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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome back onto the show
Marine veteran, FBI special agent, and the author
of Investigating America's Most Notorious Strip
Club, Mark Seawall. Now in this conversation,
we discuss a host of topics from his journey
into the military, his transition into the FBI,
investigating gangs, human trafficking, the mafia,
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app
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leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
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And this is a free library of well over 1 ,000
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you help share these incredible men and women's
stories so I can get them to every single person
on planet Earth who needs to hear them. And yes,
my voice sounds terrible. I have the man flu,
by the way. So with that being said, I introduce
to you Mark Sewell. Enjoy. Well, Mark, I want
to start by saying thank you so much for taking
the time and coming on the Behind the Shield
podcast today. Well, you're very welcome, and
I look forward to it. Thanks for having me. So
where on planet Earth are we finding you this
afternoon? Planet Earth. You always say that,
and it always makes me smile when you say that.
I am in Lumberton, Texas, which you're not going
to know where that's at. You're an Ocala, Florida
guy. If you get on Interstate 10 and you drive
west, the first city of any size that you come
to in Texas is going to be Beaumont, Texas. And
I'm in that metro Beaumont area. I'm familiar
with that. Southeast Texas. Yeah, yeah. 10 will
take you obviously all the way to San Diego.
So I'm the first city in Texas when you're on
I -10. Yeah, I drove all the way out to work
for Anaheim Fire back in 2005 and then drove
back to Florida in 2008. So I probably went through
Beaumont twice, if I'm not mistaken. So it's
amazing how Texas is green for a bit and then
brown and yellow for about, it felt like about
15 weeks. Yeah. it's it's roughly a thousand
miles across no matter which direction you're
going north south or east west so uh and it does
change in those thousand miles you're right that's
funny all right well i'd love to start the very
beginning of your journey so tell me where you
were born and tell me a little bit about your
family dynamic what your parents did how many
siblings yeah i was i was born in arkansas i
don't know how many guests you've had that come
from arkansas But there's an area in South Arkansas,
North Texas, North Louisiana called the Arcla
Tech area, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Arcla
Tech. There's companies, utilities. That's a
cultural there in that part of the states where
those three states come together. It's called
the Arcla Tech area. And that's where all my
family's from. That's where I was born. Through
a series of, my dad was a wildcatter and a roughneck,
if you know what that is. He was in the oil business.
And when I was young, and we moved around a lot
when I was young, even though that Arklatec area
was home, he was chasing oil out in West Texas,
New Mexico, Oklahoma. But we settled down in
Houston, which is obviously the oil capital of
America. And I grew up most of my teenage years
or all of my teenage years in the Houston area.
And it was from there that I joined the Marines
and left after high school. Mother, father, my
father was a blue collar guy like I just described.
My mother was a waitress in a Mexican restaurant
for 20 years, locally owned family little thing
where everybody knows everybody. And I had one
brother. He died in 2009. He's older. He's six
years older than me. And it was just the two
brothers. So a family of four. I had someone
on the show recently and I asked him a question
because when I've posted stuff about the working
conditions, especially at the fire service and
how our hours have just got crazier and crazier
with this understaffing that's going on at the
moment. I've had a few snide comments and it's
always been from guys that work. the oil rigs
or you know in the oil fields yeah so i asked
him well you know that kind of comment reminds
me of the old school fire service that were rolling
their eyes when we were talking about mental
health and you know all that kind of alcoholism
and then here we are now we've grown up and we're
talking about it when you reflect on the environment
that your dad worked in was there an element
of health or was it very much that old school
kind of grind yourself into the ground mentality
the majority was what was your former grind yourself
into the ground i remember hearing my dad say
the reason he left that business was because
he got tired of seeing people lose fingers and
hands because it was a very unregulated unsafe
business it was work all day long uh you i mean
these guys chased that lifestyle because there
was money to be made for sure but it was a very
unregulated business and you could work all day
long and of course it was just a heavy heavy
machinery moving fast uh you had fatigue and
all the factors that go with it and it created
a danger dangerous environment and um somewhere
in his early to mid 30s he finally decided i'm
not going to live long or have all my appendages
if i keep doing this and he'd been doing this
since he was 18. right after high school so he
he had spent well over a decade in the oil business
so he was he knew what he was talking about so
it's a it's but it was mostly like you said it
was it was 100 miles an hour you know be damned
was it was the juice worth the squeeze or ultimately
was most of the money still going to the people
towards the top of the pyramid Yeah, I think
the juice was worth the squeeze for most people
because they ended up being lifers because the
money was worth the element of danger. But my
father was really not motivated by finances.
He was, hey, if I can pay my bills, I'm a happy
at the end of the day type of guy. And his health,
really, not because he was a fitness guy. uh
because he died early in his life from a heart
attack but uh his health it is his appendages
was more important than a nice paycheck when
you reflect back now and the reason i ask this
a lot of us in in uniform um you know when we
get in deeper into our career a lot of us struggle
and when when that conversation is brought up
it's like oh you had that you know that uh perp
that you had to go into that house where those
people were killed whatever the scene is but
actually when you kind of learn more about the
men and women that we serve alongside a lot of
us have had some struggles early in life which
can absolutely just become an asset if they're
processed you know healthily but if it's buried
down obviously it can be a kind of fracture to
the foundation when you reflect on your early
life were there any elements of that Hmm. It's
almost like somebody gave you a list of questions
to ask me, James. That's a good one. Yeah. It
was a rough lifestyle growing up in that wildcatting
environment. And then when my dad left the wildcatting
environment, roughneck, maybe roughnecking is
probably the better word. He went into heavy
equipment, but it was still different. He was
a earth mover. drag lines, bulldozers, but it
was safer. You know, you were inside a cab, you
were working in a slower business and that made
it safer. And where I'm going with that in regards
to your question was when they were in that roughneck
world, there's been a couple of movies that have
been made by Hollywood. One was called the iron
orchard, I think, or something to that effect,
that talk about how rough that lifestyle was.
It was work all day and then drink all night.
And that meant, you know, carousing, womanizing,
fighting, and all the things that go with that.
And inevitably that, you know, and I can remember
that coming home into my environment as well,
that lifestyle. And frankly, I remember my dad
saying that was also a part of the reason he
left that lifestyle. It was not conducive to
a family. So I was exposed to that and I remember
it. I don't think I suppressed it, but I was
able to vent it through athletics and some outdoor
activities and things of that nature. uh but
um not many people not many families in that
business stay together for the long term it's
just not conducive yeah i mean there are so many
parallels this is so interesting when you kind
of expand who comes on the show to all fields
There, you know, there's so many professions
that they have elements that we have in the first
responder professions. And I said to someone
recently when we're talking about trying to,
you know, to make changes proactively in the
first responder and in law enforcement fields.
Imagine going to your local grocery store or
bank for a job and they say, oh, you wait in
10 years, you'll be on your third marriage and
have an alcohol problem. You know, you'd be like,
OK, I'm not going to go work for Bank of America
after all. That sounds terrible. But in our field,
I'm sure, you know, when you first died, that
was a running joke. And you hear about this in
the wildland community and the oil rigs and some
of these other professions where you're asking
people to do, you know, so much. And then their
kind of relief valve obviously ends up leaning
into unhealthy practices. Yeah, you're absolutely
right. Two things come to mind when you say that.
One a little bit more morbid, the other one a
little bit funnier. My brother. I told you earlier,
he's dead now. He drank himself to death. He
worked that environment. He also had a TBI, traumatic
brain injury, when he was a teenager, and that
altered the course of his life. But he was in
that heavy equipment, worked a little bit with
the oil as well, and got infected by that lifestyle.
The other thing that comes to mind as you say
that that's kind of humorous, if you will, is
I saw a meme. Some time ago, I have it on my
phone and it showed a little boy that was probably
10, 11 years old. And he was it was like dress
up day at school to dress like your dress like
your father, you know, come dressed as a firefighter,
come dressed as a police officer, whatever it
might be. So this this boy is wearing a dress
shirt with an open collar. the first button is
open and his tie around his neck is has been
opened and it's loose and his hair is ragged
and um and even though he's 11 years old you
can look at him and you can tell he's sitting
in a chair and he's exhausted and the meme says
something like little bobby decided to dress
like his dad detective so and so from the local
police department right you know uh just you
know completely exhausted um warren ragged and
i think the meme also said something about and
you know told his schoolmates about being on
his third marriage which is what came to mind
when you said third marriage wallet yeah so uh
it's it's funny i'll i'll send it to you sometime
on your cell phone yeah thank you all right well
you mentioned athletics what were you playing
and doing in the kind of middle school high school
ages Everything. My father was a sports fan and
allowed me to play anything I wanted. I probably
up and through high school when I graduated,
I was playing a minimum of two sports a year.
Some in middle school and what we call junior
high and elementary. I was playing four sports
a season. Football and baseball were the obvious.
Then later came track and field and basketball.
So the big three plus track. Yeah. I always ask
people this because I played team sports and
I was a martial artist. So obviously I fought
on my own on the mat as well. When you reflect
back now, what elements of the team sports helped
you as you progress through your career and what
elements of the individual sport? Yeah, the individual
sport would have been track. Even though you
work. individually to accumulate points for the
team. It's still an individual sport. And for
me, I was primarily, I made my points for the
team as a pole vaulter. And I ran some other
events on occasion, but I scored my points in
pole vault. And that was just me out there doing
my thing by myself, you know, so it was an individual
event. And it teaches you, you know, that if
you don't perform, obviously, the team is going
to suffer but you're also under you can't hide
under the team you know if you're on a football
team and there's 11 players on the field at one
time you might get lost among those 11 players
but in track and field there's a there's a little
bit of a spotlight on you i i often say that
track and field may be the best spectator sport
out there because everybody is under the spotlight
it can be seen your performance can't be hidden
among your teammates Concerning the team sports,
it's cliche, but it's true. Texas, by reputation,
is a football state. So I went to a high school
that was a football power during that era. In
fact, as we speak right now, I've come back to
Texas after being gone for almost 40 years. But
as I come back now, my high school is this year
opening up their new. high school football stadium
they tore the old one down took two years to
rebuild it multi multi -million dollar stadium
complete with astro turf big screen scoreboard
with digital features and this is at the high
school level it would make uh most junior colleges
and small colleges envious but that's the norm
in texas where football is king and um being
on a competitive state qualified state championship
caliber team was a great lesson learner. I happened
to play quarterback my senior year. And of course,
that puts you in a leadership position, will
set you up for either failure or success. I'd
been quarterback all the previous years, at the
freshman level and the junior varsity level,
but to be. a quarterback on a varsity team in
the state of Texas at the highest level. At that
time, we were a 5A classification, which was
the highest level. Playing against what now is
all future NFL players, having NFL players on
my team as well. You learn the lesson of teamwork,
cliche, but you also learn if you don't perform,
the team's not going to succeed. so um it puts
a lot of pressure on you what about career aspirations
were you like a lot of people that are successful
in school wanting to do that professionally or
were you already thinking about something else
well i i wasn't a smart kid i won't say that
but i was smart enough to know that hey i'm not
going to be a professional athlete no one's going
to pay me to uh to uh run a slow 400 meters or
pole vault 15 feet or whatever it might be. But
I did think that I could parlay that into a college
scholarship, get a college degree and then parlay
that into a career, which I'd already determined
I thought it was going to be law enforcement.
I started taking criminal justice classes my
freshman year and so forth. But things happen.
And I went to a junior college there in my area
on a 50 -50 scholarship. And what that means
is you pay the first year, the school will pay
the next year. So you split the tuition and the
expenses and so forth. And then my dad died unexpectedly.
So now my brother's out of the house. I'm the
only person there with my mom and so forth. Just,
you know, obviously some stressors there. So
I dropped out and through networking, I ended
up in the oil refinery business as a 19 year
old because the money was really good. Just go
back to our earlier conversation, right? So I'm
19 years old. I'm working in an oil refinery.
And I'm making a really good blue collar middle
class salary, especially at 19 years old. I bought
a house and had a mortgage at 19 years old. But
I did know this, James, that I didn't want to
do that for the rest of my life. All my high
school classmates mostly stayed in the area and
continue to do that type of work for the rest
of their life. And God bless them. They made
great money doing it and so forth. But I just
didn't want to do that. And so from there, I
joined the Marines. So my athletic career kind
of halted when my dad died. And I jumped into
fulfilling some other obligations. So what was
your on -ramp experience like for the Marines?
And where did you find yourself deployed over
that? It was 10 years, wasn't it? Yeah, I had
an interesting career. I was both enlisted and
commissioned. So I enlisted at 19 and went to
San Diego. I don't know if you know this, but
for the Marine Corps, depending upon where you
live in the United States, if you're west of
the Mississippi, you'll go to boot camp in San
Diego. If you're east of the Mississippi, you'll
go to boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina.
The only exception to that is if your father
or your grandfather went to one of the boot camps,
you can request to go to that one also. So I
ended up in San Diego, Hollywood Marines, as
we're called. Gomer Pyle, if you've ever seen
Gomer Pyle before and so forth. That was my own
ramp, was boot camp. I went in open contract,
James. I knew nobody in the Marines. I knew nobody
in the military in general to give me any advice.
And I kind of came to this decision that I want
to join the Marines. In my mind, I'd made the
decision that they're the best of the best. But
I want to go because the way it was at on the
calendar, I wanted to go and be back by Christmas
from boot camp. You know, who knows what goes
through your mind when you're 19 years old and
newly married, by the way. So I wanted to go
to boot camp and be back. The recruiter said,
well, the only way we can do that is you go open
contract. And I don't know if you're familiar
with that term, but basically open contract says
that you don't have an MOS that's guaranteed.
You're going to go start boot camp and then the
computer will tell you what your job is going
to be. You'll find out about halfway through
boot camp. So I found out open contract. I got
a job as what we call admin, basically a paper
pusher, administrative handling paperwork for
within the Marine Corps. There are Marines that
do admin work, if you can believe that. Not very
sexy, but it exists. So that and from there,
I ended up, I actually mentioned this to some
others. I ended up driving around Camp Lejeune,
North Carolina in a bread truck delivering mail,
if you can believe that. It almost looked like
Santa Claus. I had these big bags of mail that
I would drop off at units that weighed 100 pounds
apiece, you know, that kind of thing. Not very
sexy. But I applied for a program early in my
career that would allow me, if I was selected,
would allow me to go back to college at the Marine
Corps' expense, earn a degree, and then commission
as an officer, and then pay the Marine Corps
back with time and service. And I was selected
for that program for the Marines that are listening.
It's called the MESEP program and everybody's
familiar with it. 50 Marines that year, corporals
and sergeants and staff sergeants were selected.
I go back to San Diego. I get a little refresher
training for that summer to get me ready for
college. And I ended up at the Citadel, if you
know where that's at, in Charleston, South Carolina.
I chose to go to the Citadel. You're allowed
to go to any school that has a Navy ROTC program.
I chose to go to the Citadel because of its reputation.
And then also it was the most popular among the
Marines to choose for that program. We also had
a Marine colonel in charge of our Navy ROTC program.
If I had gone to another school, I would have
worked for a Navy captain. So that Marine thing
was attractive. So I ended up at the Citadel.
I commissioned out of there and I became an intelligence
officer by choice. That's what I wanted to do.
So finally, now I'm five years into the Marine
Corps, James, and I get to pick my job finally
after five years. And I had a great commissioned
tour. I ended up out in Hawaii with a unit called
1st Radio Battalion. and i was a reconnaissance
platoon commander out there i was a small team
leader and then i ended up my last year in the
marine corps i was an aide for a two -star general
there in hawaii as well so um i started slow
but i picked up speed and i ended i ended with
a bang i had a great last four years in the marine
corps in that time were there any because i mean
you had quite a unique lens um any threats to
Hawaii and that area? Because when you think
about the U .S., obviously, you've got the mainland.
I would think strategically, that's quite a vulnerable
location for the people that live there and the
military bases. Yeah, good question. And you
asked that, and I didn't mention it about deployment.
So in Hawaii, you're part of the Pacific Command.
And at that time, and still today, it was all
about North Korea doing their saber rattling.
So we, the Marines, were constantly looking at
North Korea. We had other responsibilities. I
had a linguist in my unit that were responsible
to learn Tagali so that we could work the Philippines
if we needed to. I had Marines in my units that
spoke Arabic so that we could work Southwest
Asia if we needed to. But primarily, North Korea
was the enemy that was doing the most saber rattling.
And I ended up going to... Korea and Japan in
exercises, military preparedness, just always
to be that frontline type of unit to keep North
Korea in check. If North Korea could reach, even
then, I think they could reach Hawaii with a
ballistic missile. So that would probably be
the best answer to that question. What is your
perception of the threat today, like 35 plus
years later? for North Korea specifically. Yeah.
I'm always hesitant to say those things because
whatever I'll say, I'll turn out to look like
a fool probably six months later and so forth.
Yeah. The world community has been successful
in keeping North Korea. in its box. And I don't
know if that's China, if that's the United States,
if that's a combination of both. But every day,
I think people think less and less about North
Korea. And I think North Korea realizes that,
that people think less and less about them. So
they fire off a ballistic missile so they can
say, hey, don't forget about me. I'm this really
tough guy. Obviously, they're the, I don't know,
maybe they're like the little runt on the block
that is tired of being looked at as the little
rot and so they always get into fights so that
they can prove that they're not the little runt
but at the end of the day they're still the little
runt who happens to have a nuclear weapon but
uh i have to believe that no matter what we what
they what kind of propaganda they put out they
know that it's a losing battle no matter what
they do if they use nukes if they use conventional
it doesn't matter they lose at the end of the
day And the leaders have to know that they'll
be the first ones killed. So because of that,
I think it's been all of that together has kept
them in their box. And I think they become less
of a threat every day. I'm just about to get
a couple of Korean War veterans on. It's so sad
because when we reflect, you know, the veteran,
excuse me, the Vietnam era war fighters, you
know, had such a horrendous homecoming the way
they were treated. But, you know, the Korean
vets, I mean, it's the forgotten war. And I saw
a documentary on Korea, North Korea, and they
kind of detailed how close they came to losing
the whole country and how the Allied forces helped
push them all the way back to what we know now
as the North -South line. What really blows me
away, though, is how quickly those two change.
I mean, you have World War II, then you have
all these parts of the country walled off and
separated. But if you look at, for example, Berlin,
you know, when the wall fell, there was basically,
you know, I know it wasn't flawless, but there
ultimately was a return of brother and sisterhood.
But when you look at the brainwashing that appears
to happen in North Korea, if what we're being
told is correct, it's so sad that these people
that rule one nation are so pitted against each
other now. Yeah. And obviously there's. Family
trees that have been severed because of that.
And you think about knowing that where I live
in Texas, I can't go into Louisiana because they're
the bad guys, for example. And I can't cross
that line, even though I know I have relatives
that I've heard throughout the course of my life.
And my family has passed down to me through a
verbal lineage that I have relatives in Louisiana.
I have blood in Louisiana, but I can't go there.
They're the bad guys. So that's got to be sad.
You're right. And I don't know from a South Korea
perspective, or excuse me, from a North Korea
perspective, how much they think like that. But
I know that that is part of the South Korean
culture. When I was there and had conversations
with others, they reminisce about a day where
they can join back into their family tree and
lineage. Yeah. I mean, it's just seeing, again,
what we are shown as far as all these crowds
of people saluting their leader and singing songs
about their leader. Now that we've got a couple
of generations down the road, how do you undo
that level of propaganda and brainwashing? Yeah,
it's hard. It's really tough for us to believe
that that's possible in today's technological
age. Apparently it is. I guess if that's your
goal and you wake up every day thinking, how
can I keep my subordinates in the dark? Then
I guess that's what North Korea is doing in that
regard. And apparently it's working. Well, I
think, you know, if we're being fair, England,
America, we can all see elements of that, even
in our own country. I would say if we're being
apolitical, look at, you know, COVID and the
incidents that happened around those two or three
years. There was a lot of propaganda. There was
a lot of, you know, withholding the truth in
certain areas, you know, and then kind of inciting
fires in other areas. And it doesn't matter which
way people lean. You know, look at your own camp.
If you kind of push towards the extreme, they
were doing it. So there's some red flags here
that we have to really push against, I think.
That's a fair point. but you the key point you
make is that we have to push against we have
the ability to push against it and using your
example earlier of north koreans those citizens
don't have the ability to push against they have
to take what they're given and assume it's the
truth absolutely we've got to push against it
otherwise one day we might not be able to and
i think that's the point um yeah and it's a good
point All right. Well, they're moving forward.
So what makes you transition out of the military?
And how did you find yourself in the FBI of all
places? When I was in Hawaii, I belonged to an
intelligence unit and I was an intelligence officer.
And with that came the highest level of security
classification, clearance, what we call in the
community a top secret, SCI, and so forth. Having
that already under my resume made it enticing
for the local FBI recruiter. So there came a
time in 1996 that the FBI recruiter from Hawaii,
from Honolulu, came on to the Marine base and
gave a recruiting presentation. And a lot of
lieutenants, young lieutenants from my battalion
went to that presentation. And little did we
know that within the next 12 to 24 months, seven
lieutenants out of my battalion would join the
FBI. And the primary reason for that is we already
had the security clearance, which told the recruiter
that we can pass the background investigation
for the FBI for the most part. Sure, we had to
still go through the process, but we were a safe
bet because we had already been granted a clearance
by the Marine Corps. So we were like easy picking,
if you will. We were good candidates on paper.
But when you add that top secret clearance, that
just makes you a better candidate. And I was
looking to maybe leave the Marine Corps simply
because family dynamics were always deploying.
You know, I'd been all over the. the Pacific
in my short amount of time there. I knew I had
more in store for me if I stayed in the Marines.
I was prepared to leave the Marines only if I
could join the FBI. I'd made a decision that
was the only career I wanted to pursue. So when
that recruiter came on the base, I went ahead
and went through the application process. If
I had not been accepted, I would have stayed
in the Marines. I already had nine years, seven
months, and eight days, just a little bit short
of 10 years. But when I went into the FBI, I
was able to take that time with me as well. Federal
time transfers, as you probably know. So that
was also part of my decision. I looked at the
FBI as obviously the best of the law enforcement
agencies, with all due respect to the others.
It also paid the best, quite frankly. And I didn't
want to take a severe cut in pay if I transferred
to some of the other law enforcement agencies
that don't pay as well. Because by this time
I was a captain in the Marines with nine plus
years of service. So I was making a fair salary
and I didn't want to take a big cut. So it all
worked out well. The Bureau had a lot to offer.
They had the job satisfaction. They had the salary.
They had all these neat things going for them.
So to me, that was where I was going to go if
I was going to go anywhere. What kind of area
did you find yourself working in first? I know,
obviously, we're going to transition and talk
about gangs and human trafficking, prostitution.
But was that where you found yourself immediately
or was there quite an interesting path that you
took? Well, yeah, for the most part, when I landed
in Atlanta, Georgia, as a new agent out of the
academy after graduating from Quantico, I was
assigned to an organized crime squad. And traditional
organized crime in 1997 for the FBI meant the
John Gottis of the world, the traditional New
York mafia for the most part. We also had on
my squad, we also worked Asian organized crime
and we worked Russian organized crime. And we
all worked it together as one big squad. Specifically,
my area of expertise and my primary responsibility
was La Cosa Nostra, or the Italian organized
crime, the John Gottis of the world. New York
was making a move, New York Mafia, as they always
have, to go where the cash is. And Atlanta was
a strip club capital of America, frankly. And
with that comes cash. 1997 was still not a...
We still didn't have... the era where everybody
lived on plastic and credit cards technology
in 1997 there was still a lot a lot amount of
cash floating around when so when you went into
businesses you paid in cash often so you anytime
you saw businesses with cash gambling strip clubs
racing uh organized racing sports betting etc
those cash oriented business you're going to
have organized crime involved and that's what
i fell into when i showed up in atlanta and i
worked on that squad for 10 years james working
traditional organized crime and all things associated
with that so you ask how did i you know what
did i end up right out of the academy uh i i
hit a home run in my opinion uh by just some
dumb luck and combination of things i ended up
on a great squad working with great individuals
investigating things that i was interested in.
If I'd have been stuck on a white collar squad
investigating bank fraud, I probably wouldn't
have been too excited about that. It's just not
my personality. And I probably don't have the
aptitude to do it well, neither. So I landed
well. I watched a documentary that came out recently
on the Gotti case. And again, it wasn't really
something I even knew anything about. But what
I took away because I could totally see it in
agencies that I work for. And these are actually
the agents that are involved in the case talking
about this and talking about each other. So,
OK, this is this did happen at this time. The
the kind of egos that got in the way of interagency
communication that ultimately prolonged the case
and resulted in more deaths in that particular
example. Talk to me about that perception, because
in my world. I know of county and city fire departments
that don't work together. I know of police and
fire that don't work together. And that's nauseating
in a profession where we need to have that flawless
communication, especially, God forbid, in a school
shooting or some of these catastrophic events.
So over your career, did you see elements of
that? And even if you did or didn't, how do we
create more communication and cohesion in these
agencies to work together? So the actual result
is the most important thing rather than egos
and victories within each jurisdiction. Yeah,
that's a really good question. And your last
sentence said said the right word ego. Right.
And so I know the documentary you're talking
about. I saw probably the same one. Netflix,
correct? Yes. Get Gotti. Yeah. Yes. yeah and
if you know if you'll go back there's another
one i don't know if it's still on netflix if
you go back about a year or two before that was
released there was a precursor called fear city
that was released and fear city is the mob leading
up to god it's the mob of the 70s and how the
fbi finally developed a game plan to attack the
mob which leads you into the next documentary,
which is Get Gotti. We now had a game plan how
we're going to do this. And it's ironic that
you say that. You mentioned that particular documentary.
When I was in Atlanta as a new agent, one of
my training agents as a probationary agent was
an agent, John Iacovelli, who had worked that
John Gotti case. that you're referring to and
had some great roles there with Sammy Gravano
and so forth. In Atlanta, where I was at, James,
it was different than New York. So in your documentary,
you've got NYPD, which has their own organized
crime unit that is very successful and got a
lot of strong egos in there and a lot of type
A personalities. Then you have the FBI doing
their thing, which is. Ditto again. And those
two buttheads, NYPD and FBI, especially when
it comes to organized crime. And that's what
you're seeing in that documentary. And you have
the U .S. Attorney's Office fighting with the
local district attorney's office. Also in New
York, they had this weird thing that was an organized
crime task force, which was made up of multiple
local jurisdictions at the state level. and the
local level so now you had three agencies the
organized crime task force nypd and the fbi all
targeting organized crime and it's inevitable
that they're going to butt heads and the documentary
does a good job explaining that in atlanta i
didn't have that problem the city of atlanta
or any of the local jurisdictions there that
i worked with on a daily basis quite frankly
said look You can have the organized crime problem.
We're not cut out for those guys. We don't have
the resources. We don't have the funding. We
don't have the expertise. We're working different
crimes. We have a different budget. If that's
what the FBI wants to do, we're not going to
argue with you about that. So when we took on
these high -profile cases in Atlanta, we didn't
have any competition. from the state or locals
like you would in New York. And we didn't have
really any competition within the federal system
either, ATF or DEA and et cetera. And whenever
the cases mingled together where there was a
drug nexus or there was a firearms nexus and
we would call our other agency brothers in, we
always have good stories to tell. We worked well
together. So there was no who's going to be able
to stand in front of the microphone type stories
and take the credit. and and argue uh so i don't
have those specific examples because i just didn't
experience it because new york is unique to the
rest of the country but you've answered the question
it's it's ego and um that's been what a problem
for the last i don't know 3 000 years so i'm
not sure that it's ever going to go away frankly
well you mentioned atlanta having the most strip
clubs when you look back now why was that an
issue in that particular city specifically it
was an issue because the city of atlanta wanted
it to be an issue frankly in 1997 when i got
there and maybe it's like that today i don't
i wouldn't be surprised you could go on the city
of atlanta tourist visitors website, the official
City of Atlanta Visitors Bureau, that's what
it's called, the City of Atlanta Visitors Bureau
website, and there would be a link on there for
the Cheetah Strip Club on the City of Atlanta
Official Government Bureau website for tourists,
okay? Now, why is that? Because the City of Atlanta
realized that if we can bring conventioneers
into the city, guys that are working in Washington
State, Iowa, and New Hampshire. And we can bring
them down to Atlanta to do their once a year
corporate convention, to do their trade show,
whatever it might be in Atlanta. Then the city
of Atlanta wins because they rent those hotels.
They get all that money that's going to be spent
and et cetera. So how do we, Atlanta, get these
folks to come down there other than saying, hey,
we got warm weather? Well, most of those conventions
that I just mentioned to you and most of those
trade shows are male dominated. So why don't
we attract them with strip clubs, too? And that
was kind of the unofficial and to that example
that I just gave you, official way to lure. people
into the city of Atlanta for business was let's
just make it real easy legally and code wise
for strip clubs to exist so in the early in the
late 90s early 2000s there were only three states
in America that allowed full nudity and full
alcohol Florida Georgia and Texas even when you
went to las vegas or you went to los angeles
you know girls had to wear some type of clothing
on either the top or the bottom or if they didn't
then you couldn't buy full alcohol at the bar
it was limited to maybe a beer it could be a
hard alcohol and those businesses make their
money on the hard alcohol so atlanta created
this this regulation these rules that said it
will allow our strip clubs to be full nudity
Full alcohol. Everybody will come to Atlanta.
Everybody will spend tons of money. And at the
end of the day, everybody wins. You entered this
world. And James, excuse me, one other thing
that was happening during this time that was
unique was the 1996 Summer Olympics were coming
to Atlanta also. So now, in addition to all those
rules that I just told you about that the city
of Atlanta endorsed and allowed and the state
of Georgia allowed. frankly, is now you have
millions and millions of dollars being pumped
into infrastructure for the 1996 Olympics. You
name it is being built, you know, the dorms for
the athletes and all the infrastructure there,
the mass transit to move the tourists and the
spectators around, the new stadiums that are
being built, the venues, the arenas, so on and
so on. Atlanta went from a small, sleepy Atlanta.
city in the early 90s to the number nine largest
city in america in one decade were you involved
with the bombing at all at the olympics now that
happened in 96 and i got there in 97. okay so
um i was not i was let me rephrase it i was not
involved in the investigation of the bombing
at the olympics but eric rudolph who as you know
was the ultimately turned out to be the bomber
he was a fugitive for six years after the bombing
and of course we didn't get him identified until
99 and then when he fled up to north carolina
and became a fugitive up in the woods in the
cherokee national forest i was part of teams
that went up to north carolina to look for him
up until 2003 when he was finally i think it
was 2003 that he was finally arrested and discovered
so i wasn't part of the bombing investigation
but i was part of the uh fugitive apprehension
in the years following i saw a film it was you
know a kind of um docudrama i guess you'd say
on um the story when one of the security guards
was originally suspected of it and the impact
that had on his life yeah yeah that was a really
powerful film because again obviously you're
trying to find the right person but you know,
the ripple effects of demonizing someone through
the media and then you're wrong. And then, you
know, what that did to his life and his dynamic.
It was a very, very sad story. It was in part.
And I try and say this professionally. Yeah,
he was put through the ringer in that first six
months when he was identified as the prime suspect.
And then eventually the bureaus. And so that
made his life hectic. And there's no doubt about
that. Eventually, the FBI came back and said,
we got the wrong guy. He's not our guy. And so
we set the record straight. And then on top of
that, he was awarded a very nice financial settlement
based on this that set him up for the rest of
his life above and beyond. So at the end of the
day, I think he kind of won out of the whole
thing. That's just me talking. If he was still
alive today, he may have a different opinion.
But, you know, he had to trade one year of misery
for X amount of millions of dollars in his bank
account. That's ultimately what the trade was.
But I know Clint Eastwood made a movie about
it, and I think it's called Richard Jewell. And,
you know, what Clint Eastwood does in his movies,
because he made one about J. Edgar Hoover also,
and it's called Hoover. the director, you know,
the longtime story director of the FBI. What
Eastwood did in the Richard Jewell movie and
what he did in the Hoover movie is basically
he throws everything into the movie that's alleged,
speculated, fact. If it's out there, it's going
into the movie and you, the viewer, you have
to decide whether or not you believe it or not.
And so. There's things in that Richard Jewell
movie that are spot on, true. It happened. There's
no doubt about it. But there's also some things
in that movie that were never confirmed. They
were speculation. They were rumor. And people
that knew better told me, no, that never happened.
So it's kind of a mixed bag when you watch those
documentaries. Yeah. That's interesting to hear.
Thank you. Well, circling back to Atlanta, you
know, you've had the Olympics come through. One
of the things I've heard from several people
I had on that their world is human trafficking
is how large sports events, concerts attract
a lot more of that, you know, the sex trafficking,
the prostitution. You enter the world of FBI
after coming from the Marines. What was your
exposure to the sex work industry? And then,
you know, what were you witnessing as far as?
these big events or even celebrities starting
to be part of this yeah uh there's there's two
answers to that question maybe even three and
i'll start with number three don't forget the
sporting events get all of the publicity but
what really made atlanta the number two human
trafficking destination in america is the airport
okay atlanta's got the largest airport in the
world And you can measure that in multiple ways.
Passengers landing, passengers taking off, planes
landing, planes taking off. And even today, they
also measure another way is the amount of cargo
that comes through your airport. Atlanta wins
hands down in every category for the last decade.
And the years leading up to that, they were always
in the top one, two, or three. You can fly anywhere
in the world directly from Atlanta. OK, and that's
important because you can't do that in very many
cities and you can only do it in one city anywhere
in the world. And that's in Atlanta. Now, you
can go to LAX, you can go to LaGuardia, you can
go to Heathrow and you can fly most places in
the world direct. But in Atlanta, you can fly
every place in the world direct. So the airport
is the is the really. the golden jewel in the
human trafficking puzzle and then when you throw
the sporting events and the warm weather and
the interstates that come through Atlanta and
so on and so on now you've got all the pieces
to the puzzle that make Atlanta what it is and
it would be number one if it wasn't for Las Vegas
but you know we all know why Las Vegas is number
one but that's that's the things that make that
set Atlanta up to be unique now even though I'm
working strip clubs and I'm working Mob on strip
clubs. I'm working strip clubs that necessarily
don't have a serious mob angle, but they have
other criminal elements involved. There wasn't
much of a traditional sex trafficking angle in
any of those strip clubs. Where we saw in the
organized crime squad, the sex trafficking was
on the Asian side of the coin. So I mentioned
to you earlier in our conversation that my squad
were Russians, Asians. and Italians when it came
to organized crime. When it came to prostitution,
sex trafficking, human smuggling, the Asians
100 % had that clamped down in the city of Atlanta.
That's where it was coming from. And they were
the perpetrators. And that was through everything
from your traditional massage parlors to literally
houses where girls were kept under lock and key
and not allowed to leave the building. I can
remember doing a search warrant early in my career,
probably the 1999, 2000 era. It's a sad story,
but it's got a good ending. And it's worth me
telling to you, James, is that there was an agent
on my squad that had developed probable cause
for search warrant. There was a house not too
far from the FBI office, coincidentally. that
was under lock and key, had armed guards inside
the front door, had bars on the window, and girls
were forced to turn tricks inside the building
in exchange for their freedom somewhere down
the line, coming to America, whatever the deal
was. So I'm a new member of the Atlanta SWAT
team, FBI SWAT. We rolled up on this house. We
get permission to do it in odd hours from the
judge. We roll up at 1, 2 o 'clock in the morning.
We yank the steel doors off of the front door.
We flashbang it. We knew that there on the inside
from informants that there were two gang members
that sat on the inside of the door, armed, and
they controlled the in and out of that building,
the customers, et cetera. We knew this from informants.
so we knew that we were going to have the potential
for conflict and contact right there at the front
door so we came prepared we banged them we clear
the door we cuff them everything's fine now we
start going through the house to free the girls
and take care of business and somebody pulls
me to the side and they said hey come check this
out and right there at the at the front door
where these two gang members had been seat sitting
in chairs They were watching in 1999 a movie
on a VHS tape as part of their entertainment,
waiting on people to knock on the door so they
could unlock it and let John's into the door.
Guess what they were watching, James? They were
watching Donnie Brasco. I don't know if you're
familiar. Are you familiar with Donnie Brasco?
Yeah, it's an FBI movie, right? And little did
they know when they put that movie into the VHS
machine. that particular night they were going
to get a visit from the fbi at about two o 'clock
in the morning so that's the funny part of that
story but the sad part is those girls really
were locked inside of that house and not allowed
to leave and that was not uncommon in the asian
community and one of my fbi heroes is a girl
named barbara brown a very successful career
and she worked cases like that Most of her career,
quite frankly, she worked. There were some examples
of street -level human trafficking in the black
community. Here's another thing for you that
would be hard for you to get your mind around
in today's environment, but it existed then.
Up until the late 90s, in the city of Atlanta
and the state of Georgia, it was only a misdemeanor
to prostitute. a 16 -year -old. I think it was
a 15 and a 16 -year -old. 17 years of age was
consent. 16 and 15 was a misdemeanor and 14 and
below was a felony. So what the city of Atlanta
was having during the buildup to the Olympics
is they were having these pimps and that's exactly
what they were, fur coats, hats. Cadillac cars.
They were trafficking these girls in the 15 to
16 year old age group, knowing that if they got
arrested, they'd be out the same night because
it's only a misdemeanor. So we had a city of
Atlanta public official come to the FBI. I still
remember this meeting very clearly today. He
walks into our office after orchestrating a meeting
and says, look, we have this problem in Atlanta
and I can't do anything about it because there's
not a law on the books at the state level that
can lock these guys up as felonies. Can you help
us? And Barbara Brown took that case and used
some federal laws, specifically the Mann Act,
that made prostituting 15 and 16 year olds a
felony and cleaned that problem up. so we saw
some of that at the at the black street level
but the majority to answer your question was
at a very organized level in the asian community
when you were researching this how did that law
even come to pass that prostituting girls that
young was a misdemeanor well we didn't know that
at the fbi per se because that's not something
that we would have ever tried to prosecute If
we had taken that case, we would have used federal
law and we wouldn't have run into that obstacle.
We only knew about it because that congressman
came to us, that state representative came to
us and said, I can't get any traction in my community.
He was a congressman for a downtown community
and I can't get any traction because the city
of Atlanta will come and lock these pimps up.
But the prosecutors can only charge him with
a misdemeanor. So we learned about it through
this guy walking into our office saying, hey,
FBI, can you help us? Now, once that case became
public and so on, the politicians in the state
of Georgia changed that. But it took that case
to get that ball rolling. One of the things that
blew my mind, I was researching for my latest
book that I put out last year, and I had this
kind of scenario in the opening chapter, and
it's kind of like a road rage thing. And I was
asking my cop friends, okay, if this happens,
what would be the consequence so I can make sure
this pays out the right way? And in our conversations,
it got to the point that if you cause an accident
as a reckless driver, But you can't show that
you were deliberately trying to hurt the people
in whichever vehicle there were fatalities or
there wasn't alcohol or drugs involved. That
ultimately that became just a civil case. There
was no way of actually prosecuting. And I don't
think the average people know this, that the
40 ,000 people that die on our roads, and we've
all seen those drivers that cause a lot of these
accidents. We've all watched them cry on the
curb. feeling sorry for themselves after they've
killed, you know, three kids in a minivan. I
had no idea, but that is actually a real thing
as well. We talk about the law as an ass, that
you can drive like a complete asshole, kill a
family. And if you weren't drunk or deliberately
trying to target that family on a prosecution
level, you may not see any time in jail. And
that I think is a law that we need to change.
Yeah. Sometimes you can do nothing but just shake
your head and say, why did it take this long
to realize that that's a problem and why? I would
be confident to say that that has been identified
and addressed before, but someone intervened
with an ulterior motive, maybe to have it go
a different direction. And normally that's money.
And there's some influence behind that, whether
it be corporate or private. But what I found
in my time in the FBI and then living up in North
Georgia and being friends with my local congressmen
and politicians that, you know, there's a lot
of influence when it comes to there's a lot of
corporate influence. There's a lot of monetary
influence when it comes to writing these laws.
And we all know that I'm not saying anything
that's. that is not known, but I got to see it
a little bit firsthand and hear it firsthand
as well about the influence from corporate lobbyists
and so forth, ill -gotten corporate lobbyists.
And I think the story you're telling, if you
traced it and pulled the thread, you'd go back
to some type of lobbyist intervention. Yeah,
I'm sure. Absolutely. But I think it's, again,
we were talking about the people pushing back.
It's amazing how many things I think we just
don't know about. And if the average person did,
you know, we would push back. But yeah, it's
an important. And so so the question. So why
was that? Why was that a misdemeanor in the city
of Atlanta? And it was because the law was so
old that, you know, remember, 100 years ago,
it wasn't uncommon for 15 year olds to get married
and have children. But now we're in 1990s and
the Olympics are in Atlanta. and and the instead
of rewriting that law and updating it to the
new cultural norms they just slapped a misdemeanor
on and pushed it through and said we'll be done
with it and that'll take care of the problem
well it didn't take care of the problem in fact
it made it worse yeah absolutely well we we spoke
before i hit record and we talked about afghanistan
so before we get to that chapter what was the
day of 9 11 like for you because you had a very
unusual lens working in the role that you did
Yeah. I know exactly where I was at on 9 -11,
probably like you do too, you as well. I was
sitting in my boss's office and I was going to
arrest on September the 11th, a captain in a
local police department. And that captain was
taking bribes from a strip club to look the other
direction while they committed prostitution and
drug activity and some other things. And he was
involved in that prostitution as well also. And
one of the things that we did in the FBI is in
an atmosphere of fair play is our chain of command
had our general rule that we will call the chain
of command of another law enforcement agency
when we're getting ready to arrest one of their
police officers. If we can, and it doesn't compromise
the case. And in this particular investigation,
it didn't compromise the case. So I'm sitting
in my boss's office and he's 30 seconds from
picking up the telephone and calling the chief
police for this local jurisdiction to say, hey,
my agents are going to go pick up one of your
officers today. And I wanted to give you a heads
up so you're not reading about it in the newspaper
and caught flat footed. 30 seconds before he
makes that phone call he has a television on
in his office in the first airplane strikes and
we all say well you know wow that's interesting
and then of course we the phone call doesn't
happen because we get engrossed in what's going
on in the tv and and to his wisdom he's my boss
said you know what let's hold on this arrest
i think we got some bigger issues that are that
are happening right here in front of us and um
I ended up arresting that officer about two to
three months later. I think he had Thanksgiving
at home, but we arrested him and he had Christmas
in jail is the way it worked out. But me personally,
I was reassigned from my everyday organized crime
investigations to the Dobbins Air Force Base
up in North Atlanta, a suburb of Atlanta, which
was an old World War II. military base uh it's
co -located with lockheed and they manufacture
the c -130 there and now they manufacture the
f -22 fighter there and the air force reserves
uses the base also so it's a joint civilian joint
military national guard type of airfield because
it was deemed a critical asset myself and some
other agents who lived in that area were now
assigned full -time to work up there and handle
any leads and threats to that Air Force Base.
And that's what I did for roughly the next six
months after 9 -11 is handle leads involving
Dobbins Air Force Base until we had a little
bit of a normalcy and we all came back to working
our regular investigations. Did you see any common
denominators in the backstory of the corrupt
cops that you had to arrest? Yeah, sex, drugs
and rock and roll. I mean, that's that's that's
cliche, but it's true, James. Yeah, most of the
I think I had this number in my mind at one time.
And now I think I'm right. I think in my career,
I arrested seven police officers, six police
officers and one jailer. And five, four or five
of those police officers were involved in. having
sex at the clubs that they were responsible for
enforcing the laws on. The other ones that I
arrested were taking bribes, taking financial
benefit for looking the other way. So that was
it. That was either sex or money, one of the
two. Gotcha. All right. Well, you mentioned about
Afghanistan. So how did you find yourself working
in a team that actually deployed overseas? Somewhere
in the mid 2000s, late 2000s, you're probably
starting in the mid 2000s. The Bush administration
and then the Obama administration made a decision
that we may bring some of these terrorists that
we find overseas that we don't kill that we actually
capture alive and bring them back to the United
States to trial for trial to try them in the
US. Well, that sounds good on paper. but with
that comes a variety of legal issues so let's
just take any scenario generic say let's say
an oda team goes into a bad guy's house and they
capture him and they find his laptop and later
we look at his laptop government u .s government
looks at his laptop and finds bombing plans on
there that's somebody we want to bring back to
the states and try well the Special Forces team,
ODA, Green Berets that captured this guy would
technically have to go on the witness stand and
testify that they found this laptop at this date,
at this time, in this location. They would be
the witnesses in a trial. in other words but
when you start putting military guys up as witnesses
and trials it exposes them to other questions
from the defense that the military may not want
exposed or to go down that road because it's
just not good business and so forth about other
cases that they've been involved in that the
judicial the u .s judicial system would allow
these defense attorneys to ask these questions
so a decision was made why don't we take FBI
agents, embed them into the special forces units.
And then when they roll up on a target, let them
do the search warrants, let them do the interrogations,
let them ask the questions, get the confessions,
find the evidence so that if there's a trial
back in the United States, we can put an FBI
agent on the witness stand instead of a SEAL
team member or Delta team member and et cetera,
and expose them to a litany of other questions.
So For five plus years, that program ran where
we FBI agents were embedded in these units to
help out for that reason. I'll ask you something
I ask everyone that's been deployed into a combat
zone. And the backstory I kind of touched on
the reason for this question is. At home, we
tend to get a very polarizing view on war, either
the kill them all, let God sort them out, or
they're all baby killers. And in the middle are
the men and women that actually deploy with our
flag on their shoulder. And so I think they're
the most valuable testimony. The first part of
the question, regardless of the politics that
sent you over there, was there a point where
you realized that there were horrible people
out there that needed to be taken care of? Absolutely.
And it didn't take long. Agents were doing other
things other than being embedded with special
forces units. We were running sources overseas
that were informants that had information about
targets in the U .S. and otherwise. And that's
public knowledge. I'm not saying anything out
of school. Agents were working with locals in
a training capacity, how to do search warrants,
how to put handcuffs on somebody, quite frankly,
just the rudimentaries of everyday law enforcement.
And through the course of all these interactions
with the local Afghans, you're going to see these
things that you just asked about. You're going
to see one, the corruption within the Afghan
community itself to include law enforcement and
their military but you're also going to see that
they're working against ruthless criminals and
ruthless bad guys that fit your description that
yeah you almost want to say kill them all and
let god sort them out it doesn't take long no
matter where you're at in that litany of responsibilities
whether you're working with the locals just to
teach them or whether you're actually going out
on target you you're going to learn that there
are bad guys, no doubt. And you're not going
to learn it just through hearsay and secondhand.
You're going to see it firsthand. Well, the other
side of that coin that I think we also never
really hear on media back home is the kindness
and compassion, whether it was within members
of our own military and law enforcement or the
indigenous people that you were there to protect.
But what were some of the examples of that that
you remember? December of 2009, I was working
at the embassy in Kabul. And one of the outreach
programs at the embassy had was a Christmas program.
It wasn't a Christmas program in the sense of,
let's talk about the birth of Jesus. But it was
a Christmas program in the universal sense of
let's hand out gifts and have food and, you know,
the worldly Christmas experience. So the U .S.
Embassy arranged through a vetting process to
bring orphans and a lot of disadvantaged Afghan
children onto the grounds of the U .S. Embassy,
have this party in their honor, give them gifts,
give them food. And then the employees of the
embassy or the people working at the embassy
would kind of be their mentor, chaperone for
that event. know play games with them and do
things of that nature and you know i still remember
a little girl that was probably six seven years
old that i actually have some photographs to
this day uh uh taking a bean bag and playing
catch with a bean bag and she thought that was
the greatest thing in the world for me to be
able to throw a bean bag three feet she catches
it throws it back to me and etc and you know
you see this just innocence of a six and seven
year old girl you know playing with a beanbag
you see these little boys that can't wait to
eat hard candy and kids waiting to get shoes
and lace them up and so forth so when you when
you see the stories like that you know you know
there's a real humanitarian issue you know there's
uh obviously at this young age these children
have a fair amount of innocence so it's it's
heartwarming and it's hard not to be Now, we
we discussed before we hit record as well. I'm
jumping ahead. We'll go back to the gold club.
But when the withdrawal actually happened, you
know, I've heard so many people on here. And
there's that kind of tug of war between knowing
that they did make a difference. But obviously,
the way that it was, you know, the way the withdrawal
unfolded and then the ease with which the Taliban
came in and took everything over again, clearly
has a negative impact, too. So talk to me about,
you know, that through your eyes, the interpreter
and what that did for the people that we were
able to get back, how that impacted the ability
for them to bring their family back over to.
Yeah, frankly, James, it just it crushed it.
So often the experience is that you would have.
siblings within a family that will work with
the U .S. You would have two or three brothers
that had come from a what the Afghans would call
a middle class family, had gotten themselves
educated, had learned English as a second language.
And then when the war happened, they saw this
as an opportunity, one, to make money. I can
be a translator for a military government unit.
And then, hey, look. And if this helps me get
a visa to the United States, well, that's even
a bigger bonus, right? And you would see brother
number one go through this process, get a visa
after five, six, seven years of working with
U .S. forces. He's vetted, and now he has a visa
to come to the U .S. A couple years later, maybe
brother number two and then brother number three.
And you slowly saw that families relocated, families
that were supporting the U .S. effort. and the
Allied effort were relocating to the United States.
But when the implosion happened, as I call it,
where things went back to the Taliban, the brother
that had made it to the States now realizes that
the other brother who hasn't quite made it out
yet isn't going to make it. When we pulled our
State Department employees out of Afghanistan,
that stopped really the visa process. It still
exists on paper, but now it can't go through
the U .S. Embassy in Kabul anymore like it did.
It has to go through some third -hand imagination.
So it slowed it down almost to a stop. So when
I talk to my interpreter, for example, who is
now living in the United States, Every time I
talk to him, the first thing he'll ask me is,
hey, can you do anything to help me get my brother
to the US? Now, three, four, five years ago,
he would have been 100 % confident that it was
only a matter of time before his brother made
it. But now that things have imploded, he knows
that unless it's some type of underground network,
his brother's not going to make it over. So now
you have these families that are split, not because
they want to be split, not because one side is
pro -Taliban and one side's pro -US. Now you
have these families split because the U .S. kind
of pulled the rug out from underneath them. It's
just important for people to hear this. I mean,
this is the responsibility that we have. And
I've had so many members of the military on here,
so many people that are actually Afghan or Iraqi
that have been on here. And, you know, even when
we do pull out all the people, one of my Afghan
friends was saying that the problem with that
is that now you're robbing. the country of all
their greatest minds. So now that doesn't help
in the progress of that own country. So it's
such a, you know, a puzzle in a way, but I mean,
no one, I don't think no one will disagree on
the fact that the way we actually left, whether
it was time, whether it wasn't, whether we should
have been out, you know, 10 years prior, whatever
that conversation, the way that we left was completely
unacceptable and it destroyed the trust of any
potential nation that we interact with in the
future. You're 100 % right, and I think most
people realize that, James. To go back to a little
earlier comment about the brain drain that might
have happened in the country, what was happening
under the old system was that, yeah, these guys
would leave and come to the U .S. under a visa,
but a lot of them would come back to Afghanistan.
They would come back to continue to work with
the U .S. military. as long as their family was
now living in the U .S., they were willing to
accept the danger, but they wanted to make sure
their family was now in the U .S. So by coming
back to Afghanistan, that brought some of those
guys back into the country. Obviously, they were
bringing the U .S. dollars back into the country
as well. They're sending money back to family
members, and they know that safely. It's getting
to their family members, even if they mail it
directly from the U .S., that it was going to
get there. Now, none of those things have any
security or sense of guarantee. One, these smart
individuals can no longer come back into the
country, their persona non grata, and they don't
dare send their money back because they know
the Taliban will steal it. So not only do you
have a brain drain, now you have this financial
drain that's happening as well, and that's affecting.
people left behind as well one of the the things
that was really interesting about the kind of
the transition over the eight and a half years
of this podcast i talk a lot about drug prohibition
and i'll get into that in a sec but when i first
asked you know people especially in the special
operations special forces community that would
mention poppy fields it was a very taboo thing
that immediately you know um Try and change the
subject. And I'm not someone that's going to
push anything you don't want to talk about. But
about three or four years in, all of a sudden
they were like, oh, yeah, you know, that was
funding a lot of the terrorism that we were seeing.
From my lens, this is where I do know as a firefighter
and a paramedic in America, I watched for 14
years the impact of prohibition. on not only
the overdoses that I saw, but the prostitution,
the homelessness, the gang membership and the
violence that came along with that. And so this
is my personal opinion, having interviewed the
guy in Portugal that decriminalized addiction,
not legalized all drugs, that our kind of war
on drugs model, at least through my eyes, has
been an epic failure. And it's interesting because
almost every single law enforcement officer I
have on here says the same thing. You have an
interesting lens, though. You were in Afghanistan.
You were here and working with a lot of the organized
crime side. What is your opinion on, and I'm
not talking about giving smugglers or dealers
any leniency whatsoever. The Portuguese model
freed up the manpower and law enforcement and
the court system. to cut the head off the snake
when it came to dealers and smugglers. But the
addict was put into the hands of the medical
community and they created addiction counseling,
job creation, housing, and they fixed the broken
human and therefore reduced the kind of demand
in the supply and demand curve. So in this long,
that was a long kind of monologue pre -question,
in this interesting career that you had, what
is your perception of drug prohibition in the
US? And based on that, is there a way we can
do it better? Yeah, that's a tough question,
right? And it's kind of like been the proverbial
million dollar question for a long time now.
When I was in Afghanistan the second time, I
was part of what we call the Major Crimes Task
Force, working with the local Afghan law enforcement
agencies to stop opium smuggling. and public
corruption and kidnappings. That was the three
big crimes, kidnappings for ransom, corruption
to turn a blind eye to the drug smuggling and
the kidnappings, and then the drug smuggling
to find the terrorists. We would routinely knock
off 18 wheelers that were loaded with raw opium.
We flew over fields of opium as far as the eye
could see. I was co -located with a DEA unit.
that used to take tractors out to these opium
fields and plow them up and destroy the opium
and then pay the farmer in U .S. currency to
try and plant something else and so forth. So
I saw it from that perspective and it was 50
-50 at best, mostly unsuccessful, but 50 -50
at best. And now the second part of that equation
is about bringing the legality of it into the
U .S. and so forth. And you mentioned the term
war on drugs. I have always said that we do not
have a war on drugs. We only say we have a war
on drugs. So behind me here in my office, I have
a picture of myself shaking hands with Ronald
Reagan. When I graduated from the Citadel, Ronald
Reagan gave me my diploma. One of the best photos
that I own, as you can imagine. And Ronald Reagan
invented the term the war on drugs. He and Nancy
Reagan, the war on drugs. And as much as I love
Ronald Reagan, we did not have a war on drugs.
We have a war on terrorism. We will go anywhere
on the planet to fight terrorism, but we do not
have a war on drugs. However. Now we're starting
to see Donald Trump talk about going to Mexico
and taking the fight to the cartels, right, to
stop the flow of drugs into the U .S., which
is what we do with terrorism. We take the fight
to them so they can't get to us. So the theory
is we take the fight to Mexico, to Latin America,
so they can't get the drugs to us. I was a drug
agent the second half of my career. for 10 years
i moved up to north georgia and i was on what's
called a safe streets task force where we tackle
the problems that are most prevalent in these
small communities which is almost always drugs
and then secondly would be gangs drugs and gangs
and they normally go hand in hand and i'm going
to try and answer your question directly you're
talking about the portuguese model and so forth
I saw people's lives who were completely ruined
and turned upside down from drug use. The only
thing they thought about every moment that they
woke up is where are they going to get their
neck fix? What do I have to steal today and sell
tomorrow so I can have drugs before I start jonesing?
So I saw firsthand at the user level all the
way up to taking down multiple kilos hidden in
a trunk or a trap of a car. I got to see the
entire. spectrum of drug use from the end user
to the seller and the dealer. I think what you're
asking is, is there a play for government regulation
into the drug Portugal model, perhaps? I mean,
I think, yeah, we're looking at it as black and
white. I mean, a huge irony, for example, is
that psilocybin and MDMA are hugely effective
in treating a lot of the mental health challenges
that our veterans and first responders are suffering
from. And yet they're both illegal in this country.
So there's a gray area. And I think my whole
thing is, you know, arguably what probably, you
know, Jesus, Buddha, some of these altruistic
prophets that we all worship would be like, well,
why don't we get the people that are hurting?
to stop hurting so they're not leaning into an
underworld for their fix they're going into where
the actual treatment is you know and putting
them back on their feet and getting them to be
functioning members of society that are healthy
and happy and paying taxes and working Rather
than this massive stigma model that we have where
we arrest addicts or we say, oh, we won't arrest
them, but we don't put any resources in to actually
fix them, which is why I think some of these
failed models in America, oh, we didn't arrest
addicts up there. Yeah, but what did you do to
help the people with their mental health challenges?
That's what Portugal did. That's what Switzerland
did. That's what some of these areas that have
done it well is these people are in pain. You
can't just not arrest them. They're still in
pain. You have to actually get them into facilities
that will put them back on their feet and you
won't get everyone. And this is the point. As
you said, there are some users that are so far
gone, tragically, we'll probably never get them
back. But there's a large portion. And I believe
if we have an altruistic model on addiction only,
not smuggling, not dealing, where you can actually
get them back. And I've had so many people on
the show that were addicts that are now. doing
incredible things so i think there's there's
room for that uh yeah and and i want to make
sure i got to that after i went through that
other lineage of my drug experience i think i
would i would disagree with you james uh respectfully
is the individuals that i saw i almost want to
say that they didn't want to be cured they uh
what those who did go into rehab either withdrew
intentionally or cheated and failed out of rehab.
I found that, and I'll just try and keep it simple.
I found that for those, for the majority of those
that had a predilection for drug use, they were
going to have it for the rest of their life.
And no amount of good intentions was going to
stop that. i saw that james with my brother so
my brother died of he drank himself to death
he died of cirrhosis of the liver and my brother
tried and to stop and did all the good intention
things to stop but at the end of the day he was
an alcoholic and there was nothing he could do
to resist the urge and it eventually killed him
The majority of my drug experience says that
for those that have become addicted to the hard
drugs, you make an example of MDMA and some other
psychedelics, but for the hard drugs, the methamphetamine
and cocaine and heroin, that addiction is going
to stay with you the rest of your life. And you're
more likely to fall off the wagon than you are
to stay on it. And that's just a crude synopsis
from a guy that just saw it at that level. yeah
i think you know obviously again there's so much
value in your perspective and this is why you're
not even disagreeing with you're talking about
what you saw through your eyes but listening
to for example um i i began which is the iboga
route that a lot of the seals are having a lot
of success with they are seeing incredible results
with alcoholism, incredible results with opioid
addiction. But again, which section are we each
exposed to? Are you actually seeing a specific
group that's even more desperate? Because there's
so many layers to it. You've got the pee beneath
the mattress, if you like. If you're not getting
to that, that's the reason why you're drinking,
why you're using, whatever it is. And will you
be able to get to it in time? But I think...
allowing these tools to be used. And like you
said, I mean, you know, meth, you know, what's
that horrendous one? Trank. That's very different
than psilocybin, MDMA, you know, that are being
used therapeutically. But we've just got them
all lumped together. Every addict, every compound
is all in one big pot. And I think there's the
potential to make it more nuanced and try and
get some of the people that you can turn around.
I mean, I've had so many people on here. But
there will always be that most desperate group
that no matter what you do, you just cannot get
them out. And it's like me. I did compressions
and defibrillated hundreds of people. And I never
saved a single person in my career in 14 years
that went into a cardiac arrest. But I was that
fucking black cloud grim reaper paramedic that
got all the dead people. But I still believe
that. one day if I do it with the right person
we'll get them back so I think just having it
available you know is is uh you know we you will
help something you will and if you just start
moving the needle now you're taking the power
away from all the people that send drugs into
this country so I think if we address it on both
ends yeah go get the cartels they're horrendous
you know I mean, just psychotic individuals down
there now, the way they've been groomed. But
how can we create less addicts here and weaken
it from that side of the economic spectrum as
well? Yeah, I certainly don't mean to discredit
or take the merit away from your argument. I
just didn't have that positive experience with
it. A lot of your guests come from a different
socioeconomic background. They're different personality
driven. They have other things that motivate
them in life, which makes them different than
the average, whatever that is, the average drug
user in rural America, which is kind of where
I worked my last 10 years up in North Georgia.
They don't have those things that I just mentioned.
They don't have the positive socioeconomic, cultural
background, education support system that most
of your guests are having. where the opioids
really took hold. It's where the voids were from
industry, West Virginia and the mining, Ohio.
And so there's so many of these factors. It's
just, well, how can we extrapolate what has driven
people in there and how can we help that? Portsmouth,
Ohio, which was the hub, has now become like
a hub of recovery. One of my guests was just
telling me. Detroit, Michigan is starting to
have a rebirth. So this is a beautiful thing.
I think we can heal and we can kind of reduce
this. But depending on the person's lens, like
you said, if you grew up in, you know, South
Central L .A. in the 80s, you're going to have
a very different lens than Ocala, Florida in
the 80s, for example. Yeah, good point. Well,
speaking of. crime and gangs i guess that's a
segue talk to me about the gold club and then
why was that particular case the one that you
ended up writing about i'll start with the second
half first i ended up writing about it because
uh so many people encouraged me to write about
it over the years i couldn't write about it until
i retired and then a couple years after retirement
i finally got the The motivation COVID had a
little bit to do with that with free time and
so forth to finally sit down and write the story
and write the book. You know, you and I were
talking about organized crime in Atlanta. And
when I showed up in 1997, I was assigned to this
brand new investigation that my training agent
was working on. And it was a strip club in Atlanta
called the Gold Club, which was world famous,
literally and figuratively. And it was owned
by one of the highest earners. Later, we assessed
him to be the highest earner as an individual
in the Gambino crime family. He was a multimillionaire
through other venues as well, but he was making
a fortune at the Gold Club as much as $9 million
a year in 1999 dollars that he was reporting.
I fall into this investigation and by itself,
James, you have. organized crime, you have the
Gambino's, you have John Gotti Jr., you have
Mikey Scars, Michael D. Leonardo. These are the
superstars within the Gambino family. You have
the strip club, you have the sex, drugs, and
rock and roll. That itself is enough to be for
a very tantalizing, scintillating case. But then
we had other factors that jumped into it that
we didn't know about until we started really
peeling back the layers of this onion. And that
was corrupt police officers involved in the case
for one. And then for two, it was celebrities,
particularly athletes that were involved in the
prostitution. The Gold Club was the destination
place for all major sports teams that rolled
through Atlanta, either as the visiting team
or the home team. The game's over, the Atlanta
Hawks show up at the Gold Club. The game's over,
the New York Knicks show up at the Gold Club
and so on and so on and so on. So as we started
figuring out how is Steve Kaplan, the owner of
the Gold Club, making so much money at a strip
club when other people are not making half of
what he's making? And by the way, he's a mobster,
so we have to take a look at him because whatever
that mobster is doing, that's what we're investigating.
And in this particular case, it happened to be
a strip club. as my partner used to say if he's
spitting on the sidewalk james we're going to
investigate spitting on the sidewalk because
that's he's a mobster and that's what we do whatever
he's doing that's what we're investigating and
so as we got into this case and we found those
other elements in it then the media picked up
on it and it became this super sensational case
of the late 1990s and then when we went to trial
in 2001 it was this was before the 9 11 attacks
it was the case it was the true crime case of
its era cnn was carrying it live as live as you
can be now remember it's a federal case so one
of the rules in a federal courtroom is you can't
bring cameras or recording equipment into a federal
courthouse you can set up outside in the parking
lot and on the doorsteps but you can't go into
the building like you can in a state case so
this case became as much live as it can be And
here I am a brand new agent right out of the
academy and I'm working this. And then I, in
many ways I become the face of the case. In many
ways I become the target of the prosecution.
There's allegations against me. In addition to
everything else I've already said that makes
it sensational. So all of this together just
creates this cauldron of just sensationalism.
The mob was still a sexy topic. strippers pro
athletes money millions of dollars corrupt police
officers you just can't you know you can't make
it up for a tv documentary and that's what we
had in this particular case and that's what i
ended up writing about were the athletes involved
in the corruption or were they the customers
of the corruption well the the definition of
corruption that i will use as an FBI agent is
you have to be in a position of legal authority
to be corrupt. So you have to be a police officer
or a politician or sworn an oath or something
to that effect. For an athlete to come in and
engage in prostitution, that's not corruption
in the legal sense. That's just prostitution,
frankly. And there's not a quid pro quo. He's
not trading his badge for anything. He's trading
money for the services is what he's doing, if
he's paying at all. And the athletes, yeah, almost
exclusively it was prostitution. We didn't have
any drug use. We did investigate some potential
fixing of games of some of the pro athletes,
whether the mob was trying to point shave and
do some things that the mob has historically
done up in New York. We had a few positive leads
on that, but eventually they died out. So ultimately.
The athletes were involved in just the prostitution
part, to answer your question. Because it's always
surprising when you hear, you know, these young
men usually that are making a huge amount of
money doing the sport that you assume that they
love, still finding themselves in, you know,
dealing or gang killings or dog fighting. And
you're just kind of sitting there going, why?
Like you literally have everything you need.
If you just hit the pause button now, your life
will be good. Just make good investments and
keep playing your sport so you have to retire.
But they just, again, we're talking about that
hook. It seems some of them just get dragged
back into their underworld, even though they're
so successful. You're right. Use the term dragged
back into the underworld. There were plenty of
professional athletes that come from. that type
of background but what we also found james was
there's a lot of athletes that were involved
that you would have been surprised to hear their
name and they didn't have that excuse of this
is where i came from or this is what i know or
i was you know working in a strip club when i
was 17 as a dj that's not they couldn't fall
back on that they had nothing in the lines of
those excuses other than they were just there
for the sex Interesting. All right. Well, then
you touched on this as well, whether it was that
case or we've been, you know, all over the place,
Afghanistan and working, you know, with these
desperate populations. I mean, for example, the
sex traffic women. We hit on, you know, some
of the trauma that you've been exposed to when
you were young and obviously that your father
had been exposed to. Did you have any lows yourself
as you progress through your career? Yeah, good
question. That case, the Gold Club case, had
very high peaks and very low valleys. So if you
were to watch an episode of Law & Order, for
example, which is the old Law & Order, NYPD Law
& Order, or Hill Street Blues, or NYPD Blues,
those are my favorite shows, the old ones. And
the bad guy was always Internal Affairs, right?
so if internal affairs you probably know this
from being in the fire department as well there's
some type of supervising government agency within
the bureaucracy to make sure you're following
all the rules and you know not taking equipment
home and you know not cheating on your your emt
exam or whatever it might be there's always this
watchdog well in the fbi we don't use the term
internal affairs we use the term office of professional
responsibility or opr But they are the internal
affairs of the FBI. And they handle everything
from simple mistakes to pretty egregious mistakes,
quite frankly. And the defense in this case,
part of their defense strategy was to make me
the target of the investigation and claim that
I was sleeping with some of the female employees
of the club. And that's how I was earning and
gaining their testimony and so forth. Because
a lot of these girls were just fantastic killer
witnesses. They just crushed these guys at trial.
And in an effort to take away from the impact
of these witnesses, whether it be credit card
fraud or public corruption or prostitution or
loan sharking, the things that they had witnessed
in these strip clubs. They decided to go after
me because I had most of the contact with these
girls from a professional perspective to get
them to the witness stand. And I ended up getting
two internal affairs investigations, OPR investigations
because of the allegations. So I'm married with
young children. So on and now the internet is
a new thing and all of those things still exist
today, these allegations and so forth. So that
was a low spot to be able to have to deal with
that. The defense knew what they were doing.
And I'm convinced 99 % of them realized that
there was nothing to it, but we're gonna make
the allegation because if we make the allegation,
one juror might believe it. And if one juror
believes it, then we might get an acquittal.
So it was worth the gamble. You know, be damned
with the damage that it might do to the agent
that we're making the allegation against. So
definitely a low spot there. I can go anywhere
in the FBI community, even to today, and I can
mention the Gold Club and do a series of just
quick conversations. They'll realize, oh, so
you're the agent they claim was sleeping with
the girls. So here it is 30 years later. After
I retired, James, I applied to work for a couple
of faith -based Christian units to do some security
work for them as they went around the world doing
charitable work, whether it be relief funding
in hurricane places or famine in Africa and so
forth. These are multi -million dollar organizations
that you would see. advertising on television
for and so forth. And they were hiring retired
law enforcement, retired law enforcement of all
types, federal and state to work for them. And
I applied and went through a series of interviews
all the way up to interviewing with the CEOs
of the corporations and etc. And this was 20
years after this case. And I was asked questions
about this case during my job interview 20 years
later. and ultimately the decision was made not
to hire me for these organizations and the answer
was you know we just think we found a better
candidate but i'll always believe in the back
of my mind that they didn't want to take a chance
on the guy that there had been an allegation
against based on what the defense had said so
look it's all worked out in in in the end and
i've landed in great places and i've been super
successful and my fbi career but you ask about
a low spot that was a low one and it comes and
goes over time believe it or not what do you
lean into to create that that upward trajectory
again what are your kind of positive healing
modalities well first i'll go with my christian
faith two i will go with stay busy stay working
stay um doing positive things whether it's writing
an additional book whether it's continuing to
work in the fbi community i'm not completely
retired i'm still training i'm still a contract
employee with law enforcement agencies with the
fbi with some overseas units and so forth so
i look forward to those opportunities so making
a difference there is a way to you know channel
energy and and know that you're still making
an impact at the end of the day i see that happen
a lot when people transition out the military
or first responders especially if they end up
going into finance or real estate or something
because you've got that purpose that was so powerful
when you're wearing a uniform and there's so
many other ways to stay on that same mission
and whether it's you know educating the next
generation whether it's protecting a non -profit
that's doing incredible work but i think understanding
that you are that kind of person that's a beautiful
thing And that need to really serve in another
capacity is going to give you probably the healthiest
transition out. Yeah, it's tough. It's tough
to change gears completely. I've seen guys do
it, go from one job genre to another and have
liked it and enjoyed it and been successful.
I'm not one of those people. So I've stayed in
the same theme in my career. Yeah. So it's good
to have that. Yeah, it's good to have that impact
and be able to still contribute. 100%. All right.
Well, for people listening, give us the full
name because I wrote The Gold Club and I know
it's a much longer title. So give us the full
name of the book and then where people can find
it. Yeah, the publisher came up with a long name.
It's called Investigating America's Most Notorious
Strip Club, the FBI, the Mafia and the Gold Club.
And you can find it on Amazon, Walmart, any of
the major. book outlets it's published by roman
and littlefield brilliant well the first of the
closing questions i'd love to ask that's your
book is there a book that you recommend um you
know written by someone else it can be related
to our discussion today or completely unrelated
yeah i'm a reader james so i could shoot i could
take the next 15 minutes and bore you with with
books i'll tell you what i'm reading right now
that i know that i would recommend is uh Endurance,
the Shackleford expedition that went across the
Antarctic in 1910 -ish, I believe it was. And
it's a great book on leadership. Those guys had
to get out on foot, abandon ship, and walk across
the Antarctic. And Shackleford did not lose one
man. And he didn't lose him because he had SEAL
Team 6 under his command. He didn't lose them
because he was a leader and he took care of his
men and so forth. So from a leadership perspective,
that's a great one. In the health and fitness
community, where I'm kind of a nerd as well,
probably one of the best books that I tell people
to read when we have these type of conversations
about fitness and diet is it starts with food.
And you've got to get a concept around your diet.
and how it's gonna affect everything about you
physically. And we have so many misconceptions.
We were talking about earlier about how lobbyists
influence laws and etc. Well, those same type
of influences are in our diet and our food and
our supermarkets and everything else. And so
once we, I'm really excited and my daughter is
super excited about. rfk jr and what he might
be able to accomplish with this make america
healthy again and so forth but that book it starts
with food was a real eye -opener for me rfk is
supposed to be coming on the show i've got to
kind of circle around post -election but i'm
hoping i get to talk to him about that because
it's the first time in 22 years in living in
the states i've ever heard anyone actually address
the obesity epidemic You're absolutely right.
So congratulations on that. I hope it comes through.
I'll be one of the first guys to listen. So we're
putting it on you for a second. You're king for
a day. What do we need to change to reverse this
health crisis that we're in at the moment? Take
the corporate money out of the government regulations.
When I was growing up in the 70s, James, and
you can still find this on YouTube. there was
a commercial on television that said fruity pebbles
was part of a balanced breakfast okay and they
had some type of little government seal down
at the bottom of the tv screen that showed that
this was fda endorsed and etc so when um when
coca -cola and general meals you know was funding
50 of the the research How can they not influence
the final outcome? And it, you know, look and
Coca -Cola, I probably do my mutual fund. I probably
have shares in Coca -Cola, you know, in general
meals. So those companies are there to make a
profit and we all benefit those who invest in
those companies, whether consciously or unconsciously.
So it's, it's, it's, it's a mixed bag. Sometimes
it's easy to. to go on an interview podcast and
say that corporate america is the bad guy when
it comes to the health industry and yet be a
hypocrite when i've got coca -cola stock right
and so forth but the short simple answer to your
question is you got to get those those corporations
have to get out of government funding and government
research it was so heartbreaking during and especially
after covid when we had this captive audience
for arguably a year and a half two years and
there's this whole conversation about health
and we're like okay finally we're gonna get you
know real food back in schools we're gonna put
pe programs back we're gonna support local farmers
to grow organic vegetables and you know livestock
and and nothing happened and that's when it showed
you that it was never about the health of the
people I really feel like we're at the beginning
of an awakening now because I think that's all
just starting to sink in. They told us it was
about health, but they did nothing to actually
improve the health of the American people. That
doesn't add up at all. But they sold a lot of
drugs over that time, and they continue to sell
cereals and all these things that we just discussed.
So going back into that propaganda that we were
talking about earlier, the push is what we need.
We need the regular people to say, Why are our
children being exposed to processed food? The
soda machines in the school and their PE programs
have been cut and we're seeing them get fatter
and sicker and getting type 2 diabetes at an
unheard of early age. You know, we as a nation
need to push back and demand that it's changed
because, I mean, I agree, I don't have any stock,
so I'll say it. Yeah, I mean, these companies
and their lobbyists are literally responsible
for millions of American lives through the drugs,
the food and the tobacco. Yeah, you said I could
add to that, but there's really no need to because
everything you said, I agree with. All right.
Well, let me move to the next question. Then
we talked about books. What about films and documentaries?
Wow. Films and documentaries. You know, go back
to the food again. Netflix did a series of documentaries.
within the last five plus years about diets and
like fork over knives and it starts with food
and things of that nature now whether you agree
that you know the that meat is bad or you need
to be on the mediterranean diet or you need to
be on the carnivore diet and etc that's not ultimately
i think the most important thing the most important
thing is to have the conversation and then figure
out what works for you because quite frankly
not many people are having that conversation
they're having they're on the processed food
diet right so those documentaries on that netflix
was running and and so forth they talked about
these different diets um one being the blue zones
i don't know if you've seen that i saw that one
actually i have the cookbook Yeah, just those
in general have been real eye openers about getting
the word out and doing it where it makes an impact.
I had James Wilkes on quite a long time ago,
MMA fighter, but vegan. And they made the great
the game changers. And if you ever saw that,
and it was the old vegan athletes that were featured.
He was on. I have seen it. I think it was Chris
Kresser, I think is his name, was on Joe Rogan.
They tore the film apart. And then James actually
went on. I'd already recorded with him, but he
asked me to hold off and not give them any ammunition.
So he goes back on. So collectively that's six
hours of them going back and forth about, you
know, who's the best. And it's so sad because
it alludes to what you're saying. The middle.
ground that actually really makes a difference
is that you remove the processed food from your
diet. If you want to be a vegan, be a vegan.
If you want to do carnival, do carnival. But
each of those, you're not having rice krispies
and, you know, bonbons. You're taking that all
out. So if they took the energy that they spend
arguing with each other about who's got the best
food, you know, diet and actually say, hey, we
all seem to agree on this area here. That's where
the truth is, because, I mean, you can get an
Inuit, an Eskimo. and someone from you know aboriginal
australia they don't eat the same so the world
does not eat the exact same food so what are
the things that we've put into our diet globally
that are causing this obesity and again it goes
back to the the factory foods you made the analogy
20 minutes ago about the the drug problem that
we have in america with and you use that portuguese
example and how do we tackle the drug problem
and etc uh i would make the argument and say
it's parallel that we have the same drug problem
in the food business you know we're addicted
to foods that taste good that kill us okay how's
that any different than we're addicted to drugs
that make us feel good and kill us it's the same
one's legal one's illegal but the results and
the methodology is the same it makes you feel
good and then it kills you And now, granted,
your heroin overdose can kill you instantly.
The Rice Krispie overdose will maybe take 10
years, but the end result's the same. And oh,
by the way, in that 10 years that you get to
your point of finally dying, someone's going
to benefit from all the medicines that they're
giving you for those 10 years to combat your
type 2 diabetes and your high blood pressure
and et cetera. um there's a parallel in my mind
between the war on drugs and all those things
that we talked about earlier and we need to have
a war on food as well yeah i agree 100 well the
next question is there a person that you'd recommend
to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to
the first responders military and associated
professions of the world yeah i could give you
um I could give you quite a few in my opinion,
but the one that comes to mind is my old roommate
and a Citadel classmate of mine. His name is
Neil Shuley. Neil is a retired colonel in the
Marine Corps, still doing some contract work
for the government, was instrumental in starting
the MARSOC within the Marine Corps, was an old
force recon guy back in the days. one of the
first, if not the first Marine in Afghanistan
right after 9 -11. It's got some great stories
to tell, but directly related to your topics
that you'd like to focus in on. Beautiful. Well,
I would love to get him on if you're able to
help make that connection. I can. Thank you so
much. All right. Well, then the very last question,
we talked about where to find the book. If people
want to reach out to you, learn more about you,
where are the best places online or social media?
Yeah, I'm not much of a social media guy, James.
I do have a website for my book. It's i68books
.com. I as in Isaiah, 68books .com. And then
my email address is mark at i68books .com. So
that's the two best ways to reach me. I don't
do a lot. I don't have an Instagram account anymore,
and I just have a family Facebook page. Okay,
but you're on LinkedIn. That is correct. Thank
you for reminding me. You can certainly find
me. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. You can certainly
find me on LinkedIn. All right. Brilliant. Well,
I want to thank you so much. Like every single
time I speak to someone on here, you know, they
are known for X, Y, and Z, but these conversations
go in so many different places and it's been
such a unique and, you know, valuable perspective
to hear your story. So I want to thank you so
much for being so generous with your time and
coming on the behind the shield podcast today.
Well, you're doing a great job yourself. So thank
you for having me and thank you for what you're
doing.