Tel Aviv, Part 4: Gaza

Transcript

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And we are back when we left off, the CrossFit Pittsburgh Echo Charles.

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My man, frane, is back with me today.

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So where we left off and just so you're aware you don't think we're in a haunted building or anything like that we've got a couple young ladies downstairs doing some training so you might hear a little clanging and banging in a in a you know a functional fitness kind of way, but um, anyway.

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So where we left off?

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Uh, we had just gotten the debrief from the grs team in tel aviv about an attempt that was made on them in July of 2003.

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And again, like to wrap it up real quick the irony of it was it didn't prepare us.

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It didn't tell us anything.

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When I say prepared, that's not the case.

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It didn't tell us anything we didn't know.

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It confirmed our suspicions.

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You know we are time and place predictable the way we're running these operations, and I think too, that's probably topic for another longer episode about the bullshit of, I don't want to say private security as a rule, but when you have those kind of lucrative government contracts and I think you kind of pointed this out after we went off the air the last time when you have lucrative government contracts you got to keep the roster full.

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You want you have eight guys to deliver.

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You will deliver eight guys, as we talked about a couple episodes prior and I don't disrespect the person I I don't.

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You know this guy.

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Mike was probably a good guy, but I know a lot of good guys I wouldn't go to war with.

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I don't.

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You know this guy, mike was probably a good guy, but I know a lot of good guys I wouldn't go to war with.

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I just wouldn't, you know, have a coffee with them maybe.

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But, you know, loads his magazine backwards.

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I, I don't understand in the heat of what moment that could happen.

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I'm, you know, to tell you the truth, what stunned me when I first looked at it?

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Oh, something's not right.

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And he shows it to me.

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To be honest, for the first few moments I didn't know what the hell I was looking at.

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Like it was so incongruous I'm like.

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And then I realized I'm like, oh my God, like he's actually got the rounds in backwards.

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I didn't know that was possible.

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And here I am trying to strip him out.

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But those are the kind of things and I, as we were off air the last time and you brought it up what I was about to say and we got sidetracked I remember leadership gave jim a lot of shit when he made the call, like we will not, we cannot, we will not take this guy with us.

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They gave him a lot of shit.

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Well, they're expecting eight people.

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I don't give.

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Well, they're expecting eight people.

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I don't give a fuck.

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They're expecting eight.

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Well, they're going to get seven.

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Now you planners, find us number eight, find us number eight, expedite.

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And Vic was the man that they sent out.

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He got there a little bit after we did, but I'll tell you what it was worth the wait.

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You know what I mean.

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He was, I want to say los angeles county, uh, sheriff, but prior to that he was a marine.

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So, you know, had solid infantry skills, had solid weapons handling skills and and much like I'm proud to say, like the rest of us, we're like, hey, if there's something I'm not sharp on, we're gonna get sharp on it now, you know, not not next time, but like today.

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So it's crazy.

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But, um, so there we were right, we everything, all of our suspicions, right there, right there, we're like okay, well, duh, we are time and place predictable.

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So what they do is they pick the spot, they set up on us and, you know, in, in and just to be specific, this is the incident where the gentlemen are driving up to the house and the gate happened to be closed that day.

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And the ID went off Right and it was so cool, I guess is the only way I can say it, I don't know professional.

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But for Mark and Danny to give the debrief like this, and this is what I'm talking about, this is the caliber of men that I'm used.

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I am used to working with.

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Then you come back to the private sector and you sometimes you fall in with good guys, other times you get a collection of of.

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How did you get here, you know, like why and and and again not to be rude, because I'm very serious about this.

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You know I looked at it like I've got a tier one operator as my first team leader on an overseas contract after 9-11.

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You know, he could have very easily been like.

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You know, none of these guys come from a soft background.

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You know none of these guys are tier one or soft, let alone tier one.

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And he didn't His exact words once.

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He kind of, and he was quiet in a scary way.

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You know he was just like taking everything in With his kind of look.

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I'm like oh hey.

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But you know, realizing he was just a lot to digest and one of the first things he said to all of us in our first private team meeting with just the four of us and he was like listen, he's like I was surprised that no one else here came from a soft background and he said but ultimately, boys, you go to war with what you got and I will never forget that you go to war with what you got.

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And I think the thing that we were always most pleased with was he put faith in us and we took that into every training evolution, into every mission we ran and you know that's the balance.

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You know he takes that leap of faith and invests the time and puts in the training and we delivered.

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You know we were receptive to the training and we did everything you know we could possibly do and became a much better team because of it, I think.

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But you know, after that debrief from the GRS guys, I'll tell you but, uh, and you know, after that debrief from the grs guys, I'll tell you, when you do um, psd, when you do um, um, a protective service package, you know, especially, I mean anywhere, anywhere, you know, unless you're doing some dog and pony show with some celebrity at the fucking grammys or something like that, I mean, you know, I don't, I just I've been down that road in the private sector and I was again fortunate to work for some people who were just awesome.

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I'll tell you this and I know I don't.

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I said I don't name names, but I have to in this case, one of my most unexpected assignments in the private sector pre-9-11, I did an assignment for I get a call from the company I work with and with and they're like hey, we've got to send you, and russ was a good guy, I worked with him a few times.

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I'm gonna send you out to los angeles.

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The tour has already started.

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You're gonna meet them underway.

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It's for michael flatley and I'm like the michael, like how many are there?

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Like the michael flatley, you know lord of the dance, and they're like, yeah, well, at the time he was in negotiations to buy another production company and you know, just for, sometimes you're an expediter, sometimes there's a need, you know this and this, but I guess what the production company originally attempted and I know we're getting sidetracked here, but this is worth telling because he's an awesome, awesome guy.

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Um, don't know what I expected.

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I, you know, I knew who he was, that's it.

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But at the same time, I think it's just one of those things where you're like, all right, right on.

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Well, I guess what happened was the production company that was putting on this particular show that he was touring, that he was in, um, they decided to save money and they would hire local security at every venue.

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Well, what started to happen was you know this?

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This city, these guys are okay.

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This city, these guys are idiots.

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This city, these guys are inappropriate.

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Now picture this You've got a cast of I wouldn't guess dozens of young men and women, quick costume changes backstage.

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It's like a beehive of activity.

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One you need to stay sharp.

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Two, you need to do what you're there to do and watch who you're there to watch and make sure, with all that it'd be so easy to slip in undetected with all of this activity.

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So, watch your principal, watch the exits, watch for the anomalies.

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You're surrounded by beautiful women who are doing quick costume changes.

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Act like a gentleman, for fuck's sake.

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And I guess that was the tipping point where and that's one thing I learned about Michael very women who are doing quick costume changes act like a gentleman, for fuck's sake.

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You know, and I guess that was the tipping point where and that's one thing I learned about michael very, very quickly.

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He's a gentleman and he won't tolerate any less, right.

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So one thing and another, um, I guess they were at one venue and and they hired these, essentially like not, and he didn't, but uh, production, these guys were like nothing more than you know, bouncers, you know and then, oh, that was it.

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Like the next day, I think, that night the phone call was made.

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The next day we were on a plane but, um, just a good, good guy, a gentleman through and through, and, and I think you know those are the things that you, you kind of look at and you go okay.

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So whether you're doing, uh, um, you, executive protection for a celebrity, for a businessman, an executive something, or you're downrange in a combat zone, one, you are as prepared as you can be.

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You're looking for the signs, you're looking for the and that's the one thing that I loved about Mark and Danny's debrief flat out.

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Mark is telling this as a seasoned, veteran team leader who's done this many, many times, and he was like this is on me.

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He was like every single precursor was there and I didn't connect the dots fast enough.

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You know, like you said, closed gate is always open, donkey.

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Tethered to the tree in the front yard there's no donkey, you know, kids are not there.

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The entire back side and I neglected to follow up on that the entire back side had been plowed over recently.

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Well, that's maybe an annual event, time of the year was off, but what that did was, had they attacked on the way in and let's say, you know they, they didn't finish the job the back side, because your figs and olives will grow in anything, right, usually that dirt, I mean it's, it's.

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You know the gaza strip, I mean it sits in the sun, uh, like that southern part of of israel.

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You mean that.

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You know, gaza is 24 miles coastal from point north to south and then it goes like six to eight miles inland, so it's not very big.

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But, um, the southern tip is egypt, you know the northern tip is like southern israel.

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So it's, it's a dry, arid climate.

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Right, those armored vehicles could have easily gone up the drive over the yard and then down the back side to egress, not when it was plowed, right, when it was plowed, it's like they're not going to make it because they will sink in that ground, because now it's turned over, and so everything, everything was there, you know, to include once the detonation occurred, you know, as, as mark said, he comes to and there's, there's a Palestinian Authority vehicle and we had already known that a lot of the PA had been compromised and you had Hamas people infiltrated in the organization.

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So that's July of 2003.

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So we fast forward and Chris had left after that meeting with Roger and I respect White Boy, it was his call sign.

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You can figure out what his last name was based on.

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His call sign Play that funky music.

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But yeah, so he.

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You know if you don't like it.

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There's the door and Chris just, and he had this way of smiling without like it wasn't good news, chris just, and he had this way of smiling without like it wasn't good news.

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You know, like he had this.

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He just kind of smiles, he goes well, he's like all right, then consider this my two-week notice and and two weeks to the day, in fact I think that picture behind me was taken, I want to say september 30th, if I recall, um, and you know he was, and and I remember he was like rock he's just be be frosty, you know.

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And he was.

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And I remember he was like Rock, he's just be frosty, you know.

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And I was like I got you, brother, I got you, you know.

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And of course, I think then at the time, you know, mission first and all that, and those of us who stayed were like man, but I will say this without any, you know, no shame in the game there wasn't one of us who wasn't already prospecting, like I had already talked to Danny and Mark, right.

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And then my dear friend Mark, who was on Cheese's team.

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Cheese was already looking to go GRS, so was Mark, so was I.

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Jim had already moved on.

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We were all like one foot out the door.

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What's interesting with this is that I always think generally of combat operations as being enlisted.

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You know service members, so there's not necessarily an option.

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You know you finish when your tour, your contract is done.

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But as a contractor here, you had the ability at any point to say, hey, I'm putting my two weeks in, oh yeah, and just leave, yeah absolutely no-transcript, because they started to send us guys that I was like holy crap, like where to?

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and I'm very, very adamant about this.

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I mean not coming from a soft background and making my reputation and doing it.

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You know, on the go, so to speak.

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I was very, very careful because there were a lot of guys that did have these impressive pedigrees who were worthless, right, you know whether it was ego that, you know, dulled their skill sets or, you know, maybe their skill sets weren't that great to begin with.

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You know, just because you finish, what a friend of mine used to say he's like, certified doesn't mean qualified.

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You understand that.

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I mean you could have a.

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I went to this school, I went to that school, that's awesome.

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And then what, then what?

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But, like I said, from cheese white boy gym, these are tier one operators in every one of them, no matter what.

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Hey, could you give me a hand with this?

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Hey, could you show me this?

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Hey, oh, absolutely Matter of fact, it almost got to a point where you're like, okay, careful what you ask for, because they're going to go to an extreme to make sure you.

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Hey, yeah, man, next time we're out there, you know's, do this, we'll work on this.

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I mean above and beyond right.

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So to me that's a debt that you pay forward.

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You know these guys are willing to take the time to school up a new guy and I was pleased that you know I did have a lot of um, a lot of experience in psd and you know just just various like I from PSD being personal or protective service?

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Yeah, and there's so many acronyms Like.

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Psd basically means protective security, right?

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Okay, personal protection, wpps, I think, was what the State Department titled it after a while, which was WPPS Personal protective service, worldwide Personal Protective Service.

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I couldn't tell you GRS, global Response Service.

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I remember that one.

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But what was interesting, though, was you take some things that you learn in the executive arena and you're like well, that's maybe how to conduct yourself around an embassy and its environments, and things like that, you know.

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Then you take your hard skill sets, because one of the things, too and I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time throughout my career to go through these different uh train ups and these different, you know, it's funny because there was a big contract in uh bosnia, birchco, heratskovina, that launched prior, well prior to 9-11.

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Some of my good friends from the company I was with went there, and it was one of those guys that got me started with that same company for the Tel Aviv project.

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So, prior to that, when it looked like the company I was with was going to take over that contract and this was just kind of a shitty thing to do, but it was fact, and I was there to see it, they hired a former director of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service oh, we're going to hire this guy, right, because oh, we get him, we'll get the contracts.

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Okay, in order to hire this joker, they fired basically two-thirds of their office staff, I mean like support personnel, you name it.

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They gutted the place to hire him.

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I hope nobody was hurt in the filming of this.

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Anyway, didn't get a thing.

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So the expense that they incurred, the lives they impacted by cutting all these other people loose to hire this guy who was supposed to be able to deliver.

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Then they spent a lot of money to put a group of us through a selection process for more like high-threat protective operations.

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Which was man, it was well worth the price of admission, like we didn't have to pay for it, but it was crazy.

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You know, it was well worth the price of admission, like we didn't have to pay for it, but it was crazy.

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You know, it was fantastic.

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I mean, you know vehicles, weapons, you name it SOPs, medical training, we did it and so a lot, a lot of good training.

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Right, fast forward.

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You know, here we are.

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Now we get this debrief and, like I said, I just took that with so much appreciation, because too often guys would go, well, it wasn't my fault, right, your fault, my fault like nobody's fault, like you got blown up and thank God you didn't get killed.

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It wasn't like that.

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You know, mark was like man.

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The signs were there and, as he's saying it, it was a chill because every single thing he pointed out you, because every single thing he pointed out, you're like, oh yeah, man, not only is it legit, but it's so simple.

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It is so simple how this thing was laid out and how it was executed.

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And again, but you know, by the hand of God, the guy that planted the device is simply put, you know, if the contour of the earthen wall is like so, he put the face of the IED parallel to it.

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Instead of had he put it more upright, it would have blown more into the vehicle, and it wasn't.

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I mean, it was concealed beneath the surface, it wasn't like buried, but at least the trajectory of the projectiles went up and over.

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It was a shockwave of the blast that you know stalled out their vehicle and stunned them.

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But every attempt is practice and that's just how it is.

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Every attack is practice.

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What worked, what didn't work, you know, we do the same things you know.

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So now we get to October.

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So now we get to October and I and in no specific order, jim was gone, white boy left, he moved on to again, like I told you, you know, and then left with class man, left with class, and I'm not, I don't remember who else Mike, the other Mike that was on our team.

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So now we got three vacancies.

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We have to fill right Two teams of four and we've been rolling like I was Bravo team from the beginning, so it was Jim, cheese, mark and me.

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Well, now we get three out of eight replacements.

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So now we got to restructure.

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So now I get pulled off of Bravo, I go to Alpha team and I was like I'm going to take somebody else.

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You know, like I've been, I've been bravo since the beginning.

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Well, you know, kind of we all had right and uh, somebody had to go.

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So, you know, I I made the move and the replacements that they sent, you know, fortunately, um, I'm, I think I think at that time, uh, I know nason was with us on um.

00:19:51.094 --> 00:19:58.373
I know he was with us in october and I don't remember how far prior to that he came on board, but it's a good dude.

00:19:58.373 --> 00:20:02.049
Good dude when, when this thing went down, I was really glad he was with me, you know.

00:20:02.049 --> 00:20:07.766
But um, vick was team leader of alpha, team cheese was a team leader of bravo.

00:20:07.766 --> 00:20:09.810
Now I was alpha two.

00:20:09.810 --> 00:20:19.384
Um, I say nason was with us on alpha, yeah, yeah, yeah, nason was with us on Alpha, and so was Kurt Bravo.

00:20:19.384 --> 00:20:28.079
Team Cheese was the team leader, mark was the 2IC and then we had two Marine recon guys that came over with Nason.

00:20:28.079 --> 00:20:29.576
So now, bear this in mind.

00:20:29.576 --> 00:20:31.393
Okay, those three replacements.

00:20:31.393 --> 00:20:37.298
One of them is former Army Ranger, current SF dude, the other two are Marine Force recon.

00:20:37.298 --> 00:20:40.298
These are legitimate dudes.

00:20:40.298 --> 00:20:58.636
Okay, now, put a pin there, because the guys that replaced them again, like I said, it's a fine line for me Don't want to criticize because they didn't have the pedigree or the background, want to criticize because they didn't have the pedigree or the background, will criticize the fact that you shouldn't have a.

00:20:58.636 --> 00:21:02.364
What the fuck reaction when your replacements show up, you know.

00:21:03.772 --> 00:21:16.324
But you know, be as it may, um, so that's the breakdown of the teams, right, and the way we ran operations from the beginning was was very, very you know, jim implemented this and it was a solid procedure.

00:21:16.324 --> 00:21:20.876
You'd have one team, week by week it would go, and one team would be the hot seat team.

00:21:20.876 --> 00:21:28.615
And if you were the go team, the standby team, the hot seat team, any mission came up, it was yours, even if it was administrative.

00:21:28.615 --> 00:21:32.019
Hey, we got to drive up to Jerusalem to collect per diem.

00:21:32.019 --> 00:21:36.759
The hot seat team would take that, you know, and not the whole team.

00:21:36.759 --> 00:21:39.660
But then it'd be like Jim and okay, who's excuse me?

00:21:39.660 --> 00:21:42.318
And when you were the driver, you were the driver for the week.

00:21:42.318 --> 00:21:45.978
It wasn't, like you know, daily, so to speak.

00:21:45.978 --> 00:21:49.935
Yeah, maybe did we rotate drivers by the?

00:21:49.976 --> 00:21:50.939
day, fuck, I don't remember.

00:21:52.010 --> 00:21:57.634
But like, so, you're the team leader and it's like we got to do an administrative run to jerusalem.

00:21:57.634 --> 00:21:59.238
Hey, man, who's my driver this week?

00:21:59.238 --> 00:21:59.798
Well, that's me.

00:21:59.798 --> 00:22:01.041
So you and I'll go.

00:22:01.041 --> 00:22:02.972
The other two guys, can, you know, take a day.

00:22:02.972 --> 00:22:10.412
So, um, alpha team was hot seat this particular week and this was a wednesday.

00:22:10.412 --> 00:22:12.476
No, october 15th was a wednesday.

00:22:12.476 --> 00:22:18.730
So tuesday evening we're at the team house, right, and I'm watching.

00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:20.053
You ever seen a movie?

00:22:20.053 --> 00:22:21.356
I don't know why the fuck.

00:22:21.356 --> 00:22:22.539
I think shit's funny when it's.

00:22:22.539 --> 00:22:23.810
It's what you remember.

00:22:23.810 --> 00:22:26.457
You know, you ever see the movie cadillac man with robin williams.

00:22:26.457 --> 00:22:28.781
It's goofy funny.

00:22:28.781 --> 00:22:30.333
It is goofy funny.

00:22:30.333 --> 00:22:32.378
It's this whole thing where he's.

00:22:32.378 --> 00:22:38.296
He's divorced, he's got a young girlfriend, he's a car salesman and one of his colleagues, co-worker.

00:22:38.296 --> 00:22:43.536
This female, her husband's a crazy person and he takes hostages thinking she's having an affair.

00:22:43.536 --> 00:22:44.538
And it was goofy.

00:22:44.538 --> 00:22:45.681
Funny is what I'm getting at.

00:22:45.681 --> 00:22:51.217
So I'm sitting there watching it because there's nothing else on.

00:22:51.917 --> 00:23:06.982
We've got a mission tomorrow, all right, and uh, johnny lind was, um, was watching with me, right, and we're sitting there, we're watching the movie and it's just silly funny, like you're two grown-ass men laughing out loud because it was just that funny, you know.

00:23:06.982 --> 00:23:09.314
So now he's bravo team.

00:23:09.314 --> 00:23:11.238
You know I'm alpha team.

00:23:11.238 --> 00:23:12.621
We've got the mission tomorrow.

00:23:12.621 --> 00:23:13.321
They don't.

00:23:13.321 --> 00:23:15.757
I don't remember what time it was, but it was late.

00:23:15.757 --> 00:23:18.837
The movie's on and it's like you know, plan's set.

00:23:18.837 --> 00:23:20.241
We get a phone call.

00:23:20.241 --> 00:23:21.694
I get a phone call from Vic.

00:23:21.694 --> 00:23:23.757
He's like hey Rock, change of plans for tomorrow.

00:23:25.550 --> 00:23:30.257
We just got tasked with a higher priority mission and that's the way Hot Seat worked right.

00:23:30.257 --> 00:23:33.073
We got the first mission that came up.

00:23:33.073 --> 00:23:40.329
That mission was a one stop all day venue at a place called the Beach Hotel, right on the water in Gaza.

00:23:40.329 --> 00:23:49.884
We had been there so many times over the past year and a half and the irony of it was it was to conduct interviews.

00:23:49.884 --> 00:23:57.922
We would escort foreign service officers from the embassy to conduct interviews with Palestinian students for the awarding of Fulbright scholarships.

00:23:57.922 --> 00:24:00.486
Okay, noble effort, right.

00:24:00.486 --> 00:24:13.585
And, brother, you know me and I appreciate your patience because I go like like a tangent is I'm more like a shotgun blast and birdshot to boot, because this is irony.

00:24:13.585 --> 00:24:19.971
This is irony.

00:24:19.990 --> 00:24:24.089
The entirety of of the palestinian gaza strip was locked down like a penal colony at the time because of the intifada, because of incursions into israel and suicide bombings.

00:24:24.089 --> 00:24:30.501
It's locked down, nobody's going anywhere and yet chalk it up to diplomacy.

00:24:30.501 --> 00:24:43.026
You know, there's still a compassion for the palestinian people, students to be awarded these scholarships that academically they've earned, even though they can't act on them at that time, right?

00:24:43.026 --> 00:24:46.778
So this particular mission was in support of that effort.

00:24:46.778 --> 00:24:51.960
It wasn't espionage, it wasn't a snatch, it wasn't, you know, intelligence gathering.

00:24:51.960 --> 00:24:58.220
It was to conduct, you know, to provide safe passage to these foreign service officers from the embassy Super.

00:24:58.220 --> 00:25:07.143
So we get a call the night before Vic's like hey Rock, I just got a call from the shop, and this hardly ever happens.

00:25:07.950 --> 00:25:15.414
The defense attache is a military US military service member who's assigned to represent the Department of Defense at the embassy level.

00:25:15.414 --> 00:25:18.101
So within the embassy, it's like a little country, right.

00:25:18.101 --> 00:25:21.875
The ambassador is kind of like the president he represents, right, he's the chief of mission.

00:25:21.875 --> 00:25:24.583
Okay, then you have your other agencies.

00:25:24.583 --> 00:25:29.471
Department of State supports his mission, diplomatic Security Service supports the Department of State.

00:25:29.471 --> 00:25:31.273
They're part of that.

00:25:31.273 --> 00:25:37.723
There's the other agency and, um, you know anybody else that falls under that?

00:25:37.723 --> 00:25:39.832
Administrative support capacities, right.

00:25:39.832 --> 00:25:42.837
Logistics supply us post office, right?

00:25:42.837 --> 00:25:45.983
Matter of fact, I'm still um rob.

00:25:45.983 --> 00:25:59.054
I don't know if you're following this, but if you are brother, miss you and uh, be cool, be safe, but um, there's an american um working at the us embassy post office there for now and 20 years.

00:25:59.054 --> 00:26:09.978
So you know, a good guy, beautiful family, but, uh, good friend, but um, so you know, again, it's like a small country, like all this support, uh capacity.

00:26:10.018 --> 00:26:21.522
So the defense attache reached out to us because of our area knowledge of the Gaza Strip and we had been all over that place and they're like, hey, we need support to do a route reconnaissance.

00:26:21.522 --> 00:26:26.411
Now, to do that route reconnaissance, we're not taking the embassy vehicles, we're not the marked ones.

00:26:26.411 --> 00:26:34.660
Anyway, you know, we're going to dress down, we're going to blend in and we're going to do a route reconnaissance from the northern tip to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, east to west.

00:26:34.660 --> 00:26:45.250
I mean, we're going to go into places in Gaza that the Palestinian authority would not even go right, blending in and taking GPS not to get into too much what we were going to do.

00:26:45.250 --> 00:26:47.420
But bottom line is that mission never happened.

00:26:47.420 --> 00:26:51.192
So now, picture this right, we got the only mission of the day.

00:26:51.192 --> 00:26:54.976
Now another mission comes up that's deemed higher priority.

00:26:54.976 --> 00:27:01.202
So we pass off the easy run, the milk run to Bravo Team.

00:27:01.763 --> 00:27:15.213
Right, we're like, and again, my mindset at the time hell, yeah, yeah, 2003, october.

00:27:15.213 --> 00:27:27.755
I had just turned 40 in September right now, by some standard 40's old, you know, for me at that time it was not.

00:27:27.755 --> 00:27:37.835
And my ego at the time and I was like right on and I can I believe I can speak for everybody on the team like there was a level of excitement to go all right, man, like we're not going to do the one-stop shop at the beach, and the beach hotel was a nice venue.

00:27:37.835 --> 00:27:39.079
It was really nice venue.

00:27:39.079 --> 00:27:52.082
They had a seafood restaurant and great coffee and you'd sit out on the, you know like again doing our rotation Some of you are inside, some of you are front side, some of you are out on the back patio and the meeting rooms.

00:27:52.082 --> 00:28:00.184
You know, probably in that case it would have been like internal but easy day, you know, by all accounts, easy day, get them in, easy day, get them out.

00:28:00.184 --> 00:28:12.941
So there was a level of excitement going, dude, like you know we've been, we've been through Gaza before, but here we go again and every time you do it, it's that, it's that risk factor, that little bit of a rush, you know.

00:28:12.941 --> 00:28:15.724
So we're like, okay, great, so now.

00:28:25.119 --> 00:28:34.097
So now, out of left field, and and again, how, like the hand of God works right, there's a team from department of state and, as I've told you before, you know the guys that I was fortunate enough to work with, who were DSS agents, were good guys.

00:28:34.097 --> 00:28:36.462
Good guys to a to a man.

00:28:36.462 --> 00:28:37.711
They were good guys.

00:28:37.711 --> 00:28:42.299
This crew was up in Jerusalem.

00:28:42.299 --> 00:28:43.623
They had just gotten in country.

00:28:43.623 --> 00:28:45.172
I guess they were going to be part of the uh.

00:28:45.531 --> 00:28:52.913
Ambassador Wolf was a special envoy assigned by president Clinton, um, to do like the, the broker, like the roadmap to peace.

00:28:52.913 --> 00:28:57.303
You know it was called and you know it didn't work.

00:28:57.303 --> 00:29:03.035
But they sent three more teams of contractors to plus that up and they send these guys.

00:29:03.035 --> 00:29:06.800
And these guys are supposed to be part of I don't know, supposed to.

00:29:06.800 --> 00:29:09.438
They were part of what the hell do?

00:29:09.438 --> 00:29:13.417
They call it MSD, mobile Security Detachment.

00:29:13.417 --> 00:29:16.135
It's a State Department.

00:29:16.135 --> 00:29:28.721
These are supposed to be like their high-speed guys, right, and this particular group, I can say with all honesty, was the biggest bunch of fucking dicks I've ever met in my life, and I reserve that title for very special occasions.

00:29:32.836 --> 00:29:42.363
Now, this should have been us, right, this should have been us, but instead, hey, state Department, you know this is all happening at the same time.

00:29:42.363 --> 00:29:47.560
Defense attache needs us to take them, so we're off the board.

00:29:47.560 --> 00:29:51.141
Like our mission is going to launch in about an hour or so after you know theirs.

00:29:51.141 --> 00:29:56.366
So Cheese, team leader of Bravo, he's taking the guys to the beach hotel.

00:29:56.366 --> 00:30:01.625
He gets a call hey, uh, you know changing plans, you're taking the beach hotel run.

00:30:01.625 --> 00:30:05.355
By the way, he gets this call from our people at the embassy in tel aviv.

00:30:05.355 --> 00:30:13.179
By the way, there's an msd team that's up in jerusalem that wants a ride with you guys to get familiar with Gaza.

00:30:13.700 --> 00:30:15.262
Right Now, this is important.

00:30:15.262 --> 00:30:25.556
In a conventional PSD motorcade, you've got a lead vehicle, you've got the vehicle with the high-value package, then you've got a follow vehicle.

00:30:25.556 --> 00:30:29.000
The lead vehicle is supposed to basically clear the route right.

00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:36.250
And again, this is supposed to work anywhere In sedans, in an urban environment know, new york city, washington dc, what have you?

00:30:36.250 --> 00:30:42.891
Or a more austere environment, even in a combat zone, like you'd have your lead humvee, you'd have.

00:30:42.891 --> 00:30:48.340
You know so, and this was right on.

00:30:48.340 --> 00:30:50.523
Man cheese was a professional through and through.

00:30:50.523 --> 00:30:52.092
He was a tactician through and through.

00:30:52.092 --> 00:31:01.663
He gets handed this at the last minute and he's like right now, here back up a notch to support my dick philosophy, right.

00:31:01.663 --> 00:31:05.373
Um so cheese was just man.

00:31:05.413 --> 00:31:17.757
I can't, I can't even think about him without seeing his face and that smile like yeah, jack, jack hey, so here's what I'm thinking, you know, and he was always very like Jack hey, so here's what I'm thinking, you know, and he was always very like, aggressively friendly.

00:31:17.757 --> 00:31:18.717
You know what I mean.

00:31:18.717 --> 00:31:20.198
Like hey, how you doing?

00:31:20.198 --> 00:31:25.823
All right, yeah, so he gets the contact number for the team leader of the MSD guys in Jerusalem.

00:31:25.823 --> 00:31:30.546
He gets it from our State Department handlers at the embassy in Tel Aviv.

00:31:30.546 --> 00:31:32.248
Very cool, very cordial.

00:31:32.248 --> 00:31:36.251
They're like hey, just give him a call, you know, let them know where to link up and you'll look for them.

00:31:36.332 --> 00:31:43.917
At the Erez, prior to the Erez crossing, there was a almost like their version of Breezewood, pennsylvania, the Yod Mordecai Truck Junction.

00:31:43.917 --> 00:31:45.858
Yod Mordecai Truck Junction.

00:31:45.858 --> 00:31:46.900
And you pull in there.

00:31:46.900 --> 00:31:56.207
They had like a cafe, they had restroom, you know facilities and all that, and we'd typically stop there, use restroom, like, okay, we're ready to go.

00:31:56.207 --> 00:32:01.003
Boom right down the road and then you get through the aires, crossing the checkpoint into gaza.

00:32:01.625 --> 00:32:06.419
So cheese calls this jag off right, and he said, hey, he goes, is this so?

00:32:06.419 --> 00:32:06.900
And so he goes.

00:32:06.900 --> 00:32:07.922
I'm john brenciccio.

00:32:07.922 --> 00:32:09.855
He's like here, you'll be rolling with us tomorrow.

00:32:09.855 --> 00:32:13.105
This motherfucker says are you a contractor?

00:32:13.105 --> 00:32:14.657
And cheese goes oh, yes, I am.

00:32:14.657 --> 00:32:14.750
He goes.

00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:15.049
Tell you what have your rso?

00:32:15.049 --> 00:32:15.258
Call me, I don't talk to contractors.

00:32:15.258 --> 00:32:15.880
And he, this motherfucker, says are you a contractor?

00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:15.884
And she goes oh, yes, I am.

00:32:15.884 --> 00:32:21.657
He goes tell you what have your RSO call me, I don't talk to contractors and he fucking hangs up on him, right?

00:32:21.657 --> 00:32:22.632
So I'll tell you what.

00:32:22.632 --> 00:32:25.079
You little motherfucker, I still remember what you look like.

00:32:25.079 --> 00:32:31.138
I saw you in Iraq and you're lucky, I let you slide there, all right, I know you're still around, so fuck you.

00:32:31.950 --> 00:32:35.884
So, anyway, I don't talk to con and that you know.

00:32:35.884 --> 00:32:38.291
Be as it may, maybe uh and and this is a fact.

00:32:38.291 --> 00:32:39.114
This is a fact.

00:32:39.114 --> 00:32:40.195
He was a little motherfucker.

00:32:40.637 --> 00:32:45.446
You know little, it's already lost his hair, you know he shows all the signs of, like basic human, fucking weakness.

00:32:45.446 --> 00:32:49.359
You know, I'm saying, and I mean character, I don't mean appearance or physical, you know, I don't mean like that.

00:32:49.359 --> 00:32:53.198
You know, but he just had this weak nature who says I don, I don't talk to Con.

00:32:53.198 --> 00:32:55.502
Well, you're going to fucking roll with me on a mission tomorrow.

00:32:55.502 --> 00:32:59.201
You might want to, you know, open up your cake holster there.

00:32:59.201 --> 00:33:02.559
So I don't talk to.

00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:06.101
So Jesus is like what the fuck.

00:33:06.550 --> 00:33:14.083
So he calls our guy back at our embassy and at the time I think it was Eric Good dude.

00:33:14.083 --> 00:33:22.237
So he calls him back and he either Eric or Scott at the anyway, smooth that out, all right gets cheese back and he's like, okay, sorry about that.

00:33:22.237 --> 00:33:26.962
He's like some guys you know and he's like they'll meet you at Yad Mordecai truck Junction.

00:33:26.962 --> 00:33:32.022
He's like I made it clear to him you are in tactical command of this mission.

00:33:32.022 --> 00:33:33.980
Cheese is like Roger.

00:33:33.980 --> 00:33:35.164
That's all I want.

00:33:35.164 --> 00:33:36.890
How it should be.

00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:42.348
First, you've got a new team never been exposed to Gaza.

00:33:42.348 --> 00:33:45.586
These people that are after you don't give a fuck who you are.

00:33:45.586 --> 00:33:46.703
They really don't.

00:33:46.703 --> 00:33:59.586
So, to his credit, as I said, the way it usually would work, all things being equal lead vehicle, high-value packs in the center, and then your gun truck, your maneuver element.

00:33:59.586 --> 00:34:04.207
So you got guns all over, but you've got maneuverability.

00:34:04.207 --> 00:34:04.788
All right.

00:34:04.788 --> 00:34:06.712
You keep the package safe in the center.

00:34:06.712 --> 00:34:09.342
Everybody knows that.

00:34:09.342 --> 00:34:11.485
Our enemies know that.

00:34:11.485 --> 00:34:15.331
Now, smartly, you know you.

00:34:15.331 --> 00:34:15.871
You wouldn't.

00:34:15.871 --> 00:34:18.775
You never drive so close like a foot patrol.

00:34:18.775 --> 00:34:24.322
You never, you never patrol so close to the guy in front or behind that you both get taken out with the same device, right?

00:34:24.322 --> 00:34:29.393
Similarly, give yourself enough of a spread so that you can maneuver if need be.

00:34:29.393 --> 00:34:37.001
So, um, anyway, they get down there, they do a quick over the hood, brief, right and cheese is like all right, this is the way I see it.

00:34:37.001 --> 00:34:40.608
He was like you are the maneuver element.

00:34:40.608 --> 00:34:47.514
He's like the way we roll with a two vehicle package is high value, pack is up front, we're in the back.

00:34:47.514 --> 00:34:52.365
If we need to push around, we pass them up and tuck them in behind.

00:34:52.365 --> 00:34:55.452
And he was like but we're going to roll the way we always roll.

00:34:55.452 --> 00:34:57.422
You are our maneuver element.

00:34:57.422 --> 00:34:59.306
You're a gun truck, you're the third vehicle.

00:35:00.769 --> 00:35:10.211
Check, it's the only thing that made sense, right, super, the rso who was on that mission was from our embassy.

00:35:10.211 --> 00:35:12.375
Uh, I'm gonna.

00:35:12.375 --> 00:35:20.161
I'm gonna say it von guillaume was his name, one of the best guys I've ever worked with, ever, ever, to this day.

00:35:20.161 --> 00:35:23.789
He's actually the RSO at a major station right now.

00:35:23.789 --> 00:35:25.132
None of this is secret.

00:35:25.132 --> 00:35:32.764
He's just a good dude, right, and a regional security officer, all right.

00:35:32.764 --> 00:35:44.420
So the RSO, the regional regional security officer, is in charge of the diplomatic security service for the department of state, all right, so that's like, like, like chief of station for the other agency.

00:35:44.420 --> 00:36:00.505
You know, you can be like the, the drso, deputy regional security, like the second in command, but then in common vernacular, like anybody who's a regional security officer, diplomatic security service, oh, he's an rso.

00:36:00.505 --> 00:36:07.465
Well, he's an rso, but he's not the rso, right, I guess, like sometimes it gets caught up in like oh, is he a sheriff?

00:36:07.465 --> 00:36:09.271
Oh, he's a deputy sheriff.

00:36:09.271 --> 00:36:11.923
You know, that guy's the sheriff, you know, like that.

00:36:11.923 --> 00:36:17.273
So now, so he was an RSO at the time.

00:36:17.699 --> 00:36:19.063
He would roll with us quite frequently.

00:36:19.063 --> 00:36:23.266
Smooth, right, like you're too fucking young.

00:36:23.266 --> 00:36:25.086
I don't know why I deal with you youngsters.

00:36:25.086 --> 00:36:28.320
Sade, you know the singer, sade, yeah, I do.

00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:33.206
Oh, my God, dude, let me tell you this Back in the 80s, 90s, I had the biggest crush on her.

00:36:37.280 --> 00:36:39.264
She didn't know it, charday, if by chance I'm married now and I love my wife.

00:36:39.264 --> 00:36:44.413
But we could have been, you know, oh, my god, so that and that, why I bring that up?

00:36:44.413 --> 00:36:50.891
Von guillaume, smooth operator, right, I mean, like I don't think I ever saw him sweat.

00:36:50.891 --> 00:36:54.063

Tel Aviv, Part 4: Gaza

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