Doug Laux Left Of Boom

All right, well, today, a very special show, Greg. We've got Doug Laux on the show. Doug, I really appreciate you for coming on here, man. It was great to catch up with you over the weekend and thank you so much for gracing us with your presence today.

Yeah, happy to be here. That was quite a conversation. I looked at my phone afterwards. I was like, that was an hour and 20 minutes. I know, I know that's— I was like, oh, my bad. I had some stuff I had to do. I was like to my wife, "Yeah, sorry about that." Like, "Who are you talking to?" I was like, "Long story. Remember the guy on Netflix that we saw that I said I knew? That was him."

So, speaking of that, I know our listeners heard a little bit of an intro on you. There's a ton we could get into, obviously. It's The Human Behavior Podcast, so I try to keep things somewhat, you know, within that ballpark area. But, you know, you've got an incredible career, in a sense. You're one of the, I think, one of the few case officers who've actually written stuff about what's been happening over the last 20 years in the GWOT (Global War on Terror) when you were at the CIA. But, you know, working there, you did some incredible work in Afghanistan, some incredible work in Syria. Just in general, I'm a huge fan of what you've done and what you've accomplished. You wrote the book Left of Boom on your experiences, which is a really cool story for everyone to check out. I'll have the links to it in the details because it not only tells some amazing stuff about what you did – and it's heavily redacted, but you can read between the lines if you know anything about the area – but it also gives sort of the personal side of things, too, to what your life was like, which I fortunately got to see some of, I guess.

Now, you were going through the book, scanning for your name the entire time, like, "Please don't tell me that he wrote about that." I don't know what you're talking about. But you and I crossed paths a while back, I mean, gosh, I guess that was over 10 years ago. Time flies when you're miserable, I guess. But we crossed paths on some work we were doing, and so you actually had some exposure to Greg's work, which is what it is: the HBPRNA (Human Behavior Pattern Recognition Analysis) stuff. So, that's kind of how we met, I guess. But I kind of want to start somewhere for our audience, because like I said, there's a lot to get into with some of your work that we did.

You know, it's interesting how someone like yourself, who is an actual case officer on the ground, running sources and doing incredible work in Afghanistan, so much of what you have to do just relies on human connection and establishing relationships, not just with one person, establishing a network of relationships. It's exhausting in general to do that constantly. So, I'm kind of curious, we can start wherever you want on that, but on some of the takeaways and things that you've learned throughout that about what it takes to really establish connections with people and understand human behavior, and how influential it is, in a sense, to what it is that you did in your role, but with everything. Right, technology is one thing, but it still comes down to a human being meeting with another human being and having a conversation, really. So it's kind of a long-winded intro around nothing, but I think we just got to drop everyone in the grease and get going on the conversation.

Most gracious intro, thank you. And Greg, I'm looking forward to speaking with you as well. You know, Brian and I started out around the same time 10 years ago, and we were both instructors for Tier One elements, and I always heard your name, and I always heard you were the big boss, so...

The big part is correct. I mean, if we go by sheer weight, Doug, that is true.

Yeah, I think slightly. Probably I was always behind the scenes a little scared, like, "Oh, man, someday I'm going to have to meet this Greg guy and he's going to know way more than me and he's going to teach this course way better than me." Oh, man. But yeah, here we are on a Zoom of types.

But I'm happy to be here and yeah, Brian, you said it. It was nice chatting over the weekend. I haven't talked to you in quite a while. Yeah, it probably was 10 or 11 years ago when we started doing defense contracting. I can still remember a lot of it, so if there's any specific items you guys want to talk about, just ask and I'll expand. I don't really dodge questions, which is again why I don't do podcasts a whole lot. But whatever you guys want to talk about, just ask, and I'm happy to get into it with you guys because I do like this topic, and probably, unfortunately, I don't think enough people take it as seriously as really what it is. It's kind of just something to talk about, not something to actually do. It's something that gets trained but not actually conducted, and it's an earmark and it's a slip of paper that says you passed the course, but then you never really did it in real life. And then you expect to teach the course 10 or 15 years later, but you didn't pay attention when you were being taught it, and you didn't do it in reality, so why are you the instructor? So I'm sure we can talk about that too. But ask.

Yeah, that's actually a great kind of starting point, too, because you know, you get certain types of training when you go to what everyone calls "the Farm" (CIA training facility), right? At the agency. And you know, a big thing is about building rapport with people, and you got to do it, but you know, a lot of that isn't really taught how to do that. It just sort of said, like, "Hey, you got to build rapport," or methods and techniques, and understanding, like you said, the human behavior element is integral to everything that you do, but it's not typically, what I've seen, not broken down into a very usable format. You still have to go out there and do it, which I get it, like, you know, you have to practice a skillset, but it's like you said, either it's developed over a career or a lifetime, and then you have all this sort of implicit knowledge of how you do things, or it's taught in some manner and you kind of forget it because you don't really add to that. And people forget how valuable some of that stuff is. So I'm kind of curious to see what you think of different training that's worked and that hasn't worked, and things that you've seen work, especially when it comes to the human behavior element. We don't have to stay there, you can use whatever experiences you want, but I know it's so integral to what you did as a case officer. So, like, kind of give the listeners a little bit of an understanding of what you mean when you talk when you say like, "Hey, this is like one of the most important things that we don't really focus on."

Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think probably a lot of folks unless they've been through the course know what I was teaching or maybe what you and I were teaching. Yeah, was like, I guess what The Human Behavior Podcast here is, the majority of what you speak about is the human relationship.

You know, I went through either at a great time or a pretty terrible time because the way of doing things, by the time I was ready to do things, were already set in stone. So it didn't really matter what you had learned on your own or how self-reliance even getting out of that training, which is top-notch. It really is. Yeah, and I learned a ton, and it had changed you as a person. But it still, even then, felt antiquated if it were a year old, if that makes sense to you guys. You know, like things have changed so drastically, this isn't 1973 Moscow. So no offense to you if you've done that and you did a brush pass in St. Petersburg, how do I get to the point? I don't care. I'm going to Kandahar. We don't do that there. So I don't care.

And then the other question was, is there any through line or any similarities to just doing the job as a whole, meaning espionage? Like, yeah, I want to go to the war zones and I want to go to the Middle East, so why are my instructors talking to me about what they did in Beijing? And again, like just out of frustration, not anger, because I'm still very appreciative of what I learned and was taught, but you do get the mentality of, "Who cares?" Like, "I don't care. I don't have time for that, man. Tell me what it's going to be to talk to a dude in the Taliban." And reason I bring up that example and had said at the beginning, either it was for the best or worst, is because at least there was something to build upon and a lot of people were focused on it. That was helpful, which then made me wonder, "Well, what the hell kind of training are the people who are actually going to Afghanistan getting? And are they getting the same stuff I'm getting from the guy from 1973?" Because even that same city, great, different population. Yeah, not the same people, different government, in fact.

So, like, I feel it probably is like that still. You guys would know better than me. I got out of pretty much doing everything government related six or seven years ago. But here we are, I guess, perfect ending here for me to stop talking is I was in charge of the Syrian program a decade ago. Yeah, I know what we were doing because I was the one deciding what we were going to do, and we did nothing. I won't go much further than that; I could even write about it, but as of like yesterday, it's totally different scenario. So, what are you training those kids who are, you know, going to go in the field because I was taught one thing, we did nothing? Did you teach them something I didn't know about? And that whole situation in Syria right now is so bizarre to me, I can't even fathom what really happened because, you know, I know that the dictator didn't just step to the side. No.

No. Yeah. I won't I won't go into that. I'm not trying to talk about that specifically at all. No, it's—

Well, it's topical and relevant and I know this is the other thing, I guess, because I want to give you, have you kind of explain a little bit to our listeners like what a case officer actually does and what your job is versus because there's still a lot of not great information out there about this stuff which rightly, I mean, in a sense that like, you know, how are you going to find out what people really do? You know, and a lot of people that are out there are talking heads and you know, maybe they were a great analyst or something like that, but they didn't really do some of the groundwork or they were administrator, and they were high up somewhere, and that's kind of a completely different role from what you did on the ground as a case officer. So, and again, you know, just so I don't want you to get anything that you don't want to talk about because there's different reasons, not necessarily that it's like, "Hey, this thing's still classified," or, "We still can't talk about it." It's more just, "There's still people that don't like to have people talking about things, they get angry, and they get upset, they're still in positions of power." So, I'll leave it at that. But can you give for our audience just like a basic understanding of what you were doing when you were in Afghanistan or because you write a lot about it in Left of Boom and it's an incredible book, but give everyone a kind of an understanding of what it is that you do and what a case officer's job really is.

Yeah, case officer, you know, that's who's designated to recruit spies for the U.S. government. That really is what it is. And credit to the agency because they do put that online. I don't know why the searching stops there when you can find out my pants size online somehow through somebody who wrote about it 20 years ago. But you know, I'll even have people ask me questions on Reddit or Instagram or whatever, "Hey, you know, I want to be a super spy, too," or blah, blah, blah. You get to asking, "Well, so you want to be a case officer?" And they don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

Or I'll reference I'm a case officer or somebody introduce me as such because that's the title of my book and I'll find that even the person introducing me doesn't really know what that title means. And you know, for us who do understand, it's kind of the same thing as going, "Oh, he was an 11 Bravo." The three of us know what you're talking about, but a civilian might not. And so I kind of think that's unfortunately the same way it is with the agency, at least, is no one's ever typed in 11 Bravo to figure out what that meant in English. No one's ever really followed up with case officer, or they saw what it was and like, "Oh, yeah," and kind of just dismissed it because, you know, I wrote that book, started writing it 10, 11 years ago, and no one knew what it meant. And especially no one knew what the term "Left of Boom" meant. I stole that from the Army, which they called "Left of Bang." Just FYI, their manual is "Left of Bang." I didn't want to like fabricate and take that straight from them and was like, "That's clever, Left of Bang. I like that. I'm going to call this book Left of Boom." Now I see like tech holding conferences in San Francisco, "The Left of Boom Conference."

Okay, so real quick on that. That was San Diego, and we were at that conference one year, sitting in the room. Let me get this. So guess what they were referencing? So before the Army had it, Doug, it was with the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps' Combat Hunter program, they called "Left of Bang." And so they're up there talking about it. I had to go up to the guy who is like one of the leaders of the conference and be like, "Do you see the gentleman right there who's going to speak later today, who says Mr. Greg Williams?" They're like, "Yeah." I'm like, "He wrote the Combat Hunter program that you're all talking about." And he had no idea. This guy had no idea. Which I was telling Greg, like, "That's a testament to your work, meaning it's gone on long enough that people don't even know where it came from." So, like, but he's like sitting in the room going like, "Are they going to introduce me now or something? I thought I was speaking later."

Yeah, well then, especially Greg, yeah, when your book came out, Doug, if I might interrupt briefly, when your book came out, it spawned one of the biggest arguments because we were talking about the term "Left of Bang," which was later stolen by everybody as well. So, you know, you're on to something good, and it was very, very well-respected, Doug, that you chose "Left of Boom" because you were talking about something completely different, but you were talking to a bunch of operators that actually knew and had similar experiences, right? So it was much the same as the fight with the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab using the term "atmospherics," and they go, "No, that's the air trapped around the Earth." And it's like, "No, that's how you read a room." And so we got into a fight, and your book was the center point of that fight. So I hope there was a spike in, I guess that would have been 2006, for your book sales. And very briefly, Brian, talking about that, I want Doug to get back to his point. Doug is talking about a period of time during GWOT money where anything went. And what happened is, back then, you had the sniper manual that hadn't been updated since Vietnam and the fall of Saigon. You had QA/QC folks showing up to me on a range and going, "You can't teach that way because it's never been done that way before." You had CAOCL (Center for Advanced Operational Culture and Learning) that I butted heads with in 2006, where they go, "No, it's much better to teach these people snippets of the language because we're going to talk about culture and preparing for missions." And then they had so many different set of standards that there was nobody when I went to JBAD (Jalalabad Airfield, Afghanistan), it was like, the person you were talking to is likely going to be from America, sent there to work there, rather than somebody that was local. And we'd ask, "Can we interview a local?" And they go, "Well, no, that's out there. We're not going out there." You remember those days. So I want to make sure that when people put in context who Doug is, that they understand the operational constraints that you had when you were working literally swinging 16-ounce gloves in an arena nobody had fought in a long time.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Thanks for telling me that. Sad to say, I'm not surprised. You know, because it's not, it's not the first, and it's not just with TAC (Tactical Operations Center) or other government, you know, exposures or whatever. I think I saw somebody, well, I saw a couple TV shows have their sitcom like that episode name, "Left of Boom." There's some silly show on CBS that's called Navy SEALs Come Home or whatever it's called. And their final episode was called Left of Boom. And yes, it was somebody in comments goes, "Hey Marine here." So Brian, you'll like it. He goes, "Hey Marine here, don't you think it's kind of weird that this is your last and final episode, yet calling it 'Left of Boom'? Shouldn't this have been the first episode?" No one responds. And there was no nothing funny. I made sure, like, I clicked the heart like 12 times, which meant six times I unliked it, and I like liking things works just once is enough. And, but yeah, I was like, that guy's got a great point. It should have been episode one. But now that phrase has kind of been a throwaway term, and I don't use it to promote my book other than to say it's just another example of something that is now hearsay. And it's an important concept, whether it's "Left of Bang" and it's what you wrote, or what we used to teach, Brian. It kind of now is just something that is talked about and maybe it's still taught to a degree. But you know, I have friends who have just kind of gotten into it and it's so different. I get it, the war is over and all of that, but this type of training, when you really think about it, it doesn't have to be used for espionage, it can be used in real-world everyday life. Exactly. A civilian. I use it every day. And yeah, you can become a terrible person with this type of knowledge, or you can try and do something good. And one of the greatest quotes I heard is from like Jaylen Rose, a basketball player. He was talking about Michael Jordan and he's like, "This guy is so intense and was so great that if he wasn't the best basketball player in the world, fine, he would have been the world's best serial killer." Like, anything he put his mind to, he's going to destroy and he's going to be the best and that's why he was good. So, yeah, "Left of Boom" as it stands now, I used to want to email these people and be like, "Hey, do you want a keynote speaker?" You know, like, "I'll sell my book." And now I'm just like, "Whatever. Can this be another final episode of SEALs crying a tissue?"

And they'll bring you a cake. They'll have you on at the reunion episode and bring you a cake and have you blow out the candles.

You see, that's that's exactly the argument, Doug.

First of all, and Brian, I'd love to know how you and Doug met and hit it off, because I only heard and then read your white paper that you wrote on it, Doug. But that's exactly the point, Doug. When you start going back and uncovering facts, which really screws with people's stories, and you see how long you've been in the game, that's the problem. Because when you see the other people that are coming up with these great ideas, and you look and they go, "Well, in 2015 or 2018," it's like, we were in the game long before that, so you better go back a little bit when you look at it.

Would you mind giving a sort of a glimpse at how you and the 0311 in the room – that's the Marines' (equivalent of) 11 Bravo is 0311, so I just want to throw out a good "cran eater" in the room – how did you guys link up? How did you meet and how did you not kill each other at the first time you met?

Yeah, go ahead. No, I no, actually, I want I think it'd be better for the listeners to hear your side of events because I I think it'd be funny.

Well, I can make it funny. I'll be more complimentary of your podcast now than mine. I think I said it when we spoke over the weekend, which again had been probably a decade since we had talked, and I said, "Hey, you," I won't say where, don't worry, "but we both got assigned to a military base to teach a," I don't know, "do you still teach that course, that place that we were talking about in the South?"

No, no, it's— we still teach and train stuff, so it's evolved since then, and obviously, we're on our own, not with that previous organization. But yeah, so the previous contractor had both of our names on file and hired us both on as instructors.

And I had been doing it for about a year and a half after I had left the agency, almost exclusively with JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) out at Tampa, right? And kind of covering, I don't know what you want to say, their operations almost like an auditor. It was, I don't know, I didn't really enjoy it. But then I went and taught that course with Brian and there was, as I said, a slew of guys. There were like four or five of you guys and I was like, "Who are they? Like, where did you get them?" Because, no, for real, everyone I had met before had been the same like structured kind of guy. Like, it was you had to be that. So they wanted a Chief of Station, which is a boss in CIA terms, the guy who's in charge of that country's espionage. They wanted a Chief of Station who had 20 plus years, and that was about it. That was pretty much the creds that they wanted. And then, you know, I was this guy with only seven years officially working for the agency, so I was out of place. But then I saw Brian and like three or four other guys who the same company had hired, and I was like, "Well, they got to feel out of place too." So I don't even think Brian and I, I don't think we were teaching the same group of students at the time. I was with, you know, who we spoke about, our friend, and we just started talking and I was like, "Man, I want to work on your guys' team and do more stuff with you because, number one, let's be honest, you guys were my age and like, you had seen the same stuff I had seen and had been to the same places, and finally, I was hearing somebody teach a course not about Beijing and not about Moscow, because that was apparently all the agency had ever done because that's all their instructors talked about. But that's what they were told to talk about because for some reason, whoever was in charge 05/06 had decided, this is the important stuff that's going to impress our students. Tell them about how you are a spy, you know, in the Cold War. I'm like, how about you get somebody says, 'Hi, I just came back from Kandahar, and it's hot anyway,' and go with that? You know, because it's not the same thing. But yeah, that's how you and I met, Brian, and then we just started getting assigned to similar contracts without knowing it. You know, we were talking about what the score was in a football game on a Sunday, and then Monday, 'Oh, you're on this one, too. Nice.' Yeah, we didn't really, I don't know why, we just we were just in a different place. We were younger and didn't really care what we where we were going on Monday. But yeah, I think I came across courses with you for a matter of two years at least before I stopped and, you know, wrote a book.

But, yeah, that was the best, most flattering description of us linking up at that place that you could—

What? That's the one that's going to go on record.

Well, I'll say that the heavily redacted version. Exactly.

I have my black marker ready. It's funny, when you meet the agency guys, nobody has a highlighter unless it's black.

But they don't use it anyway because they're not— exactly. None of them can write like the Marines. No, that's— that was really nice. The idea is, what I liked specifically, is that you guys used what you were taught and included your creative spirit and personal experiences, and that's what came across and that's why the training worked. Because you can go to the Spy Museum in Washington D.C. and learn everything you want to know about China in the Cold War on a tour that you guide yourself and just plug in a key and listen, and history is fascinating. But that doesn't make you a better case agent. That doesn't help you develop human sources. It's, you know, merely language is not enough to befriend somebody and get them to work for you as a confidential informant. And, and, you know, it's not that different. War is very different, but cop work is like being deployed every day for your entire career, right? And so doing a dope caper or doing a gang caper or something like that, or RICO or OSF caper as a cop, was what really prepared me, that and the military, for doing the work that I did. And it was different at the time only because it wasn't that lockstep, "this is the way you do things," the check-in-the-box training. And so I love the fact that when they briefed me on that place that you were going, they said, "Hey, send a couple of your best guides. This is going to be transformational." And I think your work and the work that Brian did really were key to making that transformation.

Nice. Thanks. I appreciate you saying that. I could tell too, you know, as an instructor, Brian and I were talking about this on the weekend. I get it, it's a way to make money and it can be a career, but come on, man, if you really just don't care and you're just doing it as a job, go go do something else for real, because your job's important. Like, it's really, really important. When you're at this type of level talking about these types of operations that very few people are even cleared to do, not that they can or can't do, they're not allowed to do. They're not allowed to even know about. So when you're talking about something that obviously the government thinks is so important, they make it that secret, then if you have the privilege of being the instructor and teaching that course, man, if you're not taking it seriously, you expect these guys to. And you guys know, I mean, the students that I'm sure you guys have now, if they're anywhere close to the operators that I was teaching, that you got about three seconds in that last course, and if you're messing off in pretend land for three seconds, or you're faking the funk, which they're going to know immediately, you're done. And you know, that's why too, eventually, right at towards the end of my defense time, I was allowed to pick who I was going to teach courses with because the person who was assigning me as an instructor and I got along real well and they would ask me, "Hey, is there anybody in particular?" And I was like, "Let me see who you got." And, you know, there were people on there that I had worked with before and I was like, "Okay, who are we teaching? Okay, 0372s, yeah, they don't really want to talk about Belarus, so why? Like, what do you— that's not where they're going, so it just doesn't make sense." Anyway, I'm sure I could swear about that stuff the time. But anything specific about the or whatever you guys—

Well, I kind of want to get into a little bit about your work in Afghanistan, because you did, you know, I mean, you took down some pretty big IED (Improvised Explosive Device) networks and did a whole bunch of amazing stuff. And you know, you were kind of a younger dude doing it all. And what people don't know, too, is when you're, you know, you're at CIA, like you, you have a lot of autonomy, you have a ton like what you, you like, you kind of make your own path, make your own mission, in a sense. Like, you still have the report, still have these directives and things like that, but but meaning you have a lot of freedom to go, "This is what we're going to do, and this is how we can do this." And but I'm curious, man, because you, you know, you I think you speak or spoke Pashto and you kind of had to work with these folks and get to know them. So what, you know, can can you walk us through sort of that process and how it worked and what you had to do to get in with people and establish relationships and then get build in a network that allowed you to take down some really, really big stuff that was killing a lot of U.S. troops. I mean, that's the thing. It's like, these are bad dudes and they're getting a lot of this, but meaning you had to go, you had to go to these meetings, you had to talk to people, talk to village elders, talk to random people. Like, how did how did you do that? You know, especially growing up, you're a Midwestern guy, I'm from the Midwest, so is Greg. Like, you know, you go there and I know you get all the training and you get language training, you have some experience, but it's still such a different world in a sense. So how did you find that way to assimilate and and build those relationships? What was what worked for you?

Well, I would say that's something most relevant to what you guys are doing right now and something you can't forget, the agency is still part of the federal government, so it still has all the federal restrictions. It's not quite as restrictive as the military can be, especially when it comes to rules and playing by them and enforcing them. And, you know, you guys knew I was going to be honest when I came on here, so I won't disguise if I found a problem with some things, but one thing I certainly noticed more than anything, both in the field and as an instructor, was how well and how much the military students do follow the rules, but almost to a flaw. And I get it, the rules are there for a reason and they're to protect you and others and so on and so forth. But there comes a time where everybody's different, and this person's different, and they don't fall within those guidelines. They fall outside of everything you've ever seen or heard because no one has ever met anyone like that before, and no one has taken the time to write about that type of individual before, so you have no background, you have no manual, you have no book on how to talk to that type of guy.

Well, again, this is personal experience only because I don't want to dismiss anybody for doing the work. I found that if it wasn't something that had been done in the past, especially with military guys I was working with from different elements, just did not want to touch it. Not that they didn't care, because they cared a lot, but it was like, "Yeah, we don't, that's, that's your bag." It was always like, "That's the, that CIA can do that." I'm like, "No, but that's what you do for a living. You do that every night. This is just a different name in a different location." And it's like, "We don't want to, we don't want to even know about it," because there were no guidelines. No one had said, "Yes, this is how you do that."

And so for me, that was kind of the same thing. And again, just through what I went through, I don't know how the other case officers had it, but I did tour the entire country and been to most of the bases because I did speak the language, and there was no manual. And I was there after 10 years had gone by. And if it hadn't been written about in cable traffic prior, there is nothing to reference. So, "We're not going to do it." There was no, "Think for yourself, do what you think's right. You be the guy who writes how to do it then, but you have to be the first to do it." That's like anything in life, that can be business, that can be a relationship, you know, that can be fieldwork, espionage. Totally different level. But I feel that both case officers and guys in different elements with the military conducting espionage or whatsoever, shied away is putting it lightly, from being the first to do anything because, "My career, I won't get promoted," you know, as a case officer on the GS scale, "or I won't get a higher rank, or I'll get demoted, or I'll get disciplined." And yeah, you don't want to be a rule breaker. You don't just want to go full auto and run into a room, like, "Duh!" But there comes a time where you have to go, "Well, there's nothing there. There's nothing that says I can, but there's nothing that says I can't." So now is the time to determine, "Do I take the risk?" Because, "Doesn't say I can, doesn't say I can't, so I'm going to do it. And if I complete it and do it well, they'll go, 'We always knew you could do that,' and 'Now that is how it's done, write it up,' and that's how everyone else would do it." But if you mess up, it will not be written about. And again, this is just my experience in agency. That's going to go eyes only because you messed up, so very, very few people, a handful of people, are going to see it that it ever even happened, and you're going to get put on the bench. Well, as a case officer, knowing those are the repercussions of me sitting here with, "There is no 'can,' there is no 'can't,' should I do it?" If I don't do it, I can probably still get promoted and I won't have to sit on the bench. There's nothing else here. This is just, "Well, if you fail, you're you're going to jail, but if you complete it, it could be good. If you don't, it's here." So I'll just not do anything and keep towing the line. I don't know if it's still that way. I was doing this 10 years ago. I know I sound like a broken record, continuing to repeat that, but anyone who's maybe fast forwarded on me in the past hears me continuously say, because what I always hated was when somebody again from 1973 was is telling me, "This is how it's done." No, that's how it was done. So that's how it was done for me. I don't know if that's still how it is done, but that was a serious problem and a serious issue for me not having anything in my background and kind of not wanting to be the guy to create it. Yeah, the book that I wrote is all about me creating it, that's essentially it.

Doug, if I can jump in for a second here, you're a fascinating guy, and you have to understand, because you don't sometimes, how rare you actually are. Because the— and I'll tell you a story, so this will exemplify exactly what I mean. When people dial 911, they think the cop that's showing up was an extra in the movie Heat. They think that he's flipped the tires, fired full auto, all X-ring shot group stuff, has been on the gosh-darn bubble his entire career, and that's not true. And we've worked— there's not been an alphabet agency in our country or any of the ISIs or MODs (Ministry of Defense) from other countries that I've worked with that was that guy. They're so rare that when you meet them, you know you're in the presence of somebody that's an operator, that's different than everybody else. And so countless FBI agents, they you're on the glass with, and you look at them and you go, "What?" And you're going, "Wait a minute, I thought you were trained by the FBI," or other agencies or whatever. And so I developed this horror story mentality because I was constantly looking for that guy. Who is this guy? Who is the one that's behind the curtains pulling the levers? You know, there is no Oz, right? And what happens is when you do find him, when you find him in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world, you cherish him, and then you build a relationship with that person that lasts a lifetime because you know that they're the doer, they're not just the talker. They're not just the person that's getting promoted through the ranks. And everything that Brian told me about you, and then when I read, and then when I asked people about it and everything else, you were that guy. So, the cool thing is that you're in a rare group that was on a bench, that was continuously put into play the game, and not a lot of people do that, even though they have credentials. I know a lot of people that had combat time and they never left a FOB (Forward Operating Base), and thank God they were there because they volunteered for their service, and thank God they were a member of that. But you know what? Sometimes those credentials stretched a little thin because now the war's over and now some of those people are dead, so we can talk about anything we want. But we devoted ourselves to make sure that fieldcraft lives on. It's not about me or my name or Brian or his name or the Arcadia brand. The idea is, we have a certain set of skills that you can develop that help interpersonal relationships anywhere in the world. And if you can talk to somebody, if I can kneel down, sit down, squat down with you, and we can talk about something common for just a few minutes, it's amazing how many doors that opens. But you got to see that in the most extreme environments on the face of the planet. So, tell us about that. Tell us how you were able to apply not just the training from the Farm and all that other stuff, but your intrinsic knowledge about humans. How did you co-opt that?

Yeah. In that regard, I would say it definitely took time. I won't lie on that. The first place I was sent to was on a six-month tour and it probably took me three or four months to really get the gist of what was going on, which by the way, is still moving pretty fast. Yes. Let us not forget, Afghanistan is a totally different country than the United States, okay? Like, there's a lot of getting used to and just because you speak the language, it does not mean anything, okay? So, and I was taught the wrong dialect, so I had to relearn that, which was fun. But realizing all the differences, okay, sure, probably even after that first six-month rip, I still didn't necessarily and admittedly now know what was going on with the people and the folks that I had talked to at my first assignment. I thought were important because again, there was nothing to tell me they were or they weren't. Nobody else was meeting them, so maybe this guy is or isn't, and I expected my authorities to tell me continue to meet that guy, recruit that guy, or that guy isn't anything, dump him. But nobody was really saying anything and it was very wide open.

And so I think after that first tour, coming home, and now I'm with my girlfriend and my buddies and civilians, and I'm like, you know, in reality, it's not about the differences, it's about what's the same, because the same thing that I just did to get my buddy here to get me another beer, actually, not minus that beer, is what I could be doing with that guy, that Talib (Taliban member). "Hey, you know, I'm going to try that when I get back on my next assignment." So kind of seeing those differences and really realizing, "Yeah, but they're still humans." You know, like, not to get scientific, but, you know, their brains still operate the same way. They obviously think differently, but they still manufacture the same in the same direction. And so it was, "Okay, this is just now inserting the proper word and substituting it for what I would have said to an American friend into now this guy's my friend and what is it the thing that he likes?" Just enter that. "My buddy wants another beer. This guy wants what?" Put it right there. Figure out what that is that he wants. Everybody wants something, okay? Probably money. Great. We've all heard that. But I think it was just the similarities of realizing, "Okay, either he's happy or he's sad. He's excited or he's scared." That's it. It's one of the four that's going to be your basis of any emotion. So, which is it? You know, it's the same thing I do with my girlfriend, "Is she happy or is she mad right now? Like, what's going on?" You know, just yeah, but she'll never understand that. There's no amount of training in a war zone that'll prepare you for that type of relationship. So you're still learning those things. I didn't want to call BS on that for anybody that thinks, "Yeah, right." Yeah, I'd be harnessing the emperor title if I knew that.

But in conclusion, it was the similarities in that this guy— and you get taught a lot of what I'm saying, like, "You got to find out what they want. You got to know what makes them tick." I get all of that. But also, how I make you understand that I know that's what you want. And if it is just money, not make you feel uncomfortable about it. We probably, the three of us, have had friends in the past who maybe kind of were asking for something more than we wanted to give, probably we're talking about money, and you know, you can tell they're asking something that's making them uncomfortable to ask. So now, what can I do to show this foreigner, this Afghan, my confidence in asking him to do this thing where he's got to think he's my friend? And I got to portray that even if I think he's a piece of crap. And how did I do it with my buddy to get another beer? Well, I'm going to utilize that. I made that guy happy. Need to make this guy happy. Insert what he wants. So just I switched it up and instead of trying to figure out what the Afghans were doing in the 13th century, I looked at it and said, "This is 2011. This guy sees the same commercials I get. He gets Indian TV, which is British TV, which is the same television that I get. I know he knows what I know as far as pop culture and stuff. It doesn't matter that he's in the Taliban, he still has a TV." And you learn that and you're like, "Whoa, the Taliban has TVs? Yes, they do." Okay. And so then just seeing things like that and opening your eyes and going, "It's not that hard. It just took the patience and the time to learn this guy's still a human and he still wants something and needs something." And for better or worse, if it's money, brother, I will not hesitate and I will be confident when I present that to you because I got a printing press back there and I will get you what you need if you deserve it. But yeah, that's kind of how just with my time in Afghanistan went. Much different in Syria, but building those relationships, I'm sure you guys teach the finer points of how you do that, but it was looking at it the same way, "I'm going to treat this guy exactly like I treat Austin, my buddy, and he's going to feel like he's Austin, and we're about to watch the movie Heat together."

Yeah, that's so wonderful. You referenced that earlier, that's one of my favorites. And you know, a lot of people, they think we give some principles, like to start out at one of our training, like a training course, right? So we just did like a three-day one with law enforcement back in your old stomping grounds out back in Indiana, literally last week, right? And so, you know, when we go, one of our first principles, we go, "People are the same all over the world." And, you know, we give examples and go, "This is what you mean." You know, everywhere you go, people play games, you turn into a jerk when you're a teenager, you know, you're sad when someone dies, or you know, you wear white to a wedding. Like there's just these, and people kind of go, "Yeah, okay, I get it." It's like, "No." And it then the follow-up, "the so what to that," is actually what you said, is the, "So, you know, look for the similarities, not the differences." And everyone's like, "Okay, yeah, I get it." It's like, "No, you have to go out there and practice it." That that, you know, that chud who wakes up at the crack of noon every day that you deal with, like, it's the same thing, and it's even at a simpler level. So don't overcomplicate it. And because everyone's got a job, a mission, a role, what responsibilities were they're supposed to do. It's like, "We get so focused on our tactics, techniques, and procedures, what these policies are, what I'm here to do." It's like, "Take a minute, right? Figure out what's going on where this person's at, and and and see, you know, what what you can do and connect at a human level." Because the rest of that stuff you can learn how to do, and the rest of the stuff with time, it'll it'll happen. But we're not focusing on just the basic elements of what's happening. What is the dynamic here in this situation at this time right now? Which is also we miss huge, huge pre-event indicators. We miss everything because we're so mission-focused, we're trying to get done what we need to do. And then it's like, "Yeah, but the world and the situation, this person is screaming at you right now, and you're missing everything because you you didn't just follow some basic principles of, 'Hey, people are the same all over the world, let's look for the similarities, not the differences.'" And then, because if there are differences, then they're going to stand out even more, right? If you go, "Wait a minute, this isn't the same situation, this isn't just a guy trying to make a living. Oh, I might be in trouble right now. I might, I might have put myself in a bad situation." You can miss those things because you're not kind of sticking to those those basic concepts. You know, you're like, "You're like, all right, am I using the right dialect of Pashto with this guy? Do they literally understand what I'm saying?" It's like there's a whole lot of communication and information exchange going on without any words being spoken, right? And so I think because we're sort of primed, is that like, "Well, they got a different tribal structure, and they wear different clothes and a different religion and a different this." It's like, "Yeah, but the Abrahamic religions are kind of similar, so there's that. Like, you know, sure they don't wear the same clothes, but in some ways that may— but we used to here. Like, you know, 100 years ago, you go out and you go to a business, everyone's wearing a suit, and it's almost the same exact one with, okay, you might have a little bit different feather in your cap, but you're wearing the same thing. You got a different color pocket square, but everyone's wearing that same thing." So it it wasn't always that that different. And so when you when you come down to those basic elements of human behavior and just how the world operates, it makes it easier to understand if you if you if you understand the basic fundamental rules. Like we we bring up stuff about physics sometimes, because it's not to show like, "Oh, look at all this stuff going on," or, "Look at how many different scientific words I know." It's like, "Look, there's there's underlying rules to everything, and you can't if you're breaking those rules, you're never going to get done," or you don't recognize what those underlying rules are, you're you're never going to see the situation for what it is. And that's kind of what we try to get people to do. But without that, sort of those experiences where you've actually been able to do that in those places that allowed you access to people and now a network, and now you're able to do some amazing stuff, if you don't see that, I think a lot of times it's hard for people to really look at the world that way. Does that make sense, you know what I'm saying? And sorry, go ahead. I thought you were coming in there.

Doug, I I I think that you again elevated yourself to a very small, what I would call an elite group of folks because every time I hear somebody that says, "Hey, wait a minute, let's look for the similarities rather than the differences," I immediately fall in love with them, because that's exactly how this gets done. And, you know, we've all seen a car where you drive it from the right side rather than the left side, and we've all been in countries where they drive on the left side of the road rather than the right side of the road. When it comes down to the science, it's an internal combustion engine and we get it. And there's a gas tank and we know how to fill it, and there's a gear selector and we figured that out in the ignition, maybe you press the floor or maybe you press a button, but it's the same thing. And so when we look at, like, very briefly last week I told a story of Spin Buldak where I knelt down to talk to a girl. We were looking for propane bombs and she spoke fluent English, and I looked at her and I said, "How is it that you speak fluent English?" And she goes, "The Brits were here for 15 years, mate." And I go, "Oh my God, that's amazing," and she schooled me, right? But you you as a case officer on the ground had to understand, just like you did in your relationship and with your own family, that our vulnerabilities define us. And when you open up the trust gate and start speaking to people, even though you had ulterior motive because it was your job to befriend these people, there were times that you forgot that and were a friend. Which what I mean by that is like, if you can't truly want to trust me and be my buddy, I can't be an effective guy because it's just like being a gigolo. Yeah, I'm going to say these three things to get laid every time and buy you this and that, and after a while, it's going to get around that you're the bar whore. I got it. So that works when you're trying to build a confidential informant as well. So there were times that you had to let down your guard to let them know a little bit about you, so you could find out more about them and be able to exploit that. Could you elaborate on that a little bit because I'm sure you had that experience many times?

Oh, yeah. And look, I think I said it in the book, I'll say it now, there were assets that I had who were in the Taliban that, however you want to cut this up and dice it, that I did care about, meaning, and you can go, "How could you turn care about terrorists?" I didn't want to see the guy die, you know. And he flipped and he realized what he had been doing was wrong, and now he was working for the U.S. government. He signed the paperwork and he was turning over his old organization for me because he trusted me. So yeah, I mean, it's hard to say, "No, I could never possibly care about anyone like that." No, I did. And there were several guys who like, I wanted to protect them and I didn't want to just leave them, you know, and pop smoke and go, "Well, hey, thanks for what you did, now go back to your village, bye." You know, so that's tough. And to some of those guys, yeah, to get them to tell me the most important stuff, sometimes they needed to at least be told something about me, whether it was true or not. And if it wasn't, you got to be careful with that because unless you're a really good liar and can tell a story, it's going to come across phony, and they're going to see it and be like, "Oh, this guy's an actor." Absolutely. There we go again. So I probably wouldn't recommend that if you're going to tell somebody something significant about you that's private, well, they better have earned it or you're just kind of giving it away for free.

Yeah, so yeah, anytime that I got to that level though, it really made me re-evaluate the relationship, both internally between me and that other person and as well as what I was writing because whatever I wrote in cable traffic is really what happened. It's not what really happened, it's what really happened because that's what I said happened and I was the only one there, so that's what everyone's going to read, that that's how this went down. And you know, that's this whole bag of hammers, too. What do I write? What's going to get me in trouble? How do I stay out of this? How do I advance this? This guy is in the Taliban, but I know that if we stick with him, he'll get us to here, and we want to be here. But now we're here and this guy can do it, but just because of some words that we're putting after his name, I can't talk to him. You know.

So the similarity is, I recognized that with a lot of, you know, Taliban guys in particular, I went in with the understanding that they're horrible, they hate all Americans and they will kill you. And some were definitely like that, but other guys were like, "No, man, I hate it here," you know. And they're just like, "It sucks. Like, what do you want me to say? Like, it sucks. I'm broke," you know, "Like, I eat grapes every day, that's all I can afford. Like, this sucks." And they'd open up and tell you that. And they think, you know, we had a misunderstanding about, you know, Afghans in Southeastern Afghanistan into another country that's redacted. I'm guessing you could figure out how to travel east. Oh, wait, east is redacted. Go right on a map there.

Yeah, exactly. Now you found it.

But yeah, you know, we were told that those are the worst types of people. Have you ever asked them what they think about you? Have you ever asked them what they're preconditioned informed about you? Well, they don't have a portfolio like I got on them, they have television. So what's television saying to them? Well, it's saying one of the same thing it says to teenagers here, everybody in the CIA's Jason Bourne or James Bond. So when I didn't come in in a suit and tie, they're like, "You're not a spy," because I look like this sitting down, you know, or I dress in local attire and they'd be like, "That makes no sense. You're supposed to come out of a helicopter and then you're supposed to like shoot everyone and then have a martini and we talk." No, you know. So that was something you had to get through too.

And for what it is worth, I don't know if I wrote about it or not, I know I've definitely spoken about it, really taking into consideration what this person already thinks about you is something that I think you should do in real life to the extent you can as well. And I have, especially in relationships. Say, for example, meeting my girlfriend's friends for the first time, what must they think about me? Yeah. You know, and what has happened recently between her and I that she may or may not have talked to them about? Do they know more about me than I want them to? Yeah. You know, what do they in fact already know about me or think about me? You know, maybe they haven't heard a whole lot, but they Googled me and they think this, you know, and just having that idea in my head instead of, "Well, I'm a nice guy, they'll see I'm a nice guy. I'm nice to her. She's probably told him I'm the greatest ever." "Remember how I like stubbed my toe at her house yesterday and that was a 12-hour argument?" That's what they think about me. That's what they're thinking about you right now and they're not happy. So now, and then I'll shut up. That is a perfect situation leading right into what I was doing with Syria. There was a certain individual who later ran for president but did not win. You can probably guess who. Who had a big leadership position in the United States government in 2012 who was making promises to the Turkish people about no-fly zones and things like this that were directly relevant to what I was doing on a daily basis. And when you say those things, well then people are going to expect those things. So it started me walking into the room knowing ahead of time, "I got to diffuse that, and there's going to be 30 questions about where's the air support? Well, your leadership said we were getting it yesterday and then it never happened." Oh, boy. But yeah, I think if I say anything worthwhile there, it's to consider what somebody already thinks about you, whether they're right or wrong. Just because you think you're a nice guy or you're cool, they may think the exact opposite, so be prepared for that if you can and handle that first. Get that out of the way before you try selling them on the nice guy thing.

That's, yeah, that's a it's a really, really good point. And I mean, your, in your experience, too, you're talking about something that happens at some strategic level that some elected official or politician or someone says, you know, and then that affects you on the ground. You know, I've had those experiences as well where it's like, "Well, we thought," you know, "they the commander said this." And it's like, "Yeah, about that. Here I am." And I have to be the one that it doesn't matter, I'm, you know, wearing that uniform in a sense, or I'm the the the the person exemplifying this entire organization or mission. And you're just one person and you're going, "Dang, how do I walk this back and still get done what I need to get done?" Yeah, that that, you know, that's, you know, you're actually a lot of the stuff that you talk about is is so relevant to to the law enforcement folks that we work with and what their role is because it's the same thing. It's like, "You could be the nicest guy, the greatest person, have an amazing record in career, but then you show up and but you're wearing the same uniform and someone saw something on the news, and that might as well have been you." It's like, "Well, that dude, that wasn't me, dude." And, "But I understand this is your only interaction and, you know, kind of it it goes to, you know, also people making promises that they shouldn't be making and saying things in general that they shouldn't be making." It's like, "If you can't deliver on something, don't don't say that you can. Say something else." Right? But, you know, if you start making promises to people or set set unreasonable expectations for them or yourselves or whatever, you you don't meet those, then that's all they see, that's all they know. Like, it doesn't matter how hard you're working at getting that thing accomplished or what's happening in the background, like that's all they know at their level. And so you have to sort of speak to that. I mean, and that that can get really, really tough. And, well, especially with your job, too, what what you had to do is I mean, it's obviously extremely dangerous. You know, things could go south and if they go south, it means, you know, you could be killed or some catastrophic end to whatever mission or assignment that's happening, and that affects the entire area. So it's like, but again, that sort of goes back to even the law enforcement stuff. Here you are, next thing you know, you're on CNN that night with your video of something that occurred, and no one got to see everything leading up to it, right? You just got to see what happened or the outcomes of the situation, and now that's just incredible, you know, the second, third order facts can can are detrimental to that whole area.

Yeah, I agree. And I think that a lot of it too has to do with folks confusing a promise and a guarantee. And you really only get one chance to screw that up because at the beginning, a promise is a guarantee, always. Like if you promised me something and I trust you, I'm going to believe in you, and now it's a guarantee. You told me that you'd have that to me by Tuesday. Well, when Wednesday comes and I still don't have it, you never again will hold a guarantee with your promise. Your promise is just a promise and it doesn't mean much to me. But if I can keep it so that you know when I promise you something, it's guaranteed to happen. So for better or worse, I think making a promise has become too easy for a lot of folks, so they make them willy-nilly at random, not understanding that to the people they're telling it to, it's a guarantee. And so when it doesn't happen, your promises kind of don't mean anything anymore, so you're kind of out of the game and you've done it to yourself.

Yeah, so one of one of the things you brought up, and I know we kind of talked extensively, I guess, on it, you know, you we all can complain about stuff in a sense, and like, you you and I have had similar experiences where it's like, you know, like you said, "Okay, that's great, but that's not how things are done anymore," or, "What value does this have? I need to know what I—" I I had stuff with, especially with the military, too, and you get this really frustration of like, "Yeah, but that's not working," or, "That doesn't work here. Can we try something else? Can we do this?" And you get a lot of pushback from that, and sort of because there's just like these organizational sort of norms that are hard to get past sometimes. Because one of the, because when I I I reread some some stuff from from a while back, I know you had an article in The New York Times and everything, if you're listening up, I'll put the links in the in the details. But like, you know, one of the things that after your book came out, some they I guess the agency said something about it, you know, and even though you had to go submit it and they have to go through everything and, you know, that's where there's a lot of black lines in that book of redacted stuff, but it actually reminded me and someone we know, probably know mutually— well, I'm not going to say their name on here, but even said something to me about you one time, and I've kind of heard this said about me in a similar way, but they said, "You know, with age and greater maturity Mr. Laux at one point, it or at one point might have a different perspective on his time at the agency." And I know exactly, like I've had such a similar thing said to me before, it's like, "Well, you know, you haven't really been around much and you got to understand there's other things at play." It's like, "No, I I I get that this isn't about me. I understand there's other things at play, but what why why are we doing this?" Like, "I know how to go do all this stuff, but like, what what is sort of this 'why' behind all of these things?" And I used to get really frustrated when someone couldn't explain that to me or they couldn't articulate it and they're like, "Oh, you'll understand eventually." It's like, "Well, if you can't tell me, then do you not know?" And that's fine if you don't, you can just say, "I don't know, this is how we've always done it." Okay, that's that's fine. There's like, that's that's an answer, right? But you're showing what problem is when you say something like that, you're showing like, "Dang, I don't know, maybe there is a better way, but we don't want to do that sometimes, right, as as humans?" Right? We don't want to put in the extra effort or it, you know, and people justify in different ways. Like, "Well, like you said, like, 'Well, I know if I stick to the plan, if I stick to this, I'll get promoted. I know I'll continue with my career, and you know, I've got a family and I've got this.'" And it's like, "Look, I I get that. No one's asking you to say, 'F the system, burn it down, man!'" You know what I mean? Like, no one's trying to like get rid of all of that great work you did. It just it's evolved, it's changed. Like, so how do we take these lessons learned going forward in a sense, but we don't like get to that level. And I I've had that before. So what what is your experience because you you actually, you said it early in the show, and people don't realize that, too. It's like, you know, the CIA is still a government agency, there's still a bureaucracy, there's still an HR department, there's still, I mean, you there there's like, it it still has, you know, every other function, you know, normal administrative, bureaucratic stuff that I don't care if you're at a 50-person police agency, you have some of those same things there. And so I I'm I'm curious kind of like your your take on that because now it has been, you know, some time since you wrote the book and probably time to reflect, and you've been doing other stuff which, oh, yeah. I we do your your Netflix stuff with aliens. I got to I got to ask you about that in a minute here. But but, um, but you know, what do you what looking back now, like, what are your thoughts on that when some when you hear someone say something that about you or someone else or whatever? Like, what do you what do you think now looking back?

Well, what you're talking about, the comment that the agency made to The New York Times, believe it or not, was actually beneficial to me, and not from what they said, just that they said anything at all.

That's a good point.

Because their policy is nothing. They don't have a conference room, by the way. You know, like there is no Daily Brief from the CIA, like that does not happen. They just don't acknowledge you, and they those redactions were made by their hands, and everyone knows that, but they don't admit to it. And they give you the paragraph to put at the beginning that says, "You know, we have nothing to do with this book, these are this author's opinion," so on. So I already had that. But the comment that they made about, "You know, with age will bring wisdom," essentially is what they're saying, and he'll understand with time is what they were saying. I think was probably meant as a dig at the time, but what they maybe didn't realize was that it was extremely helpful because after they said that to the NBCs of the world and to the Fox News of the world, you just confirmed that this guy used to be a spy because now you're directly using his name and you're saying, "Mr. Laux will understand what he used to do with time because he did it." So like, I didn't even get that until The New York Times journalist told me. He's like, "Oh, man, this is awesome." He was like, "They just this is the first time ever." You know, there's been CIA officers who have written books, mostly analysts, that's fine. But he was like, "I, you know, kind of was struggling with this with my editor and the publisher on how we confirm what you're saying is even true or not." And my response was always, "Well, look at the black lines." And he's like, "Yeah, but the public doesn't know that you didn't just do that yourself. Like, they have no clue. You could have just did that to look cool and, you know, pursue this." So when they took the opportunity to personally take a strike at me for what I had done, whether I agree with what they said or not, it did help to validate me, so I'll say that.

As far as what I thought about it, yeah, I don't know that it was necessarily time and grade because I did leave. I think it was just time in general of getting away from something and yeah, doing something else and then returning to it and looking at it and seeing things differently. You know, seeing things from not the guy with a thousand ideas on how to fix a war. Now I'm a guy who's like, "Is Bubbins out of cat food yet? I should probably yeah, probably get another. How's this water? Probably get on Walmart.com later." You know, that's like the series of my thoughts in the day. So now if you bring up Syria or you bring up Afghanistan, I'm like, "Oh, boy, okay, let's let's think about that and look at it." And I do think differently about some things, but it doesn't take away how I felt at the time, and I still stand by everything I said in the book. And for those that didn't like it and thought I was too young and too much of a brat, those are the same individuals I found who complain the most about me talking about my relationships. They hate it. And to me, that was the most important part of what I was writing about to begin with, because again, we're all humans and we all do that, and we all find significant others because we want to. We all want to, no matter who it is, no matter who your spouse or significant other is, I don't care. But we all want someone. And so dealing with probably what may be life's most important thing to do or care about, a significant other, is going to play a huge role in any author's mind. So why not write about it? And that was really happening to me, and so I thought it was worth like putting that out there, "Hey, you think it's cool, you're James Bond, and you bang every hot chick that's ever walked by?" No. Most of us do have wives and kids or girlfriends or boyfriends, and that's pretty difficult. That's a whole another topic we could spend 10 hours on right now, I'm sure all three of us. Okay, so I'll leave that alone.

But the premise of what they were saying in that remark, I think it was more just the guy that was giving the guidance to say something at all to The New York Times, because that's an important newspaper, had to say something and it couldn't be good. Could not be congratulatory, like, "We wish him the best." You know, they had to do something, and so that came out. But looking back at that statement alone now here, 10 years later, I think about that differently. You know, it's not a dig. There were, right, he will think about these things differently, but it doesn't change how I felt at the time. And that is what's most important because I was the one with my hand on the lever at that time, so it doesn't matter what I think now, and it doesn't matter what somebody from 1973 thought when I had my hand on the lever in 2011. It mattered what I thought right then and there. And that's what I'm telling you about in the book, what I thought right there at that second. "Do I push that button?" So that is really critical to understand, that is why I thought that way, and that's why I did what I did. Now looking back, maybe I was wrong in a lot of the things that I did, or maybe it didn't go as well as I thought when I wrote about it. "Hey, we got the IED guy." Now I kind of look at it like, "Yes, so what? That was just a dude, made for a good story," and it was a good story, so, you know. Yeah, I don't know, I guess as they say, when the facts change, I hope my opinions change.

So that's science, by the way. And to go back into science on you two guys again, because I'll call you chuckleheads now. You guys forget what a small elite band of people you belong to. Most people are born and raised and die within a couple of blocks of their ancestral home. Most people never get out of the country. Most people never have the type of opportunities that you do or join the military or were in combat. So when you look back on it, and this is just science, when you look back on things, you never at that time said, "One day I'm going to be the director of the CIA. I'm going to stay in the CIA for 38 years and retire from this position, and I'm going to have a desk in the D-ring of the Pentagon." Brian never thought, "I'm going to be Command Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, and I'm going to retire with full benefits out of it." You didn't, because you were booting doors and ramming cars, and you were having a great time doing it, and it was so unique that nobody you knew was into that, and the first time you got a taste of it, it was like sucking the fennel, you could not stay off of that pipe after that. And we were all there, and that's why we all went back. And it is different now. But I loved your appraisal of it, Doug, because you are different and you weren't the same person. And so somebody else, without being in your shoes, and Brian, here's our argument again, if they didn't walk in your shoes and they didn't have your experiences, then you should just hear me— in German, they should hold their mouth and stay in their own lane because you did something that, without that something that you did, Brian, the same way, the world would be a vastly different place. Okay? And so that little thing that you think back on now was a huge thing to the big wheel that was turning at that time. You changed life. You met people and changed the trajectory of their lives and the direction. And that's why your book is such a powerful piece, and that's why people try to bat you down. Nobody watches a gosh-darn movie and says, "You see that janitor back there that's sweeping up the vomit from that kid in the cafeteria as we're watching Mean Girls? I want to be that guy. I want to be the best guy to mop that floor." Nobody thinks about that. And so you guys sometimes got to slow your roll and look back and, and I know you are, and trust me, I'm not not belittling you in any way. I'm saying you sometimes got to be proud of those things that you did do because sometimes history is harsh, and sometimes history looks back and, "Oh, man, it could have gone left instead of right." But you didn't know that at the time and you were operating under UINAD (Unless Otherwise Directed), you know, "Unless otherwise directed, I'm doing these things right now." And that's magic. And that's why I love that that fate brought you and Brian together again, and that fate also brought you back to the show because the right people are listening to this. But I just wanted to make sure that you understand how profound those statements are that you're making when you replay this episode. I hope you hear that. But Brian, I got to hear about the alien thing, please.

I I I want speaking of, because you you you had, you've done a bunch of really cool stuff. You did Finding Escobar's Millions, I think it was called. You know, you did a show for Discovery. You created and then sold to them, basically. And then you've got you're you you've been on a few other things, but, um, you know, the funny thing was, I I reached out to you like on LinkedIn. I was like, "Oh, I got to look him up." I saw on social media and then here and then because I came across some YouTube video, someone sent me something, you go on a YouTube rabbit hole, then one of your video pops up. I was like, "Oh, Doug." And then I'm sitting there watching this Netflix thing with with my wife and all of a sudden, "Hey, we're going to go talk to Doug Laux." And I was like, "What? Wait a minute. Like, I know that. Oh, my God, that's Doug." And of course, my wife's like, "Who? Wait, who do you know in this, the aliens or the—" And I'm like, "No, like, I'm like, oh, man, this is this is hilarious." And she's like, "I know him?" I'm like, "I've got—" And then she's like, "How do you know him?" And I was like, "It's a long story. Never mind, let's just keep watching the show." But, but so you're, you're on this new, it's, I think it's pretty one of the hit shows on Netflix right now, is, I forget the name of it, but it's I there's so many different alien ones out there. My favorite is my favorite is the ancient alien guy with the crazy hair and stuff. But what if in the big— I love that dude. But, um, but you're you, they you, you're on the show and they have you kind of talking to these people as sort of like, you know, vetting them in a sense, almost like, "What do you think of them and what they're saying?" And, and, you know, we were talking a little bit about this on the weekend because my thing is like, "Look, I don't think a lot of these people are making up the stories that they're telling. It's just they don't they didn't see or it's not what people think it is." But anyway, tell tell us about what you're doing on the show and what your thoughts are on on the the show in general and and aliens in general. I guess.

Well, I think it's exactly what Greg was saying just a few moments ago about most people haven't left their ancestral grounds, perhaps as a good start to talking about the alien show. Because I was brought on by production who they know just a little bit more than like your average civilian of what espionage is. And, you know, they've done some background research and they've Googled your name and and things like that, so they get it to a degree. But, you know, when I first came on, it was like, "Hey, this is what we have, so say it this way or do it this way." And I was like, "Look, if you want me to be on the show, I'm not going to say I believe in aliens, but I also won't say I don't believe in aliens. If you want me to tell you if that guy's a liar, I will 100% do that, or I'll tell you I kind of believe the guy, or maybe I think his story is full of crap, but he believes it." And that is what I found the most to be. And you guys see that in real life too, where, you know, because you've been told something so many times, you start to believe in it yourself. And this resonated very well with me from, and again, I mean no offense, but there's a lot of military guys who didn't do anything, who go around to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and the American Legion high-siding like, you know, they saved the queen and they were in shootout after shootout after shootout. It's like, "What were you doing every five minutes?" You know, you guys have heard these stories to find out the guy never left Arizona and you did a two-year bid, you know. So like, "What are you even talking about?" Yeah. So but they'll start to believe in it themselves for going to places like the Legion or so on. And I love the American Legion and the VFW. But "thank you for your service" so many times and "you're a hero" so many times with people who don't even know what they did, you know, they don't know what their designation stands for and they haven't seen their DD214 (Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty). And then you'll find that they just eventually start to run with the myth, you know, that's been created for them on their behalf out of just generosity and kindness of Americans, you know, by and large very much value the military. But it goes over the top, and then you find the person that is being congratulated or so on starts to run with it to the point where they're the one telling the story that they heard somebody else telling about them. And you're like, "Wait, wait, wait, like this guy is full of crap. Like, none of that actually happened." And so to bring it to the alien stuff that I was doing, I found that a lot of people had been telling the same story for so long that they really do believe it. And I, you know, their stories are polished, and I could tell. And so I never questioned whether the person was lying out of like trying to get something or deceive me or doing it out of a negative idea that they have in mind to gain something from it. This is just the story they had always told. And like Greg was saying, "They've never really left their hometown," and it's the same town their grandparents were in, and their grandpa believed in this story and that kind of got passed down over the generations. So now this guy's almost at default has to believe in the story, right? That's what his dad told him. His dad believed in. And that doesn't have to be about aliens, that can stretch it all the way to the Taliban, you know, or Al-Qaeda, whatever you want.

Yeah, same story. Same origin story. Exactly, Doug, that's brilliant.

That's a great, that's a great time. It's lineage. And so, you know, "Because they did it that way, I have to do it that way because Dad's still watching. But then by the time he passes away, I've already told my son this is the way to do it, and now he's watching." So and by the way, I want to outperform Dad, so you see. And again, it goes the same, whether it was my old job or this job, seeing the original story that some of these guys were telling had not been fabricated but had been massaged into a glorious story. And each generation after made it more glorious to the point where it reached Netflix ears. That's about as glorious as you can get if you're trying to get on TV. And they got it there. And so I come in and, you know, started to realize that pretty quick, that, "Hey, you guys can look into this scientifically because that's the only way I see that this could be proven or disproven, that you have to use science here, not stories. I'm sorry, this is a big deal." So as far as that guy, I think he thinks he's telling the truth, but I think he's also just relating a story that's been told to him. And if he says that he personally saw it, what he said back in 1985 when he first saw it has really advanced now into 2024. And I get it, same location, same story, but a lot more details now. Why weren't there more details when you were on top of it? And they've kind of faded over time. Because if you ask me stories, general stories about the agency, somebody asked me the other day, "Like what'd you eat every day?" I'm like, "Did we even have a cafeteria?"

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. No, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I met I met Hayden in the cafeteria and then it all came back to me. But it was like, "Who cares? Like, I've forgotten about that at this time." So, you know, I don't know if that makes sense, but it does.

One way to judge, like, I I can bag on coppers, and the I will hear a cop testify and immediately call BS because my first question is, "How is it your memory is so precise right now? And this cave was two and a half years old." Okay? And when you wrote it, your memory is now filling in details that weren't even in your written report that you wrote that night. And you're on there and the expository is going and it's building and stuff. And that's just the nature of humans. Nobody wants to have a boring story. Nobody wants a Rolodex of your life to come up with a blank card and then all of a sudden somebody goes, "I guess I was nominal." You know, nobody wants a mediocre— so that's, you know, that's us, that's just human nature. And if you if you take it for what it's given, look, I know they saw something, but but what they saw wasn't a Sasquatch, it was a gosh-darn bear, you know? And and if you take it from that, then, you know, we have to rationalize everything in our lives some way. And that's why we love the scientific approach. Look, of all the things that have come and gone in my short career of, you know, six decades on on the planet, things have come and gone, but you know what, that really good stuff has stood the test of time, and everybody can point back at that stuff. So I just want to be when when they're doing the count, where for me it's going to be in hell, I think they still do a gate thing there, though, you know, it's like Studio 54 where they got a gold bar or red thing. But when they do the accounting, I just want to make sure that I did more good than bad for somebody at some point in my life. And I think Doug, I think you can really say that. I think you've done a lot of great for a lot of people, and if you expanded the way people look at things, and I think that's a noble effort. I think that's a great thing to look back on.

Yeah, thank you. I can really tell, Greg, you're a club guy, so I'm telling you, man. I'm telling you, rave guy, club guy.

My my latest work on a written work was No Parking on the Dance Floor. That'll tell you a little bit where I get my funk from, so yeah.

Well, those, yeah, that the alien shows always remind me of the different different stories. I mean, even especially from from, you know, we had this insurgent sniper dealing with back in like this back like 2004 Iraq. And, you know, and the stories just grow. Like, "Oh, he's like, you know, he's from Chechnya and he's, you know, he's jacked and he's yeah." And it's like Olympic hopeful. Well, we had and all just so they made it, they made a movie based on those stories. But, um, they there's a there there was one we were working, Greg, Greg was there for this one. We were in a place and these guys were getting hit from some rebel folks from the neighboring country where things were going on. And they were sitting there going like, "Whoa, you you have to understand, they they come up and they can actually move the boulders on the mountain and they can take their shot and they can secrete—" Exactly. And they're going like, "How how do you think they would do that?" And I'm like, "Okay, okay, um, okay, well, maybe that's that's a possibility, I guess. Tell you what, maybe he's a lot closer than that. I don't know, maybe maybe he's like right over here, and not up in those mountains a half a mile away."

And in that place, maybe he's sitting in this room, Brian.

Yeah, we don't want to say that one. What was the, Bradley, was it called American Sniper? Yeah, that movie where he's a sniper. So, one thing I used to get so annoyed by it, but now I actually secretly love it, is to watch television with somebody about something like we used to do. And I was watching American Sniper with a lady once and there's this scene where Bradley Cooper, which I guess they're supposed to be basing this on what Chris Kyle, the actual SEAL sniper. I can promise you this did not happen. If he wrote about it in his book, I don't remember reading it. But Bradley Cooper ends up shooting the bad guy sniper in the culminating like final scene from like a mile and a half away, okay? And my girlfriend's comment at the time was, "He did it just like he was trained, right through the scope." And I, yeah, thank you for laughing. And I, but you know, just then when she said that, I was like, "Wait, you really think that that's like they train you to shoot the guy who's shooting at you and you shoot him through his scope?"

Sniper schools go through a lot of scopes, Doug. They go through a lot of scope surgery.

But like to her, that's the only way it's done is a sniper hunts other snipers only and shoots them from a mile and a half away because that's easy and he's obviously good because he's American and he got it just where he wanted it to, right through the glass and everything. I bet he got glass in his eye. And I'm like, "Oh, okay." So, you know, it's like one guy did that and after he did it, you know, 50 years ago, was like, "Oh, damn, that was a total lucky shot." And everyone went from that point on like, "That's how those things are."

Where someone's like, when dude, I was remember I was telling you about, remember Dirk, our buddy, Greg, he took me out with some of his old-time buddies one time years ago at this pub, and we're, you know, they're all go there, they all throw darts and they, you know, have their own darts. Like, we're sitting there, "Slamming all, we're going to throw some darts." They like, "Hey, you want to throw?" I was like, "Yeah, let me go warm up." Like, "You do you ever like play darts?" I was like, "I was like, no, it's been a while." And I walk up there and three darts, just my first three darts all in the bullseye. And I'm sitting there going like, "Oh, how did I do that?" And I turn around, they go, "I thought you said you don't play much." And I was like, "Well, I you had a meltdown at the World Championships five years ago, and I haven't thrown a dart since." And they're like, it progressively got way worse after that. It was just pure luck. And I was like, "Oh, there we go." So, but they were all terrified. Like, "We got to play against this guy." And I was like, I had to go tell my buddy, Dirk, I'm like, "Dirk, this is going to get exponentially worse from what you just saw right now. Like, I I do not. I've like played darts once in my life."

I I'm sitting with Chuck Mawhinney and Carlos Hathcock at a place called Domino Farms, and we were talking about this exact topic. And Hathcock talks about a time in Vietnam where he shot a 50 cal and broke the fork on a bicycle that the local guy that they were targeting, uh, so he fell down on the ground and had a scramble for it. And he goes, "You know, I was aiming for his head the entire time." And we laughed for 30 minutes because it was like, "Well, you're lucky you got it in the grid square." And he's like, "Yeah, I know." And how many times do we think back on something that we did that's now legendary, that people still talk about, and you're thinking, "If they only knew, if they only knew how much luck and you know, how much light was in somebody's eyes during that recollection." That's great.

Yeah. "When the myth becomes the legend, print the legend."

Is yeah, yeah.

Well, hey, you got to tell your folks at Netflix. You got to tell them that I'm an expert on aliens and so I would love to be on that show one time because I will do that crazy hair thing. Exactly. Alien conception. Oh, my gosh, we'll do that one. "I was impregnated by an alien." I'm ready. That's my I'll testify to that. That's so funny. Oh, my God. Well, man, dude, I I appreciate you you coming on and and talking about the stuff and I know you don't do a lot of the podcasts and stuff and and I wasn't even totally sure on what we ended up talking about on here. You know, wanted to get you on to get your perspective because I I respect it and appreciate it a lot. And, um, you know, man, like I I it was a you, I think you broke contact when the book printed is what it was, right? You like, I remember you like sent me a text or something like that, and then like it was nothing and then, you know, you kind of broke contact with everyone, which I get. You know, you had to kind of, I'm assuming, there's there's a lot of blowback from from this stuff that that's, you know, some of it expected, some of it unexpected, some things you like, I'm sure you're like, "Yeah, I figured this would happen," or some it's like, "You know, holy crap, I didn't realize, you know, this would happen." So sharing that stuff is is really it's really cool. It takes a lot and it's a lot more than than people think sometimes. And, you know, I I just just appreciate you coming on, man, and sharing some of the stuff because I'm a big fan of of Doug and we always had always had an insane time together hanging out. And so, um, it was good to reconnect, man. And so I'd love to of the, you know, we got to we got to hang out sometime if we're ever in the same area. But, um, you know, man, I just I really do appreciate you coming on the show and I'll I'll push the the book out to to everyone I know. The perfect book for Christmas. Think about it.

There we go. There we go.

Yeah, it it it is.

Well, if I will say this then, as far as like what you're doing and what your podcast is all about, I think, you know, somebody might watch this and say, "These three were just rambling the whole time," you know, "They were just talking about the good old days," or so on. But I think other people may look at it and see the format and realize, "I haven't talked to this guy Brian in 10 years, and this is the first time I'm ever meeting Greg, and look how easy this was and how comfortable we all were and we're all kind of goofing around and we're like having fun and we're talking and we're just being open and honest with each other." And to use that is because Brian, you and I established that trust very early on. You know, between you and I it was the idea of, "Me, you, same, same. I don't need to lie to this guy. He doesn't need to lie to me. I know he's been there, done that. So have I. Great, now let's both just be humans together." And so, you know, talking to you over the weekend, you know, that was for an hour. Great. But then here it's just like, we just taught a course two days ago, it seems like. Yeah, obviously, you know, heard stories about you and everything, and what you were up to. And now here we are meeting for the first time. I'm like, "Yeah, I've known this guy for 15 years."

Yeah, of course, Doug. I hope I'm not as big as a jerk as they were leading you on to believe, so, because it's a pleasure meeting you. I knew it was one of those.

There we go. That's so funny. That's so funny.

It's right, so true. Yeah, yeah, man. No, it's it's funny. It was like that time that I forget where we were at, and all of a sudden like, I'm like in the parking lot in the morning doing some stupid workout and then like you're coming walking out with some other dude. I'm like, "Is that like, what is this dude like following me?" Or, "Wait a minute!" And then you're probably like, "Is this dude following me?" Or like, "What's going on here?"

Yeah, I wasn't going to tell that story, but yeah.

Oh, Marren's a fanboy. You can say that. I've never met anybody that Marren likes. So, actually meeting you, Doug, and knowing that you've carried on a relationship for 10 years, honest to God, because he he does not, it's just like with Shelley, it's like, "What do you think of this guy?" And then Shelley actually looked at your bio and checked out the book and everything, and Shelley was like, "Oh, it seems like it's going to be a great guest." And it's been a blast. But like, Brian Brian's always like, "Nah, lukewarm." And then with this, he's like, "Doug Laux, Doug Laux, we're going to—" So I'm very happy to finally meet you and yeah, again, you know, your story is an easy one to tell. It's a great one.

I know that's me because like, I'm like, you know, it I don't I don't I don't get along with a lot of people. I tolerate everyone pretty much, but like I I I don't get along or create friends with a lot of people or want to have a drink with with most people. Usually I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to go walk around the city by myself for the next three hours," or something if we have free time.

Correct. Yeah, for because you brought up the story, it didn't help that I was getting in the car at 7:00 a.m. with a colleague and I looked to my left and both of our first thoughts were, "Who the is that guy?" You're in the goddamn parking lot of like a shitty hotel doing calisthenics. And I'm like, "This guy looks like somebody I know who stretches like that." And then I got out of the car and I was like, "There's no way!" And you're like, "Oh, hey, man, what's going on?"

Remarkably almost almost exactly how I hook up at furry conventions, you know. I know. But somebody did stretches like that.

No, that was that was Marren. We we would be checking into some crappy hotel and I see one guy doing one-arm pull-ups with his fingertips and somebody looks and goes, "That looks like Marren." "It is Marren." There's never been a time that somebody said it looks like Marren and it wasn't Marren. So it wasn't so true. So true. Yeah, it was embarrassing.

Yeah. Well, it's easy when you're 5'1" and you're weighing 90 pounds. That's what I'm saying. It's a little harder when I'm, I'm just saying I'm a solid 5'3" and...

This is so true. The Christmas card is going around, Brian.

Yeah, well, yeah, man. I I I appreciate it. I, you know, and I thought it'd be cool too for some of our listeners that that, you know, we have folks that that listen to like every episode, so they kind of get like a little inside, a little behind the scenes of us because we we we sort of stay on more of like a specific topic and yeah, we bring in our stories and stuff, but it's not really like, you know, old home week with someone that we knew from from from back in the day. So it's it's fun to catch up, dude. But yeah, man, I really really appreciate. Any anything else you got? Are they working on coming up? Any other you can be on any more TV shows where I can point to people and say, "Hey, I know that guy," "Hey, I'm doing that next season with him?"

I haven't gotten there yet, but eventually the story is going to be, "Well, they actually asked me, too." But yeah, I did decline. "He's not doing so well, so I gave that to him." Yeah, I don't know, it's the holidays right now, so, you know, the entertainment industry is asleep, so I have no idea what's going on in that regard. So what I'm going to do next really is I've just kind of been sitting around for the past month, so when you reached out and wanted to do this, I was like, "Yes, that does sound good. Getting up before noon." Thank you for saying that earlier. "Crack of noon." I mean, I could have jumped on the fact that we're both fans of Mean Girls, Greg, but I let slide too, even though I could have did an hour on that.

Yeah, I bring it up way too many times in class because it's one of my favorite movies and I can tell the whole the whole the whole entire cafeteria scene can explains human behavior.

I could teach a whole course just on that cafeteria scene. "Just do that. See that? See that girl? Just just watch."

And dress like that, too. All day.

I still do. Thank you. I can tell. It's nice. But no, thank you guys for, thanks for thinking of me and I'm glad I did it. But I knew that this would go well. So thanks for for thanks for doing exactly what I thought you would do.

Well, Doug, I think it was an absolute blast from my side, and I want to make sure that our paths cross again because it was a lot of fun talking to you. Like I said before we started recording, we probably chewed a bunch of the same territory and running the same people, so it was just a pleasure finally putting a face to the name and hearing your story. So it's been a blast for me, and I I'm glad you and Brian allowed me in. Thanks.

Well, I appreciate it, man. Thanks, thanks everyone for for tuning in. Of course, there's there's always more on the Patreon site and reach out if you have any questions, folks. And don't forget that training changes behavior.