← The Shawn Ryan Show
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- [00:01]
Joshua Mast
Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy.
- [00:03]
Sean Ryan
Fries right as they're being scooped into the carton?
- [00:07]
Joshua Mast
And time just stands still?
- [00:13]
Stephanie Mast
Bada ba ba ba.
- [00:16]
Sean Ryan
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Upgrade your business with Shopify, home of.
- [00:20]
Joshua Mast
The number one checkout on the planet.
- [00:22]
Sean Ryan
Shop pay boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning fewer carts going abandoned and more sales going cha ching. So if you're into growing your business, get a commerce platform that's ready to.
- [00:32]
Joshua Mast
Sell wherever your customers are.
- [00:34]
Sean Ryan
Visit shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. Joshua and Stephanie Mast, welcome to the show.
- [00:55]
Stephanie Mast
It's good to be here.
- [00:55]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, Sean, we really appreciate you having us, man.
- [00:58]
Sean Ryan
You guys have one hell of a story here and very complicated. Doing the best I can. We're going to cover all of it. It's probably going to be a long show. But, you know, even though nobody knows what we're about to talk about just yet, I just want to say, like, man, you guys are like such honorable people doing what you're doing, and I'm really excited to do this and to get this out into the world. So thank you guys for what you're doing and thank you for being here.
- [01:32]
Joshua Mast
We really appreciate it. I mean, honestly, we feel blessed to have been a part of this. Like, we're very proud of it, and we'd like to put the spotlight on some people who've made it happen along the way. Regular Americans doing their thing at the ground level, and it's really about them.
- [01:49]
Sean Ryan
Awesome. Awesome. Well, everybody gets an introduction. So Major Joshua and Stephanie Mast. Major Joshua Mast, you're a United States Marine Judge Advocate General with a law degree from Liberty University and currently assigned as the Assistant Operations Officer, Marine Raider Support Group, Marine Special Forces Operation Command. You've served as a civil law attorney, trial counsel, and prosecutor. You deployed to Afghanistan in 2019 and were in the Resolute Support Headquarters Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, where your portfolio responsibilities included targeting collateral damage estimation and civilian casualty response. You are married to Stephanie, who is a graduate of Thomas Edison State University and has Master's degrees from Liberty University and the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, California. Most importantly, you invest your time raising your five children, ages 13, 10, 6, 5, and 4. And I think you guys said downstairs you've been married for 18 years.
- [03:01]
Stephanie Mast
Yes.
- [03:01]
Sean Ryan
Congratulations. And it's because of the love you have for one of your children that you're here with us today. So before we move on, a couple caveats and disclaimers before we begin. We need to make some Important clarifications. Josh. Can I call you Josh, or do you prefer Joshua? You're an active duty Marine Corps officer. You can clarify if you are speaking on can you please clarify if you are speaking on behalf of the Marine Corps Special Operations Command, SOCOM or the Department of Defense?
- [03:36]
Joshua Mast
No, obviously this is just my personal opinion, our perspective on what's happened over the last few years in our life. And then normally I wouldn't even associate with marsoc, but they've recently acknowledged that I'm a member of the command. So that allows us to be here and be able to acknowledge that today.
- [03:53]
Sean Ryan
Okay, what are the limitations on what you both can say in this interview due to classification, operational security and or ongoing legal matters?
- [04:05]
Joshua Mast
Okay, so obviously we can't go into classified information. A lot of what we're going to talk about has been declassified and authorized for release into the public domain. So we will talk about that. That portion of it. And then as far as ongoing legal matters, the only thing we're not going to do is some of the Afghans we've been in other litigation with, we're not allowed to identify those people to third parties or where they're from or where their families are from. And so we're not going to do that. It's really not even the focus of today. And then there's restriction from commenting on some of the state court proceedings. So we're not going to talk about what's happened in the state court. But what we are going to focus on today is there was a recent board of inquiry at MARSOC that I went through in October. And then for the first time, that was actually a blessing in disguise for us because for the first time, we had some due process rights to information that we've been asking for for years. And it could be discretionary, denied before if it was in a civil case. But in this case, because they was putting your career on the line, they had to give you at least some of that information. And so a lot of this is going to focus on the board of inquiry and then a little bit on some government misconduct.
- [05:14]
Sean Ryan
Okay, and I think you just answered this, but I just, I don't want to miss anything. So can you comment on any of the ongoing legal cases?
- [05:22]
Joshua Mast
No, we're not going to. We'll focus on the board of inquiry and like I said, some government misconduct along the way.
- [05:27]
Sean Ryan
Perfect. All right, so I just want to give the audience. This is super complicated what's going on here. So I want to give a quick snapshot on what we're about to cover. So basically there was an Al Qaeda raid conducted by the Rangers, 100 plus enemy killed in action. There was a baby found on target with a fractured skull, fractured left femur and second degree burns on her face and neck from her mother blowing herself up running at a Ranger partner force tried to murder the baby because of her foreign origin. The rangers brought the baby back to the camp, that means back to base where they were. The ranger who saved her killed Amir Omar, the Aqis Amir, on the next mission took a bullet to the neck and ended up being treated next to her in the hospital. And now we'll hear about the long story and still incomplete journey. Basically, you guys have adopted her and there seems to be a lot of custody issues going on in the courts. And that's what we're here to talk about today. So once again, thank you guys for being here. A couple of things before we get into the weeds here. I have a Patreon account. They're our top supporters, turned into quite the community and they've been here with me since the beginning. They're why I'm here and also why you guys are here. So one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And so this is from Eric Alger, Major Master. Beyond the legal and ethical questions, this case has likely put immense strain on your personal life, your marriage and your career of the military. What has this battle cost you personally in ways that aren't in the headlines? And how have you reconciled those sacrifices with your sense of duty and faith?
- [07:27]
Joshua Mast
That's a great question.
- [07:28]
Sean Ryan
It's pretty deep.
- [07:29]
Joshua Mast
I appreciate it. I think I'm going to reverse that, so I'm going to answer it in reverse. So the way I've justified the sacrifice is as an American, you're a constitutional officer, your swornups hold certain values. And then we put on that uniform, we go down range, represent American values. And so to me, when you're acting in accordance with those values, the cost is not relevant. At least not. And this was a very easy, like a very easy call in the moment. The follow through has been very difficult. But I mean from the Rangers on objective to the medical staff who raised her and like really put their career on the line to advocate for her and to make sure she had a long term safe solution. To us, we're the public face of that now. But it was dozens if not hundreds of Americans who sacrificed along the way their peace. But none of them did that selfishly. I guess the best analogy I can articulate is if you see a car wreck and a car burning on the wrong side of the road and you go and help that person get them out, you're not thinking about you, you're showing, I guess you're showing sacrificial love in the moment. And then whatever the follow through is, that's just part of the decision making process. So to me is it has been hard, it has been strain in our marriage or stress, constant work, because as an attorney, I'm thankful it was us because of the skill set I have that I can work as many hours as I can into the night and then I'm grateful. One of my, my best friends, Hannam Wright, was a reservist in the Marine Corps and heard about this and he volunteered his time and he's fought with us like every step of the way. When for a long time it's just us and him fighting against some mega law firms and some of this litigation, and seeing those people willing to sacrifice their time and money to basically put their name on the line and stand in the gap with us, it's just so humbling. So there are low points, but, but the people that come along during that journey have been just such incredible people. It's been an encouragement, it's honestly been an honor. It's been a fight. And I don't say that lightly, a literal fight for her life. But the people we've gotten to meet along the way have just been incredible. Even like this, sitting here and talking to you and being able to speak directly to Americans, regular people, without the filter of some of this legacy media folks or spins or agenda, you can just say, hey, this is what happened. This is who we're about. This is why we did what we did and we do it again. I think that would be the most surprising thing to people is like we are extremely proud of all of the decision making we've made. And I mean, it is absolutely worth it, I guess, to see her flourish and safe at home and loved and have a family and a life. We're very grateful for that. I don't know if I answered all of his prompts, but do you have.
- [10:25]
Sean Ryan
Anything to add to that?
- [10:26]
Stephanie Mast
I would say, I would acknowledge, I think there was a period of time just because we were in a fight, we were like, we're okay, we're okay, we're strong, we've got this, we've got this. And as the fight has drug on for almost five years now, like the whole process, it Has. I mean, I've realized we've come to realize that we can acknowledge that it has been hard or challenging and that it has put stress on our family life. And just as we were average Americans raising young children, just trying to keep up, juggle normal life and then this on the side, you know, this as well. And so it certainly has been a challenge. But I think it's made all of us, including our children, grow through this whole process and strengthen us in ways that, I mean, if I were honest, life is uncomfortable at times, it's challenging at times, but it is making us rise to, I think, a different level of working together and trusting each other, that had we not gone through it, I don't think we would be as strong as we are or we're becoming.
- [11:34]
Joshua Mast
And I would add one other thing to that is one benefit that's come from this is when you're faced with a lot of criticism and you know, it's unjust, but over time, what you do is you look internally like, hey, did I make that decision right? Was I operating? Is any of this stuff true? And having to do that soul searching and being like, it's just a nature of the beast of getting criticized for the first time, really, in a public way and going internal and like, okay, this is my worldview. These are my beliefs, these are the facts. And especially in this ward, when you actually get to go back, that's the first time I've actually gone back and looked at some of the stuff in five years. And you're like, holy cow. Absolutely. We made the right call, we did the right thing, and so did these regular Americans. And it's just interesting. You're almost getting gaslit on history of what actually happened and going back and having a go in granular details. It's. Honestly, it's difficult because there's so much trauma when you have to go back and begin, especially with the fall. Like, I cry like a baby every time I think about that period of my life, and I wasn't even there. But, you know, you're connected with these people on the ground and you're trying to get vulnerable people out and you're trying to get your little girl out, like, last chance before the Taliban take over. And so, like, a lot of that stuff reflecting on it is difficult, but it is absolutely reinforced, like, the paradigm that we made these decisions in. And I'm excited to kind of talk through what those were.
- [12:54]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. You know, as far as the, the faith aspect of the. The question there, I mean, I know you both have a lot of fear that this might not turn out, you know, in. In you or your daughter's favor. But, you know, the conversation we had right before the camera started rolling is that you both realize there is a bigger picture. And then a lot of this stuff, a lot of the positive stuff would not even happen. It's in God's hands. And. And so it doesn't. So kind of what I'm getting at here is it doesn't sound like it's really. Maybe it strengthened your faith.
- [13:29]
Stephanie Mast
Absolutely.
- [13:29]
Joshua Mast
Rather than. Yeah. So I would 100% say it is it. When you get to see deliverance and the faithfulness of God over time, it encourages you to just trust him for the future. And like, she should have been dead so many times over, and we should have been crushed by the weight of this so many times over, and that it's always been just enough. And so we're confident however that comes, it will come and she'll be safe forever.
- [13:59]
Stephanie Mast
I would say absolutely. Put our faith to the test. And before, you know, before this period in our lives, we were cruising right along and things were kind of going the way we expected it to go. And this has brought us to the very end of ourselves where. I mean, like, beyond us. Yeah, beyond us. Like our personal capacity. And both of us are pretty hard workers and determined, and so for the most part, we're able to accomplish whatever we put our minds to. But this has been. This process has been so much bigger than that that it's made us more reliant on our faith. And because we realize that we are not capable of doing it and to.
- [14:37]
Joshua Mast
Ask others for help, like, we've learned that, like, we've never asked for help ever. But when you're. When it's so far beyond you and you can't do it yourself, like, that's a bit. Like, that's one of my first things in life where it's like, you can't, between the two of us, figure it out, pull it off or afford it or like those types of things. But then when you have so many good people come along and help you through those, just totally unexpected a lot of the times. And this has gained momentum now where it's more of a national news story. But at the beginning, people without any recognition were. Were coming in and stepping in and helping us, and they have literally saved our lives and her life.
- [15:11]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [15:11]
Joshua Mast
We're thankful for that.
- [15:12]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [15:13]
Joshua Mast
And then.
- [15:14]
Sean Ryan
And then before we move on, I just. I want to make a couple things clear at the Very beginning. And so this is a custody battle between you guys and who?
- [15:23]
Joshua Mast
Well, so in reality, I think.
- [15:27]
Sean Ryan
Is it the Taliban?
- [15:28]
Joshua Mast
Yes, I think so.
- [15:29]
Sean Ryan
This is a custody battle between. I don't want to over complicate anything yet, don't go all attorney on me, but this is a custody battle between you guys in the Taliban, a terrorist organization. And so I just, I want to set the tone here, the weight of this interview, that way, it's right off the bat people understand the importance of it. And so we'll go from there.
- [15:58]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, and I think that for people to understand, it's essentially a Taliban Ilia Gonzalez situation. That's how we've kind of boiled it down into a one sentence thing because we're not really litigating these Afghans that we've been in litigation with because they wouldn't actually be in control of this child if she was ever in their custody. There would be someone above them that would be calling the shots. And I believe that's the Taliban.
- [16:25]
Sean Ryan
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- [17:41]
Joshua Mast
Mic Drop Hosted by former Navy SEAL Mike Ritlin.
- [17:45]
Sean Ryan
It's raw.
- [17:46]
Joshua Mast
Any single time you left the wire, you could lose four guys. It's unfiltered.
- [17:50]
Sean Ryan
That's the most horrible screaming I'd ever heard. Taking a hit on the chin. You want to pay it back.
- [17:54]
Joshua Mast
It's tough talk from the top minds in their field. Would I choose to not do our duty as military fighting men? No, I would not make that decision without question. Mic Drop Follow and listen on your favorite platform.
- [18:15]
Sean Ryan
And then. Well, real quick. This will be the only light part of the interview, I'm sure, but everybody gets a gift.
- [18:23]
Joshua Mast
All right.
- [18:26]
Sean Ryan
Gummy Bears, Vigilance Elite. Gummy Bears. Made in the U.S. just candy. There's no funny business.
- [18:32]
Joshua Mast
Okay. I don't have to worry about.
- [18:33]
Sean Ryan
Don't worry.
- [18:33]
Joshua Mast
Analysis. Okay, got it.
- [18:35]
Sean Ryan
Don't worry. You're gonna pass your drug test.
- [18:38]
Stephanie Mast
Well, our kids will probably confiscate them.
- [18:41]
Joshua Mast
Well, Sean, we actually. I saw this, watched a couple episodes and saw the gummy bears, so we actually got a gift for you to kind of reciprocate. But this is. This was made by one of our community resource coordinator at marsoc. Her husband does these for the Marines. He does a really great job.
- [19:01]
Sean Ryan
Oh, damn.
- [19:02]
Joshua Mast
But this is a K bar, so I have a tradition at the end of the deployment to find someone that's impacted me and given my knife. And so I got this for you. And the. The quote says live for an audience of 1, and it cites 2 Corinthians, 5, 10. And that was on my email sig block back in the day. And it's more of a reminder to just do the right thing for the right reasons and with. With someone like you has such an audience. It's a good. It's a good quote. Wow. Maybe. Maybe it'll make you make the cut for the man cave. Hopefully.
- [19:32]
Sean Ryan
It's definitely going to make the cut. Live for an audience of one man. That is. Man, that's fitting. That's awesome. Thank you. Yeah, this is. This is going to look awesome. We're actually building a new studio.
- [19:45]
Joshua Mast
Okay, good.
- [19:46]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, it's going to be good timing. Yeah, this will be perfect in there.
- [19:49]
Joshua Mast
But we really do appreciate you giving us an opportunity, man.
- [19:53]
Sean Ryan
Thank you. This means a lot. Thank you. All right, so here we go. So tell me a little bit. Just tell me a little bit about both of your guys. Backgrounds.
- [20:09]
Joshua Mast
Okay.
- [20:11]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Let's start with you.
- [20:13]
Joshua Mast
So I never intended to be a lawyer. My family business is golf. My dad played the PGA Tour for 40 years, Champions Tour. I grew up playing golf. His. His. His father, my grandfather, built a golf course when he was a child. That's how he got into golf. And so golf was kind of our family business. One of my. My brothers is a golf Pro. I played D1 in college. I even played on the mini tours for a little bit out of college. But raised in a very traditional family, and I always wanted to go in the Marine Corps if I didn't do golf. And so we were actually married Before I decided to go in the Marine Corps, I was working, I was playing some golf on the mini tours in Florida and decided to try to go into the Marine Corps.
- [20:56]
Stephanie Mast
This one conversation, we were driving a road trip of somewhere and you were talking about the risk and yeah, so.
- [21:03]
Joshua Mast
Basically like, hey, you want to have a life that matters. You want to have a life that you can be a positive influence, an opportunity to lead and be led. And so the Marine Corps seemed like a good, good fit for that. And I was, I was thinking of either doing law school or the Marine Corps, most of the Marine Corps. And so I talked to her officer selection officer for the first time on a Tuesday. And they're like, go back next year. Like our slots are full. And I was like, no, I want to go in this year. And so they're like. And then I mentioned I had LSAT score and they're like, oh, the Marine Corps needs lawyers, but the deadline's Friday. And so it was Tuesday. They're like, you got any tattoos? I'm like, nope. And they say, you got any medical issues? Like, I don't think so. So like, okay, we'll show up at MEPs tomorrow at 5 and then come run your PFT and then we'll see if we can get your application in. And oh, by the way, you have to be accepted to law school. So I actually applied and was accepted to the Marine Corps and law school in that four day period.
- [21:51]
Sean Ryan
Oh my gosh, are you serious?
- [21:53]
Joshua Mast
And then I shipped 6 weeks later to OCS and I knew nothing about the Marine Corps and I just kind of just did what they told me to do and stayed, you know, in the lane and I was fit enough from.
- [22:03]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [22:04]
Joshua Mast
From professional athletics.
- [22:05]
Sean Ryan
What year is this?
- [22:06]
Joshua Mast
This was 2010 is when I went in the Marine Corps.
- [22:08]
Sean Ryan
2010? Yep.
- [22:10]
Joshua Mast
So it was, it was a break from that. And the golf has been great. Like they, they a lot of times will assign me to play with the General if I, if somebody's in town or run the golf tournament. So it's been a convenient thing. And I caddy from my father. Like, I've probably done several hundred events on either the PGA Tour or the Champions Tour as a caddy. So, you know, hiking with the pack was no problem. I've done that my whole life. So it was a really great time though, to way to grow up with my dad and traveling and, you know, different parts of the world and different parts of the country. So it's been helpful with my Marines to be able to identify like A lot of times I've been to their state or their hometown or wherever and so it's, it's been a, a big I guess icebreaker throughout my career. So.
- [22:49]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [22:50]
Joshua Mast
It's not your.
- [22:51]
Sean Ryan
Not average, but very interesting. Did you grow up in Florida?
- [22:55]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, I was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. Because of the weather mostly because it was a year round golf and then my. I have five brothers, so I'm one of six boys. I'm number two. And so we grew up traveling 20 plus weeks out of the year with my father on the tour and so we had a, we had a big RV and towed a car and like stated national parks growing up and saw all the battlefields and museums and it was a great way to grow up like learning history by seeing the places. So. And my mom, because we couldn't be at home in school, she, she, she homeschooled us most of our like from probably third grade on. So I'll blame it all on homeschooling.
- [23:33]
Sean Ryan
Interesting, interesting. Did you guys grow up together?
- [23:36]
Stephanie Mast
We did. I was 11. I met him when I was 11 and he was 12 and just grew up together. Family, friends and eventually high school sweethearts. But yeah. So we've pretty much known each other our whole life.
- [23:49]
Sean Ryan
You guys have known each other since you were 11?
- [23:51]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, she's the only girl I ever dated and I slapped the table pretty early and then it took her a little while to you know, like me. No, she's the only girl I ever dated. We've been blessed, honestly. We just grew up in church together, part of the same youth group. It was a really close knit group.
- [24:10]
Stephanie Mast
Community and just best friends.
- [24:12]
Joshua Mast
Wow. Best friends for a long time. So. And she's put up with me, so I don't know if she should probably get looked at for that.
- [24:20]
Sean Ryan
Are you a golfer too?
- [24:21]
Stephanie Mast
You know what, I have the head knowledge. I used to go to all his golf lessons when we were dating. But I cannot play golf to save my life. So I joined when he's gotten in CrossFit. I joined him in CrossFit. So I had another way to keep up with him. But the golf course was not it. So I was the cheerleader. I would ride along and watch him play.
- [24:39]
Sean Ryan
Right on.
- [24:40]
Joshua Mast
Right on.
- [24:41]
Sean Ryan
So when did you guys, when did you guys decide to get married in?
- [24:45]
Joshua Mast
So I was finishing up my last year of college and she was in grad school 2006. That's when we got married. Yeah, so we both went to Liberty. She worked for the Golf Channel or she worked for the Golf Channel when we first got married and we traveled a year with my dad just so she could kind of see the tour. And like, we went to, what, 38 states or something. And I saw driving. Wow. Yeah, we got to. We got to really know each other at that point. Right. When you've been driving on I40 for, I don't know, 1200 miles.
- [25:12]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [25:12]
Joshua Mast
Going coast to coast.
- [25:14]
Sean Ryan
What are your master's degrees in?
- [25:16]
Stephanie Mast
Communications and mass media and photography, so.
- [25:19]
Sean Ryan
Oh, nice. Yeah, nice. Perfect.
- [25:21]
Joshua Mast
Which she was finishing up during my deployment to Afghanistan in 2019, so I don't recommend doing master's degrees.
- [25:28]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. Deployment and. Yeah.
- [25:30]
Joshua Mast
Thesis projects, Raising the kids.
- [25:31]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah.
- [25:32]
Sean Ryan
And so what is. What is kind of. What is the home life like now with. With five. Five kids. Five kids, four boys, one girl.
- [25:42]
Joshua Mast
It's as crazy as you can imagine.
- [25:44]
Stephanie Mast
It's loud.
- [25:45]
Sean Ryan
And you're a stay at home mom.
- [25:47]
Stephanie Mast
Yes, I am. I am so full time, full time stay at home mom. And there's never a dull moment. We have no wallflowers in our house. So they are all very big personalities and very confident. We joke. That's the mass confidence that they just. They are all very confident and determined and, I mean, wonderful kids, but definitely they keep me on my toes.
- [26:10]
Sean Ryan
Are they. What do they. What are they like, doing? Are they in sports? Are they involved? Are they homeschooled?
- [26:15]
Joshua Mast
They are now. They are now they're all homeschooled?
- [26:18]
Stephanie Mast
Yes. Well, originally they were going to private school, but with all of the travel that was required with the litigation, it was. We couldn't take them out of school that much. And also just for security concerns and everything, we decided to take them home three years ago. And so I never envisioned myself being. Being a homeschool parent, but here we are. And it's. It's been good. It's made us stronger as a family. And come. I mean, you have to live with each other. You're around each other all day, so it's great conflict resolution and learning how to get along. And it's. It's been a good process.
- [26:51]
Sean Ryan
Do they like homeschool?
- [26:52]
Stephanie Mast
They do. I was surprised they do. They probably because they know that once they get through their school, then they have more free time. So there is. That's a. That's pretty good motivation. But they're older two play lacrosse, and then the younger three play soccer.
- [27:07]
Sean Ryan
Oh, wow.
- [27:09]
Joshua Mast
We have a pretty strong church community too. And then with our. In our neighborhood, there's a lot of Marine family. So, like, there's always Neighborhood kids. There's, there's like eight or 10 kids in my backyard every day.
- [27:19]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. We have a house loaded with Nerf guns. So we're like the cool boy house. So.
- [27:24]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. The swings in the backyard. So the kids will come and congregate. So it's very loud at our home.
- [27:30]
Sean Ryan
It is cool.
- [27:32]
Joshua Mast
Yes.
- [27:32]
Sean Ryan
That's awesome. So you're the hangout.
- [27:34]
Stephanie Mast
Yes.
- [27:35]
Sean Ryan
You guys are the hangout.
- [27:36]
Joshua Mast
Yes. For the neighborhood.
- [27:36]
Sean Ryan
I think every parent drive strives. We saw the good ones strive to be the hangout. They want to be the hangout.
- [27:41]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. We try to keep it in the backyard as much as possible, but there's a Lego room upstairs and, like, it's just. There's a lot of. A lot of children.
- [27:49]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. We're thinking about we're going to do the homeschool thing. We talk about it all the time. We don't know what we're getting into, but if you guys can do it with five, then we could do it with two.
- [27:58]
Joshua Mast
Absolutely. Go.
- [27:59]
Sean Ryan
So what could go wrong? Yeah. Right.
- [28:02]
Stephanie Mast
One at a time, right? You can go along with it.
- [28:05]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah. Do you guys do the co op thing at all is that.
- [28:08]
Joshua Mast
We haven't yet. I mean, we thought about it again because of the traveling, we haven't been able to commit to like that type of a routine yet. But we're, you know, I think everybody evolves through the process, like, hey, I can do it better this year and try to incorporate new things. And we've, we've done that. Sports have been great with, with the boys and the little ones. My 4 year old's starting soccer this year, so we're really excited about that. The other two have played a couple of seasons, but he is ready to go. Like, he's got the cleats. He's, he's, yeah. Enthusiastic.
- [28:35]
Sean Ryan
How long, how long have you guys been homeschooling?
- [28:37]
Stephanie Mast
This is our third year, so. And we do an online format so I don't have to do the grading or the lesson planning. It's all done for me. So I really. Because we, we literally. I mean, life was happening so fast at that time between the traveling that we were doing for the litigation and we moved and then started homeschooling, like, all within a couple month period. So we needed something that was very. Just, just open it and go. And so that's what we've been doing. And the kids like it.
- [29:06]
Sean Ryan
So what is the most challenging thing about homeschooling?
- [29:11]
Stephanie Mast
Well, I'm a very structured person by nature, so for me Personally, it was because they were going to school beforehand. So the school, everybody. That was the structure. So all of a sudden, for that to be put on me and I mean, I pretty much adopted the same rhythm as a school, but me setting the structure, that was a learning process for me. And then also just juggling, bouncing back and forth between 8th grade science and then kindergarten reading and phonics, like, that can bend your. That can be a little bit challenging. Switching back and forth in between different grades and modes at time and answering questions. But I'm getting the hang of it. Still.
- [29:50]
Joshua Mast
She's good.
- [29:51]
Sean Ryan
Right on. Are you involved in this too? You're pretty.
- [29:54]
Stephanie Mast
I am an 8th grade math assistant.
- [29:55]
Joshua Mast
Yes. I do math in the mornings before I go to work with my oldest. And then I do PE very well. I'm an excellent PE Teacher when I get home. Right on. But I'm a cheerleader. I'm humbled by how much work she puts into that. For moms out there who are home, that is the hardest job that I could possibly imagine.
- [30:17]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [30:17]
Joshua Mast
So my hat's off.
- [30:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [30:19]
Joshua Mast
For her and. And other mothers out there.
- [30:21]
Sean Ryan
And. So how much are you guys traveling for the litigation?
- [30:24]
Joshua Mast
It slowed down a little bit, but it is in as far as the traveling goes. But as far as for this recent board of inquiry, that was a grind for months of breath. Like, it's like having a second and third job outside of, like, you do your normal job and then you, you know, stay up late or get up early.
- [30:40]
Stephanie Mast
Well, in the nature of your work that you don't have your devices.
- [30:43]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, we're. We're in a open storage environment, so we don't have cell phones or personal computers. So it really. All your phone calls or whatever, you have to go outside or you have to do it outside of work hours. If you're meeting with attorneys or meeting with, you know, advocates or folks trying to help you, it's all outside of work hours. So it kind of takes up. It sucks up your bandwidth for family and other extracurriculars. And so we're looking forward to getting through this on the other side to be able to have like a little bit of peace.
- [31:12]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [31:12]
Stephanie Mast
Normal.
- [31:13]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. And how long has this been dragging on?
- [31:17]
Joshua Mast
It's been since the fall of Afghanistan, so since 2021.
- [31:22]
Sean Ryan
Wow. So four. Four years.
- [31:24]
Joshua Mast
And. And really it started in 2019. So for me, it feels like I'm about to finish up my deployment to Afghanistan.
- [31:30]
Sean Ryan
Geez.
- [31:31]
Joshua Mast
It's been a five year one. So we're. So this. This all Kicked off in September of 2019. So till today.
- [31:38]
Sean Ryan
And you had mentioned. You had mentioned you brought him into homeschool because of security concerns. What kind of security concerns are you guys facing?
- [31:47]
Joshua Mast
Well, because of this kind of false information operation campaign in the media that's out there, the Taliban called us out by name, put us up on their website, made a little video about it. Yeah, it's unique to see some terrorist spokesman like your name on national television.
- [32:07]
Sean Ryan
Oh, yeah, we've seen it. I had to hire a whole security team because of this shit. Because of the withdrawal thing. You know what I mean? Or not the withdrawal thing. Sorry. The funding. The U.S. i don't know. They decided to fund the Taliban 40 to 87 million dollars a week.
- [32:24]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, I saw those episodes with Sarah Adams and just unbelievable people. I can't believe that. That Americans would even think, like, how does that even cross your mind?
- [32:34]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:36]
Joshua Mast
After what these. What these people have done for 20 years and oppressing their own people even. Not to mention, oh, by the way, we've been fighting them for 20 years.
- [32:44]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Do you guys have any. Do you guys have. You guys. Yeah, we moved.
- [32:48]
Joshua Mast
We sold our first. So when. When our first. Our address became publicly available through some of this litigation, we moved, talked to the. Actually, I remember this because I talked to our NCS rep and I was like, hey, this is a child from a named Objective Raid. And this person who brought her to the US Was talking to the Taliban shadow governor. And then he said he had Taliban in his phone before we brought him into US Lines at the airport for evacuation. And then I watched him flag on the watch list. And I've got some security concerns. And so our force protection officer, this is what he told me. He's like, well, you should dial 911 if you feel threatened. And so I was thinking I would get a little more from that at a. You know, like, how many other people in the command have gotten their name put on the Internet by the Taliban? So I was expecting a little more there. Didn't get it. So we decided to move. We sold her home, which is great because it helped pay for a lot of the early litigation. And then we. Our second home address got leaked. But we're in a pretty. We're in a. We're in a cul de sac where we got good visibility everywhere. So we're very vigilant. Our kids, we put up a fence. I'm a Marine. We have guns. You know, it's just you basically self help has been our. We are on like with the local law enforcement, they know if we call 911 from our house, they're not going to send a regular unit, they're going to send a SWAT team. So, like, we've taken the precautions that we're able to with our current financial situation as much as we can. But yes. Do we Are there people that drive by and take pictures of our house? Yes.
- [34:21]
Stephanie Mast
Had reporters show up at our house?
- [34:23]
Joshua Mast
Reporters come knock on the door? Yes. Do crazy people can know where we live? Yes. So all of those concerns and obviously I think with the veteran community, they could understand why we'd be concerned about that.
- [34:34]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Let's move into. So let's move into your what were you doing as an attorney in the Marine Corps?
- [34:43]
Joshua Mast
Okay.
- [34:43]
Sean Ryan
Mentioned targeting in your yeah.
- [34:45]
Joshua Mast
So I like every judge advocate in the Marine Corps, we start out and you build mos or military occupation specialty credibility by doing a trial bill. So I had done my time in the trial shop about two years. And I had done while I was doing that, I had as much as possible tried to be involved in operational law, which is where my interest lied, which is advising commanders in like the law of war and rules of engagement and targeting. And so I got the opportunity to be the Marinko representative at the Army JAG School in Charlottesville, Virginia. And so there is a section there called clamo, which stands for the center for Law and Military Operations. And what they do is they're kind of like the after action reports and lessons learned across the spectrum of operational law. So there's domestic operational law for disaster relief and such. There's non combatant evacuation ops targeting. And so the Marine's portfolio in that section is the joint targeting process, collateral damage estimation, and civilian casualty response. And so when you get there, you go through all the training in those disciplines to understand those. And then you're dealing with, you're finding Marines have deployed with the MU or deployed to Afghanistan or deployed to Iraq or Syria. And as they come back, you're capturing those lessons learned and then you're publishing and disseminating them. And one of the things I did, I was an editor for what they call the now they call it the National Security Law Quarterly, where we collect all that knowledge and spread it across DoD in the different judge advocate communities so that you learn from those experiences. And that's actually what I was doing in Afghanistan in 2019 when I deployed. I did a very short trip in 2018 to sit with Camp Alpha and Camp Vance and watch some of the targeting going on live and Talk to them about, like, hey, what are you seeing? But then the other thing I would do is I would instruct at the schoolhouse during operational law courses. Or sometimes they'd have other legal communities ask you to come in and speak on operational law. So explaining to, for lack of a better term, baby jags, what is the joint targeting process? What is collateral damage estimation? So that they have credibility when they go in front of a commander and get in an operational out billet.
- [37:00]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Interesting. And so what unit were you attached with in Afghanistan?
- [37:07]
Joshua Mast
Okay, so in 2019, when I deployed, I was attached to the Resolute Support US Forces Afghanistan Judge Advocate's office. So it's the senior attorney for all of Afghanistan Colonel sitting on top of probably 10 or 12 attorneys, but he's responsible for all of the attorneys in Afghanistan. There's no ice cream chain.
- [37:28]
Sean Ryan
Okay. And the incident is Operation Starfish. Correct.
- [37:34]
Joshua Mast
So that's not the actual name of the op, but that was a code name we had had for her amongst the medical staff and the Americans trying to help get a safe outcome for her. They called it Operation Starfish.
- [37:46]
Sean Ryan
Okay. Okay. All right, let's move into the operation. Your attachment to it. Start right there.
- [37:55]
Joshua Mast
So I guess you should probably back up and talk about what happened earlier in that year with the deployment Supposed to be earlier in the year.
- [38:03]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. So it was fall of 2019. We knew that the deployment was coming up. It was going to be short, but still just with kids and family life. We were anticipating, trying to gear up for it, and then it happened earlier than anticipated. So I was in my final semester of grad school, working on my thesis project. And you found out that you were going to go so personal. On the personal side, it was not the best timing in the world. So I felt like I was scrambling, trying to get ready to hold down the fort with three young children and be ready for you to go. So that was an intense time.
- [38:38]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, she was finishing up her master's degree, so it happened off cycle for us. It was a short deployment, 90 days, so not a big deal. But I landed on the ground in Bagram on September 6, 2019, which, you know, I learned that out, the course of it. But that is exactly like, down at the hour when she was getting lifted off the X by the Rangers. And when I learned that two months in, I had goosebumps because it's like, wow, like, what are the odds that you land at the same time? So September 6, 2019, sticks in my head because that's when I got to Afghanistan. The second time at about 2 in the morning when we landed from Kuwait.
- [39:18]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [39:18]
Joshua Mast
Yeah.
- [39:21]
Sean Ryan
So how did you get attached to this raid?
- [39:25]
Joshua Mast
So what was it that.
- [39:26]
Sean Ryan
What was it that you were doing that you got involved?
- [39:28]
Joshua Mast
So I can tell you exactly where I was. So we were as an office. We would go and have dinner together at the dining facility. And I will never forget, we were walking to chow, and my colonel's, like, with probably eight or 10 attorneys. And my colonel, the senior attorney in Afghanistan, is like, what the hell are we going to do with this baby? And I was like, that was very odd. Like, I'm the new guy, right? I just got there.
- [39:54]
Sean Ryan
You're like, what baby?
- [39:56]
Joshua Mast
Exactly. I was like, what baby, sir? He's like, oh, well. Some special operators hit an Al Qaeda training camp, and it was really bad. And they recovered a baby, and we're supposed to figure out what to do with it.
- [40:11]
Sean Ryan
And they're like, does that happen often? I mean, did they just kill everybody on target?
- [40:15]
Joshua Mast
Well, I mean, it depends.
- [40:17]
Sean Ryan
Like, I guess we went through it. It was a hundred plus dead.
- [40:21]
Joshua Mast
They did a very good job of making sure that no al Qaeda leaders left those structures.
- [40:26]
Sean Ryan
It's not a hit on them. I'm not saying it's bad.
- [40:29]
Joshua Mast
Oh, no, no. I'm just telling you they were very thorough. And so it was kind of just by the by that we'd first heard about it. And I remember at the time because I was worried my wife would be upset. I was like, well, sir, like, what's the concern? And they're like, oh, well, it's foreign child. We've talked to some of the NGOs, like ICRC and such, and they're saying that the situation in the Afghan system at the time wasn't safe for foreign children. And so we got to figure out something like a safe outcome. So I was like, well, sir, like, if there's nothing else to be done, like. Like, as a last resort, like, we volunteer. Like, I've got two kids. What's one more? Don't leave a child here if there was an option. And he was like, oh, sure, we'll see. It was more just a gut reaction. And what I came to find out was everybody had that reaction, from the Rangers on the objective to the medical at the forward surgical team that treated them all when they first got off the golden hour, all the wounded and her. One of those guys had volunteered. One of the Civil affairs officers had volunteered. There was a list of Americans like, hey, we'll step in and take care of this child. If there's no other option.
- [41:39]
Sean Ryan
How old is the baby?
- [41:40]
Joshua Mast
So we didn't know. We just were told. We didn't know the gender. Nothing. Like, it was just baby bad mission weeks. We came to find out that she was between six weeks and two months old. Like, somewhere in there. She was malnourished, so it was hard to say the exact age.
- [41:56]
Stephanie Mast
This is about 45 days old.
- [41:58]
Joshua Mast
So she had a medically estimated birth date in July of 2019. I actually, we had to come up with someday. And so in the office, when we were doing this for her birth certificate, we're like, hey, who's got a birthday in July? And somebody's like, mine's the 24th. So her birthday is July 24th. Because of that. That Moraine who says, like, so he knows who he is out there. He's an uncle, honorary.
- [42:22]
Sean Ryan
Wow. Wow. So did you run this by your wife at all?
- [42:28]
Joshua Mast
I was actually concerned about that. So his.
- [42:31]
Sean Ryan
Wait a minute. So how did they pick you?
- [42:34]
Joshua Mast
It just kind of happened, and I can go into it, but. So I called her off cycle. Do you want to tell that part?
- [42:39]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. So he calls me, and it was the afternoon my time, and that was not a normal time for him to call. And so immediately just, you know, your mind is racing. Why is he calling me in the middle of the day? Something happened, and so I picked up the phone urgently, like, you know, are you okay? Everything good? And I'll never forget the first thing he. He said was. He's like, honey, he's like, there's this baby. And. And I remember I was in the kitchen. I just stopped, and I was like. And I could tell by his tone that something. This was significant. There was something. So he proceeded to tell me that there was a baby recovered off an objective. You know, parents were killed, and they, you know, they don't know what they're going to do with this baby. And so I had a similar reaction to him. And I was like, well, we'll volunteer. We can do it. You know, we'll help and take the baby if, you know, if there's nothing we can do. There's nothing can be done if she doesn't. At that time, we didn't know if it was a boy or girl, but, like, you can't leave a baby there. And so he's like, well, he's like, slow down. He's like, I'm glad you said that because I already volunteered. And he's like, I'm glad to know we're on the Same page. He's like, but, you know, they're gonna do a family trace and there's a long. It's a long shot. We're just, you know, we'll see how it plays out. But good to know that we're on the same page. And so that's pretty much where we left it, that first conversation.
- [43:54]
Joshua Mast
So what happened was we came to find out through these daily standup briefs. So our colonel briefs the general, the four star in charge of all of Afghanistan, every evening. And so in order to prep himself for that, we do a standup in the mornings with each of our disciplines, saying, hey, sir, this is what's going on. And you give him a 2 minute spiel on what's going on in your section. And so we would get updates. Of course, there's an office like a bunch of Americans in, in a shop anywhere. If there's something interesting, you're queuing into that. And so the guy handling this was originally an Air Force judge advocate, and his specialty was not operational law. And he had advised the commander like, hey, we just, it's an Afghan decision. We're going to tell them and whatever they say. And so I had heard indications and warnings in the shop like that they thought she was foreign and that it was injured in a hospital. And then we found out that it was actually a little girl several weeks in. And when I'm listening to these briefs and hearing the legal advice, there's. For context, there's a little bit of a disparity amongst lawyers about what the appropriate role of a legal advisor is. And what I've been taught in the Marine Corps is that our job is to give a commander legal maneuver space. So we give him his left and right laterals on a decision like, here's your range of options, sir, that are legally supportable. Based on my. Based on the situation, I recommend X. And then you stand by and you salute smartly when he makes his decision. And he can accept risk anywhere on that spectrum, depending on what his objectives are and what he believes will support the mission. And I think that's the proper role of a legal advisor. But I think sometimes with inexperienced or people with more of an ego into it, we'll paint commanders into a corner and say, hey, sir, like the only legal support of KOA is X, because that's what they think. And I think that's a mistake. I think it's really up to the commander to take on that risk and take on the appropriate level of risk based on you briefing him his space And I really think that's what happened here, is this guy had said this was the option. And when I'm sitting here, like as a curious young Marine captain, like, well, why do they say she's foreign? I don't know. You know, why is she in the hospital? I don't know. How old is it? Like, basic questions that you would think you'd need. Because a lot of times your legal advice depends on the facts. And so I kind of stepped in. It's like, hey, sir, can I help you? Because he outranked me at the time. Can I help you with this? And so I really got involved by trying to get information, like factual information to make a better legal advice for a commander so he can make a safe decision. Because it really wasn't just, you know, let's see what the Afghans say. Because we wouldn't do that. Like, for example, in Syria, you would never ask, like if you had a German or French or British foreign fighters child, you would not be like, hey, let's leave them in an orphanage in Syria, right? You would try to repatriate them. That was like, we do that especially with isis from so many different backgrounds. And so it was trying to get facts for decision makers. And so I got sucked in like that. So I had reached out to one of the other Marines in this joint environment, because it's not very many Marines was the civilian casualty coordinator for U.S. forces Afghanistan. And so we had met once or twice and you know, because of the Marine Corps thing, we're, or we at least knew who each other were. I was like, hey man, what do you got on this baby? And so he sends me a conop from the joint task force operating under Task Force 20 to stay up in the clear. And so I had worked with them a little bit on my previous tour to CENTCOM for targeting, watch them do targeting. And so I was like, holy cow. So it's a very developed con op with all of the basic intel that supported this strike. And it was very clear that this were foreign fighters and exactly where they were from. And at the time that was all.
- [47:57]
Sean Ryan
Classified, where were they from?
- [48:00]
Joshua Mast
So the intel that we had was they were from Turkmenistan and that this specific 10 digit grid compound was a repeat, sending foreign fighters of different nationalities. And they were feeding them into the Haqqani network and Taliban victory units, or Taliban red units to do work, you know, fight against us. And so they were. This particular group happened to be from Turkmenistan. And we had that high fidelity. It was the one of the Senior leaders in this group. It's called the Turkestan Islamic Party, and we all had that properly declassified through the Foreign disclosure officer of US 4A at some point in this process to help inform decision makers about the fidelity of where exactly these people came from. And since then, we've actually had numerous conversation with the Rangers who recovered off objective and like, there is literally nothing to contradict that in US Government possession. Wow. It's unbelievable that we're even having this conversation and have to say, like, where's she from? Because to me, you have In Afghanistan in 2019, you're what, 19 years into the war, you have developed Humet, you have developed Sigint. You have all sorts of assets for the JTF. Like, it's getting to be wintertime, so the fighting season's winding down, so they're chopping most of the assets to the JTF to use. Right? Because they're still hunting terrorists, because they have a counterterrorism combat mission. Right. They're there to kill Al Qaeda, Haqqani network and senior Talibs. And at that time, interestingly, the President, I think the next day, I think September 7th, the president had canceled the peace negotiations with the Taliban because they did an attack in the Green Zone that killed an American Green Beret, a staff sergeant, and a Romanian NATO sof. And he was so appropriately incensed that they would do these sorts of attacks when we're in good faith negotiating a reduction in violence to try to get to a solution for Afghanistan, that he canceled their flight and turned them around. They were going to meet at Camp David that weekend and announce the peace deal. And he shut that down, turned it around. And I distinctly remember that because in the ops in intelligence brief for the four star, we were trying to bleed them back in the negotiating table. And so they were just. The body count went significantly up after the President put pressure on them to punish them for that bad faith. And it was a very distinct shift in the op tempo. And task force was. Was really doing a good job at that. I did a joint casualty assessment team, I think on September 11, we went out to the west in Herat and we picked up an ODA team and pushed them out west. And they already had a SEAL team out that way. And they were just going after people. It was impressive.
- [50:57]
Sean Ryan
Wow. So did you. What do we call your daughter?
- [51:05]
Joshua Mast
No one knows music like Rolling Stone. Senior writer Brian Hyatt talks the biggest music news from the biggest stars. Almost everyone is teaming up on Drake.
- [51:14]
Sean Ryan
It's like Drake Versus the world.
- [51:16]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. You first met Prince, you were driving for him before you were drumming for him. That's correct. Stevie Wonder, you kind of have to understand how Stevie began. White radio. That's where the money was. That's where it still is. You know what I'm saying?
- [51:30]
Sean Ryan
Rolling Stone music.
- [51:31]
Joshua Mast
Now follow and listen on your favorite platform. So what we decided for this is to. We had called her Sparrow because it was a. It was a. We didn't know the gender at the time. So why don't you tell that.
- [51:55]
Stephanie Mast
So a couple weeks in, like he mentioned, we get our very first photo. And it's. We call it now, we call it the baby in the box. But. And that was the first time we learned that she was a girl and got to see her for the first time. But up until that point, when I got that initial call and I debated whether or not, I mean, the. The boys were early or they were pretty young at the time. I wasn't gonna really tell them that much, but I was so impressed that there's just like, there's this child out there that is in limbo. Its future, its fate is in limbo. And so I remember one night, it was a Wednesday night, and I was putting the boys to bed, and I mentioned to them, this baby. And I said, we need to pray for this baby. And I didn't. I didn't know, of course, the name or anything. So it's like. There's a song, like an old hymn that says, eyes on the Sparrow. And so we decided to call it Baby Sparrow. And so we would just. You know, when I tuck the boys into bed at night, we'd pray for Baby Sparrow. And it was a. It was a good shift for myself because I. In the early part of that deployment, being that I was trying to wrap up my degree and everything, I was kind of like, oh, how am I going to do this? And I was focused on myself. And then all of a sudden, when I heard about this baby and just really. Because Joshua would call. When he would call me, he'd describe just what was going. What he was seeing with other children when he'd go out outside the gate. And it was eye opening that here I am safe at home with my children, and that there are millions of children in other parts of the world that are not guaranteed safety or a roof over their head or food. And so Baby Sparrow was something it gave us. It instantly shifted my perspective off of myself. And there was this innocent child that. And that his whole future was at risk. And so that's where Sparrow came from, was not having a name or knowing anything about it. And then a few weeks later is when we saw the photo, we realized she was a girl.
- [54:03]
Sean Ryan
Was this the. Is this the photo of her wrapped up in a box?
- [54:08]
Stephanie Mast
Home Depot box.
- [54:09]
Sean Ryan
Home Depot box.
- [54:10]
Joshua Mast
Because they didn't have any baby. Like, we're at a combat trauma center, right. And so these, these young Americans who serve in those positions, the medical staff there, they cobbled together as much as they could to make her as comfortable as she could. She was in a huge amount of discomfort with her fractured skull. And she had a fractured femur where they had to actually put a rod in to repair it and, like, burns on her, so.
- [54:29]
Sean Ryan
And she's like 45 days old.
- [54:31]
Joshua Mast
Exactly.
- [54:32]
Sean Ryan
And we're putting this photo up on screen right now, by the way. So if you're listening, you can see it.
- [54:38]
Joshua Mast
So you can kind of. It's blurred out, but you can kind of see her. Her left skull is swollen there. That was one of the reasons why we were trying to get her back to the States quickly is we were trying to get one of those little cranium skulls that you could kind of reshape it. And you couldn't tell now because of her hair. But like, there was, you know, and then our experience with PTSD and like a TBI from, you know, Marines and soldiers going down range and getting IEDs. You know, I have a lot of experience as a jet advocate, like, working through that, like, making sure people are checked out for that stuff when they get back from deployment. And does that have any. Does that have any play in their misconduct? Like, those are things that commanders just consider and that we advise on. So I'm very familiar with, like, the long term concerns for tbi. And so, I mean, all of those things are present. And then we're. We're kind of gathering information. Like I mentioned earlier, we got the. The concept of operations from the Ranger companies that went out for that mission. And we were also able to get the tactical interrogation report from the detainee that they picked up off objective, and there's actually one off of this objective. And then some raiders had done a simultaneous mission on the same network to kill the same night. And so they had also picked up some detainees. And so we were able to get a lot of, like, captioning material with Al Qaeda fighters, Chinese looking with flags, very consistent with what they were trying to target that night. And they even captured a video from a terrorist device in this building of the deputy Amir of That Al Qaeda group and he's currently in Afghan. He was in Afghanistan in 2022 and 2023 timeframe. So like as far as the fidelity of who was occupying this structure, they had brutal close combat for over an hour and a half, room by room clearing. And I'll kind of go into the story of what we have learned about what happened that night in a minute. But basically.
- [56:35]
Sean Ryan
So in these interrogations, did they get the information that they were from Turkmenistan?
- [56:39]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. So I had worked with the regional exploitation center at Parwan Prison with some projects for General Miller. We were working on detaining prosecutions and how to speed that up. So we had to study from intake on the objective with associated with or ASWs that were picked up with an objective from a task force mission. What are ASWs like associated with? So like people on the objective, like military age males on the objective with targets. And so, you know, they, they put their puck around their neck and where they've caught them and take a picture of it and. Or they're. I think that's a person under control or place of capture. I can't remember what the acronym stands for, but there's a little bag that goes around their neck where they take a picture of them and what they found with them. And then when they put him in the bird and take him to Parwan Prison, because that was the terrorist holding facility at the time and there was more than 5,000 black terrorists in par one prison. When I visited that in the fall of 2019, it was about when the Haqqani 3 were there because we toured it and we're studying like soup to nuts. How do they bag and tag these guys? How do they prosecute them under the counterterrorism laws that we had helped the Afghans put in place. Like, we met with the judges, we talked, we sat with Task Force 20 and like, hey, we need this type of information when you, you know, to be able to successfully prosecute these and speed up that process because they're basically clogging the prison with so many people they were getting. So because of that, that project I had just done, we were able to reach out very easily and get those tactical interrogation reports. And this detainee is like, yeah, I brought these people, like he identified the photos in that we'd captured on objective as the people occupying this structure. And it was the 10 series. So like it's the primary target where they expect the detainee to be or the objective to be rather. And so the mission was to kill or capture three named objectives which were senior leadership in this Al Qaeda group. And there was a leadership compound which was the 10 series. And then about up in elevation to about maybe 80 meters away, there was larger compounds that were conjoined and had fighters in them. And so they were expecting more kinetic up there. And it actually was very kinetic. But I can get into the story I guess if we want to.
- [58:50]
Sean Ryan
Well, yeah. So how long was the baby girl sitting in a Home Depot box wrapped up?
- [58:57]
Joshua Mast
Well, so they started. So one of the issues was a fiscal law issue is can we spend US taxpayer dollars and buy baby stuff? Like not really. We don't have a lot of authorities for that. So a lot of the medical personnel started to volunteer and like purchase stuff off Amazon and purchase stuff off the local economy. And we were able to spend, I.
- [59:14]
Sean Ryan
Mean even that when I was there, it would take a month to get something from Amazon.
- [59:20]
Joshua Mast
It was. And so they were just cobbling stuff together and just doing whatever they could to take care of her.
- [59:24]
Sean Ryan
What were they feeding her? So they did they even sell baby formula in Afghanistan?
- [59:28]
Joshua Mast
They did, yeah. They were able to get some stuff off the local economy around Kandahar Airfield. And that was some of the issues that we were working as a shop and that's why kept filtering up in the standup brief.
- [59:39]
Sean Ryan
That's where you guys, Kandahar Airfield.
- [59:42]
Joshua Mast
So she was originally picked up. She was golden hour flighted to Tarin Kot and the I think eight or nine guys that required surgery off the objective and her were operated on to stabilize them. And then they were evacuated to the nearest role three in Kandahar. And so she was there for about a month and then they, because it was clear indications that she was foreign and because no one had come forward to claim her and they decided to move her to the joint theater hospital at Bagram, which had a larger footprint and be able to determine what was going to be her long term outcome. But there was talks about putting her in the French hospital. There's a French hospital in. I believe it's in Kabul. It may be in Kandahar. I can't remember exactly, but there was talks about putting her in a civilian hospital basically. But that would require funding and we didn't have a mechanism to pay for that. There was different NGO run orphanages or I think there was a few state run orphanages. They were talking about putting her in and it kept boiling back down to well, if this is a foreign child, it would be better for her to repatriate her to her country of origin, if we can get fidelity on what that is. And so that's really what drove this fact gathering mission that we did. But once we got the tactical interrogation report, and the guy said, yeah, I brought these people here from Turkmenistan. These were the documents of the compounds. And you're looking at Al Qaeda flags and PKMs and AKs, and you're looking at all this captured enemy material from the objective. And then we had even gotten a few like 5W's emails, I think I provided that where for the audience to look at. But there's a email that they declassified for our board of inquiry that is the joint task force assessment that it says she's very likely not or is very likely foreign.
- [61:41]
Sean Ryan
We'll put that up on screen right now.
- [61:43]
Joshua Mast
And it says the father was throwing grenades and shooting at the assault force. The mother was killed in a barricaded shooter incident, and that the family and most of the village had moved to Afghanistan solely to wage violent jihad. And that was the paradigm, like, that was the baseline for US forces on the military side of the house. Like, no one even questioned that they would refer to her as like the Uyghur baby or the Al Qaeda baby, because it was just not even a question. That's why there wasn't even a. Normally in these types of things with anything in the military, you do an investigation, right? Like, how did this happen? And you get fidelity on these things. It was such strong intelligence. They didn't even do that because, like, task force told us where they came from and we even had. I don't know if it's in the materials that you all have that were released yet, but there was. I distinctly remember the task force SJA saying, hey, if you need more than this, we have more on yellow on ts. And we never had to because it was so clear in the stuff that we had declassified. And so now looking back, it was actually an even more kinetic fight than we'd even realized Once we talked to the rangers and we got them to testify.
- [63:05]
Sean Ryan
I mean, have you ever heard of this happening? Have you ever heard of.
- [63:08]
Joshua Mast
No, like this is happening.
- [63:09]
Sean Ryan
I've never heard of a unit bringing back a baby.
- [63:12]
Joshua Mast
Well, and I think that speaks to the. In extremis, like, how bad it was on the subject, because, I mean, you.
- [63:18]
Sean Ryan
Think it's just such a unique situation is what I'm saying. Like, I've never. I've never. I've never. I've never brought a baby back. I've never. I have tons of friends. Yeah. Units. Tier 2 units. Never brought a baby back. I've never heard of this.
- [63:34]
Joshua Mast
Well, and I think that as the audience, like, here's what actually happened. They'll understand why these guys did what they did. And honestly, it was heroic. So.
- [63:42]
Sean Ryan
And so. Hold on. Before I just. We'll get into that. I just want to get clear my.
- [63:47]
Joshua Mast
Sure.
- [63:47]
Sean Ryan
Clear out my questions.
- [63:49]
Joshua Mast
So.
- [63:50]
Sean Ryan
So how did. How were you the one. I mean, you said all these people had volunteered. You talked to Stephanie about it. When did it be? Like, when did it. When did it get narrowed down to. You're the one. Okay, so you're the one that's going to take it.
- [64:07]
Joshua Mast
Not for a while, actually. So September 6, 2019, is when this mission goes. It takes a couple weeks. We thought that she'd gotten turned over or the baby had been turned over, and then we found out, no, it wasn't. There was back and forth because the Afghans kept saying, we don't have capability, which is not uncommon. Like, it's an injured infant. That's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just the facts. Right. And we'd done that with other types of logistical support for the Afghans before, from munitions to strikes. You provide that support to enable those partner forces. But for a baby, we're trying to make sure that they had a safe outcome. And so, again, I had told you, like, we get updates with these standups and asking basic questions and then providing those informations to decision makers. And it became more and more clear that this is a foreign child. And that wasn't the only legal, legally permissible coa. And so I went back to this Air Force major and I was like, hey, sir, like, we need to go back and brief the two star. Like, what we know now because we had a significant amount of information that we did not have before. And the attitude was kind of like, oh, well, I already kind of made a big stink about having to tell the Afghans because they weren't going to tell them in the first place. We're just gonna do the right thing and take care of the child. And he had made a big stink about telling them. And then they were like, we can't, you know, we don't have capability. And he didn't want to go back and brief this two star.
- [65:27]
Sean Ryan
And I was like, why?
- [65:29]
Joshua Mast
I don't know. Like, this is not judging. I'm just saying, like, that's what happened. I don't know why. I think he felt like he had already made a big deal about having to tell the Afghans in the first place. And then when we had fidelity on that she was not Afghan, he didn't want to go back and correct that brief to the commander. And so what ended up happening was I started to look at research. Okay, well, what are the risk factors? You know, again, like, you make legal advice based on facts. So if the commander executes and gives this infant with a fractured skull and a fractured femur to an afghan institution in 2019 Afghanistan, what does that look like? That's what I wanted to know. And I didn't know I was new in country. I hadn't really studied the environment for children in Afghanistan. But as I'm researching on the embassy's website and the State Department's got a lot of formal reports to Congress of these types of things like trafficking in persons or the risk factors in Afghanistan. So I'm pulling like agency level study reports to Congress and it's scaring the bejesus out of me. It's saying that there's systemic child sexual abuse in every province in Afghanistan. There's even a, if your audience is familiar with bachi bazi, there's a practice dating back thousands of years in that region of dressing and this is somewhat graphic if there's children listening, but dressing up male children as females and they dance and they sexually molest these children. And that was happening systemically. And to be honest, I had been trained like, hey, there's child, there's child molestation is part of the culture.
- [67:20]
Sean Ryan
This is how it is here.
- [67:21]
Joshua Mast
It is how it is there. And I'm not saying that all of Afghans, I've got one of my best friends is an Afghan and I've got so many friends that we've gotten out through the evacuation that it's very common. It is. There's good and bad people everywhere on earth, but in this particular location, there's some evil people. And one of the things that bothered me is that we were advised by State Department like, oh, that's not illegal here. It's just gotta make deal with it. And for a decade you have American service members who have put some of these people in power and having to allow child rape on our installations and saying it's just part of their thing, you can't do anything about it. And that mentality to me is just the antithesis of what we should be about as Americans, because that's wrong everywhere on the globe. And we came downrange to represent this uniform. And if we're enabling child rape on our basis, that's not a hard call to say, hey, this is wrong. We're going to lose moral high ground. How are we going to have the moral high ground to intervene as a country on good causes if we permit evil when we get there? And so in 2019, after that, however long we've been in Afghanistan, finally, through our influence, we changed the law in Afghanistan and it became illegal. Do you know how many people they prosecuted that year? 3. In our office, we did the Leahy vetting. So if there was allegations of gross violations of human rights, we would defund that or defund a percentage to that Afghan unit. Right? And so we were getting these reports at the operational headquarters of Afghanistan from all over the country about some checkpoint that was killing another checkpoint over who. I mean, who would rape the T boys that weekend? Like, that's the type of conversations we're having in the office. So when we're talking about foreign girl baby, right? And I'm researching these reports, talking about that, even some of the orphanages traffic children. And then I think Stephanie touched on this earlier. I did nothing dangerous in Afghanistan. Like, don't. The only thing that we did outside the wire was we would go outside of our compound and we would process claims. So if we had a ground movement and they damaged a jingle truck or they ran over some livestock, they would do a message in a bottle and throw it out the window to whoever property they damaged. They wouldn't stop because you could be a target. And that message would say, go to this gate at RS Headquarters at this time and on this day, and you can present a claim against the US Government, and we'll reimburse you for the damage. And so we would process those claims. So we'd take our terps, we'd go outside the checkpoint, and we would interact with local Afghans that had some sort of damage done by US Military operations. And so I was very. You can be very familiar with the culture and like, hey, this is a $20,000 cow. And I'm like, I don't think so. And. And so I had to negotiate down to a reasonable outcome. But one of the interesting things about that is you would interact with the local street children as you go outside the gate. And so the first time you go out, you're buying their little bracelet or whatever trinket they're selling, and you're trying to help them out as much as you can and be friendly. And so I distinctly remember this one boy. He was exactly my son's age. He was like seven, and really handsome little boy. Kind of like my kid, different complexion, but just like filthy dirty and like in this environment. So this particular kid I tried, he was asking for money, so I gave him like a buck. And I watched him go over to his owner and like, give him that dollar, like the guy who owned the kids for begging. And I realized, like, there is nothing you can do to help this kid. And so like, after that, we would just get him disposable, like food or, you know, stuff from back home, like give him a lollipop or something and just something they could consume right then and no one could take from them because if it was anything else, they would take it from them. And they would particularly get kids with scoliosis or kids that were more sympathetic to beg as we did that stuff. And so that's kind of the context of evaluating the safety concerns in a tribal society.
- [71:22]
Sean Ryan
I mean, they use these kids to kill people too. I mean, when I was there, they would fill up their bicycle tires with explosives and have them ride up to the gate or ride up to a convoy or ride up to personnel. And then they would. The kid doesn't even know that the bicycle tires have explosives in them. And they'd blow the kid up just to kill. Just to kill an American. So that's who we're dealing with here. Absolutely. This is who you're in a custody of battle with.
- [71:50]
Joshua Mast
Absolutely. And that's the, I mean, not to.
- [71:52]
Sean Ryan
Mention, you know, there's videos of this stuff during the Afghanistan withdrawal when, when, when that fiasco happened. We had, we had mothers who were trying to throw their babies over razor wire. Babies are getting hung up, caught in razor wire, dangling because they didn't make it over the razor wire. You have babies being killed right outside the, right outside the walls of the, of the airport where us controls it. US didn't do shit about it. You know what I mean? And these people are trying to. They're hanging on the side of an airplane as it's taking off. I mean, because of Taliban control, because they know what's coming. And no mother is going to throw her baby over, try to throw her baby over razor wire. I mean, there was babies everywhere just hanging from razor wire that didn't make it over the. I mean, that's who we're dealing with. That's who you're in. So I want everybody to know that's who you're in a custody battle with, that mega law firms are interfering with, who want your daughter to go back to that. That's who we're dealing With.
- [73:09]
Stephanie Mast
Well, I think they've done a very good job at twisting the narrative because I think by and large, the larger American public, they're not aware of the atrocities, like what service members have seen on the ground, what life is like actually on the ground in Afghanistan. Most of the American public doesn't know that. And so it sounds very judgmental, or it sounds like, oh, you can't say that, or no, surely that can't be true. But the reality is, reality is there's a very big difference in the value of children. Like, they have a very different perspective.
- [73:43]
Sean Ryan
Well, I mean, but they do now because that shit hit national news. I mean, Tyler Andrew Vargas painted a very good picture of what that looked like during the Afghan withdrawal. And the footage is everywhere. We'll roll it right here. I mean, just so everybody can see what that was like.
- [74:05]
Stephanie Mast
Well, what I would add, though, is that the attorneys that we've dealt with, they make it sound like we're. What would you say? Like, we're almost like we're making it up.
- [74:15]
Sean Ryan
Oh, like it's a conspiracy.
- [74:17]
Joshua Mast
Well, and I feel bad for them, even the opposing attorneys, because they have no idea the reality of what they're doing. Like, for a real little girl, like, what's been such a struggle through all of this?
- [74:28]
Sean Ryan
Who the fuck fights this shit? Like, who are these attorneys? So spineless fucks.
- [74:35]
Joshua Mast
Well, I think that they, they, like.
- [74:37]
Sean Ryan
Seriously, dude, you're gonna take a fucking five, five year old girl and send her back to that shit for your fucking paycheck? Fuck you.
- [74:47]
Joshua Mast
I think in their mind that they're gonna keep this. What they're gonna get.
- [74:51]
Sean Ryan
How do they justify it to themselves?
- [74:52]
Joshua Mast
Because I think they think that she's gonna stay here. They think that she's gonna have this nice little picket fence life with these Afghans here. And what they don't realize is these people are proxies, are puppets of the Taliban that have their family in Afghanistan. Do you really think that they put Marines families on national news and then don't know who these people are or how to touch them? Like, absolutely not. Like this is. That's why we're saying it's really a Taliban Alia Gonzalez situation? Because she's not going to stay here in the United States if we lose custody of her. And these people do, they're gonna put a gun to their family's head and make them go home. And then whatever the Taliban says is what's gonna happen to her. And she'll, you know, she's not gonna go to college or marry who she wants or grow up to be who she wants to be. And you know, that is, I don't know if they don't kill him for my dead body. Like that is basically like we have from day one, we have said based on everything in US government possession, all of our intel, our billion dollar intelligence gathering apparatus in Afghanistan says X, we sent helicopters full of special operators to kill these terrorists. But the US government can't figure out where she's from. Give me a break. You have this information, We've had it all along. And you've had people like us, just regular Americans at the ground level saying, look at the information. Like if you watch this video, these rangers in combat with these terrorists, like they're heroic, they're doing what we task them as American people to do. Kick down doors and eliminate these terrorists from the face of the earth. And they were doing that. And I cannot express how much appreciation we have for that. Like, you know, you're raised in America, you're patriotic, you care about service members, like thank you for your service, that type of thing. But when you read what these guys have done or you hear like when it gets out from behind, because there's a lot of non disclosure agreements, there's a lot of stuff that you don't get to talk about, especially with the special mission units. And when you actually dive into that and you get to see some of these, these experiences they've had, unbelievable, like heroic. It's humbling to be able to read some of this stuff and talk to these guys and so, so, so when did you.
- [76:59]
Sean Ryan
We got a little sidetracked there. Now I'm angry, but I just, I'll never, I just. Attorneys, man. Sorry, but I just, I just cannot imagine what it's like on the others. How the fuck do they sleep at night? I just don't, I don't get it. But. So at what point did you find out she's going to be in your care?
- [77:26]
Joshua Mast
Okay, so probably fast forward a couple months she's been under US care at Bagram. Doctors and nurses love her, obviously trying to make sure she's safe and recovering and all that. We're trying to get more information for decision makers. And then there was a real problem with classification. So we have some NATO folks who don't have a US secret clearance and we're working with NGOs and some folks at the embassy that it's not easy to share how much we know. And so at one point I sat through a meeting where they were Going to use our general's influence to make the Afghans take her. Like, end of story. Like here, your problem. Like, kind of like an operational. Like, it's a distraction from operations. Afghan problem. Let's just make them take her. And so that was gonna happen. And I was like, I went to my colonel, I was like, sir, I was like, I don't think I can sleep at night. If we close our eyes and say that she's not going to get. Best case scenario, she's going to die of neglect. Because you're talking about Kabul, which is Denver. It's a mile high city. It's fall, so it's going to be cold. There's no heat in the orphanages, there's no running water, electricity. And some of the. There's a few nice presentation facilities in the capital that they showed all the NGOs to get people to donate to the system. But in reality, in most places, there's nothing. You know, there's very little infrastructure. There's no medical care. And like, and this is a kid with a fractured skull. Like, holy cow. How do we ignore, as Americans, like, the big US US how do we ignore what's actually gonna happen? And I have no problem with killing terrorists. Like, her parents died in combat with our guys. No problem with that. But. But we're about protecting innocence. Like, we believe, like, even our worst enemy, it's not that child's fault that their parents were terrorists in a foreign country or brought them there to. To wait Jihad. And so it was about getting that information to the right decision maker. But I got off track. Your question was, how did we get involved? Is. We appealed. I went to my authority. I was like, hey, sir, can I try to create a legal path to the US for this child? And he was like, oh, sure, knock yourself out. I appreciate where you're coming from. And so I got authorization.
- [79:43]
Sean Ryan
So he didn't take you seriously?
- [79:46]
Joshua Mast
He wasn't not serious. It was just such a crazy, like, Gordian knot of a problem set. Like, you know, there was just like, he didn't mind someone trying to take a crack at it. And so I went back to my chew and I called or my housing unit, and I called Stephanie, and we were just talking about this. Like, how are we going to advocate to change the US Policy towards the kid and not just ignore it? Because at that time, we ran a lot of important things in Afghanistan. The airspace, the borders, the infrastructure, security. We provided those things. And so if it was important enough, we would execute. And so our Goal was to make her life that important. And so.
- [80:33]
Sean Ryan
Was this the initial conversation? I know there was the initial conversation.
- [80:36]
Stephanie Mast
This was the second big conversation I'll never forget because it was once again the afternoon odd time. And I think I was doing a school project. I was like photographing or something and where he was talking back and forth, like, how do we elevate this? Like, how do we. We're gonna, we have to get enough attention on this for some and a decision to be made. And that's when you said, well, I.
- [80:58]
Joshua Mast
Was like, we're gonna have to give this to the President. Like, it's a policy decision. Ultimately, it's. Does the United States value this child's life over operational convenience? And so in order to change the four star, you'd have to, I mean, like, nominally the four star, his staff, you'd have to get the US Policy to change. And so we're like, who can we? And like, it's so funny that we've been portrayed in the media as like, politically connected. I am regular. I'm a captain of the Marine Corps. We are very by the book, for the most part. I'm a judge advocate. Like, I'm very, like, by the book. And so, like, how do we change U.S. policy? And we had a time hack because I believe it was a Thursday and they had a meeting scheduled on the next Monday and they're going to dump her with the Afghans who'd already said we don't have the capability. And so you said, I just remember that line.
- [81:47]
Stephanie Mast
You're like, we're going to have to get a hold of the President. And I was like, I was quiet. I was like, okay, how do we do that? How do we do that?
- [81:54]
Joshua Mast
And so I did two things. We. I was kind of on the phone Googling, like, who's got children in the military? What politicians or whoever, like somebody who might have influence. And I just so happened to see the Vice President was a Marine and he was a captain. I'm a captain. And so I, I just drafted up an email saying, like, basically like, hey, dude, I'm downrange. I need an assist on this. I think it's, you know, here's the situation, here's the five W's. I think it's wrong that we're doing this. Like, I made the moral and principled argument that this child's life was at risk by our actions that were basically based on a policy decision. And so we shouldn't do things when there's other options that could hurt Kids. And I would say that's true across the board. It was particularly true in her instance because, you know, I think all of the evidence shows that she was a foreign Al Qaeda fighter's child. And so we had options.
- [82:48]
Sean Ryan
So you got this to J.D. vance?
- [82:51]
Joshua Mast
Well, no, it was Pence at the time.
- [82:53]
Sean Ryan
Oh, it was Pence.
- [82:54]
Joshua Mast
So it was Pence's son. And honestly, to his credit, he was like, hey, I'll help. So he got that to his dad, I believe, through his mother. K.D.
- [83:04]
Sean Ryan
Vance was a Marine.
- [83:06]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, absolutely. And there is a bond with Marines. Like, you know, it's just like if you're in some of these special mission units and other services, there's a bond there. And he absolutely came through for protecting innocent life, and we're forever grateful for that. He got that through, and it was like a bolt of lightning. The Vice President reached out, directed US Forces Afghanistan to make every effort to bring her to the States and act in the child's best interest. And that was testimony from a colonel in my board of inquiry that that happened, that he was directed by the four star who had been communicating with the office of the Vice President. And so we changed U.S. policy. And so we thought that's all it would take. Like, I thought done, like, safe. She's safe. Like, now we're gonna start working towards a good outcome. And honestly, we kind of, like, it'd be kind of unique or it'd be a great opportunity to be able to be the one who got to take care of her. But, like, there were so many other people. I didn't even think that was gonna happen. I just thought she was gonna get to the States. She's gonna be fine.
- [84:04]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, she was gonna be. I remember asking you, I was like, what do you think the odds are that, you know, 10%? Yeah, it was smaller than. I think you're, like, 1%. You said something really small that we would actually be able.
- [84:14]
Joshua Mast
But we were happy that she was safe because the US Policy changed distinctly. And I got yelled at a little bit, but not too bad. My colonel was like, I'm flexible. We'll row the ship in the other direction. And he was a good person about it. He actually signed a birthday card saying, congratulations on your new baby. And he signed it the Vice President or something. This is my award, my end of tour award from Afghanistan. And the colonel put it on the back, says, don't make me call the VP again. And so it's kind of funny how bureaucrats like to paint reality. They're like, oh, you, Major Mast, you went and hid and nobody knew. And if only the US Government known, they'd have shut this down. That's just a lie. We were talking directly with the vice president's staff and with the director of U.S. citizenship Immigration Services, the head of the Humanitarian affairs branch. Once the Vice president and US Policy changed, our office worked as a shop to accomplish that directive, and I was a part of that. And we used that information, declassified it, to inform our Afghan partners and some of these NGOs, like, here, trust us. Here's the pictures. We showed them the math a little bit about what we knew about the fidelity of her origin. And so from there, we thought it was, we're golden. Like, she's going to be safe. We'll see what happens. But nothing like, oh, yeah, we get to, you know, adopt a little girl from Afghanistan. Nothing like that. It was a child, an innocent life. I'd have done it for any. Like, we didn't know. Sight and see. I thought it was blown up child. Like, no idea what the condition was. Expecting it was going to be handicapped.
- [85:48]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. A child with special needs. Absolutely.
- [85:50]
Joshua Mast
We were. And so what really changed that was the embassy. And, like, we talked about heroes and villains in this story. Our first villain. And I'm not necessarily trying to judge her, but I have a very distinct disagreement with her worldview and her practice. The deputy chief of mission at the embassy. I was on the email chain from a senior State Department official back in the States who was working with the Vice president's office and working with some of the president's staff to accomplish this. I said, well, we're going to need to coordinate with the embassy. Right, because we're right next door in Kabul. And so she cold emailed Ambassador Bass, informed him of the situation, and he said, okay, we're going to sign this Deputy. I think she was the acting deputy chief of mission at the time, the number two at the embassy to handle it. And so we're like, great. And then there was a meeting set up for two days after that. And so that was October 23, 2019 is when that meeting occurred. And what's so funny is I've been accused of fraud for knowing there was known family in this meeting that we had with the embassy. And the reality was, is that we were supposed to brief the embassy on the intelligence that DOD had. And I stayed up to, like, three in the morning gathering all this stuff and culling it out and making sure it was, like, chopped down to, like, the bare essentials to Know, like, what's the name of the guy in this building? Who's this guy in this photo that we got off the objective? Who was the target? Like, where does he fit in this Al Qaeda network? And like, what is the fidelity we have? And so I had two binders in my hand, one for the Deputy Chief of Mission and one for our two star action or our operations officer. And we were going to brief the embassy on what we knew. So we show up at this meeting and for lack of a better word, they ambushed us. So there are Afghans in this meeting where I'm supposed to talk about U.S. classified documents and to explain to them how we know where she's from and that she is a foreign child. And with all the concomitant risks associated with that in the Afghan system at that time, and not the first words out of her mouth, but very close to the first words out of this Deputy Chief of Mission south is, now that she's medically complete, how soon can you take her to the Afghans? So this is two days after the Vice President of the United States sets US Policy after the four star is like, yep, act in the child's best interest and try to get her back to the states. Like U.S. forces Afghanistan. And DOD is stepping out smartly on the administration's policy. Like, I admit that we advocated for that, like totally as a captain. Like, we were just, we were trying to inform decision makers, but that was US Policy. Like, absolutely. And they were directly insubordinate to what the administration told them to do. They were trying to make it a fait accompli. Like she was already gone and out of US Custody before it got got traction. And they had oversight and so they never, ever.
- [88:53]
Sean Ryan
Why?
- [88:55]
Joshua Mast
Why?
- [88:56]
Stephanie Mast
Well, we eventually found out why in the board of inquiry.
- [88:59]
Joshua Mast
Oh, that's true. Five years after the fact. So, so my, my deputy SJ is a Navy commander at the time, and he went and just like tried to make things nice for the embassy after this meeting. Cause I, I basically was like, are you tracking that this child has a fractured skull? And so the Afghans like, we cannot take a child of these capabilities. And there was some chatter about like, oh, the Red Cross might have been able to, might have located some family. And what actually happened was because of the classification levels, the NATO representative was a Dutch civilian and she helped deal with like children caught in conflict. Right. She was an advisor on that. And she had said, oh, we might have found an uncle at Parwan. And I was thinking, that's odd because Parwan's like 100 miles away from where this actually went on. And I was like, can you send me that traffic? And so she sends me email traffic of a name and a alphanumeric code that I recognize as a detainee number. And so I actually had pulled that number and was going to brief them that, no, that was not an uncle. This guy said that these were foreign fighters. He actually described his disgust for their features. Like. Like, had mimick, like, throwing up in his interrogations. Like. Like, these people are disgusting. And wow. And so, like, the fidelity, it was so crossed wires for these folks without a clearance that that's why we went and declassified it in the first place. So it took us about a week after that.
- [90:28]
Sean Ryan
So now I realize why. So the. Yeah, now I realize it's going to take a minute to get to when you found the moment.
- [90:37]
Joshua Mast
The moment. Well, that was the moment.
- [90:38]
Sean Ryan
So I don't want to rush anything.
- [90:40]
Joshua Mast
Well, that was the moment. I was like, oh, they don't care about facts. Like, I didn't realize that it wasn't about this child or the truth. It was about whatever political convenience there was. And I think that centered a lot around the peace deal.
- [90:55]
Sean Ryan
Jeez. Let's take a quick break, and when we get back, we'll talk about the on target. Andrew's on target and what Sparrow went through. I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth in what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan show. And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's gonna be all things terrorists. How terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you it's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up links in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. All right, Josh, Stephanie, we're back from the break and so we want to, we want to talk about the actions on the objective the night of the raid, the night of 5th September 2019. We already know there was a hundred plus al Qaeda killed that night. The Rangers did the hit. Pick it up.
- [93:18]
Joshua Mast
Well, I, I think that it's important for folks to understand both the medical concerns. We have this story. What should stick in the audience's mind is this is why we were concerned about her long term medical care and also why we were concerned about who exactly was going to come forward and claim her at any point. Because we're talking about intel that's saying hundreds of these foreign fighters come back from Syria and settling in Afghanistan and task forces actively hunting and killing. And that's the prelude, that's the context to what this mission was. And so our concern was if we don't properly vet whoever comes forward, she could be back on the X, on the next objective and not make it. She barely made it out of this one, which you're about to hear. So I think it's also important before we go into the stories, how we know this. So we had the Alpha team leader and the multipurpose canine handler come and testify. Their testimony is in evidence at our board of inquiry. We also had the colonel from that was the action officer in the Pentagon on Lily's visa or on her visa come and testify as well at the board of inquiry. So a lot of this stuff is eyewitness, sworn testimony. But just for ease, I'm going to kind of talk you through like the story of what happened. So it's period of darkness, five to six, September, when we operate, we own the night. Right. And task force goes out on a mission to capture or kill three named objectives. They are Uyghur, Turkestani. There's different names for that kind of ethnic group that are an Al Qaeda branch. And one of their boutique specialties for Al Qaeda is they run some child training camps in Syria and Afghanistan and Pakistan. That's all open source. And they had been part of this group that had left Syria and come back into Afghanistan. There is a UN report Publicly available that I provided. So they can see that of where these people were and what they were doing. So Rangers get tasked with doing this and it's a pretty large hit. There's two company size elements of Rangers on the objective. And so the primary compound of interest is what they call the 10 series. That's the priority target. And then the other companies hitting this other target, or I'm sorry, not company, I meant platoons, There are two platoon sized elements are hitting this other compound. So you execute undercover darkness. They infiltrate with one train feature away outside of earshot. They execute a march in to surround the compounds and isolate them. And they succeed at that. It's quiet on the objective. They maintain the light noise discipline. They surprise them. So the first thing they do is, you know, call out surrender or die. They go through their escalation of force, ttps. Nobody responds. And I mean, I think the best assumption in retrospect was that they were arming up and putting on their vests and getting ready to go. So they continue to escalate force because there's no response from the 10 series. And they breach one of the compound walls to allow them to kind of gain situational awareness of what's going on in the compound. There's some other ways they have of having situational awareness that we've been asked not to disclose. But they start getting voices and seeing movement inside. And so the first glimpse the multipurpose cleaning out handler sees her is her dad has her and he's using her as a human shield. And he's got an AK and he's engaging the Rangers at the compound entrance. And he's trying not to shoot this baby while he's killing this terrorist and he's shooting. Engage.
- [97:03]
Sean Ryan
This is Sparrow.
- [97:04]
Joshua Mast
This is Sparrow.
- [97:05]
Sean Ryan
So she was the first one of.
- [97:07]
Joshua Mast
The first things they saw. So like it was about an hour and a half into the fight that they actually recovered her. But in the first initial stages is when they saw her. So then they exchanged grenades. So the Ranger vividly described a grenade rolling out and he sees it at his feet and it was like slow motion for him. It was like a homemade explosive. It was just unique. And he covers his dog and yells grenade. Cause they're all stacked up at the concrete.
- [97:37]
Sean Ryan
So did they kill the guy?
- [97:39]
Joshua Mast
They don't know. They killed everybody eventually. Yeah. They don't know if he was. They don't know. So he. So he sees a grenade, yells grenade covers his dog and it goes off. And he's the closest to the grenade. But he isn't hit, his buddies are. So I think they picked up three or four casualties initially from fragmentation. And one of the things that they said saved their life was it was mostly homemade explosives. And so some of them only partially detonated. He said he wouldn't be here if he had stepped on a toe popper and going around the building with his dog.
- [98:08]
Sean Ryan
What I meant was the human, the guy that was holding Sparrow was a human shield. Did they kill him right off the bat?
- [98:13]
Joshua Mast
No, not right off the bat. So they grenades back in at him and he re emerges without her throwing grenades out. And so they have an exchange of grenades and there's some sympathetic secondary explosions inside the structure. And we're talking about a small, like family sized compound, not like a huge open space. So it's pretty contained and they have it isolated with, you know, machine guns. And it's pretty open terrain with a little ravine where they had approached the target through for cover like a river. And so they have both of these structures pretty isolated with good visibility. And so they continue to, room by room, clear this. And so they're breaching. These people are fighting to death even with their family members present. They told me that they were detonated grenades with their children present. As they're clearing these structures room by room, they have an Afghan partner force with them that is helping it to some extent. But it's mostly the Rangers, room by room by room, clearing these structures. And so as they're in the first or second room in these structures, it goes really kinetic up the hill at the other compound. And there's, if you can envision, like there's a, there's actually a map tip of this they put up on the screen, it might help. But the north compound in the 20, 30 and 40 series, which has been declassified and released properly, they were breaching the center structure. And the breach as they were stacked up set off an HME cache and it went sky high. I had multiple Rangers that have been on five or six deployments to the Middle east and it's the largest explosion I've ever heard. And they described the chemical taste. It immediately just flooded the area. They thought it was like a booby trap where they actually had to test it to make sure they weren't contaminated and could return to base. But they thought they were dead. The Alpha team leader, a lot of them have lung damage from breathing that stuff in. It was that pervasive across the target. So there's a gunfight down here that's pretty kinetic up the hill. It's getting really kinetic and the bullets are going over their head into the trees and like you're hearing it whizzing. They're both using Carl Gustav to breach and to engage different targets within the structures. But when that hme, that homemade explosive cache went off, it was ammonium nitrate. They had multiple Rangers buried because the compound wall collapsed on them as they were stacked up. And so the dog handler and the platoon sergeant and whoever was available that could be least engaged down at the 10 series ran up the hill to dig out their buddies under fire to get them out. They actually had two guys partially paralyzed from that incident. And so they're already getting US casualties. Ultimately they had I believe nearly a dozen US Rangers casualties and about the same amount of partner force casualties. Geez. So like we're talking about a super kinetic event to the the point where they're calling for fire from some assets they had available to suppress and to kill squirters and that type of situation. And so the multi purpose K9 handler is a more senior Ranger and he had a little bit of freedom of movement because he's, you know, make sure there's no booby traps, et cetera. And the breaches are clear for the Rangers to engage and breach these compounds. So they're doing their room clearing and they're experiencing barricaded shooters where they're shooting at the guys entering the room, throwing grenades, setting off vests over and over again through this compound. So I think they had about four or five barricaded shooters in the compound of interest where they thought the main objective was going to be. And we're talking about HUMINT pointing to that SIGINT, pointing to that. Lots of soak with ISR assets over the last couple weeks. And it's been a structure historically, historically used for years as a waypoint for Al Qaeda or foreign fighters flowing into the area of operations. So as they're working their way through this combat, they're into the last room where they think this guy is going to be, or they're getting down to the last couple rooms left. Hour and a half of room clearing and it's still going kinetic up to the north. So they actually ran out of breaching explosives and so they used the Carl Gustav gun up on an elevated position to do the last breach because they were assuming that all the entrances were fouled because they kept running into IEDs like implanted in the walls or toe poppers in the ground. And so the Rangers took shelter on the far side of the structure while the Carl Gustav Gunner. And for your audience who doesn't know what a Carl Gustav, they call it a goose gun, but it's like a bazooka. So it's a. Or an rpg, for lack of a better descriptor. So they blow a hole in the compound portion of the compound where the last room is, and they're getting RPK fire from this compound. And that blast kills that guy that they believe was her biological father and blows his body into the compound. And the dog handler vividly describes, like, making sure he was dead, you know, look. Peeking and making sure he wasn't moving, making sure he was dead and that he had, like, his little, like, man jams and a, like, AK bandolier on his chest and, like, distinctly Asian facial features look like the target is what he described under oath. And then he. The first time he sees what was her biological mother is he describes her running from the room screaming bloody murder. And he is obliquing off the corner to kind of get an angle at the new breach they just made in the wall. And he said that she got about 15ft away from him and then partially detonated.
- [104:14]
Sean Ryan
And so she had a vest on.
- [104:17]
Joshua Mast
She had a vest on. And the Alpha team leader described it as maybe also kind of like cooking off, almost like maybe fire had started to set it off. But he said it partially exploded as she was running at him. And so she didn't die immediately. She had. He described overpressure wounds, so almost like a pop without the frag. And so he said she was mangled, but he dragged her behind a berm because they're still getting fire from the surrounding structures because the two compounds were kinetic, but they were getting fire from surrounding buildings, from other fighter contingents in those buildings. And that was confirmed later by the detainee that who was. Like, a lot of those village buildings were housing Arab and other nationalities. So he drags her behind a berm, and the first thing he does is, like, his training. He strips her down to make sure, you know, see where she's bleeding, see if they can plug the bleeding first, then tries to create an airway. And it's just pretty graphic of her coughing up blood and bleeding out, basically. There's nothing they could do. She died in, like, two minutes. But he strips her down, straddles her.
- [105:23]
Sean Ryan
So they tried to save her after she tried to. She had a suicide vest on because.
- [105:28]
Joshua Mast
She was still alive. And what he noticed was because they have to strip him down. That's standard practice to make sure there's no Bleeding. He noticed that she had the signs of giving birth. She had an enlarged breast and a displaced stomach. And so in his nods, he's like, he does this. And he saw her for the first time moving Sparrow. And he said that there was some fire on the structure from the KG round. And so it was pretty well illuminated in his nods, and he saw something moving, and it caught his eye and he found her. And so mom expires pretty quickly. He gets the baby, and at the same time, the Afghan partner force is clearing the last room in that structure, and they get engaged by another female with an rpk. And one of their guys gets shot, and they just exfil and they leave their guy in there. And so he's like, get back in there and get your guy. And like, kicking them back into the structure to get their guy. So they kill that other female fighter, get their guy, and come out, and he's got the baby. And they're. So the Afghan platoon sergeant from the KKA partner force, he's mad, dude, like, don't. Don't bring this baby. Fucking throw it in the river. Let me shoot it in the head. We don't want her to go be a foreign terrorist in our country. And he's coming back. As they exfil off the objective, and they had to do that with call for fire because they were getting effective fire. So these Afghans on the objective, they know she's foreign, they don't want her to grow up in their country, and they're mad at our guys. Can you imagine having your own guys bleeding? You got two paralyzed dudes at this point on stretchers, and you're walking wounded in a casualty collection point. You've got a baby that's like, she was this big, like, so tiny when I met her, and that was weeks afterwards that I met her. But they have the moral courage. Not even a question like, we're not. Do you know, we're not doing that, like, ignoring them, resisting them. And they even had, I believe they'd hand it off to their Female Engagement team or whatever SOCOM's version of that is. But they had to take him back and have positive control because they were so aggressive in wanting to dispatch this little girl on objective. And that's the part I don't think that regular Americans know about this brutal civil war is that there's a lot of bad things that happen. And they kind of. They were kind of. The Rangers were very sensitive about telling us these things initially, like, hey, how much do you really want to know about this, but we felt, like, obligated to at least be able to pass that knowledge on at some point of what happened. And, you know, and it's such a. Such a contrast between what's actually these lies on the media. Like, this was not an innocent farmer. Our guys got blown up and shot and had brutal close combat with, like, committed terrorists who were totally fine with killing their own families as long as it meant obtaining their ultimate objective of fighting us. And these guys kept pressing on, even with wounded. Like, talk about a textbook soft raid. Even with casualties pushing on through the objective. And then one of the underscored documents that I got released was, it says that structure was destroyed in accordance with JTF Roe. That's like the understatement of the century. Like, they deliberately made sure that no Al Qaeda operatives were walking out of that structure when they rolled off the objective. And so I am very confident, based on, like, the ordinance and the assets they were dropping on that thing, that no one was alive when they left. So they literally saved her life.
- [109:25]
Stephanie Mast
Well, also add what he testified, the dog handler testified.
- [109:28]
Joshua Mast
Oh. So he said he was asked at one point in all this, like, what makes you remember that night? And he said, I think that's the first time I was able to put a face to what evil looks like, seeing what he saw that night. And that just struck me, because when he. He didn't find out that that Sparrow got out and was safe in America until years into this.
- [109:56]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [109:56]
Joshua Mast
And it was actually with a Google photo drive that some of the doctors and nurses put up of all her photos from her time in the hospital with American forces. And he commented, and he said, I have always wondered what happened to that baby. He goes, I am so happy that she got out. And. And so it's just been such an honor to be able to share her life with these people whose decisions were probably instinct, right? But to honor that instinct for our guys, because how rare is it that someone would bother, right? No one would said boo if they left her. No one would said boo if they let the Afghans do what they wanted to do, kill her. But even with their. In a gunfight with their blood up and their guys, you know, in the heat of the moment with their guys on stretchers, they still had the instinct to protect innocent life. And I mean, that is just. It's what it's all about for Americans to be able to have that, a warrior who can still live out our values, like, that's rare. And they displayed that that night. They Pushed through the objective, they achieved their mission. Like, it's honestly heroic stuff. But I guess they actually got a little bit of flack for bringing her back because they're like, what are you doing? Right. But when they explained the situation, like, they got authorized to pull her off objective and she gets out. And so we didn't know a lot of the details until years later. But at the time, at the operational headquarters level, we were getting indications of warnings like, hey, trust us, this was really bad. And so that was one of the reasons why we're digging into, from a SJA's perspective of, like, what happened here, this sounds bad, and trying to inform decision makers to make a better decision of a safer outcome. But I actually did a lot of research at the time with this specific Al Qaeda group. Like, where do they come from? What are they about? What do we know about them? And there's a lot of open source out there. Bill Roggio with the Long War Journal with the foundation for Defense and Democracy, he has a lot of articles about this specific group. And what was so interesting is, as time went on is there started to be like, this incident happened on September 6th. Right. And I told you the president had canceled the peace deal. Well, then there were some more reports about these Turkestani foreign fighters in Afghanistan to the point where the Taliban in early December formally said that those reports are false. They're like, there are no Turkestani foreign mujahideen in Afghanistan. So they specifically disclaimed this group, that she was living proof, was operating in Afghanistan in December of 2019. So all that, in the backdrop of trying to get them back to the negotiating table and trying to get the peace deal back on track, that's a strategic. This child's existence, this group's existence in Afghanistan at that time was proof that the Italian were not abiding with their commitment to not let Al Qaeda operate out of Afghanistan. I think we all know that now. I've seen so many shows with Sarah Adams and others, experts talking about Al Qaeda running free in Afghanistan, but I think there's a lot of evidence. They never stopped. Jeez.
- [113:20]
Sean Ryan
So she was probably, what, four weeks old?
- [113:24]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, I think they said six weeks to two months. Like somewhere in there.
- [113:28]
Stephanie Mast
She was very small.
- [113:29]
Joshua Mast
She was very undernourished at the time. And so they stabilized her, and like I said, they moved her to the main theater hospital, and she stayed there for five months.
- [113:39]
Sean Ryan
And how many injuries did she have? I mean, just going through all those blasts alone, well, that was what we.
- [113:44]
Joshua Mast
Didn'T know at the time. And we had found from the hospital, when I reached out and asked, like, hey, what do we know about the injuries for this child? Because we were trying to build a picture for a commander to decide, like, what are the risks for her? And so, you know, obviously with a fractured skull, your TBI injuries, and was there any software damage in there? And will that impact her development? And then with her leg, it still impacts her walk. And so the question was, as she develops, how will that. Does it hurt the growth plate? Will she be able to walk normally? Would surgery help with that? Those are kind of the concerns that. That we were worried about. And then also just cosmetically trying to make sure that that got reshaped while her skull was still soft enough to mold it. Those were some of the things that. The questions we were asking, both professionally and then as we got to be like, the person on the seat who had to volunteer to get a visa to the US for her, those are the questions that we were arranging medical care in the US for, like, specifically to evaluate and treat those concerns.
- [114:41]
Sean Ryan
I mean, how is she now?
- [114:43]
Joshua Mast
She's five and a half now.
- [114:44]
Sean Ryan
Is she. Did any of those blast injuries done?
- [114:48]
Joshua Mast
So fortunately, it looks like her brain is fine. That was our biggest concern we had. We'll get into this a little bit later. But when she was in, you know, when she was outside of US Protection, there were reports that she was shaking, her eyes were twitching, she was shaking. And we were very concerned that those were seizures. Sounded like that's what it was describing. She's been hospitalized several times in the US to the point where, like, they took them a couple days to stabilize her for. She's some severe allergies to a variety of things, but especially almonds and peanuts, where she has, like, anaphylactic reaction to it. And she also is very asthmatic. So we, you know, she has an inhaler for daily use and for emergency use. And like I said, she's been hospitalized, I think, two or three times for exposure to something. We don't know necessarily what triggers it every time. But we, you know, she gets hospitalized for it, and she can. She'll get a reaction where she's almost like drowning because she can't expel the air from her lungs. And so she'll be like, it sounds like she's puffing and she can't.
- [115:55]
Sean Ryan
From the asthma.
- [115:57]
Joshua Mast
I have no idea. It could be from. I guess that's possible.
- [115:59]
Sean Ryan
You've mentioned some kind of toxic.
- [116:02]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, from the ammonium nitrate. That's actually I never even considered that, but the rangers have had lung problems from that, so that that makes perfect sense. I've never even put two and two together. But, but regardless, like, I think if you reflect on how many times her life was this close to death, it's just staggering because I mean she's got a leg wound here from shrapnel and she's got some more shrapnel down her leg, but I mean 6 inches higher on a baby that's only, yeah, that's this far and you bleed out. She's got a skull fracture that if it's any deeper, she's dead. I mean she's got, you know, a little bit to the left with a kg round and you're done. Even with the Afghan partner force, like if, if these guys weren't committed to protecting innocence, she'd be dead. Like honestly, if she didn't get. I am not confident if she had gone through some of the medical emergencies had in the United States that she'd have survived if she'd remained in Afghanistan. And then, I mean, I think the elephant in the room is with the Taliban in charge after 2021, what type of life is that for a little girl? You don't go to school, you don't go outside, you know, you get to marry who you want. None of those things can happen for her. So we're so thankful for the Americans who have saved her life at those points and for the ones who got her out of Afghanistan. And we'll get into that a little later in the story.
- [117:25]
Sean Ryan
But how does she interact today?
- [117:30]
Stephanie Mast
Well, I was, case in point the other day, a woman that I knew at church actually, she, she put two and two together finally that, you know, like she's my daughter and, and kind of hearing about the situation, she's like, that's her because our kids played soccer together. And she's like, I would have never known. And unless you see her in a swimsuit or in a shorter pair of shorts, the scar is telling. The scar is distinct. But you would never know. She speaks perfect English. She's a typical five year old little girl. And I mean there's moments even for me, even though we've lived this out and I know the story through and through, there's just moments where it really strikes you when you look at her and she like, for instance, when I'm teaching her how to read and how to write, just how amazing it is that she's actually here in person, alive and just for her it's Just normal. But she's just a walking testament to just how miraculous sequence of events has, you know, kept her alive. And most, you know, most people would never even just think that she's American. I've been told that she looks like me because she has brown hair and brown eyes, but that she's normal.
- [118:44]
Joshua Mast
And I think that a lot of GWA vets could close their eyes right now and see a face of a kid or a person, a vulnerable person and caught up in a crazy circumstance of war that they wanted to help, tried to help, couldn't help, or maybe some who did. But I've had so many grown colonels crying in my office when I'm telling this story. And that reminds me of and telling stories about their experience. For instance, I had a colonel, there's a news article, the kids of camp Eagers and there was a suicide bombing ISIS child. But he was trying to seek guardianship of an orphan that would come and beg at their camp. And trying to do it, but there's a lot of red tape. And he said he was introducing a new lieutenant, like hey, indicators of something off in your pattern of life. He was like all these jingle trucks, that one's brand new, why is that? You should watch for things like that. And the next day that jingle truck driven by a 14 year old ISIS suicide bomber blew up all those kids and killed this little girl. And so he wanted to help and couldn't. And he says, I don't think I've ever told anybody that story before. And I had another like these are hardened soft kernels. Another one in 2007, Fallujah, he said he had a team that was, took IDF mortar rounds and they missed and they hit the compound, family compound next to them and a little four year old girl took shrapnel to the abdomen. And they wouldn't send a medical bird because it wasn't in conformance with the medical roe. And he's like screaming at him on the radio like send this. You know, if you don't send this, I will go over blackball and take her to the hospital ground to back. So this colonel said like it was his Twin, he had two 20 little girls at home that were four at the time. And he said it was about the same age. And so he asked for volunteers and he got like some mass sergeant and him and they got in a Humvee and went over Fallujah blacktop roads as fast as they could, risking all the IEDs and she bled out like halfway there. And so like these Are the memories our guys that have the same values as these rangers demonstrated. I bet you that is so common in the war that it's not even funny because I probably had, there's more I could talk about. Like the medical staff, one of the reasons they were so worried about her was because of their experience with other soft bring backs where they'd had to shoot through children that were being used as human shields to kill these terrorists and then treat them and then return them to the Taliban. And there was one that stood out in my mind. There was a 12 year old girl that had lost her hand in a, I think a farming implement of some sort. And so the medical staff nursed her back to hell for like a month. And then they had some uncle of some sort come to the gate and you know, to claim her. And 10 minutes after the guy left, they got a call, hey, hey, come pick up the body, A body at the gate. And this guy had shot this little girl because she had no value as an amputee as far as like marrying her out. And so these nurses and doctors who nursed this little girl back to health and like prepared her arm and made sure she was as set up as she could, like had to come back, get her from the ECP because they'd shot her. And so like in their story after story of from these medical personnel of like, just like child abuse injuries they had to treat, but it was a local leader and so they couldn't do anything about it. They couldn't. There was no criminal prosecution, like to the point where they're putting a titanium skull in a four year old because he got his head beat in by some of these practices. And again, that's not saying it's across the board, but it happens. And it was happening regular enough where these people were very concerned. And so when back in time, when I reached down to the hospital and was like, hey, we're looking at trying to get a legal path to the U.S. they were like, we are all in to find a safe outcome for her. We believe we're morally and ethically obligated to try to find a long term safe outcome. And that's kind of how we got.
- [122:39]
Stephanie Mast
So our code name for her was Sparrow, but the medical staff, it was starfish and it was based on a poem or a book where there's a little boy walking along the ocean and he's bending down, he's picking up a starfish and he's throwing it back into the ocean and he keeps doing it over and over and an adult comes over and says, why are you doing this? Can't you see the beach is filled with starfish? You can't possibly make a difference. And the boy bends down, picks up another starfish and throws it into the ocean. And he says, well, it made a difference for that one. And so she, they called her starfish because she was the unique one that they could help in this war. And all of the terrible things that they were seeing come through the doors. She was the one with the unique set of circumstances that they could actually help this one. And so, I mean, we've had dozens of medical staff come after they found out that she got out safely, tell us stories. I mean, I've recorded some of the phone calls just because I want her to hear it one day of how loved she was by hundreds of people. Not just us. I mean, hundreds of people. One man, he was crying on the phone. He's like, I can't believe she made it out. And he's like, I used to hold her at night because I guess the female nurses were stressed by her crying so much because of her injuries. And early on she cried a lot. And so he said, I never took care of babies, never changed a diaper in my life. And I was like, I'll hold her. And so he would hold her because he had the night shift, and he would hold her and watch movies or do his college classes and just hold her in his arms the whole time. And so he's like. And like Joshua mentioned, there's so many feelers like I feel, always wondered what happened to that baby. And like her in particular. And so like Joshua said, it's, you know, all of a sudden we're getting the attention. But it was, it was across the board, everyone that heard about her, they, they were motivated to do whatever they could to help give her a better future and a safe outcome. And she was loved by hundreds of people.
- [124:54]
Joshua Mast
And like I said, we are so proud of our participation in her story, but it's not really us, it's really all these unsung people that contributed to her life and safety at that moment in time. And I mean, honestly, we felt obligated to honor that and keep moving that forward. And so what that looked like at the operational headquarters level was okay, to get a person to a country, you have to have a visa, right? So after we talked about the US Policy change and the administration said, you know, act in a child's best interest, that's a no brainer, right? Try to get her back to The States, the US Forces, Afghanistan moved forward smartly and did that. And I talked to you about the embassy initially trying to ambush us and destroy that effort early on making a fait accompli.
- [125:46]
Sean Ryan
Did you ever find out why?
- [125:47]
Joshua Mast
So, so my deputy SJA is a Navy commander and he was a reservist on a year deployment to Afghanistan. And he had a intelligence background, worked for the House Intelligence Committee as an attorney in his civilian job. And so he was actually involved in the negotiations with the Taliban in the room, describing how this is going with the Taliban, what they want and how they're reacting. And he's briefing us tonight. So we have a front row seat of what's happening in Doe Doha, like on a regular basis. He happened to be back because there was multiple rounds of these negotiations. So he tried to go and make peace with the embassy, like, what is the deal? Because it was very difficult for us to understand why they're on a different wavelength than we were. And so he's like, ma'am. So he met with her again. He's like, ma'am, I sensed some hostility in the last meeting. What's going on? And he personally told me this. She said, we really didn't appreciate you going over our heads to the administration. And so we're like, sorry, we were trying to take care of the child's safety, that type of thing. And so they basically left it as we're not going to help you. The embassy's perspective was, we're not going to help you, but we won't get in your way. And so DOD was lead for months after that and we were working to get a visa. So now before we were advocating for her, when it became, here's the task from the administration to, you know, make a long term safe outcome for this child, we did that. And the first thing was a visa. And so what do you do if you need a visa? You talk to U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services and they can issue an advanced parole visa. And so it's ironically, it's what she entered the country on with 120,000 other Afghans or however many actually came to the States. They were all paroled into the United States under humanitarian parole. Well, there's an advanced humanitarian parole, and that's what we were seeking to get. But there's some basic requirements. And this is where it was pretty miraculous that we were able to be involved because we had the skill set to track down all these administrative requirements. So to get a humanitarian parole visa for medical care, to get into the United States you have to have certain things first is a financial sponsor under federal immigration law. You can't be a burden on the government. The tax dollars can't pay for you to be here. So you have to have someone that signs on the dotted line, says, I will pay for this person. I will cover their costs. And so we volunteered. Like, that's easy. We'll cover the costs for medical care. You actually have to have a doctor have it scheduled and paid for. So we're like, how are we going to do this? Like, it's a Jane Doe baby off of objective. And I'm talking to uscis like, hey, crazy situation. You know, you, this is me. This is what we got. We've got a Jane Doe, Al Qaeda infant with a fractured skull. It's not safe here in Afghanistan for child trafficking purposes and lack of medical care. And there's often a prejudice for foreigners in this country. And so they're all like, well, you basically get a list of bureaucratic requirements. And we were just knocking off those lists, like, go to your authority, ask them what we need to do. They tell us what you do, and then you go work it it. And so I'm literally on the phone with the head of the humanitarian affairs branch. Great guy, like really compassionate for refugees and does a lot of great work. But he's like, well, you need a name for the visa. Like, how am I going to get a name for this little girl? And I'm just figuring it out, right? This is our office's task. We're all working it. So the larger office is negotiating with the Afghans to be like, yeah, that's fine, send her to the US it happens before with other kids from other strikes. It's not like uncommon, but kind of more of like a face saving thing, not a actual requirement. It's just like managing good relations. But we're giving your country away to the Taliban anyway, so, you know, it's kind of in that context. So how do we get a name? So we had had another American attorney, Kim Motley, who is, by the way, an American hero. I'll get into her a little bit later with what she did in the fall of Afghanistan. But she literally saved hundreds of lives. Like she should be getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to be honest with you. But Kim Motley had volunteered, based on her experience in the Afghan legal system, to act as a guardian ad litem, which is for folks who don't know that's a court appointed representative to look at the child's best interest. And no One else's. Now they don't have that same concept in Afghanistan. So it was like a voluntary, like self appointed. But our office was working with her to get a safe outcome. She had tried to get documents for her, asked the Afghan government, no response. Right. Nobody wants to take on the risk. They view it as a foreign child and like, it's kind of terrorismy, so they don't want to touch it. So we're like, how else do we get a name? And then in addition to that is how do I arrange for medical care for a minor child in the United States? I don't have any authority to act for her. The government doesn't like, who can authorize surgery on a child, who can authorize an mri? And so I'm going through my wheelhouse, right? I don't know the answer, but I'm a lawyer and I'm going to research it and find out. And so it has to be a guardian. She has to have a name. Well, a court can appoint a name, right? There aren't any courts in this area of Afghanistan is controlled by the Taliban for most of the war. Right. I mean, if you go up there, you're going to get a gunfight. So with the operational realities on the ground, we're like, okay, well let's see if we can get emergency legal custody. And she's not Afghan. We've high strength intelligence that she's not Afghan. This group is kind of nomadic Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and western China. Like they're from that region, Right? A lot of them fighting in Syria and Iraq. We don't know exactly where she was born. Maybe in Afghanistan, maybe in Pakistan before, or maybe in Turkmenistan before they cross the border. We don't know. So the best argument was she's known foreign. Afghanistan doesn't have birthright citizenship. Most countries don't. So you're not automatically a citizen. And statelessness is a huge problem in Afghanistan because of all the IDPs and such that people don't have documentation citizenship or they don't have citizenship. So we're like, okay, well the best category for her that she fits into is stateless. And she's in the custody of the United States. And like terrorists, detainees and Gitmo have basic rights. So let's advocate, let's make the argument that she's a stateless minor in the custody of the United States. And so we were authorized to declassify this stuff and use it in the court system. And we did. And the next day. So we argue that she is a stateless minor in U.S. government custody. She's a victim of terrorism like in this crazy situation and that no other state would have jurisdiction over her. And based on the evidence, the judge like the evidence that they were moving every 30 days, they were known to go over multi jurisdictional boundaries like over national borders. The judge agreed with that assessment. They found these facts in a ruling. So we were then her guardians, Right. So now I can arrange an appointment at the University of Virginia Medical Center. And they have a world renowned like pediatric ward. So we set her up like the whole nine yards. A treatment plan, her doctor, we gave her doctor her medical record from dod. We got everything set up for her to come back. And it's looking like she's coming back.
- [133:17]
Stephanie Mast
To the point where we bought trip and we were ready to go. And I was considering dropping out of my final semester to be ready to take on a child with what we were assuming was special needs that she'd have needing ongoing medical care.
- [133:31]
Joshua Mast
And so I'm updating my commander, my colonel every time like the day after this is granted, we update the colonel and say I'm getting registered as a DoD dependent now, because as a guardian you can add them as your dependent. I'm talking to headquarters Marine Corps on the phone like I'm in Afghanistan at three in the morning. My time talking to Headquarters Marine Corps dependency branch. And they formally grant her. I have the documents downstairs. They formally add her as my dependent. And in the meantime we also got her a certificate of foreign birth because in Virginia they had contemplated that foreign children being adopted in Virginia might need a birth certificate because sometimes from third world countries you don't have that documentation. And so there's a way where you can apply for that. And so we did and we got it. And so we have a name, it says unknown birthplace, unknown parents or unknown birthplace, citizenship unknown. And then us as her parents. And so we provided that documentation and the court order to the Marine Corps dependency branch, which is the authorized like agency official to make those determinations fully known. We're in Afghanistan. My wife was on the phone with him. I'm calling them from Kabul and they add her as our dependent. So that provided a way to guarantee payment. Right now she's eligible for Tricare. So I have the legal authority to arrange healthcare. We do that. And it's literally just to get the visa, right? Somebody had to do it. We were in the seat, we had a short timeframe, so we did that. And then ironically, and this is the crazy part is when we were going to get our birth certificate, we had a guardianship order. We're her legal guardians under U.S. law. Steffi goes to the vital Statistics, vital Statistics office in Richmond, Virginia, and they say, we don't agree with the judge's interpretation of this statute. We're not going to issue you this birth certificate. And we're like, we have to have this birth certificate because they said it's a requirement for the visa. We have a name from the court order. We have a birth certificate as an identity document to apply for this humanitarian parole visa. And they're like, well, we don't agree with his interpretation. We don't think it fits the statute. And so my brother is an attorney, not a family law attorney, but is an attorney. And so he's engaging with them. And the legal advisor for the vital statistics office is the Virginia Attorney General's office. And so he's talking to the Attorney General's office, like, really? Like you're not going to issue, like, here's why we need this. We need this for a visa. We need a name and a in an identity document and she has none. And they're like, well, we would prefer if the judge issues an adoption order because we think that complies with the statute. So we're like, so you want us to apply to adopt this child and the judge to do it? And they're like, yes. So we did. Like, it wasn't even our idea. Honestly, I didn't even contemplate that. So we file for adoption. The Attorney General of Virginia recommends the judge grant it under the circumstances because, you know, there's a lot of background that she's stateless and these were terrorists, et cetera, et cetera. And so they issue this stuff and I provide it to my command, like just, I am doing it by the book for a crazy situation, right? Because I think my personal philosophy is I will always try to be administrative, correct and morally right. But if it's going to come down between the two of them, I'm going to be morally right and will try to make this fit. Because rules or administrative rules often can't contemplate the crazy situations in life. And so that's why we are a principle based institution in the military. We operate on principles of like the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Constitution protects those things. We live out those values and then we have all these rules to help us do that. But sometimes those conflict in a crazy situation. And this was one of those things. It was unprecedented to have this happen. And here's the linchpin of the whole thing. If the US military's 19 year old multi billion dollar intelligence gathering apparatus is correct, there's no case to be talking about right now. She is a stateless child. Her origin was an Al Qaeda foreign fighter. I have never seen evidence in five years to even suggest that that wasn't the case. And so I think the reality is that we're facing is the embassy and we'll talk about how they did it, but they literally gave this child after she'd been recognized as our daughter by dod, after she'd been added as a dependent and issued an ID card after she had insurance and a full ride to the US like set up with no one and nothing before that claiming her. They handed her over to what's turned out to be non relative terrorist affiliated folks. And I think that that is kryptonite for these bureaucrats because they never thought that some low level officer would be able to still get her out of Afghanistan at some point. And I didn't think that either. Like that was an absolute miracle that she got out and got safe during the evacuation. But I don't think they ever thought they'd be held accountable for what they did to this little girl. But for us, 18 months before Afghanistan fell, we had a little microcosm of the little value they place on human life over whatever bureaucratic policy they're working at that time. And their worldview keeps bumping into reality in very painful ways for real people on the ground. And we saw that with people falling off C17s in Afghanistan. We've seen that in people, you know, at best, if they're lucky, wasting away in lily pad countries trying to get to the States. And people who've gone to war with us, people who've gone to combat with us, people are in danger because of our commitments to them. And I think we saw a microcosm of that really early. Like I never thought that she would get turned over in the way she did. And it was, it ended up being two days before the peace deal was announced, she got dumped to what I think was Taliban proxies coming forward to falsely claim it. And the reason I think that is in my board of inquiry a colonel testified and we had asked for this colonel authorization to testify for three years and were denied. And he testified that they had six to eight false claimants come forward and they DNA tested him, negative testing for all of them. So these were non family members coming forward out of the boonies to claim a child. And the question is why? Why would Six to eight people who are not relatives of the child come forward. And I think the best answer to that is, what was the Taliban strategic? What was their number one priority right then in Afghanistan in September to March of 2019, 2020? What was their goal is to get the US to leave. Right. And what the conditions on the peace deal was that the soil of Afghanistan would not be used by Al Qaeda. And she's living proof that they're violating that. And then I think if you also think strategically, from the embassy's perspective, President Trump had made a decision that this was a bad deal, and he canceled it. And he said, he tweeted, how many more decades you want to fight? I was sitting in the chat hole when that went on the news, and I was like, huh, that's awesome, right? Because I saw this car bombing. This is a guy with kids at home. He got shredded by ball bearings for no strategic purpose. It was just a middle finger from the Taliban. And I think the president rightly said, this is a bad deal and killed it. And then both the embassy and the Taliban want to get this done right. And I don't think with history, as in retrospect, it was a bad deal. Does anybody think that that went well? Like, does anybody think that made our country safe? Does anybody think that that made Afghanistan stable and not a safe haven for the Taliban? And I'm not saying stay there forever, and I'm not advocating for forever wars, but I'm saying that wasn't the abandoning. The total abandonment of Afghanistan was not the plan in 2019. They were going to leave task force behind, and they were going to do a counterterrorism mission and mow the grass, because I was sent to study that withdrawal. That was my mission, is how do we transfer all these assets to the Afghans? How do we make this stable? And really, it wasn't till the spring of 2021, and I happened to talk to our JSOC liaison. They're like, no, man, they're pulling everybody. I'm like, what? Like you're pulling everybody? Like, they're pulling task force. Because I was sitting in the new Camp Vance that they were building adjacent to Kabul Airport for the soft to operate out of till the cows come home and kill Al Qaeda. And so I think that looping this back, both the embassy and the Taliban were dealing with a president who doesn't get pushed around, and they were both peddling a bad deal. Like, the embassy was doing it for the American people, and the Taliban was doing it to get us out of Afghanistan. And I think if the, you know, who knows. But a living proof that this Al Qaeda group is still operating in Afghanistan. And here's an interesting fact for your audience. The Taliban was on this objective the next morning filming a propaganda video. And they released it a couple days later. It's on Twitter. You can go find it. And they're accusing, the typical accusing of war crimes. You only killed women and children, et cetera. And they show some bodies and it's sad, right? The human cost of war is sad. But they have Chinese looking bodies, like little kids. Look. They look Asian distinctly. You have guys wearing Arabic scarves, red check scarves. Looks like Syria to me. That's not the Afghan scarf check pattern. They have black flags. But what the message these propaganda videos are saying is the Americans have bombed local people, farmers, local people. And you're in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan. Why would you feel the need to emphasize that these are local people and farmers in like literally the dead center of southern Afghanistan? And I think that messaging. And then a month later they say there are no Turkestani foreign mujahideen in Afghanistan. And like they are very keyed into the fact that this deal just got blown up and they want to get back to the negotiating table. And that was the directive for SOF at the time was bleed them back to the negotiating table. And we were doing it. They wanted to get back and negotiate with us. So I guess all that. I think that was she the leading thought in their mind? No, but she was an inconvenient truth for both sides, both the embassy and the Taliban.
- [144:26]
Sean Ryan
When did you first meet her? Was it in the.
- [144:28]
Joshua Mast
Oh, probably mid October. I got to go down on a rotator to Bagram and spent a couple days down there on some other project. I can't remember what it was. Oh, I think it might have been visiting Parwan. But yeah, I got to hold her for the first time. And it makes all the difference because seeing a case in paper, like just reading about it in emails, like when you're holding this little life and you're like, what is going to happen? Like, we're leaving Afghanistan. This is going to go south. Like I'm thinking, not even with the hindsight of history, but at the time going like, what's going to happen when we leave, right? There's going to be a civil war at a minimum and just a borderline genocide. This would end up happening. But holding her like that, it just her so vulnerable. You felt obligated to protect if you could. And So I mean, the commander of Task Force Medical Afghanistan, I named my fourth son after him because he was the model of empathy. And like, he risked his career advocating, like, hey, we can't. We're morally obligated to DNA test and terrorist vet for this child. Like, you cannot. Like I have as a doctor, can't abide by this. Like, to the point he was getting warned he's going to get fired from a two star who thought it was a distraction and like he would hold the hands of dying service members. Like, made sure that none of our guys died alone. Like, that's the caliber of person this man is like physically fit. Just everything you want in a leader. Like, and that's not always the case in the medical corps. But like this guy, I so admire him.
- [146:04]
Sean Ryan
Who brought her home.
- [146:08]
Joshua Mast
That's a long. So she was, despite all of that, despite Senator Cruz advocating for her different folks trying to get her home. The embassy reported falsely that the Afghans didn't want to do a DNA test and that they had confirmed that there was family. That's what they reported.
- [146:29]
Sean Ryan
They just came up with this.
- [146:31]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, well, so actually they didn't just come up with this. That's what they reported came out of a meeting on December 31, 2019. They said they met with this senior child protection specialist who's a low level, like decision maker in an Afghan ministry at the time. We worked for two years to get that guy out of a lily pad country. And you know, when he got in the country three days before my board of inquiry, that's when he arrived in America. And that was the only time he felt safe to share the other side of the story. And so in our board of inquiry, he testified that at that meeting he asked the embassy to do a DNA test because they had nothing, no corroboration. It was a just a bare claim. This guy said he was an uncle and he's like, we didn't even have a tuskira, their national ID card, like their birth certificate. He goes, we didn't have, we had nothing. The only thing we had was DNA. And the embassy declined to do it. We had committed. Like, I've got the emails downstairs saying we will DNA test. Like, DoD will DNA test any claimants, any potential family to confirm a DNA match because like, that's basic safety. And then if there was a match, the plan was to explain her medical needs and offer to send her to the US for medical care. That was the plan because we knew she had no immediate family members alive because they were Dead. But the embassy reported out of that meeting that DNA testing wasn't part of the Afghan process and they had confirmed family. And in fact, they had no evidence this claimant was related at all. And it turns out he wasn't. In documentary evidence, this guy said he was related to someone he claimed was a father. It was an elderly. I say Talib elder because he's got a big black turban and he looks like a Taliban elder. I've got a picture of him. And when I saw that photo, we found her outside of the government later. But when I saw this guy, I was like, they gave her to the Taliban. It just screams it. And we'll get a little bit more into some government misconduct. But this same embassy person in all of our litigation has filed statements saying that, oh, trying to make it look like they had processed this the right way or that the Red Cross was involved. I've got an email downstairs with your people from the Red Cross to this Afghan child protection specialist, like, three days before she was supposed to get turned over to them. And they're like, hey, could you please identify who this person is? The Red Cross had no idea who she was going to. And they have. The Department of Justice, under the previous administration, has filed, like, filings and lawsuits saying the Red Cross was involved. It's like, well, if that's true, how come they're asking for her identity, like, two days before you're supposed to put her out of US Custody with no vetting at all? And then this guy, we acquired his phone number at some point. And then, you know, you plug in a. If you plug in, like, a lot of Vets know, like WhatsApp and Signal, you know, we all use those things. It has a profile picture that pops up. Guess what's on this guy's profile picture? Well, it's a little Taliban flag, and it's a little placard bragging that the Taliban is coming to hear his, like, grandson or something in their home village three miles from the objective, recite the Quran, which, like, whatever. It's your culture, fine. But if you got a flag of the Taliban flag over a map of Afghanistan on your profile picture, I kind of think that you're probably sympathetic that way. And there's a whole series of indicators that we'll get into a little bit later as we go to how she got out of Afghanistan, because that's literally the second half of the story. We're probably finishing with how she got turned over. But basically, because of the State Department's position was we don't want to impact the peace deal. A colonel testified that the Taliban negotiators had mentioned this situation. I don't know if that's true. I don't have firsthand knowledge of that. And so it was this series of what half truth that they were able to IO campaign the administration to be like, oh well, like nobody wants to take her away from family that's safe. And oh, maybe we're just wrong, but the embassy had never looked at this classified intel and we weren't able. The colonel from the Pentagon I mentioned earlier that came and testified at our board of inquiry. He said they independently corroborated everything we had declassified, sent them, they went and talked to Ranger Regiment and verified all that with their targeting system at the Pentagon. He said, yeah, we knew where they were from in Turkmenistan, where they were moving them from, like high fidelity, who these people were and where they came from. And so he mentioned to me, he struck it, he said, I will go to my grave thinking that these were Al Qaeda terrorists that were moving through the region from Turkmenistan. He goes, there's nothing that would suggest otherwise. But at the same time, and this is a big picture at the same time, we have the previous administration's Department of Justice filing court filings saying her parents were an innocent farmer killed in a crossfire with zero evidence. Like the eyewitnesses say she blew herself up and her suicide base was partially detonated. We have the DOJ saying the ICRC was involved. And we have, I can give you 50 examples, but I've got a couple for your, your team where they're redacting what we knew at the time from the traffic. Because what they'd rather do is they go after a junior officer, like a fairly low level officer and attack your credibility and say, no, no, the embassy was doing safe and there was nothing to see here, basically. And I don't think they thought they'd ever be in a position where I can prove in court that you were lying and that you did this to this little girl. But they're in that position now. And so that's why they've sought to gag you and to shut you up and over classify things so that the truth of what actually happened and how dangerous it was and how it's child abuse, what they did to this little girl. And she has become our daughter. We've had her for years. She has no idea any of this ever happened. But it's not right from a national perspective that this should have happened. No one should have to go through what she's gone through and what we've had to go through as a result. Like, we were telling the truth from day one. We're telling the truth now. And if they release that intelligence, if they release the video footage of this combat, like, our guys aren't war criminals on objective. They're not fighting innocent farmers. Do civilians die in war? Yes, they do. But that's the result of terrorists who bring their families along on jihad to come fight us. Like, that's the sad reality of. But that's not our guys. So I do, I will circle back at some point and then talk about like the period from when she was dumped before the peace deal to how she got out of Afghanistan. Because that was just incredible story. But I think it's very important to focus on what the embassy knew and why they did that. Like. Well, I guess a better question is why didn't they know this intel? Why didn't they DNA test? Like a DNA test. It's the most biometrically enrolled society on earth. Like, we have a lab set up that does it in four days. I have her DNA swab, the DOD did in December of 2019. I have it downstairs. Like, we had her DNA, we tested six or eight other people. Why was this person not DNA tested? And what's my real concern is did they know it was a negative test when they dumped her? Like, I'd like to know that. Like, did. Did State know these people were not family when they handed her off? Or just assume that risk? Because what happened next was we found out that they were going to not vet whoever she being turned over to. And so we actually, as a captain, we sued in federal court to try to prevent that from happening, saying, you cannot do this in an objectively dangerous manner based on everything we know she's a foreign fighter's child and that you're likely turning over to non relative terrorist affiliated. Like, you can go look up the court case. Like it says that. And it said all the risk factors. It said who the Turkish and Islamic Party was and some of these pictures of children in their training camps. Like we were, we filed it under seal because we didn't want to put any Americans at risk because we were still at troops on the ground. But it was just basically what the Presumption was from DOD's perspective that this was a foreign child the whole time. And there was literally nothing to contradict that. Some rando claiming a familial relationship and with children having value as chattel, essentially, like, hey, does Anyone want baby? And trolling around in rural Afghanistan, I bet you get people claiming just offering a child because they're valuable. And we were getting reports at the time in Kabul of the conditions on the ground. Like, we're getting reports they were eating cats and dogs, that they were selling, like, some of their younger children to pay for food through the winter for the other. So, like, the conditions in Afghanistan at that time were really bad. Like, I'm having the docs telling me this stuff, and I'm going and researching it to corroborate it, and I'm like, holy cow. And so, like, then as you become. I guess once. Once we volunteered and a judge says, hey, you're responsible for this child. Like, it was totally a Good Samaritan. Like, volunteer, like. Like regular American, do the right thing type thing. But once the judge says you're responsible, I mean, we are not. It's like your oath. Like, you know, it's like when I. When I raise my hand and I swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign, domestic. I mean that with every fiber of my being. And when a judge says, you're responsible for this child, you're their protector, your guardian, your parent. Like, we. That's not a light thing to us. Like, it's just like any other oath I've ever taken in my life, to my marriage, to my country. Like, we're gonna go after that with everything we got. And that's why we sued the Secretary of Defense. Like, do you think that's a comfortable moment? I mean, we were terrified, Right. I'm thinking this is career suicide, but I. I can't sleep at night if she's put in harm's way again.
- [157:09]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [157:10]
Joshua Mast
And, like, who knows? Like, if this. If this is some. And we believe that they were totally anonymous to the US Government. Like, they didn't even know who they were. I think they may have had a name. They didn't have an id, but our understanding was she was being basically laundered through the Red Cross so that they maintain combatant immunity and that she was just taken to Southern Afghanistan. Geez. And here, let me tell you what that meant to people who raised her. So this flag was flown on. I think it was the 28th of February. Let me get the right date so I don't mess this up, because this is important for your audience to understand. So this is an American flag certificate, and it says, flown on 28th February, 2020, in honor of. And I won't. Don't zoom in too much because I'm not supposed to talk about her name. But it says, let it be known that the flag accompanying this certificate was flown in the face of the enemy and bears witness to the removal of terrorist forces threatening the freedom of the United States of America. It was flown with great honor and pride over the amateur soldiers of Craig Joint Theater Hospital, Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, during Operation Freedom Sentinel and North Atlantic Treaty Organization's Resolute support mission, where each day Americans fought the global war on terrorism in remembrance of all who have lost their lives. And it says, you will never be forgotten because they thought she was dead. And then every single of the two different iterations on deployment of. Of medical personnel, the ones that were still there, every one of them signed the back of this thing.
- [158:32]
Sean Ryan
Oh, wow.
- [158:33]
Joshua Mast
And they drafted this poem basically saying, thanks for trying to us. And I got this after she got dumped with like a fish in the sea gone anonymously in Afghanistan in a war zone.
- [158:45]
Stephanie Mast
And the colonel at the board testified that it was. And that's what we've come up against is that it was almost like we were just these lone rangers acting outside of us. Yeah, that's the narrative that has been put out there. But the reality is he said that it was duty policy until it wasn't. And all of a sudden there was a stark. There was a very distinct shift. And all of a sudden it was shut down. And he said in the meeting with the general that basically decided that she was going to be turned over, that it was the most unprofessional dress down, if you want to say that.
- [159:18]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, that was the testimony, is that he'd never observed such an unprofessional meeting where they basically got shut down, called racist for believing basic intelligence that everybody had believed the whole time, saying, like, we have some serious credibility questions about anyone coming forward and claiming this particular child. Plus, it was in a city 100 miles away from the objective to. So I can talk about this because it was declassified. There was a civil affairs officer at the time on the joint staff at Resolute Support. And she came and testified against us and the Lord. And it was so fascinating to watch because, like, she had her blood, her little prepared portion of her testimony. And then my attorneys were able to question her. And do you know what she testified, too? She said that they did DNA on our daughter and that I think she described Uzbek and a couple other like other tribes in the northern stands, like the countries north of Afghanistan, consistent with that. And that just blew my mind because they gave her two Pashtun speaking Pashtuns and they have her. Like she testified that they had done their DNA and then we had declassified the language that we were picking up in sigint. Like it's Turkmen, right? Like it's a very distinct non native language. Like we gotta declassify for a purpose, right? So they gave them to a different race of people who speak a different language. And maybe after they DNA tested them negatively. So like, it's just mind boggling to me. And then the one thing I wanted to ask the civil affairs officers, like, hey, did you ever read the declassified mission summary? Did you ever read the classified underlying intelligence? And she's like, no, the Afghans didn't ask for that. So we didn't, we didn't look at it. And I'm thinking like she was actually came across as angry at these regular Americans for caring enough to ask the question, like, why are we doing this? Like, what's gonna happen to this baby? Like, it was like some sort of, like a distraction. And.
- [161:18]
Stephanie Mast
Well, at the board she testified, she was one of the first people to testify and I was one of the, I guess one of the last. And what was surprising in her testimony is she referred to our daughter as an Afghan issue. Or I think at one point she even said. And it was, the attitude was, it was like, this is a distraction. And I thought she was maybe mad at us for what we did to advocate for her, but really it was across the DoD footprint, like the medical footprint. She and some other bad actors found it disturbing that people were becoming emotionally attached or they actually cared about her and so enough to get baby supplies and do everything that, that they did to basically love on this little child while she was in their care. And so she saw it as a distraction and to be something to be done away with. And so when it became it was my turn to testify, I was sure that was for the first time. Because I've always wondered why couldn't people see where we were coming from? Like, to me it was just a natural choice to advocate for an innocent child. But it was at the board that I saw that it was a, it was a fun, fun difference in philosophy or if you want to say worldview, is that we believed that life, innocent life, should be protected and, and advocated for if you can. And they were coming from the perspective that it was an inconvenience or a distraction. And just to do away with it, it was another issue. And that was the clash that was the conflict was there's one side of the camp that saying, hey, this child deserves our protection. And then the other side is saying, no, this child doesn't really. It's meaningless. It doesn't have any. Anything that affects us, so just do away with it. And what I testified, they asked if perhaps, you know, our motives were ethnocentric or why were we doing what we're doing. And I said, well, I said, as Americans, we believe in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And we believe that every human being deserves that. And so we were operating in every. All of our actions up till this very day has been to advance that for her. And if there's people that out there that disagree with that, then I can agree to disagree because I know what we did. And we can go to bed at night with a clear conscience before God and man, because we did what was right. And the certificate and everything, it was not just us, it was many people.
- [163:52]
Joshua Mast
And this is what the colonel wrote in that certificate. He said the enclosed flag was flown over Craig Joint theater Hospital on 28th February, 2020, the darkest day of my one year deployment to Afghanistan. My intent was to fly the American flag in celebration of her day of rescue. Instead, the flag was flown to help us remember a baby that had profound positive impact on every member of my trauma hospital. A true butterfly effect. And then he told us that they had grief counselors there because so many people were so shook up about this. And they actually had the personal security detail of one of the two stars come down to ensure they didn't physically resist turning her over to these people.
- [164:31]
Stephanie Mast
And so the question is if this.
- [164:33]
Sean Ryan
Was a good to who?
- [164:35]
Joshua Mast
So the ICRC physically flew her to the location, but they didn't actually involve in vetting whoever she was being turned over to. It was a barrack claim, like, hey, I'm an uncle. That was the level of detail they had. And they had some local people saying, you know, Joe is who Joe says he is, like as a pseudonym. But there was no corroboration of the claim. And it actually turns out to have been false from the get go. It was a lie.
- [164:57]
Stephanie Mast
But the question is, is what we've if it was okay. That's one was when I heard this colonel that testified at the board of inquiry, when I heard like how he described her turnover. It was, if they were doing the right thing and they had found family and they knew that she was going to have a safe outcome or she was going to be okay, why would they bring down armed guards and basically tell everybody, stand down. You're not going to do anything. This is what's going to happen. Why would they be concerned about a resistance among service members if what they were doing was on the up and up and right? And in reality, they threatened them, told them to stand down and told them, this is what's going to happen, and then had grief counselors on the back end. And like we said, we've had so many people come out of the woodwork saying, I was so devastated. And I've always wondered what would happen to her to the point where they hoped that she would have died because they knew that her life, like she was just destined to a miserable life.
- [166:00]
Joshua Mast
And there's some just tragic text messages I have for your team from the general while this is happening, saying, like, we have DNA. We're morally and ethically obligated to do this. Why aren't we doing this? And I agree with him. I would like to know, that question is, if the Afghans asked the embassy to do DNA, why didn't we do it? And if not, who made that decision? Was it the deputy chief of mission? Because that person should get fired. And when all this broke in America three years later, she was up for a ambassadorship and she was being vetted for that. And so get this. This is just. This will show you where this person is coming from. During all of this, she's filing affidavits against the court, saying, like, this was all by the book, essentially nothing to see here at that time, this senior child protection specialist, this Afghan was in a third country, not safe, in danger of being deported. He reaches out to the deputy chief of mission and he says, an attorney has reached out and asked me to participate in this case, in her case. What should I do? So what do you think the deputy chief of mission tells him? She says, I wouldn't respond if they're really an attorney. She advises him not to participate. He's the only person on earth who can say no, that didn't happen in that meeting, and he did in my board. But he's the only person on earth who can contradict what this person represented to her own agency and to the Trump administration about confirmed family and the Afghans. You know, it wasn't, I think the half truth or the lie was it wasn't part of the Afghan process. Well, that's because they're asking you to do it. They're asking you personally to DNA test this child. And we have a ACME lab at Bagram that does it in Three days and we already have erswa and they had actually sent one of these people out of the woodwork in Afghanistan to get DNA tested. So, like that's what he told them. I've got it in an email downstairs where he's asking the embassy, like this person that says that there's a surviving sibling, we now want to do the DNA test. And then there's this nondescript response from the embassy and then they get him in person and they say, don't talk to the DOD anymore.
- [168:12]
Sean Ryan
Are you serious?
- [168:14]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. They get an order from the Two Star that no one in US 4A will advocate for this child. I've got the order. It's a draft. It wasn't signed. It was a verbal order. He never signed, but it was, you will not advocate for this child. All questions list will go to the embassy. And so something else happened that's very important for viewers to understand. When we threatened to sue, there was a hold by the Secretary of Defense on her movement, like they were going to move her on February 11, 2020. And they ended up not moving her to the 27th. And so we thought, okay, we've succeeded. They're going to do a DNA test, they're going to vet these people. Right, to make sure that this is a safe outcome. So we thought we succeeded. We didn't end up filing that lawsuit until we found out they, they were ignoring it and just going to go forward with it. But that was because the Afghan quote, government and I air quote that for a reason, sent two demand letters in perfect English to the embassy and US forces Afghanistan. And it was the intent of those letters was to rush the administration's decision making cycle. And guess who you think, who do you think drafted those emails or those letters? We came through this Afghan that we've now got to the US safely. He's like, oh yeah, the embassy drafted this and sent it to us on WhatsApp so that we could send back to them. So you've got this embassy drafting letters purportedly in the name of the Afghan government during a discussion about what's the right thing to do here to rush the decision making cycle of their own government. I've got the drafts.
- [169:52]
Sean Ryan
Holy shit.
- [169:54]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. And so then they're filing affidavits in court saying, oh well, the Afghan government demanded this to happen and it's bogus, deep state, ridiculous. I don't know, it makes me angry as an American manipulation.
- [170:11]
Sean Ryan
Did the people at the embassy have the after actions reports from the operation?
- [170:16]
Joshua Mast
No, they left that Meeting where I was supposed to brief them. They left that meeting without it. And they were like, yeah, their philosophy. DoD was leading for months. They said, we're not going to get in your way, but we're not going to help. And then they got in our way and killed it. And it was totally bogus and to the point where I just don't.
- [170:37]
Sean Ryan
I don't. I don't understand why, why, why. Why were they. Why would they not allow you to take custody? What was the. What was the biggest. Or what is the big. What's the why.
- [170:55]
Joshua Mast
I can understand. I understand what the administration. Because they were believing the embassy when they said that there was, you know, that they didn't.
- [171:02]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, I'm not talking to the embassy. Like, what is I honestly. That you went over their head to.
- [171:10]
Stephanie Mast
An extent that we've heard that. And then the other thing, like I said with the woman that testified at the board, they. They didn't like that service members were getting attached or that they were caring enough, like, for. About this. Like, that's not the mission. This is a distraction. Do away with it. Like, literally, it was like, it. The problem. The issue. It was just abstain.
- [171:30]
Joshua Mast
Problem.
- [171:31]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, it was just very. Wipe our hands. Wipe our hands, fit and walk away.
- [171:34]
Joshua Mast
But I mean, why would we expect differently? They did the same thing with child rape on our basis for a decade. Like, why would we expect different? Like, that's the paradigm where, like, you've got to. But it's kind of been a struggle for the heart and soul of the Department of Defense and the armed forces is like, are we going to live out our values or are we gonna be like jackbooted thugs or robots who do these. Whatever you're told. These bureaucrats would fit seamlessly in the Third Reich in doing whatever they're told to do. And I think as constitutional officers, as service members who support and defend the Constitution, we're obligated to live out our values downrange. And when we don't, I think that really has strategic implications. We're supposed to be a city on a hill. We're supposed to be an example of how you should do it. And that definitely wasn't it. I don't have an answer as to all the whys. I can't, Like, I can't judge our heart. I don't know. It might be something as simple as went over a head or we were an inconvenience. I don't know. But there's a lot of questions that I have as an American that I'd like answered, like, did they actually DNA? Like, was this a negative DNA test? Like, I had always given them the benefit of the doubt and said, oh, they couldn't have known they weren't family. You know, I could see where they were just trying to get rid of it and rush the process and not do basic safety precautions. I was kind of giving them benefit of the doubt. But when the colonel came and said they did it, they tested six to eight people and they're all negative, that sent alarm bells off in my head. It's like, wait a minute, did they know they weren't DNA tested? Because it wouldn't make sense to me that the State Department wouldn't initially DNA test. But I think once they started getting several negative tests back, either they didn't do it at all or they did it anyway. And I don't know the answer to that either. So at a minimum, it's not the standard of care for children that we should exhibit downrange.
- [173:25]
Stephanie Mast
And leading up to that, like Joshua says naively at the beginning, you thought that just got to get the facts in front of the right people and they'll make the right decision. And so that was, you know, your motive was just get the facts in front of the decision makers and they will see it and you act on her best interest.
- [173:43]
Joshua Mast
I'm a prosecutor and an op law attorney targeting, so I know how to pull the information and build a case. And we did. And I'm telling you what, the reason why there's so much restrictions through the chain of command and so much restriction of the information in this case is because if people knew the truth, truth, they'd be livid.
- [174:05]
Sean Ryan
When did they hand, when did they hand off the baby to the Talibelder?
- [174:10]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, Two days before the peace deal. So the peace deal was announced on February 29, 2020. She was handed off on the 27th and she was gone, like, impossible to find.
- [174:20]
Stephanie Mast
And we were scrambling up to the very end to try to get a hold of Trump to anyone, any decision maker trying to just not just at.
- [174:27]
Joshua Mast
The end, like he, he. So the President visited Bagram for Thanksgiving and we were waking people up in Afghanistan, like, go to the chow hall, find the president, have a meter.
- [174:38]
Stephanie Mast
There were literally people running around bases.
- [174:40]
Joshua Mast
Trying to find him 100 yards from, from the hospital, like, go get him. Go, go tell him. Because we had gotten, you know, basically to see the life, you know what I mean? And because we had, it was a political face saving thing from, I mean, the Afghans. I have the email where the Afghans recommended she be sent to the US to the Afghan President. The Deputy Chief of Mission personally met with Afghan or Ghani. That's what she told the FBI in her statement, that she personally met with him to get that shut down. So they went out of their way to stop that from happening. So the Afghan Minister of Defense, Afghan Minister of Labor, both recommended that the President approve US Forces Afghanistan formal request to send her to a guardian in the US and that specific email chain I got from this Afghan, this Afghan child protection specialist after three years. I've asked for that document in all of these cases for three years and ignored, denied, never gotten it. I didn't even get it from my board of inquiry where they're trying to say I went against US Foreign policy. Well, I've got the US Foreign policy email because this guy that we got out after two years gave it to us. He was too scared to do it before because he thought he'd get shut down and deported back to Afghanistan because he was in a third country while his visa for the US was processing and it had to be renewed every six months. And so he's worried about his wife and two little kids. But you know, what he did for us, I'll never forget this. This Afghan who was really supposed to protect her, she ended up. Her life, ended up saving his family. But he told me, he gave me the email, the DNA test request that I'd also asked for because I'd been told this happened, but I couldn't prove it. And we really needed it at a time, and he wasn't safe yet. And so he said, take care of my wife and kids if they deport me back to Afghanistan for doing this. And he sent us that email. And that was right before he actually got safely to the US but he risked everything to make sure that that truth got out. And that made all the difference at the board, because here you are having the government recycling these arguments. We've already proved false in court over and over again, but they redid it. They did the verbatim at this board of Inquiry. These same mega law firms that have been representing these litigants were in the board of inquiry, like, working with the prosecutor to try to get us kicked out of the Marine Corps, and which was just amazing in and of itself. But when you, when you have the eyewitness testimony, the only other guy in that room saying the State Department, we asked him to DNA test, and then you provide the emails that the government never released, it's pretty damning to be honest with you.
- [177:34]
Sean Ryan
Let's take a, let's take a quick break. Foreign I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite. Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show, and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month live, zoom calls with me, exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com vigilance elite. That's patreon.com vigilance elite. All right, we're back from the break. We had just covered that the baby got turned over to a Poshtu man. And so just if we cover this, forgive me, but how did she get turned over to somebody without a DNA test?
- [178:40]
Joshua Mast
Well, that's been our question to this day. But ultimately the decision was made from State Department's concern that it would interfere with the peace deal and that these were confirmed family, which I believe was a false report like we already talked about functionally. They just signed her over to an ICRC representative and they flew her to southern Afghanistan. And then she was gone like a fish in the sea, needle in a haystack. All those, like, she was gone.
- [179:07]
Sean Ryan
So what, did they just pick some random guy off the street and go, hey, here's an infant.
- [179:12]
Joshua Mast
They picked the sixth or ninth random guy off the street and with zero bedding. And that's one of the things why I think a lot of the restrictions on information on this case involved particular is because we have the, we have the homework to show that that's exactly what they did. And I, I think they're very concerned for their own, I don't know, careers or their own reputation. That doesn't come out. But I mean, this is, you don't have to take our word for it. It's documented.
- [179:36]
Sean Ryan
I mean, how did that feel, you guys? We just spoke downstairs. You had a crib at the house. You guys were preparing for, for another baby to enter the family.
- [179:48]
Stephanie Mast
It wasn't a matter of if. It was when. Because as we had mentioned before, DoD policy all the way up to that point was make every effort to bring her home. And so we were like, for me, just like you would prepare for any other child, just being ready to have all the supplies be ready to go to, for us receive a child that potentially had medical, ongoing medical needs. So Just trying to adjust my expectations of what life was going to look like at that time. And I would say for the most part, we were ready as, like, as much as you could be. But when it looked like they were going to forcefully just turn her over at the last minute, I think we still, as Americans, just, like, held out hope. Like, if we get it in front of the right people, they'll do the right thing. And so I think even though that fear was very real, there was a side that was just like, it's gonna come through. It's gotta come through. It's a baby. It's gonna. They're gonna see the innocence, and they're gonna protect this baby. And I remember that night. It was, like, one of the worst nights of my life, that it was. I don't know what time it was, but I was in bed, and, like, we did everything we could possibly do. And now we were just hoping that for some reason it was going to stop, it was gonna be stopped. And Joshua walked in, and the room was dark. And I just remember your voice, and you're like, she's gone. I just. I didn't even say anything. I was so shocked. I was just. It felt like a kick in the gut. Like, I can't believe it. And that moment, just, if you feel like a failure, because here you are. I mean, we were excited about what we were doing. We were proud of what we were doing. And there was, like, a full court press of everybody working together for this one child. And so it felt just like a failure. And I'll never forget what you said. You said, I don't know why. I have no reason to think this, but it's gonna be okay. And I was. And of all things, for him to say, it was probably the best thing. It was comforting. But I was just, like, really? Like, I don't. I can't see how any good can come from this.
- [181:57]
Sean Ryan
How did you find out she was gone?
- [181:59]
Joshua Mast
So one of the medical staff had told us they were all, like, out of their minds, worried about it, and, like, trying to advocate to Congressman.
- [182:08]
Sean Ryan
What did they say?
- [182:10]
Joshua Mast
They basically said that they're going to be handed over to an anonymous person through the Red Cross at this time and date and were just letting us know that that was happening so we could try to stop it. And so we filed what's called a temporary restraining order, try to get one. And that's. It's a high bar to get that against the government.
- [182:26]
Sean Ryan
You already had adoption papers?
- [182:28]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, we did.
- [182:29]
Sean Ryan
So they're Just, they're giving your child.
- [182:32]
Joshua Mast
That's exactly what the judge said.
- [182:34]
Sean Ryan
Away. To an anonymous person in Kandahar.
- [182:38]
Joshua Mast
Well, I'm not supposed to talk about exactly where it was.
- [182:41]
Sean Ryan
Whatever. Afghanistan.
- [182:43]
Joshua Mast
Yes. Not. Not anywhere near where she was recovered and to someone who spoke a different language and was a different race. And to me, knowing what I know now, I'm even more upset than I was then, because then it was.
- [182:58]
Sean Ryan
Isn't that fucking kidnapping?
- [183:00]
Joshua Mast
That's how I. That's how we viewed it. So this is the US State Department.
- [183:04]
Sean Ryan
This is the fucking US Government kidnapping your child and handing it to some random person in Afghanistan after formally recognizing.
- [183:14]
Stephanie Mast
Or if you want to say a little bit more politically, they ignored our legal parental rights and basically said, yeah, that's you, but we're going to do this. It was official US Determination and policy. And.
- [183:26]
Joshua Mast
But. But again, I think with the administration.
- [183:28]
Sean Ryan
But like.
- [183:31]
Joshua Mast
It was a crazy situation.
- [183:32]
Sean Ryan
How the fuck do they do that? How the fuck do they take. They give you adoption papers and then take your fucking kid and give it to some fucking stranger on the streets of Afghanistan? Are you fucking hearing this? People like, this is your government. This is your fucking government.
- [183:50]
Joshua Mast
And that's exactly how we felt because we had gone to the authorities, we'd appealed, we'd informed them about what we knew about on the ground, facts that are corroborated to this day. And they had recognized this authority. And I think they ended up citing a technicality like, oh, you didn't formally notify the Department of Justice about this proceeding. And I've got the email traffic where I give it to my colonel the next day, four months before all this went down. So they basically cited technicalities like, oh, you didn't do this bureaucratic thing correctly. But as far as knowing the US Government knowing this, we were emailing the White House Chief of Staff, we were talking to Senator Cruz's office. They were phenomenal. They were advocating like, hey, this is insane. We can't turn a child over without vetting. And so the state, the embassy was representing that the Afghans didn't want to do a DNA test. Well, I've got the email where they requesting it. I've got the testimony.
- [184:45]
Sean Ryan
You have an email where they're requesting a DNA test. And the embassy is saying they don't.
- [184:50]
Joshua Mast
Do it in the email because they're smart. They did it in the meeting on December 31st. And then they iced this guy. And by God's grace, we got him out of a dangerous place and to America. And now he's here today because of her ordeal and getting turned over. This guy who was supposed to protect her ended up getting saved by her. And that's the case for a lot of the folks we helped in the withdrawal. Because I told Sophia, I was like, I don't know why, but I feel like it's going to be okay. And what we've come to learn from our experience is that that was providential because I wouldn't have been. I wouldn't have had visa experience. I wouldn't know what USCIS was, I wouldn't know what a humanitarian parole was. And we used all of those skill sets to save as many Afghan interpreters and their families as we could. Marine Corps folks who did war with us based on other Marines vouching, like, this guy was with me in Sanken. This guy was with me in March. He was great. And during the evacuation, when we're just working our terps, if I wasn't connected with Afghanistan and at the unit that I was at, there was 30, 30 plus people that would not have gotten out but for her getting handed off. So I know these people meant it for whatever their intent was, but it was part of the plan because it saved lives. In the end, her life affected a lot more Afghan allies in the evacuation and since even cause we got that other guy out with his wife and two kids.
- [186:16]
Sean Ryan
How long was she Mia?
- [186:20]
Joshua Mast
Almost 18 months. Almost 18 months.
- [186:22]
Sean Ryan
She was gone for 18 months.
- [186:24]
Joshua Mast
Exactly. And we were dying every minute of it because we. And that kind of segues pretty nicely into the next portion of the story is she's gone.
- [186:34]
Sean Ryan
So like a 45 day old.
- [186:37]
Joshua Mast
Well, she was, she was five months old at that point.
- [186:40]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [186:40]
Joshua Mast
And she'd been raised five month old.
- [186:42]
Sean Ryan
Baby was gone for a year and a half. And so to some random older guy.
- [186:52]
Joshua Mast
I believe is a.
- [186:52]
Stephanie Mast
That wished to remain anonymous, that wanted.
- [186:54]
Joshua Mast
To remain anonymous because we had offered to DNA test them and there's email traffic with them saying, well, we understand that they want to remain anonymous and we'll keep them anonymous, but we need to DNA test them. Because that's what DoD was saying. Because that's a reasonable, sane policy. Right. Is that you DNA test people coming out of the woodwork in a country that traffics children. Like that's not a hard call. Right. It was no question in our mind that that was our requirement from DoD, but that got dropped by state and then reported up the chain as the Afghans didn't want to do it or it wasn't part of their Process, I think was the white lie they used.
- [187:24]
Sean Ryan
How high up does this go? Who's running state?
- [187:26]
Joshua Mast
I think it just went up to the. The embassy was the one generating bad information for the administration. I believe that that got passed on because the main lies was the DNA testing wasn't part of the Afghan process, which is technically true, but they're asking you to do it. So is it true? Not from this guy's where I sit. If the United States lead agency, which was DoD, said we commit to DNA testing any potential family members in the best interest of the child, and you're in a train, advise, assist mission where you're supposed to train them how to run a country, how to provide security, stability, that type of thing. We're trying to train, advise, assist them to do the right thing. And DoD did that. We were like, hey, the best interest of the child, you got a DNA test, we'll terrorist vet and let them know of our medical concerns and offer free medical care in the U.S. that was DOD's policy for months. And we were fine with that policy because it's rational. Where we differed from the US government was when they're like, oh, we don't want to interrupt the peace deal, so we're not going to require these things. Or we cannot. Like, what the State Department will do is if they want to do something, they'll say they'll come up with justification, but if they don't, they'll just cite international law and kind of hand wave it.
- [188:37]
Sean Ryan
The peace deal between us and the Tal Taliban, Is that what you're talking about? Why does the Taliban give a shit about a baby?
- [188:45]
Joshua Mast
No, most of the Afghans were totally on board with sending her to the us. They're not.
- [188:49]
Sean Ryan
So how would this interrupt the peace deal?
- [188:51]
Joshua Mast
I agree. It doesn't. I mean, she was living proof. It was not worth the paper it was written on. But outside of her being proof that the conditions weren't being met to allow Al Qaeda to use Afghan soil, I mean, there wasn't. This was a manufactured crisis by the embassy. And I want to hit on something you said. How did she get turned over? She got turned over by a series of letters that the embassy, quote, received, and they had factual statements in them that were drafted by the embassy that were not true. It said that the Afghans had. That the Afghans had confirmed there was family and that they didn't want to do a DNA test and that they're demanding her back. And so we actually had the man who signed those letters. His testimony is in evidence, in our board of inquiry, the minister who was in a third country when he testified, but that was provided by the government in our board of inquiry, his testimony. And this guy can't read, write or speak English. Okay. He signed this document. In his testimony, he contradicts. He said, well, the baby's really little. We can't determine where it's from or who it's. If it's an Afghan citizen or not. But the letter says it's an Afghan citizen. And he says, my ministry can't grant guardianship to anybody. Like that's a court's job. But the letter says they granted custody, like everything that the embassy needed it to say, they just put in there and had this guy who can't read English sign it and send it to us. And then when we threatened to sue, there was a demand letter that came from this same guy who doesn't speak English in perfect English. And it uses terms like next of kin, which is not an Afghan saying. Right. And it's literally a demand letter saying, why was the transfer delayed last week? And like it was trying to rush the American decision making cycle. And this child protection specialist that we got to America, he said that that was drafted by US Citizen Services, an employee in that department sent by WhatsApp for them to send back to the embassy to pretend like it was an arm's lengths transaction. It was an Afghan demand. So the Afghans were doing whatever the American in charge was having them do. And this was a US Embassy decision and they did a fake crisis for the benefit of the administration to deceive them. And I mean, I've got the email traffic. It's got the word doc of who drafted at the embassy. I don't have the demand letter.
- [191:26]
Sean Ryan
Who drafted it?
- [191:27]
Joshua Mast
It was the guy in American Citizen Services. He was a.
- [191:31]
Sean Ryan
You want to throw his name out there?
- [191:32]
Joshua Mast
Oh, I don't think he was. I think he was doing it at the direction of the deputy. Who gives a deputy chief of Michigan? Well, he's an Afghan. He was at. I don't want to put him at risk.
- [191:42]
Sean Ryan
But I speaks perfect English.
- [191:44]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, he does speak perfect English. And like I said, I think he's following orders. But here's the fun part.
- [191:50]
Sean Ryan
I hate that excuse.
- [191:51]
Joshua Mast
I hate it, too. I think that's like the Nazi excuse.
- [191:54]
Sean Ryan
Following orders.
- [191:56]
Joshua Mast
Absolutely. But here's a kicker. This deputy chief of mission, she came and did a deposition and we were not allowed.
- [192:07]
Sean Ryan
Where does the following orders end? You know what I mean?
- [192:11]
Joshua Mast
Well, I think he was doing it the Direction.
- [192:13]
Sean Ryan
Oh yeah, like following or what the fuck does that mean?
- [192:16]
Joshua Mast
No, I agree with that. I think that you were obligated to follow the lawful orders of the President of the United States and his delegated authority. But I still think that we have an obligation to uphold American values as we're doing that. We have to do it in the most conscientious way possible. But I think that an important fact the listeners would be interested to know. Talk about government misconduct before it's not just an interfering back of that. It's been for three years through all of these cases, they've tried to file statements and withhold information from the American public and the courts. That is the responsibility of the previous administration's Department of Justice. You can't, you can't lie to courts. You can't file statements that say, oh, we received this letter and it was an arm's lengths transaction when it's not true. And we've been raising the red star cluster, if you will, for lack of a better term, all along. So this Deputy Chief of mission, while she was up with her in favor of ambassadorship, provided sworn statements and testimony. Get this, the Department of Justice would not let us ask questions in what's called cross examination. She could only testify about what they wanted her to testify about what the DOJ wanted them to say, which is that there's nothing to see here. And these letters were arms length transactions, the ones her office drafted. They were trying to force those on the courts and say for the truth of what was in the letters, which was a lie that they drafted and we weren't allowed to cross examine them. Can you imagine the government coming in and saying, and this is focused on government conduct here, not the courts, state courts. Can you imagine the government coming in and saying something you know is a lie and you've asked for the document, they won't give it to you. And you can't ask them questions like, hey, was that true? What was written? Who drafted that? Did anyone in your office draft it? You can't even ask those questions. They're trying to put this facade of actual due diligence in what they did and it's a lie. And then on top of it, that same witness, witness air quotes, is telling the Afghan, the only person on earth who can contradict her story, not to participate. Like I've got the email traffic where he reaches out and asks her for help and she's like, I can't help you. And then he's like, should I participate? And she's like, Oh, I wouldn't. And like, who does that?
- [194:47]
Sean Ryan
What's this woman's name?
- [194:48]
Joshua Mast
Her name is Donna Wilton. She was the deputy. Now she's an ambassador.
- [194:53]
Sean Ryan
She is an ambassador now, yeah. To what?
- [194:56]
Joshua Mast
I think it was Timor Leste, if that's how you say it right at the time. I don't know if she still is or not. I haven't followed her career or life or anything. But like I said, they meant it for evil or for whatever their purpose was, you know, not American values. But it ended up being for good for many people. And so we're honestly thankful that happened. But, I mean, we should probably circle back to, like, where Was she for 18 months? How did she get here? Because that's really.
- [195:21]
Sean Ryan
I mean, the government has. We were talking about earlier. You're familiar with the Blackwater case. They deleted the drone footage that proved their innocence. Yeah, like a five minute segment of drone footage.
- [195:32]
Joshua Mast
Well, that's what we've been saying.
- [195:33]
Sean Ryan
Made it out to, like, they killed a bunch of people in Aur Square back in 2007. Oh, guess what? This also has to do with a peace deal. Or not a peace deal. The Status of Forces agreement that. That kept us in Iraq.
- [195:46]
Joshua Mast
Wow.
- [195:46]
Sean Ryan
Deleted the drone. Deleted the drone footage. It's like a five minute segment. You see the thing roll up, then the gunfight happens. They delete that five minute segment and they're like, oh, we routinely delete this because we need to save memory. It's like everything before that and everything after. Like, if you were saving saving memory, then you would have just kept the actual gunfight, which is the important part, and deleted all the other shit. But. But I fucking hate our government, man.
- [196:23]
Joshua Mast
Because that's so.
- [196:24]
Sean Ryan
I hate them.
- [196:25]
Joshua Mast
I love our people and our government needs to reflect the people. But I think that we have so many documented instances in our case of overclassification of clearly unclassified material. I'll give you specific examples. Redactions under pretext to hide that we were communicating with. That we were fully authorized at every level of government to do what we did. Because they've tried to portray that this was major mass making this up and hiding it and going in the background. We were broadcasting from the rooftops advocating for this little girl. And it was a righteous Colosse. And everything since then has been orders changing. Like, I had full authorization to testify in my own case. And guess what? This mega law firm asked their former partner, who worked in the SecDef's legal advisors, for assistance, and they got revoked the night before One of our hearings. And so like again, this is focused on government misconduct, not the state court stuff. But who does that? Like, how does the military chain of command authorize you to testify about what you know and then revoke it the night before? What was supposed to be the only hearing where we would like the last one. And so it was intended to prevent us from putting on a case at all. Like even me telling you what I knew about Afghanistan or what I knew about the intel. I have a list over here. This is a, this right here is a letter saying what we can and can't talk about from the Department of Justice. And oh, by the way, the same attorney who defended the government's decision to turn her over to the Taliban in the first place is the gatekeeper of government information. So she gets to decide ultimately what gets released and what doesn't. And do you think that she wants to be proven wrong that they, they helped hand a child over to non relative terrorists, or do you think she doesn't want that to come out?
- [198:14]
Sean Ryan
Who's this woman?
- [198:15]
Joshua Mast
Her name is Kathy Weyer. She's a senior civil division, State or Department of justice attorney. She represented the government in the temporary restraining order hearing where we're like, hey, all the intel is you're attorneys over to non relative terrorists. She was the attorney on that. And then she got tasked to this case years later.
- [198:35]
Sean Ryan
Is she still involved?
- [198:36]
Joshua Mast
Oh yeah, very much. They're very much involved. So they're the ones orchestrating. So instead of us getting witnesses and being able to cross examine them and ask them questions, what they'll do is they'll submit a declaration and a statement of interest of the United States. And it's really just this one person in DOJ who's pretty high up and who's friends with the mega attorney, mega law firm attorneys. And they'll write, they literally help write whatever the witness is going to say. And we had this during COVID where they would just draft witness statements and they adopt it and that's the statement and you can't question it. It's written by an attorney. It's just signed off by some person with the right background and the right name to do it. And so here's, I think this is the clearest way to show what the government has done in this case. Like to put their thumb on the scales of justice. It's what we can't talk about. So this says, notwithstanding the responses and authorizations identified above, the following categories of information have not been authorized and should be excluded from and that's all capsule from any testimony, evidence or filings in this proceeding. And so this is discussing what's called TUI authorization, which is a law that says if you learn something in your government duties, it's official information and you have to have permission to testify. And the DoD policy is that information like that should be made reasonably available to courts because they're like a disclosure type of disposition. Unless it's classified or restricted for some reason, that's like justifiable. So in this case, I've had my orders changed three different times. We've asked for multiple witnesses, gotten denied. Right. And what, what they've used this as a shield and a gag to prevent what actually happened from coming out. And here's, here's a perfect illustration. So, quote, I can't talk about in court. Like, they can't restrict your First Amendment rights outside of that. That's why I'm telling you. But, quote, information prepared by the Department of Defense for the International Committee of the Red Cross and Afghan social worker. So I've been told that I cannot tell them that my colonel signed a very similar memorandum for the Afghans and some NGOs and released it to them five years ago, which I had from civil discovery. I was told I can't mention that in court. And do you know why? Because they filed affidavits saying that Major Mast helped draft this declassified mission summary. And so it's not reliable. So they said I could talk about what I had drafted. And then they attacked me and said that I had made this stuff up. But they told me I couldn't use my colonel's memo that he signed in the proceeding. So we got it from the Afghans. It'll be up on your website and people can go see exactly what the government didn't want you to know. And it's really not. When I say government, it's very loose. Like, I understand they represent the United States, but it's like a couple attorneys that work in civil division DOJ that have a lot of discretion and they've abused it. And they coordinated with, like I said, a former 15 year partner at one of these make a law firms who was working in the SEC DEF's office. I've got email traffic with them asking them to do these things. Like, you don't get your orders revoked from on high, you know, by accident. That does not happen. And I've got about three or four times back and forth in my command, and I don't blame my command at all. My commanders are Phenomenal warriors. They're like marsak is for real good people. But it's so high up in the bureaucracy and it's coming from other agencies. So it sounds like this to your commander. Oh, there's interagency interest in major math. And what that really means is an attorney at this mega law firm has been a partner with this other person for 15 years who happens to be working in the previous administration's legal advisor to a service secretary or the SecDef's office. And so they have a revolving door with partners that do that. And that's how they use power and get favors from the government. And I'm not even saying it's not illegal. It's just when they use it for purposes like this, it can be abused and it has significantly. And so here's the next thing I'm not allowed to talk about information submitted to the U.S. citizenship and Immigration Services by another office in DOD. And that's a really, really bland way of saying here is the Deputy Assistant Sec Defs. It's the Deputy Assistant Sec Defs Parole Agency initiated parole visa request. So this is a DASD level saying our little girl is a stateless minor. The masks have received guardianship because of unique circumstances. She's a DOD dependent basically formally recognizing this and making a request to USCIS to send her to the US and give her a visa. And we asked for this document for like three years and it came out. They delayed its release until it couldn't impact the proceedings at all. Because you know when you, when you're trying to say that Major Mass won't behind everyone's back, well how do you have a memo signed by the Deputy Assistant SecDev? And then they said oh well it was Major Mass talking to or Captain Mass at the time, talking directly to his office. And then they denied the colonel who was his action officer who went and verified all this because they're professionals. They don't go and go off of what some captain says. They go verify it with Ranger Regiment and look at the sensitive site exploitation material that they pulled off objective. And the colonel who helped draft this for The Deputy Assistant SecDef testified at our board and he's personally told me that there is pictures of the dead biological mother. Young, strong, Asian facial features. And in contrast with that, it's supposed to be like a 40 year old poshtune female mother. So like not the same person. Right. Those two things can't be true at the same time. And so do you want to, do you want to trust the photograph and the intelligence that task force created, that Ranger regiment verified or do you want to trust these bureaucrats who are self servingly saying oh this is an innocent farmer and calling our, by implication calling our rangers war criminals. That's just unacceptable. And I can go down the list, I've got six more. So what I will do is I'll provide this for. These have all been raised by FOIA or by TUI or by due process rights for my board and so I can share this information. And these are all in our whistleblower complaint to Congress in detail outlining exactly where it's been lied. But I'll belabor the point for one more point. This says, oh this, this memo that I told you about from my colonel right now this, this document here was sent by a Dutch NATO female, a Dutch NATO worker to the Afghans and the icrc. Right. Right. Now because of over classification in an NCS investigation in my case, they have marked this secret, no foreign. This document that we got in litigation, it was sent to a Gmail account, right, to cover this up because originally they were saying oh you're not authorized to talk about it. Well then we got it from an outside the government source because this only applies to information the government provided you. So then we got ahold of it and then they over classified as secret. No foreign. By definition when you provide things to foreign governments, it is not secret. No foreign. When it goes from a NATO member to multiple people outside of the government's control, it's not secret informed. And so like that's just, it's blatant abuse of our processes to weaponize the system. And it's to cover up what this says because they don't want the American people to see it because it makes them look bad. And this is, you know, the senior attorney for all of Afghanistan signing off on the declassified intel. Like our office helped draft the declassified mission summary and we routed that up through the FDO process. But our colonel used substance of that data for specific targeted memorandums to protect this child. And five years after the fact they're saying nobody can see this. And that's just scratching the surface. I don't even want to get into the terror watch list stuff and all that because I've been so attacked for even having witnessed them flag on the terror watch list that it's a. We joke about it. We've got lots of kids at home. So we say we don't talk about Bruno, so we don't talk about Dulles is kind of the joke in our household because these mega law firms have successfully gotten some terrorism records scrubbed off the terror watch list. And. And they've what? They have gotten some terrorism records related to this scrubbed off the watch list. And I don't know how they did that, but we had marked unclassified fouo documents that I've been told were now been retroactively classified as secret, no foreign, so they could not be used in this case.
- [207:29]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, we've heard this shit before, too.
- [207:31]
Joshua Mast
It's just like. It's exactly what you said with these boxes. Water guys. Yeah, it's like, why are the five minutes that prove you're innocent gone? You know, why not the rest of it?
- [207:40]
Sean Ryan
And that's kind of why happens all the time. This is how our government works.
- [207:44]
Joshua Mast
Well, I think that's changing. I. I think there's.
- [207:47]
Sean Ryan
I hope it's changing. I think there's how it works. This. This said it happen.
- [207:53]
Joshua Mast
And so circling back, we talked about her being gone for 18 months and what. What happened in that time period. And I think a lot of Americans would like to know that because. Explains the narrative that's been pushed in the media. So then I. She's gone. There's no, like, no way to find her. Like, to an anonymous person, we don't know where they're going to be told. They might be Pakistani. So this. This Kim Motley is a phenomenal human rights attorney. She finds her. She had had some experience with trafficked children in Afghanistan, where, like, someone marries a Western wife and then they split and they take the kids and go back to Afghanistan. So she had negotiated with that and then some other, like, actual child trafficking cases. And so she finds her in, like, a few days, and she sent us some proof of life photos. And that's when we saw this. This Talib. I think that's based on my training and, like, his appearance.
- [208:57]
Stephanie Mast
And we're told that she's in a slum.
- [208:59]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, we were told she was in a slum that was so dangerous the ICRC wouldn't send people back. That she had started shaking and they had taken her back to the hospital and they said, you know, we don't have the capability to treat her in Afghanistan. And that. And then some time starts going by. It's Covid. Right. Everything's shut down. And so Kim's goal was simply to get her evaluated. Sparrow evaluated in Kabul at a Western hospital that was a private hospital that she helped represent. And so we had gotten authorization from this older man to have her checked out to explain like in your own language what's, you know, what's wrong with child and what the long term concerns were. And we were told that he had hired and like literally a text message in evidence at our board says I've hired a woman to care for her and I pay her a salary. And it was this like 16 year old, 17 year old girl. And so this old guy had pawned her off already with an unmarried girl. And we have come to find out over the last few years she was living in like a group setting like with 23 other people with extended family members and such and in what I believe were dangerous situations. I'm, I'm hesitant to, I should probably say one thing before I go into it, but this Pashtun guy that we've been in this conflict with, the first thing he told me was that she doesn't live with him, that his dad was responsible to the Taliban for her and that she lives with some other people that are like parents to her. That's what this guy tells me. And I have an audio clip of this that you guys can provide to the audience to show that. And it's been disguised to protect his identity and all those things to meet those requirements. But that's in evidence at our board. Hi Ahmad, I hope your son's doing better today. I was wondering if you could at some point, if you have a minute send him a voice message about asking, just asking how he was doing or if she, she's okay with the explosions going off or whatever. I kind of like to figure out where she is and I'd also like to know how she, he's doing. But if you have time, just at some point, thanks. So when I say so, I believe him when he said she was not living with him ever, like for any portion of the time. And when she got to the States, one of the things that concerned was I'm a Special Victims trial counsel certified, which means I have special training to deal with child victims and victims of sexual assault. And her as a two year old.
- [212:28]
Stephanie Mast
The sensitive way to say she was exhibited, she was demonstrating signs of trauma. The girl, the baby at Bagram was no longer there. Like that was the bright eyes, big smile, just open face, typical baby. When we finally saw her after that 18 month Spanish, she was closed off. It was to the point where I, for a split second I wondered if it was the same child because she was so distinctly different. Her eyes were guarded, her face was closed off, she was like very defensive. And it wasn't until I saw the scar on her leg, which is very distinct. I was like, that's her. I was kind of looking at her face, just looking for those glimpses from all the photos from the hospital, like, looking for that little girl. And she was to say that she was traumatized, it would be an understatement.
- [213:27]
Joshua Mast
And the FBI has investigated all these allegations, the media, and the day they came to talk to us, we had just returned from the Carousel center, which is a child sexual forensic facility in Wilmington. And so we had, based on her behavior and her physical characteristics of her female parts, we were very concerned because she was exhibiting all the signs of sexual abuse. And I don't think this guy did it because he told me he didn't live with him. I think it happened when you're living with 23 other random people in your house or however the communal living and you have people going to high school and finishing high school and not having, like, a specific person watching her. And in a society where you have a lot of that type of abuse going on, I 100% believe that she was sexually abused. I don't think this guy in America now did it because he told me she didn't live with him. But we didn't even try to use that in court because I believe him when he said she wasn't living with me. He had no reason to lie at that time. He has a reason to lie now. But she was traumatized by her experience there. She was malnourished, like, way behind on her growth and weight. She was like, she had. She was. Her stool, she had worms, she had. She was infested with lice. All of us got lice. Like, my whole family had to deal with that for like a week because it's like very full grown lice. She's got an allergy to German cockroaches, which is an acquired allergy from being around, like, that type of insect, I guess. And it was, it was. We're so thankful she got out, like, and I think she was young enough where that's not going to affect her. But she still carries the baggage from that. And like, everything we're warning about in our lawsuit saying, like, sexual abuse, malnourishment, lack of access to medical care. It took her three years to get an mri. Like, that picture of her skull fracture. When people are like, oh, she's medically complete, she'll be fine. Like, that's the embassy's perspective. Like, if you look at that skull fracture and imagine that's on a two year Old. What did it look like as an infant? It's a larger area of her head. Like she looks like a cracked egg. Like there was legitimate safety concerns.
- [215:42]
Sean Ryan
Do these people know this?
- [215:44]
Joshua Mast
Who's. Who's that?
- [215:45]
Sean Ryan
These attorneys, these mega law firms.
- [215:48]
Joshua Mast
I think they've done everything they can to shut that down.
- [215:50]
Sean Ryan
Satanic.
- [215:51]
Joshua Mast
I have no idea what.
- [215:52]
Sean Ryan
What is this?
- [215:53]
Joshua Mast
I think they. They just believe the law.
- [215:55]
Sean Ryan
What do they want to happen?
- [215:57]
Joshua Mast
I think in their minds, they think that she's going to have a little white picket fence life with these Afghans here in the States. And I don't think they realize the real players in this story because it's really not between us and them. They don't have legal authority under their own legal system for this child. They told us half a dozen times they were responsible to other. And what blows my mind is this is what happened in the board of inquiry. The FBI interviews these Afghans like, close to day one, like in the country in the evacuation camps. And do you know what they tell the FBI? That this is a, quote, her two uncles. Uncles are the authority for her life, not them. They cite to two other people as authority for life. And the Taliban commander says she couldn't come to America. So that's what they tell the FBI. Do you know what the DOJ under the previous administration has filed in our statement of interest in the United States? They've said that these people are her legal guardians and parents. They told them they weren't. They've had that information for three years, and they're hiding that from the court. How do you, as an attorney for the United States government, go tell a court these people are parents when you have statements that are felonies if they're not true, saying the opposite. How do you do that? Like, it's these legal positions that the United States air quotes. United States with the civil division have taken are based on things they know are lies. They actually have rips of their phones from. And this guy told me before he came to American lines, he told my terp, hey, I've got many Taliban militants in my phone. Will that be a problem when I come to U.S. forces? Because he brought her to get evacuated. And so they've got their phone rips sitting there on their front desk. Like, if I'm Kash Patel, I'd be like, let's see if there's any terrorism contacts on there. Because he also flagged on the watch list. And they also said they were responsible to the Taliban governor for her. And they told the FBI they were obligated to the Taliban to go talk to them. And they said no. And so we, during the evacuation, we risked everything to make sure they got out okay. Like, I've got email traffic saying, I don't want two Taliban murders in my head because I knew the risk. My commander said, you're gonna have to choose between Sparrow and them because the assets we're gonna use to collect them don't give a fuck about Afghans. And that's a quote. They're going to probably put a gun in their face and take them. And so, like, what I like to say to the American people is if we were trying to take a child from her, quote, parents, from, quote, family, that would have been a pretty good time to do it. Instead, we delayed the mission from a national mission force that ultimately rescued them from behind Taliban lines for over 24 hours and tried to get a volunteer group to go get them, like some of these great Americans who were like, going behind Taliban lines to get them out, like Chad Robichaux's folks. And like other groups, we had them lined up with seats paid for on the aircraft from the Mercury One funding. And we had a group of five, three kids, plus Sparrow and these two posthumes. And she was like eight months pregnant. So we delayed everything, risked them all to get them out safely. And so I guess that's the level of fidelity we had on this. The first time I ever spoke to this Pasha guy was in July of 2021, a couple months before, like five weeks before the evacuation ended. Day one. I explained who I am, why I care, like, that I worked at the hospital, that my job in Afghanistan or worked for the hospital to try to get a safe outcome for her, that my job in Afghanistan was to make sure only bad people got hurt in our strikes. You know, kind of explaining like at the grassroots level what a targeting attorney does in Afghanistan. We explained that we were told she was foreign, that we had sought legal responsibility in the US that she had a complete US Identity. And from day one, it was send her to fly out before the Taliban take over. That's what the pitch was. And the first thing this guy asked me, what do you think he asked for? He's like, could I get a visa for me and my brother in law to come to America? Because everybody wants to come to America. I don't even blame them for that. But that is the first thing on this person's mind. And I think that the best way to explain that to the audience who's not deployed is to say it's a very day to day survival like hand to mouth environment. It's not even their fault, right. If you're not wealthy there, if you're not making money off the Americans being there, you're dirt poor. And so a lot of it, they're not planning what they're going to do next month. They're not planning on their five year goal. It's how do I survive today? And it was very clear from the get go that this guy was trying to survive and get whatever he could out of this. And I'm not even blaming him for that. I'm really, I blame the Americans who enable these lies and abuses of our systems. But like as God is my witness from day one in detail and that's exactly what our interpreter testified to and that's in evidence at our boi. That's what there is no evidence to contradict that ever because it's what we did. I mean how do you. She ultimately got rescued by a national mission force from behind Taliban lines. How do you explain to someone bearded men with guns are going to come in helicopters and get this child and we're going to bring you to. How do you explain that that's going to happen to someone, to an Afghan, a posh two male from southern Afghanistan.
- [221:37]
Sean Ryan
No, you don't.
- [221:39]
Joshua Mast
They used her military ID to identify our US forces. Like he told my interpreter, like don't tell Joshua, that's what he called me. But I have many Taliban militants on my phone. Will this be a problem when I come to US Lines and I had a JSOC colonel come and testify at our board of inquiry that corroborated all the, not the allegations, the derogatory information, if that makes sense. But I've got the Department of Justice filing in front of our court saying, oh, that was, it was never, never any derogatory, not affiliated with terrorism. I mean I've got a guy who said my dad's responsible. The Taliban shadow governor, not where he lives, where she was recovered from the guy responsible for those camps. He said that and that guy said no. And they're describing this in detail over conversations for like six weeks because it took a couple weeks to trek up there. And if you think about what's going on is the Taliban started with the Northern alliance areas this time and then they swept down into their national strongholds in the south. And so Sparrow and these two Pashtuns, they spent a week and a half huddling in their homes while there's like urban combat in some of these southern Afghan cities. And his biggest concern was, I'm worried the artillery concussion is going to hurt my unborn child because his wife was pregnant. She was, like, 19 and 8 months old. And so that was his concern. And, like, I'm having conversations through an interpreter, but with this guy and what come to find out. The language this interpreter is using is the very strongest language in Pashto for guardian, legally responsible. He's using words wali, which is an Arabic term, but it's used in Islamic legal, like, writings and such. And it means, like, the responsible person or. And then masoliat, which is another word for, like, responsibility or the one in charge. And then I mess this one up a lot, so my Afghan friends will make fun of me later. But it's sarprost, which is, like, the responsible person. And so he's using the strongest words in this guy's native language to explain this to him. And then I'm on video saying, I will try to fly to Kabul and bring her documents, all her original documents. And so essentially, what happened was this guy tells me she doesn't live with him. She lives with some other family. She doesn't live with his dad. She lives with some other family. He said, my dad's gone to speak to the shadow governor. And then, like, two weeks go by, and it's getting to be about August 14th or 15th, right before the Taliban take home. He comes back and he says, the Taliban said no. And so we're like, what do you do? And so then the evacuation starts. And so before, there was no way to get all of them out, right? They're like, the Talbot will kill us if we bring her. And he told me like, oh, sir, you're so kind. Thank you. I think she should go live with you in America. Can she go to college? Like, they're asking questions like that. My dad wants to know this. My dad wants to know that. He's always saying his father was the one in charge or had questions. And so, like, let me talk to your dad. Let me talk to the Taliban shadow governor. Like, you know what I mean? I'm pulling out all stops because I know it's ending, because at the unit I was at, we had intel reports of how bad it was. And so two days after the evacuation started, I had had the privilege of helping another Marine friend of mine. I saw a plea on Facebook, a friend of a friend. And this Marine was at the war college, and he was trying to get his terp out, and he was stuck outside the gates and he'd been there for, like, three days with a bunch of little kids. And so I was like, hey, man, send me that stuff. I can send it on a red line. And I had reached out to the soxent L and O to ask like, hey, what is the process for requesting they evacuate people? And they're like, man, there is no process. We're building this plane and flying it. And so I was like, holy cow. So I scrounged around and I got a sipper a. A secret red line to HKA where I could talk to the SJA who was a friend of mine who I knew. And I talked to him at the early stages, and he's like, I am an 04 SJA in the Marine corps. And I just laid c wire, concertina wire, and cleared an airport with, like, 250 Marines. That's what I did today. He's like, this is unbelievable. And, like, never seen anything worse. I mean, a major lands concertina wyer a judge advocate. Like, they were. They were, like, overrun. And, like, as I'm communicating with them, they're saying things like, the situation's not good. Like, the state department people are leaving. We have no guidance. It's changing. Like, they were afraid they were going to get overrun again. Like, it was bad. And so, like, we. That first group that I got out or I helped get out like that, that major was really plugged in with, it was called the zaki family. And they're. They're in the states. They're safe, thank God, but they got out. And so he got flooded with a bunch of other requests from other marines, like, hey, my turf's outside of this gate or that gate. And so he started filtering those to me because I was able to assist with that original one. And so I got sucked in. And, like, for the next two weeks, like, totally ad hoc. Didn't have to. Just did what every other people who had connections tried to do and help get our allies out, like guys who'd gone to war with us, and if a marine vouchers from, we would get a marine to go find them and pull them in. It was unbelievable. So, like, all these groups like consilium, no one left behind, Pineapple Express, Mighty oaks, folks. It was probably the worst two weeks that I personally experienced, just with the huge highs and huge lows of getting people out and knowing they had no hope. But in the midst of that, we experienced a miracle, with my command authorizing me to try to go to Afghanistan during all of that craziness. And then ultimately, with The National Mission Force getting her. But how did they get her? So as soon as I got word they were well. So he came back and said, the Taliban said, no, they'll kill us. We can't go. I was like, disobey the Taliban. The president just got on the TV and said, anyone at risk or anyone who's helped US forces can try to get out. And so I said, if you bring a. She's viewed as a US person by US forces. If you bring her to US forces that's helping the United States and I will do everything I can to get you out. And then I went downstairs and I talked to my colonel. I was like, sir, crazy story we've been doing. State Department dumped our little girl two years ago. We've been working to get her out. You know, she has medical concerns. They've reported like shaking inside. She's coming with a Poshun male and a pregnant female. And then, oh, by the way, the interpreter that I'm using to speak to him, he's like, hey sir, my 15 year old sister lives in the Northern alliance areas in the north. And they just passed. The Taliban just made an edict that they have to provide lists of the 15 to 45 year old unmarried women. And the Taliban fighters are going to marry them and then take them back to Waziristan when they, when they're done with their campaign. He's like, I'd really like my sister not to have to marry a Taliban fighter and go to Waziristan. And I was like, he's like, can we try to get her out? And so I was working with Kim Motley at the time and we were helping each other with different connections in Afghanistan and she got hundreds of women like at risk women out. And we were helping each other because I could get people over the wall and she could get them seats out. But like, she seemed like the Afghan female robotics team. A lot of the staff, I believe it was the New York Times and some of the media agencies, they got them out. And she was almost single handedly responsible for hundreds of lives and she helped us too. And so we, so this is what we did. We moved my interpreter's 15 year old sister, his 7 or 8 year old brother, and he had a teenage brother as well, three kids, 180 miles south through Taliban lines. These two posh students came 280 miles north and we rented an Airbnb of all things in Kabul, Afghanistan during the fall, about a mile and a half west of the airport. And we used it as a safe house. And I go talk to my colonels, like, permission to take emergency leave and fly into Kabul commercial through India, because there's still a few flights, because that's how the American volunteers were getting in, and then going behind Taliban lines and getting people out. It was unbelievable. And so we got. Got sucked into that cycle of just trying to get as many allies out. And in that process, several instances where we were interacting with the Marines at Abbey Gate right before it got blown up.
- [230:24]
Sean Ryan
So you flew in?
- [230:25]
Joshua Mast
I did not. So, no, I'm sorry, I should clarify. I was authorized to fly in. And then my colonel's like. Because he's a phenomenal human being and just a special operations warrior, he was like, that's what I'd do if I was a parent. Permission granted. And then he was like, well, I should probably tell the general. And so then they routed up to centcom, and they're like, heck, no. You're not taking emergency leave in Kabul, Afghanistan. So they shut that down. And I was told to hold, but my colonel was former JSOC liaison for our unit, and he got her added to the targeting list of the National Mission Force, and she got elevated. And so that's when we had the conversation about choosing between her safety and their safety. And I have documentation where, like, I cannot do that. And I personally spoke to the two at the National Mission Force, and she personally guaranteed, like, they would take them all because they had no documents and no connection to the US and they were using her military ID to get her on a bird. And so they went and snatched him behind Taliban lines and snatched him up and flew him into the airport on a helicopter. And so our kids and the pregnant lady didn't have to go through the huge crowds because we'd had other groups, like, crushed or, like, pregnant women, like, giving birth prematurely and losing the child. Like, it was horrific conditions. And what these people on the ground were going through. I'm talking to guys that have deployed multiple times in the Middle east saying it's the worst thing they've ever seen in the gwad. And, you know, they're throwing their kids at the end. They're like, just for the hope of getting out, they're throwing their kids over the walls, and they don't know that there's, like, c wire on the other side and that kids getting hung up and bleeding out. And I even had several instances where they would empty out some of the handicapped children's orphanages and use them as, like. Like. So the process was they hand up a child that was very young or handicapped, and then they would let them through the gate and they'd link up with them. But a lot of these kids were getting abandoned, right, because they're being used as a ploy to get into the airport by desperate people. And so there was collection points for these children and even to the point where, like, they're terminally ill children that eventually died in the US and we were trying to find out if anyone somehow could find out who this. So they'd have someone there when the child died in the United States. I don't think people realize how crazy that was. That mission set was. And ironically, my replacement, I was the executive officer for Raider Battalion for a while, or Raider Sport Battalion. And I replaced the previous xo, was the planner who planned the evacuation AD Hawk. And he was like, hey, man, I plan most of this on my 4G phone. And I was briefing the President on a napkin. And then all this ad hoc. And basically what we had done, what we had experienced was across dod, all these vets of the wars were trying to get their connections to get their people safely out. And such a heroic execution of a terrible mission, a mission that I think was unnecessary and based on my just happenstance, I thought at the time. But bouncing around Afghanistan, my deployments, seeing the strategic difficulties of flying out of an airport where the population center is right built up onto it, and it's just the mercy of the Taliban. They're not shooting down our C17s and then listen to some of these other guys on the ground, like you mentioned, I think earlier, Sergeant Tyler Vargas and his account of watch them beat people to death if we rejected them. All that stuff was common knowledge. We were getting. Getting reports of other suicide bombers, other attacks, and like, it was a ticking time bomb to get these people out. And the Marines and soldiers just executed just heroically a really bad mission set. I still. I cry like a baby every time I think about it. I watched. We ended up. Stephanie and I both ended up going to Ramstein to meet our group because they got through Doha, we had some rangers go find them. And I talked to the tower at Doha, and I'm like, my group just got put on a plane. Where are they going? He's like, sir, we don't have manifest. We have no idea where anybody. We're just packing people on planes. And he listed off like 12 tail numbers in all over the globe, like Greece, Italy, Spain, Germany. It was like they were going everywhere. And so we guessed the most planes were going to Ramstein, 60% of them. So, like, the biggest chance was to go to Ramstein to try to meet up with them, because we had all of. All of our documents. We had vouched for these people disobeying the Taliban. So I was there to advocate, like, hey, these people disobeyed the Taliban for us. They brought a US Person to US Forces using our military id. Like, we literally shepherded them through the process. And they knew that from day one.
- [235:19]
Stephanie Mast
It was an incredible. That part. And it was like. It was a chaotic. That wasn't the plan. It was just. The plan evolved as all of this was happening. And I took some pictures along the way, which I think I've shared of. Just because for me, I'm a photographer by trade. But it felt like what Joshua was doing and the stories I was just overhearing of everything that was transpiring, it was just so significant. It was almost historical. And so I took. For whatever reason, we were driving up to Baltimore to fly out to Ramstein, Germany. And Josh was on the phone, and he was trying to get a group of 14, I think, that had visas to Australia, as he was on the phone with someone on the ground in Kabul. And I just had this urge. I mean, probably not the best idea, driving, but I just picked up my phone and I just hit record, and I started recording him on this phone call. Because it's just significant. It's not a. Every day that you're speaking to people directly on the ground while all this is going on. And it ended up being the Marine that died, I think, the very next day at Abbey Gate. And she personally, Joshua was talking to her niece, like, I've got a group. There are visas or they. It's been verified. They can get through. And she's like, well, the Australians are not here. And he's like, well, wouldn't it be a shame if 14 people can't get through because Australians are here? And so she. And so she. Go ahead.
- [236:48]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, I think I should. For her, for their family. So these Marines at Abbey Gate, they, like, selflessly sacrificed for people they didn't even know. And it wasn't a waste. Like, there's real people with real different lives now because of their sacrifice.
- [237:09]
Stephanie Mast
Entire family unit.
- [237:10]
Joshua Mast
That particular one was they had Australian visas. It was a Hazara family, and they're Shia Muslims. And so they're both racially and religious minority. And she was a female activist, this matriarch, if you will, of this family. And she had been specifically called out by the Taliban and because of that, the Australians had granted them visas. And so they've got everything from like a couple month old baby to like 60 year old men and like 14 people in between. And they are stuck in Abbey Gate in the ditch at 2 in the morning. And the call goes out on the nets, like, does anybody know any Australians? And I knew one Australian I deployed with in Afghanistan, and I still had his number. So I reach out and it's like, whatever time in the morning in Australia, I'm like, hey, sir, remember me? You know, this is what I'm doing. You know, I'm working these groups. There's Australian visas. I was like, do you know anybody running the Australian response in Kabul? And he's like, oh, well, my brother in law is actually running the op center in Doha right now. Here's his number. The only Australian on my phone's brother in law is doing that. So I'm like, so I called Doha and I talked to this nice Australian and he's like, oh, I'm sorry, our comms are down. We can't reach them right now. I'm like, what? I'm just called Doha on my cell phone while driving to Dulles to try to fly out over there, right? And so that's not gonna be good enough. Like, it's not gonna be fast enough. And so I'm like, are there any Americans? Can you see any Americans to this lady who speaks broken English? And she's like, there's one. And so she hands off the phone. I'm like, hey, I made your mast. I've been helping with, you know, vet these paperwork, different Afghans, get them through. My guy's not responding for the gate. Can you please pull these people in and find some Australians? And she's like, sir, she's like, it's a female voice. And she's like, hello? And like, I'm explaining my stuff. And she's like, the Australians aren't doing 24 hour ops right now. And it's 2 in the morning. They don't come on till 6. She's like, what do you want me to do? I'm like, I want you to pull these people in and sit them down and wait for Australians. And she's like, well, I have to hand you off my captain. So she hands me off to the captain. I explain the same story. And this is what he says to me. He's like, sir, I'm looking at 15,000 people trying to get in this gate, and I'm playing God about who gets to go, what do you want me to do? And I was like. She said. I said, wouldn't it be awful if these people have a seat on an Australian aircraft? And tickets. I verified that with the Australians. I just got off the phone with them. Wouldn't it be awful if they don't get out because the Australians aren't doing 24 hour ops right now? And he's like, yeah, we'll bring them in. And so they sent me a video from Australia. But we were in the air flying to Ramstein to meet our group when Abygate happened and landed. And it was, it was a ghost town. Everybody stopped work. There was, There was no restaurants open, like the mall, all that stuff. Everybody stopped and they volunteered. And they were building a tent city the entire length of Ramstein, like bigger than Kuwait. Or like if you've been to Ali Asalim and seen some of those bases with all those tents, like it looked like that, but on, on the Runway. And they put 11,000 Afghans the first day we got there and 17,000 more the next day. And it was, it was building tents as you put people into them. It was craziness. And these people looked traumatized because a lot of them had spent, you know, three, four, five days outside, a couple days to get on an airplane. They cram them in there without, you know, no restrooms, no moving space. Like there were fights on the planes and babies and people dying and. And then they all got bottlenecked in Doha for the most part, in UN air conditioned terminals because we were trying to find our group. And they called us saying, hey, we don't feel well, we don't have water. Trying to get them through that process. So they land in Germany. And we were sitting in the USO in Ramstein alone. We're probably the only people in the terminal, maybe three other people. And I started seeing some ambulances pull up. I'm like, what's that? And then you realize it's just these, it was our casualties. They were taken to Landstuhl Medical center there. And they just got off the plane. And there's just so many because there was 30 something wounded in addition to the killed. And we just watched them take body after body of wounded off the aircraft and take them over there. And I remember sitting there with. There was a State Department lead for that basis was a reservist, a Marine, phenomenal person. He actually got sent home because he was raising the alarm of how dangerous it was, the child safety issues that were happening at Ramstein. He got sent home to the Us because he's like, hey, this is dangerous. We need to do better than this. And. But we're sitting there and just crying our eyes out, watching these Marines come up the birds. And I've always wanted to express the gratitude and, like, just having observed what their. Their children went through and knowing that they kept that gate open longer because it meant life or death for a lot of people. And like, just the selflessness of that, that decision that those Marines made and the real world cost of that for people they don't even know. But just for me, I know for a fact that they saved 14 people's lives. And I got their picture from Australia that they got out because of these Marines, and I don't know how many others they say, but I know they saved those people. And they've been so dead murdered by the Taliban, and I can't. To know the ground and to know what people were doing and to express the evil of that bombing, of the just senseless violence. It's just a real focal point of the gwad, I think, is just the senselessness and the evil we're facing. Where people think that that is what God wants them to do, is to blow themselves up in innocence together. I mean, that is an evil ideology that I'm happy to fight, and I'm thankful for their sacrifice. They saved real people. I'm humbled by having observed it. But I think, you know, we view what happened to her as providential. She saved lives in getting people out, including these folks, these Pashtuns that came with her. But I can guarantee the American people, from day one, we told them exactly who we were and what we wanted. And this guy thanked us over and over again, like, oh, I think it's fine. It'll be so kind. The typical flowerly language stuff. He wanted to come to America, which I don't even blame him for. I think he had some conflict with his spouse at some point. I don't know if I don't think necessarily culturally, they have the same sort of impetus to be in agreement about something. So I don't know what he represented to his wife, but at some point she was like, he promised me that if I came with. I told him, if he wants to go to America, you go. I'll stay here in Afghanistan. But he promised me if I came that she wouldn't have to leave my side. And so I think this guy probably was playing both sides against the middle. But really, what happened at Dulles, we were trying to be sensitive because it's a Horrendous event, right? To have to go through that period leaving everything, you know, going through that experience. I mean, our particular group got the red carpet. Like having the National Mission Force pick you up is the best way to get out of Afghanistan. Just saying. But it was still a traumatic event. And so we were trying to expedite them through the refugee stream because of this lady's pregnancy and because of Sparrow's, like, medical concerns, because we were worried it triggers seizures, basically. But that ended at Dulles, that we weren't going to. I had different obligations kick in at that point. And that's really the story that hasn't gotten out. And that explains the origin of some of the conflict we've had in the US and that's been deliberately, intentionally hidden because it makes perfect sense and it totally undermines the narrative that's been out in the media.
- [245:51]
Sean Ryan
So where did you guys reunite with Sparrow?
- [245:54]
Joshua Mast
We found the Ramstein. We found. Yeah, we found all of them at Ramstein. We. We advocated to get them expedited and then they were. And so we actually were able to get back to the states like 12 hours before they did.
- [246:14]
Sean Ryan
How did you find them, though?
- [246:15]
Joshua Mast
That was a minor miracle as well.
- [246:18]
Sean Ryan
So you were there too, Stephanie?
- [246:20]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, we did. Yeah. I went with. And that wasn't the plan, like I said we were. It was just very responsive as to what was going on at the time. Our youngest son was nine months old. I was still nursing at the time. So it was when Josh was like, we're going to have to go because we don't know where in the world she's going. And we're her adoptive parents, so we both need to be there to be present. So I literally gave my nine month old baby to my sister and which she's, I mean, like a second mom to him. Anyway, so I gave. I handed him over and we drove up to Baltimore to fly out to Ramstein. And I remember asking Joshua at the point, we were like, we didn't know where in the world they were going, like he said. And so he was on the phone with someone at the control tower at Qatar and reading off where all the places were going. And I, I remember asking him, like, if we fly all the way to Germany and what if they're not there? I mean, like, what's our family? We're gonna look like idiots if we fly across the world. And then it's the wrong guess. And he's like, basically, he says is an educated guess. He's like, you know, God's Brought us this far. We're just gonna go for it and see, you know, basically see what happens. And so we did, we boarded the flight and we flew to Germany and landed within an hour of each other.
- [247:38]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, we got a call that they landed too. So like, it was pretty impressive. I was basically like, the National Mission Force squadron just recovered her from behind Taliban lines. I think we'll be good. Yeah, you know, so we, we pushed with an educated guess and it ended up being right on the money. We found them. And then what was weird, how did you find her?
- [247:56]
Sean Ryan
It was good. There had to be thousands of people there.
- [247:58]
Joshua Mast
I, I, I GUESS There was 11,000 people there. It was 2 in the morning and we're walking 11,000 people, 11,000 people there. And so we get there, it's like 2 in the morning. We get checked in. They only let us stay on base because we had family in the stream and we're trying to get them their documents because base was shut down. There was no rental cars available because all the NGOs that come out, we.
- [248:17]
Stephanie Mast
Walked 50 miles in a matter of.
- [248:20]
Joshua Mast
A couple days to say that it was. So let me paint the picture. You've got a mile or so long Runway with a bunch of hangars and a bunch of tents, and they don't know who, who belongs to who. Like, there's no documentation. So like, do you treat the second or third wife, 13 year old wife of some guy as his wife or do you treat her as an unaccompanied minor? So these are some of the like cultural and legal barriers that we're trying to figure out without hurting people. And so they split the women, women and kids 12 and under went into the hangars, men go into the tents, nobody's touching nobody until we figured this out. And like there were significant, significant child safety concerns. Like they had several hundred unaccompanied minors because you had a bunch of orphans from the bombing. Like, now you're an orphan, what do you do? Or like there was one, one siblings. I distinctly remember that they were, the Taliban killed their parents and they were like, the Taliban just shot our parents. What do we do? And so you had these unaccompanied minors and figuring out how to. Or there was people so desperate at the end, if you had a visa to America or were getting let in, they're like, here, take my kids, take them to America with you. And so you've got unaccompanied minors with non family members all over the place. And then on top of that, I Spent like four days in the cages, like walking around. It was super dangerous. Nobody has any weapons. Because you're trying not to make it look like that would be a bad optics. But like you've got 10,000 dudes in a cage and people are getting upset, you know what I'm saying? It was not safe. I wouldn't let her go outside of the ECP for that stuff. But I watched like they're probably DIA or CIA, like plain clothes dudes with wanted posters and like pulling in the Afghan soft because you could. They had pieces of their uniform and they carry themselves differently, like pulling in like the commandos or the KKA guys and like go find this dude. And like they're going and finding like bad guys in this refugee string. And like I watched that happen over and over again. Like picture go like 15 guys pull them in, they do a school circle, they brief them, they say go find them. And like, like pulling dudes out of the refugee stream. So I'm like, holy cow. And, and that kind of, that. Plus when they're, when they were processing these groups, they had what they were calling pods. And so pod, the first pod was like basic intake. Who are you? What documents do you have? What connection to the US and they're vetting them a little bit and so on and so forth. So we were concerned because I had gotten them expedited because of the medical concerns. There was a medical priority for some of them, like pregnant women or people with diseases or acute problems. And so for both Farrell and for this pregnant person, we were trying to get them through. And then also with my interpreter's three kids or three siblings, they didn't have any documents at all, like a birth certificate. That was it. And they had no connection to this group. So like making sure that they stayed together and they routed together to the States was very important. And so we, I mean we were relentless in trying to advocate to get them through. And that succeeded after a few days. But hats off to the staff and the uso.
- [251:32]
Stephanie Mast
I mean they were.
- [251:34]
Joshua Mast
The USO was phenomenal. I actually met the deputy commander of base, his wife at 2 in the morning, was volunteering with the USO in there, like, you know, getting coloring books and blankets and like just serving. And it was these, these people were so. It was such a traumatic experience. Imagine leaving everything you, you know, and love, you know, from the fear of, of a great evil like the Taliban and then going your whole life in a garbage bag. Yeah, your entire life in a garbage bag. And so like we were serving Our hearts out to try to, like, to get everybody out. Like, I was there was.
- [252:09]
Sean Ryan
How did you find her, though?
- [252:11]
Joshua Mast
I think. I think a phone. I think they had, like, a WI FI signal at some point.
- [252:15]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah. So it was very small, but they.
- [252:16]
Joshua Mast
Had to be very close.
- [252:17]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, they had a phone. And whenever there was WI fi, they would.
- [252:20]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, they would. They would be able to connect to WI FI and then send us a message. So we found them, but then we would lose them when they processed to the next one. So we'd have to find them each day, basically.
- [252:28]
Sean Ryan
You'd have to find them each day?
- [252:29]
Joshua Mast
Yeah.
- [252:30]
Sean Ryan
So hold on, I just. I gotta hear some good news.
- [252:33]
Joshua Mast
Yeah.
- [252:33]
Sean Ryan
Well, I mean, what was it like the first time he found her?
- [252:37]
Joshua Mast
Oh, that. That was.
- [252:39]
Sean Ryan
It was you guys together?
- [252:40]
Stephanie Mast
We were together.
- [252:41]
Joshua Mast
We were.
- [252:42]
Stephanie Mast
And they brought her out. And so at that point, we were still in the impression, based on what we were told, that she may not be able.
- [252:50]
Joshua Mast
She.
- [252:50]
Stephanie Mast
She couldn't walk. And so they carried her out. And I was sitting on a bench, and they. They set her. They were holding her at first, and then they set her down so that we could see her. And that was when I first, Like. Like I said, she was so turned inward. She would barely look out.
- [253:05]
Sean Ryan
She.
- [253:06]
Stephanie Mast
She would kind of look up. And her eyes. She has really big. We just joke. That's like Jasmine, like, Princess Jasmine. She has these big eyes, but her eyes were very closed off and. And she looked like a furrowed brow and to the point where, like I said earlier, I. I was like, is that her? Because our hair was short and just like straw, like, and she was.
- [253:26]
Joshua Mast
Just looked too sick as dogs.
- [253:28]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, just dark circles under her eyes and very. You know, she's thin and. And I was shocked. And then when I saw, like, when she's sitting on the. The woman's lap, I saw the scar on her leg, and I was like, that's her. And so they set her down beside me and we took a photo. And I have my hand on her back, and I. The reason why I had my hand on her back is just like any young child, where you're afraid, like, they're tippy or they're going to. To fall back. I had my hand on her back to make sure to stabilize her. And then she got down and she walked over. And in that moment, I was like. Because in my mind, we're still operating from the information we had 18 months prior, medically disabled. So I was shocked. I was like, she's walking. I kind of looked at Joshua like.
- [254:10]
Joshua Mast
And she kind of tottered.
- [254:11]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, she tottered. But it was such a relief to know that she could even walk at that point, because we knew the injuries in her leg. I was just like, wow, she can walk. And so that first moment, it was like, at first it was disbelief, but then it was just relief to see that she can walk, she's alive, and this is actually her, and we're here. And that was just a culmination of all of these highs and lows. And like Joshua said, like, what. Even though this is a long interview, there's so much emotion in, like. Like. Like any good story. There's triumphs and there's failures, there's heroes, there's villains. And we've, like, through this experience, have had all of that. And so in that moment, even with meeting them for the first time, there was such joy and relief. And it was just like, we made it to this. To this moment.
- [255:04]
Joshua Mast
And, yeah, I felt responsible because I didn't want to leave. I knew the Taliban would kill people if they disobeyed them. And I believe that with every fiber up being they would have. And just that I wasn't responsible for anybody's death was a big relief for me. Like, I was. It was exhilaration, but it was also filled with, like, tragedy because, like, you just saw these. These. These kids get blown up and like, 170 Afghans and all their surviving orphans and like, even some of the National Mission Force families that I believe had tried to adopt some of the orphans, because they were right there by Abbey Gate, is where the squadrons were operating out of. And so they were some of the first on scene to secure the scene and just scooping up baby, you know, kids that are just recently orphaned and like, bonding with them over the next three or four days before they have to evac out on the. I think the 30th, because I believe that. I can't remember the date of the bombing off the top of my head, but it was a couple days afterwards. So you had these kids who were recently orphaned with our guys and protecting them and bonding with them. And so, like, we had a lot of.
- [256:05]
Sean Ryan
How long were you guys in Ramstein before you took her home?
- [256:09]
Joshua Mast
I think it was four days. She flew home on a rotator with them with our entire group together. And then we. I think we got her a couple days after that because Dulles. Dulles happened. And then it took them a few days to get their act together and get her back to us. So it was within a week of that that. That it all occurred.
- [256:32]
Sean Ryan
But so what was it like coming home with her?
- [256:36]
Joshua Mast
It was honestly awesome. Like, we were so thankful. Like, we have some good video of our kids getting to see her because they. They'd FaceTime with her or they. They'd prayed for her, sent videos to her, sent presents to Afghanistan. And so, like, to them, it was, you know, it was a very distinct person in their lives.
- [256:51]
Sean Ryan
She's two. Two years old.
- [256:53]
Joshua Mast
Two years old, yeah. Really tiny. And she was, like, walking like. Like a baby deer. Like, could barely walk. She couldn't run. It took her quite a while to build the strength. So her physical therapists were like, this is like the most underdeveloped, like, lower body we've seen of a child this age. And so, like, she was. It took her a long time to get strong. It took her a long time to get to her body weight again. But Stephanie's a pretty good nutritionist and built that up over time.
- [257:19]
Stephanie Mast
And really, we just. We did then what we were planning to do. We just poured everything into her.
- [257:24]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, we took it.
- [257:25]
Stephanie Mast
And so medical, like, I mean, I don't know how many times I went up to Duke in Raleigh, and medical appointment after medical appointment, like, from just a few days in, just went down the line. Everything that we had planned 18 months prior or what prior, we immediately executed and went down the line and just started to just kind of get a gauge of. Okay. Where is she at physically, emotionally? Just across the board and just poured. Poured into her.
- [257:51]
Joshua Mast
Yeah.
- [257:53]
Sean Ryan
How. How long did it take her to smile, to warm up, to smile?
- [257:58]
Stephanie Mast
I didn't even realize that she didn't smile until a couple weeks in. And. And there was something. And you mentioned you're like, oh, look, she's smiling. And it took a while for her. It like her face is now to today. Her face is like her baby photos. It's like any child where. When you look at their baby photos, like, oh, I can. I can see the way they look as a kid. You can see it back then. And so her face is back to the way she was as a baby, where big eyes open, very expressive when she talks. But it took. It was like layers of an onion. It took time for that child to reemerge. And it was.
- [258:38]
Joshua Mast
Well. And I would say her therapist commented that she is displaying behavior that's consistent with an uncertain environment, with violence, because she would. She was quiet and always restricted her. She wouldn't even cry.
- [258:53]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah.
- [258:54]
Joshua Mast
Like.
- [258:54]
Stephanie Mast
Like she knew how to suppress emotion.
- [258:56]
Joshua Mast
Like. Like this and sit there. So. So what she said what. What they said is that's very common in. In. In children with an uncertain environment where there could be, like, emotional outbursts or anger because they've learned to suppress and not. Not rock the boat. And they also noticed that she had a real aversion to men. And then closed spaces. Like, if. If in a therapy session they would shut the door, she'd start to, like, lose it. She didn't want to be alone, and she did not want to be around men specifically. It was. It was. But fortunately, like, we have. We have a big family. Like, she's got, like, 13 or what, 15 cousins. So, like, that much love pouring on her with all sorts of people, like, learning to go to trust people, like, it's safe, it's okay. And she started to slowly peel that back where today, like, you couldn't even tell. Like, she's the same little girl in the hospital, same bright face, like, hold me. Because she grew up with all these nurses and doctors. Like, they would hold her for her naps and, like, rock her to sleep. So she was totally spoiled. And then to go to that deprivation and then coming back from that took some time. But, like, like I said, she was speaking full sentences in two months, like, mommy, daddy, like, unbelievable enough to communicate.
- [260:11]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, she was communicating. She could communicate early on. But when there was one time early on that it really gave me a glimpse of what she must have gone through. Is we were. I was going to. I was loading the younger kids up into the car to go pick up the older kids from school, and I was carrying her out, and so she's kind of at arm or at eye level on my hip, and they're building a new community near, like, right across the road from us. And there were roofers, and they were going down the line going, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, with a. With a nail gun. And I didn't even notice it. And I was just going out to the car, and she looks at me and she goes. And she had this look on her face, and she made eye contact with me. And that was very early on where she couldn't talk, but she looked at me and the look, are we going to run? It was like, danger. Are we? And she was looking at my face to see how I was going to respond if I was going to duck and cover, like, if I was going to run. And in that moment, I looked at her and I just. It broke my heart that a child that young had experienced some form of violence. To know what that was, that that was a threat. And I was like, it's okay. Let's just start building house and just try to, you know, lighten it up. And like, it's. We're okay, we're just gonna go get the boys from school. And. But just little glimpses of that. Of just you could see little. What. Like the.
- [261:36]
Sean Ryan
What it does.
- [261:37]
Stephanie Mast
What it does to a person. And so.
- [261:40]
Joshua Mast
And they had. This guy had talked to me in some of our conversations during the battle for their city in southern Afghanistan. And he described being inside for days and gunfire and all that. And he said he came out thinking it was over and a guy next to him got shot in the head and, you know, was a casualty from that experience. So, like, this guy's like, crying on the phone like, there's no hope. Like, there's no way we're getting them out of Afghanistan. Like, no one could predict the historic evacuation at that time, right? So, like, I'm dying on the inside. Like, man, I'm sorry. Like, we'll do whatever we can to help you, but, like, you gotta send her before it's too late. Like, Afghanistan's falling. I said, 40 days is done. And it ended up being like 32 days. And it was funny because he came everything. He phrases questions from his father, who's responsible, and he's like, my father says the airplane. There's been war here for 40 years and the airplanes have not stopped. I'm like, they're stopping, man. You need to get her here before this runs out. And I'm so thankful that we did. Honestly, in retrospect, I probably had too much. I should have had a little more caution, given the circumstances for recovery. Like, you got a child from a named objective whose guy's talking to the shadow governor. But I figured your average military age male in southern Afghanistan has got to have some connection, you know what I mean? They're familiar with the Taliban, our friends who are. It's a lot of the Pashtun population down that area.
- [263:04]
Sean Ryan
So are there any signs of. I mean, is that like episodes of fear? Is that completely dissipated away now?
- [263:14]
Stephanie Mast
I would say, by and large, it has. You could see, like, it's. It's more when you compare it to, like, how a child normally behaves. That's when it becomes more apparent. So I never realized when we first got her, she would stay. And still to this day, she's still somewhat like the kiss will run all over the house and go into this room and that room. And she does now, but when she first came, she would stay in one Room, like one area. And it was like wherever you put her, she would stay there. And not like almost the freedom of movement or freedom of play. It was like she didn't know.
- [263:48]
Joshua Mast
She wouldn't go out of sight.
- [263:49]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, she would stay close to you and stay in one room. And so I would say it's been even like going to a playground, going. The kids would go play. She would stay close by or not interact with other kids. So it's been a process. And like, I mean, the best thing that I could say is just she has blossomed with love and circling back. Because there's one point that I wanted to make when she was turned over out of U.S. custody. I mean, obviously it was just her whole future was at stake and that was just grieving in and of itself. But what bothered me is that she could go through the rest of her life in Afghanistan and never know how loved she was by hundreds of people. That she had a name, that she had an identity, and people that fought and loved her fiercely and advocated that she could go on for the rest of her life and never know that reality. And what has been so satisfying is to. For it to come full circle and for her to feel that love and to see it firsthand. And one day she'll realize, you know, we've protected her fiercely from the harshness of her past. And in time it will, you know, we'll tell her age appropriate things. But what we've wanted her to know is that we believe that her life was preserved for a purpose and it was protected by many people that, you know, cared for her deeply. And so she's blossomed with that love.
- [265:38]
Joshua Mast
And I think that we did right by these people. We did what we said we would do. We saved them from what they wanted. They wanted to get away from the Taliban. They wanted out of Afghanistan. And I can't control what lies they say about us. I have no idea what exactly their. Why is it, do they want to go back to Afghanistan? Is the Taliban really the people behind this, forcing them to do that? I do know that they don't have control over if they ever get custody of her. And they are subject to duress. And what I really think it boils down to is this. This is not about our rights. This is not about their rights. This is about what's the best interest of the child for this little girl. And what I think is so despicable about the government's role in this is they prevented that analysis from even happening. They're trying to on a Technicality based on a lie. Short circuit that analysis. She should win. Whatever that looks like she should win. She's not chattel. She's not property. Right? Like, she's absolutely our daughter in every sense of the word. Like we're mommy and daddy. She doesn't know anything about this. Right. She doesn't remember these folks at all. That's water under the bridge. But even that, it's. It's about her best interest. She deserves freedom. She deserves to grow up to marry whoever she wants to marry, to be whoever she wants to be. And so many Americans have sacrificed to provide that for her. It is just an abomination for what? A miscarriage of justice. What the government's done here to prevent that from happening.
- [267:19]
Sean Ryan
And it's continuing to.
- [267:20]
Joshua Mast
To this day. Like next, next week we have a hearing in front of these Supreme Court of Virginia, and the government is appearing and trying to say they had a foreign policy interest that overrode our parental rights and that they should just blindly give her, like, pluck her from her family and her brothers and everything she's been given by the sacrifices of all these Americans because of a foreign policy interest from a dead government or because of negotiating now with the Taliban. Are you kidding me? Like, they filed these, for lack of a better term, creepy statements from the current charged affairs for Afghanistan who, like, personally, this is a Joshua MASP opinion should totally get fired. But they fired these from the charge d'affaires. The person responsible for running Afghanistan for the US Government, basically saying it's hard to negotiate with the Taliban with your case going on. So void the mask family's rights and give her to them. Silency. No evaluation of this. No. No investigation whether they ever were proper guardians of her. Like, if she was sexually molested and like, neglected in Afghanistan, Whose fault's that? Like, these people are claiming that they were. She was living with them. I don't know if that's true. I've got a voice message that says she doesn't live with me or my family. So I. I don't know what's true. I don't know how much of the lies.
- [268:42]
Sean Ryan
I mean, can there be any retribution for them? Just stealing your child and giving them to the posh tune guy.
- [268:51]
Joshua Mast
I honestly, I don't know if it's a criminal. I don't know if it rises to criminal. It's absolutely like, we will absolutely sue these people on the back end of this for what they've done with our family. No one should have to go through this Stuff like to be gagged and lied about by the government is really hard to take, especially by the very bureaucrats who are responsible for getting dumped so dangerously the first place. They're the ones, you know, protecting government information and covering up what happened. And like we can prove in court with all the evidence the US government has that she was turned over to non relatives. Like, like, and I, I think I should probably bring that up. There is documentation now I have this guy's the, the person they say is her biological father. I don't even think that's it was. But they claimed a relationship, biological relation to this guy. That was a lie because after three years of litigation, we in the board of inquiry, we have the guy's identity card. And so this elderly posthumous man she was given to in 2020, right before the peace deal, he said, I am the older brother of the slain. We'll call him Joe, for lack of a better term. Joe got killed. He was an innocent farmer. Give me his daughter. Right, that's his claim. Well, now I got Joe's birth certificate. Now this guy's birth certificate. And you know, in Afghanistan, how they have your father and your father's father, well, they don't have the same dad. So that's just a lie. He said, I'm the older brother of the slain Joe. Call him. I've got both their IDs. He's not the older brother. And guess what, the slain Joe's five years older. So he's lying about being older and he's lying about being a brother. So how that that evolved here in the United States is this posthumous man said, well, he was a older stepbrother. So he's claiming to be a half first cousin. That's the claimed biological relationship, a half first cousin. And that came about when we offered a DNA test because like, duh, the first thing you do, I mean if you're in the audience and someone is claiming to be a relative of a child you've adopted, what do you do?
- [270:59]
Sean Ryan
DNA test.
- [271:00]
Joshua Mast
You say, I'll pay for the DNA test. And so we did that two and a half, three years ago was three years ago. Okay, right off the bat, I will pay for a DNA test to test your claim because I believe you're misinformed or you're lying, that that's what we did. And they, they absolutely blatantly refused to do that. So I'll, I'll do, I'll do it right now, do a DNA test. But I guess what I'd like to, I don't blame these mega firms for trying to represent a client. Right. I have a different ethical standard of how you can do that and what level you can do with courts. I think that they may have crossed that line, but that's up for courts to decide. What I have a real problem with is the Department of Justice parroting verbatim what these mega law firms narrative are with contrary evidence in their possession that they won't release to us. So it's like throwing the game. Like if. If we've got it, if we've got video of these rangers in combat, and I've asked three years ago to declassify everything. Like it's a child. It's an old mission. Who cares? Like, declassify it, right?
- [272:14]
Sean Ryan
War's over.
- [272:16]
Joshua Mast
You surrendered. Let's give her. Let's. Let's see the footage. But they'd rather let these guys get maligned by these different groups that support Gitmo detainees and that ilk. Like, same sort of groups, right? The people who fill their pro bono time helping terrorist sympathizers. But they're at Dulles. We had about seven hours it took to process them into the country once they arrived in America. And I was there because I had her original documents and I had to vouch for these people say, like, hey, they disobeyed the Taliban. They risked their lives to help Americans. That's their connection. That's their eligibility to be paroled here. And I had to make sure my interpreter's kids got to him, right? Like, who he was and how he was helping and all that. And so I sat there for seven hours with, like, teeming masses of humanity, like, pouring in and with these overworked customs and multiple agents trying to process all these Afghans. And most them don't have documents. Like, it's very rudimentary at all. And at the end of that period, they're like, okay, you're done processing. You need to go get a COVID test. And it's like midnight, like a COVID test. Like, really, like these people. A lot of these people had tuberculosis, right? So I'm thinking, this is crazy. So we get my guy and about 20, 20, 30 military age males and their families, and they put us in a scissor truck, like those ones that go back and forth between the terminals and can elevate and stuff for different. And they put us in the scissor truck and they drive us way out on Dulles Airport. And it looked like a Bond movie where they're unveiling like a Prototype aircraft, like a huge hangar, and it's got, like, 500 beds in there, and they got computers set up over here, and they got guys kitted up with, like, flax and ars. And I'm like, this does not look like COVID test material. And I watched them go hard at my guy, like, what were you doing in 2014? Like, da, da, da, da. Like, going down the list, Just reaming him out, interrogating him. And before that, he was sitting, and this guy's Pashtun. And a lot of our allies are Dari, speaker or Persian origin, right? There was different tribes that were helping us for the most part. There were some Pashtun tribes that helped, like, but he had not spoken to a lot of the other refugees because he didn't speak Dari and he was a Pashtun. But he's sitting there in this detention facility, like, holding hands and chatting because they hold hands with their friends, and he's, like, chatting away. And that's the first person I'd seen him talk to for five days in the camps. And I'm like, who's his friend? To this person who speaks English. And they're like, oh, this is his friend from his home village. Not his home city, his village back in the boonies where she had been recovered on the mission. Because he wasn't from the big city, he just lived there later in life. He was from this village where she was recovered. And so he's sitting here in this detention facility getting reamed out by our guys with another guy from his home village. And so, like, I've just got this pattern going, you know? Child from a capture, kill mission, Al Qaeda talking to the Taliban. Shadow governor responsible for those foreign fighter camps says he has Taliban in his phone flags at Dulles. And I go to the CBP agent's, like, dude, what is this place? Like, kind of like, I didn't understand. Like, I wasn't sure. He's like, oh, this is where the inconclusives are. I'm like, what is that? And he's like, oh, they flagged on the terror watch list. And, like, we're vetting them to see if they're a match. And I'm like, you know, I feel immediately responsible. Like, I'm a Marine Corps officer. I expedited this guy through, and I knew all this stuff, right? But so what I wanted to do was appropriately flag that because I knew they were looking for.
- [275:56]
Stephanie Mast
To clarify, you didn't know all that stuff. You didn't know that he had Any.
- [275:59]
Joshua Mast
No, no. I didn't know that he'd flag it on watch list. I just figured his folks fought for the team. Like, like, everybody wants to go to America, even if your folks fought for the other team. I thought he was more disobeying the Taliban and abandoning that, which I was cool with. But at that point I felt obligated. Like, as a service member, I can't not say what I know. And so I immediately flagged that through our NCIS rep and flagged it up to the FBI, and that's how this all got started. And so they were detained for like 24 hours. Ish. And then I got. They got released and I was like, what? And so I'm trying to figure out where they're going. And like, where, where? Because Lily or because our little girl was there. And it ended up being really weird because it was like 2 in the morning, kids are asleep. My interpreter got processed through and he didn't have a car ride. So I had to like, go and like, take him back to his hotel. And so I got sucked away. And I was trying to figure out where they were to get back when I went back. And so I'm talking to this agent and he's like, dude, this was a really bad dude, but he brought your little girl to US Forces and your organization got him out of Afghanistan, so we let him through. And I'm like, what? No, sir. Like, I am not. You know, I don't even know this guy. I've talked to him for six weeks. Like, here's all the things that I was tracking. And so that's when I realized I'd perhaps misplaced some compassion for some of the refugees and the bombing and all these emotions that I could have been, you know, more vigilant than I was. And I think I just conflated a little bit of the compassion with that. And I still don't think this guy's washed bin Laden. But do I think that his family fought for the other side and was directly supporting Al Qaeda in their home village? Absolutely, 100%. And how is it possible that the Department of Justice is filing filings in court saying, oh, this guy's fine, and JSOC colonels are testifying now. We knew that before we picked him up. Like, I can't go into the details of what he shared, but, like, he testified under oath that the team, the squadron that pulled him out was tracking. So, like, if I'm going to believe one entity, it's probably not going to be the previous administration's. Department of Justice. And it's definitely not going to be the attorney who helped defend the decision to turn over to these people in the first place. I have a problem with if this has gotten scrubbed off the watch list, which I have reason to believe it has been scrubbed. It doesn't exist anymore. I'd like to know why. Was that a valid national interest purpose or was that a favor to a mega law firm that gets things like this done?
- [278:37]
Sean Ryan
I think everybody listening to this knows exactly what it is.
- [278:43]
Stephanie Mast
Well, to the point where I couldn't even speak about it.
- [278:47]
Joshua Mast
Well, that's a related issue. So they changed my orders where they ordered me not to testify about that and I didn't testify about it. The judge never knew any of that stuff in our own custody case, like all these warnings and they tried to shut us up because that counteracts the narrative because it makes sense, right? If dude flags on terror Washington, we're like, yep, separate him. We're not like, whatever, if he's going to get deported, we're not going to deal with this anymore. That's the extent of our grace. And I have an obligation as a constitutional officer to report this and send it up the chain. And I was very concerned with the chaos that people weren't getting properly vetted. And then as time went on and like these reports coming about of DoD whistleblower saying they were getting pressured to scrub people off the watch list. And then there was a report by the DoD Inspector General talking about how we weren't because of agreements with partner nations in the combat zone, we were only DoD could share information that was gleaned by some of these partner nations. And of all the terrorist database information would normally be housed under the terrorist screening center and normally be in all of our databases to share. There was a subset of combat zone information that was not applied to vetting these Afghans. And So there's a 30 page DOD Inspector General report talking about how they had to give the data sets of who had been let into the country to the National Ground Intelligence Center. And they re vetted them and identified a whole bunch of people that had very concerning derogatory on them that were let in the US and most of them, they didn't even know where they were. And so like that's the context of where we were at as far as like, I'm a Marine Corps officer, you know, America first, like report this stuff up the chain. And then it just. And nobody said boo about it. Like when I reported that stuff up, nobody was like, oh, that's classified. It's marked unclassified. It says unclassified fouo. The guy sent me a copy. Screenshot said, hey, this is what we were worried about, just so you know. And it's marked unclassified on the document. So I reported it 10 months before it came back down. And now that is marked secret Nu foreign. In an investigation saying that I mishandled that information. Like, give me a break. This is an unclassified database. It's in the Federal Register. Is unclassified. And I'm having to ask this nice NCIS agent who's doing exactly what these mega law firms had him do, which was interrogate me. I fully cooperated. I'm a lawyer. I know my rights. I know my 31 Bravo rights. I know our rights in the Constitution. I voluntarily waive that because I want our country to be safe. And I was trying to figure out what happened with that. And so I talked to him. So you're saying this is an unclassified database? He's like, yeah. I was like, well, how in the world is it secret? No foreign. He's like, well, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has determined as the original classification authority. But, like, I'm an SJA for a SOCOM component, right? I've been around the block. I know what intelligence oversight looks like. I know what classification is. I'm like, dude, did you get that in writing? He's like, no, it was on a phone call. So I was like, you don't even have it in writing that this is secret, no foreign now. And. And what authority that was. And if there was a security classification guide that actually says that, because, you know, you can't just, like, say stuff as secret and a foreign to favor political. Like, you can't just misclassify information. That's illegal. It violates the executive order. And so he kind of hemmed and hawed a little bit and went back to his lawyers to try to figure that out. But I've got, like, there was another document. Like, I'll show you one other thing. So there was a different document. This document right here, this is the Terrorist Identity Data Mart. Environment Tide. I'm sorry. So this is the Terrorist Identity Data Mart Environment, or Tide database fact sheet. This is published for the American people publicly on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence website. Okay? This is their fact sheet, basically explaining how we vet terrorists and what we do to keep you safe. Right? This document was slammed in front of my face marked secret, no foreign, by an Insurance agent.
- [283:02]
Sean Ryan
Are you shitting me?
- [283:03]
Joshua Mast
Saying it's marked right now in my board of inquiry evidence.
- [283:06]
Sean Ryan
What law firm is this?
- [283:08]
Joshua Mast
I probably shouldn't say or I'll get sued. But how do you get. So it's represented a lot of people on the political left over the time.
- [283:20]
Sean Ryan
And you can get sued for saying the name of the law firm.
- [283:24]
Joshua Mast
You know, you don't want to give them a stick to beat you with. But this document, and here's the kicker, it was marked secret, no foreign. And then it said pending classification review. And then they line that out. So post classification review, they're saying, a publicly facing website. And I've got a letter from. From DOJ saying I'm not authorized to use this public document in our case because we want to use it as an exhibit, as a publicly available.
- [283:50]
Sean Ryan
So like, so they own the court.
- [283:53]
Joshua Mast
They absolutely.
- [283:55]
Sean Ryan
So the mega law firm owns the court in this.
- [283:59]
Joshua Mast
In this lawsuit. We never got to say any of that stuff.
- [284:01]
Stephanie Mast
I could even test.
- [284:02]
Joshua Mast
The only thing we got to do is use his own recording saying he was scared of the Taliban. They disobey the Taliban. That's what we were able to use.
- [284:09]
Sean Ryan
Isn't this public knowledge? I mean, isn't this like, can't you look it up who the law firm is?
- [284:14]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. If the appropriate oversight asks for the classified documents from my board, please, God, go pull that stuff and look at this document. Secret, no, foreign. And ask yourself, how does a counterintelligence special agent mark a document that's Googleable? It was designed and released for the American public's benefit as secret, no foreign. It's insane. And that's like, there's like a half dozen documents like that. So this document was marked higher classification than the ConOp. It was like 5. I rel 2. Like, you know what I mean? So like, you have a Ranger regiment con op that is a lower classification than a publicly available odni, like, fact sheet for the American people. Give me a break. And so that's the kind of ridiculousness. I'll show you one other example. That's just an easy visual. So here is. Here's the same document. This is what was released. See the redactions on it? This is a fact sheet made for Brigadier General Taylor, who was working with C. Sticka with the Afghans like, mentorship program. And this is how it was released for the court. Right. This is how it was released for my board. So I've got it. So would you like to know what they redacted so that the judge Never knew. And this is, remember, they were attacking our credibility, saying that I made this up and that I was biased in writing this stuff. Well, this is drafted by the SJA shop, not me. And so they redacted the portion that just corroborated everything we said originally in the declassified mission summary. So it says multiple photos recovered from the scene included pictures of Turkmen Uyghur foreign fighters, weapons and Al Qaeda flags. A detainee captured the night of the operation into indicated that the neighboring compounds were occupied by Chinese Uyghur fighters from Turkmenistan and identified the pictures attached as foreign fighters who were residents of the compounds that engaged the Afghan led forces. An additional detainee corroborated that the compounds of interest struck on the 56 September were occupied by Turkmen foreign fighters and their families. So the very attorneys that let her be turned over knowing this redacted this information for release and only at the board. When my command gave me as much as they had, they actually gave me.
- [286:30]
Sean Ryan
Information, man, these people have no souls, man.
- [286:34]
Joshua Mast
Well, I think it's just a big law, no holds barred, whatever means necessary to get your outcome. And they pride themselves on achieving that for their clients. And they're very successful and fabulously wealthy. But here's the other question I have, is how do you afford 15 attorneys with a high power law firm that's $500 plus an hour in three different law firms. How do you afford that? And here's the deal. What we've come to find out is that there's been fundraising videos in Afghanistan like saying the Taliban's helping us and we need money. So I'd like to know, how's that being paid for? Is that some shake in the UAE funding this with. With dark money? Like, is the Taliban helping with this because they publicly released two years ago saying they're gonna go to American authorities and protest? And then I've got the charge d'affaires filing weird affidavits. Sounded a lot like this is messing up our negotiations with the Taliban. And so I've got a lot of reasonable questions, like is the Department of Justice on the previous administration doing this because the Taliban asked them to? Like they filed an affidavit from the charge d'affaires saying it was interfering with negotiations. Well, what does that mean? Does that mean the Talibs want them to give our kid back to these people who are not relatives and probably on their team? I'd like to know that. I think the American people deserve to know that. And isn't that quite a bit of a different story than it's publicly out there? And why would they need to change my orders three or four different times? Why wouldn't they release all the information I asked them to declassify and release for a child's custody hearing? Like, would we do that for any child? But this child was picked up off a named objective in brutal close combat where the eyewitnesses said they tried to kill us. Blowing themselves up in a pitched gunfight where like a dozen Americans are bleeding. And I'll never forget the platoon sergeant, he told me, sir, whatever you need with this will come forward like our guys didn't bleed. So she'd go back to hell. Like it was that bad. They're that strongly about it. And these guys are being called war criminals by organizations. There was an organization that started a letter writing campaign. That's how one of the reasons I got boarded is they sent 7,000 letters to Congress. And in those letters they talk about how they want to promote their narrative and they want major masks held accountable and from a child that was recovered in what could have been a war crime anyway. And I'm here to tell you right now, that's defamation. There is no way that this was a war crime. Even if there were civilians killed. Like it's a legitimate strike on an Al Qaeda compound of verified intelligence. So like, to say that publicly is like calling people rapists. And I am honestly tired of folks who don't produce or preserve liberty for others attacking our men. I mean, I think the SecDef owes it to these guys to clear their name. Like if you've been said, hey, you might be a war criminal and there's a video of it. Do you think those guys deserve that? No, man, but they deserve the truth. You know what I'm saying? They're all under non disclosure agreements, right? They had to get authorization and they actually tried to get these rangers not to be able to testify. They almost changed order. We got some weird emails saying, like, what do you need them for to testify? After they were fully approved by usasoc, they're like, what do you need them again? Like, what exactly are they going to testify to? I'm trying to screw around with the ability of these eyewitnesses to say what happened. And I know for a fact there's footage of this stuff. I know for a fact there's ts and secret level information that corroborates everything we're saying. And that was so rewarding at our board of inquiry having the Ability to have some due process where the colonels can come and testify. I think we had five colonels testify, three of them as witnesses of what they knew at the time. Because the Department of Justice, in court filings to a court has represented that I made this stuff up and that I misled this Deputy Assistant SecDef as a captain. Are you kidding me? Do you don't think his staff and colonels, they testified in our board that they corroborated everything independently with their targeting packages or targeting systems they have in the Pentagon. And so again, I think I've said this a couple times. Law firms can represent their client. We might have some ethical disagreements. The Department of Justice can't parrot lies when they have evidence to the contrary. Like, that's criminal. You can't do that stuff. And if. If the Department of Justice, through the FBI, has contradictory statements, like saying these other people are an authority, the Taliban governor is an authority. If that's what they were told by these people, how do they file saying that they have legal authority over this child? They told them themselves that they don't. I don't understand how you can lie to a court like that. And so what we've done, Sean, is I have formally whistleblowed these actions with just the tip of the iceberg, just enough to pick people's interest in Congress and in oversight. I wrote a whistleblower complaint addressed to the President via Congress in formal neighbor letter format. I'm a lawyer. This is what I do, right? I spent three days in a hole drafting all this stuff and citing the evidence. There's 30 enclosures, hundreds of pages of evidence, right? And this is just the really obvious stuff. Like, here's the one redacted document, and here's the document unredacted. Why do you think that is? And laying that out for Congress. And what we've been asking is that the President of the United States, the US Government, release all this stuff and look at the evidence. And if there is a lie in what the previous administration's Department of Justice has filed, which there is, fix it. It's not rocket science. Get some oversight of these people, because these are your typical deep state bureaucrats. They have absolutely weaponized the system. This could be the poster child event of everything that we've all been dealing with at the grassroots level. Like you said, with the Blackwater guys deleting the five minutes that matter in their lives. We've experienced that to the point where I'm a government hack, I'm a prosecutor, I carry that Mantle. But, but seeing it from the other side, seeing the system weaponized against like if they can do this to, to me, they can do it to anybody. It just is if they want to. And that's blown my mind.
- [293:14]
Stephanie Mast
And what's hard, you know, for me as his wife, sitting here, you know, beside him, living this, you know, going through this with him is we've been, you know, known each other since we were kids. We remembered 9, 11, watching the Twin towers fall. And he's as much of a red blooded patriot, you know, American as you can get. And to see someone that has throughout his whole life acted honorably for his reputation, everything in his morality, everything to be skewed and twisted, to advance a different narrative and to favor another side, it's been hard to sit there and watch it. Knowing the truth, watching him literally fight for his life, his career, everything, everything for us is at stake. And it has been at stake for a while. And to see a lie seemingly prevail for this long has been difficult. But when we have had the opportunity to share our heart and share our story and share what we've seen, good people have stepped in and come along and contributed just enough.
- [294:31]
Joshua Mast
And that's the point of shutting down debate. And I think that's a real danger to our society. We need freedom of speech now more than ever. We need open debate of ideas. We need to be able to talk through these things. And what, there's a really pernicious, I guess, undercurrent where if powerful people don't want you to, they want a certain outcome, they shut down speech. And that's like I told you before with cbs, we gave this interview like seven hour interview two years ago to CBS and they did it in a two part series and then these mega law firms come in and threaten them and then they change it to some milquetoast. You know, I don't want to say BS but something that was not the interview. It's like, oh, they say this and you say that and none of the facts right, none of the what's actually going on. I've got an IG complaint that lays out email traffic between these mega law firms and the SecDef's attorneys. And then my orders get changed.
- [295:27]
Sean Ryan
When did the CBS thing end?
- [295:29]
Stephanie Mast
It was in January.
- [295:31]
Joshua Mast
Two years ago.
- [295:31]
Stephanie Mast
Yeah, two years ago.
- [295:33]
Joshua Mast
And then do you think any of.
- [295:36]
Sean Ryan
This changes now that Biden administration has gone?
- [295:39]
Joshua Mast
That's our hope. Like we are honestly, morale is high in the military right now, at least in our unit. We are ready to Go in focusing on war fighting and not some of this ridiculousness we've had to deal with.
- [295:54]
Sean Ryan
Has anything happened since the Trump administration has taken over? Has there been any good things, any bad things with your particular.
- [296:03]
Joshua Mast
Well, I think that they're doing kind.
- [296:05]
Sean Ryan
Of on ice until this next thing you said.
- [296:08]
Joshua Mast
No, we're trying to get them. So fortunately, some of the Trump appointees at the Department of Justice have some oversight of these particular attorneys. But right now, the Department of Defense and the Department of State need to evaluate whether they want to continue attacking our family. And. And I think that there's a really good chance that they will make the decision to stop that attack and release that information, and that would end the case.
- [296:31]
Sean Ryan
So this basically needs to get to Pete Hegstaff and Marco Rubio.
- [296:36]
Joshua Mast
Yeah. And Pam Bondi. We've already had. Congress has sent that whistleblower complaint formally through their Office of Legislative affairs to those authority makers. But what I'd encourage them any them to do, and anyone to do is interested in this, is this board of inquiry gathered 14 gigabytes of unclassified data and hundreds and hundreds of pages of original reporting in one place. Like, if you want to know the truth, just pull it. Get somebody to send it to you on cpr. It's condensed with the MARSOC SJA office. It's great. Honestly, it's the best thing that could have happened to us because it gives us an ability to talk about the same facts that nobody can gag us because we have a due process right to talk about what the government tried to do to us. And it collects real hard evidence in one place and lays it all out. And so I think we've done the right steps as far as as we've tried to. I've tried to be a good Marine Corps officer at every stage, and I've never embarrassed the Marine Corps name or my own. And I'd rather die, take a bullet than dishonor our institutions. Like, that's how strongly I feel about it. And I haven't. Now that's not known. But every service member that sat down and looked at this like buddies of mine or people on the board, like, the reason they unsubstantiate everything related to the Afghans is cause it's a lie. And it's so clearly a lie. And then one of the things, my attorney made a great point in the closing argument that won the day the government got up and they pitched an exact rerun of what these mega law firms already lost two years ago. The judge specifically Rejected that stuff that's in evidence at my board. The government put it in evidence, but they said the exact same argument again. It's like we're on repeat here. And then the mega law firm attorneys are there assisting the government to try to go after us administratively after they already lost legally. So his most effective, his most effective point was like, members, I'm afraid that our system is being weaponized for non official purposes. And I said, because these allegations were made two years ago and all he did was read the court's ruling. He read it verbatim and it says, I reject the narrative, the kidnapping narrative. And they attack him for his religious beliefs or something like that. He read it verbatim to the board and it was exactly what these people had been spewing again in this military board on behalf of these mega law firms. And it shut it down. That's why it was unsubstantiated. And you know what? Senior DOJ and senior Department of Defense attorneys had this written ruling. It was a 38 page ruling. They had it for two years. Guess who didn't have that ruling? The FBI investigators, the NCIS investigators, and the board or the recorder, the prosecutor for the government.
- [299:30]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [299:31]
Joshua Mast
They never saw this binding ruling against these parties. So this is a binding. A ruling is binding against the parties. Right. So between us and the Afghans, here's the law. Right. They never gave it to their own investigators. How do you run a military officer with recycled allegations that were already proven false? It's that level of, I don't know the word to describe it. It's not justice, let me put it that way. It's not a scales and equal before the law. It's. We favor these people and push hard on the gas. And it is a miracle that we have survived this far financially, just emotionally, with our family, with.
- [300:15]
Sean Ryan
Is anyone else gonna cover this?
- [300:18]
Joshua Mast
I don't know. So we've been asked. Glenn Beck asked us to come talk on his show. 60 Minutes is gonna do something, but they're with CBS and they got scared last time, so I doubt they're gonna go into anything. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I am thankful. Like you don't know how thankful we are to be able to appeal directly to Americans. People who've been deployed in the gwat understand the conditions on the ground, understand what classification is, understand what the terror watch list is. They understand the implications of this and what the political. I don't agree with it, but I understand at least the political Interest in covering up people you import that may not have embedded. I understand where they're coming from. I don't agree with it. Does that make sense? But be able to talk to your audience who are like subject matters in targeting subject matters and what the Ranger Regiment does and what the counterterrorism mission and how much fidelity. Let's just say the Israelis are not the only people who can thoroughly penetrate terrorist organizations and know exactly what's going on where we have those capabilities too, and we use them. And so to be able to talk to that type of audience and knowing your influence on the political debate or the debate in the country about what issues are important and what should we elevate and what should we prioritize. But we're really in the 11th hour of potentially her going back to the Taliban again. And that's just unbelievable to me. And it's not pitched like that in the media. It's covered up. But like I said, this is a Taliban Elian Gonzalez situation. And I think the president should intervene and save her from the deep state who lied to his administration the first time around. If there is anybody willing to look at the evidence objectively, I don't think you come to a different conclusion than that. And I can give you the phone number of the Rangers, I can give you the phone number of the colonel at JSOC who can corroborate this guy's got dirt on him. And like I said, I don't think he's Osama bin Laden. Do I think that they should have accelerated his asylum application if the first 800 approved? This guy's asylum application was approved because as to gain a litigation advantage because, you know, if he's at risk, he doesn't have a status here. It's kind of hard for a judge to say, yeah, take this child, right? So over our allies, over the people that went to war with us, this dude I just told you all these drag about got his asylum application approved by the US Government. How does that happen? Like, what's the official purpose in that? Like, I mean the guy that was a terp, the first Afghan I got out, he got his denied, right, Zaki? Like there was a news article, but they wrote a book about him. His initial application got denied and this guy got approved. I don't understand how that happens. Blows my mind. So the Tom Holmans of the world, I really think they should go look at this guy's asylum application and compare it to what JSOC knows. And did this guy lie on an asylum Application because fair to middling chance that he said he wasn't affiliated with the Taliban and there's a fair middling chance that he is. So, like, you know, I don't think we should tolerate that sort of shenanigans when it comes to national security. Because if they'll do it just to win a case, like, whoever was involved in scrubbing this off should actually, like, if they didn't do it for an official purpose and they risked national security, like, you should lose your job for that. Like, you're putting the American people at risk. You know, I just, I can live with mean, mean words like, like, I, I. God's made me the type of person I am, where I'm going to do the right thing and I'm not going to stop until you kill me. Like, that's just who I am. And there's millions of people like me. And that's why we volunteer and we go down range and we do the things we do in whatever job or am I, that we're given, right? We're there to further advance American principles and ideas. Like, that's what, like, we don't go down range just to commit violence. It's violence to advance a purpose. That's what makes us different than other militaries. And so I would like, really, the Rangers bothers me the most. I want these guys. I mean, honestly, they should get awarded to the White House. They should get accolades for having that moral courage in that heat of the moment to do the right thing and save this little girl. They should get recognized for that. They shouldn't be called war criminals. I think we have a moral obligation to expose that.
- [304:45]
Sean Ryan
Well, I'll get this to everybody.
- [304:48]
Joshua Mast
I know, I appreciate it.
- [304:50]
Sean Ryan
I know a lot of people. I don't know what they'll do with it. Sometimes they do stuff, sometimes they don't. But fuck, man, I just gotta say, man, it's an honor to meet you guys.
- [305:05]
Joshua Mast
Like, it's a privilege for us. We appreciate it. Like, whoa, we, we wouldn't have believed if we had not lived it. I, I keep saying that to myself because we've seen absolute miracles and absolute heroism and everything in between.
- [305:19]
Sean Ryan
I mean, I'm with you, though. I just, I don't see you losing this one. Too many things have fallen into place over the years, just like you had said. And think God's got a bigger purpose for this than some fucking mega law firm and corrupt doj?
- [305:40]
Joshua Mast
Hope so. You know, honestly, we're really looking forward to some light being shown on this because I mean, honestly, daylight and truth, that's what, that's what the American people deserve, that's what regular people deserve and that's really what's been helped from us.
- [305:54]
Stephanie Mast
Well, earlier in this, when it became just litigated, I read a quote and it said that you can't rewrite someone's opinion of yourself. You can't change their mind about you. All you're responsible to do is to tell the truth and share your story. And that was our motivation coming on here, was not to sit there and fight down all the arguments, everything that's been thrown at us, but really just share the story, share what happened. And like, as Joshua showed, there's a ton of facts out there that support everything. But ultimately it comes down to a decision that in the moment, just like the Rangers did, just like we did, just like the hospital staff and all of the DoD personnel, it was a split second decision to step up and advocate for one child. And for I hope most Americans and most people, they'll understand how easy that is. But really there's not some sort of twisted motivation or it's just really, there's an innocent child. There's something that we can do to help it. Let's do it.
- [306:57]
Joshua Mast
Yeah, it's like someone drowning in a lake and you're walking by and you can do something. Are you obligated to do something?
- [307:02]
Stephanie Mast
It's pure instinct. You just step in and you do it. And so yes, living out the ramifications of the decision has been challenging. I think it's made us grow as people. But I mean, ultimately what we ended the board of inquiry, if handed, like if we were asked, would we do this over again? Absolutely. We have no regrets.
- [307:25]
Joshua Mast
And to add a positive note, because in conversation you've talked about like, is there anything good in our government? And what I like to counter to that is yes, there's some really good people at the grassroots level. And we need people volunteering and filling these leadership roles in our government at such a time as this. And so I'd encourage folks who've been waffling about joining the military join, you know, be the difference in the military and make it great. We have an opportunity now. We've been kind of unshackled for some of these like non essential things that have kept us from being the most efficient, war fighting, war winning machine that we can be. And honestly, morale's higher than it's been in a long time. Like me, I'm like perking up. I'm probably a Terminal major at this point, but I'm like, I'm sticking around. I want to see this. I want to be an action officer on some of these initiatives. And we have met people at every level of government that have gone out of their way when they didn't have to to help. Like, once they're armed with facts, they have been just warriors for. Right. And so I would say there's hope. I would say that there is a lot of people out there doing the right thing. Even the fact that we're here, after what's been said about us and all the allegations that you would honor us for the opportunity to speak directly to the American people and tell the truth, that's a pretty big miracle for us. You know what I mean? That's something remarkable. And I don't mean that lightly with those K bars. Those are symbolic for us, because I really do honor that. That opportunity. So thank you for. For having us on here. Thank you for letting us, like, talk directly to people. And I. I truly believe that, you know, when the truth gets out, that's what's going to win the day, and that that's our hope and our prayer.
- [309:11]
Sean Ryan
So you're welcome.
- [309:13]
Joshua Mast
Thank you.
- [309:14]
Sean Ryan
Thank you for coming. And I think a lot of people are going to see this, so just, I wish you guys the best of luck and God bless what you're doing, man.
- [309:26]
Joshua Mast
Thank you. And, you know, can I thank a couple people really quick?
- [309:30]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, absolutely.
- [309:33]
Joshua Mast
To the Task Force Medical Afghanistan commander, thank you, sir, for setting the example. I named my son after you for a reason. You are the model leader with compassion and empathy that I hope my sons to be one day. To the platoon sergeant, all the Rangers that sacrificed on that objective, I know that they gave away Afghanistan in a way that I. I wasn't particularly proud of and didn't feel like it. It honored our sacrifices over there, but you made a difference with a real little girl that I'll. I'll forever be grateful for. We have the privilege of watching her experience new experiences and freedoms and growing and have a life that she would not have except for your decisions on objective. And I know it was one night, and it was. Of course we'd do that, but honoring the instinct is important, I think, and I hope you get the recognition you deserve and get recognized for that. I honestly think that that should be at the White House. Who else should I thank for? Everyone who's prayed or given or our families, you know, helped our family along the way. Thank you for that. My brother Richard, my attorney Hannah Wright, like all my team at McGuire woods, that's a law firm that's helped us pro bono and they provided like hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal services. We would be drowning if it wasn't for them. Could not afford this because they price you out of the market with some of these big firms, how they attack you. So thank you for making a difference. Is there anybody I miss?
- [311:13]
Stephanie Mast
Senator Cruz's staff.
- [311:14]
Joshua Mast
There's so many like Senator Cruz and his staff, like you all have. You literally saved her life because you delayed her being turned over to what turns out to be, you know, non relative terrorist affiliated people. Like, literally, that was the fight. And the State Department absolutely misled you. And I know that you oughta kept fighting if you had been armed with the facts that we know now, but you delayed her getting dumped in an orphanage and that would have been a black hole and she'd be dead. And I truly believe those advocacy efforts saved her life and it delayed her getting turned over too. She was more stable and older and so she was able to survive that ordeal. And thank God she survived the war and she survived neglect and she survived abuse. Like, we're so thankful. And her life saved so many other people that I absolutely see the providential hand of God in her life because if she hadn't gotten dumped like that and they made it for evil, but it was used for good in the end, and there's real people alive today that would be living under the Taliban but for her life. So, I mean, I've got to be thankful. It makes me grateful and it makes me humbled to have been a part of, part of this. Like, and we're going to keep fighting like we are fighting forward. And you better be willing to put it all on the line if. If you're going to attack us.
- [312:40]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, well, God is on your side, so I'll be praying for you guys too.
- [312:45]
Joshua Mast
Appreciate it.
- [312:47]
Sean Ryan
God bless. Thanks.
- [312:49]
Stephanie Mast
Thank.
- [313:05]
Sean Ryan
Are you ready for football? Let's go. Truly ready for football.
- [313:09]
Joshua Mast
Yes.
- [313:10]
Sean Ryan
Are you screaming for football?
- [313:12]
Joshua Mast
What the hell is happening?
- [313:14]
Sean Ryan
Dreaming for football.
- [313:15]
Joshua Mast
Good times.
- [313:16]
Sean Ryan
Eating, sleeping, crafting, parenting, nature, naming your pets and preparing for football.
- [313:20]
Joshua Mast
That sort of stuff happened.
- [313:21]
Sean Ryan
Oh, my goodness. Are you dancing? Jonesing, Mahomes Ing for football.
- [313:25]
Joshua Mast
That's what I'm looking forward to seeing.
- [313:26]
Sean Ryan
Good. Then you are ready for football with the Rich Eisen show podcast.
- [313:31]
Joshua Mast
They're ready.
- [313:32]
Sean Ryan
Follow and listen on your favorite platform.