All across America and around the world, this
is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. And
now, your host for today's program, Dale Throneberry.
And good afternoon and welcome to Veterans Radio.
My name is Dale Throneberry. I am a... Former
helicopter pilot during the Vietnam conflict
as they call it I was a cw2 as a warrant officer
closest thing to a civilian at the army had I
loved my what I was doing over there, and I'm
we're going to be talking a little bit about
that in just a second I've got a great guest
for us today on veterans radio, and I can't wait
to talk with him his name is Jay kale Weston,
and he's written a book entitled The Mirror Test,
and it's about America at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I think you got to stay tuned for this one. I
think it's really, really an important story,
and it's something I think we're going to learn
a lot about as we get to listen to Cale talk
about his experiences. For over seven years he
was in Iraq and Afghanistan as a government worker,
so I think that's kind of cool. All right, folks,
all you Vietnam veterans out there, guess what?
We now have our own day. Ta -da! Finally, President
Trump signed a law declaring National Vietnam
War Veterans Day. It's going to be on March 29th,
every year in perpetuity, as they say, from here
on out. And it's one of those days where people
are authorized to fly their flags. But here at
Veterans Radio, we believe that everybody should
fly their flag every day. It's a fly your flag
day. Every day is a fly your flag day. But the
bill was sponsored by Senator Pat Toomey, a Republican
of Pennsylvania, and Joe Donnelly, a Democrat
of Indiana, so bi -partisans can get something
done. How about that? And in their statement,
they say, 44 years have passed since the last
U .S. troops withdrew from Vietnam. Due to the
unpopularity of the war, veterans returning home
were often met with disdain and did not necessarily
receive support or gratitude for their service.
And this is one of the things that they felt
that they could do. honor the Vietnam veteran
and we honored all the warriors we tried to.
Out of the 2 .7 million US servers members who
served in Vietnam more than 58 ,000 were killed
and more than 304 ,000 were wounded. I was just
up at the Ann Arbor VA hospital the other day
and that place is getting crowded with Vietnam
veterans. folks, so we've got to make sure that
we take care of these. I should point out that
a proclamation by President Obama declared March
29, 2012 as Vietnam Veterans Day, but that was
only a one -time deal. And so now President Trump
has signed the law declaring National Vietnam
War Veterans Day. So every March 29, go up to
your local Vietnam veteran and say welcome home,
because that's the message that we love more
than anything else. The other thing, speaking
of Vietnam veterans, is I I'm not that familiar
with Facebook and how it works and so on and
so forth, but I got a great story from one of
our favorite people here on Veterans Radio, and
his name is Joe Galloway. And Joe Galloway is
an author. He was in Vietnam. He was a journalist.
He was at the Battle of the Ai Drang Valley.
He was the author of one of the books, We Were
Soldiers Once and Young. He is the only journalist
to receive a Bronze Star for Valor. because of
what he did during that day. And he's written
many books and of course he has many commentaries
and so forth. But he had an adventure the other
day that I thought was kind of reminiscent of
some that maybe some of you out there have had.
He was driving down the road in Virginia and
he said he was behind this truck and the truck
was moseying and Joe didn't want to mosey anymore.
So he pulled out and passed him in a no passing
zone. Within seconds, he said, the blue lights
come on, the red lights come on directly behind
him, and they pull him off to the side of the
road. And he said, a very polite police officer
came up, wrote him a ticket for passing in a
no passing zone, got back in his car, and Joe
said, I drove away. And he said, this cop car
followed me. It was following me. It's 10 miles,
11 miles, 12 miles. He's still back there. I'm
going, what have I done? He's going to get me
again. Sure enough, just a little bit down the
road, the blue lights, the red lights come on,
and he pulled me over again. And I'm going, what
did I do now? I've got another ticket coming?
What? He says, the cop walks up to the window.
I roll down the window, and I said, what? And
he says, Mr. Galloway, I had no idea who you
were. He took the ticket and crumbled it all
up and threw it over his shoulder. And he said,
my dispatcher, when I told him who I had pulled
over, went nutto and said, Do you know who you
just pulled over? And the policeman that had
written the ticket initially said, I just want
to thank you as a veteran myself for all you
do to support veterans causes. And he says, you
know, have a safe trip home. And Joe says, so
we got back on the road and continued on south
toward home. And I don't know about you out there,
but I have had a similar experience where I was
pulled over one time by a policeman and I have
a one of those license surrounds and it says
United States Army Aviation School on it. and
as he walked up to the car I saw him look over
and look at the license plate and he came up
and he said he says sir he says are you a veteran
I said yes I am and he says sir I would suggest
that you slow down and he walked back to the
car and that was it so you know if you're nice
to him And you've got a veteran sticker on your
car. You know, it's like the police -benevolent
association or whatever it is. Maybe if you don't
do something too bad, you might be able to get
away with it and get that warning instead of
getting the ticket. So anyway, so Joe Galloway.
Thanks for sharing that story. I thought it was
kind of fun that you did that. We're going to
take a break real quick. And when we come back,
we're going to be talking with Cale Weston, who
is the author of the book, The Mirror Test. And
let me give you a little promo about him before
we could do that. He represented the United States
for over a decade as a State Department official
and political advisor. Prior to his wartime service,
seven consecutive years in Iraq and Afghanistan
alongside U .S. Marines and soldiers in Fallujah,
coasts, Sadr City, and Helmand. He led American
efforts and the UN Security Council to freeze
and block al -Qaeda -linked assets. Washington
acknowledged his multi -year service in Fallujah
with the Marines by awarding him one of the highest
honors, the Secretary of State's Medal for Heroism.
So this is our guest right here on Veterans Radio.
So let me remind you, if you want to talk to
Cale, you can give us a call here at WAAM. The
number is 734 -822 -1600 or toll free 844 -838
-1600. That's 844 -838 -1600. You can follow
us on Facebook and Twitter and listen to our
podcast on our website, veteransradio .net. And
as I mentioned, we're going to take a quick break
and we will be right back with our guest. Jake
Kale Weston, the author of The Mirror Test. You're
listening to Veterans Radio. And we are back
on Veterans Radio, and bringing my guest on the
line right now is J. Kale Weston, and his book
is The Mirror Test, America at War in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Kale, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Thank you, Dale, and I appreciate the opportunity
and the invitation. Thank you very much. I couldn't
find a theme song for the State Department. Figured
that would be as close as I could get with the
Marines since you spent so much time with them
anyway Yeah, we may not have a State Department
for too much longer. We can talk about that as
we go along So you know the title of your book
is the mirror test and I wanted our audience
to understand what the mirror test is so could
you Give us a little definition of what the mirror
test the definition is Sure, it's a medical term
that doctors use when they've got a patient who
particularly is badly disfigured in the face.
And they let those patients determine when they're
ready to look over their shoulder or look square
on in the mirror and kind of come to terms with
how the injuries have disfigured them. And in
the case of my book, I focus on a Marine named
Aaron Mankin who was badly, facially disfigured.
in a roadside bomb, and he writes very eloquently
about when he was ready to have his own mirror
test. And I apply that throughout the book to
the larger questions I think that we as a nation
should consider when it comes to the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan. So tell me, how did you
get involved with the State Department? What
is your background? You know, I guess there's
kind of two levels. One, I am the son and grandson
of soldiers, also the nephew of soldiers. So
one might think that the military was a more
likely course for me. But then by the time I
was in high school, I found myself hanging out
with a lot of foreign exchange students. And
I was putting a lot of maps on my wall as a kid
next to those of the ski resorts in the national
parks. I think I was always kind of focused on
what was going on far, far away from my hometown.
And then that led to studying a lot of history
and international relations as a graduate student.
And I started a PhD and realized I was more interested
in what the policy challenges were the day than
maybe the theories. And so I opted to make it
official and join the State Department. OK. And
so where did you start out? I started out in
the Netherlands for a bit and then a big chunk
of my time was in New York City right after and
even right before 9 -11. So that really shifted
the trajectory of my career, which I thought
would be a lot of sort of the traditional diplomacy,
UN Security Council issues, which is suit and
tie every day and a lot of... chapter 7 negotiations
with various other delegations and I think for
many diplomats 9 -11 really shifted a lot of
our careers and many of them are still in some
pretty tough places based on what happened 15
years ago. I can't believe that it's been 15
years. That's for darn sure. Alright, so you
ended up going to Iraq in 2003. Did you go in
right at the beginning of the invasion? Just
after. I was in New York at our mission there
when Secretary Colin Powell made the case for
the invasion. And then there was about 50 State
Department personnel who joined that first wave
in. I got there. I went to a mini civilian boot
camp at Fort Bliss, Texas, which ironically was
where my uncle went before he shipped off to
Vietnam as a Green Beret. And I arrived in Baghdad
in early August of 2003. And what were your responsibilities
there? I spent most of my time that first year
on a responsibility that I thought I wasn't going
to like nor be very good at. And that was dealing
with the truckers, the teamsters of Iraq. At
the time, the insurgency was starting to pick
up and our government... And our policy under
the coalition provisional authority was focused
on making sure that the food staples made their
journeys across the highways and byways of Iraq.
So I got to know quite well a number of the main
truckers in Baghdad. With with the truckers like
a union, right? Correct logistics of the whole
thing. Yeah, it was not a fancy Stuff I thought
I might be doing and ended up really really loving
the job and I'm grateful that that became my
focus because I really got to understand I think
the the street level experience of a rock through
the eyes of everyday Iraqis as opposed to the
palace intrigue and the palace opulence and the
fancy food that we had shipped in for us. So
I had my eyes open pretty quickly through the
truckers. Well, one of the complaints at the
time, and probably is still going on, is that
when we went into Iraq, we pretty much eliminated
everything and started to try and reinvent the
country. And I think that one of the issues that
I'm sure that you ran up again, as you mentioned,
the idea of actually trying to provide food and
clothing and everything for the Iraqi citizens
who were kind of left out of the decision -making
process. Yeah, they were even in that early phase
of 2003 not focused on the next election that
we were bringing to them courtesy of our military.
They were focused on, first and foremost, stability
and security. And then what we all focus on,
which is making sure that you can get on with
your life and have enough food to feed your family.
And then we overlaid that with a lot of democratic
talk. And I think some good historians have looked
back and come to the conclusion I had pretty
early, which is first things first. They may
want to import some things, but we were trying
to export democracy very quickly and according
to our timeline. So after you were working how
long did you work with the truckers you say over
a year? Yeah from summer of oh three to summer
of oh four and then I was asked to go out to
Fallujah Well, aren't you lucky? We've had many
many guests here on veterans radio were involved
in the battle battles and battles of Fallujah
more than once it seemed So what was your job
out with the Marines? I was one of about five
State Department officers, Ambassador Negropani,
who had been my boss and a very good understanding
boss in New York, asked me to be the main political
guy working with the Marine Command. At that
time in Western Iraq, we had about 38 ,000 troops
under General Conway's command as the one MEF
commanding general. My job was to try and make
sure that military tactics followed. the political
plan that we were implementing. And a lot of
that had to do with first clearing the city of
Fallujah of terrorists and a lot of homeboys,
trying to find Zarqawi, who was the main al -Qaeda
leader at the time, so that Sunnis in the West
could vote. Because, of course, at that time,
the Bush administration and President George
W. Bush really wanted to try and... show that
these elections were going to stick and that
all parts of Iraq were going to vote. So that
became my prime directive, which was to get Sunnis
to vote. And how did you go about doing that?
It was tough. I can imagine, you know, the Sunni
areas in the West were the most anti -American
in the whole country for the reason obviously
that we had kicked out them as a minority from
power. So I knew that they were not going to
be happy partners. But starting from the bottom
up, I focused a lot on who were the key leaders
inherent in the area, and those would be the
religious leaders, the imams, phaluges, the city
of mosques. So I knew that that was a key population
I needed to focus on, the tribal leaders, and
then we were starting to set up local city councils.
So all together, I was spending quite a bit of
time with a lot of very able Marines and some
soldiers, a lot of civil affairs officers trying
to show that once the big battle was over, the
rebuilding could happen with a lot of money,
but also we needed to begin to trust each other.
Were you one of the ones that was going around
handing out the money for these various projects?
I was. It was not State Department money. It
was CERT money, which was a pot of money that
the military initially took from frozen assets
of Saddam Hussein, which was authorized by the
UN Security Council. And then that became programmed
money through our own Congress. But yes, you
know, the famous line that money is a weapon
system. That's true. But money is also a trap
in a war zone. And I saw both sides of that.
So the Marine sergeants and corporals would come
with their backpacks full of a lot of US cash
and I would help make sure that if we had injured
a child in an escalation of force incident or
we had damaged a vehicle or a part of a house
that we were at least trying to pay up, although
of course money never solves death, but it at
least can help alleviate some of the tension.
Wow. So as that election was coming forward,
what year was that in? 2004? Yeah, the big battle
in order to set the election, to set the stage
for the election was toward the end of 2004,
starting in November, and it carried through
the winter. But the three big, intense democratic
experiences that we were pushing on Iraqis at
the time were in 2005. There were subsequent
elections that happened after, but the three
big ones were all in 2005. there was a parliamentary
election, there was a constitutional referendum,
and then there was a third one at the end of
the year. So we were demanding a lot of a people,
I think, in terms of their willingness to go
vote when, again, most of the Iraqis and the
Fallugians were telling me that they were more
concerned about just baseline security. We've
had an author on, his name is Bing West, you
may be familiar with him. Bing is a grunt at
heart. He was last in Hellman with us. Charging
through the desert with corporals and I have
a lot of respect for being He charges to the
front Well, yeah, he does and he's you know,
he's he's always got an opinion which is what
I know which which is which is refreshing that
or doesn't and he Advocates them very very effective.
Yeah. Well, the reason I brought him up is was
his book is called the strongest tribe right
and and the idea of all that these people wanted
was just safety and so they're regencies would
be flowing, I guess you could say, back and forth
depending on who could help them out the most.
Yeah, Bing and I have talked a lot about this
in both Anbar and Helmand, and I think we come
down on the same side of this, which is it's
one thing to sort of try and idealize a democratic
Iraq or a democratic Afghanistan. It's another
thing when you've got roadside bombs proliferating,
you've got high mars being used by the Marine
Corps, you've got you know, assassinations of
your local partners, which is really a level
that I try and get to in my book because the
heroes of my book, first and foremost, I want
to advance are the Iraqis and the Afghans who
stood with us and paid a huge price for that.
So the strongest tribe is the Marine Corps, is
the U .S. military, but the most long -lasting
tribe will never be an American tribe, and I
think those were the issues we were trying to
figure out as we stayed year after year. You
mentioned in the book, we're talking with Kale
Weston, the author of The Mirror Test of America
or in Iraq and Afghanistan. And this story of
Fallujah and being in Iraq and so forth, there's
a scene in the book about the potato factory,
which was very distressing to me and probably
to a lot of people and I'm sure it was to you.
Could you tell our audience what that was about?
I will, and I hope that readers don't stop reading
the book. No, don't, don't, don't. This is very,
this is precepts a lot of things. It was hard
for me to write. My editor, to his credit, and
my team in New York, incredible team, they pushed
me on that chapter. And, you know, when authors
talk about writing a book, that probably is the
chapter I would have left out if not for Knopf
and Random House saying, this is a site of war
that people really need to see and read and smell.
And so that was a morgue that the Marines were
forced to set up very quickly in that early phase
of al -Fajr, the big Fallujah battle that commenced
right around the Marine Corps birthday, actually,
November 7th, a few days before. What happened
is the political pressure went through the roof
at the White House level. Then -National Security
Advisor Condi Rice was on the phone with Marine
leaders, and my boss, the ambassador, was...
engaging me as well as getting phone calls from
the Iraqi leaders because when the Marines were
clearing the city in the largest operation since
Vietnam, very quickly we had an issue of how
to take care of the bodies that were, you know,
we wanted to help bury in line with Islamic custom.
And that, of course, is a very quick timeline.
And so the potato factory was literally a reefer
to store potatoes to keep them cool before they
were turned into potato chips, of all things.
And then that became the location where a bunch
of very brave and, yes, heroic Marines were tasked
day in and day out to pick up bodies and make
sure that we, at least to the extent we could,
figure out what kind of, you know, were they
Syrian fighters or were they a grandfather who
was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And
so the goal of that chapter is to just show the
ugliest face of war, but to also show our military
trying to do its best in basically impossible
situations. And then I end the chapter by pointing
out a character who was very crucial in making
a bad situation a little bit better, and that's
the Grand Mufti, the main religious leader in
the city. And he proved to be incredibly important
when Fallujans came back. wanting to try and
find the bodies of their dead brother, uncle,
mother. And so he became the voice saying, let's
not literally dig up the places where the Marines
had to bury these bodies. And that allowed us
to move to a different chapter. Right. And then
we get to the point of, was this the, I forget
his name now. I can't find it. Sheikh Hamza?
Yes. Is that him? As far as the, yeah, there's
a chapter that I focus on him and Sarah Aljamele,
a female who was detained twice in about two
or three weeks by a Delta Force team. And I wanted
to put that in to show that while our Delta and
special operations forces have a hugely important
role, that sometimes well -meaning objectives
can really undercut the strategic partnering
that we had on, and the net effect there is that
when we took a female twice in a few weeks, Sheikh
Hamza was put even under more pressure by Zarqawi
and al -Qaeda directly. And I'll never forget,
he said, you know, you Americans are putting
me personally at risk by taking this female.
The argument on the special operations side was
that she may have intel and ties to Zarqawi,
so I understood how important that would be,
if true. But what I kept on not getting out of
the embassy and out of JSOC and literally McChrystal
and Tampa eventually was a solid answer. So all
I know is we lost the most important Iraqi in
one of the most important cities in Iraq because
we took a female twice in three weeks. And so
I hope that chapter and those lessons are really
internalized. Not to point fingers, but to say
we all did the best we could, but let's not forget.
stories like those and all of us who are in these
wars have them. Right, and you were talking about
Sheikh Hamza as being so integral in working
in the Fallujah area, not only, as you mentioned,
with the story of the woman, but with the burials
and everything else, and unfortunately, he was
eventually assassinated. Yeah, he was, and when
the ambassador asked me who killed Sheikh Hamza,
I said we did. I mean, it was not an American
bullet, but because of we're our own worst enemy
often because we're so big and we have so much
massive military might that we're not always
I think communicating quickly nor honestly and
I think that was a case study in Iraq and I have
another one in Afghanistan but when we lost the
Pope in Rome and Hamza was like the Pope in Rome
but for you know the city of Mosques the main
religious leader in Fallujah I'm blonde about
it more Americans died and lost their limbs and
so did more civilians so It's not to say we could
have had a crystal ball to walk us out of the
city in a safe and orderly way, but we sure as
hell ought to remember these lessons and also
remember the people. Because when I went back
to Fallujah a few years later, I asked one of
my closest Fallujah contacts, who's the new Grand
Mufti? And they said, there will never be another
Sheikh Hamza. We're coming up on a break right
now, Kale. And so when we come back, I want to
talk about that helicopter mission that really
changed your life so dramatically. We are talking
with Kale Weston here on Veterans Radio. His
book is The Mirror Test, America at War in Iraq
and Afghanistan. You can give us a call if you'd
like to ask them a question. You're not going
to have this opportunity too often. The number
here is 734 -822 -1600. We're on WAM Talk Radio
1600. You're listening to Veterans Radio, and
we'll be back after the news. And we are back
on Veterans Radio and if you're just joining
us our guest today is J. Kale Weston and his
book is The Mirror Test America at War in Iraq
and Afghanistan and I just want to read a little
paragraph that I found on Newsweek .com about
Kale and it says that Weston stands alone in
the annals of modern American diplomacy He spent
more time in Iraq and Afghanistan seven consecutive
years than any other State Department officer
What he did there couldn't have been more different
from traditional cocktail party diplomacy. He
was a political advisor to combat units on the
battlefield where he forged uncommonly honest
and effective relationships with top commanders,
giving him unrivaled influence in shaping war
policy on two fronts. His bravery and persistence
awed his fellow diplomats and prompted several
generals who reserved praise for only the most
deserving to consider him an American hero. I
think that's a pretty good description of our
guest today. So, Kale, just before we went to
the break, I'm assuming that one of the worst
days of your life was when 30 marines and a Navy
corpsman died in a helicopter crash in Anbar
province in Iraq, and you hold yourself responsible.
Could you tell us how that occurred? Yeah, again,
it was a part of the book that wanted in because
it shows the human cost of policy and having
been at the UN Security Council level and the
higher level State Department kind of debating
rooms. This is an example of where policy is
decided and implemented on the ground. It goes
back to your kind of question about the elections.
We had to come up with a plan in early 2005 how
to support the Iraqi political process and of
course we had 38 ,000 Marines and soldiers and
U .S. service members in a very large swath of
the country in the West. The debate inside the
Marine High Command and with me as the embassy
guy was, do we go local and narrow in that mission
in terms of the helicopters, the Humvees, the
seven -ton trucks, everything that gets mobilized
to move ballots and to move Iraqi election personnel,
or do we say to the sunnis out west, whether
you're from a small town or a big city like Fallujah
or Ramadi, you will have and your people will
have, if you're a leader, the opportunity to
vote. I knew what the ambassador wanted me to
do. I knew what the Bush administration, for
that matter, wanted me to do, which was to advocate
that we need to give as many sunnis the chance
to vote. that the dilemma was that they were
telling me on a regular basis the leadership
in in on board particularly for a little bit
they were going to boycott the election because
they were pissed they didn't want to be doing
democracy according to our watch i went into
a room with uh... the the math the marine expeditionary
force uh... leadership and uh... team from ramadi
had been sent to polluted to advance their argument
which is we should just focus on for general
my i ended up saying well If we do, we're going
to gerrymander, and if we do, we're going to
have senior Sunni politicians get on the phone
with the ambassador the next day and say, my
people didn't have a chance to vote. What came
out of that was a decision in effect by me, because
General Halyk at the time said, it's political,
it's your call, was to send Marines far and wide.
And the tragedy was when one of our CH -53s carrying
volunteers for this mission to support the elections
crashed. And it's the largest casualty incident
from both wars to this day. And I, of course,
wish I could go back and have said something
different in that room. But I wrote about it
not to sort of put on paper my own personal drama,
but to show accountability and consequence. And
I don't think there's been enough of that. especially
in the Iraq war but also in Afghanistan and maybe
in my own way I can say listen this is what happens
when you go to war people are going to die and
we should think hard about what the situations
were that led us to the point where we are in
a war and maybe the war was an unnecessary war
and I believe the Iraq war was in that category.
I have a tendency to agree with you on that.
How long were you in Iraq? I was in Iraq for
almost four years. I ended up being asked back
at the tail end of the Bush administration. My
great mentor and boss ambassador, Robert Ford,
had been asked by Condoleezza Rice, Secretary
Rice, to go back to Baghdad while I was in Afghanistan.
And so he asked me to return to Iraq. I was enjoying
my job in the Eastern. mountainous region of
afghanistan which reminded me a lot of utah and
colorado and just landscape i love but i ended
up going back but most of my time in iraq was
spent on bar so that that incident you know in
the book and and i'm getting reactions from readers
across the country and it is it's interesting
that the policy people you know that the literati
people in new york in that eastern corridor I
should have just kept it on the wars, but the
readers in the rest of America say thank you
for bringing us into these hometowns where some
of these service members come from, and not only
where they come from, but where they're buried.
A lot of focus every May on Memorial Day is on
Arlington, and that's an incredibly powerful
place, but most of our veterans. And families,
you know, don't live in the D .C. metro area.
And when they're buried, they're more often buried
in their hometowns. And so most of the 31 angels,
as I call them, the KIA on that helicopter, are
not buried at Arlington. And in the course of
the book, I go to a few and say, you know, let's
get to know these parts of America as well. I
think it's always important, and you mentioned
this in the book, where we were talking with
Kayla Weston, the author of The Mirror Test,
about America at war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And after you got home, there are so many things
in this book that we could talk about for hours,
I think, when you talk about the politics of
both wars. You supported President Obama, but
then when he did the surge, you didn't necessarily
support that. because it was just, you know,
we're stuck there still. Yeah, I wanted this
to be anything but a drive -by book. The more
entertaining book I could have, you know, written
pages and pages about examples that may have
gotten a laugh or, you know, a cutting comment,
but I really wanted this book to be even -handed.
I wanted to be, by the end of it, an honest guide
that a reader could say, he had his views, you
know, he's a person like all of us. I vote every
four years for commander in chief, but when I
saw administrations making good or bad decisions,
I wanted them to be captured in a genuine way.
And so when President Obama escalated while we
were there, I mean, those were our Marines. It's
not like I was writing from a university or I
was writing from another part of Afghanistan.
I mean, Cal Worth battalion. landed in southern
afghanistan and helman when president obama decided
to search because of quote will the search worked
in in iraq well i had lived both searches and
so as i wrote this book i wanted to kind of unwrap
some of the the layers that maybe you're misunderstood
or the mythology that's tied to the ground up
level of these wars and then i had insights like
you say, to some of the higher level decision
making. And it was a tricky book to write. And
I think that's also probably why it ended up
being a very long book is that there was a lot
to a lot of ground to cover. Well, it's a good
read, but it's not it's not a hard read. I mean,
it's a hard emotional to read, but it's not a
hard read because it just everything and it seems
to make sense because you know, most of us don't
know who really makes these decisions. especially
in the military, you know, the guy that's, you
know, the private on the ground or the E4 or
Spec 4, whatever it is, you know, he's told to
just go take that mountain. And, you know, oh,
okay, why? You know, because, you know, we never
ask the why part of it. And I think what's interesting
in reading your book is that we can see the process,
you know, some of the process that you have to
go through before that decision is made to take
that mountain. Right, and I've heard from some
corporals who are now a bit grayer and 10 or
12 years older and maybe 40 pounds heavier, and
they email me from across the country and say,
thank you for showing us what was going on inside
Camp Fallujah at the time that Fallujah was being
cleared, or thank you for at least trying to
inform sort of what the Hellman strategy was
when Marja became the main focus with an anti
-poppy plan. You know the book does a lot and
it's moving at a pretty quick pace, but I decided
the value I had was the length of time I'd been
in these wars and that I had been in some pretty
rough spots where all of these counterinsurgency
challenges sort of were being tested and whether
we succeeded or failed. you know it it it it
is a pretty wide lens of these wars and i find
the veterans get that that you know to look at
the politics of an election and then to look
at the tactics of coordination to coordination
with the british and helmand uh... is probably
one of the advantages my book hopefully gives
the reader by the end of it that you get a pretty
wide sense of these wars it's not a one man one
city uh... exploration it's seven years in two
wars And then, when you decided to get out of
the State Department, why did you do that? That's
a very good question. I missed that role. I tell
students, and I've been invited to colleges and
universities. I was in Oregon fairly recently,
and I said, there's no greater honor or challenge
than representing the United States, dot, dot,
dot. particularly in a time of war. And so I
encourage the next generation, whether they want
to join the military, my dad and uncle's Royal
Army, a lot of my buddies are Marines, or the
State Department, the Foreign Service, USAID,
that there is an incredibly rewarding aspect
of waking up every day representing what I still
consider to be the greatest country in the world.
There's a weird sub -debate going on about that.
But I end my book by describing the US as a great
nation. It was before, you know, President Trump
made that sort of a line of his own. I had written
this book years before, really. So I left because
I was burned out. I left because I was disaffected
with just the human cost of war. Because in addition
to our troops, you know, I still get the emails
and the phone calls from Iraqis and Afghans who
are living the wars even in a more intense way
because Their home front remains a war front
right and while we could redeploy They never
can so I needed a break from that and then finally
I wanted to write a book I couldn't have written
the type of book by doing a State Department
job, and I think my conscience Wouldn't allow
me to try and try and do it that way well since
that time period though you You have attempted
to visit many of the gravestones and many of
the families of those marines who were killed
in that helicopter crash. Is that correct? I
have. And I find I can't do more than one or
two a year. So yeah, I'd like to do homework
about who these Americans were, who served our
nation, where they went to high school. kind
of what their own unique story was and and the
reason why and i'm grateful for cannot from my
publisher who allowed me the extra pages as i
want to show that when that little scroll on
the bottom of the tv says you know another soldier
or marina airman or maybe uh... korman was killed
it's usually you know name age and maybe hometown
but at least in three cases texas uh... and and
and wyoming in iowa I try and resurrect, maybe
that's an overstated word, but I try and bring
them a bit back to life by describing who they
were, because that's really the story of warfare,
I think, over time, is that it's not about kings
and generals and presidents and prime ministers.
It's truly about the people who live the wars
on a day -to -day basis and don't get a vote
in how they start or how they end. Could you
tell us a little bit about a couple of those
grave sites that you visited? Yeah, I'll focus
on maybe the one in Iowa because it was very
powerful. I went at a time when it was springtime
and very beautiful, very much on Iraq. And as
I drove into Cherokee, Iowa, I just was taking
in what this town was like. And by the time I
had done my jog around the town and went to the
local high school, I realized, wait a minute,
he's buried a little bit outside of town. And
when I got there, the most powerful part is that
I hadn't realized that this Marine had been killed
literally the day before his birthday. And that
was pretty hard to take. And then you look at
the gravesite and you think, oh my gosh, his
father is buried literally right next to him.
Nathan Schubert is his name and that kind of
again I wanted to add some pages in my book to
say here's one kid from the cornfields of Iowa.
He died in a helicopter crash in a very remote
part of Ombar. I also start the book in Wyoming.
I'm from the West and I have a lot of pride in
that and I wanted to kind of talk about a former
drill instructor who was also on a helicopter.
And at the very end of the book, gratefully to
my editor's credit, he let me just put the words
of the family and friends about each of these
KIA, and I think that's probably the most powerful
writing in the whole book, and it's not my own.
I think it is extremely powerful. I'm a big fan,
supporter, I guess you can say, of memorials.
And one of the reasons is, and I can't remember
if I read it in your book or one of the articles
while researching for you to be on the program
today, where somebody said, you know, the memorials
just allow people to remember, you know, who
died in many cases. And if there wasn't a memorial,
then that person would be forgotten forever.
Yeah, and the most powerful memorial, you know,
is the home. The hometown of a city where the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is from South Boston,
General Dunford, and he features in the book
because he was a one -star when this election
support decision was being made. He says, if
you forget my death, then I will have died in
vain. I still believe that's the cleanest, most
powerful set of words about whether people were
for the Iraq war, against the Iraq war, believe
we should be in Afghanistan or get the hell out
of Afghanistan. that these memorials are a chance
to remember, and to the credit of the current
commandant of the Marine Corps General Neller,
he's pretty much set up a website, and he's in
effect ordered Marines to get together. And I
think that when we gathered in Leadville, Colorado
one summer, we all, the Marines especially, wanted
two or three days, but that was enough to sort
of, what you're doing with your own radio program,
tell the stories, retell the stories. and make
sure that there's those connections that veterans
need when they're out of uniform, and like you
say, until they're at the local VA hospital in
Ann Arbor. or in Denver or wherever they may
be. I think one of the things that veterans like
to do is when they do tell their stories to each
other is that they just want to validate that
it's true. Because sometimes, you know, when
you're 60, 70 years old and you're talking about
something happened when you're 18 or 19, you're
hoping you're not getting all foggy. And when
you're with your buddies and they say, hey, you
remember when you did, you know, you took that
hill almost by yourself. Well, I know that, you
know, I'm only seven years out of some of these
experiences and I still have to triple and double
check, you know, what I wrote in my little notebook
or what was told to a friend at the same time
while we were over there. But I think that's
what, you know, the reunions do and I think that
the writing that's coming out of these wars is
exciting because I think it takes some time to
filter some of the experiences and whether people
write great novels or poetry or just pull out
their journal and take some excerpts from there.
I'm a believer that, you know, in the good old
Ken Burns fashion, I love documentaries and there's
a big new one coming out on Vietnam, I understand.
Right. I was always blown away back in high school
when he did the Civil War series, and so the
Soldier's War Journal at the end of my book,
I would also point readers to, which, again,
to the credit of my publisher, they gave me more
pages and never said, well, that's going to cost
us 30 more cents per book. And what I love about
that is that there's a soldier named Balen Orr
who went to Sadr City, and he sent me kind of
unexpectedly just excerpts from his journal,
and it reminds me that, again, some of the most
powerful writing to come out of any war. It's
just the soldier or the Marine getting in a scrap
of paper every night and saying, you know, here's
what happened. Well, now they're on computers,
so it's maybe easier to get. And I hope that
one day, you know, the great documentary will
be done of, you know, Iraq and Afghanistan, and
you can have the the voice of the corporal next
to the voice of a General Nicholson or a General
Dunford. I think it's always so important. I
agree. I love those documentaries too, especially
when we hear the voices or the stories of the
people that are on the lower levels who have
to execute the orders and so forth. If your listeners
have never watched the British British television's
The World at War from 1973. It's by far, I mean
it's the iconic series and there's one titled
Occupation, which is a Dutch experience and from
the civilian point of view and it is the most
powerful documentary making I have ever, I've
ever. And so I actually reference that in my
book, hoping that it's just three readers that
could go online and watch it. It does. It does.
I have watched many of those documentaries myself.
We've got about five minutes to go, Cale. So
you're not done yet. You've gotten yourself involved
in another little project here that I want to
kind of transition to about war dogs. Can you
tell me a little bit about how you got involved
with that? Yeah, General Nicholson and I were
invited to a Semper Fi Fond fundraiser in Alexandria,
Virginia, and a Marine walked up to me afterward.
Of course, he was intimidated to go to the General
directly right away and said, you know, I have
a military working dog that I'm trying to get
reunited with. It's been, I think at that point,
two years or so. And his dog was named Freeze.
And so I said, hey, I'm happy to help try and
track down where your black lab freeze is, because
I got to know some of these dogs when I was over
in Hellman, too. And I like dogs. I had some
dogs while I was growing up. So that case was
relatively easy. General Nicholson and I and
a lot of well -meaning other people managed to
track Freeze down, and we were able to reunite
him pretty quickly. The more challenging dog
reunion happened when I received an email from
a mother about her marine son, Matt, and his
dog, Rocky. And there's a chapter in my book
about that because amid some of the harder chapters,
this, I think, was a story of a bond that anyone
who's had a pet, particularly a dog, can relate
to, and especially in a place where these dogs
are trained to sniff out IEDs. And so Matt and
Rocky were eventually reunited, but only after
we were able to track him down as one of the
bird dogs for the president's helicopter fleet,
Marine One. So that took a bit more fancy footwork
and keyboard work on my part, but to the credit
of the Marine Corps, the colonel in charge of
Marine One, and with some generals obviously
in oversight and overwatch position, realized
that this dog really should be back with the
Marine who had fought alongside him in Hellman
versus you know, being a pointer dog toward,
I don't know, what kind of birds fly around the
swamps of Virginia. So we got them reunited.
And it's, I think, something that's still going
on with many Marines and their dogs. And you're
starting to get some good books written about
the dogs in these wars. Yeah. There's a Michigan
war dog memorial here just north of Ann Arbor.
And one of the reasons, it kind of fell into
disrepair. somebody found it, you know, overgrown
in the woods and so forth. And one of the reasons
that they cleaned it all up and everything was
that there was an Iraq veteran, I think it was,
who was finally able to get his dog, and I think
he was in the army, and he was finally able to
get his dog, and unfortunately the dog died of
cancer, and they wouldn't let the dog be buried
in a national cemetery at the time. And so...
these people at the Michigan War Dog Memorial
buried the dog with full military honors and
just got everybody all excited and I think that
what has happened is that the military has been
much more cooperative with getting these war
dogs reunited with their owners. Yeah, that's
a huge part of the after war that we shouldn't
forget and I'm glad to hear that because it's
also a way to bring I think the general population
closer to these wars because people can relate
to dogs in a way that maybe when they look at
the globe can't. That's true. The dog stories
are our most popular programs. Well, I have a
good dog chapter titled Semper Fido and the Sierras.
So Semper Fido was one of the more fun chapters
to write. We'll have to do that. You're also
involved with it. Is it the spirit of America?
Yeah, thank you for asking. It's a great private
nonprofit group. We're based in L .A. now. A
lot of them are back and working out of D .C.
A lot of veterans who lived these wars up close
wanted to stay involved. And so Spirit of America
was founded by a gentleman named Jim Hake, who's
an incredible entrepreneur who had done early
work in the Bay Area on the technology side and
then decided on 9 -11, hey, I need to do something.
that story spirit america because it shows what
the private non -governmental innovative side
of america can do and then americans who hear
about it and decide hey i wanna i wanna help
and they work very closely with our military
and they are able i think too i like to use the
word inoculate trying inoculate areas so that
they don't become the terrorists safe havens
or they don't become the places where seal and
Delta Force teams need to go in, or drones need
to fly above, or hell, State Department officials
go in and work the local politics. So it's a
chapter that I think also shows that after 9
-11, some citizens did some good and innovative
things. And I wanted the reader to maybe think,
well, hey, I don't need to have my son or daughter
join the Marine Corps to help. Maybe I can go
online and check out Spirit of America. We are
going to get more people to do that. Maybe I
can utilize you to put me in touch with some
of the people there and get them on. I'd love
to have you invite Spirit of America, Jim Hake,
and his team on. They would be a great, great
guest. Okay. Well, we've come up to the end of
another hour, and Kale, I want to thank you so
very much for being on Veterans Radio. This book
is something that all of you need to read out
there. I think it's so important. It's called
The Mirror Test. And The Mirror Test, in this
case, is that we have to look at how we're getting
involved in these wars around the world. And
so thank you so much for being on the program.
I look forward to talking to you again. Thank
you, Dale and Nina. I appreciate the opportunity.
OK. All right, so another one's in the can, as
they say. And I thank you all for listening to
Veterans Radio. We will be back next week. We're
going to be looking at World War II with the
Bataan Death March. Until then, you are dismissed.