Profiles in Havok

Ben Buehler-Garcia never served in the military – which is why he supports those who do.

For over 25 years he has volunteered with various initiatives to support military families including the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Military Affairs Committee, Employer Support of the Guard & Reserve, USS Tucson 770 Club, the Tucson Community Cares Foundation and as the Honorary Commander for the 12th Air Force/Air Forces Southern.

But almost a decade ago, Ben took over the still new American Warrior Radio and built it into a platform that advocates for veterans by giving them a platform on both public radio and podcast networks to tell their stories. Ben is a seasoned pro at mining veterans' stories for content that will help bridge the civil-military divide and ensure that veterans' wisdom and experiences do not get memory-holed.

In a time when so many veterans are trying to find their voice and when the country is often confused about the warfighter experience, Ben has selflessly served a crucial role in the American narrative.

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A long time coming. Finally was able to sit down with JC Glick and Zoom to Zoom with one of the great thinkers and writers at Havok Journal. What a blast. We have more laughs than you would think as we cover everything from the origins of his suicidal ideations to the policy failures in Afghanistan.

JC Glick served in two Ranger Battalions as well as Regimental Headquarters and has over 7 years in the Ranger Regiment and over 7 and a half years (90 months) of command time with operational and combat deployments to Haiti, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He was a Senior Service Chief’s Fellow at Defense Research Projects Agency located outside of Washington DC, as well as serving as the Chief of Future Operations at the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) at Fort Meade, MD. His last assignment was the Director of Victory College at Fort Jackson, leading the Army’s Leadership Development School, Resiliency School and the military’s only Physical Fitness School. In his tenure as the Director, LTC Glick was responsible for the drafting and implementation of the Army’s Fitness Strategy through 2025, as well as the transformation of the Leadership Development School’s curriculum and the complete transformation of Basic Combat Training for every new Soldier entering the force. JC attended the Naval War College in Newport, RI, where he earned his Masters in National Security and Strategic Studies. He also holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Rhode Island and is a Liberty Fellow, part of the Aspen Institute. He has earned 3 Bronze Stars, 3 Meritorious Service Medals, a Joint Commendation Medal, and the Order of Saint Maurice. JC is also the author of the books A Light in the Darkness: Leadership Development for the Unknown, and Meditations of an Army Ranger: A Warrior Philosophy for Everyone.

Havok Journal writer Neville Johnson has lived a life of high adventure. And he has the scars to prove it. Always an articulate, humble, insightful and soulful interview, we start at his childhood in South Africa as the son of a police officer and follow him into the British Army, deployments to Northern Ireland, Iraq and Afghanistan and then into the realm of private military contracting in Iraq. I've always been fascinated with the Border Wars and the second- and third-order effects of the end of apartheid and Nev provides a fascinating window into day-to-day life in South Africa before, during and after the vast political changes. But Nev also has an eye for the intimate details, the quiet moments, the key decision points that kept him in the profession of arms for so long. It was a real pleasure to speak with Nev about subjects that so few can speak knowledgeably about.

Life by Neville Johnson in Havok Journal

Sunset by Neville Johnson in Havok Journal

Home Coming by Neville Johnson in Havok Journal

Memories of War by Neville Johnson in Havok Journal

Stranger to Myself by Neville Johnson in Havok Journal

Sweeping Leaves in the Wind, Good Soldiers Don’t Cry, and Alone in a Crowded Room by the Veterans Collective, featuring selections from Neville Johnson.

War...& After The Anthology of Poet Warriors Collection 2 by Dead Reckoning Collective, featuring selections from Neville Johnson.

Wesley Morgan is a military affairs reporter who covered the Pentagon for two and a half years at Politico. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., Iraq, and Afghanistan, contributing stories to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications. He is an alumnus of Princeton University.

In the wake of our withdrawl from Afghanistan, I - like many of you - have done a lot of soul-searching, navel gazing, and head-scratching about the war: our goals, our execution, our exit. That's why I was glad to have Wes Morgan on the show today. Wes is the author of The Hardest Place: The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley, a book that I place alongside Steve Coll's books and Thomas Barfield's Afghanistan as invaluable contributions to understanding the country and its problem sets. Wes started the book as an embedded reporter in 2010 and continued writing it, traveling to Afghanistan and interviewing folks for the next decade or so. He was there for the first draft of history, but his book has the benefit of perspective and context for how the war would play out. I would go so far as to say that if you haven't read The Hardest Place yet, you may not fully understand or be able to articulate all the dysfunction and nuance that you might have found during your deployments there. Or maybe that's just me and I'm projecting. But either way, any serious student of military history or our time in Afghanistan or proponent of COIN cannot afford to ignore the book. Wes wisely focuses on Pech Valley and Kunar Province, without trying to sum up all the battle spaces inside Afghanistan, so there are certain problem sets that don't translate completely to other provinces. But the Venn diagram of problems in Pech Valley overlaps enough with the rest of Afghanistan to provide a useful insight into many aspects of the war, theater-wide.

Follow Wes here.

Command Sgt. Major (ret.) Tom Satterly served in the Army for 25 years, 20 of those years were spent in the military’s most secretive and elite Special Operations unit, Delta Force. As an Operator and CSM, Tom fought in and lead countless high profile military missions including Operation Red Dawn (Saddam Hussein’s capture) and the Battle of Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down). Although the physical, mental, and emotional toll of war had compounded over the years, Tom never faced his Post-Traumatic Stress symptoms and in 2013 he nearly ended his life. Had it not been a text from his now wife, Jen, he would have joined the 22 veterans who commit suicide every single day.

The Satterly’s founded All Secure Foundation in August 2017 as a resource library for helping warriors and their families navigate the maze of treatments and modalities of healing from PTS. They have worked individually with hundreds of warriors and their families and soon became more than a referral website but also a provider of education, awareness, and programs for healing.

It's not easy to talk about marriage difficulties in servicemembers' and veterans' families, or the battles of the mind, body, and spirit that accompany those problems. But I had a blast talking with Tom and Jen. The conversation ranges from examinations of manhood and femininity, expectation management for both spouses and servicemembers, and some casual put-downs of accountants and cat lovers. It's an eye-opening conversation about how to integrate relationship health into the warfighter's life - and a reminder about the reasons warfighting is often a single man's game - with a couple that has been through an awful lot and come out the other end smiling.

All Secure Foundation

All Secure by Tom Satterly

Arsenal of Hope by Jen Satterly

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Scott Mann is a professional storyteller. His play Last Out is a full-spectrum treatment of our war in Afghanistan. It is not an anti-war play. It is not a pro-war play. It is simply a play about war and all its complications - the toll it takes on the warfighter; the way it impacts the warfighter’s family - both positively and negatively; the intersection of cultures in this particular war; finding - or failing to find - a strategic equilibrium that worked and was sustainable. It short Scott gives a 360-degree look at the micro and macro implications of the war. It is rare to find a play that feeds both left and right brains, yet Scott managed to write it. More than that, he also starred in the play, along with a cast that includes two other combat veterans. Only the outbreak of COVID stopped Last Out’s tour of 16 cities.

But you can’t understand Scott as a warrior-artist until you really understand his warrior path. A career Army officer, Scott retired as a Lieutenant Colonel with most of his time spent in Special Forces. Also ten years after retirement, Scott found himself launching Task Force Pineapple to help evacuate Afghans, especially Afghan commandos from the country following our withdrawl. As a result, Scott has a real chip on his shoulder about the way the war was fought, the way we left the country and the way we abandoned our allies. He also carries a lot of love for the Afghan people and the Green Berets he served with. Now, on the cusp of potential US involvement in Ukraine, Scott still has skin in the game - his son is an Infantry platoon leader. In other words, there’s no way we could not spend the bulk of the episode unpacking Scott’s takeaways from his military, familial and humanitarian efforts. This was a truly unique episode with a truly accomplished warrior-artist who has managed to find the balance of his art, his moral obligations and his warrior path.

Watch Last Out - coming soon to Amazon Prime!

Follow Scott’s Rooftop Leadership company here, The Heroes Journey here, or his personal account here.

Toby Harnden's latest book is First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11. He is a winner of the Orwell Prize for Books. A former foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London and the Daily Telegraph who reported from thirty-three countries, Toby specializes in terrorism and war. Born in Portsmouth, England, Harnden was imprisoned in Zimbabwe, prosecuted in Britain for protecting confidential sources, and vindicated by a $23 million public inquiry in Ireland. A dual British and US citizen, he spent a decade as a Royal Navy officer before becoming a journalist. He holds a First Class degree in modern history from Oxford and is the author of Bandit Country: The IRA & South Armagh and Dead Men Risen: An Epic Story of War and Heroism in Afghanistan. Previously based in London, Belfast, Jerusalem, Baghdad, and Washington, DC, he lives in Virginia.

After two hours, we had covered a lot about First Casualty, a little about Toby and we left a lot on the table for next time. As I said on the episode, First Casualty had the emotional impact to me of reading an old high school yearbook and remembering when I first heard about Mike Spann or ODAs on the ground partnering with the Northern Alliance. Even the memory of how America was in 2001 seems so dated. Toby captures it well and seeing the impact the next 20 years have had on some of the key players in post-9/11 Afgahnistan is instructive and moving. Toby's a great talker and I was struck by the similarities between soldiering and journalists when it comes to FOMO and the need to be where the action is. Considering how restricted US movement was in late 2020, I was feeling a little FOMO at hearing his account as the last western journalist to talk with General Dostum. Can't wait for his next adventures...

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First Casualty: The Untold Story of the CIA Mission to Avenge 9/11 by Toby Harnden

Toby Harnden author page on Amazon

My guest this week was Hollie McKay. Hollie has worked on the frontlines of several major war zones and covered humanitarian and diplomatic crises in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Turkey, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Burma, Russia, Africa, Latin America, and other areas. She has written for Coffee or Die, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications where she has garnered a slew of foreign press and humanitarian awards for her writing. Today, I spoke with her about Afghanistan. She was in Mazar-e Sharif when it fell to the Taliban, she was evacuated by the Taliban to the Uzbek border and she returned a few weeks later to travel throughout Afghanistan for the next three months, capturing aspects of Afghan life and the changing culture and politics perhaps in ways that no other journalist has done so far. There is no one better acquainted with the new normal in Afghanistan than Hollie and I was beyond thrilled to talk with her and press her for details on foreign involvement in Afghanistan to the root causes of the collapse – and everything in between. She was refreshingly candid, humbly honest and poignantly articulate. Bookmark this chat - whether you care about Afghanistan now or won't care about it until the next Afghanistan-rooted crisis, Hollie is bearing witness to an unfolding history we all need to understand.

Only Cry for the Living by Hollie McKay

Hollie is on Instagram and Substack.

I am not exaggerating when I say that High Risk Soldier:Trauma and Triumph in the Global War on Terror may be the best first-person military memoir I've ever read. Culled from Terron Wharton’s personal journal and emails home, it captures so many sights, sounds, and emotions that come with a deployment that you will feel like you’re there – but even more than that, you will also read descriptions that you never have heard articulated so simply and so thoroughly. One example that moved me was:

“You never really know how much a situation has affected you until you're no longer neck deep in it, until you're no longer looking over your shoulder, until your mind finally registers "Hey, relax, no one is trying to kill you." You get a massive outpouring of tension... followed by relief... and then followed by guilt. Finally, the strangest thing of all: you start to miss it. You find you feel more awkward back in this alternate reality than in your "normal" world, and you wonder what that means. You find things start to itch just under the surface. You miss the rumble of gunpowder and cordite, and the throb of the pack. You find it all seems a little out of place back here.”

Terron also has an officer's eye for innovation and hints at prescriptions for systemic change. In our interview, I pushed to see what changes he would like to see to make mental health treatment less stigmatized. A sizeable hat-tip to Marshall McGurk, Ayman Kafel and Project Sapient who brought the book to my attention - and to Ayman for co-hosting this episode with me.

Terron Wharton was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. His chosen military path began with joining his high school's JROTC program. His mother was not thrilled, but agreed as long as Terron kept his GPA above a 3.0. He first learned about West Point while in JROTC and became the first in his family to attend a service academy. He graduated in 2005 with a degree in International Relations and was assigned to Armor Branch, his first choice. In October 2006 Terron deployed to FOB Rustamiyah in Baghdad, Iraq as a Tank Platoon Leader, leading 16 men and four tanks in combat. This 15 month deployment occurred during "The Surge", a period marked by high levels of violence and viewed as a turning point in the Iraq War. Terron deployed two other times as part of the Global War on Terror. The second was to Baghdad again, this time as a staff officer to one of the largest Coalition bases in Iraq, Victory Base Complex. The third deployment was to Kandahar City, Afghanistan, during which he led over 100 Soldiers as a Troop Commander and lived with over 400 Afghan Police.

Show Notes

Dave Grossman's On Killing

When I started the Weekly Havok it was supposed to be a roundtable discussion with the staff and writers at Havok Journal. You probably noticed it increasingly because one-on-one interviews. Honestly, it's just hard to wrangle three guests for a panel each week. That's why it started becoming more "spotlight" episodes where I did one-on-one interviews. So, after a little thinking, we've rebranded TWH into Profiles in Havok - which kind of fits the one-on-one interview theme a lot better. And it will still populate in your old TWH feed, so you can still listen to our old episodes. But I couldn't think of a better guest to kick off our rebranding than Brad Thomas. There are a lot of reasons I couldn't wait to sit down and talk with Brad. I've listened to his rock band Silence & Light's debut album a lot. The battle of Mogadishu had a big impact on both of us - me in high school and him being there. And like him, I was greatly influenced by a lot of early 90's bands. So I had high hopes for the interview. They were all surpassed. There are not a lot of rock band founders who can discuss military culture with any real authority or insight. There are not a lot of former Delta operators who can nerd out on open choruses and Barry Manilow. Between the military and the music, we manage to cover so much ground. And even so, I had enough questions and follow-ups for another few hours. Do not miss this one.

A Delta Operator Transitions from War to Music by Brad Thomas

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