Podcasts about Bagram Airfield

What does it take to lead at every level and shape the leaders of tomorrow? SUMMARY Long Blue Line podcast host, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Naviere Walkewicz '99 sat with Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Sherman '95, the U.S. Air Force Academy's vice superintendent, for a deep dive into leadership, humanity and building a world-class service academy. This episode is packed with wisdom for aspiring, emerging, and seasoned leaders alike.   SHARE LINKEDIN  |  FACEBOOK   GEN. SHERMAN'S TOP 10 LEADERSHIP TAKEAWAYS  - Leadership is a human experience - focus on connecting with and caring about people.  - Love what you do and love the people you lead; passion inspires others to follow you.  - Embrace failures and challenges as opportunities for personal growth and development.  - Set the right culture and values within your team to build trust and mutual support.  - Be present and engaged with your team, understanding their motivations and experiences.  - Leadership is about more than rank or position - it's about earning genuine trust and respect.  - Invest time in understanding different generations, cultural nuances, and individual perspectives.  - Balance professional excellence with personal growth and life experiences.  - Support your team's development by providing encouragement and holding them accountable.  - Your legacy is built through individual interactions and the positive impact you have on people's lives.   CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction to Major General Thomas P. Sherman 01:29 Choosing Leadership Over Flying 07:23 The Impact of Mentorship and Values 12:46 Heritage and Evolution of Security Forces 17:43 Personal Growth in Aviano, Italy 24:17 The Importance of Work-Life Balance 29:50 Culminating Command Experience at Bagram 42:25 The Role of Family in Leadership 51:29 Continuous Self-Improvement as a Leader 56:27 Embracing Failure as a Growth Opportunity 01:00:06 Legacy and the Impact of Leadership   ABOUT GEN. SHERMAN BIO Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Sherman is the Vice Superintendent of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. He is serving as the chief operations officer to the Superintendent and overseeing the Academy's blend of military training, academics, athletics, and character development for cadets. Gen. Sherman commissioned in 1995 from the Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science. He built a distinguished career as a security forces officer. He's held command at nearly every level. His key assignments include leadership of the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB and critical staff positions at the Pentagon. In May 2024, Gen. Sherman was tapped to serve as the Academy's Vice Superintendent   CONNECT WITH GEN. SHERMAN LINKEDIN     ALL PAST LBL EPISODES  |  ALL LBLPN PRODUCTIONS AVAILABLE ON ALL MAJOR PODCAST PLATFORMS       TRANSCRIPT SPEAKERS Guest, Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Sherman '95  |  Host, Lt. Col. (ret.) Naviere Walkewicz '99   Naviere Walkewicz  00:00 Welcome to Long Blue Leadership, the podcast where we share insights on leadership through the lives and experiences of Air Force Academy graduates. I'm Naviere Walkewicz, Class of '99 today. I'm joined by a leader whose career has taken him from the flight line to the halls of Congress and now back to the very institution that launched it all. Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Sherman currently serves as vice superintendent of the Air Force Academy, where he plays a critical role in guiding the development of our future officers and ensuring the Academy remains a world class institution for leadership, character and Day 1 readiness to win the future fight. A 1995 Academy graduate, Gen. Sherman has spent nearly three decades serving in key operational, strategic and command roles. He's led at every level, from squadron to wing command, and his assignments have included everything from nuclear security enterprise to homeland defense, policy development at the Pentagon, and legislative affairs at the highest levels of the Department of the Air Force. Prior to his role as vice superintendent, Gen. Sherman served in the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense, where he was a principal military assistant leading policy integration across joint staff, interagency services and combatant commands. He's perhaps best known in command circles for leading the 88th Air Base wing at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, one of the largest and most complex wings in the Air Force, with a focus on people first, leadership and mission excellence. Gen. Sherman, welcome to Long Blue Leadership. We're so glad you're here too.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  01:32 It is great to be here. Thank you.   Naviere Walkewicz  01:33 We're excited and we're going to dive right in, because I think what is so special for our listeners is really hearing these moments that have changed your life. I'd like to start at the Academy. You turned down a pilot slot. You were rated, but said no.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  01:48 Well, actually it was a little bit before that. You know, it's kind of interesting, because that was the draw that brought me here, is I just had this incredible passion to want to fly, and I love flying, and I truly enjoyed it, especially through all the different airmanship programs and things like and things like that we had here. The experiences were fantastic. But, you know, as I was starting to learn more about myself going through the Academy, I was starting to feel my heart getting pulled in a direction of wanting to really lead people and really spend a lot of time working with the enlisted. And I think that came from a couple different areas. I think it was some really unique exposure that I got during my ops Air Force time, which I went to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, during ops, and just had our action officer that worked this, I think just did a phenomenal job. And I really started getting pulled to what was then called security police. That is actually when Laurie and I got together and started dating, because Laurie is here in Colorado Springs, but she grew up as an Air Force brat. My father-in-law is a retired Chief Master Sgt., and so there was a lot of mentorship that was taking place around dining room table when I was a young cadet. And I think one of the things that her parents really taught me was just the value of the enlisted force, and so I was feeling my heart really getting pulled. And so obviously, there's a conundrum. There's a conundrum on what were the root desires that brought me here — what were the things that I was learning as a cadet, my joy of flying, and also, particularly the culture at that time, was that that was really the job that you needed to aspire to be, that was the expectation of cadets. And so then to really kind of run counter to that strong current was really kind of a unique, you know, almost unnavigated area, right? And so to really kind of take the story out to its next level is that I'd really gotten to a point where talking with people there — we hadn't had the AMT program, but there were these NCOs that were kind of tangentially attached to cadet squadrons. And so I got a chance to talk to one of the master sergeants that was there who was a maintainer by background. And I was kind of pouring my heart out to him on, you know, what had I been talking to him with my now in-laws, about where was my heart pulling me? And so he said, ‘Give me just a second.' And he picked up the phone, and he called my AOC and he goes, ‘Hey, you're gonna be there for a little while.' And this was a Friday afternoon. He said, ‘I got a cadet that needs to come talk to you.' And he hangs up the phone and he goes, ‘Now you go tell your AOC what you just told me.' And so I ended up going to my AOCs office that day, and we had about a two-hour conversation about this. I sat down and really, kind of took the time to explain to him what was I feeling, And obviously, I really try to see the best in people. And so I think from a noble place, he was doing his best to convince me that I was making a grave mistake. And went on to talk to me about what his concerns were, the career field that I was looking at, things along those lines. And we can save that conversation for another time, but I think really where the foundation came in is where we started to talk about leadership. And you know, what I was asking him to do was to pull my rated recommendation form, so we had just submitted them, and I was asking him to pull my rated recommendation form. I didn't want to compete for it anymore. And so we started to talk about leadership. And he says, ‘Hey, Cadet Sherman, you need to understand that leadership in this Air Force is being the lead F-16 pilot on a bombing run, you know, putting iron on target.' And that's true. It's a very important part of leadership. It is a very important part of tactical operational leadership in this Air Force. So he's not wrong in that space. But I was looking at it from a different lens, and I was looking at it, I think, on a larger level. And what I don't think he realized is that 30 seconds before I walked into his office, he set me up for success. I just happened to be waiting outside the office, and all of a sudden, I looked on his cork board, and somebody, and I don't know who it was, had pinned a note that was written to Airman Magazineby an airman first class. And this airman first class titled this, “I need a leader.” And this A1C felt so strongly about what they were feeling — and I have no idea who this person was — felt so strongly about it that they put pen to paper, and this would have been the fall of 1994, and sent this into Airman Magazine, and it says, “I need a leader.” Commissioning sources. ‘Send us lieutenants that we can look up to that will hold us accountable when we do wrong, that will encourage us when we do well, that will be an example that we can look up to, that will care about us as human beings, because you are not sending them to us now. Air Force, I need a leader.' Like that 30 seconds just before I walked into his office — that changed my life, and it changed my life, because for me, at that moment, what I was getting ready to go ask my AOC to do, what I was looking at inside myself, that became my charge. And so as we spoke, you know, 20-year-old Cadet First Class Sherman — I might have been a 21-year-old at the time — Cadet First Class Sherman pushed back on my AOC, and I said, ‘Sir, I disagree.' I said, ‘I want to be that guy. I want to be that guy that that A1c is asking for on your cork board outside, because that's leadership in this Air Force.' And so, to his credit, he said, ‘Hey, I want you to go think about this over the weekend. You know, think about what you're doing. Come back to me on Monday. No questions asked. I'll pull it if you want me to.' And I left there, and I remember feeling like, not like a weight had been lifted off my shoulder, but I almost felt like this sense of like, ‘Now I've got my purpose,' because that little article has shaped me my entire career, and I mean to this day, and at a scale. You know, as a lieutenant, my scale is this big on what I'm affecting to help do and be what that A1C needs to a wing commander. I always keep it in the back of my head, and after all of these years, I am still thinking about, Am I doing right by that A1C that 31 years ago, felt so strongly about something that they wrote a note to Airman Magazine, and that became my charge.   Naviere Walkewicz  08:09 That is incredibly powerful. I'm a little bit without words, because I'm thinking about, first off, being brave enough to disagree with an AOC. I mean, I think that takes courage in showing your leadership there. Were you always like that? Have you always been someone that is steadfast in a decision and being able to kind of speak out?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  08:30 So I get that from my parents. And, you know, I grew up in Corona, California. My mom and dad are amazing people. And we didn't grow up with a lot of money, and we grew up from a pretty meager background, and my mom and dad had made a decision early on in their marriage, when they had my sister and I, that my mom was going to focus to make sure that Nancy and I got an education, and my dad was going to work as many jobs as he had to to put food on the table. And sometimes my dad was holding down three jobs to make sure that we had nutritious food to eat, and my mom was working miracles to make sure that we were fed well, but that also that she was dedicated and had the time to volunteer for things like PTA, being involved as a class volunteer, making sure that we were involved in things and had exposure to things that what they did was they also instilled in me this really strong blue collar work ethic. And it was this aspect of, if I just roll up my sleeves and put in the work, anything is possible. And so on that line, this young kid growing up with a West Coast father and an East Coast mother, and just this, really neat family background that things for me, that I believed in I would go after with all of my heart and soul. And so I found out about the Academy when I was 12 years old. And so, you know, when I at 12 years — we were going to a community event there in Corona, and there was an officer recruiter — Capt. Craig. was her name — and we started talking. She says, ‘Hey, did anybody talk to you about the Air Force Academy?' And I said, ‘No, this sounds great.' So from there, I just made this decision as a 12-year-old, and I worked all the way through junior high and high school to get here, because to go to your point like, ‘I made a decision, I'm gonna see this thing through.'   Naviere Walkewicz  10:30 Whoa. OK, so you knew you were going to the Academy before you graduated high school.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  10:35 Yes, in my mind, there was no other option.   Naviere Walkewicz  10:39 And so anyone in your family serve, or were you the first one in your family to serve?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  10:43 So I am the first officer and career member of the family. My dad was drafted and went to Vietnam in 1967 and stayed through Tet of 1968. I had an uncle, Harry Lee Schmidt, who was a C-47 loadmaster in World War II and Korea, and my grandfather was actually a part of the initial kind of what was the foundation of the OSS and the Navy doing beach recon on beaches in the South Pacific, prior to island hopping campaign and island landings. And so there was this real heritage of service, right? Just not career service. But even then, as a kid, I always had in my mind, ‘OK, one way or another, I'm going to serve, and if I do an enlistment and then go to college afterwards —' but I had this idea that, ‘OK, I'm going to serve,' and then all of a sudden, this became this amazing conduit that got me here, right?   Naviere Walkewicz  11:38 And they also had ties to aviation. How did they feel about your decision, your family?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  11:43 It was interesting, because they knew how passionate I was about aviation growing up. I mean, we did not miss an air show at March Air Force Base, the Chino air show, which was planes of fame, which was all historic aircraft. I volunteered as a high school student to work there, and we helped restore airplanes with me and my friends. You know, it was interesting, because my parents were very supportive in ‘OK, where's your heart leading you? And, what makes you feel so strongly about this?' Because when I first talked to him on the phone, I called him from Ramstein Air Base and said, ‘Hey, I think I know what I want to do in the Air Force. I want to go to security police. And my mom was like, ‘What's that? And, so, as time went by and I explained it, I think my parents probably all along knew that that was probably going to be a very good fit. And then after commissioning and at my first assignment, I think that they were certain of it, right? Yeah, they were absolutely certain.   Naviere Walkewicz  12:37 That is amazing. Well, I want to dive into this profession a bit, because it's interesting. You know, you've mentioned, when you came in, it was security police, and, security forces and you hear people saying defenders and peacekeepers. So there's this lineage and this heritage. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that and then maybe lead us into that next transformational moment that you might have had in this role?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  12:58 OK, I'm very proud of the fact that, you know, I am part of an ever decreasing group of folks that came in when we were still security police, and that was really still the peacekeeper days, because this was all kind of the follow on on the Cold War. The peacekeepers were our cold warriors and that was a huge part. Our defenders came in and really, that name started to really grow in 1997 when the name changed from security police to security forces, and we were actually going back to some of our heritage that was in Operation Safeside, which was the combat security police squadrons in Vietnam. So when you think about the courage that was displayed during the Tet Offensive at places like Tan Son Nhat that those were safe side warriors that were a part of these combat security police squadrons. And so the very — part of the lineage of the very beret, and flash that we have is actually a tip of the hat to the lighter blue berets, and that flash with the Falcon and the crossed runways that goes back, actually, to our Safeside heritage days. The beret goes back even farther than that. It goes back to Strategic Air Command, Elite Guard back in the 1950s. So it's this great lineage. And so, you know, for me, part of it was like when I got my first beret, wow, that meant something to me. And then, you know, as we then kind of transformed along the way, and this amazing career field grew, and the aspects of this air based ground defense, which was really, I would say, was kind of the draw that got me into wanting to go into security police, was I really liked this idea of, ‘How do we do base defense?' The law enforcement side was intriguing to me, but it was based defense that just had me just had me captivated.   Naviere Walkewicz  14:44 And was that something that you found out early in your career? After you graduate the Academy, you're now in security police. Is that when you kind of realized, ‘This is where I want to go in, air, base, ground defense.'?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  14:54 It even happened at ops. So as we were spending time with the security police squadron, I ended up spending time with a captain who was heading up the Elite Guard, and there was an interaction we had as I was doing a ride along. He's like, ‘Hey, you need to come see me.' And so I went and met up with him, and he took me around and introduced me to all of his airmen that were part of the guard. He knew something all about them. And then we went to his office and talked, and he had gone to Ranger School and Airborne and things like that, and said, ‘Hey, like, the future of the career field is actually us looking to the past.' And really kind of got me fired up on what we call back then, air base ground defense. So when I got to McChord — McChord Air Force Base was my first duty station. And the great thing about going to AMC first is it AMC is a mobility — I mean, it is all about mobility and the operations associated with it. And so the first thing that that my task was as the second lieutenant in that squadron was, I was the air base ground defense flight commander. So that was, I mean — we would go out to Fort Lewis, and we would bivouac for days. And I had, you know, a 44 person team that was a base defense sector. I had specialized K-9 units heavy weapons. And back in those days, we had 81mm mortar teams and fire direction centers that we would set up. So I just got completely on board with the air base defense piece. And so that was that was very passionate for me, which then made the next step to Korea an absolutely logical next location, going to the wolf pack at Kunsan, not only getting a chance to then stand up Gwangju as a part of the first Air Expeditionary Unit to go back to Korea since the Korean War, but then doing the mobile reserve aspect of it. And it was just a great assignment.   Naviere Walkewicz  16:40 Wow. So you were right in from the very beginning. You got kind of just into it all.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  16:45 So when we go back, when you were talking to me about, ‘Hey, when you make your mind up...' So I had this five-year plan built out. And, you know, my five-year plan was ‘OK, I'm gonna do my first assignment at the first opportunity to PCS. I need to go remote. I need to go to Korea. And then, OK, how can I get another overseas assignment after that? And then what do I need?' So the thought was, “Let me get to as many match comms as I can, as fast as I can in my career, and use that as a place — OK, because I want to build my experience base out. Because even as a lieutenant and young captain, I didn't want to come across as a one-trick pony. So my thought was, “Let me just get as much as I could under my belt early on.' And so after I left Kunsan, I ended up going to Aviano Air Base in Italy, which, for me, when you look at like those moments in life that are transformational, this was transformational on a different level. You know, some assignments you go to are very much professional growth assignments. This assignment, for me, was very much a personal growth assignment.   Naviere Walkewicz  17:52 OK, so tell me more.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  17:55 I mean, when you think about it, four years at USAFA, very uniquely focused on a plate that is overflowing with things that you need to get done. So you are, you're focused on, you know, everything from grades to military training to all of those things. And then I get to my first base, and I am just working, and I'm volunteering for everything, and we have got a heavy ops tempo of exercises and things like that. And my leadership was fantastic, because they were throwing me into every opportunity I could. And then, boom, I go to Korea, and that is a unique warfighting focused — and at Kunsan especially was heavily warfighting focused. So now all of a sudden I am spending really, when you think about it, the last almost seven years being uniquely focused on mission, right? And so I get to Aviano Air Base, Italy, and the first thing that happens is Operation Allied Force kicks off. So I get there in January, boom. Allied Force kicks off. I think it was in end of February, beginning of March. And wow, what? Again, what an amazing, mission focused experience. And then after we finished up Allied Force and the base returned back to more of its steady-state standpoint, it was the Italians that took me under their wings, that because I made a specific choice, because I grew up — my mom's side of the family are all Italian immigrants — and I was always at my Nonnie and Papa's house, and there was just a lot of that growing up, which is that whole, like, you know, West Coast dad, East Coast mom thing, but I didn't know, you know, my mom and her brothers never spoke Italian. And there was a lot of that, that thought back in those days that, you know, ‘Hey, we're here to be American, so we're going to learn English, and we're not going to speak, you know, the language that we came from,' right? And so my mom and her brothers really never learned to speak Italian. And so my thought was, ‘Gosh, I grew up with this as such a strong part of my childhood that I need to put myself in a position where I can learn the language and start to kind of get an appreciation on the culture. Together.' And so I specifically — and really lucked out on a location, but I was about 20 kilometers away from Aviano. I was in an amazing town. I was the only American living in the complex that I was in. So I was like, ‘If I'm going to learn, I need to just dive in the way that you do, in the way that I do, and just start learning.' And so I ended up kind of building this support group of Italian families that all kind of took me under their wings.   Naviere Walkewicz  20:27 Wait, I have to ask you a question, because back when you're at the Academy, you said you spoke to your now in-laws. So was Laurie not a part of this?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  20:35 So Laurie and I, right. So that's an important part of the story. Laurie and I dated for two years while I was a cadet, and when I was in tech school, her and I made the very difficult decision — and as painful it was — to part ways, so her and I actually parted ways for a few years. I was single at the time. Laurie was still here in Colorado Springs, and I was getting a lot of assignments under my belt, which, to be honest with you, you know, in retrospect, it was very fortunate, because I may not have made the same assignment choices had I been married at the time. And because I wasn't married, there were no other variables that I needed to factor in, other than personal experience goals, right, that I wanted to play into, and so I could just put down whatever assignment I wanted, and that allowed me the opportunity to just focus on job. And while Laurie and I stayed in touch, and I stayed in touch with her parents over the years, I was in Aviano, and her and I were not together at that point,   Naviere Walkewicz  21:39 That makes sense. I was like, why were you alone in Italy?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  21:43 It's a fair question. But I also think that being single in that environment allowed me — and that's where I think it helped me develop as a person. And so there are a lot of, I think, really wonderful things that happened during that time, and that was because I was so uniquely mission focused. It was these, this amazing group of Italian friends together, that really kind of taught me about there, there's a time to relax, you know, there's a time to work, there's a time to relax, and there's also a real human need to enjoy life and enjoy time together, which is quintessentially Italian. And so, as my pool of this, these amazing people — that  by the way, for the last 25 years, we've been going to visit. It's the same families that took me under their wings when I was a lieutenant, are the same families that were all tuning in as we were doing a live stream of me pinning on my second star. And so I've never been stationed anywhere else in my career where I felt more at home. And so I think this sense of like, ‘Wow. This like independently as my own person, this feels like home.' And as time went by and I started to get an appreciation for actually things that were a part of my childhood. Because, you know, we would have these long, huge meals, we would spend four or five hours at the table as a family. And for me, this was all normal. Well, that was also a part of kind of normal Italian life and normal Italian culture. You're not going out to dinner with your friends unless you're investing at least three hours at the restaurant. But for me, this was all — this felt normal to me. And so it was about, you know, you don't need to eat your food in five minutes.   Naviere Walkewicz  So contrary to USAFA, by the way.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN You know, you don't need to chew no more than seven times and swallow. So it was about experiencing that, and learning even just some things that became personal passions. Like, you know, how wine is made and why wine pairing matters, and how is this process? And so all of a sudden, this personal experience — and I think growing as a human being was taking place there, and I was maturing as a human being because I had gotten all of this phenomenal job experience under my belt, but this was where I was growing as a human being. And you know what's interesting, as time has gone by, I have noticed just how impactful that time was, because there are things that I've noticed, even as a senior officer, that I feel very strongly about, that I don't think I felt as strongly about as a junior officer, and it was because of that experience, and it was the aspect of when people are on leave, let's let them take leave. There is a part of the human experience that you need to enjoy time with people that you care about, because what it does is you're not slacking off from work. You're not leaving everybody hanging. What's happening is that, because you're taking some time to just enjoy life with people you care about, when you come back, the restorative effects that have taken place because you simply breathe and you enjoyed what it was that you were doing and whatever your passion was, you know, unencumbered, you could enjoy that. And we all realize that there are times, especially as you get into positions of authority, that, hey, they're going to need to call you periodically. But what was interesting is that, especially, I mean, I'll give an example as a wing commander. As a wing commander, despite realizing how important that mission is and how big Wright-Patt was, we, Laurie and I took leave, and we took two weeks of leave, and we went back to Italia and visited our friends and enjoyed life, because the culture helps us to slow down. But what it also did is I gave my staff some parameters. ‘Hey, here are the things that I think are important, like on a scale of one to 10. Here are the things that I think are an eight. So an eight or higher, call me. Don't text me.' I said, ‘Physically call me, because I will answer the phone knowing it's for — and then you have my undivided attention.' But what it also does is it means that my vice wing commander who is there, that I am empowering my vice wing commander and showing to everybody else I trust this leader to lead this wing in my absence. And if it's something that really needs my involvement, they'll get a hold of me. But I think our junior leaders need to see that at the senior most levels, that I can physically trust and emotionally trust my vice, my deputy, to hold things down while I'm gone, and that I'm not irreplaceable, and that if I did my job as a leader, I set the conditions that allowed the wing to thrive in my absence, and didn't mean that the wing had to hang on every decision I made or every word that I said, that I set the conditions that allowed them to be successful and fostered the leadership that allowed them to lead in my absence. And I felt great while I was gone, because I knew the people that we had there, and I knew the investment that we made in them. So that was kind of a long, you know, trip around this…   Naviere Walkewicz  27:26 I mean, I think it was so powerful that you kind of learned that about yourself in Italy. And then would you say that there was anyone that you saw emulating that? Or was it just something over time, you developed this realization that you need to enjoy life and you need to allow people the space to do so.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  27:43 So I would say the people that I was emulating in that aspect were a lot of the families that were there. I have been fortunate that I have worked for some commanders who, at different times in their life felt the same way. Conversely, I also worked for commanders that did not feel the same way. And, you know, an interesting case in point on something that on an experience I had in a command bill and after I had left Aviano — this is when Laurie and I were back together; we were married at this point. I had a group commander that was frustrated about me taking leave and called me every day at 1500; every day at 1500 I got a telephone call. And you know what that does is now all of a sudden, you're eating lunch, and the clock is getting closer to 1500 and you start to get that knot in your stomach and you're like, ‘OK, what are we going to talk about today?' And so, unfortunately you don't see some of the same appreciation for that across the board. So how do we deal with it? The best thing that we deal with it is that that's where the buck stops. We don't pass it down to our people. So after I got the call from him, I didn't call back to the squadron. I got the call from him. We went through the call, we answered the questions, and I didn't then immediately turn around and call back to my ops officer who was running the Squadron at the time, and say, XYZ. And we just left it there, because at that point in time, the bucks got to stop it at that point. So I think that that's kind of the, you know, the alpha and the omega of learning and then also having your own personal resilience and courage to say, ‘I accept that the buck stops here, and I'm not going to let this roll downhill to my people.'   Naviere Walkewicz  29:41 That's an excellent leadership lesson, because I was going to ask you, ‘What does that look like, and how would you how would you handle that?' And so you went right into that. Thank you so much for that. So what has it been like leading security forces — defenders? What's it been like? Has there been a moment in time where — a particular assignment or something's really stuck into your mind or into your heart, because it's just really affected you?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  30:05 Absolutely. I will tell you, as we go back, as we were kind of talking about decisions that you make in your youth, and that critical decision that I made in the fall of '94 I mean, I have worked with some of the most amazing people I've worked in my life. I have gotten a chance to go to places I never thought that I would see. And so, when you kind of roll up, I would say it was my final squadron command, and I would say that that was a real culminating squadron command. So I commanded four squadrons, and we command early, and we command often, and there's a lot of responsibility that that's placed on us as young officers to command as a young officer. And so having the opportunity to command two times as a captain, or one time, you know, as a major-select, then as a major, then as a lieutenant colonel. So that culminating command would have been Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan in May of 2012 to May of 2013 and you know, it was interesting because all of my previous squadron commands had all been vested in either the contingency response or the kind of combat contingency environments. And it was almost like all of those were leading me to this moment. So let me just kind of set the conditions on what Bagram was like at that point in time. We had grown the squadron to about a 1,200-person squadron, huge squadron. And what we were also responsible for is we had taken over battle space ownership from the Army. So the Air Force was controlling 220 square miles of battle space throughout Parwan province, which is a huge. I mean, it's twice the size of Washington, D.C., if you want to try to give a comparison, more or less is fair to look at that level as just a huge amount of terrain in which our airmen were responsible from everything from humanitarian operations and goodwill outreach to engagements to literal kinetic action and combat in the battle space. And so a part of this culmination was, was an environment where as the defense force commander — as that squadron commander to them as a lieutenant colonel at that point — I mean how we are weaving ourselves into their lives, and how we are working with their section commanders, and how we're working and managing the value of our perimeter defenses with our teams that were going outside of the wire doing legitimate patrolling and engagement and things along those lines, was huge. And I think that that is an example. And when you look in the rearview mirror to say, ‘Gosh, now this, a lot of this makes sense, like all of these assignments, whether by design or whether by fate, somehow gave me an experience that at this moment, I needed it most.' And I think, as I talk, we've really enjoyed being here with the cadets and talking to them about, how does a leader really develop trust, and how does trust really manifest itself? And so, through the time that we were there, and the engagement as their leader — not just the leader who's just simply circulating, because that's important, but they also need to see your decision making and your strategic thought. And how do you react under pressure? How are you reacting as we've got incoming in, and what do you do being the person in the joint defense operations center, helping to manage that, and how are you both taking care of people, and how are you managing mission? And they see that. And so I would say that the development of that level of trust, especially in an environment where you are literally dealing with high costs, is huge. And so I think there was one, situation that really rests on my heart that and I don't talk about this to give validation, but I think I talk about it on it's about how people connect, and why do I feel so strongly that leadership is a human experience, like this is a what we are doing as a human experience. And so I was retiring my chief. So I was asked by my chief at Bagram — this was some years later. He's out of the 105th Base Defense Squadron out of the New York Air National Guard, and him and I were a phenomenal team there. Dave Pritchard and I just made a great team. And so he was retiring, and asked me to come back and do his retirement. So we had done the retirement ceremony. We were at the VFW afterwards, having his after-party and so forth. And so I had gone into the bathroom for a comfort break and washed my hands and things like that. And I noticed, as I was kind of moving towards the bathroom, there was kind of a young man who was kind of floating. You know, floating around. And so I came out of the restroom as I was finished, and he was waiting there at the exit of the restroom for me, and kind of, you know, got in front of me, and he stood there, and he looked at me, and he goes, ‘Hey, sir, I just, I needed to let you know this, that I was one of the airmen in one of your patrols that got hit by an IED, and he said, your investment in us, and the words that you used and when you came to talk to us, and the faith that you had in us gave me the courage to go back outside of the wire when you asked us to go back outside.' And so why that rests so heavy is when you think about what, what is the what is the con? The consequence there is that somebody believed in you so much that when you spoke to them and said the word, they were going to go back out and do it again, in spite of what had just happened to you. And I don't think there is any stronger level of trust that you can ask from somebody than to have one of those moments. And so that moment just resides very, very heavy on my soul, because I think it puts into real, tangible context, what is the responsibility of leadership? What is your responsibility of leadership?   Naviere Walkewicz  36:42 I'm letting that sit a little bit, because I can't even imagine the amount of feeling that you had first for him, the courage to share that with you. Because I'm sure that he really wanted to share that. I'm curious if you can remember perhaps, what he might have been referring to, like what you were sharing with the men and women there.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  37:02 So, you know, it was also a part of things that, in times after Bagram have really been used for me as a senior leader on why I reinforced the importance of values. And, this was one particular incident there that really comes to mind is, and I use this when I when I talk to people, because I again, it's the consequence, and it's why our responsibility as leaders to set the right conditions and culture and all of that is so incredibly valuable. And so I talked to people about a story about we had had a situation where we had some real destabilization in the battle space. There was a particular village that we were having some unique challenges with, and we were doing a lot of kind of battlefield shaping, and we were doing some particular village engagement, and the engagement just wasn't happening. And so we were now kind of starting to escalate our interaction with the village a little bit more and as we were doing that, we were now going to start doing more shaping operations. So it just so happens that one of these nights —this was in the late fall, early winter of 2012 — and we were sending one of our patrols outside to do some shaping and engagement operation there. But this was in the evening. This was a different aspect that we were working for this particular mission. And so mounted up that the airmen are ready to go. They're pushing outside, they're right on time, and everything is going according to plan, and they are getting close to what we call the objective rally point. So that was where they were going to rally up before they actually moved into the village after that. And so everything was going according to plan. And the only thing they needed to do before they got to the objective rally point was really kind of go down a small gully over a rise, and then they meet at their objective rally point at that point. And so teams are moving out. First truck over the rise, getting to the point. Second truck over, everything's going fine. Third truck over, fourth truck after that, BOOM, off goes the IED. And what had happened is, they were waiting for this opportunity, and they knew exactly what to do. And that is, if you hit the last truck in the movement, you've got three trucks that are gone ahead of time, and now we've got folks in a very precarious situation. And so what I talk to people about, when we talk about conditions and the real impact that a leader has, is I'll talk to them about who was in that truck, who was in that MRAP that we were sending down at that point in time. And inside that MRAP was the face of America. And the explosion was significant, and it did some considerable damage. It threw the engine out of it, penetrated the hole, ripped one of the doors off the side in the front. And so, you know, the truck commander was National Guard from, actually from Tennessee, and he had gotten injured, broken an arm because that door had peeled back. And as the door peeled back, his arm got caught and broke his arm. The driver, Asian American coming out of the state of California, active duty. He had injuries to his legs because of the penetration of the hole. We had a gunner up in the turret, African American female from the New York Air National Guard. She had a broken pelvis at the time, and she just stayed on the gun the entire time despite her injuries. We had our radio operator. European American female coming from the Midwest. She was actually Air Force Reserve. She had a case of TBI from the explosion, and she was still making calls on the radio. We had two of our riflemen in the back, both came from Hispanic heritage, one of them from Puerto Rican heritage, one of them from Mexican heritage. They were very fortunate that while they got tossed around the back and had some minor TBI issues, they were more or less bumps and bruises, and they were all by themselves. Yeah, because they were all alone, they were in the middle of Afghanistan, they had just gotten hit. And so for me, what's so important about that story is that if we did not set the right culture and the right values and the right expectations and be in a leader by example, and they were harassing each other on Bagram, and they were assaulting each other on Bagram, and they weren't respecting each other on Bagram, and they didn't care about each other on Bagram, they would have died out there that night. But they treated each other like a family, and they cared about each other like a family, and they took care of each other like a family that night, and they lived and they all came home. So for me, if we're going to talk about what is the true consequence of leadership — and I use consequence deliberately, because oftentimes that's used in a pejorative manner — but this is the true result of your actions, that if you don't set those conditions, then you are legitimately putting your people at risk. And so that whole experience at Bagram, and in so many ways that we all carry our scars and our bruises and things like that. I wouldn't trade that experience for the world, but that was tough. And I often describe it as a tale of two cities. You know, it was the best of times. It was the worst of times.   Naviere Walkewicz  42:34 I think a lot of times, when leaders go through experiences like that, they have some more fortunate than others, but a support network. And I would guess it would be your family. How has your family played a role in these moments in your life, in helping you as a leader?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  42:54 So I will say it's primarily my wife. I have got this wonderful support of parents and my in-laws and so forth. And what's been truly fortunate is how close I am with my in-laws. Because when Laurie and I were dating while I was a cadet, anytime I had an overnight or weekend pass, I was over at her mom and dad's house and so I think that being married to somebody that has truly known you from the beginning, you know, where, whether we got a training weekend going on, or something like that, or I'm working first BCT or whatnot, that Laurie was a unique part of all of these things. And I would say that it has been incredibly heartwarming to watch her interact with the cadets here, because it's fun, because her and I do everything together. And so as we're going to events, I'll have a group of cadets that I'm talking to, and then I'll look over and Laurie's surrounded by a group of cadets who are asking her just very insightful questions about our experiences together, and ‘Was it tough sending them away on deployments?' Or how, you know, in those tough times, ‘How do you how do you keep your marriage together?' Just really insightful questions to ask, but she has just been so central to everything that I do. And so going back a little bit and talking about, like the strength of our relationship and how much that helps, we actually needed to have that breakup period as horribly painful as that was, and wow, was I carrying a torch for her all of those years. I mean, I remember, you know, as time was going by, I would talk to my mom, and I'd be like, ‘Mom, I just wish that Laurie could see the man that I become.' But we needed that time because oftentimes, and what we found in ourselves, we didn't know it at the time, because you're living in your environment and you can't see it, right? Is that in youth, things are often absolutes. And you often will get to a place where you're starting your marriage, your relationship is growing. And if you start to talk about marriage, there are things that we have found were absolutes for us. You know, certain things that we did, how we practiced our faith. Did we open up presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but the expectation was somebody was going to have to give up their particular tradition to conform to the tradition of one of the spouses. And in your youth, that seems reasonable, and I think we needed that time to be apart, having had that time together at such an important time in each of our lives here. But we needed that time apart, because I think we needed that frame of reference as we grew as people into adults. Grew as young adults. And now all of a sudden here I'm getting multiple assignments, and now being thrust into leadership positions with accountability and authority, and then coming back to that, all of a sudden, you're realizing, ‘Gosh, the world just isn't always in absolutes. And maybe a marriage doesn't have to be zero sum, but maybe a marriage can be positive sum.' And do we really have to make somebody give up something that is important to them, that is a part of their identity? Because somehow you feel like you have to conform your marriage into one side or the other. And so, I think for us that was that was so incredibly important. So to kind of get to that story is that, you know, I left Aviano and I went to Al Dhafra. I was in Al Dhafra actually for September 11. It was my first squadron command, but it was a squadron command I wasn't expecting, because I came there as a chief of security forces for about a 70-person security forces flight as a part of the 763rd Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron at Al Dhafra. And then all of a sudden, 9/11 happens, and we went from about 400 people on Al Dhafra to about 4,000. And you know, U-2s came in, ISR platforms came in. Everything changed. And all of a sudden, this 70-person security forces flight that I had grew into about a 350-person security forces squadron. And AFSET said, ‘Hey, Sherman, you built it, you keep it, and we'll replace you with a major when you leave.' And I was a six-year captain, and so then finishing up that assignment, and I got picked up for — there was a point to that story — but it was about coming back, is that, hey, I got these new, unique experiences that grew me under my belt. And then I came back to do an AFIT program at Cal State San Bernardino. And that was the moment that brought Laurie and I back together.   Naviere Walkewicz  In what way?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN And so, I had a health scare. Nobody knows what it was. We never figured it out. Doctors never figured it out. But it was one of those things, like, all of a sudden, I shotgun something out to everybody I knew. I said, ‘Hey, doctors are a little bit concerned, you know, keep me in your thoughts.' And so Laurie, Laurie is like, ‘Holy cow, you can't just send a one liner and leave it at that.' So she called my mom and dad and said, ‘What's his phone number?' And so it started to turn into ‘Hey, give me all of your test results after you get it back.' Then pretty soon we're talking a couple times a week, and then pretty soon we're talking every other day, and then we are talking every day. And the beauty of this was that we already knew each other, so we already knew what everybody's favorite color was — by the way, Laurie's is purple. We knew what music each other liked. We knew things about each other. And some of the things that actually drew us together when we were dating here was, you know, we had things like some common family traditions, like, you know, Italian fish on Christmas Eve and sitting around the table for hours and stuff like that were all things that we had in common. So we already knew that about each other. Now, her and I on the phone, we're getting into some real, like substantive discussions, children, faith. How do you how you raise children? How do you know, what are we going to do for different traditions? What happens if I have to take a remote; what does that mean? And so we were getting into these really, deep conversations. And, you know, I would come back from either class or then when I PCs to the security forces center out at Lackland, you know, I would come home from work, and this was in the old flip phone days where you had a battery that came off the back. So I would have one battery in the charger, and then I would have an earbud in, and I'd have the phone in my pocket. Yeah, and I'd come home and to call her, and we would just go throughout the evening. So I'm ironing BDUs at the time, shining my boots and stuff like that, and so, and we were just talking. And then we were just kind of like living life together. And, after that point, it became very clear that those two young people who sincerely cared about each other, now, each of us grew up and had experiences in a place that allowed us to really appreciate each other and really love each other. And you know, we were married just a little over a year after that. And it has been phenomenal, her support. And I think one of the great testaments to that was, 10 days after we got married, I went to Baghdad, but she's like, ‘I grew up in the Air Force. I know how this works. We're gonna move the house. I'll get the house put together.' And she's also a professional in her own right, which is great. So she was working in a legal office here as a paralegal and legal assistant here in Colorado Springs, and has been a GS employee for the last 18-plus years. So what's great is she, too has her own aspect of service. What I love about it is that in the jobs that she's in and then the jobs that I'm in, we can talk shop, and then we cannot talk shop, right? And so she's the first person I go to if I have to ask a question, she's the first person that I'll go to say, ‘Hey, did I do that right? Or do I need to backtrack on that a little bit?' Because she knows me, and she knows me completely, and that level of trust and love and faith that we have for each other has truly enabled me to be able to serve our airmen on a level that I don't think would have been possible without her.   Naviere Walkewicz  51:59 Would you say that she's had a role in your development as a leader, in the way that you lead.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  52:05 Oh, absolutely, absolutely, because, and I love it, because her experience as a brat and her dad as a chief gives her a very unique lens to look through. And so the advice that she gives me she can give me from her teenage self in some way, you know, from that experience, watching how her dad interacted with something or knowing her aspect about this. And then as she's developed professionally, working on the E-Ring at the Pentagon a couple different times, working for very senior leaders, knows how to navigate that space. So then I'll go to her for advice, like, ‘Hey, how did your boss handle something like this?' ‘Well, let me tell you what, how we work through this...' And so I would absolutely say that that Laurie has uniquely influenced and helped me to become the best version of myself that I can be.   Naviere Walkewicz  53:03 Wow. Well, I want to ask you a little bit about developing yourself as well, because one of the questions we like to ask is, what are you doing every day to make yourself a better leader? Can you share what that might be?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  53:17 I've said it a couple times during this: I truly believe that leadership is a human experience, so for me, it's about the interaction. And so oftentimes, advice that I've given to people — like there are amazing resources abound that can help people, give people leadership perspectives, and we can either learn it from history, or we can learn it through study. We can learn it through analysis. We can learn it through books. And I've always talked to people about use the external tools that help to grow you, but make sure that you're using it to influence the personality that you already have. Because oftentimes what happens is, is that people will have this really strong desire to say, “OK, I want to make sure that I do this right. And so in doing this right, let me make sure I've got my checklist, and so I'm going to greet them, I'm going to ask them how their family is, I'm going to ask them if the kid did all right in the baseball game. And I'm going to go through my checklist, and if I do that, I fulfill my leadership obligation.' Now not everybody does, and I'm making generalities on but, but I think that there can oftentimes be the allure that when you are focusing on what may be the theory or the principle of the day, and not using it to supplement and grow and mature your personality, that there is a strong allure to want to wholesale replicate what it was that you learned, and you're doing it in a noble place. It's not nefarious. It's being done in a noble, genuine place. But there's that allure to say, ‘OK, good, I really like what I've learned. I'm going to do these things and step through.' And so why I talk so much about the experience, and why I talk so much about the interaction, is that the more that you know the people that you may be influencing by just simply being there and understanding what that means. It means you're eternalizing the value of your presence. You're listening to their stories, and you're understanding for them, what are the things that are motivating them? What are the things that they value? Because each generation, each environment, each condition is going to require something a little bit different from you, and if you don't take the time to understand your environment or generation or cultural nuances or things like that on where you're at, then you are missing that opportunity to develop trust, where they start to believe in you as a person, and not just the rank and position that you hold, because they'll do the right thing for the rank and position that you hold. That's the caliber of people that we have in this Air Force of ours. They'll do the right thing. But if you transcend that in the fact that they believe in you wholeheartedly and trust you, oftentimes with their own lives, it means that you've invested something into them, where they truly know that you care. And that goes back to that A1C on the cork board that said, ‘I need somebody who cares about me as a person.'   Naviere Walkewicz  56:41 You know, as I think about what you've experienced through your career and the lessons you've learned, both professionally and personally, what would you say to yourself back then that you should be doing back then to get to where you're at now? Because we have listeners that are like, ‘What can I start planting today, that will bloom down the road?'   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  57:03 Absolutely. And so I think if I was to go back and put my arm around Cadet First Class Sherman, I think what I would do is — because it is, it is oftentimes easy to look in the crystal clear mirror of hindsight, right? But I think instead, what I would do is I would put my arm around him and say, ‘Keep following your heart and let the failures happen, because the failures are going to grow and let the stumbles happen and enjoy the triumphs with people and be appreciative for what got you there.' And I think it would be more of the encouragement of like, ‘You have laid out a path for you take the path wherever it goes, the joy, the pain, the triumph, the failure, all of those things, because all of that helps to develop the leader.' And oftentimes you want to go back and say, gosh, if I was going to talk to my previous self, then I would say, ‘Ah, don't do that one thing,' right? But I'm looking at it saying that if I didn't do that one thing, then I'm not sure that I would be where I'm at at a time to make sure I didn't do that thing at a moment that was incredibly catastrophic. And so while we have this desire to want to prevent ourselves from the failure, I think that what we have to do is say you're going to fail and you need to fail, and it's going to sound — relish in the failure, because it is often emotionally troubling, especially those of us that come here because we are Type A perfectionist, and that's part of the draw of coming to this amazing place. Is there a certain personality traits that help us to be successful here, but not all of those personality traits make us uniquely successful in all situations outside, and so you've got to have that failure at some point in time. And the failure that you can get up and say, ‘OK, I did this. This happened. My soul is bruised. My ego is bruised. I may have to take a little bit of accountability for this. OK, now I need to have the courage to take the next step forward again.' Because I could easily retreat back to a safe place, and I could become risk averse, and all that does is hurt the people around you. OK. I have to have the courage to breathe and take the step again and get back in there. So I would tell my — I don't think I would want to prevent myself from doing anything. I think even the growth that took place while Laurie and I were apart — and, like I said, that torch that I carried for her — I think if I had whispered in my ear and said, ‘Hey, just relax, you're gonna marry her.' I think I needed that torch, because that in my own mind and my own emotion was me needing to become a better man, and so I think I needed to go through — like, sometimes you need the struggle, and sometimes the things that are most valuable are the things that you had to go through the struggle for, right? And I think that's where my blue collar ethics background comes in. It's like, I'm just going to roll up my sleeves and I'm going to work through the struggle.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:00:36 Wow. Well, we took a look back. I just want to ask you a question forward. So do you think about legacy? And what do you want your legacy to be? Is that something that plays in your mind as you wake up each morning or go to lead people?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  1:00:50 I think the way that I look at it is, I look at it in a in a different aspect, and the way that I look at it is in a very confined point to point. It's not about what is going to be Tom Sherman's legacy when he retires someday, but was that interaction that I had with somebody to give them some encouraging words when they fell down, did that matter to them at that moment? Because there are people for me in my failures that were commanders, that were leaders, that were mentors, that were senior enlisted, that, you know, grabbed that lieutenant by the arm and helped to lift me up. And their memories are etched in my fabric. And so I think that it's about that individual event that your legacy will live in the people in which you made a difference to them.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:01:49 Well, I'll share with you, I was telling my son — he's a cadet, a third-class cadet, actually, now he's about to be a C2C — that I was doing this podcast with you, and he said, ‘What an incredible leader, Mom, he motivates me. He's so inspiring.' So your legacy is already through my son—   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  1:02:05 Thank you! That means — thank you so much for sharing.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:02:10 —that you really made an impact. So we're going to get to your final thoughts here in a little bit. But before we do, I want to make sure that you know our podcasts publish on every second Tuesday of the month, and you can certainly listen to Gen. Sherman in any of our other podcasts on longblueleadership.org. So Gen. Sherman, what would you like to leave our listeners with today? This has been incredible, by the way. Thank you.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  1:02:32 I have truly enjoyed this, and it's just been — it was just wonderful having the conversation with you, and it's in real honor to be a part of this. I truly believe in what you're doing here.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:02:43 Thank you. It's my pleasure to help share your story and help inspire others. And is there anything we might leave with our listeners that that they can part with tonight?   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  1:02:51 I think, for me, you need to love what you do and love I think, is one of the most powerful words in language. And I don't just say the English language. I say in language because of the strength behind the meaning and how wide the meaning can be impactful. If you love what you do, people will feel that your very presence will make a difference. They'll feel that if you love what you do, then you're being, you know, internally, inspired by the love that you have for what you're being a part of, right? If you love and care about your people, they will follow you to the ends of the Earth, because they know the passion that you have and the belief that you have in them. So I think that as we go back to these things, we oftentimes look at the terms of courage and love may seem diametrically opposed, and I would attest that you can be most courageous and that your courage will be most effective only when it's buttressed by the love that you have in what you do and who you do it with.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:04:08 Thank you, sir, for that. Thank you for being on Long Blue Leadership.   MAJ. GEN. SHERMAN  1:04:11 Absolutely. Thank you. This was a wonderful time. It was a real honor.   Naviere Walkewicz  1:04:14 Thank you. Well, until next time, I'm Naviere Walkewicz. We'll see you on Long Blue Leadership.     KEYWORDS Leadership, Air Force Academy, Major General Thomas P. Sherman, mentorship, personal growth, security forces, work-life balance, family support, continuous improvement, legacy       The Long Blue Line Podcast Network is presented by the U.S. Air Force Academy Association & Foundation        

This is the VIC 4 VETS, Honored Veteran, during Veterans Month in America. SUBMITTED BY: Christopher Slater _____________________________________________________________ Good morning Ken, Thank you to you and Vic for honoring our military members. My veteran is Specialist (Corporal) David Bixler, Specialist Bixler was assigned to the 1st Ballalion, 320th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. On September 30, 2010, Specialist Bixler was on patrol in heavily mined farmland in the Arghandab(AR-CON DOB) River Valley in Afghanistan. He was leading a team of three Afghan National Army Soldiers, when his unit was ambushed and heavy gunfire ensued. When Bixler saw that one of the Afghan soldiers had veered toward uncleared ground, he ran after him and pushed him to safety. While doing so, Bixler stepped on an improvised explosive device. He suffered the loss of both legs, damage to his spinal cord, traumatic brain injury, and other serious injuries. For his heroic action, Bixler was awarded the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart for his wounds. Bixler was the 2011 USO Soldier of the Year. Bixler was evacuated on or about October 1st, 2010, by an Illinois Air National Guard KC-135 tanker aircraft, configured for an aeromedical evacuation flight from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany (close to Landstuhl Military Hospital, Germany, Bixler's destination). Bixler survived his catastrophic wounds, and has since accepted a smart home from Tunnels to Towers (2016) and become successful in the computer industry, owning his own small business, specializing in 3D printed components. American warrior. Respectfully,. Technical Sergeant Christopher Slater (retired) United States Air Force/Illinois Air National Guard ________________________________________________________________ This is today’s VIC 4 VETS, Honored Veteran, during Veterans Month in America on NewsTalkSTL. With support from our friends at: DG FIREARMS - PATRIOT HEATING AND COOLING - BEST BUY FLOORINGSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is the VIC 4 VETS, Honored Veteran, during Veterans Month in America. SUBMITTED BY: Christopher Slater _____________________________________________________________ Good morning Ken, Thank you to you and Vic for honoring our military members. My veteran is Specialist (Corporal) David Bixler, Specialist Bixler was assigned to the 1st Ballalion, 320th Field Artillery, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division. On September 30, 2010, Specialist Bixler was on patrol in heavily mined farmland in the Arghandab(AR-CON DOB) River Valley in Afghanistan. He was leading a team of three Afghan National Army Soldiers, when his unit was ambushed and heavy gunfire ensued. When Bixler saw that one of the Afghan soldiers had veered toward uncleared ground, he ran after him and pushed him to safety. While doing so, Bixler stepped on an improvised explosive device. He suffered the loss of both legs, damage to his spinal cord, traumatic brain injury, and other serious injuries. For his heroic action, Bixler was awarded the Silver Star, as well as a Purple Heart for his wounds. Bixler was the 2011 USO Soldier of the Year. Bixler was evacuated on or about October 1st, 2010, by an Illinois Air National Guard KC-135 tanker aircraft, configured for an aeromedical evacuation flight from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, to Ramstein Air Base, Germany (close to Landstuhl Military Hospital, Germany, Bixler's destination). Bixler survived his catastrophic wounds, and has since accepted a smart home from Tunnels to Towers (2016) and become successful in the computer industry, owning his own small business, specializing in 3D printed components. American warrior. Respectfully,. Technical Sergeant Christopher Slater (retired) United States Air Force/Illinois Air National Guard ________________________________________________________________ This is today’s VIC 4 VETS, Honored Veteran, during Veterans Month in America on NewsTalkSTL. With support from our friends at: DG FIREARMS - PATRIOT HEATING AND COOLING - BEST BUY FLOORINGSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this explosive segment, Tara Servatius and Lee uncover a stunning military and political reversal in the Middle East. As Israel carries out airstrikes without losing a single plane, Tara reveals how Trump has now delivered a chilling message to the Ayatollah: we know where you are—and surrender is your only peaceful option. They expose how the Biden administration's betrayal in Afghanistan, especially the abandonment of Bagram Air Base, may now force the U.S. to lead a high-risk, long-range strike on Iran's underground nuclear facility. From drone assassinations to the GBU-57 mega bomb, this episode connects foreign policy failures, media censorship, and election interference into one chilling conclusion: none of this would be happening if Democrats were still in charge.

In Episode 9 of Badlands Book Club, CannCon and Ashe in America dive into Chapters 15 and 16 of Kash Patel's Government Gangsters, which deliver a blistering exposé of corruption, insubordination, and globalist entrenchment inside the Department of Defense. Patel recounts his time as Chief of Staff at the DoD under Trump, detailing how a hostile bureaucracy, a corrupt officer class, and unconstitutional overreach by figures like General Mark Milley subverted the president's chain of command and sabotaged efforts to end America's forever wars. The episode covers Trump's conditions-based withdrawal from Afghanistan, the strategic importance of Bagram Airfield, and Biden's catastrophic reversal that led to chaos, death, and disgrace. CannCon and Ashe unpack Patel's firsthand account of how Milley illegally positioned himself as operational authority and even warned China, an act they unequivocally call treason. Ashe draws connections between Patel's reform blueprint and Trump's current moves to dismantle globalist influence inside the military and reestablish civilian control. The duo also tackles the revolving door between the Pentagon and defense contractors, exposes the wasteful corruption of military procurement, and calls for abolishing offices like Net Assessment, which secretly funded Russiagate architect Stefan Halper. Packed with raw emotion, military insight, and real-time geopolitical parallels to Trump's recent Middle East diplomacy, this episode underscores the stakes of 2025. It's not just about winning elections, it's about gutting the Deep State and restoring a military that serves the Constitution, not the war machine.

Olivia Chavez-Carroll is a US Marine and former combat Army helicopter pilot. Having served as the XO of her unit in Bagram during the beginning of Operation Dustwun, the 24/7 mission to locate and rescue then PVT Bergdahl in 2009. CAPT Chavez also flew missions, planned operations and supported the 101st AVN BN in Support […] The post Episode 034 – Interview: Olivia Chavez-Carroll first appeared on The Psychedelic Christian Podcast.

Preview: Author Jerry Dunleavy explains that securing Bagram would have made evacuation successful even in haste. More later. 1848 AGHANISTAN

//The Wire//2300Z April 8, 2025////ROUTINE////BLUF: TRADE TARIFFS ON CHINA TO BEGIN TOMORROW AFTER NO DEAL REACHED TODAY.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Afghanistan: Questionable reporting has emerged claiming that the United States has re-occupied Bagram Airbase. An article was published by Medium two days ago, which claimed that American C-17's landed at Bagram after being handed back control of the airbase from the Taliban.AC: So far, this story as presented appears to be a fabrication; no sources, including the ADS-B tracking services mentioned in the article confirmed any aircraft landing. The aircraft specifically mentioned in the reporting, a C-17 operating as callsign MOOSE59 (tail number: 02-1099) probably did fly through Afghan airspace on April 5th. However, it did NOT land in Afghanistan...it's destination was Tajikistan.-HomeFront-Washington D.C. - Questions remain regarding the details of trade tariffs with China. President Trump's trade tariffs may or may not already be in effect as of noon today, earlier than previously announced. The tariffs are also allegedly higher than previously stated, with some media outlets stating that since no agreement was reached at noon today, a 117% tariff with China will be implemented tomorrow. Otherwise, the economic turmoil of yesterday morning has largely leveled out, with most indexes ending up not as effected as first expected.This morning the US Supreme Court voted 5-4 to approve the White House's request to continue deportations of violent criminals under the Alien Enemies Act.AC: This particular action by the SCOTUS isn't necessarily a win for the White House, as the actual opinions provided by the SCOTUS confirm that all Justices think this law *is* subject to judicial review, but this review must be conducted in the original jurisdiction (which was in Texas). Either way, all interpretations of the law are up for debate, so this will certainly be argued in court over the next few years, and remain entangled in some form or fashion.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: Just because something seems true, doesn't mean that it is....as rather poignantly confirmed yet again just yesterday. Satellite imagery from just a few days ago confirms nothing has moved at Bagram, and local Taliban officials have proudly stated that they control the airfield. However, this article scandal probably does tacitly imply something interesting...mostly that the United States without question has eyes and ears in the region. What was originally spun as a fake news story might actually have stumbled upon a grain of truth; This flight was probably related to some secret-squirrel tasking, even if the aircraft didn't land directly at Bagram. Despite rather exuberant denials of such, the CIA and other intelligence agencies almost certainly maintain a foothold in Afghanistan, to some degree. Normally, CIA operations personnel don't fly on standard USAF C-17's...they have their own not-so-secret fleet of clandestine logistics aircraft. However, considering the wider context, and even without any evidence whatsoever, a random Medium journalist with 86 followers can claim "the CIA is here"...and in almost all cases be correct. In this case, this is due to the most significant factor of all forms of warfare throughout the history of mankind...geography.Right about now, with relations with China deteriorating, not having control of Bagram Airbase is a serious strategic disadvantage to the United States. This airbase is one of the reasons the American occupation lasted as long as it did; one of the major unspoken strategic goals of maintaining a foothold in Afghanistan is that it's geography made it a fortress country right at China's backdoor. Now, with trouble brewing in the Far East, not having a foothold at Bagram is disadvantageous, and also why the information

This episode we will finish up the travels of Xuanzang, who circumnavigated the Indian subcontinent while he was there, spending over a decade and a half travelings, visiting important Buddhist pilgrimage sites, and studying at the feet of learned monks of India, and in particular at Nalanda monastery--a true center of learning from this period. For more, check out our blogpost page:  https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-122 Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua and this is episode 122:  Journey to the West, Part 3 The courtyard at Nalanda was quiet.  Although hundreds of people were crowded in, trying to hear what was being said, they were all doing their best to be silent and still.  Only the wind or an errant bird dared speak up.  The master's voice may not have been what it once was—he was definitely getting on in years—but Silabhadra's mind was as sharp as ever. At the front of the crowd was a relatively young face from a far off land.  Xuanzang had made it to the greatest center of learning in the world, and he had been accepted as a student of perhaps the greatest sage of his era.  Here he was, receiving lessons on some of the deepest teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist sect, the very thing he had come to learn and bring home. As he watched and listened with rapt attention, the ancient teacher began to speak….   For the last two episodes, and continuing with this one, we have been covering the travels of the monk Xuanzang in the early 7th century, starting around 629 and concluding in 645.  Born during the Sui dynasty, Xuanzang felt that the translations of the Buddhist sutras available in China were insufficient—many of them had been made long ago, and often were translations of translations.  Xuanzang decided to travel to India in the hopes of getting copies in the original language to provide more accurate translations of the sutras, particularly the Mahayana sutras.  His own accounts of his journeys, even if drawn from his memory years afterwards, provide some of our most detailed contemporary evidence of the Silk Road and the people and places along the way.  After he returned, he got to work on his translations, and became quite famous.  Several of the Japanese students of Buddhism who traveled to the Tang dynasty in the 650s studied under him directly and brought his teachings back to Japan with them.  His school of “Faxiang” Buddhism became known in Japan as the Hosso sect, and was quite popular during the 7th and 8th centuries.  Xuanzang himself, known as Genjou in Japan, would continue to be venerated as an important monk in the history of Buddhism, and his travels would eventually be popularized in fantastic ways across East Asia. Over the last couple of episodes we talked about Xuanzang's illegal and harrowing departure from the Tang empire, where he had to sneak across the border into the deserts of the Western Regions.  We then covered his time traveling from Gaochang, to Suyab, and down to Balkh, in modern Afghanistan.  This was all territory under the at least nominal control of the Gokturk empire.  From Balkh he traveled to Bamyan, and then on to Kapisa, north of modern Kabul, Afghanistan.  However, after Kapisa, Xuanzang was finally entering into the northern territories of what he knew as “India”, or “Tianzhu”. Here I would note that I'm using “India” to refer not to a single country, but to the entirety of the Indian subcontinent, and all of the various kingdoms there -- including areas now part of the modern countries of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.  The Sinitic characters used to denote this region are pronounced, today, as “Tianzhu”, with a rough meaning of “Center of Heaven”, but it is likely that these characters were originally pronounced in such a way that the name likely came from terms like “Sindhu” or “Induka”.  This is related to the name of the Sindh or Indus river, from which India gets its name.  Xuanzang's “Record of the Western Regions” notes that the proper pronunciation of the land should be “Indu”.  In Japan, this term was transmitted through the Sinitic characters, or kanji, and pronounced as “Tenjiku”.  Since it featured so prominently in the stories of the life of the Buddha and many of the Buddhist sutras, Tenjiku was known to the people of the Japanese archipelago as a far off place that was both real and fantastical. In the 12th century, over a thousand stories were captured for the “Konjaku Monogatarishu”, or the “Collection of Tales Old and New”, which is divided up into tales from Japan, China, and India.  In the famous 9th or 10th century story, “Taketori Monogatari”, or the “Bamboo-Cutter's Tale”, about princess Kaguya hime, one of the tasks the princess sets to her suitors is to go to India to find the begging bowl of the Buddha.  Records like those produced by Xuanzang and his fellow monks, along with the stories in the sutras, likely provided the majority of what people in the Japanese archipelago knew about India, at least to begin with. Xuanzang talks about the land of India as being divided into five distinct parts—roughly the north, south, east, west, and center.  He notes that three sides face the sea and that the Snow Mountains—aka the Himalayas—are in the north.  It is, he says, “Wide in the north and narrow in the south, in the shape of a crescent moon”.  Certainly the “Wide in the north and narrow in the south” fit the subcontinent accurately enough, and it is largely surrounded by the waters of what we know as the Indian Ocean to the west, the east, and the south.  The note about the Crescent Moon might be driven by Xuanzang's understanding of a false etymology for the term “Indus”, which he claims comes from the word for “moon”.  Rather, this term appears to refer to the Indus River, also known as the Sindh or Sindhus, which comes from an ancient word meaning something like “River” or “Stream”. Xuanzang also notes that the people of the land were divided into castes, with the Brahman caste at the top of the social hierarchy.    The land was further divided into approximately 70 different countries, according to his accounts.  This is known broadly as the Early Medieval period, in India, in which the region was divided into different kingdoms and empires that rose and fell across the subcontinent, with a total size roughly equivalent to that covered by the countries of the modern European Union.  Just like Europe, there were many different polities and different languages spoken across the land – but just as Latin was the common language in Europe, due to its use in Christianity, Sanskrit was the scholarly and religious language in much of India, and could also be used as a bridge language.  Presumably, Xuanzang understood Sanskrit to some extent as a Buddhist monk.  And, just a quick note, all of this was before the introduction of Islam, though there were other religions also practiced throughout the subcontinent, but Xuanzang was primarily focused on his Buddhist studies. Xuanzang describes India as having three distinct seasons—The hot season, the rainy season, and the cold season, in that order.  Each of these were four month long periods.  Even today, the cycle of the monsoon rains is a major impact on the life of people in South Asia.  During the rainy season, the monks themselves would retreat back to their monasteries and cease their wanderings about the countryside. This tradition, called “Vassa”, is still a central practice in many Theravada Buddhist societies such as Thailand and Laos today, where they likewise experience this kind of intensely wet monsoon season. Xuanzang goes on to give an in depth analysis of the people and customs of the Indian subcontinent, as he traveled from country to country. So, as we've done before, we'll follow his lead in describing the different locations he visited. The first country of India that Xuanzang came to was the country of Lampa, or Lamapaka, thought to be modern Laghman province in Afghanistan.  At the time it was a dependency of Kapisa.  The Snow Mountains, likely meaning the Hindu Kush, the western edge of the Himalayas, lay at its north, while the “Black Mountains” surrounded it on the other three sides.  Xuanzang mentions how the people of Lampa grow non-glutinous rice—likely something similar to basmati rice, which is more prevalent in South Asian cuisine, as compared to glutinous rice like more often used in East Asia. From Lampa he headed to Nagarahara, likely referring to a site near the Kabul River associated with the ruins of a stupa called Nagara Gundi, about 4 kilometers west of modern Jalalabad, Afghanistan.  This was another vassal city-state of Kapisa.  They were still Mahayana Buddhists, but there were other religions as well, which Xuanzang refers to as “heretical”, though I'm not entirely sure how that is meant in this context.  He does say that many of the stupas were dilapidated and in poor condition. Xuanzang was now entering areas where he likely believed the historical Buddha had once walked.  In fact, Lampa was perhaps the extent of historical Buddha's travels, according to the stories and the sutras, though this seems unlikely to have been true.  The most plausible locations for the Historical Buddha's pilgrimages were along the Ganges river, which was on the other side of the subcontinent, flowing east towards modern Kolkatta and the Bengal Bay.  However, as Buddhism spread, so, too, did stories of the Buddha's travels.  And so, as far as Xuanzang was concerned, he was following in the footsteps of the Buddha. Speaking of which, at Nagarahara, Xuanzang mentions “footprints” of the Buddha.  This is a Buddhist tradition found in many places.  Xuanzang claims that the Tathagatha, the Englightened One, or the Buddha, would fly, because when he walked the land itself shook.  Footprint shapes in rock could be said to be evidence of the Buddha's travels.  Today, in many Buddhist areas you can find footprints carved into rock conforming to stories about the Buddha, such as all the toes being of the same length, or other various signs.  These may have started out as natural depressions in the rock, or pieces of artwork, but they were believed by many to be the actual point at which the Buddha himself touched down.  There are famous examples of these footprints in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and China.  Of course there are also traditions of creating images of the footprint as an object of worship.  Images of footprints, similar to images of the Great Wheel of the Law, may have been some of the earliest images for veneration, as images of the Buddha himself did not appear until much later in the tradition.  One of the oldest such footprints in Japan is at Yakushiji temple, and dated to 753.  It was created based on a rubbing brought back by an envoy to the Tang court, while they were in Chang'an. Like Buddha footprints, there are many other images and stories that show up multiple times in different places, even in Xuanzang's own narrative.  For example, in Nagarahara Xuanzang also shares a story of a cave, where an image of the Buddha could be just barely made out on the wall – maybe maybe an old carving that had just worn away, or maybe an image that was deliberately placed in the darkness as a metaphor for finding the Buddha—finding enlightenment.  This is not an uncommon theme in Buddhism as a whole.  In any case, the story around this image was that it had been placed there to subdue a naga. Now a naga is a mythical snake-like being, and  we are told that this particular naga was the reincarnation of a man who had invoked a curse on the nearby kingdom, then threw himself from a cliff in order to become a naga and sow destruction.  As the story went, the man was indeed reborn, but before he could bring destruction, the Buddha showed up and subdued him, convincing him that this was not right.  And so the naga agreed to stay in the cave, where the Buddha left an image—a shadow—to remind the naga any time that its thoughts might turn to destruction. Later in his travels, at a place name Kausambi, Xuanzang mentions another cave where the Buddha had subdued a venomous dragon and left his shadow on the cave wall.  Allowing for the possibility that the Buddha just had a particular M.O. when dealing with destructive beings, we should also consider the possibility that the story developed in one region—probably closer to the early center of Buddhism, and then traveled outward, such that it was later adopted and adapted to local traditions.  From Nagarahara, Xuanzang continued to the country of Gandhara and its capital city of Purushapura, aka modern Peshwar.  This kingdom was also under vassalage to the Kapisan king.  Here and elsewhere in the journey, Xuanzang notes not only evidence of the historical Buddha, but also monasteries and stupas purported to have been built by King Kanishka and King Asoka.  These were important figures who were held in high regard for spreading Buddhism during their reign.  Continuing through the region of Gandhara, he also passed through Udakhand and the city of Salatura, known as the birthplace of the ancient Sanskrit grammarian, Daksiputra Panini, author of the Astadhyayi [Aestudjayi].  This work is the oldest surviving description of classical Sanskrit, and used grammatical and other concepts that wouldn't be introduced into Western linguistics for eons.  Daksiputra Panini thrived around the 5th or 4th century BCE, but was likely one of the reasons that Sanskrit continued to be used as a language of scholarship and learning even as it died out of usage as the day to day language of the common people.  His works and legacy would have been invaluable to translators like Xuanzang in understanding and translating from Sanskrit. Xuanzang continued on his journey to Kashmira, situated in the Kashmir Valley.  This valley sits between the modern states of Pakistan and India, and its ownership is actively disputed by each.  It is the namesake of the famous cashmere wool—wool from the winter coats of a type of goat that was bred in the mountainous regions.  The winter coat would be made of soft, downy fibers and would naturally fall out in the spring, which the goatherds harvested and made into an extremely fine wool.  In the 7th century and earlier, however, the region was known not as much for its wool, but as a center for Hindu and Buddhist studies.  Xuanzang ended up spending two years in Kashmira studying with teachers there.  Eventually, though, he continued on, passing through the country of Rajpura, and continuing on to Takka and the city of Sakala—modern day Sialkot in the Punjab region of modern Pakistan.  Leaving Sakala, he was traveling with a group when suddenly disaster struck and they were accosted by a group of bandits.  They took the clothes and money of Xuanzang and those with him and then they drove the group into a dry pond in an attempt to corral them while they figured out what they would do—presumably meaning kill them all.  Fortunately for the group, there was a water drain at the southern edge of the pond large enough for one man to pass through.  Xuanzang and one other went through the gap and they were able to escape to a nearby village.  Once they got there, they told the people what had happened, and the villagers quickly gathered weapons and ran out to confront the brigands, who saw a large group coming and ran away.  Thus they were able to rescue the rest of Xuanzang's traveling companions.  Xuanzang's companions were devastated, having lost all of their possessions.  However, Xuanzang comforted them.  After all, they still had their lives.  By this time, Xuanzang had certainly seen his fair share of life and death problems along the road.  They continued on, still in the country of Takka, to the next great city.  There they met a Brahman, and once they told him what had happened, he started marshalling the forces of the city on their behalf.  During Xuanzang's stay in Kashmira, he had built a reputation, and people knew of the quote-unquote “Chinese monk”.  And even though the people in this region were not necessarily Buddhist—many were “heretics” likely referring to those of Hindu faith—the people responded to this pre-Internet “GoFundMe” request with incredible generosity.  They brought Xuanzang food and cloth to make into suits of clothes.  Xuanzang distributed this to his travel companions, and ended up still having enough cloth for 50 suits of clothes himself.  He then stayed at that city a month. It is odd that they don't seem to mention the name of this location.  Perhaps there is something unspeakable about it?  Still, it seems that they were quite generous, even if they were “heretics” according to Xuanzang. From the country of Takka, he next proceeded to the kingdom of Cinabhukti, where he spent 14 months—just over a year—studying with the monks there.  Once he had learned what he could, he proceeded onwards, passing through several countries in northern India until he came to the headwaters of the sacred Ganges rivers.  The Indus and the Ganges rivers are in many ways similar to the Yellow River and Yangzi, at least in regards to their importance to the people of India.  However, whereas the Yellow River and Yangzi both flow east towards the Pacific Ocean, the Indus and Ganges flow in opposite directions.  The Indus flows southwest, from the Himalayas down through modern India into modern Pakistan, emptying into the western Indian Ocean.  The Ganges flows east along the base of the Himalayas and enters the eastern Indian Ocean at Kolkatta.   At the headwaters of the Ganges, Xuanzang found a Buddhist monk named Jayagupta and chose to spend the winter and half of the following spring listening to his sermons and learning at his feet. From there he continued his travels, and ended up being summoned by King Harshavardhana of Kanyakubja, known today as the modern city of Kannauj.  Harshavardhana ruled an immense state that covered much of the territory around the sacred Ganges river.  As word of this strange monk from a far off land reached him, the King wanted to see him for himself.  Xuanzang stayed in Kannauj for three months, completing his studies of the Vibhasha Shastra, aka the Abhidarmma Mahavibhasha Shastra, known in Japanese as the Abidatsuma Daibibasharon, or just as the Daibibasharon or the Basharon, with the latter two terms referring to the translations that Xuanzang performed.   This work is not a sutra, per se, but rather an encyclopedic work that attempted to speak on all of the various doctrinal issues of its day.  It is thought to have been authored around 150 CE, and was influential in the Buddhist teachings of Kashmira, when that was a center of Orthodoxy at the time.  This is what Xuanzang had started studying, and it seems that in Kannauj he was finally able to grasp everything he felt he needed to know about it in order to effectively translate it and teach it when he returned.  That said, his quest was not over.  And after his time in Kannauj, he decided to continue on. His next stop was at the city of Ayodhya.  This was—and is—a city of particular importance in Hindu traditions.  It is said to be the city mentioned in the epic tale known as the Ramayana, though many argue that it was simply named that later in honor of that ancient city.  It does appear to be a city that the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, visited and where he preached.  It was also the home of a famous monk from Gandhara who authored a number of Buddhist tomes and was considered, at least by Xuanzang, a proper Boddhisatva.  And so Xuanzang spent some time paying homage to the places where the Buddha and other holy figures had once walked. “Ayodhya” appears in many forms across Asia.  It is a major pilgrimage center, and the city of “Ayutthaya” in Thailand was named for it, evoking the Ramayana—known in Thai as the Ramakien—which they would adopt as their own national story.  In Silla, there is a story that queen Boju, aka Heo Hwang-ok, wife to the 2nd century King Suro of Geumgwan Gaya, traveled to the peninsula all the way from the foreign country of “Ayuta”, thought to mean Ayodhya.  Her story was written down in the Gaya histories and survives as a fragment found in the Samguk Yusa.  Members of the Gimhae Kim, Gimhae Heo, and Incheon Yi clans all trace their lineage back to her and King Suro. From Ayodhya, Xuanzang took a trip down the Ganges river.  The boat was packed to bursting with some 80 other travelers, and as they traveled towards a particularly heavily forested area, they were set upon by bandits, who rowed their ships out from hiding in the trees and forced the travelers to the shore.  There the bandits made all the travelers strip down and take off their clothing so that the bandits could search for gold or valuables.  According to Xuanzang's biography, these bandits were followers of Durga, a Hindu warrior-goddess, and it is said that each year they would look for someone of particularly handsome features to sacrifice to her.  With Xuanzang's foreign features, they chose him.  And so they took him to be killed.  Xuanzang mentioned that he was on a pilgrimage, and that by interrupting him before they finished he was worried it might be inauspicious for them, but he didn't put up a fight and merely asked to be given time to meditate and calm his mind and that they perform the execution quickly so that he wouldn't even notice. From there, according to the story, a series of miracles occurred that ended up with Xuanzang being released and the bandits worshipping at his feet.  It is times like this we must remember that this biography was being written by Xuanzang's students based on stories he told them about his travels.  While being accosted by bandits on the river strikes me as perfectly plausible, we don't necessarily have the most reliable narrators, so I'm going to have to wonder about the rest.  Speaking of unreliable narration, the exact route that Xuanzang traveled from here on is unclear to me, based on his stated goals and where he was going.  It is possible that he was wandering as opportunities presented themselves —I don't know that he had any kind of map or GPS, like we've said in the past.  And it may be that the routes from one place to another were not always straightforward.  Regardless, he seems to wander southeast for a period before turning again to the north and eventually reaching the city of Shravasti. Shravasti appeared in our discussion of the men of Tukhara in Episode 119.  With the men of Tukhara there was also mentioned a woman from Shravasti.  While it is unlikely that was actually the case—the names were probably about individuals from the Ryukyuan island chain rather than from India—it is probably worth nothing that Shravasti was a thriving place in ancient times.  It was at one time the capital city of the kingdom of Kosala, sharing that distinction with the city of Ayodhya, back in the 7th to 5th centuries BCE.  It is also where the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, was said to have spend many years of his life.  This latter fact would have no doubt made it a place of particular importance to Xuanzang on his journeys. From there he traveled east, ending up following the foothills of the Himalayas, and finally came to some of the most central pilgrimages sites for followers of the historical Buddha.  First, he reached Lumbini wood, in modern Nepal, said to have been the birthplace of Prince Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.  And then he visited Kushinagara, the site where the Buddha ascended to nirvana—in other words, the place where he passed away.  From there, he traveled to Varanasi, and the deer park monastery, at the place where the Buddha is said to have given one of his most famous sermons.  He even visited the Bodhi tree, the tree under which Siddhartha Gautama is said to have attained enlightenment.  He spent eight or nine days there at Bodhgaya, and word must have spread about his arrival, because several monks from the eminent Nalanda Monastery called upon him and asked him to come to the monastery with them. Nalanda Monastery was about 80 km from Bodhgaya.  This was a grand monastery and center of learning—some say that it was, for a time, the greatest in the world.  It had been founded in the 5th century by the Gupta dynasty, and many of the Gupta rulers and others donated to support the monastery, which also acted as a university.  After the fall of the Gupta dynasty, the monastery was supported by King Harsha of Kannauj, whom Xuanzang had visited earlier.  It ultimately thrived for some 750 years, and is considered by some to be the oldest residential university—meaning that students would come to the temple complex and stay in residence for years at a time to study.  According to Xuanzang, Nalanda hosted some 10,000 monks. Including hosts and guests.  They didn't only study Buddhist teachings, but also logic, grammar, medicine, and divination.  Lectures were given at more than 100 separate places—or classrooms—every day.  It was at Nalanda, that Xuanzang would meet the teacher Silabhadra, who was known as the Right Dharma Store.  Xuanzang requested that he be allowed to study the Yogacharabhumi Shastra—the Yugashijiron, in Japanese.  This is the work that Xuanzang is said to have been most interested in, and one of the works that he is credited with bringing back in one of the first full translations to the Tang dynasty and then to others in East Asia.  It is an encyclopedic work dedicated to the various forms of Yogacara practice, which focuses on the mental disciplines, and includes yoga and meditation practices.  It has a huge influence on nearly all Mahayana schools, including things like the famous Zen and Pure Land schools of Buddhism.  The Yogacharabhumi Shastra is the earliest such encyclopedic work, compiled between the 3rd and 5th centuries—so even if the monk Faxian had brought portions of it back, it was probably not in the final form that Xuanzang was able to access. Silabhadra, for his part, was an ancient teacher—some put his age at 106 years, and his son was in his 70s.  He was one of the few at Nalandra who supposedly knew all of the various texts that they had at the monastery, including the Yogacarabhumi Shastra.  Xuanzang seems to have been quite pleased to study under him.  Xuanzang stayed at the house of Silabhadra's son, Buddhabhadra, and they welcomed him with entertainment that lasted seven days.  We are told that he was then given his own lodgings, a stipend of spices, incense, rice, oil, butter, and milk, along with a servant and a Brahman.  As a visiting monk, he was not responsible for the normal monastic duties, instead being expected to spend the time in study.  Going out, he was carried around by an elephant.   This was certainly the royal treatment. Xuanzang's life at Nalandra wasn't all books: south of the monastery was the city of Rajagrha, the old capital of the kingdom of Magadha, where the ancient Gupta kings had once lived, and on occasional breaks from his studies, Xuanzang would venture out to see the various holy sites.  This included the famous Mt. Grdhrakuta, or Vulture Peak, a location said to be favored by the historical Buddha and central to the Lotus Sutra, arguably the founding document of Mahayana Buddhist tradition. After all, “Mahayana” means “Greater Vehicle” and it is in the Lotus Sutra that we see the metaphor of using different vehicles to escape a burning house.   We've already talked a bit about how the image of Vulture Peak had already become important in Japanese Buddhism: In Episode 112 we talked about how in 648, Abe no Oho-omi had drums piled up at Shitennoji in the shape of Vulture Peak. But although the sightseeing definitely enhanced his experience, Xuanzang was first and foremost there to study.  He spent 15 months just listening to his teacher expound on the Yogacarabhumi Shastra, but he also heard expositions on various other teachings as well.  He ended up studying at Nalandra Monastery for 5 years, gaining a much better understanding of Sanskrit and the various texts, which would be critically important when it came to translating them, later. But, Xuanzang was not one to stay in any one place forever, and so after 5 years—some 8 years or more into his journey, he continued on, following the Ganges east, to modern Bangladesh.  Here he heard about various other lands, such as Dvarapati—possibly referring to Dvaravati, in modern Thailand, as well as Kamalanka and Isanapura.  The latter was in modern Cambodia, the capital of the ancient Chenla kingdom.  Then Mahacampa—possibly referring to the Champa region of Vietnam—and the country of Yamanadvipa.  But there was still more of India for Xuanzang to discover, and more teachings to uncover, and so Xuanzang decided instead to head southwest, following the coast.  He heard of the country of Sinhala, referring to the island of Sri Lanka, but he was urged not to go by ship, as the long journey was perilous.  Instead he could stay on relatively dry land and head down to the southern tip of the subcontinent and then make a quick hop from there across to the island.  He traveled a long distance, all the way down to Kancipuram, the seat of the Pallava dynasty, near modern day Chennai.  From the seaport near Kancipuram, it was only three days to Sinhala—that is to say Sri Lanka—but before he could set out, he met a group of monks who had just arrived.  They told him that the king of Sinhala had died , and there was a great famine and civil disturbances.  So they had fled with some 300 other monks. Xuanzang eventually decided not to make the journey, but he did talk with the monks and gathered information on the lands to the south, on Sri Lanka, and on the islands south of that, by which I suspect he may have meant the Maldives.  While Sri Lanka is an area important to Buddhist scholarship, particularly to the Theravada schools, this likely did not impress Xuanzang, and indeed he seemed to feel that his studies in Nalanda had more than provided him what he needed.  Sri Lanka, however, is the source of the Pali canon, one of the most complete early canons of Buddhism, which had a huge influence on Theravada Buddhism in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. So Xuanzang took plenty of notes but decided to forego the ocean voyage and headed northwest, instead.  He traveled across the breadth of India to Gujarat, and then turned back east, returning to pay respects once more to his teacher in Nalanda.  While there he heard of another virtuous monk named Prajnabhadra at a nearby monastery.  And so he went to spend several months with him, as well.  He also studied with a layman, Sastrin Jayasena, at Stickwood Hill.  Jayasena was a ksatriya, or nobleman, by birth, and studied both Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts.  He was courted by kings, but had left to continue his studies.  Xuanzang studied with him for another couple of years. Xuanzang remained at Nalanda, learning and teaching, expounding on what he had learned and gathering many copies of the various documents that he wished to take back with him, though he wondered how he might do it.  In the meantime, he also acquired quite the reputation.  We are told that King Siladitya had asked Nalanda for monks who could refute Theravada teachings, and Xuanzang agreed to go.  It isn't clear, but it seems that “Siladitya” was a title, and likely referred to King Harsha of Kannauj, whom we mentioned earlier.  Since he was a foreigner, then there could be no trouble that was brought on Nalanda and the other monks if he did poorly.  While he was waiting to hear back from Siladitya's court, which was apparently taking time to arrange things, the king of Kamarupta reached out to Nalanda with a request that Xuanzang come visit them.  While Xuanzang was reluctant to be gone too long, he was eventually encouraged to go and assuage the king. Kamarupta was a kingdom around the modern Assam region, ruled by King Bhaskaravarman, also known as King Kumara, a royal title.  This kingdom included parts of Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal.  Bhaskaravarman, like so many other regents, seems to have been intrigued by the presence of this foreign monk, who had traveled all this way and who had studied at the famous Nalanda Monastery in Magadha. He invited Xuanzang to come to him.  Xuanzang's teacher, Silabhadra, had exhorted him to spread the right Dharma, and to even go to those non-Buddhists in hopes that they might be converted, or at least partially swayed. King Bhaskaravarman was quite taken with Xuanzang, wining and dining him while listening to him preach.  While there, Xuanzang learned about the country of Kamarupta.  He also learned about a path north, by which it was said it was a two month journey to arrive at the land of Shu, in the Sichuan Basin, on the upper reaches of the Yangzi – a kind of shortcut back to the Tang court.  However, the journey was treacherous—possibly even more treacherous than the journey to India had been. Eventually word reached the ears of King Siladitya that Xuanzang was at the court of King Bhaskaravarman, and Siladitya got quite upset.  Xuanzang had not yet come to *his* court, so Siladitya demanded that Bhaskaravarman send the monk to him immediately.  Bhaskaravarman refused, saying he'd rather give Siladitya his own head, which Siladitya said he would gladly accept.  Bhaskaravarman realized he may have miscalculated, and so he sailed up the Ganges with a host of men and Xuanzang to meet with Siladitya.  After a bit of posturing, Siladitya met with Xuanzang, who went with him, and eventually confronted the members of the Theravada sect in debate.  Apparently it almost got ugly, but for the King's intervention.  After a particularly devastating critique of the Theravada position, the Theravada monks are blamed for trying to use violence against Xuanzang and his fellow Mahayana monks from Nalanda, who were prepared to defend themselves.  The King had to step in and break it up before it went too far. Ultimately, Xuanzang was a celebrity at this point and both kings seem to have supported him, especially as he was realizing it was about time to head back to his own country.  Both kings was offered ships, should Xuanzang wish to sail south and then up the coast.  However, Xuanzang elected to take the northern route, hoping to go back through Gaochang, and see that city and its ruler again.  And so the Kings gave him money and valuables , along with wagons for all of the texts.  They also sent an army to protect all of the treasures, and even an elephant and more – sending him back in style with a huge send-off. So Xuanzang retraced his earlier steps, this time on an elephant.  He traveled back to Taxila, to Kashmir, and beyond.  He was invited to stay in Kashmira, but because of his retinue, he wasn't quite at leisure to just go where he wanted.  At one point, near Kapisa—modern Bagram, north of Kabul—they had to cross a river, and about 50 of the almost 700 documents were lost.  The King of Kapisa heard of this and had his own monks make copies to replace them based on their own schools.  The King of Kasmira, hearing that he was in Kapisa, also came to pay his respects. Xuanzang traveled with the King of Kapisa northwest for over a month and reached Lampaka, where he did take some time to visit the various holy sites before continuing northwest.  They had to cross the Snow Mountains—the outskirts of the Himalayas, and even though it wasn't the highest part of the range it was still challenging.  He had to dismount his elephant and travel on foot.  Finally, after going over the high mountains and coming down, he arrived back in the region of Tukhara, in the country of Khowst.  He then came to Kunduz, and paid his respects to the grandson of Yehu Khan.  He was given more guards to escort him eastward, traveling with some merchants.  This was back in Gokturk controlled lands, over a decade later than when he had last visited.  He continued east to Badakshan, stopping there for a month because of the cold weather and snow.  He eventually traveled through the regions of Tukhara and over the Pamir range.  He came down on the side of the Tarim Basin, and noted how the rivers on one side flowed west, while on the other side they flowed east.  The goings were treacherous, and at one point they were beset by bandits.  Though he and the documents were safe, his elephant panicked and fled into the river and drowned.  He eventually ended up in the country of Kashgar, in modern Xinjiang province, at the western edge of the Taklamakan desert. From there he had two options.  He could go north and hug the southern edge of the Tianshan mountains, or he could stay to the south, along the northern edge of the Himalayan range and the Tibetan plateau.  He chose to go south.  He traveled through Khotan, a land of wool and carpets.  This was a major trade kingdom, and they also grew mulberry trees for silkworms, and were known for their jade.  The king himself heard of Xuanzang and welcomed him, as many others had done.  While he was staying at the Khotanese capital, Xuanzang penned a letter to the Tang court, letting them know of his journey, and that he was returning.  He sent it with some merchants and a man of Gaochang to deliver it to the court. Remember, Xuanzang had left the Tang empire illegally.  Unless he wanted to sneak back in his best hope was that the court was willing to forgive and forget all of that, given everything that he was bringing back with him.  The wait was no doubt agonizing, but he did get a letter back.  It assured him that he was welcome back, and that all of the kingdoms from Khotan back to the governor of Dunhuang had been made aware and were ready to receive him. With such assurances, Xuanzang packed up and headed out.  The king of Khotan granted him more gifts to help see him on his way.  Nonetheless, there was still a perilous journey ahead.  Even knowing the way, the road went through miles and miles of desert, such that in some places you could only tell the trail by the bleached bones of horses and travelers who had not been so fortunate.  Eventually, however, Xuanzang made it to the Jumo River and then on to Dunhuang, from whence he was eventually escorted back to the capital city. It was now the year 645, the year of the Isshi Incident in Yamato and the death of Soga.  Xuanzang had been gone for approximately 16 years.  In that time, the Tang had defeated the Gokturks and taken Gaochang, expanding their control over the trade routes in the desert.  Xuanzang, for his part, was bringing back 657 scriptures, bound in 520 bundles carried by a train of some 20 horses.  He was given a hero's welcome, and eventually he would be set up in a monastery where he could begin the next part of his journey:  Translating all of these books. This was the work of a lifetime, but it is one that would have a profound impact on Buddhism across East Asia.  Xuanzang's translations would revolutionize the understanding of Mahayana Buddhist teachings, and students would come from as far away as the Yamato court to study under him and learn from the teacher who studied and taught at none other than Nalanda monastery itself.  His school would become popular in the Yamato capital, and the main school of several temples, at least for a time.  In addition, his accounts and his biography would introduce many people to the wider world of central and south Asia.  While I could go on, this has already been a story in three parts, and this is, after all, the Chronicles of Japan, so we should probably tune back into what is going on with Yamato.  Next episode, we'll look at one of the most detailed accounts we have of a mission to Chang'an. Until then, I hope that this has been enjoyable.  Xuanzang's story is one of those that isn't just about him, but about the interconnected nature of the entire world at the time.  While his journey is quite epic, there were many people traveling the roads, though most of them didn't write about it afterwards.  People, artifacts, and ideas traveled much greater distances than we often consider at this time, well before any kind of modern travel.  It was dangerous, but often lucrative, and it meant that various regions could have influence well beyond what one might expect. And so, thank you once again for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan

This episode we continue to follow the monk Xuanzang on his path along the silk road.  From Gaochang, he traveled through the Tarim Basin, up over the Tianshan Mountains, to the heart of the Western Gokturk Qaghanate.  From there, he traveled south, through the region of Transoxania to Bactria and the land of Tukhara.  He pushed on into the Hindu Kush, witnessing the stone Buddha statues of Bamiyan, and eventually made his way to the land of Kapisa, near modern Kabul, Afghanistan.  From there he would prepare to enter the Indian subcontinent: the home of the historical Buddha. For more discussion and some photos of the areas along this journey, check out our podcast blog at https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-121   Rough Transcript Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.  My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 121: Journey to the West, Part 2   The cold winds blew through the travelers' doubled up clothing and thick furs.  Cold, wet ground meant that even two sets of boots were not necessarily enough after several days.  The frozen mist would often obscure everything except for the path immediately in front, hiding the peaks and making the sky a uniform white. In many places, the path would be blocked by rock, ice, or snow—the remnants of an avalanche, which could easily take an unsuspecting traveler.  And there was the elevation.  Hiking through the mountains, it was easy enough to reach heights of a mile or higher, and for those not accustomed to that elevation the thin air could take a surprising toll, especially if you were pushing yourself.  And the road was no less kind to the animals that would be hauling said travelers and their gear. And yet, this was the path that Xuanzang had agreed to.  He would continue to push through, despite the various deprivations that he would be subjected to.  No doubt he often wondered if it was worth it.  Then again, returning was just as dangerous a trip, so why not push on?   Last episode we introduced the monk Xuanzang, who traveled the Silk Road to India in the 7th century and returned to China.  He brought back numerous sutras to translate, and ended up founding a new school, known as the Faxian school—or the Hossou school in Japan.   As we mentioned last time, Xuanzang during his lifetime met with students from the archipelago when they visited the continent.  The records of his travels—including his biography and travelogue—are some of the best information we have on what life was like on the silk road around this time. In the last episode, we talked about Xuanzang: how he set out on his travels, his illegal departure from the Tang empire, and his perilous journey across the desert, ending up in Gaochang.  There, King Qu Wentai had tried to get him to stay, but he was determined to head out.  This episode we are going to cover his trip to Agni, Kucha, and Baluka—modern Aksu—and up to the Western Gokturk Qaghanate's capital of Suyab.  From there, we'll follow his footsteps through the Turkic controlled regions of Transoxania and into Tukhara, in modern Afghanistan.  Finally, we'll cover the last parts of his journey before he reached the start of his goal:  India. From Gaochang, Xuanzang continued on, through the towns he names as Wuban and Dujin, and into the country of Agni—known today as the area of Yanqi—which may also have been known as Wuqi.  The route was well-enough known, but it wasn't necessarily safe.  At one point, Xuanzang's caravan met with bandits, whom they were fortunately able to pay off.  The following night they encamped on a river bank with some merchants who also happened to be traveling the road.  The merchants, though, got up at midnight and headed out, hoping to get to the city early so that they could be the first ones to the market.  They only made it a few miles down the road, however, before they encountered more bandits, who slaughtered them and took their goods.  The following day, Xuanzang and his retinue came upon the merchants' remains lying in the road and saw the aftermath of the massacre. This was an unforgiving land, and the road was truly dangerous, even for those who traveled it regularly.  And yet Xuanzang was planning to travel its entire length until he reached India. So with little alternative, they carried on to the royal city of Agni. Agni, or Yanqi, sits on the southwestern edge of the basin, west of Bositeng lake, on the border between the Turfan basin and the larger Tarim Basin.  The name is thought to be a Tocharian—or Turfanian—name for the city, which is also known as Karashr. According to the biography by Huili, Xuanzang and his party didn't stay long in Agni.  Apparently Agni and Gaochang were not exactly on friendly terms, and even though the King of Agni and his ministers reportedly came out to greet Xuanzang and welcome him to their city, they refused to provide any horses.  They spent a single night and moved on. That said, Agni still made an impression on Xuanzang.  He noted how the capital was surrounded by hills on four sides, making it naturally defensible.  As for the people, he praises them as honest and straightforward.  They wore clothing of felt and hemp cloth, and cut their hair short, without hats or any kind of headwear.  Even the climate was pleasant, at least for the short time he was there.  He also notes that they used a script based on India—likely referring to the Brahmic script, which we find in the Tarim basin. However, as for the local lord, the King of Agni, he is a little less charitable.  Xuanzang claimed he was brave but “lacked resourcefulness” and he was a bit of a braggart.  Furthermore, the country had “no guiding principles or discipline and government orders are imperfect and not seriously implemented.”  He also mentioned the state of Buddhism in the country, noting that they were followers of Sarvastivada school, a Theravada sect popular along the Silk Road at the time.  Xuanzang was apparently not too pleased with the fact that they were not strict vegetarians, including the “three kinds of pure meat”.  From Agni, Xuanzang continued southwest, heading for the kingdom of Kucha.  He seems to have bypassed the nearby kingdom of Korla, south of Agni, and headed some 60 or 70 miles, climbing over a ridge and crossing two large rivers, and then proceeding another 200 miles or so to the land of Kucha. Kucha was a kingdom with over one hundred monasteries and five thousand monks following a form of Theravada Buddhism.  Here, Xuanzang was welcomed in by the king, Suvarnadeva, described as having red hair and blue eyes.  While Xuanzang was staying in Kucha, it is suspected that he probably visited the nearby Kizil grotto and the Buddhist caves, there, which include a painting of King Suvarnadeva's father, King Suvarnapuspa, and his three sons. You can still visit Kucha and the Kizil grottos today, although getting there is quite a trek, to be sure.  The ancient Kuchean capital is mostly ruins, but in the Kizil caves, protected from the outside elements, you can find vivid paintings ranging from roughly the 4th to the 8th century, when the site was abandoned.  Hundreds of caves were painted, and many still demonstrate vibrant colors.  The arid conditions protect them from mold and mildew, while the cave itself reduces the natural bleaching effect of sunlight.  The paintings are in numerous styles, and were commissioned by various individuals and groups over the years.  They also give us some inkling of how vibrant the city and similar structures must have been, back when the Kuchean kingdom was in its heyday. The people of Kucha are still something of a mystery.  We know that at least some of them spoke an Indo-European language, related to a language found in Agni, and both of these languages are often called Tocharian, which we discussed last episode.  Xuanzang himself noted that they used Indian writing, possibly referring to the Brahmi script, or perhaps the fact that they seem to have used Sanskrit for official purposes, such as the inscription on the cave painting at Kizil giving the name of King Suvarnapuspa.  The Kucheans also were clothed in ornamental garments of silk and embroidery.  They kept their hair cut, wearing a flowing covering over their heads—and we see some of that in the paintings. Xuanzang also notes that though we may think of this area as a desert, it was a place where rice and grains, as well as fruit like grapes, pomegranates, plums, pears, peaches, and almonds were grown.  Even today, modern Xinjiang grows some absolutely fantastic fruit, including grapes, which are often dried into raisins. Another point of interest for Xuanzang may have been that Kucha is known as the hometown of none other than Kumarajiva.  We first mentioned Kumarajiva back in episode 84.  Kumarajiva was one of the first people we know of who translated many of the sutras from India that were then more widely disseminated throughout the Yellow River and Yangzi river basins.  His father was from India and his mother was a Kuchean princess.  In the middle of the 4th century, when he was still quite young, he traveled to India and back with his mother on a Buddhist pilgrimage.  Later he would start a massive translation project in Chang'an.  His translations are credited with revolutionizing Chinese Buddhism. Xuanzang was initially welcomed by the king, his ministers, and the revered monk, Moksagupta.  They were accompanied by several thousand monks who set up tents outside the eastern gate, with portable Buddha images, which they worshipped, and then Xuanzang was taken to monastery after monastery until sunset.  At one of the monasteries, in the southeast of the city, there were several tens of monks who originally came from Gaochang, and since Xuanzang had come from there, they invited him to stay with them. The next day he met and feasted with the King, politely declining any meat, and then went to the monastery in the northwest to meet with the famous monk: Moksagupta.  Moksagupta himself had made the journey to India, and had spent 20 years there himself.  It seems like this would have been the perfect person for Xuanzang to talk to about his plans, but instead, the two butted heads.  Moksagupta seems to have seen Xuanzang's Mahayana faith as heretical.  He saw no reason for Xuanzang to travel all the way to India when he had all the sutras that anyone needed there in Kucha, along with Moksagupta himself.   Xuanzang's response seems to have been the Tang dynasty Buddhist version of “Okay, Boomer”, and then he went ahead and tore apart Moksagupta's understanding of his own sutras—or so Xuanzang relayed to his biographers.  We don't exactly have Moksagupta's side, and, let's face it, Xuanzang and his biographers are not necessarily reliable narrators.  After all, they followed Mahayana teachings, which they considered the “Greater Vehicle”, and they referred to the Theravada teachings as the “Hinayana” or “Lesser Vehicle”.  Meanwhile, Theravada Buddhists likely saw many of the Mahayana texts as extraneous, even heretical, not believing them to actually be the teachings of the Buddha. It must have been winter time, as the passes through the mountains on the road ahead were still closed, and so Xuanzang stayed in Kucha, spending his time sightseeing and meeting with various people.  He even went back to see Moksagupta, but the older monk shunned him, and would get up and exit the room rather than engaging with him, so they had no more conversations. Eventually, Xuanzang continued on his way west, following along the northern rim of the Tarim basin.  Two days out from Kucha, disaster struck.  Some two thousand or so Turkish bandits suddenly appeared—I doubt Xuanzang was counting, so it may have been more or less.  I imagine that memories of what had happened to the merchants near Agni must have gone through Xuanzang's mind.   Fortunately, for him, they were fighting over loot that they had pillaged from various travelers, and since they couldn't share it equally, they fell to fighting each other and eventually dispersed. He travelled for almost 200 miles after that, stopping only for a night at the Kingdom of Baluka, aka Gumo—the modern city of Aksu.  This was another Theravada Buddhist kingdom.  Xuanzang noted tens of Buddhist temples, and over 1000 Buddhist monks.  The country was not large—about 200 miles east to west and 100 miles north to south.  For reference that means it was probably comparable in size with Kyushu, in terms of overall area, or maybe the size of Denmark—excluding Greenland—or maybe the US state of Maryland.  Xuanzang described the country as similar to Kucha in just about every way, including the written language and law, but the spoken language was different, though we don't get many more details. From Baluka, he crossed northward through the Tianshan mountains, which are classified as an extension of the Pamirs known as the Ice Mountains.  Had he continued southwest, he would have hit Kashgar and crossed over between the Pamir and Tian Shan ranges into the Ferghana valley, but instead he turned north. We don't know exactly why he took this perilous option, but the route that may have been popular at the time as it was one of the most direct routes to the seat of the Western Gokturk Empire, which he was currently traveling through. The Tian Shan mountains were a dangerous journey.  Avalanches could block the road—or worse.  Xuanzang describes the permanent ice fields—indeed, it is the ice fields and glaciers of the Tian Shan that melt in the summer and provide the oasis towns of the Tarim Basin with water, even to this day.  In Xuanzang's day, those glaciers were likely even more prevalent than today, especially as they have been recorded as rapidly disappearing since 1961.  And where you weren't on snow and ice, the ground was probably wet and damp from the melt.  To keep warm, you would wear shoes over your shoes, along with heavy fur coats, all designed to reduce exposure. Xuanzang claims that 3 or 4 of every 10 people didn't survive the crossing—and that horses and oxen fared even worse.  Even if these numbers are an exaggeration, the message is clear:  This was a dangerous journey. After about seven days, Xuanzang came out of the mountains to the “Great Pure Lake”, the “Da Qing Hai”, also known as the Hot Sea or the Salt Sea, which likely refers to Issyk Kul.  The salt content, along with the great volume of water it possesses, means that the lake rarely freezes over, which is likely why it is seen as “hot” since it doesn't freeze when the fresh water nearby does.  This lake is the second largest mountain lake in the world, and the second deepest saltwater lake.  Traveling past the lake, he continued to Suyab, near modern Tokmok, in Kyrgyzstan, just west of the modern capital of Bishkek.  This was an old Sogdian settlement, and had since become the capital of the Western Gokturks.  Sogdians—like Xuanzang's guide, Vandak—were integral to the Gokturk kingdom. Their language was the lingua franca of the Silk Road, and at the time of the Gokturk Khaganate, it was also the official court language, and so when Xuanzang appeared at the court of the Great Khagan of the Western Gokturks, it was likely the language of diplomacy. When we think of Turkic people, many in the English speaking world think of Turkiye, and perhaps of the mighty Ottoman empire.  Some may think of Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Uzbekistan, among others.  And of course, there are the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.  All of these people claim roots in the ancestral Turkic homeland in the Altai mountains, which sit largely in western Mongolia, north of China's Xinjiang region.  Much like the Xiongnu and the Mongols, they were pastoral nomads, moving their herds across the steppes, often covering great distances.  They would regularly move through different regions, perhaps returning each season, though sometimes not returning for years at a time.  They were often seen as barbarians by settled people living in cities, and yet their goods and horses were highly prized. Nomad and sedentary lifestyles would often collide.  Farmers would turn pastureland into fields, and when the nomadic people returned on their circuits, they would find walls and fences where there was once open land, and the people there would claim to “own” the land, a concept often foreign to people who were always on the move.  Nomadic people, such as the Gokturks, were not necessarily keeping vast libraries of records about themselves and their histories, and so much of what we get comes from external sources, which do not always have incredibly reliable narrators.  To many of the settled agriculturalists, groups like the Turks were marauders who raided their villages and farms.  They were a great bogeyman of the steppes, which required the firm hand of strong defenses to keep out—or so their opponents would want people to think. While they were known for their warfare, which incorporated their mobility, but they were keenly interested in trade, as well.  They understood the value of the trade routes and the various cities and states that they included in their empire.  Thus, the Sogdians and the Gokturks seem a natural fit: the Sogdians were more settled, but not entirely so, as demonstrated by their vast trade networks.  And the Sogdians also were part of the greater central Eurasian steppe culture, so the two cultures understood each other, to a degree.  They are even depicted similarly in art, with slight differences, such as long hair that was often associated with Turks over the Sogdians.  In some areas of the Gokturk empire, Sogdians would run the cities, while the Gokturks provided military aid and protection. Xuanzang's description of the people of Suyab, or the “City of Suye River”, doesn't pick out anyone in particular, and he even says that it was a place where traders of the Hu, or foreign, tribes from different countries mingle their abodes.  He mentions the people here as being called Suli, which is also the name given to the language—this may refer to “Sogdian” in general.  They write with an alphabet that is written vertically rather than horizontally—this may refer to a few scripts that were written this way, possibly based off Syriac or Aramaic alphabets that were adapted to Sogdian and other Iranian languages, but it isn't clear. We are told that the people dressed in felt and hemp clothing, with fur and “cotton” garments.  Their clothes fit tightly, and they kept their hair cut short, exposing the top of their heads—though sometimes they shaved it completely, tying a colored silk band around the forehead. He goes on to describe these people as greedy liars, possibly a reference to the mercantile nature of many of the people at the time. Something to note: The Turks of this time had not yet encountered Islam, which was just now starting to rise up in the Middle East.  The Prophet Muhammad is said to have been born around the end of the 6th century CE and was preaching in the early 7th century, though his teachings would begin to spread outward soon enough.  But that means that the Gokturks were not an Islamic empire.  Rather, their own traditions seem to have focused on the worship of Tengri, an Altaic personification of the universe, often simplified as a “sky god”.  Tengrism can be found amongst the Xiongnu, Mongols, and others, and it was the national religion of the Gokturks themselves, but there were many who also adopted other religions that they encountered, including Zoroastrianism, Christianity, Manichaeism, and Buddhism.  In fact, Xuanzang notes that the Turks he met in Suyab would not sleep or sit on beds made of wood because wood was thought to contain the spirit of fire, which he says they worshipped.  That sounds similar to Zoroastrian beliefs, where fire is associated with Ahura Mazda, who is also worshipped as a sky god.  These may have been beliefs inherited from their Eastern Iranian Sogdian partners. In Xuanzang's biography, we are given more details about his visit to Suyab.  Apparently, as he was headed to the city, he met a hunting party, which we are told was the retinue of Yehu Khan.  Hunting was an important part of life on the steppes, and it continued to be a favorite sport of the Gokturk nobility. Yehu Khan—possibly Yagbhu Khan, though that is up for some debate—is described as being dressed in a green silk robe, with his hair exposed, and wearing  a turban of white silk about ten feet long that wrapped his forehead and hung behind his back.  His “hunting” expedition wasn't just a couple of the guys.  It included about 200 officials, all with plaited hair and dressed in brocade robes—they weren't exactly out there roughing it.  He also had his soldiers, dressed in furs, felt, or fine woolen clothes, and there were so many cavalry that they stretched out of sight.  The Khan seemed pleased to meet Xuanzang, but his hunt was expected to last another couple of days, at least, so he sent an attendant named Dharmaja to take Xuanzang back to wait for the Khan to return. Three days later, Xuanzang was given an audience.  The khan was seated in a large yurt.  Xuanzang noted the seeming incongruity between the khan, sitting there in the tent, decorated with golden flowers, with the officials dressed in magnificent brocade garments sitting in two long rows in front of him and the armed guards behind him, compared to the simple felt walls of the tent. A ”yurt” is a common feature of nomadic life on the steppes.  It wasn't exactly a single person operation to haul them around, but they can be taken down and put up with relative ease.  And while yurts could be relatively simple, there are examples of much more elaborate structures.  There is little reason they couldn't be made larger, perhaps with some extra support.  In later centuries, there are examples of giant yurts that seem like real construction projects.  Use of tents, even in a city, where they had permanent palace buildings, was likely a means of retaining the nomadic steppe traditions, even while enjoying the benefits of city life. Whom exactly Xuanzang met with is a matter of debate.  His records seem to indicate that it was Tong Yabghu Qaghan of the Western Gokturk Khaganate, but other sources say that Tong Yabghu Qaghan died in 628, and the earliest Xuanzang could have been meeting with him was 630, two years later, so if that is the case, he must have met with Tong Yabghu's son, Si Yabghu Qaghan.  It is likely that Xuanzang, who was dictating his accounts years after, mentioned the Qaghan and then, when they looked up who it was, they simply made a mistake.  Remember, Xuanzang would have had everything translated through one or two languages.  He did know what he saw, however, and he recounted what he remembered. Tong Yabghu Qaghan oversaw the height of the Gokturk Qaghanate, and appears to have favored the Buddhist religion, though there were many different religions active in their territories at the time.  They oversaw an extremely cosmopolitan empire covering huge swaths of central Eurasia, including the lucrative silk road.  Xuanzang notes that at the court there were individuals from Gaochang and even a messenger from the Han—which is to say the Tang Empire.  One wonders if Xuanzang—or anyone at that time—realized just how tenuous the Khan'sposition was.  After Tong Yabghu's death, the Qaghanate would decline, and less than a decade later it would fall to the Tang dynasty, who took Suyab and made it their western outpost.  In fact, Suyab is thought to have been the birthplace, over a century later, of a young boy who would find a love of poetry.  That boy's name was Li Bai, or Ri Haku, in Japanese. He would become one of the most famous poets in Chinese history, and his poems were even known and studied in Japan.  And it was largely through Japanese study of Li Bai's poems that his works came to the English speaking world: first through Ernest Fenollosa, who had studied in Japan, and then by the celebrated Ezra Pound, who had used Ernest's notes to help with his own translations of the poems. This was, though, as I said, over a century after Xuanzang's journey.  At the time of our story, the Qaghan was throwing a feast, including Xuanzang and all of the foreign envoys.  Xuanzang comments on the food and drink—his hosts provided grape juice in lieu of wine, and cooked a special vegetarian feast just for him, while the other guests ate a feast of meat, such as veal, lamb, fish, and the like.  There was also the music of various regions along the Silk Road, which Xuanzang found to be catchy, but of course not as refined as the music he was used to, of course.  After dinner Xuanzang was asked to expound upon the Darma, largely about the basic principle that you should be kind to one another—I doubt he was getting into the deep mysteries of Buddhist philosophy. Xuanzang stuck around the court for three more days, during which time the Qaghan tried to get him to stay, but Xuanzang insisted that he had to make it to India.  And so the Qaghan relented.  He found men in his army who could translate for Xuanzang along his journey, and had letters of introduction written to at least as far as the state of Kapisa, in modern Afghanistan. And so, armed with the Qaghan's blessing and a fresh translator, Xuanzang struck out again.  They headed westward for over one hundred miles, eventually reaching Bingyul, aka the Thousand Springs.  This is the area where the Qaghan and his court would spend his summers, and the deer in the area were protected under his orders, so that they were not afraid of humans—which sounds similar to the situation with the deer in Nara.  Continuing on another fifty miles or so—the distances are approximate as Xuanzang's primary duty was not exactly to map all of this out—Xuanzang arrived at the city of Taras, in modern Kazakhstan, another place where the cultures of the Silk Road mixed and mingled.  Xuanzang didn't have much to say about Taraz, apparently, though it is one of the oldest cities in Transoxania, founded near the beginning of the Common Era.  A few miles south of there, Xuanzang reportedly found a village of re-settled ethnic Han that had been captured by the Gokturks and settled here.  They had adopted the dress and customs of the Turkic people, but continued to speak a version of Chinese. Southwest of that he reached the City of White Water, likely referring to Aksukent.  This is the same “Aksu” as the city in Xinjiang, both of which mean “White Water” in Turkic, but this one is in the south of Kazakhstan.  Xuanzang found the climate and products an improvement over what he had experienced in Taras.  Beyond that, he next arrived at the city of Gongyu, and then south again to Nujkend, and then traveling westward to the country of Chach, aka Tashkent.  Both Nujkend and Chach were large cities in nations of smaller, mostly autonomous city-states, which made up a lot of the political geography of Transoxania. I would note that Xuanzang's notes here are much more sparse than previously.  This may be because these were outside of the Tarim basin and therefore of less interest to individuals in the Tang empire.  Or perhaps he was just making his way more quickly and not stopping at every kingdom along the way. From Tashkent, he continued southeast to the Ferghana valley—the country of Feihan.  Oddly, this country doesn't appear in Xuanzang's biography, even though the Ferghana Valley seems to have been fairly well known back in the Tang Empire—it was known as the home of some of the best horses, which were one of its first major exports.  In fact, the Han dynasty even mounted a military expedition to travel to Ferghana just to obtain horses.  Xuanzang is oddly silent on this; however, he does talk about the fertile nature of the land.  He mentions that their language here is different from the lands he had been traveling through up to this point, and also points out that the people of the Ferghana valley were also visibly different from others in the area. From the Ferghana valley, Xuanzang headed west for about 300 miles or more to the land of Sutrushana—perhaps referring to the area of Ushrusana, with its capital of Bunjikat.  This country was also largely Sogdian, and described as similar to Tashkent.  From there, he traveled west through a great desert, passing skeletons, which were the only marker of the trail other than a view of the far off mountains.  Finally, they reached Samarkand, known as the country of “Kang” in Chinese, which was also the term used to mark Sogdians who claimed descent from the people of Samarkand. Samarkand is another of the ancient cities of Central Asia, and even today is the third largest city in modern Uzbekistan.  Human activity in the region goes back to the paleolithic era, and the city was probably founded between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE.  Samarkand was conquered by Alexander the Great, and during the Achaemenid Empire it was the capital of Sogdiana.  During Xuanzang's visit, Samarkand was described as an impenetrable fortress with a large population. For all of his travel, Samarkand was the first place Xuanzang notes as specifically not a Buddhist land.  In fact, there were two monasteries, suggesting that there had been Buddhists, but if any monks tried to stay there then the locals would chase them out with fire.  Instead, they worshipped fire—likely meaning Ahura Mazda and Zoroastrianism.  This leads to a story that I have to wonder about, given the reliability of our narrators. It is said that Xuanzang was met by the King with arrogance, but after staying the night Xuanzang was able to tell the King about Buddhism and its merits.  The king was intrigued, and asked to observe the Precepts, and treated Xuanzang with hospitality and respect.  So when two of Xuanzang's attendants went to the monasteries to worship, they were chased out with fire.  When the king heard about this, he had the people arrested and ordered their hands to be cut off.  Xuanzang could not bear to witness such suffering, however, and he intervened to have them spared.  So instead the king had them flogged and banished from the city.  Ever since then, all the people believed in Buddhism. Some parts of this strike true.  It was likely that the king would entertain this strange wanderer who had arrived with letters from the great Qaghan—that may have even explained why Xuanzang had been encouraged to make the dangerous journey to Suyab in the first place, so that he could obtain such permission.  And it would not be strange for the king to listen to his teachings.  If Xuanzang's attendants were attacked, that would have been a huge breach of hospitality, and however the King felt about it, he no doubt had to do something about it.  And so all of that sounds somewhat believable.  Does that mean everyone suddenly converted to Buddhism?  I don't know that I'm quite willing to go that far.  It is also likely that there were Buddhists there already, even if the majority religion was Zoroastrianism. From Samarkand, Xuanzang traveled farther southwest, to the country of Kasanna, which seems to have been the edge of what we might call Sogdiana.   According to his biographers, however, there was a little more to all of this.  Rather, he headed west to Kusanika.  Then he traveled to  Khargan, and further on to the country of Bukhara, and then to Vadi.  All of these were “An” in Chinese, which was the name element used for Sogdians from this region.  He then continued west to the country of Horismika, on the other side of the Amu Darya, aka the Oxus River of Transoxanian fame. From there he traveled further southwest, entering into the mountains.  The path here was often such that they had to travel single-file, and there was no food or water other than what you brought with you.  Eventually they came to a set of doors, known as the Iron Gate.  This was a Turkic fortress.  It was no doubt fortuitous that he had come from his meeting with the Qaghan, and likely had permission to pass through.  From there, they entered the country of Tukhara. As we noted in Episode 119, Tukhara was in the region of Bactria.  It was bordered by the Pamir range in the east, and the Persian empire in the west.  There were also the Great Snow Mountains in the south, likely referencing the Hindu Kush. Tukhara had been conquered by the Gokturks just within the past couple of decades, and Xuanzang notes that the country had been split into largely autonomous city-states as the local royalty had died without an heir many years before.  With the Gokturk conquest, it was now administered by Tardu Shad, the son of Tong Yabghu Qaghan.  “Shad” in this case was a local title. Here, Xuanzang's narrative gets a little dicey, especially between his biography and his records.  The records of the Western Regions denotes various countries in this area.  It is unclear if he traveled to all of them or is just recounting them from records he obtained.  He does give us at least an overview of the people and the region.  I would also note that this is one of the regions he visited, again, on his return trip, and so may have been more familiar with the region than those areas he had passed through from Suyab on down. For one thing, he notes that the language of the region was different from that of the “Suli”, which appears to refer to the Sogdians.  This was the old territory of the Kushan empire, and they largely spoke Bactrian.  Like Sogdian, it was another Eastern Iranian language, and they used an alphabet based largely on Greek, and written horizontally rather than vertically.  They also had their own coins. This region had plenty of Buddhist communities, and Xuanzang describes the cities and how many monasteries they had, though, again, it isn't clear if he actually visited all of them or not.  These are countries that Li Rongji translates as “Tirmidh”, “Sahaaniyan”, “Kharuun”, “Shuumaan”, etc. It does seem that Xuanzang made it to the capital city, the modern city Kunduz, Afghanistan. Xuanzang actually had something specific for the local Gokturk ruler, Tardu Shad.  Tardu Shad's wife was the younger sister of King Qu Wentai of Gaochang, whom we met last episode.  Qu Wentai had provided Xuanzang a letter for his younger sister and her husband.  Unfortunately, Xuanzang arrived to learn that the princess of Gaochang had passed away, and Tardu Shad's health was failing.  It does seem that Tardu Shad was aware of Xuanzang, however—a letter had already come from Qu Wentai to let them know that Xuanzang was on his way.  As I mentioned last episode, letters were an important part of how communities stayed tied together.  Of course, given the perils of the road, one assumes that multiple letters likely had to be sent just in case they didn't make it.  The US Postal Service this was not. Tardu Shad, though not feeling well, granted an interview with Xuanzang.  He suggested that Xuanzang should stick around.  Then, once the Shad had recovered from his illness, he would accompany Xuanzang personally on his trip to India.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  While Xuanzang was staying there, he was witness to deadly drama.  Tardu Shad was recovering, which was attributed to the recitations by an Indian monk who was also there.  This outcome was not exactly what some in the court had wanted.  One of the Shad's own sons, known as the Tagin prince, plotted with the Shad's current wife, the young Khatun, and she poisoned her husband.  With the Shad dead, the throne might have gone to the son of the Gaochang princess, but he was still too young.  As such, the Tagin Prince was able to usurp the throne himself, and he married his stepmother, the young Khatun.  The funeral services for the late Tardu Shad meant that Xuanzang was obliged to stay at Ghor for over a month. During that time, Xuanzang had a seemingly pleasant interaction with an Indian monk.  And when he finally got ready to go, he asked the new Shad for a guide and horses.  He agreed, but also made the suggestion that Xuanzang should then head to Balkh.  This may have meant a bit of backtracking, but the Shad suggested that it would be worth it, as Balkh had a flourishing Buddhist community. Fortunately, there was a group of Buddhist monks from Balkh who happened to be in Kunduz to express their condolences at the passing of Tardu Shad, and they agreed to accompany Xuanzang back to their hometown, lest he end up getting lost and taking the long way there. The city of Balkh is also known as “Baktra”, as in “Bactria”, another name of this region.  A settlement has been there since at least 500 BCE , and it was already an important city when it was captured by Alexander the Great.  It sits at the confluence of several major trade routes, which no doubt were a big part of its success.  Xuanzang's biography notes that it was a massive city, though it was relatively sparsely populated—probably due to the relatively recent conquest by the Gokturks, which had occurred in the last couple of decades.  That said, there were still thousands of monks residing at a hundred monasteries in and around the city.  They are all characterized as monks of Theravada schools.  Southwest of the city was a monastery known as Navasamgharama, aka Nava Vihara, or “New Monastery”.  Despite its name, the monastery may have actually been much older, going back to the Kushan emperor Kaniska, in the 2nd century CE.  Ruins identified as this “New Monastery” are still visible south of Balkh, today. The monastery is described as being beautifully decorated, and it seems that it had a relic—one of the Buddha's teeth.  There are also various utensils that the Buddha is said to have used, as well.  The objects would be displayed on festival days.  North of the monastery there was a stupa more than 200 feet in height.  South of the monastery was a hermitage.  Each monk who studied there and passed away would have a stupa erected for them, as well.  Xuanzang notes that there were at around 700 memorial stupas, such that they had to be crammed together, base to base. It was here that Xuanzang met a young monk named Prajnaakara, who was already somewhat famous in India, and well-studied.  When questioned about certain aspects of Buddhism, Xuanzang was impressed by the monk's answers, and so stayed there a month studying with the young monk. Eventually, Xuanzang was ready to continue on his journey.  He departed Balkh towards the south, accompanying the teacher Prajnakara, and together they entered the Great Snow Mountains, aka the Hindu Kush.  This path was even more dangerous than the trip through the Tian Shan mountains to Suyab.   They eventually left the territory of Tukhara and arrived at Bamiyan.  Bamiyan was a kingdom in the Hindu Kush, themselves an extension of the Himalayan Mountain range.  It Is largely based around valley, home to the modern city of Bamyan, Afghanistan, which sits along the divide between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.  Today it is a major center for individuals of the Hazara ethnic group, one of the main ethnic groups in Afghanistan, which is a multi-ethnic state that includes, today, the Pashtun, Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek people, along with a number of smaller ethnic groups.  Today they largely reside in the mountainous areas of the Hindu Kush. Bamiyan made an impact on our protagonist.   Their language was slightly different from that in Tukhara, but using the same—or similar enough—writing system.  Buddhism was thriving in the capital, and we are told of a rock statue of the standing Buddha, over a hundred feet in height, along with a copper statue of the standing Buddha nearby.    There was also another reclining Buddha a mile or two down the road.  There were multiple monasteries with thousands of monks, and the ruler of that kingdom received Xuanzang well. Xuanzang wasn't the first monk to travel to Bamiyan from the Middle Kingdom—in this he was, perhaps unwittingly, on the trail of the monk Faxian.  Faxian likely did not see these statues, though, as we believe they were built in the 6th and early 7th century—at least the stone Buddha statues.  They were a famous worship site until February 2001, when the Taliban gave an order to destroy all of the statues in Afghanistan.  Despite this, they were inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Fortunately, we have images from before their destruction.  These statues were a blend of Greco-Buddhist and Gandharan art styles—appropriate as it stands between the Hellenistic area of Tukhara and the ancient region of Gandhara—including the modern city of Kandahar and into the Indus Valley region of Pakistan. Continuing east through the mountains, Xuanzang eventually came out at the kingdom of Kapisa.  This may have had its capital around modern-day Bagram, north of modern Kabul, but the country seems to have been quite large.  Kapisa over saw some tens of other countries, and it is thought that at one time its influence extended from Bamyan and Kandahar to the area of modern Jalalabad.  Their language was even more different than that of Tukhara, but they were still using the same writing system.  The king of Kapisa is said to have been of Suli ethnicity—which would seem to indicate that he was Sogdian, or at least descended from people of the Transoxanian region.    Xuanzang notes that the ruler, as rough and fiery as he is described—as a true warlord or similar—he nonetheless made a silver image of the Buddha, eighteen feet in height, every year.  He also gave charity to the poor and needy in an assembly that was called every five years.  There were over one hundred monasteries and some 6000 monks, per Xuanzang's recollection, and notably, they were largely following Mahayana teachings. For the most part the monks that Xuanzang had encountered on this journey were Theravada—Xuanzang refers to them as “Hinayana”, referring to the “Lesser Vehicle” in contrast to Xuanzang's own “Mahayana”, or “Greater Vehicle”.  “Theravada” refers to the “way of the elders” and while Mahayana Buddhism largely accepts the sutras of Theravada Buddhism, there are many Mahayana texts that Theravada Buddhists do not believe are canonical.  We discussed this back in Episode 84. There was apparently a story of another individual from the Yellow River being sent as a hostage to Kapisa when it was part of the Kushan Empire, under Kanishka or similar.  Xuanzang recounts various places that the hostage, described as a prince, lived or visited while in the region.  Xuanzang's arrival likely stirred the imagination of people who likely knew that the Tang were out there, but it was such a seemingly impossible distance for most people.  And yet here was someone who had traveled across all of that distance.  One of the monasteries that claimed to have been founded because of that ancient Han prince invited Xuanzang to stay with them.  Although it was a Theravada monastery, Xuanzang took them up on the offer, both because of the connection to someone who may have been his countryman, but also because of his traveling companion, Prajnakara, who was also a Theravada monk, and may not be comfortable staying at a Mahayana monastery. Xuanzang spends a good deal of ink on the stories of how various monasteries and other sites were founded in Kapisa and the surrounding areas.  He must have spent some time there to accumulate all of this information.  It is also one of the places where he seems to have hit at least twice—once on the way to India, and once during his return journey. The King of Kapisa is said to have been a devotee of Mahayana Buddhism.  He invited Xuanzang and Prajnakara to come to a Mahayana monastery to hold a Dharma gathering.  There they met with several leading figures in the monastery, and they discussed different theories.  This gathering lasted five days, and at the end, the king offered Xuanzang and the other monks five bolts of pure brocade and various other gifts.  Soon thereafter, the monk Prajnakara was invited back to Tukhara, and so he and Xuanzang parted ways. And it was about time for Xuanzang to continue onwards as well.  From Kapisa, he would travel across the “Black Range” and into Lampaka.  This may refer to the area of Laghman or Jalalabad.  Today, this is in modern Afghanistan, but for Xuanzang, this would have been the northwestern edge of India.  He was almost there. And so are we, but we'll save his trip into India for next episode. Until then thank you for listening and for all of your support. If you like what we are doing, please tell your friends and feel free to rate us wherever you listen to podcasts.  If you feel the need to do more, and want to help us keep this going, we have information about how you can donate on Patreon or through our KoFi site, ko-fi.com/sengokudaimyo, or find the links over at our main website,  SengokuDaimyo.com/Podcast, where we will have some more discussion on topics from this episode. Also, feel free to reach out to our Sengoku Daimyo Facebook page.  You can also email us at the.sengoku.daimyo@gmail.com.  Thank you, also, to Ellen for their work editing the podcast. And that's all for now.  Thank you again, and I'll see you next episode on Sengoku Daimyo's Chronicles of Japan.

Pastor Caleb M. Turner graduated from John D. Horn High School in Mesquite, TX. He received a track and field scholarship and attended the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Ok. Prior to graduating, Pastor Caleb enlisted in the U.S Air Force where he served in the Air Force Special Operations Command while stationed at Hurlburt Field, Fl. He also had the opportunity to serve his country while stationed at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan.He served in the Youth/Children's ministry at various churches during his stay in Florida. Upon completing his active duty commitment, he attended Moody Theological Seminary in Chicago, IL, and earned a Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies. Upon graduation he returned to Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church where he served in the roles of Equipping/Teaching Pastor, Assistant Pastor and Co-Pastor. In 2023, he became the Senior Pastor of Mesquite Friendship Baptist Church.Pastor Caleb has served in various roles within the Southern Baptist Convention. He is currently a trustee for the North American Mission Board and chairman of the executive board for the SBTC, becoming both the youngest to ever serve as chairmen as well as the first African-American. He has also established several initiatives within his ministry to reach and assist others. preached numerous revivals, spoken at FCA meetings, and is called to mentor young men.

Kicking off 2025, Navy Veteran Vann Morris sits with Dr. Ron Hirschberg and talks about his journey from young sailor, to Lieutenant Commander, and a man on a mission to heal America through his patriotism and infectious personality. Vann is a teacher, preacher, and leader. Retired after 30 years, his last 3 tours were at the Pentagon, the 82nd Airborne Division in Bagram, Afghanistan, and US Special Operations Command. Vann talks about love for country, family and the fact that we all should be aware that our best friend and our worst enemy are actually the same person – ourselves. He talks about the power of influence and how it can be used for good, and how when it comes to veteran suicide, it's about making ourselves more approachable than we think we are, and therefore to ask each other if we are not doing OK. ______Many thanks to Navy Veteran Vann Morris for sitting with me, along with Army Veteran and wife Rita Morris. Thank you for your ongoing service in many ways, your leadership and lessons to both kids and adults – And for your whole family's military service. You can learn all about Vann, his life and work at healingamerica.com.Please go to homebase.org for updates, programming, and recourses if you or anyone you know is struggling in anyway. Home Base Nation is the official podcast for Home Base Program for Veterans and Military Families – Our team sees veterans, servicemembers and their families addressing the invisible wounds of war at no cost. This is all made possible thanks to a grateful nation – And if you want to learn more on how you can help, visit us at www.homebase.org, or if you or anyone you know would like to connect to care, you can also reach us at 617-724-5202.Follow Home Base on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedInThe Home Base Nation Team is Steve Monaco, Army Veteran Kelly Field, Justin Scheinert, Chuck Clough, with COO Michael Allard, Brigadier General Jack Hammond, and Peter Smyth.Producer and Host: Dr. Ron HirschbergAssistant Producer, Editor: Chuck CloughChairman, Home Base Media Lab: Peter SmythThe views expressed by guests to the Home Base Nation podcast are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent. Views and opinions expressed by guests are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Home Base, the Red Sox Foundation or any of its officials.

Join our Patreon to get access to exclusive monthly calls: https://www.patreon.com/TheThinkingMuslimThis episode was filmed on Saturday, before Damascus fell.The Syrian revolution began in 2011 as a grassroots, civil society uprising against one of the most tyrannical rulers in the Muslim World. Bashar al-Assad like his father before him, presided over a state of terror, with disappearances, secret police repression and a punitive state machinery that governed through fear. Assad styled himself as an anti-imperialist when in reality he had colluded with the West in past conflicts and after 9/11 Syria became a favourite place for the Americans to render suspects for horrific torture.Today we have Moazzam Begg who is the senior director of CAGE and author of enemy combatant – a book about his time as a detainee first in Bagram and then in Guantanamo. He also spent time in Syria during the revolution, as part of his investigation into the Assad regimes complicity in the CIA torture programme.Let me remind all viewers that to help us continue to engage critical thought at this time, Please consider becoming a Patron. https://www.patreon.com/TheThinkingMuslimYou can also support The Thinking Muslim through a one-time donation: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/DonateListen to the audio version of the podcast:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7vXiAjVFnhNI3T9Gkw636aApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-thinking-muslim/id1471798762Sign up to Muhammad Jalal's newsletter: https://jalalayn.substack.comPurchase our Thinking Muslim mug: https://www.thinkingmuslim.com/merchFind us on:Patron. https://www.patreon.com/TheThinkingMuslimTwitter: https://twitter.com/thinking_muslimFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Thinking-Muslim-Podcast-105790781361490Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingmuslimpodcast/Telegram: https://t.me/thinkingmuslimHost: https://twitter.com/jalalaynWebsite Archive: https://www.thinkingmuslim.comTimestamps:0:00 - Introduction1:41 – Assad anti-imperialist?7:07 – Syria's torture campaign12:42 – The Left on Syria16:24 – Why dismiss Syrians?19:05 – Russia 22:48 – The opposition27:33 – ISIS vs Opposition 31:59 – Post-Assad Syria34:36 – Minorities 36:40 – Assad against Israel?39:17 – Palestinian resistance on Syria42:48 – Islamic activism 45:26 – Will we be able to visit Syria Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Protection Equipment FailureClarification on a section of the episode: When I mentioned Bagram, Afghanistan. I was a contractor with a company called AMK9. When I went to Bagram, the compound we were assigned to on the base, was small. Bagram, the base itself, hasn't been a “small compound” in probably a LONG time.

This week on the ‘What's Your Pineapple Express?' series, Scott had the honor of sitting down and speaking with an incredible leader – Jason Howk. Jason leads a non-profit organization called Global Friends of Afghanistan and has continued doing amazing work while keeping Afghanistan at the forefront. Join us this week as Jason shares his many years of experience in Afghanistan, gives us insight into some very important information, and shares what we need to learn from the abandonment of Afghanistan. Some of the things he reveals about what happened with this abandonment and more importantly, what's happening right under our noses in this growing safe haven will blow you away. Own Every Room - https://rooftopleadership.com/owneveryroom/ Nobody is Coming to Save You - https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/scott-mann/nobody-is-coming-to-save-you/9781546008286/?lens=center-street Scottmann.com  Join Rooftop Nation! Website: https://www.rooftopleadership.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScottMannAuthor Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottmannauthor LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/rooftop-leadership Twitter: https://twitter.com/RooftopLeader Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYOQ7CDJ6uSaGvmfxYC_skQ  Select Afghanistan experiences and published works SummaryJason Criss Howk spent 23 years in the U.S. Army as an Infantry and Sapper Paratrooper, and also as a South Asia Foreign Area Officer (Soldier-Diplomat).  His work in Afghanistan began in 2002 and has continued until the present day as he leads the Global Friends of Afghanistan educational non-profit organization that monitors and leads discussions on Afghan issues. Jason has worked on Afghanistan portfolios at the tactical, operational, strategic, national policy and international policy levels. He has taken part in a variety of missions to include military, diplomatic, intelligence, academic, and humanitarian efforts. During his Afghanistan work Jason worked daily with dozens of generals, ambassadors, and political appointees with Afghan portfolios. Due to his assignments and knowledge of the topic, Jason is one of the few Americans that has been privy to the discussions of all 4 presidential administrations as they planned their Afghanistan policy. Jason studied both Arabic and Dari at the Defense Language Institute, is a professor at the USAF Special Operations School, and is a Malone Fellow in Arab and Islamic Studies. He holds a Master's Degree in South Asia and Middle East Security Studies from the Naval Postgraduate School, is a CGSC graduate, and was a term-member of the Council on Foreign Relations from 2010-2015. Jason is an award-winning author who has written 4 books in English and has published over 225 works since 2008 in over 40 outlets. As a professor, lecturer, and columnist he focuses on Afghanistan, Islam, terrorism, and various National Security topics. For his work on Afghanistan Major Howk earned the Legion of Merit award for his years of exceptionally meritorious service as a Soldier-Statesman, and two Bronze Star Medals. He also earned the Afghanistan Governmental Success medal from the President of Afghanistan. Afghanistan ExperiencesSep 2002-Sep 2003       Sep-Nov 2003: Operations officer Coalition Task Force 82. Engineer Operations Officer on MG Vines General Staff at Bagram Airfield. Focus on engineer support to daily counter-terrorism operations across the country. His key effort was the completion of the FOB Salerno Airfield and Heliport in Khost province. Tactical and Operational level experiences in various Eastern Provinces.Nov 2002-Sep 2003: Aide De Camp to MG Karl Eikenberry as he took over as Chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan at the U.S. Embassy Kabul and also as the U.S. Security Coordinator. They worked daily with Afghan cabinet members across all parts of the government for the first year of the interim government and got to know all of them intimately. MG Eikenberry was tasked with implementing the international Security Sector Reform program in Afghanistan, and as Chief OMC-A creating the Afghan National Army and MOD from scratch. Their typical daily interactions included the leaders of UNAMA, NATO-Nation Embassies, ISAF, the 3-star US Forces Commander, CENTCOM, OSD, the Joint Staff, the Intelligence Community, regional ambassadors, the Special Forces leaders training the ANA, and the US Ambassador. For the majority of the year Jason was the sole note-taker in over 4,000 hours of meetings and the drafter of reports to State, OSD, and CENTCOM.2004-July 2007During an assignment in TRADOC Jason began to create and teach courses in the Army and at civilian institutions about Afghan and Islamic culture. He helped the Engineer School develop their Cultural, Counter-insurgency, and Counter-IED training for 2LTs deploying to Afghanistan and Iraq. During company command the Army selected Jason for the highly competitive Foreign Area Officer (FAO) program after completing a fellowship in Oman where he studied their insurgencies and how they rebuilt their nation after those conflicts. He continued to study Afghanistan and stayed in touch with his former boss LTG Karl Eikenberry who was the Combined Forces commander in Afghanistan.2007-2009 FAO TrainingIn FAO training he obtained a Master's Degree in South Asia and Middle East Security Studies at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2008. At NPS Jason focused on Afghanistan and the Oman counter-insurgency campaigns. He published a thesis on Oman's COIN and CT lessons which was distributed to his former bosses LTG Eikenberry, LTG McChrystal, and GEN Petraeus. He also wrote a directed study on the creation of the Afghan Military and the US Security Sector Reform efforts that was published as a monograph by the US Army War College in 2009 with a foreword by GEN McChrystal. That study was completed after many interviews with LTG Karl Eikenberry who was then assigned to NATO, just prior to his selection as Ambassador to Afghanistan.From 2008-2009 Jason attended Arabic language training at DLI until the day LTG McChrystal was nominated by President Obama to command ISAF. He was immediately ordered to the Pentagon to prepare LTG McChrystal for senate confirmation and to assist him when he took command in Kabul.2009-2010 As ADC to LTG McChrystal, Jason helped prepare him for his assignment and attended all meetings with Legislative and Executive branch leaders in Washington. Within hours of the Senate confirmation, they flew to Brussels to meet with NATO leaders and then onwards to Kabul Afghanistan. In Kabul Jason helped GEN McChrystal form trusting relationships with the same Afghan leaders Jason worked closely with when they first formed the government in 2002.For the next 2 months Jason traveled with GEN McChrystal to over half the provinces to listen to NATO and Afghan forces, and Afghan leaders to better understand the war.  Jason assisted COMISAF during the strategic review of the U.S. and NATO Afghanistan policy, often quietly liaising between GEN McChrystal and Ambassador Eikenberry, his new and old bosses.After the strategic review was sent to CENTCOM Jason was selected to initiate and design the NATO interagency team focused on reintegration — i.e., how former insurgents could rejoin society. GEN McChrystal loaned Jason to support the incoming Reintegration Advisor who had worked on a similar mission in Iraq and would carry out sensitive diplomatic missions.As the Military Assistant and Political Advisor to retired British Lt Gen Sir Graeme Lamb. They worked with the Afghan government as they developed their peace and reintegration policy with foreign governments, diplomats, and international organizations. This also helped launch the US/NATO peace process and made Jason one of the insiders on Afghan peace talks for over a decade.2010-2014After a year in Dari (Afghan Farsi) language training at DLI, and graduation from the Army Command and General Staff College, Jason was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Afghanistan and Pakistan Task Force. In that role, he led two of the highest-level interagency teams of Afghanistan and Pakistan experts in providing products and briefings for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and OSD leadership, and the White House.  Also in that role, his teams helped prepare four different Generals to assume senior commands in Afghanistan. One of his team's key efforts was monitoring and helping U.S. leaders prepare for diplomatic negotiations with the Taliban.2015-2021After retiring in 2015, Jason continued his focus on Afghanistan and Islam as a professor at numerous institutes and continued to advise the U.S. and Afghan governments, and international bodies.From 2016 to 2017, he served as an advisor on the Presidential Transition Team's National Security cell focused on the Afghan peace process and foreign relations with Islamic nations. He contributed ideas to both the 2017 National Security Strategy and 2018 National Strategy for Counterterrorism.From 2017 onwards he served as an advisor on conflict resolution to the U.S. government, NATO member states, parts of the U.N., the Afghan President's NSC staff, and the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces leadership.Jason was invited to give presentations at the 2019 and 2020 Central and South Asia Military Intelligence conferences at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). His topics included the future of the ANDSF, and the Unconventional Warfare efforts of Pakistan against Afghan and NATO forces.Jason led a USIP project team to assess post-conflict security in Afghanistan that culminated in a an invitation from the Afghan President and UN Chief in Kabul to give a presentation to over 70 nations at the 2020 U.N. Donor Conference on Afghanistan in Geneva.A second USIP project allowed his team to remain involved in the peace process until August 2021 as part of a U.S. Institute of Peace project authorized to conduct Track-2 diplomacy while talking to the Afghan government, various parts of Afghan society, and Taliban supporters.From 2019-2021 during both USIP projects his team took part in the USIP-led discussions that contributed to the congressionally-mandated Afghanistan Study Group Report. “A Pathway for Peace in Afghanistan” was published in February 2021.August 2021 OnwardsAfter the collapse of the Afghan republic while Jason was virtually assisting the evacuation of at-risk Afghans from Kabul, he and his colleagues formed the Global Friends of Afghanistan non-profit (GFA) to speak and write about Afghanistan and ensure the topic of Afghanistan was not removed from the daily news, and to help Afghans raise their voices to the outside world. On 1 September 2022 GFA held their inaugural annual conference with Georgetown University to discuss the evacuation and resettlement of Afghans, and the humanitarian crisis and security collapse in Afghanistan. Writing ExperienceSummaryJason has written 5 books, was on the editing team of the FAO Association International Affairs Journal, and was the senior editor for A Voice for Two Nations blog. He has published over 225 articles, essays, and news reports in over 40 outlets. He is a mentor to writers and a member of the Military Writers Guild, where he edits and co-authors with new writers. Most recently he has begun publishing U.S. veterans and Afghan book authors at Tamarisk Press a niche publishing assistance non-profit. His work has been published in the following outlets: CNN, Fast Company, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, ClearanceJobs News, Military Times, The Cipher Brief, US Institute of Peace, The Global Observatory, Small Wars Journal, Divergent Options, From The Green Notebook, The Bridge, The Forge, The Foreign Service Journal, The FAOA Journal, Observer, Task&Purpose, Business Insider, Real Clear Defense and Politics, SOFX The Special Operations Forces Network, US Army War College, Naval Postgraduate School, O-Dark-Thirty, and in various Afghan newspapers like Reporterly, and Hasht e Subh. He also discusses Afghanistan, Terrorism, and Islam on CNN, Afghan International Persian, TRT World, and Voice of America, and appears on other news and radio outlets.Select Publications Books2012, Lions in the Path of Stability and Security: Oman's Response to Pressing Issues in the Middle East. My 2008 NPS thesis was published in Oman in Arabic.2017, The Quran: A Chronological Modern English Interpretation. Gold Medal Winner at the National Indie Excellence Awards2021, Leaders Always Go a Little Further: ...Unless They Trip. Foreword by LtGen Sir Graeme Lamb.2021, Ali's American Dream: An Iraqi Refugee's Story of Survival and Triumph. Foreword by SIV recipient Nasirullah Safi formerly of Afghanistan.2022, U.S. War Options in Afghanistan: Choose Your Own Path. Foreword by Afghan Colonel A. Rahman Rahmani, a would-be terrorist who was deradicalized and later flew special operations combat missions against the Taliban-Haqqani network and aided evacuation of Afghans Pilots in 2021. 2020-2022, Lead Editor of the Foreign Area Officer Association book, Culture Shock: Leadership Lessons from the Military's Diplomatic Corps. Foreword by LTG (Ret) Charles Hooper. Publishing advisor and book formatting for 4 books. 2021: Brand Elverston's Proclivity and Nasirullah Safi's Get the Terp Up Here!2022: Brand Elverston's Instruments of Ignorance and Nasirullah Safi's Indispensable: Tale of a Military Interpreter Various Studies (contributor and author/co-author)2009, US Strategy Review of US and NATO Afghanistan Policy, ISAF2009, A Case Study in Security Sector Reform: Learning from Security Sector Reform/Building in Afghanistan (October 2002-September 2003), US Army War College press2010 Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan2021, “No Going Backward”: Afghanistan's Post–Peace Accord Security Sector, USIP2022, Afghan Women: “I Don't Feel Safe.” A Global Friends of Afghanistan survey report, GFA Select recent articles and columnsAug 2022, Afghanistan Has Become a Terrorist Paradise, The National InterestAug 2022, How Can We Help Afghanistan? Ask the Afghans, The National InterestMar 2022, Information Operations: How is Ukraine Different Than Afghanistan? ClearanceJobs NewsMar 2022, Lessons Learned from the Last 20 Years: 9 Flaws in the American Way of War, ClearanceJobsDec 2021, U.S. Foreign Affairs Influence and the Afghanistan Fallout for the U.S., ClearanceJobs NewsOct 2021, Why Afghan Peace Talks Got Derailed, ClearanceJobs NewsSep 2021, ‘You Are Fighting in the Wrong Country.' How We Failed Afghan Policy Miserably, The Pilot19 Aug 2021, Taliban Takeover in Kabul: Pakistani Invasion Complete in Afghanistan, ClearanceJobs9 Aug 2021, Where is the Taliban with the Doha Peace Process? ClearanceJobs NewsMay 2021, Terrorists Kill Around 90 Afghan Students: The World Shrugs, ClearanceJobs NewsApr 2021, Afghanistan Needs a Weaker President: Decentralizing power can be key to long-term peace, Foreign Policy, with Shabnam NasimiFeb 2021, Taliban Keep Showing True Colors with Mockery of the Doha Peace Process, ClearanceJobsJan 2021, Path to Peace in Afghanistan for the Biden Administration, ClearanceJobs NewsDec 2020, Time to Make the Taliban Diplomatically Uncomfortable, ClearanceJobs NewsFeb 2019, America, don't abandon Afghanistan…Again, CNN, with Abdul Rahman Rahmani

Is America on the back 9? Just a falling empire?  Reflecting on the aftermath at Bagram. Don't be the guy who tries to beat the salesman down to the lowest possible price. How the average American thinks. The counter to communism can not be ‘just a little bit'. Stop trying to meet them half way to communism. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Former U.S. Army Staff Sergeant and Afghanistan War veteran Mikael Cook joins us to talk about the August 2021 evacuation of Afghanistan. Mikael was a part of the #DigitalDunkirk team that saved thousands of Afghan allies who had been left behind. He was personally responsible for the evacuation of 20 of our allies. “Life and Death at Abbey Gate” by Mikael Cook provides a harrowing account of the chaotic final days of the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021. The book centers on the efforts of an ad-hoc group of American veterans and other personnel who mobilized to help evacuate Afghan allies and civilians amid the Taliban's rapid takeover of Kabul. The narrative begins with the formation of the #DigitalDunkirk initiative, a civilian-led effort named after the World War II evacuation of Dunkirk, which saw thousands of people working tirelessly to coordinate evacuations using encrypted messaging apps and real-time intelligence. These individuals included CIA and NSA agents, military veterans, and legislative aides, who collectively formed a formidable network aimed at rescuing those left behind​. Cook's story is told through multiple perspectives, including his own and that of his Afghan friend Abdul, as well as members of the 2/1 Marines stationed at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA). The Marines at Abbey Gate faced intense conditions, working under immense pressure and witnessing scenes that brought many to tears. Their work culminated in the tragic suicide bombing by an ISIS-K attacker, which killed 13 U.S. service members and numerous Afghan civilians​​. The book highlights the logistical and tactical challenges of the evacuation, criticizing the decision to abandon Bagram Airfield, which left HKIA as the sole evacuation point. This move is depicted as a strategic blunder, complicating the already perilous operation​. Throughout “Life and Death at Abbey Gate,” Cook emphasizes the dedication and bravery of those involved in the evacuation, portraying their efforts as a testament to the U.S. military's commitment to its allies. The book underscores the emotional and physical toll on everyone involved and serves as a stark reminder of the human cost of war and the complexities of military withdrawal​ . #afganistan #veterans #kabulairport2021  #veteran #interview #vietnam #vet #militaryhistory #veteransbreakfastclub #vbc #virtualevents #virtual #zoom #zoomevents #liveevent #webinar #military #army #usarmy #navy #usnavy #marinecorps #marines #airforce #pilot #aviators #coastguard #nonprofit #501c3 #history #militaryveterans #veteransstories #veteranshistory #veteraninterview #veteranshistoryproject #veteransoralhistory #veteranowned #militaryretirees #armyretirees #navyretirees #warstories #vietnam #vietnamwar #vietnamveterans #koreanwar #coldwar #greatestgeneration #wwii #ww2 #worldwarii #worldwar2 #war #americanhistory #oralhistory #podcast #scuttlebutt #thescuttlebutt #humor #storytelling #headlines #news #roundtable #breakfast #generation911 #happyhour

Ret. Captain Christine Collins is a decorated veteran and trauma nurse during a pivotal deployment to Afghanistan in 2009. Stationed at Bagram Air Base, she found herself at the epicenter of the conflict, tirelessly working to save the lives of American troops, Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire, and even enemy fighters. Through her raw and poignant memoir, Christine unveils the physical and emotional toll of war, not just on those fighting but also on the medical personnel tasked with picking up the pieces. Her amazing book titled Service Honor and Sacrifice can be found on Amazon, Audible, or wherever you purchase your books.  Christine is a truly amazing woman and after spending some time with her I can tell you this - I am glad she is on our side! Tough, intelligent, and unstoppable.    

It's Friday, August 16th, A.D. 2024. This is The World View in 5 Minutes written by Jonathan Clark and heard at www.TheWorldView.com. Filling in for Adam McManus I'm Ean Leppin. Taliban Persecutes Church in Afghanistan International Christian Concern or the ICC reports that the Taliban celebrated its third anniversary of its takeover of Afghanistan.  The climate for believers in Afghanistan has become very dire.  The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom has pleaded with the US Department of State to designate Afghanistan as a Country of Particular Concern since 2022.  However the US Department has never recognized those concerns by making Afghanistan a ‘Special Watchlist Country'. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom the Taliban has implemented an extreme version of Sharia Law in the country since they took power.  The enforcement of that law includes ‘Public executions, lashings and floggings, stoning, beatings, and acts of public humiliation such as forced head shaving.'  Not only that but the Taliban has also restricted contact with the outside world including any efforts to send assistance to the churches through legal and logistical difficulties.  Please pray that believers in Afghanistan would be encouraged and that their faith will remain strong. Joshua 1:9 says “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Taliban Holds Parade to Celebrate 3 years in Afghanistan On Wednesday the Taliban celebrated their 3 year occupation in Afghanistan with a military parade at Bagram Airfield, which was once the largest US military base in the country.  Not only that but the parade showcased US military vehicles and weapons that were left behind when the US left Afghanistan. Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg told Fox News about the events that led up to such an abrupt evacuation of US military presence and who is responsible. KELLOGG: “It primarily falls on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, because they walked away from the Doha Agreement.  That was the agreement that President Trump put in place.  It wasn't a perfect agreement.  No agreements are perfect, but it was pretty good to set the stage for good conflict-ending time in Afghanistan.  And it was a conditions-based agreement.  Most importantly, what President Trump had done, is he had established a personal relationship with Omar Baradar, who was the lead Taliban negotiator.  So we had that relationship as well.  And when President Trump talked to Baradar (and I was in the Oval Office when that happened), he told them what would happen if they didn't fulfill their agreement.  And even though it was translated, I kept thinking to myself, ‘Boy, how is this being translated, because it's pretty stern?'  After that discussion with Baradar, not a single American was killed in over a year in Afghanistan, but Biden walked away from that agreement.” The rapid evacuation of the US military resulted in $7 billion of military equipment being abandoned in the region.  Hal Kempfer a retired Marine Intelligence Officer gave Fox News some insight into what it means to run and maintain that much equipment. KEMPFER: “With the Afghan national army, they were dependent on U.S. contractors to keep all that equipment running.  So, even though they inherited $7 billion worth of equipment, which is just- I mean, that just sits on my shoulders, when I think about the sheer amount of equipment that we left there, it's horrible.  Even though we left that, they have a tough time, just like the Afghan national government did, of keeping that stuff going.  And without those U.S. contractor there, they lack the expertise, they don't have the spare parts, they don't have the ability to get the spare parts.  So what you see rolling there, one of my first thoughts was, ‘That may be, all of everything we left, that could be the only stuff that's still operating.  And that may be as fast as some of those things could probably drive too.'  So, it's not a silver lining, but it is something to consider.” New data about Amendment 4 in Florida New polls show Florida Amendment 4, which would legalize abortions up to birth in the state, doesn't have enough support to pass.  LifeNews.com reports that Amendment 4 proposes to codify unrestricted abortion in the state's constitution and would overturn every pro-life law in the state and force taxpayers to fund abortions.  Not only that, but minors wouldn't even need parental consent.  Amending the state's constitution requires approval by a 60 percent majority.  USA Today data is showing that while the 60 percent support is not reflective of the population. They have found that 58 percent of those in Florida are in favor of Amendment 4.  Data released by Florida Atlantic University shows 56 percent of those in Florida support Amendment 4.  Amendment 4 will be on the ballot in Florida this November. Isaiah 5:20 says Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Hurricane Ernesto continues to cause damage. Reuters news reports that as of Thursday Hurricane Ernesto has already caused massive damage in Puerto Rico.  It has destroyed over 400,000 homes and businesses and that roughly half of the country is without power. Bermuda is currently under a hurricane warning as forecasters are predicting Ernesto could make landfall later today.  By Saturday experts are expecting Ernesto to strengthen even more.  Pray for those without power and homes and for those who will are in the path of this hurricane. New Medbot could be an answer to a global surgeon shortage. A medical feat was accomplished recently using a remote control robot to remove a tumor from a patient's lung with the Surgeon being 3000 miles away!  Good News Network reports that a Chinese-made 5G Medbot allowed Dr Lou Qingquan to remotely operate robotic arms to complete a surgery.  Dr Luo was seated in the Shanghai Chest Hospital on the Pacific Coast and operated on a patient 3000 miles inland.  This is the nation's first robot-assisted surgery.  There is currently a global shortage of specialist surgeons.  It is calculated that for every 100,000 people in low and middle-income countries there is currently less than 1 specialist surgeon as compared to over 5 in high-income countries.  These Medbots could be a potential breakthrough for those in need worldwide. And that's The World View on this Friday, August 16th, in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldView.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. Filling in for Adam McManus I'm Ean Leppin. Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

The Taliban parades US military equipment at Bagram Airfield on the 3 year anniversary of the botched withdrawal.

The Taliban put on a military parade at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan showcasing the billions of dollars of military equipment left behind by the US military in Biden and Kamala's disastrous Afghanistan pullout! But we're going to find out why it wasn't just Biden and Harris who were being taunted by this military parade. we're going to see how something much bigger and far more consequential was the ultimate target of their taunt!  -- Start the 24/7 Protection of Your Home and Equity Today! Go to https://www.hometitlelock.com/turleytalks Join my new Courageous Conservative Bootcamp and get equipped to fight back and restore foundational values. Learn more at https://fight.turleytalks.com/join  *The content presented by our partners may contain affiliate links. When you click and shop the links, Turley Talks may receive a small commission.* -- Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review. FOLLOW me on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/DrTurleyTalks Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture! https://advertising.turleytalks.com/sponsorship Sign up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts to get lots of articles on conservative trends: https://turleytalks.com/subscribe/.

WMAL GUEST: 8:05 AM -  INTERVIEW - KT MCFARLAND - Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump and author of “REVOLUTION" SOCIAL MEDIA: https://twitter.com/realKTMcFarland Iran retaliation on Israel looming  The Taliban held a military parade at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan with the US military equipment they stole after the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal. Where to find more about WMAL's morning show:  Follow the Show Podcasts on Apple podcasts, Audible and Spotify. Follow WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" on X: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor,  @Jgunlock, @patricepinkfile, and @heatherhunterdc.  Facebook: WMALDC and Larry O'Connor Instagram: WMALDC Show Website: https://www.wmal.com/oconnor-company/ How to listen live weekdays from 5 to 9 AM: https://www.wmal.com/listenlive/ Episode: Thursday, August 15, 2024 / 8 AM Hour  O'Connor and Company is proudly presented by Veritas AcademySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 8 AM Hour: Larry O'Connor and Mercedes Schlapp discussed: WMAL GUEST: 8:05 AM -  INTERVIEW - KT MCFARLAND - Former Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump and author of “REVOLUTION" SOCIAL MEDIA: https://twitter.com/realKTMcFarland Iran retaliation on Israel looming  The Taliban held a military parade at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan with the US military equipment they stole after the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal. WMAL GUEST: 8:15 AM - INTERVIEW - DEANA GRIFFITHS - (Dee-nah) -  Loudoun School Board member Loudoun school board approves collective bargaining, despite alleged conflict of interest WMAL GUEST: 8:35 AM - INTERVIEW - ADAM GUILLETTE – President of Accuracy in Media  SOCIAL MEDIA: https://x.com/adamguillette VICTORY LAP: Columbia University President Minouche Shafik resigns. After a little over one year in office, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik has resigned, according to a message Shafik sent to the Columbia community. Where to find more about WMAL's morning show:  Follow the Show Podcasts on Apple podcasts, Audible and Spotify. Follow WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" on X: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor,  @Jgunlock, @patricepinkfile, and @heatherhunterdc.  Facebook: WMALDC and Larry O'Connor Instagram: WMALDC Show Website: https://www.wmal.com/oconnor-company/ How to listen live weekdays from 5 to 9 AM: https://www.wmal.com/listenlive/ Episode: Thursday, August 15, 2024 / 8 AM Hour  O'Connor and Company is proudly presented by Veritas AcademySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this Moats, George Galloway reflects on the failures of the Afghan War, three years after the US fled Afghanistan blowing $3 trillion to replace the Taliban with .. the Taliban, who have thrown a Bagram Victory Parade with all the gear the US left behind. The Ukraine invasion of Kursk: PR stunt or a masterstroke? + Israel and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.US Journalist and geopolitical analyst Fiorella Isabel joins George in conversation on the failed US regime change operation to oust elected President Maduro in Venezuela. Professor Seyed Mohammed Marandi joins Moats to give his thoughts on Israel and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.Fiorella Isabel: US Journalist and geopolitical analyst Fiorella Isabel - Twitter: https://x.com/FiorellaIsabelM/highlights Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi: Professor of English Literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran - Twitter: https://twitter.com/s_m_marandi- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Prof.MohammadMarandi/ Become a MOATS Graduate at https://plus.acast.com/s/moatswithgorgegalloway. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hugh played the newly surfaced tape of Governor Walz's remarks at Minnesota State Capitol on 9/11/21 after the Afghanistan debacle. He leaves the impression he served in Afghanistan but the defense is was at Bagram on a visit by a Congressional delegation. Veterans calling the show aren't buying the latest explanation. Hugh also discussed the Harris media blackout and the “stolen valor” charge with Bethany Mandel and Eli Lake. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the 8 AM Hour: Larry O'Connor and Julie Gunlock discussed: WMAL GUEST: 8:05 AM - INTERVIEW - SCOTT PRESLER - conservative activist and founder of Early Vote Action WEBSITE: https://earlyvoteaction.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA: https://x.com/ScottPresler Grassroots get-out-the-vote activist Scott Presler has been busy in PA… working on the GOP's voting efforts there  ABOUT SCOTT'S GROUP:  LAST WEEK: Pennsylvania announces election results won't be available on election night Tim Walz in a Minnesota 9/11 anniversary speech: “I had the privilege of serving in this state's NG. I stood one night in dark of night on tarmac at Bagram Air Base in Iraq and watched a military ramp ceremony-a soldier's body being loaded onto a plane to be returned home” WMAL GUEST: 8:35 AM - INTERVIEW - MATT BONESTEEL - Sports reporter, Washington Post – recapped the final weekend of the Paris Olympics Team USA wins most Olympic medals overall, ties China for most golds ON CNN: JD Vance torches CNN for covering up Tim Walz's stolen valor: "This is a guy who was captured on video saying, I carried a gun in war. He never went to war....I'm not criticizing Tim Walz's service. I'm criticizing the fact that he lied about his service for political gain." Where to find more about WMAL's morning show:  Follow the Show Podcasts on Apple podcasts, Audible and Spotify. Follow WMAL's "O'Connor and Company" on X: @WMALDC, @LarryOConnor,  @Jgunlock, @patricepinkfile, and @heatherhunterdc.  Facebook: WMALDC and Larry O'Connor Instagram: WMALDC Show Website: https://www.wmal.com/oconnor-company/ How to listen live weekdays from 5 to 9 AM: https://www.wmal.com/listenlive/ Episode: Monday, August 12, 2024 / 8 AM Hour  O'Connor and Company is proudly presented by Veritas AcademySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are YOU ready to vote? We are grateful to call Charlie Kirk a friend and support him, Turning Point USA (https://tpusa.com), and their activities on high school and college campuses. We also support Turning Point Action and their Chase The Vote initiative. Learn more and consider getting involved https://tpaction.com /// The Scalpel is proud to partner with Brickhouse Nutrition. Dr. Rose uses and highly recommends Field of Greens. Your purchase through this link supports The Scalpel Podcast. /// https://scalpeledge.com/brickhouse ------------------------------------------------- Dr. Keith Rose joins Lara Logan on Bannon's War Room and exposes China's rapid expansion in post-withdrawal Afghanistan, including military and economic infiltration. The episode reveals controversial CIA meetings, Taliban's $2.7 billion revenue, and the surge in jihadist training. It highlights potential security threats to the U.S., including concerns about biometric passports and border vulnerabilities. Key Topics Discussed: 1. Pre-withdrawal meeting between Chinese officials and Afghan Ministry of Defense 2. Controversial CIA meeting just before U.S. withdrawal, involving unexpected participants 3. China's rapid expansion of influence in post-U.S. Afghanistan 4. Taliban's economic growth and revenue sources 5. Proliferation of jihadist training madrasas in Afghanistan 6. Chinese involvement in Afghan security and intelligence networks 7. Concerns about potential terrorist threats to the U.S. via the southern border 8. Afghanistan's ability to create biometric passports for potential operatives 9. Changes in the remote Afghanistan-China border area Notable Quotes: "The Chinese came in for less than pennies on the dollar, took over and have expanded into the military, security, and intelligence networks in the Taliban." "They graduated this year with their largest graduating class from all the madrasas... over 70,000 graduates." "The Western countries are so worried about people's rights. And the Chinese don't concern themselves with such things and we can get along with them." Key Revelations: - Presence of Chinese and Iranian officials at a high-level CIA meeting before U.S. withdrawal - Chinese troops reportedly securing Bagram Airfield after U.S. departure - Taliban brought in $2.7 billion in the past year from various sources - China's deep penetration into Afghanistan's military and economic sectors ----------------------------------------------- Connect with The Scalpel: Website: https://scalpeledge.com Email: KFR@scalpeledge.com TruthSocial: @scalpeledge Rumble: @TheScalpel X: @TheScalpelEdge Instagram: @TheScalpelPodcast

Join Victor Davis Hanson and cohost Jack Fowler for discussion of the alleged Jimmy Carter wish to vote for Kamala, do's and don'ts for Trump, Kamala's husband's nanny affair, leaving the Taliban millions at Bagram, China's covid caused and causes misery, and socialist-communist leftists and the proclivity for authoritarian methods: on the last topic, Maduro's re-election or not (?) and Biden, created by the coup has fallen by the coup.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From Moldova to Tajikistan, from Belarus to Uzbekistan: The Formulation and Flow of National Identity from the Late Czarist Times to Today Riordan will explore the formulation of identity over the past 150 years in Moldova, Tajikistan, Belarus and Uzbekistan. Drawing on decades of on-the-ground work and research across all four countries, Riordan will discuss his findings on the trajectory of national identity and how it continues to shape the political discussion in each country today. About the Speaker: John P. Riordan is a career Foreign Service Officer in the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He currently serves as the Deputy Mission Director at USAID/Moldova. Prior to Moldova, he was on assignment as a Development Advisor to U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Florida (2017-2020). Riordan was the USAID Country Director in Uzbekistan (2014-2017), where he served for multiple, extended periods of time as acting Deputy Chief of Mission. He was also USAID's Country Director in Belarus (2009-2013). In both Belarus and Uzbekistan, Riordan pioneered the leveraging of Baltic partner expertise and regional knowledge in order to advance shared objectives. He was recognized in 2017 with a Diploma of Commendation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia for his decade contribution to fostering a close relationship between Latvia and the United States and in jointly providing support for Belarus and Central Asian countries. Riordan was the USAID Development Adviser to the command group at Combined Joint Task Force 101 and 82 in Bagram, Afghanistan (2008-2009). Riordan served two assignments in Iraq (2006 and 2008, respectively) as the Deputy Director of USAID's Governance and Provincial Reconstruction Team Office during the U.S. Government “surge,” and then helped to launch the Joint Interagency Task Force at Multi-National Forces-Iraq. He also served at the Agency's mission in Romania (2005-2006). Riordan was honored to be the first Foreign Service Officer selected for an academic year in the Advanced Military Studies Program at the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas (2007- 2008). While there, Riordan produced a monograph, Red D.I.M.E., which drew on original research on the Basmachi Resistance Movement against the fledgling Bolshevik forces of the Soviet Union in the Ferghana Valley region of Central Asia in order to apply historical and political lessons to irregular warfare in complex, adaptive environments. Before joining USAID, Riordan lived and worked in the Ferghana Valley region of Central Asia. He lectured at Ferghana State University and was the first American to conduct research in the Ferghana City archives as a Fulbright scholar in Uzbekistan. He also collected oral histories of Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Russian, and Tajik World War II veterans in order to better understand the formation of Soviet identity in Central Asia (2002-2003). He was also a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ferghana Valley region of Kyrgyzstan (1998-2000), and worked as the Office Director of the State Department funded Freedom Support Act/Future Leader Exchange Program (FSA/FLEX) in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (2000-2001). Riordan earned a master's in military arts and sciences from the School of Advanced Military Studies at the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., and a master's in Russian, East European, and Central Asian studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was awarded a Foreign Language Area Scholarship while at Wisconsin for the study of the Uzbek language and spent three summers on scholarship at Indiana University studying Russian, Uzbek, and Turkmen. He completed his undergraduate degree in Political Science at Marquette University, where he was selected for an internship on Capitol Hill via Marquette's Les Aspin Center for Government.

Being a life-long blind person I have never served in the military and thus only understand the military way of life vicariously. There is reading about it, of course and there is talking to military people about their lifestyle. Today you get to hear a conversation not only about military life, specifically the army world, as it were, from a 20-year career soldier, Chase Spears who recently retired from the military as a major in the army. Chase grew up always interested in the news and what was going on in the world around him. He attended college, both undergraduate studies and later graduate work at universities in Tennessee. Along the way an army recruiting officer persuaded him to join the army. By that time, he was well married to a woman who, surprising to him, supported his decision to leave college and join the army. Chase's telling of this story is wonderful to hear. As you will see, he is quite the storyteller.   He and I talk a great deal about the world of a soldier, and he puts a lot of things into perspective. For those of you who have served in the military much of what you hear may not be totally new. However, since Chase served in public affairs/relations duties throughout most of his army career, you may find his observations interest. Chase and I had a good free-flowing and informative conversation. I personally came away fascinated and look forward to talking with Chase again in the future. A few months ago, Mr. Spears retired and entered into a doctoral program at Kansas State University where he is conducting research concerning how military life impacts the citizenship of those who serve. You will get to hear a bit about what he is finding.   About the Guest:   U.S. Army Major (Ret.) Chase Spears is first and foremost a Christian, Husband, and Father to five children who help to keep him and his wife young at heart. Having grown up with a passion for news and policy, Chase spent 20 years in the Army as a public affairs officer, trying to be part of a bridge between the military and the public. He merged that work with a passion for writing to become one of the Army's most published public affairs officers, often to resistance from inside the military. Chase continues that journey now as a doctoral candidate at Kansas State University, where his dissertation research explores how military life impacts the citizenship of those who serve. His other writings focus on topics including civil-military dynamics, communication ethics, and the political realities of military operations.   Ways to connect with Chase:   LinkedIn/X/Substack/Youtube: @drchasespears www.chasespears.com   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Hi there and welcome once again to unstoppable mindset. And we have a I think really interesting show today are interesting episode we get to chat with major retired Chase Spears. I've been saying ret all morning because he's got Rhett in parentheses. And I didn't even think about it being not a name but retired. But anyway, that's me. Anyway, he has been involved in a lot of writing in and out of the military. He was a major military person for 20 years. He's now in a doctoral candidate program, Kennedy C candidacy program. And my gosh, there's a lot there, but we'll get to it also. Major Rhett major Chase spears. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Chase Spears ** 02:13 just thrilled to be with you, Michael. Thanks for having me. Now   Michael Hingson ** 02:17 that now that we've abused you with Rhett, but that's okay.   Chase Spears ** 02:20 I think God worse. Well, there   Michael Hingson ** 02:22 you are. And by your friends, I bet. So that's what really makes them more fun. But we're but I really am grateful that you were willing to come on and spend some time with us. Why don't we start I love to, to start this way to give people a chance to get to know you. Why don't you tell us some about the early Chase spheres and growing up and all that stuff?   Chase Spears ** 02:44 Well, it's yeah, it's been quite a journey. I grew up in the southeast us My family was out of Florida. And when I was a teenager, we ended up moving we went out to Texas, which was really just kind of a an entire change of culture for us. If you can imagine going from the kind of urban parts of Florida that are really highly populated a lot of traffic, a lot of tourism, a lot of industry. And we went up to North Central Texas in my teen years. And if you can imagine going from from that, you know, Florida to a town of about 9000 people it was a an oil and agricultural cattle town, and Graham, Texas and it was really kind of a culture shock at first, but turned into some of the best and most formative years of my life where I I really learned the value of hard work working on the fields with my dad really got to kind of connect with nature and just taking some gorgeous sunsets in the evenings out working in the fields enjoying the views of the wildlife Hall. I was out working. But one thing that I did learn from hard manual labor, was it made sure that I kept on track for college. And so I ended up going to Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee in 1998. Right after I graduated from high school, I was homeschooled and met my Hi my sweetie there, Laurie. We were married by senior year we decided neither one of us we wanted to graduate and leave the other one behind. So we got married start a family pretty young afterwards. Went on to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville afterwards because I thought, hey, I want to work in journalism. And it'd be great to have a master's degree in journalism to prove my commitment to the field make people take me seriously. And it was during that time that I ran into an army recruiter while I was working my part time job at a law firm. I was working at the courthouse one day filing paperwork. And this gentleman and I just struck up a conversation in an elevator he was there in his full dress uniform was very impressive to me as a civilian at the time. And so I started asking him questions about what he did. In what army life was like just trying to be friendly, conversational, I was genuinely curious, though I was not looking for a military career. Well, as a good recruiter does, he managed to coax a phone number out of me. And seven months later there I am raising my right hand, swearing into the army in Knoxville, Tennessee. And so we were in the army for 20 years, we moved to several different parts of the nation, we've landed in northeastern Kansas, just on the outskirts of the Greater Kansas City, Missouri area. And now we're kind of starting a new phase of life after the army enjoying being kind of planted Gayndah. Watch our kids grow in a smaller community. And we're excited about what's next. So   Michael Hingson ** 05:42 what is the postdoc? Where are the doctoral degree in, that you're seeking.   Chase Spears ** 05:47 So I am in a program entitled leadership communication. But I'm kind of a misplaced public policy scholars what I've learned, but the faculty there have been so wonderfully gracious to me, and I've been very supportive of my research agenda. So I'm a career communicator. In the army, I was a public affairs officer. So everything I did was about stuff like this. I didn't community engagement, I did interviews, I was did social media strategy, I was part of the bridge that the military tries to build between it and the public, which is incredibly important in our form of governance. And so I love all things communication. And I also love team leadership, small organizational leadership, I had the chance to, to lead teams, I had the chance to lead a company while I was in the army, so fell in love with that. So when I saw a degree program that merged both of those, you know, they had me at hello, I was a sucker from the get go when I saw the marketing. So I applied and they very kindly accepted me. So I've been studying leadership communication, but my research agenda is actually more in the policy realm. My dissertation work is studying how did we come to this concept that the military isn't a political and air quotes institution, when it is funded by the government when it is commanded by elected leadership? When when we exert our national will, on other nations with it there absolutely political connotations to all of that. And And yet, we kind of say the opposite. So I was curious, I was like, this would be something fun to explore, how did we How did we get to where we believe this in spite of what we do? And so that's what my research Jind agenda is all about. And I'm having a lot of fun writing.   Michael Hingson ** 07:37 Well, and I guess we could go right to why well, so why do you think the reason is that we are not a political but we say we are? Oh, are you still researching it to the point where you're not ready to answer that yet? Well, I   Chase Spears ** 07:57 have, I have some theories and what I believe are pretty educated guesses. I'm trying to make sure that I don't bore your audience going too deep in the weeds on this. It's really kind of comes out of the Second World War. When you look at the history of the United States. Traditionally, we are a nation, our ancestors were part of a nation that were really cautious about the idea of having large standing military forces during peacetime. Because there had been this historical observance over hundreds of years, particularly in Europe, that large forces during peacetime ended up causing problems for society and the nations that bred large armies inevitably found ways to use them, that might not always be to the benefit of the populace. So we come out of the Second World War, and the nation has decided we're going to become the global military superpower, we didn't want to be caught off guard again, like we were for what Germany had done in the years after the First World War. And we also have a rising Russia, we need to counter that. So we decided as a nation, yeah, we will become a global, permanent, large, highly industrialized, highly institutionalized force. Well, how do you gain public support for that when the public has traditionally for hundreds of years been very, very suspect of that and very much against it? Well, Samuel, in walk Samuel Huntington, a brilliant political scientist who writes the book, the soldier in the state, and in it he proposed a theory of military supervision in which officers would abstained from voting and then over time that grew legs into Okay, well, now we're just not involved in politics and then in time that grew legs into where a political, but if you go around the force and ask most people what that means, if you ask them to define that word, few would actually be able to define it. It's one of those kind of discursive terms that we've come up with kind of like for the public good. Well, what is for the public good? Can you actually define that, and it's largely often in the eyes of the beholder. So that that's where I believe it came from, I'm still doing quite a bit of work and reading in that. But historically, it's very fascinating to see where we've come and just 70 years on that topic. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 10:25 And also, we're in a phase of all of that, where it seems to be at least that it's changing and morphing again, I mean, with what's happened in the last seven years in this country, and the, the lack of desire for discourse, the the desire on some people's parts to really involve the military and a lot of things. It seems like we're possibly changing again, or perhaps even strengthening the military in some way. And I'm not sure what that is.   Chase Spears ** 11:04 We there's really kind of been somewhat of a public backlash, the last, I'd say, five to 10 years, we saw an increasing comfort with military members publicly advocating for political policy for political parties, which is absolutely within their constitutional right to do, George Washington himself said, we did not lay aside the citizen to assume the soldier. But again, that that discourse coming out of the Second World War, really kind of conditions the American public to think that when you're in the military, you do give up your rights to expression that you do give up your rights to citizen agency, and, and, and meaningful involvement in civic processes. And while we do rightly give up some expressive rights, and that is captured and codified in military regulations, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, there's some legitimacy to that argument. But I would say, you know, if you're, if you're holding a ruler in your hand, the regulations kind of restrict us somewhere between the two and three inch mark on the ruler, whereas the perception that's just kind of come out of the repetition of these terms and ideas is more that we're up around the nine or 10 inch mark on the ruler, if that makes any sense for you. So we we've seen in the last few years, more military people being willing to get involved politically, and there has been somewhat of a backlash to it. And therein is the problem. You if you're going to hold to a belief to a doctrine to a discursive claim, then you have to match it. And the military is really kind of at a point right now they have a decision to make, are we going to hold on to this discourse to this idea? Or are we going to acknowledge that? Well, the regulations are much less restrictive than what people have been led to believe? It's it's a tough spot to be there's not a perfect answer, to help the institution requires cracking down on constitutional freedoms. And well, what is the institution there to serve? So it's a very sticky issue?   Michael Hingson ** 13:11 Well, it does seem to me that in no way, because the person becomes a soldier. And even in their oaths, do they give up the right to be a citizen of the country? So I'm with George Washington?   Chase Spears ** 13:26 Oh, absolutely. No, I am with with George Washington himself, you know, the greatest American? And I think we would, it's a, it's a good reminder of the importance of knowing our history and knowing where we came from. It's in my interviews with military members on this topic. In my research, I'm finding that that like me, most of them were just kind of told these things verbally. They were never pointed to the actual rules. They were never actually pointed to the actual laws. I only know the regulations because I have a personal fascination on the topic. And I went and looked them up. But no one ever told me where to find them. That was research on my own team and figure out where do I look for this. So it's, we really need to do better, nationally, to know our history and know where we came from.   Michael Hingson ** 14:14 We do have a really interesting paradox in the world, because we've gotten in the last two government administrations, to different views of not only how to govern, but to a degree how the military needs to be a part of it, and that's gonna not be very helpful to things either.   Chase Spears ** 14:34 Absolutely. The the military at the end of the day is controlled by the Civilian governance. Now. I'll acknowledge that General Mark Milley didn't really seem to think so and there have been other figures in military history who MacArthur being one of them who who seemed to challenge who was actually in charge of the military. But at the end of the day, constitutionally, we We are governed by by civilians. And that that is right, that is proper any anything else would be a coup and you don't want that. So we, it comes down to how does the military try to hold a consistent line? When you have governments that change every two to four to eight years and have drastically different perspectives on policy? How do you as a military hold an even keel and another wise stormy sea. And in previous generations, we had senior general officers who were pretty good at that they were pretty good at saying, regardless of what the ship of state is doing, the ship of military is going to remain on a heading to serve everyone. And there's been somewhat of a lack a breakdown of discipline at the senior ranks in the last probably 10 years, that's really kind of shuttered the ship of the military. And I think the current some of the recently promoted, general officers understand that I think General GA is the new Chief of Staff of the Army, I think he understands that and he's trying to do some things to reintroduce some stability, but it's a hard thing.   Michael Hingson ** 16:16 Yeah. And the other part about it is that the military, in some ways is a part of society. So we've had things like the whole Don't Ask, Don't Tell dealing with LGBTQ types of issues. And, and of course, even women in the military, and there's been a lot of things that haven't necessarily been as visible as they have become, and are issues that we are starting to face and deal with more. But it seems to me that the military, like it or not, is part of society. And we do need to recognize that collectively, as well.   Chase Spears ** 17:02 We were absolutely drawn from society. We serve society, we exist, you know, for the protection of society. But I will say there's one thing that's all always kind of set Western militaries apart a little bit, and the US military hails from that Western tradition of understanding that just because society chooses to take a move in one direction, doesn't necessarily mean that it's in the national security interest of the United States for the military, to follow suit. And then there's kind of a reason that the military has always tried to, in some way, set itself apart, of acknowledging that there's some things that society will do or want to that are affected by the times as Shakespeare himself noted, there's always a tide in the affairs and man, the tide comes in the time tide goes out the the, the winds shift. And but one thing that was said at the military part was this idea of, at the end of the day, if it's a societal change that enables us to better defend the nation, then that's the direction we'll move. If it's a societal change that could potentially be a friction point or cause additional challenges in securing the nation, we might, we might think on that one a little bit harder, we might be a little more a little slower to adopt that. And we've seen that has kind of broken down the military is very much going out of its way to be reflective of society. And in some ways that can be good in some ways that's caused additional unnecessary frictions to the force and is rightly being having questions asked about it.   Michael Hingson ** 18:45 And that's where having good solid leadership in the military at the highest echelons, has to be an important part of it, because that's where ultimately, the direction that the military goes, is at least in part, going to be authored. Yes, there is a civilian government that and civilian commander in chief, but still the military leaders have to really be the ones mostly to figure out where the military should go in terms of policies and how it deals with different issues or not, I would think.   Chase Spears ** 19:27 And the key word that you hit on there, Michael is leadership. Back a few months ago, I wrote a piece that was published by real clear defense called seven new things the new Sergeant Major of the Army could do to restore trust in the force. And the argument that I made his predecessor was one who was very kind of reactive to the, to the whims you might say, of a the younger generation of soldiers. He was very much all over Twitter about telling me your issues. Let me get involved in your issues. And he was, in some ways a very divisive, senior official in the military. And I equated it to you, you want to look at kind of the British constitutionalist position, the British Crown, if you're looking overseas, it has traditionally been something that it's kind of the rock, unmovable, unshakable, the parliament will do what parliament will do that the Tories and Labour will do what they will do, but the crown is unmovable the crown serves all. And that's kind of something that the military reflected, and I call out to the new rising generation military leaders to remember that, to remember that we don't own this, we owe nothing in the institution, we all leave it one day, as I left it a matter of weeks ago. All I have are my memories and and hopes that I was able to leave some things better than I found them and that the people I served that I hope I served them well. But at the end of the day, we hand it off to someone else. And it's so important for to have good leaders who recognize that we we steward the profession, that we we want to do the best we can with it in our time, and recognize the decisions that we make, will impact those who serve long after our time and do our best to hand it off in the best possible condition that we can for them. Because then to the to society, we returned. And then we depend on this who came after us for our national defense. And so it's the steward mindset to me as key.   Michael Hingson ** 21:41 Yeah. Well, and going back a little bit. So you're in graduate school you got recruited in and accepted and went into the military. What did you do? What was it like when you first went and that certainly again, had to be quite a culture shock from things that you would experience before? Ah,   Chase Spears ** 22:02 yeah, I figured absolutely was you'll never forget your first shark attack at basic training for for anyone who's unfamiliar with that, it's when you once you've done your initial and processing there, whatever base you get your basic training at, for me, it was Fort Jackson in South Carolina. And then they eventually buss you off to your your training companies, which is where you will actually conduct your combat training. This is after you've received your uniforms and done all your finances, paperwork, and life insurance and all that. And then the buses stop and the drill sergeants, they're just there waiting for you. And it's a moment you never forget. And of course, you jump off the bus and they're giving you all these commands that they know it's impossible for you to, to execute to any level of satisfaction. And then when you fail, as you inevitably will, you know, the entire group just gets smoked over and over and over again. And I remember that moment just having that realization of I have not in Kansas anymore, like the next next few months of my life are about to be very different than anything I've ever experienced. And it was it absolutely was. I got through that. And I think the first thing that was really kind of shocking to me be on to the training environment was the use of last names. So yeah, I go by chase my friends call me chase people who know me call me chase. I'm I'm not hung up on titles. I'm a simple guy. In the military, you are your rank and last name. I was specialist Spears sergeants First Lieutenant spears or LT Captain spears, major spears. And I remember at my first unit, there were other other people who in my unit there were the same rank as me. And so I thought were peers I'd call them by their first name. And they never gave me problems about it. But our higher ups would you know, people have rank spears, we don't go by first names spears. And I never I never 20 years and I still never really adjusted well to that I learned how to how to keep myself from getting as many talking to us about it over the years is I had in previous times. But that was a culture shock. And, and just the the constant what we call the military, the battle rhythm, you know, civil society would call it your work schedule, while in the military. It never really ends your day start very early. You have physical training that you're doing with your unit at 630. Depending on what unit you're in, you may be off at a reasonable time in the late afternoon, early evening, or you may be there. I've remember staying at work one night till 4am Just because the boss gave us a job to do. Frankly, it was an unreasonable job. But he gave us a job to do and an extraordinarily tight deadline and it took us till 4am to get the job done and And I was at work by 630, the next morning. So you never, ever really do get used to that in some ways, because you kind of come to accept it. But it's been really eye opening to me in the last nearly three months now that I've been now, looking back and having some control over my schedule now for the first time in 20 years, and realizing, wow, that was such a foreign existence I lived. But when you're when you're swimming in a fishbowl, you don't know you're wet. So every time you do adapt to it, but it's been neat being on the other side and realizing, you know, can kind of breathe in and start to have some say over what a schedule looks like, because I'd forgotten what that was, what that'd be like.   Michael Hingson ** 25:44 But as you rose in the ranks, and I assume took on more responsibility, did that give you any more flexibility in terms of how you operate it on a day to day basis.   Chase Spears ** 25:56 It all depended on the position, there were there were some jobs I had, where were, regardless of the rank, I had flexibility. And then there were other jobs, where I absolutely did not even as a major want, there was a job that I had, where the boss was very adamant. This is the time you will be here and you will be sitting at this desk between these hours and you are authorized authorized is a big term in the military culture, you are authorized a 30 minute lunch break period. And you will be here until this time every day. And this was when I had you know, I think I was at my 1718 year mark. And I remember thinking to myself, golly, do I need to ask permission to go to the bathroom to see, it seemed I didn't. So it really kind of depended on your job. There's a perception a lot of times that the higher you go in rank, the more control you have over your life. And I observed that the opposite is actually true. The higher you go, typically, the more the more demands are placed on you. The more people are depending on the things that you're doing. And and the bigger the jobs are. And the longer the days are was my experience, but it had been flooded depending on what position I was in at the given time.   Michael Hingson ** 27:17 Now, when you first enlisted and all that, what was Laurie's reaction to all of that.   Chase Spears ** 27:23 I was shocked. She was so supportive. She actually grew up in an Air Force household. And so she knew military life pretty well. Her dad had been been in, he spent a lot more time in the air force than I did the army. And then even after he retired from the Air Force, he went on and taught at the Naval Academy as a civilian. So she is just always had a level of familiarity with the military as long as she can remember. She joked with me that when she got married to me and then had to give up her dependent military ID card that it was kind of a moment of mourning for she didn't want to give that thing up. So one day, there we are Knoxville, Tennessee, and I approached her. And I'm trying to be very careful, very diplomatic, very suave, and how I bring it up to her and let her know I've been thinking about the army. And I'm kind of curious what she might think about that. Because it'd be such a drastic lifestyle change from everything we've been talking about. And I was bracing for her to look at me and be like, are you insane? And instead, she was like, Oh, you won't get in the military. And I get an ID card again. Yes. She was she was supportive from from Jump Street. And so you talk about a wife who just was there, every minute of it, and loved and supported and gave grace and rolled with the punches. milori Did she was absolutely phenomenal. Though, I will admit when it got to the point that I was starting to think maybe 20. I'll go ahead and wrap this up, because my original plan had been to do 30. But when I started talking with her about that she was she was also ready, she was ready to actually start having me home regularly for us to be able to start making family plans and be able to follow through with them. Because we had the last three years we had not been able to follow through with family plans, because of the different positions that I was in. So she was very, very supportive of me joining and then she was equally very supportive of me going ahead and and calling it calling it a day here or the last just at the end of this year. But what a what a partner could not have done it   Michael Hingson ** 29:41 without her. So where did she live when you were going through basic training and all that.   Chase Spears ** 29:46 So she stayed in Knoxville for nonGSA. Yeah. And then from there, she actually ended up moving up to her dad's and his wife's place up in Maryland because my follow on school after base See training was the Defense Information School. That's where all the Public Affairs courses are taught. And it's so happens that that is located at Fort Meade, Maryland, which is just about a 45 minute drive traffic dependent from where her dad lived. So while I was in basic training, she went ahead and moved up there to Maryland so that while I was in school up there, we could see each other on the weekends. And then from there, we didn't have to go back to Tennessee and pack up a house or stuff was already packed up so we could get on the road together there to wherever our next duty station was. And it turned out funny enough to be Colorado Springs, Fort Carson. And here's why that's funny. When, when I approached Laurie, about joining the army, one of the things that she was really excited about was seeing the world if you're in the military, you get to see the world, right. And my first duty assignment was the town that she had grown up in, because her dad had spent the last few years of his career teaching at the Air Force Academy there on the northern end of Colorado Springs. So so her her dreams of seeing the world with me, turned out that our first tour was going to write back home for her.   Michael Hingson ** 31:14 Oh, that has its pluses and it's minuses.   Chase Spears ** 31:17 Yep. So it was neat for me to get to see where she had grown up and learn the town little bit.   Michael Hingson ** 31:23 I've been to Fort Meade, and actually a few times I used to sell technology to folks there. And then several years ago, I was invited to come in after the World Trade Center and do a speech there. And so it was it was fun spending some time around Fort Meade heard some wonderful stories. My favorite story still is that one day somebody from the city of Baltimore called the fort because they wanted to do traffic studies or get information to be able to do traffic studies to help justify widening roads to better help traffic going into the fort. So they call it the fort. And they said, Can you give us an idea of how many people come through each day? And the person at the other end said, Well, I'm really not sure what you're talking about. We're just a little shack out here in the middle of nowhere. And so they ended up having to hire their own people to count cars for a week, going in and out of the fort was kind of cute.   Chase Spears ** 32:23 Well, there's quite a bit of traffic there. Now that basis when   Michael Hingson ** 32:26 I was then to there wasn't just a little shack, of course, it was a whole big forest.   Chase Spears ** 32:32 Yeah, yeah, it's I was back there. Golly, I want to say it wasn't that long ago. But it was about five years ago now is back there. And I almost didn't recognize the place. There's been so much new built there. But oh, I know, as far as army assignments go, it's a it's a pretty nice place.   Michael Hingson ** 32:50 Yeah, it is. And as I said, I've had the opportunity to speak there and spend some time dealing with folks when we sold products and so on. So got to got to know, people, they're pretty well and enjoyed dealing with people there. They knew what they were doing. Yeah,   Chase Spears ** 33:07 yeah, that's a it's a smart group of people in that base.   Michael Hingson ** 33:10 So you went through basic training and all that and what got you into the whole idea of public relations and what you eventually went into?   Chase Spears ** 33:20 Well, I had studied in college, my undergraduate degree was in television and radio broadcasting. My master's was in journalism, I'd grown up kind of in the cable news age, and the at the age of the emergence of am Talk Radio is a big, big tool of outreach. And I grew up thinking, this is what I want to do. I love communication. I actually thought it'd be really neat to be an investigative reporter on if, if you remember, back in the 90s, it was this big thing of, you know, Channel Nine on your side, yeah, had this investigative reporter who tell you the real deal about the restaurant or the automotive garage. And I always thought that would be amazing, like what a great public service like helping people to avoid being ripped off. And so I wanted to be a news. I'm sure you're familiar with the Telecom Act of 1996. That That caused a tremendous consolidation of media for your audience who might not be familiar with it. It used to be that really, if you had the wherewithal to buy a media station or a television station or radio station, you were unlimited in what you could you there were limits, I should say on what you could buy, so that you couldn't control too much, too much media environment, the Telecom Act of 1996, completely deregulated that and so large media companies were just swallowing up the nation. And that meant there's a tremendous consolidation of jobs and the my junior year in college. I was in the southeast us at the time at Lee University. Atlanta. Nearby was our biggest hiring media market, my June Your year CNN laid off 400 people. So I could tell really quick, this is going to be a chat and even more challenging field to break into than I thought. And that's why I ended up working part time in a law firm was in, in Journalism School. Afterwards, because I was looking great. I was looking for a backup plan. I thought if journalism doesn't work out, I also love the law. It'd be nice to get some experience working in a firm to see if I want to go to law school. So it was a natural fit for me when the army recruiter started talking to me. And he was asking me what I was interested in. And I told him, Well, here's what my degree is in, here's what my career plan had been, here's who I really want to do with my life. And he said, we have public affairs, I said, What's that? It turns out, the military has radio stations, and they have television networks and you PR, I had no idea. I was a civilian. And I was like, Well, that sounds good. And so I thought, yeah, sure, I'll I will enlist for that come in, do one four year contract, I'll build a portfolio and and then I'll be able to take that portfolio out into the civilian realm. And hopefully that will make me more competitive for a job in the news market. And of course, a couple of years into that. I was in Kuwait deployed to camp Arif John. And my brigade commander sat me down to lunch one day, and made it very clear that he expected me to apply for Officer Candidate School, which was nowhere on what I was interested in doing was nowhere on my radar, I applied, I really didn't have a lot of confidence. I thought, I looked at officers and I thought they were people who are way, way more intelligent than me, way more suave than me. And I really didn't know if I'd get in, well, I got in. And after I commissioned officer candidate school is about like basic training all over again. So that was fun. And I ended up being assigned to a combat camera unit. And then afterwards, I was able to put my paperwork in to branch transfer right back into public affairs, it was a perfect mess was everything I wanted to do. I didn't get to work in news directly. I wasn't a reporter. But I got to work with reporters, I got to be an institutional insider and help facilitate them and help to tell the stories of what some great American patriots were doing, and wanting to serve their countries. And so it was, for the most part, more often than not, it was a really, really fun way to earn a living living.   Michael Hingson ** 37:34 I collect as a hobby old radio shows I'm very familiar with but back in the 40s was the Armed Forces Radio Service, then it became Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. And so I'm aware a little bit of, of the whole broadcast structure in the military, not a lot, but but some and know that that it's there. And it does, I'm suspect, a really good job of helping to keep people informed as much as it can as they can with the things that they have to do in the world. It's   Chase Spears ** 38:04 definitely it's a comfort over the years, if you're spending a lot of time overseas to have kind of that that taste of home and our forces network does a really good job of that letting I think we're starting to see some debates inside the military. Now. What do we want to continue of it? Because now information is so ubiquitous, if you will, you can pull it down, you can stream whatever you want, wherever you are in the globe. So I kind of wonder in the next 1020 years, will it still be a thing, but during my early career during my early deployment before he could stream stuff, it was really cool to have an AFN radio station to tune into is really cool to have an AFN television network to tune into to be able to get a taste of home. That was much a comfort,   Michael Hingson ** 38:52 right? Yeah, it is. It is something that helps. So you can't necessarily stream everything. I spent a week in Israel this summer. And there were broadcasts I could get and pick up through the internet and so on. And there were stuff from here in the US that I couldn't get I suspect it has to do with copyright laws and the way things were set up but there was only so much stuff that you could actually do.   Chase Spears ** 39:20 And what a time to be in Israel you will I bet that trip is even more memorable for you now than it would have been otherwise.   Michael Hingson ** 39:27 Fortunately, it wasn't August. So we we didn't have to put up with the things that are going on now. But still Yeah, it was very memorable. I enjoyed doing it. spending a week with excessively over there and got into getting to meet with with all the folks so it was definitely well worth it and something that that I will always cherish having had the opportunity to do get   Chase Spears ** 39:51 for you. If it's on my bucket list. I've always wanted to spend some time over there.   Michael Hingson ** 39:56 Hot and humid in the summer, but that's okay. Let's say but they love breakfast. Oh, really? So yeah, definitely something to think about. Well, so you, you joined you got you got the public relations, jobs and so on. So how did all that work for you over? Well, close to 20 years? What all did you do and what, what stories can you tell us about some of that?   Chase Spears ** 40:25 It was it was fascinating. It was fascinating because everything that I got to touch was, in some way a story. And so my first job was in radio and television production. I did quite a bit of that in Kuwait. And it was actually there that I got my first taste of crisis communication, and I was immediately addicted. Do you remember back in? It was December 2004. Donald Rumsfeld said you go to war with the Army you have not the army want or might wish to have it another time? Yeah. I was there. That that was uttered in camp you're in Kuwait. And that was such an interesting moment. For me in terms of a story to tell. I was with the 14 Public Affairs Detachment we were deployed to camp Arif John to provide public affairs support for for Third Army's Ford headquarters. This was back during the height of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so there's a lot of military going over there. We were part of that. And I remember hearing this tasking that had come down that the Secretary of Defense is going to come out here is going to do this town hall meeting with the troops. There's going to be no question that you can't ask. You're going to be allowed to say anything you want to say to the Secretary of Defense, nothing's going to be scripted, nothing's going to be put through for review. And by the way, 14 pad you guys are going to make sure that it can be televised live back to the United States. And so here I am thinking what can possibly go wrong. And so we helped we all the event, Secretary Rumsfeld hindered and handled it really, really well. They set up this big, you know, fighting machinery display, they're in a in a big aircraft hangar epic camp bearing which is in northern Kuwait, just not too far south from the Iraqi border. And he gets up he gives the speech. He's well received by the troops. And it goes to the q&a part. And soldiers were asking him all sorts of questions. Most of them are jovial, you know, hey, when when do we get to go to Disney World, stuff like that. They were kind of big jocular with them.   Michael Hingson ** 42:42 Seems a fair question.   Chase Spears ** 42:44 Yeah, you know, I felt them right. And so finally, this one guy, I'll never forget his name, especially as Thomas Wilson from the 2/78 Regimental Combat Team. Tennessee National Guard asks him a question about when are they going to get the body armor that's needed? And in true Rumsfeld style, he's he says, Well, I'm not quite sure I understood the question. Can you ask it again, which is a great technique. He used to buy him some time to think the answer. And then it came back after the second question. And the whole hangar about 1000 of us in there. It was hast. I'll bet you could have heard a plastic cup hit the floor at the back back of the room. I mean, everyone was like, what? Oh, no, what just happened? What's about to happen? And Rumsfeld makes that remark, you go to war with the army have not the one you want or need. Yeah. And and then the questions went on. And there was not be after that. There was no awkward moment for the rest of the time. And I and I thought, wow, that could have gone south. But it didn't cool. It was just it was neat to watch. I was running the television camera that caught the moment. I was in the room. And so we me and my sergeant had to stay up there the rest of the day because there were some other television network interviews with other officials that we were running the satellite transponder for. And it was a long day our commander was kind of being a jerk to us. So by the end of the day, we were tired we'd been up there sleeping on cots for a couple of days, we were kind of just ready to get back to data camp Arif, John to our beds and put the whole mission behind us. And then we drive to three hours through this pouring pouring rainstorm in Kuwait, and a Canvas side Humvee that's leaking. All you know, water just pouring into this thing on us. So we're done. We're done. We're done. We're like, we just want to get a bed. We get back to our base. We're offloading all the equipment, putting everything away. And at this point in time, I forgotten about the moment earlier in the day when that question was asked, and I walk in and there we had this wall of televisions you know, tracking all the different news networks back in the US and on all of them Their Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the army have not the army won or wish to have another time. And at that moment, I was like, it's about to be an interesting few weeks around here. And it turned out, it turned out indeed to be an interesting few weeks, an interesting few months. And I got to be on the front end of what the public affairs response to that looks like. And I can tell you, I've never seen armored vehicles flow into a place as quickly as they did in the following month. So the power of a message transmitted is a real thing. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 45:39 so whatever happened to specialist Wilson?   Chase Spears ** 45:44 I don't I don't know. I know that news coverage. When that news reporters were asking that very question and coverage that I saw said, Oh, his unit, his assured that nothing bad will happen to him. He was a national guardsmen, so he kind of fall under a different, different command structure than us. From time to time, I have wondered that and I've tried to look him up online, and just try to find out what happened to the sky and what was life like for him? I'd love to talk to him and ask alright, what was it like, man, what is your unit do? But I, I have no idea. I can't find him. I presume he's gone about his life and doesn't want to be famous about it. But it also goes back to National Guard culture versus active duty culture. We talked earlier about the citizenship aspect. And the National Guard gets that way more than the active component. At the end of the day, they demobilize. And they go home. Right, you're running into the same people you serve, with the church, at the grocery store, at the grocery store, at the PTA, places like this, some of them might be your neighbors. And so they have an entirely different outlook. This is what they do to serve the country when needed. And then they go on about their lives. I don't think you would have seen an active duty soldier ask that question. I really don't because the culture is so so markedly different. And there's a level of kind of freedom of thought and expression, present that guard that that is much more lacking in the active component.   Michael Hingson ** 47:19 Should there be more freedom, in that sense in the active component? Or do you think that it's really appropriate for there to be the dichotomy that you're describing?   Chase Spears ** 47:32 And the act of force you need discipline? You need a discipline force, who, when they're given a lawful order, will carry it out hastily, because lives could hang in the balance. That's absolutely important, and we can never lose that. But sometimes we can use discipline I say sometimes, often, more is the more appropriate term often we confuse discipline with silence. We confuse discipline with a lack of willingness to ask tough questions. We confuse discipline with just saying Yes, sir. When you know, in the back of your mind, there might be something you need to dig into more. We we need, unfortunately, since the end of the Second World War, going back to my comments earlier about this large, industrialized, institutionalized force we have it breeds careerists. It breeds a mindset that's fearful to ask tough questions, even if you know they need to be asked. Because you want to be promoted. Right? You want to get assignments, right. And it breeds a culture where you really are much more timid. Or you're much more likely to be timid than someone who's maybe a reservist or National Guard member. We need people who will ask tough questions. We don't need indiscipline, we don't rush showmanship, we don't need people who are being performative just to be seen. But there are valid questions to be asked is, you know, is US defense policy? Better set for a 400? Ship navy or a 300? Ship? Navy? That's a valid question. Is it better for us to use this route of attack versus that route of attack? Given the Give Me Everything we know, those are valid questions. We need people in the military who who are willing to be critical thinkers, and there are a lot of extraordinarily brilliant people in today's armed forces, as there always has been. But there is on the active duty side a culture that works against original thought and that's really to our detriment. And I think the manner in which the evacuation of Afghanistan ended is one more blatant indicator of that.   Michael Hingson ** 49:48 It was not handled nearly as well as it could have been as we have seen history tell us and teach us now   Chase Spears ** 49:56 Absolutely. i It broke my heart. I'm A veteran of that conflict I'm not one who cries easily, Michael but I can tell you that morning when I saw the some of the images coming out of cobbles especially there's a video of a C 17 cargo jet taking off and people literally hanging to and falling to their deaths. Just i i fell off, I fell off my on my run into a sobbing human being on this on the ground for a little bit it is there's a lot to process and it has continued to be a lot to process. And there again, there's a great example of why you gotta be willing to ask tough questions. There was no no reason at all. We should have abandoned Bagram and tried to evacuate out of downtown Cabo. But that's a whole nother conversation. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 50:52 Well, speaking of you, I understand that you weren't a great fan of jumping out of airplanes, but you got used to doing them? I   Chase Spears ** 51:01 sure did. Oh, yeah. I always thought that would just be something that no, I don't want to say no sane person would do. I mean, I enjoy watching skydivers, I think it's really cool. And obviously, they're saying, I never thought I'd be among them. I thought, Nah, that's just something, I don't think I'm gonna do that. And when I was an officer candidate school, I was roommates with a guy who had been to Airborne School earlier in his career. And he was like, man, don't do it. Don't let him talk you into going to Airborne School, though, you'll be stuck at Fort Bragg, you'll just you'll be broke all the time, you'll be hurting all the time, the army takes the fun out of everything. And he's right. To an extent the army does take the fun out of most things that touches. But I got to my first unit as an officer. So I'd done enlisted time for three years, then I went to Officer Candidate School. And then my first job as an officer was at the 55th combat camera company, which is not a full airborne unit, but it's a partial airborne unit. And they had a hard time keeping enough active duty paratroopers on hand. And so I remember day one, when I was in processing the unit, there are all these different places you go, when you're in process, you gotta go see the training room, and you got to go see the administrative room, and you got to go see the Transportation Office and all these places, and they're just checking your paperwork. And so I see the training room, and there's the sergeant in there. And he's looking through my list. And he's asking me all these questions, you know, when was your last PT test? Where's the last physical, you know, making notes on me for the unit record? And then he says, Do you want to go to Airborne School? And without thinking, I said, Absolutely not. I have no interest in going to Airborne School. And his reply to me was go ahead and get an airborne physical. And I thought, There's no way I'm ever getting an airborne physical because I'm not going to Airborne School. So a few weeks later, I'm in the unit, I'm more comfortable. And I'm across. I'm in a different office across the hall from where this guy worked. And I'm joking around with this other sergeant. And I'm like, sir, and you're just such a cool guy. Like you've got all together, you're, you're like everything I want to be when I grow up. What how do you do it? He said, Well, sir, you got to go to Airborne School. That's step one. The other guy across the hall ever hears that, you know, mouse ears, I don't know how. But he darts out of his office across the hall into this opposite we're in, looks me straight in the face and said, Did you say you want to go to Airborne School? Like no, is not what I said, I absolutely have no interest. I'm not going to Airborne School. And he again replies with schedule your physical. And I thought, I'm not going to disappoint me scheduling a fiscal. So I get back to my office that later that day. And I thought this guy is not going to give up. So I came up with this brilliant plan. It was smart, smartest plan you'll ever hear of, I'm going to pretend I'm going to get my airborne physical and then he'll forget about me, leave me alone. So I called him and said, Hey, Sergeant, what's the phone number I have to call them schedule an airborne physical and it gives me the phone number and the the name of the person to talk to and I said, Great. I'll talk to him. There were two or three other lieutenants set to show up to the unit next in the next month. So I thought he will assume I'm getting a physical which I'm not getting and there's other guys will show up and he will convince them to go and I will fall off his radar. I was incorrect. That was a bad bad miscalculation on my part, you might say a flawed operation   Michael Hingson ** 54:39 with your the and you were the one who was talking about brilliant people in the army Anyway, go ahead.   Chase Spears ** 54:43 I know I know. Right? Yeah, I am a paradox. And so that within an hour I get an email from him with my he's already put me in for school. I already have orders generated to go to jump school. And then he calls me he's like Hey, by the way, your report in like three weeks, I need your physical as soon as you can get it. And I thought this guy, I told him I'm not going to Airborne School. Well, at the same time, our unit commander was a paratrooper, and he loves jumping out of airplanes. And I had two or three paratroopers in my platoon who were underneath me. And I thought, There's no way I can go now. Because if I, if I get the commander to release me, one, I'll lose face with the old man. And I'll lose face with the troops that I lead because the soldiers have to compete for this. They're just giving it to me. And so I went, protesting, kicking, screaming the whole way. I hated ground week. I hated tower week. And then they put took me up to the 250 foot tower and dropped me off the side of it under a parachute. And I loved it. I was like, Oh, this is fun. I actually asked if I can do it again. And they said, they don't get what's right. So the next week, we go into jump week in there I am in the back of an airplane, and it comes to my turn to get up and exit it. And I do, and I get to the ground and I survive. And I literally just sat there and laughed uncontrollably because I couldn't believe I just jumped out of a plane. And it was my first of 40 jobs. So I was I was absolutely hooked from that moment on.   Michael Hingson ** 56:20 And what did Lori think of that?   Chase Spears ** 56:23 She was a little bit surprised. She She again, was supportive. But she was surprised she never thought it's something that I would take to and it ended up being a great thing for us. Because having been on jumped status, it opened the door for me to request the unit and Alaska that we ended up going to for six years, you had to be on airborne status to be able to go to that job. And so had I not going to jump school, I would not have qualified to go into Alaska for that particular job. And so it ended up being a wonderful, wonderful thing. But I would have never guessed it, it just it's another one of those poignant reminders to me that every time that I think I've got a plan, it's God's way of reminding me that he has a sense of humor, because what's going to work out is always going to be very different from what I think.   Michael Hingson ** 57:10 And you help Laurie see the world. So well worked out. Absolutely.   Chase Spears ** 57:15 Yeah, she we never, we never got to spend time together overseas. But Alaska was an amazing adventure. And, gosh, if if no one in your listeners haven't been there yet to go see a Sunday?   Michael Hingson ** 57:29 Yeah, I went there on a cruise I didn't see as much as I would have loved to but still, I got to see some of them. It was great.   Chase Spears ** 57:38 It's nothing like it. No. Now you   Michael Hingson ** 57:42 as you advance in the ranks, and so on you, you started being in public relations, being a communicator, and so on. But clearly, as you advanced, you became more and I'm sure were viewed as more of a leader that was kind of a transition from from not being a leader. And just being a communicator and doing what you were told to be more of a leader, what was that transition like?   Chase Spears ** 58:07 That was another one of those things that I would have never seen coming. After I did my three years as the spokesman for the Airborne Brigade. In Alaska, I ended up becoming the deputy communication director for US Army, Alaska, which was the highest army command there in the state responsible for 11,000 troops and their families in multiple locations. And I remember one day, my boss came to me and saying, hey, the general is going to give a speech to the hockey team at the University of Alaska, about leadership. And so I need you to write it. And I looked at him and I said, boss, all right, whatever he told me to write, but the general has forgotten more about leadership than I know, like, how do where do I start with this? And I don't remember the exact words, I think it was something to the effect of, you're smart, you'll figure it out. And so I put together a speech, it was by no means anything glorious, but it was the best I had to give that moment in time and what leadership was fully convinced that I was not one. And then over time, I there are people who spoken to me at their headquarters who called out leadership that I didn't see they were pointing out influence that I had there pointing out people who I was able to help steer towards decisions that I didn't realize that I didn't know and it made me start looking back in other parts of my career and realizing, Oh, my goodness, I actually led that team. This man actually looks to me for decisions. I actually I am a leader, I had no idea. There's something I always thought if if you were in the military and you're a leader, you were some grand master, you know, like, like Patton or Eisenhower and I didn't think think myself anything like that. And so finally, in 2015, I was offered A chance to take command of a company which in civilian terms, that's kind of like being the executive director, if you will, of an organization of 300 people. And I was so excited for it. Because by that point in time, I finally made the mental transition of saying, I'm not, I'm not merely a communicator, communicating is what I've done. But occasionally it's I've worked on delivering us on passionate about, by came to realize, I love that so much because communicating is a part of leading and, and I, I am a leader, it's just something. Looking back. Of course, my life has always been there, I just never knew it. I never saw it, I never believed in it. And so by the time I was offered the chance to command, I was very excited for it, I was very eager for it, because I realized this is going to be an a wonderful adventure getting to lead a team at this level of this size. And it was the hardest job I ever did in the army, and the most rewarding. I don't know if you've ever watched any of the Lord, Lord of the Rings movie. But there's this moment where Aragon is being chided, is set aside the Ranger Be who you were meant to be to be the king. And that meant that came back to my mind several times I had to challenge myself that just because I only see myself as a communicator all these years doesn't mean that I can't do other things. And so it was a joy to actually walk into that. Believing is not easy. There's there are a lot of hard days or a lot of hard decisions. Especially when I was a commander, I agonized every decision. So I made because I knew this will have an impact on a person, this will have an impact on a family this, this will change the directions and plans that people had. And so it's a heavy weight to bear. And I think it's good that those kind of decisions come with weight. And I would question someone who who can make those kinds of calls without having to wrestle with them.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:01 When you look at all the things that you've done, and the work that you do, and the work that you did, at the end of every day, or at some time during the day, I know you were pretty busy. But did you ever have the time to just kind of sit back and reflect on how did this go today? How did that go? What could have been better? Did you do any kind of introspection? Or did you feel you had time to do that?   Chase Spears ** 1:02:24 I didn't really feel I had time. And it would be easy for me to blame the unit, it'd be easy for me to blame people. But that responsibility rests with me. It's a discipline that I didn't develop until way too late in my career. And I eventually did develop it, I eventually came to realize the importance of reflection of introspection of taking a mental inventory of what I've accomplished I didn't accomplish and what I can learn from it. But it was sadly something that I didn't do as much as I should have. And I didn't do it as early, I was really, really bad at assuming well, because the unit needs this right now. I can't take care of this thing that I need to take care of that will that will allow me to be the leader that I need to be you know, I get in a car, someone slams on my car, and I need to get them to take care of it. Why don't have time unit Scott has to have me We gotta move on. Well, I've got six screws in my left hand and my left shoulder right now because I was always too busy to listen to the physical therapist and take care of myself, you know, the unit needs me the unit needs me the men need me. And so it, it was a hard, hard learned lesson. The importance of sitting back and reflecting is something I wish I would have learned much sooner. But once I did, it served me well. And it's a discipline that I still practice now.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:46 Yeah, yeah, it's, I think a very important thing. And a lot of things can can stem from that. What's the best position your favorite position in the army and why?   Chase Spears ** 1:03:59 The best thing I ever got to do is company command. And it's hard to say that because it's really it's really closely tied with being a brigade director of communication. And t

Thousands of people were imprisoned for years without charge or trial by the United States during its so-called “war on terror”. Moazzam Begg was one of them. For the first time since he was detained more than 20 years ago, Begg returns with Al Jazeera to the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he witnessed terrible abuses that continue to haunt him. In this episode:  Moazzam Begg (@Moazzam_Begg), Former Bagram and Guantanamo Detainee Episode credits: This episode was produced by Miranda Lin and Zaina Badr with Khaled Soltan, Chloe K. Li and our host Malika Bilal.  Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio. Watch the full film ‘Echoes of Bagram' by Al Jazeera Witness here: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/witness/2024/2/12/echoes-of-bagram-moazzam-begg-returns-to-afghanistan   With special thanks to Horia El Hadad and Michael McEvoy. Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube

This week, we're replaying a classic episode where Steve and Yvonne interview Shane Lazenby of Lazenby Law Group (https://lazlawgroup.com/).   Rate and review GTP on iTunes: Click Here to Rate and Review.   View/Download Trial Documents   Case Details: Former defense attorney and U.S. Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps veteran Shane Lazenby of Lazenby Law Group explains how he secured justice in the wrongful death of Kip Holland, a 50-year-old intellectually disabled pedestrian who was hit by a weaving, out-of-control tractor-trailer in Gainesville, Georgia. At trial, Shane Lazenby demonstrated that James Harper, the 76-year-old tractor-trailer driver who died before the case went to trial, lied on his Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration medical exam, took prescription narcotics four times a day, performed breathing treatments for COPD in his trailer and was regularly admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. In 2020, a Gainesville, Georgia jury returned a verdict in favor of Kip Holland's grieving family and awarded $21,029,363 in damages, litigation expenses, and attorney's fees.   Guest Bio: Shane Lazenby Shane Lazenby is the founder and managing member of Lazenby Law Group. After more than a decade of defending those accused of negligence in personal injury cases, Shane decided to reverse course and help the victims of serious injuries. With unparalleled compassion and limitless commitment, Shane quickly learned how much more rewarding and uplifting service as a victim's advocate can be. Shane now focuses his practice on helping the victims of catastrophic personal injury and the families whose loved ones have passed as a result of another's negligence. Shane received his law degree in 1999 at the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. While at Mercer, Shane was a member of the Moot Court Board and the Mercer Law Review where he served as the Eleventh Circuit Survey Editor. Shane also received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science, with a minor in Latin, from Mercer in 1994. Following law school, Shane returned to the United States Army, where he served as a Judge Advocate with the 82d Airborne Division. Shane's service included duties as the Regimental Judge Advocate for the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, where he obtained a 100% conviction rate in the most active military justice jurisdiction in the United States Army. Shane was also selected to be the first Judge Advocate from the 82d Airborne Division to deploy to the Global War on Terrorism as counsel to the Commander of the 3rd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Shane was then selected to be the Operational Law Attorney for the 82d Airborne Division Commander in Bagram, Afghanistan, where he served until returning home. In December 2010, Shane retired from the Georgia Army National Guard after 21 years of total military service with the Georgia National Guard, United States Army, and Army Reserve. Shane joined the military in 1989, first serving as a combat medical specialist. In 1993 Shane graduated from Officer's Candidate School and was commissioned as an Infantry Officer. Shane served as an Infantry Platoon Leader, Signal Platoon Leader, and Operations Officer with a Ranger-led, Airborne Long Range Surveillance Unit. He then returned to the active Army for his tour of duty as a Judge Advocate before transitioning into the Army Reserve. In the Army Reserve, Shane continued service as a Judge Advocate, but was then selected for Command as the Headquarters and Headquarters Company Commander for the 335th Signal Command. Thereafter, Shane transitioned back into the Georgia Army National Guard where he returned to his Infantry roots and became the Executive Officer of the 3-108th Cavalry Squadron; his retirement assignment. Shane's service awards include the coveted Ranger tab, the Master Parachutist Badge, the Air Assault Badge, and the Bronze Star for service in the Republic of Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Shane's service as an Army Ranger also included competition in the LTG David E. Grange Best Ranger Competition in 2002. After his return from Afghanistan, Shane transitioned into private practice with a prestigious trial defense firm in Atlanta, Georgia, where he gained invaluable experience and growth alongside some of Georgia's finest defense and plaintiff attorneys. After deciding to depart big city life, Shane settled with his family in Gainesville, Georgia. In Gainesville, Shane continued honing his skills as a partner with a Gainesville firm specializing in the defense of physicians accused of medical malpractice. In his career, Shane has tried more than fifty cases to verdict. His extensive experience was noted when he was selected as an Atlanta Magazine Georgia Super Lawyer Rising Star in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. Shane was also pleased to be selected as a Georgia Super Lawyer for Plaintiff's Personal Injury in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019,  a peer-reviewed award limited to only the top 2.5% of Georgia's attorneys. Shane also maintains a coveted AV Rating from Martindale Hubbell – the highest possible rating in terms of both legal ability and ethical standards. Shane was also fortunate to graduate from Leadership Georgia in 2013 and Leadership Hall County in 2016. Read Full Bio   Show Sponsors: Legal Technology Services - LegalTechService.com Digital Law Marketing - DigitalLawMarketing.com Harris Lowry Manton LLP - hlmlawfirm.com   Free Resources: Stages Of A Jury Trial - Part 1 Stages Of A Jury Trial - Part 2

In this episode, I put a wrap on the physical security project I was doing as my last assignment at the Bagram Air Base prior to transitioning to a camp site security manager's position at a special base two to three hours northly of Bagram.

In this episode, I pick up where I left off in the previous episode. I briefly recap my departure from Bagram Air Base for a rotation home, my return, and the continuation of unprofessional conduct until the arrival of our third site security manager.

Based on real events, I AM GITMO follows the reaction the United States to the 9/11 attack and the human cost that came about from the implementation of the War on Terror. The film focuses on Gamel Sadek, a Muslim schoolteacher as he is taken from his home and delivered to Bagram Air Base, a CIA black site, where he is questioned on the whereabouts of the 9/11 mastermind, Osama Bin Laden. He is tortured when he denies knowing him. Chained and hooded, he is put on a cargo plane to Guantanamo Bay. John Anderson, a military interrogator, is brought out of retirement and assigned to Gamel's case leaving his daughter behind in New York. Despite relentless beatings, starvation, and torture in Gitmo, Gamel maintains he has no affiliation with Al Qaeda or Bin Laden. John struggles to accept the new torture methods imposed by General Miller, newly in command of the prison, and the mandate to force a confession at any cost. As Gamel prepares for a hearing on his status as an enemy combatant, he realizes he could be held indefinitely, and that John's testimony will be the deciding factor. Director and writer Philippe Diaz stops by to talk about his inspiration for telling this particular story, the fatally flawed planning, execution and objectives of the War on Terror, the collateral damage done to America's standing in the world, the staggering loss of innocent human life and the failure of American leadership to acknowledge or compensate the innocent people who were swept up in the overreaction. For more go to: iamgitmo.com

In this episode, I pick up where I left off in the previous episode as I continue my discussion with the three failed site security managers we had while on project for Blue Hackle in the Bagram area of Afghanistan.

PREVIEW: #AFGHANISTAN: Excerpt from a conversation with colleague Bill Roggio of FDD re the March testimony by retired generals Milley and McKenzie to Congress re the withdrawl from Kabul in August, 2021 -- and how the representatives did not press re the miltary of the decision making to abandon Bagram before the exit.  More of this later. 1867 Khyber Pass

After battling Taylor Swift, Jake Gyllenhaal takes on the much easier task of the Taliban in Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. Will this film blow you out of your foxhole or will it leave you like a Humvee on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base as the US withdrew from Afghanistan? Find out on Yinz & Y'all:Frontline Flicks.

Rudy Giuliani says Dems claim they want to run against President Trump, so why are they indicting him four times? It's because Trump frightens the living daylights out of the Left. Now they're trying to hijack the New Hampshire primary by registering Democrats to vote. Last week they were registering Democrats as Republicans to get Dems to vote in the Republican primary. That's the only chance they have to narrow the race among Republicans. It's clear the Republican Party wants Trump as their standard bearer, as their candidate. Giuliani doesn't understand why Haley and DeSantis want to help Biden. Giuliani says it's ironic that Georgia reeks of corruption yet they want to put him in jail for the rest of his life for being a lawyer, when it looks like the real allegations of crime are committed by the prosecutors, not the people they've prosecuted. Giuliani says the minute you talk about a two tiered system of justice, there is no justice at all. Justice has to be the same for everyone. They've destroyed our country as a bastion of justice. We can no longer say to the rest of the world that we have an effective system of justice. He says if any other President's family had received $31 million from Red China, they would have been tried for treason. Then Biden gave up our strategic Bagram Air Base just 400 miles from China against the advice of Gen. Milley. Giuliani says seeing the connection to communism is enormously important. A lot of people see the disparate things going on that are terrible and awful. They don't realize there's a connection and the connection is very nefarious and dangerous and some of it is located in Davos. GUEST: RUDY GIULIANI, RADIO AND PODCAST HOSTSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Happy New Year! Kyle's novel "Bottled in Bagram" just DROPPED! We are giving away a copy to two people who DM us on X or Twitter @theboardwalkpod. Buy the novel HERE_________________________________________ Where to Listen:Apple: https://bit.ly/theboardwalkapple Spotify: https://bit.ly/theboardwalkspotify Pandora: https://bit.ly/3xZ8bk9 Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/3gbZ6ya Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/37UuZXQ Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3AQNadj  iHeart Radio: https://bit.ly/3y0Vfdw TuneIn: https://bit.ly/2W1VEPN Buzzsprout: https://bit.ly/37PIdoy  Be sure to like, follow, subscribe, rate, review, and share wherever you listen to our podcast. New episodes of The Boardwalk are published every Saturday morning.  Our Social Media Sites:Instagram: @theboardwalkpodcast Facebook: @TheBoardwalkPodcastTwitter: @theboardwalkpod You can also reach us by email at: theboardwalkpodcast@gmail.com  The views expressed by the hosts and guests of this podcast do not represent the views of the United States Government or the United States Department of Defense.   #afghanistan #nato #taliban #kandahar #kabul #oef #waronterror #isaf #theboardwalk #theboardwalkpodcast #militaryintelligence #andsf #helmand #bagram #balkh #mazari #panjshir #northernalliance #resistance #massoud 

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association. During this episode, Brian Russell returns to the Cognitive Crucible to discuss his latest article: The Tie that Binds – Cyberspace as the Core of All Domain Maneuver Warfare. Research Question: Brian Russell asks the following: how to assess the effectiveness and risk of employing AI generated cyber weapons: AI on the AI so to speak. There are two resources: Phoenix Cast Cyber Fires Episode Dr. Christopher Whyte's piece in the latest Cyber Defense Review titled Beyond "Bigger, Faster, Better:" Assessing Thinking About Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Conflict.  Resources: Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned #13 Brian Russell on Behind Enemy Lines #132 Brian Russell on OIE Truths The Tie that Binds – Cyberspace as the Core of All Domain Maneuver Warfare by Brian Russell Joint Cyber Warfighting Architecture (JCWA) Expeditionary Cyberspace Operations, Paul Schuh, Cyber Defense Review Beyond “Bigger, Faster, Better:” Assessing Thinking About Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Conflict by Dr. Christopher Whyte Cyber Fires, Phoenix Cast PW Singer and Emerson T Brooking, Foreign Affairs) Gaza and the Future of Information Warfare  Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification by Gene Kim and Steven J. Spear Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Link to full show notes and resources Guest Bio: Brian Russell is the founder of Information Advantage and a Key Terrain Cyber Senior Fellow. He is a retired Marine Corps artillery officer, with previous assignments as the commanding officer of II Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group (II MIG) and 1st ANGLICO. His combat deployments include serving as the Military Transition Team Leader in Habbaniyah, Iraq, the executive officer of Brigade Headquarters Group in Helmand Province, Afghanistan and Plans Director in Bagram, Afghanistan. Some of his notable staff assignments include: Operations Directorate at Marine Corps Special Operations Command, Operations Directorate at United States Cyber Command, and U.S. Plans Directorate at Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command. He recently joined Peraton as a Cyber and Information Warfare subject matter expert. About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain. For more information, please contact us at communications@information-professionals.org. Or, connect directly with The Cognitive Crucible podcast host, John Bicknell, on LinkedIn. Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, 1) IPA earns from qualifying purchases, 2) IPA gets commissions for purchases made through links in this post.

This is Kyle and my novel "Bottled in Bagram" will be released January 2, 2024. Pre-orders are up now for the digital version with paperback to follow:Pre-Order HereRead Chapter One on my Substack!David Ryan is an intelligence analyst working on board a small reconnaissance aircraft in the final years of the Afghan War. On a routine approach into Bagram, his aircraft is attacked and the camera operator, Sam Stokes, is wounded. While the crew works to conceal their whiskey smuggling operation, the commander vows revenge, and the full might of US aviation and intelligence is unleashed to find the shooter.Bottled in Bagram follows the aviators of Task Force Daytona as they fight their own individual conflicts amid the failing Afghan War. Officers want promotions, the enlisted want to perpetuate their alcoholism, and others are trying to sell their used panties on the internet. Intelligence analysts who predict Afghanistan's imminent collapse are ignored to not rock the rudderless boat of military bureaucracy. David and his comrades must deal with boredom, devastating violence, mental illness, and filling sandbags in this dark satire of the Global War on Terror. Fans of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 and W.C. Heinz's MASH may enjoy this take on a modern war. 

PREVIEW: From a two hour interview about the withdrawal from Afghanistan, August 2021, Author Jerry Duleavy analyzes the consequences of abandoning Bagram airbase fr the airport in central Kabul.   https://www.amazon.com/Kabul-Untold-Bidens-American-Warriors/dp/1546005307/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1701296521&sr=1-1 1928, Ataturk with the King of Afghanistan

This week's episode has a little bit of everything. The role of team sports in the military, lessons in leadership, how to stay injury free through a career in the infantry, and the challenges of balancing two careers and family responsibilities in a dual military marriage. Our guest has, on top of his successful Army career, played a key role in leading the All Army Rugby team to a decade of dominance in the Armed Forces Rugby Championship. COL Nate Conkey is a current United States Army War College Fellow studying at Columbia University and most recently served as the Regimental Tactical Officer for the First Regiment of the United States Corps of Cadets at West Point, NY. He commissioned into the Infantry in 2000 after graduating from the United States Military Academy at West Point with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aeronautical Engineering. He also holds a Master of Arts in Physical Education from Columbia University's Teacher's College. COL Conkey's infantry career has taken him from the 2nd infantry division at JBLM to the 101st at Ft Campbell to teaching at West Point's Department of Physical Education to the 1st Cavalry Division at Ft Hood, back to JBLM for multiple field grade assignments and a stint as the 1st Corps Commander's Liaison Officer to United States Army Pacific from Fort Shafter, Hawaii. He returned to JBLM as the Battalion Commander for 2-357 IN of 189th INF BDE, and then most recently served as the Professor of Military Science for Auburn University Army ROTC program in Auburn, AL. He has been selected as the next Commandant of the United States Military Academy Preparatory School beginning in Summer 2024. COL Conkey's deployments include as a Rifle Company Commander to Kirkuk, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and as a Future Plans Officer with the 1st CAV DIV to Bagram, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. His list of awards is long, but highlights include the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal, Ranger Tab, Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, and both the Combat and Expert Infantryman's Badges. He was the Army's Athlete of the Year in 2014. He is married to COL Kate Conkey, an Academy Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and they have three kids together. If you want to read the article on navigating a career as a dual military couple by Nate and Kate Conkey, you can find it here.

“Bagram Air Base had prisons there that were filled with thousands of ISIS-K fighters, as well as dozens of members of al-Qaeda, and thousands of Taliban fighters as well. And the United States abandoned Bagram on July 21.”In April 2021, President Joe Biden announced that in five months, on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. troops would completely withdraw from Afghanistan. By the end of August, the Taliban was back in charge.“What happened in Afghanistan did not stay in Afghanistan, and the world became a more dangerous place,” says investigative journalist Jerry Dunleavy. He is co-author of the new book “Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End.”“You heard President Biden and many people around him continually saying throughout 2021 that the Afghan military was 300,000 strong, and that they could obviously therefore fight off a smaller Taliban force,” says Mr. Dunleavy. “This 300,000 figure was a complete fiction and was well known to be a fiction at the time.Mr. Dunleavy and I discuss President Biden's decision-making process with regard to the Afghanistan withdrawal, the other players involved, and why the media has, for the most part, lost interest in the story.“The Biden administration is not going to hold themselves accountable, obviously. Most of the mainstream media has no interest in holding Biden accountable. And so, the book is an effort at doing that—at holding Biden accountable for this disaster,” says Mr. Dunleavy.

  Get ready for an awe-inspiring journey as we sit down with Air Force Reserve Trauma Surgeon Jeremy Cannon. Navigating his path from the Air Force Academy to Harvard Medical School, Dr. Cannon's trajectory is nothing short of incredible. His expertise in Trauma Surgery and Critical Care has seen him at the forefront of developing the Air Force's adult ECMO program and has landed him a vital role in the Excelsior Surgical Society, an organization focused on preserving combat casualty care lessons.    Listen as Dr. Cannon unravels his deployment stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, revealing the unique challenges and life-altering experiences that inspired his specialization in Trauma Surgery. He shares a heart-wrenching tale of how he saved an Iraqi boy's life and reflects on the stark contrasts between the two war theaters. From his time as the Deputy Commander for Clinical Services in Bagram, Afghanistan, where he was entrusted with managing casualty flow and making critical evacuation decisions, Dr. Cannon's experiences are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Dr. Cannon pulls back the curtain on the unique challenges that inspired his interest in researching and improving Trauma Surgery and his vital work with the Excelsior Surgical Society.    We explore Dr. Cannon's current position at the University of Pennsylvania and his civilian medical practice, drawing comparisons to his military experiences. We delve into his work at the David Grant Medical Center and his significant contributions to their research unit. As Dr. Cannon discusses the biggest concerns for trauma and Critical Care readiness in the Total Force, this episode offers a fascinating insight into the intersection of Medicine, Trauma Surgery, and Military Service. An episode not to be missed, especially for those involved in the world of Military Medicine and trauma care.   Chapters: (0:00:00) - Military Medicine and Trauma Surgery Journey (0:14:22) - Deployment Experiences and Lessons Learned (0:22:52) - Military Medical Challenges and Innovations (0:33:29) - Combat Casualty Care and Trauma Readiness (0:50:28) – Leadership and Research Opportunities   Chapter Summaries: (0:00:00) - Military Medicine and Trauma Surgery Journey (14 Minutes) We speak with Air Force Reserve trauma surgeon Jeremy Cannon about his experiences in Military Medicine. He shares his journey from the Air Force Academy to medical school at Harvard, and his specialization in Trauma Surgery and Critical Care. We also discuss his research interests and his involvement in the Air Force's development of an adult ECMO program. Lastly, we explore the history of the military's Excelsior Surgical Society and its connection to the American College of Surgeons for capturing and preserving combat casualty care lessons.   (0:14:22) - Deployment Experiences and Lessons Learned (8 Minutes) Dr. Cannon shares his deployment experiences as a combat surgeon with the 332nd Air Force Theater in Balad Iraq. He reflects on what he learned and how it inspired his specialty in Trauma Surgery, as well as an incredible story about saving the life of an Iraqi boy with a complex complication from injury. He also discusses his later deployment to Afghanistan, where he served as a trauma surgeon at the Craig Joint Theater Hospital. He reflects on the differences and similarities between the two theaters and their unique challenges.   (0:22:52) - Military Medical Challenges and Innovations (11 Minutes) Jeremy Cannon shares his experience as the Deputy Director for Clinical Services for the Task Force MED-East in Bagram, Afghanistan. He explains how the responsibility of the role was different from his previous experiences in Trauma Surgery and the challenges he faced in managing casualty flow and making decisions on evacuations. He recounts an example of a call he received from a Role Two facility regarding a burn victim and the Air Force's decision to start the Adult Extracorporeal Life Support Lung Rescue Program.   (0:33:29) - Combat Casualty Care and Trauma Readiness (17 Minutes) Jeremy Cannon's role as the combat casualty care investigator at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in Vacaville, California is discussed. His experience and knowledge helped the research unit there. His current role as a trauma surgeon at the University of Pennsylvania and his civilian medical practice is also explored, and how it is similar to what he experienced in the military. The Navy Trauma Training Team at his hospital is examined, and the biggest concern for trauma and Critical Care readiness in the total force is discussed.   (0:50:28) - Leadership and Research Opportunities (1 Minute) Jeremy talks about his deployment experiences as a combat surgeon with the 332nd Air Force Theater in Balad Iraq, his role as Deputy Director for Clinical Services for the Task Force MEDD-East in Bagram, Afghanistan, and his experience as the combat casualty care investigator at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in Vacaville, California. We are inspired by his stories and grateful for his service.   Take Home Messages: Military medicine and trauma surgery offer unique challenges and experiences that can be both rewarding and demanding. A significant part of the journey in military medicine involves being able to adapt and navigate through diverse situations, such as deployments to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. The resilience of the human spirit is a common thread in the stories of military surgeons, often seen in the face of difficult circumstances and life-altering experiences. The ability to draw parallels between military service and civilian medical practice can provide valuable insights and enrich both fields. Significant contributions to research in military medicine, particularly in areas such as trauma surgery and critical care, are vital for improving combat casualty care. Organizations like the Excelsior Surgical Society play a key role in preserving lessons from combat casualty care, contributing to the progress and development of military medicine. The experiences and expertise of military surgeons can greatly benefit civilian medical practices, especially in trauma and critical care. Continuous commitment to maintaining trauma readiness in peacetime is crucial for preserving the lessons learned and capabilities developed during periods of conflict. Learning from history and retaining the lessons from past experiences are essential for improving future practices in combat casualty care. Military medicine is not only about treating injuries and saving lives, but also about nurturing resilience, innovating in the face of challenges, and contributing to a larger cause.   Episode Keywords: Military Medicine, Trauma Surgery, Air Force Reserve, Jeremy Cannon, Harvard Medical School, ECMO Program, Excelsior Surgical Society, Deployment Stories, Iraq, Afghanistan, Clinical Services, Bagram, Combat Casualty Care, University of Pennsylvania, David Grant Medical Center, Research Unit, Navy Trauma Training Team, Total Force Readiness   Hashtags: #wardocs #military #medicine #podcast #MilMed #MedEd #MilitaryMedicine #TraumaSurgery #DeploymentStories #CombatMedicine #WarzoneChallenges #TraumaBayLife #CriticalCare #AirForceJourney #MedicalInnovations   Honoring the Legacy and Preserving the History of Military Medicine   The WarDocs Mission is to honor the legacy, preserve the oral history, and showcase career opportunities, unique expeditionary experiences, and achievements of Military Medicine. We foster patriotism and pride in Who we are, What we do, and, most importantly, How we serve Our Patients, the DoD, and Our Nation.   Find out more and join Team WarDocs at https://www.wardocspodcast.com/ Check our list of previous guest episodes at https://www.wardocspodcast.com/episodes  Listen to the “What We Are For” Episode 47. https://bit.ly/3r87Afm   WarDocs- The Military Medicine Podcast is a Non-Profit, Tax-exempt-501(c)(3) Veteran Run Organization run by volunteers. All donations are tax-deductible and go to honoring and preserving the history, experiences, successes, and lessons learned in Military Medicine. A tax receipt will be sent to you.   WARDOCS documents the experiences, contributions, and innovations of all Military Medicine Services, ranks, and Corps who are affectionately called "Docs" as a sign of respect, trust, and confidence on and off the battlefield, demonstrating dedication to the medical care of fellow comrades in arms.     Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: @wardocspodcast Facebook: WarDocs Podcast Instagram: @wardocspodcast LinkedIn: WarDocs-The Military Medicine Podcast

On the 2-year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal, Jesse explains what was Bagram and why it was so critical that our troops abandoned it. Veterans, don't let elite corruption cheapen your bravery. Hero Jesse taking on wave after wave of ants. CNN defends rape and pedophilia. The most miserable people on the planet are the biggest Democrat voting block: unhappy, single women. Obama's crime family is just as bad as Joe's, he's just better at hiding it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

August marks two years since President Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. No doubt you remember the images of Afghanis clinging to airplanes and falling to their deaths in desperate hopes of escaping the Taliban. You also remember that Americans were left behind despite Biden's promises to stay until they all got out. And none of us can forget the horrific terrorist attack at Abbey Gate that killed 13 American servicemembers, badly injured others, and killed or wounded hundreds of civilians.But there's so much more that you might not know. Today, Sara welcomes Jerry Dunleavy, an investigator with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a former investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner, and co-author of the new book "Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden's Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End."Dunleavy explains how Biden was fully responsible for the timing of the withdrawal and made his decisions based on political considerations. He also details the stunning decision to shut down Bagram Air Base several weeks before the withdrawal and how that led to the release of many ISIS-K terrorists, including the one who perpetrated the deadly attack at Abbey Gate. Meanwhile, soldiers at the gate contend they spotted the terrorist moments before the attack but were denied permission to shoot him.This story is incredibly personal to Sara. Her husband was permanently blinded while serving in Afghanistan. They lost friends there. They worked around the clock to get Afghani friends out before the U.S. left Kabul permanently. And she knows the betrayal that so many military families feel. Don't miss this powerful conversation.Please visit our great sponsors:Allegiance Goldhttps://protectwithsara.comClick or Call 877-702-7272 to tell them Sara sent you and get $5,000 of free silver on a qualifying purchase. My Pillowhttps://mypillow.com/carterUse promo code CARTER to get the queen-size My Pillow for only $19.98 during the 20th Anniversary Sale. Or call 800-685-7221.Time Stamps:0:05 2 Year Anniversary 3:52 Hanging off the C176:54 Jerry Dunleavy joins the Sara Carter Show8:21 Fiasco11:51 There was no plan15:08 Biden's political pull out17:29 I was embedded18:37 President Trump's take19:48 Biden didn't care21:32 Totally preventable25:34 Foreign policy ripples29:45 We broke our promises31:38 Abbey Gate38:20 Who pays the price?40:57 Interview Close43:02 Show close

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