The Joe Rogan Experience - Joe Rogan Experience #652 - Ricky Schroder

00:00:02.000 And we're live.

00:00:03.000 What's up, Rick?

00:00:04.000 What's up, Joe?

00:00:05.000 Good morning.

00:00:06.000 Happy Memorial Day.

00:00:07.000 Happy Memorial Day.

00:00:08.000 A perfect day to have you on to talk about your project.

00:00:11.000 Because this, it's called A Fighting Season.

00:00:14.000 It's available right now on iTunes.

00:00:16.000 And for folks who are not aware of Rick Schroeder, first of all, how dare you?

00:00:25.000 And...

00:00:28.000 Actor, now director, producer, you're doing a lot of different things.

00:00:32.000 And we've been friends for, what, ten years?

00:00:34.000 Ten years now.

00:00:35.000 Ten years, yeah.

00:00:35.000 Our girls introduced us, thankfully.

00:00:39.000 So your documentary series is pretty intense, man.

00:00:42.000 And you showed me a bunch of it last time I was over at your house.

00:00:45.000 First of all, I was really impressed.

00:00:46.000 But one of the things I was really impressed with was your commitment to doing this.

00:00:51.000 I mean, you spent a lot of time...

00:00:54.000 In Afghanistan and like embedded.

00:00:58.000 You were with the soldiers in firefights.

00:01:02.000 I mean you were there pretty much every step of the way.

00:01:05.000 Yeah, I was there 110 days from March until July 2014 and I needed to be there because I needed to be there that long because just to build trust with the soldiers and the units that I would embed with took sometimes weeks.

00:01:20.000 Alone, just because everybody looked at me like, you know, what's this journalist doing here?

00:01:25.000 A lot of the guys were 20, 22, 25 in these platoons, had no idea of my past.

00:01:30.000 They thought I was just a journalist, a camera guy that was, you know, there to tell a story that was probably negative.

00:01:35.000 So it just took time to build a relationship with them before I got into their worlds.

00:01:42.000 But, you know, it's funny.

00:01:44.000 When you do go out on a combat patrol and you do have contact with an enemy, then all of a sudden you're one of them.

00:01:52.000 So it totally changes the dynamic.

00:01:54.000 But some big event has to happen typically for them to accept you.

00:02:00.000 Wow, that's that's pretty intense man.

00:02:02.000 So what was the motivation to do this and like when did you decide how long did it take to plan this out like?

00:02:09.000 Yeah, so the motivation is probably you know, I was always curious about what war was you know war is just such one of those things that has affected mankind and Changed the course of history since the beginning of time right the act of war and so You know,

00:02:28.000 I was always curious about what war was.

00:02:29.000 And in my mind, I always thought, wow, I have to experience what it is.

00:02:33.000 Or else I don't have, like, a whole picture of what it means to be, you know, in this state of, you know, this condition as man.

00:02:41.000 So I was always looking for an opportunity where I could sort of experience it.

00:02:48.000 But, you know, I didn't come along for a long, long time.

00:02:51.000 But after 9-11, you know, I've been sitting there watching, you know, us fight in the War on Terror for 13 or 14 years from my living room, like most of us.

00:03:01.000 And, you know, I... I had an opportunity because I knew a three-star general named Lieutenant General Anderson at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, who was deploying to Afghanistan in the spring of 2014. So I asked Joe, I said, Joe, can I go with you guys?

00:03:15.000 And he's like, why do you want to go?

00:03:17.000 And I'm like, well, Joe, I think it's important to document What we've accomplished or failed to accomplish in that country for the last 13 years.

00:03:25.000 We've spent a lot of money there.

00:03:27.000 We've lost a lot of people there.

00:03:29.000 We've had a lot of handicaps and amputees come from that war.

00:03:32.000 And I think it's important to show what Ending a war looks like how hard it is how complicated is how ugly it is and So he agreed and he said okay, I'll make it happen Now this was when you had already started doing that show for the army you had done this show What was the show called?

00:03:51.000 Yeah, the project that I started working for was called starting strong started working for the army for that's a branded content show.

00:03:57.000 It's like a long-form kind of Infomercial, in a sense, ultimately, starting strong for the military.

00:04:07.000 I mean, that's a 30-minute...

00:04:08.000 It's not truly a reality show, right?

00:04:11.000 It's branded content.

00:04:13.000 It's messaging that they want in there that I help produce.

00:04:16.000 And I have a government contract, and I produce that for them.

00:04:19.000 So in that sense, one of the conversations that we had about that, they're fairly restrictive about what you air and what you don't air, and you didn't have a lot of creative freedom with that.

00:04:29.000 That's right.

00:04:29.000 I mean, it's a long-form commercial, Joe, starting strong.

00:04:32.000 But it's well done, and it's real.

00:04:34.000 There's nothing in it that's not truthful, but it's definitely controlled by the Army and the messaging that they want to put into it.

00:04:41.000 So it's not necessarily balanced, like the negative aspects are not really shown.

00:04:45.000 You're just kind of showing the things that they want.

00:04:49.000 Yeah, and ultimately they have the final edit.

00:04:51.000 They're the final judge and jury on those decisions when you have, you know, a creative difference.

00:04:57.000 So that really kind of opened your eyes to this possible, or opened your mind to this possibility of doing this non-restricted, embedded reality.

00:05:07.000 I mean, this is a real documentary.

00:05:10.000 Yeah, this is the real deal.

00:05:11.000 I mean, this is John Paul DeGioia, the guy who owns Patron Tequila, and me, each kicking in a chunk of money, and putting together a film crew, and I scrambled.

00:05:22.000 After I talked to Joe Anderson in Fort Bragg in February, I was in Afghanistan by March, and I brought three camera guys with me.

00:05:30.000 I hired a local there, And the only limitation the Army put on me was they said, we are going to have to review for operational security any things that could endanger our soldiers or give away capabilities, tactics, techniques, and procedures of certain weapon systems or things that we employ to defeat the enemy,

00:05:51.000 which is pretty interesting stuff.

00:05:53.000 I can talk about a little bit with you some of those tools that we have.

00:05:57.000 What were the things that you were not allowed to put in?

00:06:00.000 When we were trying to do dynamic or kinetic strikes with drones on bad guys, we were following known terrorists that had pictures and names, and we were following them from the air and looking for opportunities to shoot a Hellfire missile and eliminate them.

00:06:22.000 There's certain information That's on the drone feeds, the monitor feeds, that gives away sort of capabilities of the drone.

00:06:30.000 I see.

00:06:31.000 And so we had to blur that.

00:06:34.000 There were certain weapon systems, which are just brand new, that you couldn't even talk about.

00:06:39.000 And people don't know, but they're not released to the public?

00:06:41.000 Yeah.

00:06:42.000 That's always tripped me out.

00:06:43.000 Things like the Area 51 stuff and the Groom Lake, where they test all this crazy technology out there, and people don't even know about it until it's too late.

00:06:52.000 Not too late, necessarily, but until it's already employed.

00:06:56.000 One of the things that they attribute to a lot of the UFO sightings is like stealth bombers and the B-52 and B-51.

00:07:04.000 Different technologies they had created out there in the Nevada desert.

00:07:07.000 People had no idea they even existed until they started using them.

00:07:11.000 You know, the technology that I saw and experienced with the Army and the way that they can, you know, fight and conduct war and gather intelligence and stuff was phenomenal.

00:07:21.000 Absolutely phenomenal.

00:07:23.000 That being said, there's only so much you can do to overcome an adversary that's a suicide bomber that's going to, you know, load a car with explosives and drive it into your, you know, checkpoint or walk up to you and detonate.

00:07:37.000 There's only so much you can do with technology.

00:07:40.000 And there's just certain things that's hard to mitigate against, and that's fanatics.

00:07:45.000 Yeah, and this war in particular, and the first Desert Storm War, was really the first time that they had experienced that, the United States military had experienced that, from the enemy, right?

00:07:58.000 Except the Japanese suicide bombers, but the kamikazes, it was sort of a different story. 0.84

00:08:03.000 Yeah, I mean, that's the only time I can really remember is, you know, the weapon of choice becoming a human, you know, is World War II with the kamikazes. 1.00

00:08:12.000 And then, you know, you started hearing about it in Iraq.

00:08:16.000 And that really wasn't employed in Afghanistan for many years early in the war.

00:08:20.000 And then they decided to change tactics and bring that to the battlefield.

00:08:24.000 But, you know, the real disgusting thing with some of that is...

00:08:28.000 You know, they use kids a lot for suicide bombers.

00:08:31.000 You know, kids that are handicapped, kids that have mental problems, Down syndrome, or handicaps in some way.

00:08:37.000 They'll actually, you know, radicalize the kids in Pakistan at madrasas or schools.

00:08:42.000 You know, teach them that, you know, it's the highest degree of glory to die in the act of jihad.

00:08:50.000 Without Jihad, actually, you can't actually get the 72 versions. 0.90

00:08:54.000 So the kids are actually trained to thank the Americans, kind of, in a way, or thank the infidels, because without the infidels to kill, you can't get the highest degree of Celestial glory that term 72 virgins apparently I looked it up what a lot of people think that it's actually like the number 72, 1.00

00:09:15.000 but it's like a shitload It's like saying a shitload.

00:09:19.000 You know like you have 72 more than 72 well, you know what I mean?

00:09:23.000 It's like it's a term like you know like it's not it's not an exact term I don't know what the the definition that would be but you know um You know people say that it's a kajillion.

00:09:33.000 Yeah, you know let's say something exaggeration It was the original...

00:09:37.000 I mean, it's not really defined.

00:09:39.000 It's just a large number of virgins. 1.00

00:09:42.000 That apparently is what they mean by saying 72. Because I always thought, like, that's so specific.

00:09:47.000 What does that mean?

00:09:48.000 Yeah, I mean, it's a cultural thing, obviously.

00:09:50.000 But...

00:09:53.000 This is really a crazy undertaking.

00:09:56.000 You threw your whole life into this.

00:09:59.000 You separated yourself from your family for many months, a hundred plus days, and then went over there.

00:10:06.000 Was there any point in time in the process of this before you launched where you had second thoughts?

00:10:13.000 Did you know that you were going to commit yourself to such a long extended stay?

00:10:19.000 So I did have second thoughts before I went you know especially because like three days before I left Andrea my wife said don't go if you love me don't go whoa and so if you love the kids don't go so I got that and so I had to deal with that like three days before and That was pretty tough um because I do love my wife and do love my kids,

00:10:40.000 but I went so and But, yeah, I mean, it was definitely a hard thing to come to terms with, to come to grips with.

00:10:52.000 You know, one of my camera guys backed out the day of the trip, and I went out there one time before my team, actually, just to scout and look for different embeds and different characters and stuff that I could follow, different soldiers, different units, different missions.

00:11:08.000 And we follow everything in this, just, you know, from Three Star General, who was the commander of the battlefield, all of Afghanistan, to, you know, Colonel John Graham, which is a great embed where he advises the chief of police in Kabul, which is 6 million people,

00:11:24.000 cops with RPGs, 13,000-man paramilitary police force in Kabul, heroin industry thriving, black market for weapons thriving.

00:11:31.000 And our embed was with Colonel Graham, embedded with the chief of police for Kabul.

00:11:38.000 You know, trying to secure the city and build a ring of steel, they called it, which was like 50-something checkpoints to try to keep suicide bombers and vehicle-borne IEDs out of the city before the election.

00:11:49.000 Because the Taliban had threatened immense bloodshed to disrupt the elections.

00:11:54.000 This was...

00:11:54.000 2014 was, just so you know...

00:11:57.000 The first peaceful transition of power in Afghanistan, legitimate transfer of power after Karzai.

00:12:04.000 And so the Taliban wanted nothing more than to disrupt that process. 0.52

00:12:09.000 They want Sharia law. 0.97

00:12:10.000 They don't want democracy.

00:12:11.000 And so 2014 ended up being the deadliest fighting season in Afghanistan's history, at least while we were there.

00:12:18.000 I don't know about the Soviets, but while we were there.

00:12:21.000 And more civilians, more Taliban, and more coalition forces were killed in 2014 than any other year.

00:12:27.000 So, yeah, so, I mean, going into this, I started to get some, you know, jitters here or there, cold feet, but, you know, I commit, and, you know, I know how to jump, you know, like hold your balls and jump kind of attitude, right?

00:12:39.000 I know how to do that, thankfully.

00:12:41.000 And so that's what you do, is you just jump, you know, you just...

00:12:44.000 Because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't, right?

00:12:48.000 I mean, you couldn't...

00:12:49.000 I couldn't.

00:12:50.000 And so...

00:12:51.000 It was, you know, and really what was really stressful, though, was they started killing journalists in Afghanistan in 2014, specifically targeting people that had cameras.

00:13:02.000 And so, you know, while I was there, you'd get news reports of, you know, two dead journalists or dead journalists here or two dead there, you know, purposely shot by...

00:13:12.000 Our allies, our own, not our allies, but our own Afghan partners that we were partnering with, whether it be Afghan National Army, ANA, or Afghan ALP, Afghan Local Police, would turn guns on journalists.

00:13:27.000 And it turns out, you know, you never quite understand why it happened.

00:13:31.000 A lot of times it's Taliban that infiltrate the ranks of the Of the security forces in Afghanistan that do that.

00:13:40.000 But sometimes it's cultural differences.

00:13:42.000 They don't like cameras pointed at them.

00:13:45.000 They don't like you to talk to women. 1.00

00:13:49.000 If you talk to women or open a door for a woman, you could insult somebody so much that it's the kind of place where they pull a gun out and they kill you. 0.99

00:13:59.000 Wow. 0.99

00:14:00.000 Yeah.

00:14:00.000 So the stress, the anxiety just never ends because like on that embed with Colonel Graham and the Kabul police, you know, we were a six or seven person team embedded with a 13,000 man Afghan police force.

00:14:14.000 And so all day long, we're surrounded by Afghans with AKs and RPGs. 0.99

00:14:17.000 And so every building you go into, you're surrounded by Afghans with guns. 1.00

00:14:20.000 And there's just six or seven of you, sometimes two or three of you.

00:14:24.000 And so you're always trying to put your back to the wall.

00:14:26.000 And the anxiety of that Just relentless, even though nothing may happen, but just the potential that something's gonna happen is kind of exhausting.

00:14:36.000 Yeah, I can only imagine, especially knowing that some of these security forces were killing journalists.

00:14:42.000 Did they give you a list of things to never do?

00:14:46.000 No.

00:14:47.000 You just had to learn along the way?

00:14:49.000 Yeah, I mean, you ask for advice.

00:14:50.000 I mean, I think that's one of the weirdest things about, like, going to a place like that is there's no rule book.

00:14:56.000 All you can look is for people that I've experienced that have done it before been there before and Ask and hope somebody takes you under their wing and you know decides to give you a little bit of Comfort, you know and decides to try to teach you something along the way That's got to be insanely stressful So I could just only imagine being a small number of people also surrounded by all these Afghan security forces and then also having the knowledge that some of these people,

00:15:27.000 the Taliban had embedded in some of these people.

00:15:30.000 They had infiltrated and they were in the ranks and they were upset that the Americans were there in the first place and they were resentful of the whole situation and very angry.

00:15:43.000 Yeah, it was mind-exhausting, mind-numbing.

00:15:48.000 It was almost like you don't know where the enemy is.

00:15:51.000 It's like once you know where the enemy is, then at least you can focus on him and you can face him.

00:15:56.000 But the enemy can be anywhere in that kind of environment.

00:16:01.000 So you'd be on a patrol walking through a village and there's a bunch of guys around and they all got shovels.

00:16:08.000 But you know some of them are Taliban.

00:16:11.000 You know that for sure some of them are Taliban, but they're holding a shovel and you can't prove it. 1.00

00:16:15.000 So you have to really wait until, you know, they decide they want to fight that day.

00:16:19.000 Because typically it's up to them, you know, where they fight, when they fight.

00:16:25.000 They're the ones that determine those things.

00:16:27.000 That's got to be really crazy.

00:16:29.000 So it's very difficult to figure out who exactly the enemy is.

00:16:33.000 You're looking at one guy, he might be a farmer, and the guy next to him might be Taliban. 0.98

00:16:38.000 Or the guy might be a farmer one day and then he needs money the next so he picks up his AK or plants an IED the next day because he needs money and he becomes Taliban. 0.64

00:16:46.000 Wow.

00:16:47.000 Did you learn the language?

00:16:49.000 No, I'm a few words here or there.

00:16:51.000 What do they speak?

00:16:52.000 Dari is the people in the north and Pashtun is the people in the south. 1.00

00:16:57.000 And it's really a tribal conflict, that country, as opposed to Sharia versus Sunni.

00:17:04.000 So what is the conflict?

00:17:07.000 It's very different people.

00:17:08.000 It's the people in the North that are Dari. 1.00

00:17:11.000 They're the Northern Alliance.

00:17:12.000 They're Asian, kind of mixed.

00:17:17.000 They, you know, used to have those big Buddhist statues up there in their lands that got blown up by the Taliban.

00:17:23.000 Then Islam came into that country and sort of kicked Buddhism out. 1.00

00:17:26.000 And so it sort of all went Islam. 0.57

00:17:29.000 And then the people in the South, or the Pashtuns, You know, very, very connected to Iran, you know, kind of culturally.

00:17:38.000 And so there's a conflict between just those groups.

00:17:42.000 And there's also conflicts with, you know, the states around there, like India.

00:17:46.000 Afghanistan really likes the Indian people and Indian way of life and, you know, the sports, the music, Bollywood, cricket, you know, the Indian businessmen all over Kabul.

00:17:58.000 And Pakistan, you know, sort of is at odds with India.

00:18:00.000 And the last thing they want is Afghanistan to be an ally of India. 0.85

00:18:04.000 So Pakistan doesn't kind of want surrounded by, you know, people they find unfriendly.

00:18:11.000 So the conflict is, you know, diverse.

00:18:14.000 It's heroin, it's poppy, you know, opium.

00:18:20.000 A lot of money comes out of that.

00:18:22.000 And who controls that money?

00:18:23.000 And where does the money go?

00:18:27.000 Yeah, and also the soldiers have to actually help some of these guys that are growing poppies because they get information and because it keeps certain allies in place.

00:18:40.000 They had this thing on Fox News where Geraldo Rivera was over there and he was trying to help explain why these soldiers were guarding poppy fields. 0.89

00:18:50.000 To people at home, I was like, what in the fuck is going on over there? 0.98

00:18:53.000 Well, here's the good news. 0.99

00:18:54.000 The good news is 90-something percent of that heroin, that opium, goes to Iran and Russia.

00:19:00.000 It doesn't come to us.

00:19:01.000 Ours comes out of Mexico.

00:19:02.000 It's not good news for Iran and Russia.

00:19:05.000 No, but as a weapon, it's good news, meaning that the Taliban used heroin as a weapon against us. 0.83

00:19:12.000 Like, at first, when they were in power, they outlawed the growing of it, so it went to zero.

00:19:17.000 When they were taken out of power, poppy production exploded and huge, huge growth, and so everybody grows it.

00:19:26.000 It's just such a cash crop.

00:19:29.000 But then they tax it.

00:19:31.000 Taliban makes $200 million a year from some of the analysts I talked to, from taxing the growing of it and the movement of it back to Pakistan.

00:19:39.000 Wow.

00:19:41.000 Wow.

00:19:42.000 That's pretty insane.

00:19:45.000 So is that one of the primary means of generating income for them?

00:19:48.000 Well, yeah, because in Afghanistan, there's basically no roads.

00:19:52.000 So they need to grow crops that don't spoil.

00:19:56.000 So when they grow heroin, when they grow that, opium, then they can store it in bricks.

00:20:03.000 And it doesn't spoil.

00:20:05.000 And then they can trade it like gold or silver.

00:20:07.000 And so it's not like, you know, another kind of food or other item that spoils.

00:20:14.000 Because they don't have infrastructure to move stuff to market either.

00:20:17.000 So it's partly, those are the reasons partly too that it's such a big crop.

00:20:23.000 There must have been an insane experience, an insane culture shock for you, going from, I mean, you were a child star, and now you're a grown man producing documentaries, and then you're in this insanely odd world.

00:20:39.000 You're traveling around Kabul.

00:20:42.000 Which is essentially the only city in Afghanistan, right?

00:20:44.000 I mean, most of Afghanistan is villages and run by tribal warlords, different segments.

00:20:51.000 Exactly.

00:20:51.000 What is Kabul like?

00:20:53.000 Like, what is it like to travel around that city?

00:20:57.000 It's a very small downtown center that looks fairly modern, that has fairly modern-looking buildings that even may have traffic lights and sewer.

00:21:05.000 But once you get out of that sort of nucleus, that may be two or three square miles of infrastructure, it just basically becomes a city of six million mud huts and six million people, but all living in mud and dirt roads.

00:21:22.000 Just a massive...

00:21:25.000 Massive village, really.

00:21:26.000 And then there's Kandahar in the south.

00:21:28.000 So those are the two.

00:21:30.000 Which is just another massive, that has no city center.

00:21:32.000 That's a massive village, Kandahar.

00:21:35.000 Mud village. 0.96

00:21:37.000 And then all these valleys around where there's no roads connecting them.

00:21:41.000 So people live and die in the same valleys without going anywhere.

00:21:46.000 And they have to get all their food from that valley?

00:21:48.000 Yeah.

00:21:49.000 And what's their primary source of food there?

00:21:51.000 They grow it.

00:21:52.000 They grow it.

00:21:53.000 They got some of the best berries I've ever tasted.

00:21:55.000 I remember we were having a meeting with some Afghan army guys, planning an operation, and they brought out bowls of like berries.

00:22:04.000 And they're like boysenberries and blackberries and raspberries.

00:22:06.000 And they were the sweetest, finest berries I've ever tasted.

00:22:10.000 They would just taste like sugar.

00:22:11.000 They were so sweet.

00:22:13.000 Nothing sour about them.

00:22:15.000 And so it's a very, like, it's very arid place, but where they have water, it's very productive land.

00:22:21.000 They grow amazing fruit, orchards, nuts, and they have a lot of lambs and sheep is typically what they eat for meat.

00:22:31.000 And so I would think that in that sort of an environment, it's very difficult for progress to take place.

00:22:40.000 What progress that we think of, like infrastructure, sewage systems, electrical power, running water, all that different stuff.

00:22:49.000 It seems like it's very difficult to change.

00:22:52.000 I mean, what...

00:22:54.000 One of the things that I remember from the election was when there was a debate between John McCain and Obama, and Obama was talking about Afghanistan, about bringing troops into Afghanistan, and he was doing it in a way that John McCain thought was very ignorant of the environment.

00:23:08.000 And he said, you know, I don't think you know, I'm paraphrasing, but he was saying essentially, I don't think you know what it's like over there.

00:23:15.000 Like, that place hasn't changed since Alexander the Great came through.

00:23:19.000 And when you describe it that way, I think it kind of puts it in perspective for people.

00:23:25.000 It's not going to change.

00:23:27.000 It's one of the reasons why the Soviets could never win the war there.

00:23:30.000 It's one of the reasons why it's so incredibly difficult for anybody to make any progress there.

00:23:34.000 Well, the hope is the internet.

00:23:35.000 The hope is the internet, because...

00:23:37.000 Like, literally several dozen TV stations have sprung up.

00:23:42.000 Several hundred radio stations have sprung up in the last 13 years.

00:23:46.000 The internet and cell signals and cell phones.

00:23:49.000 You know, now there is a group of young people that have tasted the world through the internet.

00:23:57.000 And they see a different world.

00:23:59.000 And they see the opportunity.

00:24:01.000 They see that, you know, and those are the majority of the 8 million people that came to vote on Election Day.

00:24:07.000 You know, and women and young people.

00:24:09.000 And so the big thing is to try to give that core group of people in that country the time and the space to grow, to develop, and to get, you know, roots of democracy and roots of, you know, civil order established.

00:24:25.000 To try to deal with the corruption, the huge amount of corruption in the Afghan government.

00:24:30.000 I mean, this is a place where fuel trucks will be coming from Pakistan to, say, fill the police department's fuel reservoirs in Kabul.

00:24:40.000 And on the way, so much fuel will be stolen along the way from Pakistan that by the time it gets to the edges of Kabul, all eight trucks will be RPG'd and burned because nobody wants evidence that the trucks were empty.

00:24:55.000 And so, that's the kind of level of corruption that is going on that, you know, that you have to try to, at the ministerial level, the ministers, like, that's where we've got to make sure we fix it.

00:25:09.000 I mean, the other problem with that country is, like, It's sustaining itself.

00:25:15.000 So, like, you'll go to an outpost and you'll see vehicles that look fairly well, like they could be reused for patrols, and they're just sitting there.

00:25:25.000 And they've been sitting there a long time.

00:25:26.000 And the commander, the army gal, will say, what's up with the vehicles?

00:25:29.000 The guys are like, we can only do foot patrols.

00:25:31.000 Well, what's up with the vehicles?

00:25:32.000 Why don't you do vehicle patrols?

00:25:33.000 Well, we don't have a fan belt.

00:25:36.000 And we can't get a fan belt until we bring the vehicle back to the brigade headquarters 150 miles away to actually get the fan belt put on.

00:25:45.000 Because they won't push the parts out because of the threat of them being stolen on the way.

00:25:53.000 So they want all the equipment to go back to the brigade headquarters, which you can't get the vehicle there.

00:25:58.000 There's no tow truck.

00:26:00.000 So there's those kinds of problems where they have to figure out how to logistically resupply their self and sustain themselves.

00:26:08.000 They have to be trained on all that.

00:26:11.000 Wow, that is bananas.

00:26:13.000 What a crazy place.

00:26:15.000 Crazy place.

00:26:16.000 Crazy place.

00:26:18.000 Is there a sense of helplessness about that when you're there?

00:26:22.000 Like, when you look at this, you're like, how is anybody going to fix this?

00:26:25.000 First of all, Jamie, can you turn the AC on in here? 0.99

00:26:27.000 This is hot as fuck in here. 0.98

00:26:29.000 Is there a sense of helplessness at all? 0.99

00:26:33.000 Yeah.

00:26:34.000 I mean, it depends on who you talk to.

00:26:36.000 You talk to the officers in the army and some of the other folks that see the big picture sometimes, and they believe it can be won.

00:26:46.000 They believe that the Afghans can win it. 1.00

00:26:48.000 The Afghans can resist the Taliban.

00:26:52.000 And then you talk to the enlisted guys and typically every one of them says it's gonna take generations and generations to change this and if it changes.

00:27:00.000 I mean, how would you possibly get the internet to these people in these mud huts? 1.00

00:27:06.000 I mean, it seems like if the internet is the hope, how do you get the internet to people that don't have running water?

00:27:12.000 I mean, it seems like that would be their number one priority first.

00:27:15.000 Well, I mean, they're doing a lot of good there.

00:27:17.000 I mean, life, you know, like I was reading some statistics since we got there, like, you know, the amount of literacy has gone through the roof, life expectancy, infant mortality has gone down, life expectancy has gone up.

00:27:31.000 So many good things have happened in 13 years in that place.

00:27:34.000 We've built some roads now and some infrastructure that go all the way around the entire country of Afghanistan.

00:27:40.000 There's a giant circle.

00:27:42.000 And so we've done a lot of good things.

00:27:45.000 But basically, the international community, because it wasn't just us, this was a NATO mission.

00:27:50.000 The first time I was told that NATO was ever invoked, NATO was started to, you know, work in Europe to defend everybody against the Axis, I guess.

00:28:04.000 And we invoke NATO's support after September 11th and NATO came to our aid and so that what was interesting was, you know, there was military members from like 50 or 60 nations in Afghanistan when I was there.

00:28:18.000 A lot of them weren't going out and doing patrols like the Germans were and some other countries were actually out there engaged but most of them were sort of, you know, doing stuff that was Nation building kind of events as opposed to direct combat,

00:28:34.000 but you know, so that's the hope is that the international community doesn't Abandon this country because if they don't have the money to pay their army and pay their soldiers It falls apart So now the United States is pulling out the majority of troops from Afghanistan And what happens then?

00:28:55.000 What's the number one concern from the people that have been there, that are on the ground?

00:29:01.000 What's the number one concern?

00:29:03.000 I think America leaving completely.

00:29:06.000 The President Ashraf Ghani and the Prime Minister Abdullah Abdullah came to Washington, I think, recently to talk to the President and basically both thanked him and thanked America for all the sacrifice that it's made to help their country,

00:29:21.000 but basically pleaded with him, don't leave.

00:29:25.000 We need you to stay.

00:29:26.000 We are too fragile.

00:29:27.000 We are too young.

00:29:28.000 And I think that's the biggest fear of the people there is that we will completely abandon them and Taliban will come back into power.

00:29:37.000 Now, there's a growing segment of people in this country and all around the world, I guess, that...

00:29:45.000 Don't like American interventionalism, if that's a word.

00:29:51.000 They don't like the fact that we're nation-building.

00:29:53.000 They don't like the fact that we go over there and try to clean up this mess that's existed.

00:29:59.000 Or, you know, whatever.

00:30:00.000 You call it a mess, call it a cultural divide, whatever you want to call it.

00:30:04.000 Impose our standards of living and our ideas in this place.

00:30:11.000 But the people that live there, they want this.

00:30:15.000 They want it.

00:30:16.000 Yeah, I mean, the locals are so glad.

00:30:18.000 I mean, life under the Taliban was brutal and horrible.

00:30:22.000 But back to your point of nation-building and stuff, you know, you either got to, you know, commit and do it, or you got to just go do what you got to do and leave.

00:30:30.000 So, like, you know, when we went to Afghanistan, right, it was to kill Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden.

00:30:35.000 And...

00:30:37.000 We sort of didn't ever want to mess with the Taliban, really. 1.00

00:30:40.000 Taliban didn't have international goals, I don't think.

00:30:42.000 They just wanted their peace to the world.

00:30:44.000 It was Al-Qaeda that hurt us, attacked us.

00:30:48.000 And Taliban wouldn't give Al-Qaeda over. 0.92

00:30:50.000 So we went there and tried to kill every Al-Qaeda member we could. 0.89

00:30:55.000 Took a while. 0.97

00:30:56.000 Still happening.

00:30:58.000 But, you know, we got drug into this Taliban conflict.

00:31:02.000 We got drug into it.

00:31:04.000 And 14 years later, we're still there.

00:31:08.000 So, you know, I think there's going to be a debate, national debate, one day on nation building and using, you know, the military to build nations.

00:31:18.000 Because I always thought the military was designed to destroy an enemy and then leave.

00:31:24.000 But now maybe that's changing and politicians want them to destroy the enemy or kind of destroy the enemy, but then help build up a nation.

00:31:35.000 If that's what you want them to do, then at least build them like that, right?

00:31:40.000 Build them to succeed in that environment.

00:31:46.000 But I think the fighting season, the importance of this is we're going to show, you know, how we left Afghanistan with the fighting season docuseries.

00:31:52.000 And whatever happens in Afghanistan down the road, if it crashes and burns or it's a success story, you know, we'll be able to reference the fighting season from the soldiers' perspectives of how we left it.

00:32:05.000 In 2014. There's a lot of people that are very cynical about nation building because there's a lot of money involved.

00:32:11.000 And that money involved, I mean, especially when Dick Cheney was the Vice President, of course he was the former CEO of Halliburton.

00:32:18.000 Halliburton got those gigantic multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to go over there and rebuild areas that we had destroyed.

00:32:27.000 And a lot of people recognize that there was a whole industry behind that now.

00:32:33.000 Not just the military-industrial complex, but this rebuilding industry, the contracting industry.

00:32:39.000 It became an enormous source of money.

00:32:45.000 I can't really speak to that too much.

00:32:48.000 What I can say is that, you know, I saw some places that the Afghans had built, some Afghan bases that they had actually constructed on their own.

00:32:56.000 We paid for them to build it.

00:32:58.000 And, you know, some of the guys that control the money were telling me, you know, this would have taken us two years and this much, lots of money to build.

00:33:07.000 These guys built it in, you know, Nine months and for way less.

00:33:12.000 Yeah, maybe the craftsmanship's not as good, you know, it's more like Mexico kind of block housing as opposed to what we might have built, but it was enough. 0.54

00:33:21.000 It was sufficient.

00:33:22.000 And so, you know, these guys I was with with the Army were very proud of the fact that they were able to get money cut loose From that contracting process and get it to the Afghans to help their local economy, to help them build stuff, you know, employ their people.

00:33:37.000 And so, you know, Joe, I'm sure, you know, I don't discount what you say at all.

00:33:43.000 I'm sure that when there's money involved, people do crazy things.

00:33:48.000 But, you know, I just know the guys that I was with, they ain't getting paid a lot of money.

00:33:51.000 The soldiers ain't getting paid a lot of money.

00:33:54.000 They're walking towards the gunfire.

00:33:57.000 Happy to do it for next to nothing.

00:34:00.000 And not next to nothing.

00:34:01.000 That's disrespectful.

00:34:02.000 They have a sufficient, you know, income.

00:34:05.000 But it's still not to risk your life.

00:34:08.000 I don't know.

00:34:08.000 They don't do it for money.

00:34:10.000 Honestly, they don't do it for money.

00:34:13.000 The first day you get up in the morning in Afghanistan, what is that feeling like?

00:34:21.000 Like you're in Mars.

00:34:22.000 It's just like you're in a new world.

00:34:25.000 You don't know anybody.

00:34:27.000 There's no friendly faces.

00:34:30.000 Everybody's looking at you like, what are you doing here?

00:34:33.000 Even the soldiers you're with are leery of you.

00:34:36.000 So it's like you're just on your own.

00:34:38.000 It's like you're taking care of yourself.

00:34:40.000 Self-reliance in that place.

00:34:43.000 Nobody's going to carry your water.

00:34:44.000 Nobody's going to pack your stuff.

00:34:46.000 Nobody's going to make sure you make it somewhere on time or don't.

00:34:50.000 You know, you're just self-reliant.

00:34:53.000 And so it just feels like, okay, I'm on my own.

00:34:58.000 And it's kind of, you know, and then eventually, you know, that wears away.

00:35:02.000 You start meeting people, and you start seeing friendly faces, and there's certain Afghans that you start to really like, especially the interpreters.

00:35:09.000 These young men that are in their early 20s, that are risking everything to work with the U.S. Army, On the hopes that they're going to get, on the promise that they're going to get a green card from the State Department.

00:35:20.000 And there's many of them that aren't getting them, for whatever reasons, I don't know.

00:35:26.000 But these young interpreters that are risking it all, I mean, I remember them saying to me, please don't put my face on the picture.

00:35:32.000 Because if the Taliban see it, and they can see it now, anywhere, they said, then, you know, they may kill me.

00:35:39.000 They may, one guy said, they may hang me in my village by quarters. 0.97

00:35:43.000 And yell to my family, come get some meat. 0.95

00:35:45.000 We just slaughtered a sheep.

00:35:47.000 And so I said, okay, man, I won't show your face.

00:35:49.000 But anyway, so you start to meet these young Afghans and you start to see the commitment they have for their country, for a better way of life.

00:36:01.000 And it's just so inspiring.

00:36:03.000 And then you start to make friends with soldiers.

00:36:06.000 And all of a sudden you start to feel like you're part of a group.

00:36:11.000 So, you go out with these people, and what information do they give you about what's ahead?

00:36:18.000 Do they say, we're leaving, come with us?

00:36:20.000 I mean, how do you know what's going to happen?

00:36:23.000 Are you privy to meetings?

00:36:25.000 Yeah, so there's a process called the Military Decision Making Process, MDMP. And it's when an order comes down from above that you have a mission, you sit and you do a big briefing and you do what's called mission analysis.

00:36:38.000 And so the leadership of the battalion, in this case Task Force White Devil of the 82nd Airborne that we were embedded with on one of these missions, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Larson, the commander of Task Force White Devil, would call a mission analysis meeting.

00:36:53.000 And so all of the leadership of the battalion, 800 guys, but just the leadership would assemble and you would go through the mission.

00:36:59.000 You would talk about it.

00:37:00.000 This is what they want us to accomplish.

00:37:02.000 This is the resources we think we need.

00:37:06.000 Now I need, you know, all of us to go back and make a mission plan.

00:37:09.000 How are we going to move You know, 200 guys, you know, 200 miles to the border of Pakistan.

00:37:15.000 How are we going to set up shop out there for two weeks?

00:37:19.000 What villages are we going to air assault based on intelligence that we can generate?

00:37:22.000 Because they only have finite resources, so everything has to be...

00:37:26.000 Everything has to be...

00:37:27.000 All operations are driven by intelligence.

00:37:30.000 You don't just go somewhere on the hopes.

00:37:33.000 You go there because you have a reason to go there.

00:37:35.000 There's bad guys there that there's routes there that they're moving explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan on and So you do an emission analysis and then you know everybody comes back together a few days later You lay out the plan you refine the plan you do the locations get I call them location scouts like a movie you do like a movie because I shot it like that But you you actually go to the potential forward operating bases.

00:37:58.000 You're gonna strike bases you're gonna operate from and You scout those. 0.98

00:38:02.000 You meet with the Afghan partners that you're going to partner with because all these operations we were on were joint operations, Afghans and army mixed.

00:38:09.000 And so you meet with them and then you come back and you run it by the general and you say, okay, we've done our homework.

00:38:18.000 This is what we need.

00:38:19.000 This is what we're going to accomplish.

00:38:22.000 These are the risks.

00:38:23.000 And the general looks at the plan and he either, of course, his generals do, he either, you know, says good, no, or tweak it.

00:38:30.000 And they usually say tweak it.

00:38:32.000 And you tweak it and then you're off and running and you're conducting the operation.

00:38:37.000 Now, how did you decide on the amount of days that you went there?

00:38:41.000 And how many hours of footage did you have to go through to put together this six-part?

00:38:45.000 It's a six-part docuseries, correct?

00:38:48.000 Yeah, it's six one-hours.

00:38:49.000 It's also on DirecTV, for any of you that may have it, DirecTV.

00:38:52.000 The CEO, Mike White, really quick, I cold emailed him when I got home from Afghanistan, and he decided to move out and make this.

00:39:02.000 But I had 650 hours of footage, and...

00:39:07.000 And you know a lot of it was you know Kind of dead-end stories because you would go out off for a few days with different soldiers on different operations and nothing would happen and It was just sort of a dead-end Opportunity that you couldn't develop So did you put any of that in there to show that there's a lot of frustration a lot of these things don't pan out?

00:39:29.000 No, we didn't put any dead-ends in.

00:39:32.000 We didn't put any dead-end characters in, let's say.

00:39:34.000 We put in all the characters that we wanted to, and the missions that we wanted to show, and sometimes there was conflict in those.

00:39:42.000 Sometimes, you know, between soldiers, you'll see that there's sometimes, you know, everyone has this perception that if you're in the army, you blindly follow orders.

00:39:50.000 It's not the case.

00:39:51.000 You may do that in front of people, but behind closed doors, you don't blindly follow anything.

00:39:58.000 When you're dealing with your life and the life of your teammates, the stakes are so high.

00:40:02.000 Everybody wants to go home.

00:40:04.000 Nobody wants to be the last person to die in Afghanistan.

00:40:07.000 So we actually got to see that whole process of questioning a superior officer.

00:40:18.000 Whether he's doing the right thing or not.

00:40:20.000 So you got to see, they do that in the face of the superior officer?

00:40:24.000 Not typically in face, typically behind the scenes.

00:40:28.000 They will if they have to.

00:40:30.000 They will if they have to.

00:40:31.000 If it's in the moment and they don't have time, like in the moment, if the guy said, go, jump off that bridge, I think you would confront him face to face because it's imminent, right?

00:40:41.000 But if it's something that you can...

00:40:43.000 Let slide for a moment and then go talk to him later.

00:40:46.000 That's typically the way they handle it.

00:40:49.000 Now, are you storing tapes?

00:40:51.000 I mean, how many guys do you have over there that are filming, and how are you getting this stuff back?

00:40:56.000 Yeah, so we're shooting...

00:40:58.000 I have three camera teams plus me, and so I would embed each camera team with different units doing different missions, and I would rotate through the camera teams.

00:41:07.000 And so we would shoot on cards, and we would every night have to back up our media to hard drives, to rugged hard drives.

00:41:18.000 And then we would, you know, have to charge our batteries because we would run out of batteries oftentimes if we didn't.

00:41:25.000 And then we would send that media back every three, four weeks.

00:41:29.000 We'd send a dump of footage back home.

00:41:31.000 And in my editorial facility, we'd ingest it and start, you know, organizing it.

00:41:36.000 But 650 hours of footage.

00:41:37.000 Wow.

00:41:38.000 So did you have internet access when you were out there?

00:41:42.000 Like strong internet access?

00:41:44.000 Never strong.

00:41:45.000 Satellite?

00:41:45.000 But if you were on a major army base, like Kandahar, then you would have internet intermittently.

00:41:53.000 But not enough where you could upload footage to a server somewhere?

00:41:56.000 No.

00:41:56.000 Very slow speeds.

00:41:58.000 Wow.

00:41:59.000 So you're dealing with hundreds of hours of footage then?

00:42:03.000 And you've got to break this down to a six-hour docu-series, and you have to do it justice.

00:42:08.000 And you have to do it justice, not just because it's a significant part of American history, it's the lives of these soldiers that you have become friends with and comrades with, but you're trying to do this whole thing justice.

00:42:25.000 Well, yeah.

00:42:26.000 I mean, that's the reason to do it.

00:42:27.000 I mean, the reason to do it is to do it justice, to do it right, to show the way it is, to not come at it with an angle or a spin, but just to tell their story and to honor how hard what they do is,

00:42:43.000 and to honor all those who served there and lost there.

00:42:48.000 You know, it's I did it because I wanted to tell their stories.

00:42:55.000 You don't do that for money.

00:42:57.000 You don't go get shot at for money.

00:42:59.000 It just doesn't work that way.

00:43:01.000 You go do that because you feel it's important for the world to know.

00:43:08.000 Who we are as a nation, who our army is, and who the people are behind the army.

00:43:13.000 The army is an amazing group of guys.

00:43:15.000 Great, amazing institution and people.

00:43:17.000 And I thought it was really important to show who they are.

00:43:24.000 They are...

00:43:26.000 The best of us, the best of America, I think.

00:43:28.000 I mean, they are some of the smartest, bravest, courageous people who are doing this because they feel a sense of love for their country, true love for their country,

00:43:44.000 and the values that we hold dear.

00:43:47.000 And so I wanted to showcase that.

00:43:51.000 They have a true love for our country and true love for the values.

00:43:55.000 And what do they think they're accomplishing by being in Afghanistan?

00:43:58.000 What is the primary sentiment that they think that they're accomplishing by being over there, by eliminating the Taliban, by weakening the Taliban, by empowering the locals so that they can help rid their area of the Taliban?

00:44:15.000 I don't think they even necessarily think about some of those things because they go where the president tells them to go.

00:44:20.000 They go where our country orders them to go. 1.00

00:44:25.000 I think it's a more personal kind of thing for them, and that is that they...

00:44:34.000 They're willing to risk it all.

00:44:37.000 You know, they're willing to give everything to fight the evil of our generation. 0.81

00:44:44.000 Radical Islam. 0.99

00:44:49.000 They have a commitment like you've never seen, like I've never seen.

00:44:52.000 The commitment is phenomenal.

00:44:53.000 You know, you think a suicide bomber's committed and a vehicle-born IED driver's committed, and they are.

00:44:59.000 But make no doubt about it that our soldier that decides to walk towards the enemy, close and destroy him, is every bit as committed.

00:45:09.000 As that suicide bomber, except we don't go to try to kill civilians like they do, right? 0.98

00:45:14.000 We go to try to kill them, the enemy.

00:45:16.000 And so I think that's the message that I've got from my experience there and watching them, and I think that they're proud of, is that they're willing to do whatever it takes. 0.99

00:45:26.000 They'll go anywhere you ask them to.

00:45:29.000 It's just they will.

00:45:31.000 I heard soldiers say it.

00:45:32.000 As long as I got my body armor and my helmet, I'll go wherever the hell you want me to.

00:45:36.000 What do you think is the difference between the perception that the average American has over here, safely guarded, protected in our country?

00:45:49.000 What do you think the misconceptions that most people have are about what's going on over there?

00:45:54.000 What are the primary misconceptions?

00:45:57.000 That the Afghans don't want us there.

00:45:59.000 That the Afghan people don't want us there.

00:46:01.000 The Afghans want us there.

00:46:03.000 The locals want us there.

00:46:05.000 The ones that don't want, you know, radical Islam and Sharia law to govern the land, they want us there.

00:46:12.000 And so I think that's the thing I didn't understand when I went there, is how much the locals are grateful and thankful that we're there and that we've done what we've done.

00:46:24.000 I mean, I had Afghan officers in the army thank me.

00:46:28.000 I would point the camera at them and say, do you have any messages for America?

00:46:32.000 And they would thank America's parents for sending sons and daughters here to die for us, to fix us, to help us.

00:46:38.000 They really, really are thankful that we're there, and that's just something you don't get a sense of back here.

00:46:47.000 One of the other things I'm most proud about the fighting season that I think you'll get to see is we show how...

00:46:54.000 The rules of engagement work in ways, you know, when it comes to drone warfare.

00:47:02.000 You know, there's a perception out there that, like, the U.S. military establishment's out of control, that they're just sort of shooting missiles randomly at bad guys and don't care about killing civilians.

00:47:13.000 Well, I can tell you, if you watch the fighting season, you'll see something different to that narrative.

00:47:17.000 You'll actually see how it works and when they're willing to and when they're willing to not risk collateral damage.

00:47:25.000 The real issue that people have is when they read just raw numbers.

00:47:29.000 When they read the raw numbers of innocent civilians killed by drones versus the intended targets.

00:47:35.000 And they're pretty heavily on the side of innocent civilians killed.

00:47:39.000 I think the last count was something like 80%.

00:47:41.000 That's hard for people to swallow.

00:47:43.000 But here's the thing you gotta remember.

00:47:45.000 The Army is different than the CIA. It's different than any other branch of the military that's using drone warfare.

00:47:52.000 And I think that's an important distinction that we have to remember, is that the US Army fights according to its own...

00:48:01.000 It's a set of values and principles that are different from other organizations that do that stuff.

00:48:08.000 And I think that's one of the things about the fighting season, is you're going to see how different they are.

00:48:15.000 Now we also have this conception of these This perception, rather, of these people sitting in a room somewhere with an Xbox controller, nowhere near the action, and they're controlling these drones and firing at these black and white screens,

00:48:33.000 looking at night vision and very nondescript images.

00:48:37.000 They're trying to determine whether or not these are the actual enemy.

00:48:41.000 What is the actual reality of using those drones?

00:48:45.000 Well, I was never with the actual pilots of the drones.

00:48:48.000 Where are those pilots?

00:48:50.000 They can be local or they can be over here in the States.

00:48:54.000 I mean, they can be remote.

00:48:57.000 How are they doing it remotely?

00:48:59.000 If they do it remotely, is it through the internet?

00:49:00.000 Is it through satellites?

00:49:02.000 It's got to be satellite.

00:49:03.000 I don't know, but I would think it's got to be satellite.

00:49:05.000 I mean, it's instant control.

00:49:06.000 Like, there's no delays.

00:49:08.000 It's instant control of the drone.

00:49:10.000 There has to be some delay.

00:49:12.000 I mean, there's an internet ping.

00:49:14.000 There must be something.

00:49:15.000 The reality is, the guys I was with, Task Force White Devil, when we were using drones, so our guys would be watching the drone feeds, and you would be looking on, you know, the enemy to see if you could pick up an RPG or a weapon that's a prestige weapon system,

00:49:34.000 because it has to be sort of a higher level weapon system to make them a valid military target, let's say.

00:49:39.000 So you would be looking at the drone feeds, and then the guys would be typing and communicating with the drone pilots in a chat room.

00:49:50.000 And so there was real-time communication going on, and real-time coordination, and real-time JAGs involved, judge advocate generals, involved in the process at this point of, you know, Have you met the rules of engagement?

00:50:07.000 Because there's different kinds of strikes, too.

00:50:09.000 There's kinetic strikes, dynamic strikes.

00:50:12.000 So, like, if you're in a troops in combat situation, and you're the ground force commander, and you're running a company, and you know that there's an enemy fighting position by that rock, you know, theoretically, you have the authority, if there's no other assets available, to get the drone to attack the enemy behind the rock as the ground force commander.

00:50:32.000 But then there's other kinds of strikes that are pre-planned, like you're going after a terrorist that has a known name and a known face.

00:50:42.000 And so the rules of engagement for him will be different than the rules of engagement for the troops in combat rules of engagement.

00:50:50.000 So there's all these different, and depending on where you're on the list, how bad they want you, is how much risk they're willing to take as far as collateral damage.

00:51:00.000 Was there ever a time when you were over there where you second-guessed your decision?

00:51:06.000 No, I never.

00:51:08.000 I mean, okay, one moment.

00:51:10.000 We'd just been in troops in contact.

00:51:13.000 We just had like an hour fight with four different enemy fighting positions about 800 meters north of us.

00:51:19.000 And so we'd had about an hour gunfight from 800 meters.

00:51:23.000 But the bullets, when they zip overhead, they sound like they're breaking this sound barrier.

00:51:27.000 And so there's like a sonic boom.

00:51:29.000 And you could see them pinging the dust all around you.

00:51:31.000 And so, you know, all that's going on for an hour.

00:51:33.000 And, you know, then we dropped...

00:51:37.000 B-1 bomber flew overhead, and we dropped...

00:51:39.000 You couldn't see it, but it dropped 500-pound bombs on the enemy.

00:51:43.000 And the firing stopped.

00:51:45.000 And, you know, after about a half hour, the ground force commander, Captain Ray Adams, He said, let's go do a battle damage assessment.

00:51:52.000 Let's walk over there.

00:51:53.000 Let's see, you know, if there's any left.

00:51:56.000 And so, at that moment, like, when, you know, the platoon is strapping up to walk across 800 meters of open valley desert into this green zone, which is really thick vegetation where they can hide anywhere, and there's mud walls everywhere.

00:52:11.000 I'm starting to think to myself at this point, I have a great wife.

00:52:14.000 I really like Topanga.

00:52:16.000 I like my wife. 0.60

00:52:18.000 I like my kids.

00:52:21.000 I'm walking with this young platoon to this place where we were just in a fight.

00:52:26.000 I said, why am I doing it?

00:52:30.000 I questioned, why am I doing it, and should I go?

00:52:32.000 And then I thought, hell yeah, I should go, but why?

00:52:37.000 And then I realized I was going because they were going, and I had to tell people they were going, so I went with them.

00:52:45.000 Wow.

00:52:47.000 And so you get over there, and what was the damage assessment?

00:52:52.000 Just pieces of clothing.

00:52:55.000 Remnants of people.

00:52:58.000 A couple guys hiding that we found.

00:53:03.000 Had shovels in their hands.

00:53:05.000 Putting down their weapons.

00:53:06.000 So there was nothing you could do.

00:53:09.000 As far as you couldn't prove anything.

00:53:13.000 I remember this one big...

00:53:17.000 Big army guy, you know, letting them, and these guys came up to him, and after, you know, Captain Adams questioned them, the Afghan army guys questioned them, everybody knew that they were 99.9% Taliban. 0.62

00:53:30.000 You know, they said that they didn't hear any guns.

00:53:32.000 They didn't hear any bullets.

00:53:34.000 So, you know, what are you talking about?

00:53:36.000 The earth just shook for miles.

00:53:40.000 And we had to let them go.

00:53:41.000 And as we let them go, they went up to try to shake my hand.

00:53:44.000 And I'm holding the camera.

00:53:45.000 I couldn't shake their hand.

00:53:46.000 Tried to shake other people's hands.

00:53:47.000 Some people shook their hands goodbye.

00:53:49.000 And they went up to this big sergeant and tried to shake his hand. 1.00

00:53:52.000 And he just said, you know, get the fuck out of here, motherfucker. 1.00

00:53:55.000 I'll get you next time. 1.00

00:53:56.000 And he was so pissed that we had to let them go, those guys that just tried to kill his buddies, him.

00:54:04.000 And it's only because they didn't have their guns on them?

00:54:07.000 Yeah.

00:54:08.000 Wow.

00:54:09.000 That's so weird.

00:54:10.000 What a weird, weird war.

00:54:12.000 The Afghans look at us and they must shake their heads sometimes.

00:54:16.000 Because, I mean, I think I know what would have happened if we weren't there, if cameras weren't there, if the army wasn't there.

00:54:23.000 Those guys would have never walked out of there.

00:54:27.000 There was a time in World War II where the United States had taken a lot of Nazi prisoners and had them in prisoner war camps in America and treated them very well.

00:54:37.000 And it was just before they had found out how badly Americans were being treated over in Germany.

00:54:44.000 And there was all these different stories of American war prisoners being gunned down firing squads they would find their frozen bodies Tied and bound and there was a big public outcry congressional hearings and they Were trying to figure out why are we doing this?

00:55:02.000 This is a tough time for America.

00:55:03.000 Why are we treating these?

00:55:04.000 Nazi prisoners so well and And they're not reciprocating. 0.58

00:55:09.000 What do we do about this?

00:55:10.000 And they decided to keep doing what's right and keep treating the prisoners under the same standards of the Geneva Convention.

00:55:21.000 And those regulations, when things are horrific like that, Where it seems like, where people are like, well, why would you do that?

00:55:32.000 Why would you let them go?

00:55:33.000 Those might be the only thing that keep a situation like war from breaking down and becoming even more horrible than it actually is.

00:55:44.000 Agree.

00:55:45.000 I mean, I agree.

00:55:45.000 Sounds counterintuitive, right?

00:55:47.000 I agree.

00:55:48.000 I agree. 0.99

00:55:49.000 I mean, if you don't have those standards, then we'll start cutting their heads off, I guess. 0.99

00:55:56.000 Yeah. 0.92

00:55:57.000 We'll start making YouTube videos.

00:56:00.000 But we luckily have those standards.

00:56:03.000 And we're not them.

00:56:06.000 And that was one of the main concerns about Guantanamo Bay.

00:56:11.000 That we weren't following the Geneva Convention.

00:56:14.000 That we had said that we wouldn't do it for Al-Qaeda. 0.86

00:56:18.000 That Al-Qaeda prisoners would not be treated under the Geneva Convention.

00:56:23.000 The big concern would be, what would happen if they catch our troops over there?

00:56:28.000 What would they do to them?

00:56:30.000 Well, we know the answer to that.

00:56:31.000 Exactly.

00:56:32.000 That was the whole idea of the Geneva Convention in the first place.

00:56:35.000 So, even though what you saw seems counterintuitive, I mean, it's kind of how you have to do it.

00:56:42.000 Well, yeah.

00:56:43.000 And the soldiers were frustrated.

00:56:44.000 And then, of course, they follow orders and they let him go. 1.00

00:56:47.000 And they just hope next time, like he said, I'll get you next time, motherfucker. 0.99

00:56:51.000 They just hope next time he holds his gun a little longer so that you can verify with either a drone or with your own eyes that he was an enemy combatant. 0.99

00:57:02.000 Is there a time that stands out that was the most brutal or particularly brutal of all the different firefights or different scenarios that you encountered?

00:57:15.000 It was a firefight that I wasn't there for.

00:57:18.000 One of my camera guys was there.

00:57:22.000 River was his name.

00:57:23.000 He's from Oregon.

00:57:25.000 He's a biker. 0.99

00:57:26.000 Crazy guy. 1.00

00:57:27.000 Covered in tattoos. 1.00

00:57:29.000 Missing his front tooth.

00:57:30.000 Total hillbilly.

00:57:31.000 Love River.

00:57:34.000 River was in a gunfight with this young platoon.

00:57:37.000 We were reviewing his footage.

00:57:39.000 I saw a tracer go by him.

00:57:41.000 Between us.

00:57:42.000 That far away.

00:57:45.000 I just really got kind of...

00:57:47.000 It sunk home, the reality, that River almost got shot.

00:57:50.000 And then there was another time when I had to get permission to disembed one of my cameramen from the U.S. Army.

00:57:56.000 Jake, camera guy from Australia that I hired, who lives there.

00:58:00.000 And I had to disembed him from the U.S. Army because he was going on a mission with the Afghans.

00:58:04.000 When you say he lives there, do you mean he lives in Afghanistan?

00:58:06.000 In Kabul.

00:58:07.000 Whoa.

00:58:08.000 He's a war journalist.

00:58:09.000 So he lives there all year round.

00:58:11.000 Yeah, and now he's moving to places where he can cover ISIS. He's an interesting guy. 0.92

00:58:17.000 And so Jake had to embed with the Afghans, and I had to go meet with the general to get permission to get him embedded with the Afghans, because there was no U.S. forces on the ground where he was going.

00:58:27.000 And it was a place called the Tangi Valley, a very dangerous valley, the site of We're good to go. 0.99

00:58:48.000 They can plan their operations and attack Kabul very quickly from the Tangi Valley.

00:58:52.000 And so it was important that we told this story.

00:58:55.000 And so I went to talk with General Townsend, and he said, okay, so, you know, are you prepared to see your camera guy in an orange jumpsuit on his knees on the Internet?

00:59:09.000 Because the place you're putting him That's the kind of thing that happens and nobody's gonna go get him.

00:59:14.000 No U.S. allies or us will go get him.

00:59:17.000 And I had to say yes.

00:59:19.000 And that was like probably the hardest moment because I had to make a conscious decision right then to say yes.

00:59:26.000 Did you express this to him?

00:59:28.000 Yeah.

00:59:29.000 I mean Jake knows.

00:59:30.000 Jake knew.

00:59:33.000 Did you tell him that that was the sentence, that was the way it was described to you?

00:59:38.000 Yeah, I did.

00:59:39.000 What did he say?

00:59:40.000 No problem, Ricky.

00:59:41.000 And his cheerful Australian attitude.

00:59:43.000 No problem, Ricky. 1.00

00:59:46.000 Fucking Australians are crazy. 1.00

00:59:48.000 Crazy. 1.00

00:59:51.000 He's a bull, this guy. 1.00

00:59:52.000 He's a bull.

00:59:53.000 Wow. 0.98

00:59:54.000 Sounds like a nutty dude. 0.63

00:59:55.000 What motivates that guy? 0.74

00:59:59.000 Jake was in the Australian Army, and I think he was involved with some event that was really traumatizing, involving some kids getting hurt and killed.

01:00:08.000 And so it was somewhere in Indonesia where the Australians were, I think.

01:00:12.000 And so he ever since has been involved, ever since that event, and then he left the Army, he's been trying to tell the story of how war affects kids.

01:00:22.000 And so he's got a special focus on kids.

01:00:25.000 And so that's what motivates Jake, I think.

01:00:28.000 And he does this 365. He's over there all the time.

01:00:31.000 All the time.

01:00:32.000 Does he yearn for a normal life?

01:00:35.000 No.

01:00:36.000 He actually learns for the next gunfight.

01:00:38.000 He yearns for the next gunfight.

01:00:40.000 He's one of those guys that chases gunfights around the world.

01:00:44.000 So he's covering ISIS right now.

01:00:46.000 He's embedded with those dudes, the Christian militias out there that are fighting ISIS right now.

01:00:52.000 Wow.

01:00:54.000 Wow.

01:00:55.000 That is intense, man.

01:00:57.000 How many reporters or how many cameramen, rather, do you have over there?

01:01:00.000 There was four, plus me.

01:01:03.000 Jake could only stay with us for about six weeks and had to leave.

01:01:07.000 And then one of my camera guys was getting sick all the time.

01:01:11.000 I mean, really bad sick.

01:01:13.000 Dehydrated.

01:01:15.000 And so he couldn't leave the fobs.

01:01:17.000 So he would cover sort of forward operating bases.

01:01:21.000 And so he would cover like the drone story for me because that's in a controlled environment And so we would the other three would go out into the field with various platoons and stuff and operations And then he would stay back Was there anybody that you got close to over there that you lost?

01:01:40.000 No, I didn't.

01:01:41.000 None of our guys were killed.

01:01:44.000 So we killed Taliban. 0.96

01:01:46.000 We didn't have any of our guys killed there while we were with them, fortunately.

01:01:51.000 Was that the first time you'd see a human body?

01:01:56.000 From act of war?

01:01:58.000 In the real flesh?

01:01:59.000 Yeah, for sure.

01:02:01.000 What was that like?

01:02:03.000 What was it like the first time you saw?

01:02:06.000 It's kind of gross.

01:02:08.000 It's definitely gross.

01:02:09.000 There's nothing pretty about it.

01:02:11.000 It's horror.

01:02:13.000 It's absolute horror.

01:02:14.000 You can tell people died violent deaths.

01:02:17.000 Pieces missing.

01:02:19.000 Chunks.

01:02:20.000 Like, ugly. 0.98

01:02:22.000 And you had seen all this, I'm sure, on the internet.

01:02:26.000 Yeah.

01:02:27.000 And now the difference between seeing it on the internet and being there live when it all comes home and you realize this is what they're trying to do to the people that are around you.

01:02:37.000 Yeah.

01:02:38.000 What does that feel like?

01:02:42.000 It's not personal, I guess, is what I would say.

01:02:45.000 You know, it's not like they want to kill Joe.

01:02:48.000 They want to kill Ricky.

01:02:49.000 They want to kill what we represent.

01:02:51.000 They want to kill what we live for, the values we hold dear.

01:02:57.000 Because of religious fanaticism.

01:03:01.000 Because I think, according to an army intel officer I spoke with who I thought was very knowledgeable, because in order for their prophecies to come true, they have to start World War III, and then their prophet will come back and,

01:03:19.000 you know, bring peace and order to the world.

01:03:22.000 But he won't come back.

01:03:24.000 Until they are able to trigger a big event a massive event to start World War three and so that's that's the hardcore jihadist motivation There's a there's a distinction there between the hardcore jihadist and the average person who's a Muslim and this is what gets sort of turned around and churned around rather and And debated back and forth in America when people start using the term Islamophobia.

01:03:54.000 Because there are people that practice Islam that are very polite, peaceful people that don't want any harm to occur to anybody. 0.98

01:04:02.000 And then there are radical people that are out of their fucking mind and want to shoot people for drawing cartoons. 0.99

01:04:09.000 Yeah, the radicals, I mean, even in Afghanistan, they'll pay a kid 25 bucks, 20 bucks to go plant an IED. The kid's not doing it necessarily because he wants necessarily to fight jihad. 0.99

01:04:22.000 He wants $20.

01:04:23.000 He wants a pair of Levi's.

01:04:24.000 He doesn't wear Levi's probably, but he wants something and he needs money for it.

01:04:28.000 And so that kid's not a hardcore jihadist.

01:04:32.000 He needs money, but he dies like anybody else when you step over that line.

01:04:37.000 It's incredible that the only way to really get someone to do something like that is religion.

01:04:42.000 It's really the only way.

01:04:44.000 It's the only way to get someone to blow themselves up.

01:04:46.000 It's the only way to get someone to sacrifice their own lives.

01:04:49.000 You have to give them this idea in their head that something better waits for them after they do it, and you have to have them really, really believe it.

01:04:57.000 And there's only one way.

01:04:59.000 It's got to be religion. 0.84

01:05:00.000 There's nothing else.

01:05:01.000 No one blows themselves up for Ferraris.

01:05:03.000 You don't blow yourself up for diamonds.

01:05:05.000 Because you can't.

01:05:06.000 You can't.

01:05:07.000 It doesn't work that way.

01:05:08.000 Well, think about it.

01:05:08.000 They use sex.

01:05:09.000 They use the promise of virgins. 0.92

01:05:12.000 And that's a powerful, basic urge of men. 0.99

01:05:16.000 Sex. 0.84

01:05:17.000 And so they must somehow use that in a twisted way to play on boys. 0.84

01:05:24.000 Teenage boys going through puberty.

01:05:27.000 And they convinced them that they're going to have all the sex you want. 0.89

01:05:32.000 My gosh. 0.99

01:05:33.000 And you believe it?

01:05:36.000 Well, it's also, you're talking about people with a limited education, and they're very young.

01:05:42.000 Those two factors together.

01:05:44.000 And culturally, the entire area is Muslim.

01:05:47.000 So it's not like, the idea of not being Islamic is almost more foreign than the idea of being a suicide bomber.

01:05:56.000 Oh yeah, especially when some of the suicide bombers are martyrs and revered with posters of them and tributes to them, you know, and...

01:06:06.000 There was a school in Pakistan and there was a documentary on it where they were training these young kids to become suicide bombers and they had this sign on the wall that, first of all, they showed all these images.

01:06:20.000 They had these enshrined images of these children that had blown themselves up.

01:06:24.000 And they had this sign on the wall that said, today's students are tomorrow's holy martyrs.

01:06:33.000 And they were explaining, you know, like what that meant and what it means to fight against the enemy.

01:06:41.000 And it was just so hard to watch, so hard to look at these young kids that were being indoctrinated into this way of thinking.

01:06:51.000 And knowing that this is a wash, you can't fix that.

01:06:55.000 You can't go over there now and fix those teachers, tell them they shouldn't be doing this, fix the religious leaders, straighten the mindsets of the people, adjust their perceptions.

01:07:07.000 You're not going to be able to do it.

01:07:08.000 You have an area of the world that's almost inexorably sick, and it is what it is, and now we have to deal with it globally.

01:07:18.000 You have to deal with the consequences of those people getting older and going out in the world and affecting people with the ideology that's been sort of embedded into their brain.

01:07:28.000 It's that's popping up the worldwide Joe that ideology is popping up in Canada and in the US and Europe all throughout France look at Charlie Hebdo.

01:07:37.000 Yeah, so it's like a cancer that is spreading and it can grow anywhere from any mosque from any teacher and It's going to take the whole world to fix it. 1.00

01:07:50.000 I don't know how else we do it, except it's a world effort to sort of show these people a new way.

01:08:00.000 And it's got to come from within them.

01:08:02.000 It's got to come from within them.

01:08:05.000 Is there resistance in Afghanistan to religious fundamentalism?

01:08:08.000 Are there people that are against, like, actively and vocally against Al-Qaeda and against the Taliban?

01:08:18.000 Yeah.

01:08:19.000 I mean, there's millions of people there that don't want Taliban rule, and they're active and vocal about it. 0.55

01:08:27.000 There are.

01:08:27.000 I mean, there's a whole initiative where, you know, I think it's, I forget the movement, but it's like the anti-Taliban movement.

01:08:34.000 And it's literally, you know, villages in remote places.

01:08:38.000 Pashtunwali is one of their laws, you know.

01:08:42.000 But I think it stems from that kind of culture where they're actively against...

01:08:47.000 The Taliban and resisting and fighting and, you know, trying to create a new way for themselves.

01:08:54.000 But it's a crazy place.

01:08:55.000 I mean, it's a crazy place.

01:08:57.000 Here's a story.

01:08:58.000 So this guy was telling me he was an Afghan and he was talking to me about how he knew of a story where...

01:09:06.000 One Afghan man killed another.

01:09:08.000 And the one who survived went to the family of the one he killed and said, I ask for your mercy, forgiveness, and protection.

01:09:16.000 And so Pashtunwali means they have to do that. 0.63

01:09:19.000 It means we've got to take you in, protect you, feed you, house you.

01:09:23.000 It's part of this cultural thing.

01:09:25.000 And so they took him in and, you know, took in the man that killed their son or father.

01:09:31.000 And he lived with them many years, you know, 10 years, 12 years, whatever it was, long time.

01:09:37.000 And then he decided he was going to go home one day.

01:09:40.000 And, you know, I spent a decade there.

01:09:42.000 They must have forgiven me.

01:09:43.000 They love me by now.

01:09:44.000 And as soon as he walked through the door, they killed him.

01:09:49.000 And...

01:09:49.000 What?

01:09:50.000 As soon as he walked through the door, they killed him.

01:09:53.000 So, as soon as he left, as soon as he said he was leaving.

01:09:56.000 Yeah.

01:09:57.000 Because then their obligation was fulfilled.

01:10:03.000 That's insane.

01:10:04.000 So, this guy had been with them for over a decade under their protection.

01:10:08.000 They were feeding him.

01:10:09.000 Yeah.

01:10:09.000 Because of this law.

01:10:11.000 Right.

01:10:11.000 And this is...

01:10:12.000 What is it called again?

01:10:13.000 Pashtunwali? 0.84

01:10:14.000 Pashtunwali? 0.84

01:10:14.000 What does that mean? 0.84

01:10:16.000 I don't exactly know, but I believe it means that we will protect and take care of you if you ask.

01:10:24.000 Wow!

01:10:25.000 So they did it until he left, and then they killed him. 0.95

01:10:32.000 It's absurd.

01:10:33.000 That's only, again, that would only take place in a situation where religion was involved, I would think.

01:10:43.000 There's other stuff, man.

01:10:44.000 There's just like chai boys, dancing boys. 0.93

01:10:46.000 Yeah, what's that about?

01:10:48.000 It's a status symbol to have a boy and use him for sexual reasons. 0.99

01:10:54.000 A status symbol?

01:10:55.000 Yeah, you're a powerful man if you have a boy.

01:10:59.000 How old are these boys?

01:11:01.000 Young.

01:11:02.000 Six.

01:11:04.000 Eight.

01:11:05.000 Fourteen.

01:11:07.000 How common is this?

01:11:08.000 It's pretty common.

01:11:10.000 I mean, there's not that many chiefs, right?

01:11:13.000 But if you're a chief...

01:11:15.000 Like a warlord.

01:11:16.000 Yeah.

01:11:17.000 Or even less than that.

01:11:19.000 Successful businessman.

01:11:21.000 Whoa.

01:11:23.000 This weird stuff goes on there.

01:11:26.000 But this is not something that is prohibited.

01:11:29.000 This is prohibited in Islam.

01:11:32.000 I didn't dive into it.

01:11:33.000 I didn't even want to research it.

01:11:35.000 Homosexuality is prohibited. 0.99

01:11:36.000 I didn't want to look into it.

01:11:37.000 I just heard about it and I heard soldiers talking about it and people that had seen it.

01:11:43.000 And yeah, I mean, drinking is prohibited.

01:11:47.000 Other things are prohibited, but, you know, I think they do them.

01:11:53.000 So, how is this defined?

01:11:56.000 Like, when you're around these people and you see these guys with these six-year-old kids, like, how do you know that it's not his son?

01:12:04.000 How do you know that— Fortunately, I was never in the presence of that.

01:12:07.000 You never saw that?

01:12:07.000 I never saw that.

01:12:08.000 So, it's not that common?

01:12:11.000 I don't know what percentage it is, but I don't think it's like, you know, I'm gonna guess 5%, 10%.

01:12:17.000 That's a lot.

01:12:19.000 Maybe.

01:12:20.000 One out of ten.

01:12:21.000 I'm guessing.

01:12:21.000 I'm guessing, okay.

01:12:22.000 Okay, right, right.

01:12:24.000 Wow. 0.91

01:12:25.000 Yeah, because I heard that from guys who had went over there and performed for the troops that, you know, they'd seen a lot of homosexuality and a lot of sexual abuse. 0.95

01:12:37.000 Women are for breeding, boys are for pleasure, is a statement that they say sometimes, some Afghans.

01:12:43.000 And women are treated terribly? 1.00

01:12:46.000 Terribly.

01:12:47.000 Terribly.

01:12:50.000 Horribly.

01:12:50.000 Under the Taliban?

01:12:51.000 Horribly. 0.95

01:12:52.000 Stoned to death. 0.52

01:12:55.000 I mean, but even not under the Taliban.

01:12:57.000 There was a woman beaten to death in Kabul a few months back because the leader in the church, whatever the church she was going to, said that she burned a Quran.

01:13:12.000 And in fact, it was like an argument they had, he and her, where she didn't like him charging.

01:13:17.000 She had a mentally handicapped woman. 0.95

01:13:20.000 She didn't like him charging for trinkets that he was selling to people. 0.57

01:13:24.000 And so he said, you know, you burned a Quran to people and they killed her.

01:13:30.000 So women are not treated well there. 1.00

01:13:37.000 When you got home, when you did the hundred plus days there and got home and came back to your beautiful family and your beautiful house in Southern California, what was that like?

01:13:50.000 Oh my gosh.

01:13:52.000 It was confusing.

01:13:54.000 Really confusing at first.

01:13:56.000 Months.

01:13:57.000 It took months to just feel normal.

01:13:59.000 But I was so glad when I got off the plane.

01:14:01.000 I almost kissed the dirty gutter in LAX because of all the problems we have here, it is such an amazing place when you come from a place like that.

01:14:13.000 And so that was the initial feeling.

01:14:15.000 And then it was sort of trying to just sort of care again about the normal things in life.

01:14:24.000 You know, caring about whatever it is.

01:14:28.000 Bills.

01:14:30.000 Your kids have issues or concerns that you, you know, have to learn to find important again.

01:14:37.000 Because the things that you just experienced were like, well, that's not so bad.

01:14:41.000 Okay, so, okay, you just lost all your money, that's not so bad.

01:14:44.000 Okay, you know, you just, okay, you just failed that, you just got in a car accident, that's not so bad.

01:14:51.000 Your boyfriend just dumped you, what are you complaining about?

01:14:54.000 Your bank account's at zero, what are you complaining about?

01:14:58.000 Yeah.

01:14:58.000 Like, that was all that relearning to care again about other people's...

01:15:03.000 About frivolous things in the big picture.

01:15:06.000 But to those people, they're not frivolous because they haven't had just that experience yet.

01:15:09.000 Right.

01:15:09.000 The lack of perspective.

01:15:11.000 Yeah.

01:15:12.000 Yeah, I mean, the more intense the situation or the more intense the experiences are, the more those other experiences seem so dull, which is why spoiled people that don't have anything go wrong, I mean, that's why they will get freaked out about something so minor.

01:15:27.000 Trivial.

01:15:27.000 Yeah, they're a victim of their own ignorance and success or trust fund, whatever you call it.

01:15:33.000 But the reason why I bring this up is because, in a lot of ways, that was you.

01:15:38.000 I mean, you were a young star.

01:15:39.000 I worked my ass off for everything.

01:15:40.000 You certainly did.

01:15:41.000 That's never me.

01:15:43.000 I didn't grow up with a silver spoon on my mouth.

01:15:45.000 You were under this show called Silver Spoons.

01:15:47.000 But I worked. 1.00

01:15:48.000 Right, but you were rich as fuck when you were a little kid. 1.00

01:15:50.000 I was eaten off of plastic spoons. 1.00

01:15:53.000 Right.

01:15:53.000 But you were a celebrity and a TV star.

01:15:57.000 I mean, you were a huge star when you were a young kid.

01:16:00.000 You know what it takes to get there.

01:16:01.000 You know what it takes.

01:16:02.000 It takes a massive amount of hard work and dedication and perseverance to get there.

01:16:08.000 Nobody's given it.

01:16:10.000 So this perception that somehow we were privileged?

01:16:13.000 Come on.

01:16:15.000 We worked our asses off.

01:16:16.000 I worked my ass off since I was five years old.

01:16:19.000 Right, but what am I saying is you developed that way.

01:16:23.000 I mean, you were famous.

01:16:24.000 I saw you in The Champ when I was a little kid.

01:16:26.000 My dad took me to see The Champ, and I remember crying when you were crying over Jon Voight's dead body. 0.98

01:16:32.000 By the way, that fucking story that you told me about them being mean to you right before that to get you to cry... 0.99

01:16:38.000 That is one of the most fucked up Hollywood actor stories that anybody ever told me. 1.00

01:16:43.000 Talking about my dead grandmother? 0.99

01:16:45.000 Yeah.

01:16:46.000 To get you emotionally invested in that scene.

01:16:49.000 I mean, it worked.

01:16:50.000 It really worked.

01:16:52.000 I mean, it was incredible. 0.99

01:16:53.000 I remember leaving that movie theater fucking crying. 1.00

01:16:55.000 Holy shit. 1.00

01:16:57.000 But my point being is, you lived a life of privilege, you know, in a lot of ways. 0.99

01:17:05.000 Okay, if you say so.

01:17:07.000 You're a little defensive here, fella.

01:17:08.000 No, I'm not.

01:17:09.000 You are.

01:17:10.000 What is privilege?

01:17:12.000 What is privilege?

01:17:13.000 Privilege earned.

01:17:14.000 Privilege.

01:17:14.000 You earned it when you were five?

01:17:16.000 Earned.

01:17:16.000 Right.

01:17:17.000 You know what I mean?

01:17:18.000 Earned.

01:17:18.000 Worked for.

01:17:19.000 Sorta.

01:17:21.000 I mean you did you work, but I mean you're working in acting acting's not that hard.

01:17:25.000 Do you think it's that hard?

01:17:27.000 Being not a normal kid's hard.

01:17:29.000 That's hard.

01:17:30.000 Going not to school's hard.

01:17:31.000 Not being on softball little league teams hard.

01:17:34.000 All sorts of things were hard.

01:17:36.000 Definitely unusual, but not cobble hard.

01:17:39.000 Not cobble hard.

01:17:41.000 Yeah.

01:17:41.000 Not cobble hard.

01:17:42.000 So going from that To this and At this stage of your your life the current stage of your life with all your life experiences.

01:17:51.000 Yeah it boiling down to this this Docu-series that you're putting together, which is probably the most intense thing you've ever done.

01:17:58.000 Yeah, I mean what a Perspective enhancer that's got to be to go from being a famous child with this view of the world And then, as a grown man with a family, to be over there in Afghanistan embedded for a hundred days,

01:18:17.000 experiencing firefights on a daily basis almost.

01:18:20.000 It was a great experience, Joe, and it changed me forever.

01:18:24.000 It changed me forever in many great ways.

01:18:28.000 I don't see any negative that has come out of it for me, honestly.

01:18:34.000 Except maybe wanting to do it again, you know, and you want to do it again I mean that's that's the risk is has that sort of lit a fire in me to like Well, you did a fantastic job by all accounts on this docuseries I've read reviews of it people love it and they say this is really intense and really What was the word that I'd read but Comprehensive I think was the way they were describing it like you you got deep into this This isn't something you can cover in a

01:19:04.000 90-minute documentary Which is why you decided to stretch it out over six hours.

01:19:09.000 Yeah, I mean we look at it from The ending of America's longest war from various perspectives.

01:19:15.000 It's epic in scope, but we get deep inside those those perspectives, you know and I don't know what the future brings for me right now, because that's honestly the thing I'm most confused about.

01:19:29.000 How do I go back to certain career choices that I perhaps once was really excited about and wanted to achieve and goals?

01:19:40.000 In acting, maybe?

01:19:41.000 In acting, even in films, in TV, and even in production, even producing, you know, even writing, whatever it may be, like, you know, I gotta figure out, again, I gotta figure out what's next for me, because I have no freaking clue.

01:19:55.000 No clue.

01:19:57.000 Just because this experience is so intense and so powerful, it just sort of reshaped you as a person.

01:20:02.000 Absolutely.

01:20:04.000 Well, I'm talking to you from the time you returned.

01:20:07.000 I mean, I could tell that it was...

01:20:10.000 There was almost like a rekindling of a spark inside of you.

01:20:15.000 Like you had this new sort of new feeling of importance of what you were working on that was very, very intense.

01:20:25.000 Absolutely.

01:20:26.000 I mean, I really felt, you know, that I was making a difference.

01:20:30.000 As opposed to just creating entertainment.

01:20:32.000 Yeah.

01:20:33.000 I really felt like I was making a difference.

01:20:34.000 Like, educating people about the art of war, how battles are fought, the military science behind it.

01:20:44.000 Because that's what I found interesting, is how do you take...

01:20:48.000 An op order, an operational order, and then develop it, and then execute it, and then how do you overwhelm and destroy the enemy when you finally find him?

01:21:00.000 How do you overwhelm and destroy the enemy and choreograph the symphony of destruction in the moment?

01:21:05.000 How do you call in the air weapons teams, the Apaches?

01:21:09.000 How do you call in the B1s and the fast-moving jets?

01:21:12.000 How do you call in the artillery?

01:21:14.000 How do you call all that and coordinate all that in the moment?

01:21:19.000 So that you can destroy the enemy as fast as possible.

01:21:21.000 That's what I wanted to see.

01:21:24.000 And I found it.

01:21:25.000 And I'm going to show it to everybody.

01:21:27.000 Do you think from here you'll continue to do documentaries exploring the military?

01:21:32.000 Or will you start doing other things that interest you?

01:21:34.000 Because what it seems to me as your friend is that you just have to have something that excites you.

01:21:40.000 Something that interests you. 0.99

01:21:41.000 And then you just fucking dive in, man. 1.00

01:21:44.000 You go whole hog. 1.00

01:21:46.000 You know, that's what you do.

01:21:47.000 It is.

01:21:47.000 It's the only way I've ever known how to do it.

01:21:49.000 As far as anything I've ever made that's worth anything, as far as, you know, any value, has been something that I really was excited about doing and wanted to do and was passionate about.

01:22:01.000 And so I don't know what's next for me.

01:22:05.000 I mean, I love dogs.

01:22:06.000 Maybe I'll do something on dogs.

01:22:08.000 You know, and smile a little more.

01:22:11.000 Something a little less intense.

01:22:12.000 Yeah, I love dogs.

01:22:14.000 I mean, they're great.

01:22:14.000 Dogs are great.

01:22:15.000 I've got two of them.

01:22:19.000 I might need a break.

01:22:21.000 Yeah.

01:22:21.000 I'm going to Alaska at the end of June, going floating on a river and fishing with my sons and my nephews.

01:22:28.000 That should be fun.

01:22:29.000 Twelve days.

01:22:30.000 So that's kind of my break I'm really stoked about.

01:22:33.000 And then I'll come back in July.

01:22:35.000 Fourth of July in Alaska, by the way, is off the hook.

01:22:38.000 Yeah.

01:22:38.000 You can get all the fireworks of all the big kinds you want and just go nuts.

01:22:44.000 So that's what we're going to do.

01:22:45.000 And then I'll hopefully figure it out, you know.

01:22:49.000 But I know I've got to take my family into account, you know, what they want.

01:22:54.000 Because, you know, I've got a family.

01:22:57.000 Yeah.

01:22:59.000 Well, you also have the freedom to make those decisions.

01:23:02.000 You know, you have the freedom to decide what you want to do and then really direct yourself towards whatever your passions are.

01:23:12.000 Is there anything that you're interested in at the level that you were interested in this military thing?

01:23:17.000 Because I think the military thing, you had always had an interest for it, but it was really sort of sparked by the series that you had done for the Army.

01:23:25.000 That really just...

01:23:26.000 It's really my grandfather that sparked it.

01:23:28.000 Like, he was a captain in the Army in World War II, and he took six, what are called, deuce-and-a-half flatbed trucks, big trucks.

01:23:36.000 Each one had two.50 calibers mounted on the backs.

01:23:41.000 And so he took six of those as close infantry support all the way through France to Germany, to the Rhine River.

01:23:50.000 And I think I was the only person he ever told stories to.

01:23:53.000 But I remember sitting at the feet of his chair like a kid growing up, and he gave me all his memorabilia, gave me the dagger that he took off a dead Nazi mayor, gave me his rifle that he carried, you know, gave me the things that his bayonet, the things that he found, treasures to him,

01:24:09.000 he gave me.

01:24:10.000 And so I think sitting at his feet, you know, sort of is what...

01:24:15.000 Planted that seed, you know, of the military.

01:24:18.000 I remember, you know, he would tell me about the Green Berets and the Rangers and, you know, how they would paint their face black and they could move in the night and nobody could see them and they could, you know, just kill an enemy very quickly with their hands.

01:24:34.000 And he would tell me stories about them Germans stretching piano wire across roads. 0.99

01:24:38.000 And so as you come down in a Willie's Jeep, everybody's decapitated.

01:24:42.000 They put it right at the height of your head.

01:24:44.000 And so he told me about stories of coming across those places.

01:24:48.000 And then we started mitigating it by putting a steel rod at the front of the Jeep to snap the wire before you hit it.

01:24:56.000 And so he would tell me all these stories about...

01:24:59.000 What he went through, and I think that's really where my interest came.

01:25:02.000 And to answer your question, I don't know if I'm as passionate about anything, you know, besides my kids, my wife, and, you know, the U.S., the U.S., and what we,

01:25:18.000 you know, and the Army that defends it.

01:25:20.000 It's also got to be really hard once you experience something that is as intense as being embedded in combat, in a crazy war like what's going on in Afghanistan.

01:25:31.000 It's got to be very difficult to find something that's going to ignite the spark to that extent.

01:25:38.000 Yeah, and that's one of the things I'm concerned about, you know, really am.

01:25:42.000 Like, what is next for me?

01:25:44.000 What do I care about enough to do what I did this last time?

01:25:50.000 Uh, don't know.

01:25:53.000 So you just might be a war documentary guy now?

01:25:58.000 I don't know if my wife can take that, honestly.

01:26:02.000 So, I don't know.

01:26:05.000 I don't know what's gonna, yeah.

01:26:07.000 And you kind of have to be over there.

01:26:08.000 It's not like you just send people over there, film it, and then come back and edit it.

01:26:13.000 I can't because as far as right now, it was my working with those units, those platoons, and those leaders and those squads being there that made all the difference.

01:26:26.000 Because I think they understood my...

01:26:32.000 They could feel why I was there.

01:26:35.000 And if it wasn't, if it's not the right camera guys, if it's not the right people embedded with those units, they'll shut them down.

01:26:42.000 If they feel like you're doing something that'll be critical of them, or you're paying them in an unjust light.

01:26:48.000 Yeah, if you're looking for dirt.

01:26:50.000 Right.

01:26:51.000 And a lot of them must be.

01:26:52.000 They will shut you down.

01:26:53.000 How many embedded reporters do they have over there? 0.99

01:26:56.000 Not like we did, none.

01:26:58.000 I mean, we were the only team that was like this.

01:26:59.000 They had people come from newspapers for three days, two days, five days, you know, go to one place, you know.

01:27:06.000 But no, this was a massive—the Army put a massive amount of effort into embedding five of us.

01:27:14.000 For three months.

01:27:16.000 You know, and ultimately, though, just so you know, like, the ground force commander at those units, at the unit level, if they don't want you there, there's nobody, no general that said you can come to Afghanistan is going to call up a ground force commander and say, you will take these guys.

01:27:30.000 You will show them.

01:27:32.000 Doesn't work like that.

01:27:33.000 Because ultimately the ground force commander has his authority.

01:27:37.000 He's the guy right there that's gonna, you know, that has to keep you alive, that has to protect you, that has to interact with you.

01:27:46.000 And if he doesn't want you, you're gone.

01:27:48.000 So it's really tough to, you know, to think about how I could produce this without me actually At least going there to open the doors and to embed people, right?

01:28:01.000 And when you went over there the first time to scout, how many days did you go over there for?

01:28:05.000 Three weeks.

01:28:05.000 Three weeks for the first time.

01:28:07.000 And did you come back from that three weeks with any apprehension?

01:28:15.000 Yeah.

01:28:16.000 I mean, I came back because I didn't have any...

01:28:19.000 You know, I had to write a big check.

01:28:21.000 And I had to put my money where my mouth was.

01:28:23.000 And so I had to get John Paul to write a check.

01:28:25.000 And so, you know, you invest your friend's money.

01:28:28.000 That's tension.

01:28:29.000 I would have apprehension about that.

01:28:31.000 You know, I never asked a friend to invest money in a project.

01:28:34.000 I've always only invested my own.

01:28:36.000 Why'd you decide to ask someone else?

01:28:38.000 Because my wife kept telling me, Ricky, you need partners.

01:28:40.000 You need people to work with.

01:28:42.000 Because I'm kind of on my own a lot.

01:28:44.000 And so she's like, you need to collaborate with people.

01:28:47.000 You need to work together with people.

01:28:48.000 So I asked my friend John Paul, and she got pissed.

01:28:51.000 Why are you asking our friend for money?

01:28:53.000 I'm like, well, honey, you want me to work with people, collaborate with people.

01:28:56.000 John Paul's my friend, and...

01:28:57.000 You know, he gets the content.

01:28:59.000 He's a big boy.

01:28:59.000 He can risk the money.

01:29:00.000 He's worth billions.

01:29:02.000 And she's like, yeah, but you've changed the dynamic between us and our friends.

01:29:06.000 And I'm like, honey, it's going to be fine.

01:29:08.000 I didn't know if it was going to be fine.

01:29:09.000 But it was a great feeling when I came home and I wrote a check to him.

01:29:14.000 I'll tell you that and paid him back.

01:29:15.000 But I had apprehension about money.

01:29:16.000 I had apprehension about...

01:29:20.000 You know, all those things you think about.

01:29:21.000 Like, I had to buy life insurance for all my cameramen.

01:29:23.000 I had to buy death and dismemberment insurance, disability insurance.

01:29:27.000 You know, I had to make sure that their wives were okay with them going. 1.00

01:29:31.000 You know, and their moms and their dads.

01:29:33.000 Because some of the guys were young, the camera guys not married.

01:29:37.000 And so, you know, you're taking on all that responsibility.

01:29:39.000 So I had lots of...

01:29:42.000 Lots of reasons to back out all along the process, but just pushed, pushed, pushed.

01:29:49.000 Did you edit the entire thing yourself?

01:29:51.000 Me and three story teams and my partner Jim, retired Colonel Rabin.

01:29:57.000 And so what we did was we had three major embeds and we put a camera team, sorry, a story, an editor team, a story producer and an editing editor on each team.

01:30:09.000 So each team only had to learn, say, 200 hours of footage.

01:30:12.000 They didn't have to learn all 600 hours of footage.

01:30:15.000 And so then each story producing team and editor would work with Jim and I, and we would craft the episodes.

01:30:24.000 And so I got...

01:30:27.000 I sent...

01:30:28.000 I came back from July 2014 from Afghanistan.

01:30:31.000 I tried to sell this to different production companies, different networks throughout the entire summer and fall.

01:30:37.000 Couldn't make a deal with any of them because they really didn't want me to end up producing it.

01:30:42.000 They wanted to bring other people to take it over and just sort of acquire the footage.

01:30:46.000 And so turned down some things that could have worked out for different deals and then went into February and had no, like, what am I going to do with this?

01:30:56.000 I got a lot of money invested in this, and I've got a lot of hopes.

01:31:01.000 I told the army I was going to get it out.

01:31:03.000 What am I going to do?

01:31:04.000 So I emailed Mike White, CEO of DirecTV, cold, and sent him a link to the trailer.

01:31:09.000 And then within 18 hours, I had a handshake deal.

01:31:13.000 And that was in February, middle February.

01:31:18.000 And I had 12 weeks or 11 weeks to edit six one-hour episodes from all that footage and hadn't even started.

01:31:24.000 Wow.

01:31:24.000 That's not ideal, right?

01:31:26.000 It's not ideal.

01:31:27.000 What would you rather have had?

01:31:28.000 How much time would you rather have had?

01:31:30.000 Uh, maybe 16 weeks instead of 11. Have you ever considered doing maybe a director's cut if this is really successful?

01:31:38.000 I mean, you have so much footage.

01:31:39.000 It almost seems like you could do another six hours.

01:31:43.000 Wow.

01:31:43.000 I never thought about it, but you're right.

01:31:45.000 We could.

01:31:45.000 We could do other things.

01:31:46.000 There's so much that we had to leave behind.

01:31:49.000 There's so much story there.

01:31:53.000 I mean, I can only imagine.

01:31:55.000 We'll see.

01:31:57.000 It's going well.

01:31:58.000 People are liking it.

01:31:58.000 Some of the soldiers, Joe, on Facebook have sent me messages and said, like, thank you for making this because now my wife and my family understand what I went through in Afghanistan.

01:32:09.000 Or thank you, my son was in your series.

01:32:12.000 Thank you for showing us part of his life.

01:32:14.000 You know, really, really nice messages.

01:32:16.000 And to be honest with you, that was my goal the whole time, was to make something that the soldiers would look at and say, if you want to understand Afghanistan, Then watch the fighting season.

01:32:27.000 Because it's the closest you'll get to war without going.

01:32:29.000 There's nothing closer.

01:32:32.000 I can't wait to watch it.

01:32:33.000 If there's anything else you need to say, is there anything else you want to tell people about this experience?

01:32:39.000 Yeah, you know what?

01:32:41.000 Our army is strong.

01:32:42.000 The guys I was with were strong, motivated.

01:32:45.000 You know, after 14 years of war now, We have some really experienced leaders that have been deployed multiple times and been, you know, in this fight multiple times.

01:32:56.000 And so that generation of experience is teaching the next generation.

01:33:01.000 And, you know, I just want people to understand that, you know, our military may be having, our army may be having budget issues.

01:33:07.000 I hear about in the paper.

01:33:08.000 I maybe have other issues.

01:33:10.000 But one thing they don't have a problem with is leadership.

01:33:14.000 The people that lead these young soldiers are like dedicated, trained, experienced leaders.

01:33:21.000 And their goal is to take everyone else's kids home.

01:33:24.000 Like seriously, their goal is to everything they do to mitigate like risk as much as possible so they take those kids home.

01:33:32.000 And you can see it.

01:33:32.000 That's why they train them.

01:33:33.000 That's why they're hard on them so hard.

01:33:34.000 They want to take them all home.

01:33:36.000 And so I just want to leave it with our army strong.

01:33:40.000 You know, it's strong and it's experienced and it's a privilege to have told their story.

01:33:47.000 And thank you to all the vets who ever served and thank you to those families that let them serve because it's a life commitment.

01:33:55.000 It's not like a job.

01:33:57.000 It's like the whole family's involved.

01:34:01.000 And where would we be without them?

01:34:03.000 I mean, honestly, where would we be without them?

01:34:06.000 We'd have a draft?

01:34:08.000 We'd have a draft?

01:34:09.000 I mean, think about it, Joe.

01:34:10.000 We have a volunteer army that has been at war for 14 years.

01:34:16.000 All volunteers.

01:34:17.000 I heard, I think, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the chairmen said, you know, an all-volunteer army was never designed to be at war for 14 years.

01:34:29.000 That's why you have conscripts and drafts and we don't need it because we have that many young people that are willing to go out there and do this and answer that call and show up.

01:34:42.000 And I think that's just amazing.

01:34:45.000 And this is a perfect day to do this on Memorial Day.

01:34:48.000 So thanks for coming in here.

01:34:49.000 And thank you everybody that served.

01:34:53.000 Thank you everybody that's serving.

01:34:54.000 Thank you everybody that's listening and watching this.

01:34:58.000 And thank you everybody that has watched the fighting season.

01:35:01.000 Or we'll watch it.

01:35:03.000 It is available right now.

01:35:05.000 You can get it on iTunes.

01:35:07.000 Ricky is on Twitter and he needs more Twitter followers.

01:35:10.000 So go to Ricky Schroeder.

01:35:12.000 S-C-H-R-O-D-E-R on Twitter.

01:35:17.000 Your Facebook page.

01:35:18.000 What's the Facebook page?

01:35:19.000 Ricky Schroeder.

01:35:20.000 Do you have a Fighting Season website?

01:35:23.000 We have a Fighting Season YouTube channel and Fighting Season Facebook channel.

01:35:28.000 And so people can watch clips from that?

01:35:30.000 Oh yeah, go to YouTube and you'll see all sorts of clips.

01:35:32.000 All sorts of clips and go out and buy it folks.

01:35:36.000 Support this because this was an amazing project and I'm gonna buy it.

01:35:41.000 I'm buying it tonight.

01:35:42.000 I'm gonna watch it tonight.

01:35:43.000 And just thanks man.

01:35:44.000 Thanks for everything.

01:35:46.000 Thanks for what you do.

01:35:47.000 Please. 0.99

01:35:48.000 What I do is easy as fuck. 0.99

01:35:50.000 All right. 0.99

01:35:51.000 That's it, folks.

01:35:52.000 That's the end of this.

01:35:53.000 Again, Ricky Schroeder on Twitter and find him on Facebook.

01:35:57.000 And The Fighting Season is available right now on iTunes and Amazon when?

01:36:02.000 Tomorrow.

01:36:03.000 Tomorrow.

01:36:03.000 Tomorrow on Amazon.

01:36:04.000 So go get it, folks.

01:36:06.000 All right.

01:36:07.000 Much love.

01:36:07.000 Bye.

01:36:18.000 Yeah I have some other things.

The Joe Rogan Experience - May 25, 2015

Joe Rogan Experience #652 - Ricky Schroder

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