Dale Comstock on Near-Deaths & Escaping Hostile Countries

You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. Done. No hassle, no negotiation, no guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it. Still haven't started? Hey, better late than never. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. Hey, guys. If you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. Running 24-hour ops, 365. And street value of my dogs were probably close to really about $850 to $1 million for 45 cans. When they're trained properly, they're very expensive. Now, do you have clients that you're constantly training dogs for and sending them back to? No, I don't do that. All the dogs. All the dogs I have are trained for our own business. Oh, just for you guys? Yeah, yeah. Whoa. Just for us, yeah. Now, how many, I don't even know if you want to say this, but like how many guys do you have working for you? I had 65 at one point. I had to let them go after COVID. Unfortunately, you know, COVID, again, don't get me started. COVID was bad for war? No, no. This is Bali, Indonesia, security. I know. Yeah. But like you guys are being sent to war zones and shit sometimes. Like that didn't stop because of COVID. No. No? Right. Exactly right. But the whole world shut down because of COVID and all the properties that had our canines were like, hey, we got to shut down so you can take your dogs off the property. And then now I can't pay my handlers, right? Oh, I understand. I understand. And I got to let them go. I understand now. And then the canines, I actually think some of my canines- I was misappropriating something else you said. Yeah. I think some of my canines actually died from COVID. It had some really weird symptoms. And by the way, COVID's been around for at least 20,000 years. I've been inoculating- 20,000 years? Yeah. I've actually been inoculating my dogs for COVID since 19- For COVID-19 or COVID? For COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah. COVID-19 is just a variant of it, right? Yes, yes. That's right. But COVID's been around for a long time. Yes. And so I think some of my dogs actually got COVID because in Indonesia, I don't believe the vaccines have COVID vaccine. There's what's called a seven-way and an eight-way. It's a combination of vaccines, right? But I don't believe in Indonesia we had the vaccine for COVID in the seven or eight ways that we were using. So I had some really weird symptoms. Some of my canines, I actually lost, I probably lost 30 dogs for- 30? Yeah, at least for either disease and/or just sedentary. These dogs aren't working no more. They're being housed because we can't travel, we can't move, we can't do anything. I mean, literally, there was a point where you couldn't drive down the road without somebody, a police officer or a soldier stopping you and go, "Where's your pass at?" Like Nazi Germany stuff, like, "What are you doing out here? Where's your pass at?" You know, "I'm going to the grocery store, sir." Crazy, man. Yeah. It's amazing, and like even here, it's amazing how fast that happened. Yeah. You know, like one day shit was normal, the next day people were like, "Oh, yeah, we're just locked inside, no problem. Like, don't go to the grocery store, you might die." Yeah. It's just like snapping a finger. You know, in Indonesia, I'll go back to Indonesia because that's where I kind of relate to it. In Indonesia, about 45% of the population lives off of day wages. Whatever they can sell that day in terms of food or parking a car is what they're eating on, right? You know, say a couple of cents here, park a car, sell a muffin, whatever, right? That's what they're going to feed their family on. Well, it got to a point where they weren't allowed to be out selling food. They weren't allowed to do anything. They had to hunker down. It's like, how are they going to make money? And people were literally, I mean, I've seen videos of entire families hanging themselves from the rafters because they would rather hang than starve to death because they weren't allowed to work. Think about that for a minute. For a virus with a 99% survival rate, I did the math on it. You did? Yeah. Yeah. I've done the math. I've done the CDC statistics on all that. And you've calculated that with the population, it's like, damn, you know? And now it's all coming out. Like, yeah, okay. Yeah. It was one of those things where, I mean, we knew I was around here when it was happening, but the strike zone that hit hard in America was New York and North Jersey and stuff. And none of us were, none of the average people like me or probably even you were like virologists back then that understood how viruses work. start they kill a lot of people and as they're killing a lot of people they're like oh shit we don't want to kill the host so it slows down it has a curve over time and i think that here you know they just dragged it on for so fucking long you know to such an archaic level that you know putting that rabbit back in the hat is tough i mean i can see it at the beginning but yeah it was insane how far the measure i don't know if joe told you um on the show but joe and four other guys ted i yeah joe ted i they they actually scheduled um an appointment to go down and get tested for covid right get tested for covid then they didn't they canceled a week later they all got letters saying they were positive for covid think about that for a minute think about that for a minute right how was that was he testing why was he testing for covid exactly he wanted to see if he had covid and so he oh just randomly yeah oh right and so he scheduled appointments canceled it for whatever reason or another and then they got letters saying hey by the way you're positive for covid so that's nuts yeah that's the kind of crap that's going on you know um a lot of people made a lot of money and a lot of people were their livelihood mine was my my business was wrecked badly because of this you know yeah i would say when i when we were talking i'm sorry when we were talking five minutes ago i was thinking off the canine i was thinking about the other stuff not the canines yeah yeah this is wild yeah yeah um and we've you know we've never really recovered although we're recovering we're actually making more money now than we did pre-covid um with less clients which is kind of weird how that worked out but uh uh we definitely definitely took a beating and the worst part was i had you know of the 65 handlers i had i had to let 55 go i just couldn't support him anymore i just you know we lost man we lost our ass you know um and i remember you know when i felt bad because my guys my employees are like family you know we treat we treat them very fairly and very well you know and they are part you know and and i have the the approach that i take to you know running a business is you know treat my employees with respect in fact the first thing i told my wife i said you know what first two things these are impurities i said every man gets his check his full paycheck every time on time no excuse ever right he gets paid because there's a tendency not to do that over there right and says to two if a guy makes a mistake we don't fire him the first time we counsel him if he makes a second mistake a we know what will penalize you a little bit of money don't do that and he makes it a third time then we cut his head off i said you know but we we try to be fair about it those are my two rules and and they appreciate that and i knew their families and and i knew they were depending on this paycheck to feed their families and by the way in indonesia the average family makes about 260 a month think about that for a minute 260 how far does that go there though it goes pretty far because they live a very uh minimalist life you know but also shit's like very inexpensive there no it's it's inexpensive but he's been there and he knows you still you poor yeah they're yeah but they're not eating steaks i can tell you that you know they're not eating a lot of meat they're eating a lot of rice a lot of vegetables a lot of fruit and a lot of water right and uh that's good and uh yeah it's actually good but they don't you know they don't get the the privileges we do like travel and go do this you know there's they don't have a lot of expendable money you know and uh so you know and that was important to me too to make sure they're paid well you know for their standards anyways and try to keep them handy but when that happened he came back to us and he told us that his daughter had died a little like two-year-old daughter you know what happened oh yeah she was really sick you know and we didn't have the money for the bills and i'm like i'm like dude you should have called me i didn't give you the money i don't take i don't paid for it you know and i wouldn't charge i had to give it to you you got you know family but you know that's how they are man it's like you know kids were dying you know and and guys didn't have the money to take care of their children their families anymore you know and i was so angry man one of if not the most common dms i get on instagram are many of you asking me what my favorite books are well today's your lucky day because if you use the link in my description below to join my newsletter i'm going to give you my top 10 book recommendations right now also if you'd like to join my clipping community for a chance to make money producing content from the show you can do so via the discord link in my description below and finally you can join my patreon for early uncensored releases of the full episodes via the patreon link in my description below as always please take one second to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already i really appreciate that also the like button's a big help and you can join my newsletter via the link in the description below um you know it's like you know what what a what a scam man it'd be and people you know the other thing too but going back to the canines you know canines can pick up viruses canines can actually sense and detect a virus they can detect cancer they can detect uh um seizures before they come on it's amazing what a canine can detect and i had trained dogs and i was working with a group that we've trained dogs to pick up uh covid viruses could actually sense if a person had a virus before they showed symptoms nobody wanted to talk about that nobody wanted to do it you know why they were making all the money off the pcr test and send them to the hospital nobody wanted to talk about let's mitigate this we put canines at the airports when you come through like an explosive detector dog you know and and we signal out people that might be sick because it was a racket people made a lot of money over people yeah you know it made some people man made a very rich business made them very rich and it killed a lot of businesses you know it killed a lot of families killed a lot of people you know inadvertently so um yeah it's man it's just one of those things that uh just aggravating as hell you know the lies are being perpetrated traded um at our at our expense you know the fear-mongering um i was at the g20 summit last year which happened to be in bali right so i got contract to come and do security for it so like an individual leader or all the g20 all the all of them yeah g20 the whole g20 the whole thing yeah the whole g70 was somewhere right there where i live right so i got contract to come in and provide canines for security so i also got to listen to some of the bullshit that they were they were spewing on the on the podium right and here's just needed i need an image of you in the corner with the dog like that's some bullshit oh i wouldn't say it so bad but man shut the fuck up bled these people were eating this shit up i'm like are you kidding me here's five things here's the five takeaways from the g20 something that i got five things one yeah we have a water shortage and that's bullshit i just swam to this fucking convention this morning because rain so hard in bali all right there's water all around the planet we got saline desalination plants where there's no water shortage okay but they say oh there's a water shortage there's a food shortage i go bullshit there's no food shortage either there's no food shortage three there's an energy shortage yeah guess what that's a that's a self-inflicted gunshot wound there's we have plenty of energy if we just you know turn on the spigots you know um four there's going to be another pandemic but this one's going to be bad and number five was oh yeah the russians are bad they're going to kill us all like what a bunch of shit when was this summit this was last year last november last november a year ago a year ago um just scary shit you know when you when you hear people with power and influence up there and they're literally brainwashed and everybody look at you know look at the world economic forum that freaking shit show you know that guy's funny you know but but these people these people are manipulators man and uh and everybody else is not paying attention you know they're i hate when people say well you know i don't watch the news anymore it's like you should watch the news because they don't want you to watch the news because they don't want you to watch what they're doing to you well the news but the news is also all slanted none of it's real right and that's why you should watch it because you need to watch the shit show and then do your own critical thinking yeah but like people that's the problem though people will watch something like that passively when they do or they'll see the clips on social media and you gotta remember everyone you know they got the family and they got the job they got their life yeah we want to see people that make decisions for themselves and don't just listen to what's said but if they're already listening passively i'm thinking of like smart people out there too who it's just kind of passive i see it happen all the time where people are and i'm guilty of it sometimes too because i'll hear someone be like oh yeah that thing you know what i mean like there's so much going on it's like not everyone is the president not everyone's the secretary of state right you know they're all just normal people i hear you but i think that's kind of built into the system that some of the people the powers that be take advantage of that because they know people have priorities that the news is not going to be able to take advantage of that isn't paying their bills that's right no that's right it's the human condition man there's the leaders and then there's those that follow unfortunately most people followers you know and they trust everybody else you know to to give them information and expect it to be truthful when it's not you know sadly um it's crazy times we're living in very crazy times yeah for sure but you so you we had said this a little bit ago but you retired from the military in 01 six weeks before 9 11 when you did that like the second you retired was your plan to go into contracting or okay no so then plane hits the buildings right did that change for you well what happened was um i wanted to start so before i got out the military i'm like okay i'm gonna retire what am i gonna do when i get out okay what am i good at pulling triggers and there's not a lot of need for that so i'm like okay i'm gonna retire what am i gonna do when i get out okay what am i in the civilian world and i'm thinking well what am i good at what could i do and i thought you know i could start a security company even though security wasn't making a lot of money back then either you know an average security manager at a big bank was making maybe eighty thousand dollars a year and that was top money you know but i said well you know something's better than nothing i want to start my own business i want to be self-employed um so i started a security company and had a partner we started campaigning in the uh in the nuclear security sector private sector um and then anyways made ourselves known nothing was happening and then 9 11 happened and bam the doors opened wide open for us and before you know we're making loads of money in the nuclear security sector doing basically hardening all the nuclear power plants united states whoa everything i mean all aspects of security man we yeah we did really well in fact a lot of the uh security security apparatus constructs that you see in that sector now um was derived from my company um so much so that in 2004 gprs came along and said hey we want to buy your company you know um and i was like happy to do that because i didn't think this was going to live very long right but man i could have never been more wrong here we are right security's still a big deal oh yeah the threat's still evolving you know but i was smart enough to start a second company right away sold it later on 2011. so my goal was not to get into contracting my job my goal was just to run a business and do security consulting and then i got recruited by you know the government at the same time now it's this ground branch it's whatever you want to call it and uh and so anyways i ended up uh doing that almost nine and a half years and uh i wasn't supposed to i was supposed to do it for about a year that was my plan check check the block before you know it nine and a half years went by and i'm like damn you know and then my i mentioned that ambush earlier the last ambush the final ambush i decided it's time to get out and do something different so that's what brought me back which ambush was that number five it was uh i got ambushed one night but basically we got boxed in on this it was one road down uh the kunar kunar river on both sides where kunar yeah where afghanistan okay so on both sides you didn't you didn't talk about this on camera i thought i did no no i started to maybe yeah yeah i went on a tangent all right all right tell the story i need more coffee um you want some more no i'm good okay i'm actually gonna say i think you're about to blow through that window if i give you more coffee i know i drank a gallon of it already i had to man i haven't had no sleep since sunday i've been traveling 32 hours on one flight from man from indonesia to manila anyway god damn i drove here drove five hours last night yes and thank you for doing that that's all right there's a whole slip up with with the airport and everything i appreciate you but that ambush uh the one i'm referring to um what happened was we were on a road a river road small dirt road we drove into an area that's about uh seven kilometers that the taliban owned it was their territory who's the way who's the we? group that my they were traveling with right small small element and um there were mountains on both sides uh we were we're basically on the road running along the river there was no you can't make a left or right turn you got to go north or south down this road and we had to stop and in very short order we heard the taliban on the radio they had to set up ambushes on both of ends of our uh small convoy and they were getting ready to hit us and uh and then i realized oh the only way we're getting out of this is we got to run the gauntlet now and we know they're going to hit us we know they're going to blow us they set up ieds we knew where they were um and so we made the decision we're going to turn around run north again run the ambush hopefully fight through it and then get back to uh to our base camp and i remember when we turned around that night um there was a total of we had like 23 vehicles um and we're spread out about 50 meters each so think about that for a minute you know over a kilometer long convoy you know and on that road you can only travel maybe five miles an hour max speed it's just a really bad dirt road so we turned around and uh we already made contact once so we already had casualties guys got shot up so we're already dealing with that got the vehicles turned around and we had called in a uh ah6 attack uh apache attack helicopter he actually had gone back and he had reloaded refueled got more ammunition came back and we decided okay we're gonna let him run out in front of us strafe the road um and then once he strafes the road we're going to start driving as we're listening to the taliban on the radio because we had what's called an icon radio that's what the taliban used so it's pretty much an open channel and we had a couple and our interpreters were listening to it and they were telling us what the guys were doing and they had actually just they had changed their tactics over the years they used to hear from a distance long-range ambushes and now what they were doing is getting right up on the road right and then actually get between the vehicles so now we're in the middle of the road so we're in the middle of the road we're in a crossfire and they also knew that you know the helicopters close air support can't engage them either otherwise they would engage our own our vehicles right so they got a little smarter as time went on and so we knew they were near the edge of the roads um and we knew what they're going to do in fact we heard them say hey we're going to hit this vehicle this vehicle and they got this weapon systems this one we're going to grab that grab that grab this by the way this goes all the way back to the mujahideen and the russians they used to do that as well um they would usually hit the last vehicle in a russian convoy and it's cleaning it up you know because they knew the russians were going to turn around and come back and help these guys they're going to keep on looking um so we knew what they're going to do and we're sitting there and the helicopters came in started straight from the road and then uh the first vehicle left i remember watching through my night vision goggles all the guns open up and the instructions were as i gave them i said shoot at everything and anything a taliban could hide behind open every gun system on your truck and let them shoot right we had guns placed in every direction so the first vehicle takes off at a blazing like five miles an hour shooting and then the second one and then the third one was like march of the penguins you know and i'm like the 15th truck back and i got got all the antennas on mine it says command vehicle blow this one up right and I'm actually driving my command vehicle and I got you know my Afghan interpreters with me and I'm telling the same thing I go dude as soon as I start driving I said shoot anything where a bad guy can hide behind it you know I said don't relent till we get out of this thing so as I'm sitting there I'm watching the vehicles go one by one the firefight starts I got time to watch the show and think about it before it's time for me to start driving my vehicle right and all of a sudden I thought you know what I've never I've been in a lot of ambushes but I've never actually had to deliberately drive into an ambush to get out of it but I have no choice this time and then I started thinking man what if I don't make it out of this one you know I am driving the one with the antennas and so I thought about my family and I took the moment I said okay I want to visualize every one of my children's face everybody's face my wife my kids one by one see their face for the last time maybe their face their face their face their face this phrase and then what I want to do is get that all out of my head and I'm like I'm going to do it I'm going to do it I'm going to do it so I'm no longer distracted by that right and knowing that would be maybe the last time I ever think about them or see them you know now I need to do is be laser focused on how much time do you take to do that a couple seconds it was just close my eyes and thought about it and I saw their faces you know taking a deep breath you know and uh got it got over that piece of it and then started moving out and I remember I broke the run for the fright uh the strut on the front right side of my truck right so now I got the wheel rubbing on the side of the wheel well and I'm like I'm going to and it catches on fire so I'm the only truck with his wheels on fire doing five miles down the road going shoot me shoot the wheels on fire yeah because the stretch because the roads were so bad you know and uh but I lived through it got through the other side and uh we had maybe seven trucks get shot up a couple more casualties but uh we got all the way out on the other side like I said they owned about seven kilometers of this dirt road and I remember we're listening to the clacker for the IEDs because there was a there was a s-turn and he had set the IEDs up in the s-turn right the apex here when we knew we had to kind of slow down to come around that corner and uh and he never fired the IED and the commander was like yelling why didn't you blow up the IED he goes I couldn't sir because they were shooting so many bullets at me I couldn't get my head up I go well I guess the plan worked you know and so we didn't we didn't get IED um we did take some shots and stuff like that some casualties but uh you know we got but after I got out of that I thought that's it that's it I made it I'm done that's that's it it's all over you know that was it for that that was it for it for that that war I was out of there right you know right and uh came back and started doing all the Hollywood stuff and the corporate stuff and you know and Hong Kong stuff so yeah yeah every story I hear about the Middle East during the global war on terror it just it almost doesn't feel real because it wasn't long ago I mean it just ended like a year and a half ago or whatever it was and you know the the the it's it's like it's halfway around the world but you guys saw it you saw exactly what it was you saw life in danger at all times not just your own but you know the people who live there and by their own people and in many cases with with a place like Afghanistan but when you we we touched on a little bit already but when you saw the imagery that looked like leaving Saigon basically like a redux of that in 2020 August 2021 with Afghanistan falling was there were you one of those guys who was like fuck we got to go there we got to go find the interpreters that that you know helped me over those years or whatever like what was going through your head yeah so all right so while I was operating over there I operate operated under a pseudonym right I never used my real name there's a reason for that obviously you know um of course well you know now you know I'm everybody knows dude I walked down the street all around the world and people go hey are you the American badass and the first thing I go uh did you pens are you a good guy or a bad guy you know I mean I get that a lot you know obviously I can't escape the must and okay I don't try to eat I'm not trying to yeah that mustache I can see that well I don't know everybody thinks I'm stone cold Steve Austin so I take a lot of pictures pretending to be him like yeah and sometimes uh sometimes it's uh the uh what's the name of the Hulk Hulk Hogan and then sometimes also um what's it Vin Diesel right not so much my son you get Vin I was gonna say I'm calling bullshit on that one yeah but I know I have gotten Vin Diesel I'm like you know those people are fucking blind yeah I don't know so yeah anyways um but to your point you know when that happened when Kabul fell I don't know how a lot of my soldiers because they never knew me by my full name never and they never had but they found me they found me on social media Facebook and they called me commander because for all intents and purposes I was a and it was like commander can you help me can you save me and my family can you come again and I tried actually I had a couple guys and their families lined up to go out on a couple lifts one was an Australian bird um and uh both of them fell through I actually I actually wrote them letters to get them passage through the gates you know so I could show hey look you know this guy you know he's vouching for me I tried everything I could to get these guys out and um to no avail um it was just very hard to get them out and and they were there even to this day they're still texting me uh I got a guy three days ago just text me commander commander how are you you know and that's how it starts and I know what they want can you get me can you help me um actually part of my unit um was killed um in a raging firefight protecting our base and uh it was on the news and they all went down they went down blazing man to the man so half my unit's gone dead killed oh yeah trying to I'm sorry trying to defend the camp you know the base um and it did make the news I know who they are I know the camp some people know who it is but uh those guys are gone and there was only 42 guys in my platoon and um and so I told my guys I said man you got you're gonna have to run for the hills but there's nowhere to go he said as soon as they find out who you are and who you were working for you're a dead man in fact there had one guy text me hiding with his family literally texting me in hiding he said they're outside right now looking for me what can I do what are you I don't know what to even tell you at that point you know I'm you're Johnny on the spot but uh I just felt so bad because they were pleading with me to help them you know I'm the guy that was always there for them leading them you know leading in the combat making decisions you know taking care of their welfare you know and I was I was the daddy man you know and suddenly daddy can't help them you know and I and it was and it really made a lot of guys mad you know my guys were like you know now you just kick us to the curb you know the chips are down you're just gonna leave us behind and unfortunately a lot of guys I'm sure a lot of them are dead you know since then um they can't get out the roads are blocked they're contained you know it's yeah it's pretty irritating man when I think about that these are guys let me tell you how loyal these these Afghans were you know I remember I had the same 42 dudes they were some of the best Afghans in over there and we would go do ops all the time in fact we had a two-man rule in Afghanistan two-man rule stated that you know as an American you never go out without another American you always at least two Americans no matter what you do right but I broke the rule all the time I usually went out by myself with my guys that's how much I trust them in fact they would stand there and look at me go Mr. Dale don't you worry he goes we'll form a wall around you we will not let anything happen to you and I knew they wouldn't I mean these guys would freaking get it on man and uh and I and I won their hearts and minds because I'm the guy that you know if something didn't go right you know hey take the day off here's a bonus you know man we had tons of money for these guys you know and I made sure I took care of them kept them happy and every time I rotated out for a vacation before I come back every time I left um I'm the only guy that I can remember was they would actually have a formation and they would lay out all these things like war rugs um women's traditional women's Afghan dresses and you know all kinds of you know cheesy jewelry and stuff you know all Afghan stuff for me and they'd bring me out front and center and they want to you know thank me for you know mentor them and you know and have these gifts the war rugs were really cool um I still have those you know and and they're they're very famous so it's a rug it's got tanks on it and missiles and it's like handmade you know and hand drawn they're kind of cool and um and so the guys actually really loved me and took care of me and I knew that I would never have to worry about these guys turning on me I trained them I fed them I paid them you know I was just because that's what you do you you got to be good to your soldiers man you got to treat them like your brothers not like you know cannon fodder and um and when this happened you know and they're asking for my help and I'm totally helpless I can't do anything I've tried I just I almost thought I had someone on an airplane and that fell through you know they couldn't even get through the gates with the documents nothing man um they were just left out hanging you know high and dry and you know I think back to Somalia you know so in Mogadishu remember right the big firefight October 3rd October 4th and I remember on 92 yeah yep 92 and I remember um the next morning maybe October 6th or 7th something like that I can't remember the exact day now uh Colonel Garrison at the time well General Garrison in the in the movie Blackhawk Down who was the Delta Force Commander Colonel Garrison um very good guy very good officer very well liked formation very early in the morning like soon as the sun came up in front of the hangars we got all lined up you know and uh and i remember he said i still remember what he said he goes gentlemen he goes war is nothing more than an extension of politics and he goes he goes as of today we are going to redeploy go back to u.s operations are over and we're all standard just dumbfounded going, wait a minute, we're still missing men. We're still missing people, right? Bodies. Someone's going to lose an election in November though. You know, and this, remember it was Bill Clinton in time and we're all kind of looking at each other going, wait a minute, as a soldier, you're required to complete the mission, right? That's expected. If you have a mission, your job is to complete the mission, mission and then men. Okay. That's the order. And we have a mission. Our mission was to come there and basically kill or capture Adid, right? The warlord. That mission wasn't complete. Moreover, we've already lost bodies and we can't find them, right? And there's people out there that need our help, Americans. And so what we expect as soldiers is that our commanders, including the commander chief, the president, Clinton, to have the same resolve to continue the mission and see it to its end. And he didn't. He said, no, we're going to basically, we got punched in the nose. We're going to go home. And I, well, all these men are dead. For what and why? So you can just quit and go home. You know, we want to continue to campaign, at least get our bodies back, you know? And this guy just wants, he's done. It made no sense, right? And I, and it's one of the few times where I really looked at, started looking at combat and war differently. I started looking at the politics of it all. And sometimes I started questioning, I was like, you know, what is this all about, man? What, what do we do? Who am I? Why am I doing this then? You know? And then when Kabul happened, I go, there it is again. You know, we, we wasted so many lives, you know, wasted so many lives to what end? Nothing, nothing, nothing, right? So those are two occasions in my military career. You know, I'm 60 years old and I've been in the military since I was 18, you know, or working for the government in this capacity. Those are two incidents that really stand out. And I'm like, wow. So the U.S. government had no problem wasting lives, good men, and putting their families and their children out there, you know, without their fathers. And, and they didn't have the balls to complete the mission. The same thing they expect from us. If I didn't complete the mission, you know, I get hung out the dry, you know, I'm a shit bird for not doing my job, but they don't do their job, you know? And their excuse is what? What, what was the excuse? There's no excuse. You think Well, there are guys in offices in D.C. that can make decisions from there. Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, you know, and, and man, that's one of those things in my, you know, that really, really pisses me off when I think about it is I think about the good men like Gary, for example, Gary Gordon, you know, that are gone for what, you know, Mark, a friend of mine. Who was Gary? Gary Gordon, Congressional Medal of Honor winner in Mogadishu. Oh, right. Right. And others. I mean, they're dead now. You know, I mentioned the SEAL earlier who died a year after, you know, he adopted a little baby girl, you know? It's like, okay, for what? Why'd all that happen? You know? Yeah, sadly, it is what it is. You know, war, you know, war is a racket. And, you know, when people. How do you stop that? You don't stop it. You know why? I'll quote Gustave Le Bon. He said, man is a warring ape. We've been, since the dawn of time, since the dawn of man, we've had over 12,000 wars. You know, this is in our nature. War is our nature. This is what we do. Why? We're driven by three things. We're driven by three things, in my estimation. Power, money, and pussy. At the end of the day, procreation. Those are the three things that drive us, right? And we fight for that shit, right? And we kill for that stuff. It's really what it comes down to. And as long as there's power, there's money, there's pussy, there's going to be conflict, you know? And it's never going to end. And so there's no utopia. Get over it. So now what we've got to do is. If we can, first of all, we don't have to accept it, but just know this is a reality that, you know, combat and war is what it is. Prepare for it, but also know that, you know, life's not fair. And if you can at least come to terms with that, your life will be a little bit easier. You know, everybody wants to live in utopia, you know, kumbaya. It's not going to happen. It never happens, okay? Let's be realistic about it. So we're not going to stop it. We're not going to change it. You know, the best we can do is we've got to, we've got to rein in the decision-makers. We've got to rein in the decision-makers. The politicians, those are the guys that are doing it. You know, you and I aren't going out starting fights. We're not going out starting wars. But in order to rein them in, we have to rein in the people who really make the decisions on them, which is the people who pay them. Exactly. Exactly. So how do you do that? Because again, and I'm not, I'm not calling you out here or anything. We need guys like you in the world. Yeah. But you know, you're, when you take contracts now, like you're taking contracts from some of these companies or the governments who are backed by those companies. Yeah. So you're taking contracts from some of these companies or the those companies and stuff. So how do you, if, if you know you're needed in so many of these situations, which I'll agree you are, where does the line stop to where you get to the point where guys aren't needed? And how do you determine that line? Yeah. This is for me personally, this is why I pick and choose what I do. This is why you won't find me in Ukraine. I ain't gonna have, I got nothing to do with that. You're not gonna find me in Israel. I got nothing to do with that. It doesn't affect my life. Doesn't affect the American way of life. You know, I pick and fight, uh, the stuff, the stuff I've done, you know, if I'm going to kill terrorists, I I'm okay with that because they're never going to abate. And all I can do is become a speed bump for them, you know? So I pick and choose what I do. Um, yes, I want to get paid. You know, I don't do it because the money's good. I make money doing it. Look, I got a security company already. Right. I don't, I don't need to go out and do this kind of work. I never did need to do this kind of work. Well, what makes you want to do it? Like when you get a job where you got to go into a dangerous place, cause you said you haven't been in a war zone since 2015. But we talked about some other jobs off camera, which you may get into that you do. I mean, you're going into dangerous places for dangerous people sometimes to help people, to actually help people. That's the thing. Actually, everything I do is to help people. Um, and I get paid to help them. Right. I mean, I've got, you know, I take a lot of risk. I mean, I've done the last four weeks, I've done at least four different projects in different countries, um, that are not necessarily friendly countries, in fact, communist countries. And I've had to help people that were in trouble. Um, they weren't criminals. They were just in trouble and to do no fault of their own. And I show up and I help them and I get them out. Um, I don't go out and save criminals. I don't go out and save, you know, bad guys. I don't, that's not what I do. Um, my job is to help those that can't help themselves and find themselves in a place where they're stuck. Um, I have one guy that I won't go, I won't mention the country because I may need to go back in there. But, uh, yeah. I have to be very careful how I couch this stuff. But, uh, I had one guy call me, goes, hey man, he goes, I've literally been, I've been banned, I've been locked in this country for five years. Um, they did put a travel ban on me. And I said, why, what happened? He goes, well, um, he, he had a girlfriend there. Um, that's how it starts. Yep. He had a baby. She didn't want to marry him. They had, he, they got joint custody of the kids. She wouldn't let him see the kids. So he had to go through a, um, um, an enforcement agency there. By the way, this is a country. And, um, he's got to pay the enforcement agency to make the arrangements so he could see his kid. He paid them. They didn't make the arrangements. He got mad, came back and tried it again. He goes, this time I'll pay you after you make the arrangements. And they're like, no, you'll pay us first. He goes, no, I'll pay you after. He goes, oh yeah, watch this. And they literally put a travel ban on him, called immigration and locked him down. He wasn't a criminal, didn't do anything wrong. So he's not allowed to work and he can't leave the country. So look, this happens a lot of different places. Okay. A lot of Southeast Asia, Asia, Middle East. I've done this before. Um, and it sucks. And, and, you know, again, we talk about, you know, our country and, you know, we need to think about how bad other people have in the world. Imagine being locked in. I call it a velvet cage. You can't get out, you know? And, uh, he's like, I've been here long enough, man. He goes, I want to get out. He goes, I want to bring my son out. Who's five, you know? And I said, well, that's going to be different. I said, I can get you out. I'm not sure about the kid yet. How would you go about getting out a guy like that? Like what's, it's pretty simple. What are you looking for? It's pretty simple. You know, it's, it's easy. You know, look, you're not going through the airport. You're not going through immigration. Um, that's, that's never going to happen. Um, you're just going to literally have to go across the borders, you know, and you got to, that's the, that's the tricky part. How do you get them across the borders, you know, and take them out to a friendly country and then work them out of there. So I do that. That's what I do. Um, yeah. What goes in? So let's make up a couple of countries here. Cause you don't want to use that example. Fair enough. Let's say you got a guy in trying to think of my geography here. Let's say you have a guy in Syria and he can't get out and you need to get them into what's, what's to the east of Iraq, south, south. What's the east of Syria? What touches Syria? Is that Iran? Uh, no, no. Um, east of Syria, you have Iraq and you have a Turkey, Turkey. Okay. So you want to get someone out and that's perfect. You want to get someone out of Syria into Turkey, which we have some issues with, too, but you know, it's a little better. How, how are you determining where on the border to take them and what to do? Yeah. I'll tell you how it works. Uh, how I do it is one, it's start with an intel analysis so I look at the map studies and I look for potential crossover points I look at border checkpoints I look at things like traffic ability you know population densities a lot of things you have to consider right what you're looking for is a hole in the net in the fence that you go through undetected right and so that requires not just a map reconnaissance you start with a map reconnaissance and then you need to do a ground reconnaissance you need to go put eyes on and confirm yeah that's this is doable it starts with that and then it goes to developing a plan right which the plan can be pretty detailed in that you know you got to have a cover story cover for action cover for status why are you here what are you doing oh I just came out here driving around the desert just to hang out you know or you know or I'm in the I'm in the what's the word I'm looking for I'm in a public park in the jungle just looking at the monkeys right right right that actually happened to me that actually happened one time we were actually being tracked we had a tracker on our on our car didn't know it and we're going up north to the border and luckily there was a there is a park there and it's all jungle and we get my the guy that I have with me is getting a text message goes hey are you guys going to the border oh shit I didn't know that right so yeah we got a track on us you know so now we got to figure out okay how do we what's the what's the plan for that so you do we did I do what's called false insertion so I drive down different roads in different directions do loop-de-loops turn around park the car for I'll go to a restaurant you know and oh no we're gonna go up here and meet some chicks you know and whatever right so everything is so if anybody is tracking you wish they are like on a GPS and a map then you know it's like these guys are idiots they're all over the place you know what are you doing just driving around randomly you know but somewhere in that process you drop off your customer and and you point them in the right direction or you take them across you walk them across you know walking to where he's got to go but yeah and is it on them at that point sometimes sometimes it requires more but usually the goal is to get them free get them to where they can get to an embassy and whether it's American or whatever embassy that you know whatever national I are so you get to the embassy go hey man it's what happened to me you know passports burned lost whatever compromise and can I get a temporary passport to get out you know and go home so a lot of times people some people are you know they understand that I was like yeah Roger that you're American we're gonna help you an action there sometimes like and this happened to one of my clients not too long ago is like Karen right there everywhere Karen like oh my god that's illegal what you did you can't do that it's like bitch I was locked up for five years in the country I couldn't get out of for doing nothing wrong but want to see my son you know and you worried about being illegal and she's true she's chewing them up and down you know and Jesus Christ Jiminy you know and so I'm I'm the opposite of like you I'm gonna help you get out of there because I'd hate to be in that situation myself too you know and do you talk with a potential client like that on open email no I was gonna say how are they contacting you know you know we use different you know there's all kinds of proton mail and all kinds of but how do they know where you are is it usually someone that's connected to you they know people watch me they I mean I've been on so many podcasts and people know who I am right and they reach out they find a way to yeah it's easy to find me right I don't hide it you know in fact I think you find my phone number on the internet but yeah if you want to find me I'm breeches fine easy peasy I usually answer most emails anyways but like I said I don't do nothing yeah you could still call it illegal but you know there's fine line between you know the law and then what's doing doing what's right you know and sometimes it's just to me as matter doing what's right and and I've there's been there's several guys I know they're in this boat in different countries and it's not right they haven't seen their family their children in years you know not because it was their fault just because of circumstances the way it fell out they got caught in you know remember when in 2010 Dubai you know boom man everything was going good and also in the bottom fella you know there were a lot of guys a lot of expats that what happened in 2010 the economy crashed in Dubai okay everything went under badly and a lot of guys went over invested started companies and then boom the bottom falls out and now they're not getting their money right and they owe money and try it try going to that part of the world and get a speeding ticket and don't even know it and you show up the airport turn your rental car in you ain't getting out until you pay that rental car right let's take it they know and they pop your visa right there right so imagine you own a bank five hundred thousand dollars or you know a hospital a bunch of money for something and also you got no money coming because the economy crashed it from under you and guess what you're not going nowhere you're they pull your visa your travel your passport and you're locked in till you pay you can't work either by the way so you'll be walking around aimlessly in a country that's not yours no way to pay and no way to make money and you're like what do I do so I kind of have an issue with that because you know what why don't you just lock the guy up you know this is kind of stupid right it's like it's like having a pet a pet dog you know I don't want to feed him no more just turn him loose on the side of the road and fend for yourself what is he supposed to do he's not trained to hunt he's just a dog he's a domestic dog right and you do this to an expat it's not Americans either all the time it's a lot of different nationalities that caught up in these things and so now you got to get him out you know and there's only limited ways to do it it's risky business I don't do much of it I'm not at my age I'm not prepared to kind of risk that much anymore I'm more content with just building my business in Indonesian doing what I do you know I do a lot of coaching it you know I mentioned I forgot to mention that one thing that I really do do the most and I like the most is I do what I call mind-body engineering psychosocial and basically it's performance coaching I really delve into those in the world of the subconsciousness autogenic conditioning neural linguistic programming self meditation self-hypnosis all these things I go into that and I teach people how to enhance their personal performance as well as their professional performance and future performance that's what I really focus on how to be successful at anything that you do in life I think I have the resume to support that you know the success piece of it that's really what I enjoy doing that's actually how I meet a lot of people because they see my post my videos and like I want to talk to this guy a little bit more about this and that net Wow and so I've actually got a lot of connections globally a lot of clients globally a lot of connections in different space so I mean I've got friends everywhere if I need them you know yeah and I've built a lot of business around that as well I'm into trading commodities stuff like I'm getting into all training stuff that's out of left field yeah so I wear a lot hard to do I wear a lot of hats man you know and you know I don't just I'm just not a to use your word to begin an assassin I don't just I'm just not a to use your word in the beginning an assassin an assassin I don't just I'm just I'm just not a to use your word in the beginning an assassin an assassin I don't just I'm just I'm just I'm just I'm just I'm just I'm just I'm just an assassin or mercenary no I'm an assassin or mercenary no I'm an assassin or mercenary no I'm actually I'm a security consultant advisor but actually I'm a security consultant advisor but actually I'm a security consultant advisor but I'm also they call it these days I'm also they call it these days I'm also they call it these days yeah well yeah it caught in combat I'm an yeah well yeah it caught in combat I'm an yeah well yeah it caught in combat I'm an advisor in the civilian world I'm a advisor in the civilian world I'm a advisor in the civilian world I'm a consultant right it's kind of weird but consultant right it's kind of weird but consultant right it's kind of weird but yeah but you know I'm a coach life coach that's kind of what i do primarily i'm an author i'm an actor i'm a stuntman i do a lot of different things you know i do trainings um you know it's uh i could wear a lot of different hats dog trainer um i had a guy pay me a lot of money just to fly back and forth to singapore to train his dog that's it yeah it's just wow what a nice vacation we go with it for a week they got a lot of money in singapore right yeah they're loaded yeah i was gonna say it's expensive there too but it's one of those but yeah um isn't that wasn't the thing you were talking about before camera wasn't there that one story wasn't that client from there yeah yeah that was yeah that story that you were referencing um yeah i got a call from that that particular client in fact um said hey you know my daughter's in guatemala and she's in trouble can you get out she's 17 years old and basically it was a school trip gone bad she was going yeah it was a girl's school trip too boarding school i think they all graduated she was 17 and all the girls thought hey it's a great idea let's go to guatemala you know for graduation so i don't know who picked the uh the hostel that he stayed at but uh um man it was some spooky shit because i went there i had to go there to get her suitcases after i already recovered her and so he basically asked me if i knew anybody could get her out of there and i'm like well i wouldn't trust anybody to get her out because as soon as they know who you are and she is um she ain't getting out until you pay a lot of money you know i said so i ended up going to get her make a long story short um went down and picked her up i went on a monday morning and by thursday morning i delivered her to singapore and put her in the hands of a yeah you know um yeah but uh that was that's actually pretty easy so i you know i put that in the in the recovery category i do recovery repatriation and rescue operations as well um this one was a recovery you know where's the wildest place you ever did one of those things man i can't tell you not that i want to i can't i i see after that's okay me mentioned guatemala because i didn't do anything over the top right i just flew there picked her up brought But the other stuff I got to be careful because I may need to go back. That's fine. Well, minus jobs like that or something to that nature, without detail of that, have you ever been somewhere where you're legit spooked being there? Is there a country that comes to mind with that? Yeah, Saudi Arabia. Why? Man, it's a very strange culture. Let me tell you how this, again, talk about freedom and things like that. If you, let's say today, we say something negative about Saudi Arabia, right? Oh, that sucks, whatever, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, and you post it on social media. And five years from now, you go to Saudi Arabia. Do you know they can arrest you? Oh, yeah. For something you posted five years ago, right? I'm never going to Saudi Arabia. Yeah, you're literally walking on eggshells when you go over there. And you know you're being watched. What do you mean being watched? Everybody's watching, and they're listening, right? They're Intel, everybody. You show up as a white guy, you know, an expat, especially an American, you know, people are going to pay attention to you. Can they get your, can they wire into your iPhone when you land? Probably, yeah, yeah. They got a lot of capabilities. You know why they got them? Because we gave them to them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, you're not going to escape all that. So you got to be very careful what you do over there. Anything that could be construed as business, if you're on their tourist passport and you do anything that could be construed as business, you could end up in jail right away, you know. And they can detain you as long as they want until they process it and pass judgment. Like literally, you could end up being in a detention center for 10 years or two years, and nothing's happening. You don't get to talk to anybody, and you're waiting for them to make a decision on, did you do something? Did you do something? Did you do something wrong or not? It's a very scary place, a very scary place. I do not like being there just because of that. You know, coming out, I remember I was leaving the country, and, you know, they scanned my bags as I was leaving the country to go into the terminal, and I had a keychain in my backpack that had a small, in fact, it had a small, if you can see this, this little metal gun here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. By that size, it was a key ring. And I had my house keys on it. It was in my backpack, buried. I didn't even know it was still in there, right? And anyways, they found that. They pulled me in a secondary. They laid it out there, and they're like, this is not allowed. This is illegal. What? Yeah, and I'm not shitting, right? And I'm almost got in a pissing contest with the guy. I was like, are you a freaking, are you an idiot? You know, because who am I going to kill with that thing, you know? And it was illegal. Wow. It was illegal. And he was really starting to, you know, starting to dress me down on this one. And I'm, like, trying to have a conversation. I said, no, this is my key chain for my house key. You cannot have this. I said, I'm getting on air. I'm leaving your country. And it started getting a little, you know, a little heated, you know? And I reminded myself, Comstock, you're not going to win. Not in their country. Yeah. You know, shut up or you end up in that detention center, you know? You know, for carrying a firearm through an airport. That's how they're going to, even though it's this freaking big, right? So I said, can I at least have my key off the damn thing? He kind of almost. He almost was hesitant to give me my key. I was, like, I finally got my key, you know? I gave him the stupid thing, you know? I'm, like, oh, God dang, man. I had another thing. It was a little tiny screwdriver set. And the screwdrivers were, like, maybe an inch long. Oh, trying to take it on the plane? Yeah, I had my backpack. It's a little. It's not a weapon. You can't do anything with it, you know, unless they thought I was going to take it. I think a guy like you could do something with that. Oh, my God. Dude, I could do more with this, the soup bowl, and then I can't do anything else, man, you know? The screwdriver thing. Let me put this in. Let me put this together and do something. Drill some guy's head. Drill the doors, the knobs off the cockpit door. Well, we know we can't do that. That we learned. Yeah. Anyway, it's just, yeah, a lot of lunacy out there, man. And you just got to shut your mouth, respect the rules, and move out, you know? And sometimes that can be a little tough, you know? Some people can really grate your nerves with some of the crap, you know? That was one of the places I was a little uncomfortable with. No, I'd say a lot uncomfortable with. I always just felt like I'm always being watched, you know? And I just, there's other places I've been to where I know I was being watched. I know they had cameras in the rooms. Every time I show up in country, I stay in a hotel, they put me in the same room. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, I already know that, you know, so. You waving to all of them. Yeah. How are you? Undressing. You're doing a little show, you know? Yeah, there's, yeah. A friend of mine has been. Going back and forth to Saudi Arabia a little bit. And, you know, he talks about some of the slight outward shifts in culture. They're, you know, some women can drive now. Yeah. They're making some basic steps, I guess. But he talks about also how, you know, it is so, a lot of it is so beautiful and clean. And the price to that is that the level of strictness and what they do to people, just taking them off the streets, smallest thing wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's scary. I mean, you jaywalk. Yeah. I wouldn't call it clean either, honestly. Well, the places he's been, I'll forget the cities he's been in, but the places he's been are like some of the more up, you know, upscale type destination places they're trying to show to people. Yeah. Yeah. They're actually inviting a lot of tourists in, right? Yeah. Because I think what's happening, they're going to, the whole thing is starting to dry up and they're trying to. What do you mean? Well, I think what's happening is maybe they see the threat in the future of, Yeah. the electric cars. But there's a, for whatever reason, they're trying to attract more tourism. And I got to be honest with you. We went there as tourists and we went to all the tourist sites and it was nothing there. I'm like, what? I thought there was something cool here to see, but there was actually nothing to see. I went to one castle. It was like, it looked like a sand castle on the beach that a kid built. I was like, that's it? That's the castle? It was like, did they just kind of build this thing up real quick? You know? It's not even a good one, you know? It's just, yeah. I don't know what there is to see there. I didn't see anything worth wasting my time is what I did, but who knows? You know, maybe I didn't look hard enough, but I've been a lot of bad places. I've been in a lot of shitty countries. I've been to some countries that are actually very surprising, like Vietnam, for example. It's a communist country, but I was actually surprised, man, how well organized it was and people were thriving and, you know, people were, some people were driving really nice cars and, you know, people could do what they kind of want, you know? I had a lot of freedom. I was like, okay, it's not what I imagined, you know? Not at all. You know, I remember one time I was riding a motorcycle and pouring rain and I had to go a long way. I rode this bike for like 16 hours, man, and it was pouring rain. I didn't have a poncho. I pull over to this little, whatever, little shop on the outside, little cafe thingy, and I walk in and it's pouring rain. I asked the lady, I said, hey, you guys sell any ponchos? She goes, no. I go, ah, yeah, it's raining, you know? And she didn't have them. Ah, okay. She goes, wait, wait, wait. She runs to the back room and she brings out her own personal poncho, you know? And she gives it to me. She goes, here, here, here. I said, oh, how much? How much? She goes, no, no, no, you don't have to pay. I said, no, no, really? She said, no, no, no. I said, okay. I said, I'll buy all that stuff. I want to buy all that right there, you know? And I bought some stuff and I gave her a whole bunch of money, you know, on top of that, you know? But I was actually surprised how nice she was to me. Like, wow. She, you know, but then there were other places I went to, like, especially the men. I go get gas. I was like, they had an attitude, like, whoa, just, you know, gas, you know, fill it up. Here's the money. Sounds like the gas station around here. Yeah, it's probably no different. Maybe it was something personal. I don't know. But overall. Yeah, you pull up. I'm like, can I get some gas? It's like, they're fucking, they're pissed you pulled up. I'm like, aren't I paying you? Gas for what? Well, for what? What do you need to get? Fuck out of here. No, actually, I was actually surprised. That was one of the places that really surprised me. My wife wants to go there. And I said, yeah, I'll probably take her back over there one of these days. But I was mentioning. I mentioned in the car, Hong Kong was one of my favorite cities until the Chinese took it over. That was kind of a shit show. I was there in 2015 when the British handed Hong Kong back to China. And when I lived there, man, it was so cool, man. You know, everybody spoke English, you know. Of course, they spoke Chinese, you know. Just seemed like a really cool place to live. Very well organized. Good infrastructure, transportation system. You know, the Brits had it, you know. So it was pretty squared away. And then I was there when they were protesting, right? The protest started. Yeah, yeah, 2019. Oh, my God, man. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people on the streets waving American flags. American flags, right? Were you doing a job there at the time? I was protecting a billionaire bodyguard. I was running a security deal for a multi-billionaire investment banker. So I lived there downtown. And I watched these parades all day, you know, whatever, just demonstrations. And, you know, it was amazing. They were literally, you know. You know, flying the don't trade on me flags, you know, the yellow 2A, you know, American flags, you know. And I'm like, wow. And they're asking. They wish they had, you know, the Second Amendment because they're disarmed. And they're going to get taken over or whatever. Chinese government is going to take over. And they knew they were going to be doomed, man. I felt really bad for them because they were actually really cool people and good people. And then once all that happened, that transition happened, I went back a few times. And it was so different. They took English out of the school. schools Um, a lot of the rural people now came to the city, you know, and they're selling their, their, their wares and stuff and they can't speak English. They don't want to speak English. Um, it just seemed like, yeah, it just didn't seem a very, like a welcoming place anymore. You know? Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help. And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.