International DEA Ops: Pakistan, West Africa, and the Cartel Pipeline | Dan Dobas | Ep. 394

Dan is a former U. S. Army airborne soldier who later became a DEA special agent, working everything from wire-driven investigations to high-risk takedowns. He shares how he went from law school and a Wall Street legal job to federal narcotics enforcement—covering LA task-force work, Bridgeport gang cases, and deployments to Quetta, Pakistan and West Africa that put him on the front lines of how trafficking networks operate overseas. Today's Sponsors: Blue Chew ⬇️ https://bluechew.com/ Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code "HOUSECALL" GhostBed⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 25% off! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 0:00 Start 1:22 Bridgeport Roots: War Movies to Service 4:50 Law School + Wall Street (Why He Quit) 7:09 Decision to Enlist: Starting Over 12:10 Airborne Life: Training + Early Army Years 19:26 82nd Airborne Stories + Leadership Lessons 27:45 Leaving the Army: The Road to DEA 28:55 DEA Academy: Guns, Raids, Informants 38:28 DEA LA Ops: Wires vs Door Kicks 44:33 Deployed to Pakistan: Quetta Mission 57:55 Connecticut: Bridgeport Gangs + Big Takedowns 1:23:13 Cartel Raids: “Iraq Vibes” + Air Support Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Relax and get ready for bed with Dr. Teal's magnesium spray. Made from a proprietary blend of topical minerals powered by pure Epsom salt and natural Dead Sea salt. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray is designed to help you unwind and get in a nighttime state of mind. Dr. Teal's magnesium spray is wellness you can feel and you can find it in your local bath aisle. Dr. Teal's. Yep, you needed that.

• 0:29Speaker 01

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

• 1:00Jack Murphy?

  Welcome to the team house. I'm Jack Murphy, here with today's guest, Dan Dobas, who served in the Drug Enforcement Agency, had a good, long career after a stint in the Army, college education, and then was sent all over the world with the DEA. Thanks for joining us today, Dan.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  No problem, Jack. Thanks for having me.

• 1:19Jack Murphy?

  This interview was supposed to be in studio originally, but it's just as well that that didn't happen. Dan has a new job he's starting. Our producer, Dimitri, would have had to drive through some kind of crappy conditions in the city. And I'm getting a cold, so I apologize if my voice sounds a little raspy during this interview. Dan, tell us a little bit, if we begin at the beginning here, with your origin. Tell us about, you know, how you grew up, where you grew up, and kind of how that took you into the next phase of your life.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  Sure, so I was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and we lived there till I was about five in the same house that my father was was born in and his family lived in since the early 1910s. And then we moved to Trumbull, Connecticut, which was the suburb north of Bridgeport. I grew up playing sports and it was like football in the fall, basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring, baseball in the summer, swimming in the summer, but also playing playing war in the woods with my friends and my brother. We got toy guns every Christmas. Everything from like Tommy guns that made noise to sawed off shotguns that shot,

• 2:42Speaker 03

  you know, rubber darts.

• 2:46Speaker 03

  But my father had been in the Army Reserve in the mid 60s and one of my uncles was in the Marines during the Korean War. But other than that, nobody, nobody in the family was in the military.

• 3:01Jack Murphy?

  And so, I mean, was the military or government service sort of like on your mind as you went into high school?

• 3:08Speaker 03

  I mean, was I'm a lot of times I've thought about like my, the career path. I mean, I grew up with my father watching every war movie you could think of, like The Sands of Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, The Green Berets, Back to Baton, Midway. I mean, everything you could think of, he, he watched him and I watched it with him and

• 3:35Speaker 03

  it, it's weird. Like we, we played, like I said, we played war and stuff and then all of a sudden it seemed like at ninth grade, we stopped. Like I started playing sports, like you know, year round. And I think other things like growing, you know, growing up. I mean, there's only two guys I went to high school with who joined the Army out of high school and one of them, one of them, I think both of them got kicked out.

• 4:03Speaker 03

  But I often wondered like why, like watching those war movies and reading to books about World War II, I never, I never went into the military out of high school, never even thought about it. But, but I did want like some job.

• 4:19Speaker 03

  All I knew like back then, it seems like my life, like I never had a mentor like to steer me in a direction, but I knew I heard of the FBI and the DEA. It seemed like exciting jobs, but instead, instead I went right to college in New York City. I went to Manhattan College, which is, it's now Manhattan University. It's in Riverdale up in the Bronx. I, again, I played sports, played intramural sports, and I was inducted into the Manhattan College Honor Society and the National History Honor Society. But then again, I ended up going right to law school, right? Not, not enlisting. And I thought if I had to do it over again, I would have enlisted out of coll- out of college. Would have gave me

• 5:02Speaker 03

  a lot of options and more time. But I then went to Brooklyn Law School and I graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1996. And I, I applied to the FBI and they told me, you don't have any work experience, so we're not going to hire you. I applied to the DEA and they said we're in a hiring freeze. We don't know when we're coming out of it. And it was a, like a lengthy hiring freeze. So I actually got a job, uh, right off Wall Street, working for National Discount Brokers, which no longer exists in the legal depart- in the legal department. Um, so I took the subway to work and got off at the Wall Street stop, like 10,000 other people every day.

• 5:42Jack Murphy?

  And about what year is this?

• 5:45Speaker 03

  So I graduated from Manhattan in 93 and Brooklyn Law in 96.

• 5:50Jack Murphy?

  Okay, so, excuse me, you're working this job and I mean, I, I take it that you kind of found it unfulfilling at a certain point?

• 6:04Speaker 03

  It was, but it was interesting. It was my first experience with, uh, like, careerism. Like, these, these Wall Street guys all thought they were Gordon Gekko. And, uh, so here I was in the legal department and I, I had the, one of my tasks was to, you know, mediate this, or, yeah, mediate disputes between clients and the firm. And they had a very, you know, white shoe firm on retainer for large cases, but my, it was a, a small office of three other attorneys plus a supervisor and myself.

• 6:40Speaker 03

  Actually, thinking back on it, I actually did a small claims case for the firm in Queens Night Court and I won. So I always joke around that I retired from the legal profession with a record of one and oh. But, but I remember in law school, I remember talking to my, my parents and saying there was nobody really like me there. Um, and that's why I, I always like, I kind of turned my back in the profession because they would ask you, you would get a question and you would ask three different lawyers or people and then you get three different answers. Like, you know, one of them would be wildly off the mark. Um, so basically my third year, I was running the intramural sports program and playing basketball in, in, uh, in three different leagues all over New York City.

• 7:27Jack Murphy?

  So you're staying pretty busy that way, I guess?

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was, yeah.

• 7:32Jack Murphy?

  When, when was it that you decided to, um, go in and enlist? Um, because that is a pretty drastic jump from working at this firm and, and you know, you passed the bar exam, um, you're.

• 7:42Speaker 03

  Oh, no. I didn't, I, I passed the, the, the part that's called the NPRE, the multi, multi-state professional responsibility. But I didn't even want to take the, the reg, the, the, the SA, you know, multiple choice part. I didn't even want to take it. And, cause I graduated and I, I would think, think it to myself, okay, I just finished seven years of school. I need to go do something. Like, I was in really good shape and I, I wanted, so I took the NYPD test and I finished really high and they, they got me down to their recruiting facility in Lefrak City. And then they wanted to get, like, they signed a background investigator to me and they wanted me like to start in the fall. And I was like, whoa, whoa, I don't,

• 8:24Speaker 03

  it's moving too fast. And, and one of my friend's roommate was a, a district attorney in Brooklyn. He said, hey, I know you want action, but with NYPD, with NYPD, you'll, you'll make some arrests and you'll look up and it's 10 years later. But in retrospect, I probably, that's what I wanted, right? So I, uh,

• 8:44Speaker 03

  So getting back to the bar, so I didn't want to take it. Um, and I was like, I'm, I'm ready to do something. I, I even joked around about joining the French Foreign Legion just, just to do something like, you know, exciting to me, whatever. But, uh, my, my, my family convinced me and my friends convinced me and I, I signed up for a bar review course late and then, so I thought it was at the school. So I figure, okay, there'll be an instructor and, uh, I'll, I'll knuckle down and, and, and study. Cause I had passed the, the first part, no problem. And then what do they do on day one? They roll in a huge TV with a, with a VCR on wheels and they push, push play. And that was, that was the, the bar review course.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  I'm like, this isn't going to work for me because it was like 95 degrees. I was living in Brooklyn. It was hot and I was, I was miserable. So I ended up taking it with my friend. I mean, we, we, we took the subway there the morning of to the Javits Center. And, uh, like it was, it was a crazy scene. People were showing up in limos. People were throwing up in garbage cans. People were chain smoking. So I asked my friend, I'm like, what is going on here? Like, what are these people doing? He goes, this is their life, dude. Like they wanted to be lawyers. You don't want to be a lawyer. They do. And this is it. This is like, you know, live or die for them. So I remember getting the results and I had just, I just missed it. But I got, and I knew I needed a job.

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Somebody from Manhattan had, college had worked at National Discount Brokers. And I, I did a resume and sent it in and the higher, I did an interview and they hired me. And I started thinking about, you know, after the FBI and DEA were like a no-go, um, my student loans were coming due. And I didn't know what to do. And my, my father found out that the, the military had loan repayment programs. So the first, the first, uh, service that we looked at was the air force. I wanted to be a security police officer. Figured I'd get law enforcement experience. But what I think happened, if I could remember was we missed the, the class was supposed to be at Lackland.

• 10:56Speaker 03

  And there wasn't going to be another class date, um, for like a year and.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  You know, the firm wanted to keep me. They wanted me to like, take the bar again, pass it, take the stock brokerage exams like series seven, series 63. We want you to stay, but I, I just couldn't do it. So then my father found out that the army had, the army had the loan repayment program too. So I took the train home to, we went to see the recruiter in Bridgeport. And this is before I knew they had quotas, right? So he's like, you know, he's like, I know you have two degrees, but so you know, you can't go in as an officer, right? And my father was like, why not? He's like, because officers make too much money. And I was like, I don't care. I don't care. He's like, so you want to enlist? I'm like, yeah. He's like, what do you want to do? I was like,

• 11:47Speaker 03

  something exciting, something in the field. So he shows me a video of guys wearing BDUs and all cammed up with heavy rucksacks. He's like, it's, this is called ground surveillance. It's ground surveillance systems operator. I'm like, yeah, sounds great. He's like, and I can get you an airborne guarantee. I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, most guys, you have to fight to get to airborne school. It's a reenlistment incentive. Uh, you know, it's a, it's a requirement for another job. You'll go right to airborne school after AIT. I'm like, yes, sign me up. I'll take it. And, uh, he's like, all right, all right. So he signed me up and I signed the papers and I

• 12:29Speaker 03

  went back and I handed in my two week notice at the firm and no one could believe, like they thought I was lying, right? So this is pre GWAT, 1997. And, uh, I mean, they, they're like, yeah, I remember, I, I, this is a personal story, but I was kind of dating a girl who was dating a professional wrestler. And we'd only gone on a couple of dates and then I was going home to, to take the ASVAB and sign the papers and I hadn't seen her and I was just concentrating on the army. I remember after I turned in my two week notice, she came down and Started giving me the business about not calling her and this and that. And I'm like,

• 13:11Speaker 03

  no, I'm not blowing you off. I just joined the army and I turned in my two week notice. She's like, yeah, you're so full of it. You're like everybody else. I'm like, no, I just joined, I joined the army. I'm leaving in two weeks and I'm going to basic training and she didn't know what to say. And my friends didn't know what to say either. And I do know that when I left, when my dad took me, my, he told me my mom started, started crying when I, when I, when I drove away to go to basic.

• 13:38Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I can imagine.

• 13:41Jack Murphy?

  Fellas, you already know what time it is. It's time to level up and BlueChew just dropped something crazy. I'm talking about next level championship belt, gold plated energy. BlueChew Gold is the newest innovation from the number one chewable ED brand. This ain't your grandpa's little blue pill. This is the four in one beast that's setting the gold standard for performance. We're talking two ingredients for blood flow that keep the rocket pumping, mixed with apomorphine and oxytocin to turn up the arousal and connection to your brain and body. BlueChew Gold dissolves under your tongue and works in as little as 15 minutes.

• 14:22Jack Murphy?

  That means you can get it on quicker and stay in the game longer. Elevation without hesitation. This is peak passion and peak performance in a single tablet. These BlueChew pills will give you full ignition. You will be at full mast in 15 minutes or less. Ladies, if you're listening, you can send your man a link and make him a trophy husband with BlueChew Gold. Make life easier by getting harder and discover your options at bluechew.com. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Get 10% off your first month of BlueChew Gold with code HOUSECALL. That's promo code HOUSECALL. Visit bluechew.com for more details and important

• 15:06Jack Murphy?

  safety information. And we thank BlueChew for sponsoring this podcast.

• 15:12Speaker 04

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

• 15:27Speaker 05

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

• 15:37Speaker 04

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

• 15:43Speaker 06

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

• 15:49Speaker 04

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

• 16:08Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 16:36Speaker 00

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank.

• 17:03Jack Murphy?

  Does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. Um, and so what, what was the MOS you came in on? So you said ground surveillance something?

• 17:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, it doesn't exist anymore. It was 96 Romeo, which was ground surveillance systems operator. It was tactical, uh, like a tactical intelligence job. So we were, um, they, they had ground radar systems. One was mounted on a Humvee. One was man packable, but they kind of got away from that. We went to the Rembas, which was,

• 17:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 17:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, remotely monitored battlefield sensor system.

• 17:37Jack Murphy?

  Those are seismic, aren't they?

• 17:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So they could, so we would find like, uh, roads and trails, like high speed avenues of approach. We'd lay the sensors down in strings and, uh, we'd fall back, either fall back to like, uh, like a, like a, what you call a FOB now, or, or, or a COP, or we'd just make a, build a height site and we'd monitor the sensors and they were, even back then they could detect wheeled vehicles, tracked vehicles, people moving. They had a very crude IR camera that we could set up like on a tree branch that could, uh, it, it, it was, it didn't work that well back then, but, uh, it was, it was pretty, pretty advanced for the time. Then the sensors got smaller.

• 18:24Speaker 03

  Um, but of course what sucked is our rucksacks were full of sensors and batteries and we had to jump them in. It's, I mean, I'm, I'm getting ahead of myself, but, and we, you know, we would love to run the strings of sensors because our rucksacks would get, would get lighter. The MOS, what happened was at first they gave the sensors, they started training SF groups on the sensors. And from what I understand, then they gave the sensors to SF. And then everybody in my MOS, this was after I had got out and got picked up by DEA, everybody had to reclass. Um, I, I think the Marines still use them and I'm, I'm, I'm sure the army does too, but

• 19:05Speaker 03

  that, that was the MOS. We were always attached to an infantry unit, um, uh, like an infantry platoon or a company, like what they called back then slices. Not now they just call attachments or whatever, but my, my, my team, first I was a, I was a saw gunner at first, then I was the, the radio, the, the RTO, then I assistant team leader. Then I got promoted to E5 and took over a team, but we were always attached to an infantry, uh, unit and I was. I was always attached to the 504th. That's who we supported the first, the first brigade.

• 19:39Jack Murphy?

  And I mean, now you're kind of, are you getting kind of the, the satisfaction that you hoped you would find after leaving a previous job?

• 19:48Speaker 03

  Yes and no. I mean, and this is unfortunate. No, because I was always still looking at like FBI, DEA, CIA, Secret Service. So I didn't give a hundred percent to the job. I mean, uh, there's still like three or four guys from, from the army I talked to or text on a regular basis. And I, uh, one of my friends, he, he did it 20 years. He retired, uh, out of special operate, SOX and Special Operations down at Tampa, I think. Um, yeah, he was an intel guy. He actually supported the unit for a long time. So, once we hooked up a few years ago, I asked him straight up. I said, hey,

• 20:30Speaker 03

  did I make a mistake getting out? Like, should I have stayed in? And he's like, no. He's like, you, you've deployed just, and we could talk about that, right? Uh, you deployed just as much as we did. He's like, you ended up making a lot more money than I did. You probably put up with a lot less BS than I did. But no, you made the right decision. But I was going to tell you, my, my career in the army was like, like, uh, try, like trying to try out for different things and getting like, like weird things happening every time. Like, so when I was in airborne school, they said, uh, the guys from regiment will be here after last formation.

• 21:12Speaker 03

  So if you're interested in, in going to RIP, it was RIP, then, uh, go, go see him. So these guys, and they still had black, black berets then. So they, they were at like a little table. So I lined up with a few other guys. And, uh, I was like, you know, I'm, I'm interested. I want to go to RIP. And he's like, what's your MOS? I was like 96 Romeo. He's like, what the hell's that? And I was like ground surveillance systems. He's like, he checks his list. He's like, no, we don't have that in the regiment. So. Me not knowing anything about anything would just stand in there. So there was two, like an E6 and E7. And they were looking at me like, you know, I had three heads like, oh, all right. I'm like, okay, what? He goes, that means you can't go to RIP. Now move out dumbass, move out and draw fire. Get out of here.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  And I was like, okay. And then when I got to the 82nd, um, Colonel Flynn now, well, then became General Michael Flynn, uh, National Security Advisor. He's the best, probably the best leader I've ever, uh, come across. Um, I still actually have, he sent me a birthday card when I was in E4 and signed. I still have it. But someone had told me I should go to CID, right? And I was like, what CID? He's like Criminal Investigation Division. You can be a special agent. So I, I went to my chain of command, you know, not knowing they frown on a new guy trying to get out. And they're like, nah. And I was like, okay. But they're like, you gotta go see the Colonel. So I went to see Colonel Flynn and he's like,

• 22:39Speaker 03

  you know, I think you need to learn the job a little bit and we can, we can talk about CID at a later date, but you need to learn your job. So move out. And I was like, ro- roger that, sir. And then I tried to go to selection twice, uh, like, like after I had, was established in the 82nd. The first time the Sergeant Major said, you're in a shortage MOS, you're, you know, you're not going anywhere. And I was like, roger that Sergeant Major. The second time it was, uh, there was another NCO who had been in the Gulf War and he got out, he was in the 101st, he got out and came back in.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  And it was his dream to go to, to be in, to be in SF. So he's like, let's go to the briefing. So we went to the SWIC, we got the pamphlet. They said, how mu- you know, how, how much you should be rucking, how much weight? And then we, I think, I, I can't remember the sequence, but again, we went to the Sergeant Major and he's like, you ain't going anywhere. And you're, you're NCOs, this time I was in E5, you're in a shortage MOS. You're airborne, you ain't going anywhere. And I, and I was like, the other guy was like, it's a, it's volunteer. What do you mean? And, uh, I actually thought about going AWOL and showing up at selection, but thank, thank God I didn't. And this guy I heard, he, he had done a couple of tours in Korea. He, he was a, he was a great soldier.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Um, had a Korean wife, actually volunteered to go back because he, the, at the time,

• 24:08Speaker 03

  Um, if you were in Korea and you volunteered for selection, you automatically come back. So I got out and then I heard that they denied him to go to selection. He was in E6 at the time, so I felt bad. But yeah, it was like I was volunteering for all these things and like getting shot down. It was like wrong place, wrong time, when I should have just concentrated on leadership. But I have to give, I have to give the army credit. They are the first people that like noticed some leadership potential in me. Um, I was, I was scheduled to go to air assault school. The 101st would bring in mobile training teams, but the list was so long, we had to go to a selection, like a battalion wide assessment and selection.

• 24:53Speaker 03

  And I did well and I was on the list to go to the next one. I remember being in the, the, remember the end of day meeting where the platoon sergeant puts out the info? So I'm sitting there and, and so my nickname in, in the 82nd was Doc. Not because I was a medic, because I, the first sergeant found out I had a law degree. So he, I remember he, he called me over like the first week after PT and he's like, Dobas, I hear you have a law degree. What is that? I was like, what do you mean? Uh, first sergeant's like, what kind of degree is that? I was like, it's a juris doctor. He's like juris doctor. All right, we'll call you Doc from now on. Now get the hell out of here. So he's like, the platoon sergeant's like, Doc Dobas, there's a, there's an E5 board, there's a promotion board, uh, in three weeks.

• 25:37Speaker 03

  So start studying, get your, uh, class A's in order. You're going to the board. And I was like, no, no sergeant, I'm, I'm, I'm going to air assault school, uh, next month. He's like, no, you're not. You're going to the board. We need a team leader. You're the next one. Um, get, get, get ready. I'm like, no, man, I'm, I'm going to air assault school. He's like, you're telling me you'd rather be go to air assault? You know, back then it was like, again, pre-war, how many badges can you get? You know, double bubble. So he's like, you, you're telling me you'd rather go to air assault school than be an NCO? I was like, yeah. He's like, you're such a dumbass. He's like, get your class A's ready and start studying. And I was like, all right.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  So I did and I, I got promoted, I got promoted to E5 and I went to what's now known as the Warrior Leaders Course. Then it was PLDC, uh, Primary Leadership Development Course at Fort Bragg, which is one of the best ones in the army. It's like lockdown 30 days, but you learn leadership from the ground floor up. So it helped me, it helped me later on with DEA.

• 26:38Jack Murphy?

  So talk to us about that, about that transition. Um, when did it come that you decided that you had had enough with the needs of the army and that you were going to take another stab at law enforcement?

• 26:50Speaker 03

  So it came time, I don't know if it was like six months out or 90 days out. So they sent me to the reenlistment NCO and uh, I went to see him at headquarters. He was a, he was a humid guy and he had like a mustache and like long black hair. And he's like, so what do you want? And you know, this time, even though I was getting loan repayment, I still was paying my student loans and I was living in the barracks. I finally got the nice E5 room. But uh, the barracks were built in like 1953. They no longer exist. I was like, I like a bonus. He's like, oh, let me see what we can do. He's like, okay, I can get you uh, $4,500.

• 27:28Speaker 03

  Uh, I was like $4,500 a year? He's like, no, $4,500 total for four years. I'm like, nah, that's not gonna work. So I left and went, went, just went back to work and then I think it was like 90 days out or maybe more. They asked me what I was gonna do. I was like, I'm, I'm getting out. So the first sergeant talked to me. He wanted me to go to OCS because we had another college graduate um, who had played college football. He was getting his package ready. Uh, he was going to OCS and he did. I heard he graduated and he was in the 101st. Uh, but to be honest, like I didn't want to be treated like a private again. After being an NCO, I didn't want to go down to Fort Benning and be treated like a private again. So

• 28:11Speaker 03

  I didn't know what to do. I uh, the CIA had a briefing at Bragg and I went and I was the only, and the only enlisted guy there. And everybody was a captain or a major. And uh, I did some application for them and it was like, it was no, a no-go there. So I, I started applying. But then I didn't know what to do. I kinda wanted to stay in because I kinda liked it. So finally, I went to see these two warrant officers at headquarters. Both were human guys. One guy had a hundred and first combat patch and I had heard he had been in Vietnam and got out, break in service and came back in. He was, he was pretty old. And the other guy had a first Marine Division combat patch and I think he had been in Beirut.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  So I was like, hey chiefs, I don't know what to do. I mean, you know, the first sergeant said, he goes, the eighty second is the old army. He goes, you know, he goes, it's spit shine, jump boots, pressed uniform, fresh haircut, you know, clean beret. He goes, the other, the rest of the army is not like this. If you want to go do something else, something different, you can do it.

• 29:17Speaker 03

  But they said, listen, you're airborne. You could pick another job. They're probably going to send you right back here. If they don't send you to the eighty second, they'll send you to the eighteenth Airborne Corps or like I think the five two five MI, you know, because there was a guy I knew who was a, I think it was a ninety, ninety seven series, was like counterintelligence special agent. He was always, well, these guys were getting in trouble because they had creds, they had credentials. So they were like going into Fayetteville, at the bars and showing their creds. So finally, they had to lock them up in the company, I mean, in the headquarters safe. So I was like, I was like, that, that sounds like a cool job, but they said, listen, you have your degrees, right?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  If you, he's, I remember what he said. He goes, you know, you go, you need to go be a special anus in charge somewhere. I said, what? He goes, you need to be a special anus in charge somewhere. And if you don't like it, you can come back. We'll always take you back. So go try that. If it doesn't work out, we'll see you right back here. So I just decided to get out and it was kind of a rough transition. It's where I first learned that like the machine goes on without you, right? I had a awesome.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  I think it was a four man ground surveillance team. I was the oldest guy, obviously, but I had like great, great team members. I think it was down to two, two guys at that time and me. And one guy who was the first guy I met in the 82nd, he, he got killed in Iraq at Tal Afar. He was with the third ACR. I actually wear, I have his KIA bracelet. And they wanted, like, the guy gave me one of the nicest, nicest compliments I've ever had. He goes, when I become a sergeant, I want to be like Sergeant Dobas because he treats us. I hate to pound my chest and, you know, talk about myself, but he's like, he treats us with respect, lets us do our job.

• 31:14Speaker 03

  But we know that if we mess up, he's going to hammer us, but he lets us do our job. So, but I, you know, it struck me, someone's gonna, someone's gonna take over the team. And, you know, they'll, they'll forget about me, you know, sooner rather than later. So I moved back home to Connecticut and I got a job clerking for a judge in Connecticut Superior Court. While I applied to every agency you could think of.

• 31:41Speaker 03

  And was the DEA the first that responded or what, what kind of led you there? Yeah, so I, I was in the process with like FBI, ATF, Army Intelligence. And I was actually supposed to go down to, I was scheduled to go to, is it Fort Meyer or Fort Belvoir? For an interview with Army Intelligence. So all of a sudden DEA was the, they called and they offered me a, offered me a spot in the academy in January of 2002. So I accepted, I grabbed it. My father wanted me to hold off and go interview with CID. No, it was Army Intel, sorry. Cause it's, part of that job was travel.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  DEA offered me the job. I just jumped on it. And it turns out, I spoke to a lot of guys in law enforcement. They're like, were you like fixated on DEA? I'm like, no, they offered me the job first. I'm like, yep, same with me. I, what a guy I work with now, applied to many police departments and his, his, his, uh, the one he, he went with was the first to offer him a spot in the academy and he jumped on it.

• 32:43Jack Murphy?

  This time of year, the pace doesn't slow down, but you still need to. The calendar's packed, the weather's changing, and your body's reminding you that it's time to rest and reset. That's where Ghostbed can help. It's a family-run company founded by a team with over 20 years of mattress-making expertise. They've spent decades perfecting how to build a bed that's durable, comfortable, and engineered to help you recover. Every Ghostbed mattress is made with premium materials, proven cooling technology, and their exclusive ProCore layer, a targeted support system that reinforces the center of the mattress where your body is the heaviest. It helps to keep your spine aligned and your back supported, so you wake up ready to take on what's next.

• 33:28Jack Murphy?

  And Ghostbed's cooling materials don't just keep you from overheating, they help regulate your temperature year-round. Each mattress comes with a 101-night sleep trial and a 20- to 25-year warranty, plus fast, free shipping. Most orders arrive in two to five days, so better rest is just around the corner. Right now, during Ghostbed's holiday sale, you can get 25% off sitewide for a limited time. Just go to ghostbed.com/house and use the promo code HOUSE at checkout. That's ghostbed.com/house, promo code HOUSE. Upgrade your sleep with Ghostbed, the makers of the coolest beds in the world. Some exclusions apply, see site for details.

• 34:13Jack Murphy?

  And thank you Ghostbed for sponsoring the show. Please check out the link down in the description and support our sponsor.

• 34:22Speaker 04

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

• 34:37Speaker 05

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

• 34:48Speaker 04

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

• 34:53Speaker 06

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

• 34:59Speaker 04

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

• 35:19Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 35:46Speaker 00

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

• 36:17Jack Murphy?

  So you went to the academy in 2002?

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, January 2002, I started.

• 36:24Jack Murphy?

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  So it was... Go ahead.

• 36:27Jack Murphy?

  I was just gonna ask, what was the training pipeline like?

• 36:30Speaker 03

  So it was 16, it was either 16 weeks or 18 weeks. So I think it was 16. Sometimes they add, they add, uh, add classes, but it was, um...

• 36:43Speaker 03

  Anything and everything you could know, want to know about narcotics. But it was firearms. And it was known as the toughest firearms qualification course in federal law enforcement. It was a hundred round course back then that started at the 50 yard line from the prone, if you could believe that. So we learned undercover. We spent a lot of time in the raid house learning entries. We learned anything about drug law enforcement, like what we call a by walk, a by bust. But we learned how to run what used to be called confidential sources and now called confidential informants.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  We learned how to run them and operate them to such a good extent that later on, when I was in Pakistan with DEA or Mauritania, North Africa, and you know, intel guys and military guys were trying to run what they called sources. It was not, not good to our standards. It was like, we learned that from the jump and you know, they really drilled down on you how to run and inform it. And then when he, when he got out to the field, some guys specialize in, you know, technical wiretaps. Some guys love to work with informants. So the, the course of instruction was pretty good. You also have a pretty extensive law course of instruction, you know, academics, you

• 38:07Speaker 03

  testify, learn how to testify in front of a judge. They bring in judges, have a moot court. There's like emergency vehicle operation or tactical vehicle operation, you know, the Hogan's Alley part, using simunitions. They did have, back then they had like punishment PT where if somebody screwed up in class or something, because we wore, we had like gray polo shirts or black sweatshirts, black BDU pants and black boots. But we had punishment PT and, which has been eliminated. But I, I thought it was going to be like the military, but it wasn't. It was, you know, it was easier.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  It was also where I, again, come into contact with careerism and people that aren't, aren't all, because you know, in the army, everybody's.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Working toward the same goal because if you don't achieve that goal like you could die, right? Like you're on a jump and if you don't know the procedures or how to link up on the ground because we didn't have GPS yet. We got the slugger or the plugger. Right, yeah. So, so we have to link up on the ground, but you know, it was, somebody could get seriously hurt or die, but in DEA, not everybody, and this, this hit me in the field, not everybody was, you know, working toward the same goal, but you know, instead of being a jerk, you have to understand that people have family stuff in different situations, but it was a, it was a different experience.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  And at what point did you become a badge DEA agent? Uh, so I graduated from the academy in May of 2002 and at that point you could go up to the eight, the office that you hired out of. So I hired out of the Bridgeport, Connecticut office. I, uh, reported there and they, they looked, they were looking for volunteers to go up to New Haven, if you know Connecticut. So they, they were up on a big wire with a source in the Bronx. So I volunteered and I did a, my 60 or 90 days, uh, in New Haven, working this wire, uh, uh, and then, you know, packed up my stuff and PCSed to my first duty

• 40:20Speaker 03

  station, which was the Los Angeles Field Division, Riverside District Office. And I had only been to California once in my life when, so, so when I was in the army, went to JRTC twice, right? Uh, never been that hot, never been that cold. Uh, it was a winter rotation at JRTC and a summer rotation and then went to NTC, uh, took my team to augment the LRS, the LRS section, uh, the 11th ACR was the OP4. So we augmented, we were augmentees and I learned the other side. I learned what OP4 did, but we also got to finish early and we rented, or we took the, like the mill van and went to, went to LA and just drove

• 41:00Speaker 03

  around. So I remember I got orders like the last week of DEA academy, I was in LA and they called me down to the front. The office and they said, the sack said, you're going to Riverside. And there was a two instructors that had been in LA. I was like, where's Riverside? It doesn't sound so bad. Must be near like a river, the water. And they started laughing and they're like, you'll, you'll learn, you'll know. And Riverside was in the inland empire. It was like the met before law enforcement chased super labs across the border. It was like the meth capital of America. The two biggest counties land wise in America, right? San Bernardino and Riverside. So I reported to the office.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  My, we have a field training program with a field training agent. So my field training agent, who then became my partner, he retired as a lieutenant colonel out of Air Force OSI. He actually deployed to Iraq multiple times. Won a Bronze Star working with the Caribbean, Italian Carabinieri. They, they, they got a lot of the deck of cards guys. But here's where I got lucky. He was assigned to a local task force that was full of SWAT and ex SWAT guys. So they bang doors every week. We work nights. First, the first summer I was there, there were times we did two entries a night, which will never happen in law enforcement again, unless something drastic changes.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  I mean, I worked so hard, I actually got run down and got the flu. Had to take sick leave because we were working till like three, four in the morning. And I didn't know, but the local guys got overtime. We, we didn't get overtime, but the amount of entries that we did. And I later checked, you know, near retirement, how many entries I did compared to guys my, any agent I knew and it was far and away surpassed the amount of entries that we did. All because I worked on this task force. It turned out my partner, who I was partnered with in the stack, he was number one, I was number two. He was an 82nd guy and he was a, a, in football, I'm a Raider fan. He was a Raider fan too. In fact, we still stay in touch.

• 43:11Speaker 03

  He retired as a captain from the Riverside Sheriff Department. But we were number one and two in the stack and we became. Came really close. There's, there's two guys that I can owe like to the fact I didn't starve when I was a, a new agent. Because I, I was paying student loans. I bought a truck. I rented an apartment. So my FTA. And, and my partner from the sheriff's department had me over their house almost every weekend feeding me. So I, I, I didn't starve. So I owe them, I owe them a lot, those two guys.

• 43:42Jack Murphy?

  So being a, a narco cop in LA, like the image that comes to the public's mind is uh, like Denzel in Training Day. Like what, what's the reality of it?

• 43:54Speaker 03

  There, there's guys who did a lot of undercover, um, and they had, they were pierced, had a lot of piercings, uh, and this and that. And even, uh, there was a, there was a guy I know who I was friends with. Um, he did, he, he was a black guy. He was a ex-football player. He did undercover. But you know, that, that, that criminal stuff, no, that, that didn't happen. And then there's tons of guys. Who just looked like normal guys, um, you know, working cases, right? Cause we're crim, our job title is actually criminal investigator.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  And we're supposed to be disrupting and dismantling, you know, uh, complicated, uh, drug trafficking or now transnational organized criminal organizations. So, but yeah, no, like rolling around in a,

• 44:49Speaker 03

  in a, a, a car like Denzel had and, and you know, no, like everything was accounted for, like money we paid informants. Money we did, you know, made buys on undercover. I mean, I only did on, you know, like undercovers now for everybody. I did it in my life, I think three times. Once, uh,

• 45:10Speaker 03

  Once I posed as a guy who just got out of the army and I was all scruffy going to a bar trying to get a job as a bouncer because they were the my my task force head word that they were selling selling meth out of the bar. Another time they they did the same thing. They dressed me up because I had to check well hopefully check a box on the field training agent program to do undercover. So they sent me to a trailer to try to buy meth from a woman who lived there. And then the last time was when I after I got back from overseas and got back to Connecticut, I played a lawyer, like a preppy lawyer, wearing a polo shirt and khakis, trying

• 45:52Speaker 03

  to buy coke from a another female, another female dealer. Although she she was a she was a hard ass and she she never sold to me. And that was the extent of my undercover work.

• 46:03Jack Murphy?

  So all your stuff in LA was really like overt. You guys were mostly kicking indoors, going after, you know, serving warrants.

• 46:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, the task and there was a lot of state and local task forces in Southern California. They did a lot of the entry work. And there were also in the DEA offices, they're broken up into into task forces, which are a combination of agents and local state and locals that are deputized, right? Call them task force officers and enforcement groups, which are all agents. So most of the enforcement groups did a lot of the the Title III wire stuff, try to get, you know, work your way up to the top of organizations in the state. You know, a lot of guys competed to be on the local task forces because you were out of the office away from the flagpole. And like me working nights, I got night differential, but I was away from

• 46:53Speaker 03

  the flagpole. And even when my partner went to Iraq, my boss kept me on the task force and I was a I was a young agent, but we were doing good work. I had a sergeant from the sheriff's department as my boss. He wanted to make federal cases. So I learned by doing it like they made me do the federal paperwork. So we did a combination of casework and kicking doors because, you know, there's no crime before overtime. So anything and those guys love the OT, but I love the experience of kicking the doors with them.

• 47:23Jack Murphy?

  During that timeframe in LA, did you have any particularly hairy entries that you recall?

• 47:31Speaker 03

  There was one entry that we did right before, we, we, we, we were in the raid van. We arrived, uh, like at nine 54 and we hit the house. It turned out it was like a maze in the backyard. It was like a tire maze.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  Do you remember the old shoot houses made out of tires? So they were all stacked up. It was a, a meth dealer and I didn't even know what was going. I got lost. It was like a maze and I had to call on the radio for my guys because it was such a bizarre scene. And the, the other time was we were a perimeter team for the Riverside Sheriff, uh, SWAT team, which was called, I think SID, no, S, uh, EST, Emergency Services. So they, they rolled up, it was a fortified house and they, they threw flashbangs, but we, we, we were on comms with them and they, they, they breached the door and there was a pit bull and we could hear the SWAT guys screaming at the people inside to hold that

• 48:34Speaker 03

  door, we'll blow that effing dog's head off. And there were a lot of flashbangs went off. There were more, the more complicated entries and hairy entries when I was, took over a task force, but those were two that stuck in my mind. But we did, we did so many, uh, when I was an agent those two years.

• 48:52Jack Murphy?

  Was that tire maze like actually, were they actually using that as a shoot house? Or was that just some meth head making a maze in his backyard?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  That was a tweaker who had, who had ju- junk piled up inside the house and we could bear, I remember we could, so they used a, a method of entry called the two man, like the modified flood or two man cell. And somehow I got separated from my wingman, but I hooked up with this guys behind me and we, we couldn't get through the house. There was so much junk. It smelled, it smelled musty and terrible. Then we, we, we cleared the house and we made our way to the back, the backyard and it was like, there was no roof, but it was like another, there was so much stuff with these tires stacked up in columns. I tell you, I, I thought I was gonna get lost in there forever.

• 49:45Jack Murphy?

  And after your time in LA, you got an overseas assignment, right?

• 49:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, so um, we were reopening our office in Kabul and they were, they put out a solicitation for, I don't know if you ever heard of the FAST team?

• 50:02Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the FAST team was starting, but it wasn't going to be a permanent thing. So I put in for that, but I didn't know anybody to try to get hookups. So I didn't get it, but I got an email like a week later from the ASAC, the GS15 who ran the AfPAC theater. He's like, hey, I saw your resume. I saw that you put in for FAST. We're going to be expanding our offices in Afghanistan and Pakistan. So if you're interested, please put in for it and the solicitation will drop next week. So for like, one of the few times in my life, I put in for it and I was selected.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  So I went to the overseas orientation. I went to the State Department School and the DEA overseas training, which is very far advanced now. Now they have like a personal recovery section. Back then, I mean, you know, I had never been overseas at all, but and I was going to a country where, you know, the tribal areas were insane. The Pak government didn't go to the, was it the federally administered Fatah?

• 51:10Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:10Speaker 03

  And Baluchistan, which I ended up spending a lot of time in, but I soaked up all I could going to the State Department, you know, going to their library and looking through the books on Pakistan and stuff.

• 51:24Jack Murphy?

  And so you weren't going there to actually be on a FAST team or was there one in Pakistan?

• 51:29Speaker 03

  No, the FAST team, so at first it was a TDY assignment, then it became permanent in Afghanistan, mostly in Afghanistan, but they went to Central America also. But after that first TDY, I think it took FAST like a year or so to get off the ground. So what I was part of was the Islamabad country office and there was also the Kabul country office. So we were there for two year, Kabul was one year, Islamabad was two years, while the FAST guys did like not 30 to 90 days in country and then jump back out. We were there for the duration.

• 52:07Jack Murphy?

  And what was your mission in Pakistan?

• 52:11Speaker 03

  So technically, we were called special agent advisors. So we advised our Pakistani counterparts, which were the anti narcotic force. So they had, they had a, an unmarked house in Islamabad that we went, went, went, we're supposed to go to every day and work with them. They, you know, they operated strangely, a lot of strange things going on.

• 52:36Speaker 03

  You know, in the city and like how we, how we, we would, we would like, so they were, they had a vetted unit, right? We would vet them, they had to be drug tested and polygraphed. Well, after a while, after like a year or two, they, they, they refused to be polygraphed and they failed the drug test. And some of the, some of the counterparts were like, we need to smoke hash to do undercover work. It's part of blending in. So that, that unit got abolished. But the main, one of the best things I did was down in Quetta, which is in Baluchistan. It's one of the most dangerous cities for, for Westerners. There are no Westerners. The Brits had a safe house down there and there's a huge army base that has an airstrip and it had a housing area. So the Brits were on the housing area.

• 53:23Speaker 03

  And we, we would just go down for a week at a time and stay with them. But our vetted unit had a, had a, had a, had a section down there. So we had to, we had to help them, had to work with them, especially on, on technical surveillance. So we, my bosses were like, we're going to rent our own house. So I went down a bunch of times and the only way to get down there was take a, a King Air, piloted by a DynaCor pilot from Islamabad to Quetta. So we, we rented the house from a broker and I went down there with like a rucksack full of gear. And I think of some MREs and an M4 and a Glock. And I got to the house and there were no locks on the doors.

• 54:06Speaker 03

  So there was no running water, there were no utensils, there were no, no, no bowls, no cups. So I was freaked out. I was like, there's no, I'm in Quetta by myself in this house. There's no locks on the door. There was a lock on the bedroom door, so. The first couple nights I slept with the M4, it was like basic training, I had the M4 in bed with me and the Glock was under my pillow. And as soon as I got up in the morning, I raised holy hell with my boss in Islamabad. I said, get the carpenters or whoever over here and get some locks and I need funds to outfit the house.

• 54:49Speaker 03

  So I ended up spending six months down there on the border. And it was funny, DynaCorp had to contract, so the State Department had bought the packs of Vietnam-era Hueys, right? And the DynaCorp guys were teaching the packs how to fly. They had some good pilots, but also the one thing I didn't understand was maintenance, right? They didn't want to do maintenance, they didn't understand maintenance, so they were trying to teach them how to take care of the helicopters.

• 55:23Speaker 03

  But there were a lot of interesting things, like for both years I was there, I, well, let me backtrack. So the house we rented, you know who we lived next to? We lived next to the Iranians. The Iranians had a consulate in Quetta. So I was friends, I became good friends with the UKSF guys. First SAS, then SBS, they were training their own counterparts. They would take me out, help them do surveillance, do entry training. So we would drive around and I saw like, I was with a black BMW or a Mercedes and I was like, who is that? And they told me, they're Iranians, and they drove me by the consulate.

• 56:07Speaker 03

  And I took note of the car and then like a couple of days later, I was driving our old Land Cruiser back to my house and I see that car parked in the driveway next to mine. So I get out and go up onto the roof and I'm watching them. I think one day I followed them and they went, so it was the Iranians who worked at the consulate, lived right next to me. I tried to pass it up the chain in Islamabad, but it didn't go, I don't think it went anywhere. Yeah, I became good friends with those Brit guys. They had me at their house, again, food and drink and, you know, I helped them do their own training.

• 56:49Speaker 03

  If I had a video of them, they're trying to teach the PAX entry training and it's their, you know, they're non-aggressive, non-athletic, they're doing like bunny hops through the, through the breach point and the, the Brits are screaming at them. But they, they actually had a, they made a, a survival map of, of the city of Quetta and they made all, they color-coded all the intersections and the checkpoints. So I made my own and, you know, if anybody got in trouble, they could radio into the house, "Hey, I'm at blue six" or "green three" and you'd know exactly where you were. So I kept that map with me and I framed it because they labeled like where the, you know,

• 57:34Speaker 03

  there was Hazara Town and Pashtunabad, you know, it was, they would build this mud brick houses up on the side of mountains. Outside of Quetta, it was like the Baluchistan Desert, it was like the Thar Desert, I think, I don't know, or maybe just Baluchistan, but it was, it was pretty crazy. But the, one of the other things we did that was great was I wrote up a concept of operation.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  I think the guys in Quetta said that the Pakistani Coast Guard wanted training and the Pakistani Coast Guard at that point had no boats. They guarded the coast, like they literally guarded the coast by driving up and down the one coast road that was, you know, bordering the Arabian Sea there that runs up to Iran. So I wrote up a plan, gave it to the State Department, I said, "We want to train Pakistani Coast Guard, we want you to buy enough equipment to outfit the Coast Guard."

• 58:32Speaker 03

  I wrote the con op, gave it to my boss, he approved it, gave it to the State Department, they approved it, they bought all this high-end gear, we had shipped to Islamabad, I had to convince the DynaCorp guys to fly it down to Islamabad, I had to convince the Pakistani Colonel who was in charge of the air wing to ferry the gear and us and the helicopters down to the Coast Guard Base at Posne and then brief him on this mission. So we ended up training them in how to safely load and unload helicopters, how to fly in a helicopter, prisoner search, vehicle search, desert patrolling, and it was me, a Navy SEAL Lieutenant,

• 59:16Speaker 03

  who was attached at the time to the embassy, Marine Captain who was attached to the embassy, and the DynaCorp guys, one of which, he was a retired First Sergeant from RTB, who was trying to buy, his dream was to buy beachfront property in like Costa Rica, was trying to save up as much, so he was down, he was down here for the duration, trying to save up money. And I remember, we were trying to build a gym on the base, and so he, we had, we had money, and me and him drove into Quetta, so it was, if you can picture this, it's me, and, and wearing like, you know, 5'11" pants and a shirt, and this black American former First Sergeant, we had like $10,000, went to like a gym, a

• 1:00:01Speaker 03

  gym store in Quetta, we had like $10,000 cash and pistols in Quetta, and guys are, you know, giving us the stink eye, we're trying to buy gym equipment. And that was the first place, I, I remember waiting outside to leave, and I saw these little kids running on the street, one had blondish brown hair, one had red hair, and I told the guy I was with, like, what are these, what are these Westerners doing down here? This place is crazy. He's like, those aren't Westerners, those are, those are Pashtuns, or, or they're whatever. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, he's like, you're a history major? Who, who was here? I was like, well, Alexander the Great was here, the British were here multiple times, the Russians. He goes, that's, that's, that's who those kids, and I, I

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  heard them speaking like a, a-

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  Urdu or Pashtun and they were but they one kid had red hair and like blue eyes and her kid had blondish I couldn't get over even now like you could tell it made an impression on me and they were speaking like I don't know it was Farsi or whatever I couldn't believe it but the descendants of all those armies that had been through.

• 1:01:09Jack Murphy?

  And one thing we haven't really talked about I mean what was the actual purpose of the DEA being in Pakistan at this time was it mostly about interdicting opium coming out of Afghanistan?

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  No, there wasn't a lot of interdiction on my side. I mean, a lot of times when we were in Quetta, we would take the Hueys up and we do

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  interdiction flights because they did have camel caravans of opium, you know, hash, heroin, going from Afghanistan down through the desert to the Makran coast, you know, to the Arabian Sea. They had the their fishing boats were called Dows, right? The Dows would pick up the heroin and they'd take it to wherever it went Dubai or wherever. But we we were when I when I was getting ready to go there, they were letting us go out on operations, right? They were letting us go. They would have these huge piles of hash and they'd burn them in Americans, but they shut

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  that down. Like they wouldn't let us go out on ops with them. So me being in Quetta tried to make the most of it I could. And on the interdiction side, that was mostly in Afghanistan. So what we were doing, we were doing a lot of intel gathering, but we were training our counterparts in the anti narcotic force on how to do investigations, how to do narcotics investigations the right way.

• 1:02:39Jack Murphy?

  And sorry.

• 1:02:44Jack Murphy?

  As your time in Islamabad and in Pakistan winds down, what was your next assignment?

• 1:02:52Speaker 03

  So I could have extended, but I chose to come home. There was a spot open in my hometown office in Bridgeport and I put in for it. And my bosses did make a call because Pakistan was a hardship. And they told me, you know, this is a hardship tour, but they called back to DC and said, hey, this guy did a great job for us. There's a spot open in his hometown. You know, thinking back on it, I probably should have stayed another year because the money, you know, hazardous duty pay, post-differential was really good. But I had met

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  my future wife and I remember, so I met her, you know, so we were there for 90 days like at a time, right? We could take R and R. So it was in country for 90 days, take R and R out of country, back in country. And you had to take your last R and R before your last 90 days in. So I met her when I came home, my last R and R, and we stayed in contact. And when I came home, she picked me up at the airport. And I mean, she's told me subsequently, I looked like I was fried. I looked like I was burned out. You know, I had, I had, I think I sent you a picture when I was in Kuwait. I grew a beard. I was dressed in

• 1:04:09Speaker 03

  shalwar kameez in a pack hole. And the A and F counterparts actually took me to the bazaar in Kuwait. And they said, just don't talk. Okay. Keep your mouth shut and we'll, we'll take you to the bazaar. And I picked up some, some things that most, you know, Westerners couldn't pick up. They said, the only thing wrong with you is your shoulders are too wide because you're, you know, you're, you're trying to work out, but you blend in, you know, decent amount as long as you don't talk. And the first time I came home and showed my mother those pictures, and I have a lot of them. I was like, who's, who's this? You know, terrorist? She had no idea. And I was like, that's me. And she's like, what? And she, I think that's me. So she didn't even know it was me.

• 1:04:54Speaker 03

  It was, it was, it turned out to be a, you know, good time, but it was, it was hard, it was hard to live in.

• 1:04:59Jack Murphy?

  Here we go. I hope, uh, viewers can see that, uh, if you're watching this on the Youtubes, uh, you're pretty convincing there, Dan.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  That's, that's the roof of our, uh, that's the roof of our safe house in Quetta, which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. They closed it down, but it was a good post, you know, to keep your foot, keep your hand in what's going on in Baluchistan, you know, Quetta was always big with the, with the Taliban. So it's a shame we don't have it anymore, but it is, it's a dangerous place.

• 1:05:29Jack Murphy?

  So you head back to Bridgeport.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  Um, yeah.

• 1:05:33Jack Murphy?

  What was, what's there to do in Bridgeport for the DEA?

• 1:05:36Speaker 03

  So Connecticut is a user state. It's not a source state. Um, also

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  it's a through state, right? The source is mostly New York City. So narcotics are trafficked up I-95 through Connecticut to Massachusetts to Rhode Island. Um, and there were, there were some violent street gangs in Bridgeport. They still have high-rise housing projects. So I, uh, it's mostly a task force office. Um, a lot of task force, a lot of task force officers from the state and local departments really help us do our job. But again, I hooked up with the locals. Um, I, I ran with the Bridgeport Police Department. Um, they had a, uh, excuse me, they had a, a new team called the Neighborhood Enforcement Team. Again, they work nights. I, I worked with them for about a year.

• 1:06:31Speaker 03

  Trying to help them, you know, with narcotics operations. Um, and then I got to go to, at that point I was a tactical instructor for DEA and I had, I had gone to, uh, San Bernardino Sheriff SWAT School when I was in LA. I got to go to Bridgeport Police Department SWAT School and both, both schools, they made fun of me as like the only fed.

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  Gave me some extra time in the gas chamber, but those guys were great, great instructors. And they, it was a pretty new team, but, uh, they, they were, they were pretty squared away and I was lucky to get to go to their SWAT school. But we, uh, one of the, one of the best cases I did with a DEA. Agent and a bunch of task force officers that we got assigned case specific was to dismantle a violent street gang in Bridgeport called the Stack Boys. We basically dismantled it from the top down. They were, they were, uh, did their base of operations was a housing project called the Green Homes, the Charles Green Homes, and they had some houses throughout the city,

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  but we utilized undercovers and confidential informants and we, we bought them up to the federal threshold. A lot of, a lot of, a lot of the, the main leaders of the gang and we had a pretty big takedown. We hit multiple locations and basically dismantled the gang. It was a pretty good case.

• 1:07:56Jack Murphy?

  About how many arrests did you guys make?

• 1:07:58Speaker 03

  Um, I think it was roughly 16, but, but what was funny was what I can remember. So when we did a lot of the warrants, we, we didn't find, it was like street level amounts of drugs, right? We did find a decent amount of guns, but a lot of them had boxes and boxes of sneakers. So, uh, most of them Nikes and, and Sean John and stuff, but I remember doing one of the interrogations to one of the most violent guys and, and I finally said, hey, man, where's the money? Like we've been following you guys for like over a year. He's like, there's no money. I was like, what do you mean? He goes, we buy sneakers, we pop bottles, we go to the club.

• 1:08:40Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:41Speaker 03

  He goes, there's no money. He goes, we spend it all. And I was like,

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  that's why it was a

• 1:08:48Jack Murphy?

  I'm gonna use that line on the IRS. There's no money. I'd be, I've been popping bottles. What are you talking about?

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  I, I still remember he, he looked at me like, again, like I was an idiot. He's like, there's no money. He's like, he's like, you saw how many Jordans I had? Is, we're popping bottles in the club. He's like, there, there's no money. We spend it all. That, that's why it's a significant local impact case and not, not a, a, you know, cartel case like that. Yeah. But still, those cases really help like the neighborhoods, like the working people where, where those gangs live and operate. So it's, it's good to dismantle gangs.

• 1:09:26Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, presumably they were deep into the local drug distribution network.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. 100%, 100%.

• 1:09:37Jack Murphy?

  And after some time there, you start coming up on potentially another overseas assignment?

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, so they started, so North Africa was, well, I guess the DOD, the DOW now was, they were getting their own intel reports that cartels were warehousing cocaine, if you were, in in North Africa. There were covert airstrips in the desert. So they approached DEA and said, would you, if we paid for it, would you send teams of agents and analysts to the North African countries? So, of course, DEA said, yes, as long as you're paying for it. So I put in for it. Hope, again, one of the lucky circumstances, I put in for

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  it on a Friday, and I highlighted my experience in Pakistan. By Monday, the head of the program was calling my boss and said, can he be here, you know, next month? Can he deploy next month? So it was a two-month TDY, and I was hoping against hope to go to Morocco.

• 1:10:46Speaker 04

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

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

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

• 1:11:11Speaker 04

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

• 1:11:17Speaker 06

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

• 1:11:22Speaker 04

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

• 1:11:42Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  Or Algeria. Of course, I end up in Mauritania, which is a fourth world country, right? It's one of the worst countries, I think, for development. It's supposed to be there's still slavery in Mauritania. There was only one hotel, the state, like I was hoping to live on the embassy grounds. There was only one hotel in the capital city of Nouakchaa, where they would put Westerners up. Now, I remember going to a briefing, in-country briefing with the agency at DEA headquarters, and they said, "Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb is in Mali and Mauritania. If they catch Westerners, they're looking to, you know, cut your head off on video." So, I'm like, "Oh, all right."

• 1:13:22Speaker 03

  So, some of the FAS guys had volunteered to go, and they're like, "How are we going to get our weapons in?" Because we had no office there, and they're like, "No, you're not taking weapons in." Like, "What do you mean, no weapons?" Like, "Well..." Maybe ask at the embassy when you get to the embassy. So those guys dropped out. So in retrospect, they were smart. I should have dropped out. So you know what they gave me? They gave me a Blue Force Satellite Tracker. They're like, if you're getting caught, activate the Satellite Tracker. We'll know you're in trouble. So I barricaded my door in that hotel every night, and I slept with the Satellite Tracker because Noakhchat was like the Wild West. And then we befriended the Marine Security Guard Detachment,

• 1:14:04Speaker 03

  and they lived in the city, but they took us to the beach. Again, a wild experience.

• 1:14:11Speaker 03

  It was right where the Atlantic Ocean ended, right? The coastline of Africa. Zero development. We would go out into the water and schools of fish would swim within our, you know, in and around our legs. If that was America, it would be like Ocean City, Maryland, or Atlantic City. It was like this beautiful coastline, the same as I was when I was on the Arabian Sea. No, zero development.

• 1:14:37Speaker 03

  Some French expatriates had tried to open a beachfront restaurant, and it didn't open. So they like, it was a shack just selling like, I don't know, drinks. But as far as the eye could see, there was zero development. And then if you went north, it became one of the, it's like an unincorporated country.

• 1:15:01Speaker 03

  It's right there at the, like, the northwest tip of Africa before you get to Libya. It's like, it's like bandits and pirates. West, western, it's, the name escapes me now, but it's not even a functioning country. But I think it like, it's the northern border of Mauritania and the western border of like Libya. It's, it's the, I don't know, it's barely a country. And they say smugglers live there and there's no government. If I had a map, I would show it to you, but.

• 1:15:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I'm looking at it here. Actually, why don't I go ahead and just use the share function again here? Just trying to find the right tab. Sorry, guys. Here it is.

• 1:15:47Jack Murphy?

  Okay, so you're talking about up in this area over here?

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  Western Sahara, that's it right there. So there's Mauritania, and it's all desert except for the coast. But Western Sahara is like what you would call like an unincorporated city or unincorporated area in the US. It's totally lawless. There's, what we heard was a lot of smuggling and stuff. So getting back to our original point about one of our original points with the DEA Academy. Well, when we got in country, we asked if we could, or my team leader asked the ambassador if we could, you know, get issued weapons from the agency. And what we heard was the agency said, no, no weapons.

• 1:16:30Speaker 03

  So I worked, we worked with the guys from the military attache office. And there were some MARSOC guys who were, you know, had grown their hair out and were in plain clothes. And they were trying to run informants up and down the coast. And we tried to help, help them, but it was like, they just didn't get the training on informant management that DEA does. It was kind of, I don't want to say disturbing, but they weren't getting good intel. And they had a good source, but you know, you can only do what you can when you're on a TDY.

• 1:17:07Jack Murphy?

  And let's talk a little bit about why you were there. Because as I understand it, I want to hear your perspective.

• 1:17:16Jack Murphy?

  A lot of drug trade running from South America to West Africa and then up north into European markets. Was that something you were looking at?

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  Correct. That's what we were tasked with gathering intel on. And I did, I mean, we did actually find, I couldn't believe it. We were, we were driving around the city of Nawakchap. We went to the airport and we found a Russian cargo plane. So we took, you know, I was on the perimeter of the airport. I took, we took covert pictures of it. And we transmitted them back to, we had an analyst with us. She transmitted it back to headquarters. It turned out that plane had been reported as destroyed.

• 1:18:00Speaker 03

  Crashed and destroyed. So the tail number that we found, it had been repainted and renumbered. Um, and we had heard that Colombians were moving in, trying to, uh, open businesses. But you know, the, the Mauritanians didn't really want them. They didn't know what to do. But we did find that one plane. It was like a Russian version of a C one thirty, I think. I don't know if it was like an Antonov or Tupulov or something. So, but it had been reported as crashed. And we, we took pictures of it at the airport and, and sent them up. But yeah, they were, we had heard stories of, or read reports of, uh, desert airstrips farther in, in Mali and farther into the Sahara there,

• 1:18:41Speaker 03

  where they would just land and then, and then take off bound for Europe with, uh, and Europe has a big cocaine issue. But that's where, that was like the, the midway point to transport the cocaine to Europe.

• 1:18:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I read somewhere that in this area of like the Sahel, there are places like you can just land a plane anywhere in the desert.

• 1:19:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, we were told the same thing. Yeah. It's such hard packed, hard, you know, compacted, hard packed sand. It would just take an organization, a little bit of work to make it, you know, to make it, uh, landable.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  And what did you start to find? Like, did you start to map out these networks and how they moved the cocaine through this region?

• 1:19:23Speaker 03

  Well, what my, my team did was just gather intel in Mauritania. I mean, we, we went to, I think the, the port on the west coast is Nawadi Bu. So we went up there, um, and the Mauritanians were good.

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  It, it was a lot of smuggling issues, you know, via ship, via DAO. And if, if the, if there was law enforcement presence in Mauritania, they just moved to Western Sahara. So we, we gathered what we could on, you know, like we, there was, was a Colombian, you know, fleeting Colombian presence in Mauritania. So we reported it. The same with the, with the, with the teams in the other North African countries. And I don't know what, what came of the info, the intel, um, like, you know, uh, unfortunately, like a typical op, we, we gather this intel and report it and we don't, we, we didn't know, we don't know what happened.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah. How it goes. Sometimes you're a little piece of the puzzle.

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Um, and then for you, you got you got promoted to be a group supervisor, right?

• 1:20:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I I came to the point where I didn't and being a being an NCO in the army helped me because I was, you know, nervous about promoting, but I knew at least what it was about and I could do the job. So we started putting in for jobs, um, you know, had input from my wife on places that we would move to. And had a bunch of interviews, was even told I was selected for.

• 1:20:55Speaker 03

  I remember being at the range and my boss and her boss, her boss came up to me and congratulated me for being promoted to a supervisor job in San Diego and the career board cable came out the next day and some somebody else got it.

• 1:21:12Speaker 03

  Um, we put it, I put in for

• 1:21:15Speaker 03

  the task force in Riverside that was detached. It was, um, it used to be run by the state and locals. It was based at Palm Springs Police Department. But DEA took over the management. It was still run by a board of chiefs and captains. But DEA, the task force commander was DEA and it was about an hour away from Riverside in the desert. So, yeah, so that's the job I got and we were allowed to live. I was the first supervisor to allow, I was only the second one. They hadn't had a supervisor for 18 months. Um, so I had to get manpower, get equipment. But we, I was allowed to live out there and we covered a lot of area from, from Palm Springs,

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  um, all the way out to the Arizona border. Excuse me. There was a checkpoint. There was a.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  Border Patrol checkpoint at the Arizona border and then down past the Salt and Sea to like where we're not to where Imperial County starts. So it was a massive, massive area and I had never, I had need, I needed to get a really learn it and learn how, how high the temperatures got in the summer. The highest I saw was 121. I had a brand new government car. We were on surveillance and I was parked in a parking lot and my car, it was, it had been driven off, off the car carrier in downtown LA and driven out to Riverside and I drove it to Palm Springs. So it had like, I don't know, 120 miles.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  It was overheating just sitting there and the temperature read 121. So in the summer it could get to like 115 for a week at a time. It was, it was brutal, but there were, you know, it's a big smuggling area because the interstate 10 goes through the area, right? All the way out to Arizona. We had to respond to that Border Patrol checkpoint a lot of times and a lot of times they would make a seizure. A lot of it was like meth secreted in hidden compartments and they x-rayed it and so we'd have to go out and take, take custody of it and drive it back and book it into Palm Springs PD. It was really, and then take it to Riverside the next day. But it was, I had to do a lot of

• 1:23:35Speaker 03

  liaison because we were based at Palm Springs PD. So I had to, I met with the chief every week. I worked with the captain and the lieutenants every week and we were co-located next to a sheriff's department street team. So we sat next to each other. So we had to really, you had to really do a lot of liaison because it would have taken one small thing, the chief would have told my boss, "Hey, I want this guy Dobas out of here." And I would have got moved back to the office or whatever. So we had to do liaison, but we were lucky enough to be co-located with the desert regional SWAT team and we could use their facility.

• 1:24:11Speaker 03

  An abandoned building on the Palm Springs Airport, we could train there. Sometimes they would observe us with our training. I was able to utilize a separate pool of money to buy my task force the best gear in the entire division. We had Liberator headsets with low profile, low cut helmets and greens, so we all looked the same. So we ended up doing the most entries of any group in the division when I was there. But some of those neighborhoods in Indio and Coachella were heavily infested by cartels.

• 1:24:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was gonna ask, you know, what was sort of your experience in the difference between the first time you were there and the second? Had it changed? Yeah, so first, the area was more developed. Not only Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, but Riverside City was more developed. But the emphasis, well, there was a heavy emphasis on technical surveillance. But my group did that, but I also had agents who loved working with informants.

• 1:25:26Speaker 03

  So I gave them the latitude to do whatever they like, not like best, but whatever they could do best, right? I wasn't micromanaging them. I wanted them to do, as long as they were doing something and producing, that was good. And they all produced. But again, and I guess I was kind of naive, like growing up and again, experienced careerism and politics for the first time, which I don't mesh well with, it turns out.

• 1:26:02Speaker 03

  So, but the core group of the task force, and the task force was, you know, DEA, FBI, HSI, Riverside Sheriff's Department, Palm Springs Police Department, Border Patrol. In the Indio Station, we worked great with Border Patrol. They gave us two. Agents and a third with a canine. I had my own canine for my drug dog for a while, which DEA doesn't have their own drug dogs. My task force had a TDY drug dog. So it was a lot of different agencies had to make it work. But we had great success while I was there for five and a half years. And I was talking to one of my mentors from Connecticut and when I got rotated to headquarters.

• 1:26:48Speaker 03

  So the DEA career management career path is you hit, I don't know what it is, five years, you go on a list to rotate to headquarters to do what in the army is the equivalent of like staff time. You have to learn, you know, the mothership, how the mothership operates. And he was like, it's a shame. He's like, he's like, you were there for five years. You did all that work. And I goes, I bet you had that Coachella Valley wired, right? I was like, yeah, I did. I could call on any PD, anybody for help. We put on a, like a, a kind of like stay off drugs, stay away from drugs day at the Palm Springs Minor League Stadium. I had the, uh, uh, Customs and Border Protection Black Hawk fly in

• 1:27:32Speaker 03

  and land on the outfield grass, um, give tours. I mean, we, we had, we had vendors give, you know, food for, for the guests. Um, it was, it was just, you know, going out and, and talking to people and, and not sitting behind the desk. You could man, get these relationships going and you could get things done.

• 1:27:55Jack Murphy?

  What were some of the more interesting busts that you did during this time? You mentioned that some of them were a little dicey.

• 1:28:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. So there was, there was two in particular. Um, there was a, a compound in Coachella close to the Interstate 10. It had like multiple outbuildings and, uh, there was a main house and the, if I can remember, I think the owner was linked to a cartel. And I can't remember how we got a warrant and we got warrants for the outbuildings. So I think we had four teams hit the outbuildings simultaneously. Um, and we had a helicopter overhead. We, we had, we had LZs picked out for medevac in case somebody went down. Um, but.

• 1:28:44Speaker 03

  It was, there was no, no blue on blue. We successfully cleared the outbuildings. We found an illegal cockfighting operation in one of the outbuildings. We found, I can't remember what, what drugs, what dope we found, but that, that was complicated. And another one was, we were gonna hit a house in Coachella in a, on a street that was heavily, it was all Mexican, but heavily, heavily cartel. So I got, I reached out to CBP and I said, here, we got this, we're doing this entry on this house. Can you give us air support with your night sun, right? The, can you light up the backyard looking

• 1:29:25Speaker 03

  for squirters? Cause it was a nice house. So we had multiple meetings and we had a briefing and we had, um, we had, we were gonna close off, sheriff's units were gonna close off both sides of the road. We had a perimeter team and we had another team that was right behind my stack. We were the entry team so we could pass out prisoners. Or, or, or not prisoners, but people that came through the door. Because at this time, we had kinda segwayed from, you know, the hostage rescue type breach and go in and breach and clear. Um, I had an FBI agent on my team who was a former first group guy. And

• 1:30:06Speaker 03

  what had trickled down, and I'm sure you know those guys from the unit, Bob Horgan and Michael McNulty, I think, they, they, they, they got killed on an entry because there was a barricaded, like, uh, like RP, RPK or-

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  That was in, uh, El Caime. And, uh, if our, our viewers go back in time, we have an interview with a former operator, Jesse Betcher, who was there on that operation. Uh, so you, you guys can go back and actually hear it, you know, from, from somebody who was there. But yeah, you're, you're absolutely right, Dan.

• 1:30:39Speaker 03

  So, so, you know, and everybody wanted to do breach, you know, breach and, and, and hit, right? Like, kinda like a hostage rescue type thing, but-

• 1:30:50Speaker 03

  They started going to callouts. So it went from like the unit to SF to FBI HRT to FBI SWAT down to our level. So this this former first group guy was an FBI agent told us, he goes, it's gonna be, we're gonna, we're not gonna call out, but we're gonna do breach and clear, or breach and hold. So we breached the front door and we did a call out from there. So what we did was we got, well, let me backtrack. After the briefing, we took off in a convoy, right? And we had a sheriff's, a marked car leading us. And I was in our unmarked raid van. And I looked behind us and there's like a convoy of like six or eight vehicles following us. I

• 1:31:34Speaker 03

  looked to my right and there's a Blackhawk following us in parallel. And I thought to myself, this is some Iraq type shit right here, even though it's not anywhere near that level. But I'm like, nobody else, and I'll give a plug to my team and me, nobody else was doing stuff like this. I wasn't on a specialized team or the fast team. And I had a Blackhawk paralleling us. And we shut down the street. We did the breach. And I had, I had, I had, I had team internal radio and a radio to the helicopter on approach. I told the helicopter, light it up. And it was hovering above the house and they lit up the backyard. And again, successful, no, no friendly injuries, a couple of arrests. And I don't remember if we seized

• 1:32:19Speaker 03

  anything, but it was, what I do remember was when the entry, we were, we were searching the house, people came out on the street and they were filming us and they were cursing at us. And for the, for one of the few times, maybe, maybe if someone hears this, they'll disagree, but I lost my, I lost my bearing. And I went onto the street and I was yelling back at them. And I needed some of the sheriff's guys to pull me back and shut me up. Because they, they were, they were saying, they were cursing at us and filming at us. And I was, I was, you know, I was, I was mad because it was had a stressful morning, right? With this, the helicopter and the multiple teams and stuff. And I wasn't having it. I wasn't having it. That's not the

• 1:33:01Speaker 03

  way to act, you know, especially when you're, you're on, you're in the middle of a Middle of the street, we wanna, we wanna, you know, we want goodwill, but at that point I had had it. You know, I had had it and it was a cartel, you know, a quote unquote cartel neighborhood sympathetic. And we were pulling guys out. Um, I can't remember if it was off a wire or an informant, but it was, it was, it was a complicated thing. And, uh, you know, the task force, it was a mix of guys who were in the military, like myself from the eighty second and a first group guy. We had another eighty second guy. Um, we had guys who weren't in the military, but we, we trained together. We, we got extra training

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  and we were always safe and we did a lot. Like I said, the most entries in the division when I was there. Awesome. And, and so after, uh, all these adventures, you had, you did have to return to the mothership, right? Yeah. Um, uh, so my name, my number came up and we moved. I mean, we were, you know, my wife's from New England. I'm from New England, so we wanted to get back to the East Coast. But, uh, so I, I show, and I was kind of recruited to the, the chemical investigation section by my predecessor. He was another LA guy. Uh, one of his friends recommended, uh, me to him, uh, as a guy who was running his own show.

• 1:34:23Speaker 03

  Um, my, my predecessor did a good job, like bringing this section up, uh, to the major leagues and getting them in the game. Uh, he knew that, excuse me, he knew precursor chemicals and tabling and encapsulating machines, like we call pill presses, were the wave of the future synthetics. So he dropped a lot of dead weight, uh, out of the section and he recruited, um, some real go-getters. And we started to work with the intelligence community and the combatant commands. So for the first like six or seven months, I was what they call a staff coordinator. I was just there, didn't know what to do.

• 1:35:04Speaker 03

  You know, he was like, oh, create some program, create some initiative, but I didn't even know what that meant. So. And I took some trips out to the field with people from the section to brief the divisions on what we did and what we could offer them. And then lucky enough, we had a great relationship with Customs and Border Protection. They run the National Targeting Center in Sterling, Virginia. And it's, it's, it's what a real watch center should be. It's high tech, the, it's, there's a watch floor that has, there's screens all over, there's a massive screen that has a globe, a spinning globe, has, you know, identifies ships on the sea that are suspect.

• 1:35:45Speaker 03

  Maybe ships that have turned off their, their, their ID. But it's all, a lot of agencies are there. And so my boss selected me to be the first, well, actually the second 1811. There had been an 1811 there a month before me and the, the SES from Customs kicked him out. Cause he didn't like him, didn't like his attitude. So there's a lot of pressure on me. So because, and I wasn't just

• 1:36:09Speaker 03

  there for chemicals. I turned out to be like the catch all for DEA. Anything to do with DEA, I had to answer. And we did a lot of great things, um, working with, um, our, our agents overseas. Trying to seize loads of fentanyl precursor chemicals. But those guys, those men and women at NTC treated me like one of the family. I, I've never been treated, you know, better by a local agency. I, I still talk to them now. And then when I, my boss retired, I got promoted and I was able to uh, stage three subsequent agents at NTC full time to be a liaison officer.

• 1:36:54Speaker 03

  And help with precursor chemicals and pill presses and binders and equipment. So it's a, it was a great, great relationship and it's a, it's a great place to work.

• 1:37:06Jack Murphy?

  Ask you more about that. I was gonna, I was actually gonna bring it up later, but since this is part of where you came in touch with it in your career, let's hit it up right now. Tell us about precursor chemicals and sort of the effort to interdict them either abroad or before they get to where it's actually, they're used to manufacture methamphetamines, right?

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, mostly now they're used, the, the big, the big drug is fentanyl, right?

• 1:37:31Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:32Speaker 03

  And, and so, um, yeah, like, like obviously you need chemicals to make meth, but fentanyl has replaced meth in a sense, but

• 1:37:43Speaker 03

  to get, I mean, there are specific chemicals just made to make fentanyl, but many of these chemicals, a lot of them are called dual use or really multi-use chemicals. And I didn't understand the scope, not only of the chemical trade worldwide, but the scope of international commerce. Uh, like whether it's via maritime, air, or rail, or truck, it's insane, the, the scope of it. So when you hear a politician or the head of an agency say, we're going to disrupt the flow of chemicals, you know, please, you know, I'm retired now, but call, call me and let me know how you're going to do it.

• 1:38:26Speaker 03

  Because we worked that problem for five and a half years. And I even went as far as trying to find, and they're doing it now, I don't know what, under what authority, trying to find the tight US, the US code to allow uh, for a visit board search seizure VBSS mission. Um, we went to, we had a great relationship with the joint, joint interagency task force west in Hawaii. When I was out there for a visit, I talked to some, some, some seals and I said, hey, if I had information that a, a freighter was bringing chemicals to the US or Mexico, would you guys do a VBSS mission?

• 1:39:08Speaker 03

  He's like, of course we would. He's like, give us the info. But, you know, if I set that up, I probably would have got fired. But I, I was like so frustrating because mismanifesting or mislabeling the chemicals is a massive problem. If there's corruption at the ports, you're not gonna, if a load of fentanyl chemicals is secreted inside a Connex box full of, uh,

• 1:39:33Speaker 03

  Full of it. Pick, pick, pick something, you know, magnesium or, or, or, or any, any chemical that's used to make a hundred odd products, you're not going to find it. So, um, and, and then the dual, like, we, we would beg for, for intelligence on these chemicals because we wanted to find the source of the diversion, right? So, for example, were the chemicals thrown overboard with a flotation device before they reached the port? Did, did the, the, the, the ship mate, meet with and mate with a smaller ship like a daw or a fishing boat, boat to unload the chemicals? Did, did the chemicals, were they

• 1:40:17Speaker 03

  stolen at the port or at the airport? Okay. Uh, were they stolen right out of a bonded warehouse in either one? Um, did they through the proverbial fall off the back of the truck on the way to the factory? Or was somebody at the factory corrupt and were they just taken there? So, but it's very hard to get that intelligence. For example, at some of the labs overseas, the barrels of chemicals, um, the bags, the labels are ripped off. But we would beg for anything like pocket litter, phone numbers they found on. So we could try to see what the network was and where the diversion was happening. So we could,

• 1:41:01Speaker 03

  we could try to at least interdict it.

• 1:41:06Jack Murphy?

  I, I've heard that much of these chemicals come from, or they did from, uh, India and China, and I believe Thailand may have been involved also. Um, are they manufacturing these chemicals? Like, like in their, in their mind, are they even thinking about the drug trade? Or that's like they're manufacturing industrial chemicals in their mind and then it gets hijacked along the way by bad actors?

• 1:41:29Speaker 03

  Well, there's many, there's many issues with China, like the geopolitical issue, like are they engaged in like, I don't know, what do they call it? The hundred year war?

• 1:41:39Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's like hybrid warfare. Yeah.

• 1:41:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Is it hybrid warfare? So they can try to? You know, degrade the US from in the inside without firing a shot. But there are, there is Chinese organized crime that wants to make money. But, you know, reference India, they just have massive chemical industry. And my experience is no, I mean, yes, stuff does get diverted, but they're, they're, they're just industry, right? They're, they're making, making money, making massive amounts of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. But China, you have to wonder, you know, and you know, you see, you see reports, you hear things, but you know, you don't know until we were, you know, we did, you know, hit loads, but

• 1:42:27Speaker 03

  fentanyl precursors are largely coming through the air, right? We had a phrase in my section that the fentanyl war is being fought in the air. And we had, and for a while we were doing well. And then I don't know what happened, but it became very, very difficult to get, find chemicals, fentanyl precursors in, in air shipments. And then of course, like I said, there's the mislabeling, mismanifesting, which we're always trying to, trying to get ahead of. But the, the, the corruption, there's so much money in the international chemical and legitimate pharmaceutical, legitimate chemical pharmaceutical world and the commerce, the scope of the commerce. To try to get my head around it and say, how are we going to, how are we going to tackle this? Where the, a small section at headquarters,

• 1:43:12Speaker 03

  that's not really operational, how are we going to tackle this program? We came up with a lot of initiatives and programs to, to try to, uh, you know, to tackle, do the best we could for the American people.

• 1:43:23Jack Murphy?

  What, what did you find was most effective in going after them?

• 1:43:27Speaker 03

  Um, if we could work with our partner agencies, um, a lot of times we, we ended up coordinating efforts with the IC and the combatant commands. And then when, when Trump took over his second term, um, you know, the military kind of took, kind of took over. Um, in a sense that, that set, but we found that they, these agencies didn't know what we were doing. And they wanted to know what we were doing. Um, but it was, it was, and they wanted to help, they

• 1:44:08Speaker 03

  We would show them the programs that we had, the initiatives, and a lot of them ate it up. I mean, we were going to the agencies a lot, a lot of times sharing info. But you just don't know what, what, you know, what happens. We weren't read into a lot of their programs, but we were willing to help however we could to try to get a grip on this program because, on this problem, because if there's roughly, if a hundred thousand Americans were dying a year and the problem is originating on our doorstep, you know, the southwest border, we want to do what we can do and work with who we can work with.

• 1:44:47Speaker 03

  So every agency and combat command I worked with while I was the section chief was, was great. I mean, I couldn't complain really about any of them. I just wish we had worked closely with them sooner.

• 1:45:04Speaker 03

  Because we were actually doing a lot of the same things. And, you know, a lot of times they had more resources, but we would, we would fill in a lot of blanks for them with the stuff that we were doing and the stuff that we knew.

• 1:45:20Jack Murphy?

  A couple of other subjects I wanted to ask you about that are sort of like current events. But you were in this field until pretty recently. So I'd love to just hear, you know, your perspective with your expertise. One of the big things that's come up over the last year, drug smuggling from Venezuela to the United States. And we have these drone strikes and airstrikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Where would you rank Venezuela as far as drug trafficking? Would you consider them like a serious or imminent threat to the United States?

• 1:45:56Speaker 03

  Personally, yes, as far as the, the amount being smuggled. But it was, I'll tell you, it wasn't on my, I've heard the phrase, it wasn't on my bingo card that we were gonna, you know, drone Venezuelan boats. And there's a former DEA ASAC who was stationed in Venezuela and he's been on.

• 1:46:18Speaker 03

  The Mic Drop Podcast multiple times. He has a lot of good insight. His name is Wes Tabor. I listened to his first podcast where he goes, you know, he has a lot of, he puts DEA management on blast. Right? How our, our, our, our, our leadership, how leadership is lacking. But he has a lot of great info because he was stationed in Venezuela. But um, it's interesting that even inside the agency, we have, there's a lot of agents I know who are, who are against droning the boats. Um, for a lot of issues, you know, they say it's, you know, quote unquote, illegal or bad for our brand. Right?

• 1:47:01Speaker 03

  We were DEA was never associated with drone strikes on boats until, you know, leadership goes on Fox News or wherever and they're asked about it. So then we get linked.

• 1:47:13Speaker 04

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

• 1:47:28Speaker 05

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

• 1:47:39Speaker 04

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

• 1:47:44Speaker 06

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

• 1:47:50Speaker 04

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

• 1:48:10Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:48:37Speaker 01

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

• 1:49:08Speaker 03

  ...to it. And a lot of people have a bad opinion of, but I was kind of shocked to find that there were agents who were totally against it. I personally think that it hadn't been, you know, I'll, I'll, I'll give you a backstory. We hosted this chemical conference, right? My section called Chemical Working Group, biggest chemical conference in the world. This year it had over 200 attendees, 15 foreign partners. We had two VIP speakers from the White House, including Sebastian Gorka. He told us, "You're all great at your job, you're all working super hard, but what you've been doing for the last 20 years, it's not working. Is we're gonna try something different."

• 1:49:52Speaker 03

  And this was after like the first boat got hit. So we were, we all were looking at us like, you know, what, what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen? And we saw what's gonna happen. So it hadn't happened before. Um, and you know, the, our bingo card was filled with Mexico, Mexico, Mexico.

• 1:50:11Jack Murphy?

  But what do you think about this approach that we've taken towards Venezuela? Do you think it's like meaningful or effective from a law enforcement perspective?

• 1:50:20Speaker 03

  I do because I believe it's gotten to the point where these international criminal organizations, and not just drug trafficking organizations anymore, they're involved in so many things, are so embedded in so many countries and have so many different things besides narcotics. And they're so wealthy and powerful that they have to know that the equation has changed, right? They have to know that they've poked the bear enough times so that the bear is now awake, okay? And the bear is not going to just maybe extradite you to the US in five years

• 1:51:02Speaker 03

  or eight years. Like, the bear might push a button and you might wake up dead, right? You and your family or your labs, right? With the amount of Americans that were dying every year, this hadn't been tried. And a lot of my friends in the military in the DC area,

• 1:51:25Speaker 03

  like at the 05, 06 level, we've been discussing this for years before the Venezuelan drone strikes, and they were all for it. And we actually would game it out to an extent, like what are the second and third order effects? What's the trigger for, you know, somebody to retaliate in the US? And I know we would actually socialize it to other agencies, like the State Department was totally against it, but the military was totally for it. And if it would, you know, degrade these organizations, I'm for it.

• 1:52:03Jack Murphy?

  And you mentioned Mexico. That was going to be my next question is, um, excuse me.

• 1:52:12Jack Murphy?

  Mexico is kind of like next up, right? Kind of at least that's what we hear about in the press that now it's, you know, going after the cartels in Mexico. What do you think would be the right approach for us to counter the cartels, the Mexican drug cartels?

• 1:52:28Speaker 03

  If they would give us full access and full cooperation, we, we obviously have the tools through, you know, through seventh group, obviously works Central, South America, right?

• 1:52:42Speaker 03

  JSOC, the train, you know, I'm not even talking about direct action. I'm talking about the training piece. And we've been, we've been doing, you know, J sets for years. It's just, it's a question of access and how much, how much they're going to, how much they're going to give us, how much access.

• 1:53:03Jack Murphy?

  What about going unilaterally? Like, you know, we, we did the recent raid and grabbed up Maduro. Um, I guess, I mean, I bring it up because there's like talks about this, you know, kind of like high levels of the government. What do you think about the United States operating unilaterally in Mexico?

• 1:53:20Speaker 03

  Well, I know a lot of the, I don't know what you call them, the vet, vet bro network on YouTube and Spotify. They, they talk about this. I mean, I'll tell you, I love all their podcasts and respect, you know, what they did, but a lot of them don't know what they're talking about. Unilateral, I mean,

• 1:53:42Speaker 03

  one part of me says these cartels have been operating, they've been playing against the JV team for the last 10 to 15 years. So let them come up against

• 1:53:53Speaker 03

  Dev Group or the unit. So they would open up a world of hurt, in my opinion. And actually, a lot of my friends who I don't see, you know, don't talk to anymore because I'm retired, they, military felt the same way, right? And I feel that.

• 1:54:12Speaker 03

  But what's that gonna do? You know, and speaking to others in the government, there's the issue of trade with Mexico. There's the immigration issue, the remitter issue. And then obviously, it's, I mean, we can do what we need to do to defend our country and protect the people, but unilateral action at a country on our doorstep is a big, big line to cross. But if you're asking my personal opinion, it's a line that could be, that probably should be crossed, because as I, if it rises to that level, because what I said before,

• 1:54:53Speaker 03

  I'm of the opinion that these cartels have been playing against the JV team for so long, and they've been poking the bear and poking the bear. Well, guess what? Now the bear is awake, and you're not going to stand against the bear, but it's going to open all kinds of, like I said, second and third order effects that, does the country have the stomach for that? I don't know.

• 1:55:15Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, I can't help but think to Iraq and Afghanistan, where, you know, these units were incredibly effective and very good at what their job was, but we still lost the war, right?

• 1:55:27Speaker 03

  I mean DEA sends a lot of agents and analysts down there, and we, again, have vetted units that mentor the Mexicans, but it seemed like when I was in headquarters, every time we took two steps forward, we'd take a step back. Like, there'd be great vetted units, and all of a sudden, we'd have a great counterpart, and he'd be reassigned across the country. You know, why is that? Why, you know, we're making great progress, seizures were made, but, you know, and how, I mean, it's a black hole of information. I hope it's getting better, but I still speak to a lot of people, you know, at headquarters

• 1:56:09Speaker 03

  and in the field, and, you know, it's not, it's not that good. No matter what they say on a macro level, I'm talking about the guys on the ground, men and women on the ground, and it's a black hole of intel.

• 1:56:25Jack Murphy?

  You're setting aside some of like, you know, the idea of like a Delta Force raid or something like that, you know, because of, you know, some of the strategic considerations. What do you think would be the correct approach? Um, I mean, you mentioned working in, you know, a much closer relationship with the Mexican government. What would maybe that look like?

• 1:56:43Speaker 03

  I think it would have DEA and, and, uh, military units embedded with the, like, I mean, you know, cause you, you were embedded, uh, right? When you were in SF, did you help train the Iraqis? But on the ground with them, right? Um, actually, and, but is the corruption so vast that they, they, they can't stand for an American unit to be on the ground with, you know, C Mar or Sedana or another, another Mexican police unit. But we have the expertise and training, um, from DEA to the military.

• 1:57:27Speaker 03

  And it's just, I don't have confidence that they would let us, let us there. Although, you know, we, I know like seventh group put some, some, some ODAs in to train, but to what extent? I don't know.

• 1:57:39Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. I mean, I think the Mexican government is very sensitive about colonialism and like having Yankee soldiers on their streets would not fly well with them. Maybe you could put like a seventh group guy or a DEA guy who is, you know, Latino and is like almost completely invisible, you know, with the rest of the Mexican unit. But yeah, I don't think, I don't think putting like American soldiers on the ground would go over well.

• 1:58:03Speaker 03

  No, plus, so one time a few years ago, uh, one of my friends from the army, we, we approached the state department people that we knew with this situation. And they said, do you understand how like, they brought up the Mexican-American war and how much, you know, Yankees are despised back from the Mexican-American war. So it was kind of eye opening to me, but, uh,

• 1:58:28Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, the term gringo, if I recall right, it comes from like one of those border wars that we fought with the Mexicans.

• 1:58:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe when we were chasing Pancho Villa through.

• 1:58:37Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:58:39Speaker 03

  Blackjack Pershing and George Patton, maybe, I don't know, we're trying to chase him, chase him down.

• 1:58:45Jack Murphy?

  So tell us about your retirement from the DEA, when that came about and sort of where you are today.

• 1:58:51Speaker 03

  Sure, so it came about recently.

• 1:58:56Speaker 03

  I wanted to get back out to the field. I didn't want to stay at headquarters.

• 1:59:03Speaker 03

  I figured after 24 years and overseas twice, in two different war zones, on two different continents, worked on both sides of the country, plus was an instructor, a tactical instructor and a counselor at Quantico for basic agents, plus, you know, learning the politics at headquarters. I had a lot to offer out to the field, but I wanted to do it at the senior executive level, but the process is different now. There was no interviews, there was just like calls. So, you know, I talked to a lot of my friends, excuse me, fellow GS15s, and I had people telling me like, did you put in for that job?

• 1:59:47Speaker 03

  It wasn't advertised, this wasn't advertised, you know, and they can do, you know, do what they want, but if that option wasn't there, let me see what's out in the civilian world. So there were a lot of interesting things, but there's a lot of people trying to get out and trying to get jobs now. So I retired on December 5th and I went to work for a company called Maven on December 10th.

• 2:00:20Speaker 03

  So I've only been there since then, but it's a great company, roughly like 600 approximate people, they have a global law enforcement.

• 2:00:31Speaker 03

  A aspect and they have a military like a SOCOM counter terror aspect and they support all the combat and commands. So it's so far, I have no complaints so far. It's all new to me. It was kind of crazy going from one agency 24 years to another job and having to learn like new terminology, new verbiage, even even their outlook had a different screen than the one I used. I couldn't even send an email at first. I was like, where's the send? I don't know what was going on. But yeah, the, like I said, there's a global law enforcement component and a like a

• 2:01:14Speaker 03

  military component and they're headquartered in Alexandria and they they have a office outside our second or in our second home, me and you in Fayetteville.

• 2:01:26Jack Murphy?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:01:28Jack Murphy?

  I'm no, that's, that's great. I mean, Dan, thank you for sharing all of your experiences with us. Is there anything else that you'd like to, you know, talk about or riff off of before we get going tonight?

• 2:01:40Speaker 03

  No, I just, like we talked about before, I never thought that, you know, like I, I, you would want to like, you would want to talk to me, right?

• 2:01:49Jack Murphy?

  Of course.

• 2:01:50Speaker 03

  You have, we had so many, I guess maybe we were conditioned to, to think that other units or other people do more than us or, but like I said, I saw another podcast where they said, you know, how many stories can you hear about Hell Week? How many stories?

• 2:02:10Jack Murphy?

  I agree.

• 2:02:11Speaker 03

  How many stories can you hear about BUDS? How many stories can you hear about the Q course? Right? And let, let, let, let's get men and women on who, who were there. In regular units, whether it's the eighty second, the hundred and first, let's talk to DEA. You know DEA doesn't get a lot of publicity, I don't think, compared to FBI or CIA. But the one thing I would say is like, there is, there seems to be like a leadership vacuum. And there's a leadership, I've been hearing there's a leadership problem in government since I got promoted. But it's such a difficult, leadership's a difficult animal.

• 2:02:54Speaker 03

  Because can you, can you be trained to be a leader? Are you born with a little leadership ability and experience? You know, helps you, but then you have the things that I don't mesh well with and a lot of my friends don't, which is careerism. And politics. Like one quick.

• 2:03:12Speaker 01

  Who are your friends with?

• 2:03:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, like a quick story. One of my friends at headquarters, we were looking at a promotion list and, and you know, we're commenting on the people that we knew. And he, he turned to me and he asked me, why are you getting mad? Why, he's like, you've been in the army and he was in the Marines and, and he's like, you've been in DEA for twenty odd years. He goes, you have to know, there's people who can do, they're good at one thing and it's getting promoted. And that's what they're gonna do. They didn't do the job, maybe they can't do the job. So don't get mad, you know, just, just roll with it. He's like, he's like, you did, you're doing your thing, it's fine. I said, you know why it makes me mad? It, it, this is gonna sound archaic, but it offends my sense of fairness, right?

• 2:03:58Speaker 03

  And then, at the end of the day, I said, you know why else it, it, it, it makes me mad? And this, this would apply to me if I was in the Crusades or the Civil War. I said, it offends my sense of honor, right? It's, it's dishonorable to be involved in these political games and careerism for personal gain. I, I've never, I've never accepted it. I, I now I understand it, being in Washington for five and a half years.

• 2:04:30Speaker 03

  I mean, I was able to go to the White House twice and brief the National Security Council in person on pill presses and precursor chemicals. And I briefed them a third. That was during the Biden administration. And I briefed the Trump NSC in a skiff on the impact of tariffs on China and things like that. So I got to see a lot of and talk to a lot of people in so many different agencies. And a lot of the agencies had the same problems that we did. But it's the leadership problem that has to be dealt with at some point.

• 2:05:10Speaker 03

  But I've often thought that a lot of these agencies are almost too big to be run by one person. There's no way that one person can run a massive agency. Just like the president, it's how do you keep a handle on a country like this? There's so many components going in so many different directions. And there's so many different factions. It's so tough to it's so tough to provide leadership. I know that. I forget who was maybe Colonel McKnight from the Ranger Regiment from Black Hawk Down. Said the last the last unit you could actually have influence on leadership wise was the battalion.

• 2:05:53Speaker 03

  I think because even that was like, say, 800 to 1,000 guys. But you still you're with them every day. You took orders from the brigade. But once you promoted to brigade commander or higher, he goes, you're not going to influence those guys. It's the it's the platoon leader, the company commander. And on my level, it's the group supervisor, the task force commander. Right? And when you become an ASAC or a section chief, you still can. It's tougher in the field because there's multiple groups. I mean, I had a I had the biggest section at headquarters roughly between like 18 and 20, 24 people in Washington and in Hawaii.

• 2:06:37Speaker 03

  So I could I could influence them directly. But once you get higher and you have so many disparate elements, it's tough to exert leadership.

• 2:06:47Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, I can see that. And you know, sometimes the type of person that is really good at getting promoted, you know, when you accept that type of system, you end up with very toxic leaders. And that trickles down throughout the entire organization, right?

• 2:07:03Speaker 03

  I just couldn't, I couldn't accept it. Um, I don't know if like, like those archaic notions that I, you know, hung on to. But I'll tell you, there's a couple of times that my, my, my unit chief, he'll know who he is, had to hold me back from like jacking somebody up against the wall in headquarters, right? In suits, because, because they're off the wall ideas, you know, treating people terrible. I don't know if you remember, some, one of the things in the old army was the ability, there was hazing. But you could take off your

• 2:07:46Speaker 03

  top, at least, at least in the 82nd, because that's where the rank was. And there was a sandpit behind the barracks. And if it got to that, you could go wrestle or fight. And it was amazing, the things you could work out, just by wrestling somebody. I mean, my, my squad leader hit me in the face once, and I deserved it, right? But then, from then on, I understood his message. And I had to fly right to give an example, be an example to the younger guys. But he clocked me in the face. And the first sergeant saw it and wanted to know if I wanted to prefer charges. And I said, No, I deserved it. Right? But like, sometimes, I would just get so frustrated that I would, I would want to, you know, I

• 2:08:30Speaker 03

  want to get physical to make them see the, the correct point of view. But I know you can't make decisions out of emotion. Because a good decision is never made out of emotion. But it's good to have people that you could bounce ideas, and you could vent to also, right? Especially when they're smarter than you.

• 2:08:51Jack Murphy?

  Well, Dan, again, thank you for doing this. And, uh, and the answer is yes, I do want to talk to you and people like you. And, uh, we've had a bunch of DEA guys on the show and, um, I like interviewing them. I mean, for one reason is because, like you said, how many podcasts about buds do you really want to listen to? It's a totally like new experience that's somewhat outside my wheelhouse. I'm hearing stories for the first time. I've never talked to a guy who was stationed in Mauritania before, right? Um, and then the other reason is when I'm interviewing like CIA guys and JSOC guys, I feel like I'm pulling teeth to get information out of them. But with DEA guys, uh, especially, and because all their cases are public after they're prosecuted,

• 2:09:34Jack Murphy?

  you guys are like very open, uh, and able to talk about what you've done. Um, I don't know. Do you know, or did you know he passed away? Uh, Larry Laveron?

• 2:09:44Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:09:46Jack Murphy?

  He was a DEA guy. Uh, he was one of the dudes that was down in South America in like the eighties and nineties. And I remember getting him on the phone a few times and man, he had the craziest stories. Back when they were like flying, it was, it was actually, um, Vietnam era pilots flying Hueys down there for DEA guys and Navy SEALs, uh, down in, uh, Bolivia and Colombia.

• 2:10:10Speaker 03

  Yeah. The last, the last one of the DynaCorp pilots stationed in Coedo was a Vietnam veteran who had finished, I think he was on like Operation Lam Song 719, which was the last big offensive. And he was, he was a Huey pilot back then, but yeah, like DEA does so much work all over the world that there's so many stories, like one, uh, I had the DynaCorp pilot drive. So, one, one quick story in Pakistan, we all got assigned high value targets, high value traffickers. Most of them were Afghani or Pakistani. And one of them, his phone came back to this obscure village high in, in the tribal area.

• 2:10:50Speaker 03

  Like elevation, like, I don't know, eight to 10,000 feet. So I had the pilot take me, fly me over the village. A place where his sat phone came back to, and I took a lot of surveillance photos and when I got back to the embassy, that was when Donald Rumsfeld had prepositioned, uh, JSOC guys at all, uh, hotspot embassies, but just one, one guy, like 90 days at a time. So we had dev group guys. So I told them, And they were great, like one on one, they were great guys. Team wise, we, you know, we had some issues with them. But that maybe at the, you know, at the gym or at the bar. But uh,

• 2:11:32Speaker 03

  there, there was one guy, actually, um, before I finished my story, he was ki- he was killed, he was an agency contractor. He was in, uh, the book Not a Good Day to Die about Roberts Ridge. They called him Goody. Michael Goodbo, I think his name was, but I, I would work out with him at the gym, super nice guy. Didn't know him. One time I was at the embassy in Islamabad, ready to go on leave. And I was with another guy from the military office and I, uh, he would, the other guy was there. He's like, do you know who that guy is? I'm like, no, I just worked out with him at the gym once. Well, he goes, he's an American hero. He's like, go read the book, Not a Good Day to Die. He's the guy Goody who saved the Chinooks from getting shot down. He found the, the, the, the, the dishka position.

• 2:12:17Speaker 03

  So guys like that, you just, you didn't know who they were, but they were great guys. But, uh, so back at the embassy, after taking those photos, I, I see, I, I told the, the, the dev group guy what I did. He's like, oh, you want us to go pick the guy up? I was like, what do you mean? He's like, if you want, we'll, we'll go to that village and we'll, we'll grab the guy, but we'll bring him back here. And if I did it, I probably would, I would definitely got kicked out of the country and I would have got fired. But I came close to saying, yeah, let's go get this guy. You know, that, the stories like that, like being, being in Pakistan during the height of the Gwah. And actually going into Afghan, I escorted a delegation of Pakist- of Pakistani anti narcotic force officers to Kabul for a high level meeting.

• 2:13:02Speaker 03

  And they were, ended up screaming at their Afghan counterparts. And I took a C-130 back with a Codel, a congressional delegation with all these senators. And it was like, you know, I can't believe I'm, I'm doing this stuff like this.

• 2:13:18Speaker 04

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

• 2:13:33Speaker 05

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

• 2:13:44Speaker 04

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

• 2:13:49Speaker 06

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

• 2:13:55Speaker 04

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

• 2:14:15Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:14:43Speaker 01

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

• 2:15:13Jack Murphy?

  Think also the DEA FAST teams is sort of like an untold story. And there's a lot of untold stories around that. If you, if you know any of those guys who would like to be interviewed, feel free to pass them our way. Otherwise, thank you again, Dan. Thanks for doing this interview. Thanks for having me. Sharing your many years of experience and expertise with us. Please hold on just a moment. Sure. And for everyone else, we'll see you guys next week. Thanks for tuning in. And hopefully I won't be sick next week. Hey guys, I want to tell all of you today about a new newsletter that we're launching that encompasses both the Team House Podcast, the Eyes On Podcast, and the High Side News

• 2:15:56Jack Murphy?

  Outlet, which I run with Shawn Naylor. The newsletter is going to be once a week, it's going to come into your inbox, and you're going to get the most current podcasts on Eyes On and the Team House, and whatever's topical or current on the High Side. So it's another way for us to get the information out to you, as social media algorithms are pretty iffy, and you never really know what you're going to get. So this is a once-a-week email, it'll slide into your inbox, and it will have, you know, the greatest hits of that week. It's really good, man. I'm checking it out. The website for it is teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join. Teamhousepodcast.kit.com/join.

• 2:16:40Jack Murphy?

  Go there, and you enter into your email list, or you enter your email into the little thing on the website, and you're good to go. And that'll be it. So we really appreciate your support, and hope you'll consider signing up. Where's the link? The link will also be down in the description, if you're looking for it there. And that's teamhousepodcast.kit, K-I-T, Kilo India Tango, dot com, backslash, join.

• 2:17:08Speaker 04

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

• 2:17:23Speaker 05

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

• 2:17:34Speaker 04

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

• 2:17:39Speaker 06

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

• 2:17:45Speaker 04

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

• 2:18:05Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:18:33Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:19:07Speaker 04

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

• 2:19:21Speaker 05

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

• 2:19:32Speaker 04

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

• 2:19:38Speaker 06

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

• 2:19:43Speaker 04

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

• 2:20:03Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:20:31Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:21:06Speaker 04

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

• 2:21:21Speaker 05

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

• 2:21:32Speaker 04

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

• 2:21:37Speaker 06

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

• 2:21:43Speaker 04

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

• 2:22:03Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:22:30Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:23:04Speaker 04

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

• 2:23:18Speaker 05

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

• 2:23:29Speaker 04

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

• 2:23:34Speaker 06

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

• 2:23:40Speaker 04

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

• 2:24:00Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more. OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands

• 2:24:42Speaker 07

  of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply

• 2:24:47Speaker 04

  in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:25:04Speaker 04

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

• 2:25:18Speaker 05

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

• 2:25:29Speaker 04

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

• 2:25:34Speaker 06

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

• 2:25:40Speaker 04

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

• 2:26:00Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:26:28Speaker 06

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

• 2:27:04Speaker 04

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

• 2:27:19Speaker 05

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

• 2:27:30Speaker 04

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

• 2:27:35Speaker 06

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

• 2:27:41Speaker 04

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

• 2:28:00Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:28:28Speaker 06

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

• 2:29:04Speaker 04

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

• 2:29:19Speaker 05

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

• 2:29:30Speaker 04

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

• 2:29:35Speaker 06

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

• 2:29:41Speaker 04

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

• 2:30:01Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:30:29Speaker 06

  Is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:31:05Speaker 04

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

• 2:31:20Speaker 05

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

• 2:31:30Speaker 04

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

• 2:31:36Speaker 06

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

• 2:31:42Speaker 04

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

• 2:32:01Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:32:29Speaker 06

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

• 2:33:08Speaker 04

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

• 2:33:22Speaker 05

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

• 2:33:33Speaker 04

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

• 2:33:38Speaker 06

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

• 2:33:44Speaker 04

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

• 2:34:04Speaker 07

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:34:32Speaker 06

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

• 2:35:03Speaker 00

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

• 2:35:16Speaker 07

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

• 2:36:00Speaker 07

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis. ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down, rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:36:30Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.