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In today's episode, Literature of War is talking to Army Ranger Editor, Author Marty Salkland, Jr.
He's talking about his new book, Send Me, which tells the powerful story of Shannon Kent,
a Navy Cryptologist who rose to really elite status on military intelligence.
She spent a career hunting the world's most ruthless terrorist.
Marty is the Editor-in-Chief of Task and Purpose.
He's a former Army Ranger.
He's got all the experience you'd expect from somebody on assignments
who's actually reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine.
So enjoy this Literature of War podcast.
Welcome to the Lit War Podcast by Lethal Minds Journal,
where we seek out the moments that made us who we are today, one story at a time.
I'm your host, Michael Jerome Plunkett, and my guest today is Marty Scovlin, Jr.
Marty is the Editor-in-Chief of Task and Purpose, a military news and culture publication.
He is also a former Army Ranger and an experienced conflict reporter
who has reported on assignment from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Ukraine
in addition to embedding with the U.S. military around the world.
Send Me, the incredible true story of a mother at war,
which follows the heroic life of intelligence operative Shannon Kent,
is his first book. He joins us today with a story.
Marty Scovlin, welcome to the Lit War Podcast. Do you have a story for us?
Oh, this is the Lit War Podcast. I thought this was the War Is Lit Podcast.
I mean, I was like, yeah, man, war is pretty lit. I mean, there's some definitely,
some doozies, you know, but yeah, generally. Okay, so this is about books and stories and stuff,
right? Literature. Oh, okay.
That's my other podcast. That's not coming out for like another six months or so.
Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm on the same page now. Thanks for having me, Mike.
What's your story? Important moment of my life. Hit me with it.
Yeah, you know, so I was, without going into the details of it, I was supposed to go on another
podcast that got pushed, but one of the things that they told me to think about ahead of time was
what, a time that you witnessed courage. And so I'd really been thinking about that when you told
me, hey, have a story ready. I kind of just, because I'd been thinking so much about that,
that's kind of what I'll go with with my story. And it's really not my story so much as something
that I witnessed. I'll take you back to, it was 2017, summer of 2017. And I was back in South
Dakota where I'd grown up and we just, my wife and I and our daughter, we'd just gotten off of
a year long van trip across the US. We came back because to my hometown, because we found out my
dad was sick, turned out he had ALS. And that was also, that year that we were back was also my
youngest sister's senior year of high school. And she was joining the army. Her plan was to go on and
be a medic and, you know, she wanted to get into, you know, some sort of medicine later on. And so,
and obviously had the influence of not just me, my brother, but so many other people in our family
joining the military, that that was the route she was going to go as well. You know, when she made
that decision, I don't think she was fully aware that our dad was sick or, you know, had this,
you know, ALS, there's no getting out of it. To this day, there's, I mean, you get that,
you will die from it. That is, there's no, and so I don't know that she knew that. But
obviously her senior year, we went through this and kind of saw my dad slowly sort of
slip away, I guess is the only way to say is, you know, the body really deteriorates, right?
And it got to the point where it was June 2017, she graduated high school, and it was the day that,
you know, the recruiter came to pick her up and, and, you know, take her down to meps to then
shift off the basic training, right? And it was, you know, we were all over there to say goodbye
to her. And my dad at that point was somewhat immobile. And for the most part, he could make
audible noises, and you kind of learned how to interpret those audible noises. But it definitely
wasn't full clear English, you know, at that point. And just so people know ALS, there's,
sometimes you can have the complications of dementia along with it. But for the most part,
it literally just affects the physical body, not so much the mind. So as far as we know,
my dad was, you know, still very much of sound to mind, but just couldn't use the muscles required
to speak very well. Well, it got to the point where it was time to say goodbye, you know,
the recruiter was there. And we all knew, you know, the, the, the elephant in the room was that
Molly's going away, my sister, there's a really good chance that by the time she
graduates basic training or gets her first leave that dad won't be here anymore, you know,
he was definitely at that stage. And so for her, you know, we all kind of cleared out of the living
room and let her have a minute, we all stood outside waiting because she was going to say goodbye
and then immediately get in the car with the recruiter and go. And I remember us all walking
out and it was a little bit of an emotional moment already, just because we all knew she was saying
goodbye really for the last time. And what I, I think about how courageous that was because
anybody that's ever in the military knows, you know, if you've got a parent dying, you can get
out of just about anything in the military, right? Including delaying, going to basic training or,
you know, something like that. But she stuck with her, she felt it was her obligation to live
up to the contract she'd signed and was going to go to basic training. It was, it was her duty.
And it was, that was, she was going to live up to that. And so I think it was so incredibly
courageous for her to say goodbye. And, and that's what she did. And we, as we stood outside,
me, all my siblings, my mom, the recruiter, it was silent for a while. And then we heard
just a wailing that I don't know how to describe outside of just the saddest sound I think a human
can make. And almost like if you've like 10 times worse than any time you've heard a sad dog howl,
because he thinks or she, you know, the dog thinks its owners are leaving them behind.
Right. I'm just going to the grocery store. But you know, that sad dog sound, but it was, but,
but worse, I, I almost hesitate to make that analogy. But we heard that. And then a second later,
my sister comes out, you know, and she's emotional, you know, and, and it's kind of, you know,
and then gives her final hugs to us and gets in the car. But I will never forget the courage it
took for her to endure that because man, even the most courageous person, the most person that was
most person that was full of resolve, hearing that noise out of your father, the deep sadness of,
because my dad also knew he was saying goodbye to one of his daughters for the last time he knew
that he was saying goodbye for the last time, they both knew that. And so that deep guttural
sadness that came out of him. And we all heard it, we can all hear it from outside. And the fact
that my sister still had the strength to walk outside, wipe the tears, give us a couple more
hugs and then hop in the car and go. I'll, I'll never forget her for doing that and never stop
respecting her for having that level of resolve to go do that. But also, man, I'll just never
forget that noise. I'll never forget the noise a human is capable of making at the deepest depths
of, of, of sadness. And that's, that's something that really, you know, I've had a lot of different
experiences that have absolutely changed the course of my life. That's right up there. That's
right up there with not just my sister's actions and going through with everything and making that
very hard decision, but also what it looks like to say goodbye at the end of life of a very premature
death might end. And, and so to kind of end the story, you know, she left went to basic training
in June. He died in first week of August, she was still in basic training. We, I still remember
I still remember as he kind of went into his final 48 hours there and had no longer had basically
wasn't really conscious anymore, or at least not that we, you know, we couldn't talk to him anymore
at least, right? Having to call down to basic training and, you know, put in the Red Cross
message and get her back home. And, you know, and of course, you know, she did get back home, but
not in time to see him one more time that in the end was the last time that she ever saw her dad
alive. And, and I just I don't know just everything about that is something that has changed the way
I view the world. It changes the way I view some of my own previous experiences. It changed the way
I see courage and resilience and some of these other intrinsic qualities of everybody thinks
that they can be strong in that moment. But man, I'm telling you right now, if it were me saying
goodbye, I don't know for a fact that I would have been able to go through with it after hearing
that. I don't know for a fact. I'd like to think that I would still be able to do the same thing,
but I don't know that for a fact. I don't think anybody could and how they're right there in that
that situation. So anyways, that's my story kind of a bummer story. I wish I could tell a fun.
I've got plenty of funny stories and things like that. Wow. Thanks for thanks for sharing,
sharing that there's so much to I feel like there's a lot to unpack there. A lot of things.
I've spent the last six, seven years still unpacking that moment. Do you think courage,
your sister's actions there, do you think that is something that she was born innately with,
equality, or is that something that was developed through the culturing your family? Is there
something the way she was brought up, or is it something she was born with?
I'd like to think it's a little bit of both. I'd like to think that I think all humans are born
capable of courage and making tough decisions in the most dire circumstances. I think everybody's
born with that capability, and that's the nature aspect of it, but the nurture aspect of it. I
think absolutely can wipe that capability away from you in some circumstances, depending on how
you were brought up. Other circumstances that you're brought up in, I think it can
absolutely celebrate those qualities and engender or cultivate that quality and
really bring it to the surface of a person's consciousness to where they are. Anytime they're
faced with a tough situation, they just at that point, it's automatic. They're going to make the
hard right over the easy wrong. In this particular situation, I don't think it would have been wrong
for her. I wouldn't call that the easy wrong by any stretch, but certainly the decision to still go
was definitely the tougher decision to make, because nobody would have faulted her for sticking
around, not a person. The fact that she still went and did that, and I don't know. Like I said,
I'd like to think that our family definitely values service and selfless service at that.
Both my brother and I served in the military, and then my sister, one of my three sisters,
also joined. She's the youngest. I'm the oldest of five. She's the youngest of five.
She actually just recently got promoted to sergeant. She's now the second sergeant
Skovland out of my group of siblings. I'd like to think that we are, and I've seen
that out of all of my siblings, where we've made really tough choices in the face of
unfavorable situations. I'd like to think that my parents had something to do with that.
That larger village that influences you, because any parent knows it's not just you that's
influencing your kids. It's the friends that you're around. It's the community that you
grow up in. I think all those things affect somebody. I'd like to think that we grew up
pretty poor. My dad really never knew a day of comfort in his life. A small town in South Dakota.
I'd like to think that a lot of those things all came together to make the people that we are today
and influence my sister on that day to where it wasn't really even a thought for her.
I mean, maybe it was. I don't know how much you'd have to. Again, I'm telling somebody else's story.
I just say it as a witness, a true journalist of the situation. Only she could tell you how
much she maybe wrestled or didn't with that decision. But I'd like to think that it was just
something that, this is my job. This is what I signed up for. This is the obligation. I think
that my dad probably, as much as he probably didn't want to say goodbye right then,
also would have said, hey, the right thing is to go do what you signed up for.
I'm sure that probably played into it as well.
Speaking of being a witness, being a journalist and observing and then relaying a story,
you have a new book coming out. Send me the incredible true story of a mother at war.
I want to talk a little bit about that. Can you tell us who is Shannon Kent and why do you want
to write this book about her? Yeah. So Shannon Kent was, she held many titles. She was not only a
naval cryptologist, a linguist. She was a mother. She was a sister. She was a daughter. She was a
wife. She was a special operator at the highest levels of the military, a combat veteran, five
times over. And somebody who ran marathons, who was survived cancer, had it cut out and was back
at work the next day, who had done both her undergrad as well as her graduate degree while
in active duty and then had been accepted into a doctorate program while all while in active duty.
Somebody who went through not just one, but multiple special operations selections before
she was working at that special operations level before people were even talking about women in
combat or whether that's right or not. She was just doing it. That's who she was. And ultimately,
met an untimely death in Syria in 2019. And that was my initial introduction to her, was the news
headlines. And then shortly after that, her husband reaching out to see if I'd be interested in doing
a story and me going down to her memorial at the Naval Academy and quickly realizing this
isn't just anybody who just died. This person was different than then. Now, over the course of the
last five years, trying to make sure that that story is recorded, not just for posterity and
in history's sake, but also so that her two young sons who were one and three when she died will
know who their mom was someday. So yeah, the long-winded way to say she was an incredible person
and incredible human. And I think our nation and our world is a little bit less in her absence.
Wow. So her husband, Joe Kent, reached out to you. Why did he select you? And what was your
initial reaction when he reached out and said, I want you to do some type of piece, some type of
book about my life? Yeah. So he reached out to a mutual friend of ours, Evan Hafer, who was also
my boss at the time. And they had some mutual friends. But this was a week, week and a half
after I saw the initial headlines of the explosion in Manbij, Syria, which she wasn't the only one
that died in that. Scotty, where it's John Farmer and Gidear Tahir, where the three other American
skulls and then many, many more Syrians. But I'd seen the headlines. And so my Evan texted me,
he's like, hey, I got a buddy Joe. I don't know if you saw, but that explosion in Syria, but one
of them was his wife, Shannon. I think you should talk to him. And so we ended up being connected
and we talked. And he told me he's trying to get the story out. And I think he was initially mad
of the way at the way Shannon and her teammates were being characterized in the initial reporting,
which was that they were all out to lunch. Like it was some joy ride that they were out on. And
then something bad happened. And even me looking, and I told Joe this at the time, I was like,
yeah, just the initial news reports I saw when I saw Scotty Wurz, former Navy SEAL, current DIA,
Gidear Tahir, Syrian born American, John Farmer, Special Forces, Warnoffs, Shannon,
Crick. Like you just start to put those like, I don't think that this was the going out to lunch
crowd. You know, they were they were doing something. And, and so Joe was like, yeah, I think that
this story needs to be told. And so the initial idea was just, I was going to write an article,
I was going to profile her and he'd reached out to many other writers as well. The New York Times
wrote a profile on her, The Washington Post as well, Stars and Stripes. Those are the three that
really stand out to me. And I'm sure there was many more that had wrote about her in those initial
ones. So he reached out to me. He told me that Shannon had read some of my stuff in the past
and sent him some stories that I'd done. And so I know that Shannon had read some of my work before.
And, and also he was just looking for somebody that, you know, he wanted her story to be told
was going to multiple places. But of the places he went to, he wanted to make sure at least one of
them had somebody that really understood Shannon's background. And in my case, you know, also come
from a special operations background have also kind of, you know, I think earned a reputation of
telling stories about people that come from that community, veterans in general, but specifically
I've done a lot of work telling sort of those untold stories out of the special operations
community. And, and so I think I was somebody that like, okay, Marty at least needs to be in the mix
here. But you two never met. No, no. It's entirely possible that, you know, Shannon's got a photo of
standing right outside of my room, my chew in Iraq in 2008. And, you know, so it's entirely
possible we passed each other in the childhood. At some point we worked in the same task force.
Like it's entirely possible. Do I remember meeting her? No, you know, I definitely never formally met
her, you know. And, and then, you know, the same as also possible of Joe, it's entirely possible we
passed each other at some point somewhere who knows, you know. And, you know, but yeah, we'd never
formally met. And first time I met Joe was when I came down. Shortly thereafter, I came down to DC
to Annapolis to attend the memorial. And that's when I met him and a bunch of other people that
she worked with for, you know, the first time. And, and that's really what drew me into I remember
at the end of the morning, like that night, before I'd even written the article, I told Joe, I was
like, Hey, man, I'm sure you're going to get hit up about this. But I would love to throw my hat
in the ring if you're thinking about a book. You know, I don't think I'm going to have the real
estate to do Shannon justice in a single article. And the article that I did write was five, six
thousand words. I mean, it wasn't a short story by any stretch. And I still didn't feel like I
even scratched the surface. And I did retrospect. So you've got she was aware of you in some context,
maybe you were, you know, two ships passing in the night sort of thing, you ran in the same
circles, but you never formally met. She knew you're right. Now you've got this emotional
connection, right? That's where it starts as you go down there, you experience that memorial
ceremony, you meet her husband. Where do you begin to write a book, right? Like you said,
you wrote the article, you did that it was not enough. Where do you begin when you want to
take on a full book? I think that are you talking process or once I actually started putting pen
to paper, whichever whichever came first? Yeah, I mean, so you know, so when I told Joe, Hey,
I'd like to throw my hat in the ring. He was very noncommittal. I mean, he's very nice about it.
He didn't say no. He also didn't say yes, you know, and I think that that was his way of just like,
Hey, let's see how the story turns out and probably how the other folks' stories were going to turn
out as well. You know, and so it was in May that my story May of 2019, my feature on her published.
And I mean, it wasn't long after I hit publish and sent in the link where I mean, it was definitely
the same day at least, where he called me was like, Hey, yeah, man, like, if you're still interested,
let's let's do the book. And so then at that point, and of course, it was like, Yes, 100%.
And and so at that point, we started, we got linked up with our lit agent, Larry,
and he kind of told us like, Okay, first step, we need to put a proposal together.
You know, for non, as you know, Mike, fiction, you just turn in the full manuscript,
nonfiction, you write a proposal of what you will write. And then that's kind of what you sell the book off of.
And so we got to work on the proposal. I remember I sent off the final draft of my proposal.
In October, the morning that I was stepping off to go hike, Mount Kilimanjaro.
And I like literally from the hotel in Moshe, Tanzania, like,
hurriedly making the last few edits, hitting send, closing the laptop and like,
they're waiting on me outside that Marty, hurry up, like it's like, we got to go.
It was like literally that last minute where I just finished up that those last few things in the proposal and the proposal.
I mean, it was robust. That's a big part of the writing right there. You're, you're writing a chapter by chapter breakdown,
multiple paragraphs for each of those chapters, kind of like an opening scene for each of them.
And then like a paragraph or two of what else would be covered in that chapter,
as well as two or three of those chapters or full chapters.
And, and then, you know, a bunch of other, you know, author by, you know, all the other stuff that goes into, into that.
So it was, I want to say our proposal was like,
20, 25,000 words, like it was, it was robust.
And, and so, you know, I sent that off and, and so you're already sort of writing the book at that point of,
hey, you really got your chapters right down, but you know, it could change based on who buys the book and they're going to have their thoughts.
And, you know, I go and hike Kilimanjaro come back and it was in, I want to say December,
first or second week of December, 2019, we went down to New York to go do a bunch of meetings with, you know, our agent had gone out,
on submission and, you know, circulated it and we had, I think it was three or four different places that wanted to meet with us.
And, you know, we, Joe and I came into New York, met with a bunch of different places.
And the one that we felt best about was our editor, Moro, who was at William Moro,
the nonfiction division over at Harper Collins and, and Moro really got kind of where we were coming from as far as what we want to look like.
We weren't looking to do a tell all on the special operations unit that she was from.
We weren't looking for that. We, you know, he, we really wanted to focus on the human aspects of this that, you know, the human experience of Shannon,
and he was right in line with that and really didn't want a lot of changes to the structure that we had already sort of proposed.
So we ended up making a deal with him and then that was, so that was December 2019. I think we officially signed the contract like early January 2020 and what happens in early 2020, right?
World turns upside down. And then so as I'm just revving up and I had all these things lined up to go start doing interviews and stuff and then just everything shut down, can't travel.
And then a bunch of the people that run in Shannon circles, you know, they're not really comfortable talking to the media period, never mind over the phone, you know, or over zoom or something like that.
So right off the bat and then it's like, how do you write a book about somebody who's almost her entire professional life is classified and also isn't here to just talk to yourself.
And you have to rely on her husband, who also was deploying all the time and of course knew Shannon the best out of anybody but like still wasn't there for every moment and they'd only been married for six years when she'd been killed,
or at least together for six years and then, you know, married for most of the five years maybe when she was killed. And so you had to fill in all these other blanks of that.
So it was a it was a tall task right off the bat and Joe immediately started I told him like hey, if you can just start writing basically the love story between you and Shannon just basically do journal entries right and one of the initial ideas with the book is we were going to keep
his stuff in first person and then all my stuff in third person. And then, you know, this ended up turning into a multi year effort to write this book somewhere along the way, we ended up, it just the flow didn't work right to do that and so we ended up making everything third person and I think the
book is better for it definitely but he started writing sort of the love story between him and Shannon I started doing interviews and trying to unpack her military career.
And we also figured out we don't really have an antagonist. We don't want this to read like one long Wikipedia entry about Shannon. You need stakes you need something there and that's where we arrived at well when she was killed she was going after the ISIS target that can
trying to find bag daddy Elbag Daddy who is the leader of ISIS. And so we kind of decided to make him even though she wasn't going after him.
The entire time she was in the military or anything like that. That was just who we identified this will be the antagonist, we will simultaneously follow her rise through the military as bag daddy and then more largely ISIS is rise to power, and then the both kind of
antagonist at the end and they don't literally meet in the literal sense and I don't want to spoil the book for readers that are going to go check this out but it largely worked but that was one thing that we also added after we had sold the book is like hey we need some sort of antagonist here to have some more so
like and then she did this and then she did this and then she we wanted this to be narratively strong, you know to keep people really engaged and.
Yeah, I forget where you even asked me now I just write in the writing the book right and so this is this was all part of it and this kind of all unfolded over the course of, you know between like I said spring 2020 and then, you know, I think we made the last final edits.
So, you know, October, October 2023 last fall.
I remember there was two final interviews that I did with friends that she did grew up with, like, right as we were like ready to do final accepted manuscript like it was like last minute, like oh my god, this book is so much better with these two people.
It wasn't big parts but we injected them into a few different parts in the book to give them their own little sort of mini character arc there and I mean so we were working right up until the buzzer.
And in that process to do the pre publication review CIA pre publication review.
You know I interviewed something like 40 some people.
I had a document I could get my hands on. Just, yeah, there was a lot that went into this. Yeah, I mean that's the, the storytelling component of this as a reader, right like I never mentioned can like I didn't know about the story until I got this book.
I felt from her childhood to the end of her life pulled along. And I felt a sense of loss at the at the end I did which is really, you know something I kind of want to unpack a little bit and figure out why is this person I've never met before there there's an emotional
pull in the center of my chest. When you know when this when when she's killed right and I mean like you said you interviewed 40 something people for this from all different parts of her life to right because we start off in her professional career the opening is a very tense moment of a specific mission
she's on but it's one of many right like you said her. This is what she did for her professional career she was there for she was involved for a while. Right and then after that opening scene you go right back to her childhood and kind of start like, you know at the beginning of her life more or less.
And we hear from her friends we hear from her parents we get these stories very quickly and we begin to develop kind of an idea of who she who she is my question for you is like, with all the years of interviews and different people from different parts of her
life and different phases of her life. How did you figure out like how did you pick the stories in the moments that you're like no this is this is getting down to past past the surface of stuff to who Shannon really was.
Well, so one of the difficult parts and doing a book like this about somebody who people care very deeply about and is no longer here is you get a lot of just sort of statements about her Shannon was this Shannon was that or she did this.
What you really, I think the job of the author is to try to pull out vignettes that they remember that they can tell in some sort of detail. And so most of my, and I think if you talk to like most of the people that I interviewed, they'll tell you that I really tried to get them to
remember specific stories like that's my go to things like tell me a story about you guys like tell me a story. And then, and then from there I can start to ask more details of like well what were you wearing what was she wearing what we, you said you were drinking what were you
drinking, you know what was, what did the room look like like I try to get all these details that I need to be able to paint a picture I think the best nonfiction books are ones where you can literally be watching the movie in your head as you are reading it and I want to give that level of detail.
So, and again I think that's also how you prevented again from turning into just sort of one long Wikipedia entry, you know. And so that was really and you'll see all those like little vignettes we tried to just get enough stories to cover each sort of
phase of her life and for obvious reasons we don't want to spend too much time in childhood, you know. But I tried to look for things that stories that one people could retell and great enough detail you're in you know, we're talking about when she's young and that's 30 years
ago that you're trying to recall details and that's difficult for most people.
But so not just that level detail, but stories that foreshadowed who she would become later. You know, so there's one part in the book where, you know, we kind of open up with her bedtime routine when she was like a toddler, and her mom sings her this song the
lullaby and they read a certain book, much much later in the book when Shannon's a mother. She's singing that same lullaby to her first child. And it's so so there's some things we use some of those stories to try to foreshadow later things.
And the stories from high school where they're talking about her sort of early grasp of foreign language right that that definitely foreshadows some fairly obvious elements of her story and but yeah we really tried to get these things that we could come back to later
in the book to set up and build this more sort of complex layered view of who she was like I think if you can try from a storytelling perspective to grow an onion from the inside out. That's really what you're trying to do, you know, so that then people can peel that onion back
and get to the center. I think that's what you're trying to do to create a layered nuance version of who somebody was.
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Turns and conditions apply.
Outside of that, you've got the actual information gathering and trying to figure out who this person was.
You do have some similar experiences. Like you said, come from similar communities across paths, but there's a lot that you have no personal experience with.
She was a mother. She was a cancer survivor. She's very experienced with language.
She was very fluent in six or seven different languages.
She was very fluent in the city, the bathroom and the restaurants.
She was very fluent in the culture.
Off-putting for native speakers.
I've commented on several times throughout the book. How did you overcome those challenges and that you're not a woman, you're not a mother, you've got tangential experiences that relate to these, but they're not your experiences.
How did you overcome that?
I think that's a big part of being a journalist, but I want to say right at front, it was not lost on me that me and Joe are two dudes writing about a woman's life.
Even Joe as her husband, but it's still like, hey, how do we get inside? I mean, this is, gosh, I've got so many different thoughts coming at me right now.
It's like, okay, what do I tackle first?
As a young writer, you're told, write what you know, because it's always going to be better. Write what you know, stay in that, and then you can kind of grow from there.
And so definitely the easier parts for me to write in this were the aspects that I did know, like some of the combat sequences and things like that. That's just easier for me to know or to write because I know that.
But yeah, when you're in the delivery room, okay, I don't know her perspective, but I know what it's like to be in a delivery room.
You know, my wife has never had cancer, but my wife does have type 1 diabetes. I know what it's like to be concerned about the health of your wife.
I know what it's like to be separated from my wife and be away for long times doing dangerous things, right?
Like, I know a bunch of those different things. But to get the specific stories in this, a lot of times you'd have to unpack.
Like there's one interview that I did with the seal that she served with and, you know, they were both in TF 17 together.
I was in TF 17 and so he's like, yeah, we were out, you know, doing, you know, hits every night and I'm like, okay. And so, and I kind of described my experiences as like, is that pretty much what you guys were doing too?
I mean, because different strike forces and he's like, yeah, man, like exactly that. So I was then able to go and kind of construct what was the typical Task Force 17 mission, right?
Of how, you know, I know what a direct action raid looks like. So I was able to sort of write that out and recreate those scenes. Because they're all, you know, you do 10 of those, you've done them all, right?
Like, there's only so many different ways to write about raiding a building in Iraq, right? Like it's, and so we kind of recreated that when she finds out, has the conversation with her doctor about cancer.
Well, I wasn't right in the room when she found out with the doctor. So I called a doctor and was like, Hey, here was the diagnosis. How would you have sat down and explain this?
And so I took him and use that dialogue to create that scene. And I think what you're definitely skirting a line there, like you've definitely need to be careful because this is still nonfiction, right?
But I, that's where I had to be, you know, kind of explain in the authors don't like, Hey, look, if we only went off of what we had transcripts for or something, just this wouldn't be what you wouldn't know anything about her.
We had to take a few leaps in order to tell the truth of her experience. Right. Like our job was to tell her truth.
And by only going off of what was declassified and available, like, you're not telling her truth. You know, and so we had to reconstruct some of those things.
But yeah, you just, I think, yeah, you know, you're not there. So you got to talk to as many people that were there as many people and then, you know, once you've written all this stuff down and talked to as many experts as you can.
You know, one of the things that I really relied on was sliding it by Joe by people that knew her really well, her siblings and, Hey, does this all sound like Shannon? Does this sound right?
Like, does any of this jump out of you like that's not Shannon? You know, I wanted this to the people that knew her best in this world.
So when they looked at this be like, Oh my, this is Shannon. This is you nailed it. Like this is Shannon.
What was that process like, like, what was the initial feedback? How many rounds did you have to go through before they were like, this is it or did you did you nail it on the first time?
I think, I think Joe and a lot of the people that saw earlier drafts and really Joe was the only person for a long time that saw a complete draft outside of the editors and stuff but
you know, other people, I think that Joe and a lot of the people that did see all or parts of this book early on, I think that they were okay with it.
They liked the book a lot earlier than I did. I knew that I had a lot more work to do and that this could be a lot better but they were looking at it and saying like, No, this is great.
Like, I think at one point Joe was even like, probably a little bit frustrated that there was still more work to be done on it and not on his stuff but just, you know, me trying to get this thing to where I felt I could look anybody that
knew Shannon in the eyes and say, Hey, this is, we did right by Shannon, you know, and nothing less than my full effort would be doing right by Shannon, you know, and so I think that there was, I mean, there was many, many drafts.
And I was still, you know, I was building a publication, my day job I was building a publication from the ground up and, you know, had a lot of responsibilities in that way and so you can talk to a lot of people that I worked with back then of, you know, I'm sitting there we're driving somewhere and I'm in the back seat with my laptop open trying to bang out,
you know, revisions and things like that it's it was definitely, I think a labor of love at a certain point to just try to do right by Shannon and Joe and her boys I mean that's a lot of pressure to know, Hey, Joe's going to give this book to his young boys
someday and say hey this is who your mom was, you need to nail that, you know, you have to get that right.
I think it's back in on Shannon, a little bit and just to go back to her story so she starts off she's not she's part of this generation that joins in more or less the immediate aftermath of 911 right like she wasn't she kind of the end of high school which is right before 911 she's interested in the
there's just great scene, classic recruiter, you know, posted up outside the cafeteria trying to pull the high school kids in. And she's she's interested in it initially, but you know there's a heavy focus and all the pretty much all the pamphlets focus, not only on men but it's the combat
operation stuff it's the Navy seals with the face pain coming out of the, you know, the lake with the the rifles and all the rest of it. And that at the time that's not even open to women right it's still most still isn't, you know, it's been a slow change as far as allowing women
to go back into those communities but you know, there's this immediate dynamic that set up that you know she's interested in that doesn't end up happening 911 happens she tries college out and then she says I'm enlisting and she goes into the Navy.
And it's interesting to watch her arc as she works her way into these communities because going back to that initial image of like the typical guns cool guy stuff it's not really that it's her, it's her intellectual capabilities that seem to kind of open the initial door
to the like, you know, and she is, you know, physically capable and everything but there's this idea that she subverts that you know it's not the typical path that she takes to get there can you talk a little bit about what that journey was like and you know capturing it.
Yeah, you know, I think that especially in the special operations community, the fact that you are physically gifted you're in great shape is a given that's just the standard right.
But it's something that a lot of times support personnel or enablers, there's almost an expectation by the seal or the green beret or the range or whatever that like a support is probably not going to be in as good a shape as us, probably not going to be as.
And the fact that she showed up and was very physically gifted on that front that bought her immediate credibility there.
And once she started getting into, she'd already sort of come in. So her first introduction to special operations world was just because she volunteered as an individual augmentee on just a big navy tasker had no idea she was volunteering to go support a special operations task force in Iraq.
And she was a special augmentee on just a big navy tasker for Iraq and wanted to get out of her windowless cubicle and Fort Gordon, you know, and that which was her first assignment and then she goes over there, and then just sort of makes lemonade out of lemons right from the get go
and like, oh my God, she, she is an absolute, you know, force multiplier on the battlefield, and off for that matter. I mean she was a signals intelligence analyst, a human intelligence analyst, but also a collector for both of those.
Also a linguist, she was this like do like multi threat triple threat, I don't know, probably more than that but like could do it. She was a one stop shop whereas typically you'd have to go drop some stuff at the human desk some stuff off off at the second desk, then it's got to get routed through the the
the analysts and the linguists and I mean, you know reports, she was able to do it all, you know, and, and that I think she just, and that's where I'll say I don't think that she aimed to be a woman in special like it and nobody thought that they were making some big policy
decision it was just like, Oh, we need you, you do something that we can't come with us.
And it was just never even a debate, right, like nobody said is it okay that we take this woman and bring her along it was just like, Oh, this is the common sense thing to do.
No different than I imagine a commander saying like, Yeah, of course you should wear hiking boots, we're in Afghanistan, right, right, like, well, like it's just like these common sense things that I think are can be sometimes unique to the special operations
community because a lot of times on the conventional side, the leaders just don't have that latitude to make sort of autonomous decisions like that. I think on the special operations side there was just definitely this, hey, we're fighting an insurgency
we're doing counterterrorism operations where we are trying to win a war here. And we need to use every tool at our disposal at our disposal, we need to have the right people in the right places and Shannon was the right person.
And so, you know, when she came over on that task or kind of got discovered and then next thing she knows she's going and to the direct support course which was a brand new thing she was the first woman to ever graduate the direct support
course, graduated number three in our class out of all the men and everything like that and then got our first assignment to the SEAL teams and then she was in the SEAL teams for, you know, multiple deployments and multiple years before she ended up.
Basically, when as far as she could go with that and then the only thing that was left was to go up to that next level, you know, that special, you know, sort of, you know, people often refer to it as tier one units right and so she wanted to go up to that next level, went to selection, passed.
And then, and that's where she met Joe was when she came after she passed selection for the training course that they go through for that Joe and also went through that selection and, you know, and now, and Joe was a, you know, Ranger Green Beret, then Green Beret warren officer and also you know, so this is the sort of people that she was in league with, you know,
it's interesting that later in the there's this one line that comes kind of late in the book but it's touched on a couple of times or when going back to the language thing that she's, she's, she's operating at this, this fluency where it's it's deeper than just being fluent with the language is a cultural thing and there's
this line says it's just something you can't teach it was something that she just brought there, having looked at the spend a couple of years looking at the full scope of her life and kind of relating back to the story you opened with this idea of like, is this something you're born with or is this something that's cultivated.
Was there anything that you saw that stood out to like what set her apart.
I mean what didn't set her apart is really the question. I, I know I personally I didn't meet anybody like her when I was in the military. You know, and I, I feel very privileged that I was able to be around some, some of the best humans that I think that I'll ever meet in uniform and and I still didn't meet anybody like Shannon.
When you think about what set her apart like her capacity for empathy and compassion, while still being the cold, you know, cold blooded killer right like like that's, you don't find that in a lot of people, you don't find a lot of people that speak languages like she did multiple languages but also had the capacity for analysis and
being able to pull information out of people and still, you know, was into art she's seeing up all night creating mosaics like, and at some point in this book you go, God, did she had the same 24 hours in a day that the rest of us have like,
there's one touching thing that's not a part of the stories in the book but I'll tell you the other side of it. When she's getting ready to go on her final deployment.
One of her friends that she'd kind of come up through Navy boot camp and stuff with.
You know, they touch base every so often just like any of us in the military right there's people that early on you'll, you'll, you know, touch base every once in a while but you're not talking to each other every day and they this friend that she had they you know talked I think it was maybe
like, you know, two or three days I think before she was set to deploy and the friends like hey I'm applying to this program. This medical program. Could you write me a letter of recommendation it would it would really help out and Shannon told
me that I got I would do anything for you I'm literally leaving like, you know, basically tomorrow, and I just don't have time I'm so so sorry like is there any way that you could wait a little bit but she was under deadline and, and so it's just like no I totally understand.
She had to go on her final deployment and this her friend, you know applies to this program without the letters so she thinks and, you know, Shannon, you know she eventually finds out that Shannon was killed and, you know, sort of stuff months after Shannon died.
She had been accepted into the program. And in the packet there was a letter of recommendation from Shannon that she wrote. She found time in those of everything that you have going on as you're getting ready to leave your, your kids and your husband and everything to go on deployment and I mean this was all right around
Thanksgiving to and they hosted Thanksgiving that year and just found the time to sit down and write a very well thought out letter of recommendation that helped her friend to get into this program.
And just, I mean, you just don't.
God, I can't think of how many times I disappoint people on stuff of like hey, Mike you're waiting for something for me right now right like, um, and just she found a way she found the time she she when you think about just how did she set herself apart like, you know,
she's still aligned from the Marines right no better friend no worse enemy.
I mean, but to the at the highest levels of both.
Right, you know, how didn't she set herself apart. That's that's really the question.
Very, very unique person.
We don't just write a book about anybody. I'll put it that way.
That's definitely true.
I have a general question for you. If there was, you've written a whole book now you spent a couple of years of your life trying to figure out the best way to tell this story, a person you you've never really met and you've gotten to know and in an intimate way.
If there was one thing you wanted to read her to take away from this book what would it be.
I hope that anybody that reads this book immediately finds inspiration and uses this book as a tool to inspire others.
I can tell you my daughters will both read this book someday my second daughter. Her middle name is after Shannon.
There's story I won't tell publicly but the reason I have my second daughter right now is in part due to Shannon.
And, you know, this will be a book that they read someday I hope that people feel inspired. And I hope that when they get to that part in the book they feel just even one 1000th of the loss that Joe and her the rest of her family felt when they found out.
I just I really want people to understand the loss that are not just her family but our nation experienced by no longer having this very gifted person among us, but also finds inspiration from the way that she lived her life.
So, I don't know, I think that those are people take away anything it's to feel a sense of the loss and to feel inspired by the way she lived.
So, yeah, that's that's what that that's the first thing that comes to mind but I think, you know, just to expand on that a little bit. We cover a lot of ground in the book.
I think depending on the lens by through which you view the world and that through which you read this book. I think different people are going to take different things away from this, you know, certainly inspiration.
And I'm certainly anybody that reads this will think that she's just as incredible as I say she is. But I think that there's different things in here we touch on mental health.
We touch on relationship stuff the nitty gritty of husband and wife. You know, and I'll give Joe a lot of credit for being as vulnerable as he was, as he made himself and in writing some of those scenes and
you know, it just, I think different people take different things away, I guess is just really all suffice to say that and, and I hope they do. I and I hope this is just something that people can pick up and read a chapter out of at any time and
feel a little bit more pep in their step that day. You know, I don't know.
I think you really in being a conduit right like you said before you're you're observing something you see even the story you started off with. You're observing something and amplifying it to a much, much larger audience and I think you really succeeded here.
But never having met her not clearly not feeling that the total sense of loss that her family or husband could feel and yet still feeling like I'm a little bit closer to that story so very, very excited to see this book come out into the world and hope to talk to you again soon.
Yeah, I, I'm anxious to hear what the world thinks about the book. So, yeah, thanks for thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
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