Chris Martin's Blog
March 16, 2015
Dev Blog 12: Getting to Know Bax, EoE Excerpt Pt. 4
InPraxis was effectively a front company dreamed up and established by the Agency. It was registered in the Cayman Islands and headquartered out of Dubai. It was more or less set up as a turnkey operation for Berg to transition to post-Delta retirement. I guess someone with some juice took notice of our efforts at the recce troop -- enough so that they went to a hell of a lot of trouble to secure those efforts at an elevated level. And if you want to bypass the Title 10/50 bullshit altogether, this is how it’s done.
And yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking: “Just another sellout who turned his back on his duties and his country for the promise of a big payday.” Yeah, well fuck you. Excuse me while I go off on a tangent, but that shit seriously burns me up.
So listen... As far as the media and general public are concerned, the image of a CIA secret squirrel out there running, gunning, and spying in a foreign land is one to cheer for. He’s the American James Bond... someone you aspire to become... a credit to our great nation... worthy of being celebrated in the next Hollywood summer blockbuster.
Meanwhile, the image of a private military contractor running, gunning, and spying in some foreign land is one of the mercenary... the profiteer... the heavy-handed minion running amok in the name of some faceless evil corporation to further their grip on the industrial-military complex... murder for hire... worthy of being exposed in the next fear-mongering documentary.
Here’s the thing: out here, in the real world, in both cases:
It’s.
The.
Same.
God.
Damn.
Person.
And I don’t mean the same type of person. I mean the exact same individual. Jason Bourne exists, but his name is Raymond Davis. Get it? No? Well, allow me to break this down for you all nice and simple. These days, the distinction is almost entirely one of red tape. Simple bureaucratic bullshit.
When those airliners toppled the World Trade Center, the CIA was instantaneously thrust into the killing business. The problem was, the Agency wasn’t cut out for the mission. Yeah, there were plenty of myths floating around back then about the CIA’s Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group (SAD/SOG) -- and its Ground Branch in particular. You’d hear whispers that SOG was the ultimate superteam of high-speed, low-drag badasses. The rumors suggested they were the absolute cream of the crop collection of superspies -- damn near superhuman. Barrel-chested, lead-slinging, cyber-ninjas plucked from the best of the best at Delta and Six.
Nuh-uh.
The reality was that the CIA had long since largely abandoned its role in covert actions -- too often embarrassed by half-baked, ham-fisted operations. Its paramilitary capabilities had severely atrophied due to inattention and the remaining paramilitary operations officers under its employ were disparagingly referred to at Langley as the “forty forty-year-olds.”
In truth, they had some quality operatives at SAD/SOG. But the CIA recruited to best reflect its mission set, which meant looking for a wide range of talent so it could plug-and-play ad hoc teams... teams that could be custom assembled depending on what skills were needed for any given op.
And for that reason, SAD/SOG tended to recruit Army Special Forces types due to the money-waving form of UW (unconventional warfare) they practiced. They also had a disproportionate number of Marines, since that was a natural place to gravitate to from Force Recon, whereas SF and Rangers looking to take the next step in their career had Delta to shoot for, while regular SEALs had Six.
Like I said, SAD had some quality guys. But what it lacked was a cadre of personnel with Tier 1-level direct-action expertise -- exactly the kind of bad dudes the rumor mill had erroneously suggested Ground Branch was almost entirely composed of.
Of course, the game changed in ‘01. The U.S. government opened up its coffers and gave the CIA unlimited funding, along with a mandate to lay waste to everyone even remotely responsible for the attacks.
While flush with cash, there were still rules on how it could make use of this newly pumped-up budget. For example, they were strictly limited in how many full-time “blue-badged” staff officers could be added to the mix. Initially, the easiest way to get around this problem was by redirecting other funds to fill glaring needs by hiring scads of contractors. Keep in mind, this is all across the Agency -- not just with paramilitary contractors.
But it wasn’t just payroll issues. There were practical concerns as well and ones that weren’t going to go away any time soon. The CIA traditionally only hires applicants with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and generally aims even higher than that. That rule was instantly outdated in this radically changed world. To get this particular job done, it didn’t need Dartmouth grads. Instead, the Agency was in desperate need of PhD-equivalents who studied surgical slaying at GWoT University. And by and large those candidates -- seasoned JSOC NCOs like yours truly -- did not come with bachelor’s degrees on their resumes.
Even if the CIA modified its hiring rules or looked the other way to navigate this obstacle, there were other issues as well. They were going to need a steady stream of Tier 1 talent for the foreseeable future. It became apparent almost immediately that this was destined to be a perpetual war.
At first, they sought out operators with the right background and negotiated contracts. But as more and more personnel were needed, it only made sense to uncomplicate the process.
Enter Blackwater and other military contracting firms. They essentially operated as glorified employment agencies for the CIA, DoD, and so on, recruiting talent and then subcontracting them out for use by the U.S. government. Most of these contractors were put to work in site and staff security roles, but the ones with the right skill sets were attached directly to the Agency in a more proactive capacity.
It also made sense on the other side. The operators used Blackwater et al like their own de facto union. There was power in numbers and by banding together they made sure they were able to secure the best deals and the appropriate compensation.
So that’s how it works. It pisses me off to see some of our nation’s greatest patriots treated as if they are piece-of-shit scum -- the modern-age bogeyman -- simply due to the red tape inherent in the system.
And the profiteer shit? Consider the training, the skills, and the experience required to do this particular job. And make no mistake, it’s a job America needs done. Now consider the massive risks that are incurred to perform it.
This is how life works for a CIA paramilitary contractor: You are given the most dangerous missions that exist. Why? Because you’re the only one (a) capable of actually pulling them off, who (b) is in a position to do so, even quasi-legally. But it also means that if you get shot risking your life in some godforsaken hole where we’re not technically supposed to be in order to prevent the next 9/11, there are two possibilities of what comes next. You either die out there and the CIA puts an anonymous star on the wall at Langley as a way of showing its appreciation. The ones with the star -- they’re the lucky ones. Because if you aren’t killed, well, you’re a deniable asset. That means you rot for the rest of your miserable life in some torturous pit while the government disavows you and your actions. You don’t even get the courtesy of a POW/MIA flag flown in your honor.
That’s no idle threat. This is a genuine possibility you must accept as evidenced by the OGA contractors out there who already have been written off in some third-world dungeon.
You think we do this to get rich? I mean the pay is probably more in line with what’s deserved, but we’re still talking less than half of what the Chicago Blackhawks’ worst defenseman earns in a season. So let’s have a little perspective.
And there’s no fame or glory at the end either. You have a limited shelf life as a contractor. And even if that career doesn’t end in death or imprisonment, there are no options to earn a living wage by signing autographs like skinny ex-offensive linemen and overweight ex-running backs do.
So why do it? While it’s nice to be appropriately rewarded for your talents and the risks you take, the fact is some of the bravest, most patriotic heroes that America will never know are its unseen force of contractors who are risking it all on behalf of its citizens.
Lack of patriotism? Fucking bullshit. For myself and the guys I know, we all had our own particular reasons to go this route. But to a man, this was the way we could serve our nation and have the maximum impact.
Feels good to get that off my (barrel) chest.
***
Like I explained, InPraxis was registered in the Cayman Islands and technically based in Dubai, but it was founded, first and foremost, to execute a specialized mission deep inside Pakistan.
It wasn’t the only time this sort of work had been attempted. Everyone thinks of the bin Laden raid, but NEPTUNE and SPEAR were not the first two words thrown together to mask a classified mission across the border. There were plenty of others -- SCREEN and HUNTER, VIGILANT and HARVEST, and VIBRANT and FURY just to name a few.
We happened to be a subcompartment of one called QUIET STORM, which happened to be a subcompartment of yet some other random two-word nickname. This was late 2008, and the CIA was already deep in preparation for an expected alteration in counterterror calculus with the arrival of the new Commander in Chief.
And while I’m still on my elevated equine, let me quickly note that I’ve never really given a shit who was president during my time doing government work. They’ve got a job. I’ve got a job. And if my job changes as a result of the decisions made at the top, so be it. This guy. That guy. Who fucking cares?
To be frank, I’m not so much apolitical as I am anti-political. A number of my fellow operators put every political decision under the microscope. And as you might expect, most -- but not all -- tended to lean rather decidedly to the right. Me? I see the strict two-party system as counterproductive and effectively broken by its very definition. Citizens view themselves as having one of two choices. Ultimately, they pick a side almost like they would an NFL or MLB team to root for. At that point most are fully suckered in and turn off their brains. They allow their subsequent beliefs to be shaped by the views of their party of choice rather than attempt to shape the party -- or another party -- to better conform to their genuine beliefs and best interests.
Leadership on both sides define victory in terms of defeating the other “team” rather than by making actual progress for the people. And they are cheered along the entire time by their respective fandoms, blissfully blinded by their allegiance. Hell, even sports fans aren’t as collectively mindless; at least they recognize deficiencies in their teams and demand change.
Anyway, back to 2008. As incoming POTUS, Barack Obama had made plenty of noise about closing down GITMO and the network of black sites. That was going to mean a whole lot less spiriting bad guys away in the night so they could be interrogated and a whole lot more wholesale slaughter of any unlucky S.O.B.s who found themselves on the ‘Disposition Matrix.’ Kill or capture would simply became kill.
Bring on the drones.
As expected, drone strike statistics would soon go through the roof. In Pakistan, there had been something like ten total between ‘04 and ’07. There were almost forty in ‘08, more than fifty in ’09, and well over twice that number in 2010. But in order to unleash Hellfire down on someone’s head, you’ve got to know which head and where that head is at.
That wasn’t our job.
The CIA had agents -- Pakistani locals who had been recruited by cash, coercion, or whatever it took -- to help with that. The problem was that almost immediately these drone strike informants became an endangered species. They had a nasty habit of winding up in shallow graves before they could relay any actionable intel.
It was our job to keep that from happening.
During the time, InPraxis Solutions largely operated out of Peshawar. Our reach extended deep into the badlands of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Officially, Boris, Mikey, myself, and a small handful of others had been contracted to consult for some IT startup in Peshawar -- which I’m sure was another CIA front -- but the reality was much different. Much grimmer.
QUIET STORM was set in motion to wipe out the death squads the Taliban, Haqqani Network, etc. sent after anyone they suspected of spying for the CIA -- and do so in a manner that left no evidence of our existence. As opposed to the GREYSTONE rendition days, we weren’t wheels down and wheels up in a country for hours at a time. Here we were embedded deep for weeks or months, working undercover.
Shit got a bit more complicated when we ultimately decided it might make more sense to fight fire with fire and eliminate those who were serving as the death squads’ informants. Let’s just say the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence wasn’t too excited when a handful of ISI Directorate S operatives ended up getting schwhacked in early 2010.
***
I’m not sure if Pakistan was considered too hot as a result, but it was around this time that InPraxis Solutions took on another no-bid contract with the Agency and shifted its focus to Africa. The spreading scourge of terrorism there -- as evidenced by the rise of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Northern Africa, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia -- meant there was still plenty to keep us busy, regardless of what went down in South Asia.
Despite operating on an entirely new continent, life as an OGA goon squad contractor continued pretty much unabated. For the first couple of years, we bounced around, basing from a constellation of ‘lily-pads’ in the region, staging in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and elsewhere.
We ran a number of low-vis ops in small cross-matrix “omega teams.” We hooked up with CIA case officers and JSOC tech geeks from the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) to carry out a variety of objectives. They worried about things like making contact with a potential source or installing some equipment to intercept communications. Meanwhile, we were pretty much there for two primary reasons -- to make sure specific people stayed alive or make sure specific people ended up the opposite of alive.
Over time, Somalia became the focus of our efforts. The CIA and Activity operatives thought the idea of going deep behind enemy lines with just five or six other guys was pretty sketchy, especially as we only had an abbreviated Special Forces CIF company and a couple of MH-53 Pave Lows waiting at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti as backup in case things went to shit. We got a kick out of that. That was cute. It was a marked upgrade from the conditions we had gotten used to in Pakistan, that’s for sure.
The shadow war versus Al-Shabaab intensified in late ‘11. Ethiopia and Kenya invaded Somalia in a joint campaign they called Operation Linda Nchi -- Swahili for “Protect the Country.” It was an attempt to help legitimize and entrench the transitional Somali government and put an end to the chaotic conditions that had allowed Al-Shabaab to thrive. Uncle Sam provided a helping hand by way of pinpoint drone strikes and some “on-site consultation” of the sort InPraxis was especially adept. We embedded with Ethiopian forces and served as, let’s say, a significant force multiplier.
The multi-pronged effort was pretty successful. By the time Operation Linda Nchi concluded in the spring of 2012, Al-Shabaab was reeling. It had been pummeled and left in a weakened state, largely driven back to its traditional hiding places in the jungles in the south of the nation.
That didn’t completely eliminate the threat, however. Quite the contrary, in fact. Al-Shabaab was now desperate -- a wounded and cornered animal. There was little doubt it would attempt to strike back in spectacular fashion, if only to show the world it hadn’t been rendered impotent.
JSOC licked its chops (as much as an organization can) at the prospect of cranking back up that industrial counterterrorism machine to prevent that from happening. The methodology had cut a swath through insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan with devastating effectiveness. The idea of setting loose a somewhat scaled down, yet more refined, version in Somalia had JSOC’s flag officers practically salivating during the summer of ‘13.
Toward those ends, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti was soon inhabited by a full squadron of operators from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. You know -- DEVGRU. SEAL Team Six. ST6. Sixers. The boys from the beach. With ST6’s Blue Squadron in place, JSOC was ready to get to work.
Not so fast.
The CIA had the lead in Somalia, so while JSOC was allowed to assemble its forces and implement its plan, it had to agree to a small number of nonnegotiable conditions. JSOC could run the show so long as it acknowledged the CIA’s authority. The SEALs had to be “sheep dipped” -- that is, technically placed under the temporary control of the Agency -- for the extended run of the campaign. And finally, the CIA insisted that it integrate a handful of its own personnel to take part in every aspect of the operation, from mission planning to execution on the ground. InPraxis was that integration.
Soon, we were all up in Djibouti too. Why? I don’t know exactly. Maybe it was so the CIA bigwigs could feel as if they had a bit more ownership here than they did in NEPTUNE SPEAR -- another CIA op that had made SEAL Team Six famous. It felt like the CIA wanted to be able to claim bragging rights with some semblance of a straight face. Whatever. Like I said before, there’s always an ulterior motive in play whenever you deal with the Agency. Eventually you learn it’s better to focus on not getting burnt than attempt to suss it out.
The SEALs knew the drill; they had worked alongside the CIA almost as much as the Unit had over the years. Of course, that made them naturally suspicious of our presence. We were in effect proxy CIA Ground Branch officers, and the way they saw it, we were either there to babysit them, spy on them, set them up to take the fall should anything go wrong, or any creative combination thereof.
As a result, we took to wearing our OD green InPraxis Solutions tees around the base, just as a friendly reminder that we were actually OGA contractors. Unlike in the outside world, that distinction actually earns you cred in these sorts of elite circles. That logo didn’t just serve notice that we were all former Tier 1 guys ourselves, but former Tier 1 guys accomplished enough to merit recruitment by a very selective firm. InPraxis had quickly built a rep among insiders for only taking on experienced recce snipers or senior assaulters and then using them to pull off the most impossible assignments.
While an upgrade versus being perceived as some CIA lackey, our Unit backgrounds didn’t automatically make us blood brothers with the Beach Boys. And it’s fair to say that bad blood flowed in both directions. Remember when I said that Delta and the SAS had an intense but healthy rivalry? Well, we were never in direct competition for missions with the Brits -- at least not very often. Throw that into the equation -- as was perpetually the case with ST6 -- and things tend to get more intense and unhealthy in a big hurry. There’s some oil and water there too. The SEALs do things differently than what we’re used to -- their training, tactics, tech... the whole deal. That’s not to say they weren’t motivated or talented, because clearly they were. It was just different.
And I have to say, it didn’t help that they were strutting around like they ruled the world. Organizationally, ST6 had developed a bit of a Napoleon complex after playing second fiddle to the Unit pretty much since it was conceived. Now they were acting as if those roles had been reversed due to a couple of high-profile ops that fell in their laps. Never mind the fact that they did so directly as a result of playing second fiddle to Delta and just being in the right place at the right time.
I wasn’t immune to feeling the effects of the enmity. But I could usually look past it, and I had no problem seeing the SEALs as individual operators and assessing each of them for their respective merits. I actually already knew a handful of these guys from years back. Joint Unit/DEVGRU training sessions had become a pretty common occurrence. And they had some badasses over there, no doubt about it. There were some cool guys too, especially among the Black Teamers -- their recce snipers. I think maybe there was a little more maturity there along with some shared experience.
Of course, Mikey got along with them famously -- as he does with practically any mix of personalities.
Foggy -- well... let’s just say, Boris Berg isn’t the biggest SEAL cheerleader out there. I honestly didn’t know if we were going to be able to work side-by-side for an extended run at first. He holds some serious grievances against them, and it’s a feud that goes way back. Foggy dates back to days when the two units’ relationship was at its most strained, and his personal opinion had only continued to sink to lower and lower depths over the years.
GWoT brought the two units generally closer together, especially as there was enough work to go around. However, General McChrystal may have overreached at first with his ambitions of increased inclusiveness. Before reconsidering, he wanted the units to become mirror images of one another and pushed us to operate side-by-side in the field. His hand was forced on that count when the Unit’s casualty rate placed a significant percentage of our operators on the shelf or in the ground. In response, some ST6 SEALs were embedded with the Unit to act as temporary replacements.
However well intentioned, those differences I mentioned before can have catastrophic consequences. There were some blue-on-blue incidents -- SEALs unintentionally shooting Unit operators -- as a result of the operational contrasts.
A caustic man by nature, Foggy reserved rare bile for the occasions that “SEAL. Team. Six.” lurched off his tongue. It was as if the combination of words alone forced him to gag.
“Their selection procedure is seriously lacking.” “Their training methods, tactics, and tools are archaic.” “Fueled by ego, they are out-of-control and more dangerous than ever.”
Let’s just say, he hadn’t sent a self-addressed stamped envelope to join the SEAL Team Six fan club. And he didn’t make much of an effort to hide that fact with our new running buddies. But, like I said before, his skills were such that people wanted to be on his team. And he managed to bite his tongue -- just enough -- to allow us all to go out there and do our jobs.
***
Camp Lemonnier is located just south of the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport. It’s 500 acres of spartan accommodations -- endless rows of pre-fab shipping container-based housing and work units, which stand as the highlight of the base’s featureless terrain of sand, dirt, and concrete. It’s home to a few thousand troops, civilians, and contractors.
The CIA/JSOC hunter-killer contingent was confined to a secluded corner of the base. And while to us on the inside, there were two distinct factions split by neatly drawn lines, to anyone else at Lemonnier who may have caught a glimpse of the secretive goings-on in our corner of the base, we likely all looked pretty much the same... and very different from them.
One of the SEALs joked that, to the Marines and the sailors, we probably looked like a rampaging horde of Vikings. Maybe, but I figured it more along the lines of Pantera roadies with worse attitudes or Hell’s Angels with better weapons. On the whole, we were big, burly men -- most of us in our thirties or forties -- with even bigger, burlier beards. The SEALs and InPraxis contractors certainly didn’t meet the conventional notion of what a soldier is supposed to look like. I imagine to the untrained eye, we looked more like a hodgepodge, rag-tag assortment rather than a collection of the most highly trained and proven warfighters the world has ever produced. We generally wore mismatched camouflage -- there was a selection of AOR1, AOR2, Multicam, along with some older or less common patterns -- with little apparent rhyme or reason for which were worn as tops or bottoms. Our weapons looked worn down and beat up -- marked with ugly homemade tan and brown paint jobs, each one different from the next.
Someone with a bit more knowledge would likely pick up on the fact that this was some seriously go-fast gear -- although pretty homogenous past the surface-deep differences of custom paint. The SEAL assaulters were mostly armed with HK416 carbines along with a few MP7 submachine guns. Their snipers carried 7.62x51mm-based rifles -- mostly KAC SR-25 variants with Nightforce optics. The majority of the SEALs also carried HK45C sidearms, although a few still held onto their trusty old Sig P226 9mms.
That same person who figured all of that out might even be able to pick out the InPraxis Solutions contractors... maybe even guess our Delta sniper heritage. Like the SEAL snipers, we drove weapons chambered in 7.62x51mm, although we preferred Schmidt & Bender scopes. Being the old school master that he was, Foggy’s pistol of choice was “God’s gun” -- a Colt M119A1 .45 ACP. Mikey Garriga represented the modern-day Delta operator with his Glock 22 .40 S&W. Meanwhile, I holstered an HK45 on the front of my body armor -- the full-sized beast, not the compact version the Blue Squadron SEALs carried.
Now an experienced gunsmith would see past the similarities that the semi-trained observer was hung up on and recognize just how special this armament truly was. While there were a lot of HK416s and SR-25s floating around in our combined group, each and every one had been so heavily modified that it barely even qualified as the same weapon any longer. The weapons were all expertly customized and lovingly assembled by the finest craftsmen to suit the particular needs and desires of each individual operator. There was a life-and-death story behind the selection and positioning of each gun’s attachments over in that exclusive corner of Camp Lemonnier.
Let’s consider my primary weapon as an example. It was a fully-customized, lightweight KAC SR-25 variant with an accurized 14.5-inch barrel and fixed suppressor -- everything match grade and blueprinted. On top sat a prototype Schmidt & Bender 5-20x50 PM II Ultra Short telescopic sight with a clip-on thermal sight. Cantered off to the side was an Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot sight set on a KAC 45-degree offset mount for when things got up close and personal. And course there was an AN/PEQ-15A dual beam aiming laser and all sorts of other goodies -- from a one-off collapsible stock to suit my style and a trigger requiring a precise pull weight. Every choice had been mulled over, considered, and shaped by thousands of hours on the range and more than a thousand real-world operations. And it was all in the pursuit of the most efficient and precise application of violence possible.
But nothing was sacred, so the package was ever-evolving. The campaign against Al-Shabaab had been as bloody and brutal as anticipated. I ditched my standard 20-round KAC magazines and bummed some 25-round Magpul PMAGs off of “Qwerty” -- Josh S. -- one of the SEAL recce snipers I got to know pretty well while we were living at Camp Lemonnier. Fuck, five rounds can mean all the difference when things get kinetic, especially when you are pulling the trigger as frequently as we did during those months. As much as I enjoyed shooting my HK45 pistol on the range, I greatly preferred that it stayed in its holster when hot lead was streaking in both directions.
Even though we had applied the hurt to Al-Shabaab, they still managed to wreak havoc. The Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi was targeted as retribution for Kenya’s role in Operation Linda Nchi the previous year. The toll in dead and wounded was nearly unfathomable.
Exactly one week after the siege ended the shooters from InPraxis and the team leaders from one of the Blue Squadron assault troops assembled to lay out the particulars of some serious payback.
As usual, the assault troop’s lieutenant commander was present and ostensibly managing the session. Also present were a handful of ancillary support personnel -- some who would assist us from afar and others who would be with us on the ground. Meanwhile, some bigger fish were paying more attention than usual; the squadron commander and the task force commander were in the room observing while even some DoD and Agency higher-ups were wired in via teleconference.
I’m sure it was quite the show for those unacquainted with our mission brainstorming sessions. It’s pretty much the same at the Unit and ST6 -- it’s a bottom-up process. Everything’s on the table and anything goes. Mission planning and post-mission hotwash briefings were the time and place to call out each other’s bullshit -- ruthlessly -- to ensure nothing had been overlooked and no contingency was unplanned for.
I’m not alone in having a “healthy disrespect for authority.” It’s actually a very common trait among operators in both Tier 1 units. In no way do these men sit back and allow their Os tell them what’s what. If anything, it’s the other way round. The officers were present to make sure things stayed on track, but the enlisted men ran the briefings.
I think it was during these sessions that I was most reminded that the operators from the Unit and ST6 are a lot more alike than they are different. At the core, we’re cut from the same cloth. We would almost certainly be brothers if not for the myriad of forces beyond our control that habitually pit us against one another.
Even the obvious priority of our upcoming mission didn’t make the proceedings any more formal. In fact, it probably just added a layer of adrenaline and a measure of extra determination to cut through the shit and make sure we had a solid plan in place.
Unsurprisingly, Foggy relished the sessions. It was his officially sanctioned opportunity to vent -- the ideal stage to share his unique brand of antagonism. However, on this day he was unusually reserved. I think that made the SEAL assault element team leaders appreciate the importance of what we were about to face together.
However, just as we were satisfied that everything was in order and about to scatter to whatever individual rituals we go through to mentally prepare for an operation of this magnitude, Boris spoke up in his most exaggerated mocking tone:
“Before we break, I gotta ask just one thing. None of you SEALs are going on CNN tonight to preview this op for Anderson Cooper, are you? Flex that media training I can only assume is mandatory during BUD/S? Because if you are, I gotta set my DVR, ask for an autograph, and suggest we change tactics before any more of us die because you clowns can’t keep your fucking mouths shut.”
Over a small chorus of “fuck yous,” one of the SEALs spoke up in response. “Man, you’re just fucking bitter because you can’t accept that it’s our time now. You Hardy Boys had a nice run of things back in the ‘80s or whatever. But don’t feel bad, Berg, just because your D-boys haven’t done shit lately.”
“Haven’t done shit? Haven’t done shit? That’s what you really think, motherfucker? Yeah, that’s rich, boy.”
Then another SEAL stood up and casually strolled over toward Berg. The tension was such that I could have sworn I heard that clichéd record scratch sound in the background. And it wasn’t just that a SEAL was about to challenge Foggy but which SEAL in particular. I had been aware of Steven L. by reputation for years. The senior chief’s operational reputation was much the same as Berg’s, in fact. Word was he was a tactical wizard. The other SEALs called him “Capex” because he was a walking capability exercise -- an regular reminder of what’s (in)humanly possible. I actually hadn’t learned much more since we started working together in Somalia, however, because these were to be the first words I’d hear emerge from his mouth. ‘Laconic’ doesn’t begin to do him justice. Still, the other SEAL assaulters clearly deferred to him. I guess there’s something to be said for leading by example.
He had angular features wide open to view due to a shaved head and lack of beard, and a wiry, triathlete’s frame. So while he may have been his operational equal, he provided a visual contrast to Berg at least. He smirked and patted the volatile InPraxis boss on the shoulder.
“Come on now, big man. Don’t be jealous. It doesn’t suit you.”
I was all too ready to be pulled into barroom-style brawl where the numbers were most decidedly not on our side. That would have been real productive, not to mention classy, just hours ahead of one of our most important ops in years and with all the higher-ups watching on, let me me tell you. But fortunately -- and somewhat surprisingly -- Bo didn’t fully take the bait. He did his best to ignore the brazenness of Steven L. -- that Godzilla vs. Megalon showdown that would have to wait -- and instead spoke to the entire room:
“Let me clue all you ignorant dumbasses in on a little something: the fact that you think the Unit isn’t doing anything is not only evidence that it is, it’s proof those boys are doing it the right way. You shitheads could stand to learn from the example.”
A second louder chorus of “fuck yous” rang out, along with a handful of laughs as the tension dropped back down to more manageable levels. The group quickly dispersed, with everyone off to focus on getting their minds right for the evening ahead.
Well, other than Foggy, who just had.
And yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking: “Just another sellout who turned his back on his duties and his country for the promise of a big payday.” Yeah, well fuck you. Excuse me while I go off on a tangent, but that shit seriously burns me up.
So listen... As far as the media and general public are concerned, the image of a CIA secret squirrel out there running, gunning, and spying in a foreign land is one to cheer for. He’s the American James Bond... someone you aspire to become... a credit to our great nation... worthy of being celebrated in the next Hollywood summer blockbuster.
Meanwhile, the image of a private military contractor running, gunning, and spying in some foreign land is one of the mercenary... the profiteer... the heavy-handed minion running amok in the name of some faceless evil corporation to further their grip on the industrial-military complex... murder for hire... worthy of being exposed in the next fear-mongering documentary.
Here’s the thing: out here, in the real world, in both cases:
It’s.
The.
Same.
God.
Damn.
Person.
And I don’t mean the same type of person. I mean the exact same individual. Jason Bourne exists, but his name is Raymond Davis. Get it? No? Well, allow me to break this down for you all nice and simple. These days, the distinction is almost entirely one of red tape. Simple bureaucratic bullshit.
When those airliners toppled the World Trade Center, the CIA was instantaneously thrust into the killing business. The problem was, the Agency wasn’t cut out for the mission. Yeah, there were plenty of myths floating around back then about the CIA’s Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group (SAD/SOG) -- and its Ground Branch in particular. You’d hear whispers that SOG was the ultimate superteam of high-speed, low-drag badasses. The rumors suggested they were the absolute cream of the crop collection of superspies -- damn near superhuman. Barrel-chested, lead-slinging, cyber-ninjas plucked from the best of the best at Delta and Six.
Nuh-uh.
The reality was that the CIA had long since largely abandoned its role in covert actions -- too often embarrassed by half-baked, ham-fisted operations. Its paramilitary capabilities had severely atrophied due to inattention and the remaining paramilitary operations officers under its employ were disparagingly referred to at Langley as the “forty forty-year-olds.”
In truth, they had some quality operatives at SAD/SOG. But the CIA recruited to best reflect its mission set, which meant looking for a wide range of talent so it could plug-and-play ad hoc teams... teams that could be custom assembled depending on what skills were needed for any given op.
And for that reason, SAD/SOG tended to recruit Army Special Forces types due to the money-waving form of UW (unconventional warfare) they practiced. They also had a disproportionate number of Marines, since that was a natural place to gravitate to from Force Recon, whereas SF and Rangers looking to take the next step in their career had Delta to shoot for, while regular SEALs had Six.
Like I said, SAD had some quality guys. But what it lacked was a cadre of personnel with Tier 1-level direct-action expertise -- exactly the kind of bad dudes the rumor mill had erroneously suggested Ground Branch was almost entirely composed of.
Of course, the game changed in ‘01. The U.S. government opened up its coffers and gave the CIA unlimited funding, along with a mandate to lay waste to everyone even remotely responsible for the attacks.
While flush with cash, there were still rules on how it could make use of this newly pumped-up budget. For example, they were strictly limited in how many full-time “blue-badged” staff officers could be added to the mix. Initially, the easiest way to get around this problem was by redirecting other funds to fill glaring needs by hiring scads of contractors. Keep in mind, this is all across the Agency -- not just with paramilitary contractors.
But it wasn’t just payroll issues. There were practical concerns as well and ones that weren’t going to go away any time soon. The CIA traditionally only hires applicants with a minimum of a bachelor’s degree and generally aims even higher than that. That rule was instantly outdated in this radically changed world. To get this particular job done, it didn’t need Dartmouth grads. Instead, the Agency was in desperate need of PhD-equivalents who studied surgical slaying at GWoT University. And by and large those candidates -- seasoned JSOC NCOs like yours truly -- did not come with bachelor’s degrees on their resumes.
Even if the CIA modified its hiring rules or looked the other way to navigate this obstacle, there were other issues as well. They were going to need a steady stream of Tier 1 talent for the foreseeable future. It became apparent almost immediately that this was destined to be a perpetual war.
At first, they sought out operators with the right background and negotiated contracts. But as more and more personnel were needed, it only made sense to uncomplicate the process.
Enter Blackwater and other military contracting firms. They essentially operated as glorified employment agencies for the CIA, DoD, and so on, recruiting talent and then subcontracting them out for use by the U.S. government. Most of these contractors were put to work in site and staff security roles, but the ones with the right skill sets were attached directly to the Agency in a more proactive capacity.
It also made sense on the other side. The operators used Blackwater et al like their own de facto union. There was power in numbers and by banding together they made sure they were able to secure the best deals and the appropriate compensation.
So that’s how it works. It pisses me off to see some of our nation’s greatest patriots treated as if they are piece-of-shit scum -- the modern-age bogeyman -- simply due to the red tape inherent in the system.
And the profiteer shit? Consider the training, the skills, and the experience required to do this particular job. And make no mistake, it’s a job America needs done. Now consider the massive risks that are incurred to perform it.
This is how life works for a CIA paramilitary contractor: You are given the most dangerous missions that exist. Why? Because you’re the only one (a) capable of actually pulling them off, who (b) is in a position to do so, even quasi-legally. But it also means that if you get shot risking your life in some godforsaken hole where we’re not technically supposed to be in order to prevent the next 9/11, there are two possibilities of what comes next. You either die out there and the CIA puts an anonymous star on the wall at Langley as a way of showing its appreciation. The ones with the star -- they’re the lucky ones. Because if you aren’t killed, well, you’re a deniable asset. That means you rot for the rest of your miserable life in some torturous pit while the government disavows you and your actions. You don’t even get the courtesy of a POW/MIA flag flown in your honor.
That’s no idle threat. This is a genuine possibility you must accept as evidenced by the OGA contractors out there who already have been written off in some third-world dungeon.
You think we do this to get rich? I mean the pay is probably more in line with what’s deserved, but we’re still talking less than half of what the Chicago Blackhawks’ worst defenseman earns in a season. So let’s have a little perspective.
And there’s no fame or glory at the end either. You have a limited shelf life as a contractor. And even if that career doesn’t end in death or imprisonment, there are no options to earn a living wage by signing autographs like skinny ex-offensive linemen and overweight ex-running backs do.
So why do it? While it’s nice to be appropriately rewarded for your talents and the risks you take, the fact is some of the bravest, most patriotic heroes that America will never know are its unseen force of contractors who are risking it all on behalf of its citizens.
Lack of patriotism? Fucking bullshit. For myself and the guys I know, we all had our own particular reasons to go this route. But to a man, this was the way we could serve our nation and have the maximum impact.
Feels good to get that off my (barrel) chest.
***
Like I explained, InPraxis was registered in the Cayman Islands and technically based in Dubai, but it was founded, first and foremost, to execute a specialized mission deep inside Pakistan.
It wasn’t the only time this sort of work had been attempted. Everyone thinks of the bin Laden raid, but NEPTUNE and SPEAR were not the first two words thrown together to mask a classified mission across the border. There were plenty of others -- SCREEN and HUNTER, VIGILANT and HARVEST, and VIBRANT and FURY just to name a few.
We happened to be a subcompartment of one called QUIET STORM, which happened to be a subcompartment of yet some other random two-word nickname. This was late 2008, and the CIA was already deep in preparation for an expected alteration in counterterror calculus with the arrival of the new Commander in Chief.
And while I’m still on my elevated equine, let me quickly note that I’ve never really given a shit who was president during my time doing government work. They’ve got a job. I’ve got a job. And if my job changes as a result of the decisions made at the top, so be it. This guy. That guy. Who fucking cares?
To be frank, I’m not so much apolitical as I am anti-political. A number of my fellow operators put every political decision under the microscope. And as you might expect, most -- but not all -- tended to lean rather decidedly to the right. Me? I see the strict two-party system as counterproductive and effectively broken by its very definition. Citizens view themselves as having one of two choices. Ultimately, they pick a side almost like they would an NFL or MLB team to root for. At that point most are fully suckered in and turn off their brains. They allow their subsequent beliefs to be shaped by the views of their party of choice rather than attempt to shape the party -- or another party -- to better conform to their genuine beliefs and best interests.
Leadership on both sides define victory in terms of defeating the other “team” rather than by making actual progress for the people. And they are cheered along the entire time by their respective fandoms, blissfully blinded by their allegiance. Hell, even sports fans aren’t as collectively mindless; at least they recognize deficiencies in their teams and demand change.
Anyway, back to 2008. As incoming POTUS, Barack Obama had made plenty of noise about closing down GITMO and the network of black sites. That was going to mean a whole lot less spiriting bad guys away in the night so they could be interrogated and a whole lot more wholesale slaughter of any unlucky S.O.B.s who found themselves on the ‘Disposition Matrix.’ Kill or capture would simply became kill.
Bring on the drones.
As expected, drone strike statistics would soon go through the roof. In Pakistan, there had been something like ten total between ‘04 and ’07. There were almost forty in ‘08, more than fifty in ’09, and well over twice that number in 2010. But in order to unleash Hellfire down on someone’s head, you’ve got to know which head and where that head is at.
That wasn’t our job.
The CIA had agents -- Pakistani locals who had been recruited by cash, coercion, or whatever it took -- to help with that. The problem was that almost immediately these drone strike informants became an endangered species. They had a nasty habit of winding up in shallow graves before they could relay any actionable intel.
It was our job to keep that from happening.
During the time, InPraxis Solutions largely operated out of Peshawar. Our reach extended deep into the badlands of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA). Officially, Boris, Mikey, myself, and a small handful of others had been contracted to consult for some IT startup in Peshawar -- which I’m sure was another CIA front -- but the reality was much different. Much grimmer.
QUIET STORM was set in motion to wipe out the death squads the Taliban, Haqqani Network, etc. sent after anyone they suspected of spying for the CIA -- and do so in a manner that left no evidence of our existence. As opposed to the GREYSTONE rendition days, we weren’t wheels down and wheels up in a country for hours at a time. Here we were embedded deep for weeks or months, working undercover.
Shit got a bit more complicated when we ultimately decided it might make more sense to fight fire with fire and eliminate those who were serving as the death squads’ informants. Let’s just say the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence wasn’t too excited when a handful of ISI Directorate S operatives ended up getting schwhacked in early 2010.
***
I’m not sure if Pakistan was considered too hot as a result, but it was around this time that InPraxis Solutions took on another no-bid contract with the Agency and shifted its focus to Africa. The spreading scourge of terrorism there -- as evidenced by the rise of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Northern Africa, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, and Al-Shabaab in Somalia -- meant there was still plenty to keep us busy, regardless of what went down in South Asia.
Despite operating on an entirely new continent, life as an OGA goon squad contractor continued pretty much unabated. For the first couple of years, we bounced around, basing from a constellation of ‘lily-pads’ in the region, staging in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and elsewhere.
We ran a number of low-vis ops in small cross-matrix “omega teams.” We hooked up with CIA case officers and JSOC tech geeks from the Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) to carry out a variety of objectives. They worried about things like making contact with a potential source or installing some equipment to intercept communications. Meanwhile, we were pretty much there for two primary reasons -- to make sure specific people stayed alive or make sure specific people ended up the opposite of alive.
Over time, Somalia became the focus of our efforts. The CIA and Activity operatives thought the idea of going deep behind enemy lines with just five or six other guys was pretty sketchy, especially as we only had an abbreviated Special Forces CIF company and a couple of MH-53 Pave Lows waiting at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti as backup in case things went to shit. We got a kick out of that. That was cute. It was a marked upgrade from the conditions we had gotten used to in Pakistan, that’s for sure.
The shadow war versus Al-Shabaab intensified in late ‘11. Ethiopia and Kenya invaded Somalia in a joint campaign they called Operation Linda Nchi -- Swahili for “Protect the Country.” It was an attempt to help legitimize and entrench the transitional Somali government and put an end to the chaotic conditions that had allowed Al-Shabaab to thrive. Uncle Sam provided a helping hand by way of pinpoint drone strikes and some “on-site consultation” of the sort InPraxis was especially adept. We embedded with Ethiopian forces and served as, let’s say, a significant force multiplier.
The multi-pronged effort was pretty successful. By the time Operation Linda Nchi concluded in the spring of 2012, Al-Shabaab was reeling. It had been pummeled and left in a weakened state, largely driven back to its traditional hiding places in the jungles in the south of the nation.
That didn’t completely eliminate the threat, however. Quite the contrary, in fact. Al-Shabaab was now desperate -- a wounded and cornered animal. There was little doubt it would attempt to strike back in spectacular fashion, if only to show the world it hadn’t been rendered impotent.
JSOC licked its chops (as much as an organization can) at the prospect of cranking back up that industrial counterterrorism machine to prevent that from happening. The methodology had cut a swath through insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan with devastating effectiveness. The idea of setting loose a somewhat scaled down, yet more refined, version in Somalia had JSOC’s flag officers practically salivating during the summer of ‘13.
Toward those ends, Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti was soon inhabited by a full squadron of operators from the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. You know -- DEVGRU. SEAL Team Six. ST6. Sixers. The boys from the beach. With ST6’s Blue Squadron in place, JSOC was ready to get to work.
Not so fast.
The CIA had the lead in Somalia, so while JSOC was allowed to assemble its forces and implement its plan, it had to agree to a small number of nonnegotiable conditions. JSOC could run the show so long as it acknowledged the CIA’s authority. The SEALs had to be “sheep dipped” -- that is, technically placed under the temporary control of the Agency -- for the extended run of the campaign. And finally, the CIA insisted that it integrate a handful of its own personnel to take part in every aspect of the operation, from mission planning to execution on the ground. InPraxis was that integration.
Soon, we were all up in Djibouti too. Why? I don’t know exactly. Maybe it was so the CIA bigwigs could feel as if they had a bit more ownership here than they did in NEPTUNE SPEAR -- another CIA op that had made SEAL Team Six famous. It felt like the CIA wanted to be able to claim bragging rights with some semblance of a straight face. Whatever. Like I said before, there’s always an ulterior motive in play whenever you deal with the Agency. Eventually you learn it’s better to focus on not getting burnt than attempt to suss it out.
The SEALs knew the drill; they had worked alongside the CIA almost as much as the Unit had over the years. Of course, that made them naturally suspicious of our presence. We were in effect proxy CIA Ground Branch officers, and the way they saw it, we were either there to babysit them, spy on them, set them up to take the fall should anything go wrong, or any creative combination thereof.
As a result, we took to wearing our OD green InPraxis Solutions tees around the base, just as a friendly reminder that we were actually OGA contractors. Unlike in the outside world, that distinction actually earns you cred in these sorts of elite circles. That logo didn’t just serve notice that we were all former Tier 1 guys ourselves, but former Tier 1 guys accomplished enough to merit recruitment by a very selective firm. InPraxis had quickly built a rep among insiders for only taking on experienced recce snipers or senior assaulters and then using them to pull off the most impossible assignments.
While an upgrade versus being perceived as some CIA lackey, our Unit backgrounds didn’t automatically make us blood brothers with the Beach Boys. And it’s fair to say that bad blood flowed in both directions. Remember when I said that Delta and the SAS had an intense but healthy rivalry? Well, we were never in direct competition for missions with the Brits -- at least not very often. Throw that into the equation -- as was perpetually the case with ST6 -- and things tend to get more intense and unhealthy in a big hurry. There’s some oil and water there too. The SEALs do things differently than what we’re used to -- their training, tactics, tech... the whole deal. That’s not to say they weren’t motivated or talented, because clearly they were. It was just different.
And I have to say, it didn’t help that they were strutting around like they ruled the world. Organizationally, ST6 had developed a bit of a Napoleon complex after playing second fiddle to the Unit pretty much since it was conceived. Now they were acting as if those roles had been reversed due to a couple of high-profile ops that fell in their laps. Never mind the fact that they did so directly as a result of playing second fiddle to Delta and just being in the right place at the right time.
I wasn’t immune to feeling the effects of the enmity. But I could usually look past it, and I had no problem seeing the SEALs as individual operators and assessing each of them for their respective merits. I actually already knew a handful of these guys from years back. Joint Unit/DEVGRU training sessions had become a pretty common occurrence. And they had some badasses over there, no doubt about it. There were some cool guys too, especially among the Black Teamers -- their recce snipers. I think maybe there was a little more maturity there along with some shared experience.
Of course, Mikey got along with them famously -- as he does with practically any mix of personalities.
Foggy -- well... let’s just say, Boris Berg isn’t the biggest SEAL cheerleader out there. I honestly didn’t know if we were going to be able to work side-by-side for an extended run at first. He holds some serious grievances against them, and it’s a feud that goes way back. Foggy dates back to days when the two units’ relationship was at its most strained, and his personal opinion had only continued to sink to lower and lower depths over the years.
GWoT brought the two units generally closer together, especially as there was enough work to go around. However, General McChrystal may have overreached at first with his ambitions of increased inclusiveness. Before reconsidering, he wanted the units to become mirror images of one another and pushed us to operate side-by-side in the field. His hand was forced on that count when the Unit’s casualty rate placed a significant percentage of our operators on the shelf or in the ground. In response, some ST6 SEALs were embedded with the Unit to act as temporary replacements.
However well intentioned, those differences I mentioned before can have catastrophic consequences. There were some blue-on-blue incidents -- SEALs unintentionally shooting Unit operators -- as a result of the operational contrasts.
A caustic man by nature, Foggy reserved rare bile for the occasions that “SEAL. Team. Six.” lurched off his tongue. It was as if the combination of words alone forced him to gag.
“Their selection procedure is seriously lacking.” “Their training methods, tactics, and tools are archaic.” “Fueled by ego, they are out-of-control and more dangerous than ever.”
Let’s just say, he hadn’t sent a self-addressed stamped envelope to join the SEAL Team Six fan club. And he didn’t make much of an effort to hide that fact with our new running buddies. But, like I said before, his skills were such that people wanted to be on his team. And he managed to bite his tongue -- just enough -- to allow us all to go out there and do our jobs.
***
Camp Lemonnier is located just south of the Djibouti-Ambouli International Airport. It’s 500 acres of spartan accommodations -- endless rows of pre-fab shipping container-based housing and work units, which stand as the highlight of the base’s featureless terrain of sand, dirt, and concrete. It’s home to a few thousand troops, civilians, and contractors.
The CIA/JSOC hunter-killer contingent was confined to a secluded corner of the base. And while to us on the inside, there were two distinct factions split by neatly drawn lines, to anyone else at Lemonnier who may have caught a glimpse of the secretive goings-on in our corner of the base, we likely all looked pretty much the same... and very different from them.
One of the SEALs joked that, to the Marines and the sailors, we probably looked like a rampaging horde of Vikings. Maybe, but I figured it more along the lines of Pantera roadies with worse attitudes or Hell’s Angels with better weapons. On the whole, we were big, burly men -- most of us in our thirties or forties -- with even bigger, burlier beards. The SEALs and InPraxis contractors certainly didn’t meet the conventional notion of what a soldier is supposed to look like. I imagine to the untrained eye, we looked more like a hodgepodge, rag-tag assortment rather than a collection of the most highly trained and proven warfighters the world has ever produced. We generally wore mismatched camouflage -- there was a selection of AOR1, AOR2, Multicam, along with some older or less common patterns -- with little apparent rhyme or reason for which were worn as tops or bottoms. Our weapons looked worn down and beat up -- marked with ugly homemade tan and brown paint jobs, each one different from the next.
Someone with a bit more knowledge would likely pick up on the fact that this was some seriously go-fast gear -- although pretty homogenous past the surface-deep differences of custom paint. The SEAL assaulters were mostly armed with HK416 carbines along with a few MP7 submachine guns. Their snipers carried 7.62x51mm-based rifles -- mostly KAC SR-25 variants with Nightforce optics. The majority of the SEALs also carried HK45C sidearms, although a few still held onto their trusty old Sig P226 9mms.
That same person who figured all of that out might even be able to pick out the InPraxis Solutions contractors... maybe even guess our Delta sniper heritage. Like the SEAL snipers, we drove weapons chambered in 7.62x51mm, although we preferred Schmidt & Bender scopes. Being the old school master that he was, Foggy’s pistol of choice was “God’s gun” -- a Colt M119A1 .45 ACP. Mikey Garriga represented the modern-day Delta operator with his Glock 22 .40 S&W. Meanwhile, I holstered an HK45 on the front of my body armor -- the full-sized beast, not the compact version the Blue Squadron SEALs carried.
Now an experienced gunsmith would see past the similarities that the semi-trained observer was hung up on and recognize just how special this armament truly was. While there were a lot of HK416s and SR-25s floating around in our combined group, each and every one had been so heavily modified that it barely even qualified as the same weapon any longer. The weapons were all expertly customized and lovingly assembled by the finest craftsmen to suit the particular needs and desires of each individual operator. There was a life-and-death story behind the selection and positioning of each gun’s attachments over in that exclusive corner of Camp Lemonnier.
Let’s consider my primary weapon as an example. It was a fully-customized, lightweight KAC SR-25 variant with an accurized 14.5-inch barrel and fixed suppressor -- everything match grade and blueprinted. On top sat a prototype Schmidt & Bender 5-20x50 PM II Ultra Short telescopic sight with a clip-on thermal sight. Cantered off to the side was an Aimpoint Micro T-1 red dot sight set on a KAC 45-degree offset mount for when things got up close and personal. And course there was an AN/PEQ-15A dual beam aiming laser and all sorts of other goodies -- from a one-off collapsible stock to suit my style and a trigger requiring a precise pull weight. Every choice had been mulled over, considered, and shaped by thousands of hours on the range and more than a thousand real-world operations. And it was all in the pursuit of the most efficient and precise application of violence possible.
But nothing was sacred, so the package was ever-evolving. The campaign against Al-Shabaab had been as bloody and brutal as anticipated. I ditched my standard 20-round KAC magazines and bummed some 25-round Magpul PMAGs off of “Qwerty” -- Josh S. -- one of the SEAL recce snipers I got to know pretty well while we were living at Camp Lemonnier. Fuck, five rounds can mean all the difference when things get kinetic, especially when you are pulling the trigger as frequently as we did during those months. As much as I enjoyed shooting my HK45 pistol on the range, I greatly preferred that it stayed in its holster when hot lead was streaking in both directions.
Even though we had applied the hurt to Al-Shabaab, they still managed to wreak havoc. The Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi was targeted as retribution for Kenya’s role in Operation Linda Nchi the previous year. The toll in dead and wounded was nearly unfathomable.
Exactly one week after the siege ended the shooters from InPraxis and the team leaders from one of the Blue Squadron assault troops assembled to lay out the particulars of some serious payback.
As usual, the assault troop’s lieutenant commander was present and ostensibly managing the session. Also present were a handful of ancillary support personnel -- some who would assist us from afar and others who would be with us on the ground. Meanwhile, some bigger fish were paying more attention than usual; the squadron commander and the task force commander were in the room observing while even some DoD and Agency higher-ups were wired in via teleconference.
I’m sure it was quite the show for those unacquainted with our mission brainstorming sessions. It’s pretty much the same at the Unit and ST6 -- it’s a bottom-up process. Everything’s on the table and anything goes. Mission planning and post-mission hotwash briefings were the time and place to call out each other’s bullshit -- ruthlessly -- to ensure nothing had been overlooked and no contingency was unplanned for.
I’m not alone in having a “healthy disrespect for authority.” It’s actually a very common trait among operators in both Tier 1 units. In no way do these men sit back and allow their Os tell them what’s what. If anything, it’s the other way round. The officers were present to make sure things stayed on track, but the enlisted men ran the briefings.
I think it was during these sessions that I was most reminded that the operators from the Unit and ST6 are a lot more alike than they are different. At the core, we’re cut from the same cloth. We would almost certainly be brothers if not for the myriad of forces beyond our control that habitually pit us against one another.
Even the obvious priority of our upcoming mission didn’t make the proceedings any more formal. In fact, it probably just added a layer of adrenaline and a measure of extra determination to cut through the shit and make sure we had a solid plan in place.
Unsurprisingly, Foggy relished the sessions. It was his officially sanctioned opportunity to vent -- the ideal stage to share his unique brand of antagonism. However, on this day he was unusually reserved. I think that made the SEAL assault element team leaders appreciate the importance of what we were about to face together.
However, just as we were satisfied that everything was in order and about to scatter to whatever individual rituals we go through to mentally prepare for an operation of this magnitude, Boris spoke up in his most exaggerated mocking tone:
“Before we break, I gotta ask just one thing. None of you SEALs are going on CNN tonight to preview this op for Anderson Cooper, are you? Flex that media training I can only assume is mandatory during BUD/S? Because if you are, I gotta set my DVR, ask for an autograph, and suggest we change tactics before any more of us die because you clowns can’t keep your fucking mouths shut.”
Over a small chorus of “fuck yous,” one of the SEALs spoke up in response. “Man, you’re just fucking bitter because you can’t accept that it’s our time now. You Hardy Boys had a nice run of things back in the ‘80s or whatever. But don’t feel bad, Berg, just because your D-boys haven’t done shit lately.”
“Haven’t done shit? Haven’t done shit? That’s what you really think, motherfucker? Yeah, that’s rich, boy.”
Then another SEAL stood up and casually strolled over toward Berg. The tension was such that I could have sworn I heard that clichéd record scratch sound in the background. And it wasn’t just that a SEAL was about to challenge Foggy but which SEAL in particular. I had been aware of Steven L. by reputation for years. The senior chief’s operational reputation was much the same as Berg’s, in fact. Word was he was a tactical wizard. The other SEALs called him “Capex” because he was a walking capability exercise -- an regular reminder of what’s (in)humanly possible. I actually hadn’t learned much more since we started working together in Somalia, however, because these were to be the first words I’d hear emerge from his mouth. ‘Laconic’ doesn’t begin to do him justice. Still, the other SEAL assaulters clearly deferred to him. I guess there’s something to be said for leading by example.
He had angular features wide open to view due to a shaved head and lack of beard, and a wiry, triathlete’s frame. So while he may have been his operational equal, he provided a visual contrast to Berg at least. He smirked and patted the volatile InPraxis boss on the shoulder.
“Come on now, big man. Don’t be jealous. It doesn’t suit you.”
I was all too ready to be pulled into barroom-style brawl where the numbers were most decidedly not on our side. That would have been real productive, not to mention classy, just hours ahead of one of our most important ops in years and with all the higher-ups watching on, let me me tell you. But fortunately -- and somewhat surprisingly -- Bo didn’t fully take the bait. He did his best to ignore the brazenness of Steven L. -- that Godzilla vs. Megalon showdown that would have to wait -- and instead spoke to the entire room:
“Let me clue all you ignorant dumbasses in on a little something: the fact that you think the Unit isn’t doing anything is not only evidence that it is, it’s proof those boys are doing it the right way. You shitheads could stand to learn from the example.”
A second louder chorus of “fuck yous” rang out, along with a handful of laughs as the tension dropped back down to more manageable levels. The group quickly dispersed, with everyone off to focus on getting their minds right for the evening ahead.
Well, other than Foggy, who just had.
Dev Blog 11: Getting to Know Bax, EoE Excerpt Pt. 3
This expanded skill set ripped my operational opportunities wide open. We returned to Iraq, of course, and continued to decimate AQI forces. But while in country, I wasn’t only storming buildings during raids, I was also conducting overwatch and aerial platform support (providing accurate fire from either Black Hawk or Little Bird helos).
And the recce troop took on its own missions as well. We’d go native, dress up in “twabs” (although we just called them “man dresses”) to look like the locals. Then we’d take a beaten up old ghetto cruiser out for a surreptitious drive through the least welcoming neighborhoods that existed on the planet in ‘07. At first, we started off just getting eyes on potential target buildings or trying to track down and confirm the location of a particular high-value target. However, over time we ratcheted up the intensity and aggression of these joy rides, transforming them from vehicle-borne close-target recce scouting missions to full-on vehicle interdiction HVT-hunts.
They didn’t see us coming... or leaving. As far as those AQI tools knew, a couple of their most important members would drop without warning... and without a target to retaliate against. The new addition of tightly grouped 7.62mm “ventilation” to the forehead and chest of their dead homies was the only evidence we’d even invaded their territory.
Meanwhile, elements of C Squadron’s recce troop were occasionally asked to take this show on the road. It was the first I had operated in real conditions outside of Iraq or its immediate borders since my first combat tour in Afghanistan as a Ranger.
We pulled off a string of low-visibility ops -- from advance force operations (AFO) meant to “prepare the environment” to snatch-and-grabs to straight-up hits -- all of which took place well clear of the designated warzones. Although, I guess, technically, when you’re openly engaged in a Global War on Terror (GWoT), they’re all designated warzones, aren’t they? The locales of these low-vis missions ranged from the obvious like Syria and Lebanon, to the somewhat less expected, such as Madagascar and Paraguay, to a few genuine surprises, including a handful of Western European nations.
In short order, I felt pretty at home with the recce troop’s mission set. That said, I’m not sure how well I fit in with the rest of the snipers. I did the job and didn’t run my suck, so I was accepted, but I was no longer the life of the party. I was a long way removed from my earlier days as an assault team leader, when I brashly led by instinct.
Then again, it was a bit refreshing not to have those expectations placed upon me. It didn’t bother anyone if my sense of humor was darker and more nihilistic than it once had been because, for the most part, the other snipers didn’t know any other “Greyhound.” And as I grew more comfortable with them, I’d pull the occasional prank or tell the most inappropriate joke at the most inappropriate time -- you know, when it felt appropriate -- and came back out of my shell, if only just a bit.
As for Berg -- I didn’t look to push my luck too much with him. I thought better of letting my “winning personality” shine through in his presence. At least at first. That would change in time.
I don’t think my early apprehension made me much different than the rest of the C Squadron snipers. In some very key ways, Foggy was a lot like Michael Jordan. I’m not just referring to his sheer skill, but the simple fact that most of Jordan’s teammates were generally indifferent to him as a person. Some disliked him. Others loathed him. But he was so damn good that no one wanted to be on any team but his. And I was sure glad to be on Berg’s side as opposed to the alternative.
As time went on, I got a better feel for Foggy and seemed to win a modicum of respect and sway along the way. Although I’m sure he would have begged to differ. That is if he begged. He would have simply differed. I did manage to persuade him to draft Mikey into the recce troop at the next possible opportunity, and Garriga’s inclusion made an already potent asset that much more effective.
But back to Foggy for a moment... Bo Berg’s gruff exterior masked a gruffer interior. His bad-ass-mother-fucker persona was no façade. He lived up to all the stories -- and he was amazing to watch operate. He was astonishingly light on his feet, period, let alone for a big man well on his way to turning fifty, and he was just exceedingly proficient. He was also tough as titanium, taking down all comers during one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat training.
But there was more to him than that as well. Yeah, I guess there might have been a bit of that clichéd “even though he was hard on us, he looked after his guys” side, but that’s not what I’m talking about it.
You know how I said the Unit’s selection process tends to seek out Type-A iconoclasts who are especially adept at learning new skills? Well, besides making for skilled commandos, a side product of that personality type is that it’s rather common that operators will pursue their passions to an almost unhealthy degree, regardless of what anyone else thinks. The guys are just wired differently and that can be expressed in any number of ways. So you tend to have a fair number of proudly idiosyncratic individuals strutting around the compound at any given time.
Well Berg wasn’t just idiosyncratic. Dude could be flat-out weird.
When Garriga was tabbed to become a sniper, he was subjected to the same add-on training I had been when I made the transition. And there was one aspect of becoming a full-blooded C Squadron recce operator I very much looked forward to introducing him to -- one I failed to touch on above.
As I toured him around the recce team room for the first time, I proclaimed, “Welcome to Flynn’s.”
“Huh?”
Not even the faintest look of recognition. So I tried again. “How about, ‘Welcome to the set of Starcade?’”
“...”
“Okay -- let me run this one by you... ‘Welco...’”
“Hey Bax, I don’t mean to change the subject, but, uhh, what’s with all the arcade machines in here?”
“Change the subject? That’s what you got from this? Seriously?” I just shook my head as Mikey tried to figure out what to make of the snipers’ impressive collection of vintage video game cabinets.
But it was no joke, as I explained. “Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Q*bert... Consider this all a part of your training. The F-O-G considers them necessary to fine tune your essential recce sniper skills: pattern recognition, memorization, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, improvisation... you name it.”
“Are you kidding me? You are kidding me, right?”
“....”
“How did the sergeant major even get these? Guys get sent to the clink for less.”
That they do. SEAL Team Six founder Dick Marcinko did hard time following a conviction for the “misappropriation of funds and resources under his command.” It’s the Al Capone tactic; an easy way for one’s enemies to take them down, and Berg’s disposition had earned him his share of enemies.
The Unit has a nearly unlimited budget and a helluva lot of leeway in deciding how to spend it, but $50,000+ in ‘80s game machines for a team room probably wouldn’t pass muster. However, all the appropriate paperwork had indeed been filed.
You see, we conducted mountaineering training out near Park City, Utah, in early ‘07. That’s pretty standard fare for the recce troop. And I’m not sure how it came about, but during the trip, Foggy ended up attending the premiere of a documentary called The King of Kong. The film chronicled the rivalry of two men, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, who were battling for the Donkey Kong world record. For whatever reason, it really spoke to him.
Berg was seriously inspired and promptly put in the request for the appropriate training equipment that would allow the squadron’s snipers to “best exploit the strategies and teachings of Billy Mitchell.” Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that whatever bean pusher had to sign off on the request assumed the “Billy Mitchell” Foggy meant was the Billy Mitchell. Billy Mitchell, the Congressional Gold Medal winner. The father of the Air Force. The groundbreaking military strategist. You know, as opposed to Billy Mitchell, the first guy to complete a perfect game of Pac-Man. But either way, the recce team room got its training equipment, and it was no lark.
After bringing Mikey up to speed, I told him, “Better practice up, Castor. Foggy takes this seriously. Real seriously. If you can’t break 200k in Donkey Kong by the time we deploy, you’re gonna be treated like a pariah and wind up at the end of the bench.”
***
In a number of those “extra-warzone” operations I mentioned earlier, we were actually in play as muscle for the CIA. Delta and the CIA have had intertwined histories for as long as the Unit has existed. It’s just a consequence of the Agency’s position as the nation’s chief agency for collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence and the Unit’s status as the nation’s preeminent hostage rescue and counterterrorism strike force. However, that doesn’t mean the relationship has always been on the most favorable of terms.
General McChrystal’s inclusive efforts as JSOC Commander helped forge a tighter relationship between the two at a most opportune time; the CIA had reacted to the horror of 9/11 by immediately establishing counterterrorism as its primary focus. Before that it had been a relatively minor concern where it sentenced its misfits and dead-enders to career purgatory.
Under McChrystal’s guidance, we didn’t only learn to cooperate more effectively, we also figured out how to best collaborate in order to exploit one another’s strengths and weaknesses -- particularly from a legal and oversight perspective -- so that we could operate most freely and, therefore, most effectively.
This gets into a bit of legalese, but it comes down to the fact that Title 50 of the U.S. Code governs covert intelligence activities, such as the ones typically associated with the Agency. Meanwhile, Title 10 applies to the use of military force. Title 50 is subject to much more restrictive rules in terms of congressional oversight but is far more expansive in terms of scope. Title 10 is pretty wide open in terms of legally operating without Congress looking over your shoulder when it comes time to select targets and carry out operations, but it traditionally only applies in narrowly defined warzones.
The global aspect of GWoT changed that equation considerably. The signing of a few very helpful “Execute Orders” took the shackles off of JSOC, allowing Delta, SEAL Team Six, and a few other select units to start running a specifically outlined slate of missions in an expanded set of nations and still squeeze it in under Title 10. However, even in cases where this supercharged Title 10 wasn’t permissive enough, we were able to legally conduct operations in countries not outlined in the directives. This was done by temporarily placing our forces under the ostensive control of the CIA to take full advantage of the geographic freedom granted by Title 50.
Sometimes this meant asking the CIA a favor to get its rubber stamp on an op while keeping it at arm’s length in terms of mission planning and execution. Other times it meant doing the CIA a solid in return, supplying personnel who had the requisite skill sets and expertise to snatch a high-value target off the streets of, say, Damascus, Manila, or Valencia, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
Our recce troop became a favorite of the Agency for the latter. We wound up serving as a principal cog in the extraordinary rendition compartment of their long-running GREYSTONE program. I’m not sure when this started exactly -- sometime before I joined the troop in ‘06 -- and I’m sure it continued on long after I left the Unit in ‘08.
Anyway, it was very much a marriage of convenience -- a union formed to navigate legal loopholes. We joined forces to simultaneously crush evil and make short work of the various obstacles presented by legal semantics. And trust me, it’s every bit as much a war on semantics as it is on terror.
But regardless how much we needed one another, I never did trust those duplicitous bastards at the CIA. There’s almost an innate distrust of the Agency within the Unit. And there exists decades of scar tissue -- literal and figurative -- to justify those bad vibes.
Spooks trade in secrets, and I never met a case officer who didn’t have an ulterior motive. Even worse, no matter how incompetent or clueless they might be, they all seem to fancy themselves puppet masters.
Far too many good operators over the years have been burned or hung out to dry as a result. More than once, we took the fall for hitting an empty hole or grabbing up the wrong guy when we had in fact done exactly as we were asked by the CIA officer running the op. However, the spooks often had access to compartmentalized knowledge that we didn’t and were quick to fudge paperwork and mislead their superiors in order to put their contributions in the best light.
But at least at the time, we needed them and they needed us. You just learned to never drop your guard or put yourself in a position to get screwed over too royally.
***
And yes, I did say I got out of the Unit in 2008. The sniper gig was a positive one in a lot of ways. It extended my run at the Unit a couple more good years whereas before Foggy drafted me I was all but fried. Still, the constant rotation of three months on deployment, three months training on location, three months “at home” (read: training at the compound), and then repeat, continued to grind away at my soul... and my marriage.
Actually, I was gone even more once I joined the recce troop. Those renditions could pop at any time. I just couldn’t do that to me -- to her -- to us -- any longer. It was a heart-wrenching decision. I felt like a quitter. I just knew good people were going to die because I wasn’t in position to do the job.
I’ll admit, I was not overly excited about telling Foggy about my decision. He had taken a chance on me and invested a lot in my training, and now he finally had me at a level he was comfortable with. It’s also fair to say that he didn’t exactly come across as the warmest, most understanding guy when it came to such matters.
His reaction was not exactly what I had expected:
“Good. Now I don’t have to bother telling you to quit.”
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “Boris, I must say, it sure is lovely to be wanted...”
In reality, I was wanted. When I told Berg I needed out, he was ready with another option. By this time, Foggy had put in more than the twenty years needed for retirement and was already lining up his next move. He told me if I’d join him, he’d offer me a flexible schedule and way more down time so I could spend some time with my family. And he waved around a shitload more cash than I was earning at the Unit so they could finally be taken care of properly. The pitch included something about an opportunity to not only continue serving my country, but do so in a way we were never allowed to before. He also made it a point to lay out my other options.
“How many years you got in again, new guy?”
New guy. Still. “It’d be right around fourteen.”
“Fourteen years. How many ops? More than a thousand? How many of your friends did you see die during those fourteen years and a thousand ops? How many people did you kill? You got the shit beat out of you. You’ve dealt with the mind fucks of this gig for close to a decade-and-a-half. You know what you got coming to you next? Zero pension. You know what else you got for your trouble?”
“This kick ass G-Shock watch?”
“Zero marketable skills that anyone in the civilian world care fuck all about.”
“Like I said, Foggy, it sure is lovely to be wanted.”
Who could possibly say no to a pitch like that? It turns out Berg’s new concern had been in the works a while. He was partnered up with a former Unit officer and they recruited a very exclusive team of operators to fill out the roster. The firm was called InPraxis Solutions, and its mission statement was every bit as nebulous as its name. Fuck, I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be exactly -- something about innovation consultancy. I think the brochure goes into some deal about utilizing special operations veterans to advise companies on how they can react and make sound decisions in a fast-moving environment or something.
Do you have a friend who can’t seem to describe what it is they do exactly? And when you bother to ask for clarification, your eyes immediately glaze over as they spout off a stream of buzz words? We all have one of those friends, right? Well, InPraxis is intentionally designed to be like that friend. Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, that was all a steaming pile of synergy.
In reality, InPraxis operated in a very low-profile manner and was offered a series of auto-renewing no-bid contracts from the United States government. Some of this work was for JSOC, but the bulk of it was for the Central Intelligence Agency.
That’s right, one moment I’m on the way out the door, the next I’m in bed with the Agency -- a CIA paramilitary contractor by any other name. Holy fuck. Do I need to work on my career transitions or what?
And Jen was pissed. I tried to explain to her that I had made the decision with the best interests of our family at heart. I basically reiterated Boris’ pitch. It was supposed to be for her. And for Katelyn, who was growing up fast, and now I’d actually have some time to enjoy that. But she wasn’t buying what I was selling.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. That’s B.S. and you know it. It’s your excuse to claim you’re making a change but still stay in. Still stay away.”
That stung. Real bad. But maybe she was right because it didn’t alter my decision. Although, it was for them. It really was.
And the recce troop took on its own missions as well. We’d go native, dress up in “twabs” (although we just called them “man dresses”) to look like the locals. Then we’d take a beaten up old ghetto cruiser out for a surreptitious drive through the least welcoming neighborhoods that existed on the planet in ‘07. At first, we started off just getting eyes on potential target buildings or trying to track down and confirm the location of a particular high-value target. However, over time we ratcheted up the intensity and aggression of these joy rides, transforming them from vehicle-borne close-target recce scouting missions to full-on vehicle interdiction HVT-hunts.
They didn’t see us coming... or leaving. As far as those AQI tools knew, a couple of their most important members would drop without warning... and without a target to retaliate against. The new addition of tightly grouped 7.62mm “ventilation” to the forehead and chest of their dead homies was the only evidence we’d even invaded their territory.
Meanwhile, elements of C Squadron’s recce troop were occasionally asked to take this show on the road. It was the first I had operated in real conditions outside of Iraq or its immediate borders since my first combat tour in Afghanistan as a Ranger.
We pulled off a string of low-visibility ops -- from advance force operations (AFO) meant to “prepare the environment” to snatch-and-grabs to straight-up hits -- all of which took place well clear of the designated warzones. Although, I guess, technically, when you’re openly engaged in a Global War on Terror (GWoT), they’re all designated warzones, aren’t they? The locales of these low-vis missions ranged from the obvious like Syria and Lebanon, to the somewhat less expected, such as Madagascar and Paraguay, to a few genuine surprises, including a handful of Western European nations.
In short order, I felt pretty at home with the recce troop’s mission set. That said, I’m not sure how well I fit in with the rest of the snipers. I did the job and didn’t run my suck, so I was accepted, but I was no longer the life of the party. I was a long way removed from my earlier days as an assault team leader, when I brashly led by instinct.
Then again, it was a bit refreshing not to have those expectations placed upon me. It didn’t bother anyone if my sense of humor was darker and more nihilistic than it once had been because, for the most part, the other snipers didn’t know any other “Greyhound.” And as I grew more comfortable with them, I’d pull the occasional prank or tell the most inappropriate joke at the most inappropriate time -- you know, when it felt appropriate -- and came back out of my shell, if only just a bit.
As for Berg -- I didn’t look to push my luck too much with him. I thought better of letting my “winning personality” shine through in his presence. At least at first. That would change in time.
I don’t think my early apprehension made me much different than the rest of the C Squadron snipers. In some very key ways, Foggy was a lot like Michael Jordan. I’m not just referring to his sheer skill, but the simple fact that most of Jordan’s teammates were generally indifferent to him as a person. Some disliked him. Others loathed him. But he was so damn good that no one wanted to be on any team but his. And I was sure glad to be on Berg’s side as opposed to the alternative.
As time went on, I got a better feel for Foggy and seemed to win a modicum of respect and sway along the way. Although I’m sure he would have begged to differ. That is if he begged. He would have simply differed. I did manage to persuade him to draft Mikey into the recce troop at the next possible opportunity, and Garriga’s inclusion made an already potent asset that much more effective.
But back to Foggy for a moment... Bo Berg’s gruff exterior masked a gruffer interior. His bad-ass-mother-fucker persona was no façade. He lived up to all the stories -- and he was amazing to watch operate. He was astonishingly light on his feet, period, let alone for a big man well on his way to turning fifty, and he was just exceedingly proficient. He was also tough as titanium, taking down all comers during one-on-one, hand-to-hand combat training.
But there was more to him than that as well. Yeah, I guess there might have been a bit of that clichéd “even though he was hard on us, he looked after his guys” side, but that’s not what I’m talking about it.
You know how I said the Unit’s selection process tends to seek out Type-A iconoclasts who are especially adept at learning new skills? Well, besides making for skilled commandos, a side product of that personality type is that it’s rather common that operators will pursue their passions to an almost unhealthy degree, regardless of what anyone else thinks. The guys are just wired differently and that can be expressed in any number of ways. So you tend to have a fair number of proudly idiosyncratic individuals strutting around the compound at any given time.
Well Berg wasn’t just idiosyncratic. Dude could be flat-out weird.
When Garriga was tabbed to become a sniper, he was subjected to the same add-on training I had been when I made the transition. And there was one aspect of becoming a full-blooded C Squadron recce operator I very much looked forward to introducing him to -- one I failed to touch on above.
As I toured him around the recce team room for the first time, I proclaimed, “Welcome to Flynn’s.”
“Huh?”
Not even the faintest look of recognition. So I tried again. “How about, ‘Welcome to the set of Starcade?’”
“...”
“Okay -- let me run this one by you... ‘Welco...’”
“Hey Bax, I don’t mean to change the subject, but, uhh, what’s with all the arcade machines in here?”
“Change the subject? That’s what you got from this? Seriously?” I just shook my head as Mikey tried to figure out what to make of the snipers’ impressive collection of vintage video game cabinets.
But it was no joke, as I explained. “Donkey Kong, Pac-Man, Q*bert... Consider this all a part of your training. The F-O-G considers them necessary to fine tune your essential recce sniper skills: pattern recognition, memorization, hand-eye coordination, reaction time, improvisation... you name it.”
“Are you kidding me? You are kidding me, right?”
“....”
“How did the sergeant major even get these? Guys get sent to the clink for less.”
That they do. SEAL Team Six founder Dick Marcinko did hard time following a conviction for the “misappropriation of funds and resources under his command.” It’s the Al Capone tactic; an easy way for one’s enemies to take them down, and Berg’s disposition had earned him his share of enemies.
The Unit has a nearly unlimited budget and a helluva lot of leeway in deciding how to spend it, but $50,000+ in ‘80s game machines for a team room probably wouldn’t pass muster. However, all the appropriate paperwork had indeed been filed.
You see, we conducted mountaineering training out near Park City, Utah, in early ‘07. That’s pretty standard fare for the recce troop. And I’m not sure how it came about, but during the trip, Foggy ended up attending the premiere of a documentary called The King of Kong. The film chronicled the rivalry of two men, Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell, who were battling for the Donkey Kong world record. For whatever reason, it really spoke to him.
Berg was seriously inspired and promptly put in the request for the appropriate training equipment that would allow the squadron’s snipers to “best exploit the strategies and teachings of Billy Mitchell.” Now, I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that whatever bean pusher had to sign off on the request assumed the “Billy Mitchell” Foggy meant was the Billy Mitchell. Billy Mitchell, the Congressional Gold Medal winner. The father of the Air Force. The groundbreaking military strategist. You know, as opposed to Billy Mitchell, the first guy to complete a perfect game of Pac-Man. But either way, the recce team room got its training equipment, and it was no lark.
After bringing Mikey up to speed, I told him, “Better practice up, Castor. Foggy takes this seriously. Real seriously. If you can’t break 200k in Donkey Kong by the time we deploy, you’re gonna be treated like a pariah and wind up at the end of the bench.”
***
In a number of those “extra-warzone” operations I mentioned earlier, we were actually in play as muscle for the CIA. Delta and the CIA have had intertwined histories for as long as the Unit has existed. It’s just a consequence of the Agency’s position as the nation’s chief agency for collecting and analyzing foreign intelligence and the Unit’s status as the nation’s preeminent hostage rescue and counterterrorism strike force. However, that doesn’t mean the relationship has always been on the most favorable of terms.
General McChrystal’s inclusive efforts as JSOC Commander helped forge a tighter relationship between the two at a most opportune time; the CIA had reacted to the horror of 9/11 by immediately establishing counterterrorism as its primary focus. Before that it had been a relatively minor concern where it sentenced its misfits and dead-enders to career purgatory.
Under McChrystal’s guidance, we didn’t only learn to cooperate more effectively, we also figured out how to best collaborate in order to exploit one another’s strengths and weaknesses -- particularly from a legal and oversight perspective -- so that we could operate most freely and, therefore, most effectively.
This gets into a bit of legalese, but it comes down to the fact that Title 50 of the U.S. Code governs covert intelligence activities, such as the ones typically associated with the Agency. Meanwhile, Title 10 applies to the use of military force. Title 50 is subject to much more restrictive rules in terms of congressional oversight but is far more expansive in terms of scope. Title 10 is pretty wide open in terms of legally operating without Congress looking over your shoulder when it comes time to select targets and carry out operations, but it traditionally only applies in narrowly defined warzones.
The global aspect of GWoT changed that equation considerably. The signing of a few very helpful “Execute Orders” took the shackles off of JSOC, allowing Delta, SEAL Team Six, and a few other select units to start running a specifically outlined slate of missions in an expanded set of nations and still squeeze it in under Title 10. However, even in cases where this supercharged Title 10 wasn’t permissive enough, we were able to legally conduct operations in countries not outlined in the directives. This was done by temporarily placing our forces under the ostensive control of the CIA to take full advantage of the geographic freedom granted by Title 50.
Sometimes this meant asking the CIA a favor to get its rubber stamp on an op while keeping it at arm’s length in terms of mission planning and execution. Other times it meant doing the CIA a solid in return, supplying personnel who had the requisite skill sets and expertise to snatch a high-value target off the streets of, say, Damascus, Manila, or Valencia, and then get the hell out of Dodge.
Our recce troop became a favorite of the Agency for the latter. We wound up serving as a principal cog in the extraordinary rendition compartment of their long-running GREYSTONE program. I’m not sure when this started exactly -- sometime before I joined the troop in ‘06 -- and I’m sure it continued on long after I left the Unit in ‘08.
Anyway, it was very much a marriage of convenience -- a union formed to navigate legal loopholes. We joined forces to simultaneously crush evil and make short work of the various obstacles presented by legal semantics. And trust me, it’s every bit as much a war on semantics as it is on terror.
But regardless how much we needed one another, I never did trust those duplicitous bastards at the CIA. There’s almost an innate distrust of the Agency within the Unit. And there exists decades of scar tissue -- literal and figurative -- to justify those bad vibes.
Spooks trade in secrets, and I never met a case officer who didn’t have an ulterior motive. Even worse, no matter how incompetent or clueless they might be, they all seem to fancy themselves puppet masters.
Far too many good operators over the years have been burned or hung out to dry as a result. More than once, we took the fall for hitting an empty hole or grabbing up the wrong guy when we had in fact done exactly as we were asked by the CIA officer running the op. However, the spooks often had access to compartmentalized knowledge that we didn’t and were quick to fudge paperwork and mislead their superiors in order to put their contributions in the best light.
But at least at the time, we needed them and they needed us. You just learned to never drop your guard or put yourself in a position to get screwed over too royally.
***
And yes, I did say I got out of the Unit in 2008. The sniper gig was a positive one in a lot of ways. It extended my run at the Unit a couple more good years whereas before Foggy drafted me I was all but fried. Still, the constant rotation of three months on deployment, three months training on location, three months “at home” (read: training at the compound), and then repeat, continued to grind away at my soul... and my marriage.
Actually, I was gone even more once I joined the recce troop. Those renditions could pop at any time. I just couldn’t do that to me -- to her -- to us -- any longer. It was a heart-wrenching decision. I felt like a quitter. I just knew good people were going to die because I wasn’t in position to do the job.
I’ll admit, I was not overly excited about telling Foggy about my decision. He had taken a chance on me and invested a lot in my training, and now he finally had me at a level he was comfortable with. It’s also fair to say that he didn’t exactly come across as the warmest, most understanding guy when it came to such matters.
His reaction was not exactly what I had expected:
“Good. Now I don’t have to bother telling you to quit.”
I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. “Boris, I must say, it sure is lovely to be wanted...”
In reality, I was wanted. When I told Berg I needed out, he was ready with another option. By this time, Foggy had put in more than the twenty years needed for retirement and was already lining up his next move. He told me if I’d join him, he’d offer me a flexible schedule and way more down time so I could spend some time with my family. And he waved around a shitload more cash than I was earning at the Unit so they could finally be taken care of properly. The pitch included something about an opportunity to not only continue serving my country, but do so in a way we were never allowed to before. He also made it a point to lay out my other options.
“How many years you got in again, new guy?”
New guy. Still. “It’d be right around fourteen.”
“Fourteen years. How many ops? More than a thousand? How many of your friends did you see die during those fourteen years and a thousand ops? How many people did you kill? You got the shit beat out of you. You’ve dealt with the mind fucks of this gig for close to a decade-and-a-half. You know what you got coming to you next? Zero pension. You know what else you got for your trouble?”
“This kick ass G-Shock watch?”
“Zero marketable skills that anyone in the civilian world care fuck all about.”
“Like I said, Foggy, it sure is lovely to be wanted.”
Who could possibly say no to a pitch like that? It turns out Berg’s new concern had been in the works a while. He was partnered up with a former Unit officer and they recruited a very exclusive team of operators to fill out the roster. The firm was called InPraxis Solutions, and its mission statement was every bit as nebulous as its name. Fuck, I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be exactly -- something about innovation consultancy. I think the brochure goes into some deal about utilizing special operations veterans to advise companies on how they can react and make sound decisions in a fast-moving environment or something.
Do you have a friend who can’t seem to describe what it is they do exactly? And when you bother to ask for clarification, your eyes immediately glaze over as they spout off a stream of buzz words? We all have one of those friends, right? Well, InPraxis is intentionally designed to be like that friend. Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed, that was all a steaming pile of synergy.
In reality, InPraxis operated in a very low-profile manner and was offered a series of auto-renewing no-bid contracts from the United States government. Some of this work was for JSOC, but the bulk of it was for the Central Intelligence Agency.
That’s right, one moment I’m on the way out the door, the next I’m in bed with the Agency -- a CIA paramilitary contractor by any other name. Holy fuck. Do I need to work on my career transitions or what?
And Jen was pissed. I tried to explain to her that I had made the decision with the best interests of our family at heart. I basically reiterated Boris’ pitch. It was supposed to be for her. And for Katelyn, who was growing up fast, and now I’d actually have some time to enjoy that. But she wasn’t buying what I was selling.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that. That’s B.S. and you know it. It’s your excuse to claim you’re making a change but still stay in. Still stay away.”
That stung. Real bad. But maybe she was right because it didn’t alter my decision. Although, it was for them. It really was.
Dev Blog 10: Getting to Know Bax, EoE Excerpt Pt. 2
I also felt fortunate to be where I was during the era that “the Pope” was running the show. General Stanley McChrystal took charge of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in ‘03. JSOC is the nation’s lead organization for combating terrorism. And as such, Delta and a handful of other classified units -- SEAL Team Six for one -- fall directly under its command.
“The Pope,” “Stan the Man,” whatever you wanted to call him, General McChrystal proved to be the right man, in the right place, at the right time. With September 11th still a festering wound in the collective military and intelligence communities, McChrystal managed to do the impossible and unite the countless disparate entities strewn across them.
While you might expect that such collaboration existed by design -- and it does in terms of complementary capabilities -- the nature of secretive, elite units is to carefully guard their secrets because that’s the prime source of power. They jealously defend their turf and are predisposed to compete with one another rather than cooperate. However, it was those territorial rivalries that were to blame for the catastrophic negligence that allowed 9/11 to take place.
And yet it was still an uphill climb to get the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, and literally dozens of lesser-known intelligence agencies all pointed in the same direction and in synch with our nation’s special operators, unified by a common goal.
One of McChrystal’s most important allies in successfully executing that vision was his “J2” -- intelligence chief -- General Michael Flynn. Flynn championed an unprecedented fusion of ops and intel based around the F3EAD concept -- Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, Disseminate. Repeat.
A massive influx of networked intelligence fed into our ops. We in turn secured new intelligence with each subsequent hit, which was rapidly processed to pinpoint new targets and initiate a wave of follow-up raids. It was an endless cycle designed to relentlessly dismantle al-Qaeda in Iraq. After all, the only way we could eradicate the nebulous AQI network was by building a better, even more nimble network of our own.
24/7 drone and satellite coverage provided us with an “unblinking eye” in the skies above. This allowed, for example, footage of a car bomb to be rewound like a DVR, back to its point of origin. Intel could track a high-value individual by their observed movements, through their cellular communications, or by any other patterns that could be recorded and mapped out onto a web of relationships. Each node on that web could be similarly charted, and eventually highly detailed diagrams of various regional cells -- and their relationships up through the chain -- could be constructed. Once these webs had been found and their nodes fixed, they were actively deconstructed by the finishers. That was our role, and it was one the Unit relished.
Besides enabling us with the support and intelligence we needed, perhaps the best thing Gen. McChrystal did was hand that info off to Delta and then get the fuck out of our way and let us go to work. We were finally let off the chain and unleashed on our enemy.
The Unit constantly innovated, refined, and adapted our tactics. We actively incorporated and developed new technology. We consistently stayed one step ahead of our quarry. We hit them hard and fast. And then when they attempted to react to that by setting traps in hopes of using our speed and aggressiveness against us, we slipped in slowly and stealthily and caught them in their sleep. It was our pleasure to interrupt their nightmares with something even worse. Regardless of the specific approach, we always seized the initiative and finished decisively.
It was easily the most ambitious and audacious special operations campaign ever attempted. Easily. We’re talking night after night of brutal, ferocious combat, often waged at distances of just a few feet, for years on end. The kinetic intensity was nearly inconceivable.
We were the terrorists’ terrorists. We whacked hordes of those AQ shitbags. Eventually, the machine became so efficient that we put them in the ground quicker than they could dig up replacements. You heard about the “Sunni Awakening” and the troop surge, but JSOC is what really turned the tide in Iraq.
It all just became commonplace -- mundane even. Comical at times. Eight more EKIA (enemy killed in action) on any random Thursday night? We were just mowing the lawn. That’s industrial-scale counterterrorism, Holmes.
It was like Groundhog Day, only swap out the piano playing and French lessons for helicopter infils, explosive breaches, and repeated visits to the two-way range. Seriously, when I put my head down on my pillow each morning and closed my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but a constant scroll of brown, grey, and night-vision green. It was always the same mental imagery -- a montage of rectangular two and three-story buildings as viewed from the outrigger bench seat of a MH-6 Little Bird helicopter or a stream of tight, dingy rooms scrutinized on the move, scanning for hands and AK-47s.
Back in the days before September 11th, Delta was considered a shit-hot outfit that rarely got to play. Former Delta commander General Pete Schoomaker famously once said, “It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender.”
Those days were barely even a distant memory in Iraq. By ‘05 we were conducting more direct action missions per week than some bona fide Unit legends had taken part in during the entirety of their storied careers in the ’80s and ‘90s. Back then, it was pretty standard for the Unit to rehearse some hostage rescue mission for weeks and weeks, only to never get a green light. The trigger wasn’t pulled, and that was usually down to political cowardice. Now we were pulling the triggers ourselves -- both figuratively and literally -- on ops multiple times per night.
Needless to say, we were totally committed to the cause. The squadrons rotated in and out in three-month stints in an attempt to keep us fresh. But guys looked for excuses to stick around in country even longer than that, just to help ease the transition and make sure the killing machine kept humming along.
And just as needless to say, the families paid the price. Relationships back home took a beating. First, we were risking our lives on a daily basis and not around. And then we weren’t around even when we should have been. And then when we were actually back in the States, we were usually either off training or holed up at the Unit’s sprawling state-of-the-art complex we simply referred to as “the compound.”
Even when we were at home, rarely we were at home. The mission consumed us. It ate up all of our capacity -- physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It wasn’t fair to the Unit wives and girlfriends, our children, our parents, or our friends. Relationships were dismantled just as decisively as terrorist cells. It certainly wasn’t easy for Jen, but unlike some of the other guys who couldn’t be bothered, I made it a point to make an effort.
Meanwhile, back at “work,” lifelong friendships were forged and became even closer under the stress of constant combat. My teammates came to feel like a second family. Tighter than family in truth. What else would you expect? I put my life in their hands every single night-- nothing figurative about it.
When we operated out of Baghdad -- which was a rather significant portion of the time -- we based out of one of Saddam’s former palaces. Located downtown inside the Green Zone, the fortress was transformed into a sort of black ops village dubbed “Mission Support Station Fernandez,” named after C Squadron Master Sergeant George Andy Fernandez, the first Unit operator killed in the Iraq War. We were bunked right next door to the Brits -- Special Air Service and Special Boat Service commandos and some of their support units. We even knocked down a shared wall and instead shared intel, stories, BBQ, and beer. MSS Fernandez was also home to a collection of Rangers, an Army Special Force CIF Company, and various OGA elements (“OGA” meaning ‘other government agency,’ which is downrange parlance for CIA spooks and the like).
In a fucked up way, it was actually a lot like some kick-ass SOF summer camp. We attempted to claw out some sense of normality in our extreme existence. After a night spent taking down buildings and balling up high-value targets (HVTs) to bring back for interrogation, we’d sleep till midafternoon. Then we’d get up, play Xbox, grab some chow, and shoot pistols on a makeshift range we set up. After that, team leaders would assemble to run through the latest intel and identify the night’s targets. We’d quickly hash through plans with the rest of the troop and then jump back on the helicopters and Hummers to set out for another multi-takedown evening.
When I could, I also liked to tag along with the Brits of Task Force Black to observe (and offer another carbine if they managed to find themselves a shootout). I got to know some of the SAS guys pretty well. I respected how they managed to operate at the level they did despite lacking some of the high-tech toys we had. They were a pretty cagey lot -- real adept at improvising. We had a healthy but (largely) friendly rivalry with the Brits. I mean, we were better than they were and they knew it, but they were damn good too.
There was one guy in particular -- we’ll call him “Epsilon” -- who was a bit of legend over there. Epsilon was from Blackburn and had this wicked, dry sense of humor. I always enjoyed having a pint with him to hear his latest story. I’d crack up trying to decipher fact from bullshit. At least what I could understand. He was from the north and was so English he barely spoke English, if you know what I mean. “Come on bloke! Speak ‘Merican!”
He kind of floated in and out of MSS Fernandez as his mission set was a bit different than ours as well as the bulk of the SAS forces. He was assigned to E-Squadron (aka “the Increment”), and in that role he generally worked alongside MI6 operatives (you know, MI6 -- British intelligence. James Bond and all that). The way he told it, the guy could disappear in a crowd -- just melt away into the local populace. How much of this was exaggeration, I have no idea, but he did always make it back with a new tale of supercharged secret agent shit with which to regale us. Like I said, at the very least, good for a laugh.
***
But you didn’t have to go looking to find extraordinary individuals at MSS Fernandez. Honestly, I never considered myself particularly “special,” at least not in that crowd. Yeah, I had something of a knack for this line of work and managed to keep up just fine, but occasionally I’d sit back and just marvel at the heroism that surrounded me on a daily basis.
Delta’s selection and training tends to seek out a certain type of individual -- iconoclasts who are both bright and fearless. Almost without exception, Unit operators are natural problem solvers... experts at becoming experts who can quickly pick up new skills and then master them. There’s also a hell of a lot of maturity compared to most infantry units, with the bulk of the men in their thirties and a significant number in their forties. Yeah, it’s a heavyweight crew of B.A.M.Fs for sure.
When you join the Unit, you willingly take on a job that is considered inherently glamorous due to its sheer pucker factor. It’s the type of thing Hollywood stars get paid millions to pretend to do, and what people back home shell out their hard-earned dollars to simulate in video games. And then you strip away all of that glamour. When we signed up for this gig, we not only accepted that most of what we did would never be acknowledged -- let alone celebrated -- we embraced that fact.
It was humbling to be in the presence of such rare patriots. And there was none finer than Michael Vincent Garriga.
Garriga -- “Castor” -- was rather quiet and unassuming, yet always quick with a smile and endlessly compassionate. He was no pushover -- he enjoyed a good debate -- but he somehow managed to tactfully inform you just how wrong you were. He had a way of making everyone feel like he was their best friend, and actively sought ways to make connections with those in his presence. That was the same for the officers, operators, and support staff in the Unit, as well as the privates in the conventional forces we occasionally teamed with. Hell, even the locals in whatever dark hole we were stuck in were Garriga’s people. We’re talking rare empathy.
While on deployment, most of us ate, slept, trained, and operated, and that’s about it. I began to notice that Mikey was slacking on our daily sessions at the range. I wanted to check in with him and make sure everything was okay -- because it was real easy for things to not be okay over there. But when I finally tracked him down, I found him laughing it up, playing soccer with a group of homeless kids who had moved into some nearby abandoned buildings in the Green Zone. He effortlessly held onto his humanity. That probably made him the rarest breed of warrior of all.
During this time, Delta was direct action-centric, to put it mildly. And its composition was slowly changing to reflect that focus, with more and more Rangers like myself coming into the fold. Mikey was with the 5th Special Forces Group before earning a slot into the Unit. He was also drafted by C Squadron and assigned to my troop one OTC class behind me. His Green Beret background showed; I have no doubt he excelled at unconventional warfare, building rapport with indigenous forces and generally “winning hearts and minds” -- the bread and butter of SF. But like the rest of us, he put his game face on when we got to the breach and it was time to live up to Delta’s motto of “speed, surprise, and violence of action.”
He had a dark complexion and straight black hair. And while extremely fit, he didn’t cast an imposing figure. He was probably 5’8” or 5’9”, 170 pounds at most. All of that tallied up as an advantage for him. His, uh, “ethnic” appearance allowed him operate more freely without drawing attention to himself in Central America -- and even the Middle East -- than was the case for the majority of the Unit’s operators, myself very much included.
Of course, his look and last name almost always led to an assumption that he was Latino. In actuality, Mikey’s dad was Spanish, which I guess makes him Hispanic, but any good-natured (or otherwise) ribbing relating to burritos or Speedy Gonzales or whatever other lazy Mexican stereotypes thrown his way were universally wide of the mark. (By the way, just how racist of a caricature was Speedy Gonzales? It never occurred to me as a kid. I guess it was a product of the times, but man, that shit don’t fly in 2013...)
Anyway, Garriga never got worked up about it and was generally too friendly or unconcerned to correct them. I always got a kick out of it. I guess it was just the fact that he never bothered to set the record straight, which led to more and more people making the erroneous assumption. I certainly derived more than my fair of pleasure helping to cement the misconception.
We were back in the States on a training rotation in early 2006. A young assaulter who had just joined our team felt immediately at ease with us due to Mikey’s welcoming nature. That lent him the confidence to do some probing while we were out on the range.
“So Castor -- what’s the deal with your code name anyway? ‘Castor’ -- isn’t that like a shopping cart wheel or something? I’m not sure that exactly redlines the intimidation factor gauge.”
Mikey just put on a bemused grin, nodded his head once, and immediately returned his sights to the target. I wasn’t going to let it die this easily. I was committed to furthering this myth.
“Yeah, you can blame me for that one. And for the record, it actually maxes out in terms of sheer bad-assery...”
The new guy pushed -- as I’d hoped he would: “Oh yeah? So come on, what’s the story?”
“Look at that dead-eyed commando,” I replied as Mikey was pouring rounds of lead into target plates in rapid fashion. “Dude is lethal as ricin. Castor here is the deadliest bean in the world.”
Which, I suppose on further reflection isn’t any less offensive than Speedy Gonzales. Another product of the times I suppose. But let’s get this straight -- the Unit is an admirably colorblind organization. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. Lame jokes aside, the only thing anyone really cares is that you can do the job. And if you can, you’re going to be valued and utilized.
As for that young assaulter -- well, he’s not so green anymore. He’s since matured into a hardened warrior with his own long list of achievements. He’s still with the Unit, so I’m not going to name any names. However, let’s just say that more than a few terrorists over the past decade have met their demise due to the exploits of budding Delta legend “Cartwheel.”
***
Okay, burdening more than one outstanding operator with an unfortunate nickname may have been somewhat juvenile, but it gave me a good laugh at the time. And that was something that had been happening less and less frequently around that time.
Following years of unremitting onslaught, Delta had most certainly left its mark on Iraq. But it was undeniably true that Iraq had left its mark on Delta as well. Here too I was no exception. Those Ferraris General Schoomaker had referred to had not only been taken out of the garage, the toll of the war had effectively totaled a whole fleet of F40s.
We had AQI -- and anyone else in our way -- hopelessly overmatched. In terms of everything that mattered on the battlefield -- skill, equipment, discipline, and strategy -- it was no contest. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, everything went precisely to plan. And when it didn’t, we could generally adapt and improvise to force things back to plan.
Ninety-nine out of one hundred sounds like damn good odds, at least until your operations start to be counted in the thousands. At that point those one percents start to stack up really quickly. There’s nothing you can do about sheer chance -- the stray bullet with your name on it or the one bad guy who by random luck happened to be waiting in just the wrong spot at just the wrong time.
I saw far too many genuine American heroes maimed or killed and it slowly beat me down. There were far too many occasions where we assembled at dusk on the concrete patch near the JSOC headquarters at Balad Air Base to memorialize a fallen comrade. Too often I heard the bagpipes say our final goodbyes.
It might sound counterintuitive, but this didn’t make it any easier to go back to the States. My relationship with Jen and Katelyn was only further strained as I became more and more distant. I didn’t want to be there... and I didn’t want to be here. You do your best to compartmentalize everything, but there’s no preventing it from spilling over. What comforts you also kills you -- emotionally, even if not physically for the “lucky” ones like me.
I continued to do my job and held up my end, but I slowly became more and more disenchanted and withdrawn. Not so much with our mission -- although I’ll admit I did occasionally wonder about the non-stop game of whack-a-mole we were playing with no end in sight -- but simply by having to endure the constant loss of people I admired, respected, and loved like brothers. It turns out there’s a double-edged sword to being viewed as an “emotional compass.” Even if I remained tactically sound and wasn’t actively acting out or whining or anything, the tone I now set only served to deflate my squadron mates.
***
Once our deployment ended in mid ‘06, I was called back in for another office visit at the compound. I was scheduled for a meeting with not only the troop commander and sergeant major, but also the squadron commander and sergeant major. I certainly wasn’t expecting any sort of promotion this time around, nor was I in the mood for partaking in any repartee.
I fully expected to be issued my walking papers, turn in my STI .40 S&W service pistol and HK416 carbine, and be sent to some shitty post to finish out my enlistment. Selection never ends in the Unit. No matter what you’ve done in the past, if you’re no longer an asset, you’re no longer welcome. Honestly, I was not only mentally prepared for that outcome, I practically welcomed it.
As I entered the compound and started the long walk down “the Spine,” I actually took some time to study the glass-encased trophy cases that lined the corridor. Plaques, dioramas, weapons, and other memorials marked significant operations. And that collection was expanding fast. Visiting dignitaries ate that shit up. I don’t think I had even given it a second look since shortly after OTC, but I took a few minutes to admire it now, thinking it might be my last chance to do so. Even if my career in the Unit ended that day, I was convinced it was destined to be the proudest, most defining period of my life.
When I entered the squadron commander’s office, I quickly took note of not four figures but five. And despite the expected four being some of the most world’s accomplished soldiers, the fifth man dominated the room with his sheer presence. Of course, it would have been difficult to miss the mammoth 6’5”, 260lb frame and impressive mane of “tactical beard” sported by our guest speaker.
“Boy, you ready to step up to the next level?” he said in an impossibly low register. Without giving me a chance to respond, the enormous figure continued, “Well, you better be, new guy, because we ain’t fucking ‘round in the recce troop.”
Boy? New guy? For a moment I focused in on the irrelevant parts of that last sentence. New guy? At that point, I had been with Delta for nearly six years, including selection and OTC, and I’d been in special ops for over a decade.
Finally, the more pressing information jarred into my consciousness. Recce? Rather than see my career snuffed as anticipated, it turned out I had just been drafted into the Unit sniper ranks. A couple years earlier, I probably would have been disappointed. I preferred to be in the mix, not on overwatch on some roof across the street. In my head, Delta’s placement atop the warfighter pecking order had been earned through the split-second decisions of its assaulters -- decisions made while rampaging through rooms, dominating opponents as they met our gaze.
But more recently, I had taken a serious interest in the extreme-risk close-target reconnaissance work of the Unit’s snipers, funnily enough, due to my discussions with “Epsilon” of the SAS back at MSS Fernandez. It also became obvious over time that Delta’s snipers were not removed from the mix or absent from CQB either. Not by any stretch. In fact, they had all started off as assaulters and were among the most accomplished combat marksmen on the planet. And those skills were put to use so often that they -- rather, we -- were alternately referred to as “advanced assaulters.”
The thought of a new mission set, new training, new skills... it was enough to inject a bit of new life in me. In about ten seconds I had gone from mentally checked out and ready to be subjected to the slow death of a desk job to at least a scant reminder of the invigoration I had felt in OTC and our earlier days in Iraq, back when we first began to ramp up operations to the industrial scale.
There were a lot of unknowns, but none bigger -- literally -- than Boris “Bo” Berg, the man who had just informed me of my new position. Of course I knew who Berg was. Everyone in the Unit knew who Berg was. The massive C Squadron recce troop sergeant major was a towering figure in more ways than one. He was nothing short of a living folk hero inside Delta. An intensely intimidating man of Russian-Jewish heritage, Berg had a reputation for being borderline unapproachable, perpetually pissed off, and a rampant narcissist -- although I’m not sure it counts as narcissism when it’s all comprehensibly backed up and based in fact.
The guy had the technical proficiency of a magician. Everyone I knew in the assault troops admired him but most kept their distance. And we’re talking about a collection of A-types to end all A-types here, men who rushed toward the sound of machine gun fire whenever it registered.
As for the “new guy” thing, man, Berg was old school. Seriously old school. He’d been with the Unit since the late ‘80s and was closing in on his twenty years in the service -- the vast majority of which had been spent as an operator with Delta.
Back before I was with the Unit, Boris was referred to as “the Bear.” As in Boris “the Bear” Berg. You know, for the big Russian guy. With the alliterative “Bs” in his name. Yeah, it seems that trademark Unit imagination was sometimes reserved for the battlefield, and “Super Jew” had already been taken.
The boys got a bit more clever when they upgraded his moniker to “Ursa” upon his promotion to sergeant major. Get it? “Ursa Major.” Bear. Yep.
As the years clicked by, all of the senior men he looked up to when he first joined Delta had long since moved on, and few of his contemporaries were left either. And Bo had a way -- either deliberate or unintentional, innocently or with pure intended malice -- of making everyone else feel like a rank amateur. Over time, his irritation at the bumbling mistakes of the “fucking new guys” expanded until the Unit was comprised of nothing but FNGs in his eyes. And by process of elimination, that made him the resident old guy. The “FOG.”
Now that was a code name I get behind. Third time’s the charm.
I had no choice but to dive right into my new career path. In the Unit, if you’re not on deployment, you’re constantly being sent through a battery of advanced training schools to either acquire new skills or refresh old ones. But this was extreme even compared to that.
Obviously, I was immediately sent to SOTIC (Special Operations Target Interdiction Course) to quickly bring me up to the SOF standard with a long gun. And there’s a lot more to being an effective sniper than most would imagine. You don’t just put a target in the crosshairs and pull the trigger like they show in the movies. The sheer number of variables is mind-boggling; body mechanics, recoil management, muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficients (mass, diameter, and drag coefficient), distance, gravity, altitude, temperature, humidity, density altitude, barometric pressure, and wind (both the velocity and the angle -- at each and every point between where the round was fired and the intended target) all play a role.
When I say sniper, you probably think of a death dealer rather than a quick-thinking mathematician, although the latter is the reality. You need to be able to rapidly solve trigonometric equations to determine a firing solution. There are ballistic calculators to help with all of the above, but you still need to understand the concepts and be able to either instantly or instinctively run the numbers. Targets aren’t usually so agreeable as to just stand around and wait for you to do your math homework. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind back at Schaumburg High School when I decided that the Army sounded more fun than community college.
And there was a lot more to SOTIC than just math and shooting rifles, but the really advanced training didn’t begin until I returned to the recce troop. That’s where the true master class sessions take place.
Sophisticated body and location positioning, climbing techniques that would put most competition climbers to shame... I was instructed on any and every bit of black magic the Unit’s snipers had innovated over the past quarter-century that allowed us to better get into position and take out targets without revealing our location. Everything was timed, videoed, and studied. I bet we did more film work than the Chicago Bears (which might not be saying much these days, but you get my intent). And honestly, the sniping was just a relatively minor aspect of the broader recce reeducation I received under Foggy’s scowling tutelage.
While we constantly honed our long gun skills and maintained our edge in CBQ, the most intensive facet of my schooling could probably be guessed by the name of the troop. “Recce” is Brit-speak for reconnaissance, which serves as a reminder of Delta’s heritage. The Unit was founded by “Chargin’” Charlie Beckwith, a Special Forces officer and Vietnam legend who had done an exchange tour with Britain’s SAS. When he finally got the green light to build his new unit in the late ‘70s, he closely patterned Delta after the SAS and brought along much of its jargon, from “sabre squadron” to “troop” to “recce.”
There’s a reason Delta only drafts experienced assaulters into the recce ranks. Besides being expected to have world-class skills in close and long-range combat, there’s a certain maturity required to pull off the sort of borderline impossible close-target recce work that got tossed our way. I’m talking about remaining undetected while operating deep in the heart of enemy territory, whether by disguise or by stealth. It’s the sort of stuff you’d probably associate more closely with Hollywood spy flicks than real-world special operations. Occasionally, this means “singleton” assignments -- as in all by your lonesome. That’s as advanced and demanding as spec-ops works gets.
“The Pope,” “Stan the Man,” whatever you wanted to call him, General McChrystal proved to be the right man, in the right place, at the right time. With September 11th still a festering wound in the collective military and intelligence communities, McChrystal managed to do the impossible and unite the countless disparate entities strewn across them.
While you might expect that such collaboration existed by design -- and it does in terms of complementary capabilities -- the nature of secretive, elite units is to carefully guard their secrets because that’s the prime source of power. They jealously defend their turf and are predisposed to compete with one another rather than cooperate. However, it was those territorial rivalries that were to blame for the catastrophic negligence that allowed 9/11 to take place.
And yet it was still an uphill climb to get the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, and literally dozens of lesser-known intelligence agencies all pointed in the same direction and in synch with our nation’s special operators, unified by a common goal.
One of McChrystal’s most important allies in successfully executing that vision was his “J2” -- intelligence chief -- General Michael Flynn. Flynn championed an unprecedented fusion of ops and intel based around the F3EAD concept -- Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze, Disseminate. Repeat.
A massive influx of networked intelligence fed into our ops. We in turn secured new intelligence with each subsequent hit, which was rapidly processed to pinpoint new targets and initiate a wave of follow-up raids. It was an endless cycle designed to relentlessly dismantle al-Qaeda in Iraq. After all, the only way we could eradicate the nebulous AQI network was by building a better, even more nimble network of our own.
24/7 drone and satellite coverage provided us with an “unblinking eye” in the skies above. This allowed, for example, footage of a car bomb to be rewound like a DVR, back to its point of origin. Intel could track a high-value individual by their observed movements, through their cellular communications, or by any other patterns that could be recorded and mapped out onto a web of relationships. Each node on that web could be similarly charted, and eventually highly detailed diagrams of various regional cells -- and their relationships up through the chain -- could be constructed. Once these webs had been found and their nodes fixed, they were actively deconstructed by the finishers. That was our role, and it was one the Unit relished.
Besides enabling us with the support and intelligence we needed, perhaps the best thing Gen. McChrystal did was hand that info off to Delta and then get the fuck out of our way and let us go to work. We were finally let off the chain and unleashed on our enemy.
The Unit constantly innovated, refined, and adapted our tactics. We actively incorporated and developed new technology. We consistently stayed one step ahead of our quarry. We hit them hard and fast. And then when they attempted to react to that by setting traps in hopes of using our speed and aggressiveness against us, we slipped in slowly and stealthily and caught them in their sleep. It was our pleasure to interrupt their nightmares with something even worse. Regardless of the specific approach, we always seized the initiative and finished decisively.
It was easily the most ambitious and audacious special operations campaign ever attempted. Easily. We’re talking night after night of brutal, ferocious combat, often waged at distances of just a few feet, for years on end. The kinetic intensity was nearly inconceivable.
We were the terrorists’ terrorists. We whacked hordes of those AQ shitbags. Eventually, the machine became so efficient that we put them in the ground quicker than they could dig up replacements. You heard about the “Sunni Awakening” and the troop surge, but JSOC is what really turned the tide in Iraq.
It all just became commonplace -- mundane even. Comical at times. Eight more EKIA (enemy killed in action) on any random Thursday night? We were just mowing the lawn. That’s industrial-scale counterterrorism, Holmes.
It was like Groundhog Day, only swap out the piano playing and French lessons for helicopter infils, explosive breaches, and repeated visits to the two-way range. Seriously, when I put my head down on my pillow each morning and closed my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but a constant scroll of brown, grey, and night-vision green. It was always the same mental imagery -- a montage of rectangular two and three-story buildings as viewed from the outrigger bench seat of a MH-6 Little Bird helicopter or a stream of tight, dingy rooms scrutinized on the move, scanning for hands and AK-47s.
Back in the days before September 11th, Delta was considered a shit-hot outfit that rarely got to play. Former Delta commander General Pete Schoomaker famously once said, “It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender.”
Those days were barely even a distant memory in Iraq. By ‘05 we were conducting more direct action missions per week than some bona fide Unit legends had taken part in during the entirety of their storied careers in the ’80s and ‘90s. Back then, it was pretty standard for the Unit to rehearse some hostage rescue mission for weeks and weeks, only to never get a green light. The trigger wasn’t pulled, and that was usually down to political cowardice. Now we were pulling the triggers ourselves -- both figuratively and literally -- on ops multiple times per night.
Needless to say, we were totally committed to the cause. The squadrons rotated in and out in three-month stints in an attempt to keep us fresh. But guys looked for excuses to stick around in country even longer than that, just to help ease the transition and make sure the killing machine kept humming along.
And just as needless to say, the families paid the price. Relationships back home took a beating. First, we were risking our lives on a daily basis and not around. And then we weren’t around even when we should have been. And then when we were actually back in the States, we were usually either off training or holed up at the Unit’s sprawling state-of-the-art complex we simply referred to as “the compound.”
Even when we were at home, rarely we were at home. The mission consumed us. It ate up all of our capacity -- physically, mentally, and emotionally.
It wasn’t fair to the Unit wives and girlfriends, our children, our parents, or our friends. Relationships were dismantled just as decisively as terrorist cells. It certainly wasn’t easy for Jen, but unlike some of the other guys who couldn’t be bothered, I made it a point to make an effort.
Meanwhile, back at “work,” lifelong friendships were forged and became even closer under the stress of constant combat. My teammates came to feel like a second family. Tighter than family in truth. What else would you expect? I put my life in their hands every single night-- nothing figurative about it.
When we operated out of Baghdad -- which was a rather significant portion of the time -- we based out of one of Saddam’s former palaces. Located downtown inside the Green Zone, the fortress was transformed into a sort of black ops village dubbed “Mission Support Station Fernandez,” named after C Squadron Master Sergeant George Andy Fernandez, the first Unit operator killed in the Iraq War. We were bunked right next door to the Brits -- Special Air Service and Special Boat Service commandos and some of their support units. We even knocked down a shared wall and instead shared intel, stories, BBQ, and beer. MSS Fernandez was also home to a collection of Rangers, an Army Special Force CIF Company, and various OGA elements (“OGA” meaning ‘other government agency,’ which is downrange parlance for CIA spooks and the like).
In a fucked up way, it was actually a lot like some kick-ass SOF summer camp. We attempted to claw out some sense of normality in our extreme existence. After a night spent taking down buildings and balling up high-value targets (HVTs) to bring back for interrogation, we’d sleep till midafternoon. Then we’d get up, play Xbox, grab some chow, and shoot pistols on a makeshift range we set up. After that, team leaders would assemble to run through the latest intel and identify the night’s targets. We’d quickly hash through plans with the rest of the troop and then jump back on the helicopters and Hummers to set out for another multi-takedown evening.
When I could, I also liked to tag along with the Brits of Task Force Black to observe (and offer another carbine if they managed to find themselves a shootout). I got to know some of the SAS guys pretty well. I respected how they managed to operate at the level they did despite lacking some of the high-tech toys we had. They were a pretty cagey lot -- real adept at improvising. We had a healthy but (largely) friendly rivalry with the Brits. I mean, we were better than they were and they knew it, but they were damn good too.
There was one guy in particular -- we’ll call him “Epsilon” -- who was a bit of legend over there. Epsilon was from Blackburn and had this wicked, dry sense of humor. I always enjoyed having a pint with him to hear his latest story. I’d crack up trying to decipher fact from bullshit. At least what I could understand. He was from the north and was so English he barely spoke English, if you know what I mean. “Come on bloke! Speak ‘Merican!”
He kind of floated in and out of MSS Fernandez as his mission set was a bit different than ours as well as the bulk of the SAS forces. He was assigned to E-Squadron (aka “the Increment”), and in that role he generally worked alongside MI6 operatives (you know, MI6 -- British intelligence. James Bond and all that). The way he told it, the guy could disappear in a crowd -- just melt away into the local populace. How much of this was exaggeration, I have no idea, but he did always make it back with a new tale of supercharged secret agent shit with which to regale us. Like I said, at the very least, good for a laugh.
***
But you didn’t have to go looking to find extraordinary individuals at MSS Fernandez. Honestly, I never considered myself particularly “special,” at least not in that crowd. Yeah, I had something of a knack for this line of work and managed to keep up just fine, but occasionally I’d sit back and just marvel at the heroism that surrounded me on a daily basis.
Delta’s selection and training tends to seek out a certain type of individual -- iconoclasts who are both bright and fearless. Almost without exception, Unit operators are natural problem solvers... experts at becoming experts who can quickly pick up new skills and then master them. There’s also a hell of a lot of maturity compared to most infantry units, with the bulk of the men in their thirties and a significant number in their forties. Yeah, it’s a heavyweight crew of B.A.M.Fs for sure.
When you join the Unit, you willingly take on a job that is considered inherently glamorous due to its sheer pucker factor. It’s the type of thing Hollywood stars get paid millions to pretend to do, and what people back home shell out their hard-earned dollars to simulate in video games. And then you strip away all of that glamour. When we signed up for this gig, we not only accepted that most of what we did would never be acknowledged -- let alone celebrated -- we embraced that fact.
It was humbling to be in the presence of such rare patriots. And there was none finer than Michael Vincent Garriga.
Garriga -- “Castor” -- was rather quiet and unassuming, yet always quick with a smile and endlessly compassionate. He was no pushover -- he enjoyed a good debate -- but he somehow managed to tactfully inform you just how wrong you were. He had a way of making everyone feel like he was their best friend, and actively sought ways to make connections with those in his presence. That was the same for the officers, operators, and support staff in the Unit, as well as the privates in the conventional forces we occasionally teamed with. Hell, even the locals in whatever dark hole we were stuck in were Garriga’s people. We’re talking rare empathy.
While on deployment, most of us ate, slept, trained, and operated, and that’s about it. I began to notice that Mikey was slacking on our daily sessions at the range. I wanted to check in with him and make sure everything was okay -- because it was real easy for things to not be okay over there. But when I finally tracked him down, I found him laughing it up, playing soccer with a group of homeless kids who had moved into some nearby abandoned buildings in the Green Zone. He effortlessly held onto his humanity. That probably made him the rarest breed of warrior of all.
During this time, Delta was direct action-centric, to put it mildly. And its composition was slowly changing to reflect that focus, with more and more Rangers like myself coming into the fold. Mikey was with the 5th Special Forces Group before earning a slot into the Unit. He was also drafted by C Squadron and assigned to my troop one OTC class behind me. His Green Beret background showed; I have no doubt he excelled at unconventional warfare, building rapport with indigenous forces and generally “winning hearts and minds” -- the bread and butter of SF. But like the rest of us, he put his game face on when we got to the breach and it was time to live up to Delta’s motto of “speed, surprise, and violence of action.”
He had a dark complexion and straight black hair. And while extremely fit, he didn’t cast an imposing figure. He was probably 5’8” or 5’9”, 170 pounds at most. All of that tallied up as an advantage for him. His, uh, “ethnic” appearance allowed him operate more freely without drawing attention to himself in Central America -- and even the Middle East -- than was the case for the majority of the Unit’s operators, myself very much included.
Of course, his look and last name almost always led to an assumption that he was Latino. In actuality, Mikey’s dad was Spanish, which I guess makes him Hispanic, but any good-natured (or otherwise) ribbing relating to burritos or Speedy Gonzales or whatever other lazy Mexican stereotypes thrown his way were universally wide of the mark. (By the way, just how racist of a caricature was Speedy Gonzales? It never occurred to me as a kid. I guess it was a product of the times, but man, that shit don’t fly in 2013...)
Anyway, Garriga never got worked up about it and was generally too friendly or unconcerned to correct them. I always got a kick out of it. I guess it was just the fact that he never bothered to set the record straight, which led to more and more people making the erroneous assumption. I certainly derived more than my fair of pleasure helping to cement the misconception.
We were back in the States on a training rotation in early 2006. A young assaulter who had just joined our team felt immediately at ease with us due to Mikey’s welcoming nature. That lent him the confidence to do some probing while we were out on the range.
“So Castor -- what’s the deal with your code name anyway? ‘Castor’ -- isn’t that like a shopping cart wheel or something? I’m not sure that exactly redlines the intimidation factor gauge.”
Mikey just put on a bemused grin, nodded his head once, and immediately returned his sights to the target. I wasn’t going to let it die this easily. I was committed to furthering this myth.
“Yeah, you can blame me for that one. And for the record, it actually maxes out in terms of sheer bad-assery...”
The new guy pushed -- as I’d hoped he would: “Oh yeah? So come on, what’s the story?”
“Look at that dead-eyed commando,” I replied as Mikey was pouring rounds of lead into target plates in rapid fashion. “Dude is lethal as ricin. Castor here is the deadliest bean in the world.”
Which, I suppose on further reflection isn’t any less offensive than Speedy Gonzales. Another product of the times I suppose. But let’s get this straight -- the Unit is an admirably colorblind organization. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. Lame jokes aside, the only thing anyone really cares is that you can do the job. And if you can, you’re going to be valued and utilized.
As for that young assaulter -- well, he’s not so green anymore. He’s since matured into a hardened warrior with his own long list of achievements. He’s still with the Unit, so I’m not going to name any names. However, let’s just say that more than a few terrorists over the past decade have met their demise due to the exploits of budding Delta legend “Cartwheel.”
***
Okay, burdening more than one outstanding operator with an unfortunate nickname may have been somewhat juvenile, but it gave me a good laugh at the time. And that was something that had been happening less and less frequently around that time.
Following years of unremitting onslaught, Delta had most certainly left its mark on Iraq. But it was undeniably true that Iraq had left its mark on Delta as well. Here too I was no exception. Those Ferraris General Schoomaker had referred to had not only been taken out of the garage, the toll of the war had effectively totaled a whole fleet of F40s.
We had AQI -- and anyone else in our way -- hopelessly overmatched. In terms of everything that mattered on the battlefield -- skill, equipment, discipline, and strategy -- it was no contest. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times, everything went precisely to plan. And when it didn’t, we could generally adapt and improvise to force things back to plan.
Ninety-nine out of one hundred sounds like damn good odds, at least until your operations start to be counted in the thousands. At that point those one percents start to stack up really quickly. There’s nothing you can do about sheer chance -- the stray bullet with your name on it or the one bad guy who by random luck happened to be waiting in just the wrong spot at just the wrong time.
I saw far too many genuine American heroes maimed or killed and it slowly beat me down. There were far too many occasions where we assembled at dusk on the concrete patch near the JSOC headquarters at Balad Air Base to memorialize a fallen comrade. Too often I heard the bagpipes say our final goodbyes.
It might sound counterintuitive, but this didn’t make it any easier to go back to the States. My relationship with Jen and Katelyn was only further strained as I became more and more distant. I didn’t want to be there... and I didn’t want to be here. You do your best to compartmentalize everything, but there’s no preventing it from spilling over. What comforts you also kills you -- emotionally, even if not physically for the “lucky” ones like me.
I continued to do my job and held up my end, but I slowly became more and more disenchanted and withdrawn. Not so much with our mission -- although I’ll admit I did occasionally wonder about the non-stop game of whack-a-mole we were playing with no end in sight -- but simply by having to endure the constant loss of people I admired, respected, and loved like brothers. It turns out there’s a double-edged sword to being viewed as an “emotional compass.” Even if I remained tactically sound and wasn’t actively acting out or whining or anything, the tone I now set only served to deflate my squadron mates.
***
Once our deployment ended in mid ‘06, I was called back in for another office visit at the compound. I was scheduled for a meeting with not only the troop commander and sergeant major, but also the squadron commander and sergeant major. I certainly wasn’t expecting any sort of promotion this time around, nor was I in the mood for partaking in any repartee.
I fully expected to be issued my walking papers, turn in my STI .40 S&W service pistol and HK416 carbine, and be sent to some shitty post to finish out my enlistment. Selection never ends in the Unit. No matter what you’ve done in the past, if you’re no longer an asset, you’re no longer welcome. Honestly, I was not only mentally prepared for that outcome, I practically welcomed it.
As I entered the compound and started the long walk down “the Spine,” I actually took some time to study the glass-encased trophy cases that lined the corridor. Plaques, dioramas, weapons, and other memorials marked significant operations. And that collection was expanding fast. Visiting dignitaries ate that shit up. I don’t think I had even given it a second look since shortly after OTC, but I took a few minutes to admire it now, thinking it might be my last chance to do so. Even if my career in the Unit ended that day, I was convinced it was destined to be the proudest, most defining period of my life.
When I entered the squadron commander’s office, I quickly took note of not four figures but five. And despite the expected four being some of the most world’s accomplished soldiers, the fifth man dominated the room with his sheer presence. Of course, it would have been difficult to miss the mammoth 6’5”, 260lb frame and impressive mane of “tactical beard” sported by our guest speaker.
“Boy, you ready to step up to the next level?” he said in an impossibly low register. Without giving me a chance to respond, the enormous figure continued, “Well, you better be, new guy, because we ain’t fucking ‘round in the recce troop.”
Boy? New guy? For a moment I focused in on the irrelevant parts of that last sentence. New guy? At that point, I had been with Delta for nearly six years, including selection and OTC, and I’d been in special ops for over a decade.
Finally, the more pressing information jarred into my consciousness. Recce? Rather than see my career snuffed as anticipated, it turned out I had just been drafted into the Unit sniper ranks. A couple years earlier, I probably would have been disappointed. I preferred to be in the mix, not on overwatch on some roof across the street. In my head, Delta’s placement atop the warfighter pecking order had been earned through the split-second decisions of its assaulters -- decisions made while rampaging through rooms, dominating opponents as they met our gaze.
But more recently, I had taken a serious interest in the extreme-risk close-target reconnaissance work of the Unit’s snipers, funnily enough, due to my discussions with “Epsilon” of the SAS back at MSS Fernandez. It also became obvious over time that Delta’s snipers were not removed from the mix or absent from CQB either. Not by any stretch. In fact, they had all started off as assaulters and were among the most accomplished combat marksmen on the planet. And those skills were put to use so often that they -- rather, we -- were alternately referred to as “advanced assaulters.”
The thought of a new mission set, new training, new skills... it was enough to inject a bit of new life in me. In about ten seconds I had gone from mentally checked out and ready to be subjected to the slow death of a desk job to at least a scant reminder of the invigoration I had felt in OTC and our earlier days in Iraq, back when we first began to ramp up operations to the industrial scale.
There were a lot of unknowns, but none bigger -- literally -- than Boris “Bo” Berg, the man who had just informed me of my new position. Of course I knew who Berg was. Everyone in the Unit knew who Berg was. The massive C Squadron recce troop sergeant major was a towering figure in more ways than one. He was nothing short of a living folk hero inside Delta. An intensely intimidating man of Russian-Jewish heritage, Berg had a reputation for being borderline unapproachable, perpetually pissed off, and a rampant narcissist -- although I’m not sure it counts as narcissism when it’s all comprehensibly backed up and based in fact.
The guy had the technical proficiency of a magician. Everyone I knew in the assault troops admired him but most kept their distance. And we’re talking about a collection of A-types to end all A-types here, men who rushed toward the sound of machine gun fire whenever it registered.
As for the “new guy” thing, man, Berg was old school. Seriously old school. He’d been with the Unit since the late ‘80s and was closing in on his twenty years in the service -- the vast majority of which had been spent as an operator with Delta.
Back before I was with the Unit, Boris was referred to as “the Bear.” As in Boris “the Bear” Berg. You know, for the big Russian guy. With the alliterative “Bs” in his name. Yeah, it seems that trademark Unit imagination was sometimes reserved for the battlefield, and “Super Jew” had already been taken.
The boys got a bit more clever when they upgraded his moniker to “Ursa” upon his promotion to sergeant major. Get it? “Ursa Major.” Bear. Yep.
As the years clicked by, all of the senior men he looked up to when he first joined Delta had long since moved on, and few of his contemporaries were left either. And Bo had a way -- either deliberate or unintentional, innocently or with pure intended malice -- of making everyone else feel like a rank amateur. Over time, his irritation at the bumbling mistakes of the “fucking new guys” expanded until the Unit was comprised of nothing but FNGs in his eyes. And by process of elimination, that made him the resident old guy. The “FOG.”
Now that was a code name I get behind. Third time’s the charm.
I had no choice but to dive right into my new career path. In the Unit, if you’re not on deployment, you’re constantly being sent through a battery of advanced training schools to either acquire new skills or refresh old ones. But this was extreme even compared to that.
Obviously, I was immediately sent to SOTIC (Special Operations Target Interdiction Course) to quickly bring me up to the SOF standard with a long gun. And there’s a lot more to being an effective sniper than most would imagine. You don’t just put a target in the crosshairs and pull the trigger like they show in the movies. The sheer number of variables is mind-boggling; body mechanics, recoil management, muzzle velocity, ballistic coefficients (mass, diameter, and drag coefficient), distance, gravity, altitude, temperature, humidity, density altitude, barometric pressure, and wind (both the velocity and the angle -- at each and every point between where the round was fired and the intended target) all play a role.
When I say sniper, you probably think of a death dealer rather than a quick-thinking mathematician, although the latter is the reality. You need to be able to rapidly solve trigonometric equations to determine a firing solution. There are ballistic calculators to help with all of the above, but you still need to understand the concepts and be able to either instantly or instinctively run the numbers. Targets aren’t usually so agreeable as to just stand around and wait for you to do your math homework. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind back at Schaumburg High School when I decided that the Army sounded more fun than community college.
And there was a lot more to SOTIC than just math and shooting rifles, but the really advanced training didn’t begin until I returned to the recce troop. That’s where the true master class sessions take place.
Sophisticated body and location positioning, climbing techniques that would put most competition climbers to shame... I was instructed on any and every bit of black magic the Unit’s snipers had innovated over the past quarter-century that allowed us to better get into position and take out targets without revealing our location. Everything was timed, videoed, and studied. I bet we did more film work than the Chicago Bears (which might not be saying much these days, but you get my intent). And honestly, the sniping was just a relatively minor aspect of the broader recce reeducation I received under Foggy’s scowling tutelage.
While we constantly honed our long gun skills and maintained our edge in CBQ, the most intensive facet of my schooling could probably be guessed by the name of the troop. “Recce” is Brit-speak for reconnaissance, which serves as a reminder of Delta’s heritage. The Unit was founded by “Chargin’” Charlie Beckwith, a Special Forces officer and Vietnam legend who had done an exchange tour with Britain’s SAS. When he finally got the green light to build his new unit in the late ‘70s, he closely patterned Delta after the SAS and brought along much of its jargon, from “sabre squadron” to “troop” to “recce.”
There’s a reason Delta only drafts experienced assaulters into the recce ranks. Besides being expected to have world-class skills in close and long-range combat, there’s a certain maturity required to pull off the sort of borderline impossible close-target recce work that got tossed our way. I’m talking about remaining undetected while operating deep in the heart of enemy territory, whether by disguise or by stealth. It’s the sort of stuff you’d probably associate more closely with Hollywood spy flicks than real-world special operations. Occasionally, this means “singleton” assignments -- as in all by your lonesome. That’s as advanced and demanding as spec-ops works gets.
Dev Blog 9: Getting to Know Bax (EoE Excerpt Pt. 1)
When Jared Baxter first makes his introduction, he's desperate, alone, and in dire need of your help. He's seen -- and taken part in -- things that are almost beyond description over the past year-and-a-half. And now he's being hunted down because of what he knows and his plans to stall the inevitable.
However, even before he was recruited inside "the Operation" and all the craziness that followed, Bax had lived a pretty remarkable life. Back then, in an attempt to leave some sort of legacy for his family who had too often been left behind and in the dark, he was working on a memoir that summarized his military career.
A rough draft of that memoir is just one of several attachments Baxter includes in his first email to you, thinking that if you understand where he's coming from, you might be more likely to actually heed his warnings.
Over the next few days, we'll be running that memoir in parts here at EnginesofExtinction.com to allow you to get to know Bax just a little bit before things get real on Tuesday.
Attachment: Bax’s Memoir (Rough Draft)
The Terrorists’ Terrorist:
One Man’s Global War on Terror
By
Jared W. Baxter
I honestly cannot remember all the times I’ve fired my weapon in anger at another human being, nor can I recall every time a weapon has been fired at me. For most people, a single traumatic act of that magnitude would define the rest of their life. And here, I can’t even remember all of the occasions -- literally cannot remember -- even if you laid out the stack of government paperwork detailing each action.
Now, I could probably recall all of the countries I’ve visited to grab someone off the street or put someone in an early grave. But it would take some serious consideration and the aid of an atlas.
Nope, we’re not in Illinois anymore.
I grew up in Schaumburg. It’s one of the northwest suburbs of Chicago, kinda out by O’Hare. I was an only child and a pretty average student. Back then, I never really thought too hard about what I might want to be.
I guess when I was much younger, I thought it’d be pretty cool to become a paleontologist. What kid doesn’t love dinosaurs? But somewhere along the line that lost its appeal. It’s easy now to sit back and say a dozen years of university and grad school just to go dig in the dirt doesn’t exactly sound all that glamorous. But in reality, I just sort of lost focus. Even though I performed well on standardized tests, my grades weren’t exactly conducive to that particular pursuit. Eventually, joining the military became the plan... as tends to happen to kids who don’t have a plan, you know?
I had a mandatory sit down with the school’s guidance counselor to discuss my future. Neither of us seemed overly excited about the meeting. We were both just checking boxes and doing what we were told we had to.
“So, uhh... Jared...” You had to just love this guy’s commitment to improvisation. He didn’t even bother to review my name before I stepped into his office. Fair enough -- I can’t remember his now.
“Have you thought about what you might want to do next fall? Oakton Community College could be a consideration, and you could try to work up to a four ye...”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna join the Army, I think. I, uhh...”
This wannabe comedian kind of raised his eyebrows and, fighting back his chuckling, said in his best Ted Knight, “Well, the world needs ditch diggers too.” I don’t think he was encouraging me to rekindle those paleontological dreams.
“I’d say the same thing about guidance counselors, but I’m not sure that’s actually the case.”
Every bit as unimpressed by my crack as I was with his, he audibled and tried to get serious -- or at least get through the appointment. “...Okay. The Army? Yes, that’s an option. Have you spoken with a recruiter?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re going to want to do that. Discuss some options. Don’t let the recruiter talk you into anything that’s not in your best interest. And with your grades, the military might not be a bad way to go. Think about what you might want to do. And not just in the Army, but what skills you can learn that can help you once you get out. And Jared?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you do, don’t let anyone talk you into becoming a Ranger.”
He was actually the third or fourth person to express that same sentiment. And it was at that point that my interest was officially piqued. Remember, this was the mid-’90s. When someone said the word “Ranger,” I always assumed they were either talking about Nolan Ryan or Chuck Norris.
I’m embarrassed to say when the rest of the country was stunned to hear about what had happened in Mogadishu in ‘93, I was too caught up in my high school haze of sports, sportbikes, and sportier girls to even take notice that kids not much older than me were dying for their country, fighting a war I didn’t even realize existed.
I wasn’t looking to join the Army out of any great desire to serve my country, nor was I a big-time military buff. I just didn’t know what else to do. I was a pretty good athlete, and the thought of learning how to shoot and riding around in helicopters and planes for a few years sounded like it could be a pretty cool experience. That was about the extent of it.
I hadn’t contemplated the possibility of actually being thrown into a real-deal, life-and-death battle. At that point, in my head, the United States had fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. And that was it. And even though Desert Storm was all over CNN when I was in middle school, it was like what, a fucking four-day ground war? Once you took the Soviets out of the equation, I didn’t even know there was anyone left to fight. That applied to the good ole USA just as much as it did Rocky Balboa.
Anyway, the repeated advice to steer clear of the Rangers convinced me to actually do a little research. It was then that I learned about Iran, Panama, Grenada, and Somalia. Word was, even if the United States wasn’t at war, the 75th Ranger Regiment was. Put in a few years there, and you were going to see combat.
Fuck, man, I had no idea. Rather than scare me off or get me to heed those warnings, that fact actually pulled me in. I didn’t have a death wish or bloodlust or anything, but the thought you could actually test yourself that way -- legally -- and honorably? That was it. For the first time, I actually knew what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be.
And naturally, the next several years would turn out to be the quietest period in Ranger history since the modern battalions were formed. Regardless, I etched out a place for myself at 3rd Battalion. There wasn’t much to do at Ft. Benning, and some of the spit and shine discipline enforced at the Regiment during that era fucking grated on me. But I loved the work -- the real work, anyway -- and I loved the Regiment, and I was consistently inspired by my fellow Rangers.
It was during this period that I met Jennifer. I was back in the suburbs on leave. And I know this is like the lamest cliché -- something that only happens on TV, and bad TV at that -- but I actually met her in a grocery store. I didn’t have my vegetable aisle rap down, but fortunately I ran into her again a couple days later at a bar -- where people meet on TV and in real life.
Turns out she was witty, driven, educated, strong, beautiful... well out of my league, that’s for sure. And she wasn’t the least bit impressed by my choice of profession. But somehow I wore down her defenses just enough to get a number out of her. A number that actually worked.
From there, we kept in touch and I continued to etch away at those defenses. We saw each other whenever we could, and eventually I convinced her to move down from Chicago and get hitched. It wasn’t long after that that we had a little girl, Katelyn, and talked about building up our own little army from there.
My career was on the right track too. I came into the Regiment with a natural and healthy disrespect for authority. That’s just my personality. But in the Rangers, that outlook can prove unhealthy in a hurry. I managed to bite my lip just enough to get where I wanted to be, ultimately earning a coveted slot as a platoon sergeant in a rifle company. As far as I was concerned, I was in for the long haul. I was destined to do my twenty as a Ranger.
Of course, life changed for all of us -- all of us, no matter who you were or where you lived -- on September 11th, 2001. But for those of us in the United States Special Operations Command and our families, I think it’s fair to say it changed for us more than most.
Now I want to be careful how I say this. Because, believe me, we were devastated by what happened that day. Pissed off beyond description. But we were almost a little giddy at the same time. When those towers fell, we knew what that meant for us.
The way we saw it, 3rd Batt was like a professional football team stacked with first-round draft picks, but we only ever practiced, never actually played a game. Well, now kickoff was right around the corner. And we couldn’t be happier that these particular motherfuckers were the ones that were going to be on the receiving end of all that pent-up aggression and years of arduous training.
Just over a month after 9/11, a couple hundred 3/75 Rangers loaded up into four MC-130s for Operation Rhino. The Rangers weren’t just going to war, we were jumping right down al Qaeda’s throat, parachuting into Kandahar, Afghanistan.
That was my first combat jump. It’s hard to comprehend just how quickly time can pass. In some ways, that first op feels like it took place only twelve weeks ago, not twelve years ago. But in others, I am very far removed from that nervous and eager young Ranger, and even further displaced from that naïve high school senior whose choices had set me down this path.
Anyway, Operation Rhino turned out to be a dick tease; there was no one there to fight. No matter, there would be more than enough fighting to go around in the days, weeks, and years ahead.
And the 75th Ranger Regiment would more than prove itself time and time again. By now it’s been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that if our great nation wants to point a small team of well-trained men at a target and see it absolutely obliterated, no one else can bring the hate like the Rangers. RLTW... Rangers Lead The-Mother-Fucking Way.
But as much as I loved my fellow Rangers, it wasn’t long after I got my first taste of combat that I knew I was destined to move on. Move up.
***
Every now and then, we’d hear whispers about what the “guys behind the fence” at Fort Bragg were up to. And occasionally, we even saw it firsthand. I knew if I hoped to have a shot at putting Usama bin Laden’s ugly horseface in my crosshairs, I was going to have to go over there to make it happen.
Doing my best to ignore any bouts of rationalism and pragmatism that I may have occasionally suffered from, I decided to try my luck at selection for CAG, aka Combat Applications Group, aka 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.
Delta Force.
The Unit.
Believe me, I knew I was being wildly optimistic to even give it a shot. RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program) sucked enough as it was. Something like 80% of my RIP class washed-out and never actually made it to Battalion. I think the numbers are similar for the guys trying to get into Army Special Forces.
Well, Delta invites the upper tier of those who not only became Rangers and Green Berets, but have already kicked ass there for years. And then you know what it does with them? It spits them back out at a rate of about nine outta every ten of those asskickers who dare to try. They pull in potential selectees from other units too -- hell, even from other services -- just hoping they can somehow find enough of the right breed of men to fill their ranks.
At selection, they dig deep into you -- your brain, your body, your heart, your guts -- to determine if you’re worthy of being trained up to the standard of the most elite combat unit in existence. And selection sucked. Suuuucked. But by some fluke of fate, I was that one in ten who made it through all the physical trials, the mental exhaustion, the psychological exams, and the IQ tests.
I still don’t know how it happened. I figured I just got lucky the first day. And then I got lucky again the next day. And the next. And all the following days for however many weeks it took until I finally got invited to OTC -- Operator Training Course.
***
OTC... That’s where they actually take the hardened vets who passed the selection course -- many already boasting more than a decade of special operations experience --and hone them into virtuosos in the surgical application of violence.
It’s really hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. Okay, how can I put this? Think of the Olympics. You see these teenage gymnasts with impossible balance and agility, performing all sort of crazy flips and twists, bounding across narrow beams and then sticking landings. Well, if you hadn’t ever seen that with your own two eyes, you probably wouldn’t believe the human form is actually capable of such feats.
It’s the same with anyone who manages to break through the accepted boundaries of performance to elevate their craft to another level. That includes classical musicians who flawlessly execute the most difficult and complex études to strongman competitors who carry one-thousand pound logs on their shoulders. Or how about that guy who set the world record by holding his breath underwater for more than twenty-two minutes? It’s a testament to what can be accomplished when you combine rare talent, rare training, and rare commitment.
Well, that’s exactly what the operators of the Unit are when it comes to things like jumping out of airplanes, crashing through doors, and neutralizing any threat they may encounter on the other side.
The Mary Lou Rettons of close-quarters combat? That’s not exactly the image I was hoping to formulate, but you get what I was going for.
OTC provides you with the tools and training necessary to perform at that level. It sets you down the path of truly mastering a wide range of dark arts and sciences. For example, Unit operators are almost universally off the charts in terms of combat marksmanship. And when it comes to executing free-flow close-quarters battle (CQB) techniques in a high-stress environment in unfamiliar surroundings, no one else compares. No one.
Making it through selection was just the start. If you couldn’t keep up in OTC, you got sent back to wherever you came from or wherever you were needed. It turned out that was no idle threat but a relatively common occurrence.
I didn’t lack confidence in my abilities, but I was still pretty surprised just how well OTC went for me. I felt like I truly discovered why I was put on this planet. And I thrived in the new “Big Boy Rules” environment. Whatever personality quirks I had that may have gotten in my way before made me an ideal fit for this sort of organization.
At the time, Delta was sectioned into three operational sabre squadrons: A, B, and C. And at the end of each OTC graduation, the squadrons alternated in calling dibs on the new recruits to bolster their ranks. It’s kind of like the counterterrorist version of the NFL Draft, minus round-the-clock ESPN coverage and Mel Kiper Jr.’s magnificent ‘do. Well, I was humbled to be the first-round draft pick of C Squadron and excited to get to work. And no, I didn’t get a baseball cap or a handshake from the Colonel, if that’s how you’re envisioning it.
Of course, as luck would have it, by the time I got sent back overseas as a full-fledged operator, Delta was no longer actively chasing after UBL. It was now 2003 and Bin Laden was... well, yesterday’s news is a bit extreme -- but the Unit had quickly become entrenched in the new war in Iraq. I was cool with that; that’s where the action was at the time and that’s precisely why we were there. So send me to the sandbox and let’s get down to business.
***
In those early days, we were the leading man-hunters in the AO (area of operations). As such, we were tasked with hunting down not just Saddam Hussein, but pretty much everyone and anyone directly related to him and his regime.
Some intel geeks came up with the idea of throwing together a deck of cards -- the “Deck of 55” -- that gave the most-wanted members of Hussein’s government and the Ba’athist party each a place on the deck, from the Ace of Spades himself on down. In that first year, the Unit was responsible for ripping through the stack, removing all four Aces from play. Fuck, if us operators had been eligible for the reward money offered for their capture, we could have all retired to our own beach paradises. We’re talking a monetary figure that totaled in the eight digits. Instead, we made filthy rich men out of a lot of shady fucks who were willing to rat on their even scummier cronies.
In hindsight, the mission involved a whole lotta yanking old men from their beds at night, but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. The tactics, technology, and tempo... it was all groundbreaking stuff. We absolutely shredded through the old guard and its Fedayeen paramilitary force.
A hell of lot of good that did. Our efforts merely created a void. We went into Iraq hoping to create a new land of opportunity -- a beacon of freedom. We most certainly did that; the most putrid and despicable evil imaginable now had the freedom to operate and an opportunity to rain down hell on earth. Civilian and military leaders way above our pay grade -- the ones that put us in Iraq -- ignored the situation far too long. It was a chaotic and complex mess of emerging and ever-shifting factions. The natives were obliterating each other -- car bombs in markets, mass beheadings, and every other abhorrent act you can imagine.
At first, the powers that be tried to write off the escalating violence as the dying spams of “FREs” (Former Regime Elements). But in time they were forced to take stock of the ground truth and map out the convoluted sectarian conflict taking shape. On one side you had the Shi’ites, headlined by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shi’ite Mahdi Army. On the other, you had various nationalist groups and Sunni insurgents.
And both sides were made puppets by foreigners who sought to stoke the flames. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force trained, equipped, and directed extremist Shi’ite militias. Meanwhile, a flood of foreign Salafist jihadists came in to “support” the Sunnis. Eventually that wicked collection of jihadists coalesced to form Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a branch that proved so bloodthirsty even bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, begged them to tone it down. Right? It don’t get much more gangsta than that.
In late 2004 and into 2005, wave after wave of gore and death crashed against the bedrock of Iraqi society with the seemingly unstoppable regularity of the tide. And yet, the Unit was asked to wade into this ocean of violence and make it still. And that’s exactly what we would proceed to do.
***
As for me, I threw myself into the mission and flourished. As a result, I proved to be an atypically fast riser inside the Unit. Each squadron was broken down into troops, which were further subdivided into teams. I was quickly promoted to a team leader position in my assault troop -- way quicker than most -- which was both a heady honor and a heavy responsibility.
I was called into the office with my troop commander and troop sergeant major. The troop commander -- a major -- kicked back in the chair and let the sergeant major do the talking. That’s how it worked at the Unit; the senior enlisted men ran the show. The promotion “ceremony” went a little something like this, at least to the best of my recollection:
In a slow, drawn-out Texas drawl, he said, “You know, Greyhound...”
You see, “Greyhound” was my code name with Delta. That’s what most of the guys in my squadron called me, although a handful closer to me more often called me “Bax.” Anyway...
“You know, Greyhound, you can be an insufferable prick.”
Yeah, this was going well. Delta encourages open, even adversarial communication to make sure everyone gets called on their bullshit, but I probably took that encouragement a little too much to heart on occasion. Such as this one.
“Can I? Or is it ‘may I?’ I still get those two confused...”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about -- you fucking, insufferable prick.”
“Uhhh... thanks?”
“Shut up. I’m already regretting this. Like I was saying, I’ve been keeping tabs on you and you can be an insufferable prick. But you also have a knack for reading situations and acting accordingly -- present conversation very much excluded. Yeah, you’re a solid operator, pretty good at CQB... So fucking what? Everyone in this outfit is, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. But your edge... your edge is the fact that the other guys are naturally drawn to you and they follow your lead already. You’re what we call an ‘emotional compass.’ You set the tone and tempo for your team. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a goddamn annoying asshole at times, because you most certainly are. But your leadership is an asset to this troop... You’re an asset. At least that’s what I have to keep reminding myself now that I’ve decided to give you this opportunity. So don’t go fucking it up and turn me into that guy who gave Baxter his own team.”
What can I say? I was insufferably charming. Or was it charmingly insufferable? Well, it was a long time ago, but I was. And you know what? I made it my point to be -- sometimes, anyway. Somebody has to step up and lighten the heavy when everything else is so dark. And it ain’t easy. You walk a fine line between providing some much-needed humor and just flat out running your suck, bitching left and right, which will make everyone hate you in a big hurry.
But I also could read the collective mood of the group and understand when it was better to shut up and get reflective. Or when we needed to go emotionless and just let the training take over. We existed to deal with fast-evolving situations. We toggled back and forth between all these mental settings, sometimes as quickly as we transitioned through rooms. And, at least for my team, and sometimes the larger troop, it was my job to play the role of conductor and make sure we were all on the same page and hitting the right notes.
I don’t know... I tried not to think about any of that too much; I just did what felt right. That always used to get me in trouble, but once I was inside the Unit it was not only welcomed, it was rewarded. I think there’s something to be said for being yourself and letting your natural leadership take over versus trying to apply some mumbo-jumbo bullshit from a textbook. I just kept being myself when I took on the new role and the guys got in line. I got no flack -- they rallied behind me. It was a good fit.
However, even before he was recruited inside "the Operation" and all the craziness that followed, Bax had lived a pretty remarkable life. Back then, in an attempt to leave some sort of legacy for his family who had too often been left behind and in the dark, he was working on a memoir that summarized his military career.
A rough draft of that memoir is just one of several attachments Baxter includes in his first email to you, thinking that if you understand where he's coming from, you might be more likely to actually heed his warnings.
Over the next few days, we'll be running that memoir in parts here at EnginesofExtinction.com to allow you to get to know Bax just a little bit before things get real on Tuesday.
Attachment: Bax’s Memoir (Rough Draft)
The Terrorists’ Terrorist:
One Man’s Global War on Terror
By
Jared W. Baxter
I honestly cannot remember all the times I’ve fired my weapon in anger at another human being, nor can I recall every time a weapon has been fired at me. For most people, a single traumatic act of that magnitude would define the rest of their life. And here, I can’t even remember all of the occasions -- literally cannot remember -- even if you laid out the stack of government paperwork detailing each action.
Now, I could probably recall all of the countries I’ve visited to grab someone off the street or put someone in an early grave. But it would take some serious consideration and the aid of an atlas.
Nope, we’re not in Illinois anymore.
I grew up in Schaumburg. It’s one of the northwest suburbs of Chicago, kinda out by O’Hare. I was an only child and a pretty average student. Back then, I never really thought too hard about what I might want to be.
I guess when I was much younger, I thought it’d be pretty cool to become a paleontologist. What kid doesn’t love dinosaurs? But somewhere along the line that lost its appeal. It’s easy now to sit back and say a dozen years of university and grad school just to go dig in the dirt doesn’t exactly sound all that glamorous. But in reality, I just sort of lost focus. Even though I performed well on standardized tests, my grades weren’t exactly conducive to that particular pursuit. Eventually, joining the military became the plan... as tends to happen to kids who don’t have a plan, you know?
I had a mandatory sit down with the school’s guidance counselor to discuss my future. Neither of us seemed overly excited about the meeting. We were both just checking boxes and doing what we were told we had to.
“So, uhh... Jared...” You had to just love this guy’s commitment to improvisation. He didn’t even bother to review my name before I stepped into his office. Fair enough -- I can’t remember his now.
“Have you thought about what you might want to do next fall? Oakton Community College could be a consideration, and you could try to work up to a four ye...”
“Yeah, well, I’m gonna join the Army, I think. I, uhh...”
This wannabe comedian kind of raised his eyebrows and, fighting back his chuckling, said in his best Ted Knight, “Well, the world needs ditch diggers too.” I don’t think he was encouraging me to rekindle those paleontological dreams.
“I’d say the same thing about guidance counselors, but I’m not sure that’s actually the case.”
Every bit as unimpressed by my crack as I was with his, he audibled and tried to get serious -- or at least get through the appointment. “...Okay. The Army? Yes, that’s an option. Have you spoken with a recruiter?”
“No.”
“Well, you’re going to want to do that. Discuss some options. Don’t let the recruiter talk you into anything that’s not in your best interest. And with your grades, the military might not be a bad way to go. Think about what you might want to do. And not just in the Army, but what skills you can learn that can help you once you get out. And Jared?”
“Yeah?”
“Whatever you do, don’t let anyone talk you into becoming a Ranger.”
He was actually the third or fourth person to express that same sentiment. And it was at that point that my interest was officially piqued. Remember, this was the mid-’90s. When someone said the word “Ranger,” I always assumed they were either talking about Nolan Ryan or Chuck Norris.
I’m embarrassed to say when the rest of the country was stunned to hear about what had happened in Mogadishu in ‘93, I was too caught up in my high school haze of sports, sportbikes, and sportier girls to even take notice that kids not much older than me were dying for their country, fighting a war I didn’t even realize existed.
I wasn’t looking to join the Army out of any great desire to serve my country, nor was I a big-time military buff. I just didn’t know what else to do. I was a pretty good athlete, and the thought of learning how to shoot and riding around in helicopters and planes for a few years sounded like it could be a pretty cool experience. That was about the extent of it.
I hadn’t contemplated the possibility of actually being thrown into a real-deal, life-and-death battle. At that point, in my head, the United States had fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. And that was it. And even though Desert Storm was all over CNN when I was in middle school, it was like what, a fucking four-day ground war? Once you took the Soviets out of the equation, I didn’t even know there was anyone left to fight. That applied to the good ole USA just as much as it did Rocky Balboa.
Anyway, the repeated advice to steer clear of the Rangers convinced me to actually do a little research. It was then that I learned about Iran, Panama, Grenada, and Somalia. Word was, even if the United States wasn’t at war, the 75th Ranger Regiment was. Put in a few years there, and you were going to see combat.
Fuck, man, I had no idea. Rather than scare me off or get me to heed those warnings, that fact actually pulled me in. I didn’t have a death wish or bloodlust or anything, but the thought you could actually test yourself that way -- legally -- and honorably? That was it. For the first time, I actually knew what I wanted to do. What I wanted to be.
And naturally, the next several years would turn out to be the quietest period in Ranger history since the modern battalions were formed. Regardless, I etched out a place for myself at 3rd Battalion. There wasn’t much to do at Ft. Benning, and some of the spit and shine discipline enforced at the Regiment during that era fucking grated on me. But I loved the work -- the real work, anyway -- and I loved the Regiment, and I was consistently inspired by my fellow Rangers.
It was during this period that I met Jennifer. I was back in the suburbs on leave. And I know this is like the lamest cliché -- something that only happens on TV, and bad TV at that -- but I actually met her in a grocery store. I didn’t have my vegetable aisle rap down, but fortunately I ran into her again a couple days later at a bar -- where people meet on TV and in real life.
Turns out she was witty, driven, educated, strong, beautiful... well out of my league, that’s for sure. And she wasn’t the least bit impressed by my choice of profession. But somehow I wore down her defenses just enough to get a number out of her. A number that actually worked.
From there, we kept in touch and I continued to etch away at those defenses. We saw each other whenever we could, and eventually I convinced her to move down from Chicago and get hitched. It wasn’t long after that that we had a little girl, Katelyn, and talked about building up our own little army from there.
My career was on the right track too. I came into the Regiment with a natural and healthy disrespect for authority. That’s just my personality. But in the Rangers, that outlook can prove unhealthy in a hurry. I managed to bite my lip just enough to get where I wanted to be, ultimately earning a coveted slot as a platoon sergeant in a rifle company. As far as I was concerned, I was in for the long haul. I was destined to do my twenty as a Ranger.
Of course, life changed for all of us -- all of us, no matter who you were or where you lived -- on September 11th, 2001. But for those of us in the United States Special Operations Command and our families, I think it’s fair to say it changed for us more than most.
Now I want to be careful how I say this. Because, believe me, we were devastated by what happened that day. Pissed off beyond description. But we were almost a little giddy at the same time. When those towers fell, we knew what that meant for us.
The way we saw it, 3rd Batt was like a professional football team stacked with first-round draft picks, but we only ever practiced, never actually played a game. Well, now kickoff was right around the corner. And we couldn’t be happier that these particular motherfuckers were the ones that were going to be on the receiving end of all that pent-up aggression and years of arduous training.
Just over a month after 9/11, a couple hundred 3/75 Rangers loaded up into four MC-130s for Operation Rhino. The Rangers weren’t just going to war, we were jumping right down al Qaeda’s throat, parachuting into Kandahar, Afghanistan.
That was my first combat jump. It’s hard to comprehend just how quickly time can pass. In some ways, that first op feels like it took place only twelve weeks ago, not twelve years ago. But in others, I am very far removed from that nervous and eager young Ranger, and even further displaced from that naïve high school senior whose choices had set me down this path.
Anyway, Operation Rhino turned out to be a dick tease; there was no one there to fight. No matter, there would be more than enough fighting to go around in the days, weeks, and years ahead.
And the 75th Ranger Regiment would more than prove itself time and time again. By now it’s been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that if our great nation wants to point a small team of well-trained men at a target and see it absolutely obliterated, no one else can bring the hate like the Rangers. RLTW... Rangers Lead The-Mother-Fucking Way.
But as much as I loved my fellow Rangers, it wasn’t long after I got my first taste of combat that I knew I was destined to move on. Move up.
***
Every now and then, we’d hear whispers about what the “guys behind the fence” at Fort Bragg were up to. And occasionally, we even saw it firsthand. I knew if I hoped to have a shot at putting Usama bin Laden’s ugly horseface in my crosshairs, I was going to have to go over there to make it happen.
Doing my best to ignore any bouts of rationalism and pragmatism that I may have occasionally suffered from, I decided to try my luck at selection for CAG, aka Combat Applications Group, aka 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta.
Delta Force.
The Unit.
Believe me, I knew I was being wildly optimistic to even give it a shot. RIP (Ranger Indoctrination Program) sucked enough as it was. Something like 80% of my RIP class washed-out and never actually made it to Battalion. I think the numbers are similar for the guys trying to get into Army Special Forces.
Well, Delta invites the upper tier of those who not only became Rangers and Green Berets, but have already kicked ass there for years. And then you know what it does with them? It spits them back out at a rate of about nine outta every ten of those asskickers who dare to try. They pull in potential selectees from other units too -- hell, even from other services -- just hoping they can somehow find enough of the right breed of men to fill their ranks.
At selection, they dig deep into you -- your brain, your body, your heart, your guts -- to determine if you’re worthy of being trained up to the standard of the most elite combat unit in existence. And selection sucked. Suuuucked. But by some fluke of fate, I was that one in ten who made it through all the physical trials, the mental exhaustion, the psychological exams, and the IQ tests.
I still don’t know how it happened. I figured I just got lucky the first day. And then I got lucky again the next day. And the next. And all the following days for however many weeks it took until I finally got invited to OTC -- Operator Training Course.
***
OTC... That’s where they actually take the hardened vets who passed the selection course -- many already boasting more than a decade of special operations experience --and hone them into virtuosos in the surgical application of violence.
It’s really hard to describe, but I’ll do my best. Okay, how can I put this? Think of the Olympics. You see these teenage gymnasts with impossible balance and agility, performing all sort of crazy flips and twists, bounding across narrow beams and then sticking landings. Well, if you hadn’t ever seen that with your own two eyes, you probably wouldn’t believe the human form is actually capable of such feats.
It’s the same with anyone who manages to break through the accepted boundaries of performance to elevate their craft to another level. That includes classical musicians who flawlessly execute the most difficult and complex études to strongman competitors who carry one-thousand pound logs on their shoulders. Or how about that guy who set the world record by holding his breath underwater for more than twenty-two minutes? It’s a testament to what can be accomplished when you combine rare talent, rare training, and rare commitment.
Well, that’s exactly what the operators of the Unit are when it comes to things like jumping out of airplanes, crashing through doors, and neutralizing any threat they may encounter on the other side.
The Mary Lou Rettons of close-quarters combat? That’s not exactly the image I was hoping to formulate, but you get what I was going for.
OTC provides you with the tools and training necessary to perform at that level. It sets you down the path of truly mastering a wide range of dark arts and sciences. For example, Unit operators are almost universally off the charts in terms of combat marksmanship. And when it comes to executing free-flow close-quarters battle (CQB) techniques in a high-stress environment in unfamiliar surroundings, no one else compares. No one.
Making it through selection was just the start. If you couldn’t keep up in OTC, you got sent back to wherever you came from or wherever you were needed. It turned out that was no idle threat but a relatively common occurrence.
I didn’t lack confidence in my abilities, but I was still pretty surprised just how well OTC went for me. I felt like I truly discovered why I was put on this planet. And I thrived in the new “Big Boy Rules” environment. Whatever personality quirks I had that may have gotten in my way before made me an ideal fit for this sort of organization.
At the time, Delta was sectioned into three operational sabre squadrons: A, B, and C. And at the end of each OTC graduation, the squadrons alternated in calling dibs on the new recruits to bolster their ranks. It’s kind of like the counterterrorist version of the NFL Draft, minus round-the-clock ESPN coverage and Mel Kiper Jr.’s magnificent ‘do. Well, I was humbled to be the first-round draft pick of C Squadron and excited to get to work. And no, I didn’t get a baseball cap or a handshake from the Colonel, if that’s how you’re envisioning it.
Of course, as luck would have it, by the time I got sent back overseas as a full-fledged operator, Delta was no longer actively chasing after UBL. It was now 2003 and Bin Laden was... well, yesterday’s news is a bit extreme -- but the Unit had quickly become entrenched in the new war in Iraq. I was cool with that; that’s where the action was at the time and that’s precisely why we were there. So send me to the sandbox and let’s get down to business.
***
In those early days, we were the leading man-hunters in the AO (area of operations). As such, we were tasked with hunting down not just Saddam Hussein, but pretty much everyone and anyone directly related to him and his regime.
Some intel geeks came up with the idea of throwing together a deck of cards -- the “Deck of 55” -- that gave the most-wanted members of Hussein’s government and the Ba’athist party each a place on the deck, from the Ace of Spades himself on down. In that first year, the Unit was responsible for ripping through the stack, removing all four Aces from play. Fuck, if us operators had been eligible for the reward money offered for their capture, we could have all retired to our own beach paradises. We’re talking a monetary figure that totaled in the eight digits. Instead, we made filthy rich men out of a lot of shady fucks who were willing to rat on their even scummier cronies.
In hindsight, the mission involved a whole lotta yanking old men from their beds at night, but it was pretty revolutionary at the time. The tactics, technology, and tempo... it was all groundbreaking stuff. We absolutely shredded through the old guard and its Fedayeen paramilitary force.
A hell of lot of good that did. Our efforts merely created a void. We went into Iraq hoping to create a new land of opportunity -- a beacon of freedom. We most certainly did that; the most putrid and despicable evil imaginable now had the freedom to operate and an opportunity to rain down hell on earth. Civilian and military leaders way above our pay grade -- the ones that put us in Iraq -- ignored the situation far too long. It was a chaotic and complex mess of emerging and ever-shifting factions. The natives were obliterating each other -- car bombs in markets, mass beheadings, and every other abhorrent act you can imagine.
At first, the powers that be tried to write off the escalating violence as the dying spams of “FREs” (Former Regime Elements). But in time they were forced to take stock of the ground truth and map out the convoluted sectarian conflict taking shape. On one side you had the Shi’ites, headlined by Muqtada al-Sadr’s Shi’ite Mahdi Army. On the other, you had various nationalist groups and Sunni insurgents.
And both sides were made puppets by foreigners who sought to stoke the flames. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force trained, equipped, and directed extremist Shi’ite militias. Meanwhile, a flood of foreign Salafist jihadists came in to “support” the Sunnis. Eventually that wicked collection of jihadists coalesced to form Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), a branch that proved so bloodthirsty even bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, begged them to tone it down. Right? It don’t get much more gangsta than that.
In late 2004 and into 2005, wave after wave of gore and death crashed against the bedrock of Iraqi society with the seemingly unstoppable regularity of the tide. And yet, the Unit was asked to wade into this ocean of violence and make it still. And that’s exactly what we would proceed to do.
***
As for me, I threw myself into the mission and flourished. As a result, I proved to be an atypically fast riser inside the Unit. Each squadron was broken down into troops, which were further subdivided into teams. I was quickly promoted to a team leader position in my assault troop -- way quicker than most -- which was both a heady honor and a heavy responsibility.
I was called into the office with my troop commander and troop sergeant major. The troop commander -- a major -- kicked back in the chair and let the sergeant major do the talking. That’s how it worked at the Unit; the senior enlisted men ran the show. The promotion “ceremony” went a little something like this, at least to the best of my recollection:
In a slow, drawn-out Texas drawl, he said, “You know, Greyhound...”
You see, “Greyhound” was my code name with Delta. That’s what most of the guys in my squadron called me, although a handful closer to me more often called me “Bax.” Anyway...
“You know, Greyhound, you can be an insufferable prick.”
Yeah, this was going well. Delta encourages open, even adversarial communication to make sure everyone gets called on their bullshit, but I probably took that encouragement a little too much to heart on occasion. Such as this one.
“Can I? Or is it ‘may I?’ I still get those two confused...”
“See, that’s what I’m talking about -- you fucking, insufferable prick.”
“Uhhh... thanks?”
“Shut up. I’m already regretting this. Like I was saying, I’ve been keeping tabs on you and you can be an insufferable prick. But you also have a knack for reading situations and acting accordingly -- present conversation very much excluded. Yeah, you’re a solid operator, pretty good at CQB... So fucking what? Everyone in this outfit is, otherwise they wouldn’t be here. But your edge... your edge is the fact that the other guys are naturally drawn to you and they follow your lead already. You’re what we call an ‘emotional compass.’ You set the tone and tempo for your team. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a goddamn annoying asshole at times, because you most certainly are. But your leadership is an asset to this troop... You’re an asset. At least that’s what I have to keep reminding myself now that I’ve decided to give you this opportunity. So don’t go fucking it up and turn me into that guy who gave Baxter his own team.”
What can I say? I was insufferably charming. Or was it charmingly insufferable? Well, it was a long time ago, but I was. And you know what? I made it my point to be -- sometimes, anyway. Somebody has to step up and lighten the heavy when everything else is so dark. And it ain’t easy. You walk a fine line between providing some much-needed humor and just flat out running your suck, bitching left and right, which will make everyone hate you in a big hurry.
But I also could read the collective mood of the group and understand when it was better to shut up and get reflective. Or when we needed to go emotionless and just let the training take over. We existed to deal with fast-evolving situations. We toggled back and forth between all these mental settings, sometimes as quickly as we transitioned through rooms. And, at least for my team, and sometimes the larger troop, it was my job to play the role of conductor and make sure we were all on the same page and hitting the right notes.
I don’t know... I tried not to think about any of that too much; I just did what felt right. That always used to get me in trouble, but once I was inside the Unit it was not only welcomed, it was rewarded. I think there’s something to be said for being yourself and letting your natural leadership take over versus trying to apply some mumbo-jumbo bullshit from a textbook. I just kept being myself when I took on the new role and the guys got in line. I got no flack -- they rallied behind me. It was a good fit.
Dev Blog 8: Kindle eBooks 101
Don't have a Kindle? Don't have a dedicated e-reader or any kind? No worries. If you're reading this post, you'll be able to read Engines of Extinction.
Each EoE episode will be sold exclusively through Amazon.com for a limited window before being made more widely available. Why? Going timed-exclusive with Amazon allows for certain promotional tools that are otherwise unavailable. And based on the sales of my previous ebooks, Amazon.com makes up such a large percentage of overall sales anyway that I bet the gains those tools provided would more than offset any losses incurred by delaying sales through iTunes, Barnes & Noble, etc.
But it shouldn't really matter to those of you out there interested in purchasing the series. No matter what device(s) you have, if you're on facebook, you should have no problem reading EoE as purchased from Amazon.
I'm guessing most of you are already well up to speed on this, however, occasionally, I'll run into someone who thinks they need a Kindle to read a Kindle ebook from Amazon. That's not the case. There are free Kindle apps along with a Kindle cloud reader that allow you to read whatever Kindle books you've bought across your devices, whether we're talking Kindles, iPad & iPhones, non-Kindle Android tablets & phones, or your notebooks and desktops (both Mac and PC).
Just search 'Amazon' or 'Kindle' in the respective app stores for your phones and tablets or follow the following links below to access readers for your computers:
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/feature.html/...
https://read.amazon.com/
So no excuses! Okay, with that out of the way… I'm just doing some late polishing and getting ready for next week's release. Look for more updates as we get closer to launch.
Each EoE episode will be sold exclusively through Amazon.com for a limited window before being made more widely available. Why? Going timed-exclusive with Amazon allows for certain promotional tools that are otherwise unavailable. And based on the sales of my previous ebooks, Amazon.com makes up such a large percentage of overall sales anyway that I bet the gains those tools provided would more than offset any losses incurred by delaying sales through iTunes, Barnes & Noble, etc.
But it shouldn't really matter to those of you out there interested in purchasing the series. No matter what device(s) you have, if you're on facebook, you should have no problem reading EoE as purchased from Amazon.
I'm guessing most of you are already well up to speed on this, however, occasionally, I'll run into someone who thinks they need a Kindle to read a Kindle ebook from Amazon. That's not the case. There are free Kindle apps along with a Kindle cloud reader that allow you to read whatever Kindle books you've bought across your devices, whether we're talking Kindles, iPad & iPhones, non-Kindle Android tablets & phones, or your notebooks and desktops (both Mac and PC).
Just search 'Amazon' or 'Kindle' in the respective app stores for your phones and tablets or follow the following links below to access readers for your computers:
http://www.amazon.ca/gp/feature.html/...
https://read.amazon.com/
So no excuses! Okay, with that out of the way… I'm just doing some late polishing and getting ready for next week's release. Look for more updates as we get closer to launch.
Dev Blog 7: A Look at What's Inside Episode I
We are now officially one week out from the release of Engines of Extinction: Episode I -- The End & The Means. It's a pretty significant milestone for me as this project has been in gestation for an extended period (to put it mildly), and it's very rewarding to see it all come together.
Of course, it's only just the beginning as The End & The Means merely marks the first of six monthly episodes. And, hopefully, those six episodes collectively only mark a larger beginning.
Anyway, I figured it would make sense now to give you a brief overview of what you can expect to find when you so generously plunk down your $2.99 and crack open Epi I one week from today.
As far as my work goes, the episode is more or less complete, although I'm still doing just a bit of fine tuning. Since it's an ebook and each individual reader can mess with font style, size, etc., there is no "actual" page total. However, Amazon estimates a number based on standard fonts, and it claims that Epi I weighs in at 158 pages. That's a tally that's unlikely to change by more than a page in either direction prior to release.
I'd like to think that's pretty solid bang for your (three) bucks. Actually, I'd say it's fair to consider the first installment a double-sized episode as I'd expect future releases to come in around half that size.
As I've explained before, it's designed to offer a modular reading experience. If you only chose to read the primary narrative in Episode I, that would be closer to 60 pages, which is about right since it's effectively the opening 1/6th of a larger book. The remainder of the Epi content you can flip through or study carefully depending on your particular interests.
Obviously, there's a lot of material there beyond just the top-level story, so what exactly are you going to find inside? As I explained in a previous dev blog ("Leaking Secrets -- EoE's Format Exposed"), Engines of Extinction is structured as a series of emails sent from an inside source to you, the reader. Each episode (email) lays out the narrative in the email body and then backs it up with evidence, which is included with the email as attachments.
I was thrown for about 15 seconds when I first realized that Amazon requires that every ebook include a table of contents. But it quickly dawned on me that an inbox is basically your email's table of contents, so we're good to go. As an ebook designer, you're rather limited how extensively you can format ebooks, especially since you need the ebook to work across a wide variety of readers, old and new, complex and simple. As a result, I had to implement a rather rudimentary inbox/toc, but I'd like to think it think it gets the point across.
At the top of your inbox, you'll find a new message. Click on that and you'll be introduced to your new "friend" and the story he's selling. Tied that email you'll find eight attachments, which range from an image of a short newspaper article all the way up to a 20+ page classified document.
Here's a break down of those attachments:
- 12/17/14 Wire Report
- 12/22/14 Web Article
- Virginia Beach Incident Investigation Excerpt
- National Intelligence Estimate
- Presidential Finding
- Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-22
- Bax’s Memoir (Rough Draft)
- The Visual Evidence
These attachments not only provide more detail about what's being discussed in the email body, they also, in many cases, provide a different point of view and/or hints of what's to come in future episodes.
The memoir is a perfect example of the modular reading experience. It's an autobiography focused primarily on the narrator's military career that he was working on before he got sucked into all this craziness he's contacting you about now. In all, it's about 50-60 pages worth of material that'll provide you with a great deal of depth concerning his life, military history, and point of view on a number of issues. It'll also introduce (and flesh out) a number of concepts and characters that'll play roles of varying importance as the primary narrative develops. I hope people dig it, but it's completely optional reading. I think it'll really appeal to military-minded readers who have enjoyed my nonfiction work, along with books like No Easy Day and Kill Bin Laden. But if you're here more for the sci-fi elements and not as into all that stuff, you can feel free to skip it and still not feel lost.
The National Intelligence Estimate is a bit of a behemoth in its own right. That's a 'page through it or study it carefully' report depending on your personal tastes. There's a lot to be gleaned from it, however, there's some pretty heady technical stuff inside (albeit designed to be read by the layperson).
Also, I wanted to make special note of the visual evidence attachment. That's a collection of photos, the final seven of which are courtesy of Ben. In the first episode, their function is to provide clues as to what's coming in the months ahead. They're not only a small teaser of the upcoming book content, but also of Ben's work, which will really be put on display in later episodes when we don't have to be quite so cloak-and-dagger about these things. It's gonna be fun.
Thanks again for reading the dev blog, and I hope you all enjoy Episode I when you finally get to check it out. We'll find out soon enough!
Of course, it's only just the beginning as The End & The Means merely marks the first of six monthly episodes. And, hopefully, those six episodes collectively only mark a larger beginning.
Anyway, I figured it would make sense now to give you a brief overview of what you can expect to find when you so generously plunk down your $2.99 and crack open Epi I one week from today.
As far as my work goes, the episode is more or less complete, although I'm still doing just a bit of fine tuning. Since it's an ebook and each individual reader can mess with font style, size, etc., there is no "actual" page total. However, Amazon estimates a number based on standard fonts, and it claims that Epi I weighs in at 158 pages. That's a tally that's unlikely to change by more than a page in either direction prior to release.
I'd like to think that's pretty solid bang for your (three) bucks. Actually, I'd say it's fair to consider the first installment a double-sized episode as I'd expect future releases to come in around half that size.
As I've explained before, it's designed to offer a modular reading experience. If you only chose to read the primary narrative in Episode I, that would be closer to 60 pages, which is about right since it's effectively the opening 1/6th of a larger book. The remainder of the Epi content you can flip through or study carefully depending on your particular interests.
Obviously, there's a lot of material there beyond just the top-level story, so what exactly are you going to find inside? As I explained in a previous dev blog ("Leaking Secrets -- EoE's Format Exposed"), Engines of Extinction is structured as a series of emails sent from an inside source to you, the reader. Each episode (email) lays out the narrative in the email body and then backs it up with evidence, which is included with the email as attachments.
I was thrown for about 15 seconds when I first realized that Amazon requires that every ebook include a table of contents. But it quickly dawned on me that an inbox is basically your email's table of contents, so we're good to go. As an ebook designer, you're rather limited how extensively you can format ebooks, especially since you need the ebook to work across a wide variety of readers, old and new, complex and simple. As a result, I had to implement a rather rudimentary inbox/toc, but I'd like to think it think it gets the point across.
At the top of your inbox, you'll find a new message. Click on that and you'll be introduced to your new "friend" and the story he's selling. Tied that email you'll find eight attachments, which range from an image of a short newspaper article all the way up to a 20+ page classified document.
Here's a break down of those attachments:
- 12/17/14 Wire Report
- 12/22/14 Web Article
- Virginia Beach Incident Investigation Excerpt
- National Intelligence Estimate
- Presidential Finding
- Presidential Policy Directive/PPD-22
- Bax’s Memoir (Rough Draft)
- The Visual Evidence
These attachments not only provide more detail about what's being discussed in the email body, they also, in many cases, provide a different point of view and/or hints of what's to come in future episodes.
The memoir is a perfect example of the modular reading experience. It's an autobiography focused primarily on the narrator's military career that he was working on before he got sucked into all this craziness he's contacting you about now. In all, it's about 50-60 pages worth of material that'll provide you with a great deal of depth concerning his life, military history, and point of view on a number of issues. It'll also introduce (and flesh out) a number of concepts and characters that'll play roles of varying importance as the primary narrative develops. I hope people dig it, but it's completely optional reading. I think it'll really appeal to military-minded readers who have enjoyed my nonfiction work, along with books like No Easy Day and Kill Bin Laden. But if you're here more for the sci-fi elements and not as into all that stuff, you can feel free to skip it and still not feel lost.
The National Intelligence Estimate is a bit of a behemoth in its own right. That's a 'page through it or study it carefully' report depending on your personal tastes. There's a lot to be gleaned from it, however, there's some pretty heady technical stuff inside (albeit designed to be read by the layperson).
Also, I wanted to make special note of the visual evidence attachment. That's a collection of photos, the final seven of which are courtesy of Ben. In the first episode, their function is to provide clues as to what's coming in the months ahead. They're not only a small teaser of the upcoming book content, but also of Ben's work, which will really be put on display in later episodes when we don't have to be quite so cloak-and-dagger about these things. It's gonna be fun.
Thanks again for reading the dev blog, and I hope you all enjoy Episode I when you finally get to check it out. We'll find out soon enough!
Dev Blog 6: "A Medal. A Body Bag. Or Both." -- Recruiting Ben
In an earlier dev blog ("Leaking Secrets -- EoE's Format Exposed"), I explained how I finally cracked the format that could bring Engines of Extinction to life. However, with that epiphany came the major caveat that I was going to have to somehow find a big-time talent capable of delivering the visuals I would need to execute that vision.
In late 2012, I started pouring over the internet in hopes of locating just that person. I checked out a number of concept art sites and started to compile a list of people who might possibly fit the bill. However, it wasn't until I happened across the (now defunct) website CGHUB.com that I became confident that the sort of artist I was hoping to link up with actually existed and might just be interested in contributing his or her talents.
But that renewed optimism was still very far removed from actually convincing one of them to come on board. To do that, I would need to effectively communicate that this was a project worthy of their attention, that I was an author worth collaborating with, and finally be able to negotiate terms that were agreeable to both parties.
I'm not sure exactly how long my list of dream artists got to be before I decided I should probably move on to the next stage and start fishing for bites. Certainly, it was at least thirty or forty names deep and probably a whole lot longer than that, each name ranked in order according to who I felt was best suited to the gig. With the list in place, I started the long process of filling the position.
Well, it was expected to be a long process, anyway. I figured sooner or later, I'd reel an artist in, but it might take a while. There were a number of extremely talented artists to choose from, so I told myself not get discouraged if tracking someone down with the requisite interest, time, and talent didn't happen overnight.
The first email I fired off to a potential Engines of Extinction collaborator went out on Saturday, Jan 5, 2013 at 7:44 a.m. I introduced myself, gave a bit of background on the project and what I was seeking, and hoped to go from there.
It opened in the following fashion:
"Hey Ben,
"I'd like to discuss the possibility of hiring you to do some work on a project. First, let me say that I'm tremendously impressed by your ability and probably more excited than I should allow myself to be, seeing how closely your sensibilities appear match up with mine.
"…I've had a 'secret' project in the works for a couple years now that I'm really intent on moving on in a big way in 2013. It's a fictional military/intelligence sci-fi series that borders on proto-cyberpunk. It has been deeply researched in multiple areas and is thoroughly intermeshed in real-world history and current day technological and political developments. I'm super excited about the concept, and looking at your work and reading your comments, I think this would be right in your wheelhouse…"
That's right -- 'Ben' was Ben Mauro. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have teamed up with the very top name on my list of potential collaborators.
And working with Ben has been a genuine pleasure. It's been a thrill for me personally whenever I've been on the receiving end of an email delivering new work he's produced for Engines of Extinction, and it's tremendously exciting to think about what's still to come. It's going to be great fun to share that with the world in the coming months.
While Ben was already fast on the rise before I reached out to him in early '13, his career trajectory has only accelerated in its rapid ascension since that time. You've no doubt seen a number of his ideas translated onto both the big and small screen in recent years. He's worked on Chappie, Lucy, Elysium, The Hobbit, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Man of Steel, and a whole lot more with a huge amount still coming down the pike.
And he's still just scratching the surface; I have no doubt he's going to be a real megastar in the years to come.
However, it wasn't that impressive resume that originally grabbed my attention. When I came across Ben's work, I saw an artist who happened to have sensibilities very similar to my own. Digging in further and reading his descriptions of his work only underlined that fact. It's kind of humorous looking back, but when I read one of his explanations of a particular design he had created, I saw he wrote, in all caps, "NO GLOWING LIGHTS," and I knew this was the right guy for the job.
There wasn't any one piece that sold me. In fact, there wasn't any preexisting work that I could point to that completely nailed the aesthetic I had in mind for Engines of Extinction. However, he demonstrated an ability to effortlessly work out concepts both further and less removed from today's technological realities than what I had envisioned for EoE. It was simply a matter of providing the proper direction so he could really dial it in.
Since we've started working together, he's shown himself to be continually upbeat, hard-working, creative, skilled, and professional.
It's no surprise. Ben studied industrial and entertainment at Art Center College of Design before heading off to the other side of the world to work for the widely-acclaimed Weta Workshop in 2009 and has already established himself inside the concept art community as one not just to watch but admire.
His work speaks for itself, but he also readily provides career advice for others looking to follow in his footsteps. And that group includes not only aspiring artists but well-established veterans as well who have enviously watched as Ben's courage to step away from the safety of working for a big design studio like Weta and take more direct control over his career has really started to pay off.
While Engines of Extinction is not on the same sort of public stage as the blockbusters I rattled off above -- you certainly weren't going to see an advertisement for EoE air during the Super Bowl last month, for example -- I think Ben agreed to join the project because he recognized a common vision and saw its potential. I really wanted to find a creative partner -- not just a hired gun -- and that may have made it more attractive as well. It also probably didn't hurt that I was willing to be flexible and find ways to fit into the gaps of his very full schedule in contrast to the typical day-to-day life of a concept artist that is commonly dominated by extremely tight and rigid deadlines.
Whatever it was exactly, Ben came on board and that's a very exciting prospect for the project. I'm fully aware just how lucky I've been to landed my number one choice to help make Engines of Extinction a reality. That only increases my motivation to come up big on my end as well.
Rest assured that there will be some very cool work from Ben for you to check out when Episode I launches on March 10th. And know that it will only serve as a small teaser for what's to follow.
In late 2012, I started pouring over the internet in hopes of locating just that person. I checked out a number of concept art sites and started to compile a list of people who might possibly fit the bill. However, it wasn't until I happened across the (now defunct) website CGHUB.com that I became confident that the sort of artist I was hoping to link up with actually existed and might just be interested in contributing his or her talents.
But that renewed optimism was still very far removed from actually convincing one of them to come on board. To do that, I would need to effectively communicate that this was a project worthy of their attention, that I was an author worth collaborating with, and finally be able to negotiate terms that were agreeable to both parties.
I'm not sure exactly how long my list of dream artists got to be before I decided I should probably move on to the next stage and start fishing for bites. Certainly, it was at least thirty or forty names deep and probably a whole lot longer than that, each name ranked in order according to who I felt was best suited to the gig. With the list in place, I started the long process of filling the position.
Well, it was expected to be a long process, anyway. I figured sooner or later, I'd reel an artist in, but it might take a while. There were a number of extremely talented artists to choose from, so I told myself not get discouraged if tracking someone down with the requisite interest, time, and talent didn't happen overnight.
The first email I fired off to a potential Engines of Extinction collaborator went out on Saturday, Jan 5, 2013 at 7:44 a.m. I introduced myself, gave a bit of background on the project and what I was seeking, and hoped to go from there.
It opened in the following fashion:
"Hey Ben,
"I'd like to discuss the possibility of hiring you to do some work on a project. First, let me say that I'm tremendously impressed by your ability and probably more excited than I should allow myself to be, seeing how closely your sensibilities appear match up with mine.
"…I've had a 'secret' project in the works for a couple years now that I'm really intent on moving on in a big way in 2013. It's a fictional military/intelligence sci-fi series that borders on proto-cyberpunk. It has been deeply researched in multiple areas and is thoroughly intermeshed in real-world history and current day technological and political developments. I'm super excited about the concept, and looking at your work and reading your comments, I think this would be right in your wheelhouse…"
That's right -- 'Ben' was Ben Mauro. I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have teamed up with the very top name on my list of potential collaborators.
And working with Ben has been a genuine pleasure. It's been a thrill for me personally whenever I've been on the receiving end of an email delivering new work he's produced for Engines of Extinction, and it's tremendously exciting to think about what's still to come. It's going to be great fun to share that with the world in the coming months.
While Ben was already fast on the rise before I reached out to him in early '13, his career trajectory has only accelerated in its rapid ascension since that time. You've no doubt seen a number of his ideas translated onto both the big and small screen in recent years. He's worked on Chappie, Lucy, Elysium, The Hobbit, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Man of Steel, and a whole lot more with a huge amount still coming down the pike.
And he's still just scratching the surface; I have no doubt he's going to be a real megastar in the years to come.
However, it wasn't that impressive resume that originally grabbed my attention. When I came across Ben's work, I saw an artist who happened to have sensibilities very similar to my own. Digging in further and reading his descriptions of his work only underlined that fact. It's kind of humorous looking back, but when I read one of his explanations of a particular design he had created, I saw he wrote, in all caps, "NO GLOWING LIGHTS," and I knew this was the right guy for the job.
There wasn't any one piece that sold me. In fact, there wasn't any preexisting work that I could point to that completely nailed the aesthetic I had in mind for Engines of Extinction. However, he demonstrated an ability to effortlessly work out concepts both further and less removed from today's technological realities than what I had envisioned for EoE. It was simply a matter of providing the proper direction so he could really dial it in.
Since we've started working together, he's shown himself to be continually upbeat, hard-working, creative, skilled, and professional.
It's no surprise. Ben studied industrial and entertainment at Art Center College of Design before heading off to the other side of the world to work for the widely-acclaimed Weta Workshop in 2009 and has already established himself inside the concept art community as one not just to watch but admire.
His work speaks for itself, but he also readily provides career advice for others looking to follow in his footsteps. And that group includes not only aspiring artists but well-established veterans as well who have enviously watched as Ben's courage to step away from the safety of working for a big design studio like Weta and take more direct control over his career has really started to pay off.
While Engines of Extinction is not on the same sort of public stage as the blockbusters I rattled off above -- you certainly weren't going to see an advertisement for EoE air during the Super Bowl last month, for example -- I think Ben agreed to join the project because he recognized a common vision and saw its potential. I really wanted to find a creative partner -- not just a hired gun -- and that may have made it more attractive as well. It also probably didn't hurt that I was willing to be flexible and find ways to fit into the gaps of his very full schedule in contrast to the typical day-to-day life of a concept artist that is commonly dominated by extremely tight and rigid deadlines.
Whatever it was exactly, Ben came on board and that's a very exciting prospect for the project. I'm fully aware just how lucky I've been to landed my number one choice to help make Engines of Extinction a reality. That only increases my motivation to come up big on my end as well.
Rest assured that there will be some very cool work from Ben for you to check out when Episode I launches on March 10th. And know that it will only serve as a small teaser for what's to follow.
Dev Blog 5: Juggling HK416s & MMCNs
This morning we hit something of a milestone regarding the development of Engines of Extinction. So I figured it would only make sense to talk about it in the dev blog, right?
A couple hours ago I completed the initial draft of "Episode I: The End & The Means." There's still a ton left to be done before it's ready for launch on 3/10/15. And more generally, there's still a huge amount of work to be completed over the next six months or so (and hopefully continuing beyond that).
Even though I have had the basic idea for EoE in my head for over a decade and have been actively shaping it for the past couple of years -- including more than a thousand pages of notes, a detailed 130+ page series bible, a carefully constructed timeline, and outlines breaking down each individual episode -- you really don't quite know how it's going to take shape on the page until it does.
For one thing, it's running somewhat longer than I anticipated. Hopefully you'll consider it a good thing. It's a bit of added work for me, but I'm cool with that. If all six episodes prove to be this approximate length, the entire collection will be considerably longer than your standard novel. So, bang for your buck and all that.
As I've touched on before, I've view striking just the right balance between the real-world and the sci-fi concepts absolutely critical to Engines of Extinction's success -- both artistically and commercially.
The risk is that it could prove too real and too enmeshed in actual events, units, techniques, etc. for the sci-fi crowd, while stretching out a bit further than military nonfiction/fiction fans are comfortable with when the near-future concepts get incorporated.
Of course, the flip side of that is that it may simultaneously appeal to both. Hopefully it provides sci-fi fans with a very real and grounded world in which these near future ideas can exist, while also giving those readers more interested in real-world military and special operations a painless transition to the more fantastical elements -- not to mention a glimpse of the sorts of technologies that may come to define SOF in the years ahead.
It's impossible for me to truly tap into any individual reader's mind other than my own. And therefore, I'm really writing this thing for myself and hoping others will come along for the ride.
Another juggling act must be done when deciding just how much detail to provide. Does it really matter if the Special Collection Service is involved? Or which USAF squadron pilots the RQ-170, for whom, from where, and from where the drones are launched?
I dig detail -- a lot -- but I don't want to bury anyone under it either. I hope to make it relatively simple to follow while still offering genuine depth -- maybe even a bit of sideways "edutainment."
Judging from how Epi I is taking shape, I guess I'd say if you enjoyed my previous military books and ebooks, you should feel pretty at home. And hopefully the added element of characterization, motivation, plot, along with the basic hook and premise will keep things interesting for even those who find the nonfiction stuff a bit too dry and clinical for their tastes.
The whistleblower format as described in the previous dev blog does offer opportunities to manage this problem. The narrator is in a position to outright inform the reader whether a certain section is especially critical to their understanding of the story or simply superfluous detail that, while potentially interesting to some, is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Both juggling acts are front and center in my mind at the moment. I believe things will balance out nicely over the course of the series, but if someone isn't hooked in Episode I, there's little chance they'll return for more.
And Episode I is very much a prologue. As such, it's greatly weighted toward the real-world end of things, so that's something of a gamble as well. While a pivotal sci-fi tech idea is indeed introduced -- and inspires the episode's title ("The End & The Means") -- 95% of the episode is firmly entrenched in reality.
In other words, outside of a few critical sections, Episode I could be viewed as military fiction rather than military science fiction. And more than that, it's probably much closer to nonfiction than the vast majority of military fiction titles.
At the same time, I've worked hard to demonstrate how today's real-world military and intelligence operations -- particularly at the elite level -- are much, much more sci-fi-like than you likely imagine.
Additionally, this is a case where another military sci-fi author might decide that a simple description like "former Delta Force operator/OGA contractor" is enough to establish a character's credentials and leave it at that. That doesn't cut it for me. On the contrary, I want to explore what that means and why it matters going forward and do so with some depth. I've also used this backdrop as a way to introduce the protagonist's personality -- sense of humor, quirks, and scars -- that will have implications as the series develops.
So, military fans -- I think you're really going to dig this one. A lot.
Sci-fi fans -- you might have to be a bit more patient, but we've got something really cool for you in Episode I too. And it'll just be a small preview of what's to come.
Okay -- last time I said I'd describe my hunt for an artistic collaborator in this blog. Well, that didn't happen. Consider this free-flow, close quarters blogging. I'll come back around to that story in a future installment. It'll probably be the next one, but I've learned my lesson, and I want to give myself a bit more room to adapt in case plans change again.
Thanks again for reading and showing your interest. Check back regularly and if you think this all sounds pretty cool, help spread the word. I really mean that -- we're going to be extremely reliant on word-of-mouth to pull this thing off.
My aim is to give you all something worthy of talking about. After that, it's up to you.
A couple hours ago I completed the initial draft of "Episode I: The End & The Means." There's still a ton left to be done before it's ready for launch on 3/10/15. And more generally, there's still a huge amount of work to be completed over the next six months or so (and hopefully continuing beyond that).
Even though I have had the basic idea for EoE in my head for over a decade and have been actively shaping it for the past couple of years -- including more than a thousand pages of notes, a detailed 130+ page series bible, a carefully constructed timeline, and outlines breaking down each individual episode -- you really don't quite know how it's going to take shape on the page until it does.
For one thing, it's running somewhat longer than I anticipated. Hopefully you'll consider it a good thing. It's a bit of added work for me, but I'm cool with that. If all six episodes prove to be this approximate length, the entire collection will be considerably longer than your standard novel. So, bang for your buck and all that.
As I've touched on before, I've view striking just the right balance between the real-world and the sci-fi concepts absolutely critical to Engines of Extinction's success -- both artistically and commercially.
The risk is that it could prove too real and too enmeshed in actual events, units, techniques, etc. for the sci-fi crowd, while stretching out a bit further than military nonfiction/fiction fans are comfortable with when the near-future concepts get incorporated.
Of course, the flip side of that is that it may simultaneously appeal to both. Hopefully it provides sci-fi fans with a very real and grounded world in which these near future ideas can exist, while also giving those readers more interested in real-world military and special operations a painless transition to the more fantastical elements -- not to mention a glimpse of the sorts of technologies that may come to define SOF in the years ahead.
It's impossible for me to truly tap into any individual reader's mind other than my own. And therefore, I'm really writing this thing for myself and hoping others will come along for the ride.
Another juggling act must be done when deciding just how much detail to provide. Does it really matter if the Special Collection Service is involved? Or which USAF squadron pilots the RQ-170, for whom, from where, and from where the drones are launched?
I dig detail -- a lot -- but I don't want to bury anyone under it either. I hope to make it relatively simple to follow while still offering genuine depth -- maybe even a bit of sideways "edutainment."
Judging from how Epi I is taking shape, I guess I'd say if you enjoyed my previous military books and ebooks, you should feel pretty at home. And hopefully the added element of characterization, motivation, plot, along with the basic hook and premise will keep things interesting for even those who find the nonfiction stuff a bit too dry and clinical for their tastes.
The whistleblower format as described in the previous dev blog does offer opportunities to manage this problem. The narrator is in a position to outright inform the reader whether a certain section is especially critical to their understanding of the story or simply superfluous detail that, while potentially interesting to some, is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
Both juggling acts are front and center in my mind at the moment. I believe things will balance out nicely over the course of the series, but if someone isn't hooked in Episode I, there's little chance they'll return for more.
And Episode I is very much a prologue. As such, it's greatly weighted toward the real-world end of things, so that's something of a gamble as well. While a pivotal sci-fi tech idea is indeed introduced -- and inspires the episode's title ("The End & The Means") -- 95% of the episode is firmly entrenched in reality.
In other words, outside of a few critical sections, Episode I could be viewed as military fiction rather than military science fiction. And more than that, it's probably much closer to nonfiction than the vast majority of military fiction titles.
At the same time, I've worked hard to demonstrate how today's real-world military and intelligence operations -- particularly at the elite level -- are much, much more sci-fi-like than you likely imagine.
Additionally, this is a case where another military sci-fi author might decide that a simple description like "former Delta Force operator/OGA contractor" is enough to establish a character's credentials and leave it at that. That doesn't cut it for me. On the contrary, I want to explore what that means and why it matters going forward and do so with some depth. I've also used this backdrop as a way to introduce the protagonist's personality -- sense of humor, quirks, and scars -- that will have implications as the series develops.
So, military fans -- I think you're really going to dig this one. A lot.
Sci-fi fans -- you might have to be a bit more patient, but we've got something really cool for you in Episode I too. And it'll just be a small preview of what's to come.
Okay -- last time I said I'd describe my hunt for an artistic collaborator in this blog. Well, that didn't happen. Consider this free-flow, close quarters blogging. I'll come back around to that story in a future installment. It'll probably be the next one, but I've learned my lesson, and I want to give myself a bit more room to adapt in case plans change again.
Thanks again for reading and showing your interest. Check back regularly and if you think this all sounds pretty cool, help spread the word. I really mean that -- we're going to be extremely reliant on word-of-mouth to pull this thing off.
My aim is to give you all something worthy of talking about. After that, it's up to you.
January 23, 2015
Dev Blog 4: Leaking Secrets -- EoE's Format Exposed
I realize I've been more than a bit coy regarding the format of Engines of Extinction. In fact, unless you listened to the recent SOFREP podcast I was featured on, you probably still don't have much of an idea what to expect.
Well, I'm here to change that now.
In short, Engines of Extinction is an episodic epistolary novel. Wait, wait… don't click away yet. That makes it sound a whole lot more complicated than it truly it. In fact, it's actually a very natural way to deliver this particular story. And if you bear with me for just a bit, I'll explain what that means and how we eventually hit upon that particular format.
As I wrote in a previous installment, the earliest ideas that eventually took shape as EoE hit me a decade or so back. I spent a considerable time evolving the concept and adding to the mythology. My notes started to pile up with no real plan for how to ultimately express them.
At some point, I decided I really did need to figure out a way in which to transform the non-stop barrage of ideas and accumulating pages of notes into something more concrete. I really believed in the base material as it effectively taps into so much of what I'm interested in, and does so in a way I think will appeal to people of varying tastes.
However, I simply wasn't interested in writing a 'standard' third-person POV novel. That may change at some point down the line, but I frequently find myself overly aware of the narrator, and, if not properly crafted, novels of the sort can feel contrived to me. That format wasn't something I felt comfortable tackling and, perhaps, a bit too far removed the sort of realistic vibe I was searching for.
Initially, I actually considered creating EoE as a sort of hybrid graphic/illustrated novel. (So a prose novel wasn't 'real' enough for me but a comic book was? Again, please bear with me…). At that point, I pictured a story told through both images and text -- told in the form of art, documents, tables, transcripts, etc. -- and stripped of a lot of standard comic book trappings such as word bubbles.
I guess what I imagined was something along the lines of an even more extreme early-era Jonathan Hickman comic, although I was completely unaware of Hickman or his work at the time.
As it took shape in my head, I even envisioned every image as being 'sourced' in reality -- depicted as screen captures from drone footage, photographs, surveillance cameras, and so on.
I optimistically intended to do everything myself, including the art. You see, at one point, way back when, I was a fine arts major and aspiring comic book artist. However, at the time I was rather ignorant of what opportunities existed for artists and the comic book industry was in full-on crash-mode. So I decided to opt a safer route (yeah, dropping out of law school to chase a career in motorcycle racing journalism was my 'safe' choice).
Anyway, just to prove I'm not making all this up, here are a couple samples of my drawings from high school… and if it looks very '90s-ish to you, well, keep in mind it was the '90s:
I'm very thankful I ultimately chose another path. To this day, I have enormous respect for artists and a rapidly growing collection of art books to prove it. However, while I personally found creating art rewarding, I also found the process mentally exhausting and flat-out painful, particularly if I wasn't appropriately inspired. The thought of having to draw every day on cue is actually pretty horrifying to me.
In 2009, after 15 years of not using a pen or pencil for anything more involved than signing my name at the bottom of a rent check, I decided to see if I still had any skills remaining. I dipped a toe back in by ripping off (I mean paying homage to) a Jim Lee Batman drawing as a Christmas present for my nephew. After that, I drew a comic-style pic of Superbike champ Josh Hayes for a Road Racer X cover story I also wrote (colors by Jason Embury):
Surprise, surprise… I found the process rewarding… and mentally exhausting.
The thought of doing everything necessary to complete EoE in the manner I was envisioning was simply overwhelming, not to mention impossible. Even though I was relatively satisfied with how those drawings turned out, I was very rusty. And even if I was fully back in the groove and put in the requisite hard work to start to develop my own style rather than simply aping artists I liked, I just didn't have the right skill set necessary to generate the sort of hyper-realistic images I had in mind.
And even if that alone wasn't posing an impassable obstacle, the format itself would have proven less-than-ideal for relaying the vast amounts of detail and nuance I hoped to communicate.
As a result, Engines of Extinction was unofficially placed on the back burner for some time… even if I continued to take notes and evolve the story, despite once again not knowing how to effectively deliver them.
At some point -- I cannot remember exactly how, when, or why -- the appropriate format finally hit me. It was still very much in the same spirit but far superior for telling this story -- not to mention considerably more manageable. It was a massive upgrade all the way around.
Years before Edward Snowden made himself a household name, I imaged a story told directly to you, the reader, in the form of a series of emails sent to you by a well-placed whistleblower.
This inside source just happens to be a former Delta recce sniper and OGA contractor named Jared Baxter, who approaches you with shocking revelations regarding a shadow war of near unimaginable scale and importance. And he comes armed with proof.
Baxter serves as the story's (first-person) narrator, and the body of each 'email' (six in all) will deliver the primary narrative. That is, if you were only to read each email body, you would get a complete story… That's the quicker-paced thriller aspect of EoE I referred to in an earlier blog.
However, to prove the veracity of his extraordinary claims, Baxter also includes a variety of attachments with each email -- which is where we can get really dense and technical with the material if we so choose. These attachments can range from stolen classified documents, newspaper articles, internal unit histories, conversation and email transcripts, images, etc.
In particular, the images could be 'photos' depicting the bleeding-edge tech in action, screen grabs of surveillance footage, and so on. (And trust me, the imagery will be a very compelling part of the overall package.)
With the format finally in place, Engines of Extinction was not just back among the living but destined for an inevitable release. However, to pull this off properly, I was going to need an artist capable of seriously delivering the goods. My amateur scribblings would not suffice -- I needed someone world class.
And so began my hunt for not a collaborator, but the collaborator. I'll talk about that next time.
Well, I'm here to change that now.
In short, Engines of Extinction is an episodic epistolary novel. Wait, wait… don't click away yet. That makes it sound a whole lot more complicated than it truly it. In fact, it's actually a very natural way to deliver this particular story. And if you bear with me for just a bit, I'll explain what that means and how we eventually hit upon that particular format.
As I wrote in a previous installment, the earliest ideas that eventually took shape as EoE hit me a decade or so back. I spent a considerable time evolving the concept and adding to the mythology. My notes started to pile up with no real plan for how to ultimately express them.
At some point, I decided I really did need to figure out a way in which to transform the non-stop barrage of ideas and accumulating pages of notes into something more concrete. I really believed in the base material as it effectively taps into so much of what I'm interested in, and does so in a way I think will appeal to people of varying tastes.
However, I simply wasn't interested in writing a 'standard' third-person POV novel. That may change at some point down the line, but I frequently find myself overly aware of the narrator, and, if not properly crafted, novels of the sort can feel contrived to me. That format wasn't something I felt comfortable tackling and, perhaps, a bit too far removed the sort of realistic vibe I was searching for.
Initially, I actually considered creating EoE as a sort of hybrid graphic/illustrated novel. (So a prose novel wasn't 'real' enough for me but a comic book was? Again, please bear with me…). At that point, I pictured a story told through both images and text -- told in the form of art, documents, tables, transcripts, etc. -- and stripped of a lot of standard comic book trappings such as word bubbles.
I guess what I imagined was something along the lines of an even more extreme early-era Jonathan Hickman comic, although I was completely unaware of Hickman or his work at the time.
As it took shape in my head, I even envisioned every image as being 'sourced' in reality -- depicted as screen captures from drone footage, photographs, surveillance cameras, and so on.
I optimistically intended to do everything myself, including the art. You see, at one point, way back when, I was a fine arts major and aspiring comic book artist. However, at the time I was rather ignorant of what opportunities existed for artists and the comic book industry was in full-on crash-mode. So I decided to opt a safer route (yeah, dropping out of law school to chase a career in motorcycle racing journalism was my 'safe' choice).
Anyway, just to prove I'm not making all this up, here are a couple samples of my drawings from high school… and if it looks very '90s-ish to you, well, keep in mind it was the '90s:
I'm very thankful I ultimately chose another path. To this day, I have enormous respect for artists and a rapidly growing collection of art books to prove it. However, while I personally found creating art rewarding, I also found the process mentally exhausting and flat-out painful, particularly if I wasn't appropriately inspired. The thought of having to draw every day on cue is actually pretty horrifying to me.
In 2009, after 15 years of not using a pen or pencil for anything more involved than signing my name at the bottom of a rent check, I decided to see if I still had any skills remaining. I dipped a toe back in by ripping off (I mean paying homage to) a Jim Lee Batman drawing as a Christmas present for my nephew. After that, I drew a comic-style pic of Superbike champ Josh Hayes for a Road Racer X cover story I also wrote (colors by Jason Embury):
Surprise, surprise… I found the process rewarding… and mentally exhausting.
The thought of doing everything necessary to complete EoE in the manner I was envisioning was simply overwhelming, not to mention impossible. Even though I was relatively satisfied with how those drawings turned out, I was very rusty. And even if I was fully back in the groove and put in the requisite hard work to start to develop my own style rather than simply aping artists I liked, I just didn't have the right skill set necessary to generate the sort of hyper-realistic images I had in mind.
And even if that alone wasn't posing an impassable obstacle, the format itself would have proven less-than-ideal for relaying the vast amounts of detail and nuance I hoped to communicate.
As a result, Engines of Extinction was unofficially placed on the back burner for some time… even if I continued to take notes and evolve the story, despite once again not knowing how to effectively deliver them.
At some point -- I cannot remember exactly how, when, or why -- the appropriate format finally hit me. It was still very much in the same spirit but far superior for telling this story -- not to mention considerably more manageable. It was a massive upgrade all the way around.
Years before Edward Snowden made himself a household name, I imaged a story told directly to you, the reader, in the form of a series of emails sent to you by a well-placed whistleblower.
This inside source just happens to be a former Delta recce sniper and OGA contractor named Jared Baxter, who approaches you with shocking revelations regarding a shadow war of near unimaginable scale and importance. And he comes armed with proof.
Baxter serves as the story's (first-person) narrator, and the body of each 'email' (six in all) will deliver the primary narrative. That is, if you were only to read each email body, you would get a complete story… That's the quicker-paced thriller aspect of EoE I referred to in an earlier blog.
However, to prove the veracity of his extraordinary claims, Baxter also includes a variety of attachments with each email -- which is where we can get really dense and technical with the material if we so choose. These attachments can range from stolen classified documents, newspaper articles, internal unit histories, conversation and email transcripts, images, etc.
In particular, the images could be 'photos' depicting the bleeding-edge tech in action, screen grabs of surveillance footage, and so on. (And trust me, the imagery will be a very compelling part of the overall package.)
With the format finally in place, Engines of Extinction was not just back among the living but destined for an inevitable release. However, to pull this off properly, I was going to need an artist capable of seriously delivering the goods. My amateur scribblings would not suffice -- I needed someone world class.
And so began my hunt for not a collaborator, but the collaborator. I'll talk about that next time.
Dev Blog 3: Channeling Watson
The sheer amount of information that's being collected in one form or another in today's hyper-connected world is staggering, if not flat-out overwhelming. That's only going to become more and more the case in the years to come as that level of interconnectivity continues to increase and we embark upon a sensor revolution, with a host of advanced, miniature, and cheap sensors of all sorts or types being developed and introduced.
If wielded properly, that glut of information (often dubbed 'Big data') can prove terrifically powerful. Information is power, right? However, until that information is actually accessed and understood in a meaningful way, it is useless. Worse than useless, actually.
If an intelligence agency were simply collecting vast amounts of signals intelligence (SIGINT) but lacked the ability to efficiently sort and contextualize it, that agency would be rather toothless and serve no real use to its government. And a search engine that is simply hitting on keywords but not delivering results in a way its users find helpful stands no chance of succeeding.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the NSA has an especially tight relationship with Cray, Inc. a leading force in supercomputer development. The NSA boasts multiple massive supercomputing centers and is rumored to boast a classified system that may just be the most powerful in the world.
Meanwhile, the likes of Google, Microsoft, and facebook are currently engaged in a brain race. They are battling each other to sign up the most talented and accomplished figures in the fields of deep learning and artificial intelligence as they look to gain a competitive advantage by best exploiting the oceans of data they are continually amassing.
A number of promising new machine learning techniques designed to do just that exist in various stages of development. IBM's Watson computer system is an especially showy example; A few years back Watson made headlines by proving so adept at filtering through databanks and presenting the relevant information it retrieved that it rather easily defeated the world's best Jeopardy players at their own game. Since its landmark victory, Watson has been continually refined as IBM attempts to prove its utility in a wide variety of real-world applications, including in the medical and business fields.
Conducting research for Engines of Extinction has occasionally left me envious of Watson's ability to generate results at near-instantaneous speeds. That said, collecting, organizing, and understanding mass amounts of information is something I've got a bit of a knack for… you know, at least for a being made of mere flesh and blood.
David Brown -- a journalist and writer I respect a great deal -- once paid me a compliment that I'm still quite fond of. Upon reading an advance copy of Beyond Neptune Spear, he said, "You're like a walking computer or something to synthesize all of this material into a cohesive work."
That struck a chord with me because I've always considered it a real strength of my work. It's a skill that's helped set me apart to some degree in the world of motorcycle racing journalism as I've consistently been able to recognize and communicate trends and patterns that others failed to notice.
That fact allowed me to not only succeed as a beat reporter and columnist covering the American scene --where I've practically lived in the paddock for well over a decade -- but also write stories that carried weight in the MotoGP and World Superbike paddocks -- where I was only an occasional visitor.
My first real forays into writing about special operations -- Shaping the World from the Shadows and the aforementioned Beyond Neptune Spear -- were based (almost) purely on open source information. As such, they more or less exclusively proved to be exercises in putting this talent to use.
Despite the units' existence as classified, sometimes denied assets, there was actually a ton of information floating around about Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, but much of it was widely scattered. Moving beyond the obvious sources, if one knew where and how to look, they could find a nugget of information to be gleaned in a single paragraph from this book, or maybe in two sentences from that report, and so on. Assembled together, they allowed me to piece together puzzles and deliver a somewhat more complete overview of Delta and ST6 than had previously been made available.
Modern American Snipers followed that example in some respects, but in a much larger, more complex manner. Of course, it was also rounded out with a wealth of exclusive information courtesy of the insight provided by real-deal special operators and other insiders.
But Engines of Extinction is quite simply the ultimate test of whatever particular skill I have in absorbing massive amounts of information and then repackaging it in a cohesive, coherent manner.
Certainly, it's much, much broader, including micro-and-macro-level looks at black operations, espionage, geopolitics, and bleeding-edge science and technology. Upping the difficulty factor is the fact that all those topics present a moving target, continually evolving and progressing.
To give you some idea of the effort that's gone into researching and building the world of EoE consider the following:
At one point I was working from multiple documents. I decided it would be best if I filtered through them to cut out the fat, get it down to a more manageable size, and organize into a single document.
That newly slim and trim 'manageable' document was still well over 1000 pages long.
Yeah.
Additionally, there's also a series bible that's approx. 130 pages. It's not much more than a straight-ahead collection of facts, organizational structures, technological explanations, and other basic notes to help me keep everything straight ; it barely even touches upon the series' plot.
Sound daunting? Well, yes, for me, it can be a bit daunting to tackle at times. Not overwhelming mind you, but daunting. It is big in many respects. Much bigger than anything I've attempted before.
But that burden is placed squarely on the author, not the reader. If I do my job properly, when you read EoE, you shouldn't feel thrown into the deep end, drowning in information… well, at least not unless you want to. Again, that speaks to the book's format, which I touched on a bit in the recent SOFREP Radio podcast and will elaborate upon in a future dev blog.
The fact is, there's a whole lot of cool/interesting/disturbing stuff out there in the real world right now with a whole lot more rapidly barreling down the pike.
Engines of Extinction is our attempt to pull all of this together and deliver it in a way that actually makes sense… and is awesome.
If wielded properly, that glut of information (often dubbed 'Big data') can prove terrifically powerful. Information is power, right? However, until that information is actually accessed and understood in a meaningful way, it is useless. Worse than useless, actually.
If an intelligence agency were simply collecting vast amounts of signals intelligence (SIGINT) but lacked the ability to efficiently sort and contextualize it, that agency would be rather toothless and serve no real use to its government. And a search engine that is simply hitting on keywords but not delivering results in a way its users find helpful stands no chance of succeeding.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the NSA has an especially tight relationship with Cray, Inc. a leading force in supercomputer development. The NSA boasts multiple massive supercomputing centers and is rumored to boast a classified system that may just be the most powerful in the world.
Meanwhile, the likes of Google, Microsoft, and facebook are currently engaged in a brain race. They are battling each other to sign up the most talented and accomplished figures in the fields of deep learning and artificial intelligence as they look to gain a competitive advantage by best exploiting the oceans of data they are continually amassing.
A number of promising new machine learning techniques designed to do just that exist in various stages of development. IBM's Watson computer system is an especially showy example; A few years back Watson made headlines by proving so adept at filtering through databanks and presenting the relevant information it retrieved that it rather easily defeated the world's best Jeopardy players at their own game. Since its landmark victory, Watson has been continually refined as IBM attempts to prove its utility in a wide variety of real-world applications, including in the medical and business fields.
Conducting research for Engines of Extinction has occasionally left me envious of Watson's ability to generate results at near-instantaneous speeds. That said, collecting, organizing, and understanding mass amounts of information is something I've got a bit of a knack for… you know, at least for a being made of mere flesh and blood.
David Brown -- a journalist and writer I respect a great deal -- once paid me a compliment that I'm still quite fond of. Upon reading an advance copy of Beyond Neptune Spear, he said, "You're like a walking computer or something to synthesize all of this material into a cohesive work."
That struck a chord with me because I've always considered it a real strength of my work. It's a skill that's helped set me apart to some degree in the world of motorcycle racing journalism as I've consistently been able to recognize and communicate trends and patterns that others failed to notice.
That fact allowed me to not only succeed as a beat reporter and columnist covering the American scene --where I've practically lived in the paddock for well over a decade -- but also write stories that carried weight in the MotoGP and World Superbike paddocks -- where I was only an occasional visitor.
My first real forays into writing about special operations -- Shaping the World from the Shadows and the aforementioned Beyond Neptune Spear -- were based (almost) purely on open source information. As such, they more or less exclusively proved to be exercises in putting this talent to use.
Despite the units' existence as classified, sometimes denied assets, there was actually a ton of information floating around about Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, but much of it was widely scattered. Moving beyond the obvious sources, if one knew where and how to look, they could find a nugget of information to be gleaned in a single paragraph from this book, or maybe in two sentences from that report, and so on. Assembled together, they allowed me to piece together puzzles and deliver a somewhat more complete overview of Delta and ST6 than had previously been made available.
Modern American Snipers followed that example in some respects, but in a much larger, more complex manner. Of course, it was also rounded out with a wealth of exclusive information courtesy of the insight provided by real-deal special operators and other insiders.
But Engines of Extinction is quite simply the ultimate test of whatever particular skill I have in absorbing massive amounts of information and then repackaging it in a cohesive, coherent manner.
Certainly, it's much, much broader, including micro-and-macro-level looks at black operations, espionage, geopolitics, and bleeding-edge science and technology. Upping the difficulty factor is the fact that all those topics present a moving target, continually evolving and progressing.
To give you some idea of the effort that's gone into researching and building the world of EoE consider the following:
At one point I was working from multiple documents. I decided it would be best if I filtered through them to cut out the fat, get it down to a more manageable size, and organize into a single document.
That newly slim and trim 'manageable' document was still well over 1000 pages long.
Yeah.
Additionally, there's also a series bible that's approx. 130 pages. It's not much more than a straight-ahead collection of facts, organizational structures, technological explanations, and other basic notes to help me keep everything straight ; it barely even touches upon the series' plot.
Sound daunting? Well, yes, for me, it can be a bit daunting to tackle at times. Not overwhelming mind you, but daunting. It is big in many respects. Much bigger than anything I've attempted before.
But that burden is placed squarely on the author, not the reader. If I do my job properly, when you read EoE, you shouldn't feel thrown into the deep end, drowning in information… well, at least not unless you want to. Again, that speaks to the book's format, which I touched on a bit in the recent SOFREP Radio podcast and will elaborate upon in a future dev blog.
The fact is, there's a whole lot of cool/interesting/disturbing stuff out there in the real world right now with a whole lot more rapidly barreling down the pike.
Engines of Extinction is our attempt to pull all of this together and deliver it in a way that actually makes sense… and is awesome.
