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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
507 | Jack Carr | Special Joint Episode with Eric Bishop (A Tale Of Two Scribes)
HOSTS: Gene O'Neill (filling in as a special host of The Protectors® Podcast) and Eric Bishop host of A Tale Of Two Scribes.
On this episode of A Tale Of Two Scribes, we welcome Jack Carr to the program. In 2018 Jack Carr burst onto the writing scene with his debut novel, The Terminal List. Optioned by Christ Pratt and turned into a successful series on Amazon Prime, Jack has released 7 novels featuring his protagonist, James Reece. And now, he has delved into the world of non-fiction with his latest, Targeted Beirut. To learn more about Jack, please visit: https://www.officialjackcarr.com
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Welcome to a special episode of A Tale of Two Scribes tonight, because it's not just A Tale of Two Scribes, it's also the Protectors. Anyone that knows the Protectors knows it's Dr Jason Piccolo, and anyone that has field of vision right here, they can see that this is not Dr Jason Piccolo. We have Gene O'Neill with us tonight. Why? Because Jason's in Germany. He's taken off to hike and drink and makes makes us do the work, and we're not even getting paid by jason. What in the world hiking in germany?
Speaker 2:yeah, oktoberfest, I guess yes, oktoberfest.
Speaker 1:Yes, and jason. I asked him where my invite was and he said oh, it's not october, obviously, but is it?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking that I it oktoberfest runs for at least a month and a half or so, I don't even know.
Speaker 1:Knowing the Germans and their love of beer, it might last longer than that.
Speaker 3:Usually starts in September and ends somewhere in October. But he told me he was going hiking and I reminded him that a lot of Americans hiked to Germany in 1944. And he didn't like that joke at all.
Speaker 1:He didn't like that joke at all, he didn't Speaking of 1944, so, jack, you've had some amazing experiences really. You know, just heartfelt experiences. Recently too, because we've just gotten to the 80th anniversary of D-Day. You were, of course, over there for that. I saw some of the pictures and videos of you assisting with our amazing veterans the Beirut bombing anniversary for that is what the 41st, first 41st is.
Speaker 1:So of course we're filming this not you know less than a week after 23rd anniversary of 9-11. Gene, of course, has a connection with that. It's sobering. It's sobering to think about these anniversaries, but one of the amazing things, especially with you putting this book together, is that we don't need to lose the perspective of what happened, because there's great novels and stories that are carried on and those lessons, hopefully, of what occurred and what we've then learned, can be taught to the next generation.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right. That's the point of the book. But yeah, I guess, go over to Normandy for the 80th anniversary commemoration events D-Day, I guess for my family. My daughter has been to.
Speaker 2:A couple with me who went to the 78th Normandy commemoration events, went to 80th Pearl Harbor, got to know these World War II veterans all between, let's say, 97 years old and 103 years old. One was 104, I think in that first one that we did in Pearl Harbor and she's gotten to know these guys over the last few years and she's just got back last night from being in the Netherlands also taking veterans back there and at age 19,. I'm just so proud that she's over there. People were sending me photos and you can just see her totally engaged like with these guys, listening to their stories and she got to hear one from a guy who's who's passed away now but he was on Ford Island and and was there on the runway as a mechanic and saw these planes drop down straight at the runway. He took us and showed us where he dove into what was then a sewage ditch, now it's just a dry ditch. And then he got up and he ran to the edge of the water and turned to watch these planes bank and then dropped the first torpedoes in Pearl Harbor, and then he went on to become a pilot and helped sink a Japanese aircraft carrier in the Pacific and then went to the Mediterranean and sunk a German submarine. So he had quite the experience.
Speaker 2:But for her to hear that from him and not read it in a book, there's something about that that really sparked an interest in her for history and for respecting everything that these guys sacrificed, because then they came home and got back to work and built our country into what it is today and gave us all these options and opportunities that we all have, um. So so, yeah, that uh, it's amazing to be back there with those guys on that ground, um, and it's an honor to do it. Best defense foundation is, uh started by donnie edwards uh nfl player and just a such a, such a great guy made him and his wife catherine made it their life's mission to uh honor these world war ii veterans for the years they have left and take them back to the battlefields on which they fought to gain closure, and then also pass some of these lessons and stories on to the next generation, like to people like my daughter it.
Speaker 1:But if you can actually visit any of these locations, it's like for yourself and I know you've, you've obviously been there, uh, going to Pearl Harbor, read about it my whole life. I went to it 20, 23, 24 years ago, I guess first time, um, to actually take the boat out into. You know, looked out in the water and saw the droplets of oil that have came up in the pool that's there and it's just like it's something that it just resonates more with you and then you think about the sacrifices and what took place. It's humbling. It's humbling especially because and I know you've, you've had a lifetime of service.
Speaker 1:Now so many people are detached from that. They don't, you know, they're used to their creature comforts. They, they've got their life in their, in their hand there half the time and they don't realize that there's so many things that have occurred in the course of our country and, of course, other countries that have really shaped the life that we have now. And it's so easy. I know myself I frequently take it for granted that man, I have lights, I turn lights on, I have a refrigerator full of food, I have all these things that are really, really modern. Conveniences are kind of new. You wouldn't think so, because it's a couple of generations, but it's not. You know, it's not 10 generations of people having these lovely things that we get to talk on or experience.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah. And before we go much further, I want to talk about your books in the background. There, of course, you got Breach of Trust, the Body man, ransomed Daughter. Then over the on the edge there, I see those three ludlums in a row before you hit the vince, flynn's right there uh, which direction are we going? Oh yes, we got ludlums over here yes, then you hit the vince flynn's over there. You get some brad messler up top right there. Uh, I got the magnum shirt. I like it.
Speaker 1:This is what I set up for you. Oh man, nice. I'm kind of blocking it, though, and I thought, damn, how do I change my setup?
Speaker 2:here and I couldn't figure a way to do it, so that's all right, that's all right, I got. I got them right here, but uh, these are courtesy of you, jack.
Speaker 1:You you've been so kind, I've got the. You can't see all the cases.
Speaker 2:Their cases are stacked on um, but uh, yeah no right, there are the clancy's after you move out of the way, your left shoulder so, over here I've got every clancy book.
Speaker 1:Um, I've got all his hard covers, I've got every, all the ones that that tom did. I don't have all the ones that were done after, after his death. So, yeah, I kind of these two shelves of course I have my own, because you know I'm an author and I'm proud of my books but these kind of two shelves behind me and I've got more on this side that you can't see but these are kind of my pride and joys where, like, I have a where's my? You're gonna make me find it here. I won't find it. I have a first edition signed Vince Flynn book which, oh nice, yeah, very behind something here I got too many things.
Speaker 2:Before we got to Emily at the two of them. So I have them both in the other room as well. I might say this is like the nonfiction space in here, except for my books and Ian Fleming here. But everything else is nonfiction space in here, except for my books and ian fleming here, but everything else is nonfiction, then all the fictions in there. So I have the same thing, the uh, the same uh. Tom clancy's lined up like that. Uh, he's one of the inspirations actually for this because of the diversification that he did in the early 90s submarine with the guided tour series and then the study and command series. Um, I got the same thing set up in there. I I have a Ludlum section, I have a Jean Le Creus section, david Morrell, I have Stephen Hunter, jack Higgins, so I have all the Clive Cussler. So I've got all the sections in down here on my side on this shelf that I can reach to.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean I was talking with Gene about it before you came on. Briefly, he was talking about, from a sales standpoint and from books, how digital has affected everything and my experience as an author has only been in the digital realm. Of course I do sell paperbacks and hardcovers, but I wasn't in the business when there wasn't digital options. So it's been interesting and so many people now, like I was telling Gene and your experience is probably a little different from mine, but in my experience so much of my sales now are actually on the digital realm where people are not getting physical books as often. And I'm even in my books. I've even put I was telling Jean on Kindle Unlimited and I didn't really want to do Kindle Unlimited until other authors kind of introduced me to the program.
Speaker 1:And once you have a series started, normally that's when it flips for you and it becomes a successful venture. But it's crazy. It's crazy how much people really are gravitating and I get it. I mean, even on my phone itself I have the Kindle app and you know I buy tons of eBooks from friends and you know they're all on my phone or they're on my tablet. I prefer to hold. You know, I want to. I want to hold the physical book but it's so hard now because people, you know they don't want to carry around 20 books. They can carry a device that has 100 books, a thousand books, whatever they want.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I should look into my digital sales. I don't even know what they are, I have no idea. I mean, I know they're good, I'm Simon Schuster's happy, that's, that's kind of my metric, but I don't even know. I can't do, I can't make that. Uh, I spend so much time working on the computer whether it's typing, writing the books or returning emails or, you know, looking through like a newsletter or whatever else uh, that I don't want to then have the same thing I'm trying to read for pleasure on the same type of a device that I'm doing work on right like differentiation and I, I like the physical books, so that's uh but um, but I think still, audio might be the fastest growing segment of publishing.
Speaker 2:Not positive on that, I think that that's what I was told, anyway. But yeah, the audio for me with Ray, those are fantastic. But yeah, it's nice to have the mix and some people get all three. Some people have the physical one, but they're on vacation and they don't want to travel with it, so they're on their Kindle or whatever. They're on vacation and they don't want to travel with it, so they're on their Kindle or whatever. They're on their way to work and they're listening at home in the evening they have the physical book to open. So it's interesting how many people have all the different mediums books on all the different mediums, which is kind of cool. I'm always a fan of options.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, the Audible and I all the books that were on my pile. I work a full-time job, obviously, writing kids, travel, all the other stuff. I was like I have this time during the day where I'm either listening to podcasts or listening to an audiobook. Audible is a great way to just okay, of course, you've got one of the best voices there is reading your novels.
Speaker 2:That's right, absolutely, he did, uh, and he did targeted beirut also.
Speaker 1:It was pretty uh I was gonna ask you. I didn't. I didn't get into the weeds yet of seeing who the narrator was. I was assuming you would have ray do it, but you texted me.
Speaker 2:He's like dang it. You made me cry and it's an emotional read. It's it's emotional for me to talk about it. It was emotional to write, emotional to listen, to listen to these stories and then weave them into this narrative and then, of course, edit. So it's emotional, but it got Ray. He was texting me as he was doing it.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about it. Obviously, it's a completely different departure. You're now seven, which I can't believe. I met you in 2018, and you had one book out, the Terminalist. I think it had been out for when was thriller fest that year? June or july? So your book had probably been out in may. So two, three months in march, yeah, march okay, so, okay. So you were a new, you were still a newbie, you were still jack, car was green. I mean, can you imagine that?
Speaker 2:that was actually, you know, actually a thing I still feel exactly the same as uh, as then there's just more things to to juggle. Yeah. Well, you feel exactly the same as uh, as then there's just more things to juggle, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you act exactly the same too, and I've said to people, cause I've been fortunate to meet you and interact with you outside of uh, you know the writing stuff and you know as like Jack's the same person whether you're texting him or talking to him on the phone, as you're seeing in an interview. So if you're never not authentic, I'm going to have to text your colleague and be like dude well, I don't know how you could not be.
Speaker 2:I mean, it seems like I would be exhausted. I'm exhausted as it is. I can't imagine having to like jump in front of the camera, unless you're like an actor and that's your thing and you're like, okay, now I'm playing Mozart, you know whatever, but uh, but just like to, I don't. I don't think I know any of them, but it would be very difficult.
Speaker 1:I think to do Spoiler alert though you are. If anyone hasn't seen the Terminalist series on Amazon Prime, just don't listen for the next 10 seconds. But you are an actor, it's an interesting scene too.
Speaker 2:We'll leave it at that. Okay, it still bothers me oh, no episode yeah, episode three beginning fairly early on in episode three, if anybody is uh is looking, but that was that was fun, fun to see how they do that stuff and to get to be a part of it and uh, yeah, we'll see if uh see if I make it into the next ones I think when I watched it I took some screenshots and texted you and I'm like oh, dude, really.
Speaker 2:I love that. It was fun to be involved from the inception, you know, optioning it and then seeing how it went, from Chris Pratt and Antoine getting a showrunner, getting a pilot together that I got to work on with the showrunner, just learning kind of how to do it, and see those guys take it out, shop it amongst all the streaming services, uh, go with Amazon and then see the writer's room come together and then be able to work on all those scripts with all those writers, learning as we went. Uh, and then I wasn't really involved in, I wasn't involved in the casting part, even though I was an executive producer for whatever reason. Um, uh, other than Chris Pratt, I wasn't involved in the in that part. Um, but then, but I saw that I saw some of like the. I saw some of the um, uh, the casting call things, but not all of them. I wasn't involved in like this decisions. I was kind of just as a kind of like a CC line. How about that?
Speaker 2:I was like um and uh, cause I think that's cause you haven't proven your value in that space yet. You know you're still, they're still getting to know you and all the rest of it Right, and got to work through that whole year on the scripts and then start production and then continue to give input throughout that whole process and then move into post-production, give notes on all the episodes and then move into the marketing and advertising side of the house. So then you're kind of building relationships with everyone. You're, you're learning, you're adding value to the project as a whole. So now this time around, I'm involved in all the casting for dark wolf and uh and all the all the scripts. I'm writing one with the showrunner, um, so it's a little different this time around. Yeah, first you have to, you know, kind of prove your, your value, because I think a lot of times don't um?
Speaker 1:you know they don't like to have the author involved, uh rarely, I think you're, you're one of the not the only, of course, but you're.
Speaker 2:You're the exception to the rule, I think, when it comes to that which is, which is a good blessing to have yeah, yeah, I was told that it was because, mostly because you know, then, with the author on set going, you ruined my vision because, right, change, uh, regardless of who's involved, like this thing's gonna change, uh, and that's the tough part, because I mean it's not tough, but I knew going in, because first blood the book very different than first blood, the movie love them both. Um knew there was going to be changes, so I wanted to come into it as a, as a student, I wanted to learn Uh and uh and that's what I did. But I went in open to those changes, like knowing that there's a lot of trust involved. When you option something, um, a lot of times you option it and they get rid of you because they don't want your input.
Speaker 2:I wanted because of Chris and Antoine, they wanted my input and I've talked to the show runner every day since, I think, december of 2019. We've talked every day, including today, and and it's been a great partnership. We're all dear friends and it's, it's fun, we have a, we have a great time doing it and that time doing it.
Speaker 3:And that is some cast you've put together for dark wolf. You've got some, some real, yeah, yeah and they're crushing.
Speaker 2:Everybody is crushing. It is so cool to see. I've seen every episode, uh, except for the last two. The uh episode six just arrived in my inbox today, but I've been doing interviews so I I haven't seen it yet. So, uh, then I have to pick up my little guy at lacrosse. I'm not sure if I'll see it tonight or not. It's gonna going to be hard to hard to resist. But but it's this one. Seven episodes, so six just landed in my inbox. So I'll go through it. I'll watch it twice, once for kind of as a from a viewer perspective, and if I bump on anything I'll kind of remember it. And then I'll watch it again fairly soon thereafter with my notepad, and then I'll stop and give give my notes and write down the timestamp and all that stuff and go through it again and, uh, the same things that I bumped on on the first time when I was watching it from a fan perspective, from a viewer perspective. So, but it's looking good, I got to say it's like it's exceeding expectations and everybody is crushing it.
Speaker 1:You were on set. I think I remember seeing pictures and stuff. You were on set um over in what? Croatia, uh, croatia, or Hungary, maybe Budapest, yeah, budapest, okay, you're in Budapest, okay. So what's that like as a writer, as someone that's envisioned especially with the Terminalist? Not so much, I guess, with the second edition. I know it came from the stories the characters did, but not directly from one particular book. But how is that work from someone that dreamed up these characters and these concepts to then being on set and watching these actors say these lines and do that? What's that like?
Speaker 2:It's humbling and you feel just so grateful that someone's interested in turning something that you wrote into a show. And for me it was really cool to draw parallels between a production in the military, because I walked out and I saw, oh, there's Antoine Fuqua, here's the director, that's like the commanding officer, and there's Chris Pratt, that's like the troop commander. Oh, and he's actually playing a troop commander in this first episode here. And oh, there's medical personnel around in case something goes wrong. And oh, there's the demolition guy. And in a platoon you have the breacher. And there's a weapons guy. Guess what? In platoon you have your weapons guy who's in charge of inventorying all the weapons and all the rest of it. Oh, guess what? There's craft food services.
Speaker 2:And what do you have to do? In Iraq and Afghanistan or anywhere in the military? You got to feed the troops. There's a mobility guy moving all the vehicles around, getting all the vehicles set up where they need to. Guys, they're getting ready, they're doing the routes and making sure that the vehicles are gassed up and ready to go as their armors are, getting all the weapon systems loaded up and all the rest of it. So there's so many parallels between military operation and a set. It was crazy, so evident. Didn't have to work too hard to draw those parallels, it was just, it was noticeable. I'll say that.
Speaker 1:If the earlier, if the soldier only knew years and years and years ago all the things you were learning as you were in Coronado and everything would would end. You know, at some point your career of course would end, but then it would flip to being on the Hollywood side, the production side, and then again, seeing those parallels and how that prepared you for what was to come is pretty, pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, everything I've done really has prepared me for for what I'm doing now, and I think that's because I looked at everything as uh, as building a foundation, uh, and building upon what others had done before me, uh, that pages of history, uh, reading about what the seals did in Vietnam, as as a kid, kid, reading all those things, devouring as much as I possibly could, and back then you could find the end of the internet because there wasn't one. You had to go to the library and work your way through the stacks and find anything on special operations in general, and then the SEAL section was even smaller than that. But reading all that nonfiction, reading anything about warfare and in this case I remember the Newsweek and the Time Magazine that came across our family's dining room with the Beirut barracks bombing on the covers. I remember that. I remember the Falklands War newspaper articles I was reading. My dad would finish hand them to me. He'd go to the sports section and I'd read those. I remember watching Walter Cronkite, even back in 1979 with the Iranian hostage crisis, like all those things.
Speaker 2:And then all the thrillers that I read, starting in fifth grade, but for sure, sixth grade. I'm now reading all the books that are on my parents' shelves, those books that we read and write today, and all those have given me an early education in the art of storytelling. So I had that very early on that storytelling side from the fan perspective, from the reader perspective, and because I started so early, I know the history of the genre and when I got to those parent, those books on my parents' shelves, I was reading some of the ones that weren't contemporary. I was worried. Of course I'm reading the Brother of the Rose and Fraternity of the Stone and all those things in charm school and and all those ones that are more contemporary thrillers. But then I'm also reading, oh, the Jean Le Carre and the Ken Follett and the Ian Fleming on my parents' shelves, the Robert Ludlam, because even those were, um, were a little before my time as far as uh, starting with, uh, uh, with a born identity. So it's uh, all those things helps build this foundation. That uh how all comes together with the study of nonfiction and military history and terrorism and counterterrorism insurgencies and the reading thrillers from that fan perspective, and then the practical application on the ground in iraq and afghanistan, as I'm leaving the military and starting to write, and so all those things just collided at the right time and place. Uh, that allowed me to do what I'm doing now, but I'm still building. I'm still building this foundation, uh, the ones that were built for me by the authors that came before, and then the stuff that that I've been doing since.
Speaker 2:So I want the next book to be better than this book. That's always the goal. My favorite is always the one that just came out, because I think thus far I have improved as an author. And so, on the thriller side of the house, red Sky Morning is is my favorite and I think it's the best one. And I think the next one if I do my job right and I'm still learning and going all in putting my heart and soul into every word, like I do well, it'll be even better than Red Sky Morning. And same thing on this side of the house with the nonfiction I want the next one. There's another one in the series Just started to work on that and I want that one to be better than this one. So it's always about constant improvement.
Speaker 3:I think you go ahead, gene. It's all part of your evolution, that's. That's one of the fascinating things to watch is we've watched you develop the thriller, we've watched you turn that into a visual media and and and put that out there for everyone. And now we get to watch you evolve, knowing what you know from your life's work and looking at a critical incident and and I was 17 when the Beirut, when that bomb went off, and I remember the papers. I remember, I distinctly remember a bar in Kearney, new Jersey, in 1991. And there was this shaky dude at seven o'clock in the morning sitting at that bar, and so I said to the bartender thanks for not asking why I was there. I said to the bartender what's up with him? And he's like oh, he was in Beirut in 83. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, let's just we'll send him around. But watching your evolution and I I really want to see this through the lens that you can provide for it.
Speaker 2:Well, when you talk about that guy at the bar now, having talked to these guys, you can just see so, as how many of them uh are still living back in october 1983, even today? Uh, some of them moved on. Then you bring them back to that day and you can. You can see, it's very hard for the, very hard for me to even talk about because you have to. It's very, it's just so emotional. But, uh, you just hear those stories and once you get those guys who have, you know, moved on and and uh and gone from that day. But when you bring them back and you have they have to walk you through it, um, they're right back there. And then some of the guys they never left, and that's like the guy at the bar right there.
Speaker 2:And at the very beginning I mean I wanted to do that. I pitched up, simon. I always knew, I knew I was moving. I always knew that I would move into the nonfiction space, um, just like Tom Clancy did. We've got Brad Metzler behind you right there who has his fourth book comes out here in January, I believe. So first person to go over from the thriller space to the nonfiction space.
Speaker 2:But when I thought I'd built up and I'm weaving a lot of history into the pages of my novels, as it is talking about history a lot on social media, so it was very natural thing to for me to do is to move into that space and progress into that space. But I pitched Simon Schuster on it when I thought that I built up enough political capital with them to be able to do that. So it was about two and a half years ago, maybe even three years ago now, and I wrote down about gosh three pages worth of terrorist events from the end of World War II up until the time that I pitched them. And I just kept coming back to Beirut 1983 as the one to start with, because it was such a turning point in our relationship with the Middle East. The shadow of the event still looms over US foreign policy today and the enemy learned lessons and they learned that terrorism works and we're still really playing by that rule book established by Iran through proxy forces in 1983. And sure, there were terrorist events before then, but the model that the enemy is really using today and the rule book that they're playing by was established in lebanon in 1983. So I kept coming back to that as the one to start with and so pitch simon and schuster. They love the, the idea I want to catch. I'll still talk to them about wanting.
Speaker 2:I wanted to capture the strategic, the operational and the tactical lessons, while also humanizing these events, because you hear 241 US servicemen killed. That's a big number but at the same time it doesn't humanize the event. So I wanted to make sure that I got to really become kind of a custodian, a guardian, for a time of these stories and get out of the way of these stories, because this is not my book, it's not James Scott's book, it's the people who were there, the people who lost loved ones. It's their story. So I wanted to make sure that what we did was get out of the way of these stories, and that was the goal from the very beginning. And I also want to work with someone on this one. And there was only one person I wanted to work with. That's James Scott. I have his five books right back here and I loved his work. And it seems crazy to me now that I didn't even I was so busy I didn't even go on YouTube and look up an interview with him or anything like that to see what kind of a guy he was. I just loved the work and now I. Now we're dear friends and we hit it off right away.
Speaker 2:But when I was talking to Simon Schuster and talking to my publisher and editor, emily Bessler Emily Bessler Books and my agent I told them hey, I want to work with someone who knows what they're doing in this space, because on the thriller side of the house, if I make a historical mistake, an error somewhere, I can just say, hey, it's fiction, I made it all up. But in this you're telling someone's story and you're telling people stories who are still with us, still living back in that day, like we talked about. We were telling a story of families who have that empty seat at the dinner table and have since October of 1983. So there's a lot of responsibility that comes along with that. So I wanted to make sure I was going to get it right and that meant working with someone who had a proven track record. And James Scott's the guy I wanted to work with.
Speaker 2:So on that call they're like, well, who's his agent? And I got into the last book of his. I had it right there and I'm like looking at the acknowledgments or looking at the author's note and I said, well, he's thanking somebody named John Glessman and my professor, emily Bessler, is like like what? She's like, that's my husband, they work in the same, in the same space, and so they we had a zoom call and we we kicked it off and just hit it off right away and are now dear friends. So we've been working on this thing for uh, two years um, so I don't.
Speaker 1:You know, we're both authors. I don't dog ear pages because I think that's sacrilegious, but I do use. You know, I have yellow sticky notes or whatever I have to do.
Speaker 1:So the ones I have in here actually are what you just mentioned. I'm a student of history myself, love history and history definitely moves me, but it's the recounting of what occurred to these members of the military during the bombing, when the blast went off. Those are the ones that, yeah, just, there's no way you don't read that and become emotional. It becomes bothersome to realize that you know this event that you're reading about and yes, it happened 41 years ago, the effects of that. You know how people had to then live with this. You know horrible disfiguration and the trauma of it, and you've lived that as well being deployed.
Speaker 1:So I think maybe for you to be able to tell this story, with the assistance the two of you telling the story, I think it adds to it, because if I were to tell a history story about war, I think I could probably do a decent job. I don't knock my ability, but I've not lived it, I've not experienced it and I think when you actually experience that trauma in any form firsthand and then go to recount it and I'm sure you probably did this you draw off your own experiences. So as you're recounting someone's story, the humanity I think comes through a little bit stronger, because you yourself have seen people in a similar dire strait and similar bombing situation that occurred over there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and before I answer that, one Gene nice coffee cup. I want to say that of course as well.
Speaker 3:That's my favorite one.
Speaker 2:Oh man, thank you, thank you, yeah, and you know. The striking thing is that there are so many parallels between what happened in Beirut 1983 and what happened at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan in August of 2021. But once again, US service members in essentially an untenable, tactically disadvantageous position, and that was done by people in air-conditioned offices thousands of miles from the battlefield. We lost people in both events, but what gives me hope is that the same thing happened in the direct aftermath of these events, in that this building comes down. Some people are sleeping in the basement, it comes down on top of them. Other people are on the fourth deck ride the whole thing down. There's 350 of them sleeping on a Sunday morning, which is typically it was kind of a day of rest for these guys, a little bit different than the other days of the week, and this building collapses in this bombing and everyone in the area runs to the sound of the guns. They run to the explosion. They are digging through the rubble with their bare hands, with K-bar knives, with shovels, maybe with a crowbar, if they can find it. Similar thing at Abbey Gate. That bomb goes off, kills 13 Americans, wounds others, wounds innocent civilians there, and same thing, running to the sound of the guns, us service members trying to save as many of their brothers in that case sisters in arms, as they possibly can, trying to save innocent civilians impacted by that blast, holding security, because you don't know if something else is going to happen right after that. There may be another attack. So those parts give me hope, of course.
Speaker 2:October 83, you know we'd, we'd, we'd still weren't the greatest at holding senior level leaders accountable. But somebody stuck up, stood up and he, he took the. He took the fall I don't think that's the right words took the fall. He knew that, as a leader, that's everything that happens under your watch. All the credit. If something good happens, all that credit goes down. You push that credit down the chain of command. Something bad happens, that is 100% on you. That is no one's fault but your own.
Speaker 2:And that was Colonel Garrity. And he probably would have been the commandant of the Marine Corps if this hadn't happened. But this derails his career. And there's another great I got to, got to spend a little time with him, um, while we were writing this book. Remarkable guy, and he, uh, he got up and he kept moving forward. He switches, uh tracks, you know, leaves the Marine Corps but uh but keeps moving forward and I think that's a good lesson for for anybody that uh deals with something in life that knocks you, knocks you down. Um, and at the 40th anniversary commemoration events where I was honored to be asked to speak gosh, you could feel it was palpable in the room just how much respect the guy still had for him all these years later. So getting to spend some time with him and his family, that was a distinct honor.
Speaker 2:But that brings me to Abbey Gate and Afghanistan withdrawal, where we have essentially zero accountability for anything that happened. And uh, same thing with the entire g watt. You didn't, you see, saw commanders every now and again be relieved, but usually it was for uh, sleeping with a subordinate or getting a couple duis or popping positive on a drug test or something like that certainly wasn't for uh, anything that that happened. Down range as far as leadership on the battlefield type of a thing, which really means leadership from a tactical operations center, which really means they're managing things, but no accountability whatsoever there. So there are parallels, just not in the case of accountability.
Speaker 1:You know, we study history and if we don't learn from it, though, we, you know, we're destined to repeat it. And so when we allow these things to keep occurring and you know, and it's hard as civilians because we have a voice, we have the means to speak our mind, but we can't affect change like political leaders can, or in the military, where military leadership can. So it's that. It's that difficult spot in life is like what do you do? And I think you have to be vocal about it. But besides being vocal, how can we affect change? And maybe that's only at the voter box, maybe that's getting only getting people in, and then that's, uh, not getting politics. That won't do any of us any favors. But this it's, it's an, an election year, so we're getting bombarded.
Speaker 1:I'm in North Carolina, so North Carolina, which is wild to say that it's basically a really close state. For years, North Carolina was always obviously Republican. I get a mailer every day. I said something to my kids about the other day, every single day in the mail. That might be the only thing in the mail, but there's a political mailer in there and I'm like, wow, we really are a battleground state here, when literally the one campaign is sending, and it's only one campaign that's doing it. Every day. I get something. It's like that's marketing right there. And of course I'm thinking, man, if I could get marketing stuff out for my books with that level, it'd be amazing.
Speaker 2:There it is, yeah, yeah, it's a wild time, that's for sure. But yeah, I think that's part of our responsibility as citizens is to get out there and vote. That's what we owe the people who sacrificed so much from the inception of this country up until today, and that's what we owe future generations as well, because really, we're not making decisions for us, we're making decisions for those future generations. So all too often I think you see people politicians, even citizens that are uninformed and don't think about what came before and aren't really thinking about what comes after, and our responsibility really is to think about both of those things and make the appropriate choice.
Speaker 1:As I read through books, a lot of times I'll gravitate towards quotes. I see or statements I say and as I finished your book the other night, the one thing that stuck to me and it was actually my senior quote in my yearbook, my senior year but, edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. And those, I think, are the lessons that we have to learn from any of these events. It's like, okay, how do we combat evil? Well, we have to do what's right, we have to stand up for what's right If we let evil. I know you've been doing a lot of interviews today and the news or the details on it are kind of sparse, but there was quite a lot of explosions that happened overseas today in people's pockets Strictly coincidental.
Speaker 2:Malfunction.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:My phone started blowing up this morning on it and I was in interviews. I couldn't really dive into it, so I don't know much about it yet. But yeah, it seems like there was a little upstream disruption that took a few people off the board A lot of people, oh, my goodness, like it's pretty wild, from what I understand.
Speaker 1:I think it's like 8,000 wounded and I don't know how many dead. I forget what the number was on the confirmed dead Maybe not 8,000, but it was a lot. It was dozens dead, I think, and quite a few that were injured during it. So there's videos. I mean again, little devil machines we have here. There's already full-on videos, surveillance camera videos in these stores and stuff where these guys are like sitting there doing something and all of a sudden they're just blown over from it. It's on twitter, it's on rx, whatever um it's, but again you got some bad people doing things. What do you do with? What do you do about it? You know what? How do you deal with?
Speaker 2:it. Yeah, they got somebody back in. I want to say, know, I haven't thought of this in a while, but 96, when people had early cell phones that needed to get repairs. I believe they got a Hamas bomber by when he went in to get his phone repaired. They put explosive in there. So when he went out, boom, took his head off type of a thing, took that guy off the board that way, that way, but interestingly enough it was pagers, from what I understand.
Speaker 2:And the reason it's pagers is because there are less things on a pager that you can use from a technical surveillance standpoint to get into somebody's life. So they're using. It's why they're using pagers. It's not because they have a fondness for the late eighties, early nineties, it's just because there was less things that a foreign intelligence service can do to get into that device. There was less things that a foreign intelligence service can do to get into that device, get into photos, get into, turn on and off cameras and listen to devices. So now there's just less they can do with a pager. So that was interesting. That that's why they had them and, of course, probably Mossad or whoever you know. I doubt they'll claim credit for it. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, gene. I think I cut you off. Did you have something? No, I'm sorry. Okay, no problem. Yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's interesting times, so how was the collaboration on this? How did that work out? And then, obviously, you were saying how you knew who you wanted to work with. So when everything came together, maybe give us a little explanation, how did that work it?
Speaker 2:was awesome. We knew from the get go. We kind of just had a feeling that we'd work well together. Um, I already had, uh, it outlined, uh for our initial call, just to see if uh, uh kind of uh conducive to that concept, and uh, he loved it and uh, and now if we went to the races? So, but for me to learn from someone like that, like James Scott, who's an actual scholar, um, and I want this to be not just kind of pop history, meaning I didn't want to just grab a bunch of books that have been written on terrorism and the very few that have been written about um, and then kind of regurgitate them and then add my analysis and then call that my nonfiction.
Speaker 2:Um, I really wanted to do this the right way and go into those primary source records, go into the Marine Corps archives, go into the Reagan library archives. Uh, you look at recently declassified documents, interview people and that trust portion. When you talked about my background in the military, um, well, people that we interviewed, a lot of them were uh, uh, were aware of who I, who I was and a little bit of my background, and then James is such a good guy. So you combine that background in the military. So they have this trust factor and a trust, this person to tell my story. And then James has his background of uh, success, uh, with these books that he's written, these five other books for on world war two and one other, and for us to come together, there was just it was like a I don't know how to exactly say it, but they trusted us to tell their story.
Speaker 3:There's a. There's a certain amount of rapport that gets built just based on on your rep and and and and your coauthors. I don't know how anyone writes with anyone else. I tried it once before nine 11 and it ended in a fistfight.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we're doing it from very different ways. So I knew that I am going not going to mess up the research. Um, because I did a book report back in the seventh grade and I remember how, how I organized that book report with file cards or whatever. It was.
Speaker 2:No, like I'm now working with someone who's an actual historian, military historian scholar, about to get his PhD in military history, like a serious historian, and so I'm going to learn Once again I'm stepping in, I'm astute as part of this and to see his process and learn about that process and how you go about doing this research and how you annotate it, because you have to. That's why there's so many notes in the back of this book, because all everything that we did had to be annotated. So that's all in there and done properly, and this isn't his first time doing that. Same thing with the photos. The photos. I was shocked because there were some photos that I wanted to use but we couldn't because the company it was like I don't think it was Getty, I don't think it was AP, maybe, but it was one of those ones up there. That is a name you'd recognize if I remembered it right now, and the company had changed hands so many times since 1983.
Speaker 2:They didn't know who owned the rights to the photos, the photos marine corps just writes, like you know, originally, ap or whatever, um, so that's how they give credit, because of the marine corps you know they get, or something like it's fine, um, but, simon schuster, that's not what you're doing. So it all had, you know, properly done, legally done, um. So there's some photos that we couldn't use just because they it was crazy to me. I like I want to give you money to be able to you license photos. That's your business, right? Well, I would give you money to license that photo. And they were like well, we're not really sure who owns it after all these changes of hands since 83. So, so that was interesting. But we still got some amazing photos in here. But they're all obviously annotated properly and legally and all that. So, so that's in there. So for me, I just learned a ton. We were on the same page from the beginning about getting out of the way of this story. We weren't worried about a different voice in there, because there are both of us working on this thing, because it's not our voice, it is the voice of these people who are involved in the event and the family members of people who lost loved ones.
Speaker 2:We had over a thousand pages of letters 600 from one guy, dr John Hudson, who was unfortunately killed in the attack, and audio tapes that he sent back to his wife and son. So I got to know his wife Lisa a little bit through this and she was extremely helpful in painting that picture of who he was. And for those in the military, doctors are kind of a different breed because they're doctors, you want them to be a good doctor. Military, you know, doctors are kind of a different breed because, uh, they're doctors, you want them to be a good doctor. If they're wearing their uniform a little bit incorrectly, like, that's okay, as long as they, you know, if you're a dentist, as long as you do a good root canal type of a type of a thing. So he was kind of like that, uh, almost like a mash character in that. Uh, he was blatantly honest about, he almost had a premonition about what was going to happen and that really comes through in these letters and these audio tapes and all the rest of it. So I wasn't really worried about a different voice or anything like that. It was about me learning about the research process and how to do that properly and about allowing the voices of the people involved in the event to come through in these pages. So it was fantastic, and we're already in the early stages of the next one.
Speaker 2:But I also did, when I pitched Simon Schuster, I told them my idea was to have a nonfiction come out every year, and so I'd have the thrillers in the spring and then the nonfiction in the fall. And that was my idea. And then very soon, about two weeks into the process, I called them back. I'm like, I know what the contract says, I know what I said, but it's not going to be every year.
Speaker 2:In order to do these justice, you really need to spend at least two years, and that's even, that's even uh, pretty fast for, uh, for a nonfiction, um, I mean, it's not like I said, it's not pop nonfiction, it's not just throwing something out there, um, and and another reason I wanted to do it cause there wasn't really the seminal book on this, and so I wanted to, you know to, I wanted to essentially create that, to create the book that people say, uh, I want to know about Beirut 1983. Here's the book you need to read Uh, so I, I couldn't be, uh, you know more, more proud or or or humbled by what we created here. But once again, it's not my story, it's not James' story, it's the people involved in the event. It's their story, it's their voice and it was our job just to figure out how to get out of the way.
Speaker 1:Well, in the end too, listing everyone that perished Again another one of those things where almost it didn't feel weird, but as you're turning the pages you just see a list of names. It's like going to the 9-11 site and going around the reflecting pool flowers will be, you know, will there on some of the names and stuff. And I tried to do the same thing in the back of your book is seeing these lists. I didn't want to just flip through it and just casually flip through those. I want to actually read through the names. I want to actually look and see these are real people.
Speaker 1:Um, and I looked at the numbers, the stats, just as getting ready for this. So was obviously 241, but it was 220 marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers, and then also there was a second bomb that killed 58 french paratroopers as well. So you know it's just the the effects of what was going on then. And then you know the sad thing is so much of the technology has changed a little bit, but the violence that you still see going on in that region now again, it kind of circles back to what we were saying before. It's like if you don't learn the lessons of history, you're doomed to just keep repeating them and repeating them, and you know, we end up giving away some of the best of our people to these causes. Um, and it's the right thing to fight for, but there is a effect of what you're. You know what you're giving up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a multi-generational human um uh impact to the decisions made at the executive level. Um, and and really, one of those other parallels is that which remains true to this day, really around the world, is that the final decision maker in this chain of decision makers is still an 18-year-old kid, 19-year-old kid, 20-year-old kid with a rifle off safe, finger on the trigger, standing at a checkpoint somewhere in the world watching a car approach, not knowing if it's laden with explosives or if it just has bad suspension. And that was the last decision maker in a chain of decision makers that starts with the president of the United States. And uh, and that hasn't changed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, yeah, it's just sobering, but I I think for you to put this down and again, this is something that not only to the readers out there, but this is something that your kids will have. You know, they've got your, they've got your fiction books there to the behind you where they've got, you know, the maybe your youngest, I don't know, I think our kids around the same age. It's like I've had a couple people say well, is your kids read your books? I was like well, my son's old enough. Now he's almost 18, but my daughter is literally just turned. Probably doesn't need to read my political thrillers yet. Hold, off.
Speaker 2:I was reading, you know those, those things at 11, 10 years old. I started, started reading them but by 11, that's when I'm all in, that's all I'm reading, like I'm not reading any young adult fiction at that point, that's at 11. I'm reading those same, those same books, like, like, like today, At 11, I'm reading those same books like today and I love that. I got to read them at a time when I'm just reading them for the magic in the pages, not distracted by the device. I'm not distracted by a mortgage that needs to be paid or a car payment or work I need to go to, or dinner I need to put on the table for a family or anything like that. My job as a kid is like do some homework, play outside and be seen, not heard, and in the pages. And I got to read these books just for the magic in those pages.
Speaker 2:And I think it would be different if I woke up at age 40 and said I think I want to be an author. What should I have been reading for the last 30 years to prepare me for this? No, I got to read those books that were contemporary thrillers in their day, like during the Cold War, not reading them in, let's say, 2015, going back to try to read the things that I should have been reading in the past and now, through the lens and the filters that have built up since 1985. And so what I'm reading is filtering through this, and now there's a purpose to reading it other than just the story. Now there's a reason, and that reason is because I want to learn what it's like to to write a book like this. What can I take from this book to apply If I want to be an author? There was zero of that when I was reading these books. It was just for the story, just magic, and it was so pure, and so I don't think I could have prepared myself any better for this.
Speaker 2:But now those books, interestingly enough. Now, myself any better for this. But now those books, interestingly enough, now they're the lens through which we can see 1985. You can go back and read Brotherhood of the Rose and read about someone searching for a payphone or something like that in those novels, different today, so far removed from having to search for one yourself or having to remember how to call, collect or put in a calling card number or put in the court or whatever it was. It was. It's just different. So that was just the way that I happened to go about it, but I didn't mean to, it was just the way that it that it transpired, because I love books and reading, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's funny that you say call, collect. I'll cause again, cause we've got kids around the same age. I'll tell stories sometimes of like what we had to deal with in the 80s and 90s and they're just kind of like. Of course, my son, bruce, which you've even been kind of, send bruce a book before. Um bruce thinks it's the coolest thing. He's always like I wish I grew up in the 80s. Man, this sucks growing up now.
Speaker 1:But oh man, he's right, but you know oh, he, he's, totally he is, yes, he, he is a child of the 80s. When it comes to movies Like Top Gun, maverick is, you know it was actually, I think, an improvement on Top Gun, like one of his favorite movies. Like you know, he watched that and I took him to theater to see it and you know, taking him, I think I've told you before taking the concerts, you know, bon Jovi.
Speaker 2:Rolling Stones you guys are always at concerts.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, you got to live. I'm not jet-setting as well as you, but you know.
Speaker 2:I'm doing okay. Hey no it looks like you're doing great Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Well, it's one of those things where I think you'd appreciate too. I look at life in the lens of what's going on and I also look at it as like where my age is now. It's like, okay, I'm at a space station in life where things are good. But I also know, man, I don't have 80 more years, I don't have a hundred more years. So what are those things that are important to me? My family's the most important thing to me. Writing stories is important to me, but I also want to get out and live life. You know I want to go. I think you saw Garth Brooks, and I saw Garth Brooks. Soon after you saw him, it's like, yeah, I want to go. He was on the bucket list. I saw Elton John a couple of years ago, cause it was like, you know, goodbye, yellow brick road tour. And I'm like, well, that's probably the last time to see him and probably not. He'll come back out in two years and make another $500 million.
Speaker 2:But yeah, how many times have there been a final tour for a lot of these, these guys?
Speaker 1:I remember final tours in the eighties, that, and I saw motley crew a couple years ago. They were. So now, now one of my friends. The thing in las vegas. I went to the sphere. I took bruce to see you. Yeah, you too. Uh, yeah, wow, you're a good dad. Well, yeah, maybe sometimes the sphere good gravy. No, you got frozen for a sec. Jack there you're back. Yeah, so I took bruce I I don't know if I might have sent you the pictures when we did that, so, yeah, and it's come up every now and then on podcast. So I ended up getting floor seats, uh, floor tickets. We're standing and we waited in line to get primo and we were three people back from center stage and until the end of the world happens and bono comes into the crowd and lays down and bruce, bruce reaches up and grabs bono's arm.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I'm like you. Little shit, you got to touch Bono. I didn't even get to touch Bono, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:No, it was one of those great experiences. But the only downside of it is I've kind of ruined him now, because now when I talk about let's go to a concert, he's like how close are we going to be? Because he's gotten the experience with Shinedown of knowing the band, of getting to be on side stage and do everything, and so now we had Aerosmith tickets and a couple months ago they pulled the plug and they said with Steven's voice they're done. So that's another one. I took him to see Sammy Hagar. Sammy came through and he did a Best Of tour this summer and so we heard a lot of the old Van Halen hits, which was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:But yeah, just my son. I took my son, raymond, to R40. So that was Rush's last tour before he healed, yeah, and was you know? You'll never get to see that band again, right, yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's it's. It's been a cool experience. So we got a couple of years. Yeah, we got another one coming, so you got another interview. I do.
Speaker 2:I wish I could hang out and talk books all night long. You know I love to do it, but yeah, I got to jump on another one in one minute.
Speaker 1:Where should everyone go to find out more about Jack Carr? Let's end with that.
Speaker 2:I think you can go on officialjackcarrcom, the hub for all the social and the podcasts and the books and everything else. Uh, right there, a little television news and the newsletter and all that sort of thing. So, uh, but man, it's good to see you guys. Thank you, jeff, see you so much. I really love talking to you guys and talking, books and reading and uh, hopefully I'll see you in person soon.
Speaker 1:Hope, so Take care. Bye.
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