SARAH VERARDO | Save Our Allies (Ep. 375)

0:00 (upbeat music)

0:02 - This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.

0:21 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:23 Let's get into it.

0:24 All right guys, today I've got a special guest

0:25 on the podcast, her name is Sarah Varardo.

0:27 So I don't ever do this.

0:29 But I'm just going to straight read her bio to you guys

0:32 to give you some context on her because sometimes

0:34 it's easy to just list.

0:35 So here are the books I've written.

0:36 Here's the jobs I've had.

0:37 But I actually want to read this too.

0:38 So I'm just going to read it here.

0:39 Sarah Varardo is a national advocate

0:41 for wounded veterans and their caregivers.

0:43 Her husband, Sergeant Michael Varardo,

0:44 was catastrophically wounded in Afghanistan in 2010

0:48 and two separate IED attacks that took his left leg,

0:50 much of his left arm, and left him with a poly-traumatic,

0:54 with many poly-traumatic conditions

0:55 that have required more than 100 surgeries

0:58 in years of speech, visual, physical,

1:00 and occupational therapies.

1:01 Starting as a volunteer with the Independence Fund,

1:03 Sarah's steadfast devotion, experience, and drive

1:05 led her selection as the organization's first chief

1:09 executive officer.

1:11 Sarah is at the forefront of Afghan ally inclusion

1:14 within the veteran community.

1:15 Beginning in 2015, Sarah began working closely

1:18 with the Afghan government to honor and celebrate

1:20 the sacrifices made by veterans in both nations.

1:23 Establishing regular events at the US-based Afghan embassy,

1:26 Sarah facilitated key partnerships

1:28 that allowed American combat veterans,

1:30 their Afghan partners, Gold Star Families,

1:32 and veteran caregivers the opportunity

1:34 to find solace on Afghan soil in the United States.

1:38 The Independence Fund followed suit

1:40 and welcomed Afghan combat interpreters

1:42 to join its Operation Resiliency Retreats,

1:44 which rely on the bonds of brotherhood

1:46 to establish mental and emotional wholeness

1:48 while preventing veteran suicide, beginning in 2019.

1:51 Combat interpreters are welcomed into the reunion retreat

1:54 to provide the same camaraderie.

1:55 Compelled by the federal administration's move

1:57 to withdrawal troops from Afghanistan

1:59 in the spring of 2021,

2:01 Verardo kickstarted an effort in July

2:03 to open the Independence Fund's programs criteria

2:05 to all special immigrant visa recipients living in the US.

2:09 Because of this advocacy,

2:10 TIF was the first national VSO

2:13 to include combat interpreters in veteran programming.

2:16 As the withdrawal escalator,

2:18 Verardo created the allies program at TIF,

2:20 offering SIV holders of financial assistance

2:23 and all Afghans navigation of available resources.

2:26 In a move that was once vital and inspiring.

2:29 The August 2021 collapse of Afghanistan led Verardo

2:33 and three others to co-found direct response,

2:35 rescue and aid organization Save Our Allies.

2:38 Since Save Our Allies, our SOA,

2:41 has evacuated more than 17,000 US citizens,

2:44 SIV holders and wartime allies from the country

2:46 and assisted in medical and humanitarian relief efforts

2:49 in Ukraine.

2:50 Her groundbreaking leadership

2:51 within two separate organizations

2:53 has granted her a unique and powerful look

2:54 at the needs of veteran and ally networks

2:56 and given her the opportunity to steward resources

2:59 and support where and when they are crucially needed.

3:02 So guys, I really appreciated a conversation like this

3:05 because this is a conversation with a friend.

3:07 This is a person that I became fast friends with.

3:09 And we kind of get into that in the show,

3:11 kind of how we met and those different things.

3:12 But the thing that's very important

3:14 about this interview today is we were able to walk through

3:16 what she was doing prior to the fallout

3:19 and you know, the pull out from Afghanistan.

3:21 And then what she was able to do immediately.

3:23 And so something I want you to keep in mind

3:25 as you're going through this episode today

3:26 is I want you to think about

3:27 would I have been ready to do X, Y and Z?

3:31 Because what her and her team was able to pull off again

3:33 to about 12,000 people were rescued from Afghanistan

3:36 and a little bit over a week, okay?

3:38 Would they have been ready to do that?

3:39 Had they not been making the right preparations

3:42 before that time period?

3:44 The right training, the right relationships

3:46 and just expand out from there

3:48 because we get into all that in this episode.

3:50 We get into where she was

3:52 when the fall of Afghanistan was happening,

3:54 what she went and did immediately,

3:55 how she was able to coordinate all of these evacuations,

3:58 how we were able to vet these people,

4:00 where these people ended up, all these refugees.

4:02 And then we get into a lot of other stuff towards the end.

4:04 There's some stories here that are just absolutely incredible.

4:06 So I'll kind of leave that for her.

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5:06 So guys, I really enjoyed my time with Sarah Varardo,

5:08 but without further ado, let's get into it.

5:11 Sarah Varardo, welcome to a Daunte to Life of Man's podcast.

5:15 - Thanks for having me, Kyle.

5:16 - Okay, I got to start out with a two part first question.

5:19 Just so the audience can kind of get used to you a little bit.

5:21 Number one, why do you pretend like

5:23 you don't like doing interviews?

5:24 And number two, why are you so mean to everybody?

5:28 Come on, help me.

5:29 - Oh gosh, oh my gosh.

5:30 So I've done a lot of interviews.

5:32 And then the problem is, you know,

5:34 I like being behind the scenes now.

5:35 I feel like as I get a little older,

5:37 I just turn the big three eight.

5:39 I like being behind the scenes person.

5:41 And why am I so mean?

5:43 I'm not so mean.

5:44 I heard cats all day, like literally,

5:46 sometimes it feels like I'm hurting spiders,

5:48 but cats, spiders, it's a lot.

5:51 - I don't know if I'm a cat or a spider,

5:52 but I do remember that this happened.

5:54 So this is why you're so mean, Sarah,

5:56 because I'm sitting at home, you know,

5:57 we've got a two year old

5:58 and then we've got like a three week old.

6:00 And you're like, "Hey, have I told you about the..."

6:03 - Yes, for whatever you're going to say.

6:04 You're kind of teeing it up a week.

6:05 - No, no, no, I'm just giving the background.

6:07 Just giving the background here.

6:08 And so you're like, "Hey, I don't think I've told you

6:11 about this, but we got this event in DC.

6:13 Tim would like to have you out there.

6:14 We'd love to have you out there to come to this thing."

6:16 And I gave you the same response I would have given somebody

6:19 that would have asked me,

6:19 "Hey, you want to go grab a drink?

6:21 Hey, do you want to come outside and high five me

6:23 and then run right back in?"

6:24 I was like, "Oh, you know, we just had a kid.

6:25 Everything's crazy. You're out now.

6:27 Ha, ha, we'll go whatever."

6:28 And you go, "No, Kyle, you're coming to Washington, DC.

6:33 This is a very unique opportunity.

6:35 Make it happen."

6:36 And I was like, "People don't talk to me that way, Sarah.

6:39 Where do you get off talking to me that way?

6:40 I'm a grown man."

6:42 - Are you so glad you came though?

6:44 - That's not the point.

6:44 That's not the point is what happened initially.

6:47 We can get to me being happy about showing up later.

6:50 But why'd you have to be so mean about it?

6:52 - I mean, sometimes I was going to get you to the end result.

6:54 You know, I'm glad you were there.

6:55 We had a blast with you.

6:57 You were in demand to come and look, you did it.

7:00 - I did it.

7:02 Yeah, you forced me to buy a tuxedo

7:04 and all the different things.

7:04 But there was something I wasn't aware of

7:06 until a couple of days ago.

7:07 So this is Black tie event, Library of Congress.

7:10 I mean, this is a well-to-do big deal type of an event.

7:13 And you looked great, you were all done up and everything.

7:16 But apparently what you were wearing was not actually a dress.

7:20 This is something that like you had to get DoorDash to you.

7:23 This somehow missed me, this entire story.

7:26 What the heck happened with your dress?

7:28 - I forgot to bring my dress.

7:29 And here's the thing though, is, you know, yes, I get it.

7:32 I'm a girl, who doesn't want to look nice?

7:35 But for me at these things,

7:37 what I look like is the least important thing

7:39 of what's going on.

7:40 So I'm like, okay, Clem's ready to go.

7:42 Nick's ready to go, we've got all these senators, Congress,

7:45 all these VIPs coming.

7:47 Oh, shoot, I don't have a dress.

7:49 And so I went on DoorDash and I found a bathing suit cover-up

7:53 on Target and had it set to me.

7:55 And hey, it worked, no one knew, right?

7:57 I mean, I think one knew, but.

7:59 - No, and they would never say anything.

8:01 But my goodness, I mean, just keep that in mind for later.

8:04 Like you've always got that in your back pocket

8:06 because you had all these people that probably spent

8:08 thousands of dollars on what they wore that day.

8:10 And it's just like, bro, just go to Target.

8:11 You're good to go.

8:12 Act like you're going to the beach.

8:14 - Right, well.

8:15 - So one thing that's interesting about you

8:17 is, you know, when I explained to my wife

8:19 who I was talking to on the phone who was being so angry,

8:22 when I was explaining to people, like, you know,

8:24 kind of where I was going, what I was doing,

8:25 you're a bit of a mystery wrapped in enigma.

8:28 Like, I don't know exactly what you do,

8:30 which I've kind of been there before.

8:32 I've worked at different places where they're like,

8:33 what do you do because you have your hands

8:35 and so many different things?

8:36 So if you were to encapsulate it for our audience,

8:39 what do you do?

8:40 I mean, first and foremost, I'm a very proud mother.

8:42 I've got three little girls

8:43 and that's the most important thing I do.

8:46 But what I do for work, which also is just such a joy

8:48 of my life is, you know, we're on the Independence Fund.

8:52 I'm a founder of Save Our Allies

8:53 and I'm just a strong advocate for freedom,

8:56 our military, our veteran, our defense communities

8:58 and our wartime allies.

9:00 Kind of wrap that all up in one

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9:39 - Well, and I will say this,

9:40 I'll just kind of affirm you to your face.

9:42 'Cause I've been saying nice things about you

9:43 behind your back, so I might as well do it to your face now.

9:45 One thing that was apparent,

9:47 is I like to kind of watch people work the room

9:50 like whenever I'm at places.

9:51 'Cause I'm a room worker like,

9:52 hey, maybe I can connect this dot for this person,

9:54 that type of a thing.

9:55 And you seem to have a deep level of respect,

9:57 not only for the people that work for you

10:00 or they seem to respect you a lot,

10:02 but then also all the other people seem genuinely happy

10:05 to see you when you would walk up and talk to them.

10:06 So that's something that comes from years and years

10:09 and years of investing in people,

10:10 not screwing people over,

10:12 because you can very easily work a room.

10:14 And if you're in commission sales,

10:15 maybe sell a few things here or there,

10:17 and then be a pariah and know whatever wanna be around you.

10:20 So just wanted to affirm you in that way.

10:21 So obviously you've got a great reputation,

10:23 but one thing that you did mention

10:25 is you support a lot of military type things,

10:27 but that hits very, very close to home for you specifically,

10:30 for you and your husband.

10:31 So talk to me a little bit about his experience

10:34 in the military, but then kind of the unfortunate

10:38 circumstances that befell him,

10:39 that kind of led to this domino effect

10:41 of some of the stuff you're doing today.

10:43 - So we're going right for the hard stuff, I see.

10:45 - We're going right for the hard stuff.

10:46 We'll go back into all the horrible things happening overseas.

10:49 We'll start with this though.

10:51 - Can we just go back to the door dash dress?

10:52 'Cause that felt a little easier.

10:54 - It was a lot easier, but you know what?

10:55 You make me uncomfortable all the time

10:57 and you like talk to me like no one talks to you.

10:59 So I'm just gonna make, this is my turn.

11:01 I'm putting the screws in, let's go.

11:03 - All right, all right, so my husband, Mike,

11:05 we met in high school in Rhode Island.

11:06 We were in a very small high school boarding school there,

11:09 and we were there when the tower fell on 9/11,

11:12 and he made a high school pact,

11:14 which most high school packs of course,

11:15 are just very dumb ideas.

11:17 This was a really noble one.

11:19 They were going to enlist in the military,

11:21 and Mike ended up having a preexisting condition,

11:24 which delayed his ability to enlist,

11:26 and what is just so incredible about that is,

11:29 when you hear what happened to him,

11:31 he went through several painful surgeries,

11:33 just so that he could join.

11:34 He was so desperate to serve.

11:37 He enlisted, he served.

11:38 He wanted to be with the best of the best.

11:40 He wanted to be in the 82nd Airborne,

11:42 and eventually that wish came true,

11:45 and they conducted combat operations

11:47 in Southern Afghanistan.

11:49 They deployed in August of 2009.

11:52 He was an infantryman.

11:53 It was, you know, he was wearing our nation's uniform,

11:56 wearing that coveted 82nd Airborne patch.

11:59 Life could not be more meaningful for him,

12:02 and it was a very difficult deployment

12:05 that was met with an enemy that was largely invisible,

12:08 improvised explosive devices.

12:10 And, you know, as we have unpacked that deployment,

12:15 and, you know, I'm still unpacking

12:18 what the terrorist sent home with my husband

12:19 12 years later now,

12:21 it was something that I just,

12:24 I wouldn't, that experience,

12:26 I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

12:29 They had a high casualty rate.

12:31 His unit Bravo Company, he loves those guys.

12:35 You know, they came home with a 65% purple heart rate.

12:39 They sent 24 men home as casualties.

12:42 It was just, there was so much loss.

12:44 And Mike was wounded the first time on April 10th, 2010,

12:49 and he requested to go back to duty.

12:51 One of his buddies had been killed the following day.

12:55 He was given the choice, you know,

12:56 go back to the U.S. and heal,

12:58 or go back with the unit,

12:59 and they were down so many men already.

13:01 And he wanted to go back out,

13:03 and on his very first foot patrol,

13:06 just two weeks later to the day,

13:08 he was the eighth guy going over a wall,

13:10 and it was an old Russian landmine

13:12 that the Taliban had connected

13:14 to two 15 gallon jugs of homemade high explosives.

13:17 Boom, right, it was definitely over.

13:21 But at that time, you know, he jumped so many hurdles.

13:25 He was called in as expected dead on arrival.

13:28 His left leg was blown off, his left arm was blown off,

13:32 or kind of looked like it was ripped open by a shark,

13:34 what was left of it.

13:35 He was burned over about 30% of his body.

13:38 He required a field blood transfusion to be kept alive.

13:42 I mean, it was just, he was so very catastrophically wounded.

13:47 But the first hurdle he jumped, Kyle,

13:50 was he was not dead on arrival.

13:51 And that just felt like, okay, you know,

13:54 the hits are gonna keep coming.

13:56 This is really hard, but he's stronger.

13:59 - So the interesting thing about that,

14:02 and we won't belabor that anymore

14:04 because that's obviously very personal.

14:05 We'll kind of stick to the stuff that, you know,

14:07 you would at least put on social.

14:09 But here we are all these years later,

14:11 lots of surgeries for him, lots of recovery,

14:14 lots of transitions.

14:16 But life goes on for the Verado household,

14:19 life goes on for the kids,

14:20 and you know, those types of things happen.

14:23 - The question I have is about resilience,

14:25 because we live in a culture that is,

14:26 well, you know, we have a victimhood culture,

14:29 but there are still parts of culture

14:30 that are obsessed with strength, with feats of strength,

14:33 or when people overcoming the odds

14:35 or doing those things, but I don't really care

14:37 about strength as much,

14:38 and I've talked about this a lot,

14:39 then I care about resilience, because no matter what,

14:42 you know, whether you're just aging,

14:44 or whether you suffer a catastrophic injury,

14:46 you're not gonna be as strong as you were

14:48 at your strongest point.

14:50 You will always diminish, but it's your resilience.

14:52 It's your ability to bounce back,

14:53 not just as the person going through the recovery,

14:56 but as the greater family that is supporting that recovery.

14:59 So talk to me a little bit about that,

15:00 because frankly, I get frustrated when I get a little injury,

15:04 and then go to jujitsu, right?

15:05 And I'm like, oh, I wish I could do the thing

15:07 that I'm used to.

15:08 And it's like, it's not even real.

15:09 Like, this isn't real pain.

15:10 This isn't real resilience.

15:11 So talk to me about, you know, the real version of it.

15:15 - Well, you know, the thing is, is like everything.

15:17 And it sounds so ignorant to say now

15:19 that when Mike went to war,

15:20 he thought he was going to war and coming home

15:22 or going to war and not coming home.

15:24 And I think some of the details that I shared

15:25 are probably very hard for some people to understand,

15:28 but you know, and they're certainly hard for me to say.

15:31 I'll never stop sharing them though,

15:33 because that is what the cost is that we pay as a nation

15:37 to be a nation of freedom.

15:38 And we are extraordinarily lucky that we have men and women

15:43 still raising their hand and saying, send me.

15:46 And of course we'll touch on send me.

15:48 But we have men and women who are saying,

15:49 I will go into harm's way.

15:51 I love my country as imperfect as it may be.

15:54 It is the best country in the world

15:56 and it is so worth defending.

15:58 And that resiliency that is just built into these warfighters,

16:01 I'm so inspired by it.

16:02 But our journey, I mean, we didn't have our children

16:05 until post injury.

16:06 And so when people, and since you shared,

16:10 your audience is mostly male, you know,

16:13 some may get a kick out of this.

16:14 But in our early years, you know,

16:16 I think I was pregnant from like 2013 to 2017.

16:19 We had three babies and four years.

16:21 And, you know, Mike's on a prosthetic and we'd be out.

16:24 And like, sometimes the older vets would come up to him

16:26 and be like, well, guess you're glad everything wasn't blown off.

16:29 And, oh my goodness, who says that?

16:32 But right is that kind of that brotherhood joking vet culture.

16:37 And now when people meet us, because he has,

16:40 he's had 120 major surgeries.

16:44 He's been under anesthesia probably around 200 times

16:47 because in the early days, and they do know better now

16:50 than they did in 2010.

16:52 But in the early days, they would have to put him

16:55 under anesthesia every 24 hours to change his bandages.

16:58 And that much anesthesia and what it does to a person,

17:02 there's no population to study because it is a handful

17:05 of people that have had that much anesthesia

17:07 or that many surgeries post catastrophic combat injury.

17:10 But our life has changed.

17:12 And when people meet us now, sometimes, you know,

17:14 they say things like, oh, you know, did you have your children

17:18 via IVF or did you, you know, people love to ask questions.

17:22 And I say, like, we had a pretty normal life with prosthetics

17:26 and wheelchairs and medical stays.

17:28 We had a really normal life and God had such a plan for us

17:31 and that we had to grow our family and quickly.

17:33 And I didn't know why at the time.

17:35 And of course, that wouldn't be possible today.

17:39 And so, you know, the resiliency that's required,

17:43 I just, it's not a choice, right?

17:45 Like I look at my husband and I thought,

17:46 he has to be relieved of duty.

17:48 He has fought so hard.

17:49 He has fought longer and harder than should be fair

17:52 or anyone person should have to fight.

17:55 And it's my turn to say, Mike, I've got this

17:58 and I will, you know, carry that for our family

18:00 and our daughters, it's not, there's no other choice

18:04 but just digging in and doing it.

18:06 - And I think, I really appreciate that word

18:08 because again, whenever you're not going through the crap,

18:11 you have to understand that you're about to at some point.

18:14 That could be today, it could be, you know,

18:16 a million years from, or 50 years from now or something

18:18 like that, like it, but it's coming for you.

18:20 And you're putting in the reps now.

18:22 So for those of you guys out there

18:23 that aren't going through something hard right now,

18:25 put in those resilience reps right now

18:27 because you're making deposits in the right bank account

18:29 because you may need to start, you know,

18:31 taking some money out at some point

18:32 to deal with the stuff that's befalling you.

18:34 But I think all this kind of comes to a head

18:36 and it comes to August of 2021.

18:39 You have a very unique relationship with Afghanistan,

18:42 so does your husband.

18:43 But here you were, just like the rest of us,

18:46 watching Afghanistan fall to the Taliban and like clockwork,

18:49 like it was the easiest thing, almost like it was planned.

18:52 So I guess when you're seeing this happening

18:55 or where you're seeing the reports

18:57 or watching on the news or whatever,

18:58 where are you, what are you doing

19:00 when all this started to happen?

19:02 - Well, Kyle, I've never ever shared this part publicly.

19:06 I think I've told a few friends this

19:08 because I've seen a lot of really hard and sad things,

19:12 of course, but probably one of the darkest days of my life

19:17 was telling my husband that Afghanistan collapsed.

19:20 And it was just awful.

19:23 So, you know, you're a great friend.

19:26 We've talked through some of this.

19:27 You know, Mike now does an executive function

19:29 at an adult level.

19:30 His TBI has been, you know, substantially more difficult

19:36 and some of the skills that he has lost,

19:38 he requires an adult to do what's called his ADLs,

19:42 his activities of daily living and his IADLs,

19:45 which are his independent activities of daily living.

19:48 And really what that means is that he can,

19:51 his ADL that he can perform himself as he can feed himself

19:54 still, which is great.

19:55 But an adult has to, you know, cut, prepare,

19:58 safely cook the food.

20:00 So his brain injury, he has a severe traumatic brain injury

20:02 that has absolutely gotten worse with time.

20:05 And he doesn't process things the way that he's 37,

20:08 that an adult of his age would.

20:12 And I've done a lot of neuropsych testing with him

20:16 and I understand the age level that he processes

20:19 that it's not something obvious I would share

20:21 out of respect for him.

20:22 But when Afghanistan collapsed,

20:26 I was in our state's capital.

20:28 I had been meeting with government officials

20:29 and I came out and just the number of phone calls

20:32 I had a peer devastation from veterans that were struggling

20:36 so much to make sense with what they considered

20:38 to be their own Vietnam.

20:40 It was just gutting.

20:42 And I called my nanny who was with my kids

20:45 and I called Mike's nurse and I said,

20:47 you know, he doesn't use his phone a lot,

20:48 but I also know like his buddies might try to call him.

20:51 I need to explain this to him.

20:54 I need to be the one to explain this to him.

20:56 And so I got home as quickly as I could and I told him,

21:02 I told him that I'd tell him something very sad.

21:04 And I told him that Afghanistan had fallen.

21:08 I told him that Kandahar had fallen,

21:11 which Kandahar is where, you know, he was wounded.

21:15 It was where his buddies were processed through

21:17 that were killed and he was so sad

21:22 and he kind of just snuggling his dog, bravo,

21:25 name for bravo company.

21:26 And he just told me he felt so badly

21:31 for the people that were still there.

21:33 Didn't say much.

21:35 And I left the room and yeah, I mean,

21:39 a few minutes later, I heard just like absolute wailing.

21:44 And it was pretty awful.

21:51 It was pretty awful.

21:54 And I realized in that moment,

21:56 he could not do what he wanted to do,

22:00 but I could.

22:01 And so I had to, you know,

22:04 the greatest honor of my life after, you know,

22:07 being a mother to my three daughters

22:09 is completing my husband's mission,

22:11 honoring his mission, honoring his time in uniform

22:14 and taking care of him.

22:16 And I realized like this is an extension of that.

22:19 I have the ability to help people

22:21 and I've always believed if you can help someone,

22:23 you absolutely should help them,

22:25 no matter what it takes and whatever personal expense,

22:28 like you help someone, if you can,

22:31 this is a life and death situation.

22:33 And so we started just getting organized.

22:36 Nick Palma Shana, one of my best friends,

22:39 he said to me, Chad is trying to get his interpreter out,

22:42 call Chad, you know, maybe you can add a couple of people.

22:45 And then as I did, Chad, Chad,

22:47 how can I help you get organized with this?

22:50 'Cause I'm always trying to, you know,

22:51 put some order to things.

22:53 And he said, I just,

22:55 there's too many names coming through.

22:56 And so I said, give them to me, I'm gonna vet them.

22:59 We'll kind of set up an operation center

23:02 that helps us, this all was in the span of a few hours,

23:05 but like helps us really filter who's coming through.

23:08 Why are these legitimate requests?

23:10 And then I'm going to kick down every single door

23:15 of any person of power that I know

23:17 and I am going to compel them to do the right thing.

23:20 And I was on a hinge at that point, Kyle,

23:23 like that's the only word I can really use for it,

23:25 but I was so devastated.

23:27 I was watching this White House.

23:29 And that's not even to be political,

23:31 but I was watching this White House

23:32 just absolutely light on fire, 20 years, 20 years,

23:37 forget the money, forget everything else,

23:39 20 years of sacrifice.

23:42 And for the first time in my life,

23:45 I was having to answer questions

23:47 that I didn't know how to answer of, was it worth it?

23:50 And what I would say for my husband all day long,

23:54 every day it was worth it, he would do it again

23:55 in a heartbeat.

23:56 For me, it doesn't really, how I feel about it,

24:01 it's the honor of my life to take care of him,

24:03 but I know it was worth it for him.

24:04 But for my daughters, that I have to explain to them now

24:07 that they're living with the aftermath of a war,

24:11 that not only did they not sign up for,

24:13 but that ended in the most horrific way possible

24:16 with a total abandonment of our wartime allies,

24:19 a disgrace to our active military,

24:22 just a stain on our veteran community.

24:24 How could anyone reconcile that?

24:26 How could the president, you know,

24:28 and again, I'm not trying to get political, Kyle,

24:30 but how, how, how, how could anybody sleep?

24:34 - Well, it's okay to get political,

24:37 I got political quite a bit,

24:38 because right after the only thing that I could do

24:39 was to talk to people on this show.

24:41 And so I had people come back on the show,

24:43 people that served in Afghanistan,

24:45 people that lost loved ones, you know, Gold Star widows.

24:47 I talked to these people, did like 10, 15 minute,

24:50 you know, long little interviews,

24:51 just like, help us make sense to this.

24:52 But then I also wanted them to get the message out

24:54 to the veterans out there right now,

24:56 that buried buddies that are, you know,

24:58 still dealing with the mental and physical scars

25:00 and what they did overseas and the stuff that they've seen

25:02 and everything else and how are they able to put that

25:04 through this new rubric of this just abysmal leadership.

25:09 If you can even call that from the Biden White House

25:11 and those types of things, but we could spend most,

25:13 most of the day and still have a lot of time left over

25:16 just talking about some of the nonsense

25:18 that's going on in the White House.

25:19 But let's kind of go back to where you start getting in there.

25:22 So it started with Chad Robishow,

25:23 that was the chat you were talking about.

25:25 And so, you know, he's trying to get his interpreter

25:26 Aziz out, we're gonna have Chad on next year

25:29 because he wrote an entire book about that.

25:30 So we'll leave that story for Chad and Aziz.

25:33 But then that expanded out really quickly.

25:35 And it includes Nick Palmishano and Tim Kennedy.

25:38 And it went well beyond Aziz and his family almost immediately.

25:42 And so let's go back to your role

25:45 because you had a team that included, you know,

25:48 Chad and Nick and Tim and Sean,

25:50 who works with you and some other folks

25:52 in the Middle East, right?

25:53 You had them in Afghanistan and here you are stateside.

25:56 So describe exactly what you were doing.

25:59 What is your role in this entire process

26:01 of getting people out of there?

26:03 - So my role was, I called Sean Lee

26:06 and you know, you know, Sean Lee.

26:07 Sean Lee is the behind the scenes guy

26:09 and every good thing that we have done for a number of years.

26:12 You know, if I know a lot of your followers

26:15 and listeners are probably followed

26:16 by Tim Kennedy on Instagram, you know, you look at his pictures,

26:19 you see Sean Lee meeting him in the airport

26:21 to hand over gas masks a couple of months ago.

26:23 Like that is Sean.

26:23 He is the behind the scenes good guy who gets things done

26:26 and we're so grateful for him.

26:28 And he was my chief of staff for a long time.

26:30 And I called him and I said,

26:33 "Is your passport good?"

26:34 And I need you to get on a plane pretty much immediately.

26:38 And he just said, "Great, which airport?"

26:40 I mean, that was it.

26:42 And I've been so blessed to surround myself

26:45 with these men who are such doers.

26:46 It never ever would have occurred to me

26:49 that they would say no.

26:50 And I think that's like a really important point

26:52 about who they are as people

26:54 that a lot of people talk about doing the right thing.

26:57 But the people that I asked to go,

26:59 I knew they would say yes

27:01 and they would go do the right thing

27:02 despite whatever else was going on for them at that time.

27:04 So my girls and I, my three daughters,

27:07 we had a family vacation plant,

27:09 which of course there's no other parent to tap out to.

27:12 It is me and my daughters.

27:13 And so I thought, you know, what do I do?

27:16 And so we set out this beach vacation.

27:18 They, I went to the beach and pool like twice

27:22 during that entire time, I think 30 minutes each time

27:25 'cause I had no service.

27:26 It was burning through the phone

27:28 and just calling DOD, calling state department.

27:31 I was being able to negotiate based on some of the partnerships

27:34 and relationships I had to say,

27:37 we have more planes than we can land.

27:39 These planes are leaving empty.

27:41 Help us clear this manifest.

27:43 Help us get these people, the right people through the gates.

27:47 And we processed about 29,000 names.

27:51 It was just to talk about the urgency of that time

27:54 to paint the picture, it was really just me

27:59 kind of in a room on the phone 24 hours a day.

28:04 I think starting like day four,

28:05 we started doing like a 22/7 schedule with sleeping

28:08 because we had to, but it was just all hands on deck.

28:12 And for me, if you or someone that was not helping

28:15 with Afghanistan, I would deal with you later.

28:19 And that's really how I learned about it.

28:20 I would just have to deal with that person later.

28:22 And, you know, how could they live with themselves?

28:24 How could they make these horrible choices?

28:26 But the good people who had power

28:28 and had the ability to help,

28:31 they're the ones who should really be celebrated.

28:34 - So there you go again, being all humble and crap.

28:36 And so I'm gonna make you more uncomfortable.

28:38 So here's what's happening, right?

28:39 So let me explain it again.

28:41 I talked about this in the intro

28:42 and we'll get to the documentary here in a second.

28:44 So you've got men on the ground,

28:45 some that we can't even use their names,

28:47 that are actually going into Afghanistan

28:49 that made these rat trails

28:51 to basically get these people out of there, right?

28:54 But that's all being coordinated from a cell phone

28:58 on the east coast of the United States.

28:59 And it just so happened to be your cell phone, right?

29:02 So before we get into some of the more technical side

29:05 of what you did, explain the disjointedness, I guess,

29:10 of your team 'cause your team's over there on the ground.

29:13 And so to a degree, you could feel like,

29:15 here I am state-side, I'm kind of helpless,

29:18 but were you just kind of too distracted

29:21 to worry about the fact that you weren't physically there?

29:23 Was it better that you were here

29:26 that as opposed to being over there?

29:28 Like, give me a little bit more on that.

29:30 - So I wanted to go, of course.

29:31 I mean, like my first thing was let me go.

29:33 And then I realized that's ridiculous.

29:35 I mean, that's me wanting to go in there

29:37 and do probably nothing helpful.

29:39 And in fact, just slow the team down.

29:41 And the guy sort of even probably laughed at that concept.

29:45 And I was much more effective here, organizing.

29:49 You know, I'm the oldest of three girls, right?

29:52 Like, I know how to be bossy.

29:53 I know how to get things on, why you didn't see Kyle.

29:56 You know, and so it was really just kind of

29:58 corralling all of these efforts and aligning them for good.

30:01 And so, you know, you've got Chad with his incredible heart

30:05 to serve and help and big ideas.

30:07 You've got Nick who's just known at being really good

30:10 at solving problems and interfacing with people

30:13 and difficult, you know, high-tense environments.

30:15 And you've got Tim, which who wouldn't want to have

30:17 Tim Kennedy with them when you're, you know,

30:19 trying to do a Neo, which Tim yells at me

30:22 and tells me not to call it a Neo

30:23 'cause it would only be a Neo if the Department of Defense

30:26 was doing it and instead this White House

30:28 gave it to the State Department.

30:29 That's a different subject.

30:31 We had the right people and the right skill sets

30:33 and it was just kind of getting everybody to collaborate

30:36 and move towards a place of action.

30:38 - So with that in mind, your background

30:41 and the things you had done up to this moment

30:44 sets you up for this moment.

30:45 Kind of like what I was saying earlier,

30:46 you put a lot of deposits into the right bank account

30:49 to take it out later.

30:50 I don't mean literally or probably I don't mean literally,

30:53 but this was your game seven of the World Series moment.

30:56 And so you did, that's why I tell people all the time,

30:58 it's like, you can't train enough

31:01 because when God calls you to do something,

31:03 you're either ready or you're not.

31:04 There's no, hey, can we just hit the pause button

31:07 so I can spend 90 days getting my mind and my body right?

31:09 No, it was, we have to act now.

31:12 And so I guess what would you say set you up for that?

31:15 Because there's no book that you can read

31:17 to prepare you for a moment like this.

31:19 It was just a lifetime of deposits.

31:20 So talk to me a little bit about everything

31:21 that sets you up for that moment.

31:24 - Well, you know, my face, first and foremost,

31:26 absolutely my faith, if I didn't have faith

31:28 in a close personal relationship with Jesus,

31:31 I would have not survived.

31:32 I wouldn't have survived my husband's injuries

31:34 because I had to rely so heavily on knowing that,

31:38 you know, God has a plan, he's going to use this

31:40 as an instrument of good for other people

31:42 and like suffering is never wasted.

31:44 So I went into it with that mindset.

31:47 And the second is I was just so focused on doing

31:50 that I just kept telling myself,

31:51 I will deal with the sadness of this later.

31:53 And I'm sure that's something that a therapist

31:55 can have a field day with me about at some point

31:57 where I stay really busy and I try to stay really productive

32:00 and helping people because, you know,

32:03 maybe I can't affect anything meaningful change wise

32:06 or recovery from my husband at this point.

32:08 And I can't and that is the hardest thing I've had to accept

32:11 and it took me a long time to accept it.

32:13 But I can absolutely honor his service.

32:15 I can honor the men he served with.

32:18 I can be part of the commitment that he made to this country

32:20 and to our wartime allies.

32:22 And I mean, there were two, listen, it wasn't perfect.

32:25 There were two times, this is so gross.

32:27 But like, there were two times I threw up in a trash can

32:29 during this EVAC because what was happening was so graphic,

32:34 you know, I'm on the sat phone, I'm on the comms

32:36 and I'm hearing and seeing it in live time

32:39 with with no consideration.

32:40 And I'm so glad that they weren't trying

32:42 to sugarcoat things to me.

32:43 But there was no like, oh, this might upset Sarah.

32:46 It was really, really heavy.

32:49 And what was shown on the news as devastating as that was

32:55 did not begin to accurately describe the picture,

32:58 the heartbreak, the despair

33:00 and just the absolute desperation on the ground.

33:03 - And the thing is, is when you think about the images

33:05 that were showed on the news,

33:06 that was enough to make you throw up in a trash can.

33:09 But then whenever you hear about the stories

33:11 from the people that were actually there,

33:12 that Taliban were literally coming up to the edge

33:16 that the Marines were technically in charge of

33:18 and executing people in front of the Marines,

33:20 trying to get the Marines to engage.

33:22 'Cause if they engage now, it's an international incident.

33:24 Now it's open season on anybody

33:26 wearing an American uniform, right?

33:28 They didn't talk about that on CNN or Fox News

33:30 or anything else.

33:31 Also, the babies that were killed,

33:33 these babies that were being, you know,

33:35 pushed through these crowds of people,

33:37 hoping that they would end up in the arms of a Marine

33:40 or something like that.

33:41 Babies that were dead in the razor wire

33:43 because they were thrown over a fence and, you know,

33:45 the person on the other side of the fence or the wall

33:47 couldn't see the wire there.

33:49 That wasn't shown on the news

33:50 because the news apparently said, all right,

33:52 that's a little bit too macabre.

33:53 It's like, but people falling from the sky

33:56 'cause they're holding on to the landing gear

33:57 of an airplane, that passes muster.

33:59 So, you know, we're kind of getting a little bit off subject.

34:02 I do want to kind of come back to,

34:04 so this is a question that a lot of people have asked.

34:07 I've asked it myself.

34:08 You know the answer.

34:10 Obviously don't give away anything

34:11 that would be trade craft.

34:12 You obviously know this more than I do,

34:14 but how in the world do you,

34:17 Sara Verardo, vet these people?

34:19 So we get names on a manifest or something like that.

34:22 You get them from your team that's on the ground

34:24 in Afghanistan.

34:25 And then you are in the process of vetting this person,

34:27 essentially trying to make sure that they don't have ties

34:30 to any type of a terrorist organization

34:32 or that they've never been arrested for this,

34:33 that or the other thing before you actually get them

34:36 on a plane to get them out.

34:37 How can you do that?

34:38 Like what type of programs are involved with that?

34:41 - A lot of government agencies.

34:44 And that's where I have to say, you know,

34:46 doing the right thing, taking care of relationships,

34:48 being someone who keeps their word.

34:51 I've been really blessed to develop a lot of pilot programs

34:54 with federal agencies to work with good strong partners

34:56 and leaders.

34:57 And I think that going off of,

35:00 I was willing to bet my life, my reputation,

35:05 my future, my career on doing right by these people.

35:09 And so I didn't really care about that much at the time.

35:11 I mean, truly, I was like, whatever it takes,

35:14 I can never work again after this,

35:16 but I just want, I'm gonna do the right thing,

35:18 even if it means that I'm lighting relationships

35:20 and bridges on fire.

35:21 And luckily that's not what happened,

35:23 but we were co-located, I'll say, you know,

35:26 with several government agencies.

35:27 And so as we're receiving intake,

35:30 we're able to do the vetting with these agencies

35:32 and then they're clearing them.

35:34 It's probably the best way I can describe it.

35:37 - That's fair enough.

35:37 We can leave it there.

35:38 The next question that a lot of people ask,

35:40 I think there was this tacit assumption.

35:42 I don't know where people got this assumption,

35:44 was that all of these people that you saw

35:46 on American aircraft were being relocated

35:48 to the United States of America.

35:50 Now, in some cases, that's obviously what did happen,

35:53 but where did the refugees end up?

35:58 - Really all over.

35:59 I mean, there were a lot of countries

36:00 that did a far better job than the US did

36:02 on saying like, we will honor the commitment

36:04 to our wartime allies, but, you know,

36:06 some in Abu Dhabi, certainly,

36:07 and they're still being processed,

36:08 which is very frustrating for the people

36:10 that are waiting there, you know, some Albania.

36:14 I mean, there were a host of countries

36:15 that were very, very generous and proactive

36:18 in receiving these refugees

36:20 that may be better suited for a country

36:22 other than America, or, you know,

36:24 something that it was so dependent on the situation, really,

36:28 on each individual situation.

36:29 Some of our combat interpreters

36:31 are just living these thriving lives in America.

36:33 They served with American infantry units for so long

36:36 that, of course, they're very well versed

36:39 in the culture here and that community

36:42 and their families are acclimating wonderfully as well.

36:44 - That's great.

36:45 I've heard so many stories.

36:47 Even I know it's anecdotal, but I've heard so many stories

36:49 of people that have just relocated

36:50 and they're doing absolutely incredibly well.

36:52 And just think about it.

36:53 Like, when you're really, really sick,

36:54 this is a stupid example,

36:55 but when you're like sick and the first day you feel better,

36:58 your food tastes better, the air smells better,

37:01 the birds are flying more beautifully

37:02 than they ever have, think about it for these people.

37:05 Like they were afraid that the Taliban was gonna come

37:08 door to door and rape their children in front of them

37:11 and then slit their throats and then gouge their eyes out.

37:14 So that's the last thing that they would have ever seen

37:16 before they themselves get their heads chopped off.

37:18 And no, that's not me going into the hyperbolic mode.

37:21 That's docile compared to some of the stuff

37:24 that actually happened on the ground over there.

37:26 But this was something that Tim described in his book

37:28 that he co-wrote with Nick.

37:30 This is something that's described in the documentary,

37:32 send me that we'll talk about here in a little bit.

37:34 But of all the things that you could potentially be mad about

37:37 in this entire situation of Afghanistan,

37:40 there's something that we can just colloquially now call

37:43 the bus incident.

37:44 So you can give us whatever details you wanna give us

37:47 on what actually happened with this bus incident

37:50 and then I've got some follow up.

37:52 So fire away.

37:53 - The bus incident, where to start because, you know,

37:57 first I wanna start by talking about, you know,

37:59 who Tim Kennedy is as a person, who people think Tim is,

38:02 who he actually is.

38:03 - Let's back up Sarah, let's start there

38:05 because there's a lot of misconception about Tim,

38:07 Tim the fighter, Tim the guy on Instagram.

38:09 So let's set the record straight a little bit.

38:11 - Okay, so first of all, Tim is a good human.

38:13 Like Tim is a good person.

38:16 Tim always does the right thing.

38:18 Always, you know, when no one's looking,

38:20 when someone's looking like he's always the one

38:22 that you're going to find making the right call,

38:25 he's incredibly smart, he's strategic.

38:27 And I can also say he's really popular,

38:31 he's easy to hate, right?

38:32 And that's what we certainly saw come out

38:35 of this bus incident.

38:36 Now, people have been overwhelmingly positive too,

38:38 but you know, this is, Tim details us in the book

38:41 and it's in the documentary.

38:43 But we, you know, our team bought seven buses

38:46 and these people were vetted, they were cleared.

38:49 We had American citizens on these buses.

38:52 We had Christian orphans.

38:53 We had very high-risk populations that we were asked to move,

38:57 including at times by government agencies.

38:59 And so these were the right people on these buses,

39:02 a colonel of the 82nd Airborne.

39:04 And remember, my husband served in the 82nd Airborne.

39:07 I love the 82nd.

39:09 I think it is really an iconic unit

39:12 for many good and I love the 82nd.

39:16 The behavior that I saw that night

39:18 come out of this one colonel.

39:19 And it's very, I've never worn the uniform.

39:21 I've never been in a combat zone.

39:23 I'm trying very hard, even I was on the phone that night

39:27 to not make a judgment.

39:29 You know, there's the fog of war.

39:30 There's, what is this guy dealing with?

39:32 What threats did he know was coming?

39:33 Like taking all of that into account

39:35 and not being someone who needs to judge,

39:37 it's still that he made a horrible call.

39:40 And so, you know, Tim, it ticked him off

39:43 that Tim Kennedy was there.

39:44 And so he kicked Tim and these buses filled

39:47 with American citizens and Christians and orphans

39:49 off the base.

39:50 You know, we would later hear that it was a call

39:53 from the State Department and not DOD

39:55 and that DOD was following an order from state,

39:58 which again, I mean, why are we castrating

40:02 for lack of a better word?

40:03 You know, our own military and just giving in

40:07 and negotiating and, you know, being deferential to terrorists.

40:10 Like, I cannot reconcile that.

40:12 And so he said, this is not the Tim Kennedy show.

40:16 And he kicked them out and we never ever heard

40:19 or made contact with those people again.

40:21 Now, the Colonel, he's still active duty.

40:25 He's still at Fort Bragg.

40:27 He's still in the 82nd.

40:28 You know, I'm told by members of Congress

40:30 and, you know, perhaps even within DOD

40:32 that there's some open investigations.

40:34 I sure hope so.

40:36 I sure hope so.

40:37 And if he's not judged here in this lifetime, you know,

40:42 that's not on us.

40:43 But I don't know how he could make the call he did.

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41:15 - That a little sidebar.

41:16 That's one thing that's comforting for people

41:18 that do have faith in Christ is that

41:19 we do know that there's ultimate judgment.

41:21 So we don't have to sell our souls

41:23 to make sure that judgment happens on this planet

41:25 because we believe in cosmic justice.

41:27 But beyond that, obviously had Tim not been on the team.

41:31 Maybe it was different.

41:32 Maybe this was a big dick contest for this guy.

41:34 And I was gonna, I'm gonna show Tim Kennedy,

41:36 the real man who the real fighter is.

41:37 Maybe it was that type of thing.

41:39 Maybe he was a fan of somebody that Tim Kennedy beat up.

41:41 Maybe he was a big Michael Bisming fan.

41:43 And then he just decided he was gonna show the world

41:45 how to do those types of things.

41:47 It's heartbreaking that you don't know what's happened

41:50 to the people that were kicked off base,

41:51 but you cannot assume that all those people are alive.

41:53 You cannot assume that all those people have made it out

41:57 through other means or those types of things.

41:59 But here's the thing that I found interesting.

42:01 And I know there's a good reason for it.

42:03 There has to be, but he was not named in Tim's book,

42:07 nor was he named in the documentary.

42:10 And I'm a named names guy, right?

42:11 I'm not a subtlety type of person.

42:14 I know there's probably a reason for that.

42:16 And again, you already talked about you set some bridges

42:19 on fire, but that doesn't necessarily mean

42:21 that you would reconstruct it from the ashes

42:22 just to burn it down again.

42:24 But why was this Colonel not named because he should be?

42:27 The public needs to know who did this.

42:29 - So people know who he is.

42:31 I mean, like I said, so, you can listen to him again.

42:34 He is a brigade commander in the 82nd.

42:36 It doesn't take much out of Google search

42:40 to figure out his name.

42:40 And plenty of people are good friends at drinking bros.

42:45 Like they're long time Tim friends,

42:47 they have named his name again.

42:50 My understanding is he has a wife and he has children,

42:52 and I'm not excusing that,

42:54 but I have not worn the uniform.

42:55 It is very hard for me to name his name

42:57 because I don't know what was happening at that exact time.

43:01 I mean, I was on the phone at some point.

43:02 I could hear it on the sat phone,

43:04 but, you know, and then in terms of not naming him,

43:08 it was, I think there was a hope that, you know,

43:11 maybe there was an explanation as crazy as that sounds.

43:13 Like maybe there was an explanation.

43:14 Like was this in order?

43:15 Was he following an order?

43:17 Or is he just a terrible human being?

43:18 Or is he, you know, absolutely want to be able to say

43:23 that like he won against Tim Kennedy?

43:24 I don't know.

43:25 And I could sit here and guess all day

43:27 'cause I certainly have my theories.

43:28 We've heard from plenty of people, you know,

43:32 that have been above and below him in the DoD chain.

43:34 And I can tell you that I have not heard anything positive,

43:38 not anything positive.

43:39 I'll leave it at that time.

43:43 I could go, I'm like a mom there when it comes to these guys.

43:46 And, you know, I really am.

43:47 And, you know, what happened that night,

43:51 especially Tim volunteered.

43:53 That's what people understand, Tim volunteered

43:55 to go to Afghanistan.

43:57 He left several successful businesses, mid launch.

44:02 He left his company.

44:04 He gave up very lucrative business arrangements

44:07 and speaking engagements to go to Afghanistan

44:09 as a volunteer because he is so highly trained

44:12 in these type of extraction exercises

44:16 and real experience that he has

44:18 from his 20 years of military service.

44:21 So yeah, like I said, I'll stop

44:24 'cause I will be a mom there.

44:25 - Hey, that's fine.

44:27 I'm glad we are able to reveal that a little bit.

44:29 And again, I guess that's good for all of us to realize.

44:31 Not everybody that wears a uniform is created equal.

44:34 Not everybody that wears a lab coat is created equal.

44:36 You still have to look at these people

44:37 and judge them individually,

44:38 even though they did sign on the dotted line

44:40 to serve this country.

44:41 I think that goes without saying.

44:43 Now, I wasn't intending to ask about this

44:45 'cause it seems a little bit inside baseball,

44:47 but you brought it up a couple of times.

44:49 The weirdest thing about this to people

44:51 that really understand government bureaucracy

44:53 is that this was something that should have been happening.

44:56 The withdrawal from Afghanistan or really any of this

44:59 should have been under the Department of Defense.

45:01 But for some reason, perhaps there is a good reason for it.

45:05 This was being put under the State Department.

45:08 And so not everybody really knows the differences.

45:10 They just think, oh, that's the federal government.

45:12 And then they just have a bunch of people

45:14 that wear different hats.

45:15 But that was very, very odd.

45:17 I can't think of a really good metaphor or something like that.

45:21 But it's like, it made no sense to people

45:23 that were actually paying attention.

45:25 It was like, why is the State Department in charge of this?

45:27 So do you have any indications as to why that was?

45:30 And it maybe give us a little bit of an idea

45:32 what limited you guys or anybody else

45:35 that was trying to help on the ground

45:37 because of that decision that was made?

45:39 - Well, I think when you look at Afghanistan

45:41 and you look at the failures to our combat interpreters

45:43 and for those who don't understand

45:45 just the absolute vital role

45:47 that a liaison or interpreter plays in these wars

45:50 and it's not limited to Afghanistan,

45:52 but they serve as a cultural liaison.

45:54 Of course, a language interpreter,

45:56 but they embed with American troops.

45:58 And with the Afghan SIV program,

46:01 we have really four, if not seven,

46:04 presidential administrations that have failed these people.

46:06 But so there's not, there's plenty of blame to go around.

46:10 And even at that time, I thought was like,

46:12 we'll deal with that later.

46:14 Let's just get them out now, take them all

46:16 and figure it out later and not take them all to America,

46:19 but get them all out.

46:21 Those that worked for American troops, get them out,

46:24 bring them to a third country

46:25 and a lily pad location, process their paperwork.

46:29 I've heard a lot of different reasons,

46:32 both from Congress, from government officials

46:34 on why the State Department got it.

46:35 I think this White House knew

46:37 that they were gonna double down

46:39 on the failures of Afghanistan.

46:41 May we never forget, may we never forget

46:43 that the day before the horrific bombing in H. Kaya,

46:47 the White House press secretary called

46:49 the Afghanistan evacuation and I quote,

46:52 "an extraordinary success."

46:54 How?

46:56 - Right, like on what metric,

46:58 like what metric would you use to gauge that?

47:01 - Right, right.

47:02 So, you know, there were the abandonment

47:04 and the withdrawal of our bases.

47:07 I mean, there were just so many things

47:08 that still don't make sense.

47:09 And I think that, you know, I've said,

47:12 I don't wanna make it political,

47:13 but really to me, it's not political

47:14 because you look at most of the country was united

47:17 in the fact that this was a botched referral.

47:20 Whether or not you thought, like, should we still be there,

47:23 you know, should we not look at all of the places

47:26 around the world that we still have

47:28 a small military presence at, right?

47:30 And we have to fully leave Afghanistan.

47:33 I mean, my personal opinion, of course, is no,

47:36 because I really want to finish the mission,

47:38 but even if you believe we should fully leave

47:41 or we should have left, we didn't have to leave that way.

47:43 And I think everyone, Democrats, Republicans,

47:45 and dependents, everybody was united in that fact

47:47 that the way it went down was completely avoidable.

47:51 And so I think what we saw from this White House

47:54 is wanting to just hope it went away.

47:57 And I think, you know, giving it to state

48:00 and absolutely just cutting our military off at the knees.

48:04 Imagine what these people are living with.

48:07 And some of those units have reached out to me, Kyle.

48:09 You know, I've heard from mothers and wives

48:11 and unit members and the men and women

48:15 that were over there having to play God at those gates

48:19 and what they've had to live with.

48:20 And then watching, you know, what was happening

48:23 in front of them.

48:23 And, you know, one of the times that I told you,

48:26 I got so sick because it was so horrible.

48:28 I was on the phone with this young woman.

48:30 Her husband was a combat interpreter

48:32 with American Special Operations units for 10 years.

48:36 And, you know, her dad had also worked with the Americans

48:39 and I'm on the phone with her,

48:40 trying to get her to my guy at the gate.

48:42 And her dad has trampled to death.

48:45 And then they took his body

48:48 and it was so horrific.

48:51 Watch, imagine these military members having to watch that.

48:55 It is the cruelest, it's inhumane.

48:59 - You constantly hear these stories

49:00 of people that served in the global war and terror

49:03 that come back and what's weird about it

49:08 is they don't talk about the physical injuries as much.

49:10 They talk about those.

49:11 They talk about what they've seen.

49:14 I mean, going back to the story, you know,

49:15 that Tim's told several times and he told it in the book

49:17 where he threw, he lasered, you know, a grenade

49:22 into a building and it hit a bunch of civilians

49:27 and children, right?

49:28 And, you know, he got hurt overseas, he bled.

49:32 You know what I mean?

49:33 But he doesn't talk about that.

49:34 And it's not just 'cause he's a tough guy.

49:34 It's because that doesn't even register to him

49:37 because those are wounds that heal.

49:39 You may not even have a scar from where you were bleeding

49:41 a little bit ago, but those are the things

49:43 that absolutely stick with somebody.

49:45 But you made a great point.

49:46 And that's a point that a lot of people made is like,

49:48 does it seem like we're in war in Korea,

49:51 but we have a bunch of troops in Korea.

49:53 Are we at war with Germany?

49:55 But we have troops in Germany.

49:56 Like literally it's this univariate analysis

49:59 that people do, they're like, well, I don't like war.

50:01 So we should just bring all our troops out of there.

50:03 And it's just like, don't you think it's a little bit more

50:05 complicated than that?

50:07 But the thing about that Sarah is we're too distracted.

50:10 We're Americans, right?

50:11 Like we got to get to the next TikTok.

50:14 We've got to get to our next fantasy football draft.

50:16 We've got to get to the next video game.

50:17 We've got to focus on the next thing.

50:19 And I said it at the time.

50:21 I recorded an episode with a gal

50:23 that was on the ground in Afghanistan.

50:24 She's a war correspondent, Holly McKay,

50:27 as the Taliban's driving through her city.

50:29 And if they had known that an American citizen

50:31 was on the second floor of this particular area,

50:33 she would have been very, very, in massive amounts of trouble,

50:37 right, for her own personal safety.

50:39 And I remember saying it to her at the time

50:40 and she's like, you're absolutely right.

50:42 Unfortunately, I was like, well, Holly, two weeks from now,

50:45 no one's going to be talking about this anymore.

50:46 Because, you know, Trump will have said something

50:49 in the media or Biden would have pooped in his pants

50:51 in front of the Pope or something else would have happened.

50:53 And we would have been like, oh, this couple

50:55 is breaking up in their celebrity.

50:56 So we need to focus on that.

50:58 Talk to me a little bit about how that feels

51:00 from your perspective, you know, dealing with what you deal

51:03 with on a daily basis, right, inside your own household,

51:06 the work that you did to realize

51:08 that the American consciousness just moved right on.

51:12 We don't even think about the people

51:13 starving to deaf in Afghanistan right now,

51:15 about the women that are being put under

51:17 such unbelievable subjugation.

51:18 Talk to me about that because you've lived it

51:20 more than I have, certainly.

51:22 - Well, you know, I think as Americans

51:24 we're a selfish population, absolutely.

51:26 But okay, so let's walk the gob on that a bit.

51:29 What happened in Afghanistan, even if you don't care

51:32 which is so hard for me to reconcile,

51:34 but let's say you don't care because, oh,

51:36 that's another country over there.

51:38 - Yeah.

51:38 - Okay, let's say you feel that way, right?

51:40 How about the fact that the abandonment

51:43 of our wartime allies, what does that say for us

51:46 in future conflicts?

51:47 How does that absolutely expose our own security?

51:51 I mean, that is a threat to our homeland,

51:53 that is a threat to our ability to have allied cooperation

51:58 with these interpreters that we will rely on

52:01 in future conflicts.

52:02 So if you're an American who feels like,

52:04 what does this have to do with me?

52:06 Well, pay attention because the way we left Afghanistan,

52:09 what does that say about our priorities as a nation,

52:13 being safe, being free, it really is something

52:15 that should terrify all of us.

52:17 But the attention span, people move on from it.

52:20 We saw a little bit of interest again

52:22 around the one year anniversary and maybe some of the stories

52:25 of those that were fortunate, the very lucky few

52:29 of the right people that were fortunate enough

52:30 to be in the U.S.

52:32 And overall, I live with the aftermath

52:37 of radical Islamic terrorism in my home.

52:40 And no one wants to call it that

52:43 because no one wants the very worst parts of our life,

52:47 our religion, there are bad parts and populations

52:51 of nearly every community.

52:52 And the Afghans that I know are, they are patriotic,

52:56 they love America, they've done so much

52:58 to already be part of this country

53:00 that they're not even citizens of yet.

53:03 They love freedom, they want that for their children,

53:06 they want their daughters to be educated.

53:08 They are so thankful and excited to be here.

53:11 And focusing on that though, they're number one concern.

53:15 It's not the fact that some of them are working

53:16 three and four jobs to survive and have housing

53:20 in the United States, they're concerned

53:21 are for their family members that are still stuck.

53:24 And the promises that our government

53:26 has just completely forgotten about.

53:28 So I live with it every day and I say that

53:31 because it's not something that I could,

53:33 I don't want to move on from it nor could I.

53:36 There is not a day that goes by.

53:38 This is why it's probably just, it's so intertwined.

53:40 But there's not a day that goes by.

53:42 There is not a soccer game or a parent teacher conference

53:47 or even a family dinner that goes by

53:50 that I do not see and feel a huge void.

53:55 And side note, fathers are essential.

53:57 Don't ever let anyone else say otherwise

53:59 because in the society, people really like to say that.

54:02 So I have this huge void.

54:04 And why does that void exist?

54:06 Because of what happened in Afghanistan.

54:09 And so for people to move on just so carelessly,

54:12 oh, it grinds my gears.

54:16 - Well, and even beyond that Sarah,

54:17 the thing that's interesting is,

54:19 I'm familiar some, you know, think of veterinarians.

54:22 Like these are people that deal with death every day.

54:24 They deal with sadness about people losing their animals,

54:26 all those types of things,

54:28 but they get a empathy fatigue.

54:30 Like you can only be so empathetic.

54:31 Like you literally can't walk around and function

54:34 like a normal person and just think about everything

54:37 that's going wrong in the world,

54:39 but to lose the consciousness.

54:40 That's why every year around 9/11,

54:42 I watch all the documentaries on that geo

54:45 and on Discovery Channel and all that

54:46 'cause I wanna remember how mad that I was

54:49 as a 10th grader, watching people jump to their deaths

54:52 as opposed to being, you know, suffocated by the black smoker

54:55 being, you know, caught up in the inferno.

54:57 I wanna remember what that feels like

54:59 because if I hadn't been in 10th grade and I had been of age,

55:02 you may have watched me march my butt down to, you know,

55:04 to go say, hey, I'm gonna go help make this right.

55:07 Like a lot of people did, you know,

55:08 like certainly your husband did.

55:10 But one of the ways that we can help tell the story

55:14 of these people and the things that they went through,

55:16 but also the things that they continue to go through,

55:18 is to actually tell the story.

55:20 And so that's something that y'all decided to do very early on.

55:23 I don't know who was behind it.

55:24 I know some of the people that worked on it

55:26 because obviously I was out there with you all in D.C.

55:28 And I got to see the behind the scenes, you know,

55:30 before it was, we even done, you know,

55:31 the super pre-directors cut or whatever.

55:34 But y'all made a documentary about this process

55:36 of getting these people out, starting with Chad and the Z's

55:39 and then trying to get his interpreter out

55:41 all the way through the end.

55:43 And it's called Send Me.

55:44 Guys, it's in the show notes.

55:45 If you haven't watched it yet,

55:46 you can watch it on Amazon again.

55:47 It will be in the show notes.

55:48 You should definitely go and check it out.

55:50 But talk to me about that process

55:51 'cause some people would just do this

55:53 and then, you know, let it be in Tim's book

55:55 or maybe someone else writes a book

55:57 or maybe you do a little expose for some newspaper

56:00 or something on YouTube.

56:02 But y'all are like, no, we're telling this story

56:04 and we're gonna tell it the right way.

56:05 So why even do that?

56:07 - Well, so I didn't know we were doing a documentary.

56:10 You know, Nick is a phenomenal storyteller

56:12 and I think that what comes naturally to him is that

56:15 as he was on the ground, you know, he flew over with Tim

56:17 and he was able to fly back with some of one of those

56:21 early plane loads of people that we were rescuing

56:24 and he saw firsthand.

56:26 And so that's how his mind thinks.

56:28 I have like, I need to show this to people one day

56:30 and I'm so grateful that he captured that

56:32 because he just started thinking,

56:33 this is a story that is going to have to be told.

56:35 Like we cannot let it be forgotten.

56:37 The hardest part of these stories is that

56:39 the two gentlemen, for example, who rescued Aziz,

56:43 we can never ever share their names.

56:45 I mean, maybe at some point, but right now we can't.

56:49 And it is so hard because I just wanna shout

56:51 from the rooftops like these brave Americans

56:54 who people have no idea.

56:56 There's so much wrong with our society and there really is.

56:59 There's just, there's so much wrong.

57:00 But if you knew the people that are still willing to go

57:05 so into harm's way, the training they have,

57:08 the patriotism they have, it's so deep,

57:11 they're so incredible, they are absolute rock stars.

57:15 I wish we could shout their names from the rooftops

57:18 'cause like they got Aziz and they've not received any,

57:20 you know, quote unquote, credit for it.

57:22 They absolutely shouldn't, but that's not why they do it.

57:25 And telling that story was very difficult.

57:29 You've watched it, you know me, it's very hard.

57:33 I mean, I had to be kicking and screaming.

57:35 They actually hid to film me one day

57:37 because I didn't wanna be able to.

57:39 But I'm glad, like I am absolutely glad

57:42 as hard as it is to watch that we'll have that

57:44 as a snapshot in time to show what ordinary Americans can do.

57:49 And for all of you guys out there that have young men,

57:52 you kind of talked about some of the things

57:53 that are, some of the messages that are sent on young men.

57:55 Maybe we can do another podcast

57:57 and talk about some of the cultural messages

57:58 being sent to our young boys.

58:00 But I know that there are some patriotic young boys right now

58:02 that the LGBTQ design on the Marine helmet

58:07 isn't gonna get them to want to join the military.

58:11 The advertisement that's like, well, I have two mommies,

58:14 like that's probably not gonna be the thing

58:15 that gets them to join.

58:17 These kids that have been told since elementary school

58:19 that that desire to protect and provide

58:22 and to compete is somehow toxic.

58:25 Maybe that's gonna steer them away from the military.

58:27 But if you've got young boys that think

58:29 that that might be something

58:30 that they would wanna do someday,

58:32 show them this documentary.

58:33 And that is not because of some misplaced glory

58:36 that, hey, maybe one day you can be a hero

58:38 just like Tim Kennedy.

58:40 That's not the thing about it is.

58:41 The thing about it is the guy, C spray,

58:44 the people that you can't even see,

58:45 you can't even, you wouldn't see them

58:46 if you walked up to him and bumped into him in Walmart,

58:48 you would never know.

58:49 It's because of guys like that.

58:51 The names that only God knows

58:53 and the names of the people that they saved.

58:55 That's why these people go over there and do that.

58:57 They don't think they're gonna become

58:58 a New York Times bestselling author.

59:00 They don't think they're gonna be able

59:01 to tell this story someday on the Joe Rogan experience.

59:03 They just wanna do it

59:04 because it's what you said earlier about what Tim does.

59:06 You just do the right thing.

59:08 And I know that this statement that I'm about to make

59:09 is gonna make you uncomfortable, which is great.

59:11 That's exactly why I'm saying it.

59:13 But Sarah, the reality is, is that you coordinated

59:16 the rescue of over 12,000 people

59:21 in a little over a week

59:22 and thousands more since then, just in Afghanistan.

59:26 We'll get to Ukraine.

59:27 But you did that.

59:29 Yes, your team helped.

59:30 They were there.

59:32 The people in the ground over there were doing the stuff

59:33 that only they could do because of the training that they had.

59:36 But God put you in a specific place for a specific time

59:39 and you said, yes, Lord, and you walked through.

59:42 What does that feel like?

59:43 Well, I appreciate that, but I also, of everything

59:47 that went on at that time, I was safe.

59:49 I was in America.

59:51 I had the easy job.

59:52 It's very hard for me to imagine

59:55 that someone would have the access and the relationships

59:58 that I have and that they would not use them in that time.

1:00:01 And perhaps they wouldn't, you know,

1:00:04 there was one person and I'll never forget this

1:00:07 because this person that I had really respected

1:00:10 and worked closely with on a number of things

1:00:13 had the power to help.

1:00:14 And he said to me, you're so focused on Afghanistan,

1:00:19 you're so focused on Afghanistan, you know,

1:00:20 this is going on and that is going on.

1:00:22 And, you know, you kind of got to get over it.

1:00:24 You can't save them all.

1:00:26 And who knows who they even are anyway?

1:00:28 And I said, stop speaking right now

1:00:31 because you are going to say something

1:00:33 that is going to irreparably change my opinion of you.

1:00:36 And, you know, it has changed, of course.

1:00:40 You have the ability to help someone, you help someone.

1:00:43 And my daughter who's now a, you know,

1:00:46 she calls it being the somebody

1:00:48 because, you know, I am the only parent that they really have.

1:00:51 And I've had to miss a lot and that's been,

1:00:54 it's been so tough.

1:00:55 I really thought that, you know,

1:00:57 maybe I'd be a state-owned mom

1:00:58 and I, you know, the things you think when you're younger, right?

1:01:02 But for me, it's been tough missing things for my daughters.

1:01:06 And of course, you know, I'll fly through the night

1:01:08 to not miss a preschool party.

1:01:09 Like, I kind of am a little bit crazy with travel that way.

1:01:12 But unfortunately, I miss things once in a while.

1:01:15 And having these girls who say, but, you know,

1:01:17 mama, you're being the somebody,

1:01:19 if you wouldn't be the somebody

1:01:22 and you have the ability to be,

1:01:23 then I just think your whole life has to be re-examined.

1:01:26 I can't, I don't think, I mean,

1:01:28 I know I didn't do anything extraordinary, Kyle,

1:01:30 and that's because I did what I would hope.

1:01:33 Anyone with the kind of access that I had would do.

1:01:38 Why else do you have the, you know,

1:01:40 the ability to influence change,

1:01:42 the ability to maybe utilize some power players?

1:01:45 If you are not going to use it for good,

1:01:49 why do you have it?

1:01:50 - Undaunted life is here to equip men to push back darkness.

1:01:55 And I know some men that are equipped

1:01:57 that are unwilling to push back darkness.

1:01:59 And whether it's in there with their local school board

1:02:01 or in their own household or within their own soul,

1:02:03 there's a level of selfish narcissism

1:02:06 that these people feel to where it's like,

1:02:07 well, do I really wanna push my chips in?

1:02:09 And I've used this, this metaphor a lot.

1:02:12 It's a lot of people, they will wake up one day

1:02:15 and the war, as it were, will be over.

1:02:17 Their side will have lost and they will have realized

1:02:20 that they never picked up their sword,

1:02:21 they never put on their helmet,

1:02:23 they never put on their armor.

1:02:24 And then they woke up one day and it's like,

1:02:26 oh, it's all over now.

1:02:27 It's like, yeah, and you never got into the fray.

1:02:29 And so for some people getting into the fray

1:02:31 means that there's gonna be bullets

1:02:33 whizz and pass their helmet.

1:02:34 Other people, it means that they're gonna be set bridges

1:02:36 on fire and those bridges are relationships,

1:02:38 not actual bridges, but speaking of bridges

1:02:41 that are on fire, let's talk about Ukraine.

1:02:43 So you go from save our allies focusing on

1:02:46 what was going on in Afghanistan,

1:02:48 then y'all make the obvious pivot to say,

1:02:50 okay, the Russians in nuclear power,

1:02:52 Afghanistan's on nuclear power,

1:02:54 the Taliban's on nuclear power, but the Russians,

1:02:56 they're invading Ukraine, they've caused war in Ukraine,

1:02:59 that's still going on to this day.

1:03:01 And y'all pivot your resources, not out of Afghanistan,

1:03:04 but in addition to Afghanistan to what's going on in Ukraine.

1:03:08 So tell me about that.

1:03:09 Is that just kind of what happens now?

1:03:11 If something crazy pops off in some random country,

1:03:14 is that where Save Our Allies is gonna be from now on?

1:03:16 - Yes, you know, Save Our Allies exist

1:03:19 to serve Americans and allies.

1:03:21 And allies can be journalists or actual, you know,

1:03:24 wartime allies, people vulnerable populations

1:03:27 that are in contested war-torn areas.

1:03:29 And we are rescuing them, providing aid.

1:03:33 And we're such a fluid organization,

1:03:35 but we are going to defeat terror,

1:03:37 we're going to do the right thing,

1:03:38 even if our government will not.

1:03:40 And at times it's with the cooperation of our government.

1:03:42 So my very favorite thing in the non-profit,

1:03:47 non-government and government space

1:03:49 that I get to work on are public-private partnerships.

1:03:52 And we never saw a better public-private partnership

1:03:55 than with Ukraine.

1:03:56 We did a very, you know, highly visible rescue

1:03:59 of Fox correspondent Benjamin Hall.

1:04:01 And he's in the process of telling his story right now,

1:04:05 and it's pretty incredible.

1:04:06 I think, you know, stay tuned to see how he does that.

1:04:09 But that public-private partnership,

1:04:12 having, again, take care of your relationships, people,

1:04:15 because, you know, when you have these relationships

1:04:17 to fall back on, and you need someone to,

1:04:20 maybe not like bend the rules in a bad way,

1:04:22 but to know that you are an effective person

1:04:24 who can get things done and is in their best interest

1:04:27 to meet you there and do it with you.

1:04:29 It is a win all the way around.

1:04:30 So Ukraine, such a different environment

1:04:33 than Afghanistan, of course,

1:04:35 also have a lot of thoughts that, you know,

1:04:38 people cared so deeply.

1:04:40 You see the Ukraine flags on, you know,

1:04:43 every block in America.

1:04:45 Why did we not have that level of support

1:04:48 for our Afghan actual wartime allies?

1:04:51 I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, too,

1:04:53 but so grateful for the work we're doing in Ukraine.

1:04:56 - You keep bringing up things

1:04:57 that I wanna go into the rabbit trail.

1:04:59 That's why I wanted to do three hours, okay?

1:05:01 We're just right at one hour

1:05:02 and I know it's making you very uncomfortable,

1:05:04 but because I am a gracious guy,

1:05:06 because I am a nice guy, even though I look like this

1:05:09 and I have this angry, ginger soul,

1:05:11 there is something that I like to do towards the end

1:05:13 of my shows with some of my people that I interview

1:05:16 that I know is gonna make you uncomfortable,

1:05:17 which is exactly why we're doing it.

1:05:19 It's a segment called,

1:05:19 "What would you say to someone that said?"

1:05:22 So what I'm gonna say, Sarah,

1:05:23 is what would you say to someone that said,

1:05:25 and then I'm gonna fill in the blank,

1:05:27 and this is lightning round, though.

1:05:28 You get 30 seconds maximum to answer that question,

1:05:32 and we're gonna do a bunch of them, right?

1:05:34 So this is just right off the top of your head.

1:05:36 We don't have to think about who's gonna potentially hear this

1:05:39 and who am I gonna make, Matt?

1:05:40 No, it is all about the meat and potatoes answers.

1:05:43 So what would you say to someone that said?

1:05:44 Are you ready for it?

1:05:46 - I'm ready.

1:05:47 - Let's go with number one.

1:05:48 What would you say to someone that said,

1:05:50 "I hate America."

1:05:51 - Why are you here and what are you doing to make it better?

1:05:56 - It's a great question for them to ask themselves.

1:05:57 Next one here, what would you say to someone that said,

1:05:59 "The U.S. needs to stop trying to be the world police."

1:06:02 - We have an obligation to make our country

1:06:06 not only safe and the best,

1:06:08 but we're doing that by making sure that evil doesn't win.

1:06:11 And we're not the world police.

1:06:12 We're making sure that evil does not win

1:06:14 and that evil does not come here.

1:06:16 - All right, next one here.

1:06:17 What would you say to someone that said,

1:06:18 "Joe Biden surely would not have pulled us out of Afghanistan

1:06:21 unless he had a really good reason."

1:06:23 - I'd love to know what that really good reason is,

1:06:26 and I think that he should have to start by telling that

1:06:28 to people whose lives are forever impacted by that country.

1:06:31 - Well, you'd have to start by actually stringing together

1:06:33 a bunch of words into a sentence

1:06:35 that is actually coherent.

1:06:36 Next one here, what would you say to someone that said,

1:06:38 "The U.S. is getting what she deserves for meddling

1:06:41 in Middle Eastern affairs for so long."

1:06:43 - No, just total ignorance.

1:06:46 I probably would just say that's so ignorant

1:06:48 and stop speaking to that person.

1:06:50 - Yeah, it's kind of hard to ask a followup

1:06:51 after something like that.

1:06:52 All right, a few more here.

1:06:53 What would you say to someone that said,

1:06:55 support the troops?

1:06:56 - Do it with your actions, not just with your word.

1:06:59 It's easy to attend a homecoming,

1:07:01 show up, these families are living,

1:07:03 the families are living with the aftermath of war

1:07:06 long after their loved one leaves the battlefield,

1:07:08 show up, be with them, welcome them to your communities.

1:07:10 - Another little sidebar,

1:07:12 we just released an interview here recently

1:07:13 with Sarah Wilkinson, who is a Gold Star widow.

1:07:16 Her husband took his own life.

1:07:18 He was a former Navy SEAL.

1:07:19 The ministry to a family like that

1:07:24 or the ministry to family like ours,

1:07:25 we lost a family member that was killed

1:07:27 in the line of duty as a police officer here this year.

1:07:30 Whenever the meal change stop

1:07:32 and whenever the people stop just dropping by

1:07:34 and all those things, it could be six months,

1:07:35 could be nine months, could be two years,

1:07:37 that's when the ministry begins.

1:07:39 It doesn't start the day after.

1:07:40 That is when the ministry begins.

1:07:41 So if you want to support your troops,

1:07:43 it goes well beyond mowing someone's lawn one time.

1:07:45 So there, we'll go back into it here.

1:07:48 What would you say to somebody that said,

1:07:49 soldiers are baby killers?

1:07:52 - Ignorant, no, move on.

1:07:55 - Yeah, that's a tough one.

1:07:56 All right, just a couple more left

1:07:57 and then we'll get you off the hook.

1:07:58 What would you say?

1:07:58 - Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

1:08:01 How lucky are they to live in a country

1:08:03 where they can say that?

1:08:04 I mean, again, this is the basic belief of mine,

1:08:07 I don't know, 'cause it's the constitution.

1:08:10 So yeah, how lucky are you that you can even say that?

1:08:13 I'd want to smack them, but moving on.

1:08:16 - Yeah, you could just move on without having to go to jail.

1:08:18 All right, just a couple more left.

1:08:19 What would you say to someone that said,

1:08:21 war is never necessary?

1:08:23 - What a privileged life you've had

1:08:26 and your privilege is showing.

1:08:28 - Your privilege is showing.

1:08:29 All right, last question of the day,

1:08:30 you made it all the way to this moment.

1:08:32 What would you say to someone that said,

1:08:34 you're not that bad at interviews, Sarah?

1:08:36 - Oh, this is so painful to me.

1:08:39 But you're getting, talk about these things,

1:08:41 but it is, it's so painful to me.

1:08:43 - I know it can feel painful.

1:08:44 That's why you have to have someone kind of hold your hand

1:08:46 and walk you through it in that type of situation

1:08:48 and we're okay with going with the hard stuff

1:08:50 from the very beginning.

1:08:50 But I really appreciate everything that you've done,

1:08:53 everything that you've done for me,

1:08:54 behind the scenes that I don't really want to talk about

1:08:56 on air because that's between us.

1:08:57 But you've done incredible work.

1:08:59 You continue to do incredible work.

1:09:00 I really appreciate you going into all that detail today,

1:09:02 but that's all for me.

1:09:03 Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?

1:09:05 - Kyle, thank you.

1:09:06 I love what you're doing.

1:09:07 I think you've got a great platform,

1:09:09 a good engaged audience,

1:09:10 and thank you for just being a voice of truth.

1:09:13 - Sarah Verardo, thank you for coming on

1:09:14 on Daunted Life of Man's podcast.

1:09:16 - Thank you.

1:09:18 - There you go, guys.

1:09:19 I hope you enjoyed my time with Sarah Verardo,

1:09:20 but before we let you go,

1:09:21 we are going to do a quick resilience boost.

1:09:23 Add in Daunted Life,

1:09:23 our mission is equipping men to push back darkness

1:09:25 with content that forges spiritual, mental,

1:09:27 and physical resilience.

1:09:28 So don't forget to support the sponsor of today's show,

1:09:30 Casey Cattle Company, go to kcattlecompany.com.

1:09:33 That's kcattlecompany.com.

1:09:35 Use the promo code Kyle to get 15% off your order.

1:09:38 Again, that promo code is just my first name, Kyle.

1:09:39 That's K-Y-L-E for 15% off your order at kcattlecompany.com.

1:09:44 The links I've got for you today.

1:09:45 I've got a link to the documentary

1:09:46 that we talked about, "Send Me."

1:09:48 I've got a link to Save Our Allies website

1:09:49 and also the website for the Independence Fund.

1:09:52 All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to this show.

1:09:53 We do appreciate it.

1:09:54 Wherever you're listening to this,

1:09:55 please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive,

1:09:57 five-star review.

1:09:58 If you want to come and speak live at your event

1:09:59 or on your podcast, just shoot me an email

1:10:01 to info@andonto.life.

1:10:03 That's i-n-f-o@andonto.life.

1:10:05 Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook

1:10:07 and check out our website for everything else,

1:10:08 including how to donate to keep more content

1:10:10 like this coming your way.

1:10:11 Just go to www.andonto.life.

1:10:14 And as always, we want to thank the band,

1:10:15 August Burns Red for allowing us to use

1:10:17 their music for our content.

1:10:18 The music on this podcast is our song, "Cutting the Ties,"

1:10:20 which is off their 10th anniversary re-recording

1:10:22 of their album, "Leveller."

1:10:23 The links are in the description.

1:10:25 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:10:27 Remember, keep pushing back darkness,

1:10:30 keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience.

1:10:33 Keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:10:36 (upbeat music)

1:10:38 ♪ I know I'm dying ♪

1:10:40 ♪ There's a heart in life ♪

1:10:42 ♪ I know you want ♪

1:10:44 ♪ It's a story ♪

1:10:46 ♪ You'll be dead ♪

1:10:48 ♪ And I find you ♪

1:10:51 ♪ You'll be revived ♪

1:10:55 (upbeat music)