Host 1:09

Gary, welcome to the show, man. We've been planning this for, I don't know, man, it's been a couple months. I feel like it's now, I don't remember.

Gary Harrington 1:15

About that time. Yeah.

Host 1:17

I heard you, I think it was on the Team House podcast. I'm not even sure how I ran across it. And I was just listening to your story and your like your humble way of talking about all the different things that you've done in in life. And I'm like, man, that's that's somebody I would love to talk to. Um, and then, you know, I was listening to you kind of talk about your faith and it was kind of glanced over in other parts. And so I when I I know it's a big part of your life. And so I know when I reached out to you, um, you know, you asked me those questions, hey, well, you know, why are you doing this? And, you know, do you believe in God and and all that stuff? And and we had that uh that conversation. And um that's when I was like, man, this is gonna be this will be a great interview. Um, so time is very precious. We talked about that last night at dinner. Um, and I just want to thank you for being willing to give us a little bit of your time, step away from your business and what you're doing to to fly out here and and be willing to uh to tell your story to our audience.

Gary Harrington 2:09

No, thank you for the opportunity and uh the chance to to maybe hopefully let God work through us because uh that's different than what we did before in our previous careers.

Host 2:22

So well, before uh we get started, I'd love to introduce you to our audience. Um and I I get to tell you all the good things about yourself and tell my audience all the good things you did and all the stuff that you would never say about yourself. Every once in a while, a guest sits down across from us whose resume is so long, so layered, and so quietly consequential that the hardest part of the interview isn't the conversation, it's deciding where to start. Today is one of those days for sure. Our guest grew up in Western North Carolina, the kind of poor where a dollar borrowed from your grandfather got you through the week, and where the family skills were gardening, hog killing, and knowing which uncle had the still running. His parents were first in their families to finish high school. His grandparents never made it out of elementary school. Nobody talked about the military in his house. Nobody expected him to wear a uniform. Well, he wore six of them. He commissioned as a Marine Corps infantry officer in 1979 and served under the legendary Colonel John Ripley in 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines. He earned his way into the 2nd Recon Battalion, then became only the second officer ever to graduate Marine Scout Sniper Instructor School. From there, he crossed the service line. Most men never crossed. He left his commission, enlisted in the Army, and earned the Green Beret as an 18 Delta Special Forces medic with 5th Special Forces Group. He became a combat diver, a military freefall jumper, an ASOT qualified operator. And eventually, on a second attempt, after a humbling miss years earlier, he passed election for Delta Force, the Army's combat applications group. Then 9-11 happened. In the weeks after the towers came down, while most of America was still trying to find Afghanistan on a map, Gary was already there on the ground. He was one of the men on the observation post above Torobora, calling in bombs that were supposed to kill bin Laden. He was attached to Jawbreaker Team Juliet and ODA 572. He helped stand up the original fire base to Coast, the same Coast that would later become Fob Chapman, named for Nate Chapman, who was on the first team with him. He retired from the Army on a Friday at Fort Campbell. He reported to Langley on Monday. First as a CIA support officer and then later a case officer. He ran sources, handled agents, worked the farm, served multiple war zone tours across Afghanistan and Iraq, and helped stand up the agency's early Syria effort. And on the morning of Benghazi, he was at the desk inside Langley's Near East Division reading the raw cable traffic as it came in. And he was one of the first people in the building to argue out loud that what America was being told about the attack wasn't really the truth. He has smuggled people across the Iraqi berm in the middle of the night. He has walked out of Al-Qaeda ambushes because something in his gut said leave. He has sat across from warlords, double agents, diplomats, and the ghosts of men who didn't come home. And through it all, he was a husband, a teammate, and a soldier, and a spy. And by his own quiet admission, a man who never quite saw himself as one of those heroes he grew up watching in the movies, even as even as he was becoming one of them. Today we walk start to finish the mule and the moonshine, the marine corps and the mountain, the caves of Torabora, the corridors of Langley, and the man he is today on the other side of all of it. Gary, welcome to the Vanguard Wall Podcast, brother.

Gary Harrington 5:33

Thank you, Asher. It's an honor to be here.

Host 5:36

Before we dive deep, um, I want to ask you a question. It was something that you and I talked about in your prep. C.S. Lewis wrote an essay called The Inner Ring. It's in the weight of glory. The whole argument is that one of the most powerful drives in human life is the desire to be inside the elite group, whatever that group is. Not for money, not for power exactly, but for that feeling of belonging to something that most men can't get into. Can you kind of break that that down and kind of what that means to you?

Gary Harrington 6:06

I think, especially for people that have been in elite units, it's a strong driving part of your character and who you are. That that desire to like for me, I was I became a Marine Corps infantry officer. Well, then I heard about this more special thing called recon. Like, well, okay, I need to give that a try. So I went there. And uh, you know, I went to the army, and now I'm in Special Forces, which I thought was the most elite. But after I got in Special Forces, I started hearing about this thing called Delta, you know, just quiet, like, whoa, and everybody's like, oh, one day, one year I'll get in shape, and one year I'll try and all that. And I was like, Well, I need to do that. And I think it's the same for civilians. Like, if you even in church scores, let's say there's always an inner group that seems to be the group that makes things happen at a church. Well, a lot of people, you want to be part of that inner ring. Is that part of our innate desire to compete with other people? Is it our pride that drives us that we want to be part of a thing that other people can't be in? That's that's the way it's a human nature. But I think in people that go to elite units, there's other things that really accentuate that and make it a very high priority in our lives.

Host 7:37

I have a really interesting question. You know, I've I've been fortunate enough to work in some different places and then sit across from some amazing people like yourself, all of which have a very unique, innate drive to do the things that you just discussed. Um, what do you think makes those people the way they are? I mean, obviously there's a million things that go into it, but I I I look at people sometimes and you you see these people that are just hyper-driven, hyper-focused, high performers, high achievers. And then, you know, these people that just really don't want much for themselves, or maybe they do, they don't know how to get it, or I don't I don't know, they don't have the driving force. What do you attribute some of your personal driving force? I mean, you've accomplished so much.

Gary Harrington 8:14

My personal driving force probably goes back to some stuff we'll talk about later. Uh, childhood, um, brought up low self-worth, um, some anxiety issues and stuff like that. So to counter that, so you can look yourself in the mirror, you you know, as guys tend to do, we overcompensate and you know, it be it can become a drive. And then to do things where people pat you on the back and say, you know, damn, you know, that was something that those those things drive you. But then there's other people, like there's a guy that was in uh Delta when I was named Terry, and he just seemed happy, he was driven and a good performer, but he was just like happy, nothing stressed him out. He was like, I'm here, I'm having a good time. It's just the ball. And I always envied that because I was the totally the opposite.

Host 9:14

Yeah, I've you meet those people, they're kind of rare, and the but they're the kind of people that you just want to be around. But you also wonder, like, bro, how did we're we're we're going through the suck, man. How are you always in such a good mood? I envy those people. I'm I'm I lean to the more high strung side. Um, so I, you know, I I work under, I think I work well under pressure, but I also stress myself out. And so, but you see these people, man, that they're just they make it look easy and they just have a great time doing. You're like, bro, I wish I wish I could buy whatever you're taking. Oh, yeah.

Gary Harrington 9:41

Well, he was one of the best shots when we were going through the training. And uh, there's another guy that's become pretty famous, uh, gun builder and at shooting and particularly pistol. But, you know, the two of them were always running neck and neck for who's the best. But the other guy, you know, one guy spent like me, hey, shooting thousands of rounds a day, but spending my weekends shooting, working really hard and intensely, and then the other guy just shows up for the when it's contest time and he's he smokes it.

Host 10:15

Yeah, I you know, and I guess it just goes back to my original question, you know. I think some some people like have are born with certain skills and then learn other skills. And, you know, I I don't know. I would love to, I guess, someday analyze, you know, like high performers, high achievers. I'm sure somebody out there somewhere's done it, but it's just a super interesting conversation.

Gary Harrington 10:34

Well, then now there's research saying there's a part of your brain that willpower actually helps you uh fight off the mental effects of aging if you exercise your willpower over something you don't want to do. And people like okay, myself, most of my life, that maybe don't feel you have the natural skills or inclination, your your things don't come easy, but you overcome that by having a stronger willpower than the people around you. That's great advice, dude.

Host 11:07

That's uh that's great advice. Um, well, let's get started uh on your life story. You grew up in Western North Carolina, and and what you kind of explained to me, I mean, it was real poverty. Some people come talk about poverty, but I mean, you guys were borrowing a mule to plow the garden. You had relatives that still had an outhouse. What does a kid understand about that at that time, and what do you understand about it now?

Gary Harrington 11:31

So I grew up, you know, you're kids, right? I've been in third world countries a lot now. Everywhere where you see kids doesn't matter, in a trash pile or whatever, they're happy, they're playing. And we were. My family was not, we we always had something to eat. Now, my dad worked a full-time job and he went to that job, but we had to have a garden, we had to share, like with my grandfather, you know, we would either share or take care of a cow and a hog and a garden. And you know, he had the mule and we didn't have tractors or anything like nobody had a tractor in my family. So if we needed to plow the garden, or my dad needed to plow the garden, he'd borrow my grandfather's mule. Because he only lived like a half a mile down the road. Um and we only lived that way. I grew up in various places. Um, my parents moved a lot. So I only had like three years where we full-time lived on a little tiny uh farm there close to some land that my parents owned and next to my grandfather's.

Host 12:45

What was it like growing up um in those times? Was your family like really strict? Was there like a early morning rise and everybody had things to do to get, you know, to make the house run and to be able to eat and you know take care of all these things?

Gary Harrington 12:58

My dad drove a long way to get to work. Um so it was the typical childhood you hear of somebody in my age that had that when it wasn't school time, you got up in the morning, you ate breakfast, you went outside and played, and you could go off down the road to the mountain and be stay gone all day. As long as you came back around supper time, that was good. You know, yes, my brother, my dog, uh the the three of us had our adventures went all over.

Host 13:34

We've spent some time in Western North Carolina, and I thought this this was this next part was funny. Your grandfather got in trouble supplying moonshiners, and a lot of people don't realize like moonshining pretty much a lot of it started in western North Carolina, especially near Boone County and you know, popcorn, Sutton, and all that. So speaking of the CIA, I thought I'd talk to my wallet, my watch. But uh, what was that? You know, what what was what what was going on back then or what happened with your grandfather?

Gary Harrington 14:01

My father's side of the family lived up on the in the mountains outside a place called Taylorsville, North Carolina. So that's also happens to be where Junior Johnson of NASCAR fame and moonshine and fame was. So they they had a for a few years up in the mountains, he had a little gas station store that um sold. My dad was working there one time, young guy, when Junior Johnson must have been running from the cops because he said that uh dirt road, that car came roaring around the corner and it was Junior, and he slid to a stop beside the gas pump, jumped out, pumped gas in there, jumped back in, took off, and then the police came after. Kind of like a movie, right? It's like Dukes Hazard. And one side of my family on that side uh was involved in Moonshine as a kid, it was kept from us until my great-grandfather died, and then I was with my dad and uncle walking the lines up in the mountains, and then oh, here's an old rusted out still, oh, over here, here's another one. It's like, hey. And it's like, well, and then later I found out that uh if you grew up around Taylorsville, any of those small towns in North Carolina, and you're a poor come from a poor family like my father, the because of the popularity of Moonshine and after Prohibition, a young guy like my dad could go to Hickory to the Chevrolet place, and you would get a uh a brand new uh Chevrolet. My dad at one point had a 52 uh two-door convertible and with a balanced and blueprinted engine. And the only thing is that it had a special tank built in it to store moonshine. Oh really? Now these poor kids, how are you gonna pay that off? You paid it off by making moonshine runs. So my dad did that some. I never knew the extent of it. I know that after he and my mom got married, uh, they were gonna drive back to Kansas because he was in the Air Force at the time. And he said, the boys back there want me to bring them some stuff. So she said they were driving in the back of the mountains and went down this dirt road. It was grown up on both sides, and suddenly a guy in a leather jacket and a pistol stepped out and you know, who are you? And and one came on her side of the car and she was scared. And then uh they looked inside and they go, Oh, okay, it's Harrington, let him in. And so she figured my father probably had something a little bit more to do with those folks. And he said, But my grandfather, when he ran that store, got to the point that uh uh the Burgess boys was the family that kind of were the mafiosos in that little area that ran that, that uh he started because he had the store, he could sell them sugar for that to use for the moonshine. And so they got caught in that. I don't think I I don't know, we don't we don't know what happened with all the court stuff. I knew they got eventually he got nailed for not paying tax.

Host 17:32

I was about to say that's all the moonshining ever was about, man, because you can buy liquor in every corner store. But the problem is, you know, you gotta you gotta pay the man, dude. Yeah. We um Western North Carolina for those that you haven't visited, it's uh it's uh it's really beautiful, but it's an interesting place. That is a place you don't want to end up in the wrong holler or in on somebody's property that doesn't know you. Yeah, they don't always take well to strangers, but it's uh it's a probably one of the most beautiful places over there in like the Blue Ridge in that part of the oh yeah.

Gary Harrington 18:03

Well, and then but I had the advantage of like when you when you grow up, like so I'm you know as a 16-year-old, you know, my father said, Hey, there's some basic skills you need to have. And he wasn't now my father did not want me to run moonshine, but like he told me to practice, like when it's a lot of moonlight out, practice turning your headlights out and driving without the headlights.

Host 18:25

You just didn't know you were gonna be using that in Afghanistan. Yeah, it's true. Some some things do translate into other skills. Um you you describe yourself as kind of like a skinny kid, thick glasses, anxious, um, and you covered it all up, you know, with a kind of a loud personality. When did you first notice that gap between like who you look like on the outside and what you actually had going on on the inside?

Gary Harrington 18:48

I grew up like my grandfather ran away from home at age 13, was a hobo, worked, you know, rode the trains all over the US back in the early 1900s, um and worked. So the stories I heard were a big strong men, and the people admired were uh people that had physical strength and worked hard. And you know, I was this really scrawny, blonde-headed kid, and uh I felt I didn't fit up to those things, so yeah, that was a gap. So I I was always really active, um pretty pretty quick with my width and stuff. So I tried to compensate that way, and then I was a daredevil, so I wanted to and somebody if everybody said this can't be done well then I'm I'm the guy that's gonna try it, you know, just maybe compensate for not being what I figured people viewed uh at least in my family, as a manly guy. Yeah.

Host 19:59

You failed eleventh grade. You clearly weren't stupid, you're pretty smart. Like what was actually going on, you think, in your life back then?

Gary Harrington 20:05

I I had now I know it as ADHD and anxiety issues, and it got to a point in tenth grade where it started happening, maybe end of tenth, certainly in eleventh, that I would start to go into a class whichever class it was, and suddenly waves of terror would start coming over, my heart would start pounding, my breathing would get shallow, I would feel like my heart was gonna come out, my I would be a sharp pain in my stomach, and uh you know, then one day as I got closer to the door, it would get worse and worse. One day I made a right turn and didn't go to class. And as soon as I walked away from the class, relief started coming and I felt it felt good. So I started skipping class a lot, and every time I'd have one of these feelings, I'd skip class. And usually I'd go jump in my car and take off. Uh that's my first car was a 69 Chevelle Super Sport convertible. So if you want to a mechanism to escape, that was the vehicle.

Host 21:15

That's even a that's still a good vehicle nowadays, if you can find one. Yeah. You were at a fellowship of Christian athletes camp when your parents found out that you had failed. Uh you were also the one who'd driven the school bus uh up the mountain. And that night alone in the dark, something happened. Uh tell me about what happened.

Gary Harrington 21:33

I grew up, I always made A's and never had to study, never read. I think I was reading encyclopedias at age six. So I never studied in school, never did anything, but I was just always A's. Um that started changing by the time I got 10th and 11th grade that you needed to study, but I didn't know how. And when I started making bad grades because of skipping mostly, I started sending fake report cards home. And it's another whole story of how I wound up with the blank report cards to that pretended how I would do as a spy.

Host 22:10

Gary was doing tradecraft before he knew it was tradecraft.

Gary Harrington 22:12

Yeah. It's actually a good story. Just tell it real quick. So yeah, I I knew I needed to send a different report card home to take home for my parents to see, other than the one that I earned. So I went into the secretary's uh office for the principal and started talking to her because I had noticed she had uh blank report cards on her desk, a big stack of them. So I went, came back a little bit later and started talking to her, and I had some papers in my hand. And as I was just, you know, engaging her eye to eye, I threw my papers on top of the blank report cards. And I talked to her a little bit and said, Well, thank you so much for helping me. And I picked up my papers and I picked up a few of the blank report cards when I did that and took those papers. Back and stash them somewhere. And then for the rest of that year, on the quarterly report card time, I would fill out the report card my parents expected to get and uh take it home. And then I would forge their signature on the real report card to turn back in in school. What I didn't plan on was at the end of school, and you're gone, you're out of school, that they take the report card from the and send the report card that shows all the grades from the year, and they mail it to your home. And they happened to mail it while I was up at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp in Black Mountain, North Carolina. And yeah, I had driven the bus. Back in the day when I was in high school, you actually had high schoolers driving other high schoolers in the bus. Can you imagine nowadays? Yes, 17 years old, I'm driving the school bus. And uh they got an old activity bus to go to this uh camp. And since I was the licensed bus driver, you know, I'm I'm the guy that drove it up there. But yeah, my parents got that report card. And this is before cell phones, so they can't call me on a cell phone to have that discussion. So I got told, you know, that uh I needed to come to the camp, the office of the camp down there. And I got on there and took a call from my parents, and it was in my family, you got you know, belt whippings and worse and uh stuff were real common for very minor infractions. So I was uh I knew I was cruising, but my parents didn't really have a way to come to drive the three and a half hours to get where I was. And since I had driven the bus, you know, they had to leave me there or they had to pull me out. And, you know, it was said, we'll come back and deal when you come back home, we'll deal with this. Anything else happened that that night? Well, so I don't I'm not sure if it was that that night or the next night, but that was a big wake-up call for me. I was like, okay, I've been deceiving people, I've been lying. I don't, and I I still never told anybody about those feelings and walking away from class. You that's not the kind of thing that men talked about the way I was brought up. Oh yeah. So, you know, you hit all that, so you just had to deal with it. And um, you're at this camp, and you're, you know, I was a believer in Christ and faith, but I'm just not a practicer. But you're up there, you know, it's intense, going there, you know, it's it's the fellowship of Christian athletes. We're going through gospel message, and I'm hearing that, and I'm feeling, you know, frankly, I'm feeling really bad about myself and how bad I am. And yeah, probably if we think religiously, I probably thought I'm not redeemable. How horrible am I that I've done this to my parents and all the lying and stuff. So during a night session up there, I was pretty emotional, despondent. Uh, probably to be perfectly honest, probably thinking first thoughts of maybe self-harm, uh, like what why am I here? I've got nothing. There's nothing that really brings me joy. I'm not bringing joy to anybody else. I don't need to be here. And I walked out of the building during a break to a little grove of woods, and I just wanted to be alone there, and I yeah, okay, I was thinking those kind of thoughts. And I was very distraught. And then, you know, I'm out. I I can't remember if there was much moonlight or not. It was just dark in the woods, and I feel at home in the woods at night, you know. And I then out of the corner of my eye, like up over here on the left and higher, I saw this little thing that looked like kind of like a bubble, glowing bubble, small. And I was like, Huh.

Host 27:18

How far away do you remember doing that?

Gary Harrington 27:20

You know, because the size, I'm trying to guess when I first saw it, I would say maybe like 30, 20 yards away, uh, something like maybe a little bit closer, 15. But it was small, and it was like, oh, okay. And I was like, well, that's interesting. Why is this bubble here? And I saw it start moving kind of down, and then it seems like started getting a little bit closer, and I was like, well, that's really curious. And I'm thinking, well, okay, how would a bubble be up here on the side of a mountain at night? I went through, is it swamp gas? No, that would not be like this, would be it wouldn't be formed like that. And but then, but something about that bubble kind of brought a feeling of peace and curious, maybe some of it was curiosity because I was like, it it distracted me from the thoughts I was having. And I was like, uh. And then I went through every logical thing about what, and as I'm going through my checklist, the bubble's moving, it's coming closer, it's getting bigger, it's starting to get brighter. And now I'm really curious, it has my attention, and it's still getting bigger, and it's still getting brighter, and it's still coming lower on the ground. Till suddenly, after I realized there is no way I can explain this, and I'm not asleep, I'm awake outside, and I'm not a wacko person. Then suddenly I realized that it was some kind of presence. And I I then I became terrified because you think this is in. Well, you're wondering if you should be here. You're this is it, man. Something's happening. And um, yeah, I fell to my knees. And about the time I did that, just kind of simultaneously, that had gotten so much bigger that it was bigger than a person. It was like 10 yards away and kind of settled on the ground, and I could tell, like, to me, I mean, it was just brilliant, brilliant radiance coming out. And I could tell there was like a being, you know, inside there, or some kind of image like of that that I I can't remember distinct features, but I I think I could distinguish like hair and a face and um kind of shoulders, like just kind of sensed it there. And yeah, I and I was face down, you know, my head down on my knees, terrified. And then I heard, you know, a voice come out of there. You talk about the voice, but then the voice said, you know, as it says in the Bible, I didn't know this at the time, so I couldn't have put this in there because I didn't read my Bible, so I didn't know. But the voice said, do not be afraid. And then I don't know if it said I can't remember in it clearly if it said stand up, but uh, and then you know, then I I stood up and you know, kind of my head down a little bit, looked that way, and said, For I have a purpose for you. Or you have not fulfilled my purpose for you. And and then it went away. Just like gone. Well, of course, you know, I've got questions like, hey, what, hey, you can't you can't come and intrud on me like that, and then don't tell me more, that's it, and you go. But then, you know, I grew up in western North Carolina, and my grandparents and some of that went to those little backwoods churches where you had the preacher that said, I heard the call of God, and uh Roby reached down and he told me, and and he gave me the message, and I'm supposed to preach and all that. And I thought, oh my god, does this mean I have to be a preacher now? And uh, and I was like, um, yeah, that's funny because I was like, that's that's I don't want to be a preacher. Yeah. And uh so that yeah, that went away. I think I told two people, I told uh counselor at the camp, and my brother, my younger brother, happened to be up there at that camp. And I can't remember if I told him, yeah, I think I probably told him then because I came in from outside and I was like, you know, just break was getting over, and I'm just like, you know, you know, what's changed about you? And I would have to say, you know, it'd be nice if I could say from that point, I didn't coat curse, I didn't uh think about sex, and I was a good Christian from that moment on. Oh, hell no. The only thing that changed was I decided I can't lie like that, and that I have fears, I have to face my fears. Uh but the rest of me was still went on the same way I'd been.

Host 32:33

Yeah, but that's gonna come up later. I mean, that that experience obviously has stayed with you for, you know, whatever, 50 plus years. Um and and you know, we we talked about it on the podcast prep, and um, that's gonna be interesting to watch that play out later on in your life. Um, you you wrestled and played football in high school. Uh, you were great in practice, you know uh practice, kind of struggled sometimes when it counted. Now that you've spent decades thinking about performance under pressure, what was actually happening, you think, in those those early years of your life?

Gary Harrington 33:04

So that was the anxiety stuff. And then I had some issues. Like my dad was a loving man, didn't know how to express it. And he couldn't ever compliment my brother and I, so he could only criticize you. So it gets to the point, hey, dad, don't come to my football game. And you know, you do you just pray he's not because he's just gonna criticize you. And I was now one, I was really too light to go anywhere playing football, but my skills were good. And in so in practice, I did really well, but the time like I know I I ran halfback for a little bit, they handed me the ball, all that anxiety and performance of people in the stand, and now it's on me, and the ball's to me, I was mechanical. I tried to, I was so afraid of screwing up that I would say, on this play, I need to run three steps to my right and then dive to my left. And so I'd be like, you know, so mechanical. And in practice, I was loosey-goosey, slip slide, could could do that. But in there, I was so afraid of screwing up that I was very mechanical. And that's how I was, you know, just initially when I was growing up in like uh fights I got in, you know, I tried to think my way through and and do that. And it wasn't until I um in one fight just said the heck with it and just reacted that I won. And then, you know, I never I never lost after that.

Host 34:42

How did um how did the military kind of come up come about on your mind?

Gary Harrington 34:47

My father served two years in the air force, but he never really talked about the air force. And so military really wasn't on my radar. When I was in college, I w I was running cross-country in college, and some big dude showed up, like 6'4, V-shape, blind headed guy. He said, I'm the officer selection officer in the United States Marine Corps. Yeah, okay. He says, Yeah, I heard about you. He says, uh, so you think you're you're tough and that uh you you're physically fit. I'm like, Yeah. And um he said, Well, uh I challenge you to a decathlon. And I'm looking at this guy and I'm like, What do you mean, man? And he said, and you can choose eight of the events. I'll choose two.

Host 35:39

What what's what's the what's a decathlon?

Gary Harrington 35:41

The the Olympic uh where it's 10 different events. I think includes jab for the in the Olympics, it's javelin throw, some shorter distance, middle distance, long distance running, maybe a long jump. So it's like the all-around athlete thing for the Olympics. And uh I thought I looked at this dude, you know, and I was like, man, I'll you might beat me in sprints, but I'll just choose a bunch of other stuff and I'll smoke you. But we never had that contest because he went on, I think that was his now I know sales pitches, that was his opener to get me engaged. And then he said, Well, you know, I'm here because I got this thing in the Marine Corps called the Platoon Leaders Course. He said, But I don't I don't think you could make it. And he's describing this thing, it's six weeks long, it's in the summer, they pay you a seven, seven hundred and seventy something dollars for the six weeks, and uh you go up there and he said, but it's real hard physically and mentally, and there's discipline and all that. And you know, I okay, so because of that overcompensating for anxiety, I I've always had this thing where I'm kind of anti-authoritarian, and I I never minded going up to a principal or anybody and popping off and saying something. So when he told me, he said, you know, but I don't think you got what it takes to make it. So I I looked at him, I said, wait a minute, you're telling me that you would let me go to a camp and you'll give me clothes and a place to sleep, and you're gonna feed me and you're gonna pay me $770 for six weeks, and I get to work out too. I get paid to work out. I said, Where's the paper? I'll sign it. And that's how I wound up going to a platoon leader's course. I still didn't have anything about uh the military in my mind when I went. But when I went there, the the thing that hit me was, you know, I told you I had self-worth problems with my family and stuff. And when I went up there, one thing I knew how to do was take criticism, verbal abuse, um uh teasing, and physical punishment. Uh, we were real good at that. I grew up in that era where when you went to Sunday dinner with the rest of your family, you and your cousins, we could compare belt whelps on your legs. Uh but so I went there, and that's the first time in my life that if I was tougher and took more of the crap, other people started not being able to and falling out. And then to be honest, it was the first time I could look and say, I'm better than that guy. Oh, there's I have a worth. And then it's when it dawned on me. That's when the whole military, and then while you're up there, you start hearing about military and about sacrifice and serving. And I loved every bit of it. And then it resonated with me because it goes back to my experience up on uh Black Mountain. That I was like, this is it. This is that thing, my purpose, the voice. That because to be a second lieutenant in Marine Infantry at that time, beach landings, you know, they told you there's a you know 52% chance you would die in the first wave. And I was like, see, that's it. I have this is my purpose, and I can be good at this. And I'm I'm better than people at that. So that's what geared me and motivated me to really, you know, be pro-military.

Host 39:25

That platoon leaders course. I I don't know that I've ever heard of like them sending you off and and paying you for a couple weeks. Was that kind of like trying out for the Marine Officer program?

Gary Harrington 39:32

Or or Yeah, so it's it's kind of like um what's the one called? Uh it's not R O T C, but it's for an enlisted to shift to officer, there's a course.

Host 39:44

Green to gold. Uh that's what we call it.

Gary Harrington 39:46

Yeah, like green to gold. So it's two six-week things. So I went to PLC Junior one the summer of 78 for six weeks, and then I passed that, and then I went back the next summer, uh '79 for six weeks, and passed that. And if you pass both, then when you graduate school, you can get commissioned as a second lieutenant. So you weren't really were you part of ROTC at all, as well as the No Well, I took because I was undecided when I went to college and like I dropped out of college for a year and all. Um, if you were undecided, they urged you to take Army ROTC. So I did. Of course, the I was good at what I did. And so ROTC really tried hard to get me. But I've been brainwashed by the Marines, right? So the Army's saying, hey, sign up here. We'll make you a second lieutenant now, we'll pay you a hundred bucks a month, and we'll help pay for your books and stuff. And um you'll we'll send you to airborne school and all that. But I was like, nah, and okay, this was the 70s. So I looked around me at some of the dudes that were in ROTC, and I gotta be honest, they were, you know, it was not like what we see now coming back from the global war on terror.

Host 41:10

But the Marines have always been known for their esprit decorps, and man, those dudes just look sharp.

Gary Harrington 41:16

Yeah, and and I was like, uh hell no, I'm sticking with Marine Corps, even though I mean the money part and all that sounded really good. Yeah. But uh I was like, no, uh, Marine through and through.

Host 41:27

So this is 7879, and you know, we're just on the backside of Vietnam War. Were any of the the instructors, Vietnam vets or Glenn Thacker was the SARM major of the ROTC thing's name?

Gary Harrington 41:39

He was a bald, old, big potbellied guy, scuba guy, and he'd been one of the like uh SOG or Mac V SOG guys in Vietnam. And you know, I didn't hear a lot of stories from that, but he was he was kind of cool. He just kind of saw the the us young people uh through. But uh he was he was the only one I knew that was in scholar in college.

Host 42:06

You described the Marine Corps as the place where you could finally play the role of the heroes you'd seen in the movies as a kid. When did you first understand that's kind of what you were doing? I mean, obviously you didn't join to be a hero, but you know, you're you're you're I think kids try to find uh role models, right? Whether it's their dad or things they see in TV or whatever. When did you realize you were kind of on that path to potentially, you know, be one of those people later on in life?

Gary Harrington 42:29

It's only now, in these later years, that looking backwards that you realize what was going on and what your motivations were. I knew I liked, you know, humility, being, you know, at first it was being an officer and ready to sacrifice for your country. All those things are the things I heard of all my life. You know, I grew up watching John Wayne and Audi Murphy, and I wanted to be like them. I wanted to be the guy that didn't matter what the odds are, I'll go. I wanted to be the guy that, you know, was the humble, quiet, uh heroic guy. Now, between the Long Ranger and Tonto, I preferred Tonto, but my personality probably was more like the Long Ranger. And uh I always liked the quiet Indian guy that that that uh came in and did the thing quietly. Um yeah, but I was a scrawny loudmouth, so I was more like the Lone Ranger.

Host 43:28

So you got commissioned in December of 1979, you're a second lieutenant of the Marine Corps. What did you think your life was going to look like? Did you have any inclination or nah?

Gary Harrington 43:38

I back then again because of the thing in the mountain, I thought my role in life was to go to combat, probably get killed, but I wanted to go out well. And I I don't know why I thought that. So when you think that it kind of gives you license. So yeah, I I I took chances, I didn't mind going against authority, even in the Marine Corps, which really does not like it. Yeah, so yeah, my but the career thing, I didn't think about getting older, retirement, any those things, I never it never crossed my mind. I lived for the next, the next few months, the next year at most. That was it.

Host 44:27

The Marine Corps sitting you somewhere, most young officers never saw what you witnessed there stayed with you for the rest of your career. Talk about um kind of your first couple years in the Marine Corps.

Gary Harrington 44:37

You know, second lieutenant in the infantry. Um it was the old days. You know, this is the days that the 82nd was known as the junking jumping junkies. You know, everybody was looking smoking pot, the military was looked down on. It was a pretty dark time for military, but you know, I was brainwashed. I and I I wanted that. Pristine, what I learned in Marine Corps training, uh, discipline and kind of atmosphere. And I pushed that. I read as a young lieutenant uh the book called Yoni. It's about Yoni Yonatan Netanyahu, who was the hero of Entebe, the guy that led the raid, Benjamin Netanyahu's brother, older brother. And um He got killed, right? He was the only one that got killed by a lucky shot as they were coming off the objective of the Entebbe Airport. And you know, the way he drove his people in platoon, I that was me. I was hard. I was I drove people hard, but I lived with them. I lived for my job. I motivated people. Um yeah, I sometimes I did some sort of odd things, but and pushed people. Um one time I got stopped for run in the summer running people with flak jackets on, and uh, you know, I just kind of blew them off. It was the days when the company commander I had, you oh, you had a lot of derelicts. This is Marine Corps regular infantry, where they send the people that score the lowest on the ASVAV. And uh but I I mean I but I I invested in the guys. Like I had everybody write me a paper about why they came into Marine Corps and some of the things about life. And you know, I didn't know you're a young second lieutenant, and I'm reading this stuff, and there's one, well, I uh my friends and I got caught robbing the grave of this lady, and when we went to court, they told me Marine Corps is jail. And it's like, I'm like, you're what? This is the kind of people I'm working with, and um, I was able to forge um some esprit and turn that into what I thought was an effective, very effective infantry platoon. Um, but when we did things, there were the derelicts, and my company commander, he was he was, you know, like we shouldn't shy away from physical, uh, using physical means to enforce things, which now I know that's really enlisted thing. Officers shouldn't, you know, not know anything about that. And uh, but he'd been a rugby player because he's like, you know, everybody wants to play football at the time. They're all all the men are always bugging me about playing football. He goes, we're gonna play rugby. Um I'll teach you how, and we're gonna have everybody play rugby. Now, here's a list of people that I'm putting on the list that we need to, if you can't, injure. And we and he had people that he wanted to drum out of the you know, force out of the military. And we uh they're gonna use rugby to hurt people? Well, uh, well, it it was a way to No, I didn't like you know, this is the eight seventies and eighties, man. Uh yeah, this is this is like 81.

Host 48:13

I think that's when drill sergeants could still put their hands on uh oh yeah, but that's what I thought, right?

Gary Harrington 48:18

Uh that's in in the Marine Corps, that's what I was used to. And I know one time I had a guy who was one of those guys that does everything wrong, doesn't care, is always in trouble. And we came back from a PT formation, I think it was. You know, everybody's showering. And I remember he was a kind of uh vocal, uh didn't hide his anger much, my my company commander. And he called for me to come in there. So yeah, I run in there and he could he's come, he's just come out of the shower, he's got a towel wrapped around him, and he comes at me and he's angry. He's been thinking about because of that guy did something stupid on the run. And he's like, uh, I think I won't say the name, but he he and he grabbed off his desk a machete and he held it up to me like this, and he goes, blankety blank, Lieutenant Harrington. He goes, Don't come back in here until you can tell me private so-and-so is is dead. And like, okay, what do you do with that? What do you do with that? So, okay, I walked out of there. I'm like, Dang um, you know what? So I I went and hunted down that guy, and I said, You're gonna go on a remedial run with me. And we went on a remedial run, and um, you know, during there, I um I I used physical means to you know, it's it it turns out in those days, like I think the stuff that happened when I was in Marine Corps training, the physical stuff, it's not that you they're you're beating somebody up, right? But you do physical things that humiliates them.

Host 50:11

And uh yeah, so yeah, humiliation's uh it's a big tactic. I uh I'll tell too many my own personal stories, but when I first got to my first unit in the army, I was 18. I was in my first unit. Uh I I, you know, I I was gonna have my first formation the next day, uh, checked into my barracks room. I actually went to sleep with my PT gear and my shoes on, so I could just get out of bed and go straight to formation. Well, I woke up to somebody knocking on my door, which happened to be my first sergeant. I had overslept, I got I got paraded in front of the entire company, berated, and then I had to wear a wall clock around my neck for two weeks in uniform. I looked like flavor flavor. And I I can promise you, I have never been late to anything again in my life. So, you know, you know, whether it works and whether it's you know cruel and unusual, that cemented something in my life forever.

Gary Harrington 51:00

It does. Well, that that uh that incident turned out later because that guy came back. So a lot of those guys, you know, didn't like the fact that I pushed them really hard. And I I guess that guy came back and was telling some people in the barracks that night about what had happened. And um, so he got some barracks lawyers to tell him that he needed to lay in the bed and start saying that he was having hallucinations and his neck was hurting and all that. So then they filed, you know, something somebody goes to get help, and then the duty officer of the night comes, gets caught summoned, and comes to the barracks, and he's and and they go, well, he's mumbling this stuff about Lieutenant Harrington like that. And so, you know, it turned into a thing, and the battalion commander, it got referred up to the battalion, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Ripley, hears of it, and um eventually I get told that you know you gotta go see him, and now I'm realizing that okay, this could be career-ending. And uh, but you know, I'm not gonna say that, you know, what I'm not gonna repeat what the captain told me. I'm just gonna take whatever it is. And as I'm getting ready to go there, my first sergeant, who is a storied our company first sergeant, Vietnam vet, and Colonel Ripley's battalion sergeant major, another one of those tall leather-necked, you know, cropped hair silver marine sergeant majors. I I I went up to the battalion headquarters and I went in and before I went in, before I left my company, my first sergeant said to me, Lieutenant, and he made lieutenant sound like a curse word. And yeah, I couldn't help it. I was a young second lieutenant. I was still calling first sergeant sergeant major, sir, because they were older and I was brought up LA. And I went in, he goes, They're telling me that you took that private out, that piece of you know what, and you did something to him. And he goes, Well, did you? And I looked at him, I said, Yeah. He goes, Yeah, Lieutenant. He goes, officers, don't do that. He goes, You're you're getting in the listed business. He goes, damn it, just stay right here. Because I'm supposed to go see the battalion commander. He goes, You wait right here. And he ran up uh to uh see that sergeant major and told the story. And you know, I'm not sure how what backstory he told it. But the next thing I know, the sergeant major and first sergeant come back from the headquarters. They say, Don't go up there. I go, I was told to, not now. I go, what happened? And they pulled me in the office, they said we went in there, and they're both Vietnam vets, and Colonel Ripley, of course, famous Vietnam vet. They said we went in there and told them that the two of us beat that person up. They didn't use the word person, yeah. But uh they said we did it, and we said, and so what are you gonna do about it? So I I felt honored that you know that I I caught a lot of grief as a second lieutenant from those two individuals, but yet here they were uh putting their careers online and backing me up.

Host 54:44

What did that mean to you both then but now as you look back on it? Because, you know, there we're gonna talk about some things later on in your career and how you protected other people and you know went to bat for people that you know a lot of other people wouldn't. What did you learn early on?

Gary Harrington 54:59

At the time I felt relieved. I thought, okay, I I've clearly overstepped my bounds, but I thought, like from Marine Corps training and seeing physical punishment and what my company commander said, I thought I I guess I had thought that it was okay. And now I realize, no, it's it's not okay to do that. At least I I'm not gonna be involved in that. But the as far as the enlisted trusting me, that was a big I mean that that really felt good. I mean, these storied Vietnam veterans that would do that for me, I mean, to be honest, I was really I felt really indebted to them. And I I'm I I was like, okay, I'm gonna take their advice and listen to these guys about how to be a better officer.

Host 55:51

That's something I think very unique to the, you know, our military is the the whole officer and the enlisted and and how it works. And um, you know, you know, even though you outrank these dudes as a second lieutenant, you know, you're young, you know, and then you look at the platoon sergeant and the sergeant major, those guys are old, salty guys. And so there is this, there's this like unique hierarchy that, you know, even though you outrank them, there's still this, you know, you know, this mutual respect for the NCO corps.

Gary Harrington 56:17

Well, and in in that in those days, we worshipped the Vietnam vets. Like, oh man, and you know, and and uh to have them and and Colonel Ripley, you know.

Host 56:27

So you made recon after a year as a platoon commander. Um, how did that kind of come on the radar and and what was that what was that drive?

Gary Harrington 56:34

Maybe because of my personality and uh I was driven hard. I forget which officer somebody approached me and said, hey, just think recon thing, it's a kind of a harder thing to do, but you think you'd be, you know, successful at it. Do you want to go try that? So I was like, well, yeah, because my time as a platoon commander was coming to an end. And it's like, get to go be a platoon commander again and do something again that's now more elite, more more special. So I was like, okay.

Host 57:11

How was that tryout and training pipeline?

Gary Harrington 57:13

I think I maybe I didn't, I I went and did an interview, the physical stuff. Like, I never scored less than a 300 on a uh Marine Corps PFT. Even the night that I showed up to take my final PFT in officer basic school after not having slept and still hung over. Uh I still made a 300 on the Marine Corps PFT. You have to run three miles and 18 or under back in those days. But um what was your the original question?

Host 57:44

Oh, I mean, just you know, what was the drive to get the recon? How did it come across the radar?

Gary Harrington 57:48

And yeah, so I was physically fit, just say that way. Really fit. And I I'd still running long distance repeatedly. And um, so I think I did an interview. I can't remember if I did a PT test or not, and then they they took you. So I I was assigned to 2nd Recon Battalion and then almost immediately sent off to ANFIB Recon School up at Fort Story, Virginia. And again, that was now I go to that school, and it's uh Major Crockett, another, I think, Navy Cross guy, recon guy from Vietnam, and the instructors, most of them were recon in Vietnam. So uh it was a really, really hard school, really tough physically, PT-wise, where you really learned in-depth patrolling, basic call for fire. Um, it built a lot more on top of the tactics that I learned uh at the infantry officers school.

Host 58:51

You're uh, you know, you get back, and you know, your first assignment, I think, on recon was you guys are doing a a med float, right?

Gary Harrington 58:59

Yeah, after I got back from there uh shortly thereafter, we got designated to be the float platoon, a good to go do a Mediterranean float. And that's when somebody said, Oh, wow, because you're supposed to be combat ready, and I'm the Marines are supposed to be able to do, at least some of them do combat diving, but they have to have a dive qualified officer in order to do that. So somebody they looked at me and said, You need to go to scuba school. And as hard-headed as I was back then, they said, Well, there's two. We just got to get you qualified. There's two. There's one in Groton, Connecticut that's run by the Navy. It's pretty easy there. And then you have this three-week thing and special forces down in Key West. And I remember her saying, Yeah, I heard they got a pretty good PT program down there at Key West. I'll just go there. And the truth was, it was known as brutal, extremely brutal PT down there and a real hard course.

Host 1:00:05

Dive school, even to this day, is still one of the toughest special operations courses there is.

Gary Harrington 1:00:09

Back then, you did every morning a two-mile run, and to finish with the leaders, which I always did, that means it's two miles and 12 minutes. And then all the other stuff, and back in those days, we still did crossovers, which later became illegal because while you're doing it, people are passing out and they're reviving people on the side, and everybody comes really close to passing out. Uh, eventually they stop that. So it was a it was a tough course.

Host 1:00:40

What's a crossover?

Gary Harrington 1:00:42

Crossover, so on a crossover to get half the people are on one side of the pool, half on the other. You got full scuba tanks on the old twin 72s, heavy as hell, a weight 16-pound, probably weight belt on, but the uh air is turned off, and the regulator's stuffed behind your uh buoyancy compensator. So when they blow the whistle, if you're on one side, you're going high, the other side you go low. You put your face in the water, you push off from the wall, and you try to swim underwater. The one half is supposed to swim under while the other half swims over. But you cannot break surface until you get to the other wall. And the instructors are surface swimming in the middle, and anybody that starts to pop their head up before, they take them back under. And you've, I mean, you talk about the the whole panic. It's bro, it's done to bring on that feeling of panic. So you start feeling that darkness close in, tunnel vision closing in. So you know what that feels like. And it's it's tough.

Host 1:01:56

Diving, scuba diving is it's very unique. I uh me and some my best friends, um, we dive once a year. And so I really and we normally do like three or four dives on the trip, but that first dive every year, I I we get under, I get adjusted, and it's like my body's fighting and my brain's like, you're not supposed to be underwater, dude. And then I dove, we dove in Cosmo a couple years and we dove near this reef where it you can look down and it's the abyss, you can't see it. And it's I've never had a panic attack in my only life in my entire life, but I I had a panic attack on that dive and had to surface. And we ended up diving. I was really frustrated at myself, and I actually ascended too quick and almost had a medical issue. And I remember the the the dive master was I was kind of I it was stupid. I dove with my contacts on and the water got in my eyes. That's dumb. But I remember being super frustrated, so I got on the boat and we dove back. But to your point, like, you know, you can panic really easy under the water, especially like your brain can do some because you're underwater and you know, you can't hear anything, and it's it's a completely different world under there.

Gary Harrington 1:02:57

So I always listen to these guys like you that have been to scuba school and just I can't, you know, you're battling for people, and like you have to really put your body in a zen, almost a zen state, or yeah, you yeah, and it's learning to control that, which wasn't that different than controlling anxiety or trying to. And but later in life, I started having issues on that. I've never in my life been claustrophobic. And be honest, the older I get, the more now I'm like, wow, why would this bother me? Never nothing did before.

Host 1:03:32

Yeah, I skydive and scuba dive. I'm not a great fan of either, but I do it to force myself out of my comfort zone. That's the best two places to do it. Um, talk to me about that. You guys are doing the med Mediterranean float and and Beirut kind of kicked off. Um, kind of walk me through, you know, your your first arrival and and getting your guys on the ground and kind of what you were doing.

Gary Harrington 1:03:52

Med float is supposed to be a six-month float on a ship when we're the embarked Marines on LSD 34, the Hermitage. And we um you do you do a few Liberty ports where you go, you do an exercise, get some liberty uh there. So that's what the six months normally happens. When we were in Rota Spain, is when Israel was attacking uh Lebanon back in 1982.

Host 1:04:22

It's funny, here we are in 2026, that still seems to be still going on, right?

Gary Harrington 1:04:27

So the uh we were asked, they they steamed us, we pulled out a rota real quick and steamed towards Beirut to assist, and we did what they call modlocks, so the ships just doing squares off the coast of Lebanon for a while. Then the mission came up that to do a non-combatant evacuation of US, French, and British citizens out of Beirut. Our ship was one of the ships because we were equipped to handle people that went in and brought the civilians on board. That was the first time I went into Beirut. The second time after we took those civilians to Crete or Cyprus, I can't remember which. We went to Rome and we were went to Naples, Italy, and then while we were there, we suddenly we got pulled out short notice to go back to Beirut, and this time it was to evacuate the PLO. Now this time we went ashore and established a presence on shore and manned checkpoints where I don't know, embassy or whoever arranged would have PLO come through our checkpoints and go to a ship. They would be disarmed, they would get on this uh hospital ship, I think it was, and where they would be evacuated. The French Foreign Legion was on the ground with us, and we ran into Israelis checkpoints and had discussions with them while we were there. So that was the second time. After PLO gets evacuated, we go and this now we go back to Naples to take the liberty we were supposed to have. We were there a few days, and as the officer, I was gonna wait till towards the end and take my vacation. I was gonna go see Rome. And the night before I did that, we got suddenly pulled out again because the massacres at the refugee camps in Beirut had just happened. We went back and actually went and our guys were like the first ones to go shore to establish the what became the multinational force in Beirut and which ended you know sometime after the bombing in nineteen eighty three.

Host 1:06:57

Yeah, the the you were telling me the story. I think I don't know if it was your second or third time going back. They were trying to put you guys in barracks in Lebanon.

Gary Harrington 1:07:04

Yeah, that was when we started the multinational force, is when they took that building over and started moving everybody in there. And that was strong because everybody staying like around the airport in tents and sandbag bunkers. My job at that time, the recon guys, because we had rubber boats, we were assigned to the beach landing area just north of the airport. And it was the place where all the resupply boats would come in from the Navy ships to bring supplies. And we lived there while I was there and they were moving everybody in that barracks. You know, they they had uh I didn't think I was ordered to move in, but we were told that um they claimed they told me that you have to move everybody in. I refused to because I couldn't defend that beach and be stuck with no reaction force and just have a few guys at the beach on their own. There's no way to reinforce them, no way to help them, really vulnerable. So I kept but at the beach there, we had built two big giant uh I had bulldozers push up a giant sand berm to get us up on a level parallel with the road that overlooked the beach. And then on each end, we built giant uh sandbag machine gun positions so that I could have the M60s um face, you know, onflating fire down the road. And and when they told me to move in, I'm like, I'm you know, we stayed in a tent down on the beach. I'm not doing that. And yeah, I got called on that, but then when I explained to the commander why I hadn't done it, he let us uh stay. Um during that time, though an interesting story that goes along with my um history of not caring too much about authority. We're there one time and somebody comes and get me, gets me and says, Lieutenant Harrington, uh somebody up there wants to talk to you. And I look up on the road and by one of my machine gun positions, and there's like a limo or suburban there, and there's some dude in a suit and some guys around him. Ah, what's this? And I go as an American or a Westerner. I go up there and this guy's all, you know, he's upset, and he says, What is that wood in there? And sure, we had taken a big giant shipping container made of thick plywood that came in from the ship and put that in our sandbag position because then we could lift with using two by fours, lift the lid up and put layers of sandbags on top. So now I've got sandbags on the outside, sandbags on top to protect from overhead fire, RPGs, grenades, basic military tactics. And that guy said, That's wood? I said, Yes, sir. He goes, take it down. I go, what? He goes, I'm the U.S. ambassador. And that makes it appear that we're have a we want to have a long-term presence here. You take that down. And I looked at him, I said, You ain't in my chain of command. I'm not taking that down. He goes, I am the president's representative. You know, you take that down now. And I I don't know. I I guess I thought I was doing the right thing. I said, uh, I looked at him and I said, you know, I'll take that down when somebody in my proper chain of command gives me the order to. Until then, no. So of course he jumps in his limo. Yeah, he jumps in his limo and they go away about 20 minutes later over the radio. I get I get this thing, and it's looting in Harrington. Get that wood down now.

Host 1:11:20

One of the many times that you know, politicians just don't understand. Like, you know, there's always just been that gap, you know, of just politicians and then war fighters. And, you know, they're that ambassador's getting involved with something based on optics, and that's when you realize like the people aren't important. And you know, that's gonna play on here in just a minute because you know, you guys were relieved by the unit uh that was there for the October 1983 bombing. You knew those men. What was that day like when that news broke?

Gary Harrington 1:11:51

This is before G Wat. So the U.S. had not been taking casualties.

Host 1:11:56

And for the those in the audience that don't know, because there's a lot of younger people in 1983, there was that was 271 Marines, I believe.

Gary Harrington 1:12:02

243.

Host 1:12:03

Yeah, you're right. 243 Marines were killed, and uh it was a suicide.

Gary Harrington 1:12:08

It was a suicide big truck, like uh, I'm not sure it was a dump truck or delivery truck, but that uh went through the barracks. They didn't have it. So we this we were new in the war on terror, so they had uh guards, but then the word had come like they stopped letting the guards even have live or magazine in their weapon. First it was you can't have one in the chamber, then it was you can't have a magazine in your weapon. So you had guys out front guarding that that had to load a magazine. Um people weren't aware of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices back then. So that I'm not sure it would have done anything, but that truck went detonated and it just collapsed the whole building, killed the 243. There were some survivors. Um later it was learned that the order for that attack came from Iran.

Host 1:13:50

So shocker. What was that like that day when you when you found out about? I mean, did you know any of the people that were involved?

Gary Harrington 1:13:57

Or I knew the lieutenant, and the lieutenant survived. And some of them, I I actually was one of the people chosen to meet with the father of one of the Marines that died because he wanted to come down to the unit and just talk to guys and get some closure. So I knew the lieutenant some, but he didn't get killed. And as an officer, a lot of the enlisted, I didn't know all my guys did. And um, I mean, it was a motivator because like they've hit us, they've hurt us. You wanted to be involved in paying back, and that's the first time where I started really wanting to having that desire that I want to be involved in whatever fight we're in.

Host 1:14:46

I mean, while you were at Recon, I mean, you went to Marine Recon school, you went to scuba school, mountain climbing school, amphibious recon school, um, you went to sniper school, you ended up becoming a scout sniper instructor, right?

Gary Harrington 1:14:59

Yeah, so I didn't go to regular sniper school, I went straight to scout sniper instructor school. And um it's funny, I shouldn't have gone. By by now, my time we'd been we'd done the float and done Beirut and came back. So my time as a platoon commander was ending, and they were sending me up to battalion to be the assistant training officer.

Host 1:15:20

Did you feel like that was kind of like a death sentence for a person like you?

Gary Harrington 1:15:23

I I I I did because all those schools, I I hadn't been to Sniper and Scout Sniper Instructor School yet. But those other schools, I was like, man, I'm almost like one of these enlisted guys. Man, I'm at the top of my game, 26. And so, but the division guy, the schools guy that ran the school slots for all the division was some lieutenant I'd been in the basic school with. And they told me to go see him. And I went to see him, and he said, Hey, you went to scuba school, you know, that's uh rank doesn't matter there, and you made it through there. You went to Anfibre Con school, which is not really good for officers, but the reports came back good from you going to that school. And he said, um, what about Scout Sniper Instructor School? We've not been able to get an officer to pass it. And I said, and I said, Well, okay. I said, What's the requirements? He said, Do you wear glasses? Or I wore really thick glasses. That's a you can't go if you wear glasses. Oh, okay, there. What hand are you? I'm left-handed. You have to be right-handed. Um, yeah, and what did you fire in your last Marine Corps qual? And I said, Sharpshooter. Yeah, I have to have fired expert. So I had all those three things against me, why I shouldn't go. He said, but it seemed like we can't get the qualified people to pass, and you have some way of passing stuff, so you're going. And I went to Scout Sniper instructor school.

Host 1:17:04

How long was that course?

Gary Harrington 1:17:05

12 weeks, 1983.

Host 1:17:08

I know Scout Sniper, that's a tough school. And I would imagine you going straight to the instructor course. Were you required to have a level of knowledge? Were you are you were you expected to have a level of like no?

Gary Harrington 1:17:17

Oh, really? And I got to meet, oh no, as a second lieutenant when I went through basic rifle training there, I actually met Gunny Hafcock. They had him give a speech to us. Uh yeah, that was cool.

Host 1:17:30

Yeah, so you make captain, the Marine Corps offers you ADAC, Alaska or Guam. Um and you pretty much decided you were done.

Gary Harrington 1:17:39

Marine Barracks of duty, ADAC or Guam. And I'm like, what? What? And I just couldn't see life going on. I had done before that a deployment, a really short deployment to Honduras with the Marine Corps. Jumped on a ship, went down there while I was down in Honduras. Um, we were near what had been a CIA special for ops base where they were probably running like expeditionary airfield where they were running planes. Probably running drugs. Yeah. Right. Well, running resupply into um, I guess Nicaragua. Yeah. Stuff with Nicaraguas. And I ran into some of the people that were associated with the fighters and spent a night out drinking with all these Honduran guys and you know, maybe some Il Sal's. So I kind of had this thought that, well, I'll get out of the Marine Corps, and they had offered me, I had a contact down there, and they had said, if I get free, so we can't pay you anything, no money here, but we'll give you a you know, there'll be a young lady that lives with you and takes care of you, and you go train us to fight and fight. I was like, come on, I'm 26 years old, and I've haven't been able to do combat like all those Vietnam guys did, and this I it sounded pretty good to me.

Host 1:19:06

Yeah. Three hots and a cot in a foreign country and a nice lady.

Gary Harrington 1:19:11

Yeah, so I made the decision that I was not gonna continue in the Marine Corps, and I didn't want to do, yeah, you think about being an officer, maybe a company commander, battalion commander, and all that. That at that time, based on the factors we already talked about that drove me, I didn't really care about those things. I wanted the adventure, I wanted the excitement, I wanted my chance in combat.

Host 1:19:36

So you get out of the the um the Marines, and how come you never made it down to Honduras?

Gary Harrington 1:19:43

There might have been some things that were might have been slightly illegal that me and another officer who um I think was half El Salvadorian um planned to way to get there. We had it a way worked out where we could get transport down there. Um and but while waiting, so I I got out of the while in that interim trying to decide all that stuff, I heard about the special forces and I started like that that seems interesting. And and I also applied for the FBI. I didn't really want to. Another dude lieutenant I knew was applying the FBI, he goes, Hey, let's try it. So I applied to and um wound up getting accept accepted. And but then when I realized the same reasons I was getting, you know, not gonna pursue being an officer, I decided I did not, you know, want to go in the FBI, so I called them and asked to get out of that commitment. And then this Army Special Forces thing, I was like, wait a second, those are the only guys down in South America that are actually doing anything in the military that resembles combat.

Host 1:21:10

Did you run into any SF guys when you were there on that quick Honduran trip?

Gary Harrington 1:21:13

Uh I did not, but the people I were dealing with had been with them, right? So um I I I just I wanted that, I said, well, that's where the action is, so I want to do that. So I decided to enlist in the Army in Special Forces.

Host 1:21:32

That's a unique story we were talking about last night. So because you had been an officer in the Marine Corps, there was some like it was like a um a law uh what am I thinking? Like a memorandum received.

Gary Harrington 1:21:45

Yeah, there was uh some rule. Yeah, I I you know, and I I talked to the recruiter, I I set everything up, and because of that, is when this was still, I hadn't bailed on the FBI yet, but I was that I was I went to the meeting, they told me, okay, you're you're in, we'll we'll send you a uh Quantico report date. And that's and then I ran into the recruiter and I talked to him, and I was no special forces where I want to be. So that's when I called the FBI, got out of that, and I go to a MEP station in Ohio, and I process through the MEPS. I'm in the little office after that, swearing in, and in the middle of me swearing in, an officer runs in and he's got a regulation book in his hand, and he points to some line in there that says, former officers of other branches of service may not enlist on active duty in the army. And I was like, What? That's it, I'm out. And so he told me, you know, I was out, and I walked away there trying to figure, man, what am I gonna do? And now, you know, I've missed my chance to go be a mercenary in uh South America, and then I've just bailed on the FBI. What am I gonna do? And then I ran across I don't know if he had been a um Vietnam vet, but a recruiter, maybe he'd been SF, that told me that they didn't have that rule in the regs to get in the reserves. So I went through MEPS again, but or no, I went to 11th Special Forces Group, which was up in Ohio, um where I I was staying with my parents that year. And while I was there, so while I'm I go to MEPS again, when I go to the MEPS, I'm in processing, and the Army Reserve said, No, you can just join the reserves and join for special forces and then go to training. As a reservist, you just go on active duty to go to training, and if you get qualified, you're gonna get the tab and everything. So I did all that, and they sent me to airborne school. Then they said, What do you want to be? Which MOS do you want to be in Special Forces? I want to be a weapons guy or a demo guy. And they go, yeah, we got all them. Everybody's one of them. We what we don't have are engineer or um medics and combo guys. And I did not want to hump a radio. So I said, I'll be a medic. And they sent me to 91B or 91C school, the Army basic medical prepares people to work in hospitals, um, school, and then I finished that, and then I went up to Oh, because you had to get an Army MOS because you weren't in the Army MOS.

Host 1:25:00

Yeah, I wasn't in the MOS.

Gary Harrington 1:25:04

That way, if you didn't make it through selection, right? Yep. You and and so I go to selection and then went to selection, past that, and then went right down to Texas to the uh the medical course.

Host 1:25:18

With all the training that you had done in the Marine Corps with you know Amphib School and all those other things you'd done, what was SFAS like for you? Who and hard.

Gary Harrington 1:25:27

I I I I feel bad saying that because a lot of people talk about how hard that was.

Host 1:25:33

And well, but I I I mean, for clarity, right? I think a lot of people talk about how hard it is because they may have not been exposed to anything. Because I've had a couple people come on here and say it wasn't as hard for them, but those were guys that had done already done hard things in their life. So, you know, I guess if you're comparing, you know, two or three weeks of SFAS to what you'd already done in the Marine Corps, you know, for you it it might not have been as challenging because you already knew how to ruck, you already knew how to land nav is the big thing that fails people rucking.

Gary Harrington 1:26:00

And yeah, I I was really good at all those things. And I think when I went, it was it was SFQC and it was seemed longer uh than it wasn't like a three-week thing. So, because it was the whole breadth, and and then I so I did that.

Host 1:26:20

Well, did you have to go to SFAS first? Like you go to special forces. I didn't do that. Oh, really? No. Okay. I wonder if that's because of your your your background.

Gary Harrington 1:26:28

Or being a reserve, I I don't know. Or time. Interesting. So I went to that, yeah, finished that. And it was that was for the first time I started hearing people talk about rangers. And everybody, you know, everybody, it's a course. Everybody's trying to game a course. And everybody said, you want to know what to do, just watch a ranger. Just watch a ranger, follow the rangers, be like a ranger. And all the instructors, you know, in special forces is a big and I don't mean to uh, you know, I'm not trying to cast any dispersion on the rangers. It's a great thing. But to me, Marines and Rangers, kind of the same thing. One says ooh, the other says hooa. And uh, you know, same haircut, same, same, same look. Uh, I I think one hits a beach, one hits an airfield. Um, but I found I didn't find that true. I found that, gosh, you know, the training I've had in Marine Corps officer training and the infantry course and Fib Recon school, I'm just as skilled, if not more, than those guys. So you know that that wasn't SFQC wasn't, you know, it you had to do it, but it wasn't that big challenge.

Host 1:27:47

How did you uh how did you take to the medical training? I mean, the 18 Delta pipeline, to my knowledge, I I could be wrong, but I think it's one of the most extensive medical trainings, other than maybe going to be like a straight up surgeon or a doctor. Uh, because I mean you come out of the 18 Delta course, and all you 18 Deltas out there, you might correct me, but you're pretty close to being a PA.

Gary Harrington 1:28:06

I think you're like a couple couple classes short, maybe, or I'm not sure how many, but it it's uh yeah, you're you're you're close. You do, you can do veterinary work, dental work, and medical, regular medical, including surgery. And I've I've done all those. And um, so yeah, it's intense. For me, I had been a physical education major in college, so I had anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, those things. So that part kind of helped me with some of the stuff in the medical course, and then it turns into you know it's just a suck course. You you it you had your PT, still special forces, they wanted to emphasize that, and then you're in class all day long, and then you've done hard PT, so people are falling asleep all the time. That's the course people I've fallen asleep in that course standing up on the back of the class and falling forward because you're falling asleep. It was a big test of that. One of the interesting things that happened to me there was that again, I have this thing about taking dares and not liking authority. And we're there, and one of the instructors, while we'd been going through the course, had been away, they call it ANOC. It's the advanced NCO Academy for Science. The E7s, yeah, wanting to go to E8. And this guy came back from there. And he was a big strapping guy. And he showed up and he said, Well, you guys have been having you to lead PT easy while I've been gone. And now I'm here and I'm going to get you, whip you back into shape, and you this and you're that. And he tried to PT us real hard. And then the next day we were told to show up to PT at whatever time in the morning that we're going to do a ruck march, and we needed to have, I forget, 55 pounds in our rucksack. And I didn't have any way of weighing it. So, you know, you we're not sure. And so while we're waiting for we're in formation, waiting, there's gravel where we're in formation. So I just to be sure I started picking up gravel and putting it in my rucksack. And the guy shows up and off we go. I'd always been good at rucking. I was at that time maybe 165 pounds lean, but I'd been a distance runner. I was good at rucking. And we went, and yeah, I won't say it was easy, but you know, I stayed right. There was a really small group of us that stayed with that instructor. And the rest were behind. And we we finished with as he marched us in there, uh, or we finished the rucksack, he stopped everybody, wouldn't let him join us. And he was gonna write all them in training, you get the good shit and the bad shit. He was gonna write all them uh negative shit, and uh the rest of us, you know, he chewed us out and then he said, Well, you're lucky because none of you has a ruck as heavy as mine and all so, you know, but you don't, you know, you can go. And he said, and if there's any of you that thinks you have a ruck as heavy as mine, you can stay here and we'll weigh your rucks. And if my ruck is heavier, you're getting a negative chit, and if it's yours is heavier, you get a positive chit. And everybody walks away. And I just stood there, and then he looked at me and he goes, and what do you want? And I said, Uh I think I'll take you up on that there challenge, and uh let's go weigh rucks, and mine weighed more. And he was a big strapping dude. I think uh people don't realize, you know, a 65-pound ruck on a 180-pound guy is a lot different than a 60-pound ruck on the 220-pound guy.

Host 1:32:18

Yeah, one of the things we glanced over when you got out of the Marine Corps while you were waiting to go in the army, you were, you know, you had you were trying to join the agency. And you had kind of like gotten through the process and you were waiting to actually get a job, and they actually sent you to the 18 Fox course while they were waiting to hire you.

Gary Harrington 1:32:38

Yeah, and what going through the the SF course and the medical course and all that, at some point, um, I think somebody I'd been in the Marine Corps or in the Marine Corps with got in the agency and heard about me doing all this SF stuff, and you know, they contacted me in those days. I guess they still do. There was a paramilitary guy from the agency at Fort Bragg, and he contacted me and they I started the process of in-processing to the agency. Because again, I was like, hey, I'm gonna be a reservist. I'll do this agency paramilitary thing, and do that. So I went through all that and uh that's why I was staying at my parents' house in Ohio, because I was just kind of hanging, uh getting qualified, waiting for that paperwork to go through. And then after I took the poly in 86, late 86, they told they they told me, okay, you passed the poly. Um they took me to an office. I met some of the guys, they said, we'll be sending you to Africa. You don't you got to hit the ground running. Um, so we don't have time to put you through a training process. We want you to go to the special forces operations and intelligence course. I was like, well, you have to apply for that. My unit has to, they just said, don't worry about it, apply for it. You'll you'll be in. So I did. I got in and went to that course in really early um 87.

Host 1:34:26

Did you go to the the Fox course before you actually went through special forces? No. Oh, that was after?

Gary Harrington 1:34:31

Yeah, it was right immediately on top of finishing the medical.

Host 1:34:35

And I didn't ask you, what did you come in the army? What rank did they uh E5? Oh, so you came in as an E5? What was that like going from being an officer to now you're a buck sergeant?

Gary Harrington 1:34:45

I I I was okay, I I I loved it because the movies I saw, you know, I saw how drill instructors were and John Wayne uh in Sands of Iwo Jima, and I thought I've had all these my hands tied because I've been an officer, and now I'm enlisted. Now I can be the guy, and I won't be the long ranger, I'll be the Tonto. And and that that kind of didn't do well because I thought, well, now you're enlisted means you're supposed to use physical stuff. So when I'm in the I switched and went to the Army, I'm in '91 Charlie School, which is first time I've ever served with women. A bunch of a really bunch of 18, 19-year-old just graduated, basic, coming to their AIT to get their MOS. And and you know, I'm expecting Marine Corps type stuff. And now I'm a sergeant, so I'm put, I was, I actually started out as being second, not in charge of that platoon I was assigned to, but the assistant because I was a reservist. There was another dude that was a spec four that was maybe promotable, that was active duty, that was put in charge. Well, he was what we would not call a stellar individual. And um and the platoon was getting in trouble all the time. The instructors were on our ass all the time, and I I had enough of that. I was like, I had now, and now I'm enlisted, so I think now you can do what you need to do. So he stayed in a separate little room from the rest of us. We're all in a big barracks room, and I went to his room and I started giving him a hard time, and he started telling me, you know, because I got to change the way we're doing things. And he started trying to pull rank on me, and I guess I'm not sure if I lost it or what, but I um yeah, I put him up against the wall, slammed him against the wall a few times, choked him out, and I think I was just wall to wall counseling. Well, yeah, wall to wall, and then I remember holding his throat and watching as his eyes would glaze when it squeeze, and then let it up, and then they'd start coming back and squeeze it again, and and uh I don't know why, but I I did that, and then I walked out. And of course, he took himself downstairs and reported to the cadre what had just happened. Next thing you know, I'm getting called down to the cadre, and they're going, Sergeant Harrington, what what is going on? And you know, my language was a bit coarser back then. And I've been an officer in the Marine Corps, and and I was like, well, I'm sick and tired of us doing everything wrong and getting yelled at and nothing being done right. And he can't do anything, and I am, you know, I'm not gonna take it anymore. I'm an E5, I should be in charge. So they put me in charge. They told that guy, you're out, he's in charge. And they said he tried, you know, he threatened to take action or file some kind of papers. And everybody, um I was older than these other kids, right? So and I think kind of some people some mistakenly started thinking I might have been a Vietnam vet, and that they they they they started thinking like maybe he's a little off, a little uh uh off from his combat time, and they put me in charge and I ran it like I want like I always wanted to be as a Marine. Man, I I first thing I did, we we started winning all the marching competitions, and uh everything was was going well. I I I it was like a dream to me. I'm a I get to be that NCO now. Uh and and I was in airborne school my first time as an NCO. And I can remember, yeah, I got in trouble when I ran that platoon a few times because of my means of punishment were swift and physical, and they were trying to, you know, look away and then they'd call me in. And hey, Sergeant Harrington, this is the army. We can't do that. You can't do that, you can't put somebody at parade rest in a corner and leave them there for an hour facing the wall. And I'm like, it's dehumanized, you know. I'm like, really? And uh, and uh yeah, they it yeah, it it was a kick for me to be it on the other side. Uh how I always an officer was jealous of the enlisted, and how I got to kind of you know, yeah, do some of that.

Host 1:40:02

When did the whole Delta Force thing um come on the brain? I think you had told me you ran into two Delta Force dudes when you went to the Fox course. Um, and you hadn't uh how did that come on your radar or was did you learn about Delta from those dudes, or was that a well-known thing?

Gary Harrington 1:40:20

I hadn't heard it was uh 87, and I hadn't personally really heard of uh heard of Delta, and then while I was in the training, there were a couple guys that stood out in in the that course, O and I course, a little bit different, and I got to know one of them pretty well named Ray, and turned out he was a sniper over in uh uh Delta. And I what we didn't talk a lot about it, and he was just I liked him better than most of the other guys in the course, and in the final exercise, he and I uh were sent off to do something separate than everybody else, and so got to know him, and then it was during O and I when the agency called me up and said, Oh, there's a freeze on hiring, so we're not bringing you on. You're out, you're we're not, you're not gonna be an agency employee. So I had to think of something new to do. So after OI course is when I hand carried paperwork around the U.S. for about two or three weeks straight, and got myself on active duty with 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg with um my first ODA, which was 745, a scuba team, and I started hearing people talk about Delta and the tryouts. And you're you're on a team, and guys would say, you know, and we're a scuba team. Scuba teams are the most fit teams on of SF teams, particularly when it comes to the running. Halo teams tend to be, you know, spend all their time in the gym. Uh scuba teams, you know, you because scuba school involves a lot of running or quick running, they're known as the best runners, and PT was always a big deal. But yet the guys on the scuba team were one day I'm gonna train and get in shape and go do Delta tryout. I don't know if they still have it in those days at the main gym on Fort Bragg was a tr a running track. And one weekend, I mean a month or every other month, I guess some guys from Delta would be there from recruiters, and you could show up and take a PT test. And if you passed that PT test, then you did some other tests, psychological profiles and stuff, and you could actually apply to go to Delta. I just kept quiet. I'd hear people talk, but I don't like to say something, I'm gonna do something, and then it lines up you don't do it. So I never said anything to anybody. And I didn't do any separate training, I didn't know what this PT test involved. I just one day skipped PT, which I never did, skipped PT with my team and went to that track and showed up and did the Delta tryout thing, did the PT test and the other test and made it through that part, then they check your records, I guess, and stuff. And then eventually I got an invite to go to selection.

Host 1:43:38

You maxed every PT test you ever took. You were always one of the fastest runners on any team. And the one thing that genuinely humbled you at your first Delta selection was some of the PT stuff. Walk me through that like first attempt.

Gary Harrington 1:43:50

Yeah, so the PT part wasn't hard. I had always, as a Marine, the worked had to work harder on pull-ups and push-ups than I did sit-ups or running. But I, you know, I figured out how to max those and did that. In Delta, it would the mechanisms are we had PT. The PT, I know there's been a lot of talk on podcasts about what happens at Delta Selection, but I'm not gonna, you know, I I I encourage people, hey, go find out for yourself. Sure. Don't game it, just go and and do it. But the PT itself wasn't hard, but the rucking is hard, and you don't know, there's no time standard given. So you're pushing yourself, you know there's some invisible time standard. You're pushing yourself against yourself, against the elements, against the terrain, having to navigate, and it gets harder and harder as time goes. The weights get harder, the lanes vary. And for me up there, I was motivated to go to Delta Selection. The first time in my life, I thought that I'm gonna train extra hard. I know you have to be ready to ruck. So in the three months leading up to that, I teamed up with another guy and that was gonna go. And we were every other day, six days a week, we would run every other day on odd days, say seven miles, and then go do lift some weights, and then go to a building on Fort Bragg that had a multi-story building and put a 50-pound ruck on and do stairs for a while. Then the other days, I was run rucking with 50 pounds on 13 miles. What I didn't know, because I'm just motivated and pushing myself, what I didn't know or pay attention to was I was loo I was already really thin, but now I'm losing body fat. I'm losing muscle mass. And I think I'm really ready. And I show up to selection and go through it. I had uh I did well the first few days. Or no, I I did not do it. The very first first day? First day or second day, I had what you call a bad day. I got dropped off. I started over some rough terrain, I went through and uh I'm navigating. I've always done really well at land navigation, but I kept having a problem and I couldn't get things on my map to match up. And I I would retrace and re-shoot and re-go because this is one of those where it was a leg I needed to use my compass and couldn't just terrain associate. And it wasn't until I'd been at this now several hours that I stopped and looked and did a circle, and my compass didn't move. I had a broken compass. And I'd never in my life all the my military stuff had a compass that was broken. I said, Oh, no problem, man. I have my fail safe, which is my little wrist compass I use for surface swimming. And I go like this and look, but I'd been climbing over a bunch of deadfall, and it was a cheap little compass. It was broken off. So now I'm like, oh my gosh, time is ticking. So I navigated to a I I hit a where a gravel road was. You couldn't get out on a road, but I saw the road. So then I backed in the woods paralleled till there was a definite turn in the road. And I could find that on the map so that okay, now I know where I am. And then I terrain associated and eventually made it to the first checkpoint. I made it to the first checkpoint as everybody else has already finished the day in um in cars and the instructors. I think everybody had packed up and gone home, and then there were two instructors in a truck sitting there at that checkpoint. And I walked up, and it's really funny because as I walked up, I got my compass out and started to hand it to them, and they immediately just handed me another compass. So it's like they knew? Uh yeah, and now sometimes now I wonder, like, no, as they wouldn't have. Was that part of the test? No, they wouldn't have, yeah, but you know, I I don't think so. But you know, uh I think people by that time knew I could navigate. I was supposed to say they they knew your jacket, they knew your background, and right. So I and then I thought, well, I'm done, man. It is it's over. But they told me, okay, your next point is, and they gave me another point. And I was like, oh, maybe I'm not kicked out. And maybe now I look back on that and go, was that a test of you know, how much do you have down deep? So I went off and you know, went to the other, made it to the other checkpoint, and then they put me in a truck, and they didn't they that wasn't it wasn't over for me. I'm still in, and I had a really good day the next day, smoked everybody, and um then the next day I had a meet it was a difficult day for me on navigating. I had, you know, I wasn't at the leader, I I was somewhere, I thought, in the middle of the pack. The way that worked in those days, you they put you in little groups, and when enough of you were collected, they put you in the back of a truck, seal it up, and pick up truck, and so you can't see where you're going, they drive around. If the truck stops and you're in the woods at a camp, you're still in it. If they open up the doors and you're back at Camp Dawson, you're out. And I heard us hit pavement, and that wasn't a good sign. And then it opened, and the uh commander of selection was waiting out by the back of the truck, and you know, he called you out one at a time. The selection is over. But he said, But you know, we saw some good stuff in you and all that. And if you want to come back, you can come back. And say, Okay, when's the next one? He said, six months. I said, I'll see you then.

Host 1:51:13

What was that like for a person? I mean, at this point in your career, you haven't failed anything. I mean, you've gone through some really tough courses. How did uh how did you take this like first setback in your career?

Gary Harrington 1:51:23

It was hard. I I was I was like, what? And then but I kept going like I I th I I I tried to, you know, you try to guess like, well, what's the criteria where it was it? And I kept going back that that day that I had that screw up probably sealed it, and then they let me do more to see what I had. And um I I I don't know, but um I so I was really determined. But when I got home, I I didn't I think I didn't learn my lesson. I got home, it was like thank it was Halloween a couple days after I got back. There is a photo I still have. Of me and my stepdaughter, I'm helping her do a jack-o'-lantern. And when I you look at that, I look like an Auschwitz victim. My neck was all drawn in. I had still scratches from going through briars all over my uh arms. Um I was I I and then I started backing up and realizing that I over-trained. And I when I looked at that, and there were other guys there, this is before we had the supplements that we have now to choose from. So people were like the the guys that knew had some scoop were there. I had guys see guys mixing Kero syrup and water and drinking it to try to get in enough calories. I determined when I went back the next time. So one, I didn't over-train because I say I'm gonna show up there in shape, healthy, happy, and a little fat. That might not be the case. Most people, I think it's the opposite way. I did, and I knew more, so I had bought some kind of uh marathoners supplement back then. It was just a super horrible tasting high calorie supplement. And I said, okay, I'm gonna take this at night and force myself to get those calories in there.

Host 1:53:34

Did they allow you guys to have stuff like that?

Gary Harrington 1:53:36

Or yeah. Yeah, you could have that. And yeah, so I went through it. I tried not, I tried to relax more. I tried to, I've always been good at rucking and enjoy being in the mountains. So I tried to enjoy the scenery. It was spring, so um I just yeah, we relaxed and then I made it this time. And um, when I finished, the same commander said, you know, when no, well, what did you do different? Uh, how did you train harder between the first time and second time? I said, I didn't. I trained less. That's not what they wanted to hear, right? Yeah, but I said, no, uh, and I explained why.

Host 1:54:20

But uh what did he say about your explanation? What did he want? Did he say anything about your explanation when you told him, you know?

Gary Harrington 1:54:27

Uh he said, okay.

Host 1:54:29

Guess whatever you did work for. Yeah, it worked, right? Um, when you were in OTC, uh, you described firing more rounds than an entire infantry company. What does that volume of repetition do to your relationship with your weapon and your nervous system, as well as, you know, that whole muscle memory thing?

Gary Harrington 1:54:46

I'd had I'd learned pistol as a Marine Corps officer and shot 45, but you don't shoot much. Um so I really learned to shoot pistol and and Delta OTC. You do the first thing you do is just dry fire, dry fire, dry fire, dry fire forever. And then slowly you just build, build, build. I I tended to be mechanical and really deliberate and slow about my shooting. As much as we shot and as sore as you're you would be, they would in those days you could get rounds to take to a civilian range from the unit. So I would take rounds and go to a range civilian range and practice on the weekends. But I really, really wanted to be good at it and and master it. And um I never I I I think for Delta, I was an average shooter. I never, you know, and I you get better and better just by the number the volume of rounds that you're putting out. Rifle wasn't hard. That that one comes quicker. Um, but the pistol I really, really had to work on.

Host 1:56:08

What uh what do you think as a person who had already been through a ton of training, what did OTC give you that you you didn't already have, you think?

Gary Harrington 1:56:16

I think one of the things that sets to me Delta apart, special forces to some extent, but especially at Delta from everywhere else. Go back, let's go back to the blue light days. That you had a bunch of squared-away NCOs, and they were basically turned free to use their imagination to come up with the ways uh the techniques to use for different uh to take different objectives, the shooting techniques, the some of the equipment, all that it was just we're training. It was the for me, all that stuff I wanted about, hey, we're shooting live rounds beside each other. This this is as close as you can get to combat. There's no there's no play it. It's all just like it was real. And I thought that was that was just a huge difference and and paid difference in the end.

Host 1:57:18

Yeah. Delta has a particular culture, excellence expected, rank almost irrelevant against demonstrated competence. What did that culture do for a man who had been chafing against range structures his entire career?

Gary Harrington 1:57:32

I'm not sure I I felt that at first because I was an OTC student. The goal as OTC student is you got to make it through and meet the requirements and get to a squadron. So and I'm learning new skills. The PSD training and for personal security, some of the other training, that all that was all new to me. And yeah, so I was just focused on that. Um, but you know, I didn't finish that that OTC.

Host 1:58:10

Yeah, but uh, but once you made it through the second time and you get into the unit, what was that, what was that culture like for you with all your background? And the Marines are very structured. SF is kind of the other side. I'm not saying SF's not structured, but it is that you know, it's that different. You're an adult, go be an adult type thing. Um, and then what was it like to get to the unit, which is almost like a hybrid, I think.

Gary Harrington 1:58:32

Everywhere you go, and I the I think the more elite, the more, you know, when you show up, you're you should keep your mouth shut and just learn.

Host 1:58:43

You should do that in life.

Gary Harrington 1:58:44

In life, in life, you should. And that's the way even in Afghanistan, the old-time villagers taught their sons, you keep your mouth shut, you watch, and speak when you're spoken to, and give an opinion when it's asked. And then gradually you'll work your way up. Maybe my personality, but I've been an officer and gone enlisted. And then I you know, you rise up through there. So now I'm, you know, I'm the low guy on the totem pole. I'm a new guy on the team that I went to. It was a mobility team. Things like riding motorcycles, never rode a motorcycle in my life. And I that team had a lot to do to train me. And there's one thing you learned going through OTC, but now you're on your team, and every team or every squadron has its own flavor of the way it takes down a building. And um my team and my troop, I think one thing it was known for back then was just speed. Um we flowed quick, and quick can be a tool that that that works in your favor. But things like all the different mobility aspects that we had to learn, that was all new for me, rigging out vehicles with straps, learning to drive. And the team used to laugh at me because I'd never been on a motorcycle, and we're learning to drive to drive motorcycles and all my accidents, and they'd put me in deep sands to and to watch me wreck and take us to some big drop-off cliff like thing, and say, go down that. And it'd be, I think everybody would just watch to see if I I've got a few scars from uh from learning how to ride motorcycles. But it so for me, I didn't it was I was new, I was the new guy on the team. My ideal was to keep my mouth shut and learn.

Host 2:00:42

What um what what were they doing? Man, is this late 80s or early 90s?

Gary Harrington 2:00:48

This is late 80s, so we're now talking around like around 89. 89 when I was in OTC the first time.

Host 2:00:57

So it's about 90 when you get to the unit, maybe 90, 91.

Gary Harrington 2:01:00

Yeah, after two OTCs and a year in between, I wound up in um my squadron, A squadron in around 90, 91. Were you were you in the unit for Desert Storm? No, I I had a negligent discharge in my first OTC right at the end of the training. You know, there were some extenuating circumstances. Bottom line, you know, we were near the end. It was a Friday, and I worked so hard on pistol. And that's the first day where I really, you know, the the instructors were just really saying good things about my pistol shooting. I was so, so happy. And the right before we were ready to close up and pick up brass for the day, my team said, Hey, run down to the rain shed and get some of this and this and this and bring it back. So I ran down there, and meantime they'd picked up the brass and pulled down to the rain shed. And after I came out, or maybe I put something up in the rain shed, they were in the vehicle and said, Let's go, it's Friday. And I said, My stuff. We already looked, we already loaded it. So my weapons and magazines and everything, they loaded in the vehicle for me. Jump in the vehicle, we go back, we're in the team room, you're breaking down your gear, gonna do a quick swab of your weapons and um be done for Friday. By this time, how many tens of thousands of rounds did I put down range over these six months of training? And you always you can't you won't leave the range with loaded weapon. It's always unloaded on range. I guess I was in automatic from the times we'd done that. But the other thing that's automatic is all those thousands and thousands of dry fires and all those times where you unloaded your weapon. The last thing you always do is a press check. And you know, for anybody that doesn't know, a press check is you know, you're holding the weapon and you put your hand on the front of the barrel, not over the over the end of it, and pull back so you expose a tiny bit of the chamber to look and see if there's any brass in there. Called a press check. And that's the last thing you ever do before you drive fire or anything. But as I was getting my pistol out, I picked up my pistol out of the holster, and I was thinking about what that instructor, the compliment I'd been paid. And I was just thinking about that. And as I was thinking about that, I looked across the team room. It's a crowded little room with lockers in it and a little mirror on each locker, and I saw my reflection in the mirror there. And I looked at that reflection and I saw my right eye. And I said, Yeah, just like that, and went, I mean, that fast and shot. And I thought I dry fired. And these are you shoot 1911s back then, weren't you? Yeah, 1911. Oh, that's loud. And well, in a little tiny room. And it happened to be that another guy, his head was like, you know, eight inches from there. But I was gonna drive fire on a mirror, right? I I say eight inches, I'm not sure, but let's say there was a guy close there. And uh I yeah, I hit exactly where that eye was. But then that, you know, that happened. Then it all came flooding to me. And I remember I picked, I had the pistol, I looked at it, and I said, turned it this way. I said, saw the magazine, I said, I guess I'm out of here. Cleared the weapon. Of course, by that time everybody's running in. And what had happened is um my team wanted to get going on a Friday, so they grabbed all my gear and weapons and stuff and threw it in the vehicle, and nobody took magazines out or something. So what happened? Uh yeah, I got sent around, you know, and they said, you know, you've you've done a good job and um, but you have to go it it's it's a year. If we like you, it's a year that you ha before you can come back to the unit. And this is at the right right at towards the end of OTC. And um so I got sent back to seventh group and did a year there and came back. During that first OTC, I think maybe one thing that helped me was that I had done a citizen's arrest um um using some hand-to-hand techniques in Fayetteville. And um What happened? I was in a the mall parking lot with my wife. We pull up and and we get out of our car, and as we were starting to get out, suddenly I saw a car pull up, and these four dudes get out, and one of them's got a ball bat, and he runs up to us pickup truck that's sitting there, and he just starts wailing on the pickup truck and smashing the um windshield and hitting the truck and then the their car pulled into a parking lot and they they they went and got back in this car. And I was uh I got out, you know. Yeah, I th I guess I thought I was a capable person. And I told my wife, go get security. They were in a car, so I walked by their car and walked behind it as I'm passing by. And as I went behind, I went made sure they could see me. I leaned over like that to look at the license plate number and made it real obvious what I was doing. So then the guy that had the ball back gets out of the car and he says, um, what are you doing? Are you are you looking at my license tag? I said, Yeah. He goes, You think you're gonna call somebody? I go, Yeah, I am. And then he said that, and then the four of them got out and started coming around me and um made kind of a circle there, and he held that butt baseball vat up to my face, and he said, I'm gonna bust you up. And I I don't know why at that time I looked at him, I said, and let's do it. Let's let's go. And then I then they looked at me like, you're crazy, you must be a crazy dude, I think, or or whatever. They looked at me and they're like, huh? And uh they got in the car. And now they're trying to back out. Now, as they're doing that, up comes a car that says security on it, and two security guys get out of the car and go to the side of that car and try to stop and get the guys out. Um, one of the security guys was a very large, overweight guy, and the other guy was an older guy. And to let's put it this way, they the guys in the car were trying to get out, they're trying to hold them in. The guys in the car are punching on them. It looks like it's going south. And by now, a little crowd is gathered out in the parking lot, and everybody's watching. And I cause I'm in a secret training in this secret unit. I need to meld back in the crowd. But then it looked like the guys, the guy couldn't get his bat out of the car yet because the door was jammed, but they but he was, you know, they were punching on the cops and he was the leader. And I I I tried to watch it, but then I said, uh, heck with that. And I said, I'm making a citizen's arrest. I didn't know what that was. And I so I jumped out and I did um one of the calling PPCT techniques, the one where you know, smack somebody upside in the head, and then you come around and come under their nose and trap their head. And I had the guy with the that had the bat, he was sort of screaming and yelling, and you know, I controlled him and pressed the started applying the pain stuff and told him, you know, when he got still, I'd make it quit hurting. And yeah, then it all goes and it wound up going to court. Then I got asked, Well, you will you testify in court? Well, now I have to go to my unit and say, hey, I got involved in this thing, and now they want me to go to court, and I don't know what I'm gonna say in court. So um they uh they were supportive, say, sure, take a day off from training, go to court. Did that. So that all happened the first time. I think that might have helped me when I had that negligent discharge. I mean, yeah, did my team throw my stuff in there loaded? Yeah, they did, but you know what? I didn't I failed to do a press check.

Host 2:10:41

First fire, yeah, but that's a rule you'll never forget.

Gary Harrington 2:10:44

Well, that's why there's always, you know, two steps and you have to violate two. And we violated the two. Um so I did a year and then after a year I came back, um, had to do an 18-mile rucksack test, past that, and then they said, okay. Then they said, All right, but we're not gonna put you in a squadron, and we're not gonna just bring you in at the end of OTC. If you want back, you gotta redo all of OTC. I said, Okay.

Host 2:11:18

So you went to OTC twice, pretty much. Yeah. Well, at least you knew what to expect.

Gary Harrington 2:11:24

I mean, OTC was hard. Yeah, and uh doing it twice was hard.

Host 2:11:30

But what's uh what's what's the hardest part about it that you can talk about?

Gary Harrington 2:11:34

I think it's kind of like selection. Some of the selection, the pressure is the pressure you put on yourself because you don't know the standard. So, and and there's some that won't push themselves hard enough. There's some that are geared to push themselves too hard. So everything, and it just you had to be excellent at everything. You you know, you couldn't have a negligent discharge, you couldn't be off target. You needed, you had to make the physical standards, the you had to do it, but yet you felt like you were given the freedom that now I'm here, I'm training for combat. No ifs, ands, buts. As realistically as I can, I'm training for combat. So I mean that felt good. Yeah.

Host 2:12:25

So you get out of um your second OTC um and then you get assigned to you know your squadron. What was going on in the world back then, as far as so it's right right after Desert Storm, right after Panama?

Gary Harrington 2:12:40

Yeah, right after Panama. And uh the next thing that was going on um not for the whole unit at that time, but uh the look hunting for Pablo Escobar was the next thing.

Host 2:12:56

Did you end up going down to Columbia?

Gary Harrington 2:12:57

And yeah, so I because I spoke Spanish, I was asked to go on this uh compartment and thing to down to Panama. And for a new guy on a squadron, that that was pretty rare. It was more more seasoned guys that were there, I think, because of my language, maybe I was a little bit older too.

Host 2:13:24

Um they sent me down there. So you went down there, you were down there for a while, and you know, something happened down there. You've hinted about it on other podcasts, we'll have to dive into it, but you end up getting into you end up having a personality conflict with your team leader over uh I mean we talked about it at length last night. Um it's not my story to tell. But anyway, and you end up, I don't know, you end up having to leave the unit.

Gary Harrington 2:13:48

Is there Yeah, I did. So I did something that I thought was okay um while we were down there, and the NCO in charge felt I'd disobeyed an order of his, although you know, there were extenuating circumstances and I took I told him that I didn't want to get into it on a radio while we were separate. And because agency and other people are all over the radio, I flew to where he was and I went up to that guy and said, Hey, you said this. Here's what I did, and here's why. And I thought this was one of those things, we're just gonna fix it and go. But that's not how it turned out. There was a lot of other stuff going on that I wasn't aware of. There were extenuating circumstances. Um, and next thing you know, you know, I'm accused of disobeying an order. I'm flown out of there. I come back to the states, I'm put in limbo. By that time, I think people realized some things that got out of hand and mistakes made, and people are trying to figure out what what how are we gonna get out of this and do it. But but to me, I didn't know. All I knew was that I'd been told you can't talk about this. Nobody had even asked me yet what had happened. Nobody had talked to me. It's just accusations, and I was told you can't talk to your team leader or your team, you can't talk to your wife, you can't talk to anybody. And I walked around for weeks there going through training with my team not understanding why I'm not talking to them. And maybe in retrospect, now if it was me, I wouldn't tell my team, hey, here's what was said, and here's what I did, and here's what was done. And um eventually the pressure got to me um of just not knowing and feeling and limbo and the guillotine's gonna come down any moment. And still ended up by knowing. So I went to the unit psychologist and told him, you know, hey, this is really bothering me. I don't understand this. I don't somebody tell me why this is going on and why it's like this. And he felt concerned enough that he went to the unit commander, which was Colonel Boykin at the time, told him, and then when he did that, that came back down through squadron thing, and that's what uh sealed my fate because um my squadron commander felt that I was a traitor and that to try to get to lessen things on me, I was willing to turn on other people. Which is not what happened, and I turns out I didn't know about other things that were going on and um unaware of that, but I think people must have thought I was, but um so yeah, I got I got kicked out of Delta Boykin called me back and said I was just gonna send you to another squadron, but your squadron commander wants you in a d uh gone. So yeah, find a different place to work.

Host 2:17:56

Yeah, they torched your NCOER and um kind of Yeah, that I mean I went home, you know.

Gary Harrington 2:18:04

Once that decision is made, okay, now you're not gonna come back and train, so go home um and wait there till your paperwork's done. And I signed an NCOER and left.

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Gary Harrington 2:18:17

I'm at home, I get a call from my team leader, come back in here. We've redone your NCOER, you need to come in and sign it. And I went back and instead of a regular NCOER, which wasn't a good one, but it was regular NCOR, now it was a relief for cause NCOER.

Host 2:18:38

And um For those of you out there don't know what an NCOER is, it's your non-commissioned officer evaluation report. So basically, in the military on the enlisted side of the house, once you become an NCO, you get one every year, and those determine promotions, assignments, but definitely for promotion, um, leadership assignments, etc.

Gary Harrington 2:18:54

Or turns out for re-enlistment. Yeah, or yeah, yeah, or your ability to do that. And uh yeah, so I got

(Cont.) Marine to Green Beret to Delta to CIA: The Man Who Hunted bin Laden | Gary Harrington

Gary Harrington 2:19:00

that, and there's a lot more to that. And and again, I don't really want to go into details because hey, we all have different stories about sure a different angle on that, and that that's for me.

Host 2:19:19

Did you pick to go to fifth group? Because you had been in seventh group.

Gary Harrington 2:19:22

No, I got sent actually to what they called SWIC, the schoolhouse at the time, to an office. I I to be honest, I don't remember the name of it, um where they were writing the manual for uh the CQB manual, close quarter combat manual for uh build and clearing. And that was just now becoming mainstream for special forces. And since I just left there, they said, can you help see this manual through? So I was working on that there in an office in Fort Bragg. And then while I was there, this thing came up where they needed to fill a job for having the Army's liaison to the Naval Um Safety Center in Norfolk. And it would be the person that would kind of oversee all the uh arm mostly special ops, but the Army's dive safety program. So they I was sent with my family up to Norfolk and lived on Fort Monroe, Virginia and commuted to Norfolk to do that job. How long were you there for that? I think I was there close to two years, something like that. And it's yeah, I mean it was a cool job. I I went to um I got qualified Navy hard hat diving down in Panama City. I went to uh Fort uh at Little Creek to EOD Mark 15 mixed gas training um to get qualified on mixed gas so that I was capable, you would divide up in teams with Navy and me, uh like sometimes two guys, sometimes a group, and we would go to different places in the world and go out and check their diving procedures and diving equipment and diving records for the Naval Safety Center. So, yeah, I mean that was a pretty cool job. Nice.

Host 2:21:32

How did you uh how did you end up leaving there, or how did you get your next assignment coming out of there?

Gary Harrington 2:21:36

One of the SF guys, and it was while I was up there that my reenlistment for the Army came up, and the Army actually tried to prevent me from re-enlisting um because of that in COER. And um I got some people at Fort Bragg to write letters. I got a former Marine officer, uh senior officer to write a letter, and an admiral from the Navy wrote a letter to try to keep the Army from uh barring me from re-enlisting. So I stayed in. But while I was doing those inspections in Okinawa, there was a guy that was due to PCS, his time in Okinawa is done. And he was looking for the next job. And when he heard about my job, like, wait a minute, you travel around the world and are doing this, he was buddies with the assignments guy. And now here you have this guy who must be a piece of crap because he got kicked out of Delta, and you know, I want that job. So he called his buddy, and next thing you know, I know early. I got you're being you're going to this is 1996. You are now going to Fort Campbell, Kentucky to fifth special forces group. That's how I got it.

Host 2:23:06

Were you uh were you looking forward to that to doing something different?

Gary Harrington 2:23:08

Or are you well it was going back operational? I'm I I might have been a little gun shy from the whole Delta thing. You know, it's one thing you you've done, you've killed yourself to get into Delta to make it. Now you for somebody like me, you've reached the pinnacle of your career, everything you wanted. We talked about the inner ring, the start. Now you're in the middle of the innermost ring. And I based my whole self-worth and being on that. It was more important to me than being a father, being a husband, being a Christian, anything. It was that. And so that's taken away. Now you show up at a new unit, and the first thing they read when they look at your file, ah, wow, Delta done. And then they wait, wait a second. Why would you leave Delta? And well, I got kicked out. Well, explain that. Sorry, it's not words explaining. You just need to look at my record and please judge me on what I do. And so, yeah, I was nervous going back to an operational unit. And then, I think it was then, is when I found out that the squadron commander who wanted me out, whose last words to me before I left uh Delta were after they called me back in to sign that second NCOER, was um, he says, I am going to F you over and have you kicked out of the Army, and it's going to be done in a way that you can't fight it, you can't beat it, because you are, you know, the worst thing there could be. Right. And uh so he's the commander of fifth group. So now, okay, to be honest, now I'm as terrified as I ever was in a high as a high schooler when I skipped class.

Host 2:25:06

So you show up and yeah, tell the story of like you get offered to do this thing and then Yeah, I I I show up to fifth group.

Gary Harrington 2:25:14

Now I'm terrified because the first thing I have to do is sign in to group, get that I've arrived. And it's in the group headquarters building, which is in this little brick building at Fort Campbell back in those days. And I'm like, oh, I'm I I'm I might run into him and what's gonna happen then. But I go in, I didn't see him, I signed in, I went down to my battalion, and I'm down in my battalion. I'm on uh scuba team 545 um with Team Sergeant Terry Peters, went on to become quite a well-known sergeant major in Special Forces. But I went uh down, I'm down on my team several months, and our team was designated a UW or unconventional warfare team. And everybody, of course, wanted to be a direct action team trains to do uh assaults. And after I'd been there, those months, I got, I don't know if it was, I guess, a phone call or somebody told me the group commander wants to see you, you need to go up there. Now I'm I'm just okay, life's over, man. They tried to kick me out of the army uh and I beat it, so now he's gonna finish the job. And I went up there and he greeted me at the door, told me to come into the office and sit down. I sat down and he just started talking, and he started talking about new direction and special forces, and wanted to get back and emphasize UW again, and that we lost a lot of that ethos and and drive, and that's where we needed to get back to that. And then there were a few guys in group that were kind of on the forefront of of that, and and he said, I want you to take a lead role in helping um get us there. Hey, I uh I looked at him and was like, okay. Um he goes, Do you think you can do that? Uh yeah, yes, sir. I I can. And I'm waiting for the axe that hammer, yeah, something and and then he finished and left. I left. And I sat down and wondered and wondered. I yeah, it bothered me. I'm like, wait a second, how did we go from last time I saw you here to this?

Host 2:27:50

And did he ever acknowledge the fact that you guys had been somewhere previously together? Or that's gotta be super weird. No. Uh did you interact with him a bunch when he was your squadron commander?

Gary Harrington 2:28:02

Did I what? Did you interact with him? No, not much, right? You interact with your team and your troop. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I eventually I I sent him an email and uh and said, hey, sir, I it's just killing me. I I I don't understand. You know, have you changed your mind about um your opinion there? Or do you think I've changed, or what what I just don't understand? Could you please uh you know just explain that to me? And he never answered my email. Super interesting.

Host 2:28:43

So you start doing um joint personnel recovery projects. You guys were setting up networks in denied areas in Yemen, Kuwait. This is all pre-9-11 kind of shadow, shadow style work. What drew you to that mission? And I mean, it would become crucial later on in your career.

Gary Harrington 2:28:59

Well, after that the fifth group commander had told me to take a lead role in there, I started meeting with the guys that were trying to lead the way and started learning about guys at USASOC headquarters and down in special operations command central that were, you know, kind of involved in this. And then I because I was interested in that and pushing because I as I'd been instructed to, and it was what my team was told to do, I got sent to um the ASOT school.

Host 2:29:37

Can you explain briefly what that is?

Gary Harrington 2:29:39

We don't need to go into all the ASOT advanced special uh advanced special operations techniques is and it may have changed a lot since my day. This was 1997 that I went to that school. Early 98. Almost 38. Early 1998. And um it is designed to give ODAs, it's kind of recapturing some of what some of the base camps in Vietnam uh did when they lived out with the mountain yards to establish local security and networks to help keep you informed of what's going on around you. Um there's more, it's more involved than that, but that's that's what we can say here. And um, so I went to that school, and during that school, I had yeah, I was I don't know, that's one of my go against the grain kind of things again. I pushed the instructors and they're used to pushing the students. I kind of pushed back, and I had an incident where the final exercise I got put in a very difficult situation that and I somehow pulled off something that like they and kind of word about that spread and it went down to um sock scent and it went uh somebody used the sock. So that so I was picked to uh come down and take part in this first ever attempt to take what's used in ASOT and employ it overseas. How did you like doing that style of work? It was different, not like the combat stuff we learned. It um you know it's more kind of tied to human type operations, but it was a new thing, and because of that, you know, I'm I'm getting to go deployed by myself to Yemen and with a whole lot of freedom.

Host 2:32:00

What was Yemen like back then? I mean, now we know a lot about Yemen, but was it still I mean, was it crazy?

Gary Harrington 2:32:05

It was like stepping back in uh into one of the old movies we watched when we were kids with the guys and all the headdress, the old bazaar, the old sook and son'a. It just for me is just like amazing. Indiana Jones. Yeah, Indiana. I I thought Indiana Jones because it looked just like that in the scene where he pulls out the pistol and shoots the guy. And you know, it was crazy for wedding, and everybody is carrying around a lot of people are carrying AKs for every wedding. People just go start spraying their AKs around. Uh, really different.

Host 2:32:43

Yeah. Um, you know, it's funny. You and I were talking last night at dinner. You were with an ODA in Kuwait doing JPRA, and you know, it's funny because we ran across each other. I didn't run across you, but I ended up working uh with some of the guys that yeah, with other guys. Yeah, they ran a demo range and then they actually snuck me and a friend uh into downtown Kuwait. We went out to dinner with them, and um it's just crazy, man. The world's a small place.

Gary Harrington 2:33:07

Yeah, because I finished Yemen, I I stayed in Yemen uh a while, and um that's where I had my flare-ups with the ambassador um on stuff that pertains to the bombing of the coal. But um I left there and because I'd been the first ASOC guy there, and they were real happy with that, then um I was picked to go to Kuwait for a year to take it to the next level and and do some more work again. This time it was associated with the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency.

Host 2:33:49

What happened with the coal bombings in Yemen?

Gary Harrington 2:33:51

Um I was sent to Yemen initially um to work out of the embassy alone and develop a security assessment because months later, one special forces team and some Navy personnel were gonna come in to do a deming mission and a special forces ODA from fifth group. The team was from fifth group, and another ODA was gonna come in and go down on the coast and train a Yemeni unit. And we were this was the first military in there since the revolution, the the first ground, you know, mill-the-mill thing like that. So it was kind of a big deal. And I was technically assigned to the ODA that was going to come in and do the D-mining. But again, none of them were ASOT trains. So I I was sent to do that security stuff beforehand. While I was in Yemen, these situations started going from as friendly as it could be for Yemen. Kidnappings were common, but usually somebody was kidnapped, they were treated well, and then when the government would give them a well or a car, the village would let the person go. And that's some Europeans actually made it a sport. They wanted they would go to the Hadramat region where most kidnappings occur, get kidnapped, so they'd have stories to tell. Because they followed the Islamic custom of treating you well and feeding you. You know, they get what they want from the government and then you go free. But while I was there, first the somebody started uh posting threats in the newspaper by the Islamic Army of Aden, threatening the U.S. presence. That when these D miners come into this country, they will go home in body bags and blah, blah, blah, you know, the same old stuff. The official standpoint was that the embassy, these are three idiots with a fax machine. They've never nobody's ever done anything. There's no threat. And okay, but now, because of the special project I'm doing, I have all the the um clearances and the to read signals intelligence and the human intelligence and uh overhead book imagery. So I I could see it all in the embassy. So I was seeing that. And it at that time, Yemen was kind of thought that it's the playground and document place for Al Qaeda. They're not gonna shit where they sleep. That, yeah, they come through here and stuff, but. They're not operational, and the Islamic Army of Aden isn't tied to them. And they're just some idiots. But well, again, while I was there, they had a car bomb that was near the German consulate that they set off. So to me, as an SF guy, that represents an escalation. That represents that they are willing to, they they didn't kill anybody, but they're willing to take action. They have access to uh explosives. The ambassador was adamant that everything was peaceful in Yemen. There was zero threat in Yemen. There is no reason to be um concerned about it. So, and that's the official reason every everybody else needs to shut up. I talked to the defense attache about my reasoning, and he's like, No. He goes, Look, Hillary Clinton, First Lady Hillary Clinton, is scheduled to come here for a visit. Do not he goes, just give you a piece of advice. Do not get in uh and the ambassador's name was Barbara Bodine or Bodine, I don't know how she says it. And um he said, do not get in her in the way of that visit. And if you start raising these security concerns, they will cancel her visit. Um and I talked to the other people that had access to security and and intelligence information at the embassy, and everybody just parodied what the ambassador said. Now we go on and the situation continues to deteriorate. Now the D-miners are arrive in the country. I joined them in Aden. We're down in Aden, Yemen. The Aden Six, I think they called them, were captured. We were staying in a rented a little rented little hotel compound for the D-miners. And at a checkpoint in town, they captured six dudes in a vehicle that had um arms, um, RPG, and a diagram of where we were staying. And they became known as the agency and put them in jail. Well, now, of course, I'm supposed to be making security assessments. Now I'm, you know, hitting the flares and saying, hey, hey, now it's serious. Uh and the ambassador flew down and told us how it was unserious. And this is how bad it was. She refused to let us have our rifles with us in Aden. Our rifles stayed in the embassy locked in a metal box. It turned into a big giant controversy between the general exoxent and us in the embassy. She threatened to kick us all out of country, um that we weren't Arabist, so we didn't understand they knew the country, we were wrong, and no weapons. And she still insisted after that, and the only thing that changed was that we moved our compound to a more secure compound, and then I instituted some other security measures and control measures for while we were out. Um, but then and then I I pleaded, begged, argued, and still you're not going to get your weapons. And matter of fact, a quote that I from the ambassador, when she got in front of all of us down there, and we were making an appeal to at least have and that we would keep them in the metal box, but at least they'd be down there with us, let us have our rifles. She said, I know how you people operate. I would rather run the risk, the the very low-level risk of one of you getting hurt than the risk that one of you is going to take a rifle and hurt an innocent civilian.

Host 2:40:56

Just another example of how politicians have no ethn idea sometimes. Well, and but this politician, she's like an ambassador ambassador, there's a lot of them, unless they're career State Department folks, they're appointed. The president can appoint anybody to be an ambassador.

Gary Harrington 2:41:09

Or she was a careerist and uh an Arabist. And but then you fast forward, we were talking about Kuwait and when you were there. So I'm in Kuwait um when the bombing of the coal occurs. Now, before I and and to back up a little bit, the last thing I did, my my conscience started bothering me a lot about um Yemen. And they, while I was there is when they made the agreement they're going to start bringing U.S. ships into the port of Aden for refueling. And I was I was convinced that because now with the Aiden Six, uh not only do I have a group of people that are, I even left that part out, go back to the Aiden 6. The one of the last straw for me was the Aden 6 were in prison there. The Islamic Army of Aden captured a bunch of citizens, some of them uh British, in Aden and held them hostage. It ended up in a host in a shootout with Yemeni forces, the bad guys and the hostages in the middle of a circle in low ground, and the other people in the old circular thing outside. I think a couple hostages lost their life. And it was a fiasco, and still the ambassador insisted that it was safe there, and they pointed out that how inept the bad kidnappers had been, like in their firefight, and how stupid they'd been, and they were incompetent. And there was no link between no definable link between them and Al-Qaeda. For me, I said now I've got these people that are willing to take action against Americans, have threatened to take action against Americans, have been captured maybe on the way to take action against Americans, and now we've shown that they will take hostages. So are they inept? Yes, they are inept. But to me, and so I ended up writing a report. And uh, but and and my conclusion was that yes, they're inept now, but what happens if A, they accept operational control from Al Qaeda and get trained, or B, they host an Al Qaeda cell, then they're capable of conducting lethal attacks against US American interests. The ambassador, you're you're not allowed to send official stuff out, and I thought that meant cable traffic um without the ambassador having the opportunity to not only see it but weigh in on it. And she had crushed every attempt I had and said, you weren't you're not that's not correct, you can't say that. So I sent it out over SATCOM through military channels to the military back at Sox Cent. And um her then after I did it, I told the ambassador and got, of course, uh paid some costs for that. But my conscience bothered me so much because I said, What if I leave here and Americans get killed and I did nothing? So now fast forward to I'm where you are in Kuwait in 2000 when the USS coal gets bombed. And then people, somebody at CENTCCOM and SOC Cent looks back and goes, Yemen, Yemen, didn't we have and they pull up that thing that I sent back, and next thing you know, I'm being flown out of Kuwait back to Tampa to explain for a classified annex to the Senate's coal commission what I saw that made me say it was one thing when all the other officials were saying something different.

Host 2:45:23

How did that go?

Gary Harrington 2:45:24

I was used to in Delta after you do a hit, a training hit, usually the first one you do cold, and then when you come back and do a hot wash where you talk about what went right, what went wrong, how can we do it better? It's a very honest, you know, no fingers pointed, um, or supposed to be um thing. And I thought when they were doing the coal commission, it was gonna be the same. And I went down to SOCOM to do, I they because the missions I w I was doing in Yemen was classified, they didn't want me to go up and testify because I didn't want other questions asked of me. So I was giving a written deposition. The quote I gave you earlier that talked about um that quoted Ambassador Bodein uh well us. SOCOM deleted that from my deposition, and they deleted one other thing that was kind of damning. And I asked then, I said, Hey, this is the deposition, it's supposed to be my words. And then uh SOCOM told me I said, we rely on the State Department to do everything we do overseas, every J set, every training, every deployment for all special ops in JSA Department approved. And now, if you say that, you're gonna put us at war with the State Department. And we're not gonna do that.

Host 2:47:01

During those years, you were also a husband and a father, three kids, a stepdaughter. What was your marriage actually like when you were moving in and out of these classified assignments, constant training, traveling, deployments, J sets? How was that going?

Gary Harrington 2:47:15

My marriage ceased right about the time I went to uh right before I went to ASOD. So I was a married guy. I I lived at Fort Campbell on a 10-acre farm um on the Kentucky side. And yeah, my marriage had not had not been in good shape for some years, but I was raised getting a divorce as a sin. So you made your bed, you lie in it, and try to do your best you could. And um yeah, one day my ODA went to Kansas to practice calling live fire aircraft uh and when I came back, my house was empty, my truck was gone, my kids were gone, and my my stuff was dumped on the floor. Uh and yeah, that's to say that she took my kids and went back to Texas, or went to Texas where her parents had were living. It was a yeah, it was a shock to me, my system, everything. I, you know, I'd look I lost the Delta thing, which I based on. So what do you have left? Um husband, father, and now that's that's taken away. But right about that time is when they sent me to Aesot. It took my mind away from the trauma of dealing with kids. I I would go into anxiety attacks on my own because I would just start seeing like flashes of my kids' faces and um have trouble breathing and stuff, and I didn't want to deal with that. Well, when you put me on a mission, now I'm all mission. So I went to ASOT, and then right after ASOT, I'm being told, hey man, against everybody else in the army, we want you to go do this cool thing in the Middle East. And then after that, it was the next thing and the next thing. So that helped me deal with that whole deal on marriage. So um, yeah, as long as I had a mission, kept it in the background.

Host 2:49:26

There was a pattern visible from the outside. The more it hurt, the deeper you went into work. Was there a moment you recognized what you were doing? And did recognizing that change anything?

Gary Harrington 2:49:37

No, not not while I was doing it. It's it's not till the end, um, towards the end of my time in the agency that the pieces started coming together.

Host 2:49:49

Yeah, you know, it's really hard. We've talked about this quite a bit, you know, whether Easter eggs or actual topics with, you know, a lot of high-level operations guys. Um and I think it's really hard to be good at two things. It's really hard. I'm not saying you can't do it, and I'm not saying there's people that don't do it, but it's really, it's really hard to be really good at home and really good at your job, especially in the military and especially when you're working in special operations, because that job requires so much of you, whether you're training, planning, traveling, going to war, whatever. And so it's, you know, it's it's really common in our career field. Um I wasn't in special operations, I was in intelligence, but I mean, it's even in that job as well, because you later on to go do that, and it takes so much of you that it's not too many people survive that lifestyle without a divorce.

Gary Harrington 2:50:39

I think it's the same at some of your experiences in law enforcement are the same too, that it's a very different life at work. And we're men, we are good at compartmentalizing. Absolutely. So I'm at work, type A guys got to do some unpleasant things, maybe, and I'm all about it. All that now I'm home, I'm like, honey, kids, um you're that you're that person. And I think we tell ourselves a lie when we think we have it under control and it's compartmentalized, and you don't realize the damage that it's doing internally. And, you know, there's probably different mechanisms we have that balance those. Like an example was when uh when I was in, when I got kicked out of Delta, after a while my wife told me, um, she said, man, you know, I'm glad you're out of Delta because it made it suck for us. And what do you mean? She said, Well, when you're in seventh group, you would be home for like three or four months, and you'd come home decent hour. You were home on weekends, and we could do stuff, and that then you would go. And when you would go away, you'd be away three months or four months, and then we would develop another routine and we could survive without you. Then you went to Delta and you would leave the house at 4:30 in the morning. And then one or two nights a week, you'd stay till late at night for training, and you'd come home at kind of late hours on a regular day, and then suddenly you might get called away, and now you're gone, but you're gone a week and you're back. And then a few days later, maybe you're gone for this much and you're back. And she said, You kept us off balance. Nobody here could ever get a routine. And I it kind of hit me. I was like, I was so focused on mission and me and thought I was doing my best here. I didn't, I didn't think of that.

Host 2:52:46

It's hard, man. And I remember when I would leave on on trips throughout my different jobs and careers, and you know, I'm gone for a while, and then I come home. And again, to your point, they build this life without you to be able to survive, right? Um, in your absence, but also, you know, mom has to be mom and dad, and you know, she has to take care of the house and fix the things and handle all the things you normally do. And I remember I would come home and um you know, I'd be home, and in those first couple days, you know, I'm I'm trying to stay up later with the kids, yeah, you know, like, hey, let's I'll take them in later. And you know, I remember my wife would get like upset, like, hey dude, we have a routine. Like we're screwing up our routine. This is how we, you know, get out of the way. And then you're like, oh man, I'm sorry, you know, but it's it's hard, and it's hard to again, man. I just I think the point I was just trying to make is it's it's hard to be good in both those worlds. And I'm not saying people don't do it, and those people that have done it really well in both, yeah, they're really they're don't there's not a ton of them, man.

Gary Harrington 2:53:37

Um but and and they're special people, and I think they're people that are more you know centered.

Host 2:53:44

Yeah, I think that uh um before we dive into kind of the next uh phase, September 11th and the whole next phase of your career. Let's take a quick break. All right. Talk to me about where you were September 11th.

Gary Harrington 2:53:58

September 11th. I the morning that morning, I didn't go to work like normal. I worked at fifth group headquarters at that time. And I was I left my farm and I had like a to drive, but I was not going to work. I was going to the airport in Nashville because I was supposed to fly to Tampa to coordinate an exercise that would involve some fifth group people and some JSOC people in it might have been Jordan. So I was heading to the airport, and I'm I happen to have a good flight time, so I wasn't hurried, and I'm listening to some country music on the radio as I'm driving down the road, and that's when they broke in and started talking about the plane hitting the World Trade Center. And I started listening, and at that time, you think 2001, not a lot of people knew about terrorism. Most now everybody has heard of Al-Qaeda. Back then, nobody even know what you're talking about when you said Al-Qaeda or in Delta, of course, we had studied a lot of that during my um classified missions um in the Middle East. You know, I I knew about them. I was in Yemen when the Clinton ordered the missile attack on uh Emirac the farms in and the in Sudan, I think it was. And um, so I was quite aware of it, but I thought, you know, I debated in my head after hearing the news about the first one, and I thought, uh, and I looked at my clock and I said, you know, I probably got 15 minutes to spare to get to the airport on time. So I pulled into this little diner beside the road. It's it's it's right at the this road junction. It was just a tiny little country diner thing. And after from that store, if I turn right, I go to Fort Campbell. If I go across and get on the highway, I'm going to highway 24 to Nashville to the airport. And so I I pulled out into that parking lot. I went into a little restaurant, and on the counter, there's like a little 13-inch little box TV thing. I said, Hey, can you turn that on? And turn it on. And we were watching the uh the coverage, and then while we're watching, the the second plane hits. Now I'd been thinking, because when I'm after the first plane hit, I started walking through and I go, how could a commercial airliner hit the plane? And I well, the pilot passes out. Well, you got a co-pilot. Well, this could happen. And I'm like, generally on takeoff and landing, you have a co-pilot, a pilot, and an engineer, a flight engineer there. It's like and all the systems just didn't but but maybe whatever. But then when I saw the second one, it was oh okay, it's terror. And um and then I think maybe they announced that the US is shutting down all plane flights and all that. And regardless, I knew that um I knew terror Middle East. We're fifth group, we're the Middle East people. So instead of continuing to the airport in civilian my civilian clothes, I just turned right and went to fifth group, and we started uh immediately were planning for what we would do in Afghanistan. And we knew we didn't know what we were doing then, uh, but we knew we would be involved. So it's the whole thing of put everybody on alert, start the you know, inventories, load out, start prepping people, gear, equipment, and all that stuff.

Host 2:58:14

Um Within days you were in Tampa with Chris Miller, who would later become um Secretary of Defense, wasn't he?

Gary Harrington 2:58:21

Yeah, Sec Def.

Host 2:58:23

Um later, yeah, later Sec Def under Trump, planning Fifth Group's role in Afghanistan. What was that room like in those you know, first hours and days?

Gary Harrington 2:58:31

I think in the military, particularly at fifth group, since we had a mission, 9 11 happened and we didn't go into confusion and discussion. Spare and everything everybody else was doing. I I seemed immune from that because for for me, and I think the people around me in fifth group, it was just quiet determination. It's like, okay, it's on. We're gonna have a job to do. So we know the things we've all deployed a bazillion times. We all know the things that we need to do in order to get ready to go pay back for America. And so it was just like deadly serious. And down in Tampa Um it was deadly serious. At first, we were told the planning coming from uh Department of Defense was you're gonna attack Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. And then it was like pfft, but but we hadn't started yet. Everybody's gathering. And as the uh person, if they're if if ever there's too serious, I have besides going against authority, I also have this bug where if things are too serious or if I say something that's real serious, I tend to follow it up with a joke. Back in 2001, there was a big one of the popular commercials at the time was about staying in a Hampton or staying in a Holiday In Express. So this room is full of all these officers and senior enlisted, everybody's mowing around waiting for something, you know, somebody to have a meeting and all that. Everybody just really tense. So I grabbed a chair, pulled it over, stood on top of the chair, and now I'm a E seven. But but I don't know, I might have been in civilian clothes. I don't know. And I stood up, I said, excuse me, everybody, may I have your attention? And so everybody looks and I said, What I'd like to tell you about our planning process for here is that I don't know what it is, but I stated a holiday and express last night. So, and then everybody looked at me at first they were like, and then and then people laughed, right? But it was just something I just wanted to do something to break the tension. But uh, but it was Chris Miller, you know, he was directly told by John Mohan, like, okay, get us in this fight, man, make sure that we're gonna get used and make sure we're not gonna get abused.

Host 3:01:12

Yeah, I I think we skipped over the part. I think you were coming back from Kuwait uh on a, you know, doing a JPRA mission, and you go into fifth group uh headquarters to sign in.

Gary Harrington 3:01:24

Yeah, and John Mohan, so uh the things I'd I'd been doing in Kuwait were related to uh the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, and some of the employees there were retired SARM majors that had been in a JSOC unit in Northern Virginia. Say it that way. And uh Colonel Mulholland had commanded that unit. I came back to Fifth Group to sign in from overseas, you come back from the airport in civilian clothes, had no idea it was change of command day for the group. And I go to sign in, and that's which is again in group headquarters, as we talked about earlier. And I run into these retired sermon majors there. What are you doing here at Fort Campbell? Hey, we're here for the change of command. The new, the new commander was our commander at uh that that unit. And I was like, they go, oh, he's a great guy, man. He'll love you. Come meet him. I go, um, I'm in civilian clothes, my hair, I don't have a haircut. I can't go that they go, yeah, keep coming from where we come, that's not gonna be a that's not gonna matter. So they introduced me to him and I guess told him about some successes that we'd had on this uh program, this thing I was doing um overseas. So uh we kind of connected then, and based on their recommendation, you know, we we maintained a pretty close working relationship.

Host 3:03:05

So you and Chris go to you know the the planning room uh or you know, these planning meetings, you know, to kind of represent fifth group. And then, you know, obviously everybody's seen horse soldiers. Obviously, fifth group was you know the was the group that was you know gonna lead the charge, at least on uh Army Special Operations side of the house, on you know, the SF side. Um and so you know they're gonna forward deploy, and you're an intricate part of that planning cycle um and and some of that stuff. So kind of walk us through the initial early days of Afghanistan, because you were there before we, you know, formally invaded the country.

Gary Harrington 3:03:43

It was decided that the agency was gonna have initial lead because it was still considered a covert activity, wasn't turned over, uh open gonna be openly acknowledged at first, but it was gonna be supported by uh special forces, and so they stood up Task Force Dagger, which um John Mohan commanded. Um in the preparation to go there, he asked me and some other people to go to be the advon. Some Rangers support kind of people were already on their way over to a base, uh old Russian air base called Karshikanabad in southern Uzbekistan, and told us to go over there that my job was to get on the ground and link up with the agency in Tashkent to kind of figure out, smooth the way for how we're gonna work together so we could host the agency. The Army would be responsible for infilling them. We were gonna have a joint uh operations center with that was a classified top secret operations center for some of us from the military and the agency to coordinate and and take reports in. And the army was gonna run the infills for the agency and resupply.

Host 3:05:20

So you get into Uzbekistan and now you're like part of the planning cell, and you know, you go back to all the stuff that you've done in your career to train, and now it's like the Super Bowl man, and you're you're not gonna get a chance to play. How did how did that go with you?

Gary Harrington 3:05:38

Yeah, it was you know, because by this time now, because of my experience, I was working in group headquarters doing you know, overseeing compartmentalized um activities and cla all the classified stuff. And at ASOT, one of the things you're trained to do in the final exercise is to be on a pilot team, one of those teams, like the final exercise in ASOT is there's a fictitious country out there that the U.S. used to help and work with rebels, but then we abandon them. And now, after all these years, we're gonna come back in and try to reconvince them to work with us against the uh powers that be at the end of the yeah.

Host 3:06:24

It's funny that we have to design a course for that because we do that a little too often.

Gary Harrington 3:06:28

Uh maybe if we did it better, we wouldn't need a course. Uh so I thought I was really well qualified to do that. And I'd lived with Arabs as you did in Kuwait and worked with Arabs and Yemen. I I thought, uh I thought I I can do this. And the agency, the aid the well, the way it would work is you'd send an agency team in, like Team Alpha, Jawbreaker Team Alpha was the first jawbreaker team to go in. The agency sent another team first that went in initially and met with some more lords to create the whole way of how we're going to go forward together. Then the first operational was jawbreaker team Alpha with Mike Spann on it. And they go in. And then after they'd been in a while, they called for the Special Forces ODA to come in on top of them. So the agency goes in, makes the initial contacts, makes the deal with the warlord, kind of assesses them, and then they sent in, and it turned out to be 595 in the movie 13 Strong, you know, them they were known as the horse soldiers. And then their main job was to call air and provide medical uh the 18 with the 18 deltas on there, provide medical coverage. So the SF team brought, yeah, sure, some guns to bear, but we were going to use the warlords and their people for mostly for that. But then that main thing was the air power that came in. So team after team started, agency teams started going in and splitting off, and then ODAs started going in. Yeah, I felt left out because I'm back there coordinating it. Um the famous picture of team jawbreaker team alpha in front of a helicopter. I I took that picture. One guy asked, Do you want to be in a picture? And I was like, No, you I'm not going in. And so uh I started getting bitter and unhappy because I was like, I feel and and the agency started running out of people. And I um I'm capable of running one of these teams that I you know so I decided I'm done here. You know, I've I've set everything up, I've got everything running. If I'm not gonna go in, I I just can't stand here and watch people do it send me home. Um is what I told my boss. But then Colonel Mohollan asked me and a few other people to accompany him to um ODA 555 triple nickel had just um uh taken Bagram Airfield and we were gonna go forward to Bagram Airfield and you know make that our base of operations in Afghanistan. So he asked me if I would go with him and some other people there. I don't know what I was gonna do. I don't know if he knew what I was gonna do, but he disliked my age, seniority experience, whatever. He he liked having me around. So uh I yeah, I was happy to go with him. So what'd you guys do after you got to Bagram? Got to Bagram uh right before Thanksgiving spent Thanksgiving there. Um the things in Toroboro were starting to spin up, and he the agency, there was a ODA 572 that had been designated before as the things were starting before we deployed over to Uzbekistan that had been designated uh to be chopped to operational control of the agency legally uh to do some cave-to-cave, you know, hunt cave hunting stuff. Well, that didn't bear out in the final war plan, so that ODA was not attached. As the team, the jawbreaker team uh that was it's Juliet that was in gonna go to Jalalabad knew that they needed to beef up because the reports from back in the 80s were um Torabor's this giant cave network, it's impregnable. Everybody thought this was gonna be Al-Qaeda's last stand. They're up there, they're gonna fight to the death. It's gonna be really costly in lives to try to get up those mountains and into those caves. Um so we're not equipped, so we need we'd we want that ODA. Colonel Moholland was reluctant for several reasons. We don't have to go into, I'd rather not go into all of those. Um one of them was because um I think he questioned some of the decisions of um that led to Mike Spann getting killed. I there was some other issues um regarding um Yeah, just not well, do we really trust the agency to decide when to use SF guys? And one of the guys from that agency team happened to have been a guy that had been in that uh unit in Northern Virginia under uh Moholland, but now he was detailed to the agency. He told Moholland, well, you seem to trust Gary here a lot. What if we took Gary, would you give us that that ODA? And um and to my surprise, Colonel Moholland said, Yeah. So the legal process for that ODA to be chopped go to the agency was done. It wasn't for me. It was technically, be honest, it was illegal for me to do that, to do um because it was still a covert activity and I was still falling under DOD guidelines. So General So I got joined up with that team to go up to uh first Jalalabad and then up to Torobora.

Host 3:13:08

So General Moholland used you as like a trust bridge between SF and CIA on a handshake, no paperwork. What does it feel like to be the man everyone relies on, but no one officially accounts for?

Gary Harrington 3:13:19

Yeah. Well, there's good things of that. Yeah. I I had a lot of leeway, which I I like and seem to do well in. Um the bad thing is that's bypassing a lot of people. There's things like battalion commanders that are like, hey, what are you doing? Uh, because on the ground it says this over here is a just soa uh this area that is under I'm in control of all special ops in there, but you're SF and you're going in there, and I don't have any oversight or see what you're doing. And now you're over here doing this. And I I just told people I and at that point I was like, this isn't me. I've been asked by your boss to do this, and I'm I'm gonna do it. And with the agency, what he told me was hard to I don't want to be exactly quote, but he um he basically said, Look, I don't trust that the agency knows what we need on the ground to make us effective. If there's no need for SF to go there, nobody to work with, nobody to train, nobody to link up with, then I don't want to send them.

Host 3:14:45

That's weird. Somebody somebody would think that they can't trust the CIA man. That's super weird.

Gary Harrington 3:14:50

But but he but he said, so I want you to make that call. And he goes, and he said, I will not send an ODA in unl until unless you tell me it's it it that it's ready, it's ready. I want your opinion. So that's what I why what I was sent there for.

Host 3:15:14

So you end up in Torobora. Um off that same handshake deal. Uh walk us through what it was like being up in those mountains, man.

Gary Harrington 3:15:24

We this is before December, was it 6th or 9th when they think bin Laden disappeared? We the agency team had already put up one OP to start calling in um aircraft, the dropping bombs.

Host 3:15:44

For those of you that don't know what an OP, it's an observation point. Normally it's kind of like a hide site that they use to call for fire or call in troop movements. Normally it's you know, an elevated position that nobody knows about in the middle of the room.

Gary Harrington 3:15:56

Highly elevated. Yeah. Highly elevated. So we we um there wasn't there were so they already had an OP up there, but they'd been up there six, seven days, used up all the rations and stuff that they'd carried. So they they needed relieved. So a team that became later known as Cobra 25B, uh the people on this OP, we were designated to go replace them. And we started at the bottom, had a bunch of donkeys and burrows rented and some locals and climbed up the mountains up into the top there in Torobora and took their place and set up a what was the elevation you guys were at? I I don't know the ultimate elevation. The valleys were some of those valleys were the Florida Valley was 16,000. So we were probably I I'm gonna guess, I mean, Everest is 26, so uh uh I don't know, 18, 19, 20, I I don't know. And you guys had to walk up the side of that mountain full gear. Well, without our rucks, because it'd have been impossible. And to be honest, with a full combat loadout, and that's my first time. Okay, now I'm actually in combat, so I never carried so much gear. I thought in Delta I carried a lot of magazines. Now I had, I think, 14 magazines on me. I had some uh, of course, my IV, everybody carried their own IV. I had some anti-personnel uh devices to throw out behind us. I had a couple grenades, I had some machine gun uh or some saw rounds, you know, you had some exploit, you had a little bit of everything, and it was it was uh, and then even after I got rid of my ruck, my LBE alone was 40, 49 pounds, 40, I think 40 pounds, and then to climb those mountains um was brutal. We went a while before we took the first break, but then we started to take breaks more and more frequently. Um, and it was just one slow step at a time, and then the next, because we were climbing up talus, uh just big boulders, and you had to walk up kind of like cow paths where everybody else had been up. It was it was brutal. It sounds brutal.

Host 3:18:35

Um, so once you guys get up there and get in your hide site, how long were you guys up there for?

Gary Harrington 3:18:39

I don't know how many days we were up there total. I know we had my guess is we were up there somewhere about a week, maybe something like that. Yeah, we got up, took over, immediately started calling in fire. Um my day, night, all the time. Every anything flying that had any bombs on it, everybody by now thought bin Laden's here. We want to be take part in killing him, so every aircraft was flying over, and most of the time we had constant air power, and we just kept there were two OPs, and the OPs we were just dropping. And this is before um before any ground element went up and tried to go up the valley. So we arrived probably two or days before that and were dropping bombs. And then after that, and when I had left the ODA and Juliet, uh Delta hadn't shown up yet, but they came at whatever point after I left. And so I don't think I knew it at the time, but when I saw we were we were in the closest OP to the mountain where bin Laden was, far up, not on the valley that was Torobor, the the main valley with the caves here, but we were one ridge over on this knife edge, and the bin Laden cave evidently was back here. And um, so from looking from our position back the day that the the main body came up to go to approach the valley, we could see them coming across. There was a tank in front, um, then some locals in in their vehicles, and then you could see. A mixture of ODA and Juliet and I didn't know it was Delta guys there or whatever, whoever was in their trucks, just all trucks then. And then behind that, on behind was the big gaggle of press vehicles and all the press people following them. I'm not sure. I think through the binos I could see that that's you know cameras uh sticking out of the vehicles. And uh in a way I I thought it was kind of comical because they were so far away, and that every once in a while the tank would fire, and he's not putting effective fire on anything, and you know, but slowly they came up uh until we couldn't see him anymore.

Host 3:21:28

There's been some accounts by some specific people that I'm not gonna name names uh that have talked about Torabora Tier 1 units of kind of what they saw and and what happened. Um you were there and you were there before they got there. Um what did you see different than some of these accounts of people that have said certain things about it?

Gary Harrington 3:21:45

Um I think back and some of it came from uh the headquarters watching from overhead imagery. I think that um when you're dropping those bombs to particularly to J DAMs, the 2,000 pounds, and you're doing a whole run of the 19 or 20 uh J Dams, it's devastating. It's hard, it's earth-shaking. Up in the mountains, it was quite different because of the rocks and the terrain, everything seemed different. And what I what I observed was that you could drop the bombs and people disappear. You might think they're dead, but then 30 seconds later, they're popping out again. And is that because of like waddies and rock crevices and rock crevices, caves, and just super hard rocks and and overhangs. Um the whole bunker busting thing wasn't worked at thermodic, you know, it wasn't worked out then. And um I I just after a while I just started thinking, I we're these bombs are good at making them hunker down, but we're not like taking out a lot of people. And initial estimates were coming in, you know, towards the end of Toro Borough that, oh, we killed like a thousand people, uh, or perhaps hundreds. I think they only found twenty si it was either twenty-three or twenty-six remains up there and we dropped bombs for two weeks on there constantly, many, many, many bombs. Um so I don't think that that that we were taking out by people. Um other people from their point of view, they were coming up the valley and maybe it looked like stuff. Again, you see people out there, you drop bombs, you don't see them. You you can say they're dead, but um did they go out the back way of a cave and come out somewhere else? I I don't know.

Host 3:24:08

I I think could you see from your vantage point in your LPOP that that you know you're I mean, you guys are glassing these people. Would the bombs drop and then like you know, an hour later, or were you seen?

Gary Harrington 3:24:17

I only saw I I personally, again, we relieved the first guys that might have been there before Al-Qaeda got into the hunker mode. Uh cause I think by the time we got up there, Al Qaeda was hunkering and waiting in lull at during darkness and lulls between the bombing to send groups out squirting through the valleys and through back entrances to escape into Pakistan. And uh I only observed fighters once that I could lay my eyes on. The rest of the time I was trying to hit entrances and exits to cave complexes, um, or sometimes I'd drop ordinance on a place where I thought they were squirting, just so if they were in the bottom of the valley. Um, but it was different up there. It's the first time ever I've called for fire a few times. It it literally is like this. Now, if I have a mountain that's like this, and I'm at let's say I'm at 18,000 feet up here, and I'm gonna drop in this valley running this way, and I'm gonna drop the ordinance up here on the cave where we think bin Laden's gonna be. Uh something I really really wasn't prepared for, and that airplane's flying up here at 25. I think the floor for them was 25,000, so they're 25,000 or above feet. And you're calling for that load of bombs, and you don't realize that that plane computer calculates that release point, and it's back here. Now it's gonna hit this spot up here. But to get there, I remember the first time on top of that ridge, I'm waiting and suddenly beside me, and it was the bombs being released from up here are flying like this and going right beside you to get to that target. That's how steep and narrow it was. And I was like, whoa, man, if we don't have the right offset on here, and you know that's uh you know, it's like I was like, wow, that's uh it was a little bit unsettling. So um, yeah, that that was yeah, it's just a whole different experience.

Host 3:26:45

What was it like to be up there on the on in the Torborn Mountains and just watch like the US government just drop ordinance and level stuff? Was it like something on a biblical level?

Gary Harrington 3:26:54

No, it's not later in Anaconda. I went up there and you know, those mud huts and stuff from that, those those were destroyed. But the rocks up there didn't make a difference. They had what is it called? A blue 82, that big mother of all bombs, daisy cutters, yeah. Daisy cutters that they drop. They got all this stuff. You have to be prepared to take shelter, they're gonna drop one of those. And I was like, all this fanfare, and we're waiting. Like, okay, I want to see this. That's the one that C130 flies over and they kick it out. And it went and it hit in the the valley in Torobora, and it was like nothing. You know, maybe there was a bunch of stuff coming up, and and then I could see over the ridge smoke coming up, but I was like, ah, I that didn't seem to do a lot. And um is it just like thick, hardened rock that it just yeah, just rock and and steep, so and with all that elevation, there's there's no leeway for any off, right? And I think it's really hard to pinpoint a target, and the valleys are so narrow and all that if the entrance to a cave is over here, you know, you can't come from over here. It it almost required, if they had done a last stand there, it it probably would have required flying in. Now, years, a few years later, when I was in the agency, uh JSOC wanted to send SEALs up to do a re hat hash because people were reportedly up in Tor Bora again. And they brought me over to JSOC since I'd been on the ground there before to say, how would you do it? And um so I gave them my opinion based on what I saw.

Host 3:28:42

Did they go out? Did they end up going out again?

Gary Harrington 3:28:44

I I don't think they did it, but they were asking, well, then how can we do it? Because I said those bombs weren't effective. I said they'll keep them in the holes. And I and so I guess it was it McChrystal asking me. Might have been McChrystal. Mike Flynn was his J2. Yeah, for weeks I'd been I was in the agency now, and people, hey, uh, you know, they want you uh to fly over to Bagram and go see some people of JSOC over here. I go, yeah. Because nobody said anything to me. And then a few days later, hey, you know, people are looking for you and they want you to go to over to Bagram. I'm like, you think if people wanted me, somebody would tell me. And then one day I'm uh over at the agency headquarters at the Ariana Hotel. Somebody came up to me and said, hey, they want you now to go to Bagram and talk to them about Torabora. And I went and so I my my based off what I saw the first time, my theory was drop bombs. You gotta have, first of all, you need to link up with some other people that aren't you, that will quietly move in ahead of time to all the little villages and all the little valleys that are around that. And you need to get intel when if somebody comes in new into that village. And that's before you ever do try to do an assault. And then for the assault, I said, I think you need to have be dropping bombs and have less than a 30-second delay between the last bomb hitting and the helicopters getting overhead to kick people out. And you're gonna have to do fast rope. And he's like, Wow. He's I think McCrisel was like, well, that's a that's a pretty big risk.

Host 3:30:47

I mean the Taliban fought off the Russians.

Gary Harrington 3:30:49

He said, he said, he said, he said, and you're so you're asking me to take to do that. I said, well, sir, after being there, that's what I see. I said, tell you what, I said, uh, I volunteered to be in the lead helicopter. You know, so if if that's gonna be my suggestion, then okay, I'll take the risk and uh go do it. But that I don't I don't know if they ever did it.

Host 3:31:15

Did you ever get to go in any of the caves when you were up in Torabora?

Gary Harrington 3:31:18

I can't remember if I looked in one at Torobora or not. I went in some caves and some other places.

Host 3:31:25

Were they as complex as people talked about?

Gary Harrington 3:31:27

No, no, I think we were disappointed they weren't, they never turned out to be that way. Uh didn't find hardly much in there. Uh, we had some prisoners from Torabora, five, only five. And uh like I said, I they only found 20-something uh remains.

Host 3:31:45

Yeah, because if I remember, if I go back to kind of what we were hearing back then, they made it seem like those those caves were like the Viet Cong tunnels.

Gary Harrington 3:31:52

Yeah, that's that's how we it was pitched to us and what everybody expected, and you know, it turned out not to be that way. And uh shocking. Yeah, it's shocking. Uh yeah, you can go back and second guess those calls too.

Host 3:32:10

But um, what do you believe actually happened at Torah Bor? I mean, there's been books that have been written. I mean, we had a podcast guest come in here and swear that you know bin Laden was killed up there, and you know, I I think any nobody really knows, but what do you, as somebody who was there before everybody else, um, with jawbreaker teams and stuff, what do you what do you think happened?

Gary Harrington 3:32:30

Uh I think that we went up there, the warlord that we were linked up with to do the Toro Bor stuff was called Hazarat Ali, was his name. And but either Hazrat Ali or this guy that was hooked up with the British Intel guys that were covering the mountains on the Pac right by Pakistan on the backside of Torobora were these two warlords. And I think that they made a deal with Al-Qaeda. Again, this was a covert action thing at this point. What was supposed to be the lead was supposed to be the locals, the Afghans, with U.S. playing a secondary role. With JSOC on the ground, that changed somewhat, but still there was a lot left up to the warlords. And to be honest, the linguistics, the logistics, and all those things, we were that was relying on them. And I think, you know, one night that I think bin Laden was last heard on the radio, either 6 December or 9 December, and then he wasn't hurt anymore. And as I'm saying, at one time I saw lights down in the valley in the middle of the night, little lights moving. Um I think that they were the whole time they were hunkered down, and you can't just keep dropping everything all the time. And now they knew the terrain. And they might have had locals that really knew the terrain helping them, and that they would squirt out in groups, and all these, there's all these parallel valleys and ridges there, and that that you know, there were some tunnels that had back, you know, entrances, you know, like the mountain bin Laden was at. Uh I think it had at least a two, if not more, exits from it on different sides of the mountain.

Host 3:34:30

There was a there's been a lot of debate on whether or not uh bin Laden was on dialysis. So some but some say that that was a CIA Psyop, others say that he was on full kidney dialysis and had to have you know machines and stuff. Can you speak to any of that?

Gary Harrington 3:34:46

I well, I didn't watch the movie Zero Dark 30.

Host 3:34:50

I don't even know if that was covered in the movie. I I don't remember where.

Gary Harrington 3:34:53

So we're hearing that and I I I I believed it. Um so there were efforts for a while to try to pin down the people that we got the ghost service and do the dialysis or the machines, but I never heard from the raid or anything, anything about any of that equipment. So I I don't know that. Why do you I mean, and I know this is rapidly instead of and I do I do believe bin Laden escaped from there because I was involved in some operations later, part of the agency, when we were still looking for him and looking for senior al-Qaeda, and I can tell you that the agency put a full force tremendous amount of resources for all those years from the 10 years from 2001 till bin Laden was killed in 2011 into finding him. And you know, that's one of those things that inside that word's gonna get out eventually and and we're gonna know there were there were so many people just solely focused on trying to find him. We went from trying to look at like myself from telltale signals that where he might be to okay, let's examine now and find where there's an absence of signals. So maybe the absence of stuff indicates something.

Host 3:36:29

There's all these conspiracy theories too that bin Laden was an asset or that his families were CIA assets. I mean, was that something you ever ran across?

Gary Harrington 3:36:38

Uh I didn't, and uh I don't know, most people I knew it would have been happy if they were all taken off the map. You know, the one son that allegedly was in Iran at the time, who some people are saying now, right, might might be uh uh involved with Al Qaeda again. Uh I think I don't know.

Host 3:37:04

Yeah, I want to say somebody said he's number one or number two in Al-Qaeda, but you never know it's real. Like there's a female former CIA person that you know says quite a bit of stuff on the internet. I don't know how much of that's true.

Gary Harrington 3:37:16

I don't think I don't know what people I I I don't look, I don't I don't buy into those, and um it's hard to separate one, we would as former agency people, we'd get in a lot of trouble if we were specific on what you know some of the intel. Um but then I think it gets hard when you're talking to some of this that it's hard for me to distinguish, like, okay, what do we know intel wise, and what do I what's my opinion based on my experience? And uh look, my opinion, hey, this whole thing about Torabora and all that kind of to me is like the the stuck the 9-11 conspiracy theories. I'm like, okay, look, I am frustrated with my government many, many times. I am angry at politicians and ambassadors many times, have told two of them you know to go fly a kite. And um uh but I believe in my country and I believe in my chain of command in general. And like 9-11, no. I I there's no president, there's no it's gonna do that to ourselves. And I I think then then with bin Laden, with all that stuff, and you can say the industrial military complex, how it benefited, yeah, it did, but the industrial military complex is a chameleon, a shape shifter. Wherever the wherever there's conflict or potential, they shift and they they're gonna do, they're gonna make their money.

Host 3:39:03

Yeah.

Gary Harrington 3:39:03

And I so I so yeah, did that go on? Yeah, but we were hunting, uh I'm just say we were going all out to try to find bin Laden.

Host 3:39:13

Yeah. My last, you know, conspiracy question, if you will, is why do you think that they hid the body? Because I think that just fueled the the whole, you know, the conspiracy thing. You know, and there's I've heard the whole, you know, we didn't want to make him a martyr. Well, he was gonna be a martyr anyway. I mean, yeah, they probably didn't want to create a site, but they they essentially did. I mean, they could go to the house where he was killed. So, you know, the whole hiding the body and you know, supposedly dumping him at sea, it just seems super odd to me personally.

Gary Harrington 3:39:44

I can see that, but looking again, we have the benefit of looking back in retrospect. So I believe there's two reasons. One, you wouldn't want a site that would could be that. Two, as we discussed last night, we've heard reports that what people were told happened to bin Laden and the condition of his body might not match reality. And what do you mean by that? Uh you know, m maybe he was shot gratuitously. And so it'd been almost unrecognizable, or maybe it was over the top and or yeah, or signs of yeah, things that we have discussed offline. Yeah. Um, so if there's no body, just like burning the what alleged torture tapes that uh uh Jose Rodriguez did uh from the CIA interrogation thing, and you know, there's no body that can't uh even if anybody would say what was done to him was deser you know befitting and and proper, then you still though you have the world and all the other uh people that that that could incite. So I think it was um they didn't want to cite there may have been we don't need the body here.

Host 3:41:22

Um yeah, we don't want to show these pictures. I mean Rob O'Neill said it recently, I think on Andy Stump's podcast. Like something that there was quite a few people that shot him at close range, so I'm sure he might have been indistinguishable uh to even, I don't know.

Gary Harrington 3:41:35

Yeah, and then you know if you have a body, you can do tests what was done and then what was done post-mortem, all that kind of stuff, and uh nobody needs to be.

Host 3:41:44

Okay, that makes sense. That answers up a lot of questions. Um, well, kind of just going back, sorry, we kind of rabbit holed on bin Laden. Uh, we've talked about him in a couple different podcasts, so it's just it's interesting, and I'm I'm on both sides of the house. I mean, I I do agree with you that some of the conspiracy stuff becomes, you know, too much. Like people believe anything. But I do believe, like, in the last, especially since COVID and some of the things that are now being uncovered, just about the JFK assassination. I'll be honest, you man, I don't know what's real. I know for sure that I mean, the agency received information from the Philippines that they knew bin Laden was trying to attack planes. Uh, I know that there was search warrants that they tried to run on several of the hijackers that were denied. And so, again, man, I I don't know what happened. I don't think anybody knows, but there's just so many inconsistencies about 9 11 that just don't make sense. I mean, you start looking at the the put options that were placed on the airline industry, somebody knew something was happening. Now, did the US government orchestrate

Gary Harrington 3:42:41

It well and and sometimes they miss it. For example, we talked last night. There was a report before Richard Reed that Al Qaeda was going to try to put a bomb in somebody's shoe and nobody believed it.

Host 3:42:58

Yeah, I wish they would have caught him. I really get tired of taking my shoes off the table.

Gary Harrington 3:43:02

Yeah. Like for the coal, uh, if you watched that, I was in a documentary about the USS Cole last year. Um it was called USS Cole, Al-Qaeda's First Attack Against America. There were FBI dudes that from the Nairobi um in Kenya bombings had a guy, an Al Qaeda guy, that they interrogated that told them there was gonna that Al-Qaeda was he he they got him to spill the beans that there was gonna be an attack against an American ship and aid in the Yemen. And again, that's a report that what what happened to that and after there.

Host 3:43:54

Uh probably sounds like a freaking ambassador probably made the report to someone.

Gary Harrington 3:43:58

Well, you know, this is the F yeah, this is the FBI and they're in Nairobi or or or Kenya, but wherever they were, and um, you know, it still didn't uh go. And you know, it it that's a good special, and the FBI guy that talks about that on there, it still, still gets him to this day because um oh, the guy that wrote the report. Yeah. Yeah, I can't. That guy that and and like what happened? I mean, we had it, we gave it to him, just like you know, me. I know I know where my sticking point was, the ambassador.

Host 3:44:38

But uh Well, after Tor Bora, instead of going home, they sent you to Coast to open a new base, and one of the men with you was Nate Chapman. Um, tell us about it's kind of an interesting story, too. I mean, it was kind of the same thing with Moholland and the agency. You were getting sent to go to Coast, so they I'll let you tell the story.

Gary Harrington 3:44:58

Um, yeah, I got right after between Christmas and New Year's. We were in a safe house coming after coming down out of Torobora in Jalalabad, and a radio message came in and told me to get back to uh Uzbekistan and report to the colonel. Okay, so I hopped on agency aircraft and got back into Tashkent and got back down to the base. I went in to see the colonel. He was in an office. We talked about some stuff that had happened up in Torabora, and um then he told me, okay, uh now you're on another agency team, jawbreaker team called Kilo. So you're gonna go to Coast. So I need you to get back into Afghanistan, go to the Ariana Hotel, it's where the agency's setting up, and uh and you're on that team. It's uh it's set. So okay, and so that's what I did and got there, um, spent a couple days in in there with that with the team prepping to go and and make the infill into Coast.

Host 3:46:17

What were you guys gonna be doing?

Gary Harrington 3:46:19

Uh link up with a warlord, and his name was Zakim Khan. And we were gonna go into Coast to take over that territory. Now, Coast was supposedly ripe with um, they call them the ash, the the ash-skinned Arabs, so al-Qaeda guys that had maybe fled out of Torres. Foreign fighters. Yeah. So we were gonna go, we were to go and you know, use the warlord and set up and dominate that area and be ready to conduct combat ops if we developed a target.

Host 3:46:55

So this is still uh special activities. We it's not we don't have a fully invested U.S. military presence. I guess we're gonna be able to do that. Still do not.

Gary Harrington 3:47:03

Yep. Nope. And um I'm at the Ariana Hotel, spent New Year's there. The 2nd of January was the infill. Um as we're getting ready to get to go to the bird, a truck pulled up outside the hotel, asked to speak to me. It was a military officer from SF. And he said, Hey, I have a message from you from Colonel Marl Holland. He said, Do not get on that helicopter and make the initial infill. I I was unhappy. And uh, like why? Uh you put me on his team, I'm gonna go with the team. And no reason why you but you cannot go on that helicopter. Now I'm uh not uh legally attached to the agency, so my chain of command is still uh army. So yeah, with a few curse words, you know, I didn't get on the helicopter and waited. The team makes that infill. Um they occupied an abandoned old German, I can't remember now if it was concrete or cinder block school in coast and set up there the next day. There was another warlord who had a lot of power in the coast area. So the next day, the agency to kind of get his cooperation and see him was gonna go visit him. So I can't remember now, I don't know if it was two trucks or one truck, but agency guys get in the truck, and in those days, we all just rode in the back of pickup trucks. Um some people wore body armor, it was like kind of like a choice thing. Some agency guys wore body armor. Uh so I uh some of us didn't. And um they go to this, they go to this meeting with a guy named Pasha Khan. When they are coming back from the meeting towards that school, Pasha Khan had had uh his fighters, well, I call them fighters, just a bunch of local yokels, with AKs lining the road on both sides, um just kind of as a show of strength and force. And also, as we found out later, he and Zakim Khan, this other warlord, hated each other and were a feud. So now here comes Zakim Khan into Coast, and he's got U.S. backing and U.S. money. Now, and anyway, as they were re coming back along that gauntlet, one of those fighters instead of his holding his AK up later, drops it down and unloads on the pickup truck. And uh one ground branch guy officer was hit, um, I mean wounded, and Nate Chapman took, I think, two rounds in the thigh, and one of the uh got his ephemoral artery cut nicks or hit or cut. And they hit the gas on the truck because they you know, trying to get off the X. And I think it was like eight minutes back to the place, and the medic was there, and um they couldn't save an ate when he bled out. And all this happened, I'm still sitting in Kabul uh because I didn't get to go in the night before, and the bird that I'm supposed to go in on now is ready to go do the Medevac and pull him out. I showed up to uh coast that helicopter came back, the medic and the wounded and the uh body on it. I spent some time because I hadn't been a former medic, um, an ASF guy, the medic and I, because he was detailed to the agency from the third group of special forces, we we talked about uh to uh let him download his experiences. And next day I I went down to Coast went in. Um I felt bad. I hadn't been there on the ground and um we cleaned up what needed to be cleaned up and did the things that uh have to be done after somebody's on your team has uh passed. And uh then we carried on, right? Moved. I was one of the people that scouted out uh what now became is Chapman or became known later as Chapman Airfield because we wanted to move from where we were in the middle of town. So went out and scouted out that and we we started a new base there, which became a coast base at uh at the airfield.

Host 3:52:19

Which would later become pretty infamous as well. Yeah. Did the temperature change a little bit when once I mean I think you know, Mike Span dies, and then you have uh Nate Chapman. Did that kind of change the temperature of what was going on on the ground once Americans started dying?

Gary Harrington 3:52:36

I was a little bit divorced from some of that because the group is back there, and I'm sure military has one opinion because my opinion was different. And and we're talking about the agency has two sections in it that operate very differently and have very different people with very different temper temperaments are attracted to each of those. One's the regular case officer side, which I later became, and the other is the paramilitary side, which are usually former special ops or marines that wind up there. Most of those teams, the jawbreaker teams, are were led by regular side case officers. And why? Because that is where generally the language capability is going to come in. And the way the agency just kind of tends to operate is those guys have the leads and the uh paramilitary side supports tactically and runs all the tactical stuff. Uh and so after Nate was killed, then the big discussion in the agency was that we're with the wrong guy. We well, and we all thought Pasha Khan ordered that as one of his people. And of course, he's saying it was some rogue that was in there and they can't find him, and they're hunting for him, and they'll get him. And uh, but we all thought, no, he was mad because we're in with his rival, and his rival's getting millions from the U.S. And he wants some of that. The way the regular side of the house, the agency started thinking, oh, well, we're we're backing the wrong horse. Meanwhile, I am telling him, well, let's just kill Pasha Khan. This is war. This is war. There's no right now, we don't know who the good and who the bad is. And yeah, let's I I had made offered plans to to get rid of him. But instead, they brought in a more senior officer who had who said, no, we're gonna now start supporting Pasha Khan. I'm like, we just gave him what if if he wanted if he kid if they killed Nate to get a change, they've succeeded. And so I I wasn't happy, but yet kind of on the bigger politics scale thing, way, that's how it worked. Now, meantime, we had those two guys that were really more interested in killing each other, the two warlords, than helping us find Al-Qaeda or Taliban. I went to Zakem Khan, the first guy, and I said, Hey, you're originally from Argun. And that was a bad real bad guy territory, supposedly. So I said, what if you pull out of here and you go back to Argun, and then in if you go, if you do that, I will go with you and I will support you, and we'll bring in special ops and you'll be there. But it just said you're we're separating you two, and you can work with us up there. And the agency bought into that. They thought, okay, that sounds like a good plan. We'll buy into that, we'll send people, we'll it'll be an agency op. And so, yeah, we did that. I ran that infill. Because the the thing, how it worked with those initial jawbreaker teams would go in, and like with Coast, what Moholland told me was don't bring in ODAs until that's set up to do it. And I kept delaying bringing in ODAs because the people on the ground, I said it's just a gaggle of people. They don't have anything, proper equipment, they don't have any training, there's no command structure, there's no, it's just a warlord telling his favorite people and they're kicking other people in the ass and making them do stuff. So we gotta have to fall in on. We need to set up, and I said, I want to set up a logistics cell, I want to set up an ops cell. Uh, one of the things I learned in Torabora was it was during Ramadan. So two issues with that. One, we were forcing, trying to force people to move up and take ground that had no food and water all day because of Ramadan. And so now as night falls, they haven't eaten all day. Where are they gonna go? The food now, because there's no forward kitchen, is back several kilometers that way. So they're all going back that way to get fed. There was no provision to feed in place for the locals. So I'm like, I can't, I'm not bringing in ODAs till we resolve this problem.

Host 3:57:38

So people don't realize armies don't move with all logistics.

Gary Harrington 3:57:41

Yeah, so I mean, just getting pick up trucks and buying, you know, gas canisters and the burners and all the pots, so we had kitchens in the back of trucks that could go forward to provide that. So that's one of the reasons. Like I argued with the agency team leader over that, and because he got really upset that I would not tell Mulholland to send in ODAs. And and he looked at me, he happened to be a reserve officer and special forces officer, too. And he said, So you're basically telling us that everybody here is waiting on you and E7 to approve something before we can move forward. I looked at him and said, Yep. You like apples? How do you like them apples? Well, I didn't say that. No, and and you know, I'm not nothing against that. It's just that uh again, I was sent by the colonel, I was given direction. And my thing was, I am gonna, he trusts me, I am gonna do that to the standard he expects, and then I'll do it.

Host 3:58:50

Did you uh were you up there like getting into battles with these warlords, like going out with these warlords to fight Al Qaeda?

Gary Harrington 3:58:56

No, no, and and I think a lot of people have a misconception about that. There was very little of that done.

Host 3:59:01

Well, that's because we watched uh 12 Strong with dudes shooting the 12 strong horseback dude.

Gary Harrington 3:59:07

And all that's they never fired a shot from horseback, and a lot of that's uh mischaracterized, but hey, it's a good story. It's a great movie. I would now now I I've been in some documentaries, so those have to be closer to the line, but even those, you know, some of the stuff is kind of off. Yeah, there wasn't the big combat, it was mostly with air power. We did a lot when when I was in Coast. So I'm waiting to do all that in Coast, and then meanwhile, I make this deal that we're gonna go to Urgoom. So now I have to plan how to infill in Urgoom. Now, here's a place there's been no U.S. people ever, there's no support, there's nothing. It's supposed to be crawling with um Arabs. So how do you go? How am I gonna infill? How am I gonna bring a hilo up into those mountains and get in there? And I've got nobody on the ground and then nobody to send in advance. So my the way I created for that was um the the warlord Zakim Khan had a nephew that um younger guy, and I I taught him how to use a Fariah, and then I taught him how to use an IR strobe, and I taught him what was required for a landing zone, and I went out and had him practice, you know, with the interpreter, and he would go out and pick a spot, and okay, yes. Well, no, we can't use this because of that. So then eventually I got him where he could pick out an LZ, and then I taught him how to use the IR strobe. So now technically I can send this guy and some people, locals, up to Argoon, and he could find a landing zone and he can mark a landing zone to we could come in on. But now, what's my security? What's my safety? How am I knowing that I'm not bringing a landing zone to into a bunch of Al-Qaeda? So I took uh thinking about it a while, I did two things. First, was once he got up into Orgon, I told him that when I um I want him to go out every night at this time and mark that landing zone. And I let him do that nights, several nights, and we're not coming, we're not showing, because now I'm like, yeah. Then then I'm hoping that they'll get tired of it and not be if if they brought in al-Qaeda, you know, it won't be as easy to leave some uncertainty. And then the next thing I did was I went to Zakim Khan and I said, it would be an honor, just a real honor to me, that on the first Americans to go it to Urgoon, that you know, your brother and a couple of your relatives could go with me. I that would be, I would it would just be an honor. So uh yeah.

Host 4:02:22

That way, so you knew you wouldn't get whacked on the way in?

Gary Harrington 4:02:24

Yeah. No, put them on the helicopter. Well, maybe I know in Afghans, and if it was I I I shouldn't say some of those warlords. I actually I can't maybe not Zakim Khan, but just the money thing, right? It was a big big temptation. But um I put them on I so I put them on the helicopter and we went on like the third or fourth night and made the end film. How much were we paying all these warlords?

Host 4:02:50

I mean, I know that there was like suitcases of cash just getting moved around.

Gary Harrington 4:02:53

Yeah, I've carried in duffel bags of cash for the agency, you know, back at Carsi Connabat. Oh, you're going back to where whatever. Hey, can you take this? You know, and it's a duffel bag on wheels that's got money in it. Yeah, it was hard. I mean, money made everything move. Well, you find out later, like they would, they would like we're there because we had no support. So how are we gonna move? Well, gosh, we need vehicles. And you turn the warlord, we need vehicles. Okay, here's $80,000. Excuse me.

Host 4:03:29

So U.S. currency was was good everywhere in Afghanistan, past. Oh, yeah.

Gary Harrington 4:03:32

U.S. currency was the Afghan currency was uh nothing. Oh, cash is keen. And the dollar bill, man, that was cash is key. But but the and we found out later, hey, they when we said we want this kind of vehicle, they go up to somebody that has that kind of vehicle, and it's either here we're buying your vehicle, or it's uh no, we're taking your vehicle. And and like we've we caught them later, like Hazar Ali in the bazaar selling some of the cold weather gear that we had parachuted in and gave out to them. And you know, they're some of them, not all, were cutthroats.

Host 4:04:13

Afghans are gonna do Afghan shit, bro. That's there's no there's no stopping story.

Gary Harrington 4:04:18

And we so we made the infill into Ergoon, and this is now my g gonna be my third jawbreaker team. I it's still it's really uncertain. So I did that thing where I kept everybody on the aircraft and where they could be covered down on the family of the guy, and I said I would go off first. And you know, I just said, hey, if you see me dive on the ground, just start, you know, just start shooting over my head and you know, just start and uh I'll try to get back to the helicopter. So and then that kind of gave the threat that if I was shot at that something might happen to the family members.

Host 4:05:04

So um so you get in a to Orgun and get that set up. Um how long were you there?

Gary Harrington 4:05:13

I was there I don't know how many weeks, some weeks. I got my first um cowboy movie bath in a long time. I wore there's some pictures of me. I know later everybody including Delta Guys and everybody tried to dress the same. Um, I never wanted to do that because there's some point to me where it looks like Dime Store Cowboy playing dress up. Um where I went, I went a lot of time places by myself with Afghans. And I knew I'm not gonna fake them out. That if you're up close, I'm an American. But my goal was that if somebody's further away and I'm with a group, that it'll be harder to spot me. So yeah, the beard and I wore local clothes, and I had a blanket wrapped around me over the top of my rifle. Uh I ditched my military um LB, you know, load carrying equipment and wore uh AK vest, you know, to try to blend in somewhat. But while I was there, you know, by this time I'd gotten closer to Zakeem Khan. He said, Your beard needs a trim. You'll see pictures from those early days. Some guys had Z Z top beards all stringy in down. But uh, you know, he said uh uh you know a warlord and a chieftain needs, you know, a good beard needs to trim. And Ergoon was just a dust, just like the old outpost cowboy, deserted village. That's what it was like. And he said, go with me and you can get a haircut out because I wanted a haircut. I'd I've been in country, what now, four months? Yeah, hair, and I uh so we we go in this place, and there's a potbelly stove, and the guy sits there with scissors and a razor and cuts my hair. And then he says, Do you want to do you wanna bathe? And they already interpreted him. He said he asked, Do you want to bathe? I'm like, like, what do y'all you guys are all gonna watch me? I heard enough stories about Man Love Thursday and uh and no, you can, and it was so cool. This is where it's like you know the cowboy movies where they're pouring the water in the bath. So what this was the around the edge, two edges of the room were little like booths with curtains in them, and there was a pipe run around the wall, and there was a opening in in the pipe or something coming out where water would come out. I can't remember if there was a nozzle on it or not, and then it went around to an empty truck gas tank that was up on top of a ladder, and the guy on the pot belly stove was heating water, and then he would go mix the hot water with cold water in there, and if you wanted a bath, some dude's pouring the water up there while you're in this little booth. So I I thought, oh, might as well live like like the cowboy movies.

Host 4:08:39

Yeah, and I think people don't understand, like, you know, they they some people, you know, they we had fobs and bases, but when you were there, there was none of that, and there's no like running water per se, unless you're probably in downtown Kabul. Everywhere else in Afghanistan, it's very primitive.

Gary Harrington 4:08:54

Very primitive. I I rotted the pair of jeans I wore into Afghanistan, literally rotted off me one time, and I had to buy off from a local village, procure some kind of green pantaloony pants. There's a picture of me, and it looks it looks like pirate pants, a big giant thing at the bottom that bellows out and then comes up, and I was like, oh man, this this is bad. But yeah, that's how it was. And I threw away a lot of the after it ended up, I stayed in Afghanistan five months. And just to be honest, nobody else uh did most of those ODAs went in for two weeks and came out, or went back to a fob, or went back to later Bagram or somewhere. Yeah, and I didn't do that, and I had to throw away I I rotted through a set and had to throw away a bunch of other stuff when I came back.

Host 4:09:56

What um were you kind of more in an advisor role the whole time? Or I mean did you ever get any like kinetic operations?

Gary Harrington 4:10:04

Other than calling for fire, I called for fire, and then you know, I went out to do to hit um arms cachets, but I I I didn't have to use force. I I was really, really successful, but I did it the way I think you're taught to. Most of those little tiny villages have stuff from the 80s buried somewhere, and you would never, ever, ever find it. It's so well hidden, so deep, so well cacheted. And we'd go, and with because you have the agency money, I would go with an interpreter and a local, and we would go to the village, and I would have them go up and me, the whiteface, stay back, and tell them, hey, we're with the Americans, got a report that there's you know, a cachet here, and we're not gonna arrest anybody, we're not gonna detain anybody, but what we'd like to do to protect you is get the stuff. And um then on behind us, I would have a big one of those big jingle trucks full of mattresses, blankets, beans, rice, stuff like that. And after the first village cooperated with me and bring that truck in, and uh they're happy. And then after that, word it got to the it actually got to the point I would go somewhere and go to one village, but you got to be ready to fight when you go. There's you know, once we hit a compound, found a bunch of artillery pieces, but they had abandoned it, but it was a fortress-like thing. So yeah, we did like a regular assault for that, but it it was empty. But I was in the one village, and before we could get the stuff out of it, people from the neighboring village were coming. Hey, we got we have stuff at our village too.

Host 4:12:09

Come and help us. Um, you you found an Arabic translation of a U.S. military operations manual in a JBAD safe house that bin Laden had used.

Gary Harrington 4:12:17

Yeah.

Host 4:12:17

What do you think about an enemy who studies you that carefully?

Gary Harrington 4:12:20

Well, studies us. The planning from 9-11 showed that they studied us. I think the manual uh it just goes to show like the Chinese copyists. Like they take our stuff because they got to train all these guys, and somebody took our manual, easily available, and um translated it into Arabic and maybe made a few tweaks, and they have that. Yeah.

Host 4:12:46

I've I've still got that. Did um so after you do your five months, you rip out how long are you home before you go back to Afghanistan?

Gary Harrington 4:12:54

I went in in November to Afghanistan from Uzbekistan. And then I stayed till April. I was the last fifth group guy to come out. By then the reserve unit came in uh and had replaced the rest of fifth group because I was again kind of lone to the eight that the group guys all left, but I was still working with an agency team, uh, and uh a fourth age jawbreaker team. So for Anaconda, most of the rest of fifth group right after Anaconda pulled out and left.

Host 4:13:29

Can you talk about Anaconda at all? What would you involvement? What do you know? Like what happened?

Gary Harrington 4:13:36

I was sent from Argun to the next jawbreaker team. The agency had run out of available paramilitary guys, and they wanted a case officer and some agency guys to sit on guess who? Pasha Khan again after all this time, who has relocated to another place in Afghanistan. And they wanted to make sure A, he didn't interfere with Ops and Anaconda, B, um, you know, just keeping tabs on him and sideline him because he he'd been doing a lot of bad stuff in the interim. And I was sent there to be the head tactical guy on there. And the case officer came, he was a senior guy, and he had some GRS guys with him, not paramilitary, but GRS guys. Now, and their former SEAL SF and um but not but they're in security and protection, not ground branch. And so I was the tactical, at least on paper, the tactical leader for that. And there are a few other agency guys with them filling various roles. And um so we did that, had the one point where I think we I told you in the prep for Anaconda uh about a meeting we had in the middle of this big big place where it turned out they're probably trying to ambush us in the middle of this big valley. But our role for Anaconda was mostly to sideline this guy to maybe cover one flank of the ground uh for Anaconda.

Host 4:15:38

Um what was operate what were they trying to do at Operation Anaconda?

Gary Harrington 4:15:42

I mean, I know it was supposed to be a big collection of fighters up there. And the SF guys were gonna move and they had the AC-130. You know, we lost again to friendly fire. Some SF guys, a warrant officer. Uh, one of the trucks was mistaken by the AC-130.

Host 4:16:01

Um during anaconda?

Gary Harrington 4:16:03

During anaconda as a bad cause we always hear about SEALs and uh, but uh the regular fifth group guys were up there. That was the last deal. And uh so the truck starts when rounds start coming and they start trying to evade, but hey, it's an AC 130, and I think they took a 105 round.

Host 4:16:26

Who was calling for fire on them?

Gary Harrington 4:16:28

Uh I don't know who was calling for fire, and um yeah, I'm not sure what boundaries or what leeway they had been given up there.

Host 4:16:39

So they're planning to go, so they're doing the planning for Anaconda uh to to to snuff out some of the fighters up there. You and your jawbreaker team are sitting on Pasha Khan to keep him from getting involved.

Gary Harrington 4:16:51

Yeah, to keep him from and again, there was a lot of distrust on him. And and to be honest, while I was on Team Kilo, I I'm I'm still I I was still just seething about Nate and that we didn't kill him. And by this time now, some time has gone by. I've been hearing from agency people, this guy's dirty. We should have killed him then. I've been hearing from senior military people, you know, they got Nate, man, we should kill him. So I to be honest, I I probably plotted murder, uh, because I developed plans to kill him, and I was not gonna um wait for an official thing. I was just gonna wanted to kill him. And but I kept planning in different ways, like when he drives, if he drives past on this road, I'll shoot an RPG. But and everything came back, well, you know, it's really gonna reflect badly on fifth group and all that stuff. And well, maybe you shoot this way, that it didn't work until finally one day it dawned on me that and and we still have the the ambush and the setup thing to talk through. But um it got to the point that I then one day I thought, wait a second, I'm not in the agency. I'm in the army. Now what does my rules of engagement say for me in the army? It says that if I feel threatened, I am allowed to employ a deadly force. Oh my uh oh. So the sneaky way me trying to kill him is not gonna work. The way I need to kill him is openly and brazenly with provocation. Yeah. So now what I have to do is create that provocation. So there was one time where we're providing security for the senior agency guy at this little outpost up in the mountains. And this Pashakan guy looked like Java the Hutt. He was an ugly, ugly, ugly man and uh big, and he he had a big voice and a real volatile temper. I got the interpreter off to the side. I didn't okay, to be honest, I didn't tell anybody because I thought this is something I have to keep to myself and I'll just deal with it after. And I said, I told the interpreter, I said, I need you to translate, don't do that thing you interpreters do, which is try to soften what I say. When I tell you something, I want it literal to him the way I say it. Okay, he's sitting here, I sit beside him, we're on the floor, cross-legged. I lay my carbine across me this way, pointed towards him. And we start going. Now I start hitting him up, I start ridiculing him, I start giving him a hard time, I start raising my voice. I'm trying to antagonize him because I was waiting. He wore a 44, I don't know what kind of pistol it was. He wore a shoulder holster and with a pistol on it. And my goal was I was gonna get him to yell because he's a violent little guy, and act angry. And when he did, I was just gonna shoot him right there in front of all his people and everybody. And the I'm trying to get him going, and meanwhile, the team leader who speaks the language hears what's going on. And he comes over there, he goes, Gary, what are you doing? I said, getting ready to kill this. And he said, Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you need to rethink that. So I we yeah, we I did, and and and now I I'm glad. I I I we're different people then. And but going back to Anaconda.

Host 4:20:59

So you guys are on the jawbreaker team, you're having a deal with Posha Khan.

Gary Harrington 4:21:03

Yeah.

Host 4:21:04

Um, how does how does the whole Anaconda thing play out from where from your vantage point?

Gary Harrington 4:21:09

From my from my vantage point, uh the night the helicopters uh came over and the whole Roberts Ridge thing, yeah, those helicopters flew over us on their way up into Anaconda. I didn't get up in the combat part of Anaconda. They that happened the night before. We came in sweeping the day after. Um, yeah, just picking our way in our borrowed pickup trucks up the mountain and got up there, and we went through all the bombed up stuff. And um, yeah, for us that was it. There was no more combat, just the aftermath. Did you guys help recover? No.

Host 4:21:54

So after that deployment, you're the last one out, you go back to the states. How long are you home before you're turning and burning her?

Gary Harrington 4:22:03

I got word when I was in Afghanistan that the agency had asked for me by name to be loaned to them to do some preparatory work before the war with Iraq. That theoretically we weren't at war yet and we were still trying to forge away, but I'd been told, yeah, don't you worry about it. You're going, you're going to war. This is for Iraq. For Iraq.

Host 4:22:30

So you went home and started preparing for the bigger.

Gary Harrington 4:22:31

I went home and uh, yeah, immediately. Yeah, I I'm I'm I'm sure I took a vacation and went and saw my kids uh who were in Texas at the time and uh took some time and then uh had training and legal things I needed to do. Because this time I wasn't gonna be handed to the agency illegally, it was the whole legal process had to take place so that I could be assigned to one of their um in the Middle East to do preparatory stuff for Afghan um Iraq.

Host 4:23:09

So you went to go do that in 2002.

Gary Harrington 4:23:12

Yeah. So I came out of Afghanistan in April, and I probably went to start doing that other stuff uh April, May, June, July. I don't know, maybe August. I don't know. Sometime like that. When did you actually maybe earlier, but in 2002? I didn't really have any downtime much.

Host 4:23:39

So what did what did you what did you what did you do to help prepare for Iraq as much as you can?

Gary Harrington 4:23:43

There was uh the agency was warned twofold. A, the agency's trying to develop real intel inside Iraq. And B, the agency's needing to help facilitate the war effort. Some of that stuff is locating scuds, uh, looking for, you know, any signs of Kim stuff, you know, just weapons of mass destruction. Basic, you know, reporting and locating. There were people like smugglers that used to come out of Iraq. And those were people that they're not, they're they're uneducated local guys. You can't, they're they're not really Intel people, but you could train up a guy enough that if he see and give him a GPS, that if he sees a scud launcher, he can get the location, and then if you can get him back and debrief it, you can pull that GPS up and figure out where that was, you know, stuff like that. The other thing is, and again, these are just low-level, hate to call them nugs, but they're just low-level people, is that as things keep getting developed inside Iraq, maybe you have a guy further inside Iraq somewhere that needs a cup a few thorayas or something, or some cash. How am I gonna get that to him? Well, if you have if you're running a network of smugglers, then you have something that can get across the border. So my job, there had been this program ran before and there were no US people involved. Some uh people from the that country's uh equivalent of the FBI were doing it, and they were dudes in dish dashes and 38 pistols, and one of the assets had been compromised or set them up, and they the that team walked into a Iraqi ambush one day in uh probably 2001, and two of those cops were killed. Um, so then it was decided that they needed somebody with tactical experience to come and run that tactical portion. That the tactical portion for me involved, and I reported to again, as I was saying before, with Afghanistan, I had another guy who was a regular um case officer who managed the program and handled the intel debrief, brief, all that part. My job was to go to Where somewhere along a border um to meet an asset and get them back to a secret uh secret place where they could be debriefed and then uh tasked and then get them back into Iraq. So you were doing full blown intelligence preparation on the battlefield trying to Yeah, and we had to evolve like where we were, there was like 10 kilometer zone that no Iraqis were supposed to be in and no um Americans were supposed to be in, and the UN patrolled it, and you know, it's I I laugh about this. My instructions were don't get anybody killed, don't get caught by the UN, and don't accidentally start the war before the president is ready. Because uh yeah, and and we were gone, and yet sometimes technically I crossed that line that between the two countries and um had our adventures up there. Was any of the information hiding from the UN? Who do you think that when would you ever think that you can be hiding from the UN?

Host 4:27:57

Yeah. Was any of the information that you were providing both before the war and and and you know, right after the war kicked off, was that used um operationally?

Gary Harrington 4:28:06

I'm not sure if the military got any grid coordinates when there weren't many coming in from um scud launchers, and most of those were mobile so that they could move after. Uh one of the successes we did have, other than we did transport, I use those people to transport stuff that we wanted to get to more sensitive and higher placed assets inside Iraq. But the one thing that was a big success from that is one of these local uneducated smugglers, um, once the war kicked off, and now there was no need for me to do what I was doing pre-war upon sneaking back and forth across borders, because now the U.S. we've just invaded and we're moving up towards Baghdad. I said, Well, I don't need this group of guys now doing this. And another agency team, kind of like the jawbreaker teams, was now uh at another location in Iraq. So I took the smugglers and I told them, hey, I want you to go up here and you're gonna work with this guy that works with us. And so sent him up to that team. And one of those guys happened to be the guy that walked into the hospital where Jessica Lynch was with the video camera that um that confirmed her presence there at the hospital. Nice.

Host 4:29:44

And that was the guy that you were running?

Gary Harrington 4:29:45

Uh yeah, he'd been one of my one of my little smuggler dudes, just a dude. But you know, sometimes those guys, it's the unimportant, that little guy, sometimes they're more daring, I think. Maybe because they're they're just not smart enough to figure out the danger. But um, sometimes I think then some of the other higher placed people. So that guy, yeah, he he went there.

Host 4:30:13

Um, how did you get involved in that? Did you I mean obviously just the they get captured, I'm sure that becomes a a country PR incident, right? And so everybody's activated. Um were you near that city, or were you already working in and around that city? I'm just curious.

Gary Harrington 4:30:28

No. Uh I I at that time stayed in my country and um sent this guy further into Iraq. I I think I actually probably sent him to Nasseria.

Host 4:30:43

I think that's where they were.

Gary Harrington 4:30:44

I uh so and I did make an early trip to Nasseria uh while combat was still going on further from Nasseria. Um I I took I hooked up with a special forces team and took some agency people to a big gathering of tribal chiefs up in Nasseria. And uh so that I I think that's where I sent that guy. And uh again, he was the one. I and there's uh a lot of famous stuff about this doctor that they didn't, but I don't know if he he may have said she was there or whatever, but the guy that did it was this uh little smuggler guy.

Host 4:31:27

So he went in there and recon the place and came back, and that's all he he they sent him in.

Gary Harrington 4:31:32

I and I think it was to confirm like is there so somebody on that team uh outfitted, just took a a bag they procured locally, cut a hole in it, stuck a video camera in there, and fixed a way for him to activate the camera and just send him into the hospital with that camera.

Host 4:31:50

That's awesome, dude. It's always cool when we get the win like that. Sometimes people think that, you know. People don't understand. I say it all the time. Intel drives a battlefield, dude. Like, in order for special people to do special things, you need to.

Gary Harrington 4:32:02

Yeah, it does. Well, I was gonna use those smugglers. Like at one point, and you know, it just it's kind of odd. There's another almost that the agency came to me and asked me to get a nuclear scientist out of Iraq before the war. This is before the war. And I concocted this long plan that uh would have would have involved those smugglers there. In the end, somebody kanked it because they um it kind of involved me going in inside and you know, there was so I I I didn't like it because I thought, oh, you want to be first. And uh and uh so but uh but the plan was solid. I flew to another country in Europe somewhere, and uh there a part of it involved somebody from there, and we prepped everything ready to go, and at the last second, um, I got a call and said, cancel, cancel this mission.

Host 4:33:18

Well, before we drive into the next part of your career, because you literally I think you left the army on a Friday and uh started working at the agency on a Monday pretty much locally.

Gary Harrington 4:33:28

Finished uh after we invaded in 2003, I started going into Iraq and back out, back and forth and doing some agent stuff there, running in assets and ran around in Baghdad and some other places. So you were essentially attached to fifth group, but I mean Well, this time I'm legally belong with the agency.

Host 4:33:50

Most of the time you're a fifth group, you were sliced out to somebody else. Did you ever do time on an ODA?

Gary Harrington 4:33:55

Yeah, uh team 4'5, 545, Terry Peters. Uh that's right, you said that one. Yeah, great team. I I really liked that. Uh probably overall of any ODA I served on that was the best.

Host 4:34:08

And uh, and then after that, I went to uh triple nickel 5'5, and it was them that came in and did the um the mining thing in Yemen, and then uh was it the same guys on the demining mission that went in or that team?

Gary Harrington 4:34:26

Well, some of it, you know, it's funny because then you go to Afghanistan, and there were still a couple of holdovers from that team that uh were several holdovers that went were on triple nickel in Afghanistan. But you think it's not fair to a team because here I am, a team is getting slotted against me. Yeah, so they can't replace me, but yet because of sock scent and other stuff, I'm always gone because I'm off on some doing some other thing by myself. It's not really fair to a team. Yeah, I can imagine.

Host 4:35:03

Um, well, let's uh let's take a quick break before we dive into CIA. Yep. So now we go on to this next phase of your your life. Um, we kind of hinted at it earlier, but I mean you literally left the army on like a Friday and started the agency kind of on a Monday. Not really shocking because you'd been working over there for what a couple years. I mean, pretty much as a DTLE and then as that like an assigned person over there. But um what was it like to go over there now that you're actually working over there? And it's kind of a unique story because you didn't get hired as a case officer, which you should have been initially.

Gary Harrington 4:35:38

Yeah, yeah. I yeah, because of my work in Iraq stuff, where I worked with the regular case officer side of the house, they knew me and they had made an exception. The the boss where I was could make an exception and allowed me to run an agency case and recruit. Just uh I I don't know how the legalities of that. So I thought I was gonna come in and and be able to do that. And then after I went through the HR part, they said, no, you have to come in as an SOO, which is essentially a desk officer. That's the person that sits in the headquarters. And that when people from the field write their operational cables, takes it and represents it before a board and tracks it and says, Well, here's where we are with this case. Um and then eventually headquarters has to say we like it or don't, continue pursuing it. Uh, then you know, there's other recommendations, and there's a whole like process that you have to go have to go through. Um, so that's what that desk officer does. When you get your response from the field from headquarters, some uh SOO has done that. And so I I came in and they told me that's what you're gonna do. And I I was I was angry.

Host 4:37:13

I was yeah, man, because at this point you've recruited sources, you've run agents, you've done work that most case officers never even get near. You've run equipment, I mean, and you've worked hand in hand with with you know ground branch. And yeah, I guess my question is like, what did you think the CIA was going to be, and how fast did that picture change? Yeah, yeah.

Gary Harrington 4:37:35

Well uh and again, I'd been on the the forward edge of stuff for the agency, so I I guess I expected it to be more like that. And I knew that going to the silent house I was going was gonna be different and more office, but you know how different. There's things I'm bad at with my uh ADHD and and personality, routine things, administrative things, uh bookkeeping type things, not me. And I'm not good at it and I don't like it. So at when I got that job, one, I think I I maybe that was when we talked offline that I'd never learned to type. So the two years that I was assigned to the agency in cables, that's me with a forefinger, two forefingers doing like this. I remember in the agency the first time that I thought I was being funny and wanted to play a joke on a girl. And uh yeah, it bothered me how fast everybody could type and they could talk while they were typing and all that stuff. And I was like, Yeah, well, I will show a lesson. I instead of everybody laughing, because people used to laugh at me, they called me uh Neander Phil and uh said that you're kind of like a Neander Thaw, but you also got a little Phil, uh Dr. Phil in you. So um, but I went to her keyboard and popped off keys and switched them around. And if you did that to me, I I'd cease. I could not type. And I remember going back and going, I'm getting even with these agency people now, and just wait till she goes and tries to type. And that woman came and sat down and started typing, and she's typing, and she's talking, and she's typing, and I'm like waiting for my big moment, and it never came till it dawned on me that she ain't looking at her fingers. So the job of a Sioux, mostly admin, uh, it was hurting me and it was hard. So because I was so slow with uh manipulating the databases and the systems and the actual typing, it took me a long time to get some of the stuff done. So I would have to stay extra, come in late, come in early, come in on a weekend to try to keep up with where did you initially get assigned? So I got assigned to the Near East Division Iraq Operations um office.

Host 4:40:24

How uh how was that being in the agency? I mean, granted, you've worked with them, you've worked around them, but now you're kind of in the brain, the hub of you know what controls the world, if you will. Um, is it weird to see behind the curtain or was none of it shocking because you'd already worked with the agency?

Gary Harrington 4:40:40

Um I think maybe seeing just some of the process part, you know, it's always the thing with any government thing. It's like it's not the tip of the spear, it's all the the well, I I hate to call it bureaucracy because not all of it's negative, but just what it takes behind the scenes to make the stuff happen. And and some of that, because then you're like all these little boards that meet and evaluate and look at things, and you have to manipulate all that stuff. And um was there a lot of like I couldn't even most of the young people and doing the job I did, a lot of young people, and like the blue flashing light when somebody is trying to send you an instant message bothered the heck out of me. And like I would have to answer it, but then I take me away from my work, and yet the young people, I'd say they would have like six or seven flashing lights, six or seven conversations, typing away like this, and still could be able to do halfway a conversation. And I'm like, uh, you know, have to don't bother me. I gotta just look at this. And yeah, I yes, I look I'm I'm the fastest two or three finger typer that I could be, but I've still not progressed past that.

Host 4:41:55

Yeah, I always laugh when I watch Jason Bourne. I've said this on other podcasts too. You know, you watch Jason Bourne for an hour and he's killing people and sneaking into buildings, whatever, and all I could ever think is like, man, that dude's gonna do a lot of typing when he's done working, bro.

Gary Harrington 4:42:07

That's that's the part that people don't get is how much typing there is. It's just a lot.

Host 4:42:16

Um, how long, how long were you in SOO before you um went to the farm?

Gary Harrington 4:42:23

I became that that, and so immediately I'm going to my boss and saying, Hey, I have I gotta get to the train and I gotta go to the farm. I I can't do that. I brought I was brought in for this. Other people, and it's like, uh, yeah, you're new here. You've got other people in this office that have been employees for eight years, 10 years, and they're waiting for the chance to go.

Host 4:42:46

Like, cool. Did any of them go to Toro Bora? All right.

Gary Harrington 4:42:49

Well, yeah, you like to say that, but the person I'm talking to hasn't been either, right? So um these this is early on, you know, you're talking 2004, so it's early in the global war on terror. So the the very few people from the agency other than the paramilitary side have actually gone forward and served. And I would I was just despondent. I was like, I can't do this. This is gonna kill me. I can't, I and you know, I tried to get involved in what I could. I volunteered to do briefings for the um the chief of IraqyOps, his daily brief once in a while to just get my name on his radar and all that kind of stuff. And um they painted a dour picture, but I kept pushing. And then that person's boss happened to be somebody that I worked with doing Iraqi ops before, and who I happened to meet in 1998 and nine. And you have to look at my story to see where I was because I I was at a location in the Middle East, uh 98, 99. And he said, you know, a guy he saw me and he said, Hey Gary, how's it going? I go, I think I'm gonna swallow a bullet because you know I I came here under all this stuff and what I I could do, and now I'm told I'm here and I might be doing this years, and uh I really want to go to the course. And uh a couple weeks later my boss came to me and said, Well, I don't know who you have and what friends you have and what places, but uh I guess you got bumped up on the list to to go with and so I I did have to spend six months um as a s in that job, and then I got to go to what what we call the short course, um which in ways uh was a curse because the farm is longer and teaches y'all that stuff. And um the short course is designed exactly for who my boss had described, somebody that's been in the agency eight years, ten years, six years, thoroughly knows all the systems and just needs to learn the operational aspect uh because they don't take time and they're so it's a course that was run, I don't know if they still have it, in the uh Northern Virginia area that did the same things and to certify you. So I was selected for that. Now the problem is when I went there that there was no tolerance as being like at the regular farm that you're a new agency employee. It was like you got to hit the ground running. And I was hitting the ground walking. So I yeah, I had I I struggled not with the ops, but I struggled with keeping up with all the uh the reporting, reporting and paperwork.

Host 4:46:15

You said, you know, transitioning to you know to the short course that you went to. You you said it was hard for different reasons than the physical schools, the culture class with you know how they perceived you. Talk a little bit about the friction. I mean, you're you're an operational guy coming from the army, and now you're look, man, there's a certain culture at the agency. You and I have talked about it a lot off camera. Um, and I know that was kind of a clash in you.

Gary Harrington 4:46:38

Um how did that how and part of that clash was I was on the regular side of the house, not the paramilitary side. So these are people that that's what they've known out of college. It would be like me as an SF guy saying, and I've got somebody that's been in some totally different career field all their career, show up on my team and say, Yeah, now I'm here to do the same thing you do. And I might not be too pleased about that. Um and and some was more uh I I think people just unaware. I know I had a clash with uh instructor, well, clash was internal. The paramilitary side of the house had not let anybody go to the short course for two or more years. And the reason they did not was because of the culture clash between those instructors and the paramilitary side, and their guys were getting like for little reason at all, failed at the end. And there was a lot of concern about sending me because I had the same background as those, as how it would resonate with some of these instructors. And a lot of our instructors were retirees that were contracted that were old school, you know, um Russian agent type trade craft uh trained, and you know, they they didn't really like someone with my they kept wanting to take the military out of me to uh to function. Uh to say because that's that's the way we are and how we operate. I I another example was when I was learning how to do um surveillance detection. You have your vehicle portion and there's a foot portion, and it's early on and you're Teams of two, two men room, me and my roommate have our uh primary instructor, and he gave us instructions. And on on maybe it was on a weekend, uh we were people were in there working, the students, and I was talking to a girl or a couple girls that worked for a different instructor, and asked them something about what instructions they were given about this lesson we had all just gotten on vehicle SDRs. And they said, We got this, and I was like, ah, we were told this. And and I was trying to resolve why why what they were being told and what we were being told were two different things. Meanwhile, their instructor, who was a a uh um a female instructor, looked at me and then she said, Hey, you you know, why are you even worried about this stuff? She said, You have no idea what an SDR is until you're doing one at 90 miles an hour down Route Irish in Baghdad. And I was shocked because what I learned and what I was advised before I went to this course is keep your mouth shut about your past experience because they don't want to know that you have done what they've done. And two things struck me. A yes, I've been on Route Irish, yes, I've been up and down it, and I've been up and down it not in an armored car. Um and I didn't drive 90 miles an hour, and I happened to be there when you were there, and I saw you and I know about you. But I had to stay silent. And then I got some more talk about how I didn't know anything. And I walked in there, and I'd been catching some of this like from so many instructors. I remember I walked back in there to my little two-man room, and I actually thought, I'm gonna have to quit the agency because um I'm either gonna blow up or I'm gonna hurt somebody or something. I went there, I just started beating my head against the locker, and I was like, I do not know if I can take this. Because it's just like taking that and keeping it.

Host 4:51:21

So you knew this instructor from a previous life?

Gary Harrington 4:51:23

Yeah, yeah.

Host 4:51:24

Oh, that's hilarious.

Gary Harrington 4:51:25

From I knew I knew them. I had seen them in Baghdad. And they, I don't guess they knew or had an idea. And it just it was that kind of thing, right? You just like you had to swallow it and take it. You know, that's what what the old saying in all the military school cooperate and graduate. And uh I wanted it. Still, though, in the short course, I went through all that and and did well. And then right at the end, I got called in, well, you know, your reports, your intel reports, not gonna cut the grade. And they're talking about like failing me. It turned into a long thing. And actually, I found out later that a group of uh instructors lined up and went in there and spoke on my behalf and was saying, Hey, this is there's there's some personality stuff here. This is not you know, he we we would we would work with him and trust him um overseas, and they were senior people that had done that. So I got uh provisional certification, which meant I had to do a year of successful work uh in the field before it would be uh become permanent.

Host 4:52:41

So you graduate the um you know the the the short course, the short accelerated course at the at the farm and August 2005. Man, the war of full war in Iraq's full blown. Where uh what did where did they send you after that school?

Gary Harrington 4:52:57

Well, I was supposed to go to another Middle Eastern country and work in their embassy, and um because I convinced HR, I said, look, I've done Iraq for you guys, I've done Afghanistan with you guys, and I've been in all these other war zones and Middle East. I need I need the non-war zone experience. But the day I graduated the short course, I got uh an email from HR said, please stop by HR um regarding your assignment uh at your earliest convenience, which that means now. So I uh I went there and they said, Yeah, about that embassy. No. You're going to Afghanistan. And uh I was like, Afghanistan? You're like, I already got a timeshare there. Yeah, yeah. They said that, well, hey, uh, we've had like a merry, somebody, some two people pulled out the last second. Uh there's a critical shortage, and you were asked for by name out there. I was like, ah, you know, so I go at this time. I actually got engaged to somebody that I went through the short course with.

Host 4:54:22

Training love.

Gary Harrington 4:54:24

Yeah. And, you know, and it's just like the war thing, because we didn't know each other that long, and now we're both gonna go off to separate countries. So um I got engaged, and then off I went to Afghanistan. Well, it turned out after I showed up in Afghanistan that the um chief who had asked about to get me was a Marine that I'd been a lieutenant with many, many years ago, who I had run into in Afghanistan when he was a senior person in the on the paramilitary side in 2002, who I had done Iraq ops with side by side in uh 2002, three. Yeah, I think he stopped by in two and three. So now he is the chief in um in Kabul. So it was him. So that that was a good way to get started on my ops career uh with him. And I I trusted him. He was a good he was a good leader.

Host 4:55:40

How was um how was your assignment different now that you're a case officer versus what you were doing as an augment working on jawbreaker teams?

Gary Harrington 4:55:49

So now I'm the guy that's gonna be that team leader that I used to see and advise. And my job is not to do the tactical part, not to do the shooting is not my primary thing. Yeah, do we go you go through weapons training, but it's really so you can just defend yourself. You're you're not, you know, a week of training on a pistol and a week on rifle does not qualify you to do anything except hopefully safe, safely load and unload a weapon. But hey, as we've seen in multiple places like Benghazi, um, and even my own experience right in the Delta, um accidents and accidental discharges or negligent discharges do happen. And uh so my job is to do meetings, and there was the GRS Global Resource Security, I guess you call it. I don't remember.

Host 4:56:50

I should know that because Bob was here, but I don't know.

Gary Harrington 4:56:52

Yeah, so Bob and those guys. Um they in a war zone are your primary security. So you when you go outside the wire, you're gonna go in most of the time in an armored vehicle with two armed kitted up guys taking you to that launch or to go pick up an asset, uh wherever it is, and they're gonna provide your security and they're gonna pick you up and bring you in. Um and that was my job. So it took a little because I was like, sometimes I had a guy who, yeah, let's say I had more special ops or combat experience than someone well than a lot of guys just because I was mold and uh had been there a while. And but but I was like, no, that's my job. I chose not to be on that side of the house. I'm on this side. So yeah, I carried my pistol. Usually I'd stick it in my little backpack because I'm like, my job is not to shoot it out. It was funny, some of the of my colleagues, other new young case officers, never been in the military. They really loved getting issued a rifle and magazines and bullets and carry it, and they wanted every chance they could to load out with all of it. People used to ask me questions, um, hey Gary, how many magazines are you carrying? Uh uh, well, generally uh one my my what's in my gun on one. And then, well, what about your rifle? I think I have five. Five, five, what are you gonna do with five? I've got 12. I go, yeah, I do when it when what well, what if you're on an aircraft and it goes down and you have to fight people off? And I was like, well, I got a lot of other things to worry about. I go I I go, five is you know, five is a lot. But it was it, it was that kind of uh shift in mind, and I I grew to where I had a good working relationship with the GRS guys because I never I let them do their job, they let me do mine. I respected them and their choices and never I and I went way out of my way never to try to boss them around or tell them what to do or you know, not not every person treated. I don't know what Bob said about that, but not not not all of those people were the easiest to work with.

Host 4:59:32

Oh no. No. Um yeah, we've actually got a couple more GRS guys coming. They all have some very unique stories. But I mean, you can imagine, right? Like, look, you've worked with the agency, I've worked around the agency. You know, you you get a mixed bag when it comes to case officers, man. There's you know, dudes like you, but I would say uh you're more of a unicorn. Yeah, I was a unicorn uh than most of the rest of those college kids coming out. I mean, I saw people in Afghanistan wearing Gucci pants and you know, Italian sunglasses.

Gary Harrington 4:59:58

In my office, we had people wearing Jimmy Choo shoes in Afghanistan. Stiletto heels and some of the other stuff that no, uh just a funny story, and uh, you know, I I hope the person this is about either never hears this or will forgive me for saying this, but uh one of the funniest GRS I was I'm not sure any other case officers were ever allowed in the GRS uh ready room. Um, but a few times I I was, and I remember once they had a uh whiteboard, and they would update it occasionally, and it said the 10 most stupid things a case officer has done. And there was a list, and uh I I was determined not to make that list, and um I I'm not gonna say I never did anything dumb, but I I I at least I wanted mine not to get on their list. Yeah, but but they the uh I was they told a story of somebody that I I worked with, they took this person out. Um well uh okay, obviously it was a woman, and they're riding and they hear something boom, thud on the floor of the vehicle. What's that? And the person from the back says, Oh, I dropped my pistol. And they're like, What are you doing with your pistol out? Because you know, at one time we were getting rocketed at that our uh at the hotel there. One of the case officers was beside me, let's get our weapons and get to the perimeter. I go, nope, not me. And they go, why? I go, the last thing all these professionals here, the GRS guys, need is people like us grabbing our weapons and running up behind them. I said, I'm gonna go to the place I'm supposed to go, and I'm gonna sit there and uh suggest you do the same. But anyway, these guys driving the armored vehicle, they hear that thump. And they, why is your pistol out? Because they're, of course, concerned that behind their back, here's somebody not trained waving around a pistol. He said, Well, I had it uh sitting on the seat. Why is it not in a holster? And then what came back was I am wearing brown boots and have a brown purse. And they go, and and then what they heard back was the holster and belt are black. Oh god, dude. It's the best and the brightest, bro. It's but you know, it's you know, okay, we laugh, and and I hope listeners can get a chuckle out of that, right? But I I think about that, that that again, we're taking people that have no concept, and then we're putting them in an environment and be like, put me on the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange. I might say the stupidest thing in the world or do it because I have no concept. But for those of us that understand combat and the whole thing of its lives, lives, lives at stake, I think we're probably a little more unforgiving about stuff like that, because you know, we'll say hey, that's gonna shoot somebody. But yeah, just completely different.

Host 5:03:47

You were uh you were involved in tracking a very senior Al-Qaeda figure in the period before Cap Camp Chapman. When you look back on how that operation developed, what do you see?

Gary Harrington 5:03:57

What when I see, when I look back about that was so this is some years later, and after I did three tours in Afghanistan, three years there, uh, I went somewhere else. And you know, what I would say about that is that it takes an army of people spread all over the world. It takes an unbelievable amount of resources. And if I I looked back and saw the dollar figure of between salaries, benefits, moving satellites around, flying predators, uh paying assets, uh millions of other costs associated, how many, many millions of dollars that we would spend. Um it's it's a lot. And it took a it took a long time, and this work began way before me with other people that had foresight and work the system and work the problem, and um gradually developed potential access. And uh, you know, I I was lucky enough to step in at a point where um you know towards the latter half to to to you know really make that work. And um you know, it it ended up uh, you know, uh one of the two most senior Al-Qaeda guys died as a result of that. And uh and there were a lot of um Al-Qaeda ops that were in the process and planning and and preparation that were disrupted because of that. But it just took a long, long time and a lot of people. And yeah, I I might have been the one that was conceiving the ops stuff, but again, there were a lot of other people in other countries that had little roles that they played that all contributed to that.

Host 5:06:15

You ran a whole bunch of successful operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, um, especially after you became a case officer. Can you tell us um a couple you know cool stories? We've talked about a lot of stuff offline, and um, I mean nothing operational, of course, but you know, just tell whatever level you can.

Gary Harrington 5:06:29

Well, like synopsis early on uh as a case officer there, I got introduced to a guy coming out of Queda, a low-level Mullah, and his job was to carry IED triggering devices in and delivering them to cells. And yeah, you know, I started out, I started going and meeting the guy when he would come in. And instead of him delivering his IED triggers, I bought them from him. And uh that's really funny because as you know, you get trained as a breacher in Delta, and I'd I'd worked around triggering devices, a whole lot, built a whole hell of a lot of them myself. And I'd been doing this now for some time. And at some point, again, in the agency and that side of the house, they had this whole big ops thing, and we had two EOD specialists out there uh that had been all these special schools for disarming bombs and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, and when I'd meet this guy, I okay, he might be dangerous because A, he's Taliban, B, he's care, he's got explosives and he might have a be wearing a vest and get me. So um again, the the GRS guys were very kind to me that they let me get out of the vehicle and greet them first instead of them getting out and frisking them. And I yeah, I would my my thing with these when I dealt with somebody that was might be bad, I always hugged them. And when I do the man hug and kisses, I'm feeling up and down and uh checking for vests and stuff. Because I mean I figure it's my op. If I if some if I'm gonna detonate and cook off, kill somebody, it'll be me, not anybody else.

Host 5:08:17

Did that build um some trust and rapport with you and your GRS guys?

Gary Harrington 5:08:21

Uh I think so. Yeah, my it might okay, but there probably might be some that were pissed that thinking, well, who does he think he is doing our job? But I I was really serious about, well, I'm the one ask doing this op and asking for this. And part of it was I wanted the people I met to see that I or feel that I was fearless and didn't care. And like in that whole tribal culture thing, the more senior you are, the less weapons you will have. Because other people do that, and you're there to lead and direct. So yeah, I met this guy, and then one time I came back to headquarters, and like the senior guy in charge of uh ops said, Hey, uh, how are you doing all treating all this IEDs, this triggering devices and stuff? He goes, Why don't you have one of the specialists go out and do it? I go, it's just a triggering device. I can look at a device and see where the caps are. And I said, I put then I put it in the back of the vehicle and I throw a vest and plate over the top of the cap and or caps if there's several devices, and and go. Because that's the only thing you can blow up. And they go, that's not good enough. You're not qualified to do that. Next time you go out, you have to take an EOD guy. So then I took this guy I knew out the next time I went to get him. And what did he do different? He carried a can that's like this tall, this big around, and had a bunch of little holes to stick caps in. Took the caps and stuck them in there, and we put them in the back of the truck, and I was like, oh, okay. I I'm I'm not qualified to do this. So yeah, that, but anyway, I used to do that. Um at one point.

Host 5:10:19

You were running your own Taliban cell.

Gary Harrington 5:10:21

Yeah, I I I worked with again the ground branch guys, which a case officer, a regular case officer is not allowed to work with ground branch, has to be a ground branch case officer. And um, but that wasn't the case for me. So we did an op where we brought 29 suspected Taliban people out of Pakistan came to us and we took them to a a site and I stuck them all in a safe house and we um you know did a process them to see if anybody had intel value and some of them I sent back. Some of them so they came to you to what?

Host 5:11:09

Because they wanted to repatriate?

Gary Harrington 5:11:11

Well I I I I had found somebody that had contact with uh through the Jalaladin Haqqani network, um, had fought with the Jalaladin Haqqani or on his team with him uh against the Russians, so he had some credibility.

Host 5:11:28

For those of you out there that don't know the Haqqanis, uh the Haqqanis are a family out of Pakistan.

Gary Harrington 5:11:32

There's well Jalaladin was the father back in the 80s and then at the beginning of the war, and then his son Siraj, yeah, Siraj Adin took over after him.

Host 5:11:44

Yeah, and they were as crooked as the Taliban, man.

Gary Harrington 5:11:46

And they were connected real closely to Al Qaeda.

Host 5:11:49

And they ran uh, I mean, they ran pretty much out of Miram Shah and their own tribal reasons. They were like the mafia slash Taliban slash whatever for uh for Pakistan with lots of ties into Afghanistan.

Gary Harrington 5:12:01

Yep. And well, anyways, we got those people, and then from those, I kept some that I decided to use, and we kind of set them up as a and some I sent back, uh, including a Mullah that was sent back into Pakistan.

Host 5:12:21

You put them all on Team America?

Gary Harrington 5:12:23

Uh well, they claim to be. They're on Team Dollar. Team Dollar. And and well, and in those days, you had to also had the threat that if you're working with me, I'll make sure you're not targeted. Oh. And and if you're not, then you know, if you get on a list and the US gets lucky, you're gone. Um and we uh we set up our own Taliban cell in in uh in Kabul, and we used it to help uh take down IED stuff, like IED transport networks, uh building sites and stuff, and some of that stuff we were able to farm off to other case officers, and they got to do the ops to do that. Um and during that time the Taliban wanted to send two suicide bombers in. So the Mullah or the excuse me, my contact in Pakistan was in charge of getting them in there, so he was gonna send them to allegedly this Taliban cell in uh Kabul, but we ran I I we I ran that cell. And you know, I had a a senior officer from the military that was my guy that that would uh kind of did the day-to-day and ran that and um dealt with them. So the two suicide bombers show up at this place and there, and our guys host them and they say, Well, we'll keep you here while we figure out what what the target is and all that. And took their vest from them and started processing them and just treating them nicely. And then they start, and and then at some point I have them, you know, they're trying to get information and I'm getting it, but it's second hand, third hand information, so that's not really good for an intel report. But at some point I have them tell them that, you know, as a martyr, you know, you'll be you'll be gone. But if you had someone that would write your story about who you are in your life, and then after you're martyred, that is published, and you will be a hero and all your sacrifice will be known. And they're like, Well, yeah, yeah, that sounds good. And these these were poor guys, one of them was probably about 15 and uneducated. The other guy was a little bit older, maybe 20s. It was kind of hard to tell sometimes with them, but just the poorest of the poor, uneducated, downtrodden people, really easily um manipulated. Well, then I so I I had my guys running that my my Taliban cell say, we have a Canadian reporter that wants to come out, because they can't say American, because these guys are taught to immediately hate, you know, being American. But this is a and I thought, well, I can't claim a different country because I sound I don't sound like it. So I I told them I'm Canadian. Or they were told I'm Canadian. They say, Yeah, we think so, yeah, we can try that. So I show up and start talking to these guys. It's cold weather, it's a dank mud compound I've got them in. And uh it was chilly. And I remember I I went in to meet him the first time, and the young one was just kind of shivering like that. So I took the blanket that I was wearing around me on the outside, put it around him, you know, warmed him up. And now I just talked to him, started showing him I cared about him, and had them start telling their life story. And I spread that out over two or three meetings sometime, and I was really nice to them. Now they didn't know that in case they tried to swarm on me and attack me when I'm in that room with two suicide guys, right? That outside the door, I had the GRS guys kidding and standing just outside the door. And if I said a certain code word or they heard something, they're kicking in the door and gonna come in and kill them. And uh, but uh, but through being nice. And like when I got ready to leave that first meeting with that kid, he went to take the blanket off and give it back to me. And I said, Oh no, that that you can have that, that's a gift for you, and left. And later, my Taliban guys told me that after I left, they said, Gosh, we were told that all those Westerners were horrible people. That that guy seemed nice. They go, Yeah. Well, then so I meet with him a few more times and keep getting more until finally comes a point where I go, Yeah, I'm not Canadian. And I'm not a reporter.

Host 5:17:45

And you're about to come with us.

Gary Harrington 5:17:47

Yeah, well, and the other one actually what I told him, I actually did with him was what we did uh is work with the Afghan government to post clips about their story to show the futility and the waste of life of a you know that happens with a suicide bomber.

Host 5:18:04

And um the what was the ultimate goal for them as you were debriefing them to pretend to be a Canadian reporter? Were you trying to figure out where they come from and more of the cell?

Gary Harrington 5:18:14

Or just talked about how they were chosen out of the madrasa and the training they went in through ago. They were all started as caris, the guys that just repeat the Quran and try to memorize the Quran and doing this and chanting, and and then they get pulled off aside. And and usually it's like with a which I think goes on with indoctrination here. You find that guy, and he's from such a poor family, he has no hopes of a dowry or marriage or job or anything. So he's either gonna be a fighter or something. And then you convince him that there's another way where he can get value, that if he becomes a martyr, and not only that, but at the end, they're gonna pay. I think they were claiming it was gonna be the equivalent of like 5,000 bucks to their family when they're dead. And they're gonna be a hero and they're gonna be remembered, and you're a hero. You know, I got to be honest, thinking back how I was after my initial Marine Corps training, I'm like, ooh, is it really that different? Is it that different? Like, you know, we used to, our all our classes used to end with a story about somebody in Korea or World War II jumping on a grenade to save their buddies. So I I, you know, part of me could see how they were chosen. The interesting thing I found out through debriefing them is that they were given a period of where they didn't have to follow Islamic rules after they went through the training. Like, well, here's some cash, you're gonna go martyr yourselves. So if you want to drink alcohol and get a hooker on it, it's okay. Yeah, as long as you martyr yourself.

Host 5:19:58

A lot of people don't realize, man, those dudes are super into like porn and they're not like it's crazy that they do, you know, they're the religious zealot stuff, but when you look into who they are as people, they're they don't follow any of that religious stuff, but it's okay because you're gonna go kill a you know Americans or whatever. It's just it's it's kind of it's a sick, twisted, demented thing. And and you know, they brainwash these kids, right? Like the whole story that's pretty indicative. You know, they're taught to hate us and that we're gonna. I mean, I can't tell you how many people that we interrogated when you know during my my time overseas. And you know, I I got we would do that. We'd you know, yes, there's whole interrogation approaches you can run, but we would always start with just being nice, and you'd be surprised like how much information we got just from being nice because these people were taught, you know, to I was gig, you know, we were finding out stuff by giving dudes a honey bun. You know what I mean? Like yeah, uh yeah. It's I simple stuff.

Gary Harrington 5:20:50

Well, the the I processed the five prisoners we took at Torobora and searched them, and they were all they all just wanted to look, they just wanted a chance to try to kill you. They were just gone. Uh they that's all they wanted. Now these guys were different age and different circumstances. In the end, after we got all the propaganda, well, I hate to say propaganda, but we got our value out of them. Um, I gave them money, enough money to get a start and sent them back to their villages. You know, and like whatever happened, did they were, you know, did they turn back and uh do anything? I I I like to hope not. I like to think that here's $5,000 so you don't kill yourself.

Host 5:21:40

Yeah, yeah.

Gary Harrington 5:21:40

Well, and well, not not that much, maybe a few hundred to be honest. Um the you Yeah, but I I spent enough time with them that I hoped that they a got a glimmer that who they were told to hate and want to kill didn't have to, and B, that um that they that you know they they wouldn't have to go back to that. So I see, so that's one of my ops. Uh yeah, I did a couple traditional recruitments. Um I my third year in Afghanistan, I worked uh a thing where I myself recruited and with permission of the Afghan Intel service, yeah. Um the director.

Host 5:22:29

Explain what goes into that. Not from a TTP perspective. I'm not looking for operational securities, but people don't understand, like when we we we say it casually, like, hey, I I recruited a source, people have no idea what goes into that.

Gary Harrington 5:22:41

Yeah, well, and and this team weren't actually sources. So what happened was there was a desire to build and at the time I won't go there, but uh there was their Intel service was gonna cooperate with the US and it wanted to build an Intel unit. And the NDS? Yeah, NDS. And the NDS, but it was an it was an Intel unit that was gonna work very, very closely with our paramilitary people. And yeah, I I was asked to stay a third year and and do that. So was this running like the Raptor Sol Saleh of NDS gave me a list of people that were candidates to do this, and I went through them and interviewed them and started choosing people, rejecting people, um and eventually formed this unit. It took months to get the approvals and to get the um that authorized as uh the type of activity it was and money to show up so I could actually start uh and I got a compound in the southern part of Kabul and started developing this unit that had logistics, it had security, it had anal an analyst or two, it had some case officers, and uh had a you know cooking section and uh maintenance people, all that, right? It was all did you ever get them operational? Yep, I did. And uh and and and we did good. We helped uh like we helped that we helped provide the FBI with a phone number that led to the recovery of a US citizen uh alive. Um and uh I think that's the only op I know of as I yeah, I stood it up and was with it for about a year and uh other people after me um took over. The only other interesting op I had, I well once I almost got blown up by a suicide bomb, I was gonna meet a just contact to evaluate him and bring him on the streets of Kabul and bring him back into the embassy and interview him. Just a regular dude. This for me was rare because it wasn't a bad guy, a regular dude. And because sometimes I didn't follow all the rules, security rules precisely. So I left the embassy and the security zone, the embassy, and I was standing um outside just outside that at some place called Masood Circle in Kabul. And I'm standing on a corner in Massood Circle, waiting for this guy to show up. Okay, me and an interpreter. I I'm I'm so I'm nervous, right? But I'm scanning, I'm scanning, I'm scanning far, scanning close, looking around, looking for somebody who would try to come up to me and shoot me or stab me or uh detonating themselves. And it was odd because off to my left, I saw a black car sitting there that just seemed to be it one, it shouldn't have been parked in front of the health center like it was. But it was sitting there. So, but I didn't see anything strange about uh else going on. So you're busy, right? I gotta look, gotta look, gotta keep scanning, protect myself. And but then it started bothering me, and I looked again, and now I noticed that oh, it's only 30 yards away, and there's two dudes in it, and the two dudes are looking at me and I look at them, like, yeah, okay. And then I thought, but you shouldn't be parked there. But then I looked and here's a cop like 10 yards away. I'm like, well, surely. And I'm I'm busy, I'm I'm trying to meet somebody that uh I said, well, if the cop must have let him park there, so it's gonna be okay. Like, okay, and I but but it's just kept niggling at me. Afghan police, bro. Yeah, Afghan police. And then uh the guy I was waiting for showed up, like, okay, and the interpreter and I get him, we turn around and we walk back through the security gate and then the the concrete barriers on that road, and we enter the embassy through the door. So we had to walk about 150 meters. And after we're coming through the uh embassy security gate, suddenly the ground shakes, there's a deafening explosion. They whoa, and then they put on that alarm. I rushed the guy and the interpreter to my room at the embassy uh where I lived. You know, we're doing the duck and cover like they asked, and sitting there and listening, all this stuff happened. My mind's processing, and I'm like, eh. And then I'm like, at some point I need to get this Afghan out of here. So I waited a while. Then I took him to a different entrance of the embassy and sent him on his way. And then I I heard helicopters come into the embassy compound and I waited because I knew everybody's busy. You know, something's just happened. Let's wait. And then after a few hours, I went over to the regional security officers and I asked one of them, I said, Hey, uh, was was that a VB was that a VBID vehicle borne and provides explosive device? Yes it was. Uh, okay. Um was it at Massood Circle? Yes it was. They hit uh an army convoy that was coming through, killed two, uh wounded a couple others, killed like 17 Afghans, and we they brought the dead and wounded here on the embassy compound because it's the closest secure place. And uh and you know, the guy's like, yeah, and I said, Hey, was it a black Toyota Ricorolla? And he goes, He goes, You can't know that. And he goes, Nobody knows that. And then and then he said, Well, wait a second, you do know it. He says, How do you know it? I said, Man, I was standing there literally two minutes before that explosion, looking in those two, there were two dudes in it. I said, if you don't, if you hadn't found enough yet, there were two guys in it. And uh, we looked at each other and uh came in. So I that was uh it was a lesson in several respects that I think that um, I I wish at the beginning I had listened to my senses, Spidey senses, and followed through on that identifying about that vehicle. Um B, yeah, I I sometimes I think, can you imagine that if these are suicide bombers like those other two I dealt with I was telling you about, they know they need to kill American. And clearly they looked when we were looking at each other and go, here's an American. Here's an American. So, you know, the way those are rigged often, it's either they need to touch two wires together or whatever simple thing. That I I sometimes imagine the two guys sitting in that car talking, and one goes, There's an American now, let's do it. We don't know if a convoy's coming. And, you know, we were told to hit a convoy, hit the military. And he goes, just do it now. You know, then I and I think, well, I'm glad that I hate to say it, but glad that it worked in my favor that they didn't. Because the photos that are published on the press, now you can still find those of that explosion. Uh at the time, up to that time, which it happened in 2006-ish 2007, um, was the largest VBIED we'd had up to that point. And where I was standing was just gone, obliterated, totally gone. Uh, they had sat there when I was on one corner and the military convoy was coming here, and when it hit the circle, it was going to go that way. And as it was turning like that, they just went like this around the circle and drove into the side of a Hump V and detonated.

Host 5:31:36

That's a wild couple years. And then we talk about those operations in passing. You know, you explained the whole recruiting suicide bombers, you know, but that probably took months of planning, preparation, cables, you know, all the setup. So um, it's just cool to hear, like for at least for the audience to hear, you know, kind of how that works without us giving away anything to our enemies. Um it's a very, very unique job. Let's talk a little bit about Camp Chapman. Uh, so a lot of for those of you that don't know about Camp Chapman, um, that's the the fob that was hit um with a suicide bomber that took out some senior members of the CIA, uh, as well as several GRS dudes. There was a lot of people that were injured. It was extremely significant. Um there was a lot of we've talked about it here before with with Bob on the podcast, but there was a lot of things that happened that should have never happened. There was protocols that weren't followed, and um, you know, not only not only does Gary have knowledge of that, Gary um aggressively pursued the people. That were involved to get payback on behalf of America. So will you just talk about a little bit about Camp Chapman, the things that maybe happened before the op and then your part in America getting retribution to the points that you can talk to?

Gary Harrington 5:32:59

Yeah, sure. Well, walk slowly through this so I make sure I don't get put in jail. Um so Cant Chapman, uh, that explosion happened December 30th, 2009. And um I was by this time now no longer I left Afghanistan December 2008. So I was somewhere else and had been working um some senior al-Qaeda targeting stuff and through all that. So and yeah, I I saw helped helped see a successful uh senior al-Qaeda operation come to fruition, let's put it that way. And in in my experience with that was but but just let me just we'll we'll come back to that part. But what happens is that uh after Chapman happened, then there was a military aspect that came up. Like we think we know where that might have where the planning might have emanated from for this um this operation. And so my role with that was then there was um uh electron through electronic means had a had a pretty strong guess as to where that was. And so what they were looking for was confirmation that that was a um bad guy place because it it was in the middle of a bunch of uh civilian stuff in Miriam Shaw. And my role after December 30th was I spent it may have been two months uh I'm not sure how long it was, um helping try to verify the location um for sure and because if anything was done we it was gonna have to be really careful about the civilian casualties. And there was an extreme amount of pressure on me because everybody and the agency and our whole command structure, you know, they wanted payback. And everybody was screaming at me to wanting me to say yes, this is the so that they could do it. But I didn't want to, you know, because I wasn't sure and I wanted to verify to make sure that that was indeed the case. Through that whole process, it reminded me of um when I was working uh senior al-Qaeda case, sort of conflict because there was such a desire from senior echelons at agency headquarters to um micromanage ops. And especially once you've proven that you, you know, once you've done the work and they say, oh, this is real, then everybody wants to take over, everyone wants the armchair quarterback. I don't like running uh ops when uh a group of senior people read your messages and everything after, you know, come in and have their coffee and sit around the table and start second guessing. Well, I'd have said that message this way. Well, I'd have told them this, well, I'd have told them that. And then you get the but the back end of that, you know, way forward in the field where people are second guessing you. And um because a real one of our first, the first really big uh Al-Qaeda case that was successful was successful in large part because some lower-level people in the field went around their chain of command directly back to senior people at headquarters who then uh overruled the commanders out in the field, and they wound up getting like this the first really big guy. So then there became an attitude, in my opinion, that we're the ones that are the experts at this and we know how to run this.

Host 5:37:39

You're talking about the people at Langley?

Gary Harrington 5:37:40

The people at Langley, yeah. A certain group of senior people from uh CTC. And and they, you know, they just had this method of like um when I was running an op at one point after we'd had success, you know, I had somebody who was like an analyst uh come out with no field experience, you know, bringing me messages from like really high up in the agency and uh saying, hey, we we like you, we want to work with you, and you need to talk to us and do that. And and they were going around my chain of command. So that made it hard for me because then my chain of command got defensive, and there was a little brush up where he, you know, he got he took some heat because um somebody at the headquarters didn't like the way he handled something I was doing. So they came. So now, you know, my boss is worried that I'm going that I that I'm gonna go around him. And I'm trying to please my boss. I'm trying to hold off people in DC, but they're really senior and they're you know haranguing me. And you know, my my feeling what I know of Coast is the same exact people were involved in some of the decisions about um the way some things were done and even who was where when that happened. So, based on my experience and my ground experience, I kind of feel that that attitude and that w was one of the things that that led to that. And that leads to things where people like Bob, uh who you should listen to, for that for their area of expertise are ignored. You know, I go back to this uh recent documentary I was in, talks about me um telling the the case officer in charge, we're gonna be in set up, we gotta get out of here, we're gonna get ambushed. And he ultimately listened to me. We walked out just before Al-Qaeda um initiated an ambush on us. They found out through SIGNT that they were surrounding us. That was part of it. Then the other part was that um in law enforcement, you guys use that term, the lust for the bust. That uh this doctor, Al-Qaeda played us very well, that they released enough information and video stuff that made it really look like this guy has access to the most senior Al-Qaeda people. And so that made everybody rabid at wanting to process him and and get him. And in some cases, they maybe acquiesce to him.

Host 5:40:57

And just so the listeners know, the bomber was supposedly had direct access to bin Laden.

Gary Harrington 5:41:03

Uh or or his number two. Yeah, and he was filmed with number three. So I think the video that got released showed him sitting uh on a blanket with uh with number three.

Host 5:41:18

So he was extremely high up in Al-Qaeda. He was considered a massive. Or they thought. They thought, yeah.

Gary Harrington 5:41:23

Yeah.

Host 5:41:24

And they thought this dude would would uh potentially provide access at some point to bin Laden or but it was of extremely high, high value, and that's why the agency threw off every security protocol that they had in place to prevent happening exactly what it later.

Gary Harrington 5:41:40

I mean, there's a time where an asset can become superstar, and um if they've done some big things, and then the desire is to make them feel like a superstar. So you cut corners, you acquiesce to them. Um and and look, I I my my belief is that happened. Uh when you know, we've talked, I've taken a lot of chances. I I I've done some stupid things. I've not worn vests when I should. I've gone outside the wire probably when I shouldn't. I got busted once because I came back from Leave or something or somewhere to the airport in Kabul, landed on a commercial plane. And somehow my pickup by the GRS guys got didn't get scheduled. So I'm at the airport by myself. I wound up jumping in a tiny van from the uh the hotel, driven by an Afghan that carried luggage and stuff back and forth to the hotel. So I just climbed in the back of his van and rode in. And when I got to the the gate in security, they opened the door of this Afghan's van to search it. And I'm sitting on top of some suitcases there. Uh it was like, who are you and what are you doing outside the gate? And where's your vest? And where's your radio? And where's all this? And I'm like, eh, yeah, and I I I got I got in trouble for that one because but I thought about it again because I knew those GRS guys, and I'm like, man, now if I call and I've been dropped, somebody's gonna have to drop a mission somewhere and scramble somebody and come down here and get me. It's gonna be this big rigmarole and all that. And you know, I but yeah, I I'd been there probably too long where I started thinking I was untouchable, and I that he, you know, if I'm meant to die, I'll die. I'll get past this.

Host 5:43:45

So yeah, so I got I got yeah, I got but as we dial back in on Coast, I mean, you know, I just want to give the audience kind of the background to understand, you know, what we're talking about. And so, you know, we're we were kind of talking on the backstory of you know the bomber and and how he ends up there, which you know, we've talked about with Bob. You know, so obviously the you know, they we they do a bunch of dumb security protocols, the bomber gets on um and and detonates himself, kills a bunch of people. How did how did you get involved in that afterwards?

Gary Harrington 5:44:17

So so after I actually got an immediate notification in the middle of the night to um um come in and read traffic, and and you know, that told me what I needed to do because of my expertise. Uh by that point I had developed some particular expertise in uh Miram Shah. And um so you know it became a thing of is this the location or not? Yeah, and the guy that uh it uh it turns out that that sent uh the doctor in uh was Hussein al-Yemeni. And um so it was the effort to get him, which ultimately yeah, it took perhaps a couple of months, maybe a little bit more. I can't remember if that was early March or whatever, but uh yeah, we finally um he was taken out. Um the CIA helped locate and fix him, and you know uh some drone, some some missiles did the rest. I'm not sure who fired those missiles.

Host 5:45:33

Predator, party of one, your table's ready.

Gary Harrington 5:45:37

A party of several uh because I know six missiles went in that building. Uh well it was funny just how it works. Like people might think that there were six people killed, right? Uh uh yeah, that a missile is so powerful. And you might think what it is, especially if you look at a hellfire missile and see the size. And and again, overhead imagery and some of the satellite stuff we have now is unbelievable. Like, how do you know if you know you can't affect the whole building, and that building was connected to a building that had innocent civilians in it? So, how are you gonna do it? Well, you can attack through the roof, and that way you're not getting the um uh splatter effect, uh throw effect from the from the missile uh warhead. And but then where are you gonna go to get the so you actually watch heat signatures over a long period of time and oh here's a room that it's like only one of two rooms that has a heat source in it, and it's in the winter. So it must be one for cooking and one for somebody senior, maybe. And then you watch and see dots come and like oh, every once in a while there's like a meeting and oh, it's kind of like this one dot stays in there. So then after enough time of following that and watching that, you might assume then this is the place where the target would be. So all these things are going and coming on, and ultimately though, it's just interesting that that they put the at the moment they said go uh for those for that hit or fire, there were 19 bad guys in that building. Two of them walked out just as they said go. So now there's seventeen and six missiles hit and um six.

Host 5:47:41

Yeah, and was there six did we lose six people at Camp Champ? I feel like there was seven.

Gary Harrington 5:47:47

I thought maybe they sent a lot of people. That might include the Jordanian officer. I'm not sure. I wonder if they sent six missiles, one for each. No, it was that there's there was there were three platforms that each held two missiles. And um they and and that was a lot for that, but it was at that point a very high value to that time. We want to make sure at that time, I think we said he was number eight on the list. It bumped way up. And um, but all that devastation and all, people get up, just like we talked earlier about Torobora, people get up and walk down the building, some of them stumbling, yes. But uh I I think it was just like six that that were killed and maybe a few more injured, but a lot of people got got up out of that building and walked away. Wow. Um, I think it killed everybody that was in that main room, which included, as they had correctly concluded by watching that infrared stuff over a long enough time. That was the Hussein Al-Yemini.

Host 5:48:54

You had documented concerns about how the operation was being run, specifically about you know, somebody that was in charge being placed in a position above that person, above that person's, you know, maybe competence by other senior leaders who bypassed chain of command, and you put it in writing. Did that put a target on you?

Gary Harrington 5:49:13

No, so just just kind of to back up on that a little bit. My issues were not about the choices in Chapman. My issues were that I documented as I continued on in other high-profile ops uh targeting operations, was that those same people that were bothering me and trying to go around my chain of command were micromanaging me and they were making my life impossible. By now, my boss has turned against me, and the people at headquarters are unhappy because I'm not coming over to their side. So I felt like I was alone between these two sides. And so what I documented was that that interference from headquarters in matters, particularly operational on the ground matters, was becoming an impossible hindrance.

Host 5:50:14

Yeah, and it seems like as a person who has talked to people from the CIA and you know, seeing people at work, it just seems like there's so much institutional infighting in that agency. Is that was that your experience, like leadership levels?

Gary Harrington 5:50:30

Oh, I would say that there's at some places and some times I saw that. And I would say that let's be honest, in the military, you and I off-camera have mentioned some senior, well-known officers in the military who we both think are just horrible human beings. And there's a particular person I'm thinking of that was on the seventh floor that I think is a particular horrible human being, just based on the way he treated people. And uh some of those some same people there. But yeah, we've the institutional fighting. Yeah, there's a difference, a whole difference in philosophy between the regular side of the house, the paramilitary side of the house, the analysts are their whole separate thing. And uh they can stir up drama real quick. It's it's it's you know, it but yeah, it's kind of the same as it is in the military, just different. And I think the way the agency is organized, there are there are closer, like your politic your personal politics has a bigger impact uh than it should, because in the military we're trained to be impersonal, and they well, I gotta work for the same guy, whether I or gal, whether I like him or not. I still I I I serve the flag, not that person. Did you see a lot of political Well, there were political things people didn't like because I was conservative. So on my side of the house that I went to, most people are not conservative. And uh I tried never to make political statements, but yet because I was silent when praise was going on uh for our then President Obama, I at one point somebody said, Oh, so you don't say anything, so you must be one of them. And I was like, Yeah, I am. I am, and uh uh I said, but you know, I gotta work for them all, you know. I didn't there's several I haven't cared for, but I have to work for them. And I I just want to be able to go do my job and not have politics play into it. And I think that the people that are recruited by the agency are the type of people generally that let more of that uh affect them. Um it's there was a lot of politics we talked before about uh maybe we'll talk later about are we gonna talk about Benghazi later? Yeah, so uh some of the attitude there again, just a lot of politics.

Host 5:53:18

Yeah, I'll just go there. Uh I mean you did multiple tours in Afghanistan and other places uh in the world, and then you you came back, you were working um in the Near East Division, helping stand up the Syria program when Benghazi broke. Walk me into the building that night and the next morning uh after you know the Benghazi attacks.

Gary Harrington 5:53:40

We were in, so it must have been early in the morning, and this was in the middle of the Arab Spring, right, that was supposed to happen. So there was a lot of news going on and uh stuff about this uh was it the movie that that Indian guy um out west did that they said inspired this uprising. Uh Salman, not Salman Rushdie, but um what's his name? Uh Amesh D'Souza.

Host 5:54:13

Oh, yeah, um yeah, Dinesh D'Souza.

Gary Harrington 5:54:16

Yeah, Dinesh D'Souza. That his movie inspired that stuff. And I'm not sure what time of day it was the first time we got the reports of Benghazi and the the riots going on, and here's this, and well, the consulate's been being attacked, and our we have guys under attack. And the immediate Thing like my boss at the time, he and I were in early to yeah, so it must have been early in the morning uh to prepare for uh uh a briefing with the director and it he was he was cursing excuse me and saying that damn movie, man, all this you know, this these this stuff and and I said by I don't think by this point, um I don't think we'd had uh people killed on the roof yet, but at this point the consulate part went down and the guys from the annex had gone over to try to rescue people. And the reports that I was reading coming across, again, by this time in my division of non-military people, predominantly, um, I was now known as the guy that had a lot of military experience, a lot of our war zone experience, but I was also now being accepted as one of them. So I was being asked by a senior level of the Near East Division uh to read some of the initial reports coming out and give my opinion. And the first thing I noted was that when they left the consulate and were trying to come back, they hit a linear ambush. So the first thing I said, well, I said, that's not a spontaneous uh linear ambush, somebody has to be trained to put that in, somebody has to be planned to put that in. Uh, so that's that's not spontaneous. And then later, when the mortar rounds hit the top, hit hit the building, again, I got boss. I just said, hey, dude, you are smoking dope. I said, the first round, mortar round hit short. The second mortar round hit long, or vice versa. I said, then it was fire for effect. That's true. I go, so that means not only trained, that means it isn't like a lot of these terraces where just some guy hand holding a tube and another guy dropping mortar rounds down. Interaccurate as hell. I've I just ignore those. And uh, but I said, this is somebody that knows how to run a mortar setup with a tripod and aim and stake, and they're running the mortar. I go, that takes a lot of training. That is not spontaneous. And uh I said, this was a planned coordinated attack. And uh I was shocked later to see when it got kind of got politics, it all got politicized and what the agency ultimately ended up saying about that uh attack. Uh but anybody that had been that's been around uh small unit tactics any time knows that those two things cannot happen.

Host 5:57:44

So why was you know, from somebody who was in Langley when this is going on, why did they delay resources to those guys?

Gary Harrington 5:57:53

I don't know. I've I I questioned it. I've I've been I've I've been pretty angry about uh that before. I also questioned General Ham um back at was it Sakure? I think Sakura that had the uh CIF that they that wanted to launch.

Host 5:58:12

And I think they loaded those guys and launched off midly and turned them around or they sent them a plane.

Gary Harrington 5:58:16

Yeah, they they they were ready to launch.

Host 5:58:19

Nobody ever talked about, but there was a rear admiral that was relieved from a carrier group that had a SEAL team that they were gonna send in as well. He was relieved, I think, either I think he was relieved during the incident.

Gary Harrington 5:58:30

It really, I that one I don't know.

Host 5:58:33

Blip on the radar. I'll have to go back and look at it.

Gary Harrington 5:58:34

But you did and and and I have issues just with the stories that came out, you know, um all the key people, I think it was Panetta, Clinton, uh, all the key people couldn't be reached reportedly. Uh those people I think went blank on purpose, because you know, if we believe and I haven't dug and I haven't tried because I'm past that, but just to comment on it, if we believe the stories that a US helicopter in Afghanistan was um shot down or shot by uh received fire by a missile that didn't go off because they hadn't armed it, then it was a which one of our shoulder fired?

Host 5:59:25

It was a service air that's a stinger.

Gary Harrington 5:59:29

Yeah um stinger. Yeah, stinger by a stinger missile, and that they traced that uh serial number to um some weapons that had gone to Libya and that and that's and that this whole thing about the ambassador being there, not I'll tell you this, I I I f I do firmly believe it was not an agency thing. That but I I believe that it was the the the thing I've heard that I tend to believe, maybe it's caused my personal feelings about some of the people, but was that it was a unauthorized State Department op to provide those stingers and they got caught. And now it's like, oh shit, we gotta cover that up. So I think that the ambassador there, who um, despite other rumors and stuff about his personal life and whatever uh other reasons people have tried to say that he stayed in a precarious situation um for whatever reason, I I I gotta think part part I I could certainly believe that he was told they need to be there to try to find somebody that's gonna give them recover stinger missiles.

Host 6:01:00

Yeah, because that's what they were doing in Benghazi. They were trying to hunt down these stinger missiles that had been gone or moved through or out of Libya.

Gary Harrington 6:01:07

And there were chemical weapons. Uh Libya had a lot of weapons, which all a lot of their weapons later found their way into Syria, right? Um but the so yeah, I I do like to I do personally think the agency didn't have to do with that, but the State Department, and then so I think those people when it's when that started going bad, they just knew that all hell was gonna come loose and they ghosted. Nobody wanted to be in nobody wanted to be where they answered a phone so they could claim that that you know be nailed at having been informed. And and I I I feel horrible about it. But then we say all that, why the hell was the State Department people in such a relaxed uh state of readiness at the consulate that they had a pool party and drinking going on there in that environment, and that's when that attack occurred. And a lot of the security personnel were not on duty station, they were partaking in festivities.

Host 6:02:22

You've said the entire Libya situation had gave you heartburn even before Benghazi had happened. What went wrong at the policy level that made that attack inevitable, in your view?

Gary Harrington 6:02:32

That attack went down because my per uh I'm let me say this is personal opinion, not insider information from agency. Yeah. But personalities involved were people that wanted to build a legacy uh that make their bones on in fighting wars and international affairs and being hard-nosed to politics. And they wanted to go, they they wanted to get involved in Libya. Now the missiles and stuff, I I don't know about that. But once the decision was made that we're gonna go to Libya, it's like the president wanted it both ways. He wanted to topple Qaddafi to claim that as a scalp, that look what I've done, I am tough. And that they but they didn't want to risk too much to do it. So the US advisors at Libya were not doing frontline uh we're involved, we're in this with you advising. It was, you know, that stay in the rear, talk in your ear, and you go off and do. That's why after Libya eventually fell and the U.S. tried to send their special envoy to the Libya, they turned them around and said, we don't need you, don't come here. Because we were, you know, I I I think if you're gonna say you want to do it, we you have to be there when it counts. And and that was, I mean, that was a huge fiasco that uh that we didn't first I I didn't agree that we needed to go in there. And two, once you make that decision to go in there, then then if you do that, you you commit, you go in there.

Host 6:04:33

You also helped stand up the Syria program, which my God, that country. Um yeah, uh that's a whole podcast in and of itself. But what what initially weren't you guys standing up in Syria that you could talk about? Um and you know, how did it work?

Gary Harrington 6:04:49

Well, Syria started deteriorating, and then it's from the I gotta be honest, it comes from the White House and the State Department at the time. So that's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. That believe it or not, because people like us will say that Libya was an abject failure. Not just what happened uh with the people getting killed, but the whole operation was a was a failure. But the White House felt it was a significant win because the president had said he must go and he went. Well, now we've already had going forward where um then it was like, well, so let's do the same thing with Syria. And we saw how well that went, because remember, earlier, I forget what year was well, don't do this. If you cross this red line, the U.S. will do something, and we did nothing. But the politicians, uh, and and not just State Department and the White House, some senior senators that got involved, just started thinking that that Syria was going to be we could do that just like Libya. And it would be not that much effort involved, and we and we could claim credit. Personally, I I thought Assad was acceptable as he was, and the alternative might be bad. But but we and our our our Arab partners were angry at us because we went here the U.S. intervened in Iraq, and we took a country that had been ruled by minority Sunni that was population majority Shia. And we flipped it and we threw out the Sunnis and allowed the Shia to come back in and take over. You're welcome, Iran. Well, yeah, and that did not sit well with the Arab neighbors. So the Arab neighbors were like, well, what about Syria, where you have a minority Shia ruling party, but a majority Sunni population. We want to balance this the ledger sheet. Uh so there was a lot of pressure, I think, from that too. And um, and then you had so when the desire was in there, and again, I still think that um the the um okay, the Hillary Clinton wanted to make some bones before a presidential run. And so she was active, and out of respect for the dead, I won't mention which senators, but uh some of these people got involved, and I I felt that when in Syria, so everything in Syria is starting to ratchet up. So inside the agency to get my my involvement, they realized that okay, this down this is going to be an issue down the road. And they saw the potential that it could be sort of like Iraq or sort of like Afghanistan or sort of like some of these other things. So I had just come back from an over my overseas assignment in 2011, and I didn't have an assignment lined up. So they put me, they said, Why don't you go to this place in your East Division and be ready to step in because eventually we know the Syria thing's gonna pick up. So when it does, you'll be in place to help us seamlessly sort of plan that sort of quasi-military and shift to military uh operations. So that's what I was doing. That that's what my task was. Um I think that that when some of these senators and uh Hillary Clinton found it easy to go to Turkey and who'd they meet with? Rich retired Sunni military generals who sat and you know, it's easy because you can go there and go into a real nice restaurant and have a lovely dinner with this retired general and start talking about how we could take over Syria. And and all those generals are gonna promise you that uh what was it called? It was it later became known as the Free Iraqi Army. Uh what was I forgot now the name of it, but um they all swore that they had hundreds and hundreds of tribal connections and followers inside um Syria that would that would follow their orders. And I was arguing differently because in my experience, they were already now starting to be the the the vanguard of the ISIS people that had been trained and combat experience in Afghanistan.

Host 6:10:15

Yeah, and also, I mean, in Iraq, I I remember, I mean, JSOC was going after targets, al-Qaeda targets in Syria because they were yeah, Syria was kind of like this you know, off-limits place. So that's where the finance people were hiding, that's where leadership was going to and from. And then I mean, I remember JSOC hitting targets in Syria early, but it was super hush-hush. And it was like, oh, they were one-offs, not something that we that we were doing regularly. Yep. But um, and then man, I mean, you look at Syria, you have Kurds, Turks, Shia, Sunnis. I mean, that place, you know, it's a tribal nightmare. Um, and so yeah, I don't think I still, I mean, I'm pretty knowledgeable about what's goes on in the world, but uh to this day I still don't fully understand Syria and the quagmire that it's become.

Gary Harrington 6:11:00

I mean, we have a former, I mean, I don't know if he was ISIS or Al-Qaeda, but not the guy that's running the country now is a former he was uh I forgot the other group that was associated with uh ISIS essentially somebody we were fighting at one point another. Yeah, at one point we're we were fighting.

Host 6:11:18

It's just wild, man. And it's wild how you know you start looking at foreign policy and how much that we as a country have meddled in other countries. I don't know, man. It's it's it's it's overwhelming if you start considering I mean, if you look at them as one-offs, when you start looking at the bigger picture globally, you're just like, man, is there any place that we don't meddle and screw up?

Gary Harrington 6:11:36

Well, if you'll remember where we are, let me take a quick detour. I I'm once in Afghanistan met with a Taliban guy, and he he and I got he he was trying to puff himself up and talk about how he wasn't afraid of me and whatever. So then he told me that he had fought in Anaconda. I said, Well, that's interesting because I did too. And uh, and then and then he was telling me that how we screwed them over, that the Taliban had been loyal and fought along beside us. Or we we yeah, they were the they were a part of the moves, initially a small part. Yeah, but they um that we trained and equipped them, and then said, and he said, and we worked together well. He said, then what did you do? You left us.

Host 6:12:32

Well, we did the same thing in Iraq, too.

Gary Harrington 6:12:34

Yeah, but but but here's but here's my answer to him because instead of apologizing for that, what I said was, okay, I go, look, the United States isn't like a lot of other places. We go one direction four to eight years, then we go another direction four to eight years. You know, and I uh as a planner, no, I don't like that. But that is America, and that's how we are. So the U.S. no longer had interest in fighting Russia here and spending its money and treasure here. So that the U.S. people wanted that so we stopped. But then you hosted Al-Qaeda and you let them come and kill Americans. So now we're here. And in Afghanistan, if I could have, or in Anaconda, if I could have, I would have killed you. I'm sure you would have killed me if you could. But now we're both standing here at this table. So what are we gonna do? Do you want to go outside and finish this or do you want to work together?

Host 6:13:42

So I guess kind of going back to Syria, what was the plan as you knew it for what you guys were doing?

Gary Harrington 6:13:48

Well, I argued in the beginning, I I I do not agree with the ultimate plan that was decided. And granted, my my plan, but it's just my plan based on my experience in these, that um I thought that these ISIS cells that were already inside Syria, that where they went, they lived with, worked with, and fought along beside the villagers. So now that villager's little militia is gonna become successful in its operations. So it's gonna grow and get bigger. So now if I'm the other village guy over here, like, well, I need my ISO cell so I can get better and then I'll get bigger. So, and anybody trying to train from the outside, like set up uh bases in Turkey or bases in Jordan and train people to go in there, and you're not going in with them and living and sharing the hardships, or you're trusting some general that's been living the big life in Turkey to tell you what's going on that he has the access in there. My, you know, my thing is, and then if you do that, you start in one place of the country and you try to widen and widen your foothold in that country, and maybe you start it from two places and you're trying to to gradually take territory. And and my feeling is that with the it's like an egg that I would put people in everywhere, and it's not going to be some 90-day rotation thing. You're in for the duration, and that you start in little pockets running ops and improving and getting more and more combat effective, and that that gradually puts more pressure everywhere, that the host nation, like the uh Saad regime, can't mass resources, air or ground to fight you on a front or in a zone or two at once, that now they're having to deal with it all over the country. And if you're living with them, sharing the risk with them, you're gonna gain traction quicker. Um, but that's not the path that was followed these days. And I think a lot of special ops and uh the stuff that I did where where people tried to affect regime changes. There's a desire to adhere to that uh 90 day deal where you go for 90 days and then you go somewhere safe, and 90 days is the max. And people aren't living in the field, like all through the GWAT and In these places, people came back to bases that had showers, chow halls, gyms internet, all that stuff. The when people at Task Force Dagger at the beginning went in somewhere and you lived in the field for like two weeks, I don't know if anybody like three would be max, then that was a really big deal. And we got in the thing where we want that comfort. And it's less risk if you're not in somewhere without a whole lot of support and staying for a long period of time. But if I'm some local guy and you're that outsider that comes in and you're there for a while, and then you're going back somewhere safe, and then you say, I'll see you in four months. Um I don't think I want to I'll follow that guy. In my experience on the ground working with the Moods in Afghanistan, I shared risk with them. I climbed in vehicles laden with explosives that the only they picked the lowest Afghan and told him you got to drive that truck. So I go and get in with him and say, I'm in here with you, brother. We let's do it. Well, I had to use an interpreter, but yeah. And the kind of loyalty you get when you live that way and you treat people that way was markedly different. The way I was treated in these some of these places that I went was completely different than how some other people were treated. Um and I think that if if we're talking regime change, it's almost like discipleship on the Christian side. Uh, you really want a transformation that that's how you have to go.

Host 6:18:31

So you think Syria was more of like a failed policy that we I mean, we just created a mess, it looks like. Or was that gonna happen regardless?

Gary Harrington 6:18:40

Uh yeah, we created a mess. I'm I'm not sure, you know, the whole thing now with Shia staying in charge. I don't know how that would look. Um again, I didn't think that at the time there was a a need. I there the need was in the White House. The need was in a potential presidential candidate making their bones.

Host 6:19:07

And making their bones what by starting a war in Syria, though? I I really have a hard time understanding that.

Gary Harrington 6:19:12

Well, if you're a woman and you're gonna run for president, you gotta show that you're a tough uh person to be dealt with.

Host 6:19:22

That's my opinion. Well, she's tough to deal with, all right. There's some dudes on her detail, man. She is uh a nightmare to put it.

Gary Harrington 6:19:29

Uh so I I got I I met with some Secret Service people during my time in JSOC uh for some training, and we heard some insight. Oh, yeah.

Host 6:19:39

I mean, I knew guys of protector and insider stories. She is a nightmare to be around. It's funny because her husband's like pretty well liked. Yeah. Um, but she is just, I mean, she's exactly who you think she would be. Yep. Um, interesting. So anything else on Syria? You think it's interesting? I mean, I that I I that that's one country I just have yet to wrap my head around. Um, it's just yeah, I mean, because then you had Russians, the Russians back in Assad. I mean, the Russians airlifted an entire brigade in there to help, you know, and then so then you had the the Russian-backed Syrian forces, then you had Al Qaeda.

Gary Harrington 6:20:14

Well, and the and Russians needed that base at was it Tabrizi, whatever. Yeah, that was a big thing. That was a really key thing for the Russians to um yeah. So I don't know now, it's all gonna be reshuffled and and different. And I'm I'm interested. See, I'm I'm kind of hoping we do for the most part say hands off there. And yeah, on the surface, I'm gonna say I don't like the guy in charge, but on the other side, I think we are showing ourselves right now to be tough enough that it's like, okay, you don't have to like us, we're gonna have to be that, but just understand, you know, we're we're not gonna point our finger at you. We're gonna we're gonna hit you with as hard as we can with a closed fist. Well, at least for the next three years. At least for the next little bit.

Host 6:21:12

Yeah, who knows what'll happen.

Gary Harrington 6:21:13

Yeah, well, you know, we say all that, but what'll happen is we'll get uh Camilla will win the next election and be president. And so the first thing she's gonna do is say, I gotta find a war to show that I'm a god that I'm fearless.

Host 6:21:28

I try not to talk politics on this podcast, man, but good God help us all if that happens, dude. Um anyway, let's uh so you I mean you you had a pretty lengthy career, dude. Um you're we just covered, I mean, the Marines, then special forces, and then you know Delta, and then you know, you go back to SF, you run around with all the jawbreaker teams on the initial invasion before it was cool. Um, you know, and then you you work for the CIA as a case officer, plus all the training, multiple trips all over the world. I mean, thwarted operations, found people responsible for operations, um, married and divorced, you you remarry uh a CIA agent. Uh, you guys have kids, and so it's 2015, man. You have been used and used and used by the government. And um, you know, in 2015, after you know, coming off of what should have been a career high, you had a major successful operation that just puts you at the NSC level politics in a way, you know, that you just couldn't stomach. What did you see under the tent? And what did that look like at a level, at that level where you're just like, hey man, I'm ready to do something else?

Gary Harrington 6:22:40

So when I was uh overseas and running these um high value target operations, as we uh I got zoomed up and having to deal with senior echelons. And that's when I learned, like, wait, why when the NSC meeting and the CIA meeting, why is the president's political advisors standing there beside him and giving an opinion? Because I we're taught that what we do is for the good of the country and what we do is for America, what we do is moral and and right for for the most part, we tried to do. And so why is a political spin being having a voice in that? That part, that part hurt me. And then when I saw pressure put on to just to um facilitate briefings uh to the president or things that makes the big organization look good, I thought, man, you know, it's what about people on the ground? What about the people that pay the price for this? And it's like nobody up there cares. It's a machine that has to feed the NSC, a machine that has to brief the White House, it's a machine that has to function in all these meetings. And they don't uh for a large part, it's like we don't care the impact out there on the other end. Let's do that. Um the this the high-value targets that I worked on, they were all replaced. Uh for a couple of those, I gave two years of my life. Two years of every day, no vacation, no leave, worked Christmas, worked weekends, not allowed to go to the schools, can't attend training that I should have for my career because you're on something that's too important. And you know, I that certainly didn't help my marriage, which wound up, you know, wasn't in good shape and wound up failing. But to live that kind of life, it's um I and it's you start saying, Where does that go? I you know, my my one bright spot before 2015 was somewhere around 20. I'm not sure if it's the end of 2012 or 2013. Um on my way before I left the ser doing the serious stuff is uh uh I don't know, but at one point in my career, uh you know, one of the most ops you would think it was the high value target at the time, I thought it was, was getting a person and their family out of a denied country. You know, somebody that's untouchable, but spending a year uh working with some really good guys like us that uh trusted me and and we worked well well together and and we put together something that we handed people that in the end uh you know there's a family living happy and safe somewhere uh because of what we did. That was a good feeling. But all the all the politics, uh disappointments, uh stuff at Chapman, stuff in Benghazi, go back to the USS Cole, go back before that to Beirut, um some of the like yeah, the whole politics of Libya, Syria, and some of the other stuff is just that I started thinking something's wrong. Now we'll talk about that separately probably, but I also I think had some nudgings from uh you know from the man upstairs that you know you're you're going down the wrong uh path. This is not what you're meant for. And yeah, I just got to the point and just the it seemed to me that as time went on, more and more politics and personal opinion was just uh oozing about and I didn't think people could separate their personal feelings from love of our country and pursuing the best interests of America. And uh Yeah, so yeah, I s I just I just got tired. And uh I said, I I gotta leave. And I took you know, right at the after I I took a job that all my friends said, why aren't you taking this job? Because it's like not one of promotional jobs, it's uh more of a different uh debtor end job. Uh I said, because uh you know, I gotta start stepping away. I'd been for this 15 years straight, uh missing uh there was hardly a holiday I was home um at all. And all those years gone, one divorce, kids gone, uh marriage on the rocks with uh agency wife in t in 2013. Uh she you know, we I don't know if we're gonna talk about divorces later, but uh a second wife uh you know leaves and deceives me and takes off kind of on me and by surprise. And uh with all those things, I just started saying, ah man, you are just living for the for the mission, and there's gotta be more to life than that.

Host 6:28:31

So you walk away. I mean, you've been dealing with some some health issues as well. Um so you walk away from the agency and you start building a private security company, uh hiring special operations guys. Um but you know, I I think you know, we talked about in the prep, like by the time you, you know, paid the guys you were working for and you know, doing the job, there wasn't even much left for you. Um what did it feel like to have 35 years of experience out of classified context and discover the marketplace, you know, kind of didn't know what to do with you. And you're kind of trying to. I mean, you and I talked about this last night, you know, when you work for the government long enough, you become almost institutionalized. Like you know, you really do.

Gary Harrington 6:29:12

You think you're not, yeah, yeah.

Host 6:29:13

We convince ourselves we're not, but I mean you do, you become almost institutionalized, you kind of get used to and then when you get on the own, you know, it's it's almost like being in jail, and all you do, I can't remember the name of the movie, but basically, you know, he goes to jail, can't uh can't wait to get out of jail, and then as soon as he gets out, yeah, you gotta do a break, do a crime, yeah. Fakes crime so we can go back. Um you know what was those, what was that initial transition like for you? Because a lot of people struggle in the transition.

Gary Harrington 6:29:38

The the transition, there's I think there's different aspects of it. The the one thing is um adrenaline. It was really hard to go from special ops and go to the other side of the house. Um, and I did that intentionally, wanting to try to do a career that I could keep into my older age. Um, but you miss that adrenaline, you miss the combat, you miss the chaos, you miss, you miss the danger, you miss the having to use your judgment, bet your life on your judgment. Not once in a while, not once in a rare while, but daggum a whole lot, real frequently. Every time you go out the wire, you know, all those things. Um, so you have that adrenaline thing, then you have the purpose that you felt for me, I'd been at the pointy end of the spear on all of our conflicts, starting with Beirut, or most of our conflicts. And and now to be pulled back and removed from that, yeah, there's part of you that feels left out. But then on the business side, I thought I was going to be successful because I left the agency. All kinds of people said, Oh, you're gonna make all kinds of money, and I know people that need this, and people would like that. Um and I had been really successful at putting together programs and ops in the agency, even things that took a year and many layers to make happen. And I thought that I'm good at this. So I will do a business plan and it will be like the government. It will be successful. And I said, Well, okay, and the government, okay, it was the government's money, but you have to put in money at the beginning to get these results. So I took whatever I had left, you know, in savings and uh retirement account, all that, and said, Well, yeah, but I'll make it back. And I I'm good at ops. And that didn't happen. I was not prepared to go into business. I did not have the background, I did not have the skills or the knowledge, and I didn't partner in the right way with people that could fulfill that role for me. So uh, so yeah, I I struggled with that. I I wouldn't have I didn't really want to do security, but um it's a long story, but somehow James Comey wound up with my business card, and James Comey gave it to his former boss before he went to the FBI because he had called him and said, Hey, uh, you know, I I think I need I I want some specialized security, some really good one for a couple things. So he said, Well, here's this guy. I told this guy's good. And uh so I did that, and that's what I the first time I hired some a couple SEALs and uh uh SF, uh retired SF.

Host 6:32:52

Well, James Comey got indicted a couple days ago. Yeah, James Comey did. Yeah. Bless his heart, man. That's a whole separate podcast. We don't have time for that. Yeah, that's so you um so what was that like, you know, as you're trying to put that together and you realize, man, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this.

Gary Harrington 6:33:09

Well, it was figuring out like, and then I bid on a government contract with the FBI. Um, I really wrote a great program they really needed uh for recovery of their overseas personnel. Um and they were unhappy with the current with who they had. But it turns into this whole bidding process and all this detail work, and it's all that stuff that I hate and I'm not good at. And then I found that just like with the security thing, even if you work for I've worked for billionaires, uh, that when I was doing that, that their offices, you think, well, they got unlimited budget. No, they don't. Their offices are pinched every penny. And if you want good guys, I mean, you know, I'm competing with Triple Canopy and with uh Blackwater and all those people at the time. So if I want somebody good, I'm gonna have to pay them pretty good, even if it's not a real high threat uh environment. So, and I I didn't allow enough more, I didn't have enough margin. So either I was gonna have to get people to work for me cheaper, which I didn't feel like doing, and I didn't want the kind of guy you get when you go cheaper. Um so that didn't work. And then with the government contracting, the margins are so thin that what you're trying to do, you got to talk people you know into working for you, but you got to talk them down in price so there's profit for you. And I I was like, I can't do this. I tried a couple times, and now I was like, the the thing we talked about anxiety and my health problems. When I try to solve those kind of problems, is when I get that. And I found that that's what I was having.

Host 6:35:05

That experience at 17 on the mountain, you heard that voice. Don't be afraid, I have a great purpose for you. Does that voice have come back to you at any point in the field, a close call, a dark night somewhere, a moment when nothing else made sense?

Gary Harrington 6:35:17

No, it made me more of late, because I look at that in a different light. I I convinced myself that that was my purpose. And uh I used to, yeah, I used to think all those years that that was God's purpose for me. Now I'm older and wiser and I'm looking back at my weaknesses, and I realized that it never was God's purpose for me, that it was my purpose, that that I, if deep at it, had low self-esteem, and uh was afraid of what people might think of me. So I chose a profession and chose a purpose, a God-given purpose that would make me out to be more like a heroic figure. And that uh as this guy, if I'm as long as I'm willing to lose my life, that I could live that way. Well, then you get to a certain point, you know, you you reach your 50s, and you're not now you're not doing these dangerous things, that it's time to start saying, uh, hmm, I didn't do that. That so maybe I'm wrong. That wasn't my purpose. Well, so what is my purpose?

Host 6:36:32

Well, we when we opened this conversation with the inner ring, we were talking about C.S. Lewis's, and the point in that essay is that the desire to be inside the elite group never really disappears, it just finds new rings to chase. When the last ring closed behind you in 2015, and there was no more selections to pass, no more clearances to earn, no more teams to be chosen for. What happened to the man who organized his entire identity around getting in, if you will?

Gary Harrington 6:36:58

Um, by that time, uh, let's say 2015, 2015, my what my agency wife had gone to another country with my two kids uh in 2013 at the end of 2013. So she came back after her two-year assignment, told me while she was over in another country she was going to divorce me, came back, divorced me, so and then you know, and I and I was punching out of the out of the agency. With the stuff that had gone on, I had this had already decided, and before that wife left, I was trying to like let's get our church family going back to church. I wanted to start getting back to my roots. Because one of the things that I realized when I started seeing behind my uh the lies I told myself about being brave and God's purpose, what um I saw that I was not a unified person. That inside I believed in Christ. And I, if you asked me, I would say I was a Christian, but I would not volunteer to anybody that I was a Christian. And I was known as a good man, a caring man, an empathetic man, an honest man, all those things, but nobody ever said, Well, you're he's a Christian guy. Then and I realized that there were areas in my life um where I certainly was not Christian in the way I conducted myself. And I you tell yourself that while I'm this way outside, it was like a compartmentalization you and I talked about a while ago, that that but then that. Compartmentalization, I eventually realized that wait a second, I'm telling myself that this is who I am inside. But that's not what people see outside. So I'm dysfunctional. I'm not a, I'm not a I'm not a unified person. And what I have to do is unify those. And that means either root out this thing of Christianity and cachet that and just go the other way. Or I've got to change who I am. Which, as you know, that that means then I have to rewire my brain. I've got to totally rewire all 50-something years of wiring. And that that's a hard, hard thing to do.

Host 6:39:29

Well, and you raised this yourself kind of before we sat down, maybe even on the podcast prep. Could that inner ring drive be connected to the PTSD epidemic we're seeing across the special operations intelligence community? I mean, if a man's entire identity is built around belonging to something that most people can't access, what happened what happens when that belonging is gone? You know?

Gary Harrington 6:39:51

I think so, and I don't know if it's worked that way with you because you've dealt with a lot of PTSD people, the people I've dealt with that have it the worst. And again, I'm relying on my personal experience somewhat. It turns out that most of them have had some sort of childhood traumas too. Whether that's the a dysfunctional family, an alcoholic parent, um, or like me, low self-esteem, criticism, anxiety, those type things. I relate them to fear. And I think that inner ring thing, some of that thing to counteract that fear is that we're driven then to excel. Because if I excel, I'm the only one that knows I fear. I used to laugh and make fun of people that slapped one of those no fear stickers on the back of their car. I said, You must be afraid of what people think. And now it's funny that now many years later, I look at that and I go, and how are you different? Uh you know, but there's just a sticker. Now you you kind of bet your life on it. Um, but at but at heart, you're the same. So I think the PTSD, again, we get addicted to that stuff that makes us feel better about where who we are, where we are. And it could be that in comparison to other people, we view ourselves more positively. It could be that looking in the mirror and accepting yourself. And like you said, then when you get when that gets taken away. And and like with the agency with people getting PTSD that hardly ever went outside the wire, or even people back at headquarters that all they did was read reports. Um, and it's not saying their PTSD wasn't real, but it's saying that that sense of worth that they had now is gone. So now who who am I? Who what am I based on? Yeah. And I think that it's hard for people.

Host 6:41:55

Yeah, it's something we talk about a lot. You know, we've talked a lot about it off camera. We talked a little bit about last night.

Gary Harrington 6:42:00

But have you noticed that correlation between childhood trauma and the more severe PTSD cases?

Host 6:42:06

Yes. And we've also, I mean, one of the things that I've noticed is, you know, the almost more severe childhood trauma leads to higher levels of special operations. I don't know if that's the enduring of you know what happens to them in a trauma environment. So they're already able at a very young age to overcome things that most people may not be able to fathom, but they don't know any different. So trauma or the struggle is what they know best. I don't know.

Gary Harrington 6:42:38

I mean, I'm sure there's a psychology and I'm sure there's uh studies on it. Well, and it's like the chaos and the uncertainty is what you learn to deal with at a young age. And so dealing with that, like in this uh last TV thing I did, um uh John Mulholland talks about, well, with Gary, the thing I liked about him is I could I had a really hairy situation that was just chaotic and a mess. He goes, You can put Gary in there and he finds some way. He makes a way and he seems to thrive in those environments. And uh I've I've been really proud of that, but now I'm starting to see that, oh wow. But yet it's the safe environments that I fail in. My anxiety attacks, some medical issues I had, most of those were precipitated by me, for example, counseling a woman on her um evaluation report in the agency. And it was my boss that wrote the report, but I was the one that had to sign my name to it and uh give it to her. And, you know, she started, and I had fought for this person to make it better than what my boss wanted it. She started making uh noise like she was she was started saying she might file a racial discrimination or or something like that. And I went into a full-blown aphib attack and all that kind of stuff. Uh, and those were the sort of things that, you know, they're not chaos, but I didn't know how to deal with them. So I couldn't deal with those. But combat and other chaos where your lives at risk, that's that's a good day.

Host 6:44:37

You know, I've I've talked about this. I don't know if this applies to you. I'd be curious to hear to see your thoughts. But, you know, I think for people that have trauma and have been through traumatic experiences, you know, whether it's war or whatever, you know, we're on the run, right? We stay on the run. You and I talked about it last night, you know, drinking to go to sleep, caffeine and energy drinks to wake up, chasing the dragon. You know, the other part of that is being on the run. You keep yourself so busy because your head now has become a bad neighborhood. And you don't want to spend a lot of time in the bad neighborhood. So you only go in your head to get the things you need. And then, you know, you you you try to stay out of that neighborhood. Um, and I I it's not until you have some, I don't know, come to Jesus moment, be it psychedelics, be it therapy, be it um, you know, your faith, uh, you know, some renew found thing in your faith that you're able to make peace so that you can slow down enough to be present in life. You know, my my experience, I haven't talked about it at all on the podcast, but it's probably gonna come out eventually. I mean, I did Ibegain, and I have a strong faith as well. And, you know, interestingly enough, psychedelics really helped my faith. Um, but it wasn't until that moment that I was able to treat that to slow down enough to even just be present. I mean, I remember, you know, you and I have talked offline, you know, you just keep busy, you keep doing things. You, that's the next job, the next promotion, the next, the next war, the next overseas assignment, you know, whatever. And you just constantly keep going until you finally realize, like, man, you were just flying through time and you were never really present. So I remember being home, you know, with my kids through in certain things in my life, and yeah, I'm home mentally. I'm somewhere else. I'm on the next thing. I'm waiting for the phone call for the call out for the whatever or the next trip or war, whatever. And so I don't know, does that resonate with you at all, or am I just completely weigh off or no?

Gary Harrington 6:46:24

And that does, and it affects different parts of your life. I think there was one question I was thinking about going into this that that I think you're gonna ask later, but like like for example, times I wasn't married, relationships. Um I I always thought I had this destiny and this this rendezvous that I I had to make. But you want to care for people and you want people to care for you. And yeah, I was a guy and wanted to uh have some sex. So I entered a lot of relationships, and when I'm in that relationship, I give to that relationship because I I I I want that feeling and want the person to feel that way. But in my mind, though it was always temporary because I was you know, I had a destiny. And now when I look back, there were some people um that by the way I treat them, they didn't think that was a temporary thing. And I think I always tried to tell myself, look how good you are to them and that you're giving everything, you know, except permanence. And now I see that as man, you're just like some dude that wants to get out and screw whoever he can. Are you really any better? And you got people to trust you and count on you, and then you walked away. And I mean it doesn't matter what your reason were.

Host 6:48:06

But the but the other thing of that too is being a case officer and working in the intelligence industry, you're constantly dealing with assets, right? You constantly have to almost pretend like you're somebody you're not. Yeah, you're making these very close personal relationships that you know at some point you're gonna leave this person. Yeah, they could get killed or whatever, but you know, when you're with them, you want them to believe that you know you're there to love and protect them and they're on the team, and then you know, you're gonna leave them, and whatever happens, gonna happen. And I I can't help but wonder, I've had a lot of friends that are case officers, and they're some of them are really hard to be friends with because unfortunately, I don't even think they do it knowingly, but they end up treating everybody in their life like assets, and yeah.

Gary Harrington 6:48:40

And and and that might be some of the dissonance I had with because it's programming, right? That you're programming, yeah. That this and and and to be honest, I was good at it. Yeah, and uh and it seemed like natural, and and when you dealt with undercovers, right? And and it started bothering me that that I could be really good at this. And uh uh so yeah, it and it's been a journey. I think we'll talk more about faith later, but it's uh it it it is a it's a tough road. It I mean to me, the last 10 years where I've really 11 years now, really been trying to follow on the the faith aspect have been uh as tough as going through OTC twice or or more, and uh and I think the stakes are higher.

Host 6:49:33

I agree. I mean, because you're playing for your soul and and and they are higher. So you crossed the line from believer to follower somewhere around 2015. Was it a moment or was it the slow erosion of everything you said you've been trying to avoid?

Gary Harrington 6:49:50

I think it was the slow erosion, and then after um 2013, after my wife went to the other country, I started going to a church where I started really, you know, started taking in the word, started really listening, started really being moved, and started seeing that I that's the direction I need to go to unify this inside me. And um I realized that clearly the th what I heard on that mountain that day, I had misread that and went the wrong direction. So I I just kept starting to go deeper and deeper spiritually. You know, one of the first things that you have to do is forgive. So right at that time, I was pretty daggum angry at the wife who left me snuck off and left me and took my kids. Um I was pretty angry about that. Had had to find a way to forgive that. Well, I was still held resentments about the stuff that happened in Delta. And I had to say, I gotta let that go. You know, it's just like layer by layer, and then you start working on that, and you start looking at at the things like sin and stuff in your life, and it's like, wow, this is an onion with a never-ending onion. And uh, and to that whole rewiring and changing who you are, it's not it's not a linear thing, and it's not easy. Um so yeah, gradual, but it just hit a point where it was really accelerating. In the beginning, I almost made the same mistake that we talked about on the interring. Um I got involved in that church, and I got angry. You know, I I in my at my agency retirement, I invited a pastor from that church to come in 2015. And he opened it with a prayer and he closed it, which that's not people don't do that. People don't bring pastors in, people don't do prayer. And it's funny, some good friends of mine who were heard talking at the time, they're good friends, uh, say, Hey, what's happened to Gary, man? What's this God, the whole God thing? And and I had a lot of good friends in the agency. Hey, what's up with you now? Hank, why are you leaving now? And you know things go start going your way. Um what what is this religion thing? And you're a good guy. People like you. I say, yeah, I'm I'm a good guy. I'm not a godly guy. But my mistake was I wanted so hard not to be known as that guy, that war zone guy. So I was known everywhere I went. You know, I'm not some of these great combat warriors that got all the you know close quarter combat stories. I I don't have that. But what in our my circles, I was known for some intelligence operations and a lot of uh military stuff, and I was that guy. But what I now saw was athletic church, like there's always an inner ring. It's the people that are closely involved that are uh, and I was like, I want to be one of them because I want people to look at me and say, there's Gary, a godly guy, not Gary the warrior or Gary the CIA guy or whatever it was. I I I want to be the godly guy. And I I'll be honest, I made the mistake for several years that I was volunteering for everything and trying hard and reading the Bible and uh you know prayer life was getting better and better and and wanting to do that and and struggled until I realized that wait a second, I'm doing all that because I want people to to look at Gary and it's Gary to look at. And that's when I realized that no, I I I'm supposed to reflect some aspect of God's holiness and glory and not mine. And if they're looking at me and seeing Gary, then I'm I'm wrong.

Host 6:54:28

Yeah, you told me something I thought was interesting. The truth is you are who you are on the outside, not what you like to think you are on the inside. How long did it take you to stop telling yourself the more comfortable version of the story?

Gary Harrington 6:54:41

It was during this probably the first couple years after 2015 when I started looking at that. You know, I used to tell myself to make myself feel better about the Christianity I still claim to have while I was doing all this stuff in the agency. Um I told myself that I'm really a sheep, like a sheep lamb. And I'm going into these places, like certain units that are full of type A guys and um agency stuff, and some of the hops I did and the people I'm around, and it's the wolf's den. So while I'm in the wolf's den, I'm gonna wear wolf's clothing. And then I didn't realize that after I spent so many years wearing wolf's clothing, that it started taking over my body, and uh I was a wolf.

Host 6:55:31

Yeah.

Gary Harrington 6:55:32

And not a lamb.

Host 6:55:35

Yeah, I I struggle with this idea that that Christians are supposed to be this meek and mild, overly loving people. I I do think the Bible talks a lot about that, but the Bible's also a war manual, too.

Gary Harrington 6:55:46

Oh, yeah.

Host 6:55:47

And so, you know, I I I struggle with certain versions of Christianity um to where it's this, you know, even the whole turn the other cheek. Um, you know, there's there's a lot of things I think sometimes get taken out of context in the Bible.

Gary Harrington 6:56:01

So well, and and and that is, and and and like meek, just take for example, meek. We we do associate meek with weak. Meek is power under control. So Christ was meek. Christ was obviously the most powerful, but but he controlled it. And uh, and I think we misunderstand that that aspect uh that's a great analogy. Yeah.

Host 6:56:30

For men in your world, operators, case officers, men who have lived by controlled aggression, faith can feel like something that contradicts who you had to be in the field. Did you feel that tension directly or and and how did you resolve it?

Gary Harrington 6:56:44

I had uh some of what we're just hinging on or touching on was is kind of what we call a moralism aspect, which that's where Jesus was an example of a moralistic way that we should be. So that's the we love everybody, everything, and the more loving we are, the more like Christ we are, so the more Christian we are. Um the the thing about how you just asked, say that again.

Host 6:57:14

Um, you know, faith can feel like something that contradicts who you had to be at your job.

Gary Harrington 6:57:19

At the job. So I made a bad mistake when I was talking about moralism. That when I was in, so yeah, I I told myself, and I think it started like when I went to sniper instructor school, because that was uh right after the Iranians took the hot American hostages, and I started laying awake at night after I've been to sniper instructor school, and I was in my dream, I was always behind a scope and got him in my sights, and it was a real long shot. And I remember watching him for a while and in slow motion, pulling the trigger and the round going down range and the head exploding, and um uh so then I started telling myself this thing, well, hey, Gary Christian guy, how does that set with you? And I kind of made this deal where hey, I'm gonna live my life and use my skills and support my country, and in the end I'm I'll die and I'm gonna go face judgment. And I hope that there's a good enough good stuff that I've done that uh you know, that I get a pass. But if not, uh that's how I lived. But then but it's easy to do that to shift from that to where some of my moral behavior and some other stuff that then you kind of start making those same deals on that. So it's not all that I was doing it for I'm gonna serve my country, and if I have to kill a bunch of people and do bad things, uh I'll answer for that. No, that bleeds over into your sexual behavior, your language, uh, your likes or dis how you talk about people. Sure.

Host 6:59:07

Your upbringing was emotionally cold, a family that never used the word love. Christianity asks a man to be the opposite of all that, openly, not privately. What did it actually take to learn how to be that man out loud?

Gary Harrington 6:59:19

Uh if you talk to my wife, you probably hear that that's an ongoing process. Right. She goes, you know, I need to hear it sometimes. Um I I know, I know, I know what you're gonna say. You show it. You show it. Uh I need to hear it. Uh so I have gotten better at that, but that is still one of those things that that takes a while. I I do think that I the last couple years have made a lot of progress in that, and it's easier for me to have more open um discussions with people and tell them that. Love that, man.

Host 6:59:59

Is there anything from your career, not specific operations, but the weight of it that your faith has asked you to sit with directly? Give me an example of that. I don't know, man. Maybe something you had to do, a mission where, you know, look, man, some of the things that we did in the intelligence business is morally gray. Yeah. Um, whether it's cut loose an asset and they get whacked later or whatever, man. I mean, I don't really you know, it's just something where, you know, that you now because look, man, you've admitted like, you know, that you know, you you were a Christian, but you weren't practicing. And now that you're practicing and you go back and look at your time and the various jobs you did, look, man, it's war, right? Stuff happens in a war. And then the intelligence business can be a very dirty. Business.

Gary Harrington 7:00:42

Yeah, it it can. And and in the type of ops, I think when you're in doing the kind of ops I did, that you're out on that leading edge, there's nobody around you. So you have to be a jack of all trades and do a myriad of things. And many of which you're not trained and equipped for. And there's nobody to keep you in blinders, so you have a left and right limit. There are no limits. And you know, like for example, I'm not a trained interrogator. Yet I've found myself once um being required to interrogate somebody. And now when I look back on that, I think that wow, there's there's that's a not a good formula. And there's you know, there's there's there's some things about that that that I don't I'm I'm not proud of. Uh there's ways I treated individuals to punish them that you know I I look back at that. Um there's as far as uh that that kind of thing. Yeah, there's other manly things about you know what you say about people and expressing opinions, how that can hurt people. I had some lessons in that where I I was one I got called once and I was like, what? And and then I had to face the fact that the guy was right. Yeah. Uh and that so that's that that's hard. Um humor gallows humor. Like like you face sometimes some pretty uh gruesome things. I think that's hardness. And you can take some, you know, I think as guys, we don't want to act like it's affecting us. So I and and I I think sometimes that's led to some of the uh incidents we've that have been publicized about people uh doing things with uh like dead people and stuff that you know posing pictures and uh stuff like that. That um so the those type things, you know, stuff kind of along that lines that yeah.

Host 7:03:10

You walked into a church in McLean after deciding you were done looking. There's a version of your story where finding the faith and finding your current wife, Kim, in that same season aren't coincidental, coincidental at all. How do you see that?

Gary Harrington 7:03:25

I you know, I'd been married twice, twice. My first wife, uh, when I was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, went away for a week to do some training, call for fire. I don't know if we said this earlier in the podcast, but uh yeah, gone, everything gone. So, you know, you recover from that and you tell yourself you won't make the same mistakes again. But based, I was still essentially the same person, uh, made some mista not mistakes that I misbehaved in my marriage or anything like that. I was a faithful husband, but for the same reasons that fell apart. So I got to a point, and then I had I had a run of um just say I had a run of relationships in between those marriages. Um many of what were were not long lasting, right? And just and and not that I was the one of those guys, but you know, it was whatever reason. Um after the second wife left, and I had you know, I got to the point where I was that needy begging guy before to try to get her to work on a marriage and all that and that that didn't work. I came to a point where I was like, hey god, I ain't got it. I'm in my fifties now. And I didn't plan on being without anybody or being celibate or any of that stuff now. But I I realize now that I'm I'm my own left my own devices that I'm wrong. And I i i I will no longer do this. I'm not gonna put you if if if you want me in a relationship that that's fine, but if uh if I'm single the rest of my life, it wasn't my first choice, but I'll that's fine. I'll be single and celibate the rest of my life. And um and so from that I I got I just kinda gave up and I was just like, okay, um I'm going to church, I'm pursuing Christ. I'm gonna try to that's where I'm going. And yeah, I still um drank, probably was working on my cursing and stuff. Um and it was really interesting because in this time frame, I uh there was an incident in a restaurant where a woman had that any other time of my my life, if you just said I would approach me, you know, I was in this bar restaurant, had been eating a meal, and some really stunning woman uh walks in in a black dress and orders a wine at the bar. And I mean, obviously heads are turning and looking, she's that way. After a while, she starts walking towards me with her glass of wine. But it was no big deal because I figure when you get to where I am, you have to turn uh right if you're going to the restroom. And uh if you're going to this other section of table, is you'll turn left. And the woman kept walking that way. Now I'm standing up because I'm trying to just pay my bill, gonna get out. And then the woman walks right up to me and uh she goes, she says, hey, excuse me. She says, Don't we know each other? I know we've met. And I was like, oh, come on, right? And then but I looked at her, and it's so funny because uh I I looked at her, and you know, at any other time of my life, it would have had a different reaction, but I thought, oh really, God, oh really. So so I told you that. So now you're gonna, now you're gonna see if I'm really true to that, everything right here. And uh, and uh I said, uh I don't think we've met, but maybe you know me from my church. And I said, I go to this church, where do you go? And she gave me the name of some church, and she said, Well, I need to meet my friends over here. So she turned and left. And uh, you know, but but for me, it was like, okay, I am putting this in God's hands. I'm not pursuing. So then we're at church one day, and uh the pastor had said the week before or whatever, that if you there's somebody, you see somebody in the pews and you don't know them, you need to get up and go introduce yourself to them. The backstory with all this is I did not know that my wife Kim had noticed me months before. And she said, You always came in church alone. You seemed like a like some sadness on you. You always sat and with your hands folded and leaned forward before church. You always bent down and wrote out your check, and then you sat back and waited, and she said, Something about you just seemed like you're somebody that I'm supposed to meet. And um, she said, but you had this thing that she said, I sat in the same pew for 15 years and never moved, and God helped somebody sit in my spot. And at that time, uh her husband had died a couple years before, so her mother would come and stay with her a few months at a time, and she had a daughter, and so she said that she'd noticed me, and then she started talking to them about me. Well, I saw this guy, and he looks like that, and they go, Well, show me, show me the next time. And she said, So then I'd look for you and I'd never see you. And then sometime I would see you and you're completely somewhere else in the church. And then uh, but they were never with me when when I would see you. So I kept describing you. So then people started, they they started joking and saying that you you were a mystery man, that I was like making you up, and there was no guy. You know, it wasn't until I told her later I said, I can't stand to sit in the same place. I said, I'm sorry, but with me, when I go into it, I I never want to sit in the same place in the church. Survival mechanism. Well, I mean survival, and I just I kind of don't like that. Well, this is my spot, and I'll sit here. So I'm gonna go somebody, I'll I'll be the guy who takes your spot, and like, yeah, well, if this your spot um here now. And uh, and so one of those times they said in her, you know, in her do or in the stand-up and greet point, uh, this woman comes up, and I yeah, I'm looking down like this, and suddenly I hear, excuse me, and I look up like this, and here's this woman. She said, Um, the you know, pastor said, Come and introduce yourself, somebody. I'd like to, you know, I'd like to introduce myself. My name's Kimberly. And suddenly, I don't know what it was. I I I it's weird. I mean, I'm not a young guy, I'm not dressed. Suddenly, I was like, Oh, God, I told you. But and and I don't know, immediately it hit me, and she said that you were looking fine. Then suddenly you went from here like that, bright red. You just went bright red. Then you were polite, you stood up and you introduced yourself and all that. You just sat down and she said, I was real proud of myself. I went back and told my family I met you, that they weren't there with me, but then I came home and told them I met you. So the next week they said, Where is he? And I said, I can't find him. That's funny. Yeah, so uh yeah, we met and it was so she you met her at church after you already run into the bar? No, she was not the person at the bar. Okay. No. Okay. You know, it's like like you said, I I think I I for me it was a lesson that I truly gave in to God and said that um, you know, you'll you'll if you want me, but if you don't, and then this thing without it. This pretty lady starts talking to church. Kim comes up to me. Uh I I I can't remember what how long that was in between that. And uh and that was strange because you know, I I thought I was being polite, and I certainly didn't think anybody was interested in me. And um I guess we she was trying to meet me again, bump into me so we could get further introduced. That eventually happened uh around Christmas time. And uh so then I think we uh uh ended up exchanging a number or something, maybe uh have a coffee sometime or but we went home. I didn't call her that night, so she told me she's still not happy that I didn't call her that night. But I'm thinking I'm not gonna be forward and I'm waiting God'll tell me. But eventually on the 26th of December uh we met for a coffee and it lasted a long time talking and um yeah, and we dated after that and never been anybody else.

Host 7:13:00

And yeah, it was it was kind of funny you told me the story, like she asked you what you you know, your background, and you told her, and she she knew people that worked at the agency, and she's like, There's no way that there anybody has this credentials.

Gary Harrington 7:13:10

Well, it it's funny because one of the one of her co-teachers, her husband was actually uh was one of the guys that was on um either Team Alpha or the that very first team that went into Afghanistan, and you know, he rose in the agency ranks, and he was that uh woman's husband. And they had been starting to trying to set her up because her husband had been dead a couple years, and they were starting trying to set her up with agency guys, uh ground, you know, paramilitary guys, and uh um and she said no, she kept telling them uh no. And so we so we'd been dating a couple weeks, and when school started back up with a Christmas holiday, and that friend said uh called her into another room. She said, Okay, uh, something's different about you. You don't look the same, you look different. She said, You look happy. I haven't seen you happy for 15 years. Uh her late husband's disease, you know, really slow, long thing. And she said, You must be seeing somebody spill it. And she said, Okay, well, yeah, there's this guy. I met this guy at church, and he told me we had coffee, and then we stuck, we've been dating some, and he told me he was a marine, and he was in reconnaissance, and and then after that he went to special forces and he was in some kind of counter-terror thing, and uh and then he was in the CIA, and that woman and her husband had been a ranger before, and she she looked at her and she laughed, she said, Oh honey, put her arm around her and she said, That's the kind of thing that guys tell girls to get in their panties. And she said, Nobody has done all those things. She said, But he seemed so sincere. And and I met him at church. She said, Yeah, well, there's just I've been around this. Give me his name and I'll give it to my husband, he'll check him out. And at that time, if I met her, I was still in, I hadn't left the agency yet. It was right before I did. And uh so she, I guess she takes my name and goes home. And then a couple days later, she grabbed her again. She came in another room, she said, honey, let me tell you something. She said, I told you there was no way that could be true. Turns out, she said, it's all true. And she said, It's more than all true. There's a lot more. And she said, What you need to know is he is known as a very good and honest guy. I said, and she said, however, he is known as a big-time rule breaker, but he never lies about it. He'll he's known that he'll break the rule, but he gets the job done. That's hilarious.

Host 7:16:20

Um, so you ended up getting married.

Gary Harrington 7:16:24

Um Yeah, I've only been married uh a little over a year. So we were together um all these these years and you know, just seen each other and been part of each other for all that time. It's all the homies out there, bro.

Host 7:16:41

It's never too late. Never too late. Uh just pray. Yeah.

Gary Harrington 7:16:46

And well, but trust. Trust. And um and and you gotta be faithful. Yeah, I think there's that thing, you can't expect to receive a blessing unless you're living in a way that you could be blessed.

Host 7:17:01

You did a safety seminar for women CEOs. Afterward, a woman told you, hey, if I'd have known this before, I wouldn't have been stabbed and raped. What happened inside of you when she told you that?

Gary Harrington 7:17:14

After I'd tried uh this is probably around 2016 time frame, 17, after I'd tried the government contracting thing and security, I got connected with a finance company in Northern Virginia, and they liked me to run special ops-themed uh events for CEOs. Financial companies, especially in Northern Virginia, they all will take you out on golfing outings or super nice, expensive dinners. They'll take you, you know, to a box seat for basketball games or football games, all that. Well, this company wanted to try something a little bit more exciting and different. So I would run a thing and hire people like Bob, um, really experienced uh special ops guys to come, and there would always be like a component of shooting and maybe some other components too. Then those people came to me and said they were going to run a women's CEO only event. And they wanted it several hours long and geared for women. I went back and I thought about the training I'd had and uh some of the hand-to-hand stuff I've had, and um wanted to do a program that had some anti-assault stuff where you teach people situational awareness, basic techniques and tactics to use on for street smarts, um, some make space and get away, telling them if you're being grabbed this way, being grabbed that way, some basic moves. Um and then we did um anti-kidnap training. So how to, you know, when to fight, when to yell, or abduction, when to fight, when to scream, when to yell, when to succumb, when to calm it down to save your life, and start setting the stage for you being abducted in a way that will make it easier for you to escape later. And then we added in the escape component, which, you know, from duct tape, from rope, twine, electrical cords, zip ties, um, all those sort of things.

Host 7:19:33

You spent 35 years learning to survive in the world's most dangerous environments. At what point did it occur to you that the principles you operated by every single day had never been made available to normal families?

Gary Harrington 7:19:44

Teaching the women CEOs was part of that. Uh for me, the light went on when I'm teaching that, that one of the women working at that facility stood and watched the class. And then after she's the one that came up to me after and said, When I was in college, I did exactly what you said. I was on the street late at night coming back from studying. I saw a guy, it was just him and me. I could see him staring at me. I turned, I went a different way. I saw him again. I convinced myself that I was making an assumption based on his personal appearance, and that was wrong and prejudiced of me. So I decided I would walk by where he was, and I did, and when I I came here, he grabbed me and dragged me into an alley and did this. And then that's sort of flipped that switch for me. So helping the those women helped, and then I started thinking about what I taught them, and then I started thinking about, well, what about my daughters? I've got young daughters, and they need that, and all the families need that. Now, this was back in the early um early Antifa and the the protest up in New York, all that stuff that that it was started to seem that violence was popping up in the U.S. everywhere. Uh it once that was something that was just for people overseas fighting the battles, and now I saw that regular people here needed to have some of that training too.

Host 7:21:21

The your course is built around what you call power of prudence. Walk me through the core philosophy because it sounds like it's not about just teaching kids to fight, it's about something kind of more foundational.

Gary Harrington 7:21:32

When when you did your work, the situational awareness and street smarts was more important. One of the things that that I tell people is that from all the war stories and combat stories I know, the biggest difference, and you and I last night talked about some pretty famous um gone-bad operations that happened in a couple of wars and the things, the factors that were common in all those. So for me, when I look back, the people that came home successful or the people that didn't come home, one of the biggest differences was their knowledge and preparation and then their viligence and and timely decision making. So that did they take the time to be intentional and make all the plans they should have before they went on that op? Um, did they do all their homework? They have all the emergency gear, they have all their contingency plans. And that happens in our daily life. You get ready to go out the door, and I'm gonna go here today. Well, Wow, I was hearing that there's some Antifa protests down there. Should I really go down there today? Is it something that can wait? Um, so knowledge and then preparation for where I'm gonna go. A lot of people, you know, I always have a lighter, a knife, and a handkerchief on me. I just think that's your basics anywhere, anywhere I go, I must have those. And then there are other things that it's good to have. And then that situational awareness, vigilance while you're out. Um, but then it's timely decision making. How many times when thing you you start seeing that something's off and people delay making a decision? I'll wait, I'll wait. And the longer you wait to make a decision, whether that's to change course, to retreat, or to take an aggressive action, the longer you wait, usually the more urgent it is to make a decision, and usually the more dire consequences you're gonna pay to make it.

Host 7:23:45

Situational awareness gets used as a buzzword constantly. What does it actually mean at the level you practice it, the version you'd stake your life on?

Gary Harrington 7:23:53

For me, situational awareness. When I'm describing this to civilians, I'd say it's like a bubble. Imagine that there is this, whenever I go out of the house, or even when we're in somewhere like this, there's this big bubble around me. Inside that bubble, and it can vary in size, it that defines the space where stimuli in my environment are coming into me, whether it's by sight, by hearing, by feeling, by sensing, by tasting, those are all stimuli that come to my brain, and my brain processes. And then if it goes to something that my brain registers as a potential threat, there are you know my my brain reacts to it. So situational awareness is is that sphere. Now we can take by being intentional, and you can expand that sphere bigger so you have earlier warning, or you can sort of close it down. Let's say I'm in a bar and there's a guy beside me at the bar that's starting to get aggressive with me and he's acting like something's off. Well, now instead of having that big sphere out there, now I'm gonna focus in detail on him. I'm gonna watch his hands, I'm gonna turn and face him, I'm gonna make sure I've emptied my hands, unless I'm holding a mug that I can backfist him with. But uh usually that's it's emptying my hands, so I'm ready for action. What are you all and I'm sure you automatically do this? You lower your center of gravity, your legs are spread. You might be talking calmly to the guy to try to calm the situation down. Meanwhile, you're prepared for action. Where are we watching? Now we're focusing big detail on the head, the neck, the shoulders, because we know that if he's gonna start to pull a knife, pull a gun, or through, or throw a punch, that we're gonna see that movement first there as he starts to do that. And then that gives you the chance to do your reaction. So I so that's that's what I call your my situational awareness area.

Host 7:26:11

Um when you walk into a movie theater, uh, a restaurant, a stadium with your family, what are the first things you do that most people don't think about?

Gary Harrington 7:26:20

Always, and and you can start teaching kids this when they're a really young age. I think I usually say about four or five. Uh, first thing you look for are alternate exits. Now I start with little kids. I don't want to scare them. Like, uh, okay, we came in this way. Do you say another way we could get out if we needed to without going back through there? And let them choose it, or I'll point it out. And that gradually expands uh to the secondary exits that are harder to find that you know they're there, like the loading dock for a restaurant, the the access alleyway behind a kiosk. Um and then I go to cover and concealment and start that, okay. Like if if I'm somewhere at a stadium or outdoor venue, okay, there's the exits. Now, what cover is close to me that will stop and that's what will stop bullets and projectiles? Because if something like that starts happening, we're I'm getting my people behind that. And hopefully I'm getting people behind that that's on the way to an exit. Because ultimately I want to start moving. I don't want to stay in one place where if somebody's coming around shooting people, we can be nailed. I want to start moving from cover to cover to an exit. And then I teach them what cover is. So cover are those things that um will help hide you or conceal you or not give everybody a clear side of you that you can hide behind, but it doesn't stop bullets or projectiles. I don't like to stay behind cover, but if there's some plants um in this mall before I get to a big concrete column, I'm gonna go behind the plants till I get behind the column.

Host 7:28:20

There's a meaningful difference between protecting children by controlling their environment and equipping children to protect themselves. Your course is firmly on the equipping side. Why does that distinction matter so much to you?

Gary Harrington 7:28:33

I think we both want to be people that that teach people how to fish, and you don't want to supply them fish. I'm I'm older now. I'm not that guy that I was. You know, I yeah, I've stopped the rape, I've done a uh citizen's arrest, I've intervened in things, and I had been for a long time capable of taking care of my family, most situations. Well, now I'm not. I'm I'm older, and now they're older and they're venturing out on their own. So daddy can't protect them. And if I have left them shielded and not experienced those things earlier, now they're not equipped to be able, A, to handle it physically. B, they're not equipped to recognize it, and they don't have the practice and exercise and the judgment, you know, to make those decisions.

Host 7:29:26

You built a community component into the course, live sessions, parents supporting each other. For a man who spent his career in small knit tight teams, why did you build it that way?

Gary Harrington 7:29:35

Uh I did it that way because I think not enough people, people like you and I, because of our shared experiences, we we can have a frank conversation about what it means to equip kids. Most people, I don't think, can. A, they don't know. You'll be surprised at how many of my peers in Northern Virginia, uh, people that live in my neighborhood, their kids are just blissfully unaware. They just keep taking them to their ball games and they play their video games and they don't know. They're the parents like they don't get in conflicts because they're not ever in a position to be in those. And I think that that um, you know, I just think it makes it where if they don't experience it younger, they're not going to be able to later.

Host 7:30:32

For a parent right now who thinks my neighborhood is safe, this doesn't apply to me, what do you say? Um I'd like to go to the planet you're on. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like even people live in nice areas, and if, you know, you have no idea what goes on in your neighborhood. You can think you live in the greatest place, but unless you talk to law enforcement regularly, like there's a good chance house is getting broken into cars are getting taken, drugs are everywhere, like this idea that you know we're safe. It's a facade. I'm not saying America as a whole is this crazy place to live, but there's plenty of things, bad things that happen in really nice good areas.

Gary Harrington 7:31:06

We I I get calls, so I get random calls from wealthy people because I have somehow got connected into a lot of uh financial organizations that deal with high net worth family offices. And and you'd be surprised how many times it's those people that live in that neighborhood that's always been safe and always been protected, but suddenly now it's not. Uh and they say, well, I talked to my financial advisor, they said call you. And and uh and they they don't know how to deal with it. You know, I've lived through two home invasions in my life, and uh, you know, something like that. Most of these people haven't had a home invasion, but something like that has happened in their neighborhood, and they're all shook up about it. So uh yeah, it nowhere is completely safe. And we're all these days with the protest, with street takeovers, with just random violence for political reasons, or somebody sees you wearing the wrong t-shirt or hat. Now, I think all of us are one or two turns uh away from a potentially life-threatening situation anytime.

Host 7:32:24

You've described the goal as creating a legacy, principles and habits that pass from parent to child to grandchild. What does it mean to you that where you're that what you're building now could outlast everything in your own career file?

Gary Harrington 7:32:41

You know, yeah, we'll be forgotten. And a lot of a lot of this stuff, sometimes I think nobody's listening. No, nobody cares. But yet, like Kim and her adult daughter now, you know, I I gave them the training, and it's stuff they use, and they say, Well, hey, we we learned we learned this from Gary, and we always do this now, or other families. I hey Gary, by the way, just just so you know, my family and now my kids, we all do this now. And uh I think that's good. Back when I grew up and you were more on your own as a kid and outside of your parents' direct supervision, I think we built a lot of this stuff in. I just think over these last, over this last generation and a half, a lot of that has been lost. So what we're trying to do, maybe it's artificial, we have to do it through training. It doesn't come naturally in your childhood, but uh we have to reinstill some of those experiences. Yeah.

Host 7:33:47

Um, kind of as we transition towards the, you know, the final parts of this podcast, we've been recording for a while. Um, I just kind of want to talk to you a little bit about, you know, man, you've lived uh a heck of a life and you still have, you know, you're still building other things, you have this training course. Um I just want to ask you some kind of general questions based on you know your life experience. What do you think the United States genuinely got right in the post-9-11 era? Not what we said we got right, but what you actually saw work. Don't say nothing because that's depressing. Yeah.

Gary Harrington 7:34:26

I think some of the things we got right, I I think it shook America awake that we had gotten so complacent and wars were things that happened somewhere far away. Great point. And and suddenly 9-11 happens. And it's not like it was, yeah, like I said, I've lived through two home invasions, and it's not like people never got robbed, raped, stabbed, or killed here in America, but some big attack was something that only people in the service had to deal with. And it came here, so then I think it shook us into realizing that there are people around the world, and and I I wish listeners you could just remember that right now, around the world, some in cities in Europe, some in caves or little mud huts in third world countries are sitting around now planning for how they can kill Americans for what we stand for, for who we are or who they think we are, and that is a reality that we have to deal with. And we can stay like an ostrich with our heads in the sand, or we can take measures to try to be proactive. And I'm not saying I'm not a fan of adventurism and that we have to be investing our treasure everywhere we think there's a problem, but we have to be looking for problems. And I and the one potential thing that I think that our intelligence community could do really well is to really get to the bottom of these things when they're first starting out so that we have more options on how to deal with it.

Host 7:36:28

You've been to dozens of countries. What do most Americans misunderstand about how we are actually perceived in the world?

Gary Harrington 7:36:37

I think people should understand that there's how we're perceived as Americans and then how you're perceived as an individual. If you're in somewhere as a tourist, you're in somewhere short term, you're just going to be perceived on the surface as an American. If you have a chance to interact with people, then that's where you get known by, you know, on your own character. Like I advised uh a guy that was on the Olympic committee when it was in Sochi. There was the big threat that it was going to be attacked in Sochi. And he he's like, Oh, we bought, we got all the Olympic gear and we want to wear our winter Olympic gear. Do you recommend we don't do that? You know, all the team USA stuff. And I said, Um, you know, looking at that situation, I said, Well, what are your travel plans? And he said, Well, we're flying to Turkey and we're gonna overnight, I can't remember if it was Istanbul or Ankara. But anyway, we're gonna overnight in Turkey, and then the next day we're flying into Sochi. I said, Okay, here's my advice, which is gonna go against what everybody else will tell you. In Sochi, because of the threat, the Russians have that venue, they were staying inside the bubble, that they have a lockdown tight. I said, So you're gonna be safe there. So enjoy the Olympics, wear your U.S. gear in Sochi. But when you're in Turkey, don't wear no U.S. gear outside. You know, don't wear it in the airplane, don't wear it outside. You, you, you know, just wear your regular clothes because you don't want to be that American there. So it's part of that knowledge part I said about uh you know preparation and what you're doing. Know where you're going and and you have to base, you know, how are they gonna react to Americans where you're going.

Host 7:38:43

You've got older kids, they're adults, and you've got younger kids. What do you want to tell them um about your life and you know any things that you want to share with them?

Gary Harrington 7:38:56

And older kids, you know, my wife and I argue about this somewhat now, uh um, because she feel, you know, I I'm I'm wanting to push them more towards the spiritual side, and I don't care what you become, as long as you're healthy and you're happy and you're a Christian. You know, I I want my kids to wind up in heaven. Um but and I can't say that all of them are there, you know, uh they're not. And she wants to make sure that I talk about the past stuff that we've talked about today, so that they know. Because I've lived they've all grown up living with their moms mostly, and she wants to make sure they know what kind of man I was. And she's grateful for like this opportunity that she said it'll always be there. That your kids, when you're dead and you're gone, your grandkids, uh, our grandkids now, and we're blended family, that um that we can show them that. And and those are good. I'm I'm really glad for it. But you know, the to me, the faith part, the Christian part is the bigger part because this world uh you and I have spent most of our lives trying to make this world a better place. Yes, we served ourselves some too in that and our egos, but we make this world a better place. But I don't know how much work I was doing to prepare for the permanent home because as Christians, this isn't our home. We're just sojourners here, but our home is eternity and in heaven. And I don't know if people like really consider that. And I'm not sure that all my kids do at this point. Uh so that's the thing I want them to work of. That I I have this history, some of it good, some of it bad. I've got some tragedy um in there, but over through all that it was it was God's plan to form me for who he needed and those experiences for whatever comes next. Could that be you and I both sharing that need, and that there, like you said, might be somebody out there that hears? Could it be the person I talk to on the street? And you know, am I exercising a little cul-de-sac evangelism where it's not just what you say when you go to church, but how am I living and talking to my neighbors? Sure. So if they say, hey, what's different about this guy? Uh so I I I want my kids to know that. I am sorry for my older kids that uh all those years when they were growing up, I was out of the country. Um the younger girls, I've been I'm I'm still in Northern Virginia mostly because they're there and I need to be part of their lives. And um so I've been able to be more diligent about that. Um, but I made my choices. Uh you know, I wouldn't redo them. And uh I hope they know that I've loved and cared for them, and uh and I'm just a frail human doing the best I can. Amen.

Host 7:42:39

Well, as we close, we've covered just a ton of ground today, man. It was such an honor to sit with somebody um of not only your accomplishments, but your character. Uh I I I felt that actually when I heard you on another podcast, um, I felt that through the entire time that we've interacted, whether it was the preparation, the phone calls, um, and then you know, the time that we spent last night and then our time here together um with the audience. You're a very genuine person. Um and you know, again, I don't want to sound corny, but thank you for your service. I mean, we're our nation is better because of you and people like you that have served at you know the tip of the spear and done the things and sacrificed your own personal well-being, your family time so that you know uh we could be safe, whether it was keeping troops safe overseas or keeping us safe in the homeland. So thank you, brother. We're lucky to have people like you uh in this nation.

Gary Harrington 7:43:38

Thanks, Asher. You know, that uh working with you. You know, my wife asked me, she said, Gary, why aren't you gonna do another podcast? What is it that what's your goal? What do you seek out of this? I go, Asher, I have talked to Asher. Asher is the real thing. Asher's not a guy out there looking for clicks. Asher is a man of faith. Uh and I said, I I don't know. Asher and I are supposed to be together and we are supposed to talk. And um, you know, we've talked a lot today about me. It's you know, it's been a whole lot about me. By design. And uh, but you know, uh but in the end it's really not about us, right? It's it's about God and and what we you know I I I just say I view it as we're stained glass that all we show is God's light through us, whatever we're able to. And I told her that uh I just feel doing this with you is gonna give a chance for some of that to come through. So I I really appreciate you and I appreciate the opportunity to actually make that work. Love that, bro. Can you tell the people how they can find you? Uh, you can find me on uh Gary Harrington.net.com.net. Uh you can find me uh uh on a few TV specials. There's one on Netflix called SpiOps, uh, one on Disney and Hulu and Nat Geo called Inside the CIA, and the uh the most uh a special on the USS Cole. And then I'm on all the social media, just search for Gary Harrington and look for that the odor, middle-aged or middle-aged to odor guy with a white goatee and beard.

Host 7:45:42

Uh, and all his uh links will be in the description below. Um, whether you're if it's you're on the audible, it'll be in the um descriptions, or if you're watching this on YouTube, it'll be in the description below. As always, I just want to thank the audience. Thanks for tuning in um to this podcast. It takes a lot of effort, not only to plan and prepare for these things, but also the post-production. By the time you're seeing this, we've done a lot of work on the post production side. So hopefully you get something out of this. And if you do, please share it uh with a couple people. That's how we grow this thing. Everybody out there, man, be safe. And if you can't be safe, be violent out here.