Podcasts about northern afghanistan

Today's HeadlinesFlooding kills 300; Afghan Christians mobilize with aidEurope turns away Syrian refugees; Heart for Lebanon provides help and hopeRaising men of faith in South Africa

Floods in northern Afghanistan: Update from Kabul by Radio Islam

Fort Nelson fire, Amazon Canada unionization, Roger Corman obituary, Northern Afghanistan floods, Pig kidney transplant obituary, Horse export ban, GPS breakdown and more

AP correspodnent Karen Chammas reports on floods in Afghanistan.

AP correspondent Mimmi Montgomery reports on deadly flash floods in northern Aghanistan.

CEO, Combat Flip Flops Matthew “Griff” Griffin is a former Special Operations Army Ranger, West Point Graduate, co-founder and CEO of Combat Flip Flops, award winning documentary producer, and philanthropist. After serving four combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq with the storied 2d Ranger Battalion, Griff departed the military in 2006 to create positive, sustainable change in conflict areas. With the skills learned in the military, Griff co-founded Combat Flip Flops; manufactured fashion and lifestyle products in war zones, used profits to fund girls education, cleared land mines, and supports veteran charities. The company that everybody thought would fail created a moving TEDx talk, successfully secured Mark Cuban as a partner on Shark tank, and funded education for over 1000 girls in Northern Afghanistan, cleared over 30,000 square meters of land mines, and funded In addition to building a globally respected philanthropic brand, Griff was a member of the first team to successfully ski off the tallest mountain in Iraq in the award winning Film, Adventure Not War: Ski Iraq. In 2019, Griff lead and executive produced the film, Here Am I, Send Me, a Sundance recognized film that follows the trail of Griff and fellow Rangers freefalling a Gold Star Mother into the opening ceremonies of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day. In 2021, Griff founded 46&2 Transitions, a non-profit organization focused on helping transitioning veterans overcome PTSD through holistic methodologies. Griff is a 2019 Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership institute. @combatflipflops.griff https://www.combatflipflops.com @combatflipflops.griff https://www.combatflipflops.com Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3opNURn  PATREON: patreon.com/brassandunity  - - - - - - - - - - - - SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS H.V.M.N - 20% off with code BRASS20 - https://hvmn.com/products/ketone TruLean - 50% off subscription https://www.trulean.com  Mindful Meds - 15% off with code BRASS - https://mindfulmeds.io Brass & Unity - 20% off with code UNITY - http://brassandunity.com  Three Horses Hat Co - 15% off with code BRASS - ⁠https://threehorseshatco.com/⁠ - - - - - - - - - - - - - SHOP B&U Jewelry & Eyewear: https://brassandunity.com  - - - - - - - - - - - - - Follow #brassandunity - - - - - - - - - - - - - CHARITY Honour House - https://www.honourhouse.ca Heroic Hearts - https://www.heroicheartsproject.org Warrior Angels Foundation - https://warriorangelsfoundation.org All Secure Foundation - http://allsecurefoundation.org Defenders of Freedom -https://www.defendersoffreedom.us The Boot Campaign - https://bootcampaign.org

It's 2012 and in Northern Afghanistan, an international crisis has erupted. A group of NGO workers have been kidnapped by local insurgents and are now hidden in a winding mountain region. After attempts to negotiate a deal with the bandits fail, and with the lives of the hostages hanging in the balance, there is only one option... the SAS and Navy SEALs are sent in to find and free them.The Rescue is the action-packed story of the special forces' attempts save the hostages from almost certain death. Drawing on classified sources and using his own personal insight into the inner-workings of these units, Andy McNab gives a page-turning account of this incredible mission.In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Andy McNab about the state of the Afghan war in 2012, the complex network of individuals and organisations both remote and on the ground who make rescue operations possible, and the importance of reliable intelligence in preparing for these kinds of dangerous missions.

It's 2012 and in Northern Afghanistan, an international crisis has erupted. A group of NGO workers have been kidnapped by local insurgents and are now hidden in a winding mountain region. After attempts to negotiate a deal with the bandits fail, and with the lives of the hostages hanging in the balance, there is only one option... the SAS and Navy SEALs are sent in to find and free them. The Rescue is the action-packed story of the special forces' attempts save the hostages from almost certain death. Drawing on classified sources and using his own personal insight into the inner-workings of these units, Andy McNab gives a page-turning account of this incredible mission. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to Andy McNab about the state of the Afghan war in 2012, the complex network of individuals and organisations both remote and on the ground who make rescue operations possible, and the importance of reliable intelligence in preparing for these kinds of dangerous missions.

Matthew “Griff” Griffin is a former Special Operations Army Ranger, West Point Graduate, award-winning documentary producer, philanthropist, and co-founder and CEO of Combat Flip Flops – a fashion and lifestyle company that sells goods manufactured in conflict and post-conflict zones. After serving four combat tours as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq with the storied 2nd Ranger Battalion, Griffin departed the military in 2006 to create positive, sustainable change in conflict areas. With the skills learned in the military, he co-founded Combat Flip Flops, which uses their profits to aid the areas in which they are made – funding girls' education, clearing land mines, and supporting veteran charities as a part of Griffin's mission to encourage peace through trade and “business over bullets.” A powerful and emotional speaker, Griffin is known for a moving TEDx talk on the power of persistence, creativity, and respect, as well as for his successful appearance on the entrepreneurial television show Shark Tank, where he secured a deal with not only one but three “sharks” including Mark Cuban. Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Griffin is a firm believer that “anything worth doing is worth overdoing” and shares his inspiring and motivating story of chasing big goals and creating positive change with audiences globally. Griff is truly a man who proves you should never give up on your dreams! A Graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point with a degree in Engineering Management, Griffin served in the 75th Ranger Regiment as a Rifle Company Fire Support Officer, with three tours to Afghanistan and one tour to Iraq. After leaving the Army, Griffin moved to the private sector as the director of military sales for Remote Medical International and the director of special operations for Protect the Force. There, he specialized in developing solutions for companies growing business in "difficult" locations, which led to the development of Combat Flip Flops. The company has operated in Afghanistan, Laos, and Colombia, helping local populations pull themselves out of poverty, and has funded education for more than 800 girls in Northern Afghanistan. In addition to building a globally respected philanthropic brand, Griffin was a member of the first team to successfully ski off the tallest mountain in Iraq in the award-winning film, Adventure Not War: Ski Iraq. In 2019, he led and executive produced the film, Here Am I, Send Me, a Sundance recognized film that follows the trail of Griffin and fellow Rangers freefalling a Gold Star Mother into the opening ceremonies of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day.  In 2021, Griffin founded 46&2 Transitions, a non-profit organization focused on helping transitioning veterans overcome PTSD through holistic methodologies. He is currently leading a 2-year clinical study to prove the effectiveness of focused meditation and plant medicine to heal wounds sustained in combat.

Episode 13 of Radio Resistance sheds light onto an unfolding crisis that's not getting the attention it should - the "Waziristanization" of northern Afghanistan, as Pakistani Taliban (TTP) terrorists and their families are being resettled in the north.We dissect the many sides of this escalating situation - forced displacement of indigenous populations, Taliban's fueling of ethnic tensions, regional security risks, geopolitical games, and the pressing need for a united global counter-terror response.Since recording this episode, the situation has unfortunately worsened, adding an even greater sense of urgency. We've linked to some resources below to keep you updated.06/13/2023: https://www.afintl.com/en/20230613500606/13/2023: https://www.wearenrf.org/publications...06/21/2023: https://www.usip.org/publications/202...07/2023: https://smallarmssurvey.org/smuggling...07/08/2023: https://www.voanews.com/a/pakistan-ca...07/11/2023: https://amu.tv/56130/Support the show

Jeremy and Sarah are bible smugglers and church planters in the Muslim world. In June Jeremy took bibles into Northern Afghanistan (where no Americans have been since the Taliban took control) and Mecca, Saudi Arabia (where no Muslims are allowed). Before the trip three different people who didn’t know each other warned Jeremy that he would be facing life-threatening danger. They prayed, talked to trusted mentors and God gave peace that Jeremy should risk his life for the sake of the gospel. As Jeremy and Sarah parted he said, “Jesus Is Worth It.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephan Jensen joins The Boardwalk crew to talk about his time as an adviser in Northern Afghanistan with the Norwegian army. _________________________________________ 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 

https://www.markarose.substack.com/I am Mark Rose activist, in 2009 I helped shaped what would become the Cannabis Industry in Colorado, by opening one of the first medical cannabis dispensaries, also testifying on behalf of patient rights at the State Capitol and working directly with State lawmakers. I have been interviewed in High Times, Rolling Stone, Denver Post, WSJ, & New York Times. I was involved with the distribution of Cannabis since I was a kid and continued that in a big way after I moved to Colorado, I realized the hypocrisy of cannabis laws and worked hard to change them. I am now in the process of starting a new company.I have gone through Ketamine therapy which has changed my life for the better. I have suffered from severe PTSD, and Bipolar since I was a child and traditional medicines never worked. While with just 6 shots of Ketamine, my symptoms were improved to a point of being almost gone. My first LSD experience was in 1972 and ever since I wanted others to be able to experience what I had. I have been through the opioid epidemic; after I fell 150 ft., and was one of the first patients given oxycontin and luckily survived that addiction so many do not, psychedelics helped me break those chains. Just like when I spoke about Cannabis at the State Capital in Colorado or in the press back in 2009 when we were fighting for our rights to use Cannabis- it's the same with Psychedelics: I speak from experience and my heart, people need to know it is safe and effective and I aim to make that happen. I was also involved in the movement to shut down Rocky Flats who made plutonium triggers for the nuclear weapons industry in Colorado in the early 80s.I have worked in Healthcare;Cardiopulmonary, EMT-I, registered polysomnography Technologist in the very early days of sleep medicine. I have also owned several businesses. I also was a delegate for Bernie Sanders in 2016. I grew up in the rust belt town of Toledo Ohio, I left in 1978 to join the United States Air Force's MedicalSquadron, I then came to Boulder Colorado, lived mostly in or near my beloved Nederland Colorado. I also spent some time in Bellingham, Washington & Yellowstone. I have been to Russia, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany, Holland, Tajikistan, and fished just over the border in Northern Afghanistan. Active every election because I feel it is my civic duty.Currently I am looking into starting a business that involves Iboga therapy. I am currently employed at JM Smuc I became disabled from a severe inflammatory reaction from the Moderna vaccine that damaged my AV node, but my health is improving everyday.

Package made from the B-roll "Building Bridges in Northern Afghanistan" about German service members helping Afghan engineers finish building a much-needed school and infrastructure in northern Afghanistan.

Many Soldiers have served multiple deployments in two combat zones. Why do they reenlist? Sgt. Frank Brown shares a few reasons. Soundbites from Sgt. Damon Jordan, Staff Sgt. Naima Rasool, Spc. David Evans, Spc. Gloria Cranford, Spc. Mariya Kristeva and Gen. David Petraeus. Also available in high definition

1st Lt. Monicia Porter Convoy Commander with the 1230th Transportation Company leads a Team of Georgia National Guardsman out of a motor pool on a dark, drizzly night in Northern Afghanistan. Porter's mission today is to sustain Regional Command North, but normally she's right at home leading math in a high school classroom. Also available in high definition

Taliban says 40 rebels killed in northern Afghanistan's Panjshir by Radio Islam

Lynne O'Donnell is a journalist with 30 years of experience. She was in Northern Afghanistan when US troops first entered the country in 2001 and was in Kabul last year when the country ultimately fell to the Taliban. Between that time she was a correspondent, eventually becoming the Kabul bureau chief for the French news agency AFP and then the Associated Press from 2009 to 2017. She now writes for publications such as Foreign Policy and the South China Morning Post, and can be found on Substack. She holds a Master's Degree in War Studies from Kings College London, and has authored two books: High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen at War, released in 2007, and a yet unreleased book titled From the Frontline: Women Reporting War. You can follow Lynne and read her articles at the following places:Twitter: @lynnekodonnellSubstack: https://lynneodonnell.substack.com/Personal Website: https://lynneodonnell.net/_________________________________________ 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  Podcast Theme Song"KMAG YOYO"by Hayes Carllwww.hayescarll.comThe 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. 

From the front row pew at his mother's church, to the Korengal Valley in Northern Afghanistan, to launching Grindhouse Wrestling Gym LC Cain might be one of the most motivational people we have ever met. Truly a unique and inspiring person, we talked about everything from kids in a gym, to the role that social media is playing in the racial divide. 

Kyle sits down with Chris to discuss the path to becoming a Navy SEAL, cave operations in Northern Afghanistan, the responsibilities of being a NASA Astronaut and life on the International Space Station. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, Chris Cassidy spent 11 years and four deployments operating as a Navy SEAL, before becoming a NASA Astronaut. Over the next 17 years, as an astronaut, Chris made three trips to space, completed 54 hours of spacewalk time and served as the Commander of the International Space Station for over six months. His time as an astronaut culminated with his selection as NASA's 14th Chief Astronaut. Today, Chris serves as the President of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation. The National Medal of Honor Museum is currently being built in Arlington, Texas and will open Fall/Winter of 2024. If you would like to know more about Chris's journey, you can follow him on Instagram @Astro_Seal or watch the incredible documentary, Among The Stars, on Disney+, which highlights his journey as an astronaut and his time as Commander of the International Space Station. 

Former U.S. Army Special Forces Major, Mark Nutsch, joins Flint to talk about his new book 'Swords of Lightning'. As America's response to the attacks of 9/11, Captain Nutsch led one of the first “Task Force Dagger” combined teams of CIA, Special Forces A-team (ODA-595), and Combat Controllers into Northern Afghanistan. Flint and Mark talk about his experiences in Afghanistan and the strategy of working locals in the area.

In this episode of Red Pill Revolution, we discuss the unbelievable stories of 5 Medal of Honor recipients. Dakota Meyer, Kyle Carpenter, Salvatore Giunta, John Chapman; All Heros with their own incredible stories that we dive into and discuss. Listen in and pay homage to these remarkable men.   Subscribe and leave a 5-star review today!   Protect your family and support the Red Pill Revolution Podcast with Affordable Life Insurance. This is attached to my license and not a third-party ad!   Go to https://agents.ethoslife.com/invite/3504a now!   Currently available in AZ, MI, MO, LA, NC, OH, IN, TN, WV Email redpillrevolt@protonmail.com if you would like to sign up in a different state   Leave a donation, sign up for our weekly podcast companion newsletter, and follow along with all things Red Pill Revolution by going to our new website: https://redpillrevolution.co   Full Transcription:   Hello, and welcome to red pill revolution. My name is Austin Adams. Thank you so much for listening today. This is episode number 30 of the red pill revolution podcast. And again, thank you so much for listening. Uh, pretty excited about this conversation we're going to have today. It is all surrounding, you know, a little bit in the Memorial day theme here, we are going to be discussing all of, uh, some really incredible stories surrounding some of the medal of honor recipients from our great nation here in the United States of America.   Um, I know we have some people listening abroad, but there's some really incredible stories. Some really incredible people that we're going to highlight to. Uh, so I'm really excited to get into this. A few of the names that we're going to be going over is Kyle Carpenter, Dakota Meyer Salvatore. Gianatta John Chapman, Thomas Paine.   And then we got a sprinkle of some Jocko Willink in here to bowl the, get us into the episode and an outro to the episode. So I think that's the, I don't think you can get any more American than jockowillink. So let's go ahead and jump into this clip here. A little bit of a, some Memorial day United States pride here, here is Jocko Willink   in a country that most people would struggle to find on a map in a compound that few possess the courage to enter men from my previous life. Took the fight to our enemy in that compound, they found men that pray five times a day for your destruction. Those praying men don't know me. They don't know you.   And they don't know America. They don't understand our compassion, our freedoms and our tolerance. I know it may seem as if some of those things are currently missing, but they remain at our core and always will. Those men don't care about your religious beliefs. They don't care about your political opinions.   They don't care if you sit on the left or the right liberal or conservative pacifist or war. They don't care. How much you believe in diversity, equality or freedom of speech. They don't care. Sorry. You've never felt the alarm bells ringing in your body. The combination of fear and adrenaline as you move towards the fight instead of running from it.   Sorry, you've never heard someone cry out for help or cried out for help yourself. Relying on the courage of others to bring you home.   I'm sorry. You've never tasted the salt from your own tears. As you stand at flag draped, coffins bearing men, you were humbled to call your friends.   I don't wish those experiences on you.   But I do wish them had them.   if you had them, it would change the way you act, who would change the way you value. It would change the way you appreciate. You would become quick to open your eyes and slow to open your mouth.   Most will never understand the sacrifice required to keep evil men like those from that distant compound away from our doorstep. But it would not hurt you to try and understand would not hurt you to take a moment to think of the relentless drain on family, friends, and loved ones that are left behind sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, sometimes for years.   Sometimes forever   ideas are not protected by words, paper and ink may outline the foundation and principles of this nation, but it is blood only blood that protects it   in that dusty compound. A man you have never met, gave everything he had so that you have the freedom to think, speak and act. However you choose.   He went there for all of us, whether you loved or hated what he stood for. He went there to preserve the opportunity and privilege, to believe, to be, and to become what we want.   this country, every single person living inside of its borders and under the banner of its flag. Oh, that man, we owe that man, everything. We owe him the respect that his sacrifice deserves saying, thank you is not enough. We send our best and lose them in the fight against the worst evil this world has to offer.   If you want to respect and honor their sacrifice, it needs to be more than words. You have to live. Take a minute and look around, soak it in the good, the bad and the ugly. You have the choice every day as to which category you want to be in, in which direction you want to move, you have that choice because the best among us, the best we ever had to offer, fought, and bled and died for it.   Don't ever forget that.   Wow. Well, what a way to start the show today? Uh, definitely hit me in my fields, Jocko Willink. They're just kind of outlining what this day is about, right? Th th the Memorial day is, is, you know, shrouded with barbecue grills and, and beach parties with the family and, you know, and all that's amazing and all of that's great.   And I'm sure every soldier who has ever sacrificed his, his life would have wanted it that way. Right? We're, we're, we're celebrating life, not just, you know, being, uh, having sorrow for those that we have lost, but it doesn't take away from the fact that we have to remember what the day's about. You know, we have to remember the reason that we are able to even have this type of weekend and the true reason behind that, which is soldiers who have lost their lives for us to have the freedoms that we have here in the United States.   Now over the last few episodes that, you know, I'm sure it seems like we've had, we've had a tough go here in the United States, you know, the last, the last several months, the last couple of years, even. Um, but I don't think that takes away from, from something that I found pretty powerful in that statement that Jocko Willink just said was that the, the piece of paper is what defines who our country is.   But the blood of the individuals who are willing to defend it is truly what matters in that really rings true. And I think we're going to see that today with a lot of the individuals that we're going to hear their stories and know that they're just everyday people, everyday people just like you and me who decided to go into the military for one reason or another.   Um, but generally, because they're a Patriot because they believe in what our country stands for. And this is something that I've had to wrestle with recently. Right? I am a veteran myself. I am not a combat veteran, so I did not have the experience that these individuals have had. Um, but you know, something that we, we have to remind ourselves during this time is that there is truly a unique individual who's willing to run to the fight.   And every single story that we hear of here is not only the individuals who signed that line, not only the individuals who picked up a weapon and went overseas and left their families, left their children, left their, their, their significant others left everything behind, just so they could S could go and fight for what they believe in.   Right. And that's kind of what I was getting at before, which is that, you know, it's, it's difficult. It's, it's easy to look at all of the flaws that we have in the United States here today. It's easy to look at, you know, the, the political divide in the partisan divides that we have in, in kind of just, uh, you know, diminish what these great men have done for us.   But, but that's, that's such a shallow viewpoint. Right? And, and the reason that these men signed that, that line is not because they believe in the politicians. It's not because they believe. You know, they, they believe in who we are as a nation. They believe in the individuals that are around them. They believe in the, that piece of paper that Jocko Willink just talked about, right.   The constitution, which was written as a, a literal divide between totalitarianism, that we're seeing all across the world right now in almost every so many. So many countries are dealing with, with this totalitarian states, you look at China, you, you look at the way that they're just ripping people off of their streets and like these like home alone, white jumpsuits and, and you know, for how long we've looked at these different countries and thought that just, it could never be like that here.   Well, why is that? Well, that's because of two reasons, two reasons why that is. And the first reason. We have our constitution. Our constitution is, is the founding document of our nation that allows us to have a, a literal defense against individuals who are in the political system, who are trying to take as much power as possible.   The constitution stops us from having people who can go in and become the system. There was already a set system that is out there. There was already a outline of the way that we have to act in the separation of powers and all of these individual things that make it, that, that were pre thought out, knowing that politicians are.   Dirty knowing that politicians are generally corruptible, knowing that people are flawed, right. And that's truly what it is, is people are flawed. And to know that people are flooding and to implement an institution in a piece of paper, a founding document with our constitution, which will allow us to have a literal divide, a literal wall, a defense against those corruptible individuals who seek power in the easiest way to go find it, which is through the political system.   So that is number one. We have our constitution, which is a actual defensive wall against those corruptible individuals on the inside. And that is the number one thing that we have to protect ourselves from. If we're going to remain a free country. Now, number two, which is equally as important is to have, is that what we have the fortune of having here in the United States is the greatest military power in the world.   The greatest military power in the history of. Right. And that doesn't protect us from the inside more than it protects us from the outside. So to allow us to maintain this organization, to maintain this, this ongoing freedom away from other totalitarian individuals who are wanting to come in and push their political agendas, whether they're from, you know, foreign or domestic, right.   Is, is that what you raise your hand? I promise to defend in the country from foreign and domestic enemies, the foreign aspect of that is where the military comes into play. Right. And, and the military is just a broken. A list of individual names who are willing to put themselves, put their lives on the line to make these things happen.   So let's go ahead and let's jump into the very first clip here that we have, which is actually the, so let's do a little bit of background on the, the medal of honor. So all of these individuals that we're highlighting today, our medal of honor recipients. Now it is Memorial day. Some of these individuals, I believe even most of them are not deceased, which is definitely a positive thing.   Um, but just so you know, that. And this is Memorial day, but I am highlighting medal of honor. Right? So the medal of honor is the very first, uh, it was, it was the very first, um, distinguishing factor for the American military  so, uh, Abraham Lincoln implemented the medal of honor, and it's kind of just, it been the most distinguished honor that you can have, uh, being a part of the military.   All right. Now the structure of this with the medal of honor is that you actually have to either get a congressional, um, a Congressman has to put your name down for the medal of honor or your chain of command. So those are two different ways that you can get a medal of honor. So far there's been around 3,500 medal of honor recipients.   Most of those medal of honor recipients were at the very beginning. Like I think it's like 80% of the medal of honor recipients were towards the very, very beginning of when the medal of honor was, uh, was made. And so since then the requirements to receive the medal of honor has gone up and, and become much more, uh, Distinguished in, in there's a lot more, um, I guess, uh, I dunno, there's a lot, there's a lot more, um, specific things that you have to boxes.   You have to check to get the medal of honor, as opposed to what it was like before. So a vast, vast majority came at the very beginning of when the medal of honor was made in the early 18 hundreds. Okay. So there's the background for it now, since then the most recent, uh, requirements change was in 1963, I believe where they began to make these requirements more stringent and you see less and less of these medal of honors today.   So the very first one that we're going to watch here is of Kyle Carpenter. Kyle Carpenter is an incredible story. He's actually the youngest medal of honor recipient ever. Um, it's truly, truly an incredible story. I don't want to take anything away from it for you guys here, so let's go ahead and listen to it.   And then we will discuss.   I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to devote my life. My body, if need be to something greater than myself or any one individual   in 2010, I deployed with second battalion ninth Marines to Marsha Afghanistan. We were constantly attacked, just like we were every single day for the entire deployment. The fighting was very intense and it wasn't a matter of okay. Is it going to happen, but just a matter of when   myself and amazing friend and fellow Marine, when it scroll up on NICU Fazio, we were on top of that roof together. We were near the end of our four hour post position on top of the roof. When the enemy initiated a daylight attack with hand grenades   I felt like I got hit really hard in the face. My vision was as if I was looking at a TV with no connection, it was just white and gray static. I thought about my family and how devastated they were going to be. Especially my mother that didn't make it home from Afghanistan. And I closed my eyes and I faded out of consciousness for what I thought was going to be my last time on this earth.   my injuries were so severe that still nine years later,   it's hard to comprehend that I survived.   all right. So what it's saying here, I'm going to pause it real quick because it's, it's, it's saying some stuff that's pretty important. Basically. What ended up happening is, uh, Kyle actually jumped on a Brittany. Um, and it says that he has very little recollection of what actually happened during this event.   Um, but according to the information that they had here, he, uh, I'll just read it to, you says, says to this day Kyle's memory of what happened on November 21st, 2010, it remains blurry, but a military review of the incident determined that he had covered the grenade with his body to save the life of corporal Nick, you phrase you on June 19th, 2014, Kyle was awarded the medal of honor.   The nation's highest and most prestigious personal military decoration. All right. I just wanted to read that to you guys. I mean, that's pretty, I mean, literally the, the, um, captain America story right there for you and in a real individual, and, and we feel the need to create false idols, to be able to idolize somebody and think that somebody would have the capabilities or the, the mindfulness or, or the courage to do something during this, in, in that type of situation.   And that's why it's outlined in a movie in captain America, uh, an individual, you know, captain America goes on to jump on the grenade, right? This guy, Kyle Carpenter actually did that in the state of war to save his friends. How truly incredible. And like, you know, it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.   That's it's amazing. Um, so let's, let's finish this, if there's anything else that comes up, I'll go ahead and read it to you guys. So.   All right. So while one second, while that loads up for us. Um, but yeah, really incredible story. The fact that, you know, that he, this individual actually did, so it says that several grenades were tossed onto the roof where he was at, and one of them, um, would take an enormous toll. It says Kyle was certain that he was going to die when that happened.   Um, it says Kyle is often asked, uh, what the medal of honor means to him. Um, and let's see if we can get this clip going here to discuss what he actually says there for that. Here we go.   We're just here because we're here. No, we got here because of incredible amounts of courage and sacrifice.   the metal represents all whoever raised their right hand and sworn to give their life if called upon for their country, represents those who have never made it home to receive the things and recognition. They deserve. Those who charged the beaches and world war II froze while fighting in Korea. Bled out across the lush fields of Vietnam and those who never made it home because of another deadly blast in the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, those who were tortured for years in prisoner of war camps and those who still rest and just didn't lands forever remaining missing an action.   The metal represents the parents, husbands wives, and loved ones who have heard the dreaded knock on their front doors to find a telegram or service member delivering the unbearable news. This is where the true weight of the metals caring being a medal of honor. Recipient is a beautiful burden, but one, I am honored to carry   all right. And at the end of the video there, what they show is Kyle going ahead and putting on his medal of honor. So, um, really an incredible story, unbelievable story. And one that will, we'll go on in history as the, you know, the, the real captain America courage here with Kyle Carpenter. Um, you know, I almost feel like there should have been his name in the credits of the captain America movie, that they, you know, stole, stole that scene from something that actually happened with a true hero, um, with Kyle Carpenter there.   So what an incredible story. Um, now the next one that we're going to discuss here is going to be a Dakota Meyer. Now Dakota Meyers is a somewhat of a large figure when it comes to combat veterans who have spoken out, he's been on Joe Rogan, I believe once or twice, I think twice where the first time he went on and discussed his story directly in his story is.   A hard one to listen to and in a pretty gruesome one at that. And then, you know, that's kind of the thing that you hear about the differences between war. I don't know, you know, the way that our modern wars are fought is, is a lot of times, you know, you think of a gunfight and you're pressing a button from afar land, or like from, from hundreds of yards away and shooting it, you know, enemy fire zones and, and, you know, you're seeing small areas where you're shooting at and that didn't use to be the case.   Right. You think back to like the way that they fought in, I dunno, think of like, you know, 17 hundreds was like swords and stuff. That's not that far removed from where we are. So there's some really gruesome stories that come out of like older wars and we, we don't have as many hand-to-hand combat stories.   And Dakota Meyer is one of those stories where it really just reminds you of. The real gritty, terrible aspects of even modern war. And, um, we'll hear a little bit more about it when he discusses it here, but he talks about, um, in, in this clip, he not only discusses what he actually went through, what he did.   Um, but Dakota Meyer is an incredible story where I believe he was the only one of his team that made it out of a situation where, um, they basically left them stranded. So I don't want to take away too much of his stories surrounding it. Um, but it's a, it's a really incredible story. That's a little, you know, he, I believe he ends up, um, he gets in the hand-to-hand combat situation with somebody and ends up killing them with a rock man.   Like that's a tear. I can't even imagine what these guys carry around with them. Right. In, in that Kyle Carpenter story, not only the fact that he jumped on a grenade, but the fact that he lived to tell about it, he has very little recollection of what happened. Must be a really difficult thing. To try and wrestle with right.   To try. And you know, how often does that come up in his mind and into not even remember what actually happened? One of the curd must be really, I don't know, I guess a blessing in some ways, but also frustrating because it's such a pivotal moment in your life, right? Like you have how many days of your life that, that, you know, thousands and thousands of days in your life.   And, and to have this one most impactful day, like whether it's with what happened with Kyle Carpenter, where he jumps on that grenade and lives to tell the tale, or whether it's about Dakota Meyer, where he ends up having to take this other man's life. And he talks about not only having to take this man's life, but like the humanity behind it.   And then looking into this man's eyes and knowing that he's just another. Uh, another person just like him, who has a family and kids. And, um, it's, it's, it's tough, but I think it's necessary. We have to know what these people go through to properly be able to memorialize, you know, the other soldiers who actually did fall in these types of situations.   But, um, let's go ahead and listen to the Dakota Meyer story now. Well, I think sometimes people need to hear it from somebody like you, you know, or someone like Jocko or, you know, the, the, the beautiful thing about these podcasts is that you get to hear people's perspective. And a lot of them are eye-opening, you know, they, they they're, they literally can change the world because they changed the way you behave and you interact with people when you listen to it.   Yeah. And that podcast that you did with Jocko, when I was listening to me, it changed my whole day. It changed like how I was going to look at my day. I was, you know, instead of like looking at my day, like up it's a normal day, I was thinking, God damn, I'm lucky. God damn, I'm lucky and goddamn. Imagine.   Experiencing what you, and how old were you at the time? I was 21, 21 years old. And experiencing what you experienced in that insane firefight being locked down. And I mean, how many guys did you wind up engaging with? I don't know. I, you know, I don't know. I mean, everyone that I got an opportunity with.   Right. And it just, you know, it was just, uh, you know, it was so chaotic. I mean, I, you know, I still, I look, I think about all the time, obviously. Um, it's something I could have never experienced. I mean, I trained for war every single day when I was in the Marine Corps. I mean, it was what it was, what my job was and I still could have never imagined that day, the way it was or anything to turn out.   I could've never pictured it. I could've never, and, and I think every day it goes by, I think there's a reckoning of it, right. The way that I seen it that day is not the way I see it today. And, uh, I think that comes with, you know, just, just sharpening and just your body, you know, you change and you, you see different things in perspective, but yeah, I mean, you know, I, I, I, you know, that day, I mean, it's still, I mean, it still is just, you know, just, it's just there and, and, and literally I walked out of there and I, I just think about all the time today.   I just think about all the time of how many generations, just that day were changed. How many generations of, of people's lives were changed? You know, all my teammates died, so don't ever have kids that generations stopped their families forever. So many lives were changed that day by that, that, that piece.   And guess what? And everybody in America had no clue it was going on. Like right now, there are us. Somebody wondering if they're going to be able to come home and see their family again, that's reality, whether you want to ignore it or not like that's reality. And that was me September 8th, 2009. And it was just, um, gosh, it was a chaotic day.   I think that's an important thing to highlight too, is like, you know, what percentage of people that are going into these actual firefight, what is their average age like the, the, the military at that level is primarily made up of, you know,  may be some staff Sergeant like the primary, primary bulk of the individuals who are going in and fighting.   These wars are 18 to 22 year old kids. Right? Like you listen to, uh, you know, all of these conversations around, you know, gun control and, and, you know, should he be able to purchase a gun or not at 18 years old and all this stuff of like the recent events. So the tragic events that have happened. And you don't even remember the fact that worse, our government literally arms 18 olds and sends them to fight on their behalf.   And the 18 year olds that are signing up to go into the military. Don't don't have the big picture in mind. They barely paid attention in government class if like me. Um, and, and they, they really don't even know how our political system works, let alone geopolitics, and what's happening around the world.   And like what's actually going on, um, they're 18 to 22 year old kids who are going to fight the wars of these 85, 70 year old politicians who they don't have a clue what they're actually fighting for other than, you know, what you'll hear a lot in, in these kinds of videos is you'll, they'll hear them talking about who they're with, right.   Their team, um, saving their buddy next to them. That's what they fight for. And the fundamental ideal that they have surrounding what the United States is and what it means to be a Patriot and what the constitution stands for and being the, you know, um, th th the freest country in the world, right? And that's what these 18 year olds, the ideals that they're fighting for in their head at this age, besides the actual, like geopolitical situation of why we're actually going in there, what we're actually doing and why we're doing it, they're kids going into these situations.   And what you'll find is like, this is kind of an interesting conversation. This, you know, he talks about, you know, they were married and they had didn't, weren't old enough yet to have kids, right. They weren't old enough to be able to see what life is actually about when you, when you look at your child's eyes, when they're born, and they didn't get any of that.   And, and not only that, but their, their family lineage has gone. They did, they, they will not reproduce. There will be no duplication of that DNA because of these wars that they were sent to fight at. It's such a young age, And so, you know, to me, it's like these conversations running like is an 18 year old able to carry a gun.   Well, if you're going to allow people to sign up for the military and to go fight on behalf of our government and wars that these 18 year olds don't even understand, yet you gotta, you can't, you can't like have your cake and eat it too. As people say, right? Like you can't not allow an 18 year old to protect his own home because he can't purchase a weapon, but then send him to Afghanistan to go fight the Taliban in the same breath, because you think that it's okay for them to do that under their scenario.   Right. And under your, your reasoning. Right. Because, you know, and that's kind of how you have to look at that gun situation. I guess we'll, we'll take a little skirt side sidetrack here, you know, to me the gun, situation's an interesting one. And especially with the most recent events and things. That, you know, the, if you look at the government from a large standpoint is the government is its own entity, right?   It's its own, uh, household, right? It's a household of 300 million people, and then you break it down to the state level, right? And the state is just a smaller organization of that same family, right? That it breaks down to a smaller number. And inside that you have counties and inside that you have cities and inside that you have subdivisions and inside that you have households, but what the country is, is just its own family entity that has decided that we're on the same team.   Right. And we all live around each other, so we should be kind to each other and we should have some rules and that type of deal. Right. So when you break it down to like the, the household level, the, the, the government in the sense stands when it comes to gun control is basically. The government wants to be able to control weapons for its own personal reasons to defend itself.   Right? As a country, as a country family, it wants to defend its property, right? It wants to be able to do that. And it does that through military action right now, when you break that to the state level, you have sheriffs in the national guard and you have state entities that want to be able to defend itself against its enemies.   And then you have the households, right? You have, you have actual physical subdivisions, you're home in that subdivision, and you need to be able to do what the government does. You need to be able to do what the federal government does, what the state, they all know that they have to do it. It's the same reason.   Joe Biden has a security guard, armed security, all around him at all times. Same thing with celebrities, same thing. You know, all of these people that are preaching gun control are constantly surrounded by their own security who are all. Right, but, but you're, you're the peasant. You don't need that stuff.   You, what do you have to worry about? You're not famous. And like, I am, you're not a political elite. Like me, what do you have to worry about? Right. So they want to strip your right away. But if there's no guns that are allowed, right. If they strip your right to own a handgun or the purchase without, you know, extreme background checks where they get to say whether, you know, you get it or not.   If, if that's allowed, you know, that, that allows them to be, you know, when, when the constitution was written and we're getting on a little bit of a rant here, when the constitution was written, the idea for, for the second amendment was not was, was generally not yet for hunting. Right? Sure. You should be able to have a gun.   Right. But it's also protection of person and protection of property. And it's also protection from a totalitarian government. Right? So, so in the same way that they want to defend themselves against other countries, they want to defend themselves against their enemies. There are people, there are bad individuals, bad countries out there who want to harm.   There are also bad people out there who want to harm the president. There are bad people who want to harm celebrities and there's bad people who want to harm me and you. And so why should it be any different if the government is okay, I can much rather get on the page of the government. If they want to say that nobody gets guns, we don't get guns.   We're going to, we're going to sign a treaty with the UN where everybody just throws all of their weapons in a circle, and we're going to go back to the stone age. And we're just going to beat the shit out of each other with sticks, because that's, you know, we don't like guns anymore. If everybody agrees that we're on the same page and there's no longer going to be gun manufacturers that every single gun that's ever distributed, it has been rightfully returned and checked next to a box so that we know there are zero guns that are out there.   We can have a conversation about that, but if, but if the government wants to be armed, if our president wants armed security, if our celebrities get armed security, if everybody, but the peasants gets to have guns and then they want to take away your rights. No, I'm on, I'm not, I can't buy into that. Right.   Because it, for in the same way as it's, it's, um, it's a microcosm, the family household is a microcosm of what the government is. And so to strip the family of, of their ability to defend themselves, this doesn't work, right. It's the same reason our government will never lay down their arms and just give it to the UN and say, all right, right.   If we're all going to throw in our weapons on an individual level, why don't we do it on the government level? Well, because we all know that there's sneaky ass people out there who want to do you harm there's countries who want to kill American soldiers. Right. We know that we also know that there's individuals out there who are going to break into somebody's house tonight and murder somebody.   It's just, it's just, unfortunately, the side-effect of humanity is there is bad people that are. And that in that you see that in that macro level of our government, our government is not going to just throw their guns into the middle with every other government say, oh, all right, we're all safe. We're going to go back to using sticks, to beat the shit out of each other.   No, they're not going to do that. They know that the power is in the weaponry. The power is in the individual who holds the, the, the most deadly weapon. Right. And so why would we as individuals give that up? All right. Anyways, side note, everybody who goes into the military, if you're going to say 18 is too young to own a weapon to go into a, um, a gun store and purchase an AR to protect yourself, to protect your family, to go hunting, whatever the hell.   Then you have to change the military age. You can't just, you, you can't just allow them to shed blood on your behalf, but not allow them to protect their own home. It makes no sense. So anyway, so let's, let's continue this Dakota Meyer clip. It's amazing how you could have, uh, thousands of days in your life in one day changes the way you look at everything.   One day, it changes the way you look at everything and, you know, and like the further I go on, I look at it different. You know, I always talk about the story of, um, you know, whenever this guy came up behind me and I ended up, I ended up killing him with a rock and I always remember just like, I remember it.   Like I see it every night. Like I remember like I just see his face and I got just, cause there was a point, there was a point that I, I feel like that anybody that when they, whether they're injured or anything, like they realized that. Like they like it. Like, I don't know. I just think there's a point when you look at somebody and they know they're going to die and on there, forget that.   And I, you know, now I look at it and I see it and how we sank that, like   this guy is a son to somebody, his mother and father are gonna miss him. This guy, he believes in his cause as much as I do, he doesn't believe he's wrong. This guy, this guy, he, he could have had a wife or kids that are never going to see their father. Again, just like, you know, my dad, might've never seen me again if it was switched and really, I don't even know.   I don't hate him. I don't even know this guy. We're just here at this place right now, because we were born in two different. When you add a weapons, were you out of, out of him? So my, no, he had came up and he started choking me. Uh, I had shot him once before and he, I was trying to pick my buddy, Donna Lee, my, my, my, one of my closest Afghans daughter.   Lee had been shot. He, he got killed. He had been killed and I came around this terrorist to get him and I was on my knee and this guy came up behind me. And, um, so he didn't have a weapon either. He was, he did, he, he had a weapon and I ended up shooting him from the ground. And I thought he was dead when he fell on the ground.   And I kind of moved down and got down with Donna Lee because I was still getting shot at, from this machine gun up on this hill. And I was trying to make myself small as I could. And, um, this guy ends up coming up with choking me. Like I thought he was, I thought he was dead and he ends up choking me out.   He starts trying to choke me out and eventually led up a little bit and I ended up getting around. And I just got, we were fighting back and forth and I can remember all of us thinking about it was like, don't let his legs to get on me. Like, you know, these guys, their legs are, I mean, they've been crawling up mountains our whole life.   And he was a, he was a pretty big dude. And, um, I just remember getting on top of him, finally got on top of him and I ended up, I was rolling on top of him. He didn't have all the gear on I did. And, um, I ended up, I remember getting on top of him, like, like I was straddling him and I'm just reaching up, trying to grab for anything I can and I'm holding him and I'm holding him down with my throat, with my forearm and I'm just grabbing anything I can.   And finally, I ended up grabbing a rock and I just started beating this dude space in and I started beating and beaten and beaten. And I remember, I remember just like finally, like after hitting him, you know, I don't know, three or four times four or five times, whatever. I remember him, like finally just kind of looking at me and like, just it's it's like, he's like just, I'm just looking at him in the eyes, like obviously closer than me to you right now.   You just see all the, you can tell, like he knows where this is going. And I always think about that, you know, um, obviously I would kill him a million times over again. Right. He, he was the enemy. Like, I don't feel bad about that part of it, but I just think about like, in that moment, if I can find a way to relate to him in that moment, uh, man, I'm taking his life.   We all in America can find a way to connect with each other. If we don't connect with each other because we choose not to, I don't care what your differences are. Like. Don't like find a reason to why we can get along, not why we should not get along. Right. Wow. So that's pretty, um, like I was saying a little, a little intense, right?   That's it's a truly a horrific situation that this man found himself in and how unfortunate to have to be. In a situation where you have to take somebody's life or it's your own. Right. And you said that he said that I would do it a thousand times over if I had to, because he was the enemy. Right. He was going to do that to me.   He came up to me to choke me. There's nothing that I could've done to put, put, put myself out of the situation, besides not go in the military. You know, however many years ago he had been in three years. Um, but, but he was positioned in, in somewhere where he had to defend himself and had to defend the people around him.   And you know, what, what he didn't talk about there was the, what led up to that, but I'm believe none, nobody on his team made it out. It was just him in that situation. And, uh, you know, that's, that's something that's easy to forget too. It's easy to like glorify them. It's easy to like put them on a pedestal because they went off and fought.   But like, man, it's such a mixed emotion. That should be such a powerful thing on Memorial day to like look back at what they actually went through. Right. What, what they actually had to endure both in the, in the moment and then for the rest of their life, after these actions, after defending themselves, after, you know, um, positioning, being positioned in a way where they had to go through this and, and do these things to other people.   And it's probably not very often, well, maybe it is maybe, you know, but, but it's, it's, it's refreshing to hear someone, you know, I guess refreshing and then an interesting to hear somebody go from speaking about. Beating someone's face in with a rock four or five times in, in, in seeing them really just like, decide that they're okay.   Not okay with it, but just decide that like, oh, this might be it right to like, actually have to look at the humanity of an individual in that moment and realize, you know, that maybe this is the end of your life, that you're not going to see your children and, and on both sides of it. Right. It's like the, I don't know.   I think the more developed we get as a world, right? As a consciousness, as an individual, the more we realize that, like these wars, at least from, you know, uh, uh, human aspect, or like just makes no sense to be fought in these manners. Like literally neither of those men knew the geopolitics down to the core of what they were there fighting for.   They were positioned by people in power who had agendas in mind that they wanted to accomplish on the backs of this man losing his life. In this situation where he went to, you know, go choke Dakota Meyer, um, either which way it's like it's a horrific event because he just as easily see whoever picked up that rock first, right?   Whoever was put in a position where they could have walked away alive would have seized that chance. But they were only in that position because of the individuals who put them there. But anyways, let's not take away from that. There were always CISM, heroism, heroism is a word heroic CISM. Let's not take away from their heroism of that individual in that moment who faced their fears and had the courage to fight in this situation.   And, and, and now it, like I said, it's a, it's a mixed emotion. You can't just like throw them up on a pedestal. And you know, you have to have empathy is still right. It's not just like, look at the heroes. It's like, man, what these people had to endure to allow us to. Enjoy our lives, the way that we do allow us to maintain our freedom in our S our sovereignty from other nations and, and how easily it is to forget the horrific actions when just putting them on that pedestal.   When just looking at them as a hero, it's easy to forget everything that they had to go through. And like I said, everything they're going to have to endure from here on out, but it's, it's important to understand how deeply complex these things are, even for an 18 and 19 and 20 year old to have to handle, and to not even be in your head like your adult life, right?   Like you're a 17, 18, 19 years old. You signed that dotted line and then you go off and you have to experience such trauma, and then take that into what you believe to be normal everyday adult life, when you're 24. And you, you have your DD two 14 in your hand, and you're ready to like take on the world.   If you're one of these individuals who went through this, like you don't, you don't have the same lens as everybody. You have such a heavier burden to take into everyday life, to take into your first marriage, to take into your, you know, to, to, to parenting your children. And you have such a different vantage point of what, you know, what it means to, to go into the military and what it means to protect your country and what it means to have a constitution, the way that we do and be willing and able to protect and defend it.   Um, it's heavy, right? Like that, that, that that's a kid 19 years old as a kid. And then they carry that burden into every other year, every other decade, every engagement, every family reunion that whatever it is like to you, you carry that with you. Um, so, you know, it's, it's something that's refreshing too, is looking at all these people and looking at how normal they are, right?   Like every single one of these guys could just be right next to you on a plane. They're, you know, talk to you at the, at the bar or. So, you know, it, it speaks to human resiliency too, right. To be able to experience something that horrific and then to come out and still be able to just leave your house, let alone form a sentence or get on a Joe Rogan interview.   Right. Like man. So the next one we're going to listen to is Salvador. Jiante I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, but Salvador Gionta um, we will go ahead and listen to this clip and then we will discuss it too. This is a pretty incredible story. I haven't read too deep into it. Um, but I'm, I'm interested to hear it.   So here we go. I grew up in Cedar rapids, Iowa. I'm the oldest of three children. It was the Midwest middle-class sunshine, rainbows green grass. You don't have to lock the door kind of neighborhood. That was where I grew up in Iowa. I was about to graduate high school and I heard a radio commercial come on.   And I said, you know, come on down, see the recruiter. Who doesn't want a free t-shirt I'm working, but I want a free t-shirt of course I want a t-shirt. So I went down and I, uh, I talked to the recruiter and kind of the things that he said started making sense, you know, we're we're country at war. This was 2003.   We just jumped into Iraq. We we've been in Afghanistan since 2001. This is my chance. I can make a difference if this is what I want to do, and I can do it everywhere, but not in Cedar rapids, Iowa. My great grandparents came over from Italy in 1904. No one that I know of in my immediate family served in any sort of military.   This is my chance to say, you know, the juniors are going to go serve. I'm going to do it. Salvatore, Giunta enlisted in the U S army in November of 2003, after excelling in basic training and infantry school, he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2005. And again, in 2000. The second tour would station him at a remote fire base and the deadly Corrine gal valley.   I remember being so excited to go. I wasn't just excited. I was ready. I'm going to go there and kick in doors and solve this, wrap it up. We'll go home. We'll drink some beers and say, you know what? I served in the United States army. I'm proud of that every day. And within three months of being in country, an IED took out a truck and killed four and gunner lost both of his legs.   These are people in their prime of their life. There will never be stronger than they were that day to no longer have it tomorrow. That was when I truly felt that it was in the army. My second deployment was the corn gold valley. It was like nothing that I had never seen in Afghanistan before we were at the bottom of the valley with mountains, just cheer straight, straight up and down on every single side.   And every single place you're going to fight. You are at the bottom and there's no spot you can choose because you don't get to choose a spot. They get to choose the spot. So operation, rock avalanche when he go to, and I guess that's something that's fair to mention too, is they don't even get to pick where they go or like some of the tactical disadvantages that they've been pulled into.   Like, there's a, there's a movie that came out surrounding. Uh, there was a group of Marines who basically did a bunch of home videos, like early in the, you know, like literal, uh, cam corridor mode. Like I think it was like early mid nineties. Uh, there was a group of Marines. I need to think of the name of the movie because it's a true, unbelievably, incredible depiction.   Um, and it really seems like the whole movie that the depiction of it that they ended up doing seemed like a, um, like they took a lot of the scenes of this home movies that they made. And I think there was like four or five medal of honor recipients. I should have clipped that together for you guys too, but really unbelievable.   A movie that, that came out about this specific, it might, it might be this specific area that he's mentioning here where basically there was a big, um, mountain area surrounding the entire, like a full circle mountain. And then down, down in the valley here, um, there was a, uh, a military base that they were put in a forward operating base, right in the middle of these mountains at the very, very bottom where they were at a complete disadvantage from every single point that you could look at, they were at a disadvantage from, and, uh, there was, uh, many, many, uh, soldiers from the U S who died.   Um, and, and every single day in this area that they were, they were fighting. And in this forward operating base, they would receive gunfire just from the mountains and they could barely even see where it was coming. But the vantage point that they were, they were fighting from was just like, imagine, like, I dunno if you've ever seen, like, I guess that's a bad example, but if there's a, there's just a complete circle of mountains around this area, there's a base at the very, very, very circle middle bottom.   So there's nowhere to hide. There's nowhere to run. Um, there's nowhere to, to even cover, to, to, to reload your weapon besides the, you know, the buildings. And so, um, this movie is truly incredible depiction. So I wonder if this is the same base that they were talking about. There is like the, it might've been, um, like he might've said it, but I think it was like they coined it like death valley, um, but a horrific, horrific, uh, tactical disadvantage vantage that these men were in from the beginning.   Like it's not even like they, they, none of them choose to this either like higher up chain of command guy writes a fucking sticky note and hands it to a corporal and says, all right, start a base at the bottom of this mountain without ever actually visiting. And how many people died on the decisions, like on the backs of that decision, how many these young soldiers lives were lost because of this like terrible tactical disadvantage that they were given from the very beginning.   Like they, they didn't even have a chance from the beginning. And, and so whatever this movie is, you gotta find it. It's a, it's a great, it probably one of my favorite military movies of all time. Um, and, and it truly like captures the humanity. Like the essence of what being in the military is, and all the shit-talking and comradery and all the, you know, difficult situations that you find yourself in.   Um, it's a really incredible story. So, um, but if that's not the place that he's talking about, the fact that they're putting our soldiers in these areas over and over again, now I know that there's been like since then, like statements that they came out and said, yeah, there's no, absolutely no reason that we should have actually put a base in this area.   Uh, I dunno, it's crazy, but I'll, I'll find the name of that hopefully before the end of this podcast. And, and, uh, we'll, we'll see if I can give the shout out and let you have a, a good movie to go watch. Cause it's a really, really incredible movie. Um, but let's, let's continue on this clip again. This is Salvador gianatta, um, discussing his, uh, the time that he received the medal of honor for, we had no idea.   Well, we had Intel and there's Intel. It was lots of bad guys. That's what we came here to do.   the first day we got some contact a couple of times, each day, usually small mines, RPGs. There's some bad guys in the shot at us. And we dropped some orders and other things. Apparently there was a lot of people that they deemed innocent that died. Then they're not. We came to help, but now he pissed off everyone.   I'm here still, other than our little areas that we've been watching for the last, you know, day and half, we don't know what's outside of this. We left where we were headed, headed to another village. It's probably only enough, maybe another street kilometers. And we set up for doing listening posts for going in and engaging the villages saying, Hey, you know, what do you need?   What would, what would make your lives better? And how let's let's talk to offer to all of this is to Bravo radio check over. That was a team leader. So I have a radio so I can click over and I can hear what's going on with the other guys. And we started hearing on the radio chaos shooting. Doesn't make chaos to hear chaos from people who'd been doing this restraint.   And we started hearing they're missing people. They're missing things. There's there's Kia's we have, we have Americans killed there. It was bad. We just stayed waiting, listening to a million bad things, happen to our brothers kilometer away. You've never been more ready than you were right there. And we couldn't do anything right over here.   They over overran a scout team position and they overran a gun team. And second tune was going to go into the village. And then we were going to be on one of the side peaks over watching the village. So if anything, anyone started coming from the outside to come and attack them in the village. We already have the high ground above them and we sat there 12 hours, 14 hours just watching and waiting.   And nothing happened. Commander said, we're going to pull out. We'll go back as it was probably two and a half hours. And the sun was down to the moon was big and that moon really does make a, just a huge amount of difference in what you can. And can't see, there was Sergeant Brennan specialist, sack road, the squad leader, staff, Sergeant Gallardo, myself.   Uh, Casey was my solid gunner. And then clarity was my two or three gunner. We went about 200 meters from where we sat. And that was when I I've never seen before or since anything like what, what happened?   The tracers coming, usually one tracer, four balls. So every time you see one that glows, there was four somewhere in between there and absolutely everything. Every single inch of the air in front of us behind you. Was filled with tracers thousands of bullets in the air going both ways at this point, I think within the first five seconds, I think pretty much everyone had been shot somewhere.   Casey and Clary were behind me and Casey had the 2 49 squad. Automatic weapons saw and searched can shoot about a thousand bullets per minute. Clary was shooting is 2 0 3, which shoots a 40 millimeter grenade. But the guys were so close. She couldn't the grenade. He was just making a lot of booms, but it wasn't on them, but he was doing exactly that.   That was a good thing for him to be doing. And so I looked towards my leader, Sergeant Gallardo, I saw Gallardo coming back and I just saw his head Twitch. And it wasn't like a, what was that Twitch? He was like, something just hit his head Twitch and he dropped, sorry. I just ran out and I grabbed, he was kind of flipped over on his back, but he was okay.   So I kind of grabbed him, was pulling him and he was jumping up and we got back and I went to a little bit of desolate. I probably gave us maybe six to eight inches of relief in the ground. And I, we were both there. And when that happened, I got hit Largo's here and I'm here and they're shooting at us from here.   And I just got hit over here, which the people over here can't shoot over here. That is a very serious thing to figure out incredibly quick, why that bullet came from over here, they set up in an L shape, which if we were to do it, we would do it exactly like that. We were trained from from day one in basic training.   It was a battle drill that a near ambush. What do you do if your ambush happens? Well, you charged the line. You're going to win or lose on that, but you're going to win or lose stain where you're at. And if you stay where you're at, you're probably gonna lose. We threw your name. And we ran forward, that road was on the ground and he said, he'd been shot.   Brennan said he was shot as well. He's somewhere up ahead. I can hear this. As I'm running and Garda went for acro Gallardo is the man. I trust the lardo. There's no more grenades. And I was already running forward. So pointless to stop and Gallardo had that growed and chasing and Claire were doing everything they could and they were, they were keeping their heads down.   And when I ran up and I couldn't, I couldn't find Brinton where it should've been   this part haunts my dreams.   Now it's interesting to think in this situation like that, like everything that's going on. You know, all of the intensity of the moment, like gunfire from here, gunfire, from there, you, you like, it's easy to, it's easy to let it escape from, from your mind if you've never been in a situation like that, not I've never been in a situation like that.   So it just, just interesting. The the real time chess match that is happening in a firefight. And so, you know, in, in the stakes are so high. And for him to say that like, you know, in this next moment was one that will stick with me forever, you know, in the intensity of that moment to have a moment that even like within that however many minutes that this firefights happening and you're seeing people drop to your left into your right and to have something significant enough in that moment to, to, to stand out to you and to have to also not only like comprehend everything that's going on around you.   Um, but to, to, to react, analyze strategize, and then take action is like, it, it truly is a special type of individual who can find themselves in a position to gain this medal of honor, because every single one of those decisions has to be correct. Right? The, the, the analyzing the situation, the reaction to the situation, the, you know, calm, cool, and collected, and then the actual action itself, everything had to Evelyn.   You know, perfectly for these men to do what they did. Um, so, you know, just speaks to the intensity of the moment and the intensity of what he's must be talking about coming up here. The fact that there's an individual moment within all of this, that, that sticks with him specifically. So here's that I came out and there was two guys carrying one   crazy. I don't know how anyone else got up here before me. I mean, this all happens like this. I was like a little bit closer. I realized what was going on. I deployed with Berlin before we, the year before we were in Afghanistan for a year. So I'd been with Brendan for maybe four years. He's smarter than me, stronger than me.   He's smaller than me too, but he's faster than me. He's a better shot.   And that's, who's getting carried away June to immediately charged through the persistent enemy fire toward the two insurgents carrying Joshua Brennan. He killed one and wounded. The other Ben carried Brennan to a position of relative safety until medevac helicopters could arrive   25, 2007 30 supportive operation during freedom is unwavering courage. You don't find out if you did the right thing or wrong thing until later. Sometimes maybe if you did the wrong thing, maybe you don't ever find out lardo. My squad came up, I was talking to captain Kearney. He said, you're going to get put in for a middle of,   I said a lot of things, none of which were very happy or, or should be told that. Mendoza had died and Brandon had died. The other guys were going to be okay, they're all in surgery or getting some bullets out. You're going to congratulate me. You're going to pat me on the back and say, thanks stupid the day at the white house.   When the president put around my neck and the front row, I had my family had my wife and my mom and dad and brother and sister. And the second row, I had some aunts and uncles, but the road behind my family was Britain's family. Next to them was windows is family. When, as I felt this light silk ribbon go around my neck, I felt the weight of the sacrifices of those two and the sacrifices of several of the people in that audience.   No one did anything special. I, every single one of us were fighting for our absolute life. If I didn't do that was my. Congratulate and pat it on the back and everyone thinks I'm such a great guy when there's people that will never get a congratulations. Thank you. Or you're the man ever again, or see their family, the mother, the father, the children.   And yet you're gonna congratulate me on the keeper of it stays at my house at night, put it around my neck when I need to, but this is not mine. This is not for me. This represents so much more. This represents not just my boys, not just bringing, not just Mendoza, not, not rugal who died the day before. Not all the guys who, who have been wounded, not all the people who have suffered, not the families that will pay the price for this country.   It's not for any one of those people. It's for all of those people. And if I got to do it, I'm going to do it for them. And there's nothing they wouldn't do for me. So how could I not do this for them?   Yeah, that's heavy. Is he, you know, can't imagine being in that situation, like he said, like getting your metal of honor, while you sit out and watch the families of your friends that didn't have the opportunity to come home, let alone sit there from, in front of the president of the United States being congratulated, right?   Like that, you know, it's like, I'm such a weird, you know, status to obtain because all of the things that came with that, right? Like I wonder how many of those men who have the medal of honor even, you know, look at it in, in a way other than how he looks at it, which is just like, you know, it's not this, like, it's not the Stanley cup, right.   It's not like, it means horrible tragedy happened and you witnessed horrific things in likely your friends or dad and, or seriously wounded. And then too, like. This like celebrity type event where the president is putting a, a necklace around your neck about it. And he can't comprehend the fraction of the agony that you went to, to be standing on that stage, or to look in, to look out and see your friend's parents.   There is cash that's heavy, you know? And, and, and so the Mo the movie I was mentioning earlier was called the outpost. I believe it's, it's, uh, it came out in like 2019. I don't know if this specifically talking about this one place, it might be. Um, I'll have to look deeper into that for you guys, but the corn golf valley is what is where, um, Gionta served, where he got his metal event of a medal of honor.   And so here, here's what it talked about. I was talking about that earlier, like the base at the very like, um, the very bottom of this like mountainous area. And so here's six reasons why the Korengal valley was one of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan. So it says nestled between the high mountains of the Afghan side of the border with Pakistan, the Korengal valley has the most has one of the hardest fought over patches of ground in the war on terror, 54 Americans have been killed in four medal of honors were earned in the valley or its vis immediate vicinity while the case for a fifth is under review.   One of that, um, one was that of the first living recipient of the reward of awards since Vietnam staff, Sergeant Salvatore. That's who we're discussing here today, the American military rarely moves into the valley, but handpicked, Afghan commandos, some trained by the CIA fight constantly with militants there, the Afghan government maintains offices at the Peck river valley, the entryway to Korengal, their police execute raids and patrols, and the continuing attempt to shut down or limit the shadow government operating there.   When the American military was there, they face the same challenges the Afghan forces do today. Some of these dangerous of some of these dangers are common across Afghanistan while others, um, only existed in Korengal valley and the other branches of the pack river valley. So it says the terrain is a nightmare.   Steep mountains, loose shale thick forest is an open patches of land, made the area in nightmare for an occupying force. Command outposts were built in relatively open areas so that defenders could see approaching militias. However, this meant patrol is returning to the base, had to cross the open.   Sometimes under heavy military arms fire from nearby wooded areas and houses, the thick trees in the area allowed fighters to attack us forces from covering concealment. The attack would then hide there. The attackers would then hide their weapons in the forest and return to the civilian population.   The steep hillside allowed snipers to climb above outposts and fire into the bases. As soldiers slept loose rocks on the steep land led to injuries from falls and trips. It says building new bases and keeping them supplied, presented constant challenges, probably just, they show that in the outpost again, I don't know if that's the exact movie.   I'll have to I'll look at that before we're done here, but in the outpost, they showed that like when they would actually go to get supplies, they would drive their Humvees up these mountains. Like right on the cliffs, like horrifying to try, like, you know, you ever drive through like Colorado going up to, uh, like Vail or Breckenridge or something.   And so it's like how I felt, but it's like, not even close to that. It was like this small, small patch of area that yo

The Islamic State-Khorasan (ISK) claimed to have launched rockets at Uzbekistan from a border town in northern Afghanistan. Uzbek and Afghan officials denied it, but there is evidence that a failed attack did happen and evidence of other IS-K attacks in northern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, IS-K has been making threats on social media against Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. This week's Majlis podcast looks at the increasing violence in northern Afghanistan and what it means for Central Asia.

In this episode of Frankly Speaking with Lynne Franks and Friends, Lynne is joined by her friend Sophia Swire, social entrepreneur,  the founder of Future Brilliance Afghan charity and GEDI, her global women's investment fund. They discuss using education as a powerful tool for creating positive and radical change for good in the world and Sophia's passion for impact and building a sustainable livelihood for others.Sophia began her career at Kleinwort Benson Securities, part of London's largest Investment Bank, but after the market crash of 1987, she started down a very different path, one that would have a direct, meaningful and immediate impact on people's lives.Whilst trekking in Chitral, a remote, snow-bound valley in Pakistan's Hindu Kush she was approached by the local Deputy Commissioner who asked her to help him up an English Medium school, and returned to spend a year teaching there.She went on to co‐found Learning for Life, a UK-based charity that supported the establishment of over 250 village schools for girls in rural Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.  For this, she was awarded the 2010 Pakistan Achievement Award.In the 1990s, she launched and managed an innovative, social impact cashmere brand, Sophia Swire London, that is widely credited with starting the global fashion trend for pashmina shawls.In 2008, she started Afghanistan's first Jewelry and Gem-cutting school for the charity, Turquoise Mountain, and has since worked with various Afghanistan-based government and non-government organizations to reform the gemstone mining sector and put more value into the hands of Afghan miners and artisans.In 2012, she founded the non-profit Future Brilliance to foster stability and prosperity through enterprise and workforce development in post conflict countries.   Its first project helped Afghan women artisans gain access to the gemstone and jewelry value chain.Aayenda Jewelry, a Future Brilliance project, was established as a Social Enterprise in the US to build a sales and marketing platform for Afghan jewelry (Aayenda means "future" in the Afghan language, Dari). In 2013, the first jewelry collection was launched as a collaboration between 36 Afghan artisans trained by Future Brilliance and 3 award-winning international designers.Since then, the line has been sold successfully at stores and online in Asia, EU, Canada, USA, and Mexico, and in 2016 was featured on the front cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine globally, modelled by Brazilian supermodel, Alessandra Ambrosio.In 2015, graduates of Future Brilliance training programs registered the Aayenda Jewelry Co-operative. Royalty payments from sales of Aayenda, have funded the completion of a bead-making workshop in Northern Afghanistan, in which a further 80 Afghan women have been trained, and tools and equipment for Afghan artisans and designers.Since the recent take-over by the Taliban, Future Brilliance focus has been to help get their staff and many other women and girls with their families out of the country to create a new life elsewhere.In 2021, Sophia launched GEDI, her women's global investment fund,  at COP 26 where she spoke on how investing in women's businesses will help alter climate change and create good business practice.Sophia is in demand as a expert and speaker on Social Impact Investment and Social Entrepreneurship.Links Sophia's website Future Brilliance Aayenda Jewelry GEDI Follow @sophia_swire on Instagram If you like what you hear, and want to find out more about our community of like-minded women who believe in living and working in alignment with the feminine values of collaboration, authenticity and most of all, love, you can learn more at https://seednetwork.com and join the community in the SEED Hub Club by visiting https://www.theseedhub.club/You can find Lynne on Instagram at @lynnejfranks, Facebook @lynnefranksobe, Twitter @Lynne_Franks, LinkedIn @Lynne Franks OBE.This episode was produced by Lynne Franks and Tanya Anastasiadis.Production support and graphics by Lotte Micklethwaite.Music by Joolz Barker

This week we talk to Ben with Redbeard Combatives. We discuss his program, the need to understand the fight, being a well rounded Police Officer and using your assets wisely.Ben has over 14 years of experience working with the U.S. Government and Private Security sectors, with a focus on training, physical security, and vulnerability assessments. He has deployed multiple times to austere locations including the Middle East and South America, as well as numerous at sea deployments providing training in vessel security aboard commercial ships transiting high-risk waters. Ben was the Assistant Team Leader on a US Department of State contract supporting humanitarian operations in Bolivia and Peru, conducting site security surveys and PSD operations in areas of civil unrest. He further provided physical security and personnel escort duties while attached to Task Force 3-10, working alongside U.S. military personnel at a forward operating base in Northern Afghanistan. Ben has provided courses of instruction in combatives to the: Army's 101st Airborne Division at Fort Cambell, Kentucky; Joint Special Operations Command personnel in Afghanistan; various law enforcement agencies and a personal security detail for a senior general officer at Central Command  in Tampa, Florida. He is also one of the primary self-defense and hand-to-hand combat instructors for Tactical Intelligence International, a military defense contractor in Orlando, Florida. He holds the rank of 3rd degree black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu from Fabio Novaes of the Carlson Gracie Academy in Brazil, as well as numerous competitive accomplishments. Finally, Ben possess over 20 years of experience in the fields of civil and structural engineering design and holds a formal education in Intelligence Studies from American Military University, with advanced certifications in Counterintelligence. He is a certified protection specialist, weapons instructor, licensed private investigator and guest writer for numerous security publications.Connect with Ben:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/redbeardcombativesForce Multiplier for Law Enforcement has started a new fundraiser to help give small/underfunded departments the opportunity to have a Certified Defensive Tactics Instructor on staff. You can support at through the following link. (https://www.gofundme.com/f/defensive-tactics-training-for-law-enforcement)Connect with Lorenzo Valdivia: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ForceMultiplierForLawEnforcement Email: forcemultiplierDS@gmail.comFundraiser: https://www.gofundme.com/f/defensive-tactics-training-for-law-enforcementSupport the show (https://paypal.me/lxvaldivia?country.x=US&locale.x=en_US)

A youth football team in Texas has been barred from competing in the playoffs due to being too dominant.  Then, a well known doctor is kidnapped and held for ransom in Northern Afghanistan. Finally, a small town billionaire has a legal battle on his hands when his former employee dishes on his ex bosses questionable work practices and his sexual escapades spreadsheet.

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2021/11/06/militants-attacked-a-base-in-northern-afghanistan/

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2021/11/06/womens-rights-activist-shot-in-northern-afghanistan/

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2021/10/28/seven-militamen-killed-in-northern-afghanistan/

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2021/10/25/2-000-families-receive-aid-in-northern-afghanistan/

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://afghannewswire.com/2021/10/11/taliban-lost-control-in-northern-afghanistan/

Ahmed-Waleed Kakar & Sangar Paykhar discuss the subsequent fall of provincial capitals in Northern Afghanistan, the UN Security Council discussion about Aghanistan, the demand from Kabul to sanction Pakistan and Sun Tzu's the Art of War's application to current situation in Afghanistan. Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/Afgeye)

David Loyn, Visiting Senior Fellow at the War Studies Department at Kings College London on the Talibans seizure of five provincial capitals in Afghanistan since Friday.

On this week's Majlis Podcast, Muhammad Tahir moderates a discussion on what is happening in northern Afghanistan and what the governments of the countries on the other side of the border are doing.

Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for staying consistent on her refusal to kill the filibuster, much to the dismay of her party. They also wince as the Taliban  regains control in much of Northern Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of American troops. They end their discussion by highlighting the voter ID flip-flopping of Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock and other Democrats after years of calling the idea racist and tool for voter suppression.Please visit our great sponsors:Tommy Johnhttps://tommyjohn.com/martiniRight now get 20% of your first order!Wild Alaskan Companyhttps://wildalaskancompany.com/martiniRight now get $15 off your first box of premium seafood when you use promo code MARTINI

Join Jim and Greg as they applaud Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema for staying consistent on her refusal to kill the filibuster, much to the dismay of her party. They also wince as the Taliban  regains control in much of Northern Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of American troops. They end their discussion by highlighting the voter […]

This episode is sponsored by Blue Star Families. The Military Family Lifestyle Survey is open until June 6th, 2021. Head over to BlueStarFam.org/survey2021 to take the survey today. You could win one of five $100 gift cards. The stories and information shared become the fuel and information leaders need to help create change that will directly benefit us and our families.Stacie's dad saw a flyer about ROTC and that is how she began her military career. She needed a way to pay for college and ROTC gave her that opportunity. She said it was the best decision she ever made. And she made a lot of great friends. She picked the career field of Pubic Affairs because of her degree in Journalism. She started her career by being a Gold Bar recruiter at the Academy. Telling others about the opportunity to join the military through ROTC.She attended Defense Information School (DINFOS) in Fort Mead, Maryland, and got her first opportunity to learn about the joint environment since all the military branches have their PA training at DINFOS.DeploymentShe deployed multiple times. Serving a year in South Korea, working with NATO in Italy, and multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of the interview was focused on her deployment to Afghanistan as part of the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). I also deployed as part of a PRT so we talked about the difference between her pre-deployment training and my own.I did a whole series about what a PRT is and have shared my (email) letters home. You can check out the series here. And read my letters here.Losing team membersPanjshir was a relatively safe deployment. They could ride around in regular vehicles, but always wore their protective gear and had weapons. But they would need to make trips back to Bagram (the main base in Northern Afghanistan) to gather supplies, mail, and get people out for R&R. On May 26, 2009, four members of her team were killed when in a suicide bomber attacked the convoy. U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Mark Stratton, PRT commander, Army Master Sgt. Blue Rowe, PRT first sergeant, Senior Airman Ashton Goodman, PRT vehicle operator, and Abdul Samad, PRT Afghan legal advisor were killed in the attack.Stacie had worked directly with Ashton both through the Women Affairs missions and helping her to get her work published. She also was the only woman officer on the team and that gave her the responsibility and the honor to pack up her things and send them home to her family. The event has had a major impact on her life and she has started a scholarship in Ashton's name for her high school.The effects of warWe also coved the PTSD caused not only by the PRT deployment but the other deployments. If you are struggling with any mental health issues or need someone to talk to check out Episode 137 with the Cohen Clinic which talks about resources to help those struggling with mental health challenges.Mentioned in this Episode:Girl's Guide to the Military (Free Guide)Girl's Guide to the Military on YouTubeRelated Episodes:Amanda Huffman, Civil Engineer - Episode 2When Public Affairs Changed - Episode 67Civil Engineering in the Air Force - Episode 136 

Persian children's tales from ShaparakThis story is a short story from Rumi the persian poet and philosopher from the 13th century that was born in Northern Afghanistan the city of Balkh who immigrated throughout the mongolienne invasion to Anatolian plateau and finally settled in Konia in current Turkey داستان اين هفته داستان كوتاهيست از مجموعه داستانهاى مثنوى معنوى مولوى

https://www.swordandthescript.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/bab_17_herb_thompson.jpg When Herb Thompson was getting ready to retire from the Army, he had no idea what he would do next in his career. However, the uncertainty is something he was trained to deal with, and he used those skills to start planning his next mission to the civilian world. He didn’t know much about LinkedIn, but he got on it and just reached to people asking for advice. The effort led to an astounding 2,000 informational phone calls where he just asked a lot of questions about career options. People were just generally willing to help. Those conversations led him to consider a career as a management consultant. He narrowed down his “targets” to a few management consulting firms and went to work trying to land a job. Here’s the thing: He submitted some 1,000 job applications and less than 1% led to interviews and zero job offers. He landed his first corporate gig through networking and relationship building. Today, he’s turned to helping other veterans. He’s penned about his experience called The Transition Mission: A Green Beret’s approach to transition from military service (https://www.amazon.com/Transition-Mission-approach-transition-military/dp/1734301503) (100% of the profits goes to charity). Links: Herb on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/herb-thompson-sf2biz/) Herb on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sf2biz/) _Inc. Magazine: _This True Story of a Harrowing Special Forces Combat Mission Teaches 11 Brilliant Lessons in Leadership (https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/this-true-story-of-a-harrowing-special-forces-combat-mission-teaches-11-brilliant-lessons-in-leadership.html) Transcript: Frank: ... and welcome everybody to episode number 17 of The Boots About Business podcast. I am your host Frank Strong, and here with us today is Herb Thompson. He is a former green beret and today serves as a management consultant with Accenture. Here's an interesting story on transitioning, which actually led him to write and publish a book on the topic, it's called The Transition Mission, and we're going to get into that later in the show. Welcome to the show, sir. Herb: Hey Frank, appreciate you having me on, man. I'm happy to be here and look forward to put out some good info and have a good discussion. Frank: Glad to have you. So the first question I always ask people is the question about the uniforms, the uniting theme in the show, why did you join the service? And then what inspired you to go SF, special forces? Herb: Growing up in upstate New York, there wasn't a whole lot of options where I came from, and ever since I was little kid I wanted to join the military. The army was the first recruiter I went to and had they not come through, I would have been out of the Marine Corps. So thankfully the army recruiter came through and then the rest is history, there was not a huge family connection, I found out later my grandpa was in the Korean war, but I found that after I joined. And then I had two goals, to be a drill sergeant and earn my green beret. I had saw an article in National Geographic in the school library about it when I was a younger kid and that just made me want to be a green beret even before I knew really what it was just from that article. And fortunately, I was able to accomplish both of my goals in the military I've done my 20 years. Frank: So there's a lot of myths and maybe misinformation and Hollywood effication, if you will, of what the special forces are, what the green berets do, and it's now an opportunity we have a chance to talk to somebody that actually served in that capacity every day, so let me ask you, what is it that green berets do? Herb: Green berets are expert in unconventional warfare. That is what we do now. There's other things we do, but we are one of the few, if only force, especially in America that goes over and works by, with, and through a government force or indigenous force, whether that's government or non-government. So we don't have to send in 500 Americans from an infantry battalion of Marines or army, but you could send in 12 green berets, we're self-sustaining, we do our own thing there, come back out, it's just a numbers game. So mass producing, build rapport, really assimilate and learn a culture while doing that through accomplishing strategic missions. Herb: It comes in all shapes and form. A lot of in Iraq, people got into it with the kind of the Rambo as part of it, of door kicking and running and gunning, but really how I've always looked at is as a green beret, if you're shooting your weapon, either something's gone really wrong or you messed up, because you should be getting all these indigenous forces or somebody else to shoot for you and it's really by using your brain over the brawn. Frank: This even reminds me of a term that we see pop up in the business world nowadays, the idea of force multiplication or force multiplier. Herb: Yeah, that's what it is, force multiplier. The best pie of the best modern example or semi-modern is right after 9/11, the few green berets that went in there was a few other people on the ground from people that don't exist. But then those green berets, in about six weeks had Northern Afghanistan secure and that was by working through the Northern Alliance. So that is a model of what a green beret is supposed to do. Frank: Great. And that was turned into a book, I believe it's called Ghost Soldiers. Herb: Horse Soldiers. Frank: Horse Soldiers, that's right, and then later a movie. Herb: The movie 12 Strong, which obviously they get into more of the shooting or the cool guy aspect of it. It's boring to go, "Oh wow, you went in there and you just talked to him, and he rode out a horse and then you called in some air strikes," it doesn't... it's not cool. Frank: That was amazing. So you personally, I imagine you've been to a lot of special places, is there one or two that stand out in your mind? Herb: Yeah. The current war zones where we've been, I spent all my time in Middle East. So just about every country in the Middle East, I've been to. I wouldn't say any of them stick out. The one that always sticks out is coming back to America and being happy when I hit boots on ground here, that's the one that sticks out to me, and why I did what I did. That was always this special moment, not that I didn't enjoy downrange and that's what I live for in a lot of ways, but getting back here is the special moment. Frank: I couldn't agree more, well said. This is a somber question, but I ask almost everybody that comes on the show, what was your worst day in uniform? Herb: Multiple ones. It's when you lose a buddy. When you lose a brother, a sister, however, pin on the listeners, that is the toughest days. When you sign up for combat arms, it's going to happen, or if you're in special operations, it's a threat, but a lot of times you don't believe it can happen to you or you accept it. But those are definitely the hardest days, those times, or even now that I'm out and I hear about something happening, even if I don't know him, I know of the person. So those are the tough days. Frank: For sure. And then the flip side of that question is what was your best day? Herb: I think of a couple of missions I had that were just awesome, doing what a green beret is supposed to do. Surrounded, fighting within ditch and no other care in the world and just happy. But I would actually say probably surprisingly, that was my last day. I didn't even have a uniform on, I left base, didn't look back in the rear view mirror and I was like, "All right, next chapter, the life let's go." So I will say that is what I look back now as the best day. Frank: Awesome. No doubt, a great day. Looking back, what do you think the service taught you that is applicable to your business world today? Herb: Everything, I use it every day. A little context, I joined straight out of high school at the age of 17. I had a little bit of job, but there was no... I was 17 years old when I joined, so everything I learned while I was in the army, I grew up, I became a man in the army and everything that has taught me I use it today. I will say, even now doing a graduate degree in Ivy League School, a lot, even what I'll move forward using is what I've learned in the military with just a little bit of tweaks and flares from what they added to my education. Frank: That's awesome. And since you mentioned it, where are you taking your graduate degree now? Herb: I'm doing an executive MBA at Cornell. Frank: Awesome. Herb: So again, will not go in there without my military experience, but more importantly, selling has shown the value of my military experience and what I would bring is same with the job. Frank: Do you think, this is an ad hoc question, but your experience in unconventional warfare is an asset as you pursue your graduate studies? Herb: It's huge, not just graduate studies and business, because it's all about people. How do you study a problem set? How do you study people? How do you get them to do what you want to do? How are you able to analyze problem sets and filter data? All that is the same for school, it's for business, so it definitely plays in big time. Frank: I don't want to dig into the transition part. And you mentioned one of your best days in uniforms really is leaving and never looking back, proud of a career but turning the page. So to speak, you have an interesting story, a project that you did as you transitioned, tell us about that, what happened and how did it unfold? Herb: Started two years out from my proposed retirement and I didn't have a clue. I knew I didn't know what I didn't know, and I knew I didn't know a lot. So I was like, "How am I going to do this?" And I knew I didn't want to become a statistic. I didn't have anything to go back home from where I grew up. So it was, "What do I know? I know how to plan missions. I know how to plan out conventional warfare." Herb: So I turned into a mission, said I'm going to deploy into the United States of America and the mission is to be going to business or join corporate America. And that's how I treated it, because that's what I knew, and that's really when I started breaking it down. Did I write out a full op order? No, but was I doing that in my head and going through military decision making process and planning where I wanted to go and facts and assumptions? Yeah, because that's all I knew. So I was like, "Why not use it?" It's worked to plan wars, and campaigns, and everything else, why won't it work for this? Frank: That's awesome. How to Deploy to Corporate America, that's going to be the title right there. One of the things that you did was just an astonishing 2,000 informational interviews. How did that come about? How did you get people on the phone? And this is over the two year mark prior to your separation and retirement. Herb: It was over two years, obviously more heavy towards the end, but one key was LinkedIn. I got in and I leveraged LinkedIn, because how else was I going to connect with so many people, especially if I was moving? In my case, I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, with Fifth Group, move into Washington, DC. I couldn't drive up there, fly up there all the time. So I knew how to leverage LinkedIn and then it really was this, "I'm a transitioning special forces leader, my name is Herb Thompson, could you tell me how you were successful in your business or in your industry or your company?" Herb: And I didn't know anything. I always say banking is the example is I knew there was tellers in a bank, and then there was somebody in a back office and I heard of this thing called Wall Street and I'd seen it on TV. So I talked to some bankers and I realized, I didn't want to do banking, but I wouldn't have known that unless I talked to people. So I just talked to people from every industry. Usually one conversation would lead to them connect me with another person. And it was just building a network and I kept doing that, and the more I talked to people, the more I realized, "Oh crap, I got a lot to learn and I got a lot to decide for myself, not just what they can tell me, but really what is it that I want to do? What do I want to do when I grow up?" Because I had two life goals and they're accomplished now, but I've got a lot more life to live, so hey, what am I going to do? Herb: And by talking with people I was able to eliminate things which really helped me focus on where I ended up landing in management consulting. But I would not have been able to do it without LinkedIn, and I would not recommend doing 2,000, it's ridiculous. There was times where I had eight phone calls lined up back to back and I wouldn't know who I was talking to until five minutes in. And some of these were CEOs of companies. So I was able to BS my way, if you will, for the first few minutes to figure it out, but you definitely don't need to do 2,000. Frank: How many should they do? What's a good approach for somebody that's transitioning and they're thinking about getting out? It's intimidating just to cold pitch people on LinkedIn, you'd never been on LinkedIn before, that's intimidating. Herb: I was more scared to do some of that stuff on LinkedIn than a couple months earlier when I was in a gunfight. Not scared at all, I'm bluffing. People are shooting at us, we're shooting back and I'm bluffing, and now I'm sitting here like, "Oh, how do I write a LinkedIn message?" And sweating, and I'm like, "Man, I'm an idiot, what the heck am I doing? Nobody's shooting at me, I'm not jumping out of a plane, let's figure this out." Herb: But I always say until you think you know what you're doing or you feel comfortable, plus one more. It doesn't hurt to do more, you never know when that key one is. And doing all of them 2,000, one of them happened to be a key person I talked to, five months later, let me know about the Accenture position, where I ended up in interviewing there. He didn't know five months earlier, I didn't know and he wasn't even with Accenture, and he was actually with a competitor. So you never know how it's going to work, but you just talk to people. It's gaining information, there's no S2 or the intel shop to get this info, you better go talk to people and get it or scan the ether webs. Frank: So you got some direction about what it is you thought you might want to do once you got out. There's got to be other lessons, you aggregated all of those and compiled them into a book. Tell us about your book. Herb: So really it was by accident, the whole LinkedIn thing happened by accident. I figured out where I was going, not that I didn't fail, I failed multiple times. I talk about it in the book, it's not all roses and unicorns. And I got a Ferrari and six supermodels outside waiting for me cheering, it's not reality, but I learned through it. And by doing that, I shared information shared by others and I had so many other veterans reaching out to me, senior, junior to me, people who had transitioned a few years before, then now people are going through it with me, people coming upon it, and I was like, "I need to do a book." Herb: And there was one call with this officer that had got out and was just, "Hey, I'm effing loss, man, I don't know what I'm doing." And I'm like, "Crap, I need to help more people." And that's how the book came across. But really, there's so many programs out there that can help out over 40,000 veterans service organizations, but nobody can tell you, "Hey Frank, what do you want to do? What makes you happy?" Nobody knows that. Herb: So for me, I went back and looked at, "Hey, what made me happy in the military, and how can I find that when I'm outside of the uniform?" And by talking to people I came to deduction, I think it's going to be management consulting and let me go this route. But again, I just planned it like a mission and used what I knew and then went through and used LinkedIn to talk with people, and then, same thing, I'm gaining intel, how do I interview? How do I do my resume and those factors? Herb: And then fortunately, there was three companies I targeted, I got interviews at all three companies as a test because I was helping other people out. Before I wrote the book, I applied over 1,000 jobs online and less than 1% offered me an interview, just cold, send off your resume. So not saying it doesn't happen, people don't get jobs that way, but the studies show somewhere 78% of jobs are through networking and that's different, and we didn't know that in the military. Herb: The platoon leader doesn't network to be a company commander, now they better be good, but you don't network for your next job and have to do that. People know you, your uniform shows your qualifications and that's not the case. So the networking part is really the critical thing that is foreign to us, but through networking, you figure out everything else, interviewing and resumes, maybe other options for what you want to do. Frank: So what I hear you saying, if I had to take away a back review here, one overall theme, it's that you can find a job by applying online and going through digital mechanisms, but nothing replaces networking and LinkedIn was just one way for you to open up those conversations. Herb: Exactly. You can get a job that way, it's just not likely to just apply online. But LinkedIn is the best professional networking platform. It's the best, it's the biggest. In the US I think it's 177 million of people on it, just in the US alone. So it's the place to do that, and it's known for that, that's where it's easy to go to. And then you can reach out to anywhere, especially if you're moving, because how do you connect with people in Texas if you're stationed up in Washington state? It's very hard to do, people don't have the Rolodex and we don't have the phone books as the old days of doing that, so you better reach out through online purposes, and LinkedIn is the best one for that. Frank: For sure. I guess even from a business perspective, they say that crisis and recessions don't cause trends, they accelerate trends that are already in progress. And this remote working trend was already in progress, and we've just solidified that. I think business leaders have realized it takes a little different effort, not extra effort to lead a team remotely in a business environment. So if you're on a base somewhere else, there's no reason why you can't connect and potentially land a job through transitioning. Speaking of jobs, you did land your target job. How did that happen? Herb: Through networking. It's not the fact that I knew that people who were interviewing me, got a voice system, because a lot of people think that. No, but it got me the interview point blank. Now, once you get the interview, it's on you. Your foot's in the door, and it's up to you to sound good or sound like an idiot, so go have at it. Herb: But the networking got me to the interview stage and I was able to show them, hey, this is how I can translate my value and show them, I'll just be real. Interesting factoid for you, hey, there's one guy in the history of the army to be a green beret and went army drill start of the year, you're listening to him right now. Guess what? My crappy cup of coffee at the gas station still costs two bucks just like yours does, just like anybody listen, nobody gives a care. It's cool, and "Oh thank you for your service," but nobody's giving you a job for that. Herb: So what I did was put all of my stories, and even now a story sounds like, "Oh, it's fake." But when I was articulating how I was going to bring my experience there, especially in the interviews, I used words they understood. So I talked about my clients, I talked about my key stakeholders, I talked about my customers, I talked about business processes. Herb: Now, everything I talked about was working with indigenous forces in combat operations for the most part. But I put it in terms they understood because they had to see me sitting next to them, not as like, "Oh, here's this crazy-looking green beret, but we need to see him as a consultant in this case." And I was able to do that. Here's how I've leveraged technology to do that. And fortunately, through the interview process series interviews, they were eating it up and then they offered me a position and I ended up taking it, because it's what I wanted. Frank: And is that the ability to translate your military parlance into terms that a civilian business world can understand, is something you learned over time through all the chats and networking that you did? Herb: Yes, usually most people in the military don't know that. So just like as a green beret, we similar to culture, learn language. I had to learn the language. When I say deploying into America, learn the language. And depending on your industry, the language could be different or the nuances, so learn it, but you only can do that by talking to people and then internet research. Herb: A couple things, I know the nomenclature of the industry. So in consulting, you're always talking about clients, customers, stakeholders, and stuff. And one thing that sells across every industry is numbers. So if I say improved by 10%, save 25%, executed X million of dollars, expanded outreach by X%, numbers travel, people understand that. Herb: Now, we may have to figure out, what's some ways we can do numbers based off our career? Because we had a property book and it was valued at $1.5 million, big deal, what does that mean? But if we can put some numbers to what we've actually done, people understand numbers, they don't even have to think they understand, "Hey, improved by 25%, that's pretty good." Frank: I know a few guys that had a reduction in their property book and that wasn't good. You've been out of the service a while, I want to ask, how has time changed your perspective now that you've been out, what, three years or so? Herb: It's been a little over two years when I start my official retirement days only 18 months ago. I hit my 20 and then I was going through a med board. I considered all that time to like, "Hey, I wasn't doing crap." How's it changed? I think one thing that I ignored and I'll just be honest and I'm not proud to say it, but it's a fact, I've never voted. I ignored politics because I was doing a mission. Let's go overseas, help other people, and I got back here, so I ignored politics and not to get in, I don't care who you vote for, go out and vote, but I ignored it. So I pay attention more, probably some stuff that at the end of the day, you pay attention to what affects you. Herb: So when you're on a team or you're down at an infantry, battalion or company, you don't care about much else unless it's affecting you and your family. So now maybe I'm looking at stuff. I did almost all my time studying the Middle East, countries there, how are they operating? That's the only news I pretty much watched or read every day. And now I focus on the US because I'm like, "Wow, for 20 years I missed a whole lot going on here that I didn't know was..." In the military, even though I lived off base most of my career, after first couple of years, you're still sheltered because you're within that military community and a lot of stuff doesn't factor in. So that's really how it's changed for me. Frank: Well, I'm glad to hear that you're getting involved or you're going to vote. There's something ironic about a guy willing to risk his life to ensure Americans can vote and that doesn't vote himself. It's definitely important, so definitely get out there and vote. Although I think by the time this run, the election will have been decided. Herb: Good. Frank: But there'll be another one, so stay in tune. I want to ask you now that you've been out a little while, you're working in management consulting, which is a cerebral line of work, even in the business community, what would you say are the key benefits veterans generally bring to business? Herb: I'll just give a perfect example is especially green berets, but everybody, we've dealt with chaos, especially those that have deployed. We've dealt with hardship, we've dealt with chaos. And not that we're the only ones, we don't own that, we don't own leadership and everybody else doesn't, who's never served as a [inaudible 00:19:29] but we tend to bring a little bit of calming perspective. Herb: And I had my boss who's no longer my boss, we're getting ready to go into this briefing. She was going to brief 50 executives, so we'll say general officers, but they didn't know what she was talking about, but she was freaking out. And I'm like, "Hey, nobody's shooting us, let's relax." And she's like, "You don't understand, these are important people." I'm like, "They're not going to shoot us, it's okay." Herb: So I think we bring some of that of like first world problems. We've seen some real problems with some real hardships, nobody's losing their job today, nobody's dying, let's focus. Project management, how can you be in the military for a number of years and not have run a project or tons of projects? So obviously that comes into factor. Herb: I think being able to adjust. It's great, and many people can work when everything's going fine. What happens when the train derails? When something in the warehouse goes wrong, something in the office goes wrong, or the boss says, "Hey, we need this done today, not a month from now?" I think we're quicker to adapt to that. Not all, that's a general statement, but we went through a crucible of training and experience that just quite frankly, a lot of people that haven't served don't even come close to that. Herb: So that's some things that stick out to me as far as that. I think it's a double-edged sword to a veterans saying, "Oh, because we've done that, and everybody else sucks and they don't know anything," you can check your ego at the door because they'll still walk circles around you of like, "Hey, what's a P&L, petroleum lubricants. No, profit an loss, sorry buddy. There's stuff we may not have that we have to pick up on, but a lot of it translates and then we just keep learning. Frank: Definitely in a level of raw talent and enthusiasm. The types of things that you can't train. In the military, if you have it, you can train someone that's enthusiastic. It's the same thing in the business world too, but you can't train somebody to be enthusiastic about what they're doing. Herb: Frank, I'm a big believer in grit. We are the only ones that have it, but veterans have showed grit and demonstrated over countless, different countries, different instances here in the United States that's not always the case. So I think that grit is one of the big things that if you've got somebody of grit who's not going to give up, you can train them and make them successful. I believe you can't train somebody to be like, "Hey, you've quit your whole life, but you're 42 years old now, and I'm going to teach you to have grit." There's no magic grit potion for veterans that have honed. Frank: That's right, there's no pill. So we're getting a little bit towards the end here. I guess I'd ask, what final advice would you have for veterans that are getting out of the service and they're thinking about a career in business? Herb: I would say ask for help. That covers all spectrums. Because let's be real, you probably don't know a lot about business. In general, there are some people who run businesses on the side while they're in the military or while in the business, but you probably don't know, ask for help. What does my resume need to look like? How should I be? Do mock interviews. Don't be so full yourself and over-confident that you know what you're doing, that you ruin opportunities that you have. Leverage those opportunities, learn from it. You're going to have failure, it's okay because it's not failure if you learn from it and then you get better the next time. Herb: And then also, you're leaving an identity behind. I've always said, "Hey, I'm herb." I never identified, really this is why... Even in some extent, that was an identity I had and I'm leaving behind. Let's be real, two and a half years ago, a lot of people thought I was important. All the crap, you're a green beret, you're assigned during this classified mission down range. People I was sending reports to thought it was important work, and then one day you go out the gate and nobody cares anymore. Herb: So I think understanding what's my new identity going to be, how am I going to find that new purpose to drive me? Because now it's not for mom pie and apple pie, what am I going to do? I think sometimes talk on people and talk on yourself, but that self-reflection helps out with that. And also, it's okay to go seek help for that stuff. To me, it's a sign of strength. That is really what a strong character is, not "Oh, I'm going to figure it out until it's too late." Herb: There's no secret that we have a suicide problem amongst veterans, not just young ones, but young and old and it's sad, because it's like, wow, they can make it through so much and then get back here, and people don't understand what they've been through and they don't see any value with them, so it's very easy to go into negative town really quickly. Just stay positive and ask for help. Frank: That's a really interesting comment about identity. The military is such a consuming career. In the civilian world, you go to work and you come home, and you're home at night with your kids or whatever you got going on. When you're in the military, man, you're off on a post. And it's not that you're isolated or segregated, but there is some distance, there's a gate, you got to have an ID to get through it. And the days are long and especially when you're deployed somewhere, you're with those people 24/7 the way that you would be with a sibling. There is like this switch, this mental preparation about the identity you're going to leave behind. Herb: It's a way of life, that's what I always tell people. The military is not a job, it was a way of life, management consulting now is a job or a career, it's not a way of life. That to me is, you leave the military, you don't necessarily leave every job there is. Frank: I want to make sure we let folks know your book, your title again was- Herb: The Transition Mission. You can find on Amazon, I think it's like five or six bucks. Money goes to non-profit, I don't get anything from it. And then if you want to find me on LinkedIn, Herb Thompson SF to biz, same with Instagram, anything like that. I regularly share transition tidbits or insights of going into business, the process and I don't always focus on the stuff everybody talks about, it's hey, what's going on up here in the coconut and the head space and timing of, hey, what's some things are going on? Like we talked about identity. So that's usually a lot of the stuff I try to talk about because a lot of people just don't. Frank: That's awesome. Herb Thompson, thank you for your service, thank you for coming on the show and sharing your experience, all that you've done and are doing with your book and really evangelism to help other veterans. Herb: Thank you Frank, it was my privilege, I love what you're doing here and keep it up.

*******Audio is Rough on this one, the Skype recording failed to upload correctly, so I did the best that I could to get this episode out in a listenable state.******* I had a great conversation with Ben from Redbeard Combatives covering everything from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to church security. I learned a lot from this conversation and I feel that you will too. Ben has over 14 years of experience working with the U.S. Government and Private Security sectors, with a focus on training, physical security, and vulnerability assessments. He has deployed multiple times to austere locations including the Middle East and South America, as well as numerous at sea deployments providing training in vessel security aboard commercial ships transiting high-risk waters. Ben was the Assistant Team Leader on a US Department of State contract supporting humanitarian operations in Bolivia and Peru, conducting site security surveys and PSD operations in areas of civil unrest. He further provided physical security and personnel escort duties while attached to Task Force 3-10, working alongside U.S. military personnel at a forward operating base in Northern Afghanistan. Ben has provided courses of instruction in combatives to the: Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Cambell, Kentucky; Joint Special Operations Command personnel in Afghanistan; various law enforcement agencies and a personal security detail for a senior general officer at Central Command in Tampa, Florida. He is also one of the primary self-defense and hand-to-hand combat instructors for Tactical Intelligence International, a military defense contractor in Orlando, Florida. He holds the rank of 2nd degree black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu from Fabio Novaes of the Carlson Gracie Academy in Brazil, as well as numerous competitive accomplishments. Finally, Ben possess over 20 years of experience in the fields of civil and structural engineering design and holds a formal education in Intelligence Studies from American Military University, with advanced certifications in Counterintelligence. He is a certified protection specialist, weapons instructor, licensed private investigator and guest writer for numerous security publications. www.redbeardcombatives.com Please consider Donating, Reviewing, Sharing, and Promoting this Podcast to help advance the mission. Merch. has arrived! Coffee. T-Shirts, and Swag PrepareDefendLead.com Follow Prepare. Defend. Lead. on FB and IG

*******Audio is Rough on this one, the Skype recording failed to upload correctly, so I did the best that I could to get this episode out in a listenable state.*******I had a great conversation with Ben from Redbeard Combatives covering everything from Brazilian jiu-jitsu to church security. I learned a lot from this conversation and I feel that you will too.Ben has over 14 years of experience working with the U.S. Government and Private Security sectors, with a focus on training, physical security, and vulnerability assessments. He has deployed multiple times to austere locations including the Middle East and South America, as well as numerous at sea deployments providing training in vessel security aboard commercial ships transiting high-risk waters. Ben was the Assistant Team Leader on a US Department of State contract supporting humanitarian operations in Bolivia and Peru, conducting site security surveys and PSD operations in areas of civil unrest. He further provided physical security and personnel escort duties while attached to Task Force 3-10, working alongside U.S. military personnel at a forward operating base in Northern Afghanistan. Ben has provided courses of instruction in combatives to the: Army’s 101st Airborne Division at Fort Cambell, Kentucky; Joint Special Operations Command personnel in Afghanistan; various law enforcement agencies and a personal security detail for a senior general officer at Central Command in Tampa, Florida. He is also one of the primary self-defense and hand-to-hand combat instructors for Tactical Intelligence International, a military defense contractor in Orlando, Florida. He holds the rank of 2nd degree black belt in brazilian jiu-jitsu from Fabio Novaes of the Carlson Gracie Academy in Brazil, as well as numerous competitive accomplishments. Finally, Ben possess over 20 years of experience in the fields of civil and structural engineering design and holds a formal education in Intelligence Studies from American Military University, with advanced certifications in Counterintelligence. He is a certified protection specialist, weapons instructor, licensed private investigator and guest writer for numerous security publications.www.redbeardcombatives.comPlease consider Donating, Reviewing, Sharing, and Promoting this Podcast to help advance the mission. Merch. has arrived! Coffee. T-Shirts, and SwagPrepareDefendLead.comFollow Prepare. Defend. Lead. on FB and IG

Last week we performed the third CONSOLFOOD conference about solar thermal food processing, and there in Faro in South Portugal I had the chance to record several interviews with some living legends of the solar cooking family, which we will hear in our next few issues. Today I begin with Pat McArdle who tells us in her own words how she was inspired to use solar cookers during her work as an American diplomat in Northern Afghanistan in 2005, and about her activities in the following years.

Antonia Bollingbroke-Kent balances a life of - big adventures with producing wonderful TV shows such as Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventures. She once drove a bright pink Tuk Tuk from Bangkok to Brighton, did battle with 1000 semi-wild Mongolian horses in the footsteps of Ghengis Khan and nearly froze to death attempting to drive a motorbike and sidecar to the Russian Arctic. Often guided by her Granny’s mantra of ‘Do nothing, say nothing, until the police arrive’ Silk Road Adventures Antonia regales some brilliant travel tales over a cup of tea in her Bristol Kitchen.   On this episode we cover:   ‘Tuk Tuk to the Road’ – Antonia’s epic overland journey from Bangkok to Brighton Her friend Jo’s mental health problems leading to the trip Wanting to raise awareness and money for mental health Giving up her job as a producer at ITV to go on the journey The intense planning that went into the trip Starting the journey in hospital in Bangkok Crossing China being very scary (and taking a very long time) Having to drive on dirt tracks and dangerous mountain roads The late night storm they didn’t know whether they’d survive Driving from Thailand across the border to Laos A month in China and into Kazakhstan 12 countries, 12,561 miles Crying all night the day before they got home The surprise greeting from the guards at the remote border between China and Kazakhstan Cheap hotels, camping and staying with families Trying to hide the bright pink Tuk Tuk in the middle of the Kazak steppe The shocked reaction to them in the middle of nowhere Being driven off the road by curious locals Driving across the Gobi Desert Being trapped by an earthquake and turning it into one big party Doing karaoke with lorry drivers Sleeping under the Tuk Tuk for two days Ted Simon, Jupiter’s Travels ‘the interruptions are the journey’ Breaking down in Crimea and having to stay there for a week Hanging out with the descendants of Genghis Khan The marked transition in character and culture when crossing Europe on the Ukraine-Poland border McDonald’s, Tesco disappointment Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium The brilliant journey on Eurostar with a Tuk Tuk Driving around the M25 in the freezing cold in the Tuk Tuk Her Granny’s saying ‘Do nothing, say nothing, until the police arrive’. Her adventurous childhood in Norfolk Travelling Thailand aged 18 and coming back with bright green hair How once you’ve tasted big overland travel journeys it changes you How if you don’t have the time to take months off you can take smaller adventures Setting up extreme adventures with The Adventurists The Mongol Rally horserace following in Genghis Khan’s footsteps Finding and training 1000 semi-wild horses in Mongolia Her midwinter Siberian motorbike adventure in minus 36 degrees Tom Morgan and Buddy Munro Channel 4 Trying to get a Ural motorbike and sidecar up the frozen river Ob Wearing tweed and thinking they were going to die Being given a huge frozen fish to take on the motorbike How regular breakdowns of the Ural bike actually kept them alive The Khanty–Mansia living in wooden houses by the river No running water or sanitation but plenty of vodka Returning to TV work to fund her adventures Producing World’s Most Dangerous Roads for the BBC Travelling with Joanna Lumley Silk Road Adventure series Filming a series with Tom Hardy on elephant and rhino Poaching Wars ‘No comment’ on what Tom Hardy was like! Her book ‘A Short Ride in the Jungle’ on her solo journey down the Ho Chi Minh Trail on motorbike The military supply route used during the Vietnam War How a single footpath became a 12,000 mile network through the jungle The trail still being heavily contaminated with unexploded devices A dangerous and remote experience Having ‘a few near misses with cluster bombs’ The Americans bombing Laos every 8 minutes for a decade The millions of millions of UXO dropped The remote tribal areas where ‘the war is still everywhere’ Two American former pilots she went off track with Finding an unexploded live bomb at her feet 400 people still being killed in Laos a year Meeting people who had lost sons, husbands, wives when ploughing the land Driving the Pink Panther – a 25 year old motorbike Every day being so exciting and scary and unknown and making her feel alive How a very curious person has led to her exploration The human urge to see what’s around the next corner and over the mountain Trying to have adventures in every day life and look at the world with fresh eyes Alastair Humphrey’s on The Big Travel Podcast and #microadventures Silk Road Adventures – the company she runs with her boyfriend Marley Building a portable sauna and tugging it around techno festivals in Europe Starting by doing motorbike trips in Tajikistan A passion for travelling in places where there aren’t many travellers Specialising in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kirgizstan, Northern Afghanistan, Pakistan, Jordan, Palestine, Iran and the Caucuses Her book about travelling through Arunachal Pradesh in North East India- the Land of the Dawn Lit Mountains in the Himalayas A three month solo journey across remote lands with restricted access The invisible fold no one goes to The most ethnically diverse place in South Asia, 30 different tribes The local animists who worship hundreds of different gods Constantly trying to appease this pantheon of spirits Meeting the first local girl to climb Everest Being trapped for 3 days in a festival of animal sacrifice and shamanic chanting in a tiny village on the Tibetan border Massive opium bongs, and tripping over the guts of oxen and pigs to the background of Shamanic chanting Eating leaves instead of animal guts Just like Glastonbury Not wanting to spend five days vomiting under the Shaman’s hut Being 18 and trying opium in Thailand How people get the wrong idea about The Royal Geographical Society Their amazing map rooms and libraries Winning a grant to do an expedition to remote North East India and Burma travelling through the lands inhabited by tribal head hunters The Naga tribe who fought for the British Ursula Graham Bower – still the only female commander in the history of the British army How head hunting happened until comparatively recently Lisa’s head-shrinkers in the family (!) Lisa’s granddad and the hallucinogenic drugs How places ‘at the edge of the map’ telling stories that haven’t been told before Wanting to explore Northern Pakistan and Lebanon The Baalbek ruins in Lebanon Staying in the Palmyra Hotel in the footsteps of Nureyev The song that makes her get off her motorbike and dance                

In this very first episode of Everyday Jesus, we discuss how we came up with the name, what it means and where we think this podcast is going. We have a good news segment where we discuss Dr. Mukwege, a nobel peace prize winner from Africa. Our unreached people group for the week is the Pashtun of Northern Afghanistan. Today's Word is John 1:1-18.    www.everydayjesus.net www.facebook.com/everydayjesuspodcast Music: www.hooksounds.com    

The government wastes a lot of your money on a regular basis, but here are some examples in Afghanistan that are beyond the pale. What's in the News with stories on good news for Ross Ulbricht, civilians killed by the US government, and three city governments banning employee cafeterias, banning plastic straws, and tearing down a 91-year-old woman's wheelchair ramp. Also, an Ancap Apps segment on one of the best charity apps around, DonorSee. This episode is brought to you by ZenCash, a cryptocurrency that infuses privacy, anonymity, and security done right. Also brought to you by Free Talk Live, providing you with fresh, pro-liberty content 7 days a week on more than 180 radio stations across the country.  WHAT'S RUSTLING MY JIMMIES We all know that there is a ton of government waste, especially since the money is not really theirs, only our money that was stolen from us at gunpoint. Since it is not their money, they don't really care much how they use it. However, when there comes out a story about such blatant government waste as this, I would be remiss to talk about it.   Apparently, "Congress has appropriated $126 billion for Afghanistan reconstruction since Fiscal Year 2002," wrote Special Inspector General John F. Sopko in testimony delivered in May to the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management. By 2014, he added, inflation-adjusted appropriations for that purpose "had already exceeded the total of U.S. aid committed to the Marshall Plan for rebuilding much of Europe after World War II."   WHAT'S IN THE NEWS In some good news, a U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland has filed a motion to dismiss pending charges against Ross Ulbricht, known as “Dread Pirate Roberts,” who is serving a life sentence following his conviction for his role in the Silk Road marketplace which facilitated the sale of illegal drugs.   In government is evil news, US Airstrikes have killed 14 civilians in Northern Afghanistan.   Sadly, this is a growing trend in Afghanistan due to the rise in bombings there. New data from US Air Force Central Command once again confirms a trend of escalating US airstrikes against targets inside Afghanistan. The data shows 2,911 munitions have been dropped in Afghanistan so far in 2018.   And, it's not just in Afghanistan that they are killing civilians in our names. US-led coalition airstrikes targeting Islamic State militants have killed at least 73 Syrian civilians during the month of July, with most of these deaths occurring in two strikes in Deir Ezzor province, according to monitor and media organizations.   In government protectionism news, in an attempt to attract employees to local restaurants and businesses, San Francisco Supervisors Ahsha Safaí and Aaron Peskin are co-sponsoring an ordinance that would ban “employee cafeterias” from new office buildings in the city. This comes as local retailers, particularly those downtown, complain of a drop in business as more companies offer their workers meals in private corporate cafeterias, Safaí said.   In other California liberal insanity news, the city of Santa Barbara, California has passed an ordinance that will allow restaurant employees to be punished with up to six months of jail time or a $1,000 fine after a second offense of giving plastic straws to their customers. The bill was passed unanimously last Tuesday and covers bars, restaurants, and other food-service businesses. Establishments will still be allowed to hand out plastic stirrers, but only if customers request them.   In more evil government news, Prince George's County Maryland filed a legal case against a Laurel couple in their 90s over a wheelchair ramp in their own home. To avoid legal trouble, the elderly couple's son tore down the ramp, trapping the woman in her own home. The county permitting department said the family had no permit to build a wheelchair ramp in front of their own home.     ANCAP APPS I talk a lot about putting your money where your mouth is. Private charity is one way we can do that by showing that it is much more efficient and effective than government charity funded at the point of a gun. DonorSee is a new type of charity that actually allows you to watch, quickly and easily, the impact of your money on charity. When you select a charity to support on the site at DonorSee.com, you will receive text and video updates on how your money is impacting the people, all directly on the website.

Travel with me to the Bamiyan Valley in Northern Afghanistan to learn about the majestic (majestic!) Bamiyan Buddhas, two colossal statues of the Buddha that were blown up in 2001 because terrorists are dopes.

On this episode of the Cinescape Magazine Podcast we discuss Voyeur, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and we preview Wild Cards from the guys at Broke College Kids. Voyeur (2017) TV-MA | 1h 36min | Documentary | 1 December 2017 (USA) Journalism icon Gay Talese reports on Gerald Foos, the Colorado motel who allegedly secretly watched his guests with the aid of specially designed ceiling vents, peering down from an "observation platform" he built in the motel's attic. Directors: Myles Kane, Josh Koury Stars: Gerald Foos, Edward Sabol, Gay Talese Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Approved | 1h 19min | Horror | 5 March 1954 (USA) A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study. Director: Jack Arnold Writers: Harry Essex (screenplay), Arthur A. Ross (screenplay) (as Arthur Ross) Stars: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning Wild Cards Episode one of seven from our new military drama series "Wild Cards." Corporal Marcus Jackson and Specialist Richard Charlie are stationed in Northern Afghanistan under Sargent Nathan "Ace" Adams. They are informed that the newly shipped-out Private Jamie Carter will be joining them on their next mission. Just some broke college kids making original short films with no budget. Like and Subscribe! Follow us on Instagram @brokecollegkidsproductionsmovie review, podcast, c

On this episode of the Cinescape Magazine Podcast we discuss Voyeur, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and we preview Wild Cards from the guys at Broke College Kids. Voyeur (2017) TV-MA | 1h 36min | Documentary | 1 December 2017 (USA) Journalism icon Gay Talese reports on Gerald Foos, the Colorado motel who allegedly secretly watched his guests with the aid of specially designed ceiling vents, peering down from an "observation platform" he built in the motel's attic. Directors: Myles Kane, Josh Koury Stars: Gerald Foos, Edward Sabol, Gay Talese Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Approved | 1h 19min | Horror | 5 March 1954 (USA) A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study. Director: Jack Arnold Writers: Harry Essex (screenplay), Arthur A. Ross (screenplay) (as Arthur Ross) Stars: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning Wild Cards Episode one of seven from our new military drama series "Wild Cards." Corporal Marcus Jackson and Specialist Richard Charlie are stationed in Northern Afghanistan under Sargent Nathan "Ace" Adams. They are informed that the newly shipped-out Private Jamie Carter will be joining them on their next mission. Just some broke college kids making original short films with no budget. Like and Subscribe! Follow us on Instagram @brokecollegkidsproductionsmovie review, podcast, c

Join us this week as we welcome the country rock band, The Gillis Silo. The band traces its' roots back to Northern Afghanistan, where singer/songwriter Caleb Paul was deployed during 2012-2013 with the US Army. Caleb wrote many songs while in Kabul. Upon his return home to Baton Rouge he called upon seasoned musicians Jordan Snyder, Jared Daigle, Karl Boudreaux, and Josie Menard to carefully construct their alternative rock infused country sound. Since the band's first performance in January 2014, The Gillis Silo has made waves throughout the U.S. with their own brand of music that fans have dubbed "Country on the Rocks". They have had the privilege of sharing the stage with Florida Georgia Line, Eli Young Band, Trace Adkins, Collin Raye, Tracy Byrd, Aaron Lewis, Jana Kramer, Chris Young, Easton Corbin, Parmalee, Billy Dean, Blackjack Billy, and members of Shenandoah. In exciting news for 2015, they will be releasing their debut EP "Pieces Of The Highway". We will talk to The Gillis Silo about their upcoming schedule, get a behind the scenes look at their music, feature their latest songs, and ask them to share their message for the troops. Please be sure to visit The Gillis Silo at https://www.facebook.com/thegillissilo and spread the word. Fans are welcome to call in and speak live with them during the show (718) 766-4193. If you would like to participate in the live chat during the show, you must sign up on the show site first and then log in during the show. And as always we will give shout outs to our deployed military listeners. Be sure to join us, Sunday 6/7/2015 at 4 PM EDT! Our message to the troops....WE do what we do, because YOU do what you do.

A tanker aircrew off loads over 70,000 lbs of fuel to a NATO E-3 AWACS during a combat sortie over northern Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Includes sound bites from Capt. Dorothy Ellis, KC-135 Aircraft Commander, 92nd Air Refueling Suadron, Fairchild AFB, Wa. Hometown: Moore, SC; 1st Lt. Robert Dobbins, Co-Pilot, 909th Air Refueling Squadron, Kadena AB, Japan. Hometown: Hobe Sound, Fla. and SrA Shawna Sims, Boom Operator, 92nd Air Refueling Suadron, Fairchild AFB, Wa. Hometown: Lufkin, Tx. Also available in high definition.

1st Lt. Monicia Porter Convoy Commander with the 1230th Transportation Company leads a Team of Georgia National Guardsman out of a motor pool on a dark, drizzly night in Northern Afghanistan. Porter’s mission today is to sustain Regional Command North, but normally she’s right at home leading math in a high school classroom. Also available in high definition

Northern Afghanistan has the highest maternal mortality ratio in the world. Meanwhile, women just across the border in Tajikistan are sixty-five times less likely to die in childbirth. Kylea Liese's research, collected during more than years of fieldwork, explains this striking variation with ethnographic data that brings anthropology, medicine and global health together. This event is co-sponsored by the UAA Anthropology Department and Anthropology Club.

Three proud, highly skilled mechanics from Oklahoma with the 1245th transportation company keep bolts tight and plasma torches hot to ensure trucks continue to hit the road in Northern Afghanistan. Includes sound bites from Spc. Joe Stewart, Mechanic. Hometown: Moore, Okla.; Spc. Brett York, Mechanic. Hometown: Ada Okla.; and Staff Sgt. Albert Arias. Mechanic. Hometown: Pauls Valley Okla. Also available in high definition. Follow the 101st Sustainment Brigade on Facebook at facebook.com/lifeliners

The 420th Combat Engineering Team clears routes for safe travel in the Kunduz Province of Northern Afghanistan. Story by SGT Jacob Connor. Includes sound bites from Sgt. Alex Kube, Squad Leader, 420th Engineers and Cpl. Derek Welsh, Team Leader, 420th Engineers. Also available in high definition.

We hear a graphic account of the killing of hundreds of captured Taliban after they rose up inside a prison in Mazar-e-Sharif in Northern Afghanistan during the first dramatic weeks of the West's invasion of the country

This edition features stories on NATO talks on violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan's role, maintaining the fleets of C-130J's and the opening of a school in Northern Afghanistan which brings children from all over the region together and how the troops also contribute to the area. Hosted by Staff Sgt. Trevor Pedro.

On this episode of the Cinescape Magazine Podcast we discuss Voyeur, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and we preview [Wild Cards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcpdfh0fSdI) from the guys at Broke College Kids. Voyeur (2017) TV-MA | 1h 36min | Documentary | 1 December 2017 (USA) Journalism icon Gay Talese reports on Gerald Foos, the Colorado motel who allegedly secretly watched his guests with the aid of specially designed ceiling vents, peering down from an "observation platform" he built in the motel's attic. Directors: Myles Kane, Josh Koury Stars: Gerald Foos, Edward Sabol, Gay Talese Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) Approved | 1h 19min | Horror | 5 March 1954 (USA) A strange prehistoric beast lurks in the depths of the Amazonian jungle. A group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study. Director: Jack Arnold Writers: Harry Essex (screenplay), Arthur A. Ross (screenplay) (as Arthur Ross) Stars: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning Wild Cards Episode one of seven from our new military drama series "Wild Cards." Corporal Marcus Jackson and Specialist Richard Charlie are stationed in Northern Afghanistan under Sargent Nathan "Ace" Adams. They are informed that the newly shipped-out Private Jamie Carter will be joining them on their next mission. Just some broke college kids making original short films with no budget. Like and Subscribe! Follow us on Instagram @brokecollegkidsproductionsmovie review, podcast, c