1242: Christopher Whitcomb | A Life Among Spies Part One

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Jordan Harbinger Show – Ep. 1242

Guest: Christopher Whitcomb | A Life Among Spies - Part One
Date: November 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Jordan Harbinger welcomes Chris Whitcomb, a former FBI Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) sniper, covert operator, and author of Anonymous: A Life Among Spies. They delve into Chris’s path from poet and writer to elite special ops, wild stories from war zones, musings on risk and decision-making, the mechanics of high-stakes operations, and what it takes to thrive in the worlds of espionage and counterterrorism. The discussion is candid, nonlinear, laced with humor, grit, and surprising philosophical turns.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Chris’s Nonlinear Life & Storytelling Style

• [03:39] Chris describes his non-chronological approach to storytelling and life:

  “Yeah, I take pride in that … It’s tough to tell my story chronologically … My story is so disparate. It’s tough putting the pieces together.” — Chris Whitcomb (03:39)

From Poet to Operator

• [08:34] Chris reveals he had no military ambitions growing up and only later found himself drawn to high-risk, high-consequence paths:

  "I grew up a poet. I always wanted to be a writer." — Chris Whitcomb (08:39)
  He attributes part of his adaptability and resilience to a childhood spent outdoors, building independence and comfort with adventure and risk.

• [12:24] On entering the FBI:

  "Being a writer was a real thing. I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway... along with that, I like to play guitar. You take poetry, guitar, you got music, then you’ve got, you know, your writing stuff.” — Chris Whitcomb (12:33)

Embracing Risk and Calculated Consequence

• [06:38] Chris talks about how he sought the edge between risk and survival, aiming to get as close as possible to danger while maintaining statistical probability of survival:

  "You want to get up to it. You don’t want to go over the edge… Some people would say that I was addicted to adrenaline. I didn’t have adrenaline. I wasn’t addicted to it because I didn’t have it." — Chris Whitcomb (06:38)

• [10:56] On gunfights as a metaphor for handling life’s noise:

  “Dodging bullets is relatively easy ... it was being in a situation where there were bullets and trying to find a way to create challenges within that environment ... If you can reduce the distraction, the variability of noise, in my experience, it’s much more manageable.” — Chris Whitcomb (10:56, paraphrased)

The Hostage Rescue Team & US Counterterrorism

• [13:59] Chris unpacks the origin and role of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT):
  • Selection is fiercely competitive. Fewer than 1 in 250 FBI agents make it.
  • HRT was designed to be a domestic “special forces” unit—built after concerns over international terrorism and big events like the Olympics.

  “The hostage rescue team is the far end at the other side... at the time there were about 13,000 FBI agents and there were 50 members of this team.” — Chris Whitcomb (13:59)

• [17:26 & 17:43] The team operated both domestically and internationally, particularly before 9/11:

  “If you’ve heard of renditions … that team, we did all of the renditions. Really. Okay. Prior to 9/11.” — Chris Whitcomb (17:43)

Decision-Making Under Extreme Pressure

• [25:08] Chris draws on combat and childhood fights to compare the psychology of violence from schoolyard to warzone:

  “The one-on-one intimacy of a fight... is very different than a war situation. Because in a war... you have more than one target... That’s a whole different thing.” — Chris Whitcomb (25:08)

• [27:10] Training with “simunitions” for realism:

  “Once you take the magic out of anything... Once they learn the clue, a magic trick, you learn the key … it’s a different thing altogether.” — Chris Whitcomb (27:35)

Real-life Stories: Somalia & Near-Death Escapes

• [32:06] Chris recounts a Somalian ordeal—stranded without money, allies, or passport, facing the likelihood of death unless he could bluff his way onto a departing charter plane:

  “So I know if I get on the plane, I’m going to survive. If I don’t get on the plane, I’m not going to survive... the thing that sustains you is hope.” — Chris Whitcomb (36:45, key quote repeated at 01:31)

The Psychology of Crisis

• [30:15] Both discuss the crucial insight of recognizing when “normal” has gone off-script, and acting decisively:

  "Most people who are not familiar with a crisis don’t know when to make the decision that it is a crisis and get involved. So many people … have pushed it up to the point where it was too late." — Chris Whitcomb (30:15)

Life Lessons from Special Operations

• [23:56] The ability to persist and avoid quitting is more about psychology than raw physical talent:

  “You have to have a mechanism that shuts off the quit mechanism … It’s more psychology and decision making than it is shooting or physical.” — Chris Whitcomb (23:56)

• [47:05] Survival skill most overestimated? Fancy supplies. Most essential: adaptability, a plan, and the will to act:

  “People realize you need shelter if it’s cold, you need food, water and sleep. You don’t need much of anything except a plan.” — Chris Whitcomb (50:11)

Pop Culture vs. Reality

• [43:14] Chris is critical of Hollywood’s depiction of elite operators:

  “If you want to make one of these, make a story that resonates... Combat violence in general is ugly...” — Chris Whitcomb (43:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On hope in life-or-death:

  "The thing that sustains you is hope. You hear people talk about it—that everything is horrible, but maybe it’s going to get better." — Chris Whitcomb (01:31; 36:45)

• On identity and adaptation:

  “Where I came from… [violence and the military] was as far away as anybody could be … I wanted to write, be a poet. … I found that in life, it wasn’t me. I wasn’t born of that. [But] I definitely ended up becoming that person…” — Chris Whitcomb (08:39)

• On mission-first mentality:

  “If you and I go through that door at 4 o’clock in the morning and you take a flyer and you go down, I didn’t stop to take care of you like medics in the military. I would jump over you and go and accomplish a mission.” — Chris Whitcomb (29:11)

• On recognizing crises:

  “Getting to fight or flight is what is a problem for so many people… Once you get to the point where it’s fight or flight, it’s probably too late.” — Chris Whitcomb (30:52)

• On Hollywood inaccuracies:

  “Just stop hiring Angelina Jolie. … There’s not a lot of time to think about your kids when you’re in a gunfight.” — Chris Whitcomb (43:14)

• On survival skills:

  “I don’t want to carry 10,000 rounds ammo. I need about three rounds so I can take yours.” — Chris Whitcomb (50:11)

• On decision-making in chaos:

  “If you can reduce the noise … it’s much more manageable. So it’s learning those things.” — Chris Whitcomb (11:32)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:39 — Storytelling style, nonlinear life narrative
• 06:38 — Calculating risk and pushing limits
• 08:39 — Poetic beginnings, shift to special ops
• 10:56 — Lessons from gunfights; managing “noise”
• 13:59 — Origins and nature of FBI HRT
• 17:26 — Role of HRT in US counterterrorism
• 23:56 — Physical vs. psychological selection for elite ops
• 25:08 — Mentality in firefights and combat
• 27:10 — Training realism: simunitions, demystifying danger
• 30:15 — Crisis recognition and decision making
• 32:06-38:29 — Somalia story: hope, survival, near-death
• 43:14 — Critiquing Hollywood’s portrayal of operators
• 47:05 — Debunking common survival myths
• 50:11 — On the real assets that matter in disaster

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Closing Thoughts

This episode offers a gritty, unexpectedly philosophical dive into the mindsets, challenges, and lessons hard-won in the world of high-stakes espionage, with stories worthy of Hollywood—if only Hollywood were brave (and nuanced) enough to tell them straight. Stay tuned for Part Two for more wild stories and actionable insights from Chris Whitcomb.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

On the Jordan Harbinger Show.

[Chris Whitcomb]

The thing that sustains you is hope. You hear people talk about it, that everything is horrible, but maybe it's going to get better. So I'm on the plane, the stairs come up, the engines start up and I think we're out of here. I'm going to make it out of this thing. Then all of a sudden the engines spin down and you can see the light coming in from the stairs coming down and I'm going to me, you know, it's bad.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker through long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers. You even the occasional economic hitman, gold smuggler, astronaut, or real life pirate. And if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology, geopolitics, disinformation, China, North Korea, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started today on the show. Some stories are so wild you'd swear they were written for Hollywood. Except nobody in Hollywood's got the stomach to tell them straight. My guest today is Chris Whitcomb, a former FBI hostage rescue team sniper who's been shot at, hunted, stranded in war zones, and somehow lived long enough to turn all of that into some wisdom and a heck of a book. His memoir, anonymous A Life Among Spies, starts in a warlord's compound in Afghanistan and ends with a man trying to find himself again after years in the shadows. And this one has a little bit of everything. The war on terror, secret prisons, black ops, moral whiplash, and a little bit of redemption at the end. You ever hear those family stories and your mom's like, hey, don't listen to anything your uncle says. And you listen anyway because you're just wrapped. It's fascinating. That is this episode. So let's get weird with Chris Whitcomb right here on the Jordan Harbinger Show. So much like your book, this interview is going to be all over the place because you don't write linearly. Have people told you that before?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, I take pride in that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, some like it, some don't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I thought it was kind of fun, actually, but at first I was like, wait, we're starting in Afghanistan? It's like a movie, right? Like flash over here, Flash over here. But it's one of the movie you have to pay attention to because if you zone out, you're like, oh crap, now I don't know what the hell's going on.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It's tough to tell my story chronologically. It kind of makes sense. There's an arc, the Ark. You kind of have to make sense of things. Because it's so wild. My story is so disparate. It's tough putting the pieces together.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. I was kind of. I don't even know what I was expecting when you walked in. I was like, oh, that's him. Because I try not to look up what people look like if I. Yeah. Make sense. And because I'm always like, am I going to be right? Was not remotely correct.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Really?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. No, it was not remotely correct at all.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Like, how so?

[Jordan Harbinger]

You know, I don't know. I think older, probably. Well, there's that. But also I was like, oh, this is like a person who's. Well, I guess maybe you do have the tats. I expected the tats.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know. Button down, like, shirt with a penguin on. I don't know, I just wasn't. Didn't see that coming.

[Chris Whitcomb]

You know what? You know, it's kind of crazy because I've done all that. Lot of meetings and a lot of situations in life, and you never know what to wear. I'm doing a thing tomorrow with a club of founders, CEOs, and high worth, high net worth people. And I said, you want me to wear a suit? Just out of courtesy, but I don't care. And they said, they quoted Mark Cuban as saying, you got to watch out for the worst dressed guy in the crowd. It doesn't matter anymore. Nobody cares anymore.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Back when tech bros were new, not Silicon Valley, but tech bros. I remember being in New York and these. I used to be a corporate lawyer, and these guys were like, look at this schmuck. He comes wearing a hoodie. And I was like, that's an $850 rabbit fur hoodie from Neiman Marcus. That guy's probably sitting on some kind of private stock from Facebook or whatever it is. This is even before Instagram existed. So I was like, this guy's.

[Chris Whitcomb]

He.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He's doing all right. And they were like, whatever. And then later on, one of the partners was like, so you were right. That guy has hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't know what. He does something with Google in the 90s. And I was like, yeah, he doesn't need to wear a suit for us.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Money'S the freedom to do what you want.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's right.

[Chris Whitcomb]

And who cares?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. He's like, he does not need to wear a suit for us. We have to wear suits for him. That's how this works.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I've got very nice suits. I choose to wear them sometimes. But if I choose to wear the suits, you know, listen, it's the same thing with you, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I show up in joggers and a T shirt, and sometimes the people in the YouTube comments are like, you need to dress professionally. It's like, and then what will happen? My show will become more popular, you.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Know, but you gotta go with the crowd. I mean, the only people I know that wear ties anymore on Capitol Hill, right? I mean, there's some old money that occasionally do, but I grew up in New England in old money, and people didn't dress toward it, right? People wear money on their sleeve now. It wasn't always the case. So anyways, everything goes now. It's really what you have to say and what you do in life. If you ask me, and I'm asking.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You, the book starts with meeting a warlord in Afghanistan. I'd love to get this story. Because there's a fun part where you're doing these calculations about whether you're going to die. And it's like four hours to the safe house by car. No guns, no backup. There's 12 of them, two of us. If I go get that guy's weapon, I could shoot three of these guy. I'm going to die.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So I like math, I like science. I like calculation, because I like risk. So if you like risk and you build situations in your life that are moving toward consequence, you got to be able to do the math. You want to get up to it. You don't want to go over the edge. So it doesn't matter. Like, I love this guy. Alex Hanold, he's a rock climber. I was always a rock climber. And I would look at these cliffs and say, well, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that. But you always have a belay. If you fall, someone's going to catch you. But you want to push it to the extreme. He's pushed it beyond what people even thought was possible because the consequence is death. And for most human beings, that is the ultimate consequence. So I got to a point in life. Some people would say that I was addicted to adrenaline. I didn't have adrenaline. I wasn't addicted to it because I didn't have it. So I would build constructs leading to significant consequence. And the consequence gets more and more at that point in my life, it's death. So I didn't want to die. I wanted to get to as close as possible to it when I thought I had a very strong statistical probability of survival. Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So that's what took me to that situation you're talking about. You've been there. I know you've been there in a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slightly different way, I suppose. I mean, my. I remember talking to a bunch of motorcycle racers and I was like. I was talking about my trip to North Korea, and they were like, you should just race motorcycles. And I was like, no way, man. You can get killed on those things. And they're like, you can get held hostage in North Korea and worked to death. That didn't scare you at all? I'm like, not really. I mean, but I'm not getting on a motorcycle. Like, we have pads. I'm wearing a helmet. I fall off the thing. All the. It happens.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I like motorcycles, too. I haven't been to North Korea.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're probably not alone.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I'm not done yet.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you're not done yet.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I'm not done yet. But it's the same thing. It doesn't matter if I think people in life, you can build the construct any you want. The metaphor is risk, consequence, and accomplishing something. It could be money, could be sports, it could be military. It could be anything. It doesn't matter. Could be a soccer moment on the 405. Trying to get home with a kid in the back. And that's her threshold.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's the threshold. Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Everybody's got a different threshold.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What kind of kid grows up willingly running toward gunfire essentially?

[Chris Whitcomb]

I don't know. I didn't. I grew up a poet. I always wanted to be a writer. I had never had any interest in that world. Didn't know anything about that world. And where I came from in Northern Hampshire, it was as far away as anybody could be. I never knew anybody in the military. I think my uncle got into West Point, but he had to go to, like a prep school for a year to go, and he backed out. I never knew anybody in the military, and I did not think that was my path. I wanted to write, be a poet. I wanted to play music. I wanted to do things other. And I went that way. So I don't know the answer, because it wasn't me. I see. I found that in life, it wasn't me. I wasn't born of that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You ended up becoming that person, essentially.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I definitely ended up becoming that person, yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What did your upbringing teach you about danger or resilience? Because you didn't just magically become this warlord chasing security contractor in Somalia, right?

[Chris Whitcomb]

In Afghanistan, yeah. I wasn't really a security contractor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mean, I was trying to find the industry term for this, but, yeah, what would you call it?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Entrepreneur. I built a Company from scratch, and I had 4,000 people. So I would look at it from your perspective as an entrepreneur, but the answer is kind of complex. And I think part of it is that I think, you know, I wrote in that book that I was born whole into a life fully formed, when not going to get into a conversation about philosophy, necessarily. But I think that we open ourselves to certain things in life and certain things find us in life. My life took me places that I could not have possibly imagined at any stage leading up to it. And I've heard you talk about this before. I think we set ourselves up for those of us that want adventure, those of us that want to go out and do things in the world. I don't think there's a path, there's not a linear path to finding the things I've done in my life. But I think the model. The question you ask about growing up is, when I was a kid, there was no tv, there was no Internet, there was no phones. There was nothing. It was the outdoors. I'd get up in the morning and I'd ski, I'd rock climb, I'd hike. I would stay outdoors for long periods of time. And it built an independence, and it built an ability to survive in all kinds of situations. And those gave me the freedom, I think, to think thrive in adventure.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. Some of it's wiring, I suppose, too. Right. It's just gotta. It has to be.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It's gotta be a little bit.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, your version of a bad Monday is not spilling coffee.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's dodging bullets. That's a different kind of office politics, I think, than most people are used to. The initial ingredients have to be a little different.

[Chris Whitcomb]

And I would say that I think dodging bullets is relatively easy. Lots and lots of people go into law enforcement, they go into the military, they go into situations that could end up there. But for me, the dodging bullets was not the part. It was being in a situation where there were bullets and trying to find a way to create challenges within that environment and overcome those challenges. That was my gig. People get wound up on gunfire. At the end of the day, the probability of getting hit in a gunfight are so infinitesimally small. They say during the Civil War that it took a man's weight in bullets before one hit him, on average.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So the trick is to be as heavy as possible.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Exactly right. But the bottom line, in my estimation, is that gunfire is loud. It's really frigging loud. And it becomes exponentially more when you put in bombs and everything else that goes along with it. So environments, combat environments, are incredibly loud. And they're loud because of percussion. And the percussion is overwhelming. When you realize that it's one tiny little pill going through the air and it's going straight based on gravity, it gives you a different perspective. So if you can take the noise out of it, if you can reduce variability, in my experience, you've got much, much better odds of success. And it's like that in life. Anything. If you can reduce the noise in a car race or a corporate office building or a sporting event, if you can reduce the distraction, the variability of noise, in my experience, it's much more manageable. So it's learning those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If you wanted to be a musician and kind of, you know, the poetry thing, how did you end up in the FBI? That's like the squarest place for a non square to be.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Well, it's not the case now, but when I was a kid, being a writer was a real thing. It was something you would aspire to. People. It's not now. I mean, everybody can write everything. And there's no grammar, there's no capital letters. My book agent, one of the best book agents in the world, he sends me these text messages. They're illegible. It was a thing, right. I wanted to be Ernest Hemingway and all the guys in that era. So my career path was to write. I mean, you could say you're a writer, but you gotta write. Yeah. So it took me through things. Newspaper reporter, English teacher at a boarding school. And along with that, I like to play guitar. So you take poetry, guitar, you got music, then you've got, you know, your writing stuff. It all. It all goes together.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Your book is full of stories, like the kinds of stories you hear at a family party as a kid. And then your mom's trying to get you to leave the room, you know.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Stay away from that cat.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you're like, no, no, I want to hear this. I want to hear this. And then after everyone leaves, your mom and your aunt are like, don't listen to anything Uncle Chris says. He's. He's just kidding.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Stay away from him.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He's just kidding, honey.

[Chris Whitcomb]

That's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's what this book, the book reminded me of. Because I was just like, this is the. This is the one where all the kids are like, oh, Chris is here?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He's gonna let us drink beer. I don't know, whatever. And tell us, you know, about the time he saw guys playing Soccer with a dude's head or something. And like, the mom's like, don't tell them the head thing again. Yeah, he had nightmares for three months. I got a lot of news stories.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Get a lot of that from my own kids.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, right, sure, that's part of it, yeah. Oh, man. You were part of the elite hostage rescue team. So hrt, tell us what that is, because most people don't even know that exists.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, and thanks for asking the questions the way you ask them. I think the problem is when I talk to people, it's very difficult to explain things because, like, I was talking to my mother one time and she was saying something about racist military people. And I said, mom, mom, what are you talking about? Racist military people? And she said, well, they all have guns and guns and racism. It all goes together. But that was my mother who lived with these stories for all these years. My point is this, that explaining the way the world works takes a minute. And I use it as a continuum. So in law enforcement, there's a crossing guard, and then you've got people at the far extreme at the other side. And this group, the hostage rescue team, is the far end at the other side. So in order to get into it, you've got to join the FBI, which at the time was difficult. When I joined. Once you get in, you have to try out for this team. At the time, There were about 13,000 FBI agents and there were 50 members of this team.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wow.

[Chris Whitcomb]

And they have a selection once a year, and sometimes they take one guy, sometimes they take five or more. @ the time, it was very difficult to get in. Now it's harder. They're extraordinary people. So they're very highly educated. They're world class athletes, they're world class shooters. They're all those things. But the thing that distinguishes them is their ability to make decisions under stress. So just to give it in perspective, you have police organizations, federal, state, and local. The lapd, the California State Police, Highway Patrol, I think it is. Then you've got the federal agencies, one of which would be the FBI. There are 18,000 of those organizations in the United States. 18,000? Yeah. Campus cops and all these different organizations.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I guess that makes sense, but it just sounds like a lot of.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So at the end of the day, a lot of people would think, well, who's going to come if everything else fails? And many, many people think it's the FBI. And that's evolved over time, but that's the way it was. So within that construct, if something really bad happens, it's likely it's going to be the FBI that comes in and saves the day because they have the resources. It's not necessarily that they're better. They have, I think the Last budget was 8 to 10 billion dollars. Staggering amounts of money. And those resources give you the ability to do things within that framework. That's civilian law enforcement. Then you have the military, which is a war fighting capability for the United States government. The military has two organizations, SEAL Team 6 or DEV Group, the guys that got bin Laden and Delta Force on the army side. Those two groups were put together in the 70s as a counterterrorism mechanism, a violent mechanism to resolve terrorist issues like the Olympic Games in Munich where hostages were taken. And they came out of that. When the United States hosted the Olympic Games in 1984 in Los Angeles, the US government didn't want to have another Munich Games. So they said, well, who are we going to rely upon if something goes bad? They went to Delta and Seal Team 6, which would have been the likely choices. So the government, the Attorney General of the United States said, look, we got to take care of this thing. They went to Delta at Fort Bragg, saw a demonstration and he said, fantastic, that's remarkable. But I don't see any handcuffs. One of the operators famously said, we don't need handcuffs. They all get two right here. Yeah, that doesn't work in civilian law enforcement. There's a law called the Posse Comitatus post Civil War that says the US Government cannot use the military in civilian law enforcement. So they created a third more or less equivalent at the time group and they had to put it someplace outside the military. They put it in the FBI.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

I see.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So they took from the FBI to staff this counterterrorism team and they built it in the model of Delta at Fort Bragg. That's where the hostage restoration team came from. I see.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So it's basically a special forces group that can operate domestically in the United States and under law enforcement as opposed to the military.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Correct. But also internationally. Oh, it does operate internationally until. And this is why it's so difficult to explain. When I joined the team in the 80s and 90s when this team was stood up, terrorism was considered law enforcement mechanism. If a bad guy did something with a bomb or hijacked a plane, the US government would go after them, arrest them, prosecute them and put them in jail. After 9, 11, we just killed them indiscriminately. In war it's a different mechanism, but prior to that we did that and we under two laws from the 1980s, HRT got all the gigs. So if you've heard of renditions where we go into a foreign country and snatch somebody, that team, we did all of the renditions. Really. Okay, prior to 9 11.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, prior to 9. Because I was going to say the ones after 911 are the ones where that everyone says, hey, you can't just take somebody from Egypt and put them in Syria.

[Chris Whitcomb]

As it turns out you can.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It turns out you can.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Oddly enough, you can.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In fact, if you have enough guns, you can do that.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Right. And the first one that ever happened, you can Google this is called Goldenrod. And it was 86, I think it was early 80s and it was a joint agency FBI operation for this guy named Fawaz Yunus who gave up terrorism, took up drug dealing in Beirut and they lured him offshore in a boat and then scuba dive, basically up to the boat, snatched him and flew back to the United States. And it went from there. At the time there were quite a few. Now it's. Now you use a drone to sick the boat.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I was going to say why bother going to get it? But now it makes sense. If you want to prosecute them, you.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Get a little nostalgic for the old days, but that was it. But anyway, so that was my era. That was a long time ago. They're an extraordinary organization that has evolved from those days. What I did, I probably wouldn't even make the team now. You know, they're really extraordinary in ways that we didn't even know in man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I stress eat nachos when life gets tough. And this guy had, let's call it a slightly higher stakes, self care routine. Speaking of coping mechanisms, here's one that won't get you court martialed. Supporting the show by checking out our sponsors. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Dell and Nvidia. It started like every campus tech rollout. A shiny new app promising to make life easier. So student IDs, class schedules, even meal plans, all on your phone. Convenient, right? I get it. I like that confidence. Everything in one place. No fumbling for cards or passwords or keys. But then one night, the system glitches. A student tries to get into his room and suddenly the app says he doesn't exist. His class is gone, his profile wiped clean, his digital identity erased overnight. And that's just the beginning. Before sunrise, the whole campus is in chaos. Buildings renamed, security cameras hijacked, students hijacking the system just because they can. Meanwhile, the the school's AI assistant is acting like it knows way too much. This episode of the Cybersecurity Tapes isn't just a wild story, it's a wake up call. Because this isn't sci fi. This is what happens when convenience starts to outrun caution. And honestly, as a guy with a couple school apps on my own phone, I couldn't stop thinking, how easy would it be for this to happen to us. Check out episode 11, Campus Chaos on the Cybersecurity Tapes podcast. This episode is also sponsored by Haya Health. I think a lot of parents can relate to this. Our daughter basically lives on macaroni and chicken nuggets and the closest thing she eats to a vegetable as like french fries. That's why we love Haya, the pediatrician approved chewable vitamin that helps fill the gaps for kids like mine. Most kids vitamins are basically candy in disguise. There's sugar and dyes and gummy junk, but Haya has zero sugar. It's made from 12 organic fruits and veggies and packed with 15 essential vitamins and minerals, things like vitamin D, B12, zinc, folate. I tried one just to see what the hype was about. It's tasty. Even little Juni loves them and she's suspicious of anything that isn't beige. With your first order, your kids get a cool refillable bottle they can decorate with stickers. Ours had a blast with that. And then you eco friendly refills show up every month. They've also got a kids Probiotic and Nighttime Essentials line now, so if you're trying to keep your tiny humans healthy and rested, Haya's got you covered.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

If you're wondering how I managed to book all these great authors, thinkers and creators every single week, it is because of my network. The circle of people I know, like and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself for free in our course [e-mail] it's funny, I do teach this to three letter agencies and spies or whatever you want to call it, like Chris Whitcomb, but it works great for civilians too. It's very non cringy, very down to earth. It'll help you build relationships with other people for business or personal reasons. And six minutes a day is all it really takes. Many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come on and join us. You'll be in smart company where you belong. You can find the course again for [e-mail] now back to Chris Whitcomb. I talked to a lot of old special forces guys from like the 60s and 70s. I guess not as many are around anymore, but some of them and they're like, oh, you would have loved it. And I'm like, oh, I can't run 10 miles with a breathing mask on in the snow with no shoes. And they're like, we don't have to do any of that. What are you talking about? You have to shoot. You have to be able to make decisions. You have to be smart and think. I'm like, you know what the selection criteria is for some of these units now it's like 70 mile rucks and they're like, no sense.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Well, that's Delta. But you got to remember there's a continuum there as well. So you could go into the military, then you could go into the army, then you go into the rangers, and then you could go. Eventually you might make it to Delta. But they're the special operations community. JSOC is large, it's complex. But when you get to the far end of that, you do have to run 70 miles with an 80 pound pack. Barefoot in the winter. Yeah, with a mask on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But at that point, the training is what, no longer really physical because they're just trying to break you and see if you can still function.

[Chris Whitcomb]

No, no, no, you have to function. The physical training is crazy.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's insane.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you have to stay that condition the entire time you're there. On this team that I was on, we would. Fast rope. Fast rope is just slide down a gym rope out of a helicopter, you know, under bad situations.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sure.

[Chris Whitcomb]

And a significant number of people have died just in training. Yeah, it's a dangerous job day in and day out.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yikes. Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

My.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Another guest on the show, he joined the SEALs and he couldn't swim very well.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, that's bad.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. But he made it. And then they were like, now I gotta teach you how to swim. But it took him like four tries and he had. What is it called, like rabdo, where you overtrain and your muscles start to. It's so Decayed, you can't function, and you get poisoned from the leg.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, it's complex. It's hard. There's a different type of person psychologically. I mean, I think you can have a basic physical ability. It's got to be better than basic. Yeah, you gotta be fast, you gotta be strong at these things. But you have to have a mechanism that shuts off the quip mechanism. You've got to have a different psychology. It's. It's more psychology and decision making than it is shooting or physical. It's not about push ups and pull ups and swimming, and it's not about those things at all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it's interesting. One of my friends is Ben Greenfield's like a really athletic guy. That's an understatement. He wins these, like, tough mudders and all these competitions. So he did like a. A special forces pseudo training thing, and they had to make it harder for him. Like they would dunk you in a tank of water and people would panic, and then he was, you know, fine. So they were like, okay, well, now you can only breathe through a straw. Yeah. And he's like, okay. And so he said it was a hell on earth.

[Chris Whitcomb]

But, you know, you get really good at being miserable. I mean, everything is miserable. That element is. And then you go sleep under a rock for a week with no food. Right. I mean, it's. It kind of sucks, but there's. There are rewards as well.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's like CrossFit with live ammunition and fewer Instagram posts, I guess.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, no Instagram posts.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, not back then. You mentioned the firefights and the shootouts and stuff like that. I'm wondering what goes through your head in a situation like that. Like, what are you thinking when you're going to gunfight?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Or is it when I was a kid, you would fight all the time. It's just what you did. Somebody calls you a name, you punch him in the nose, you roll around a little bit, you buy him a Coke and go back to school. I lived in an era in a place where fighting was not necessarily a really bad thing. It was just part of the way you resolve things. Now we look at things differently, right? But I always said it doesn't matter if you fight, if you're trying to hurt somebody with your words, or if you punch them in the nose, or if somebody picks up a rock or a knife or a two by four or a gun, it's an escalation. And you get a nuclear bomb. So it's all a fight in my Estimation, the one on one intimacy of a fight, however that may be with a gun or with a fist or whatever the case may be, is very different than a war situation. Because in a war, I remember very clearly, I had this perception that I didn't have a fucking clue or who to go after first. Like, you're in a situation where you have more than one target and you have more than one threat, and you've got to make a decision on who gets it first. Like, I always wondered what it was like to be in a D Day or Gettysburg or something where you have thousands of people or the Peloponnesian War or whatever, when you have large groups of people running each other and you got to pick one person and you got to go after that one person. That's difficult. That's different. That's a whole different thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I can't imagine being also basically sending kids into these situations.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, that's right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's the other thing is like, you're 19 and you're like, run at the beach. And you're like, nah, I don't really want to do that. And it's like, okay, well, you're going to get shot in this boat for sure.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I mean, imagine that kind of courage. Imagine the countless thousands of people, just Americans, not other countries, just Americans, in the last 250 years have gone to war at 18 years of age with no clue what to do or how to do it. Very little training. I mean, it's crazy. That kind of commitment, sacrifice and courage.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's wild. I hit a certain point, I can't remember how old I was. Maybe like 30 or maybe I was 28. And I was like, oh, I can actually die.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I was like, oh, this is an uncomfortable feeling. I didn't have that for the decade prior. You need to find people who are in that decade. And then they're like, oh, I've seen enough movies to know that I'm going to make it out of this. That's what happens to the main character.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Well, you know, that's the first thing I remember the training for this. That first. The first unit that I was part of, they came up with this stuff called Simunitions, which is using real guns, real bullets.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. With the yellow plasticky thing.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, they choke down paint pills. It's not paintball, it's real guns. But we would start running CQB with those. So you get tagged and then you go, oh, I would have survived that. I would have survived that. And it changes your thinking.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, that's interesting.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It really dramatically improves your sense of survivability. And if you think you're going to survive and you're going to accomplish the mission, you're much, much more capable of doing it. Once you take the magic out of anything, I mean, whatever people in life, they say, well, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to do that. Once they learn the clue, a magic trick, you learn the key. All of a sudden, it takes a magic out, and it's a different thing altogether.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It reminds me of boxing. I took a couple of boxing lessons, and the coach was like, here's the problem. You're afraid of getting hit. Yeah, it's going to hurt. He's like, wham. And I was like, ah. He's like, you're still. You're fine. You didn't even fall. And I said, that's true. And he goes, that's going to happen a bunch. It's fine. Right? And I was like, all right. And then he's hitting me and I'm blocking it, and he's like, now that you're not afraid, you can go forward when somebody is going to hit you instead of just curling up and waiting for them to be done and get tired. Because that was kind of my strategy before was, I don't want to look at it. It's going to hurt, you know, and he's just batting me in the head, and he's like, you should probably do something instead of just stand there, get hit. So that sounds like it. With the simunitions, it's like, okay, all right. You got shot in the arm. So now, you know, you should probably shoot back at that guy and, you know, charge forward instead of standing there while he's aiming the gun at you.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Well, in fairness, these guys, they ever watch this thing and say, get this guy Whitcomb to stop talking about us. He doesn't even know. Yeah, but in the day, everybody was very good at shooting, fighting, and if necessary, dying. That was it. But it was all about the mission. This team that I was on. This is interesting, because I want to come. I got a question for you. It was interesting because the first three years I was on this team, we never had. We had everybody. We had our own surgeons, we had our own. We had a medical component so that when somebody did get hurt, we could deal with it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's probably a good idea in house.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, it was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it was a good idea in house. We don't want this getting hurt.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Listen to this. The first three years I was on this team, there was no immediate action drill for somebody going down.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What does that mean? Oh, I see.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I mean, if you and I go through that door at 4 o' clock in the morning and you take a flyer and you go down, I didn't stop to take care of you like medics in the military. I would jump over you and go and accomplish a mission. For three years, nobody ever talked about helping anybody. You would go back after it was over. So it was a different type of thinking. But one thing I want to bring up, I watched the show where you're talking about the situation in Mexico and you're in the backseat of that car in the backseat of the taxi cab. And I think you make a really brilliant point that very, very few people look at in life writ large, that most people who are not familiar with a crisis don't know when to make the decision that it is a crisis and get involved. So many people through the history of time have pushed it up to the point where it was too late. Yeah. And you made a fascinating statement about when you decided to get engaged and you put yourself in a position where you could interact with the threat with no training whatsoever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So I find that really fascinating.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That was you're talking about. So for people who don't know, this is when I got kidnapped by the taxi in Mexico. And I didn't. There was no smartphones, so I wasn't screwing around looking at Instagram chicks or whatever. And I was looking out the window and realized we were going the wrong way. And then I asked the guy to drop me off and he said no. That was a big red flag. And I remember thinking, I can't be getting kidnapped because that's never happened to me before. And then immediately going, that doesn't make any sense. Why would. Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it can't happen. And also if people get kidnapped and they get killed as a result, well, then they're not talking about that. So maybe I should pay attention. That's what you're talking about, right?

[Chris Whitcomb]

I am talking about it because it applies to absolutely everything in life. I don't care what is a motorcycle race. And you brought up that or whatever the. Whatever the situation. Many people, I think it's just built in to mammals get to a point. Everybody knows fight or flight. But getting to fight or flight is what is a problem for so many people in society. Once you get to the point where it's fight or flight, it's probably Too late. I mean, you're running or you're fighting, but you might be dying, so it doesn't matter. But it could be anything. I mean, you're selling a house and you're negotiating, and there's a moment where you go, this has never happened before. And you get engaged. When human beings can anticipate variability, look at all that risk and make decisions early, they're going to be so much happier with it, decision making. And that's true. That's something I learned very early.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There's so many times when I look back and I go, oh, if I'd maybe not been so afraid to challenge this particular thing or engage a little bit more, dive in a little bit more, I do it again a different way, that's for sure.

[Chris Whitcomb]

People want to duck their head, put their head in the sand. Most often it does not go well. Anticipation is very big.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What do you think is the hardest decision you had to make in the field under pressure?

[Chris Whitcomb]

I don't know right off the top of my head, but I would say that thing I talked about in the book, for those who haven't read it, I wrote a book about my life in that world from basically from 911 until now.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Anonymous mail. It'll be linked in the show notes.

[Chris Whitcomb]

The bottom line is this. I ended up creating these situations where more and more difficult. And I ended up on an intelligence community gig in Somalia. So I flew to Nairobi. I hired a Cessna 182B. I flew into Baidoa, Somalia, when they stood up the government. I was there for when they literally, when they made Somalia a country, lasted about three weeks.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I was going to say, never heard of that city. But maybe because it's not under government.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It wasn't a city. It was a patch of dirt you could land in. And it was a warehouse that had been blown up so many times. They gathered the government and the United nations in this one building and it only had half a roof because the other roof had been blown off, had a dirt floor. And anyway, I was there when that happened. I got stuck there and I ended up about, I think it was about three weeks later in Mogadishu. This was after the first battle of Mogadishu, which was Black Hawk Down. And the US government pulled out. And it was a very short time before the second battle of Mogadishu, which I helped precipitate to a certain degree. So I ended up in the second best airport in Mogadishu, which was called K50. And K50 had been an old Russian landing strip. And I had to get out of the country. And I couldn't get out of the country. I was supposed to get out on one of the khat flights. They have this group called Bluebird Air in Nairobi that would fly khat or mira. It's like a Copenhagen type thing that everybody stays high on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, the stuff that you put in your lip, like, chew, but it's super addictive and you build a tolerance and it's real bad for you. It's real bad for you, and it rots your teeth out.

[Chris Whitcomb]

And if you get an AK47 and you're 13 years old, it's even less good for you or the people around you, which is the whole country. So I went in on my own. I was supposed to get a ride out on one of these cop flights. That didn't happen because changes were made with the people that were paying me. It went bad. So anyways, I ended up in Mogi issue, 4 o' clock on a Tuesday afternoon, whatever the case was. And it was just me. I had a technical. I had a team. I had my own army. It's a technical, is a, like. It's an old Toyota pickup truck.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's a Hilux.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Usually it's a high Lux.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They love those.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, it's like. Well, it's because they run forever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

They do, but if you see a Hilux. When I saw a Hilux not in, like, a dirty war zone with a machine gun welded to it, I was like, oh, people actually thought that's what that is.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This is what it's supposed to look.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Like when it has paint job. Toyota financing all these wars around the world, but they're everywhere, right? Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The Taliban vehicle of choice.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So I had one of those welded in the back as a. It's called a Dshka Dushka, which means sweetheart in Russian. They call it sweetheart. So I had a Dushka and I had, you know, guys with AKs and. And whatever else. I was actually in an old Toyota Corolla that got shot up at a roadblock trying to get there. So, anyways, I get to moog. I got 600 bucks in my sock. That's all I had left. Because there's no money. There's no military, no ATMs. There's nothing. There's nothing. I mean, it's bombed flat. It's an inhospitable location. I'd been there a long time. So I get to this airport and there's an old plane on the Runway, like you see in the old DB Cooper thing where he jumped like the stairs come down in the back? Yeah. And I could see it in the distance. And somebody told me I could get on that plane. That's why I went there. It was like two and a half or three hour drive from Baidoa. So it was over. My technical was gone, and I'm surrounded by all these guys staring at me going, who the is that guy? Yeah, right. And that's kind of what kept me alive because nobody wanted to make a decision to take me if I worked for their boss. Like, there's seven guys and they're all vying for whatever.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Who's going to kidnap this guy and hold it for ransom?

[Chris Whitcomb]

You might get a raise, you might get an extra dollar a month, but you might get your head chopped off with a butter knife too, right. And so anyways, I end up there. Zero options. I had $600 and a passport. They came out, this guy came out and took my $600. When I say airport, it's not an airport. There was a. A blue tarp that sold Nestle water and like top ramen noodles you could eat dry. And a bunch of starving. I don't want to make it sound less worse than it was, but it was bad. And there's this plane. So I know if I get on the plane, I'm going to survive. If I don't get on the plane, I'm not going to survive. I couldn't swim anywhere. That was it. So anyways, they came, they took the 600 bucks, and now I have no money and I don't know anybody. I don't have a ticket, you know, I don't know that I'm getting on the plane. Then the guy comes back and searched me to see if I had any more money and took my passport. Now I'm in Mogadishu on my own doing a gig with an agency, and I have nothing. No money, no passport, no technical shoelaces. I could maybe strangle myself on myself.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Maybe if I, you know, that's the backup plan.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So that was a bad day. So that was. I think that was probably a point in my life where I said, might want to tune this up a little bit. But I did get on the plane. That's the bottom line.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Who's playing with it?

[Chris Whitcomb]

It was just a charter. Somebody flew a charter in. I still have no idea how, why, or how I have a ticket. They actually wrote up this little thing and I saved it. So I walk out and the staircase goes up. I think I Made it. I'm looking out the windows. This plane was so old, you couldn't see out the windows because the glass had been bead bl from landing in the sand.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. So it's all like. What do you call it? Like, opaque.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Opaque, yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Almost foggy because it's been sanded down.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah. It's like just take sandpaper to the windshield of your Porsche 911. And, you know, and so you're looking at.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You see the army or whatever remains rolling up, and you're like, please don't be coming for me.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, so they. You go through this up and down. It's hope, really. The thing that sustains you is hope. You hear people talk about it that everything is horrible, but maybe it's going to get better. So I'm on the plane. The stairs come up, the engines start up, and I think we're out of here. Then all of a sudden, the engines spin down, and you can see the light coming in from the stairs, coming down. I'm going, f me. These guys came on, but they took the guy in the seat right behind me and. Which was a bad day for him, but it was a great day for me. And then stairs came up, and I remember going down the Runway, looking out and going, I'm really getting out of here. It was interesting because when I got back to Nairobi, I had flown into Nairobi commercial. I flew out of Nairobi on a chartered plane that I paid cash for. So there was no record of me leaving. So when I came back in, I had to go back through the airport, and I had nothing to show that I had left the country to go to Somalia. And they knew I came back from Somalia, so that was kind of complicated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, yeah. What do you even. I mean, how do you handle that?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Make a phone call with a number in West Virginia.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That makes sense. Yeah. I need a fake reentry visa for.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I've had plenty of those, man. Plenty of those. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, look. Oh, it's in my other passport that I'm also not supposed to have.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I'm not talking to you. Call this number.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Chris is out here wrestling with moral questions that end up in history books. Meanwhile, I'm just wondering if my laundry's still in the dryer. Anyway, while we sit with that existential dread for just a second, here's something a little lighter. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Mint Mobile. You ever get a holiday gift that ends up in a drawer two weeks later? Here's something that doesn't collect dust. Mint Mobile because saving money on your phone bill, that's a gift that keeps on giving. Right now, Mint Mobile has their best deal of the year. Unlimited Premium wireless for just 15 bucks a month. 15 bucks. That's less than what most people spend on coffee in a week. And I'm telling you the service is really good. It's high speed data, unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone, keep your number. There's no contracts, no nonsense. If I had this back in the early days, probably could have saved enough to buy another used car or at least stop eating instant noodles. Plans come in three, six or 12 month options, all starting at 15 bucks a month. So if you're tired of overpaying for your phone bill or you just want a gift that actually gets used, Mint Mobile has it.

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[Jordan Harbinger]

See mintmobile.com this episode is also sponsored by BetterHelp. I honestly don't know how I made it through all those Michigan winters. It wasn't just the cold, it was the darkness. By five o' clock it felt like midnight. And before long I'd slip into that fog of low energy and just the blah mood that I now realize was seasonal depression plus lack of sleep plus everything else as a teenager this time of year as a way of doing that, it sneaks up on you. It's easy to pull back and isolate without even noticing. And that's why BetterHelp is encouraging everyone this November to reach out. Text a friend, call someone you've been meaning to catch up with. Just make plans to get out of the house. Staying connected really does make a difference. And if you've been thinking about therapy, BetterHelp makes it simple. You can message, call, video, chat, all online. They'll match you with a licensed therapist based on your needs. If it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime. With over 30,000 therapists and millions of people helped, it's one of the easiest ways to get real support when you need it most.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

This month, don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist yourself, BetterHelp makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] Jordan that's better. H E L P.com Jordan this episode.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is sponsored in part by Airbnb. I've been so burned out cranking out content lately that all I can think about is travel. There's just something about stepping out of your routine that hits the reset button like nothing else. I got a trip to Patagonia coming up, which I'm ridiculously excited about. It's that magic of meeting new people, trying foods you can't pronounce, exploring new cities. That's really what travel's about, frankly. Not the checklist or the perfect itinerary, but the experiences and connections you make along the way. Those moments end up being worth more than anything you buy. Which got me thinking. While you're off exploring, your home is just sitting there empty. Why not host it on Airbnb while you're away? If you ever considered hosting but you were worried maybe it'd be too much to manage, Airbnb's Co Host Network can help. With Airbnb's Co Host Network, you can hire a local co host to manage everything from creating your listing and messaging guests to on site support, and even design and styling. So while you're away, you can rest easy knowing your home is in good hands and your guests are happy. It's a smart way to turn your space into a source of additional income without adding to your plate. If you've ever thought about hosting but you want a little help, find a co [e-mail] host if you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do. That is take a moment and support the amazing sponsors who make this show possible. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are searchable and clickable on the [e-mail] deals and if you can't remember the name of a sponsor, you can't find the code. Go ahead and email us jordanordanharbinger.com, we're happy to surface codes for you. It is that important that you support those who support the show. Now back to Chris Whitcomb. Man, most of us panic when our phone battery hits 2%. Meanwhile, you got real decisions to make.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Okay, so let's go back to the question you asked. Why did I write a book that skips around.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah. I rest my case.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It's just, you know, and there's so much stuff we haven't talked about about the writing. I worked on as a speechwriter on Capitol Hill, wrote for the New York Times, GQ magazine, and I mean, there's just so many bizarre things. I don't. It's hard to figure out where to start.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It is. It's hard to make a through line.

[Chris Whitcomb]

It's not a through line.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. If Hollywood made a movie about the HRT or just these kinds of teams in general, what was the first thing you would tell them to stop doing if you were consulting on that movie?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Hiring Angelina Jolie.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Just stop hiring Angelina Jolie.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Stop hiring her when American Sniper came out. Look, she's enormously talented, and she's remarkable in every conceivable way. So it's not about Angelina Jolie. It's the idea that you could make a movie called American Sniper and take a book about a real guy who did real things. And all of a sudden, in the middle of a gunfight, he's gonna make a call home to talk to his kids and talk. I love you. Whatever. There's not a lot of time to think about your kids when you're in a gunfight.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So many of the things that make those stories remarkable, those lives remarkable to moviegoers, they don't resonate with the people making those movies. I've been in this town for a long time. You've been in this town for a long time. And there are things when you go into a studio and you talk about plots. So what I would say is, if you want to make one of these, make a story that resonates. And there have been some remarkable movies. I'm a big fan of Kathryn Bigelow. I'm a big fan of Peter Berg. I'm a big fan of many people who embrace the inhospitable core of what these things are about. Combat violence in general is ugly, so don't aggrandize it. But by the same token, don't soft sell the reason you're making the movie. So I was not a big fan of American Sniper.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's the dumbest injury you ever saw somebody get during training?

[Chris Whitcomb]

This is me, because oftentimes I'm an idiot. But we were doing this thing with ASPs. You know what happens? Like a baton.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, the extendable baton.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Like running. And I keep on. So I tag dogs if. Anyways, you run this thing out. So we were practicing One day and we were practicing some kind of a fighting thing and we had these asps and we had these blocks of wood and you would swing at this thing like, you know, we're doing the thing. We'd go up and he'd come down and you go faster and harder. And it's a competition, everything you do. And I remember somebody was going harder than I was and I went up and down. When I did, I came down on the top of the guy's hand that was holding the thing. So that was one of the stupidest. Ouch. Oh, it was bad. It was really bad. But listen, you get hurt, you know, people die all the time. So that was a stupid mistake. Not the worst.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. If you're gonna get injured in that line of work, you wanna have a good story, not just.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, my training partner thought it was just embarrassing. Cause then everybody laughs. And the poor guys lost two fingers and, you know, it's unpleasant. Yeah, that's no good, Curran. I'm sorry, man.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You ever hit anybody with one of those extendable batons?

[Chris Whitcomb]

I've hit people with about everything you can imagine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, when I was working security, I used to. I mean, I wasn't carrying a gun. And I remember these Mexican gangsters, they would always get really drunk and start shooting and I would hit em with the baton. Yeah. And they would break all the time. These batons are. You think you're such an unstoppable badass with this metal stick. And then you hit somebody in the arm and their arm might break, but your baton is bent and you go, oh, this is only good for like one whack. Well, these things are.

[Chris Whitcomb]

We had better quality ones than you did, apparently. Yeah, I guess so, because I've never broken one. But I will say, how you hit somebody makes a massive difference. Because they're designed for specific things to change behaviors. They're not designed to the less lethal force. Where could they be used and kill somebody? Yes. That's not what they're designed for. But you've got to apply them in certain ways. And bone joints, things like that change people's opinion.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Then you have drugs and alcohol.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Push on. These guys are always coked up. Yeah. So we would try to choke them with it. Because I couldn't often wrap my arms around the guys because they're big. Oh, wow. So I choke them with a baton. Or I would tap them on the top of the knee because. Or the shin because that hurts. But it doesn't have to do anything other than leave a bruise. But there was a guy who wouldn't let me go and he was a little bit older. I just couldn't get his arm off of me. So I whacked his arm. And I remember it, I remember it broke. But then I remember looking at my baton like, oh, shit. This thing is a piece of garbage. You're right, though. It wasn't. The brand was not ASP because those are expensive.

[Chris Whitcomb]

They're expensive.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It was a knockoff brand.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So I went out and bought an ASP after that. And you could tell because the cheap ones, if you use them enough, they fall apart, they just fly apart because they're made out a shitty.

[Chris Whitcomb]

If you're depending on something for your safety, your well being, buy good stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, generally. Generally a wise choice. Instead of going to the gas station baton or whatever, I have what's a survival skill everyone thinks they need but is actually useless?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Oh, wow. Survival skill that everybody thinks he needs.

[Jordan Harbinger]

While you're thinking, I'll give a funny example, give me one. We were talking about earthquake survival and safety and my wife is like, okay, I'm on it. I was like, you got to get us an earthquake survival safety kit or something like that. Can you research that? She's like, yeah. About a week later I said, what'd you get? She goes, I got a fire starter. I'm like, what are you doing? We need like water and food. I don't know, like a crank radio or something. She's like, all right, back to Amazon.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I got a story for about everything. So I'll tell you the story. Yeah, So I lived in Venice for a long time. Off and on.

[Jordan Harbinger]

For Italy or California?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Well, I've been to Venice, but in California. Venice, California. So there's a restaurant on Abbot Kinney. I'm not going to say the name of it, but it was a very prominent restaurant at the time. And there's a garden in the back. And we'd have a lunch every Friday, so we'd get some really interesting people. We'd sit around and have lunch and we'd tell stories and talk about interesting things. Right. So these are very highly successful, well known people this afternoon. And the topic was this. If the earthquake comes, if it all goes to hell in Southern California, what are you going to do? So everybody thought about it for the week. They came back and we had the conversation. So it starts with this one guy and he said, I am going to take $10,000 and I'm going to have it broken into fives and tens. This is a true story, 100% true story. He goes, well, look, if, you know, nobody's going to be able to make change. So he went out and took 10 grand and he did this. This was not a hypothetical. And had twenties and hundreds and whatever converted to fives and tens because if the shit went hit the fan, they wouldn't have to make change. The second guy said, I went out and I got a motorcycle license and I bought an 80cc scooter because everybody's going to be trying to get out of la.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I won't be able to get gas. I can go around them and I can ride this scooter out of town. Yeah. And I said, well, that's okay, but you'll get like seven miles and then you're out of gas.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Chris Whitcomb]

You're hitchhiking.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So that didn't go very well. The third guy said, I went out and I bought a gas grill, a sleeping bag and something else. I can't remember. All I remember is a sleeping bag. So they're all very happy with themselves. Everybody's going, right on. This is fantastic. Yeah, good decision making. You're going to survive. And they look at me, knowing my background and they say, what would you do? And I would say, I didn't do anything. I'm going to go to your house, I'm going to take your motorcycle to your house and get your sleeping bag and I'm going to go to your house and take your $10,000 and then go on my way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Go on my way out.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So the answer is people oftentimes think, what do I need to survive these things? Many, many times they're wrong. Like I knew people at various times. I'm not a gun nut. I have guns because I think I should in society, if something happens, I'd feel badly if I didn't for other people and just because I've had so much training and experience with them. However, I have these friends who at various times would go out and buy 10,000 rounds of ammo or whatever and they'd say, why aren't you buying ammo? And I'd say, because I don't want to carry 10,000 rounds ammo. I need about three rounds so I can take yours.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So people realize you need shelter if it's cold, you need food and water and sleep. You don't need much of anything except a plan. And if you have that or a helicopter, you know, helicopter's fine, but they run out of gas, they get shot down.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's true. Yeah, I suppose. Oh, man getting shot down in a helicopter. How easy is it? You're the only guy I've talked to recently that might know this. How easy is it to shoot down a helicopter? Because one you gotta hit it. That can't be easy. You gotta hit it somewhere that matters, which is probably also not that easy.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Another great story. One of the guys on my team, because this team, I was on this hostile rescue team. It was some of the most extraordinary people you ever met. One of the guys name was Jimmy Yacon. Jimmy Yacon was in one of the helicopters in Black Hawk down. When you see. I think it was like Jeremy Piven, who I used to be friends with way back in the day. And Jeremy Piven was playing Jimmy Yacon. And they got. I think it was Jeremy that was playing the role. They took an rpg, they're flying around Mogadishu in a Blackhawk, and they take an rpg. It explodes. I think it killed the guy in the left seat. I think Jimmy was in the right seat and it knocked him unconscious. He wakes up as the helicopter's going in. Wakes up, pulls back, saves the day, survives. He ended up being on my sniper team. After he left the army, he went to the FBI, to the hostage rescue team, and was on this thing. So I. I asked him that because I've been in helicopter crashes, too.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You have?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yes, but not as a result of gunfire. And I asked him that. And as it turns out, it's pretty hard to shoot down a helicopter.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you would think.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, you've got to hit a control mechanism of some kind. Yeah, you got like a hydraulic tank.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Or the pilot, I guess, right?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, maybe not the fuel, but you know what, speaking of these things, how you talk about these, Malcolm Bradwell, in one of his books, talked about In World War II, the government wanted to try and keep their planes from getting shot down, you know.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[Chris Whitcomb]

So they said these planes were coming back and none of them were shot in the engine. So they said, well, we're going to armor all these other things. And somebody said, well, they came back because they weren't shot in the engine. Right. It depends on how you look at it. In reality, helicopters go down for a lot of different reasons. They're remarkably resilient to gunfire. Vietnam's a perfect way to prove that. The old Hueys, and we had them, I flew in one for years and years and years. They're pretty durable. There's not a lot in them. I mean, there's a lot of metal and some open space. But they're not as easy to shoot down as you might expect.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's it like going down in a helicopter then? Because I assume you're. You're not dropping like a stone or you wouldn't be here right now.

[Chris Whitcomb]

I remember I used to be terrified of flying. I grew up flying on private planes. Another story. So I joined the FBI and I got assigned to the Springfield, Missouri office, which had a military base called Fort Leonard Wood. And my job was to do certain FBI stuff on this base. I went up there one day and we had to fly somewhere in a helicopter. And I get in this helicopter and I'm thinking, I'm not all that excited about being in a helicopter. And it was a Vietnam era Huey takes off. It was a bad day, and we're in this thing and through no fault of anything, this is not war. This was nothing. The thing broke and it gets a master caution light. There's a light at the top of the circular panel. And we had headphones on. And it was one of those things where somebody said, oh, shit or whatever. And it was a master caution. And it was. I think it was. It lost the gearbox. I think that's what it was. And we auto rotated. So I say, crash landing, nobody got hurt.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What is rotated?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Insane mechanism helicopters have that use the inertia of the blades. Sorry. To helicopter pilots. You know, we always say, I'm gonna.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Get 700 emails about this, but it's okay.

[Chris Whitcomb]

That guy's a moron.

[Jordan Harbinger]

He doesn't even know he made the whole thing up.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, right. This one was widely reported because it was. When you crash a helicopter in the army, there's a report. Yeah, I was on it. And. But anyways, I don't know the exact mechanism, but I do know there's an inertia thing. And it was a hard landing. Did the thing blow up and end up being in an Angelina Jolie movie? No, but it was classified as a crash landing. I didn't really know what was going on because the whole thing was new. It's like you in the taxi cab, you're thinking, are we really going down? And I'd never been in a helicopter before. I didn't even know what that meant. But anyways, that was one of them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So everybody survived then?

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, yeah. Yes, everybody survived.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The pilot must have been pretty happy about that. I don't know. That would be really scary.

[Chris Whitcomb]

Yeah, Pilots are. I went for a glider ride a couple weeks ago. I was in New Hampshire when I was seeing My folks and I go up for a glider ride and I said something, whatever, about death or whatever, because I've had so many bad experiences flying. And the guy goes, we're not in the death business or we're not in the dying business. And that's pilots, right? Yeah. I mean, they dodge it every day, but it's physics.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What if your life depended on slipping past KGB surveillance using nothing but a fake mustache and a latex mask? Former CIA chief of disguise Johnna Mendez takes us deep into the shadowy world of Cold War espionage, where outsmarting your enemy meant mastering the art of becoming someone else entirely.

[Johnna Mendez]

I worked for 27 years for the CIA. The office that I worked in was like Cube. We had all kinds of techs. One half of the office was technical, was chemists and physicists and engineers, electrical and mechanical people with such esoteric specialties. It was so important. It was the bottom line to a lot of the things we did. The other half of the office was my half, which was people who would deploy those tools, who would take them to the field, who would hand them to James. Sort of an inside joke. All the case officers, we called them all James. And part of us didn't trust James with our gear, as we might have spent $5 million on a program to develop that camera system that fit into a Montblanc pen. We usually figured out how to go with him, so if he broke it, we could fix it. If he lost it, we could find it. If he forgot how to operate it, we could refresh him. It was a little inside joke. If he left it on the subway, maybe we could go get it. So we traveled around with James. We not only equipped him and we trained him, but we also very often accompanied him. A lot of our technical, technical expertise would come into play. People are very aware of the threat that that technology can play. How can you use it? What can it do for you? It's given us opportunities to do things we never dreamed of. The real work in OTS was solving problems.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To hear more about how spy tech, disguise, and raw nerve shaped modern intelligence as we know it, check out episode 1027 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. That's all for part one, part two. Out in just a few days, if it's not already. All things Chris Whitcomb, of course, in the show, notes on the website, advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, [e-mail] deals Please consider supporting those who support the show. Also, our newsletter, we Bit Wiser is something very specific and actionable that'll have an immediate impact on your decisions and your psychology and your relationships. In under two minutes every Wednesday. If you haven't signed up yet, I invite you to come check it out. It is a great companion to the show. Jordanharbinger.com news is where you can find it. Don't forget about six minute networking as well. Over at sixminutenetworking.com I'm jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn and this show. It's created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Tata Sidlowskis, Ian Baird and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for the show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who's interested in this kind of black ops undercover type stuff, these episodes are really popular. Definitely share this episode with them. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and we'll see you next time.

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