Thrown by the Wind of Fate-King "Mission Rat"

Sometimes the wind of fate doesn’t just blow you somewhere—it’s a rumbling tornado that throws you, or a sliver of light through a cracked door. Life is a string of decisions, some of them messy, some no-brainers. Some small—like realizing you should’ve gotten the tacos instead of the chimichanga. Others carry massive pros and cons—like winding up a cloud of bone shards and meat because of a bad call or on the most amazing soul stretching adventure of your life.  Its your call.

Relationships, adventures, disasters, detours—life—they all hinge on decisions. Some are long-thought-out battle plans, the 2-5-10-20 year strategies. Others are split-second instincts and gut choices.

The idea is, you hope to string together a lot of the right choices. But with that said, you can be batting 1,000, undefeated, all knockouts—and like a boxer who’s been kicking ass and riding high, zig's when you should’ve zagged, catches one on the whiskers and lights out. Just one bad choice—even a split-second decision—can put a nail in your coffin.

And in Iraq, the guy making coffin nails was working double shifts, and business was booming.  Pun intended

I tend to be a realistic optimist. I’ve done a lot of cool shit in my life, and the foundation for that—the filter I look through—is simple: if I see something I want to do, I focus on figuring out how to make it happen. Most people look for reasons not to.  The vast amount of people fear change, good bad or indifferent, they hate unknowns even if it might lead to awesome shit.    I’ve always leaned into calculated risk and unknown challenges if I think its gonna be cool, worthwhile or my Achille tendon for doing stuff....will it be interesting.... I'll find a way.  

In 2005, I decided I was wanted to go to Iraq.  This wasn't the tacos over the chimichanga, this was a biggie.  What could go wrong? Deserts. Danger. Strange corners of the world you never meant to find yourself in. One minute you're home, next you’re under a sun that never quits, in a country teetering between collapse and chaos, where your goal become pretty primal, stay alive: and your limbs and sanity intact.

I’d spent much of my  life steeped in gun culture, got my first b-b gun at like seven—as a hunter, a shooter, and a SWAT cop. Pistols, rifles, shotguns—they felt like extra limbs.  I knew how to use them and was good at it. I’d been a martial artist, a competitive bodybuilder, a bar bouncer, and a solo wilderness backcountry hunter. I’m not trying to come off with some chest-beating bravado—it’s just that I’m not really wired to be afraid of things.   Its to say I have engaged with a broad variety of dangers and risks.  Wanting to go to a place like Iraq at the height of bloody war seems pretty normal to me.  Never been accused of not having a pair and seemed to have been born to feel comfortable, yet very aware, in a world with dangers.

Did I respect danger? Hell yes.  That's the thing, you don't ignore it, you embrace it.   Your prepared for it, you have built this thing to lessen its chances of ruining your day or life. But with that said the graveyards are full of men that were prepared and had their shit together and sometimes your number is just up.  But the idea is through preparation you can try and stack the deck in your favor.  I never really liked surprises and when it comes to danger they  never are good but sometimes surprises can’t be avoided in the more prepare you are less of a surprise it is. 

But I’ve always believed that most of the coolest shit in life happens right on the edge. I wasn’t chasing a warzone, but when the door opened, it felt like the next natural step in a life already built around rocking and rolling in Alpha-male world. And this wasn’t just reckless risk for the thrill of it—the pay was great, and every thirty days came with a beautiful thump in the bank account. By far the most dough this guy would ever make.  The trick, of course, was to be alive to hear it.  Half of that pay was "Hazard and Danger" pay, yeah that's what they called it.  Sounds a bit ominous.  But these were the gigs you "wanted" to go to the places that had hazards and danger pay. More risk that's where the big cha-ching was.  Big cha-Ching. Big risk. 

Why just watch the news when you could step into it? I mean, don’t they say, “If it bleeds, it leads”? But damn—my usual optimistic nature started taking a beating the closer my go-time came. It was getting pretty clear, even on the filtered American news that were all rah-rah and red white and blue patriot bullshit  media war-selling machine that it wasn't "Mission Accomplished." Far from it and the police and police trainers were top targets—and the body count was rising and Iraq was some sort of hellscape no matter how hard they tried to polish that turd you could still smell the stink.  My okay the media always exaggerates this stuff was wearing thin when faced with  seemingly daily videos of death and destruction coming from old Babylon.

Yeah, it would suck to go through life with no legs. you get blindsided and hammered by an 18 wheeler, I guess you learn to deal with it.   But I knew myself.  What would be worse was waking up every day thinking, “You dumbass—you deserved this.” That inner voice would hit harder than any explosion. “You went to Iraq to train cops at the height of that shitstorm? "What a dumbshit, and now your legs are gone....duhhhh....”

I didn’t know it then I would become King of the Mission Rats and most tenured police trainer in the game. Twelve years. Five countries.  Tons of close calls and tons of cool shit. But that first mission I found myself standing under the infamous crossed swords of Saddam’s old parade ground—feeling like I’d landed on another planet or some kind of Iraqi Bollywood movie set.  The next year would have many chapters—blast walls, razor wire and fireballs in Baghdad.   Friends found and lost.  The daily rattle of gunfire. Explosions near and far.  Friends who made it home only to later put a gun in their mouth to silence the ghosts.  Others you never saw again to those who drifted through this mission world coming an going. 

Much of what I write dives into the wild, the weird, and the bizarreness of the human beast—intentions both good and bad. These are stories cherry-picked from a mountain of day-to-day life. The ones I think are the most thought-provoking, bizarre, humorous or just too strange to ignore.

And yeah, there were some great, solid, and dedicated professionals out there. People who showed up with a real sense of purpose. Doing the right thing, trying to make a difference where it counted. And hats off to them—they deserve respect. It’s just  that part of the story is normally pretty boring to write about—and read about. Hard to build a fun narrative around competence, decency, and procedural follow-through. Doesn’t exactly make the needle twitch.

If that’s what you’re looking for to help you get sleepy before bed, there are a few books out there written by people I ran across in the mission world—gathering dust on Amazon’s digital shelves. Books that paint the author as a little Mother Teresa, a little Archangel Gabriel, and a little Spec Ops dress-up—all wrapped in the betrayal of their stateside patrol car police gut. They ride in on a noble white horse, spreading peace and prosperity with a steady, freedom-loving hand. Plenty of side stories about smiling children and grateful students handing them flowers, all wrapped in the comforting glow of how, in their own selfless way, they saved a little piece of the broken world.

Sure, I had countless positive interactions with great coworkers, solid students, and a few good bosses. But to be frank, that kind of stuff is boring as hell to write about—and even worse to read. 

This isn’t a textbook, and there’s no test at the end—so you don’t have to read it. But if you do, just know this: with the magnetic pull of your phone always within arm’s reach, I kept one thing front of mind while writing—don’t make it boring.

I promise you—this isn’t boring. In fact, you might think I’m making some of this shit up. I’m not. When you go feet-first into the wild, barely-tethered reality I found myself living in, you end up with more insanity, hard truth, bizarre turns, and gut-busting funny moments than you can possibly fit into one telling. I had to leave a lot out—because if I didn’t, this thing would be even longer.

I’ve written some fiction before, but this ain’t it. And honestly? Most fiction doesn’t hold a candle to the kind of stories the real world spits out when you actually live in it.

Truth is, a lot of writers don’t really have much to say—because they haven’t done much. They’re keyboard escape artists, trying to conjure grit through metaphors and borrowed drama. But the writers I’m drawn to? The rare ones? They’ve lived it. They’ve fallen through the looking glass and come back changed. They’re not chained to a mortgage, a 401(k), or some sanitized version of life—they’ve stood in the fire, then sat down at the keys while the burn marks were still fresh.

In our world of pinball-machine distractions, people—including myself—don’t really read much anymore. As a writer, there are a few driving thoughts that ride shotgun with me. Number one: is it interesting and entertaining? And two: is it real?

Yeah, these stories are all true. And the old saying still holds—truth really is stranger than fiction. This was a world of “you can’t make this shit up.”

What sticks—the stuff that cracks open your mind or hits you in the gut—are the bizarre moments, the dark turns, the surreal juxtapositions. That’s the stuff I write about. It’s fun for me to drill down into these memories, to re-engage with them as I type this out, word by word. Things that were fading in the rearview suddenly come back to life. And hey—it might be fun for you too.

But this isn’t a courtroom, and I’m not here to present some broad, balanced survey of every detail around me. It’s filtered truth—my lens, my voice, my freedom as a writer. A little Gonzo journalism with some grit under the nails.

So with a hat tip to Hunter Thompson—who saw, engaged with, and relished the insanity of the world around us, and wrote about it until there was nothing left—ending his final sentence with a .357 magnum—I forge my own path.

I’m not mapping the whole terrain—just spotlighting the strange and the unforgettable.

Read on if you like. I’ll do my damndest to make sure you’re glad you did.

There’s more to come on Iraq—it was the wildest of the Wild West in those early days. The dream of building a new nation was still backed by rivers of American money and corporate optimism. Everyone—including me—bought into the nation-building horseshit. Back then just 20 years ago we still thought we were there to spread freedom and democracy, to step up and make a difference.  And as Uncle Bi-Bi assured us topple Saddam and democracy will spread like wildfire throughout the region.  I'm not sure he added the wildfire sentence, but that's what happened.   Not the wildfire of peace prosperity and democracy, the the real kind of fire of death destruction, power vacuums for a regions that has been built like a house of cards for thousands of years.   to begin with and we turned the fan in high blowing this card.   We actually; I'm shaking my head as I type this... we still believed those politicians , you know our constitutional representatives were still making wise choices for us.  

Ideas of normalcy kept smashing up against forces older than America itself. This was a place soaked in ancient blood feuds and broken promises. And we thought we’d just march in and fix it all with violence, money, some half naked vague ideas on how to create a blooming democracy in a fallen Babylon.  This place has been doomed for thousands of years and haunted with demons, the real kind.  I know one tried to steal my soul in Iraq and others kill me.  Yeah for real. Read on...

But that’s for later. Let me first tell you where this road led before I jump into Iraq screaming “Geronimo” with a painted face and a Mohawk.

Daily, you could hear bombs going off somewhere across the sprawling city. Sometimes someone would comment, “That one was a long way off.” I’d usually say, “Not for someone.”

We got mortared. Missiles were fired into the base. Everyone was playing the lottery of life and limb. The Iraqis were in charge of perimeter “security,” which only people who’ve been there can truly understand is a deadly joke. “Iraqis” and “security” should probably never be in the same sentence. So the threat of a suicide bomber penetrating the compound—or a swarming attack—wasn’t a question of if, but when.

I was there for a year, and every day my first waking thought and prayer were the same: “Please, God, let me not get killed and let me end up with all my parts at the end of the day.”

Luckily for us, the bad guys were mostly idiots. I used to say, “Thank God the Germans aren’t running the insurgency—we’d be totally fucked.” But as the saying goes in security, we have to be right a thousand percent of the time; they only have to be right once. That’s the reality we lived in.

It was a cryptic world to live in. Someone might casually say, “Hey, you know that guy from the gym—always wore red headphones? He got his legs blown off yesterday. They think he’s going to live.”

Just the day before, you’d seen him at the squat rack repping 225, a physical specimen in the prime of his life. And now his legs were gone—blown away by fiery shrapnel in the most horrible fashion imaginable.

I imagine him, somewhere, floating in a fog of trauma and morphine, blinking awake to a nightmare that wasn’t going to end. You know that feeling in a bad dream when you think something awful happened, but then you wake up and realize you’re okay? In this case—and in countless cases like it—the nightmare was the reality.

By the grace of God, there go I.

You might glance down at your legs and wonder what it would be like if they were gone. Or look at your arm and imagine the shock of a bomb blast, and the next time you look down, there’s only a jagged bone shard where your forearm used to be. Your precious arm—gone.

Stuff like that happened all the time. A constant affirmation to be as careful as humanly possible. That place could bite hard, no matter how “tacked down” you thought you were. Sometimes you were lucky. Sometimes you weren’t. It didn’t always come down to skill.

Sure, fitness, training, and awareness matter. They bring a whole other level of personal security. They give you an edge—and when you’re living in that kind of chaos, the person you’re trying to keep safest is you. But sometimes, you roll snake eyes and your number’s up, and it doesn’t matter how sharp you were.

Next Stop: Jordan

JIPTC—Jordan International Police Training Center—was a massive facility built by the USA to train Iraqi police in the middle of the Jordanian desert. But this time, the trainees were Sunnis—Saddam’s sect—not the Shias I had mostly trained in Baghdad who liked us for knocking Saddam off his perch. This would be a different fish to fry.

As we drove into the compound on a chilly late-winter day, the cadets were all marching in columns. Pants tucked into new, Uncle Sam-issued black leather boots. Orange-spray-painted inert AKs clutched across their chests. Their boot heels struck the pavement with a menacing rhythm as hundreds of them marched past. It was a sight and the sun set across the cold desert.

These trainees came from the Sunni Triangle—a hellscape of death at the time. Cops were as disposable as Bic lighters. Many were killed on the job, and many more were hunted down at home. The media—prodded by defense contractors drunk on the spoils of war—pushed the narrative: “Look how dangerous it is to be a cop in Iraq, and yet they still apply. They believe in the new Iraq.”

Bullshit.

There were zero options in a country like that. That was the sole reason they had police applicants—more cannon fodder for the meat grinder. Most Iraqis didn’t care about being Iraqi; it was all about tribe and sect—Sunni, Shia, that sort of thing. But you could see why the Sunnis ended up on top. In many ways, they just had their shit more together.

They were used to being subjugated, sure. But they showed real interest in me—curiosity, acceptance. I looked the part: younger than most of the trainers, with a bodybuilder’s physique. I wasn’t an invader—I was the new Bossman. Maybe better than the old Bossman. As they’d say: “Like Rambo!”

I mostly taught Tactical Vehicle Checkpoints and small team tactics. Those checkpoints were regularly attacked—car bombs, people bombs, gangs screaming “Allahu Akbar” while firing AK-47s and launching RPGs. It always made me laugh when American cop trainers would share a story about a shooting or critical incident back home like it gave them street cred here. These guys were “policing” in an active combat zone. Every one of them had responded to the aftermath of a suicide bombing. Stations attacked by gangs of maniacal madmen with machine guns, suicide bombers and rocket propelled grenades.   Most had shot people, many lots, and they left them laying in the dirt and didn't write ascendance of a report or have to justify anything.  Often, the initial bomb was followed by an armed ambush—Satan loves chaos.

On America’s dime, we’d built a mock city to run tactical scenarios—complete with blast pits to simulate real explosions. I didn’t know about the blast pits when I first arrived. I was teaching near one when—BOOOOM—an explosion went off thirty yards away. I had just spent a year in Iraq and was wired to jump at any sudden sound. I jolted and jumped mid-sentence. My students—fresh from the Sunni Triangle—laughed their asses off. Real bombs were daily life for them.

Still, it was a fun mission. Like playing Cowboys and Indians, just with real skills. The trainees were like big kids during scenario days. One of my Jordanian counterparts was their army’s most decorated paratrooper. Out of respect, I gave him one of my favorite camo hunting jackets. The next day, he gave me his handmade leather jump boots—still have them, still wear them.

I was also tasked with paying the trainees. They gave me a stack of hundreds and a stack of twenties. The trainees earned $120/month, most of which went to their police boss back home. If I had pocketed a twenty from each, no one would’ve blinked. That’s how it worked in that an many other corners of the world.

I spent about six months there. Jordan’s an amazing country. Rich—my roommate and travel buddy—and I hit historical sites every weekend. Some of the other trainers had been there five years and still never left base. One even said, “Why would I want to go to the middle of the desert and look at rocks?” As he played online poker and got fatter.

One weekend we went to Petra—one of the wonders of the world—and it lived up to the hype. Incredibly beautiful, wide open, and nothing like Western tourist sites. No endless signs, fences, or food courts. Just discovery.

Rich was a Vietnam Special Forces medic who’d spent time in Cambodia on covert ops. Total John Wayne type—Selleck mustache, easy-going, sharp. Said the best sightseeing he ever did was from the open door of a Huey flying over Angkor Wat.

At Petra, Rich bought some jewelry but not from the vendor he’d promised. Word got around, and on our way down from the top—a spot 95% of visitors never hike to—she was waiting. Demonic. “I curse you! I curse you!” she screamed, shaking her fist and kicking dust. Rich tried to apologize, but I said, “Come on, man. Time to keep moving.”

It was dusk. We hadn’t eaten all day and were ravenous. We finally found a place open—and had one of the best meals of my life. Everything tastes better when you’re starving. But this meal would’ve been memorable on any day. Chicken and lamb kabobs grilled over open flame in olive oil and Arab spices. Fresh naan bread cooked on a stone hearth. Tart olives, pickled onions, goat cheese, spiced hummus, sliced tomatoes, vanilla mint custard, sugar candies, and hot tea. Just magic.

Back in Amman, Rich started downloading the hundreds of photos he’d taken. But the image of the cursing woman? Her face—top half—was gone. All other images intact. He ran recovery software. Still gone. Just... gone.

I would be teaching Iraqi cadets how to stay alive in the Sunni Triangle—then considered the Bermuda Triangle of death. These cadets were Sunni—Saddam’s sect—and most of my students in Baghdad had been Shias, so this was going to be a different cat to skin.  

We worked at the world’s largest police training center in the Jordanian desert.  Uncle Sam had built this sprawling site complete with mock villages and city streets to run drills complete with blasts holes for effect and rubber body parts to lay around for full effect, scenario actors and a cadres of wounded and scared people, running around splashed with fake blood creating extra chaos. "To make it feel real." 

I was soon to find out There was a reason the Sunnis had ended up on top of the heap in Iraq: they were smarter, they were better organized, and they just had their shit together. It became clear pretty quickly—these guys were a brighter bunch.

We actually had weekends there. And Jordan was an amazing country to explore—if you had eyes and a curious soul. And I had a great roommate—Rich, a former Special Forces medic in Vietnam and Cambodia. Easy-going, sharp, fun to travel with. A guy you could count on.

There was incredible Petra, where Rich had a run-in with a witch. A real one. Then the ruins of Crusader castles and the sprawling remnants of Roman cities you could just wander through without all the “stand behind the rope” crap we love so much in the West.

And Arab food? Became my favorite food of all.  Food always tastes better when you’re full-blown starving—which happened often. In that stretch of sand, breakfast might be nothing more than tea and a cracker or two. And there were days we didn’t get dinner until well after dark after going hard all day. Unlike the West—where something edible is always within arm’s reach—tourist sites there didn’t have food trucks or snack kiosks around every corner.

But when we did eat? It was unforgettable.  Roasted lamb kebobs, trays of rich olives and punchy, not-too-hot peppers, pungent, flavorful cheeses, thick, smooth hummus, pizza-sized discs of flatbread baked on hot stones. Small blown-glass pitchers of golden olive oil, a dish of real butter— all of it spiced and laced with cracked pepper, sea salt, and fire.  for desert when you swore you couldn't eat another bite you found some room for the date and fig custard, accented with a mint leaf and a dusting of cinnamon and a cup of coffee.  

I’m not a drinker, but with a spread like that, it felt almost sacrilegious not to wash it down with a glass of rich red wine—the kind Jesus made from water.

The jordan gig was short lived ay 8 months, asthey finally gave up on that one.

 Jerusalem

My company let us book our own travel out of Jordan. I decided to go to Jerusalem—maybe the most important city in human history. Problem was, it was Easter week. Everything was booked out years in advance. I winged it anyway.

I found a hostel near the Damascus Gate. No beds—just moldy mattresses on the roof for three bucks a night. It dropped near freezing at night, and the damp camel-hair blankets barely cut the cold. But I’d done harder sleeping. I made it work.

Jerusalem during Easter was electric. Pilgrims from every corner of the world. Serbian monks with giant crosses, African nuns in flowing habits, long-haired men in wool robes cupping candles, singing Americans in circles radiating joy. Korean groups reenacting Christ’s suffering with fake blood and plastic swords. Italians carrying Bibles. The air buzzed with supernatural energy.

Rounding one corner, five thick-bearded priests passed shoulder-to-shoulder swinging incense burners. I stepped back into a doorway to let them pass. The scent of frankincense and myrrh washed over me—and with it,  a distinct wave of a warm buzzing, tingling sensation enveloped me, I remember kind of gasping. The Holy Spirit. No question.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site of Christ’s crucifixion, became a regular stop for me. I’d sit for hours, soaking it in. But on Good Friday, the energy changed. I heard wailing—deep, unnatural. Not pain or grief. Demonic.

I had heard every kind of human scream—domestic calls, warzones, death throes. This was different. A presence. A darkness.

I moved toward the sound. A petite woman writhed on the floor, prostrate in front of the shrine. A priest tried to comfort her. Her fists were clenched, hair flailing like octopus arms, the vein in her neck bulging. She growled, laughed, chattered in strange tongues—all from within her. Multi-layered, legion voices. This wasn’t metaphor. This was real.

She wasn’t some alley junkie. She was European, clean, well-dressed. She’d booked a ticket, passed through customs, made her way to this holiest of places—and something inside her did not want to be there. I’d seen demons before, in retrospect. But never this clear. Never this undeniable. I’ve always wondered what happened to her.

The Last Twist

I’d spent the week in Jerusalem living light—just a shoulder bag. Walking through a quiet market, I felt a tug. I turned fast—caught a young Arab man with his hand halfway in my bag. Instinct took over.

I grabbed him by the neck and slammed him into a brick wall. My other hand grabbed his shirt. My computer and cash had been stolen a few years earlier, and I’d carried that hate with me. This was my chance.

What I should have done—shirt grip to a hard elbow to the face. But I let go to throw a punch, and he spun free. He ran.

Thirty seconds later, two assault vehicles screeched up. Israeli soldiers with Uzis poured out. Surveillance had picked it up. I pointed the direction the thief ran and said “Thief!” They chased after him, but he had a head start.

I figured it was time to disappear. No way I wanted to explain anything in a Middle Eastern police station. Too many ways that story ends badly. I walked away. No harm, no foul—just a hell of a final memory.

Final Thoughts

All roads lead to Jerusalem. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all root their holiest traditions here. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Kosovo

This one had a totally different flavor. I headed a patrol unit at a river crossing between the hated Serbs and Albanians, both sides still raw from recent bloodshed. It was a United Nations mission, with cops from Argentina to Zimbabwe and a cast of characters that still has me shaking my head.  The UN is the mother of all DEI programs,  Diversity, Inclusion, and Insanity.  I had a Serb Police Commander gesture towards one of the UN "Police Trainers."  "Look at him, last week he was drinking out of a ditch now he is here to teach me how to be a proper policeman."    I couldn't help but grin. 

One of my team leaders was Victor—looked like Idi Amin. He’d been head of intelligence in Nigeria, which I guess is Africa’s cousin to Himmler and the Gestapo—though probably more direct and brutal, and less organized.

One day, grinning ear to ear and shaking his head knowingly, he says, “Mr. Ted, I have seen things.” And for once, I kept my curiosity in check. I didn’t ask. Some things are better left unknown.

I liked Victor. And if he told me some story of hideous torture he had seen—or done—it could have easily put a damper on my image of him as a funny rascal who always managed to make me laugh. Sometimes just one story is all it takes change your vibe—from a smiling trickster to a maniacal madman. or having lunch and thinking those hands holding that sandwich are the same ones that held the axe that cut off feet a guy. 

He’d been on a UN mission to Liberia. “Oh, Mr. Ted,” he said, “those Liberian girls are so fine.”

I asked him about AIDS. “Victor, do you wear a rubber?”

He smiled: “Mr. Ted, condoms are like food with no flavor. A man has to die of something—and if I die from fucking a fine young woman, so be it.”

Dark wisdom? African fatalism? Some kind of Nigerian proverb?

But you have to admit… he had a solid point.

Then there was an officer from a warrior class in India, who looked nothing like a warrior—turbaned, pot belly, smiling, bearded face. His actual name was "Surrender" I swear.  Giving up is part of warfare and maybe he was their go to guy when it came  to waving white flags, I don't' know and didn't ask, after I had involuntarily burst out into laughter when adding it all up when we met.  His happy face laughed with me and he seemed to think it was pretty hilarious too.  

I had 40 men in my unit, most of them high-ranking officers back home, now taking orders as patrol cops in a foreign land. It’s tough to get into a UN mission. Graft, favors, bribes—normal. These guys weren’t used to being foot soldiers. They were used to having their asses kissed and now I was Boss-man.  But with that said they understand how the power grid works and knew the ass kissing scale and no matter who you are there is always an  ass looming above you it normally pays to kiss.  Its the way of the world.   They regularly brought me small gifts and when I traveled to their countries had their men pick me up at the airport like some sort of royalty.  

But I was fair. I stood by my men and overlooked a lot of dumb shit they did.

Honest to God, I once got a report about a patrol vehicle rolling in with the bloody head of a cow in the back. I was even shown pictures—for some special African holiday meal. I went to the parking lot, and yep—that’s a cow head. The officer busted was from Zimbabwe, where I was hoping to hunt Cape buffalo in a few months—with his help.

Now, honestly, I would’ve swept that under the rug for anyone. I’m a big believer in not sweating the small stuff, and I’ve learned it’s always better to minimize issues than maximize problems. Crazy concept that’s served me well in life: make problems smaller, not bigger.

I’m pretty sure bloody cow heads in official patrol vehicles are forbidden by some UN rule buried in a binder somewhere—right alongside “no shrunken heads on your desk” or “no duels to the death.” But I let that one go. A bloody cow head in a patrol vehicle? That can quietly disappear.

But he didn’t know that.

And yeah, my buffalo hunt turned out great—likely would’ve happened either way—but it sure didn’t hurt.

Graft? Corruption?

Come on. I would’ve done it for anybody.

But maybe that’s how it works. It’s just helping out a buddy. Building a team. Creating trust. A wink here, a nod there— you're not bending rules, you’re just smoothing them out.

No villains, no backroom deals. Just a little grease on the gears to keep the machine moving.

And hey, if there happens to be an already planned buffalo hunt on the other side of that favor that needs to consolidate… well, chalk it up to good timing and solid international teamwork.

The word “Balkan” actually means “Blood and Honey.” Which fits—because it’s as beautiful as the Italian countryside, and just about as bloody as the Old Testament. It's been the crossroads, graveyard, and battleground for countless European wars and conflicts. That patch of earth has soaked up a lot of blood over thousands of years—from local Vlad-the-Impaler-Dracula types squabbling over farmland, using heads on pikes to make sure no more property lines were crossed, to Crusaders armored wielding swords making sure people understood the love of Christ,  and the Nazi Blitzkrieg  iron and bone war machine, to villagers going full medieval over someone re-routing a creek and beheading and burning witches just to keep the dark spiritual world on notice.  Its history written in  buckets of blood with an occasional taste of honey. 

In the Balkans history doesn't rest it pauses to reload and re sharpen. 

Along with heading my patrol group, I was there helping develop officer awareness and survival training programs for a UN global force. Stuff they could take back home and maybe stay alive with. 

It was my first foray into Eastern Europe—and let me tell you, the tales about super hot women over there? All true. Trim bodies, flat stomachs, great asses, and more often than not, a full rack of natural, always-ready-to-bounce boobs. And the variety? Unreal. Raven-haired, blue-eyed stunners. Green-eyed redheads. Nordic-looking blondes. It was like the United Nations of bombshells.  Not all of them of course, but enough to where you day was littered with lots of   "hooooo  hoooo whoa look at that" and other primal mutterings. 

These women, I figured, were the long-term result of generations of conquest—war victors picking the hottest mates during their campaigns of rape, pillage, and plunder. A brutal history, sure, but the genetics were impossible to ignore.

The other trainers warned me about it right when I arrived. Their biggest frustration? Trying to explain to their buddies back home just how outrageously volcano-hot some of these women were. “You just can’t put it into words,” they said—and they were right. I kid you not, more than once I saw supermodels walking down a dirt road in stilettos like it was Milan Fashion Week. It was surreal.  ot on a summer evening in Pritina, they likes walking and you might see many dozens of legit supermodels

But another crazy dynamic was the incredibly short shelf life of their hotness. Around 28, a lot of them suddenly morphed into old peasant women from Monty Python and the Holy Grail—digging in the mud with a scarf on their head and a newly grown wart on her nose.  I'm not shitting you.   The change was stunning.   More than a few police contractors married women from Kosovo, thinking they’d locked in a lifetime of prime action—when in fact, all that beauty was short-lived. Before long, they founds themselves married to the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

And that was the tension of the Balkans—a place where beauty and brutality always seemed to hold hands. Where bloodlines carried both grace and trauma, and nothing, not even a pair of high heels in the mud, was ever just what it looked like.

Now you’d think—with the same gene pool—there’d be some equally good-looking Albanian men, right? Dead wrong. For every knockout walking by, there was a slope shouldered guy with a square head, big ears, and a slack-jawed look—like the Mad Magazine kid grew up to become a potato farmer. I wasn’t the only one who noticed the similarity, either. I heard the same joke more than a few times.

I even came up with an acronym, just from pure observation: SHEBER.  Square Headed Big Eared Retard.  Okay I wasn’t shooting my mouth off about it it was an inside joke between me and  my deputy. 

One of them might just wander into the road without looking, and you’re slamming the brakes, heart leaping out of your chest—“Get the fuck out of the road, SHEBER!” when he looks up giving you a bewildered look wondering what that was all about. 

These were the Albanians. Yeah—from that other country called Albania. Moved to Kosovo and allowed in for farming and cheap labor jobs.  Sound familiar?  Bottom feeders of Europe. Always looking for a power source to leech onto. It’s a recurring pattern with them, sniffing out the next big hand to lick. They were behind the Nazis until those tides turned. Known throughout the centuries to suck up to whoever was currently running the show.  It was so well known that military campaigns throughout the centuries even factored it in on their strategies of war in the region. 

Pristina, the major city in Kosovo, had a 25-story apartment building with a giant banner of a smiling Bill Clinton. The main road through town- Bill Clinton Avenue. They know exactly which hand feeds them and are ass kissers supreme.  And just calling it straight they deserve some sort of   Hinee smooching Gold  medal not every day you walk away with your own country. 

When I was in Kosovo on break, I met up with a flight attendant I used to date in Istanbul. We were both clear—it was going to be a week of fun, frolic, and no strings attached. That always sounds good on paper, but let’s be honest—there are always strings. I’d had a vasectomy right before heading to Iraq but never did the follow-up test to confirm I was shooting blanks. The internet said I was 99.9999% good, and I chose to believe it. So Istanbul turned into a blast—laughter, food, and a whole lot of lusty, wild sex.

She flew back to the States. I returned to Kosovo. We parted with a casual “Let’s keep in touch” kind of vibe. A couple of weeks later, I got an email from her. The message was short: “I’m late… and I’m never late.”

My stomach dropped. We exchanged a few messages, but she quickly went cold and stopped responding . She said she thought she might be pregnant, then went quiet altogether. She had been a flight attendant and now was a nurse.  She told me ALL nurses are crazy and to be honest she was a lot weirder and a little crazier than I remembered.   My gut said she is just fucking with me for the sake of it, crazy women which pretty much includes them all love doing such things.   I started running through every worst-case scenario in my head. She’d said she was on the pill. I’d been clipped. But now I was spiraling. Had she lied? Had I defied the odds? Was I the one-in-a-million guy who managed to reload?

After two sleepless nights, I knew I had to get checked. One of the guys in my unit, Robby, was an American married to a local Kosovar woman. Funny guy. Reliable. He always had a line on everything, and he didn’t mind hearing a wild story or two. I told him the situation, and he laughed in that way only a friend can laugh when they’re not the one in deep shit. Then he told me about a local fertility clinic I could visit.

We walked into the place, and it was classic Kosovo. The walls were flaking, the paint chipped and faded. Grease stains marked every spot where people had leaned back in mismatched plastic chairs. A couple of rattling fans worked against the still, warm air. The moment we walked in, the room went dead silent. Two Americans in police uniforms had just entered their world, and every eyeball locked onto us. There was no chance of being discreet.

The nurse at the counter was surprisingly attractive, wearing a white smock and one of those red-cross hats you’d only expect to see in bad porn. It was the only indication that this was any kind of medical facility. Robby spoke a little Albanian and exchanged a few words with her. She grinned and shouted something back over her shoulder that made the entire waiting room perk up. I cringed. It had to be something like, “Get me a jack-off cup.” I remember wincing and looking ant the floor thinking I really wished I was any other place on earth. 

I assumed I’d take the cup back to my apartment, take care of business, and return with the sample. But Robby turned to me with a smirk and said, “She says you gotta do it here. Has to be fresh.” I stared at him flatly and replied, “Ohhhh no. That’s not happening.” I was the Chief of a major unit. I wasn’t used to being told what to do, especially not about something this ridiculous.

He kept talking to her, then came back. “Dude, seriously. The sample’s gotta be fresh for the test to work. No other way.” I hadn’t slept in two days. My nerves were shot. I just wanted closure and groaned “Fine,” ....... “Where?”

I imagined a private little room. Maybe some lube. Maybe a beat-up Playboy. Hell, maybe the front desk nurse would surprise me with some kind of hands-on compassionate bedside assistance. For a second, my primal man-brain fired off a fantasy of her gently helping me through the "procedure", professionally, of course. Just another part of the job, like checking blood pressure with a little heavy breathing and bedroom eyes and unbuttoned shirt and bra.

But no. That wasn’t what was happening.

I didn't like that way Robby stood there smirking and laughing, and he was having way too much fun with this, he finally was able to say... “Upstairs. Bathroom.”

I blurted out  The bathroom? I could tell by the way he laughed he wasn't joking.  "Yep the bathroom."

So I clomped up the narrow creaking linoleum stairs in full uniform, gun belt and all. I pushed open the bathroom door and was immediately horrified. It was filthy. Cracked mirror. Missing sink handle. A toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the war. It also doubled as a mop closet. This, apparently, was where the magic was supposed to happen.

I was soon to find out it was gonna get worse...way worse. The goddamn door didn’t lock. The knob was barely hanging on. Anyone could walk in at any time.   Not not  even one of those bent nails and a eye screw....nothing.  And I was pretty sure it was the only bathroom in this shithole.  There were a dozen people downstairs and likely sooner that later  somebody was gonna have to take a piss.  Normally, this kind of solo project is a 10–15 minute affair under normal relaxed conditions.  All bets were off here....could this even happen? This isn't having blood taken you have to "perform'. But this was something else entirely. The setting wasn’t just unsexy—it was straight-up hostile.

I tried to improvise. Leaned a mop bucket against the door. Stacked a couple boxes of tissues on top to create some sort of fort wall. They weighed next to nothing, but the psychological effect helped. Anyone could still bust in, but at least I’d feel like I tried.

I closed my eyes, unceremoniously spit in my hand and reached deep into the archives of lusty memory. Golden moments. Sexy flashbacks. Anything to get the motor running. I finally got some momentum going.

Then— creaking footsteps on the stairs sounded like a rifle shit.

“Hey! Hey HEY... HEY! Somebody’s in here!” I yelled as the doorknob jiggled and the door cracked open. I scrambled to yank up my pants and gear.   HEY HEY HEY! The  door knob jiggling stopped sndf footsteps retreated. I stood there, heart pounding, half-mast, from hard to chubby,  wondering what  sort of absurd nightmare I found myself in.   I wanted to run screaming but I still had a job to do. 

Okay get you mind right....relax... Hock Tooey ....more spit.  I started over. Again. After a few minutes, I heard more footsteps. “HEY HEY..HEYY. HEY! I’M IN HERE!” I shouted this time likely sounding flat out angry. The handle didn't twitch this time. Gone. I had to keep trying. Eventually—through sheer willpower and mental gymnastics—I managed to finish the mission. 

Cleaned up, zipped up, strapped up, and walked back downstairs holding a clear plastic cup of fresh semen. There’s no dignified way to carry a cup of cum down the stairs into a room of knowing strangers. I handed it to the nurse. She grinned, yelled something else across the room, probably something like, “Got a fresh one!” The whole place was already staring at me now half grinned.  Robby and I sat down, and he was already giggling, biting his lip not to start roaring with laughter.  I do have to give him credit for his restraint.  I would be rolling on the floor in hysterics if it was happening to someone else.  But oddly when it was happening to me I was not finding any humor in it at all at the time.  

We were told it’d take ten minutes. Forty-five minutes passed. Then a full hour. I was convinced something was wrong. That I was doomed. Robby got up to use the bathroom and came back shaking his head.  “Dude, it’s fucking disgusting up there. Door doesn’t even lock.”  “Yeah. I fucking noticed.”  He grinned and chuckled and gave me a little golf clap.

Then a guy in a lab coat walked across the room, looking grim. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Badd. Badd.” My heart dropped. A cold flush ran down my spine. My chest tightened.  Robby leaned in and laughed. “Relax. You’re in the clear. He says you’re infertile—shooting blanks. Let’s go.” Turns out, the lab tech and I were living in different emotional universes. For an Albanian man, being infertile is like being told you’ve got stage four cancer. For me, it was like the governor called with a last-minute pardon from death row.  

It was a humbling event in life, to say the least. Sometimes you’re the man—running the show, a force to be reckoned with, cutting a noble figure. And sometimes, under great duress, you’re spitting in your hand, sitting bare-assed on a toilet lid that’s been sat on by a million or so random asses—pissing, shitting, farmers who never learned to aim and were more accustomed to pissing on dirt roads than porcelain. The history of their dribble was baked into that yellowed seat, no matter how much I tried to wipe it clean.

There I was, forced to jerk off in a filthy third-world mop closet, praying that my tissue box fort would hold the door shut—keeping out the next Sheber who needed to take a dump and complete my descent into humiliation. I can say without hesitation it wasn’t my life’s proudest moment—but then again, now that I’m typing this out, I’m rethinking that a bit.

Let’s not call it a proud moment, exactly… but damn, I overcame some serious obstacles—mental and physical—to get that cha-ching moment. To conjure up a shot of the requested fresh cum, against great odds, in enemy territory, under psychological fire.

There’s some kind of “under fire” achievement buried in there. I just haven’t figured out how to define it yet. But hey—keep your gold medal. The real prize was that I didn’t end up with a baby brewing in the belly of a batshit-crazy nurse halfway around the world.

In my always humble opinion we stole Kosovo from the Serbs—its rightful owners—and handed it over like a consolation prize for breaking up the mighty Soviets.  Why?  I think one of the main reasons is it was our first shot after the Wall fell to stick it to the Russians. The Serbs were Russia’s boys, and we saw an opening to rub their noses in it and if we can send a big message to Russia, fuck you Ivan we’re running the world now and there’s not a thing you can do about it it’s an added bonus.  That kind of tested logic in the high halls of out government that has pretty much all the major powers in the world not working together pooling their great powers and resources to make the world better, but making more and more weapons of destruction and war to be ready when that hate finally boil over and we can all kill each other or incinerate the world.   call my a pussy pacifist all you want if we used a small fraction of out efforts to  

We set up a giant military base—Camp Bondsteel. Just like the rest of the American outposts dotting the globe now, more common than 7-11s. Bristling with weapons. Spreading “peace” and “democracy.”

What would’ve been best and most just for Kosovo? Give it back to its rightful owners-The Serbs. Let the Serbs and Albanians work out a peaceful compromise as fair unbiased arborators. Live side by side like they once did, before outside powers stirred the pot and redrew the map.

But there was another layer to this mess. The Serbs had a birthrate below replacement—statistically dying out. Meanwhile, the Albanians—mostly Muslim—commonly had large families, sometimes hitting double digits. They had a defiant saying directed at the Serbs: “We won’t beat you with guns—we’ll beat you with our dicks.” “While the Serbs were busy ratifying treaties, looking for international courts to dispense fairness. drafting property agreements, and trying to find a path forward, and wondering why the Americans they had helped so much in WW2 and were Christians were siding against them.  The Albanians were busy fucking and sucking up to the USA.”

But what was best for America? That question didn’t seem to matter much. What mattered was the narrative—the optics, the packaging, the sales job. And in the 1990s, the Serbs were made to play the villain. Big, bad, brutal—easy to paint in black and white. They became the cartoon bad guys of that decade, and it stuck. To the average American watching the news, they might as well have been Russians—just with different accents and a different alphabet. Slavs with guns and nationalism? That’s close enough for government work.

So we demonized them. That was the role we handed them in our global morality play. Because acting like the good guys is always step one. No matter the backroom deals, the blood-soaked complexities, or the centuries of tribal grudges already boiling under the surface—we were the bringers of peace, the civilized ones, the just.

We looked the other way when the Albanians went on a rampage destroying churches thousands of years old.  

Always act like the good guys. That’s the rule.

Fuck justice.  Steal Kosovo. Hand it to the Albanians. Because they’d make much better puppets than those hard-headed Serbs. And when you’re playing the global game like the card-table version of Risk, the goal is to put as many military bases on the board as possible. Doing what’s right is always way down the list if it can get in the way of a good game strategy and world domination.

“Yep, the Albanians would play nicer. Smile wider. And we figured, after handing them a whole damn country, they’d be more than happy to keep dancing for their puppet masters. Meanwhile, Kosovo’s become the dark hub of organized crime in Eastern Europe—and we just look the other way. Win-win, baby. Always good to have new players on the team who know how to play ball and lots of dirty laundry to use against them if they don't.”

“Blood and Honey,” sure. That name fits. But let’s not paint the whole picture with too much cynicism. The ways of the world are too big and twisted for any one person to untangle on a grand scale—so you focus on what you can affect. The person-to-person stuff. The human moments.

I really enjoyed my year and a half in Kosovo. I met so many unforgettable characters and had some truly great times. If you want a taste of that side of it, look up a story I wrote about hunting wolves with some Serbs in the old hinterlands. It was published in Sporting Classics, the magazine I write for. That one was called “Blood, Honey, and Wolves.”

The people of Kosovo will find a way. Serbs, Albanians, and the other groups—all with a long history of tension and injustice—somehow continue to build lives amid the wreckage. It’s always been an area of unrest, but it’s also full of people who, despite it all, find a way forward.

Pakistan

Next stop: Pakistan. I had some badasses I knew from Iraq tell me not to go—that it was dangerous there. And it was. But that made me want to check it out even more. I spent about seven years in and out of Pakistan. In Iraq, we were heavily armed. In Jordan, we weren’t, and I was fine with that. But this mission was going to be completely unarmed, and all my instincts screamed, You need a gun here.

I taught just about everything—some classes were for top-tier police commanders and Air Force generals, but most were for mid-level guys and fresh cadets. Most sessions were at the National Police Academy in Islamabad, though we traveled often to Lahore. While I was there, a terrorist attack hit a sister city’s police academy. Dozens were killed. You’d think that would’ve triggered a security overhaul at our site. Nope.

The academy in Islamabad had a decorative hedge, a short fence, and one handicapped guard at the front gate. No real protection. Just across the road sat a patch of overgrown hills—perfect terrain to launch an attack from. The NPA was the most prestigious police academy in Pakistan. A juicy target. I made several suggestions to improve security. Blank stares.

I could’ve picked up an AK-47 on the black market from the right cop. I had the connections. But I was more afraid of their version of the CIA than the Taliban. If the ISI decided I looked like a CIA assassin, a raid on our compound could land me on international television—paraded into a filthy prison, surrounded by chants of “Death to America.” Sure, the Black Hole of Calcutta is technically in the next country over, but I felt confident Pakistan had something just as charming. That thought scared me more than the chance of our house getting overrun.

The local newspapers were certifiably insane. They made our spin-heavy, firehose-of-lies media look like the Rosetta Stone. At one point, myself and about a dozen other police contractors were publicly listed as CIA spies supposedly running wild across Pakistan.

So, I adapted. I bought big butcher knives and stashed them around our house. Came up with escape plans. Trained hard. On days I didn’t hit the gym, I was running stairs, practicing martial arts, or working knife defense drills. The others in our compound? Most were worn out from decades of stateside cop work. Round as beach balls. Out of shape and underprepared. With no firearms, if things went sideways, it was every man for himself.

I asked one guy what his escape plan was. “Out that door and over that fence,” he said. I pointed out the obvious—double rings of razor wire, iron spikes, thorny hedges. “That shit’ll shred you to the bone.” He nodded. “I’m determined.”

Another contractor—a big round guy—followed me as I showed him my escape plan. The dramatic part? A long jump off our roof onto a slightly lower one next door. Between the buildings: a spiked brick wall wrapped in razor wire and thorn bushes. Miss the jump, and you die. Either from the fall, or by getting torn in half mid-air.

I studied that jump obsessively. Marked a launch point with a Sharpie. Practiced sprints—15 yards across the roof to the edge. Timed my strides so I’d launch off my right foot, my strongest leg. I’d stand there, looking across, feeling vertigo, thinking: I might have to jump this for real someday.

This was my pact with myself: Never be taken alive. If they came—if they stormed the house, shooting, yelling, tossing grenades—the fight was here and now. Die fighting, or die begging for mercy in a basement torture cell. Torture doesn’t just break your body. It breaks your soul. I knew how these groups operated. They’re told to capture, not kill. But most couldn’t adjust to the situation. If I could get my hands on one of their AKs—God willing they’d remembered to load it—I’d go down swinging.

I taught everything police-related: riot control, defensive tactics, tactical formations, instructor development, criminal investigations, interview and interrogation, critical incident management. One story stands out. I was teaching a group of investigators. One of them worked near a fast-moving river. He bragged that he could tie a suspect by the ankle and dunk them in and out of the current until they confessed. The others were jealous. Their methods left bruises and broken bones. "Damn, I wish I had a river," they all said.

Trump got shot yesterday. Details are still rolling in, but it already stinks of spin, CYA, and bureaucratic incompetence. I’ve taught executive protection. What a clusterfuck. Exposing the principal on an elevated platform? Security 101. You could hand that scenario to a group of seventh graders, and they’d call it out immediately.

And don’t get me started on the sunglasses. They might look cool, but they kill contrast and depth perception. In the most iconic picture, one of the female agents is holding hers in her hand—extra gear to fumble with. And if it’s true that snipers couldn’t fire until after shots were fired? WHAT. THE. FUCK. You don’t wait for the round. You eliminate an immediate threat to life. Period. That’s what use of force doctrine is for. Not “wait and see if he shoots.”

Many of my police students came from the Frontier region, near the infamous Khyber Pass. I always wanted to go there, but it was considered too dangerous for Americans. So they came to us. These guys were all heart. The Pashtun culture is built on hospitality and bravery. They’d tell me, “Mr. Ted, if you come to our home, we’ll have 100 men for your security. It is our honor.” And they meant it. They would’ve taken a bullet for me.

I would’ve loved to go. It was the Wild West of Pakistan—beautiful, brutal, and brimming with stories. Terrorist groups nested there, sure, but so did the Himalayas. I wanted badly to hunt ibex. Peshawar wasn’t far. I knew the admins in Islamabad would never sign off on it—not because they cared if I got snatched or shot, but because it would look bad on their performance review.

We were “contractors.” A lesser breed. I think we scared the milquetoast weirdos in the State Department. And believe me, that’s a crew of bizarre, broken people. International cat ladies with a stack of liberal arts degrees in utopian nonsense, unleashed onto the world stage. These were people running from real life—no families, no roots, no spine.

But we stayed grounded. And we did the job.

One of my core beliefs formed early in these war-zone gigs: never, ever be taken prisoner. I didn’t fear death. I feared being turned into something unrecognizable through pain, humiliation, and soul-breaking torture. That fear kept me sharp. I didn’t want to end up in some filthy cell whimpering in a fetal position. I’d rather go down fighting—right there, right then.

Riot control was some of the most fun I had. I’d seen local cops in action. They were basically unorganized protestors in uniform—no tactics, no coordination. Protestors would throw a brick, and the cops would throw it back. I got to work. Taught them what I called the Thunder Walk. Twenty guys shoulder-to-shoulder, riot shields overlapping. Big synchronized stomps, followed by baton strikes against the shields—Woom! Crack! Woom! Crack! It echoed like a monster coming.

I also taught snatch teams. In every riot, there’s a leader. You find them, you pull them out. Two guards cover, two snatchers grab and drag. The line opens, then closes like jaws. No Use of Force panels. No lawsuits. The message was clear: when the cops say leave, you leave—or you bleed. Same logic in a gunfight. Kill the leader first, the rest usually scatter.

One day, riding to the embassy, I saw riot cops suiting up. I knew there’d been a week-long protest. This was the day they’d crack it. I couldn’t join, of course, but God did I want to. I imagined it—me in full gear, charging into the chaos like a Frazetta painting. No body cam. No CNN. No lawsuits. Just shock and awe. Break the mob, then high-fives and dinner.

How well they actually handled that riot is up for debate. But if I’d been there—if they’d listened—we could’ve made legend.

I spent a chunk of time building out a computer-based shooting simulator. Scenarios projected on a wall—hostage calls, active shooters, traffic stops. Students used real weapons fitted for the system. Without guidance, it could easily become just another video game. But I kept it grounded. We even filmed our own scenarios—complete with special effects, local actors, and explosions.

Next stop Pakistan.  I had some  baddasses I knew from Iraq say don’t go that place it dangerous there and it was pretty dangerous where.  Figured I better check it out and see what the hype was about.  I was in Pakistan off and on for about 7 years.  In Iraq we were heavily armed, Jordan not and I was fine with it, but this was going to be an unarmed mission and all my feelers and instincts screamed I need a gun here.  I taught about everything, and many classes were given for the highest placed Police Commanders and Airforce Generals and the sort.  But most of the classes were mid level and fresh cadets.  Most of those classes were at the National Police Academy in Islamabad but we traveled to Lahore frequently.   When I was there was a terrorist attack in a sister city Police Academy and many people died.  The National Police academy in Islamabad was basically unprotected with no viable security in place.    I would think the other attack would be a major wakeup call not so.  The academy in Islamabad had a decorative hedge and short fence, one literally handicapped guard at the front gate.   And if like by special order just across the road was an series of short hills overgrown and undeveloped and the perfect place to mount attack for very short striking distance.  The NPA was most prestigious Academy in Pakistan and a juicy target I would think.     My suggestions for security were met with blank stares.     I could have gotten AK-47 on the black market from the right cop, connections.  But I was more afraid of their version of the CIA, who surely watched our every move and monitor our emails, might decide I look like an CIA assassin and raids us finds a gun and I'm on International TV being led to a filthy prison  surrounded by chants of death to America.   Yeah, I know the black hole of Calcutta is the next country over but felt confident that had something just as accommodating and that thought that was scarier to me than the chance the bad guys would overrun our house.   The local newspapers are more insane than you could possibly imagine.   They make our fire house if lies and spin media look like the Rosetta stone At one point myself and about a 12 other police contractors were listed and identified CIA spies that were running amuck in Pakistan.

I bought some big butcher knifes and placed them about the house we lived in and came up with a few escape plans.  I worked out regularly and the days I didn't hit the gym I was running stairs or practicing martial arts and the best way to use knives.  Not as much could be said for some of the other contractors who lived in our government Compound in the Cityscape at time with me.  All were worn out many decades long plus of cop work and most round as beach balls and grossly out of shape.  With no guns and the shit really hits the fan its every man for himself. They make their bed they gotta lie in it. The old adage of being attacked by a bear, "You don't have to outrun the bear ya just gotta outrun your buddy."  I asked one of them their plan of escape  "Out that door and over that fence"  It threw me as there was a double ring of razor wire which is SUPER nasty shit, pointed iron spikes and a thorny hedge and pointed out what I saw as the obvious.  Adding "that shit will shred you to your bones" and he said.  "I'm determined."  They had no plans or capabilities even if they did have a plan they wouldn't be able to follow through it. I think they had resigned they couldn't do much.    Another one of the contractors a rotund fella followed me as I showed him my escape plan.  The most dramatics part of the plan was a LOOOONG jump down to a roof on the next door property and across a spiked top ringed with razor wire fence.  This would be on the roof of a two story to another flat roof slightly lower.   I pondered the jump many times and sometimes is would strike me, NO WAY and the next would think it might be possible.  I would need the best 15 yard short sprint from the far side of the roof to the "launch" pad I marked it with magic marker.  I timed my running steps to leave my right foot, my strongest leg for the last push off and hopefully with enough propulsion enough of a jump to make the gap.  If ya didn't make it your dead.  Just the fall would kill you but a spiked brick wall with double strand of Razor wire and interwoven with thorning bushed would rip you in half.    As I would stand and ponder the jump I would get vertigo and in the back of my mind I thinking I might be jumping this someday with my ;life on the line.   So the idea that you only jump at the most extreme time.  The bad guy are in the house and shooting, explosions and penetration or something of the like..  They are there to kill you or capture you.  Both things I prefer not to happen.    So the pact with myself about never being taken prisoner and the fight is right here not matter what the goods.  Getting killed trying boldly or whimpering begging for them to stop the torture so assaultive to your Physique, Ego and soul so crush, wounded and violated I don';t think you could ever reassemble yourself.  So run or fight but never get snagged.   

Top to bottom if it had anything to do with Police I taught it.   Riot Control, Defensive tactics, anything to do with tactical Police, How to teach-Train the Trainer Investigations, Interview and Interrogation, Critical Incident Management.  Funny story I had some investigators I was teaching Interview and Interrogation, and they were jealous of one of their fellow students and Investigator whose station was located next to a rushing river where they could tie a suspect by his ankle and dangle in and out of the river until he told the truth.  The others resorted to more "encouraging" and in search of the truth techniques that left evidence in blood and broken bones.  Dam I wish I had a river they all thought. 

Trump got shot yesterday and the detail are still coming in.   But of course the detail take a big dose of the age old cover your ass, spin and lies.   I have a lot of expertise in teaching that kind of protection,  What an embarrassing cluster fuck.   The idea that the Secret Service is some sort of bad ass went  I won't state the the obvious, of okay a bit, exposing the principal to elevated position is security 101 and I'm guessing if you gave the table top exercise to a group of 7th graders it would be the first thing they pointed  out.  So many things first this dumb dark glasses shit might look cool but it blocks too much vision and hurts contrast and the ability to pick things out.  Additionally note in the most iconic picture one of the chubby chicks was holding her glasses, it give you one more things to fuck with.   I had heard the rules of engagement only allow firing on suspects AFTER they had already fired  WHHHHHAATTT THE FUCK?  As I mention early the fatal use of force to eliminate...kill a threat that is right here right now immediate threat to yourself or others or serious bodily harm or death.   not after you have already come under fire.  And if the rumor was true that the black clothes snipers.

Many of my field units Police students came from the Frontier region near the infamous Khyber pass a place I would have liked to have visited but them deemed to dangerous for an American so they came to Islamabad.   These guys had giant hearts and the Pashtun culture of generosity and hospitality and bravery in every way about them.  "Mr Ted, you come to our home and we have 100 men for your security and guarantee you are safe it honor for us you stay with our families".  If they said it they would take a bullet for you.  I would have loved to have gone it was the wild wild west of Pakistan and where terrorist groups liked to nest.   I wanted badly to hunt Ibex in the Himalayas and it was within striking distance of where I would be in Peshawar teaching.  I knew the Admin in Islamabad would never say yes to a hunt but maybe nobody would miss me over a long weekend. , Not that they care that much about my personal safety, but I get snatched or smoked and it looks bad on their record and might affect their yearly evaluation.

We were "contractors"  a lesser breed for sure.  I think kind of scared of the milk toast Weirdos  in the State Department.   And trust me it is a gang of weirdos and mental misfits and international cat ladies.  They get a bunch of advanced liberal degrees based on unrealistic concepts and unleash them onto the world.  These are weak and tepid people who in many ways are running away cause you can live a lonely life with no friends or relationships cause you got a good excuse. 

Early in my overseas career in these dangerous places, where half of my pay was hazard and danger pay,  I decided NO WAY I was ever going to be taken prisoner.  I don't care what the odds are, 15 guys with AK's the fight is right here right now.  I have never really been afraid of anything in my life, it’s kind of weird I don't have a "fear factor", but the one thing I fear is torture.   Torture not only attacks your body, but your soul and spirit and what makes you who you are.   So the fight is right here.   I also know their capabilities and lack of all too well.  They are told "don't kill them capture them" those simpletons can't adjust, and you get a ahold of one of those Ak's, hope the dumbshit loaded it or they trusted him with ammo and fight it out right there. We are all going to die.  That is certain.  Dying on my feet fighting is a zillion times better than in a fetal position whimpering and begging for mercy in some dingy basement.  

I taught a lot of riot control.  That was FUN.  I had seen some videos of the protest and riot control action by the police.  They were just like the unorganized protestors that happened to have police uniforms on and a stick and shield.  The protestors would throw a brick at them, and the cops would throw it back and in the riot clashes the cops had zero teamwork or technique.  These guys need a lot of work and riot and protest that need to be broken up were pretty common.   Riot control is about Teamwork baby.   I taught them "Thunder Walk."   I’m a big believer in visual shows of force to avoid actual conflict in such situations.   The optic of security is vitally important.  A dog that can walk around a car and sit looks to a bad guys like a highly trained bomb dog.      You look shoddy and unorganized, and they think they got a chance. You look like a bad ass unit of shields, Riot gear and bristling with batons moving like a unit they will knows it not wise to poke the monster or they might get mauled and eaten.   There was a version I refined; 20 guys across abreast shieled to shield.  Big step forward with your right foot stomping it hard to the pavement and just a moment later strike the front of your shield with your baton   Woooom! Crack!   Woom Crack! Woom Crack! as   It creates a thunder monster lurching towards you.

Snatch teams.    A team of four follows the line.  Usually there are "leaders" in a riot or protest. The main instigators.  You identify them and sometimes you snatch or in the Pakistanis case beat the hell out of their "bravado” everyone else loses their courage.     On command the center of the line opens two guys with shield and sticks act as guard while two guys with hands free run and snatch the guy and drag him back into gaping jaws that snap close and into the belly of the beast. There is no “Use of Force” panels in Pakistan, if the order is to clear the street a couple of dead guys some broken bones and busted heads and blood stained shirts sends a message to not fuck around when the cops tell you to leave.  Same applies in small team tactics in a gun fight or terrorist attack if you can identify the leader of the group .make then your number one target, kill them first and the rest of the rabble sees their leader with his brains splattered across the dirt most likely take their toys and run home. 

One day getting ride to the Embassy I knew there had been a week-long protest with thousands of people and also knew they would break it up soon.  I saw some cops in riot gear heading towards the protest and thought today is the day.  Of course I couldn’t join them but it didn’t stop me from fantasizing how incredibly epic it would be to throw yourself into a riot with Shield, Helmut and sword like a Frazetta painting with rules of engagement little more than beat them and show overwhelming force until they leave.  Sometimes ya got to break a few eggs to make an omelet.   No reports, No Use of Force panels, No lawsuits, No seeing your berserker attack on CNN, you job or life in Jeopardy or finding your ass in jail.    The objective met some high fives and go have dinner.  Just a good old fashioned baton swinging melee. Man oh Man that would have been fun.  How well did they do breaking up the protest it up for debate but if i would have been there, they would have listened to me and we could stay in organized assault teams we could have created legend.

For much of the time I spent there I was tasked to set up a computer shooting and use of force interactive.  Threats and police scenarios are projected on a wall of screen and the student has and array of Police weapons that interact with the system.  It could easily evolve into a video shooting game without proper guidance and a training and learning foundation.  The idea is the instructor controls the action on the screen and can reward or punish students accordingly during the training session.    We filmed out own scenarios that could have all sort of graphics added, explosions. 

What is a wild card in foreign travels to unstable places is if you had a medical emergency. this is not a full war theater footprint, with MASH units and such and we were lowly bottom feeding contractors so not the same protocols for the State Department weirdos. Stomach ailment and such were fairly common, but one night I woke you with a 

I spent years there. Taught thousands—from cadets to elite commanders of military units. Students from Islamabad to the Khyber Pass. Many students came from the frontier regions, guy with giant hearts and from the wildest of the wild west is the so-called war on terror. It’s no man’s land up there to be a police officer an incredibly dangerous job almost nothing about officer, safety and survival. That was always my main focus and I taught that as much as I could.  

I taught many many police related subjects.  Interrogations. Crime scene work. Investigative techniques were some of them. One station boss detective told the class how they dunk suspects off a bridge over a raging river, with ankle ropes.   You know in "search for the truth"  Everyone nodded, wishing they had a river too. Their methods often left trails of blood and broken bones in their searches for the truth.  Which is always messier and if those dam pain in the ass tv or newspaper reporters started stirring up shit harder to explain away.   yeah a raging river would be great.

Truth was, these countries didn’t have the capacity to handle crime the way the U.S. does.  Due process, evidence, collecting and handling, and all the mechanisms that we have in place for law-enforcement just doesn’t exist in these countries. So they do their best with what they have, so this is not a critical critique but simply bizarre observation thought much of this writing.

And here’s your safe travel tip from someone who’s been there:

And here is your safe travel tip from someone that has been there.  Bottom line there and any other place in the world that you’re traveling to do everything in your power not to interact with the cops for any reason whatsoever.  No good can come from it.   Get over the self righteous feeling I have done nothing wrong attitude, cause that's the way you see it, they might see it a differently.  They got the power, they might want bribe or graft or hate the country your from or its polices.  Just avoid the cops. Because some of the safeguards that you take for granted are not in place these countries at all. Do everything in your power to have nothing to do with the cops, cause they have all the power, guns and cages, ankle ropes and raging rivers and who the hell polices them.  Nobody.   

Wherever you go in the world, do everything in your power not to interact with the cops—for any reason. No good can come from it.

Forget the self-righteous “I’ve done nothing wrong” attitude. That’s how you see it. They might see it differently. Maybe they want a bribe. Maybe they hate your country, your passport, or its policies. Either way, they’ve got the power.

Some of the legal safeguards you take for granted simply don’t exist in a lot of these places. No Miranda rights. No lawyer phone call. No “I want to speak to your supervisor.”

Avoid the cops. Period. Because they’ve got all the leverage: the guns, the cages, the ankle ropes, and the raging rivers. And as for who’s policing them?

Nobody.

I’m not just saying this to sound wise. I lived it and well know the mentality of this third world or even second world cop types. .

I was in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, one of the Soviets old "Stan " countries,  waiting to be picked up for an Ibex hunting trip. Dead of winter. I’d heard they had street bandits, and I wanted to find an internet café. The last thing I wanted was to lose my passport—because if that happens, you’re totally fucked. So I hid it back in my room and instead brought my favorite folding butterfly knife, just in case things turned life-or-death.

I rounded a corner—and sure as shit, two Bishkek cops appeared. Asian-style uniforms, cold eyes. They asked for my passport. Through some awkward hand motions and broken English, I tried to explain it was back in my room. One of them grabbed my arm and started leading me away.  me saying "me Police   Me Police" didn't seem to concern them and their Genghis Kahn look didn't say they were looking for a new buddy or American pen pal.

Now, by then I had about ten years of experience dealing with Third World police. I started thinking fast. Oh shit… the knife. That could be a problem, you know some hidden deadly weapon. So I looked off to the side, and reacted like I saw something,   they looked I and casually flipped my butterfly knife into the bushes.  Dam my favorite knife gone forever. 

We walked maybe another hundred yards, and I could tell—they were calling for a car. That was bad news. I had no intention of going anywhere with them.

I had some money hidden in a pouch, reached in, pulled out the equivalent of about ten bucks for each of them, gave them a big smile, and stuffed it into their hands. Then I gave a friendly wave, turned, and briskly walked away.

It was a risk. But it worked.

That’s how it goes. You play it calm, think on your feet, and sometimes you walk away clean. Sometimes you don’t. But the rule stands: do everything in your power to avoid the cops. Especially the kind with no oversight, no body cams, and no problem making you disappear and with all of America bloody bluder around the world just happen to hate American.  and now they have one in chance.  these opportunities don't come along everyday. 

There was pressure on Pakistan to "do more" in the "War on Terror". They finally sent troops into the frontier. Captured a batch of insurgents—and then shot them all on a shaky cellphone video that came out. Then came the outrage. "Why’d you kill them?" they asked. The Pakistanis scratched their heads and said, "You wanted results, those are results.”

There was a firearms instructor from the frontier region who was kind of legendary—and he really looked the part. Big mustache, strong chin, heavy brow and cartoon handsome. After I had taught him to be a proper range instructor, along with some other tactical things, months later someone said, “I have a video that came from the frontier. I think you know this guy”

Yeah, it was him. He was up at the firing range with a pistol and some hapless volunteer kneeling, holding tea cups on saucers on each outstretched hand. One was even sitting on top of of the living target holders head one of those little bell hop hats they liked to wear.  And this instructor—my former student who had taught all the tenets of running a safe firing, range,—shot the cups clean off his hands and his head with his pistol.

So much for range rules and safety. But gotta give credit where credits due.  Apparently he had earned some trust from his students to be target holders down range and those were pressure shots that he shattered those tea cups one by one.  So his report card is mixed. He gets an F- for range safety and an A+ for Firearms proficiency.  And those target holder get 

I taught lots of riot control and tried to teach them how to move and act like a battalions of Spartans.  Okay that was the idea and goal anyways.

Riot control was a regular event for cops there. Spartan baton charges, broken arms, bloodied faces, busted heads.  The rabble throws bricks at you and you throw them back. Pretty much chaos but the cops had batons and shields,  No lawsuits. No YouTube. Just: “Good job boys. We taught those troublemakers a bloody lesson today.” 

I was supposed to teach them how to use a truck-mounted water cannon. That literally would have been a blast. Another pun intended. But in this rare case wiser heads prevailed. Nothing good comes from videos of old men doing cartwheels down the street under high-pressure water cannons because they are protesting the tax on sugar. 

I had an emergency appendectomy in Pakistan. The surgery room needed paint. The ceiling fan rattled. In the ER, I had heard coughing and death rattles on arrival.  Filthy curtains between beds. In pain, I still had the sense to wave off the nurse trying to stick me with a mystery needle from God knows where and certainly not from a sterile, package she opened in front of me. 

Where I was rolled into the surgery room on a wheelchair. Everything looked old. I noticed that the scalpels were not the plastic disposable kind, but the kind that you resharpened over and over again probably on a leather strap or a grit wheel powered by a tapping foot.  Everything felt I’m fucked. 

I passed out surrounded by a ring of bearded surgeons in beard nets, in a country where I knew most cops had hepatitis from cheap police haircuts and dirty razors. As the edges went dark, I thought: this might be it.

Later that night, I came to in my hospital room—full of angst, incision hurting, no sleep for a couple of days. My nurse came in and said, “Ohhh, I thought you were asleep. I’ve got something to help you relax and sleep.”

I had IV tubes in my arm, and she injected something directly into the line.

In one beat of my heart, every corner of every cell in my body was warm and happy. I felt my jaw go slack. Morphine, maybe, or the highest-grade black tar Afghan smack. Whatever it was, I can now understand why someone would sleep in a dumpster, in their own shit, hooked on heroin. It truly felt beyond euphoric, warm and happy  

It made me think—if I ever make it to broken old-man stage, I see no badges of courage in gritting through a bunch of pain. Exploring serious pain meds might just be an interesting bridge from this world to the next.

I was in Islamabad when they smoked....or said they smoked Bin Laden and thought ohhh this will make the natives restless.  hmmmm not a peep 

When I was in Pakistan, I ran across a guy I had known from Iraq—Randy. Randy was from Texas, and I swear, he was one of the dumbest people I’d ever met in my life.  Being a street cop for a long time that's saying a lot.  He played the Texas hick like a walking cartoon character—full caricature mode.  The only thing missing was a moonshine jug and a corn cob pipe.   When you first met him you would think he was putting you on, but it was all real.  If you brought up a movie, he’d say stuff like, “I stopped going to the movin' picture show when John Wayne died.” We lived in a team house and had a pretty good cook, I might make the comment, "Wow this is great" and between shovelfuls in his  gaping gullet he might mumble  "It'll make a turd" and the word Turd in a heavy Texas drawl chewing his food with his mouth open  has a special grunt too. That was Randy. I could probably write a small book on his stupidity, but I’ll stick to a few highlights.

I was teaching an investigations class one day. There’s a method in blood pattern analysis where you can study the way droplets scatter to understand how a wound occurred. A student asked something like, “Will you cut yourself like Randy did?” I looked over at the language assistant, confused, and asked for clarification. Apparently, in a previous class, Randy had cut the palm of his hand—on purpose—just to create a splash pattern on the ground for the students. In a septic, third-world environment, it was extra dumb.  But Randy had plenty of extra dumb. 

Another time, Randy was giving a graduation speech on defensive tactics in front of diplomats, dignitaries, and even people from the State Department. He said, “Ahmed wasn’t doing real good at hittin’ the punching bag, so I told him, Imagine that bag is your wife", And then Randy laughed out loud:  "Then he really started hittin’ it reeeaaalll good!”  Hardy harr har

I just remember thinking, Oh my God, someone please get this man off before he takes a shit on stage.

This make me at least chuckle every time I think about it.  we were holed up in a hotel in a distant city.   I decided to play a trick on Randy. He was just dumb enough to fall for it.

It took every ounce of energy to stop laughing and be serious enough to pull this off once I had the idea.   Using my best Pakistani front desk clerk voice, I called his room and said:  “Mr. Randy, you have been such a wonderful customer…I think it can get quite lonely for a man....how do I say and still be polite... we would like to send you company for the evening. Do you prefer a boy… a girl… a man… or a woman?”  There was this long pause. Then I heard him mumble, hesitate… and finally say, in his slow Texas drawl. “Weeeeell… I like wimmen.” .  I couldn’t hold it anymore. I burst out laughing and said, “Randy, it’s Ted.”  But Randy didn’t get it. His response? “But who’s that other fella on the phone? Let me talk to him.”   "Nooo Randy that was me..."   "No let me talk to that other fella...the one that was just on the phone." 

No matter how much I tried to explain that it was just me doing the voice, he never fully bought it and kept asking to talk to that other fella. The next morning, during our car ride to the training site, he leaned over and asked me—dead serious—“Hey, did they ever call you up and offer you a woman too, last night when you called I think the lines got crossed, there was a fella said he could have a lady home to my room.   I kind of gave him a wink, and a nod said well it’s always best to keep that stuff to yourself.  To this day I think he likely thinks our crossed line cost his a soft romantic dream come in Pakistan.

Bangladesh

Dhaka was the capital, and I thought I had seen bad traffic before—but this was beyond anything you could imagine. It was like a slow-moving river of cars and buses, a sludge flow of chaos. The buses looked like something out of Mad Max—smashed panels, bent frames—lumbering through the jam like giant barges in a river of shit. Everyone was doing their best not to slam into the vehicle next to them, but it was a lost cause. It was bumper cars with a lot more dirt, smoke, and grime.

I’d be in and out of that place throughout my contract. One day I met a 300-pound police trainer who told me he had his PhD—some online thing. He was a deeply unimpressive guy in just about every way, but he had the one thing the government seems to love more than common sense: paper credentials. That golden ticket.

At the time, radical Islam was on the rise in the region. There had already been a few terrorist takeovers of buildings, and the whole place had a nervous edge to it. I always liked having some kind of escape plan. He’d been stationed there a month or so before I arrived, so I asked him what his was.

He led me to the roof.

“If they come in below,” he said, pointing across the gap, “we come up here and jump to that roof to get away.”

I thought he was shitting me. Maybe—maybe—under the most extreme life-threatening dump of adrenaline, there was a 10% chance I could make that leap. It would take ideal shoes, a full sprint, max effort, and a perfect tuck and roll to clear the gap and stick the landing. Miss it, and it’s a 20-story freefall to pavement.

But him?

It took every bit of discipline I had not to laugh. This guy didn’t look like he could get momentum going to reach a box of donuts, let alone leap across a rooftop gap and survive the landing.

Still, I didn’t say anything. Just kept a straight face.

He must’ve caught the look, though, because he smiled and said,

“Don’t worry. I could do it.”

The bustling campus was tropical and beautiful—could’ve been the setting in a Kipling novel as a blood-red setting sun glittered across the broad and lazy Ganges just like it had for millennia. The beautiful, well-kept grounds of flowers and shrubbery‘s in tropical trees, and colonial white style buildings that have been left over from win the Dutch East India. Treaty company had been a big influence in this area. I was surrounded by a sea of smiling and curious faces. It felt like a place where there was real opportunity to make change—not yet gone full bonkers—and where terrorism was just starting to infect. It’s easier to plug holes in a leaky dam than to try and stack sandbags under a raging river like in Iraq.

Much of their academy time was spent on obstacle courses and marching drills. Still, it felt like a place where change was possible. 

I mostly taught new cadets but at times I did some teaching for RAB—Rapid Action Battalion. These guys were like their SWAT teams six-footers,  they were dressed in black. with aggressive red and yellow patches.—black wraparound sunglasses, do-rags, and big mustaches, rolling in black vehicles.  They didn't look like they  fucked around and they didn't. 

What they might have lacked in tactics and technology and technique they made for in good old fashioned bone cracking aggression.  If RAB showed up at a protest or something, somebody was going to get killed or hurt, and everybody knew it. Just their presence—the way they looked, the way they acted, and their history—solved a lot of problems.  That really is the key to 90 percent of security and potential conflict in police work, look like you got you shit and are a physical presence potential attackers are sizing you up.  Anybody bold enough to attack a cop has been in some scraps.  Your presence needs to look like you might kick their ass they think better you look. Its not any different than the lion sizing up the herd to attack.

For the average Bangladeshi, it was: Oh fuck, RAB's here. It’s time to go home.  Having a bad ass reputation is a effective form of crime prevention.

Full Circle

I taught people ranging from fresh-faced cadets who had never even owned a pair of boots—kids from the most primitive areas—to the upper echelons of police command staff. And I mean literally every layer, nook, and cranny in between. I built curriculums from scratch. I ran live-fire ranges in languages I didn’t speak. I shook my head in wonder at cultures I didn’t understand—but had to. I had to know how it worked, and how it didn’t.

I’ve always been deeply curious by nature, driven by a need to accomplish meaningful things and find real solutions. I was assigned to programs I knew were fruitless, and others that had a shot at making real impact. At times, it felt like we were trying to teach them how to paint the bathroom while the whole damn house was on fire—and what they really needed was to learn how to man a fire hose.

My cornerstone program—the one I built from the ground up—was centered around what I saw as the most urgent need: Officer Safety and Survival. Everything that went into staying alive in the chaos. Defensive tactics that actually worked—not fancy show-off garbage from some arrogant quadruple-black-belt instructor who just wanted to impress people and waste time showing off.  I taught practical, usable skills that real cops could apply. Things like pressure points, control techniques I came up with a very simple, striking and blocking technique for cops which covers about 95% and that will never ever practice anything the learning tactics class in almost 100% of these guys but the techniques are simple and right to the point and could be remembered that used finesse and brains instead of brute force. How not to shoot people who didn’t need to be shot—and how to deal with the ones who did.

In this odyssey, I ran counter-ambush drills with interpreters shouting my instructions over exploding tires, rubber bullets, and simulated gunfire in mock villages made to feel like war-torn cities. I taught under tension, under fire, and under scrutiny. I laughed harder than I ever have in my life—and I cried with full abandon in the face of tragedy. You can’t lose either. Lose your humor or your ability to cry, and you’re done. That’s how you burn out. That’s how you lose yourself.

I felt the full range of human emotion—raw and unfiltered. There were days I was sure my number was up. Days I lost hope in humanity. But there were others where I knew—without a doubt—that the light was stronger than the dark. And in my own small way, I was determined to be part of that light. I waded through bullshit so deep I could barely keep my head above it, and I saw the look in people’s eyes when I taught them something that might actually save a life. Maybe even their own. That made it worth it.

My style is simple: I go all in. I don’t leave myself a backdoor or safety cushion to fall on. Most people give themselves wiggle room so they have something to lean on when failure eventually shows up sooner or later   Not me. I go at it 100 percent. If I fall short, but I know I gave it everything I had—that’s a victory in itself. The goal is to see how far we can go with what God gave us. And I believe He expects that of us.

Along the way, I met unforgettable characters. Maybe I became one myself. I have no doubt that some of the students I taught are dead now—probably a lot of them, given the out-of-control violence of the regions they came from. But I also like to think that with the number of people I trained—and the focus I always put on survival—maybe a few of them are still alive. Maybe a father, a brother, a son is still breathing because something I said stuck.

But at that point, I didn’t know any of that. I had no idea what I was truly getting myself into. I was doing my damndest to get to Baghdad. In the height of a bloody war. And the odyssey was just beginning.

What could possibly go wrong?

Back to the start-Iraq.  The land of thunder on a cloudless day. . 

Once I decided I wanted to go, I got buried in a mountain of government paperwork—three inches thick, like a bureaucratic phone book. Background checks, clearances, waivers, signatures on every page.  There was a section with some short essay questions and wouldn't have given it much thought but with all the current news one of the questions stood out.  What is your point of view on Israel?  Of course my response was something along the sort of a democracy and beacon of light and hope in the middle east.    Apparently that was one of the answers they were looking for and passed that part of the test.   Odd question.   I thought this was about weapons of mass destruction and bringing freedom and democracy to the people of Iraq? 

There were basically two contractors sending cop types to Iraq.  One was straightforward: if you'd been a cop for eight years in good standing, you were in. The other was more selective—an elite training cadre, instructor types.  I had been an instructor in several things, firearms, defensive tactics, filed training officer.   which i was  higher pay, but you had to be a teacher-type, someone with real training experience. I had that, so I was trying to wedge myself into both doors at once. I wanted the training group, since $4,500 more a month sounded a lot better—and just that part was more than I was making as a street cop.

The eight-year group called me first. We were sent to a secluded place called The Crucible in the woods of Virginia—sounded biblical, and it felt that way too. A couple of weeks of physical tests, firearms drills, and head games to see who cracked and who was wired to go to Iraq during a war. But keep in mind, they needed bodies—this wasn’t exactly a dream gig everyone was lining up for. And the training was run by the contractor, so every guy they could get in-country was a cha-ching for them, big cha-ching. They skimmed off the truly dangerous and the wackos that could imperil the contract—guys who wouldn’t last a week, crying for momma or just being basic whiners or pains in the ass. If you’re bitching in Virginia and finding things to be unhappy about, Iraq ain’t the place for you.

So yeah, this wasn’t some elite fighting force. The idea this was the A-Team would be fudging it.  But with that said like any kind of training like this police and I am assuming military, you start to weed out the turds pretty quick and find the guys to get close to that are cool and have their shit tacked down. 

Meanwhile, I hadn’t heard a peep from the elite group in months. Dead silence—no returned emails, no calls, many many calls on my part straight to voice mail, just a ghost trail. I’d written them off.

Then came the wake-up call. During our prep, the  fortified hotel where our guys were staying in Iraq got slammed with a massive “fuck-you, Yankee” car bomb. It tore through the place like the fist of Satan. Miraculously, nobody in our group was killed—most were out—but several were injured, and the building nearly came down. Other teams weren’t so lucky.  they had a little shrine set up in one of our training rooms that every week a new name seemed to be added and sometimes a several at time.  Then strangely that shrine was gone.  Honoring the dead in one thing, lets not get people there backing out, we have an investment in them.    We need their asses in the country to get paid.  yeah people die its war.  Lets not advertise it too much, every one of these guys that chickens out starts to hurt the bottom line.    Some lost good men—maimed or driven insane—and had to be sent home. That blast got everybody’s attention. The reality of the war came roaring through the training bubble.  that's where we going   well not that hotel anymore, half of it was gone.  

But I was locked in. I’d already turned in my badge, quit the PD, rented my house, sold my truck and I wasn’t half-stepping my way through this. I was committed. We were packed and staged on the tarmac with our gear bags, minutes from boarding the 500-yard drive to our plane. I had even shut off my phone service, ready to disappear into the desert. But something tugged at me—call it instinct, call it something higher. I borrowed a phone and called the phone company and turned it back on. I wanted to call my parents one more time when we refueled in Boston.

Then—out of nowhere—I felt this strange nudge. Like a whisper in the back of my skull. Call that recruiter. The one who ghosted you. Just try.  Clean that slate

He picked up. I’d literally tried calling him a hundred times before.

“That’s weird,” he said. “I was just about to call you. We’ve got your slot—you leave in a month.”  Shocked I told him where I was and what I was doing.  He said okay the jobs there give it some thought.  Give it some thought I felt like a bomb had just gone off between my ears.

It felt like thunder from a clear sky. I was stunned. We were 45 minutes from wheels-up, and now I was holding a second ticket—one I thought had vanished. This wasn’t some casual decision over gear loadouts, this was a life and death Russian roulette of a decision.   Maybe the gun I was holding didn't have one bullet but packed full of rounds.   And God was yelling to put it down.  This was a fork in the road of my life that could lead to life or death, and I had about 15 minutes to choose. It felt like a shout from God—loud and direct.  I was stunned.  This wasn't take the job in Atlanta or Dallas.  This was life and death stuff and I had just a few minutes to get it right.  Or wrong. 

I pulled aside one of the guys I respected and told him what just happened. He looked at me and said, “Brother, that sounds like a sign. Don’t ignore it. If I were you, I’d take it.”

I called my parents. They didn’t pressure me—liked the idea I was coming back for at least a month—and just said, “We know you’ll do what’s right.”

I paced. I prayed. I thought about fate, duty, and survival. And then I said it—I can’t go. Not after this. Not after that call. It would haunt me forever if I ignored it, and it just might cost me my life. God has looked after me in defined ways in the past, and this was the loudest yell yet. If I ignored it, my whole mindset would shift—from “I’m gonna survive and thrive” to I blew off God’s clear signal and I'm a dead man walking, and if something happened, I’d feel I deserved it for not listening.

I told the manager I wouldn’t be going. I’m sure he thought I’d lost my nerve, chickened out—but I didn’t care. I went home.

A month later, I deployed with the elite training group. And later in Iraq, I’d run into guys from that original team. They’d list the names—who had made it, and who hadn’t. Every time I heard a name that didn’t come home, I felt the echo of that phone call. That could’ve been me. Should’ve been me.  God had saved my ass before and it was clear he had this time.  He was just warming up on how apparent he was going to be in the journey of my life.  I had no idea then.   To that point I surely believed in God and Christ, but it was more of an idea, nothing really concrete.  This was the start of God being in my corner in a boxing championship fight.  

God yelled and I listened.  And that’s not luck. That was grace.

We stopped first in Kuwait, waiting for our slot into Iraq. We were at the five-star-plus Kuwait Hilton that had the most mind-blowing breakfast, lunch, and dinner buffets. I couldn’t shake the condemned man’s last meal feeling in my head—or the “fattening up the Christmas goose for slaughter” vibe. There was a pool where some gorilla-haired Arabs frolicked.  I was far from Colorado and next stop a war zone. 

One guy in our group was a happy-go-lucky Jersey police lieutenant. I saw him walking off toward the hotel from the pool with this shifting mound of a woman wearing some sort of pool moo-moo or circus tent that looked to me like Jabba the Hutt’s sister—nobody had remotely thought about fucking her for decades—and they went inside.  I ran into him later and asked what was up with that woman. Completely without shame, and with a touch of pride, he said, “Yeah, I fucked her… might be my last chance.” I couldn’t argue with the logic of that, but not sure I want that as my last score for eternity.  He went on loud enough for anyone to hear.  The fat ugly ones try harder cause they know they don't get a lot of chances. The hot ones think they are doing you a favor...ugly chick know your doing them a favor.     The uglier the better …He spread his arms with a big smile, " "What can I say I got a big heart."

We spiraled into Baghdad in a C-130, dropping fast to avoid becoming a slow target for RPGs. On the ground, we loaded into a beast of a vehicle called a Rhino—huge and armored, like a military Tesla. We were told it could take an RPG hit. First night in-country, I actually thought it’d be kind of cool if it did—would’ve made a hell of a story. Later, I’d learn that was probably just marketing optimism—something printed in a glossy brochure by a defense contractor stacking gold coins. We rumbled down the Highway of Death, two Apaches hovering above like war angels.

Our first stop was a cluster of paraffin and canvas tents filled with cots stacked two high—maybe a hundred guys just like me—right outside one of Saddam’s old palaces, now a buzzing hive of American government bureaucracy. I’m usually a light sleeper, but after three days of transit and no res other than a few head nods, I crashed like a corpse.

I woke late. Glanced at my watch—nearly 10 a.m. Shit. Chow hall closes at ten. I hustled over, hungry, and saw a group of guys looking rattled.  “What’s up?” I asked. “What do you mean what’s up?” one of them said. “The attack this morning.”  “What attack?” Apparently, there was a major attack less that 100 yards from our tent that included a car bomb and several waves of follow up machine gunners and the gun battle lasted like a half an hour.  Son of a bitch... that wouldn’t do.

I slept lighter the next night.  I was woken to the sound of tense words.  Civilians like us cops trainers were allowed to drink, which I thought was a terrible idea and it was.  I could hear some slurring angry words “You’re a fucking Iraqi!   Why are you in our tent?" in a southern slur.    That got my attention and grabbed my pistol.  this fat white guy in his tightly whities was point blank his M-4 machine gun aimed at a guys chest.  The guy was hands up said in a calm way.  “I’m a fucking Mexican you hillbilly mother fucker…  I’m a cop from Tucson!’   They were able to calm him and disarm him and get him back in his bunk as he mumbled “I know a fucking Iraqi when I see one...”  I recognized in action what i had seen during training in Virginia many of these guys were not wired for this shit and getting killed by some dumb ass American was still dead. 

Day Two-Three hundred and sixty four to go. 

Then I started thinking about the dangers I’d faced back in the States—being a cop, being a bouncer, those crazy solo wilderness hunts long before a cell phone could save your ass. Back home, you checked into danger, and you checked out of danger. For the most part, day-to-day life in America was danger-free for almost anybody.  I was a cop for like 10 years, so granted a dangerous job as not many stateside gig's require s a bullet proof vest, and to be honest I stopped wearing mine, so fucking uncomfortable and hot it was like working wearing a garbage bag in a vise on a hot summer day.   So yeah it could have bit me, but thought I would rather get shot once that for sure be tortured every day.  Never once felt like I was in real danger.  Sure I dealt with shit but always felt like I had the upper hands, had my shit tacked down, I was a muscular 220 , knew how to fight and knew most importantly how to control and de-escalate and good at making quick decisive decisions.   Guns were an extension of my body and I knew how to use them well, was quick and accurate and had a really good sense for things.  With years as a cop and years as a bouncer I knew how to handle shit storms and end up with out it splashing on me.    The reason I mention all that is right away I could see this was a different beast.  You could get killed or maimed EASSSSSY here.    Here, it was 24/7.   No checking in out of danger it was always there to some degree from extreme to just bubbling under the surface.   You could just be walking along and get vaporized   Something I visualized for whatever reason with all the other  possibilities was how bizarre it would be is looking down and seeing you lower arms blown. The things you manipulate the world with just gone and you could see it.  I was a hard core hunter and know what all that bone and meat and gristle looks like when it take a bullet, the size of a pencil eraser; a Bomb,  damn off. So the pressure is always on to some degree.  It would be really unexpected stateside to be walking into the Costco and have a car blow up or people rounding the corner with AK-47 in full rattle trying to kill you.  There your always kind of expecting it.  Every second. Explosions measured in microseconds—and so were your chances to make life-saving reactions.  Fucking bombs they can do some really gnarly shit without any warning. 

But over time, that threat refined how I moved. It sharpened me. The pressure became part of your being. A huge part of how I would develop my teaching and training approach over the next twelve years came from this: understanding that danger almost always announces itself—if you know how to listen. A raised voice. Running feet. Shattering glass. A vehicle accelerating too fast. A man walking with purpose when no one else is. Something off in a smell, a movement, a glance. A thing out of place in the fabric and vibration of life.

Sometimes those warnings give you just a few seconds—just enough to act. To save your own life or someone else’s. There was no checking in or out of danger here. Not until that final plane home touched down on American tarmac months later. And for some guys, that’s when the real nightmare started. When the pressure was gone. When the weight lifted. And what looked like normal life to most people felt to them like a bizarre world full of clueless, unaware civilians who had no idea what you’d just walked through.  And more than few in some bizarre turn around, spending all your efforts not trying to get killed come home finally safe at last and then find yourself coming to the conclusion killing yourself was your best option. 

In the chow hall, people came and people went. I sat next to and talked with a young soldier, early 20s, and asked him what he did.    "I'm a gunner on top of a Humvee   50 cal. —we do convoys. Ours usually takes rear.” VBIEDs—Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Devices—or in more simple terms, car bombs—were a big threat to convoys. All the vehicles had signs in Arabic that said: Stay 50 meters away or you will be shot.  I asked him how that all went down.  He said, “We used to fire warning shots, and if they got closer, we shot ’em up.”  Probably not the best way to win hearts and minds when building a new country based on trust. “So now,” he continued, “we fire a few warning shots, then shoot out their tires.”  Reflecting back on my domestic police service, I thought of the morass of paperwork, panels, reports, and the looming threat of suspension, termination, or even jail time if you didn’t shoot just right.  I asked him, “Then what happens?”  He looked at me, dead serious, kind of dumbfounded, and said, “I dunno… I guess they stop and change their tire.”

Still, there were characters. Lots of characters. Some hilarious, some dark and deceitful, some you would take a bullet for, and some you’d like to give one to.

I met one guy in the wax tent who was a walking cartoon of redneck idiocy. Slope-shouldered, doughy, looked like he was melting under the weight of his own bad decisions and inbred genetics. He spoke like he was trying out for the dumb guy role in a bad animated comedy. Came from some backwoods department in the Deep South. And yet—he’d been on all the missions. Bosnia. East Timor. Kosovo. Haiti. Somehow, this guy had Forrest Gump’d his way across every collapsed state with a police contract and a per diem.

See, the government likes checked boxes and degrees. They're not big on interviews or assessing through person-to-person interaction who might actually be the best fit for the job. This guy gets a few mission under his belt and he became part of the contract body count. 

After grunting out some half-formed thoughts about how “the ladies in East Timor sure liked us”—where I’m guessing the hookers had bones in their noses—he pulled out a photo of his wife. She looked like the sluttiest chick in the trailer park—bleached hair with black roots, a wild meth look in her eyes, Harley shirt stretched across a boob job two sizes too big, skull rings on every finger, and makeup that looked like it came from a box of crayons.

“Yeah,” he said, “I didn’t want to come on this one, but my baby told me I should get back on another mission.”

Yeah. I bet she did. She loved the idea of your sappy ass halfway across the planet while the big fat checks rolled in—and she went hunting for new ex-con cock down at the local biker bar.

A lot of the old “mission rats” were running from something.  Some really needed the dough—or just wanted it. Others were just trying to stay gone long enough to lesson the pain of being married to some who hated them and they hated right back.  Everybody had a story...everybody had a reason. And others just looked at it as a challenge, another chapter in their sense of duty to helping people and serving America’s goals. America was still riding that wave of patriotism following 9/11.

But let me be clear—it wasn’t all a mishmash of lost souls and half wits. Mixed in with the drifters and mission rats was a solid cadre of good men—sharp, tactically minded, squared away. Guys who were security-conscious, in shape, and steady on the trigger. Guys who could handle themselves and weren’t flinching at shadows. I’d count myself among them. We had our reasons for being there—and for a lot of us, it wasn’t just the money.

We believed in the mission. At least at the time. We thought the war in Iraq, as messy as it looked on TV, was necessary. And if we could bring our skill set—law enforcement, firearms, street experience, critical thinking—then maybe we could help tip the scale. Help build a new nation. Be the seed for democracy would spread freedom and happiness and opportunity throughout the region. Maybe we could build something better out of the rubble. Maybe something good.  in mission people 

This was a time we trusted the government, you know, by the people, for the people—and our representatives calling the shots on what was best for America and the good of the world. I’m typing this in 2025 and Lordy, Lordy, Lordy—times have changed, and eyes have been opened, including mine.

Ironically, I might have been the last American to hear about 9/11. I was bowhunting for elk backpacking deep in a wilderness area without any electronic connection. The world I was immersed in was beautiful, pure, innocent, and clean. Timeless. While below, the world was going shit-show and I hadn't a clue. I came out several days later, exhausted under the weight of a fresh bull elk that would take several more round trips to pack out—into a world changed forever. Little did I know how I was going to get swept up in it all.

Then there was Sadr City. Just across the road from the Baghdad Police College—where we were going we were a cog in the machine called "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

"Operation Iraqi Freedom"

After seeing it first hand and the aftermath. I still chuckle when I hear "Operations Iraqi Freedom" and imagine how that all came about, so decided to play with a little creative writing.  

“Operation Stomp Saddam” got an early vote. Big hit with the redneck demographic. “Sounds like a pro wrestling pay-per-view,” someone said.

“Exactly,” replied a guy with a crew cut and an American flag pin. “America loves that shit.”

The idea snowballed. Hell, Toby Keith probably had a hit song brewing already. "Stomp Saddam." Flash it on the big screens at NASCAR and college football games.  Thousands of people pumping their fists, stomping their feet singing along.  Could become an anthem.   Set up recruiting tables in the parking lot, get em a little drunk and riding high.  If we caught the bastard alive, maybe we could hang him at a Fourth of July concert, ot hell better yet draw numbers from the crowd for a firing squad, not every day you get to root for Dale Earnhardt and shoot Saddam in the face.   That my friend is where red neck legends are made.  Right between the fireworks and the Lee Greenwood encore. Everyone knew it was really a great idea. Just too great.

Then came “Crude Awakening”—clever, but a little too honest. “Burning Sand, Rising Eagle” was pitched by the poetry major in PsyOps, who fiddled with a butterfly knife the whole time. “Democracy Dropkick” got laughs, though it felt a little too aggressive. A kick in the pants compared to what was actually happening—a full-force invasion by the most powerful military in history.

“Desert Smackdown 2003” had energy, but legal flagged it as too close to WWE. Then someone muttered, “Well, could we bring WWE over here, like a Bob Hope tour?” Someone else said, “I doubt these boys even know what a Playboy magazine is.” “Fine, just send porn stars,” another one joked. It didn't land like joke as people thought it over.   Naaaa better not. Another great idea. Just too good.

Finally, the guy from PR rubbed his temples and said, “Look—we need something that sounds noble, marketable, and extremely vague.”  So they landed on "Operation Iraqi Freedom"—safe, soft, sounds like we’re handing out voter registration cards and falafel platters and "Freedom" always does well in the focus groups when we talk about invading countries.  Something magic about that word to get Americans too go along with dam near anything when it comes to killing cartoon bad guys in other countries. No mention of airstrikes, crumbled cities, chaotic insurgencies, or a million dead civilians.

You know—classic American branding.  This is all about optics baby. 

Sadr City squatted like a loaded weapon with  the safety off. The Mahdi Army owned it. That was Muqtada al-Sadr’s private militia—fanatics, street thugs, and Shiite hardliners all rolled into one hydra-headed insurgent force. It wasn’t just hostile—it was alive, breathing, watching. Sometimes, in the quiet moments, you could hear the distorted echo of sermons and slogans blasting over loudspeakers. Other times it was sirens, or explosions, or just an eerie stillness that made your skin itch.

We weren’t in it. But we were close enough to smell it.

Our job wasn't there.  Nobody went unless they had to. But it was always right there. Looming. Breeding trouble. It wasn’t war in the traditional sense. It was tension soaked into the soil, electricity in the air. Sadr wasn’t a battlefield. It was a spiritual wound—a slum boiling with ancient grudges and ready-made martyrs. Saddam was a Sunni and ran the show. Shiites were second-class citizens at best. For many of the Shiites, the invasion had knocked the oppressive force off their neck—and it was payback time, bitch.

The insurgents didn’t need much. A cell phone. A sack of explosives. A junk car. And just like that, boom—millisecond a blossom of death and dismemberment.

Sadr City wasn’t the place you cleared. It was the place you prayed stayed put.

I was gonna be King Mission Rat at the end of all this and I hadn't yet survived a week. 

I didn’t know it yet, but this was the start of something much bigger for me. This madness—this bizarre collision of patriotism, corruption, violence, and dark comedy—wasn’t a one-off. It was going to become my world for the next fifteen years.

It was a heavily funded fever dream—idealism crashing head-on into thousands of years of ancient grudges. Somewhere, in a polished boardroom far from the blast radius, someone was always selling something. A new weapon. Always a new war.  A new enemy.  A new critical; emergency,  A training contract. A billion-dollar war toy. Or some tactical trinket no one needed and most couldn’t use. 

The War Sales Pitch

War, sold like a Ford truck—loud, patriotic, and built to break.

And the media? They’re not reporting the news. They’re a sales team in full costume. A propaganda machine dressed up in digital suits and hypnotic graphics, blasting you with sirens and countdowns and BREAKING NEWS banners until your nervous system fries. Everything’s urgent. Everything’s life or death. Everything’s the most important story in the world—until five minutes later when they pivot to something shinier. The idea that they’re just calling balls and strikes, serving up neutral facts? That ship sailed and sank a long time ago.

This isn’t journalism. It’s marketing. With better lighting and a teleprompter. They’re the new Barnum and Bailey—not 3-, but a 50-ring circus. Meaner. Slicker. Wired into your living room 24/7. They don’t want to inform you—they want to move you. To get you riled up, scared, righteous, tribal. Because emotion sells. Fear sells. War sells. And there’s big profit in blood, chaos, and “nation building.”

It’s like a carny at the county fair, rigging the milk bottle toss. Barking into the mic: “Step right up, folks! Knock over the Axis of Evil, win a sense of purpose!” The game’s unwinnable, but you’ll keep paying for another throw. They know exactly how to tilt the table. Hype the threat. Push the fear. Wrap it all in flags and music and moral urgency. And when the war’s rolling, they’ll sell you the next one too—new villain, new soundtrack, same damn script.

Every sale needs a villain, and America loves a sequel. So we got Saddam. “The new Hitler,” they called him—over and over. The phrase rolled off every anchor’s tongue like gospel. They justified the urgency. Justified the costs. Justified the body count. “We can’t be like Chamberlain.” That was the rallying cry. We’re not pussies. We’re not appeasers. We’re invaders—and you’ll wish like hell you’d kissed our asses on the lead-up a little better. But then again—hell no. If we decide we’re gonna invade your country, all the debate is just theater. We’re going in, and people are gonna die. That was the dog whistle—don’t be weak, don’t negotiate. Appeasement kills, remember? They dust it off every time, like a talisman against reason. The shadow of World War II always looms over these war cries. The great success, right? Okay—120 million dead, and half of Europe under the boot of Soviet Russia. Maybe—just maybe—it could’ve been handled a little differently. I’m just saying… war never really seems to have winners.

Then came the deeper fear-whispers—“fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here.” On the surface, it sounded strategic. Underneath? It was a moral shortcut. A sleight of hand that said their cities were acceptable battlegrounds. That their children were expendable. That their lives were worth less.

The pitch? Weapons of mass destruction. Mushroom clouds. Imminent threats. America had to act, they said. The world was watching. Saddam was the boogeyman of the hour. But what we actually found were gaudy, dust-choked palaces that looked like Liberace joined the military—gold faucets, marble columns, empty halls, shitty art. A regime in retreat, and a military that folded like a card table in a stiff breeze. The big bad wolf turned out to be a spray-tanned ghost hiding in spider holes.

And still, the show went on.

Freedom and democracy became branding slogans. A twisted mirage of purpose. Slick PowerPoints, confident pitches, five-star hotels, and Green Zone buffets. Contracts turned into coffins. Chaos turned into currency. Corporations didn’t invade Iraq—but they sure moved in afterward. With logos, timelines, and quarterly projections. Less liberation, more hostile brand takeover.

The media played its part. “Shock and Awe” wasn’t a strategy—it was a ratings stunt. War wasn’t just waged. It was broadcast. Polished. Sold. Sean Hannity counted down missiles like it was New Year’s Eve. Democracy was the bait. Profit was the hook.  If there is a more vile sight than people like Lindsey Graham with some media head mirroring his demonic lusting for killing, while just under camera frame they jerk each other off over the idea of death and destruction and people burning to death and collapsing buildings turned meat grinder while they sit in climate controlled studios in silk suits, I don’t know what it could possibly be.

And here’s the thing—they knew. The suits in D.C., the execs in glass towers, the generals playing chess with real blood. They knew there were no nukes hiding under Saddam’s mattress. No chemical warheads pointed at Des Moines. Look into the Seven wars in five years papers, yeah it too 25 be we are amazingly checking the final box with Iran right now.  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was momentum. Optics. Contracts. Votes. The re-election ad where a politician looked strong in front of a waving flag.

So they gave us the pitch. Flashy, fear-soaked, flag-wrapped. “Freedom is on the march.” “You’re either with us or with the terrorists.” Catchy slogans on a blood-soaked billboard.

But on the ground, the truth was uglier than any lie they could polish.

We kicked in doors to empty rooms. We fought ghosts. We watched a nation unravel like a cheap knockoff suit—threads snapping, seams popping, nothing underneath but dust and old vengeance. Tribal. Ancient. Biblical. You could feel it in the wind. This wasn’t a battlefield—it was a reckoning. The kind that had been coming for centuries. We were just the latest fools cast in the lead role of a play we didn’t write and didn’t understand.

Meanwhile, contractors got rich. Networks got ratings. Politicians got applause. And the rest of us got killed, wounded, shell-shocked, and spiritually gutted.

It wasn’t just a war. It was a showroom floor. A bloody parade of gear and slogans, of sand and smoke, of soldiers and suits all dancing around the same bonfire. They called it liberation. But it felt like a sale of our nations soul.

Because after a while, it didn’t just feel like a war. It felt like something else—something older, darker, deeper. You could almost feel it moving beneath the surface of the sand and contracts and policy briefings.

It felt biblical.

Not in the Sunday school sense—this was Revelation stuff. Beast and prostitute, end of day, other worldly reckoning stuff. The kind of spiritual filth that wears perfume and pearls while the world burns beneath her feet. The kind of evil that doesn’t scream—it seduces. That promises freedom while riding on the back of something built to destroy.

And I started to wonder… maybe that’s what we were watching unfold. Not just geopolitics. Not just bad intel and worse decisions. But the Whore of Babylon herself—cloaked in empire, drunk on blood, riding the Beast through the ruins of ancient Nineveh and Ur. Her golden cup overflowing with lies and opium and oil. Smiling on the TV screen while the bodies piled up outside the wire.

“With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” (Revelation 17:2)

It wasn’t just policy—it was seduction. Not just strategy—it was sorcery. The merchants of the earth getting rich off war contracts, while the soul of a generation got hollowed out. America, Rome, Babylon—take your pick. The spirit is the same. A false queen promising justice while riding shotgun on the Beast of war, greed, and domination.

And we—you and me and all the rest of the boots on the ground—we were somewhere between pawns and witnesses. Cogs in a spiritual machine that spoke the language of democracy but moved like a predator.

We were told we were bringing peace.

But I swear to God, some days it felt like we were feeding a dragon that was ripping at the chains to ravage the whole region, with violence and insanity.

Let me know if you want to connect this to your John of Revelation sculpture, the burning of your studio, or dig deeper into how that war cracked open your spiritual eyes. This is the terrain where your story becomes prophetic.

I was stepping through the looking glass. And I wasn’t the most qualified guy in the room as far as degrees and paper went—not by a long shot. No FBI résumé, no polished command staff background, a training Director of a big Police Academy. Just a street cop with a check the box associate degree in criminal justice and a can do attitude. But I worked. I showed up early. I took every job nobody else wanted. Volunteered for shitty assignments, knowing if you shine in shit people notice. I paid attention. And slowly, I became the guy they came to when they needed something done right.

What I found out—on a deeper, more profound level—is something I already knew: at the end of the day, everyone—and I mean everyone—is out to protect their own ass. Including me. That’s human nature at its most primal, stripped-back state and the more raw it get the more apparent that becomes.

After languishing in the wax tents for a couple of weeks, we finally jumped a convoy—making our way through the maze of Baghdad in a fast-action push. Blast walls. Barbed wire. Checkpoints. Danger around every corner—until we arrived at what would be our new home for the next year: The Baghdad Police College.

I’m pretty sure the people who named it were the same geniuses who came up with “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

The Flash and the Flowering

Later that week, when the threat of death hung in the air like a pressing force on your chest and the heat curled around your thoughts like smoke, I found myself thinking—I'm here for a year. A whole year. And it already feels like surviving this first week might be a miracle in itself. I was waiting for students. I was an AK-47 instructor at the time and happened to be looking a certain way when a giant car bomb went off—50 yards away, luckily just over a berm. For a moment, I stood in wonder. The awe-inspiring flash stretched a hundred yards long and high. The earth trembled, and you could feel the sizzling heat like opening a pizza oven on broil. When the fiery blast dissipated, there was a flowering of car parts in a black cloud of smoke—spinning bumpers and fenders, and whatever goes up must come down. “Cover!” came the yell. Car and artillery fragments rained down. Wham. Clang. Thump.

I’m sure the driver was a pink mist drifting away in the black-and-gray cloud, carried off on the hot breeze—maybe on his way to his promised bevy of virgins. For a second, it was like watching a mechanical firework show from hell—a macabre ballet of steel and heat, limbs and metal pirouetting midair, then slamming down with violent punctuation. The flowering of car parts had a strange beauty to it, like a bouquet from Satan himself, blooming red-hot and smoking against the pale desert sky. I remember thinking, this wasn’t a close call—it was a whispered warning from death himself, brushing by just close enough to rattle my bones and let me know he had my number on a slip somewhere in his pocket.  Damn I just got here.  

Some American contractors went to the blast site right after it happened. One I talked to that evening was particularly rattled. He kept saying, “They need bolt cutters back at that gate. you know the kind they use in gym lockers.” I asked why. Apparently, the blast had blown several Iraqi cops into coils of razor wire. And razor wire is aptly named. This isn’t the barbed wire that snagged your jeans as a kid. These were factory-stamped steel blades, scalpel-sharp on each end—designed to catch and to slice. Designed to rip deep into flesh.   Kind of a like the stray Chinese finger trap, this will shear you to the bone. The wire core itself was a hardened steel braid, nearly impossible to cut. These unlucky cops were still very much alive but trapped—entangled in it like tortured flies in a steel spiderweb. Any attempt to help only made things worse. After a few cut knuckles and torn gloves, the rescuers realized this stuff was way too strong for your average pocket Leatherman. Eventually, after the panic and screaming and blood, you just had to fall back—leave them there, tangled. Retreat into our side of the wall. Our side of the wire. Literally the stuff of nightmares.

The Mirror and the Mist

Suicide bombers. My friends, that’s a level of crazy that’s hard to even wrap your head around. When somebody’s number one dream in life is to kill your lily-white ass—and they’re willing to hit a switch that turns them into pink mist just for the chance to take you with them—that’s not just radical, that’s unhinged, that's a scary level of crazy. . It’s unsettling in a way that gets under your skin, past the body armor, and into your soul. And after a while, I came to believe—no, I was sure—they had more people willing to do it than they had bombs to give them. More volunteers than explosive vests. That’s how deep it went. That’s the kind of war we were in. That’s not politics. That’s not ideology. That’s obsession. That’s hatred so thick it clots the air. Many of these people hated us—and honestly, from their point of view, maybe they had reason. We rolled into their lives uninvited, kicked down their doors in the name of peace, and brought death in neat little packages labeled "freedom." Every family had lost someone. Every street corner was a scar.   As I mentioned earlier, people don't like change and hate radical change particularly when it come in such a violent form. They didn’t need propaganda—they had the smoke still rising. it would be safe to say these people think differently than we do. 

We brought in the most sophisticated killing machines the world has ever known—and we dropped it like a steel hammer on a porcelain society. We turned their world upside down with brute force, set up our own bases, built mini-kingdoms, and then told them it was for their own good. All of it, an affront to Allah, to their pride, to the ghosts of their ancestors. “We’re here to help,” we said, as missiles split the night sky. Yeah, thanks but no thanks. If this was peace, it came laced with shrapnel and lots of death.

I tried to flip the lens. I imagined it happening in my world. If Chinese tanks rolled into Colorado and parked on Main Street, if they set up checkpoints outside my church or busted into my house to ask about weapons—I’d probably become a terrorist too; yeah pretty much a 100 percent.   There’s that old saying—“one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” Yeah. True. Truth gets slippery in war. What side you’re on depends a lot on whose boots are on your neck.

The U.S. loves to talk about peace, but we’re a warring society. It’s in our bones. From the Revolution to the Gulf, we carry our patriotism like a flag and a sword. Still drunk on the high of winning World War II, we turned military-industrialism into a business model—built an empire on defense budgets, oil deals, and Fox news and CNN sound bites. Wave a flag, talk about democracy, toss in some fear—“fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”—and it sells like fast food. Quick, cheap, and deadly.  I was in a portable plastic shitter taking a leak and reading scribbles on the wall.  Someone had wrote "they don't want us here".  in another handwriting underneath someone had written "That's why we have Tanks" adding a smiley face. 

The Interpreter’s Warning

One day on the range, about a month into my time there, I was following the politics and knew they were about to ratify their new constitution. I mentioned it to one of the interpreters. I’ll never forget his knowing look.

“You think that’s going to make a difference here? Look… look at them…” he said, gesturing toward the hundred or so cadets picking up AK brass off the firing range in the 130-degree heat. They scrambled about in an unintelligent way, trying to find shell casings, and I got his drift.

“These are my people. I know these people. My people need a man like Saddam. You will see—mark my words. Nothing here is like the Americans think it is or wish it was. You will see....guaranteed.”

I was still new to the ways of this part of the world.  But still I wasn't naive, and knew the truth when I heard it delivered with calm conviction after being a cop for years.  It was that moment I sensed a shift in my optic.   But I would learn—just like the rest of the world would.

In that moment, watching those men bent under the weight of heat and habit, I saw the futility beneath the theater. They weren’t picking brass—they were combing the sand for meaning in a land soaked in blood.  And the interpreter’s words—“You will see- guaranteed”—stuck with me like a riddle or a prophecy. 

Double Boom

Double boom. I had just missed being killed by double suicide bombers on the campus. Well, I guess you could call it a campus—it was flimsy portable trailers surrounded by concrete and rebar blast walls. Not exactly the Ivy League. That was my usual meeting time. My students. My breath caught thinking of how close it had come. Same time. Same place. Different day.  It happened on a Monday I was there every Wednesday. Thursday and Friday.  Odds a sliver better than a coin flip. 

Around 75 were killed and double that number were horribly wounded. “Horribly wounded” is two simple words, but the reality of what intense fire and shrapnel bombs do to soft human flesh defies description.

Bomber #1 waited for a crowd of cadets to gather—BOOM. In the confusion, no one knew if it was a mortar, and everyone piled into the concrete bomb shelter. Bomber #2 followed them in—BOOOOM.

A buddy who was just around the corner told me it was “just piles of meat, guts, body parts, and bone shards tangled in rebar and charred concrete.”

Aftermath

I went to look the next day. I saw some pictures and videos just after it happened. In dark irony, a few small companies had sprouted up during the war to clean up after suicide bombings, and in classic Iraq fashion, it was a half-assed job half-done. There was still plenty of evidence of the horror that had unfolded the day before.  I couldn't help but put on my investigator hat looking at the evidence of pure and raw horror. . 

Yep, that blood and charred smear high up on the building wall? That was what was left of Bomber #1—his headless trunk had skipped by.

There were tracks of bloody handprints on the grounds or across a wall, dragging legs or stumps across the sidewalk. A lone shoe.  Half a bloody sock.   A buckled belt. A scorched piece of powder-blue uniform. Steel ball bearings that had chipped brick and mortar now lying quiet in the sand, sometimes glittering in the sun—like shrapnel stars from a new constellation of death.

School papers—bloody, burnt. Bits of flesh, fat, and blood splattered at high velocity across concrete walls. The walls of the bomb shelter, two feet thick and reinforced with iron rebar, now lay collapsed in a shattered hulk.

Weeks later they found the putrefying head of Bomber #1 a hundred yard away after it landed on the roof of a tin class room after a horrid smelling dripping was coming through the roof cooked day after day in the blazing Iraq sun. 

The day before, this place had been a hellscape of unspeakable horrors. Today, it was dead quiet. Dust devils danced under a relentless sun, lost in a pale blue sky.   For now death had moved on but he would be back. 

Dr. Doucebag

When you get a hundred or so ex-cops in a group, most are going to be good to okay guys, but you’re going to get some douchebags. There was a guy from Texas that I'm pretty sure, if we still had encyclopedias and turned to “douchebag,” he would be pictured—arms splayed from the sheer force of his hugeness and awesomeness. For the life of me I can't remember his name, but it was a douchebag name, so we’ll just call him Dr. D—short for Doctor Douchebag.

Dr. D  was a barrel chested guy with a gut impossible to suck in.  He had that kind of swaggering bravado that felt scripted. There was always something exaggerated and theatrical about him, like war-zone vaudeville wrapped in body armor.

This was the day of people exchanging thumb drives to get files for work or fun. Dr. D gave his thumb drive to a co-worker for a work file. When they opened it, they found another folder labeled "Attack videos" and downloaded that too. He expected real-life war scenarios, as we regularly shared such files. But what he found instead was so funny it's almost hard to describe.

Dr. D had collected a bunch of real-life attack videos—roadside bombs, ambushes—and killed the original audio. We had seen all of these clips numerous times. What made it hilarious was that Dr. D had overdubbed them with his own voice, complete with over-the-top acting and dramatic voice inflections, clearly meant to impress someone back home. Most were crafted for his wife or girlfriend.

It was hero cosplay with a soundtrack.   Set in the cab of an up-armored Tahoe navigating the 2004 Baghdad maze of blast walls, barbed wire, and checkpoints, “Hey babe, on the way to the airport to pick up some CIA guys. Really dangerous road. Kill some every week"—it looked like the airport road to me—the vehicle nears a dangerous stretch, then—BOOM—a roadside bomb hits and the Tahoe swerves. That’s when Dr. D, in his best fake-stressed voice, shouts, . OHHH SHIT! WHAT THE FUUUCK!”—timed perfectly with the blast.

His voiceover went on to describe his bravery under fire, how living day to day wasn’t a sure bet, how it took a special kind of man to stand strong in such a thunderstorm—and that man, of course, was him. Even if he perished that day defending America’s freedom, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. It was like a one-man Oscar reel for Best Performance in a Fantasy War Drama.  for someone who had tried so hard to be respected with little results, he became a legendary laughingstock. lots of funny shit happened in that crazy place and I chose to pick it out to add here.  This is a dick making a fool of himself that has decades long legs.  Literally you could scour the earth and not find a better persons for this to happen to. 

Another video showed him sneaking up to an active firing range. Gunfire rattled over the blast walls. All the while, Dr. D was narrating how he was “single-handedly approaching a terrorist breach,” again at “great personal risk.” He ends with, “Babe, I gotta turn off the camera now, I’m getting close… if I don’t come back, I love you. But I would give my life 100 times for America”—or some other horseshit like that.

One time there were a series of phone booths that you could use to call back to America, and in the next booth over I could hear someone going into graphic detail about an attack that they had supposedly survived the night before—gunfire, bodies, people dying around them. As I continued my own conversation, I thought, “Wow, must be a soldier from some base.”

We both walked out of our booths at the same time—and it was one of my own co-instructors. I knew for an absolutely positive fact that everything he had just said was a complete exaggerated extreme lie.

That moment crystallized something for me. I had gone out of my way to downplay the danger to my parents and loved ones. Not because I was trying to be mysterious or noble—it was just my nature. I didn’t want people worrying. I didn’t need to blow a trumpet every time something went sideways. Meanwhile, others were up-playing the danger. Because for them, this was it—the only time in their lives they’d get to be the hero, the brave one, the lion-hearted patriot. And in my experience, people who actually have those qualities—the real warriors, the real protectors—they don’t have to broadcast it. You just know.

Seeds of Chaos

People might say, “Yeah, we didn’t blow up the students". And that’s true. But we did bring the kind of chaos that made those things happen. We created chaotic vacuums that were filled by brutal sects and warlords vying for power.  We set the stage.  

Power is revered in the Middle East. It’s what ends up running societies—not voting booths or public debates. When I interacted with thousands of students, not once did I get stink-eye from the cadets. They saw me as the new power, the one running things. When in fact, I was just trying to teach them how to stay alive.

Not as a symbol of good-hearted, fair democracy. Not as the voice of the people. Iraq wasn’t perfect under Saddam. But is the West perfect? Are we?

These actions of war are marketed like lifestyle products—sold with sleek slogans, wrapped in emotional appeals. They prey on the good-hearted nature of Americans who want to bring freedom and stability, and they prey just as hard on our fears. It’s pitch-perfect marketing: “The next Hitler.” “Freedom on the march.” “Fight them there before they come here.” War sold like a luxury car—test-driven with patriotism, financed with fear. Each talking point polished like a dealership sales pitch. We weren’t buying freedom—we were sold a high-gloss illusion.

What many Americans don’t understand is that people in the Middle East don’t process information the way we do in the West. Their value systems, social hierarchies, and worldview are shaped by centuries of tribalism, honor codes, religious interpretation, and raw survival instincts. You can’t hand someone a ballot box and expect a Jeffersonian democracy to spring out of the sand.

I once saw graffiti scribbled on a cement blast wall. It said, “These people don’t want us here.” Someone else had scrawled the response beneath it: “That’s why we have tanks.” That about sums it up. A street corner philosophy war between a spray can and an Abrams tank. One scrawling truth in black paint, the other replying in cold steel.

The Culture of Inaction

A big part of the problem was structural. Iraq had a poor education system, cultural isolation, and very little upward mobility. The average Iraqi didn’t see a realistic path for advancement. That left large portions of the population—and most of the cadets I trained—listless, with no fire to improve their world. Survival, not progress, was the priority.

There’s a common saying in Iraq and the Muslim world: “Inshallah.” It means “God willing.” It’s used as a greeting, a farewell, and as a general placeholder in conversations. It reflects a deeply rooted cultural mindset: that outcomes are determined by divine will, not human effort. On one hand, it can be an expression of humility and faith. On the other, it can serve as an excuse not to act. I’d say, “Class starts at 1100 hours. You and your team need to be here.” And the response: “Inshallah.”

Maybe they’d show up. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe God willed them to visit their brother or nap or wander into another station. The cultural mindset often floated in a fog of “we’ll see.”

That stood in contrast to the way things work in the West, where timeliness, accountability, and personal responsibility are the foundation of any functioning system. In our world, when you say you'll be there at 1100, it means you're there at 1055. When you promise to deliver something, you're expected to follow through—or face consequences. But in Iraq, that structure didn’t always translate. Our systems ran on calendars and clocks; theirs often ran on relationships and rhythms. What we treated as deadlines, they saw as loose intentions. Where we relied on a chain of command, they leaned on chains of favors.

Another challenge was a reluctance to say “no” out loud. They’d agree to things just to save face—then not follow through. It became a constant guessing game. In the West, structure and systems rely on timelines and accountability. In Iraq, we tried to plug in that system like a square peg in a round hole. What we saw as deadlines, they saw as suggestions. What we called structure; they felt as imposition.

And layered beneath all of that was another cultural truth: their primary loyalties were not to Iraq. They were to tribe, to sect, to region, to religion, to family. These loyalties stretched back thousands of years and didn’t suddenly shift because the British once drew lines in the sand for commerce and control. Iraq as a nation-state was a modern concept imposed on ancient allegiances—and it showed.

On a personal level, I liked them—and they liked me. I’ve been a lifelong bodybuilder and I look the part of a movie SWAT guy. They respected that. They were quick to laugh, and I thrived in a high-energy classroom. It made for better teaching and learning. More fun. More valuable. I still look at photos from those days and remember faces. I wonder what happened to them.

There was one cadet who could draw world-class political caricatures—biting satire that rivaled any pro cartoonist. He was that talented. Some are surely dead. Some probably saw horrors I can’t imagine. And some, somehow, are still there—surviving and raising families in the ruins. I’ve traveled and engaged with the world on many levels, and I’ve come to see that beneath it all, people have more similarities than differences. Beyond just food, shelter, and safety—we all love our children. We all want a future. We all feel the pull of good over evil.

Layers of Security, Layers of Denial

After the double suicide bombing on campus, I approached my boss with a plan to establish an inner security system at the building we worked out of. I knew how the bad guys operated—they weren’t masterminds, they were opportunists. They’d eyeball a location, ask, “Is this soft or hard?” and pick the easier target. If they saw Americans in body armor with M4s? They’d just go somewhere else. Security wasn’t just a response—it was a deterrent.

My boss thought it was a great idea. I implemented morning and post-lunch security checks for the building, rotating responsibilities across our 40 police trainers. Five of them came up to me and said, “Thank God someone’s finally doing something.” The other thirty-five? You’d think I’d asked them to donate a kidney. For their one-week rotation, all they had to do was show up a bit early twice a day—and they bitched like I’d ruined their lives.

We weren’t in Kansas. We were in a warzone. But to them, routine was sacred—even if it risked lives. And here's what I noticed: the ones who complained the most were the same ones who were overweight, out of shape, and often the ones chain-smoking in the chow hall. And the chow hall had two sides—on one, grilled chicken, salads, seafood, fresh fruit. On the other, fried everything: corndogs, fries, onion rings. And guess where 80% of our “tactical professionals” lined up?

Still, my plan was approved, implemented, and our building was never hit—though others nearby weren’t so lucky. I also reinforced my own classroom. It was the first room off an open hallway—prime for an initial hit from a bomber or shooter. I got plywood from a favor and built up the inside walls. Installed a lock system that meant no one could burst in unannounced. That room was a soft target until I hardened it with intention.

But the strange thing? Some other trainers thought I was paranoid. That I was somehow a coward for taking precautions. That’s the twisted logic of people who have never actually been tested. I’ve been around real operators—guys who were “tacked down” and squared away. They don’t mock preparedness. They respect it. But to these guys? Planning for a threat meant you feared it. As if ignorance was some kind of bravery.

When I first arrived, I was assigned to the AK-47 training team. Each day, we’d muster inside our fortified compound and then ride a flatbed truck across open ground to the armory—a thousand-yard trip through no man’s land. Dirt mounds, trenches, blind spots everywhere. We were literally hauling crates of AKs through prime ambush territory.

I offered to get up early and walk the route before the team departed. Look for signs of tampering, fresh earth, potential traps. My idea was to scout and link up with them at the range. The team leader shot it down. His reason? “Some guys might think you’re trying to skip the loading detail.” That logic stunned me. Forget safety, forget tactics—God forbid someone think you’re avoiding manual labor. That mindset wasn’t just baffling—it was dangerous.

The Honor Killing

One day during class, I asked if anyone had a recent case they’d investigated. One student described what he called an “accidental” shooting. A young woman had been married off. Her new husband came back to her father days later, claiming she wasn’t a virgin. For the record, even trained doctors can’t say that with certainty—and this ignoramus sure couldn’t.

The father, in a fit of righteous fury, loaded up an AK-47, full magazine, and emptied all 30 rounds into his daughter. Afterward, they somehow determined she had in fact been a virgin. How they figured that out was unclear—this was Iraq, where so much defies logic. A country where forensic science and honor culture collide in a storm of ignorance.

The class debated whether it was an accident. Was it a misfire? A bad assumption? A justified act of honor? Not once did anyone mention the horror that a girl—who had once said “Daddy” as her first word—was now a bullet-riddled corpse, sacrificed to someone’s warped pride.

They spoke of it without shame. Casually. As though we were dissecting a fender bender. Some leaned toward “accidental.” Some thought the dad had been misled. They were totally sincere in their analysis, and they expected me to weigh in—should this be ruled a tragic mistake or righteous retribution?

I sat there, trying to keep the class moving, but inwardly I was staggered. It was like watching a cultural car crash in slow motion. You want to scream, but you whisper. Because whispers might still teach.

When teaching people like this, you can’t go full stop and scream, “You people are lunatics!”—even if your soul is doing just that. The minute you do, they shut down. Your well-founded points become pointless.

So you hold back. You become the detective interviewing a serial killer—feigning calm, trying to understand the monster, because there’s some value in hearing it think. Not because you agree. Not because you condone. But because to influence even a little, you have to stay in the room.

We tried to plant seeds, even knowing we weren’t wielding magic wands. There was an old saying: you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit. Still, we gave 100%. We hammered nails into crumbling walls, hoping maybe one would hold.

The administrators liked to say we were “building foundations” or “planting seeds for democracy.” But most of us knew we were just whistling into a thunderstorm of laziness, corruption, and centuries of tribal blood feuds.

Interpreters were usually the sharpest people in the room, and I asked mine what he thought of the case and my reaction. He looked at me sincerely and said, “Oh Sir, we are a country and a culture based on honor.”

So I guess it was the honorable thing to do.

The class debated whether it was an accident—was it a misfire or just a bad assumption? Not once did anyone mention the horror that this girl, who had once said “Daddy” as her first word, was now a bullet-riddled corpse sacrificed to some warped idea of honor.

What was even more surreal was how casually the debate unfolded. They treated it like a broken taillight or a parking infraction. There was a strange academic calm to the discussion—as if the only thing that mattered was whether protocol had been followed. To them, the execution of their own flesh and blood was somehow debatable.

I sat there watching the room, struck by how foreign the mental wiring was. These weren’t psychopaths—they were ordinary men shaped by a tribal ecosystem where the family name outweighed human life. Where female bodies were currency, and honor meant blood. It was like trying to teach empathy to a calculator.

And that was the real cultural divide. In the West, we’re not perfect, but we build monuments to love, liberty, and even rebellion. Over there, they build monuments to obedience, loyalty, and revenge. It’s a society forged in the iron mold of shame and pride—where perception means everything and humanity often means nothing.

It felt like looking at humanity through a cracked mirror. You see the familiar shapes—fathers, daughters, justice—but twisted, distorted. In that classroom, I wasn’t just teaching; I was witnessing a civilization trying to pass off ancient tribal vengeance as modern legal process.

And the strangest part of all—they shared this with me completely unashamed. As if we were simply analyzing case law. They expected me to chime in with my thoughts, maybe offer some insight about whether the act qualified as an “accident.” Like I might weigh in on whether the weather caused a car crash, instead of recoiling in horror at what had just been normalized.

When teaching people like this, you can’t go full stop screaming, “You people are lunatics!” or the class shuts down. Your well-founded points become pointless.

You become the detective interviewing a serial killer or child rapist. You keep them talking—not just to teach them, but because you’re morbidly fascinated.

We tried to plant lessons, even knowing we couldn’t change a whole culture. We weren’t wielding magic wands. There was a saying in Iraq: you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

Still, I went 100%, did my best, and let the chips fall where they may.

The admin liked to say we were “planting seeds.” But everyone with half a brain knew we were whistling into a thunderstorm of laziness, corruption, and backward thinking.

Interpreters tended to be the smartest people around. I asked mine what he thought about the “accidental shooting” and my reaction. He replied firmly, “Oh Sir, we are a country and culture based on honor.” So call me stupid—I guess it was the honorable thing to do.

The Witch of Babylon"

Babylon the Great... the dwelling place of demons... the mother of prostitutes... and abominations of the earth. — Revelation 17:5

When I first started writing this, I thought it would be an interesting Iraq side story—just one of those strange, almost-forgotten things that happened downrange. One of my favorite things about writing or sculpting or any creative endeavor is that you have to engage on a deeper and more meaningful level. You spend more time with it. You think about it. You explore ideas and concepts—discovering things previously hidden or simply yet undiscovered. I'm still trying to wrap my head around what was revealed.  Whoa.  As God is my witness this is all true. 

But as I kept writing, it wasn’t just remembering—it was like the pages of the Book of Revelation were opening up in front of me. Layer by layer. Verse by verse. This wasn’t just memory—it was a revelation in the true sense of the word. Things I’d buried or faded with time twenty years ago came roaring back with a clarity I wasn't expecting—not just as events, but as warnings, symbols, spiritual battles I hadn’t known I was part of. Until now.

At the time, I felt uneasy, a weird happenstance. The edge. But I didn’t have the words for it. I didn’t have the eyes to see what I was walking into.

I can see it now.

But now, years later, something in me knows. This wasn’t just a seduction. It wasn’t just a woman. It wasn’t just war.

This was Babylon.

There’s something about Iraq that never sits right in the soul. You feel it the moment you step off the plane. The heat slaps you, the dust gets in your teeth, and the silence between blasts feels ancient. But it’s more than war, blast walls, choppers, and razor wire. Sword, shield, and sling had been replaced by AK-47s and suicide bombers. Same idea—armed men killing each other.  Its history is a bloody one. 

But it’s beyond that.

There’s more. It’s deeper. It’s something older. Ancient. Timeless. Spiritual. Unsettled.

This is Babylon. Of all the places on earth, my boots were in the dirt of fallen Babylon.  My path had led me to war.  I breathed its air. Felt the blistering sun. This is where the greatest spiritual battles in human history were fought and lost. Where dark and light fight in the ebb and flow of good and evil. This was a war in full stride, and I found myself in the middle of it in more ways than I realized then.

Babylon is not just the ruins or the maps—I mean spiritually. Biblically. Eden, Babel, Nineveh, Ur—the bones of the Bible are buried here. The Tigris and Euphrates still slither like ancient reptiles through a land soaked in blood and memory. God once walked this soil. So did the serpent.  The lands of first man and first sin. And ever since the Fall, it’s been contested ground. You can feel it in the hot wind. It doesn’t just blow dust—it presses in. Heavy. Dirty. Gritty. Like carrying messages in a language older than speech. The sun beats down, but there’s always something cold just underneath it—something unsettled. Old curses and forgotten names.

From the beauty and promise of the Garden of Eden, to the unleashing of sin, to the storms of judgment, this land shifted from divine birthplace to a place of eternal spiritual unrest—or all-out demonic thunderstorms. A lot of blood—real and spiritual—has been spilled into this dirt. And much of the blood, conquest, and defeat in that ancient story came from men who believed their deaths or the violence they spread were Holy. Righteous.

Sometimes I’d look across the blood-red sun setting and hemorrhaging across the burning flame of the horizon and know I was staring into the beginning of time. The nucleus of it all. I knew Eden was out there, once a lush paradise now burned into the dust. The land didn’t just feel ancient—it felt alive and ancient. And watching. Not with eyes—but with judgment. Scorched Earth that remembered.

We had a guy on our team—a powerful preacher named Paul. The real deal. He gave full-hearted sermons on base, filled with love, fire, and truth. A natural, charismatic energy of a man chosen to spread the Word. One of those glowing Christians. Honestly, he could’ve led a megachurch following of thousands, but some days it was just me and him. Didn’t matter—he preached like he was speaking to a stadium or at the Gates of Heaven. And I was listening.

It became a powerful place for me to explore the beauty of Christianity—something that would later become central to my life, in more than just a spiritual sense. Later in life, many creative blessings came upon me—truly out of nowhere. Sculpting. A way with words. Ideas. A compulsion to take action and spread the Word of Christianity had been thrust upon me. But reflecting, I can see clearly that God had been placing building blocks—skills and abilities—stone by stone, brick by brick, thought by thought throughout my entire life, preparing me for this part of my journey. Unknown to me at the time, but crystal clear now.

I didn’t know where it would all lead—I just knew I wanted to go deeper. And when you’re living in a war zone, refining your relationship with God is never a bad idea.

Soldiers, contractors, and other armed vagabonds drifted through that war. Some would join our little Christian circle. Some curious. Some seeking peace, grace, forgiveness—or whatever it was they needed from God.

One day, a young soldier showed up. He said he’d been woken by the mortar siren the night before, but never heard an explosion. Figured it was a false alarm. Went back to bed. The next morning, he found out a mortar had hit the tent next to his—close enough that if it had gone off, it would've killed him and half his squad. It pierced the tent top struck the floor and bounced landing between the legs of a sleeping soldier.

A dud.

He figured it was a good day to go to church.

It wasn’t uncommon for mortars to be duds. These insurgents weren’t James Bond. Most mortars have to spin in flight to arm the fuse and need to be fired from a rifled mortar tube. A lot of these Einstein's didn’t know that and would just grab a plumbing pipe. Some just went clunk on arrival.   And some went boom right when the "Ali Akbar" was chanted to send it on its way and instead turning them into a pink mist.  Deadly munitions in hands of someone that doesn't know how to tie bootlaces can have have mixed results.    Still—you don’t want to bet your life on some Jihadi not having his shit together.

For a few weeks, we were joined by a ten-man mobile security unit—“Shark Team.” Just the name carried weight. These guys were Samoan and looked like they’d stepped out of another era—massive, ancient-warrior types. Six-four, three hundred pounds, geared up in armor and toting machine guns. On sight, they were extreme apex predators.

As intimidating as they looked, bombs would’ve ripped them apart like anyone else. But the Iraqis—insurgents, foreign fighters—often saw the world through a more primal lens. These were ancient people, steeped in tribal memory, myth, and power dynamics. Word had traveled for centuries through the old silk routes—tales of island savages from the South Pacific who were said to be cannibals and headhunters. They never expected to see one in the middle of the desert… until now. And there they were.

It’s one thing to get killed. It’s another to get eaten or your head taken as a trophy.

To them, the Shark Team looked like a squad of otherworldly, heavily armed Goliaths—giant warriors sent by fate or force. It didn’t matter that a well-placed IED could kill anyone; the sheer visual presence of these armored titans moving through the city stirred something old in the local psyche. Fear. Myth. Reverence. They weren’t just men—they were dark omens of death.

And now, through the haze and rubble, came these silent giants, heavily armed., combat knives and dripping with ammo—tattooed, towering, moving with an prophetic calm. To the locals, it wasn’t just firepower and muscle. It was prophecy. Like something older and more vengeful than war had come back around.

But in spirit? Gentle giants. These were men of faith—Christians through and through. They’d sit in stillness during Paul’s sermons, holding their Bibles—books that looked like playing cards in their massive hands—yet handled Scripture with the reverence of monks. The image stayed with me: Paul preaching to warriors. Not unlike the original Paul, speaking to Roman soldiers and centurions. The message of Christ once traveled down the spear shafts of empire—and now, here it was again, threaded through rifle slings and combat vests.

The contrast was powerful. The Shark Team brought an energy that was both fierce and reverent. Strength on the outside, submission on the inside. It reminded me that God’s Kingdom doesn’t just call the meek and broken—it also calls the strong and the dangerous. Not to tame them, but to redirect them. To show them true power.  Soldiers for Christ, willing to march into hell for a Heavenly cause.

Isiah 6:8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

In this part of the world, superstitions run deep. Always has and always will. It’s a land where ancient demons, desert jinn, and blood-stained folk tales still haunt the shadows of every alley. Where curses and vengeance echo through time. A place where people glance twice at smoke and whisper warnings about spirits and old curses.

And if you looked around back then, it wouldn’t take much to believe the gates of hell had cracked open. Armies of demons were on the loose. Madness was in the air.  Death and atrocities masquerading as righteous and even Holy danced with wild abandon. You’d seen tanks, choppers, and lots of men with guns… but something old and evil was running wild through broken Babylon once again.

“Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” —1 Peter 5:8

We were living on the Baghdad Police College compound—a dusty maze of squat buildings, blast walls, razor wire, and gun towers. The air was haunted by the call to prayer from surrounding mosques, punctuated by the clatter of machine gun fire and the warm booms of explosions near and far. There were barely any women around—maybe a few passing through with Army units, and none exactly beauty queens—but after months, you stopped noticing or caring. Your mind hardened into mission-mode.

Then one day, I was in the gym, hammering out a workout, and this woman stepped up beside me and smiled.

I had seen her—and so had everyone else—when she walked into the chow hall over the past couple of days. Hourglass figure. Tailored uniform. Clearly designed to show off her curves. She knew she was attractive under normal conditions—but in a place where everyone in the room was sex-starved and a stateside 3 was now a 10, she knew exactly the kind of attention she was stirring up. She was Lucille washing a soapy car in Cool Hand Luke in front of a chain gang. 

She wasn’t just attractive—she was radiant. Thick, glossy raven-black hair, bundled up but ready to fall like a shimmering sheet halfway down her back. Classic beauty. Full lips. Long eyelashes, Perfect white teeth. She had that look—the kind women know gives them  power over men—and she wielded it like a seductive song.   In this place it was a superpower. She told me she was from Kuwait, working as a translator for a Marine colonel. She laughed easily with her hand on my arm. Made flirty eye contact. And she was clearly interested. It caught me off guard. Anything like this seemed impossible 

"For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” —2 Corinthians 11:14

Early in the deployment, I’d asked one of the seasoned contractors what gets guys booted from missions. He didn’t hesitate; drinking, temper, women. I didn’t drink. I kept my cool. But women? That had always been my Achilles’ heel. So I made a private vow—this year would be one of discipline. A spiritual reset. Not that I had a chance anyway. We were all doomed to celibacy. It was just part of the gig.

Still, when she invited me for a walk that night, I said yes—knowing full well it meant something. It felt a little... or maybe a lot... risky. Really, my only thought was not wanting to get into mission trouble and a twinge of guilt letting lust cloud my Christian journey. I hadn’t been told “no women” outright, and I was looking for wiggle room and justification. Shit, brother—I could get killed here. This might be my last chance. We’re consenting adults. What could it hurt?  This could be a great oasis in the daily risk, pressure and drudgery of this dangerous shit hole.  “ You got this.....were cool....we can handle our shit.”

We talked. Laughed. Strolled the perimeter under the watchtowers, the razor wire glittering under floodlights. But something about the night felt... heavy. 

She took my hand as we walked. I was paranoid someone would see us, so I guided us away from the beaten path—into the darker, shadowy, more remote parts of the compound. It felt dangerous, and I thought that danger was just fear of being seen. The base rumor mill would explode the second anyone caught wind.

But now, reflecting back, that feeling of unease was something much deeper—and far more dangerous.  I was being lured into a trap.  I could sense it, feel it, but the bait was too irresistible.

Then she turned to me and said:

“You know, I’m a witch.”

She half-smiled.

I laughed it off.

But it didn’t land like a joke.

We got back to her hooch. She stepped close to me, lifting her chin, and we started kissing. She lay back on the bed—moonlight coming in through the window. I was lying across her, my hands caressing her hips and breasts. Okay, I’d been down this road before, and while there are differences, some things are the same. I don’t think I noticed it clearly at the time, but something felt off. In reflection—she wasn’t making the small sounds and sighs of passion when a woman’s body is being touched with intention. I wasn’t checking boxes in the moment, but I remember now—she was silent.

Then I saw  I saw her eyes.

Black. Wide open. Not blinking. Emotionless. Still. Like glass. Bottomless. Liquid.  Blank.  This was all happening in just a few minutes... maybe five.

During our kissing, she started biting at my lips—just a little bit too hard. Then her tongue touched mine. And it wasn’t smooth. It was rough. Like a cat’s tongue.

My whole body recoiled. Something primal in me screamed: Get the fuck out. Now!.

I made an excuse, stood up, and walked out into the night. My heart was racing—but not from arousal. From “what the fuck was that?”

I remember quickly walking back to my hooch with a deep sense of relief. Like I had just skipped down the gallows stairs. When I got back, my roommate said, “So what happened, lover boy?” Then his look shifted. “Hey… you cool?” I remember saying, “You don’t even want to know.”  Iraq was the kind of place where, when someone says that, you don’t ask again.

Throughout it all, I’d had a sense of trouble. I wrote it off at the time as fear of getting in hot water with the mission—some disciplinary infraction. But looking back, that feeling was something deeper. Something spiritual. A primal instinct. God gives us free will, but He also sends warnings. Give us tests. Not as way to condemn but to make us into better people through trial, struggle and understanding and teaching us to set more paths forward. nudges, whispers or sometime a yank back from the abyss.   Becoming better.  We are made in God image and he wants us to live up to that amazing gift.  And Satan lurks about doing everything he can to make sure we struggle with or fail those tests.  Many people wallow in a satanic life, embrace it, he doesn't need to bother with them they are already in the bag.  He and his demons and wormwood look for those that are trying to live in the Light and even more those trying to promote that Light to others.  They become prime targets. 

Like the phone call on the Tarmac that probably saved my life—literally a call from God. Or the fire that consumed my home and studio—another event clearly touched by dark forces. Or a feeling of unrest you just can’t shake. The closer you are to God, less sin more clarity, the easier it is to see those messages for what they are.   Sometimes God whispers, and sometimes He yells—and we’ve got to listen, not just to the parts we want to hear.

I never saw her again.

In the weeks that followed, the memory wouldn’t let go. But life moves fast. Weird shit had happened to me before—and this was a strange place.

Then came the sign. It was midday. I was walking to the range by myself. Bright desert sun. I looked up and saw a pigeon flying toward me. But this one wasn’t like the usual gray, dull birds swarming the city. This one was pure white. Clean. Alone. I’m a lover of nature, and taking time to notice and appreciate beautiful things is part of my journey and stopped to watch it.

As it passed, it banked low overhead above me. I saw a smear of red running down its side.

Blood.

It was the only pure white pigeon I’d seen—or would see—the entire deployment. I remember muttering to myself, That was blood. It didn’t seem injured. It just flew past and vanished into the haze. But that image burned into me. A symbol I couldn’t explain—but couldn’t ignore.  Remembered.

For a long time, I chalked it up as just another strange occurrence in a strange place. Something about that bird stuck with me, sure—but I didn’t dwell on it. I made no connection. Just shook my head and thought, Whoa… that was weird. Just another odd ripple in the dark waters of Babylon. 

Because make no mistake—this was Babylon. Fallen ground. A haunt for violence. A furnace of corruption.

Revelation 18:2 hits different when your boots were in that dirt, when the fleeting ideas of satanic evil had manifested itself in flesh and blood the horror of war on the ground you tread, live and lay your head to rest. 

“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.”

That verse described the air I breathed.  The dread around you dressed up as a noble cause.

But not that bird.

I didn’t fully see it until I sat down to write twenty years later. Two decades of distance. And suddenly, it hit me.

It wasn’t unclean. It wasn’t defiled. It was pure.

A white bird—marked with blood.

“Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare... He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge.” —Psalm 91:3–4

Frozen in my mind now, framed in a hazy powder blue sky.

Not a curse. A message.

Not the whore of Babylon’s bird... But Heaven’s.

The blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit. Right there in front of me.

That was the sign.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” —John 1:5

All that time, it registered wrong. I looked at light and didn’t recognize it. It did feel like an dark omen. But it was light. I didn’t know where I fit—but I remembered.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness…” —Isaiah 5:20

That verse cuts differently when you realize it’s talking about you. How many times have you read scripture and felt like it was written just for you? Specifically.  It’s that kind of book. That kind of message. It’s personal. It’s supposed to be.

Now I know. That bird wasn’t some random oddity. It was a flare from Heaven. A whisper through blood and feathers:

“Pay attention. I’m still here.”

“How much more will the blood of Christ... purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” —Hebrews 9:14

That wasn’t just poetic. That was what I’d walked through. A demon in a beautiful disguise. A moment that wasn’t just temptation, it was seduction by something ancient.

I was tempted.

I was targeted.

I was tested- I failed. God saved me as he had many times before.

Babylon’s daughter, still prowling the ruins.

“The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet... holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations... and on her forehead was written a name of mystery: 'Babylon the Great, Mother of Prostitutes and of Earth’s Abominations.’” —Revelation 17:4–5

What I thought was just a strange night twenty years ago started to come back sharper with time. Not as a weird memory. As a spiritual warning. Because Babylon isn’t gone. The demons that whispered at Eden’s edge, that danced at Babel’s fall, that filled the whore’s cup in Revelation—they’re still active. Still charming. Still looking for cracks.

And that night, they found one. I was weak. And once again, God saved my ass.

It reminds me of Samson. Strong as any man God ever made—brought to his knees not by armies, but by one woman. Delilah didn’t need a sword or a battle cry. She used a soft sigh. Seduction. Lust. And like me, Samson knew better. But strength, wits, and a lifetime of confidence had always ruled the day. He thought, I got this. So did I.

But he let the line blur. He trusted Delilah—and it nearly cost him everything.

I was strong too. Savvy in violence, weapons, threat detection—always on guard. But I allowed a venomous serpent slip in through the back shadows, wrap its coils around me—cloaked in seduction and dark intent, hunting for my soul. And I let it. I dropped my physical and spiritual guard. I welcomed it with passion and lust on my mind.

And like Samson, I almost paid the ultimate price.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world…” —Ephesians 6:12

Some spirits don’t come at you head-on. They come through a smile. A lock of black hair in the wind. A look. A hand in yours. A caress. A whisper in the dark.

“She has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men.” —Proverbs 7:26

That night in Baghdad, I wasn’t facing just temptation—I was facing Delilah with a demon behind her eyes.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me… —Psalm 23:4

That night in Babylon, by God’s grace, I walked away.

Through shifting shadows, through lusty fire, through dark charm. Through a kiss that wasn’t human and a look that has never left my minds eye. Not because I was brave—But because God never left my side. 

"But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one."—2 Thessalonians 3:3

I had survived men trying to kill me—and something more ancient than men.  Not just bullets and mortars, but forces that slithered beneath the surface, venomous coiled with intent, whispering in old tongues, promises, curses. Somehow, my journey had armed me for battle and led me to Babylon—a timeless land of smoke and mystery, of blood and power, conflict and vengeance. A furnace of gods, ghosts and witches where kingdoms rose and crumbled like sandcastles in the breath of eternity. A place where wars raged not only between armies, but within the quiet chambers of the human soul. Over thousands of years, I was just another armed intruder carrying a weapon of war, boots treading dust soaked with history, violence, and judgment looking to find my way.

Across deserts and war zones, over the bones of empires and the ruins of sin, Christ’s light spreads. I’ve bet my life—my art, my words, my mission—on the truth that the light of Christ and the love of God are stronger than the forces of darkness. Every sculpture God makes through me, every song I write, every story I tell—it’s a flare against the darkness. A Holy rebellion.  But that flare, that light is worldwide, its eternal and the light of single candles has turned raging fire of Christ love that has spread to ever dark corner of the world.  That light has not faded for thousands of years and only grows stronger with time. 

The same kind of holy rebellion we witnessed 2,000 years ago. Make no mistake—Christ and His disciples were outlaws.  Rebels. Tough men enduring the harsh elements—wind, blistering sun, cold desert nights, and hunger.  They defied the ruthless power of Rome and the religious elite, playing the most dangerous game. Christ bore His cross—His crucifixion—without complaint, without regret, never losing sight of His message of love and redemption. His last earthly thought was forgiveness for His oppressors.  All his disciple died martyrs’ death the love of Christ the last word on their tortured lips. That’s real power. The kind of power that brings Samoan warriors to their knees in prayer. The kind that rewrites the human heart and soul. His message swept across every known corner of the globe.  The world has never seen anything like it. Not even close.

Christ changed the course of human history more than any figure ever has—by a long shot.  Its Supernatural it has to be.

A flame raised high in the face of shadows. A light brighter than a million suns. The truth more vast than all the galaxies. The Alpha. The Omega. The First. The Last. The Everything. And once again—He forgave me. He had my back.

Most think the threat is always out there—terrorists, politics, bullets, economies. But the real battlefield is quieter. It’s the soul, when no one’s watching. When a beautiful woman leans in. When a dream stirs something buried. When a symbol reaches into your memory and taps something primal. That’s where wars are won or lost.

“These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and King of kings—and those who are with Him are called, chosen, and faithful.”

—Revelation 17:14

But even in a place like this—scarred and scorched by time—hope remains.

Babylon may be fallen, but eternity is not.

Because the love of Christ stretches even here.

And Heaven doesn’t flinch.

“No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.—Isaiah 54:17

 Antiwar Reflections

Through my experiences in war zones and conflict areas, I’ve become strongly antiwar. If our solution to diplomatic problems is to send in weapons of destruction—manned by people tasked with killing under the banner of good—then we need a different approach. These are real people. These are real lives. These are real stories. Death and destruction are not solutions; they are problems in themselves.

They say a million Iraqis died. That’s not just a number. For each one, there is a story. I’ll give you an example.

There was a translator I worked with—an older man, elegant and refined. Silver-haired and always in a suit jacket when a polo shirt would do. He had once worked at a university, possibly as a teacher or professor. Now, he translated for us. He told me about a religious march or festival his son had attended. It had been attacked by double suicide bombers. They were crossing a bridge when it happened. Hundreds were killed. In the chaos, many were thrown off the bridge or jumped, panicked. Many drowned.

His son was one of them. The old man, after class every day, would go down to the river, walking the banks looking for his son. He told me one day—without me asking why—“It seems kind of hopeless for me to find my son. But my wife… she doesn’t talk anymore. She only cries. And I can’t bring myself to tell her I’ve given up. So I go. I will keep going… until who knows when.”

These are the real tragedies of war—not victories, not medals, not speeches about democracy. Real grief. Real silence. A man dragging his soul down the riverbank because it’s the only thing he can still do for his wife.  Lives broken, unrepairable black grief.

I grew up in Cold War America. The Russians were portrayed as cartoon villains—stone-faced brutes with red flags and clenched fists, bent on taking over the world. We lived in constant fear of nuclear war, duck-and-cover drills, and the looming threat of mushroom clouds. Patriotism was the air we breathed, and suspicion of the “enemy” was baked into everything.

I look back at 8mm Christmas films from my childhood, and it hits me: every year, as a boy under ten, I unwrapped some new plastic machine gun with a grenade launcher or other toy of war. Helmets, rifles, walkie-talkies. We weren’t just playing soldier—we were training to believe that war was normal, even noble. Little boys marching through living rooms with plastic firepower, dreaming of glory before we could spell it.

We didn’t see the contradiction. That same society told us to love thy neighbor and say our prayers, while feeding us a steady diet of televised violence and Cold War bravado. We were baptized in G.I. Joe and nightly news body counts. Looking back, it’s clear: war wasn’t just a possibility—it was a product, and we were its youngest customers. And make no doubt about it, we were being conditioned to fight future wars not even dreamed up yet.

I remember watching the Vietnam War on the nightly news when I was little. Grainy footage of real firefights, burning villages, men dragging wounded comrades—all of it. And it didn’t look that different from the most popular movies of the time. Explosions, action, bravery under fire. It all blended together. War looked exciting. Even righteous. Hollywood and the headlines shared a script.   But I sensed it's real violence even at that age.  A friends older brother kind of picked on me and I use to think I hope they send him to Vietnam.

I remember visiting a schoolmate’s house—maybe I was eight years old. In the living room was a folded American flag in a wooden and glass case. Next to it was a photo of a young man in an Army uniform, a single candle burning beneath a crucifix draped in rosary beads. My friend pointed and said, "That was my brother. He was a soldier."

I looked around the room—family portraits on the wall, everyone smiling in their Sunday best. An intact family.  That young man had once been part of that picture, handsome and full of life. Now he was gone. Dead. No family of his own. All that he could have been—his children, his future—wiped out. For what? No great reason. No great cause. Just another sacrifice offered to the demon of war.

The older I get, the more I question it all. The more I learn, the harder it becomes to find any good reason to take these actions—to kill and be killed, to destroy and be destroyed—all for someone else's strategy, someone's policy, someone else's idea of necessary. Let’s face it: our politicians are much closer to stone-cold fools than geniuses. War is so extreme—really, nothing is more extreme—and it should be absolutely the most reluctant, last resort imaginable. Yet somehow, it’s always the favorite choice. Some of these politicians have demon souls on full display, yet they somehow walk the halls of Congress and not the Caverns of hell where they belong. 

And now, living in Thailand, I interact with many Russians daily. I see their families, their kids—these little ones with laughing eyes and wide smiles. Truly, they are some of the most beautiful children I’ve ever seen—and I’ve traveled the world. The men and women are handsome, proud and polite. They laugh with their kids, hold hands with their spouses, and go about their lives like any other decent people just trying to find peace and purpose.  And brazenly demonic politicians crow about the disaster in Ukraine they created, and money well spent "Killin' Russians"

I watch them and think: the idea that I would have a reason to want to kill these people is utterly unfathomable. Maybe that’s the difference—here, I see them. I share sidewalks with them, shop next to them, hear their voices. They’re not pixels on a screen or faceless enemies in a military brief. They’re not propaganda or ideology. They’re people. And once you see the person, the war makes even less sense.

My takeaway is this: war is a demonic force in the highest regard. That dark force doesn’t care who wins or loses—it just wants to continue. It thrives on fear and division, whispering into the minds of leaders and common men alike that war is righteous, heroic, even necessary. It cloaks itself in flags and anthems, medals and speeches, but underneath it’s the same ancient parasite—feeding on youth, on hope, on humanity itself.

It doesn’t care who fires first or who buries more dead. It doesn’t want peace treaties or war crimes tribunals. It only cares that the killing continues. That it is remembered, glorified, and repeated. And when we don’t stop to question the drumbeats, when we call destruction "defense",’ we are feeding the very thing that wants to destroy us all, demonic forces and giving plenty of reasons for others to attack us only way they can.  

War is not a noble solution to complex problems. It is the failure of imagination, the surrender of compassion, and the ultimate triumph of darkness masquerading as light.

I don’t want to ride too noble a horse here. They paid me well, and I saw a lot of opportunity for a path forward. I worked hard to make a difference and to show I was a guy who could accomplish things when given impossible tasks. “Ted, we don’t think this is going to work—but D.C. wants it, and you’re the best chance we’ve got.”

I painted a wall-sized eagle backed by the Iraqi flag, emblazoned on the chest plate of our training unit—so students could stand in front of it for maybe the only picture that would hang in their village home. A photo not taken in front of a blast wall or overflowing dumpster, but something proud. Something that might last.

This was the start of my overseas odyssey. And to make peace with myself, knowing many of these efforts were futile, I gave 100 percent. I always tried to add a safety lesson—something that might just save a life, save an empty chair at a home. 

But I also tried to bring some levity to training. After lunch some days, to get some energy back in the room, I’d show a few short funny videos—pure slapstick, no connection to police training. They loved it. They laughed like kids. In many ways, they were almost childlike in this regard.

One day I asked them: “Would you rather I teach you something I KNOW will help improve your safety and your chances of staying alive—guaranteed—or would you rather watch more funny videos?” The rousing vote was for more funny videos.

We went back to the training, and I thought, as I had thought a thousand times before: This is a strange place.

This didn’t happen to me, but it came from a good friend of mine, and I believe it to be true—it sounds right on target. He told me about a group of 100 Iraqi cadets he worked with. They were all issued a Glock 9mm, two extra magazines, 50 rounds of ammo, and a gun belt. All were Baghdad police officers. After a month, they were supposed to return to the academy and requalify.

When the time came, only four of the original 100 cadets showed up with their pistols, gear, and ammo. Four. They ran a firing qualification—which was extremely easy, the kind where I could train a random person off the street to pass in five minutes. Three out of the four managed to qualify.

A guy from the analysis team, someone whose job it was to send updates back to Washington, was there. My friend saw this as a complete failure. But the analyst? He spun it another way. “So,” he said, clipboard in hand, “it would be accurate to report that 75% of the properly equipped Iraqi officers qualified on their requalification.”

My friend just blinked at him. “Well… I guess that’s technically true.”

“Perfect,” the guy said, nodding, and walked off, clipboard in hand.

War is strange. There are rules, but no order. Logic rarely survives first contact. Some people rise to greatness—whatever that means in war—killing more without getting killed, rescuing somebody who never should have been put in peril. Some just survive. Some don’t.

Some of what I saw felt biblical. Other moments felt like Monty Python in a flak vest. It was horror and slapstick, a fever dream with tracer rounds. Somewhere between Apocalypse Now and a drunken episode of Cops. Every day you held a clipboard in one hand and a Glock in the other, trying to teach, trying to stay sane, trying to leave a trace of good in a place where even time itself seemed confused.

I tried to believe. I tried to help. Tried to teach them not to die, even if it was with a lesson buried between dick jokes and slapstick videos. Sometimes they learned. Sometimes they didn’t. And sometimes, they just wanted more funny videos.

So yeah, this was the start of my overseas odyssey. And to make peace with myself, I gave 100 percent. Even when it felt like throwing life preservers into a river full of crocodiles.

The real tragedy of war? It isn’t strategy briefings, or even the bodies. It’s the absences. The son that never comes home. The grandkids never fathered. The empty chair at Christmas. It’s the man walking the riverbank every night looking for a son he knows he’ll never find. It’s the school photo with one smile missing forever.

You survive it, if you’re lucky. You make peace, if you can. You drink, laugh, teach, pray. And when that’s not enough, you write it down.

Because if you don’t tell it straight, someone else will tell it crooked.

And if all that’s left is your story, it damn well better be true.