Former China Analyst at the CIA | Gail Helt | Ep. 162

Sergeant Major Mike Vining is one of the original members of Delta Force. In 1980, he was a participant in Operation Eagle Claw, a failed attempt to rescue 52 American hostages held in Iran. Forty years later, Vining reflects on the mission, its legacy, and the impact it had on today's Special Operations Forces. We are also excited to announce our second sponsor, HighSpeedDaddy.com. Use the discount code "JACK" at checkout to claim 10% off your purchase. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

2 Maj 20202h 19min

Erin talks to us about how she started at the CIA as an intern shredding papers and rose to becoming an operations officer working in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the interview, she shared some pretty hair raising stories about how they nearly drove into an ambush in Mosul but her GRS security element saved their lives. In another incident, the Army actions a target she had developed and she got to ride in the Humvee as it smashed through the front gate. Support our sponsor Ned by visiting www.helloned.com/TEAMHOUSE to get 15% off your first order and free shipping! We are also excited to announce our second sponsor, HighSpeedDaddy.com. Use the discount code "JACK" at checkout to claim 10% off your purchase. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

25 Apr 20202h 26min

Patrick K. O'Donnell is a historian and bestselling author. He is a premier expert on the history of special operations. With eleven critically acclaimed books he has conducted thousands of hours of interviews with members of elite units such as the OSS, Merrill's Marauders and many modern day units. Support our sponsor Ned by visiting www.helloned.com/TEAMHOUSE to get 15% off your first order and free shipping! We are also excited to announce our second sponsor, HighSpeedDaddy.com. Use the discount code "JACK" at checkout to claim 10% off your purchase. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

18 Apr 20202h 27min

Robert Adolph retired as a Lt. Col. in Special Forces having been a combat diver and deployed around the world as a soldier all before starting a second career as a security chief for the United Nations. That job took him around the world a few more times, particularly to Sierra Leone, Yemen, and Iraq where he had some really hairy assignments. Many of these stories are detailed in his new book titled, "Surviving the United Nations." Robert's book can be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Surviving-United-Nations-Unexpected-Challenge/dp/1733398007 Support our sponsor Ned by visiting www.helloned.com/TEAMHOUSE to get 15% off your first order and free shipping! We are also excited to announce our second sponsor, HighSpeedDaddy.com. Use the discount code "JACK" at checkout to claim 10% off your purchase. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

11 Apr 20201h 15min

George Hand served in Special Forces as a Green Beret and then as a operator in Delta Force. In this episode we talk about George's deployments to the Balkans, Somalia, and Colombia as well and planned ops in Haiti and Libya. We also get into the Advon Troop AKA "the funny platoon" that includes women assigned to the unit.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

4 Apr 20202h 32min

In early 2002 Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq, prepare the battlefield and facilitate the entry of follow-on conventional military forces numbering in excess of 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam's army in the north as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground inside Iraq within weeks and that the entire campaign would likely be over by summer. Over the next year virtually every aspect of that plan for the conduct of the war in Northern Iraq fell apart. The 4th Infantry Division never arrived nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only did not provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the U.S. from achieving success. An Arab army that was to assist U.S. forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field. Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists Faddis' team, working with Kurdish peshmerga, nonetheless paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the north and the fall of Saddam's Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The surrender of Iraqi forces in the north was spurned. All existing governmental institutions were, in the name of de-Baathification, dismantled. All input from Faddis' team, which had been in country for almost a full year, was ignored. The consequences of these actions were and continue to be catastrophic. This is the story of an incredibly brave and effective team of men and women who overcame massive odds and helped end the nightmare of Saddam's rule in Iraq. It is also the story of how incompetence, bureaucracy and ignorance threw that success away and condemned Iraq and the surrounding region to chaos. Sam's book "The CIA War in Kurdistan" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/CIA-War-Kurdistan-Untold-Northern/dp/1612008348 Support our sponsor Ned by visiting www.helloned.com/TEAMHOUSE to get 15% off your first order and free shipping! Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouseBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

28 Mars 20201h 52min

Tracy Walder went from sorority girl to a CIA Staff Operations Officer putting a stop to biological terror plots worldwide. Her book, the Unexpected Spy tells that story but she joins The Team House to discuss her career at the CIA, becoming a FBI Special Agent, and the bio-weapon terror threat. We will also discuss the coronavirus and get her thoughts as a professional that worked to counter biological terrorism. Her book is The Unexpected Spy found here: https://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Spy-Secret-Notorious-Terrorists/dp/1250230985Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

21 Mars 20201h 54min

Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl left his platoon's base in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of June 30, 2009. Since that day, easy answers to the many questions surrounding his case--why did he leave his post? What kinds of efforts were made to recover him from the Taliban? And why, facing a court martial, did he plead guilty to the serious charges against him?--have proved elusive. Taut in its pacing but sweeping in its scope, American Cipher is the riveting and deeply sourced account of the nearly decade-old Bergdahl quagmire--which, as journalists Matt Farwell and Michael Ames persuasively argue, is as illuminating an episode as we have as we seek the larger truths of how the United States lost its way in Afghanistan. The book tells the parallel stories of a young man's halting coming of age and a nation stalled in an unwinnable war, revealing the fallout that ensued when the two collided: a fumbling recovery effort that suppressed intelligence on Bergdahl's true location and bungled multiple opportunities to bring him back sooner; a homecoming that served to deepen the nation's already-vast political fissure; a trial that cast judgment on not only the defendant, but most everyone involved. The book's beating heart is Bergdahl himself--an idealistic, misguided soldier onto whom a nation projected the political and emotional complications of service. Based on years of exclusive reporting drawing on dozens of sources throughout the military, government, and Bergdahl's family, friends, and fellow soldiers, American Cipher is at once a meticulous investigation of government dysfunction and political posturing, a blistering commentary on America's presence in Afghanistan, and a heartbreaking story of a naïve young man who thought he could fix the world and wound up the tool of forces far beyond his understanding. Support the stream on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cl7igKj1RI SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

14 Mars 20201h 43min