Ep. 12: How immigrants contribute to our national security

Episode 12 asks the question: how do immigrants contribute to our national security. America is a country of immigrants, and this episode explores how the best teams are built from people with different backgrounds, skill sets, and cultures.  We kick things off (00:47) with U.S. Marine Corps combat veteran and current Deputy Chief of Citizenship and Applicant Information Services at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Al Eskalis who answers the question, "Why does America need immigration?" (3:12). Then,U.S. Army veterans and authors Adam Gamal and Kelly S. Kennedy join us to discuss their new book, The Unit: my life fighting terrorists as one of America's most secret military operatives. Adam discusses his journey from being a child in Alexandria, Egypt to joining a Tier 1 Special Operations Command unit so secretive that the Department of Defense prohibited him from publishing the unit's name. This is the first and only book to ever be written by a member of America's most secret military unit. This is the unit whose members go in BEFORE the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta or Naval Special Warfare Development Group (AKA Seal Team Six) hit the target. They are the people largely responsible for finding and fixing the target so other Tier 1 teams can finish them. Highly-trained in warfare, self-defense, infiltration, and deep surveillance, "the Unit," as the Department of Defense has asked us to refer to it, has been responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacks in the Western world. Never before has a member of this unit shared their story — until now. From Adam Gamal, one of the only Muslim Arab Americans to serve inside “the Unit," comes an incisive firsthand account of our nation’s most secretive military group. To protect his identity, Adam will also be using a voice scrambler for today’s interview - so please bear with us and understand this is for his and his family’s protection. And finally, U.S. Navy veteran and executive director of Minority Veterans of America, Lindsay Church joins us (1:03:29) to discuss how her organization helps minority veterans successfully make the transition from active duty to the civilian world.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome back to the Vetted Conversations Podcast, where we delve deep into the foundations, workings, and current challenges to the American way of self-governance. In today's confusing world, it's more important than ever to understand how our government works and how we, as citizens, can actively participate in the discussion to safeguard our liberties and continue freedom. Our mission is to ensure you, our listeners, have the knowledge and insights needed to become more informed and engaged citizens and active members of your communities. So let's get into it. A big part of our mission here is to help increase understanding of civics, namely our rights and perhaps even more importantly, our responsibilities to each other as citizens. Joining us today to answer our Civics question of the week is U.S. Marine Corps veteran and deputy chief of citizenship and applicant information services at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, my dear friend Al Eskalis. So, Al, tell us, why does America need immigration?

SPEAKER_02: 1:01

The United States, you know, is always and has and has been a nation of immigrants. I mean, that's who we are at our foundation. That's who we are when we talk about the fabric of our nation. That's it. It's we are a nation of immigrants, people that have come from other parts of the world and invested in this experiment of ours and have uh have formed the fabric of who we are. Uh it's who I am. I think, you know, one of the things I think about, uh, you know, I was born and raised in Egypt, that I immigrated to this country with my parents and family. So in a very real sense, uh we need immigration so I could be here. And right, so and in a sense, when you look at who makes up our nation, uh, it is it is that very diverse, it is that that very uh passionate group of people that want to be a part of something that's bigger than they are, which is this thing, that nebulous thing, right, that we call the American dream. Uh and and that's you know, that that's in a in a very idealistic sense, uh, that is why we need immigration to continue to feed this experiment of ours, this democracy of ours, uh, in a very practical sense. When you think about all the immigrant-granting nations of the world, um, we have and always will be and and uh and are the top of that list, uh, you know, along with other democracies that that draw people in. Uh and when you look at the world through the lens of uh, you know, a competitive business, when you think about who we're drawing in, right? Who we're drawing into our nation and who is is gonna lift up this nation of ours and and ensure its success now and into the future, uh, that very much is a huge part of our immigration goal and our immigration uh program. And um and at the end of the day, you know, the sign on the door for my agency is that uh you know, we are here to support and uphold a nation of welcome and a nation of immigrants that supports the American dream. Uh and and so that uh in a sense is why America needs immigration.

SPEAKER_00: 3:08

Hello, friends. Today we're here with a special guest with an amazing story who just published a book called The Unit. My life fighting terrorists as one of America's most secret military operatives. His work was so highly classified, we will call him by a pseudonym Adam Gamal. Adam's co-author and my dear friend Kelly Kennedy is here as well. Kelly and my wife wrote a book together several years ago, like Adam. Kelly is a U.S. Army veteran who later became an investigative journalist and author. So, why is this book important? We've heard a lot over the years about Delta Force and SEAL Team 6 since 9-11. Maybe a little too much on the SEAL side. Being a Marine, I'm a little biased. But this is the first and only book ever to be written by a member of America's most secret military unit. This is a unit whose members go in before the first Special Forces Operation Detachment Delta or Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka SEAL Team 6, hit the target. They're the people largely responsible for finding and fixing the target so other Tier 1 teams can finish them. Rally trained in warfare, self-defense, infiltration, and deep surveillance, the unit, as the Department of Defense has asked us to refer to it, has been responsible for preventing dozens of terrorist attacks in the Western world. Never before has a member of this unit shared their story until now. From Adam Gamal, one of the only Muslim Arab Americans to serve inside the unit, comes an incisus firsthand account of our nation's most secret military group. To protect his identity, Adam will also be using a voice scrambler for today's interview. So please bear with us and understand this is for his and his family's protection. So on with the show. Adam, Kelly, welcome to the uh Veteran Democracy Podcast.

SPEAKER_05: 4:42

Thanks for having us.

unknown: 4:44

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 4:44

Thank you, Joe. Yeah, it's so uh, you know, I I told um Kelly before you got on, Adam, I burned through your book in two days. Like I sat down one night and I found myself halfway through and needed to go to bed, and um got up the next day and burned through the rest of it. I just couldn't put it down. So well done on a great, important story, uh artfully told.

SPEAKER_03: 5:06

Well, Joe, thank you. Uh it's uh it's a pleasure to be with you, and I wanted to thank Kelly Kennedy for actually uh being very patient dealing with me, dealing with my uh English as a second language. So uh uh thanks to you guys.

SPEAKER_00: 5:20

Hey, you're yeah, you you speak it far better than I speak any other language on the planet. Um I do a little Spanish and a little Japanese, but hey man, you know. Hey, let's let's dive into things. Like I'm curious, like how for the two of you to start off, how hard was it to write a book about your experiences in a unit that's so classified the Pentagon wouldn't actually let you use the real name of the unit?

SPEAKER_03: 5:42

So I'll start if Kelly doesn't mind. So first uh again, Joe, I wanted to thank you for uh the opportunity to allow me to tell my story on your podcast. And then uh I just wanted to highlight while it was not easy to write the book to go through the process, uh, I wanted to thank actually current unit, uh current and former unit leadership, the uh the SOCOM and the JSON security personnel who actually worked with us to get us through the process. Uh the process took uh I want to say maybe about 14 months. Uh we ended up going back and forth, back and forth, and then after they redacted a lot of things, they allowed me actually to go and sit with them after we requested that uh through our lawyer to go through their redactions. And then we went line by line. Uh it took us about four hours sitting with uh unit security, JSOC security, SOCOM security, CLTM6 security, delta security. Uh and uh without the support we got from them and without uh us uh following the rules, I don't think we would have gotten that far. Uh and people blaming us for following the rules because a lot of people wanted more uh secrets, I guess. But uh I wanted to just uh remind everybody we respected the system because of the system and because we wanted to protect the men and women who are still in the fight.

SPEAKER_00: 7:08

Yeah, who are still in the fight. But then also um I'd imagine you know a lot of your fellow teammates and the people who had gone before you in the unit are you know out of uniform now. They're living in America as civilians and citizens, and uh, there's a lot of nasty people around the world who remember who on their team they lost and probably uh have a have a target list of who they'd like to exact revenge on. So I mean I think those security concerns make a lot of sense to me, and I think they will to our listeners as well. Um, what what motivated you to tell this story, though? Like, you know, you woke up one day and said, I've got a story with me and I got a book to write. Um, how did that come to be?

SPEAKER_03: 7:47

So it's uh this is interesting because I have three reasons. Uh and I tried to like summarize the reasons to make sure that people can understand. Uh, but I want to say first, like, we're not Delta. Uh you said it, but I wanted to make sure people, because when we talk to anybody and they say you called the book the unit to fool people, we did not. Uh we had a different name. Uh DUD redacted the name and they suggested uh the unit. But the main reasons I wrote the book is uh there is an organization that uh doing great work. Uh they're working in the shadow to protect Americans from drugs, from terrorism, uh, as well as help in any hostage rescue mission uh where Americans are involved. So Americans that can actually go to sleep safe. So I wanted to tell the story of those of those guys and girls who uh who've been doing the mission and working hard, uh, especially after 9-11. Uh I think we were deploying three, four months on, three, four months off. Uh, and we went like that. I went like that for uh 10, 11 years. Uh so during those 10, 11 years, uh I went to the unit when my first daughter was born when I was in when I was in selection. Uh sorry, when I was in the course actually after selection, uh I was in the swimming pool and they came and they said, Hey, you need to come out. Uh your wife is giving birth. So, and my second daughter was born there. I was shot when I was there. And so a lot of things happened in those 10, 11 years, and imagine deploying 14 times in uh in those 10 to 11 years. So that's that's the number one reason, just to talk about an organization that uh working in the shadow and it's not very well known. Uh, and then the other reason uh for uh everybody uh when we talk about such an organization that it's uh part of uh the tier one units, the MJSOC, everybody imagines, have a certain imagination. And I think we maybe Tom Hanks is not uh maybe uh Sylvester Stallone is like the guy. Like everybody have an image in his mind. So I wanted to tell people like you, the unit actually to be successful. I mean, we had just like the like the army does, just like America does. We have whites, we have Hispanics, we have Orientals, blacks, uh, in my case, Arabs. So I wanted uh like the guys, for example, who went after Pablo Escobar. Uh they were most of them were Hispanics. There were some whites there as well, and I wanted to give credit to those guys. I don't want people to think uh we all uh look the same and we all look uh the typical JSOC guys or the SEAL team 6 guys who wrote a book. Uh last but not least, I wanted to talk to the immigrant community, uh especially the ones who look like me. Uh I want them to embrace their new way, their new way of life, take advantage of what uh all America has to offer. Uh don't be shy. Uh America's giving you education, freedom, and uh the opportunity to serve. So why not?

SPEAKER_00: 10:47

Yeah. No, that makes so much sense to me. And you know, I I uh I'm a neuroscience nerd, I've studied theories of persuasion for a long time, and I know about like group dynamics, like in order to join a group, you've really got to feel like there's some small slice of you there, right? Um, and you need to see that first. And so I think that is so important. I mean, you you know, you hit on so many important things. You know, people talk about diversity that's becoming like kind of a polarized issue in the press today. But like when we really talk about like real capability, what you're telling me, if I understand you correctly, is we need a lot of people from a lot of different cultural backgrounds, and and this isn't surface characteristics, this is deep skills, language, culture, understanding, the ability to move and communicate uh and be effective with them to be successful to our national security. Is that do I have that right? Absolutely. You hit the name in the head. Yeah. No, you you you you made you made that point beautifully in your book. And you know, within the book, that I mean, your journey is um, I'm guessing, you know, probably a three, four decade uh uh time period where you have your your childhood in Egypt, your decision to come to the US and serve in the army, and then you know, you you became an admin clerk, right? And then all of a sudden you like you had a calling to do more and went to SOF and then to the unit. So like when when you think of your perspective America, like I'm curious how that's changed from when you were standing as a boy in Egypt, you know, looking at this idea of America to experience it to today. Like, how has it changed from from that first perspective?

SPEAKER_03: 12:20

So let me start by saying I do firmly still believe uh America is the best country in the world. Uh however, can we do better? Of course we can. The military kind of like teaches us uh there is always room for improvement. They tell you that every year, they tell you you dig your foxhole the first night and then you improve it every day. So unfortunately, I'm afraid lately uh some people seem to ignore that uh we are a country of immigrants. Uh from the we can go back to the first historical immigration wave, uh, when the Europeans settled in the US, they were immigrants. Uh after that, subsequently, we have uh Irish, Italians, Chinese, Arabs, and Jews in the last two centuries, a lot of those are came to America. So the if you look at uh the diversity and how the demographic uh of America is uh built the country the way how it is, I feel in the last uh I don't want to say like maybe a couple of decades, we keep talking about how uh immigrants, some people say immigrants are not welcome, not taking into consideration either the people who are saying that, either their parents, their grandparents, their great great-grandparents, they were immigrants as well. Uh we seem to forget a lot about the economic contribution of the immigrant community. They uh played an extremely crucial uh uh role in the economic development of America. Uh they contributed into innovation, entrepreneurship, agriculture. Uh there are a lot of policies, immigration policies that we keep going and going over and not uh realizing those immigration policies. Uh those are not just policies, those are things that impact in people's lives, uh giving somebody the opportunity to be uh retiring from the US military, uh, joining, serving in some of the best units, learning, uh educated. Uh if we close those doors, we are uh I'm afraid we create in uh desperate situations around the world, and that subsequently creates uh more extremist groups, more radicals. So I think we just need to uh realize again the immigration thing, it's not a uh it's not there is no uh monopoly on it. You cannot come in and close the door behind you. Um because if the guy before you came and closed the door, you would have never been here.

SPEAKER_00: 15:02

Oh, for sure. Yeah, and a lot of us need to remember, you know, if your family wasn't here in before 15, you know, 40 or 1580, you you're an immigrant family, right? Like even for the people who were there before, you know, they crossed the the Bering Strait like 14,000 years ago when the sea levels were lower. So like you know, we we all kind of came here, right? And I think that's one of the things that makes America a special place, right? We we bring, I mean, show me another country where everyone in the world wants to come to. I mean, those places are rare, right? Um and uh, you know, I've been you've been to more countries than I have. But I last tal I did I was I've been fortunate to deploy and and travel to more than 30. And I'm grateful, I mean, I'm grateful for the experience to go out and see the world. I'm also very grateful to come back here, you know, at the end of my travels. Um I'm curious because like Egypt's uh an interesting place, and you ended up growing up there, and you you detailed that in your book. I mean, I remember in grad school, I was looking at the how Al-Qaeda was persuading young uh men to uh take up arms for them. And I read pretty much everything attributable to Iman al-Zawahiri and UBL, and I know a lot of that was built on the writings of Sayyid Khutub, I think is how you say his last name, if I'm saying that correctly, Saeed Kutub, uh, from the Muslim Brotherhood. And that that shows up prominently in in the early chapters of the book, and especially chapter three, a world of walls. You describe a deep focus on the impact of the Muslim Brotherhood on Egyptian society. And I was curious, like, how did that shape your early thinking and what challenged that worldview in those narratives? Because clearly you didn't subscribe to it, but it it having read a lot of that stuff, it is a subductive narrative and a lot of the same techniques that we use to recruit people under the Marine Corps. So um, you know, like how did how did you not fall prey to that thinking?

SPEAKER_03: 16:55

So I it's this is very interesting because if you talk to uh 90% of the people in the world, most likely they've never heard of uh Sayyid Kutb. So Khutb is I think how to pronounce it. But uh 90% of the people in the world never heard of the guy. Uh a lot of people don't know actually uh Sayyid Khutbu started as a secular guy. So the the Muslim Brotherhood started in 1928. Uh that was the beginning of it. And it started in Egypt, and it was in our modern history the first form of political Islam. Uh before there was like uh similar to separation of church and state, uh, with separation of religion and uh governing, uh although uh the Arab world or the Muslim world, their uh religion is part of Islam is part of their day-to-day life. But uh so from 48 to 1950, Said Kud was a secular guy, went to the US, actually traveled around to uh to pursue education and to learn about education, and he came back impressed by how the US is uh uh technologically advanced, innovative, uh doing very well, even even in the 40s and the 50s. Yeah, but one thing he said was uh in one of his books was very interesting. He said, but the US is morally corrupt. So you you think about this, and then he took those uh he took those ideas. Well, during that time too, there was like the 1952 military coup in Egypt by the free officers. Uh so there was like I think a marriage of convenience between the military uh the free officers movement and the Muslim Brotherhood.

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_03: 18:38

So the Muslim Brotherhood had a lot of influence, they have a lot of uh followers, and the military needed validation. Uh so they they have this marriage of convenience, and then the military realized, well, guess what? These Muslim Brotherhood guys are not uh helping us. So they pushed them underground, and once they pushed them underground, that opened the door for their uh underground preaching. So no check and balance, nobody telling them what you're doing is right, what you're doing is wrong. Uh I was lucky. I grew up in uh Alexandria, Egypt. It's uh from the Mediterranean, as everybody knows, built by Alexander the Great. So it has a lot of Roman uh history. So it's more of a Roman culture in Alexandria than uh Arab or Middle Eastern. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but uh because of the how well Egypt was doing at that time, uh in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, a lot of uh large European community was living there Italians, French, Greeks. And and we ended up living in the same neighborhoods and we were friends. So, in addition to my dad whipping my ass, if I uh go uh to the wrong direction, uh having those friends around open your eyes and kind of like you see, you know what, the Muslim Brotherhood saying these guys are bad, well they're not bad because I'm I'm living with them. Uh and I know them and they are friends. If uh if we close the door and you live with only your own society, and people tell you that people from the other side are bad, what are you gonna think they are bad unless you're really interacting with them? You're gonna believe it. Yep. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:18

Yeah. Yeah, no, I uh that was a really fascinating part of your story to me, especially, you know, kind of with the stuff I've read. Um, but yeah, the whole seductive narrative of like knights under the prophet's banner, you know, revenge and wrongs from the crusades, like you know, I mean, I could see when I was reading that stuff, I was looking at like how we recruit Marines, and it's like be part of a group, have a mission, you know, uh, you know, we will take care of you, you know, you will you you'll you know you you'll make history and live on in um in the legend of the core forever, you know, like those kind of things. There were so many similarities between their approach and our approach, but you know, it's kind of like all to uh what purpose, right? And so I think um could you describe for uh everyone listening, like what was it like for you to come to America? You made a decision to come here, and uh it's I mean, it's kind of a a hair-raising story of of where you ended up uh when you first got off the plane and then what went on from there. So could you can you tell us like what was it like? Um what made you want to do it, like who helped you when you arrived, you know, that that initial part of landing here in the States?

SPEAKER_03: 21:26

So yeah, I want to, yeah, it's it's very interesting, but I want to tell you like three uh three uh anecdotes, I guess, or three ideas that stuck to my head. And they didn't all happen when I first arrived, it happened like over the first two, three years. Uh I was walking in New York City uh and it started snowing, and that was my the first time seeing snow in my life. And honestly, in the beginning, it was like these snowflakes that you get in the beginning, and I was like, why is there cotton falling off the sky? And then you realize it's not cotton, it's snow, and then you feel the snow is watching the air, and then you feel like you know what, you can really breathe clean, fresh air. So it gives you uh so those are the things like stuck to my head like I'm breathing better. Uh first first thing that stuck to my head is like, you know, my first day in New York City. Again, I was 20, uh, but I looked like 14. I totally looked like a kid. And uh a friend of mine, neither one of us spoke English, a friend of mine and I, uh they have this when you are a student, they give you an international uh student ID and they give you a booklet when you get this uh student ID of uh economic places to stay at when you travel. So they gave me a list of all the YMCS in uh in New York. Uh so I was uh get get off the plane, take a bus to take you to the subway. This is JFK. Uh my buddy is smoking a cigarette on the train, on the subway, and everybody's looking at us like we are idiots. And he's uh um he's telling me like why you think people are looking at us? I was like, maybe because you're smoking. And he's like, No, I don't think so. And we keep going back and I was like, dude, I really think because you're smoking. Before that, because I annoyed the bus driver so many times trying to ask him where to get off the bus. Uh he took the booklet from me, sat me down uh because I couldn't understand what he was telling me. Uh finally, he we got to the stop, he took me off the bus, I get in the subway, we take the subway uh to where the YMCA is at, and we could not find our way out of the underground. Uh asked the police officer a few times. Uh he tells me where to go, it's Sunday. Uh a lot of the turnstiles and a lot of the doors are locked. So I go up and down, up and down. Finally, the police officer was like, you know what, let me just take you. So he held my hand literally and walked me to the street. So I'm like, well, he was a nice police officer. Uh in Egypt, we don't have those. Uh we didn't have those. Maybe now there are, but uh, back then the police was your enemy, even if you were uh a decent citizen. Uh then I had a phone number from a friend of mine's mom uh who was with me in the Boy Scouts in Egypt. And uh she gave me his phone number and she forgot to write the number one. Uh the area code before the number. So I am in the YMCA. I have$500 I borrowed from my sister. I hid my$500 in uh my shoes and my socks because I was terrified because that's all I had. Yeah. Uh and then uh I'm trying to call this guy in New Jersey or in New York, and I'm trying to call him to tell him this is where I'm at. And then it it takes me uh uh takes me like back and forth, back and forth. I think it was like two or three o'clock in the morning. Yeah, uh it's a common bathroom there where the phone is at, some junkie standing there, uh literally, and I think he got tired of me seeing me, so he took the phone number from my hand, he dialed the phone for me, and my friend on the other side finally uh I got a hold of him. And uh I don't want to ruin the story for the reader, so I'll stop there for this one. But the third thing stuck in my head, uh, again, a lot of people take this for granted. Uh, a few years later, and I still couldn't speak English, I took some English as a second language. I'm learning English in the street, but I see Bill Clinton debating uh with uh George Bush. Uh war-time Sidden president, and uh I'm understanding like you know, two words here, five words there. I'm like, holy crap, here is uh a young Bill Clinton who looked like he was in his 40s, and he's debating with this Sidden president who's uh wartime president, uh former director of CIA with like a big deal, and I was like, you know what? This is the country that where you can uh uh uh freely breathe, um feel the freedom, and uh serve. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:03

Yeah, yeah, no, and uh I mean I just can imagine the first time I stepped into Manhattan, I was overwhelmed, and I just can't imagine like trying to navigate that city, not understanding English, a few hundred bucks in your pocket, uh you know, seven digits of a nine-digit phone number, and at the YMCA, which you know, in in not the greatest part of town, um kind of set you up for selection, right? Like in some ways. Um, but like from there, like what made you want to join the army? I mean, you could have done a lot of different things here. Uh, you know, you had a you studied law, I mean, clearly a very bright person. Um, what made you decide to join the army?

SPEAKER_03: 26:42

You know, that's uh that's uh another great question. Uh so people asked me actually, and I'm gonna tell you the answer I tell them, but I'm gonna give you the answer, obviously. But a lot of people ask me, why did you join the army? And I was like, why didn't you? So uh to me, it was like a way of uh becoming 100% American. Uh again, while America is the greatest country, it's a country of immigrants. A lot of people don't see immigrants as fully Americans. So it's a way of like, you know what, you get in your your credits, you get in your street creds. Uh and it was gonna pay for my college. Uh I was gonna learn skill sets that I would have never learned anywhere else. The army has uh the army's matu now is the army's matto is back then, which it was like uh it is now, all you can be all you can be. Yeah. So I was like somebody telling me I can be all I can be, why not?

SPEAKER_00: 27:36

Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people don't understand that um about our military is that it has been the springboard uh for people from all walks of life to social and economic advancement more than any other institution in the United States. You know, and I think for one, number two, um, your point about like wanting to be fully American and kind of you know earning your dues, boy, that is a theme I've also heard from uh African Americans. So like the Montfort Point Marines, who were the first African Americans in the Marine Corps during World War II, um, you know, I went to sit at their conference and talk to, you know, had dinner with them and talked to them. And I was like, I gotta tell you, like, you are a way better Marine than I would ever been because like you know, joining the Marine Corps under Jim Crow laws with a commandant that didn't even want you, you had to build your own boot camp. Um, I was like, I don't think I would have done it. And they were they said the same thing you did. They're like, we just wanted to prove that we could and that we were every bit as American as everyone else. And I'm like, that hit me like a sledgehammer. I was just like, I'm so proud of you. Like, you know, um that that makes a lot of sense to me. And and then, you know, you just weren't content with with being an admin clerk. Like, you decided not only to like come to America, make that difficult journey, navigate your way through New York City, which is no small challenge, join the army and serve, right? Which is commendable, but then you're like, hey, let me take on the most dangerous, clandestine, high-risk work at great personal risk to your life, at great cost to your family. Um, tell me about the decision to do that. I mean, that's above and beyond in my book. Like, you know, you're definitely the extra credit uh student in the class, right? So tell me about that that journey.

SPEAKER_05: 29:13

Can I can I add something in here?

SPEAKER_00: 29:15

Yeah, please, please.

SPEAKER_05: 29:16

So when I think about Adam with the guide on running around formations, like I can totally picture that guy in the unit, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 29:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 29:24

The the really annoying guy. Okay, go ahead, Adam.

SPEAKER_03: 29:28

So, yes, the really annoying guy who also always wanted to do something extra. So initially, so let's go back to when I joined. So initially, I was uh thinking I came from a coastal city. So I'm like, why not join the Navy? So I go to the recruiting station, I uh looking, I'm looking for uh the Navy recruiter, and uh an army recruiter is there, and he's like, Why do you want to join the Navy? I said, I like the Navy, they have boats, I like water, and he's like, We have boats too. And uh he's like, Do you know uh who's this the second largest air force in the world? I said, No, he's like the US Army. He's like, So we have more airplanes than anybody else, uh other than the US Air Force. We have uh boats, we have everything, so uh you should join the army. So I joined the army. Uh again, because I did not have uh I wasn't a US citizen yet. I just had a green card at that time, which by the way, it wasn't green, it was pink. I don't know why they called it green card. But uh so I couldn't join, uh I couldn't be in a lot of jobs. So it was like uh a certain limited limited uh amount of jobs that you could join as a as a as a green card holder. So uh fast forward, I as an admin guy, I uh was a military police unit, an infantry unit. So they're like, okay, these guys fit, like Kelly said, runs around formations. Uh so I would go out with the MPs, I would go out with the infantry guys, uh, and then I wanted to do more. Uh so I I uh I was like, you know, I have good uh language skills, I will save the army uh most likely hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than sending me to learn uh uh Arabic. I speak Arabic already. So I was like, well, let me be an interrogator. Called the interrogator branch, and they were like, this 1999, and he's like, we don't need any Arabic speakers. I said, I'm a native Arab speaker, I will save you a lot of money. Uh you can just send me to the interrogator, the interrogator course. And he's like, no, no, I don't have any need for uh for guys who speak Arabic. I said, okay, well, thank you. Then uh the SIGIM branch, signal intelligence branch at that time, they uh they sent me a letter and like, hey, you can be a SIGIN guy. So I was like, okay, great. Uh and she's like, hey, well, so we'll re-enlist, we'll give you$20,000. And I've never, at that time, I've never had$20,000 in my life. And I was like, this is a big bonus. So they uh she's like, hey, since you speak Arabic very well, we'll send you to DLI, Defense Language Institute, to be an MLI, military language instructor. And I said, I said, no, I want to go to Fort Bragg. She's like, you got to be the dumbest guy in the army. Uh I'm telling you, go to Monterey, California. You want to go to Faithville, North Carolina. So uh she's like, send me it, fax me. That was no like, it wasn't easy to email and stuff. So it's like, fax me your uh your uh request. She issued my orders faster than anything else, and I think she did it before I changed my mind. Yeah. Then um, and everybody asked me, Why did you want to go to Fort Bragg? I'm like, you know, home of the special operation, uh, home of the 82nd Airborne Division. Uh, I spent time in the 82nd. So uh doing that, jumping out of airplanes and doing all those things, and I'm like, well, you know, I want to be uh special guy. So special guy go to special operations. So I'm like, yeah, I'll definitely do that. Then uh as I am in the 82nd, they um the unit comes and they recruiting, and my first sergeant sent me to attend uh the recruiting brief, the recruiting brief. And my wife at that time uh had just was recently like newlywed. Uh my wife came from uh Egypt to Faithville, North Carolina, which is a was a huge cultural shock for her. But uh she she was getting her master's degree and we bought a condo and we sat. So when I first got the when I first got the application and the paperwork, I took it and I put it in the trunk of my car and I was like, I'm not not really ready to move now, maybe in a couple of years. Uh four or five months after 9-11 happened. Uh that changed uh everything. And if you were in the military, when 9-11 happened, if you were not willing to, if you if you didn't think you have an obligation to serve more, you had an issue. And then I felt I had double obligations. Uh I uh the guys who did uh the the the 9-11, uh they were so-called Muslims, they they part of where I came from. So I felt I had all of these extra uh skill sets I can uh I can offer. Uh so that was no it was a no-brainer for me to to do that, and uh I had no regrets uh even after I got shot. I didn't have I didn't think about leaving uh and doing something else.

SPEAKER_00: 34:22

Yeah, and and that's that's a credit to your character. I mean, we we had Marines kind of sneaking out of hospitals to go back to their unit in Iraq and Afghanistan. I mean, I I could see that same quality in you uh just reading between the lines of of your story. Um yeah, that the whole experience, I'm sure your your wife probably felt like she landed on a foreign planet in um in North Carolina. Uh but you know, the the other thing that struck out in chapter 14, and Kelly, like I'd like to ask you about your your thoughts on this too, because it leads back to another conversation that you had with Kate and the book, you know, when you were arguing for like you know, expanding the pool of people for infantry tanks, artillery, and getting rid of the ground combat exclusion to allow women into those to compete for those jobs. Not a guarantee, but to compete for them. You know, a lot of the argument, um, especially remember at that New York City Bar Association debate was like, well, women are just too small, they can't do it, they're not as strong. And in chapter 14, what's interesting is like um, you know, uh Adam makes the case for like a brains over brawn in the in the unit, right? And they're looking not for the dude that is like me or bigger, the six foot three, you know, 230-pound door kicker. They're looking for a whole different cat. And you know, um Adam described you know, you're you're like 5'1, and uh I heard I think about 120, 130 pounds is what what I read in the book. Um I looked up Auddy Murphy, who's the most decorated soldier in World War II, and he was only five foot five and a half uh and 112 pounds, and you know, was the most decorated combat veteran in World War II. So like I was just curious, like, how how did that come up in your conversation? How did you both decide to frame that? I guess that's a question for both of you. I'll let Kelly go first.

SPEAKER_05: 36:11

You know, I think what was interesting for us working together on this this book was that we're very different, but we're also we've got some some odd similarities as far as our military service, that sense of other, while knowing that there were things that we could do because of the other. Um and yeah, I mean, Kate was able to show that with proper training, um most people can do some some pretty great things, or a lot of people could do some pretty great things. Um but I think Adam being determined from the time he was tiny, you know, running the beaches and trying to get over asthma attacks and just being kind of an unwell kid. Um I mean, he would have been over able to overcome anything. And if you make a decision based on his height and his weight and his you know ethnicity or his background, that's a no, then that's kind of down, you know, so yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 37:16

And maybe to to Adam's point, like you know, you I'm guessing that you're probably one of the one of the smallest guys in your unit, right? Physically, but the six is between your ears, like you know, the the brain that you have and and how you're able to to be very clever and and uh and thoughtful uh and creative and problem solving is really like your superpower there, right? You know, so like how how did you navigate that? Because like, you know, marines come in two sizes. We got like dope runner retrievers and pitbulls, and you know it's uh you know, I'm curious, like how did you overcome, you know, maybe some of the the skepticism around not fitting the stereotype of what people expect typically of a soft person, I guess.

SPEAKER_03: 38:00

So I'll tell you a couple of funny stories on this, and I think that will um explain to your listeners how I was thinking, what I why I think the way I think, and what qualities I think people should have. So funny, funny enough is when I did join the army, I was 112 pounds. So I was the same weight as Audi Murphy. Uh when I joined, when I went to the 82nd and I went to the unit, I was 128 pounds. Uh so when I uh was going to like military free fall school, uh I'm the guy that gave him a uh a weight belt so I can wear it, so I can uh descend with everybody else. But uh I uh firmly believe it's the size of the heart, it's not the size of your body. So when you were saying like I was the smallest guy in the unit, I think I was the smallest guy in the army. Some uh some guy in Washington, DC decided to break into my car to steal my class A uh uniform because it was in uh it was in a in a suit, uh Garment bag. So he thought it was a suit. And I was like, man, I'm the only guy in the entire army. Most likely can fit that uniform. So I don't know who you're gonna sell it to. But uh during during selection, uh and this is not just our selection, this is selection for the majority, if not all, of the special operation community, but specifically for the tier one units uh that fall under JSON. They look at grit. Correct. Correct. So Delta SEAL Team Six has a couple of other units fall in that category. Uh so they look at crit. They look at like, are you like they're gonna put you through physical pain that any human being cannot take it? What gets you going is your mental so your mental toughness, which is your grit. Uh you can think on your own, you can make decisions when you're on your own. You uh you work well as an individual because some stuff they give you tasks you do 100% as an individual. You work very well in a team because. Because you do other tasks when you are in a team. Sometimes you are the team leader, sometimes you are the guy who is led. And you might be led by the most junior person. When we go to selection, like again, like any other selection, uniform or sanitized, so no name, no rank. So I cannot, I have to earn the respect not based on my rank. I have to earn the respect not based on my uh anything. I have to earn the respect of the team. Your actions will get you there. I wanted to highlight something because we talked about Kate, is we uh we had females. Uh females done as as we had uh they've done as well as everybody else. They went through the same exact process. And again, it's not whether you are a big guy or a small guy, a male or a female, uh black, brown, green, white, whatever you are, you're going through the same exact process. So what gets you going is uh your heart and your mind.

SPEAKER_00: 41:05

Well said, yeah, it it your your sentiment about it's not the size of the dog, but the the amount of fight in the dog, right? You know, is is really what what matters here. And you know, the other thing too is is in your community in the unit, what I'm hearing is that like differences are valued. And because like if if everyone's the same, like the the the danger is we run into groupthink, one, but two, we only have one cultural lens, one lens of the world. But what I'm hearing is that the unit actually values a multiplicity of different views, different cultures, different language sets, different skill sets. So it's not just surface diversity of like color-coding people in different so-called race categories, but it's like actual cognitive, cultural, linguistic, I mean like measurable stuff diversity that that they're using as as tools and occasionally weapons or shields in our national defense. Do you have that correct?

SPEAKER_03: 42:05

Absolutely. Uh and I wanted to tell you a quick story here that highlights the value of uh diversity and and uh differences. Uh in one of my missions, which again in the book, we intentionally we we did not mention names of uh locations, missions, capabilities, any precise things. So what I'm gonna say here, it's not it's not something it's uh not something that was not cleared, it's it has been cleared. But in one of my missions, we were in a Middle Eastern country. Uh it's and it's one of the most uh CI hostile, like uh counterintelligence hostile countries in the Middle East. Uh very Russian influence in that country. And uh we were going after like this big smuggler, uh terrorist wannabe, but he was the lead guy who's uh moving foreign fighters coming from different parts of the world to that country, and then uh uh changing their passports, giving them some Iraqi training, and then move them to Iraq. So, but the guy is in that country that we're in, and we keep going after the guy, after the guy in uh in my team, it was uh uh a female. Uh I'll call her Loris, that's not her real name. But uh Loris was like one of those uh fit girls that she does CrossFit every day, so she might be able to just kill you with her bare hands. But uh her and I going after that guy, uh, she and I going after that guy, and we we keep tracking the guy, tracking the guy. And we drive in one day, we had equipment uh in my backpack. I'm driving, she's sitting next to me, and she has the GPS, and obviously, GPSs don't work very well in those countries, and they're not very updated. The country's maps are not very updated. So we go into a street where we know the bad guy's house is there, and it's it's it's like an alley, but we can drive there, and it's like it's supposed to be like one way takes us to the other side. Well, it was a dead end. Oh some guy standing on the other side, so basically across the street from the bad guy, it is another guy standing there. It's it's uh summer, it's uh late at night, it's dark, and that guy goes around and he's like, uh, hey, the road is dead end, where are you going? I said, I didn't know it's a dead end, and he's like, Well, just go ahead and do your uter, and then I'll help you. So we go to his driveway, like halfway through his driveway, to do a uh to make a uter. And uh it just dawned on me. I was like, hey, what uh what happened to the Arab hospitality? And the guy's like, you know what? The guy's like, Come in, you you're gonna have to come in and have some tea. So uh I look at Loris and I roll up the window because I want to talk to I took a look at her and I said, Hey, you're gonna pretend you are my Russian wife. Amazing. And we're not gonna do anything, we're gonna go in. So we we end up going into the guy's house. He took us to the garden. We sat there, we sat there for about two hours. Yeah, and uh during the two hours, Loris was very smart, she didn't say anything, the guy didn't know any English. Uh, he brought his wife, obviously, because I have my wife with me. And uh we sat down and we talked, and the equipment is in my backpack, the equipment is doing what equipment's supposed to do without going in detail what the equipment does. Yep. Um exactly, and then uh after doing all of this, and the guy is like tells us we have to go back, he invites us to go back. Needless to say, we didn't go back. So the reason I'm telling you this story is two things. Uh if Flores was not with me, there is no way in hell that guy would have invited me. He saw a female with me, I was no threat. Uh, I was no, I'm a guy who's driving with his wife around or his sister. Uh and so if she wasn't with me, I would have not been invited. If I didn't understand the culture and was able to pick on it really quick to think in my feet and tell the guy that, Loris would have never been inside the house. So both of us uh needed each other, and that's the diversity I'm talking about. The understanding of the culture, having people can fit in, having people can blend in, they don't raise flags. But like I said, was Loris capable of as a matter of fact, she had a gun. Was she capable of killing somebody? Absolutely. But uh that's not how you're gonna win a war.

SPEAKER_00: 46:34

Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. I mean, in the the intrepidness of that decision, like you're across from the target's house, deep in you know, a high threat area, and you know, trying to figure out like most people would be like, oh, we're in a dead end, we're in a box, box canyon, we need to ex-fill, like get to safety. This is a bad tactical position. You are like, hey, no, let's just do some humid collection and see if we can get invited into the neighbor's house for tea and see what the neighborhood's like. That's amazing. Like, I love that story. Uh, I read it in the book and I was I was laughing out loud at that point. I was like, my god, like that's just like the same spirit of as remembering like Orbal and Woper flew an airplane without a pilot's license. It's just kind of like, hey, no guts, no air metal, let's just go for it. And uh wow. Uh yeah, that was that was a great, great uh uh narrative in the book. Um let's let's switch over to now you're out, right? So I mean uh I'll leave it up to the the listeners uh to read about your experiences um with the unit, some of the missions that you were on that you can sort of talk about um generally, which it ends up like uh an arms czar in East Africa getting shot in the guts and surviving um and navigating your way through a foreign hospital. And I can imagine that was Harrison, but like I'll leave the the endings to those um vignettes within the book out so people as curiosity remains peaked and we don't steal any of uh uh of your thunder, but like now that you're out and you're a veteran, right? I mean it's a little bit of a different world. Um I think it's one thing for you know straight leg infantry people or even just you know, your Mark I mod one everyday uh soldier or airman or marine to get out of an organization with 240 plus years of history, uh recognized rank and status within the group, you know, where you are in the tribe, um, to walk out into the civilian world, and it's a very different thing. I gotta imagine it's like a very, very different thing uh for members of the uh IC and and especially Tier 1 teams to make that transition. So so now that you're out, um first, like how is your transition from the military to the civilian world? And then what do you see as your role in society? So, you know, I'll just ask you a two-part question, which interviewers aren't supposed to do, but there it is.

SPEAKER_03: 48:49

That's fine. So uh I'm sure Kelly went through the same thing when she transitioned. So transitioning from the military to the outside, it's never easy. Uh, transitioning from the special operation community to the outside, it's even harder. Because a lot of guys in in regular military units, they spend two years here, two years here, two years here, three years there. They move on. Where uh where we were at, we we uh deployed together, lived in the same houses together, went through sheholes together, went through beautiful places together, uh bled together, and we went for uh we had guys who went for uh 20 plus years in the same organization. Uh I was there for uh 10 plus. Uh so leaving that and going out to the outside world is not easy. Uh you you feel like you lose your camaraderies, you lose your friends. I had a friend of mine who just called me like a couple of weeks ago, and he's like, Hey man, I retired for the second time. So he uh was in the unit, uh, retired as a military guy, went back to the unit as a government uh employee to train, then retired for his second retirement, and he's like, I lost my friends and my job and the same thing. And I was like, Well, you didn't lose your friends, there are friends, you still can communicate. So I see a lot of people who, when they leave the unit or they leave the military, they feel like they left their family behind. Well, you didn't. Uh reach out to people. Uh to me, to make that process easier for me, uh make sure you tell a good story about the military. Like tell people what you without breaking uh any uh security rules, just tell people. Uh be proud of what you've done. Uh don't ever be ashamed of what you've done. Uh, some political decisions maybe have been made uh you might didn't agree with, but you did as a good soldier, you did what you're supposed to do. Uh that's that's kind of like getting people into the transition. And then I wanted to tell the good story too about this uh small shadow, the the small group of uh shadow warriors that people didn't know anything about. Uh that people need to know. Uh, there are people who doing all of this work uh to protect them so they can sleep safely. Uh I think veterans, they're not looking for uh thank you for your service, and uh just uh let me shake your hand and tell you thank you for your service. I think we we we wanted a lot more. Uh we wanted to have a more of a society and more of uh uh support groups. Uh and I'm um right now I'm working with some of the veterans organizations. We we have donated uh some of the books proceeds already to uh a veteran organization. And I'm uh planning and helping uh some organizations that support uh uh immigrants. Uh you cannot forget where you came from.

SPEAKER_00: 51:32

Right on. Yeah, that makes so much sense. Um and and you're right. It like you know, two things. One, you know, I told transition and veterans like it's not good for you to sit back and say, people don't understand me, my community doesn't understand me. Uh, I'm missing that sense of connection. I'm like, you know, you got to take the first step towards your community, um, and you can build it, you know, and and find you're not gonna find the same situations, the same level of intense camaraderie because you can't replicate that in the civilian world. Like, you know, Google is not gonna put you in extremis and then you know have things exploding around over you and and that bond that comes from surviving things like that. Um, but you know, it is possible and to stay connected to the people that you served with is supremely important, like not to be isolated, right? Because we know bad things happen when people get isolated. Um let me ask you about this. So, like what do you see as your role as a veteran in today's society?

SPEAKER_03: 52:33

Uh so I wanted to again, this is related to the point before. I wanted to say this again. Uh, don't wait, like you said, don't wait for people to reach out to you, reach out to them. Tell your story. Uh so as a I think veterans have a lot of responsibility. Like you said, they need to reach out to the community. You need to they need to tell the community what they've been through. Don't I I hear this a lot. You know what? I'm not gonna talk to you because you you'll never understand where I'm coming from. Well, help me understand. Tell me that. Yeah, uh uh I'm Kelly doing an awesome job, honestly, working with veterans, uh, telling their story. Uh, she was telling their story before, and I think she does continue to tell their stories. Uh, veterans need to be a positive part of society. And uh, one thing I wanted to tell my fellow veterans uh I feel it. America doesn't owe us anything. Uh they paid us for what we've done. Uh, and we should be proud of what we've done, and we should continue to serve and continue to do what we are good at, which is uh helping others.

SPEAKER_00: 53:35

That's the key. It's not about what you can get as a veteran, it's not the 10% discount at Applebee's or the parking space at Lowe's. Um it's not getting on the plane first or any of that other nonsense, but it's like continuing to serve. Like our oath to the Constitution, to support and defend the Constitution, doesn't stop uh when we take off the uniform for the last time. And you know, I I want to kind of transition a little bit broader now. Like, you know, when you look at um America Today, because this show is all about civics, helping educate veterans on civics, uh, their rights, and I think more importantly, their responsibilities as a citizen, um, and also like promoting like understanding how your government works so you know how to positively and patriotically engage to you know bring about the changes that you feel are important within America. Um when you look at our country today, what do you see as the greatest threat to our democracy? I feel bad that Kelly's not talking, but so I hope no, I'm enjoying this.

SPEAKER_03: 54:35

Okay, so honestly, um how divided we are as a country, it's uh sickening. Uh I'm not with this side or that side, but when we have uh the mindset of if you are not with me or against me, we've we all feel so uh again I can disagree with your views, I can disagree with your opinion, I can disagree with the color of shirt you're wearing. It doesn't mean that I have to be your enemy. We could coexist. Uh and I disagree with each party now, is like hammering the other side. Well, I don't want you to tell me what the other side didn't do for me. I want you to tell me what you did and you will do for me. Uh what the other side did or didn't do, that's not your problem. That's my problem to uh but don't try to manipulate me and tell me, let's look, the other side didn't do this and didn't do this and didn't do this. Well, tell me what you did and tell me what you're gonna do. So I think the biggest threat to our democracy now is how divided as a country you are and how we went. We have people on both ends of the spectrum. We didn't have enough people in the middle of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00: 55:42

Yeah, yeah. You know, that that's a great point. Uh, we we we have frequent conversations on the show about that, like reminding our fellow Americans, one, about the military and how people from all over America, different backgrounds, even outside the country, came together, put their differences aside, and served to protect the American people and our way of life, right? We did that, we know how to do that. And you know, politicians can take a page out of our book to see like what true leadership is and mission focus and things like that. But like, you know, reminding our fellow Americans, like you may disagree on policy issues, but the person on the other side of that issue is not your enemy. You know, they are your fellow American, and remember that first and humanize that that thing because if you want to change their mind, you're not gonna do it by banging on what you care about. You've got to understand what they care about and then persuade them, right? You know, and I think that's something that you know they I I know for a fact, uh, without knowing, uh that that's something that they taught you at the the unit, right? Like hot psychology, persuasion, all that stuff. Um, but but yeah, that's that's a great point. I I think uh, you know, and I'm not gonna get on my soapbox here because you know we'll be here all day, but um let me let me ask uh two final questions. One, like, what was it like working with each other? I like the answer.

SPEAKER_05: 56:58

It was really fun. I mean, um, we came together because uh Adam was gonna self-publish the book, and that should never have been an option. I mean, he had an incredible story to tell, but also because the publisher um wanted to sort of limit what he had to say. And yeah, Adam and I in the meeting just I I felt like in that first meeting we we connected pretty hard. Like I I understood what the important thing was he needed to say about his story, and I think he knew that I was not um taken in what this this dude was putting out as far as like you know, fanboy stuff. Um and then it's just it's been fun. I don't, you know, I'm sure on some level I should be scared as hell of what he's capable of, you know. But it's it's it's always been very um fun working with them.

SPEAKER_03: 58:01

Awesome. Yeah. So let me let me say a couple of things here. So honestly, I would have never uh been able to get uh that far in the in the publication of the book without Kelly. So I I do want to thank her for that. But I want to give her uh another uh big kudos that I'm hearing from people. So I have a lot of friends, obviously, unit current unit members, former unit members, uh outside friends who uh uh were in the in the government service, so they know me. They know real me. And each one of them, they said, as we read in the book or listening to the book, we can see you, we can hear your voice. We feel it's you talking 100%. So a lot of people scare people by saying, when you have a co-author or a ghostwriter, they're gonna express their own voice, not yours. Uh well, that's definitely not the case. Kelly was uh she she made sure it's my voice. Uh in addition to, she's extremely patient, and I really mean it. I'm sure I annoyed the heck out of her sometimes. But uh it's been it's been great working with her. I uh uh I think we're gonna do another book.

SPEAKER_00: 59:14

Awesome. No, I I can't wait to read it. Um one final thought. What do you wish all veterans knew from each of you?

SPEAKER_03: 59:23

Uh that's uh that's a loaded question, so I'm gonna try to make it as short as possible. Yeah, so uh I said it earlier, be proud of your service. But veterans need to know is all the skill sets you've run in the military can be uh used in the outside world. Uh your uh your teamwork, your uh integrity, your uh dedication to mission. So don't change, you didn't have to change. So when I first left in the military and I started doing business, and people were like, you know, in the business world, it's different. And I tried, honestly, for about seven, eight months to uh be the business guy, to do it differently, and uh I failed. And uh I had uh I had a light pop come up and come up in my head, and I was like, I spent 21 years in the military. I was successful because I was me. Uh so be yourself, be you. Uh be uh again surround yourself with uh the people who understand you, the people who are good to you. Uh so veterans need to know that and things will be great. Don't don't be scared of the outside world and don't be scared to go tell somebody your story. Uh be out there and make sure people know you are vulnerable and and and be vulnerable. And go tell people those stories. Don't uh don't take the other uh the other route, please.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:47

Yeah, that that takes courage too. Uh Kelly, what what what what do what do you wish everyone knew?

SPEAKER_05: 1:00:52

Yeah, it it relates to that. I think uh you know, we write in this book a lot about vacuums, about the spaces that are created when you pull away. And I feel like there are a lot of veterans who have forgotten who we were as a group, you know. Um I I started writing about veterans because I wanted people to know how different we are and how different our viewpoints are and how different our backgrounds are. But if we're going out to the civilian world and and forgetting how great we were as a collective, we're creating vacuums, the same vacuums we fought when we were in the in the service. So um, yeah, be yourself, but remember who your pals were too, and uh you know, think about the vacuums you're creating when you when you go extreme one side or create the other or put people into a group of things that you don't like or or think are correct.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:48

For sure. Joe, sorry, can I can I add just one thing because I'm sorry, but uh to Kelly's point, uh uh none of us have done the mission in the military alone. Uh uh we succeeded because we've done things together. Uh when you are a veteran, you're not gonna succeed alone. You succeed when you do it together. So rather than uh people uh trying to, well, I'm gonna do this on my own, I'm gonna do this. No, we we're gonna do it together. We can do it together, and we'll do it a lot better together. So don't forget uh where you came from, and don't forget that you uh we supported one another there, and we we should continue to support one another.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:27

Fantastic. We could end on a better, more positive note. Uh, this is Adam Gamal, the author of the unit My Life Fighting Terrorist, is one of America's Most Secret Military Operatives, and his co-author, Kelly S. Kennedy, U.S. Army veteran, investigative journalist, and author extraordinaire as well. So uh to the two of you, thank you. Thank you so much. Um, this has been a fascinating conversation. I highly recommend the book. Uh I'd be beating that drum everywhere I go, telling everyone I know to read it. Uh, it's an important book with an important story uh about bravery, uh, about uh leveraging your strengths and about having the courage to be yourself and and serve our country. So thank you both so much. This has been a great conversation, and uh I hope you've enjoyed it half as much as I have.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:17

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:22

As part of season two, we want to provide veterans a way of getting more involved in their communities, to advocate for the issues that they care about. To do this, we are featuring veteran organizations that we think you might be interested in. Today's spotlight is on Minority Veterans of America, and representing MVA today is Lindsay Church. Lindsay is a U.S. Navy veteran and founder of Minority Veterans of America, which is a nonprofit dedicated to changing the narrative of the American veteran and building community around unrepresented identities. Lindsay has nearly a decade of experience rooted in veterans' advocacy and grassroots organizing and has facilitated agency-wide cultural competency trainings and assessments to ensure organizations and government entities are able to serve their minority and veteran constituencies effectively and efficiently. So, Lindsay, um, welcome to the show. Where are you and how are you?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:09

Thanks for having me. Um I am sitting live in Chicago, Illinois. Um is a beautiful day. It is absolutely freezing out there. Somebody said it's spring, but I don't believe them.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:20

I don't think spring comes till August in Chicago, but hopefully it's a good time. Well, can you um uh tell us what's the mission of Minority Veterans of America?

SPEAKER_01: 1:04:31

Yeah, uh Minority Vets is a community-based organization. We uh are focused on building community and advancing equity for minority vets. So we work on issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion, um, all creating an intersectional movement of veterans coming together to change the narrative, build community, uh, and really address the equity gaps that our community faces so that the future generation of veterans uh inherits a better community.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:58

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So can you please tell us, like, you know, why having a community is so important as you transition out of the military and into the civilian world, and how does that lead to success for veterans?

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:10

Yeah, so minority vets really face a different set of challenges when returning back from service. Um, I'll give you a personal anecdote. I served under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. I'm a queer and trans veteran. Um I did my time, I served for four years. Um I was medically discharged, and I spent all of all but three months of my service living under Don't Ask, Don't Tell, which meant that I had to hide every aspect of myself, my sexual orientation, my gender identity, all of it was under wraps because serving my country was more important to me than my my personal identity. When I got out of the military, I really struggled with uh transitioning back. I didn't feel like I belonged in the civilian world, which is a pretty common um experience among veterans, but I also didn't feel like I belonged in the veteran community because I had hidden so much of myself. I um talk a lot about like the schism or the fracture of your identity and how when you get out of the military, you're so used to having to choose your family or your military life that when you go back to the real world, uh you have to figure out who you are. And so I really struggled as I went back to school right after, which is what a lot of veterans do. And when I went to go back to school, I had to choose between going to the veteran center or the Q center. And I couldn't do both. I couldn't be a queer veteran in that space because the queer community often ostracized veterans because we, you know, a lot of times we appear as police. Um and when you look at the veteran community, I had to, I was told I like kind of had to hide myself away and it was okay that I was gay, but I didn't need to talk about my wife. Um, so all of those experiences contributed to this overall ostracizing of our of our like folks like myself. Um, this happens across communities. So it happens with racial minorities, gender minorities, sexual minorities, religious minorities. Oftentimes there's a cultural reintegration that is very challenging for minority veterans that most people don't talk about or know about. And so for us, when we were going to build our community, we said it's really important that we build an intersectional community because all of these identities have organizations that serve one of these identities. And often people would say, that's not big enough. There's not enough LGBTQ vets for us to really matter. There's not enough women vets for it to really count, there's not enough racial minority veterans, or very specifically, there's not enough black veterans, there's not enough Asian veterans, there's not enough uh um American Indian veterans. And so you look at these smaller communities, and people kept saying our needs don't matter. And when we started our organization, it was uh myself and my co-founder who is a Korean American woman veteran who also went to the University of Washington, and we said, I don't understand what it live feels like to live as your as your as your identities, and you don't really understand what it feels like to live in my body. What we do understand is that the same systems that are marginalizing you are marginalizing me. And if we come together and build a broader base of all of these people, we have we actually represent more than half of the community. When you look at all of these communities together, we represent about 10 million veterans of 18 million. So when you say that we don't we don't matter or that we don't um we don't belong in the community or our needs don't matter, when we actually came together and built this intersectional movement and this community of people, we became stronger and became a national voice for equity.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:16

Yeah. No, and I can't imagine like how hard it must be and how difficult it is to navigate when when you have to leave like a significant part of yourself on the parking lot, you know, every day before you go into work, right? And and then, you know, like you said, transitioning out into the civilian world um and and rediscovering because uh you know, I you know, just guarding yourself that whole time, there's got to be a cost that comes with that for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:43

I mean, uh on the Don't Ask Notel front and LGBTQ front, you see that there's higher rates of divorce among our community because I know I'm personally divorced. My first wife um I really struggled to connect with, I really struggled to bring all of these pieces of myself together. Um, and I couldn't really connect with her because I was broken inside. I had so many pieces of myself I still had to put together, both from my military experience and from this like unjust policy that never should have been policy. When you talk about don't ask, don't tell, nobody ever talked about don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue. Nobody I know has ever gotten in trouble for asking. I only know people who got in trouble for getting caught. The injustice of that particular policy that people were allowed to pursue and create like witch hunt situations became the trauma and the post-traumatic stress that we experience outside of the military. And so I often say that people are survivors of Don't Ass Don't Child in the military trans ban, and not just that they served under that policy.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:46

Yeah. Yeah, no, I was in the Pentagon when that happened, working for the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and was never happier to see a policy get thrown overboard. Um, you know, we were advising him, like, you really want to be on the wrong side history on this. And all the old generals and retired commandants were advising him otherwise, and we're like, you are making a big mistake here, buddy. And uh and yeah, he went up to the hill um advocating to maintain the status quo, and and uh uh that's something he's gonna have to carry. But you know, like you know, to his credit, he said, hey, if the law changes, we're gonna execute it better than anybody. And so um, you know, we we ended up going around the Marine Corps after that, visiting every single unit. And uh we kept to tell them, but like it's only a big deal to you old guys, right? Like the troops don't care, they don't care, they just don't care. Like anyone my age and younger doesn't care. And um, you know, they think it's ridiculous, they think it's silly and and and damaging for you know for a bajillion reasons, but um actually I argue the opposite.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:44

I think that don't ask, don't tell, that policy was actually a detraction, a distraction from everything we were trying to accomplish as a military. When you spend that much time and that many resources discharging people before they can continue to serve in your military, if you continue to spend all your resources investigating people, stopping people's orders, like all of that is far more distracting than somebody finding a partner to navigate this terrible military experience together. Like I actually disagree with the idea that queer people are a detraction. We actually were we did our jobs, we have historically done our jobs, and the amount of resources it took to to uh enforce this policy that doesn't make any sense because if it was if everything you know kind of shook out the way that like this is natural, like this isn't you don't have shouldn't have to work this hard to enforce a policy that of like this, like you spend too much time and you ruin people's lives. And we you know, you're right, somebody does have to live with that. So do we. We have hundreds of thousands of people who have these stars for no reason, other than somebody was hateful and didn't understand us.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:51

I think you know, here's the other thing too, like from my perspective, is like how can you save for freedom, but then tell the other people they can't live their lives like like they want? You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:00

So especially in the military context, because truly, like these folks are fighting for, or at least believe that we're fighting for this overall freedom and this American way of life, but when you get out of the service, or even when you're in the service, you don't often get to experience as though those rights.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:15

Um, how do you see or what's on the front burner for minority vets these days? You you mentioned uh housing you mentioned.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:23

Yeah, we are in an interesting period of growth. Um we have recently uh we're getting ready to open the first transitional housing unit for LGBTQ vets that we know of in the country. Um if I'm wrong and there is another one, please tell me. I'm always interested, but we don't know of any others. Uh so we are getting ready in King County, Washington. We just got$1.8 million to open the very first transitional housing unit out there. Um, it should be operational later this year. Um we close on it in a couple of weeks and we'll be retrofitting it to serve uh what'll be individual units for LGBTQ vets, recognizing that oftentimes, especially for transgender veterans, that shelters and transitional housing units are usually either not available or oftentimes are really uh either discriminatory or unsafe. And so we're building a community just for the folks that are most likely to be harmed and hurt in transitional housing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:17

Awesome. Um what other what other type of programs or services does minority vets offer?

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:25

Um we do a uh host of things. So we have a program out in Washington State called People to People, which is a community build uh base building uh mission that does a lot of uh social engagement, uh, you know, volunteerism, stuff like that. And we also have a case management program out there where if veterans are in need uh are in crisis, we can support them and get them connected to the resources that they need. Uh, we also run an emerging leaders program. Uh, we're about to open cohort four in a couple of months. The application will be open. Um we do an annual leadership uh retreat and then a year or worth of leadership development, and uh um we get them connected to mentors and we work with fellows and things like that. Uh we're also traveling the country right now doing an outdoor recreation listening set uh listening tour where we're trying to better understand the unique uh disparities that minority veterans face when trying to access the outdoors. Um we do a lot of work on outdoor recreation that most people don't know about. Um, we sit on the outdoor recreation task force for vet uh for uh veterans, which is an interagency council of VA, DOD, Department of the Interior, all working towards getting service members, veterans, and their families outdoors. Um we also do a ton of policy work that I think most people, if you don't know about our programs work, you know about our policy work. Uh we do a lot of Hill Days advocacy. We have been working on a number of things, uh including IVF access, which we uh just remove some of the discriminatory bars between DOD and VA, but that um made it so that same-sex couples, single people, and people using donor gametes uh can will soon be able to access those services through VA and DOD. Um we have worked on abortion policy, we've worked on military sexual trauma, we're getting ready for sexual assault awareness month next month. Uh we're also working on gender-affirming surgery for veterans. Um so just a series of uh policy advocacy that we do on a regular basis, um, really trying to fight for that long-term equity for our community. Um while we have like what we say is our community or our programs and our policies match because we have to meet the here and now with our programs, and we have to fight for a better community for with through our equity and policy work.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:28

Yeah, no, absolutely. We we we say on the show that democracy is not a spectator sport, so like how can veterans get involved in supporting your work?

SPEAKER_01: 1:15:36

Um, one, uh I think veterans getting directly involved as poll workers has the ability to really change the trajectory of this election. Uh, no matter who you are, what you believe in, we elections have to happen and they have to be fair and safe, or else our country isn't what we fought for. Um and so one is getting involved in this movement. I think it's important for especially minority veterans to jump in um and get in the fight. Uh I also, if you're interested in learning more about our work, minoritybets.org, you can follow us on uh social media. We're everywhere but Twitter. Um, although we I think we still are on there, but we just don't do much on there. Um so you can follow us on social media, you can go to our website, you can also join our organization. Um we have about 3,300 members around the country and world. If you are in the state of Vermont and want to join us, please do, so that we can have all 50 states covered. Um and uh we have lots of volunteer opportunities, different things that people can do to get involved, but ultimately um my message is to get involved in a movement and to get in the fight.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:36

Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you know, it's just kind of like one of those things. Um, our country has been described as an experiment democracy and one that needs to be um fought for every generation. And it's certainly uh I've seen you do that, Lindsay, for for many years now, um, since I've been aware of you and kind of tracking your work. So um thanks for coming on the show today. Really, yeah, we really appreciate it. And um and uh you've heard it from the CEO and or the executive director and and co-founder of Minority Veterans of America, Lindsay Church and MinorityVets.org.

SPEAKER_01: 1:17:10

Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:12

Thank you so much for listening. If you found this podcast episode interesting or useful, please share it with people you know. This episode was co-hosted by Joe Plunsler and Ellie Guffison. The audio and video were edited by Cameron King. And this podcast is a production of We the Veterans and Military Families, 501c3, not-for-profit, nonpartisan, veteran led organization, focused on promoting positive and patriotic civic engagement to strengthen American freedom and liberty. Find out more about us at weTheVeterans.us and follow us on social media.