From Special Forces to Author: The Story Behind Desert Heist | Alex Dekker Interview

Alex Dekker is a former Green Beret, combat veteran, and author of Desert Heist.

After being severely injured by a Taliban grenade, Alex fought his way back to his team—eventually deploying again while still recovering. In this episode, he shares the mindset behind Special Forces, the realities of war, and how his experiences shaped a novel that blends fiction with hard-earned truth.

This is a conversation about resilience, identity, and what comes after the mission ends.

Transcript

Why Alex Dekker is Special

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alex, why are you special?

SPEAKER_00 0:02

I would say I'm not special. I have been very fortunate. I've been very fortunate in my career to be part of some amazing things and work with some amazing, very special people doing that. Spent about 20 years trying to keep up with those that were.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I'm Herb Thompson, a Green Beret and resolutionist.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

And I'm Corey Thompson, Herb's less hairy half and branding expert.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Our guests come from various backgrounds, but one thing is true. They are special. I believe the audience will think you're special. I do, you do. I mean, I'm partial because you're a fifth group Green Beret, and that's you're the second fifth group Green Beret to grease that chair after uh General Mahone. So this is this is fun. Also, author of Desert Heist. We're gonna talk a lot about this. Finally, an awesome great novel out there. But I want to take it back though. What what led you to the army and joining?

SPEAKER_00 0:57

My dad was a career army officer, and so I was born into it, moved around you know over a dozen times as a kid, you know, within 18 years. Um and you know, before that, my grandfather was was in the army as well. So it's kind of like uh a family path.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Why special forces?

Ninja Turtles, Rambo & Reality

SPEAKER_00 1:14

A large part of it was fiction. Um, you know, I think that it's hard to overestimate the importance of fiction in life, especially for kids, you know. I think that there are a lot of people that either read things growing up or um, you know, uh see things on movies or TV shows or whatnot, and that influences the the course of their life and their interests, right? That's you learn about turns from somewhere, and you probably do more fiction than non-fiction as a child. Um hopefully. Ideally, right? You know, um, I think that you know, when I was in first grade, I wanted to be a ninja turtle. It was uh how'd that work out for you? Turns out it's more difficult than expected.

SPEAKER_03 1:53

Fifth group is kind of like being a ninja turtle.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Kind of, kind of. Um it's a group. It is a group, it is a group.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

You got your guys. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

Somebody gets the pizza.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Similar. Once in a while, someone wears a bandana. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

You get to do a little bit of like martial arts.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, that's true. Some combat sports in that.

SPEAKER_03 2:11

Um wear a lot of green.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

That's that's actually yeah, that's probably the most most relevant. So I grew up, you know, in 80s and 90s movies of things like uh like First Blood, you know, Rambo, Predator, things like this for these guys that are like these special ops type guys. What about red dog? Red dog. Accurate, right? Yeah, well, right, you know, but that's that's the point of fiction, right? Is it it it plants that seed in your head? And so I always kind of had that idea of you know, uh special forces, green beret kind of in there. And I think that really never went away.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

You know, so at what point did you switch from wanting to be a ninja turtle to special force?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

I'd surprise you think that I ever switched to turtles, it wasn't possible. So I did my my fallback plan.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

That was a good answer.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

And did you join right after high school or go to college?

Ramadi 2005–06, Nothing Like the Movies

SPEAKER_00 2:59

I went to college for um a year and it was shortly after the wars kicked off. You know, I had this thing in my head where I wanted to serve and I wanted to do my part, and I I think I was concerned that if I waited too long, I'd miss my opportunity. Had someone told me the wars would go on for two decades, I may have slowed it down a little bit. So uh I dropped out and enlisted um and did an initial three-year enlistment, did my my year in Iraq, um, which was you know not the most fun experience as a as a as a as a private, and uh, I got out as a as a sergeant, but in Ramadi, Iraq in 05-06 was was uh was not great. I did get to see uh some SEALs and some special forces guys, some fifth group guys. Uh, looked at them and kind of remembered what I wanted to be anyhow and kind of saw it in action and why I wanted it to be them. I got out, I went back to school when I came back in. It was under uh 18x-ray contract actually.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And then oh, I didn't know that. That's really interesting. That's always interesting. I I didn't plan to ask. Do you regret that taking that break? Or is it like now that was it's hard, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I mean, maybe maybe at some points, right? If I could do things a little bit differently, maybe I would I maybe I would have gone and been a SEAL. I mean, I can go live on the beach, you know. Uh let's not get crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I mean, you are an author, so well.

Worst Day in Special Forces Beats Best Day in Army

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Here's the thing is that I had thought about, you know, because also Navy SEALs of Charlie Sheen had come out, so that was you know impactful. Um, and I thought about it, but in the back of my head, I think I was like, I I like the water, I don't like the water enough to go through a lot of that stuff. And then I got the fifth group and they sent me to a dive team and I had to go to dive school anyway. So had I known, but it was a a good experience in that you know, when I went to group, you know, there's a saying, and uh you're familiar with this saying, um, that your worst day in special forces is better than your best day in the regular army. And so true. So when I went uh to group, I had that perspective. You know, we would see some guys that went straight 18 x-ray, um, who, you know, when things were were rough or tough or bad or whatever, things were just the worst. And it was like, hey man, things could be a whole lot worse. Trust me, you know, you're not out there raking rocks under the 120-degree heat of Iraq or something, you know, so it could be it could be much worse. So it did give me that perspective. It also gave me, um, you know, as just a regular grunt in the army, I felt uh, especially in Ramadi at that time, uh I felt like it was, I didn't feel in control of stuff. I felt more like hunted than the hunter, if that makes sense. When I went to special forces, even in the Q course, it was a much different mentality. You know, it was, you know, war is our our arena, and we're the best at it, and we're the hunters, and just that total frame mindset was completely different. So that you know, uh all my subsequent deployments with special forces was much different. And I think I'm I'm probably better for having had both of those experiences.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

We're gonna get in those deployments, but for our viewers, subscribe now, hear more of Alex's story, also great guests coming up. But on the deployment in 2012, we were talking, we had to have met in a 2012 deployment because your your team uh ripped out with my team. What was that deployment like for you?

Hit by a Taliban Grenade

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Uh, it was interesting. So the commando mission, so working with the Afghan commandos, great guys, just some of the some of the toughest individuals you'll meet and there, you know, we ripped out every you know eight months or so, eight, nine months. Um, those guys were there for for for the long haul. Life you know, for years, yeah. I wound up uh getting injured, kind of caught got caught in a a near ambush and got the business end of a Taliban hand grenade. Um, spent about got evacuated, spent about a month um in Launchtule, Germany, the hospital there. And then I just stop you there.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Like you didn't just get a little injury if you're at Launchstuhl for a month. Like you're being modest, but like you got messed up, right?

Deploying Again With a Cane

SPEAKER_00 7:06

I mean, I got pretty messed up. Again, I say I'm fortunate. I'm fortunate that it wasn't worse. I'm fortunate in that um I was able to heal and recover and continue being a Green Beret and continue uh a career in special operations. Um I'm also fortunate in that I got back, and as soon as I got back stateside and out of the hospital, went to the commander's office and said, All right, like my team's still there, get me back on the first thing smoking, you know. And I said, All right, calm, calm down. Let's let's let's figure this out. And uh, you know, so they put together kind of a battery of tests eventually that um, you know, I would need to pass to go back to Afghanistan. I don't think I did too hot on them. Uh uh I'd be surprised if I passed any of them. The medical team, I think, knew that it was probably important for me to get back to the team and probably important for the team for me to get back to them. And so they greenlit me anyway, and I was able to uh get my bag of meds and a cane.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

And uh you're in a bloid with a cane?

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, yeah, we're probably our own worst enemies in in a lot of different ways. Um, but that just comes with uh the territory, I think. You know, I can remember before I joined and um like reading some of the early stuff about 2001 Afghanistan and uh you know, the teams that were chosen to go in and do the initial invasion. And I remember it's like a snippet, but I remember reading about like the I don't think it was the guys, I think it was the wives of the guys that didn't get chosen to go. And like those guys were more distraught than anybody. And like the wives were like, I kind of wish my husband had gone because you know, as opposed to, you know, I know I gotta worry about him at war and if he's coming home, but like he's just moping around now, you know. So I think we're probably we probably are our own worst enemies.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

We are our worst enemy, but that's what makes and as it goes, Rangers, SEALs, you know, PJs, Marshawk, whoever it's that's what makes it good at the job, is that attitude of I'm gonna deploy with a cane. Like, I'm gonna go, or like my one deployment, skin cancer and knew it. And I was like, Doc, I'm not going to take care of it until I get back. I'll see you in a few months. And he's like, Well, I was like, You don't have a say, and I left.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

He's like, instead, I'm gonna go get more sun on my face.

Meeting His Wife, CIA Operator Twist

SPEAKER_01 9:11

But go to the desert. Not the wisest choice, not the smartest choice, but it's that's a mentality, though. That's innately who you are, I think. What led you leaving the army and saying, hey, it's time to hang it up?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Um, I met my wife. So my wonderful wife, Savannah. Um she uh she was a uh a CIA operations officer. Can we say that?

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Is it okay?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

We can say that, yes. So that's you know, for people that don't know, that's the the spy game, Robert Redford Brad Pitt type type of job. We actually met overseas in a uh in a war zone. Like Mr. Miss Smith. Kind of, you know, all of it, all of it. Hit it off and and and kind of came back and and and found each other and decided we want to build a life together. And that's very difficult to do in those career fields, right? Um, her job is overseas doing these risky things, my job is overseas doing these risky things. It's kind of hard to uh to build a life, build a family, um, and build a future doing that. So I was getting close to retirement, you know, she was about mid-career, and uh we just kind of made the decision, okay. You know, we're gonna put these lives behind us and and move on.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

Wow. So you both decided to simultaneously to make that commitment. That's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Just your average love story. Just deal with Green Bray and CIA spy and just a lot more time on the range. I feel like that's a book. Oh well, maybe that's yeah, that could be a book. Yeah. Man. But speaking about the not, when did you I mean, did you ever think you would write a book? Like go back 20 years ago.

Writing Desert Heist, Without a Plan

SPEAKER_00 10:44

No. Um, yeah, I think I've probably been creative in some ways. Um, you know, when I think creative, I usually think like art, like uh like painting or drawing. And I'm terrible at that. So I just never really thought about myself as an artist in any kind of capacity, you know. When I I wrote the book, it was just kind of as uh I had an idea in my head that just didn't wouldn't go away, you know. And that was kind of like the driving impetus. I had kind of uh um a slowdown in my operational tempo. I I'm not don't do well with with idle time, so I'd find sometime or find something to do to fill that space, and um, so I just kind of sat down and wrote a book within within that space and had a great time doing it.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Did you find any maybe any therapy in writing the book?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

So the the book itself, and we'll get into the book, but it's it's a it's a high adventure type book, you know, and some historical mysteries and exploration, and also wrote these underlying themes in it that I was completely unaware of until somebody pointed it out to me. Um and there's these underlying themes of you know, what happens after you've spent a decade going to war, what happens whenever you leave the service and you leave that brotherhood behind. Uh, I didn't realize I was writing about until somebody pointed it out.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

They popped out to me. Not as the main art, you know, storyline, but as the the reality, and that's why I love the book. It's real.

Life After War, The Real Theme

The Call That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 12:02

I had a conversation a couple couple weeks back with uh Daryl Ot and wrote Grit to Glory, and he asked me the same question, actually. He said, Did you find that it was therapeutic writing it? And I said, I actually I did. I know it's fiction, but like at the time I thought I was just kind of off-gassing some creative juices, you know, but like but I was really just getting a lot out on paper, I think, and that it was it it it felt good to write. Seeing those themes, my my again, my lovely wife pointed out a lot of those themes, those themes to me. And I was like, Exactly, yeah. Beautiful and intelligent, you know, whole package. This is a uh the classic case of stumbling into something, um woefully unprepared for it, I think. Sure. You know, I wrote a book, um, and I think when you enjoy what you do, things probably come out better, right? So I really enjoyed writing the book. I think Stephen Pressfield talks about like summoning the muse, you know. If you like put yourself in that space, like it's gonna come to you. It's it's really how I I feel. I do the research, you know, I kind of get that down, and then when I sit down to write, it just kind of channeled through me and and and and out it comes. So um I enjoyed writing it. I told my now wife that I had written a book. Were you scared when you told her that? Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like I sound insane, you know. I'm like, yeah, I wrote a book, you know. Um, I have no business writing a book. Um, and I think, and she is a wonderful woman and she was very gracious. I think she was probably also nervous, you know, because how do you tell your significant other that this book they wrote probably sucks, you know, or you know, it doesn't, but uh definitely at that time until she read it was probably like it has to be, right? She'll never say it, but it had to be somewhat worrisome. So so she read it and she liked it and thought it was really good. You know, I had somebody that kind of gave it to somebody in the publishing world and they thought there was something there. And so, and my uh agent now, um, Alexander Machinist, she got back to me and said, you know, like this must have gotten lost in my email, like, let me read it. And she read it over the weekend, uh, called me and said she loved it. Let's let's do it. She wants to work together. And so she is uh amazing at what she does, and she told me, you know, I have somebody in mind that I want to shout this out to. So you waited a while, right? Yeah, I think I waited about seven or eight months um from that point. Um, but you know, full trust in her. She knows what she's doing.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Is this thing on? Are you still there? Are we still working together?

SPEAKER_00 14:13

It's like anything else. If if something makes me uh anxious or um, I just focus on something else. Yeah. So I was kind of like, okay, it's in good hands. Let me go ahead and focus on, you know, still still in the army this time, still still working. So let me go ahead and focus on on this. I got a call from my agent on my honeymoon in Hawaii. She had spoken with Emily Bessler of Emily Bessler Books of Atrius, Simon, and Schuster, and she was interested and wanted to talk to me. So she was like, she's gonna call you in 10 minutes, you know. So like we did a uh Zoom call. So I put on my nicest, you know, shirt that I brought to Hawaii. Right. Um, to have a conversation. And uh we talked for about an hour.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Was your wife like, what are you doing? Or like, absolutely, you do 100.

The Publishing Breakthrough

SPEAKER_00 14:57

She's my biggest cheerleader. She's 100% behind me. Um, and was like, Okay, let's do it. You got it. That's awesome. Um, and so we had a great conversation, and then yeah, a couple minutes later, my agent called me and said, Let's do it. And so we signed from there, and then uh, you know, from there the publishing process takes takes a while, especially getting that first one out the door.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

So what was that emotion like for you the first time you held it physically in your hand? Like the the like the art's done, everything's put together, and it's like a real book.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Surreal. Yeah, 100% surreal. Whenever the good things start rolling in, I become hyper alert waiting for the other shoe to drop. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_03 15:30

So it's not celebrate it, right?

Inspired by Indiana Jones & Adventure Films

SPEAKER_00 15:32

It's like I can't celebrate it because then something's gonna happen, you know. So it's like you stoically accept it, like this is amazing. Yeah, and then uh you know you go cram it down, and then you figure out okay, what am I doing next to make sure this is successful? If I'm if I'm digging down and being honest, it was amazing. It was amazing to see like the book in print, amazing to see it all come together, the cover art. I'm used to working with the elite, right, in the military. I'm working with the elite in the publishing world. So you're it's amazing. It's like it's it's from one to the next. Um, and uh again, I was very, very fortunate to be in that spot. Aside from growing up and watching all these great and wonderful action movies, I also love like the Indiana Jones movies. I love um, and even like, you know, um Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, just like these adventure movies, they're going to like far-off locations, they're digging up history. I wanted to write something like that. I wanted to be like a high adventure, fun, uh, fun ride that you can not just read but enjoy reading. At the same time, I wanted it to be one of those things where you can learn something while you're reading, you know. So like all the history in here is for the most part. I mean, I take some liberties, um, because you because you have to, but um, for the most part, it's all grounded in reality, you know. Like if it's a the the Bartram Thomas or um, you know, Philby or any of these guys, like the the expeditions are real, you know, their their records are real, these things that they they did are real. Um, you know, it's all it's all it's all based off of things that are that are true. So if you're if you're reading the book and you're looking at that and you want to like pull on a specific thread and get back on Google and look and say, like, oh, did that really happen? Like it's gonna tell you that it did. And so, you know, you can kind of learn some stuff there. And I learned a lot doing the research and putting the book together. I also wanted it to be grounded in reality on the other side, right? I'd spent 20 years in special operations. You know, if there is a character that's in a in a firefight or, you know, if they're grappling or whatever, I wanted that to come across as authentic, you know.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

And smiling because I may live with someone who spends some time going, that would never happen. Like as he's watching you know or reading, you know, it's like, oh, that would never happen. They were way off the mark with that. That's like the Hollywood version of what they think would happen. So you were preventing that on the 100%, you know. Front side, you're like, no, I'm gonna get this shot.

The Character Behind Desert Heist

SPEAKER_00 17:47

I I wanted to be authentic and come across as authentic. I wanted if you've been on a, you know, on a in an outpost in the Middle East somewhere and been attacked. I want you to to read it and be like, yeah, that tracks. This makes sense. That's what this feels like. All of that is surrounded by the story, which is you know, Green Beret who gets out mid-career, Nate Wilde, and he kind of has a disastrous deployment, loses some friends. So there's some of that loss element in there too, which I think is also probably probably therapeutic. So decides to pursue his love of history, which, you know, is is something that we share as he's pitching his thesis to go look for this lost city of uh Ubar, you know, Arama the Pillars, you know, um, a uh mythical lost city that's supposedly overflowing with wealth that was lost to the sands of Arabia. Um it's talked about in the Quran, it's talked about um in uh Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Also the theme of the opening of Aladdin.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Uh yeah, also yeah, Aladdin. See, there's good the Disney twist in there.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Sorry, I had to throw that in there.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

And uh well, Aladdin is also in a thousand and one nights, so it's one of the stories.

SPEAKER_03 18:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

So this becomes like the thesis for his for his research, for his dissertation.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Uh and everyone else doesn't think it exists.

Loss, Brotherhood & What Comes After

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Everyone else doesn't think it exists, and they're also one, they don't think there's enough um evidence for it. Two, you know, there was an expedition that found a city um in um Oman years ago, back in I think the 90s, and uh they kind of said this could have been the city as well. So that's working against them. Um and then three is just kind of the the climate, right? The climate that is, you know, it's Saudi Arabia, you have inhospitable, inhospitable desert. Um, you have a war going on in Yemen, you know, you have all these things, and so they just say that it's not gonna be it. Um, you gotta you gotta choose something else. Decides that I'm gonna do it anyway.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Like a real green bray.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

Like a real green bray would. And uh so he doubles down and um kind of goes and finds the extra research that he needs to get to that point where uh he says, Okay, I feel comfortable. And the only thing now is that he's going kind of back into uh a tenuous, dangerous situation. So he starts talking to his old buddies that he uh that he was with, and so kind of enlists their help, and they all for one reason or another have it within them. They need to come along on this thing, whatever it is that they're lacking within themselves, they find it on this journey, and so they go and go on this this expedition.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

We worry about our kids' safety all the time. We worry about them out in public places because these days there's just so much to be worried about.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Heck, we worry about ourselves, right? So that's why we're thankful to our sponsor, Zero Eyes, for their work. We got to see their operations in action.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

It was amazing to see in live time action they were identifying actual threats and immediately contacting authorities. The quickness was impressive, but it was also impressive to see how many people they had that were overseeing the utilization of the technology.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

I mean, you have a team founded by Navy SEALs, other veterans that are doing their work there, saving time, saving lives. Check them out, zero eyes.com, schedule a demo. Tom Herb and Corey sent you. Uh I didn't have this question beforehand, but how much of your thought was how do I balance this so the old gray beards at fifth group don't think I'm an idiot? But also, hey, I want people to read it.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Yeah, it's kind of a balance of putting in enough detail, not too much detail, so that you're boring people out. And again, I don't know. I I that's that was kind of my goal with it. Not having a formula, not having, you know, not having ever studied writing or creating. Or anything else. The experience of my last novel, right? You know, I just I just wrote what I thought was best. And I I write some articles on LinkedIn and on my website and stuff like that a little bit. I talk about like the warrior scholars, right? Like those guys in the great game, or like your T. E. Lawrence type characters, you know, um, that they were they were warriors, but they like they were smart about it. And that was like that was their real superpower, right? And that's kind of what I wanted. Like Nate, Nate in the book is a Green Beret. He can handle himself, he can handle business, you know. He's no stranger to violence. His real superpower is his intellect.

Identity After Special Operations

SPEAKER_01 22:00

I do have a question. Nate, your protagonist. I just really wanted to say that word, so I sounded smart. But the main character is that you or is it based on someone?

SPEAKER_00 22:09

Maybe a version of me, right? A version that uh stopped at 10 years, you know, and didn't do 20 and then pursued something else and uh didn't didn't wear himself down as much, you know. Didn't uh could you have went that route?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

I mean, you talked about your love for history. Was that something you considered following what Nate did to go?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

You know, not at the time. I think I always thought I would just do this job until they made me stop, and then I would find a similar job and do that, you know. Uh and if I hadn't hadn't met my wife, I probably would have, you know. So there's a part of me that would love to, and actually still might go back and look for an advanced degree in in history or or anthropology, archaeology, something like that, um, down the line, maybe when things are a little less busy.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

When they're a little busy, yeah, keep writing books like this. I'll just tell you that. I I do how did you research the book? Because it is what I love, one of the things I love about it is enough detail without being too much detail in just about everything it talks about, whether it's at Oxford, Harvard, whether it's talking about like a special forces mission or the Spitnaz or you know, hydrology in Saudi Arabia to like the lost city of Ubar, there's like enough detail that if you don't understand any of this, you under, I think very well masterfully done. How did you research all this, man? Like, because that's a lot. I mean, I just covered half the globe.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

A lot of these places I've been, and so I can give some of that first hand knowledge. Um when it comes to like the the special forces side of the house, that's that's you've lived it. It's a Tuesday, you know. That's a um, I don't need to research what it's like to, you know, be on an ODA or what the 18 Bravo is gonna say to the 18 Charlie or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

You know, so your weapons guide to the engineer, yeah. You you've lived it.

Research is EASY When You Love the Topic

SPEAKER_00 23:53

So that's that's all that's all easy. The um the other parts of it, right? I before this didn't really know much about hydrology or really needed to hone in and uh on this. Just methodical. And it makes it easy because it's one of those things where um, like I said, I'd I do this anyway. You know, I'll be my my wife will like grab my phone to like look up something and she'll like open my browser and it like pops up with the browser and she's like, You have the weirdest browser history. Because I'll just be like, Oh, Ark of the Covenant. Yeah, well, you know, you know, whatever. Like, I'll just I'm I'm just always constantly looking stuff up, reading it. You know, I'm probably on my phone too much, but I'm not on my phone too much on Instagram watching short reels. I'm like looking up history stuff, I'm reading things, I'm always getting new ideas.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

It's how you phrase that, brother. It's you're doing research. That's that's true. That's not on your phone.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

Yeah, doing research.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_03 24:43

Gotta articulate it.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

That's true. So I, you know, I I a lot of these things I'm doing it anyway, and I just I generally find it interesting. And so if I'm, you know, writing a part about uh like hydrology in Saudi Arabia or whatever, I'll spend a day or two or three or whatever, probably just doing deep research on that, learning all I can. And what'll happen is I'll forget that I'm researching it for a book and I'm just starting going down one rabbit hole to the next and be like, oh, this is fascinating. How about this? And and then before I note, I'm probably off a little bit and I got a course correct back in.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

And you know, I'm more like you, history or something versus go read about weapons. So did you have to like ask a buddy to dig in so you hit the weapons part right?

Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant Writing

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I was fortunate that my work wife or whatever, you know, was was the 18 Bravo on the team, senior 18 Bravo. So we were like attached to the hip for seven years straight, you know. I'm I'm not naturally like a weapons guy, but like through osmosis, I just picked this stuff up. And like, you know, for example, the Mosanegant is featured in in the book, right? Um we did a old sniper rifle. Old rifle, right? I mean, so we did a foreign weapons range and I got to shoot it. And I was like, this is great. I had like I'm shooting on iron sights and like four meters out, I'm just like planking targets. I was like, this thing is amazing. I wonder it's the deadliest rifle in history or whatnot. You know, my buddy had one and we'd go shoot that, and then you know, his he got it, you know, it's I think it was made in like 1944, like pulled it out with the packing grease still on, type of thing. And so, you know, I had like experience behind that using that. It makes sense in that part of the world. It worked out well. If I had a question, I'd ask, and you know, the internet's a dangerous place, right? Because it's just it's full of crap now, too. You just you don't even know. You don't know what's true anymore, right? So I'll go to the guy who was a weapons guy for 20 years and be like, what do you think about this? You know, or this guy's gonna use this, or how do you feel about you know, and I'll kind of get but but most of the things in there, whether it's AKs, uh, you know, Mosinegance, uh, Makarov's.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

I've I've shot them before and used because just like you go all in on history, they go all in on weapons.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

100%.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

You know, the Bravo is like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

They live it. I can see being a former special forces intelligence sergeant. I see a lot of that in your book and how you I'm see hearing it from your research and how you're writing. How much do you think that played into? I mean, the book as it is, even some maps and stuff in there, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:00

A lot. Uh yeah, a lot. So uh Nate, the the protagonist, is uh special forces intelligence sergeant, right? Big word. Really, the the analytical prowess, I guess, that you that you get doing that job and doing it well, and really trying to like hone your craft in that was natural for the book, was natural for building the book and putting the pieces together and all of those things, right? It was also natural for Nate to do that as he was building his own research. So I kind of built that research in parallel with a character, if that makes sense, right? We're doing the same thing. I'm building the research that he's building. So it's kind of neat, it was fun. Um, you know, and I'm out there with my doing all the standards, I got my link analysis charts, my spider webs going. I'm uh making Google, Google Maps overlays, you know, all that. So the maps that are in the book, but those are my maps. I designed these maps, kind of screenshotted them and sent them to the publisher, and the publisher had them drawn out, but they're drawn off the things that I made, which is pretty cool and is a lot of fun too. So uh 100% being an 18 Fox heavily played into not just the way that I constructed the book, but the way that the lead character in the book goes about and what he does.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

It's really cool. I've just we talked about it. I'm happy to see a Green Beret. Sorry if there's any other Green Beret out there. I've read your book. It wasn't as good as this. And if I haven't read your book, I'm sorry. But like I told you, I feel like we needed this as a Green Berets. Because you see a lot from SEALs and some others, like you said, Jack Carr, some other people out there, but this is this is a special book.

Spotlight on Green Berets

SPEAKER_00 28:31

So I I I agree with you that you know there's not a lot of not as many green berets in fiction as you'd want there to be, right? Um, and so that's that's also part of this is green berets are the quiet professionals, and that's that goes hand in hand with doing the unconventional warfare mission set and things like that. Green berets are the quiet professionals. Um, it's um it's important for the job, and it's and it it is that level of professionalism, right? And that's great, and they they should be, and it's wonderful. I'm out. So I'll speak for them. You know, I will I will sing their praises for them um because they are doing a lot that uh most of the country will never know, never understand the sacrifices they make, the things that they do. They're doing a wonderful job. You know, we talked earlier about fiction and how important fiction is, especially when you're charting courses, you know, like uh you know, we we said earlier, how many, how many pilots out there watch Top Gun? Yeah, and whether whether they're naval aviators flying jets or C133, fly or FedEx now, like but they were inspired by that, right? It matters, it really does. And so, you know, Green Berets don't have a lot of champions in the in the the fictional realm. That's part of what I hope this does is that people read this and you know, maybe there's some some teenagers that pick this up or whatever, and they're like, What is a Green Beret? And they start looking it up, and then maybe we get more, you know, great, qualified Green Berets. Maybe it takes a decade or so, you know, but like start start building that back up because I've really lost it. The SEAL's done a great job. The SEALs have marketed wonderfully, right? Um, and it's worked for them, and they think they're overflowing with with great recruits, and they can kind of pick and choose what they have. We need to have the same problem, and and hopefully this helps.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

When can other people get their hands on this book? Because I I feel special just holding this. Hey, there's a page if you want to read, but um, when can others get?

SPEAKER_00 30:16

So it comes out in the US on July 28th. Okay, and it's uh available basically everywhere that books are sold. You can get on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, uh a host of other places, local your uh local and independent bookstores. Um, and then July 30th, um, it comes out internationally with um Simon Schuster with uh US North America, Penguin Random House, UK um internationally. So that'll be able to big dogs. It'll be available in the UK and a host of other European and Asian markets and a lot of other places.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Yeah, what does your 2026 look like with the book coming out in a few months? What what's it like for you?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

A completely different reality from what I'm used to, I guess. Right. Um I'm here. This is this is my first podcast, so thank you.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

Umce the book comes out, I have some book signings and some author meet and greets, things like that. I wrote Desert Heist. I had uh enough fun writing Desert Heist that I wrote a second book. Oh, we're gonna ask you that there's already another one. And um, that book is already turned in to the editor. I'm writing another book now.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

So now you're turned in book two, you're writing book three.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Correct.

SPEAKER_03 31:30

Oh, that's pretty nice.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

So, and as long as you know people enjoy these books and uh Simon and Schuster wants me to keep writing them.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

As long as they don't tell you to stop.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

And if they tell me to stop, I'll keep writing them anyway. Yeah, because I just have a good time doing it and I kind of started doing this for me. I love it anyhow, you know. I've spent my entire life, career, life really, honestly, um trying to be in the shadows and not be on social media and stay out of the limelight. So how's that working for you? Basically the exact opposite now, you know. But um, it's not uh, you know, it's it's 2026. So you can't just write books and and then have them sell like it was the 1980s anymore. You know, you have to go out and kind of kind of market it like a business.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

So and for your website, it's Alex Decker official. That's two K's in there with the Decker. What about like uh Instagram and that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Instagram, I am ALX Decker.

The Publishing Process

SPEAKER_01 32:21

We got some questions just about the writing and publishing process. Did any of it surprise you?

SPEAKER_00 32:27

There wasn't too much to be surprised about because I didn't know what I was getting into or what I was doing.

SPEAKER_03 32:31

It was all like surprising. Or always makes it easier.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

It's like I guess this is what it is. Um, the one thing that surprised me was the positive reception I got back from the book. And like we talked about before, just there wasn't many changes.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

So which was harder writing the book, Desert Heist, or the last two years in the next how many ever which is harder?

Write About What You Enjoy

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Definitely everything after writing the book. The books come easy, you know. I Stephen Pressfield talks about the Muse, right? And how you know if you sit down and do the work that'll come through you, and I hear you know, these authors that talk about like sit down and you're you're a writer, write, you know, there's no writer's block, just write, um, do the work. It never felt like work throughout my career in special operations. I always felt like I was cheating the system, you know. Like I get paid, and I get paid fairly decent to do this. To do what I love. And it doesn't seem right. It seems like I'm cheating it, and at some point someone's gonna come and call me on it and be like, you can't you gotta stop jumping out of airplanes and diving and and going to these ranges and shooting somebody else's ammo that they paid for by the taxpayers and doing you know what I mean? Like it felt like someone's gonna come by and stop me from doing that because it doesn't make any sense I was getting paid for it. This feels the exact same way. When I sit down and write, I love it. I love it, I enjoy doing it. You know, if there was something else I was gonna do other than you know my previous career, it would be this. I enjoy writing it. And I think, you know, and I'm I'm I think probably nobody to to give advice on writing will see, but I think you also need to write what you enjoy. So, like if I were to sit down and write a book about a Green Beret who is part of a unit that goes out and fights terrorists and whatever else, like that would be work for me and I would not enjoy it. But writing about a Green Beret who's going on like a grittier Indiana Jones style adventure, you know, that's full of history and adventure and travel and whatever else, I love it, you know. So maybe for people that are that are writing and it's tough for them, maybe, maybe you can write, maybe you're writing the wrong thing. Maybe you need to find the thing that you want to write and what actually resonates with you and do that, right? Because what I when I sat down to write Desert Heist, you know, kind of yeah, maybe and it wasn't like I sat down and thought this out, but uh, you know, there are two things I considered. One is what do I know and what do I love? What I know is special operations. I mean, that's that's all I've done my entire adult career, but what I love is history and and adventure and these things. So I just put them together and it was just kind of a natural, natural fit.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Dude, I love it. I love the reference to Indiana Jones. It is like a Greenberry Indiana Jones mashup. Like 'cause can I be real? Now you have an agent. You have a publicist. You have a publicist.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

I do.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

Is that real?

A New World as an Author

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Like it's real. I have a marketing person that helps with some of the stuff. It's um, and again, a great team, and they're all wonderful and the best what they do, which is why I try to sit back and learn, right? Try to like just be a sponge and absorb whatever else I can do. The other thing I try to do is just be as proactive as possible. Again, it's not not in our nature to sit around and and do nothing, but also, you know, if you want things to succeed, why would I just leave it to the publisher to do everything? So, like, what can I do? What can I make happen? How can I how can I get out there and do it? And I try to do the best I can. And it's it's interesting. It's interesting. It's you know, on I, you know, record a video for Instagram. That's probably the eighth video because you know, I'm like recording it and I'm like, uh, you know, I start off, I'm very nervous, very uncomfortable. Because I just I'm not, you know, if you want me to get up and and brief an operation on a conductor that I have conducted and brief it to a four-star general all day. Um, I mean to like talk about myself.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

I've never done that, and that's kind of outside of my wheelhouse. You've got the spotlights on right now. I know. So this is uh this is uh definitely a different experience, but it's it's it's for sure an adjustment.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Is the next novel a continuation? Is Nate going on in a journey?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Yeah, so you're gonna see you're gonna see a lot of the same characters in the next one. Um, and the idea is that there's a Nate Wilde series kind of that that arc. So you'll find them. I can't give away too much, you'll find them in a different part of the world. Um going on.

SPEAKER_01 36:42

I knew it was gonna be a different part. You know why I knew that? Because you're gonna go research something different, you're not just gonna do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

Not wrong. It's exactly what happened. So and now book three, you know, again, a different, different thing, but similar themes and flavors, you know. I'll be honest with you, I've planned out, I don't know, probably close to 20 books.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

I was gonna say eight or nine months. Well 20.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

So we'll see how long how long this thing runs, but uh and it it it can't be the same, you know, where they just go on another adventure or another adventure, right? There needs to be circumstances and things that bring it back into the fold. Yeah, that's all kind of pre-planned out.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

You know, we're good judge of characters and good predictors and bullshit meters. You're gonna get there. All right, no.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I have the one best agents, best editor, publicist, publishing team, you name it. Um, if it doesn't get there, it's all my fault. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all on me. I'm the weak link. I'm the weak link.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

So if it doesn't like bro, you screwed up. No, we're honored that like this is your first show uh to come on and talk about it. So like awesome.

Who Desert Heist Appeals to

SPEAKER_00 37:49

What I've tried to do is hope that the book appeals to a lot of different people. So if you do like those historical mysteries, like a Dan Brown type novel or James Rollins, things like that. I I hope you like the book. Um, if you like like a Jack Carr, uh Brad Thor kind of um action type book, I hope you'll also like the book for for those aspects. There's there's plenty of that in this.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I think this plays to so many crowds, and like sometimes people are like, hey, you gotta niche down and do your thing, right? But I think you you did your thing here, and it covers, like you're saying, the the history thrillers, the mysteries, the spies. Any it's so many genres that people could pick this up and will be entertaining, like uh you don't have to be a great bride and now, or you don't have to be military, you don't even have to like the military. You don't have to you don't have to like history, you're still gonna like it. It's there's so many ways that people can be connected to this and feel oh, I want to read more.

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Right. Well, yeah, and if and if you enjoy the book and and want to see the books keep going, um I will say, and I'll say it here on my first podcast. There are things in the first book that you're gonna read and that you won't realize had significance until book six. And then you go back and look at book one and be like, the whole time, the whole time I was there. Oh it is I have kind of thought out the series in a certain way that uh that I hope is is is fun to read as people as people. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

And that's why I'm telling you, we'll get to those 20 books or whatever. Like it's gonna happen. What do you value most in life?

SPEAKER_00 39:16

Oh, that's a good question. You know, I think when you have a career, like careers that we've had, you get a lot of time to do introspection and reflect on things. Family, you know, family. One of the first things my team sergeant told me when I got the fifth group was you know, do your job, do it well, don't forget about your family, because when it's all said and done, that's what you're gonna have left, you know. And uh and I went out and had my fun and and did my thing. And at the end of the day, you have your family, and that is that's the most important thing. I think it's gonna bring you joy in life. And um, so yeah, answer's family.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

Comment and don't forget to set those notifications. We'll see you next week with another special guest.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Until then, own your journey.