircraft and, but there was no full up, you know, Wild West gunfights with that.

• 32:16Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go into, I want you to educate the audience on who the FARC is.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Okay. Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarios de Colombia. Fuerzas is forces, Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia. So the FARC manifested itself in 1964, same year I was born, and led by a guy, a campesino called Tito Fio, which is fixed bullet or fixed shot. And in the late 50s and early 60s, when the whole communist plague was taking over Latin America.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  They were basically an out derivative of that. And you have to think about Colombia as two different countries at that time. You've got Bogota at 8,800 feet where the wealthy in the political class lived. Then you had the rest of the country at sea level. No real infrastructure in the country to get and drive a truck here or there. Mostly dirt. I'm painting 1964, right? So you had a basically a campesino kind of working class, as they called it. You know, maybe the proletariat want to pronounce that way against the elite class that had the money. Right. But then they also owned all the big ranches and property in the countryside.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  So the FARC came about as a way to maybe, or are we giving legitimacy there? To fight the political class and the elites for some fairness in the country. Definitely a class system, right? No doubt about it. But over the years, what infiltrated the FARC was the drug trade. So they became, I would say, I hate to use the word victims, but their revolution. You know, like any communist revolution is all a bunch of bullshit, right? You just, you trade one ruling class for another, right? And it really, really, in the late 70s, when the cocaine trade started.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  And that became the big money. Then it became just a cover for the largest cocaine trafficking network in the world. And that's all the FARC is about. It's all about, now that kid you brainwashed as a 14 year old campesino to become a guerrilla. He believes in the revolution. But there's an interesting thing. Uh, when I got rescued in 2008, I saw a newspaper article that came out. And it showed the FARC leadership called the Secretariat, right? This, this was the brain trust, right? Where all their children were. Their kids weren't in the jungle. They were at universities in Europe and in Flor- I mean, they, you know, and you've got these guys that are ultra wealthy and running this big cocaine

• 35:07Speaker 01

  trade. And so you had the secretariat, then you had the commandantes, and you have different fronts, right, around the country that were divvied up. And so it just manifested itself into a type of cancer, I think. And what was once a revolution that I think they actually believed in. Now, from a certain level below, those worker bees believed in the revolution. But the ones up top, I mean, they were, they were just corrupted with their own money. Yeah. My belief. That's, I think many people support that. Is the FARC still active? Yes. This is what's sad. So, let me see, seven years, eight years ago, we had a peace

• 35:48Speaker 01

  process. No, nine years ago. So President Arribas, who was a hardline, right, right-wing guy, basically brought the FARC to their knees. Then the president that followed him decided to have a peace process, which they'd failed before. So we take the leadership to Cuba, they get fanfare, some of our major politicians go down there, and they negotiated a peace process. And I think, I don't know what the number was, maybe 20,000 or so, they turned in their arms and they came out of the jungle. All right. But they really didn't

• 36:28Speaker 01

  do that. Some groups stayed and refused to turn themselves in. The FARC were promised six seats, I think. Now, I can be off on this number, in the Colombian Congress, called a Carul. So you take these guys out, you forgive them of crimes against humanity, then you put them in the Congress. Wow. And, you know, this whole peace deal was- When was this? Gosh, FARC peace deal, this would be 10 years ago, 14 and 15, I think. So I'll never forget, Kerry's gonna go down there and talk to them, and other people are gonna talk to them. And I just saw our politicians going, man, you guys know nothing about these

• 37:11Speaker 01

  guys. And this, you know, it's just kinda like the Taliban being a B-team, right? You know? And-

• 37:19Speaker 01

  I was, I was up in DC and I did an interview and I can't remember if it was on CNN or Fox. But um, one of our senators, very famous and he's deceased now and was a POW from Arizona. I don't want to disparage him, but he was making comments about the FARC and the peace deal. And I was on CNN and I shot back at him and said, hey, would you like to debate this? Or could I at least talk to you? I don't know who's briefing you. Who's, you know? And he wouldn't do a debate with me or even anything. CNN tried to get us to do it together. But the thing was, um, he was so far out of base and some of the things that Kerry said.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  I was like, who are you talking to? What's going on? You know, and so it was disappointing to see that peace process. People that uh, should be in jail for life at a minimum, get forgiven, but I get it was for a greater good. Well, now what they call the dissidents fled back to the jungle and restarted the FARC. But now they're splintered. So they're not as powerful as they once were, but they're still there. And now we have an ultra liberal government that uh, believes in this talk stuff, right? And it just buys them time. And so the FARC dissidency is what they call it, has really, has grown. You can look up a guy named Moredisco right now is one of them. He's in leadership. They're backed by

• 38:44Speaker 01

  popular demand, you know? And so uh, it's just a cycle. I, I think the peace process gave a lot of FARC members a chance to escape the jungle. Some of the young people. But um, in my capture, there's a guy, we all had nicknames, right? But he was a guy who had us in the jungle personally for long as his name was Goffus. So when we got captured and he was captured, our government tried to extradite him, but the Colombian government wouldn't play ball.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  So Goff is was put into uh into jail. He was released under the peace process. And the liberal president down there now wanted to make him a special envoy to the FARC dissidents. Right. What did he do? He just went back and kidnapped a Colombian congresswoman. I just went back to his old tricks. He was just on the news a few months ago. And it was sickening to me to see this guy that was in handcuffs. Right next to the helicopter after our rescue, sitting up like this, like this to a, you know, female congresswoman saying, don't come back here again. Just released. And now he's now he's, you know, sequestered. He's kidnapping people again.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  What he should have had was a fucking bullet between his eyes.

• 40:04Shawn Ryan?

  This shit happens all the time. Look at all the people we've released from Gitmo.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  These are not good people. You know, I worked. I worked at Northrop Grumman with an interesting character. Former eighty second airborne, one star, Harry Axon. God rest his soul. He's buried in Arlington right now. And he made a comment because he was asking me about some of the leadership down there. And he was our corporate lead up there for SOCOM. And had a picture of him when he went into Panama. He was sitting behind Noriega's desk holding his sword. And I said, I said, Harry, like, what's your opinion? And he just looked at me and said, you know, Keith, unfortunately, some people just need killing.

• 40:51Speaker 01

  And he wasn't, it wasn't animosity, it wasn't anger, but he was just like, these people are just going to do what they're going to do, right? I mean, so what do we do? I mean, I guess on the right of being human and humane, you want to to maybe give them the benefit of the doubt or whatever it is, right? But some people are just murderers, man. And that's just, they're never going to change. And we have this way of always hoping to negotiate with the unnegotiable.

• 41:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Never seemed to learn a lesson.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't understand it.

• 41:28Shawn Ryan?

  How strong was, how many people were involved in the FARC at the time? Do you have any idea?

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I don't know. We've heard different numbers, right?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  I think they were probably maybe more than 30,000 strong at the height. So there's a very famous takedown of a post called Me Too. So the Colombian police and soldiers that were in captivity with us, the majority of them were taken from Me Too. Way down south, there was no way for the Colombian military to really get down there. And they were much weaker. This is before Plan Colombia, right? They were much weaker then. So a few thousand FARC surround an outpost man and just start killing and capture them. And at one time in the despeje, right? In the despeje, the FARC had over 400 police and soldiers in captivity. Are you serious? 400.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Now imagine this. Imagine this. Let's just say in this county in Tennessee, you had 400 American men and women in captivity because you were some security force and the government or the state of Tennessee given a despeje, like, you know, it was much bigger than, it's just like, I think it was the size of Rhode Island. And on the night, families, American families have to see their own kids and grown men behind fences in their own country as they negotiate. And then we have American CEOs and, and business people wanting to do business with the FARC

• 43:08Speaker 01

  and flying down there and visiting them. And it's just a, they just gave them their own state. So what did they do? They just used that to grow stronger. Then they let the, they let the, the few hundred go of the soldiers and police and they kept the officers and the politicians that they captured. Damn. So they always wanted el intercambio humanitario. That's the humanitarian exchange.

• 43:34Speaker 01

  We want all the FARC you have in prisons for our people. And that's what, as Tom, we got captured, all we said, so we're just hanging meat. And so they always wanted to display, hey, to have another humanitarian exchange. But they were now a named terrorist organization. So what was the strategy? You got to declare us a legitimate military force, then you have to openly negotiate with us, and to display, hey, and then we'll exchange prisoners. They were never exchanging anybody. We were just political currency.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Just political currency. And I remember Rumsfeld, I heard it on the radio, they were talking about the three American hostages. And they were, it was a news thing, and it was a press conference, and Rumsfeld, our secretary at the time, was just holding it, right? And our, our, you know, our subject came up, because we don't negotiate next. I was like, damn, today sucks. Right? You know? Did I want them to negotiate for us and trade us out? Yeah, of course I did. Who doesn't want to go home? But I knew that's a fantasy. And if you negotiate and you trade for me, then who's next after Keith? Or Tom or Mark?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  That's what's gonna happen. You know, if you can leverage them. And so, you know, I always, all we wanted, and we stated in our first proof of life, we wanted to be rescued, but I wanted our guys coming to rescue us. Not the Colombians. And I remember, because the whole plan was, during a rescue, the first time I hear the helos, there's a disembark, they're gonna, they just start, they did it. You know, in the first Colombian rescue operation, how sad is this? You had a group of political prisoners, I think there was 20 or so of them, you know, basically in a cage in the jungle, hidden in the jungle.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  So the Colombian military flies over the camp, flies over the camp, you could see the boots hanging outside the Blackhawks, then they fucking disembarked like a mile away in the jungle.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  What happens? They just walk in there and they kill every single one of them. Not only does the FARC execute them and haul ass, then they send a guy back to shoot everybody in the head again. One of those guys survived. He was a, like, you could call him like a state legislator, wasn't a national. And he survived by hiding under the dead bodies of his friends. Shit. And he told the story.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  What kind of...

• 46:20Speaker 01

  So, do you want to rescue from that group?

• 46:25Shawn Ryan?

  You heard that while you were in captivity, that stuff?

• 46:27Speaker 01

  It happened, yeah.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  And what they were, they were a group of municipal legislators. The FARC dressed up like police, drive into a little town, right? Run into the little courthouse where they're having them and say, "Hey, outside, you're at risk. Get them on a school bus, start driving on the countryside, say, 'Oh, by the way, we're not police, we're FARC.'"

• 46:54Speaker 01

  How about that?

• 46:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Damn. Well, Keith, let's take a quick break.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:00Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, I want to talk as descriptive as you can about the night you went down.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:07Shawn Ryan?

  And then we'll go through the next five years.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  And I will say one thing, they did come in to execute us one night, but the order got pulled off and we were this close. I mean, they were right there.

• 47:16Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. We'll get into that.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  It went from terror to anger. I was so deep into it. And, I mean, if you want to say it now before we break real quick or not?

• 47:30Shawn Ryan?

  Let's do it.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  So, being a crew chief for a long time, right, in Chinooks and cranes, whatever, I can hear, I could just feel a helicopter from a long way. You just, you get used to it, right? Everybody's like that. So, the biggest fear we had, and this would affect me, uh, in freedom afterwards, but the biggest fear we had was a disembark at night that wasn't done right.

• 47:56Speaker 01

  So Condoleezza Rice, when she was Secretary of State, was visiting Colombia. And she made a very poignant statement. It was on the radio. Plan Colombia, we're gonna have government presence everywhere. And she was right. That's what we needed. She's 100% correct. But while they were down there, we noticed a lot of air activity, but it'd be way off. So we just figured it was just more aircraft mobilizing people. So one night,

• 48:25Speaker 01

  this, we hear these two Blackhawks. Then it breaks into one and it starts circling the camp. But a giant, giant circle. We did not know, we did not find out until later, that they didn't have our camp spotted. So there was a couple hundred guerrillas guarding our camp because we had Colombian police and military on one side of the fence, and then the politicians and us, the Colombian politicians and the three of us. So they come to the gate to kill us. And they bring the guards. Every guard has one person assigned that's responsible to kill. So there's just pandemonium in our compound. And Mark actually, we had a little escape route planned. Mark was actually, he slipped out under the fence.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  And everybody's screaming. I sat down because we're in a, we're in a box like this. And I said, man, they're just gonna whack us. And there was a Colombian congressman with us. We had a nickname. We called him Big Cat, you know, whatever. Anyway.

• 49:24Speaker 01

  So I was terrified. I'm like, they're just gonna shoot the fuck out of us. And I heard the guards talking. Man, is this real? Is this real? The guards were nervous because they knew they were gonna shoot us. And so I went from being terrified, but when I say terrified, I mean, I didn't crap in my pants when I was close, to I got angry. And I don't know why. It was not a macho decision. I shot on my sandals, a badass, nothing like that. I got fucking pissed because I felt like I was laying there like a rat. And I got up and I walked to the gate and Farinae, who was the evil boss of the guards. I said, you're gonna fucking kill us? You gonna kill us? I said, motherfucker, shoot me like a man.

• 50:06Speaker 01

  And the congressman, big cat, grabbed me, he said, Keith, don't say that, don't say that. I mean, every, it's, it's total chaos. I said, you shoot me like a fucking man. I don't, you know, I, I don't know why I said it. It, it wasn't like I was being a badass Sean or whatever, but I just went from terror, absolute terror to just anger. If I could have got my hands on him, I mean, you know? And then the radio goes off and they shut it down. And the Black Hawk went away, but we were this close. And Farnay had his radio on and they're waiting, they're talking back and forth because the, because the macho commandante who is escaping right now, okay, is talking to him on the radio whether or not to give him the order to kill all of us. Because we are the HVT of, of hostages.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  I was terrified, man, terrified. And then I just got angry and I don't, I wish I could tell you why. There was no, there's no training, no mantra, no, I was just furious that you were gonna kill me.

• 51:00Shawn Ryan?

  How long after you were in there did this happen?

• 51:03Speaker 01

  A year and a half. Yeah, a little over a year and a half.

• 51:08Shawn Ryan?

  What happened to your buddy that slipped through the fence?

• 51:10Speaker 01

  His ass finally got back and I turned, Mark, I said, man, you almost fucked up. He, Mark just hung by, we didn't know what to do, right? And he slipped back in, tore his T-shirt, I was like, I talk about it now.

• 51:26Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:27Shawn Ryan?

  Keith, let's say a quick break.

• 51:28Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 52:13Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Keith, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into the night that you guys crashed and got, were held in captivity. But what, what was the name of the outfit you're running with?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  As far as, well, it's on your head.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Southcom Reconnaissance Systems.

• 52:33Shawn Ryan?

  Isn't that wild?

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Underplan Columbia. And when I saw your hat and it said SRS, at first, just for a second, I wasn't thinking Sean Ryan Show, because I was thinking back to Southcom Reconnaissance Systems. I said SRS, because that's what we were. We were SRS. And so for a second, I'm like, oh, no, Sean Ryan Show.

• 52:51Shawn Ryan?

  I wish I was that switched on, Keith. Otherwise, I would have said yes.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. And so when I saw it, how...

• 53:02Speaker 01

  Just, I don't know what you'd call it, right? But I'm sitting here doing the show with you with basically the same hat that I wore when I got captured. Kind of a little different, right?

• 53:13Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we got you one. These are company only. Nobody else has them.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 53:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Well, I won't share it. But small community, but it really is, it kind of boogered me up a little. I said, did he do that for... Oh, Sean Ryan Show.

• 53:30Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Keith, let's move into it. So what was happening that night?

• 53:35Speaker 01

  It was actually very early in the morning. So we had, as a, as a mission commander, I'd get a, an intel box from the embassy for my mission of targets. We'd all meet at the airport, usually hour and a half before we'd take off, and confer with the pilots. And, you know, Mark, who was new, we had brought Mark into the picture to streamline our collection, right? He was an analyst in Air Force, an intel analyst, and he also worked with our stuff in Embassy. So he was hired to help us, you know, make a better product, essentially. So

• 54:20Speaker 01

  he was training to be a mission commander, because the funny thing about our bird was just a Cessna Caravan. Everybody knows, you know, ten-place bird or whatever, but we had one Colombian that's a host nation rider that always flew with us to see what we're doing. People think, "Oh, the Americans running a Colombian doing they want." No, we had somebody on board that knew what we were doing, was working with us, you know, and we didn't just go somewhere without permission and collect on targets. Up front, and breaks my heart, but CW5 retired Tommy Janis. We're here because of Tommy, you know. Thirty years, retired Delta. Guy was in unit forever. Right seat was Tom House, who had never been a military

• 55:00Speaker 01

  pilot, but he'd done a lot of work in Latin America in these type of missions. And so Mark was next to me to the left, number one side of the bird, I was on the right. And the sad, sad thing was Sergeant Alseth Cruz was up front on his very first mission. That was his first mission? Young guy, wife, kids. And what's a bigger heartbreaker is he came with his buddy that morning, they thought they both were gonna fly. And I said, "I can't take two of you, I've only got space for one." He was super excited, his first mission, right? And he'd never come back. Damn. And so, it breaks my heart remembering moments after the crash, the conversation.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  It was really bad. But to start off the mission, we, you know, we get in there, show the target to the chief pilot and left-seater, and then we're go over what we're gonna do. Take off out of Bogota, cross the rocks, it's a little bit high, and then we get down to flat land and go do our mission. So we were going into a fixed base to get fuel. And right before, right before the runway there, some rocks about, you know, we call them small hills, about thirty-five hundred, four thousand feet. So we had a combination, I call it shoot-down engine failure.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  We were coming down at a 15,000 feet. We're on oxygen. And we're in a place where I used to look down and go, if we ever go down here, we're dead. We crossed it every day, but it was just mountain and stuff and no man's land. And I remember Tommy saying, 12,000. I had altimeter in the back, but I knew, so we all took our oxygen off. And um, I hear the birds doo. No motor. So I said, Tommy, what was that? He goes, that's an engine failure, sir. Cool, calm, collected, like, like nothing's going on.

• 57:04Speaker 01

  So they start trying to do a restart on the motor. And I hear Tommy tell Tom in the right seat, run the numbers. He wanted to know if we, if there'd have been no hills in front of us, no small mountains, we could have glided in, it would have been a non-event. Tommy had already suffered a similar event off the coast of Columbia a year before. And brought the aircraft back like it was nothing and landed at airport on the coast. So um, I tell Mark, um, make the mayday call.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  And I remember telling Tommy, I don't know why I did it, but she sees comedy. I said, Tommy, do some of that pilot shit, please. Just, just wait. So um, Tom in the right seat, the numbers were not adding up. And Tommy just said, fuck it, which he did the right thing. He looked and saw a valley next to us and he just broke and we started circling. And he was just burning off speed. And essentially what he did is he'd burn off airspeed. Until we actually crashed going uphill to slow the aircraft down. I cannot tell you. I mean.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Unbelievable piloting skills. And he was inducted last year. I come up here into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame. Well deserved. Uh, I'm here only because of his piloting skills. We should have, we should have been dead right there on that.

• 58:30Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 58:31Speaker 01

  So I tell Mark, I said, Mark, make the mayday call. Mark steps on the foot mic and his voice cracks. I said, give me the mic. You get the target stuff. So Mark starts organizing what's on there. I start making the mayday. So our boys in Key West and the boys in NBC, I'm on the satcom, everybody in the world's listening to us, right? And a friend of ours was in the office that morning in the embassy and he gets on and he's upset. All I'm doing is just giving grid coordinates. We go down so they can find us. I told him how many souls were on board, just the standard stuff that you've trained to do. And um, I don't think any of us, I know Tommy Janus wasn't, was really scared when we were going down.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Cause we were just focused on securing stuff and Mark's securing stuff in the aircraft. So it just doesn't kill us when we crash in. But I remember Sergeant Cruz, he couldn't speak English. He's right in front of me. So I explained him as best I could. What was happening? I strapped him in the seat. He was upset. You could tell he was upset. What we did not know was that there was a column of gorillas. And they were on the mountainside right under us. They were there waiting for aircraft on approach, trying to shoot them down.

• 59:47Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 59:49Speaker 01

  We didn't know. We did not know at that moment that our aircraft was getting filled with holes. Cause we're just, the adrenaline's going right. We're just doing what we have to do. They're shooting the hell out of us right then. We didn't even know it.

• 1:00:01Shawn Ryan?

  Now, did you guys, did you guys have any type of a quick reactionary force ready to come get you?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did. They had at, at the base, you know, they, they had a the spray reaction force. They had those guys, but no, we're an Indian country on our own. There was no QRF for us at all. And I remember.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Tommy saying, as we're, you know, now I'm looking at jungle side above us, but he just burned off airspeed and Tom says, he said, "You better put it down because about 15 foot in front of the aircraft was about a 400 foot cliff. That's how close we came to the edge of cliff." So Tommy goes, "Hey, guys, this is gonna hurt." Then we hit first, broke off the landing gear, then we dug in. What I remember most is the side of the aircraft just opened up like a, you know, just a can opener. Debris and dirt and everything are coming in. And, um, we'd come to a stop. Mark and I are yelling at Tom and Tommy up

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  there. We didn't know they were unconscious. Sergeant Cruz was okay. So behind me is a cargo door. So I said, "Mark, you get the gun bag, get the target deck, right? And I'll get the pilots." So Cruz and I jumped out to get to the pilots and the first thing I saw on the right-hand side, and I thought Thomas House was dead. The whole flap of his forehead was cut open and covering his eye. And he was out of his straps and twisted up in the, in the windshield of the aircraft. So I start pounding on the windscreen. He's not moving. I said, "I thought his neck was broken." I said, "He's dead. He's fucking

• 1:01:41Speaker 01

  dead." I see Tommy next door, right? Start moving. So we run around to that side and get the door open. And Tommy, how do you describe Tommy Janis, man? 56, probably weighed a buck 60, buck 56, ran six to 10 miles a day, had a six-pack. As vain as vain can be, man. Had his hair all blonde. I mean, Tommy was, but vain in the healthy way. Just, Tommy Janis is a character and a half, and he's a product of his community. He really,

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  he fits in there. And, uh, we get Tommy out. He stands right there. I said, "Tommy, fuck, man. Thank you. Like, you just saved us, right?" He just does like this. Then we hear him gunfire coming at us, right? He just puts his hands to his hair like this.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  He goes, "How do I look?" No way. Swear to God, I'm alive. Then he reaches over and he always flew with polo socks over his danners.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  He goes, "How do I look?" He jumps something down. I said, "You look fucking awesome."

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Holy shit. That's Tom Janus. Damn. Like, if you want to write a movie about a guy that flew, was, you know, a unit guy for years and that was Tom Janus. That's why he's in the Aviation Hall of Fame. It's not by flipping accident, right? Who else does that shit at that moment?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  So Mark gets around and Tom comes up and Tom gets out. Tom's alive. I, Mark gives me the, just the gun bag of my M4 and we had our, our, just our Berettas. I threw that fucker over the cliff. And Sergeant Cruz was getting mad at me. He's like, "Shoot, shoot," because there's like sixty or seventy gorillas coming up the hill. I said, "Fuck, no, we're not shooting. We ain't dying today. We're not dying here. And we can't, I mean, we were uncovered ground. They were coming. There's nothing, it was over. Game was over. And Cruz is crying. But not out of, like, being, and I don't want to disrespect him, but he was crying out of frustration. He wanted to fight and he knew we couldn't.

• 1:04:01Speaker 01

  You know, and he says, "Tell them I'm an American. Tell them I'm an American." I said, "We will, but they know who you are, right?" And the scary thing was, is Mark looks Latin. And at first, they thought Mark was a Colombian, too. You know, so, um, I turn around and then there's a couple of guys in our face with AKs in our face. They happened that quick. Yeah. Oh, they were on top. We crashed right in the middle of about a hundred and some odd gorillas. The guys that were shooting at us, we crashed in the middle of them. Holy shit, man. So they split us up. Right? And they took Mark and Tom and I downhill first. And they took Sergeant Cruz and Tommy in another direction. That's what they do. They split you up so if a QRF or somebody gets there, they don't get all their golden eggs.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  And I'll never forget, I remember this. I looked over and I see Tom, you know, Tom Janus dragging his right leg like he can't walk.

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  He's got serious seer training. He all knows one thing. That first thirty seconds, sixty seconds, whatever. Well, if there's ever a time to pop smoke, you're gonna escape. He had a plan. I knew it would end up getting him killed, but there was nothing wrong with his leg. My theory is this. Tommy was dragging his leg, trying to give distance between a group of gorillas and just the two gorillas that were with him, trying to buy himself time. That's what he was doing. He, Tommy's just, he was a different level. And so, we never heard the gunshots. But what we would later discover, Tommy popped smoke, they shot him in the base of the head and the shoulder. Crews turn around, they shot him

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  in the chest and through the hands and into the chest and killed them both. And we wouldn't find that out for months. So they take us down a hill to another side.

• 1:05:54Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, let's rewind.

• 1:05:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:58Shawn Ryan?

  You speak Spanish?

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Si, mucho.

• 1:06:00Shawn Ryan?

  So what were they saying when they?

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Here's the problem, I didn't speak Spanish then. I learned it in captivity.

• 1:06:05Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  So, but I'll never, I watched Tommy. Tommy, Tommy, once they separated and Tommy's already planning, hey, I'm, I'm out. They take us down a hill to like a shack and there's a couple lemon trees and they strip us, to search us, and they make us flipping lemonade. A big bowl of lemonade for us, for everybody to drink. And we're sitting there in our underwear, on the side of a hill, right? And I look up the hill, and there's a, a girl who was leading the group, who would later be killed. I've never seen a woman as physically capable as, as this woman, leading a guerrilla group. You know, if, if

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  there was ever gonna be a woman that, and I may not, people may not want to hear this, but if she legitimately wants to pass the ranger course, this woman will do it. There'll be no pushback on her. She was a physical freak and had been leading guerrilla columns for years, in her early thirties, and a killer. She was a fucking killer. We'd find out about it later. But, um.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  We get dressed, we're finishing up in lemonade, and all of a sudden you can hear bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Here come the Hueys. They're coming to the grass site. And so, um,

• 1:07:27Speaker 01

  she took an RPG and shot it through the bottom of the fuselage after they got all the stuff off of it. When the Hueys got there, there was two, but one was like in trail. One got there, starts circling us, right? But they can't shoot the gorilla because the gorilla grabbed up around us.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  As they circle around, head of bushes, they light up, I guess, I don't know if anybody died or not, but they shot at another group of gorilla. So they pushed us on the ground. Then the gunfight starts between the other gorillas and them. And in the middle of that, I grab a tree to hold on, Mark and I on the side. We don't want to fall further down, just slide. It wasn't like a cliff or you're gonna hurt. And this gorilla looks at me, he sees my watch. In the middle of that shit, he steals my watch.

• 1:08:15Speaker 01

  I mean, right, so, so, I've never talked to him, but I'm assuming the lead bird realized we're in the middle of that, so they just had to stop shooting, so they just start circling us. And I don't know how we got separated, but we're coming out onto a little coffee bean field on the side, and on the top of the field was a little tin hut that the campers in us lived in. And I look up and I see Mark and Tom making it to the hut.

• 1:08:43Speaker 01

  And they're telling me, go, go, go. So, I'm pushing up the hill, and there's a giant, I don't know how big the tree was, but there's a tree stump that must have been about four foot tall, but probably three or four foot around. And, uh, all of a sudden,

• 1:09:01Speaker 01

  the bird gets back on top of us. Well, the gorilla like 60 yards behind me and 40 yards ahead of me. There's all these guns pointing on me and I, I, I get down next to the tree trunk because I'm thinking they're just gonna shoot me before they let the, the, uh, helicopter, you know, hoist me out. And I remember, I remember the gunner looking at me and we're, I mean, he's blowing shit all over me, right? We're this close. He just goes, "Sorry, man."

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  That fucking sucked.

• 1:09:31Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:09:32Speaker 01

  And then that just started a nightmare three week march into the Amazon basin.

• 1:09:36Shawn Ryan?

  Real quick, before we go farther, what was the, what were you guys collecting on these targets?

• 1:09:42Speaker 01

  Uh, here's what really sucked on that target. God, this couldn't have been worse.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  We were collecting on coca fields and illicit runways and labs.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  So each of the bosses had their own area, but the worst boss, Manohoy, who was their military leader, we were collecting on his shit and they captured that.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  So, not good.

• 1:10:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  And I remember, um,

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  one last pass by the bird, and I think Tom and Wark and I were all together. I, I believe we were, we're on our backs and there's a gorilla got his arm around each of us, each like we're interlocked and we're in a little coffee bean field, the plants are small. The helicopter comes back and hovers over us, but what can they do? Right? Then we made it into the canopy and it was just a three week death march. But I'll never forget,

• 1:10:42Speaker 01

  the girl I said the bad was a badass, her name was Sonia. And, uh, I've, I've just never seen a woman in the field this physically impressive. I mean, I've seen about 90% of guys I know could not keep up with her. We would find out who she was later. And but she was, I think she was the only female column leader, had 75 to 100 people. And, uh, the sun is going down and we all just hunched up together and you can hear aircraft everywhere, right? They're looking for us. And she goes, you're fucking micro switch, you're a micro switch. We're all laying there on the ground, she said, what? She goes, you have a micro switch? Like what? She goes, if you have a micro switch, I will kill you.

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  So she thought this was how, like dinosaurs, they were, right? Primitive. But they're scared of American technology.

• 1:11:39Speaker 01

  She thought that we had micro switch, micro switches in our bodies, maybe, you know, injected somewhere that could hear our conversations and locate us. No shit. And I'll never forget, I grabbed her hand. She had a Casio, like G-Shock watch on. I said, "That's where your micro switch is at." But they didn't even know what a micro switch was, right? But our ass was on the line for it. That's quick thinking. And Tom, who spoke fluent Spanish, explained to her, "No, we don't have it." But that's, you know, that's, that's not a good thing at that time, right? You know?

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  You just came up with that on the fly? I didn't know what to say. I just said, "Dope, you got a micro switch right there." What'd you do? Just kind of calm down. And then I watched, and I didn't want to say anything, but, you know, we had our vests with our E-PUR and radio and all this stuff, right? One of those guys is carrying our vest, and I'm thinking, "Fuck, is the E-PUR on? Is it on?" I didn't say nothing. Mark and I, if I remember, I'm like, "What, what, what?" And then a few minutes later, I see him taking apart and taking the batteries out of it. So I, I don't know if it was ever on or not. They had, I think, did we have a set of MBGs on? I don't remember.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  And then it just was a death march, you know? It was just a death march. So- You mean by a death march? So, I'll just say this. Take a 14-year-old kid, put a rucksack on his back. He's from the mountains anyway. He's not from the flatland. And just put beans and rice and bullets on his back, and all he does for five or six years is just walk the mountains every day, right? You're not keeping up with them. I'm sorry. It's, I mean, they're, they're just, you're just strong, right? So, it was almost three weeks where they took us to where some members of the secretary were to turn us over to them, where one fresh group would walk us for eight, nine, 10 hours. Then they'd just turn us over to another group.

• 1:13:42Speaker 01

  Right, and we just keep daisy chaining like that. And we got separated in the march at times. But I remember it was a point where if we ever physically stopped, I'd just fall down the ground asleep. I've never known exhaustion like that before. And my particular difficulty was I had a pair of Danner mountain boots on, and they were worried about tracks. And in Ecuador, they make these cheap ass, black rubber boots that even the Colombian army uses. They'll put their combat boots over their neck, but they, in the wet stuff in the jungle, you put that rubber boot on, it's worth 10 bucks. And it's the perfect, that's what everybody wears, right?

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  And it works in the mountains. So they couldn't get me a pair of rubber boots that were big enough. And, because they're all, they're all small people, I wear a size 12. So they took a pair of rubber boots and they cut the front of rubber boots off and made me wear those. And I lost eight of my 10 toenails in that three weeks marching like that. Three weeks? Yeah, we never stopped. We stopped to eat or something or whatever, but there was, yeah, just never stopped. Yeah. And so I always thought, and Tom did too, were like, are they just gonna take us somewhere, try to interrogate us and kill us or something? We didn't know. We didn't know really how primitive they were. You know?

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  And so I was super weak on the march and I kept getting weaker every day. I didn't know I had internal injuries. And my ribs were separated from the front here. And on my two lower ribs, you could take and just stick your fingers through the ribs into my stuff. Mark was really strong on the march. Tom was much stronger than me. I was just going downhill like every hour. I couldn't figure out what was going on. And, but I knew I had to have something internally screwed up with me. And at one point, like two weeks into the march, I just laid down. I told Sonya, "You can shoot me, I can't move." She goes, "What do you mean?" I said, "I can't move. I can't, I can't do anything, you shoot me." I can't do shit, and I couldn't. I didn't want to stop, but there was nothing, I wanted to survive.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  I physically was incapable of doing it. I was broken. Those guys built a stretcher for me, put eight guys on it, and they carried me through the damn mountains for almost two days. You know, and I wouldn't know what kind of injuries I had until I got back. It was rescued and we got, you know, we're taken care of and but um yeah, I had some pretty severe intestinal and injuries in my ribs. And then for comedy, if you want to hear a light note, right?

• 1:16:23Speaker 01

  We're all waiting for Tommy J and Sergeant Cruz to show up, right? We didn't know that they had been executed. And so they stop at this one spot and

• 1:16:37Speaker 01

  the three of us lay down and the way they make a bed is they cut these palm trees, just like it's like a, you know, piece of wood, you know, stump. They stack it up about two feet high, then they fill it with dirt and put palm fronds on it, then they'll put like a little, you know, just a tarp over it and that's what they sleep and live in. So we got to an old camp that had been young, but they put Mark and I and Tom in there and they just lay us down in there.

• 1:17:02Speaker 01

  So they get me and take me down to the stream. And they take my clothes off. I mean, they left my underwear on, they take my clothes off. And there's like, you know, a dozen gorillas just looking at us like, oh, these are the gringos, right? Because we're like aliens. And these two young gorilla girls take their clothes off. And just have their bra and panties on and they start giving me a hand bath in this fucking stream. I'm like, is this like? It was nothing physical, but they're just cleaning me up. We didn't know that we're just like pets to take care of and keep alive until they can trade us, right? But I can hardly walk. And so I'm thinking, fuck, I bet they're gonna take pictures of this. Of them bathing me in the stream. I saw it's just my mind, you know, something like that.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  So I go, I go back up the hill and I'm just like, what the hell? This is surreal, right? We're two weeks into March. We don't know, you know, this is La La Land. And Tom's grumpy and he's, I said, Tom. I said, what? I said, you're an old man. I said, go down the stream. He goes, what? I said, a couple of girls down there, they're just in their panties and their underwear. They're about 18. They're gonna give you a hand bath. Shut up, motherfucker. Like, you know, it's like, he didn't, he didn't know.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  So Mark got a bath and came back up and Tom and next Did he ask you how he looked before the bath? Oh, so the next day Tom's like, really? I said, yeah, motherfucker.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  But I think especially with Americans, with our sense of humor in the worst moments, sometimes you just make a joke, right? Yeah. But, uh, yeah, the death march was unbelievable. And, uh, you know, we were going to be turned over to, uh, a group that was going to take care of us and that, well, I call it taking care of us, right? Just keep us alive for the next few years. And, um, but that was physically the hardest thing that I ever put myself through ever. And, uh, it was, I remember one night, we're in a river, it's just, I mean, just freezing, right?

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, we're up in the mountains and they finally found a pair of sweatpants, put on me a T-shirt and these boots. They put Mark and I on a rock in the middle of the river and it's freezing and Mark and I, I lived together like this, just trying to stay warm all night, you know, and survive. But, uh, it, it, it was shocking to me how freely they could move through the jungle without any, you know, they knew where the military was and where it wasn't, you know, and I was thinking, shit, these guys can go where they want to go to. And I'm not talking the eight or 10 of us, I'm talking 75 or 80.

• 1:19:50Speaker 01

  And, um, it just, it was eye-opening to see how much freedom, or not freedom, I guess, how much of control they were of where they were at, you know? And there's no fine in them. And the thing that was kind of disheartening, uh, I can't speak for Tom or Mark, but I think the same. After a few days, the aircraft were going away. We knew we were getting deeper and deeper and we weren't being found. So we didn't know, I mean, were they just going to take, uh, we thought that they were going to take us somewhere and interrogate us, right? And then just get rid of us. I, we weren't sure what was going on.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  We didn't really understand that there were a group of other Colombians that had been ahead of us. At that point, they already had been in five years and would be in five and a half more.

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:20:44Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like going through the jungle? It was a, were you guys on a?

• 1:20:47Speaker 01

  Fuck, I bulldoze every square inch of jungle if I could. Um, the jungle bites. It's not a friendly place. Every tree has a thorn, every, I mean, it's a difficult environment. And, um, it's tough. Cause, cause it's like this, where we were, we're in the mountains. We weren't down low. It's hot, it's sticky. You know, it's a, it's a miserable place. And I'm sure, you know,

• 1:21:19Speaker 01

  my wife and I just came back from a trip in Costa Rica and we rode ATVs up into some nice jungle for like a little lunch and all. And she's, how do you feel? I said, I'm okay. Now, that would have wigged me out a few years ago. But, uh, yeah, the jungle's jungle's tough, man. And that was really,

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  our opinion was people said, well, why didn't you escape here? Why don't you escape there? When we got deep into the basin, the jungle was the real jail. You know, I mean, it wasn't. What do you do when you're hundreds of miles from nowhere in a basin in the jungle? You have no, no anything. You don't know where you're at. You don't have a compass, GPS, you don't have squat. Where are you going? Even if you get away, where are you going? So Mark and I came up with an idea that we would never just, it's some inopportune moment. If we got a moment to escape, escape. We would only try something if, if we knew our chances were good or we were near something or we weren't just gonna blow out.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  You know? And, uh, I think it proved to be the right choice. But it's, it's a harsh environment.

• 1:22:32Shawn Ryan?

  Well, especially, I mean, even with those, with those guys that had grown up and humping around those mountains in the jungle, I mean, they're gonna get you.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  I, I think if we could have got enough separation. We could, because it's so vast that we could have got away from them, but then what are we going to eat? Right? I mean, there was stuff there we could eat, but after a while it'd make you sick.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Which direction are you going to go? You know, I'd read stories and there were a couple of stories of a couple Colombian prisoners that had escaped and spent weeks and then finally came back because they couldn't find a way out.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  You know? And it's not like, you know, I've, I used to teach LANNAV and NCODP and all that bullshit, right? Well,

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  there's no reference. It's overclassed and cloudy. It's not like I can look across and find another mountain to hold a reference point and I, I, and I could motor to that and then get on top of it and do another one. You can't see. Where you go?

• 1:23:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  You're going to wa, you know? And so, um, it, it was, we knew we were up Fitz Creek, that's for sure.

• 1:23:45Shawn Ryan?

  He'd, before this, had you ever thought about what you would do if something like this happened?

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  In a casual manner. I never believed in the mountainous terrain that we'd survive a crash. And our program was in the midst of transitioning to twin-engine aircraft, just to make it safer. But what we were victims of at Southcom Reconnaissance Systems was our own success.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  We take this simple bird and then we take two simple birds, caravans, and we're down there 24/7. So competing intel platforms that come down for 45 days, then go, come back a few months later? That was our backyard.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  And let's say some other platforms that we collected with, um, they piped their data back to the States, get everything redacted, then send it back for us to analyze and to use. Well, we were only final secret.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Our, what we collected was you could disseminate it. So when we came back that afternoon, I had a target deck that was processed and ready to be used. Right? It wasn't compartmentalized, it wasn't USIs only, whatever. And so we were a very simple, basic platform that collected real-time intelligence. So our mission creep became mission creep.

• 1:25:19Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:25:20Speaker 01

  And we were also too aggressive. We pushed it, you know, we wanted to be that platform and we were lobbying and they were on the way for Twin Engine, for King Airs to get there, but we pushed it too. You know, um, we had an issue that was a mechanical issue and I was supervising an engine breakdown in the States at a little site we had. And it was not good. So I called Tommy on the phone. Tommy and I had brought the aircraft back, right? And Tommy had just faced an engine failure where he came back and we had to put him. I said, Tommy, what do we do? You're the chief pilot. He goes, man, what's sitting in the hangar next to you?

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  I said, the replacement bird and it's got two motors. He goes, let's keep it going. And what I wanted to do was shut down the bird that was downrange and do an inspection on the aircraft, which doesn't look good, you know, on the contrary, you're supposed to produce for your customer, right? And, uh, everybody wanted to keep the program going. And hindsight's 2020, right? But we should, we should have never been doing what we were doing. You know, should have never been doing. But you got a bunch of guys that are like doing a mission and I would have paid to do that job. Right? I mean, one day we go to Cali.

• 1:26:51Speaker 01

  And I get a little target, it's totally different. And there's a warehouse in a warehouse district, but it's not a warehouse, it's a house. And so, a really nice house. Hidden in a warehouse district. So our bird doesn't draw any attention, it's a hide and plain sight, and so we have this mission plan, and actually Tommy Janis flew with me. And we circle. Then we get some really good measurements on this house. And the whole point of getting the measurements on the house was, was there room for a Blackhawk to sit down on top of this? That was the whole purpose, right? Not an American, a Colombian.

• 1:27:31Speaker 01

  So a week later, I'm in the embassy lunchroom, and my boss, Steve, walks up and he throws their version, Samana magazine of Time. He said, "Good job." And there's our target deck, right? There's the house, and there's, they're disembarking on top of that motherfucker. But then, you want it sucked? On the bottom of the damn picture is all of our coordinates, all of our info, it's not supposed to be let out public. Because when it went through the Colombian pipeline, someone in the Colombian intel side sold it to the magazine.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  You know, so stupid things you saw. The, one of the most heartbreaking things I ever saw was, our drug enforcement folks and FBI had informants with inside the Colombian intel that would put themselves at risk. So again, outside of Cali, there was this neighborhood in the hills, and it was not nice. You know, it was kind of, it was what you expect of maybe an impoverished area of Latin America, but there was like a meeting group where what they called the Urbanos, which were the urban guerrilla.

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  They'd get together and play soccer and stuff, so we had, um...

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  A friend of mine, it was, I won't say which agency he worked for, but he was handling this intel person. And we had to go out and find their missing person. Well, and it would be two of them. What had happened is they had given him a pickup truck and some intel. And he and his buddy had gone to a party where this stuff was going on. Man, it fucking sucks remembering this shit. He, uh, while he's at the party, some people go out to the truck, start searching the truck.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  He left his fucking ID in the truck. So, um, the house was on a hill. So they shot both of them in the head. And it looked to me like the truck was halfway on fire, but it didn't burn. They flipped the truck at the beginning of the neighborhood on a hill upside down and they hung him off the tire, if I remember. I'm trying to remember. I mean, this is 13, 14 years ago. And so we get there and the first thing we pick up is 30 yards of blood just going down the hill and pulling up at the bottom of the road there in the neighborhood.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  And you're like, and his handler who was in, he was just, just sucked, right? You know? And then we didn't get that story. He didn't, once they did the investigation and it find out, but we're just looking at this guy. So, I mean, there's a real price in the drug wars. This is not, you know, it may not be, hey, I'm a soft guy kicking doors and we're, you know, everything's thrown down, but there was a continuous price. And we might go on the North Coast and do operations or go to other places, but, um, people got killed, you know? And it was, um, the Colombians paying the price on the ground there, you know? So, but to see that guy.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  I just remember the blood just, I mean, it was like twenty yards, maybe, down this hill, and then it was pooled up, you know, and it was just, wow, you know. And so it makes an impact, right? And, you know, I think the thing I would take away from captivity is you see, and in your formal job, you saw it too, what people are really capable of, and it's really disgusting, you know. So when you see stuff like that, that just motivates you to work even harder, you know. But, you know, people pay a dear price

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  on the front line of the drug war. And what bothers me personally, but it's, you know, I don't know who are the large groups in the US, right? We know who controls it down south. And people would always say, you know, X amount of cocaine gets to the States. X amount of cocaine goes here and goes there. And I'm like, yeah? Well, if we can't fucking stop it, how can we count it?

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Good point. If we can't stop it, how do we count it?

• 1:32:26Speaker 01

  And I've always wondered, who's on the other side? Who are the big distributors? Like, especially in the coke side of the world. But then, this was a couple of years after our captivity, if my memory serves me correct, up on the north coast of Colombia, they took down one of the largest distribution networks of cocaine in history there. None of that shit went to the States. It went to fucking Europe. Then it got all, then back from Europe into the States. But I would always see these experts, this is what's going on. I'm like, well, wait a minute. We're trying to stop it. We can't stop it. How can you count it? Were you pulling these numbers out of your ass to justify program

• 1:33:08Speaker 01

  needs or money? I get it. But how do you stop it?

• 1:33:14Speaker 01

  Semi-submersibles, right? When they first kinda came out, everybody goes, "Oh, there's one or two, it's a knockoff." No, there's fucking hundreds of them, right? Or, "We catch some bad guys from the sandbox that come in through Venezuela and they're tagged with the Mexican cartels." Well, why do they want to get into Texas? They don't want to get into Texas to sell drugs, they want to get into Texas to hurt people, right? You know? Chemical weapons, stuff like that? That's my theory. They don't give a shit, they're not gonna go into El Paso and start a war. But why are they embedded with the cartels? Why?

• 1:33:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it's pretty open knowledge. You look at Iran and its proxies, what they do over there on their doorstep. Well, look at their relationship with Venezuela. Really? You know? And I saw, I can't remember when it was, but I remember the women from Black Lives Matter, either they went to Venezuela to meet with Maduro and Sean Penn and all those guys, you know, they're talking about, "Look at this, you know, Maduro, Maduro, Maduro," you know,

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  and then it's uncovered that they have a plan to distribute cheap drugs into minority neighborhoods in the states to destabilize local political infrastructure. But you're down there kissing ass to this person because you want five minutes of fame. It's destroying your own community. It's part of their, you know, they fight the long game, we don't.

• 1:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Said time and time again with all these terrorist organizations and the alliances that go on behind the scenes.

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  What has come through? Look, I was raised a Southern conservative Democrat. They don't exist anymore. My parents were Dixiecrats. They were conservative educators Democrats. I'm a Republican. I don't see why we should be fighting over right or wrong, or...

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  If you shoot somebody and kill them, should you pay for it? This whole discussion and fight politically in our country right now about crime. But I can tell you now, that border is where it starts. But nobody goes down to where I worked to see what's at the other end. Or when you're buying cocaine in the States, do you see the death and destruction that it causes in other countries? And I'm not talking about guerrilla versus government forces. I'm talking about death and destruction on kids, on small, poor people, and what it does to them. You know, it's when they say drug war, it's a war. It's a very serious thing. And there's very serious consequences paid for.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  You know, but then, go down and see where the stuff starts at. Just my observation doing the job, not trying to poke somebody in the eye and say, "You should believe this way, you should believe this way." You know, if our border's open, let me ask you a question. Do you have a front door in your house? I mean, when your little kids are at home, do you lock your door at night? Or do you, I mean, that whole thing, for me, is personal because I know what goes on the other side of that border. You know? And, and I don't know. And I'm not rooting for anybody to win political favor over border control. I'm just saying, we need it.

• 1:36:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people share that sentiment.

• 1:36:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:58Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back to the camp.

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:37:00Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like after the three-week death march?

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  They put us, we were fairly stable for the first year and a half. They put Mark and Tom and I into what was an old camp.

• 1:37:16Shawn Ryan?

  What did it look like?

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  Oh, man. So, this old camp was just rotten.

• 1:37:23Speaker 01

  So think of like a little pole barn with aluminum roof. Instead of walls, this is where we stayed. This was chain link fence everywhere. Okay. And it's probably 12 foot by 20 foot. What we did not understand, and there's two big poles going down at about four foot tall. That's where you tie your hammock. We didn't realize till we got locked up inside this cage, that there'd been 20 Colombian police and army hostages in their years before us. We saw the writing on the wall. We saw stuff that they scribbled and behind one door. And I think this, I think this is what caused Mark, his inspiration to carve the chess pieces,

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  was a chess piece stuck in the door. So they take us to this camp. We meet Manahoy, who's, he was basically their, their bin Laden, right? One of the most wanted people in the world. He was the military leader of the FARC, an absolute assassin. And he's all polite to us and they fix us empanadas and they said, hey, we're going to open a camp just for you. And they point to Martin Sombra. You can look up Martin Sombra. He just died of natural causes here a few weeks ago in Colombia. He would be a cartoon character, terrifying, right? Nails about this long, whatever.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  So they load us in these pickups, toyed land cruisers and take us to this old camp. It's the middle of the day. We're just driving in a dirt road. I mean, there's no threat. I'm like, damn, these guys just moved or they got a giant camp with a couple hundred gorillas and cars and trucks, there are trucks everywhere. So we get there, Sombra's sitting on a beach chair and he goes, we have opened all of this for you. We're going, we're here to take care of you. I'm like, okay. And I said, well, who's in charge? Sombra goes, we're all equal here. Oh, bullshit, man. We just, just, right? But we're, we're destroyed. We just want to. Get some food and get some rest.

• 1:39:31Speaker 01

  So the first couple nights, they stick us in this big box. They build a bed off the ground, which when I say a bed was just palms cut like poles, like fence posts, put some palm trees on it, put a tarp over it and a mosquito net, and you lay in there 24/7. So they took Mark and Tom out there and left me inside the big box until mine was just going to get finished last, right? We were not allowed to speak to each other. And we actually, it was months before we could, we actually lost our voices because we couldn't talk. And so they throw in a couple magazines that's were printed by the FARC, you know, when they were strong, and they're talking about the CONHA, the exchange, humanitarian exchange, humanitarian exchange.

• 1:40:15Speaker 01

  So the FARC's big hope was, oh, we've never touched Americans before. Now the government's going to negotiate, right? Which was, I don't think that, you know, Rumsfeld and Bush are negotiating, that's that wasn't the guys you want to talk to, right? And then the most right wing president in years with the rebate, they were like, fuck that. So we're trying to educate ourselves on what's going on, but we're just, we're, I mean, it's like walking out to the grocery store, somebody hits you in the head and you wake up and you're bound and you got, and you're blindfolded and they stake out the sticks and the world's cut off and you're trying to figure out what's going on. So they come and they give us journals.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  This is a month into it, right? Because we're just sitting there, I mean, we're counting bugs, we're just, I mean, we're, you come from a world that we live in and you're in that, in that box, and your mind is just speeding up. So I get sick and I'm shitting all over myself. I can't stop it. And I didn't know if I had malaria or not or what I had. So Tom and Mark are moved out and they put me back inside this box, just chain link around a wall, put me on a black piece of plastic and put a mosquito net over me. But they stop taking me to the bathroom every hour or so because they were tired of doing it. And you use the bathroom, what's called a chunto.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  They just dig a hole in the ground, it's lengthwise, and you squat over it and kick the dirt in it and keep going. Well, I'm covered like from my belly button to my knees, I'm covered in my own feces. And

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  I mean, it's not insanity, but you start, when I say you start just figuring out shit to do. Well, I look over, I'm laying there, I look over and I see like half a dozen roaches just coming to me because they can smell me, right? So I just start killing cockroaches and stacking them up and counting them.

• 1:42:14Speaker 01

  I just wait for them to get there. It's all right, motherfucker. There you go, and stack a cockroach. That's what I did probably for a week. And they finally came in and hung me upside down. They tied ropes around my stomach and forced me to drink this shit and hung, hung my feet up on the wall. Uh, and would hang me up there for hours thinking that was going to cure my stomach.

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  It's insanity. I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's just pure insanity. What was it? What were you drinking? I don't know. Some concoction they came up with. And, uh, finally after, I don't know, four or five days, um, I started feeling better. But I'm laying there covering my own feces, just counting roaches, trying to keep my mind busy. You know, and I, I'm thinking, what do you do? Like, what did a POW do somewhere in Vietnam or somewhere else? We was just in a, you know, a seven by seven on a concrete floor. You just start daydreaming. You, you want to keep this turned on, right? And just start to try and check out. I don't know how many businesses Mark and I came up with to run.

• 1:43:26Speaker 01

  You know, we got back to the States. You know, you're just, your mind goes into this mode towards kind of taking you out. And we would just spend days in there daydreaming. And for some reason, and I don't know why,

• 1:43:41Speaker 01

  I had the ability to just sleep like a cat for hours. So I just sleep. You know, wake up for when they fed us and then that'd be it. And food then was lentils and rice, maybe some fried yuca. Kool-Aid. They loved Kool-Aid. You know, they sugar water to power themselves when they're marching, right? So there was always sugar, you know, and Kool-Aid. But, um, yeah, luckily my, my stomach got better and I was able to eat. And then they moved us about five, we heard chainsaws going, right? They were building a more permanent camp. So they moved us probably maybe a click away to.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Three little buildings inside like a horse corral, if it makes sense. And we were locked in there at night. And we could sit, you know, obviously we were undercover with guards with guns, but then we could sit outside of those on they had a plastic chair or something during the day. And it was, it was just, we started to kind of get to know the guards. Who was nasty, who wasn't so nasty because we were

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  we were like something out of a movie to them. And these are young guys, you know, men and women, but only the men guarding us. So we were like this is it was like being in the zoo, but on the other side. You know? Damn. And I remember some would creep up at night. And they would bring us cigarettes, right? The boss would bring us cigarettes like we wanted to smoke. Shows the guards would come because they wanted cigarettes. You know, like midnight or whatever. And they might bring us a couple of pieces of Yucca and we trade them cigarettes.

• 1:45:25Speaker 01

  You know, it was just crazy. And in that camp is where we we got bombed.

• 1:45:35Speaker 01

  There must have been, and I'm only guessing because of the trails and the activity. But about, I don't know, I'm going to guess 500 yards away. Must have been an old camp. Because one night

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  there were confiers, jets. Then the OB 10s. And they came in and bombed the shit out of camp. And that was pretty scary. Because you'd hear the you'd hear the shrapnel from the bombs just ripping through the leaves and the trees. And Mark is locked in a box, Tom's locked in a box, I'm locked in a box. They weren't letting us out and they're bombing the shit out of the camp right next to us. Well, it wasn't like the US was precision guided weapons, shit can go astray. That was pretty terrifying. Scared the shit out of me. I'll bet. You know? And what started scaring me worse was

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  How open these guys were to detection, but I was surprised that nobody was detecting our camp. So they had a cistern. Anywhere in Latin America you see black tanks, 250, 500 gallons, and people put them up on a, on the roof or something, and they fill them with water, and that's how you work. So for us, inside this little corral, they built this platform. And the platform had a black cistern filled with water. They'd pump water, have a little generator pump water out of the river to it. Had a toilet up there on top of it. You're like 15 foot off the ground, or maybe 10 foot, and a toilet. So you do your business, sitting on toilets. Hey, Tom, in work, what are you doing here?

• 1:47:08Speaker 01

  Sitting there and, and, um, but I'm like, I saw those from my aircraft all the time. I could tell you how much water's in it. It's just a heat signature, right? So if it's half full, you could tell, right? And it was out in the middle of nowhere, open. And a couple of aircraft would be circling our camp. And I'm like, there's no way, they can't see this. There's just, so what I was scared was they're gonna see it and come back and bomb us. They didn't know where they're not, but they never did. They never did. And then after that, we were moved to a larger camp, where we put in with the politicians and the Colombian military, and they were separated. It was a big fenced in area where there was like 20 of them inside like a little cabin that was built.

• 1:47:53Speaker 01

  And then, you know, the seven Colombian politicians and the three of us on the other side. And as big as it was, it was never found. I'm, I'm, I just, I mean, I'm just dumbfounded. Cause I knew in our aircraft, if we got even anywhere in the vicinity of that, we'd have seen it. So I just didn't, what's going on?

• 1:48:17Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I mean,

• 1:48:19Shawn Ryan?

  Something we skipped over is your wife is back home in the States pregnant with twins, correct?

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  She wasn't my wife. She wasn't my wife. Um, to be, uh, just open, honest here, um, she was a Colombian flight attendant that I met. And she, uh, she ended up pregnant. And so, yeah, we weren't even married. And it, and my moral compass didn't look so good because I had a girlfriend in the States too. You know, that wasn't, you know, I was wrong what I was doing, but nonetheless, that's, that's the truth. And so. I'm think, all that's on my mind, right? What am I gonna do? You know, what am I gonna do?

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  And, uh, I, uh, I, uh, it was a lot, lot. And all you could do is think, right? All you can do is think. And I remember one day, I was worried about the three of us because I saw Mark and Tom in this little corral and they had their plastic chair that we could sit on. We each got a plastic chair and they got toothbrushes and they're just cleaning their chair because they can't, there's nothing. It's like, where are we going here? You know?

• 1:49:38Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  And what I understand now, it's almost like decompression in the sense you're having to get used to and cope with your new environment and that's a learning process, right? And I think as Americans, we are used to being in control of our environment and making decisions. There's absolutely no control. You're a rat in a cage and you have to make an adjustment. Some people call it prisoner brain. That might be an accurate statement, but there are big changes. Thank God at the time, um, that somebody didn't say, hey, you got 1,950 more days.

• 1:50:25Speaker 01

  I wouldn't have wanted to know that. So I would say. Did you have any idea of the concept of time? Yeah, yeah, we had a rough idea of time. The guards had watches. They'd tell you what time it is, whatever, you know. But dates, weeks, months, no. We had a rough idea, but the concept, we live on a database basis here. Where you live here, whatever. No, no. And the thing for us is we had no information. We would not get to where somebody had a radio and some news for nine more months. Holy shit, man.

• 1:51:09Speaker 01

  So we had no idea what the status of our families was. You know, it would be. Let me see. A year into it, a year and a half till we did our first proof of life. Then we found out Tommy was dead. Sergeant Cruz was dead. You know, we had news about our families. How'd they do the proof of life? They took us into a village and there must have been a couple hundred, Farquhar, little town. We drove in a truck. They had us in back of a truck. But they took us by river through the jungle. And I'll never forget the bridge. And I thought, if I ever get out and I'm back airborne again, this is my.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  We find this fucking bridge, I'm gonna find this motherfucker. It was over the river. I'd recognize it today. And there, Enrique Botero, who's a liberal, left-wing reporter, had been in the States trying to contact our families, but then he brings us newspapers, Miami Herald and all, from the airport in Miami when he flew back, because he knew he's gonna film a proof of life with us. Didn't give a... What a piece of shit, left-wing reporter. And so I remember they bring us to this, like... Just a jungle, kind of cabin, couple cabins and we see these important people or people who we knew or, you know, um, and Botero comes in and talks to us for the proof of

• 1:52:37Speaker 01

  life, but the night before, Sumra comes in and goes, hey, if you hear airplane tonight, don't worry about it. It's all good. So he flies in here on a Cessna and lands on a strip, bringing gifts for us out of the airport in Miami and shit. What? Yeah, yeah. He's a reporter that's, that works with the FARC. They let him come into the, into the jungle and film us for political purposes. Yeah, he could have, he could have dined him out and, yeah, yeah. How about that? How about that? You fucking kidding me? Nope. You know, and we get there and they make us mashed potatoes and steak and, you know, but still in the jungle, right? And they're giving us where we want and we

• 1:53:19Speaker 01

  saw ice for the first time in almost a year. Here's ice water. Like the fuck's going on? It was just a setup to do the proof of life. And what do you say? What do I know about my family? What's going on? Who's alive? Who's dead? You know? And, uh, it was just for propaganda purposes. But sick to me that a reporter has this much info and doesn't. Have you ever met him? Yeah, yeah. How did that go? I'd kill him. If I could. I mean, it's, uh... I mean, met him since then? No, not after that. Not after the interview, no. No, no. He actually wanted to after we got out. I was like, no, I'm sorry. What would you say to him right now? I'd fucking kill him. What's his name?

• 1:54:03Speaker 01

  Botero. I think it's Jorge Enrique Botero, yeah. You know, and he thinks he's doing some kind of job, but he's a lefty, you know, out communist sympathizer. Um, Tanya Niemeyer. She's a Dutch girl and she's, I believe, she's got a red notice on her travel. I just talked to my FBI supervisor. Basically, they watch us a few months ago and, uh, Tanya was, she's Dutch and she taught English. So she came to, um, Bogota and became an urban gorilla.

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Are you shitting me? Nope, nope, nope, enjoying the fucking gorilla. And, uh, yeah, yeah, Tanya Niemeyer. And so I don't know if she's been able to get out of Colombia or not because the FBI, we've got a red notice on her. She can't not travel because she wants to go home. You know, I guess back to the Netherlands, but she's living in Colombia. Yeah, I'd hang her from a tree. And I remember when we met her at the proof of life and here comes this woman all dressed clean in like new camo and got her sidearm on like she's a model or something. And her English was very, very good, perfect. And so I said, uh, what color is your passport? She was like, that's funny, isn't it? I said, what color is your passport?

• 1:55:27Speaker 01

  I know you're not Colombian. What I thought she was, was the Cubans train students, right? And then they bring them in. So I thought she might've been one of the student communist out of Cuba that was brought in there, which turned out not to be true. She just got recruited in Colombia, was a left-wing sympathizer and joined the gorilla. As she's teaching people English in Colombia, nothing, you know, just out there gonna, you know, shit. So she was there to interview us in English. She conducted the interview. And, uh, Mano de Hoy, and there's a great video of him getting bombed and killed. He reads a pronouncement to the United States of America.

• 1:56:10Speaker 01

  And, uh, the reason that they're, uh, they're keeping us hostages, we violated Colombian airspace. Yeah.

• 1:56:20Speaker 02

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• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  What kind of questions did they ask you? Nothing, they set us up. They told us Mark, they told us that Tom and, um... And they got us in a room and there's other gorillas behind us, right? And they purposely put a couple small female gorillas armed behind us to make us look big and then like to make them like weak Americans and they put camo on us, which I didn't want to wear, but then everything else to wear. And they start filming and she does the interview and Botero said, oh, Mark, here's a message from your mom. You don't think Mark didn't break down? You know, and then, oh, here's a Miami Herald.

• 1:57:29Shawn Ryan?

  What was the message from his mom?

• 1:57:31Speaker 01

  Just, I love, you know, just a, just news, right? And, and they didn't, I didn't have anything from my family or Tom's. And so they, they wanted us to give a message back to our families on camera. You know, they're just using our pain for, so we just said, basic stuff, we love you. We didn't, we didn't do anything more than that. That when Botero handed the fucking Miami Herald to us, I want to kill his ass. You know, he knows he's coming to see us. You're in the States trying to get info from our families. So you're facilitating our captivity by helping our captors. What would you do? You know?

• 1:58:14Speaker 01

  So, and I, and I've always had a special kind of distaste for Niemeyer. Because she came to a country of her own free will, educated and decided to become a terrorist. Right? And when the peace talks were going on in Cuba, she was there and all this stuff. But she's had a falling out with the FARC ever since. And I don't know what she's doing, but the last time I saw a couple of years ago, one of the liberal universities in Colombia gave her a fucking honorary degree.

• 1:58:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. That's fucking enraging. That is fucking enraging.

• 1:58:57Speaker 01

  So. People say, do you hate him? I'm like, no. Because I could, that would get me alive. I had to let it go.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  But. You know, when I see a guy's in a supermax now and you got a American lawyer saying he's a victim and he's all this stuff and I'm like, a victim? When he supervised what's been done to us? And then you see all these people get online and. They're just, I don't know what they are protesters, whether, you know, I'm like, there's a reason he's in a supermax. It's not because he's a sweetheart.

• 1:59:32Speaker 01

  So for me. If you get too wrapped around the axle, it's just going to drag you to the bottom, right? You gotta step back. You know? I've, I've, I've talked to other.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  POWs from Vietnam because I was a hostage. We weren't, I always tell people, we're the longest, at one point, we're the longest held hostages. In the history of the United States, we're not the longest held POWs and there's a difference. I don't want to take anything away from the POW community. Right? You know? And so I have spoken with some folks who spent time and they hand out a Hilton and stuff like that, you know? Uh, funny how our minds kind of did the same thing just to survive. But, uh, you know, it, um.

• 2:00:19Speaker 01

  You know, we're just lucky to be here, man. You know, I mean. Two of us didn't make it after the crash. And then a few of our friends afterwards died in another crash looking for us in Colombia. Close friends.

• 2:00:35Shawn Ryan?

  When did you hear about that?

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  Uh, I didn't hear about that until I think the proof of life, but I'm not sure.

• 2:00:42Speaker 01

  We're, you know, we're just, we're in a box.

• 2:00:46Shawn Ryan?

  How did they tell you that your comrades had been, that they assassinated your comrades?

• 2:00:51Speaker 01

  Uh, they just let us know, I, I, I think, I don't know if it was Botero or if it was Tanya speaking English to us, let us know, oh yeah, it was her, they let us know that, that, um, they were dead, but then she also told something, she goes, you know, you guys are probably gonna die. I'm looking like, what do you mean? She goes, well, we had some other folks that were killed during a rescue, and they're planning to rescue you, but you're, you're probably gonna die, you're probably not going home.

• 2:01:22Shawn Ryan?

  That's what she said?

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What would you do? I feel like, well, you know, it's beyond insanity, Sean, it's not like, you know, it's, it's, you're sitting here, this shit is actually going down, this isn't a story or a movie, we're here in the middle of it, you know? So that's when I say the cruelty of people can be, you know, unimaginable.

• 2:01:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, you guys are gonna die. I was like, wow, wow. And then...

• 2:01:59Shawn Ryan?

  What did you think when she said that?

• 2:02:01Speaker 01

  Um, I remember Tom leaning over me and telling me, I hear, he said, Keith, just remember, they're filming us right now, I think they're filming us, I said, yeah, okay, that's fine. Um, I thought the odds are that we might die in a rescue, if it wasn't done by the right people. But, um, we were so overwhelmed with the emotion at that moment, that you're, you're over a year in captivity, whatever, and here's information on your family, your buddies are dead, it just all hit us at one time, right? So I, I was just trying to process everything.

• 2:02:38Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you think your buddies were at before that, before you found out?

• 2:02:41Speaker 01

  We didn't know. Well, maybe they're in another camp, maybe they just separated us, we didn't know. We didn't know.

• 2:02:48Shawn Ryan?

  Why did they kill him?

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  Because they tried to escape. I knew Tommy's. There was, and Tommy would have never survived captivity. Hell, no. He'd have killed him. You couldn't put Tommy in a cage. Sorry.

• 2:03:02Speaker 01

  You know, I, I, I actually, his wife just recently passed. And, um, I was talking to one of his sons. And, uh, you know, I said, Tommy would have never made it. He, he couldn't have.

• 2:03:19Speaker 01

  He could have never been caged. My belief.

• 2:03:21Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you say that?

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  Just his personality. There was never a second. Never a second. I know, you know, and he was my mentor. He's the one that got me hired. Um, I knew as soon as he walked away from that plane, I know Tommy. He was just looking at the right moment to pop smoke.

• 2:03:42Speaker 01

  That was his personality. You know, I mean, and, uh, he would have never, let me, let me put it this way. Tommy could do anything he wanted to do. But he would have never let himself choose to be a captive.

• 2:03:56Shawn Ryan?

  What, what was the? Sorry for all the questions coming up from previous, but my mind just spinning. When you threw the M4 and the, and the Berettas down the hill.

• 2:04:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:07Shawn Ryan?

  And I know the, the, the Indige guy that was with you was pissed off. What did the rest of them think?

• 2:04:13Speaker 01

  Nobody, nobody was really, it was just, it was just Cruz and I. Look, there was.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  Are you going to fight a fight you can't lose?

• 2:04:23Speaker 01

  Right?

• 2:04:23Shawn Ryan?

  Fight a fight you cannot lose?

• 2:04:25Speaker 01

  No, fight a fight that you, that you're, I'm sorry.

• 2:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you can't win.

• 2:04:28Speaker 01

  That you can't win. Are you looking at surviving or just going out? I wasn't looking to commit suicide.

• 2:04:35Shawn Ryan?

  I'm, I, I get it. I'm just curious.

• 2:04:37Speaker 01

  I wanted to live to fight another day.

• 2:04:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:40Speaker 01

  And so, um,

• 2:04:43Speaker 01

  that was just, I looked, Cruz is like, we gotta start shooting. I looked and I'm like, no, we don't. I mean, there were ants everywhere. I, I said, no bad decisions. And I remember we're at the bottom where they gave us lemonade. And, uh, they took my wallet. And the only thing I had in there, I wanted to keep was a picture of my little 10 year old son and they wouldn't. It still makes me cry now. I said, can I have the picture? No. It's all right. And Tommy looks at me and he goes, what do you think, Keith? I said, we're fucked. He goes, what? I said, we're fucked. But maybe tomorrow or not. But all we're gonna do is fucking live. I, my mindset was Marx was the same way.

• 2:05:27Speaker 01

  Tom, all of us, we just wanted to live. So I didn't care what it took to survive. I just, I wanted to live. I mean, it's not complicated. And you have a choice. Step in a hole and just give up or just keep, keep rolling. And all three of us did that. You know, we have very distinct personalities. But, you know, we all did it in our own way. You know? And so I remember the three of us being tied up in a box, a quarter of the size of this room. It was just a cage, right? You know?

• 2:06:09Speaker 01

  Hard to get along that way 24/7, isn't it? You're gonna have some arguments. You know? It's just the way things are, but we made it out. And the stuff are you guys arguing about? Stupid shit. Like what? You're in it. Mark and I had an argument one night over which fighter was better in World War II. It's like so stupid, right? It's like, you're like this, you're this, no motherfucker, no motherfucker, no, fuck you, no, fuck you, you know? Like, it's just, it's gotta let off somewhere, right? And I remember we finally got a radio because we started negotiating with the guards. And, you know, we had a covert headphone and we, there was a, it's really sick,

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  but there was a, a radio station called Voices of the Sequestros. Voices of the hostages. And it was run out of Bogota. A guy did this. And on sunny nights between 12 and 2, everybody's family would go down there and leave messages. And it was short wave. So you get messages from your family. We didn't get any, not for years, only occasionally. But how sick that every, every Saturday night or whatever, you go down at 1 o'clock in the morning and you leave a message for your son or your husband, who's been held in your country for six years. We live for those things.

• 2:07:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's the political situation, right? What kind of messages were coming in? People dying, birthdays, Christmas, love you. You know, hey, your father died. You know, um, we had a police captain. He was dying. And the Pope and his daughter got on the radio live, begging the FARC to let him go. He had been captured when she was like seven. And he was a, he was a fighting motherfucker, but now he was sick. And I don't know what the condition was, but his legs were purple,

• 2:08:14Speaker 01

  all the way up to his chest. And when we had real pressure on us and we were on a death march, he was marching with us. Couldn't march, so he's crawling through the jungle with a chain around his neck on all fours, trying to keep up with the column. So the Colombian soldiers were gonna go fucking nuts. It was too much for them to see. So they took him out of chains. And he's sitting on the ground, like, next to me and Mark. And we had, in our little bowls, we had five spoonfuls, basically, of watery red beans and rice, like, every 24 hours to sustain it. Then he goes, "Here. You two eat." Mine, and we're like, "No, what the fuck's wrong with you?"

• 2:08:58Speaker 01

  He goes, "I'm dying, man. You guys aren't. I'm dead. I'm already dead." And he fucking died. Soon later, we were separated. It wouldn't even, he was worth, he was a skeleton. Couldn't just let him fucking go? He had no political value. We weren't eating his red beans and rice. We forced him to eat it. But he was giving it to us. He knew he was dead. He knew he was dying. Did you hear his daughter on the radio? "Please, can you just let my father go?" And the Pope, the Pope himself asked?

• 2:09:32Speaker 01

  That's crimes against humanity, you think? So you see this stuff and it's like, mercy on you motherfuckers?

• 2:09:43Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:09:45Shawn Ryan?

  When you got to the final camp, where they had the, the

• 2:09:52Shawn Ryan?

  the politicals.

• 2:09:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, what a welcome that was. Show.

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  It's a big fixed, fixed fenced in area with a fence between it, living on one side for the soldiers and the police and living for the seven politicians. So we get there by boat. And they bring us up. And I remember as we're walking up, we see all the Colombian police coming up, right? And they were playing soccer, little soccer ball. That's all they did all day long and inside a fucking cage. Mark goes, look at the chains. So outside the gate to get into each side was a rack. And these chains are not like something you have a dog on. I mean, these are big, heavy chains. Chains and locks, chains and locks, chains and locks, chains and locks. I was gonna bring it to show you,

• 2:10:47Speaker 01

  but I don't want to lose it anywhere on an airline flight, but I have my lock that was around my neck. And it's a paperweight on my desk. And so I'll send you a picture of it.

• 2:10:58Speaker 01

  But, um,

• 2:11:02Speaker 01

  I was like, fuck chains. Mark spotted him first. He goes, those are for us, Dean. I'm like, fuck. So they tour us around the little walkway and all the Colombian soldiers come running up to the gate, right? One guy in particular, his hair was all the way down to his calf. He had not cut his hair since he'd been captured. And he says to us in broken, broken English,

• 2:11:28Speaker 01

  "I'm glad you're here, but I'm not glad you're here." And I said, "Why?" He said, "Because Americans never leave their people behind. So if you're here, they're gonna find us." Kind of poignant, wasn't it? It'd take a few years, but it happened.

• 2:11:47Speaker 01

  You know? So they did not want to be separated from us.

• 2:11:53Speaker 01

  I would have been the same way. You know, I'd have been the same way. But, uh, yeah, we were in that camp for, gosh, nine months or so. I might be off by a month or two before we were moved and split up because the pressure from the military just got too much. What kind of pressure? Just presence on the ground, cutting off routes on, you know, the, the rivers were like a road, right? So there's a, there's a video on YouTube of these three guerrillas and Cayucas, which are their aluminum canoes with a 40 horse motor on the back. And they, they just turned, they got supplies, they're bringing to a camp and they run into Colombian army sitting on the river and it was a massacre, man. Hey, I mean, they just, it was a massacre.

• 2:12:38Speaker 01

  What started to happen was the Colombian military started doing more permanent operations. Usually they go into an area for 45 days or 90 days and they leave. Well, now they're moving in the areas and we ain't going over. We're here for six months, right? But it upsets the logistics network for the guerrilla who need beans and bullets and rice and, you know, you need Kotex pads for women and uniform, like you break up their ability to live comfortably and they started pushing. Now, I don't know if that was pushed by our people, but Plan Colombia changed a lot because it put the money and the horsepower behind the Colombian army to do things.

• 2:13:19Speaker 01

  But I think that we, the three of us, are one of the big factors that everybody got rescued. And it's not because Keith and Mark and Tom were politically important people. The moment you took the three guerrillas, or you took the three Americans hostage, you opened up the US's ability to work against the guerrilla directly. Cause under Plan Colombia, we couldn't, right? I saw guerrilla all the time. I couldn't do anything except report it when I got back. And I told the bosses, I said, you guys fucked up. I said, you gave present, your president that you hate so much? You gave him the biggest gift in the world. You captured us. Now we can help you guys freely and that's what we did. That's what we did.

• 2:14:02Speaker 01

  It was a total miscalculation on their part. If it would have been me and I was running the farc, I would have hand delivered us freshly shaved and showered with some extra cash in our pocket to go home to Disney World, right to the embassy steps and said, sorry, I'm not fucking with you.

• 2:14:18Speaker 01

  Intelligence side militarily, it was, it was the worst mistake they could have made. Because when you start flipping rocks looking for us, you find other things. You know, and, and that's what happened.

• 2:14:31Shawn Ryan?

  How many camps did you wind up in?

• 2:14:33Speaker 01

  Shit, I can't count them. Okay, I'll count the main camps. First one, second one, third one, there was another one, maybe four main camps. A camp after that was just a hammock, mosquito net and a tarp over your head. We were just on the move.

• 2:14:53Shawn Ryan?

  And how long was it before you guys could talk to each other?

• 2:14:56Speaker 01

  Oh, by the time we got to the, the politicians and all, we were, we were talking then.

• 2:15:00Shawn Ryan?

  How, how long had that been?

• 2:15:01Speaker 01

  Seven months, maybe?

• 2:15:02Shawn Ryan?

  Seven months?

• 2:15:03Speaker 01

  Eight months, yeah.

• 2:15:04Shawn Ryan?

  Seven months of no talking?

• 2:15:06Speaker 01

  Pretty much. Nothing. I could be off, Mark's memory is way better than mine, I, he always does know, you know, but yeah. We lost our voices, basically. And, you know, I, uh, there were frustrating things too, like for poor Tom, okay, this is what sucked. Tom spoke fluent Spanish. We didn't. So Tom was a translator. Twenty-four seven, we got to get him to ask for stupid shit for these guys, which put more stress on him, right? You know, it was, it was, it was pretty evil. And when we got to the camp with the politicians, that was even worse. Cause they thought the, one politician said, please don't let those nasty Americans in here.

• 2:15:51Speaker 01

  One motherfucker? Oh, they sleep with whores. We sleep with whores. You're calling politician, you haven't slept with a whore? Do you know what goes on? It's good, I was like, but there was just this arrogance, this arrogance? That no, we don't want them in here. They didn't want to share any space. They wanted us out in the mud instead of staying space inside there.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Talk about a class system? That's where they treat their own people. Well, they have it. And I remember. There's a class system down there. I remember old Luchio, Senator. Senator, right, you know?

• 2:16:29Speaker 01

  One day, we're sitting there in the compound and there's a table. So Consuelo was a congressman, had to listen to her husband die on the radio. And Big Cat, we nicknamed the Big Cat, he's this big dude who's heavy, but he moved like, like smoke. Just a joke. So we just named him the Big Cat. So he's kind of trying to talk to me one day and he's feeling me out to see like, you know, do I have any money or what's it like in the States? And he's like, do you have a boat? And I'm like, yeah, I got a boat. He said, can you draw me a picture outside? I drew a picture of this fucking giant. Like, you know, Viking sport fish. And I watched Consuela, she knew I was sucking them down, just, you know, the hook was going, the hook was going. And they care about platika, money, and what's your last name?

• 2:17:15Speaker 01

  And so, uh, Big Cat goes, holy shit. And he runs into the little hooch and he shows Luchio what's going on. And Luchio goes, Keith, you know, like, what? He goes, what does an American contractor make? I said, a whole lot more than a Colombian senator.

• 2:17:33Speaker 01

  Fuck stick, you know? But that's how they judge people, right? And some people did stuff in captivity and said, oh, I was in captivity, it caused me to do those things. Bullshit. You find out who you really are in captivity. It's like peeling that onion layer back. You've, you find out who you are. And I remember,

• 2:17:58Speaker 01

  they would bring bowls. This camp, we actually could sometimes get like tomatoes and onions. They'd bring a big bowl of like cut tomatoes and onions and maybe some muka and a big bowl of rice and, you know, a bowl of lentils, which I still love. Hate them or I love them. So, um, we get into a line. The dirtbag Americans, right? We're not politicians or any stuff. And so, um,

• 2:18:24Speaker 01

  If Mark and I are there, we're like, okay, well, just take what you need, right? We get there, everything's gone. We're all living in a box together. Right? And so finally, the gorilla put a top, stopped at that and said, hey, fuck that. And one of us would dish out the food so we could do it fairly. And they take, a couple of politicians that take vegetables and all not even eat them, let them rot. We're starving. Well, I need those. I'm different. I thought we're all human beings here. So it was very disgusting, you know, some of the elitist, which you'd see them do. And I said, no, I know they kidnapped your ass, you know? But, uh, disappointing too in humanity. You think in something like that, we'd all kind of bond up?

• 2:19:06Speaker 01

  No. No shit. No. I never would have thought that. I don't want to sit here and like disparage them personally, whatever. Cause I've said some very nasty shit about one of them in particular. But it's like, hey,

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  what's wrong with you? You know? And that's where one of them was pregnant. That's where I was going next. And how she stayed sane?

• 2:19:35Speaker 01

  What she went through?

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  I mean, we got into the, if you want to ask me the question, set it up, but you know, we got into that camp and there's a few women there, right? And so Clara was an attorney. And she was working on Ingraham Batten Court's presidential election. And then you had another woman there, Consuela, who was next to us. We called her big mama, but it's just like, is that she talked to Mark and I was very kind. Like we, she had listened to her husband die on the radio, or her daughter tell your dad's dying. And then, you know, another woman, one of the senators. So, um, Clara's a little eclectic. She's a little different, right? But she was, she was a decent person and Mark goes, hey, man, take a look at her. I'm like, what? He goes, look, and she had sweats on.

• 2:20:24Speaker 01

  She had that little egg shape. She's a very small petite woman. Mark goes, I bet she's pregnant. I said, you think so, man? He said, yeah, she's pregnant. Mark saw it first. And so, um, as it became obvious she was pregnant,

• 2:20:39Speaker 01

  she got no care, no anything. I think her prenatal care was an extra box of crackers and some fucking canned milk.

• 2:20:47Speaker 01

  And um, I remember, you know, she was taken hostage with Ingrid Bettencourt, right? And uh, just trying to protect reputation. Bettencourt's like, oh, no, no, no, there are some other hostages, civilians, and they had a rela- no, she slept with a gorilla. She was just trying to get free. She thought if I get pregnant, they gotta let me go. Fuck, no, they don't. And so- So they didn't rape her? No. It was a plan. No, no, it was a plan. That wouldn't have been allowed. Not allowed at all. Not given the credit, but that wouldn't allow.

• 2:21:26Speaker 01

  So um, they take her out when she's about to deliver, but she's not delivering. And so um, one night, we hear a baby screaming in the fucking camp. Now, of course, the women that are with us are either grandmothers or moms, or they're, you know, their radar's up. Like, three days later, maybe I could be off, four or five days, and we would hear the baby screaming. Um, they bring the baby back with Clara into the camp, well, baby for, into the camp, right? And the baby is wrapped up from head to toe, and they give it to us.

• 2:22:11Speaker 01

  Well, here's how Clara gave birth. They got a guy who's supposedly the medic that's never had medical training in his life, just self-taught guy of a book. They shoot her with morpy- morphine, stick her on a fucking table, and they cut her guts open and tried to get the baby out. Holy shit. I gotta give a woman strength. You gotta get, whatever, man, you gotta give, so um, in trying to get the baby out, Milton, who would later take over for us, never spent a day in a school or anything, broke the baby's arm in half trying to get her out of her stomach. So when they bring the baby back to us, the baby's drugged up and the arm's wrapped.

• 2:22:55Speaker 01

  Emmanuel is what Clara named him. How Clara stayed sane with that?

• 2:23:03Speaker 01

  I give her kudos. And so Clara,

• 2:23:09Speaker 01

  eventually, we couldn't stop the baby from crying and Mark goes, I think they're drugging the baby up. Mark was pretty on to it. There's a reason that he was an intel analyst. He would, you know, I was pretty good, but he, he sees, he says, they're drugging the baby up. So they took the baby from Clara.

• 2:23:25Speaker 01

  So here's Clara laying in a bunk next to me, just hardwood. When I say bunk, it's just wood balance, right?

• 2:23:31Speaker 01

  And the baby's crying at night and she go call his name at the fence, Emmanuel, Emmanuel. And then you see another gorilla girl carrying your baby when we're marching and leaving and you're sitting there on the ground and they won't even let you touch the baby?

• 2:23:46Speaker 01

  And you fucking stay sane? Give that woman credit. We didn't agree on a lot of things, but

• 2:23:54Speaker 01

  give her credit. They cut her, they cut her. They cut her open, did a C-section. On a table in a fucking jungle.

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  And when they sewed her up, it was like this, oh, oh my God, and she survived.

• 2:24:09Speaker 01

  I gotta say tough, man. She survived. And here was the worst thing. Or no, it was the best thing.

• 2:24:18Speaker 01

  They went and gave the baby, when they separated Clara from the baby, they gave the baby to some campesinos that were FARC sympathizers. You know what the campesinos did? Straight to the fucking government and handed the kid over. So the kid got care, got everything. And a little while later on the radio and all the government's talking about, hey, Emmanuel, they don't even know that the kids, the government care. You know, here's what we did for the kid. He's in good shape. And the president comes out, yeah, he's in good shape. We've had him. We've had him for fucking here. So mud on the face of the leadership, right?

• 2:24:52Speaker 01

  And they released her on, just like trying to gain some, yeah, but they released Clara. But I don't care. You know, I thought Clara was a little odd and a little different, but she's an attorney. And, uh, but to see a woman go through that, I got, I got a lot of respect for her, man. Got a lot of respect for that. You know? And, uh,

• 2:25:15Speaker 01

  How long was the baby in there before they gave it away? I think that once they separated the baby with Clara, I think from when I, maybe months until that couple got out and turned it in to the government, which was the right, I mean, they did. They might have got a reward, or I don't know. But Amen well, well, I haven't heard in a few years, but after we're freed, he's with his mom, he's healthy, they're living together, he's okay. Right? Got fixed, I mean, so a happy ending.

• 2:25:43Speaker 01

  But that's what animals are, and they're animals. You know? So for me, just sitting there watching that, you know, the pain that that person would go through was just unbelievable.

• 2:26:01Speaker 01

  More disgusting stuff that people are capable of, but how could you do that to a baby? Right?

• 2:26:07Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:26:09Speaker 01

  I mean, so for us, another one of the Patreon folks had a question, the initial setup out there, about what is captivity like in the jungle with the FARC? The best way I can say it is Groundhog Day for five and a half years or 10 years, no matter how long you're there. It's all green, you're gonna eat rice lentils, lentils, rice, maybe some fish if they catch them in the river, hopefully a little fried yuca, okay? And you're just gonna move from spot to spot to spot to spot hiding, that's all you do. And you can never see more than 20 or 30 yards unless you're on the move and you see something. It's Groundhog Day. It's just what is gonna come up next? You know, what problem is gonna come up next?

• 2:26:52Speaker 01

  You know, we were being moved, and, uh, my company makes, I retired from, I have to say, Northrop did the right thing for the families, Northrop Grubbin. I can't say enough about what they did for the families while we were gone. But um. What did they do for the families? A good example, my son said to me, he said, Dad, um, you want to, you want to know how to tell what size corporate jet you're on? I said, what's that? He said, the size of a flat screen TV, making a joke. But they took care of the families. They paid us, which they didn't have to do. The government and longshoremen, Zach could have come in and paid it. They said, no, they're going to get full pay. They have their jobs.

• 2:27:34Speaker 01

  They had a family service person that would come and visit with each family regularly, update us, politic, I mean, they did what they did all that they could do. And they could have cut us loose. The government was like, well, we'll take this over. And they're like, no, no, no, they're our employees. We're going to do right by then. So I have to give them credit. You know, they did right by us. And I remember, you know, we're on the run one day. And this is getting close to the end to the rescue, maybe a year out, maybe less. And so this guy, we're sitting in there on the side of the damn river. And we're just going down a river. We're running though. We know there's pressure on it. And uh,

• 2:28:20Speaker 01

  this guy walks up with this tube,

• 2:28:23Speaker 01

  you know, and he said, the commandant wants to know what this is. Well, it's a, it's a camera system that sits on the ground. You guys installed places. Well, this one was called Scorpion. And it's made by my company, proudly so, right? So I was like, fuck, where'd you get that? So he's trying to take it off.

• 2:28:41Speaker 01

  And I said, don't do that. And he goes, well, I said, because it's pressurized. And he said, well, will you explain this to us? I said, yeah, can we have some coffee? Mall trade, but this is one of our little ground sensors, right? I mean, you can just Google it on, it's nothing, it's no big classified system, but I was thinking, fuck, our people are here. And we had just heard on the radio and the US government admitted that, that, that some of your folks in seventh group were on the ground with the Colombians. And I was like, shit, they're finally fucking here. So there's a GPS antenna that goes with or whatever. Goff is there and he's like, can I, can I plug this into my GPS, make it better?

• 2:29:25Speaker 01

  I said, no. And he goes, this is one of your cameras? I didn't say it's one in North that we made. I said, yeah, it's a camera system. He said, well, how many do you guys have? You know? I said, thousands. I was trying to, right? But essentially what happened was, but I found out later that a Colombian team had put this camera in. And I will leave. You don't just have one camera. I'll just leave it that way. You're walking into a net of shit. But it was fucked up. This camera was still white. They didn't even fucking paint it green or black or anything.

• 2:30:05Speaker 01

  And so it's buried in the riverside or on some leaves and Gorilla goes to take a piss and he's peeing on it. I was like, fuck. So Goff is just looking at me, goes, Keith, is this good? I said, not for you. What do you want me to tell you? I mean, I've been with him for years. I mean, he, he says, okay. So they gave it to a Cayuga to take to the bosses. I learned later that Cayuga got whacked and they got the camera back. But it's, you know, it's, it's just a, it's a ground sensor. It's no big top secret deal, really. Employment stuff is stuff that I'd never talk about, but it's, you know? But I was like, fucking A, motherfucker, someone's here. And that made them nervous.

• 2:30:49Speaker 01

  Because the Colombians would never operate in small teams, you know? You know, our doctrine being a little bit different. Everybody was like, whoa. And I, as soon as I got back, I told everybody what it was. You know? And so, um, there were some mistakes made in trying to get the stuff. But, and that camera actually didn't even get good pictures of us and we all passed by it. So it's even better that they found it because the, the psychological impact on the Gorilla was, the boss is like, oh shit, they're in our backyard. They're fucking here. And we were like, I had a Woody dude. I was just like, hell yeah. How many years in was that?

• 2:31:36Speaker 01

  Four and a half. Four and a half years? Yeah, about a year before we got out, yeah. What kept you going? Just want to get home, yeah.

• 2:31:45Speaker 01

  All three of us, we just want to get home. Maybe for different reasons, I just. I'm, I wasn't dying there, it's just that I, I, look, I love my family, I miss my family and things like that. And you would do whatever you can to get back for that, but me, my drive was, I felt defeated dying there. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the only way I can, you know, put it. You know, obviously you want to see your kids, right? I didn't know if my dad, my dad and I had a kind of a rough relationship and weren't on good speaking terms like we should be, just stupid arguments, right? It's like, is my dad still alive? You know, you don't know anything. I just wanted to get home, Sean. You know? And, uh, everybody has their own personal drive.

• 2:32:30Speaker 01

  I think, um.

• 2:32:33Speaker 01

  You know?

• 2:32:35Speaker 01

  I think, I just think we're different.

• 2:32:39Speaker 01

  Look around this room, like this country, I just, I just think we're different. I just want to get back to this. I didn't care. I didn't care if I was working somewhere hauling wood at a construction site, living in an old beat up trailer, I just want to get home and have some ice. It's, it was just.

• 2:32:58Speaker 01

  I'm not fucking dying here.

• 2:33:01Speaker 01

  Just like to coach each other? Oh, we, we both be up and down, one, somebody's strong, one day, somebody's weak the other day. Sometimes, you know, Mark's strong, I'm down, he's like, no, bro, no, bro, Tom. We called him the curmudgeon, I said, Tom, you know, your, your jokes were so bad before he got captured, took his four years in the jungle, start laughing at your dumb ass jokes.

• 2:33:23Speaker 01

  And then we figured out that Tom's really funny. And you've heard every story that you can tell when you're face to face locked up with somebody, right? So there's nothing new. You know? So, you know, everybody had to drive to get home. That was it. And, uh, and I'm not necessarily gonna say it was just their loved ones. It was just something amongst the three of us that we, we're not digging a hole here. I don't care. We're going one more day. You know? And that was day to day. That's the way you get out of it.

• 2:33:59Speaker 01

  Any torture? Um, so what do you call torture? Plan torture like our P O does went through in Vietnam? No. But I remember like one day, I'm sliding in the river and through my boots, all these spines, they're about two inches long going to my bed. There's like seven or eight embedded in my bed. So the medic there was a real asshole. What they called their medic was fucking with me when he take the spines out of my toes and my feet and all, just back, just making it, they're like blades on them, just making it, you know, just making it hurt on purpose, shit like that. But I think torture comes in many ways. It's not necessarily breaking somebody's hands or hooking a battery up to them like

• 2:34:41Speaker 01

  in the movies or something, or, you know, torture is denial of basic, you know, human needs. Go five years. Right? Torture is no food, no medical care, you know, there's a psychological component. I guess that been interrogation type torture. No, um, they never, they weren't, they didn't give a shit about what we knew. We were just, and Tom said it, Tom said it perfectly. He said, we're just hanging meat. They don't want anything from us. We're just a commodity and that's all we were. I would have thought, like I told one of the commandant days, I'm like, you think we didn't see you all the time? They wouldn't believe me.

• 2:35:23Speaker 01

  We could be over you and I just have one push of the sack come and I could report live position, hit it with a laser and give away your coordinates. I wasn't allowed to do that. We were on a plank. We couldn't do that. We couldn't fight against the gorilla directly. We were against drug targets. And the moment they captured us, that rule handcuffs were off. They didn't believe it. I've seen them a million times. No, I'm not a million. That's exactly, but we saw them frequently. And, and, and I really didn't realize until captivity, some of the stuff we saw that we didn't think was gorilla was gorilla activity. Like what? Um.

• 2:36:02Speaker 01

  I can tell you what a kayuka, which is a big aluminum canoe, you'd see it and wear their dress. You thought, oh, that's a couple of campesinos. Nope, nope. Those are gorillas dressed like campesinos. I could tell by the way the boat is, what they've got in it, what they're hauling. You could look a little closer at them, especially the area where you're at. They're the only ones operating there. So, sad story was, I think it was four or five fishermen were murdered because of us. They saw us. So. Did you see it? No. Um. One of, I would say, the most intimidating gorillas I ever saw, hands

• 2:36:42Speaker 01

  down, was Henteel. Henteel Duarte. Supposedly, he was killed about 10 months ago. Mark and I wondered if it was fake. He was part of the peace process in, in, uh, in Cuba, but then went back to the jungle. He didn't agree with what was going on. He left Cuba to go back to the jungle to talk some guys into some other leaders, hey, quit fucking around, get a part of the peace process. And he just stayed with them. But we meet Duarte one morning. We're all uncovered, just in hammocks tied to trees, right next to a river. And they're gonna move us. So, uh, they put us in a boat. It was like a runabout, some weird, you know, just, but

• 2:37:24Speaker 01

  it had like four benches in it, 200 horse motor on it. And they put me right behind Duarte and Mark right behind Duarte. And then Tom was next to us. And I look over there and the whole fucking floor, there must've been a dozen RPGs. Their boots are on top of them. Couple M60s that I remember ammo. And I'm like, fuck, I didn't know who this guy was. But he had a presence about him. I'm sure you've seen guys that you know are serious guys. There's no, and he was one of those. So he was joking around and kinda laughing. And he took us and dropped us off at this spot on the river, which is basically the island felt like it was floating. We're just gonna be there for a few days. So a few nights

• 2:38:07Speaker 01

  later, they pick us up at night and they're running us down the river. We're in the same boat that was his boat, but there's nothing in it. It's just some junior guys moving us. And they're just moving us to more permanent camp. Well, somebody yells helicopter, helicopter, helicopter. And we look behind us in the jungle, man, there's an ambient light. You're not around a city or town, right? It was a bright, full moon, but it looked like a fucking spotlight from a helicopter. It was unbelievable bright. And the guy in, that was driving just beaches the boat in front of this fisherman's little shack. And they take us out of the shack really quick and the fishermen walk out and they see us face

• 2:38:51Speaker 01

  to face. They hide us behind the shack and everybody goes, no, it's the fucking moon. It's not a helicopter. We get back in the boat and everybody's looking at everybody and the fishermen are two feet from me, looking at me. I'm like, hey amigo, you know, we get in the boat. And, uh, another fisherman comes up in a little canoe. And they're saying, well, the army's here, the army, because they're questioning, where's the army? They, you know, they're trying to avoid the army. So they take us to this little place, it's like a concrete boat ramp in the jungle on like a little field, but had, you know, canopy over it. And they put us there. Three days later on the news, on that river, it's live.

• 2:39:35Speaker 01

  Five fishermen executed by the FARC.

• 2:39:39Speaker 01

  And so I look at Big Head, who was one of our guards. We nicknamed all the guards. He had a bull head on. He goes, yeah, I know. Big Head didn't feel good about it. But they they killed him because they saw us.

• 2:39:51Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:39:54Shawn Ryan?

  Did you develop relationships with the guards?

• 2:39:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. How can you? How can you? We you and I can hate each other and they can chain you to that chair and chain me to this chair. At some point, we're gonna start talking. Right? Do we have Stockholm syndrome? No. But when you got a guard that's like seventeen years old or eighteen years old and he's with you for years and you watch him grow up. Right? You're gonna develop some type of relationship. Our theory was. If we could treat them with respect, number one, we'd stay out of chains, which didn't work. But maybe, maybe. That would buy us a second or two of hesitation for them killing us. If a disembark came in there trying to get us out in a rescue. That was our theory.

• 2:40:42Speaker 01

  And so. A few of the guards.

• 2:40:48Speaker 01

  Secretly, secretly.

• 2:40:53Speaker 01

  Apologized for us being there. But said, hey, this is. It's not in our control. Right? But we were together for years. So hey, if we had extra smokes, because I didn't smoke, but I take the smokes that goes all the time. Pass it off to the guard. Well, if the guard's girlfriend is small. Take ten pounds of her rice and sugar, put it in your ruck. He's sneaking you in leftover food at one in the morning when he's on guard duty.

• 2:41:22Speaker 01

  You know? Just basic stuff. And I remember one of them that got killed, he went looking for food. His name was Mono, little, you know, if you're dark, they call you negro. If you're light skinned, they call you mono. It's just a Latin culture. It's not a racist thing or whatever. And Mono got killed. And he was walking with one of the bad guys, Rogelio. And I have to admit, I felt a little like, damn, Mono, you could have been, because he could have been something different, right? But I remember one night he comes in, he sneaks in. This was a, if he would have got caught sneaking in, man, it was in his ass. He brought Mark and Tom and I some sausages. He goes, this is all I can do, guys. And he said, if you heard that I said something about it in our little communal meeting. If I said something bad about you guys, well, I have to.

• 2:42:06Speaker 01

  He was risking his ass to give us food, or sneak us a radio, or batteries for a radio, so we could hear the news. You can't have a little empathy for that? He's never going anywhere. We get rescued or not, he's there for life, right there. He's never going anywhere. So, you know, they were very curious about the outside world. So, we would, we would tell them stories. They're like little kids. And, uh, I remember, um, one of them, was it Fort Campbell, when the Herc, or the tornado came through, and we lost like half a dozen Apaches or something?

• 2:42:49Speaker 01

  And so the guy goes, "Man, all your helicopters are gone." I said, "We have more than six helicopters." Right? But their concept was not, they just didn't understand the outside world. Tom came up with a fucking genius move. So, there was a, there was a reward for us, each one of us, millions of dollars. So, one night, Big Head says to us, he goes, "Hey, man, if I can get you out, would you manage my money for me?" I can't like, I don't know what five million dollars looks like. But, but he was serious. He was like, "Could you, could you help me with that?"

• 2:43:32Speaker 01

  We're like, "Big Head, if you get us out, yeah, we'll help you with the money." And, uh, but he was dead serious. It was just like a business here, right? So, Tom realized, we knew it, but Tom came up with this genius thing. He starts drawing in his book. He drew like ten pages of just cows, little bitty cows, ten pages of cars, then a few pages of hot women, right? Trying to go, "You see all this, Big Head? That's what you get with this money." Boom, they got it.

• 2:44:06Speaker 01

  And, and, um, so we thought, oh, we'd be big heads money manager, right? So I will never forget, I'm giving a debrief, and this is political correctness gone fucking just stupid. And there are two women from the agency. And one was a handoff from England, working with, it was like a, you know, a trade. And so I'm telling the story about what Tom wrote. She gets pissed off, because I mentioned the women, that Tom drew women, and you could have women, right? She just gets all offended. I'm like, the fuck? I'm not putting women down. Tom figured out a way to connect with these people, right? And what do you think a 19-year-old guard wants?

• 2:44:51Speaker 01

  I could tell you what he wants, he's in the jungle by himself for years, hasn't had a date, right? But I thought Tom's idea, and they were furious at a briefing. Are you serious? Dead serious, dead serious, dead serious. I couldn't make that shit up. But I thought, what a genius idea. You know, he drew boats, you know, he drew cows, women, trucks. But I thought that was pretty heads up, right? But they don't know anything. They ask us one time, this was really when I knew one of the guys that I have a distaste for, only because of his stupidity, but he was like a recruiter.

• 2:45:34Speaker 01

  So he would go out in the countryside, and he would spread the communist word, and recruit these young people in, right?

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  So, um, one time he's sitting there, and he goes, hey, we want to know about your special forces.

• 2:45:47Speaker 01

  And, well, what do you mean, you want to know about our special forces? We need to know something about your special forces, yeah. Did your special forces people teach Keanu Reeves those moves in The Matrix, so we can't shoot him?

• 2:46:01Shawn Ryan?

  I tell Keanu Reeves.

• 2:46:03Speaker 01

  I know that, but in the movie, when he's going like this and the bullets are going past.

• 2:46:08Shawn Ryan?

  They really fucking thought that?

• 2:46:10Speaker 01

  He was serious.

• 2:46:11Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:46:14Speaker 01

  What? I'm not bullshitting. Ask if you get me Mark or Tom, we're like, are you shitting me? No, no, all were that ignorant, but that was it.

• 2:46:24Speaker 01

  I mean, that's what you're dealing with.

• 2:46:27Speaker 01

  So I would say now, 15, 16 years later, it's not like that, but they were still pretty primitive. And it was. I came up with a torture though. I came up with a torture for Martin Summer, the ignorant gorilla guy. Martin comes to give us a pep talk one day in front of the other guards and he wants to impress them. And he's talking about riding in a box. What? Riding in a box? Well, he just built a box over us. It's barely enough for three guys to lay down in, which was barbed wire and a, and a chain link fence. And he said it was to protect us from the leopards. It was for our own protection. So he sits down and he tells us a story about he was in Bogota.

• 2:47:13Speaker 01

  Or I don't know, it was Bogota, one of the cities one time. He got to ride in a box. And all his little minions are around him like, tell us about the box, tell us about the box. He said, yeah, we went in the building. We just push a button. We go up, we get up and then we're on top of the building. It's a fucking elevator.

• 2:47:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:47:33Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like Afghanistan.

• 2:47:35Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, you don't know.

• 2:47:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:38Speaker 01

  We assume that somebody else uses our logic. That's our first mistake.

• 2:47:47Speaker 01

  That's our first mistake. So we didn't really understand. I don't think.

• 2:47:53Speaker 01

  I don't think that. We really understood the gorilla like we should have.

• 2:48:01Speaker 01

  I think we do now, but.

• 2:48:04Speaker 01

  Unless we're going to gauge against them directly.

• 2:48:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, what would the?

• 2:48:10Shawn Ryan?

  You guys were planning stuff a little bit. What? I mean, how would you do that? Were you monitored all the time?

• 2:48:16Speaker 01

  So here's what I thought was our hope one time.

• 2:48:20Speaker 01

  So one of the guys comes to us and he's got a little handheld GPS, a little Garmin.

• 2:48:26Speaker 01

  And he also has a radio.

• 2:48:31Speaker 01

  And so he goes,

• 2:48:36Speaker 01

  I got an idea. It was Big Head, actually.

• 2:48:39Speaker 01

  He said, um, when we have our communal center, which, you know, every night they get together and do their little cultural hour and talk, you know, it's brainwashing, right? He said, I'll get weapons and we'll kill everybody here. And I've got this radio and GPS and we can leave.

• 2:48:58Speaker 01

  And I'm like, how many people? All armed during the thing? He said, you know, about thirty down there armed? I said, okay, so where you guys? He said, I get two AKs. We'll just kill them all.

• 2:49:14Speaker 01

  Do you really think that we can walk down there with thirty armed motherfuckers and just kill them all in two seconds and walk out of here? And there's other camps around us? Right? Those are gonna hear the shooting? I'm like, hell no.

• 2:49:28Speaker 01

  Mark and I looked at it, that's not a good idea. That's not, it's not like we're on a mountain with five people and we could just shoot them and be dead. We're surrounded by, there's other, you know? Yeah. And I'm like, Big Head, you gotta come up with a better idea. So I said, here's my idea. And Mark, I think, I don't want to take credit because Mark and I, I said, we get the radio and the GPS. We don't go towards town. What do we do? We go deep and we go high.

• 2:49:53Speaker 01

  And we'll get on the radio. Because they're gonna think we're at the corner of town. And we don't kill anybody.

• 2:50:00Speaker 01

  One night, when you're on guard duty, we're just gone. How about we do that? Because that way, if we get caught, we're not gonna get executed ourselves. I didn't think it was possible. I mean, do you really think it's possible for a couple of guys in that situation to go into about thirty guerrillas at arm and just kill them all and get away smoothly?

• 2:50:21Shawn Ryan?

  I think it depends on who you're with.

• 2:50:23Speaker 01

  Well, like I'm saying.

• 2:50:26Shawn Ryan?

  With all those camps around.

• 2:50:29Speaker 01

  Right. So I said, why do we have to kill anybody? Why attract attention? Why don't we just disappear? There's a little confusion there. But then he didn't want to, uh, he, he, he backed out on that.

• 2:50:44Speaker 01

  You know, then they come by one day and they say, hey, why are you Americans down there flying around? I said, what do you mean? Well, all these helicopters are manned by Americans because they're speaking on the radio in English. I'm like, it's not Americans. Said they're, they're, they're doing spray operations and they're talking to different aircraft. Well, the number one language is English. Even here it's not Spanish, right? But they thought it's Americans over them. No, it was Colombian pilots in a spray package communicating back and forth in, in English. So just strange stuff, Sean, out there.

• 2:51:17Shawn Ryan?

  At what point did they present you with the M4 that you had tossed?

• 2:51:21Speaker 01

  They never prevent, presented it. We went to Miami and we're in there.

• 2:51:27Shawn Ryan?

  I don't mean them. I mean the girls.

• 2:51:29Speaker 01

  Oh, so

• 2:51:34Speaker 01

  this had to be a few months into captivity. We're being moved. And, uh, this guy rides up with the, with the ponies and he's on it. And he's got the M4 and he goes, you recognize this? It's like, oh, fuck. He's like, thank you. I'm going to kill your guys when they come.

• 2:51:52Speaker 01

  So he was carrying it.

• 2:51:55Speaker 01

  You know? And, uh,

• 2:51:59Speaker 01

  then

• 2:52:01Speaker 01

  they're asking about horses and we're each getting on a horse. So I had horses. I was making fun of being a pony, not a horse. And you could, the guy had a sense of humor, right? But he wanted to talk to us. He wanted to engage because we're like this oddity, right? They've never met Americans before.

• 2:52:16Speaker 01

  And so I got up on the, on the horse and he goes, I said, man, this isn't not magic, which you guys do. I said, everything you do in the jungle, you could teach us in two or three weeks. I said, what we do in the outside world, you couldn't do it in years. You know, they're very simple. It's not a, you know? So.

• 2:52:37Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know. But to see the M4 in the evidence room in Miami, that was especially with a hole in it. That was nice. We'll get to that at the rescue. Yeah. I want you to talk about Mark and his carbs too. Oh, my God. And now Mark's, he's all super fit now. You gonna do that now or later? Let's do it now. So.

• 2:53:04Speaker 01

  We're starving and what we did to keep just. If you stop your ride, right? So we would build what we call the jungle stair stepper. And it would just be two steps. And you'd get on it for hours, just up, but you could work up a real good sweat if you're hauling ass. You built the steps high enough. So Mark. Gets a subines, the guards would give it to us, right? And they're. They want to see us occupied. They're good at keeping people like this, right? So Mark ties up a pull-up bar. And he goes, I'm gonna get the 20 pull-ups. And he did. He got the 20 dead hang, slow pull-ups, right? And he's lost all his weight. One day after he gets his full-ups, he turns around, he's like, fuck, I said, Mark, you got a six pack.

• 2:53:48Speaker 01

  Right? And we get these little mirrors. You can't see anything, right? And he's like, holy shit, you know?

• 2:53:55Speaker 01

  So I don't remember if it was that day or whatever, Mark's not eating his rice. Like, we're starving. He's like, now we just got to cut on the carbs, man.

• 2:54:04Speaker 01

  He's like all yoked. We're skeletons, you know? And he's a lentils, man. It's good, lentils. No, we gotta ease up on the rice so I get fat. I was just, you know, we're insane at that point. But he was, he had his, you know, he did his 20, you know, pull-ups and he had his six pack going. He's like there in a camp like this. It's like we're on beach on vacation, you know, but we're. We're there, you know? Damn. Yeah. I mean, you know, you're sitting there in your underwear with rubber boots on. And you're walking up and down like a homemade stair climber for hours, just trying to stay sane. You know? Is there anything else you guys would do?

• 2:54:43Speaker 01

  That was our main exercise thing. What about the chest pieces? Um, I want to show you.

• 2:54:50Speaker 01

  There's a picture in this book. This is super impressive what Mark did. And.

• 2:55:01Speaker 01

  The chef sets in here, I believe. I haven't opened this up for a while. If not, he just sent me a picture. Here it is.

• 2:55:09Speaker 01

  So he got a piece of a machete from a gorilla with permission.

• 2:55:15Speaker 01

  I don't know how long it took him. This took him, shit, a year, maybe less. And every time we'd stop, Mark would start carving chess pieces. Right? And then we got all the chess pieces done. The gorilla gave us a piece of cardboard and tape. And Mark made the chess, the board. And the board would fold in half and he had a little bag. He put his chess pieces in and carried them everywhere. And then the gorilla wanted to play chess too. So they would borrow it during the day if we were in a fixed camp and everybody would play chess. Is that amazing what he did? Yes. By hand? We'll put this up on screen. And the, and the most impressive thing about those chess pieces?

• 2:55:59Speaker 01

  There was so much oil on them for people just playing them for years. They were smoothed out.

• 2:56:06Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:56:09Speaker 01

  I'm like, Mark, you're a woodworker, dude. He's got that at the house now. How amazing.

• 2:56:16Speaker 01

  You know? He'd get there, he'd just start carving. He'd just start carving. He'd just start carving. I'm like, man. And I will tell you what, we owe Mark, seriously.

• 2:56:29Speaker 01

  This ain't gonna do here. Um, everybody there in the jungle, probably some of the gorilla too.

• 2:56:36Speaker 01

  You know, Mark should get billed as a doctor because the therapy that that chess set brought to us was amazing. We would have chess tournaments that would last like days over a pack of crackers.

• 2:56:49Speaker 01

  You know? And Mark, be a smart ass, he'd start screwing me. We're playing chess and he'd save his coffee. We'd just play for hours, hours and hours and hours and hours. We'd just sit there chained up and ours. Mark would take his leftover coffee and he'd set it out on my side of the chessboard and just leave it there and not say a word and keep playing. Trying to do a little psychological work because he knew I wanted that fucking coffee.

• 2:57:11Speaker 01

  But um, yeah, that's what he did. Amazing. It's a, I don't know, people are capable of a lot. What are those Bible verses? So, one of the best things that we got to read in captivity was a Spanish to English New Testament. So, we read it cover to cover, cover to cover. So Mark, I would say, was the most religious out of everybody in camp. Like, he really kind of got deep into it. So we would just share the Bible back and forth, reading and studying it. And those are some verses that he wrote down, just for inspiration for himself.

• 2:57:54Speaker 01

  And he, um, something interesting was, obviously, the Bible wasn't written in English. It was written in Latin. So, the understanding, when you started translating stuff, when you read a verse in Spanish versus English, kind of came through a little bit clearer. And then I had a copy of Don Quixote, Latin, English. Then I taught myself to read Latin, which I can't read now while I was in captivity reading Don Quixote. So, the windmills, motherfucker, yeah. So you're, if you have time, you can do a lot. Did you guys pray? Yeah. Not as much as Mark.

• 2:58:39Speaker 01

  Um, Tom, I don't, Tom, Tom, no. But, um, I think my view on the Bible, right, especially the New Testament, changed when I started reading in Spanish versus English. And I look at it as a moral compass, not to say that I always followed that moral compass. I don't want to sit here and hold my hands up and, look, man, you know, my closet's filled with skeletons. So, I'm as imperfect as I get. But...

• 2:59:18Speaker 01

  I think, and Mark and I would discuss this, especially the New Testament, if you take out what I call the fluff, maybe, and you go about, how do you treat your friends? How do you treat your family? How do you live as a person? It talks about how you, if you look at it, how you pay your bills, what kind of neighbor you are, what kind of brother, what kind of caretaker. It's just a simple moral compass for life. If you get through some of the stuff that's a little more, I don't want to offend anybody here, that's a little more, um, I call it a sales pitch? Maybe a little more, maybe we're not talking about somebody being in the belly of a whale. Okay?

• 3:00:01Speaker 01

  Maybe we're not talking something that's on a threshold or someone that's hard to captivate. But when it comes to the basics of how you should live and conduct yourself, that's what I think the strength is. And I would say Mark was a little more deeper into it than I was, for sure. But it gave us, it gave us a, um, I don't want to use the word comfort. Kind of a clarity about stuff, if that makes sense.

• 3:00:28Shawn Ryan?

  Who gave it to you?

• 3:00:30Speaker 01

  I can't remember. Did the gorilla give Mark the Bible first? I don't know if he got it from the gorillas, or, I'm not sure. I can't remember.

• 3:00:42Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's interesting.

• 3:00:45Speaker 01

  It, it's, it's a guidebook, right?

• 3:00:47Shawn Ryan?

  For, what's interesting is, I mean, they're holding you in captivity, they're giving a woman a C-section in the jungle, and they're reading the Bible.

• 3:01:05Speaker 01

  Um, I don't think, I don't think that, uh, many of the gorillas were reading the Bible. I think some were, but they finally got it to Mark, apparently. And I don't, I don't know where it came from. I can't remember. But Mark carried it, and it's his. You know, we shared it, but Mark carried it. And I don't know, did Consuelo, did she give it to Mark? One of, one of the hostages? I can't remember where it came from. But-

• 3:01:38Speaker 01

  Um.

• 3:01:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it it it was a strengthener for sure. There's no, no doubt about that.

• 3:01:46Shawn Ryan?

  But it's interesting how people convince themselves that they're doing the right thing. But I remember when I lived in Medellin, went to this church that the sicarios, the assassins, would go pray at before they do a hit.

• 3:02:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 3:02:03Shawn Ryan?

  It's like, never occurred to you not to do the hit?

• 3:02:09Speaker 01

  Um, I grew up in a Southern Baptist family. My grandmother was a fire and brimstone Southern Baptist. You were going to hell for anything.

• 3:02:21Speaker 01

  But, um, I think that my father was a student of history, primarily really the Civil War, a little bit of world history and world religions.

• 3:02:37Speaker 01

  And he always would say, it's not, I'm trying to remember how to say it right.

• 3:02:43Speaker 01

  Basically, he didn't like how man distorted the word from the Bible. He wasn't a fan of organized religion. He thought, well, you see these mega churches now, how they really just, it's, it's a money issue, right? It's a, it's, it's not, it has, has nothing to do with what the scriptures really say, I think. You know, like, what are the things about the big televangetes and their private jets? Can't fly them back with the heathens. Come on, man. You know, so

• 3:03:21Speaker 01

  just look at the Book of Eli, the movie, right? The bad guy knew that could be used to control everything.

• 3:03:28Speaker 01

  There is the Bible. So I think, uh, like you're saying, it can be used in bad ways. It can be used in good ways. You know? I mean,

• 3:03:40Speaker 01

  I'm amazed, and my wife and I speak about this a lot,

• 3:03:46Speaker 01

  at the things that people are capable of doing.

• 3:03:50Speaker 01

  And they think they're okay. They're totally okay with it. You know? It's scary, it's scary stuff. You know? And I, I, uh, I don't know. I don't know, but you have to remember, I mean.

• 3:04:05Speaker 01

  Latin America is a, it's a Catholic continent, right? So do those guerrillas that were probably brought up in very humble places get ingrained by their parents? Going to a little, any little village that's got a church, right? The church is a big part of it. Can they totally escape that upbringing? I don't know. You know? I mean, I never really thought about that in captivity, because we didn't really have a time to really engage with them on that level. But I'm sure, I just have to think, you know, that some portion of them can't escape that upbringing.

• 3:04:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:43Speaker 01

  You know? But the communist salesman will try to erase it.

• 3:04:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, they get them young. It's an indoctrination, right?

• 3:04:51Speaker 01

  Well, you know, the little communist manifesto, it's only about that thick. I don't know if you've ever read it? And, and Milton handed me the manifesto one time, and he can't really read. I said, plus value, Marx, Engels. He goes, you read that? I said, yeah, I did a book report on it once in junior high school, man. Yeah, I read this. They were like, oh, you've read it? Yeah, I read it. Well, what do you think of it? I said, it doesn't work. It's a pipe dream. And I started reading back to him, and he's like, you can read in Spanish? I'm like, yeah. I'm not a doctor, but I'm not a, you know?

• 3:05:29Speaker 01

  But the level of, you know, people that are, I don't know if it's right to use the word ignorance. I don't think that's maybe the right word to use, but a person that's ignorant can really be taken advantage of pretty easily, if you're smart enough to do it. And so that's what I see much of what the young guerrillas were. Basically just sold a bill of goods and brainwashed. You know?

• 3:05:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. How often were you guys chained up?

• 3:06:04Speaker 01

  Really not until the third year, I'd say two and a half, the third year that we got into it, that they started chaining us regular. And before that, they put 550 cord around our necks and they have this thing that goes on, it's a knot, just a harness that they make that goes underneath your arms and around your neck and there's just a hangman's knot on the back. So you're walking in front of your guard through the jungle and if you try to run, he's got the 550 cord, he just pulls it, that chokes you out, you can't do anything. That was much more comfortable than the chains, you know? The chains were when times were getting desperate and Mark actually figured out, we figured

• 3:06:49Speaker 01

  out how to break out of the locks with a fingernail clipper. The cheap Chinese locks were so terrible, you could just run the tumblers enough and they'd open up. So we'd open them at night and kinda undo a link so it was a little more comfortable to sleep. So it would be all the time? What's that? So you were chained all the time? At one point, yeah. Shit. Yeah. Just dependent. I mean, they'd come and take the chains off or put the chains on, you know? Yeah. Mine's, I've got about six inches of my chain and the lock that I use for paperweight on my desk. And there's some places I've gone to speak, I'd love to have brought it here, whatever, I don't want to risk losing that.

• 3:07:34Speaker 01

  I get it. You know? I'll send you a picture of it when you get home. And the worst thing was, sucks, it's a Chinese lock, so it's big and heavy. It's not like a nice little mass lock that's worth a shit. Damn. What about holidays? I mean, what would, what would Christmas be like? You know, they celebrate it. But you gotta remember in Columbia, the big holiday's not Christmas, it's New Year's. And so they bring in candy, they bring in liquor and

• 3:08:04Speaker 01

  I'm a drinker, but I wouldn't drink in captivity because I was scared about what I would do. And I remember one time getting liquored up on this cheap Chinese wine. He put an ass cussing on the Comandante in that camp. We're like, you're gonna get shot. He just standing there just cussing his ass out, man. What he was, he'd had this, oh, you know, like it was, it was, it was from China and this stuff was just horrible. And so, and then they have Aguardiente in Colombia, everybody drinks. I couldn't, ah, worst stuff in the world. But, uh, they would, for New Years or the holidays, they would bake breads and cookies if we're in a place you could do it. And kind of like throw us a little, you know, give us some extra food and things.

• 3:08:50Speaker 01

  Really? You know? Strange, strange, strange.

• 3:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Well, Keith, let's take a break.

• 3:09:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:09:01Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, we'll get into the rescue mission.

• 3:09:03Speaker 01

  Super.

• 3:09:11Speaker 02

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• 3:09:48Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Keith, we're back from the break. Want to get into the rescue op?

• 3:09:52Speaker 01

  All right.

• 3:09:53Shawn Ryan?

  How it went down, what happened, as descriptive as you can.

• 3:09:57Speaker 01

  Okay, uh, a little outline on the rescue.

• 3:10:02Speaker 01

  I went back in the FARC capturing us, opened the door for the US government, especially in Tell Ensign to buddy up with the Colombians, right? And help them rebuild their intel system. They did a lot of stuff. They did a lot of stuff. But what happened with the rescue, we had an enlisted guy and he had a suggestion. And it was about communications. And the way the FARC handled us, and this is something we don't do anymore, and I worked on it afterwards, we don't HFDF, High Free Direction Find, radio signals. So every FARC group that we were with had an HF radio.

• 3:10:46Speaker 01

  They'd use an extension cord they'd cut up and go string an antenna, you know, because it's got to be long, HF waves are much longer, and they would talk, all right? And they would talk to the commandantes run by the secretariat. And the secretariat would talk to our guys, and they'd say, "You guys move here, you guys move there." They had their code, right? But that's how they handle our movements. Or they would send a person in, in a certain area, and just, you know, paper to paper. And I remember Cesar, who's in the first rung commander, he's in the supermax now, he said, "Can you guys hear everything?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "What's the best thing for me to do? Just write an order on a piece of paper

• 3:11:29Speaker 01

  and send it to my guys?" I said, "That's what I do." And so, the official story goes, which is true. I believe it was a sergeant that he basically said, "Hey, folks, why don't we cut off the communications link? Let's talk to the secretariat, to the commandantes, and pretend we're the guys that have the hostages, all right? And then let's talk to the people that are holding the hostages, and think them, make them think that we are the secretariat, right? Just cut it. And then we'll just tell them to let the hostages go."

• 3:12:10Speaker 01

  No shit. That's a simplified version of what happened. So they broke the comms link. And they started talking to the bosses. Because you've got to remember, they listened to them every day. These analysts knew who the individual people were, what was going on. And they basically broke the comms link. And then made some experimental moves with us. To see if we'd follow the orders. And they found out that they had broken it successfully. And that was the, what was going to morph into the rescue. And you've got to remember, well, I can't remember, it's not that I've talked about here. Every little, small group. The comandante of the group will have a girlfriend. And she's the radio operator. Right?

• 3:12:52Speaker 01

  So even in camp for years, I would hear other groups talking. If the radio was up, it'd be the same voices and the same names. So essentially, it was just a really good intel spoof by, I believe it was a Colombian sergeant. I know it's in the list, but I think it was a sergeant that did that. So, the story and the debrief that we got was, we were moved a few times. And then, our guys were told that they were going to take us and turn us into, uh, the secretariat. Now here's what was interesting.

• 3:13:29Speaker 01

  During that time, President Ribeira let it be known publicly, and this was part of the spoof, that they were going to allow the Red Cross to come in and get access to us and assess us. They were going to allow the FARC to do that. And that came out in the news. So then, our guys who were physically holding us, who weren't talking to their bosses anymore, like, oh shit, this is true. We're going to go turn these folks in, they're going to see them. So I think it was one of, really the best intel coups ever. Wow. It's a really interesting story. Slick. And then, it, uh... So they were basically playing HQ. Yep. That's what they were doing.

• 3:14:13Speaker 01

  And then in the international news, in the news...

• 3:14:18Speaker 01

  The president's saying, "Hey, we're gonna let an international commission come in and have access to the FARC and the hostages to check them out." So the FARC were gonna get recognition also politically. It was brilliant. Where we were rescued at, it was kinda funny. It was basically a whorehouse. That's what it was. So you have what's called a raspecine, and they're the guys that pick the coca leaves, and, and the women, right? They're going to pick them. So... We were being moved and hearing this news on a river. And all of a sudden, we're seeing other FARC members, which we were never exposed to anybody.

• 3:15:01Speaker 01

  It was a deep secret where we were and who we were. And next thing we know, we end up in a coca field. Giving us Coca Colas, they brought us blue jeans and shirts and stuff from a store, and they're like, being happy with us, and the whole group is moving to the coca field. And next to the coca field was just basically a, two big cabins. One looked like a bar, where there were some pool tables, right there in the jungle, and another had all these beds in it. So, Juancho, my, uh, my buddy who's a major, had enough time to go from lieutenant to major and lieutenant colonel in captivity, ten years.

• 3:15:39Speaker 01

  There's all of these mattresses in this jungle bordello, man, with plastic, and we're like, "Holy shit, we haven't laid on a mattress in years." Everybody gets, you know, we're laying on a bed, and we're like this, and Juancho goes, "You know what we're laying on, don't you?" He goes, "No, this is a whorehouse." I said, "Are you kidding me?" He goes, "No, Keith, what they do is the raspecinis come in here, and they pay them to pick the leaves, then they set up a cheap bar, and they bring in these girls, and basically they get their money back, they're paying it for them." So we were like, "Well, you know what, cover the mattresses are plastic, we haven't been on a mattress in years, we're sleeping good." So...

• 3:16:19Speaker 01

  Everything gets lax all of a sudden. Guards are there, but like they're, "You guys want some soda?" Like, "When do we get a Coke, or cookies, or extra food, and all this shit?" And we're out in the sunshine. We're not undercover. And I was like, "We're out. We're uncovered." And other FARC members were coming through, and they were looking at us, and we're like, "Something was going down." Right? We didn't know. And we had staged on the river farther down about, I don't know how many miles, for like a week. And they were bringing us blue jeans, and tennis shoes, and shirts, and all this stuff. And I remember, I told Mark, "I'm not taking any of that stuff." But Tom took a nice shirt, a nice shirt, and a nice set of jeans, because he goes, "My wife hasn't seen me in years.

• 3:17:03Speaker 01

  I just want to look presentable to my wife." You know, it makes me want to cry, because he was like, "I just want to..." You know, so everybody's... But, uh, we're like, "Want coffee? What do you want?" I mean, so we're in this place for a couple of days. And I go out, I hadn't seen sun forever, and I take my shirt off, and I just basically got a pair of underwear on, and I'm sitting in a chair in the sun, just cooking like a clam. And we're all, "What's going on here?" And right across the river is another coca field where the helicopters sat down with a little house. But we have not been out undercover for five and a half years. There's no, "We're not hidden. We're in the open." You know, they're talking on the radio to each other, and I'm like, "What?

• 3:17:48Speaker 01

  What's going on?" We knew something was going on, but we didn't know. And we had heard news, us also, that we were going to be able to get seen by some people outside the guerrilla group to check on us, get messages to our family. So there's an air of expectation. And one thing that happens in captivity, any little bit of hope, man, is like filling your gas tank. So, um, they, uh, come in, tell us that more, just to make sure we're packed. And one thing they did is they took our rucksacks from us. And we just had little bags, nothing to carry, nothing big. And they come over, and the death knell for us was hearing helicopters. It was terrifying, right? Because we knew that's a disembark infel-, whatever.

• 3:18:32Speaker 01

  So they get us up one morning, and they put us out there. "Everybody get in line. Everybody get in line." And then there's a guerrilla hostage, a guerrilla hostage. And the commandante goes, "Hey, folks, if you hear helicopters, don't worry. It's cool. There's no problems." I'm like, what the fuck is going on here? Mark and I are looking at each other. We're just trying to process this, right? All of a sudden, here they come, do, do, do, do, do, helos. So we see the MI come overhead. Just doing a circle. Nobody's, there's no panic, there's no anything. Other guerrillas were there standing around watching us that had never seen us ever before. So we're like, holy geez, what's, what's going down here? And did they look like Red Cross birds? There's been a lot of criticism about that. Yeah, they did.

• 3:19:18Speaker 01

  White and red. I get it. And I'm glad they did. So they go down and get us in the canoes and we cross the river. And we go up into the coca field and we're all standing there. And there's a film of us, there's a film online of this going down of me, bar, we're all talking so. Helicopter lands. While we're all standing there and a fake news crew gets out. We're like, you know? And, uh, the lead Colombian officer from the operation. And you got to make, this is all volunteer, right? So you just had a handful of guys and a woman who was a nurse. A Colombian, was she naval or army? I can't remember.

• 3:20:03Speaker 01

  A woman married with kids volunteered to go in as a nurse. They're all in civilian clothes. I think the pilots, all they had was a pistol stuck in their boot. That was it. They were on their own, man. If this cover was blown. Everybody's dying. So the crew walks up and starts interviewing Cesar, the commandante. And Goffis is there and, and we're all like, what's happening? He, he walked away with the commandante for a little bit and they came back and they had large zip ties. Which we'd already been trained to break out of, right? But still. Um, so I. I said, uh, man, look at that. So some of the Colombian soldiers said, you're not putting

• 3:20:48Speaker 01

  those on me. Couple of soldiers said, I don't care. You're not zip tying me before the helicopter. So this one guy is in front of us. He's got red hair and it's Mark and I and Tom. And he goes, he walks up to me and he's almost in tears. And I said, who are you? He said, I'm from Australia. So I grabbed his ID and I said, this is bullshit. I'm about to blow the whole thing. Actually, up at the unit, when I did the briefing, the Colombian Colonel was up there with the general, General Hutmacher. He said, yes, Stansell almost ruined the whole fucking rescue, being a dumbass. So Mark gets next to me. He goes, I'm from Australia.

• 3:21:30Speaker 01

  I said, you're, I said, Mark, you're not, you're not Australian and you're not from Australia. And he gets nervous and he starts to almost cry. And he goes, look, he said, yeah, you want to go home? Said, yeah. He goes, I mean, he was almost in tears. He goes, please come with us. We're taking you home. So I yelled, Mark, or to Tom, I said, Tom, put those fucking tire wraps on and we, you know, but we almost blew it right there because Mark and I did not believe this guy, which we smell about in a second. And when we did the debrief and saw him again, and Carolina is like, man, you just terrified me. I didn't know what to say to you guys.

• 3:22:11Speaker 01

  But I said, put on the tire wraps. Once we put the tire wraps on, and you can see us, and it's, you can, you can, it's on YouTube. The video's there. I just said, Keith Stansell, five and a half years in the jungle. I didn't know who the fake news crew was, but they legitimately filmed. And we got on the, uh, on the bird. And, um, so they're taking us to certain spots. So we were psychologically profiled, like who's going to be a troublemaker, who's not, you know, who's going to be a troublemaker, who's not. I was in the troublemaker category. Couple other guys were, so I sit down for a second and I start to stand up and this Colombian soldier,

• 3:22:55Speaker 01

  who was basically dressed like a civilian, he just grabs me, slams me in his seat. He said, here, next to me, man, next to me, bro. I said, alright. And so I broke out of my, out of my wraps and just the same trick we're taught, you know, to do that. I still start yelling at Mark. Mark's like, what are you doing? You're gonna get in trouble. I said, break out of the wraps, break out of the wraps. And then Goffas and Cesar were supposed to give up their pistols, but I can't remember if Goffas did, but Cesar kept his. And he's right behind us. And so it was just a flurry, right? Everybody gets on the bird and then they drop a, like a case of beer off next to the aircraft

• 3:23:35Speaker 01

  for those, for those guys and wave at them and, and they pull out the doors and we just pulled up, you know? And I remember the guy looking at me next to me, he's, you know, Colombian SF guy, but he's obviously, and he's like Colombian army motherfuckers, right? So we just all jump on Cesar, cause Cesar pulled a pistol. And Mark has the med kit next to him and they're yelling at Mark, take the needle out and stab him, stab him, stab him with the needle. I just happened to be closest to Cesar, so I got on his chest and that's what your assistant was showing my bloody hand. I mean, they got pictures, I, I just, I hit him in the head a couple of times and then the Colombian really took over doing a number on him.

• 3:24:18Speaker 01

  But he had his hand with the pistol and he, he disarmed him. And it was 30 seconds and it was over. I mean, it was just, it was over. And we're clapping and yelling, they're yelling Colombian army, Colombian army, please. And I mean, the euphoria. I mean, I gotta be careful not to cry right now. It's just incredible. And I look at Tom, I said, Tom, man, we're on this Russian piece of shit helicopter. I hope we get back. We were just, it was a high, it was a high, right? Then Goffas, the abuser, the nasty guy, right? The old man Cesar pulled his, he was gonna go down fighting in the helicopter. Goffas just like a little bitch, just hit the ground. You know, and they pulled his pants down around his ankles.

• 3:25:01Speaker 01

  And he's in his underwear, his little bikinis, you know, and they're holding him. He didn't put up a fight at all. And he had been very abusive to Tom, you know, making Tom put fifteen meters of chain, three, five meter chains around his neck and marching and threatened to shoot Tom one time and, you know, and so it's a couple of minutes into it, everybody's kind of calming down, we're all hugging and high fiving and they've basically shot, I don't know what kind of sentence they gave to Cesar and, you know, they're taking pictures and everything and, um, Tom goes over to Goff's and Mark and I are looking and he kneels down. I know, man, he's just gonna, he's gonna like, and Tom's an old curmudgeon, man. He grew up Cape

• 3:25:42Speaker 01

  Cod, Cole Hoggan, paid for flight school that way. He's a grumpy old bastard, man. He, you know, he's just a no shit kind of guy and stuff. I thought for sure that Tom was gonna do something to Cesar. He just leans over, gets in his face, he taps on my chest, he said, "Good luck." It was the coolest thing in the world, man. Wow. And then we're just, you know, um, then they flew us to a, to a FOB there and we got off of that, you know, off the Hilo, got onto a 130, then we went into the capital. And I remember, I'd like to know who the guy was, um, um, he, I think all the guys there, I don't think there were any SEALs, I think it was all Delta that was on the ground

• 3:26:26Speaker 01

  right there for our bird, I'm not sure. Big old dude, he had an American flag on, I just walked up to him, I just put my arms around him. You know, I saw that flag. And I just like, I was like, "We made it. We made it." And, um, but when I saw him, it was one of our people, I wish I knew who he was, you know? He was laughing at me, he's a big old jerk, I jumped on his ass and just hugged him. And we're going home. So we jumped on the 130 and, you know, we, um, they got us to, uh, basically another base and we jumped

• 3:27:08Speaker 01

  on Arive's, uh, Air Force One, you know, that flew us into Bogota. And we got off of that and then we got on the C-17 and headed home. But it was, it was, um, I mean, it's still emotional.

• 3:27:27Speaker 01

  You know, I think basically four of my friends died looking for me. You know, Tommy didn't make it out. Farden Cruz didn't make it out, you know? So there's a little bit of, um,

• 3:27:43Speaker 01

  it's apprehension, maybe a little guilt, you know? Uh, in there that we made it and they didn't. But I remember getting off them, I and they've got, uh, Goffis and Caesar and cuffs on the ground, you know? And, uh, I was just like, wow. But as I'm getting off the helicopter, I looked down and there's a pile of chains and locks on the floor. And this is sick. I recognized my lock. I'd been wearing it for so many years. So I grabbed my lock and my chain, getting out of the helo. I said, this is coming with me. So they cut off the majority chain for me. I got on the bird and,

• 3:28:28Speaker 01

  but how sick you recognize your own lock. Man. You know? And then it was off to the races, right? You know, um,

• 3:28:38Speaker 01

  it's like what you do here on your show, Sean, is you give a voice to the community. That's why I came to do the show. Thank you. You know, where people can hear what's really going on. And we tried to give a voice, Mark and Tom and I, to the families of those that didn't make it out with us. And we, that's a perfect example. The Colombian hostages did not have the same kind of support that Mark and Tom and I did. You know, we get on the C-17. The ambassador has given us a big hug. We got a medical team, FBI is there.

• 3:29:24Speaker 01

  Now we're civilians and this is a new thing. We're kind of the guinea pigs, right? So, but we're doing a, basically a DOD mission. And some could disagree with that, but we know who directed things.

• 3:29:39Speaker 01

  And so there's my old neighbor on the bird I haven't seen in 20 something years, Doug Sanders, a former Ranger and Army helicopter pilot, and he's in charge, you know, there in San Antonio, the reintegration program for hostages. I'm like, holy shit. And he was having dinner with a friend of mine, hadn't seen in 20 years in Savannah, when the call got, they'd, he even tell him that he was gonna be bringing us home, right? They're waiting on the op to go down. And so, um, it's a small community. And there's, people are patting us on the back, and there's the Air Force crew, and it was fun, it was kinda funny. This Air Force, the flight engineer was on there, and I wear 44 long in a flight suit. And they gave me a brand new flight suit, and I'm like, I gotta wash it like

• 3:30:24Speaker 01

  10 times, man, this thing is too stiff. And the, the flight engineer, I said, I still got his name tag, I said, man, is your flight suit broken? And he said, hell yeah. I said, you want a new one? He said, shit, yeah, we changed right there on the bird. I put his on, cause it was broken in. And then, um, they let us calm down on the C-17 for a little bit, but there was a lot of excitement on President Rebase Bird between the field and getting to Bogota and the Capitol. But when we came off the aircraft, we didn't want to do this and be like the political scene in Columbia. We were hustled off and we rolled. And we were taken care of. You know, and then you start catching up on the real news, right? Stuff that's been going on since you've been gone. And, you know,

• 3:31:08Speaker 01

  that's a whole nother wave of, um, reality. But the rescue, um, I've looked in a modern history of military rescues, I can't find one that matches it without a shot. Not to say that there hadn't been other stuff that's gone down, not a shot fired. Total coup. That a young sergeant, it was his idea, and then obviously support behind it. And the thing that I remember...

• 3:31:43Speaker 01

  The Colombians were in the back of a rebased jet and they had us up front. And we had some people from our government, you know, up front. And I'm like, you got a map? And they're like, why? I said, we know where all the groups are here. And they had them surrounded. And the government said, you know what? We're going to give you a chance to turn yourselves in. We didn't go after them. They could have swooped in there after the rescue and taken out half of the first front, easy. Instead, they just let them roll. I don't understand it. Wow. We had them in the, had them, had them, had them, a few hundred guerrillas right there. And they had the packages around.

• 3:32:26Speaker 01

  Ours, now ours, I don't think would have participated, but our folks were there. Our intel folks were there, you know? And they walked. I don't understand that political decision at all. We had them. And so, um, the flight home was, uh, you're just kind of opened up the radars on and our two FBI agents I talked to occasionally every year or so, one Eddie, about once a year. They have a six pack of beer, cold beer. And here's the joke, we were each to have one cold beer. And then it disappears. So I always say, hey, you guys stole this from us on the flight home, whatever.

• 3:33:11Speaker 01

  But we had to get a, a physical on the plane. You know, check us out medically and, and bring us into San Antonio. And you're just, everybody's talking to you and they're giving you news and it's just, but what they did have, what they did have was pizza. And we ate pizza. And a wild ass story was, Mark, and I'll let Mark correct me, I might miss this, mess this up. Mark made a comment in the morning of our rescue, he said, man, you know what I want?

• 3:33:52Speaker 01

  So what he goes, I want some homemade chocolate chip cookies and I want pizza.

• 3:34:03Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, just brings a moment back, right? And so, we get on the plane and we're like, fuck. I said, dude, you call this? We had fresh pizza on the plane. You know, they come out of Bogota like Domino's Pizza, whatever. So, the pilot in command was a female. And, uh, I remember, if I correctly, there was also a training flight going on. So I think they had an exchange pilot that might have been a Marine. But she walks back and she goes, hey, guys. I go, what? I don't know if you want these, but I got a gift for you. She's what? Here's a bag of chocolate chip cookies. Oh, shit. I don't bake.

• 3:34:47Speaker 01

  I don't know why, but I baked these and I brought them with me. Wow. How about that, man? Hmm. The cookies were the shocker. That's why I like, it was very intense feeling. That's why I tear up. Here's your chocolate chip cookies. Like to bake? No, I just, for some reason, bake these. I think that was. Man, you better start thinking if I have to explain it to you. You know, I mean, so. God patting you on the back. Can you imagine that, though? No. And it wasn't me. It was, it was Mark.

• 3:35:29Speaker 01

  I mean, it was Mark said, yeah, I want pizza and chocolate chip cookies. And I was like, dude. And then I remember, an embarrassing thing. And my wife is upstairs watching. I don't know if I've told her this before or not, so. I look like a bag of shit. I'm a skeleton. You know, I'm 230 now. I was 154, 156, maybe 154. So, there's a flight surgeon. There's like a little room on the C-17 behind with two bunks. It's the crew restroom, right? So we each have to, um...

• 3:36:04Speaker 01

  Get checked out. So we walk in, there's this flight surgeon, probably just this young, very attractive female flight surgeon. And she closes the door. She goes, you got to strip down. I'm like, in front of you? I said, do you have a fat girl on the plane? I'm just, I'm sorry with her. I was like, you got a guy? Like, you know, you, you have it like you're, you're, you look like a bag. I'm like, ma'am, I mean, really? Is this, it's like, this is, you know, I'm wearing fucking bikini underwear. I said, you guys have like an ugly doctor or something, you know? So I was embarrassed, but I did it. I followed through, but it was funny. And I'm like, fuck, I'm wearing bikinis, rubber boots. And

• 3:36:48Speaker 01

  I mean, that is, you know, and I didn't say anything to Mark. I said, Mark, just go under flight surgeons in there. You know, he's like, oh shit, you know, but you know, uh, and, you know, it was just a little embarrassment there. You're like, really? I mean, no shit. Like an old guy, you know, like an old O six with a big beard or something, you know, you know, but, um, and then Doug was laughing about that. And so we get through this and it's all happiness on the plane. And it's really kind of a, just a, a blur getting into Texas. And we land and I remember General Huber getting on the plane and, you

• 3:37:29Speaker 01

  know, here's this big ass green beret and, hey, gentlemen. And we roll to the Blackhawk and I just news cameras everywhere, right? And I'm like, shit, you know? I mean, it's just everywhere news and it's dark, you know, but there's lineup in the flight line. And um, we get on the Blackhawk and boom, we pop to head over to Bamsi to the hospital. And I remember just looking down at all the fast food places. Just going across town, going, I'm going to eat there. I'm going to eat there. I'm going to eat there, you know? And, um,

• 3:38:02Speaker 01

  We got down on the ground and got into the general's, I don't know if it was a suburban or whatever, or was it a van or something, but I remember the SecDef calling him while we're riding over to the hospital. I said, damn. I said, Mark, is the SecDef checking on us? I said, this doesn't really happen that often, right? So, we get into the hospital and they put us in a room. And it was funny, as we're walking down to the ICU, these guys are in spacesuits, like to handle us. They don't know what to do with us, what we have or whatever, right? People are from behind the glass. And each one of us, they kept us in the same room. They're worried about separating

• 3:38:44Speaker 01

  us. They had to evaluate us, right? They're worried about separating us because we've been together for so long. But the TVs were on without the volume. So they were introducing stuff to us. And I remember I look up on the TV and Mark's next to me, and there's A-Rod is dating Madonna, and then next to that headline is the three hostages are out. I said, man, we're famous. A-Rod, Madonna, they're headlining with us. It's funny as shit. You had to laugh at that, right? You had to laugh at that. But one thing that I was nervous about was you have a smell in the jungle, right? One of the first things is when the gorilla captured us was their smell. You could smell

• 3:39:24Speaker 01

  them. That's a group, a big group, right? It's just a smell of, you know, BO in the jungle and whatever, it doesn't work. It's a human's, it's, it's a, it's something you had to get used to. And I worried. I said, man, am I going to smell like that when I see my family? I know it's a small thing, but in back of my head, so we each get to take a shower. And you know, in the hospital, you got that green disinfectant soap. I got in that shower, man, and you've got the handicap handle up there in the showers at the hospital. I wet a towel and I tied that towel. I hadn't had a hot shower in five and a half years. I bet I was in there an hour. I turned the shower off. I got out

• 3:40:06Speaker 01

  and I was like, mm-mm. I went right back in. I took two showers. I took two showers. And, and so we all got showered and, um,

• 3:40:17Speaker 01

  General Huber comes up and there was a black female Colonel. She was an Army doctor. And very kind. And so Huber's like, gentlemen, this French restaurant's open. He had all these really nice restaurants open at midnight for us. And I'm like, sir, I appreciate it, but I don't, I don't want that. He goes, what do you want? I said, I want a cheeseburger fries and a fountain coat. That's what I want. To me, it's just the American meal. I just, that's the thing I could think of. And that female Colonel, who was a doctor, she just leaned over and she tapped me. She said, baby, I'll take care of you.

• 3:41:02Speaker 01

  Like it was like your big sister, the most kind thing in the world. And I said to General Huber, I said, you know, sir, this is pretty good. And he said, what do you mean? I said, I can't remember when I was a sergeant, one a Colonel and a general who cooked me a damn cheeseburger at one o'clock in the morning, but I'll take it. You know? And they took unbelievable care of us, right? And so, um, one of the guys that was a psychologist or counselor, cause each one, we've got one assigned. Everybody's looking at us. He comes in and I think it was Mark said, damn, that, that cologne smells good. And he said, you got any? You know, and he goes, I'll get you guys a bottle of cologne. So he came in later, we each had like a bottle of cologne. So we smelled decent and got us some clothes.

• 3:41:46Speaker 01

  And that was the part where the reunification started. And there'd be a lot of debriefing and, uh, you know, head to toe, taking care of us, even though we were civilian. We volunteered and so DOD there in Bamsley took care of us. And then we really started catching up on the news over the next 48 hours, right? But everybody in the hospital knew who we were. There's news trucks surrounding the place out there, right? So it was kinda odd that everywhere you went, people are like, you couldn't, you know, that's why I say the five minutes of fame. I was so glad when that was over. And anonymity is a, anonymity is a big thing, right? Yeah, I'm sure you're learning that. And, um,

• 3:42:33Speaker 01

  Unbelievable care for us and took care of us, housed our families, you know, and we had to reintegrate with the families, which that was a big deal. And that that brings out a lot there. I remember my father, you know, Korean War vet. He's standing there wobbling when I get to see him, you know, and I just, you know, I just put my arms around him and he said, "Son, I knew you'd make it. I knew you'd make it."

• 3:43:06Speaker 01

  But what do you do when you, you know, I heard a message from my son, my son's six, seven, he's 245, he's a big dude. He was a little 10 year old when I got captured, you know, in a year and a half till we got into the jungle with the politicians. I hear a message from him, like he's 11 years old and he's, you know, he's apologizing for missing my birthday and Christmas, like, "I've done something wrong. He's done something wrong. It broke my heart in captivity," you know, but that was the big thing there. I knew, you know, we were going to have a hurdle, an emotional hurdle for the first

• 3:43:45Speaker 01

  time to get past. And it, I mean, even now, I'm not much of a crier, I don't think, but the emotion comes up and you just, that you kind of relive that. And we, you know, I think all of us handle it in our own way, right? You know, like, the funny thing was is Mark's mom was the squeaky wheel, man. Every news show, every politician in Colombia flying back and forth, riding President Ribeiro's ass and all. So he gave her a special presentation later on in DC and gave her citizenship in Colombia for being such a pain in the ass trying to get your wife out. The president of Colombia, she actually broke his ass.

• 3:44:29Speaker 01

  That was good. And, you know, a lot of good stuff to come after that, but.

• 3:44:35Speaker 01

  It uh, five and a half years, man. I mean, you're like, wow. And I remember my son, uh, I had heard about iPods, a little bitty one, but I've never seen one. And so he walks up to me and I said, what do you have? It's an iPod, Dad. I said, give me that son of a bitch, right? I said, I just mean, he said, Dad, he said, what? He might not like all the music that's on there. I said, I'm good. Don't worry about it. But technology had also passed us by. You know, do you remember back in the day, a Motorola little Starlink, not the Starlink modern today, opened a flip phone, sixty or ninety characters of text, and I carried a big sat phone?

• 3:45:19Speaker 01

  And we were, that's like cutting edge, right? You know, I remember my company coming to the hospital, bringing us each a laptop. And they're like, login. And I'm like, boy, how do I do that? You know, we had, you know, things had happened. And um, so it took a little time for the wheels to catch up. You know, I think. And there's a picture here of Tom on the phone in a restaurant that opened on a Sunday that was closed. And he's on the phone. A guy that I, I want to give thanks to, Chuck Norris, he calls us.

• 3:46:02Speaker 01

  He goes, hey, guys. And uh, we're like, what? You know, he goes, listen, a lot of people are gonna be coming at you, news and everything. And he knew the reintegration folks. He's a behind the scenes supporter, doesn't say a word. He said, my ranch is ready for you guys and your families if you need privacy. You can meet me there or not, it doesn't matter. You're welcome to come here. You're welcome to come here if you need a place, a safe haven. Wow. He wanted nothing out of it. Nobody even knew he called us. But the funny thing is, here is a funny story.

• 3:46:40Speaker 01

  I didn't know how much Mark liked Norris as an actor. So as we say, we're arguing about everything, we're laying in the jungle at night and this starts a fucking war. Mark's talking about how awesome an actor Chuck Norris is. And I'm like, Mark, he's a B movie actor. He's not an A movie. He said he's the shit, man. And Tom goes, Tom was just needling Mark, right? He goes, shit, that's all bullshit. And Mark's no, cause I mean, Norris is a legit karate guy, legit. Tom's like, he says, shit, if I saw Chuck Norris, I'll whoop his fucking ass, right? Mark's like, you could never kick his ass. This is, they're yelling, right? Mark's like, if, Tom's like, if I ever get to see him, I'm kicking his ass.

• 3:47:23Speaker 01

  Well, then on the phone, holy shit. Tom confesses to Norris, he said, Chuck, I gotta tell you, I'm sorry. So what I told Mark in the jungle, I saw you whip your ass. He said, I'm gonna take that back. So, I mean. You know, I mean, come on.

• 3:47:44Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:47:44Speaker 01

  You know, I mean, come on. And then, you know, the jungle, the whole time it was like, Tom's like, I could take Chuck Norris. You know, just silly shit. This is triggering me remembering stuff here, you know? But a lot of people that didn't want any, any credit, and Norris didn't want any. It was basically a secret call through actually Doug Sanders who knew him. And he was just gonna make that offer. And he said, we'll get you out here, get your family out here. You guys need a piece, you got all the time you want. So I thought that was pretty, we didn't accept it because we, we didn't need it. But the fact the guy took his time out to make the offer, and I found out later, he's done a bunch of stuff. Doesn't say a word. You know, I mean, come on. You know, that was.

• 3:48:29Speaker 01

  And then afterwards, laughing at Tom about apologizing to Chuck Norris about wanting to kick his ass. That was funny, you know? Obviously Chuck took it, was laughing, and that was a whole joke.

• 3:48:40Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I would imagine coming back is just a whole mix of feelings and maybe some new fears. I mean, did you have any fears about coming back about maybe your family had moved on?

• 3:48:53Speaker 01

  I did not have any fears. Um, obviously my significant other that I wasn't married to, she moved on and got married. That was okay. Um. I that captivity buried the hatchet was my father and I. So it repaired our relationship there. Um, some tragedies, you know, people dying. I had a first cousin who was like a big brother to me, really more an uncle. And I wanted to see him and, you know, my dad asked to pull me aside and said, no, he got killed, you know, in a car crash, but, you know, truck crash.

• 3:49:35Speaker 01

  And then some of your friends, you know, some trap people had passed. They're like, oh shit, you know, they were young. And then the whole thing where you guys were at, the whole thing in the sandbox. I mean, we weren't there watching it on TV every night. So the whole escalation of the war in the Middle East for us was like, holy shit. You know, to really see it. Um, just like I give an example of the CEO at the time of Verizon. Um, we made comments, something about cell phones or whatever. And just to knock at the door one day in this backpack with all these gifts and the latest and greatest, which then they called it a smartphone, it wasn't compared to today, was

• 3:50:21Speaker 01

  from the CEO. And he's like, hey, welcome back, guys. Maybe this will help you a little bit. Some anonymous people did some things for us, not necessarily monetarily right, but did some things, you're like, wow, somebody's really thinking. And, um, but just, um, trying to adjust to life and something that I was saying about Hilo was difficult for me. So my parents have a house rented for me. And it's a big, a bigger, more beautiful home than I've ever lived in. And, uh, I roll in there, like, can I afford this? And my dad's like, yeah, you can afford it.

• 3:51:04Speaker 01

  And, you know, I mean, the best savings program in the world is get six years of pay, right? So, you know, our company took care of us.

• 3:51:12Speaker 01

  The son of a bitch about that thing was the instrument holding pattern for rotor wing aircrafts. How the airport was right over my flipping house. So I'm laying in bed the first night and I hear a helicopter and I sat up like, holy shit, you know, but then it became a joke, right? It actually helped me. But um, you know, the army each had a psych force. Mine was a wonderful guy and we had a wonderful chaplain that really helped us. And so we were followed and we were helped. The company gave us six or eight months off, I think. And then um, they really took care of us. And uh, we all had jobs. And so um,

• 3:51:55Speaker 01

  Mark basically retired almost immediately. He did some security work for the company, but Mark was ready to retire. Tom retired a little bit too. I was the only one that really stayed on. And um, so, but just getting your feet on the ground, just trying to, you know, get up and turn on a stove, just look at, oh my God, I can turn a stove on or, you know. We used to urinate in a, in a plastic bottle. So if I sat up out of my hammock, I had to ask guard permission to urinate and he'd put a flashlight on you. You pee in a bottle. It's like, well, I can go to the bathroom alone. I don't have to ask anybody. But these, this thing is ingrained in your head, right? So even though you know you can get up and go to the bathroom or go to the kitchen, do something, you're still kind

• 3:52:40Speaker 01

  of like psychologically, you're just decompressing. So there was a large adjustment on that. I can imagine. A large adjustment on that. And I just thank God for the help that the three of us had compared to other people, you know? And then we knew our future was going to change, right? For all of us. And

• 3:53:04Speaker 01

  I have not done, I can't remember the last time I did a television interview. But the first couple of years out, there was a lot of demand. And we wrote our book, we had to do like a book tour and stuff like that. And then, you know, um, it was the five minutes of fame. And I will tell you this, when that was over, it was fine with me. I learned one thing, um, after you, especially up in New York City and you're doing these talk shows and all this stuff, right? There are some people who just eat that up and they want to just be in front of the camera. They just want, um, I wanted to support our mission and what we were about and our book and all of that stuff.

• 3:53:50Speaker 01

  But, um, I didn't really necessarily want to do that. And I'll never forget, I'm leaving New York City, I go to the airport and our book has just been launched. And they say number one New York Times, no, it's number two. And the publishers are, you know, going back and forth and arguing. So I walk into a bookstore in the airport and there's like a hundred of our books stacked up in this big elaborate display and there's a cardboard cut out of pictures of us. And I just stood there in front of it. Not a person recognized me. I'm on the news, we're on the news, you know, we do the, you know, I'm just standing there. I'm like, it's kind of funny. And I'm sitting there, people picking up the book and buying it and looking at it.

• 3:54:34Speaker 01

  And I'm really humbled, but I was like, wow. You know, and, uh, I'll never forget, I walked into a Target and I didn't know that Starbucks is in Target or whatever, and I got a cup of coffee. And, uh, this guy walks up behind me and he just whispers in my ear. He goes, hey, bro, I got the coffee, welcome back. Wow, they walked away. Didn't want to do anything else, you know, so I was like, wow.

• 3:55:08Speaker 01

  And then I got rolled up into the whole, basically, you know, reintegration for other people and a guinea pig for the Bergdahl thing and, you know, um, there were other things that were happening. And then you're balancing your professional life and my company gave me a lot of leeway, right? And a lot of support. And so, um, it ended up working out. But I think, um, just that transition back. And it was a few months into where, you know, it was, uh, it was just a lot going on. I mean, you go to a, uh, I was delivered to my parents' house first, right?

• 3:55:49Speaker 01

  We come off a private jet and there's a security team and there's, there must be 50 news trucks out there. Right? And so I asked everybody, I said, hey, I'll send my daughter, my son out to talk to you. I just need a little downtime, but you could talk to my kids. So they interviewed my children. And I went in with my old man and I sat out back with him by the pool and just, you know, he's, he had that clarity of thought, kind of telling me what I needed to do. And, uh, looked outside a couple hours later, the news trucks were gone. So the security guy from our company actually drove us, I don't know what it was to get, um, oh, I know what it was. Wendy's chili.

• 3:56:32Speaker 01

  My dad and my son would always make a run of my dad like Wendy's chili. So we went to get that and when we came back in, there was a reporter, her and her cameraman were there. But the van was closed up and all. Then they said, hey, we don't want to put a camera on it. We just want to just give you a hug and thanks. And they left. I thought it was very human of them to do that. But that's a lot of stuff, right? I mean, for you, Sean, taking your show to where it's going, right? A transition to where nobody knows you, you're in your garage doing your thing or whatever. Then it's like, hey, can I have a little space or a little piece or everybody wants to touch the magic, right?

• 3:57:13Speaker 01

  And I don't fault them for it, but, you know, how many touches can you get before they start stripping stuff off you, right? So where's your responsibility to kind of tell your story and support, but then keep this straight? So I think we did a good job of it. You know, we're all healthy and happy and, you know, Tom's up in Tennessee. Somewhere he's got a little cattle farm, he's raising cows and I think his son's up there with him. We don't talk to Tom as much. I mean, every few months we check in or whatever. Mark lives, you know, less than an hour south of me, so my wife and his wife and him, we're close.

• 3:57:54Speaker 01

  One of the seventh group guys retired down there, CW5, and a couple of my peers, you know, that worked SOCOM and all are close and we've got a good network of friends. But, um, yeah, it's been, this has really come to do the show was kind of a reawakening of sense where I, or, and I know after this interview's done, stuff's gonna pop into my head that I remember, but, you know, I think we all came out okay. You know, we always said, and I told, told Mark and Tom this, I said, "Look, we're affected. We just don't know till we get home." Right? And I don't think anybody, um, I think everybody came out good.

• 3:58:39Speaker 01

  You know? Our lives are changed forever. I think in the long run, this was a gift for me, but it's enabled me to do some things that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do. I don't think so by the odds, but I wouldn't go back through it for anything. You know, and we have to forget some people didn't make it out. And unfortunately, world's upside down, right? So some of the stuff that I did to support SERE when I came back and go talk to DOD folks in active duty was just a win for me, is if I can give them anything that may help them if it happens to them or somebody else, it's a win. That's why, just doing the show is just to give back to the community, you know, which

• 3:59:23Speaker 01

  you're already doing, you know? What was it like to see the twins? Um, you know, my father was the hardest.

• 3:59:35Speaker 01

  The twins were kind of emotional for a few minutes, but then

• 3:59:42Speaker 01

  they had brought so many toys and gifts in for those two little kids and they brought us into this room. They were just like, you know, hey dad, you know, whatever. And their mom had put a picture of me by the bed. So they knew who I was. But it was whether with my children, the twins, my father, any of my family there, right? I could only take about 10 minutes and I had to get out. It was the, um,

• 4:00:11Speaker 01

  I'm looking for the right word, uh, the energy. Overwhelming. Overwhelming. And they told us that, you know, and when I walked in to, to see everybody, I was very happy.

• 4:00:25Speaker 01

  But then it got to where I almost couldn't breathe and I, and I had to roll out. I had to do it, you know, over the next day or so. I had to take it in. And just chunks and pieces. And, you know, the psych was there saying, this is totally normal. You're going to be overwhelmed. And we were, you know, and I remember, uh, the first night having my own room, being by myself. Uh, in my, in my room in the hospital. Just laying there, kind of breathing, you know? Nobody around you, solo for the first time in years. I was able to kind of decompress. You know, and I remember talking to Mark the next morning, our rooms were too far apart and said, how are you feeling? He said, yeah, man, this is, this is a lot.

• 4:01:10Speaker 01

  Right? It's a lot. So, um, and then, you know,

• 4:01:16Speaker 01

  the reunification with your family, then the reintegration process. But something that really shocked me was, um, one of the psychs said, hey Keith, the guys in the burn unit want to see you. If you guys would make time for them. Bamsley has an unbelievable burn unit for paraplegics, everybody, all wounded veterans, right? And so, um, I'm like, okay, let's go see them, right? They saw us on TV, they know we're in the building. These guys have lost arms, limbs, eyes, you know? And as we're rolling in there, there's this kid, and he was a guardsman, he was like a spec four. And he's in a wheelchair with all four arms and all four legs, and there's screws down

• 4:02:01Speaker 01

  every single leg and every single arm, right? You guys, you came, you guys came, we've been waiting for you to come. And his mom was with him. He goes, man, I'm sorry for you guys, I hate you guys had to go through it. And he's like this, you know? And I said, how are you? He was an IED, struck, got hit by, he said, I'm good. He said, why? He said, because I'm gonna walk. And he, he didn't, he said, I'll, once they get all these fractures done, he said, I'm, I'm good. He said, the guys inside aren't. And when I actually went in the unit, and we just started shaking hands, or stumps, or, you know, and saw those guys.

• 4:02:41Speaker 01

  That's when the war set in, like, whoa, this stuff been going on now, you know? And to see the care that those servicemen were getting, you know, in there, tier one, just tier one. But to see, I remember the next day, we had a tour of the facility, and they had a wave machine, right? And there was a sergeant in there, young black guy, I think he just had one arm. And he's the fucking wave machine instructor, bitch got on the surfboard, he's on his stumps, and he's like, what are you doing? He's, he's got a purpose, right? He said, I'm rehabilitating people. Right?

• 4:03:26Speaker 01

  And just like his attitude and everything, and he had, I can't remember, I think he, he was below the knee, and totally one arm, he got up, put on, he's talking to us, then another guy's in there, he's a shooting instructor, and the one guy in the surf was burned over like eighty percent of his body, just head to toe. And his attitude, man, was like, holy geez. Just like, and I'm looking at all these people, like, we didn't go through shit.

• 4:04:02Speaker 01

  You know, so to see what all those men and women went through, right? And they're scarred forever, right? They're gonna adjust the way they do things forever. It was very humbling. I was like, we didn't do anything. You know? You know, we didn't do anything. But I'll never forget the kid. He's just young spec four and he's like this and he's like, no, I'm good. When they get this shit out, I'm walking. Fine. I'm like, okay. But you know, he said, they're waiting for you. And his mom was thanking us for taking the time to talk to him. Like, no, man, that guy's, you know, talking to you guys. That's what it's about. It's amazing what the human mind can overcome. You guys, look at that.

• 4:04:47Speaker 01

  I, I think. Five years. Yeah. Yeah. It's a. It's, it's amazing what so many of those people just went through. But to come back to everything that had been happening was, you know, an eye opener. An eye opener. You know? Just taking for granted, getting in your truck and going to get a burger. How long did it take you to reintegrate? Um. I don't know. I saw a counselor, probably for a year. A transition from the army counselor to civilian counselor. It was more like checkups.

• 4:05:31Speaker 01

  I think we reintegrate reintegrated pretty quickly within months because we were so busy. Right? And so we were going and visiting places, speaking, legal stuff started to happen. So we were, you know, I had to find a house. And everybody had needed furniture and clothing. And I mean, start from scratch, right? So there were things that kept you occupied. If we would've just come back, sit in a hospital somewhere, I don't know what would've happened. But I think we all, now, we all had challenges.

• 4:06:10Speaker 01

  You know, I wasn't married, so I didn't come back to a divorce like Mark and Tom did. So for them, you know, they had a lot to take on personally when they got back. And they did amazing. But you have personal challenges and your professional challenges. Or what are we doing? Or we have a job. And, you know, it sounds funny, but it wasn't funny to us, you know? So, I mean, worrying about, of course, we had a job, right? But we didn't know what's actually all going on. So I remember my father sent me down by the pool the night that I got back. He goes, "Take a deep breath. You got no more worries." He said, "Just let it unfold.

• 4:06:55Speaker 01

  You're okay. Just let it unfold." Then my father saw from A to Z, man. He just, he was like that. And it did. And it was bumpy, you know? Some parts were, I was saying it was like all kumbaya. We're all dancing in a rose garden. But we had good support around us. And, and we had each other. And we had an amazing legal team. You know, we've got two attorneys. One's never been in the military. And one is a 160th plank holder. So I told Mark and Tom, because I'd been through something with, with our attorneys before,

• 4:07:36Speaker 01

  with one in particular, when, you know, we saw the guy shot down there. He, basically, I was telling, a friend of mine is retired 75th regiment guy about this. He said, "Oh, my brother is the attorney representing him down there." So I met him like a day later. And I was doing some other stuff he helped me with. And so when I was in captivity, I told Mark and Tom, I said, "I don't care what anybody does, but this is the guy I'm going to." And I'm not going to mention him now, but people in the community know him and he's, he's a genius. And his other part that was civilian assault, like brilliant too. So those two guys have taken care of all three of us.

• 4:08:20Speaker 01

  And you had somebody that had your back. But I told those guys, I said, "That's, I don't care if my family's doing anything. This is who I have confidence in, this is who I'm going with." And they've made a difference in our lives. But they're patriots too. So, you know, kind of funny in the community, your lead guy is a 160th plank holder. And then the other guy was a college swimmer, U of M, brilliant, and those two took care of us. But like I said, see, we had this team of people that just kind of fell in around us that were there to help us 24/7.

• 4:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's good.

• 4:08:58Speaker 01

  And it made a difference.

• 4:08:59Shawn Ryan?

  What happened to the guy that took the M4 and said he was gonna kill anybody that rescued you with it?

• 4:09:08Speaker 01

  So, um, the last time I saw him, he had the M4 around his chest and he's all proud and he rides off with these ponies, right? Short guy, probably 5'9", but a big fat belly. And so, um, we're with the FBI and their office is in Miami and, uh, we had a wonderful female agent down there who sees family care, like that's what she does. You know, she looks after victims, crime victims. Name's Dahlia, wonderful woman. And then Eddie, one of the guys that's on the plane, is down there and he goes, "Let me show you something." He brings in the M4. There's a hole through the, you know, through the magazine well. And I'm like,

• 4:09:53Speaker 01

  "That's my M4?" Obviously Mill Group, I signed out for Mill Group. He goes, "Yep." And I said, "Well, where'd the hole come from?" "Your boy, when they went into, to, to bump his camp, he said that's where he took him around." So for me to see the M4 there with a hole through the magazine well, that the fat guy was carrying, you know, I was like, I told him I wouldn't want to fight our people, you know. And I told him, I said, "I don't want to fight our guys, why do you?" Which is, it was Bravo, right? And I asked, asked him if I could keep the rifle and obviously it's evidence, so I can't keep it. But I did a write letter, you know, "I wish they could de-mill it or something or let me have it." I mean, you know, put it above the fireplace, but that's a heck of a story, you know?

• 4:10:38Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 4:10:39Speaker 01

  But yeah, I guess he, you know, I guess he, he had it on when he went down.

• 4:10:45Shawn Ryan?

  Man. And you went back to work?

• 4:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:10:50Shawn Ryan?

  You were on the bird dormage?

• 4:10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was a Guinea pig.

• 4:10:57Speaker 01

  So the reintegration folks, along with other government folks, were always training to bring him back and others. I was used with reintegration guys as kind of a guinea pig. Like, how would I react? If you and your buddies come in to get me, what do you think I'm gonna do? So it was all a profile issue. And what I learned about what really happened with Bergdahl, it wasn't the story that the news was painting. Did he do something wrong?

• 4:11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not agreeing with the way it went down. But Real quick, why don't you paint the story of what the media was saying? Well, he basically deserted, right? Which he did. He rolled up and he, you know, he rolled out. I did not learn until reintegration and a few soft guys who were in reintegration that handled his reintegration. He had some legitimate concerns about what was going on. And I don't think that they were handled correctly.

• 4:12:19Speaker 01

  And Doug calls me one day from BAMC and said that Bo had handed out a few gifts to everybody. And I never met him face to face. I was just a guinea pig guy. Now I interface with his parents. And so he said he brought us all a compass to give us so we never lose our way. Right? Some kind of, you know, you know, kind of deep stuff there. And those guys who are hardcore soft guys, their job was not to judge. Their job was to reintegrate. And I always told everybody, the mission there, although difficult because

• 4:13:02Speaker 01

  the actions that were taken, you still gotta stay mission focused, right? So, I remember I was on CNN doing an interview. And Cuomo asked me, Chris Cuomo asked me about Bergdahl. And what he'd done, and I said, "It doesn't matter." And they said, "What?" I said, "Our job, he's got a green ID card, is we bring him back. Then we judge him for right or wrong. Not the Taliban, not anybody else. But we judge him." And I saw my guys that had to actually, friends of mine, care for this guy?

• 4:13:39Speaker 01

  And they come from your community and all, but then they also know what went down? Tough mission for them. Because they took a lot of criticism, right, or a lot of heat. A lot of people did not care for what he did, understandably so. And I'm not justifying what he did. But imagine being in those shoes. But I believed in the integration mission that I don't care if you're a mass murderer, or you're innocent. We judge you by our standards here. Right? Guilty or not guilty? And so, I thought that was an important mission to support. Now, um, I really didn't think it was gonna take as long as it did to get him out. And I remember getting a call, and I have to be delicate on this, um,

• 4:14:25Speaker 01

  from the Green side. And, you know, his father was kinda living vicariously through his captivity, and, you know, they wanted me to do the first initial talk. And I had a phone call with his mother, his father, and their attorney.

• 4:14:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, it was...

• 4:14:46Speaker 01

  It was interesting. It was interesting. And I don't want to...

• 4:14:53Speaker 01

  Criticize anybody here, I don't think it's necessary, you know? But there was a reluctance on the active duty side to engage with them. And I understood why, once I spoke with him. But I, I, I remember there was a funeral. And he was standing around a bunch of active duty guys who were at this funeral. Nobody even knew he was. So I think that I've heard a lot in the community about how many people died looking for him. I think that's been exaggerated. And I'm not demeaning any of that. But that's the truth. If you want the truth, Sean, I'll just, that's the truth. I just remember, we'd do a workup. I'd fly out, I was the guinea pig.

• 4:15:38Speaker 01

  And you had your HRT folks, you had your guys from the different places. And those guys, what's the plan? What do we do? We get them out? How do we do that? And the same with Levinson and I ran, we did the same thing with him. And I just thought it was very difficult to see two of my friends have to take on that mission. Right? Because everybody's supposed to hate this guy, right? You're supposed to eat a dessert, and we hate him, all this stuff, right? Well, their job was to look past that. Get this finished and then command can take over as what they're gonna do. And it was tough. It was tough in one Doug Sanders, God rest his soul. He's deceased now. But he, he, you know, he led that up with some other guys.

• 4:16:20Speaker 01

  And, you know, guys I have tremendous respect for. But to be put in that position, right? You're gonna catch a lot of heat. But you still have to do your job. So, yeah. I, I don't agree with what happened at all. I don't support what he did at all. But I can understand the mindset. And it

• 4:16:49Speaker 01

  That's another casualty of war, right? In a sense, people are put in extreme positions and they do extreme things. Not everybody handles it the same way. I don't think he handled it correctly, right? But you ask me, right? Hey, are you willing to be a guinea pig? Would you come back? Well, of course, that's the mission. My mission is not to judge, right? Your folks, hey, whatever I can do. I still believe I made the right choices. I think the guys that reintegrated him did an unbelievable job. Would I want to be in their shoes? No. No. I mean, would you? No.

• 4:17:30Speaker 01

  But given that mission, right? So that was pretty dicey. And, you know, a lot of people paid a price with that. I do think it might have been exaggerated. Some of the stories I heard did not fit with what I saw. But why argue about it? You know? And I was in no, I was in no position of authority either. I was a supporter, right? Didn't make a, didn't make a rat's ass what my opinion was. I wasn't a decision maker, right? But people who I greatly, greatly respect, you know, from the SOF community,

• 4:18:15Speaker 01

  I would say, man, but they did their job. They did their job. And I, I, I respect them for it. But, you know, how hard was that? Because that was a bad, that was a bad deal. Yeah. You know? But, I mean, I don't know. I just said, you want me to go do this? I'll do this. You know? I did, I never, I never thought my position was to make a call. They needed somebody to do something for them. Like I said, I was just a guinea pig. That's all it was. You know, and then a couple of debriefings with some folks. How would I react? What would I do? What do you think? Well, all I can do is give you my opinion, right?

• 4:18:59Speaker 01

  Another person may do a totally different thing. You know, but the effort, and this is what I do respect. And this is what I think maybe is a better answer to your question. The effort that we put to get An American back regardless of what he's done is what makes us different. It can be distasteful and I know it was for many, right? But that's what separates us. That's what makes that flag different than other flags. And so I always stood by that. You know, you got a green ID card? We'll bring you back. What happens after that?

• 4:19:44Speaker 01

  That's on you. But it also says to me, how about the future people? Hey, if we'll go to this effort to get that person back, for sure I'm coming back. Right? If you rolled up other, other circumstances. So there's a bigger message sent there that I believe in. It's a damn good point. You know? It's a damn good point. You know? And I'm not saying to agree or not agree. I'm looking at a bigger picture. I know once, when those Colombians have said, we're glad you're here. Why? Because Americans are never abandoned. You know, there was a, was it a year and a half ago? And I haven't followed the Africa thing too much, but didn't we rescue a female American missionary?

• 4:20:29Speaker 01

  Was it your, one of your, some of your guys? Was it a group of seals or was it a unit? But in, in a British guy, right? And I don't know if you know the people that were in on that or whatever. But I saw the guy's interview and he said, you know what I was happy about? He said, what? He said, she was in America. Thank you, America. That was my biggest hope. I don't know if I had that story confused, but I was reading about it not too long ago. But I thought it was in Africa. Was she a missionary, whatever? There's been a couple. Yeah. But his interview, all he did was thank the US Armed Forces. That's all he did. He couldn't say enough about us. He goes, if it had just been me, shit, I'm still there.

• 4:21:13Speaker 01

  So that is, I think, the message that I would want to send, that no matter the what, we're going to bring you back.

• 4:21:27Speaker 01

  Because that means others are gonna believe in us and that we're coming to get them, right? You know? So I, I think that overrides what he did. Because it's not about him, it's about us and what we do. And it's about sacrifice.

• 4:21:44Shawn Ryan?

  It's a damn good message that I've never heard.

• 4:21:47Speaker 01

  I just happen to be around there, you know, watching the whole thing and play my little part. But I believe in that message more than... Like, how do I get justice? How do Mark and Tom and I really get justice? How do the people that were looking for me that died get justice? I don't have the answer. I wanna get healthy, I wanna have happiness. What is justice? Like, if I killed every person that had me in captivity, is that justice? Would it make me feel any better? No. You know, surviving is my justice, but that's the definition for myself. So unpleasant or not, I think we send a bigger message.

• 4:22:30Speaker 01

  Now, if I'm a family member that lost somebody that was doing an op, it's probably not acceptable for them. But I'd ask that same family member, "What if you got somebody else and goes down? It's a family member, they know we're coming." There was no win in that either, I don't believe. I, I, how do you win in that? Right? No matter what, you know, we're going after them. Right? We don't know what the price is, we don't know who's gonna pay, but we're going. And I think when you sign the dotted line, you accept that responsibility.

• 4:23:14Speaker 01

  Right and wrong? I mean, shit, Sean, your show's all about what's right, what's wrong, right? How do you define it? So, I don't know. But I think our message that we send is most important. And my heart goes out to anybody that made a sacrifice on that. I, I don't wanna discount that at all. But I'm not making that judgment.

• 4:23:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:23:36Speaker 01

  Does that make sense at all?

• 4:23:38Shawn Ryan?

  Makes perfect sense.

• 4:23:39Speaker 01

  You know?

• 4:23:40Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's an aspect I've never thought of. It's a bigger message in that.

• 4:23:45Speaker 01

  I mean, and they're not all public. Uh, there was...

• 4:23:53Speaker 01

  I'll just leave it as a foreigner that was rescued by our people less than a year after me and was reintegrated, okay?

• 4:24:05Speaker 01

  Through our own folks that I got to work with and

• 4:24:12Speaker 01

  you know, some operators showed up and got him out. And all he wants to be is a US citizen with him and his family. And when I say patriot and an appreciation. And I was only working with him for a little, little bit, mainly telephone calls. Right? Got to meet him and all, but he called me, I was really a part of a support network. I'm like, I called Doug, I said, Doug, I said, he goes, yeah, we do a lot of people, Keith, we don't advertise it, right? And I said, what's he want? He, he just wants to be a citizen. He's the biggest, he's the biggest convert ever, right? And so, you know, how many undocumenteds, let's say, or unadvertised?

• 4:24:57Speaker 01

  Have you and your friends done? Right? So that, that's a bigger message. But now, let's just say I had a spouse or a brother or somebody that paid a price during that mission. It'd be pretty hard for me to stomach. If I even could.

• 4:25:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:25:19Speaker 01

  You know?

• 4:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Keith, what are you doing now to keep busy?

• 4:25:23Speaker 01

  Uh, my wife says I'm giving fat.

• 4:25:29Speaker 01

  I retired about four and a half years ago. And so we lived down in Sarasota and I loved to hunt and fish. And my wife is a foodie. Craft cocktail person, excellent cook. I never enjoyed anything as far as traveling or eating. So she's kind of exposed me to that. So now I drink some foo foo drinks that I would have never drank before. And eat some food that I never ate before. You know, I never ate a salad. I was 54 years old. I never ate a salad until I met my wife. And so we travel and we've got some real estate rental stuff that we dabble in,

• 4:26:10Speaker 01

  you know, we built a few things just for rentals, but we, um, we are considering a move. Everybody's moved to Florida. Thank you. I appreciate you guys have whatever, right? But, uh, we're looking at maybe, um, moving somewhere a little more rural. We had some property up in Georgia that we just sold to my best friend a few weeks ago. Actually says S and S properties and his last name starts with an S and I, he's a redneck genius. He's a redneck that has a chemical engineering degree and had a, a third generation tow truck company and took it to a different level. So that's his logo. He came up with it. That, that was our LLC. I wear this hat everywhere, but, uh, gonna travel, get a little healthier.

• 4:26:55Speaker 01

  And, uh, we just came back from a great fishing trip and, you know, whatever else she puts on the calendar, you know? Enjoying life. As best we can, as best we can, which is, uh, but that sounds negative. No, yes, we are. We are enjoying life. Um, it's funny though. I'm 60 now and I don't feel 60 till I look in the mirror. You know, I imagine myself a different way. And so, um, it's kind of that time of change, you know? But I, I want to make memories now. Um, we're in a position where life is good and we can make choices. But I wonder, and I talk about what my good friends with us, I said, can I make it to 75 before she puts me in an orange flag wheelchair

• 4:27:39Speaker 01

  and remote controls me around? Or will I make it to 80? But there's like, there's this physical window now, right? It's the fourth quarter. And I, um, I was on a mountain last year on a sheep hunt and I finished my sheep grand slam. My mentor in the sheep world, seventy-four years old, he was out doing me on the mountain, right? I'm a flatlander, whatever, but with some of the stuff that we do, what's really been on my conscience now is, how long will I be able to physically enjoy it? Now, I don't think in a year or two I'm out, and I don't feel, I know people doing a lot of different things, but talking to my friend, I'm like, my best buddy, and I was, what do you think? He said, no, Keith, it's, it's, it's the fourth quarter now, now how long

• 4:28:22Speaker 01

  it is, or how good we do, but things start changing physically a little quicker as you get older, right? So, we want to travel, and we want to make memories. And I've been luckily, health-wise, I've got great health, I've been very fortunate. But, you know, we've had a few friends that have died, you know? Someone we know now is just a few years older than me, he's just come up with a stomach cancer issue, you know? So, at this age, things start to drop, right? And so, I want to take this time while I can still do things physically, and I don't think it's running out in ten years or anything, but the point is, it's got me thinking different, you know?

• 4:29:06Shawn Ryan?

  You being through what you've been through, thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven days in captivity.

• 4:29:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. No getting that back.

• 4:29:17Shawn Ryan?

  Do you value relationships more than you used to?

• 4:29:21Speaker 01

  Ooh, that's a tough question.

• 4:29:27Speaker 01

  I don't think so. Those would be a little mercenary.

• 4:29:35Speaker 01

  I value a real relationship more than I used to.

• 4:29:38Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's what I'm getting at.

• 4:29:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:29:40Shawn Ryan?

  Relationship with your dad, your son.

• 4:29:41Speaker 01

  Yes, a real relationship, yes.

• 4:29:43Shawn Ryan?

  Wife.

• 4:29:44Speaker 01

  Yes, yes. Those in the peripheral.

• 4:29:49Speaker 01

  It's a fact of life, you, people move in and out of each other's lives, right? And so, um, where's your circle? Where's your circle? You know, my problem is I have too big of a mouth and I'm too open. I don't think it's changing. I'm trying to, but let's see how that works out, right? My openness has cost me. It's cost me and, you know, um, I'm working on that. I think my circle will only become smaller. Not that I don't like people or a social thing or making friends, but you know, it's a,

• 4:30:34Speaker 01

  it makes you kind of define, is this a real, true friendship or not? Or is this just something casual?

• 4:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  I'm with you. I mean, the way I think about it is, you know, if you had 24 friends.

• 4:30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:30:53Shawn Ryan?

  You're away for, let's say 12 hours a day. You want to develop those relationships. You can only give 30 minutes a day to each person.

• 4:31:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:31:04Shawn Ryan?

  But as your circle gets smaller and you get more particular about who you care about and who you give your time to.

• 4:31:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:31:13Shawn Ryan?

  Whittle that down to 12, then it's an hour for each person a day. Whittle that down to six, that's two.

• 4:31:21Speaker 01

  Two.

• 4:31:22Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and so, you know, what I've noticed through, through my journey is yeah, everybody, everybody wants to be your friend. Everybody wants, you know?

• 4:31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:31:34Shawn Ryan?

  And you gotta be careful because the relationships that really do matter, they suffer because then you start divvying up time.

• 4:31:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:31:42Shawn Ryan?

  And nothing really grows.

• 4:31:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:31:44Shawn Ryan?

  But when you do whittle it down to what really matters, family, close, close, close friends. For me, my team here, we're like a family. I mean, when you can invest in the relationships that you, that you truly value, then they'll flourish beyond what you.

• 4:32:04Shawn Ryan?

  Ever would have thought.

• 4:32:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, um, look, we'll take your position. So you've earned a lot of respect in the community for what you've given back on your show, probably some animosity too for your success. And you meet like-minded individuals all the time. That if it was just Sean by himself, no family, no, you guys are hanging out all the time. Hey, I'll go fish tomorrow, let's roll. Life, right, starts to take up time, which you're talking about, and effort. So where do you focus your effort? And it is, it's just normal for people, right?

• 4:32:48Speaker 01

  To kind of wanna be around certain things like we were talking about and, you know, be a part of something. But you gotta whittle down where there's gonna be real results. You know, because I know, you know, I've got some friends of mine, I would call them friends. We don't see each other very often, right? Not my close. I got three very, very, very close friends, okay? But outside of that, there are people that I've met, especially through this captivity and everything, that are just awesome folks, man. Men and women, that I have tremendous respect for. And if there was time to hang out with them or something, probably would.

• 4:33:33Speaker 01

  But I think maybe understanding, this is gonna sound a little shallow, but I believe in it, loving yourself first so you can love those around you. Understanding what you're, you know, what you can manage and not manage is part of defining that circle and those relationships. And let's face it, time becomes a commodity also. And when I turned 60 last year, my wife surprised me with a beautiful trip to Ireland. We were fly fishing for brown trout, which I wanted to do for years. And I'm looking around and my wife's with me and I'm here and just this gorgeous place.

• 4:34:18Speaker 01

  And I said, you'll never erase this from my head. This memory, you'll never erase it from my head. So I want to focus on those in this second half, right? And you can't always please everybody, even though you may want to. Then you get straggled out and then those that you need to be like yourself are dividing up your time. And I think it's okay to be a little selfish. I didn't say be unappreciated or anything, but sometimes, you know, I went through something here recently. My friend said to me, my best friend goes, it's okay to be selfish. It's all right, you know? And sometimes you gotta, you know, kick back and take care of yourself.

• 4:35:01Speaker 01

  And I mean, like, how many people in the best way, especially with what you do, hey, Sean, come do this, with the best intentions, right? They really appreciate you and what you do. Come, just come on, let's come do this. What kind of invites do you get, all this stuff, right? You can't always just go do it. You know, and I would imagine for you, the demands on your time now must be astronomical. I guard it very carefully. But you're growing something, right? And so I say I value relationships, but also just because you're family doesn't mean you're more valuable than a friend is a true friend. So sometimes family can disappoint you more than your friends. Right?

• 4:35:44Speaker 01

  And that becomes a challenge also because there's a deeper, you know, maybe love or connection there. And that hurts worse too, right? It hurts a little worse. So I don't know. I

• 4:36:02Speaker 01

  I think about that now because in this time, in this quarter, where are you going to cut up your time to be?

• 4:36:09Shawn Ryan?

  Every time you say yes to somebody, you say no to somebody else. So if you're saying yes to people that, not that they don't matter, but it's not going to go anywhere, it's a dead end, then you're saying no to somebody that you love.

• 4:36:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:36:24Shawn Ryan?

  And starving them of their time.

• 4:36:27Speaker 01

  And over committing yourself.

• 4:36:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 4:36:29Speaker 01

  That's what I'm in the past to be guilty of. And I'm trying to, maybe when I make a commitment to something, does it have real value? Is that just being a nice guy? That can be noble or whatever, but does it have real value? And so, um, my wife has helped me with that. Saying, hold on a second. Just, what are you doing?

• 4:36:54Shawn Ryan?

  You got a good woman.

• 4:36:55Speaker 01

  She's got a, she's got an instinct for that stuff. But, uh, you know, I mean, I can only imagine for you, you've become a known quantity now, right?

• 4:37:10Speaker 01

  What about those days when nobody knew who you were, when you pulled out of your driveway?

• 4:37:13Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I think about that. But this will all end one day.

• 4:37:17Speaker 01

  No, I know. I know. You know, and the five minutes of fame was funny. I,

• 4:37:22Shawn Ryan?

  It's not real.

• 4:37:23Speaker 01

  It's not real. I, I was on an interview, I think it was Good Morning America. And, uh, we were doing a few talk, talk show things. And so I get in an elevator and there's a, I'm not going to throw rocks at anybody, but she's left the country and she was, she's over where I was fishing.

• 4:37:43Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I know who you're talking about.

• 4:37:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. And she's standing there in front of me and she wasn't rude or anything, right? And then, uh, Rob Lowe's there, right? He's just cracking me up and, and, uh,

• 4:37:58Speaker 01

  I just see this throng of women, man. Like, there must've been a hundred women outside the studio, Rob, Rob, Rob, you know? And, uh,

• 4:38:09Speaker 01

  I looked at him, I don't know, he'll never probably remember me. I was on the show too, whatever. I said, careful with that film. We got caught, you know?

• 4:38:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:38:18Speaker 01

  It's like, you know, but I, I was just watching him and he was sincerely nice, right? But there was just this throng of all these women of all ages just wanting to get next to him and touch him, you know? And so you get to meet some celebrities and I've met a bunch more, whatever, but man, imagine just going somewhere and being yourself.

• 4:38:41Speaker 01

  You know? Like, and I won't drop names here, but we're mentioning one of my best friends and who his best friend is, right? And I said, what's it like when you go somewhere with him, right? And he said, Keith, he's very humble, but like you can't move 10 steps without, and people don't mean anything bad. That's never gone away, right? And now with social media and all this stuff, wow. Wow, but nothing's free, right? There's no free lunch. That's right. My father always said, if you said fair or free to my father, argument was over. Nope, done. We're finished. This, we're not gonna talk about this.

• 4:39:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well Keith, wrapping up the interview, but.

• 4:39:24Shawn Ryan?

  So I've got one more thing for you.

• 4:39:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:39:27Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you've seen the show. You see the majority of who I interview.

• 4:39:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:39:31Shawn Ryan?

  We talk a lot about reintegration after combat, after service.

• 4:39:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:39:37Shawn Ryan?

  What do you have? It's a big struggle throughout the veteran community. I mean, suicide's at an all time high.

• 4:39:42Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:39:43Shawn Ryan?

  So what I'm gonna ask is, you know?

• 4:39:48Shawn Ryan?

  I've never met anybody like you. You've been through it. Five years captivity. What advice do you have for people that are reintegrating?

• 4:39:58Speaker 01

  It's a network. It's a network around you. I was surrounded, so was Mark and Tom. We were surrounded by people

• 4:40:09Speaker 01

  that were there to support us legally, professionally, emotionally.

• 4:40:17Speaker 01

  Don't be the lone man on the hill by yourself, right? And I think especially type As in this community tend to be that way. They don't want to accept help and recognize you do need help. So it's a network is the biggest thing. And my fear, so I'm set and I could go be on my own. I'll be okay, right? You know, my wife and I can just go off into the, into the distance and we're fine. What about that vet who is not set, right? That every day for the rest of his or her life, they'll put on, you know,

• 4:41:02Speaker 01

  Prosthetics. Yeah. Every day they'll have that physical challenge, right? Of just getting through the basics in life. And what scares me is, as I called it the sandbox, right? But as the war wound down, do the networks and the support for the vets start to wind down too? Cause they're carrying it for the rest of their life, the rest of their life. Well, when it's not 24/7, all the new fights on YouTube or on the news or whatever, and it's not in the public's eyes, does the support, although not meant in a bad way,

• 4:41:46Speaker 01

  dwindle? So the recognition of what sacrifices these people have made, I think is important key to keeping the support networks going, right? When you, when you see all this stuff on the news every day and they ask for a donation for, for vets, oh, they're coming. I mean, you see an organization like Tunnel to Towers, right? Or it's, it's created something long-term. Is our long-term care for our vets there? I mean, when I see. When I see illegal immigrants in a hotel with a check, a cellphone, I'm not trying to hurt these people, right?

• 4:42:32Speaker 01

  All the support, and then I see a homeless vet, and I'm like, what's going on? Right? And then also, the psychological side of it. Not only do some of our folks have to deal with the physical trauma, but the mental trauma. Right? Is that support gonna remain a priority? Is it five years after the war, 10 years after the war, 15 years after the war? Is that still gonna be there? That's my fear for people who have paid a price. And this focus on, and not trying to go political here, but this focus on immigration over people that, okay, protected the right for that to even happen.

• 4:43:17Speaker 01

  I think they should be front of the line. I don't think the military is a place for social experimentation. I think the military is a place where it makes our country safe so we can have social experimentation. Right? And I just,

• 4:43:35Speaker 01

  like your show does, you keep the light on. And I'm lucky. Not everybody's lucky.

• 4:43:45Speaker 01

  So that's my worry personally for those folks, is how does that stay relevant? I think it's just natural that people start to see other things and move on and think, oh, we were in a war 15 years ago. Well, that person still doesn't have any legs. Right? They're still struggling with long-term health issues. Physical, we don't even know about psychological. How can they make a living? What can they do? You know, so how strong is that compared to five years ago right now? I don't know. But I would say that's my fear, keeping the light on. And, you know, you see it, especially here with this, when it goes on. So I hope that, I hope that we as a country can keep that going.

• 4:44:30Speaker 01

  But it scares me. It scares me that those people will be forgotten after time. But they're living with everything that they have until the end of their time.

• 4:44:43Speaker 01

  You know, so some of these big organizations that have become well organized, you know, I like that. But I, you know, I just don't know, you know, I just don't know. I mean, how do you feel about that? Do you think that the support is waning with time or?

• 4:45:06Shawn Ryan?

  I think that there are some great organizations out there that will continue to develop and do the right things. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the government.

• 4:45:20Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:45:21Shawn Ryan?

  But it's the... How do I say this? It's the giving back to the community that's going to keep it alive.

• 4:45:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:45:38Shawn Ryan?

  Taking care of each other. That's what's going to keep it going.

• 4:45:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:45:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's mentoring guys. You know, I got out... I quit contracting in 2015. That's 10 years ago, but I'm still giving back. I'm still coaching. I'm still bringing exposure to guys that have done amazing stuff like yourself that can transform their business. And there's a number of other organizations out there that do that.

• 4:46:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:46:08Shawn Ryan?

  And so, you know, if you're asking, you know, what my advice would be, it would be to seek those organizations out, exactly what you said, a network. Build a circle that you can lean on.

• 4:46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46:20Shawn Ryan?

  Lean on each other.

• 4:46:21Speaker 01

  Accept some help, man.

• 4:46:22Shawn Ryan?

  Because nobody's going to take care of us except ourselves.

• 4:46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. And, you know, and it's not just us, it's our families that suffer too. You know, you know, I've had a couple of relationships that were just damaged just by my absence. And so, you know, do those ever get back? You don't know. But, um, yeah, I don't know, Sean. I think keeping the light on. Isn't that Norm that says that in the hotel thing? Hey, we leave the light on for you, right? But the light's a beacon.

• 4:46:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 4:46:57Speaker 01

  And I think it's important. And, you know, I like seeing folks, men and women, that have come out and turned it into a positive.

• 4:47:10Speaker 01

  You know, for me, whether writing the book or we wrote the book, I didn't write the book on them, right? Or going to teach a class somewhere or to speak to a group of people. That's that's that's me being selfish, winning for myself, right? Just giving back. And that's a way to defeat those that at one time had me defeated. So that's, you know, that's where I'm at with that. And, you know, but we got a lot, we got a generation of really young folks that have suffered greatly. And they're going to need our support for a long time. And I don't think they're looking for a handout. I think they're looking maybe just for a little leg up, you know?

• 4:47:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, it is, um, it's, it's tough to see some of the folks that, you know, are, well, you know, are have gone through some things. I had a guy that's a wounded warrior when I was at Northrop Grumman, and he was a program manager, he was a marine captain. And he was a Fallujah. Big guy, but he had a limp and he's getting on a plane with me. We had RPG round go through his, go through his thigh and not go off and get stuck. Right? And he's working for our company totally fine.

• 4:48:36Speaker 01

  You know, he has a little bit of a limp, but you know, I said, well, tell me some stories about there because he was on the first end ramp and wow. You know, he's like, man, I'm lucky. His attitude was unbelievable. You know, he's an officer, came back, whatever. And I was like, wow, wow, you know? So when you see it firsthand, when he's like, hey, I'm one of the lucky ones, you know? Because a lot of his guys and other people are, I mean, they're never, you know, what are you doing? So, you know, maintain the respect for our service folks and I, um,

• 4:49:12Speaker 01

  I like what's going on now, not to get political, political, but the shakeup. And kind of, I would see it as a return to our core value of what we're about. Right? Not a social experiment, not a D E I experiment. I mean, here, we're here to do one thing, defend this country. And that doesn't get done with a quality of outcome. And as noble as that might be, you know, I remember a cartoon years ago. And it showed this little kid. And he was kind of nerdy and his dad was a little bit older and overweight. And he couldn't get on the football field. It was at high school. I can't remember why I married this.

• 4:49:55Speaker 01

  And, uh, his dad said, don't worry, son. He goes, what? He's about 10 years old, I'll be working for you. Right? But we all have our strengths, right? We all work to our strengths. So I, I like seeing what's going on, you know? I mean, not everybody's smart. Some people are stupid. Not everybody's good looking. Some people are ugly, right? But this whole, you know, hey, I don't even want to even see what my 40 time would have been when I was 18 years old. Probably would have been that fast, right? I just wasn't blessed with certain things, but I did have other strengths. So I'd like to see that stuff erased and us, everybody be who everybody is.

• 4:50:38Speaker 01

  And, and accept who, what you can do and, you know, understand what you can't. I think that better prepares people for the future. I do too. You know, it's called a reality check. You know, the truth isn't always sweet. You know, it's, it's. It rarely is. It rarely is. Well, Keith, it was an honored interview, man. Honored to meet you, brother. I really, really, you know, I, I, uh. Welcome home. Thank you. And thanks for the invite. I hope I could, you know, do justice to your show. It was awesome. Got a lot of impressive individuals here, right, Luis? You're a lot of them. Appreciate it. Thank you for being on that one. Thank you.