And I asked him for an overview of Operation Pineapple Express.

Yeah, August 15th, 2021, like a lot of people probably listening to this, a lot of veterans, I got a frantic text from a buddy of mine, Nizam, who was an Afghan commando, Afghan special forces, and even went to our Q course, was a certified Green Beret, that he was on the run.

The Taliban were texting his phone.

He was hiding in his uncle's house like Anne Frank, and he didn't know what to do.

and at the time, I was just trying to help him get a visa, and then all of a sudden, it became something wildly different, which was how do we get him out of there? Yeah.

He's going to be killed.

He was going to be killed, no doubt about it, and so we rallied a group of five or six guys that knew him, some active duty, some... veterans, but all Green Berets, maybe one intelligence person.

You're trying to move their families to a

You can't, you cannot prop up another nation infinitely, but the way we left just made everything worse.

It, just the way we left, and I think that, uh, I do believe you're right.

I think that the, the chapter has not been written on Afghanistan.

I think there's still a, a world where they rise back up on their own, and I hope they do.

The other thing I think, though, is also just the moral injury that was inflicted on a lot of our veterans with their value code, just the betrayal.

You know, just leaving your allies like that in a lurch, that's something we were raised not to do.

And the way that, that our government did that, it really put these veterans in a place where they've been on the phone with these people for five years.

It's called France.

You can't, you cannot prop up another nation infinitely, but the way we left just made everything worse.

Yeah, just the way we left, and I think that, uh, I do believe you're right.

I think that the, the chapter has not been written on Afghanistan.

I think there's still a, a world where they rise back up on their own, and I hope they do.

The other thing I think, though, is also just the moral injury that was inflicted on a lot of our veterans with their value code, just the betrayal.

You know, just leaving your allies like that in a lurch, that's something we were raised not to do, and the way that, that our government did that, it really put these veterans in a place where they've been on the phone with these people for five years.

Some have cashed in their pensions, their retirements.

It's called France.

I really do.

There's a few things to unpack here.

So, you know, the, the, the statement that Farage made was specifically around needing this money for personal protection, and, um, I-- what I would, would do is put out there that you shouldn't downplay MP security.

You know, I, I had three death threats while I was doing the job, and I suspect Duncan might have had similar.

There's lots of stories around Westminster of MPs that, that have that.

So I w- I wouldn't downplay that, and I think it is important.

I think there was a decision or, or, or Farage has been asking the Home Secretary to fund, um, personal security for him over the past.

You know, leave people with-

James

is.

Sorry.

So James is another special operator.

Not his real name.

Right.

But I had already come close to taking my life.

So you make an order.

... once you're healed.

I'll give you another quick example.

Um, Holly was a Gold Star mom.

She came to our play Last Out.That we were talking about.

Yeah.

She came in 2019.

She lost her son Danny in Afghanistan about a decade before that, right? And, um, she was in a fog.

Why?

Talk to me about how you see this value and virtue of authenticity.

Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that.

And look, where I learned authe- authentic influence was from a bunch of Green Beret NCOs and my dad, a wildland firefighter.

Like, and that, but what both of them had in common was this ability to engage effectively.

They were really, really good at emotional r- like, they r- resonated with people emotionally, and they could gain and hold attention.

Like, that...

And what I found in years and years of doing Special Forces work around the, around the world and watching these iconic Green Beret NCOs go into places where, like, an elder is looking at you through a furrowed brow, and he's got a AK to his right and a cup of green tea to his left, you know, how do you get him to pick up that green tea? It's to be yourself.

Story is a hu- is a tool.

How does that survive? Can we?

I think I really worry about it because, you know, as a former Green Beret, one of the things I spent a lot of time, uh, with, on was studying human civil society and how we navigate the world.

And, you know, storytelling is not a kumbaya thing.

It's what we're, our brain is actually wired for story, and this is what Walt Benjamin says.

I put this at the conclusion of my book.

But he says, "The art of storytelling is coming to an end.

It is, is, it is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us, the ability to exchange experiences.

W- why would they risk their own lives just to see America get screwed over?

[laughs]

No.

I mean, these are different.

The stakes are a little different, but the reality is you're facing stark choices.

You're facing an individual that's not in a good place, not very happy with you being there, and, you know, at the end of the day, we're both trying to get the same thing.

We just want him to pick up the green tea and have a conversation.You know what I mean? Like that's where I've, you know, a lot of times the stakes can skew what it is we're talking about.

What is the goal? Well, the goal is I want to build rapport with this individual, and this is what I've taught in our schoolhouse, and this is what I would say to any tech that's going into that situation because this is a human problem.

... and going to work?

I don't think Trump wants to do that, but he wants to maybe weaken them to the point- I also think we could- is, is there a way, a legal way, to arm the population?

Well, there's cer- [chuckles] there are certainly ways to arm populations, and the United States has actually, for many, many years, developed, uh, a process of unconventional warfare or irregular warfare, where we work by, with, and through indigenous populations to stand up on their own.

That's what Special Forces, the Green Berets, was designed to do.

There are ways to do this, that you can actually empower the populations of a country like Iran that are oppressed to rise up on their own and affect it indirectly.

Whether or not we're doing that, I mean, I, I wouldn't comment on it even if I knew, but I think that those options are certainly on the table.

What we get, what we get myopically focused on are the surgical strike-type raids that you see in the movies, or like you saw, uh, when we pulled Maduro out, and those are awesome.

But there are also other ways to facilitate an uprising by, with, and through that are not as apparent, but they're still very viable.

uh, form and move in?

It's people who are young and people who are buying their forever home, and people who are just priced out of the market.

And I'm retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann.

I've got the final word on the Fox News Rundown.

(news music plays)

What's on your mind?

What does Veterans Day mean to you? The prevailing narrative seems to be that veterans are broken, that they need our care either because of physical or mental problems they are experiencing.

While this is certainly true for some who need our deepest support, there is another level to our veterans and their families that's often overlooked in this time of thank you for your service.

I retired after nearly 23 years in service, mostly in special operations, and then spent the last 15 years as a professional storyteller writing and performing plays about our military community and the Afghanistan War.

How do you feel about it?

Uh, I think it's- it's overdue because when you look at just fentanyl alone and the impact that it has on our society and- and- and the number of deaths that could be attributed to that, um, and you look at where it's coming from, look at the origins of it, I- I've- I've been talking for a while, as have others in the- in the special ops community about this nexus between international gangs, uh, between, you know, uh, state actors who- who are really, you know, positioning against us, and violent extremism.

You know, what happens if, you know, you get the Star Wars bar and those- those folks start working together? And I think you're seeing that.

I think we've been seeing that for a while, and I think we're up against it.

I think you're dealing with, uh, some stuff here that is a formidable force.

You know, you start downing swift boats, uh, and- and go fast boats and you start taking on the cartels, that's a, you know, that is a herculean effort.

And so I think it's overdue, but I think what we need to be ready for is they're not just gonna, I don't think they're just gonna roll their eyes and take it.

Why is that important?

How do you feel about it?

Uh, I think it's, it's overdue, because when you look at just fentanyl alone and the impact that it has on our society and, and, and the number of deaths that could be attributed to that, um, and you look at where it's coming from, look at the origins of it.

I, I've, I've been talking for a while, as have others in the, in the Special Ops community, about this nexus between international gangs, uh, between, you know, uh, state actors who, who are really, you know, positioning against us, and violent extremism.

You know, what happens if, you know, you get the Star Wars bar and those, those folks start working together? And I think you're seeing that.

I think we've been seeing that for a while, and I think we're up against it.

I think you're dealing with, uh, some stuff here that is a formidable force.

You know, you start downing swift boats, uh, and, and go fast boats, and you start taking on the cartels, that's a, you know, that is a Herculean effort.

Why is that important?

These guys wanna fight.

Well, and also, I think a lot of cases too, if I'm being honest, a lot of times the, the narrative that comes out of these other places that you just cited is, a lot of it's a false narrative.

I mean, like, if you look at the people that Pineapple and other groups helped get out, these guys ran out of ammunition.

Like, they literally fought to the last round.

And some of them in, uh, for example, in Afghanistan, are still fighting.

I think the problem for me is that when, when, when you step into a relationship with a partner nation and you say, "Okay.

We're gonna send our blood and treasure and we're gonna fight alongside you," or even if we just send equipment, um, when you do that, it is a commitment.

Uh, and China did nothing either.

Correct. He runs, uh, he's... Correct. Yes. Yes.

And I think it's important to note here too, because a lot of folks, to your question, you know, they, they, they, they're watching this and they're like, "Okay, well these are veterans getting this. Like, why aren't we getting this from the intelligence community? Or why aren't we getting this from the formal institutions?" And one thing, I'll just give as an example, Legend will talk about it, but, you know, Mr. Saleh was abandoned, just like a whole bunch of other Afghan assets were abandoned, uh, on August 15th. We're talking 98 to 99% of the human intelligence assets in Afghanistan that took 20 years to build were left behind. And this is coming from the CENT- former CENTCOM commander. Right? What happened was a lot of veterans, like Legend, who had preexisting relationships, found ways to do humanitarian outreach in those moments to fill the gap because no one else was picking up the phone, and also had the foresight, as an intelligence guy, to say, "Well, it's probably not a good idea to leave Mr. Saleh, you know, out there on his own." And so over these last several years, you know, Legend has cultivated a relationship, you know, and, and really done the job. And I just don't know any other way to say it, right? Done the job, uh, of what, uh, of what a formal intelligence agency would normally do with a massive asset like that. So, now you've got literally the guy who was regarded as the father of Afghanistan intelligence talking primarily to an Afghan American army, US Army NCO, and that's where that primary relationship took place. Now, multiply that, Sean, at scale. You have Sarah Adams doing her version of that, me doing my version of that with Afghan special forces and commandos. And that's what's evolved over the last four years, is by, by the virtue of abandoning 98 to 99% of our intelligence capability and our commandos and our special ops, the veteran community stepped into the breach and took over those relationships, for primarily humanitarian reasons. But here we are, four years later, and what you have is high-veracity intelligence and reporting coming through these channels instead of formal channels.

What, what are... I mean, when you dissected those with, with your counterparts, I mean, what are, what are some of the commonalities and some of the things that you found?

Well, you know, it started when you and I were talking about, I think, I don't know, y- you asked a question about, "Okay, so what do communities do?" And that st- you know, we, we... You and I went back and forth on it a little bit, but what it really opened up was a really broad conversation that's still ongoing, where individuals and communities, I know they started hitting you up, they started hitting me up, they started hitting Sarah up. "What do we do in our community? How do we defend our synagogue or our church or our place of worship? Is this something we should be thinking about?" And we talked about it, and, and just... The way I look at it is, we're kind of... I believe we're at a crossroads right now. You know, when we think about everything that we talked about here today, you, you look at... You look at the threat picture that the, the government has on terrorism, you look at what the global war on terror veterans are saying, and it's different. And we're at a crossroads. And you either believe at this point that there is a viable threat against the homeland that is complex, local, distributed, looks more like October 7th than it does 9/11, that is very likely in the next year or two, or you don't. You know? And if you don't, okay, like godspeed. But if you do, where we were, okay, then perhaps in addition to the analysis, we should start i- i- until we do bring this together with our government, which we've really gotta have that, that private-public relationship on an unprecedented scale, what could we... You know, what could... I- if it's a duty to warn up, you know, maybe it's a duty to prepare down and in, and how could we help that conversation? So we started looking at, what if we just self-published, uh, a book that really just looked at not just the threat analysis, but scenarios that have happened in the past of where we get hit or other places get hit where they live, work and play. And so we put together this small book, and t- you know, borrowing from Winston Churchill when he tried to warn of the gathering storm in World War II, that's what we, we named this project, The Gathering Storm, and we just looked at... And so from, you know, from my part in it and a couple other contributors, we looked at case studies. So a lot like how US Army Special Ops Command and others do case studies and they'll, they'll take, they'll migrate those practical lessons learned into operators' modern times. That's what we did, and we just looked at unclassified. We looked at, uh, the DC sniper and we looked at the Bedlam school siege with the, with the Chechens where they, they moved children, over 1,000, into a gymnasium and threw explosives up on the basketball goals and held terrain and held the Russian special ops at bay. We looked at Mumbai, which is a very compelling version of what Sarah and others have warned about it back in 2008, where, you know, roughly 10, no, it was 10 terrorists locked down a city of 19 million, doing complex attacks, holding terrain, killing well over 100, uh, people. And it was almost a foreshadowing of what we think we could expect here in the homeland. And we just... And we... October 7th, New Orleans. So we looked at all these, and what we did was we started to pull out a lot of the commonalities that individuals and communities should be thinking about. And I'll, and, and, and I'll kind of throw it back to you there and we can, you know, we can go deeper on any of those things that you want, because there were a lot of lessons learned, I think, that are super helpful. But one of the things that we came out of it with, Sean, that surprised me was, one, the relative ease of finding people who were on the ground or who responded to those events. I mean, even Mumbai, October 7th, just doing peer-to-peer discussions on lessons learned was super eye-opening, and I think something that's available to law enforcement, emergency operation centers across the country. That's number one. And, uh, number two, I think the thing that surprised me was we came up with a lot more questions than we did answers.And just like yesterday when we were talking to the sheriff's department in your county, it's different in every county. It's different in every municipality because context is everything. But if these attacks are going to be locally manifested, then that's where the conversations need to start, because that's gonna be the real resilience in that. So we came away with a lot of questions and where we didn't have the answers, we just put the questions in there. You know, here's what communities should be asking themselves, and hopefully more books will be written, uh, that are, you know, technically specific on those questions and we just keep it going. Um, so that's the project and, uh, happy to jump into any parts about it, 'cause like I said, between, uh, the intel contributors and the operators that a lot of good stuff came out of it, a lot of lessons.