EP 047 Thomas Pecora -24 years in the CIA and Every War Zone In Between

Thomas (Tom) Pecora has more than 30 years in the security profession and is a former CIA Senior Security Officer who retired after 24 years of service working in various security positions as a Multi-Discipline Security Officer in support of Agency operations. He managed large security programs and operations on multiple continents and in multiple war zones. Experienced in protective operations, crisis management, personnel/physical security, and counterterrorism, he served as Chief of Security for the CIA in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq other parts of the Philippines.

He has been intimately involved in leading security teams and larger elements as they provide subject matter expertise in the areas of cybersecurity, physical and technical security, personnel and physical security, as well as workplace violence and active shooter program development and implementation. For 2 years, Tom led a large security staff responsible for securing the NRO’s largest mission ground station, supporting 3,700 people and more than a million square feet of SCIF spaces. As the chair of the Workplace Violence Assessment Team for the NRO site, he was involved in investigating and adjudicating workplace violence issues as well as building appropriate workplace violence policy.

While at the CIA, Tom provided leadership training and mentorship for new CIA support personnel as well as teaching crisis management and specific security skill sets to Agency employees. In the private sector, Tom has conducted security assessments, created workplace violence policy and procedures, conducted active shooter training, as well as providing personal safety training for employees. His real-world experience with crisis management has been put to good use in advising clients on how to prepare for and then address security crisis situations.

During his government career, Tom received the Intelligence Star, the CIA’s second highest honor for valor awarded “for a voluntary act or acts of courage performed under hazardous conditions or conditions of grave personal risk”. He also received the Career Intelligence Medal for exceptional achievements that substantially contributed to the mission of the CIA.

Tom is currently doing consulting work in Asia as well as being the situational awareness curriculum specialist and chief trainer for Arcuri Group LLC (https://arcurigroupllc.us/index.html).  He is an Adjunct Professor for Wright State University where he provides Situation Awareness training.  Tom is the author of the book, “GUARDIAN – Life in the Crosshairs of the CIA’s War on Terror”- a historical memoir of his career in the CIA.

 Linked In
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-pecora-sas-mp-053b503a/

Website https://thomaspecora.wordpress.com/about/

Security Circle ⭕️  is an IFPOD production for IFPO the International Foundation of Protection Officers

Transcript

Yoyo 0:15

Hi, this is Yolanda. Welcome. Welcome to the Security Circle podcast if PO is the International Foundation for Protection Officers. And we want to thank all of our listeners around the world. Thank you for listening. We are dedicated to providing meaningful education and certification for all levels of security personnel and make a positive difference to our members' mental health and wellbeing. Now, I've had a lot of special guests on the Security Circle podcast with me today. Is somebody very special indeed. His name is Thomas Pecora. We're gonna call him Tom today. He has more than 30 years in the security profession and is a former C I A senior security officer who retired after 24 years of service. Working in various security positions as a multi-disciplined security officer in supportive agency operations. He managed large security programs and operations on multiple continents and in multiple war zones experienced to protective operations, crisis management, personnel, physical security, and counterterrorism. He served as chief of security for the CIA in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq and other parts of the Philippines. Wow. Tom, thank you for joining us on the security cycle today. Thank you, Yolanda. It's a real pleasure to speak to you. And the objective today really is to sort of find out really about who you are as the man. Let's take you back to when you were a kid. What did you wanna be when you grew up?

Thomas 1:49

Well, I grew up reading in the library a lot books about war heroes and spies and, uh, watching FBI agents on tv. So I grew up with a serious adventurous yearning. And I read a lot of books about those different subjects and for some reason I just had this. Thing about being in federal service. Just knew that I was going to be working for the federal government in some capacity. And as time went on I kind of drifted into different other things and then by happenstance I ended up actually getting on board with the cia. So can you tell

Yoyo 2:26

us about how that

Thomas 2:27

happened? I I finished my undergrad at Marquette. I was a wrestler all through college. That's how I I made it through school and then I was coaching, wrestling and going to grad school. And I I couldn't quite find a niche, and this is in the Midwest in the na in the eighties. So, I ended up finishing grad school and I was doing a variety, different jobs, including coaching, wrestling, and I saw an ad in the newspaper in the Milwaukee Journal for the cia. Now, that struck me because being for the Midwest, I didn't really know anybody who had ever worked with cia. Like that. I knew a few people who were in the military but not really the federal government. So, I put an application in and about almost two months later I got a call from somebody saying that they were an interviewer for the position. And I thought it was my friends. Joking with me. And so I almost hung up on the guy. Thank God I didn't. But I ended up meeting with the with the recruiter and I made it through that initial set of interview, and then I was sent to Washington, DC. Where I went through a battery test, I did a polygraph, et cetera. And they offered me a position in the security career track, specifically what they called the multi-discipline security officer, which is what you would call like the officer rank versus the uniform rank, which would be in our security protective service, our guard force, which I actually, that's misnomer. They're, they are actual full on federal police officers.

Yoyo 3:58

Right. Okay. So do you remember heading to Washington DC that day from the Midwest? I mean, what was that like?

Thomas 4:07

Oh uh, totally bizarre. I had so many misconceptions about what it was like at the CIA and what they were doing, and. I thought I was under surveillance 24 7 and I got there. And some of that was interesting cuz I had to interview with a number of different people and they were security officers. But they would already introduce me to introduce themselves to me, their first names. And I thought that was really bizarre. And then I was following a book called what Color is your Parachute? And in that book it's a it's, uh, a book about getting hired outta college. And one of their biggest recommendations was to never forget the thank you letters. So I'm sitting there finishing up my interviews going, how am I gonna send thank you letters to these people? And I don't know their names. So luckily I found one of the the administrative assistants. I said, listen, this is my dilemma. Is there anything you can do to help me with this? She said, sure. Here's my name and address. Just send it to me and I'll make sure they get to the right people. And I found out later that was a pretty big hit and definitely helped me get hired.

Yoyo 5:16

Yeah you did something that was to you deeply respectful and following the process, but ultimately it made a huge impact and it helped you to stand apart from the rest. So, you know, what was life like in the Midwest for bearing in mind, you know, our listeners are global, but describe for us what kind of life you'd left. In, in the mid Midwest in the eighties, what sort of jobs were your your your fellow students heading

Thomas 5:45

towards? Well, at Marquette we had a lot of people who were like, were doing engineering degrees, business degrees. I was in a little, uh, less auspicious. I was I was a communications major, which is another word for, you know, liberal arts. I had no real idea what I was gonna do. At the time they called Midwest of Rust Belt because the factories were all closing and there wasn't really any work. And I was kind, I was looking at a bleak future of working, selling insurance or something like that. And so while I was waiting to try to figure out what I was gonna do for my career, I was working a bunch of odd jobs. I was working stocking shelves in a warehouse. I was I was an enumerator, which is somebody goes crisscross directory. I'd go door to door. And get data about each occupant, you know, how many people I was, oh, I would also do some other odd jobs. And I was coaching, wrestling at at a college. So it was kind of, a very whole hum Midwest experience in terms of life. I hadn't really traveled. Except for domestically, you know, around the, some places around the states. My world was was very boring and small in terms of where I actually live. But, my fantasy life, you could say was pretty exotic. Having read all these books is you know, James Bon series all the war novels. So I had these aspirations, had no idea in terms of reality.

Yoyo 7:10

Yeah. And they are a big gap. I know. I mean, I joined the police in the United Kingdom and it's a very different reality, isn't it, to what we see on tv. So look, you were quite you told me in our pre-chat that you were undercover for a lot of your career. So can you tell us why that was a good fit for you and why was that a route that was good for

7:34

your

Thomas 7:34

career? Well, it wasn't a good f fit for me per se. I don't think many people really liked being undercover. I was undercover for 23 outta 24 years, and what that means is I was never an acknowledged employee of the C I A my tax returns, everything, my pay stubs all said something else. And my immediate family knew where I worked, but they didn't know the particulars of my job cause they didn't have what they call need to know. And it made it difficult when I was dealing with people in the rest of my life. And people that I work with wasn't an issue, but people outside of that circle it made it difficult cuz basically you are lying all the time. You're telling people where you, that you work somewhere else and that when you go on these trips, you're not going where you're going And. I ended up working extensively overseas, so I had to make up a lot of different stories to explain my absences, and unfortunately when I started to really disappear a lot it had some traumatic effects on relationships, friendships, et cetera. Yeah. So it was difficult.

Yoyo 8:40

And how did you deal with that? Because look to some people you know, working is isolate, compartmentalizing. I think this is one of the structures. I certainly have experience with it in my family. So my father worked abroad all the time. Now we had an understanding of what he did, but who knows, he could have been doing something else for all we knew. And there were many weeks, many months away, and then trips back home again, and then many more trips away. So from a child's perspective, I could say we never knew if he was gonna be home for Christmas. And when you're a kid and you want your dad home for Christmas, that's kind of important and a lot of pressure on mom to say, look, I don't know. And. Tensions there, are you gonna be here? Are you not gonna be here? I don't know yet. I don't know where I'm gonna be needed. So just from that singular perspective, that's quite challenging, isn't it? How did you cope? Or did you find that maybe compartmentalizing family here, work here, you know, was that a good solution for

Thomas 9:42

you? No that's an actually an excellent word because it's, it really does focus on how we dealt with, because you are. You are going to deal with your with your acquaintances much differently than you're going to deal with your workmates, which is much different than how you're gonna deal with immediate family. When I was traveling to a lot of the bad bad places in other war zones I had to be very careful what I told my family what I was doing. And I sometimes I could lie convincingly. Other times it wasn't So, when I had to disappear into Bosnia during the conflict, They knew I was going somewhere and not going to a training course in France. And so it, it was difficult. And in terms of relationships, it was really it really had a negative effect on, on, on my closer relationships in terms of friends my, I would be disappearing a lot and, I wasn't keeping in touch. And so, so we lost people that way. In terms of romantic relationships that it was a, it was pretty much a bummer. It, nobody wants somebody who's not around, so it and I worked, I did a career that was a little different than the average bear in my career track. I ended up getting into the counterterrorism world where I was bouncing in and out of security. So I ended up going to a lot of bad places, doing a lot of stuff that I couldn't talk about at all in any way, shape or form until later. And so that made it really difficult then. And when I was senior officer at the agency before I retired, I would have some discussions, mentoring sessions, and then some presentations I'd give to some of our support officers who are coming on board. And I explained to them how difficult the job could be and how extremely difficult it, it was. If you drifted into these real, highly responsible positions positions where you are committed to so much away time that you know that the effect that would have on your life. And so I was kind of giving them a little bit of a warning. You it's not going be. As conducive for family et cetera. Yeah.

Yoyo 11:54

Yeah. And this is how we connect, isn't it? As human beings, we connect with people, and I remember going on a holiday once and you'll identify with this, and it's one of those holidays that's a social holiday. So you go to meet other people and to join in activities with other people. So you, we all tend to sort of just give you an idea. Anybody wants I any information about this holiday to pm me, but. It's one of those holidays where every time you go, you meet people that you've already met a couple of years ago. And so we all like the same stuff. It's nothing kinky it's just sports and this woman mentioned that she lived in Gloucester, so. And and I said oh, what do you do? Then she said, oh, well, I'm in it. And anybody who works for any of the government's Secret Security Services always says they're in it because the likelihood of people going, oh, okay, well not going to open that can of worms. And I made the connection that she lived in Gloucester, which is right next to G C H Q. And then she said, what? Me too. Started to really struggle with her narrative. She wasn't expecting anyone to go any deeper. And then she pulled me aside and she said, look, I work at G C H Q, but I can't tell anybody. Okay, it's really fine. I'd already worked that out. And it is you spend a lifetime of doing that, don't you? Because you can't do hobbies with any consistency because you don't know when you're gonna be around. You can't go to classes after work, you know, partying with friends. Family, friends, neighbors, everything's very different, isn't it? So how do you as a person get through that kind of isolation?

Thomas 13:36

Well, my personality got formed through, through wrestling wrestling's a very intense individual sport. And I wrestled all through middle school, high school, college, and then afterwards. That kind of helped me in some ways deal with the the commitment and the loneliness that comes with being so, seriously focused. So when I started getting into these positions where I was traveling on my own, I was gone a lot. I mean, the longest I spent 24 years at the agency, the longest I spent. Really spent in one place was three years I was posted in Asia. Okay. So the rest of the time I'm bouncing around. And the kind of commitment that I brought to the positions helped me with my career and helped me deal with that. But it, it wasn't something that helped me in terms of family and friends and I would've, I had to learn to get used to Sidestepping conversations and explaining away where I was and what I was doing. I had similar issues with people asking me about what I did, and I would, I had stories. I had pretty extensive stories that I could talk about, and it was one of those little stories that I would use. I was in computers. And I had my plan A and B plan. A was if you say, oh, and you're not into computers, and you, I bore you off, you go. But if you say you're in computers, I immediately say, well, I'm not really a specialist. I'm more of a generalist in computers than I teach the basics and I bore you the tears. So it's a matter of working the mortar manual to get people, but every once in a while you run into somebody who can read you, and it gets a bit uncomfortable. Yeah.

Yoyo 15:25

Yeah. Just like I did with this lady on holiday, I just read her straight away and isn't, you know, you don't go out to find people like that at all. It's just, it's your intuition and, um, but isn't that a skill that you would have in your occupation working with the c i a was being able to read people in situations, one of the top tools that you had

Thomas 15:46

to, to a certain extent, yes. But when you're sitting down on a flight, And your mind is, you know, you packed you're probably thinking about the things you di didn't do before you left. And somebody sits down next to you and they start to chatter with you and they're asking questions and it's like, oh, it's you sometimes get lost in the mix, or you're at a party back home where in the DC area, people know things about the different organizations and they can ask you about where do you live and where do you go shop? They can figure out kind of the areas that you frequent and they can figure I get a good idea what you're doing and there's buzzwords just like your, you mentioned it, um, you know the government contractor Winky? Yeah. It's. Adventure.

Yoyo 16:34

So, so before we go onto some serious stuff, is there a movie or a television series that, I mean, we say this in the UK as police officers. You know, there's one particular television series that we think it we like the most because. You know, it's never gonna be 100%, but it's gonna maybe have more realism for our own experiences in the job. Is there anything that you could share TV movie wise that you think, okay, so I kind of like this. It's a good representation of maybe, you know what, I think I'd like people to know what we do.

Thomas 17:12

In terms of the organization and history zero Dark 30 is probably the best movie that Hollywood put out, and there's some very specific reasons why the director and the producer got unprecedented access to both military members and intelligence officers when they created that movie. And it is probably the best overall explanation for the war on terror and the things that happened and how they happened and the chain of events. It's probably the best, most educational of all of them. Homeland is as farfetched as it gets and almost as far as 24. Now. They're fun shows, but Yeah the specifics of what we do, you know, there's a variety of different jobs in the agency. The best way to describe it is the varsity on the field are the case officers. They're the ones that go out and recruit spies. And the spies are what we call agents. Our officers are never agents. They're, their officers despise that we recruit our, the agents. So, we're not CIA agents and when we hear that, we automatically know that you don't know. It's just like when people say the company, nobody calls it the company. It's called the agency. And and when we're out in. Places where people overhear us. We don't even say that. We say, you know, the office work, et cetera. Yeah. So there's a lot of buzz words that we use internally and those we never use externally. Yeah. So this vocabulary, like any other job,

Yoyo 18:58

Can you remember? Can you remember your first landing in your first war zone? You don't have to say where it is, but can you remember landing in a war zone area and then thinking, okay, this shit's real now. Do you feel, did you feel thinking back to that younger man that you had everything you needed to have to go and do what you needed to do?

Thomas 19:20

I think there's really no true preparation. There's. There's movement towards preparation, but to be to have everything you need is almost impossible. I can talk about a lot of things with my work because after I retired, I I wrote a book and it went through the publication review process, which is an extensive. Grinding process where they decide what can be and what can't be in your book. Yep. And it was a two plus year odyssey. Long time. Okay. And gruel again, and a combative. So anyways I. My first war zone was Mogadishu Somalia in 93. I came in there just prior to Blackhawk down, if you know about the movies. Yeah. In fact, Blackhawk Down was an excellent representation of what was going on in that country. It was Somalia was like Mad Max. It was wow. And when I landed in that and got into that situ, into that war zone yeah, it was, there wasn't any training course that would've. Really prepared me for that. That's one of those things where you, ideally you get small doses of that, which allows you to handle the bigger picture. In my case, I didn't have any small doses, so it was a pretty, pretty big shocker.

Yoyo 20:45

And what would you say is the worst situational experience you had in a war

Thomas 20:51

zone? Well, going back to Somalia, we were in a situation where which I write about extensively in my book we ended up on a movement to secure some information in the north part of Mo Mogadishu. And we ran into the remnants of an ambush that had been. Done on a group of Nigerian peacekeepers who were slaughtered in that ambush. And we ran into it and we caught the tail end of it. We luckily utilized our training and were able to get out of that situation. But during, in the process one of our officers was shot and was seriously wound, wounded. And during that encounter, it was, there was, there were a few moments when it was very highly likely that none of us were gonna survive. And the impact that, that a situation like that has on you, you never know quite how it's going to affect you. And for me, it was the catalyst for basically a lifetime of of trying into P T S D. So, some people it's a number of different events that culminate for me. The actual real beginning was that ambush when we dealt with that situation and we survived it. So that was a pretty, that was a pretty bad moment, as bad as it gets without being critically wounded or killed. Yeah, I mean,

Yoyo 22:23

when you think back to that time, do you know that it was like, how did you survive? Is probably the best question for me to ask you. How was it that you were able to come out of that? Well,

Thomas 22:33

as I mentioned before, the training that we received made it so that we recognized the the ambush situation early enough to to turn our car around and move in another direction. And that's why we only caught a partial amount of the fire power that was situated in in that ambush site. And the best way to describe it is where the bad guy wants you to be is called the X. Yep. X marks. Spot X is where the fire power is all concentrated. We were able to recognize the thread early enough that we only glance through the X and work. In moving in a different direction when they were able to start the fire at us. So we only got limited number of rounds and they were coming in at such an angle that they didn't they weren't as accurate and they weren't as concentrated. Now, one of the rounds went through the back window and hit my seat and should have, by any logical means struck me in the middle of back and killed me. Luckily it got deflected. By something in the seat and it turned sideways. Yeah. And ripped across the top of the seat and missed me. Yeah. That would be frame. And it was only frame later on that I found out about that. Wow. I wish I had I

Yoyo 23:53

Well, we're glad for that. Seat. Yes. Construction. We have you with us today.

Thomas 23:59

Some of it's, yeah. You don't know how many cat lives you got, so. I bet. And

Yoyo 24:10

it sounds like a scene out of Homeland. I'm gonna be very honest with you.

Thomas 24:14

Oh, it's it's any one of those ambush sites scenes from movies? Yes.

Yoyo 24:18

Yeah, they are. And if anything, as a novice, you know, we all look at those sorts of things and yes, they're designed to have dramatic effect, but. It from a security perspective point of view, we're always thinking that could happen. There's no reason why, you know, it's not farcical that you know, that people couldn't be lured into situations. And it teaches you about tactical stuff. But look, 24 years is a long time. And you have written a book. Tell me what compelled you to write a book, and let's go into that mindset that you were in then. What was driving you? Oh

Thomas 24:56

that's a good question because as a security officer, especially one that worked over undercover for as long as I did, doing the very clandestine things that I did I worked against terrorist groups specifically. I worked I had, I kept running into this guy, Osama bin Laden. In, in, in the sense that yeah, I was in theaters where he was operational or he was or he was sending his guys in to be operational, like in Somalia. There, there were bin Laden's, but this is pre Al-Qaeda. They were operating and later on and some of the other areas I worked like cartoon sedan, he was there. So, I worked a lot of very sensitive stuff. And after I retired an event happened that kind of opened up an opportunity to talk about something that had previously been classified. And that was the 2012 attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And during that attack the security officers as they're listed in the book, in the movie 13 hours. The security officers that were at the annex, that was our building near the consulate rescued the State Department personnel and brought them to the annex, and then there was a mess firefight and we lost some of our people. And that event exposed this. Very clandestine protective operations unit body yarding unit, you could call it, that the CIA had been fielding, um, in dangerous places, protecting our case officers, uh, when they're operating in those really dangerous places. Since about 1990 and That unit got exposed. Originally they just called it the C, the CIA annex Security Team. But later on that it came out that they were what they called the global response staff, the gs, which had previously been named the Protective Operations Cadre. And when that story came out, I realized two things. One, the unit was now exposed and. It could be talked about. And the history of the unit had been obscured because the people who wrote 13 hours the book of the movie really didn't have any idea about the history of the unit and how much of a significant factor it was in our operations working in these dangerous places. From 1990 on, they didn't even, in fact I think in the movie, they basically said, oh yeah this unit was formed up. After nine 11? Well, no, it was 1990 actually the catalyst was 1989 and it was right here in the Philippines. And because I was in the first official training class for that unit, and I was in a one of the initial members and then I became a team leader and later on I became a senior team leader. And then I was working as the head of security in a variety of different countries where I had. These protection teams working for me. I had a unique perspective on the history. So I decided that it would be good to write the prequel to the 13 hour story. And my book, which is called Guardian Life in the Crosshairs of the CIA's War on Terror, is a two-pronged historical memoir. It's the story of this unit and, um, My career, which was, you know, moving through the agency, the cia, at the same time I was, I would be in, in the in the protective operations unit, the grs, and then I would be out doing other things, the counter-terrorism things. So I had a really good perspective and a career that kind of could expose the unique world of clandestine protective operations. Also some of the counterterrorism operations that we were doing during the war on terror. So, that's where two and a half years of problem with the agency to get a lot of details that were never before exposed about, not only the unit, but also some of the other elements that I worked in the agency.

Yoyo 29:11

I know that you said to me, you know, the pile of stuff that wasn't included was a greater pile than the pile that was. And I guess, you know, there is some assurance in that isn't there in the fact that, you know, yes, you know there's gonna be a gray area that you felt stuff should have been included, but there's this kind of trust isn't there in the overall, you know, national security piece and people should feel safe with that to a degree. That's a absolutely quite a naive comment, I think for me to say. When, I dunno anything about, your job and what you did, I should imagine there are things that probably shouldn't be kept a secret and people probably should know about them. So the comment might be naive, but my critical thinking isn't but look it well done on putting the book together. I mean, how was it for you that whole process

Thomas 29:58

well, it was a unique experience. It was a unique experience. I learned to Become a pretty good writer in, in, in grad school. And then I really worked I put it to use during my career because I, as I moved up in the ranks, I started getting involved in more and more things that were like policy and procedure. So, I was up to the task in terms of writing skills, but approaching this was a bit difficult. I didn't know. How to navigate the whole book thing. So I ended up getting two co-writers basically to guide me through that process. I wrote about, about 90% of the book. They did the kind of keeping me on track and organizing stuff. And what I found when I was writing it, it was, it brought back a lot of the memories. And it was It was interesting to see how it all fit together, not only in terms of my career, my history, but also in, in terms of the things that were going on in the world at the time. I a lot of people in my organization, specifically in security, kind of called me the Forcet Gump of security because I seemed to be in these places when these events happen. I was at the CIA headquarters when Pakistani terrorists attacked the front gate. And shot five people killed too. I was in Somalia during, you know, pre this big black Hawk down thing. I ended up in cartoon just after we got Carlos Jacko and working against some Bin Laden, a bunch of these other terrorists. So there was a variety of things where it all fit together, but I would say the satisfaction of being able to explain the history of the unit and its. Significance combined with the other side, which was having the ability to have material approved that I could talk about, not only in the book, but with family members where I would never, if I would've just retired and moved on, I would never have been able to speak about that. So much information because I wouldn't know how, you know, did this cross over, you know, as you'd say in England did they cross the threshold of the official secret act? So by having all this material approved, I had a wealth of information that I could talk to people about what I did and even more significant was the fact that. My family members got a chance to read the book and understand what I did for 24 years. Yeah. And that would've, I never would've had enough time to sit with them over coffee and explain 24 years. Yeah. But by sitting through and reading the book, they had a chance to see what I did. And so that was that was a bonus. That was definitely a bonus.

Yoyo 32:52

I've got this image of your wife reading the, your book and then flicking the page over and going, Thomas, I'm on page 42. I didn't know you did this. You know? Yeah. Okay. So it's nice sort of bring them back in. I mean, as humans, you know. It's good to be witnessed, isn't it? You know, if you don't have a witness in your life like a partner or somebody who sees you and knows you, and so that's got to help. Let's talk about nine 11. I ask this of every American, you know, what were you doing when nine 11 happened and what sort of stirring of emotions did that

Thomas 33:32

cause? Well, I had already experienced terrorism up close because I was working in the security duty office at the Seattle headquarters when this Pakistani terrorist attack. And and so in during nine 11, I was actually posted out in Asia, I suppose in, in, and I was going home. It was in the evening for us. It's about 12 hours difference. And I got a text message get to. A tv. So I turned the TV on and the first plane had already gone in. And I sat there and I watched, and I had a cell phone in one ear, a landline in the other. And I was explaining what was going on to people in my, in the area who did not have access to a tv. So, I was explaining what was going on and when I saw the the tower start to go down, that's what I knew. This is beyond significant. And I knew the role that we play and specifically our sense of responsibility to keep this type of bad thing from happening in the homeland. I knew this, you know, things would never be the same. And so for us it was it was a watershed moment. It was a. a Dramatic psychological ch change because now we were really at war and the enemy was all over the place. And to give you a little bit of history, when I was in, you know, at that time in Manila, man, Manila had a history with terrorism that went way back. The actual terrorists who, whose idea it was to fly planes into things. Was a guy named Ramsey Yusef, and he had previously been located in the Philippines couple years ago, and he basically lit his apartment on fire. And, uh, when authorities ran in there, they found that he had been there including a thumbprint. And he was one of the architects of the nine 11. So, there was a lot of Al-Qaeda related activity here. Targeting Americans. In fact, the one guy he hit, he did five bombs in one day in Manila. And he was a, an Indonesian bomber who, whose secondary target later was the US Embassy in Manila. Luckily we caught him before he could do it. So, terrorism was right in my face down here in the Philippines. So I was working You know, you know, a very significant place for terrorism after nine 11 and we felt that we had to really take the fight to them to prevent them from striking again. I know

Yoyo 36:24

that a lot of countries watched, I mean, we did hear. In fact, nine 11 was the catalyst for me joining the British Police Force. And I've talked about it quite often. I really enjoyed the Looming Tower. Have you seen the Looming Tower?

Thomas 36:40

No, I've heard about it. Yeah.

Yoyo 36:42

From a personal perspective, I really enjoyed the fact that was by its own admission, a fairly factual account of the buildup to, you know, relationships between the C I A and the F B I prior to nine 11, and how perhaps if everything was a little bit more joined up that Maybe the information could have been shared a lot easier, and we certainly got learnings here in the United Kingdom around multiple agency approach to things and why, you know, acting in silos certainly aids the vulnerability to counterterrorism and it doesn't really work to rule it out. But what I really liked about that was this piece around how the FBI. Had identified some pilots that weren't interested in learning how to land, and that was some of the very critical information that didn't get to the right place. And it was all preparatory and it was raising red flags at a very local level very regional instead of a national level. The flight instructors had raised a flag, hadn't they? With the FBI to say we're a little bit concerned because these guys, they're just not interested at all in learning how to land the plane and it's just one of those things that you remember. From watching the Looming Tower, and of course the irony is, you know, you're watching it and you know what's gonna happen, you know that the Twin Towers are gonna come under the most heinous attack ever. And you are seeing this car crash happen and all of the information that we now know that was available at the time, and you just can't help but watch in despair thinking, oh my God, maybe we could have prevented it from happening. It's frustrating,

Thomas 38:28

isn't it? It is. But if you are really involved in the process, what you see is the amount of data that was being collected. And hindsight remember, is 2020. It's it's a whole nother ballroom when, you know, when you've already had the dots connected, the having watched organizations. Fumble uh, in the early days and then learn to work together. Some of that process can't be rushed. It's something that just is part of the experience. It's kind of part of life. Now. I'll give you an example. When I was in Somalia the coordination or lack thereof between Intel in the intelligence services and the military was significant. This is us. Us and I watched what it took and how long it took before we would, we started to really work cohesively and that was fast forward to Iraq oh four, okay. I watched this in Somalia. I watched it not really work well in Bos in the on and on all the way up, so I've got a little bit more experience. Seeing how this um, and seeing how this works in real life and then looking back and going, okay, it is easy to say, wow, we should have known when the reality is you're not gonna just make it happen. And the f FBI is gonna share with the cia, and the CIA is gonna share with the fbi. The problem that we had to get through were. Cultural and legal and I don't wanna bore the audience with this, but it's something very important to remember. The F B I is a law enforcement agency and they work within the constraints of the justice system and the rule of law. That means there must be preservation of evidence, chain of custody extradition, et cetera. Okay? That is a whole different animal than when you're working intelligence. Where the information we get doesn't fit. The Miranda rights, doesn't fit, chain of custody, doesn't fit all that. So how do you merge that?, we had to learn how to work to do that. To feed what is legal to the FBI and for the FBI to give us stuff that wouldn't case for prosecution, but would definitely work in terms of intelligence collection. So it was it's it's one of those things. You look back and you just it's sad, but um, sometimes we have to learn the hard way. You know, I get that

Yoyo 41:20

from being in a role where chain of custody is super important. In fact, it's critical to, it's like, you know, you handing a piece of information to the F B I and they're like, we can't do anything with this because we can't say where it came from. We can't say, we can't prove the authenticity. We can't document a chain of. Anything. And so in essence, they are powerless to be able to deal with that information. So I completely get it, but I wasn't aware of that before this. I love learning things. Tom. So before we wrap up, let's just look, you know, do you miss it? The whole action adventure job?

Thomas 41:57

I missed the mission because I was a mission guy. That's what I enjoyed being a part of. The process and the team and you know, the goals. I don't miss the bureaucracy, I don't miss the politics. I don't miss some of the stuff that the US government's getting involved in right now. Yeah. No further comment on that. But I also, I I was in enough bad places for enough um, times to know that I don't know how many cat lives I had left, and it was time to. So as to quote a famous author that I love Louis Lamore said, an adventure is a life-threatening event that you survive. So I've closed the book on my adventures and now I'm living a different life where I'm doing security at where danger is at longer than arm's reach. And

Yoyo 42:52

what makes

Thomas 42:53

you happy now? Well, I still enjoy being the core part of what I did my entire career was helping people and keeping them safe. And I've been able to continue to do that with what I do now, which is I do situational awareness training, which I feel is a critically missed foundational element of all of our personal safety, whether it's. You know, you're gonna talk all the way up to active shooter or covered terrorism concealed carry you know, just being safe during natural disasters. So I have focused on really the bare bones foundation of. Personal safety. So that's what I get involved in that. And then on the other side, I work with companies doing security assessments and things. More of the corporate nature.

Yoyo 43:41

And I should imagine, you know, there's always gonna be a need for that because no one has got it perfect. Have they really? And no it's a moving feast or shall we see a moving beast. So where we think we're safe now, you never know what's coming around the corner. And that's why we love security. Tom, thank you so much. We'll put a link to your book. And we'll obviously we'll list the movies in case anyone wants to follow up and watch some cool movies that kind of you would recommend, and we'll put your website and details for your business and how people can reach you. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thomas 44:18

Thanks for having me.