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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
503 | M.P Woodward |From Naval Intelligence to Penning Tom Clancy's SHADOW STATE
Ever wondered how a childhood love for military history can shape a remarkable career in naval intelligence? Join us as we sit down with MP Woodward to trace his journey from naval intelligence to authoring the newest Tom Clancy novel.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
you are a busy man. Hey, welcome to the show, mp woodward. You just got off one of the one of the best podcasts out there, the break it down Down show with Pete Turner, but now you're on to Protectors, so welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Hopefully I'm not broken down. Thank you, it's good to be here, jason, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Now, Pete's a great guy. You know, one thing I like about Pete is his background in Intel, and that's kind of one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today was not only to talk about Shadow State, the upcoming Tom Clancy thriller, but to also talk about intelligence Intelligence on a battlefield and intelligence outside the battlefield. Now, you've had like a decade plus in the intelligence service as a naval officer. But you don't just start out in the Navy, you got to get there. So what's a childhood like You're like, hey, one day you're like I think I'll join a Navy and get an Intel and could jump all over the world with all these different specialized units.
Speaker 2:Well, I was a great fan and still am a great fan of history. I really enjoy US history and military history in particular, and growing up I read lots of books that made me want to be not just a writer but also a naval officer. So I can think back to Herman Wook and the Horatio Hornblower series by CS Forrester, or lots of literature that goes in that direction. You know lots of literature that goes in that direction.
Speaker 2:James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, all those things kind of fired my imagination as a kid, and when I looked at the military I was very patriotic and I wanted to serve my country. I just thought it was interesting how the Navy was involved in all over the world, in global affairs, because the ocean, you know, covers the world and I thought that the sea battles were, you know, sort of fascinating from a strategy perspective. And then, as far as intelligence goes, that was something that I chose because I really liked the intersection at the time with technology and being involved in higher level decisions where you know these are decisions being made by the war fighters but you're there advising them, and I think at that age I was in kind of a hurry and I liked to be close to those guys and be in the room. To me that was super interesting.
Speaker 1:When you look at Navy and you look at the massive battles, you know you think of World War II. Even World War I has a massive battles here and there, little ones, not compared to World War II. But you know, when you think about World ii, in the battles and how strategic having a navy was and then having those wars put into paper, whether it's fiction or non-fiction, it boosts, it stimulates your mind. You know there's the same thing with when I was a child. It was like well, not a child, I could say the 80s and 90s, growing up and reading the books and and visualizing yourself as one of the characters in there.
Speaker 1:You know, that's one of the reasons I joined the army and then, later on, when it became time for me to get out and go to ROTC, I read the books by Hackworth Colonel Hackworth from Vietnam and and all of those books, trying to find the right leadership principles, the right path for me. So I would absorb everything. That's why I think when you, when you said you were reading books, really it is. Reading is fundamental. It really does push you forward to whatever your path is going to be. I think so much more than you can get off of social media and off of videos and movies, I think, just reading and visualizing that character as yourself.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. I think that when there's streaming media and we all enjoy that and you can sit there and be entertained, but to me that's participating less than you do when you're really gripped by a book. For starters, books can be longer and be with you for weeks right and your companion on airplanes and in dead spaces between meetings and so on and so forth. So you're just kind of background processing them quite a bit and you get to live through characters. And you mentioned some of the influential army books. One, uh one book I've I've gone back to um time and again about leadership lessons and I think they actually I think they teach it at West point. But have you ever read once in the Eagle? Um, I love that book. I've read that, you know, a couple of three times and, um, I and I just enjoy the leadership dilemmas that are presented there in World War II and you can admire how the lead character, sam Damon, goes about doing things in an honorable way and it's inspiring.
Speaker 1:There are so many different books that are part of the reading list of these military academies and I think they should really push those down to the lower echelons as far as like the NCO Corps as well. You know, I think in West Point they made you read Platoon Leader. I mean I was, I was just regular ROTC. I wasn't an academy type, you know cause, I was prior enlisted and a little bit too old to get there. But you know, like Platoon, another great one was like Hal Moore's book. You know we Were Soldiers Once and Young, yeah, just different books. That just kind of puts you in that battle space. Now, when you're thinking about books like that, I mean like the Army has so many, you know the Army books are, you know, a dime a dozen nowadays than they were back then.
Speaker 2:But what was your like naval protagonist, your nonfiction, the leader you looked up to? I again going back to history, chester Nimitz, I think, was given this incredible job of okay, hey, you're going to inherit this broken fleet that the Japanese struck and this is. It is so highly strategic. You know they have a fleet. You know what was? They have nine aircraft carriers. We have three, um, you know they're, they're out there, we're not. They just knocked over the philippines. They've basically taken away everything. Um, now go back in and and win it all back.
Speaker 2:And when you go and you look at the Battle of Midway and I recommend anybody to go and read about it or watch either the more recent movie or the older one, but much of that, the success of that battle comes down to an intelligence officer named Edward Layton and he did a. He fooled the Japanese into admitting that they were going to rally their, their aircraft carriers around Midway Island and take it. And we knew they were coming, we knew where they were going to come from. They didn't know that. We knew we were able to go in with three aircraft carriers and duel with them and really turn the entire tide of the war in 1942. And had that battle not unfolded the way it did. There's no guarantee that we would have won the war in the Pacific because we were so vastly outgunned.
Speaker 1:When you get into the Navy and you go through the whole commissioning pipeline, like with me, I had to pick the branch I wanted to go, so I picked infantry. Just because you know I wanted to go infantry, I mean there was a long story behind it. But when you get into the navy and you're going through, did you rtc or the academy?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, I was an nrotc scholarship student.
Speaker 1:Yeah see, that's what I'm talking about, right there, boom. So then anyway, do you pick your branch as well, or do you like, kind of like you know?
Speaker 2:I think you know it's uh, what? What was the saying? Right, there's what you want to do and then there's what the navy wants you to do, the needs in the navy, and um, so I, as I, as I think back, I wanted to be a pilot. That Top Gun came out a couple of years earlier and I think the Navy was flooded with people that wanted to be pilots, and I was on my way to flight school and then I was.
Speaker 2:I was actually injured in a non-military way, but I severely injured right back, which required surgery and so on and so forth, and that that disqualified me from from going and becoming a pilot. And then I was like, well, the next best thing I can think of to do is to be an intelligence officer. And then I actually got quite excited about that. And then the irony, jason, is, you know, the very first thing they did to me after I was commissioned was send me to flight school, because they said at the time that all intelligence officers need to get close to aviators to understand strike warfare. So I went to Pensacola and went through the Naval Flight Officer Program.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you never know interesting, yeah, so you never know. You know, like when you branch mi and the in the army, you know I believe you everybody goes through the all-source training and then they go on to you like later on their career like human oscent, sigan. Now, what kind of intel specialty did you get into after kind of like your first couple years?
Speaker 2:So as a naval officer it's a little, I think, more generalist probably, and it just varies by the command you're at. So you go through training in Damneck, virginia, at the Navy Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center and that's fairly long I think it was at least six months or something like that and then after that it just depends on the billet that you go to, and then after that it just depends on the billet that you go to. I ended up everybody does a what I would call a more tactical job where you're supporting a war fighting unit, and so I had a little bit of a detour where I went to the Philippines for a while but then ended up in an A6 intruder squadron on the USS Carl Vinson and spent, you know, quite a bit of time with that. After that it's you get.
Speaker 2:I think that officers can develop a little more specificity, because then you go off to a shore tour and that shore tour is probably going to be more focused in know, imagery or or signals, intelligence or or whatever, and then you can sort of tailor your career to fit that. But at least when I was in, nobody came along and said no, no, you're this kind of uh, naval intelligence officer, you just were one now, what time frame were you in?
Speaker 2:this is.
Speaker 1:I was commissioned in 1990 and got out, you know, right around 2000 okay, yeah, so that the cold war era was very interesting because I I joined the army enlisted in 90s and commissioned later on. But the cold war era and I always try to tell people this especially the navy was an interesting time for the navy because you were doing real world, you were ending up on the shore somewhere. You were ending up doing real world intelligence. So did you eventually get into the human side or did you kind of stay into the significant side?
Speaker 2:There was human reporting, and I did do a job in the Philippines for a while. That was before the base closed. That was a little bit closer to that, but by and large it was more around analyzing fleets. And you're right, the Cold War was, as far as naval intelligence goes, that was something of a golden era, if you could call a conflict none of us really want.
Speaker 2:But because it was really about, hey, what are the Soviets doing right now? Where are they doing it? How are they amassing resources? They didn't have the port facilities that we had or the alliances that we had, and still don't, nor do the Chinese, and so that made them do kind of unusual things. And so when I was, you know, going through NROTC you know that was the late eighties and big time cold war and then I got to I got, I basically had a front row seat to seeing, seeing the military shift from the cold war muscles that had built up to what we were calling at the time asymmetric threats and developing a new strategy that the Navy called From the Sea. That was all about littoral warfare and hey, how are we going to use this vast service that we have to keep America safe? And so it was interesting to be there at a time of transition you know you speak of transition.
Speaker 1:10 years is a long time. That's midway point you're like huh yeah, do I stick it out or do I do something else? So now you're roughly what 28 29 years old, maybe a little bit older.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I was right at the point of going to my next C tour as a lieutenant commander, and so our major right before and at the time, I was married. I was married, I wanted to have children, and even adding to that, because I had a lot of technical experience in communications, just in the intelligence field. You'll recall, back then the internet was just blowing up and I was pretty anxious to get going, to get going and and, frankly, make some money. So I got, I worked on my MBA at night and decided to transition out of the military.
Speaker 1:Well, you say make money. But there's another thing that you mentioned. Back. There is like you want to have a family. Good luck having a family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you bet, and it was obvious to me at that at that point in your life, jason, as you mentioned, at that age, you know, you, you do have to make those hard decisions and I could see that, hey, to be really, um, to be really, I didn't want to be somebody that was going to be in per se 13 years because you're like you, you didn't quite make it a full career, like it was a little too long. So I felt it was this kind of critical mass turning point where, hey, if you want to have a family and develop a separate career, this is the age where you have to do that. Or you, you, you are very serious about this career and pursue it to its end and I have gosh, the, the vast majority of the guys I served with did do that.
Speaker 1:You know, when you think about it. You know 10 years is it's that transition point. You know you can, and 13 years are like well, I might as well just stay another seven. Next thing, you know you're 40 years old and how marketable are you to move into the, into the civilian world? You know, and like you said back then, 2000 was like the cusp of the internet. You know you're, you're right there. That's when things are going to be like just taken off.
Speaker 2:Well, and I don't know. You know, I can recall sitting at these sun micros and there were the sun microsystems, these workstations, you know they were big and fancy and this is like, uh, I guess like 1993. So the internet was the thing we called the information super highway, that was going to come in the future. But there I was looking at browsers and file sharing across you know thousands and thousands of miles and um imagery and all these kinds of things, and it's like look, I'm, I'm, I'm no genius, but I got, I have a hunch here that this technology is going to be very, very big and and was anxious to to become a part of that in the civilian side.
Speaker 1:Now, did you have something lined up in the civilian side, or did you just said hey, you know what boom I'm going for it?
Speaker 2:I did not have something lined up. Well, you, you know the one thing that that is nice about transitioning out of the military and I have to say that because this was the, the, the tweener years between the cold war and the war on terror really the Navy was getting smaller and so they did I thought, a remarkably good job for junior officers like me who wanted to transition out of preparing you for that. So they taught you know, they brought in civilian contractors and things and said, hey, this is how you interview for a job, this is how you describe your experience, all those kinds of things. So I did not have something lined up, but then I felt like I, you know I had, I had, I was reasonably experienced for the jobs I was going for in terms of maturity, and I didn't, I didn't struggle to find a job in corporate America. And then the strange thing is, two days after entering corporate America, it's like you were never in the Navy. It's an entire different world. And then you adapt and learn those rules.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk about a different world, especially a decade. You know, three or four years you still kind of have a foothold into the civilian world. But now you're 10 years in. Now you transition into the civilian world and now you get the corporate gig. Now let's fast forward to when you actually pulled up. I was going to say when you picked up the pen. But when you sat down behind the typewriter, behind the keyboard, and said, hey, you know what? I have some creative juice in here. I really want to get this going yeah, I am.
Speaker 2:I made several. Like I said, I was inspired um as a young man, both to go into the navy but also to write, because the way that those that that fiction um lived with me, I just thought it was cool and I thought I would love to be part of that and learn how to do that. So I made a couple of attempts, you know, early on in my Navy career, at writing fiction because I was like, look, you're seeing so much interesting source material, not necessarily classified techno thriller, tom Clancy stuff, but just just, you know, moral dilemmas and struggles and those kinds of things. So but I didn't really know what I was doing and abandoned all those efforts and then got really, really busy in the corporate world and kind of didn't pick up the pen again until, frankly, covid. And when COVID happened, all of a sudden I had extra time. I've always been a morning person and all of a sudden I had all this extra time in the morning because the first call would be at I don't know nine o'clock or something and I'd be like well, I think I can, just for fun, for something to do.
Speaker 2:I was in prime video, I saw the way stories were put together. I'd met screenwriters here and there, and it taught me to sort of analyze and break it down a little bit more, a story like, as you would, a screenplay. And when I restarted that effort I thought, well, all right, I have this background in the military and intelligence. I can weave a compelling national security story, as long as I can get the mechanics right, you know, and make it pacey and do character development. Okay. So so I sat down and did that for the first time, and for the first time ever, it, it, it worked, it broke through and and here I am, so I'm I'm super, super grateful for it. I feel very lucky and, um, I didn't necessarily know I had it in me. I know I wanted to have it in me, but now this is what I do and I'm working every day to try to get better at it.
Speaker 1:Well, you know you said, now here you are, and I mean Jack Ryan jr, Tom Clancy, that's, that's a heck. That's a heck of a jump when we're talking like the COVID era, and now all of a sudden you're penning one of the top-selling books, top-selling characters in the world. I mean Tom Clancy is known throughout the world through the universe. There's probably sent in signals somewhere. I mean, really, he seriously that name is a brand and that brand is incredibly a lot of pressure. You know penning your own books and then all of a sudden you get this thing where it's like you know what you ever hear of, uh, of tom clancy, and you're like, uh, yeah yeah it, um, it is it first off.
Speaker 2:It's an honor to be part of that. And there are other legacy authors, of course. That came before me and I got to know Don Bentley reasonably well in you know, visiting down in Austin and stuff, and he was the. He was working on the junior books and then he went off to do the Vince Flynn books when Kyle Mills I think Kyle Mills retired or he might be he just didn't want to do the Flynn books anymore and so when Don went, there was this vacancy and my editor called and asked me if I'd be interested in doing this.
Speaker 2:Of course it's a you know expletive, yeah, right. And and I think it's you know, yeah, you spend about three hours celebrating over a bourbon and then going oh man, how do I do this? Right, there is intense pressure and I think I feel a tremendous responsibility to get things right for the fans and to provide service for the fans and fun for the fans of of this, of this genre. So it's certainly a huge honor, a lot, a lot, a lot of pressure, but but just just a wonderful experience for me.
Speaker 1:This must've been really cool, taking on Clancy as someone with your Naval intelligence background and with your, I like to say big Navy yeah, you know, with your naval intelligence background and with your, I like to say big navy yeah, you know your big navy background.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden, now you have to do the research, now you have to put pen to paper. Now you have to make these characters work and make it one thing we know about clancy's. It's got to be realistic. Yeah, people are going to be emailing you 10 years from now, like I mean, you know, I've had Don on before and those guys, and it's just like, yeah, you're going to get these random emails from someone's going to read something. But now you have to plan this book out and you have to make it on a global scale, because you know we're not looking when you think about Clancy. You're not thinking, hey, we're going to do this in the state of New Jersey, we're going to do this worldwide. So what was your first step after you had that burp and you're like, ok, I need to map this thing out.
Speaker 2:Well, it was basically to map it out. The Clancy brand represents national security, authentic technology, authentic operations and almost an existential defense problem, or a big defense problem that needs to be solved. The Jack Ryan Jr books are a little bit different than the Jack Ryan Sr books in that Jack Ryan Sr is the president of the United States, so he's got everything at his command right With Jr, and this is the way I approached it. So I thought about the Tom Clancy brand, as I just discussed.
Speaker 2:I know that I couldn't be the senior version. I know that I couldn't be the, you know, the senior version. I had to be the junior version, where you're effectively thrown into the action, you're thrown into a scenario and you're you have. Jack. Jr has enough context, given who his father is and his background and the training that he's had to recognize a threat, but he's also close enough to it that he can do something about it personally. So I built a story that hit those parameters and shared it with my editor and said what do you think? And we talked through it and then from that, basically I built an outline and mapped it out. But I thought a lot about what you're describing in terms of honoring the brand.
Speaker 1:When you're thinking about branding and when you're thinking about the tactical level as well. And now we're going to be dealing with the strategic hey, he's got his dad's the president, but he's going to be at the tactical level. The great thing about the information age now, and a great thing about this author network, is that you can reach out to people and you can find the right information, the right equipment, the right techniques, techniques and procedures and aren't going to be obviously blow any top secret stuff out there, but you can reach out to the network. Did you use your network?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. So so I know some special forces operators who are, you know, out now. One of them was a friend of mine that goes all the way back to you know. You know out now. One of them was a friend of mine that goes all the way back to, you know, when we were 19 and he ended up as a Sergeant Major in Delta Force and retired about I don't know seven, eight years ago. So his knowledge was super current.
Speaker 2:And I think that when you, you know, you picture an author like they're going to act like a journalist and they're going to fly out and they're going to interview a guy and they're going to put a tape recorder on the table and you're like man, I don't have time for that, but in the age that we're in, you're kind of in touch with people all the time. You know it's not hard to stay in touch with people. So a quick text message you know what kind of scope would you use in this case? Right passage. You know what kind of scope would you use in this case, right? Or you know, do guys choose the HK416 or do they go with the standard M4?
Speaker 2:And you know, and then I learn all about. Well, you know there's air pistons and gas pistons or machine pistons, et cetera, and have a whole discussion about it, and so anytime I came across things like that, yeah, the internet can give you a quick answer. But then for a deeper answer, um, it's great to be able to just just hit people really quickly. I know a lot of ex pilots, um, et cetera, and so that that was. That's very helpful.
Speaker 1:I think when you take on a Clancy, you need to have that network. One thing I've noticed you know I've been geez. You're going to be like episode 500 or something. So many of my interviews have been with authors and so many of the authors that I interview are really kind when it comes to helping out other authors.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned Don Bentley. Don's another one of them where you'd be like, hey, Don, can you help me out with this? Sure, you know, it's like one of those people where they're not. You know, back in our day. I would say our day is like the 70s, 80s, 90s. It's like, you know, you would write a letter and you might get a response.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:I got to tell you a quick story and I'll let you talk. I remember when I was going through ROTC I emailed Hackworth the only email I had this was back then and I said what kind of advice do you have? And he actually responded back. Someone responded back and I wish I still had access to that email account. It was like a Juno account where I had his email. I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:But nowadays like you said, it's like instantaneously boom text. Well, my story kind of like that is when I was in ROTC. I think I was a freshman. When do you remember?
Speaker 1:the book the Flight of the Intruder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time.
Speaker 2:So I read that. I love that book. I love that it was a popular book. I was really really interested in that stuff. And so then, by the time, I'm an intelligence officer I meant I mentioned I went to an A6 squadron and it was VA 196, which happened to have been Stephen Kuntz's squadron, and uh, and so he went on to have a writing career and so so when I had my first book, my editor was like, hey, is there anybody you could reach out to for a blurb? And I was like, well, I don't know Stephen Koontz, but I, you know, I just I found his email and I emailed him and and he was like he was like normally I I'd say no, but okay, send it to me. And he gave me. You know, he, he, he really loved the book. He actually called me. He actually got on the phone and called me back and was like I want to talk about this. And he's been.
Speaker 2:I've communicated here and there since then and I agree with you, I was very surprised, coming into this new, at just how kind people are, at just how kind people are. Bentley's another one where I had my deal. I knew my editor was the same editor that Tom had, and I basically found him on LinkedIn and was like hey, do you want to? And he immediately got in touch with me. We spoke on the phone. He gave me some early advice. So, yeah, there's Mark Greeney, same thing, um so, so there's, a really nice guy, um so so these guys are, are, are.
Speaker 2:are very generous with sharing that kind of thing. It's been a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so surprising man and I'm I'm just really excited for this new generation and you know when I really need to catch up on my clancy man, and you know what's cool about is, I could actually just start again. Yeah, and listen. I love audiobooks. Man. I commute to work in the morning. I'm, I'm up at o dark 30. I got about 30 minutes. I'm just like boom, I knock them out like it's nothing yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:I mean, when I got this gig I went back and, uh, reread a couple of the older Clancy's and then, and then caught up on. I hadn't read all the Jack Ryan Jr novels but I went back and read a bunch by Mike. I had read Don's but I went back and read the Mike Madden books too and yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot of fun and for somebody in my position it's certainly. I think it's required reading, it's certainly, it's certainly helpful absolutely so.
Speaker 1:Shadow state comes out august 20th, correct? That's going to be. Where's your first stop going to be?
Speaker 2:uh, first stops in seattle oh nice, yeah, very cool.
Speaker 1:Well, I appreciate you coming on. Um, we you're. I'm glad I didn't go down a tangent. I usually do, because once someone mentions a gun you mentioned the hk416 I start going off in these tangents about oh, we need to go shoot again. I do this with don and everybody else. I'm like yeah, what kind of guns are we using here?
Speaker 2:yeah, so I mean, yeah, I can go for 30 minutes just talking about guns well, uh, yeah, next time you do invite me to go along shooting, because I write about them.
Speaker 1:I don't get to shoot all these exotic things all that often, so oh my gosh as soon as as soon as we hit this end on a record, I'll we're gonna be signing you up for a shooting course, all right? Well, everybody, make sure you check out. Shadow state coming out august 20th jack ryan jr.
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