0:00

[Music] Tanner Iskra: Oh, let's get it. Monday, August 23rd, 2021. Borne the Battle brought to you by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. The podcast that focuses on inspiring Veteran stories and puts a highlight on important resources, offices, and benefits for our Veterans. I'm your host, Marine Corps Veteran Tanner Iskra. However you're listening to Borne the Battle, be it Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iTunes, iHeartRadio, the player inside the blog, hope you're having a good week outside of Podcast Land. What a past week and a half watching the news unfold in Afghanistan. If you haven't heard it, I said what I needed to say what I needed to say on last week's bonus episode, and I think the VA, the fact that I have this podcast to work through all the emotions that came with the news and what I was seeing on my timelines, on my social media timelines. Just a reminder in the show notes of that bonus episode, there are links to every resource I was able to bring up during that episode. Just like I said in that bonus episode if you haven't seen it yet, my colleague Air Force Veteran Adam Stump has a great four-part series on Afghanistan. He had the foresight to start writing it in July when the pullout was originally announced. If you get a chance to go to blogs.va.gov, check it out. It's a good read, a lot of resources in there as well. And if you're still processing what's going on over there, check out that episode, that bonus episode, the links associated with it. Hey, you know, shoot me an email If you just want to talk at [email protected]. Here for you. One new review came into Apple Podcasts. This one is from pizzamandude. Love the name. Pizzamandude, have you ever seen Pizza Marine delivery on YouTube? Have you heard this? If you search for Pizza Marine Delivery, it's the first one that pops up on YouTube. You're welcome. Pizzamandude says, "Five stars: A dedicated fan. At first, I was a bit skeptical about adding this podcast as I wanted to ensure I would be getting useful information. Not only is the information useful but essential. Veterans, best Veteran podcast ever from an Iraq and Afghanistan Vet. I recommend this to all Veterans and as I praise." Thank you for that, Pizzamandude. Doing the best I can from inside the machine, brother. Appreciate you writing in. As you already know, I'm looking to respond to that next review. If you haven't yet, please consider writing one for Borne the Battle on Apple Podcasts. Doing so does help us climb higher in the algorithms giving more Veterans a better opportunity to discover and listen to the interviews, our benefits breakdown episodes, and hear what's in the news releases. It's also the best way for me to communicate with you. So, thank you in advance. Speaking of news releases, got a couple of this week. First one was about the expansion of the COVID-19 vaccines among VA employees. On Friday the 13th, August 13th, Secretary Denis McDonough did expand his previous COVID-19 vaccine mandate to most employees within the Veterans Health Administration and volunteers and contractors who work in VA medical facilities or who visit VA medical facilities or otherwise come into contact with VA patients and healthcare workers as part of their duties. Under the expanded mandate, employees who will need to be vaccinated include hybrid Title 38 and Title 5 VA healthcare personnel. Such as, and these are, jobs such as psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, nursing assistants, physical therapists, respiratory therapists, peer specialists, medical support assistance, engineers, housekeepers, and other clinical administrative and infrastructure support employees who come into contact with VA patients and healthcare workers. The department's decision is supported by numerous medical organizations, including the American Hospital Association, America's Essential Hospitals, and a multi society group of Leading Infectious Disease Societies. And in addition to the American Medical Association, American Nurses Association, American College of Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges and National Association for Home Care and Hospice also endorse mandating COVID-19 vaccination for healthcare workers. As with the previous mandate directive, effective employees will have eight weeks to provide proof of vaccination to their local VA occupational health office. Okay. Next one says, for immediate release, "As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the Department of Veterans Affairs is providing those who served awareness of an access to all health care services, specifically in areas of mental health and post-traumatic stress care. VA mental health officials said there has been an uptick in Veterans seeking help." No kidding. "Which could increase more as they come to terms with their service as the Afghanistan withdrawal comes to, as the Afghanistan withdrawal comes to completion. VA's Vantage Point Blog," that's blogs.va.gov. That's our, it's my home base, "is running a four-part series on Afghanistan, featuring Veterans" thoughts and perspectives on their time there and the draw down." That's the, specifically, the blog I just hit you up with - I just let you know about at the top of the show. "The series will run each Tuesday until completed." It's already out there. "The series focuses on recognizing the warning signs of post-traumatic stress, how spouses, family members, and friends can respond to and assist someone with PTSD, where, and how to get help within VA, and mobile apps and tips for recovery. The series provides information on Vet centers as well, which started after the Vietnam War and addresses the parallels between conflicts and how they can help through readjustment counseling." One thing that we haven't seen, one of the directors' matter of fact, one of the directors of the Vet centers did go on record and added that he's seen a willingness among Vietnam Veterans to mentor more recent Veterans to mentor Veterans decades removed from their own service. Many will still offer advice to younger Veterans to not repeat mistakes that they made. About 1.9 million at post 9/11-era Veterans are enrolled for care. Again, the full four-part series on Afghanistan is available at blogs.va.gov [Link: blogs.va.gov/VAntage/92731/afghanistan-how-veterans-can-learn-from-vietnam-veterans]. It's on the front page now. All right. We have a, oh man, do we have an interview for you this week. This week's guest is a former Army Green Beret and a former CIA agent. He was a part of Detachment A, which was a secret attachment that operate in East Berlin during the Cold War. Their mission was to slow down the Eastern Bloc armies through sabotage if we ever entered World War Three. It's a mission and a story that only recently became unclassified as of about 2014 and our guest, Army Veteran James Stejskal is here to tell you about it. He's also writing about it so that it is not a story that gets lost to history. Enjoy. [Music] Tanner Iskra (TI): James, how do you say your last name again? James Stejskal (JS): Again, with great difficulty. Actually, a guy once said that he remembered my name by saying "Stays cool." (TI): Stays cool. (JS): But Stejskal is essentially the name. It's Czech. In the original language, it basically means curmudgeon. (TI): Okay, okay. Well, you spent a lot of time in the Eastern Bloc. Do you know what Iskra means? (JS): No, it's sounding Armenian or Turkish. I'm not sure. (TI): Croatian. (JS): Croatian? (TI): Croatian. Yeah, Iskra is an old - I mean, you can find it in Russia, Yugoslavia, the whole Eastern Bloc. But basically, it's "Spark." (JS): Okay. (TI): So, it was actually Lenin's first newspaper, I found out. (JS): Well, it would also make a good character name for a novel, Tanner or Spark-maybe Spark Tanner. I'm not sure. (TI): Also, a Polish jet by the way, random factoid. Anyways, well, James, you know, forgive me for waiting to get back you, but I had to make sure your story checked out because, I mean, honestly your life is more like a Bond movie than real life. I got to admit, I was pretty skeptical in the very beginning. Both: [Laughter] (JS): Well, I'd actually never gotten that response before, but perhaps I benefitted from my previous talks with people that actually knew me or knew people who - yeah, anyway. (TI): Yeah, no, it wasn't until I read Blake Stilwell's blog on "We are the Mighty." I know Blake. He's a former guest here on the podcast and my former TA at Syracuse. He writes some pretty outlandish pieces sometimes. But I know when he writes journalistically, journalistic stories, he does his homework. So, reading that, doing more research - I mean, honestly though this program that you were a part of wasn't even unclassified until 2014. So, I mean it's kind of relatively new. James, how did this journey begin for you? When did you decide to join the Army in the first place? (JS): My father who I come to realize was probably my biggest guidepost in my life was a combat engineer in World War II, and he never encouraged us to do anything, my two brothers and I, but always in the background his service in the military was there. And I knew he was not active duty other than during World War II, and he was a combat engineer. So, during Korea he was actually in Germany building the barracks for most of the American troops to stay there long term. So, when he came back to States, he was a livestock broker in Omaha, Nebraska at what was the world's largest stockyard at the time. He was a reservist. So, every year we'd see him go off to training. So, he was my biggest influencer, and he used to bring home patches and C-rations, which I actually enjoyed unlike most people. One year he brought home a recruiting brochure for special forces. It was about 1963 or so. I was still pretty young, but I read that, and I had already been hooked on naturally enough James Bond and other silly things like that, so I was torn as a youngster between going out and being a ranger in the forest, an actual US Forest Ranger, a marine biologist, joining the Army. And obviously I ended up joining the Army. I did a year in college, but I really couldn't figure out where it was going. I said, "Well, why not join the military for a while and see what happens?" 23 years later I figured out that I actually like the life. So anyway. (TI): Gotcha. So, you joined the Army. How did you get into Special forces, and specifically, how did you get into this Detachment A in Berlin? Like I said, this was a very classified unit at the time. Just recently, I mean, less than a decade ago, 2014, it was unclassified. How did you make your way to that type of mission in the Army? (JS): By coercion and deceit. (TI): I obviously a skilled, a necessary skillset for that type of mission. Both: [Laughter] (JS): As it turned out, yes. I actually joined the Army under a four-year bonus to go into the airborne infantry under the assumption given to me by my recruiter that I would be able to volunteer for special forces at any time. Was not quite the case. much like many of us. (TI): Much like many of us. So, of course, every recruiter. (JS): So, I ended up in the 82nd Airborne. I remember going to the Bose Theater with several hundred other new recruits funneled in from Fort Benning and elsewhere. And the commanding general came to talk to us, and he said something that stuck in my mind. And it was, "Welcome to the 82nd. You're either going to ETS or die." Both: [Laughter] (TI): My father-in-law was 82nd. He's very proud. He takes a lot of pride in that unit. (JS): I mean, it was a good airborne infantry unit. I was in the first, the 08. I had a good time. It's not where I wanted to be. So, when he said that, I said, "This is a personal challenge." Taking into account that my recruiter had deceived me, I wrote both the senators from the state of Nebraska the same letter and forgot all about it. The letters that basically I'm a soldier. I understand where I'm at, but I was told something that wasn't true, and I want to go to special forces. Several months later, we were out in the field in an encampment on Fort Bragg and a Jeep comes flying into our camp and there's a major onboard. And I see him. He goes, talks to the company commander and they call for me. I go over there, and the major says, "Get in the Jeep. You're coming with me back to Fort Bragg." My company commander was saying, "You can't take him." And the major said that he's going with us. Turned out the major was from the Judge Advocate General. They took me back to Fort Bragg, like an interview with the division JAG, and basically they were impressed by the letter. I guess the fact that I could write was surprising to them because I was a PFC at the time. (TI): You were that PFC that wrote a letter to their senator and it actually worked out. That's awesome. (JS): They said, "You can take the test. You can try out. If you do it, you can go. If you don't, you're coming back here." So I went, took the written test. I took the physical tests and everything else, and they said, "Hey, guess what? You're in. But you might want to take off that maroon beret when you're walking around Smoke Bomb Hill." The 82nd, it just reads like in the maroon beret, and there was some tension between the Red Berets and the Green Berets. (TI): Gotcha. Yeah, just a little bit, just like any little bit of rivalry. So, how did you make your way to Detachment A, and what was the mission of Detachment A? How did you find out? Because not even a lot of special forces even know about attachment area. (JS): Well, it was not well known, and I knew nothing about it. It was not something that anyone talked about it. I mean, we knew about Vietnam. We knew about the first group on Okinawa. We knew about the people in Thailand. We knew about the group that had gone and got Che Guevara in South America. But I never heard anything about Berlin. And I went through a training and ended up with 10 special forces group at Fort Devens at the time. We deployed into Germany for our annual exercises. So, the first exercise that we went up, 1980 - excuse me, 1974, and we jumped in Germany and small team. And we are met on the ground by a group of resistance role-players, mostly Germans. But here was one guy who was the gorilla chief who spoke fluent German, and he was basically our interface between the guerrilla group and us. And later on, I found out that he was not a German, despite the fact that he spoke fluent German. He was an American in civilian clothes. And I talked to him, and I said, "Well, you're one of us?" He said, "Yeah, but not quite." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I'm from Berlin." And I said, "We have people in Berlin?" "Basically, yes. But I can't talk about it." But it went all downhill from there. And after that, I said, "That's where I want to go." The subterfuge comes in again when I talked to the Pentagon, to our personnel people, I've forgotten her name right off the bat, but she was a very famous person at the time. And I said, "I want to go to Berlin." And she said, "Do you speak German?" I had my German qualifications. Wasn't quite up to where it would later be, but she goes, "Well, I'll see." And shortly thereafter, she said, "We've got a slot open. And if you really want it, you can have it." So, four years after I entered the Army. I was in Berlin. (TI): Wow. So, and to set the stage for Berlin, you know, my generation later generation, it's not the Berlin that you see today. This was Cold War era Berlin. This was, you know, Berlin was surrounded by East Germany, which was separate from West Germany. For those that don't know, kind of set the stage of what the mission was and what Berlin was at the time. (JS): Well, you're right. A lot of people don't understand what it was at the time. I've actually had soldiers come up with an astonished look on their faces saying, "What? There was a wall in Berlin?" They really weren't aware of the Cold War. Yeah, so Berlin was what we called an outpost of freedom. It was deep within, inside, the communist Russian occupied East Germany. It was a city of about 5 million, but it was divided into four sections: the Russian, French British and American section. About 19-this happened after World War II, and in 1956, the commander of Berlin realized that to help his planning for an eventual World War III, a possible World War III, he needed to have some special assets in town. So, he asked the US Comm commander to place some special forces assets in the city. So, in 1956, a small group of special forces of what would eventually be about 90 troops were earned, posted to Berlin. And so, from 1956 to 1990 they were there to help the Commander of Berlin in his mission, but primarily to in time of war to cross the wall across the board or into East Germany and do their best to slow down Russian advance. It was a pretty tall task because there were about 25,000 allied troops inside West Berlin. You're surrounded by about 1 million Russian and Eastern troops, but right around Berlin, there was what was called the Ring, which was this extensive railway network. And it was the key for the Russians to move their troops from the East towards West Germany. And the thing was that if we could report on that, if we could knock out bridges, if we could derail trains, we could give the Americans in West Germany, 24 to 48, maybe even 72 hours of delay. And that's all we were there for was to give the troops in Western Europe time to meet the Russians if they attacked. Tall order. (TI): Yeah, no kidding. I mean, you look at the noise. You said 1 million to get, well, I guess what, 12,000 in the city, and you were there to delay the oncoming horde to the rest of Europe. That's an incredible mission. So, you were just a cell that was just waiting to be greenlit pretty much. (JS): Basically. We were six teams of 12 guys. Two were supposed to go north, two were to go south to hit the railway to would remain in the city to sabotage the East Germans and the Russians if they tried to occupy the city. Yeah, it was a very tall order. I mean, some people saw West Berlin as what would become the world's largest POW camp, but there were those among us that said maybe we have a chance here. And to answer your next question, no, we never really didn't think it was a suicide mission, although it probably was. (TI): Yeah, no kidding. Well, you know, I did do some research after, after you initially reached out to me. The plan to blow up the trains was pretty ingenious with the coal bit. Talk to us about that., uh, you initial, uh, your initially reached out to me, uh, the plan to blow up the trains was pretty ingenious with the coal bit. Okay, yeah, you were going to sabotage it, but you guys were going to do it in such an ingenious way by letting them blow up their own engines. (JS): Well, the thing about this is it's really important to know the history because the Office of Strategic Services and the British Special Operations Executive during World War II came up with the same idea. We just used it. Actually, it was the Confederates during the Civil War. They had what were called torpedoes, which were just guys bombs that they would try to put into a ship or a locomotive that would explode when they were heated up. So, this is an old tactic that we brought up today, and it would have worked up until the point when the East Germans modified their method of fueling their locomotives because they used to go from black coal to pulverized coal. And when they switched over to pulverized coal, it ruined the explosive. So, we had to think of other ways of blowing railways, blowing bridges, and things like that. (TI): Gotcha. Very good. Now you were with this mission for nine years, blending right into West Berlin, again, a city right in the heart of East Germany. You said we had about 12,000 soldiers. They had a million surrounded by Warsaw Pac countries. You know, nine years on the ground, the articles and many statements from your buddies in this unit. They stated that Charlie Beckwith, the godfather of Delta Force Green Berets. The great Charlie Beckwith, and the godfather of the Navy SEALs, they came in and started their special forces units after watching you all. How did that go down, and where did you get your training from that they got? (JS): The Navy guy is Marcinko who wrote Red Cell. About 1894, terrorism had started to rear its ugly head in Europe. Germans were undergoing a lot of attacks by the Red Army faction. And, of course, Israelis suffered from the Palestinian attacks and hijackings. The British, of course, were going through their troubles with the IRA in Ireland. But also in Europe, the IRA was attacking British assets. So, the American commanders said that, you know, we don't have anything to really handle this counter or sky jacking airplane, that jacking counter-terrorism type stuff. What- (TI): Iran hostage crisis would be a couple of, you know, would be pretty followed pretty quickly after that, you know? (JS): Yeah, exactly. So, about 1974, they called on the unit to say, "Can you come up with anything that would handle this?" And the unit submitted basically an op plan for counter terrorism, specifically airplane hijackings. So, 1974, 1975, the unit started to ramp up for the counter-terrorism mission. A number of our guys trained with the British SAS, Special Air Service, and brought their tactics and skills to the unit. We also trained with the German Border police. The GSG 9, which was the German counter-terrorist unit, was created after the Munich debacle. And we added some input from the Israelis. So, we started to build up our capabilities about 1975. Yeah. We got the attention of the Army back in Washington, and they said, "Okay, you're going to be the EUCOM's Counterterrorist element." And so the unit was designated 1977 as EUCOM's counterterrorism element. And as you mentioned, the Iranian hostage took place in 1979. Charlie Beckwith had also had similar thoughts about setting up a counter terrorism unit, and he was given the green light in about 1977, I believe. And he was looking for inspiration input. And he visited, of course, the British, and then he came to the unit. Our unit visited Washington training and saw our training facilities that we had built. And he took copies of every training document that we had put together. Both: [Laughter] (TI): And so, you met Charlie Beckwith. He came down, and he was there when you were there. (JS): Yeah, and he took all that stuff back to the states. Marcinko came a little bit later. It was about1981. I didn't. SEAL Team Six was set up about that time. (TI): Wow. Yeah, this is some next level Bond stuff. You know, again, it hearkens back to the OSS back in World War II. It's just incredible. Do you think that there's embedded cell units like Detachment A now? What do you think in Iran, Russia, maybe some neighboring countries like Latvia, Moldova, Romania? (JS): Are you talking about Americans? (TI): Yeah. Now do you think that we have a sort of a Detachment A like cell? (JS): I'm still obligated. (TI): Okay. Nevermind. (JS): By my non-disclosure agreement. (TI): Gotcha. In your educated guess, do you think it's more of a CIA or are there still military units that do this? (JS): The CIA is with the exception of Vietnam, Laos, and early on in the Afghan Iraq wars has really kind of started the pole out of bare military operations. They still have a paramilitary capabilities, but they're relying more and more on special operations forces will do the work. And I'm speaking from open-source intelligence. So, I'm not- Both: [Laughter] (TI): Let's make that very clear. I'll make that very clear. How long? Okay, so Detachment A operated from '56 to 1990. When did you get out of Detachment A? Were you there when the wall fell? (JS): I was actually there twice. I was there from '77, and I left shortly after we participated in the Iran mission. And then I came back. I came back in 1984 and left about six months before the wall came down. But wow. I received a telephone call from a very good friend of mine who had also served in Berlin on the 9th of November, 1989. And he said "Turn on CNN." So, I turned on CNN and there's the wall coming up. The next day I was on a Pan AM flight plane back to Berlin and was on the ground on the 10th of November to watch what was going on. And so, in a way I was there, but I was not in the unit at the time. (TI): You are on active orders, but you definitely came to see that history because, I mean, it was so much part of your history in the military. (JS): Absolutely. But I was still in the military. I just took leave from my unit in Virginia and went over. Yeah. (TI): Cause that's, I mean for you that's - so it was so personal, you know, cause you spent so much time over there. Total strength at any one time, you said it was about how many people? (JS): Up until about 1984, it was 90. After that it went up to about 120. I put together a fairly exhaustive list. And from what I can tell a total of maybe 900 soldiers served in the unit from 1956 to 99. Quite a few. (TI): It's incredible. Do you guys have any reunions? Do you guys get to go? (JS): We do. As a matter of fact, we had one several weeks ago. Oh yeah. Yeah, it was great. I mean, it wasn't as big as the last one because I think COVID, but one of the guys observed and said, "Well, things keep going. Like they do pretty gentlemen, we'll be able to have these reunions in that telephone booth." Both: [Laughter] (JS): We keep losing too many good people. (TI): Absolutely. A hundred percent. So, this unit has been so secret to Detachment A that other special forces didn't even know this existed. Again, I've said it many times it was finally unclassified in 2014. What made you, James, to decide that to say, "Hey, folks need to notice stuff." I didn't know about this. You reached out to me. What made you start doing this? (JS): There are a lot of different things for one thing. You know, I saw books like Charlie Beckwith's book on Delta and he talks about the Iran raid. Then, of course, Marcinko's book on the SEALs. SEALs have produced many more books than the Army has on their unit, but I won't go there. (TI): No, no, you don't have to. (JS): You know, we were actually at a reunion in about 2013 and someone said we need to document the history of, because the Army would never do it. The Army had destroyed or lost many of the records of the unit and so basically somebody pointed at me and said, "He knows how to write." No, I had written a book. I had written a history book and the guy said, "He's written a book." And I said, okay, I'll take the zone. So, it was sort of a accumulative effort and the unit had been disbanded in 1990. It was already 20 years almost. You know, there was no more Cold War. There is now, but there wasn't then. (TI): And it's a different type of Cold War now. (JS): This is true. Yeah. So, I said, you know, this makes sense. So, I started to put it together and I interviewed about 65 people. I got as many of the documents as I could get, what the military and the government would release to me, which was not a hell of a lot. (TI): Did you start writing this - did you start writing this book, compiling this, telling this story before it became unclassified or shortly after? (JS): Actually before. I have become a historian and an author sort of by accident. So, I was always interested in Detachment A, and I kept a lot of information on it, not classified. But I kept information. And so, when it came around to be time to start writing books, I had a starting place. You know, I had worked on two teams in the unit. I was part of the operation center and I had seen a lot of the documents which have now gone missing. So, I was able to put together a lot of the information. And then I started talking to people, you know. I put together the origin of the unit. Out came about found some good documents at the Army History Center, a few at the National Archives, plus my interviews with some of the very early members of the unit, several that were there in 1956. I was able to put together a lot of it. Other interviews from people in the seventies and sixties even. And the 1980s, of course, that was fairly easy. The people that were most difficult were the people from the sixties because they were convinced that they could not talk to me because they signed their nondisclosure agreements. And one funny incident, I called the guy and said, "Hey, So-and-so told me that you might want to be able to tell me about your time at Detachment A." And he said, "No, I can't talk to you," and he hung up on me. He was convinced that it was so classified, and I'm trying to explain this and there's a procedure for this. I write the thing and I take it to the Pentagon and they approve it or redact everything. They didn't want to hear about it. But the funny part was about six months later, I get a call from the same guy who had hung up on me and said, "I hear you're writing a book. I want to talk to you." Okay. Anyway, so there was- (TI): And you're like, "I called you six months ago." So, did you stay in special forces after Detachment A? (JS): Yeah, basically it was special forces from the moment I left the 82nd until I retired. (TI): Gotcha. (JS): When I left Berlin the second time in 1989, I went back to the states and joined a different unit, which was considered and still is to be a special mission unit. But I'm not going to really talk about that. And I spent another seven years with them before I retired, including some very interesting. (TI): Gotcha. Was that more of a Delta Force type of unit? (JS): It was more of an enabler. You had to have so many to look at things before Delta Force can go in. (TI): Okay, so like a recon unit almost? (JS): That's a good way to put it. (TI): Gotcha. Gotcha. Total military career was 19 years. You were medical retired. You went from '73 to '92. You were medically retired when you got hit with an anti-tank mine, unfortunately. (JS): Twenty-three years. (TI): Twenty-three years, excuse me. (JS): I got out in '96. (TI): Oh, you got in '96? I thought it was '92. Math for Marines. But, you know, I got it. (JS): I like marines. (TI): There you go. But that tank mine really badly messed up your leg where you had to get it reconstructed. You told me that the process was the early predecessor of how they fixed up a Washington football team's Alex Smith's leg a couple of years ago. Did you watch the documentary on his recovery? (JS): And, and it makes me grimace every time I see it. No, we were in a very - we were in a thin-skinned vehicle and rolled over, an old Soviet anti-tank mine. This was in Somalia and basically disassemble the vehicle and just the four of us that were in it. One of us was killed, and I received a very bad leg injury, which shattered my tibia and fibula and it was Med-E-Vac all the way back to Walter Reed. Eventually the doctors were totally flummoxed about how to handle this. They had an external fixator on it with several rods going through the bones. And they said, "This is not working. How about if we amputate your leg?" And I said, I'm not really keen on that. And they said- Both: [Laughter] (TI): If we can keep it, I'd like to. (JS): Yeah. So, you know, they've gone, "Well, you know, it's not really a big deal. We'll give you a leg for parachuting, one for swimming, one for hiking." and I'm going great. No, I couldn't see myself wandering around with a rucksack full of legs on my back. Not how I want to handle this. And this orthopedic surgeon. She was a Major at the time, Kathleen McHale at Walter Reed. Very talented lady had been using this device to correct the deficiencies in a small children's legs who had been born with, I'm not sure what it's called. It's something along the lines of the spinal bifida, but it affects your life. (TI): Affects the legs. Gotcha. (JS): And she was basically using it to break the legs, straighten them and then reset them with his device. And she came up and she said, "I've been looking at your case and I've got an idea. And I'd like to try it out on you." And I go, "What is it?" She said, "Well, put this thing on. Not sure how long it'll take any anywhere from probably around 18 months." But basically, put the bones together, then spread because I had about this much bone that was actually about three inches of bone that was crushed would have been extremely short, put the legs together They will fuse and then pull them apart and sort of like saltwater taffy, and we'll see how it works. I said, "okay." (TI): [Laughter] "Do I have a choice? Do I have a choice?" (JS): So, it worked. I drank as much nutriment and milk as I could possibly get. About six months later almost to the day, I was in a walking cast and a year later almost to the day I was in Sarajevo. I'm not sure that it's a good thing, but I was deployed again. (TI): So, you were able to. be effective within a year. That's amazing. (JS): She went on to become the Chief of Orthopedics at Walter Reed, and she's still working as a doctor with children. So quite, quite, quite the doctor. (TI): Sounds like a good choice for her to be a head of orthopedics. I can figure something like that out. (JS): I was very happy with the results. (TI): Obviously, yeah, no. So, you had the second career as a CIA spook as a, I'm going to say spook. I don't know what else to call it the field operations officer. You've been a field operations, a field officer, a historian, and a writer after that. You've written a couple of fiction and nonfiction books on military history, particular with like the super secretive, dark arts, make sense type of stuff, type of bond type of Jack Ryan type stuff. Was most of the ground research during your time, you know, for these books was most of the research done as your time as a field officer for the CIA, because you went to all these different countries? Or was it done after you retired from the CIA or was it, was it a mixture of both? (JS): It's pretty much a mixture of both. Obviously, the book about Berlin was, you know, a lot of that was based on my time there. I wrote a history about Southern Africa, about a little-known campaign that took place in World War I between South Africa and the German colony of Southwest Africa. That was based on research I had done, uh, while I was living in Namibia as part of the agency. I've done another one on Lawrence of Arabia. That was basically based on a lifelong study of him and visiting Jordan several times, but the fiction books I've written, are based on actual events, which I have fictionalized to protect the guilty parties, so to speak. But a lot of that, a lot of that is based on my military career, the country that I visited well in the military. (TI): Talk to me about the process of getting that cleared through the Department of Defense to the Pentagon. I know there's a process. I know there's been other, some other books on, on special forces. You know, and they always talk about this clearance process. What was it like for you? How did that, how did you go about doing that? (JS): Well, the process itself was called pre-publication review. And if you have had a security clearance or signed a non-disclosure agreement with the government, you're obligated to submit your manuscript for review, whether it's a non-fiction book or a fiction book if it concerns the U S military. And in my case because I served with the army and in the CIA, I'm obligated for anything. Kind of touches on those two areas. Now, if I wanted to write a cookbook that's not necessary. (TI): Cookbooks for Green Berets. (JS): Well then, you're going in. You're going to the nebulous territory. The CLD manual for how to train your dog actually is one that you would have to clear. (TI): Freaking me out, dude. (JS): It's true. So, if you don't submit your book, your subject, I have your book, your profits, your royalties from the book seized as happened to a couple of people that wrote books about their time with Bin Laden. Unfortunately, either they were given bad legal advice, or they decided to disregard it completely. In which case I really don't have much sympathy for them. (TI): But just don't do that. Don't do that. (JS): Yeah. Yeah. I initially started submitting my books to the Department of Defense that was when I was in the Army, obviously. But then more recently I decided that I would submit my books to the CIA because they were the last classified agency I served with. And they both, they have an agreement that if an agency book covers something about the military, they're supposed to share, they do a joint clearance process. So that's really cool, but it's a very lengthy process. My head, my book on special force in Berlin took 15 months. And I was at the end of about 13 months, I was starting to get a bit upset and I was calling the people at the Pentagon about once a week asking me questions, asking them questions about when it would come through. And they would, they would always say, "No, it's just going to be a little while longer. We don't have control over all the other people that we have to talk with." And I said, okay. And one time she goes, "You know, we really don't see a whole lot of books from Army special forces. Do you know why that is?" And I said, "Well, you know, the motto of special forces is quiet professionals." And for the most part, we try to follow through on that. And the only reason I had written a book on Berlin was because the unit had been disbanded and it's been overturned one years. And she goes, "Yeah, okay. I understand that. But you know, those Navy SEALs, they really write a lot of books." I said, "How many books have they written?" and she goes "Since 2001? Over 200." I'm going, "Wait a minute." (TI): [Laughter] Quite professional. Oh, the rivalries, the rivalry still exists. I like to say- (JS): It does. Yeah. And since then, you know, I've learned the part of bud straightening, the basic SEAL course, part of the training is they give you a one-week course on how to get an agent and how to promote your book. And quite often the, the greeting on compound, uh, in San Diego is, "Hey, how's that book going?" Those were all rumors. And they might may be service-oriented I'm not sure. (TI): I think it might, might be. How do you keep a publisher happy during that time while you're getting your stuff cleared? (JS): Make sure you have a good publisher and make sure, make sure you make them understand what, what is required., I've been very lucky. I'm working with Casemate, uh, which is a publisher out of Philadelphia. They've also got offices in the UK. They do military publishing quite a bit and they realize that if they're working with a military author that pre-publication review as part of the deal. So, you know, 15 months for the special forces Berlin book, it can vary. One of my novels was cleared in 12 days. (TI): Oh wow. You know, being a CIA intelligence officer down there, you know, being a field of operations officer. It seems like it was tailor made based on your previous experience in the military. Is there a difference between the two or were they pretty similar? (JS): There are parallels, but there are quite a few differences. My military career was based on a team concept. Special forces works in 12 men teams, although we would sometimes break down and often you might work on your own. My later work towards the end of my career was very much solo operations, but I would come back to a team. The agency, obviously, and I was not working with a special project, so it was not the military. It was the traditional intelligence collection. The agency works very much on a personal solo operator. You might be in a station that is made up of a chief and a number of operational collectors, but it's very much you're on your own doing your own thing. And that, that for me was the biggest difference. It's a team concept in the Army and in the agency, it's pretty much you're on your own son. And that's what they expect you to do. You have to operate, you have to rely on yourself very much so. Whether it be in the administrative side of the house or the operational side of the house, when you're out working in the field, you're very much working on your own. (TI): Interesting. Very good. Very good. What do you like writing more fiction or nonfiction? Because you're written both. (JS): Non-fiction requires more discipline because I really have to work at, for me anyway, I really have to work at ensuring that everything I write meshes with the facts as they happened on the ground, as far as I can. (TI): You have to get that journalistic integrity part of the non-fiction. (JS): Exactly. Footnoting, putting in references, making sure that what yours, for example, when I wrote some of the incidents about the Berlin book, I could not rely on one person's story. I had to go back and say, "Hey, your teammates said this, what's your version?" Often it was three or four people that would talk about it before I can put together a story. (TI): Yeah. And in journalism and journalism, they always talk about needing two sources. You have to have at least two sources to have it be. Yeah. So very good. Very good. (JS): So, fiction, you can pretty well go with the flow, you know, but I tried hold to believability. I don't want the reader to have to suspend their disbelief too often. So, I try to follow the facts as much as possible. I try to integrate the history into my books. And so, yeah. (TI): So, fiction based on real life events, that sort of thing. And that's why it's not fantasy land. This is kind of based in fact. So, which one do you like writing more? (JS): Oh, you did ask that question. (TI): I mean, it's great that you explained how you write each one. That's that is very important, but which one do you enjoy writing? (JS): I think I enjoyed the fiction more. Well, one thing I found with nonfiction is when I'm writing history, I tend to write narrative nonfiction. I try to tell a story instead of just relating facts and figures. I was not transitioning from non-fiction eviction. I had been writing fiction before, just never published anything. So, it was coming back to it and using both disciplines now to write the story that I wanted to tell. So, yeah. (TI): So, your style kind of already lends yourself towards fiction. So, it sounds like you enjoy that better. (JS): I do. I do a long way of saying this. (TI): When did you publish your first book? (JS): Good question. (TI): [Laughter] It's looking for them for those that are listening to the audio version of this podcast. He's looking at his book right now. I mean, give us a rough day. Was it in the nineties? (JS): The first book was actually published in 2014. I had published several articles prior to that, some scholarly historical journals. My first book was 2014. (TI): You know, cause we talk about this a lot, much like music and we've had Nashville songwriter, Jonathan Kingham on recently on the podcast and he talked about this and, and if you get a chance go, you know, if you're listening to this, go check out that at that interview. It's a great interview, has a little concert at the end. It's good stuff. But many writers, many songwriters, many artists, they talk about the digital media and how it's changed the game. It's prevented like, you know, Jonathan talked about it as in it prevented, it prevents the next Metallica, the next Stephen King, the next Tom Clancy. You don't have those Uber names anymore, but it's created an avenue where it's an easier time making a maybe a more modest career. Do you think that's true with the age of digital publishing or do you have a different take? (JS): The difference today with digital media is that I think publishers are now more reliant on the writers to do self-promotion rather than to do it themselves. Yeah, there are lots of opportunities to promote your book, promote your work, but at the same token, the digital universe has made it much easier for other people to publish. And there's a hell of a lot more competition out there now than there was before. And it makes it more difficult to get published by a traditional house. You can do your own self-publishing, which I've chosen not to do. But it has really opened up the field to everyone. In a way it makes it a more democratic, but in another way, it makes it a lot more difficult. Absolutely. Right. And your podcast, I'm going to give you a compliment here. Your podcast hits a lot of the Veterans. You promote a lot of the former service members whether it be in music or writing or whether they be government officials and it goes out and then hits the right audience that these people need to be heard by. So, it's, it's a valuable contribution, but it's also, again, very competitive. (TI): I'm happy to tell your story, help tell your story, sir. A hundred percent, a hundred percent. James, what's, what's one thing that you learned during your time in the military that you apply to what you do today? (JS): One thing I never paid attention to was the admonition, not the volunteer for anything, because if I hadn't volunteered for anything, I wouldn't be where it was now. So, what I learned is basically there are a number of things I could go onto, but volunteering is, is one thing is basically you put your best foot forward. If you never say anything, nobody will ever look at you and nobody will ever pick you. So, you, you have to put yourself out there. And the other thing is, rely on your teammates. Don't try to do everything yourself. I learned as a team leader, I was a team leader a couple of times, that you cannot do everything yourself. And if you do not rely on your people, if you do not allow your people to succeed, you will not succeed either. So, it's very much a teamwork operation. (TI): A hundred percent. James, is there a non-profit or a Veteran non-profit or a Veteran in the community whom you've worked with, or you've had an experience with that you'd like to mention? (JS): The National Museum of the US Army. I'm a volunteer down there, and I'd be through the museum and also donate to the museum, but it's not really, you know, it's about history. It's about preserving history. It's not about the soldiers, helping soldiers individually. The one organization that I really work with is the Green Beret Foundation. It's basically families, special forces people and other special operations units. It keys in on helping Veterans who have been injured or families who have lost their gold star person. And it's a very good organization that has scholarships for the children of deceased service members. And I really liked to work with that one. So, the Green Beret Foundation is that. (TI): Close to the heart on that one. (JS): Well, very much so. Yeah. (TI): Yeah. That's good you're a docent at the museum. I, you know, really need to connect with them. I know it's a big thing that they came out for the Army, the Marine Corps Museum, when it came out was huge. And it's, I'm sure that you know, the members of Detachment A are happy that you're also a docent there as well, to make sure that you guys are in that history. You know, able to lend, you know, your experience to the museum and let them know that the Detachment A existent. (JS): I'm thinking about those because the museum is very much oriented, not so much on the units, but on the individuals. It starts out just before the revolution and carries on until the present day split up into different segments of our history. And then there is one section that's basically the soldier and the community. So, it shows all the soldiers, the equipment they used, where they fought the things they did. And then in one section, it shows how those benefited or helped the community as a whole. It's a very well-done muse. (TI): Yeah, no, I know, I know the Army was waiting for, especially when the Marine Corps Museum came out, they were all waiting for their own museum, and I really need to connect with them and do an episode on that cause again- (JS): I've seen both. I actually, I like the, or maybe it was a much better than the Marine Museum, so I'm bias, but extremely biased. (TI): [Laughter] Extremely biased, sir. You are extremely biased. (JS): I know, I know you being a Marine and everything. (TI): I liked the artifacts in the Marine Corps Museum, the Archibald Henderson sword, John Phillips, who was as to like the, the, the little things like that. So, I'm excited to go see the army museum to see what they have as well, though. Again, you, you have a much better opinion right now than I do, because I've only been to one. (JS): Yeah. So, I, like I said, I'm prejudice, but one of my favorite, one of my favorite photos from my time in the army is a picture of me on a Purple Beach, Kismayo, Somalia looking out over the water at 6:30 in the morning. And the marine amphibs are coming ashore to occupy it. Cause my oh, this is during the Operation Restore Hope. And I took that. I took that picture, and I gave a picture. I gave a copy of it to Lieutenant General Johnston, who was the marine commander on the ground. But I worked a lot with the Marines while I was in the army, probably more so than I did the, the army, but I enjoyed working with them. I think the difference between, I mean, two museums, the Marine Museum is very much oriented. The Marine Museum is very much oriented on campaigns and the Army Museum is more oriented on the individual soldier. (TI): Very good. Very good. Well, I can't wait to say I can't wait to see both. You have a better opinion than me and I do, but I'm sure that my bias will stand be that as it may. I'm glad that that both museums exist. James, is there anything that I've missed or haven't asked that you think's important to share? (JS): There probably is. I can't think of it. I stand by what I said before. I think your podcast does great things for the Veterans Administration and I appreciate your work. (TI): Well, I appreciate that, sir. Would you have maybe a parting shot for anybody that might be listening to this and is thinking about maybe- (JS): What I would like to say is that I have been involved or associated with the VA. I should probably rephrase that and say the VA has helped me out quite a bit since my retirement from the military and after my retirement from the agency. And I know there's been some issues with the VA around the country. I'd like to give a shout out to the VA in Washington, DC. It's a very good hospital, have a lot of cooperation from the Washington mental medical center and the people I've seen there are stellar in their abilities to help Veterans and reach out, especially right now in the time of COVID. They also have a satellite office down in Fort Belvoir, which is very good. So, I think of anything I would like to say is very much a big thank you to the VA for the help they've given me over the past years, and I look forward to continuing to work with them as much as possible. (TI): Very good. Well, thank you for that, James. Thank you for coming on. I think this whole section of history is begging to be told more. And thank you for helping tell it. (JS): And thank you for having me on, Tanner. I really appreciate it. (TI): Anytime. [Music] Narrator: We served our country like those before us. Man 1: It was a dangerous area. All of Vietnam was dangerous. Man 2: The carnage of war left an indelible mark on me. Narrator: We came back and built lives. As time went on, we faced new challenges and found support to handle them. Man 3: I went to the VA, talked to my doctor. Man 4: And started doing groups. I started doing one-on-one counseling. Narrator: At maketheconnection.net, you can hear our stories and find tools and services available to you [Link: https://www.maketheconnection.net/] . [Music] (TI): I want to thank James for contacting us, coming on and letting us know about such a unique mission in military history, and for his patience in getting his episode out. Took a bit. You could find more about James on his author's bio on Amazon.com. This week's Borne the Battle of Veteran of the week is from our VA Veteran of the day program. Every day, our Digital Media Team honors a Veteran on all of our social media platforms and with a blog on blogs.va.gov. You can nominate the Veteran in your life by sending in a short writeup and about five photos and send it to [email protected]. Tom Rice was born in August of 1921 in Coronado, California. After his sophomore year of college, he volunteered for the Army in 1943. He became a paratrooper at Camp Toccoa when he joined the 101st Airborne Division and deployed to Great Britain in 1944. On June 5th of '44, Rice's company equipped a Douglas C-47 aircraft with machine guns, ammunition, mortars, and radio equipment, jumped into Normandy. Like many paratroopers that day, Rice's division was initially separated upon landing. Blown everywhere. If you've seen Band of Brothers, you get it. Once Rice found the other paratroopers, they secured the roads in Contentin, France. Actually, a civilian couple in a French farmhouse gave them ammunition and directions. After the battle, the 101st Airborne Division returned to England and trained for Operation Market Garden. At 1:30 PM on September 17th, 1944, they parachuted into the Netherlands, began moving through Holland, toward the Ardennes region of Belgium. Rice also fought in the Battle of the Bulge, where a German sniper shot him twice. He recovered in Belgium and was honorably discharged on December 21st, 1945. Rice returned to California and taught social sciences and history. He had five children, and he also wrote and published his book "Trial by Combat," a personal account of his wartime experience. Currently, Rice remains a risk-taker. In 2019, in remembrance of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, he again, parachuted into Normandy at age 97. Days later, he parachuted into the Netherlands to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Operation Market Garden. Army Veteran, Tom Rice, thank you for your service. That's it for this week's episode, if you yourself would like to nominate a future Borne the Battle Veteran of the week, so we can all learn their story, you can. Just send an email to [email protected], include a short writeup and let us know why you'd like to see him or her as the Borne the Battle Veteran of the week. And if you liked this podcast episode, hit the subscribe button. We're on iTunes, Spotify, Google podcasts, iHeartRadio, pretty much any podcasting app known to phone, computer, tablet or man. For more stories on Veterans and Veteran benefits. Check out our website, blogs.va.gov [Link: blogs.va.gov] and follow the VA on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, RallyPoint, LinkedIn, DPT Vet affairs, US Department of Veterans Affairs. No matter the social media, you can always find us with that blue check mark. And as always, I'm reminded by people smarter than me to remind you that the Department of Veterans Affairs does not endorse or officially sanctioned any entities that may be discussed in this podcast, nor any products or services they may provide. I say that because the song you're hearing now is called Machine Gunner, which is courtesy of the nonprofit Operations Song and it was written by Marine Veteran, Mick McElhenny, Nashville songwriter Jason Sever, and Mykal Duncan. Have a great day. Thank you for listening and we'll see you right here next week. Take Care. [Music] (JS): When we were in Berlin, we actually had a very Irish American member of the unit who had his birthday very close to St. Patrick's Day and we decided to ambush him, so to speak. And throughout the night, we plagued him with alcohol, and before due long, he was, shall we say, euthanized but not dead. (TI): [Laughter] You're very descriptive, I like this. (JS): And one thing led to another, and somebody remembered that they had some green dye. And, we proceeded to shave him, and then immerse him in a large vat of green dye-and obviously he was going to be this color for several days. But-and this was all taking place within the unit dayroom. What we thought was a well-contained disaster. But, in actuality, as these things happen, the containment wall broke. And he woke up and escaped without any clothes, brilliant green in color. Ran across the compound in the center of Berlin, passed the gate guards, who were too stupefied and astounded to do anything, and made his way to his favorite, which was a bar down the street. Walks into the bar, no clothes. Green. Walked up to the bar and orders a beer, where upon most of the local clientele left. (TI): Mind you, you're in a unit where you're supposed to be the most clandestine unit in the world. (JS): Well, he was in disguise. So, there was nothing else for us to do but to enjoy him and help him celebrate the rest of his birthday.