GRP 74- A Green Beret's Journey Into the Darkness: Countering Child Sexual Exploitation

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GRP 74-Co hosting for this week's podcast is former British Army Combat Medic Chantel Taylor. We have a special guest on a retired Army Special Forces Green Beret named Mike. Mike served as a Tanker in Iraq where he first came across Special Forces. He knew right away that this was something he would like to be a part of someday. He had a growing young family so when his contract was up he got out of the Army. He eventually went back in and became a Green Beret until he was injured and medically retired.

As he was retiring he was approached by an organization that recruits personnel from the Special Operations community in order to hunt down and put a stop to child sexual exploitation here in the United States. For Mike it was a no brainer. He was in. Below is an excerpt from our conversation:

Mike: After I was told I wouldn't be able to be do Green Beret stuff anymore and I could either take a desk job, or medically retire. As I was in the retirement process I got approached by someone. He told me about the Hero Child Rescue Corps. It's recruiting veterans from the Special Operations community who are wounded or disabled. Are you interested? It was to fight child sexual exploitation. I jumped on it. I declined other opportunities to make a lot of money working overseas. I knew this was a once in a lifetime deal. It was to save kids. Now I have 3 kids. Once I retired I went to training for it.

I do computer forensics fighting child sexual exploitation.

John: Its important work. You hear about these kinds of things and immediately you think of places like Africa, but this is happening in the States. I think Americans aren't as aware of it as they should be.

Mike: I was in a class one time. They pulled up a map of the United States. It was a live feed of child pornography being downloaded. Within 15 minutes the entire map was red. You can live in the nicest neighborhood, and you wont know there's pedophile’s in that same area. People in these areas producing it.

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GRP 73-Army Special Forces|MACV-SOG|Raise The Black|ISOF

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GRP 73- Back on for this week's podcast are two Green Berets one who is a first generation Special Forces solider, Mike Stahl who served two tours of duty in Vietnam with his first tour on an A-Team, and second tour running recon with CCN (Command and Control North) as a MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group) One Zero, or Team Leader. 
Our second guest is Bryan Meyers, A Special Forces Intelligence Sergeant with 8 combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bryan and a fellow Green Beret named Loren Schofield have started a campaign called "Raise the Black" in creating products to sell with the returns going out to help the families and warriors of the ISOF (Iraqi Special Operations Forces) who elements of the Army Special Forces trained and stood up during the beginning of the Iraq war. ISOF has gone on hundreds of combat operations with American Special Forces Teams during the worst of the fighting in Iraq against Al-Qaeda, and the Shia militias of Sadr City. ISOF has single handily stopped ISIS from advancing on Baghdad. They have been fighting non stop for over 10 years. We discussed the similarities of the Army Special Forces first generations and todays warriors. We talked unconventional warfare and what it takes to defeat these radical groups. Below is an excerpt:

John: I mentioned earlier the book "Hammer Head Six" written by Forces Captain Ronald Fry. They laid out step by step how to defeat the insurgency in Afghanistan. Its proven. The battle space owners are usually Officers from the infantry. A full bird colonel or a 1-star general is not going to listen to a Special Forces Captain even though he's an induvial who has trained for years and mastered this type of warfare. It seems like the people who know this type of warfare are not allowed to lead the way.

Bryan Myers: Just propaganda alone America has not set out to win a war since WW2. We are not fighting to win. You can see it from propaganda that is allowed from the DOD, and Military at the time. "Can you not fight in the war? save your grease. We can use it to kill Nazi's." Let me do what I need to do and I will give you the insight. We had literal transmissions on radio from Mullah Omar from 3rd Special Forces Group of us killing so many during Operation Medusa these commanders in Pakistan wouldn't even answer the phones. They're like I don't want none of that bro.

Mike Stahl:
www.trickymisfit.com

Raise The Black:
www.gofundme.com/raise-the-black

www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoi….bbe4af41435c

Bryan Myers: 
@twimcf for IG
m.facebook.com/theworldismycountryfoundation/
@the_bearded_bryan Instagram
@thebeardedbryan Twitter

Global Recon:
www.globalrecon.net
IgRecon – Instagram
BlackOpsMatter- Instagram
Mission_Critical – Instagram
IgRecon- Twitter

Introduction Speech by President Ronald Reagan reading the Medal of Honor Citation for MSG Roy Benavidez a Special Forces Green Beret who was a member of MACV-SOG.

Music provided by Caspian:
www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 72-Raise The Black|Army Special Forces|ISOF

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GRP 72-Raise The Black. On for this week's podcast are two retired Special Forces Green Berets. Bryan Myers and Loren Schofield both have multiple combat deployments into Afghanistan and Iraq. The Army Special Forces which Bryan and Loren were a part of were responsible for standing up an Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Force early on in the war. ISOF (Iraqi Special Operations Forces) has contributed in a tremendous way to the fight against Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and now ISIS. The ICTF (Iraqi Counter Terrorism Force) are a group of battle hardened Iraqi patriots who don't identify themselves as belonging to any particular tribe, or religious sect. They consider themselves Iraqi's and fight for their country. This is important as this region has been embroiled in religious and sectarian violence for many years. 

Raise The Black is a campaign started by Bryan and Loren to give back to the families of fallen ICTF Operators as they have been fighting constantly for over a decade. The ICTF is single handily responsible for stopping the ISIS advance on Baghdad, and they now lead the offensive to rid Iraq of the terrorist group. Here is the link to the Go Fund Me Account where you can contribute. They plan on moving away from the GoFundMe but are using it to kick start the campaign. 

https://www.gofundme.com/raise-the-black

Below is an excerpt from the podcast.

John: You guys spent a lot of time in Sadr city(Iraq) working with the ICTF. Can you share a story with the audience of your time there?

Bryan Meyers: It was a brutal time. It was decided to wall it off with these big tall Texas barriers. They wanted to limit the access to this dangerous area.  You were never going to have issues getting in. It was getting out that was the issue. This one night we went in to hit a target. We got our guy and are heading out. I'm manning a .50 cal on our Stryker at this point. An IED had gone off. I look up and I see the Abrams Tank hauling ass. It becomes apparent very quickly that we're missing a Bradley. We went from urgency to a panic. We call to an Apache Gunship. We're like hey man can you fly over Sadr and check if you see a rogue, Bradley. In the chaos, this Bradley had taken off. Just like a typical male instead of asking for directions they just kept driving. They ended up being as deep as you can get. All I can imagine is all of Sadr's army thinking this has got to be a setup. We were about to have an international incident. We linked up with the Bradley and began our exfil. We had an Abrams tank drive over one of the barriers and decided to exfil that way. The AO commander was pissed.

Raise The Black:
https://www.gofundme.com/raise-the-black

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/03/24/raise-the-black-former-u-s-special-forces-fundraise-for-the-families-of-fallen-iraqi-comrades/?utm_term=.bbe4af41435c

 
Loren Schofield: @loren_notaseal Instagram
@SpecialForces_INC Instagram
@Lorenkschofield Twitter
@spec_Forces_INC Twitter

Bryan Myers: @the_bearded_bryan Instagram
@thebeardedbryan Twitter

Global Recon:
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IgRecon- Twitter

GRP 71-Derek Carver| Leadership|Meeting the Queen|Terror In London

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GRP 71- Co-hosting for this podcast is Chantel Taylor. We have U.S. Army veteran Derick Carver on the podcast. Derick served as a Captain with the 82nd Airborne division. He was hit by a rocket during an ambush in Afghanistan. We discuss the transition process for him, leadership, and him becoming a better person after losing his left leg. He's an advocate for Medical Marijuana use for veterans. Derick is also the world strongest adaptive athlete.

Earlier today 3 people were killed in a terrorist attack in London. We'd like to send our condolences to the families of the fallen. One police officer was killed, and the attacker was subsequently shot and killed. This is being called the worst attack in over 10 years in the United Kingdom. Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

Derick Carver: I enlisted in 2005, I commissioned in 2007.

Chantel Taylor: Oh you were an officer?

DC: See. Even the British enlisted have that same "Oh well, go fuck yourself, sir" I went to Ranger School. Went to Ft. Bragg with the 82nd Airborne. I was opening a school in Afghanistan in 2010. We were ambushed and I got hit with a 107-millimeter rocket. It blew through my left leg completely into my right leg. I'm missing part of my index finger, my left elbow, and then two of my fingers on my right hand are fused. My left leg is amputated all the way up. Right leg's got like 50 percent soft tissue damage. I have about 300 pieces of shrapnel from my knee to my hip. Its in my arm and face.  Especially since I'm losing some weight it's more noticeable. I'm like ribbed for your pleasure. I've pulled 7.62 rounds out. I've pulled pieces as big as a lighter out. It's crazy the shit that falls out of you when you get hit by a rocket.

Some people say hey you're lucky. There were seven of them and it was daisy chained into a complex ambush. Soldiers died. I got wounded. It was a bad day at work. I told my girlfriend I don't even remember what my left leg looked like.

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Her Facebook is @battleworn

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Intro speech: Winston Churchill

Music provided by Caspian:

www.caspianmusic.net

GRP 70-Karolyn Smith|Iraq|Combat Wounded

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GRP 70- On for this week's podcast is retired Army veteran, Karolyn Smith. Karolyn was an MP (Military Police) who deployed to Iraq in 2004. She'd lost some of her closest friends in combat and survived several IED explosions while on security patrols. After getting wounded during one of these explosions she got out of the Army and became a security contractor for close to a decade. Karolyn struggled with PTSD, and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) for a long time and was unable to receive the help she needed from the VA. Michael Schiltz a well-known combat wounded Marine told her about a program at UCLA called Operation MEND.

Folks in Liberal Hollywood donate millions of dollars to this top tier program which take care of our warfighters with surgeries paid for, travel cost to California paid for, and continuing care post surgery all paid for and free of charge to the warfighter. Our second article has been published in the newly revamped article section on our website. Written by Gold Star Wife Alexandra McClintock. Alexandra's husband Matthew was killed in action last year in Afghanistan. Matthew is a Green Beret with multiple combat rotations and died protecting his wounded teammate. Alexandra details what it was like to learn of his death as well as some of the struggles she's faced. Here is a link to the article: http://www.globalrecon.net/articles/2017/3/14/hxi6jb8jd1j4m4g6ztc8h94udbp170

Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

Karolyn Smith: Iraq was pretty bad. Everything was a daily struggle. IED's, car bombs. September 7th, 2004 my Lieutenant and I were dismounted and a sniper shot him in the face and killed him. He died right next to me. Lieutenant Tim Price with the 127th MP's. He After that you become a different person. As a woman, i had to learn to compartmentalize. April 15th of 2005 a fuel tanker transport needed an MP convoy. A shaped charge was on the back of a light pole. It blew right threw the blast shield of my SAW. I knew that there were things that were wrong, but at that point in time, i just wanted to go back to Germany.

I'm trying to give one veteran something that they can use. We're all closely related because we all served. It's our oath to each other that we have to uphold.  I'm open about how suicidal I was. There was nowhere for me to go. I thought how pissed off would LT be at me if I took that way out. His father, his mother, his brother would kill for him to just be in pain and have a bad day. You don't ever want to disappoint your buddies. You have to take one more step. That's your oath to everyone who didn't come home.

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Keep up with Karolyn Smith at http://www.3pawsup.com/

Introduction speech by General Colin Powell

Introduction music provided by Caspian. Song title is Gone in Bloom and Bough.

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