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Frogman, Reporter, Sunga Life Model, Skin Diver - Our guest is Kaj Larsen. Kaj is a lot of things, he's a Kennedy School of Government grad, he's a new correspondent who goes to places like Liberia or covers Boko Haram--but most notably, he's a former Navy SEAL.
Our co-host today is ALSO a Navy SEAL, and an upcoming guest, Jeff Gum. Jeff is the founder of SungaLife a brand of swimwear that makes everyone look great. Jeff and Kaj talk with Pete A Turner about transition, water therapy, and an upcoming swim the SEALs are doing in Manhattan. The swim happens on 3AUG19. Raising funds for the GiGO Charity. Get this...it's a 3-mile swim from the Statue of Liberty, then Ellis Island then Manhattan...then a run to Ground-Zero. Maybe you're unaware of this, but we've got a statue at Ground-Zero. The Horse Soldier depicts a Green Beret astride on a horse through the hills of Afghanistan hunting the Taliban after 9/11. This statue is our response to those who seek to attack/oppress us or our allies. #seals #frogman #bids #groundtruth #badass #water #sungalife Haiku Kaj Larsen lives well A Navy SEAL raconteur That’s our kind of dude Similar Episodes: Johnny Walker Johnny Walker Mikey Bee |
Transcription
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. If you've ever reflected on your life and thought, Man, I gotta get some shit done. Where do you get a load of our guest today college Larson? Here's the shortlist started college at the Naval Academy decided he should play water polo at UC Santa Cruz go banana slugs, where he earned a poly side degree. He got a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Joan Shorenstein center on the press politics and public policy and was a joint Fellow at Tufts University Jepsen center for counterterrorism studies.
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. If you've ever reflected on your life and thought, Man, I gotta get some shit done. Where do you get a load of our guest today college Larson? Here's the shortlist started college at the Naval Academy decided he should play water polo at UC Santa Cruz go banana slugs, where he earned a poly side degree. He got a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Joan Shorenstein center on the press politics and public policy and was a joint Fellow at Tufts University Jepsen center for counterterrorism studies.
Transcription:
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. If you've ever reflected on your life and thought, Man, I gotta get some shit done. Where do you get a load of our guest today college Larson? Here's the shortlist started college at the Naval Academy decided he should play water polo at UC Santa Cruz go banana slugs, where he earned a poly side degree. He got a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Joan Shorenstein center on the press politics and public policy and was a joint Fellow at Tufts University Jepsen center for counterterrorism studies. That's a pretty good start, huh? What does one do with that education? Well, one becomes a Navy SEAL during Operation Enduring Freedom, and eventually a lieutenant commander and maritime operations officer at Spec Ops command Africa, and college was just getting started. He began his career in journalism on current tv, where he would put his rare experience to use to give viewers something truly unique. Like the time he volunteered to be waterboarding to help people understand the controversial enhanced interrogation technique. He's since been on CNN, ABC, NBC and the Huffington Post Spike TV, all of them, having reported on some of the things that would simply terrify most people from places that are not exactly welcoming to American TV cameras, Nigeria, Somalia, Cambodia, Colombia, Haiti, Pakistan and Yemen. Among them. He's covered the drug wars, human trafficking, prison life, you name it. He fears no topic and nobody in any place. His Vanguard series won an Emmy, and he's been nominated for a Peabody and practically every other damn thing. He also works hard for veteran causes like helping launch the Mission Continues, which offers veteran fellowship, or serving on the board of Team Rubicon, which is an organization that helps veterans transition civilian life by helping victims of natural disasters makes perfect sense to transition service people by giving them a civilian mission of service. So that's one of the things college does in his side time. Now, on a side note, if you like what we do, and what we've done for 518 episodes now, then help me out. I'm not going to ask you to finish third and the escape from Alcatraz triathlon or to swim across the English Channel and march from Normandy to St. Lo. To recreate the deed a mission of Navy combat demolition units. Both things conscious done, by the way, I'm asking you to press a couple of buttons hook the break it down, show up with that five star rating on iTunes, write us a little review, or whatever platform you're listening on. Nothing big 25 words or less, just some digital affection. That's all hook us up. You won't even break a sweat. co hosting this episode is conscious fellowship, Jeff gum, we're big fans of Jeff to he started a swimwear company called Sangha life and we're into it Sunday life com just like it sounds. They offer shorts and swimwear for the ultra sexy. It's quality stuff and it'll make you want to get in better shape. They're not a sponsor. I'm saying this shit for free. They make ladies apparel too. But I'm talking to the men get in potent shape where single life gear. Chicks will dig you in a very sexy way. I have seen it happen. That's why I started going to the gym. You can try and hate on it if you want. But if chicks don't dig you in single life shorts, you're not that double bro. Tomorrow is the Navy SEAL Hudson River swim. It's the first legally sanctioned swim across the Hudson River to Liberty Island for some push ups and pull ups to Ellis Island for more push ups and pull ups landing in Battery Park for more of the same follow by a run to a fitting conclusion at America's response monument at One World Trade Center. look that up by the way if you don't know what that is, it's America's response monument. There are a bunch of current and former seals in this event and Kosh and Jeff's team are all wearing single life gear to do it. Ultra performance ultra mobility ultra fucking sexy. By the way, if you want to see the world in all its social media glory, follow them both on Instagram you will be inspired to get out and do something interesting yourself. Something physical, something awesome. Here they are joining Pete today. co host Jeff GM and our special guest coach Larson millions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 4:49
This is Jay Mohr. This is Jordan. Dexter from the Navy Sebastian young says written Rod Stewart Copeland Alexis
Kaj Larsen 4:57
Andy Summers this goes back to Gabby Reese. Rob. Hey,
Jon Leon Guerrero 5:00
This is Jon Leon Guerrero
Pete Turner 5:01
this is Pete a Turner.
Kaj Larsen 5:05
Hey, this is college Larson in typical frogman fashion, finished a little swim. And now I'm breaking it down on the breakdown show.
Niko Leon Guerrero 5:14
And now the breakdown show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 5:23
Yeah, yeah, we're out here in the park by Jeff gums house, Jeff is co hosting. And actually right now he's just kind of being the gopher, he's getting our coffee.
Kaj Larsen 5:31
Isn't that the job of the co host? Coffee?
Pete Turner 5:37
Here, here's here's what's great about having a podcast that and being able to do what the heck we want to do. We've all spent a lot of time in combat zones. And we have none of the three of us have ever worked out think at least on the same Bob cob coupe, JSS anything, but we have an instant kinship because, well, look, my baseline is this. Nobody's trying to shoot at me today.
Kaj Larsen 5:59
I said that all the time, man, like people are like, Man, you're always like, so happy. Like, I don't know that like somebody. This guy told me the other day. He's like, Man, you have like no military bearing whatsoever. And I was like, Thank you, sir. That is the greatest compliment you give me but like, yeah, I'm happy. There's no red flying, nobody's shooting at me. Like we just swim in it in a pool. There's beautiful girls in bikinis, like today was a good day. I guess.
Pete Turner 6:24
And I'd like to provide context, one of the things I do on the show, and the show is not all about warrior stuff. So we'll get past this pretty quick. But you know, when you're on a patrol, and one of the things we're able to do, and this is not a big secret thing, we can listen to what the enemy is talking about. A lot of times, this goes back to World War Two. But now I would live intercept on a patrol. I've heard them that, Hey, Pete, they're seeing your name and you're here like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, Okay, yeah, and that doesn't happen anymore.
Kaj Larsen 6:54
Yeah, it is true. You do not have to worry about now you got to worry about a different chatter class, you know, and I mean, what are we worried about now? Look, I mean, there's, there's there's a bunch of concerns, right? Like, one is what we're doing now that now that the geostrategic picture is changing, again, we're going back to the great powers debate to get all wonky, we're worried about China and Iran, and, and even the seal teams are shifting back to big blue. Right? That's a big transition after a decade and a half, almost two decades at war for our communities. Right. And so then, as more and more guys are getting out, I think, you know, one of our responsibilities is to think about what that new picture looks like for guys who are transitioning out. And that's part of the reason Jeff and I became such good friends is like, it's pretty awesome to watch guys get out and thrive. Yeah, right. Because not everybody does. Let's be honest. But like, Guys who can translate, you know, people, there's all this weird stuff about our military skills, translating into the civilian world, honestly, not really, right. Like, there wasn't a lot of combat swimmer jobs, I could go apply for Right.
Jeff Gum 8:04
Right. It gives you a great foundation, but then you just got to build totally on.
Kaj Larsen 8:10
Yeah, like it's the door is open, you still gotta kick through that I kicked down that door and like run through it and charge I think what does translate and like Jeff is the epitome of this, like the classic example are those entrepreneurial skills that you have to figure out like you got to figure out how to up armor the Humvee, right the same way. You got to figure out how to bootstrap your business just
Jeff Gum 8:31
constantly problem solving, is what it is just non stop, because when you're starting a business, just everything goes wrong. One after the other. So yeah, exactly. But it's not. It's like you know, Mike Tyson said, everybody's got plan to get punched in the face and how you react to that is, is are you a fighter not?
Pete Turner 8:51
Life is more nasty than combat combat. Like, like, Jocko talks about how like, it just doesn't care. Right? You know, but life does care. And it continues to punch you in the face mouth. It's like, yeah, you're on a knee. Guess what, here comes my foot. Yeah, you know, so it is hard, especially like for guys that do transition out. We've got all of us ever different up tempo. You know, my job as a spy was to go out every day and write a report roll with you guys, wherever you guys go, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to see something that you guys can't see, even though we're all right there. And so I come back to the real world, highly transferable skills, but no one gives a fuck, right? And so you're like, you get down on your knees. And you're like, I can't take another kick. Here it comes right now. So as we do transition, we look at not the enemy. But the adversity that we have. This is Pete real quick, I just want to let you guys know, we are proud to announce our official support of save the brave, a certified nonprofit 501 c three, with a charter of helping veterans with post traumatic stress. Here's how you can help go to save the brave, calm, click on the link on the website. And my recommendation is this subscribe, give them 20 bucks a month, you've got subscriptions that you can turn off right now that you're not using that are $20 a month, swap that out, get involved. Let's help each folks out. As we do transition, and we look at you know, not the enemy. But the adversity that we all go through. You know, you've got golf. So you guys First off, I have to call it follow cause on Instagram, because your photos are just beautiful. Like you just set your mind to dreaming. Yeah, I can't think of anything better than that.
Kaj Larsen 10:20
Oh, thanks, man. That's that's a high order compliment. Well, like, what I found is in my, in my post service life, you know, I in some ways returned to my roots. You know, I kept it blue. You know, and I don't know like that foundation. Totally it is we spend so much time in the drink. But it's actually my happy place. I got a buddy up in my hometown of Santa Cruz, who wrote a book called A blue mind about the therapeutic effects of water on the brain on Chicago. Exactly. And it's true. Like it's like, for guys like Jeff and I like salt water therapy. I actually think it applies much more broadly to everybody by just looking at that beautiful fountain over there. Right like is water. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:02
yeah, fire has the same kind of effect where you're drawn to like look at it and just you get drawn in by it. You want to jump into fire but you know when it's there and a cold my mistake is primal.
Kaj Larsen 11:12
I never really met a body of water. I didn't want to turn yes River. I was like, I gotta take a
Pete Turner 11:21
solid. So let's talk about crazy places. We Oh, yeah, let me because we dissolve this wind swimming in a very normal place. But Pakistan.
Kaj Larsen 11:28
Yeah, I think my high watermark is is Mogadishu Somalia. So I saw I was out there. And I saw these kids like swimming in this like, like kind of like shot out city in the Mogae. Like, it used to be a beautiful place. You know, like, there was a time where they thought Mogadishu was going to be like Beirut, the Paris of, you know, East Africa, right? Like, it obviously didn't happen. So I saw these kids swimming out there. And I like, I run down there and I like you know, jump in. I do a little body surfing. And then my my smiley turck my interpreter when I got back he's like, Man, you're you're so crazy. Do you know that two Somali children a week get eaten by sharks?
No shit. You could have told me before. Yeah, I think that's My, my.
Jeff Gum 12:15
I'd say my second deployment, we're getting ready. We're gonna do training mission jump into the Persian Gulf. And so we're getting all geared up, load up a Zodiac out of a C 130. throw that out the back. And and we go out, we go out. We all jump after it land in the water. And all sudden you're like, Oh, what's that? What's that and just start getting stung by jellyfish like crazy. And you got this parachute all around you, you're making sure you don't get tied up in that. And then then it's 10 foot yellow giant sea snake comes by and he's just got they got tails on them. And they just they have a tail that's just like a rudder. That's, you know, just evolved to give make them swim. Yes. And, and then so we all we all see these CC snakes everywhere. As we're swimming around, we finally get picked up. We're like cheese where I lose things. We do some research and find out. There's not even any anti venom if you get if you get stuck. If you get bit you just die. You just die. That's
Kaj Larsen 13:13
like one of the snakes. Snakes are no joke.
Jeff Gum 13:18
Okay, my friend was He's like, Yeah, I was trying to grab this one that swim by me.
Kaj Larsen 13:24
Insane,
Pete Turner 13:25
right? I swam on a patrol in Baghdad. Recently, the other side of the river, I kind of on the solder city side. And we were on a patrol, I was super fucking hot, middle of the day, like, you know, normally patrol, you know, because it's 120 degrees outside. And we had stopped and I had nothing to do with that part of the patrol. And I forget what it was, but they had a fountain, just like this one over here. It's a little circular fountain long enough, you could get swimming across it. And I was just shooting the shit with the Iraqi guys, you know, and I'm always working. So if I'm shooting the shit, I'm I'm doing what I do. And I'm I Can you swim and I forget how to say it in Arabic. But that's what I asked him. He's like, you can speak Arabic? And I'm like, No, no, not really. Hey, can you swim for some reason? And he's like, yeah, I'll swim in that plane right now. I'm like, I'll race you. And so my gear was all I always took my gear off right away, because my job is to look normal, right? So I already have my gear off. And I'm like, let's go. So we walked over. And it did the man from Atlanta. You know, like, right across to me. It took pictures and everything. So not as dangerous is that but it is during a combat patrol. So the snakes who knows what kind of horrible things were in the water, but it looks pretty clean.
Kaj Larsen 14:29
That's what I always say, Oh, it looks pretty clean. It's probably the worst advice ever. But like whatever you just get you pushed I believe button. Yeah, jump in.
Jeff Gum 14:37
My friend had a crazy one too. He was training like the Kenyan boat guy. So he'd like train them during the week, then they would go out and like hunt the Somali pirates on the weekends come back. And he trained them again. And he's training like their buds class or whatever. And it's like first day, and they they have more like jump in the water and half of them just go down to the bottom of the pool and just stay there. And they're like, What the heck's going on? So they jump in and grab them, pull them out? And they're like, what are you doing? You can't swim? They're all like, no, kids. So they're like, Why don't you say anything? Why don't you just jump in there and go the bottom of the pool? Like, oh, we were told, like
Kaj Larsen 15:17
in Liberia, I was training the Liberian Special Forces and I was supposed to be training them in combat diving and they had like a beautiful dive locker that the Israelis had built them with like triggers and open circuit and like, you name it. It was like and I was like this equipments incredible. Has this ever been in the water? Never been touched, right? And so like, I like I was like, All right, we'll start in the pool. We'll do a little poll worker. They're like, Where's the pool? They're like, Oh, we don't have this pool. We don't have a pool. We have this lake.
So we like run to this lake. Turns out none of us could swim. So I basically was like, my like deployment, they're teaching combat swimming was really just like teaching these guys.
Even in the wake, I remember when I first got there. I was like,
the crocodiles in this lake. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes. But they only attack at night.
Pete Turner 16:15
On the day shift.
Yeah, I heard the same kind of story with some SF guys teach it. I think it was Jordanians, US airborne operations that were just going to get airborne certified jump out of an airplane. The Jordanians and I think it was ridiculous. But they're like, yeah, okay, and why you got so nervous. Like, we've never jumped out of an airplane before. And what was lost in translation was the Jordanians didn't realize there was a parachute involved. They thought they were literally
Jeff Gum 16:45
fell down.
Pete Turner 16:57
translate to what we do on a day to day basis. Cuz you see those incredible things, you know?
Kaj Larsen 17:02
Yeah. I mean, like, Look, I I don't know, like, I think what one of the other, there's lots of disadvantages to joining the service like time away from your family, there's lots of hard stuff that comes with it. But one of the like, really good positive things that you have, like when you come back, is you can take all of this unique wealth of experience that we've all accumulated, because we've seen things that are different, and we've done things that are different. And then you can apply, like all of that experience, right? All that crazy stuff about like, if I had known in my 20s, what I knew in my 30s, right, like, but we had, like, you know, five decades of experience Kimbo rest into a couple of combat deployments. And I do my theory is that ultimately, if we can, like, you know, fight off the demons and stuff that that helps us as we like, try and like create a new life. You know, now that we're back home,
Pete Turner 17:56
I don't want to do all the question asking, I want Jeff to but I'm going to throw one more at both you guys. So one of the things I asked all of us guys who've been out on a lot of combat missions, is have you fired more bullets or have more conversations in combat?
Kaj Larsen 18:08
Oh, for me, there's like, it's like 100 to one conversation to pull it ratio. Right. And partially, that's because in my civilian career, when I transitioned, I became a conflict zone correspondent and a war correspondent. Right. So I spent a lot of time going back to the same places that I had been deployed to, and really trying to get to like the root causes of the problem and having conversations frankly, with people who are on the opposite side of the line. So I was in northern Nigeria interviewing Boko Haram commanders, right like guys that we were have been maybe are still trying to kill Yeah. So yeah, so for me, like understanding like the territory and I've spent a lot more time sort of talking and learning especially
Jeff Gum 18:54
now in this stage in my career stay with me I was I was a source handler my first deployment to so I was I was meeting like two different guys a day and and having you know, key leader engagements and meeting of all these Iraqi generals and Iraqi SWAT commanders and everything, had drinking all the tea. Yeah, so
Pete Turner 19:15
it's, it's crazy, because this is the universal answer, like way more way more rounds from my mouth than that ever from a weapon ever. And, and yet, the training, totally opposite of that you train all the time with a weapon. And they're like, like, I don't know, anybody that's ever shown me like an advanced Certificate of working with interpreters, that you figure it out on your own way. There's no institutional knowledge. We're like, this is how you do and how to drive a weapon, not just shoot, but like really control it making do with it, but you cannot show me a training program for the same and what's more important, considering what we do, you know, it's crazy.
Jeff Gum 19:51
Yeah, our interpreters were invaluable because they had been there for over five over five years. And, and they had so much knowledge of the of the area, and new everyone that was coming in with brief me all about them. And it's like, you know, the team guys turn over to each other, but the interpreters would mostly stay. So as they were, they were an incredible asset.
takes a lot of trust.
Kaj Larsen 20:15
Yeah, yeah. And it also says about a lot like how we select for the Special Operations community. Okay. Right. Like, you know, the truth is, like, our selection process is like, pretty Paleolithic, right? Like, even to get invited to training. Yeah, it's pretty knuckle dragging, like how strong are you? How fast are you? Like, how fast can you swim? Right, right. And so like, you know, guys, like, Jeff, and I, you know, like we can we can make it through that gauntlet, right. But then it's lucky if you can do the other stuff, the soft skills for lack of a better term, which are really the job.
Jeff Gum 20:50
Yeah, you know, what, though, like being so and then I spent my last few years as an instructor running all the combat is, and about half the guys that came through had had college degrees. And I mean, even my second deployment, half my new guys had college degrees from the top schools, Columbia, Vanderbilt, and it was just I mean, so it kind of shows like the the edge, like just being more educated can kind of make you helps you prepare you so it's, they feed off each other?
Pete Turner 21:25
Yeah, it's not at all surprised to see a special operations person having a degree from the Kennedy School of Government someone at this table, probably
UCLA MBA coming for, you know,
people miss that, you know, they understand that. So let me ask you this, because my perception is an army guy, is that the seals are, I don't want to say less intelligence, I'm kind of say, but you guys don't select for that you guys go a little more cro-magnon than like the Green Berets, where they go, we want you to be in a few years, we want you to get a degree has that evolved at all? You guys were you guys look a little bit more? Because I mean, like, we all I don't you guys go out and you train indigenous forces? You know, I know, that's SF job. But, you know, everybody's got to go out and do that work. You guys rotate on each other's missions all the time? Has it changed? You guys?
Kaj Larsen 22:14
I think which? I'd be curious to hear just perspective because he was right in the training pipeline sooner. But from my perspective, the appetite is there, right? We always want like, more intelligent, like more cerebral, better language skills, all of that stuff. What's different is that it's institutionalized into the SF pipeline. Yeah. So those guys have to be conventional side, they have to have a language capability before they go in. So like, just by virtue of the structure, yeah, it's going to skew more that direction than us. Right. That's fair.
Jeff Gum 22:48
Yeah, I think it there's people that that, you know, aren't, aren't the most educated sometimes, but but they're tough, or they're able to, they're able to pick it up, or they're young and, and we need these guys to we need to them, because then then they're, you know, they're on our second deployment by by 2122. And, and, and by the time they're 25, they're extremely, they're still young and, and tough, but they're pretty experienced. But uh, but a lot of it just happens naturally. Because, you know, our training is two years long and a lot of it is very technical, or CTC is very technical or even the dive phase you have to be able to follow procedure and and then you have to be extremely safe for everything we do on the island between demolition and pistol and rifle and moving and, and if you if you're not safe, doing all that, and you can't do land navigation, like all the it's a lot, it's non stop learning. Like it was, I was it from from one thing to the next my whole way through my career for 10 years, I never stopped learning. It was constantly one thing from the next It was very challenging, even, like, coming back from my first deployment going to breach you're going to sniper going to his cast master. It's like non stop. You're trying to keep all these you have like 1000 different skill sets you've learned and you're trying to keep them all Yeah, like pretty, pretty good. Yeah. And, and so to be to be successful, you have to be able to just handle that.
Pete Turner 24:13
Let me and let me make sure I say this again, for the audience, cuz I know that we could talk and sort of a shorthand, but everybody at your guys's level, Green Berets, delta, any of those kind of things have Rudy and all his boys, they have the biggest chip on their shoulder because they just don't get the same love. You know, marine recon. Those guys are incredible. So everybody has a high high high level, it's alphas of alphas. And then you get to the team and there's another level of alpha. So it's crazy. Everybody, you have to adapt, or you will not you will shit you find your shit in the hallway, go find a new team. That is how it goes. And so we're talking at the very tip. What in theory, SF guys focus on Green Berets, or seals focus on but in practice, you guys cross over a lot.
Kaj Larsen 24:57
A ton of mission creep. And I don't mean that in a bad yeah, in a positive way. But yeah, I mean, the distinctions that we are discussing here at this picnic table are like shades, all the shades of grey as Greg, right. Like, in general, you know, the the culture and community that you get from anybody in soft special operation forces is like, it's pretty consistent across the board. There's little variations, but like, we all shoot, we all dive for the most part, we all jump. Yeah, you know, we all pick up heavy shit and put it back down. Yeah, right. Like, that's, that's our move. But I think something Jeff said is super interesting to a general audience. And also, even within the community is like, like what Jeff just described, like, the sheer number of skills that you have to acquire to be a competent operator, you know, I like, you know, I, you know, still the reserves, I did a deployment pretty recently, and my friends from the civilian world are like, Oh, man, like, when are you going to like, aren't you too old for that? Like, first of all, like, I kick your ass at the gym every single day, right? Like, one it's not about those hard skills necessarily into like, people forget the average age of a soft operators 34 years old, right? Because it takes a long time, as Jeff just described, to acquire that range of skills in a like dynamic, you know, multi dimensional environment,
Jeff Gum 26:22
like getting a PhD.
Kaj Larsen 26:24
Right, or three PhDs. shown in diving Ops, you know, one in
Pete Turner 26:29
one summer in one basket to be able to and as a backup person has to be able just to load your shit into an airplane and make sure it comes out the other end on the ground. Okay, that's a whole job in and of itself. Like, what everything weighs, what straps, you need, that, you know, all that. And that's no, that's a real fucking hard job. Yes. Tactical, all your stuff. You know, anyhow, yes, it's highly technical. And someone like me who goes out with you guys as like a collector. I'm highly specialized it but I have to prove it. I don't have like a tab on my shoulder. I don't have a trident on my chest, right. But it ticks me because I've learned how I can communicate with you guys. First off, I don't try to jump in on your mission. I'm like, I'm here to help. Here's what I do. Let me go and you'll see what happens. And then there are you guys are always like, I'm down with that. That's fine. Yeah, you can have a spot and control and then I earn it in. But then they see looks like I'm a scalpel. No, I put this couple over there. Let him go do his stuff. Because it makes the team better you guys are able to do your thing. I have someone standing there they can sir. I'm alive. And I put my total trust that they are watching. It's amazing to watch that level of competence come together into something that is largely based on conversations. You know, we're mostly out yes, we want to close with and destroy the enemy, of course, but when they don't want to be found or destroyed your life all in good. We're going to take this time to do the other aspect of it, which is honestly quite hard. We harder than in close quarter combat even.
Kaj Larsen 27:49
I also think it's amazing to watch how its evolved over the last decade and a half. Like, you know, I was I was in buds on 911 right and the Truth Truth be told, at that time time, we were largely using Vietnam jungle era warfare tactics. That was like the the training paradigm was still leftover from the last great frogman conflict which was Vietnam bunch of little shit in between Vietnam and then but really, like we were doing like bush jungle warfare and Mike that was that was like dominant in terms of everything you did and then fast forward to like after Jeff's done a couple platoons and now he's running guys through training like the the technical sophistication of what they were doing like the frankly the CPC
Unknown Speaker 28:40
reg con component.
Kaj Larsen 28:42
Yeah, the comms piece, right? Unbelievable right? Like when you're you know, you're talking and and then the international piece right like you're on patrol in Afghanistan with the Polish Graham and an Italian JT tak right and a French jet over credible Hey, it's like yeah, people like
Pete Turner 29:01
driving the joint combined operations where a person from this country is doing one aspect on this patrol. So yeah, like a guy like me is collecting those are French guys again and make sure he's going to coordinate the air assets. There's an Italian guy back in the back planning operations that has all these different pieces that work together as a multi nation national
Jeff Gum 29:19
I love it. It's It's beautiful. Yeah. And I I love working with guys from other other other countries. I spent like two weeks and Copenhagen training the Danish frogman and training their SWAT unit and combative and yeah, it sniper with three three marine Jaeger commandos. They're like our counterparts in, in Norway. Nice. And so it's, it's just amazing to be and then, like, still talk to these guys all the time. So
Pete Turner 29:47
I've got a single question. Yes. So I'm gonna shut up and let you ask a couple questions.
Kaj Larsen 29:51
Because what do you have going on going on? Now, you know, when I when I got off active duty, I went to graduate school like yourself, and I sort of actually we fell into media and to journalism. And so I was at, I had a show on CNN, that I was a war zone correspondent for covered mostly conflict zones like other other and then I Well, I cover I cover other stuff also. But as my as more as my career evolved, I started there. And then I and then after CNN, I had a, I was a correspondent for a show on HBO called vice.
Jeff Gum 30:24
I saw you on there embedded with the militia like going after Boko Haram and everything, there was some crazy parts of that where I remember seeing a guy, one of the guys who were with one of the Africans, he got his hand chopped off by the helicopter saw. It was crazy. This was like,
Kaj Larsen 30:42
yeah, that was like a Tuesday.
like holy shit, like you want to talk about like bush war level tactics. So I was embedded there with a group of private contractors, mercenaries, if, and these are like, there's a long tradition of using mercenaries on the South African internet. And these guys were actually the old Executive Outcomes, guys. And they were they were contracted to fight Boko Haram. But it was definitely a different era of warfare out there. Like no real qR apps that comes went to shit like it was it was old school really sticking your neck out.
Pete Turner 31:23
So do you have a weapon and stuff or no,
Kaj Larsen 31:25
no, it's kind of it's frowned because the journalists journal.
Pete Turner 31:33
A lot of us want that at all times.
Kaj Larsen 31:35
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some uncomfortable times. I will say this, like, I was really close to a weapon.
Pete Turner 31:42
Yeah, I've
Kaj Larsen 31:45
had to jump on the pk. Or you know, if I had to like
Jeff Gum 31:49
yeah, have a shooting buddy that has has an extra one.
They're gonna want you to have
Kaj Larsen 31:54
me because the truth is like, there is times that I wasn't even with, like, contractors, right? I pushed way out into the front lines of the same piece of forest with the Nigerian Army, who are like and this is old school trench warfare. These guys live in the trenches. They eat the rats that they catch in the Trento see Boko Haram, the Boko fighters like 1000 meters away holed up in like an old school and stuff into the trade shots at night and we couldn't send in a drone. Right? Yeah, well, I mean, they're getting more sophisticated, like, you know, that problem like, like much of Africa, I talked about Africa a lot. Because my last command, I help stand up the seal, the NSW reserve component of Special Operations Command Africa. So that was my last command was at South Africa. So I was pushing out to the continent a lot. But look, we're getting more sophisticated, but like a lot of things in Africa, this problem snuck up on us before we realized how it was. And frankly, it didn't pop on anybody's radar. until those 300 school girls were captured.
Pete Turner 32:57
Oh, it's like, like on 911. You look around like, hey, someone speaks Arabic, right? And someone knows about the Quran and the Mufti and the
Muslims know, nobody knew anything. Yeah.
Kaj Larsen 33:10
I wouldn't even know how to spell al Qaeda. differently.
Pete Turner 33:15
Yeah. And then when you think about, like, the availability of weapons systems, you know, we talk like in terms of modern warfare and our end of it, but no shit. Anybody Boko Haram, with the Visa card can buy a fucking drone that can carry 300 pounds. Yeah. And just take that thing and do whatever you want off the shelf.
Unknown Speaker 33:33
Yeah, the shelf. So welcome systems.
Pete Turner 33:35
I just saw a video of me, you know, it's goofing around. But it's not that far from the truth. It's a it was a drone, and it was shooting bottle rockets out of it. Right. You know, and you could set that up. And but that really, you just give a guy some time and real nasty shit can happen.
Kaj Larsen 33:47
Yeah. And that? Well, I'll finish answering Jeff's question, but that for me, that's like the real paradox in the national security space going forward. Right, we have to still think about the great powers threats, what China it's doing in the south, in the South China Sea, right, and what Iran is doing in terms of nuclear enrichment, those, that still really matters, right, what Russia is doing in eastern Ukraine, all of that stuff really matters. But what also matters is the dude who can program a drone, right with some kind of IED on and using facial recognition from Facebook or his iPhone to target individuals like so you have those kind of asymmetric threats. And I think that's the New World Order. Big Big mega threats, national nation state threats, and then these individual non state actor threats. That's how we balance it. So and this is probably the worst segue ever. But to finish Jeff's question, in terms of, you know, as my career evolved, what I realized is because of our background in counterterrorism, I tended to gravitate and cover stories, ideas, make documentaries, a lot about non state actors, pirates in Somalia. Sure. drug cartels like those sorts of things. So the kind of combination is that of that
Unknown Speaker 35:04
white lobster, the white?
Unknown Speaker 35:08
Yeah, he's in Nicaragua,
Kaj Larsen 35:09
on fishermen, who's, who's like fishing grounds have been fished out. So now they wait around for what they call the white lobster, which is a kilo of cocaine to like follow up on too short for the narco traffickers. So yeah, and so along the drug theme, I spent a lot of time covering both like prisons in the US, but also narco trafficking. I sold an original series to one of the one of the big outlets I said, I just finished up a docu series about narco trafficking, called the business of drugs. Right. So that's kind of what I'm up to now. Now, I basically, I make TV shows I had a movie at Sundance this year. I'm a host correspondent, journalists producer. That's my that's my post seal life.
Jeff Gum 35:54
And then you got a swim coming up.
Kaj Larsen 35:56
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, like, Look, you and I've had a really blessed post service career, but like, gotta like, give back. And I think you do a lot of this as well. Like, remember the community. So Jeff and I are doing this big. This big swim up in up in New York City. We're swimming in the Statue of Liberty, which is going to be awesome. And then from there, we swim down to the World Trade Center,
Jeff Gum 36:21
Ellis Island to Ellis Island and it every location. We're doing 100 push ups and 20 pull ups, and then swim LB. little over three miles total. We swim then once we get to Battery Park, we run to like the Freedom Tower and finish out the Special Forces statue like the giant statue of a spec ops guy in Afghanistan on a horse. Yeah, right there at Ground Zero. Yeah.
Kaj Larsen 36:47
And 30 of us right. 30 frog. Yeah, yeah. So we're mini storm in New York. Oh, we're in sukkah life. Be the best
dress programmatic New York City.
Pete Turner 37:00
Yeah, make it even smaller Speedo special specifically for Rudy. Because
Jeff Gum 37:06
he wears the small he wants the smallest one. Then
Kaj Larsen 37:09
he rolls it up.
Pete Turner 37:12
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we actually just officially today Scott using and I decided that we're going to partner up a save the brave and break it down show. And really allow them to have a platform to get the word out even more because one of the problems is and you guys must have experienced this is as we're trying to create service, you're asking for money. There's just this natural reluctance. Like, you know, you guys been on you guys on the up and up, you know, they're stealing money. And it's like, we just gotta fight that with a positive message and constant, you know, because there's, there's a guy right now that's deciding, yes, no one life. And I would love to get to that guy rather than worry about someone who's scared to give $20 you know, so read, I tell it's all about this service. You know, whether you're swimming around, I guess, I'm going to try if I can recover fast enough to do that Coronado swim in October, you know, we'll see if i Turner for blind productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand, or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me, I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show. com Let me help I want to hear about Uber, you know, we'll see if I heal fast enough. But all of these things add up and service and, and the Brotherhood and everything else that we all have. And I love it. Man, that's just wonderful. I want to ask you a not a political question. But it kind of goes to that because I've seen a troubling trend where the word patriotism is sort of teetering on good, bad. Yeah. How do you define it? What do you think patriotism is?
Kaj Larsen 38:46
for? For me? It's like, incredibly simple, right? It's being of service to your country, right to your country, in your community. And that can be reflected in a million different ways. You know, like I I've always been a big proponent of national service, right? It doesn't mean compulsory military service. Right. But like, join the Peace Corps. Right? Little what, yeah, absolutely. Like, coaching, coaching your local Little League, like coaching soccer team volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club of America. You know, it's so fascinating is that in 1962, when President Kennedy commissioned the seal teams, right, our forefathers, with one stroke of the pen, he commissioned both the seal teams and the Peace Corps. Yeah, and these are two incredibly disparate elements of national power. But if you think about it, and some of the places that the three of us have trapped in the world, the only experience that people in deep like NorthWest Frontier Province, Pakistan, or you know, like the southern jungles of Mindanao, the only experience they have with Americans are either a soldier carrying a gun, or a Peace Corps worker doing volunteer work. So I think like patriotism, it's certainly like, not confined or defined by the military. The military is one extraordinary element of like, millions of Americans who like put on a uniform and put their lives at risk to serve their country. And then there's also millions of other Americans who can do it in different ways. So yeah, like I think the like real patriotism means like to be of service and I and I, I think obviously if you like sign on the dotted line join the military. Like, check. Right? I think in the civilian world, we in the military can help mentor Yeah, other Americans into doing that kind of kind of service. Yeah.
Jeff Gum 40:41
What are some of the goals you have coming up? What's What do you see? That's next for you?
Kaj Larsen 40:46
So you know, I didn't really intend to be in media and television. You know, my my parents are hippies all that. edit that out by Bob hates when I say that? I'm not a hippie dammit. I'm counter culture. We
Unknown Speaker 41:03
know you don't really
Kaj Larsen 41:05
like I've had this fight with ever before. But, you know, my dad was marine. My met my mom at like, I mean, they met in New York, but they're at Woodstock. together. They were part of that counterculture. Oh, should. The point is like, we didn't have a TV growing up. I don't think I had a TV till I was like 27 years old, like, yeah, that's how I got out of the service, right? I didn't ever plan on being on TV, or making TV shows. But for better or worse, like, it became a bully pulpit in which I could inject my ideas into the world. So I could, there's just not a lot of I mean, the three of us have this table could but certainly within journalism, there's no, there's not a very good requisite knowledge of the military. Now, when I was at, when I was at Harvard, the head of the Shorenstein Center, which is the center there, for press, politics, and public policy, the head of the Shorenstein center wrote the seminal book on the history of the New York Times. And he told me this story that they used to at the National journalism awards annual thing every year, parade the colors through through the auditorium, and they asked everybody who like had served to stand up and the whole room in the 50s and 60s would stand up, every journalist in America had basically served because they were in World War Two. So think about like their actual working knowledge of the military like what it means to be in a chow hall, like what it means to go to PST and fill out your paperweight what it means to hold a rifle with bad intentions and put lead downrange, like they actually knew at a very visceral level. He told me the same conference 34 years later, or whatever it was 44 years later, when I was at school, they paraded the colors through like they do every year. And he asked anybody who had served to stand up and not a single journalist at the National editors press conference set up. So media is lacking a fundamental knowledge of the military. And I think you can apply that a little more broadly. They also don't necessarily have an inherent understanding of conflict zones and national security. There's some great journalists out there who cover this shit, yeah, who never serve. But broadly speaking, I and we have like a domain of expertise that I think is important for the public. To understand, right and a perspective like because we have not just been observers, we have actually done it and like walked a mile in those combat boots, walked in them combat boots, so I feel like what I'm what I'm doing next is I'm going to, you know, make movies, more movies, TV series and shows and host them myself and just try and help open the aperture on things that I consider important, whether it's, you know, Boko Haram, in northern Nigeria or pirates in Somalia or drug cartels in Mexico and South America. Use my unique skill set to tell those stories to the world. Amazing. Yeah,
Pete Turner 44:04
please do that.
Unknown Speaker 44:05
I'll try.
Pete Turner 44:07
Well, listen, you got an appointment. Yeah,
Kaj Larsen 44:08
I gotta run. Thank you guys. Again with us look, we'll
Pete Turner 44:10
cover some more your stories awesome.
Jon Leon Guerrero 0:00
Hey, this is john Leon Guerrero. If you've ever reflected on your life and thought, Man, I gotta get some shit done. Where do you get a load of our guest today college Larson? Here's the shortlist started college at the Naval Academy decided he should play water polo at UC Santa Cruz go banana slugs, where he earned a poly side degree. He got a Master's in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was awarded a fellowship from the Joan Shorenstein center on the press politics and public policy and was a joint Fellow at Tufts University Jepsen center for counterterrorism studies. That's a pretty good start, huh? What does one do with that education? Well, one becomes a Navy SEAL during Operation Enduring Freedom, and eventually a lieutenant commander and maritime operations officer at Spec Ops command Africa, and college was just getting started. He began his career in journalism on current tv, where he would put his rare experience to use to give viewers something truly unique. Like the time he volunteered to be waterboarding to help people understand the controversial enhanced interrogation technique. He's since been on CNN, ABC, NBC and the Huffington Post Spike TV, all of them, having reported on some of the things that would simply terrify most people from places that are not exactly welcoming to American TV cameras, Nigeria, Somalia, Cambodia, Colombia, Haiti, Pakistan and Yemen. Among them. He's covered the drug wars, human trafficking, prison life, you name it. He fears no topic and nobody in any place. His Vanguard series won an Emmy, and he's been nominated for a Peabody and practically every other damn thing. He also works hard for veteran causes like helping launch the Mission Continues, which offers veteran fellowship, or serving on the board of Team Rubicon, which is an organization that helps veterans transition civilian life by helping victims of natural disasters makes perfect sense to transition service people by giving them a civilian mission of service. So that's one of the things college does in his side time. Now, on a side note, if you like what we do, and what we've done for 518 episodes now, then help me out. I'm not going to ask you to finish third and the escape from Alcatraz triathlon or to swim across the English Channel and march from Normandy to St. Lo. To recreate the deed a mission of Navy combat demolition units. Both things conscious done, by the way, I'm asking you to press a couple of buttons hook the break it down, show up with that five star rating on iTunes, write us a little review, or whatever platform you're listening on. Nothing big 25 words or less, just some digital affection. That's all hook us up. You won't even break a sweat. co hosting this episode is conscious fellowship, Jeff gum, we're big fans of Jeff to he started a swimwear company called Sangha life and we're into it Sunday life com just like it sounds. They offer shorts and swimwear for the ultra sexy. It's quality stuff and it'll make you want to get in better shape. They're not a sponsor. I'm saying this shit for free. They make ladies apparel too. But I'm talking to the men get in potent shape where single life gear. Chicks will dig you in a very sexy way. I have seen it happen. That's why I started going to the gym. You can try and hate on it if you want. But if chicks don't dig you in single life shorts, you're not that double bro. Tomorrow is the Navy SEAL Hudson River swim. It's the first legally sanctioned swim across the Hudson River to Liberty Island for some push ups and pull ups to Ellis Island for more push ups and pull ups landing in Battery Park for more of the same follow by a run to a fitting conclusion at America's response monument at One World Trade Center. look that up by the way if you don't know what that is, it's America's response monument. There are a bunch of current and former seals in this event and Kosh and Jeff's team are all wearing single life gear to do it. Ultra performance ultra mobility ultra fucking sexy. By the way, if you want to see the world in all its social media glory, follow them both on Instagram you will be inspired to get out and do something interesting yourself. Something physical, something awesome. Here they are joining Pete today. co host Jeff GM and our special guest coach Larson millions rock productions.
Unknown Speaker 4:49
This is Jay Mohr. This is Jordan. Dexter from the Navy Sebastian young says written Rod Stewart Copeland Alexis
Kaj Larsen 4:57
Andy Summers this goes back to Gabby Reese. Rob. Hey,
Jon Leon Guerrero 5:00
This is Jon Leon Guerrero
Pete Turner 5:01
this is Pete a Turner.
Kaj Larsen 5:05
Hey, this is college Larson in typical frogman fashion, finished a little swim. And now I'm breaking it down on the breakdown show.
Niko Leon Guerrero 5:14
And now the breakdown show with john Leon Guerrero and Pete a Turner.
Pete Turner 5:23
Yeah, yeah, we're out here in the park by Jeff gums house, Jeff is co hosting. And actually right now he's just kind of being the gopher, he's getting our coffee.
Kaj Larsen 5:31
Isn't that the job of the co host? Coffee?
Pete Turner 5:37
Here, here's here's what's great about having a podcast that and being able to do what the heck we want to do. We've all spent a lot of time in combat zones. And we have none of the three of us have ever worked out think at least on the same Bob cob coupe, JSS anything, but we have an instant kinship because, well, look, my baseline is this. Nobody's trying to shoot at me today.
Kaj Larsen 5:59
I said that all the time, man, like people are like, Man, you're always like, so happy. Like, I don't know that like somebody. This guy told me the other day. He's like, Man, you have like no military bearing whatsoever. And I was like, Thank you, sir. That is the greatest compliment you give me but like, yeah, I'm happy. There's no red flying, nobody's shooting at me. Like we just swim in it in a pool. There's beautiful girls in bikinis, like today was a good day. I guess.
Pete Turner 6:24
And I'd like to provide context, one of the things I do on the show, and the show is not all about warrior stuff. So we'll get past this pretty quick. But you know, when you're on a patrol, and one of the things we're able to do, and this is not a big secret thing, we can listen to what the enemy is talking about. A lot of times, this goes back to World War Two. But now I would live intercept on a patrol. I've heard them that, Hey, Pete, they're seeing your name and you're here like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're like, Okay, yeah, and that doesn't happen anymore.
Kaj Larsen 6:54
Yeah, it is true. You do not have to worry about now you got to worry about a different chatter class, you know, and I mean, what are we worried about now? Look, I mean, there's, there's there's a bunch of concerns, right? Like, one is what we're doing now that now that the geostrategic picture is changing, again, we're going back to the great powers debate to get all wonky, we're worried about China and Iran, and, and even the seal teams are shifting back to big blue. Right? That's a big transition after a decade and a half, almost two decades at war for our communities. Right. And so then, as more and more guys are getting out, I think, you know, one of our responsibilities is to think about what that new picture looks like for guys who are transitioning out. And that's part of the reason Jeff and I became such good friends is like, it's pretty awesome to watch guys get out and thrive. Yeah, right. Because not everybody does. Let's be honest. But like, Guys who can translate, you know, people, there's all this weird stuff about our military skills, translating into the civilian world, honestly, not really, right. Like, there wasn't a lot of combat swimmer jobs, I could go apply for Right.
Jeff Gum 8:04
Right. It gives you a great foundation, but then you just got to build totally on.
Kaj Larsen 8:10
Yeah, like it's the door is open, you still gotta kick through that I kicked down that door and like run through it and charge I think what does translate and like Jeff is the epitome of this, like the classic example are those entrepreneurial skills that you have to figure out like you got to figure out how to up armor the Humvee, right the same way. You got to figure out how to bootstrap your business just
Jeff Gum 8:31
constantly problem solving, is what it is just non stop, because when you're starting a business, just everything goes wrong. One after the other. So yeah, exactly. But it's not. It's like you know, Mike Tyson said, everybody's got plan to get punched in the face and how you react to that is, is are you a fighter not?
Pete Turner 8:51
Life is more nasty than combat combat. Like, like, Jocko talks about how like, it just doesn't care. Right? You know, but life does care. And it continues to punch you in the face mouth. It's like, yeah, you're on a knee. Guess what, here comes my foot. Yeah, you know, so it is hard, especially like for guys that do transition out. We've got all of us ever different up tempo. You know, my job as a spy was to go out every day and write a report roll with you guys, wherever you guys go, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to see something that you guys can't see, even though we're all right there. And so I come back to the real world, highly transferable skills, but no one gives a fuck, right? And so you're like, you get down on your knees. And you're like, I can't take another kick. Here it comes right now. So as we do transition, we look at not the enemy. But the adversity that we have. This is Pete real quick, I just want to let you guys know, we are proud to announce our official support of save the brave, a certified nonprofit 501 c three, with a charter of helping veterans with post traumatic stress. Here's how you can help go to save the brave, calm, click on the link on the website. And my recommendation is this subscribe, give them 20 bucks a month, you've got subscriptions that you can turn off right now that you're not using that are $20 a month, swap that out, get involved. Let's help each folks out. As we do transition, and we look at you know, not the enemy. But the adversity that we all go through. You know, you've got golf. So you guys First off, I have to call it follow cause on Instagram, because your photos are just beautiful. Like you just set your mind to dreaming. Yeah, I can't think of anything better than that.
Kaj Larsen 10:20
Oh, thanks, man. That's that's a high order compliment. Well, like, what I found is in my, in my post service life, you know, I in some ways returned to my roots. You know, I kept it blue. You know, and I don't know like that foundation. Totally it is we spend so much time in the drink. But it's actually my happy place. I got a buddy up in my hometown of Santa Cruz, who wrote a book called A blue mind about the therapeutic effects of water on the brain on Chicago. Exactly. And it's true. Like it's like, for guys like Jeff and I like salt water therapy. I actually think it applies much more broadly to everybody by just looking at that beautiful fountain over there. Right like is water. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:02
yeah, fire has the same kind of effect where you're drawn to like look at it and just you get drawn in by it. You want to jump into fire but you know when it's there and a cold my mistake is primal.
Kaj Larsen 11:12
I never really met a body of water. I didn't want to turn yes River. I was like, I gotta take a
Pete Turner 11:21
solid. So let's talk about crazy places. We Oh, yeah, let me because we dissolve this wind swimming in a very normal place. But Pakistan.
Kaj Larsen 11:28
Yeah, I think my high watermark is is Mogadishu Somalia. So I saw I was out there. And I saw these kids like swimming in this like, like kind of like shot out city in the Mogae. Like, it used to be a beautiful place. You know, like, there was a time where they thought Mogadishu was going to be like Beirut, the Paris of, you know, East Africa, right? Like, it obviously didn't happen. So I saw these kids swimming out there. And I like, I run down there and I like you know, jump in. I do a little body surfing. And then my my smiley turck my interpreter when I got back he's like, Man, you're you're so crazy. Do you know that two Somali children a week get eaten by sharks?
No shit. You could have told me before. Yeah, I think that's My, my.
Jeff Gum 12:15
I'd say my second deployment, we're getting ready. We're gonna do training mission jump into the Persian Gulf. And so we're getting all geared up, load up a Zodiac out of a C 130. throw that out the back. And and we go out, we go out. We all jump after it land in the water. And all sudden you're like, Oh, what's that? What's that and just start getting stung by jellyfish like crazy. And you got this parachute all around you, you're making sure you don't get tied up in that. And then then it's 10 foot yellow giant sea snake comes by and he's just got they got tails on them. And they just they have a tail that's just like a rudder. That's, you know, just evolved to give make them swim. Yes. And, and then so we all we all see these CC snakes everywhere. As we're swimming around, we finally get picked up. We're like cheese where I lose things. We do some research and find out. There's not even any anti venom if you get if you get stuck. If you get bit you just die. You just die. That's
Kaj Larsen 13:13
like one of the snakes. Snakes are no joke.
Jeff Gum 13:18
Okay, my friend was He's like, Yeah, I was trying to grab this one that swim by me.
Kaj Larsen 13:24
Insane,
Pete Turner 13:25
right? I swam on a patrol in Baghdad. Recently, the other side of the river, I kind of on the solder city side. And we were on a patrol, I was super fucking hot, middle of the day, like, you know, normally patrol, you know, because it's 120 degrees outside. And we had stopped and I had nothing to do with that part of the patrol. And I forget what it was, but they had a fountain, just like this one over here. It's a little circular fountain long enough, you could get swimming across it. And I was just shooting the shit with the Iraqi guys, you know, and I'm always working. So if I'm shooting the shit, I'm I'm doing what I do. And I'm I Can you swim and I forget how to say it in Arabic. But that's what I asked him. He's like, you can speak Arabic? And I'm like, No, no, not really. Hey, can you swim for some reason? And he's like, yeah, I'll swim in that plane right now. I'm like, I'll race you. And so my gear was all I always took my gear off right away, because my job is to look normal, right? So I already have my gear off. And I'm like, let's go. So we walked over. And it did the man from Atlanta. You know, like, right across to me. It took pictures and everything. So not as dangerous is that but it is during a combat patrol. So the snakes who knows what kind of horrible things were in the water, but it looks pretty clean.
Kaj Larsen 14:29
That's what I always say, Oh, it looks pretty clean. It's probably the worst advice ever. But like whatever you just get you pushed I believe button. Yeah, jump in.
Jeff Gum 14:37
My friend had a crazy one too. He was training like the Kenyan boat guy. So he'd like train them during the week, then they would go out and like hunt the Somali pirates on the weekends come back. And he trained them again. And he's training like their buds class or whatever. And it's like first day, and they they have more like jump in the water and half of them just go down to the bottom of the pool and just stay there. And they're like, What the heck's going on? So they jump in and grab them, pull them out? And they're like, what are you doing? You can't swim? They're all like, no, kids. So they're like, Why don't you say anything? Why don't you just jump in there and go the bottom of the pool? Like, oh, we were told, like
Kaj Larsen 15:17
in Liberia, I was training the Liberian Special Forces and I was supposed to be training them in combat diving and they had like a beautiful dive locker that the Israelis had built them with like triggers and open circuit and like, you name it. It was like and I was like this equipments incredible. Has this ever been in the water? Never been touched, right? And so like, I like I was like, All right, we'll start in the pool. We'll do a little poll worker. They're like, Where's the pool? They're like, Oh, we don't have this pool. We don't have a pool. We have this lake.
So we like run to this lake. Turns out none of us could swim. So I basically was like, my like deployment, they're teaching combat swimming was really just like teaching these guys.
Even in the wake, I remember when I first got there. I was like,
the crocodiles in this lake. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yes. But they only attack at night.
Pete Turner 16:15
On the day shift.
Yeah, I heard the same kind of story with some SF guys teach it. I think it was Jordanians, US airborne operations that were just going to get airborne certified jump out of an airplane. The Jordanians and I think it was ridiculous. But they're like, yeah, okay, and why you got so nervous. Like, we've never jumped out of an airplane before. And what was lost in translation was the Jordanians didn't realize there was a parachute involved. They thought they were literally
Jeff Gum 16:45
fell down.
Pete Turner 16:57
translate to what we do on a day to day basis. Cuz you see those incredible things, you know?
Kaj Larsen 17:02
Yeah. I mean, like, Look, I I don't know, like, I think what one of the other, there's lots of disadvantages to joining the service like time away from your family, there's lots of hard stuff that comes with it. But one of the like, really good positive things that you have, like when you come back, is you can take all of this unique wealth of experience that we've all accumulated, because we've seen things that are different, and we've done things that are different. And then you can apply, like all of that experience, right? All that crazy stuff about like, if I had known in my 20s, what I knew in my 30s, right, like, but we had, like, you know, five decades of experience Kimbo rest into a couple of combat deployments. And I do my theory is that ultimately, if we can, like, you know, fight off the demons and stuff that that helps us as we like, try and like create a new life. You know, now that we're back home,
Pete Turner 17:56
I don't want to do all the question asking, I want Jeff to but I'm going to throw one more at both you guys. So one of the things I asked all of us guys who've been out on a lot of combat missions, is have you fired more bullets or have more conversations in combat?
Kaj Larsen 18:08
Oh, for me, there's like, it's like 100 to one conversation to pull it ratio. Right. And partially, that's because in my civilian career, when I transitioned, I became a conflict zone correspondent and a war correspondent. Right. So I spent a lot of time going back to the same places that I had been deployed to, and really trying to get to like the root causes of the problem and having conversations frankly, with people who are on the opposite side of the line. So I was in northern Nigeria interviewing Boko Haram commanders, right like guys that we were have been maybe are still trying to kill Yeah. So yeah, so for me, like understanding like the territory and I've spent a lot more time sort of talking and learning especially
Jeff Gum 18:54
now in this stage in my career stay with me I was I was a source handler my first deployment to so I was I was meeting like two different guys a day and and having you know, key leader engagements and meeting of all these Iraqi generals and Iraqi SWAT commanders and everything, had drinking all the tea. Yeah, so
Pete Turner 19:15
it's, it's crazy, because this is the universal answer, like way more way more rounds from my mouth than that ever from a weapon ever. And, and yet, the training, totally opposite of that you train all the time with a weapon. And they're like, like, I don't know, anybody that's ever shown me like an advanced Certificate of working with interpreters, that you figure it out on your own way. There's no institutional knowledge. We're like, this is how you do and how to drive a weapon, not just shoot, but like really control it making do with it, but you cannot show me a training program for the same and what's more important, considering what we do, you know, it's crazy.
Jeff Gum 19:51
Yeah, our interpreters were invaluable because they had been there for over five over five years. And, and they had so much knowledge of the of the area, and new everyone that was coming in with brief me all about them. And it's like, you know, the team guys turn over to each other, but the interpreters would mostly stay. So as they were, they were an incredible asset.
takes a lot of trust.
Kaj Larsen 20:15
Yeah, yeah. And it also says about a lot like how we select for the Special Operations community. Okay. Right. Like, you know, the truth is, like, our selection process is like, pretty Paleolithic, right? Like, even to get invited to training. Yeah, it's pretty knuckle dragging, like how strong are you? How fast are you? Like, how fast can you swim? Right, right. And so like, you know, guys, like, Jeff, and I, you know, like we can we can make it through that gauntlet, right. But then it's lucky if you can do the other stuff, the soft skills for lack of a better term, which are really the job.
Jeff Gum 20:50
Yeah, you know, what, though, like being so and then I spent my last few years as an instructor running all the combat is, and about half the guys that came through had had college degrees. And I mean, even my second deployment, half my new guys had college degrees from the top schools, Columbia, Vanderbilt, and it was just I mean, so it kind of shows like the the edge, like just being more educated can kind of make you helps you prepare you so it's, they feed off each other?
Pete Turner 21:25
Yeah, it's not at all surprised to see a special operations person having a degree from the Kennedy School of Government someone at this table, probably
UCLA MBA coming for, you know,
people miss that, you know, they understand that. So let me ask you this, because my perception is an army guy, is that the seals are, I don't want to say less intelligence, I'm kind of say, but you guys don't select for that you guys go a little more cro-magnon than like the Green Berets, where they go, we want you to be in a few years, we want you to get a degree has that evolved at all? You guys were you guys look a little bit more? Because I mean, like, we all I don't you guys go out and you train indigenous forces? You know, I know, that's SF job. But, you know, everybody's got to go out and do that work. You guys rotate on each other's missions all the time? Has it changed? You guys?
Kaj Larsen 22:14
I think which? I'd be curious to hear just perspective because he was right in the training pipeline sooner. But from my perspective, the appetite is there, right? We always want like, more intelligent, like more cerebral, better language skills, all of that stuff. What's different is that it's institutionalized into the SF pipeline. Yeah. So those guys have to be conventional side, they have to have a language capability before they go in. So like, just by virtue of the structure, yeah, it's going to skew more that direction than us. Right. That's fair.
Jeff Gum 22:48
Yeah, I think it there's people that that, you know, aren't, aren't the most educated sometimes, but but they're tough, or they're able to, they're able to pick it up, or they're young and, and we need these guys to we need to them, because then then they're, you know, they're on our second deployment by by 2122. And, and, and by the time they're 25, they're extremely, they're still young and, and tough, but they're pretty experienced. But uh, but a lot of it just happens naturally. Because, you know, our training is two years long and a lot of it is very technical, or CTC is very technical or even the dive phase you have to be able to follow procedure and and then you have to be extremely safe for everything we do on the island between demolition and pistol and rifle and moving and, and if you if you're not safe, doing all that, and you can't do land navigation, like all the it's a lot, it's non stop learning. Like it was, I was it from from one thing to the next my whole way through my career for 10 years, I never stopped learning. It was constantly one thing from the next It was very challenging, even, like, coming back from my first deployment going to breach you're going to sniper going to his cast master. It's like non stop. You're trying to keep all these you have like 1000 different skill sets you've learned and you're trying to keep them all Yeah, like pretty, pretty good. Yeah. And, and so to be to be successful, you have to be able to just handle that.
Pete Turner 24:13
Let me and let me make sure I say this again, for the audience, cuz I know that we could talk and sort of a shorthand, but everybody at your guys's level, Green Berets, delta, any of those kind of things have Rudy and all his boys, they have the biggest chip on their shoulder because they just don't get the same love. You know, marine recon. Those guys are incredible. So everybody has a high high high level, it's alphas of alphas. And then you get to the team and there's another level of alpha. So it's crazy. Everybody, you have to adapt, or you will not you will shit you find your shit in the hallway, go find a new team. That is how it goes. And so we're talking at the very tip. What in theory, SF guys focus on Green Berets, or seals focus on but in practice, you guys cross over a lot.
Kaj Larsen 24:57
A ton of mission creep. And I don't mean that in a bad yeah, in a positive way. But yeah, I mean, the distinctions that we are discussing here at this picnic table are like shades, all the shades of grey as Greg, right. Like, in general, you know, the the culture and community that you get from anybody in soft special operation forces is like, it's pretty consistent across the board. There's little variations, but like, we all shoot, we all dive for the most part, we all jump. Yeah, you know, we all pick up heavy shit and put it back down. Yeah, right. Like, that's, that's our move. But I think something Jeff said is super interesting to a general audience. And also, even within the community is like, like what Jeff just described, like, the sheer number of skills that you have to acquire to be a competent operator, you know, I like, you know, I, you know, still the reserves, I did a deployment pretty recently, and my friends from the civilian world are like, Oh, man, like, when are you going to like, aren't you too old for that? Like, first of all, like, I kick your ass at the gym every single day, right? Like, one it's not about those hard skills necessarily into like, people forget the average age of a soft operators 34 years old, right? Because it takes a long time, as Jeff just described, to acquire that range of skills in a like dynamic, you know, multi dimensional environment,
Jeff Gum 26:22
like getting a PhD.
Kaj Larsen 26:24
Right, or three PhDs. shown in diving Ops, you know, one in
Pete Turner 26:29
one summer in one basket to be able to and as a backup person has to be able just to load your shit into an airplane and make sure it comes out the other end on the ground. Okay, that's a whole job in and of itself. Like, what everything weighs, what straps, you need, that, you know, all that. And that's no, that's a real fucking hard job. Yes. Tactical, all your stuff. You know, anyhow, yes, it's highly technical. And someone like me who goes out with you guys as like a collector. I'm highly specialized it but I have to prove it. I don't have like a tab on my shoulder. I don't have a trident on my chest, right. But it ticks me because I've learned how I can communicate with you guys. First off, I don't try to jump in on your mission. I'm like, I'm here to help. Here's what I do. Let me go and you'll see what happens. And then there are you guys are always like, I'm down with that. That's fine. Yeah, you can have a spot and control and then I earn it in. But then they see looks like I'm a scalpel. No, I put this couple over there. Let him go do his stuff. Because it makes the team better you guys are able to do your thing. I have someone standing there they can sir. I'm alive. And I put my total trust that they are watching. It's amazing to watch that level of competence come together into something that is largely based on conversations. You know, we're mostly out yes, we want to close with and destroy the enemy, of course, but when they don't want to be found or destroyed your life all in good. We're going to take this time to do the other aspect of it, which is honestly quite hard. We harder than in close quarter combat even.
Kaj Larsen 27:49
I also think it's amazing to watch how its evolved over the last decade and a half. Like, you know, I was I was in buds on 911 right and the Truth Truth be told, at that time time, we were largely using Vietnam jungle era warfare tactics. That was like the the training paradigm was still leftover from the last great frogman conflict which was Vietnam bunch of little shit in between Vietnam and then but really, like we were doing like bush jungle warfare and Mike that was that was like dominant in terms of everything you did and then fast forward to like after Jeff's done a couple platoons and now he's running guys through training like the the technical sophistication of what they were doing like the frankly the CPC
Unknown Speaker 28:40
reg con component.
Kaj Larsen 28:42
Yeah, the comms piece, right? Unbelievable right? Like when you're you know, you're talking and and then the international piece right like you're on patrol in Afghanistan with the Polish Graham and an Italian JT tak right and a French jet over credible Hey, it's like yeah, people like
Pete Turner 29:01
driving the joint combined operations where a person from this country is doing one aspect on this patrol. So yeah, like a guy like me is collecting those are French guys again and make sure he's going to coordinate the air assets. There's an Italian guy back in the back planning operations that has all these different pieces that work together as a multi nation national
Jeff Gum 29:19
I love it. It's It's beautiful. Yeah. And I I love working with guys from other other other countries. I spent like two weeks and Copenhagen training the Danish frogman and training their SWAT unit and combative and yeah, it sniper with three three marine Jaeger commandos. They're like our counterparts in, in Norway. Nice. And so it's, it's just amazing to be and then, like, still talk to these guys all the time. So
Pete Turner 29:47
I've got a single question. Yes. So I'm gonna shut up and let you ask a couple questions.
Kaj Larsen 29:51
Because what do you have going on going on? Now, you know, when I when I got off active duty, I went to graduate school like yourself, and I sort of actually we fell into media and to journalism. And so I was at, I had a show on CNN, that I was a war zone correspondent for covered mostly conflict zones like other other and then I Well, I cover I cover other stuff also. But as my as more as my career evolved, I started there. And then I and then after CNN, I had a, I was a correspondent for a show on HBO called vice.
Jeff Gum 30:24
I saw you on there embedded with the militia like going after Boko Haram and everything, there was some crazy parts of that where I remember seeing a guy, one of the guys who were with one of the Africans, he got his hand chopped off by the helicopter saw. It was crazy. This was like,
Kaj Larsen 30:42
yeah, that was like a Tuesday.
like holy shit, like you want to talk about like bush war level tactics. So I was embedded there with a group of private contractors, mercenaries, if, and these are like, there's a long tradition of using mercenaries on the South African internet. And these guys were actually the old Executive Outcomes, guys. And they were they were contracted to fight Boko Haram. But it was definitely a different era of warfare out there. Like no real qR apps that comes went to shit like it was it was old school really sticking your neck out.
Pete Turner 31:23
So do you have a weapon and stuff or no,
Kaj Larsen 31:25
no, it's kind of it's frowned because the journalists journal.
Pete Turner 31:33
A lot of us want that at all times.
Kaj Larsen 31:35
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some uncomfortable times. I will say this, like, I was really close to a weapon.
Pete Turner 31:42
Yeah, I've
Kaj Larsen 31:45
had to jump on the pk. Or you know, if I had to like
Jeff Gum 31:49
yeah, have a shooting buddy that has has an extra one.
They're gonna want you to have
Kaj Larsen 31:54
me because the truth is like, there is times that I wasn't even with, like, contractors, right? I pushed way out into the front lines of the same piece of forest with the Nigerian Army, who are like and this is old school trench warfare. These guys live in the trenches. They eat the rats that they catch in the Trento see Boko Haram, the Boko fighters like 1000 meters away holed up in like an old school and stuff into the trade shots at night and we couldn't send in a drone. Right? Yeah, well, I mean, they're getting more sophisticated, like, you know, that problem like, like much of Africa, I talked about Africa a lot. Because my last command, I help stand up the seal, the NSW reserve component of Special Operations Command Africa. So that was my last command was at South Africa. So I was pushing out to the continent a lot. But look, we're getting more sophisticated, but like a lot of things in Africa, this problem snuck up on us before we realized how it was. And frankly, it didn't pop on anybody's radar. until those 300 school girls were captured.
Pete Turner 32:57
Oh, it's like, like on 911. You look around like, hey, someone speaks Arabic, right? And someone knows about the Quran and the Mufti and the
Muslims know, nobody knew anything. Yeah.
Kaj Larsen 33:10
I wouldn't even know how to spell al Qaeda. differently.
Pete Turner 33:15
Yeah. And then when you think about, like, the availability of weapons systems, you know, we talk like in terms of modern warfare and our end of it, but no shit. Anybody Boko Haram, with the Visa card can buy a fucking drone that can carry 300 pounds. Yeah. And just take that thing and do whatever you want off the shelf.
Unknown Speaker 33:33
Yeah, the shelf. So welcome systems.
Pete Turner 33:35
I just saw a video of me, you know, it's goofing around. But it's not that far from the truth. It's a it was a drone, and it was shooting bottle rockets out of it. Right. You know, and you could set that up. And but that really, you just give a guy some time and real nasty shit can happen.
Kaj Larsen 33:47
Yeah. And that? Well, I'll finish answering Jeff's question, but that for me, that's like the real paradox in the national security space going forward. Right, we have to still think about the great powers threats, what China it's doing in the south, in the South China Sea, right, and what Iran is doing in terms of nuclear enrichment, those, that still really matters, right, what Russia is doing in eastern Ukraine, all of that stuff really matters. But what also matters is the dude who can program a drone, right with some kind of IED on and using facial recognition from Facebook or his iPhone to target individuals like so you have those kind of asymmetric threats. And I think that's the New World Order. Big Big mega threats, national nation state threats, and then these individual non state actor threats. That's how we balance it. So and this is probably the worst segue ever. But to finish Jeff's question, in terms of, you know, as my career evolved, what I realized is because of our background in counterterrorism, I tended to gravitate and cover stories, ideas, make documentaries, a lot about non state actors, pirates in Somalia. Sure. drug cartels like those sorts of things. So the kind of combination is that of that
Unknown Speaker 35:04
white lobster, the white?
Unknown Speaker 35:08
Yeah, he's in Nicaragua,
Kaj Larsen 35:09
on fishermen, who's, who's like fishing grounds have been fished out. So now they wait around for what they call the white lobster, which is a kilo of cocaine to like follow up on too short for the narco traffickers. So yeah, and so along the drug theme, I spent a lot of time covering both like prisons in the US, but also narco trafficking. I sold an original series to one of the one of the big outlets I said, I just finished up a docu series about narco trafficking, called the business of drugs. Right. So that's kind of what I'm up to now. Now, I basically, I make TV shows I had a movie at Sundance this year. I'm a host correspondent, journalists producer. That's my that's my post seal life.
Jeff Gum 35:54
And then you got a swim coming up.
Kaj Larsen 35:56
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, like, Look, you and I've had a really blessed post service career, but like, gotta like, give back. And I think you do a lot of this as well. Like, remember the community. So Jeff and I are doing this big. This big swim up in up in New York City. We're swimming in the Statue of Liberty, which is going to be awesome. And then from there, we swim down to the World Trade Center,
Jeff Gum 36:21
Ellis Island to Ellis Island and it every location. We're doing 100 push ups and 20 pull ups, and then swim LB. little over three miles total. We swim then once we get to Battery Park, we run to like the Freedom Tower and finish out the Special Forces statue like the giant statue of a spec ops guy in Afghanistan on a horse. Yeah, right there at Ground Zero. Yeah.
Kaj Larsen 36:47
And 30 of us right. 30 frog. Yeah, yeah. So we're mini storm in New York. Oh, we're in sukkah life. Be the best
dress programmatic New York City.
Pete Turner 37:00
Yeah, make it even smaller Speedo special specifically for Rudy. Because
Jeff Gum 37:06
he wears the small he wants the smallest one. Then
Kaj Larsen 37:09
he rolls it up.
Pete Turner 37:12
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, we actually just officially today Scott using and I decided that we're going to partner up a save the brave and break it down show. And really allow them to have a platform to get the word out even more because one of the problems is and you guys must have experienced this is as we're trying to create service, you're asking for money. There's just this natural reluctance. Like, you know, you guys been on you guys on the up and up, you know, they're stealing money. And it's like, we just gotta fight that with a positive message and constant, you know, because there's, there's a guy right now that's deciding, yes, no one life. And I would love to get to that guy rather than worry about someone who's scared to give $20 you know, so read, I tell it's all about this service. You know, whether you're swimming around, I guess, I'm going to try if I can recover fast enough to do that Coronado swim in October, you know, we'll see if i Turner for blind productions. We create podcasts around here. And if you your brand, or your company want to figure out how to do a podcast, just talk to me, I'll give you the advice on the right gear. The best plan is show you how to take a podcast that makes sense for you that's sustainable, that scalable and fun. Hit me up at Pete at breakdown show. com Let me help I want to hear about Uber, you know, we'll see if I heal fast enough. But all of these things add up and service and, and the Brotherhood and everything else that we all have. And I love it. Man, that's just wonderful. I want to ask you a not a political question. But it kind of goes to that because I've seen a troubling trend where the word patriotism is sort of teetering on good, bad. Yeah. How do you define it? What do you think patriotism is?
Kaj Larsen 38:46
for? For me? It's like, incredibly simple, right? It's being of service to your country, right to your country, in your community. And that can be reflected in a million different ways. You know, like I I've always been a big proponent of national service, right? It doesn't mean compulsory military service. Right. But like, join the Peace Corps. Right? Little what, yeah, absolutely. Like, coaching, coaching your local Little League, like coaching soccer team volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club of America. You know, it's so fascinating is that in 1962, when President Kennedy commissioned the seal teams, right, our forefathers, with one stroke of the pen, he commissioned both the seal teams and the Peace Corps. Yeah, and these are two incredibly disparate elements of national power. But if you think about it, and some of the places that the three of us have trapped in the world, the only experience that people in deep like NorthWest Frontier Province, Pakistan, or you know, like the southern jungles of Mindanao, the only experience they have with Americans are either a soldier carrying a gun, or a Peace Corps worker doing volunteer work. So I think like patriotism, it's certainly like, not confined or defined by the military. The military is one extraordinary element of like, millions of Americans who like put on a uniform and put their lives at risk to serve their country. And then there's also millions of other Americans who can do it in different ways. So yeah, like I think the like real patriotism means like to be of service and I and I, I think obviously if you like sign on the dotted line join the military. Like, check. Right? I think in the civilian world, we in the military can help mentor Yeah, other Americans into doing that kind of kind of service. Yeah.
Jeff Gum 40:41
What are some of the goals you have coming up? What's What do you see? That's next for you?
Kaj Larsen 40:46
So you know, I didn't really intend to be in media and television. You know, my my parents are hippies all that. edit that out by Bob hates when I say that? I'm not a hippie dammit. I'm counter culture. We
Unknown Speaker 41:03
know you don't really
Kaj Larsen 41:05
like I've had this fight with ever before. But, you know, my dad was marine. My met my mom at like, I mean, they met in New York, but they're at Woodstock. together. They were part of that counterculture. Oh, should. The point is like, we didn't have a TV growing up. I don't think I had a TV till I was like 27 years old, like, yeah, that's how I got out of the service, right? I didn't ever plan on being on TV, or making TV shows. But for better or worse, like, it became a bully pulpit in which I could inject my ideas into the world. So I could, there's just not a lot of I mean, the three of us have this table could but certainly within journalism, there's no, there's not a very good requisite knowledge of the military. Now, when I was at, when I was at Harvard, the head of the Shorenstein Center, which is the center there, for press, politics, and public policy, the head of the Shorenstein center wrote the seminal book on the history of the New York Times. And he told me this story that they used to at the National journalism awards annual thing every year, parade the colors through through the auditorium, and they asked everybody who like had served to stand up and the whole room in the 50s and 60s would stand up, every journalist in America had basically served because they were in World War Two. So think about like their actual working knowledge of the military like what it means to be in a chow hall, like what it means to go to PST and fill out your paperweight what it means to hold a rifle with bad intentions and put lead downrange, like they actually knew at a very visceral level. He told me the same conference 34 years later, or whatever it was 44 years later, when I was at school, they paraded the colors through like they do every year. And he asked anybody who had served to stand up and not a single journalist at the National editors press conference set up. So media is lacking a fundamental knowledge of the military. And I think you can apply that a little more broadly. They also don't necessarily have an inherent understanding of conflict zones and national security. There's some great journalists out there who cover this shit, yeah, who never serve. But broadly speaking, I and we have like a domain of expertise that I think is important for the public. To understand, right and a perspective like because we have not just been observers, we have actually done it and like walked a mile in those combat boots, walked in them combat boots, so I feel like what I'm what I'm doing next is I'm going to, you know, make movies, more movies, TV series and shows and host them myself and just try and help open the aperture on things that I consider important, whether it's, you know, Boko Haram, in northern Nigeria or pirates in Somalia or drug cartels in Mexico and South America. Use my unique skill set to tell those stories to the world. Amazing. Yeah,
Pete Turner 44:04
please do that.
Unknown Speaker 44:05
I'll try.
Pete Turner 44:07
Well, listen, you got an appointment. Yeah,
Kaj Larsen 44:08
I gotta run. Thank you guys. Again with us look, we'll
Pete Turner 44:10
cover some more your stories awesome.
