#652 - Ricky Schroder

[0] And we're live.

[1] What's up, Rick?

[2] What's up, good morning.

[3] Happy Memorial Day.

[4] Happy Memorial Day.

[5] A perfect day to have you on to talk about your project.

[6] Because this, it's called a fighting season.

[7] It's available right now on iTunes.

[8] And for folks who are not aware of Rick Schroeder, first of all, how dare you?

[9] And actor, now director, producer, you're doing a lot of different things.

[10] And we've been friends for, what, 10 years now?

[11] 10 years, yeah.

[12] Our girls introduced us, thankfully.

[13] So your documentary series is pretty intense, man. And you showed me a bunch of it last time I was over your house.

[14] And I was, first of all, I was really impressed.

[15] But one of the things I was really impressed was your commitment to doing this.

[16] I mean, you spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and, like, embedded.

[17] You were with the soldiers in firefights.

[18] I mean, you were there pretty much every step of the way.

[19] Yeah, I was there 110 days from March until July 2014.

[20] 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 in bed with took sometimes weeks alone just because everybody looked at me like, you know, what's this journalist doing here?

[21] A lot of the guys were 20, 22, 25 in these platoons.

[22] Had no idea of my past.

[23] They thought I was just a journalist.

[24] a camera guy that was, you know, there to tell a story that was probably negative.

[25] So it just took time to build a relationship with them before I got into their worlds.

[26] And, but, you know, it's funny the, you know, when you do go out like a combat patrol and you do have contact with an enemy, then like all of a sudden, you know, you're with, you're one of them.

[27] So it like totally changes the dynamic.

[28] But it has to, but some big event has to happen typically for them to accept you.

[29] wow that's that's pretty intense man so what was the motivation to do this and like when did you decide how long did it take to plan this out like 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 and changed the course of history since the beginning of time right the act of war and so you know i was always curious about what war was and And in my mind, I always thought, wow, I have to experience what it is 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. So I was always looking for an opportunity where I could sort of experience it.

[30] But, you know, I didn't come along for a long, long time.

[31] But after 9 -11, you know, I've been sitting there watching, you know, us fight and the war on terror for 13 or 14 years from my living room.

[32] like the most of us 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 Afghanistan in the spring of 2014 so I asked Joe I said Joe can I go with you guys and he's like why do you want to go?

[33] And I'm like well Joe I think it's important to document you know what we've accomplished or failed to accomplish in that country for the last 13 years we've spent a lot of money there we've lost a lot of people there We've had a lot of handicaps and amputees come from that war.

[34] And I think it's important to show what ending a war looks like, how hard it is, how complicated it is, how ugly it is.

[35] And so he agreed, and he said, okay, I'll make it happen.

[36] Now, this was when you had already started doing that show for the Army.

[37] You had done this show.

[38] What was the show called?

[39] Yeah, the project that I started working for was called Starting Strong, started working for the Army for.

[40] That's a branded content show.

[41] It's like a long -form kind of infomercial in a sense, ultimately, starting strong for the military.

[42] I mean, that's a 30 -minute, it's not truly a reality show, right?

[43] It's branded content.

[44] It's messaging that they want in there that I help produce.

[45] And I have a government contract, and I produce that for them.

[46] 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.

[47] That's right.

[48] I mean, it's a long -form commercial, Joe, starting strong.

[49] But it's well done, and it's real.

[50] 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.

[51] So it's not necessarily balanced, like the negative aspects are not really shown.

[52] You're just kind of showing the things that they want.

[53] Yeah, and ultimately they have the final edit.

[54] They're the final judge and jury on those decisions when you have a creative difference.

[55] 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.

[56] I mean, this is a real documentary.

[57] Yeah, this is the real deal.

[58] I mean, this is John Paul DeGoria, the guy who owns Petron Tequila and me, each kicking in a chunk of money and, you know, putting together a film crew.

[59] And, you know, I scrambled.

[60] After I talked to Joe Anderson in Fort Bragg in February, I was in Afghanistan.

[61] by March and I brought three camera guys with me. I brought, I hired a local there.

[62] 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 couldn't endanger our soldiers or give away capabilities, tactics, techniques, and procedures of certain weapon systems or things that we employ to defeat the enemy, which is pretty interesting stuff.

[63] And I can talk about a little bit with you, some of those tools that we have like what were the things that you were not allowed to to put in so like when we were on the let's say a drone we were when we were trying to do dynamic or or kinetic strikes with drones on bad guys we were following um known terrorists that had pictures and names and we were following them from the air um and looking for opportunities to shoot a hellfire missile uh and eliminate them um there's certain information that's on the drone feeds the monitor feeds, that gives away sort of capabilities of the drone.

[64] I see.

[65] And so we had to blur that.

[66] There were certain weapon systems, which are just brand new, that you couldn't even talk about.

[67] And people don't know, but they're not released to the public.

[68] Yeah.

[69] That's always tripped me out, 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.

[70] It's one of the things, not too late necessarily, but I mean, until it's already employed.

[71] One of the things that they attribute to a lot of the UFO sightings was like stealth bombers and the B -52 and B -51, all these different technologies they had created out there in the Nevada Desert.

[72] People had no idea they even existed until they started using them.

[73] 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, absolutely phenomenal.

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

[75] There's only so much you can do with technology, and there's just certain things that's hard to mitigate against, and that's fanatics.

[76] Yeah, and this war in particular in the first Desert Storm War, was really the first time that they had experienced that as the United States military had experienced that from the enemy right except the Japanese suicide bombers but the kamikazis it was sort of a different story 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 is World War II with the kamikazis and then you know you started hearing about it in Iraq and that really wasn't employed in Afghanistan for many years early in the war and then they decided to change tactics and bring that to the battlefield.

[77] But, you know, the real disgusting thing with some of that is, you know, they use kids a lot for suicide bombers.

[78] You know, kids that are handicapped, kids that have mental problems, Down syndrome, or handicaps in some way.

[79] They'll actually, you know, radicalize the kids in Pakistan, madrasas or schools, you know, teach them that, you know, it's, it's the highest degree of glory to die in the act of jihad.

[80] Because without jihad, actually you can't actually get the 72 versions so the kids are actually trained to to thank the americans kind of in a way or thank the out of the infidels because without the infidels to kill you can't get the highest degree of of celestial glory that term 72 virgins apparently um i looked it up what a lot of people think that it's actually like the number 72 but it's like a shitload it's like saying a shitload you know like you have 70 So it's more than 72?

[81] Well, you know what I mean?

[82] It's like it's a term.

[83] Like, you know, like it's not an exact term.

[84] I don't know what the definition that would be.

[85] But you know, you know, people say that it's a cajillion.

[86] Yeah.

[87] You know, let's say something like that's an exaggeration.

[88] It was the original.

[89] I mean, it's not really defined.

[90] It's just a large number of virgins that apparently is what they mean by saying 72.

[91] Because I always thought like, that's so specific.

[92] What does that mean?

[93] Yeah, I mean, it's a cultural thing, obviously.

[94] but yeah um so this is a really a crazy undertaking i mean really i mean you threw your whole life into this you separate yourself from your family for many months a hundred plus days and then uh went over there and was there any was there any point in time in the in the process of this before you launched where you had second thoughts where you did you know that you were going to commit yourself to such a long um extended stay yeah 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.

[95] If you love me, don't go.

[96] Whoa.

[97] And so if you love the kids, don't go.

[98] So I got that.

[99] And so I had to deal with that like three days before.

[100] And that was pretty tough because I do love my wife and do love my kids, but I went.

[101] So, but yeah, I mean, it was definitely a hard, a hard thing to come.

[102] to terms with to come to grips with um you know my camera one of my camera guys backed out the the day of the trip um and i went out there one time before my team actually and just to scout and look for different embeds and different characters and stuff that i could follow different soldiers different units different missions and we follow everything in this just you know from three star general who was the commander of the battlefield of 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, cops with RPGs, 13 ,000 man paramilitary police force in Kabul, heroin industry thriving, black market for weapons thriving.

[103] And our embed was with Colonel Graham embedded with the chief of police for Kabul, 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.

[104] and vehicle -borne IEDs out of the city before the election because the Taliban had threatened immense bloodshed to disrupt the elections.

[105] This was 2014 was just, you know, the first peaceful transition of power in Afghanistan, legitimate transfer of power after Karzai.

[106] And so the Taliban wanted nothing more than to disrupt that process.

[107] They want Sharia law.

[108] They don't want democracy.

[109] And so 2014 ended up being the deadliest fighting season in Afghanistan.

[110] Afghanistan's history, at least while we were there.

[111] I don't know about the Soviets, but while we were there.

[112] And more civilians, more Taliban, and more coalition forces were killed in 2014 than any other year.

[113] So, yeah, so, I mean, going into this, I started to get some, you know, jitters here, there, cold feet.

[114] But, you know, I commit.

[115] And, you know, I know how to jump, you know, like hold your, hold your balls and jump kind of attitude, right?

[116] I know how to do that.

[117] Thankfully.

[118] And so that's what you do is you just jump, you know, you just, you just, because I couldn't live with myself if I didn't right I mean you couldn't I couldn't and so it was um you know and really what was really stressful though was they started killing journalists in Afghanistan in 2014 specifically targeting people that had cameras and so you know every while I was there you'd get news reports of you know two two dead journalists or dead journalists here two dead there you know purposely shot by our allies our our own not our our our our allies, but our own Afghan partners that we were partnered with, whether they'd be Afghan National Army, ANA, or Afghan LALP, Afghan local police, would turn guns on journalists.

[119] And it turns out, you know, you never quite understand why it happened.

[120] A lot of times it's Taliban that infiltrate the ranks of the security forces in Afghanistan that do that.

[121] But sometimes it's cultural differences.

[122] They don't like cameras pointed at them.

[123] They don't like their, they're, they're, they don't like you to talk to women.

[124] 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.

[125] Wow.

[126] Yeah.

[127] 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, you know, Afghan police force And so all day long we're surrounded by Afghans With AKs and RPGs And so every building you go into You're surrounded by Afghans with guns And there's just six or seven you Sometimes two or three of you And so you're always trying to put your back to the wall And the anxiety of that Is just relentless Even though nothing may happen But just the potential that something's gonna happen Is kind of exhausting Yeah I could only imagine Especially knowing that some of these Security forces were killing journalists Do they give you a list of things to never do?

[128] No. You just had to learn along the way?

[129] Yeah, I mean, you ask for advice.

[130] I mean, I think that's one of the weirdest things about, like, going to a place like that is there's no rulebook.

[131] All you can look is for people that have 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.

[132] Wow.

[133] God, that's got to be insanely stressful.

[134] 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 that Taliban had embedded in some of these people.

[135] They had infiltrated and they were in the ranks and they were upset.

[136] The Americans were there in the first place and they were resentful of the whole situation and, you know, angry.

[137] Yeah, it was, you know, it was mind exhausting, mind -numbing.

[138] It was almost like you don't know where the enemy is.

[139] It's like once you know where the enemy is, then at least you can focus on him and you can face him.

[140] But the enemy can be anywhere in that kind of environment.

[141] And so like you'll be, you know, on a patrol walking through a village and there's a bunch of guys around and they all got shovels.

[142] And, you know, but you know some of them are Taliban.

[143] You know that, you know that, you know that.

[144] For sure, some of them are Taliban, but they're holding a shovel and you can't prove it.

[145] So you have to really wait until, you know, they decide they want to fight that day.

[146] Because typically it's up to them, you know, where they fight, when they fight, they're the ones that determine those things.

[147] That's got to be really crazy.

[148] So it's very difficult to figure out who exactly the enemy is.

[149] You're looking at one guy, he might be a farmer, and the guy next to him might be Taliban.

[150] Or the guy might be a farmer one day and then he needs money to the next, so he picks up his enemy is.

[151] A .K. Or plants an IED the next day because he needs money and he becomes Taliban.

[152] Wow.

[153] Did you learn the language?

[154] No, I'm a few words here or there.

[155] What do they speak?

[156] Dari is the people in the north and Pashtun is the people in the south.

[157] And it's really a tribal conflict that country as opposed to Sharia versus Sunni.

[158] So what is the conflict?

[159] It's very different people.

[160] It's the people in the north that are Dari.

[161] They're the Northern Alliance.

[162] They're Asian kind of mixed.

[163] They, you know, used to have those big Buddhist statues up there in their lands that got blown up by the Taliban.

[164] Then Islam came into that country and sort of kicked Buddhism out.

[165] And so it sort of all went to Islam.

[166] And then the people in the South are the Pashtuns, you know, very, very connected to Iran, you know, kind of culturally.

[167] And so there's a conflict between just those groups.

[168] and there's also conflicts with, you know, the states around there.

[169] Like India, 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.

[170] And Pakistan, you know, sort of is at odds with India.

[171] And the last thing they want is Afghanistan to be a ally of India.

[172] So Pakistan doesn't kind of want surrounded by, you know, people they find unfriendly.

[173] So the conflict is, you know, diverse.

[174] It's heroin, it's poppy, you know, opium.

[175] A lot of money comes out of that, and who controls that money, and where does the money go?

[176] 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.

[177] 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 To people at home that was like what in the fuck is going on over there Well here's the good news The good news is 90 -something percent of that heroin That opium goes to Iran and Russia It doesn't come to us ours comes out of Mexico It's not good news for Iran and Russia No, but as a weapon it's good news And meaning that the Taliban used heroin is a weapon against us.

[178] Like at first, when they were in power, they outlawed the growing of it.

[179] So it went to zero.

[180] When they were taken out of power, poppy production exploded and huge, huge growth.

[181] And so everybody grows it.

[182] It's just such a cash crop.

[183] And so, but then they tax it.

[184] 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.

[185] Wow.

[186] wow that's uh that's pretty insane so that is that one of the primary means of generating income for them well yeah because in afghanistan there's basically no roads so they need to grow crops that that don't spoil so when they grow when they grow heroin um when they grow that opium then they can store it in bricks and it doesn't spoil and then they can trade it like gold or silver And so it's not like, you know, another kind of food or other item that spoils because they don't have infrastructure to move stuff to market either.

[187] So it's partly those are the reasons partly too that it's such a big crop.

[188] There must have been an insane experience and 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.

[189] this insanely odd world, you're traveling around Kabul, which is essentially the only city in Afghanistan, right?

[190] I mean, most of Afghanistan is villages and run by tribal warlords, different segments.

[191] Exactly.

[192] What is Kabul like?

[193] What does it like to travel around that city?

[194] It's a very small downtown center that looks fairly modern, that has fairly modern -looking buildings that even may have at traffic lights and sewer.

[195] but once you get out of that sort of nucleus that may be two or three square miles of infrastructure it's just because basically becomes a city of six million mud huts and six million people but all living in in mud and you know dirt roads um just a massive massive village really and then there's candahar in the south so those are the two which is just another massive that has no city center that's a massive village candahar mud village and then all these valleys around where there's no roads connecting them so people live and die in the same valleys without going anywhere and they have to get all their food from that valley yeah and what's their primary source of food there they grow it they grow it they got some of the best berries i've ever tasted i remember we're having a meeting with some afghan army guys um planning operation and they brought out bowls of like berries and they're like boys and berries and blackberries and raspberries and they were the sweetest finest berries I've ever tasted they would just taste like sugar they were so sweet nothing sour about them and so it's a very like it's very arid place but where they have water it's very productive land they grow amazing fruit orchards nuts and and they have a lot of lambs and sheep is typically what they eat for meat and so I would think that in that sort of an environment, it's very difficult for progress to take place, what progress that we think of, like infrastructure, sewage systems, electrical power, running water, all that different stuff.

[196] It seems like it's very difficult to change.

[197] I mean, 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 in Afghanistan, and he was doing it in a way that John McCain thought was very ignorant of the environment.

[198] 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.

[199] Like, that place hasn't changed since Alexander the Great came through.

[200] And when you describe it that way, I think it kind of puts it in perspective for people.

[201] Like these people, it's not going to change.

[202] Like, it's one of the reasons why the Soviets could never win the war there.

[203] It's one of the reasons why it's so incredibly difficult for anybody to make any progress there.

[204] Well, the hope is the.

[205] internet.

[206] The hope is the internet because like literally several dozen TV stations have sprung up.

[207] Several hundred radio stations have sprung up in the last 13 years.

[208] The internet and cell signals and cell phones.

[209] Now there is a group of young people that have tasted the world through the internet and they see the different world and they see the opportunity.

[210] They see that you know and and those are those are the majority of the eight million people that came to vote on election day um you know and women and young people 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 of um you know civil order established um to try to deal with the corruption the huge amount of corruption in the afghan government i mean this is this is a place where fuel trucks will be coming from Pakistan to say fill the downtown the police department's fuel reservoirs in Kabul 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 you know all eight trucks will be RPGed and burned because nobody wants evidence that the trucks were empty and so that's the kind of level of corruption that 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.

[211] I mean, the other problem with that country is, like, it's sustaining itself.

[212] So, like, you'll go to a outpost and you'll see vehicles that look fairly well, like they can be reused for patrols, and they're just sitting there.

[213] And they've been sitting there a long time.

[214] And the commander, the army gal, say, what's up with the vehicles?

[215] The guys are like, we can only do foot patrols.

[216] Well, what's up with the vehicles?

[217] Why don't you do vehicle patrols?

[218] Well, we don't have a fan belt.

[219] 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 because they won't push the parts out because of the threat of them being stolen on the way.

[220] So they want all the equipment to go back to the brigade headquarters, which you can't get the vehicle there.

[221] There's no tow truck.

[222] So there's those kinds of problems where they have to figure out how to logistically resupply their self and sustain themselves.

[223] They have to be trained on all that.

[224] Wow, that is bananas.

[225] What a crazy place.

[226] Crazy place.

[227] Crazy place.

[228] Is there a sense of helplessness about that when you're there?

[229] Like when you look at this, you're like, how is anyone going to fix this?

[230] First of all, Jamie, can you turn the AC on in here?

[231] This is hot as fucking here.

[232] Is there a sense of helplessness at all?

[233] Yeah.

[234] I mean, it depends on who you talk to.

[235] You talk to the officers in the Army and some of the other folks that see the big picture sometimes.

[236] And they believe it can be won.

[237] They believe that the Afghans can win it.

[238] The Afghans can resist the Taliban.

[239] And then you talk to the enlisted guys, and typically every one of them says it's going to take generations and generations to change this.

[240] and if it changes.

[241] I mean, how would you possibly get the internet to these people in these mud huts?

[242] 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?

[243] I mean, it seems like that would be their number one priority first.

[244] Well, I mean, they're doing a lot of good there.

[245] I mean, life, you know, like I was reading some statistics since we got there.

[246] Like, you know, the amount of literacy has gone through the roof, life expectancy.

[247] Infant mortality has gone down, life expectancy has gone up.

[248] So many good things have happened in 13 years in that place.

[249] We've built some roads now and some infrastructure that go all the way around the entire country of Afghanistan.

[250] There's a giant circle.

[251] And so we've done a lot of good things.

[252] But basically, the international community, because it wasn't just us, this was a NATO mission.

[253] The first time I was told that NATO was ever invoked, NATO was started to, you know, work in, you know, Europe to defend everybody against the access, I guess.

[254] And we invoked NATO's support after September 11th.

[255] And NATO came to our aid.

[256] 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.

[257] 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.

[258] 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.

[259] So now the United States is pulling out the majority of troops from Afghanistan and what happens then what is what is the what is the number one concern from the people that have been there that are on the ground like what's the number one concern i think america leaving completely the they you know the the the president ashafgani and the prime minister abdul abdula came to Washington i think recently to talk to the president and basically both um thanked him and thanked america for all the sacrifice that it's made to help their country, but basically pleaded with him, don't leave.

[260] We need you to say, we are too fragile, we are too young.

[261] 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.

[262] Now, there's a growing segment of people in this country and all around the world, I guess, that don't like American interventionalism.

[263] if that's a word.

[264] They don't like the fact that we're nation -building.

[265] They don't like the fact that we go over there and try to clean up this mess that's existed.

[266] I mean, or, you know, whatever.

[267] You call it a mess.

[268] Call it a cultural divide.

[269] Whatever you want to call it.

[270] Impose our standards of living and our ideas in this place.

[271] But these, the people that live there, they want this.

[272] They want it.

[273] Yeah, I mean, the locals are so glad.

[274] I mean, life under the time.

[275] Taliban was brutal and horrible.

[276] 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.

[277] So, like, you know, when we went to Afghanistan, right, it was to kill al -Qaeda and Sama bin Laden.

[278] And we sort of didn't ever want to mess with the Taliban, really.

[279] Taliban didn't have international goals, I don't think.

[280] They were just wanted their peace of the world.

[281] It was al -Qaeda that was, you know, hurt us, attacked us.

[282] and Taliban wouldn't give al -Qaeda over.

[283] So we went there and tried to kill every al -Qaeda.

[284] Remember, we could.

[285] It took a while.

[286] Still happening.

[287] But we got drug into this Taliban conflict.

[288] We got drug into it.

[289] And 14 years later, we're still there.

[290] 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.

[291] um because i always thought the military was designed to destroy an enemy and and then leave 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 if that's what you want them to do then at least build them like that right build them um to succeed in that environment um 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 docu -series.

[292] And whatever happens in Afghanistan down the road, if it crashes and burns or a success story, you know, we'll be able to reference the fighting season from the soldiers' perspectives of how we left it in 2014.

[293] There's a lot of people that are very cynical about nation building because there's a lot of money involved.

[294] And that money involved, I mean, especially when Dick Cheney was the vice president, of course, he was the former CEO of Halliburton, Halliburton got those gigantic multi -billion -dollar no -bid contracts to go over there and rebuild areas that we had destroyed.

[295] And a lot of people recognized that there was a whole industry behind that now, not just the military industrial complex, but this rebuilding industry, the contracting industry.

[296] It became an enormous sense, an enormous source, rather, of money.

[297] yeah i i can't really speak to that too much um what i can say is that you know i saw some some places that the afghans had built some afghan bases that they had actually constructed on their own we paid for them to build it 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 these guys built it in you know nine months and for way less 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 it was enough it was efficient it was efficient 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 and so you know joe i'm i'm sure you know you know i don't discount what you say at all i'm sure that there's when there's money involved people do crazy things um but you know i just know the guys that i was with they ain't getting paid a lot of money the soldiers ain't getting paid a lot of money they're they're walking towards the gunfire happy to do it for next to nothing and not next to nothing that's disrespectful they have a sufficient you know income but But it's still not to risk your life.

[298] I don't know.

[299] They don't do it for money.

[300] Honestly, they don't do it for money money.

[301] The first day you get up in the morning in Afghanistan.

[302] What is that feeling like?

[303] Like you're in Mars.

[304] It's just like you're in a new world.

[305] You know, you don't know anybody.

[306] There's no friendly faces.

[307] You know, no, everybody's looking at you like, what are you doing here?

[308] Even the soldiers you're with are leery of you.

[309] so it's like you're just on your own you know it's like you're taking care of yourself self self reliance in that place nobody's going to carry your water nobody's going to pack your stuff nobody's going to make sure you make it somewhere on time or don't you know you're just self -reliant and so it's it just feels like okay I'm I'm on my own and it's kind of you know and then eventually you know that that wears away you start meeting people and you start seeing friendly faces and there's certain afghans that you start to to really like especially the interpreters 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 and there's many of them that aren't getting them for whatever reasons i don't know but these young interpreters that are risking at all i mean i remember them saying to me, please don't put my face on that picture because if the Taliban see it and they can see it now anywhere, they said, then, you know, they may kill me, they may, one guy said, they may hang me in my village by quarters and yell to my family, come get some meat, we just slaughtered a sheep.

[310] And so I said, okay, man, I won't show your face.

[311] But, like, so, so, so, but anyway, so you start to meet these, these young Afghans and you start to see the commitment they have for, you know, their country.

[312] for a better way of life and it's just so inspiring and then you start to make friends with soldiers and you know all of a sudden you start to feel like you're part of the of a group so you you go out with these people and are you what what information do they give you about what's ahead do they say we're leaving come with us i mean how do you know what's going to happen are you privy to meetings like yeah so there's a process called the military decision making process, MDMP.

[313] 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.

[314] 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.

[315] And so all of the leadership of the battalion, 800 guys, but just the leadership would assemble.

[316] And you would go through the mission.

[317] You would talk about it.

[318] This is what they want us to accomplish.

[319] This is the resources we think we need.

[320] Now I need, you know, all of us to go back and make a mission plan.

[321] How are we going to move, you know, 200 guys, you know, 200 miles to the border of Pakistan?

[322] How are we going to set up shop out there for two weeks?

[323] What villages are we going to air assault based on intelligence that we can generate?

[324] Because they only have finite resources.

[325] So everything has to be, everything has to be all.

[326] operations are driven by intelligence.

[327] You don't just go somewhere on the hopes.

[328] You go there because you have a reason to go there that there's bad guys there, that there's routes there that they're moving explosives from Pakistan into Afghanistan on.

[329] And so you do an mission analysis and then, you know, everybody comes back together a few days later.

[330] You lay out the plan.

[331] You refine the plan.

[332] You do the location scouts.

[333] I call them location scouts.

[334] Like a movie.

[335] You do like a movie because I shot it like that.

[336] But you actually go to the potential forward operating bases you're going to strike bases you're going to operate from you scout those you meet with the afghan partners that you're going to partner with because all these operations we want were joint operations afghans and army mixed and so you meet with them and then you come back and you um you run it by the general and you say okay we've done our homework this is what we need this is what we're going to accomplish these are the risks and the general looks at the plan and And he either, of course, as generals do, he either says good, no, or tweak it.

[337] And they usually say tweak it.

[338] And you tweak it, and then you're off and running, and you're conducting the operation.

[339] Now, how did you decide on the amount of days that you went there?

[340] And how many hours of footage did you have to go through to put together this six -part?

[341] It's a six -part docu -series, correct?

[342] Yeah, it's six -one hours.

[343] It's also on direct TV, for any of you that may have it, Direct TV.

[344] The CEO, Mike White, really quick.

[345] I cold emailed him when I got home from Afghanistan and he decided to move out and make this but I had 650 hours of footage and you know a lot of it was you know kind of dead -end stories because you would go out 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?

[346] Not, no, we didn't put any dead ends in.

[347] We didn't put any dead end characters in, let's say.

[348] We put in all the characters that we wanted to, and the missions that we wanted to show.

[349] And sometimes there was conflict in those, 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.

[350] It's not the case.

[351] You may do that in front of people, blindly follow orders, Behind closed doors, you don't blindly follow anything.

[352] When you're dealing with your life and the life of your teammates, the stakes are so high.

[353] Everybody wants to go home.

[354] You know, nobody wants to be the last person to die in Afghanistan.

[355] So we actually got to see that whole process of, you know, questioning a superior officer, whether he's doing the right thing or not.

[356] So you got to see, they do that in the face of the superior officer?

[357] Not typically in face, typically behind the scenes.

[358] They will if they have to.

[359] They will if they have to.

[360] 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?

[361] But if it's something that you can let slide for a moment and then go talk to him later, that's typically the way they handle it.

[362] Now, are you storing tapes?

[363] I mean, how many guys do you have over?

[364] there that are filming, and how are you getting this stuff back?

[365] Yeah, so we're shooting, 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.

[366] And so we would shoot on cards, and we would back every night have to back up our media to hard drives, to rugged hard drives, and then we would, you know, have to charge our batteries because we would run out of batteries, oftentimes, if we didn't.

[367] And then we would send that media back every three, four weeks.

[368] We'd send a dump of footage back home.

[369] And then my editorial facility, we'd ingest it and start, you know, organizing it.

[370] But 650 hours of footage.

[371] Wow.

[372] So did you have internet access when you're out there, like strong internet access?

[373] Never strong.

[374] Satellite.

[375] But if you were like on, you know, a major army base, like Kandahar, then you would have, internet intermittently.

[376] But not enough where you could upload footage to a server somewhere.

[377] No, very slow speeds.

[378] Wow.

[379] So you're dealing with hundreds of hours of footage then.

[380] And you've got to break this down to a six -hour docu -series and you have to do it justice.

[381] And you have to do it justice also not just because it's a significant part of American history.

[382] It's the lives of these soldiers that you have become friends with and comrades with.

[383] But you're trying to do this whole thing justice.

[384] Well, yeah.

[385] I mean, that's the reason to do it.

[386] 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.

[387] and to honor all those who served there and lost there.

[388] You know, it's, I did it because I wanted to tell their stories.

[389] You know, and it's, you don't do that for money.

[390] You don't go get shot at for money.

[391] It just doesn't work that way.

[392] You go to that because you want, because you feel that it's important for the world to know who we are as a nation, who our army is, and who the people are behind the army.

[393] the army is an amazing group of guys great amazing institution in people and i thought it was really important to to show who they are they are they are the best of us the best of america i think i mean they they are some of the smartest bravest courageous people who who are doing this because they they feel a sense of love for their country true love love for their country and the values that we hold deal dear and so i wanted to to show showcase that they have true love for our country and true love for the values and what do they think they're accomplishing by being in afghanistan what is the 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 Taliban?

[394] I don't think they even necessarily think about some of those things because they go where the president tells them to go.

[395] They go where our country orders them to go.

[396] I think it's a more like personal kind of thing for them and that is that, you know, they, they're willing to risk it all.

[397] You know, they're willing to give everything.

[398] to fight the evil of our generation, radical Islam.

[399] And so, you know, they have a commitment like you've never seen, like I've never seen.

[400] The commitment is phenomenal.

[401] You know, you think a suicide bomber is committed and a vehicle -borne IED driver is committed.

[402] And they are.

[403] But make no doubt about it, that that our soldier that decides to walk towards the enemy closed and destroy him is every bit as committed as that suicide bomber, Except we don't go to try to kill civilians like they do, right?

[404] We go to try to kill them, the enemy.

[405] And so I think that's where they, I think that's the message that I've got from my experience there and watching them.

[406] And I think that they're proud of is that they're willing to do whatever it takes.

[407] They'll go anywhere you ask them to.

[408] They just, they will.

[409] I heard soldiers say it.

[410] As long as I got my body armor and my helmet, I'll go wherever the hell you want me to.

[411] What do you think is a difference between the perception that the average American, has over here safely guarded, protected in, you know, our country, what do you think the misconceptions that most people have are about what's going on over there?

[412] What are the primary misconceptions?

[413] That the Afghans don't want us there.

[414] That the Afghan people don't want us there.

[415] The Afghans want us there.

[416] The locals want us there.

[417] The ones that don't want you know radical Islam and Sharia law to govern the land they want us there and so I think that's the thing I didn't understand when I went there is is how much the locals are grateful and thankful that that we're there and that we've we've done what we've done I mean I had Afghan officers in the army thank me I would say to the camera I would point the camera at them and say do you have any messages for America and they would thank America's parents for sending sons and daughters here to die for us to fix us to help us like they really really are thankful that we're there and that's just something you don't get a sense of back here um you know one of the other things I'm most proud about the fighting season that I think you'll get to see is um you know we show how the rules of engagement um work in ways you know when when it comes to drone warfare 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.

[418] Well, I can tell you, if you watch the fighting season, you'll see something different to that narrative.

[419] You'll actually see how it works and when they're willing to, and when they're willing to not risk collateral damage.

[420] The real issue that people have is when they read just raw numbers, when they read the raw numbers of innocent civilians killed by, drones versus the intended targets and they're pretty heavily on the side of innocent civilians killed I think the last count was something like 80 % that that's hard for people to swallow but here's the thing you got to remember the army is different than the CIA it's different than any other branch of the military that's using drone warfare and I think that's an important like definition that we have to remember is that the U .S. Army fights according to its own it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a It's a set of values and principles that are different from other organizations that do that stuff.

[421] And I think that's one of the things about the fighting season is you're going to see how different they are.

[422] Now, we also have this conception of these perception, rather, these people sitting in a room somewhere with like an Xbox controller, nowhere near the action.

[423] and they're controlling these drones and firing at these black and white screens, looking at night vision and very nondescript images.

[424] They're trying to determine whether or not these are the actual enemy.

[425] What is the actual reality of using those drones?

[426] Well, I was never with the actual pilots of the drones.

[427] Where are those pilots?

[428] They can be local or they can be over here in the States.

[429] I mean, they can be remote.

[430] How are they doing it remotely?

[431] Like, if they do it remotely, is it through the internet?

[432] Is it through satellites?

[433] It's got to be satellite.

[434] I don't know, but I would think it's got to be satellite.

[435] I mean, it's instant control.

[436] Like, there's no delays.

[437] It's instant control of the drone.

[438] But what I must have to be some delay.

[439] I mean, there's an internet ping.

[440] There must be something.

[441] But the reality is the guys I was with, I was with, Tassworth's White Devil, when we were using drones.

[442] So our guys would be watching the drone feeds.

[443] 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 because it has to be sort of a higher -level weapon system to make them a valid military target, let's say.

[444] 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.

[445] And so there's real -time communication going on and real -time coordination.

[446] 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?

[447] Because there's different kinds of strikes, too.

[448] There's kinetic strikes, dynamic strikes.

[449] 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.

[450] assets available to get the drone to attack the enemy behind the rock as the ground force commander but then there's other other um kinds of strikes that are like pre -planned and like you're going after a terrorist that has a known name and a known face and so the rules of engagement will for him will be different than the rules of engagement for the troops in combat rules of engagement so there's all these different and depending on where you're on on the list how bad they want you is how much risk they're willing to take as far as collateral damage.

[451] Was there ever a time when you were over there where you second -guessed your decision?

[452] No, I never, I mean, okay, one moment.

[453] We've just been in troops in conduct.

[454] We just had like an hour fight with four different enemy fighting positions, about 800 meters north of us.

[455] And so we'd had about an hour gunfight from 800 meters.

[456] But the bullets, when they zip overhead, they sound like they're breaking this sound barrier.

[457] And so there's like a sonic boom.

[458] And you could see them putting in the dust all around you.

[459] And so, you know, all that's going on for an hour.

[460] And, you know, then we dropped B -1 bomber flew overhead.

[461] And we dropped, you couldn't see it, but it dropped 500 -pound bombs on the enemy.

[462] And the firing stopped.

[463] And, you know, after about a half hour, the ground force commander, Captain Ray Adams, said, let's go do a battle damage assessment.

[464] Let's walk over there.

[465] Let's see, you know, if there's any left.

[466] 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.

[467] You know, I'm starting to think to myself at this point, like, I have a great wife.

[468] I really like Topanga.

[469] I like my wife.

[470] I like my kids.

[471] You know, I'm walking with this young platoon.

[472] know, to this place where we were just in a fight, I said, why am I doing it?

[473] And I questioned, why am I doing it?

[474] And should I go?

[475] And then I thought, hell yeah, I should go.

[476] But why?

[477] And then I realized I was going because they were going.

[478] And I had to tell people they were going.

[479] So I went with them.

[480] Wow.

[481] And so you get over there and what was the damage assessment?

[482] just pieces of clothing of you know remnants of people um no you know a couple guys hiding that we that we found um had shovels in their hands they'd putting down their weapons so there was nothing you could do and um as far as like you couldn't prove anything so i'll remember that i remember this one you know big big army guy all letting them and these guys came up to him him and after you know cat madams questioned them the afghan army guys questioned them everybody knew that they were 99 .9 percent Taliban you know they they said that they didn't hear any guns didn't hear any bullets so you know what are you talking about the earth just shook for miles um and we had to let them go and uh as we let them go they went up to try to shake my hand and i'm holding a camera i couldn't shake their hand tried to shake other people's hands some people shook their hands goodbye and they went up to this big sergeant and tried to shake his hand and he just said you know get the fuck out of your motherfucker i'll get you next time and he was so pissed that we had to let them go those guys that just tried to kill his his buddies him and it's only because they didn't have their guns on them yeah wow that's so weird what a weird weird weird war the afghans look at us most and they must shake their head sometimes because i mean i know i mean i i think i know what would have happened if we weren't there if cameras weren't there if the army wasn't there they those guys would have never walked out of there there was uh a time in world war two 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 and it was uh just before they had found out how badly Americans were being treated over in Germany, and there was all these different stories of American war prisoners being gunned down, firing squads.

[483] They would find their frozen bodies tied and bound, and there was a big public outcry, congressional hearings.

[484] And they were trying to figure out, why are we doing this?

[485] This is a tough time for America.

[486] Why are we treating these Nazi prisoners so well?

[487] And they're not reciprocating.

[488] Like, what do we do about this?

[489] And And they decided to keep doing what's right and keep treating the prisoners under the same standards of the Geneva Convention.

[490] And it's those regulations, when things are horrific like that, where it seems like where people are like, well, why would you do that?

[491] Why would you let them go?

[492] So those might be the only thing that keep a situation like war from breaking down and becoming.

[493] even more horrible than it actually is.

[494] Agree.

[495] I mean, I agree.

[496] Sounds counterintuitive, right?

[497] I agree.

[498] I agree.

[499] I mean, if you don't have those standards, then, you know, then we'll start cutting their heads off, I guess.

[500] Yeah.

[501] Right?

[502] Yeah, we'll start making YouTube videos.

[503] So, but we luckily have those standards and, you know, we're not them.

[504] And that was, that was one of the main concerns about Guantanamo Bay.

[505] that we weren't following the Geneva Convention, that we had said that we wouldn't do it for al -Qaeda, that al -Qaeda prisoners would not be treated under the Geneva Convention, and the big concern would be what would happen if they catch our troops over there?

[506] What would they do to them?

[507] Well, we know the answer to that.

[508] Exactly.

[509] That was the whole idea of the Geneva Convention in the first place.

[510] So even though, like, what you saw seems counterintuitive, I mean, it's kind of how you have to do it.

[511] Well, yeah, and the soldiers were frustrated, and then, of course, they follow orders and they let him go, and they just hope next time, like he said, I'll get you next time, motherfucker.

[512] 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.

[513] Is there a time that stands out that was the most brutal or particularly brutal of all the different...

[514] firefights or different scenarios that you encountered you know it was a time it was a firefight that I wasn't there for one of my camera guys was was there and River was his name and he's from Oregon he's a biker and a crazy guy covered in tattoos and missing his front tooth total hillbilly love River and so River was in a gunfight with this young platoon and we were reviewing his footage and I saw a tracer go by him, like between us that far away.

[515] And I just really got kind of, it sunk home, the reality that River almost got shot.

[516] And then there was another time when I had to get permission to disembed one of my cameramen from the U .S. Army, Jake, a camera guy from Australia that I hired, who lives there.

[517] And I had to disembed him from the U .S. Army because he was going on a mission with the Afghans.

[518] When you say he lives there, do you mean he lives in Afghanistan?

[519] In Kabul.

[520] Whoa.

[521] He's a war journalist.

[522] He lives there all year round.

[523] Yeah, and now he's moving to places where he can cover ISIS.

[524] He's an interesting guy.

[525] And so Jake had to embed with the Afghans, and I had to go meet with a 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.

[526] And it was a place called the Tangie Valley, very dangerous valley, the site of the single largest loss of life of U .S. service members at 38.

[527] died in a Chinook that was shot down by RPG in that valley and it was a really important mission because the Tangi Valley is just outside Kabul but it's a Taliban stronghold so they can they can plan their operations and attack Kabul very quickly from the Tangi Valley and so it was important that we told this story and so I went to talk with General Townsend and he said okay so you know are you prepared to see your camera guy um you know in orange jumps suit on his knees on the internet because the place you're putting him that's the kind of thing that happens and nobody's going to go get him no no u .s. allies or us will go get him and i said i have to say yes and that was like probably the hardest moment because i had to make a conscious decision right then to say yes did you express this to him yeah i mean jake jake knows jake jake knew jakes did you tell him that that that was the sentence that was that It was the way it was described to you.

[528] Yeah, I did.

[529] What did he say?

[530] No problem, Ricky.

[531] And his cheerful Australian attitude.

[532] No problem, Ricky.

[533] Fucking Australians are crazy.

[534] Crazy.

[535] He's a boldest guy.

[536] He's a bull.

[537] Wow.

[538] Sounds like a nutty dude.

[539] What motivates that guy?

[540] Jake was in the Australian army, and I think he was involved with some event that was really traumatizing, involving, you know, some kids getting hurt and killed and so it was somewhere in indonesia where the Australians were i think and so he ever since has been involved ever since that event and he left the army um he's been trying to tell the story of how war affects kids and so he's got a special focus on kids and so that's that's what it motivates jake i think and he he does this 365 he's over there all the time all the time does he learn yearn for a normal life no he actually he learns for the next gunfight.

[541] He yearns for the next gunfight.

[542] He's one of those guys that chases gunfights around the world.

[543] So he's covering ISIS right now.

[544] He's embedded with those dudes, the Christian militias out there that are fighting ISIS right now.

[545] Wow.

[546] Wow.

[547] That is intense, man. How many reporters or how many cameramen rather do you have over there?

[548] There was four plus me. Jake could only stay with us for about six weeks and had to leave.

[549] and then one of my camera guys was getting sick all the time I mean really bad sick dehydrated and so he couldn't leave the fobs so he would cover sort of forward operating bases 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?

[550] No, I didn't, none of our guys were killed.

[551] So we killed Taliban.

[552] We didn't have any our guys killed there while we were with them, fortunately.

[553] Was that the first time you'd see a human body?

[554] Well, from active war, in the real flesh, yeah, for sure.

[555] What was that like?

[556] What was it like the first time you saw?

[557] It was, yeah, it's kind of gross.

[558] It's definitely gross.

[559] There's nothing pretty about it.

[560] It's horror.

[561] It's absolute horror.

[562] You can tell people died violent deaths.

[563] Pieces missing.

[564] Chunks.

[565] Like, ugly.

[566] And you had seen all this, I'm sure, on the Internet.

[567] Yeah.

[568] And now the difference between seeing it on the Internet and being there alive when it all comes home and you realize this is what they're trying to do to the people that are around you.

[569] Yeah.

[570] what does that feel like it's not personal I guess is what I would say you know it's it's not like they want to kill Joe they want to kill Ricky they want to kill what we represent they want to kill what we live what we start what we live for the values we hold dear because of religious fanaticism because because I think according to an army intel officer I spoke with I thought was very knowledgeable because in order for For their, for their prophecies to come true, they have to start World War III, and then their prophet will come back and, you know, bring peace and order to the world.

[571] But he won't come back until they are able to trigger a big event, a massive event, to start World War III.

[572] And so that's, that's the hardcore jihadist motivation.

[573] 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 debated back and forth in America when people start using the the term Islamophobia because there are people that practice Islam that are very polite peaceful people that don't want any harm to occur to anybody and then they're radical people that are out of their fucking mind and want to shoot people for drawing cartoons 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 he wants 20 dollars he wants a pair of levies he doesn't wear levies probably but he wants something and he needs money for it and so that kid's not hardcore jihadist He needs money, but he dies like anybody else when you step over that line.

[574] It's incredible that the only way to really get someone to do something like that is religion.

[575] It's really the only way.

[576] It's the only way to get someone to blow themselves up.

[577] It's the only way to get someone to sacrifice their own life is you have to give them this idea in their head that something better waits for them after they do it.

[578] And you have to have them really, really believe it.

[579] And there's only one way.

[580] It's got to be religion.

[581] There's nothing else.

[582] No one blows themselves up for Ferraris.

[583] You don't blow yourself up for diamonds because you can't.

[584] You can't.

[585] It doesn't work that way.

[586] Well, think about it.

[587] They use sex.

[588] They use the promise of virgins.

[589] And that's a powerful basic urge of men, sex.

[590] And so they must somehow use that in a twisted way to play on boys.

[591] Teenage boys going through puberty.

[592] And they convince them that they're going to have all the sex you want.

[593] My gosh.

[594] And you believe it?

[595] Well, it's also you're talking about people with a limited education, and they're very young.

[596] Those two factors together.

[597] And culturally, the entire area is Muslim.

[598] So it's not like the idea of not being Islamic is almost more foreign than the idea of being a suicide bomber.

[599] Oh, yeah.

[600] Especially when some of the suicide bombers are martyrs and revered with posters of them.

[601] and tributes to them, you know, and 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, they had these enshrined images of these children that had blown themselves up, and they had this sign on the wall that said, today's students are tomorrow's holy martyrs.

[602] And they were explaining, you know, like what that meant and what it means to fight against the enemy.

[603] And it was just so hard to watch.

[604] It was so hard to look at these young kids that were being indoctrinated into this way of thinking.

[605] And knowing that this is awash.

[606] You can't fix that.

[607] You can't go over there now and fix those teachers.

[608] Tell them they shouldn't be doing this.

[609] fix the religious leaders, straighten the mindsets of the people, adjust their perceptions, you're not going to be able to do it.

[610] Like, you have an area of the world that's almost inexorably sick, and it just, it is what it is, and now we have to deal with it globally.

[611] 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.

[612] That's popping up the worldwide, Joe, that ideology is popular.

[613] up in Canada and in US and Europe all throughout France look at Charlie Epto 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 a global global the whole world to fix it I don't know how else you know we do it except except it's a it's a world effort to to sort of show these people a new way and it's got to come from within them.

[614] It's got to come from within them.

[615] Is there resistance in Afghanistan to religious fundamentalism?

[616] Are there people that are against, like, actively and vocally against al -Qaeda and against the Taliban?

[617] Yeah.

[618] I mean, yeah, there's millions of people there that don't want Taliban rule, and they're active and vocal about it.

[619] There are.

[620] And there's a whole initiative where, you know, I think it's, I forget the movement, but it's like the anti -Taliban movement.

[621] And it's literally, you know, villages in remote places, Pashtun Wally is one of their laws, you know.

[622] But I think it stems from that kind of culture where they're actively against the Taliban and resisting and fighting and, you know, trying to, trying to create a new way for themselves.

[623] But it's a crazy place.

[624] I mean, it's a crazy place.

[625] here's a story.

[626] So this guy was telling me he was an Afghan and he was talking to me about how he knew of a story where one Afghan man killed another.

[627] And the one who survived, went to the family of the one he killed and said, I ask for your mercy, forgiveness, and protection.

[628] And so Pashtun Wally means they have to do that.

[629] It means we've got to take you in, protect you, feed you, house you.

[630] It's part of this cultural thing.

[631] And so they took him in.

[632] And You know, took in the man that killed their son and or father.

[633] And he lived with them many years, you know, 10 years, 12 years, whatever it was, long time.

[634] And then he decided he was going to go home one day.

[635] And, you know, I spent a decade there.

[636] They must have forgiven me. They love me by now.

[637] And as soon as he walked through the door, they killed him.

[638] And.

[639] What?

[640] As soon as he walked through the door, they killed him.

[641] So as soon as he left and as soon as he said he was leaving.

[642] Yeah.

[643] because because then their obligation was was fulfilled that's insane so that this guy had been with them for over a decade under their protection they were feeding them yeah because of this law right and this is what does it call again Pashtun Wally what does that mean I don't exactly know but it's I believe it means that we will protect and and take care of you if you ask wow so so they did it until he left and then they killed him it's absurd that's only again that would only take place in a situation where religion was involved i would think and then there's other stuff man there's just like chai boys dancing boys yeah what's that about it's it's a it's a it's a status symbol to have a boy and use him for sexual reasons a status symbol yeah you're a powerful man if you have a boy how old are these boys young six eight 14 how common is this it's pretty common if I mean there's not that many chiefs right but if you're a chief like a warlord yeah or even even less than that successful business man so whoa this weird stuff goes on there but this is not something that is prohibited.

[644] This is prohibited in Islam.

[645] I didn't dive into it.

[646] I didn't even want to research it.

[647] Homosexuality is prohibited.

[648] I didn't even want to look into it.

[649] I just heard about it.

[650] And I heard soldiers talking about it and people that had seen it.

[651] And yeah, I mean, drinking's prohibited.

[652] Other things are prohibited, but you know, I think they do them.

[653] So how how is this defined?

[654] Like when you're 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 how do you know fortunately i was never in the presence of that because i never saw that i never saw that so it's not that common i i don't know what percentage it is but i don't think it's like you know i i'm gonna guess 5 % 10 % that's that's a lot maybe i'm guessing i'm guessing okay okay right right wow yeah because i had heard that from guys who went over there and performed for the troops that, you know, they'd seen a lot of homosexuality, like, and a lot of sexual abuse.

[655] Women are for breeding, boys are for pleasure, is what statement that they say sometimes, some guys, some Afghans.

[656] And women are treated terribly.

[657] Terribly, terribly.

[658] Terribly, there's, horribly, under the Taliban, horribly, stone to death.

[659] I mean, but even not under the Taliban.

[660] 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.

[661] And in fact, it was like an argument they had, he and her, where she didn't like him charging.

[662] She had mentally handicapped women.

[663] She didn't like him charging for trinkets that he was selling to people.

[664] and so he said you know you burned a crown to people and they killed her so women are not treated well there yeah 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 and southern California what was that like oh my gosh it was confusing really confusing at first months it took a month to just feel normal but i was so glad when i got off the plane 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 and so that was the initial feeling and then and then uh it was sort of trying to just sort of um care again about the the normal things in life, you know, caring about whatever it is, bills.

[665] Your kids have issues or concerns that you, you know, have to learn to find important again.

[666] Because the things that you just experienced were like, well, that's not so bad.

[667] Okay, so, okay, you just lost all your money.

[668] That's not so bad.

[669] Right.

[670] You know, you just, okay, you just failed that.

[671] You just got into car action.

[672] That's not so bad.

[673] your boyfriend just dumped you what are you complaining about yeah you your bank accounts at zero what are you complaining about yeah like that was all that learn relearning to care again about other people's about frivolous things in the big picture but to those people they're not frivolous because they haven't had just that experience you had the lack of perspective yeah yeah I mean the more intense the situation or the more intense the experiences are the more of those other experiences seem so dull which is why spoiled people that don't have anything you go wrong.

[674] I mean, that's why they will get freaked out about something so minor and trivial.

[675] Yeah, they're a victim of their own ignorance and success or trust fund, whatever you call it.

[676] But the reason why I bring this up is because, in a lot of ways, that was you.

[677] I mean, you were a young star.

[678] I worked my ass off for everything.

[679] You certainly did.

[680] That's not, never me. I didn't grow up with a silver spoon on the mouth.

[681] But you're at the show called Silver Spoons.

[682] But I worked.

[683] Right, but you were rich as fuck when you were a little kid.

[684] I'm eating off of plastic spoons.

[685] Right.

[686] But you were a celebrity and a TV star.

[687] I mean, you were a huge star when you were a young kid.

[688] You know what it takes to get there.

[689] You know what it takes.

[690] It takes in a massive amount of hard work and dedication and perseverance to get there.

[691] Nobody's given it.

[692] So this perception that, you know, somehow we were privileged, come on.

[693] We worked our asses off.

[694] I worked my ass off since I was five years old.

[695] Right.

[696] But what am I saying is you developed that way.

[697] I mean, you were famous.

[698] I saw you in the champ when I was a little kid.

[699] My dad took me to see the champ, and I remember crying when you were crying over John Void's dead body.

[700] By the way, that fucking story that you told me about them being mean to you right before that to get you to cry, that is one of the most fucked up Hollywood actor stories that anybody ever told me. Talking about my dead grandmother.

[701] Yeah, to get you emotionally invested in that scene.

[702] I mean, it worked.

[703] It really worked.

[704] I mean, it was incredible.

[705] I remember leaving that movie theater, fucking crying.

[706] Holy shit.

[707] But my point being is you lived a life of privilege, you know, in a lot of ways.

[708] Okay.

[709] If you say so.

[710] We're a little defensive here, fellow.

[711] No, I'm not fewer.

[712] But what is privilege?

[713] What is privilege?

[714] Earned.

[715] Privilege.

[716] You earned it when you're five?

[717] Earned.

[718] Right.

[719] You know what I mean?

[720] earned work for sort of I mean you did you work but I mean you're working in acting acting's not that hard do you think it's that hard being not a normal kid's hard that's hard going not to schools hard not being on on softball little league teams hard all sorts of things were hard definitely unusual but not cobble hard not cobble hard yeah not cobble hard 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, it boiling down to this docu -series that you're putting together, which is probably the most intense thing you've ever done.

[721] Yeah.

[722] 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 100 days, experiencing fire fights on a daily basis almost.

[723] It was a great experience, Joe, and it changed me forever.

[724] It changed me forever in many great ways.

[725] I don't see any negative that has come out of it for me, honestly.

[726] Except maybe wanting to do it again.

[727] You know what I mean?

[728] You want to do it again?

[729] I mean, that's the risk.

[730] Has that sort of lit a fire in me to like...

[731] Well, you did a fantastic job by all accounts on this docu -series.

[732] I've read reviews of it.

[733] People love it.

[734] And they say this is really intense and really, what was the word that I read?

[735] But comprehensive, I think, was the way they were describing it.

[736] Like, you got deep into this.

[737] This isn't something you can cover in a 90 -minute documentary, which is why you decided to stretch it out over six hours.

[738] Yeah.

[739] I mean, we look at it from the ending of America's Longest War from various perspectives.

[740] It's epic and scope, but we get deep inside those perspectives, you know, and, you know, I just, I don't know what the future brings for me right now, because that's honestly the thing I'm most confused about is, like, how do I go back to, you know, certain career choices that I perhaps once was, you know, really excited about, wanted to achieve and goals?

[741] And acting, maybe?

[742] And acting, even in films, in TV, and even in production, even in producing.

[743] you know even writing whatever it may be like you know i got to figure out again i got to figure out what's next for me because i have no freaking clue no clue just because this experience is so intense and so powerful just sort of reshaped you as a person absolutely well i'm talking to you from the time you returned i mean i could tell that it was you you there was almost like a rekindling of a spark inside of you like you you you had this new sort of new feeling of importance of what you were working on that was very very intense absolutely i mean i really felt you know that i was making a difference as opposed to just creating entertainment yeah i really feel like i was making a difference like like educating people about the art of war how battles are fought the military science behind it like because that's what i found interesting is how do you take 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 how do you overwhelm and destroy the enemy and choreographed the sympathy of destruction in the moment how do you call in the air weapons teams the apaches how do you call in the B -1s and the fast -moving jets?

[744] How do you call in the artillery?

[745] How do you call all that and coordinate all that in the moment so that you can destroy the enemy as fast as possible?

[746] That's what I wanted to see, and I found it, and I'm going to show it to everybody.

[747] Do you think from here you'll continue to do documentaries exploring the military, or will you start doing other things that interest you?

[748] Because what it seems to me, as your friend, is that you just have to have something that excites you, something that interests you, and then you just fucking dive in, man. You go a whole hog.

[749] You know, that's what you do.

[750] It is.

[751] It's the only way I've ever known how to do it 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.

[752] And so I don't know what's next for me. I mean, I love dogs.

[753] Maybe I'll do something on dogs.

[754] and smile a little more You know, for a little less intense Yeah, I love dogs I mean, they're great Dogs are great I've got two of them I might need a break Yeah I'm going to Alaska At the end of June Going floating on a river And fishing with my sons and my nephews That should be fun 12 days So that's kind of my break I'm really stoked about And then I'll come back in July And Fourth of July in Alaska By the way is off the hook yeah you can get all the fireworks of all the big kinds you want and just go nuts so that's what we're going to do and and then I'll hopefully figure it out you know and but I know I know I got to take my family into account you know what they want because you know I got a family yeah um well you also have the freedom to to make those decisions you know you have the freedom to decide what you want to do and then really direct yourself towards whatever your passions are.

[755] Is there anything that you're interested in at the level that you were interested in this military thing?

[756] 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.

[757] That really just...

[758] It's really my grandfather that sparked it.

[759] Like, he was a captain in the Army World War II, and he took six, we're called deuce and a half flatbed trucks, big trucks.

[760] with each one had two 50 calibers mounted on the backs.

[761] And so he took six of those as close infantry support all the way through France to Germany, to the Rhine River.

[762] And I think I was the only person he ever told stories to.

[763] But I remember sitting at the feet of his chair, like as a kid growing up, and he gave me all this 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 he gave me. And so I think sitting at his feet, you know, sort of is what planted that seed, you know, of the military.

[764] But I remember, you know, he would tell me about the green braids 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.

[765] And he would tell me stories about them, Germans stretching piano wire across roads.

[766] And so as you come down in a Willie's Jeep, you know, everybody's decapitated.

[767] They put it right at the height of your head.

[768] And so he told me about stories of coming across those places.

[769] And, you know, 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.

[770] And so he would tell me all these stories about what he went through.

[771] And I think that's really where my interest came.

[772] And so 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., the U .S., and what we, you know, and the army that defends it.

[773] What'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, it's got to be very difficult to find something that's going to ignite the spark to that extent.

[774] Yeah, and that's one of the things I'm concerned about, you know, really am.

[775] Like, what is next for me?

[776] What do I care about enough to do what I did this last time?

[777] Don't know.

[778] So you just might be a war documentary guy now?

[779] I don't know if my wife can take that, honestly.

[780] So I don't know.

[781] I don't know what's going to, yeah.

[782] And you kind of have to.

[783] to be over there.

[784] It's not like you just send people over there, film it, and then come back and edit it.

[785] I can't because as far as right now, like, it was my, it was my working with those units, those platoons, and those leaders and those squads being there that made all the difference.

[786] Because I think they understood, you know, they understood my, they could feel why I was there.

[787] And if it wasn't, if it's not the right.

[788] camera guys, if it's not the right people embedded with those units, they'll shut them down.

[789] If they feel like you're doing something, they'll be critical of them, or you paint them in an unjust light.

[790] Yeah, if you're looking for dirt.

[791] Right.

[792] And a lot of them must be.

[793] They will shut you down.

[794] How many embedded reporters do they have over there?

[795] Not like we did, none.

[796] I mean, we were the only team that was like this.

[797] They had people come from newspapers for three days, two days, five days, you know, go to one place, you know.

[798] And but no, this was a massive, the army put a massive amount of effort into embedding five of us for three months.

[799] 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, you will show them.

[800] It doesn't work like that.

[801] because ultimately the ground force commander has it's his authority he's the guy right there that's going to you know that has to keep you alive that has to protect you that's to interact with you and if he doesn't want you you're gone 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 but and when you went over there the first time time to scout how many days did you go over there for three weeks three weeks for the first time and did you come back from that three weeks with any apprehension um yeah i mean i came back because i didn't have any you know i had to write a big check and i had to put my money where mouth was and so i had to get john paul to write a check and so you know you invest your friend's money that's tension i would have apprehension about that you know i never asked him friend to invest money in a project i've always only invested my own and so why did you decide to ask someone else because my wife kept telling me rickie you need partners you need people to work with because i'm kind of on my own a lot you know as far as um and so she's like you need to collaborate with people you need to work together with people so i asked my friend john paul and she got pissed why are you asking our friend for money i'm like well honey you want me to work with people collaborate with people john paul's my friend and you know he gets the content he's a big boy he can risk the money he's worth billions And she's like, yeah, but you've changed the dynamic between us and our friends.

[802] And I'm like, honey, it's going to be fine.

[803] I didn't know if it was going to be fine.

[804] But it was a great feeling when I came home.

[805] And I wrote a check to him.

[806] I'll tell you that and paid them back.

[807] But I had apprehension about money.

[808] I had apprehension about, you know, all those things you think about.

[809] Like I had to buy life insurance for all my cameraman.

[810] I had to buy death and dismemberment insurance, disability insurance.

[811] You know, I had to make sure that their wives were okay with them going, you know, and their moms.

[812] their dads because some of the guys were young camera guys not married and so you know you're taking on all that responsibility so I had lots of lots of um lots of reasons to back out all along the process but just pushed pushed pushed did you edit the entire thing yourself me and three story teams and my partner Jim um retired colonel raven and so what we what we did was we had three major embeds and we put a camera team a story and editor team a story producer and an editing editor on each team.

[813] So each team only had to learn say 200 hours of footage they didn't have to learn all 600 hours of footage and so then each story producing team and editor would work with Jim and I and we would craft the episodes and so I got I sent I came back from July 2014 from Afghanistan, I tried to sell this to different production companies, different networks throughout the entire summer and fall, couldn't make a deal with any of them because they really didn't want me to end up producing it.

[814] They wanted to bring other people to take it over and just sort of acquire the footage.

[815] And so turned down some things that could have worked out for different deals.

[816] And then went into February and had no, like, what am I going to do with this?

[817] Like, I got a lot of money invested in this.

[818] And I've got a lot of, hopes, you know, I told the Army I was going to get it out.

[819] What am I going to do?

[820] So I emailed Mike White, CEO of DirecTV, cold and sent him a link to the trailer.

[821] And then within 18 hours, I had a handshake deal.

[822] And, you know, that was in February, middle February.

[823] And I had 12 weeks or 11 weeks to edit six one -hour episodes from all that footage and hadn't even started.

[824] Wow.

[825] That's not ideal, right?

[826] It's not ideal.

[827] What would you rather have had?

[828] How much time would you rather have had maybe maybe 16 weeks instead of 11 have you ever considered doing maybe a director's cut if this is really successful would you mean you have so much footage it almost seems like you could do another six hours wow I never thought about it but you're right we could we could do other things there's so much that we had to leave behind there's so much story there I mean I can only imagine we'll see um it's going well people are liking it 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.

[829] Or thank you.

[830] My son was in your series.

[831] Thank you for showing us part of his life.

[832] You know, really, really nice messages.

[833] And to be honest, 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.

[834] because it's the closest you'll get to war without going there's nothing closer I can't wait to watch it if there's anything else you need to say is there anything else you want to tell people about this experience yeah yeah you know what we don't our army is strong the guys I was with were strong motivated 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 and so that generation of experience is teaching the next generation and I just want people to understand that a military may be having our army may be having budget issues I hear about in the paper I maybe have other issues but one thing they don't have a problem with is leadership the people that lead these young soldiers are like dedicated trained experienced leaders and their goal is to take everyone else kids home like seriously their goal is is to everything they do to mitigate, like, risk as much as possible, so they take those kids home.

[835] And you can see it.

[836] That's why they train them.

[837] That's why they're hard on them so hard.

[838] They want to take them all home.

[839] And so I just want to leave it with our Army strong.

[840] You know, it's strong and it's experienced, and it's a privilege to have told their story.

[841] And I 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.

[842] it's not like a job it's like the whole family's involved and where would we where would we be without them i mean honestly where would we be without them we'd have a draft we'd have we'd have a draft i mean think about it joe we have a volunteer army that has been at war for 14 years all volunteers i heard i think chairman of joint chiefs um mullin not mullin some one of the chairman said uh you know an all volunteer army was never designed to be at war of 14 years 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 and i think that's just amazing and this is a perfect day to do this on memorial day so thanks for coming in here And thank you everybody that's served.

[843] Thank you everybody that's serving.

[844] Thank you everybody that's listening and watching this.

[845] And thank you everybody that has watched the fighting season or will watch it.

[846] It is available right now.

[847] You can get it on iTunes.

[848] Ricky is on Twitter and he needs more Twitter followers.

[849] So go to Ricky Schroeder, S -C -H -R -O -D -E -R on Twitter.

[850] Your Facebook page?

[851] What's the Facebook page?

[852] Ricky Schroeder.

[853] Do you have a fighting season website?

[854] We have a fighting season YouTube channel and fighting season Facebook channel.

[855] And so people can watch clips from that.

[856] Oh yeah, go to YouTube and you'll see all sorts of clips.

[857] All sorts of clips and go out and buy it folks, support this because this was an amazing project and I'm going to buy it.

[858] I'm buying it tonight.

[859] I'm going to watch it tonight and just thanks man. Thanks for everything.

[860] Thanks for what you do.

[861] Please.

[862] What I do is easy as fuck.

[863] All right.

[864] That's it, folks.

[865] That's the end of this.

[866] Again, Ricky Schroeder on Twitter and find them on Facebook.

[867] And the fighting season is available right now on iTunes.

[868] And Amazon, when?

[869] Tomorrow.

[870] Tomorrow.

[871] Tomorrow on Amazon.

[872] So go get it, folks.

[873] All right.

[874] Much love.

[875] Bye.