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This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.
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I'm your host Kyle Thompson, let's get into it.
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All right, guys.
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We've got a special return guest on the show, and that is Jack Carr.
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So he is a retired Navy SEAL.
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He spent 20 years in Naval Special Warfare, and he is the number one New York Times best-selling
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fiction thriller writer of the James Reed series, which includes the terminal list, true believer,
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savage son, the devil's hand in the blood and only the dead.
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Guys, his latest book in the James Reed series is Red Sky Morning.
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That is out now.
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That's the seventh novel in the series.
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And he just was on.
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I feel like not that long ago talking about that, but here we are today on his fifth appearance
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on the show to talk about his nonfiction debut.
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Yes, the nonfiction debut called targeted Beirut.
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And we get into, OK, man, you're dominating the thriller circle.
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Why are you going to get into nonfiction historical or nonfiction historical nonfiction?
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Why are you going to do that?
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What was it like writing with your co-author, James Scott?
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And how do you get something that isn't just your writing and his writing kind of mushed
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together?
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How do you get it to flow together?
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But we go into everything that happened in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, beginning with the
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embassy bombing in April of that year, and then the United States Marine Corps barracks
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bombing in October of that year.
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Two of the most insane stories you can think of, but for guys like me that were born after
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all this happened.
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It's not really something that we go over in like middle school history class or something
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like that.
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So we go through a lot of those details.
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We go through kind of what happened on the ground.
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How did Ronald Reagan and figure into all of this and factor into all of this?
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What about the public perception of what was happening over there?
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Because the Marines were sent there, but they were sent there as a peacekeeping force,
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which I don't know about you.
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But when I think of the United States Marine Corps, I don't think about peacekeeping.
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I think about killing people and breaking stuff, which is kind of what the US military
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is supposed to do.
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Certainly the United States Marine Corps, but then how the embassy bombing in April of
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that year, April the 18th of '83, how that was kind of the opening salvo of the global
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war on terror and really are the West's fight against terrorism and then how that kind of
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kept going through the summer and then ended up with the barracks bombing that happened
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on October the 23rd of 1983.
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We get into some of the anecdotes, some of the most soul crushing stories that happen
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from people that were on the ground that day, but then the people that survived them, some
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of their loved ones back here.
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We also talk about the fact that we basically didn't avenge anything that happened there
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that summer, but then we talked at the end about peace in the Middle East and how that
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might maybe seems foolish to even be a goal because of what's happening there.
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And then at the very end, he gives us an idea as to what he is working on next in some of
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the announcements that we can expect.
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So guys, we love having him on the show.
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He's been on a whole bunch of times and we'll keep having him on because you guys keep one
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here from us.
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So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
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Jack Carr, I would say something like, hey, great to see you again, been a long time,
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but it hasn't been a long time.
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I talked to you.
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It seemed like 17 or 18 minutes ago.
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What are you doing?
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Are you stalking me now?
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Why are you coming on my show all the time?
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Yeah, I can't get away.
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So much fun hanging out that I keep having to write books just to hang out with you.
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I know that's the thing is I just I'm intense enough.
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I'm like a doser.
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People can take me in small doses, but you know, if you have a high propensity or tolerance
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for pain, you can stand to be around me a little bit more.
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So you just keep writing books and we'll get after it, but I need to tell you right from
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the beginning.
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I don't know who your business managers are or who the people are giving you advice.
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But you're supposed to stay in the world of fiction.
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I don't know if you knew that you're supposed to only write thrillers.
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You're supposed to just crank them out and then take a three or four week or three or
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four year break and let everyone pretend like you've retired and then do your comeback
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and then release like 10 more years in a row.
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That's what you're supposed to do.
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Do this, write movies and television shows and kind of do all that.
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How dare you try to dominate in two different categories because you are officially, as
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of today with the release of targeted Beirut, the 1983 Marine Barracks bombings and the
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untold origin story of the war on terror are in the world of nonfiction and military
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history.
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What are you doing, Jack?
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Yeah, man.
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So yeah, unfortunately there's no business manager yet or anybody to guide up to this
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point.
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It's just instinct because I don't know anything about business.
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I think I have a good understanding of what it's like to be an entrepreneur because that's
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what this has been.
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And that's essentially what you're doing in military and special operations as you adapt
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to changing environments and new mission sets.
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Some that you're not trained for and you're just thrown into like protecting the inner
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Iraqi government officials that back in 2004, no training for it.
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You just get in and you figure it out.
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And of course adapting to an enemy that's constantly adapting to you, looking for gaps
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in the enemy's defenses, trying to capitalize on momentum.
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But for me, I'm a student of history.
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I've always approached everything as a student, always studying warfare, always studying counterinsurgencies
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and tyrannies, terrorism, special operations in general was doing that when I was a kid,
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reading everything I could find, watching every documentary I could find, reading every magazine
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article I could find, and of course reading all the thrillers I could find also because
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thrillers that had protagonists back then that typically had experiences in Vietnam that
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allowed them to then be in the CIA and that the 80s and those are the kind of books that
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I was reading back then.
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And I was also from the fan perspective, you know, aware that Tom Clancy of course had
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his flagship series that started with hunt for a October back in 1984 and then we go
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into red storm rising and Patriot games and Cardinal of the Kremlin and clone present
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danger.
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And then in the early 90s he branches out and started doing some nonfiction as well.
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Frederick Forsyth had a nonfiction work early on as well.
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But so I was very aware of it from the fan perspective and we've a lot of history into
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the books as you know, and on my social channels I talk about different terrorist events and
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try to capture some of those lessons learned so they're not forgotten.
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But when I thought I'd built up enough political capital with Simon and Schuster to be able
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to make a pitch for a nonfiction series, then that's what I did and told them that I wanted
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to look into these different terrorist events, start a series called targeted, try to capture
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lessons learned at the strategic operational and at the tactical level and also try to
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humanize these events because like in this case in particular, you have 241 dead Americans
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in October of 1983 in Beirut Lebanon.
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But you don't really get to know what that means until you get to know the families who
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lost loved ones or the guys who were digging through the rubble looking for their brothers
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in arms trying to rescue as many people as possible in the aftermath of the event.
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So I really want to try to humanize it at the same time so that senior level elected officials
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and military officers and senior level enlisted advisors, they realize that there is a multi-generational
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impact to some of the decisions that they may be making thousands of miles away from
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a battlefield or a potential battlefield and their responsibilities to understand the nature
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of the conflict to which they're committing US forces.
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So I wanted to capture as many lessons learned as I could in this and I wanted to humanize
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the experience for those who were there and it was such an honor to have them trust me
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and James Scott also wanted to write it with a historian knew what they were doing because
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there are so many things that you have to get them right.
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And the thrillers, I can say, if I get something wrong, I can say, "Oh, it's fiction."
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You have to get it right and you're writing about people who are no longer with us, whose
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families have an empty seat at that table in half since October 1983 and you're writing
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about some people who are still with us and they weren't that old back then, they were
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young.
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They weren't that old today and a lot of them are still living on October 23rd, 1983 and
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they're carrying the emotional trauma of the event with them to this day.
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So I kept coming back to Beirut 1983 as the event that I wanted to start this series with.
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So I pitched Simon and Schuster told them I wanted to work with a historian Pulitzer
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Prize finalist James Scott because I really loved his work.
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He hadn't collaborated with anyone before and it seems strange now, but I didn't even
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listen to a podcast with him.
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So I had no idea if he was, if I got the feeling there was a nice guy or not or would be fun
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to work with or I shouldn't have done that, but I think I was just too busy writing.
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And now I like it that it was just about the work.
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And so I was talking to my agent, my publisher about this and they said, "Well, who's this
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agent?"
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And I looked in the book, one of his latest ones and I was like, "Ah, let's see."
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And the acknowledgments are authors' notes and I was like, "Wase thanking somebody named
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John Blussman and my publisher and editor, Emily Bessler, Emily Bessler, books Simon
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and Schuster.
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What?"
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That's my husband.
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They were working the same industry.
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Oh, wow.
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They connected us.
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We hit it off and he was interested and off we went to the races.
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But for me, it was about that diversifying into the non-fiction space, creating more
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readers capturing, in this case, these lessons.
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And I wanted also for, in 1983, there wasn't that, if you had asked me, "Hey, what book
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should I read on Beirut 1983 or on the Marine Barracks bombing?"
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There's not really that one book that you can point to you to say, "Oh, you got to read
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this or you got to watch this movie or you got to watch this documentary."
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They don't exist.
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There's a couple books that are written back in the '80s about it.
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But now there's so much time has passed.
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There has been so many declassified documents, the Reagan Library archives.
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And there's enough time and space where you can really examine what happened there.
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So I kept coming back to this as the one to start, kick off the series, pitch Simon
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and Schuster on it, they were on board and then talk to James Scott and he was on board
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as well.
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So it's about a two and a half year thing.
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And when I pitched Simon and Schuster, I said, "There's going to be every year."
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And about two weeks later, after we started, I called him back and said, "Hey, I know what
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I said.
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I know what the contract says."
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"My.
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I know what to do with these stories, Justice.
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It's going to be at least two years to do this type of research, the way that I want
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to do it for a book like this."
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So it's every two years or possibly more, however long it takes to get it right.
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I appreciate all that detail.
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I will say, as soon as I got the email announcing that you were moving into the nonfiction world,
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the first person I thought of was Jim Carrey because I was like, "He just hit comedy banger
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after comedy banger after comedy banger."
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Then he's like, "No, I'm a real actor.
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I can do all these serious shows and things like that."
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And the thing was, is he just was never the successful kind of like serious drama actor.
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Everybody wanted to see him being goofy and I was like, "Oh, no.
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I wonder if this is going to be like a Jaxie, Jim Carrey moment."
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And that was until I read the book and because I didn't really know what to expect because
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you got a successful thriller author and then like just like a buy the book historian.
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But I will say different parts of the book read like fiction and I mean that as a compliment
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because you were getting down on the ground level and doing these anecdotes about these
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individual people.
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I just remember that very, it was very poignant.
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One of the young Marines that died, he would give roses to the gals that worked at the same
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building that he worked in and that's like, you know a lot about a guy that thinks that
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much about the women that are in his life that are even just tangentially related to
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him.
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And so that's what it felt like.
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And so I guess just to get a little bit more into what it was like writing with James
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Scott because this is the first time that you wrote with a named co-author and y'all
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very different backgrounds.
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Now you might have similar interests, you might have hit it off from a personality perspective,
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but everyone that's been in a college program knows this especially if you're a highly conscientious
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individual.
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If you ever put in a group project and then there's another person that's 98th percentile
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conscientious, you would think, oh, that's a great thing.
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It's actually a terrible thing because both of you are going to want to take over the
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writing project and if you each write half of it in your own style, then it's going to
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seem like two separate papers.
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So how do you avoid that as you're going into a, you know, multi-hundred page book from making
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it not seem like two separate books that were just mushed together?
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Yeah.
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Well, there's, I mean, there's a lot to it.
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What's great about just the thrillers is that if they don't work, that's a hundred percent
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on me.
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There's no one else that helps on those, a hundred percent on me and screenwriting totally
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different.
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Exact opposite of that, it's such a team effort in the writing process in the writer's room.
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You have one, maybe two people are attached as the writers of an episode, but it is such
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a team effort at the writing room level.
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And then once it makes its way up the chain and then back down with notes from the top
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of the Amazon all the way down and then addressing those notes and then changes and then the
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actors get involved, other executive producers are involved.
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Everyone has their notes.
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So it's a, it's a, I mean, just to say it's a team effort is kind of not doing it a disservice
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because there are so many people involved in creating those scripts and then creating
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the show from there.
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So complete opposite of the thrillers, which are just me.
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And then this is kind of a middle ground between those.
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It's not a huge number of people like it is in a, in a writing a script, but it's not
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just me.
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So it's, it's the two of us.
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And luckily we got along fantastic.
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We talked about it.
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Excited to talk to him first.
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It's very interesting in 1983 because I'd already chosen the topic.
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I already had an outline where I wanted to start with the embassy bombing in 83, where
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I wanted to end with the aftermath of the bombing and then the assassination of one of
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the planners in Damascus, Syria in 2008.
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So I had it generally outlined and, and James was 100% on board with the whole thing.
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And then he brought his expertise in research and going into those archives, doing those
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interviews and being an amazing person that he is, he got to conduct the lion's share
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of all of these interviews and build trust with these guys because I can see it going
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another way if you didn't build this trust initially because you're, they're trusting
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you with this story that was so impactful in their lives.
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And a lot of them at a hard time going back to that, it took a little while to get them
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back to that story because they compartmentalize it.
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And then others are still there, are still on October 23rd, 1983 to this day.
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And then you have everything in between as well.
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So I think that we both from the get go wanted to get out of the way of this story.
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We both from the, from, from day one, my first conversation talked about, hey, this is not
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our story.
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This is the story of those people who were there of the families who lost loved ones.
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How do we get out of the way of this story?
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And the way you do that is by putting it into these different perspectives.
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Dr. John Hudson, we had like our 600 letters that he had sent home to go through.
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We had audio tapes of his voice that he sent home from Beirut.
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We had over a thousand total letters to go through from people.
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And then you had to pick which ones to tell this story through, whose eyes you're going
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to tell this story through in order to humanize it in order to get out of the way of the story.
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So instead of me sitting there just making everything up like I do in the thrillers or
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me and a team being part of a team and giving notes and writing an episode of the show and
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having it go up the chain and back down and having things change because of locations
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and actor schedules and all these things that people don't think of that impact a script.
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It's let's tell the story in the words of the people who were there who lived this event.
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And let's recreate some of those moments at the executive branch level that we now know
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exist because of declassified documents and Reagan's diary.
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So it wasn't my voice, it wasn't James's voice, it was the voices of those people there, neither
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one of us is making anything up.
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So I think that really helps, it might be different as far as finding a voice if you're
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making maybe making something in the fiction space, but in the nonfiction space when you're
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really trying to tell the story through other people's voices, then it's their story, if
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that makes sense.
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So that's why I think the tone remains the same throughout because it's the story, it's
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other people's stories, none ours.
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It's also the level of detail because one of the things is if you want to, if you want
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to work in generalities, you can tell a story.
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But if you want to tell history, you have to really dig into the individual details and
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just let the quotes live for themselves.
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Obviously, whenever you're talking to people, you don't know exactly what they're going
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to say because look at what you just said earlier, you have some guys that have kind
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of moved past what happened in 1983 and other guys, they can still smell, you know, the
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cinder blocks and the concrete and the rebar and the rotting flesh and it's just, it's a
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very different thing.
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And just to kind of give the audience an idea of what they're getting into whenever they
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get into this book.
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There are three quotes on the first page of the book and they're this, "Blessed are the
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peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God."
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That's Matthew 5'9", Beirut is not hell, but you can see it from here.
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That's a description from a U.S. service member that was in Lebanon and then William Quant,
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who's a Middle East expert, he said Lebanon is a harsh teacher.
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And so obviously you're talking about the embassy bombing in 1983, but then the Marine
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barracks bombing that happened later in October of that year and we'll get to that here in
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a second.
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But you go into a lot of detail on both of those things and for people that are at least
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somewhat aware of that happening, the details are helpful.
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But what I feel like is very helpful for us and for me, because this happened three years
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before I was born, Jack, is what was happening in the early 1980s, in the Middle East, more
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broadly.
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And you can jump into Lebanon specifically, but I only, my understanding of the Middle
17:13
East is Old Testament scripture and the GWAT.
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And then there's a bunch of stuff that happened in between that affects both of those things.
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So give us a high-level overview, early 1980s, the Middle East, what kind of powder keg,
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where are we looking at?
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Yeah.
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So it's confusing even to me after having written this thing and keeping everything between
17:34
me, the government of Lebanon, the Druze, the Sunni, the Shia, the Mennonites, Israel coming
17:42
in and out at different points at the same time.
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But I mean, you could go back to Iran in the '60s and look online for pictures of Iran
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in the '60s and early '70s.
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And it's beautiful.
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They're using gorgeous hair.
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Same thing with Afghanistan.
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People used to go backpacking in Europe in the '60s and they'd take an exotic adventure
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and head over to Kabul as part of their backpacking through Europe experience.
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They'd head over to Central Asia and spend a few days there before getting back to Europe.
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And it was a very common thing.
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Get photos and same thing.
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The photos there were beautiful.
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And some friends of my parents did that in the '60s and I remember as a kid seeing those
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photographs of Afghanistan and hearing about the mountains that they climbed while they
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were there and the different places that they visited and distinctly remember that.
18:34
Then things start to change.
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Of course, one of the main events is the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.
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That was a big one.
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I remember that as a kid.
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I was in Catholic school at the time and they pulled us out of class and we went to
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go pray.
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And I remember Walter Cronkite counting down the days.
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I remember Desert One.
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I remember all of those photos of our people working in the embassy, the black and white
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photos that were on the newspapers and magazines and on television.
19:06
So we have Iran really shifting gears, but it hasn't become what it would after 1983.
19:15
And what happens in 1983 and in the lead up to 1983 is that essentially Lebanon is in
19:20
a civil war and the United States is coming out of Vietnam and I think there's an imperial
19:25
hubris involved in putting Marines ashore and thinking that they are going to essentially
19:31
keep the peace in this part of the world.
19:35
But it also taught Iran some lessons.
19:40
First with April, okay, we have a bombing, we have 63 people that are killed in that
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bombing.
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And it's not the first time that this tactic has been used, but it was a significant event
19:51
and they learned from that.
19:54
And they also learned to plan backwards from an outcome perspective, meaning what outcome
20:00
do they want and how are they going to do that through proxy forces.
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So here we go and what we know is going to eventually become Hezbollah, what is essentially
20:10
the leading party in Lebanon today is the proxy force that Iran uses.
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And they don't really care obviously about Lebanon, it can descend into complete chaos,
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it's a buffer between them essentially in Israel.
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But they use this tactic, this suicide truck bomb and a spectacular event and I don't like
20:31
using the word spectacular, but that's the one that's used in circles that talk about
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terrorism and it means that it's an event that's large enough to draw essentially the
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cameras of the world to it.
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And that was what this was.
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And it was the first time that they got that outcome that they were looking for, which
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is the U.S. to leave.
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And we talked tough, the administration talked tough in the aftermath of the event in let's
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say October and November and December of 1983.
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And then we slowly and quietly leave in October of our sorry in early 1984.
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And that taught not just Iran a lesson, but other terrorist organizations around the world
21:15
a lesson and that's that terrorism works.
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They got the outcome that they wanted.
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And really that's been the model that they've used ever since.
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And that's the model of using proxy forces, using spectacular events, using terrorist
21:29
events to get an outcome or to exert pressure to get a political outcome.
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And that's the game.
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They set the rules back in 1983 in the United States and Israel has really been playing
21:40
by those rules ever since.
21:42
So Beirut and Lebanon 1983 is a powder keg and it's about to go off.
21:48
You can you can sense it.
21:50
The people that were there can sense could sense it.
21:54
And unfortunately it culminates in the bombing on Sunday morning, October 23rd, 1983 that
22:01
kills 241 service members.
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And what that doesn't do is is humanize the event because you hear 241 and it's a big
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number, but it doesn't really mean all that much until you start learning about who's
22:15
killed in this attack and and then what about the families that were left behind and why
22:21
were these guys there in the first place and why were they put at this tactically disadvantageous
22:25
position.
22:27
And oh my goodness, there are some parallels here between this event and abby gate in Afghanistan
22:32
in 2021.
22:33
Absolutely.
22:34
Once again, tactical at the tactical level, these US service members are put in a tactically
22:39
disadvantageous position and untenable position by people thousands of miles away in air conditioned
22:44
offices.
22:45
Difference is that someone was held accountable in Beirut, 1983, there's still a little bit
22:50
of accountability left and that was Colonel Garrity and Colonel Garrity is an amazing guy.
22:55
He probably would have been the comment down at the Marine Corps at some points.
22:59
But because of this, obviously his career is derailed and he moves on and moves into
23:04
another sector that related and does some amazing things there.
23:07
So it's a great lesson there too, is that he picked himself up and kept moving forward
23:11
after this disaster.
23:12
And I got to spend some time with him while we were working on this book and we went to
23:15
the 40th anniversary commemoration events last year.
23:21
And geez, to see the guys still have so much respect for him, there was a respect for him
23:27
in that room was palpable and that was really, really cool to see and be a part of.
23:33
But the difference though between Beirut and abby gate in Afghanistan withdrawal, no one
23:38
held accountable for what happened there.
23:42
And that unfortunately we didn't see too much accountability throughout the whole global
23:46
war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan.
23:49
But in an abby gate during the withdrawal, it's just really blatant and stands out.
23:54
So there are parallels and both were dark days.
23:57
But what I will say is that the same US service member who's there to respond to the event
24:03
in 1983 is the same US service member that was there to respond to abby gate.
24:07
This building comes down on Sunday morning in October of 1983, bomb goes off at abby gate.
24:12
We have Americans dead and other Americans there, they run to the sound of the guns.
24:18
They run to the sound of that explosion.
24:19
They're holding security.
24:20
They're pulling their friends from the rubble.
24:22
They are putting a ministry turning tourniquets on.
24:25
They are just doing anything they can to save their brothers in the case of abby gate, their
24:28
brothers and sisters and arms.
24:31
And so that's the that part gives me hope is that at that tactical level, people in both
24:35
instances, ran to the sound of the guns to save those people to the right and left.
24:40
And so that part is something that remains constant.
24:43
Hey, guys, real quick, I know a lot of you guys are really doing everything you can to
24:47
have a consistent workout routine.
24:49
But the problem is you work out at a global gym.
24:51
And so there's 17 guys on the bench that you need and there's people doing bicep curls
24:55
on the squat rack.
24:56
And the biggest problem is not your schedule.
24:58
It's actually where you're trying to get your work in.
25:01
How about you guys stop making excuses and build yourself a home gym?
25:05
And when you do, make sure you use sore necks.
25:08
So sore necks is a family owned and operated business that build some of the most impressive
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They built gyms for teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and even the UFC.
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So guys, stop fighting the riff wrath at your local gym or bench or squat rack or whatever.
25:52
And if you're going to build out a home gym, you may as well get one that will last you
25:56
and one that you could even pass down to your kids.
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When you're billed out by going to sorenecks.com, that is sorenecks.com S-O-R-I-N-E-X.com, take
26:07
control of where and when you work out sorenecks.com.
26:12
So I want to move, move on with, with what happened in April.
26:15
But when you were describing what the Marines were like then as they are now and also when
26:20
you were describing the, the man who is essentially punished and held responsible for this when
26:24
you described what it was like in the room with them at the, the 40 year commemoration.
26:28
There was more than a touch of emotion that was coming through in your face and in your
26:32
voice a little bit.
26:33
Well, why do those things kind of like touch you a little bit deeper than the surface?
26:37
Yeah, I know it's tough to talk about this because it's, I do get emotional writing it,
26:41
get emotional talking to the, the veterans themselves, just trying to hold it together
26:46
as they trust you with this, this story.
26:51
So yeah, it's, it's a tough one for me to talk about for whatever, for whatever reason.
26:55
But because it is so emotional and in my, in the fiction, in the thrillers, I get emotional
26:59
in some chapters that I'm writing or when I go back and read it, I proofread it and edit
27:03
it.
27:04
I get emotional then too.
27:05
And that I know that, that I'm on the right track, if there are a couple places in each
27:09
book where I'm getting emotional, then I know that I'm on the right track and maybe if that
27:14
never happens in a book one day, then I'll be time to, time to move on, but it's happened
27:19
in every book thus far.
27:20
But when we're talking about, about this, it's just so, so near and dear.
27:25
Just because probably the experience in the military or just thinking through what these
27:28
guys went through and then what the families had to go through that have, they still have
27:34
that empty seat at the table to this day.
27:38
So it's, so yeah, it was emotional to write and it's a, some parts are, you know, emotional
27:42
to read.
27:43
Well, if you ever cast me in a minor role in the terminal lists and one of the things
27:48
required of me is crying.
27:50
All you got to do is show me a video of like a military return or men showing up in their
27:55
dress uniforms to the front door of a family member or a family whose beloved son is not
28:01
going to ever be coming home and that'll get the water works going for me.
28:04
And that was the same thing when I was reading targeted Beirut when you do the anecdotes,
28:09
especially y'all spent a lot of time, especially after the barracks bombing when you had these
28:14
groups of two having to spread out all over the country to do these in person at the front
28:20
door announcements to these family members.
28:22
And it's just like, oh my gosh, I'm just thinking like, what if that was my job?
28:26
But then you also did a really good job of helping me not only see like, man, what would
28:30
it have been like?
28:31
If that was my job, but what it would have been like if I was the one unlocking the door
28:33
and opening it, knowing exactly precisely what I was about to hear.
28:38
And man, you guys do a really good job of that.
28:41
But getting back to April 18th of 1983, this was the US Embassy bombing in Beirut.
28:46
As you mentioned, there were 63 people killed 32 Lebanese, 17 Americans and 14 other visitors.
28:52
But there's a quote from the chapter where you really get into this and I think is fairly
28:57
poignant.
28:58
The front of the embassy center wing collapsed like a house of cards, burying the lobby under
29:02
an avalanche of broken concrete, rebar and splinter desks and file cabinets.
29:06
The attack would prove to be not only the bloodiest assault on an American embassy, but
29:11
the opening salvo in the nation's four decade war on terrorism.
29:16
As one survivor recalled went black.
29:19
And so Jack, as you've already mentioned and alluded to, if you're trying to give the
29:23
history of the Middle East in 60 seconds, it's not possible.
29:27
You couldn't do it in 60 minutes.
29:29
It's an almost impossible task to really understand.
29:32
So when you talk about the fight, the West's fight against Islamic fundamentalist terrorism,
29:38
it's hard to pick one event and say that was the opening salvo, like that was Lexington
29:43
and Concord, if you will, so for you, and I guess for you and your co-author, why was
29:49
the embassy bombing?
29:50
Why was that the opening of what would eventually become the GWOT?
29:54
Because it was the opening shots and really it's like that.
29:58
It's like that jab.
29:59
And then it comes across an October type thing, or maybe there's a couple of jabs throughout
30:02
that summer.
30:03
And even someone who is fairly in tune with different terrorist events and their impact
30:08
on U.S. foreign policy wasn't clear on what had happened between April and October.
30:14
I was obviously aware of both, where the impact of both.
30:18
But I really wasn't clear on what had happened between those two events.
30:21
And that's because that was in the days before social media, before independent media, and
30:27
there was no seminal work on this subject yet that talked about it.
30:32
But we had casualties throughout that summer.
30:36
And on the home front, the administration was doing almost everything they could to try
30:42
and keep these Marines in view to the lens of peacekeepers.
30:46
They kept repeating the word "peacekeeper" over and over and over again.
30:49
And when someone got killed, it was, "Well, was it direct fire, indirect fire?"
30:55
And well, a sniper shot is pretty direct, I'll tell you.
31:00
But they were trying to use the language, essentially, for political means.
31:07
And that's nothing new.
31:08
But in talking to these guys, they were most certainly 100% in combat between April and
31:13
October of 1983.
31:16
And it's really where this whole season, this whole year, is where politics and combat collide,
31:23
and they collide in Beirut, Lebanon.
31:27
And yeah, opening salvo, opening shot, and of course, you know, and I use that terminology
31:34
because of course we had a 1979 Iranian hostage crisis or other things.
31:39
But this is the model that was then used going forward up to and right through today.
31:48
So this is the model.
31:49
So that's why I thought it was appropriate to use those words for this event, because
31:53
it was such a turning point.
31:54
If you go back to 1979, you go back to some other events, they are certainly significant,
31:58
of course.
31:59
But when you look at the model that our relationship with Iran in particular through its proxies
32:05
was based upon from a date forward, well, that date is really in 1983, is the year 1983.
32:13
That's when the model was set.
32:17
And really the repercussions of the event still loom large over U.S. foreign policy
32:21
today.
32:22
Well, so you mentioned the foreign policy.
32:24
That was one of the more interesting things about the book for me because I didn't really
32:28
know what to expect going into the book again because this all happened before I was born.
32:31
I was very, very ignorant about basically all the details.
32:34
But the book ended up being kind of a mini biography of Ronald Reagan.
32:38
And you had a lot of looks behind the curtain.
32:41
This isn't just a military memoir that it's not a military memoir at all.
32:44
It's not just a military history book.
32:46
It's also a policy book where you're digging into kind of what was going on behind the
32:50
scenes because, you know, you kept talking about the public started losing their patience,
32:55
right?
32:56
And the thing that's interesting with that, it's like, yes, you're an elected leader,
32:59
but you're also leading the entire military and the generalized person in the public doesn't
33:04
really understand the machine that is the military.
33:06
And so why would their opinion matter?
33:08
Well, their opinion matters because they can vote you out of office.
33:11
And so there's always that push and pull with what do we let the public know?
33:15
What do we do because the public is [inaudible] off?
33:17
Like, when do we just stand our ground because we know better because we know more than the
33:21
public does?
33:22
You kind of bring all that in.
33:23
But I want to talk a little bit about how the United States, because you've already talked
33:27
about it, basically had had leashed the the Marines.
33:34
They're very restrictive rules of engagement.
33:36
The alpha company there, the Marines, they had a sign that was outside their mess tent
33:39
that said the can't shoot back saloon.
33:42
So that's all funny until guys are getting killed, it's like it's kind of all fun in
33:47
games until something gets broken.
33:49
There it is.
33:50
So guys, if you're only listening to this, he's showing a picture of that exact sign
33:53
that was outside their mess tent.
33:55
And so not only does that hurt morale, but you know how it is like imagine you've already
34:00
brought up kind of the the fighter illusion.
34:02
So imagine if you're a fighter and one of your best weapons is your left hook and they're
34:06
like, okay, okay, you can go into this fight, but we're just going to have your left hand
34:09
tied behind your back.
34:10
No big deal.
34:11
This kind of is what it is it seemed like because of the public perception and public
34:14
policy angle of this, that the Marines were put in harm's way, what you could call for
34:20
essentially no reason.
34:21
It's like we're either we're either there to fight or we're not like you don't put Marines
34:25
somewhere where no fighting needs to happen.
34:27
You know what I mean?
34:28
So talk about kind of that quagmire that was kind of of our own doing.
34:31
Yeah.
34:32
And you had people debating this in Congress and people, some people were making the argument
34:38
that yes, we're putting them out there as targets, why are we doing this?
34:41
Why are they there?
34:42
Some of the things same things that we heard throughout the G watt, but that's yeah.
34:49
The Marines were not trained for this and Marines should go in and crush the enemy and
34:54
come home.
34:55
That's kind of the kind of what Marines do.
34:57
And now giving them this mission to go in and keep the peace amongst multiple factions,
35:03
not just factions within the country, not just the civil warring factions, but pressure
35:06
from the outside Israel and then Orion's proxy forces.
35:11
So and which is what we're still seeing today, so you put the Marines in the middle of this
35:16
thing and tell them that you're now peacekeepers and oh yeah, they didn't have that class in
35:23
boot camp on how to be a peacekeeper.
35:26
So we put them into here and it's it's not so unusual to send the military out to do a
35:31
job for which they're they're not trained and just telling them to figure it out.
35:34
That does happen, but but in this case they were put out there as targets.
35:40
They did the best they could, but you can get a sense in these letters, particularly
35:45
from Dr. John Hudson and for those listening or watching that are in the military, you
35:49
know that doctors, for the most part, generally speaking, are kind of a different breed in
35:53
the military because they go to a different OCS where they learned of where the uniform
35:56
correctly and you want the doctor to be a good doctor, you know, that his gig line is
35:59
a little off.
36:00
Like that's all right.
36:01
In the in the uniform, you want him to do a good, do a big a doctor, but you can get
36:05
a sense.
36:06
He had this there's foreboding that something was going to was going to happen.
36:09
You can get a sense of it through his his letters and got to spend time with his wife,
36:13
Lisa, and and it's just it's heartbreaking because you get to really get a sense for
36:17
who this guy was through these letters and you really get to get to know him, you get
36:21
to know these other guys as well who some of whom don't make it.
36:26
But yeah, Marines are usually sent in to crush the enemy and go home and now you're just
36:31
essentially putting them out there as a target as things continue to essentially go to pieces
36:37
around you.
36:39
And for them, yeah, they were 100% getting shot at and they were 100% getting mortared
36:43
and we had casualties and there were notification teams that had to go out during that during
36:49
that summer to houses across the United States.
36:54
And in spite of all that, the administration still calls, you know, because these guys
36:57
peacekeepers and we're trying to, you know, use that language for a political end, but
37:01
you mentioned Ronald Reagan and and that was another opening part of this as well.
37:05
I mean, at the end of the late Reagan library, I've spoken there, I've read certain things
37:09
on on Reagan.
37:10
He was my president kind of growing up.
37:11
That was the one that I remember the most was during my my formative years.
37:17
And what I really got a sense of from the diary in particular was what a big heart he
37:20
had, and that also comes back to being a bit of kind of a weakness, I shouldn't say kind
37:30
of a weakness, because as an actor, I also got the sense that he wanted to be liked and
37:37
not just by the public, but like you were on a stage or something like that, you want
37:41
that crowd to like what you're doing up there and be connected to what you're doing on that
37:45
stage or in a film.
37:47
And he didn't like arguing in the cabinet, he didn't like arguing amongst his advisors.
37:52
And I think that that could have been beneficial to hear those arguments out rather than kind
38:01
of stifle them before they grew into full blown arguments when it comes to putting U.S.
38:06
servicemen ashore somewhere in an area that is very difficult to understand with factions.
38:11
They're still hard to understand all these years later, but you really got the sense
38:15
that he was a good person and had a good heart.
38:18
And that really came through in everything that we studied about Reagan.
38:21
Well, you could even see it in his and Nancy's reactions to when they greeted some of the
38:27
families and talked with them.
38:29
And I had no idea this has happened, but the day of the correspondence center, which that's
38:34
where, you know, typically in the past, you know, you have all these media members in
38:38
the same room and it's kind of this open roast and ends with the president kind of doing
38:41
this pre-prepared comedic speech and all that, but that morning, he greeted, you know, a
38:45
hanger full of caskets of dead United States Marine Corps heroes.
38:53
And he goes up there and I found this on YouTube had like a thousand views because nobody is
38:57
though they don't see this as a poignant part in American history, but he goes up at the
39:01
correspondence center.
39:02
He's supposed to give his speech and he basically says, Hey, considering what Nancy and I did
39:06
earlier today, it would not seem appropriate for me to get up here and do what I plan to
39:09
do. So Lord willing, we'll see all next year and I'll deliver my comments then and he got
39:15
a standing ovation and just walked off the stage.
39:17
And so I think that speaks to the heart of him that he wasn't just a political monster
39:21
that was part of the machine that he wasn't an actual man and all of this.
39:25
And really all of this, uh, crescendos with the most spectacular, spectacular events.
39:28
And I certainly do mean that in the macabre sense of Sunday, October the 23rd of 1983.
39:33
That is one of the darkest days in the history of United States Marine Corps and the history
39:36
of our country, but it's a date that most of the public doesn't know about.
39:40
That's when 307 people were killed.
39:42
That's 241 American soldiers, sailors and Marines, 58 French, six civilians and the
39:47
two piece of garbage, Muslim fundamentalist terrorists, suicide bombers.
39:51
It was the single deadliest day in the history of the United States Marine Corps since the
39:55
battle of Iwo Jima, since the battle of Iwo Jima, just think about that.
40:00
Think about the amount of time that it elapsed between then to there.
40:03
So Jack, just, just take us through the aftermath of that happening because as we've set up,
40:07
you had the M and C bombing.
40:09
You had this summer where we've got our Marines there that are fighting, but not fighting,
40:13
right?
40:14
They're basically playing make pretend war and all these things, even though they are
40:17
hearing mortars overhead and bullets whizzing past their helmets.
40:21
But then we get to this point, it's like, if there were ever a declaration of war, you
40:26
would think this would be that, but then in the immediate aftermath, there was a lot
40:29
of anger.
40:30
There was a lot of posturing, but then not a whole lot was done.
40:34
There weren't, you know, many heads that rolled in terms of who was responsible for allowing
40:38
something like this to happen.
40:40
And certainly there wasn't the retribution that you would expect from a country like
40:43
the United States, which purportedly is about making things right and being the world's
40:48
police.
40:49
So talk to me about the aftermath and what went down on that day.
40:52
Yeah.
40:53
Early Sunday, Sunday morning, and that's the day that the Marines typically took a little
40:57
time off slept in at this, the barracks and headquarters building, 350 of them were sleeping
41:03
in there the morning of the attack.
41:05
And some of the stories just really stand out, like Randy Godo, he was supposed to go
41:09
into the basement and develop film.
41:11
He had to go in there and he's walking across the courtyard kind of area and he stops and
41:17
he's like, you know what?
41:18
It's Sunday.
41:19
Everybody's sleeping in.
41:20
I'm going to go get a cup of coffee.
41:21
So he turns around, goes into this other building, grabs a cup of coffee, and that's when the
41:26
truck drives in, crashes into the building, detonates and takes the entire building down.
41:31
In April, it took off the front, this thing, the building was completely demolished, goes
41:36
to the ground.
41:37
Randy's one of the first responders and gets out there and starts digging through the rubble.
41:42
We have Danny Wheeler at Chaplin, who is on the fourth deck at the fourth level of this
41:47
building.
41:48
He rides it all the way down and he is caught between two pieces of concrete that kind of
41:53
fall like this and give him a little space to just barely breathe and he's caught into
41:59
the dark, unable to move, barely able to breathe.
42:02
As their digging amount, he feels this concrete, just crushing him a little bit more and a
42:06
little bit more until he feels his hand.
42:09
That's five hours later, five hours in the darkness and as a Chaplin, he's talking to
42:13
God.
42:14
He's having an argument with God and he's thinking back about these Louis LeMoor novels that he
42:18
liked to read.
42:20
He's thinking about the cowboys and miners who were trapped in cave-ins and mines and
42:25
how they had to battle through and take themselves out and that sort of thing.
42:29
He was thinking about those things and he's the last person pulled alive from the rubble.
42:34
We have people like Dentist Gill, Bigelow and Jimmy Ware and they're trained up to do
42:39
root canals and teeth cleaning and they end up really running the rescue and recovery
42:44
operations that day.
42:46
You have a rabbi, Arne Resnickoff and other Chaplin and they end up being first responders
42:51
as well and they're administering last rites as they're digging through the rubble and
42:55
trying to rescue as many people as they possibly can.
42:59
Don Howell, he's in the basement, sleeping in the basement that night so the building comes
43:02
down on top of him in the basement and he's in the complete darkness.
43:09
He hears some other voices, hear some other screaming.
43:12
Someone's next to him who wasn't next to him when he went to bed or close by anyway and
43:16
he can hear them and he's like, "Who are you and where were you?"
43:20
And the guy's like, "I was on the fourth deck.
43:22
Where am I now?
43:23
You're in the basement."
43:25
And he closes his eyes and says the Lord's Prayer and then opens up and he sees this little
43:29
shaft of light and he starts digging that way and digs himself out.
43:33
So those are first responders, the way they describe when you get to that part of their
43:38
stories, the way they describe what they saw and how they describe the body parts and
43:44
the limbs and the arms and the legs and the trees and on the ground and the way they describe
43:49
this scene and all the dust in the air.
43:54
It's tough for them.
43:55
It's tough to listen to and write about but they went to work.
43:59
They went to work.
44:00
Like I said, with K-bars, bare hands, shovels, maybe a crowbar, but they get to work and
44:08
then it moves into recovery from rescue to recovery.
44:12
And luckily the dentist had kept records of everyone's teeth, dental records, but they
44:20
were in the building.
44:21
And so somebody had to crawl down into this building and find a file cabinet that miraculously
44:26
survived and that's where the dental records were and that's what they used to identify
44:31
a lot of the bodies.
44:33
They were flown to ships offshore and the same crew that identified a lot of the bodies
44:38
from Jonestown came in to identify the bodies here.
44:42
So it was a long, arduous process that people back home didn't know if their loved one
44:48
was alive or not.
44:49
They're watching the news, trying to catch a glimpse of people in the background.
44:53
One horrible story of a family thought they saw their service member alive on a video
44:57
and it didn't end up not being them.
45:01
And then we move into placing that blame and that's going to fall squarely on Colonel
45:08
Garrity's shoulder, Tim Garrity.
45:12
And really we didn't learn the lessons, early if we didn't apply the lessons of Beirut
45:18
going forward.
45:19
Yes, someone testifying in front of Congress that says, as the Congress people are grilling
45:25
him on the tactics, what happened that day, like where was the perimeter fence and all
45:30
those things that are important.
45:32
But he said, you're missing the point.
45:36
What's it going to take?
45:37
You're in a new war and this is a new kind of terrorism and we're not trained for this.
45:43
This is a new kind of warfare and it's terrorism and we're not trained for this.
45:47
What's it going to take?
45:48
Is it going to take somebody flying a plane into a building for you guys to wake up?
45:53
That's almost word for word, at least the general gist is right anyway.
45:57
And that is almost 20 years, not quite, but 20 years before 9/11.
46:02
So we feel those repercussions today, unfortunately it was a dark day for the Marine Corps.
46:10
So it wasn't raising the flag on Iwo Jima.
46:12
It was the darker part of their history.
46:14
So when talking to these guys also, they kind of feel that they're, I shouldn't say
46:17
kind of, they were, they kind of, they do feel that they were forgotten about by the Marine
46:22
Corps.
46:23
Now the Marine Corps wanted to move past this because it wasn't a glorious day in their
46:26
history.
46:27
And the guys that were there recognize that, but they do, they have this camaraderie.
46:32
Just like when you go through a crucible with someone.
46:34
And it's not that many people that this impact it, you know, it's not less than like World
46:38
War II or even like like Vietnam, it was a very small number of Marines that were stationed
46:44
in Beirut.
46:47
And they're very close because of that.
46:49
So Beirut, veterans of America as an organization that brings them all together every year for
46:55
the commemoration events.
46:58
But I feel like they were, it was an honor to tell their story because they, it's almost
47:03
to a person said, finally someone's going to tell this story because they thought it
47:07
was forgotten about essentially.
47:09
Finally someone's going to tell this story.
47:10
So for me, it was just an honor and just humbling to be able to do it and to be able to get
47:15
out of the way of their story.
47:17
Well you were able to tell the story and you're also able to lose today what went on afterwards.
47:22
I want to read a quote from the book here.
47:24
In the end, America would never retaliate, the deaths of 220 Marines, 18 sailors and
47:29
three soldiers would go unavenged.
47:31
America's only response would be to designate Iran as a state sponsor of terror in 1984,
47:36
which is like, okay, like what exactly does that mean?
47:40
Again, that's more of a policy thing.
47:42
And you know, lawyers might get excited by that, but most of the planet knows that that
47:45
doesn't do anything to even the score.
47:47
And the thing is, it's like, I'm a really competitive guy.
47:50
I don't like when anyone gets a one up on me.
47:51
If you and I were playing checkers and you beat me, it's like, all right, best out of
47:54
three.
47:55
And if you beat me, get our best out of five and we will just keep this going until I get
47:58
the upper hand.
47:59
I feel like America kind of has that chip on its shoulder.
48:01
At least it used to.
48:03
Is this kind of where we first see that America wasn't really interested?
48:07
You know, you go from, as you've talked about a lot, from the Department of War to the Department
48:11
of Defense, we go from no, we're going to wind wars and end conflicts to, we're just
48:15
going to, you know, do what we can, can the pinprick these things here and there to see
48:20
what we could do to control things, but we're not going into conflict, trying to end it.
48:24
We're going into conflict, trying to not make things worse, which you know, I goes, if you
48:28
enter into a play, whether you play football or something like that, if you go in, just
48:31
try not to get injured, you're probably going to get injured, right?
48:33
It's kind of one of those things.
48:35
So take us through what happened afterwards because that's probably the most shocking
48:39
thing to me.
48:40
Because again, this is unfolding for me because I wasn't watching it on the news.
48:43
I'm like hearing all this information for the first time.
48:46
And when I got to that quote, I was like, there's no way.
48:49
There's no way that we just let this go on a venge.
48:52
Talk to me about it.
48:53
Yeah, that's exactly what happened.
48:56
And that's why they took the lesson that they did that terrorism works.
49:00
Colonel Garrity said something very similar and that's the playbook that they've been
49:05
using to this day.
49:06
Yeah, we do respond after 9/11, that sort of thing, but then what do we do?
49:11
Well, we go in and we make a situation essentially worse in Iraq and Afghanistan, Afghanistan
49:18
first than Iraq.
49:20
So we still don't do a good job of learning lessons from the past.
49:25
And when we talk about, let's say, specifically Afghanistan, we had the Soviet experience from
49:30
'79 to '89 that we could have looked at.
49:32
And if we did, we drew the wrong lessons.
49:35
And we could have ended that thing by essentially December or at least early spring 2002.
49:42
But instead, we end up committing untold thousands of forces and untold thousands of dollars
49:49
into this thing and then leave it behind in a similar fashion that we left Beirut after
49:55
a bombing.
49:56
And we're in the middle of leaving in Afghanistan, in Beirut, it really causes us to leave.
50:03
But this stuff works for these guys and especially proxy forces, where there's a little bit
50:09
of distance.
50:10
And I'm not sure why we think there's not much distance between our Iranian proxy force
50:16
and the Iranian regime.
50:19
And then for us, we fall into this trap time and time again is we have so many people and
50:24
so much money that we can sit in a country for 20 years and lose for 20 years and then
50:29
pick up and go home.
50:33
Think about Israel.
50:34
Like, they have to fight short wars, they can't, they need to move them outside of their borders.
50:41
So I think they're struggling with that right now.
50:44
They can't support that kind of folly.
50:47
So that's why we're seeing some messages being sent to the Iranian regime through Sashinations.
50:53
We saw some today in Lebanon, we're recording this on where we have some sort of upstream
50:59
disruption of pagers that take out a bunch of people.
51:02
There was someone taking out in Tehran a couple of weeks ago.
51:05
Somebody else that has bullet leader taken out in Lebanon.
51:08
But these are very symbolic killings, symbolic, what they call findings or assassinations.
51:15
And we didn't really, we didn't do any of that after 1983 and I know that we had the
51:21
capability to do something.
51:24
Eventually, we find the, and I don't like to use the word mastermind, but the lead planner
51:30
of the attack, find him in Damascus Syria in 2008 was probably a joint CIA massage operation,
51:37
probably some technical intelligence on the side of the United States, as far as finding
51:40
him.
51:41
And then probably the use of an Israeli type of a proxy force to plant an ID in his vehicle
51:45
and kill him in Damascus Syria.
51:48
But that was many years after the immunity seems, and he was involved in quite a few
51:53
different terrorist events between 1983 and when he's killed in 2008.
51:57
So, but we really didn't do anything in direct retaliation.
52:04
And looking back was, was that a mistake?
52:06
Well, it sure seems like it because we're still playing by Iran's rules today.
52:12
It certainly seems like that.
52:13
And again, I like the approach of the book to where it's like we're not just describing
52:17
history.
52:18
It's what lessons have we learned?
52:19
That's the same thing you take into the James Reese novels to where it's like, okay, what
52:22
lessons do I think the enemy is taking from the battlefield and how can that work its
52:27
way into a novel.
52:28
It's interesting to see that when you're looking back on history.
52:30
So we got time for a couple more questions here.
52:31
I guess the first thing I want to get into is it seems like peace in the Middle East is
52:37
a fool's errand.
52:38
I feel like until Jesus comes back and fulfills biblical prophecy, I have no idea what we're
52:41
doing because if a bunch of different countries don't want Israel to exist, then there is no
52:47
chance of peace because this isn't like, hey, we have differing opinions as to how we should
52:52
do trade or tax policy or something like that, like this is an existential crisis.
52:58
We live where everything that's ever said is an existential crisis in our modern media
53:02
moment, but that's literally what this is.
53:04
And so I've even heard these reports talking about Hamas and Israel as if they're the same
53:09
thing, as if Hamas is not a terrorist organization.
53:12
They're talking about Hamas as if it's Hamas stand as if it's its own country.
53:16
And so we're trying to equivocate what they want and what they're doing versus what Israel
53:20
wants and what they're doing.
53:21
And so we see the weakness out of the White House, whether it's, you know, Joe Biden who's
53:25
technically still the president or who could potentially be in the White House after him,
53:29
Kamala Harris.
53:30
And we see what weakness from the biggest chair in the country does and what it does
53:35
to embolden our enemies all over the world.
53:37
But when people talk about so-called peace in the Middle East, Jack, do you see it as
53:42
a foolish aim, just like I do, not that we shouldn't, you know, do they ever him accords
53:46
and not that we shouldn't do some of these, you know, hand, you know, shaking events or
53:49
something like that, but gosh, it just seems like we're not going to get anywhere ever.
53:53
Yeah, no, it does.
53:54
It does seem like that.
53:55
And the moral equivalency thing that is used now as a weapon where Israel's held to a different
54:01
standard and it's a nice ability to retaliate on the on the world stage is very interesting.
54:10
But I do have hope because of those pictures that we talked about earlier from the 60s
54:15
and 70s.
54:16
And in Iran in particular, there is, and we've heard this for years, but the more people
54:21
I talk to, the more I think it's not just a sense, a hopeful sense here and a hopeful
54:28
sense there from somebody, but I'm talking to people who have contacts throughout the
54:33
entire region.
54:34
And they're most recent reporting, at least to me, in some of the things that they've
54:39
written, say that there is a strongest undercurrent of support for a more, I don't really want
54:51
to use the word democratic, but a different form of governance specifically in Iran.
54:59
And we've been hearing that for years and it's so closed off that it's hard to, I think,
55:04
coordinate something like that.
55:06
But eventually, I think that that's what'll happen, but that'll happen is that that regime
55:10
that has been in charge since 1979, essentially, is going to go away because these freedoms
55:18
that we talk about and that we happen to have in trying in our bill of rights or natural
55:22
rights, they're not something that was given to us by our government and exist solely in
55:28
the United States of America.
55:29
Maybe they exist solely because we've been trying them in the bill of rights and protected
55:33
them and given our limits on our government from the beginning, although that's obviously
55:38
expanded over the last couple hundred years.
55:41
But these things are natural.
55:43
You could be dropped into any place on earth from outer space, not know where you are,
55:49
and suddenly attacked.
55:51
And you wouldn't have to be told that you should defend this gift of life.
55:54
That's a natural thing to do and gift of life.
56:00
And we just happen to have these things enshrined in our founding documents.
56:05
But it's natural, a point being that there are younger people in Iran that don't hold
56:11
the views of the ruling class.
56:14
So there's something there and that's something probably Iran's going to have to figure out
56:20
for itself at some point.
56:22
But yeah, peace in the Middle East.
56:23
We've all heard it throughout our entire lives and what have we seen, essentially the exact
56:28
opposite of that.
56:30
And of course, now it doesn't look that's going away any time soon.
56:33
Well, Jack, that is targeted Beirut guys.
56:36
It is available now.
56:37
It is in the show notes.
56:38
So we're so happy that you spent some time talking to us about it.
56:41
But here's a thing, Jack, I have not seen any announcements about what the future holds
56:45
for you.
56:46
There's not an announced eighth book in the James re series, we don't have to talk about
56:50
the ending of number seven, but there's not an announced eighth book.
56:53
There's no announced targeted follow up book or a different one.
56:57
We know you're writing for the terminal lists, spin off series, dark wolf with Taylor kits.
57:01
We know all that, but we've seen some pictures.
57:04
All right, we've seen that you're writing something.
57:06
And hey, man, it's just me and you now everybody else.
57:08
No one's listening.
57:09
So just tell me precisely what we can all expect going into 2025.
57:14
Let's go.
57:15
Yeah.
57:16
Well, since it's, it's just us.
57:17
Just us.
57:18
Since it's just us.
57:19
I would say that they are after after targeted Beirut book tour.
57:23
So which kicks off on the 24th of September, runs for about a week, shortly they'll are
57:28
there after there should be an announcement about what's coming this next spring.
57:34
So I'll say that I wanted to keep focus on on Beirut and not to have any confusion about
57:39
when things are coming out and that sort of a thing.
57:42
So focus is targeted Beirut.
57:43
But I would expect an announcement in early October about what's coming next.
57:48
And then when it comes to the next book in the targeted series, we are hard at work
57:54
on that already and have not announced that, but probably announced that in 2025 at some
58:00
point.
58:01
And then let's see, last thing would be, yeah, finishing up some filming on dark wolf and
58:09
it's looking good.
58:10
Okay.
58:11
So six just arrived in my inbox to to watch and give notes on and then I'm about to head
58:16
back there and finish up some some final filming back there for the final episode, which is
58:20
the one that I wrote with the my co-creator of it, David DiGilio, the showrunner, who's
58:25
an awesome guy.
58:27
And then I would expect that there'll be some news about filming true believer sometime
58:31
also in 2025.
58:33
So lots on the horizon.
58:35
So guys, make sure you go to Jack's website, sign up for the email list so that you don't
58:39
have to wait for him to come back on to give you all of the best news.
58:42
But Jack, we went everywhere in the conversation as per normal, but that's all for me.
58:45
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
58:47
And I appreciate you having me on.
58:49
And yeah, thank you so much.
58:51
And just, yeah, I think I've said it before, but just what an honor it was to be trusted
58:55
to write this book and have the people that survived and the families of those who didn't
59:00
trust me and James Scott to write this book.
59:01
It was an honor and extremely humbling.
59:05
Very good, Jack.
59:06
All right.
59:07
We'll talk to you next spring.
59:08
Take care.
59:09
Thanks for everything.
59:10
There you go guys.
59:11
Hope you enjoyed Jack car on the show again, but before we let you go, we are going to do
59:13
a quick resilience boost at Undaunted Life for Mission is equipping men to push back darkness
59:16
with content that forges spiritual mental and physical resilience.
59:20
As I talked about at the end there, there's Jack's website go there.
59:22
You can sign up for his email list and check out everything he's got going on.
59:25
I've also got Amazon link to targeted Beirut where you can buy your own copy and the latest
59:30
copy of his latest thriller, Red Sky morning.
59:33
Thank you for listening to this podcast.
59:34
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
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59:38
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, shoot me an email to info
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Just go to www.undonton.life and as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing
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59:59
The music on this podcast is our song Perpetua, which is off their self-titled debut album
1:00:03
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1:00:04
The links are in the description.
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I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.
1:00:08
Remember keep pushing back darkness.
1:00:11
Keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:00:15
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1:00:41
in the future.