The CrossFit Pittsburgh Podcast
We have been a CrossFit Affiliate since 2006. We are one of the originals. My wife and I opened our doors when I was home between deployments to Iraq. It's been an amazing adventure spanning thousands of miles between us over the course of 12 years deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. We formed amazing bonds. Lost good friends. And learned a lot about ourselves and our community. Throughout the course of this Podcast we will discuss all of that and more. We will talk about the people we have encountered along the way and the lessons we learned.
The CrossFit Pittsburgh Podcast
Tel Aviv, Part 4: Gaza
Navigating the unpredictable currents of private security, Franye and I share firsthand accounts that illuminate the high stakes of government contracts and the critical importance of team dynamics. We peel back the curtain on the costly consequences of mistakes, like a teammate's magazine-loading blunder, underscoring the gravity of impeccable standards and adaptability in the field. Our tales from the trenches don't just echo with the clang of misfired rounds; they resonate with the wisdom only experience can bestow upon those who protect and serve in the shadows.
From the nuances of combat operations to the meticulous orchestration of a motorcade through hostile territory, the episode traverses a terrain that demands more than just certification—it requires an ironclad will to learn and a humility to accept guidance from seasoned professionals. These gritty narratives, woven with insights into the delicate dance of protective security details, highlight the mentorship that molds novices into experts. The episode is punctuated with close calls and harrowing near-misses, serving as visceral teaching moments that drive home the sobering realities of high-threat environments.
Listen in as we recount an emergency response that jolts like a surge of adrenaline. We also touch on the emotional battles fought by families on the home front, where the ripple effects of overseas crises are palpable. Through intimate vignettes and a raw recount of a mission's chaotic turn, the bond of brotherhood among operators emerges, and the resilience of those who face danger daily is laid bare. Join us for an episode that doesn't just discuss operations but immerses you in the pulse-quickening world of private security, where every decision could tip the scales of fate.
And we are back when we left off, the CrossFit Pittsburgh Echo Charles. My man, frane, is back with me today. So where we left off and just so you're aware you don't think we're in a haunted building or anything like that we've got a couple young ladies downstairs doing some training so you might hear a little clanging and banging in a in a you know a functional fitness kind of way, but um, anyway.
Speaker 1:So where we left off? Uh, we had just gotten the debrief from the grs team in tel aviv about an attempt that was made on them in July of 2003. And again, like to wrap it up real quick the irony of it was it didn't prepare us. It didn't tell us anything. When I say prepared, that's not the case. It didn't tell us anything we didn't know. It confirmed our suspicions.
Speaker 1:You know we are time and place predictable the way we're running these operations, and I think too, that's probably topic for another longer episode about the bullshit of, I don't want to say private security as a rule, but when you have those kind of lucrative government contracts and I think you kind of pointed this out after we went off the air the last time when you have lucrative government contracts you got to keep the roster full. You want you have eight guys to deliver. You will deliver eight guys, as we talked about a couple episodes prior and I don't disrespect the person I I don't. You know this guy. Mike was probably a good guy, but I know a lot of good guys I wouldn't go to war with. I don't. You know this guy, mike was probably a good guy, but I know a lot of good guys I wouldn't go to war with. I just wouldn't, you know, have a coffee with them maybe. But, you know, loads his magazine backwards. I, I don't understand in the heat of what moment that could happen. I'm, you know, to tell you the truth, what stunned me when I first looked at it? Oh, something's not right. And he shows it to me. To be honest, for the first few moments I didn't know what the hell I was looking at. Like it was so incongruous I'm like. And then I realized I'm like, oh my God, like he's actually got the rounds in backwards. I didn't know that was possible. And here I am trying to strip him out. But those are the kind of things and I, as we were off air the last time and you brought it up what I was about to say and we got sidetracked I remember leadership gave jim a lot of shit when he made the call, like we will not, we cannot, we will not take this guy with us. They gave him a lot of shit. Well, they're expecting eight people. I don't give. Well, they're expecting eight people. I don't give a fuck. They're expecting eight. Well, they're going to get seven. Now you planners, find us number eight, find us number eight, expedite.
Speaker 1:And Vic was the man that they sent out. He got there a little bit after we did, but I'll tell you what it was worth the wait. You know what I mean. He was, I want to say los angeles county, uh, sheriff, but prior to that he was a marine. So, you know, had solid infantry skills, had solid weapons handling skills and and much like I'm proud to say, like the rest of us, we're like, hey, if there's something I'm not sharp on, we're gonna get sharp on it now, you know, not not next time, but like today. So it's crazy. But, um, so there we were right, we everything, all of our suspicions, right there, right there, we're like okay, well, duh, we are time and place predictable.
Speaker 2:So what they do is they pick the spot, they set up on us and, you know, in, in and just to be specific, this is the incident where the gentlemen are driving up to the house and the gate happened to be closed that day.
Speaker 1:And the ID went off Right and it was so cool, I guess is the only way I can say it, I don't know professional. But for Mark and Danny to give the debrief like this, and this is what I'm talking about, this is the caliber of men that I'm used. I am used to working with. Then you come back to the private sector and you sometimes you fall in with good guys, other times you get a collection of of. How did you get here, you know, like why and and and again not to be rude, because I'm very serious about this.
Speaker 1:You know I looked at it like I've got a tier one operator as my first team leader on an overseas contract after 9-11. You know, he could have very easily been like. You know, none of these guys come from a soft background. You know none of these guys are tier one or soft, let alone tier one. And he didn't His exact words once. He kind of, and he was quiet in a scary way. You know he was just like taking everything in With his kind of look. I'm like oh hey. But you know, realizing he was just a lot to digest and one of the first things he said to all of us in our first private team meeting with just the four of us and he was like listen, he's like I was surprised that no one else here came from a soft background and he said but ultimately, boys, you go to war with what you got and I will never forget that you go to war with what you got. And I think the thing that we were always most pleased with was he put faith in us and we took that into every training evolution, into every mission we ran and you know that's the balance. You know he takes that leap of faith and invests the time and puts in the training and we delivered. You know we were receptive to the training and we did everything you know we could possibly do and became a much better team because of it, I think.
Speaker 1:But you know, after that debrief from the GRS guys, I'll tell you but, uh, and you know, after that debrief from the grs guys, I'll tell you, when you do um, psd, when you do um, um, a protective service package, you know, especially, I mean anywhere, anywhere, you know, unless you're doing some dog and pony show with some celebrity at the fucking grammys or something like that, I mean, you know, I don't, I just I've been down that road in the private sector and I was again fortunate to work for some people who were just awesome. I'll tell you this and I know I don't. I said I don't name names, but I have to in this case, one of my most unexpected assignments in the private sector pre-9-11, I did an assignment for I get a call from the company I work with and with and they're like hey, we've got to send you, and russ was a good guy, I worked with him a few times. I'm gonna send you out to los angeles. The tour has already started. You're gonna meet them underway. It's for michael flatley and I'm like the michael, like how many are there? Like the michael flatley, you know lord of the dance, and they're like, yeah, well, at the time he was in negotiations to buy another production company and you know, just for, sometimes you're an expediter, sometimes there's a need, you know this and this, but I guess what the production company originally attempted and I know we're getting sidetracked here, but this is worth telling because he's an awesome, awesome guy. Um, don't know what I expected. I, you know, I knew who he was, that's it. But at the same time, I think it's just one of those things where you're like, all right, right on. Well, I guess what happened was the production company that was putting on this particular show that he was touring, that he was in, um, they decided to save money and they would hire local security at every venue. Well, what started to happen was you know this? This city, these guys are okay. This city, these guys are idiots. This city, these guys are inappropriate.
Speaker 1:Now picture this You've got a cast of I wouldn't guess dozens of young men and women, quick costume changes backstage. It's like a beehive of activity. One you need to stay sharp. Two, you need to do what you're there to do and watch who you're there to watch and make sure, with all that it'd be so easy to slip in undetected with all of this activity. So, watch your principal, watch the exits, watch for the anomalies. You're surrounded by beautiful women who are doing quick costume changes.
Speaker 1:Act like a gentleman, for fuck's sake. And I guess that was the tipping point where and that's one thing I learned about Michael very women who are doing quick costume changes act like a gentleman, for fuck's sake. You know, and I guess that was the tipping point where and that's one thing I learned about michael very, very quickly. He's a gentleman and he won't tolerate any less, right. So one thing and another, um, I guess they were at one venue and and they hired these, essentially like not, and he didn't, but uh, production, these guys were like nothing more than you know, bouncers, you know and then, oh, that was it. Like the next day, I think, that night the phone call was made.
Speaker 1:The next day we were on a plane but, um, just a good, good guy, a gentleman through and through, and, and I think you know those are the things that you, you kind of look at and you go okay. So whether you're doing, uh, um, you, executive protection for a celebrity, for a businessman, an executive something, or you're downrange in a combat zone, one, you are as prepared as you can be. You're looking for the signs, you're looking for the and that's the one thing that I loved about Mark and Danny's debrief flat out. Mark is telling this as a seasoned, veteran team leader who's done this many, many times, and he was like this is on me. He was like every single precursor was there and I didn't connect the dots fast enough. You know, like you said, closed gate is always open, donkey. Tethered to the tree in the front yard there's no donkey, you know, kids are not there.
Speaker 1:The entire back side and I neglected to follow up on that the entire back side had been plowed over recently. Well, that's maybe an annual event, time of the year was off, but what that did was, had they attacked on the way in and let's say, you know they, they didn't finish the job the back side, because your figs and olives will grow in anything, right, usually that dirt, I mean it's, it's. You know the gaza strip, I mean it sits in the sun, uh, like that southern part of of israel. You mean that. You know, gaza is 24 miles coastal from point north to south and then it goes like six to eight miles inland, so it's not very big. But, um, the southern tip is egypt, you know the northern tip is like southern israel. So it's, it's a dry, arid climate.
Speaker 1:Right, those armored vehicles could have easily gone up the drive over the yard and then down the back side to egress, not when it was plowed, right, when it was plowed, it's like they're not going to make it because they will sink in that ground, because now it's turned over, and so everything, everything was there, you know, to include once the detonation occurred, you know, as, as mark said, he comes to and there's, there's a Palestinian Authority vehicle and we had already known that a lot of the PA had been compromised and you had Hamas people infiltrated in the organization. So that's July of 2003. So we fast forward and Chris had left after that meeting with Roger and I respect White Boy, it was his call sign. You can figure out what his last name was based on. His call sign Play that funky music. But yeah, so he. You know if you don't like it.
Speaker 1:There's the door and Chris just, and he had this way of smiling without like it wasn't good news, chris just, and he had this way of smiling without like it wasn't good news. You know, like he had this. He just kind of smiles, he goes well, he's like all right, then consider this my two-week notice and and two weeks to the day, in fact I think that picture behind me was taken, I want to say september 30th, if I recall, um, and you know he was, and and I remember he was like rock he's just be be frosty, you know.
Speaker 1:And he was. And I remember he was like Rock, he's just be frosty, you know. And I was like I got you, brother, I got you, you know. And of course, I think then at the time, you know, mission first and all that, and those of us who stayed were like man, but I will say this without any, you know, no shame in the game there wasn't one of us who wasn't already prospecting, like I had already talked to Danny and Mark, right. And then my dear friend Mark, who was on Cheese's team. Cheese was already looking to go GRS, so was Mark, so was I. Jim had already moved on. We were all like one foot out the door.
Speaker 2:What's interesting with this is that I always think generally of combat operations as being enlisted. You know service members, so there's not necessarily an option. You know you finish when your tour, your contract is done. But as a contractor here, you had the ability at any point to say, hey, I'm putting my two weeks in, oh yeah, and just leave, yeah absolutely no-transcript, because they started to send us guys that I was like holy crap, like where to?
Speaker 1:and I'm very, very adamant about this. I mean not coming from a soft background and making my reputation and doing it. You know, on the go, so to speak. I was very, very careful because there were a lot of guys that did have these impressive pedigrees who were worthless, right, you know whether it was ego that, you know, dulled their skill sets or, you know, maybe their skill sets weren't that great to begin with. You know, just because you finish, what a friend of mine used to say he's like, certified doesn't mean qualified. You understand that. I mean you could have a.
Speaker 1:I went to this school, I went to that school, that's awesome. And then what, then what? But, like I said, from cheese white boy gym, these are tier one operators in every one of them, no matter what. Hey, could you give me a hand with this? Hey, could you show me this? Hey, oh, absolutely Matter of fact, it almost got to a point where you're like, okay, careful what you ask for, because they're going to go to an extreme to make sure you. Hey, yeah, man, next time we're out there, you know's, do this, we'll work on this. I mean above and beyond right. So to me that's a debt that you pay forward. You know these guys are willing to take the time to school up a new guy and I was pleased that you know I did have a lot of um, a lot of experience in psd and you know just just various like I from PSD being personal or protective service?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's so many acronyms Like. Psd basically means protective security, right? Okay, personal protection, wpps, I think, was what the State Department titled it after a while, which was WPPS Personal protective service, worldwide Personal Protective Service. I couldn't tell you GRS, global Response Service. I remember that one.
Speaker 1:But what was interesting, though, was you take some things that you learn in the executive arena and you're like well, that's maybe how to conduct yourself around an embassy and its environments, and things like that, you know. Then you take your hard skill sets, because one of the things, too and I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time throughout my career to go through these different uh train ups and these different, you know, it's funny because there was a big contract in uh bosnia, birchco, heratskovina, that launched prior, well prior to 9-11. Some of my good friends from the company I was with went there, and it was one of those guys that got me started with that same company for the Tel Aviv project. So, prior to that, when it looked like the company I was with was going to take over that contract and this was just kind of a shitty thing to do, but it was fact, and I was there to see it, they hired a former director of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service oh, we're going to hire this guy, right, because oh, we get him, we'll get the contracts. Okay, in order to hire this joker, they fired basically two-thirds of their office staff, I mean like support personnel, you name it. They gutted the place to hire him. I hope nobody was hurt in the filming of this. Anyway, didn't get a thing. So the expense that they incurred, the lives they impacted by cutting all these other people loose to hire this guy who was supposed to be able to deliver.
Speaker 1:Then they spent a lot of money to put a group of us through a selection process for more like high-threat protective operations. Which was man, it was well worth the price of admission, like we didn't have to pay for it, but it was crazy. You know, it was well worth the price of admission, like we didn't have to pay for it, but it was crazy. You know, it was fantastic. I mean, you know vehicles, weapons, you name it SOPs, medical training, we did it and so a lot, a lot of good training. Right, fast forward. You know, here we are.
Speaker 1:Now we get this debrief and, like I said, I just took that with so much appreciation, because too often guys would go, well, it wasn't my fault, right, your fault, my fault like nobody's fault, like you got blown up and thank God you didn't get killed. It wasn't like that. You know, mark was like man. The signs were there and, as he's saying it, it was a chill because every single thing he pointed out you, because every single thing he pointed out, you're like, oh yeah, man, not only is it legit, but it's so simple. It is so simple how this thing was laid out and how it was executed. And again, but you know, by the hand of God, the guy that planted the device is simply put, you know, if the contour of the earthen wall is like so, he put the face of the IED parallel to it. Instead of had he put it more upright, it would have blown more into the vehicle, and it wasn't. I mean, it was concealed beneath the surface, it wasn't like buried, but at least the trajectory of the projectiles went up and over. It was a shockwave of the blast that you know stalled out their vehicle and stunned them.
Speaker 1:But every attempt is practice and that's just how it is. Every attack is practice. What worked, what didn't work, you know, we do the same things you know. So now we get to October. So now we get to October and I and in no specific order, jim was gone, white boy left, he moved on to again, like I told you, you know, and then left with class man, left with class, and I'm not, I don't remember who else Mike, the other Mike that was on our team. So now we got three vacancies. We have to fill right Two teams of four and we've been rolling like I was Bravo team from the beginning, so it was Jim, cheese, mark and me. Well, now we get three out of eight replacements. So now we got to restructure. So now I get pulled off of Bravo, I go to Alpha team and I was like I'm going to take somebody else.
Speaker 1:You know, like I've been, I've been bravo since the beginning. Well, you know, kind of we all had right and uh, somebody had to go. So, you know, I I made the move and the replacements that they sent, you know, fortunately, um, I'm, I think I think at that time, uh, I know nason was with us on um. I know he was with us in october and I don't remember how far prior to that he came on board, but it's a good dude. Good dude when, when this thing went down, I was really glad he was with me, you know. But um, vick was team leader of alpha, team cheese was a team leader of bravo. Now I was alpha two. Um, I say nason was with us on alpha, yeah, yeah, yeah, nason was with us on Alpha, and so was Kurt Bravo. Team Cheese was the team leader, mark was the 2IC and then we had two Marine recon guys that came over with Nason. So now, bear this in mind. Okay, those three replacements. One of them is former Army Ranger, current SF dude, the other two are Marine Force recon. These are legitimate dudes. Okay, now, put a pin there, because the guys that replaced them again, like I said, it's a fine line for me Don't want to criticize because they didn't have the pedigree or the background, want to criticize because they didn't have the pedigree or the background, will criticize the fact that you shouldn't have a. What the fuck reaction when your replacements show up, you know.
Speaker 1:But you know, be as it may, um, so that's the breakdown of the teams, right, and the way we ran operations from the beginning was was very, very you know, jim implemented this and it was a solid procedure. You'd have one team, week by week it would go, and one team would be the hot seat team. And if you were the go team, the standby team, the hot seat team, any mission came up, it was yours, even if it was administrative. Hey, we got to drive up to Jerusalem to collect per diem. The hot seat team would take that, you know, and not the whole team. But then it'd be like Jim and okay, who's excuse me? And when you were the driver, you were the driver for the week. It wasn't, like you know, daily, so to speak. Yeah, maybe did we rotate drivers by the?
Speaker 2:day, fuck, I don't remember.
Speaker 1:But like, so, you're the team leader and it's like we got to do an administrative run to jerusalem. Hey, man, who's my driver this week? Well, that's me. So you and I'll go. The other two guys, can, you know, take a day. So, um, alpha team was hot seat this particular week and this was a wednesday. No, october 15th was a wednesday. So tuesday evening we're at the team house, right, and I'm watching.
Speaker 1:You ever seen a movie? I don't know why the fuck. I think shit's funny when it's. It's what you remember. You know, you ever see the movie cadillac man with robin williams. It's goofy funny. It is goofy funny. It's this whole thing where he's. He's divorced, he's got a young girlfriend, he's a car salesman and one of his colleagues, co-worker. This female, her husband's a crazy person and he takes hostages thinking she's having an affair. And it was goofy. Funny is what I'm getting at. So I'm sitting there watching it because there's nothing else on.
Speaker 1:We've got a mission tomorrow, all right, and uh, johnny lind was, um, was watching with me, right, and we're sitting there, we're watching the movie and it's just silly funny, like you're two grown-ass men laughing out loud because it was just that funny, you know. So now he's bravo team. You know I'm alpha team. We've got the mission tomorrow. They don't. I don't remember what time it was, but it was late. The movie's on and it's like you know, plan's set. We get a phone call. I get a phone call from Vic. He's like hey Rock, change of plans for tomorrow.
Speaker 1:We just got tasked with a higher priority mission and that's the way Hot Seat worked right. We got the first mission that came up. That mission was a one stop all day venue at a place called the Beach Hotel, right on the water in Gaza. We had been there so many times over the past year and a half and the irony of it was it was to conduct interviews. We would escort foreign service officers from the embassy to conduct interviews with Palestinian students for the awarding of Fulbright scholarships. Okay, noble effort, right. And, brother, you know me and I appreciate your patience because I go like like a tangent is I'm more like a shotgun blast and birdshot to boot, because this is irony. This is irony.
Speaker 1:The entirety of of the palestinian gaza strip was locked down like a penal colony at the time because of the intifada, because of incursions into israel and suicide bombings. It's locked down, nobody's going anywhere and yet chalk it up to diplomacy. You know, there's still a compassion for the palestinian people, students to be awarded these scholarships that academically they've earned, even though they can't act on them at that time, right? So this particular mission was in support of that effort. It wasn't espionage, it wasn't a snatch, it wasn't, you know, intelligence gathering. It was to conduct, you know, to provide safe passage to these foreign service officers from the embassy Super. So we get a call the night before Vic's like hey Rock, I just got a call from the shop, and this hardly ever happens.
Speaker 1:The defense attache is a military US military service member who's assigned to represent the Department of Defense at the embassy level. So within the embassy, it's like a little country, right. The ambassador is kind of like the president he represents, right, he's the chief of mission. Okay, then you have your other agencies. Department of State supports his mission, diplomatic Security Service supports the Department of State. They're part of that. There's the other agency and, um, you know anybody else that falls under that? Administrative support capacities, right. Logistics supply us post office, right? Matter of fact, I'm still um rob. I don't know if you're following this, but if you are brother, miss you and uh, be cool, be safe, but um, there's an american um working at the us embassy post office there for now and 20 years. So you know, a good guy, beautiful family, but, uh, good friend, but um, so you know, again, it's like a small country, like all this support, uh capacity.
Speaker 1:So the defense attache reached out to us because of our area knowledge of the Gaza Strip and we had been all over that place and they're like, hey, we need support to do a route reconnaissance. Now, to do that route reconnaissance, we're not taking the embassy vehicles, we're not the marked ones. Anyway, you know, we're going to dress down, we're going to blend in and we're going to do a route reconnaissance from the northern tip to the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, east to west. I mean, we're going to go into places in Gaza that the Palestinian authority would not even go right, blending in and taking GPS not to get into too much what we were going to do. But bottom line is that mission never happened. So now, picture this right, we got the only mission of the day. Now another mission comes up that's deemed higher priority. So we pass off the easy run, the milk run to Bravo Team.
Speaker 1:Right, we're like, and again, my mindset at the time hell, yeah, yeah, 2003, october. I had just turned 40 in September right now, by some standard 40's old, you know, for me at that time it was not. And my ego at the time and I was like right on and I can I believe I can speak for everybody on the team like there was a level of excitement to go all right, man, like we're not going to do the one-stop shop at the beach, and the beach hotel was a nice venue. It was really nice venue. They had a seafood restaurant and great coffee and you'd sit out on the, you know like again doing our rotation Some of you are inside, some of you are front side, some of you are out on the back patio and the meeting rooms. You know, probably in that case it would have been like internal but easy day, you know, by all accounts, easy day, get them in, easy day, get them out. So there was a level of excitement going, dude, like you know we've been, we've been through Gaza before, but here we go again and every time you do it, it's that, it's that risk factor, that little bit of a rush, you know. So we're like, okay, great, so now.
Speaker 1:So now, out of left field, and and again, how, like the hand of God works right, there's a team from department of state and, as I've told you before, you know the guys that I was fortunate enough to work with, who were DSS agents, were good guys. Good guys to a to a man. They were good guys. This crew was up in Jerusalem. They had just gotten in country. I guess they were going to be part of the uh.
Speaker 1:Ambassador Wolf was a special envoy assigned by president Clinton, um, to do like the, the broker, like the roadmap to peace. You know it was called and you know it didn't work. But they sent three more teams of contractors to plus that up and they send these guys. And these guys are supposed to be part of I don't know, supposed to. They were part of what the hell do? They call it MSD, mobile Security Detachment. It's a State Department. These are supposed to be like their high-speed guys, right, and this particular group, I can say with all honesty, was the biggest bunch of fucking dicks I've ever met in my life, and I reserve that title for very special occasions.
Speaker 1:Now, this should have been us, right, this should have been us, but instead, hey, state Department, you know this is all happening at the same time. Defense attache needs us to take them, so we're off the board. Like our mission is going to launch in about an hour or so after you know theirs. So Cheese, team leader of Bravo, he's taking the guys to the beach hotel. He gets a call hey, uh, you know changing plans, you're taking the beach hotel run. By the way, he gets this call from our people at the embassy in tel aviv. By the way, there's an msd team that's up in jerusalem that wants a ride with you guys to get familiar with Gaza.
Speaker 1:Right Now, this is important. In a conventional PSD motorcade, you've got a lead vehicle, you've got the vehicle with the high-value package, then you've got a follow vehicle. The lead vehicle is supposed to basically clear the route right. And again, this is supposed to work anywhere In sedans, in an urban environment know, new york city, washington dc, what have you? Or a more austere environment, even in a combat zone, like you'd have your lead humvee, you'd have. You know so, and this was right on. Man cheese was a professional through and through. He was a tactician through and through. He gets handed this at the last minute and he's like right now, here back up a notch to support my dick philosophy, right. Um so cheese was just man.
Speaker 1:I can't, I can't even think about him without seeing his face and that smile like yeah, jack, jack hey, so here's what I'm thinking, you know, and he was always very like Jack hey, so here's what I'm thinking, you know, and he was always very like, aggressively friendly. You know what I mean. Like hey, how you doing? All right, yeah, so he gets the contact number for the team leader of the MSD guys in Jerusalem. He gets it from our State Department handlers at the embassy in Tel Aviv. Very cool, very cordial. They're like hey, just give him a call, you know, let them know where to link up and you'll look for them.
Speaker 1:At the Erez, prior to the Erez crossing, there was a almost like their version of Breezewood, pennsylvania, the Yod Mordecai Truck Junction. Yod Mordecai Truck Junction. And you pull in there. They had like a cafe, they had restroom, you know facilities and all that, and we'd typically stop there, use restroom, like, okay, we're ready to go. Boom right down the road and then you get through the aires, crossing the checkpoint into gaza.
Speaker 1:So cheese calls this jag off right, and he said, hey, he goes, is this so? And so he goes. I'm john brenciccio. He's like here, you'll be rolling with us tomorrow. This motherfucker says are you a contractor? And cheese goes oh, yes, I am. He goes. Tell you what have your rso? Call me, I don't talk to contractors. And he, this motherfucker, says are you a contractor? And she goes oh, yes, I am. He goes tell you what have your RSO call me, I don't talk to contractors and he fucking hangs up on him, right? So I'll tell you what. You little motherfucker, I still remember what you look like. I saw you in Iraq and you're lucky, I let you slide there, all right, I know you're still around, so fuck you.
Speaker 1:So, anyway, I don't talk to con and that you know. Be as it may, maybe uh and and this is a fact. This is a fact. He was a little motherfucker.
Speaker 1:You know little, it's already lost his hair, you know he shows all the signs of, like basic human, fucking weakness. You know, I'm saying, and I mean character, I don't mean appearance or physical, you know, I don't mean like that. You know, but he just had this weak nature who says I don, I don't talk to Con. Well, you're going to fucking roll with me on a mission tomorrow. You might want to, you know, open up your cake holster there. So I don't talk to. So Jesus is like what the fuck.
Speaker 1:So he calls our guy back at our embassy and at the time I think it was Eric Good dude. So he calls him back and he either Eric or Scott at the anyway, smooth that out, all right gets cheese back and he's like, okay, sorry about that. He's like some guys you know and he's like they'll meet you at Yad Mordecai truck Junction. He's like I made it clear to him you are in tactical command of this mission. Cheese is like Roger. That's all I want. How it should be.
Speaker 1:First, you've got a new team never been exposed to Gaza. These people that are after you don't give a fuck who you are. They really don't. So, to his credit, as I said, the way it usually would work, all things being equal lead vehicle, high-value packs in the center, and then your gun truck, your maneuver element. So you got guns all over, but you've got maneuverability. All right. You keep the package safe in the center. Everybody knows that. Our enemies know that. Now, smartly, you know you. You wouldn't. You never drive so close like a foot patrol. You never, you never patrol so close to the guy in front or behind that you both get taken out with the same device, right? Similarly, give yourself enough of a spread so that you can maneuver if need be. So, um, anyway, they get down there, they do a quick over the hood, brief, right and cheese is like all right, this is the way I see it. He was like you are the maneuver element. He's like the way we roll with a two vehicle package is high value, pack is up front, we're in the back. If we need to push around, we pass them up and tuck them in behind. And he was like but we're going to roll the way we always roll. You are our maneuver element. You're a gun truck, you're the third vehicle.
Speaker 1:Check, it's the only thing that made sense, right, super, the rso who was on that mission was from our embassy. Uh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say it von guillaume was his name, one of the best guys I've ever worked with, ever, ever, to this day. He's actually the RSO at a major station right now. None of this is secret. He's just a good dude, right, and a regional security officer, all right. So the RSO, the regional regional security officer, is in charge of the diplomatic security service for the department of state, all right, so that's like, like, like chief of station for the other agency. You know, you can be like the, the drso, deputy regional security, like the second in command, but then in common vernacular, like anybody who's a regional security officer, diplomatic security service, oh, he's an rso. Well, he's an rso, but he's not the rso, right, I guess, like sometimes it gets caught up in like oh, is he a sheriff? Oh, he's a deputy sheriff. You know, that guy's the sheriff, you know, like that. So now, so he was an RSO at the time.
Speaker 1:He would roll with us quite frequently. Smooth, right, like you're too fucking young. I don't know why I deal with you youngsters. Sade, you know the singer, sade, yeah, I do. Oh, my God, dude, let me tell you this Back in the 80s, 90s, I had the biggest crush on her.
Speaker 1:She didn't know it, charday, if by chance I'm married now and I love my wife. But we could have been, you know, oh, my god, so that and that, why I bring that up? Von guillaume, smooth operator, right, I mean, like I don't think I ever saw him sweat. He was just always cool, you know, always cool. So, uh, anyway, um, he's on the mission, right? So he's in the lead vehicle with one of our steadfast embassy drivers, paul, really, really good dude American expat who was living in Israel, worked at the embassy. He's the driver. They've got the high-value PACs, the Foreign Service officers, in the vehicle with them. In the vehicle right behind them, johnny Lind was driving. Cheese is in the right front seat, oscar and mark are in the back all right back seat, and then the fuck boys from jerusalem or in the back, acting like they know what the fuck they're doing are these all suburbans?
Speaker 1:yes, okay, yeah, correct, because again, it's diplomatic mission. We're not hiding, you know, we're we're.
Speaker 2:How many of those MST guys were there.
Speaker 1:Oh man, there's usually four, but I want to say, this particular time, I think there were five. I think there were five and I couldn't tell you why. I couldn't tell you why we hadn't met them, didn't know them. What I did know about them was not good. But now remember, we're not even anywhere around like we're. In fact, I kind of had a habit of. We lived a couple blocks inland from the embassy, embassy's, right on the beach.
Speaker 1:So what I would do if we had, whatever time our mission was, um, I would load my work clothes in my ruck and I would run in. I'd like take a run along, you know, run the streets to get to the beach, run the beach, come in the backside of the embassy, into a locker room we had. I would change, I'd go to the gym. So I had all my morning routine right. So this particular day I'm like, no, I'm going to skip the beach, run, I'm going to hit the gym. But I did run Like. But I did run like. I added no kind of added some blocks to the run from home to there, and I hear the guys getting ready to leave. We don't have to leave that early, so I'm getting dressed for the gym. So as they're going out the door, mark says, hey brother, I'll see you for dinner. And I'm like, yeah, man, right on, see you. So off we go and I do my thing. I have have my coffee, check my email, load up my ruck, I'm out the door and what we did for overflow space I think I might have mentioned this before there wasn't a lot of available office space in the embassy.
Speaker 1:Right across the street there was a beautiful hotel next to the embassy, directly across the street, there was a the isro tell and as I remember it was like these round towers, really beautiful hotel. We stayed there when we first got in country. That's one where you know she's looked at me and goes, hey, I'll flip you for the couch. I'm like, hey, look at you, look at me, I'll sleep on the couch. You're not gonna fit. You know, beautiful hotel.
Speaker 1:But they had like that ground level was like shops on both sides of this kind of like a, like an atrium through way, so it's like an outdoor hallway. Basically we had just rented office space. So if the hotel entrance is here, like when you one block prior to the embassy, you'd come through this, pass through and there's all these like shops right Glass, front towards the end, right towards the end. On the left-hand side, the hotels here we rented an office space here had a first floor, bottom floor, beautiful setup, all glass on the ground level, no blinds. We didn't have furniture yet, okay, but we all had keys just in case we needed access to let a delivery man in or whatever, right? So I'll never forget this we had these, we had these little.
Speaker 1:How the fuck I remember this shit right, erics and phones, erics and cell phones, right. So it looked like a little tv remote didn't flip, didn't do anything, right, small, and I had like a pouch on my rock like right here that you, you know, pull out your phone and I, I shit, you not, man, I don, I don't know. I've never told anybody this. I never told anybody this because I thought they'd think I was nuts. But you know, coincidence, what I think, I know what it was.
Speaker 1:But I'm running along and all of a sudden, man, I get this overwhelming like I can't even describe the feeling. It was like the worst adrenaline dump Do you ever take, like bad supplements, and you just feel this like like you get drained. You're not sure if you're going to pass out or throw up. And then all of a sudden, just this hot, hot Now I was running, so I was already perspiring, but all of a sudden, just this hot, hot. Now I was running right, so I was already perspiring, but all of a sudden, for this thing to hit like overwhelming, like this huge adrenaline rush, dump, wave of nausea and cold sweat, and I'm like I'm like what the hell, you know? And I'm like, man, shake it off, you know.
Speaker 1:So I, I get a little bit further and all of a sudden, like I'm almost right next to our office now. So this was, I don't know moments. I, I, you know, couldn't tell. All of a sudden my phone rings. So I answer the phone and it's vick, and he goes rock, where are you. And I'm like so now I kind of you know, and I'm like, oh, I go, I'm, I'm right across the street from the embassy. I'm like I'm next door to the office, he goes, he goes, grab your gear. Like fast, like like frant, he goes, grab your gear. The follow vehicle's been hit. And I'm like check. So I just fucking hit the little red, you know, stick it back in.
Speaker 1:And the first thought that crossed my mind is I'm in shorts, a tank top, my clothes are in my ruck. First thing I thought was I go straight into our office, right, and this was kind of stupid in hindsight. There's no blinds, so why I bothered going into a glass walled right Dude, I stripped down, I throw in my cargo pants, change into a dry t-shirt, lace up my boots and you know, right back, you know I'm headed across the street.
Speaker 1:Now there was a local guard force, you know, front side, back side, and there was a series of you know Fridays, if I'm not mistaken, the consular services. You could apply for passports, visas, things like that, right. So there was a line, but, as a courtesy, the guard force was always diligent, like once they got to recognize us. If they would see us coming across the street, the first guard on duty would say to one of the people in line like, oh, excuse me, like basically make a whole. Well, this day it was almost worse. You know what I mean, and I guess word had been passed. Hey, when these guys get there, get them in fast. So you know they clear the crowd and every one of them. These are the folks that we would see every day. You know, young men and women would see them every day, always a smile, always a greeting, you know. But they were just all like, like I think everybody was in shock, you know.
Speaker 1:So I came through the front door to Marine Post 1 and I'll never forget it Kyle Bittner, marine Corps Sergeant, he's behind it was his duty post that day and we would always motion like you know the key Now you go and sign in anyway, but when you motion for the key, that indicates to them I'm going to the weapons locker downstairs. I need the key to get into the cage. So as I'm coming across, I go for the key and he's just again same, he's like. Coming across, I go for the key and he's just again same, he's like, and he motions like right, it's down there, and I'm like thanks. And you know I'm kind of in like a haze, almost right. So marine post one's right here behind the glass, right, I turn for the stairwell. As soon as I open the stairwell, man, it was like a beehive, right, uh, and vick, he's coming up the steps and we had these big, uh we.
Speaker 1:You remember the hockey player reference yes yeah, we called them our hockey bags, right, because they were these big kit bags that everything was in the kit bag. So your body armor which we didn't always, you know, didn't always roll with, like I mean, this was like overt body armor, like rigs, right. So you had that in there. You had a gun bag in there, you had your gas mask in there, you had, uh, tear gas. Can I mean all your shit and vick was like this little pit bull of a not little, it's probably as tall as me, but he was just like this pit bull of a guy you know. And he's coming up the steps. He's got my bag in one hand, his in the other, you. So I open the door and he's like he literally just like boom, hands me off my bag and off we go out the back side. So now we're gearing up and we have minimal information. We know the follow vehicle's been hit. So now remember, as I told you, the configuration, right, yeah, in a normal package. So this was command detonated, the.
Speaker 1:The guy who did it was just like in july. He had line of sight, he was watching the whole thing, okay, only what they started to do, and this was another one of white boy's points. He was like look, infrastructure, road work, there's always something going on there. He's like do you and I've got? I remember it's like it was yesterday because he was. He brought this up in a talk, in the talk with roger, and he's like roger, he's like there is total disadvantage, total advantage for them all. Right, infrastructure work, road work. He was like you know how easy it is to channelize our vehicles when you can bulldoze a pile of rubble overnight, move this, move this, move this and then bring us exactly where they want us to be.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, watching this three-car motorcade, the trigger man believes that the high-value package is in the middle. Right, well, he wasn't. So I guess, by putting them in that order, tactically sound, considering and you know, again, in this moment I won't criticize the third vehicle, but not being familiar with the environment, it's where they had to be. You know, you follow, you'll provide support if needed. Okay, it's a familiarization for them, nothing more. So here we go. So now we're on the move and we get to our vehicle and, as I remember, there was a new, relatively new regional security officer. New, a relatively new RSO, steve was his name, just the most laid back guy you'd ever want to meet, I swear. I think he could have probably been on fire and he'd be like no, I'm good.
Speaker 1:I'm good man, you okay. Yeah, man, I'm, I'm all right. Very soft spoke, very easy going, but you know, he was just legit. So we get in our vehicles and we're still kind of putting on gear as we're going, you know. So everything else we're going to go, you know, we'll figure this out on the way. We got comms on the way.
Speaker 1:So as we're going, vic is kind of like on the fly, he's putting a plan together. He's like all right, he's like, you know, and God bless him, man, he's got radio comms going, he's got a phone going and we're just, you know, we're rolling. So all of a sudden, first call we get and it was like just goofy First call we get is one dead, three wounded. Then shortly after that we get no, that, no, that was, you know, it was wrong, it was two dead, two wounded. Then the last notification we get, and we're getting closer and closer, they're like three dead, one wounded. So we're like all right, fuck, you know, we still have no idea what's going to happen when we get there. So we roll in to eras and they, they expedite. You know they're going to expedite our crossing, but at this moment we're still not sure what's happening.
Speaker 1:There was a captain in the IDF. I couldn't guess what his rank is now, but, born and raised in Brooklyn, new York, went back to Israel, joined the IDF, became a captain and just a good, good guy, as good as they get. So the first things that happen like real fast. We roll up and I see this group of guys turned out they were the State Department guys that were in the third vehicle. I see them sitting on the steps to the entrance to passport control. I'm like fuck man, this isn't kennywood. Like you're not sitting out in front of the potato patch like having some fries, like you know, conduct yourselves like fucking. You know what what's.
Speaker 2:Oh, what happened?
Speaker 1:and I'm looking like. None of them are wounded, none of them are being tended to, you know, by medical personnel or anything. It's like, okay, super. So almost immediately we get word that in, in, back up a notch on the, immediately we get word that, and back up a notch on the drive down, we get word that the crowd's already, there's a crowd already gathering at the attack site, and the crowd's already in the hundreds.
Speaker 1:Where this was on the road, what had happened was it was an anti-tank mine that Hamas had set in the roadbed right, and, exactly as White Boy predicted, they had started to move piles of road debris to create the need for, like a serpentine kind of one, to slow you down, to channelize you, to plant their device where they know you're going to drive right. And so, where it was, though, there were two refugee camps Beth Hanun and Bet Lahea. One was on water side, one was further inland, but two refugee camps with large populations, you know, military age males. The attack was basically on the main road into Gaza City, in between those two camps, basically on the main road into Gaza city, in between those two camps. So what we found out later, what we're doing right now, real time we roll into the crossing, the first word we get from Joe, who's got like live. You know, up to the minute he was like all right, here's the deal. He's like there was an ambulance that was coming out of one of the camps, just on a routine, you know, health welfare call or whatever. He saw the aftermath. He loaded up the survivor, which was oscar, right and um, they're bringing him to the checkpoint. He's like now, right now, we've got a medical helicopter orbiting overhead. He will not land until oscar is here and ready to load up, because that's a prime target. You know, you put a big ass helicopter down and you could draw a fire.
Speaker 1:So, like Roger, that at that moment Vic looks at me and he goes Rock, you take over. He was like I'm going with Oscar. He was like if he dies, he's not going to be alone. And I'm like check. You know, like at that point you realize like it's the most devastating news we've received ever on this mission. You know we lost three of our teammates, but he's absolutely right and you know, to vick's credit, you know, emotion aside, like we're all fucked up right now, but this has to be. You know, he's like I'll go with him, like. I understood so and this was just surreal.
Speaker 1:So they're like okay, here comes the ambulance right now. There's a whole protocol. There's like almost like a no man's land between the palestinian checkpoint and the israeli checkpoint. So this time the ambulance is coming up, palestinians let him through, they. They stopped midway in order to get confirmation that who's in. So it's not like a car bomb or something, right? So, and I wasn't involved in that piece of it, but somebody went down, went into no man's land, identified like that is Oscar, they bring him up. So while they bring him up now, the meanwhile news had already gone out worldwide Contractors killed in Gaza. Like happening now, right Now. You know how that works no names are released pending notification of family.
Speaker 1:All right, so we're like, okay, this is not good, like this is not good. So here they come. I get up to the ambulance. Vic is like you know, we're both kind of together, but we're making our way to the ambulance to kind of like you know, we're both kind of together, but we're making our way to the ambulance to kind of like clear a path so that they can get him to the helicopter right, and as the doors are opening here, he comes right, he's kind of lucid, you know, oscar, he's a big dude and he's rolling forward and all of a sudden, like I get I mean I don't get bumped, I get like shoved. And I turn around and there's news all over the place, right, so there's this American camera crew and they're trying to get like the money shot of Oscar coming out of the ambulance. So over my shoulder I look back and I was like step back, please make some room. And I said it polite the first time. Next thing, you know, I get shoved harder. So now I turn around and it's a guy with a camera Like he harder. So now I turn around and it's it's a guy with the camera, like he's got his camera up here and he's like pushing me. So I turn around and I pop him in the, in the solar plexus, you know. And now all of a sudden, like his producer, reporter, whoever the fuck gets in my face and he goes don't touch him, he's an american. He gets right up on me, right. So I don't remember whose vehicle it was, I think it might have been an idf vehicle. It was kind of like so the guys between me and it, I push the cameraman, he gets in my face. So I reach up and I grab him by the throat and I drive him back over the hood of the vehicle and I'm choking him on the hood of this vehicle and I'm like I just told him how that wasn't a very nice thing for him to have done, right thing for him to have done right. So in that moment this is all over, right, this is all over now.
Speaker 1:Segue back to the states, right? My wife is working at a gym that's no longer in. It doesn't exist anymore. It was right on penn avenue. She's in her office at the gym. I'm just we're mission oriented right now. We haven't thinking about anything else. But this is what's happening. In parallel, my father's at his office. He sees the news. He's like man, nothing to do now, but wait, right.
Speaker 1:So a friend of the family goes to my mom's house. She goes into my mom and she was like why do you not have the news on? And my mom's like oh, I just can't, I can't. She's like I just can't. So a friend goes over and turns on the news just to try to get something. By that time my sister in Ohio calls my mom and she's like Mom Michael's alive? And my mom goes oh honey, I hope so. And my sister's like and why? This is funny, it's fucking. You decide you be the judge.
Speaker 1:Shortly before that, tom Cruise made mission impossible 2, mi2 oakley put out a line of glasses at that time. They lasted for about a minute. They weren't really practical and they weren't really good looking either. That's the thing. They were x metal, x frames, x metal. So they're the ones that he's wearing in the beginning, the opening credits of mission impossible 2. They're like bug-eyed, kind of you know metal and all this, all this. So I had those, of course, so I'm wearing them.
Speaker 1:It was those glasses and a glimpse on CNN that my sister's friend not even my sister, my sister's friend's like oh my God, lisa, I just saw your brother on the news. And my sister's like, oh my God, she's like no, no, no, he's okay, he's okay. She's like he was choking a reporter over the hood of a car, right. So my sister's like oh my God. So my sister calls my mom hey, michael's okay. Well, how do you know? Because I saw him on fucking global news choking a reporter. But I will say this I don don't really have much news, much use for news in in instances like that. But I will say this that footage never showed up again, never it aired.
Speaker 1:It aired once because I looked for it afterwards I was like uh, I'm not sure, but yeah, so you know, but so what?
Speaker 1:he deserved it, right. But, um, so that's how my parents, my family, knew that, that I was alive, which was great. So then, in the meanwhile, you know, boom, they cross load. That's the last time I saw vick for a while. They cross load oscar to the helicopter, you know to, to an israeli ambulance, to the landing zone. Helicopter lands, boom off, they go. Next thing, you know it's me. So now I don't remember how the call went because I think they couldn't get Vic, so they called me. But I'm on the phone and the and I got things that shake you.
Speaker 1:To this day I get a call from the RSO and he was like Rocky need to recover those bodies. He was like this will not turn into another Mogadishu and I'll tell you. Like he said it out loud and in my mind I was like, okay, well, that's one out of four, where are the other three? Because if this ambulance picked him up, turned out that he did go over the air and they sent other ambulances. So we had already like I had kind of been like in my GPS entering the data for the hospital in Gaza City, because I'm like, well, if they picked him up by ambulance, they're going to take him to the hospital. It's not going to be long before that crowd finds out where they are. They converge on the hospital and they're going to try to drag my brothers through the fucking streets. Not going to happen, right, and as I'm frantically in my gps, you know the uh the rso calls and that's.
Speaker 1:I'll never forget those words. This will not become another mogadishu. And I was like no, sir, it won't. And um, you know, by that time, um, yeah, by that time things just kind of sped up and kind of got surreal. But speaking of time, what are we looking at? I think we gotta put a pin in it for today yeah, well, we have.
Speaker 2:We have stuff to look forward to next time yeah, so all right, man right.
Speaker 1:That's it for today. We'll finish this up at a later date. Anything, any closing comments? No, no.
Speaker 2:All right, brother, I look forward to it. It is a little heavier today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a little bit. A little bit All right, thank you, tune in next time, thanks.
