# Former Green Beret and SMU Operator | David Carmichael | Ep. 412

An episode of [The Team House](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1492797340), 14 May 2026, 59 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/71994543/davids_carmichael_tfo_spreaker.mp3

David Carmichael joins us to discuss his memoir Gray Man: A Life Lived Under the Radar, tracing his life from growing up in missionary communities across West Africa to surviving abusive boarding schools and eventually finding his way into the U.S. Army. He breaks down his path through 5th Special Forces Group, the old Q Course, Somalia, HUMINT work, Korea, and the mindset that shaped a career spent largely out of the spotlight. Grab David's book here: https://a.co/d/0aAJUNtF GhostBed ⬇️ https://www.ghostbed.com/house FOR 10% off! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics...JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ PRE ORDER JACK'S NEW BOOK "THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN" ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/803651/the-most-dangerous-man-by-jack-murphy/paperback/ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" 00:00 — Start 00:51 — Growing up as a missionary kid in West Africa 03:18 — Life near Timbuktu: mud huts, no electricity, and isolation 04:17 — Sent to boarding school at six years old 07:10 — Abuse, censorship, and surviving missionary boarding schools 10:26 — Returning home, moving schools, and culture shock in America 13:16 — Leaving strict religion behind and joining the Army 15:01 — Chasing Special Forces and finding a path into 5th Group 20:48 — The old Q Course, Camp Mackall, and earning the Green Beret 24:09 — Somalia MTT: training local forces after the Soviets left 28:29 — Selection, HUMINT training, and becoming a military “Grey Man” 34:26 — Family life, Korea, Panmunjom, and dealing with North Koreans 44:42 — DCI award, retirement, and choosing family over promotion 48:27 — Building a scuba and military gear business after the Army 52:03 — Reconnecting with family and lessons from his father 54:31 — Writing Gray Man: A Life Lived Under the Radar 58:15 — Business lessons, honesty, and closing thoughts Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Hey, folks, this is episode four hundred and twelve of
[0:03] Speaker 1: The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with our guest
[0:06] Speaker 1: on the show, David Carmichael. He is the author of
[0:09] Speaker 1: Gray Man, A Life Lived under the Radar. You guys
[0:13] Speaker 1: can go and find this book on Amazon right now.
[0:16] Speaker 1: I read the kindle version, but I also have a
[0:18] Speaker 1: hard copy here. It is about David's life growing up.
[0:22] Speaker 1: He had a very interesting upbringing, growing up largely in Africa,
[0:27] Speaker 1: and then it chronicles some of his journey through the
[0:31] Speaker 1: army as well. So, Michael, thank you for joining us.
[0:36] Speaker 1: We really appreciate it.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. I do too.
[0:42] Speaker 1: So I guess to start at the beginning, David, I mean,
[0:46] Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about you know, your family background.
[0:50] Speaker 2: My grandparents immigrated from Scotland right well, originally during the
[1:00] Speaker 2: just before the depression, and when the depression hit they
[1:04] Speaker 2: headed back to England and came back just before the
[1:08] Speaker 2: war started to the States. My father was born in
[1:12] Speaker 2: England and then he married my mother here in the
[1:16] Speaker 2: States and they decided to become a missionaries. So they
[1:21] Speaker 2: my grandparents were already missionaries in Ghana, which was at
[1:25] Speaker 2: the time was the West Coast, Gold Coast in West Africa.
[1:31] Speaker 2: That's where my father grew up. He came back to
[1:34] Speaker 2: the States, got married, and he went back, and I
[1:37] Speaker 2: grew up in Mali, mostly with trips to boarding schools
[1:42] Speaker 2: throughout West Africa, and I was there from nineteen fifty
[1:46] Speaker 2: six to till I came to the States to go
[1:50] Speaker 2: to college and joined the military. So my parents were
[1:54] Speaker 2: out there for twenty seven years. My brother grew up
[1:59] Speaker 2: out there and he went back to Africa for mostly
[2:02] Speaker 2: the rest of his life. So they have a long history,
[2:05] Speaker 2: and particularly in West Africa back then, well, when we
[2:12] Speaker 2: first got there, the countries were French West Africa. They
[2:16] Speaker 2: were colonized by the French or in some cases the British,
[2:20] Speaker 2: and there was a pretty good life and a long
[2:23] Speaker 2: About nineteen sixty sixty one, most of those countries got
[2:27] Speaker 2: their independence and turned directly towards the Eastern Bloc China,
[2:33] Speaker 2: North Korea, East Germany, Russia who came in the country,
[2:38] Speaker 2: and it wasn't so great a living after that. So
[2:44] Speaker 2: I grew up in a little town near Timbuktu, which
[2:49] Speaker 2: is the fabled city stuff on the north side of
[2:54] Speaker 2: the Niger River at the edge of the Sahara Desert.
[3:00] Speaker 2: We would travel from there down country to boarding schools
[3:04] Speaker 2: in Guinea and Ivory coasts and stuff. We lived for
[3:08] Speaker 2: the first twelve years we lived in a mud hut,
[3:11] Speaker 2: no electricity, no running water. And yeah, about twelve years
[3:21] Speaker 2: in my father got a little low nine generator so
[3:25] Speaker 2: we had a little bit of electure streitty at night
[3:28] Speaker 2: to listen to the DBC in Voice of America. There
[3:34] Speaker 2: was little to no communication. The only communication was the
[3:39] Speaker 2: government land line down at the government post office, and
[3:44] Speaker 2: it worked if the camels didn't he didn't eat the lines,
[3:50] Speaker 2: so it could take weeks literally to get information in
[3:54] Speaker 2: and out back. Then all the mail came in by
[3:59] Speaker 2: the occasion, you know, airplane or up the river on
[4:04] Speaker 2: the on the riverboats. So that was my life. I
[4:08] Speaker 2: I would go off to I went off to boarding
[4:10] Speaker 2: school as a six year old the first time and
[4:14] Speaker 2: spend eight months away from my parents in the uh
[4:19] Speaker 2: the mountains of Guinea. So yeah, boarding schools weren't fun
[4:29] Speaker 2: as you can as you can read in the book
[4:32] Speaker 2: we went, you know they were. There were hard times
[4:35] Speaker 2: at boarding schools, and my book, if anything is the
[4:40] Speaker 2: story of resilience, it's of living that life, going to
[4:46] Speaker 2: those boarding schools and still you know, having a successful
[4:52] Speaker 2: military career and a successful business career, and so, you know,
[4:56] Speaker 2: I hope that some other some young person who struggling
[5:01] Speaker 2: will maybe read it and realize that they don't have
[5:04] Speaker 2: to they don't have to live under the circumstances they
[5:07] Speaker 2: were built.
[5:08] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, yeah, let's talk about that a little bit more.
[5:12] Speaker 1: I mean, six years old is pretty young to be
[5:15] Speaker 1: separated from your parents. And I mean, but in their mind,
[5:20] Speaker 1: I mean, I remember in the book you mentioned that
[5:22] Speaker 1: your father went to boarding school. So did they felt
[5:25] Speaker 1: that they were kind of giving you a proper education
[5:29] Speaker 1: even though you were out in the wilds of West Africa?
[5:31] Speaker 1: Was that kind of the thought.
[5:33] Speaker 2: I mean, that's part of it. But the reality was
[5:37] Speaker 2: that the missions, pretty much all missions at the time,
[5:42] Speaker 2: felt that the missionaries could not could not win the
[5:49] Speaker 2: hearts and souls of the Africans if they were busy
[5:53] Speaker 2: teaching their children in school. And there was extreme pressure
[5:58] Speaker 2: on the missionaries at the time, not just our mission,
[6:01] Speaker 2: but others to send their kids off the boarding school.
[6:05] Speaker 2: The option, you know, there was an option of doing homeschooling,
[6:08] Speaker 2: but I said it was highly discouraged back in those days.
[6:12] Speaker 2: It's only been in the you know, in the last
[6:16] Speaker 2: thirty years that all the abuses and problems of boarding
[6:21] Speaker 2: schools came out and it's gotten a lot of attention
[6:24] Speaker 2: and not you know, not only well all boarding schools,
[6:29] Speaker 2: including Catholic schools, and you know, all that stuff. So
[6:33] Speaker 2: nowadays people wonder, how the heck did you ever do it,
[6:37] Speaker 2: especially you know, a mother sending off for a six
[6:39] Speaker 2: year old. But it was kind of what was expected
[6:43] Speaker 2: at the time, and.
[6:46] Speaker 1: So the first boarding school was a gone. I you
[6:48] Speaker 1: were six years old, I mean you were very young,
[6:51] Speaker 1: but you do relate some of those experiences. I mean,
[6:54] Speaker 1: what do you remember about that first run at boarding school?
[6:59] Speaker 2: Well, I said, I was six years old. My parents
[7:02] Speaker 2: couldn't take me to school that first year, so I
[7:06] Speaker 2: rode with another missionary family and you know, you get
[7:12] Speaker 2: into the uh the Highlands of Guineas beautiful, beautiful area,
[7:17] Speaker 2: but you know in the boarding school and there was
[7:22] Speaker 2: dorm parents and teachers that you know, we're rough on you.
[7:28] Speaker 2: It was, you know, it's a rough life. There was
[7:32] Speaker 2: a lot of abuse. Females had a lot of sexual abuse,
[7:37] Speaker 2: males had a lot of mental, spiritual, and physical abuse.
[7:44] Speaker 2: You were required to write a letter home each week,
[7:49] Speaker 2: but that letter never went out unless the dorm parents
[7:53] Speaker 2: approved it, and they highly censor that they would make
[7:55] Speaker 2: you change whatever. So parents for the most part didn't
[7:59] Speaker 2: know what was going on, and they learned some when
[8:04] Speaker 2: you came home. But you know, I went that first year.
[8:07] Speaker 2: The semesters were set up in four months semesters with
[8:10] Speaker 2: a two week break in between, and if your parents could,
[8:14] Speaker 2: they could come down and spend take you to wherever
[8:19] Speaker 2: for two weeks on a vacation. But that first year,
[8:22] Speaker 2: my parents weren't able to come, so I spent eight
[8:25] Speaker 2: months that first year. You know away, it's kind of
[8:30] Speaker 2: you know, that's not what you want for a six
[8:31] Speaker 2: year old, I guess. Yeah.
[8:33] Speaker 1: Some of the things you describe like in the book,
[8:36] Speaker 1: I mean it goes beyond like you know, hitting the
[8:39] Speaker 1: kid's knuckles with a ruler or you know, occasional paddle
[8:42] Speaker 1: because somebody acts up. I mean, some of the things
[8:45] Speaker 1: you describe, it almost sounds like a kind of cult.
[8:50] Speaker 2: Well, the problem in those cases was that the people
[8:57] Speaker 2: that the missions chose to be dorm parents were often
[9:03] Speaker 2: missionaries who didn't do well in other places, and they
[9:08] Speaker 2: were relegated to that job and in some cases they
[9:11] Speaker 2: didn't want to be there, and they were just mean
[9:13] Speaker 2: and abusive. There's no other way to put it. So yeah,
[9:18] Speaker 2: everything that was described in that book, and I didn't
[9:21] Speaker 2: even touch the surface because I gave a lot of references.
[9:26] Speaker 2: And there's a video series on YouTube called All God's Children,
[9:34] Speaker 2: All God's Children. The documentary it's what, It's what, it's
[9:38] Speaker 2: to look it up, and it gets a highly detailed
[9:42] Speaker 2: account of all that abuse that went on. And the
[9:45] Speaker 2: people that made that video were my roommates. The rich
[9:51] Speaker 2: dar one of the primaries in the video was my roommate.
[9:54] Speaker 2: His brother was a year older. So I was there.
[9:58] Speaker 2: I was involved in everything you've seen that video. So
[10:02] Speaker 2: that's if someone is further interested in abuse that went
[10:05] Speaker 2: on at boarding schools, that's a great video to watch.
[10:08] Speaker 2: But I'm listed a bunch of other references there as well.
[10:13] Speaker 1: And after that was over and you know, you went
[10:16] Speaker 1: back to your parents after eight months, sort of how
[10:19] Speaker 1: did your life pick up from there?
[10:22] Speaker 2: You know, when you went home after eight months for
[10:27] Speaker 2: a three month break, it was you know, start out
[10:29] Speaker 2: with you know, euphoria, you're back with your family. Everybody's
[10:33] Speaker 2: happy to see each other. You know. We spent a
[10:37] Speaker 2: great three months hunting and fishing in our in our time.
[10:40] Speaker 2: It was it was, it was great, you know. And
[10:43] Speaker 2: then then all of a sudden, you're a couple of
[10:46] Speaker 2: weeks away from going back and everything gets somber again,
[10:49] Speaker 2: and you're off doing it all over again. So that
[10:52] Speaker 2: went on. You know, that went on for three or
[10:56] Speaker 2: four years for me in Guinea, and then the president
[11:01] Speaker 2: of the country at the time, Sekuture, kicked all the
[11:04] Speaker 2: Westerners out, and so we went to another boarding school
[11:08] Speaker 2: in the Ivory Coast called Ivory Coast Academy, and it
[11:12] Speaker 2: was much much better from a standpoint of use. It's
[11:16] Speaker 2: a much better school. So I spent three or four
[11:19] Speaker 2: years there, and then I came back to the States
[11:23] Speaker 2: in time to finish high school and shortly after that
[11:27] Speaker 2: joined the military. But you know, coming back to the
[11:32] Speaker 2: Western world or to the States after being in Africa,
[11:36] Speaker 2: we typically we'd stay in Africa four years at a time.
[11:39] Speaker 2: Then we'd come home for a year and my parents
[11:41] Speaker 2: would go around and you know, talk to their churches
[11:44] Speaker 2: and raise supports of But we kids are clothes were
[11:49] Speaker 2: ten years out of date. Our social norms were out
[11:52] Speaker 2: of date. We were coming back to kids in high
[11:57] Speaker 2: school who had grown up together, been on the piece,
[12:00] Speaker 2: we leagues together, all knew each other, and we were
[12:03] Speaker 2: you know, we just didn't fit in, you know. And
[12:07] Speaker 2: even if you know, our parents, missionaries live on the
[12:12] Speaker 2: on what the churches give them and what they you know,
[12:15] Speaker 2: so they don't have a lot of money, so they
[12:18] Speaker 2: weren't buying us the latest clothes and you know, the
[12:22] Speaker 2: latest things that a teenager would want to have to
[12:26] Speaker 2: fit in. So even coming back to the United States,
[12:29] Speaker 2: it was you know, it was quite a culture shock. Yeah. Yeah.
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[14:15] Speaker 2: Bye.
[14:19] Speaker 1: So you come back to finish high school and I
[14:22] Speaker 1: guess before moving on, I mean, and maybe you didn't
[14:25] Speaker 1: even know this at the time, but looking back on that,
[14:28] Speaker 1: you clearly were raised with a strong Christian upbringing. Did
[14:32] Speaker 1: some of those negative experiences in your early life kind
[14:36] Speaker 1: of like carry over and did they affect either your
[14:38] Speaker 1: faith or you know, how you kind of proceeded through
[14:42] Speaker 1: the rest of your early years.
[14:45] Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, growing up it was twice on Sunday
[14:49] Speaker 2: and at least once during the week, and revivals. Who
[14:52] Speaker 2: were everybody? You know, if you didn't get on your
[14:55] Speaker 2: knees at the altar every time you made a call,
[14:57] Speaker 2: you were you were you know, shame. That's what I
[15:01] Speaker 2: grew up with. And then I briefly went to a
[15:05] Speaker 2: Bible college in the States, and about the time I
[15:09] Speaker 2: turned twenty years old, I divorced myself from all that.
[15:13] Speaker 2: I joined the army and I basically left all that
[15:19] Speaker 2: behind me at that time. That's not to say I
[15:23] Speaker 2: haven't gone to church, but I've gone to some churches,
[15:27] Speaker 2: not often, frankly, but some churches that are more liberal
[15:32] Speaker 2: than me. The Baptist then Baptist, you know, the Baptist
[15:35] Speaker 2: I grew up with was you didn't smoke, drink or chew, dance,
[15:39] Speaker 2: go with girls that do. You didn't go to the movies.
[15:44] Speaker 2: There was a time where we weren't allowed to do
[15:46] Speaker 2: anything strenuous on Sunday. You know. It was that kind
[15:49] Speaker 2: of a very conservative upbringing. It so once I joined
[15:53] Speaker 2: the military, you know, I kind of left it up.
[15:58] Speaker 2: And it was it was many years after that before
[16:03] Speaker 2: I even really reconnected with my family. I wasn't it
[16:08] Speaker 2: odds with my family, but they were overseas. I was overseas.
[16:11] Speaker 2: I was going in the military. We just didn't have
[16:14] Speaker 2: much time to interact. And it wasn't until basically after
[16:18] Speaker 2: I retired from the military that I and settled down
[16:21] Speaker 2: a little bit that I reconnected with even my family.
[16:24] Speaker 2: But so, to answer your question, I guess I would
[16:28] Speaker 2: consider myself spiritual but not religious.
[16:31] Speaker 1: No, I get it. And so it sounds like the
[16:35] Speaker 1: army was kind of an escape in a lot of
[16:37] Speaker 1: ways for you.
[16:39] Speaker 2: It was, you know, I had to from my earliest days.
[16:43] Speaker 2: I can remember wanting to be a soldier. I can
[16:46] Speaker 2: remember playing army. It's something I just always wanted to do.
[16:50] Speaker 2: And but yes, it was an escape I initially, you know,
[16:55] Speaker 2: and I always wanted to be an elite whatever. So
[17:00] Speaker 2: in my mind that was Special Forces, right, So I
[17:04] Speaker 2: went in and delayed entry program with their what they
[17:07] Speaker 2: call the guarantee back then, or their contract to be
[17:11] Speaker 2: able to try out for Special Forces. And then and
[17:15] Speaker 2: then I hurt my knee playing college soccer and they
[17:17] Speaker 2: reneged on that. So I said, well should I'm going
[17:23] Speaker 2: in anyway? So I went in. They put me in
[17:26] Speaker 2: a sayvi ONYX mechanic. I spent three years doing that,
[17:30] Speaker 2: and I then I got out for a period of
[17:32] Speaker 2: time and then you know, I said to myself, you know,
[17:35] Speaker 2: I've always had this goal. I'm going to go do it.
[17:39] Speaker 2: So I signed back up, re enlisted, and with a
[17:45] Speaker 2: guarantee to go to airborne school. That's what happened.
[17:49] Speaker 1: And you had to finagle your way into Special Forces
[17:52] Speaker 1: after that.
[17:53] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for better or worse. When they when they
[17:59] Speaker 2: sent me to Brag I went to eighteenth Airborne Court
[18:03] Speaker 2: Repo Depot or I was supposed to. But this is
[18:06] Speaker 2: when I hit brag. I went over to uh fifth
[18:11] Speaker 2: Special Force Group and I asked to see his dart
[18:15] Speaker 2: and major pretty ballsy I suppose for a spec form,
[18:18] Speaker 2: but yeah, he saw me and I said, look, I
[18:22] Speaker 2: grew up in Africa, I speak these languages, and then
[18:26] Speaker 2: you know, I'd be wasted somewhere else. You really, I
[18:29] Speaker 2: really liked you to put me on Special Forces and
[18:31] Speaker 2: he didn't. So that's how I got into in the
[18:35] Speaker 2: fifth Group. Now, once I was in there, I let
[18:40] Speaker 2: him be known that I wanted to go to the
[18:42] Speaker 2: Q course, but of course, only uh the uh, only
[18:47] Speaker 2: the hardcore skills guys that were you know, the type
[18:53] Speaker 2: of people that aren't eighteens. That's what they were sending
[18:56] Speaker 2: Q course. But it turned out at the command of
[18:59] Speaker 2: decided I did at the time that they won an
[19:02] Speaker 2: intel and opskys with the teams, and that they were
[19:06] Speaker 2: going to deploy with the teams. They needed to have
[19:09] Speaker 2: all the same training instant teams. So that's how I
[19:12] Speaker 2: was able to get into the Q course.
[19:15] Speaker 1: And what about what year was this that you got
[19:17] Speaker 1: the fifth group?
[19:19] Speaker 2: Seventy eight, seventy eight? Okay, I went through Yuori in
[19:27] Speaker 2: the winter of seventy nine eighty.
[19:29] Speaker 1: So it's probably like Colonel Montell was the commander at
[19:32] Speaker 1: the time.
[19:34] Speaker 2: Yeah, that name rings Abelia and Maxim start. Maxim had
[19:41] Speaker 2: just left. He wasn't he wasn't attack. I think he
[19:45] Speaker 2: might have left the class before I got there.
[19:50] Speaker 1: And I think I think Mark Boyott and Taffy Carlin
[19:54] Speaker 1: were both either lieutenants or captains at the time in
[19:58] Speaker 1: Fifth Group. They've both passed on unfortunately.
[20:01] Speaker 2: But who is the the colonel that cut down all
[20:08] Speaker 2: his Koreans with a with an axe with a shovel?
[20:11] Speaker 1: Oh shit, I do he's Medal of Honor recipient. Yeah,
[20:18] Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I can't remember his name.
[20:19] Speaker 2: I think I feel like he was, of course at
[20:23] Speaker 2: my level. I'm not exactly sure, but I think he
[20:26] Speaker 2: was the guy that was in charge of training. Yeah.
[20:32] Speaker 1: And so when they brought you into Fifth Group, you're you're,
[20:35] Speaker 1: you know, a part of the unit. But as you
[20:37] Speaker 1: point out yourself in the book, I mean, you're not
[20:39] Speaker 1: a Green Beret just yet until you graduate the Q
[20:42] Speaker 1: course of what did they have you doing at the unit?
[20:44] Speaker 2: In the meantime, I was brought into the ATO first
[20:49] Speaker 2: am I Battalion and so I was doing, you know
[20:53] Speaker 2: what what young intel guy's doing an m I battalion. Well,
[20:57] Speaker 2: but frankly I wasn't. Wasn't there that long before I
[21:01] Speaker 2: went off to selection And then and then not long
[21:05] Speaker 2: after selection, I got picked up for OCS.
[21:10] Speaker 1: So how did that happen?
[21:11] Speaker 2: You?
[21:12] Speaker 1: Did? You? You applied for OCS at the same time
[21:14] Speaker 1: you were applied to selection.
[21:16] Speaker 2: Yeah, I had applied for SyES about the same time. Well,
[21:19] Speaker 2: when I got to the unit and uh, I mean
[21:22] Speaker 2: not the unit A O first in the fifth group,
[21:26] Speaker 2: and uh, you know, I've basically forgotten about it, And
[21:30] Speaker 2: it came through some time after I finished the Q
[21:32] Speaker 2: course not too long after that. So obviously normal SF
[21:40] Speaker 2: guys going through the Q course, their second phase phase
[21:44] Speaker 2: two is whatever their their discipline is. In our case,
[21:49] Speaker 2: they basically put us through an EiV course basically to
[21:54] Speaker 2: train us to be all in all the infantry skills.
[21:58] Speaker 2: So that that was the phase two that they put
[22:01] Speaker 2: our group through. I don't know how many of the
[22:05] Speaker 2: group there was probably about twenty oh and I guys,
[22:11] Speaker 2: maybe ten twenty. I don't know how many made it through.
[22:15] Speaker 1: No idea, what else would do you recall about the
[22:20] Speaker 1: Q course. At that time, those were sort of still
[22:23] Speaker 1: sort of the early days of Special Forces as it
[22:25] Speaker 1: was getting more formalized.
[22:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, one thing I know, or I realized from seeing
[22:34] Speaker 2: the way things are you know now, is the unit
[22:41] Speaker 2: itself put us through our pre pre course training. And
[22:46] Speaker 2: not only they did that whether you were going to
[22:50] Speaker 2: scuba school or whatever, but for the you didn't have
[22:54] Speaker 2: like right now, I think they got like two or
[22:56] Speaker 2: three different levels of pre selection before you ever get
[23:00] Speaker 2: to it to Camp McCall. Anyway, I went to Camp
[23:04] Speaker 2: McCall at that time. They were the old wooden barracks. Uh,
[23:10] Speaker 2: you know, there was no heat obviously, there was no
[23:15] Speaker 2: hot water, and you know, we did our time at
[23:19] Speaker 2: Camp McCall like everybody else did, you know, beating uh
[23:22] Speaker 2: you know, doing the rucksack marches and hoping we weren't
[23:25] Speaker 2: the last guy through the gate. I never did have
[23:28] Speaker 2: to beat the gates, but uh yeah, it was you know,
[23:33] Speaker 2: it was tough. And then Phase three it was wintertime
[23:37] Speaker 2: in North Carolina, so it was cold a lot of
[23:42] Speaker 2: ice and cold rain and stuff. Oddly enough, but my
[23:46] Speaker 2: hobby now is restoring old land rovers. So I take
[23:51] Speaker 2: my old landovers to events up and down the East
[23:54] Speaker 2: Coast and won the events. In fact, I'm going too
[23:56] Speaker 2: later this month is in war or Nash the forest,
[24:00] Speaker 2: so it's kind of interesting to go back there and
[24:04] Speaker 2: be able to drive around the woods that we had
[24:07] Speaker 2: to hike through.
[24:08] Speaker 1: That's because you got exposed to all land rovers when
[24:13] Speaker 1: you were in Africa driving around in Africa.
[24:15] Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we had Africa Landovers growing up in Africa.
[24:20] Speaker 2: And when I finally when I retired and started a
[24:25] Speaker 2: business and started, you know, making a little money. Head
[24:28] Speaker 2: enough wherewithal I started about my first land rover and
[24:33] Speaker 2: now I have more than I need. But that's what
[24:37] Speaker 2: I do. But yeah, and I've actually I met some
[24:40] Speaker 2: guys up in Yuwari that that are volunteers, local local
[24:49] Speaker 2: guerrillas and stuff, and they helped the cat and stuff.
[24:52] Speaker 2: So it was kind of fun to come full circle
[24:55] Speaker 2: on that.
[24:58] Speaker 1: So you graduate the course and then you go to
[25:01] Speaker 1: OCS and that, and now are you coming back to
[25:04] Speaker 1: fifth group as an officer?
[25:08] Speaker 2: Yeah? Maybe, But what they did was they sent me off.
[25:12] Speaker 2: They branched me am I, which was unfortunate, but I
[25:16] Speaker 2: didn't have a choice that I would have rather been
[25:18] Speaker 2: branched Infantry so right away they sent me off the
[25:21] Speaker 2: basic course. I'll report with Chuca and and then you know,
[25:27] Speaker 2: the advanced course comes along. I spent the a couple
[25:32] Speaker 2: of years at with Chuka trying to figure out how
[25:35] Speaker 2: to get out of there, and then I was picked
[25:42] Speaker 2: up for an MTT to Somalia, again based on my
[25:45] Speaker 2: Africa background. And through that MTT I met a couple
[25:50] Speaker 2: of guys who later remembered me and pushed for me
[25:57] Speaker 2: to be invited to go to selection for this. The
[26:00] Speaker 2: unit I was in so in so I was able
[26:05] Speaker 2: to so I was still an intel officer. I was
[26:07] Speaker 2: trained in all the intel disciplines, but basically I spent
[26:12] Speaker 2: most of my career doing human stuff.
[26:16] Speaker 1: Before moving on, Let's talk a little bit about that
[26:18] Speaker 1: MTT to Somalia, because that must have been very interesting,
[26:22] Speaker 1: especially I imagine you guys got there right after the
[26:25] Speaker 1: Soviets pulled out.
[26:28] Speaker 2: We did. In fact, the schools buildings that we were
[26:32] Speaker 2: teaching in had closets. It still had Soviet maps, Soviet compasses,
[26:39] Speaker 2: and other Soviet things in them. We trained the security
[26:45] Speaker 2: and intel cadre about forty people, and being an intel guy,
[26:53] Speaker 2: I did a complete study of Somalia and all the
[26:57] Speaker 2: people while I was there, and I had pictures of
[27:00] Speaker 2: every one of them, and I had whatever bio I
[27:02] Speaker 2: could get on it. I mean, it was something. It
[27:04] Speaker 2: wasn't something I was tasked to do on the em TT.
[27:07] Speaker 2: I just did it and came back to the stations
[27:10] Speaker 2: and nobody was interested. And in nineteen eighty three was
[27:14] Speaker 2: that when Somalia came round in n was it eighty
[27:17] Speaker 2: three Somalia? Anyway, when we went back into Somalia, I
[27:22] Speaker 2: contacted people and said, hey, I have all this stuff.
[27:25] Speaker 2: Some of the people you may be fighting now or
[27:28] Speaker 2: people are trained. Are you interested? And the answer was no,
[27:32] Speaker 2: got nothing, which in my mind is typical the Intel Services.
[27:42] Speaker 2: If you are not with them at the time, in
[27:47] Speaker 2: the moment, you know, they don't, they don't. They don't
[27:51] Speaker 2: give you much credence.
[27:54] Speaker 1: I should point out too for our listeners. And MTT
[27:56] Speaker 1: is a mobile training team, so that's sort of like
[28:00] Speaker 1: the bread and butter of Special Forces really is going
[28:03] Speaker 1: around the world and training around that time. So you
[28:06] Speaker 1: were in Somalia eighty three, I think nineteen eighty three
[28:09] Speaker 1: we sent the first MTT to Lebanon also, but odas
[28:15] Speaker 1: a teams at that time were all over Central South America,
[28:18] Speaker 1: I mean all over the place.
[28:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they were. That's the one I got chosen
[28:25] Speaker 2: to do.
[28:27] Speaker 1: And how do you what was sort of your impression
[28:31] Speaker 1: of the Somalian forces at that time and the people
[28:34] Speaker 1: that you were training.
[28:38] Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't very impressed, and that the African
[28:44] Speaker 2: forces that I was came across, We're not very impressed.
[28:52] Speaker 2: Not very well trained as Somalis would rather you know,
[28:55] Speaker 2: sit around and chew cut and stay up all night
[29:00] Speaker 2: than you know, than actually work. You know, even trying
[29:03] Speaker 2: to get them to do simple things like map reading
[29:08] Speaker 2: courses and anything that involved physical activity. You weren't getting
[29:14] Speaker 2: much out of them that wouldn't impressout. But we had
[29:19] Speaker 2: a job to do. We trained them in, you know,
[29:24] Speaker 2: some intel stuff and math reading and that kind of thing.
[29:29] Speaker 1: And so you did a good enough job on this MTT.
[29:32] Speaker 1: It sounds like that it caught some people's attention and
[29:35] Speaker 1: they started suggesting, maybe there's another place that you could go.
[29:40] Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, there was a couple of at least one
[29:43] Speaker 2: guy that was on the team, plus another guy that
[29:45] Speaker 2: I had known in another unit, and you know, I
[29:50] Speaker 2: guess they remembered my Africa background or something. For some
[29:53] Speaker 2: reason they decided I was appropriate for evaluation.
[29:58] Speaker 1: And what are you able to say say about that evaluation,
[30:01] Speaker 1: that selection course that you went through, And I mean
[30:04] Speaker 1: at that time, did you even really know what you
[30:06] Speaker 1: were trying out for?
[30:09] Speaker 2: No? No, and it was. It's been described and many
[30:18] Speaker 2: podcasts and books and stuff, but it's a typical selection
[30:24] Speaker 2: that Special Minute Mission units go through, going back to
[30:31] Speaker 2: SAS days patterned after the sas, designed to test your
[30:37] Speaker 2: metal and see how far are you willing to go
[30:38] Speaker 2: without knowing where you're supposed to go or how far
[30:41] Speaker 2: you're supposed to go? Was that kind of a thing?
[30:46] Speaker 1: Using land navigation and rock marching is sort of like
[30:50] Speaker 1: a stressor, right.
[30:53] Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, it wasn't. I mean, I don't think it
[30:56] Speaker 2: was about how physical you could be, although there's probably
[31:01] Speaker 2: a componentment, but it's how you react to constantly changing unknowns.
[31:11] Speaker 1: And when the course ended, you know, did what what
[31:16] Speaker 1: was that like for you? Did you get brought into
[31:19] Speaker 1: a board or how did they tell you that, you know,
[31:21] Speaker 1: they wanted you to come to the unit.
[31:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a board selection board at the end
[31:28] Speaker 2: of the At the end of the selection process and
[31:31] Speaker 2: then then after that you go to the to the
[31:35] Speaker 2: organization and get further training.
[31:41] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you talk in your book, for instance,
[31:44] Speaker 1: you mentioned that you got to go to the farm
[31:47] Speaker 1: and get trained on human intelligence trade craft, Like was
[31:51] Speaker 1: that like kind of a rare thing at that time
[31:53] Speaker 1: for army guys to be able to go and do that.
[31:57] Speaker 2: Not necessarily for arming, but it was kind of unique
[32:02] Speaker 2: for me, being uh Special Forces trained to also be
[32:06] Speaker 2: a human intelligence officer. There was a few of us around,
[32:09] Speaker 2: but not too many at that time, you know. I also,
[32:14] Speaker 2: I mean that was was an awesome opportunity for me
[32:18] Speaker 2: because yes, I went there for it was trained. We
[32:22] Speaker 2: all Army case officers are trained. But I also during
[32:28] Speaker 2: my time in the command, you know, went to Halo
[32:32] Speaker 2: school and Scuba school. So it was kind of kind
[32:37] Speaker 2: of unique to have that opportunity and not only to
[32:41] Speaker 2: get one as an officer, but to get two, you know,
[32:43] Speaker 2: both disciplines as an officer. So I went to I
[32:49] Speaker 2: went to Key West in eighty four, and I swore
[32:55] Speaker 2: that was the hardest school I ever went to, and
[32:57] Speaker 2: I swore I'd never forget it, but I ended up
[33:00] Speaker 2: on a graduate one of the honor graduates out of it.
[33:03] Speaker 2: So work fine, and I went on to be a
[33:08] Speaker 2: diver for many years after that, uh, a civilian, and
[33:12] Speaker 2: you know, I had all the patty disciplines. And in
[33:17] Speaker 2: my business, we we made we had a sewing we
[33:22] Speaker 2: have a sewing factory and we made yearbags for the
[33:25] Speaker 2: scooba industry. So as part of that, my son and
[33:28] Speaker 2: I would enter all the all the spear fishing tournaments
[33:32] Speaker 2: sponsored sponsored all of them in this area, and we
[33:35] Speaker 2: did that for for a lot of years.
[33:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is pretty cool. And the way
[33:44] Speaker 1: you kind of talk about it in the book, it
[33:47] Speaker 1: sounds like, you know, you guys and what you were doing,
[33:50] Speaker 1: you were almost like the modern version of the oss
[33:53] Speaker 1: to be a human or and also be this sort
[33:56] Speaker 1: of like commando that's you know, free fall trained and
[33:59] Speaker 1: dive trained and everything else.
[34:05] Speaker 2: You know. As I said in the book, armies all
[34:08] Speaker 2: over the world have, uh have units that are trained
[34:13] Speaker 2: to do what the average soldier is not trained to do.
[34:19] Speaker 2: They all, you know, they all have special operations elements.
[34:23] Speaker 2: They all need, uh, they all need intelligence for their
[34:27] Speaker 2: for their missions. So yeah, I don't know how unique
[34:34] Speaker 2: it was in the world of you know of that,
[34:37] Speaker 2: but yeah, it's I mean, I was a human human
[34:40] Speaker 2: gay and yeah, you know the I mean post uh
[34:49] Speaker 2: post Iran seventy nine. You know, there there was if
[34:54] Speaker 2: they were looking. This was before Jaysack, This was but
[34:59] Speaker 2: you know, there were certain elements that were being stood
[35:01] Speaker 2: up at the time to you know, fill in the
[35:06] Speaker 2: gaps that were realized after Desert One.
[35:13] Speaker 1: Yeah, there was kind of a feeling, right that the
[35:15] Speaker 1: CIA wasn't really able to support the intelligence needs of
[35:19] Speaker 1: the military, right, and we had to kind of fill
[35:21] Speaker 1: that gap.
[35:24] Speaker 2: Is my understanding. That's the way the military felt. They
[35:29] Speaker 2: wanted people who were there, people who were trained the
[35:34] Speaker 2: way they knew, they were trained to collect the information
[35:39] Speaker 2: that they specifically needed to do their specific jobs, and
[35:44] Speaker 2: the CIA didn't necessarily provide that to them, nor did
[35:49] Speaker 2: the conventional intelligence services.
[35:55] Speaker 1: And I feel like we should also take a moment
[35:57] Speaker 1: here to mention, you know, this time for I am
[36:00] Speaker 1: eighty three, eighty forty five, you're getting married, you're having children.
[36:05] Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about how you meet your
[36:06] Speaker 1: wife and how you start a family.
[36:10] Speaker 2: I met my wife when I was still a Spec
[36:14] Speaker 2: four at Port Wachuka. Her father was a Sartain Major.
[36:19] Speaker 2: There I met her. I don't you know, I'm eight
[36:25] Speaker 2: years six years older than her, So I was twenty four.
[36:29] Speaker 2: She was eighteen when we got married, and then we
[36:36] Speaker 2: had the kids. After we went back to Fort Benning,
[36:40] Speaker 2: back to Fort Bragg, back to Fort Benning, and then
[36:45] Speaker 2: finally back to Fort Wachuka as an officer. That's when
[36:48] Speaker 2: we had our kids. But I spent I spent a
[36:52] Speaker 2: lot of time away from home, as most guys do.
[36:58] Speaker 2: But the unit we were in was, you know, I
[37:01] Speaker 2: had a really supportive Wires group, and but my wife, Jackie,
[37:08] Speaker 2: pretty much raised the boys on her own for many years.
[37:14] Speaker 2: And it was only when it came time to retire
[37:20] Speaker 2: that I decided. My kids were just going into junior
[37:23] Speaker 2: high and I said, you know, I got to be around.
[37:26] Speaker 2: I got to be around for that. So that's when
[37:27] Speaker 2: I chose to retire. I had put in my papers
[37:32] Speaker 2: for retirement. Branch called and said, hey, you're number one
[37:36] Speaker 2: on the list within not probably not for the real army,
[37:41] Speaker 2: but whatever within my parent group, and do you want
[37:45] Speaker 2: to reconsider? And I said, no, no, I'm time to
[37:49] Speaker 2: get out, start a business and take care of my family.
[37:54] Speaker 1: You guys, did spend some time in Korea right before
[37:57] Speaker 1: you retired.
[37:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, I spent two years. I was the the Liaison
[38:03] Speaker 2: officer the n NSC, which is Neutral Nations Security Commission
[38:09] Speaker 2: at Pengwin John so Uh. I represented the Unkmak or
[38:15] Speaker 2: the US Armed Forces in Korea to the to the
[38:21] Speaker 2: Neutral Nations Commissioned countries, which were the Checks, the Polish,
[38:26] Speaker 2: to Twists and the Swedes and their their job since
[38:30] Speaker 2: since Armistice Day was to just kind of monitor the peace.
[38:35] Speaker 2: And they had compounds right up on the demarcation line,
[38:41] Speaker 2: and you know that's where those blue quants at huts
[38:45] Speaker 2: are that you see in newsreels, you know when they
[38:49] Speaker 2: have repatriation of remains or when you know important people
[38:54] Speaker 2: meet up there.
[38:55] Speaker 1: Or occasionally the factor runs across the border.
[38:59] Speaker 2: Yeah that happened. So yeah, I was That was my
[39:04] Speaker 2: job was to support those people. But we also met weekly,
[39:12] Speaker 2: if not daily, with North Koreans, the North Koreans, our
[39:18] Speaker 2: North Korean counterparts, So you know, I met with North Koreans,
[39:25] Speaker 2: probably more than the Joint duty officer did. But yeah,
[39:29] Speaker 2: that's what I did for two years. It was it
[39:31] Speaker 2: was an a companied assignment. My family lived on the
[39:35] Speaker 2: basin young Son, and it's like a mini Usa there.
[39:40] Speaker 2: It was great living for them. Actually a good assignment
[39:44] Speaker 2: for me too. I was I would drive up to
[39:46] Speaker 2: Pamuin John a couple hours up every morning, come back
[39:50] Speaker 2: in the evenings. Sometimes I'd stay the night up there,
[39:53] Speaker 2: but generally I was free on the weekends. So it
[39:58] Speaker 2: was pretty good assignment the the NNSC that So, after
[40:04] Speaker 2: the wall came down, attitudes politics started changing, and the
[40:09] Speaker 2: Czechs were the first to pull out, you know, they
[40:12] Speaker 2: had increasingly poor relationship with their North Korean hosts. The
[40:17] Speaker 2: checks pulled out, and then right about the time I
[40:22] Speaker 2: left her, just after I left, the Polish pulled out,
[40:24] Speaker 2: and that effectively ended the NNFC. I think the Swiss
[40:28] Speaker 2: and the Swedish date on for a while, but I'm
[40:31] Speaker 2: not sure there's anything going on there now.
[40:33] Speaker 1: What was your impression of the North Koreans? I got
[40:37] Speaker 1: to ask, because we have a sort of view in
[40:39] Speaker 1: America of these sort of stone faced North Korean general
[40:44] Speaker 1: I was wondering what the reality was like, you know,
[40:46] Speaker 1: for you and what you thought.
[40:49] Speaker 2: Everyone I saw was that way. But you got to
[40:51] Speaker 2: understand that the people that are at Panmun Jam are
[40:56] Speaker 2: probably hand picked for the purpose, highly highly uh trained,
[41:02] Speaker 2: highly motivated, you know, the supporters of the regime. Yeah,
[41:09] Speaker 2: they were that way, and they those guards up there,
[41:12] Speaker 2: would would be happy to shoot you if they if
[41:14] Speaker 2: they thought they had an opportunity. I explained in my
[41:17] Speaker 2: book where I had to. You know, sometimes I'd screw
[41:19] Speaker 2: around with them, and there's some information in there, you know,
[41:23] Speaker 2: where I'd just play with them. They they were those
[41:26] Speaker 2: young North Korean guards and towers were tasked to watch
[41:30] Speaker 2: my every step. And whereas most people might walk down
[41:34] Speaker 2: the middle of the pathway, I would I would sidle
[41:37] Speaker 2: up next to the buildings, get in the shadows, get
[41:40] Speaker 2: under the overhangs where they couldn't see me, and you know,
[41:43] Speaker 2: just to mess with them. But you know, there was
[41:49] Speaker 2: people got shot running across trying to cross that line.
[41:52] Speaker 2: And I had my escape routes mapped out, so the
[41:57] Speaker 2: painting thing happened. I knew how to get away.
[42:01] Speaker 1: You got there a little a little bit after the
[42:03] Speaker 1: famous hatchet incident, right, well.
[42:08] Speaker 2: Quite a bit. That was in seventy six, okay, And
[42:12] Speaker 2: but prior to that, you can walk pretty pretty freely
[42:19] Speaker 2: between the buildings and or you know, around that that
[42:22] Speaker 2: that area in pan Loom and John there. But after
[42:27] Speaker 2: that they kind of stopped that and everybody stayed on
[42:29] Speaker 2: their sides of the line. You know. I pushed the
[42:33] Speaker 2: envelope on that.
[42:37] Speaker 1: So one of the other things I wanted to ask
[42:40] Speaker 1: you about, And I know you can't really tell the
[42:42] Speaker 1: story behind it, but you made major as you kind
[42:46] Speaker 1: of round out your career, and you got an award
[42:50] Speaker 1: from the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the DCI award.
[42:54] Speaker 1: Can you tell us? I know again, I know you
[42:57] Speaker 1: can't tell really the backstory, but can you tell us
[42:59] Speaker 1: about that award self?
[43:04] Speaker 2: No, to be honest, I can't. I mean suffice it
[43:07] Speaker 2: to say that the guy who endorsed my book is
[43:11] Speaker 2: Rick Prado, the guy who wrote Black Ops. Yep, and
[43:16] Speaker 2: he has he has some nice things to say about me,
[43:20] Speaker 2: But I'd rather not say where or when because that
[43:24] Speaker 2: might give away too much.
[43:26] Speaker 1: Oh No, I understand. I was sort of more asking like,
[43:29] Speaker 1: what is that award?
[43:31] Speaker 2: Like?
[43:31] Speaker 1: Is it the equivalent of like a silver star?
[43:34] Speaker 2: Well, my understanding is it's the highest award that the
[43:38] Speaker 2: agency gives to a non agency employee. I may be
[43:42] Speaker 2: wrong about that, but that's what I was always told
[43:46] Speaker 2: and you know, it's something that the DCI gives, the
[43:51] Speaker 2: Director of Central Intelligence Agency gives to someone who's done
[43:56] Speaker 2: a job they like.
[43:56] Speaker 1: I guess, uh, well, start to talk to us. You
[44:02] Speaker 1: mentioned it a little bit about, you know, when you
[44:05] Speaker 1: decide to retire and you want to spend some more
[44:08] Speaker 1: time with your family. Tell us a little bit about
[44:12] Speaker 1: like winding down, getting to Tampa and starting to put
[44:14] Speaker 1: your retirement papers.
[44:15] Speaker 2: In when uh, when I finished the tour in Korea,
[44:23] Speaker 2: the UH branch said, UH, since you've had this hardship tour,
[44:29] Speaker 2: we'll let you have your choice of places to go.
[44:32] Speaker 2: I ain't think of it as a hardship tour, but they did.
[44:35] Speaker 2: And I said, well, dang, I want to go to Florida.
[44:37] Speaker 2: Then send me to UH send me to Tampa. And
[44:41] Speaker 2: so that's how I ended up in Tampa. And you know,
[44:47] Speaker 2: I worked there for two years, but there really wasn't
[44:50] Speaker 2: much going on. Gave me time to go through the
[44:53] Speaker 2: Command General Staff course by correspondence and UH, then I
[45:00] Speaker 2: decided to retire. They what would have happened to is
[45:04] Speaker 2: had I taken the promotion that they said was you
[45:09] Speaker 2: know right there around the corner for me. I know,
[45:12] Speaker 2: i'd have ended back up, and I'd ended up in
[45:15] Speaker 2: DC doing something, and I would have ended up doing
[45:17] Speaker 2: something that took a lot of time away from my kids.
[45:22] Speaker 2: So I just decided to stay and retire in Florida.
[45:27] Speaker 2: You know, I've at times regretted it, because it wasn't
[45:30] Speaker 2: too long after that that all my peers went off
[45:34] Speaker 2: to the desert, and most of my peers retired to
[45:38] Speaker 2: oh Sick or better. And I have no doubt that
[45:42] Speaker 2: if i'd have taken that OH five ranked that I'd
[45:49] Speaker 2: have hit O six by the time. But I didn't,
[45:51] Speaker 2: so there's no sense crying over it. But it would
[45:54] Speaker 2: have been you know, a person who spends their whole
[45:58] Speaker 2: life preparing to go to war, whether they say so
[46:02] Speaker 2: or not, probably wants to go to war and prove themselves.
[46:05] Speaker 2: And so I kind of wish I had stayed in
[46:07] Speaker 2: and gone there, but I didn't know that at the time,
[46:10] Speaker 2: you know, So it is what it is. I went
[46:13] Speaker 2: on and started a business, and that was thirty years ago.
[46:19] Speaker 1: And so your business was basically, if I remember right here,
[46:23] Speaker 1: it was making waterproof bags for dive operations.
[46:26] Speaker 2: Well, it was making scuba bags. When I first retired,
[46:31] Speaker 2: I wanted to do an import export business, but I
[46:33] Speaker 2: never could get any traction. And then somewhe since I
[46:37] Speaker 2: was a diver, I knew dive people, someone asked me
[46:40] Speaker 2: if I could make scuba bags. I was already going
[46:43] Speaker 2: to Asia, you know, sourcing and doing other stuff. So
[46:48] Speaker 2: I just learned everything I could about making suba bags
[46:52] Speaker 2: and we made them when we started out designing them
[46:55] Speaker 2: here in the States and making them in Asia. And
[46:58] Speaker 2: then then two thousand and seven, with numerous requests for
[47:05] Speaker 2: US main stuff, I decided to form the US operations.
[47:08] Speaker 2: So we built a factor. We opened a factory here
[47:12] Speaker 2: in the States, you know, and now we make what's
[47:17] Speaker 2: called very amendment or you know, military bags and stuff,
[47:21] Speaker 2: along with other commercial bags. But we started out making
[47:24] Speaker 2: scuba bags. That's that's what we did. And we at
[47:28] Speaker 2: one time we were, you know, one of the leaders
[47:30] Speaker 2: in the industry in making good tough bags.
[47:36] Speaker 1: So you have, I mean, tell us a little bit
[47:38] Speaker 1: about like this factory. It's like a sew shop essentially.
[47:42] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a ten thousand square foot facility where we
[47:46] Speaker 2: have forty fifty sewing machines and you know, we make
[47:54] Speaker 2: we make whatever we're what's called a job shop, so
[47:58] Speaker 2: we make anything other than clothing and large tent structure
[48:04] Speaker 2: is something that's too big for us. But we make cases, covers, bags,
[48:09] Speaker 2: everything from little mesh bags for the medical industry to
[48:14] Speaker 2: rolling luggage and big stuff we make. We make the
[48:21] Speaker 2: fuel splash guards for the F twenty two fighter squadrons,
[48:24] Speaker 2: We make the wheel covers for those same F twoin twos,
[48:30] Speaker 2: and we make other gear bags for military. We make
[48:35] Speaker 2: parachute recovery bags that are primarily they're specifically designed to
[48:40] Speaker 2: get wet parachutes out of the water from mare out
[48:44] Speaker 2: so when you jump into the water, you're you're by
[48:47] Speaker 2: the time you get back to shore, all the water
[48:49] Speaker 2: is drained off. So those are purchased by the best
[48:53] Speaker 2: operations people some foreign countries. NASA has bought some in
[48:59] Speaker 2: the past. So yeah, that's the type of thing we make.
[49:03] Speaker 1: And you said there's a commercial side of it as well,
[49:06] Speaker 1: like if people wanted to go and see, you know
[49:09] Speaker 1: what the company offers. Is there a place they can
[49:10] Speaker 1: find you online or elsewhere.
[49:13] Speaker 2: Yeah. Our website is American Sewing dot net, and basically
[49:19] Speaker 2: it's just a representation of the type of things we do,
[49:23] Speaker 2: so people can see what we do is not necessary.
[49:26] Speaker 2: It's not necessarily a website where you can buy stuff. Yeah,
[49:34] Speaker 2: and in commercial side, if you have a company that's
[49:37] Speaker 2: making a widget, you need a case to put that widget,
[49:39] Speaker 2: and you call us and we make we make the
[49:41] Speaker 2: cover case whatever for you. But I'd like say, we
[49:45] Speaker 2: do little mesh bags for medline, different medical industry things.
[49:50] Speaker 2: We basically any anything that's sewn together.
[49:55] Speaker 1: And you also mentioned that after you've retired you kind
[49:58] Speaker 1: of reconnected with your family.
[50:01] Speaker 2: What was that like, Well, bout the time I was retiring,
[50:07] Speaker 2: they were also retiring from different things, except for my
[50:11] Speaker 2: brother who was in Africa, And you know, it gave
[50:16] Speaker 2: us all the time to connect and then we connected
[50:21] Speaker 2: more of my I hadn't really talked to my dad
[50:25] Speaker 2: much in years, and it got a little tedious because
[50:33] Speaker 2: he was a preacher and he proselytized and he always
[50:37] Speaker 2: wanted to know if I was going to church or not,
[50:39] Speaker 2: which of course I wasn't, and that traded some tension.
[50:42] Speaker 2: So one year, one day, on a Saturday evening, he
[50:46] Speaker 2: called me up and did not mention any of that.
[50:50] Speaker 2: One time. All he wanted to do was talk about
[50:53] Speaker 2: my day was going how the business was going. We
[50:55] Speaker 2: had a really great talk and connection, and every Saturday
[51:00] Speaker 2: evening to the day he died. After that he would
[51:03] Speaker 2: call me and we'd have typical conversation. It was an
[51:06] Speaker 2: awesome reconnection with him after so many years.
[51:10] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a greatble.
[51:11] Speaker 2: You know. At the point is if you want to
[51:14] Speaker 2: if you want to connect with parents or children, connect
[51:19] Speaker 2: to them on their level.
[51:21] Speaker 1: Yeah, no, good point.
[51:24] Speaker 2: Uh.
[51:24] Speaker 1: And otherwise, how has retirement been treating you? You're still
[51:27] Speaker 1: down in the Tampa area.
[51:30] Speaker 2: We do, We still live in Tampa, we still have
[51:32] Speaker 2: a business. Uh. I'm seventy two years old, so I'm
[51:36] Speaker 2: ready to retire. A second where it happened. I much
[51:41] Speaker 2: rather spend my time building old land rovers.
[51:46] Speaker 1: And you enter those in like uh like like truck
[51:49] Speaker 1: competitions and things like that where they come and join it.
[51:51] Speaker 2: Well, yeah, in the in the landrover world, kind of
[51:54] Speaker 2: like the cheap world, you have events where you go
[51:58] Speaker 2: riding through the woods, through the forest, you know, up
[52:01] Speaker 2: and down hills and through through the deepest mund you
[52:04] Speaker 2: can find and stuff. So yeah, I mean I have
[52:07] Speaker 2: some hangar queens that I just take to car shows,
[52:10] Speaker 2: and then I have one that you know, is outfitted
[52:14] Speaker 2: with snorkels and things like that to go through deep
[52:17] Speaker 2: mud and water, and I'll take that to those trail events.
[52:23] Speaker 1: And then, you know, I also got to ask, I mean,
[52:26] Speaker 1: what was the inspiration that led you to writing this book?
[52:29] Speaker 1: I mean, the book is even called The Gray Man,
[52:32] Speaker 1: A life lived under the radar, and you are kind
[52:34] Speaker 1: of that guy, So what inspired you to write the book?
[52:40] Speaker 2: What kicked me in the butt to get me going
[52:42] Speaker 2: was my son gave me a Christmas present, which was
[52:48] Speaker 2: a subscription to a company that will send you a
[52:53] Speaker 2: question each week and you answer the question and at
[52:58] Speaker 2: the end of the year, they put together a book
[53:00] Speaker 2: about your life. Well, right off the bat, I realized
[53:03] Speaker 2: those questions are nonsense. So I didn't finish that up.
[53:08] Speaker 2: But I ended up writing my own chapter. So when
[53:10] Speaker 2: I got done with that, I said, you know this
[53:13] Speaker 2: is I need to put this in a better format.
[53:16] Speaker 2: And so I rewrote the book, and rewrote it a
[53:20] Speaker 2: couple of times and sent it off for approval a
[53:22] Speaker 2: couple of times before I finally got it all approved
[53:25] Speaker 2: by the government and stuff. But the whole gray Man thing,
[53:30] Speaker 2: I mean, when you're going through boring, well, first of all,
[53:33] Speaker 2: I grew up as a loaner in Africa out by
[53:36] Speaker 2: myself and stuff. Then you go to boring school and
[53:38] Speaker 2: you're keeping your head low to keep away from bullies
[53:43] Speaker 2: and what have you, and then you know later on
[53:47] Speaker 2: I was a human officer. I've basically lived my whole
[53:53] Speaker 2: life kind of kind of trying to stay out of
[53:56] Speaker 2: the limelight, which was a detriment in my business life
[54:00] Speaker 2: because I was not nearly the salesman that I should
[54:04] Speaker 2: have been. I just am not not that outgoing. But yeah,
[54:10] Speaker 2: I think gray Man fits.
[54:14] Speaker 1: And the book can be found on Amazon. I hope
[54:18] Speaker 1: people will go and check it out. And David, is
[54:21] Speaker 1: there any any other reflections that you have from this
[54:24] Speaker 1: your life experience or their experience writing the book, anything
[54:27] Speaker 1: else that you'd like to talk about.
[54:35] Speaker 2: I don't know. Like I said, I hope people buy
[54:40] Speaker 2: the book. I've had I've had good comments. I've been
[54:43] Speaker 2: on a couple of other podcasts that are more related
[54:46] Speaker 2: to missionary kids and and things like that. But you know,
[54:52] Speaker 2: maybe it'll help someone. It's not really an education on
[54:55] Speaker 2: anything military. It's just like I said it was. It
[54:59] Speaker 2: was done. I did it for a historical reference for
[55:03] Speaker 2: my kids in the fact, and then people start saying, well,
[55:06] Speaker 2: you need to get this out there more because other
[55:09] Speaker 2: people be interested in and that's why I started doing.
[55:13] Speaker 2: You know, Rick Prato encouraged me to do the podcast
[55:16] Speaker 2: and to get it out there more. So I'm glad
[55:18] Speaker 2: he did. I'm enjoying the experience.
[55:21] Speaker 1: And I should also point out the people that your
[55:24] Speaker 1: book here, this memoir is filled with pictures, and I
[55:27] Speaker 1: mean some of these pictures like your dad. I think
[55:31] Speaker 1: this was your father doing dentistry in West Africa. I mean,
[55:34] Speaker 1: it's just totally surreal.
[55:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, my father was a dentist, you know, and he
[55:44] Speaker 2: contracted hepatitis from working in people's mouths. That's before they
[55:50] Speaker 2: knew what age was and stuff. And he lived many
[55:53] Speaker 2: years after that, but eventually liver cancer killed him. So
[55:58] Speaker 2: he literally gave his life for those people he served
[56:00] Speaker 2: over there.
[56:01] Speaker 1: It's amazing. And I think we have one question for
[56:05] Speaker 1: you from a viewer.
[56:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, David, for you had a pretty long business career.
[56:12] Speaker 3: What are some lessons learned from throughout owning your own business?
[56:16] Speaker 3: And you did mention a little bit about you know,
[56:19] Speaker 3: you're not as outgoing and salesmany enough, but any other
[56:23] Speaker 3: lessons learned run a business.
[56:25] Speaker 2: You know, if I had any success, it was because
[56:30] Speaker 2: I was I was always through to my word. I
[56:35] Speaker 2: was always honest and people noticed that. And throughout my
[56:42] Speaker 2: business career, I had several different occasions where where important,
[56:48] Speaker 2: wealthy people asked me to help them or offered to
[56:54] Speaker 2: help my business. Uh So, yeah, you've got to be liable,
[57:00] Speaker 2: you gotta be honest, and if you do that successful follow.
[57:08] Speaker 1: Definitely. And again the book is Great Man, A Life
[57:12] Speaker 1: Lived under the Radar by David Carmichael. We'll have some
[57:16] Speaker 1: links down the description of this podcast and on the video.
[57:19] Speaker 1: If you're watching this on YouTube, you can click on
[57:21] Speaker 1: it and get to the book that way. And your
[57:25] Speaker 1: website was it American sewers dot.
[57:27] Speaker 2: Net, American Sewing American Yeah, American Sewing dot net.
[57:35] Speaker 1: Okay, well we'll have a link to that too. David,
[57:38] Speaker 1: thank you for doing this interview and spending some time
[57:41] Speaker 1: with us today.
[57:43] Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah.
[57:45] Speaker 1: I hope folks will go and check out the book.
[57:47] Speaker 1: And thank you everyone who joined us tonight, and we
[57:49] Speaker 1: will see you next time. Hey, guys, I want to
[57:55] Speaker 1: take a moment to tell you about the Teamhouse Podcast Newsletter.
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