What They Don't Tell You About The Military: Fast-Movers, Leadership, DEI, And Recruitment

Today, I sit down with Christopher Brewer, a retired U.S. Army major and Special Forces operator whose 24-year military career was followed by over two decades in global security contracting. Mr. Brewer brings an unparalleled depth of experience, having served as a plank holder in the reactivated 1st Ranger Battalion in 1974, an officer in the 82nd Airborne, and a Special Forces leader operating classified missions across Colombia, Panama, and the Far East. He later worked in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and the UAE, applying his expertise in high-threat security environments.

In this episode, we breakdown and discuss the difference between true leadership and careerism in the military, as Mr. Brewer explains how integrity, honesty, and putting your people first often come at a cost. We dig into the flaws of military promotion systems, the political pressures inside the ranks, and how DEI initiatives and lowered standards have complicated national defense. We also talk about what happens when the military tries to “chase” recruits by weakening its identity — and how returning to higher expectations is starting to restore pride and performance across the force.

Mr. Brewer shares his powerful philosophy on endurance, explaining how his military journey taught him to never quit on something that matters, and how the political phases and presidential cycles affect the military. We also talk about his post-retirement work as a military author, documenting everything from Cold War-era Ranger stories to declassified missions with shocking behind-the-scenes realities. 

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Transcript

 Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple of Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and we've had a variety of military guests on this show from Vietnam War veterans to current, you know, people in the Navy, even Navy Seals. But today we have a very distinguished military member here with us, and I'm excited to get into.

His field of expertise as well as what he does nowadays. Mr. Christopher Brewer, great to have you here with us, and I'd love for you to go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity. Um, I'm retired military. I spent 24 years in. I was a plank holder with first Ranger Battalion when they were reactivated in 1974.

I was a private back then, kind of grew up in the battalion, became a sergeant there. Um, went on to. Tours in, uh, Europe back over as Ranger instructor went to OCS was in the 82nd as an officer. Went through the Special Forces qualification course right when it was turning into the selection and assessment in a branch.

Uh, seven Special Forces Group with classified missions down in Columbia and Panama First Special Forces Group with classified missions in the Far East. Retired in nine seven just before nine 11. Then nine 11 hit, of course, just a few short years after I did another 20 some odd years as a security contractor was in DC when nine 11 happened, was five years in Afghanistan, head of security for KBR operations first and later on working with the Afghans out at r Cavo at the commando school and a little bit of a couple of trips down to Nigeria and the river Delta four or five years down in, uh, the UAE.

And now I just basically hang out and write books. Right. So let's go to the very beginning. What got you into the military lifestyle? Was that a choice, kind of peer pressure? What led you to that? Uh, pretty much. I was born in the military. Dad was in the military, grew up as an army brat. Moving around, uh, seemed to be a logical progression to me.

Went to North Georgia at that time, military college. For about a year or two and joined 20th SF National Guard to help pay the bills, got the bug. And when the Ranger Battalion cranked up, I went ahead and enlisted and went full time. All right. And then you did, so why did you get out when you, uh, did get out?

Uh, I got out briefly in 1977 after three years in a ranger bat, figured I needed to try being a civilian. Uh, wound up in San Francisco, uh, working for a fly by night bodyguard service, which convinced me that I'd rather be in the military than give you better guns and you're safer. Yeah. So, and then after 24 years in the military, I see I, my first 10 years where enlisted, I was a sergeant first class before I went to OCS, so I was one of those guys that's never gonna be a general to quote every one of my commanders when they were writing efficiency reports.

But I got all the jobs and none of the other fast movers wanted. I got to be a ODA commander twice. I got to be an SF company commander twice. Uh, got some jobs. Nobody wanted to touch with a 10 foot pole, uh, 'cause they were dangerous to your career. But after 24 years as a major, I'd pretty much gone as far as I was gonna go.

So I figured it was time to retire, move on. Mm-hmm. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. 'cause I know a lot of people, once they hit that 20 mark, that's it. Or it seems like if they go past that 20, they stay in for life as long as they can. So yeah, I think, um. Would you say taking risks such as, um, taking on those jobs that no one else wants, putting in that extra work is, uh, would you say that is what you advise people to do, especially in the military who are trying to rank up?

Or what advice can you give to that based on how long your career was about ranking up and working hard? Oh, ranking up, if that's an objective, you're gonna make a lot of compromises along the way. Because the military is a, uh, hierarchy and the people on top, like to see people just like them, or at the very least PE-people.

Yeah. Think like them come up. And if you, I had more than one commander, especially as an officer, tell me that you either 100% support me or you're 100% against me. Against me. Mm-hmm. There is no middle ground. Unfortunately, I had a couple of times in there where it was necessary to emphasize to him to say, boss, you're going down the wrong road, and I'll keep my mouth shut in public.

But every time we come into this office, I'm gonna be reminding you of this, and I know you don't want to hear it, but, so for me, rank was not the major objective for me. The life in the military and what I was doing were the things that I liked. When a fast mover would get in the way of doing the job because it helped further their career, then I wasn't gonna go along.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting, really, it's sad that, um, you and I served in completely different time periods and I witnessed the same exact thing, and all the military members I've had on the show have expressed the same exact sentiment that in order to rank up you had to screw people over. You have to basically hate your life.

You have to, you know, be just like your leaders, be a kiss up, that that's a lot of the same people go into power as the people who are there now. And what I saw was that the best leaders I had. Had been lower ranked, they had, uh, lost their rank standing up for their sailors. They had, uh, lost their rank.

Being people, putting people first, not compromising the mission, but not compromising their sailors over, you know, a lot of quote, you know, dumb military stuff that could have been done more efficiently or a different way. Without costing, uh, the sailors so much of their, their mental health and time and lifestyle.

And so I've seen the same exact thing decades after you served, uh, the same exact kind of patterns of, I like to call 'em fast movers. Uh, some of the people who were the furthest ahead in qualifications. Nuke school. Uh, it was because they screwed over other people. They, uh, you know, basically pushed others down to lift themselves up and Don Gleason Air Force.

And I, uh, in an episode prior to this one we talked about. How good leaders are supposed to pull people up with them along the way, not push others down to raise themselves. But unfortunately, we've seen a lot of that same climate and culture still in the military to this day across all branches. I've had people from the Marines, air Force, Navy, on the show, all express the same thing.

Uh, then let me, let me say that that's not the only way to make rank. Yeah. Because I've had, I've had the, I've been fortunate enough to work for some really great officers that were generals. Uh, Sid Shack now was a general officer in charge of SF Command, and Sid was a, uh, as a kid, 11 or 12 years old, he was in, uh, DACO during World War ii.

He was, he was Jewish and he was sent to the concentration camp in slave labor. Uh, he escaped from there at the age of 11 or 12, and we went into the resistance up until he was about 15 when the war ended, and then he made his way to the United States at the age of 15, worked until he was old enough to join the army and enlist, went up through the ranks, went to OCS, became a general officer.

Was one of the greatest men that I've ever met. So unfortunately, human beings being what they are, there aren't that many great men out there, but if you're working for a great man, then you can advance fast movers of getting the way. But there, there are some truly good officers and NCOs out there, just not quite enough of them.

Yeah, fortunately so, and a lot of the people who would be good leaders end up getting out because there's more for them civilian side than in the military. And, uh, you know, we could talk about reform for, for a long time because I've had a lot of episodes on that. But what I wanna ask is, did you feel like being prior enlisted and then going and ranking up and, and being officers, stuff like that, did you feel like you understood everyone a lot better?

Did you feel like you were able to be a better leader because of that? It made a big difference. Uh, especially, I got picked up for E seven when I had about seven or eight years time of service, so as an NCOI was considered a fast mover, but I was in Ranger Battalion, I was in airborne units, I was in Special forces units.

I went to the schools I was told to go to, so I was an NCO. Working with other really good NCOs that are in those units wasn't hard to move up. Mm-hmm. Officers you're getting into, even in the really good units, there's a lot more politics on the officer side. And in NCO, once you get up to E eight, E nine, there's a lot of politics there.

'cause that pyramid narrows out real fast and you've got a lot of good people. It just, it gets harder to move across. But one thing I, I always like to tell young people that ask, well, should I go into the military right now? 'cause it seems really messed up. Especially during the last administration with a lot of stuff that was going on, it doesn't really change.

It goes through cycles. Oh yeah. In 19, in 1977, uh, Jimmy Carter was the president and we had to road march every place 'cause we didn't have enough fuel for the trucks. One month we didn't get paid 'cause congress was fighting over the budget and they didn't pass a budget. So we didn't get a paycheck till about two weeks later.

We didn't have enough ammunition to go to the range. Uh, there was more nonsense going on than you could shake a stick at, but then we had a new president and things changed, and you see the same things right now. It goes through cycles and if you get out and go into the civilian sector, if you're in a big organization, a big company.

You're gonna see the same thing quite often worse because you don't have the checks and balances in the commercial world that you do have in the military, right? If you're gonna start your own business and do your own thing, that that's, that's a different matter, but it's still dog eat dog, no matter where you are.

Yeah. Do you think that all officers in the military should have to be prior enlisted instead of just having this straight officer route that all officers should have some form of enlisted experience? That way they can actually relate to the people that they're working with and, and, and working over.

You know, I, I definitely think that would be a good option. I think there's, there's room for, there's wake. It can be set up because I think having that experience and understanding it, because I think. There, there can still be that distance, respect, and authority that officers have. Um, not like, oh, I don't think it should be.

The stigma that being prior enlisted means that they're any less of an officer than officers who just go to college or the academy, go straight into Officer Hood. What do you think about that kind of stuff? I think that would be a good idea. You know, I mean, it adds to the timeline and that's the excuse that's often given that it slows people down.

Right. But, you know, two years isn't gonna hurt anybody. And then you can select from that pool the guys that, uh, and girls are gonna be going to the service academies. Uh, it gives 'em a good feel for what it's like in the regular army, uh, especially in special Forces, when Special forces became a branch.

We used to be, we had a, a lieutenant as the XO of an an A team. And the a team leader was a captain who usually had pretty good experience when we became a branch. You had to go through the Q course. As a captain, you come directly to a team with no special forces experience and the officer Corps being what it is.

Um, most of my peers were only allowed to be on an ODA for six months, and then they'd never be on an A team again. Uh, they weren't taking lieutenants at that time. So the idea came up of, well, we're gonna make warrant officers the xo, and then you have leader continuity of leadership, but. The warrants were coming out of the E six and E sevens that didn't want to be E eight and be a team sergeant, so they'd go into warrant.

So now you've got a conflict with the most experienced guy on the team. The team sergeant has got really a junior NCO, who's wearing warrant, who outranks him now and thinks he knows more than he does and certainly has the authority to give him orders, which is. Causes all kinds of issues. We've got good warrants, we've got some bad warrants, but in my opinion, we'd have been a lot better off to let lieutenants go to the Q course after their first platoon assignment, come to an ODA as an xo, where you've got an experienced captain that tells 'em this is your job and you've got a team sergeant telling the NCOs this is your job.

And then that lieutenant could grow into being a team leader, and then you'd have much better team leaders and a much better a team in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I, I totally get that. And, uh. We have, because we already have so many officers set up in the military, I think we could definitely make that change.

And, um, it wouldn't be like a time period where we're missing officers at any point, you know, because we already have officers established, so we have the time for them to go enlisted first for, like you said, two years or, or however many years and get that experience. But I wanna focus on, you had a very long career in the military.

What would you say is one of the best things you've learned from it, whether that was a habit, a life lesson, or a skill or anything of the kind? What would you say was your biggest takeaway from the military?

It gave me an opportunity to see places and people and cultures that, uh, most people in the United States never do. Mm-hmm. So it gave me a different perspective on the world, on, on history, um. Probably the most elemental thing that I think it gave me is, uh, the understanding that no matter how bad things get, they usually get better, they can get worse, but it's uh, just don't give up.

Don't get, if it's important to you, don't give up on it. Write it out. If you work at it, things can get better. There is improvement. Don't walk away from what you put a lot of work into and don't quit what you're doing unless you just don't want to do that anymore. So do you feel like a lot of military members especially, um, get out before their, their prime time in the military?

Unfortunately, yes, because, uh, they get discouraged. Uh. The bad cycles tend to coincide with, uh, presidential administrations. And so you've got about, you can have a four year bad cycle, you can have an eight year bad cycle, and that's a lot to write out. Yeah. And I think we're, we're coming out of a bad cycle right now.

Um. It's getting a lot better. Uh, I'm really encouraged by a lot of the things the current administration is doing, the, the DEI and all of the additional training and all of the priorities. Uh, I remember back when I was in, we used to have a, a motto for the Army that today's army wants to join you and just.

Really frosted me when I would hear that. 'cause no, we don't want to join your little sniveling immature ass. You can come join us if you can meet our standards. But no, we're not there to join you. Mm-hmm. And then now we get diversity is our strength. No, it's not. In the military, our strength is people who meet a common standard, who work together as a team and set aside.

I. Whatever cultural differences we may have for the greater mission, but when you come in with, well, we have to respect their diversity. No, we don't. Uh, you have to respect my decision. No, I don't. You're unable to make your decision, but you accept the consequences and you want to be part of this team or you don't.

Thanks for coming out. Have a nice day. See you later. And that's what the military is about. The military has a mission. To protect the homeland to fight wars, period. Yeah. As someone who, uh, my promotion was taken away from me for DEI to, to be given to an individual to create a more diverse environment rather than based off qualification, uh, I have to completely agree with you.

It's actually why I ended up, uh, one of the main reasons why I didn't wanna stay in the military. But what I also say is, yeah, I've, I've talked about this before, how with. The latest, uh, standards being lowered and lowered, it does seem like the military is chasing after. The people rather than people going to the military because what they, they're doing to combat the retention and recruiting crisis is lowering the physical fitness standards, lowering the education standards, lowering the drug tolerance standards so that more people will join or are able to join.

But then you're creating a lower standard across the whole military, which compromises, you know, national security and, and just it's gonna get worse and worse. You know, it's a snowball effect of downhill. You know, from just when I joined to when I left, the physical fitness standards had been lowered.

The educational requirements had been lowered. The, um, military bearing had been shifted to a more casual, relaxed thing. They were allowing, um, all kinds of stuff to more feminine eyelashes, to hands and pockets, to, um, more, um. Almost more seductive PT clothing, so people would feel like they weren't in the military training.

It's, uh, ridiculous leaving the bootcamp standards. Uh, there are certain branches that haven't compromised on that. Uh, last I checked, the Marines haven't lowered their physical fitness standards. I know the Air Force was trying to. Raised their physical fitness standards. Uh, but I know at least the Navy from when I was in to when I got out had lowered them.

And I can't speak for the, uh, all the branches of course, but I completely agree with you. It shouldn't be that we're chasing after them. Um, I think the real issue isn't the standards that need to be met. It's the lifestyle and the reformation that needs to happen in the military. Kind of like you and I have discussed some of those things, but instead they just say, Hey, let's just make it so more people are able to join.

For example, with the whole, uh, drug tolerance policy, when I was leaving the Navy, uh, some commands were changing it so that it was the CEO's discretion whether or not people got removed for, uh, drug tolerance or not, because so many people were purposely doing drugs. Uh, especially weed to get out of the, the Navy and most of them were getting a general under honorable conditions discharge or just a general discharge.

And, um, so most people were just doing that and then helling on themselves or just hoping to get popped on a drug test to get outta the military with, uh, basically no consequences. So I think there's a lot of change that needs to be done to raise those standards again. And to, like you said, have a strong uniform thing.

It's not about chasing after the people. And I think if you have a no drug tolerance policy and then people are violating that, you see mass waves of 50 people at a time violating that to leave a command. Uh, it shouldn't be general or honorable. It should be dishonorable. You join the military to meet a standard and they said no drug tolerance policy now.

I understand there are certain conditions and certain, uh, it should be situational, but in general, when you have this mass epidemic of people purposely doing drugs to get outta the military consequence free, something needs to be done about that. Yeah, absolutely. And, and there's a lesson to be learned and, and looking at what's going on right now because.

We were pursuing the policy of trying to open the door, welcome people in, lower the standards, get more, and look what happened to our recruiting. It dropped. We were not meeting any of the requirements, so they started dropping the recruitment quotas and we had units that were under strength across the board.

Now, the new administration came in. One of the first things that the new Secretary of Defense did was he said, we're getting rid of all of that. We don't, if you can't meet the standard, we don't need you. He's changed the PT standard. Uh, for even when I was in, we had this PT standard that helped you feel better about yourself if you were a senior officer or a senior.

NCO helped you feel better about yourself if you were a woman instead of a man. So. There was one standard for male and there was a different lower standard for female, but you could still have the same score. It was age graduated, so if you were a 45-year-old sergeant major, you could still get a hundred points.

Whereas if it was the same number of repetitions by an 18-year-old, he'd barely pass. So everybody could have the good numerical score and feel good about themselves. He got rid of that. Right now, there is one scale for the physical fitness test, whether you're a man or a woman, whether you're 18 or whether you're 50, it has the same numerical score, but you have to have a higher score to be an infantryman than you do to be a clerk typist.

That's entirely fair. 'cause you don't have to be a PT stud to be a clerk type typist or a logistician, right? You should be in good shape, but you don't have to be in, uh, incredible shape. But if you're gonna be in the, uh, combat arms units carrying a wreck sack, yeah, you gotta be able to carry the wreck sack.

And we don't care if you're male. Or female. If you're 18 or 55, if you can meet that standard welcome. And if you can't meet the standard, you need to go to a different job. And that is good news to me because I, I remember it was like because of the age and the gender scaling. I remember there was, uh, one woman in our division who she only had to do about 18 pushups or less to get like a perfect score.

Meanwhile, um, men between 18, 20 had to do at least, you know, 45, 50, whatever it was. That's a huge difference. And one thing that we always put forward that my one former friend and I was that the, the issue is that, let's say. We get attacked and we're on a Navy ship and, uh, stuff collapses right now. I got debris falling on me.

And, um, the women aren't capable of moving it because they were women and they didn't have to be as physically fit as men, but what, they're the only people around. So that was our biggest issue was everyone in the military should be able to perform the same duties because you never know who's gonna be at what place, at what time, especially in a casualty situation.

Absolutely. And I've always felt that way. Special Forces has always had, if you want to go to a special forces training, you show up and you take the PT test, you have to score two 70. There is no age graduation. You're everyone's on the 18 to 21, no matter how old you are. And if you can't get that two 70, don't, you're not even gonna start the course.

You haven't met the minimum qualification. Since they have changed that rule and they've got, they've gotten rid of the DEI, they've gotten rid of all the superfluous gender awareness training, all of this stuff that has nothing to do with being a war fighter. And they've changed the PT standards and they're starting to reduce, A lot of the headquarters staff are getting rid of a lot of generals because the army was organized to make room for generals.

So if we have World War iii. We've got enough generals for all the divisions and we'll just train the troops. Getting rid of it. That getting rid of all the sur surplus senior NCOs staffs, getting rid of all of that, put the money on war fighters. Our recruiting has gone up to where right now we've got more people who want to join the military.

Then we need, and there's the lesson right there. If you run a military like a military. There's plenty of people in the United States who want to be a part of that, who want to be a part of something they can be proud of, bigger than themselves, where they're serious and people will come. You don't have to lower the standard to attract, attract people.

There's good people out there. Yeah. And I think it's more of the, the lifestyle and the retention that hurts more than anything. And, uh, yeah. And you know, I, I remember, um, my sister, she got picked up for a special job in the military because she was the first female in five years to actually meet the physical fitness requirements.

And I was really proud of her. And, and some people thought it was sad that like, oh, well they should have different standards for females. I said, no, because. What she was doing, uh, if she was not physically fit, I mean, people's lives would be endangered. So I think people forget that the military, uh, you know, a lot of people think we just march around in parades and we just kind of stay and watch.

But there's a lot of stuff that happens and we always need to be ready. You know, the military's supposed to be ready for any situation any time. Uh, you know, that's because complacency kills. You know, we, we, that's one of the biggest things they teach in the reactor and nuclear side of the military is complacency kills.

You know, you could have every day be a quiet day, but at any minute something could go wrong and you need to be ready for that situation. You know, it's not for the day-to-day, it's for the, uh, unexpected days. But I want to get into your, uh, live post-military. You kind of went back into the world of security.

But as a, so were you, uh, you were a civilian, but you were working in tandem with the military as a third party, is that correct? Yeah, uh, I started out, I was an analyst. Uh. Based on my background and a lot of things that we've done with counter-terrorism, I was hired to be a Threat Options analyst for Army Material Command.

So basically I, I'd go look at the different facilities throughout the country if I was a terrorist, of how would I go about attacking this place and why would I do it? And then I'd give those plans to the staff so that they could improve their defenses. Uh. Not a lot of people wanted to listen to that and they'd all kind of smile and nod and go, yeah, well that's great, but do you really think Middle East terrorists are ever gonna come to Boston?

I mean, come on, be serious. Right. And, uh, about four weeks after I gave that briefing to the leadership in Natick Labs in Boston, nine 11 happened, and I was asked to come back and give that briefing one more time. So I did that for a while. Then, uh, I was doing red team exercises where we would organize a group of retired or separated special forces guys and we'd replicate a terrorist attack using blanks or miles or whatever was appropriate.

Then I went to, uh, after we went into Afghanistan, about a year after we went in, I went over there. I had a friend that I'd been in the service with who was working for Hal Burton, and he hired me to be the head of security for KBR operations when we were building all the fire bases in the fobs. And I coordinated force protection for the workers to make sure they were protected while we're there, traveled around, uh.

I wound up working down at, uh, Risor at the Commando School. Uh, helped 'em set up their first Special Forces program. Worked four or five years in the UAE for their special operations people. Uh, Africa went in there a couple of times. I. Yeah. So you went military security and then you mentioned in the very beginning of the episode, now you write books.

Can you tell us what that is all about, what kind of books you're writing and why you do that? Uh, wrote one book, the, we had the 50th anniversary of the Reestablishment of the Ranger Battalion last year. We got, uh, together all the guys that are still around and we were swapping stories and someone mentioned, you know, we need to write these down 'cause there's not that many of us and my grandkids would love to have this.

And we all had photos, I. I wrote a book of the first three years, and there's some funny stories in there being in Hinesville, Georgia in 1974 that interesting things would happen. And we went to, uh, Europe on exercises for re forger. We went to Panama for the Jungle Operations Training course, and we went from there straight to the north slope of Alaska in February for winter warfare training.

So there's stories about all of that. What it's like to be in the Ranger Battalion, to be a soldier going through hard times and a little bit on leadership. You know, it's, it's a good keepsake, keepsake for the guys. But I think it would also be a good book for folks thinking about coming in the military.

'cause it talks about what it's like to do that. And then the second book was the, uh, when I became an officer and went to special forces. And that one took a while to write. 'cause a lot of what I did during that time was highly classified. And you know, they tell us, you know, don't ever talk about this. So I didn't.

But then I was looking at Facebook and I see all these guys with, uh, SOG and all of these other top secret Phoenix project. They got their own Facebook page now. So I did some check in round and found out that, uh. You can tell some of these stories if you ask the military first, if it's okay after 20 or 30 years.

A lot of the stuff that was really secret isn't anymore. So I thought about it. Uh, some of the stuff still needs to stay secret. I, and I know why, but I thought some of the stuff, maybe we could let it out. And I wrote that up, packed it up, shipped off to Department of Defense, pre-publication review. They looked at it, argued about it, fought over it for like six or eight months, uh, sent it out to all the subordinate commands.

They sent it back, some disagreed with others, and finally they came down and said, what the hell, it's been almost 40 years. Let it go, but don't use that acronym. And they gave me a new acronym I've never heard of to apply to one of the units that I was in. You can't call it that, but you can call it this.

I said, well, nobody's going to know what that is, but well let, just don't say it that way because it was a politically charged acronym that they don't want to acknowledge. Hmm. Okay. So I took their instructions, I put it all in the book, and second book is talks a little bit about before going to sf, I had a long road to get there and some of the things that I learned along the way that helped.

When I got there, it talks about being in the qualification course when selection and assessment was being designed. And that was a tough road to go, uh, when we became a branch. And it talks about classified missions in Columbia, classified missions in Panama, uh, in the far East. A lot of really interesting stories that that haven't come out before.

Okay. So you think, uh, later in the future you might have some more books or do you think that's kind of it for now? I'm working on one for the contractor stories too. A lot of good stories there. Things you wouldn't believe. Yeah, I, I've, I've had some contractors on my show, so I have learned quite a bit about the Middle East, uh, that I did not know and it's, it's been a good time.

So, uh, as we wrap up this episode, I actually love for you to share. If you could, one of the funniest experiences you had while either contracting or in the military? Um, I know that just from the military members I've had on my show in my own life, there is, uh, there's plenty of funny stuff. Not all of it's shareable, but most of it, um, okay.

Columbia, um. I had just come back from a, a trip down to Costa Rica. We had done a gone to do a recon 'cause we were gonna do a training mission for the Costa Rican police sitting in the house having a beer and had the TV on for the evening news and saw drug cartels in Columbia Machine gunned down a presidential candidate for Columbia right there on that, on tv.

Wow. And Escobar killed Glan. And I'm looking at that going, man, somebody's phone's gonna be ringing right about now. Swear to God, my phone rang and it was my boss, and he said, we need you to come in tomorrow morning up to the group headquarters. We got a mission. So we went in and the mission was to send down, uh.

Six guys to set up a medical corpsman school for the Colombian army. 'cause they didn't have any medical corpsman. Mm. And the guys didn't want to go out in the jungle and fight. 'cause if they got wounded, they're probably gonna die. But George Herbert Bush had come on TV and said, you know, we're gonna support the Colombians in their fight against drug cartels, but we're not gonna send combat troops.

So we all got transferred out of Special Forces into the security Assistance training management office, which was an organization that had, uh, cooks and clerks and doctors and logisticians that would go out and help train other foreign militaries in non-combat functions. And. They originally gave the job to sat mo, but it was in Bogota while all the shooting was going on, and they said, we can't send doctors and nurses down there.

They, they won't survive. So they took SF guys and they put us in there. We went down in civilian clothes, no guns. Got to the RSOs office. They handed us a Beretta. A box of ammunition and said, we're taking you down to the south side of Bogota where all the shootings going on. You're gonna be in a military cortel there.

Uh, we can only do this once. We can't come down until we're ready to pull you out six months from now, but please give us a call once a week and let us know that you're still alive. Yeah. And they did. Um. But you know, it, it turned out to, to our benefit because no one was coming down to check on us. And after a while, you know, we got to know the people on the compound and we got to know the people outside the compound.

And then we started, life goes on even you got a drug war going on. So we wound up going out in our civilian clothes with our Beretta tucked up under a jacket, and we all spoke Spanish. So we learned to get around the city. So we were the only people moving around Bogota, only Americans moving around Bogota for sure.

And the R-S-O-R-S-O loved us drop by and you know, come in, cash a check or something and let us know what's going on. And you'd be surprised how easy it is. And I won't say easy, but how many people are out there floating around in all of these bad places? Uh hmm. We'd see it in Panama. Uh, in Panama. We had a mission after the invasion when all the combat troops went back to us and they put us two and four in all of the compounds all over the country.

After we'd got through shooting people, noriega's troops and taken away their guns and said, okay, all the combat troops are leaving. Now you guys go live with these 400 guys that we were shooting at last week. Give 'em their guns back. And tell 'em they're police now and you stay here and you watch 'em and call us every day and let us know you're alive.

And if you don't call for three days, we'll figure you're dead and there's a coup going on. And that was the job. So there, there's fun experiences there too. Learning how to manage that. So those stories are in the book, uh, and how we managed to do it. So it, it's interesting reading. I think anybody would enjoy it.

Yeah. It's, uh, like I, I've always said on the episodes I have with Vietnam War veterans, it's like, it almost seems fictional. Like I, I'll watch a movie sometimes when I read their books 'cause it's such a different life, uh, than we expect or than we've experienced. Even like some of the stuff you're talking about.

Is, um, not everyone's military career. You know, there are some experiences that are just so unique that, that they almost don't seem real, just like what you just shared now. So yeah, we're gonna have the links for your books and description below, but, uh, I appreciate you guesting today as well as your service.

You know, not just the 24 years military, but then all the civilian side as well. But now you're retired. It's time to enjoy it and, uh, yeah. Appreciate you coming on today. I appreciate the chance to share the story.