American Warrior Radio

CIA Case Officer Barry Broman recruited 41 agents during his 26 year career with the agency. He recounts some of the most interesting moments in his book “Risk Taker, Spy Maker”

He first fell in love with East Asia when his Air Force officer father invited him along on an assignment with the Thai Air Force.  A caveat was that Barry would find a job so he secured a position with the Associated Press, becoming the youngest AP photographer in the world.  His first assignment to Vietnam would be the first time he was shot at but wouldn’t be the last.

After receiving his college degree on a Navy ROTC scholarship he would spend seven months in Vietnam with the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines.  Before he deployed to Vietnam, one of his professors asked if Barry had ever considered joining the CIA. Barry planned to go back to the AP after the military but chose to talk to the recruiter just for fun.  When he notified the recruiter that he was deploying to Vietnam the recruiter gave him a business card and said “If you live, give me a call six months before you leave the Corps.”  Barry did and 2 weeks later he joined the agency.

Barry emphasizes that he wasn’t a spy, he recruited spies.  "We were in the business of making dreams come true." He shares insights into the life of a case officer. The job is usually not a family affair, but he never approached a target until his wife approved.

He shares some interesting stories including the recruit who would only take assignments that were extremely dangerous and worked on a form of commission. A watershed moment of his career involved working with MI-6 on recruiting a hard target.

TAKEAWAY: “Only about ten percent of case officers make successful recruitments. It’s not baseball. You don’t want to have a 41-5 record, you want a 41-0 record. Approaching a recruit and failing has consequences.”

Volition is a powerful concept first introduced to John Sapiente by Air Force pilot Dan Rooney.  Rooney advocates; “It’s the most empowering force in the world. Volition is the POWER of choice. Every day we wake up we have a choice; we can be positive, we can be negative. We can choose to love, we can choose to hate. We can choose to pursue our dreams and our passions in life. But understand, our choices will culminate to write the legacy of our lives.”

As a busy manufacturing executive responsible for two companies, John Sapiente never really thought about or appreciated the sacrifices that military families make to protect our freedoms. An avid golfer, he purchased an opportunity to play with PGA legend Craig Stadler at a Folds of Honor tournament. It was there that John says Dan Rooney gave him a  “Patriotic Awakening”.

Dan proposed the concept of starting a business called Volition America that would allow people to choose America and raise funds for Folds of Honor. John leveraged his decades of business experience and the help of fellow entrepreneurs to make the concept a reality.  A minimum of thirteen percent of Volition’s revenue is returned to Folds of Honor. (There are 13 folds in the American flag.)

Volition America first partnered with Puma in 2017, then added Wilson Sports and Revo Sunglasses.  They just signed an agreement with Luminox Watches.  They are selective in their collaborators, only talking with premium product lines and like minded people. John would also like add special events that bring audiences and brands together. “We don’t want this to be just a holiday brand. We want it to be a 365 days a year brand.”

TAKEAWAY: “Every one of us benefits from what these people do. How are we ALL not rallying around this? I feel like it was my job to help get the word out.”

Declan James Watch Company founder Brian Dougherty is applying the attitude and mental toughness he was taught as a Navy SEAL to help with his career as an entrepreneur.

Excerpts from the SEAL’s creed give credence to his belief. Examples include; “We demand discipline. We expect innovation. The lives of my teammates and the success of our mission depend on me – my technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to detail. My training is never complete.”

Brian thinks he may have been just as happy in the Army Special Forces but as a young man he began applying SEAL exercise techniques and built a particular fascination with the Navy teams.  At the age of 28 he was lacking motivation and a supervisor suggested that maybe he should join the SEALs before he regretted not doing so. He made two deployments with SEAL Team 7 as an intelligence specialist and served one tour as a BUDS instructor.

He founded the company with the idea that a fine watch is rooted in legacy and tradition. He wanted Declan James Watch to teach his sons the keys to success in entrepreneurship. The company is named after his first son. “Running a business is very much like looking to the guy the right and left of me at BUDS. Rolex started out as a small company too.”

Brian was referred to American Warrior by successful Veteran authors Andrews & Wilson. They practice a collaborative philosophy of doing whatever they can to lift up other Veteran entrepreneurs.

”When I left active duty it was the second time I fell in love with America. The Veteran community has opened their arms to me and offered to help me in so many ways. This represents the core values of what America and the military are all about.” The SEAL Future Foundation has also been a phenomenal help to Brian.

TAKEAWAY: “I want YOUR child to call MY son up someday and ask him about the watch he received from his father.”

Independence Day should hold a special place in the hearts of all U.S. citizens. This special show features four guests sharing their perspective on freedom and liberty.

British born actor Matthew Marsden met a young Army Ranger at Fort Benning while filming the movie Blackhawk Down. The experience changed his life.  He shares how the US mindset is different even from our closest “cousins” in England. “There’s nowhere else to go Ben. America is the last place, the last bastion of freedom on the planet.”

Col. Lee Ellis has a special perspective on freedom – he had his taken away while a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years. “People have come to take freedom for granted and that’s a good thing but it’s not so good to take that for granted.” As a POW Lee most missed the simple things like not being able view the night sky and the fact that he had very few choices in his daily life. He hated the daily propaganda the most.

Actor and philanthropist Gary Sinise shares a powerful example of the palpable difference between freedom and tyranny; his experience on the DMZ between South and North Korea. “We should value those freedom providers each and every day. Realize that they will be called upon to do something dangerous and we’re lucky we have people willing to put the uniform on and defend us.”

Paul Loeffler, host of the Hometown Heroes Radio Show has learned a lot from interviewing over 1,000 Veterans.  His “day job” as a sportscaster takes him all across the country and he tries to schedule an interview in all the communities he visits. “The only way for us to understand the price of freedom is to hear the stories of those who sacrificed so much to preserve it for the rest of us.”

Thank you for spending some of your Independence Day weekend with us.

Old Guys and Their Airplanes Founder John Mollison started drawing at a young age. His father built model airplanes and John’s mother would encourage him to draw the scenes depicted on the boxes. He has created thousands of works of art that are on display in fourteen countries. What makes his images extra special is that he also interviews the pilots who flew the aircraft he depicts.

This “aha” moment came when John had already achieved success in his restaurant career but felt he was lacking skills in leading his teams. Triple World War II ace Bud Anderson agreed to mentor John and suggested he tape their conversations about leadership. One day Bud suggested “If you want to interview other older guys I will open up my rolodex.”

This show broadcasts from the 390th Memorial Museum in conjunction with a special ceremony presented by the Distinguished Flying Cross Society to honor Col. Richard Bushong. Col. Bushong is a B-17 pilot that was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bringing his crew and badly damaged aircraft safely home after a particularly dangerous bombing mission to Berlin. We give John the microphone to practice his craft by interviewing Col. Bushong.

John is committed to his Old Guys and Their Airplanes project because he believes that “history is nutritious”. Learning history also teaches us the virtues of faith and hope. He also believes that by introducing these heroes in a way that defines them as normal people it creates a touchstone that average civilians can understand.

John created a special drawing of Colonel Bushong’s aircraft for this event. Thirty numbered copies autographed by John and Col. Bushong are available as a fundraiser for the 390th Memorial Museum and may be purchased at their online store.

TAKEAWAY:  Both John &  I feel compelled to record as many of these stories as possible because “When an old man dies, a library burns.”

“Sacrifice: A Gold Star Widow’s Fight for the Truth” by Michelle Black is a powerful read.  News that her Green Beret husband had been killed in action was just the beginning of a nightmare for Michelle and her family. Sacrifice is not a “grief” but rather emphasizes why it is important for our military families to be told the complete truth.

Staff Sergeant Bryan Black was a Green Beret medical specialist killed October 4th, 2017 in Niger.  Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Johnson, Staff Sergeant Dustin Wright and Sergeant La David Johnson also lost their lives. Michelle recounts that Bryan was truly a Renaissance man and quite brilliant. He became a national chess champion at a young age, spoke four languages (two of them self- taught) and even built a stock trading algorithm.

Michelle and the families of the other soldiers killed on that day received briefings from Army officials that began with few details and evolved into a series of “squishy” narratives.  Michelle herself had very little exposure to the military but with the help of her retired Marine father-in-law she began to identify several inconsistencies in the story they were being told. The ultimate insult came when Bryan and his team were accused of “going rogue” and Bryan’s team “was not indicative of what special operators do.”

As part of her quest for the truth, Michelle interviewed all the survivors of the action and Sacrifice includes a VERY detailed account of transpired that day.  Readers will rapidly become aware the death of Bryan and his colleagues had been avoidable and the mistakes made went beyond the typical fog of war.

Michelle also shares how her perspective about Memorial Day has shifted since Bryan was killed.

TAKEAWAY: Michelle emphasizes that her experience was a campaign against injustice and has not turned her against the military. She would still support her sons if they chose to join.

Darden Smith has been called one of the most respected American musicians working today. As a songwriter, he has spent most of his life thinking “There’s a song here somewhere.” His motto is “Write Songs. Tell Stories. Move People.”

As a typical civilian, Darden Smith had a lot of misperceptions about what it meant to serve in the military. That was before he was booked to perform at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center for a group of service members just returned from Iraq. He says the concert didn’t go very well but it changed his life. It was there he met a guitar playing Marine who shared some wisdom; “We ALL wear uniforms. YOU look like a musician and I could judge you based on that. But beneath every uniform is a human being.”

Darden had previously done collaborative song writing with various groups. He wondered what it would happen if he, as a civilian, sat down and collaborated with Veterans. While visiting with the Texas Air National Guard in his hometown he first heard the term Angel Flight and immediately knew THAT was a song title. When he asked a pilot why he did it, the response became the first verse of a new song. While visiting his friend Radney Foster, Darden was experiencing writers block. He and Radney sat down and finished “Angel Flight” in thirty minutes.

He was asked to do a collaborative writing workshop with some soldiers in Colorado Springs and “it blew his mind.” That experience led him to work with Mary Judd to create “Songwriting With Soldiers”.

TAKEAWAY: “Go..go..just go. Sometimes your dream isn’t how you make a living. If it makes you happy do it because life is finite, time is finite. Do your thing because the world actually needs what you have.”

Lt. Col. Charles Faint joins us to further explore a couple of his recent military life related articles. His stories are often humorous but always insightful. (Disclaimer: Charles currently serves in the US Army. His opinions are his own and do not represent the policies or opinions of the US Army or West Point Academy.)

Most of his stories usually begin with his two young daughters “ratting him out”. It happens so often he has taken to calling them OPSEC Violator #1 and OPSEC Violator #2. This particular scenario occurred in December when his daughter told grandmother that “Dad pulled a gun on Santa Claus”.

It began as a normal day but soon abnormalities began to pile up. The first was a campus wide alert of a “credible threat” of potential violence directed against the Academy. That was soon followed by an announcement that a woman had been stopped coming in the gate with a semi-automatic rifle in the trunk. Charles then heard explosions and what sounded like gunfire followed by sirens that made it seem like every first responder at West Point was headed to his neighborhood.  After texting his wife to avoid the area, he removed his pistol from the gun safe and prepared for the “Battle of Stoney Lonesome”.  Rest assured Santa Claus was NOT assaulted. Listen to hear the full story.

We follow up with a discussion of his most recent Havok Journal article “All of the Veterans Who Said Don’t Thank Me for my Service Are About to Get Their Wish”. Charles discussed a recent Reagan Foundation poll that showed trust in our military has declined 14% in the last three years. We discuss the potential reasons behind this shift and the ramifications for our nation and the Veteran community.

TAKEAWAY:  Referring to the West Point incident he says “It’s amazing what you think about in the moment.”

Sons of Valor is the latest release from internationally best-selling Navy Veteran authors Jeffrey Wilson and Brian Andrews. Jeffrey served as a combat surgeon operating with SEAL teams and a Joint Special Operations Task Force. Brian served as an officer on fast attack submarines. They both join us to shed some insights into their new book. We also discuss how the military concepts of teamwork and mission before self have been transferred over to their writing and promotional models.

Sons of Valor releases to the public June 8th and raises to prominence a minor, but very popular character in some of their previous books.  The co-authors begin the process of writing each book with a “what if?” proposition. In the case of Sons of Valor, this involves a terrorist organization that gains access to technologies that eliminate the asymmetric nature of battle.

We spend a great deal of time talking about transitions following military service and both Jeffrey & Brian share their thoughts and challenges they personally faced. Both guests emphasize that Veterans should realize they are not alone. There is a whole community their fellows who have successfully made the transition and are willing to provide mentoring or other support.

Their team philosophy extends to their promotional strategies as well. They believe that Veterans can lift each other up. Some examples of this creative cross promotion include using Bottle Breacher products on their merchandise page and a Bone Frog Coffee line specifically named after their new series. They also often review books written by fellow Veteran authors like Jack Carr.

TAKEAWAY: “Regardless of what business you want to go into, if you are going to be cowed at the first roadblock that’s a shame. This is how the world works – there are a lot of gatekeepers whose job is to slam the door in your face and see what you do.”

This year it was an honor to be asked by Nevada & Arizona Hall of Fame broadcaster Bill Buckmaster to put together a Memorial Day show for his program.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier has been guarded every minute of every day since 1937. Ruth Robinson is one of only five female soldiers to be selected for this duty.  Only 20% of the soldiers that volunteer are selected for training and even fewer ultimately selected. Ruth also serves as the Education Committee Chairwoman for the Society of the Honor Guard, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Ruth was awarded badge number 643. The Sentinel Badge is the third least awarded Army Badge and the only one that can be revoked.  Ruth shares some of the traditions and ceremony involved with being a Sentinel.  Examples include the fact that Sentinels do not wear rank while “walking the mat” so as to never outrank the unknown soldiers.

Ken Rodgers is a Vietnam Combat Veteran who was involved in the Siege of Khe Sahn. That epic battle pitted 6,000 Marines and Vietnamese allies against 20,000 or more communist North Vietnamese troops.  274 of his comrades did not survive. Ken and his wife produced a very powerful documentary about that battle called “Bravo! Common Men, Uncommon Valor.” They have also produced a new documentary called “I Married the War.”

There is a great diversity of opinions among Veterans about how to observe Memorial Day. Ken shares his perspective including the fact that he chooses to not attend funerals because he would rather remember his comrades as they were in life.

TAKEWAY:  There are  525,600 minutes in a year. The least each of us can do is sacrifice a minute for those who sacrificed their lives.